Big Medicine (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 5)

by Joseph Flynn

  “This guy’s a million laughs, eh?” Rebecca said.

  “Some people find the juxtapositions funny,” Daisy Jane said. “Others think they’re edgy. Good art allows for a range of interpretations.”

  Rebecca actually agreed with the last point, but she wouldn’t have any of this guy’s work hanging anywhere she ever lived. Wouldn’t like it if the neighbors hung any of Murtagh’s stuff either.

  “You know,” she said, “I think this guy has real talent, but the things I see here don’t grab me. Any chance he might do a piece on commission?”

  “I know he’s done some work on that basis in the past. Can’t say if he’d still be willing to do something like that. It’d be a sure bet, though, a commissioned piece would cost more than anything we have here. Possibly a good deal more.”

  Rebecca knew immediately Daisy Jane was figuring in a hefty commission for herself.

  She said, “I’ve got the money for him, you and a whole lot more.”

  The gallery owner was pleased they understood one another.

  “What kind of a painting do you have in mind?”

  “A nude.”

  Daisy Jane did another frank appraisal of Rebecca, concentrating more on physical attributes this time. She nodded and said, “Let’s go ask Jack how he’d feel about the idea.”

  The artist and Emily were now standing next to a counter at the back of the shop. There was nothing so gauche as a cash register there, but it gave the feeling of a place where a painting might be exchanged for a check with the right number of zeros. Emily gave Rebecca a grin while Murtagh was already undressing her in his mind, without even hearing about painting a nude.

  Daisy Jane saw the same thing and quickly voiced the subject.

  Murtagh nodded, stared at Rebecca some more and asked, “Would this be a painting for someone in particular?”

  “Yes,” Rebecca said.

  “What about the pose?” Murtagh asked. “Are you thinking of standing, sitting or reclining?”

  “Reclining, definitely.”

  Emily watched Rebecca work with keen interest.

  Daisy Jane looked as if she was getting a bit worked up.

  “Are there any other particular details that interest you?” the artist inquired. “An indoor setting or outdoors?”

  Rebecca told him, “I’ll leave that to you, but I would have a couple of requirements.”

  “What?” Murtagh asked.

  “I have a tattoo on my right thigh. I’d want you to remove it in the painting. I want to remember what my leg used to look like.”

  Murtagh nodded. “I can do that. What else?”

  “I’d like to see how my breasts would look a bit bigger, a cup size, maybe two. I’ve thought about getting that kind of surgery. It strikes me as a good idea to see what I’d look like first.”

  Murtagh laughed. He turned to Daisy Jane and said, “I think I just found my new specialty.”

  Covering the side of her face so only Rebecca could see her, Emily rolled her eyes.

  After a bit of haggling, the two sides settled on a fee of $100,000.

  Then Daisy Jane said, “We’ll need half down to get started.”

  Rebecca said, “Really? A canvas and some paints cost that much?”

  Getting just a bit frosty, Daisy Jane said, “There is the artist’s time to consider.”

  “How about twenty-five grand?” Rebecca countered.

  For his part, Murtagh was happy just to see the two women contend with each other.

  “I’m sorry, but we have business practices to maintain,” Daisy Jane said.

  “You know what?” Rebecca told her. “I think I’d better take a look at some nudes Mr. Murtagh has done before I pay you any money.”

  Giving a sigh of exasperation, Daisy Jane said, “We don’t have any here.”

  Emily decided it was time for her to intervene.

  She said, “We should go, Becky. This is getting to be too hard. And then there’s that other problem you have, with your hand.”

  Murtagh looked at Rebecca. “I don’t see anything wrong with her hands.”

  “Tell him, Beck,” Emily said.

  Rebecca gave Emily a cross look, but then told Murtagh, “The guy I’m divorcing? We got into it the night I left. That was six weeks ago now.”

  “A physical fight?” Murtagh loved that idea. “Did he hurt you?”

  “Are you kidding? I was the one teaching him Krav Maga. I ducked the sucker punch he threw and hit him with two shots to the head. Put him down for the count, but I broke bones in both hands. The swelling and the bruising are gone, and after six weeks the doctor told me the bones have knit — but not to hit anyone else for a while.”

  Murtagh liked that, too.

  Emily picked up the story, certain of where Rebecca was going.

  “I took Becky out shopping to celebrate, but I had to put our stuff on my card because her hands still tingle and she can’t sign her name for anything.”

  Rebecca said, “I try to write my name, it looks like something a little kid might do with a crayon. My doctor says I’ve got another month or two before I get my fine motor skills back. I was thinking that was when you could do the painting.”

  Murtagh thought about things for a moment before he said, “Do you have an exemplar?”

  “A what?” Rebecca asked.

  “An example of your signature. You have one on your driver’s license, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Daisy Jane shook her head. “Don’t do that, Jack.”

  Emily asked, “Do what?”

  Murtagh waved Daisy Jane off and said, “With your permission, and we’ll make the check out for $10,000 and —”

  “Jack!”

  Murtagh whirled and jabbed a finger at the gallery owner’s nose, giving the clear impression that he might stick it in her eye next.

  “I’m the artist, remember?”

  Emily stepped to Rebecca’s side so they stood shoulder to shoulder.

  That sign of solidarity might have told Murtagh something, but he missed it.

  “We don’t want to cause any trouble,” Rebecca said softly.

  She and Emily took a step back as if it were choreographed.

  Murtagh held both hands up to placate them. Getting himself under control, he said in a reasonable tone. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I’ve had some troubles of my own recently. Here’s what I was trying to say: If it’s all right with you, I’ll sign your check for $10,000, and I’ll make it look exactly like yours. No one will ever doubt that it’s your signature. Is that all right with you?”

  Rebecca made a show of thinking about the idea, for a count of three.

  “Okay, but can you make the rest of the check look like my writing, too?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “All right. Let’s do it then: ten thousand.”

  She made a show of being clumsy opening her purse and getting the checkbook out. Murtagh took it gently from her hand and asked, “You gave the guy you’re divorcing some kind of beating, huh?”

  Rebecca nodded.

  Emily added, “I’ve seen the pictures.”

  “I’d like to see them, too.”

  Daisy Jane had heard enough and retreated to a back room.

  “Do a great job with the painting and I’ll show you,” Rebecca said.

  “Deal,” Murtagh said.

  Emily grinned. “This is all so cool. Can I ask a favor?”

  “You want to be painted nude, too?” the artist asked.

  “Maybe later. What I’m wondering is, can I video you while you work? I mean, this is going to be a piece of performance art, isn’t it, you writing out Becky’s check.”

  Daisy Jane would’ve screamed bloody murder, but she wasn’t around.

  Murtagh said, “Sure, why not?”

  In a matter of minutes, the transaction was completed … and visually recorded.

  Rebecca and Emily walked out of the gallery working hard not
to burst out laughing.

  They were aided in their restraint by the first thing they saw outdoors.

  LAPD Captain Terry Adair, in uniform, was sitting on the back end of a patrol car parked two buildings up the street, waiting for them. The sonofabitch was still stalking Emily. They’d expected that, but not the explicit show of his police powers.

  Be my love or I’ll throw your ass in jail.

  He said, “Emily, we’ve got to get right with each other. We’ve just got to.”

  U.S. Interstate 29 — Approaching Omaha, Nebraska

  A bread truck versus SUV versus Greyhound bus collision reduced the highway approach to the city to one lane. Traffic still should have proceeded at a crawl, but for some reason John Tall Wolf was unable to see, things had ground to a complete halt. Hoping to make good use of the unforeseen delay, John took out his phone and made a call to Cale Tucker at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland.

  The young cyber-snoop answered the call with a glum tone. “Mr. Director, I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything for you yet.”

  “Your bosses have you working your normal duties, don’t they?”

  After a two-beat hesitation, Tucker admitted, “Yeah, they do, but I’ve been working through my lunch hour and staying late to help with your investigation. That’s no BS. I just haven’t been able to find that damn computer yet. It’s starting to make me doubt the powers of technology, and for me that’s like a preacher losing his religion.”

  “Be of good faith,” John told him. “I’ve got a strong lead.”

  “You do?”

  John said, “I’d have been happy if you’d come up with the answer, but this way I feel good there’s still room for doing things in the classical fashion.”

  “Retro can be cool, too,” Tucker said. “So what have you found out?”

  “A real estate mogul named Brice Benard, working out of Omaha is trying to pull a fast one on a tribe of Indians also called the Omaha.”

  “Bet the Indians had the name first.”

  “They did indeed,” John confirmed. “Anyway, it’s not absolutely certain, but close to it, that Benard had someone steal Dr. Lisle’s computer for him.”

  Tucker would assemble the pieces with commendable speed, John thought.

  The young security wizard said, “Dr. Lisle has an affiliation with the Omaha tribe, probably a kinship relation. The tribe has some natural resource that’s essential to Dr. Lisle’s plan to formulate a new antibiotic. Benard’s trying to fleece the Indians and use the information on the computer he stole from a member of the tribe to make huge piles of money.”

  “Exactly,” John said. “A very neat summary.”

  “Got a question for you, though, Mr. Director.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How’d this Benard guy hear about Dr. Lisle’s work in the first place? I hadn’t known about it before I talked with you, and checking on things since then, Dr. Lisle’s work isn’t secret, but it’s very low profile. Brief, generalized mentions in highly specialized publications.”

  John thought about that and said, “Good point. At the moment, I’m certain Benard had to have help from an insider at Dr. Lisle’s lab to steal the computer. Addressing your question, that’s the likely source for the news of Dr. Lisle’s work reaching Benard, too.”

  “Okay, I can see that,” Tucker said. “Now, I’m wondering something else.”

  “What?”

  “Well, if Dr. Lisle is Native American, and the Indian reservation has a natural resource that’s essential to creating the new antibiotic, is there anyone else involved who’s one of your kind of people?”

  “Tall, dark and handsome?” John asked.

  Tucker laughed. “Yeah, that, too. But I was thinking more of other Native Americans being in on the scheme.”

  John said, “I was told everybody in Dr. Lisle’s lab has some measure of native blood.”

  “That’s really interesting. I’m not big on anthropology or genealogy, but Brice Benard doesn’t sound like an Indian name to me. Wouldn’t it make more sense to take the stolen goods to somebody with money who’s part of your tribe, so to speak?”

  “The chief of the Omaha is named Thomas Emmett,” John told Tucker.

  “No kidding? Well then, maybe Brice Benard’s family was a real early arrival in this country, too, don’t you think?”

  “I hadn’t until you just mentioned it,” John said. “Thanks for the notion.”

  “About time I was a little help.”

  John saw the line of vehicles ahead of him was starting to inch forward.

  He said, “Maybe you can do a bit more. Do you have the ability to listen in on Brice Benard’s phones? Not just tap them when he’s on the line, but overhear what he says in his office or home when he’s not using his phones?”

  Tucker hesitated, then said, “I’m really not cleared to tell anyone what we can do.”

  “How about the President?”

  “Well, yeah, she can know anything she wants … I think.”

  “Okay, well, call Byron DeWitt and sum up our conversation for him.”

  “Or I can just replay it.”

  “I should have known,” John said. “Do that and say I suggest he gets the President involved at this point. Then replay the whole thing for FBI Deputy Director Abra Benjamin, too. Can you do that for me?”

  “Right away. You’ll recommend me for another job, if I lose mine?”

  “Absolutely, but don’t worry. You’ll be doing the right thing.”

  “Sure hope that’s enough,” Tucker said, “but I’m on it.”

  “Oh, hey, if you do get the go-ahead to listen in on Benard and things get hairy at any point while I’m visiting him, call the local cops right away, okay?”

  “Absolutely. Whatever else happens, this has been fun.”

  “I’d like to keep it that way,” John told him.

  He ended the call and started to move ahead at close to 20 miles per hour.

  Los Angeles, California

  “Get lost before I run you in,” LAPD Captain Terry Adair told Rebecca.

  She’d stepped between Adair and Emily right after he’d made his creepy, implicitly threatening plea for reconciliation with his lost love.

  “You know who I am?” Rebecca asked.

  “Yeah, a recent immigrant,” he said. “I checked. You used to be a Mountie up in Canada.” He twirled an index finger in a dismissive gesture. “Whoop-ti-doo. Doesn’t mean shit to me. You don’t leave right now, I’ll arrest you for refusing to obey a police order.”

  Rebecca stayed put; her only movement was to hold out both arms.

  Inviting the asshole to put handcuffs on her.

  Before he could respond, Emily stepped up and stood shoulder to shoulder with Rebecca.

  “You dumbass,” she told Adair. “You didn’t look to see who she’s married to — a fed, the Director of the BIA’s Office of Justice Services. The guy who the President is going to nominate to her Cabinet. He’s tight with the Commander-in-Chief. Is that whoop-ti-doo enough for you?”

  In case it wasn’t, Rebecca added, “Besides all that, if anything unfortunate were to happen to me, you’d lose all that pretty hair of yours when he scalps you.”

  All that did give Adair pause. Still, he was trying to sort out how much, if any, of it was true. He hadn’t drawn a conclusion when Emily shook her head and told him, “Listen, Terry, you should have taken me at my word months ago. The problem is, you’re a spoiled brat who’s approaching middle age. You can probably count on one hand the number of times you’ve been denied something you really want.”

  The LAPD captain pulled his head back as if he’d been slapped. Whether that was due to Emily’s character assessment or a fear of aging was impossible to say.

  “All I want is one last chance to explain myself,” he said. “If you’re still not interested in any future with me … well, all right, so be it.”

  Emily stared at him for a moment
and then managed a small nod.

  “All right. Meet me at my house tonight. Six o’clock. Don’t bring flowers, candy or anything else. Just think about what you want to say. Rehearse it, if you want. See how it sounds to you. If it comes across as bullshit even you can recognize, don’t bother coming.”

  Adair took a moment to process all that and said, “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  Rebecca let her arms fall to her sides and told him, “You leave first. I don’t want you to write me a ticket.”

  The look the police captain gave Rebecca would have scared most people. The fire in his eyes said the two of them would have a day of reckoning, no matter who she had to back her up. But he left without saying anything Emily could hold against him.

  Once he was gone, the two women got in Rebecca’s Audi and headed back to their office.

  Emily asked Rebecca, “Would your husband really scalp someone?”

  Rebecca laughed. “No, I don’t think so. Arcelia might, though.”

  Emily grinned. “Now, that wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

  “John would do something … unexpected. I could see him staking that guy out on a mountaintop. Let him grow weak and desperate from exposure, starvation and dehydration, and then get one last burst of adrenaline as vultures circled, landed and began to pick him apart just before he died.”

  Emily shivered. “Jeez, that’s some sick imagination you’ve got. I’m going to like working with you.”

  “Yeah, I’m a million laughs, but what about you? What were you thinking, saying you’d talk to that creep one last time? That’ll only encourage him. He’ll never go away.”

  Emily told her. “I didn’t say I was going to talk to him alone.”

  Rebecca smiled. “Tell me the whole plan.”

  She did, and Rebecca approved wholeheartedly.

  Emily said, “He shouldn’t have insulted the RCMP. You think there might be a couple of Mounties attached to the Canadian Consulate-General in L.A.?”