Fire and ice (6 page)

"Put a lid on it, Jim Earl," Bill said. "You been letting this boy run wild since he starting courting your daughter in high school." She bent a severe look upon the mayor. "Why you let him court her is something we won't get into right now." The mayor's face went red, and he began to splutter. Ignoring him, Bill continued, "Fact is, somebody's got to shake some sense into Teddy, and it looks like I've been elected. Besides," she added inexorably, in what was becoming a litany, "he came into my saloon, and he shot up my jukebox, and he shot it up when Jimmy was singing, and he shot it up when Jimmy was singing "Margaritaville." Nobody does that in my bar. And nobody ever, ever does that to Jimmy."

"Uh," Liam said.

"Yes, Liam?" Bill said, looking at him with a bland smile.

Liam made what felt even to himself like a feeble attempt to gain control of the situation. "Surely there has to be a local ordinance against the shooting of a firearm within the city limits."

Bill raised her brows. "I'm sure there must be. And your point is?"

"Well, I--" Liam was beginning to sweat, although not as freely as Teddy Engebretsen. It didn't help that the rest of the people in the bar were fully alive to his dilemma and thoroughly enjoying it. Liam felt like the star attraction in a three-ring circus. He looked back at Bill, and for the first time noticed the twinkle lurking at the back of her eyes. He stared at her, and the twinkle grew.

"There, that oughta do it." The lid on the jukebox came down with a solid thud and the Old Fart dropped a quarter into the machine and punched in a selection. Nothing happened. The twinkle in Bill's eyes vanished, and Teddy looked even more terrified, if that was possible. "Come on, you son of a bitch," the Old Fart said, and squared off to give the jukebox a quick kick in the side. The machine hiccuped once and came alive with the sound of steel drums and a harmonica collaborating on a Caribbean rhythm that inspired one couple into an impromptu jitterbug. Jimmy was back.

Tension visibly eased. The Old Fart packed up the toolbox and lugged it to the bar, where he let it drop with a resounding crash. He looked impatiently around for Bill. "Well, come on, woman, don't just stand there, get me a beer!"

Bill grumbled but did as she was told, absentmindedly handing off the rifle to Liam as she passed. The Old Fart looked at him. "Get your butt up here, too, boy--I'll buy you a drink. Bill, pour him some o' that Glenmorangie--you know, that stuff bottled by the only ten honest men on the Isle of Skye, or some such."

Bill snapped her fingers and pointed at the Old Fart. "That was why you made me buy this stuff."

The Old Fart shrugged. "What can I say? I'm good."

Liam found himself standing at the bar. If he'd had time to think about it he might have wondered how he got there, especially with what was waiting for him at the airport, but for the moment he didn't seem to have much choice in the matter. It all seemed somewhat dreamlike, anyway--the body at the airport, the reappearance of Wy in his life when he had thought her lost to him forever, a practicing vigilante who moonlighted as the local magistrate, and now, a soon-to-be-drunken jukebox repairman. He was wrong--this wasn't a three-ring circus, it was an alternate plane of existence.

The Old Fart was a foot shorter than the trooper, which he rectified by hoisting himself up on a stool. He turned to Liam and stuck out a hand. "Moses Alakuyak, shaman."

His beer and Liam's single malt arrived. Moses held out his bottle of beer and Liam clinked his glass against it. "To women," Moses said. "Not all of them leave, you know."

"I beg your pardon?" Liam said.

Moses drained his bottle in one long, continuous swallow. "Barkeep! Do it again! Not that it matters," he said, turning back to Liam. "Pretty soon there'll be nothing left of this goddamn planet but a garbage dump and a grave."

Ten years of practicing law enforcement with the Alaska State Troopers was an excellent way to hone one's survival skills. Liam murmured something that could have been agreement, and sipped cautiously at his glass, but it was the real thing all right: Glenmorangie single malt scotch. He swirled the liquid around in his glass and inhaled with reverence.

"People think survival of the fittest is all right for animals but not for people," Moses explained expansively. "We're not culling the human herd the way we oughta. We're saving the weakest: the ones with AIDS, the folks in Africa who can't figure out how to feed themselves, them Serbs who can't stop shooting at their neighbors. We're gonna rescue 'em all, and wipe out the human race doing it." The old man snorted, a comprehensive sound issuing forth from his snubbed nose. "By God," he said, voice rising, "we're living in the best of times right now, because it sure as hell ain't gonna get any better."

The scotch slid down Liam's throat like melted butter. He set the glass down. "Thanks for the drink, Moses," he said, and paused. "Wait a minute. How did you know I drink single malt scotch?"

"I know a lot of things about you," Moses said, knocking back his second beer and waving for a third. Bill brought it, and set it down gently in front of him. There was none of the condemnation in her expression Liam had seen there for Teddy Engebretsen. Of course, Moses had fixed the jukebox and returned Jimmy Buffett to his natural setting, a bar, so Bill was no doubt inclined to look kindly upon him.

Bill stretched out a hand and cupped Moses' cheek. "Going to be one of those nights, huh?" she said in the softest tone Liam had yet to hear her use.

"Don't worry about it," Moses said gruffly, but he didn't turn away when she leaned over the bar and kissed him. It wasn't the kiss of a friend, either; it went on for a while, and Moses hooked a hand around the back of Bill's head and cooperated with enthusiasm, to the vocal approval of the bar's other customers.

Bill pulled back and gave Moses a sweet smile. "Later, lover."

He caught at her hand before she could move down the bar, and kissed it. "Later."

There was a wealth of promise in both word and kiss. Liam was trying to read the fine print of the labels on the line of bottles on the opposite wall when Moses dug an elbow into his side. "Okay to look now, trooper." The Old Fart grinned up at him, and now that he was looking for it, Liam could see the Alakuyak in him, in the barely perceptible slant of his eyes, the high, flat cheekbones, the snubbed nose. Come to think of it, his height should have been a dead giveaway--most Yupik men ranged between four-eight and five-five. But his skin was olive, not golden, his hair a grizzled brown, not the sleek black cap found in the villages, and his eyes were a startling gray, a gray so light they had almost no color at all. They were looking at Liam now, clear, cool, assessing, and Liam could not shake the uncomfortable feeling that they could see right through him.

Moses didn't help when he said, "Yeah, I know a lot of things, about everything, but right now I want to know why you're keeping a girt as fine as Wyanet Chouinard waiting on you."

The accusation took Liam aback, and he fumbled around for an acceptable answer. "Well, I--everything's happened so fast, I didn't know --the mayor came and--"

"I don't mean this bullshit." An allinclusive wave of one impatient hand took in Teddy Engebretsen, still bound and gagged. "Why didn't you come after her?"

Liam felt disembodied. "I'm married," he heard someone say.

"Like hell you are." Moses stared at him, not without sympathy. "That's no kind of way to live, boy."

"It's my life," Liam said, and the anger came back again, anger at himself, at Wy, at Jenny, at fate.

Moses regarded him impatiently. "Ain't never going to be a good time to make the break, boy. Your situation, painful though it is, aggravating though it is, is familiar to you. You've become comfortable in it. You don't want to make a mess, create fuss and inconvenience. Tell you something." The shaman, if that was what he was, snorted a laugh. "Tell you a lot of things, because I know a lot of things, but right now listen to this." Moses drained his fourth beer, and pointed to it for emphasis. "Life isn't neat. Know why? Because it's run by imperfect people who make messes, who then have to go around cleaning up after themselves." Moses gave Liam a severe once-over. "You're not much of a cleaner-upper, are you, boy?"

Liam could feel the heat rising up beneath his skin. All he could think of to say was "You don't talk like someone raised in Bush Alaska. Where did you go to school?"

"Hah!" Moses said, triumphant. "I can't talk like this because I was raised in a village, is that it? You got a lot to learn, boy, and I'm just the one to teach you. Stick around." He drained his glass with a satisfied smack of his lips, followed by a resonant and contented burp. "But not tonight. Bill! Hit me again!"

"In a minute." Bill took Liam's glass, drained it, and used the thick end to rap the bar, twice, sharp, quick raps, bringing everyone to momentary attention. She bent a severe eye on Teddy Engebretsen, still bound and gagged. He quailed. "Teddy Engebretsen, in my capacity as magistrate of the state of Alaska, I charge you with being drunk and disorderly in public, discharging a firearm within the city limits, and just generally being a pain in the ass. I find you guilty of same. Court's adjourned." She thumped the bar with the glass twice again. "He's all yours, trooper. Legally, anyway."

"What am I supposed to do with him?" Liam said.

Now it was Bill's turn to regard him with impatience. "Toss him in the hoosegow. What the hell kind of trooper are you?"

A magistrate for the state of Alaska didn't need a law degree, didn't need much more than a high school diploma or its equivalent and some standing in his or her community. Official arrest procedures called for the swearing out of a warrant, a reading of rights, an arraignment, a grand jury, a trial, a conviction--all those nitpicky little due-process things required by the Constitution of the United States and affirmed by the Bill of Rights, not to mention two hundred and twenty years of Supreme Court case law. Belief in those things made Liam the kind of trooper he was, but they didn't seem to count for much here and now. "Where exactly is the, er, hoosegow?" he said meekly.

"At the cop shop. Jim Earl'll show you."

"How long do I leave him there?"

"Long as I say so," Bill said.

"Oh."

Moses grinned at him.

It could be worse, Liam thought. At least Newenham's magistrate had taken the Sixth Amendment to heart, if no other. Teddy Engebretsen's trial had been speedy, and it sure as hell had been public.

A dimension beyond sight and sound, he thought, going down the stairs and out to the construction orange Suburban. A dimension known as the Twilight Zone.

FOUR

Teddy Engebretsen was freed from bondage and deposited safely, if a bit tearfully, in one of the six cells available at the local jail. The dispatcher, a leathery middle-aged woman with a harassed look on her face, tossed Jim Earl the keys while talking nonstop through her headset, something about a joust between two dueling snow machiners on the Icky road. The Icky road? It was the first week of May, and Liam hadn't seen any snow on the ground either from the air or Jim Earl's truck. He decided not to inquire if the Icky road was municipal, state, or federal. Some things it was better he should not know.

Afterward, Jim Earl dropped Liam at his office, where the trooper discovered the door unlocked and the keys in the ignition of the white Chevy Blazer with the Alaska State Troopers seal on the door. Mindful of the scene still waiting at the airport, Liam did little more than toss his bag behind the desk and lock the office door before climbing into the Blazer. The engine turned over on the first try, and he didn't get lost more than two or three times on his way back to the airport.

He arrived at the same time as the ambulance, and made a resolve then and there never to be shot in the line of duty during his posting to Newenham. He checked his watch. It was eight-thirty. Unbelievably, it was only three hours since his plane had touched down. Surely too much had happened to fit into that small a space.

He raised the watch to his ear. The ticking should have reassured him that time was passing with its usual, inexorable forward motion, but it didn't.

Wy was still there, sitting in the cab of her truck. It was drizzling. An older man, unshaven and wearing salt-stained clothes, was talking to her through the open driver's-side door. Wy caught sight of Liam over the man's shoulder as he pulled up next to her. By the time Liam had gotten out the older man was walking away, a pronounced limp in his gait. "Who was that?" Liam said.

She shrugged. "Just another fisherman. Wanted to know what happened."

She couldn't quite meet his eyes, and he regarded her for a speculative moment.

Gary Gruber was still there, too, shivering beneath the eaves of the terminal and gnawing at what might have been a candy bar. People came and went, planes taxied to and fro, and barely a glance was spared for the mound beneath the blue tarp, which seemed to have shrunk since Liam last saw it. It looked very lonely lying next to the little red and white Super Cub, which looked more than a little forlorn itself.

The ambulance was under the command of a single emergency medical technician, a slim, intense young man who introduced himself as Joe Gould. He knelt to inspect DeCreft's body. "Not much to be done here," he observed. "Okay to take the body to the morgue?"

"We've got a morgue?" Liam said.