Potshot by Robert B. Parker Page A

said, ‘as I can count on you.’

14
    It was morning, early. I was drinking coffee with the chief of the Potshot police in an unmarked air-conditioned four-door black Ford Explorer, parked outside the bank on Main Street. There was a rifle and a shotgun on the back seat. Between us in the front seat was the inevitable computer rig.
    ‘When I started with the Middlesex DA’s office,’ I said, ‘there wasn’t a cop in the country would have known what the hell that was.’
    ‘Modern crime fighting,’ Walker said.
    ‘You been a cop before?’ I said.
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Someplace else.’
    ‘So why’d you end up here?’
    ‘I like it here.’
    ‘Sort of hot,’ I said.
    ‘At least you don’t have to shovel it,’ he said.
    ‘Yeah but it doesn’t melt in the spring either.’
    ‘You get used to it,’ Walker said.
    ‘ You get used to it,’ I said.
    Walker shrugged and drank some coffee.
    ‘I hear that Roscoe and friends hired you,’ he said.
    ‘You got somebody undercover at the Rotary Club?’ I said.
    ‘Small town,’ Walker said. ‘I heard they want you to clean up the Dell.’
    I didn’t say anything.
    ‘What about Steve Buckman?’
    ‘I’m still working on that,’ I said.
    ‘Two jobs at once,’ he said. ‘A real Boston rocket.’
    I shrugged modestly.
    ‘How you planning to go about that?’ Walker said.
    ‘If I were going to try and take out The Preacher and his friends, why would I tell you?’
    ‘’Cause you might need my help?’
    ‘How much of that should I expect if you’re in The Preacher’s pocket?’
    Walker nodded. His khaki uniform shirt was pressed into sharp military creases. He wore big aviator glasses and a big walnut-handled Colt revolver on a tooled leather belt complete with cartridge loops, each loop attractively set off by a big brass cartridge with a copper-coated tip.
    ‘Me telling you I’m not ain’t going to convince you,’ he said.
    ‘No it ain’t,’ I said.
    ‘I do what I can,’ he said. ‘I’ve got four guys, kids really, like the uniform and the chance to carry a piece. Preacher’s got forty, none of them kids. I got to obey the law. Preacher can do what he wants. If I’m going to put him in jail, I need witnesses that will testify.’
    ‘Frustrating,’ I said.
    Walker shrugged.
    ‘Why not go someplace else?’
    ‘Like I said, I like it here. You going up against the Dell alone?’
    ‘Am I going to have trouble with you?’ I said.
    Walker drank some more coffee, and looked out through the tinted windshield at the heat shimmers rising from the asphalt.
    ‘I don’t want some kind of goddamned range war here,’ he said.
    ‘Me either,’ I said. ‘Am I going to have trouble with you?’
    ‘Not if you’re legal,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’m not as crooked or scared as you think I am.’
    ‘You bought yourself a little credence yesterday,’ I said.
    ‘Coulda been phony,’ he said. ‘Just trying to find out what you’re up to.’
    ‘Coulda been,’ I said. ‘I’m going out of town for a while. In case you want to keep an eye on Lou Buckman.’
    He looked very sharply at me, but he didn’t say anything. He simply nodded. I didn’t say anything either. According to the time and temperature display outside the bank it was 7:27 a.m. and 105 degrees. We finished our coffee in silence, and I got out of the car. I stood for a moment with the door open. There seemed to be something I should say, but I didn’t know what it was. Neither did Walker.
    Finally I said, ‘Good luck.’
    ‘You too,’ he said.

15
    It seemed the better part of valor not to take on the Dell by myself. And since I had smacked two Dellsters around in the public street, it seemed that if I stuck around I might have to. I had my bag packed. I had said my good-byes, such as they were, to Lou Buckman and Dean Walker. It seemed best not to say good-bye to Bebe Taylor. I had my gun unloaded and packed so I could check it through. If the Dell came for me now