The Judas Goat

29

They set my arm and packed my nose and cleaned me up, and put me in the hospital overnight with Hawk in the next bed. They didn’t arrest us, but there was a cop at the door all night. My arm was hurting now and they gave me a shot. I went to sleep for the rest of the day and night. When I woke up, a man in plain clothes was there from the RCMP. Hawk was sitting up in bed reading the Montreal Star and sipping some juice from a big styrofoam cup through a straw from one corner of his mouth. The swelling was down a bit in his eye. He could see out of it, but the lip was still very puffy and I could see the black thread from the stitches.

“My name’s Morgan,” the man from RCMP said. He showed me his shield. “We’d like to hear about what happened.”

Hawk said, with difficulty, “Paul dead. Kathie shot him with the rifle while he trying to escape.”

“Escape?” I said.

Hawk said, “Yeah.” There was no expression on his face.

“Where is she now?”

Morgan said, “We’re holding her for the moment.”

I said, “How’s Zachary?”

Morgan said, “He’ll live. We have looked into him a bit. He’s in our files, in fact.”

“I’ll bet he is,” I said. I shifted a little in bed. It hurt. I was sore all over. My left arm was in a cast from knuckles to elbow. The cast felt warm. There was tape over my nose and the nostrils were packed.

“Naturally with the games established in Montreal we kept a file of known terrorists. Zachary was quite well known. Several countries want him. What business were you doing with him?”

“We were preventing him from shooting a gold medalist. Him and Paul.”

Morgan was a strong-looking middle-sized man with thick blondish hair and a thick mustache. His jaw stuck out and his mouth receded. The mustache helped. He wore rimless glasses. I hadn’t seen those for years. The principal of my elementary school had worn rimless glasses.

“We rather figured that out from the witnesses and what Kathie told us. That doesn’t appear, incidentally, to be her real name.”

“I know. I don’t know what it is.”

Morgan looked at Hawk, “You?”

Hawk said, “I don’t know.”

Morgan looked back at me, “Anyway the rifle with the scope, the mark on the wall, that sort of thing. We were able to figure out pretty well what the plan had been. What we’re interested in is a bit of information on how you happened to be there at the proper time and place. There were quite a number of weapons at the scene. None of you seemed able to hang on. There was a thirty-eight caliber Smith and Wesson revolver for which you have a permit, Mr. Spenser. And there was a modified shotgun, which is illegal in Canada, for which there is no permit, but for which your companion seems to have had a shoulder rig.”

Hawk looked at the ceiling and shrugged. I didn’t say anything.

“The other guns,” Morgan went on, “doubtless belonged to this Paul, and to Zachary.”

I said, “Yeah.”

Morgan said, “Let us not bullshit around anymore. You are not tourists, either of you. Spenser, I have already checked you out. Your investigator’s license was in your wallet. We called Boston and have talked about you. This gentleman,” he nodded at Hawk, “admits only to being called Hawk. He carries no identification. The Boston Police, however, suggested that a man of that description who used that name was sometimes know to associate with you. They described him, I believe, as a leg-breaker. It was not a pair of tourists who took Mr. Zachary, either. Tell me. I want to hear.”

I said, “I want to make a phone call.”

Morgan said, “Spenser, this is not a James Cagney movie.”

I said, “I want to call my employer. He has a right to some anonymity and the right to be consulted before I violate it. If I violate it.”

Morgan nodded his head at the phone on the bedside table. I called Jason Carroll. He was in. I had the feeling he was always in. Always at the alert for a call from Dixon.

I said, “This is Spenser. Don’t mention the name of my client and yours, but I have finished what we agreed I’d do and the cops are involved and they are asking questions.”

Carroll said, “I think our client will not approve of that. Are you at your Montreal address?”

“No. I’m in the hospital.” The number was on the phone and I read it off to him.

“Are you badly hurt?”

“No. I’ll be out today.”

“I will call our client. Then I will be in touch.”

I hung up. “I have no desire to be a pain in the ass,” said to Morgan. “Just give me a few hours till I talk with my client. Go out, have lunch, come back. We cleaned up something for you. We prevented a very bad scene fo you.”

Morgan nodded. “I know that. We are treating you very nicely,” he said. “You’ve had experience with the police. We don’t have to be this nice.”

From the next bed Hawk said, “Haw.”

I said, “True. Give me a few hours till I hear from my client. ”

Morgan nodded again. “Yes. Certainly. I’ll be back before dinner. ” He smiled. “There will be an officer outside your door if you need anything.”

“He got on a bright red coat?” Hawk said.

“Just for formal occasions,” Morgan said. “For the Queen, yes. Not for you.”

He left. I said to Hawk, “You really think she shot hin trying to escape?”

Hawk said, “Hell no. The minute we took off after Zachary she picked up the rifle and shot him. You know goddamned well that’s what she did.”

“Yeah, that’s my guess.”

“I don’t think they know different, though. Morgan don’t look dumb but he got nobody to swear it wasn’t like she telling it, I think. I bet everybody looking at you and me and old lovable Zach, when she done it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think that too.”

Three hours and fifteen minutes later, the door opened and Hugh Dixon came in in a motor-driven wheel chair and stopped beside my bed.

I said, “I did not expect to see you here.”

He said, “I did not expect to see you here.”

“It’s not bad, I’ve had worse.” I gestured at the next bed. “This is Hawk,” I said. “This is Hugh Dixon.”

Hawk said, “How do you do.”

Dixon nodded his head once, without speaking. Behind him in the doorway was the Oriental man who had opened doors for me the last two times. A couple of nurses looked in through the half open door. Dixon looked at me some more.

“In a way it’s too bad,” he said. “Now I have nothing.”

“I know,” I said.

“But that’s not your fault. You did what you said you’d do. My people have verified everyone. I understand they have the last one in jail here.”

I shook my head. “Nope. She’s not in it. I missed the last one.”

Hawk looked over at me without saying anything. Dixon looked at me a long time.

I said, “How’d you get here so fast?”

“Private plane,” Dixon said, “Lear jet. She’s not the one?”

“No, sir,” I said. “I missed the girl.”

He looked at me some more. “All right. I’ll pay you the full sum anyway.” He took an envelope from his inside pocket and handed it to me. I didn’t open it. “I’ve sent Carroll to the police,” Dixon said. “There should be no difficulty for you. I have some influence in Canada.”

“Get the girl out too,” I said.

Again he looked at me. I could almost feel the weight of his look. Then he nodded. Once. “I will,” he said. We were silent then, except for a faint whirr from his wheel chair.

“Carroll will take care of your medical bills,” Dixon said.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thank you,” Dixon said. “You did everything I wanted done. I am proud to have known you.” He put out his hand. We shook hands. He rolled the chair over to Hawk and shook hands with him. He said to us both, “You are good men. If you need help from me at any time I will give it to you.” Then he turned the chair and went out. The Oriental man closed the door behind him and Hawk and I were alone in the room. I opened the envelope. The check was for fifty thousand dollars.

I said to Hawk, “He doubled the fee. I’ll give you half.”

Hawk said, “Nope. I’ll take what I signed up for.” We were quiet. Hawk said, “You gonna let that little psycho loose?”

“Yeah.”

“Sentimental, dumb. You don’t owe her nothing.”

“She was a Judas goat but she was my Judas goat,” I said. “I don’t want to send her into the slaughter house too. Maybe she can stay with you.”

Hawk looked at me and said again, “Haw.”

“Okay, it was just a thought.”

“She belong in the joint,” Hawk said. “Or in the funny farm.”

“Yeah, probably. But I’m not going to put her there.”

“Somebody will.”

“Yeah.”

“And she might do somebody in ‘fore they do.”

“Yeah. ”You crazy, Spenser. You know that. You crazy.“

“Yeah.”