and I pay my debts… yeah… who asked you to do it?… yeah… I don't know, maybe it's personal. Can you lay off Spenser this time around? I only owe him this one, next time you can blow him into caviar, you wanna… Okay? Okay.'
He hung up the phone.
'Marty Anaheim asked them to hit you.'
'So it looks like they did what you'd have done.'
'Looks like,' Broz said.
'Except that Marty's not with Gino anymore.'
'No he ain't.'
'But he probably was,' I said, 'when the scuffle started.'
'Probably.'
Broz was obvious in his disinterest.
'You know why Marty left Gino?' I said.
'No.'
Broz drank the rest of his Wild Turkey.
'You can have Marty,' Broz said.
'Nobody will give a fuck. But stay away from me and the Russkies.'
'I'm looking for Bibi Anaheim,' I said.
Broz stood carefully and walked carefully to the bar. He poured more Wild Turkey over ice and turned, leaning against the bar the way he always had.
'What I told you is between you and me.'
'Sure,' I said.
'Your word?'
'My word.'
'Your word's good,' Broz said.
'We even now?'
'I don't know, Joe, I never said we weren't.'
'No,' Broz said, 'you never did.'
CHAPTER 46
'You figure Marty wanted to bop you 'cause you keep poking at this thing?' Hawk said.
'Yeah,' I said.
We were 33,000 feet above western Pennsylvania in the firstclass compartment (neither Hawk nor I fit well in coach) on our way to Dallas to catch a flight to Las Vegas. I had survived the takeoff again. My tray table was down. I had a scotch and soda and the cabin crew was moving along the aisle serving food.
'Don't seem too smart,' Hawk said.
'We was poking, but we wasn't getting anywhere.
'Cept the rocks jivin' in the bag. And what he think we going to do 'bout that anyway.'
'We might tell Julius,' I said.
The food service was moving closer to us. The food is almost always hideous on an airplane and I can never wait for it to get there.
'You think Julius don't know?' Hawk said.
'Might not know the details.'
'And we do?'
'Marty doesn't know what we know,' I said.
'He only knows we're pecking at it and we won't go away.'
'So how come he don't hit me?'
'Maybe figured with me gone, you'd back off. Maybe figured he'd get you next.'
Hawk sipped some champagne and thought about it.
'Nobody ever say Marty is smart,' Hawk said.
'But even he got to figure killing you going to stir things up more than they calm things down.'
'Maybe it wasn't the mob takeover stuff,' I said.
A stewardess with big blonde hair put a tray of food on my table. Her name tag read CHERYL. I took a bite. Hawk looked over as I chewed.
