You Can Die Trying by Gar Anthony Haywood Page B

going to risk my career trying to help you. What does it take to get that through your head?”
    He was visibly angry, which was not a common state for Kubo. Unflappability was as much a Kubo trademark as the latest and greatest in menswear.
    “McGovern shot that kid without provocation,” Kubo said. “The little bastard made him run six blocks and was about to lose him for good, so McGovern put a bullet in him to keep him from getting away. That’s just how the sonofabitch was.”
    Gunner was shaking his head. “That’s not how my client says it happened, Danny.”
    “Then your client must be crazy. Or blind. Or both.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    Kubo looked at him like he was dense. “You don’t think so?”
    “No. I don’t. There’s probably more to his story than he’s been telling me—like what his interest in all this really is, for instance—but I believe he’s telling the truth about the gunshots. Or whatever it was he saw in that alley the night Lendell Washington was killed.”
    “He didn’t see anything. I told you.”
    “Yeah. I remember.”
    “But you don’t believe me.”
    Gunner shrugged. “You haven’t given me any reason to believe you—yet.”
    “If you read the papers eight months ago, you should have all the reasons you need.”
    “Such as?”
    “Such as the fact McGovern tried to plant a gun at the scene, number one. And he tried to lift some of the money Washington took from the liquor store, number two. Do I need to go on?”
    “Only if you think you owe it to me,” Gunner said.
    He fixed his eyes on Kubo’s and kept them there, waiting for an answer. It was an unfair twist of the knife, but it got the job done.
    “I’ll give you five minutes. Take it or leave it,” Kubo said.
    Without missing a beat, Gunner said, “You said McGovern tried to take some of the money Washington had stolen from the liquor store?”
    “That’s right.”
    “What made you think so?”
    “What made us think so? Some of the money was missing, Sherlock. What else? The counterman at the liquor store said Washington and Ford got away with in excess of two hundred bucks, but we only recovered a little over a hundred at the scene.”
    “And you figured McGovern had pocketed the rest.”
    “Yeah. Assholes like him do that kind of shit all the time.”
    “Washington couldn’t have just dropped the money in the street? While he was running?”
    “You mean, like McGovern said he did?”
    “Yeah.”
    “He could have. Sure. But he didn’t.”
    The way Kubo had said it didn’t invite any further discussion of the subject, so Gunner decided to move on, at least for now. “All right. We’ll have it your way. We’ll assume for the moment that my client’s eyes are bad, and he didn’t really see what he thinks he did. Okay?”
    Kubo just stood there.
    “Okay. So explain what he heard , then. Five shots in all, two distinct firing patterns. Two shots first, three shots afterward.”
    “You mean three shots first, and two shots afterward. The three McGovern fired at Washington, and then the two he fired into the ground with his drop gun.”
    “No.”
    “Yes.”
    “Goddamnit, Danny, the man heard—”
    “I told you what he heard. If he thinks he heard something different, it was only because of the echo effect. The echo effect confuses people like that all the time.”
    “The ‘echo effect’ ?”
    “That’s right. The acoustics in that alley were perfect for that sort of thing, those five rounds would’ve sounded like a hundred in there.”
    “Except my client didn’t hear a hundred. He just heard five.”
    “Five, ten, fifteen, twenty—it makes no difference. The principle’s the same. What your client thinks he heard didn’t happen. It was three shots, then two. Not the other way around. Trust me.”
    He had a curious look on his face that Gunner wasn’t sure how to interpret. It was either a sign of supreme confidence in what he was saying—or supreme indifference toward