A Cold Blooded Business

by Dana Stabenow

  “What do you do here, Kate Shugak?” Cindy’s voice did not startle her, as it seemed to coalesce out of the steam and heat to form a third presence in the room.

  “I work for the oil company, auntie,” Kate said, opening her eyes and turning her head lazily to look at the other woman. “Like you.”

  “No.” Wise old eyes looked back at her. Kate met them steadily. “You do not do the work I do. You do not do the work others do.”

  The steam appeared to have fogged up her reflexes. Kate didn’t even twitch. “No.”

  The other woman was silent for a moment. “There is danger.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “There is danger,” the older woman repeated, the flat certainty in her voice causing Kate a ripple of alarm.

  She frowned. “What do you know, auntie? What kind of danger? Who from?”

  The old woman rose to her feet, her brown skin gleaming in the dim light, and looked down at Kate gravely. “There is danger,” she said for the third time. “Take care.”

  The door closed behind her and Kate was left alone to contemplate the tongue-in-groove paneling on the walls.

  Quoth the raven, nevermore, she thought. And then she said it out loud. “Quoth the raven, nevermore.”

  It didn’t help as much as she thought it would.

  Nine

  SHE HAD DINNER THAT EVENING with Dale Triplett and Billy Bob Nielsen. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was playing in the Base Camp theater that night and Dale had half convinced Kate and Billy Bob to join her. “We’ll need some toast, though. I’ll have to ask Gideon.”

  “Toast?” Kate and Billy Bob exchanged puzzled glances.

  “And rice, of course, but I’m sure I can get some of that from Gideon, too. And toilet paper, and newspaper and a squirt bottle filled with water. What else? Oh, yeah, a lighter. You don’t smoke, do you?”

  “No,” Kate said, “and I think I’m busy this evening after all.”

  “You certainly are,” Toni said over her shoulder in a cheerful voice. “Or did you forget there’s a war on around the pinochle table? You have to give Sue and Warren a chance for revenge.”

  Kate twisted in her seat. “What revenge? I lost twenty bucks last night.”

  “Details, details,” Toni said airily, pulling Kate’s chair out and perforce bringing Kate to her feet. She slid a hand beneath Kate’s elbow and tugged. “Night all,” she told Dale, “and have fun doing the Time Warp again.”

  “Time Warp?” Billy Bob said apprehensively.

  In the lounge Kate sat down across from Toni while Warren dealt the cards, Sue keeping up a running speculation on the rumored rif. Toni ran the bid up to thirty-nine in spite of Kate’s anguished expression. Kate had nothing but tens and kings to pass her and Toni swore roundly and proceeded to run them firmly into the hole the first hand. “May I hold the back door open for you, ladies?” Warren inquired, and Sue snickered.

  Jerry showed up halfway through the second game, and at Toni’s request fetched a round of drinks for the table, coffee for Toni and Warren and juice for Sue and Kate. Kate looked up as he placed the glass in front of her, smiling her thanks. His returning smile didn’t reach his eyes. She opened her mouth to ask who died, but before she could get the words out Toni jumped in with a bid so outrageously at odds with what Kate had in her hand that she turned to remonstrate, and by the time she looked around again Jerry was walking away. “Hey, McIsaac, where you going?”

  “Can’t stay,” he said without looking around, “I’m on call tonight.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks for the juice. Thirsty work, being cheated out of a life’s wages.” She sipped her juice and studied her cards.

  In the middle of the third game she began to yawn, and by its end she could barely keep her eyes open. “Sorry, guys,” she mumbled, shoving herself to her feet. “I’m wasted. See you in the morning.”

  “Seven a.m. sharp,” Toni called. “Don’t forget we’ve got the House Interior Committee landing at eight.”

  Kate gave a vague wave and walked away. She’d never noticed before how much concentration it took to put one foot in front of the other.

  “Hey, Kate.” Dale’s voice seemed to echo down the hall. With a tremendous effort Kate turned. Dale’s blond hair was plastered wetly to her scalp. Kate squinted. It looked like it had little white worms in it. “What wrong with your hair?” she said. Her voice sounded thick and far away.

  Dale laughed and reached up to brush at it, dislodging what turned out to Kate’s immense relief to be grains of rice. Billy Bob was standing next to Dale, the same grains of rice in his hair and the same silly grin on his face. They were holding hands. “You’re holding hands,” Kate pointed out, in case they’d missed it.

  Dale blushed and Billy Bob gave Kate a valedictory squirt with his water bottle.

  For some reason Kate thought that was hilarious. She giggled, a very odd sound coming from her torn throat.

  “Kate?” Dale said, her blush fading. “Kate? Are you all right?”

  “I am perfect,” Kate said precisely, and continued her unsteady progress down the hall.

  “She’s bombed,” she heard Billy Bob say, and wondered who he was talking about.

  Her surroundings looked unfamiliar. She knew she was in the right building; she recognized the basketball court and of course there was no mistaking the sound of a dribbled ball. She altered course for the court, thinking she might find a worthy opponent for a game of one-on-one. A table leapt out in her path and hit her across the thighs. “Ouch,” she said in surprise.

  “Hey, Kate,” one of the players yelled. She refocused her eyes. It was Frank Jensen, the horny mechanic, and in automatic alarm she shifted her feet prefatory to making a shuffled escape. He came puffing and sweating off the court. “I went looking for my truck yesterday afternoon. Somebody said they saw you drive off in it.” He smiled but it was more of a leer. “Paybacks are hell. Better lock your door.”

  “Always,” she said, “always.”

  He watched as she headed toward the double doors leading to the corridor. The second time she careened off a wall, he gave a snort of disgust and returned to the court.

  It wasn’t Kate’s fault she kept running into things. The walls kept shifting position, trying to trick her and trip her up. She’d never before realized how malicious a wall could be. She turned into the corridor she prayed her room was located on and strained to read the number painted on the wall at the end of the hall.

  “One,” she said aloud. A wave of relief swept over her. It was definitely the number one, painted on the wall in bright red, a figure as tall as she was. There was no mistake. First floor. Shoes, scarves, ladies’ lingerie. She giggled again and shuffled forward. “One,” she said, counting doorways. “Two, three, four, five, six. Right. One step. Left. One step.” She peered at the number on the door. Maybe, maybe not. She opened it and went in. It took thirty seconds to decide which was the correct door, right or left. She made a wild guess and chose right.

  The wall switch was located after prolonged fumbling. There was a flight bag beneath the counter she might have used in a former life. She snapped the light back off and, without bothering to remove any clothes, tumbled onto the bed.

  Her eyes closed as if operated by weights but she retained a kind of around-the-edges consciousness. She’d never been so tired. She obviously wasn’t cut out for Slope work, all this to-ing and fro-ing between town and tundra was causing her to hallucinate. For example, she could swear she could hear her father laughing. Her eyes snapped open at the sound, but there was no one there.

  Or wait. In the corner, in the shadows? “Abel?” she said, her voice high, quavering.

  Not Abel, but her mother, no, her mother’s body as she had found her, cold and stiff, surrounded by snow, a thin film of frost over her skin, an October frost, a frost that killed.

  The room vanished, to be replaced by the summit of Big Bump and the world falling away from her feet. She fell, too, fell, fell, fe
ll, half flying, half gliding, to slide with no splash into the icy green waters of Prince William Sound. Down she dived, deeper and deeper, caught in something that bore her inexorably and ever downward. Wire cut her hands as she clawed for escape. “Please stop,” she sobbed, “please stop, please stop, please stop.”

  “Oh, God,” someone groaned, “I can’t do this, I really can’t do this.”

  “Shut up,” another voice hissed, “you want somebody to hear us?”

  Kate recognized those voices with immense relief. She opened her eyes and smiled at Jerry and Toni. They were real, they were solid. No ghosties, ghoulies or long-legged beasties or things that go bump in the night. She’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life. “Hey, guys. What’s going on?” Jerry started and let go her arm. She watched her body flop limply back on her bed and giggled.

  “Grab her,” Toni said, lips compressed. Jerry hesitated, his eyes huge and panicked. “Goddammit, I can’t do this all by myself, grab her arm!”

  Spurred by Toni’s ferocity, Jerry took hold of Kate’s left arm, pulled it across his shoulder and heaved. “Get the door,” Toni whispered. When Jerry shifted to do so Kate slipped back toward the bed. “Don’t let go of her you idiot!” Kate started to giggle again, the sound muffled when Toni clapped a hand over her mouth. Kate snorted and snot oozed out of her nose and onto Toni’s fingers. Toni cursed and Kate mumbled apologetically beneath her hand, “Sorry.”

  Jerry finally got the door open and they muscled Kate through it. Kate felt like she was back on the Avilda, the floor heaving beneath her feet, the walls slanting first one way and then another. She watched, quite detached, as Jerry tried to hold her up with one hand and with the other shove open the heavy metal fire door at the head of the emergency stairs. When his fingers caught in the crack he hissed a curse and stuck them in his mouth, removing Kate’s support for the second time and leaving Kate to go down for the third.

  Instead, Kate flung her free arm around Toni’s neck and hung on, smiling affectionately into Toni’s grim face. “I liked you right from the start,” she said muzzily. “You’re so smart, and you’re so funny.” Her face puckered, and she rested her forehead against Toni’s. “How come you had to go and ruin it?” A tear slid down her cheek.

  “Here,” Toni said, shoving Kate away roughly, “hold her. I’ll get the damn door.”

  “Whee!” Kate was in free-fall; Jerry barely had time to catch her. She thumped against his chest. “Jer ol’ buddy,” she said confidentially, “I feel kinda funny. In fact, I feel real funny.” She started to giggle again. “Real funny. I feel real funny and I need a real pill.”

  “Come on,” Toni whispered, beckoning, her back braced against the open door. Jerry got his hands underneath Kate’s arms and hauled her outside by main force. Toni let the door go too soon and it caught one of Jerry’s shoulders. He swore at her.

  “Don’t be mad at Toni,” Kate said imploringly. “She can’t help it if men come on to her. She’s a honey trap. Like Kathy the dispatcher. ‘Member?” She wrapped her arms around Jerry’s waist and snuggled into his chest. “Besides, Otto doesn’t stand a chance. You’re—” She craned her head back to look up. “You’re taller.”

  She let her head fall again and over it Jerry snarled, “Otto? You’ve been fucking Otto Leckerd? That square-headed rock picker who can’t be bothered to take a shower two days in a row?”

  “Oops.” Overwhelmed with guilt, Kate peeped at Toni. “I’m sorry, Toni,” she said in a tiny voice. “I thought Jerry knew.”

  “Never mind that now,” Toni said harshly. “Just get her down these goddam stairs and into the fucking truck.”

  “Oh, are we going for a ride?” Kate said, raising her head. “Oh, boy.” She gave Jerry a cheerful grin, and watched with a detached, almost critical interest as the two of them managed to maneuver her body down the metal stairs and into the passenger side of the truck idling at the foot of the stairs.

  Kate collapsed on the seat, narrowly missing the steering wheel with her head. “Whoops.” That sobered her mood of hilarity for a moment and she eyed the wheel from her prone position. It looked promising. Discovering hitherto unknown powers of locomotion, she levered herself into an upright position, grasped the wheel in one hand, by a miracle found the clutch and shifted into first. The truck jerked forward, catching Toni with one leg in and one leg out on the passenger side and Jerry in the act of opening the driver’s side door. Toni’s outraged shriek of pain almost but not quite drowned out Jerry’s yelp of alarm.

  The forward jerk caused Kate’s foot to slip off the clutch and the truck continued to jerk forward in abrupt movements. “Whoa”—jerk—“boy”—jerk—“whoa”—jerk —“now,” Kate said, and found the gas. The tires caught on a patch of glare ice and the truck spun into a brodie. “Whooppee!” Kate yelled, pulling the wheel and stepping on the gas. “Ride ’em, cowgirl! Belle ol’ buddy, if you could see me now!”

  The truck spun in dizzying circles. She caught a glimpse of Jerry, running next to the driver’s side door, his mouth open, his arms flapping. She spun the wheel in the other direction and just missed clipping Toni, legs pumping furiously in retreat. A stacked pile of drill pipe materialized in front of the truck; Kate swerved to avoid it only to scrape up against another pile of seven-inch production tubing.

  In the end, despite much earnest concentration, Kate was unable to find second gear, and stalled the truck on her sixth attempt. “Rats,” she said. Both doors were flung open and Toni and Jerry hurled themselves inside. Kate greeted them rapturously. “Whee! That was fun! Let’s do it again!”

  Toni yanked her from beneath the wheel and when Kate resisted, hit her in the face, hard.

  “Hey,” Jerry said, “there’s no need for that.”

  Kate’s face puckered again, and she stared at Toni accusingly, one hand nursing her bruised face. “Ouch. That hurt. What’d you have to do that for?”

  Toni hit her again, more savagely this time. Kate heard the popping sound of skin breaking and felt a warm wet substance seep down her cheek.

  “Toni, dammit, cut that out!”

  “We can kill her but we can’t hit her, is that it?” Toni said in a hard, cold voice unlike Kate had ever heard her use. “It’s not like we haven’t done it before, McIsaac.”

  “Done what before?” Kate inquired.

  “Shut the fuck up about that!” Jerry gripped the wheel tightly. “Look, she’s obviously under the influence and she’s behind the wheel of a vehicle. She damn near took out the entire Stores pipe yard. Why don’t we just call Security? She’ll be fired and off the Slope on the morning charter.”

  “No. She knows too much, about too many things. We stick to the plan. Just drive the goddam truck, okay?”

  “Okay,” Kate said brightly, expectantly. “Where we going?”

  They didn’t answer, and Kate passed out with her head on Toni’s shoulder as they drove down the Backbone into the dark arctic night.

  Rough hands woke her what could have been minutes or days or years later. Her mouth tasted like the inside of a litter box and her head felt roughly the size of Seattle. Something struck her shoulder hard enough to penetrate the fog and she gave a low cry of pain. “Shut up,” someone snarled, and pulled on her hurt arm. Her feet dragged over snow too quickly to get the soles down and in working order, and her shins banged into something sharp. “Ouch,” she said indignantly, and fought to raise her head and open her eyes.

  Toni on her right, Jerry on her left, they were dragging her up a flight of metal stairs. Her head fell back and she saw stars, and wondered for a moment if they were a product of her head wound.

  Head wound. How had she hurt her head? Why did she feel so cold? Why were Toni and Jerry dragging her up these stairs? Where did these stairs lead? “Where are we?” she tried to say, but her tongue was so swollen she couldn’t get the words out.

  A door opened and light streamed out into the night along with a wall of sound. Kate greeted it wit
h positive relief. Only one place on the noisy Slope was this noisy. “Skid 14,” she said, proud she could get the words out. “We’re at Number Three. How come?”

  The scream of natural gas at six hundred pounds psi drowned out her words, and she watched, brow furrowing, as Jerry and Toni dumped her limp body in one corner and stood erect to yell at each other. Again, Kate could hear nothing but the gas moving through the overhead pipes. She blinked, watching the argument with a sort of divine detachment. There was a problem here, she could acknowledge that much, but she wasn’t absolutely certain it was her problem, and she was willing to wait for further data before doing any serious theorizing.

  Jerry yelled again, his expression desperate. Kate, watching dispassionately, thought he might start to cry. Toni yelled back, her usually serene face twisted into such an ugly mask that even Kate in her disengaged state found it disturbing. Toni screamed out a final word, took Jerry in both hands and pushed. With the momentum of the shove he almost ran out the door, right past Kate, his face turned away from her. Kate watched Toni reach over a pipe and give a small valve two twists before following Jerry.

  The door closed behind them and Kate was left alone. “Me and Skid 14,” she said. “A match made in heaven.” The gas screamed overhead. Something clanked. Something else started a rapid knocking sound. Her eyes wandered until they encountered a sign, a sign she had seen before. “Caution,” it read, “SO2O4 may be present.” Or no, it read, “Caution! SO2O4 may be present!” Odd how much more urgent the message seemed when she added the exclamation points.

  An alarm went off somewhere. Kate turned her head to locate the source of the new noise and banged her head against the yellow plastic casing of a Scott Air Pak. “Ouch,” she said reproachfully. “Stop that.”

  Another alarm went off, a third, and lights began to flash. It triggered something in the back of Kate’s mind, sent a shot of adrenaline through her nervous system, woke Sleeping Beauty to a kiss of death. Automatically, without stopping to think of why or how, with swift, unfumbling movements as if she’d done it every day of her life instead of once during orientation, she opened the Scott Air Pak, pulled out the self-contained breathing apparatus and donned it.