26.

I dove to the sidewalk just as I heard an agonized scream off to my left. I turned my head just in time to see a geyser of blood spurting out of “Mr. Smith’s” neck.

“Damn!” grunted Sorrentino. I looked in the other direction and saw Sorrentino clutching his chest as blood seeped out through his fingers.

I got up and surveyed the carnage around me. The Bolivian was lying stock-still, covered with blood, but it wasn’t gushing anymore. Mela was on his knees, and I could see he’d been shot in the arm. I checked; it was the fleshy part. It would hurt like hell, but there was nothing broken.

“I’ll be right back,” I told him, and raced over to Sorrentino as I heard the sound of approaching sirens.

“There’ll be an ambulance here in a minute,” I told him. “Just hang on.”

“The Bolivian?” he grated.

“Dead.”

“Good,” he said, and lost consciousness.

I went back to Mela. “You okay?” I asked.

“Really just a scratch,” he said. “I fell down from surprise, not pain. I’ll be all right.” He looked at Sorrentino and the Bolivian sprawled out, blood-soaked, and motionless on the ground. “Are there any more of them, or is that it?”

“That’s it,” I assured him as a cop car pulled up.

Two cops got out of the car, guns in hands. “You!” he yelled at me. “Facedown on the ground, hands behind your head!”

I did as he ordered. He turned to his partner. “Call an ambulance.” Then he reconsidered. “Make it two. And some backup.” He leaned over me and snapped a pair of cuffs around my wrists. “What the hell’s going on here?”

“I’m a private investigator,” I said. “My license is in my wallet, and you can check on me with Jim Simmons or Bill Calhoun in Cincinnati Police Headquarters. I’m working on a case.” I nodded my head toward the Bolivian. “That one is a killer. This one—” I indicated Sorrentino “—saved us and needs medical attention pretty damned quick. And this man—” I nodded toward Mela “—is Orestes Mela, the owner of this jewelry shop. He’s who the killer was after, and he’s going to need medical attention too.”

The other cop examined the Bolivian. “This one’s dead.”

An ambulance pulled up and quickly placed Sorrentino onto a stretcher, attached him to an IV and oxygen, and loaded him into the vehicle. The backup police car arrived as they were doing it.

“This guy’s in a bad way,” said one of the medics. He turned to Mela. “You can wait. There’s another ambulance on the way, but we’ve got to get this man into surgery quick.”

Mela nodded. “Go. I’ll be all right.”

The ambulance was racing off ten seconds later, and as it turned the corner another one pulled up, checked with the cops, helped Mela into the back, and drove away.

“Where are they going?” I asked.

“St. Elizabeth,” answered a cop. “They’re closest, and they’ve got a trauma center.”

“It’s damned uncomfortable, lying on my stomach. Can I get up now?”

“Yeah,” said the cop, helping me to my feet. “Slowly and carefully.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“Okay,” said the cop. “We’ll wait for someone to scoop up the body and take it to the morgue, and then we’re going to have a long talk down at the station.”

“Can I make a suggestion?” I said.

“What?” he asked suspiciously.

“Have Lieutenant Jim Simmons of the Cincinnati police notified about what happened here. He’s waiting in his office for me to bring the jeweler in.”

“The jeweler?” he repeated. “He’s behind all this?”

I shook my head. “No . . . but he’s got information on a murder that took place a week ago on the other side of the river.”

“And this guy’s the killer?” he asked, nudging the corpse with his toe.

“No. He’s a hitter, but he didn’t commit the murder in Cincinnati.”

He peered at the Bolivian. “Looks like just another Mexican enforcer. We’re getting our share of them these days. Maybe we ought to legalize drugs, the way they did out in . . . I don’t know, Utah, was it?”

“Colorado,” I told him. “And this guy’s not Mexican.”

He peered at the corpse. “Oh?”

“Bolivian. And definitely a killer.”

“If he wasn’t before, he will be by tomorrow,” said the cop. “I don’t think your friend will make it to midnight.”

A truck pulled up and carted the corpse off to the morgue, and then the cops drove me to the local station.

“What the hell was this all about?” asked the second cop when we were all seated in an interrogation room.

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“We’ve got time.”

“Okay,” I said. “There’s a murder investigation going on across the river. Turns out that Mr. Mela was sitting on the motive. I was just taking him to police headquarters to turn over the evidence and make a statement, which ought to be enough to bring our man to court.”

“The evidence?”

“Three diamonds,” I said, since the hospital was going to find them anyway. “They’re in a black velvet box in his coat pocket.”

I stopped speaking, and after maybe twenty seconds one of the cops said, “What else?”

“It gets really complex,” I said. “Our suspect killed a former mafioso and stole some diamonds. What he didn’t know was that the mafioso had stolen them, or their equivalent, from a Bolivian drug cartel, which sent three hitters here to get them back. Two of the hitters have been deported. The dead man was the third.”

“Hard to imagine that Mela would handle hot diamonds,” said another cop. “He’s got a helluva reputation as a decent, honest man.”

“He deserves the reputation,” I said. “He didn’t know they were hot. That’s why he was coming with me—to hand the diamonds over and make a statement.”

They queried me for another hour and a half, going over the details again and again, looking for anything that didn’t jibe, that didn’t agree with what I’d said before. Finally, another cop came into the room.

“Okay,” he announced. “I’ve spoken to Lieutenant Simmons, and he confirms as much of your story as he can confirm.”

“Thanks for believing me,” I said as I got to my feet.

He smiled. “Officially we’re just giving you enough rope to hang yourself,” he said. “But unofficially, I recognized your name from your license. I read about you and how you solved that Trojan colt thing the last time you paid our state a visit.” He reached out and shook my hand. “I hope you get your man.”

I signed a few more forms. Then one of the cops drove me back to my car and told me the quickest way to get to St. Elizabeth’s. I probably broke a couple of speed laws getting there, pulled into the lot, then entered the building and asked for Sorrentino at the desk.

“I’m sorry,” said the receptionist. “We don’t have a Valentine Sorrentino here.”

“He was just admitted into the emergency room a couple of hours ago,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, pulling up some other list on her computer. Suddenly she frowned. “Yes, we have Mr. Sorrentino here. He’s in intensive care.”

“So he’s alive!” I said. “That’s a relief. How do I get to intensive care from here?”

“His condition is grave,” she said, still looking at the screen. “I’m afraid he’s not allowed any visitors.”

“Fuck that!” I snapped. “He’s my friend, and I want to see him!”

“Don’t use such language on me!” she snapped back. “And you can’t see him.”

I flashed my trusty detective’s license. “I have to speak to him,” I said. “And if I have to arrest you for obstructing justice, I’m prepared to do so, and I hope you’ve got a good lawyer.”

And like a hundred others who saw the license and couldn’t tell the difference between detective and cop, she gave in, had her machine print up some kind of pass that would let me in to Sorrentino’s room, and got an attendant to lead me there.

I opened the door and walked in. Sorrentino was lying there, his eyes shut, bandages all the hell over his chest, a bunch of tubes running into him, with one going up his nose. A young blonde nurse was reading the dials or screens or whatever on some machine he was hooked up to.

“I’ve got to talk to him,” I told her.

She looked at the pass and nodded her assent. “Three minutes,” she said, walking to the door. “No more.”

Then she was out in the corridor, closing the door behind her, and I was alone with Sorrentino.

“How did the surgery go?” I asked.

He almost grinned. “How the hell do I know?” he half-whispered. “I slept through the whole thing.”

“I’m sorry, Val.”

This time he did smile. “You’re sorry?”

“You saved my life,” I said. “But what the hell were you doing there?”

“When you didn’t agree to go to Simmons right from lunch, I figured you’d found the diamonds, so I drove around the block when we left the restaurant and followed you. You never saw me.” He coughed weakly. “Damned lucky I did follow you. The Bolivian must have been tracking you too.”

“I’m sorry I kept you in the dark about it,” I said.

He gasped for air. “Probably thought I’d grab the diamonds and take ’em back to Chicago instead of claiming the finder’s fee?”

I nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Did he have the other nine?”

“No, just three of them.”

“Can’t trust nobody these days.” He coughed again, even more weakly this time. “Including me. I had planned to take the diamonds back to Chicago.” He paused, wincing in pain. “On the other hand, if I’d played it fair and square, you’d be dead now.”

“I know.”

“And because of that, I have a last request.”

“Screw the last requests,” I said. “You’ll be up and around in two weeks.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Eli,” he said. “We both know I’ll be dead before morning.”

“Okay,” I said, suddenly aware of the sound of machinery whirring, machinery that was keeping him temporarily alive. “No more bullshit. What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got two daughters,” he said. “I haven’t seen them since my wife left me four years ago, and I haven’t been as good about sending them money as I should have been. This is my chance—my last chance—to make amends.” He made an effort to open his eyes, which kept falling shut. “I know it’s only three diamonds instead of nine, but that’s three more than we had yesterday.” A tear—of pain, of regret, who knows?—trickled down his cheek. “Give them the finder’s fee.”

“I will, Val.”

“Shake on it, partner,” he said.

I reached over and took his hand in mine. It went totally limp while I was shaking it, the machine whirred and transmitted a Code Blue to the staff. I heard footsteps racing toward the door, and I knew that my friend was dead.