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“He’ll come back.”
“No. He’s too conceited. He thinks if he searched the place and didn’t find what he expected to find, then it isn’t here. He wouldn’t have given up if he hadn’t been convinced. Showing a little muscle before he left—that’s just his way.”
“He’s an animal.”
“Yeah.” With cops like him, who needs gangsters? I guess if you’re far enough away from the Cutters, if you haven’t actually come under their guns, you can find all kinds of Freudian explanations for them. It’s a cop’s job to handle garbage. He has to deal with vicious, ignorant, hysterical, self-important gutter people. He sees so much casual violence he becomes indifferent to cruelty. You could look at it that way. You could, but I couldn’t. To hell with the psycho-sociological explanations. I didn’t want the Joe Cutters in the same world with me. They didn’t have any right to life.
Then, I thought, why hadn’t I used the Beretta on him? There had been a time when I understood killing. I’d have understood it, without questioning, if I’d shot Cutter, or if he’d shot me. But something along the years had taught me words—mercy, justice, responsibility, pride, dignity. I had learned the words and I didn’t understand any more. The words had turned me into a human being. Simon Crane vs. the inevitable.
I became aware of the soft rhythm of Joa
She had been through so goddamn much in a few hours. I lowered myself beside her and turned her head with one finger, at her chin. Her face hovered before me. The wind kept a mesquite branch scratching on the side of the house. I felt the faint touch of something we had once had—the soft warm, nesty feeling of love.
The lights had been off long enough; the diesel generator had stopped. I squeezed her and said, “Maybe you’ll want to stay here, I’ve got to take care of—Mike.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t be alone, Simon.”
“It’s got to be done.”
“I know. I’ll help. Oh, God, poor Mike.”
We buried Mike far back in the desert mountains, near a place where some hopeful hardrocker had tried to strike it rich. We had tugged the tarp-wrapped body out from under the diesel generator platform in back of the house. Cutter hadn’t been able to look down there while the engine was ru
It was three in the morning and the ground was full of stones under its thin layer of dusty topsoil. I ached in all my joints; every stab of the shovel into the resisting earth plunged pain through me.
I tucked the tarp around him as tightly as possible and piled high-mounded rocks over him, to keep the animals away. It didn’t matter if someone found the grave; the body could not be traced to me, now that it was away from my home. The tarp was Army surplus, ten years old; in work gloves I left no fingerprints, even if there had been surfaces smooth enough to retain them.
When it was done we both stood by the mound, not speaking. An owl drifted above the saguaro cactus and the wind rubbed itself against us, cooling the sweat on my unclad torso. I was caked with dirt; my hair was matted when I ran fingers through it. Back here in the hills it felt as if civilization was a thousand years away.
In the moonlight Joa
We reached the old rock fort before dawn. Getting out of the Jeep and letting her reel past me into the house, I said, “You’re fantastic.”
There was a trace of her old laugh, hearty and mellow—just a trace; she shook her head at me, the laugh dwindling to a wan smile. I said softly, “You’re pretty deep in my guts, you know.”
She rubbed her face with both hands, closed her eyes very tight and let them spring open. She said, “I know you don’t like coffee but you need some.” She went into the kitchen, turning on lights.
I sat down by the phone. I had to think but my brain was stu
“Jesus Christ. You know what the hell time it is, Simon?”
“I know. I’m damn sorry about it, but I’m telling you the literal truth when I say it’s a matter of life or death.”
“Crap. Whose?”
“Mine,” I said. “About Raiford and Colclough—what have you got?”
“A headache,” he said. “I waited at the office till damn near two o’clock, expecting your call.”
“What about Raiford and Colclough?”
“Neither one of them has left the city in the past forty-eight hours. They’ve been here straight through. I know it positive, because—oh, hell, you want the details?”
“No. As long as you’re sure neither one of them could have come down here for a few hours.”
“And bumped off Sal Aiello. Simon, what’s the score down there?”
“Nothing to nothing,” I said, and added with addled wit, “two hits, no runs, a million errors. Go back to sleep Jerry. Profound apologies. If I live long enough I’ll buy you a steak di
“I’ll hold you to it. Listen, Simon, is there anything I can do? I mean, this has got to be something serious, and if I can help—”
“If I think of something I won’t hesitate. Jerry—thanks.”
When I hung up I sat, drained, my hand draped forgotten over the telephone. Joa
I thought with dismal rage of Mike Farrell, maimed and murdered. Why? Had he found out something and confronted the murderer with what he knew? Had Aiello’s killer murdered him? But why the maiming, the evidence of torture? Somebody had tried to force him to talk. To talk about what? Earlier in the day I had left Mike, convinced I knew everything he knew. What piece of information was there in Mike’s story that could point to the killer who had robbed Aiello’s vault?
Images of pink Cadillacs, guns, open vaults spun kaleidoscopically through my brain. I lay back on the bed and tried to concentrate. My muscles throbbed with pain. Trying to focus my mind, I closed my eyes—and sleep struck me like a club.