Dying Embers (15 page)

“This is our good friend, Art Hardin,” Greg said. “We brought him cause he said he wanted the best breakfast in town. He got a check from Western Union and he's gonna pay.”

“This the only breakfast in town,” said Mama Rosa. “And with you vouching for him, I'd say the three of you ought to git, and don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.”

I handed her the check and said, “Jerry up at the bus depot said that you might cash that if we had breakfast here.”

She glanced at the check and then studied me from head to foot. “Them boots worth more than this check,” she said, “and where's the rest of your suit?”

“In the locker at the bus station.”

She gave the boys a sidelong jerk of her head and they bounded off to the serving line.

“Your teeth are too good to be hanging with them two,” she said. “If you want to keep 'em you best find someone else to ride with once'st I cash this check.”

“You want to see some identification?”

Mama Rosa wagged her head in the negative. “You got cop eyes. Besides, I'll know about this check ‘fore you leave. If it ain't right I'll have Junior whup your ass till I tell him to stop.” She nodded at a tall, well-built man serving scrambled eggs with a long metal spoon. I'm sure he had to duck to get in the door.

“Yes, ma'am,” I said.

“I charge five dollars, same as the bank, but you tell that colored girl spooning grits that I said fix you a steak any way you wants it.”

“Don't you need me to sign that?”

“You can sign it after I call Jerry and I bring out your change. Now you go and wade on in,” she said and gave me a wink and a smile. “The water ain't too deep.”

I found the boys parked at a table and attending to groaning board-loads of scrambled eggs and flapjacks. I set my tray down. “I'm going outside to make a telephone call. Mamma Rosa says that if you eat my steak when it gets here, she'll have Junior whup your ass until she says stop.”

“She give you a steak?” asked Greg.

“Yeah,” I said, “I guess because I was buying.”

“You in big trouble,” said Greg, shaking his head.

“How's that?”

“Mama Rosa done set her cap for you,” said Ralph between bites and without looking up. “I hope you like 'em hefty.”

I found the pay phone outside, around the corner and near the back, by the doors to the restrooms. On the way I pondered the sly smile the gal serving grits gave me when I ordered the steak.

I dialed up Dunphy with my phone card and got his secretary. She said that he was out in the plant and couldn't be reached.

“Tell him Andy called about that Hardin guy,” I said.

“Just a minute,” she said.

“Dunphy,” he said.

“You put my expense card to sleep,” I said. “I need you to wake it up.”

“Who is this?”

I said, “Who do you think?”

“My secretary said that it was someone named Andy.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, “she must have misunderstood. I asked if you were handy. This is Art Hardin. Who's Andy?”

Dunphy didn't answer.

“You still there?” I asked.

“I'm here. I don't know who Andy is, Mr. Hardin. I thought it was one of my suppliers. I'm trying to track down a shipment of pigment. What can I do for you?”

“Like I said, your Platinum Card is a dud.”

“Mr. Hardin, I'm a fiduciary for this company. Unless I know what's going on, I'm not turning you loose with our assets.”

“I report directly to Scott Lambert.”

“Mr. Lambert is out of town. You can report to me.”

“Fine, I'll tell you exactly what's going on. I had to spend the night at a bus depot playing cards with some of the local color. I charge extra for that. By my watch you're two thousand dollars into the toilet. If you waste any more of my time, the hourly rate doubles.”

“Mr. Hardin,” said Dunphy, “you're fired.” He hung up.

Something hard poked me in the back of the head. I turned around to find myself looking up the barrel of a revolver in the hands of a man with a ski mask over his face and fire in his eyes.

I
FLEXED MY KNEES
to lower my head and clamped my fist around the barrel of the revolver in my face—levering the muzzle to my left as I jerked my head to the right—hoping I was fast enough. My hand found the short grip of the Detonics. I heard my thumb rack the hammer as the pistol came off my hip.

“No!” said a familiar voice from behind Mama Rosa's. Max. My assailant let go of his gun. I took my finger out of the trigger guard.

“Back up,” I told the man in the mask. He did. Max stood at the rear of the building, at the edge of my field of vision.

“Holy-shit-goddamit, don't shoot!” Max said, and stepped toward me waving his open palms at chest level. His empty holster flapped on his hip.

“What the hell is this?” I said.

My assailant ripped the ski mask off his head to reveal a full shock of black hair over a drained face. “My name is Jack Anders,” he said, “and I've never met you in my life.”

“So you come and stick a gun in my face! Are you nuts!?”

“I just wanted to scare you enough for you to tell me who you are and why you're asking about me.”

“Silk City!” I said. “You remember Wendy Hardin? I'm Art Hardin.”

Anders clenched his eyes and rolled his head in a slow circle while he said, “Oh.” On the second revolution he said, “Shit!”

“I came here to find you. You disappeared in the middle of an undercover job. We wondered if you were dead.”

I looked at Max and shook the revolver. “This is yours?”

“Yeah,” he said, and made a long face.

“What is this? Euchre on the short bus?”

Anders closed his eyes and twisted his head.

“I went to see Dixon this morning to tell him about you asking for Jack,” said Max, “The cops were all over his office. They said he ate his gun last night. They asked me to identify him.”

I handed Max the gun. “Try not to shoot me,” I said. “I'm on your side.”

Max put the gun in his holster. I kept mine in my hand.

Anders's eyes fixed on the muzzle of my Detonics, which I kept focused on his ten-ring.

“I knew you had a gun,” said Max. “I heard you rack it up in the shitter. Dixon and I were friends since the Bureau.”

“You were an agent?”

“I was kind of a go-between on the reservation, you know, at Menominee up on the Wolf River,” said Max.

“You were CI for the government in the AIM movement?”

“Not like that,” said Max, and looked at the ground. “Someone needed to explain—like a diplomat—both ways, both sides. That's all.” He shook his head, “I was never a rat.”

Anders started a side step to his right. I put my finger back into the triggerguard. He froze.

“You took the money?”

“I took the money,” said Max, eyes hot, looking straight at me. “I
had
to take the money. It wasn't about the money!”

I shrugged, “So?”

“So, I know a lot of cops,” said Max. “Indian cops, white cops—all kinda cops—and most of them are assholes but they aren't stupid. They don't shoot themselves in the head. They know what kind of mess it makes. If they get drunk and do it anyway, they do it outside or in the basement or the garage—someplace you can hose the floor.”

Anders shrugged and showed me his open hands. I made one negative wag of my head.

“I didn't shoot him,” I said. “I was playing cards with you and the brain trust all night. You remember the bus station. The guy you and your pals were trying to hustle.”

“That wasn't personal, we were just being social,” said Max. “Jerry can't play anymore because of his wife.”

“Sticking a gun in my face is pretty personal.”

“Sorry, but who the hell are you?” said Jack Anders. “Ain't like you were up front. All I know is, Dixon is dead, and you're asking about me.”

“Lieutenant Ross, with the sheriff,” said Max. “He—”

“I know Ross,” I said. “I talked to him yesterday and asked him to help me find our friend, Jack here.”

“Ross asked where I was last night,” said Max. “I mentioned your name and he said bring you over.”

“He said come over here and stick a gun in my face?”

“No,” said Max. “But, like Jack said, you was maybe too slick—saying Jack sent you. A lot of strange shit is happening. We thought maybe you could give us some answers if we asked the questions right.”

I pointed the Detonics at the ground and eased down the hammer. “Come on in.” Anders exhaled. “I'll buy you breakfast and tell you whatever I know. You can tell me how strange things are. I gotta get my change from Mama Rosa.”

“I don't have much appetite,” said Max.

“Coffee,” I said. I put the pistol back in my waistband and pulled my shirt down over it.

“Ross said he wanted to see you,” said Jack.

“Ross can wait. He's paid by the hour,” I said. “I'm sorry about Dixon, but he's not in a hurry anymore.”

“I guess if you gotta get your change,” said Max, “Ross can't bitch about that.”

“Mama Rosa promised me a steak,” I said. Max and Jack snapped their heads to look at me. “I'm hungry.”

“That ain't the question,” said Max.

“Question is how much do you like Mama Rosa,” said Jack.

“Depends on the steak,” I said.

The steak—a T-bone, big as a roast, with the fat grilled crisp—occupied its own plate on a placemat. Coffee, tomato juice, and a pile of home fries on a separate plate finished the setting. Folks had cleared away and gave it space as if it were radioactive.

We sat, and I cut into the steak—purple and cool in the middle. “Just right.”

“Jesus,” said Jack. “I've seen cows hurt worse than that recover.”

Mama Rosa strolled up, draped an arm across my shoulder, and put my change on the table. “Man knows what's good,” said Mama Rosa. “Try the tomato juice.”

I took a drink and found it included a shot of vodka. “Just right.”

“We got some steak sauce, if you want.”

“A little salt,” I said.

Mama Rosa clamped a vice hold on my shoulder and gave me a side to side shake, kind of the friendly version of a terrier with a rat.

“See,” she said, looking at Max and Jack, “Man knows what's good. You gonna stand these two to breakfast, too?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

Mama Rosa took four dollars off the table. “You're a good man. Enjoy your breakfast. I like to see a man eat.”

Jack shambled off after a tray.

“Just coffee,” said Max. I pushed my mug over to him. He shrugged, took a sip, and arched his eyebrows. “Just right.”

“Whiskey?”

“Bourbon, I think.” He smiled and let the steam bathe his face. “Good Bourbon, maybe Wild Turkey.”

I worked on the steak. “You said things have been strange.”

“Well, you got to know the whole story.”

“This is a big steak.”

Max took a good pull on his coffee and set the cup down. He leaned back and measured me with his eyes. After he swallowed, he said, “About a year ago the mill went to contract security. They did an open bid, but everybody knew that Dixon would get it, him being retired FBI and all. He spent a lot of money on radios and equipment. We had an old Ford Escort we painted and put a light bar on to patrol around the parking lot and along the fences. Then some West Coast outfit came in and bid ten cents over minimum wage, just to get the contract. So we're out on our ass, and they run in a bunch of guys that make Greg and Ralph look like Einstein, wearing ball caps and T-shirts for uniforms.”

“That's the contract security business. People don't want
good
security; they want
cheap
security.”

“The deal is, Dixon spent so much money on the equipment that he
was right on the edge with the withholding and social security. When we lost the account he couldn't pay, so he went down and worked out a payment schedule with the feds. He got the contract to clean the restrooms out on the toll road and he did that job himself. He used the money to pay the government and everything was hunky-dory. Then last week the feds seized his bank account, and some guy from the IRS dreamed up this big fine. No court, no lawyer, no judge. They said Dixon just had to pay or they'd seize his house and his pension. Then he got a letter from the state police. They said they might cancel his license.”

“Maybe he did go out sideways,” I said.

“Dixon was a deacon in his church,” said Max, “and one tough cookie, too.” Max stared into the steam rising from his cup and shook his head. “No chance he ate his gun.”

Jack sat down with a tray full of flapjacks, scrambled eggs, bacon, and biscuits.

“All this for two bucks?” I asked.

“And you can go back for more if you want,” said Jack. “Some people, all they get to eat is what they get here. You just can't take any food out. Mama Rosa gets some kind of federal grant.”

I sliced a piece of steak and raised the fork like a symphony conductor with a baton. “So, you got tired of the undercover job? What?”

“Dixon came up to Madison and left a note on my door to meet him for lunch. He told me the job was over.” Jack forked up a load of flapjacks dripping with syrup and chewed it thoughtfully. He swallowed and added, “Dixon let on like I'd done something wrong. He said there was a difference between getting next to the target and getting personally involved.”

I swallowed. “He was getting copies of the reports?”

“Yeah.”

“He wasn't supposed to,” I said.

“Well, he told me to do it anyway. I wasn't supposed to tell. I don't guess it matters—he's gone now.”