"One over behind the fence," Hawk said.

"In the weeds."

His teeth flashed very white as he grinned at the Mexican.

"Hasta la vista," he said.

"Deceit breeds deceit," I said to Marty.

"Hawk came down here, before I called you."

Beside me Anthony said, "Shoot him. You got to shoot him quick while you have the chance."

Nobody paid any attention to him.

The Mexican's small eyes shifted from Hawk to Marty to me and back to Hawk. He gave Marty one more brief sidelong glance and then turned without a word and walked back toward the street.

Marty looked after him for a moment. Beside me I felt Anthony start to take a step, and I put my hand out and gripped his arm. I shook my head. He froze.

"Hard to get good help out here," I said.

Marty shifted his gaze back at me. He glanced at Hawk standing behind the two gunmen. In the background I heard the rental car start up and the gravel scatter as it drove away.

"Okay," Marty said.

"This is the way I like it, anyway. It's down to you and me, ain't it."

"Appears so," I said.

"You got a deal, or what?"

"Couple things," I said.

"Like what?"

I said to Bibi, "This guy used to beat you up?"

"Yes," she said.

Her voice was so soft and flat it was almost inaudible.

I said to Marty, "You killed my client, Shirley."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," I said and hit him a short left hook that landed under his right eye.

Beside me I heard Bibi gasp.

I hit him the same left hook again and a straight left on the nose. Blood started. Marty clubbed at me with his right. I took the hit mostly on the left shoulder and upper arm, but even so it rocked me and my arm hurt. I circled him a little, moving toward his left, and popped in the straight left on his nose again. He bulled inside the punch and grabbed me around the waist and lifted me in the air. I brought both fists simultaneously together on each side of his head, just in front of his ears. He grunted and staggered, still holding onto me, and turned his hip and slammed me onto the ground. I landed on my back and as he came down on top of me I doubled my knee and he fell on it, and slid sideways, to my right, while I rolled sideways to my left, and onto my feet.

He scrambled onto his hands and knees and started to lunge at me and I kicked him in the head. It knocked him sideways and he went back down, landing on his right side, scrabbling away from me even as he landed. I waited. I could hear somebody's breath rasping in and out, and realized it was mine. Sweat was soaking my shirt and running down my face and arms. My hands were slippery with it, and Marty's blood. The desert seemed to have focused down to Marty and me. He got to his feet. I hit him again the straight left. He grabbed at my arm and missed, and I came in over his left shoulder with an overhand right that caught him under the left eye. I saw his knees buckle. He was still fighting but he was pawing at me. I slapped his left hand away and rolled in a right cross with all of me behind it and he went down. I waited. He got up and rushed in low at me, his head down. I kneed him in the face and he fell forward, trying to hang onto my legs as he went down. I stepped away from him and waited. He lay for a minute facedown on the hot gravel, and then he pushed himself up slowly like a man doing his hundredth push-up. I waited. He got his knees under him. Then his feet. Then he stood. Upright, but wobbly. His left eye was closed. Blood ran down his face and the front of his shirt was covered with it. I waited. He took a step toward me and pitched forward and lay motionless, facedown on the ground.

Nobody moved. Nobody said anything. The traffic went slowly by on the Strip and more distantly, and much faster, behind us, on Route 15. Bibi stepped over next to Marty and quite deliberately kicked him in the side of the head. Then she turned and looked at me.

"You used me," she said, "as bait."

"Some," I said.

"But you make a nice witness, too. You heard him say he killed Shirley."

"You better kill him," Anthony said.

"While we got the chance.

You wouldn't get in trouble. We'd all say it was self-defense."

I looked at him without saying anything. He turned toward Hawk.

"Do it," Anthony said.

"Do it now, nobody'll say anything. Shoot those two guys too, if you're worried."

Hawk looked silently at Anthony for a minute and then looked at me.

"Old Marty didn't quit," Hawk said.

"I'll give him that."

"Even if I was just a witness," Bibi said. The soft flat voice was shaking a little.

"You still used me. You think it was right to use me?"

"It was necessary," I said.

"And it worked. Sometimes I have to settle for that."

"You shouldn't have used me," she said.

CHAPTER 52

It was November and while it hadn't snowed yet, it was cold out.

Susan and I were sitting with Pearl the Wonder Dog between us on the couch in front of a fire in the kitchen of the nearly finished house we'd been working on in Concord. We had been sitting side by side, on the couch, with the potential for necking, but Pearl had weaseled herself in between us and the necking remained potential.

"The DNA match between Marty and the sperm he left in Shirley sort of settled it for him," I said.

"Were the police grateful?" Susan said.

"For cops," I said.

"Romero let Bibi walk without a word."

"How about Anthony Meeker."

"The little bastard," I said.

"He caused the whole damned mess in the first place. Starting with when he married Shirley to get at Julius's money."

"But they haven't got a crime they can convict him of?"

Pearl leaned heavily against me, and gave me a wide rough wet lap on my cheek.

"She loves her daddy," Susan said.

"She also loves where the gravel scrape is healing," I said.

"No.

He hasn't done anything they can catch him for. But Romero said they could hold him a few days as a material witness before they turned him loose. And I took the liberty of letting Julius know where he is."

Susan sat back a little and looked at me.

"God, sometimes even I forget how hard a man you are."

"He married an emotional cripple and exploited her and got her killed," I said.

"He left Bibi broke in Vegas and took off with the money that was supposed to be their start-over cash."

Pearl gave me another lap.

"Besides," I said, "I like dogs."

"So did Hitler," Susan said.

I eased Pearl away from me and got up. Pearl immediately transferred her weight to Susan. I put a couple more logs in the fireplace and went to the stove and opened the oven. There were yellow eye beans baking in an old-fashioned brown and tan pot. I put a pan of corn bread batter in to bake beside them. Then I got some Iron Horse champagne out of the refrigerator and two glasses and brought them back to the couch.

"What about the mob takeover business in Boston?" Susan said.

"Don't know," I said.

"Read that Tarone Jessup got killed, and a couple weeks later I read that two Russian immigrants from New York got dumped on Blue Hill Ave. Probably means that Tony Marcus has got to risk a tougher caretaker until he gets out."