Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [128]
Yesterday had been taken up with getting medical attention for Hy’s bullet wound and seemingly endless formalities with the local authorities, the FBI, and RKI. Then we went back to my bungalow at La Encantadora and slept nearly around the clock. After a late lunch, I brought Hy over here; John greeted him in that wary manner a big brother adopts when meeting his little sister’s lover. Then they discovered a mutual fondness for Beck’s dark beer, baseball, western movies, and hiking. Hy told John about his collection of Western Americana and novels; John showed Hy his sound system. The three of us had spiritedly talked about politics, sports, the illegal alien problem, the future of the planet, and why you can’t get a decent chicken-fried steak anyplace in the state of California. I had to admit I was somewhat awed by how famously we all got along. Relieved, too: the kidnapping and my shooting Salazar had been widely reported in the press; I’d feared the killing would reerect the barrier between John and me. But he’d seen Salazar, seen the evil I was up against; taking him along while I’d investigated had allowed him a glimpse of the realities of my world that he would never forget, and created a stronger bond between us.
Now we fell silent as the sun sank behind the yucca trees. After a while John asked, “You’re not still upset over Ma and Melvin getting pissed at you?”
I shook my head. “By now they’re almost over it.” My mother and Melvin Hunt had found out about the border crossing and shooting from the TV news hours before I’d been free to call them. Strangely, my mother had seemed angrier that I’d been in San Diego for days without contacting them than that I’d once again placed my life in jeopardy. Melvin had merely asked me not to provoke Ma any more; at his advanced age, he said in his wry way, his heart couldn’t stand it.
John stood. “By now they’re probably bragging to their friends about you. Listen, if the pizza guy comes, you pay him. You’re rich now, and anyway, I gotta go shed a tear for Garfield.”
I shook my head as he shambled up the hill to the house. Shedding a tear for a dead president is another of my mother’s too-cute euphemisms, and John only says it because he knows it annoys me. Normally he would have announced that he had to go take a leak.
“So you’re rich, huh?” Hy said. “And not only that, you now own a seventy-five-buck silk parrot.”
“I can’t wait to show W.C. to my cats. And I’m certainly richer than I’ve ever been. RKI was generous.”
Renshaw had been waiting where I’d told him to when we arrived at the old dairy, with a company car and two fat envelopes full of cash for us. Because I’d shot Salazar, though, we weren’t able to just drive away. The red tape was hideous, the conference with the FBI—to which the security firm finally reported the kidnapping—exhausting. Then we’d agreed to meet with Renshaw, Dan Kessell, and a few of their operatives for a debriefing. Before we left RKI’s offices, Kessell—a blond, burly man who looked like, and was, an ex-marine—presented each of us with an additional check matching the cash payment, and Renshaw said he’d be in touch. Personally, I hoped he’d leave me alone.
“Yeah, now they’re generous,” Hy said bitterly. “But a week ago Renshaw was going to shoot me on sight.”
“Well, he’s a violent man. You must have known that going in.”
He was silent.
“Are you ever going to tell me about those years?” It was the first time I’d had the nerve to ask outright, and it was surprisingly easy.
“… Someday, probably. I’m building up to it. Hard to talk about something you’ve never told a living soul.”
“Not even Julie?”
“No.” He shook his head. “She suspected some things, but I couldn’t get into it. I loved my wife, but she was such a … purist. Such an idealist. Not at all like you.”
“Thanks, Ripinsky.”
He tipped my chin up, looked into my eyes. “Didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s supposed to be a compliment. You’ve got both feet on the ground, you face facts, no matter how unpleasant. You’ve got what it takes,