A couple of days after Caspar’s visit and Joe’s call to the Colonel, Tucker had called back. “I think I found something, about the guys who were supposed to be interested in you,” he said.
“Who are they?” Joe asked.
The Colonel told him about a bombing in Detroit. Joe hadn’t heard anything about it. He never followed the news. Tucker said it was believed at first to have been the work of Arab terrorists. But now the feeling was that it was another, unrelated group. “Anyway, your name came up,” the Colonel said.
Joe was shocked. “Me? I’m no bomber. What’s this?”
“Did you sell any explosives, any arms, in the last couple of years?”
“No,” Joe said.
“Think, Joe. Your house down in the Ruby. It blew up. How did that happen?”
“That’s my business,” Joe said. He had rigged the house when he’d built it. It was rigged to be totally destroyed in case he was raided. He had wanted no telltale evidence left behind in the event that he had to leave in a hurry. The system was rigged to involve a large propane tank. The house would burn to fine ashes and it would seem to be simply a propane explosion, not so unusual in rural Montana. And, as it happened, he’d had to trigger the system. Echeverria had been all but killed in that blast.
Joe’s recent visitor, Caspar, of course, had mentioned Echeverria as one of the names of the men involved in the search for him. Echeverria had actually escaped from that inferno, though badly burned. Joe had been employed by the Colonel to finish the job, months later. So Echeverria was dead, but he would have friends.
“So now you’re telling me that Echeverria’s pals are involved in bombing, in Detroit?” Joe said. “They’ve gone into the terrorist business?”
“Not exactly,” the Colonel said. “It’s complicated. We should talk, but not on the phone. I think it’s the lead you wanted.”
Joe agreed to meet. They didn’t make a date. Both men were too careful for that. Joe would call him in a few days, from some unspecified location, and set a rendezvous.
Joe told Helen he had to go and meet Colonel Tucker. The way he explained it, this would close out their contact with the Colonel and his group, the Lucani. Neither of them wanted anything further to do with these rogue agents. They were too unstable, and too likely to both betray and be betrayed. But it had to be resolved. He might be gone for a week or so. He was sorry he had to leave her with so much work. Helen didn’t mind. It was what mainly occupied her, working on the place. She wanted to get the house ready so her mother could visit for Christmas.
“Don’t get into trouble with Anders,” Joe said, joking.
Helen bridled. “You must be kidding. He’s over forty.”
“He’s got the hots for you,” Joe said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you in the hot springs. But I’m not worried about him. It’s you. You might get lonely.”
They sparred over that for a while, but as always it ended in wrestling and then making love. An hour later, having packed up the Durango, Joe was driving out, already engaged in road thoughts. He had taken everything he needed to take. He was glad that he and Helen had parted as they had. If he never came back, well, at least they’d had that.
He believed that he was making a clean break. He had regrets, but basically he felt all right. He’d gotten too into this straight life, he knew. The visit from Caspar had been the jolt he’d needed. He’d gotten so complacent with domestic concerns that he’d forgotten who he was. He was crazy about Helen, but he’d have had to leave her eventually anyway, he supposed. Even if they’d grown old together, he thought, one of them would die. And there had been the nagging feeling about the Colonel and the Lucani. That relationship wouldn’t have gone on much longer, he was sure. Well, now he’d take of that, too, after he dealt with this problem with Echeverria’s men. And Fedima.
It was the irritation with Fedima that had precipitated all this, he saw. Those damned cows. What to do about Fedima? This woman had a different agenda. This kind of thing would only go on, build to greater and greater issues. Next, she’d feel lonely. She would start thinking about the value of this hidden paradise, the money it would bring if they sold some river frontage for vacation homes. The lovely neighbors they would have.
It was inevitable: paradise was threatened. Joe had no long-range plans. He hadn’t considered this, but if asked he would have supposed that very likely he would eventually live somewhere else. But that was some purely putative future. For now, he could be satisfied that he’d left a safe, beautiful place, a hole-in-the-wall, for Helen.
It was odd, he thought, but he had never considered the consequences of Frank marrying Fedima, having a family. A family! He was sure, now that he thought of it, that Fedima was bound to have many more kids, dozens. Good god! She had to be stopped.
He drove slowly over the ridge and saw Fedima outside the house. She was hanging clothes on the line. She wore a housedress with a floral print and a babushka. When she saw the Durango, she waved to him. Joe pulled into the drive and sat in the car, waiting. He reached down between the front seats to make sure his automatic was handy. He swiftly racked a shell into the chamber as she walked down the drive, barefoot. He settled the .38 into the crevice between the seat and the center console.
Joe looked around. Was this the last time he’d see this country? It was very beautiful, the long, sweeping meadows rising to the ridge, and far beyond them the dark crags of the continental divide.
Fedima looked rather fetching, a slim, dark beauty in her early twenties, with large dark eyes. The light was behind her as she approached and Joe realized that she was clearly wearing nothing more than the housedress. She smiled as she came up to the Durango. Joe did not get out. He liked her, almost against his will. A pretty girl can do that to a man.
She leaned with both hands on the door, her fingers curled over the window opening, peering in. She saw his bags. “Joe, where you going?”
“Ah, business,” Joe said. “Where’s the baby?”
“He is taking a nap,” she said, glancing back at the house. “Frank is fishing, again.”
“Where?” Joe said. It occurred to him that he would have to kill Frank, too. Frank would never harm a soul, intentionally, but he could tell investigators far too much about Joe. He felt a bitter regret—it was Fedima’s fault. But what about the baby? Joe hadn’t considered that. He dismissed the thought; it wouldn’t be necessary to kill the baby. Perhaps Helen would take the baby. But he realized, almost in the act of thinking it, that Helen would never get that baby. Some state agency or, perhaps, one of Frank’s relatives, in Butte.
“Up that way, I think,” Fedima said, stepping back from the car and waving a bare arm over toward the river. The gesture exposed her to the backlight of the sun, the thin cotton of the dress not much more than a chiffon veil. Joe could see the shadow of her pubic hair, the actual shape and thrust of those youthful breasts, the dark nipples. Then she leaned close again. “He won’t be back for hours.” Her voice was husky.
Joe stared at her. Was she coming on to him? She was leaning on the door of the car, her face very near. He could feel her breath. A mere nod would bring their lips into contact. Her smile was tentative, almost mocking, and it made his blood quicken. He couldn’t help but notice that the buttons of her dress were undone, revealing a deep cleavage.
Joe looked away from her close face, out the windshield. It was one of those splendid Montana fall days, a deep blue sky without a cloud. The wind drifted quietly across the hills, stirring the grass gently, lifting the sheets on the line languorously. They’d be dry in minutes in this air.
He thought, Why not? He visualized the quiet midmorning house, the baby asleep, the usual drowsy heaviness of the marijuana plants and the flowers on the air. He imagined unbuttoning that dress, her warm tanned skin, her breath hot and fast, the wet tongue. She would be supple to his touch, silky dry here, then gluily moist there . . .
But he had just made love to Helen. The idea vanish
ed, replaced by annoyance. He let his hand slip to the crevice, feeling the cool metal of the automatic.
Then she said, “Joe, you are not angry with me? About the dogs? You must understand how a mother feels. I am scared of every little thing. I have been thinking, we need to be good neighbors. I don’t want this feeling I have, that we are not easy. Is it the cows?”
She stepped back, her hands on her hips. She looked very sensible, thoughtful.
“Perhaps you are right about the cows,” she conceded. “I am thinking . . . you are upset about the fence. Security is important. I feel that also. You can imagine, after what I went through, in Kosovo. We could fence the cows, away someplace, over the ridge. A double fence. There is so much room. What do you think?”
“Over the ridge?” Joe said.
“You know, the far meadow,” she said. She pointed up beyond the house. Joe was bemused by the all-but-perfect outline of her left breast, full and rounded. Helen was a woman with the breasts of a boy, a feature that had a kind of negative attraction for Joe. He hadn’t really contemplated a full figure in some time.
“Would there be enough grazing?” he managed to ask.
“Oh, yes, very much grass, I think,” she said. “And, now I think . . . we do not need so many cows. A few beefs . . . is it ‘beefs’? That don’t sound izzack. And a couple of milking cows. I miss the milking cows, when they come home in the evening . . . ding, ding . . . the bells, when they walk. When I was a little girl, my father sends me to bring home the cows to milk. I am a farm girl, you see? I do not, I cannot forget it. Everything else . . . they are all gone now, but perhaps I can hear the ding, ding of the milking cows again.”
She smiled and stood, hands on hips, legs spread, and bare feet planted on the solid earth. She looked around, her eyes taking in the distance.
“Is so beautiful here,” she said. “So peaceful. That I like very much. That is the most important thing. I think you agree, Joe? We must first be sure of that.”
Joe’s hand crept back into his lap.
“But I would like a few chickens,” she said. “Maybe the chickens will be enough—no sheep, or goats. We will keep them in the barn. Enough so that we can have fresh eggs. There will be enough eggs for you, Joe. And Helen.”
“If you have chickens,” Joe said, “you must be careful of the hawks.” He nodded toward the large red-tailed hawk that was soaring beyond the ridge. “And there are bobcats, too. I’ve heard them. Frank should build a regular coop.”
“A coop? A house for chickens? Yes, maybe.” Fedima shrugged. “But you cannot protect every chicken,” she said. “My father said that. The fox used to come and take a chicken, sometimes. He would not shoot the fox.”
“No? Why not?”
Fedima shrugged. “The fox was too beautiful, I think. A wild thing. But my father says only,’The fox has to live. I have many chickens. If the fox will not be greedy, I am not greedy.’”
“A few chickens would be all right,” Joe said. “Yes, that would work, I think.”
She stood back, smiling frankly, pleased to have solved an annoying problem. But then she frowned. “Joe, you will not be gone long?”
“Not too long, I hope,” Joe said. “Why?”
“I wanted to speak with you. About that woman. Frank showed me a picture of her, that Paul had sketched. I have seen her before, in Tsamet.”
She was speaking of Jamala Sanders, an agent of the Colonel’s, who had turned out to be a double agent. Frank’s cousin Paul had met her in Kosovo and sketched her. He had also met Bazok, which was how tragedy had come from the Balkans to Montana. Bazok and Jamala were both dead and, tragically, so was Paul. But in their wake had come Fedima, looking for Paul but finding Frank.
“I understood that Paul had seen her there,” Joe said. “Tsamet must be just a small town.”
“But I saw her with a man,” Fedima said. “They were in a car. Later, I saw this man in America, when I was living in the house in Brooklyn. He came to the house where I was staying. I thought I should tell you. Frank says that you and the Colonel would want to know this.”
“I suppose it would interest the Colonel,” Joe said. “Who was he?”
“The people I stay with, they did not trust him, but they had to . . .” She hesitated, searching for a word. “They must tolerate him. He is important man in Kosovo, with the KLA.”
“The KLA? The Kosovo Liberation Army? Was he a Kosovar?”
“Oh, no. He was an Arab. Muhammad al-Huq. In Tsamet, he also came to my father’s house, to talk to my father and some of the other farmers. He was Saudi, they said.”
Joe had nothing to say about it. He supposed the Colonel would be interested. He promised Fedima he would mention it to him the next time they spoke.
“Will it be soon?” Fedima pressed him. “This man was very . . .” she hesitated, frowning as she tried to find a word.
“Very what?” Joe said.
“Very dark,” she said, lamely. “A very dark heart. They called him ‘al-Qaeda.’ After he left. It was a . . . what do you say? . . . a nix-name.”
“A nickname. Al-Qaeda? That, I’m sure, the Colonel will like to know. Especially the fact that he knew Jammie Sanders.”
A half hour later, as he pulled up to to the stop sign at the highway, Joe thought for a second or two—left or right? The right led to Butte, the left to Helena. For no reason that he could think of, he took the left turn.
A few minutes later when the car was up to highway speed, his road thoughts resumed. How can you kill someone if you start imagining what they think, if you see things with their eyes? He was glad he hadn’t killed her. Things would work out, they were on the same page. And—he couldn’t repress the thought—he would see her again. Who knows, they might even be lovers. Anyway, if he’d killed her the Colonel would be pissed. Perhaps, he thought, I’ll kill this Hook.
5
A Dog’s Luck
“More is less” was not a byword with Mulheisen, especially when it came to information. But sometimes, he thought, what you already know can influence what you think about what you don’t yet know. Still, he felt light on information about this case. On the other hand, he’d been out of the loop long enough that he felt quite refreshed. It had been a mistake to poke around in the task force, he thought, although it was important to have heard a little from Wunney. The name M. P. Luck, for instance, that was good to know.
Mul had no intention of rejoining anybody’s force, at least not yet, despite his mother’s suggestion. At this point, his lack of official status served him as well as being on the payroll. He looked in the various telephone books he’d kept when he left the DPD and quickly found Luck. Queensleap was a little town more than two hundred miles from Detroit, up near Kalkaska, between Traverse City and Cadillac. He had some familiarity with that north woods country, from when he’d belatedly investigated the death of Jimmy Hoffa.
From what Mulheisen could find out from atlases and guides now somewhat out of date, the town had a population of five hundred or so. It had apparently been a part of the potato boom early in the twentieth century, after the great stands of white pine had been logged off. Now it was little more than a bedroom community for larger towns like Traverse City, about fifteen miles north.
He drove up there on a cool autumn day, listening to CDs of Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter while he drove, smoking cigars. The fall foliage was spectacular, especially north of Midland, the last outpost of industrialism in the lower Michigan peninsula. This was rolling country, more pronounced as one drove north. He’d left the freeway for the blue highways, two-lane roads that led through one small town after another. It was farm country, but the corn was harvested, the vegetable stands closed and shuttered for the winter. It was orchard country too, however, and here and there were farm trucks parked at crossroads, offering fresh McIntosh for sale, with occasional bushels of rarer apples like Sweet Sixteen, Jonathan, Winesap, and Northern Spy. Mulheisen stopped to buy a peck of incredibly
crisp and juicy hybrids called Jonamacs.
Deer were abundant; he had to keep his eye out for them. There were also orchards that offered something called “deer apples, all you can pick, $5.” Apparently, it was legal to bait deer with apples, an idea that struck Mul as goofy, considering that there were plenty of apples in the older orchards, just lying on the ground or still hanging, for the deer to eat. But he wasn’t a hunter. Perhaps there was an angle he didn’t know about.
An old-timer with “Charlie” embroidered on his greasy overalls pumped gas at a Sinclair station in Queensleap and wiped the windshield. He admired Mul’s old Checker. “I thought they quit making these,” he said. “What year is it? Seventy-two?”
Mulheisen informed Charlie that Checker had gone out of business in 1982, mostly because the plant was so outmoded that it would have cost millions to bring it up to a competitive state. But there were still mechanics who worked on Checkers and kept them running. This one had a sturdy old Chevrolet V-8 engine.
“I worked on a million of ‘em,” Charlie said. “The Chevy engines, anyways.”
Mul asked how the town had gotten its name. Charlie said that he’d heard it was named after some Indian woman, sort of a wise woman, or maybe even the chief—who knew? These were farmer Indians, Potawatomie, maybe. They were pretty well off, not dependent on hunting so much, or the fur trade. They’d naturally been at odds with some other tribes, or bands, who were hunters and in need of food in the winter. These hunting Indians had attacked the village. The queen, or whatever she was, had escaped being murdered by leaping across the little creek that ran through the town, Fox Creek.
“The creek must of been bigger in them days,” Charlie said. “It wouldn’t be an Olympic leap, nowadays. Anyways, the later settlers must of heard the story and liked it. They named it after her instead of old man Luckenbach, which is why it wasn’t called—thank god—Luckenbach.”
“Who is Luckenbach?” Mulheisen asked.
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