Hardrock Stiff

by Thomas Zigal

  Bingo, he thought, clasping his hands. The connection he was looking for.

  And then he noticed something else in the man’s records. U.S. Army, 1967-73, distinguished service in Vietnam. Explosive Ordnance Disposal, MACV-SOG. The same demolitions task force as Kurt’s brother.

  He picked up the phone and dialed the Banks home in Denver. A teenage boy answered, and Kurt asked to speak with his father. “Did I catch you at a bad time, Lorenzo?” he said when the man came on the line.

  “I was just about to head downtown, Kurt,” he said. “Hey, sorry I couldn’t be more definitive about the mine explosion. I didn’t feel I could call it one way or the other. I know that doesn’t help your case, man, but I would be lying if I said otherwise. Maybe you should bring in the ATF. They’ve got more sensitive equipment and they’re better trained at that kind of thing.”

  “You did a great job, Lorenzo, and we all appreciate it. That’s not why I’m calling.”

  Kurt asked if he had ever heard the name James Joseph Chilcutt.

  “J.J.? Hell yes, I know him. Your brother knew him too. He was in our unit. J.J. was one seriously disturbed individual. Only man I know who got his rocks off crawling down VC tunnels with plastique hanging off his back. He was too big for the work but the brass didn’t want to discourage a man who so dearly loved his job. J.J. still living out in Junction?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Next time you see that boy, tell him Lorenzo Banks says to kiss his ass.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  The VIProtex office was located off the hotel lobby of the Silver Queen hotel, at the end of a long corridor with polished wood floors and potted ferns. A discreet brass nameplate identified the door. The small reception area gave the impression of a therapist’s waiting room, soft carpet and soothing earth tones, comfortable fabric couches, the lamps dimmed to an amber repose. There was no crude suggestion of surveillance cameras or monitors, no tape reels spinning. This was where the clients met for introductions, warm handshakes, reassurances.

  “May I help you?” the receptionist asked with a brittle smile. Rigid as a ruler, frosted hair, bright lipstick, her face narrow and pinched. Staggs must have brought her in from out of town. No one in Aspen except a handful of real estate weasels dressed up like that to sit behind a desk all day and take phone messages.

  “Is Neal Staggs in today? I would like to see him, please.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. He’s leaving town this morning and won’t be back until next week.”

  Kurt glanced at the closed doors in the rear where a crew-cut young man sat reading a magazine in a straight-backed chair. He looked up, a rookie guard outfitted in a starch-pressed VIProtex uniform, his hollow eyes meeting Kurt’s. He was the kind of unambitious grunt, confused and amorphously angry, who had always made the perfect foot soldier.

  “That’s too bad,” Kurt said, offering his best smile, trying to thaw the woman’s chilly exterior. He was wearing a dark blue suit he’d chosen for the funeral and knew how dignified and imposing he appeared, how remarkably adult. “I was hoping to catch him before he got away. We go back a few years.”

  “Oh, I see.” Not one corpuscle of human emotion.

  “In fact,” he said, gazing around the reception room, “I didn’t know Neal had a branch office here until just this morning.”

  “Yes, sir, we’ve been here four months.”

  He studied the hard lines around her mouth. “You’re from Denver, aren’t you?”

  A faint glimmer in her eyes, an arctic wind shifting the snows-cape. “How did you know that?”

  He rested his hands on the desk and leaned closer, lowering his voice. “When Neal was in the Denver office, he and I worked some of the same cases.”

  A weak winter sun shone over the ice plates. The frozen crust was beginning to soften. “Are you with the Bureau, Mr.—”

  The young guard was watching them now, eavesdropping. Kurt lowered his voice to a whisper. “No, I’m not, Miz Barnstone,” he said, reading the nameplate on her desk. Hazel Barnstone. “But Neal and I have similar professional interests. Would you tell him I’m here to see him.”

  He watched the word snitch cross her thoughts. The words lowlife paid government informant. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, “Mr. Staggs is making last-minute preparations for his trip and is unavailable right now. If you give me your name and phone number I will let him know you came by. Perhaps you would like to schedule an appointment for next week.”

  He had abandoned all hope of charming this woman. He was prepared to drop his shield on her desk and say, Okay, sister, buzz that asshole and tell him this is police business, but he didn’t want to lose Staggs out a back door, or be forced to wait until his lawyer arrived. “Miz Barnstone,” he said in a final effort, “do this little favor for me, I’ll do one for you.”

  There was the suggestion of a smile at the corners of her hard mouth, a cold, perverse twitch. “What makes you think you could possibly do something for me?” she asked, her eyes narrowing darkly.

  “You’ve never seen my tattoo.”

  “No,” she said with a flash of small sharp teeth. “And it isn’t likely you’ll ever see mine. Good day, sir.”

  At that moment the hall door swished open and a young limousine driver rushed in. “Sorry I’m running late,” he huffed, his face flushed with heat and embarrassment. “I had some trouble finding your suite.”

  Hazel Barnstone stood up from the chair, attempting to direct the young driver’s attention, her bright lips moving quickly, speaking clipped phrases.

  “Are you Mr. Staggs?” he said to Kurt, extending a hand, his chest heaving from the sprint through the lobby. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll get you to the airport with time to spare.”

  “Young man!” the receptionist said in a shrill voice. “Please have a seat. I will let you know when your client is ready to leave.”

  The driver smiled sheepishly at Kurt, apologized again, shuffled toward a couch. Hazel Barnstone circled around the desk and marched briskly across the carpet in her white leather heels to open the door for Kurt, showing him the way out.

  “I will tell Mr. Staggs you were here,” she said, her voice as barren as a tundra. “What did you say your name is?”

  The security guard was on his feet now, moving bovinely toward the commotion, his shoulders rolled up around his neck like a stiff little bull.

  “Tell Staggs his old Aspen buddy came calling,” Kurt said, lingering at the open door to stare down the young guard approaching him.

  “Shall I say it was the old buddy with a tattoo?” she asked snidely.

  “The old buddy who fucked up his retirement pension. He’ll know who I am.”

  Following a limousine was the easiest tail Kurt had ever handled. At the airport the driver shuttled Staggs to the hangar that housed the private planes of movie stars and Wall Street traders, and carried two bags for him to a waiting Lear. As soon as Staggs was aboard, Kurt wheeled his Jeep into an EMPLOYEES ONLY space next to the service shed where Wing Taylor could be found day or night, chewing out his crew, filing paperwork, monitoring the weather.

  Kurt tapped on the glass wall that separated Wing from the noise and grease. The man looked up from a newspaper, grinned, and waved Kurt in. “Morning, son,” he said. “Long time no see. What brings you to the pit?”

  “I need to know where a plane is going,” Kurt said.

  “Not a problem. Give me a few details.”

  “How about that one right there,” Kurt said, pointing out the window at the Learjet taxiing across the wet tarmac.

  “No brainer, Kurt. That’s the VIProtex jet. Two guys going to Colorado Springs this morning.”

  “Two guys?”

  “The first one’s been here an hour, poking around the shop, shooting the shit with my mechanics. I had to go out and tell him to wait in the designated area. Something falls on his bad hand, I’m screwed. Insurance don’t cover that.”

  “The guy had a
bad hand?”

  “Bandaged, anyway. Don’t make any difference, I cain’t let people wander around my shop.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Like a goddamned Viking. Big fella with a beard.”

  Wing Taylor was pushing seventy, gap toothed, a stout, balding man with curly white muttonchop sideburns that had been out of style for at least twenty years. A sheriff prior to Kurt had officially deputized Wing and the old pilot was proud of his association with law enforcement. He showed up for every department picnic and fund-raiser, plastered his truck with supportive cop stickers, sent baskets of fruit to everyone at Christmas. The department hired him out several times a year, especially in avalanche season. There wasn’t a better pilot in the valley.

  “You feel like a trip to Colorado Springs today?” Kurt asked him.

  Wing’s Irish face glowed with excitement. “Back by supper time?”

  “I can’t promise.”

  “Let me call the wife,” he said. “I’ll have you in the air in fifteen minutes.”

  Kurt watched the Learjet roll down the strip for takeoff. “Make it ten,” he said.

  Chapter thirty-two

  They headed due east out of the rain clouds, the Turbo Commander climbing above the rugged, snowcapped peaks of the Sawatch Range, a dramatic spectacle of alpine cirques and blue mountain lakes, the pinnacle of the Continental Divide. But Kurt was exhausted, light-headed in flight, and the awesome beauty didn’t prevent him from nodding off. By the time they were sailing over the Pike National Forest he was fast asleep and didn’t wake until the plane’s wheels touched earth in Colorado Springs and Wing gave him a shake.

  “Here we are, bub.”

  “Wait for my call,” Kurt mumbled at the pilot. “I might be gone two or three hours.”

  He didn’t know how he was going to find Staggs, who was at least half an hour ahead of them by now. Groggy and floating, he made his way to the airport’s limousine service counter and smiled at the young woman behind the desk. “Two of my colleagues in law enforcement grabbed a limo a little while ago,” he said, showing her his badge. It was a long shot, but what did he have to lose. “We were supposed to hook up and ride together but my flight was delayed. Is there anything available right now?”

  “Certainly, sir,” she said, a perky blonde with a sunny disposition. “Your friends were the two gentlemen from Aspen, right?”

  “Very good,” he smiled. “I can see you’re more on top of things this morning than I am.”

  She pecked away at her computer. “We aren’t as busy as we were yesterday,” she said, “when the golfers came in for the tournament.”

  “How long is the ride?” He checked his watch ostentatiously. “Can we make it by noon?” He didn’t have a clue where he was going.

  Click, click. “The Palmer Country Club is only twenty minutes away, sir.” She waited for the screen, glanced up at him, smiled. “One of our drivers should be returning shortly. How many bags?”

  “None. I’m just here for the day.”

  “No clubs, sir?”

  Clubs? He hesitated. “No.”

  “I read about the tournament in the paper,” she said, tapping her printout button. “Sounds like a worthy cause. My grandfather did some ranching down near Pagosa Springs.”

  What was this all about? “So they covered us in the paper,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. I think I still have yesterday’s Gazette in the office, if you’d like to see it.”

  As the limousine transported him into the city, Kurt read the back-page newspaper article about the golf tournament, a benefit for something called the Ranch Relief Fund. What caught his eye was the sponsor, the Free West Legal Coalition. Their executive director, Arnold Metcalf, explained that the fund “aids those folks whose livelihood has been threatened by unnecessary federal regulations. It’s a shame,” Metcalf was quoted as saying, “that the good people who put food on our tables are struggling to stay in business because Washington bureaucrats and the environmental lobby have tied their hands and won’t let them do what they’ve been doing successfully for generations.”

  Arnold Metcalf, he thought. The lawyer Corky had told him about. Was Staggs playing in this tournament for pleasure, he wondered, or was he here on security business for the Free West Legal Coalition?

  The limo ride was Kurt’s first trip through the boulevards of Colorado Springs. He was well aware that this place was a strategic military encampment, the nerve center for the North American Air Defense Command, the U.S. ballistic missile force, and the Space Command satellite surveillance systems, all secured in hollowed-out Cheyenne Mountain nearby. The few times in his life he had passed through this area on i-25 he hadn’t slowed down long enough to acknowledge the sprawling Air Force Academy with its smooth green landscaping, or the city itself, which impressed him as one big water-sucking, artificial lawn planted on the last prairie mesa before the Front Range of the Rockies. Ever since his unhappy two-year stint in the U.S. Army, 1968-70, he had avoided all things military—base areas, vet hangouts, commissaries—so on those long vacation trips to New Mexico he was relieved when Colorado Springs was behind him, receding farther into the rearview mirror, an orderly grid with timed sprinkler systems and cheap Sunday buffets and a hundred thousand aging, buzz-cut hardasses living out their circumscribed years among the fading ribbons and bronze stars on their mantelpieces.

  “How long ago did you drop off my two friends?” Kurt asked the driver.

  “About an hour ago, sir.”

  They drove into the scrub-oak foothills below Cheyenne Mountain, an exclusive planned community of $300,000 homes, impressive views of Pikes Peak, their own man-made lakes. On the sylvan grounds near the country-club entrance there was a tastefully constructed sign welcoming the public to the tournament. The limousine rolled down a long pine-shaded lane to the club headquarters, a Tudor castle rising out of the greenery. Kurt tipped the young man generously and crossed the wooden footbridge over a stagnant, moat-like pond covered with lily pads. In the castle’s palatial lobby a handful of women wearing paper name-tags sat at a long table, greeting visitors, handing out brochures, taking money. A pair of uniformed VIProtex security guards strolled about, keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings.

  “You’re not too late, dear,” said a friendly older lady named Mabel Dishburger. Her eyes darted about behind librarian bifocals as she collected materials for him from five different stacks. “They haven’t made it to the second tee. There’s still plenty of afternoon left.”

  Kurt returned her smile. “I’m expecting some friends,” he told her. “I’ll go wait for them out front.”

  He had no intention of shelling out money for a benefit golf tournament. Instead he walked outside and wove his way through a trellised rose garden leading to the rear of the grand old edifice, where a group of teenage caddies lounged around by the golf carts. Kurt picked out a wisecracking carrottop who could have passed for Lennon’s older brother and slipped a ten-dollar bill into his shirt pocket. “Take me out to the action,” he said.

  The caddie studied Kurt’s suit lapels. “You’re supposed to get one of those little pins when you register, mister.”

  Kurt found another ten in his wallet. “Here’s my registration form,” he said, adding the bill to the boy’s pocket. “Let’s take a ride.”

  The caddie drove Kurt down two hundred yards of fairway past the first flag. They could see the crowd off to the right, maybe a hundred people shading themselves under a stand of ponderosa pines. The golfers themselves were scattered out over several acres of stunning scenery, little safaris of Ban-Lon bwanas trailed by their baggage bearers. Striped canvas-roofed carts meandered about the course like lost ice cream trucks.

  “Are there any celebrities playing in this tournament?” Kurt asked the driver.

  “Yes, sir,” the boy assured him. He named three circuit pros Kurt had never heard of, the ne’er-do-well son of a famous television comedian, and a macho deep-voic
ed movie actor known for minor cowboy roles.

  “I’m looking for two people,” Kurt told the driver. “I don’t know if they’re playing or watching. Let’s try that group over there,” he said, pointing to a sizable party off near a water trap.

  “I’m not authorized to drive around the course during the tournament, sir.”

  “Okay, my friend, I don’t want to get you in trouble.” Kurt showed him his badge. “Help me find these guys and you can split.”

  Within a quarter of an hour they had located Neal Staggs walking with his party less than fifty yards from the second flag. Five middle-aged men chatting among themselves, including two casually dressed Asians wearing blue sun visors, their golf balls dotting the green ahead. The caddies marched in the rear, heavy bags slung over their shoulders, and behind them all, idling along like a protective patrol car, crept a lone white cart driven by a man holding the wheel with a heavily bandaged hand.

  “Pull up behind that cart,” Kurt instructed the driver.

  He gave the boy the last five-dollar bill in his wallet, hopped out, and jogged over to the cart, sliding into the passenger seat alongside J.J. Chilcutt. “Afternoon, J.J.,” he said. “What happened to your hand? Hurt it blowing up that Dumpster?”

  Chilcutt recoiled, startled, his deep-set eyes showing an unexpected panic in a man so large and fierce-looking. Surprise was a wonderful thing. The cart rolled to a stop.

  “Or did Tyler nick you with some bird shot?”

  Chilcutt turned his large body to study Kurt. “Where the fuck did you come from, man?”

  “Dropped out of the sky,” he said. “I thought it was time you and I had a conversation about demolitions.”

  Neal Staggs had glanced back over his shoulder, walked on a few steps, and then turned around in a full standstill, wondering why the cart was not moving. Wondering who the hell was sitting next to his man.