An Obvious Fact

by Craig Johnson

  “I was about to ask him when you attempted your drive-through.”

  True to the Bear’s word, there was a middle-aged individual sitting in an office chair, tied with what looked to be an extension cord. I gestured toward him. “Hey, Phil.”

  He was sweating profusely. “Would you please tell him to let me go?”

  “And that would be because you are the number two agent on scene from the ATF?”

  He glanced at Henry and then back at me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Look, Post is dead and your AIC, John Stainbrook or Ray Swift, whichever one he’s going by today, is also on scene, so if you want to spend the rest of the afternoon tied to a chair . . .”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “You were always around, and I don’t think anybody in their right mind would voluntarily spend time with Eddy the Viking.” I looked toward the back door. “Where’s Nance?”

  “Not here.”

  “Yep, we got that much. Does he have Lola with him?”

  “The biker chick, yeah.” He shifted in the seat but then remembered that he was tied. “He said something about taking her to his house for something special.”

  I glanced at the Cheyenne Nation, but his face remained neutral. “Special, huh?”

  “That’s what he said.” His eyes darted between us. “Look, I don’t think he has any idea you people are here. He was going to take her to his place and be back in an hour.”

  “Was he armed?”

  “He’s always armed.”

  “Right.” I stood and started back toward the MRAP. “Well, let’s go to the golf course.”

  “Aren’t you going to untie me?”

  I paused, holstered my Colt, and threw a thumb at the Bear. “Ask him, Agent Vesco; he’s the one who tied you up.”

  • • •

  Getting the Pequod disentangled from the bunker wreckage and backed over the two vehicles I’d crushed was surprisingly easy, and I smiled at Henry as the giant, run-flat tires thumped back onto solid ground. “You know, I’m starting to think I do need one of these.”

  Henry rose up and peered through the cracks in the bulletproof glass. “It would take up your entire parking lot.”

  I wheeled the Pequod around to the lee side and started back for the gate. “It’d be great for rodeo parades.”

  I drove through, turned right, and headed up the hill. “So, why take Lola to his house? To kill her?”

  Henry shrugged, placing the MPX in his lap. “Probably.”

  “You don’t seem too upset.”

  “What good would it do?”

  “So, you really don’t care about her anymore.”

  “I care about her enough to keep her alive for the sake of her son, but beyond that, no.”

  The radio rattled on the dash, and Henry fished the mic from the floor.

  Static. “Hey, did you assholes just turn and drive up the road?”

  Wisely, he handed the mic to me.

  I took it and answered. “We found the other ATF agent on scene.”

  Static. “Who was it?”

  “The little guy, Phil Vesco, Eddy the Viking’s running buddy.”

  Static. “Him? I never would’ve figured it.”

  “I think that’s what they count on. Anyway, tell Stainbrook he’s walking down from the bunker, so don’t shoot him. Nance took Lola up to his house, so we’re on the way up there.”

  Static. “I wanna go.”

  “No, he’s up there alone. Stay with the plane, just in case he gets by us or isn’t there. The only way out is that jet, so keep it bottled up.”

  Static. “You suck.”

  “Roger that.”

  It only took a few minutes to get to Nance’s house, and I was tempted to run into it—a thought the Bear must’ve read. “It is a nice house, and he is going to lose it by going to prison, so why not do the future owners a favor and spare it?”

  Pulling in behind the Range Rover in the driveway, I bumped it and parked. “Just a love tap.” We climbed out and looked around but didn’t see anybody peeking from the windows, or any rifle barrels, for that matter. “How could they not hear us?”

  The Cheyenne Nation ignored me and went for the door, which was unlocked. I watched as he used the barrel of the Sig Sauer to swing it open silently; then he looked one way and the other. “Clear.”

  Following him in, I slid the 1911 from my holster and trained it on the balcony above, then dropped it back toward the entryway that led toward the kitchen. Indicating that Henry should go one way and I would go the other, I moved through the kitchen and trained the .45 on the great room where Nance and I had had our discussion just a few days before.

  The Bear moved silently across that room toward the other end, which must’ve led to the garage, as I went the opposite way toward a split staircase in the living room.

  When I looked back, I could see Henry shaking his head no. I nodded and gestured for him to take the upstairs and began my descent.

  It was a wide stairway with custom-made treads that looked like ironwood. There was a security door at the bottom of a landing, heavy with small windows that I could tell were two-way mirrors.

  I stepped to the side and turned the gold handle, quietly pushing the door open and waiting a moment before stepping into the empty, carpeted hallway.

  There were photographs on the walls, lots of them, with Nance and celebrities on boats, in planes, and in race cars. I started down the hall, only to have Lola open the door on the end and move toward me with her head down, wearing nothing but a large white towel.

  I waited till she was easily in reach and then stepped forward, placing my hand over her mouth and gently pushing her to the wall and holding her there.

  “Mphhhlph.” Her eyes were wide as I held the barrel of the .45 to my lips to shush her.

  She tried to speak, but I held my hand firmly over her mouth. “From this point on, you don’t make a sound; you simply nod your head yes or shake your head no. Got it?”

  She did.

  “He in there?”

  She nodded.

  “Is he alone?”

  She nodded again.

  “Is he armed?”

  She nodded once more.

  “Does he know we’re here?”

  This time she shook her head.

  “Good.” I loosened my grip. “Whisper. Where were you going?”

  I could barely hear her when she finally spoke. “Bathroom.”

  “Go there and lock the door behind you. Henry’s here, too.” I glanced at the towel. “And he might just shoot you himself.”

  I watched as she slid back to the wall and disappeared behind me, quietly closing and locking the door. I waited a moment and then turned back toward the end of the hallway.

  Another set of mirrors looked blankly at me, and I could only hope that Nance wasn’t standing on the other side with one of his nifty little plastic guns pointed at me.

  Considering the thought, I stepped forward and pushed open one of the mirrored doors. I moved to the side, slipped in, and stood there in the half-light. There was a series of weapon lockers to my left and a gun safe beyond that, leading to a firing range about twenty-five yards in length with a standard man-shaped silhouette target hanging from a motorized track at the far end. The walls and ceiling were covered in cone-shaped, noise-absorbing foam, and there was a shooter’s station with a number of what I assumed were Nance’s polymer pistols in different states of disassembly lying on the counter.

  There was a small observation area to the right behind a bulletproof glass wall and door, where a naked Bob Nance had his back to me and was evidently pouring himself a drink. “You okay, baby?”

  I waited a moment before answering. “Yeah, I’m good.”


  His head turned slightly, but his hands stayed where I couldn’t see them, his voice slightly muffled by the heavy glass. “Sheriff?”

  “Yep.” I trained the barrel of my Colt on his midsection. “You want to put those hands where I can see them?”

  He didn’t move. “Would you like a drink?”

  “I want to see your hands.”

  He lifted a tumbler holding a few cubes of ice and probably a healthy dollop of scotch up past his shoulder. “Highland Park, twenty-five-year-old. As I recall, you enjoyed it.”

  “The other hand.”

  “C’mon, let’s have a drink and discuss this like gentlemen.” He turned a little but still kept the other hand hidden. “You’ve kind of caught me at an awkward time. I’m assuming you saw Lola?”

  “The hand.”

  He sighed. “Um, actually, I’ve got one of my guns—would you like to see it?”

  “Yep, I would.”

  He turned slowly, holding the tumbler in one hand and in the other, one of the completely assembled polymer weapons, but this was a strange one, a blocky, desert-tan revolver, which he had pointed toward the ceiling. “Are you sure you won’t have a drink?”

  “Put the weapon on the counter.”

  He didn’t move the gun hand but did bring the glass up and sip his scotch. “Do you have any idea how much this thing cost?”

  “In lives?”

  He smiled. “In dollars.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “It’s a prototype. I wanted to see just how much power the new stuff could handle, so we made this all-polymer revolver in a .454 Casull model, the line of thought being that if the new plastic could hold up to this round, it could hold up to anything.”

  “Put it on the counter.”

  “You know one of the great things about the .454? It can deliver a 250-grain bullet with a muzzle velocity of over 1,900 feet per second and about 2,000 foot-pounds of energy, meaning it’ll shoot through bulletproof glass like this one between us like a hot knife through butter.” He sipped his scotch some more and lowered the barrel of the revolver on me. “And you know what the worst caliber to shoot through bulletproof glass is?” He continued to point the revolver at me. “That .45 ACP you’re carrying. It’ll make a dent, but it won’t go through—muzzle velocity is just too slow.” He gestured with the plastic gun. “Not like this.”

  I glanced at the closed glass door to my right.

  “Don’t do it; I’ll shoot you before you make it.”

  I sighed. “Then what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve got backup.”

  He smiled some more, and I really wanted to shoot at him, bulletproof glass be damned. “So do I.”

  “No, you don’t. They’re all running for the hills.” He looked a little unsure now. “We’ve grounded your plane, and I ran over two of your trucks and crashed into your bunker with that MRAP you bought the police department.” His eyes widened a little. “I guess you’re not enjoying the irony in that, huh?” I pulled out my pocket watch and looked at it. “And in less than an hour every cop in Wyoming is going to be all over this place, not to mention the federal government and a really pissed-off Indian who is roaming your house with some kind of 9mm machine pistol which probably won’t go through this glass either, but you’re going to have to come out of that fishbowl sometime, Nance.”

  I glanced around at the acoustical foam walls of the million-dollar basement. Even when you talked, you could hear your voice sticking there, which made the delivery of the next words that much more enjoyable. “And when you do, nobody’s going to hear you die.”

  EPILOGUE

  I sipped my beer at the Ponderosa Café and watched Henry and Vic talking with another long-haired individual I didn’t know. This guy looked a little different from the rest in that he was carrying a guitar case.

  Things had settled back down into a regular August high plains summer day: the streets were pretty much cleared of tourist biker traffic, the vendors were striking their tents, and the whole town of Hulett had that after-the-carnival feel to it, as if the world had packed up and left the place behind.

  Melancholy.

  Or maybe it was just me.

  I’d wanted to head home, but Stainbrook and the feds had asked us to stick around for the depositions that would assure Nance spent the rest of his life in rooms without light switches. Heck, I would’ve stayed in hell for that. Truth to be told, Hulett was a beautiful little town when not in biker season, and I was attempting to enjoy the down time, aside from being on the phone in negotiation with the Greatest Legal Mind of Our Time about moving sofas and helping to paint ceilings.

  “You’re tall, and you don’t have to use a ladder.”

  “I could bring Henry; he doesn’t have to use a ladder and he actually knows how to paint.”

  “One of you can sleep on the new sofa after you go pick it up.”

  “Right.” I held Bodaway’s phone against my ear and reached over and petted Dog. “I’ve got a weapons recertification in Douglas and a parole hearing to sit through down there in Cheyenne, so we’ll be heading that way soon.”

  “That Western Star thing?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh, Daddy, isn’t it time to let that go?” It was silent on the line for a few moments. “So, have you seen Lola?”

  “Other than when we passed her on our way in to make our statements to the feds, no.”

  “Do you suppose she’s in Rapid City at the hospital?”

  “It’s where I’d be.”

  “It’s where you’ve been.” There was another pause. “So, everybody goes to jail?”

  “Prison.” I sighed, wishing I were in another line of work so that my daughter and I would have nicer things to chat about on the phone. “Nance is lawyered up, but he’s never going to see the light of day. And they picked up his daughter in Rapid City for tax evasion, but it’s looking more and more like she didn’t have anything to do with all this; she and Bodaway were just in love. . . . Go figure.”

  “What about Billy ThE Kiddo?”

  “Conspiracy and a number of other charges, but he’s singing like Janice Joplin and he’ll probably get away with suspended sentences and have another outlaw pelt for his resume. By the time he’s done spinning it, he’ll probably have saved all of the ATF and us single-handedly. There were some producers here already, looking to develop a new reality show with the inked idiot.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were.”

  “What about the Nazi thing?”

  “Not for public consumption and probably not good for ratings—part of the deal he made with the ATF; besides, it would all be inadmissible. I’m not worried about it, though, his type always ends up getting what they deserve eventually.”

  “Who killed the ATF agent Post?”

  I sighed and continued on, figuring lawyering wasn’t that much more pleasant than sheriffing after all. “Nance. They found Kiddo’s pistol in Bob’s collection in his private little shooting gallery downstairs, along with a bunch of others, like trophies—blowback on the barrels and still carrying his fingerprints. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t connect him to a whole slew of other homicides before it was all over.”

  “But it is all over.”

  “Yep.”

  “So, when are you heading home?”

  “Henry and Vic just got back from returning her rental car in Rapid City. They seem to be talking to a couple of guys from the garage band that’s been playing here all week. We still have to hook up the motorcycle trailer, but then we’ll be heading home.”

  “Be careful and don’t get any more guns pointed at you, ’kay?”

  “Sure thing, Punk.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you, too.” I pressed the button
and disconnected—whatever happened to hanging up the phone?—and placed the mobile on the table as the two came ambling over; I noticed Vic holding a CD, still in the cellophane. “I can’t believe that guy talked you into buying his music.” I glanced past them and could see roadies still packing up the band’s equipment. “I hope you told them to broaden their musical horizons; you can’t get far in life just doing covers of Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

  Henry nodded. “Unless you are Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

  “What?”

  Vic held out the Best of CD. “They are Lynyrd Skynyrd.” She glanced behind, but the band members were gone. “At least they were.”

  I finished my beer, smiled, and quickly backtracked. “I thought they sounded awfully good for a garage band.”

  • • •

  The Cheyenne Nation decided that in celebration of winning the Jackpine Gypsies Hill Climb, he would ride Lucie home with his trophy tied to the headlight a la Marlon Brando in The Wild One. We were to follow in the T-bird with Rosalie and Bodaway’s Harley in tow on the trailer.

  We watched as he checked the tie-down straps on them and then put on a pair of goggles and a Bell Boss helmet and straddled the four-cylinder Indian. “Are you sure you want to ride that thing all the way back to Absaroka County?”

  “That is what it is for.”

  I glanced at Vic and gestured toward the sidecar. “Would you like to join him?”

  She walked back and cracked the door of the Baltic blue convertible and ushered Dog into the back before flipping the seat and climbing in. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  The Bear shrugged, kicked the vintage Indian to life, and throttled away as I walked back and climbed in the Thunderbird, pulling out from the Hulett Motel and circling the parking lot in a wide arc after him.

  It was late in the afternoon, and the sun had already reached its zenith, slanting its rays in a golden horizontal that highlighted the landscape to its fullest effect. We rolled out of town, following the Indian on the Indian, and I couldn’t help but feel a certain anticipation for the geologic wonder just ahead.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Bad God Tower must’ve had a peek at her as we topped one of the tiny hillocks and drifted south. I didn’t say anything but just eased the big Thunderbird through the curves until we topped the last hill and swept down an easy slope on route 24 that opened into the wide straightaway where Henry and I had stopped on the way into town.