Cimarron ran out the rest of the high balls and was focusing on the eight.
“ I still don’t get you,” I said. “I mean, what are you doing as partners with Blinky Baroso?”
He lifted his head and looked at me with one eye squinted shut. “What are you doing as his lawyer?”
“ That’s different.”
“ Hah!” He nailed the eight on a line and clunked it into a corner pocket.
Kip made a sucking sound on the straw in his root beer. “You shoot a mean game of pool, fat man.”
Cimarron turned toward him, either puzzled or angry, I couldn’t tell which.
“ Paul Newman,” Kip explained.
“ My first deal with Baroso was strictly legitimate,” Cimarron said, turning back to me. “Sunken treasure in the Keys. There was no need to oversubscribe the stock. Hell, I’d been the majority shareholder in the company that had located the wrecks. I’d been to the old naval library in Madrid, had examined the manifests of the ship. I knew every gold bar on her, every piece of jewelry. But we ran out of cash before we could salvage. It was so damn foolish of Baroso, but he just didn’t believe we’d find her. I would have never done business with him again if I hadn’t gotten involved with Josefina.”
Funny. I probably would have stopped representing Blinky except for her. “She encouraged you?”
“ Josefina thought I could straighten him out, just like she thought you could.”
“ That was a long time ago.”
“ Maybe so, but I went back to Baroso when I needed to raise cash for the new operation up here. I’ve got land, and I’ve got maps and claims, but I needed the start-up money. I told him, no funny business, and he said not to worry, he’d get his lawyer to handle the money. He wouldn’t make a move without his lawyer, good old reliable Jake Lassiter, that’s what he said.”
“ Good old reliable Nathan…Nathan, Nathan Detroit,” Kip sang out.
“ Well, that’s news to me,” I told Cimarron, ignoring Kip. “I defended Blinky in his criminal cases, but I never had anything to do with the business. You could have called me. You could have checked it out.”
“ Sure I could have done a lot of things, but I wanted the deal. I told myself I did it for the money he could raise, but lately I think I did it for Josefina. Anyway, that’s what happened. I checked you out with her, and she said you were all right. I didn’t even mind the fact that the two of you had a past. With me, business comes first. Anyway, my lawyers here set everything up, reasonable finder’s fees for the promoters, stock subscription agreements, two million dollars’ key man life insurance on Baroso and me, restrictions on selling any of our shares, except to each other. Everything was in order.”
“ For what, to find buried treasure? To chase stories told by drunks and braggarts. If your maps were real, these mountains would be crawling with technicians from major companies. The place would be swarming with helicopters and laser beams.”
“ Are you calling me a fool?” His voice had lost its hospitality.
“ No, I just think when you stumbled over a bag of twenty-dollar gold pieces, it addled your brain. This new project will turn out just like the Silver Queen. These poor slobs who bought shares would lose their money either way, whether Blinky stole it or not.”
“ You know, once in a bar down in Carbondale, a man called me crazy. I was standing there having a beer, minding my own business, and this fellow-drove a semi for a living-came up to me. ‘You’re that big bastard chasing after Coronado’s gold, ain’t you?’ I just ignored him, but he kept coming after me, pointing at me, telling his friends I was the biggest fool in the county. He was about your size, maybe a little smaller through the shoulders. Finally, I just picked him up by the collar and lifted him off his feet. Had a ceiling fan in there, and it bashed him across the ear. ‘Course the blades stopped then, so I let him down, then hoisted him back up, about a dozen times till he had blood running out his nose and each of his ears.”
“ You’re partial to ceiling fans, aren’t you, Cimarron? You ever tell Abe Socolow that story?”
“ What’s that supposed to mean?”
“ Kyle Hornback.”
“ You think I killed him?”
“ Well I know I didn’t.”
“ Think about it, Lassiter. Hornback came clean with me. Admitted they’d been selling the same stock three or four times. Why would I kill him?”
“ That’s why.”
“ No, you got me wrong. I was indebted to him. By nature, I’m not a violent man.”
“ You could have fooled me. What the hell were you doing in Jo Jo’s house when you tap-danced on my forehead?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “Have you ever been so angry you could have killed someone?”
I didn’t think he wanted an answer, so I didn’t disappoint him.
“ Anger beyond anything you’d ever known,” he continued. “I was enraged at Baroso, at Josefina, at you, a man I’d never seen. And at me, too. I’d been taken by that slippery son of a bitch the second time. You know the expression ‘fool me once, shame on you.’
“ Fool me twice, shame on me,” I said.
“ No. Fool me twice, you’re dead. I’d been made a fool by Baroso and you, and there you were with Josefina. Like I said, Hornback told me what they’d been up to, and I advised him to go to the authorities. Send Baroso to jail, let the chips fall where they may.”
“ So who killed him?”
“ I figured you did. You’re the guy who cooked the books. Your dick was on the chopping block.”
“ Cimarron, let me try this one time in simple, straightforward English. I’m Blinky’s lawyer, that’s all. I didn’t cook the books, hoodwink the investors, or steal the money. And I sure as hell didn’t kill anybody.”
“ So you say, but your client sold the outside stock three times over, and the money is missing. There’s a hundred fifty thousand in money I put up that was taken from the company account the day before Baroso disappeared. Socolow tells me half that amount showed up in your bank account in Miami.”
“ Like I told Socolow, I don’t know anything about the deposit, except I didn’t make it.”
“ Who did?”
“ Probably Blinky, but if he’s dead, we may never know.”
“ I’d bet you a hundred head of Hereford he’s sitting by a swimming pool somewhere with about one-point-nine million of investors’ money. I figure the two of you plan to split it.”
“ You’re wrong again,” I told him.
“ That’s what Josefina tells me, and so far, I’ve been listening. That’s why I didn’t throw you in the Roaring Fork when you showed up here. I’ve been listening real good ‘cause I love that woman and respect her, too. I’ll be honest with you. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s been sleeping in the guest room, and we’ve been like brother and sister since she got back. She wanted to see if we could be friends first, then lovers again. But she’s got you on her mind.”
“ I knew her before you did.”
“ You lost her. She came to me. She’s mine.”
I laughed at him, and he didn’t like it. I didn’t care. “Maybe the word hasn’t gotten all the way to the Rockies, but a woman’s not a mining claim. You don’t own her.”
“ She belongs here just like my heifers and my horses, and I’m not going to lose her.”
“ Hey, pal, that’s her choice, not yours.”
“ That’s right, but she’s going to make that choice without any interference from you.”
“ What’s the matter, can’t stand the competition?”
“ Lassiter, I promised Josefina I wouldn’t hurt you if you showed up here, even though you stole my money and tried to steal my lady.”
“ Hey, I didn’t-”
“ Shut up, lawyer, or football player, or skier, or whatever other fool thing you are. I’ve fulfilled my promise. I told Josefina I’d offer you a drink and have a little chat and not muss up your hair, though if you must know, I’ve got an itch to kick your face in. Now, here’s the way it is. You’re going to get the hell off my property, and out of Pitkin County, and out of the state of Colorado because-”