The door burst open. “Oh!” The secretary flinched, as if she’d been struck by an unseen force. Her dark eyes flitted about the office, lighting for a half-second on the computer next to her desk, then on the closed door to the inner office. “Ms. Holden,” she said, a note of relief in her tone. “I didn’t realize you had an appointment.”
“I didn’t.” Vicky kept her own voice nonchalant. She turned to a page in the magazine, as if she’d been perusing an article. Her fingers were trembling. “I was hoping to catch Annette when she got back from lunch.”
The other woman swung her shoulder bag, walked over to the desk and sat down, dropping the bag on top. “Sorry,” she said. “Annette’s in a meeting with Lexson that will probably last all afternoon. I wouldn’t wait, if I were you.”
Vicky closed the magazine and got to her feet, conscious of the smile frozen on her face. “In that case, I’ll stop by tomorrow.” She tucked the magazine under her arm.
“You want me to pencil you in?”
Vicky was across the office now, still smiling. “It won’t be necessary,” she said, stepping into the corridor. She headed for the elevator and pressed the down button. A shiver ran through the floor as the elevator doors opened.
“Oh, Ms. Holden.”
Vicky swung around. The woman was crossing the corridor, hand outstretched. “I believe you have our magazine.”
“Oh, I just started an interesting article. You don’t mind if I borrow it, do you? I promise to return it,” Vicky said, stepping into the elevator.
“No, no. Of course not.” The secretary withdrew her hand and began moving backward. “I’ll tell Annette you want to see her,” she said, her voice muffled by the closing doors.
In the legal offices, the secretary was leaning over the desk, stuffing her bag into the lower drawer. “You must’ve gone for lunch after all,” she said, looking up.
Vicky nodded, hurried into her own office and closed the door. Then she lifted her briefcase onto the desk, slipped the magazine and papers into a pocket, and zippered it closed. She found her black bag in another drawer and, gripping the soft leather in one hand and her briefcase in the other, walked back into the reception room.
“If anyone wants to reach me,” she said to the woman behind the desk, “I’ll be at my office in Lander.”
THE SUN RODE overhead in a sky whitened by the heat. A dust-dry wind swirled through the Cherokee. Vicky drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding her hair back from her face. She was in a line of campers and SUVS with out-of-state licenses heading south on 287. Tourists, and most had no doubt gone to the casino, stayed in the hotel, eaten in the restaurants, fed coins into the slot machines, and lost at the tables. All of which was good for the rez, good for her people. Except that . . .
Even the brief glance through the names on the computer screen had confirmed her suspicions. She’d spotted the names of several people she doubted were qualified for management positions. And several others, she knew, were connected to Kingdom.
She was connected to Kingdom! She laughed into the wind. What did Captain Jack Monroe’s accusations matter? Vicky Holden, Arapaho attorney, was at the casino, which meant there couldn’t be anything illegal in hiring the chairman’s friends and relatives. What else would she be able to say, if she were asked, when she owed her own job to Kingdom? Unless one of the managers turned against the man, she would never be able to prove he’d done anything wrong.
Clever, she thought. The used-up rodeo rider was still as sharp as barbed wire. He’d made a deal with Lexson, she was sure of it, and the management jobs were his to hand out. But in exchange for what? What was the casino watchdog expected to overlook?
Vicky passed a camper, then settled back into the flow of traffic and tried to shake the unsteady feeling, as if she were walking a tightrope that bucked and swayed in the wind. She could have gotten it all wrong. It wouldn’t have been the first time that she’d struck out with some theory that had gotten hold of her and refused to let go. Even if Kingdom had conducted the investigation into Lodestar Enterprises, the lawyers in Cheyenne hadn’t found anything improper. And the Business Council had approved the company. Even the state of Wyoming had approved.
Vicky slowed into Lander and took the side streets to her office. Esther glanced up from the half-sandwich and potato chips spread over the brown paper bag on her desk. “Didn’t expect you in today,” she said.
“Hold my calls.” Vicky waved the briefcase. “I’ll be working here this afternoon.”
She closed the doors to her own office, settled at the desk, and plucked a card from the Rolodex. Then she dialed the Secretary of State’s Office in Cheyenne and asked for Myrna Hancock. She was put on hold, a mechanical voice describing the advantages of Wyoming.
She could still see Myrna Hancock, the tall, angular woman with black hair, long and parted in the middle, who’d walked into contracts class the third semester in law school. Another Indian. Vicky had felt almost faint with relief. They’d become friends right away, she and Myrna, an Arapaho and a Lakota making their way in the outside world, like two fish swimming upriver.
“Myrna Hancock here.” There was a business-as-usual tone in the woman’s voice. Vicky smiled at the flash of memory: she and Myrna giggling in the law library, too exhausted and scared to stop.
“It’s me, Vicky,” she said.
“How are you?” The old Myrna was on the line now. “Everything okay?”
“Fine, I hope.” Vicky stopped herself from plunging into the reason for the call. The pleasantries had to be observed. After a couple of minutes, she said, “I’m doing some contract work for Great Plains Casino. Can you get me some information on the management company, Lodestar Enterprises?”
A long whistle came over the line. “We must have a hundred documents. State wasn’t happy about the Arapahos getting a casino, you know. What exactly do you need?”
“Corporate history,” Vicky said. She was fishing. “Anything you have on Stan Lexson and the other principals.”
“Hold on.” The line went blank again. After a moment, Myrna was back. “It’s going to take a while to pull the files. What’s going on, Vicky?”
“I’m not sure.” Vicky drew in a long breath. Whatever Kingdom had learned about Lodestar Enterprises, he’d used to get control of jobs that he could hand out, like some chief in the Old Time, decreeing who could pitch their tipis near the stream, who could graze their ponies in the best grass. Kingdom had made himself an important man.
“I’ll have to get back to you, but . . .” The voice on the other end broke off for a half-beat. “If anything’s going on the state ought to know about, you’ll keep us informed, right?”
Vicky closed her eyes. Her stomach muscles clinched. If there was any illegality, the state would ask the federal court to close the casino. The jobs, the tribal income would all disappear, and she would be responsible.
“Right,” she heard herself saying.
22
A COLLECTION OF trucks and rust-patched sedans stood in front of Eagle Hall. Through the opened door, Father John could see the knots of people seated on the folding chairs scattered about the floor. A woman stood in front, the high, tinny sound of her voice drifted out into the evening.
Father John continued down the alley to the guest house sheltered among the cottonwoods and the tall grasses, like the dwelling in a village in the Old Time. The house wasn’t much larger than a garage, with white siding, a gray peaked roof, and oblong windows with lacy curtains in front. He stepped onto the cement stoop and rapped on the door.
It was a minute before the door creaked open and Lela Running Bull peered around the edge. She had a vacant stare, a disheveled look, as if she’d been sleeping. Father John hadn’t seen her since he’d left her at the guest house this afternoon with some apples, cans of soda, and crackers that he’d found in the kitchen in the residence. Dinner was at six, he’d told her. When the girl didn’t appear, Catherine had taken
a bowl of stew to the guest house.
“Wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he said.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Did you call your aunt Mary?”
Lela feinted a glance at a watch that hung over the bruise on her wrist. “She don’t get home from work for a while.”
“Would you like me to call your father?” He knew the answer even before the girl started shaking her head. She’d told him earlier that her father was drunk, so what was the use? Besides, the house would be the first place Tommy would look for her. So she’d just stay at the mission for a while, if that was okay. He’d said she could stay as long as she liked. The police had a warrant for Tommy’s arrest. It wouldn’t be long before the man was looking at more serious problems than a runaway girlfriend.
He told her to lock the door and get a good night’s sleep. Then he headed back to Eagle Hall, the sound of the door shutting behind him punctuating the click of his boots in the gravel.
He slipped through the opened door and took the nearest vacant chair. The air was close, suffused with perspiration, stale cigarettes, and shame. He counted nine people: five women, four men. Except for two men he didn’t recognize, they were his parishioners. He knew where they sat at Sunday Mass—second pew, third seat; fifth pew, center; and Abe Lewis, always in the last pew.
Julia Walker, thirty years old, mother of five, was finishing her story at the front. No gambling last week, she said, raising a fist into the air. There was a flurry of applause as she threaded her way around the chairs and sat down.
Another woman lumbered to her feet and faced the group. Lucy Cutter, also in her thirties, small and pretty, despite the deep lines of worry cut into her brow.
“My name is Lucy,” she said, holding the floor with her eyes. There was a soft vulnerability in her voice. “I’m a gambling addict.”
Several people thrust their heads forward, giving the woman their full attention. There was no need for the pretense of anonymity, he was thinking. Everyone here knew everyone else. They could probably tell one another’s stories. Or was it that all the stories sounded alike? He used to think his own story at AA meetings was unique. How the thirst would overtake him, almost knock him to his knees when he least expected it. Then he’d heard the other stories and realized they were the same. The thirst was insidious and powerful and universal.
He tried to catch up with what Lucy Cutter was saying: She’d started going to the bingo hall seven years ago; she’d been lucky, got good cards; always won the blackouts. Then somebody at bingo said, “You want some real action?”
She started going to the gambling house in Arapaho. She was shocked. She’d driven by the house a thousand times and had no idea there were craps, poker, and roulette going on day and night. You could show up any time and get action. She’d seen piles of bills won and lost on the throw of the dice.
“God, it was exciting,” she said, her voice still low, and hollowed out, as if all the excitement she’d once felt had been drained away. “I felt like I could do anything. I doubled my bets ’cause I was a winner. Then I started losing, and I had to keep doubling so I could win back what I lost. Truth was, it was the rush that kept me goin’. I wanted the rush.”
Heads nodded. People looked around, caught one another’s eyes a moment. It wasn’t the rush he’d looked for in whiskey, Father John was thinking. It was the plug to stop up the loneliness and the courage to live the life he’d chosen.
“Trouble was,” the woman was saying, “I had to borrow money to pay off the debt. I borrowed from my mom and sister, ’til they told me ‘no more.’ Then I started borrowing from a couple guys at the house.”
She stopped. For the first time, she lifted her eyes and gazed out across the hall, as if she were watching an invisible movie starring people she used to know. “One night at the house, they said, ‘Where’s our money, Lucy?’ ”
She flinched, her gaze still fastened on the rear wall. “They took me out back. It was real cold, and the snow was coming down, and they started hitting me, and then, you know, they threw me on the ground in the snow and they . . .” Her voice trailed off into not much more than a whisper. “They kept doing it for a long time. Afterward, I was throwing up, I remember, in the snow and mud.”
Father John walked to the front and put his arm around the woman’s shoulder. The experience seemed to cling to her like static. “You’re safe here, Lucy,” he said.
She was shuddering. “It was five years ago. I quit cold turkey after that. It was hard.”
“I know,” he said. He’d quit cold turkey—how many times?—before he’d gone into treatment at Grace House.
“I was doing real good ’til the casino opened up.”
“We’ve all backslid.”
“I don’t wanna borrow no more money, so I said to myself, Lucy, you just gotta quit. It’s been three weeks now.”
Someone started clapping, then others joined in. There was a scraping noise as chairs were pushed back on the vinyl floor and people got to their feet, clapping harder. Father John led the woman back to her chair.
It was then that he noticed Leonard Bizzel standing next to the door. Nodding. Nodding. His eyes following Henry Yellowhair to the front.
Father John took his own chair and made himself keep his eyes on Henry. I’m a gambler. I love to gamble. Leonard was a private man, Father John was thinking. He never talked about any problems. He had never mentioned gambling.
And yet, Catherine had said that they could use some extra money.
There was another burst of applause, and Father John realized that Henry had sat down and a woman was making her way to the front. He glanced at the door. Leonard was gone.
Father John got up and went outside. In the yellow glow of the overhead lamps, he spotted the caretaker heading toward the truck on the far side of the alley.
“Leonard!” he called, hurrying after him.
The caretaker swung around, then started backing toward the truck. “How’s it going, Father?”
“I saw you at the meeting.” Father John caught up to the man. “My office is always open if you ever want to come in and talk.”
“Nah, nah.” Waves of shadows crossed the caretaker’s face. “I just come in to see how many people was there, case we needed extra chairs.”
“Is that right?” The man was lying, Father John knew. He’d counseled hundreds of people, heard a thousand confessions. He could almost taste the lie. “Anything you and I talk about, Leonard, is confidential.”
“Hey, Father.” The man clasped his arm. “Don’t you worry none about me. I got things under control, you hear? Next week I’ll move some chairs outta the hall over to Father George’s office. He’s got a good crowd for the convert class.”
“Remember what I said.”
The caretaker flung open the door and slid inside. “See you tomorrow, Father.”
FATHER JOHN FOUND his assistant in the kitchen sipping at a mug of coffee and studying the newspaper flattened on the table.
“How’d the gamblers do tonight?” The other priest didn’t look up.
Father John poured himself some coffee and took a sip. “They’re going to be okay.” He hoped that was true. “How about the converts?”
“Eight tonight.” Father George turned the page and smoothed it against the others. “Four women and four men, willing to make a nine-month commitment to study Catholicism. Two thousand years of theology and history rolled into nine months.”
Father John smiled. He usually taught the convert classes, but they’d flipped a coin, he and George, and he’d gotten the gamblers. It was where he belonged, he guessed.
“Oh, by the way.” The other priest shifted and looked up at him. “Herb Straighter called this afternoon.”
“Who?”
“President of the bank. Says he found the discrepancy in our deposits.”
This was good news. Father John took a long draft of coffee. George could pay the bills tomorrow.
; “Wants to talk to you.”
“I’ll give him a call in the morning.”
The other priest shook his head. “He said you’d better come to the bank.”
23
THE BANK LOBBY was suffused in a chilly quiet broken by the tap of footsteps on the marble floor and the sound of a phone ringing behind one of the glass-walled cubicles on the left. Across from the cubicles, four or five people were lined up in front of the tellers. Father John stopped at the counter across from a young woman who gave him a sideways glance, then went back to thumbing through a sheaf of papers. She was pretty—tall and willowy with shoulder-length blond hair and long, red nails at the tips of slim fingers, and he had the sense that she was used to men watching her.
“Help you?” She lifted her eyes.
“Father O’Malley to see Herb Straighter.”
“Oh, Father!” A faint blush rose in her pale cheeks, the red nails tapped at the papers. “Herb’s waiting in his office.” She tossed her blond head toward the door.
Father John made his way across the lobby, past the tellers’ line. Through the glass walls of the last cubicle, he could see the muscular man with a large head, gray hair combed across the pate, and half-moon glasses perched on his nose. He leaned back in his chair, holding the phone to his ear.
“I’ll have to get back to you later,” the bank president said into the mouthpiece. He waved Father John into the cubicle.
“I understand you’ve located our missing deposits.” Father John sat down in a chrome-framed chair, took off his cowboy hat, and hung it over one knee.
“A simple misunderstanding.” Straighter dropped the receiver into the cradle and began rummaging through a drawer. He pulled out a file folder, spread it open on the desk, and pushed the glasses into the small of his nose. Peering down, he said, “I have the printouts here of the deposit records this month. Three separate deposits, twenty-two checks, totaling three thousand, six hundred fifty dollars.”
Killing Raven (A Wind River Reservation Myste) Page 16