“Good, I’d just as soon not be carrying a slug around in the upper thigh,” I said.
“You may choose to call it that if you wish,” the doctor said, “but in point of face, my man, you’ve been shot in the arse.”
“There’s marksmanship,” I said. “And in the dark too.”
8
The doctor put a pressure bandage on my, ah, thigh, and gave me some pills for the pain. “You’ll walk funny for a few days,” he said. “After that you should be fine. Though you’ll have an extra dimple in your cheeks now.”
“I’m glad there’s socialized medicine,” I said. “If only there was a vow of silence that went with it.”
Downes showed up as the doctor was leaving. And he and I explained my situation to the gray cop and the young one. Two guys came with body bags and before they took away the bodies we looked at them. I got out my Identikit pictures and both of them were in the pictures. Neither one was out of his twenties. Or ever would be. Downes looked at the Identikit picture and the fallen kid, and nodded. “How much you get for him?”
“Twenty-five hundred dollars.”
“What will that buy in your country?”
“Half a car.”
“Luxury car?”
“No. ” Downes looked at the kid again. He had long blond hair and his fingernails were very recently clipped and clean. His still hands looked very vulnerable. “Half an inexpensive car,” Downes said.
“He ambushed me,” I said. “I didn’t lay in wait for either of them.”
“You say.”
“Oh come on, Downes. Is this the way I’d do it?”
Downes shrugged. He was looking at the traces of talcum powder still in front of the door. White partial footprints were now all over the room. “You powdered the room before you left,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“If one of them hadn’t?”
“I’d have opened the door very slowly and carefully and checked the floor inside before I went in,” I said.
“And you waited them out. Shoved the door open and stood in the corridor until they made their move.”
“Yeah.”
“Well now, you’re intrepid enough, aren’t you.”
“The very word for it,” I said.
“The problem is,” Downes said, “we can’t have you running around London shooting down suspected anarchists at random and collecting the bounty.”
“That’s not my plan, Downes. I don’t shoot people I don’t have to shoot. I’m here doing a job that needs to be done, that you people are too busy to do. These two clowns tried to kill me, remember. I didn’t shoot them because they were suspected anarchists. I shot them to keep them from shooting me.”
“Why did you powder the floor when you left?”
“Can’t be too careful in a foreign land,” I said.
“And the ad you placed in the Times?”
I shrugged. “I had to get their attention.”
“Apparently you succeeded.” A uniformed cop came in with my bag of disguises and handed it to Downes. “Found this down the corridor, sir, round the corner.”
“That’s mine,” I said. “I left it there when I discovered the assassins.”
“Assassins, is it,” Downes said. He reached in the bag and took out my wig and mustache and make-up cement. His broad placid face brightened. He smiled a large smile that pushed his cheeks up and made his eyes almost close. He held the mustache under his nose. “How do I look, Grimes?” he said to the bobby.
“Like a ruddy guardsman, sir.”
“My ass is hurting,” I said. “And I don’t think it’s the wound. ”
“Why a disguise, Spenser? Did they know who you were?”
“I think one of them spotted me yesterday.”
“And you arranged a meeting?” I didn’t want Downes at the meeting. I was afraid he’d scare off my quarry and I needed to make another contact.
“No, they just left a letter in my mailbox and when they saw me take it and read it they knew who I was. There’s no meeting yet. The letter said they’d be in touch. I think it was a setup. So I thought I’d change my appearance a bit.”
Downes looked at me silently for maybe a minute. “Well,” he said, “certainly there will be little grieving for these two. I do hope you’ll keep in touch with us as things develop. And I do hope that you do not plan to bring all of these people to justice this way.”
