No Immunity

by Susan Dunlap

  It had been revealed in two epiphanies. The first had been right here in her living room. She had been sitting outside on the balcony rail watching the deep apricot sun settle into the green-gray Pacific. Her eyes were adjusting to the indoor light when she walked into the living room and spotted Tchernak on the sofa, his wiry brown hair unfettered as he leaned forward, elbows on knees, whiskered chin cupped in palms. Beside the sofa lay Ezra, paws crossed, whiskered chin resting on forelegs. The physical resemblance she had noticed before. But that was the first time she registered that they were brothers under the fur.

  She hadn’t yet felt it appropriate to mention the similarity to Tchernak. But she thought of it when Ezra eyed her food, sniffed at her work papers, stood beside her bed with his big brown eyes staring at her lovingly, his head tilted to one side. It was only through consistent discipline that she’d kept him off the bed.

  The second great realization was that Tchernak could never be trusted off leash. He had taken the job as house-keeper-cook-dogwalker to “find himself” after the sudden end of his football days. The man was so quick to learn her tastes, to take over the affaires de maison, she had assumed he was a pro instituting his new quarterback’s regime. What she had forgotten was that great offensive linemen work on instinct. The lineman makes his move first. He clamps hands on the defensive guy’s jersey regardless of the holding penalty, he leg-whips ignoring the fifteen yards it might cost. For him the rules are mere impediments. Linemen who never deviated from the playbook were second string. Tchernak had been elected to the Pro Bowl.

  Kiernan did love breaking the rules, as long as the rules in question weren’t hers.

  “So, tell me more about this vital phone call you just got” Tchernak loomed—six feet four inches—over the table.

  It was irrational to resist talking about it, as if it made the danger less, but she ached to put off the specter of disease for another few hours. She cut a piece of quail and chewed, savoring the sweet meat as much as possible under her cook’s demanding stare. “Great! Quail was an inspired choice. And your glaze!”

  Tchernak shrugged away the diversion as if he had forgotten he had made the dish.

  “Jeff Tremaine was in med school with me,” Kiernan admitted.

  “And that’s enough to make you drop everything?”

  “He’s never asked a favor before.”

  “So of course you can’t wait to see what the big deal is.”

  “Got it.”

  “You can’t just—”

  “It’s my agency, Tchernak; I go where I choose!” Ignoring his hurt expression, she forked another piece of meat, then gave up and let the fork slide to the plate. “Jeff’s talking hemorrhagic fever, like the epidemics that swept through Africa and South America. He’s probably panicking over nothing; it wouldn’t be the first baseless conclusion he’s jumped to. But if he’s right, if he’s got anything like Lassa fever up there, it’s a crisis. It would spread from town to town, and if it hit Las Vegas, even if it’s a virus we knew how to treat, there wouldn’t be enough of the drug in the world to treat all the people who’d get sick.”

  “You mean this is like the Ebola epidemics?”

  “There are a whole range of arenaviruses—Lassa fever, Junin, Argentine or Bolivian hemorrhagic fever. This could be any of them—deadly stuff, passed from rodents to humans through scratches, bites, and abrasions, or, and this is the scary part, Tchernak, sometimes through the air.”

  “You mean a cough on a bus—”

  “Exactly. With airborne contagion no one is immune. But I don’t know what Jeff Tremaine’s got up there in rural Nevada. It could be a new arenavirus, one of the RNA viruses we’ve never heard of, or something entirely different. Or Jeff Tremaine could have gone off the deep end. I’ll get a flight first light and catch the midnight special back.”

  Tchernak pulled out his chair and sat. “Okay, one day. I’ll hold down the office in your absence.”

  She felt the sides of her neck tighten protectively. Leaving Tchernak in charge of her hard-gained agency was like leaving Ezra to guard the quail. Even with the best of intentions he might decide a leg or two wouldn’t be missed. “Okay, but follow the instructions I—”

  The phone rang and she leaped for it. “Hello?”

  “Is this Kiernan O’Shaughnessy? O’Shaughnessy Investigations?”

  The call was not her business line; it came through on her unlisted number. “And you are?”

  “Reston Adcock, Adcock Oil Explorations. Remember me?”

  There was no point in asking how he got this number; the arrogance in his voice said it all. She certainly hadn’t given it to him. She remembered that, and him.

  Tchernak was chewing very slowly, ear cocked in her direction, meat hanging from the fork he held absently at half mast.

  “Here’s my problem. A guy who does some work for me, Grady Hummacher, he’s gone missing. He was supposed to be here this morning at ten. He’s not the type to forget. I’ve called his place all day, even had my girl check the hospitals.”

  “And did your girl call the jails about this Grady Hummacher?”

  Of course Adcock missed her sarcasm. “Yeah, them too. Grady can be a hotdog, but he’s no fool. Not the type to drink and speed.”

  She pictured Reston Adcock: big, his skin burned a permanent tan from years in the oil fields, muscles just beginning to sag, hair just beginning to gray at the temples, blue eyes squinting, as if looking for whatever angle he could find. “So if Grady Hummacher is really missing, as opposed to merely having skipped a meeting with you, he’s been gone less than a day, right?”

  Adcock’s voice was now just a mite sharper and she could tell he was restraining the urge to snap. He was not a man who restrained himself often. “It wasn’t just any meeting Grady missed. That meeting was key, for me, and especially for him. If it were anything less, I wouldn’t be calling a detective.”

  “An out-of-state detective whose fees are substantial.”

  “Right,” he said without pause.

  Tchernak put down his fork and shifted his head in front of her. Grady Hummacher? he mouthed.

  Adcock’s office was in Las Vegas. It would be an easy stop on the way back from Jeff Tremaine. An easy fee to justify the trip, she thought. But no; she definitely did not need a fee that badly. “Mr. Adcock, since you called me at home at dinnertime, I’m sure you’ll understand if I seem abrupt. Clearly you are not looking for a standard straightforward missing-person’s investigation or you would have gotten someone locally who would know the possibilities for mishap much better than I. Your need is more complicated than that, and more immediate. I have a pressing commitment, so there is no way I can help you.”

  Tchernak cleared his throat.

  “I don’t want someone else. I need the best.”

  “I can’t be in two places at once.”

  “Grady Hummacher’s missing! He could be lying dead somewhere. Look, I’m asking for your help.”

  Tchernak pointed his finger at himself.

  She hesitated, then said to Adcock, “You and I have different standards. People are too expendable to you. I’m not going to endanger my agency working for you again.” Before he could start another round, she hung up.

  “Me!” Tchernak shouted. His wiry hair bristled. He looked like he’d stuck a finger in the socket. “Grady Hummacher, right?”

  “So?”

  “I know a Grady Hummacher. How many can there be?”

  “In the oil industry?”

  “I think so.”

  “You think so? Just how well do you know Hummacher?”

  “He was at State with me, a dorm counselor my freshman year.”

  “Your counselor?”

  “On the floor above me.”

  “So it’s more like you knew of him than actually knew him?”

  “No, I knew him all right. And I ran into him in the airport a month or so ago and we caught up.”

  “And did he say he was pla
nning to skip a meeting with Reston Adcock?”

  “Grady’s missing, huh? You know, Kiernan, this is a perfect case for me. I mean, I know the guy. I—”

  “Tchernak! I’ve already turned down the case.”

  “We can—”

  “If Adcock’s really worried, he’ll be on the horn to someone local by now.”

  “I can—”

  “Tchernak—”

  “I’m good at detecting, you know that.”

  He had handled each job she’d grudgingly allowed him, and better than she had imagined. He could get anyone within a hundred miles of San Diego to open up. Women found him adorable, like the biggest puppy in the litter. For men, they remembered the offensive lineman who tossed Kevin Greene on his butt three times in one quarter. He was the all-pro lineman with the good instincts. Get over your need to be the boss, Kiernan. Take him and give thanks.

  Her throat squeezed in so hard she could barely force words out. “That’s not the problem, Tchernak.”

  “What is the problem, then?”

  She took a breath. “I worked in the coroner’s office. I don’t do well in bureaucracy. I don’t like to take orders—”

  Tchernak grinned. “Yeah, right. You like to give them.”

  She nodded, took a longer breath. She expected Tchernak to go into a riff on her love of command, but he didn’t. He loomed silent, waiting. The air in the room seemed to thicken and everything slowed. Ezra let out a moan, but neither of them looked at him. “The thing is, Tchernak, I don’t like to share. I wasn’t one of those kids who got a strawberry ice cream and said to all my friends, ‘You want a lick?’ I like—I need—to have things be just mine. This is my agency. It and what it’s gotten me are all I have. I can’t give it up. Or share it.”

  Tchernak started to speak, but she stopped him.

  “Don’t tell me you’ll always take orders, you’ll be just an employee. As it is, I’m afraid if I forget to check the letterhead each morning, I’ll find ‘O’Shaughnessy Investigations’ has been replaced with ‘O’Shaughnessy and Tchernak.’ Or more likely ‘Tchernak and O’Shaughnessy.’”

  Tchernak didn’t seem to move, but his mouth had tightened. He bent toward her, hands braced on thighs, glaring as he must have at the defensive tackle. “You just want someone to keep house, cook, and walk your dog.”

  It was of course exactly what she wanted. A more diplomatic woman would have equivocated. She nodded.

  He lifted his chair, put it under the table, walked to the door of his flat, turned, and said, “I quit.”

  CHAPTER 4

  RESTON ADCOCK TAPPED HIS finger on his polished teak desk. It was a thick finger, one muscled by work. A finger that should not be dialing his own phone. That’s what he had a secretary for. He hated being held captive while the phone rang, while the guy at the other end took his own time to get to the receiver. Adcock wasn’t a man made for waiting. He who waits … waits, and Reston Adcock had no time to waste. He stared at his finger, noting the dark lines in the creases, the stains of the oil he had discovered, oil he had rubbed into his palms and on his face and neck and bare chest in joy the first time he’d found a seeper. He’d screamed and laughed; he’d rolled in it then, the black anointing oil of riches.

  He thought then that he’d never want his hands clean of it, that if it never washed off, he’d be a happy man, a happy magnate, a merry mogul. But it had washed off, and he’d gone after his second strike with only “greater reputation” in his pocket.

  Twenty years since then. He’d lost count of the strikes. And the oil companies he’d worked for, the times he’d quit and set up on his own, the times he’d gone back on payroll. The Mercedes and the Chapter Elevens. The wives and the kids. And the college tuitions.

  And Grady Hummacher. Where was Grady? The guy could have been himself twenty years ago, smelling oil in his sleep, sniffing it out for the joy of rubbing his hands in it. Hummacher had the best nose in the business. Loved the jungles and deserts, the wilder the better. Wanted to scale the highest peak on each continent, row the oceans, stand atop the earth and pound his chest, and stop to wink at the gods and men. And the girls. Adcock understood it all. No wonder he loved Hummacher. But he should never have trusted him with details. You don’t pound your chest with paper and pen in hand.

  At least he’d had the sense to demand reports from Hummacher so mat he couldn’t be left totally out of the loop. Still, he never expected Hummacher to miss this meeting, the one that would set them both in gold. Grady was a party guy, but he wasn’t a fool. No matter what shape he may have been in, he’d get himself in here today.

  Unless he opened his mouth in the wrong place.

  Dammit, he had to have the detective. He wasn’t about to ask her again; he didn’t operate that way. He needed some leverage. He could—

  The phone rang.

  “Adcock Explorations.”

  “Is this Reston Adcock?”

  “Right. You?”

  “Kiernan O’Shaughnessy’s associate, Brad Tchernak. I think I can help you.”

  CHAPTER 5

  THE SWOLLEN, BLOODY, TERRIFIED African faces had filled Kiernan’s dreams, and she’d jolted up time after time, sweat-drenched and disoriented. The alarm woke her forty minutes earlier Saturday morning than if Tchernak had been driving her to the airport. The van company insisted on unloading passengers a full hour before their departure, not the twenty minutes any sensible woman preferred. The twenty minutes that always drove Tchernak crazy. If he hadn’t quit, he’d be pulling out of the driveway right now, describing how far off the ground her plane would be by the time she made it to the airport. It would serve her right, he’d be adding; any competent businesswoman should have the maturity not to make a contest out of every flight departure.

  She smiled at the memory as she strolled to the gate for Las Vegas. She would miss Tchernak, no question about that. But he had been an aberration in her life. She was meant to be alone, she’d known that since she was twelve and her sister’s death left her with parents dead in spirit, and the Catholic community who no longer spoke to infidels like the suicide’s sister. Tchernak was as close to family, to belonging …But life moves on. This was best for both of them. And at least Tchernak had agreed to take care of Ezra in her absence. “No reason why he should suffer,” Tchernak had said by way of exit line as he disappeared into his half of the duplex. She’d watched him reach out, hand on the edge of the door, the urge to slam illustrated in every tense muscle. But of course he couldn’t. Ezra liked to roam through both units, keeping tabs on both his people.

  Her eyes filled. Quickly she blinked back the threat of tears. She’d find Tchernak a place close by; Ezra could still see him.

  The sour coffee and airplane pretzels arrived, supplanting the prosciutto-and-Emmentaler quiche, sourdough bagels, mixed melon slices, and still-hot espresso Tchernak would have sent with her. She silently acknowledged the gastronomic depth of her loss. She was hungry, but she would wait.

  When the plane landed, she sprung the overhead compartment door while the stewardess was still on the speaker warning of luggage shifting during the trip. If the terminal at McCarran offered food, it was camouflaged by the blinking colored lights, the clanging bells and whirling winner sounds of the banks of slot machines. The very air seemed laced with caffeine, and everything about the place screamed, Hurry! Last chance! She’d wait till she picked up the rental car, cleared town, and spotted the first real food cafe along the road.

  Minutes later the Las Vegas Strip rose from the sand like a plastic mirage, and was gone again before she could believe it had been there. There were one or two more city exits and then: nothing. No exits, no access roads, no gas or even a rest stop, much less real food. The only comfort was that her cell phone would not be ringing with nagging calls from Tchernak. The rumpled hills lay beside the highway like dying elephants laid tail to trunk. Once she turned onto 93, her only decision was made. Next stop would be the town of Gattozzi, and Jeff
Tremaine; but that wasn’t for well over a hundred miles. The blacktop shot out straight ahead, bisecting the high desert; the morning sun seemed to bleach the land colorless. To her right, jacketed power lines ran like covered bridges in the air. In the nearly treeless, waterless, uninhabited desert the meticulously protected power lines were baffling.

  An hour and a half into the drive she noticed a narrow strip of green pasture, ponds, cattle—southeastern Nevada’s answer to the Nile Valley. Thirst had settled like blotting paper in her throat. She longed to pull the car over, run into the pasture, and shove in among the slurping cows.

  Jeff Tremaine had talked about the land here, but oddly she hadn’t pictured it like this. She’d known it would be brown and dry, but he hadn’t mentioned the subtle, seductive browns and violets in the distance, the isolated green strip of ranches and cottonwoods, the miles and hours that separated men from their deeds.

  It was after eleven when she spotted the prefab truck stop inaptly called the Doll’s House. Unless those dolls were beneath the red light in the no-frills motel behind. In the cafe she hit the Dolls’ bathroom (Guys’ was around the corner), grabbed the two tallest bottles of water in the cooler and a bar of waxy chocolate Tchernak would gag at. “Why are the power lines covered?”

  “Huh?” The boy proffered her change.

  “The power lines, they’re jacketed, all the way from Las Vegas.”

  “Oh, the shields? Birds were shitting on the power lines. Acid rotted ’em out. But these shields saved the day. Coated with poison. You check out the ground below?” He giggled. “Chorus line of corpses.”

  She swerved to avoid a decaying crow as she pulled onto the highway and now recognized the gray and black lines that lined the road. On the horizon sun-bleached dirt darkened into red rock. Against it the piñon pines were greener, the rabbit sage bright yellow, and the gravel and stones not gray but silver. She passed through one small town and close by another that probably hadn’t changed since 1950. Pioche, the old mining town, sat too far up the knobby tan hill for close viewing, but she could still see the wires that had carried the ore buckets from the dead mine. There was an odd completeness to these tiny isolated places, as if the ensuing years and outside world were merely tales told beside the hearth.