Shotgun Lullaby (A Conway Sax Mystery) (32 page)

He was a gunman. A pro.

He knew his odds were rotten if he tried a shot from this distance with a handgun.

Still, I spread my feet. What I've found, guys firing downhill shoot low. A wide stance gave me a better chance that if Boxer did try, his round would zip between my legs.

He made his crooked smile again. “That a pistol? Or a toy for Emma?”

“It's not much of a pistol,” I said. “But then, it doesn't have to be.”

“You wouldn't.”

“I'll say it again. That one means as much to me as this one does to Pundo.”

“Well it's a Mexican standoff, then, isn't it?”

We stood that way. I caught Boxer cutting his eyes to his right, my left, and that icy feeling ran through my rib cage again. It's the feeling you get when you're exposed, a target. The feeling that makes you hunch over without knowing exactly why.

The look told me Boxer thought he had help. And that the help was probably positioned on loading docks a hundred yards to my left. It made sense: Boxer could've dropped a man there on his way in from the main road. It would explain why he hadn't driven past while I stashed my truck.

It hit me full: Boxer was stalling, hoping for long-gun help that for whatever reason hadn't come.

“The shotgun you're after,” I said. “You used it at Almost Home. Then you used it on Gus. Then you planted it on Crump. You thought you were packaging everything up in a way the cops couldn't resist. But something went wrong. What?”

Half-beat pause, then: “The fucking weapon that wound up in Crump's fucking truck hadn't been fired in five fucking years is what went wrong.”

“How'd you manage to screw that up?”

“You tell me, friend.”

Click.

It hit me hard.

I told him nothing. But I knew.

Spurnings and strikings.

Matching Western duds. Matching Harleys. Matching BMWs.

Matching shotguns. The best in the world, made by a little Czech the Feds couldn't stand but couldn't touch.

Peter and Rinn.

Well well well.

The surge of knowing lasted maybe ten seconds. Then Emma clucked and shifted, and I looked down at her.

And saw the joke pistol against her temple, where I'd laid it.

And the eye-exam paddle fell away.

And everything left me but shame.

I hot-potatoed the gun across the weedy lot, shifted to hold Emma in both arms, looked up at Boxer.

My knees began to shake.

“What are we
doing
?” I said.

“We're doing what we do.”

I shook my head. “I'm not. Look, I didn't know about this shotgun deal until you told me just now. Never heard about any second gun, don't have a damn clue where it might be. Can't help you. Do what you need to do. But Jesus, leave the girls out of it.”

I half-turned, put finger and thumb in my mouth, cut loose with a whistle, made a come-here gesture.

Boxer said, “What gives, friend?”

I ignored him. Randall started across the lot, but I exaggerated a headshake. He stopped, pointed at Haley. I nodded. She started toward us at a dead sprint.

I turned back to Boxer. His gun still pressed Sophie's cheek. Her legs were shaking. Like mine.

“I'm going to pass the baby to the nanny,” I said. Was surprised at the calmness of my voice. It was a hell of a time to feel serene, but I did.

“Then,” I said, “I'm going to walk up those steps and take Sophie from you. Then we'll all walk away, and you can deal with your problems and I'll deal with mine.”

Boxer cut his eyes to his right one more time. Maybe it hit him that the cavalry had chickened out, because his shoulders dropped an inch. When he spoke again, he seemed tired. “'Fraid it can't happen that way. If you make the mistake of walking up these steps, I'm going to wait for a nice, easy shot. Then I'm going to drop you.”

Sneakers slapped. Haley, panting, was at my left shoulder. I passed her the baby without turning, heard the sneakers retreat.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” I said.

“Come again?”

“Never mind. Here's the thing: if it plays out your way and you drop me, you don't need Sophie. Can we agree on that?”

“You're jumping ahead, Sax. You're skipping around. What you need to do is think about getting me my shotgun.”

I sighed.

And looked Boxer in the eye.

And stepped up.

Then again.

“That's far enough, friend.”

Fucking
frind
. “Where are you from?” I said. “Australia?”

“Given present circumstances, I'll ignore the insult. I hail from South Africa.”
Seth Efrica
.

I took two steps. “You're a pro. Once you take care of me, you don't need Sophie. And you
know
you don't need her.”

“Don't force me,” Boxer said, taking the 9 from Sophie's cheek and aiming at me.

“Conway, don't!” Sophie said.

“Shush,” I said.

And took two steps.

My relationship with Boxer was shifting with each stair climbed. My altitude began to match his. His features came into focus. He was overtanned. He would get skin cancer someday.

I walked. I felt serene. I felt ready.

I felt pure.

I was a dozen steps from the top.

Then ten.

“
Con
way,” Sophie said, sobbing.

Eight steps to go. Boxer's belt buckle was brass and shaped like Texas. Go figure.

Half a dozen steps to go.

“For Christ's ever-loving sake,” Boxer said. “Have it your way.”

He firmed up his stance.

He raised the 9.

He sighted down it.

His eyes were green. I hadn't noticed that before.

I spread my arms wide, giving him as much center-mass target as he could ask for, and took one more step. My gaze did not drop.

He began to squeeze the trigger.

The gunshot wasn't as loud as I'd expected.

Sophie screamed.

I froze.

I felt nothing. I didn't hurt.

I looked down at my chest.

Huh?

I grabbed the neck of my T-shirt. I ripped all the way down its front.

No blood.

Sophie screamed again.

I looked up.

Boxer's chest had exploded.

He toppled toward me.

He hit facedown.

He slid a few steps, stopping at my feet.

Now I saw the small entrance wound heart-high on his back.

I looked up a third time.

In the grand doorway of the shut-down mill, holding at his side a big-ass handgun with a suppressor as long as a paper-towel roll, stood Charlie Pundo.

Who apparently knew how to check voice mail after all.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“You took out the sniper?” I said to Pundo. I was breathing hard—each of us had taken one of Boxer's legs, and we were dragging him deep into the mill.

“Sure,” he said. “I took one look and saw the punk had to be on the loading docks. He never knew what hit him.”

“Was it the one with the red beard?”

He nodded. “How'd you know?”

“I totaled the other one's hand.”

“You did, didn't you? That seems like a long time ago.”

We towed the body into a massive room with skylights and angled toward a pair of four-by-eight-foot doors set in the floor. Pundo took a ring at one end of one door, indicated I should do the same at the other end.

Given its size and the fact it was sheet steel, the door opened with ease that surprised me. Must have some sort of counterweight system. It also had a detent that let it stay open when we let go of our rings.

I looked down. At nothing. No light, anyway. The pit below might be twelve feet deep or a hundred and twenty.

Its smell just about knocked me over.

Pundo didn't let on that he noticed the stench. He came around to my side. He took an arm. I took a leg.

“On three,” he said.

We tossed the body. Pundo closed the huge door on his own, then dry-wiped his hands like he'd just taken the kitchen trash to the garage. I took a quick inventory, realized I felt the same way. Didn't much like myself for it. But then, today's list of things I didn't like myself for was a long one.

“You've done this before,” I said. “With all the other nightclub owners, I guess.”

Pundo ignored the nightclub crack. “Sure, I've been here. How do you think
he
knew about the place?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I told him is how. FBI ever opens that door, twenty agents'll make their careers.”

We hustled out the mill's smashed front door and took in the scene.

Randall had deputized himself. He'd made the two-shot pistol disappear and had done what he could—not much, but more than nothing—with Boxer's blood. Now he stood at the Biletnikov SUV, which he'd pulled to the base of the steps. Haley sat in its backseat, bottle-feeding Emma. Next to that vehicle sat a green Subaru Forester. It didn't strike me as much of a gangster ride, but it had to be Pundo's—Randall had found it while we'd done body disposal.

Sophie stood away from Randall, away from the cars, away from everybody. She stood by herself. Hugging her sides, even on a warm late afternoon, even in a cheer sweater. Her legs still shook.

She stared up at me.

Before today, Sophie'd seen a lot. More than any thirteen-year-old should see.

But she'd never seen a man she loved lay a pistol to the head of a baby.

Could I ever get her back?

Pundo was saying something, looking at me funny.

I said, “Huh?”

“You think she'll come back with me?”

“Who?”

“The nanny. Haley.”

“Why do you want her to?”

“I'm not letting Emma out of my sight. Not after today, not for a good long time. I'll take her myself if I have to, but it's better for everybody if the nanny comes along.”

“Emma and Rinn,” I said. “They're what you wanted.”

“They're
all
I wanted. Since the first time Rinn came in the club. She
does
something. She's
got
something. She's … she's worth the shame. You know?”

“But you're letting her stay with Peter. You're letting the world believe your kid is his.”

“If that's what Rinn wants.” He shrugged.

I said nothing.

We stood there, side by side.

With the sun low behind the mill, fun-house shadows stretched nearly across the parking lot.

“Your daughter,” I said. “Emma. If I'd seen any other way.”

“I should kill you for that.”

“The way Emma is to you?” I said. “Sophie's that way to me.”

“I get it. And you didn't make the first wrong move.
They
did, when they snatched her.”

I nodded. “Teddy and Boxer.”

“Who's Boxer?”

I'd forgotten that wasn't his name. It didn't matter much now.

“Never mind,” I said.

Pundo said, “You know what I ought to be madder about? But can't get worked up about?”

I knew what he was going to say. His son. I'd guillotined him, then left him to burn.

“My club,” Pundo said. “Specifically, my record collection. I was due to have a fire wall and better sprinklers installed next month.”

Holy shit.

Charlie Pundo didn't know his son was dead.

That was fine.

Better than fine. It was likely the reason Boxer was dead and I wasn't.

But you never know.

Losing a son like Fat Teddy Pundo wasn't like losing most sons.

Maybe Charlie didn't know because he didn't want to know.

He was staring at me. When he spoke, he sounded tired. “Don't deny you torched the place, Sax. Don't try for clever. You're half-clever, which is the worst. You're like a guy who's almost a good chess player. But only almost. You burned my club because you thought I burned your garage.”

I said nothing.
Keep thinking that way, Charlie.

He said, “You know who burned your fucking garage?”

I said nothing.

“The Andrade kid, the sad sack you crippled, then hired 'cause you felt guilty. I believe you AA types call it making amends.”

Andrade.

Black, red, black.

“The sad sack's been coming around the Hi Hat damn near every night,” Pundo said. “He got wind you and I were beefing, and I guess he was smart enough to hope the enemy of his enemy would be his friend.”

Of course.

Pundo was right: I was half-clever. On a good day.

“Every night,” he was saying. “Bending Teddy's ear, talking big about making you pay, about hitting you where you live. From me he wanted a pat on the head, or a cookie, or some damn thing. Teddy finally told him to beat it.” Another half laugh. “How'd those amends work out for you?”

Down below, Randall clapped his hands twice and made a can-we-get-on-with-it gesture.

Pundo and I walked down the steps. “Haley will come with you,” I said. “She'll do whatever's best for the baby. You can bet on it. You're in luck there.”

I was right. Pundo and I tag-teamed Haley. At first, she didn't want to believe he was Emma's father. Once we convinced her—once Pundo convinced her how much he cared for the kid—she took diaper bag and baby seat and switched over to the Subaru without hesitation. She had tunnel-vision love for Emma.

I strapped the baby seat in Pundo's car, following Haley's instructions. When she declared it secure, she looked at me and said, without any change of expression, “You are an
awful
man.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You act like you're helpful. You act like Mister Troubleshooter. But you are
awful
.”

“Yes,” I said.