Dickie looked more uncomfortable than the question warranted. “Still at large. There’s been no sign of him. He’s probably on his way to Buenos Aires. Hey JohnBoy—can you make that three-over-easy?”
“If you want to pay eight bucks,” Delice answered tartly. “What’s up with you, Mustang? How’s the book going?” She turned toward the kitchen. “I’ll have twoscrambled-soft.” Then back to Sally. “Any chance we can talk soon about getting Dunwoodie House on the Register?”
Sally thought a minute. Once the biography came out, there’d be no keeping people away. Maybe the town could make some money off it, buy the Laramie public schools some books or something. She’d talk to Maude and Ezra. “Yeah, we can talk about it. It takes about a year, right? I ought to be out of there by then, for sure.” Or sooner. Maude had said that it was okay for her to move out and keep working with the papers, if she wanted. Just now, the place was feeling a little too full of ghosts.
“Find anything interesting?” Delice asked, halfdistracted by the arrival of a flower arrangement that resembled a communications satellite.
Sally considered her answer as her eggs arrived, perfectly crisped on the edges with the yolk still runny, flanked by two pieces of fresh toasted brioche, a sculpted strawberry, and a tiny bottle of Tabasco. “Yeah. I found a lot interesting. John-Boy,” she yelled, “will you marry me?”
“So where are the Krugerrands?” Dickie asked the obvious question.
“Read the book and find out,” Sally grinned through a mouthful of fried egg heaven. She wanted to change the subject. “What are you wearing tonight?” she asked Delice.
“I don’t know. Whatever anybody wears, Burt’ll be the best dressed person in the place. Do you think cowboy boots or spike heels?”
“How about spike heels and gunbelts?” Sally asked.
“I’ll be wearing my holster,” said Dickie, considering whether he could ask for a side of hash browns. “Thought I’d come as a sheriff.”
“Too farfetched,” said Delice.
“Gunbelts and garterbelts,” said Sally, wondering what Hawk would think. “We’ve got a theme.”
“See you all at seven! Thanks for the great grub. Let me know if there’s anything you need,” Dickie Langham called out as he walked out of the Yippie I O feeling well fed but uneasy. Maybe it was coming into the restaurant and finding the dishwasher mopping blood off the floor. Or maybe it was that pizza oven that Steve Baca was so worried about. But he knew what it really was. Dickie had been in enough unstable situations to trust a feeling of foreboding. Until Danny Crease was accounted for, Dickie would watch and worry. He’d even called Bobby Helwigsen to ask him if he had any clue where his former militia associate might be, but Bobby had acted as if the question was an insult.
“It was my job to act as Mr. Foote’s legal adviser,” he said. “My only connection with the Unknown Soldiers was in that capacity. I made it a policy to mingle as little as possible with them.”
Dickie had talked to the FBI agent a.k.a. Arthur Stopes about it. “We appreciate your willingness to assist in the apprehension of Mr. Crease, Sheriff Langham,” Arthur— or whatever his name really was—had said, “but we’re really not at liberty to divulge details of an ongoing investigation. If you see him, notify us at once.”
Thanks a lot, guys. Putting the charitable construction on it, Dickie assumed the FBI didn’t know diddly-squat.
On the night that Danny Crease had returned to Freedom Ranch after Walt Flanders, Elroy Foote’s earlier attorney, had run afoul of his antelope rifle, Elroy had seen fit to reward Danny in a special way. He’d put five gold Krugerrands in his hand, and told him that someday they might find more. Danny did find five more, in a doe-hide pouch tucked under his bunkhouse pillow, after Mickey Welsh’s power steering fluid ran terminally dry in Togwotee Pass. No one among the Unknown Soldiers except Elroy and Danny had been aware that Shane’s rumors about Mac Dunwoodie’s treasure were true. Now Elroy was out of the way, but the FBI was looking for Danny. If he had any hope of getting the Dunwoodie treasure for himself, he had to work fast.
In the days since the Freedom Ranch incident, Danny had covered a lot of ground. He’d gone out to the airport in Denver, flown to Arizona, bought a 1993 Honda Civic from a guy he knew who fenced stolen vehicles in south Phoenix, switched the plates three times on his zigzag drive north. He’d had to sell one of the Krugerrands to get the cash he needed, but he considered it an investment.
The strain of revenge postponed had begun to tell on him. He’d almost strangled a cashier at a McDonald’s in Grand Junction who’d insisted that he pay the tax on his Quarter Pounder. His throat felt as if he was constantly choking down a scream.
He’d come into Laramie from Cheyenne and headed for Dickie Langham’s house—what kind of cop had his home address in the phone book? But Langham’s patrol car wasn’t there. He cruised by the cop shop, but the only vehicle in the lot was a Blazer with a mud job that looked like it was usually driven by somebody who lived out of town.
From his earlier reconnaissance, Danny knew Dickie’s sister had a restaurant on Third Street, but there were no cop cars there. He cruised downtown, and was surprised to find the squad car parked on Old Ivinson, right outside a restaurant that looked like one of those faggot places in LA. He drove by slowly, and could see Langham inside, chowing down with two women. Presumably his sister was one, and the other was Sally Alder. He recognized the bitch from the newpaper picture Shane had been waving around. The guy filling up their coffee cups was wearing a kiss the cook apron and talking with his hands. That figured, Danny thought. It wasn’t bad enough that they’d taken over Colorado—now the Jews and the homosexuals were invading Wyoming, and Dickie Langham was with them all the way. Danny sighed. Obviously, killing a couple of illegal aliens who had the gall to drive the Snowy Range Road wasn’t going to put a dent in the horde of undesirables flooding into the state. He really had his work cut out for him.
Danny parked in the Centennial Bank lot, across Second Street, where he’d have a clear view of the restaurant. He saw a florist’s truck pull up (Colorado plates) and unload about half a jungle worth of tropical flowers. Must be some kind of party happening, he surmised. Then he watched Sally Alder take off at a trot, but didn’t follow her. He was waiting for Dickie to come out. Danny heard him loud and clear, hollering at the people inside that he’d see them tonight. Well then, thought Danny, I will, too.
The discussion about what to wear to the Yippie I O threw Sally into a frenzy. This was an event that surely called for a new dress, not an easy proposition in Laramie. She would have to go down to Fort Collins and hit the stores running, if she wanted to be back in time to clean up and get to the restaurant early, to do a sound check with the band. Hawk was out doing field work, as usual, so he’d said he’d meet her at the party.
The Mustang hummed happily up over the pass, and Sally had a hard time keeping her speed down. But she knew the Wyoming State Police were on the job, and she slowed down and savored the drive. So much had happened since she’d pulled into town last August, fiddling with the radio, listening to exhibition football. She smiled. The Broncos had even managed to win a Superbowl.
Her luck was holding—she found a slinky black dress at Banana Republic, a pair of shoes at Dillard’s, and had actually gone and gotten a garter belt and lace-topped stockings at Victoria’s Secret. Sally, of course, didn’t own a gun, much less a gunbelt. She would have to make up for it with other ammunition. She opened the windows and listened to the Allman Brothers all the way back, blasting Whippin’ Post so loud she scattered a dozen antelope grazing in a meadow by the road.
It was four-thirty by the time she got back; she was due at the restaurant at six-thirty. Plenty of time to get gorgeous. She showered in the beautiful green bathroom, painted her toenails pink while she waited for her hair to dry. The garter belt and stockings weren’t the most comfortable items of clothing she’d ever worn, but comfort wasn’t the effect she was goin
g for. Straight sex, she thought, slicking her hair back, clipping on the diamond tennis bracelet that had belonged to her mother.
It was 6:25 already; she was running a little behind, damn it. Sally hauled her guitar and amp out to the car and put them in the trunk. She went inside to get her purse, checked her lipstick in the hall mirror. As she was about to lock the front door, she felt something cold in the middle of her back. A voice she’d never heard, but that she knew wasn’t Ed McMahon coming to deliver the check, said, “Let’s go back inside for a while.”
“Sally’s never late for a gig,” said Dwayne Langham, tuning up his pedal steel. “I wonder if something’s wrong.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sam Branch told him, checking levels on the mikes. “She probably just has a run in her stocking or something.”
“Burt, where the fuck are the champagne glasses?” yelled Delice over Sam’s refrain of “testing testing, one two three.” She wasn’t actually wearing a gunbelt, but she looked dangerous enough without it.
“There are three racks of them on the back kitchen counter. John-Boy darling, did we remember seafood forks?” They were doing a selection of hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, and Burt wondered if they needed seafood forks for the coquilles St. Jacques.
John-Boy, a blur in sparkling chef’s whites, was doing ten things at once, but he took a moment to admire Burt. His partner was decked out in a yellow suede western-cut jacket, a white pleated tuxedo shirt, a bolo tie set with the biggest piece of turquoise north of Santa Fe, pressed Levi’s 501s, and red lizard cowboy boots. Wowser. “They’re just hors d’oeuvre portions, Burt. We can make do with cocktail picks. Now don’t bug me, baby, I’ve gotta finish off the pizza puttanesca.”
“I wonder where Sally is,” Dwayne repeated, moving over to tune his fiddle.
“Dwayne, can you come here a minute and help me with these goddamn champagne glasses? Everything has to be perfect in exactly twenty minutes, or somebody here is going to get taken out and shot!” Delice warned.
The first thing Danny Crease did when he got Sally Alder inside Meg Dunwoodie’s house was to slap her in the face so hard, her brain rattled. “You and I have a little business to do, Professor Alder. Let’s make it quick.” He slapped her again.
Sally staggered, fell back on the couch. Tears ran down her face. She didn’t recognize the man pointing a gun at her, but she had an idea who he was: the unclaimed Unknown Soldier. Still, she had to ask. “Who are you?” she cried. “What do you want?”
Danny sat next to her on the couch, gripping her arm and holding the barrel of his Beretta against her ear. “If you cooperate with me, right now, I won’t kill you.” Yet. “I want to know where the rest of Mac Dunwoodie’s Krugerrands are.” He didn’t much like touching a Jew. It made him feel dirty.
Sally looked at him in shock. “There aren’t any Krugerrands. Did Elroy Foote tell you there were?”
Danny hit her again, just for fun. He loved the way that little stream of blood was leaking out of the side of her mouth. He had to watch it, though. He needed her conscious for what he had in mind. “Meg Dunwoodie told him herself. Now where are they, before I change my mind and decide to kill you first and then have a look for myself.” He punched her hard in the ribs to make his point.
Sally was nearly hysterical from terror and pain, and the question put her over the top. She gagged and gasped, trying to get enough air to say something, or he would surely beat her to death. “I’m telling you. You can kill me and look all you want, but you won’t find what you’re looking for. I know that for a fact. Meg Dunwoodie sold every fucking Krugerrand her father left her, to your friend Elroy Foote. I’m telling you the truth. There’s not a damned thing in this house you’d want to steal.” A man like this, some recess of her brain whispered, would not want Meg’s poems, or Giselle’s paintings.
“Yeah,” said Danny, “Jews are famous for telling the truth, especially when it comes to money.” He looked around at the fancy furnishings, the crystal and the silver, but he wasn’t in the market for stuff it would be more trouble to fence than was worth his time. If she was lying, he didn’t have time to find out. His watch said 7:10—he needed to get her to the restaurant before somebody came looking for her. He could have shot her there, could have spent a little time looking around the house, and then gone to the party and killed Dickie. But somebody might come looking for Alder, and he had other plans for her. It was time to make a statement.
The Civic was still parked in the bank lot. He’d grab Dickie and take him out on the prairie for a chat before he let him die. Nobody would follow. Earlier in the day, Danny had left a small package by the alley door of the Yippie I O Cafe. The package contained an ordinary pipe bomb, fancied up with a little radio transmitter. The triggering device was in his pocket. He would press it at the moment that he took Dickie out the front door. The bomb would go off right next to the kitchen—no great loss. A couple less faggots and their friends to stink up the world.
“Get up, filth,” he told Sally, dragging her to her feet. “We’re going to a party. We’ll take your car,” Danny said, reaching in her purse for the keys.
When Steve Baca walked into the Yippie I O, Delice handed him a glass of champagne and gave him a very nice kiss. Their relationship had recently transcended the pizza oven. “You’re just in time. The lobster pizza puttanesca is almost ready.” Having given up the pretense of not owning the restaurant, Delice returned to the place by the cash register where she always felt most comfortable. She was frantically busy, but it occurred to her to wonder where Sally was.
Steve, meanwhile, made his way through the crush. The small bandstand was empty, the music planned for later. The place was packed with Laramie citizens slamming down wild mushroom pâté and Vietnamese spring rolls. Everyone had obviously arrived on time, to be there before the food ran out. Dickie Langham had one arm around his beautiful daughter Brit, and the other cradling a plate of high-end goodies large enough to feed Steve’s whole firehouse.
Steve saluted Dickie with his champagne, but the fire chief looked worried. It wasn’t the pizza oven, which he’d finally approved. Both Burt and John-Boy were standing near it, looking harried but happy and awaiting what Burt called “the pizza de resistance.” Steve was just a fireman in a crowded restaurant. The instinct for a spot check was too strong to resist.
One part of the kitchen, the part with the pizza oven, was out in the open, but the back kitchen, where the main ovens and preparation areas were, was in the back. Steve strolled back, found the temperature as hot as it always is in restaurant kitchens in full swing, but not alarming, and headed out the back door for a breath of cool air. Just as he was noticing the small package next to the door, he heard a commotion in the front room.
Sheriff Dickie Langham didn’t see Steve head toward the back. He was preoccupied with the very good food, with wondering what kind of maniac would latch onto Brit next, and with the thought that Sally Alder would never be late for an opening night. Except tonight, when everybody else in southern Wyoming had managed to be on time. Dickie observed that even Nattie, who always liked to make an entrance, was already present, ordering Jerry Jeff to get her a refill on champagne.
“They won’t give me champagne, Aunt Nattie,” Jerry Jeff protested, “I’m only twelve,” as his cousin Josh, two years older, snagged a bottle from the bar and dragged him off into a corner.
Hawk Green arrived a little late, still wet from the shower. He’d had a great day in the field, scouting prospects in the kimberlite pipes down on the state line, and he was looking forward to spending much of the summer there, showing his students how to look for industrialgrade diamonds. He doubted there would be gem-quality diamonds, but you never could tell. If the students found anything interesting, Hawk would probably have to cancel a trip to Alaska he’d planned for August.
The place was already packed. Hawk hadn’t managed to penetrate the crowd, but the food and drink had come to him. He was standing near the f
ront door, eating a tasty scallop thing served in a small seashell, and chatting with Edna McCaffrey and Tom Youngblood.
Hawk couldn’t imagine what had happened to Sally. As he knew, she was a flake in many ways, but Sally was always punctual. He didn’t have long to worry, however, as the Mustang turned the corner onto Ivinson and parked out front, in the no-parking zone.
But Sally wasn’t driving. There was someone with her. Hawk wondered what was wrong with her. She was all hunched over to one side, as if her ribs hurt. Her face was swollen and turning purple, one eye puffed up half-shut, the other wide in horror. Hawk’s Smith and Wesson was in the glove box of his truck. He put his plate on a table and started for the door.
But Hawk was a moment too late. Hustling, Danny Crease pushed Sally in the door of the Yippie I O Cafe, holding her in a hammer lock with the Beretta nestled up under her ear. “Nobody moves,” he shouted. The place was so crowded, it took a minute for people to quiet down. Dickie Langham took in the scene in a heartbeat and pushed people away from him. He’d worn a shoulder holster under his jacket. Couldn’t get to his gun, and wouldn’t dare anyway.
“Danny Crease,” said Dickie. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Remember when you used to be a coke dealer, Sheriff?” Danny screamed. A number of the people present gasped; a number of others remembered. “Remember how you were a thief as well as a drug pusher? It’s been fifteen years, Langham. You ran out the back door owing me twelve and a half grand, and you should have kept on running a little longer. But then again, nobody who cheats me ever runs long enough. I have a very good memory, and I’m here to collect every fucking penny you owe me.”
The crowd began to murmur, but Danny hollered, “Shut up!” and shoved the gun a little harder against Sally’s head. Everyone fell silent. Hawk stood perfectly still, watching and waiting. Beside him, his teammate from “Old, But Slow” was tensed like a spring.
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