I thought about it. “Is the special the usual?”
“No.”
“I’ll have the usual.”
“Me too.” Vic nodded. “And a cup of coffee.”
Propping both elbows onto the counter, I stared at the two of us in the bar-back mirror. “I just can’t help but think that it was perfect timing what with the merging of advertising and big business in the late 1800s. Plus the advent of inexpensive printing processes that allowed for a relatively new innovation . . .”
“Which was?”
“Color.”
“Oh.”
Tipping my hat back, I postulated. “I wonder how many of those lithographs were handed out?”
“Call Budweiser, I’m sure they have somebody in charge of their advertising archives—you could even fly to Saint Louis and check it out.”
“I could.”
“I was joking.”
Dorothy reappeared with glasses of water, and I thanked her and took a couple of sips. “There were two very different types of establishments in those days, saloons and barrooms—barrooms had sawdust on the floors and spittoons while saloons had more refined tastes, and I can see beer salesmen coming in and telling barroom owners that they could sure class-up the place by putting one of these swell lithographs behind the bar.”
“Swell?”
“It was a term, back in the day.” Lowering my glass, I thought about it. “Art as a conversation starter—something to keep people bellied up against the bar, talking and more important drinking.”
With a groan, she leaned in and spoke in a low voice. “In the final analysis, what are you getting at?”
Turning my head, I watched as she studied the scar that darted across the skin around my left eye. “Given the sociocultural importance, what would that painting be worth today?”
She thought about it and then slowly smiled the little corner of the mouth grin I found so entrancing. “Enough hundred-dollar bills to fill a Florsheim shoebox?”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Dumping her customary five sugars into her coffee, she took a sip. “You were also thinking that those people over at the COW would know?”
“COW?”
“Center of the West—COW.”
“Please don’t call it that while we’re over there.”
She went back to drinking her coffee just as the usual arrived, a grilled chicken sandwich with a side of fries. “I get to go?”
“I didn’t figure there was any way to stop you.”
Lowering her mug, she adjusted her plate and continued to smile.
* * *
—
“No Post-its?”
“No, no one loves you today.”
Studying the empty door facing that held all my square yellow-paper correspondence, Vic passed me and went toward her office as I sat on the dispatcher’s desk, which always antagonized the dispatcher. “Where’s Saizarbitoria?”
At the mention of our Basque deputy, Ruby looked up over her glasses at me as she reached down and petted Dog, who had settled in under her desk—or as much of him as the furniture would allow. “Out, taking care of the Post-its.”
I guessed. “Lost dog.”
Dog raised his head to look at me and then registered it as a false call and resettled.
Ruby shook her head. “Somebody found a set of engagement rings in the parking lot of the Baptist church, so he went over to pick them up for the Lost and Found. I’ll notify the paper and get it up on our website.”
“We have a website?”
She frowned at me.
“I’m willing to try the computer again, if you want.”
Having tired of my dilettante behavior toward technology, Ruby had gotten me a computer; Saizarbitoria had assisted in getting it on my desk and up and running, but the complications of operating the thing had thwarted me at every turn, and the entire office had decided it was more trouble teaching me how to use it than it had been worth. Currently it was downstairs on the community desk, where I sometimes paused in passing to hit the spacebar to see the screensaver photo of my daughter and granddaughter. “I think we’ll all pass.”
“Roger that.” I stood. “Anything need my attention?”
“Payroll checks need to be signed, and they’re on your desk.”
“You know, I’m starting to feel like a turnkey around here.”
Dismissing me, she went back to her mound of papers. “Tell me about it.”
Entering my office, I placed the artwork on my guest chair and stood there looking out the western window at the Bighorn Mountains, thinking how easy it would be to just get into the truck and head over to Cody, but realizing it wouldn’t be particularly fair to my riding partners, or to the Buffalo Bill museum, which I hadn’t contacted yet. Giving in to the inevitable, I sat and began signing as I flipped through the Rolodex Vic had threatened to sell on eBay, finally finding the number of the chief of staff of the venerable McCracken Research Library that lurked in the basement of the sprawling Center of the West.
“Mary Robinson.”
“Hi Mary, it’s Walt Longmire.”
Adjusting the receiver in my ear, I listened as she smiled over the line. “Well, hello, Walt Longmire.”
“Mary, do you guys have anything on Cassilly Adams?”
“Custer’s Last Fight and Moonlight on the Mississippi?”
“That’s him.”
“I’m sure we have some information on him. What, exactly, are you looking for?”
“Mostly information on Custer’s Last Fight.”
“The Budweiser painting.”
“For lack of a better name, yep.”
“You know it burned.”
“I was hoping that wasn’t the case, but that’s what I’ve read. I think I might have an artist study that Cassilly may or may not have done.”
“Oh, my.”
“Anyway, I’ve got the thing and thought I might drive over tomorrow and have you guys take a look at it and see if it’s the real deal?”
“We’d be happy to—I’ll just make sure our conservationist is here.”
“Great.” Not quite ready to hang up, I asked, “Hey, Mary? Let’s say for the point of argument that the painting wasn’t burned and had been found—what would it be worth?”
She laughed. “You do know the original painting was a triptych and that the two outer panels are at historical archives in Arizona.”
“What are they of?”
“Custer as a child and then the aftermath of his death—they’re in pretty rough shape, but worth seeing if you’re really interested.”
“What about the worth of the painting?”
“The one that burned?”
“Yep.”
“You’re not kidding?”
“Nope.”
There was a pause. “Well, if it were being auctioned, it would certainly be a price-on-demand sort of thing . . .”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Twenty-four, twenty-five . . .”
I swallowed. “Million?”
“Easily.”
“So, if somebody were to buy it at, say, a million, it’d be the bargain of the century?”
There was another pause. “Walt, are you serious about this painting having been found, because if you are, we here at the Buffalo Bill would be interested . . .”
“No, no I haven’t found the painting, but the artist study we discovered was accompanied by a million dollars in hundred-dollar bills, and I’m just trying to assemble where all that money could’ve come from.”
“If, and it’s a big if, that painting were still in existence and was procured for a million dollars, then somebody was horribly robbed.”
“Well, that settles a few things. Do I need
to make an appointment, or can I just drop in sometime tomorrow?”
“I’ll be here all day—we’ve got a shindig tomorrow night.”
“Anything you need from this side of the mountains?”
“If you run into any spectacular specimens of historic fine art that have been until lately presumed destroyed . . .”
“You’re number one on my list.” Hanging up the phone, I rested my eyes on the cardboard print in the folded cardboard frame, and then the smaller, more personal struggle going on in the left lower corner. “So much for that theory.”
Picking up the phone again, I rang the number I knew by heart and waited.
After a few rings, he picked up. “It is another beautiful day here at the Red Pony Bar & Grill and continual soiree.”
“Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
“No, we have him in a pouch, but the results are much the same—and before you ask, yes our refrigerator is running and no, we are not going to go catch it.”
“You want to come over tomorrow morning and ride in with me, and we’ll pick up Vic and head over to Cody?”
“Certainly. I am assuming we are spending the night?”
“Do you still want to stop at the battlefield?”
“I do on the way back, along with another short stop in Billings, if you do not mind.”
“Overnight it is.”
The line went dead before I could ask what the other stop might be, so I hung up and raised my face to find Santiago Saizarbitoria standing in the doorway. “So, you want to get married?”
“I don’t think you’re my type.”
He stepped in, handing me the small box. “Too bad, ’cause I’ve got a hell of a set of rings here.”
Flipping the thing open, I gazed at the intertwined twenty-four caret gold rings encrusted with multiple diamonds and a large setting flanked on both sides. “Jeez, somebody robbed the ice plant.”
“I know, right? The Baptists are taking in way too much money these days.”
Turning the box in my hand, I watched as the light played off the stuff dreams were made of. “Any idea?”
“Close to twenty thousand, I’d say.”
“Between this and the cool million I found, things are looking up here in the county.”
He leaned against the wall. “So, I don’t get to go to Cody?”
“Somebody’s got to stay here and collect the riches.” Handing him the rings, I eased back in my chair. “Get that in the safe before we lose it. Somebody out there is having a heart attack.”
Looking at the box, he pushed off the wall. “If nobody collects it, can I have it?”
“I’m sure Marie would appreciate that, but no.”
Going out the door, he stopped and then gave me a parting shot. “First you give away our million dollars and now this—you’re not much fun these days.”
“You’re not the first to notice.”
Ruby’s voice sounded from the other room. “Walt, Isaac Bloomfield, line one.”
Holding a finger up to Saizarbitoria, I punched line one and lifted the receiver, holding it to my ear. “What’s the word on the autopsy?”
“Well, hello to you too. Heart attack.”
“Hmm.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“No hint of foul play?”
“None that we can find other than a syringe mark where he must’ve had some sort of injection that night, but there’s nothing in his medical chart that says he should’ve had one.”
“Nothing in the toxicology?”
“No. We went through Charley Lee’s medications, and he was taking an assortment of drugs that had to do with his heart, but sometimes it’s just the mileage.”
“Nothing else?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Thanks, Doc.” I hung up the phone and looked at my deputy. “Anything else?”
“The transport service is going to be here this afternoon to collect the Gibson guy and haul him back to San Jose where he has a number of priors and a few outstanding warrants.”
I’d forgotten about the would-be kidnapper and stood. “Is he ready to go?”
“No, I’m heading there now.”
“I’ll go with you just in case you want to get him out.”
Passing through the main part of the office under Ruby’s careful eye, we started down the steps to the landing and took a left toward the basement and the jail proper. The holding cells upstairs were comfy by comparison, and I slept in one on a regular basis, but very little about Gibson had recommended the man, so we’d incarcerated him in the windowless bowels of the old Carnegie building.
Saizarbitoria was just as glad to be rid of him, having tired of providing docent service for the last two nights, including shower break, when the guilty man had attempted to climb out the bathroom window only to be thwarted by the bars we’d anchored there after the last individual had escaped into the populace at large wearing only a bathrobe.
Walking by the communal table, I hit the spacebar and smiled back at my tiny, MIA family and thought about calling Cady before following the Basquo down the hallway, where a completely unclothed Dean Gibson stood in the middle of the cell.
“I’m not going.”
Saizarbitoria glanced at me and then back at the naked man. “Excuse me?”
“I have no reason to go back there.”
“Well, the state of California and Santa Clara County appear to have other opinions about that.” I leaned against the bars. “You mind telling us why you don’t have any clothes on, Mr. Gibson?”
“I’m not going to make this easy. I got a tub of Vaseline from the bathroom and I’m all greased up—so it’s going to be a fight.”
On closer inspection, he did have a kind of sheen to him. “To make it harder to get hold of you?”
“You got it.”
“What, did you see that in a movie or something?”
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Gibson, the only thing that’s going to do is get you in either a straitjacket or a full-harness cufflink and leg irons with a belly chain, which can be very uncomfortable for traveling in a van for a thousand miles.”
He made a face. “A van? I don’t even get to fly?”
“It’ll be a van, yep.”
“Fuck that, I’ll fight all of you.” He readjusted, feet apart, and raised his fists in a boxing stance. “I was a Golden Gloves champion back in San Jose.”
I stared at the man for a good while and then raised my hands. “Well, we’ll just wait until the transport boys get here and see how they want to handle it.”
“You’re damn right!” He threw a few punches, shadowboxing the air between us.
Saizarbitoria followed me down the hallway, where I stopped to let him pass before he turned back to study me. “That’s it, we’re not going to secure him before they get here?”
Reaching beside him, I closed the heavy metal door to the cells and then continued on before stopping at the base of the steps and jacking the air-conditioning to its maximum setting. “Do me a favor and close off all the ducts out in this part of the basement?”
He smiled. “Yes, boss.”
* * *
—
I hung up with the manager of the IGA, confirming that yes, the bag that had been used as a liner in the million-dollar shoebox was, indeed, the current version the grocery chain was using. After that I called Wes over at the bank and confirmed that yes, the serial numbers were not consecutive, and the bills ranged in date from 1952 to a year ago.
“No large-size bills?”
“Not since 1927.”
“No silver certificates?”
“No, and no confederate money either.”
I repositioned the phone in my ear. “Anything on the bands?”
“They’re a strange color, unlike any I’ve ever seen. Blank with white borders as opposed to ours, which are white with colored borders.”
“I thought they were all blank?”
“No, definitely two-tone, lighter than the ones we use for one-dollar bills in a fifty-bill count. You see, when the Federal Reserve gave up counting bills by hand in the late seventies, the American Bankers Association set a standard for both the value and color of currency bands.”
“I had no idea.”
“All bills larger than one dollar come in currency ‘straps’ of one hundred and the color allows for quick accounting even when the bills are stacked, say in a vault. Striped bands are only used on straps for star notes.”
“Okay, you got me there—what’s a star note?”
“A replica banknote that replaces a faulty one during regular production to account for the serial listing but with a notation, usually a five-point star.”
“Well, you learn something every day.” I heard some noise out front and assumed the transport contractors were here for Gibson. “So, you’re telling me that every denomination has a color code . . . What did you call it?”
“Currency strap: those used to wrap ones come in a number of colors, but fives are red, tens are yellow, twenties are violet, fifties are brown, and one hundreds like the ones you have here are usually mustard colored.”
“But these are white with white borders.”
I listened to the silence on the line connecting me to the man across the street. “Yes, and one other thing. They’re overlapped by quite a bit, which leads me to believe that they’re foreign.”
“Why?”
“Most foreign bills are wider than ours, hence longer currency straps.”
“No way to tell what country?”
“I’ve made some inquiries, but at this point, nada.”
“Anything else?”
“There was a receipt for the shoes in the bottom of the box, under a flap. They were bought in El Paso, Texas, in 1963 for nine bucks.”
“Interesting.”
“I know, shoes used to be cheap. Did you get a warrant for the security box, just in case there happens to be one, from Verne?”
“Not yet, but I think I’ll go up and bug him.”
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