“Fifteen thousand,” I said. “After all, it’s taxpayers’ money. And I’ll have to pay taxes on it or Renner and Bledsoe will be back and I haven’t bonded with those two yet. Unless, of course, they accept bribes.”
More eyebrows. Then a nod. “Done. Fifteen it is.”
“Actually, it isn’t. It’s a very long shot that isn’t likely to amount to anything. I’m going to need a retainer. But I’ve got an idea that appeals to me better than money.”
“Not sure I like the sound of that since, when it comes down to it, there isn’t anything better than money.”
“That’s the IRS I’ve come to know and love. Where’s the pilot and copilot for this thing?”
He nodded somewhere outside the plane. “Charter Service lounge. They didn’t need to hear anything we had to say in here. What have they got to do with anything?”
“Ask the pilot how long it’d take to get to Albuquerque.”
“Albuquerque? What’s over there?”
“My assistant. Lucy.”
His eyes bulged. “Lucy Landry? Your assistant? I missed that. She out of high school yet? I saw a picture of her after that serial killer thing you were involved in around Vegas a couple of months ago, thought she was your kid or possibly your niece or something.”
“We’re sort of engaged.”
“No … foolin’. I might be in the wrong business here.”
“I’ve heard that before. That involves an entirely different kind of luck. So, Albuquerque?”
“Bledsoe!” Munson yelled. “Get the pilot and copilot back here. Tell ’em we got kind of a whistle-stop run to make.”
* * *
Whistle-stop in a Gulfstream. I might not have given Slick Willie enough credit way back when. Bledsoe came back with a good-looking redhead, the pilot, and a bad-looking guy, copilot. The redhead, Brenda Dawson, gave me an amused look as she fed me flight information. Then Brenda and Bob went up front and minutes later the turbines started to spool up.
I punched Lucy’s number into my cell phone. “How’s it goin’ there, Sugar Plum?”
“Wonderful. We’re stuck in downtown traffic since about all the businesses let everyone out for lunch at the same time.”
“They do that intentionally, hoping it’ll keep folks at their desks.”
“Are you okay, Mort?”
“Never better.”
“Groovy. So … what’s up?”
“Got you an earlier flight if that’s okay with Ma. What you need to do is get over to Cutter Aviation. That’s on Clark Carr Loop, little bit south of the main terminal there.”
“Why? I’ve already got a flight.”
“Mine’s better.”
“Like an old biplane and I have to walk the wing all the way back to Reno?”
“Wow, what a terrific guess. Can you be there in about two hours?”
Half a minute of silence while the two women talked it over. Then: “Yes. If I can get out of this dumb rotten traffic and Ma and I don’t die because we’re behind a city bus gassing us with something like World War II blister agent or phosgene.”
“Sounds great. Wish I were there.”
“Got room for Ma on your rental biplane or whatever it is? Turns out we’re done here.”
“I think she’ll strap to the left wing okay. The goggles are free.”
“I’ll let her know. So, was that Chopper Aviation?”
“Cutter. Off Clark Carr Loop.”
“Okay. I’ll call if we have any trouble finding it.”
“See you.” I ended the call.
Minutes later, the G280 lifted off, headed south. By then, I had a beer in hand, Renner and Bledsoe had Diet Pepsis, Munson had a fresh martini and was reading his newspaper.
A Gulfstream. Man, I oughta get one of these. Probably have to buy it used, though.
* * *
I walked across the tarmac and into Cutter Aviation and looked around. Lucy gave a little squeal of delight, broke away from Ma, and ran over to me, wrapped me up in a hug like an octopus. Hundred fourteen pounds of live-wire woman-child.
We drew stares, not that there were many people in the place. It wasn’t like the terminal of a major airport.
Ma walked over to us. “You two.”
“Hey, Ma. Got your man, huh?”
“Girl. Megan changed her name to Mary, kept Galbraith, so it was a no-brainer.”
“Sounds like my kind of investigation.” I looked around. “So where is the wayward Galbraith? You got her in leg irons?”
“I was only told to find her, not to bring her back. I phoned her mother, told her where she could find her kid.”
Lucy pulled my head down, gave me a hard stare. “Knife fight? Seriously?”
“Turns out, it was just one of those things, more like a judo mixup than a knife fight.”
“A judo mixup?”
“Yup.”
She punched my belly. “Don’t ever do it again.”
“Got it off my bucket list, Cupcake. Next up is a running leap off El Capitan in a self-packed parachute.”
“How about we just get married? Get you calmed down and semi-domesticated. No knife fights, no parachuting off cliffs.”
“You can see me happily domesticated? Even semi?”
“Well … not exactly.”
Ma broke in. “Let’s get a move on. Where’s this so-called plane of yours, boyo?”
“It’s being refueled. They said it’ll be ready in half an hour, but your wing’s ready. You can strap in now.”
“They? Who’s they?”
“Brenda and Bob. Who else?”
She shook her head. “Forget I asked.”
* * *
Lucy’s eyes went wide when she saw we were headed for the Gulfstream. “No way. You gotta be kidding.”
“I never kid.”
“Yeah, right.”
Ma stopped fifty feet away and stared at it. “If you got it as a charter and put it on the business account, I have no words for how unbelievably fired you are.”
“I got it as a retainer.”
Her eyes squinted down to the kind of narrow slits you find in university physics labs where they do advanced laser research. “A retainer?”
“I was hired to do a little job.”
“A little job gets you the use of a Gulfstream? I don’t like the sound of that. At all.”
“C’mon, Ma. Buck up. You should see the client.”
“Jeez. There’s something so not right about this.”
Nothing gets by her.
Bledsoe was standing by the stairs. He followed us up and into the plane. Pilot Brenda hit a button that hauled the steps up, then went into the front where they keep the levers and dials and the gas pedal.
Ma stopped when she saw Munson sitting froglike in his seat, martini within reach on a small fold-out table.
“Oh, no.” She turned to me. “Tell me you didn’t make a pact with the devil.”
“Not so much a pact as an arrangement, Ma.”
She plopped down in the seat facing Munson. “Will,” she said. “I see you have managed to corrupt my partner.”
“Corrupt is an ugly word, Ms. Clary, and so very inaccurate when all I’ve done is to hire him. But do have a martini, will you? This is my second. Or maybe my third. I tend to lose count. They’re quite good. Mr. Renner? If you would be so kind as to get Ms. Clary one of these? Shaken, not stirred.”
Ma surprised me. She took it. Took a sip. “Very good, yes. And do you remember, Will, the last time you and I had a bit of a go-around? I believe it involved a woman named Kimberly. By now she might be thirty years old.”
His eyes jittered momentarily. “No need to bring that up.”
“And you hired my partner in spite of that?”
“I was hoping you and I could put that behind us. It’s been ten years.” About then, the turbines started to spool up. “A while ago Mortimer and I were discussing luck. That you and he have joined forces is the kind of coincidence�
�luck—that I hope to have employed.”
“I see.” Ma smiled, leaned back. “Good luck with that. You have no idea what you’re doing. That’s good.”
* * *
We buckled in and took off. When we reached cruising altitude, Lucy disappeared into the restroom with her carry-on, came out a few minutes later wearing white jogging shorts and the lightweight pink cotton tank top she’d been wearing when I first saw her in McGinty’s Café in Tonopah, complete, as usual, with slight bumps in the fabric. Perfect. Bright pink toe socks on her feet added a new dimension to the outfit. Long legs, perfect skin, she looked seventeen.
George Renner stared. Dennis Bledsoe tried not to but was unsuccessful. Munson about lost his eyes. “Good Lord,” he said, unaware that he’d said it until it was out.
“Nice outfit, kiddo,” I said to Lucy.
“I’ve been cooped up in other stuff for two days, except in motel rooms. This feels so good.”
“Looks good, too.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Thanks. Oh, and I’m not responsible for what other people think, say, or do. They are.”
“That’s a philosophy. What do you think, Ma?”
“This martini borders on excellent. I may have another.” Good enough.
* * *
We held a little powwow somewhere over the southwest corner of Utah and into Nevada. I was surprised when Munson waved Renner and Bledsoe over to join in. The middle section of the plane became a conversation pit. A bench seat along one side faced Munson and Ma. I sat on it beside Lucy. Agents Renner and Bledsoe sat on either side of us to keep us from escaping.
Before we got started, I said to Lucy, “How about I set the record straight here? The standard misconception is obviously running wild and free.”
She knew what I meant. “Go ahead.” She examined her fingernails, which were painted a dark shade of pink that would have come out of a little bottle with a name like sunrise sienna or coral dream or some such thing.
I looked at each of the men in turn, then said, “Lucy looks eighteen, if that, but she is thirty-one years old, so whatever you might be thinking about her has a good chance of being wrong.”
Three pairs of eyes got wider. “Not possible,” Renner said under his breath.
“Okay,” I said to Munson. “Now we’re ready.”
Munson smiled at Lucy. “Mortimer was always something of a kidder. We never knew what he was going to say next. You can’t be old enough to step foot inside a casino, hon.”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. “His name is Mort, and Huns were basically barbarians, so don’t call me Hun. How about that?”
Munson’s eyes bugged out. Finally, he said, “I see you have your hands full, Mort.”
“Hands full,” Lucy said. “That’s a good way to put it.” She flexed her toes in her toe socks. “Now how about you get on with it since it’s starting to get boring in here?”
Munson coughed, possibly to get the minutiae in his brain restarted, then he told Lucy and Ma what he’d told me earlier.
When he finished, Ma said, “Luck? That’s it? You’re hiring Mort because he’s lucky about finding people—which also means you’re hiring Clary Investigations so you might want to give that a little more thought.”
Munson nodded. “I’m a great believer in luck.”
“So am I,” Lucy said, and all eyes went to her except Ma’s, not because of what she said, but because she said something, anything—which gave those in the vicinity whose testosterone levels were redlining permission to get another three- or four-second freebie look at her. Okay, a scan, not a look.
“Are you?” Munson said, half smiling.
“She is,” I said. “Like you wouldn’t believe, but I think it would be a good idea for us to move on.” This, after all, was the head honcho of the nation’s IRS, and though Lucy and I had paid estimated taxes on the fifty-odd thousand Lucy had won in Vegas in July, this was not the venue in which to bring it up and draw the slightest bit of attention to Stephen Brewer, the false identity I had used when we were there.
Munson said, “Luck is akin to … unseen forces.” He gave Renner and Bledsoe a look. “Which statement shall not find its way anywhere beyond the six of us without dire consequences.”
“Of course not,” Renner murmured. Bledsoe nodded his head an eighth of an inch.
In brief, Munson told Ma and Lucy the story of Ranger Roy Sullivan being struck by lightning seven times. “Moreover, there have been several multiple lottery winners. A woman, I forget her name, won four lotteries of over two million each. Four. The odds against that are simply staggering. It hints at unseen hands guiding events. Back in my Reno days, a man hit three royal straight flushes in four days on a poker slot machine, beating astronomical odds. Some people are … lucky, there’s no other way to account for it. And that’s all the explanation I’m prepared to give,” Munson said with a note of finality.
But … unseen forces, unseen hands. It gave me the vague impression—probably false, but you never know—that Munson had a little soul in there, humming away down deep inside.
And the admission put him in our pockets, Ma’s and mine.
Our nation’s IRS commissioner.
Talk about luck.
CHAPTER NINE
BEFORE WE LANDED, Slick Willie told me that Renner and Bledsoe would be my shadow until the Soranden thing was cleared up. I told Slick that if he was hiring my luck, they would not be my shadow because those two looked like luck vacuums. We went back and forth for a while on that and ended up with the kind of stalemate that meant Renner and Bledsoe might be around, or might not, and that I would shake them loose or cause them grief at every available opportunity.
I got Munson’s private cell number. Turns out it was also a burner, untraceable. Slick Willie of the IRS would be a target for all sorts of hackers, including the National Security Agency and probably a bevy of professional backstabbers high up in his own agency—therefore he’d opted for a drug dealer’s end run around any sort of eavesdropping. He told me to pick up a burner and get back to him with its number so we could talk without undue governmental interference if the need arose.
Can you say conspiracy? But then, who has more power, the FBI or the IRS? A question with an answer so obvious as to be laughable. One of those agencies more or less obeys the law while the other makes up its own.
* * *
Lucy needed a shower when we arrived back at my place on Washington Street. Due to the inflexible nature of her arms, I had to help with the soaping down of the girl. Then I got tired, so she had to help with the soaping down of the Mort. It’s a good thing she and I are helpful types, willing to pitch in when the going gets tough.
Then dinner. Then sleep. Which is when I finally had time to think about Renner and Bledsoe and where they had to have been when I left Wildcat through the back door and down that alley. They hadn’t seen the altercation—sounds more civilized than knife fight—but they had watched me go in, knew how I’d left, had a good idea of what had taken place in there, even knew Surry’s name, so I had been under surveillance for at least two days and hadn’t known it. They were Munson’s men, which meant Munson had been a presence in the background for longer than he’d let on.
And luck. IRS Commissioner Munson was hiring luck? Did I believe that? Then again, he’d mentioned unseen forces in the universe, and I found it hard to believe he could come up with anything so mystical if it didn’t have some sort of a grip on him. Mystical Munson. Something like that getting out could end an IRS career like a cherry bomb in a toilet, an image so accurate it was eerie.
* * *
Tuesday morning, back in Ma’s office on Liberty Street. It was good to be back with my people in familiar surroundings. Even the bullet hole in the sideboard was a comforting touch in the room, put there by a loser named Isaac Biggs half a second before Jeri bounced him around the room like a rag doll.
By the time Lucy and I got to Ma’s, she already had a new case lined up—massively
boring, as PI work often is. A lawyer for an insurance company wanted her to find evidence that one Oscar Vinton was not in fact suffering debilitating back pain due to a supposed accident at a loading dock in a Sparks warehouse. No one witnessed the accident. Oscar claimed that a Husqvarna roto-tiller had tipped off a pallet and landed on him. Oscar had yelled. Two guys had come running and lifted the tiller off poor Oscar. X-rays showed no sign of damage. It looked like a setup to the insurance company, not that I’m in love with insurance companies. Everything always looks like a setup to them. Do not allow your house to burn down. First thought is that you set it on fire yourself for any number of reasons. You will march through hell and back trying to convince them to give you so much as a nickel until finally, at last, maybe, with a great deal of luck and weeks of anguish and anger management therapy, you might be able to rebuild—but don’t count on it. Their bottom line depends on their ability to delay and deny claims, which is where they put ninety-five percent of their resources—well, that and cashing those checks you send to them like clockwork.
But that was Ma’s case. I still had Evelyn Joss and the Volker deal on my plate. And once again I had a beautiful young assistant to help out with surveillance and coffee runs. I got an elbow in the ribs when that inspired comment left my lips.
“Volker freed up fifty thousand dollars?” Ma said.
“Emptied his bank and credit union savings, then removed nearly fourteen thousand from the rainy-day fund. Total it up and you get fifty thousand in a twenty-four-hour period.”
“Sounds like a payoff,” Ma said.
“Or a red-hot real estate opportunity, too good to pass up.”
She gave me a narrow look. “Quietly remove funds from the business instead of taking out a perfectly reasonable credit union loan for a perfectly reasonable real estate purchase? We should make a side bet on that, boyo.”
“No, we shouldn’t.”
“And what about this deal with Willie Munson?”
“What about it?”
“Feels iffy, probably a waste of time and energy, although that Gulfstream hop was nice and I can still taste that martini. Not thinking about pursuing it, are you?”
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