“That’d be lights out for Bobo,” Pee Pee lisped.
“It would have been . . . interesting,” Willie said. “Bobo owns the Death & Destruction. Its only bouncer, too. And by the looks of him, he’s all he needs. It would have been a pretty even match, I’m thinking.” Willie sipped from his Goofy coffee cup. “His clunker wouldn’t start, and his wife jumped the car from her pickup. Last thing I saw of Bobo was he gave me the middle finger as he left the impound yard.”
“Putting up that kind of fuss over that junker?” Manny leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. Why would Bobo make such a stink over a car that could be replaced by a hundred-dollar bill any day in Rapid City? “There’s something else going on with Bobo. I find it hard to believe he’d risk jail time by threatening an officer just because someone took that car.”
Pee Pee answered, but Manny and Willie just looked at each other. Pee Pee pushed his dentures up tighter in his mouth. “Maybe he’s the kind who gets mad when he thinks someone’s made a fool out of him. He wants to find the thief and give him his own kind of street justice. Bobo Groves is one nasty dude.”
“How do you know that?” Manny asked.
Pee Pee looked away.
“Am I the only one who hasn’t been to Bobo’s strip club?” Manny said. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man your age visiting the D&D.”
Pee Pee forced a grin. “Sometime, a man’s just got to kill time when he’s in Rapid shopping.”
Willie refilled Goofy and poured water to start a fresh pot of coffee. “You may be right. Bobo looked the kind to be pissed at whoever stole his car. And I’m thinking he took his frustration out on his wife.” Willie swirled burnt mud masquerading as coffee around inside Goofy, not waiting for the fresh pot. “His wife drove him down from Rapid City to pick his car up. By her shiner and knotted cheek, I’m betting he tuned her up before they arrived. I don’t think he’ll be too cooperative.”
“He will be if he wants to find out who stole his car,” Manny said.
“One thing’s for sure,” Pee Pee said, rubbing his eyes and standing on wobbly legs. “When we do catch the thief, all the guy’s going to get is a misdemeanor, no more than that car’s worth.”
Manny slipped on his sheepskin coat, and grabbed gloves out of the pocket.
“You rushing off to another case?” Willie helped Manny untangle the scarf Clara had insisted he wear out in the cold. The scarf she had knitted herself. The pink scarf. Willie stifled a chuckle. “Or you just going for fresh donuts?”
“With my diabetes?” Manny felt like the kid in A Christmas Story, all bundled up. He hoped he didn’t look as silly as he felt. “No, I’m off to the Cohen Home to talk with Chief Horn.”
“Oh, crap,” Willie said. “You want me to send backup?”
Manny smiled. “In this get-up, he won’t even know who I am. But I need to find out what Johnny Apple—if it is him—would have been doing here. And Chief Horn will know if anyone does.”
“How would he know someone from Fort Washakie?” Willie asked.
“Chief Horn makes all the social rounds. Pow wows. Church luncheons. The man is a professional funeral-goer. If anyone’s seen John Doe visiting Pine Ridge, it’d be Chief Horn.”
Manny started out the door when Willie stopped him. “Are you heading back to Rapid after you talk with him?”
Manny nodded. “Special Agent McDermont’s arranged for us to use the PD’s outdoor range to qualify in the morning. And AccuWeather has Rapid at a balmy eight to ten degrees in the morning. I’ll be standing tall on the firing line with my sidearm buried somewhere under all this and knocking icicles off my ass waiting to shoot.”
Willie turned down Manny’s collar and walked him to the door. “Just remember to stop at the tux shop and get fitted.”
Manny dropped his head. Secretly he had hoped Willie and Doreen had worked things out. That they could just live in sin rather than get married, and spare Manny being the groom’s best man. It’s not that Manny didn’t want the best for Willie. It’s just that Willie’s upcoming wedding reminded Clara that they needed to set a date for their own wedding. Manny had tried reasoning with Willie. “Half of all marriages end in divorce,” Manny had argued. “And the rest end in death.” None of it, it seemed, would deter Willie from walking down that fateful aisle. “I’ll stop by after qualifications. If,” he shook his head, “Chief Horn lets me leave the retirement home in one piece.”
Chapter 5
Even before Manny crossed the parking lot to the front doors of the Cohen Memorial Home he heard Chief Horn’s voice, loud and booming over a PA. As if he had ever needed a loudspeaker.
Manny stopped at the receptionist’s window. The woman checking out “Five Ways to Make Him Squirm” peeked over the newest issue of Cosmo. “You really want to see Chief Horn?” she asked when Manny told her.
“I do.”
“Then you’d better get a card or two.”
“A card?”
“This is Thursday. Bingo day. You better not step into the commons without one.”
Manny passed through the French doors to the commons area. Residents lorded over their Bingo cards as they sat elbow to elbow at a row of tables that had been set up in front of an elevated platform. Manny fished a quarter out of his pocket and gave it to the lady handing out cards.
“You’re about seventy-five cents short, kiddo,” she said out of the side of her mouth, the other one occupied by an unlit cigarette. She noticed him eyeing it, and nodded to Chief Horn standing on the platform, hand turning a crank attached to a wire cage containing Bingo balls. “If he catches you smoking, he gives you a ticket. Bans you for life from Bingo, too. You smoke?”
“I used to, but I quit a few years ago.”
“Well, don’t relapse now.”
Manny dug deep in his pocket and came away with three more quarters. He handed them to the grizzled old lady. “Kind of steep for one card.”
She motioned for Manny to come closer and she whispered, “By charging more, Horn’s got prizes up where a body can enjoy them. We don’t play to win candy bars anymore.”
“B-8,” Horn drowned her out, and she waited until he started cranking the metal cage again. “Blackout win tonight is your choice of Playboy or Playgirl.” She winked at him. “I’m hoping to win.”
“Is that the grand prize?”
“Hell no. Two blackouts and you win the jackpot: a paid bus trip to Deadwood to hit the slots.”
“But the casinos already provide free shuttle service.”
“Shush!” She looked around. “I know that, but most here don’t. The more money Bingo brings in, the more improvements can be done around here.” She pointed to an opening on one side of a long table. “You’d better seat yourself before the next round starts.”
Manny took his card and sat between an elderly man with a single card and an elderly woman with eight cards arrayed in front of her. Both glared menacingly and turned their backs on Manny as they held their daubers poised above their cards.
“I-18,” Chief Horn began. A pregnant pause followed as he looked around the room, surveying the players. His eyes fell on Manny, and a slight smile crept over his face before he returned to being the all-business Bingo announcer. “B-4.”
*****
On went the numbers, and Manny dotted his Bingo card with purple ink. He was only vaguely aware of the grandmother glaring at him. She nudged the old man beside her, and chin-pointed to Manny’s card: He had won the blackout.
“Bingo!” Manny shouted.
He stood up, knocking his chair onto the floor.
“Well bring that card up, young man,” Chief Horn said.
Manny ran the gauntlet of old folks waiting to ambush him for spoiling their win, and he handed Horn his card. After he checked all the numbers, Chief Horn held the card high. “We h
ave a winner of our blackout.” He turned to Manny. “So, what will you chose, the latest edition of Playboy or the Playgirl collector issue with Burt Reynolds in the centerfold?” Horn winked at the crowd before smiling at Manny.
“I really don’t need anything. Start over and someone else can win it.”
Horn leaned close to Manny and whispered, “Do not show softness with this group in here. It will be like the Night of the Living Dead if they smell weakness. Pick one.”
“Okay, then, I’ll take the Playgirl.”
Chief Horn’s smile faded. “You can have the Playboy if you want. It is still in the plastic wrapper.”
“No. I pick the Playgirl.”
Horn handed Manny the magazine and nodded to a man in the front row. “Take over, Freddie.”
Chief Horn walked close to Manny as he led him safely out of the commons. When they passed the table where Manny had sat next to the still-glaring old woman, he set the Playgirl solemnly on the table beside her Bingo cards. She flashed a toothless grin and began thumbing pages.
The rest of the crowd wasn’t so kindly. Manny heard the muttered curses and felt the death looks slicing into his back, half-expecting a knife or war axe to come sailing his direction any moment.
Horn led Manny into his apartment and took his coat. Like Manny’s last visit here, Horn’s place was still spotless. He hung Manny’s coat and Stetson on a Bentwood coat rack beside a small black and white television. “Coffee?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Sure.”
Chief Horn grabbed a jar of instant Sanka from the cupboard above the sink and added it to two Styrofoam cups he filled with water and stuck in the microwave.
The microwave beeped, and Chief Horn handed Manny his boiling hot coffee. He sat on a chair and scooted close to the table. Manny burnt his lip and he winced. “That crowd is vicious when someone hits Bingo.”
“Do not think anything of it. Tomorrow, it will be Pinochle that they are serious about.” Chief Horn chuckled. “Hell, by tomorrow half the people would not even remember they had seen you here today.”
Horn tilted his head back and laughed heartily, his hand resting on his chest, his double chin bouncing. The Chief still had a robust laugh. Still loved life. Manny recalled the countless good times he’d had when he worked for Chief Horn. Just out of the Army, and junior man on the tribal police force, Manny seemed to screw up something just about every day. Every time he did, it was usually doing something so stupid that Chief Horn would laugh that same laugh right before he sat him down and steered him right. And each time, Manny learned about police work—and about life—from the big man.
“But you did not come here to win a Playgirl at Bingo.”
Manny grabbed his notebook, and just as quickly, put it back in his pocket. Chief Horn was the one who taught him to use a notebook only as a prop. He had taught Manny that he’d better have his facts memorized before he talked with people.
Manny reached inside his coat pocket and fished out photos of the drowning victim. “Have you ever seen him?”
Horn reached into a wooden box on the counter and grabbed reading glasses. He held the picture to the light and shook his head. “Should I have?”
“I was hoping you could place him.” Manny explained that the victim found in the lake was probably Johnny Apple from Wind River Reservation.
“I never heard of a Johnny Apple.” Chief Horn downed half his boiling coffee before he realized it was hot and set it back on the coaster. “I think it needs cooling off.”
Manny smiled. “I know it does.”
Horn looked at the photo a final time before handing it back. “Is he Arapaho or Shoshone.”
“Does it matter?”
Chief Horn nodded. “Back in the time before the Arapaho and Shoshone were thrown together at Wind River, when we Lakota took winter camps high up where the soldiers could not find us, we shared out lodges with our friends. We welcomed our friends, the Blue Clouds: the Arapaho. Some Lakota warriors took Arapaho wives. Some Arapaho warriors took Lakota wives. If this man from Wind River was here on Pine Ridge, if he was Arapaho, he could have been visiting distant relatives.” Chief Horn stood. “Want more coffee?”
“I’m still cooling this cup off.”
Chief Horn walked the room, thinking. “There was a ieska, a mixed-blood, some years ago.” He snapped his fingers. “A guy named Charging Bear. He had a farm a mile or two from Oglala Lake. Married some Arapaho lady from Wind River. Does that help?”
“It might, if we can run down this Charging Bear.”
Manny stood, and a wide smile crossed Chief Horn’s broad face. “I could come in and ride. I could help if you are short-handed.”
Manny patted his arm. “I wish it were so, Chief, but the bureau doesn’t allow non-law enforcement involvement.”
“I am still a cop.” Chief Horn’s smile faded, replaced by a drooping mouth. “Once a cop, always a cop. Is that not the old saying?”
“I think it’s ‘Once a Marine, always a Marine.’ ”
“I was that, too, you know.”
Manny nodded. “You and Reuben.”
“Do not remind me about your brother Reuben.” Chief Horn frowned. “But I can help. I am still sharp.” Chief Horn waved his hand around his apartment. “It is boring here. When you get my age and the bank sends you calendars a month at a time, you realize you’re close to the end. And you want some excitement. Besides writing bogus tickets and calling Bingo.”
“Bureau policy applies to you, too. But I do appreciate the offer, Chief.”
Manny was about to leave when he looked around the room. Chief Horn had always kept his dog outside until last summer. Everyone in the home cheered up when they visited the old mongrel chained out back. He’d convinced the director of the Cohen Home that his old dog would be therapeutic if she were an inside dog. Manny saw no leash, no dog dish. “What happened to Mable?”
Horn’s mouth drooped even more. “I had to put her down three weeks ago. She had a bad heart. I miss her, Manny.”
“When are you going to get another dog?”
Tears clouded his eyes, and he shook his head.
“Chief.” Manny draped his arm around the old man’s shoulders. “I’ve never known you to be without a dog.”
“I do not want one.”
“Even if I bring over a nice, cute one? One of the police dispatcher’s labs has just had puppies and—”
“Please.” Chief Horn shrugged off Manny’s arm. “Do not bring me another pup. I do not have time for another dog.”
Chief Horn opened the door for Manny. “If I think of anything about your floater, I will call you.”
Chapter 6
Manny slowed as he drove past Angostura Reservoir on his way to Hot Springs. Even though it was only an hour away from Pine Ridge, this was one of the mini-vacations he and his Uncle Marion used to save up for every year. Unc and Manny would camp out by the lake. They would fry the trout they had caught, and roast marshmallows. Campfires were permitted back then, before too many people discovered the beauty of the area and thoughtless campers forced the state Game, Fish and Parks department to prohibit open fires.
Manny hadn’t been back to Hot Springs in the four years since he’d returned to South Dakota. He just couldn’t seem to bring himself to come here. Alone. Without his Uncle Marion. He and Unc would break camp every morning, and they’d walk the high country to the peak of Battle Mountain. Manny would sit reverently on a rock while Unc prayed to the four winds, giving thanks to Wakan Tanka and the Lakota warriors who had defeated their Cheyenne enemies for control of the healing hot springs. More than a century ago, before the two tribes had agreed to share access to the benefits of the waters. More than an eternity ago: before Unc had died suddenly in his sleep.
Manny drove through the sleepy town of Hot Springs, made even sleepier
in this off-tourist season by the cold afternoon air. He pulled into the parking lot of Evans Plunge. Unc would bring Manny here every year to soak in the warm mineral water pool.
When he walked through the doors, a man in his eighties sat on a stool behind the counter crocheting a doily. He set his crochet hook down and stood. “Christmas coming up,” he saw Manny looking at his doily. “I send my great-granddaughter a set every year.” He laughed heartedly, displaying a fine set of choppers that Pee Pee would have been jealous of. “What else do I got to do? So I volunteer here once a week. Beats sitting in the home all day staring at a bunch of drooling piss-poor Pinochle players at Battle Mountain.” He offered his hand. “Just call me Jonah.”
Manny shook his hand. Firm. Callused. “Veterans Home?”
He smiled. “Just down the street. Class of ’51.”
“’51?”
“Yeah, 1951. Korea. I’m about the youngest doughboy in the retirement home.”
Manny fished the picture of John Doe out of his pocket, and handed it to the old man. “Have you ever seen him in here?”
Jonah put reading glasses on. He scrunched his nose at the corpse and turned it to the light. He handed it back. “Whew! Looks like you got a stinker there.”
Manny nodded.
“I haven’t seen him in here. But then I work part time. Besides,” he laughed, “at my age, he might have walked through that door yesterday and I wouldn’t remember.”
Jonah walked around the counter, grabbing his unzipped trousers that were falling down. “It’s more comfortable when I sit.” He motioned through a large window, as he hiked his pants up and buckled them. “Davy’s the lifeguard. He’s here every day. He might remember this guy.”
“Thanks,” Manny said. He started through the door when Jonah grabbed his arm. “I got to charge you.”
“For talking with Davy?”
Death Etched in Stone Page 4
