by Stan Jones
“Well, I’m glad you landed on your feet.”
“Better ’n that. My lawyer nicked the city of Nome half a mill for slander, business interference, I forget what-all.” She patted the dash again. “Old Nanuq here turned out to be my ride to Fat City. We turned a trick, all right, but it was on the city of Nome.”
She wheezed again, so violently this time that Active reached over and put a hand on the steering wheel to steady Nanuq.
“You got half a million and you’re here, working like this?” he said when she had regained control of her breathing and the limo.
She gazed around at the drizzle falling into the gray water of Captain’s Bay and got a surprised look on her face, though whether at his question or her whereabouts, he couldn’t tell.
“I guess I missed too many planes,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“That’s what they say in Nome about white people who stay around too long.” She shook her head, the dyed blonde hair bouncing. “You miss too many planes out and the next thing you know, you’re not fit to live in a normal place anymore. If you leave one Bush town, you’ll just end up in another one.”
They rolled along in silence few moments, until he realized he had distracted her from the story of her arrival in Dutch Harbor. He apologized and asked if her reputation had not beaten her to the Illusions.
“What’s that, Nathan?”
“Your reputation. The Dutch Harbor city council didn’t mind giving you a permit after the unpleasantness up in Nome?”
Stella guffawed. “Nah, they were happy to see me. The women on the council believed me and the men hoped I was lying was the impression I got.” She hoisted her mug and drank, then waved it between them. “Anyway, here’s to the Nome City Council. You believe me, don’t you, Nathan?”
“Oh, absolutely.” He hoisted his steel cup and drank and they crunched along in companionable silence for a while.
“So this Marlboro girl. You came all the way to Dutch to find her?” Stella swerved Nanuq around a pothole and gravel sprayed sideways as the car fishtailed. Stella caught the skid and got Nanuq pointed up the road again, all without spilling her coffee. “She must be something.”
Active, who had not been as lucky, fished out his handkerchief and dabbed at the wet spot on his right knee. At least the coffee had cooled off in the metal cup, so he wasn’t burned much. “Yeah, she’s something, all right.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Hurts to talk about it huh?” Stella made a tsk-tsk sound that he took to be sympathetic, giving him hope she would shut up about the Marlboro girl.
False hope, as it turned out. “What’s her name?”
“Grace.” He looked out the passenger window. Maybe if he avoided eye contact.
“Whew. You got it bad.”
“Mind your own business.” Maybe the direct approach would work.
“I’m just saying, is all.”
“Saying what?” He was sucked in despite himself.
“The way you say her name. You got it bad.” She shook her head. “Bad. I wish some man would say my name that way just one more time.”
“Your sweetie doesn’t?”
“My sweetie?”
He reminded her about the call to pick up the fishermen.
“Oh, Eddie. He runs the East Wind. Yeah, he’s my sweetie, all right.” She smiled to herself.
“But he doesn’t say your name the way you like?”
“Oh, Eddie ’ll do, but he’s just a bedwarmer.” She pointed the coffee mug at him. “How about you and this Grace?”
“I’m a state trooper. She’s just another case.”
“Yeah? What’d she do?”
He was silent for a long time, looking out the passenger window.
“Uh-huh!” Stella’s tone was filled with triumph and accusation. “You’re out of uniform, you’re on a budget, and Grace is a non-suspect in just another case. Right?” She glanced over at him then returned her attention to the road, a knowing smirk on her face. “Uh-huh.”
The gravel turned to pavement and what passed for downtown Dutch Harbor came into view. He saw a big restaurant named The Captain’s. “Let me out up there,” he said. “You can pick up your fishermen and I’ll make a phone call and walk back to the Triangle.”
Stella waved the ring-encrusted hand again. “Nah, it’s too far to walk. Stay where you are. We’ll take the fish guys to the airport and then I’ll drop you back at the Triangle.”
She reached between her legs and pulled a “Quintano Enterprises” hat from under the seat. “Here, put this on, they’ll think you’re my copilot.”
He studied the hat, shrugged, and put it on. It wouldn’t hurt to stake out the flight, in case Grace Palmer made a run for it, though that seemed unlikely after their talk at the Triangle.
He sank back into the cushions, sipped the now-tepid coffee, and studied the rain-blurred landscape until Stella stopped Nanuq in front of a big Quonset hut with a neon “Eddie’s East Wind” sign on the front.
She honked her horn, waited about a minute, then honked again.
“Damn fishermen.” She switched off Nanuq and looked at him “Guess I’m gonna have to go in after them. Come on, you can be my muscle.”
“Muscle? Do I look like muscle?” He sank into the cushions again and closed his eyes. “You’re on your own.”
He heard Stella say “Shit!” Her door opened and closed and her feet crunched on the gravel. Then his door opened, letting in a gust of rainy wind. “Look at those windows.”
He pulled himself out of Nanuq’s cushions and looked where Stella was pointing. “They’re kind of milky-looking, I guess.”
“That’s because they’re Plexiglas instead of the real thing.” Stella looked at him, apparently expecting him to grasp the significance of this information without further assistance.
“Plastic windows in Dutch Harbor? Seems right to me.” He reached for the door, but Stella planted a broad hip against it and held it open.
“Don’t you want to know why?”
“Not if I can avoid it.”
“It’s because Eddie was going broke replacing the glass all the time.” She gave him another expectant look.
He sighed and surrendered to the inevitable. “All right, why does Eddie have to replace his windows all the time?”
Now Stella looked triumphant again. “From drunk fishermen throwing each other through them. In fact, I’m surprised my clients aren’t lying under one of ‘em right now.”
Active took a closer look. The ground under the windows did seem to be pretty well covered with shards of real glass. “Great. Now can we close the door?”
“You mean the state troopers would send a girl into a place like that by herself?”
“What girl?”
Stella said “Fuck you, Nathan” and slammed Nanuq’s door in his face and stomped off toward the East Wind.
He laughed to himself, got out and caught her at the door. “All right, I’m your muscle.” He tugged the bill of his Quintano Enterprises cap low over his brow, put on what he hoped was a menacing expression, and followed Stella’s wide back through the doors at the front end of the long, half-cylinder of corrugated sheet metal. It was like entering a giant culvert.
She paused just inside, looking over the crowd of fishermen in Carhartts, sweatshirts, and beards. At the far end of the bar, country music blasted from a juke-box, its red and blue lights half- lost in the cigarette smoke. “We got winners, we got losers,” the singer was rasping in a voice that sounded like it had been pickled in testosterone. “We got hustlers, we got fighters, early birds and all-nighters.”
Active looked around the entry and saw a sign on the wall that said, “Absolutely No Photography” in big red letters. Underneath, small black letters said: “Film and videotape will be confiscated and destroyed. Not responsible for damage to cameras. Eddie.”
He nudged Stella’s back. “What’s this?”
She saw where h
e was pointing and laughed. “One time Eddie let a National Geographic film crew in here and they accidentally got some tape of a famous bank robber from Tennessee who was up here working the slimeline till things cooled down. When the program ran, some cop back in Tennessee recognized the guy and flew up here and arrested him. If there’s anything Eddie hates, its losing a good customer, so up went the sign.”
Active was thinking that was pretty nice work by the cop in Tennessee—probably an FBI agent if the fugitive was a bank robber—when Stella pointed down the bar.
“The guy was sitting right there at that table drinking St. Pauli Girl when they taped him, and you know what?”
Active thought he probably did know what, but shook his head anyway, as long as Stella was on a roll.
“He was sitting at the same table, drinking St. Pauli Girl, when the Tennessee cop showed up to arrest him four months later.”
“Missed too many planes, huh?”
Stella stared at him for a moment, then grinned and broke into one of her wheezy guffaws. “I guess he did, Nathan, I guess he did.” She clapped him on the shoulder and shook her head. “Missed too many planes. That’s good.”
She turned her attention back to the bar. “Now where’s that little rat Eddie?”
Finally, a tiny, wizened Asian—another Vietnamese, Active guessed—materialized out of the murk at the far end of the bar. He hurried up and dropped a tray of empties on the counter, then spotted Stella at the entrance.
“‘Bout time you get here. Your clients causing lotta trouble.”
Active tried to picture the diminutive Eddie warming the bed of leviathan Stella, but could not. Just then Eddie noticed him behind Stella. The bartender’s eyes narrowed, “Who this? He not a cop, is he?”
“No, no.” Stella put a big hand on Eddie’s spindly arm. “He’s just here to take care of any problems that come up. This is Nathan. Nathan, Eddie.”
Eddie put out a hand, then snatched it back after the briefest of shakes. “Won’t be any problem if you get your clients out of here.”
Stella surveyed the bar again. “All right, Sweetie, which ones are they?”
“Dance floor,” Eddie said.
Stella frowned. “Horizontal or vertical?”
“Horizontal.” Eddie shook his head, then hurried behind the counter and began unloading the empties into a sink.
“Not good, not good.” Stella frowned again and looked at Active. “Well come on, let’s find ’em.” She started down the bar and he followed.
As they approached the dance floor, it became clear the crowd was gathered in a circle, yelling and gesticulating. Stella pushed through the perimeter, Active following in the wake she opened up in the sea of bodies. The country singer from the juke box now rasping something about dancing girls and hookers, as best Active could make out.
They were still three rings out from the center when he realized the crowd was cheering, not a pair of hot dancers or even a couple coupling, but two men on the floor in the final stages of a drunken fight. One had given up altogether, lying on the concrete with his face covered as the other rained halfhearted punches onto his forearms.
The upper combatant, apparently sensing the time had come to finish the fight, drew his fist back to his ear and said, “I’m ’na rip off your head ‘n’ puke down y’r throat.” He let fly, missed, and rammed his fist into the concrete, then collapsed onto the floor beside his opponent, holding the injured wrist and moaning “Oh, fuck me dead.”
Active looked at Stella as the crowd broke up. “That them?”
“Must be.” Stella nudged the wrist holder with the toe of a gumboot. “You call for a limo?”
“Oh, fuck,” the man said.
Stella shook her head. “Any ideas, Muscle?”
Active squatted between the two heads on the floor and spoke softly into their ears. “Flight’s leaving in thirty minutes. You don’t want to miss too many planes out of Dutch, from what I hear.”
The head-ripper said “Oh, fuck” again, but he sat up. He was white, wearing jeans and basketball shoes and a nylon East Wind jacket. A patch over the pocket said “Dale.” He struggled to his feet and stood there, swaying slightly, a thread of bloody saliva dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Less go. Dough wanna miss ‘at plane.”
“What about your buddy here?” Stella nudged the still-horizontal one with her toe, drawing no response.
“Gotta help Lonnie,” Dale said. He bent over, put his hands under his buddy’s shoulders, and fell on top of him.
Stella shook her head and yanked Dale upright again “You follow us,” she told him. Then she looked at Active. “You get his feet.” Active did, Stella got his shoulders, and they lurched out of the bar with Lonnie between them and Dale trailing along behind.
“Let’s throw him on the hood,” Stella said when they reached Nanuq. Active complied.
Stella turned on Dale, who had stopped beside Nanuq and was staring up into the gray sky, his mouth open to the Aleutian rain. “You gonna puke on my white leather?”
“Nah me,” Dale said. “Never puke. C’n hold my liquor.”
Stella snorted, reached into Nanuq, and did something that made the trunk lid rise with a whoosh. She grabbed Dale by the collar and shoved him into the back seat. Then she reached into the trunk and came up with a plastic pail. She stuffed it between Dale’s knees and shook him by the collar. “You gotta barf, you do it in this. You miss and my security man here will shoot you. Right, Muscle?”
“Not g’na barf,” Dale said.
Active made a pistol out of his right hand and pointed it at Dale. He jerked his thumb like a hammer falling and said, “I hope not.”
Dale raised his hand, like a first-grader needing to go to the bathroom. Active nudged Stella with an elbow. “I think he wants to speak.”
“What is it, Dale?” Stella said.
“Wha’bout Lonnie?” Dale pointed at his buddy, still supine in the rain on Nanuq’s hood.
“Is he gonna barf on my white leather?” Stella said.
“He jus’ might. Can’ hole his liquor like me.” Then a worried frown came over Dale’s face. “Will Muscle shoot him? Maybe we better just leave him. I think he’s better off here than shot.”
Dale paused and looked out at the East Wind and the rain. “Prolly better off here.”
“Nah, I got a special compartment for guys that can’t hold their liquor.” Stella moved to the trunk, pulled out a wad of Visqueen, and unfolded it to cover the floor of the compartment. Then she went to the hood and put her hands under Lonnie’s shoulders again and motioned with her head for Active to take the feet. Active obeyed and followed Stella to the back of the car, where she said, “Drop him in.”
Active lowered the feet into Nanuq’s big trunk, then they worked Lonnie’s hips over the rim and finally his head and shoulders and laid him on his back on the Visqueen.
Stella studied their work for a moment, then grunted approvingly. “Good. If he barfs, the Visqueen will catch it.”
Then she frowned. “Nah, he might choke on it, though.” She rolled Lonnie onto his side and pulled his arms and knees out in front of him for stability, then grunted again in satisfaction.
“That oughta hold him.” She slammed the trunk lid and walked back to the front of the car.
Dale, who had swiveled around to watch, now un-swiveled and stared at Stella. “He’ll suff’cate back ‘ere!”
Stella frowned. “You’re probably right. You better ride back there and look after him.” She grabbed Dale’s collar and Dale said, “I guess ’s not that far to the airport.”
Stella let him go and climbed behind the wheel. Active got into the passenger seat.
“Where’s your stuff?” Stella was looking at Dale in the rearview mirror.
“Our stuff? Oh, yeah, our stuff. The company van took it over ‘iss af’rnoon.”
Stella dropped Nanuq into gear, backed around to face the road, and they were off in another spray of gravel.
“So, whattaya think, Nathan? Want a full-time job as my muscle? You seem to have the look down and I guess if you got the look you don’t need the moves.” She wheezed out a laugh and lit a Marlboro.
“Yeah, Dutch Harbor’s the place for me all right.” He gazed through the rain at the mix of World War II Quonset huts like the East Wind and the newer, plywood office buildings and steel warehouses, presumably thrown up after the Bering Sea fishery got hot. “The pearl of the Aleutians.”
“Ah, these little Bush pissholes.” Stella waved her Marlboro at the wet, gray town outside Nanuq’s windows. “You walk down the street, you know the stories of everybody you meet and they know yours. Who had a good season in the fishery, who struck out. Whose old lady was good while he was out on the boat and whose wasn’t. Who’s hitting the bars and whose kid got into Harvard. It’s like the houses are transparent.”
“Fuck, listen to me go on.” She shook her head. “These places get their hooks into you and they just never let loose, is all.”
“Only if you miss too many planes.”
Stella wheezed and stuck the Marlboro back between her teeth. “Yup, too many planes.”
Stella was silent for a while then, “What about this Marlboro Girl?”
“What about her?”
“She miss too many planes?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He looked at his watch. After nine already. By the time they got the two drunks unloaded at the airport and he staked out the departure lounge and Stella drove him back to the Triangle, it would be ten o’clock or later. Too late to call Lucy Generous—her workday started at seven. She’d be in bed already. His bed, probably, looking after his place while he was in Dutch, looking for … what? He sighed, closed his eyes, and sank again into Nanuq’s white leather, ignoring the sour stench of used booze from Dale in the rear seat and listening just enough to drop in an “Uh-huh” or a “Really!” at the right spots in Stella’s account of how the hill looming into view back of the Dutch Harbor Airport came to be called Mount Ballyhoo.
