A Matter of Malice

by Thomas King

  “I’m a sweetheart.” Maslow’s laugh was almost as good as her smile. “But I can guarantee you won’t like Sydney.”

  Thumps waited.

  “No one likes Sydney,” said Nina. “Woman can be a real bitch.”

  Thumps waited some more.

  “And she’s got a gun.” Maslow smoothed her slacks. “But she’s one of the best producers in the business.”

  From the landing, he could see the front door. The optics of an empty store made the distance seem farther than it actually was, and Thumps considered getting a head start on walking away.

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a recommendation.”

  “There’s not much to recommend television,” said Nina. “It’s a miserable business. Film’s even worse.”

  “So why do it?”

  “It can be exciting.” Nina shrugged. “Bright lights and travel. Booze, drugs, rock and roll.”

  “Sounds tiring.”

  “The main problem is the people. Either you’re a self-centred, predatory sociopath or you’re in it for the money and the sex.” Maslow tried another smile, but this one had lost much of its wattage. “So, Mr. DreadfulWater, which one are you?”

  The mezzanine was small and the ceiling was low. But the elevation allowed you to look down and pretend that you were in charge of something.

  Leo Budd had had his office on the mezzanine. Thumps remembered couches and tables. And the walls. The walls had been covered with photographs of Budd and famous people who had come through Chinook and stopped in the store. Budd’s favourite was a photo of himself and Willie Nelson, taken when Nelson passed through on his way to a concert in Missoula.

  Budd’s photographs were gone now, all the furnishings moved out or sold. There was nothing left of the life that had once been the clothing store. Maybe this is what people and buildings had in common. Now the half floor was empty except for a heavy library table, some chairs, and a long, lumpy sofa that looked as though someone was using it for a bed.

  “Mr. DreadfulWater,” said Maslow, “this is Sydney Pearl.”

  The woman behind the table was in her fifties. Maybe sixties. She had thin, white hair that touched her shoulders and glistened as though she had been caught out in a freezing rain and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that gave her the appearance of someone about to swim laps. Or weld something together.

  “My car?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Maslow. “It wasn’t serious.”

  “Next time,” said Pearl, “a little more care.”

  “Rough country,” said Maslow. On the edge of the table was a tall amber bottle. Whiskey.

  Or Scotch. The seal still intact.

  Sydney Pearl held out a hand and pointed it at the folding chair. “Sit.”

  Lagavulin. Now that Thumps was on the same level, he could read the label. Lagavulin 21.

  “So,” Pearl said, “this is your guy.”

  Pearl wasn’t pretty or even handsome. Her face looked as though it had been drawn on her head with a black Sharpie. Her fingers were long and thin, the nails short and blunt, the skin on her hands the colour and texture of an old saddle.

  “Nina tells me you’re going to help make my life easier.”

  Sydney Pearl was wearing a pearl-handled pistol in a shoulder holster.

  “So, tell me, Mr. DreadfulWater,” said Pearl, “how much do you know about the Samuels case?”

  “Model 85,” said Thumps, gesturing to the gun. “Thirty-eight calibre? Galco classic holster?”

  Pearl slipped the gun out of the holster and slid it across the table, next to the bottle. “Nina said you used to be a cop.”

  Thumps picked the gun up, barrel down, and turned it over in his hand. “Didn’t know television was so hazardous.”

  “One of my first jobs was on Magnum, P.I.,” said Pearl. “Tom Selleck gave it to me. The Samuels case?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “That doesn’t sound helpful.”

  Nina moved quickly. “But I’ll have him up to speed by end of day.”

  “All right.” Pearl put the pistol back in the holster. “How well do you know Tobias Rattler?”

  “Never met him.”

  Pearl turned to Maslow. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do,” said Nina.

  “Results,” said Sydney.

  “I know,” said Nina.

  “I’m not paying him for effort.”

  Thumps stood up and hitched his pants. “That’s right,” he said. “You’re not.”

  Thumps was halfway down the block before Maslow caught up with him.

  “You can’t quit.”

  “Never took the job.”

  “Sydney’s not that bad. She’s just intense.”

  There were things Thumps needed to do. Check on Cooley. Find Freeway. Talk to Claire. Things more important than a sleazy television show.

  “Look, how about I buy you a coffee.” Maslow touched his arm. “I owe you that much.”

  Thumps wasn’t sure he could manage another cup of coffee. “Don’t owe me a thing.”

  “And it will give me a chance to tell you about the show, give me a chance to change your mind. You think we could do that?”

  MIRRORS WAS ACROSS from the Tucker hotel. The café had opened in the spring. Thumps remembered an article in the paper that talked about the bistro being fashioned after a famous coffee house in Uruguay.

  “Café Brasilero,” Nina told him, as they crossed the street. “In Montevideo.”

  Thumps had heard of Uruguay, and he was pretty sure he had heard of Montevideo, but Café Brasilero didn’t ring any bells.

  “Eduardo Galeano?”

  “Okay.”

  “Jesus,” said Maslow. “You don’t know Eduardo Galeano?”

  “Television?”

  “He’s one of South America’s most famous writers. Café Brasilero in Montevideo was his favourite hangout. Don’t tell me you’ve never read Mirrors.”

  “Mirrors? Like the café?”

  “Memory of Fire? Upside Down? The Book of Embraces?”

  Mirrors might have been the new kid in town, but the muntined windows set in an exposed brick wall and the reclaimed wood made it feel as though it had been around for the last hundred years. The interior was dark with soft edges that had been judiciously worn down with a power sander and gently distressed with a logging chain.

  “I always wanted to meet Galeano,” said Nina, “but he died before I had the chance.”

  The massive bar at the far end of the bistro appeared to have been lifted out of a nineteenth-century saloon. On the walls, you could still see the bones of faded letters and phantom advertisements lost in the skin of the wood, while overhead, a tin ceiling floated above a mishmash of wood tables and chairs.

  “Window seat?” said Nina. “Watch the world go by?”

  “Sure.”

  Mirrors was empty except for two women bent over their laptops, tending to designer coffee cups the size of bathtubs.

  “The sheriff said you used to be a cop.” Nina took the chair against the wall. “He said we could trust you.”

  Thumps didn’t like having his back to the door. Old habits, old instincts. From where he sat, he couldn’t see who came in.

  “What do you know about reality shows?”

  “Never watched one.”

  Nina froze for a second. “Never.”

  “Nope.”

  “Survivor? The Bachelor?”

  Thumps smiled. “I’ve led a sheltered life.”

  “Do you have a television?”

  Thumps nodded. “Somewhere.”

  The server magically appeared at their table with two menus.

  “Coffee,” said Thumps.

  “Sure,” said the young woman. “We have brewed, pour-overs, lattes, cappuccinos, flat whites, straight espresso . . .”

  “Black.”

  “Our special today is a smoked almond mocha macchiato.”

  “Just black coffee
.”

  “We make a great cortado.”

  “I’ll have the special,” said Nina. “And one of those lemon cranberry muffins.”

  Thumps glanced at the board above the bar that listed all the coffees and teas Mirrors offered. He stopped counting at thirty-two.

  “Okay,” said Nina, “the first thing you need to know about reality shows is that they’re not about reality. They’re about entertainment.”

  Thumps wondered what a Café Zorro was. Or a Guillermo. Something with cream, no doubt, maybe some chocolate.

  “But just because Malice Aforethought is entertaining doesn’t mean it doesn’t deal with serious matters.” Nina took a large folder out of her purse. “Trudy Samuels.”

  The surprise was the prices. A double espresso was four dollars. A mocha latte was five.

  “The official verdict was ‘death through misadventure,’ but we think it was murder.”

  “We?”

  “Public opinion,” said Nina. “And Trudy’s mother. She’s agreed to be on the show. She wants justice for her daughter.”

  The server brought the drinks. The muffin smelled good. Maybe a small piece wouldn’t raise his blood sugars that much.

  Nina opened the folder. “Copy of the original crime-scene report. Photographs, coroner’s report, sheriff’s notes. It’s long on public relations with the rich and powerful and short on investigative action.”

  Thumps sat back. “You don’t need me.”

  “Original investigation was uninspired,” said Maslow. “You used to be a cop. Must have handled your fair number of homicides.”

  “Handled suicides, too.”

  “You weren’t involved in the original investigation, so you’re impartial.”

  Thumps wanted to give Maslow the statistics on cold cases, how few of them ever got solved.

  “And you’re part of this community. People will talk to you.”

  Nina’s drink had a large dollop of whipped cream floating in the cup. It looked like an iceberg in a shipping lane.

  “We want you to investigate the case,” said Nina. “Take it back to the beginning. Turn it inside out. See what you find.”

  Thumps leaned back in the chair. “You have any idea what a Café Medici is?”

  “No interest in justice?”

  “No interest in a television show.”

  “Do you know how many people watch Malice Aforethought?”

  The coffee wasn’t bad. Smooth. Complex. If anything, it was somewhat better than the coffee at Al’s. Not that Thumps was going to share that observation with Alvera. Then again, the coffee at Mirrors cost three times as much.

  Nina took out a pen and wrote a figure on the paper placemat. “This is the daily rate. We’ll guarantee a ten-day minimum.”

  Thumps raised his cup. “Good coffee.”

  “That girl’s death still haunts this community. I can feel it.” Nina pushed the folder across the table. “You could help give closure to the living.”

  “I’m not a cop anymore,” said Thumps. “I’m a photographer.”

  “Unsolved murder. It can eat at you.” Maslow signalled the server and slipped into her coat. “But I guess you know that better than most.”

  Thumps stayed at the table, contemplated the rest of the coffee choices listed on the board, and tried to guess what they might be. Maybe next time he’d try an Egg Coffee. Or a Kopi Susu. Or a Botz, even though it didn’t sound all that appetizing.

  Thumps was tempted to leave the file on the table. Instead, he slipped it into his bag. Maybe he’d read it later. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Right now there were more important matters that needed his attention.

  Given the way his day had gone so far, he’d start with the easy one first.

  Six

  When Thumps had been a young cop just starting out, he had worked his fair share of traffic accidents. The Northern California coast was famous for narrow, windy roads that ran out along the ocean and disappeared into dense forests of cedars and giant redwoods. North of Arcata, the 101 quickly turned into a two-lane affair with short passing sections and quick turnouts that no one used. Certainly not the tourists who arrived each summer dragging trailers the size of Nebraska behind them, or the loggers who drove their trucks from the scaling yards to the sawmills with all the courtesy of a tank battalion on manoeuvres, or the expensive people out of Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and Marin County who raced the sixty-three miles from Trinidad Head to Crescent City at speeds approaching terminal velocity in their Caymans, Chirons, and Berlinettas.

  Every summer, finalists for the Darwin Awards smashed into trees, plunged off cliffs, and ran into each other as they tried to negotiate a road that had originally been built for pre-war Packards, DeSotos, and Studebakers. The winners would be rushed to local hospitals or straight to the morgue. The losers would be given speeding tickets and court dates. The vehicles would be hauled off to the various tow impounds, body shops, and junkyards.

  Then the road would be cleared, and the next qualifying heat would begin.

  THUMPS STOOD OUTSIDE Mirrors and waited for his eyes to adjust. The sun wasn’t particularly warm, but it was bright. He ran through his to-do list once again. Car, cat, Claire. Of the three, the car was the easiest task, the one that could be accomplished with a minimum of competence and effort, while the cat mystery would sort itself out.

  Claire, however, would require interpersonal skills that Thumps had yet to fully master.

  And driving to the reservation to find her would require a car.

  Which he didn’t have.

  Roxanne hadn’t said where they had taken his Volvo, and Thumps had forgotten to ask. In Chinook, cars involved in accidents generally wound up at either High Country Towing or Bingham’s Scrap and Salvage. High Country had the towing contract with the county. Bingham’s took anything made out of metal. But Thumps was pretty sure he wouldn’t find his two-door coup at either location. If Cooley had had anything to say in the matter, the Volvo would have been taken to Stas Black Weasel.

  And not because Stas was Blackfoot and therefore family of the extended sort.

  He wasn’t.

  Stas was one hundred percent Russian. Dark hair, blue eyes, a bear of a man covered in hair, with a voice like a trash compactor. He had been a master mechanic with Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart, Germany. One summer, he had come to Montana to see the Rockies. Angela Black Weasel was working at the Logan Pass Visitor Center in Glacier National Park as an interpretive guide. The two of them met, fell in love, married, and moved to Chinook. Angela got a job with the tribe, and Stas opened Blackfoot Autohaus, a small garage that specialized in luxury imports.

  People who didn’t know Stas assumed that he had taken Angela’s last name because of the European interest in all things Indian, but that hadn’t been the case.

  “Fukin is good name in Russian,” Stas would tell anyone who asked, “but not so good in English. This is true, yes?”

  Stas Fukin. Stas Black Weasel. Not that the name really mattered. What was important was that Stas was the best mechanic and body man in a hundred miles.

  So if the Volvo was at Blackfoot Autohaus, the car was in good hands and the only question was whether Stas would be there. Technically, the garage was open Monday through Friday from 7:00 to 6:00, but these hours tended to be suggestions, and the actual times of operation fluctuated depending on the season.

  Hunting and fishing season.

  If you wanted your car repaired at Stas’s garage, you didn’t call ahead and make an appointment. Stas had a phone, but he tended not to answer it.

  “I answer phone,” he would explain, “I cannot work on car.”

  So, you drove to the garage and hoped that Stas was there and not off tramping through the mountains or standing knee-deep in his favourite trout stream.

  The bay doors were up. Stas was standing under a car in his white coveralls. There was a BMW sedan and an older Porsche against the fence. The Volvo was not to be seen.

&nbs
p; “Come.” Stas waved Thumps over. “You must see this.”

  Thumps hadn’t spent much time under cars and had no idea what it was he was supposed to see.

  “Catalytic converter,” said Stas, touching a metal pod. “Here, muffler.”

  The converter was damaged. The muffler looked to have been crushed.

  “2006 Honda Element EX-P,” said Stas. “Very interesting car. Small engine. Big interior. Four-wheel drive. Cute, yes?”

  Thumps had seen the occasional Element on the street, and they were cute. In a boxy sort of way.

  “Poor acceleration,” said Stas. “But this is not stock Honda. Scary lady has it fixed up.”

  “Scary?”

  “Yes,” said Stas. “Scary lady has gun here.” Stas patted his side. “I think maybe she is Israeli Mossad.”

  “Sydney Pearl,” said Thumps. “This is her car?”

  “Motor has been modified,” said Stas. “More horse. More displacement. Good suspension. Valves. Voom, voom. You understand?”

  “It’s been customized,” said Thumps. “High performance.”

  “Yes,” said Stas. “Sound system also. Voom, voom.”

  Most garages Thumps had been in were grease pits. Stas’s looked more like a surgery. The tools were in drawers or hanging neatly on the walls. The floor was spotless. Stas’s coveralls were spotless.

  “This model is four-wheel drive,” said Stas. “So, scary lady’s friend takes car off road. Too much voom, voom.” Stas reached up and gave the muffler a shake. “So I fix this, and car is good as new.” Stas paused, looking for the right words. “Your car is different story. Grustnyy. You understand this?”

  Thumps had no idea what the word meant, but it had the sound of something being crushed underfoot and thrown away.

  Stas wiped his hands with a red rag. “Come,” he said. “Let us have tea.”

  Stas’s office was cleaner than his garage. There was a framed poster of a 1920s street scene that featured a Mercedes town car just coming into view. Next to it was one of the “Stop the Pipeline” posters. The Mercedes poster was a stylized art deco piece in reds and browns with a cream background. The pipeline poster was bolder and less artistic, with no attempt at subtlety. Cold blacks. Cold whites.

  Hanging on the wall next to the pipeline poster was a cowboy hat.