Potshot

Chapter 49

I CALLED CAWLEY Dark and talked with him for fifteen minutes. Then I hung up and went out onto the front porch where Tedy Sapp was taking orders and mixing drinks. The sun had set, quite flamboyantly, and the blue twilight was settling around us the way it does. Bernard J. Fortunato had fixed up a tray of cheese and crackers and was passing it around.

"Bernard went in today and rented the hotel room," Hawk said. "Street side."

"I told him straight when I reserved it what I wanted," Bernard said.

"You see the room?" I said.

"Bet your ass."

"So Vinnie's in the window with a rifle," Hawk said.

"Room looks right down on the broad's office," Bernard said.

"Mary Lou's?"

"Yeah. Buckman Outfitters."

"So we'll be sure to brace them there," I said. "In front of her storefront."

"You want us to be surreptitious?" Hawk said.

"Surreptitious?" Sapp said.

Hawk shrugged.

"I educated in head start," Hawk said.

"Really worked," Sapp said.

"No reason to be covert," I said.

"You too?" Sapp said.

"Nope," I said. "I'm a straight Anglo white guy of European ancestry. We're naturally smart."

"You missed Bernard," Sapp said.

"Tall straight Anglo white guy," I said.

"Hey," Bernard said.

"Perfect," Sapp said.

"So we all got shotguns but Vinnie," Hawk said.

"Sure," I said. "The town fathers hired us to do this. Cops won't interfere."

"You know that?" Vinnie said.

"They haven't so far," I said. "What are you going to use from the window?"

"The Heckler," Vinnie said.

"Good choice," I said.

"Of course it is," Vinnie said.

"I will use a handgun," Chollo said. "Giving me a shotgun is like asking Picasso to paint with a broom."

Vinnie nodded.

"Just what I need," I said. "A couple of divas."

I looked at Bobby Horse.

"I suppose you want a bow and arrow," I said.

"Kiowas are flexible," he said.

We were quiet. Sapp went around refreshing drinks.

"Try the blue cheese," Bernard said. "Nice lingering bite to it."

I looked at Hawk.

"J. George Taylor talked with me today," I said. "Asked me not to annoy Mary Lou."

"Well, then, you better not," Hawk said.

"Then I had a club soda with Bebe Taylor," I said.

"I thought you was going to introduce me," Hawk said.

"I thought you liked a challenge," I said.

"Out here getting laid a challenge," Hawk said.

"She said that it was hard to sell real estate because of the Dell."

"Un-huh."

"She said everybody wants to sell, and nobody wants to buy. Real estate prices are dropping like a stone."

"Sure," Bernard said. "That's the old law of supply and demand. So what?"

Hawk sat back in his chair and put his feet up on the railing. He had a small drink of gin and tonic.

"So the natural price for property here been artificially lowered," he said.

"By the Dell."

"So who benefits from that?" Hawk said.

"Anybody wants to pick up some nice bargains."

Hawk nodded.

"Wouldn't be the Dell," he said.

"They acquire it, the property values won't increase," I said.

"Less they targeting the ex-con market."

"Maybe they don't care about that," Sapp said. "Maybe they just like living off the carcass."

"If the town keeps declining," I said, "there won't be any carcass."

Hawk was nodding his head slowly.

"But if somebody picked up a lot of the real estate, and got rid of the Dell, then they make a big profit."

"She said even if it were good the town couldn't expand because of water limitations."

"But if somebody discovered a new water source?" Hawk said.

"Bonanza," I said.

"What'd Mary Lou Buckman used to do in L.A.?"

"Water resource specialist," I said.

"Fancy that," Hawk said.