Tinman

by Karen Black

  I was bemused by the titles as I picked them up–Don Quixote, unabridged, in Spanish; Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico; Garcia-Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, also in Spanish.

  Corky came down in a reasonably short time, although it seemed much longer, bearing a medium-sized back-pack. She caught me browsing in her books. “Digging for your roots is in,” she said apologetically, sensing my impatience.

  “I’m just admiring your coolness as well as your keen sense of civic duty in returning library books at a time like this.”

  Corky sniggered then turned solemn. “I’ve got an idea. How does this sound? I’ll walk out of here with an armload of books and go off in the van like I didn’t have a care. I’ll return the books, it won’t take a minute, and go park the van in a garage I use. As soon as I leave here, you take the bags, get the car, drive out the back way and pick me up on the corner near the garage. It’s two blocks from the laundromat you went to last night.”

  “Why all the skullduggery?”

  “Well, don’t you think that guy up there will get into the house as soon as he sees me go out, in order to search it and maybe lay in wait for me? It happens there are a couple of guys on the police force that would love to do me a favor. So when we get to the junction with the interstate, we can stop at the convenience store. I’ll call the police and tell them some character has been watching Charley’s house and I’m afraid to come home, and would they check it out for me. Then if they catch him in Charley’s house and run him past a couple of witnesses in Denver, maybe they can put two and two together, and we’ve got one down and one to go on Charley’s murder.”

  “Very astute,” I said.

  She dug an elbow into my ribs. “Stick with me kid, and I’ll make a secret operative out of you yet.” She giggled, winked, picked up the books, and walked out the front door toward the van.

  I watched the black guy watch Corky get in the van and drive away. As soon as she pulled away, he started sauntering toward the house. In a couple of minutes, I was wheeling Charley’s nifty little silver gray Porsche out the back, and ten minutes later Corky and I were spinning down the highway toward Grand Junction in a snappy little sports car on a bright spring day.

  CHAPTER VI

  On the Road to Grand Junction, Monday

  It didn’t take long for the real world to intrude. I flipped on the radio to catch the news. It was in the midst of reporting a brutal mugging in broad daylight on Sunday in the Denver civic center mall, the victim remained unidentified. Charley and his assailants were sketchily described. Robbery was the apparent motive, the victim’s wallet and brief case having been taken. Finger prints were being sent to the FBI. Anyone with information was urged to come forward.

  I pulled into the first filling station with a roadside phone booth. “Charley had security clearances on defense projects. They’ll soon run down his finger prints, if they haven’t already. I have no idea how quickly they may connect him with Aspen. Don’t be surprised if your friends on the force already know. Call them, and play dumb. You were very good at that last night.”

  Corky inhaled sharply and stiffened, “I’m good at being dumb?”

  “Oh, Corky, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Not you. Your act. You were very good at it on the phone. Tell your cop buddies you’re really scared and are going to visit friends in Denver for a few days.”

  She studied my face for several seconds, rubbing her chin, as if trying to decide if she believed me, then shrugged and half-smiled, “Okay.”

  I could only hear Corky’s side of the conversation. “Pete? Hi, yeah it’s me…Well actually not that great…No, I’m kind of freaked out…First I sort of got the idea the phone was bugged…I wasn’t able to contact Charley…and now I’m sure a guy has been casing the house…big black guy with binoculars up at the chair lift…No, I don’t think so…he’s no tourist…Pete, I’m really scared…you know I don’t scare easy…No, I’m not at the house…I’m on my way to Denver…Yeah, I just panicked and split…No, what I want you guys to do is just check out the house a couple of times. Marge Evans has the keys, if you need them…With friends in Denver, couple of days maybe…Thanks, Pete, you’re a sweetheart…hey, listen…be careful…that guy looked mean…(Corky giggled)…Now, Pete, just cut that out…oh, Pete, you’re really too much …bye!”

  “Sounded to me like Pete baby got a little familiar toward the end,” I said, trying to sound jocular but not quite making it.

  “Petey is definitely a little warm for my form,” Corky winked and grinned.

  “Sounds like a truly dedicated public servant.”

  “Oh, come off it, Greg. It’s just the kind of light teasing any halfway attractive girl has to deal with all the time.”

  “Not on duty,” I grumped.

  Corky released her seat-belt, which she had just secured, twisted around to face me, put her arms around my neck and gave me a great big kiss. “You know,” she said, looking me in the eye with our noses almost touching, “out here in the broad daylight I’ve just noticed, your eyes have a definite greenish glint.”

  I hated to admit she was probably right, and that troubled me, as did my obvious, but totally unexpected, way-too-soon emotional reaction.

  Once on the road again Corky turned to me. “I’ve got a question. Who was Charley Farnsworth? She paused. “I thought I knew him,” she added wistfully. “He was this nice, jolly, kind little man that threw great parties and just sort of had money and seemed to need a friend. I get the idea that you knew a different person. Who was he?”

  “Charley was complicated, but I think you knew the one he really wanted to be. Out in the so-called real world, he was the brains of TINMAN.”

  “TINMAN?”

  “Tinsdale, Ingram, Nathan and Mann, Inc. You’ve seen their logo a hundred times. They’re one of the major heavy construction and engineering companies in, well, I guess you’d have to say, the world.”

  “Bulldozers!” Corky exclaimed. “I’ve seen it on bulldozers. A bright blue picture of the Tin Woodsman of Oz with a big red heart on his chest and the motto, ‘Engineers with a Heart!’”

  “You’ve got it. They’re big out here in the oil shale country.”

  “Imagine that.” Corky shook her head slowly. “I’ve always wondered about those sensitive, caring bulldozers.” The tone of her voice dripped sarcasm.

  “Well, let’s not get carried away by stereotypes. TINMAN’s big pitch is environmentally sound and socially responsible design and development. ‘We do the jobs that need doing, and we do them right,’ they like to say.”

  “And you buy that?” Corky’s tone was clearly derisive.

  “Well, in a way, yes. They’re smart enough to know the old saw, ‘If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em.’ They’ve seen the environmental movement grow from a bunch of flower children to a political force that can derail major projects with law suits and environmental impact regulations. If you want to stay out of court, you’ve got to do things right.”

  “So, it isn’t TINMAN’s big warm heart, it’s what’s in it for them that makes environmental good guys out of them?” Again her voice conveyed a disparaging tone.

  I was getting a little miffed at her attitude, which had the effect of forcing me to defend TINMAN. She obviously didn’t understand the basics of Economics 101…how businesses operate. I stifled my pique and calmly responded, “Let’s just say TINMAN is very realistic. But they’re a big corporation. Their job is to make money for their shareholders, like every other business.” She lifted one eyebrow, but said nothing; my voice probably gave away my irritation. I never was very good at masking my feelings; still working on it.

  A short time later we came upon a car with flashing lights on the roof and a “Wide Load Ahead” sign. Beyond it was a big semi-trailer tractor pulling a 12-axle low-boy trailer loaded with a huge piece of machinery. We hung behind it for a mile or so and then got a signal to pass. “And there it is!” said Corky as we flashed by. A TIN
MAN logo was emblazoned on the machine. “What was that monster?” she asked.

  “A mole.”

  “A mole?”

  “A full-face, rotary tunnel-boring machine. It bores big holes through mountains, tunnels for highways, water diversion, whatever. I imagine that one is on its way to one of the oil shale mines.”

  “Charley knew about those things?”

  “He was an expert.”

  Corky seemed bemused. She shook her head slowly. “Charley, the big-time, hard-hat realist, and all the time I thought he was somebody else. Do you think he really liked being a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

  “I’ll have to think about that. In the meantime, Rifle is just ahead, and I have some telephoning to do.” I pulled into a truck stop with a drive-up telephone and made a collect call to Mike Stephanic in Saint Paul.

  “Nothing surprises me,” Mike said laconically, “but why, pray tell, are you in Rifle, Colorado?”

  “Just passing through.”

  “Faster than a speeding bullet, I presume.”

  “I’m trying, but I am a little curious about my…ah…case.”

  “I can relate to that,” Mike said. “I’m a little curious too. However, mine not to reason why. If it’s any comfort to you, you can come home now. I’ve smoothed the captain’s ruffled feathers, your house has been searched with trained drug hounds, and you came out as clean as…I would say as a baby’s bottom, but then I just changed my daughter’s diaper…so that really doesn’t work…you get the picture.” He uttered a half-hearted laugh. “Your insurance company is getting estimates, and we would all be ready to resume our ordinary drab little lives if there weren’t someone out there trying to blow you up. Don’t you think you ought to come back here and give the police a chance to help?”

  “Mike,” I said, the banter with which we had begun our conversation abruptly falling flat, “It’s a lot worse than you think. Charley Farnsworth was murdered yesterday in Denver. I saw it happen from a block away as he was walking across the park to meet me.”

  “Good God!” Mike muttered. “Do you know who did it?”

  “A couple of punks, hired hands. The Denver police are calling it a mugging.”

  “Well, what have you had to tell them about it?”

  “Nothing. I was a block away. There were other witnesses closer than I. I cleared out.”

  “Oh for Christ sake, you knucklehead,” Mike exploded. “Isn’t that all the more reason to come in out of the cold, or wherever the hell you think you are, and give the cops here and in Denver all the help you can?”

  “Wait. Hear me out, Mike. Saint Paul isn’t where the action is. Neither is Colorado.”

  “Yeah, it’s been real quiet here ever since yesterday.” The sarcasm dripped. “So where’s the action?”

  “Los Angeles or Alaska, for starters. Mike, if I came back to Saint Paul and opened up to the good Captain What’s-his-name, this thing would go nowhere. He has no cause of action or jurisdiction outside Minnesota. What’s he going to do? Call up the LAPD and say, hey, I have this guy here that thinks a girl that booby-trapped his funny paper was hired by somebody in Los Angeles? What kind of reaction do you think that will produce in L.A.? After they stop laughing! All I really have to go on is the suspicion that what happened in Saint Paul is connected with Charley sending me a ticket to go to L.A. and then to Anchorage. But I don’t have a clue as to why, or why someone would kill to stop me, or who it might be. I think I’m the only one that has a chance of making those connections, and right now I have just one thing going for me.”

  “Which is?”

  “Invisibility. I think I’ve managed to get myself lost, and nobody in this game at this point knows where I am, or is quite sure who I am, and that refers to both of me. It gives me a couple of extra degrees of freedom.”

  “Both of you?”

  “One of the things Charley did, for what reason I don’t know, was to set me up with an alias or alter ego. Meet Malcolm Gregory from Aspen, Colorado. Has a major credit card and a driver’s license. Answers to either Mac or Greg. You might easily get him confused with an entirely different fella named Gregory McGregor. So if you get a call from Mac Gregory, do what you can to help him, just to please me.”

  “Weird,” I heard Mike mutter to himself. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Find out who that girl–or woman–whatever–is who laid the booby trap. I think she’s in California now, but I want to know who she is.”

  “Any ideas about how to start looking for a girl who isn’t here?”

  “Well, she’s a tall, willowy blonde.”

  “That simplifies it. I just check out all the tall blondes in Minneapolis and Saint Paul that might have just skipped town.”

  “Think about it, Mike. It shouldn’t be that hard, because this dame is at least six feet tall, and she has the most incredibly gorgeous pair of legs you have ever seen.”

  “Ah, yes, the picture is coming into focus, but I am not quite clear yet on how I check out tall blondes wearing short shorts.”

  “Wise ass. Now listen. She’s got to be a show girl in some kind of night club with entertainment or with hostesses like Playboy Club bunnies, and she’s got to be at least a little special. A girl can’t go around all evening in short shorts and a backless halter with legs like that and the rest to match and not attract a little attention. I mean this girl has world-class legs.

  “This is your big chance to connect with all your erstwhile bawdy pals from before you were married. Buy ‘em a couple of drinks and start talking about girls with gorgeous legs. Not long into this procedure, I predict, if you still have any really live-wire buddies left, one of them is going to say, ‘Man, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet if you haven’t seen this blonde at…’ and he’ll mention some night spot or bistro. When he has gone far enough into detail for it to sound convincing, go check it out. Have a ball. It’s all on me. If it turns out there was such a girl and she has just left town, get all the vital statistics you can and we’ll take it from there.”

  “Hmm,” Mike murmured, “not an uninteresting assignment, when you stop to think about it.”

  “I knew you’d go the extra mile for a pal. I’ll call again in a couple of days.”

  “From where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Take care, Greg.”

  I hung up and turned to Corky. Her eyes were blazing, her lips compressed, and bright red spots glowed over her cheek bones. “Well,” she said, “If that isn’t the damnest male-chauvinist, sexist bunch of drivel I ever heard!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Talk about sexploitation!”

  “But I had to give him enough to go on to find this dame.”

  “You didn’t have to practically drool every time you mentioned those long, gangly legs. Besides you never let on about gorgeous blondes when you supposedly gave me the straight skinny about being booby trapped!”

  I sat there looking into Corky’s furious little face, and found it almost impossible to suppress a smile. “My, my,” I said mildly, “I do believe this Rocky Mountain daylight tends to bring out a touch of green in everybody’s eyes.”

  Corky flounced around in the seat, presenting her back to me, staring rigidly out the other window. Then her shoulders slumped forward and when she turned, her face wore a bewildered, confused look. “Oh, Greg,” she said, “this is crazy. I’m having feelings I’ve never had before and I’m not sure what to do with them. I hope I’m not in this alone.”

  I pulled her close. “I know. I’m having the same problem. But it’s way too fast. I’m concerned we’re just feeling a joint loss, and once the excitement cools, so will we. Let’s take it slow and see what develops.”

  We kissed, and smiled uncertainly at each other.

  After an uncomfortable minute, I saw that familiar twinkle return, a wisp of a giggle came bubbling out and, eyeing me sideways, she teased, “but let me tell you one thing. If I ever meet that blonde, I�
��ll cut her off at the knees.” She got out and walked across the asphalt toward the filling station. Never, I thought, were a pair of well-worn and faded Levis more neatly filled, nor no-nonsense working cowboy boots, a faded plaid shirt, a black pork pie Stetson hat and a braided pigtail down the back more stylish.

  We wheeled out on the road again and headed west for Grand Junction, an hour or so away. To the north the great ramparts of the Piceance Plateau loomed above us with its pale chocolate colored oil shale formation making a visible band across the layered cliffs. The Colorado River, high with spring snow melt, raced down the valley, much of it next to the interstate. Beyond the river, to the south, the landscape rose up again toward the dark, pine-forested plateau of Grand Mesa. It had been a dozen years or so since a long summer field trip for a geology course had taken me this way. I felt a sudden pang of nostalgia for the high country, intensified by a vision of Corky backpacking with me across an unspoiled world that was ours alone.

  CHAPTER VII

  Monday Afternoon, On the Road

  Corky broke the reverie. “He was an expert. Funny.” She shook her head. “Fancy Charley as an expert, hard-hat realist. How did you come to know him?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “We’ve got time.”

  My first encounter with Charley Farnsworth came to mind with a sudden rush of Deja-vu that left me momentarily speechless. Corky looked at me searchingly. “You look spooked.”

  “I am spooked. It suddenly struck me how much the first conversation I ever had with Charley was like the last one I ever had. It was ten years ago–a telephone call out of the blue, just like last Friday. I was a graduate student, nose-down in research for my doctoral dissertation. Over the intercom in the lab comes a summons to report immediately to the departmental office. ‘You’ve got a person-to-person telephone call from Ecuador,’ the secretary says with a new note in her voice.”