both sides. The woods broke on the right to an open field bordered by a split rail fence. Constantine noticed a stable with one black horse grazing just outside its entrance. The field ended and then there were more woods, though the fence continued along the road. After a while the woods ended again to another stretch of open land, where a large brick colonial sat back a hundred yards at the end of a long asphalt drive. Polk slowed the Dodge and pulled off, stopping in front of a black iron gate bookended by two brick columns. He killed the engine and turned to Constantine.
“This shouldn’t take long,” Polk said. “Want to get out?”
“Okay,” Constantine said. “I gotta take a piss.”
They opened the doors and exited the car. Constantine unzipped his jeans and urinated into the gravel of the berm, watching Polk walk toward the gate. The old man had a deep limp, and Constantine noticed the creased toe area of his left shoe. It flapped sloppily with each step, as if it had been filled with something less substantial than bones and flesh. Constantine zipped his fly, adjusted his denim shirt, and walked onto the asphalt drive where he joined Polk at the gate.
Polk pressed a buzzer set beneath a speaker on the left brick column, keeping his eyes on the house. Constantine noticed a broad figure move into the frame of the wide second-story window that was centered above the front door and its stone portico. The figure held a pair of binoculars to its face, then disappeared. Some time passed and then a voice came from the box above the buzzer.
“Yeah?” the voice crackled.
The old man looked into the box. “Polk, here to see Grimes.”
“What can I do for you, Polk?”
“I’m here to see Grimes, Valdez. Tell him, and open the gate.”
“He’s not in.”
“Tell him, Valdez.”
There was no reply. Constantine listened to the wind rustle the leaves on the trees across the road.
The Latin-tinged voice came back, its inflection stirring a faint recollection in Constantine of the Mexicans he had known in the kitchens and bars south of Los Angeles.
“Wait there, Pops.”
Some chuckling on the other end, and then the box went dead. Polk’s face, his jaw set hard during the entire conversation, did not change.
Constantine patted his breast pocket where his pack of smokes should have been. He looked down the road at the split-rail fence that fell from view at the next curve, and he looked back at the squat brick pillars and the electronic gate. He wondered, Why the gate, when you could just hop the low wooden fence, or drive through it if you had some weight beneath the hood? He stopped wondering when he heard the front door of the house open and shut.
Two men in black suits walked slowly out toward three black cars-a Mercedes, an Olds 98, and a Cadillac- that were parked at the circular end of the asphalt drive. One of the men was tall and heavy. The other looked to be of average height, and skinny. They got into the Cadillac, the skinny man slipping in on the driver’s side. He started the car but let it run for a couple of minutes before he slopped the trans into reverse. Constantine thought that they could have walked quicker down the driveway. He shifted his feet as the Caddy rolled slowly toward the gate.
The driver stopped the car ten feet shy of the gate and touched his hand to the visor. The gate opened in, just clearing the front bumper. The engine continued to idle as the heavy one and the driver got out of the car.
Polk did not move up to meet them. They stopped walking two feet shy of Constantine and Polk, keeping their eyes on Polk. Both of them wore black ties tightly knotted into white button-down collars, with scuffed black oxfords on their feet. The heavy one had a wide brown face and a black mustache, the hairs long and thin, like the whiskers of a cat. His shirt gapped at the belly, and his neck rolled like chicken fat off both sides of his collar. But it would be a mistake to judge him as soft in any sense of the word-Constantine could see the hard bow in his chest, the callused solidity of his meaty hands, and the lazy, uncentered look of his black eyes.
The heavy one said, “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, Pops. You know what that means?”
Polk didn’t answer or nod. Constantine figured from the accent that the one doing the talking had been the voice on the box, the one Polk had called Valdez.
“’A Lifetime of Love,’” Valdez said. “Every day I forget all the shit and I sit down in front of the TV set and watch this show. Today is a special show, see, one I been waiting for. This guy they call Taurus, he’s the international spy, for a month now he’s been trying to nail this brunette, a real piece of ass by the way, like all the ones they get to fall in love with Taurus, before they leave the show to make it in the movies. Personally I figure the guy likes it up the ass in real life, on account of he’s an actor, but I root for him to get laid anyway, and today I figure he’s gonna nail the brunette. And I been waiting for this to happen, like I say, for a month.”
Polk said, “So?”
The skinny one laughed through his nose, the lines deepening on his long, gray face. A gust of wind caught the lapels of his jacket then, blowing them back to reveal the black butt of an automatic wedged into a loosely hung, brown leather shoulder holster. Constantine tried to remember if any cars had passed on the road since they had stopped at the gate.
“So,” Valdez said, “I’m a little pissed off with you right now, Pops. You’re making me miss my show, all because now we gotta do this dance, even after I told you over the radio box here that Grimes ain’t in.”
Polk nodded towards the two remaining cars parked in front of the house. “His Ninety-Eight’s in. He’s in.”
“So I’m a liar, then,” Valdez said, his eyes getting small. “Is that it?”
“Yes,” Polk said evenly. “You’re a liar.”
Valdez whipped his right hand out and struck Polk’s chest with the flat of his palm. Polk went down into the gravel of the shoulder, dust stirring into a cloud around him.
Constantine did not move toward Valdez or the skinny one, and he did not move to help the old man. Whatever this was about, it was Polk’s affair. Constantine had taken bad rides before, from drunks, zipperheads, and old homosexuals, and he knew now that he had caught a bad ride today. But the bad parts of those other rides had always passed, and if he stayed where he was, cool and alone, then this bad thing would pass as well.
Polk put his weight on his good foot and stood up straight. He brushed gravel and dust off his windbreaker and Wranglers and walked back toward Valdez without emotion. Through all of it the skinny man had not moved, and neither he nor Valdez had looked directly at Constantine.
“You can keep pushing me,” Polk said, “but I’m going to see Grimes. He owes me money.”
Valdez laughed shortly as he flicked some loose skin off the bridge of his blunt nose. “You were right, Pops. I lied. And Mr. Grimes told me you wouldn’t go away. So he said for you to come back early tomorrow. We’ll have a big meeting, talk about your money and maybe a lot more. Ten o’clock. Okay?”
Polk said, “Tell him to have the twenty grand ready, ten A.M.”
Polk turned and limped back toward the Dodge. Constantine followed, heading for the passenger side.
Valdez spoke to their backs: “By the way, who’s your sidekick?”
Polk answered, kept walking. “My friend’s name is Constantine.”
The skinny man said, “Some friend.”
Constantine slid into the car, their laughter trailing him like a dead leg. Polk got in and fired the engine, reversing the Dodge onto the two-lane without a word. He threw it in drive and headed down the road.
Valdez and the skinny man, who was called Gorman, watched the Dodge take the curve and disappear. They walked to the Caddy and got in, Gorman closing the gate with a touch to the gadget clipped onto the visor. He turned the car around without going off the asphalt and drove slowly back toward the house.
Valdez said, “Step on it, man. I want to catch the end of ‘A Lifetime of Love.’ I swear to Christ, I been waiting all month for Taurus to nail that brunette. Fuckin’ Polk.”
Gorman gave the Cadillac some gas. “What’s with the twenty grand?”
“Ancient history,” Valdez said. “A job we did six years ago. The old man, he’s a hard dick, he comes by every coupla years for this money he says Grimes owes him. We always send him on his way.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“Grimes wants to put him on the Uptown job. He’s a gimp, but he’s a good gun.”
“What if he don’t wanna go out on the Uptown job?”
“I don’t know,” Valdez said. “Grimes is getting tired of him. I think maybe this time, the old man pushes it too
