by Thomas King
“Sounds rare.”
“Extremely,” said Boomper. “About ten thousand per carat. Red diamonds are ten times that price, but most red diamonds are small, less than half a carat, though in 2007 Sotheby’s did sell a 2.26 carat red diamond for 2.7 million.”
Cruz cleared his throat.
“But I do rattle on.” Boomper rolled his shoulders. “Gemstones are a hobby of mine.”
“Should I call ahead to say we’ll be late?” said Cruz.
Boomper waved him off. “Mr. DreadfulWater is a patient soul, but I believe we have worn him out.”
“Nope,” said Thumps. “If I ever need a red beryl ring, I’ll know just where to go.”
Cruz opened the door and Boomper slid in.
“You think about my offer,” Austin said. “No reason we can’t do business.”
Cruz walked around to the driver’s side. The bulge in his jacket was noticeable.
“Big gun.” Thumps pointed with his lips. “Shoulder sling. Combat boots. There a war somewhere?”
On the side of Cruz’s neck, near his jaw, was a nasty-looking scar, as though the skin had been burned or ripped apart.
Cruz’s face was impassive. “What are you, vato, a fashion consultant?”
“So you’re the bodyguard?”
Cruz let his arms hang loosely at his side. “I’m whatever Mr. Austin needs me to be,” he said. “Today I’m the driver.”
“And tomorrow?”
THUMPS WATCHED THE Cadillac disappear down the street. Boomper Austin was a man who was disturbingly sure of himself. That kind of confidence might come from talent and skill, but in Thumps’s experience, it more often came from money and the power that money could buy.
Boomper hadn’t said what he wanted from Thumps, but the man hadn’t come all the way to Chinook to pass out expensive photographs. And he hadn’t come to town simply to attend a regional conference on water.
Freeway and Pops were no longer on the porch. They had disappeared. Maybe the cat was showing the dog around the neighbourhood, or maybe, as with people, the relationship hadn’t survived the initial rush. Maybe the dog had quickly tired of the cat’s surly nature, or perhaps Freeway had jumped into a BMW and run off with a Blackfeet lawyer from Missoula.
Twelve
It was after eleven when Thumps got to the café. Wutty Youngbeaver and Jimmy Monroe were hunkered down on the far stools. Al was standing by the grill, singing to herself about a Holiday Inn full of surgeons.
“You just missed your little buddy,” she sang out. “Flew in here like a crow with its tail on fire. Said to tell you to forget about the Aegean. You’re to meet him at the Tucker.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Room 424.”
“Archie has a room at the Tucker?”
“Has a girlfriend as well,” said Al. “Brunette. Pretty, if you like hard thighs and pointy faces.”
“What I’d like is breakfast.”
Al tapped her watch. “Just turned the grill up for lunch. How about I grill you a nice piece of chicken with sliced cucumbers.”
Thumps closed his eyes and slumped forward onto the counter. The fatigue was back. Out of nowhere.
Al slid a cup of coffee next to his head. “All right,” she said, “if you promise not to die on me, I’ll make you breakfast.”
“With hash browns, tomatoes, and salsa?”
“Jesus,” said Al, “who was your mother last week?”
“You were.” Thumps laid his head on his arms. He could smell the coffee. Now if he could find a straw. The bendy kind. It might even be possible to eat without having to change position. He could drag the food off the plate with a fork and catch it with his tongue before it hit the counter.
“Don’t you want to know about Archie’s new girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Asked me to make her a frappé,” said Al.
“You don’t make frappés.”
“Nothing to it,” said Al. “Coffee, couple of ice cubes, a little Reddi-wip on top.”
“You own a can of Reddi-wip?”
“Fred Gamble liked to use it on his waffles,” said Al. “I keep a can in the fridge just for him.”
Thumps had to think about that for a moment. “Fred’s dead.”
“That he is.”
“He’s been dead, what, three years?”
“More like four,” said Al. “Good news is the stuff keeps forever. Figure there’s enough left in the can for another dozen frappés.”
Thumps tried to imagine Archie with a woman. It wasn’t impossible. But where had the man found the time? Archie had barely enough space in his life for himself.
“I made one for Wutty,” said Al. “He said it was ‘quite cosmopolitan.’”
Thumps looked down the counter. Jimmy was showing Wutty something in the newspaper, and Wutty was shaking his head.
Thumps lowered his voice. “Wutty said ‘cosmopolitan’?”
“‘Quite cosmopolitan,’” said Al. “His wife says he’s been having a good time with the thesaurus function on her computer.”
“Hey, Thumps,” shouted Wutty. “Your hippie pal is in the papers again.”
“Water,” said Jimmy. “He wants to save the water.”
“Maybe we should start shooting whales,” said Wutty, “seeing as how they are prone to defecating in the ocean.”
Thumps forced a grin to let both men know that he thought they were funny as hell. Then he turned back to Al.
“You sure she was a girlfriend?”
“Sure as hell wasn’t his daughter.”
“Where’d Archie find a girlfriend?”
Al shrugged. “How would I know? Maybe he found her on one of those online dating services.”
“Archie?”
“Lot of people using those things.” Al refilled Thumps’s cup and angled her head toward the end of the counter. “Jimmy gave it a try a couple of months back.”
“You’re kidding.”
“World’s a big place. Got to be one or two women who go for short, fat guys with hair all over their bodies.” Al waved the coffee pot at the two men. “Hey, Jimmy,” she said. “Whatever happened with that dating service?”
“Bunch of lesbians.” Jimmy scowled.
“Mr. Monroe don’t need no dating service,” said Wutty. “He is beset with opportunities.”
Al shrugged. “I guess it’s true what they say about a little knowledge.”
Thumps watched the steam rise off the pile of hash browns cooking on the grill. The smell of bacon floated in the air along with onions and warm toast. Thumps wondered if just the smell of food had rejuvenating properties.
“You should consider giving one of those sites a try,” said Al, “seeing as Claire has that new boyfriend.”
“How about I consider breakfast.”
“I could sign you up,” said Al. “Successful photographer. Exotic ethnicity. Slightly overweight. Somewhat depressive. Possible health problems. Fixer-upper with potential.”
“Fixer-upper?”
“There’s lots of women who like fixer-uppers.”
“There’s a man who would like breakfast,” said Thumps. “Please.”
“Suit yourself,” said Al, “but I wouldn’t wait too long. Fixer-uppers don’t have near the same shelf life as Reddi-wip.”
BY THE TIME the food arrived, Thumps discovered that his energy wasn’t the only thing missing in action. As he looked at the plate, he realized that his appetite was gone as well.
“That’s him.”
Thumps looked up to see the sheriff coming in the door with a younger man in tow.
“Right now he’s out of sorts,” said Hockney, waving a thick finger in his direction. “So you might find him a bit cranky.”
The man slid past Duke, which was no mean feat in the narrow confines of the café, especially with the sheriff standing in the way like a landslide.
“Oliver Parrish.” The man was in his early forties, blond, with the bod
y of a runner, slim and lithe. Crystal blue eyes and a ready smile that felt as though it was connected to a switch that he could turn on whenever he wanted.
“Ollie here is from Sacramento,” said the sheriff. “Flew in this morning from Great Falls.”
“It’s Oliver,” said Parrish, keeping his hands at his sides. “Sheriff tells me that you’re heading up the investigation into James Lester’s death.”
All the visuals said West Coast. Green wire-rim designer glasses, cotton pants, print shirt, casual jacket.
“Sheriff’s mistaken.” Thumps squirted a glob of ketchup next to the hash browns. “I’m a photographer.”
Parrish blinked. “A photographer?”
Duke slapped Parrish on the shoulder and sat down on a stool. “Once you get to know old Thumps here,” he said, “you’ll appreciate his keen sense of humour.”
Al came by with the pot. “You two want coffee?”
“You bet,” said the sheriff.
“I’ll have an espresso,” said Parrish.
Al looked at Thumps and then at Duke to see which one of them was responsible for bringing Parrish into her café.
“He’s with the sheriff,” said Thumps quickly.
“And a biscotti?”
First impressions suggested that Thumps wasn’t going to like Parrish all that much. Everything about the man seemed quick, his eyes, his voice, the way he moved.
Al put a cup on the counter, slowly filled it to the rim with black coffee, and set a packet of saltine crackers next to the saucer. “That look about right?”
“Yes,” said Parrish, without the hint of a smile. “That’s exactly what I had in mind.”
Thumps had to give the man credit. He might look like a weasel with a good haircut, but he was a quick learner.
“Ollie here is the chief of something or other,” said Duke.
“Oliver here is the chief operating officer of Orion Technologies,” said Parrish. “And it’s Parrish with two rs.”
Thumps’s eggs were losing their buttery gloss, and the grease on the potatoes was beginning to cool. Parrish was sharper than Thumps had imagined, and, under different circumstances, he might have found the man amusing.
“Orion Technologies?”
“The very same.” The sheriff pushed off the stool. “Ollie and me are going to mosey over to my office and have a little chit-chat. When you’re done stuffing your face, why don’t you join us.”
“Why would I do that?”
Hockney set his hat on his head and cocked the brim to one side. “You going to eat that piece of toast?”
AL WAITED UNTIL the sheriff and Parrish had left before she returned with the coffee pot. “So who the hell wears green glasses with a Hawaiian shirt and a sports coat?”
“California chic.” Thumps tested the eggs.
“Well, aren’t we the fashion consultant.” Al patted her hip. “Any wisdom on the gun?”
Thumps looked up from his food. How had he missed that?
“Right side. Little sucker. I figure he did it.”
“Did what?”
“The guy at the Wagon Wheel. The woman out by the test wells.” Al pursed her lips together. “Mr. Fancy Specs is your man.”
Thumps sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“Chinook’s a tight town,” said Al. “We take our bodies seriously.”
“So Archie knows.”
Al nodded. “Wasn’t real happy, you forgetting to share.”
“Not my job.”
The eggs were cold now, the hash browns dry. He had hardly eaten anything, yet he wasn’t particularly hungry. Maybe he’d just sit in the café for the rest of the day. Now that he thought about it, there were worse ways to spend his time.
“Archie,” Al reminded him. “Room 424. You don’t show up, you know what he’ll do.”
Thumps leaned back on the stool and took a deep breath. “He’ll come looking for me.”
“And when you get there,” said Al, “check out the femme fatale. If Fancy Specs didn’t kill ’em, the smart money’s on her.”
Thirteen
In another month, when you could trust the weather, the Tucker would be knee-deep in tourists, camera bags, and guidebooks. Now the lobby was empty and quiet, as though the hotel hadn’t yet crawled out of hibernation.
Thumps went straight to the house phones.
“Welcome to the Tucker,” said a pleasant voice, “your home in the West. How may I direct your call?”
“Archie Kousoulas’s room.”
The Tucker was the class hotel in Chinook, what folks in places such as San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, and Calgary would call a boutique hotel. It had opened in 1876, the same year that George Armstrong Custer rode into the Little Bighorn Valley and did not ride out.
“Excellent. Could you spell that?”
Thumps did.
“I’m sorry,” said the voice, “we have no one of that name registered at the Tucker.”
After the First World War, the hotel fell on hard times and the building was turned into a hospital and then a general store. In the 1940s, it was used as a community theatre, a library, a roller-skating rink, and a movie house for art films.
It took Thumps a moment to remember. “Room 424. He’s in room 424.”
“I’m sorry,” said the woman, “but we don’t have a Kousoulas in that room.”
Archie could certainly afford a room at the Tucker, but there was no good reason why he would spend the money. The man had a perfectly fine house. A hotel, a public building in the middle of town, seemed an odd choice for an assignation.
“Actually, it’s Mr. Kousoulas’s friend,” said Thumps. “The room will be under his friend’s name.”
“And the friend’s name?”
THUMPS RODE THE ELEVATOR with an older couple from southern California who were looking at vacation properties in Glory and Red Tail Lake. The elevator was slow, and for three floors, he listened as they chatted away about the proper ratio of bathrooms to bedrooms and whether a two-car garage was a manageable compromise. By the time they reached the fourth floor, Thumps felt as though he had just lived through an episode of House Hunters International.
Room 424 was at the end of the hall. The brass plate on the door said, “Charles Russell Suite.” Thumps knocked and tried to imagine what he would say if an “assignation” opened the door.
Assignation.
The word made him smile. He’d have to find other occasions to use it.
“You must be DreadfulWater.”
Al was right. The woman standing in the doorway was not Archie’s daughter. Archie was short and wiry and beyond middle age. This woman was tall and muscular, early thirties. Whoever she was, she didn’t spend her free time in front of a television.
“You want something to eat? There’s a fruit plate. Chardonnay, if you’re so inclined.”
Two empty wineglasses stood next to a tall amber bottle with a gold label.
“Signorello, 2011,” said the woman. “A good vintage. Help yourself.”
Thumps couldn’t see the labels on her clothing, but he was sure that the designers didn’t live in North America. A pair of shimmering coffee-coloured slacks and a soft yellow silk blouse. Her hair was dark mahogany and cut shorter than the current fashions.
“Archie here?”
“Somewhere,” said the woman, “but we can start without him.”
Thumps tried to remember the French word for three people in a house. A phrase with sexual overtones. Something more potent than “assignation.” He could feel his mouth begin to dry out.
“Maybe I should come back later.”
The woman sat down on the sofa and crossed her legs. The coffee slacks tightened around her thighs. “Archie won’t mind.”
“What won’t Archie mind?”
Archie came out of a room. He was fully clothed.
“Mr. DreadfulWater thinks we’re lovers.” The woman had a low voice with soft edges. “He thought I was suggesting a . .
. ménage à trois.”
“That’s disgusting.” Archie tapped a finger on Thumps’s chest. “This is what happens when you listen to gossip.”
“You’re the one who told Al she was your girlfriend.”
“And what if she is my girlfriend?”
“This is my fault,” said the woman. “I thought a cover story would be a good idea. Stay under the radar. But I had forgotten about small towns and rumours.”
“So, you’re not Archie’s girlfriend.”
“Jayme Redding. Jay, for short.”
“But she could be,” said Archie.
Thumps had stayed in hotels and motels when he had been a cop, and he had found them all much the same. Bed, bathroom, television. Sometimes there was a small refrigerator, sometimes there wasn’t. He had never stayed in a suite, but as he looked around the large, well-lit room, he imagined that this was how a suite might look.
“Is there a separate bedroom?”
Archie frowned. “Why do you want to know about the bedrooms?”
“There’s more than one?”
Redding came off the couch. “Why don’t you get Mr. DreadfulWater a beer from the kitchen.”
“He’s on duty,” said Archie.
“There’s a kitchen?”
“I’m an investigative reporter. Sacramento Herald.” Redding set a tablet on the table and turned it so Thumps could see the screen. “This is one of mine.”
The banner headline was in bold caps. “Kanji Killer.” There was a photograph of one Brian English. Single. White male. Thirty-seven. Clerical job at a large insurance company. He looked ordinary. And happy.
“Kanji Killer?”
Jay grimaced. “English thought it would be cute to mark his victims with a Chinese number. Three dead women before they caught him. One, two, three. You get the idea.”
At the bottom of the story was a byline.
Thumps looked up. “So you’re . . . Jonathan Green?”
“No,” said Redding. “Jonathan Green is my editor’s son. Green Senior. Green Junior. Get the picture?”
“Ah.”
“Most of the evidence the police had was circumstantial. One woman worked in the same building as English. The other one worked at a Starbucks where English got his coffee.”