by Thomas Zigal
The woman was still clutching Kurt’s arm. “You asked about Meredith Stone,” she said, watching her friends guide the angry man back to the sidewalk. “She’s probably in the hotel. I talked to her about an hour ago and she was going in to check out the convention.”
“Thanks,” Kurt said. “If you see her or Kat Pfeil, tell them I’m here looking for them.”
He angled back through rows of parked automobiles to the rear entrance of the Sahara, where passengers were disembarking from a chartered bus. Not eager to draw attention to himself, he slipped into the line filing into the hotel. “Here for the convention?” he asked the young man walking next to him.
“They give us the day off, full pay, to come on this trip,” the boy grinned, his bottom lip fat with Skoal.
“The whole plant shut down just so’s they’d have some warm bodies here. Tell you the truth, I don’t even know what it’s all about. But who’s gonna bitch? Las Vegas beats the hell out of hauling ore on a hot day in Elko.”
“You drive a truck for the mine up there?”
“Not today I don’t. No siree. Today I play blackjack till I bust the house.”
Standing at the registration tables in the lobby, watching the participants mill about, Kurt thought at first that it was a Monster Wheels trade show. He had never seen so many spit cups and teased-up bottle blondes in one location. The information packet was crammed with schedules, exhibit maps, association newsletters, advertisements for recreational vehicles and hunting gear. Kurt flipped through the pages, boning up on what to expect from this gathering. He learned from the official program that Arnold Metcalf would be the guest of honor at the Free West banquet this evening, the recipient of a lifetime achievement award presented by a Republican congressman from Arizona. Kurt was about to dump the entire folder into a casino trash can when he noticed something out of place among the glossy materials, a sheet of plain white paper bearing the photograph of a smiling Arnold Metcalf shaking hands with the controversial cult leader Father Ke. He stopped and studied the flyer. The hand-lettered inscription read, Why are these men smiling? Because they’re getting away with investing your money and your cause in a cult religion. Ask Arnold Metcalf why he and Father Ke are such good friends.
“Your Green Briar pals must be wetting themselves with delight.”
Neal Staggs had appeared suddenly out of the stream of passersby. Wearing a dark Brooks Brothers suit and striped tie, the formal persona he’d always projected as the FBI special agent assigned to Aspen, he looked conspicuously overdressed in this assembly. “When you find out how they were able to tamper with the packets,” he said, eyeing the flyer in Kurt’s hand, “please pass on my professional admiration. I respect anyone who is deft at dirty tricks.”
Sooner or later Kurt was going to put this man away. His people had blown up Ned Carr, shot Tyler Rutledge, and left a gaping hole in Randy’s neck. J.J. Chilcutt may not have done the work alone, but Staggs knew every name involved. He had no doubt awarded the contracts.
“It isn’t looking good for you and your goons, Staggs. Last night we busted Bill Gillespie at the hospital. We’ve got him on tape.”
Staggs smiled arrogantly. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
“My guess is Gillespie will spill his guts to save his own worthless ass. Better find yourself a good lawyer. A smarter one than Arnold Metcalf.”
He could see the hatred manifest itself in Staggs’s eyes. He was a social architect with uncompromising convictions and an immutable blueprint for the way things ought to proceed, and Kurt Muller had spilled large stains on his designs. First a year ago, and now this inconvenience.
“I know about the Night Clubbers, Staggs, and how your company is using them to bash the greens.” Kurt reached into his pocket. “Here’s a quarter,” he said, the silver coin pinched between his fingers. “Call the home office and tell them it’s over. Tell them somebody on their payroll is going to jail. Maybe the new branch chief at the Aspen desk.”
Staggs’s false smile flattened into a sneer. “You have an inflated view of your talents, Muller,” he said. “You need to come back down to earth. These allegations are getting wildly out of hand.”
Kurt tugged at the discreet badge on Staggs’s lapel. Convention Security. “This VIProtex gig was a natural for an old spook like you, wasn’t it, pal? The world of karma according to Neal Staggs. You couldn’t get at them last time around, with all those Bureau regs and oversight committees, so you’re getting at them now. The maggots under every rock.”
“Let’s just say I enjoy my work,” Staggs said. “Like your girlfriend enjoys hers.” He plucked the flyer from Kurt’s hand. “Is Miss Pfeil here today?” He glanced at the picture of Metcalf and Father Ke, then smiled ominously at Kurt. “I certainly hope so. I’ve heard so much about her, I look forward to making her acquaintance.”
“If anything happens to her,” Kurt said, “I’m coming after you, Staggs. Personally.”
With a slow one-handed clutch Staggs wadded the flyer into a tight ball. “This is no time to lose control of your emotions, my friend,” he said. “If I remember my own fieldwork correctly, this is the part of the climb where the footing gets treacherous and a man has to be very careful. One false step and you’re sliding face first down nine hundred feet of rock. And you know what a mess that can be.”
The reference to Bert’s death provoked the inner rage Staggs had intended, but Kurt composed a calm smile. “Have a good time at the tables, Staggs. Spend your money while you still have it.” He watched mom-and-pop gamblers waltz out of the casino and crowd onto an escalator. “The take-home pay won’t be as good at Leavenworth.”
Staggs’s eyes shifted right, then left, determining if anyone was close enough to hear him. He leaned forward, leading with his chin, and spoke softly. “What makes you think you’ve got anything on me, cowboy?”
Kurt took a step closer, erasing the comfort zone between them. “Bill Gillespie,” he mock-whispered.
Staggs laughed, a tight clucking sound. He reached in his trousers, rattling change. “Here’s a quarter,” he said, flipping a coin that bounced off Kurt’s chest and fell to the carpet. “Call your office. You haven’t checked in lately.”
What the hell was he talking about?
“Enjoy the convention, Muller. If you see Miss Pfeil before I do, tell her I hope we’ll get together someday soon. Her limp intrigues me.”
As swiftly as he had appeared, Neal Staggs was gone, riding up the escalator with two VIProtex guards and the crush of conventioneers. Kurt walked over to the pay phones and called the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department.
“Where are you, Kurt?” Muffin said in a shrill voice. “We’ve been looking all over the county for you. Gillespie’s dead.”
He didn’t believe her. It wasn’t possible.
Stretching out the metal phone cord, he looked quickly up the escalator. Staggs was near the top now, smiling down at him with a smug, victorious contempt.
“Looks like he ingested something and took his own life. The medical examiner is with the body. He’ll have a prelim soon and we should know if the substance is an easy trace. Jesus, Kurt. This is fucked.”
“How did it happen, Muffin?” he asked, struggling to control his temper.
“I don’t know. We searched him head to toe before we booked him. We searched the lawyer when he came in at noon. Maybe there was something sewn in his pants.”
Kurt knew that the police searches would make it impossible for the DA to prove culpability of any sort.
“This is going to damage the department big time, Kurt,” she said. “I would appreciate it if you’d come in and lend a hand. The press is already lining up in the hall with gym paddles.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. Gillespie was somebody’s hired soldier. He did what he had to do. I doubt if anybody could’ve stopped him.”
“This case is slipping away from us, Kurt. Without Gillespie we’ve got nothing.”
�
�Hang in there,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I find Kat Pfeil. Don’t release a statement to the media until I look it over.”
“Where are you?” she asked. “I hear a lot of background noise.”
“Vegas,” he said. “Free West is having a convention here.”
A long silence. He thought she might have hung up. “Book the Peter Lawford suite at the Flamingo,” she said finally. “The green goddess will appreciate the walk-down tub.”
He groaned impatiently, feeling his warm forehead with the back of his hand. “Make sure you double the security around Hunter,” he said. “These people mean serious business.”
The line crackled from her erratic breathing. “Done,” she said. “And Kurt…”
He waited.
“Ignore that remark. You know I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just cop talk.”
“Muffin.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t lose any more suspects while I’m gone.”
He followed the crowds up the escalator to the second floor. He knew it wouldn’t be easy finding Kat in this madhouse, but he had to get to her before Staggs did.
The banner above the entrance to the Sahara’s exhibit hall said WELCOME TO THE REBELLION. Inside the grand space, scores of Free West supporters ambled past product displays and partitioned booths where industry associations had set up shop, a clamorous medina of professional lobbyists whose logos brazenly declared them defenders, advocates, alliances, policy projects, research centers, bureaus, institutes, federations, foundations, committees, councils, conferences, societies, coalitions, alerts, and citizens for. Though Free West affected the appearance of a spreading, uncontainable grass-roots movement, Kurt could think of no other cause that had sprung to life virtually overnight with well-paid staffs, comfortable tower suites, and fat expense accounts bankrolled by corporate sugar daddies. As he ventured down the exhibition lanes, the noise and pageantry and sheer volume of information had a dizzying, hallucinatory effect on him. He felt like a man who had lost his way through some strange, chimerical theme park whose purpose was as vague and elusive as a fever dream.
To demonstrate their latest models, chainsaw manufacturers had hired flannel-shirted woodsmen to gnaw apart heavy redwood logs, and a sweet cloud of sawdust filled the air. Across the aisle, members of a group called the Timber Defense were handing out complimentary rolls of paper towels and bumper stickers that said HUNGRY AND OUT OF WORK? ROADKILL AN ENVIRONMENTALIST and EAT MORE SPOTTED OWL. Farther along, a farm-equipment salesman dressed in Hee Haw overalls invited Kurt to inspect his new line of tractors. “Hey there, cousin, come on in and crank these babies up!” Sequined showgirls with clipboards pressed to their ample bosoms surrounded Kurt quickly, soliciting his signature. When he stopped to thumb through the petitions—for lower grazing fees, a moratorium on endangered species, a ban on wolf reintroduction—he noticed the two VIProtex guards he had seen on the escalator with Staggs. They were following him.
In the next lane, eager trail-machine reps waved him over to climb aboard their ATVS, dirt bikes, and off-road minitrucks. “How you fixed for the outback, partner? Set your tail down in this four-wheeler and see how she suits you!” Three desert rats wearing Autobahn Society patches on their cammo jackets were fondling shiny handlebars with lust in their eyes, but Kurt didn’t recognize any of them from the Black Diamond.
His head was burning, his arm had begun to throb, and he moved on in a feeble delirium, hoping to spot Kat Pfeil before he keeled over. The guards were still tailing him, making no effort to conceal their surveillance. As soon as he grabbed her he was leaving this place. Even if he had to throw her over his shoulder and run for it.
Suddenly there was a loud disturbance in another lane, a volley of shouted insults, and Kurt thought he recognized Kat’s voice rising in anger. He trotted over to discover four beefy security guards wrestling a woman to the floor. “Leave her alone!” he said, rushing to her defense, pulling a guard off the squirming pile of limbs.
He was seized from behind, a forceful grip on his aching arm. “Don’t be a problem, man,” said one of the men who had been tailing him.
Kurt saw now that the woman wasn’t Kat Pfeil but a protester who had infiltrated the convention with an armload of Green Briar leaflets, which were scattered about the floor like parade litter. Within seconds she was handcuffed and whisked toward an emergency exit.
“Be nice,” said the second guard, the crew-cut little bull from the Aspen office. “You don’t want to get dragged ass-end through the hotel like that chick, do you, ace?”
Kurt watched the guards hustle the woman through the exit door. “You boys are real heroes when the odds are four to one,” he said, shaking himself loose.
“You wanna be a hero today?”
Kurt gazed around at the exhibits. “I’m just another curious citizen here for the hayride,” he said. “You got a problem with that?”
“I got a problem with troublemakers,” said the little bull. “They step out of line, I come down hard. Think about it, mister.”
“Tell you what, junior. You decide to come down on me, you better go find your daddy and all his friends. It’s gonna take more than four.”
He nudged the guard aside and walked away. He’d had enough of this place and needed to sit down in a quiet corner, check his bandage, absorb some liquids, lower his body temperature. In his own twisted way Staggs had been right: Kurt had to get control of himself. Otherwise he was powerless to help Kat.
He roamed past an astonishing display of hunting rifles and skinning knives, and picked up a brochure about the Second Amendment from an NRA volunteer. Near an array of state-of-the-art, stainless-steel animal traps, a knot of people had gathered around the Arizona congressman scheduled to present Arnold Metcalf with the achievement award. Short, stocky, jowl-faced at forty, a thatch of thin blond hair combed across his pink scalp, the congressman was addressing the network news cameras, explaining his bill to abolish all federal environmental regulations. “We’ve got to place environmental responsibility in the hands of each state,” he was saying as Kurt approached the back of the crowd. “Does some bean counter in Washington know what’s best for the ranchers in my state or the rice growers in the Louisiana wetlands? I don’t think so. The bureaucrats ought to stay out of our business and let the people of Arizona and Oregon and Colorado judge what works best for them!”
The only person not applauding was a tall, good-looking woman wearing a Dallas Cowboys cap and dark glasses. If Kurt hadn’t seen her a few hours ago in Durango, he wouldn’t have recognized Meredith Stone. She was standing behind the camera crew’s light man, listening to the speech with hardened detachment. Kurt surveyed the surrounding faces but didn’t find Jesse Nighthawk among them.
Skirting the crowd, he slipped up behind Meredith and spoke over her shoulder. “You’re pretty far out of your pond here, aren’t you, my friend?”
“Kurt!” she said with surprise. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Don’t look at me. I’m being followed.”
“Join the club,” she said, nodding over at a VIPro guard feigning interest in starlight scopes and ultraviolet tracer powders.
Kurt saw his own pair circling the audience like sniffing hounds. “I talked to Miles. I know why you’re here. Have you seen Kat?”
“No,” she said, “and we’ve been up and down every row for an hour. I don’t think she’s in the hall.”
“We can’t let Staggs get his hands on her. She’s pretty high up on their hit parade. If his boys pick her up, we’ll never see her again.”
Meredith exhaled nervously. “Miles says she’s loaded for bear. That scares me about her, Kurt. She seems like such a sensible girl. I can’t imagine her with a bomb. What’s she planning to do?”
“Let’s not wait to find out. Where’s Jesse?”
She looked back down the aisle past the gun displays. “We split up. He thought we could cover more ground that way,” she
said. “Are you all right, Kurt? You look…ill.”
“I need some fresh air. This room is closing in on me,” he said. “Where can we touch base if one of us finds Kat?”
“Lee has a suite at Caesars. Leave a message on our voice mail. Every hour on the hour.”
They remained in the crowd without speaking for several moments longer, listening to the Arizona congressman field a soft question from a news reporter. Is this the kind of turnout you expected, Congressman?
“What are you going to do if you find her and she won’t cooperate?” Kurt asked finally. “If she won’t leave the building.”
Meredith raised and lowered the bill of the Cowboys cap, airing out her hair. “That’s what I’ve hired Jesse for,” she said.
Chapter forty-five
Smokers idled about the mezzanine, lanky men with crests of oiled hair, women in pastel pantsuits, and the air engulfing them was as thick and gray as a sweat lodge. He looked back to see if the VIProtex guards had followed him out of the hall, but there was no sign of them.
Kurt bought a soft drink at the cash bar and wandered down a corridor to find a quiet, out-of-the-way place to sit and ponder his next move. The first two doors he tried were locked. Toward the far end of the hallway a service entrance opened onto a stately banquet room, the lighting low and nocturnal over an elaborate arrangement of white tablecloths, drinking goblets, and fine silver. Twilight dimmed the arched glass panel behind the podium and stage, deep shadows gathering for the desert night. He could hear muted preparatory kitchenwork beyond the walls, but the room itself was as quiet as a chapel. He ventured down an aisle toward the podium and took a seat at a table set for ten. Stiff name cards positioned guests, listed their affiliations. Ron Askew, Citizens for Abundant Game, Pocatello ID. Candy Tetlow, Alliance for Property Rights, Bellevue WA. A banner draped over the podium exclaimed FREE WEST, FREE FUTURE. This was where the awards ceremony would take place. Kurt closed his eyes and sipped the iced drink, a quick shiver racing through him. This was where Arnold Metcalf would receive a little gold plaque for founding a movement that strove to turn back the clock twenty-five years and eliminate any opposition in its way. That the bastard had also eliminated salt-of-the-earth friends like Ned Carr, when they refused to march in step, was apparently of no consequence to Metcalf’s political promoters.