Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

58

After dragging off Godfrey and the girls, Ruger and the two men from Cerberus marched us up to the main house. The blue dome shone bright in the dark, all the windows glowing as if the house were a large glass lantern. It was frigid when we were brought inside to stand under the mosaic blue dome. Ruger held the gun on me, still and lifeless. Not even seeming to blink once.

Steiner sat nearby in a high-back bamboo chair, smoking a cigar. He had a white terry-cloth robe, open and exposing his body and the aforementioned banana hammock.

“Do you mind covering up,” I said. “There’s only so much I can take.”

Steiner grinned, lashing his robe closed as Poppy Palmer walked in through the kitchen. She had on a similar robe, cut short to show off her thick, muscular legs. Her black hair wet and spiky like an eighties rock star’s. As she wandered in, her finger traced the edge of a mahogany bar.

Poppy sang to herself and poured herself a big drink from a crystal decanter.

She took a sip and then poured out two more into crystal glasses. She handed one to me and tried to hand one to Hawk. “Warms the heart, doll,” she said.

Hawk just stared down at her. He was shirtless, having used his shirt to tie a tourniquet around Godfrey’s leg.

Poppy held the drink and ran a hand over his bare pecs and raked his abs with her long nails.

“We could’ve had some fun,” she said.

“Rather fuck a bucktoothed goat,” Hawk said.

Poppy stopped smiling. The black man from Miami stood at her back, the other guard stood tall and alert beside Steiner. I was within five feet of them. If I could get to Ruger, Hawk could perhaps jump the other two. We might get shot in the process, but at least there was hope.

Ruger stared at me as he held a gun toward my mid-section. It was a simple, slick .22 with a suppressor at the end. He could kill me and Hawk with less sound than clicking his tongue.

His gray eyes didn’t move. Gray shirt under a soaked gray linen suit jacket. His skin looked like a corpse.

“A man without honor is worse than dead,” I said.

“Cervantes.”

“You’re soulless,” I said. “But literate.”

Ruger shrugged. He tilted his head, staring at me. He appeared to be looking forward to me shuffling off this mortal coil.

I took the drink Poppy had poured us. Cognac. Only the best for Spenser before he gets shot. I tried to control my breathing. I was wet. I was tired. I was nauseated and concerned. I wasn’t thrilled with how the night was going.

“What about the girls?” I said.

“There will always be more girls,” Steiner said, his voice raspy and worn. His face lean and tan with white stubble. “Like there will always be more champagne and parties. As long as you have money and friends, you make your own rules.”

“The police and Feds might feel different.”

“They’ve tried before,” he said. “And they’ll try again. But how many cops do you know who are both stupid and corrupt?”

“Not these,” I said. “Think of me when you drop the soap in jail.”

“Yeah,” Hawk said. “Heard them boys already lining up to take a shot at your narrow white ass. Man into kids get that special treatment.”

Poppy wandered over to a very long leather couch. She sat on the arm, leaning back with her robe open, nearly exposing her breasts. She smiled at me and pulled on her cognac. Her eyes sleepy and relaxed as Steiner took a seat beside her. Steiner took Poppy’s glass and took a sip, licking his lips and turning to Ruger.

“Take them outside and shoot them,” Steiner said. “Weigh down the bodies and have them dropped off on the reef. The one with all the sharks.”

“Damn,” Hawk said. “This motherfucker thinks of everything.”

I set down the glass. I looked Ruger right in the eye. I’d been thinking of him since I’d heard he was back in Boston. I remembered every second of the bridge, him walking to me in the snow, a hatted shadow raising a gun and firing three rounds. It would be like that, only without the comfort of an icy river to catch me.

I looked to Hawk. Hawk’s whole body coiled, like a jaguar.

I waited for him to jump on the guards while I’d launch myself at Ruger. I suddenly felt like Butch and Sundance racing out to face the Bolivian Army. I swallowed and inhaled a deep breath through my nose.

Hawk nodded. I took a small step forward.

Ruger lifted his gun at me. A twinkle in his eye and a small twitch at the corner of his mouth. I waited and held my breath.

Ruger pivoted in a blur and shot Peter Steiner in the forehead.

Poppy Palmer screamed and rolled from the couch as Ruger immediately shot the other two guards. My ears rang, feet unsteady, not sure what I’d just seen.

“The girls and your friend are safe,” Ruger said. “Come with me.”

For once in my life, words escaped me. My mouth hung open. Hawk looked at the Gray Man and the Gray Man at him.

Hawk nodded.

“Why’d you shoot Godfrey?” Hawk said.

“The boat captain worked for Steiner,” Ruger said. “He sold out both of you. I shot Godfrey to save him.”

“Can’t trust no one these days,” Hawk said.

“What shall we do about the woman?” Ruger said.

Poppy Palmer straddled Peter Steiner’s body, a hole in the center of his forehead leaking lots of blood. His brown eyes stared at the ceiling, jaw slack. She was crying and stroking his face and whispering sweet nonsensical things into his ear.

“Leave her,” I said.

I reached down and snatched Poppy Palmer to her feet. She clawed at my face with her long nails, drawing blood. Hawk backhanded her and grabbed her by the front of her robe, dragging her outside into the rain. A nervous young black woman in a maid’s uniform appeared from the kitchen, and Hawk yelled for her to bring him some rope.

I followed Ruger to one of the cottages, where we found Godfrey lying on the couch and Carly with the two Russian girls. Ruger pulled a cell phone from his pocket and began to dial. He said something harsh and quick in Russian and looked back to me. The rain picked up, falling in a slanting silver sheet across an immaculate green lawn.

“Who are they?” I said.

“Daughters of a very important and very rich man in Moscow,” Ruger said. “The man’s enemy kidnapped them and sold them to Steiner.”

“You cozied up to Steiner to find them,” I said. “Waiting for the right time to make a move.”

Ruger’s mouth twitched a bit. “I set in motion a nice diversion.”

Carly rushed out into the rain to round up the other three girls who’d been poolside with Steiner and Poppy. We followed her outside, where Ruger looked up into the sky.

“I guess an apology is in order,” I said.

Ruger shrugged. He walked over to the Russian girls, wet and shaking, and fitted his linen jacket around one of them.

“Some other time,” he said, disappearing.

A few minutes later, I heard the whoosh-whoosh of a helicopter and saw a spotlight rove over the property. A black military-style helicopter set down in the open land behind the main house.

Ruger emerged from the domed house with a heavy canvas travel bag slung over his shoulder, walking the two girls onto the helicopter.

He stopped for a moment to place a gray fedora on his head. Ruger looked to me and Hawk and tipped his hat before sliding up beside the copilot.

We watched the helicopter lift off Bonnet’s Cut and fly north toward Nassau.

“Now we gonna owe his ass,” Hawk said.

“The world is round.”