The Vig

Chapter Twenty-six

You can’t shoot me.”

“I can’t?”

“Please God don’t shoot us!” D.C. said.

Hardy grabbed the sheet that covered Rusty and threw it toward D.C. “Wrap yourself up and sit down,” he said. He motioned to a chair with his head and leveled the gun at Rusty, now back up against the headboard, naked, covering himself. “I’m sorry, where were we?”

“You’ll never explain the gun.”

“This gun? The one you stole from me in San Francisco?”

“What’s he saying?”

Both men ignored her. Hardy continued. “You mean the gun we fought over and it went off by accident? This gun?”

“They’d never believe that.”

“I think they might if a San Francisco cop came down and said you were already a murderer.”

“Rusty, what’s he saying?”

Hardy glanced at the girl, shivering and huddled in the chair. “About four hours ago your friend Rusty here pushed me off a very high cliff.”

She looked at Hardy as though he were a madman. “No. He was here all night. I remember, you both were driving in the car with me and-”

“Wrong,” Hardy said. “You passed out. We went for a nightcap and Rusty tried to kill me.”

She looked at Rusty. “What’s he saying?”

Rusty shrugged. “Diz, give it up. What are you gonna do?”

Hardy drew it out one word at a time. “I am going to bust your ass.” He cocked the gun. “I hate to be so melodramatic, but get some clothes on, Russ.”

“You can’t do this,” D.C. said. “This is kidnapping or something. He was here. I know he was here.”

Hardy kept the gun on Rusty. He moved closer and kicked the bunch of clothes that were next to the bed into the middle of the room. “You gonna need help, with your bad arm and all?”

Rusty flexed his bandaged arm, grimacing. “I’ll need the sling.”

“Pants first,” Hardy said. He felt the pockets, checking for a weapon, then threw them onto the bed.

Ingraham was silent.

“Remember that woman-Maxine-I mentioned earlier? Last night. The friend of Rusty’s, just a friend?”

She nodded.

“Rusty here killed her. He shot her three times. Close up. With a small-caliber gun. She crawled about twenty feet before she died. I bet that was a long twenty feet.”

It was D.C.’s turn to be silent.

Hardy threw Rusty his shirt. “And that horrible gaff wound in his arm? You ever been on a real fishing boat, Rusty? There’s no mate in the universe will use a gaff to help a human being pull up. Good basic idea, though, given short notice to come up with it. Creative.” Hardy was back at D.C. “He needed something to explain the wound through his arm, since what he in fact did was shoot himself to make it look like someone had killed him. His blood all over the place. A trail of it leading to the edge of his barge, where it disappeared into the foaming brine.”

“You’ve got it all figured, don’t you?” Ingraham said.

“Yep.” Hardy was curt. “Shoes,” he said. He thought of his own aching feet. “Better yet, no shoes. Get up.”

“Is this all true?” D.C. had pulled her feet up under her on the chair, tucking the sheet in all around.

“This is the gospel,” Hardy said. “Let’s go, Russ.” He threw him the sling and Rusty draped it around his neck. Then he leaned over and reached for one of his shoes. Hardy took quick but careful aim and fired. In the room, the shot was a bomb blast. The pair of shoes exploded. There was a gash in the floor and plaster fell from the wall where the bullet had ricocheted up and through. Hardy smelled the cordite. D.C. screamed, then settled into a quiet sobbing.

“Jesus, Hardy. You’re crazy.”

“No, but I am a little pissed off. No shoes.”

He went to the door, opening it, pointing the gun at Rusty. “We’d better move. I imagine that woke up some of the neighbors.” He clucked, looking at D.C. “Horrible the way these Mexican kids will just go shooting off barrel bombs at all hours. Right? You understand?”

The girl, terrified, nodded. Hardy said he hoped so.

Rusty was at the door. Hardy looked back in at D.C. “This is really happening,” he said. “And what I want you to do now is sit in that chair until you’ve counted very slow to three hundred. Don’t open the door for anybody. Don’t make any noise. Don’t do anything. Do you understand?”

She nodded again and Hardy closed the door. Other doors around the complex were opening. Hardy kept the gun out of sight under his windbreaker. He was grinning.

“This is fun, isn’t it? Now we’re going to walk briskly to that car next to yours, looks like a Jeep, and get in and drive away into the sunrise. Is the plan clear? Because if it’s not, a mistake could happen.”

“Look, Diz, I’ve got a lot of money, maybe we can-”

“Maybe, but let’s talk later. Perhaps we’ll do lunch.”

The thing about running around is sometimes you didn’t take the time to think.

Abe Glitsky wasn’t running now. He had had three hours alone on the plane, three hours to sort facts without interruption. Now, beginning their descent into Acapulco, he was drinking a glass of papaya juice over ice and wondering how he had let himself slip so far in the past couple of weeks.

He imagined it had been a function of all the b.s. at the Hall, the pissing and moaning about the bureaucratic aspects of the job. Wondering whether Lanier’s cases intersected with his, wanting to close the book on investigations just because he didn’t want them outstanding when he left.

If he left.

He was thinking now, with Ingraham alive, what that did to his neat little package regarding Maxine Weir’s death. After Hector Medina’s suicide, or apparent suicide, it had all seemed clear. He hadn’t given that case a thought during his four days in Los Angeles, he was so satisfied with what must have happened.

He had chosen to accept that Medina’s grudge against Ingraham had been reawakened by his involvement with the Raines/Valenti investigation. He had hired Johnny LaGuardia to go kill Rusty. LaGuardia had somehow-ah, how easily that ‘somehow’ slid down when you wanted to get around something-gotten hold of Ray Weir’s gun and used it to shoot Rusty and Maxine, whose presence there was just bad luck for her. Finally, since LaGuardia was the only thing tying Medina to the crime, Medina aces Johnny. But once Abe Glitsky shows up, already suspecting Medina, he sees that he’s about to be accused again, there’ll be another murder investigation-his job will go, his reputation, the same thing that happened before-and he can’t take it anymore so he jumps from the roof of the Sir Francis Drake.

All plausible, but now, with Ingraham not dead, with Ingraham trying to kill Hardy, a good possibility that none of it was true.

Which left the reality of Johnny LaGuardia with a bullet in his brain. And Medina? Maybe still a suicide, but maybe not. He crunched some ice as the plane descended.

He was the one who had given Hector Medina’s name to Angelo Tortoni. Smart, Abe, he thought disgustedly, real smart. So what he’d really done was to provide a Mafioso with a way to apparently cover for the execution of his own lieutenant. He had told Tortoni he suspected Medina. So how about this, Abe? Tortoni has one of his sons go and push Medina off a roof. Case closed, courtesy of your local SFPD.

And Glitsky had somehow-again, that word-chosen to ignore or forget what he realized was a major psychological truth about Hector Medina. As the sole support of a semi-retarded daughter, he wasn’t ever going to kill himself. Medina would tough it out no matter what. He hadn’t liked Medina-he was a bad cop-but he was no quitter. He wouldn’t run from another investigation. He’d fight it the way he’d gone back for Raines and Valenti. He might fight dirty. He might lie, cheat, steal, do violence, but Medina wouldn’t run, wouldn’t cop out-wouldn’t kill himself.

But Abe had swallowed that he had done just that -because it was convenient, because it closed his caseload -like it was sweet sweet candy.

San Francisco cases again.

His city. His turf.

He knew why he was down here. He was a San Francisco cop, and Rusty Ingraham was, as he had told Flo, his collar. His. Personally.

“How much money?” Hardy asked.

Rusty Ingraham’s feet were belted to the leg of Hardy’s bed at the El Sol. Hardy sat in the reading chair, the shades drawn, gun in hand, trying to keep awake.

His own foot was throbbing and he felt the unmistakable onset of fever. He didn’t want to, but if Abe didn’t show up in about an hour he was going to have to try and figure some way to get the Mexican police involved and avoid getting himself arrested for having a gun. Because if he didn’t have the gun on Rusty, even for a minute, Rusty would be gone.

What made it worse was that Rusty had slept for over two hours after they’d gotten here. With his feet on the ground, belted hard to the bedpost, he had simply put his back on the bed and was snoring in five minutes.

Hardy had ordered a pot of coffee from the lobby and opened the door a crack to take it in. Rusty hadn’t stirred.

Now Rusty half reclined on his good elbow, eyes sharp, alert. “Close to fifty thousand.”

It amazed Hardy. This guy would lie to his dying mother. “What happened to the other thirty-five?” he asked.

It took Rusty a minute. “Jesus, you do know everything.”

Hardy nodded. “I know Maxine’s check was for eighty-five grand and her husband didn’t see any of it.” Hardy took a few minutes telling him the other things he knew, what he’d really done since Rusty had turned up missing.

“I’m impressed. You really floated out the canal, checking the current?”

“I wasted a lot of time. Not just that.”

Rusty didn’t seem nervous anymore, even seemed to be enjoying himself, reminiscing. “I probably should have just left you out of the plan, but I needed somebody who was out of the loop and still had access to it. I mean, we-you and I-weren’t exactly buddies anymore. They’d believe you.”

“I think they were coming around to it.”

“So why didn’t you just let it go?”

Hardy couldn’t think what to say. It was like trying to explain red to someone who was color-blind. He could just hear himself saying, “Because it wasn’t true, because I almost shot my best friend, because you had me scared to death for a week, because of Frannie and Jane…” He poured the last of the coffee, bitter and tepid. And then Rusty would say, “So what?”

“The one thing I don’t understand,” Hardy said instead, “was how come you didn’t just pay off. You had the money. I mean, even before Maxine came over, you had -what?-twenty-five grand? So give the five or six to Johnny LaGuardia, you’re out of the hole, forget about it.”

Rusty didn’t even have to ponder. “You don’t forget about it, Diz. You don’t ever get out. You know how much I paid fucking Angelo Tortoni over the past five, six years? How about five hundred to a thousand a week for like two hundred and fifty weeks? That’s the vig alone, like a quarter million bucks. And his people seeing everything, so every case I settle, every horse I hit, Johnny’s there with his hand out. You know what that’s like? Three grand, four grand a month down the drain?” He shook his head. “There’s no way I give him another dime. Then Maxine comes around, there’s that much more. Girl always did have lousy timing.”

“So she was just an afterthought? Killing her?”

Rusty shrugged. “Hey, no way I take her with me. Number one, she can’t keep her mouth shut-she tells one of her friends, her husband, somebody, and next thing you know Johnny’s down here putting me in a blender. Plus, Diz, you know.”

“I know what?”

“Women. You know, you get to a certain point…”

“You kill them?”

Rusty laughed. “Hey, the thing is, we’re here. I’ve got the money. You get maybe twenty-five-”

“I get maybe whatever I want. I might take it all. Where is it?”

“No, no, no. See? Then I lose my leverage.”

Hardy cocked the gun. The guy had colossal balls. “Your leverage position is weak at the moment, Russ. Where’s the money?”

He just shook his head. “Nope. You shoot me, you don’t get it anyway. You take me back for trial and I’ll need all of it for my defense.”

“What defense? Tortoni finds out you’re alive and you’re meat anyway.”

“I’m thinking the best thing to do, if it comes to it, is to turn state’s evidence against Tortoni, cop a plea, turn the thing around.”

Hardy uncocked the gun. “You’re an impressive piece of work, Rusty. You got a lock murder-one with Maxine. You also tried to kill me and I’m not inclined to let it go.”

“Why not, Diz? No, I mean it. It wasn’t personal. I like you. So I pay for your inconvenience, I disappear someplace else and we forget the whole thing.”

“We forget you tried to kill me?”

“Right.”

“We forget you set up Louis Baker, using me to do it, fucked up the rest of his life?”

Rusty Ingraham rolled his eyes. “Oh, please.”

“He’s just a dirtbag nigger ex-con anyway, right?”

“At best.” He sat up, leaning forward on the bed. “Come on, Diz. What’d I do to the guy he didn’t deserve anyway? He should have done his thirteen for what we put him down for. They let him out after nine, that’s their problem. Fuck Louis Baker. Even thirteen years wasn’t enough. They should have thrown away the key.”

“I think they will with you, Rusty. How’s that grab you?”

Rusty shook his head, smiling. “I think it’s unlikely. Listen, Diz. Who knows but me and you what really happened? I guarantee you Baker was there. So he shot Maxine and me. I’m hit but I get away. It still all works. I give you half the money.”

“And the white man walks?”

Rusty raised his good hand, gesturing, still smiling, conspiratorial. “It’s not black or white,” he said. “It’s who I am and who Baker is.”

Hardy emptied his coffee cup in a long swallow. “That’s right, Russ. That’s exactly what it is.”

After he’d shown up at Hardy’s room at the El Sol, Abe had gone out and bought a length of rope, a pair of cheap sandals for Rusty and some over-the-counter tetracycline. Mexico was different that way.

Hardy had said he couldn’t do anything until he’d gotten a little sleep, so Abe had moved Ingraham, over his polite objections, tying him elbows and knees to a chair while Hardy took his pills and crashed on the bed. Ingraham had spoken little, pretty beat himself. He showed no inclination to deny killing Maxine Weir. And eventually dozed off.

So Abe had spent the afternoon on the terrace, reading Loren Estleman’s Bloody Season and wondering how Wyatt Earp had ever acquired such a good reputation. Every ten minutes he checked through the double doors.

At a little after three he had finished his book and awakened Hardy. He had a fever but he was okay. He had taken some more pills. They sat across from each other on the terrace.

“Okay,” Abe said. “Now what?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me.”

Abe sat back and sucked some air through his front teeth. “You want to drive him back, all of us?”

“Three days, small car. I don’t know how I’d be,” Hardy said. “I have felt better.” He thought a minute. “Isn’t there any way they can hold him here?”

Abe shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not here officially. I can’t arrest him.”

“But they can arrest him down here, can’t they?”

Abe’s scar tightened through his lips. “There is a rumor that anybody can be arrested here for anything. A humble and cooperative California police officer, such as myself, for example, could probably speak to the locals and arrange something.” Abe stood up, yawning, and glanced back inside. “He’s tied up good, Diz. Let’s go down by the pool.”

The reason they had never taken him was they weren’t too smart.

Okay, they had the gun, but a weapon doesn’t do you any good if you can’t use it. Hardy taking that shot this morning had rattled him a little, made him forget where they were for a while. It was possible that maybe Hardy was crazy enough to shoot him and the consequences be damned.

But now, with Glitsky here, it wasn’t going to happen. Glitsky was a good cop and he was going to try to arrest him and have him held until they could get the extradition together. At least, that’s what they’d said, with the door open, thinking he was still sleeping. Not too smart.

It was surprisingly comfortable with the pillow and the blanket. Rusty reviewed his options.

When they untied him they’d probably manhandle him away into Hardy’s car and, even if it was a long trip, that would be their only choice. Well, he didn’t want to spend three or four days tied up, heading back to the border.

On the other hand, he could pretend to cooperate, be docile, let them bring him to the Mexican police, and then gently point out that Messrs Glitsky and Hardy here were the ones that had kidnapped him. And see? Look at this! They are illegally armed!

Don’t you Mexican authorities look with extreme displeasure upon civilians with guns, especially foreign civilians, most especially big-shot United States policemen coming down here doing their extralegal we-don’t-need-no-stinking-badges extradition bullshit without okaying it up front? Any good macho jefe would likely be outraged at the imperialistic arrogance of it all.

No question. They’d take it up with Hardy and Glitsky first.

It was a far better chance than the drive.

They wouldn’t hold him on Glitsky’s say-so after that. There wasn’t even a warrant for him in the States. Did they forget he knew this stuff? I’m a lawyer, fellas, this is what I do.

He smiled under the blanket.

Hardy and Glitsky were coming back into the room, Hardy saying, “It’s still risky.”

Glitsky prodded him with his shoe, pulled the blanket off him.

Rusty moaned, stirred, made a good show of it. “That was a good rest,” he said. “What time is it?”

They sat alfresco in the late afternoon, three American tourists at a table on the Esplanade, looking out at the bay, the bodies in swimsuits, the beggars. Hardy carried his gun, loaded, tucked into his belt under his windbreaker.

They were all eating shrimp cocktails and drinking draft Heineken. Rusty said he’d pay for it from his winnings the day before. He was well rested, in apparent high spirits.

Hardy excused himself to go to the bathroom.

“I appreciate the last meal,” Rusty said.

Abe nodded, noncommittal. “Your nickel.”

“I’ve heard stories about Mexican jails, you know. Where it’s just like a hotel. I mean, you buy your food, have women sent in, same as a hotel. Just depends on how much money you have.”

Abe sucked the meat from the tail of a shrimp. “That’s nice,” he said. “And you’ve got money, right?” He drank some beer. “Though I don’t think you’ll be there too long.”

“Yeah, well, you gotta make the best of the cards you’re dealt.”

Glitsky didn’t pay much attention. He ate as though he was hungry. Hardy came back up to the table.

“You got him?” Abe asked.

Hardy nodded and Abe got up. “Later,” he said.

“Personable guy,” Rusty said, looking after him. “Very personable.”

Hardy picked up his fork. “I don’t think he likes you.”

With two shrimp cocktails, two beers and a cup of coffee inside him, Rusty felt good, but Hardy wasn’t being much company. Abe had been gone about a half hour. Rusty moved his chair back into the shade of the umbrella over their table. It was still hot, but the sun was moving lower.

“What’s taking him so long?”

“Think about it? You in a hurry?”

Rusty smiled. “No, I guess not. But he could’ve just taken me straight in.”

“Not really. He had a little explaining.” He looked up the street. “Here they come.”

A couple of guardia with their green uniforms and submachine guns were following a few steps behind Glitsky. Next to him walked a very tall, skinny man in a black suit, white shirt, electric-blue tie.

“A regular party,” Rusty said.

The guardia stood on the sidewalk. Glitsky and the tall man pulled up chairs. “This is Lieutenant Mantrillo,” Abe said. He turned to Hardy. “We’ve been having a nice talk.”

Up close, Mantrillo’s face was sallow and pocked. He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and threw them onto the table. Several other patrons looked over.

“Do you speak English?” Rusty asked.

Mantrillo nodded. “Pretty good.”

He smiled and pointed a finger at Hardy. “This guy’s got a gun on him. Right now. Under that jacket.”

Mantrillo’s black eyes flared in his sad face. Good, Rusty thought, it was the reaction he had hoped for. Mantrillo turned to Hardy, back to Glitsky, who shook his head wearily.

“He came with us voluntarily,” Abe said, “like I told you.”

Rusty was getting into the performance. He shook his head back and forth. “No! Check him! I came with them because I thought it was my only chance to get away from them. They’ve had a gun on me all day!” Rusty met Mantrillo’s eyes. “Lieutenant, they’ve got the gun. They’re breaking your laws, not me.”

Damn, he was thinking, I am good. Just like in court. He looked again at Hardy. “Please, check him.”

Mantrillo didn’t have to move. Hardy stood up, unsnapped a few buttons, and lifted his jacket away from his body. He turned all the way around. “Lieutenant, I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Hardy said. He looked down at Rusty. “Too many beers, buddy. Ain’t no gun here.”

Mantrillo was pushing up, reaching for the handcuffs.

“Let’s go,” he said. “We will get the…”

But it was impossible! Hardy had the gun. He had been with him the whole time except…

“The bathroom!” he cried out. “He left it in the bathroom!”

Hardy smiled at him. Rusty whirled, or tried to whirl, to run back and check for himself-Hardy had stashed the gun to set him up for this-but Mantrillo grabbed him by his good wrist.

He heard Glitsky say, “The poor boy’s deluded.”

Mantrillo was starting to pull him around, get the other wrist. “Let’s go.” Roughly now.

He pulled back, came free. “No! No, you can’t do this-”

He backed up into another table. The customer turned around. “Hey, watch it!”

Hardy was coming around the side of him, cutting him off. He stepped forward and grabbed a knife from the table with his good hand. He tipped the table up, spilling everything, shoving it at Glitsky and Mantrillo. He swung the knife at Hardy. The guardia had come up into the eating area, behind Mantrillo. There was only one way out through the other tables, and Rusty broke for it, vaulting the low fence, sprinting up the sidewalk.

With the confusion around the tables, Rusty got a good start. Mantrillo blew on his whistle. The two guardia were pounding down the pavement after him, blowing their own whistles, blocking the crowd aside. Several people were on the ground.

Hardy, his foot killing him, was trying to keep up behind Mantrillo and Glitsky. More guardia had appeared from the narrow streets leading back into the city.

It was too crowded. There was a sound like firecrackers and screaming ahead, people lying down now, getting off the sidewalk onto the sand. Far ahead of him a sea of bodies still was visible, parting to let the runners through.

Now Hardy saw Rusty, maybe a hundred yards ahead, suddenly appear on the beach. The crowd on the sidewalk must have pushed him out into the open. Either that, or Rusty thought they were slowing him down. Breaking his stride, slogging through the sand, Rusty threw a glance over his shoulder, around the sunbathers and vendors.

Glitsky and Mantrillo were twenty yards in front of him, now crossing the sand themselves. Hardy took the short fall off the pavement. A dozen guardia were crossing the beach.

Rusty got to the hard sand near the water and turned, backtracking, up toward Hardy. But that area had pretty much cleared with everybody coming up to see what all the excitement was about. Rusty ran along, silhouetted against an orange evening sky on the nearly deserted stretch of beach.

More firecrackers seemed to be going off everywhere, and Rusty cut into the water, back up, running with his legs high.

Another burst cut a line in the sand coming up to him, and he stopped, abruptly. He started to raise his hand up, his other hand, the one in the sling. He half turned, and a string of cherry bombs went off fifty yards up the beach to Hardy’s right.

Rusty Ingraham lay in a heap. When Hardy got to him, Mantrillo and Glitsky were kneeling on the sand. The lieutenant had turned him onto his back, and the wash of a wave was retreating from him in a pink foam.

“The dumb shit,” Glitsky said.

Hardy took the weight off his hurt foot and went down to one knee.

Rusty opened his eyes. He stared at the sky, gradually focused on Hardy. “Hey, Diz,” he said, “don’t let ’em tell you gamblers always die broke.” He tried his courtroom smile.

“I’m loaded.”

“Where is it, Rusty?” Hardy asked. “The money?”

He closed his eyes, opened them. “I tell you, I lose the leverage,” he said. He started to laugh, then coughed once.

His face froze in that rictus, and then his eyes, still open, weren’t seeing anything.