Potshot (9 page)

‘Are we going to see that gay man you met when you were down here about the horse business?’

‘Tedy Sapp,’ I said. ‘Gay man doesn’t quite cover him.’

‘I know,’ Susan said. ‘It never quite covers anyone.’

She was quiet. The road turned. The moonlight shifted so that it slanted in behind her profile. In the pale shine of it, motionless, with her eyes closed, she looked like something carved out of alabaster. Looking at her I felt my throat tighten. I could hear my breathing. Leaving her to go off and rescue Potshot seemed unthinkable. I took in some air, slowly, through my nostrils, and let it out even more slowly.

‘We’re both wishing you didn’t have to go back to Potshot,’ Susan said.

Susan’s eyes were still closed, her profile still ivory. The quiet of the Georgia night muffled the sound of the car.

After a while I said, ‘We’re wishing we could spend all our time together like this forever, I guess.’

She nodded without opening her eyes.

‘If we got what we wished for,’ she said, ‘it would destroy us.’

‘Nothing would destroy us,’ I said.

‘No, you’re right, nothing would,’ she said. ‘But if we were together all the time, it would make moments like this impossible.’

‘A variation on
Sunday Morning
,’ I said.

‘Not the CBS thing.’

‘No. The Stevens poem. “Death is the mother of beauty”?’

‘Supply and demand,’ Susan said. ‘If everyone lived forever, life would devalue.’

‘I think so,’ I said.

‘And if we were together all the time, the specialness might wane.’

‘Or maybe it’s all an abstract poetical conceit,’ I said.

‘Maybe,’ Susan said. ‘Either way, we do what we do.’

‘And,’ I said, ‘the sun’ll come up this morning.’

‘You and the sun both,’ she said, and smiled to herself as if she were very pleased at her small joke.

The sun had in fact risen this morning, and we were a little late getting started to Lamarr. When we got there it was nearly lunchtime.

The Bath House Bar & Grill still had a neon Spuds McKenzie looking raffish in the window. Inside was darker and cooler. The old-fashioned jukebox was the same, and the bar across the back was as it had been, with wine selections and lunch specials listed on a chalkboard. The dance floor to the right of the front door was empty, and there were only a couple of guys at the bar, getting an early start.

Tedy Sapp was drinking coffee at his table to the left. His blond hair was still brightly artificial. He had a new earring, but he was still wearing the Bath House employee costume, green polo shirt and chinos. Unlike the bartender and the two waiters who were setting up for lunch, Tedy filled the green polo shirt to fabric-stretching capacity. The muscles were so prominent, and the body so hard, and the gaze so flat that, if I weren’t so tough, Tedy Sapp might have scared me. Fortunately I was with Susan.

‘Goodness gracious,’ Tedy said when he saw me. ‘Ya’ll came back.’

His voice had a gentle hoarseness which, as he talked, you soon forgot.

‘Hello Tedy. This is Susan Silverman.’

‘The shrink,’ Sapp said.

‘Yes,’ Susan said.

‘And main squeeze,’ Tedy said.

‘And only squeeze,’ Susan said, and put out her hand and smiled. Tedy didn’t appear to scare her.

Tedy smiled back and stood and put out his hand and shook hers. Susan didn’t appear to scare him. He gestured us to sit.

‘Coffee? Beer? Late breakfast?’

‘Coffee,’ I said.

‘Could I get some hot water and lemon?’

Sapp grinned and didn’t comment. He gestured one of the waiters over.

‘Two coffees,’ he said. ‘And a pot of hot water and some lemon.’

The waiter nodded and started away.

‘And could I have some of those fake sugar thingies?’ Susan said.

The waiter paused.

‘We have Equal, m’am.’

‘That’d be great,’ Susan said.

‘High maintenance,’ Tedy said.

‘And well goddamned worth it,’ Susan said.

‘You think?’ Sapp said to me.

I nodded vigorously.

‘How’s the ophthalmologist?’ I said.

‘High maintenance,’ Tedy said. He smiled. ‘And well goddamned worth it,’ he said.

The waiter brought coffee and hot water with lemon and some little Equal thingies. I put a little cream and sugar in mine. Susan squeezed the lemon into the water, and stirred in a packet of Equal.

‘So,’ Tedy said, looking at the room. ‘What do you need?’

‘There’s a town out west, place called Potshot. It’s being harassed by a bunch of bad guys, and the cops can’t seem to do much.’

‘They got the wrong cops,’ Sapp said.

‘They do,’ I said.

Sapp picked his coffee cup up and held it in both hands while he took a sip.

‘Lemme guess,’ he said to Susan. ‘He’s gonna ask me if I want to go out there with him and straighten things out.’

‘How could you know?’ Susan said.

‘Gay intuition,’ Sapp said.

‘Of course,’ Susan said.

Sapp looked at me.

‘How many bad guys?’ he said.

‘Thirty or forty,’ I said.

‘How many guys you got?’

‘Counting you, three.’

‘There’s two guys you asked ahead of me?’ Sapp said.

‘They were closer to home.’

Sapp grinned.

‘Aside from the fun of going out to West Bum Fuck, excuse me, Susan, in August to shoot it out with forty hoodlums, what’s in it for me?’

‘You get to work with me again,’ I said.

‘Hot diggity,’ Sapp said.

‘And I’ll pay you a lot.’

Sapp nodded and drank some more coffee.

‘Place closes the month of August so everybody can have vacation.’

‘What could be more convenient?’ I said.

‘You planning on hiring anybody else?’

‘I have a few more in mind,’ I said.

Sapp looked at Susan.

He said, ‘How do you feel about all of this?’

‘I wish he were a portrait painter,’ Susan said, ‘but then he wouldn’t be him, would he?’

‘And that would be a bad thing?’ Tedy said.

Susan smiled.

‘Yes, God help me, that would be a bad thing.’

‘And you a shrink,’ Sapp said.

‘When you two get through doing Sonny and Cher,’ I said, ‘could we sort of focus on the reason I’m here?’

‘Which is to recruit me,’ Sapp said.

‘Yes.’

‘Okay,’ Sapp said.

‘Okay we’ll focus? Or okay, you’re in?’

‘Okay, I’m in,’ Sapp said. ‘Though I may have to have Susan talk to Ben.’

‘The ophthalmologist?’ Susan said.

Tedy nodded.

‘Him,’ he said.

‘How long have you been together?’ Susan said.

‘Twelve years.’

‘Do you think Ben wants you to be different than you are?’

‘No,’ Sapp said and grinned. ‘I guess he only has eyes for me.’

Susan sighed.

In late July, in southeastern Nevada, the temperature is 100 and the sun shines every day. No one much cares about this in Las Vegas, because everything is air-conditioned and everyone is inside. Losing money.

I was at the bar in the Mirage, nursing a beer, playing the dollar slots, and waiting for Susan to get rid of fifty dollars playing blackjack. She had brought fifty dollars to gamble with and, since she didn’t really know how to play blackjack, it wouldn’t take long. I had tried to explain to her that the object was not to spend it, but to try to win more with it. I’m pretty sure she didn’t believe me.

Bernard J. Fortunato was across the way with a dark-haired woman in spike heels who would have been taller than he was in her stocking feet. They were playing blackjack. Bernard was looking good in a blue seersucker suit, pink shirt, pink-and-white striped tie and a snap-brim straw hat with a pink hatband. I waited. It was bad form in Vegas to break someone’s concentration while he was losing his money. I was in no hurry. I had ten more dollar coins to give to the slots at the bar. Occasionally I would win. But I was undeterred. I would keep feeding coins into the slot until they were gone.

After a while Bernard J. Fortunato and his tall companion had won enough, or lost enough, I couldn’t tell which, and headed for the bar where I sat. He spotted me while he was still halfway across the casino floor. He stopped and stood motionless while he looked at me, trying to remember. Then he came the rest of the way to the bar and stood in front of me.

‘Spenser,’ he said.

I nodded. Bernard looked around.

‘Hawk with you?’

‘No.’

Bernard nodded as if this information confirmed his suspicions. He put a hand on the brunette’s arm.

‘This is Terry,’ he said.

Terry smiled and put her hand out. She had on a short flowered summer dress with thin shoulder straps. She was quite beautiful, with big eyes and a wide mouth. All of her that showed, which was considerable, was pretty good. She was carefully made up, and probably somewhat older than she looked.

‘Very pleased to meet you,’ she said.

‘And you,’ I said.

They sat at the bar. Bernard sat beside me and Terry sat beside him.

‘Whaddya drinking?’ Bernard said.

‘I’m all set,’ I said.

The bartender came down the bar.

‘Coupla Mai Tais,’ Bernard said.

The bartender went away. Bernard looked at me sidelong with his head tilted.

‘Whaddya doing here?’ he said.

‘I’m looking for you,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Confidential,’ I said.

The bartender came back with two Mai Tais and set them on the bar on little paper napkins.

Bernard said to Terry, ‘Take your Mai Tai couple a stools down the bar, while I talk with this guy.’

‘Sure,’ Terry said, and picked up her drink and her napkin and moved down to the end of the bar. She didn’t seem to mind. When we were alone, Bernard said, ‘So?’

‘Still got that short Colt?’

‘Sure.’

‘Want to make some money?’

‘How much?’

‘A lot.’

‘Sure.’

‘You want to know what you have to do?’ I said.

‘Let’s get right to the amount,’ Bernard said.

I told him.

‘And expenses?’ Bernard said.

‘Yes.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What do you need done?’

I told him.

‘Hawk in on it?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Some others?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many?’

‘So far, counting you and me, five.’

‘You got some others guys in mind?’

‘I’m working west,’ I said.

‘L.A.?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Okay. What’s first?’

‘First,’ I said, ‘is you drive down to Potshot and rent us a house. Talk to a local broker down there, J. George Taylor.’

I handed him one of my business cards with Taylor’s name and address on the back.

‘House should be big enough for six, seven guys. Use any name you want as long as it matches your car registration. Move in. When you got a phone, call me. Don’t say anything much to anybody about anything.’

Bernard looked at me disgustedly.

‘Don’t talk? What do I look like, Blabbermouth Barbie? I done this kind a work before.’

‘Good to hear,’ I said.

‘And I’m a cash-and-carry business. Up front.’

I took a checkbook from my inside pocket and wrote out a check and ripped it out and handed it to Bernard. He looked at it to make sure it was done properly, then he folded it and put it in his wallet.

‘This clears, I’ll head down to Potshot,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you know.’

I stood. Bernard jerked his head at Terry, who smiled and picked up her drink and moved back down the bar beside him.

‘Nice to have met you,’ she said to me.

‘You too,’ I said.

Bernard gestured at the bartender.

‘Two more Mai Tais,’ he said.

I left.

‘But I don’t want to stay at nineteen,’ Susan said. ‘I want him to hit me.’

‘But unless he hits you with an ace or a two,’ I said, ‘you bust.’

‘But staying is boring,’ she said.

‘Of course it is,’ I said.

‘You’re humoring me.’

‘Of course I am.’

We were in Beverly Hills, walking up Rodeo Drive, the silliest street in America, holding hands, discussing blackjack.

‘But what’s wrong with my approach?’ Susan said.

‘It guarantees that you’ll lose.’

‘I’m going to lose anyway.’

‘Very likely,’ I said. ‘But the point of the exercise is to try to win.’

‘I get bored standing there waiting for the proper cards.’

I nodded. We were quiet for a little while as we marshaled our arguments.

‘Are you thinking sexist things?’ Susan said.

‘Like “women, hmmph!”?’ I said.

‘Like that,’ she said.

‘Not me.’

Susan smiled.

We were staying in a hotel at the foot of Rodeo Drive. We liked the hotel. It was expensive, but I’d gotten a supportive advance from the Potshot cabal. And we were right in the heart of Beverly Hills, so we had continuous access to comic relief.

‘So much to buy,’ Susan said, ‘so little time. How long do you think we’ll be here?’

‘I need to do a little background on Steven and Mary Lou Buckman,’ I said.

‘I need a new wardrobe,’ she said. ‘For fall.’

‘Didn’t you buy a new fall wardrobe last year?’

She gave me a withering look.

‘How will you go about checking on the Buckmans?’ she said.

‘I’ll start with Mark Samuelson. He’s the one who sent Mary Lou to me.’

‘Why are you checking on them?’

‘Better to know than not know,’ I said. ‘Nothing seems quite plumb in Potshot. I want to know about them before they went there. In fact it might help if I knew why they went there.’

‘To get away?’

‘From what?’

‘It would probably be good to know that, too,’ Susan said.

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You’re detecting. That’s man’s work.’

Susan ignored me, which probably accounts for the longevity of our relationship.

‘I have women’s work to do,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go about your business and let me do it?’

Which I did.

Mark Samuelson had been a lieutenant with a drooping moustache and no hair when I last did business with him. Now that I was doing business with him again, he was clean shaven, a captain, and had no hair. He was still wearing his tinted aviator glasses. And he had a healthy outdoor look about him.