The Deader the Better (34 page)

About thirty pounds. So fresh from the ocean, it still had a trio
of sea lice attached to its sides. Boris knew how to clean fish, so I
let him have at it. Carl and Robby were giving Narva the two-dollar
tour of the RV. Kurtis was in his cabin taking a shower.

Floyd nudged me. “You on a roll with women, Leo. This one here’s
an even tighter-looking unit than the other one.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m having to beat ’em off with a
stick.”

Without charcoal, we had to burn wood in the barbecue for the
better part of two hours before we worked up a bed of coals we could
work with. I sliced the lemons, diced the garlic and then stuffed it
all into the cleaned salmon, wrapped the whole thing in foil and
stuck it on the grill. Twenty-five minutes a side. Robby cooked a
batch of rice. Kurtis made a salad. The Boys commandeered the white
plastic chairs from the front porches of the cabins. Just like
regular folks. We sat in a rough circle on the lawn. A perpetually
adolescent private eye, two drunks, two thugs, two wiremen, a burglar
and a call girl, eating salmon and salad and rice from paper plates
and loving it. Drinking beer and talking about how you forget about
the heavens when you live in the city. Pointing out stars and
constellations to one another until Carl pulled a thick bone from his
plate. Held it up for all to see.

“Good thing I didn’t trust you,” he said to me.

“Yeah…you’re such a trusting soul,” Robby said.

“Another illusion shattered,” I added.

Floyd speared a forkful of salad. “Nobody in their right mind
trusts anybody else.”

“I do,” said Ralph.

“My point exactly,” said Floyd.

“Floyd’s right,” Kurtis offered. “As long as love is
conditional, true trust isn’t possible.”

Floyd looked confused. “Did I say that?”

“You learn to trust your instincts,” Narva said. “If you
learn to pay attention to your intuitions, the rest takes care of
itself.”

Floyd said, “I meant that what you do is to arrange your life so
it’s not an issue.”

Kurtis shuddered. “How barren. What kind of life is that?”

“The kind where you stay alive,” Floyd said.

“Family,” Boris said around a mouthful. “You can only trust
your family.”

I was thinking of that old B. B. King line about how nobody loved
him but his mama, and how she could be jivin’, too, when Narva
pointed her fork at me.

“What about you, Leo? You trust people?”

“I guess I’m in the middle somewhere. I figure you can trust
the people you know to act like themselves.”

“But people change,” she said.

“Not fundamentally,” Kurtis said. “They may cope more
effectively, but they don’t change in any real sense.”

“Even when they cope worse, they’re still the same,” said
Harold.

“See?” said Kurtis.

“Shit,” said Carl. “I—”

An electronic cheep stopped him midphrase. Then another. Robby
dropped his plate and hustled to the RV. Two more loud bird sounds.
Narva looked confused. I held a finger to my lips. Robby’s head
poked out the door. “We’ve got company,” he said in a hoarse
whisper. “Five, maybe six targets.”

Boris and Floyd sprinted for the corners of the cabin where they’d
left their rifles. I took Narva, the Boys and Kurtis and stuffed then
into the RV and then went into the house, got my automatic and doused
the lights. I heard Robby’s voice.

“Six for sure.”

I saw the blue muzzle flash before I heard the shot. The first
slug ripped though the plastic covering the bedroom window and then
slammed into an interior wall. I duck walked into the bathroom, where
I steadied my arm on the window ledge and let loose two rounds in the
general direction of the woods. And then blue dots danced all along
the edge of the cut amid the sounds of high-powered ammo tearing into
wood, and then all hell broke out as Floyd and Boris cut loose,
firing tracers in a deadly stream of green light, filling the air
with the sharp sounds of their fire. I took aim and let go with two
more rounds. Boris moved his fire along the tree line like a hose. I
heard a scream, high-pitched and shrill like a woman’s and then the
shooting from the woods stopped, the claps of gunfire replaced by a
series of shouts and the sound of broken branches and the guttural
grunts of strain as our would-be attackers fought their way uphill
through the forest. Floyd emptied another clip. This time well over
their heads. Boris reloaded and sprayed the tree line again. When he
finished, and the air settled back into place, the sounds of slamming
doors and racing engines could be vaguely heard from up on the road.
Boris had that crazy smile again. “I doan teenk dey coming back,”
he said.

TUESDAY 9:03 A.M.

CAMERA 1—TRESSMANMARK TRESSMAN HELD THE PHONE CLOSE TO HIS
MOUTH, HIS knuckles tight and white on the receiver. “Get a hold of
yourself, Emmett. Nobody dragged you into this.” He listened
intently for a moment. “Don’t even talk that way,” he said
quickly. “You listen to me…no…I said no.” Listening. “Of
course you can…now you listen to me…” Took a deep breath and
set the receiver back in the cradle. Picked it up again. Put it back
down. It rang.

“Yeah. I just spoke to him.”

Robby handed me another set of earphones and pointed to Nancy
Weston on the screen. “He’s out of control, Mark. You know he had
an accident. Hit some man out in front of the Country Corner.”

“I heard.”

“Something has to be done.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She put a hand to her throat; her voice rose. “What it means is
that I’ve spent some of my prime years here. Doing my end. Putting
this together.”

“As have we all,” Tressman said.

“Which is why something has to be done. I’m not getting stuck
here, Mark. Loomis is my ticket out of here and I’m taking it.”

On one screen, Nancy Weston banged the phone down hard. On the
other monitor, Mark Tressman winced, depressed the button and dialed.
Robby zoomed the camera in. Last four numbers were .

“We need to talk,” Tressman said.

Carl rolled back from the control console. “I hear sphincters
tightening.”

“First call was Polster.”

“You always had him made for the weak link.”

“Question is, will he blow up before Friday?” I said. I walked
to the back of the RV, popped open the door and stepped outside. Deep
gray clouds rolled in from the west. The air was thick with moisture,
which collected on the cheeks like dew. Floyd, Boris and the Boys
were back at the homestead. After the scene yesterday, the Boys were
used up. No way I could let anybody catch sight of them again. Kurtis
was down in room nine watching television. Narva was back at the
Records office, trying to get a line on Rough and Ready, Inc., and
Gretchen Peabody.

TUESDAY 9: A.M.

CAMERA 1—TRESSMANTressman leaned back in his chair. Folding and
unfolding his fingers over his chest. Nathan Hand was parked in the
same chair Narva had occupied yesterday.

“I think Emmett’s going to be a problem,” Tressman said.

“Coming from you, that makes me nervous,” Hand said.

“He said something this morning to the effect that whoever comes
clean first can expect the best treatment from the law.”

Hand pulled his hat from his head and put it over his knee.

“He said that?”

“Unfortunately, he did.”

“You know he had an accident yesterday.”

“I heard.”

“Old guy he hit disappeared from the hospital,” Hand said.
Tressman sat forward. “We don’t have any liability, do we?”

Nathan Hand reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small
piece of paper. “Not unless you consider this a liability,” he
said.

“What’s that?”

“It was in the pocket of the old guy’s pants.”

“The one Emmett hit?”

Hand nodded and tossed the paper onto the desk. Tressman read out
loud. “New gray Honda Civic. Nine eight two. Dee dee gee.”

“That’s Emmett’s car,” Hand said.

“Why would he be carrying this?”

“You tell me,” Hand said.

They sat staring at one another for a minute. Tressman began to
nod his head.

“The possibilities here aren’t good,” he said finally. Hand
thought it over and then reached for the phone. Robby zoomed in. Hand
turned the phone his way. “Shit,”

muttered Robby.

“We’re going to have to play our hand,” the sheriff said
into the phone.

I looked over at Robby and Carl. Head-shaking. Not the mayor. Not
Weston. They were all accounted for on screen. Sure as hell not
Polster.

“Because Emmett’s coming apart.” He listened with a
disgusted expression on his face. “And don’t you know I’m
pretty darn tired of hearing about it, too.” He didn’t listen
long. “Yeah and maybe some damn fools just put way too much stock
in their damn pets. You act like I was supposed to know.” Silence.
“You’re right,” he said after a moment.

“Let’s stay in the present.” He listened again. “Just the
way we talked about yesterday. It takes care of both problems at the
same time.” Silence, as Hand listened intently.

“I’d sure like to know who’s on the other end,” Carl said.

“Got movement on car five. That’s Polster,” Robby said. The
camera at the top of the parking lot followed Polster’s Honda a
third of the way down the street. He signaled and turned right. Out
of sight.

“He lives about three blocks west of there,” I said.

“I was him, I’d lock the doors,” said Robby.

“While I was calling for airline tickets,” Carl added. No
matter how I massaged it, Polster wasn’t my problem. As far as I
was concerned, no matter what happened, he wouldn’t be getting
anything he didn’t deserve. You betray a trust and you put yourself
into a world where you can’t expect to rely on anything more
tangible than your own animal cunning. I got to my feet. “Anybody
want coffee?” Robby belched a no. Carl rubbed his diaphragm. “That
shit Monty makes…,”

he said, “I’ll pass.”

Wetter outside now. Hard to tell whether it was misting or whether
the water was part of the air. Either way you ended up wet without
the sensation of something falling from above. I kicked through the
carpet of leaves and let myself into the back door of the motel.
Monty was in his red leather lounger, playing machine gun TV,
flipping through the channels so fast I wasn’t able to identify
anything except a snippet of the Home Shopping Network. He settled on
Baywatch
.

“Have you got a local phone book I can look at?” I asked.

“Under the motel counter.”

I stepped out into the motel. Worked my way back to the
Ls
.
Ran down the page with the tip of my index finger. Nope. Leonard,
then Lopez.

I replaced the phone book and retraced my steps back toward Monty.

“You know a family named Loomis around here?”

“Nope,” he said.

I started for the back door. “Thanks.”

“Ain’t a family; it’s a them.”

I stopped. “What?”

“Loomis ain’t a family; it’s a company.”

“What kind of company?”

“Somethin’ to do with land and real estate.”

“And they’re local?”

“Hell no,” he said impatiently. “Outta Chicago.”

“How do you know all this?”

He muted the TV and struggled to his feet. “’Cause that’s
who pays Mr. Pinkerton’s bill every time.” He pushed past me and
limped out into the motel, where he pulled a green plastic box out
from under the counter. He pawed through a pile of receipts until he
found what he was looking for. He handed it to me. A credit card
receipt. Michael Pinkerton. Two nights. Room nine. One hundred bucks.
Corporate credit card…Loomis International. “Who’s this
Pinkerton guy?” I asked.

“Been coming to town damn near every week for near a year.”

“What for?”

“Back when, the damn fool was trying to do business with the
Indians.” He turned his head long enough to give me a disgusted
look. “These days he’s got some kinda deal goin’on with the
bigwigs in City Hall.”

“How do you know he’s from Chicago?”

“He tol’ me so. Said it was nice to be someplace he wasn’t
freezin’ his ass off. Tol’ me Chicago was colder than a well
digger’s ass this time of year.”

“He always stay two nights?”

“Sometimes longer. Don’t sleep here much, though.”

“He rents a room but doesn’t sleep in it?”

“Hardly never.” He anticipated my next question. “Got no
idea. He drives off in some rental car, and I don’t see him again
till the next day.” He waved a hand. “None of my damn business
what he’s doin’ anyway.”

As I stepped out the back door, I had my first lucid moment in
weeks. I was kicking through the sodden leaves when I got a hurried
little coming attraction of a movie where all of this made sense. I
think I may have said, “Shit,” as I started for the RV, but I
can’t be sure.

Carl was where I left him. Robby was gone. “Nothin’ new,”

he said.

“Narva left her cell number. What did we do with it?”

He handed me a torn scrap of paper. I dialed. Voice mail. She
probably didn’t want it ringing in the Records office. I waited for
the tone and left my message.

“Where’s Robby?”

“Wiring nine.”

I grabbed my jacket from the settee.

“Where you going?” he asked.

“First I’m going to desecrate a grave. Then I’m leaving the
country.”

“Probably best in that order,” Carl said. They sat on the pile
of rocks they’d just moved. Harold wiped his brow with his sleeve
and then blew his nose down into the grass. Ralph downed a bottle of
Coors in one swig and then reached into the cooler for another. Floyd
and I dug carefully, probing the soil with our shovels, as if neither
of us wanted to be the one to find anything. We found the collar
first. Moved one way and found vertebrae. Moved the other, found the
head. I put on the blue rubber gloves from the house and carefully
worked the skull out of the ground. The lower jaw was now a separate
piece, but it didn’t matter. Didn’t need a pathologist, either. I
turned the skull toward Floyd.