Potshot by Robert B. Parker

great.’

13
    I went into my hotel room very carefully, but Bebe hadn’t returned. Maybe romance was dead. My hands were swollen from yesterday’s fight. I iced them for a while, then in the early evening, I went back out to visit Lou Buckman.
    Buckman Outfitters was closed. There was a sign on the front door that read i’m at the stable. The sign was correct. When I drove over there, she was in the corral, washing one of the horses with a hose. I got out of the rental car. Being tough as nails, I did not stagger when I hit the heat.
    ‘Hello,’ I said.
    The horse’s lead was tied to a fencepost. He stood placidly, his dark brown coat gleaming, while the water sluiced over him. When I spoke he raised his head and looked at me with thoughtful dark eyes, and then let his head drop again.
    ‘Hi,’ Lou said.
    I sat on the top rail of the fence. I didn’t look right. I needed a big hat.
    ‘I talked to The Preacher,’ I said.
    ‘And punched out two of his men.’
    ‘Before that,’ I said. ‘I went up to the Dell and talked with him.’
    ‘To the Dell?’
    ‘Yep. Preacher says he didn’t kill your husband.’
    ‘Of course he didn’t. He had it done.’
    ‘Says he didn’t have it done, either,’ I said.
    ‘Well of course he’d say that.’
    ‘I think if he’d done it, or had it done, he’d have let me know,’ I said.
    Lou was scornful.
    ‘Because he’s so truthful?’
    ‘Because he’s so full of himself. He’d want me to know he could do whatever he pleased and get away with it.’
    ‘You know him so well, already?’
    ‘I know people like him,’ I said. ‘They’d be inclined to let me know they’d done it and challenge me to do anything about it.’
    ‘Well, thank God I don’t know anyone like that, and I don’t believe it for a minute. Steve stood up to them. First they threatened. Steve wouldn’t back down. And they killed him.’
    ‘We’ll see,’ I said.
    ‘Well who the hell else would it be?’ she said.
    I shrugged. Lou turned the chestnut horse loose and got another one, a darker chestnut. She hooked the shank to the fence rail and sponged him down with soapy water from a bucket.
    ‘Have they frightened you off?’ she said. ‘Or paid you?’
    ‘If they’re paying me,’ I said, ‘I just recently bit the hand that feeds me.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’
    ‘I agree.’
    She finished sponging the horse and began to rinse him with the hose.
    ‘It’s just that everybody lets me down,’ she said. ‘I keep hoping and I keep being disappointed.’
    There was birdsong in the still heat. No whisper of wind. Only the sound of the water running and, now and then, the exhausted buzz of an especially intrepid fly.
    ‘I spend too much time,’ she said, ‘thinking about things.’
    ‘The mayor and some people have hired me, too,’ I said.
    ‘To do what?’
    ‘To sanitize the Dell.’
    ‘The Dell? You mean run them out?’
    ‘Something like that.’
    ‘What about Steve?’
    ‘If you’re right, the tasks may be synergistic.’
    She laughed, though not very warmly.
    ‘Synergistic,’ she said. ‘My God! You don’t talk like someone who nearly killed two men this afternoon.’
    ‘Clean mind, sound body,’ I said. ‘I’m going to leave for a while.’
    ‘Leave?’
    ‘Yes, I…’
    ‘You’re running away. You’re afraid that The Preacher will get you for this afternoon.’
    ‘I’ll be back,’ I said.
    ‘You won’t be back,’ she said. ‘I don’t even blame you. You can’t face down the Dell by yourself.’
    ‘No,’ I said, ‘I can’t. I’m going home to recruit some people.’
    She shook her head.
    ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.
    ‘Nothing I can do about that,’ I said.
    ‘I won’t pay you any more,’ she said. ‘You earned what I’ve paid you this afternoon. But no more.’
    ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘While I’m gone, maybe you can count more on the Potshot cops than you think you can.’
    ‘About as much,’ she