Free Fire (20 page)

In his room, Joe poured himself a light bourbon from his traveler and reviewed the growing file. It had helped to see Mc-Cann’s office and the murder scene, to feel them, to re-create the crime in his mind. But there had been no Eureka! moments. He read the rest of Hoening’s e-mails and found several more references to hot-potting and flamers, but nothing that helped advance any kind of theory. He kept hoping he would find a referenceto McCann that would link the victims to the lawyer. Nope.

Hoening’s superior was a man named Mark Cutler, who was area manager of the Old Faithful complex. Joe made a note of the name and intended to interview Cutler in the morning.

He transferred his notes from the day onto a legal pad for his report to Chuck Ward and the governor. While he wrote, he heard a roaring and splashing sound and at first thought an occupant in the next room had flushed his toilet. But it came from outside.

Joe parted the curtains and threw open the window and watched Old Faithful erupt. The wind shifted as the geyser spewed and filled his room with the brackish aftereffect of the steam that smelled slightly of sulfur.

As tired as Joe was, he couldn’t sleep. When he closed his eyes, scenes from the previous two days replayed in a herky-jerkyvideo loop: the meeting at the Pagoda, the two old men scrambling from his sight in his hallway, the long day in the car with Demming, Clay McCann’s office, Darren Rudloff, the fruitless look into the mind and motivations of Rick Hoening’s e-mails, his own repressed memories of his brother’s funeral and the subsequent breakup of his family.

He opened his eyes and looked at his wristwatch, shocked it was only 10:30 P.M. Without television, radio, or the routine of home, his body clock was thrown off. He considered going back over the file to see if something jumped out at him that hadn’t before, now that his subconscious had asserted itself. Instead,he rooted through the desk and read about the Old FaithfulInn in Zephyr brochures.

A half-hour later he dressed, thinking he would go for a walk, hoping the physical activity would help shut down the video loop in his brain. Maybe he’d watch Old Faithful erupt again. He grabbed a jacket, considered taking the Glock, decidedagainst it.

The hallway was dark but not as dark as he remembered it, but he felt familiar relief as the warm glow of soft light on the logs lit his path to the open, empty lobby. Even the desk clerks seemed to be taking a break. The strange mechanical clock on the fireplace ticked, and his boots echoed on the wooden stairs to the lobby floor.

As he reached out for the iron latch on the studded door something made him pause and turn around.

Not every rocking chair in front of the hearth was empty. Nate Romanowski was asleep in one of them, his hands hangingat his sides, his boot soles splayed, his head back and mouth open.

Joe crossed the lobby and nudged Nate’s boot with his own. “Tag, you’re it,” Joe said.

Nate cracked an eye. “Hey.”

“Thanks for today, Nate. I mean that.”

His friend sat up and rubbed his face, waking up.

“Why didn’t you stick around?” Joe asked.

“I heard what that ranger said about the new law,” Nate said. “I believed her.”

Joe chuckled. “She’s good, isn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“That was good shooting.”

“I’m a good shot.”

Joe pulled a chair over and sat down next to Nate. The fire was nearly spent, but the heated stones of the fireplace radiated warmth.

“I wanted to see the murder scene,” Nate said, “find out if I could get any vibes from it. I got nothing. But I was glad I was there when you and the ranger walked up.”

“Me too.”

“Are you figuring anything out?” Nate asked.

Joe thought about it before answering. “Overall, I’d have to say . . . nope.”

Nate simply nodded. Joe filled Nate in on what had happenedso far, where he was headed. As Joe talked, he studied his friend. Nate appeared to be only half listening, as if there was something else on his mind.

When Joe was through, he asked, “Any questions? Any ideas?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay, then.”

Nate stood up, checked the front desk to confirm there was still no one there, then stepped over a metal barrier and approachedthe fireplace. “Watch this,” Nate said, and started climbing the chimney using the outcrops of volcanic stones for hand- and footholds.

“Nate . . .”

He scaled the fireplace until he vanished into the gloom. Above, in the shadows, Joe could hear Nate’s heavy breathing and the scuffle of his boots on rock. Ten minutes later, Nate rejoined him after scrambling from the chimney onto a cat-walkand taking a series of rickety, ancient stairs back to the lobby.

“I used to do that when I worked here,” Nate said in explanation.“Every night if I could.”

Joe shook his head. “When did you work here?”

“Many years ago.”

“I never knew that.”

“There are a lot of things about me you don’t know.”

“And I’m not sure I want to know them.”

“No,” Nate said, “you probably don’t.”

Joe sat back in his chair. “This is quite a place, isn’t it? I read that it was built in 1903 and 1904, in the middle of winter. Some days it was fifty below. The guy who built it had a sixth-gradeeducation, but he was a self-taught genius.”

Nate agreed. “He was a wizard too. If you noticed, the windowson the building don’t correspond with particular rooms or floors. They’re scattered against the outside like they were just thrown up there and stuck. That’s intentional. The architect wanted the look of the hotel to be random and asymmetrical, like nature itself. And it’s just as interesting inside. There are secret stairways, hidden rooms, and a crazy dead-end hallway called Bat’s Alley. They’re closed to the public, of course, and very few people know about them.”

Joe looked over. “But you know about them.”

Nate nodded
Of course
but didn’t meet Joe’s eye.

“Nate, what’s going on? There’s something wrong, I can tell. You didn’t climb that chimney to impress me, although it did. You climbed it because something’s eating at you and you need to think.”

Nate sighed but didn’t disagree.

“What is it?” Joe asked.

“I was over in the Zephyr housing area earlier,” Nate said. “I was wondering if there was anybody still here who I knew when I worked here.”

“Yes?”

Nate leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and cocked his head. “Joe, there’s somebody you probably ought to see.”

Joe was puzzled.

“Did you bring the Glock?” Nate asked.

“I left it in my room.”

“Good,” Nate said, rising. “You probably don’t want a weapon around afterwards.”

13

Joe followed nate through a back door and they crossed a meadow of dry, ankle-deep grass on a well-worn path. Because a curtain of clouds had shut out the stars and moon and there were no overhead lights, the darkness was palpable.It was still and cold. Joe tracked Nate ahead of him by the slight white whisps of Nate’s breath in the utter blackness. The lights of the inn receded behind them.

When the path stepped up onto blacktop, Joe knew where he was— crossing the highway toward employee housing, which was hidden away from tourists. There were no cars in either direction.They plunged into the trees on the other side and Joe stumbled into Nate, who had stopped.

“What?”

“There’s something in front of us,” Nate said. “Something big.”

Joe looked over Nate’s shoulder. Despite the lack of light, he could see a huge black triangle shape blocking the path. There was a strong odor of fur, dust, and manure. With a guttural snort, the buffalo spooked and crashed ahead through the timber.

“Are there more?” Joe asked.

“I don’t think so. He was a loner.”

“Like you.”

Nate didn’t respond. Behind them, far away in the basin, a geyser erupted. The sound was furious, angry, the roar of a boilingwaterfall shooting into the air.

“Nate,” Joe asked, “where are we going?”

“Employee housing,” Nate said.

“But where specifically?”

“The bar.”

The zephyr employee bar was hidden in the center of a long barracks-like building that fronted the dark employee dormitories.Steam hissed from a dimly lit laundry facility in one part of the building, and Joe caught a glimpse of several employeesinside folding linen sheets. There were no neon beer signs to mark the bar and no cars outside, just a window leakinglow light through a curtain and two middle-aged women smoking cigarettes on either side of the door. The women stubbed out their smokes as Joe and Nate approached, and started walking heavily toward the dormitories. Joe followed Nate inside.

The place was rough and crude, Joe thought, with the feel of a secret frat house drinking room. It was paneled with cheap laminate, and small bare lightbulbs hung from wires behind the bar. A crooked and stained pool table glowed under a pool of light, battered cues lying on it in a
V
. An entire wall was covered with curling yellowed Polaroids of Zephyr employees who had graced the place. Two tables were occupied with young employeeswho had been there for most of the night—it was obvious by the collection of empty drinking glasses and pitchers—and only two men were at the bar, one standing and glaring at them with a hand on the counter as if to hold himself back from attacking,the other slumped forward and asleep with his face nestled in his arms.

“Nate Romanowski!” the standing man boomed. “You’re back!”

“I said I would be,” Nate said.

The bartender, who was washing glasses in a sink behind the bar, looked up and nodded to Nate and Joe.

“Joe,” Nate said, “meet Dr. Keaton, or, as he’s known around here, Doomsayer.”

Joe extended his hand. Keaton was slim, tall, unshaven, and jumpy, with deep-set eyes and a sharp face like an ax blade. He looked to be in his sixties. He had stooped shoulders and a malleablemouth that twitched to its own crackling rhythm. Just beingnext to him made Joe tense up.

“Welcome to hell on earth,” Keaton said, and cackled.

“Don’t mind him,” the bartender said to Joe, “he always says that. What can I get you two?”

Joe shot a glance at Nate, who ordered a pitcher of beer for the three of them.

“Is your partner going to join us?” Nate asked, nodding towardthe man next to Keaton, who appeared to have passed out.

“He’s sleeping it off,” Keaton said. “He hit it a little hard earlier this evening, but when he awakes I’m sure he’ll join right in again. We are both disciples of the Louis Jordan song
‘
What’s the Use of Getting Sober (When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again).’ ”

Joe noticed the cadence of Keaton’s phrasing: effete, affected.Educated. It played against his tramplike appearance.

The pitcher appeared. “Drink up,” Keaton said, grabbing it before Nate could and pouring it into the glasses, “for tomorrow we die.”

“That’s why they call you Doomsayer, huh?” Joe said.

Keaton glared at Nate. “Who is this man, exactly?”

Nate said, “Friend of mine. He’s up here investigating the Zone of Death murders.”

Joe wondered why Nate blurted it out like that.

“Ah,” Keaton said, turning his eyes to Joe and studying him from a new angle by listing his head to the side. “Another one up here to try and solve the
great mystery
. . .” He said it with condescension that dripped.

“The amount of time and angst that has gone into this puzzle,” Keaton said, sighing, “trying to figure out why the shabby lawyer killed the insolent Minnesotans. It amazes me.”

“Why is that?” Joe asked, taking a sip.

Keaton shook his head. “Because it’s indicative of a tired mind-set. It’s nothing more than mental jerking off: puffed-up officials trying to make order out of random acts when all around them their world is about to explode—but they just don’t know it, or care. It’s like trying to find the fly shit in the pepper. I mean, who cares?”

Joe had no idea how to respond, and he was angry with Nate for bringing him in here when he should have gone up to bed. Nate’s fondness for the otherworldly and mystical grated on his nerves, and this, Joe thought, was a waste of his time.

“He has a Ph.D. in what, geology?” the bartender explained to Joe. “He’s one of the founders of EarthGod, the big environmentalactivist group. He came up here twelve years ago to protest snowmobiles and never left.”

Joe nodded. He’d heard of EarthGod. Even ardent environmentalistsconsidered the group extreme.

Nate picked up on Joe’s discomfort. “He isn’t like that anymore,” he said.

“Oh?”

“There’s no point,” Keaton said, “because we’re all going to die.”

“Maybe I ought to get a good night’s sleep then,” Joe said, not all that interested anymore.

Keaton jerked back, offended. His eyes narrowed. “You don’t seem to understand,
Joe
,” Keaton said, his voice dripping with contempt. “You’ve misread me entirely. You’ve made assumptionsthat I’m some crazy old man who is diverting you from your mission. But what you don’t seem to understand,
Joe
, is that your mission doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Your laws don’t matter, you don’t matter, and neither do I. We’re all on borrowed time, and have been for tens of thousands of years.”

Over the next twenty minutes, Keaton laid it out. As he talked, his tone swooped while he made his arguments, then descendedinto whispers to drive home the gravity of what he was saying. Joe found himself getting sucked in.

“We are drinking this beer right now in the middle of a massivevolcanic caldera,” Keaton said, leaning across Nate to addressJoe directly. “Do you know what a caldera is? It’s the center of a dormant volcano. The Yellowstone caldera encompassesmost of this so-called park. The edge of the caldera is all around us; we’re in the bowl—in the mouth— of it right now. That’s why we have all of our lovely attractions—the geysers, the steam vents, the mud pots. Magma from the center of the earth has pushed through the seams in the crust”—he demonstratedby making a bony fist and shoving it into his other palm, pushing up with the fist—“right here, right below us. It’s pushingupward trying to get out. There are only thirty places in the world where the center of the earth is trying to get out, and this is the only one of them on land, not water. When it does, when it finally blows, it will be a super volcano of a magnitude never even contemplated by man. It will be two and a half thousand times more powerful than Mount Saint Helens! And it won’t erupt slowly, it will explode!”