by Jon Jackson
After a minute, Mulheisen snorted, then shrugged. “Well, when you think about it,” he said, “what difference does it make?”
Tucker looked shocked.
Mulheisen noticed and hastened to add, “I mean . . . well, I’m glad you’re on to them, of course, but it doesn’t make much difference to my mother, does it? It was in the nature of an accident. She was there, the bomb was there. The two aren’t connected. It’s like that airplane that crashed in Brooklyn, a couple days after the planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers. Everybody thought at first it was more terrorists, but it wasn’t. But what difference did it make? To the people who were killed, I mean, and their families. And then . . . naturally, you thought about the ones in the towers. What did that mean? Wasn’t it the same as the crash in Brooklyn? Those people weren’t involved with the terrorists, either. It might as well have been a bolt of lightning that struck the bus. The bomb wasn’t aimed at her, after all.”
Tucker’s amazement was very evident—eyes wide, mouth agape.
Mulheisen felt compelled to reassure the man, to explain himself. “It’s a horrible thing,” he said. “Madmen. But, you see, on a personal level . . . well, I suppose people in the Blitz, or in Vietnam, say, who were injured by bombs falling out of the sky . . . not meant for them, of course, but for a ball-bearing plant, or a railroad . . . they probably couldn’t help feeling personally attacked, I suppose. Who could blame them, eh? You always hear about country people, mobs, attacking downed airmen . . .”
Mulheisen hesitated, catching a wince from Tucker. Of course, he thought, the man had been a bomber himself, in Vietnam. "Of course, it’s not the same, is it?” he said.
“No, certainly not,” Tucker responded. “That’s a war, a declared war. There are bound to be civilian casualties, but the action was aimed at the enemy’s resources, the industrial infrastructure.”
Mulheisen was annoyed by this shameless defense. “Oh sure,” he said, drily, “but you can’t expect folks to appreciate the difference when they’re being blown up. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Vietcong tossing a grenade into a beer hall full of American troops, or American airplanes tossing a few tons of bombs into the heart of a rail depot where there are civilians working, or a factory . . . or maybe just dumping their ‘unused ordnance,’ as they say, as they climb out of the bombing run, only it happens to fall on a hamlet. Wouldn’t you say? Just from the vantage point of the civilians?”
Tucker was not to be drawn. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. He seemed to have regained control of his anger. “In this case, however, there may have been more to it.”
“How so?”
“Perhaps, if only obliquely, your mother was a target.”
“Oh, come on,” Mulheisen said. “A bird-watcher? So, who was this, some bird-hater? Are there such people?”
“An antienvironmentalist, perhaps,” Tucker said. “Your mother was more than a bird-watcher. She was what some would call an activist. There are quite a few people who get upset at environmental activists. Out where I come from, it’s common to refer to all environmentalists as extremists. Wasn’t her group, in fact, at that city hall to present a protest at the draining of a marsh area?”
Mulheisen frowned. “I think they were objecting to the proposed building of a power plant, a not very clean plant, in an important drainage zone. There was a question of contamination of—what do they call it?—the aquifer. But I’m not all that sure about it. I was more concerned with my mother’s injuries, so I didn’t really pay that much attention. I suppose I should have.”
“Oh, no, no, my dear fellow,” Tucker said, quickly, “you were quite right to be focused on the problem at hand. I’m just saying . . . the possibility can’t be ruled out that, in some weird, far-fetched way, these nuts were targeting your mother’s group. There was also, you may recall, an Arab restaurant next door. It’s possible that the restaurant was the target. It was a popular meeting place for some prominent Arab leaders in the community. There is a very large Arab population in these parts, as I’m sure you know. We can’t rule out any of those possibilities. But my point is, it wasn’t by any stretch a legitimate military target.”
So, Mulheisen thought, he was back to that. The man must have been a bomber pilot. Rather than debate the issue, Mulheisen decided to let it go. “I take your point,” he said. “So who were these guys?”
“We have a few leads,” Tucker said, evidently relieved to put the ambiguous aspect of bombing aside. “But it occurred to me . . . you’re free, aren’t you? That is, you’ve left the police force? I thought so. I was thinking you might be interested in joining us, assisting us, in this investigation.”
Mulheisen quickly shook his head. “No. I’m retired. I have plenty to do, just taking care of my mother. No, my detective days are behind me, Colonel. Nowadays, I spend my free time, in the evenings, reading about Pontiac, doing a little amateur research on the period.”
“I understand, I understand,” Tucker said, “but, you know, it’s not good simply to subside into the woodwork. You have hired a nurse, possibly you could get a little more help, and that would free up some time. . . . We pay very well, you know.”
“Who is ‘we’? The DEA? CIA? Who are we talking about?” Mulheisen asked.
“It’s actually a coalition of agencies,” Tucker said. “In fact, it’s a special task force, under the new Homeland Security aegis. I’m running it. You’d be answerable only to me. So you see, if you’re concerned about joining some government agency, it wouldn’t be like that. No training, no elaborate security clearance, no civil service exam or requirements. You would be simply a civilian contractor, for a set fee. Say, one hundred thousand dollars?”
Mulheisen stopped. “A hundred grand? For the duration? I mean, what if it gets wrapped up in a couple of weeks? Or in two years? What then?”
Tucker liked the way this was going. As long as Mulheisen was in negotiation, other issues could be shunted aside. “A hundred grand for the duration of the investigation . . . that is, until we have our perpetrators.”
“Ah. Until you have them? Identified them? Arrested them? Convicted them?”
“Identified them,” Tucker said, “to our satisfaction, at least. And, naturally, we’d want to know where they are, if they’re still alive, but that wouldn’t necessarily involve tracking them down and arresting them. But, that could be part of it, if you’re interested. Let’s say the investigation runs longer than six months . . . we could negotiate an additional fee. And so on . . . for the duration. Sound okay?”
“Okay? It sounds too good. I never got anything like that on the force.”
“These are special times,” Tucker said. “Congress is responding to the anxiety of the public. The funds are there. And you’re a man with special abilities, with a special interest. You’re motivated.”
“You mean, my mother? Well, to be honest, Colonel, I’ve never quite bought into revenge as a motive.”
Tucker was surprised. “Revenge is a very familiar motive,” he asserted.
“So they say,” Mulheisen agreed, “but I’ve always been a little skeptical. In practice, I get the feeling that the desire for revenge is intense immediately following the . . . ah, event. But it begins to fade pretty quickly, I suspect. People begin to think about reality, making a living, getting on with their lives. I felt a lot of anger, but it soon got pushed aside in favor of my concern for my mother. Still, I know that some cultures . . .”
He looked thoughtful, then added, “I can remember a couple of cases. The murder of Big Sid Sedlacek, for instance. His daughter was certainly on fire about that. We figured she was behind the subsequent murder of Carmine Busoni, the mob boss who ordered the hit.”
Tucker’s eyes lit up. “I know about that case,” he said. “We were interested in his successor, DiEbola. It’s funny that you should mention it, because there is a kind of connection with the bombing.”
“What!” It was Mulheisen’s turn to be amaz
ed. “What possible connection?”
“It’s tenuous,” Tucker said. “Just a name that keeps popping up. Service.”
“You’re kidding. Joe Service? What could Service possibly have to do with terrorists?”
Tucker was delighted with Mulheisen’s kindled interest. “Who knows?” he said. “Maybe nothing. But it’s one of the things we have to find out.”
“What was the connection?”
“Just the name,” Tucker said. “Maybe it was irrelevant, but there it was. Some of the people we were interested in, possible connections to the incident, had been in communication with Service. His name came up on some telephone intercepts. Possibly, he supplied some expertise, or some weapons . . . it isn’t clear.”
Mulheisen looked very interested. He stood there, thoughtfully chewing on a cigar that had gone out. Finally, he took the cigar from his mouth, looked at it carefully, prodded the dead end to see if it was still lit, then dropped it onto the path and ground it under his boot. “Joe Service,” he said. “Imagine that.” Abruptly, he raised his eyebrows as if clearing his mind and said, “Oh, well.”
Tucker said, “Then you’ll join us?”
“Nah. Sorry. I really can’t. Thanks for the offer, though.”
Tucker was astounded. He followed after as Mulheisen strode toward the house. “But, but . . . you’re not interested?” he said. He really was amazed. “What about your mother?”
“I’m thinking of my mother,” Mulheisen said. “She needs my help.” He stopped at the door and thrust out his hand to shake. “Say, keep in touch, will you? I’m interested, naturally, in case you find out anything. Thanks for coming by. Bye.”
He went in the back door and closed it, firmly. Tucker stood openmouthed, staring after him. Finally, he went to his car and drove away.
2
A Dog’s Conscience
To say that Joe Service was a man with a dog’s conscience is not to say that he was innocent. But in his heart he was innocent. It was true that he had killed a few men, and he had taken a few dollars to which, strictly speaking, he had no legitimate claim, but these things could be explained. To wit: self-defense and the money was owed him . . . more or less. There was that unlucky guy in Iowa City, a few years back, and there might be some who would regard his role in the assassination of Carmine Busoni as straining the limits of self-defense. Some would say he had been more than an enabler in that case, not just encouraging his lover, Helen Sedlacek, in avenging the murder of her father, but conceiving the hit plan, showing her how to do it, and even driving the getaway car. Carmine deserved it, to be sure. Joe was free of recriminations about any of these killings.
At the moment, Joe felt especially virtuous now that he was on the straight and narrow. He had lately become a home builder, a carpenter, a man who owned a dog, a man who bought license plates for his car and even a legitimate driver’s license. It was true that his car and the plates and the license were acquired with the use of an alias, but that was a mere precaution. Joe Humann was his name now.
Joe also represented Helen as his wife, which in the eyes of the state of Montana meant that he was in fact married, although Joe wasn’t aware of that. (One might pose a reasonable legal question as to whether the fact that they represented themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Humann rendered their common-law marriage moot, as well as unconscious.) Doubtless it didn’t matter, but had Joe known that he was now legally married—theoretically—it would bolster his feelings of an innocent heart (although he might have other qualms).
It was remarkable how readily Joe fell in with his newfound probity. Helen had no such feelings. Until she’d met Joe she had been “straight,” as it were—a square, a home guard. Her father had been a crook, a well-known gangster, but in the way of such things he had always denied that, claiming he was falsely accused, merely because he knew a few mobsters and he made his income in an unorthodox way—as a business adviser to men suspected of criminal activities. A child doesn’t question these things too deeply. If a beloved parent insists that he’s innocent, merely a friend of people who are unfairly suspected by the cops, why even an intelligent child like Helen is likely to accept that. A child could even play with that popular myth, at once relishing the special status that seemed to accrue to so-called gangsters, and at another moment, if the canard were seriously alleged, she might spiritedly defend her father’s putative honesty. It was only in her late teens when she realized, with a frisson of wicked delight, that her beloved father, Big Sid Sedlacek, surely was a gangster. But by then she had already lived the life of innocence, so this new condition was not nearly so amusing or even interesting to her. Nowadays, she thought of herself as having made an irrevocable choice when she decided to avenge her father: a road that led one-way and not toward any conventional domain of virtue.
One of the things that both Helen and Joe equally enjoyed, however, was work. They had gotten very physically involved in the building of their new home in Montana. The contractor was an amiable man named Anders Ericsson, from Missoula, a city about a hundred miles as the eagle flies from their building site up in the mountains between Butte and Helena. This contractor had to drive over from his home on Mondays, at least a hundred and seventy-five miles. He had a camper on his old Chevy pickup. He camped out at the site, with his irritable dog, a border collie named Skippy.
Ericsson was about forty years old, a rangy, humorous fellow who, as a veteran of graduate studies in literature, was decidedly overeducated for his occupation. He had a thriving business in Missoula, but he enjoyed jobs like this, which were very lucrative and involved some unusual kinds of carpentry. He was also a man who liked to get away, from time to time, from a wife who was beautiful and talented but also critical about his taste for beer and an occasional toke of marijuana. It was this latter taste that had provided the point of contact, since Joe and Helen had purchased their remote property from a reclusive young fellow named Frank Oberavich, who owned about two thousand acres along a clear and cold and trouty stream called the French Forque, where he grew a strain of marijuana that was known in certain quarters as “righteous.” While at the university in Missoula, Oberavich had met Ericsson in a creative writing class and had even worked for him from time to time. They had kept up the friendship and when Franko, as he was known, built his own elaborate solar-, wind-, and hydro-powered hideway, he had naturally called upon his buddy Anders for assistance. He had recommended Anders to Joe and Helen for their place and it had worked out quite well.
Anders was happy to take on Joe and Helen, not only as clients but as assistants in the building. It kept the number of strangers to a minimum, which pleased the couple, and they thoroughly enjoyed the labor. They were young, in their early thirties, and quite physically active and strong. They readily fell in with the regimen of hammering and sawing, nailing, learning new techniques like compressor-driven nailers, or by contrast the old traditions of framing or post-and-beam construction. Even the hauling and stacking of lumber and materials, which is so much of building, pleased them.
They loved poring over plans and blueprints with Anders and considering the strategies of design and structure. The weather was great, the company fine. The two young people relished the feeling of being tired at the end of the day, of getting something positive done, and the wonderful license it gave them to leap into the river in the heat of the day, to say nothing of soaking in the hot springs along the river.
So thoroughly had Joe immersed himself in his new straight life that he was surprised to get a phone call one day from Smokey Stover. This was the elderly owner of Smokey’s Corner, a Butte beer garden. He was an old mob contact for this area, a man who had gotten his fingers dirty in untold varieties of activities and now was placidly living out his years in boring comfort. He’d had at least a passing acquaintance with Joe’s old employer from Detroit, Humphrey DiEbola. Joe had almost forgotten that Smokey existed. But Smokey had intriguing news: someone had been asking about Joe.
A few m
onths earlier, Joe would have instantly pricked up his ears at this news, but now he was merely baffled. Who could be looking for him? He was totally out of the mob, had been for a couple of years. The Carmine thing was old stuff and anyway, thanks to some fence-mending with Humphrey, now himself deceased, that connection was defunct.
It was true that Joe and Helen had since put in some time for a curious group of federal agents, who liked to style themselves “the Lucani,” but Joe didn’t consider himself employed by them; that was just a bit of contract work. In fact, he had no intention of working for them again, if he could help it. He believed they were a dangerous group of deluded men and women, tantamount to vigilantes, who themselves were operating on the edges of criminal behavior. If the Lucani were looking for Joe, they knew where to find him, not that it would do them much good.
Joe thought it over and decided that it must just be an old acquaintance from his mob days, some guy passing through who had stopped into Smokey’s Corner, as one might do—somehow, old grifters always knew where to go when in a strange town. Perhaps this guy had heard on the grapevine that Joe was rumored to be in the Butte area and had idly asked Smokey about him, assuming naturally that Smokey would pass on the news to Joe that an old pal had been in town. Except that the asker hadn’t given his name and Smokey seemed to be a little uneasy about this contact. But Joe, in his newfound innocence, couldn’t take it seriously. He didn’t even mention it to Helen, but he made a note to himself to ask Smokey for more details when next he was in town.
He didn’t get the opportunity for a couple of days, but then he had to drive in to Butte to pick up some hardwood flooring they’d ordered for the living room. He dropped Helen at the supermarket, drove to the lumberyard, and got the flooring loaded into the bed of the new four-wheel-drive Dodge pickup truck they’d bought when they decided to become carpenters.
Smokey’s Corner was a pleasant if none too clean tavern halfway up the hill in one of Butte’s delapidated older neighborhoods. It was a long room with a pressed-tin ceiling, slowly rotating overhead fans, and a long, elegant bar, now somewhat scarred with carved initials and faded by many swipes of a bartender’s rag to mop up spilled whiskey. The back bar was still beautiful, with beveled glass mirrors. The wooden floor was littered with peanut shells and cigarette butts at this time of the day, late afternoon. A couple of the coin-operated pool tables were in play by tough-looking fellows in sleeveless sweatshirts, their hairy arms well decorated with tattoos.