how you and he tried to kill my friends here.”
The man blanched a little and held up his hands as if trying to ward off bad news. “I ain’t tried to kill your friends.”
“You sent Bates to do it.”
“No.”
“Look, Big Tony. I can run you in right now on all kind of charges. But all I want to do is talk. You help me, we might just forget those laws you broke.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I ain’t broke no laws.”
“Well, there’s conspiracy to commit murder, aiding and abetting attempted murder, accessory to attempted murder, assault on a police officer. That’s the one that will keep you locked up the longest while you wait for trial. No judge is going to grant bail on the assault charge.”
“I didn’t assault a cop.”
“You tried to hit me with a baseball bat.”
“I didn’t know you was a cop. Besides, I was trying to hit him,” pointing at Jock.
“Well, I thought you were aiming for me,” said J.D. “That’ll be enough for the judge.”
“I didn’t know you was a cop.”
“Won’t matter.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me how you got Bates involved in the attempt on my friends’ lives.”
“I didn’t.”
“You know, Big Tony, instead of arresting you, I could just let my friends here take you out back for a little discussion. They are not nice men.”
The bartender looked from Jock to me and back to J.D. “Okay. Some guy comes in here yesterday and tells me he needs somebody to do some wet work. He didn’t say what. I gave him to Bates.”
“Who was the man?”
“Don’t know.”
“Ever seen him before?”
“No.”
“You mean some guy comes into your bar and tells you he wants somebody killed and you just set him up with a hit man? Suppose the guy was an undercover cop.”
“I didn’t set him up with no hit man. I set him up with Bates.”
“Bates said you thought that’s what he did for a living,” said J.D.
The little man laughed. “Bates is always talking that shit, but nobody believes him.”
“Then why introduce them?”
“The guy gave me a hundred bucks. I told him Bates was the man for the job. If the guy had been a cop, he couldn’t do anything to me because Bates sure as hell ain’t no hit man.”
“You’re not real bright, are you?”
The man looked a little hurt. “I get by.”
“What time did the guy come in?”
“About three, I guess. He hadn’t been here long when Bates came in. Clyde’s regular as clockwork. He comes in at three forty-five every afternoon. He gets off at three thirty.”
“Bates has a job?” asked J.D., a little surprised.
“Yeah.”
“Doing what?”
“He cleans boats down at the marina,” said Big Tony.
“Did you call him?” I asked.
“No.”
“He said you did.”
“Maybe I did. I don’t remember.”
“When you introduced the guy to Bates, did they leave?”
“No. They sat over at that table for a little while and then the guy gets up and leaves.”
“Has he been back?”
“No. Ain’t seen any more of him.”
“What did he look like?” asked J.D.
“About six feet tall, gray hair and beard.”
“Anything else?”
“No. He wore sunglasses the whole time.”
“Did he have an accent?”
The little man thought for a minute. “Yeah. He was from somewhere in the South.”
“Think,” said J.D. “Close your eyes and think hard. Anything else about the guy that sticks out?”
“He had a great tan.”
J.D. looked at us. “Do either of you have any questions?”
“Yeah,” said Jock. “Why do they call a little-bitty fuck like you Big Tony?”
“I got a big johnson. People started calling me Big Tony in junior high and it sorta stuck.”
“Probably helped you with the girls,” said Jock.
“Not so you’d notice,” said Big Tony.
“Geez,” said J.D. “Let’s go. Tony, don’t leave town.”
“Where the hell would I go?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
We walked out into the parking lot. I turned to J.D. “Don’t leave town? Who are you? Marshal Dillon?”
“I just like to use that sometimes. They always say it on TV and the idiots I deal with all watch a lot of TV. They take it seriously.”
“Look,” said Jock. He was pointing to a bank building across the street. “See that camera above the front door?”
J.D. and I looked. There was a small box attached to a bracket that extended from the wall above the entrance to the bank. It was making slow sweeps back and forth.
“That’s a security camera. It’s panning the bank parking lot and probably saving the images on a hard drive somewhere. It may pick up pictures of this parking lot too. We might get a