by G M Eppers
“What am I looking for?”
“Now that would be cheating, wouldn’t it? If I tell you what to look for, you’ll find it.”
“I take it you mean something other than Uber? Full analysis?”
“That’s right. Use as many as you need. Don’t worry. There’s plenty. I know it’s going to take some time.”
There was some static on the channel for a moment, then he came back, “It’s not like I have anything else to do. It’s real quiet here.” I think Nitro knew we wanted more information on the team members, but we couldn’t take the time to ask specifically. Not during an investigation and in front of an FBI team. But all we had to do was let him keep talking. “Now that we have the mole taken care of, it’s kind of an ice cream social without the ice cream. If we were all about forty years older.”
“We feel forty years older!” one of the twins shouted into Nitro’s phone. “When are you coming back? We’re wrestling each other just for exercise and the lab techs are taking bets. I’m winning.”
“No you’re not. I’m winning.”
Here’s something about talking to conjoined twins on the phone: You could be talking to one or the other, or both, and you won’t know unless they tell you. The Nicely twins were known to be practical jokers on occasion, as well, Avis having called me once to insist that Agnes wouldn’t stop touching her. “Sir Haughty found some back issues of Cheese Connoisseur Quarterly and Badger is helping him sort them chronologically. Sir Haughty is shamefully excited about them.” And what about Miss Chiff? I thought to myself. It was almost like Nitro was deliberately not mentioning her. Finally, he said, “Miss Chiff is on the terrace helping the glaziers replace the broken window.”
Okay, I broke. “She’s what?” I could feel Agent Eyedeneaux watching us and I was sure he was going to take Billings’ phone away. But I had to know. “Has she, you know, again?”
His voice lowered. I could picture him hugging his phone close to prevent anyone else from hearing. “Badger says she took a drink on the way back from the airport last night, and I saw her take two since she got up this morning. She was first one up, so I don’t know if she took any earlier, but the twins reported no drinks before bed.”
“Thanks, Nitro. We have to go now,” Agent Eyedeneaux was glowering. “Call Billings with the results when you finish the analysis.” Billings broke the connection and pocketed the phone.
“Your Miss Chiff,” Eyedeneaux said, “she has a drinking problem?”
Damn. “Looks like. We’ll deal with it, Agent. Please don’t put it in your report.” It wasn’t hard to put some pleading into my eyes. He could report it right now and in no time FBI agents could be knocking on the door to the Mayo Clinic with a breathalyzer and a blood alcohol test kit. No matter how casual her involvement in this case, she was there representing CURDS and the U.S. government, and evidence of such a problem could jeopardize her position. If the situation were reversed, if it was one of us with the problem, she would give us the same consideration we wanted to give her. I wondered if part of it was disappointment on her part. She came along specifically to meet Ban, got sent to the airport and when she got back Banana Harris had gone. She didn’t really seem the type to engage in such pettiness, but all I could think about was how I would have felt in her situation. I didn’t want to get her in trouble over this.
“Too busy right now,” said Eyedeneaux. “I’m on a case.”
I took a deep breath in relief. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. “Okay, so what do we have?” Fergie said, unzipping his coat a little. The bus was getting very comfortable, what with all the extra body heat being generated in addition to the heater fan. It was easy to forget about the snow outside and the frozen lake. “The Herds are across the lake. On the Angle, Gary?”
Gary nodded. “They have an operation set up near the Manitoba border. About as isolated as you can get. I think there’s one cop for the whole region and she’s in her 70’s.”
The Angle, as I learned, was an odd piece of land. If you look at a map of Minnesota, you can see that a little square sticks up above the straight line that is the Canadian border at the 49th parallel. The only way to it without going through some part of Canada is straight across the Lake of the Woods. You can take a boat during the warmer months, and in the coldest part of winter you can even drive across. In late November, though, the only way over is by air. It all came about because of a surveying error more than a hundred years ago when they thought the lake led to the Mississippi, but it didn’t. It’s a large lake. Part of it is in Manitoba and part of it is in Ontario, so the Angle, the opposite shore which is still America, is completely separated from the rest of Minnesota by the central part of the lake. Surprisingly, some people actually live there, but naturally, not very many.
“What was your arrangement?” Eyedeneaux asked Gary.
I was glad that Gary was being so cooperative, but I still felt he was holding something back. “When they saw Clara on TV, Andrew Herd decided he wanted her. I’m not sure exactly why. So he told me to go get her and that he’d arrange for a distraction to keep the fuzz off our tail. Excuse me,” he apologized to the FBI agents.
Ban grabbed Clara in her arms, waking her suddenly, and hugged her until Clara squealed. “They can’t have her. I won’t let you take her.”
Roxy, who had moved forward, abandoning her pieces of glarf for the moment, said, “You mean the fake ransom. It was a distraction.” I looked back that way and noticed that Knobby’s fight against sleep had ended. His chin was resting on his chest and he was blowing a puff of air out one side of his mouth every five or six seconds.
Butte, facing backwards in the seat in front of Gary, touched Gary’s shoulder. “Pardon the change of subject, but I have to know. Gary, why are you hitting Ross?” He’d been holding in that question all this time and couldn’t hold it anymore. Remembering the two men he’d worked with, what he had heard on the ransom call simply didn’t match up.
Gary’s answer was immediate. “I’ve never hit Ross. He’s my bro.”
I raised a hand to interrupt. “Butte, I saw it. It seems Ross is hitting himself. I think when he can’t find Gary, he invents him.”
“Why did you think I hit him?”
“The ransom call.”
If Billings’ hand hadn’t been holding Gary down Gary might have stood up and hit his head again. “What ransom call?”
“The ransom call received by the Mayo Clinic,” Billings replied. “We’ve referred to it a few times here, Gary.”
“We were going to, yes, but we didn’t.” Ignoring Billings for a moment, Gary nudged his brother. “Ross, did you call the Mayo Clinic?”
Ross seemed completely unaware of the conversation going on around him and of the implications of Gary’s question. He simply answered, “Sure, Gary. I called while you were out getting gas for the truck. I called the number and read the paper, but there were some words I didn’t know. It was hard and you got mad at me.”
A deep sadness moved into Gary’s eyes. “No, Ross. I wasn’t there, remember? I told you to watch TV until I got back.” Gary rubbed one hand over his mouth and chin. “Mr. Montana, I’m sorry. I had to leave him alone. I was only gone for ten minutes, tops. Jeez, the mileage on that truck was a killer. It’s better off without tires. But I’d written a script for him, then decided against doing it. We were at a ratty motel in Rochester and we had to get to the cabin.” He looked up at me suddenly, pointed an accusing finger. “You told me the guy was in custody, but I didn’t make the connection. I was going to double cross the janitor and high tail it to the Angle instead. I didn’t think we’d need the distraction after all, and it was just a distraction because I knew no one would ever pay that ransom. But Ross must have forgot, found the paper, and did it anyway. Let me guess, he used my name and asked for a bazillion dollars, right?” We nodded, expecting him to get mad at Ross, but he didn’t. He gave Ross’s head a gentle playful push. “You moron,” he said. “The hitt
ing thing,” he continued, directing his comments back to Billings, “started a few months ago after Mom died.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Gary,” I said quickly.
“Yeah. Cancer.” He bit his bottom lip a little, then shook his head to clear it. “He doesn’t hit very hard, though. It’s harmless. Doc back home said it should pass in time. Soon as his life gets stable again. I promised Mom, you know?”
It was a fairly common story, actually. Needing money for healthcare sending people into a life of crime. I didn’t know how to feel about all this. Gary and Ross were thieves, but they seemed to be good people. Tight knit brothers in desperate circumstances. Instead of wanting to haul them away in chains, I found myself wanting to help them.
“Gary,” Billings said, “how the hell did you get mixed up with the Herds in the first place?”
Gary tilted his head toward his brother. “I needed money. Ross needs therapy. Ross needs care.” He pointed at Butte. “You fired us from WHEY, though that wasn’t particularly lucrative, either. That’s why we took that tapestry. I was going to sell it to pay for Mom’s chemo, and for a home nurse so she didn’t have to sit in a hospital. You made us give it back. I met Harry Herd in Tennessee and he told me he was in a family business that was making billions and they were looking for what he called a ‘runner.’ A man Friday. A gopher. Whatever you wanted to call it. The pay was obscene for what I had to do, so I took the job.” He pouted a little. “And Mom died anyway. It was too late.”
“You never told me your Mom was sick,” said Butte in his own defense.
“Would it have made a difference?”
“Not after you stole the tapestry, no. But we could have worked out something before that. You’ve made a pretty nasty bed for yourself, Gary.” Butte knew as well as I did that the consequences for his recent actions did not bode well for either of them. Those things would have to be dealt with later. Butte ran a hand through his hair and dropped into a seat.
Deb, sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, said, “We’d better let them in, Antoine. Full Monty.”
“Be my guest,” Eyedeneaux offered.
“What you folks have stumbled into here is called Operation Coral Corral. It’s a sting to collect as many of the Herd family as we can, but especially Alliterative Andy.”
“Alliterative Andy?” Sylvia had to laugh. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Deb confirmed without so much as a single giggle. “He’s the kingpin. Don’t let the nickname fool you. The guy is the patriarch of a clan about 500 members strong, spread all over the country, almost all of them dirty as the losers in a tug-of-war. At least a third of them are PU,” which is street for Pushers of Uber, “dozens more are pushing other hard drugs, raising money through theft, murdering anyone who gets in their way. He’s even got priors going back into Juvy. At 11, he tossed a bug bomb into a BMO Harris bank. At 14 he was passing fake fives every Friday at a Fish ‘N Chips. By 17 he graduated to stealing seven Subarus in one Saturday. You’d think it would be easy to convict, but we’ve got no prints, no witnesses, no DNA, and no confession. We’ve taken out an operative here and there, but they aren’t talking. We need to squeeze harder. It was easier getting Al Capone.”
No one knew what to say to that. After at least a full minute of silence, Eyedeneaux spoke up. “Everyone on the same page, now? Can we get back to the sting?” It seemed he had something in mind, and none of us had a clue, so we let him talk. “The gist is that the Herds are expecting Gary and Ross to show up with Clara and that is what needs to happen.”
Ban swept up the sleepy raccoon from her lap again. Poor raccoon is going to be neurotic, I thought, being startled awake all the time. “Absolutely not! No one is taking her anywhere but back to the Mayo Clinic.”
“And what do you think will happen to Gary if he shows up empty handed? He won’t live long enough to apologize, Ms. Harris. We have to get him inside and we have to get him inside safely so we can prevent the Herds from killing anyone else.”
Ban backed away, pushing back Roxy in the process. “Over my dead body. No one is using Clara for bait.”
I hated the idea as much as Ban did, but I asked, “Can you guarantee her safety?” If his plan ensured that Clara would be rescued, I had hopes of coercing Ban to cooperate. I wouldn’t have it in me to even try without that assurance.
He wanted to say yes. His jaw muscles worked. He wanted to say yes very badly. But, in the end, he couldn’t. “No, I cannot.”
I rose and stood in front of Ban. “Then I stand with Ms. Harris.”
“Mom, I’m not sure we can do that,” admitted Billings. He didn’t look particularly pleased with himself, however. I saw him look behind me at Roxy, an unspoken question in his eyes. Glancing backwards myself, I could see the reply in Roxy’s face. The dispatch had been very clear. We had already interfered more than we should have.
“Time is short, Ms. Montana,” said Eyedeneaux impatiently. “Operatives might already be dispatched to track down Gary and dispose of him. Unless you have a better idea, I need to get Gary wired and prepped. Ms. Harris, please put Clara in the carrier.”
“No.” Ban refused.
I widened my stance in front of her. “As a matter of fact, I do have a better idea.” I didn’t, of course. I was speaking out of my potentially pulverized posterior. The sting might not be ours, but the crackers represented at least a mutual interest in the outcome. This may be about the corruption to Eyedeneaux and Alaska, but there was also the issue of Uberizing every type of food in existence. If the Herds were successful, it could lead to worldwide starvation. First another pandemic of deaths as Uber popped up in unexpected places, then everyone afraid to eat anything at all. Which included chocolate. And I couldn’t have that. The only thing more important than saving chocolate was ending the scourge of spiders, and I knew that wasn’t going to happen. With two FBI agents, my son, my ex-husband, Sylvia, and Fergie all looking at me, I told them my plan. “Me.”
Chapter Three
There was a chorus of “Helena!” and a couple “Ms. Montana!” and a “Mom!” from Billings. When the objections died down, Roxy said quite firmly, “You can’t do it, Helena. You signed a waiver. I can testify that your physical fight with Mr. Nonegan was self-defense, but I can in no way justify your volunteering for what could quite possibly be a suicide mission.”
As I often did in these situations, I pulled some confidence out of my butt and invented things faster than Donald Trump. “Listen, the Herds are expecting Gary to show up with Clara. That’s not going to happen. He’ll have to explain why he doesn’t have Clara. They know I was on the bus when he took it.”
“And they know we took it back,” argued Billings.
I stared him down. “And they will have to believe that Gary got away. The only way he’d do that against all of you is with a hostage.”
“But why you?” asked Sylvia, scratching an itch near the side of her eye patch.
“Because I couldn’t fight back. If they heard everything that happened on the bus, they know about my ribs.”
“But you did fight back,” said Fergie. “And you won.”
I had to think back for a bit on what they probably heard before the microphone was destroyed. How would it have sounded from their end? “Okay, but they also probably heard the helicopter, heard a bunch more people arrive. Probably could not hear our conversation outside, but everything inside up until Eyedeneaux crushed the mic. Enough to realize that Gary was no longer restrained. Anything could have happened after that. Absolutely anything. Like, for instance, Gary grabbing me and threatening me with a sharp stick until you had to let him go. Forced to leave Clara behind. What if I go with him, as his prisoner?”
“And they kill you and cut you into pieces. No. I won’t let that happen.” Billings was firm. “We’re not giving them another victim.”
“I won’t be a victim,” I said with more certainty than I felt. I had nothing to say that would ensure it, either. “I’m st
ronger than I look. And Andy Herd has never killed anyone, right, agent?”
Eyedeneaux raised a finger. “But he has ordered operatives to. We can’t rule it out.” I glared at him, but he continued. “I have a surveillance wire in the chopper. If you can get him to confess to something, we can be in there to extract you in minutes.”
“Get it,” I said.
Before he could leave, Gary stopped him. “Wait.” Then he didn’t say anything for a long time as we all looked at him, waiting. He looked into a middle distance and wouldn’t connect with anyone, like he was regurgitating the words by force. “You have to wire me, not her.”
“Why?” I objected. I’m not sure why I objected. As my brain invented this plan, I was liking it less and less already. According to Eyedeneaux, Billings’ jump to my own dismembered body was not exactly far-fetched.
“Trust is not big on the list over there. I bring you in like that, as a prisoner, knowing you beat me first, they are going to search you. Thoroughly.” The way he said the last word landed a lump of cement in my stomach. I’d been strip searched only once, back before the OOPS, back when I was the only glimmer in Butte’s eyes. I’d flown into Montana for a teaching convention, into Helena, Montana to be exact, and the airport authorities refused to believe it was my real name. I showed them my marriage certificate, and my newly updated Illinois ID card, but they didn’t buy it. They declared the documents forgeries and detained me in a private room where they proceeded to examine every inch of my body for explosives or drugs or possibly gerbils. I finally got in and enjoyed the convention, but by the time I left Montana I had an apology from the mayor and a standing invitation to a dinner in the Governor’s Mansion. In hindsight, it wasn’t worth it. The mayor was arrested on corruption charges six months later and the governor lost the next election in a landslide after he was caught in a three way with a transvestite hooker and his own underage daughter.
I knew what I had to do. Without a word, and only a brief look at Billings, I unzipped my parka, removed my HEP belt and my CURDS bulletproof vest, and put the parka back on. It was considerably less warm, and I already felt vulnerable. “Let them look,” I said. “Get the damn wire, Agent.”
