Lassiter

42 Orchids and Blood

The moment they walked into the solarium, Ziegler felt the warm air and smelled the moist earth. His favorite corner of the world, home to his beautiful and blessedly silent orchids. His refuge. From his wife, his work, his life.

But not from Max Perlow, whose Hush Puppies squeaked a step behind.

A toad with a gun.

Floor-to-ceiling glass looked directly onto the pool deck, the glare from the solarium lights turning the windows into mirrors. The two men could only see their own reflections.

Ziegler stopped, listened. Nothing.

Perlow shuffled past him, the lavender leaves of a hanging Mendelli orchid catching the old man’s arm. Perlow seemed not to notice the Mendelli or the Sophronitis the color of a Cabernet Sauvignon or the vanilla orchid, its column a delicious snowy white, open like a wet and willing pussy.

“My fucking sinuses,” Perlow said. “How do you live with all these weeds?”

The man is a barbarian, Ziegler thought.

Another sound. Softer. Something brushing up against the glass outside. Spanish bayonet shrubs were planted there. The leaves so thick and dense they barely moved in a windstorm.

Unless someone was out there.

“Turn off the lights,” Perlow barked.

Ziegler flipped the switch, and the solarium went dark. Night lights illuminated the pool deck and cabanas, the Roman pillars casting shadows across the water.

The next few seconds went by in a blur.

Perlow pressed his face to the window.

Outside, a flash of movement in the bushes.

“Max!” Ziegler shouted.

“Sha!” He yelled through the closed window: “Who the hell’s out there?”

An explosion of glass. Behind them, a hanging pot splintered and crashed to the floor.

Ziegler dived under a table.

Unfazed, Perlow stood rock still. Crisis calmed him. He’d once finished a side order of cioppino, moments after a tablemate had his throat slit in a Little Italy restaurant.

“You?” he said, looking into the eyes of the shooter outside. Perlow raised his gun. Maybe thirty years ago, before arthritis chewed at his joints, he would have been faster.

The second gunshot hit him squarely in the chest and knocked him on his ass.

Stunned, Ziegler crawled out from under the table and saw the silhouette of a person running away from the house. Trembling, he gazed at Perlow, flat on his back.

“He-lp,” Perlow croaked, blood oozing from his chest.

Ziegler’s mind careened, his thoughts shooting rapid-fire. Was the bullet meant for him? Would the shooter come back? Could there be another gunman?

“Who was it, Max? Who’d you see?”

“Nine-one-one,” Perlow whispered.

More questions shot through Ziegler’s brain. Did Tejada, around front in Max’s Bentley, hear the shots? How long would an ambulance take? Could the old buzzard survive?

“Paramedics. Please, Charlie.”

A memory flashed back to Ziegler. The worst night of his life. Eighteen years ago. “Paramedics!” he spat out the word.

“Charlie?”

Perlow’s voice pleading, his eyes showing his fear.

Ziegler calmed, feeling a clarity of purpose. He caught sight of a vanilla orchid, its petals streaked obscenely with blood. Perlow was going to die, Ziegler thought.

There is a God, after all.

A God who looks after porn producers, lousy husbands, and tax cheats. Okay, so maybe it’s not God with a capital “G.” Maybe it’s just a cloud of cosmic gases that floats across the Milky Way and settles over the earth, bringing joy to the wicked and Mammon to the greedy. But it’s still a force that evens the score, though it might take decades.

“You want CPR, Max?”

“Huh? Huh?” Wheezing but hanging on. Harder to kill than a cockroach.

“Chrissakes, help me.”

Perlow propped himself up on one elbow, fumbled for his cell phone. Ziegler kicked Perlow’s arm out from under him and the phone skittered away. The old man toppled backwards. Ziegler slipped off a soft leather loafer.

“Hey, Max. Got something for you.”

He stepped on Perlow’s rib cage. Careful not to leave bruises. He heard a blast of air, like a farting balloon. Or … a punctured lung.

Perlow cried in pain. “Charlie. Whaaaa …?”

“That’s for Krista, Max. Remember her?”

“Char …”

“You didn’t call the paramedics for Krista, did you, Max?”

Ziegler adjusted his foot and pressed harder. Blood exploded from Perlow’s chest like a whale spouting.

Perlow didn’t say another word.

“And that lifetime deal of ours, Max,” Ziegler said. “It just expired.”