“You could stay here,” Cateyo said, relieved.
“Are you sure? You don't even have a bed . . .” she gestured at the spare room.
“That's no problem, I'm sure. And the rent would be reasonable. Really, I'm sure you'd be a great help.”
Heather took a man's wallet out of her coat pocket and fingered the thick sheaf of hundred-dollar bills. “How much?” she said.
The two women laughed, beaming at each other. They both envisioned long winter evenings of companionship, girl talk, woman talk. But with significant differences. For Cateyo, here at last was someone sympathetic, to whom she could talk about Paul. For Heather—she glanced at the old-fashioned clawfoot bathtub, envisioning the rosy, golden girl who would step out of that tub, reaching for a towel—it was an almost impossible dream of access, not only to the girl, but to the target.
11
Antoni
Gianni Antoni had become Johnny. “ ‘Gianni’ doesn't look so good on a campaign sign anymore,” Johnny explained to Mulheisen as they drove from the Finlen Hotel down the hill to Antoni's home. “Used to be there were so many Italians here in Butte that ‘Gianni’ was a plus—it made you seem more Italian than ‘Bud’ Cocciarella. But now . . . even the Italians aren't very Italian.”
Antoni was looking good. Precisely Mulheisen's age, he looked at least five years younger. Lean, fit, his thick hair steel-gray and stylishly trimmed, his complexion a ruddy tan—he looked like a combination of cowboy and stockbroker. He had now been elected county attorney three straight terms, and many thought he should run for state attorney general, the traditional threshold to political ambition.
By contrast, Mulheisen looked sallow and puffy. “Had a rough night, Mul?” Antoni asked. “Gee, I don't know how you do it. I gave that stuff up long ago. Remember that time we got off the base at Rantoul for the weekend and bought a case of beer that we lost?” He shook his head ruefully. “Boy, were we stupid! Drive out in the Illinois countryside with a couple of babes, lug the beer to the side of a stream, then you get the bright idea to drive back to town for more beer before the case runs out.”
Mulheisen had completely forgotten this incident. It amused him enough to ignore Antoni's gibe about a rough night; Mulheisen had in fact gone to bed early, exhausted by flying and driving around with the indefatigable Jacky Lee. He had read two pages of Bernard DeVoto's introduction to the Lewis and Clark journals before falling deeply asleep. As he recalled the earlier incident, it was Antoni who had insisted that they drive back to Kankakee—which was where they had picked up the girls and the beer in the first place—leaving the girls streamside to “guard” the beer. The real reason behind this goofy plan was that Antoni feared that the girls were prostitutes, would infect them with gonorrhea, and he had no condoms. All the way into town, Mulheisen had argued that they weren't prostitutes, merely shopgirls still in their teens. And the tragic ending: They never found the stream, or the girls, or the beer again. It was worth a laugh now, but Mulheisen had felt very bad about stranding those girls. But it was Antoni's car, and they had to be back on base before nine o'clock.
“I thought you were going into law,” Antoni said. They drove out along Continental Drive, past the Serbian church and on toward a newer part of the city, lying in the shadow of the Divide. These were newer houses, expensive homes of redwood and glass, plenty of heavy timbers and rough-faced stone fireplaces. The country club was here as well. The old mansions on the hill were no longer the desired homes of the executives and wheeler-dealers of the new post-Company Butte. “Didn't you go to Michigan for a while? We kind of lost track there.”
“Oh, I thought about it,” Mulheisen said with a mild sigh. “I was going with this gal, she was a prosecutor. We were going to get married, I'd go to law school while she supported me, and I guess the idea was we'd end up in Portland, or Seattle, or someplace. It didn't work out.”
The flat way he uttered the final statement warned Antoni not to pursue the subject. He just nodded and grunted. “But you like the cop biz?” he said. “They sure talk you up back there. What's-his-name, McClain, says you're the best they've got. So how come you're still a sergeant? You bust some captain in the nose?”
“I've thought about it,” Mulheisen said, with a humorous lilt to his voice, “but . . . I don't know, I didn't need the rank, and staying a sergeant is the only way you can avoid becoming a paper pusher. I like the beat. Is this your place? Nice crib.”
“Crib!” Antoni snorted. He wheeled the new Lincoln into a driveway already crowded with an enormous four-wheel-drive Dodge pickup with an extended cab and huge, knobby tires, plus a sleek little red Miata and a four-wheel-drive Toyota pickup. There was an attached garage, but it too was filled with a boat on a trailer and another large, but slightly older model sedan. “That's Pat's car,” Antoni said, indicating the Miata, “and the Dodge is my fishing wagon. Suzy and Jeff belong to these other rigs.” Mulheisen correctly deduced that the latter two were Antoni's children.
The house was large and sprawling, on two or three levels. Like its neighbors it was glass and stained cedar with tons of stone and had a low-pitched roof covered with rough, hand-hewn cedar shakes. It was the kind of modern, overequipped house that Mulheisen only ever saw in Hollywood films. Nobody he knew actually lived like this.
A pretty blond woman dashed into the sunken living room to greet them, toting on her hip a hefty two- or three-year-old boy with curly blond locks. Mulheisen thought she might be in her late thirties, but the kid gave him pause. She could easily be a sun-dried twenty-eight. But, no, she was Johnny's one and only wife, Pat, the one he'd babbled incessantly about in the air force (and perhaps the hidden reason they'd driven off and left the two girls by the stream with the beer).
“Hi, Mul!” Pat yelled. She jammed the kid into his daddy's arms and surprised Mulheisen with a big hug. “I've talked to you on the phone and I've heard all about you for years. It's ‘as Mul used to say’ and ‘Mul always says,’ around here, you know.”
Mulheisen didn't know how to respond to this. She was a real armful and he held her awkwardly. He almost blushed. A very tall, very robust young man entered, looking a lot like a giant version of his father, complete with a five o'clock shadow and the stiff but black hair. He was in some kind of hunting outfit, all boots and canvas with cartridge loops and many, many pockets. “Hey, Mul,” he roared, “good to finally meet ya. You gonna be around for a while?” He grabbed Mulheisen's hand in his powerful paw and wrung it for a second, then threw it back. “I'd like to stay and talk, or rather, hear all yours and Dad's stories, but I'm driving over to Ekalaka for the antelope. I'll be back in a couple days. Hey, Dad, I'm taking the Winchester and the H & H, okay?”
Johnny grinned and proudly slammed his huge son's back. “Jeff!” he bellowed, as if introducing a prize bull to an arena. “He's a lotta kid, eh, Mul? Get outta here. Drive safely and no drinking and driving! Hey! Is your fishing gear in your rig? Get it out! Me and Mul are gonna float the Big Hole tomorrow! Mul can use your stuff, okay?”
“Great!” the kid hollered back over his disappearing shoulder. “I'll throw my stuff in your wagon!” And he was gone.
Mulheisen stood foolishly, trying not to nurse his damaged hand. “Quite a kid,” he managed to say.
“You said it,” Johnny agreed. “Hey, everybody, let's have a drink and celebrate the arrival in Butte-America of the great Mulheisen!”
Pat seemed enthusiastic, and shortly they were all equipped with glasses full of gin or bourbon. Soon they were joined by a pretty, long-legged sixteen-year-old: Suzy, long black hair and blazing blue eyes, at least six feet tall and clearly not through growing. She was bedecked in an array of sports clothing—spandex, knee socks, running shoes, sweater, jacket, shorts—the exuberant profusion of it all leading Mulheisen to think that she had just come from a combined field hockey/soccer/basketball/track meet. Like the rest of the family (except the shy little Cal, who hid his thumb in his mouth and looked at Mulheisen onl
y over a furtive shoulder), Suzy was a yeller and a grinner, a slapper of backs and a kisser of moms, dads, and even Mul.
Mulheisen shrank from her approach, but there was no escape. She hugged him furiously and kissed his cheek. Her face was red from the wind and the sun but fresh and cold, and her tangled hair smelled of windblown sage. She'd been out running. Just running. Felt like running, that's all. She ran to the kitchen and came back with a cold diet Coke and guzzled it down in two long, gasping guzzles.
Contact with these people could be exhausting, Mulheisen thought. He tried to remember Johnny (Gianni) as a pell-mell airman, but couldn't. Not an eager beaver in those days. Something had happened to him. Pat, he supposed. Yes, that must be it. She flashed back and forth to the kitchen, the dining room, upstairs, back to the living room to gulp at her gin and tonic, pick up the kid, hug him, put him down, flash away to the kitchen.
Mulheisen and Johnny took the obligatory stroll around the grounds. There was, as even the poorest Butteant enjoyed, a magnificent view to just about all quadrants, though the view of the Hill might not appeal to some, with its bald patches and lonely looking mine hoists—gallows frames, Mul had heard someone in an uptown tavern call them. But it all looked grand to Mulheisen. They looked over at the country club, and Mulheisen assured Johnny that he wasn't interested in a quick nine. They wandered out to Johnny's wagon, the beefy Dodge pickup that was loaded with fishing gear. Johnny assured him that they would float the Big Hole River tomorrow.
“Is it . . . ah, white water?” Mulheisen asked.
“Nah. Well, not really. A few rocks, here and there. Water's low this time of year. If it's like this, and it should be"—Johnny gestured at the sun setting in a blaze of red and gold beyond the western peaks—"it'll be great. Something'll be hatching. You do much fly-fishing back in Michigan?”
“Not really,” Mulheisen said.
“No? Too bad. There's some great trout streams, famous ones, back there—the Au Sable, the Manistee, the Boardman . . .”
“I've heard of them,” Mulheisen lied. Well, he had sort of heard of the Manistee, but he wasn't sure in what context. Hadn't some guy killed half a dozen of his neighbors up there and stashed them in his freezer? Something like that. Or it could have been the town of Manistee, or was it Manistique, in the Upper Peninsula? He couldn't remember. “I live on the St. Clair,” he offered hopefully. “Some of the guys go out for sturgeon, I think, and there's some kind of carp that spawn there. But I haven't really done much fly-fishing.”
Johnny seemed shocked. He hauled out an aluminum tube and shook out two wispy sections that fit together to make a nine-foot whip, or so it looked to Mulheisen. It had a cork handle and tapered to a mere twig point. It was extremely flexible. It seemed to float in the hand, so light he could hardly hang on to it. Johnny quickly attached a reel and strung a tawny plastic line through the metal loops on the rod. They stepped away from the garage onto about three acres of well-mown grass, still as green as June, despite October frosts. With a few quick gestures Johnny had fifty feet or more of the line looping gracefully through the evening air; then he stopped his forward gesture, and another fifty feet or so went shooting out, and the line flew straight as a bluejay, then settled gently to the grass.
“Here, you try it,” Johnny said, reeling up most of the line and handing the rod to Mulheisen. “Remember, you're not casting a lure on the end of a spinning line, but casting the fly line itself, letting it release . . . yes, that's it, don't let it drop behind you, give it more power as you move it forward, just like a whip, sort of, that's it, that's it, now let it go for—well, we'll practice more tomorrow. Sounds like dinner's ready.”
This last was delivered as the line coiled around Mulheisen's head and then flopped and folded about him. It didn't tangle much and was fairly easily reeled up. They went in to dinner, a terrific roast loin of pork with lovely browned onions and carrots and turnips, with smooth, hot whipped potatoes and incredible gravy. The dinner rolls were freshly baked, and the green beans were fresh and very green and very tender, steamed with lemon butter. It was delicious.
Then everything was hurled into the dishwasher and forgotten. Suzy sprinted off to do homework; she had an A average and was planning to graduate early from Immaculate Conception and take a scholarship to Brown or Stanford, she couldn't decide which. Track scholarship on top of an academic one. Hurdles. Pole vault. High jump. Soccer, too. Probably ecology, maybe the law (later).
“Environmental law,” her dad said firmly. “It's big and getting bigger. It'll probably be the biggest thing ever, down the road.”
They drank coffee and sipped cognac—very old cognac, specially imported, not available in the Montana state liquor stores. Pat took the kid up for a bath, and Mulheisen and Johnny trotted off to the den, an incredibly expensive-looking room in the lookout basement, with its own view of the mountains and the masses of stars through a sliding glass door. The walls were clad in some kind of oiled teak, or zebrawood . . . it didn't look to Mulheisen like something that occurred naturally in large enough quantities to be milled and screwed with brass screws to the walls of a basement—knife handles, sure, or gunstocks, maybe, but not planks.
There was also about $10,000 worth of electronics stuck into the walls, but Johnny didn't seem interested in music or movies or whatever it provided. He wanted to talk about the Northern Tier Crime Task Force.
“Could be the biggest thing ever, out here, Mul,” he said. He actually lowered his voice, perhaps due to the hour and the impending bedtime of little Cal, who was brought down in footed jammies to be kissed by all, even Mul, who brought a tremble but not a yelp to the brave lad's lip. “And you could be big in it,” Johnny concluded, as if there had been no interruption.
“Me? I live in Detroit,” Mulheisen said. “I'm seventeen hundred miles from here, Johnny.”
“Not-nee-more, Mul. Not with computers. An nennyway"—the brandy seemed to be having an eliding effect, Mulheisen noticed—"why are you'n Detroit? Be here! Be the chief investigator! The big cheese. Chief Inspector Mulheisen! Captain! Hell, Admiral . . . Field Marshal Mulheisen!” He laughed. They both laughed. And Johnny poured them some special calvados from a collection of calvadoses he had gathered in France a couple of years ago.
“Investigate what?” Mulheisen said.
Johnny squinted and smiled as broadly as he could, his teeth protruding comically, and said, “The New East Asia Co-Prosperity . . .” He held the “eee” sound until Mulheisen began to sibilate a conclusive “Sssphee—,” then interrupted him to end with a violently ejected “FEAR!” He laughed. “Not to be racist, Mul, but it's the Chinese Mafia. That's the big number these days. Everybody's afraid that when the Reds take over Hong Kong, the big Asian crime money is coming here.”
“To Montana?” Mulheisen arched a brow.
“Eventually. First to Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, Spokane . . . and slowly, on across the Northern Plains into Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Minneapolis . . . Along the way they gobble up Missoula, Butte, Billings . . . We're small taters for these guys, but they don't overlook even the tater tots, Mul. That's the story, anyway. Heavy-duty dudes, Mul.”
Mulheisen waved an H. Upmann Petit Corona. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Oh god,” Johnny said, eyeing the cigar. “Oh sure, why not? Here, I'll open the door.” He jumped up and slid the glass door open. A cold breeze crept in. The temperature must have dropped 20 degrees from the afternoon 50s.
“That's all right,” Mulheisen said, “I'll have it later.”
“No, go ahead. Light up. I insist. Hey, I'll have one, too. I've got some around here.” He waved away Mulheisen's offer of one of his, and delved into a splendid cherrywood humidor on one of the bookshelves lining an inner wall. He came up with a very large Havana, a Romeo y Julieta. “I have these, but I never smoke them. Joe Spalding gave me ‘em, he's the chairman of the board at the power company. Here, have some.” He grabbed a handful and stuffed them into the breast
pocket of Mulheisen's sport coat, about seventy-five dollars’ worth of cigars.
When the cigars were lit and drawing well and the initial smoke had cleared, whisked out by the door and/or some kind of faintly humming air-exchange system that Johnny had turned on, Mulheisen said, “So there is a big job. Is it in your power to give?”
Johnny nodded. “Effectively. I don't have ukase muscle: ‘Listen up, guys! Mulheisen's our new head cop.’ But if I suggest you, I will certainly have already made sure that no one will seriously oppose the nomination. No prob, Mul.”
“But it'll just be a desk job,” Mulheisen said. “Organizing squads of investigators, having meetings with mayors, police chiefs, Feds of all kinds, looking at miles of organizational posters, video proposals, funding strategies . . .”
“Nah, nah,” Johnny said, waving his cigar. He set it aside and never picked it up again, only an inch or two of it tasted. “Youkin nav monkeys'll do that. Secretaries. Beautiful secretaries, maybe.” He looked hopeful, then sighed and shook his head regretfully. He raised his hand to hide his whispered comment, “Notso weasy to get beautiful seckataries anymore. Turns out everybody's beautiful is also smart.” He sat back, dropping the pretense of some confidential information. “Dunno why that is. D'you? Usetabe, beautiful was dumb. Not-nee-more. Speshly wimmen. Well, you think about it. We'll go fishin’ tomorrow. I'll pick you up at . . . oh, nine? Ten? No point in goin’ early, this time of year. Too cold in the mornin’, fish don't bite till noon. Let's have a sauna.” He pronounced it “sow-na,” in the approved manner, and sprang to his feet a little unsteadily.
They walked out along a little path in the cold night air. There were many more stars than Mulheisen could remember seeing, at least for a long time. Perhaps there had been this many stars when he was younger, in the service and stationed in some remote comer. Yes, he thought he could vaguely remember that. But there were plenty here.
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