It seemed great at the time. All right, maybe not great, but okay. Hey, he was getting laid more-or-less regularly, so how bad could it be? Phyllis graduated from secretarial school a few months later and moved in with him. Then Charlie accepted a job in one of the new casinos out in Nevada, at Lake Tahoe. So they decided to get married.
Even at the time, he knew it wasn’t much of a reason.
“Well, I hafta go. I’m doing Verna Galligan in ten minutes.” Phyllis disciplined a stray hair, grabbed her bag, paused, regarded his bruised jaw. “You’re not going to tell me what happened, are you?”
“I already did. This bozo thought I was someone else.”
“What about the advance?”
Charlie reached into his pocket, handed her some folded bills.
She counted them. “You said a thousand.”
“I’m gonna need some for expenses.”
She started to leave, then, “Charlie, I called your office at two, and then at three.”
“Ohforchristsake. Look, I hadda run down to Carson City and get some information from my guy in Motor Vehicles, then over to Stateline. That’s where the guy slugged me.” After the beating he’d gone to Dorothy’s trailer and waited for her to get off work. She’d tended to his injuries, and he’d fallen asleep in her arms.
“In the middle of the night you had to go.”
“If I’m gonna get on the road this morning, yeah. Youknow, preliminary stuff. Phyl, there’s a five grand bonus in it.” He felt a twinge of shame for not mentioning the other $10,000. “For three - four days tops. You’ll be able to get your new dryers and chairs and sinks.”
“If there’s any left after the bills.”
“Phyl...”
She stopped, halfway out the door. “You should see Dr. Seidman.”
“That gun, you still got it handy?”
“On the shelf in the closet.”
“Put it in the nightstand. Where you can reach it.”
“How come?”
“Because. You’re gonna be alone.”
“Unlike last night, and Friday.” The door snicked shut. As he finished his juice, her Studebaker chugged off down the street. Charlie stood up, aching, grabbed his freshly-ironed shirts, went into the bedroom, where he folded them, placed them in his old tan cracked-leather two-suiter. Then he wrapped his Pentax in a towel and carefully packed it. He was about to close the bag when he noticed his old baseball on the bed-table. He picked it up, gripped it with forefinger and middle finger on the stitching, felt the pleasant familiarity of its rough, well-thumbed horsehide. Charlie tossed it once in his palm, then put it in his suitcase and snapped it shut.
“Wait a minute – who’s Billie Fogel again?” Charlie and Dorothy were facing each other in the rear booth of a diner on East Plumb.
“The barrel-racer?”
“Oh, right.” He tried breathing a little more deeply. Not too bad. No more stabbing pain. Doc Seidman didn’t think it was serious. A bruised kidney and a couple of cracked ribs. He’d placed a bandage at the corner of Charlie’s mouth to limit his ability to open it, wrapped his chest, gave him some codeine. And suggested he stay out of saloon parking lots.
“She’s trying real hard to get the women their own rodeo circuit, but she hasn’t had much luck so far. They really get shat on. By guys like Joe Bob Millgrim.” Dorothy stirred her coffee.
A few years ago when Dorothy was new in town, when Charlie first met her, she’d worked at the Golden Nugget with Marjorie Brodax – who was still Marjorie Hill at the time, wiggling her tits in the chorus. Back when they didn’t need anything holding them up.
Not that there was much wrong with them the last time Charlie noticed. Like a month ago when he and the guys played poker at the Brodax’s ranch. The thing Charlie had detected was the hostility he’d never seen before, the air of – almost contempt – between Stan and Marjorie. To which he hadn’t given much thought beyond the probability that she had her period or Stan maybe wasn’t getting laid. Or both.
The waitress poured some sort-of-fresh coffee and left the check.
“Anyway, according to Billie – major surprise – this Millgrim’s a bad guy. He’s from Texas and he beats up women. And drives a red pickup truck.”
“Texas. Okay, so could be that’s where they’re headed...” On the roadmap he’d spread out on the table, Charlie traced a possible course with his forefinger, across Arizona from Kingman, then through New Mexico.
Noreen Miller’s call had awakened him. She was at the Texaco regional office in Sacramento, had obviously arrived at her desk early. Noreen was one of several sources he’d phoned yesterday evening from Dorothy’s trailer while he was nursing his wounds. She’d come up with credit card slips from Vegas and then Kingman. The latter was from Friday, but it gave him a direction. Nice lady. Charlie had met Noreen several years ago, pre-Dorothy, when he’d enlisted her help tracking a blackjack dealer who decided to retire with $300,000 that belonged to the Cal-Neva Lodge. He and Noreen put in a weekend together at Tahoe. She was a lot of laughs, and as into no-commitment as was Charlie at the time.
Dorothy reached across and touched the side of his face, near the bandage. “Poor baby. You gonna be all right?”
“I promise.”
“Honey, it could be like Utah...”
The silence hung there for a few seconds. It was more than two years since they’d been away together. Really away. Phyllis had taken Lynnie and gone to Chicago to be with her ailing mother. The four days Charlie and Dorothy shared were magical. Driving, sightseeing, making love. Monument Valley, Zion, every turn in the road revealing another drop-dead vista. They had gotten a lot of mileage out of the memories.
Charlie put his hand on hers. “Dorothy, look, I’d love it. I mean, it’d be the best. But – I dunno, I – this – it could take more than a few days.” He lifted his cup and slid the roadmap out from beneath it.
“You mean it might be dangerous, don’t you?”
“Honey, c’mon, I told you...” Charlie folded the map and tossed some bills on the check. Danger was exactly what he was thinking. Which didn’t make a lot of sense. It was your basic, by-the-numbers domestic surveillance job. Get the pictures, write the report, collect your fee. And the beating? Hey, it wasn’t like he’d never been punched out before over some nothing little gig.
But still – this one – it just plain smelled like it was going to be atypical. He didn’t know why.
Charlie had had a hunch like this once before in his life. During the last weeks of the war. His unit had just crossed the Rhine into the town of Remagen after a long, tiring march. That night Charlie’s squad was ordered to handle guard duty for their sector. No sweat, the Lieutenant told them, nobody had seen a German soldier in three days. Except that Charlie had this feeling of foreboding. He warned his men to be especially alert. The guys thought he was nuts; the nearest fighting was 30 miles away. But not ten minutes into their tour they walked into a shadowy alley and found themselves face-to-face with a ragged, wild-eyed, renegade Wermacht corporal armed with a Schmeisser machine-pistol. By the time Charlie unholstered his .45 and killed him, the German had emptied his magazine. Two of Charlie’s men were dead, four wounded. One of the latter died next morning. The Lieutenant blamed Charlie and busted him back to Pfc.
With his thumbnail Charlie scraped a piece of dried food off the chipped ‘50’s Formica. No way a dopey job like this could turn into anything like that.
Dorothy didn’t believe him. “You think Stan Brodax might be – like – using you?”
“It’s possible,” He grinned, placed a pair of folded hundred dollar bills in her hand. “I mean I’ve only known the guy for what – fifteen years?” Charlie had been thinking about it. The level of Stan’s anger. And his offer of what amounted to a bounty. Could it be that he was hiring Charlie to finger the couple for him?
Dorothy looked at the money, then at Charlie. “What’s this for?”
“A down-payment on that bonus I
told you about.”
“I’d rather you saved it.”
Charlie knew what she meant; bank it for a divorce-lawyer. With Dorothy, bless her heart, there was never any passive-aggressive subtext, no repressed resentment that would come out in some other way. Another one of the extraordinary things about Dorothy Purviance was that in the three years she and Charlie had been having an affair she never once went Jesus, Charlie, are you gonna break it off with Phyllis or what? Or anything remotely similar. And not because she was hiding her feelings. Dorothy lived in the moment, fully enjoying all of them that she shared with Charlie. She was comfortable in the knowledge that they loved each other. Even if she had to share him.
Charlie folded her fingers around the bills and looked into her eyes. “And now – would you walk me out to my car? ‘Cause if you don’t, I’m gonna grab you right here – and then they’ll never let us eat in this dump again. Not that that would be such a terrible punishment.”
“Hey, did I say it isn’t petty? Of course it’s petty – and I’ll probably get over it. Eventually.” Detective Sergeant Ed Ricketts didn’t bother to look up from the crime report he was filling out.
“Hey, gimme a break, forgodsake...” It was almost eleven A.M. Charlie had hoped to be on the road by now. Doc Seidman’s codeine hadn’t kicked in yet. Shit. “I mean it isn’t like I tried to fuck you.”
“You sure as hell fooled me, pal.”
“Awforchrissake. Look – I didn’t wanta say this---” Charlie closed the door to Ricketts’ cubicle.
“Then don’t.”
“...But if you’d been doin’ your job---”
“C’mon, Charlie – I mean since when are you such a stickler for the goddam truth anyway? And it would’ve been your word against – what? No way Kessler could’ve nailed you for perjury. Now get the fuck outa my office.”
A year ago, Mrs. Serena Nora, wife of Dallas Cowboy star running back Rick Nora, came home to their Reno ranch house and found Rick in bed with a Cheerleader. Enraged, Serena shot them to death on the spot and, her pique not yet sufficiently vented, she then carved them into pieces with a kitchen-knife. Ed was the Investigating Officer-in-Charge and, as is customary in such cases, Serena was automatically the prime suspect. By noon, she was apprehended leaving town in the couple’s Ferrari.
That night Charlie happened to be surveilling a man for a local attorney. The subject entered one of the downtown casinos, Charlie followed, and ran into his old friend Ricketts at the bar. Ed was, naturally, in a celebratory mood, and Charlie was genuinely elated for him. They’d worked together eight years earlier at Harrah’s. And respected each other. Still eyeballing his man over at the blackjack table, Charlie casually asked how solid Ricketts’ proof was.
Are you kidding? Blood on her clothing, in the car, etc., etc. Open and shut. To prove it, Ricketts surreptitiously showed Charlie several evidence-bags containing dried blood from the car, plus some he’d collected at the crime scene. Ed Ricketts was finally looking at his long-sought promotion to Lieutenant.
During Mrs. Nora’s trial two months later, Charlie was subpoenaed by the defense and asked when and where he’d seen the evidence bags. Reluctantly, he told the truth, which Mrs. Nora’s lawyers not unexpectedly jumped on, maintaining that because Ricketts had delayed so long in turning it over to the police lab, the material was fatally tainted. More damningly, they insisted it was part of a massive police cabal headed by Ed Ricketts, against Serena Nora, a Black. The idea was beyond ridiculous – but enough to sow reasonable doubt in several jurors. Mrs. Nora was acquitted, and Ed Ricketts was the goat.
He looked up at Charlie for the first time. “You still here?” Then: “Christ, what wall did you walk into?”
“Guy urged me not to take the case I’m taking.” Charlie felt a stab of surprised, sneaky pleasure that his condition might buy him Ed’s sympathy. Hey. Charlie decided to milk it. He winced. Small. Brave. “Listen, could I – wouldja mind if I sat down? For a minute?”
Ricketts sighed, waved at the side chair. “What?”
Damn. That asshole kicking the shit out of me – maybe everything does have some kinda purpose.
“Dildo I’m checkin’ out. I figure he’s gotta have a record. But – look, if you got a problem tellin’ Murray down in R-and-I that it’s okay to youknow talk to me – well, I understand...”
Charlie grinned as he pulled onto U.S. 50, headed east. He’d been on the money about Joe Bob Millgrim. Grand theft, assault, assault, armed robbery, assault, attempted rape. A pair of eighteen-month turns in Huntsville. Also did time in Colorado, arrested in Arizona and New Mexico. Your all-around sweetheart.
He glanced at the note clipped to the information Murray Rohmer had pulled for him from Records and Identification. As Charlie was leaving, Ed Ricketts pressed it into his hand. Without being asked. On it, Ed had scrawled Joe Bob’s Texas license tag number. And a description: red 1962 Ford pickup.
Eddie may not have forgiven me, but you hafta hand it to the guy.
Charlie tapped a Camel out of his pack, punched the lighter. A quick call from a payphone at City Hall to the Rodeo Cowboy Association – plus a modicum of bullshit about Charlie’s little boy being a fan – elicited the fact that Joe Bob had paid his entry fees for the Amarillo Rodeo. Probably Marjorie’s money. Anyway, the bum was entered in bull-riding, starting Wednesday afternoon. Which pretty much confirmed another of Charlie’s hunches – that besides Joe Bob being a dumb-fuck cowboy, he and Marjorie might be working their way toward the Millgrim family homestead in Del Rio.
So they should be at least stayin’ the night in Amarillo – even if that prick gets eliminated the first day. Which means by Thursday morning I’ve got my pictures, my bonus, and a ticket to a new life.
Charlie lit his Camel, inhaled deeply and turned on the radio. The Chevvie was running reasonably well, the tappet-noise barely competing with the KOLO news announcer: “...yesterday released Yale Professor Frederick Barghoorn after holding him since last Tuesday. While still insisting he’s a spy, Moscow apparently bowed to protests from the State Department as well as from authors John Steinbeck and Edward Albee. And in Florida, President Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral, where he was briefed on---” He switched it off. And thought about the weird feeling he had about this job.
He pressed harder on the accelerator. If he pushed it, he just might catch up with Marjorie and Joe Bob before they got to Amarillo.
FIVE
Present Time
Monday
The red LED digits flashed the rapidly increasing temperature. In the small nitrogen chamber a thin, finely ground film of powdered bone was heating at the rate of thirty-six degrees Celsius per second. It had just passed three hundred-fifty.
Of the three men watching, only Packard was having trouble concentrating.
Rudy Sanchez turned to the older, heavy-set man. “This afternoon. I recalibrated ‘em this afternoon.”
“Run them again. And the chamber? You’re sure it’s clean?” Dr. Felix Goldman’s eyes were on the computer screen, where a moving line oscillated with increasing speed, the highs and lows of its staticky pattern lengthening dramatically on each stroke.
“This morning, yes. And then, after I ran the first samples, I---”
“Clean it again. And then repeat the entire set.”
“You got it.” Rudy wasn’t quite able to hide his displeasure, but if Dr. Goldman noticed, he didn’t let on.
“I want the results cross-checked against ESR and radiocarbon.”
Packard got back into it. Electronic spin resonance was another highly accurate means of dating materials older than 50,000 years, which was the outside limit for carbon. “Felix, carbon 14 isn’t going to cut it with this---”
Goldman overrode him, still addressing Rudy. “...And I want dendro-calibrations and cluster-analyses on my desk in the morning.”
“C’mon, Felix. That’s not possible. Even if he were to work all night.”
Goldman finally
addressed Packard. Coldly. “You can’t pitch in?”
“Forget it. I’ve had maybe two hours sleep in the last day and-a-half.”
Rudy jumped in: “Besides, even with the both of us it’d be out of the question.” The process involved slow, painstakingly precise work, measuring specific sites on certain bones and then comparing them to standardized samples in the lab as well as to various databases. The end-result would be a cluster-analysis indicating the division of hominids to which the remains belonged. “Look, why don’t I send the stuff to Lawrence Livermore, or Miami for---?”
Goldman cut him off: “None of it leaves this building. And that includes mentioning it. To anyone. All right, put together as much comparative data as you can.” He started to remove his plastic gloves, then, addressing Rudy: “You and Dr. Packard here – we seem to have a situation.”
Packard understood the reasons for his ill will, but enough already. “C’mon, Felix – I told you it was my call, not Rudy’s – and I wasn’t hiding anything. I was half-sure there was a fuckup.” Actually, though he hadn’t admitted it to Rudy, a large part of him had hoped last week’s clay and ash readings were false. “That’s why I didn’t report them to you.”
Dr. Goldman threw Packard a brief, hostile glare, crossed to the door, discarding gloves, mask, gown and hairnet in the trashcan as he exited.
A moment or two as the older man’s footsteps receded down the empty corridor, then Packard breathed out. He hated this.
“Matt...”
“Rudy, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Nono. Not ‘I told you so.’ Lookit this...” He gestured at the computer screen. The line crossed 100,000 years, on its way to 110,000. “I mean it’s blowin’ through those intercepts like cheap perfume at cheerleader practice.” Rudy Sanchez’s years at MIT hadn’t erased the South Texas filters through which he viewed the world. “It’s reading older than our first go-round.”
The Sixteenth Man Page 4