Chasing a Blond Moon (30 page)

“We're pigtailing,” the smaller of the two men said. It was hard to judge age.

“What the hell is pigtailing?”

“He's Sioux,” the taller man said. “We drove them out of here a long time ago.”

“He's Ojibwa,” the shorter one said. “And some of us are back.” He glared at the other young man.

“Let's see some ID,” Service said. “One hand on your head, fish in your pocket with the other.”

“We'd never hurt another person,” the tall one said. “We're just trying to take each other's hair. You can't be a warrior without hair.”

“What if you miss, hit his neck?”

“We know what we're doing. Our tribal elders approve of this as a way of settling disputes.”

“What dispute?”

“It goes back?”

“How far?”

“Three, four hundred years.”

“You want to scalp each other over something that took place centuries ago?”

“It's a matter of honor—like the Civil War.”

“Sounds like a matter of stupidity,” Service said.

He was reaching for the first wallet when he heard a thud and breaking glass down the snowmobile trail behind them.

“What the hell?” The two men joined him in staring down the trail.

A man appeared and stumbled forward, caught his foot, and went down on his face.

“That dude's fucked up,” the Sioux said.

The man lay on the trail, did not move.

“You two stay here,” he said, adding, “Give me your wallets.” He took them, checked to be sure they contained licenses, and stuffed them inside his shirt. You bolt and I will track your asses down and personally shave you as bald as Telly Savalas.”

“Is that some kind of animal?” Sioux asked.

“You people are too stupid to be on Mother Earth,” Ojibwa shot back.

All Service had wanted was some peace and quiet so that he could think.

“Stay,” he ordered the two men.

They both nodded. “We're cool, officer.”

When he got to the man on the trail he was on his knees and staring, his brow furled.

“You tough?” the man on his knees asked. His face was scraped.

Blood was dribbling down his chin.

“Calm down, sir.”

The man got to his feet, spread out his arms. “Let's see what you've got, big man.”

“Sir!”

The man charged and was quicker than Service anticipated, crashed into his chest and wrapped him with his arms. Service tried to pry the grip loose, but his broken finger shot a pain up his wrist. The man lifted him in the air and Service looked down into eyes that were boiling blue fury. He pulled his head back and snapped it down hard, head-butting the man in the face. They both went sideways and hands were grabbing at him and pushing him away, and when he rolled over, Sioux and Ojibwa were pinning the struggling man to the ground. Service crawled in with them, felt something cut into his knee, and took a hold by the man's neck until his eyes rolled in their sockets and he stopped struggling. “Roll him over,” he told his helpers. “Get his arms behind him.” He took his cuffs off his belt and did the man's wrists.

When things were calm, he sat back and fumbled for a cigarette. He offered the pack to his helpers. “Officer, you are like seriously fucked,” Sioux said.

Service felt his face, looked at his hand. Blood.

“You got first aid in your truck?” Ojibwa asked.

Service nodded. The man ran off, his feet crunching against the gravel. The man in cuffs swore, began to scissor-kick his legs. “You got your knife?” Service asked Sioux, raising his voice.

The young man nodded. “This asshole moves again, cut off his balls.”

Sioux grinned. “Can I have his scalp too?”

“Fucking eh,” Service said.

The man rolled up on a shoulder and looked away.

Ojibwa stood by the truck, looking stumped. “It's locked.” Service opened it, got out the first-aid kit, and handed it to one of the boys, who began trying to dab at Service's cuts.

“Man, you must do this a lot,” he said.

“New cuts or did he open the old stuff?”

“Both. Most of the blood's from your nose and the head cut.”

Service took gauze and began repairing himself. He looked at Ojibwa. “Go see what the hell the crash was, but don't touch anything, got it?”

“Yes, officer.”

Service looked at Sioux. “Pigtailing?”

The boy shrugged and grinned. “We wouldn't hurt each other. We've been friends since we were eight.”

“How old are you now?”

“Both twenty.”

“Girls are a better outlet for hormones.”

“That's the problem,” Sioux said with a grin. “We both want the same one.”

“Great. Take turns with her. It will be easier on everybody.”

“That's like, totally sick, dude.” He was grinning.

Ojibwa returned. “Ran his pickup into a tree. It's fucked. Guns on the floor, two fawns in the bed, neither of them gutted. Looks like a bag of weed on the floor, two vodka bottles, some in one, the other's empty.”

Service nodded. “Stay with him.” He got out his belt radio, clicked over to the District 3 frequency, called for help, gave his call sign 2514.

Peggy in the Escanaba office said, “Twenty-Five Fourteen, AVL shows Gary about three miles from your position.”

Gary was Gary Ebony, who handled parts of Delta County and was built like an NFL linebacker. Violets in the county called him Agony because of the troubles he gave them.

“Rolling,” Ebony reported over the radio.

Service lit another cigarette, got blood on it, wiped his hands on his pants, and waited.

When Ebony pulled up, Service helped the bulky officer secure the crashman. They collected weapons and evidence, the two dead fawns, took photos of the rest of the truck's interior, and called a wrecker. Ebony looked at him while they waited for a Delta County deputy sheriff to transport the prisoner.

“You need to get to the hospital,” Ebony said.

“I need a new face,” Service said. He ached all over, but the blood flow had been stanched.

Two deputies came in a patrol car and Service and Ebony loaded the prisoner in the backseat. Service stood with the pigtailers when the deputies and Ebony were gone. He handed them their wallets.

“We're really sorry,” Ojibwa said.

“Leave your knives and get the hell out of here. Thanks for the help.”

The two men ran to their trucks and raced away, their tires spitting stones.

Service went back to his log and sat down, his face and finger throbbing, his arm sore, his knee and trousers split.

Too many of these kind of days, he told himself as he began to run the whole thing through to see what he might have done differently. Find a different job was his final conclusion. He had hesitated when confronted by the boys and the man. Pain had made him hold back. Bad mistake, he told himself. He knew he should head back to the house, but he drove south to Menominee, called Jimmy Cosbee's house, talked to his mother and asked her to have Jimmy let Newf in tonight. He stopped at a party store near Cedar River, bought two bags of ice for his cooler, and continued south to find a room at a sleep-cheap.

The girl behind the reception desk at the Bayview Motel was blond, small, and meek. She wore a tanktop and her breasts looked like they might fall out the sides.

“I need a room,” Service said.

“Your face,” she said, giving him a look that was part fear, part awe.

“I know,” he said. “One person, one room, one night.” He put his badge and ID on the desk.

She hesitated. “You're not going to—”

“I'm not going to kill myself,” he said. “I leave that to others.”

She laughed nervously. “I, ya know, like, see a lot of shit in here, ya know?”

Service picked up his badge, held out his hand for a key. “Cops and receptionists,” he said. “Birds of a feather.”

“You want me to get some ice for you, officer?” she asked.

“Got some in my cooler. Thanks.”

“I can call a doctor,” she said.

“Faith will heal me,” he said.

“Far out,” she said, looking skeptical.

23

The morning light hurt his eyes and it stung to stand under the hot shower water, but he forced himself. Dressing was equally uncomfortable. His knee was puffy, his broken finger throbbing, both eyes swollen and beginning to close.

He was coming out of his room when a voice sounded and he turned to find the kid from reception. She looked tired. “You okay?” she asked. “I've been worried all night.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

Hoar House was on a block filled with several taverns, most of them sprouting Green Bay Packer memorabilia. The bar faced a channel in the Menominee River, barely qualifying it for a view, despite a red-letter claim in the window.

Service walked inside slowly, feeling cool autumn air cut through the slice in his pants. He was met by an old man in a pressed white apron and starched white jeans. “Do you just look like shit?” the man asked.

Service followed the man to a table near an electronic dartboard. The old man brought a pitcher of coffee and filled Service's cup. “You're the one Wayno's meeting.”

Service nodded. “How did you know?”

“You got the look. I hope you got in a few good licks,” he added with a sly grin. “You want to order now?”

He shook his head, checked the wall clock. He was ten minutes early. “Have you got a needle and thread?”

“Coming right up.”

Service sewed clumsily, mending the hole in his pants while he waited. His run of luck had to change soon. It always had before.

Wayno Ficorelli arrived on time, marching into the bar with his hair combed, uniform neat and pressed, boots shined. “You meet Frosty?” the Wisconsin warden asked.

The man in the apron saluted with two fingers. “Frosty would be me,” he said.

“Grady.”

Ficorelli asked the proprietor to join them, and told Service, “I had a great night.”

“Good for you,” Service grumbled.

“Fahrenheit's old lady is named Mary Ellen and she's filed for a divorce. She hates Colliver, says Charley-boy will do anything for the man and she's sick of it. Told me she hasn't done the deed with Charley-boy in over a year. Can you believe that?”

Service looked at Ficorelli. “I suppose you helped rectify the deficiency.”

“You could say we stroked each other's—”

“Spare us the details,” Frosty said.

“Hey, sex is natural, like takin' a shit.”

“We don't want those details either,” Service said.

“You sure?”

Service rolled his eyes.

“We're sure,” Frosty said.

“Okay, Charley-boy shot the bear on Colliver's camp wall. In fact, Charley-boy's shot six bears in the past two years. Mary Ellen says he and Colliver take the gallbladders and the paws and sell the carcasses down to Milwaukee. They hunt the U.P. in Iron and Gogebic Counties. They bring the bears back in coffins to Wisconsin, in a hearse, put a magnetic funeral flag on the fender to make it look legit, the whole deal. Never been stopped. They burn the carcasses. Colliver handles the transportation, Charley does the shooting. Colliver calls him Bear Boy. Last June they went up to Iron County to scout, and ran up against another hunter named Kitella. He beat the hell out of both of them, took their hearse, took them over the state line, and dropped them naked as jaybirds. Colliver got pissed, wanted to fight back. Charley didn't, but he does what Colliver wants, so they went back up to Michigan intending to mess up this guy Kitella's place. They never made it. Some old fucker stopped them in the woods, pointed a shotgun at Colliver. Turns out he doesn't like Kitella either, so he offers to help. Mary Ellen says Charley stole cable from a factory for this old man.”

Service was suddenly interested. All sorts of intersections seemed possible.

“This old guy got a name?”

“Charley never told Mary Ellen.”

“What about a description?”

“Vague. An old man, tough as moosehide.”

Which could describe thousands of U.P. residents, including Limpy and Trapper Jet.

“Mary Ellen blames Colliver for Charley losing his job. She confronted Colliver on this and he got Charley a lawyer. Now the lawyer says the case looks like a loser and Charley's pissed and Mary Ellen says if Charley will turn in Colliver, she'll drop the divorce.”

“She make that declaration while you were porking her?” Frosty asked.

Ficorelli blinked a couple of times. “Sure. What's the name of that Frenchman, wrote if you'd talk to a woman till 4 a.m. you'd get into her pants every time?”

“Marcel Marceau,” Service said.

Ficorelli frowned. “I'm serious. People get in bed, they run off at the mouth.”

“They teach this as an interview technique in Michigan?” Frosty asked.

“No,” Service said.

“Wisconsin, neither. We just got us a horny little wop.”

Ficorelli took umbrage. “Right, put me down, but it works. I'm being serious here.”

“Where's Mrs. Fahrenheit now?”

“I left her at the Muskie Motel on US Forty-One. She's gonna head over to her house in Harmony. She talked to Charley last night, told him she wants a meet. That's at noon. I figured we'd get there an hour before, stash the vehicle, and greet Charley-boy when he arrives.”

This didn't sound like much of a plan, but Service was too tired and sore to argue or come up with something else.

“You want to see a doctor?” Ficorelli asked.

Service shook his head.

“Breakfast for you boys?” Frosty asked.

“Eggs over easy and hash,” Wayno said.

“OJ, coffee, and dry rye toast,” Service said.

Frosty left, shouting orders to his cook.

“Sleeping with witnesses isn't too swift,” Service said.

“You're not my priest, and besides, we didn't sleep that much.”

“Your priest would tell you the same thing.”

Ficorelli laughed. “Yeah, sure, right after he gets out of the joint for buggering altar boys.”

Service picked up his coffee and eyed his toast while the Wisconsin warden mashed his eggs into his hash. They ate in silence.

Fahrenheit's house was a large, fairly new ranch with an expanse of green lawn out front and a lumpy pasture stretching behind the house to a line of birch and cedars. A large garage sat beside the house, unattached.

“Charley-boy done okay with the chopper company,” Ficorelli said.

They were in Service's Yukon. He pulled up to the house and Wayno trotted up to the door, talked to somebody, and came back. “There's a two-track behind the garage. You can park back behind the trees.” Wayno pointed.

Service watched him go into the house, then drove around the garage, found the track through the field, and drove a quarter-mile back into the trees. He parked and walked into the field, didn't like the truck's positioning, went back and moved it again. He smoked a cigarette as he hurried across the field toward the house. He knocked on the front door but got no response. He tried the doorknob. Locked. He rang the bell, checked his watch: 11:30 a.m. No problem with time.

Wayno finally came to the door and opened it, grinning. “Sorry, didn't mean to lock you out.”

Ficorelli's belt was undone, as was his fly. “Better shut your gate,” Service said.

Wayno looked down, laughed, and zipped up as they walked into the kitchen where a woman in her mid-forties was standing at a counter, measuring scoops of coffee and dumping them into a brown paper filter. She was pear-shaped with an appealing, wholesome face, wearing a pale yellow short-sleeved sweater over a pale yellow skirt. Her hair looked mussed and she was barefoot. Some of her toenails were painted red.

“Mary Ellen Fahrenheit, Grady Service.”

“Hi,” she said, her cheeks flushed with color. “Sorry the coffee's not ready. I sort of lost track of time. Why don't the two of you sit in the dining room. The kitchen's a mess.”

Service looked around. The kitchen looked anything but a mess.

Ficorelli remained in the kitchen.

Service went into the dining room. There was a red couch in the adjoining living room, its pillows gollywhompered. Pantyhose and a pair of women's flats were on the floor beside the couch.

There were prints of mermaids all over the walls, vases filled with plastic flowers, a crucifix.

Ficorelli and the woman came into the dining room with a tray of coffee cups, an urn, and a plate of cheese Danish.

“They're a day old,” Mary Ellen Fahrenheit said.

“Are you sure about this?” Service asked her.

“To tell the truth, I'm a tad nervous, eh?” She glanced at Ficorelli and smiled. “Charley is basically a good man and we've had a pretty good life, but he follows that jerk Colliver. They go all the way back to high school. ­Colliver gets an idea and Charley does the heavy lifting, know what I mean?”

Service nodded. “You filed for divorce.”

“I can't go on living like this. If Charley gives up Colliver, I'll try again. If not, I'm outta here. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. He's been a good provider, but. . . .”

“Did you tell Charley why you wanted to see him today?”

“No,” she said. “Should I have?”

“It's okay,” Ficorelli said, coming to her assistance.

The woman got up and rubbed her hands together. “I'd better pick up a little.”

Service watched her go into the living room, scoop up the pantyhose and shoes, try to tuck them in front of her to hide them, and disappear down a hallway.

Ficorelli looked at Service. “I know what you're thinking. She was ready to lose it. I just helped her calm down.”

“A man of high motives,” Service said.

“That cuts, man. I'm tellin' ya, we got this guy for sure. Him and Colliver.”

“We'll see,” Service said. When Mary Ellen came back, she was wearing shoes and stockings and a light jacket.

“How long do you think you'll be?” she asked.

“We need for you to be here when your husband arrives,” Service said.

“Then I can go?”

Ficorelli said, “That's fine. Just give us a number and I'll call you when we're done.” The woman took off her jacket.

A little after noon a brown pickup pulled into the driveway and a lanky man with a mullet haircut got out. He wore a Packers hat facing backward and had a beer can in his hand. He took a swig and threw the can in the bed of his truck.

Service and Ficorelli stood on either side, inside the front door.

Charley Fahrenheit walked in and saw his wife standing a few feet down the hall. “What the hell's so important?”

“These fellas want to talk to you,” she said, grabbing her jacket off a hook and heading for the back of the house.

Fahrenheit was a tall man, all muscle, with the opaque eyes of a cat. “What the fuck, dudes?”

Ficorelli held his hands up. “No problem here, Charley. I'm Warden Ficorelli and this is Detective Service.”

“The bitch,” Fahrenheit said.

“Why don't we take a seat in the kitchen?” Service said.

Fahrenheit's shoulders slumped as he walked into the kitchen, pulled a chair out and sat down.

“What's this about?”

“Mary Ellen told you if you give up Colliver, she'll drop the divorce?” Wayno said with a grin.

“What makes you think I want her ta drop it,” the man said.

“For one thing,” Ficorelli said, “as long as you two are married she doesn't have to testify against you. Divorced, she can sing like a bird. You know that song, ‘Six Bears in Iron County.'”

Colliver looked puzzled. “That's not a song.”

“We write the titles,” said the Wisconsin warden. “You get to write the lyrics.”

“I give you Colliver and what do I get, my job back?”

“The job's gone, Charley,” Service said. “But you're still free. You give us Colliver and we'll try to cut you some slack on the bear killings.”

“I won't do time.”

“It's not up to us to make that decision,” Ficorelli said. “But if you cooperate, it won't be nearly as bad. You've fucked up big time, Charleyboy. Why not spit it all out, get rid of it, give yourself a chance to start again? We can do this the easy way or the hard way—your choice.”

Service thought someone should write a country song using all the one-liners game wardens used with violets.

“This is like a nightmare,” Fahrenheit said.

“Always is when it comes time for payback,” Ficorelli said.

“You worked with an old man in Michigan. He got a name?” Service asked.

Fahrenheit got up from the table and looked down the hallway. “My old lady gone?”

Ficorelli nodded. “At a friend's.”

“I'm gonna tell you the truth here: I never met the man. Colliver knows him. I dealt with a woman.”

“Does she have a name?” Service asked.

“She's Indian, man.”

“What's her name?”