For a long time, Kent and Aubrey stared at Nathan, stunned by the pictures the boy had painted— the relief, the clarity, the anger wrought from each scene.
Kent asked him, “You want a soda or something?”
“No thanks.”
Kent looked questioningly at Aubrey who signaled no by holding a palm over her highball glass. He waved for Tammy’s replacement to bring him another Scotch.
“You are going to be in real danger if May-May finds out you talked to us.”
“I don’t give a shit. He killed my mom. I want to bring him down.”
“Where are you staying tonight?” Aubrey asked. “How are you getting home?”
“I didn’t give it much thought. I haven’t been spending any time there anyway. May-May doesn’t even notice I’m gone.”
Aubrey made the expression women reserve for new babies and stray kittens. “Barry is upstairs.”
“I know. I was watching the Knicks with him before I came down here.”
“He’s got an extra bed in his room. He’d love to have company.”
Nathan was silent.
“Come on,” Aubrey said. “It’s colder than cold outside. You don’t want to be out there.”
Nathan thought some more. He lifted his head, looked at Aubrey. “You’re nice.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll stay.”
“Great. Just head on up.”
Nathan rose, turned to go, and then came back around. “Doc,” he said. “Remember all the mean things I said about old Mr. Whitmore when we were coon hunting? Him being a control freak, and a jerk, and all?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I didn’t really mean them. I wasn’t thinking right. He was always good to me. I’m sorry. I know he was a good friend of yours.”
“Thanks, Nathan. That means a lot to me.”
When he was gone, Aubrey said, “Holy shit.”
Kent lifted his glass in a melancholy toast. “That clears up a lot of stuff. Doesn’t it?”
“It sure does. But it leaves one big question.”
“Which is?”
“Now what?”
“Right. I’m thinking we play him out a little more rope.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if we have Merrill arrest him now, we have no proof that he was organizing the dogfighting syndicate. And even if we did manage to get May-May, we’d scare off his big-money backers. They’d get away and find another little guy to take the fall next time.
“Figures. Doesn’t it?”
“Definitely.”
“And it brings us back to our original problem.”
“Which is?”
Aubrey cast him a fiery look. “Why does the USAPC have the right to cut FOAM out of the action?”
Kent held up both hands. “I’m not going there again.”
“Then you might as well head home.”
No arm-in-arm stroll back to her room. No kiss goodnight. He trudged slowly back to his truck. He needed to talk to Lucinda.
Chapter 26
At eleven thirty the next morning, Aubrey was still in bed. Her head throbbed with a headache aspirin wouldn’t touch. Twisted in sweaty sheets, staring blurry-eyed at the ceiling, she sifted through the ashes of her relationship with Kent.
“Shit,” she said, rolled over. Focused as best she could on the clock next to her bed and calculated the three-hour time difference on her fingers. She picked up the telephone and dialed a Los Angeles number.
“Raul Pentes, please. Tell him Aubrey Fairbanks is calling.”
Immediately an effeminate Latino voice came over the phone. “Aubrey? I figured you’d dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Almost. I’m outside of Syracuse, New York, in a little place called Jefferson, hanging on by my fingernails.”
“I’m so worried. What are you doing there?”
“Sometime when we’re by the pool with tall, cold umbrella drinks and lots of time on our hands I’ll give you the whole story. But in a nutshell, I’m about to do some undercover work for FOAM, and I need your help, Raul.”
Aubrey heard a long sigh at the other end.
“You still doing the animal rights thing?” Disappointment was heavy in Raul’s tone.
“You didn’t figure I’d quit, did you?”
“What a waste! You should be out here flashing your face on the silver screen.”
“Forget it, Raul. I had enough of that con.”
“My bad luck. What can I do for you?”
“You’re still doing makeup, aren’t you?”
“All day, every day. They all love me, and why not? I am the best.” Raul let his voice drop into a whisper. “You wouldn’t believe who’s sitting in my chair as we speak.”
“Big star?”
He kept his secretive tone. “I’m not at liberty to give out names, but I’ll tell you she’s the lead in the new Stephen King movie.”
“No kidding!” The one thing Aubrey did miss about Hollywood’s acting scene was being an insider, getting the facts behind the images so carefully fabricated for the public. Of course, she reminded herself, it was that very mentality that had driven her away from Hollywood. “I’ll have to check out the face you give her.”
“Do that, please. And let me know what you think. Only if you like it.”
She let him hear her laugh. “Okay, Raul. Anyway, I was hoping I could get some makeup from you, and maybe a blond wig. Something trashy. I need to become a biker’s moll. You know what I mean?”
“I can do bikers, male or female, in my sleep.”
“Great. You still have my sizes on file, right?”
“They’re still the same?”
“Close enough.”
“Thatta girl. You are so beautiful.”
Aubrey ignored Raul’s flattery. “How about a Harley jacket, boots, old jeans?”
“Can do.”
She gave Raul her hotel address and thanked him. When she hung up the phone, she felt a strange exhilaration as she kindled her tiny ember of a plan. She dialed another California number.
“Fallon Camera,” came a sleepy voice on the other end.
“Joe? This is Aubrey Fairbanks.”
“Ah, the princess who fled.”
“Escaped is more like it. How are you, Joe?”
“Overworked, underpaid, stressed-out, horny. Shall I go on? Can you help?”
“No, but it’s good to know you haven’t changed.” Aubrey pictured the ponytailed, goateed, reclusive photography wizard in his studio amid his pother of cameras, lights, tripods, umbrellas, cables, and backdrops. Eight-thirty—he’d be alone. Slumped in a chair sipping morning coffee. She got right to business. “I could use a favor.”
“Now there’s something different.”
“Hey,” Aubrey said. “Seems to me I helped you along the road to success a time or two. Way back when.”
“Shooting glamours of you bumped me from the depths of the unknown to the pinnacle of photographic acclaim on which I now perch,” Fallon said with a sarcasm that mocked himself while adulating Aubrey. “I concede, dearie, I owe you. So what do you need?”
“I need a camera. A video camera.”
“No K-Mart near by?”
“It’s got to be hidden in a purse or something so I can carry it and use it without it being seen.”
“I’ve been working with celebs long enough to know when not to ask why.”
“Thanks.”
“Disguised video camera. No problem.”
“The smaller the better. And the bag or whatever has to be appropriate for a tough, biker-type woman.”
“Kinky.”
She gave Fallon her address.
“Aubrey,” Fallon said, “this c
landestine stuff can get people riled. I don’t want to read in the paper about anything bad happening to you.”
Fallon’s words buzzed in her head all afternoon, but she kept working her plan. “I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit on the sidelines for this game.”
Kent waited for Rodman. He paced like a chained-up dog, ran his finger along a windowsill in his animal hospital reception room, rolled the dust between his fingertips, then flipped it off. He studied a faded pen and ink reprint of a famous animal scene one of his veterinary suppliers had sent him years ago. Waiting was the worst. Now cats—they were waiters. They had patience, sublime self-control. He looked over at Aubrey and Stef sitting along one wall, conversing in low tones. They were cats.
He hated the quarrel that raged between Aubrey and him. He could tell it made her uncomfortable too. She sneaked sidelong glances at him and forced her conversation with Stef to fill any awkward silence. Not that she’d admit it.
Only Merrill seemed to be himself. Like Kent, he was a dog. A bulldog. He paced back and forth across the room, stopping occasionally to criticize the stuffiness or to complain about barking on the other side of the thin wall. “I feel like we’re a bunch of illegals huddled in some truck, trying to dodge the border patrol.”
“Sit down, Merrill. You’re making everyone else nervous,” Stef said.
“Not a chance. Every time I sit in one of those chairs I get covered in animal hair.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“It is too. He bent over and snatched a tumbleweed of fur off the floor as it rolled by. “Look at this stuff.”
“Sit down!” Stef said more forcefully. “Your squirming won’t get Rodman here any faster. It just makes everyone else more edgy.”
Merrill made a big production of beating the hair off a chair with his handkerchief, and sitting.
Kent was too distracted by Aubrey’s shunning to care about Merrill. The closest thing to communicating with her had been through Stef, but Aubrey had reluctantly accepted a backstage role during the raid. He was thankful for that.
Merrill’s irritability surfaced again. “You two have become quite cozy, haven’t you? It wasn’t that long ago you’d have torn out each other’s throats. One trying to demolish the other’s business, and all.”
Stef wasn’t about to take the bait. “Merrill, you’ve got to be one of the most hardheaded people I’ve ever met. Aubrey and I have agreed to disagree on one issue. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a civil conversation. For Pete’s sake, ease up.”
“I won’t ease up till this whole thing is over.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the door pushed open and Dan Rodman ducked through it. “Thanks for parking out back, everybody. And you, Merrill, for not bringing a squad car. I’d hate to have my cover blown at this late date. Some pit man could be cruising by, see my truck mixed up with a police car and a bunch of do-gooders, and”—he snapped his fingers—“we’re screwed. Just like that. It can happen in a small town.”
“We know. We live in a small town,” Merrill said with an edge on his voice.
“Anyway,” Rodman said, “we got the news we’ve all been waiting for. It’s going down tonight.”
Kent thumped a cardboard cutout of a horrified flea that was screaming the name of some pet shampoo. “They don’t give much notice.”
“That’s how they do it,” Rodman said. “The organizers know the exact time. Everybody else just gets some general idea of when to be ready. Then, they’re told to hang tight.”
“I know, I know,” Kent said. “It still burns me.”
“So where is it?” Merrill asked.
They all stiffened as Rodman’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. “That’s part of the problem.”
“There’s a problem. Why am I not surprised?” Merrill said.
“Well, kind of. Turns out ol’ May-May is a little smarter than we gave him credit for.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Kent said.
Rodman took a seat without looking for dog hair. “Last night I was at Kolbie’s Tavern. May-May spread the word; the fight is to be on the Indian reservation.” He paused to let them mull that over.
It took a second for the four listeners to comprehend.
“Oh, man. Good move, May-May,” Kent said with genuine admiration.
Aubrey forgot their stalemate. “What’s the big deal?”
“The reservation is off limits to all law enforcement except tribal police. Technically, it’s not even part of the United States,” Kent said.
Rodman nodded. “You got it.”
“That sneaky son of a bitch,” Aubrey said. “That sneaky son of a bitch.”
Merrill moved into his policeman mode. “Where on the reservation? It’s a big place.”
“That’s the second problem. We don’t know just where. Yet. But as we speak, there’s a pile of state troopers checking out likely places. Over the years, they’ve gotten a pretty good idea what’s what on the reservation.”
“I thought our police couldn’t go on the reservation,” Aubrey said.
“They can’t officially. But—just by coincidence, you understand—a lot of policemen decided to go rabbit hunting today…on the reservation.” Rodman hunched his shoulders feigning innocence. Another pause. “With radios and stuff.”
“The official line,” Kent said, “is the agencies involved are working like hell to get permission from the tribal council to enter.”
“That’s right. And they better get it before time for the raid.”
“What do we do in the meantime?” Stef asked.
“For your part, Stef, I’d suggest you post a lot of extra guards at your plant tonight. They may try to create another diversion.”
The muscles in her jaw knotted. “I’ll walk the place myself.”
Rodman turned to Aubrey. “Thank you and the others at FOAM for all the help you’ve given us to this point. We could not have done it without you. If you stay close to a phone, I’ll see that you are informed every step of the way. That’s a personal promise.”
Aubrey returned an unreadable look.
“Kent. You are the official veterinarian. We’ll want you to confirm the condition of the dogs and, if any need to be treated, do that. Merrill, you are the local police agency…which leads me to problem number three.”
“Just how many problems have you got?” Merrill said.
“The FBI is getting cold feet. Turns out they don’t have a cooperative agreement with the USDA, so their lawyers tell them they may be on shaky ground.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning technically the USDA is the agency responsible for enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act—which is what animal cruelty cases fall under. They are the lead agency. If USDA and the FBI don’t have an official agreement to work together, defense lawyers will have a heyday with FBI involvement.”
“Great time to find out there’s no such agreement.”
“Hey, Merrill. How long have you worked in law enforcement? You know how it goes.”
“True.”
Rodman pointed a finger at him. “So, it’s your boys, the county and state police, and us USAPC agents. All told that makes about fifty units to hit the scene. Plus any tribal help.”
“Fifty units!” Stef shook her head. “Amazing.”
“If you can find the spot,” Merrill said.
“We’ll find it, all right. The hard part is going to be getting permission to run all those cops onto the reservation.”
Suddenly, Kent agreed with Merrill’s assessment of the stuffy room. He loosened his collar. “What’s the actual plan for the raid?”
“That will depend on the site, but basically we will try to surround it then hit it hard and fast.”
“SWAT team stuff?”
Rodman nodded. “F
ull gear. Body armor and all. Kent, you probably don’t have any.”
“I can fix him up,” Merrill said before Kent could answer.
“Good,” Rodman said. “Remember, I’ll be on the inside, hopefully. So watch where you are shooting if it comes to that. I’m skinny, but I’m still a pretty big target.”
Nobody laughed.
As Rodman pulled on his cap, indicating that the meeting was over, Kent asked, “What time of day do the fights start?”
“They won’t announce that till a few hours beforehand. Usually it all begins in the evening, around dusk. We just want things to get underway enough that we have definite proof that they gathered to fight pit bulls. The longer it goes, the more dangerous it gets because of the booze and drugs. You guys stay at the police station, and I’ll get word to you as soon as they give a time.” He turned to Aubrey again. “When the place is secure, I’ll give you a call. I’ll make sure you and FOAM get a good head start on the press. So be ready.”
Stef gave Aubrey a there-that-should-work-out smile.
Rodman looked around the room. “Any more questions?” No one spoke. He turned to Kent. “Then I’ll need another bottle of penicillin before I go. Just to make it look good.”
Chapter 27
Aubrey twisted her black mane into a tight knot on the back of her head and covered it with the blond wig that had arrived via Federal Express from Raul Pentes. She studied her reflection in the hotel mirror. Her eyes widened at the transformation. Even back when she was acting, it had amazed her how wigs changed a person’s appearance.
No way would May-May recognize her. He’d only seen her up close one time. That was in the darkness of the Groggery, and he had been cockeyed drunk, to boot.
She shook the golden tresses onto her shoulders, slid on a pair of rose-lensed glasses, and then turned slowly. She felt the motorcycle jacket’s oiled hide and shuddered. She was actually wearing the skin of an animal. This once. The outfit was perfect.
She lifted the crumpled drawstring purse from the bed and admired it again. Alternate smooth leather and suede patches covered its black surface. Fallon was a genius. Even looking closely, she could not tell which patch hid the video camera lens.
Taking On Lucinda Page 23
