It was too bad about Grofield.
Twenty-eight
Calesian fired a second time, over the falling man’s head at the guy coming out behind him. But it was a harder shot, the second target still being in the semi-darkness inside the room, and with a few seconds’ warning to start moving out of the way. He knew without looking that he’d missed, so he ran forward toward the open doors, crouching and weaving, making himself as difficult as possible to aim at.
He had come here directly after the phone conversation with Buenadella. Knowing that at least two police agencies kept routine watch on Buenadella’s house, just to have a general idea who his visitors were, Calesian had come around the back way, across several well-tended spacious rear yards, having to deal with one Great Dane along the way, and when he’d arrived here he’d gone directly to the French doors leading to Buenadella’s office. He’d almost opened the doors, but with his hands on the fancy handles he had heard voices from inside, and he’d wanted to know who it was talking to Buenadella before he showed himself.
There were spaces between the orange drapes covering the French doors on the inside; Calesian had stooped to peer through, and when he’d seen Parker he’d immediately backed away from the house, taking shelter amid the hedges so he could think things over.
So; Parker too had figured things out, but unlike Lozini, he had chosen to go directly to the top. Was he here because he wanted to find out if Buenadella was the man organizing the takeover, or was it because he already knew? Whichever it was, they were obviously just talking in there. Parker wanted his money, not a lot of corpses, so he wouldn’t shoot Buenadella. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be good for Calesian to jump him inside Buenadella’s house. Better to wait for him to come out.
Which was what he’d done. Except that it hadn’t been Parker all by himself in there; the other one, Green, had also been present, though Calesian hadn’t been able to see him in looking through the space between the drapes. And that was why Calesian had made his mistake.
If he’d known Parker and Green were both in there, he would have stayed out of sight until both men had emerged completely from the house into the outer daylight. He was fast and he was accurate, well-trained on the pistol range in the basement at headquarters, and he had no doubt he could step out from concealment and drop any two men on earth before they could reach for their own weapons. Even fast-draw artists from rodeos or movies; anybody.
But he hadn’t known about Green. So the French doors had opened, a man had come out, and Calesian had stepped out from behind the hedge to kill him, to finish him off once and for all. And it was as he was coming out, raising his arm in the formal shooter’s posture, elbow locked, entire arm and hand and gun pointing at that man’s heart, that he saw the second one coming out behind the first and realized his mistake.
And by God, they were fast. Both men were moving when he squeezed off that first shot. There wasn’t a chance in hell for the first man to get away, but the second one was still inside the house, and he moved fast, and the second shot missed.
So Calesian ran forward, crouching, weaving, and burst through the French doors to see the interior door slamming on the other side of the den. And Dutch Buenadella was on his feet behind his desk, yelling something Calesian didn’t hear and didn’t pay attention to.
Goddammit. In the house, actually inside the house, with Buenadella’s family present. The situation couldn’t be worse, but the guy couldn’t be allowed to get out of here alive. Calesian crossed the room on the dead run, yanked open the door, and something grabbed his arm, spun him backward around off balance, and shoved him away toward the side wall.
Buenadella. Calesian, flinging his arms out to get his balance back, saw Buenadella slamming the door again, and he couldn’t believe it. “Dutch!” he yelled, and surged once more at the door. “He’s getting away!”
Buenadella stiff-armed him. “God damn you son of a bitch bastard asshole, stop where you are or I swear to God I’ll rip your head off your shoulders and kick it into the street!”
The tone of voice got to Calesian more than the words. He stopped, panting, adrenalin pumping, and finally saw that Buenadella’s face was purple with rage, and that the rage was directed at him, at Calesian. “Jesus Christ, Dutch,” he said, still panting, “I could have had them both.”
“I just made a deal with them!”
Calesian blinked. He lowered the pistol in his right hand and looked dazedly around the room. “You did what?”
“A deal. You know what a deal is, you half-assed Armenian hot shot? You know what anything is except shoot people?”
“How a deal? What kind of a deal?”
“I give them their money back.”
Calesian stared at him. “I don’t believe it,” he said.
“For peace and quiet?” Buenadella was leaning forward, not exactly shouting but nevertheless pushing the words very hard into Calesian’s face. “To get my man safely into the mayor’s office? To take over from Lozini with no problems, no questions, nobody gunning for me? When I can write the whole fucking thing off to begin with, and pay out of skim money in the second place, and wind up with the Feds and Al Lozini paying the whole thing between them?”
“Goddammit, Dutch,” Calesian said, reasonably, apologetically, “how was I supposed to know that? This morning you had a contract out on them.”
“Never mind this morning. They came here, we talked sense, we made a deal.” Buenadella’s hand swept toward the body lying on the grass just outside the French doors. “And now look.”
“All I knew was, you wanted them dead.” Calesian self-consciously put his pistol away, trying not to draw attention to it in the course of the movement.
“You think everybody’s supposed to be dead,” Buenadella said in disgust. “That cop O’Hara, that was a bright stunt. And now this guy. Who else you been killing, hot shot?”
Calesian became horribly embarrassed; in fact, he felt himself blushing. “Look, Dutch,” he said, and then
