by Joseph Flynn
John said, “But you finally came up with something.”
Kirby nodded. “The light dawned after I thought it might be something to do with ego. Eddie and I were both top of our class in our respective disciplines, but a long time ago, before we’d even met, I found out I beat him at something that was very important to both of us.”
“What’s that?” John asked.
“As kids, we were both into building model train sets. There was a national competition to build the most creative and efficient track layout within specific parameters. You know, so spending money wouldn’t be the determining factor. I won, and like any good young egotist, I never even bothered to look at who came in second. Turns out it was this kid from suburban L.A.”
“Edward Danner.”
“Yeah. Now, we’re doing it all over again, only this time with real trains.”
“And Danner’s afraid you’re going to beat him again.”
Kirby nodded and sipped his brandy.
“So he’s cheating?” John asked.
“Doing things that could get him locked up, I was told. I’ll be happy if you’re the one who arrests him.”
“But what does all this have to do with the Super Chief? Anything at all?”
Brian Kirby told John just what the connection was.
Chapter 19
Southwest U.S
The Indians had brought blankets to the crew of the Super Chief, but that didn’t keep them from shivering in the cold of the night. There were far too many cracks and gaps in the tumble-down shack where they were being held to keep out the cold air. The temperature wasn’t quite down to the point where they could see their breath frost in the air, but it was close to that.
Truth was, they couldn’t see much. The night was clear and the sky was filled with stars, but illumination was minimal for men who were used to electric light. The engineer, Albert Wicker, sat leaning against a wall where the protection from the cold, steady wind was a bit more solid than elsewhere.
Dale Brent, the relief engineer whom Bodaway had kicked in the lower back for cracking wise had been complaining ever since that he’d suffered internal damage and had to pee every ten minutes as a result, told the others, “I’ve got to go again.”
He’d been the first one who’d needed to relieve himself. The Indians had left them an empty plastic milk jug. The kind that could hold a gallon.
Brent had looked at it the first time he had to piss and said, “What, are we all supposed to use that? The stink would kill us in nothing flat. And what if we have to shit?”
So far, all of them seemed to be constipated, but they took his point.
“You might get shot,” Bob Clarey, the crew’s fireman had said the first time Brent had been about to step outside.
“Better than having my appendix burst,” Brent replied.
“Your bladder,” said Rick Engram.
He was the crew’s brakeman and the youngest crew member by twenty years.
“What?” Brent asked.
“Your bladder’s where you hold your piss not your appendix.”
“Jesus, like I give a damn. All I know is I’ve got to piss and I’m going outside to do it. I don’t care if they shoot me.”
Brent did just that, but he didn’t go too far. The men inside could hear his stream hit a rock. Hear him moan, too. Somewhat from pain, it sounded, but with relief, too. No one shot Brent, but when he returned he said there had been blood in his urine. Nobody went outside to verify that.
They all did make individual trips later to address their own needs and in an unpremeditated fashion wound up using the same small area to relieve themselves.
Now, deep into the night, Brent was headed for the door again. This time he said, “You know what? I hope those bastards do shoot me. It’d be better than putting up with much more of this shit.”
He stepped outside.
The others waited, on edge, wondering if Brent had just tempted fate. Maybe their captors would cut them less slack at night when a man might be more tempted to make a run for it. They heard no crack of gunfire, though, and Brent came back unharmed.
The others also scurried out, individually, and returned to the meager shelter of the cabin.
A minute or two later, Brent told his companions about his latest pee.
“I’m out there thinking I might be squirting nothing but blood by now. With all the stars in the sky, I thought I might be able to see if that was the case, but I was afraid to look. Just pointed my eyes to heaven, and damn if I didn’t think it was beautiful. I should’ve paid more attention to nights like this when I was a free man.”
Brent gave a hard look to each of the other members of the cab crew.
“Then I asked myself how I got to be where I am. The last thing I remember, we were all pulling out of Union Station in L.A. The next thing I know, we’re all here, bunch of goddamn Indians holding us prisoner. Threatening our lives. How the hell did that happen?”
Shrugs and silence were the only replies.
Brent continued, “That old Indian bastard, their chief or whatever, he said they’d give us our train back if we behave, let us take it to Chicago. That means they must have it, and in working condition, too. So how’d the Indians bring the train to wherever the hell we are now?”
Brent had the others thinking hard now.
It was amazing the things a man could figure out while taking a long, hard piss.
Brent said, “One of us, and it sure the hell ain’t me, had to help those bastards.”
Wicker, Clarey and Engram all looked at one another. Each of them had wrapped himself in a blanket. Clarey was seated on the floor next to Wicker. Engram was on his feet, wedged into a corner.
Brent continued his line of reasoning. “When we left L.A., three of us each had a cup of coffee poured from the same thermos. Only man who didn’t was you, Rick.”
Wicker and Clarey got to their feet. Brent took a step toward Engram.
“I can’t handle caffeine is all,” Engram said. “I woke up here tied up just like the rest of you.”
Brent laughed. “That was supposed to make you look good, wasn’t it? Of course, if one of us was to make a run for it, you could warn your friends outside, couldn’t you?”
Brent lunged toward Engram with his hands extended, as if to choke him. Both younger and quicker than his would-be assailant, Engram sidestepped the attack and threw his blanket over Brent’s head. He shot the gap between Clarey and Wicker and ran out the cabin door.
The three men he left behind heard Engram shout something in a language they didn’t know. Brent threw off the blanket and ran after Engram. He’d only just cleared the doorway when a bullet hit the exterior wall next to him. He ducked back inside. Three more rounds slammed into the decrepit building, but they were fired to intimidate not to kill.
That didn’t keep hypertensive Albert Wicker from having a heart attack.
He dropped just like a man who’d been drilled right between the eyes.
Chapter 20
San Francisco
The next morning, with Officers Chang and Gilhooley off duty, John Tall Wolf took a taxi to Erika Bergdahl’s Pacific Heights mansion. He pressed the intercom button at the gate to her property. He was just about to try again when a woman’s voice came through the speaker. Her English was slightly accented by Scandinavian tones.
“Yes, who’s there please?”
John thought his new title would play better in the upscale neighborhood. “Co-director John Tall Wolf, Bureau of Indian Affairs.” He added for clarity, “I’m with the federal government, ma’am. If you’re Ms. Bergdahl, I’d like to speak with you briefly.”
“You are Native American?”
“By birth if not upbringing.”
“Which tribe?”
“Northern Apache and, I think, Navajo.”
“And you were raised by?”
“My father is Caucasian, my mother is Latina and also has native blood.”
His pedigree apparently passed muster. The woman told him, “I’m working in my garden behind the house. Follow the driveway.” She buzzed him in.
John did so. He found a woman wearing a chambray shirt, jeans and scuffed sneakers. She held a trowel with a good point on it in her right hand. If he’d been an intruder scamming her, he could see her using the garden tool as a weapon.
“You’re Erika Bergdahl?” John asked.
“I am. Sometimes also known as Switzerland, I am told.”
She smiled. Erika was nearing fifty, John thought, and aging as gracefully as anyone could hope. Her face glowed with health and the faint lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth only made her features more interesting.
John offered her his card to buttress his claimed identity.
Erika read it and told him, “This says you are a special agent.”
“Recently promoted. The new cards haven’t been printed yet. Might not even ask for any until I use up the old ones.”
She liked that, and stuck her trowel into a pot filled with soil.
“May I offer you a glass of lemonade? I have to warn you, though, I like it quite tart.”
“So do I,” John said.
Erika led the way up to the veranda adjoining the house. John half-expected her to summon domestic help to provide the refreshment, but a carafe of lemonade already rested on a glass-top table. Four glasses sat next to it. She offered John a seat and poured for him.
He waited until she sat before raising his glass. “Skol.”
She smiled and waited for him to sip his drink.
John did and said, “Just the way I like it.”
Erika nodded, pleased by his approval, and took her own drink.
Putting her glass down, she asked, “Am I a person of interest to the government?”
“Only in the hope you might help with an investigation.”
“So, if it’s not me, is it my neighbors?” She tilted her head to one side and then the other.
Maybe it was insignificant, but John noted she’d indicated Danner’s home first.
“Yes, ma’am. I can’t go into detail, but can you tell me what you think about Mr. Danner and Mr. Kirby?”
“They are very rich, of course, but I’m sure you know that.”
“I do. What I’d like is your impression of their character, if you have any awareness of that.”
“Well, each of them has offered to buy my home.”
“But you’re still here. So money isn’t an issue to you.”
“Not as far as remaining here is concerned. I am an immigrant, albeit a wealthy one. I have found my place in America and I intend to remain here. Right where I am.”
John thought about that. “Have Mr. Danner and Mr. Kirby accepted your position with good grace?”
“Mr. Kirby has. All he asks is that if I ever change my mind I give him the first opportunity to bid on this property.”
“And Mr. Danner?”
The look that flashed in Erika Bergdahl’s eyes confirmed for John the idea that she’d happily gut anyone who threatened her well-being. Beneath her twenty-first century gloss, pulsed Viking blood.
“Mr. Danner … he is proof that even the well-off can have a pesky neighbor.”
“Persistently pesky?”
“Until my lawyers obtained a restraining order.”
“Would your feelings about your neighbors, then, incline you to trust Mr. Kirby more than Mr. Danner?”
“I am the heir to a shipping fortune, Mr. Tall Wolf. My father was at least as ruthless as either of my neighbors and likely more so. I would expect both Mr. Danner and Mr. Kirby to be relentless in pursuit of their interests. Mr. Kirby would accomplish his goals with more élan; Mr. Danner would be more rude. Simply put, I would trust neither of them unless I knew my goals aligned exactly with theirs.”
John liked that analysis. Thought it might be helpful.
“Would you mind if I ask a few more questions about your background?” Erika said. “My interest is academic, you see. I am a cultural anthropologist at San Francisco State.”
John grinned. “Really? My mother is in the same field.”
He gave Erika his mother’s name and university affiliation. Spoke to her for five minutes.
Chapter 21
Washington, D.C.
“You can not trust Tall Wolf, not for a minute,” Nelda Freeland said to Marlene Flower Moon. “He’s a devil.”
Nelda was Marlene’s niece, and could not have borne a closer physical resemblance to her aunt had she been her daughter. Nelda had been the acting director of the BIA’s Office of Justice Services while Marlene was on a leave of absence to make a movie with Clay Steadman. Tall Wolf had been absolutely dismissive of Nelda’s new position of authority.
Once Marlene had returned to Washington, Nelda had been obligated to take a step back on the organizational chart.
Worse, Tall Wolf as the new co-director of the OJS, was now Nelda’s superior.
Giving the younger woman two reasons to hate him.
And suspect him of having a diabolical nature.
Marlene, who’d been looking out her office window, had heard her niece’s accusation and gave it little heed. A more prosaic but not insignificant concern occupied her thoughts.
“The view out Tall Wolf’s new office window is really much better than mine.”
Anyone who had ever clawed her way up the ranks of any hierarchy knew such symbols mattered. The scenery outside a pane of glass could easily be a forecast of career prospects. Soaring towers and monuments might be hints of future greatness. A view of an alley with a Dumpster spoke for itself.
Marlene’s vista wasn’t half bad; it just wasn’t as grand as —
Tall Wolf sent a text to her phone. Almost as if he’d known she’d been thinking of him.
His message read: Are you planning to take Nelda with you when you get your cabinet post? If not, I just spoke to someone who said there’s a plum job coming open at the National Museum of the American Indian. Thought you’d like to know.
Marlene showed the text to her niece, who recoiled in fear. Her suspicion of John’s link to the infernal was confirmed. Then Nelda crept back because the museum was a part of the Smithsonian Institution, and a top job there with Native American cachet was nothing to be shrugged off. Even at the cost of one’s soul. Wheels began to turn in Nelda’s head.
“Would you rather work at the museum than for me?” Marlene asked.
Nelda’s immediate impulse was to say of course not … but there was no fooling Auntie.
“If you were to stay here, second to Tall Wolf in everything but name, yes, I would.”
The younger woman emphasized her point of view with a pugnacious set of her jaw.
Marlene admired her for that. Looking out for yourself was a matter of basic survival. Not lying about it, showed courage. It also warned the person higher up the ladder that a new threat might be coming from below.
“Perhaps you’re right.”
“You don’t think I’m disloyal?” Nelda asked.
“You’re loyal to yourself. As you should be. It’s my job to give you a reason to be loyal to me.”
“You’ll bring me with you if you become Secretary of the Interior? Give me a slot above Tall Wolf?” Nelda was always one to hedge her bets.
Marlene laughed. “How much good did that do you with Tall Wolf the last time, when you were acting director?”
“Not one bit,” Nelda said with a pout. “But if you become a cabinet member —”
“Tall Wolf won’t care at all. Besides, he has the ear of the vice president.”
Nelda mulled that over. “He’s not —”
“No, he isn’t, but she is looking for a man. She knows she can’t run for president as a single woman.”
“What about you, Auntie? Do you still want to be president? Would you marry to win the Oval Office and turn the White House Indian Red?”
Marlene gave her niece a look, reminding the yo
unger woman there was nothing she wouldn’t do to reach her goals, no matter what they were. She dismissed Nelda and started working her phone, putting in calls to Indian chiefs — Native American tribal leaders — around the country. Tall Wolf, damn him, had put the bug in her ear to become the next Secretary of the Interior.
That would be an important executive position to add to her résumé.
She knew she would never beat Jean Morrissey in a head-to-head race for the Democratic nomination to be president. The thing to do would be to appear to be a good soldier working for Morrissey, all the while sabotaging her behind the scenes. Then, in the next presidential election, she could make her move.
First, though, she had to snag that cabinet post. Get the Native American power structure behind her. Only she ran into trouble immediately. None of the important men and women she called across the country were available to speak with her. They were all out of town on business.
What business, Marlene wanted to know.
The flunkies taking her calls couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her.
Something big was going on, something Marlene didn’t know about.
She couldn’t abide either her ignorance or her exclusion.
She got busy on changing all of that fast.
Chapter 22
San Francisco
Makilah Walsh looked up from her office desk at police headquarters and saw the biggest Indian she’d ever seen in her life. Oops, she thought. Political correctness was mandatory in San Francisco city government. Biggest Native American. The guy must’ve been as tall as that old-time movie actor, Will Sampson. Only with those Ray-Ban sunglasses and the sharp suit he had on he looked like might have just stepped out of a fashion shoot.
“Captain Walsh?” he asked.
“Yes,” Makilah said.
“The officer at the security desk said he’d call up to let you know I was coming.”
