by Gorman, Ed
She was playing something country and western when I knocked and she didn't bother to turn it down when she came to open the door.
She was short and dumpy in a loose, dirty housecoat. A cigarette burned in the same hand that held a can of generic supermarket beer. You could see she'd been pretty once, just like the house she lived in.
"You Payne?"
"Right."
"Tole you this was a pit."
"It's fine."
She laughed with great harsh self-loathing. "Yeah, a real fucking palace, isn't it?"
I walked in and sat down in a bean-bag chair that gave me a good look at the two rooms where she did most of her living.
The front room was depressing enough, with its sprung worn couch, two garish orange bean-bag chairs and black velvet painting of a brave Indian warrior who looked as if he'd spent some time in Las Vegas, but the dining room was even worse. All it contained was a collection of cardboard boxes piled haphazardly wall-to-wall. A skinny calico kitten sat on top of the boxes watching me. She was one of the very few kittens I'd ever seen who looked unhappy.
"I'm moving in a couple of weeks," Patricia Moore explained as she plopped herself down on the couch across from me.
The only light came from a small table with a buff blue shade that had several stains on it.
This place made Gilhooley's look like a cover subject for the next Good Housekeeping.
"I'm moving, that's why the mess. I mean, I'm a slob but not that much of one." She hit on her beer and then smiled. "I'm gonna do exactly what my mama always told me not to do."
"What's that?"
"Rodeo. Lot of Indian girls dream of that. They see all these sexy Indian guys ridin' broncs at rodeos and fall in love with 'em. First time I ran away with a rodeo guy I was fourteen."
"I'll bet that didn't make your mother too happy."
"Are you kidding? She done a lot worse things than that when she was young. I mean, I loved her and all but I didn't have no illusions about her." Sad smile. "Plus, her and my Aunt Karen, they got all the looks." Shook her head. "Fucking Rhodes, anyway. He killed them both."
She started crying. No warning. Full, angry tears. "And then that bastard goes and cuts off their noses, too."
"Why would he do that?"
She looked up, enraged. "If you've come here to defend him, mister, you can sashay your ass right out my door."
"I'm not defending him. I just want to know why he would have killed them."
"Because they had somethin' on him, Mom and Aunt Karen did, and he was afraid they'd tell somebody." Then, "You mind if I turn on the TV?"
"It's your place"
"I just feel better when the TV's on. I can't explain it, I just do."
She punched the button on the remote control; a color image of a country and western singer filled the screen. She put her head back momentarily, closed her eyes, listened.
"Patty?"
"Uh-huh."
"Why would he want to kill them?"
She was pretty drunk. Her eyes were still closed.
"I used to have a boyfriend named Running Fox," she murmured, without moving. "When we was in high school, he asked me to marry him — and you know what I did?"
"What?"
"Run off with a rodeo rider again."
"And that finished you with Running Fox?"
"Uh-huh. He wasn't even pissed. He was just real, real hurt and I felt like shit about it but no matter what I did, he wouldn't take me back. You know what he's doin' today?"
"Huh-uh."
"He's a doctor. Surgeon."
I wasn't sure what to say.
"I seen his wife once."
"Running Fox's?"
"Uh-huh."
"Nice-looking?"
"Gorgeous."
She brought her face down and stared at me. "My mom and David . . ."
"Yeah?"
"I don't know why they hated each other so much, but they really did. I seen him throw her up against the wall one night and slap her. I thought he was gonna kill her."
"This was where?"
"Right here. This apartment."
"But you don't know what it was about?"
She shook her head. "She wouldn't tell me and he wouldn't either. This state should have the death penalty."
"A lot of people seem to think so."
"Somebody should kill that bastard."
Her reverie had given her thoughts and voice a temporary clarity but now she was sliding back into the bottle. And she was also getting groggy.
"I appreciate your time."
I wasn't going to learn anything else here tonight. I stood up.
"I used to sleep with David. While he was still living with Cindy, I mean. You mention my name to her and she'll tell you I'm just some rummy old whore."
David certainly got around.
"I wasn't good enough for him, though, you know that? He'd never take me any place in public. He was ashamed of me except when he was drunk and he'd sneak up here. I always wanted to tell Cindy, just to watch her face."
"Well," I said, wanting to leave, "good luck with your move."
Then she surprised me. Her head fell against the back of the chair again. This time she was snoring.
Chapter 18
10:00 P.M.
There was a hard wind whipping up silty silver dust outside the police station. Clouds covered the moon and you could taste rain on the chilling air.
Not that the posse was deterred. That's how they thought of themselves, I'm sure. A posse right out of a pulp magazine where a guy with a flinty face and a white hat pumps bullets into a guy with a grizzled face and a black hat.
Three pick-up trucks, each with a shotgun rack in the back, and the radio tuned to a right-wing radio show.
The buildings on Main Street were all dark except for the furious light and noise of the two taverns — one neon Bud, one neon Coors — sitting like bookends on either end of the street. Down a few doors, two stone lions and two stone gargoyles decorating the front of the tiny Carnegie-grant library sat watching us all with a kind of weary contempt. Generations of human folly had been played out before them.
During the first day, yesterday, the Highway Patrol had lent a helicopter, and several other small town police departments had lent officers. But now it was back to business so Chief Gibbs had to use some locals.
By the looks of them, he couldn't have been too happy about it. The men had beer guts and cowboy boots and big silver belt buckles and beery crazed eyes. There had always been types like them, eager for blood and lynching, as far back as the Bronze Age and as recently as 1964, when a few dozen brave men hunted down three civil-rights workers and castrated and killed them. Interesting to know what political commentator Rush Limbaugh would have had to say about that.
Chief Gibbs was giving them orders. The posse looked bored.
"You've all got cellulars. That's why I got them for you. You see him, you call me. You don't shoot. You got that?"
"What happens if he shoots at us first?" one of them said.
"Then you shoot back. But only," Gibbs said, "if he shoots first."
The door opened behind him and two deputies, including the chunky one who'd been operating the radio on the other night, came out.
They wore uniforms and jackets and badges and bore shotguns. Their heads were angled away from the whipping wind. Raindrops bit like gnats on my face now.
"Where the hell they goin'?" one of the truck-driving men said.
"With you."
"You didn't say nothin’ ‘bout no deputies," objected another.
"You sure as hell didn't think I was going to let you three boys go out there alone, did you?"
One of the men smirked. "Clarence here gonna give us orders, is he?"
I would have felt sorry for Clarence — his roly-polyness cast him as the most incompetent boy at Scout Camp — but I couldn't forget his meanness towards Cindy.
"He's an official deputy and you're not," Chie
f Gibbs said.
Clarence held a pudgy hand up to the sky. "It's raining."
"Hey, no shit," one of the men said. "Clarence said it's raining."
The other two sniggered.
"You'll be fine," Chief Gibbs said to his nephew. "Little rain shouldn't slow you down. If you had the dogs, that'd be another matter." He looked at the three men. "You have any questions?"
"Yeah, how come Clarence is such a dork?" one of them said.
The other deputy, who looked snake-quick and snake-mean, said, "You boys keep this shit up, they're gonna find one of you dead in a ditch by morning. You understand?"
They changed then, the way bullies do whenever they meet a more formidable bully. There were some momentary smirks and quick glances but they knew better than to push it.
"I guess I don't need to remind you boys that Tom Rand here was Green Beret in 'Nam, and that he broke both of Spider MacAtee's arms the night Spider cut up his wife," Gibbs said. "And since Clarence and Tom are cousins, and since Tom has always sorta stuck up for Clarence, he will be real, real pissed off if any of you boys hassle Clarence in any way whatsoever, if you catch my drift. You catch my drift?"
He was addressing the tallest of the three, the one with the Hank Williams Jr. T-shirt.
Rand said, "You catch his drift, Slocum?"
Slocum had to decide whether to look weak in front of his pals or risk Rand's temper which seemed, just from looking at the guy, psychotic.
"I catch his drift," Slocum said.
"Good," Gibbs said. "Then we won't have any problems tonight, now will we?"
Over a cup of hot, bitter coffee in his office, I listened as Gibbs said, "The good ones — the family men and the decent men and the law-abiding men — they'll go out during the day to hunt for Rhodes, but at night they want to be home with their wife and kids so that's when you end up with the hillbillies and the rednecks. Kinda like huntin' squirrel to them, except here they just might get a chance to shoot an actual human being, which tickles the shit out of them."
"No idea where he is so far?"
"Not a clue."
"Maybe he got away."
Gibbs shook his head. "Indians don't run. I know you're not supposed to generalize about a group of people like that, but they don't. For one thing, there's really no place for an Indian to run to, when you think about it. Full-blooded the way Rhodes is, he'd get spotted pretty easy in truck stops and places like that. And for another thing, nobody knows this land like the Indians do. Rhodes will know a hundred places to hide I never heard of — and they're all within five, ten miles of town."
"How's Cindy doing?"
"Not so good. She went out with the search party this morning. She's afraid somebody's gonna kill him. And they probably will if they get half a chance."
"You think she's home?"
"Could be. And it'd be nice if you stopped by and saw her. She needs some friends right now. Her being a deputy and all — well, she isn't real popular with either Indians or whites sometimes. She's a lonely gal."
"But a good one."
He nodded. "The best, you ask me. I mean, I don't like to think of myself as a racist but I can take Indians or leave them. Met some good ones, met some bad ones. I just don't want you to think I like Cindy because she's some type of affirmative-action gal or something. She's the best deputy I ever had — except maybe for Rand, and the thing he's best at is keeping people in line — and also one of the most decent. In her time off, she's out at the reservation making sure all those little kids are getting their booster shots and things like that. And on Saturdays, she's out there tutoring kids in reading and math. Her people are finally starting to succeed. They're becoming very sharp at business and farming and learning how to capitalize on their heritage, and it's all because of people like Cindy."
"That's quite a speech."
The Chief smiled. "Meant every word of it."
"Clarence doesn't seem to like her."
He smiled again. "That's because she's a whole lot smarter, prettier and tougher than Clarence."
"Don't let him hear you say that."
"His mother died of liver cancer ten, twelve years ago — my sister, God rest her soul — and Clarence has kinda been my charge ever since. His old man, who I always thought was a no-good drunken sonofabitch and who up and walked out on them just a few months before Bernice got sick, anyway his old man hated Indians and I'm afraid it rubbed off on Clarence."
I took the last of my coffee. "You ever know Sandra Moore's daughter?"
"Oh, yeah."
"I spent a little time with her tonight."
"She's just about as pathetic as her mother. The Indians have a real hard time with the bottle."
"You know any reason her mother and David Rhodes would hate each other so much?"
"Sure."
"Sure? Just like that?"
"David's sister was kidnapped from the reservation when she was six years old."
"Right."
Well, guess who was supposed to be babysitting her that day?"
"Sandra Moore?"
"Right. She still came back to the reservation occasionally in those days."
"No wonder, then."
"David got in some trouble with the Cedar Rapids PD a couple of times because he'd get drunk and go up to Sandra's and hassle her. Plus, Sandra had a way of putting on airs. Even when she was living on the reservation, she was working for the Hestons and trying to give all her friends the impression she was a lot better than they were."
"She was working for the Hestons and still doing babysitting jobs here?"
Gibbs shrugged. "Not "jobs." But she and David's mother were good friends. She just said she'd watch the little girl while David's mother drove to Des Moines. Cedar Rapids or Des Moines, those are the two big cities to people who live here." He grinned. "Not exactly New York or Los Angeles but good enough to get by on, I guess."
I stood up, offered my hand, thanked him for the coffee.
"Guess I'll go see Cindy."
"Know where she lives?"
"Yeah."
"Make her laugh a little. She needs that."
"I'll do my best."
Chapter 19
Dear Mr. Payne,
I've changed my mind. I'd like to go flying at 10:00 A.M. tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Silver Moon
Cindy Rhodes was not at home so I'd come back to my motel and was about to put the key in my lock when I saw the note that had been taped to the door.
I smiled as I read it. Given her fear of flying, this was a major decision for Silver Moon.
Then I heard the noise from inside.
The first thing I thought of was the pig. I couldn't recall his name at that moment — you have to say a pig's name several times before it sticks in your mind — but I could picture him cavorting about inside my room.
But what if it wasn't the pig?
I'd irritated a number of people in and around the reservation the past few days. What if one of them had decided to irritate me right back?
I took out my Ruger.
I don't do that very often.
I believe in the advice I got at Quantico: if you draw your gun, you're likely to use it, and if you use it, it's probably because you used your emotions instead of your head.
I'd always cherished that piece of advice and quoted it whenever I wanted to rattle the more macho types of lawmen I encountered.
In fact, I quoted it to myself as I eased the key in and turned it, then pushed the door inward and stepped inside.
And all the time I quoted it, I kept my Ruger in my hand.
No sense in taking chances.
"Please don't turn on the light."
I'd found Cindy.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes. But I'd prefer the darkness if you don't mind."
"Fine with me."
"Be careful so you don't trip."
"Thanks, Mom."
She laughed. "No wonder David thin
ks I'm such a pain in the ass. I was always the older sister, always watching out for all the little kids."
"I thought it was kind of sweet, warning me."
"Do you plan to put that gun away any time soon?"
"How about right now?"
"Right now would be great."
I put the Ruger away and made my way through the deep and shifting shadows. I smelled hand soap, mildew, furniture polish, dust and heat.
There were two armchairs collected around a battered table. She sat in one, I sat in the other.
"How're you doing?" I said.
"I need to see him."
"Maybe they'll find him."
"Even if they find him, I won't see him. Not ever again."
"They won't kill him."
"But he'll be in prison."
"Oh."
"It'll kill him, being in prison."
"We can find him a good lawyer. If you say he didn't do it—"
"That's just it," she said in the darkness.
"What is?"
"Maybe he did do it."
"Oh."
"That's what I'm afraid of, anyway."
We didn't talk, not for a long time, just listened to the crickets and the big trucks out on the highway, and the occasional teenager with his powerful car and even more powerful radio.
"You know the funny thing?" she whispered.
"What?"
"We haven't made love for two years."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't think he finds me appealing anymore. I'm sort of like his sister. Did that ever happen with your wife?"
"No. I loved my wife. She was my life."
"And you never got tired of her sexually?"
"No."
"Did you ever get tired of a woman sexually?"
I laughed gently. "I don't think so. First of all, I haven't been to bed with that many women. And second of all, I was always sort of grateful when they went to bed with me. I'm not exactly Robert Redford. And besides, every woman I went to bed with taught me something."
"You mean sexually?"
"Sure, sexually — how to be a better lover, you know, more dutiful and less worried about my own pleasures. But they also taught me more about women. In the long run, they were teaching me how to be a better husband to the woman I'd marry someday — and not just sexually. In every way, I mean."