Deadman

by Jon A. Jackson

  “Just the three of you, though?”

  “Yes. So there is plenty of room for you, when you fly to New Orleans with us. Tomorrow, perhaps, after we have finished our business here. Free of charge. I promise! And champagne!”

  “Champagne? Well, I can't miss that, can I?”

  “You would be crazy to miss that,” he assured her. “You can cash in your ticket and fly with us. Are you staying here?”

  “Perhaps,” Helen said. She was beginning to think that she might be paranoid. Perhaps these Mexicans were not so sinister, after all. She wanted to believe it. She was so tense, so exhausted.

  “Perhaps? More drinks,” Vetch demanded. “Hernan, we have a coy lady. Very beautiful, but coy.” He liked the word “coy,” and repeated it. “Do we have champagne? Yes?” He looked at the champagne the bartender dragged out of the cooler, then shook his head and said, sadly, “No. That is not champagne. Do you have some different kind, some different type?” The next bottle was grudgingly admitted to be champagne, more or less. The bartender opened it and poured into wide glasses, of which Vetch did not approve but which he accepted. He proposed a toast to New Orleans.

  “You probably aren't going to New Orleans,” Helen said, sipping the champagne. She grimaced and set it aside.

  “You are right,” Vetch said, responding to her gesture. “This is not good champagne. Do we have any other?”

  The bartender shook his head. “The package store might have some. Want me to look?”

  “Yes, look,” Vetch said, “but give us first some of that cognac, that Hennessey's. That is good cognac, I think.” When they had been served and the bartender had left, he said to Helen, “Of course, we are going to New Orleans. Hernan! Are we not going to New Orleans?”

  “If you like,” Hernan said.

  “But you have business,” Helen said. “I would probably find myself stuck here for days while you do your business. I don't want to hang around Butte. What is your business, anyway?”

  “Our business?” Vetch shrugged. He turned to the bartender who had reentered, triumphantly holding up two bottles of French champagne. “What is the business in Butte, Montana? Yes, that looks wonderful. Open one bottle. We will have both bottles, but just open one for now.”

  Busying himself with untwisting the wire on the cork, the bartender said, “Butte's business is mining. Used to be, anyway.”

  “Mining? What kind of mines?” Vetch asked. “Gold mines?”

  “Oh, there's gold here, all right. Butte started as a gold camp. Then it was copper. But there's plenty of gold still down there, you bet. Ah.” The cork popped off nicely and the bartender set up fresh glasses.

  “We are gold miners,” Vetch said. “To gold!” He hoisted his glass and the others followed.

  “Yes, gold!” Hernan exclaimed. “Colombian gold.”

  Helen caught Vetch's frown and Hernan's instant reaction. Drug dealers, she thought. Who would have thought that Butte would have drug dealers?

  “Any kind of gold,” Hernan said, quickly. “We collect gold.”

  “Oh, you're collectors, then,” she said.

  “Please, that is enough of business,” Vetch said with a grimace of mock boredom. “I am tired of business. Tonight we will drink champagne. Tomorrow, we will have time for business and then on to New Orleans, where it will be much warmer, I am certain. Is there any good restaurants?”

  “Well, there's Lydia's,” the bartender said, glancing at his watch. “Great Italian food.” He said “eye-talian.” “But you better call. I bet they're closing, if they haven't already.”

  There was no way that Helen was going to an Italian restaurant, not if there was any chance that Humphrey was in town, but she quickly said, “What's the number? I'll call.”

  The bartender fished a telephone book out of a drawer and looked. He went to the end of the bar and reached around to pick up a telephone. “No, I'll call,” Helen said, jumping up and moving quickly down to the end of the bar. “They'll just tell you no, but I can talk them into it. What's the number?”

  The telephone was on the wall, next to a swinging door that led to a backroom. She made the bartender repeat the number and then she quickly tapped out the number of the cabin. The number rang once . . . twice . . . three times, and on four the machine answered: There were no messages. Helen quickly tapped in the code and after a long beep she punched the number “6” and listened to the room.

  At first she didn't hear anything, but then she thought she heard a crackling sound. What could it be? A fire? This was followed by something that sounded for all the world like someone snoring. And then she was sure she heard a faint creaking noise. The hair rose on her neck. A beep signaled the end of thirty seconds. She depressed the hang-up device on the base unit without taking the receiver from her ear. For a long moment she stood and stared at the phone. Had she actually heard anything? It must have been her imagination. She peeked around the corner. The three men were talking and laughing. Without hesitation she redialed the number. After the first ring, the receiver was lifted and a low woman's voice said, “Hello?”

  “Hello?” Helen replied, shocked. She recovered quickly. “Who is this?” she asked.

  After a pause, the woman said, “Who is this? You called me.”

  “Is this ——,” and Helen recited the number.

  “Yes,” the woman said, tentatively, “who is this?”

  For the first time it occurred to Helen that Joe might have recovered, that he might have left the hospital and be convalescing at the cabin. Presumably, he wasn't being held by the police, although she couldn't imagine the circumstances under which this might happen. But then she thought, They never found the body! They have no reason to hold Joe. This must be a nurse. But why hadn't they answered when she called earlier? They must have been busy, in the bathroom, perhaps.

  Quickly, she asked, “Is Joe there?”

  After another pause, the woman said, “Yes, Mr. Service is here.”

  “Oh good.” Helen waited, then she said, “Well, can I talk to him?”

  “At this hour? I'm afraid he's asleep.”

  “Is this the nurse?”

  “Yes,” Heather said.

  “Can't you wake him? It's very important.”

  “I'm afraid he's taken some pills, some sedatives,” Heather said. “I can't wake him now. You'll have to call back in the morning.” And she hung up.

  Helen went back to the bar, a little dazed. The three men looked at her with expectant smiles. “That was a long conversation,” Vetch said. “You must have convinced them. Shall we go? We'll take the champagne.”

  “What? Oh, no,” Helen said. “I tried to talk them into staying open, but they . . . they already closed. The cooks have gone home. Sorry.”

  “Oh, too bad,” Vetch said. “Oh well, we must make the best of it. At least we have champagne. And cognac! Come, sit down.”

  Helen sat down and drank cognac, followed by champagne. She felt drunk. She shook her head to clear it. Amazing, she thought, Joe is recovered. Or recovering, anyway. He's home! It was difficult to comprehend. Why hadn't she thought of this eventuality? Plans, indeed. What was the use of even making plans? But, she thought, Joe could help. She had gotten so used to being without him, to cursing him, in fact, that she had never considered what to do if he recovered. Now she would have to rethink everything, all of her stupid plans. She felt compelled to leave, immediately. Get rid of these crazy Mexicans and get back to her room so that she could think. But first she must be congenial. She took another sip of cognac and smiled at Vetch.

  “Do you know,” she said, “I am getting the most terrific headache. I—” But the telephone had rung, and now the bartender called out a name.

  “Mr. Etcheverry?”

  “Echeverria,” Vetch corrected. “Excuse me, lovely lady,” he said to Helen, and went to the phone.

  Helen paid little attention. A singular notion had just struck her. The woman, the nurse, had said, “Mr. Service
.”

  She got up quickly, saying, “Excuse me, I have to use the powder room,” to Hernan, and she snatched her purse and walked out.

  The blizzard was back. It was bitter cold as she raced across the parking lot, leaping through knee-deep drifts to reach her room. She was glad for the boots she had purchased earlier. She quickly gathered everything into her suitcase and donned the warm coat. Then she hauled the suitcases out and threw them into the backseat of the car she had rented. In the swirling snow she saw the three Mexicans come out of the bar, raising the collars of their overcoats and looking around. They were looking for her, she knew it. She slumped down in the seat of the car. The windows were iced and nearly opaque. She was able to watch them over the sill of the driver's side window as they stumbled and minced through the deep snow, the wind lashing the tails of their coats about them. When they disappeared around the side of the building, evidently searching for their rooms, she quickly started the car and frantically turned up the heat and the defroster fan. She waited tensely while the car warmed up and a little semicircle of defrosted windshield appeared, watching to see if the men reappeared.

  After a long couple of minutes, she decided that they had gone to their rooms, and she put the automatic transmission into reverse. The car, a new Mercury, rolled smoothly backward and then bogged down in a drift. She wished to hell she had her little four-wheel-drive pickup. She'd be able to move through this stuff with ease. She moved the gear selector and went forward, turning. The car responded and gradually, shifting back and forth, she was able to turn around and head out the parking-lot exit, toward Harrison Avenue, the large main thoroughfare. She switched on her headlights. What she saw was not encouraging. There were almost no vehicles on the street, which was filled with deep snow, with a couple of wheel-marked lanes that were fast filling in with drifting snow. No sensible person would willingly be out in this mess. But she had to be out. Butte was not a safe place.

  She wheeled to the left, the heavy car battering through the drifted ruts. She drove south a short distance and turned onto the entrance ramp to the interstate highway. There was no traffic, but large trucks had been through and the lanes were passable. In places the winds had even swept the pavement bare. At thirty-five miles per hour she was soon on the outskirts of Butte, headed west. She had no idea where she was going, just that she was getting out of town. She wasn't sure how far it was to Missoula; the large overhead sign had been plastered with snow and unreadable. Two minutes later, the question was moot.

  The car traveled swiftly through a bare spot and then smacked into a particularly hard, wind-packed drift that caused it to swerve left. Helen overcorrected and the car spun right. Finally it ran straight, wallowing through deep snow until it stopped dead on the right shoulder. She sat for a long moment, recovering her wits. She switched on the radio and listened to, of all things, a jazz program from Detroit that was being rebroadcast on a local station. The disc jockey was Ed Love. She actually knew Ed Love, had met him anyway, at a party in Southfield. He was talking about Kenny Burrell, the Detroit guitarist, in his precise manner, a kind of restrained enthusiasm. It was strangely encouraging to hear Ed Love while sitting in a rented car, stuck in a snowbank outside Butte, Montana. Once again, however, she longed for the yellow Toyota pickup that Joe had bought for her present.

  She tried backing the car, and while it would move, it wouldn't move far. And each time she went forward, it seemed to slip farther off the roadway. She had a tantalizing notion that it might be possible, given time, to rock the vehicle out of this jam; it might also be drifting deeper and deeper into immurement. Suddenly, the night was ablaze with flickering blue and red lights. “Oh no,” she sighed, and shifted to “park.”

  A highway patrolman appeared next to the window. He was bundled up in an insulated coat and a hat with flaps. The flaps were not down. She rolled down the window.

  “You'll never get out of there,” he said, nearly shouting in the wind. “Where are you headed?”

  “Missoula,” she yelled.

  “Even if you got out, you'd have a tough time making it,” he told her. “If you want, I can take you back to Butte. You got friends?”

  “No,” she said. “Couldn't you give me a push?”

  He shook his head, then buried it in his hunched shoulders. “You better come with me.”

  She gave up then, or would have, but another vehicle pulled up alongside. It was a four-wheel-drive rig with big wheels. On the door was a silver shield inscribed BUTTE-SILVER BOW SHERIFF. A deputy leaned across and rolled down a window. He yelled at the state cop, “Carl, whatta you doing? Try'na pick up girls again?” He laughed and rolled up the window, then pulled the vehicle forward several feet and got out. He waved his hand at Helen to stay in her car while he opened the back door of his rig and hauled out a heavy chain. With the help of the highway patrolman, he pushed away enough snow to get down on his knees and hook the chain to the towing loop under the front of the Mercury. The state cop hooked the other end to the sheriff's Blazer while the deputy got back in. The cop stood and waved Helen forward as she gunned the engine, and the deputy's vehicle methodically ground forward. Within seconds the Mercury was safely standing on the windswept pavement. A minute later the cop had unhooked the chain and thrown it in the back of the sheriff's vehicle. He went to talk to him for a moment, then the deputy drove off. The cop came back to Helen.

  “Thank you so much,” she told him.

  “No problemo,” he said, “but you better not take a chance, going on. You take this next exit here"—he pointed up the road, into the swirling snow—"it's not five hundred yards. It'll take you right back into Butte. The deputy said a plow was just through there, so you shouldn't have any problem.”

  “Thank you, officer.” Helen drove into the gloom and took the exit. She drove slowly and soon discovered that the cop had not followed her. As promised, the road into Butte was relatively open, though already drifting badly. She soon came to a moderately cleared major street, Montana Avenue. Down to her right, toward the interstate, she saw a county snowplow. She turned and went after it. When it turned onto the interstate she followed. It headed east. By hanging well back she could keep the rotating yellow light on the plow's cab in sight, despite the fact that the vehicle was enveloped in a cloud of snow. She followed the plow right on up and over the summit at Homestake Pass.

  East of the summit the intensity of the snow dropped off considerably, and by the time she reached the first exit, it had stopped. The wind still blew, but the roads weren't bad. She took the exit and headed south, toward Tinstar.

  Who was up at the cabin who knew Joe's real name? She wasn't sure, but the fact that it was a woman was encouraging, she felt. It must be a nurse. Joe must have told her his name. He must be there. She wondered if Humphrey had called. If Joe was there at the time, no message would have been recorded, and anyway, if Joe was really there, it was a whole new ballgame.

  She could, of course, be rushing to her doom. Humphrey could be sitting there in the cabin with some bimbo and a brace of gunmen. In a situation like that, she had no doubt that Humphrey would throw her to the dogs. She wouldn't have a chance.

  Nah, she thought, Joe's there. It'll be all right. And anyway, I can take care of myself. Besides, she had no place else to go.

  20

  Lock and Load

  Humphrey was sound asleep when the phone rang distantly. At first he didn't know where he was, then he saw the snow in the lighted window and heard the wind buffeting the house. He was in Butte. He shuddered. The phone did not ring again. He snuggled under the down quilt and reveled in the warmth. He fell back asleep.

  Fifteen minutes later he awoke to a knock on the bedroom door. “Who is it?” he grumbled. It was Rossamani. He said it was important. Humphrey switched on the bedside light. It was after eleven, according to his watch, which he had laid out on the doily under the lamp. “All right,” he said.

  Rossamani was still fully dressed. “Boss, we got a
line on the broad,” he said.

  Humphrey sat up. He wore blue silk pajamas. He yawned. “So, she finally called back,” he said.

  “No, it was some of Smokey's boys,” Rossamani said. “They think they might have a lead on where she's hanging out. You want me and Tino to go check it out?”

  This was not an accurate account of the situation. Earlier, after Humphrey had gone to bed, Rossamani had called Vetch at the War Bonnet Inn, as arranged, and in the course of conversation, they had talked about Helen, of course. Vetch had no idea what the woman looked like, and when Rossamani described her as a small woman, the Basque quickly said, “Black hair with a silver stripe?”

  Rossamani couldn't believe it. It was too good to be true. But then, Butte wasn't exactly a huge metropolis, and the War Bonnet was a convenient motel for air travelers. Rossamani told Vetch to grab the woman and call him back. Unfortunately, the call had not come for some time and then it wasn't gratifying. Obviously, the woman had tumbled to who Vetch was and had fled. The question was, Where would Helen go if she ran? Especially on a night like this. Another motel? Maybe, but she might just go to the place she'd shared with Service. At this point, Rossamani had turned to Smokey.

  Stover knew nothing about Joe Service's cabin, but he thought Heather might know. Rossamani had tried to contact her earlier, just to see how she was getting along with Joe, but no luck. Now he sent Tino and one of Smokey's guys to Cateyo's house. They soon reported back that there were no lights on and nobody answered the door. Should they enter the house? Rossamani told them no, to come on back. Smokey said the Yoder woman was a nurse at the hospital. He called the hospital and, after laying out a farcical story about an uncle who had come to town only to find his favorite niece not home, he learned that she had taken the patient Joe Service to his home. Because of the storm, she had called in to tell them she and the patient were staying overnight. The hospital didn't know the exact location of the cabin, but it was in the Tinstar area. They gave him the phone number. The same number that Helen had given Humphrey.