'So far,' I said, 'all you've had to do is run Anthony and your wife, and you're oh for two on that. The Russians would feed you through a compactor an hour after you all took over.'
'You think so?'
'Doesn't matter,' I said.
'I'm not going to let it happen anyway.'
'You?' Marty laughed again. It sounded like claws on a tin roof.
'Spenser, you fucking kill me, you know it. You going to stop me.
You, asshole? You just delivered me the three people on the fucking planet I want to kill most.'
'Killing isn't comparative,' I said.
'I think you mean the three people you most want to kill.'
Marty ignored me.
'And you don't even know what you've fucking walked into, for cris sake 'Marty, you're not saying you set us up?' I said.
'Asshole!'
'You don't mean you sent some people down here ahead of time,' I said.
Marty frowned slightly.
'I'm shocked,' I said.
'Shocked.'
The Mexican didn't move, but I could sense a tightness in him that hadn't been there before.
Without taking his eyes off me, Marty yelled, 'Paulie.'
The door to the utility shed opened and two guys came out. One of them was leaning heavily on the other one. There was blood on his face. Hawk came out of the shed behind them. He held a big stainless-steel finish.44 Magnum loosely at his side, the barrel pointed aimlessly at the ground.
'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
