“He killed her,” Hopkins told us.
“Who?” Detective Jackson asked. This was his turf — if you will pardon the pun — and we let him carry the ball.
“Lassiter. He must have had her the whole time, but when she insisted on coming back to me, he killed her.”
The frightening thing about it was, it made sense to him. He actually had himself believing it.
He saw me shaking my head in disbelief and popped his cork.
“If you had done your job, Po, this wouldn’t have happened! I’m going to make sure Howard Biel knows that you fucked up and caused my daughter’s death!”
Now I really couldn’t believe him.
“You’re a sick man, Hopkins,” I told him. “I pity you.”
At that point he took a wild swing at me that I ducked with ease. I made no attempt to return the blow. Jackson and Diver kept him from trying again.
“Easy, Mr. Hopkins,” Jackson told him, throwing me a dirty look. “We understand your grief.”
“Grief?” he shouted. “You don’t know anything about grief. You think I’m going to let Lassiter beat me like this?” he demanded.
That was all he could think of, not that his daughter was dead — murdered — but that Lassiter might have beat him.
“Hopkins, didn’t your daughter mean anything else to you other than something else to compete with Lassiter for?” I asked him.
“How dare you!” he screamed, causing Jackson and Diver to tighten their holds.
“Po,” Jackson snapped, “get the hell out of here!”
“With pleasure,” I told him. “The stench in here is worse then manure.”
Outside I felt the urge for a cigarette, and I hadn’t had one in over three years. Diver was the first one out and I bummed one off of him. It was a non-filter, but it still couldn’t do anything about the bad taste I had in my mouth.
“What a fucking waste!” I snapped, dropping the cigarette after one drag. How did I ever smoke those things?
“I know what you mean,” Diver told me, following the cigarette to the ground. “You only took one puff.”
“Shit.”
“If you mean the air that turd is breathing,” he remarked, “I agree. However, Jackson didn’t appreciate your tact — or lack of it — in there.”
“Fuck him, too.” I started to walk away.
“Hey?” he called. I turned and he extended his hand. “Do you want this back?”
He was holding my gun.
I stared at it and the enormity of what I had done the night before suddenly hit me.
I had taken two lives.
Granted, I had done it in self-defense, but that didn’t change the fact that I had killed two people.
Even the thought of touching that gun again made me sick.
Diver approached me with it and asked, “First time?”
I nodded.
He was standing there with my gun in his hand, holding it out to me, and people were passing Hopkins’ stable, staring at us.
“It will never get easier, Po, but it will go a lot harder on you next time, if you don’t have this piece with you.”
I looked at the gun in his hand and realized that he was right. If I hadn’t had it with me last night, I would be dead instead of sorry.
I took the gun and put it in my jacket pocket.
“Thanks,” I told him, more than just for the gun.
“No problem,” he answered. He turned and looked at a few people who were staring at us. “Look at them. They see two guys standing here passing a gun back and forth and no one goes for a security guard. Wild, huh?”
“Crazy.”
“Look, I’m pretty sure you can go. In fact, I’d advise you to go. He don’t love you like I do, you know?”
“Sure, thanks, Diver.”
“Call me Jim — and call me if you turn up anything on that missing jockey.”
“Melendez? You figure him for this one?”
“He’s missing, ain’t he? It’s not my case, but from what you’ve told us, he looks good for it. Keep in touch, okay?”
“I will,” I promised.
When Shukey and I had dropped Brandy off I told her to meet me at Sally’s. That’s where I headed now. She was sitting at one of the back tables and looked up as I walked in.
“This is my sixth cup of coffee,” she told me when I sat down across from her. “If I gain weight I’m going to blame you.”
When I didn’t respond she asked, “Was she there, Hank?”
“Yeah, she was there. She’d been there for a while.”
“How was she — you know, how — ”
“How was she killed? Shot in the head. Diver figures Melendez looks good for it.”
“Louis? A murderer?” She was obviously unable to comprehend the idea.
“Who knows. Maybe he just got tired of being strung along.”
She looked at me for a few long seconds and then asked, “You don’t believe it either, do you?”
I shrugged and evaded the question.
“I have my own theory, but I want to think about it a bit longer. You hungry?”
“Hell, no,” she said, pushing that sixth cup of coffee away from her.
“Let’s go back to my place and screw around, or something,” I suggested. I felt shitty, emotionally and physically. My head had started to ache again and my stomach felt queasy.
“Let’s head back to your place so you can get some more rest,” she suggested. She was reading me pretty well.
We went to the front gate where the cabs hang out and grabbed one.
When we reached my apartment the phone was ringing. It was Biel.
“What the hell is going on, Henry? Benny just called and told me that Penny is dead.”
“Four people are dead, Howard,” I corrected him.
He was angry about his dead godchild, but that drove the anger out of him.
“What?”
“Penny Hopkins was shot, probably on the same day she disappeared. Eddie Mapes was shot and killed last night — ”
“My god! Mapes? How — ”
“I killed two of the men who shot him and the third one shot me — ”
“Jesus H. Christ, Hank, what the hell is happening? Are you all right?”
“My head hurts, Howard. Would you please hang up and let me get some rest. I’ll come to your office tomorrow morning and explain the whole thing.”
“But, my God, man — ”
“Please, Howard. Look, read the afternoon papers, they’ll have the story on Mapes, okay?”
He hesitated.
“All right, Henry. Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you, Howard,” I said and hung up.
I looked at Brandy and told her, “Get undressed.”
“Henry, you have to — ”
“I don’t want to think, Brandy, not for a while. I need you, right now, for therapy. I want to get lost on you. Do you mind?”
I thought she was going to cry She came up to me and kissed me, a sweet, warm, long kiss.
“I don’t mind, Hank. Not at all.”
We went to bed and didn’t think about anything else for a long time.