Mangrove Squeeze(96)

"Worked good enough," said Bert, "that anybody finds the tape, those bastards're goin' to the chair."

"It worked," said Sam, with wonder. "It worked. Ya see, I could still think up a gizmo."

Bert wriggled higher against the cardboard box. "How'd ya plant it, Sam?"

Sam started to answer, then stopped. He'd been smiling but now the smile went away and he fell back into his S-shaped slump. "Was supposed to help, though," he finally said. "Help Aaron and his lady-friend. Who'd it help? Wha'did it accomplish?"

"Sam, hey, the gizmo worked," said Bert." Ya can't ask more than that."

"Why not?"

Bert considered. He missed his dog, didn't seem to think as clearly without the small quivering creature in his lap. He wondered vaguely how long the dog could live after he himself was dead. He said at last, "'Cause sometimes ya do your very best and still it don't accomplish nothin'. That's just how it is."

Sam opined, "That stinks."

Bert squirmed like he was set to disagree. But he couldn't disagree. "Okay," he said. "It stinks."

They sat there a moment. The hideous music throbbed like a clot.

Bert couldn't disagree but he couldn't leave it right there either. "Stinks," he said again. "But still, ya gotta try."

Sam kept a pouty silence.

"Am I right, Sam?" Bert kept on. "Can ya tell me I'm wrong? I'm sayin' it stinks sometimes, but still, ya gotta try-."

Sam just fixed him with his soupy eyes that turned down at the outside corners.





Chapter 52


Aaron Katz had been posted at the front desk like everything was hunky-dory, as if it were a normal business day.

He sat among the potted palms and promotional brochures, shuffling papers, sorting keys, trying to keep his hands from trembling as the three invaders came trundling up the stairs; trying not to glance at Carol Lopez, who was crouched on a low stool below the level of the counter, her revolver in her hand; trying not to be furious with Gary Stubbs, who hadn't made it back in time.

The Russians came up single file, the shirtless Abramowitz leading. He moved thickly through the office door, took a couple steps along the sisal rug. Almost shyly, Markov and Cherkassky slipped in behind him and for a breathless moment no one spoke.

Aaron tried to swallow back the quaver in his voice. "May I help you?"

The Russians stalled, took time to get their bearings. Narrowed eyes flashed toward the doorway to the kitchen. "Please," said Markov, "you have a room?" The h spent a long while in his throat.

Aaron, compelled by some grotesque logic, answered the question straight. "For three?"

Then the brief charade was over and Abramowitz had pulled the gun from the back waistband of his pants. No one saw him draw it; it was just there in his hairy hand. It was pointed at Aaron's chest. He said, "Where is she, Katz?"

A bubble of sweat broke at the nape of Aaron's neck and trickled down his back. "Who?"

"Who," Cherkassky mocked. "Lazslo's whore. Where?"

In the kitchen, Suki heard it all. In her mind she fled; in her heart she surged to Aaron's side, offering up herself to save him; in fact she didn't, couldn't, move at all. She looked at the new cop, her protector; his gun was shaking in his hand like he was mixing paint.

Aaron said, "I don't know what you're—"

"Tell us or you die," said Tarzan.

"Look—" said Aaron.

And Carol Lopez picked that instant to spring up behind the counter. Her revolver cocked and poised, her shoulders broke the counter's plane the way a leaping dolphin breaks the surface of the water, and she yelled out, "Drop it!"

Tarzan Abramowitz didn't drop it. He wheeled toward the motion and he fired. The shot cracked and whistled and Carol Lopez crumpled, a red stain wicking through torn threads at the front of her shirt.

Time stopped for an instant. In that silent and airless hiatus, Aaron Katz had somehow gotten to his feet. He'd reached out for the silver service bell atop the counter. Grabbing it, he'd slung his arm back, coiled every sinew in his gut, then rocked forward, hips and chest pulling through the average arm; mechanics and control, things learned from his father, standing in for strength. The bell sprang from his hand, turning like a satellite, ringing softly as it flew. It hit Tarzan Abramowitz in the triangle between his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose, wedged briefly in a soft seam of the skull. Sinus bones knifed inward at the impact, and the huge and hairy man was stunned.

He fell back half a step, his narrow eyes lost focus behind a wall of reflex tears; and the trembling rookie ventured into the doorway from the kitchen and shot him through the heart.