Badger Games (28 page)

“Are you all ri—”

Joe leaned across the body of Helen, the huge Glock propped on the windowsill. They were no more than ten feet apart. “Don't!” Joe said, when she started to move toward the steering wheel. “Just keep your hands on the wheel. That's nice.”

The woman did as she was told, resting her hands on the top of the steering wheel. “It's not what you think, Joe,” she said. “I'm Lucani.”

“Fuck a bunch of Lucani,” Joe said. He opened the door and directed Helen to slip out. “Be careful,” he told her. “Don't get in my line of fire. Check the back seat of her car.”

When Helen was out, standing toward the rear of the Pontiac, peering into the back seat, her own snub-nosed Smith & Wesson in hand, Joe got out carefully. “All clear?” he said. Helen nodded.

Joe leaned one shoulder against the door of the Pontiac, partially shielding the gun as the big semi blew by. He looked in and
smiled. The woman's purse was on the front seat. Joe reached in and plucked it out. He handed it back to Helen. “Check it,” he said.

Helen fished out a small automatic. “Twenty-five,” she said, turning it over in her hand.

Joe didn't look. “That's not her main piece,” he said.

“My main piece,” the woman said, “is in my shoulder holster, Joe.”

“Let me guess,” Joe said. “Browning nine-millimeter?”

“Very good,” she said, “but no. Llama.”

“Well, here we are,” Joe said. “Jenny, is it?”

“Jammie,” she said. “Do you want to talk here?”

“No,” Joe said. “All right, I'll ride with you. Helen will follow.” Joe got in. As they drove out of the pullout, Joe glanced back to see Helen toss the guns in the window of the Durango and climb in to follow them. “She's a little pissed,” Joe said to Jammie.

“Why is that?” Jammie smiled at him, glancing over her shoulder. She craned to make sure that it was safe to pull out; then they drove on, rapidly picking up speed.

“She thought I was going to shoot you,” Joe said.

“Were you?”

“I thought about it,” Joe said. “But you did all the right things. Close, though.”

Jammie shivered. She raised the windows. “Where are we going?”

“To my mountain lair,” Joe said. “So what's the story? Say, just for safekeeping, let's have the Llama.” She let him reach across, open her coat, and withdraw the Llama. His hand brushed across her breasts. She raised an eyebrow and suppressed a smile. Joe grinned back at her and tossed her gun into the back seat, along with the Glock.

“There, now,” he said. “You were saying?”

“It's a little complicated,” Jammie said. “The Lucani are nervous about you. And Helen. Especially Helen. When I say ‘the Lucani', I'm not talking about the colonel.”

“What the hell was that?” Joe said suddenly. “I'm sorry. I was … pull over.”

Jammie braked and pulled off the road. “What is it?” she said. She looked around. “I didn't see—”

“That sign back there,” Joe said. He looked back. Helen pulled in behind them. Joe motioned through the back window for her to back up. “Go ahead, back up,” he told Jammie.

The two cars backed slowly, for two hundred feet or more, until they had backed past a sign. Joe told Jammie to stop and looked out his window at the sign.

It was an old, weather-beaten wooden sign, halfway up the hill on their right, advertising
RADIUM MINES! RADIANT THERAPY! FIVE MILES!
The faint lettering instructed cars to take the next exit and turn left.

“Judging from the sign,” Jammie said, “it's no longer in business.” She was right. The sign was barely standing. Another winter, a little wind, and it wouldn't be a blot on the landscape any longer.

“Hmmm.” Joe mused. “Radiant therapy. Wouldn't that be sun, rather than radium?” he said, not necessarily asking Jammie. “Let's go.” As they drove on, he said, “Does the colonel know you're here?”

“Ah … yes,” Jammie said. “But he doesn't know that the other Lucani know I'm here, that they have an interest besides his. Can I explain?”

“Lie away,” Joe said. He smiled cheerfully. But he listened carefully, asking a few questions. By the time he had directed her through the turns and twists and warned her of bumps on the Forkee road, he felt that he understood the situation. He told her to pull
aside before they reached Frank's gate. “Helen has the opener,” he said. He got out and motioned Helen to stop.

“What's up?” Helen asked, looking down from the Durango.

“Everything's copasetic, I think,” Joe said, nodding toward the Pontiac. “I'll explain at the house. But we've got to be careful. Looks safe. The dogs are out, so the boys must be back.”

The two Rottweilers were standing beyond the gate, their tongues hanging out, looking down the road at them.

“I don't think we should all drive up to the house,” Joe said, “just in case. We can drive to just short of the ridge. I'll put the dogs in Jammie's car and then go ahead in the Durango. You come up to the ridge and watch. Take your weapons. If it's safe I'll come back out in the yard and wave. I'll wave twice, like this. You can have a chat with Jammie. She'll fill you in.”

“Jammie, is it?” Helen said. She nodded and picked up the opener, then drove on through and waited.

Joe started to put the dogs into Jammie's car, but she protested. “We've got groceries in the Durango,” he explained.

“No way,” Jammie said. “Those dogs look like they'd eat a Volkswagen.” They were standing next to her door, their tongues hanging out, watching. Jammie clung to the steering wheel, not looking at them.

Joe sighed. Some people were not dog people, he thought, recalling Frank's remark. “Okay,” he said. “I'll take them in the Durango.” Joe got the dogs into the front seat, and although they looked longingly at the groceries, they didn't try anything.

The two women hiked up to the ridge, well off the road, creeping the last few feet. They squatted in the tall brown grass, then sat, feeling the heat of the sun, which had the sky to itself now, the high overcast having blown away. The wind whispered through the grass, and there was a fine, clean smell of earth and grass. A raven croaked, distantly.

“Pleasant enough for government work,” Jammie said. “Did Joe tell you what I'm doing here? No?” She explained.

“How did you get into this?” Helen asked.

“Dinah Schwind,” Jammie said. “You know her?”

“I've met her,” Helen said.

“She's an old acquaintance,” Jammie said. “Not exactly a soul sister, but we get along.”

“Soul sister!” Helen laughed. “Ice queen, don't you mean?”

Jammie laughed. “Don't be fooled. Butter don't melt in her mouth, but Dinah's got some moves. She's got the colonel sniffing around her tail, but I think she's got eyes for younger dogs.”

Jammie rolled onto her back, her arms under her head, and gazed up at the sky. Helen stayed on watch. “Joe's very nice,” Jammie said.

“I wouldn't say ‘nice,'” Helen said.

“Maybe ‘nice' isn't exactly what I had in mind,” Jammie said. “Say … charming.”

“I wouldn't … oh, forget it.”

Jammie started to say something, but didn't. They lay there, almost drowsing in the sun. “Waiting,” Jammie said, finally. “It's what you mostly end up doing, isn't it? Wait for some guy.”

Helen didn't respond.

Soon enough, they saw Joe come out and wave twice. They walked back to Jammie's car and drove on.

The boys, as Helen thought of them, were back. Jammie was introduced as a “colleague.” Paulie and Frank accepted that without comment.

The visit to the Butte–Silver Bow sheriff's office had been anticlimactic, Paulie said. The detective in charge, Jacky Lee, was a long-standing acquaintance of both men. He'd asked them if they'd been in contact with their uncle lately, knew of any reason he might have been killed, if he'd voiced any concerns, any anxieties. They
couldn't help him, they'd said, and they'd left. They'd gone to the family doctor's office and he'd glanced at Frank's gash, said it looked okay to him, suggested a tetanus shot, which Frank had declined, and they'd come on home. They hadn't noticed any signs of Boz or anyone coming around. They had let the dogs out, as Joe had suggested.

Joe was pleased that everything had gone smoothly. Obviously, it had relieved much of the tension. But he warned them not to become complacent, to assume that the police had no interest in them. This Lee, he told them, was probably concerned with other, more pressing details. Later, if nothing further developed on the case, he would start thinking about Frank again. As for Paulie, Joe thought that police interest would be limited to his connection with Frank. But for now, things looked brighter.

“Unless they find the truck,” Helen observed.

“I have some ideas about that,” Joe said. He turned to Frank. “That realtor in Forkee said something about radium mines, up in the hills. Are there a lot of them?”

Frank said there were just a few still operating, and as far as he knew they weren't open on a regular basis, more on appointment. He saw where Joe was heading. The mines would be practically ideal lairs for a wounded beast, like Boz, to lie up.

He dashed up the ladder to his tower and came back shortly with a couple of U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps of the area. He spread them out on the kitchen table and pointed out the locations. There were three or four within ten miles. “That's half a day hiking, probably,” Frank said. “But you can drive up to most of the mines in less than ten minutes from the highway. This one”—he pointed to the map—“is just over that ridge, beyond the Forkee. It's occupied.”

“Occupied?” Joe said. “You mean someone lives there?”

“Yeah, an old coot named Kibosh,” Frank said. “I did some work for him, putting in his solar and hydro. Pretty funny old guy.
It's not really a radium mine. It's an old gold mine, called the Seven Dials. Kibosh says he still gets a little gold out of there, from time to time.”

Joe looked out the window. It was early afternoon. They had time to check out these sites. Now that they had five hands, they could form two search groups. “You up for this, Jammie?”

She was leaning against the post to which Joe had been bound the night before. She looked rather chic for this work. But she said, “As soon as I can change into something more appropriate for hiking, I'm game.”

“All right,” Joe said. “So who'll stay here and mind the store? I think Paulie and Frank should both go, so it's up to you or Helen who stays.”

The two women looked at each other; then Helen gave a little sigh and said, “I'll stay. I know the alarm system.” Joe could see she wasn't keen, but there was nothing else for it.

On the way out to the vehicles, Jammie drew Joe aside and said, “I need to talk to you before this goes too far. Maybe you and I should team up.”

“That wouldn't make sense,” Joe said. He was conscious that Helen was undoubtedly looking on from inside the house. “Paulie and Frank know this country. They'll know how to approach these mines. If Boz is holed up in one of them, we don't want to alarm him. One of us should go with one of them.”

“Okay,” Jammie conceded, “but let's be clear. The colonel will really, really want to talk to Boz. It's about Ostropaki. He needs to know what happened. If you find Boz, or if I do, we'll come straight back here.”

“I wouldn't want to leave him,” Joe said. “He could escape. We'll call back to Helen. That do it?”

“Okay.” She nodded. “No moves until we consult.”

With that they set out.

R
oman Yakovich could make little sense of what Helen was telling him on the telephone. He was prepared to do anything she asked, of course. Early in life he had decided that he lacked sufficient intellect. He had attached himself, therefore, to a man who he believed had what he lacked—Helen's father, Sid. This had worked out well for Roman. In time, he had transferred his loyalty to Sid's daughter.

The “Liddle Angel” he called her, and his adoration was no less than he would have had for an angel if he believed in such things. But it was in no way a blasphemous appellation. The little angel that he had in mind was not a religious figure at all but a cartoon ghost in a comic book that he had enjoyed, many years ago—he had never picked up the distinction between this imp and a cherub, such as one saw in great paintings. In his eyes Helen was more of a sprite, or a fairy, lovely and so light that she seemed to fly on wings invisible to any but him, and she was very dear. But he didn't know what to make of this request.

She wanted him to look for and find a missing and possibly dead Kosovar named Fedima Daliljaj. This was a young woman who might have fled from Kosovo nearly a year ago, in the company of
an American who traveled under the name of Bozi Bazok. Or she might have been murdered by him. Obviously, she was a Muslim. Roman had no notion of Muslims.

Roman was, nominally, a Jew—although he practiced no religion. In America, his name had become Yakovich, but it was really Jakovic, which is to say, Jacobs or Jacobson or, anyway, something to do with the tribe of Jacob. One of his parents had hedged a bet, or had been conflicted enough about Judaism, to name him Roman. But if the Liddle Angel wanted him to find this Muslim girl, Fedima, he would look.

He had been cooling his heels, as it is said, in Florida these days. One was supposed to take the sun in that country, but that was not in Roman's nature. A burly man in his sixties, he had always tended to wear black suits with a sweater vest and an expensive necktie—annual Christmas presents from the Liddle Angel. The sweater vest he had given up in Miami, but he still wore the suit, tie, and thick-soled brogans, and he normally went armed with a small cannon of the .357 or .44-magnum variety—which one could hardly conceal in a bathing suit. The beach was not a congenial place for such a man. He knew quite a few retired mobsters in the Miami Beach area, and he visited with them, playing at boccie or cards. They sat in patios under the shade of lemon trees, drinking wine and smoking cigars. He was known as Jake, though some who had known him in Detroit still called him the Yak. Either name suited him. He went to them with his problem.