Brown-Eyed Girl (29 page)

Brit watched him, with the sudden uneasy feeling of déjà vu. The bite of fork-tender filet mignon in her mouth seemed to take forever to chew. As an experienced waitress, she was an expert on the eating habits of American diners. All kinds of people wrecked their food by drowning it in ketchup, but most people opened the bottle and tried pounding the bottom before they resorted to the knife trick to get the ketchup out. She'd seen somebody go for the knife first only once in the past year. At Foster's Country Corner. One of the asshole camo guys who'd come in and made such a scene, just before Thanksgiving. This one hadn't said a word, had kept his hat and sunglasses on in an apparent effort not to be recognizable, had barely looked up from his food. He'd done the knife thing, poured ketchup on a porterhouse steak, eaten it silently, and then gone over to use the pay phone before the hassle over the bill. She now realized it had been Bobby Helwigsen.

Her mouth was so dry, she had to take a big gulp of water. She would have loved to bolt right out of the Cavalryman, go straight to her parents' house and tell her father she had an idea that Elroy Foote might be behind a militia group that included some of the rudest people she'd ever waited on. But she didn't want Bobby to get suspicious, and besides, it wasn't every day she got a free dinner at the Cavalryman. “So Elroy Foote's got lots left to spend on other ways of saving Wyoming from the commies?” she asked. Brit really hoped Bobby was looped enough not to notice that she'd asked more questions tonight than in their entire previous history.

Bobby laughed, licked ketchup off his lips, and leaned over the table, his face close to hers. “Oh yeah, honey, he's got a million ways to keep fine American girls like you safe from the boys in the black helicopters. But if I told you what they were, I'd have to kill you.”

Chapter 29
A Rough Night and a Draggy Day

Bobby had of course been terribly disappointed when Brit told him she couldn't come back to the Holiday Inn because she had to get up early for one of her temp jobs. She intended never to see him again, but she didn't want him knowing it. When they got to their cars, she gave him a kiss that made her feel like a total whore and told him she'd call him sometime soon. The wind was blowing so hard that even Bobby, half-delirious with lust and Johnnie Walker, didn't drag out the goodbye.

Her parents were up, watching good-looking doctors stick tubes into people lying on gurneys on
ER
. She sat down on the couch, waiting until a commercial came on and her mother got up to go to the bathroom, and then turned to Dickie. “Daddy,” she said, “I have a confession.”

Dickie braced himself. Pregnant? Joining a religious cult? Piercing something visible? Something
in
visible? “What is it, darlin'?” he asked sweetly.

“You know how much I hate having you butt into my private life?”

“Yeah,” he said, taking a drag off a Marlboro.

“And you know how you asked me a couple of weeks ago if I'd been seeing Bobby Helwigsen, that lawyer from Casper?”

“Yeah,” he repeated.

“Well, I've gone out with him a few times. Nothing serious,” she added, inwardly relieved that the evening at the Hitching Post had turned out as it had. “I had dinner with him tonight at the Cavalryman. I watched him pour ketchup all over a big beautiful porterhouse steak, and it reminded me of something I thought you might want to know about.”

“That fool put ketchup on a Cavalryman steak?” Dickie asked incredulously.

“This goes back a couple months,” said Brit. “Remember when I came home the night of the Thanksgiving blizzard ...”

While Brit was filling Dickie in, Sally and Hawk were standing in Meg Dunwoodie's kitchen, having the first really big fight of their second time around. He'd been planning for months to spend spring break at Big Bend National Park in far southwest Texas, one of the lonesomest, most beautiful places in the United States, camping and hiking around. When he'd asked her weeks ago, Sally had said she wanted to go along, but now, on the day before they were due to leave, she was insisting that she couldn't get away.

“I don't understand,” he'd said a little too quietly. “Why can't you go? It's not as if you're teaching and can't miss a class, or working a nine-to-five job where you're on the clock. You can do whatever the hell you feel like doing,” he told her.

“I hate this,” she retorted. “I hate the way you act like I don't work just because I'm doing research instead of teaching.”

“I don't think that,” he said, trying to defuse that potential land mine. “I know how hard you're working. That's exactly why I think you need a break. Take a week to get away from the weather and see some pretty country. Clear out your brain. When you come back, you'll have a whole new perspective on Meg Dunwoodie.”

“I don't need a new perspective,” she insisted stubbornly, even though she suspected he was right. “I need to keep digging. There's some big piece missing. It feels like I'm just about to figure it out, but I've got to keep working. The stuff from the FOIA request could come any time, and I want to be here when it arrives.”

“The stuff from the FOIA request might not show up for years,” he retorted reasonably, “and even if it does show up, it'll keep. You can ask Maude to sign off on the shipping receipt.”

“Maude's gone. She's off on a tropical vacation, remember? You had that long conversation with her about bird-watching in Costa Rica. Told her she'd double her life list. She said she was opposed to ecotourism in principle but not in practice. She booked tickets for a jungle adventure at some research station a hundred miles from San José the day after the fire in Albany. She left yesterday. She won't be back until the end of May.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, she really needed the break, and so do you. Come on, Mustang, let's go camping.” He took a step closer, put his arms around her.

“Hawk, I can't just drop everything that matters to me and go off with you every time you feel like it.” Direct hit; completely unfair. He let go of her and stepped back. She'd really hurt his feelings, and feeling guilty about it made her even more defensive. “I just know there's something missing, something that links the Paris part to the Wyoming part. Something that explains what Ernst Malthus was doing here in 1943, and why Meg never talked about her father after he died, and where those diamonds came from. It's all a jumble now. You've always made a point of coming and going as you please, but I can't just forget about it and go gallivanting off to Texas to commune with nature.”

“You used to love to go gallivanting off to commune with nature,” he said bitterly. “But now you're turning into a dried-up academic who'd rather sit in a basement and play with her papers than get out and explore. I
thought
you wanted to spend time with me. I've put a lot of time into planning a great trip for us.” Clearly, he'd gotten sucked into this relationship a little too far. He had, against all experience and judgment, begun to trust her, to develop expectations. Big mistake. He put on his down jacket and headed for the door. “Sorry you're too busy to have fun. Have a great spring break.”

When Brit showed up at nine the next morning, Sally was hunched over a cup of coffee in the kitchen. “You look like ten miles of bad road,” Brit told her. “What happened?”

Sally grunted. Brit waited for the explanation.

“Fight with Hawk. Five minutes after he walked out of this house, I had the bright idea of going down to the Wrangler to find Delice and have a couple of beverages. Your aunt's still having trouble getting the Yippie I O to meet the fire codes, and arguing about the damn pizza oven isn't helping her in the campaign to get something going with Steve Baca. So Delice poured herself three fingers of Cuervo Gold. I settled for good old lethal Jimbo. We closed the place down at two,” she finished on a moan.

Brit was a fairly good judge of hangovers, and the one Sally was nursing struck her as a medium-range one, more than cotton mouth and a mild headache, but substantially less than the promise of a day worshipping the porcelain god. Sally was gulping her coffee, and even eating a piece of toast. So Brit figured she was in good enough shape to hear the latest. “I had dinner with Bobby at the Cavalryman last night,” Brit began.

“Oh goodie,” said Sally savagely. “Did he choke on a piece of prime rib, turn blue, and expire? I certainly hope so,” she snarled, tearing into her toast with her teeth.

“No, he's still alive,” Brit answered. “But I did watch him pour ketchup all over a porterhouse.”

“I didn't think my opinion of him could get any lower,” Sally commented. “I bet he even ordered it well done.”

Brit let that pass. “Yeah, he's gross. But that's not exactly a satellite news flash. I realized as I was watching him do it that I'd seen him do the same thing before.”

“So you continue to see this pig, despite his nasty eating habits, which you've heretofore ignored on the grounds that watching him eat can be of some use to me. Very noble.” Sally got up to pour more coffee.

“Hey—have a shitty day yourself. If you don't want to hear what I have to say, why don't you just take your lame attitude and your stupid hangover and your dead poet and shove them ...”

“Okay, okay, don't yell at me,” Sally begged, putting down her cup to go to the sink and splash water on her face. “I'm not feeling very well this morning.”

“I can see that,” Brit said. “Aunt Delice called my mom this morning and asked if she could go down to the Wrangler and work breakfast for her. Guess she isn't feeling very well either.”

“This town is too damn small,” Sally muttered, feeling better for having a cold, wet face.

“So what's the deal about Bobby and the ketchup?”

“Just that I saw him do it before I even knew who he was. It was when I was working at the Country Corner, during the Thanksgiving blizzard. I had to wait on this bunch of jerks who were, like, all dressed in fatigues, and some of them were real gonzo specimens. I kept expecting somebody to pull out an Uzi and start mowing down truckers. And Bobby was one of them! I couldn't really see his face, since he kept his hat on and he was wearing mirrored shades, but I watched him unscrew the cap of the bottle, stick a knife in, then turn it upside down and pound on the bottom. He did it again last night! Ask any waitress—you won't find one in a hundred people who do that, let alone two who do it so they can pour crap all over a porterhouse steak!” Brit helped herself to a cup of coffee.

“So he puts ketchup on his steak, and he's in the National Guard or something. So what?”

“Not the National Guard. This wasn't any real military outfit—they had a convoy of trucks with canvas over the doors to cover up the logos. They acted really crazy. I mean, we're talking some kind of militia or something.”

Now Sally was puzzled. “Why would a slick lawyer with a giant client and huge ambition join a militia? I mean, everybody knows he's a big wheel Republican, but I think of him more as a screw-the-poor Republican than an Army-of-God Republican. Must be the giant client,” said Sally, smiling faintly as she reached the obvious conclusion. “You told your dad about this, right?”

“Right. And in about five minutes, he's going to be calling you up and telling you to keep the hell out of this and let him handle it,” Brit predicted.

The phone rang. Brit was five minutes slow. Sally answered it fast. “Hi Dickie,” she said, “I hear I've got a militia after me now. What next, Islamic Jihad?”

Dickie told Sally that the best thing she could do about this new business with a possible militia was nothing. He was working the angle and would tell her if he turned up anything she really needed to deal with. In the meantime, however, she should keep her mouth shut on the subject of Elroy Foote, in all situations. Something very unkosher was going on here, but Dickie and other duly designated law enforcement types would handle it. So she should just let them, and not discuss any of this with anybody, especially Delice. All he needed was Delice in this. Jesus. And not Maude or Sonnenschein or Edna McCaffrey either. Next thing he knew, they'd be forming a liberal countermilitia to march on Teton County.

Sally said she'd be glad to let duly appointed authorities take care of things. All she wanted was some peace and quiet and a sudden lightning bolt of insight that would illuminate Meg Dunwoodie's life like a hydrogen bomb blast. That was all that mattered.

She wished she could tell Hawk about this latest wrinkle. He would find a way to make things make sense. She realized, with dismay, that she'd come around to thinking of him as someone she needed to tell everything to, who counted as part of herself rather than another person when she promised to keep a secret. And now she'd hurt him and sent him off to Texas alone. She wasn't at all sure that he'd want to take back up with her when he returned. Hawk did very nicely by himself, as he'd proven over four and a half decades. And so, goddamn it, did she.

Yeah, right. If there was any reason to think that she was a target for some rogue army full of psychos, then she was going to get her chance to show how well she could do on her own. Dickie was on the job, and that was a comfort. But with Maude gone, Delice out of the loop, and Hawk probably actively wishing she were dead, she was pretty exposed. Still, she couldn't just let this go.

Brit's strategy of having dinner with an asshole had worked; they'd learned something they needed to know. Sally could use a version of the same plan. She got the Laramie phone book, looked up a number, and dialed.

Sam Branch had been dumbfounded and instantly suspicious when Sally Alder called his office to ask him to lunch. She acted like she wanted a friendly chat, but obviously it was business. Now that they were middle-aged, everybody did business over lunch. Where had all the flowers gone?

Sam, of course, already had a lunch meeting, but he said he could meet her for a drink after work. They agreed to meet at six at the Buckhorn Bar, down on Ivinson Street, because it would be crowded and noisy enough on a Friday afternoon to make private conversation possible.

Sally was sitting at a table when he arrived. She was drinking club soda and lime, looking like hell. He went to the bar, got a beer, and sat down. “To what do I owe this honor?” he began.

“Oh, I just thought we should talk about a practice schedule for The Millionaires,” she said. “We ought to work up some new material for the Yippie I O opening.” John-Boy and Burt didn't plan to have live music in their place, but for the opening night party, Delice had insisted they needed a band, and Dwayne's group was the obvious choice.

Practice schedule? Sam was well aware that they could have done that on the phone. “Wednesday nights at Dwayne's, seven to nine,” he said. “Next question?”

For a man as full of bullshit as Sam Branch was, he sure knew how to cut through it. Sally got to the point. “You're a friend of Bobby Helwigsen, right?”

“Not precisely. I know him. We do a little business.” Sam got out a cigar, lit it, narrowed his eyes over the smoke. “I'm not about to get involved in the Dunwoodie lawsuit, Mustang, just for your information, so don't even ask.”

“Come on, Sam. Telling me what kind of guy Helwigsen is won't affect your campaign to get on the board of trustees. You've known me a long time. This is just between us”—she leaned forward—“desperados waiting for a train.”

He leaned closer, too, smiled handsomely. “What do I get in return?”

“Not a fucking thing.” She smiled back.

That made him laugh. “Good old bitchy Mustang Sally,” he said. As they sat there cracking each other up, it amused Sam even more to see Hawk Green and some big skinny guy come into the Buckhorn, looking sweaty and thirsty. They hadn't seen Sally and Sam yet, but they would. She hadn't seen Hawk yet, but she would. Sam had no intention of telling her anything about Bobby Helwigsen, and he planned on getting out of there very shortly, but just for the hell of it, Sam took Sally's hand, started fiddling with her fingers. “OK, sweet pea,” he said. “Come a little bit closer.”