Lizardskin (17 page)

Beau decided to get up in a minute and go look for him. And maybe when he got out of here, he’d go see Moses Harper and ask him a few questions too.

And now the Bell thing—Indians again.

Well, maybe it really was just a coincidence. After all, if you counted the Northern Cheyenne Reserve, which was just to the east of the Crow Reserve, there had to be close to six
thousand Indians in southeastern Montana. It stood to reason that some weeks would bring you a high rate of Indian-related police calls.

But the
kind
of call—this was a little more violent than usual, wasn’t it, Beau? But it had been getting more and more violent
everywhere
in America over the past couple of years. Why be surprised that trouble had come to Montana?

And where the hell was Eustace Meagher? Somebody ought to have the decency to drop by, tell him what the hell had happened to everybody.

Christ, that was a bad day. You go months half-asleep from boredom and monotony, and in one bloody shift you get enough terror and misery to last you the rest of your career.

Maybe it was time to think about getting out.

Well, let’s see … we have, if memory serves, $793.60 in the account at Bank of Montana, another $1,445.86 in the Highway Patrol Credit Union. Twenty undeveloped and unserviced acres on the Yellowstone River outside of Brisbin, the Chevy wagon, the Harley—which needs a new clutch and a paint job—and the double-wide up in Lizardskin.

Against that, you have to put fifteen hundred dollars a month in support and maintenance for Maureen and Bobby Lee—by the way, Maureen’s making noises about the roof, at the same time she’s been flashing a new Gold Card and spending wheelbarrows of cash at the Hilltop Mall—but if he has to pay for a roof, that’s another three grand.

Okay. Maybe it’s
not
time to start thinking about getting out. But it was hard to avoid concluding that maybe he had pushed his luck for too long; under that, there was the feeling, as well, that he had misread everything yesterday, and the terrible suspicion that it could have gone differently for everyone. Like most career cops, Beau liked to avoid confrontations. Violence always made things worse. He’d tried to settle things at the Oasis in a reasonable way, but that had gone badly, and the Indians had gotten away while he tangled with Joe Bell.

Then they’d hijacked the wagon—who the hell would have anticipated
that
? So now—thanks to you, Beau—we have
some dead and some wounded, and nobody connected to what happened here will ever be the same again.

Or maybe it
was
just a bad shift. Things like that came along, usually out of nowhere, a dumb domestic call, a drunk with a gun nobody thought to look for, or sometimes you just walked right into it, into something that was more complicated than it looked on the surface.

The simple fact was, there was no way to do the job and stay safe from all disasters. Disasters were part of the package, and every cop was going to get his share.

About the girl … Beau tried not to let it get to him. She’d made an heroic effort to perform radical liposurgery on his belly, and all was fair in that kind of fight. But she was an Indian girl, and Indian girls got at whatever softness there was in the flintier canyons of his nature. As soon as he found his clothes, he’d go look for her. Maybe Hanrahan would know.

He was looking for the call button when he heard rubber squeaking on polished tiles, and something short and black-haired hurtled across the room and jumped up on his belly.

“Daddy! Mommy says you got arrowed!”

He plucked her away from his throbbing leg and held her up in the light. Her blue eyes were huge in her round pink face, and her hair was tied up in two absurd ponytails that stuck out at the sides of her head. She was holding a tattered bunch of daffodils.

“Bobby Lee! Hey—happy birthday, six-year-old!”

She twisted and settled beside his chest on the sheet, sitting cross-legged and looking down at him with childish gravity.

“You got arrowed?”

“Who told you that, darling? No, I just fell down a bit.”

She twisted her face up in massive disapproval and thumped his chest. Beau jumped, and she scowled at him. “Don’t lie, Daddy. Uncle Dwight told me all about it.”

When the Lord giveth, he fucketh not around. He was giving it to Beau real good. Uncle Dwight! Jesus, maybe Maureen could find work with the Inquisition—she had a real talent for the delicate refinements of ex-husband torture.

“Uncle Dwight, eh, kid? When’d you see him?”

“He brought me here. He’s out in the hall with Mom. We brung you a bucket of flowers.”

Oh, super. Maureen
and
Dwight. He kept his emotions off his face and smiled at Bobby Lee.

“A boo-kay of flowers.”

“No, they’re in a bucket.”

“Okay. They’re out in the hall?”

“Yeah. Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The arrow?”

“Why?”

“I wanna take it to school.”

“Right—I’ll see if I can get it for you.”

“Well, it’s yours, isn’t it? It was stuck in you. That makes it yours. Anything you get stuck in you belongs to you.”

“Words to live by, Bobby Lee.”

He was staring at her. Every time he saw her, he was transfixed, by her coloring, the depth of blue in her round eyes, the sheen of her hair, her skin, the childish smell of sugar and sweat and soap. The strength of his feelings for her sometimes shook him down to the bone.

“How are you, baby? I’m sorry I didn’t get to see you on your birthday.”

“That’s okay now, Daddy. You got stuck with a arrow. I wouldn’t expect you to come to a party with a arrow stuck in you.” She looked around theatrically and leaned forward to whisper, “Mommy’s mad at you again.”

“Yes. I know.”

“Why’s she always mad at you? It wasn’t your fault you got stuck with a arrow.”

“
An
arrow.”

“A narrow?”

“
An
arrow. I got stuck with
an
arrow.”

“
An
arrow.… You know what I think?”

“No, what do you think?”

“I think, if you said you were sorry to Mommy, she would let you come home.”

Beau tried to keep his voice steady. Maybe the day would
come when he wouldn’t feel so desperate about Bobby Lee, so sick with worry and concern for her. It was crazy. Maureen wasn’t evil. She was just … mean as a snake. How do you explain
that
to your baby? You don’t. Beau had taken a vow never to say anything against Maureen to Bobby Lee, or within her hearing. It was too bad Maureen didn’t share the feeling. It was one of the worst things about this situation; Maureen felt free to say anything at all about Beau, and Beau had no defense other than to try to be as sweet and fair to Bobby Lee as he could manage, and trust in her own clarity to see what was true and what was not.

“I know, honey. And I’m sorry, too. But right now your mommy is very … unhappy. And she’s—”

“No, she’s not.”

“She’s not what?”

“She’s not unhappy. I heard her laughing last night.”

“Last night?”

“Yes. Her and Uncle Dwight were laughing.”

“Yeah? What were they laughing about?”

She made a mouth, sighed heavily. “How would I know, Daddy? I was in bed!”

Right—all Beau ever wanted out of religion was the promise that someday he’d get close enough to God to slap the cuffs on Him and boot the Cosmic Butt into the back of a cruiser. Possession of a Loaded Universe without a Permit. Careless Operation of a Galaxy in a Built-Up Area. Exceeding the Grief Limit.

“Did you get birthday stuff? I have some things for you in the car. I’ll get one of the guys to bring them over.”

“It’s all right, Daddy. Are you gonna be okay? Can I have the narrow?”

“Yeah, honey. You can have the narrow. I’ll get it for you.”

There was a motion at the door. They looked up and saw Dwight Hogeland leaning on the jamb.

Eddie Bauered to his earlobes in pressed jeans and melton plaid, six foot three of genetic perfection and the rewards of regular exercise, Hogeland was holding a huge plastic bucket full of wildflowers and baby’s breath. He was smiling a Mona
Lisa smile that was full of forensic secrets. He moved in that special atmosphere, partly inherited money and partly the lampwick exhalations of burning wax and moldy paper that always seems to float around successful lawyers. His silky blond hair was slightly gelled and combed straight back in a graceful sweep from his beardless chiseled bones and deep-set gray eyes. He had one foot crossed over the other, striking a pose in a pair of dark blue lizardskin boots that must have gone for eight hundred dollars in Denver, where Hogeland’s firm kept an office. Beau knew where Hogeland bought his boots because Maureen was always telling him about Hogeland—where he bought this, how much he paid for that, what his next deal was going to net out at.

“Sorry to intrude, Beau …?”

“Dwight, what a treat. Where’s Maureen?”

“She’s—I suggested she wait in the hall. I wanted to—ahh … Look, I realize this is a difficult time. But we wanted Bobby Lee to see that you were all right. We have some business here, so I suggested—I mean, Bobby Lee was very anxious, as you can understand. May I come in?”

Beau took a second to sort through several versions of a snarl and settled on civility.

“Of course, Dwight. Ah, thanks for bringing Bobby Lee.”

Hogeland strolled across the floor and lightly set the flowers down on a side table. Then he sat down in the armchair and crossed his legs. He winced a bit at the smell coming from the next bed and glanced at the machine against the far wall.

“What I wanted to say, before she comes in—I wanted you to know. About Maureen. I would never counsel her to … I feel she was a little harsh over last night’s party. True, the agreement states the terms. But under the circumstances—I mean, you had no control over the events out at Bell’s.”

A nice thrust there. No control. Time to change the subject.

“How’s Doc Darryl? Up in the shiny new Learjet?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. He takes it to California all the time. He has some business out there, and he hates the public airlines. I worry. Dad’s getting on, but he loves to fly that
thing. Good at it, too. How’s Lieutenant Meagher? Well? Dad asks about him frequently.”

“Meagher’s fine … really fine.”

Bobby Lee was watching the two of them carefully. She was quite silent, but Beau could feel the restlessness in her.

“Bobby Lee, do you want to go back and see Mommy? I have to talk to—” He managed it: “To Uncle Dwight for a minute.”

“Can I have a dollar? There’s a candy machine down the hall.”

Beau looked around for his clothes. Dwight reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a bill. Bobby Lee slid off the bed, stopped, and turned back to climb up and put her arms around Beau’s neck. She gave him a fast and brutal squeeze and kissed his cheek.

“Phoo! Beard hairs! Bye-bye, Daddy!”

Another lithe vault, and she was out the door. They could hear her shoes flip-flopping down the hall.

There was silence.

“How do you come to be playing at Daddy with Bobby Lee, Dwight?”

Dwight’s fine-boned face was as still and composed as a man who has achieved the perfect blend of conceit and ignorance.

“Hardly … hardly relevant, Beau.”

“She’s my child.”

“An insight that seems to have only intermittent real-time applications, in light of your behavior.”

“We going to get into this?”

Dwight raised a hand, palm out, and ducked his head.

“Beau, we seem to grate on one another. I regret that. I’ve never had anything but the greatest … you are … aggressive, surely—unorthodox. But everyone agrees that you are one of the … highest-profile law enforcement officials we have in Yellowstone County. Dad has—he holds you in tremendous esteem. As I know, you reciprocate. He feels quite close to your family.”

“Not as close as you’re getting, Dwight.”

“And I regret that—that it seems that Maureen and I have
become friends. This has had certain repercussions. The fact is, I have transferred her file over to Ted Mallon. I feel that—under the circumstances—it would not be ethical for me to represent her interests in this divorce action.”

“Damned fine reasoning, Dwight. Amazing what insights come to a man a few seconds after a good orgasm, eh?”

Dwight’s face hardened enough to reveal a certain toughness beneath the easy manner. It made it easier to see how Mallon, Brewer, Hogeland and Bright had become such a force in eastern Montana over the last ten years. There had to be a capacity for ruthlessness in there somewhere, even if it was the hybrid courage of lawyers. They called themselves “gun-slingers” and joked about hard combat in the courtroom. It was all so goddamned pretentious. Comparing the bicker and cross-chatter of a courtroom to genuine combat was demeaning to anyone who had ever actually faced incoming fire and seen real dying.

“The fact is, we are not intimate, and that is not to imply that you have any standing in the matter, regardless. And should our relationship ripen into anything more complex, I would never consider … I care for Roberta Lee as deeply in my own way as you contend that you care for her.”

“I don’t contend anything, Dwight. I just see I got you all over my life like a nasty rash. You do your level best, which is damned good, to staple my balls to the courthouse roof every time we get in front of a judge. Now you’re Uncle Dwight to my kid and getting ready to park your Yuppie-floppy in my used-to-be wife. That’s an explosive situation. I’m just telling you that there’s a hell of a difference between what’s legal and what’s likely to happen.”

“What’s that? A threat? Threatening is indictable, Beau.”

“That’s exactly what I mean! You got your head shoved so far up the skirts of blind justice, you can’t see a damned thing except legal briefs and diverting draperies.”

“Clever, Beau. I like that bit about legal briefs. That’s real clever stuff. I’m not going to let you provoke a personal exchange. If you want to discuss problems with your access
agreement, you should take them up with Ted Mallon. He’s been fully briefed on the history.”