Potshot

Chapter 48

J GEORGE TAYLOR asked me to come talk with him. Except for J. George, the office was empty when I got there.

"Mary Lou says you've been questioning her," he said after I was seated in his client chair.

"She does?" I said,

"She feels you were somewhat accusative."

"And she complained to you?"

"We're friends. Since her husband's death, I have been looking out for her, sort of like a father."

"Sort of," I said.

"And I really think she needs a gentle touch. For God's sake, her husband was murdered."

"By the Dell." I said.

"Of course, by the Dell."

"You know this."

"Everyone knew that he was standing up to the Dell. Everyone knew they had threatened him."

"Who did the actual threatening?"

"The Dell."

"Which one?"

"The Preacher."

"You heard him?"

"No. It was his, ah, brute-Pony."

"You heard Pony threaten Steve?"

"Of course. Half the town heard him."

"Who besides you, specifically?"

"Oh, for God's sake," J. George said. "The mayor heard him. Luther Barnes. Mark Ratliff. Henry Brown. About two dozen other people in the bar."

"Which bar?"

"The bar at The Jack Rabbit."

"Tell me about it."

"Nothing to tell," J. George said. "Steve was at the bar, having a beer. Pony walked in and went right up to him and threatened him."

"With death?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"Pony? I don't remember exactly. They had an argument and Steve was shouting, and Pony tapped him on the chest with his forefinger and said to him, `You're a dead man.' "

"How did Steve react?"

"He just stared at Pony. He wouldn't admit it later, but I think he was scared. Pony is… my God, Pony is terrifying."

"I've seen him:"

"And?"

"Terrifying," I said.

"But we've gotten off the track," J. George said. "I really wanted to urge you to go easy on Mary Lou."

"You bet," I said. "You know anybody named Morris Tannenbaum?"

J. George leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtful.

"Morris Tannenbaum," he said.

"Yes."

"No. I can't say that I have."

"Spend much time in Los Angeles?" I said.

"No more than I must," J. George said. "Will you be able to give Mary Lou a little more space?"

"Of course," I said. "Sorry I upset her."

J. George stood and put out his hand.

"I know, I know," J. George said. "Just trying to do your job. Women are difficult."

I shook his hand and smiled as if I believed everything he said. Outside I forged bravely through the heat to The Jack Rabbit Inn. Bebe was at a table having lunch with another woman. There were some papers between them. I smiled at Bebe and went to the bar. The bartender came down to me and put a paper doily on the bar in front of me.

"What can I get you?" he said.

"Were you working the bar," I said, "when Pony threatened Steve Buckman?"

"I got nothing to say about that," the bartender said.

"It's just background," I said. "I'll never quote you."

I put a $100 bill on the bar. The bartender looked at it, and then palmed it off the bar in a move so expert that the bill seemed to disappear magically.

"You do and I'll say you're lying."

"Sure," I said.

"Yeah. I was here."

"Tell me about it."

"Steve's at the bar. This monstrous big dude from the Dell comes in. Him and Steve have an argument. The Dude says to Steve, `You're a dead man.' And walks out."

"The big dude was Pony?"

"Yeah."

The bartender went down the bar and got drink orders from a couple of blond women in tennis whites. He mixed two cosmopolitans and poured them out into two glasses and it came out just right. He put the drinks in front of the blondes, rang the tab, put it in the bar gutter in front of them, and came back down the bar to me.

"You want something to drink?"

"Sure, give me a Perrier with a slice of orange in it."

"You got it," he said and reached under the bar.

"Ice?"

"Yeah. Lot of people hear him?"

"Pony?"

"Yeah."

"When he threatened Steve Buckman?"

"It's my only hundred," I said.

The bartender grinned.

"Can't blame me for trying," he said. "Sure, lot of people heard him. Bar was full. All the regulars."

"J. George?" I said.

"Taylor?"

The bartender glanced at Bebe across the room and lowered his voice.

"Yeah he was here, and his crew. Barnes, Brown, the mayor."

"Who else?" I said.

"Christ what am I, a computer? Billy Bates was here with his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon. Ratliff the producer. Tom Paglia."

He put my Perrier down on the little doily. I put a ten on the bar. He grinned.

"On the house," he said.

The woman across from Bebe stood up. They shook hands. The woman took some of the papers and left. I moved over to her table as Bebe was sliding the remaining papers into her briefcase. She looked up as I sat down across from her.

"Well, hello," she said.

"Hello."

"I just sold a nice Spanish-style ranch to that woman," Bebe said. "She's from Flagstaff. Sick of the snow, I guess."

"Hideous," she said. "Nearly everybody wants to sell, and nobody wants to buy, unless they're from out of town and don't know about the Dell."

"And you don't feel obligated to tell them."

"No, I don't," she said. "Real estate prices are dropping like a stone. They used to be really high, because there was nowhere to expand."

"You're in the middle of nowhere," I said. "Why can't you expand?"

"It's all desert," Bebe said. "We've expanded to the limit of our water supply already."

"What if you had enough water?"

"The Dell would ruin sales anyway."

"What if the Dell were gone?"

Bebe smiled at me.

"I'd be selling real estate from early in the morning to really late at night," she said.

"Anybody buying property these days?"

"George made a couple of sales to some developer," she said. "I think they'll lose their shirt."

She paused and smiled and shrugged.

"But they're consenting adults," she said.

"Caveat emptor," I said.

The papers were stashed in her little black briefcase. She zipped the top closed and looked up at me from under her eyebrows.

"I was a little fuzzy, the last time I saw you," she said. "I shouldn't drink on a light breakfast."

"None of us should," I said. "But sometimes we do."

"Did we have a good time?" she said.

I tried to put a lecherous gleam in my eyes. It wasn't hard. I was good at lecherous.

"How quickly they forget," I said.

"Was I alright?"

"You certainly were," I said.

I wasn't as good at enthusiasm. But she didn't seem to notice.

"I hate not remembering. Maybe we should go over it again sometime."

"Be my pleasure," I said.

"That's what they tell me," Bebe said.

"Did you know that Mary Lou knew both Dean Walker and Mark Ratliff in Los Angeles?"

"I knew about Mark," Bebe said. "I don't think I knew that about Dean Walker."

"You told me that Mary Lou Buckman was sleeping with both of them."

"And probably some others," Bebe said. "I knew you'd have trouble believing it. Men are so stupid."

"How do you know?"

"About Mary Lou?"

"And Walker and Ratliff," I said.

"Dean Walker is merely surmise," Bebe said, "and intuition."

"And Ratliff?" Bebe smiled.

"Pillow talk," she said.

I nodded and we smiled knowingly. Two insiders. Intimates.

"You mean I'm not the only one?" I said.

"Almost."

"He say anything else about her?" I said.

"Mark? About Mary Lou? Oh yes. Actually it was little annoying. He'd be in bed with me. You know, afterwards. And he'd be blabbing on about how he loved Mary Lou and had followed her to Potshot and would wait forever if he had to… crap like that."

"You didn't believe him?" I said.

"Mark's a Hollywood person," she said. "It's hard believe a word he speaks."

"And he wasn't waiting for her celibately," I said.

Bebe was good at lecherous gleaming, too.

"Not likely," she said. "But as soon as he was through boffing me, he'd talk about her."

"So, she was always on his mind," I said.

Bebe grinned.

"She was always on his mind."