"Ya-tah-hey!" the man shouted. He half fell out the door, straightened himself, and retrieved his hat. "Ya-tah-hey!" he shouted again.
"I think he's drunk," the woman said.
"Yes," Vaggan said. Some of the tension left him. The man reset his hat, a worn felt cowboy job, and said something to Vaggan. The man was smiling broadly, and the words were Navajo. He stopped, laughed, and repeated them.
"What'd he say?" Vaggan asked. He kept his eyes on the drunk. The man was youngish, early thirties, Vaggan guessed, and slightly stooped. His shirttail was out on one side and one of the legs of his jeans was caught in the top of a dusty boot. A streak of spittle had run down from the corner of his mouth.
The woman said nothing for a moment. She was staring at Vaggan, her expression strange. Then she said, "He said he's having trouble with his truck. It won't drive straight. He wants you to help him with it."
"Tell him to screw off," Vaggan said. He slipped the pistol back under his belt, suddenly aware he had a headache. He hadn't gotten his sleep out. Last night had been exciting. It would take him hours to unwind.
Vaggan had studied his Greater Los Angeles street map after he left McNair. Jacaranda Drive was nowhere on it. It had taken, finally, a call to the Los Angeles County Road Maintenance Department to pin down its location. Vaggan's policy was to arrive at a scene where he expected to engage in any sort of action just at dusk—when it was still light enough to see, if you knew what you were looking for, but dim enough so that witnesses would be doubtful about what they'd witnessed. Under some circumstances he would have made a preliminary trip to the site, looked it over, learned the ground. This time he located the street, but when he realized its isolation he stayed away and waited for evening. He wanted no one in Jacaranda Drive remembering that they'd seen the van twice, the first time in clear daylight.
Vaggan had tuned in the all-news station, carried the radio outside, and put it on the concrete retaining wall beside his second cup of coffee. Like everything Vaggan owned which required power, the radio was battery-operated. In the future as Vaggan anticipated it, the radio battery would have to last only about three weeks after the day. Broadcasting would be restored within hours after the bombs—and the devastating electrical surge of the nuclear explosions—had erased civilization's grid of electrical power. The emergency generators would take over, and the frequencies would be babbling with panic: civil defense orders and, mostly, cries for help. Vaggan estimated that phase would last several weeks and then die away, and there would be no more use for his radio receiver. For that brief but important period, Vaggan kept four silicon radio batteries in a little box in his freezer. More than enough.
The local news led with an account of Vaggan's operation. Vaggan sipped his coffee and listened.
"Police report a bizarre crime in Beverly Hills—with TV talk show host Jay Leonard maimed by an intruder who broke into his palatial home and drove staples through his ears.
"Police say the intruder called local newspapers and television stations after the attack to tell them that Leonard was being taken to the emergency room at Beverly Hills General. Leonard was reported in good condition at the hospital but was not available for comment. Here's what Detective Lieutenant Allen Bizett of the lapd had to say."
Bizett said very little, reporting in a gravelly voice that Leonard said he didn't know the motive of the attack, that he had received an anonymous telephone threat, and that he had hired a guard to protect him. Bizett said the guard had been overcome by the intruder, who had also killed two guard dogs. He described the suspect as a "large Caucasian male."
With that subject exhausted, the announcer skipped to the continued hunt for an armed robber who had killed a customer and wounded a clerk in a convenience store robbery the day before, and from that to the record-breaking traffic snarl on the San Diego Freeway caused by a two-truck accident. The item had been brief, but it had been enough, and it would be bigger for both the afternoon papers and the evening TV shows. They'd have the dogs' head business, with the bodies missing, and more of the odd stuff he'd worked in, and his telephone calls, and that would give them the motive.
Enough to earn him his bonus, but he'd never had any doubt of earning that.
He finished the coffee, considered having another cup, rejected the idea. Coffee was his only deviation from his father's rule. He'd slipped into the habit his first year at West Point and rationalized its use as a stimulant his nervous system needed. Even so, even now, twenty years since the Commander had last spoken to him, he drank with a sense of uneasiness he'd never quite defined. "Weakness," the Commander had said, sitting across the breakfast table. "People make being a child an excuse for it. But it's no excuse. In Sparta they started their males at the age of eight. Took 'em away from the women. Enduring the pain. Enduring the cold. Enduring hunger. Weeding out the weakness. We encourage weakness." Vaggan could see it clearly. His father in his perfect whites, his bristling blond hair, his trim mustache, his row of ribbons. His blue eyes staring at Vaggan, proud of Vaggan, teaching Vaggan to be strong. The thought led Vaggan, as it almost always did, into ground he didn't want to enter: to West Point, and being caught, and to Roser, Cadet Captain Roser. Vaggan considered it again—just a glance at the memory for something that might have been overlooked. No. Nothing changed. The decision was correct: to kill Roser quickly, before he could make any report. The tactic had been proper. The blow with the soft-ball bat should have been both lethal and untraceable. But somehow Roser hadn't died. Expulsion hadn't really mattered. The Point had been a disappointment, with its endless homilies about the old, dead verities which were no longer verities—if they ever had been. But the report had gone to the Commander. And the Commander had sent the telegram.
i have buried you beside the woman.
Vaggan hadn't known the woman. She had borne him. She must have given him the genes that accounted for his size, because the Commander was a small man. But even his earliest memories did not include her. The Commander had never mentioned her. Asking the Commander was unthinkable.
The newscaster was talking about Berlin, a subject that always caught Vaggan's attention. The Commander had believed it would begin over Berlin and Vaggan never doubted it. But this item was inconsequential—a vote of confidence in the Bundestag. And so was the rest of the newscast. The avalanche would not begin today. And so he had finished his coffee, and made a quick check of his hillside and the redoubt he was building into it, and—when the time was right—had left to find Jacaranda Drive, and now he was facing this drunken Indian who was grinning at him foolishly and ignoring his order to leave.
"Beat it," Vaggan repeated. "Or you're spending the night in the tank."
The Indian said something in Navajo and laughed. He walked around Vaggan's van, opened the passenger side door, and climbed in.
"Son of a bitch," Vaggan snarled. He would have to deal with the Indian the hard way, apparently, which would take time and maybe even attract attention. But with any luck he could pull him out by the feet, whack him, and be done with it and gone with the girl with no problems. It was almost dark, and that would help. He rushed around the van, jerking the pistol from under his belt.
He saw what was coming far too late to avoid it. A split-second awareness of the Indian launched out of the van door, the flashlight swinging, and then the burst of pain. He had time only for reflex action. His reflexes were fine, but they only flinched him away from the full force of the blow. The flashlight—four D batteries in a heavy Bakelite tube—smashed against his upper jaw, staggered him away from the door, slammed him into the side of the van.
The shock of the blow blinded him for a moment, caused him to lose awareness. Then he was on the ground, the Indian atop him. Vaggan reacted with explosive violence before the Indian could hit him again. He grabbed the man's elbow, jerked, twisted his body. The blow missed.
After that it was no contest. Vaggan weighed himself every morning just before he began his routine of pre-br
eakfast exercises. That morning he had weighed 225 pounds—three pounds off the weight he considered his standard. All of it was bone, muscle, and gristle, conditioned and disciplined by a regimen the Commander had started him on before he could remember. In fact, his very first memory of this part of his life was the time he had cried. He had been doing leg lifts, the Commander standing over him, the Commander's voice chanting, "Again, again, again, again…" and the pain of the straining muscles had come through the haze of his fatigue and started his tear ducts flowing. He hadn't been able to control it, and the Commander had noticed, and it had been an experience of searing shame. "It doesn't help you if it doesn't hurt you," the Commander always said. The pain of that experience had taught him to control his tears. Vaggan had never cried again.
Now he made no sound at all. The Indian was quick. The Indian was strong for his size. The Indian definitely was not drunk. That illusion had vanished from Vaggan's mind with the pain of the blow. But the Indian was younger than Vaggan, and fifty pounds lighter, and without Vaggan's skills at this sort of business. It took only a matter of seconds—a brief flurry of struggle—and the Indian was pinned under him. Vaggan could feel the flashlight against his knee. He'd dropped his pistol somewhere, so he'd use the light. He slammed the heel of his hand against the side of the Indian's head, twice, stunning the man. Then he snatched the light, raised it and struck.
"Drop it," the voice said. Margaret Billy Sosi was standing just behind him, his pistol held in both hands, pointed at his head. Vaggan let the flashlight drop on the Indian's chest.
"Get off of him," the girl ordered. Instantly Vaggan was studying her. Would she shoot him? Probably not. He could get the gun from her, but it would take a little time. Vaggan rose. He touched a fingertip to the cheekbone where the blow of the flashlight had broken the skin. "He hit me," Vaggan said. He held out his hand. "Here," he said. "Give me the pistol before you shoot somebody."
The girl took two steps backward, keeping the pistol aimed at his stomach. "He told me who you are," she said. "You're no policeman."
"Yes I am," Vaggan said. "And if you—"
"Pick him up," she said, not taking her eyes off Vaggan's face. "Put him in your truck. We've got to get him to a hospital."
"First," Vaggan said. "I've got to have my gun back." He took a step toward her.
"I'll kill you," she said.
"No you won't," Vaggan said. He laughed and took another step toward her, hand reaching.
The shot burned past his face and struck the side of the van with a thumping sound almost as loud as the muzzle blast.
Vaggan stopped, hands held open, chest high.
"The next one hits you," the girl said. "Put him in your truck."
Vaggan stopped, and slid one arm under the Indian's shoulders and the other under his knees, and lifted him gently into the passenger's side seat. The girl slid in behind him, the pistol held carefully, and they drove away.
Chapter 20
Chee had been awake perhaps forty-five minutes when he heard the voice of Shaw loud in the corridor. He'd had plenty of time to attract a nurse's aide. The girl had been willing to make a call to Shaw's office and leave word about where Chee was and to tell Shaw the hospital he was in. But Chee hadn't felt up to explaining exactly why he was in it, or how. The why was clear enough. His head was bandaged, and under the protection he could feel a great sore knot over his left eye, and a throbbing pain about at the hinge point of his jaw on the opposite side, and a persistent internal ache. Aside from that, his left hip hurt—the burning sensation of a bruised abrasion—and his nose was swollen. When he had tried to remember exactly how each of these misfortunes had occurred he found, at first, a total alarming blank. But then he recalled that injured persons, especially those suffering head injuries, often go through a brief period of amnesia. A doctor at Flagstaff had explained it to him in typical medical fashion once. "We don't understand it, but we know it doesn't last long." And gradually the details became willing to be remembered if he tried. But he didn't try much, because the headache was spectacular. Obviously the big blond man had clobbered him. That was enough to know for the moment.
Earlier, when he had first awakened, Chee had tried to get up. That mistake had touched off explosive pain behind his forehead and waves of nausea—enough to convince him that he was in no shape to do anything even if he could remember what he should be doing. So he had sent word to Shaw, and now Shaw was beside his bed, looking down at him, eyes curious.
"You found her," Shaw said. "What'd you find out?"
"What?" Chee asked. Everything seemed sort of foggy.
"The Sosi girl. The one who brought you here," Shaw said. "Who was the man with her? What'd she tell you?"
Chee began framing questions. It made his head hurt. "Just tell me about it," he said. "This end of it. How did I get here?"
Shaw pulled back the curtain screening off the adjoining bed, confirming it was empty. He sat. "From what I can find out so far, a vehicle arrived at the emergency entrance a little after eight last night." Shaw paused, extracted a notebook from his coat pocket, and checked it. "Eight ten, you were admitted. Admitted by a girl, late teens. Thin. Dark. Probably Indian or Oriental. Large blond man driving the vehicle. He drove away while the girl was admitting you. The girl signed the admission papers as Margaret Billy Sosi." Shaw restored the notebook to his pocket. "What'd you find out?" he asked. "And how're you feeling?"
"Wonderful," Chee said. "And nothing."
He told Shaw what had happened, up to the point of hitting the blond man with the flashlight. After that it was misty.
Shaw had listened without a word, face blank, eyes on Chee's eyes.
"Describe the van," he said.
Chee described it.
"You saw the gun. No doubt about it?"
"None. And he had an arsenal in the back of the van. I just had time for a glance, but he had a rack of weapons. Automatic rifles, maybe two different kinds, shotgun, long-barreled sniper rifle with a telescopic sight, other stuff."
"Well," Shaw said. "That's interesting."
"And a metal cabinet. God knows what was in that."
"And the girl thought he was a policeman?"
Chee nodded. And wished he hadn't. His head throbbed.
Shaw took a huge breath, exhaled it. "Well, hell," he said. "You got any notions?"
"I've got a headache," Chee said.
"I'll make a phone call," Shaw said, getting up. "Get somebody to that Jacaranda address and see if we can pick up Sosi." He glanced back from the doorway. "Too bad you didn't hit him harder."
Chee didn't comment on that. Through the general haziness, he was becoming aware of what the girl had done. She'd gotten the big man to bring him to the hospital. How the hell had she managed that? He had given up looking for an answer when Shaw returned.
"Okay," he said. "They'll find her."
"I doubt it."
"Whatever," Shaw said. He stared down, peered at Chee. Made a quizzical face. "What's going on here? Have you figured it out?"
"No," Chee said.
"I know the man in the van," Shaw said. "Eric Vaggan. That guy I told you about who works for McNair. Or he has, now and then. And for other people, I guess. Sort of an enforcer."
Chee didn't say anything. He was wishing Shaw would go away.
"The girl has something to do with the McNair business," Shaw said. "No other reason for any of this. Why else would Vaggan be out there looking for her?" He waited for Chee to tell him.
"Why don't you pick up this guy? Ask him?" Chee said.
"We don't know him all that well," Shaw said. "Don't have a file on him to amount to anything. No address. Just some stuff off some telephone taps from the other end of the call. Things like that. Witnesses describing a guy who looks like that, and so forth. Nothing concrete. You said he was taking her in?"
"She said he said he was a cop."
"Had to be a reason for it. What could it be?"
Chee close
d his eyes. It didn't help much.
"What we need to do," Shaw said slowly, "is go see Farmer about this."
"Farmer?"
"The Assistant u.s.d.a. The man handling the McNair case. Maybe it fits something he knows. When can you get out of here?"
"I don't know," Chee said.
"I'll handle it, then," Shaw said. "I'll do it right now."
It was late afternoon when Shaw called. A nurse's aide had brought Chee his lunch, and a doctor had come in and removed the bandage and inspected him, and said something about not trying to knock down walls with his head. This had caused the nurse attending to chuckle. Chee had asked when he could check out, and the doctor had said he was suffering from concussion and should stay another day to see how things went. They seemed to be going well, physically. He felt better after the meal; his vision was no longer blurred, and the headache had become both intermittent and tolerable. When the woman came up from the business office to talk to him about who was going to pay for all this, he found his memory had regained full Chee-like efficiency. He rattled off the name of his Tribal Police medical insurance company, the amount of the deductible, and even the eight digits of his account number. By the time the telephone beside his bed rang, the only thing bothering him much was the scraped bruise on his hip.
Shaw hadn't had much luck.
"Typical," he said. "Farmer's long gone. He quit the Justice Department and went to work with some law firm up in San Francisco. The man who has the case now apparently hasn't even read the file on it."
The noise Chee made must have sounded incredulous.
"What's the hurry?" Shaw said, sounding a little bitter. "McNair doesn't come to trial for a couple of months, and then there'll probably be an extension. So I sit there in his office cooling my heels while he reads through the file, and then he looks up and says, 'Okay, now, what was it you want?' Like I was asking him some damn favor."
Chee made a sympathetic sound.
"So I tell him all about the business with Margaret Sosi, and so forth, and he listens politely and gets rid of me."
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