Potshot

Chapter 62

IT WAS OUR last breakfast together. We were eating omelets with onions, made, and beautifully, by me. Everyone was at the table in the kitchen, except Bobby Horse, who was propped up on a couch that Chollo and Hawk had dragged in from the living room. A local doctor had done what he could for Bobby Horse, put a cast on the knee, and had given him a large supply of Percocet. The Percocet made him quieter, which I would have thought impossible.

Bernard J. Fortunato wasn't as badly hurt. The bullet had gone through his thigh without breaking any bone. It had destroyed some of the tissue around the entry hole, and it would take awhile to heal. Bernard had Percocet too, and its effect was to make him more talkative. Between him and Bobby Horse, they averaged out about normal.

"So what I wanna know," Bernard said, sitting sideways at the table with his injured leg sticking out toward the stove, "didn't we ambush those Dell guys and shoot them up pretty good?"

"We did," I said.

I put an omelet on a plate with some biscuits. Chollo took it to Bobby Horse.

"You need me to feed you?" Cholio said.

Bobby Horse shook his head.

"So if we was going to ambush the fuckers anyway," Bernard said, "how come we didn't do it first, climb up there and shoot them down right in the canyon?"

"They hadn't come for us then," I said.

"That's why I got fucking shot," Bernard said.

I nodded. I was at the stove again, making another omelet. You have to make omelets in small batches or they don't work. And the pan needs to be cured, and the heat needs to be right. You don't just break a bunch of eggs.

"I don't get it," Bernard said.

"You get used to it," Vinnie said.

"But we did the same fucking thing," Bernard said. "And I got fucking shot doing it, and so did Bobby Horse."

The current omelet had firmed up just enough. I folded it over, shook it around in the pan a minute, and slid it onto a plate. I gave it to Bernard.

"Are you going to explain it?" Bernard said to me.

"Just eggs and some pan-fried onions," I said.

"I'm not talking about the fucking omelet, for crissake," Bernard said. "Vinnie, you know what I'm talking about."

Vinnie shrugged.

"You get it?" Bernard said to Vinnie.

"Yeah."

"And?"

"You get used to it," Vinnie said.

"Well it's fucking crazy," Bernard said.

Hawk put his coffee cup down and rested his forearms on the table.

"No," he said. "It's not crazy."

Bernard looked a little scared. Most people were afraid of Hawk, but there was heat in Hawk's voice that Bernard had never heard before. A lot of people hadn't.

"It's what makes him different than you," Hawk said, "or me or Vinnie, or Chollo or Bobby Horse."

"What about Tedy?" Bernard said.

Bernard had the attention span of a hummingbird.

"Don't know about Tedy," Hawk said. "Might be more like Spenser."

"Except for the queer part," Sapp said.

"'Cept that," Hawk said. "The rest of us, we see something that needs to be done, we do it. We don't much care how we do it. Spenser thinks that how you do it is as important as what you do."

I realized what had startled Bernard. There was no mockery in Hawk's voice. None of his usual up-alley, self-amused, ghetto bebop. Bernard stared at him. They all did, except me. I was working on a new omelet.

"Why?" Bernard said.

Hawk grinned suddenly.

"So he be different than us."

I don't think Bernard got it. But everyone else seemed to, and Bernard, Percocet-addled though he was, sensed it and shut up. The rest of breakfast conversation was devoted to women we had known.

After breakfast I sat on the front porch with Hawk and drank more coffee.

"I don't need to sleep at night, anyway," I said.

Chollo came out helping Bobby Horse. He got him arranged in the back seat of the car, with one leg out straight, and came back up the steps.

"You got everything?" I said.

"Guns are in the trunk, jefe."

"What about Bobby Horse?" I said.

"Mr. del Rio has a friend at UCLA Medical Center," Chollo said.

"I didn't know del Rio had friends."

"When he needs them," Chollo said. "Like you."

I put out my right hand, clenched in a fist. Chollo tapped his fist lightly on top of it, nodded at Hawk and walked to the car. Bobby Horse never glanced back as they drove away.

"We through here?" Hawk said.

"Everybody but me," I said.

Vinnie came out with Tedy Sapp. Bernard J. Fortunato hobbled along with them, Tedy had an arm around him holding him up. Bernard had one arm around Sapp's shoulder.

"We're going to Vegas," Bernard said. "I'm going to drink six Mai Tais and fuck six women the first day."

"Better do it the other way around," I said.

"I'll take the rental," Sapp said. "Drop Bernard off. Turn it in at the airport. Fly home from Vegas."

"My best to the opthalmologist," I said.

Sapp grinned.

"And to the shrink," Sapp said.

The three of them headed for the car and got Bernard in the back. Sapp got in the driver's side. Vinnie went around to the passenger side. He stopped before he got in and looked over the roof of the car.

"I left my guns all packed," Vinnie said. "Drive them home for me."

"You're going to Vegas?" I said.

"One drive between Boston and here is enough," Vinnie said. "Gonna help Bernard with the Mai Tais and the broads, then I'll fly home."

"Viva Las Vegas," I said.

"You gonna pay me?"

"When I get back to Boston."

Vinnie nodded.

"I packed my guns in the back of the Explorer," he said. "I'll pick them up in Boston."

"Spenser's long haul," I said. "No package too illegal."

Vinnie nodded at Hawk and at me, and slid into the car, and the car slid into gear and went down the road.

"You still worrying 'bout the guy got killed?"

"Steve Buckman."

"Going to stick around until you sort that out?" Hawk said.

"Yes."

Hawk had his feet up on the railing, his hands locked behind his head and his chair tilted back. He looked out at the sage and cactus and shale and sand that stretched in front of the house up the hill.

"Me too," he said.