Tail Spin

need to get the people you were with?”
    Don shook his head back and forth, back and forth. “Oh, damn, this wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be easy, in and out, that was it, then home again and I’ve got enough money for a nice vacation in Aruba. But there was this big guy and he walked into the kitchen and shot me right through the shoulder, then he went after poor Clay, shot him dead. Perky called me a couple of hours ago, told me she was glad I made it out, that even though everything went south, we should be okay if I didn’t do anything stupid. I told her I was clean, no way they’d find out about me. I didn’t leave any ID in my wallet—no driver’s license, nothing. I had to tell her about Clay, that the big guy shot him dead. She told me to lay low, take care of my arm, that everything’d be all right.”
    Sherlock asked, “Did you tell Perky about leaving all your blood on the kitchen floor?”
    He shook his head, muttered, “Fuckin’ DNA.”
    Savich grabbed his chin and squeezed. “Watch your mouth. I won’t tell you again.”
    “Who was the fourth member of your team?” Sherlock asked.
    “T-Rex—he’s down in Florida by now, runnin’ in the surf at Palm Beach.”
    “And what would T-Rex’s real name be?”
    “Marion Croop. You can see why he likes his nickname.”
    “That’s good, Don. What’s Perky’s real name?”
    “No one calls her anything but Perky. It’s the only name I know, honest. She always grins real wide and pokes out her tits, says they’re as perky today as they were ten years ago.”
    “How old is Perky?” Savich asked.
    “Maybe forty, in there somewhere. She’s a real pro, knows exactly what she’s doing. Got a big mess of blond hair, always wears it up with dangling curls, and she always wears opaque sunglasses. I’ve never seen her eyes.
    “This job, dude, it was screwed up from the beginning. Perky bitched and moaned about how we couldn’t be sure of anything, and it frosted her but good to be sent out to this backwoods place with no clue where anything was or who was where. Then she said she started counting the money and that made her think about it some more. She said there were four of us, and chances were that this Rachael Janes would be by herself, maybe with one family member, that was it. It’d be easy. Overkill, that’s what we’d have. It wouldn’t be a problem, and we’d have all that money. Perky was really pissed.”
    He looked at Sherlock, and tears trickled out of his eyes. “Nothing went the way it was supposed to. There must have been a half-dozen people there, and all of them knew how to shoot. They had more weapons than we did. We didn’t have a chance. How could that happen? Dude, I really hurt. Can I have one of my pills?”
    “I’ll giveyoutwopills,Don,”Savichsaid,“theminuteyoutell me who hired you to kill Rachael Janes.”
    “Damn, I knew you’d want that. You won’t believe me, but it’s the truth: I don’t know, I don’t know who hired Perky, who gave Perky all that money. She’s always the lead, always, and she gets the contracts, briefs us, maps out the plan we’re going to follow, hands out our shares. And then we split up until the next time. Clay wasn’t one of our usual guys, but Gary’s in bed with the flu, so there were only the three of us we could really count on. I’ll bet you those were military people at that Slipper Hollow. It all went to hell.”
    “Did Perky tell you anything about Rachael Janes?”
    “Only that she wasn’t supposed to still be kicking around, said she should be lying at the bottom of Black Rock Lake, said those barbiturates were good. She laughed.” Everett shrugged, then moaned. “Perky said Rachael Janes was some artsy-craftsy fluff head who arranged furniture and painted walls, and so she should be real easy to knock off. But look what happened. That Rachael Janes must have been another Houdini, getting herself free like that. Perky was pissed again.”
    “Keep it up, Don, you’re doing good,” Savich said.
    “It was Clay who kept asking her questions since he hadn’t worked with her before. She finally let on that Lloyd Roderick—that dumb-ass rockweed who’s into teenagers—he’d got himself shot while trying to nail Rachael Janes in Parlow, Kentucky. Who ever heard of Parlow, Kentucky? He was in the hospital, Perky said, so now it was our turn. This girl was a civilian, hiding out, thinking she was safe from the big bad wolf. And