Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel (33 page)

“I hope you don’t mind if I don’t get up to show you out,” the woman called after him, “but my feet seem to be numb.”

Kane managed to get the door open. He stepped through and pulled it shut behind him. Then he stood for the longest time, leaning against the door and breathing in the cold, fresh air.

25

 
EPHESIANS 5:18

 
 
 
 
KANE NEEDED ALL OF HIS CONCENTRATION TO HEAD HIS truck back toward Fairbanks.

“Eleven o’clock in the morning and drunk as a lord,” he said as he tried not to weave all over the road. “Great.”

He pulled into the big parking lot at a place called Sophie’s Station, wrestled his duffel out of the back, and forced himself to walk a mostly straight line into the lobby. The desk clerk cocked an eyebrow at him, but payment in cash in advance seemed to mollify her. Kane made it to his room, transferred the contents of the duffel into a couple of plastic laundry bags, added the clothes he was wearing, put on the hotel’s bathrobe and called for a bellman. When the bellman showed up, Kane handed him the bags and a twenty-dollar bill.

“If you get these back to me clean by six, there’s another twenty in it for you,” Kane said, or tried to say. The bellman seemed to understand him, took the money and the bags, and left.

Kane walked into the bathroom, shoved a finger down his throat, and spewed coffee and raw whiskey. When he was finished, he rinsed his mouth out with cold water, groped his way to the bed, and collapsed.

Pounding on his door woke him from a dream full of malevolent shadows with beaks and tentacles and naked dark-haired temptresses and blond heroines wearing black ribbons around their throats and not much else. He exchanged another bill for his clean laundry, then sat on the bed for a while and listened to the pounding in his head.

“Irish coffee for brunch just isn’t a good idea,” he said aloud. He rose from the bed, got into the shower and stood under water as hot as he could stand it for as long as he could stand it. He tried to think about nothing, but his mind kept wandering back to images of angels, of Charlie Simms rising and falling on top of Faith Wright, of Laurie smiling at the top of the stairs, of Slade with the two women.

Somewhere in this mess is the answer, he thought. But the answer to what? To what happened to Faith? To why Laurie sent him away? To why religion keeps calling to a man who doesn’t believe? To something, anything, that would make his life make sense?

“Well,” he said aloud, “there’s only one cure for self-pity.”

He turned off the shower, toweled off, and dressed. He put some money in his pocket and tucked the rest into his duffel, then went downstairs to the restaurant. He ate soup, salad, and steak at a table by the window, looking out at the vast darkness pierced by a few pinpricks of light. When he finished, he went into the bar and ordered a glass of Silver Gulch pilsner. The first sip spread through his body like the glow from a first kiss.

He awoke the next morning spread-eagled on his bed, fully clothed. His tongue, as someone had once written, felt like the entire Russian army had marched across it in their stocking feet. He heaved himself up and stumbled to the bathroom, where he drank water until he sloshed. He stripped off his clothes and stood under the shower again.

At least I’ll be goddamn clean on the outside, he thought.

He had no sequential memory of where he’d been or what he’d done the night before. He remembered riding in cabs and shoving bills down the cleavages of waitresses. He remembered arguing with a big woman dressed all in black about whether Bob Dylan was a better poet than Dylan Thomas. He couldn’t remember which side he’d been on. He remembered telling a couple of barflies how his wife had left him to become a hooker and how they’d clucked their tongues and suggested he buy everybody another round.

He got out of the shower and went through the motions of getting ready to face the world. He brushed his teeth and shaved and combed his hair, ate aspirin, put on clean clothes, packed his duffel, went down a flight of stairs, checked out, started his truck, and drove to the library. He spent fifteen minutes checking on something, then got back into his truck and pointed it back down the highway.

He felt, all things considered, like something that had fallen out of a tall cow’s ass.

Not bad, he thought. Two literary allusions for one hangover. Wasn’t he an educated s.o.b.

His head pounded, and it felt like there was an archery contest going on in his bowels. But his mind had that perfect clarity that often comes after a bender. And he no longer felt sorry for himself.

“Today,” he said aloud, “I feel like the avenging angel. I’m the angel of death. And I’ve got a hangover. That’s got to be bad for somebody.”

He slid a Rolling Stones CD into the player, cranked up the volume, and stepped on the gas.

26

PSALMS 88:6

 
 
 
 
 
DORA JORDAN ANSWERED NIK KANE’S KNOCK, WEARING designer sweats and big pink bunny slippers. She had her long, dark hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail and wore no makeup. She had a trace of flour on her chin and a wary look in her eye.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

The Jordans lived in a small frame house in a row of small frame houses built in the 1980s by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Kane had pried the location out of a surly Slade and driven there through the gathering darkness of the winter afternoon.

She’s really very pretty, Kane thought as Dora Jordan swept a stray lock of hair out of her eyes with a hand covered by an oven mitt.

“I’m Nik Kane,” he said, “the fellow who bought your grandfather soup the other day.”

The woman was silent for a beat longer than Kane expected, then nodded.

“I remember,” she said. “What do you want?”

“No beating around the bush,” Kane said, giving her his best smile. “I was hoping to speak with Abraham for a moment.”

She stood there looking at him for what seemed to Kane like a long time. Then she nodded.

“Sure,” she said. “Leave your boots and coat in the entryway.” She spun on her heel and left him standing there.

Kane removed his outdoor clothes and stepped into the house. He was standing in what he took to be the living room. The room was warm and softly lit. Abraham Jordan sat in a big La-Z-Boy watching television. Kane walked over and sat in a chair near him. The TV showed footage of explosions and bodies from Iraq.

“That damn war,” the old man said. “I don’t like my boy being at that damn war.”

Dora came in carrying a plate of cookies. The old man took one, then Kane.

“He gets confused about what year it is sometimes,” she said. “He thinks the war in Iraq is Vietnam.”

“Him and all the Democrats in the country,” Kane said, winning a brief smile from the woman.

He bit into the cookie. It was hot and moist and loaded with chocolate chips.

“These are wonderful,” he said.

“They’re his favorites,” she said. “Would you like some coffee to wash it down?”

She brought coffee and sat on the sofa. The television set was pitching some new wonder drug for erectile dysfunction. Abraham Jordan was asleep, breathing noisily through parted lips.

“He does that sometimes, just drops off,” his granddaughter said. “More often as time goes on.”

“I can’t blame him,” Kane said. “It’s warm and homey in here, a perfect place to nap.”

In fact, he was having trouble keeping his own eyes open. Too old to go carousing and then just carry on like nothing happened, he thought.

The woman looked at him, smiled, and stood up.

“Trade me places,” she said. “You can stretch out on the couch and nap yourself.”

“I couldn’t,” Kane said. But he got to his feet and walked past the woman. She smelled like soap and cookies. He sat down on the couch.

“I know you saved my grandfather some unpleasantness,” Dora Jordan said. “Please, accept our hospitality.”

Kane was too worn out to resist. He put his feet up, his head on a pillow, and was asleep in an instant.

When he awoke, the house was full of cooking odors. Abraham Jordan was watching
Survivor
on television.

“You white people don’t know nothing,” he said, giggling as the contestants did something particularly stupid.

Dora Jordan came into the room.

“You’re awake,” she said. “You’ll be staying for dinner.”

It was a statement, not a question. Kane washed up and joined them at the table. Over stew and fry bread he and Dora talked about the wider world, about her education at the university in Fairbanks and his on the streets of Anchorage. Over bowls of ice cream, she asked, “What was it you wanted with grandfather?”

“I was hoping he . . .” Kane stopped himself and turned to the old man. “I’m sorry, uncle,” he said. “I hoped you might show me where you saw the angel.”

“Angel?” the old man said.

“It’s better you ask him in the morning,” Dora said. “His mind is sharper in the mornings.” She paused, looking from Kane to the old man and back. “You are welcome to our sofa for the night if you like.”

So Kane nestled down in some blankets she brought and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. When he awoke, Abraham Jordan was sitting in his La-Z-Boy fully dressed, staring at him.

“You sleep all day you’ll never see the angel,” he said.

Dora Jordan came in from the outside stamping snow off her boots.

“The snow-go is hitched to your truck,” she said. “It’s full of gas. Watch it, though. It floods easy.”

She stopped and looked at him.

“You can drive a snow-go, can’t you?” she asked.

Kane smiled at Abraham Jordan.

“I don’t know, uncle,” he said. “Us white people don’t know nothing.”

“Don’t worry,” the old man said, “I’ll show you how.”

After breakfast, Dora handed him a big brown bag.

“Here’s lunch just in case,” she said. “You take care of my grandfather.”

Kane reached for his wallet.

“I’d like to give you some money for all this,” he said.

She shook her head. “But you could bring the snow-go back full,” she said.

The old man was dressed in a fur parka, moose-hide leggings, and the beautiful moccasins tied high up on his legs.

He looks better than I do, Kane thought, and he’ll probably be warmer, too.

He helped the old man into the pickup, drove to the Pitchfork mine, and stopped at the gate.

“Is Tony Figone running security now?” he asked the guard.

The guard nodded.

“Tell him Nik Kane’s here to see him,” Kane said.

After a couple of minutes, the guard swung the gate open and waved him through. He left the pickup running and the old man in it and went into the office trailer to see Tony Figone.

“I’ve got an old man and a snow machine outside,” Kane said after they’d shaken hands. “I need to go up into the hills behind here for a while. And I need a map of the old mining sites.”

“Mine manager’s going to have to approve all that,” Figone said. “They guard the maps and all the other mining information like it was nuclear secrets.”

Richardson was polite but emphatic.

“Can’t allow it,” he said. “And it’d cost me my job to give you a map.”

“Tony,” Kane said to the security chief, “why don’t you give us a moment.”