tunnel flooded. They wanted to put the lady on display for the local folks, but they had lost their minerals claims to the banks, and they had more to worry about than museums and such. Luckily for the lady, she sat up here where you see her, good as new, or she will be once we polish her up. We got the patents and the mineral rights to this mine, and the big queen is made of minerals found herein.”
“ What are you saying, that you own this thing?”
“ Free and clear, and I got the paperwork to prove it.” In a singsong voice, Blinky intoned, “Know all men by these presents that Rocky Mountain Treasures Inc. has located and claimed by right of discovery and location, in compliance with the Mining Acts of Congress approved May 10, 1872, and all subsequent acts, and with local customs, laws and regulations, seventeen hundred and fifty linear feet and horizontal measurement on the Silver Queen, No. 3, with all its dips, angles and variations as allowed by law, and all veins, lodes, ledges or deposits, and surface ground within the lines of said claim, blah, blah, blah. What I’m saying, Jake, is we got one hundred percent legal title to a fat lady worth millions.”
“ We?” I said. “As in you and your sister.”
“ No, we, as in you and me. You got ten percent of the company, remember.”
“ What about Jo Jo?”
“ You tell me, Counselor. She killed Cimarron. She hit him with the plank, then put a nail through his big fat, head. I oughta know. I handed her the nail gun, but I never touched the damn barrel.”
“ You’re going to give up your sister?”
“ After today, they gotta go after somebody new, so I say throw her to the fucking wolves.”
“ Luis! Have you gone mad?” Jo Jo’s face was a mask of anger, but anger without fear.
“ Nah, I’m just doing what’s got to be done.”
“ Blinky, what about Kyle Hornback?” I asked. “You killed him.”
“ No fucking way. I’m sitting with that chi chi cabron on your sofa, which I’d be embarrassed to give to the Salvation Army, and my little sister gives him a drink with enough barbs to knock out a cow. In about two minutes, he’s slobbering on my shoulder, and Josie goes up to your bedroom and brings down a tie your grandmother must have bought you.”
“ Luis!?Collate la boca! ” Jo Jo’s forehead was tightened into vertical lines, and a vein throbbed in her neck. “Do you think I’m going to let you get away with this?”
He turned toward his sister. “C’mon, it’s true. You strangled the hijo de puta with Jake’s tie. Hey, Jake, I thought that tie looked bad on you. You should have seen it on Hornback with his tongue sticking out.”
“ I did.”
“ Yeah, that’s right, I forgot.”
“ Who strung him up on the fan?”
“ That took both of us, and it wasn’t easy ‘cause Kyle didn’t help any.”
“ Is that right, Jo Jo? Is that the way it happened?”
But she wasn’t talking.
“ The failure to deny the accusation is admissible,” I said. “What’s the fancy name Judge Witherspoon gave it, an adoptive admission?”
“ Go to hell, both of you,” said my former love.
“ I’m home free, and she takes the fall,” Blinky said. “My holier-than-thou sister who always put me down. Well, let me tell you something. I never killed a man. I’m just a thief, but she is heartless and bloodless and soulless. I was there, man, and I tell you I nearly puked on your floor when she did Hornback. She never blinked an eye. He could have been a cockroach. With Cimarron, same thing. Mostly, she was pissed you didn’t do the job. There’s a name for what she is. A psycho or something.”
“ A sociopath,” I said. “And as for you, Blinky, you’re clearly an accessory to Hornback’s murder and probably a conspirator to Cimarron’s. Or maybe it’s the other way around, I could never tell the difference.”
“ So what, they got nothing on me.”
“ Maybe they can piece it together. For starters, everything you’ve said to me is admissible against you.”
“ Are you loco! You can’t testify against me. You’re my lawyer. I got the whatchamacallit, the privilege, and besides, I want you to represent me, not rat on me. You’re the best, Jake, and more important, you’re mi amigo. For ten percent of the silver lady, plus a bonus, you can take care of it. Get me immunity up here if there’s any risk they’d try to indict. I’ll tell ‘em what I saw. I’ll take a polygraph.”
“ No dice. I’m through with both of you.”
Blinky’s expression changed. “Then what am I going to do with you?”
He raised the shovel as if to take a swipe at me.
I flexed my knees and let my arms dangle loosely at my sides. “Go ahead and try, Blinky. I’ll ram it up your ass.”
While he was thinking about it, Jo Jo Baroso took two steps to one side, reached inside her coat, and came out with a handgun. She pointed it at Blinky, then at me, then somewhere between the two us.
“ All right, both of you,” she said, waving the gun in the air. “Jake, move away from the ledge. Luis, move next to Jake.”
It was a Smith amp; Wesson Bodyguard. 38, the airweight model with the two-inch blue steel barrel. At less than fifteen ounces, just dandy for a lady’s purse.
“ I’ll bet Abe Socolow gave you that thing the day you got your badge and promised to uphold the Constitution,” I said.
“ Shut up, Jake, and do what I say.”
“ Most prosecutors can’t shoot a lick.”
“ Try me.”
“ Where you going to go, Jo Jo? After today, there’s nowhere to run.”
“ That’s enough, Jake. Just move.”
“ You going to shoot us?” I persisted. “Your brother and the man who loved you.”
“ If you loved me, you would never have left me. As for Luis, his loyalty has just been demonstrated. This is the last time I’m asking. I want both of you back by the statue.”
Blinky started walking in that direction. I took one step, leapt to the right and grabbed the aluminum pole with the spotlight, crashing it to the ground. The spot broke, and we were in the shadow of the Silver Queen, a second spotlight still shining fifteen yards away. A gunshot ricocheted off the rocks above my head. Not even close. I was on the hard, cold floor of the cavern.
Another shot, again wildly above me. I heard Blinky scrambling on all fours and saw him duck behind an ore cart.
“ C’mon out, you two!” she yelled.
I kept down, and Blinky got up, put a shoulder to the cart, and using it as a shield, began pushing it toward his sister. It gave me a chance.
I lunged toward the wooden crate and grabbed three sticks of dynamite and a handful of foot-long wooden matches. I turned in time to see Jo Jo deftly step to one side and Blinky crash the ore cart into a rocky wall. The impact sent his head into the side of the cart, and he reeled backward, collapsing on the floor. Jo Jo turned the gun on him, then swung it toward me.
Two more steps and I dived for the other aluminum pole, taking it down with me, crashing the spotlight.
Total, blinding darkness broken by a flash of orange, a gunshot missing me but pinging off the Silver Queen.
“ That’s no way to treat a lady,” I said. In the darkness, I picked up a rock and tossed it one direction while I crawled in another. Another stray gunshot just after the rock hit the far wall.
I crept behind the Silver Queen, scraping my hands and knees, but keeping silent. I heard Jo Jo’s “shit” as she bumped into something. Then a flashlight popped on. The flashlight was in her left hand, the gun in her right. I could see her, but she couldn’t see me. I grabbed a rock and winged it at her, but it missed, causing her to spin and shoot behind her. How many gunshots had there been? Four or five? I hadn’t been counting. The. 38 only holds five bullets. But was she carrying spare ammo?
“ Josie, let’s talk this over.” Blinky now, somewhere in the darkness. “C’mon, I never would have flipped on you. Let’s you and me work it out.”
