An Eye for Gold

by Sarah Andrews

  “But the new mine at the Kammas was possibly going to be an open pit mine, like the big ones at the Carlin trend,” I said. “I should think you’d move heaven and earth to stop one of those from getting permitted.”

  “Oh, don’t get me started on those!” She whipped one hand back and forth in front of her face, as if fending off an annoying insect. “They mine eight hundred feet below the water table, did you know that? To do that, they have to run pumps around the clock, a ring of them, pumping two hundred and fifty thousand gallons a day. There’s water in that ground, water like you wouldn’t believe, and the only people beyond a few citizens like me and the poor witless ranchers—all ought to be shot any way—who are objecting are the assholes down in Las Vegas, who want the water to spray up into the air in their gaudy big fountains. And they want it for their motels, for when the idiots from New Jersey fly in and want to take long, hot baths and flush the toilet for each ounce they piss!”

  I said, “I’ve heard that—”

  “Those mines up by Carlin are a mile across! And they’re a thousand feet deep, and like I told you, eight hundred feet of that is below the water table! And do you know what their remediation program is, for after they’re done ripping that out of there, for a half ounce of gold per ton? They turn off the pumps and let it fill up into a lake!” She slammed her hand onto the table top, scaring the cat

  I said, “And let me guess—”

  “You don’t have to guess!” Shirley bellowed. “That water will not be potable, like they claim, because they don’t know and they don’t care. They don’t live here!”

  As silence fell in die small kitchen, I noticed that the cat had found a safe corner of the floor and was washing itself. I kind of wanted to take a bath, myself. I understood her rage, but it seemed to be the kind that goes looking for a target more than a solution. After what seemed like a respectful interval, I said, “You wouldn’t tell the FBI all of this, so why tell me? Is there something you want from me, Shirley?”

  “Isn’t that obvious? I want the damned mines closed!”

  “And you think I’m going to help you?”

  Shirley’s ravaged face stiffened.

  I said, “And Hermione. Is she out to end mining, too?”

  Shirley exploded. “Hell, no. She’ll give you some claptrap about harmony and balance. There is no balance in mines. It’s just greed and take, take, take, and to hell with anyone who gets hurt in the process!”

  I took a moment to breathe. I had no interest in pointing out to her how thoroughly her life had been supported by mining, from the asphalt shingles that kept the storms out, to the nails and stucco that held her house together, to the clay in the kitchen and bathroom porcelain than made it possible to use chemicals to keep her living space sanitary enough so that she could live to be an old woman. That was all basic stuff. She had said it herself: She wouldn’t last long if she had to gather grasses and build herself a hut like the Paiutes had a scant hundred and fifty years earlier. And it was splitting hairs to suggest that she was going after gold mining in particular, a commodity she felt she could do without. Certainly, gold was an abstraction to her, and she would argue that she could live without gold crowns in her teeth or the marvels of high-speed computing and communications. She had lived most of her life before their impact had even been felt But there was something sadder, and more frightening in her tirade. I sensed beneath everything, beneath even her anger, a deep and abiding self-loathing which said, I am a human. Humans destroy things. We have no right to walk upon this earth.

  I stared into my coffee, pondering her outburst. Oddly, it reminded me of lan’s tirade in support of the pro-mining end of the spectrum. Where she was self-loathing, he had been as self-indulgent. Where did the balance lie?

  I decided to ask the few last questions I could muster and get back on the road. “A woman named Gretchen MacCallum said that Pat had told her husband that she was about to blow the whistle. Did she tell you about that when she called that night?”

  “You mean Don’s wife.”

  “Yes. You know him?”

  “Funny little gopher. He had the gall to come {rick my brains about the old mine properties out there in the Kammas.”

  “Why do you call him a gopher?”

  “They’re all alike. Busy little scrabblers, digging their little holes in the ground.”

  “Let’s get back to Pat Gilmore,” I said, avoiding further doses of her bitterness.

  She was silent for quite a while, but then said, “Yeah. Pat was on her way to Reno to give her data to a guy on the radio there.”

  That all tucked together, as far as it went, but it didn’t explain why someone might take the trouble to kill her, and it didn’t explain who had killed Rodriguez, or why. “So she was going to expose Rodriguez.”

  Shirley’s head snapped my way, as if she were looking at me. “Oh, hell no. She said he was small potatoes. She was after someone I never heard of. Some grifter named Morgan Shumway.”

  34

  I STOPPED AT THE LOCAL SUPERMARKET TO GET A snack, and then drove around looking for a relatively private pay phone from which to raise Faye Carter, who, it seemed, was still waiting for Tom at the Winnemucca airport. “Oh. Em,” she said. “What’s the haps?”

  ‘Tom told me to report in on some stuff. Can you jot down a few notes?”

  “Sure, but he’ll be here any minute. You can tell him yourself.”

  “Nope. Sorry. Kind of in a hurry.” In a hurry to go where he can’t find me.

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  “Thanks. But first, did you ever get hold of ‘Auntie’?”

  “Oh. Yes,” said Faye. “She said she’s unaware of any environmental group trying to block the expansion of Granville Resources’ mines in Nevada, or anywhere else for that matter. Not them specifically, anyway. She knows that there was a dust-up over the Gloriana Mine when it first started up, but thought that it just involved the Paiute nation.”

  That tallied with Shirley’s story. “Did you tell Tom all this?”

  “No. Was I supposed to?”

  I smiled into the phone. The woman had the makings of a good friend. “No, but please tell him now. Ready for the notes?”

  “Ready and waiting.”

  I began by telling her the story of Shirley Cook, her agenda, and her unfortunate brother. She made me pause periodically so that she could scribble down notes, and began to hum a tune. It was familiar. Eventually, she equally absentmindedly began to add words to the melody, but although the tune was so familiar I could almost name it, I couldn’t understand a word of it. “What’s that you’re singing?” I asked.

  “ ‘Clementine.’ In Latin.”

  “You intellectuals are all alike. No, you’re making this up. But let’s get on with the notes, okay?”

  She raised her voice and enunciated clearly. “In caverna, in montanus, excāverant prō aurum, habītāverant metallicus, et fītīa, Clementia.”

  “You’re raving.”

  “Mea cara, mea cara, mea car’, Clementia, perdita et istī semper, misereō, Clementia.”

  “Okay, okay, I don’t want to know how ‘ruby lips’ comes out in Latin.”

  “I only know the first verse.”

  I needed to get on with it and get gone. “What luck. Now, back to business. Tell Tom that Pat Gilmore was on her way to Reno the night she was killed. She was going there to blow the whistle on Morgan Shumway.”

  “Shumway . . . okay, got it Anything else?”

  I told her about Rodriguez’s scam. “What do you think Shumway’s up to? This must be what Tom came out to Nevada for. He—”

  “Hold on a sec,” Faye said. I heard her voice go muffled as she moved the receiver away from her mouth. When she came back on the line, she said, ‘Tom just drove up. He said to meet us at the airport there in Lovelock, and he’ll take your report himself.”

  “But—”

  “I’m fueled up and ready, and I don’t need a flight plan for this
short a hop. Race ya,” she said, and clicked off the line.

  I held the phone for a while listening to the dial tone. Finally, I had to concede that the line was dead, and that Tom had me where he wanted me one more time, so I slammed the phone back into its cradle. Then I picked it back up and tried to call Tom again at his number. He didn’t answer. Neither did Faye. I paced a tight circle for a half a minute, cussing under my breath. I waited again, tried a second and a third time. Finally, I gave up, got in my truck, and headed for the Lovelock airport.

  AS FAYE’S AIRPLANE taxied up to the low building where I was waiting, the door popped open and Tom stuck an arm out and waved me toward the plane. I hurried toward it and, as soon as the propellors stopped moving, climbed in, figuring that Tom was using it as a private place to talk. Instead, he said, “Buckle up. Faye, take off when ready.”

  “Whoa!” I hollered. “Just where d’you think you’re taking me this time?”

  Tom grinned. ‘To a nunnery. Come on, buckle up, we can’t take off with you rattling around loose like that.”

  Ian, who was sitting in a back seat rolled his eyes.

  Faye leaned over and gave me a puckery smile. “Our destination is the Bronco Betty Ranch,” she said, “I understand it’s a fly-in brothel. It’s not far. Maybe twenty minutes.”

  I popped on my headphones as Faye started the engines again, and switched to intercom so I could talk to Tom. “Speak.”

  “What did you find out?” he asked. “Something about Pat Gilmore’s destination the evening she died?”

  “This is kidnapping!” I wailed.

  Tom looked gleeful. “We are in fact going to a brothel. But don’t worry, I am not selling you into white slavery; the madam is a bookkeeper.”

  I said, “And . . .”

  “And she keeps the second set of books for Granville Resources. It took a little footwork to dig up this little fact, but we have our ways. Ian here figured it out.” Tom backhanded lan’s shoulder, a friendly cuff. “Everything is uploaded via satellite from Granville’s Reno office, and from the mine. Did I tell you lan’s a whiz with a computer?”

  ‘Telemetry,” Ian said, looking smug. “And I cracked their code. Some stupid shit was sending to the madam naughty notes.”

  Tom patted Ian on the knee. “When they have satellite dishes, you have to ask why,” he said. “It took him a little while to figure out where the signal was going. Now tell me about your talk with Shirley.”

  “I could have given that to you over the phone.”

  “Yes, but on the phone you can’t look over my shoulder into Granville’s books. This is where your knowledge of geology-based industries is going to come in very helpful, I’ll wager.”

  “You have a search warrant?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “I had to stick my neck out a little to get it, but at the FBI, we’re each allowed at least one hunch per decade, and I think something about Granville stinks.”

  As we skimmed over the summits of the Eugene Mountains and continued north beyond Winnemucca, I pondered the fact that a search warrant cannot be gotten in the blink of an eye. This meant that Tom had been looking for those books for a while, and had discovered their location long enough ago that they had been able to get that warrant And what significance could Granville’s accounting books have to an endangered species fraud? Once again, Tom had been holding out on me.

  WE TOUCHED DOWN on the private landing strip at the Bronco Betty Ranch and parked by the satellite dish. It was a nice looking spread: big, sprawling rustic ranch house, several “guest” cottages, and a dolled-up stable with just a few horses. Aside from the animals, the place looked deserted, but I surmised that that was because the human residents were all still asleep, having worked the night shift, as it were.

  Faye propped the door open and stuffed her quilted sunshades into the windows, so she could wait in the plane while I followed the men to the ranch house. Ian followed a step behind Tom, carrying a notebook computer. We knocked and were admitted by a husky man who wasn’t prone to smiling. As he scrutinized Tom’s identification, I looked around the room. It was a large common room with open beams that had been converted into a sumptuous party pad with a long carved rosewood bar. There was a big stone fireplace even though the nearest source of firewood had to be a hundred miles west.

  At the back of the room, a long hallway led down to rooms with closed doors. To the left, I could see a gleaming kitchen, and just to the right of the bar, there was a closed door with a sign that read OFFICE. Out glum greeter said he’d go find Lefty.

  Lefty, who took her time putting in an appearance, strolled in from one of the outer cottages. She turned out to be a pleasantly zaftig woman dressed in shorts and a tank top. She had plenty of curves and an easy manner which included laying a friendly hand on lan’s wrist and calling him love names. Ian blushed exquisitely. She said, “So you want to see some books, do you honey? You have anything that looks like a search warrant? I don’t mean to seem unfriendly, but I got to maintain my ethics for my clientele.” Having thus de-fanged Ian, she let go of him and gave Tom a voluptuous, ironical smile, having clearly marked him as the alpha wolf in the pack.

  This apparently fell well within Tom’s sense of funny, because he gave her a grin that showed plenty of teeth. “In fact I do,” he answered. He got out his paperwork and showed it to her. “We’re specifically interested in a client called Granville Resources, and we will confine our search to their records. Now, mind you, if we don’t find anything of interest, no one need ever know we’ve been here.”

  Lefty gave him an equally toothy grin, her heavy eyelashes sagging lower, and I was glad for Faye’s sake that she had stayed in the plane, although I was certain that, as the day was growing hot, she was going to start to heat up out there pretty damned quickly even without watching her boyfriend getting vamped.

  “I like the way you think,” Lefty told Tom, “but just to be on the safe side, I’m going to sit with you and let you know when you’ve wandered out of the places that warrant allows you to go.” She unlocked her office and let us in. There, she sat down at a large desktop computer and typed in a password and then navigated until she found what she was looking for. Then she hopped out of her swivel chair and said, “There it is. Have at it.”

  Tom signalled Ian to take a seat. He inserted a zip drive into the appropriate port. With Lefty’s direction, he copied Granville’s files onto it then retrieved the zip drive and said, “I’ll just set up my computer, make sure I’ve got everything.”

  Tom said, “Why not put it on the coffee table, so I can sit down here and take a little cruise through the numbers with Ms. Lamore.”

  Lefty shifted her spine coquettishly at Ian, working another blush out of him. “It’s your party, cowboy, but why not just step back through that door and use the bar? You can spread out more and sit nice and upright.” She smeared this last word on him like Vaseline, grabbing him by the wrist again as she said it

  Tom fought to suppress a chuckle. Ian grabbed his case and stormed out the door and into the bar.

  Tom sat down, donned a pair of half-glasses that made him look almost professorial, and started scrolling through the records on the screen. “Do you keep a hard copy of this?” he asked.

  “No. Client’s request,” Lefty answered.

  “And who set up the account?”

  “One Roderick James Adrian Chittenden, in the flesh. I take it he’s the big cheese.”

  “President and CEO,” said Tom. “You mind speculating why he came to you instead of using a firm in Reno?”

  Lefty laughed. “He probably does use a fancy firm somewhere. I usually get the second set of books, if you know what I mean.”

  Tom arched an eyebrow at her.

  She said, “And I keep them straight as an arrow. But you know how it goes, garbage in, garbage out. Sometimes I can smell it”

  “And what perfume did our Mr. Chittenden wear?” Tom inquired.

  “No s
mellier than most” Lefty replied. “Flew himself in here in a cute little biz jet. A bit ‘king and country’ for my tastes, but I kind of liked him. Better tan than most Brits.”

  “You took him for a royalist?” Tom asked sharply.

  “Classic limey,” she replied. “Right down to the imperious swagger.”

  Tom smiled to himself. “Always look to the Crown to have an interest in metals mining,” he said.

  I asked, “What do you mean?”

  Tom shifted about in the seat, stretching what had to be a tired spine. “In days of old, when knights were bold,” he began, “gold and metal mines would have been the property of the king. Think it through: In a feudal system, the farmlands and hunting grounds belonged to a handful of overlords who maintained an army to protect their serfs from bandits and local skirmishes. The serfs worked the soil and paid in grain. The overlords organized themselves one way or another beneath a monarch, who was in charge of the big fights, such as fending off neighboring kingdoms who wanted to grab the farmlands. To finance these little skirmishes, the monarch needed money. Gold is universally recognized as cash. But as important sometimes would be the other metals, for making arms and armor and strategic tools. No way our clever monarch wants these resources under the control of anyone but himself.”

  “But that was the Bronze and Iron Ages,” I said. “We’ve had a little thing called the Industrial Revolution since then.”

  “Which made the empire even more splendid,” said Tom. “With increased efficiency in gun manufacture and shipping, you can expand your network.”

  Lefty settled her splendid buttocks on the edge of the desk. It was clear that she liked Tom. But I wondered at how casually she had opened these books.

  “The days of empire are over now,” I observed.

  “Old-fashioned empire, yes. But now our revolutions are coming closer and closer together. We’re in the technological revolution, in which tricks like communications through satellite dishes are possible. One no longer needs a physical, land-based stronghold in order to hold power. Now, one can rule by forming strong corporate structures that resemble the mythic hydra. You cut off its head in America, and it laughs at you through the mouth it keeps in South Africa, or the one in Canada, or Panama. And then they organize, collectivize.”