A Savage Place

Chapter 16

HE WAS DEFINITELY fat, probably two hundred and fifty on a frame no more than five feet nine. On the other hand Vasili Alexeyev is fat too. The thought was not comforting. Franco was balding and he hadn’t fought it. What was left was cut very short, so that he seemed to be balder than he was. The Vandyke was black and so was the mustache. He was wearing a flowered shirt and green knit slacks and dark brown moccasins. The shirt hung outside the pants. Probably to hide a gun. Or maybe he thought it was elegant. I looked at Candy. Her face was frozen, without expression. She looked at Franco and was perfectly still.

Behind Franco was the blond charmer I had rousted in the parking lot at the Farmers Market. He’d never wear a flowered shirt. He wouldn’t let it hang outside. He’d hide his gun in a shoulder rig under an unstructured linen jacket with the collar turned up.

I looked at Felton. It was as if he didn’t have to pretend anymore and his glands could relax. His face was now shiny with sweat, and some had beaded on his upper lip. His expression was a mixture of gratitude and terror.

Franco looked at Candy and said, “Well, well, newsbirdie. You thought I didn’t mean it last time?”

Candy was quiet. There was a faint sense of a foreign accent in Franco’s voice, too dim to identify, merely the echo of a distant birth.

“Huh?” he said. “Did you think I didn’t mean it?”

“I thought you meant it,” Candy said.

“Then what are you doing here, birdie, huh? If you thought I meant it, what are you doing here?”

“My job,” Candy said. There was no affect in her voice.

Franco looked at his helper. “How about that, Bubba. Her job, you hear that? She’s doing her fucking job. Huh? You like that, Bubba?”

“Yeah,” Bubba said. “Yeah, that’s good.”

Felton said, “What are you going to do, Franco?” Franco looked at him for a moment and shook his head. “Look at the sweat,” he said. “Give fat a bad name, guys like you.”

Felton wiped his hand over his face. “Well, what’re you?” he said.

“You called us,” Franco said. “What’d you have in mind?”

“They were talking about me killing Rafferty,” Felton said.

Franco made a sound between a grunt and a laugh. “You ain’t got the ‘nads to kill anything, except maybe a quart of tequila,” he said. Then he looked at Candy and said, “Come on, you and your date take a ride with us.”

Candy looked at me. I said “Nope.”

Franco looked at me for the first time. “I wasn’t asking,” he said. “Get moving, huh?”

I said “Nope” again. It had a nice rhythm to it. Bubba had moved a little to Franco’s right, but neither showed a weapon yet. That’s one of the mistakes tough guys make. They overrate how tough they are. They aren’t careful.

I took the gun out from the cushions and pointed it at them. No harm in being careful. I said “Nope.” Franco and Bubba looked at the gun. So did Felton.

His face got sweatier. Candy didn’t move. She seemed inside a kind of deep stillness.

“We have here,” I said to Candy, “persuasive evidence of complicity between Felton and Franco, and of course the legendary Bubba. Bubba is on hourly wage, I suspect, and doesn’t count for much. But I think we could make something pretty good out of Franco and old Sammy.”

“What can we really prove?” Candy said.

“We can prove Franco beat you up. We can prove when we came here to talk with Sam Felton about Mickey, he called Franco, and Franco came and attempted to remove us. The threat of force was clearly implied.”

“I want it all,” Candy said.

“Cops can get it all if we give them this,” I said. “Old Sam here will melt like butter on a flapjack when Samuelson gets him down to the Hall of Justice. So would Bubba, but he probably doesn’t know anything.”

“Don’t get to feeling too good about that gun, huh?” Franco said. “I seen guns before. It ain’t going to buy you all that much.”

“If you do anything incautious,” I said, “it can buy you the farm.”

Candy seemed not even to hear Franco. She barely heard me. She was way inside somewhere. “I want it all,” she said again. “I want to get it myself.”

“You’ve got enough,” I said. “You’ve broken it, let the cops clean up. They’re good at it. They’ve got the personpower for it.”

She didn’t even smile at “personpower.” No one else did either. No accounting for people’s sense of humor. She was looking right at Franco now. “Did you shoot Mickey?” she said.

Franco made a small grin. “Sure,” he said.

“You shot him?”

“Yes. I just said so, huh?”

Bubba edged slightly more to the right.

I said, “Don’t do that, Bubba. I’m good with this. I’ll drop you where you stand.”

Franco said, “And while you’re shooting him, what do you think I’ll be doing, huh?”

I said, “I can drop him and you before you can clear the piece. You made one mistake coming in here with your hands empty. Don’t make another one.”

Candy said, “You can’t shoot him, Spenser. He’s our key to the whole story.”

I said, “Yes, I can. We’ve still got Felton,” and then everything went to hell. The Mexican woman walked in through the archway and stopped next to Franco when she saw the gun. Franco stepped behind her. I raised my gun. Candy said “No,” and pushed at my arm. Franco was around the corner of the archway. Bubba had his gun out. I yanked my arm free of Candy and shot Bubba twice and shoved Candy down on the sofa and sprawled over her facing the archway. The Mexican woman was crouched on the floor near the archway. Felton was still cross-legged on the opposite couch, body bent as close to double as he could get, both hands over his head. Bubba had fallen backward to the floor. The smell of gunshot was in the room but no sound. The hum of central air conditioning filled an otherwise soundless void. Candy was motionless beneath me.

Then Franco’s voice came from behind the archway. “Come on, Felton,” Franco said. “Get off the couch and walk over here.”

Felton kept his hands clutched over his head and looked up in my direction.

“Come on,” Franco said again. “He won’t shoot. He needs you alive, don’t you, boyfriend. You kill him and you got nothing. Besides, I can blast the Mex from here and not even move. So we’ll trade. Felton walks and you get the Mex, huh?”

I didn’t say anything. I kept the gun on the entryway. I took a quick check on Felton from the corner of my eye. I didn’t think he was a threat, but I hadn’t counted on the Mexican woman either.

Franco said, “Get your fat ass out here, Felton, and now. Or you want to stay with them?”

“No,” Felton said. His voice was squeaky. “No. I’m coming.” He got off the couch and scurried fatly over to the archway and through.

Franco said, “We’re leaving now, boyfriend. I’m backing out behind Felton. He’s fat enough even for me. You have to kill him, huh? To get to me. Then what you got?”

I didn’t speak. I could hear Candy’s breath coming a little short beneath me. I could smell her perfume too, now that the shooting fumes were beginning to thin. I heard shuffling sounds recede down the front hall, then the front door opened and closed. I didn’t move. Franco could open the front door and shut it without leaving, and when I came charging through the archway, he could cut me in half.

Candy said in a muffled voice, “You’re smothering me.”

I eased off of her and stood out of line of the archway, beside the couch.

Candy said, “Have they gone?”

I put my finger on my mouth and shook my head. “I guess so,” I said loud enough for Franco to hear me. I moved over beside the archway and waited. The Mexican woman crouched where she had been. Candy stayed down on the couch. Then I heard the front door open again and shut. And silence. A double fake? Faintly I heard a car door slam. No double fake. I rolled around the corner of the archway in a crouch.

Franco could have sent Felton out to start the car. The hall was empty. I opened the front door and watched the taillights of a car disappear up the street. I went back into the living room.

With considerable emphasis I said, “Son of a bitch.”

“I shouldn’t have hit your arm,” Candy said.

“True. But you didn’t have much chance to think.” I was looking down at Bubba. There was blood on his chest and his eyes were wide and silent.

“I was afraid I’d lose the story,” she said.

“I know.” No more hanging out at Venice Beach, Bubba. No more pumping iron. No more suntan oil and choker bathing suits.

“But I risked your life for it,” Candy said.

“Part of the job description,” I said. The Mexican woman was standing against the wall by the archway watching us.

“And now we’ve lost Sam Felton.”

I nodded. The Mexican woman watched everything I did. Her eyes fixed on my face. I said to Candy, “We’ve got to tell the cops.”

“No.”

“Yes. I’ve killed a guy in front of a witness. There’s no way out.” I looked at the Mexican woman. “Do you speak English, ma’am?” I said.

“No speak,” she said. “Espanol.”

“See,” Candy said. “She doesn’t even understand English. She’ll never even call the police.”

“She says she doesn’t speak English,” I said. “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t. It doesn’t mean she hasn’t friends who speak English. It doesn’t mean that the L.A.P.D, doesn’t have Spanish-speaking cops. Do you speak any Spanish?”

“No, why?”

“I thought you might be able to reassure the woman. She’s got to be in a state of terror.”

Candy shook her head. “I don’t know any Spanish.”

I smiled at the Mexican woman. “Okay,” I said. “It’s okay.”

I got out the card that Samuelson had given me and went to the phone. Candy looked panicky. “Can’t you keep Sam Felton’s name out of it?”

“You’re in shock,” I said. “Otherwise you’d know better. This is his house. There’s a stiff in his living room. Of course I can’t keep it out.”

“But he’s my key witness.”

“Not anymore,” I said. “Somebody’s going to find him dead someplace in a day or so.”

“They’ll kill him?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “That’s why Franco took him. You saw how easy it would have been to get him talking. Franco knew that. So do the people that pay Franco. Felton’s dead.”

“Oh, God,” Candy said.

“True,” I said. “What we got now is Franco. He’ll be harder.”

I dialed Samuelson’s number. The cop you know is better than the cop you don’t know.