Whistle Pass (18 page)

“Sure.” Charlie stood.

Fear rattled through Gabe. He crossed his arms and grabbed his shoulders. The steam spun in the cup, taunted Gabe in his deception with a vapor.
Liar
. He blasted a breath across the coffee. The small cloud fell off the side of the mug, only to reform and continue its silent chimney of accusations.

“See you then.” Charlie walked away. A slap of chilly air struck Gabe’s neck as the door opened and closed.

Gabe gripped his hands together. His breaths turned fast and shallow, and somehow the fog outside seeped into his brain. Darkness closed over his eyes.

Crinkling paper covered his mouth. He swiped at it, but hands slapped his away.

“Breathe in and out. Deep, Gabe. Breathe.” Cathy’s voice slipped into a void and echoed in chasms in his head. “You’re hyperventilating. Breathe. That’s it. Slow. Steady.”

The paper bag filled and collapsed in time with his breaths. He blinked as he watched the sack. His lungs rallied and slowed. He nodded, and the bag disappeared.

“Come on.” She pulled him from the chair. “You need to lie down for a while.” He leaned on her as they walked. “I’ll be right back,” she said to the air.

The cold and damp roused him further. His shuffling became steps. Cathy pushed open the hotel’s door. Betty scurried over.

“What happened?”

“He saw Charlie. Got to admit, the man is good-looking. If you like your men rough, tough, and hairy.”

Gabe scolded her with a side glance. She patted his gaze forward with an open palm. “I’m just saying you have good taste.” She passed him off to Betty. “But he could use a shave.”

An image surfaced of Charlie’s naked body under Gabe’s razor. He rolled his eyes and groaned.

Arm over Betty’s shoulders, he let her lead the way to the back room, where he stretched out on the sofa. She spread a blanket over him, then kissed his forehead.

“You get some rest. I told you I’ll take care of it, and I meant it.” She kissed him again. The wrinkled lips on his skin were old slippers and flannel PJs to his soul.

Comforted by Betty’s presence, he closed his eyes. Under her motherly watch the world outside and the events he seemed to have no control over minimized and became almost tolerable, manageable. She would protect him, just like she always had. Betty had never let him down, and she wouldn’t now.

He quickly fell asleep.

G
ABE
jogged to the doors of the stone courthouse and glanced at the iron penile erection on the corner, publicly referred to as the Mount Robertson city clock. The first of ten scheduled dongs tolled. He jerked the door open and entered. An occasional board creaked under his hurried steps. Lester waited in the hall.

“Think I wasn’t coming?” Gabe asked to break his guilt for cutting the ten o’clock appointment so close.

Lester shrugged. “No. You said you’d be here, so I knew you would.” He turned a blemished doorknob and pushed the solid wooden door open.

An old paper and ink musk smacked Gabe in the nose. He rested his arms on the chest high counter.

“Be right with you,” the old man bent over a table said. Under the glare of a green glass-shaded desk lamp, the man ran a finger along lists in a book the size of an open newspaper. Rows of perpendicular cabinets housed dozens of similar sized books.

The fingertip tapped at something on the page. “Found it.” The finger went to the round gold eyeglasses on the bridge of his long nose and slid the frames to the top. He scribbled on a notepad. Grabbing a cane dangling by its curved handle from the table, the man hobbled to the counter, where he tore off the page he’d written on and handed it to Lester, who gave it to Gabe.

“I came over after I dropped Richie at school and asked Mr. Olson to check for you.” Lester lowered his head. “You mad?”

Gabe smiled at his brute of a friend’s shy and demure side. “No. I appreciate your thinking of me.” He looked at the paper.
Bad River Timber Company, Odanah, Wis
.

His head throbbed. Odds were better than a sure thing Charlie worked for the electric company by way of this logging firm. A pang of jealousy mixed with his confusion and frustration. The recipe cooked up little doubt Charlie was in town to take care of a problem for the mayor. With the police chief wanting Charlie served on a platter—Gabe heaved a troubled sigh—the mayor’s wife had to be the problem.

A new thought set a muscle in his jaw twitching. Just how did Charlie plan on taking care of Dora? On impulse, he covered his mouth with an open hand. Murder? Was Charlie a killer for hire?

Compose, Gabriel. Compose. You’ve seen way too many movies.

He wanted to get out of here, find Charlie, and talk to him. This whole situation was getting way out of control. Yes, he trusted Betty, but she didn’t have experience in stuff like this. He frowned at himself. Neither did he. Maybe the time had come to stop depending on other people, to stop dreaming of a better life… to stop hiding and step up to the plate as a man. A man like Charlie Harris.

Oh, God
. Could he have a thought that didn’t have Charlie at its epicenter?

A rustle of paper drew his attention. Lester spread a map across the countertop and looked at Gabe. “I had time on my hands, so I grabbed a map at the service station.”

Gabe appreciatively patted Lester’s immense and hard-as-a-rock shoulder. “Thanks.” Lester’d thought this out a lot more than Gabe had. He checked the index for Odanah, found the letters and numbers to locate the town on the map, then dragged his fingers from each starting point until they met. A tiny circle and
Odanah
rested below his touch.

“What’s this shaded area?”

Lester tapped the paper. “Indians.” He fingered a line under some faint letters across the light gray the town sat on the edge of.
Bad River Ojibwe Reservation
.

Gabe’s brow wrinkled as he squinted in thought. Charlie was an Indian? How? He muffled a slight chuckle.
How, heap big chief Charlie
. He shook off the inappropriateness of the sarcasm. Besides, Charlie wasn’t an Indian. Indians couldn’t grow beards. Could they? None of them he saw in the movies had beards, or shaved. The pioneers in the wagon trains always shaved with straight razors dipped into wooden water barrels strapped to the side of a wagon, but he couldn’t recall Indians ever shaving. The Indians on the linen postcards he’d seen never had beards. Or a moustache, for that matter.

He sucked in his cheeks.
No. Charlie’s no Indian
. Satisfaction settled his disconcertedness. There was just no way he could be in love with an Indian, of all things.

“Shame on you.” Lester spun and walked out the door that clicked closed behind him.

Gabe tried to fold the map, failed miserably, and crumpled it under his arm. “Thanks, Mr. Olson.” Using Lester’s heavy footfalls as a guide, he ran down the hall. He caught him at the front doors.

“What? What’d I do?”

The scowl on the big man knotted the muscles in Gabe’s butt.

“I saw your face. You think the logging man might be an Indian.” Eyelids lowered, the deep-set eyes hazed. “You aren’t any different than those boys in school who made fun of you.” Lester stomped down the sidewalk.

“Me?” Lester wasn’t making any sense at all. “I’m not a bigot!” But Lester continued walking. “Damn it, Lester. I’m a queer, for crying out loud! How could I be a bigot?”

An approaching couple stepped into the grass to go around him. The pink-coated woman grabbed the suited man’s arm. The man frowned and placed his left arm across his chest as if to ward off some contagious evil spirit.

Gabe raised his hands in the air, waggled his fingers, and opened his eyes until they hurt. “Boogity, boogity.”

The couple scurried to the courthouse doors. The man threw one open, glanced back at Gabe, and hustled inside behind the woman.

Oh, good move, Gabriel. The sheriff’s office is on the other side of the building
.

He ran full stride for the DeSoto. Gabe Kasper needed to get the hell out of Dodge—or rather, in this case, Mount Robertson.

Chapter 18

C
HARLIE
sipped coffee in the newsstand until the mayor entered city hall. He ground out his cigarette in the ashtray and walked to the counter, where he pulled out his change holder, removed a dime, and slapped the coin on the countertop to pay for the brew. Returning the red rubber holder to his pocket, he grabbed a loose coin in his jeans pocket.

“Heads, you win, tails, you lose.” He spun the second dime.

The man behind the counter intently watched the revolving metal. “This for my tip again?”

“Yup.” Charlie absently pulled out another cigarette and lit it from a matchbook. He looked out the windows. The fog had lifted somewhat. Maybe the day wouldn’t be too bad after all. The edges of the coin rattled as it settled.

“Damn.” The man snapped his fingers in disappointment.

“Tails, you lose.” Charlie picked up the dime, stuffed it back in his pocket, and walked outside. He turned left, as if to head for Captain Tom’s a few blocks up. There was a phone booth along the route. Hopefully, old Dora wouldn’t mind a morning phone call.

A
BIG
Buick pulled to the curb. Charlie glanced at the empty backseat and floor.
Time to milk the rattlesnake
. He opened the front passenger door and climbed in. Pungent perfume scoured the lining of his nose.

“Did you really think I would try and hide someone in the back?” Dora Black asked as she drove the car down the street.

He tilted his head. “Never know. I’m guessing you’re capable of a lot of things.”

“That I am, Mr. Harris.” Her scarf-covered head turned slightly toward Charlie, but under the black oversized lenses of the sunglasses, he couldn’t tell if she’d looked at him or not. The tightly knit pink wool coat and blue cotton dress gave her the appearance of a mom running a forgotten errand. “Including whatever I have to do to protect my husband.”

There, she’d said it again. At the steakhouse she’d said she was protecting Roger too. He scratched at his beard. The meeting request had been to make sure he hadn’t misunderstood or didn’t correctly remember what she’d said. A muscle in his chest jerked.

If these two, Dora and Roger, were really at war, why protect Roger? And why, of all people, from Charlie?

He raised a finger toward her. “You really think no one will recognize you in the disguise?”

She grabbed at a flat silver case between them on the seat, fumbling it with her fingers. The metal case slid to the floor. Charlie leaned over, picked it up, then snapped open the lid. Old Dora enjoyed a bit of tobacco. It was a cigarette case.

Charlie pulled out one of the Philip Morris smokes, stuck it in his mouth, and lit it from his matchbook. She handed him an ivory-colored holder. He twisted the cigarette into the long stem and offered it back to her.

Dora inhaled, then, head tilted back, released the smoke in a slow stream to the ceiling.

“Thank you, Mr. Harris.” The voice remained a dull monotone.

“It’s okay to call me Charlie,” he said in an attempt to melt the frozen witchcicle.

“Mr. Harris, I agreed to this sordid little summit because you said you had something important to tell me. Say it, give me the photograph, or get out.” A finger tapped the steering wheel. “The car’s borrowed. No one will recognize me.”

Charlie raised a brow. Had a breach been made in the embattlements?

Her right hand went in her coat pocket. She pulled out just enough of the object for Charlie to see the wooden grip of a pistol. “So, if I need to kill you before I go home and prepare supper, no one will have seen us together.”

He gulped. A breach? Not an ice cube’s chance on a July rooftop. Old Dora was nobody to screw with—Charlie risked an amused grin—unless she chose to spread her legs, of course. She’d probably made her money charging toll between her thighs.

“Half a mile up this road there is an entrance to some backwater docks. You have until then to say what you came to say.”

Okay. You want to play?
He’d thrown a dart at Roger and hit pay dirt, no reason he couldn’t continue his lucky streak.

“I think your devoted husband wants me to kill you.”

Dora slumped in the seat. Her hands dropped to her sides.

“Oh shit!”

The car’s front tire bumped the highway curb, and the car bounced and careened across the centerline. Charlie dove for the freewheeling steering wheel. The beast shuddered against the curb on the other side of the roadway and the ton and a half rolling piece of steel chugged toward the opposite highway edge.

“Oh, Jesus. Don’t you die on me, Dora.” Pressed against the still woman, Charlie jerked the wheel left, then right. The car’s path straightened. He palmed the gearshift upward, it clunked into neutral, and he guided the car along the roadway while it steadily slowed.

“Don’t you die, Dora. Oh, Jesus Christ. Don’t you die.”

Charlie stretched his left leg to the brake and repeatedly pumped the pedal to slow the car even more.

“Breathe, Dora. You can do it.” Her body slipped to the door, her head on the ledge at the base of the window. He shot a glance to her still face and parted lips. “Breathe, Goddamn you!”