Shane was at that moment hurtling east along I–80, hell-bent for Laramie at eighty-five miles an hour. Kates and Corkett were starting the paperwork and making phone calls from the DCI office in Casper, and they were not looking forward to dealing with the owner of the Mercedes, who was fairly well known in the state for acting as if the huge ranch he owned was an independent country.
Shane’s luck was holding. Two Wyoming Highway Patrol officers who were, by this time, supposed to be taking their shifts on the stretch of the interstate between Rawlins and Laramie, happened to be tanking up on warmedover but free eggs and sausages and hash browns and coffee at the Country Kitchen in Rawlins when the pickup had sped onto the interstate entrance ramp. The officers were discussing college basketball and never saw a thing.
Dickie Langham was at home, taking a shower, when the call came into his office. The Albany County dispatcher radioed for two units to go out to watch the interstate. Lamentably, the county’s Chevy Blazer was at home with a deputy who lived twenty miles north of Laramie in Bosler, where the temperature was only just pushing above zero. When the deputy turned the key, the engine gave a couple of labored coughs and died. It took him forty-five minutes to get the truck running. By the time he was on his way into town, Shane Parker was exiting Interstate 80, entering West Laramie.
He got to West Laramie in a curious state of exhausted frenzy, and headed straight for the house of Sherry, his methedrine dealer. Shane really needed a big hit of crystal. He knocked on the door and she answered, wearing a dirty tank top, smelling of stale cigarettes and sweat, hair matted, dark circles under her eyes, looking far better than Shane did.
“What the fuck do you want, you bastard? Where’d you get the truck?” she asked, eying the big rig parked out front, noticing the Wyoming plates that began with the number 6, meaning Carbon County. “You owe me a hundred bucks.”
“Shut up, Sherry,” he said, pushing her out of the way and walking into her filthy house. “I got money.” He’d found $270 in the cowboy’s wallet. “I got what I owe you, and another hundred. Gimme meth and some weed.”
“Get outa my house, asshole,” she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “You get nothin’. The fuckin’ pigs put out the word a couple months ago— they’re lookin’ for you. We don’t need no trouble.”
He walked over to her, grabbed her by a bruised and pockmarked arm, and put his face right in hers. “You gonna give me what I want, or should I just take it, bitch?”
She snarled at him, yanking her arm away, and said, “Okay, but lemme see the money, and then you get outa here fast.”
Shane pulled out a wad of bills, peeled off five twenties and two fifties. He could easily beat the shit out of her and take the drugs, but he didn’t want to risk dealing with Terry, her old man, who ran the meth lab in a series of ever-changing locations, and whom Shane had once seen eat a live cockroach. Terry kept pit bulls that were well known in West Laramie. He appeared not to be home but might come in any minute.
Sherry nodded, went into another room and returned with a baggie of marijuana and a small plastic envelope half full of white powder.
“Gimme some works,” he said, licking his lips, and she brought him a piece of flexible rubber hose, a torch, a spoon, an eyedropper, a syringe, a cup of water, and a stoppered bottle of bleach. Shane cleaned out the needle with the bleach, cooked, tied off, fixed. The speed roared up his arm and straight to his heart, blasting into his brain like a sonic boom.
At that moment, Sherry’s boyfriend walked in and gave Shane the same look he’d given the unfortunate cockroach. “Get the fuck outa here,” said Terry.
“Yeah, get the fuck out, Shane,” Sherry snarled. “And don’t come back.”
Shane went out to the truck, heart hammering, screamingly high. He was seized by the urge to take the Ruger back in and blow them both away. But the memory of the cowboy’s jeans exploding in a wet red bloom had him dry-heaving by the side of the truck. He’d never before even seen anybody shot, much less shot somebody himself. He’d shot the kid with Foote’s gun, left Foote’s car sitting there. The realization that he had fucked himself big this time slammed into him like another hit of meth.
He could hear Terry’s dogs barking. Wild-eyed, he jumped into the truck, rammed the keys into the ignition and peeled out of there, heading out of town on Highway 230, on his way home. He had no idea where else to go.
The phone at Freedom Ranch rang at 8:17 a.m. Officer P.W. Corkett of the Department of Criminal Investigations wanted to know if Mr. Elroy Foote was aware that a Mercedes registered to him was sitting in a snowdrift in Muddy Gap, and that whoever had been driving it appeared to have shot somebody with a large-caliber pistol and then driven off in the victim’s truck. Elroy said that he’d been home all night and wasn’t aware that his car was anywhere except his garage, but that there were a number of people on the property who had access to the many ranch vehicles. He would check it out and call Corkett back. Corkett said, politely but firmly, to do that as soon as possible, and added that he would be driving up to Freedom Ranch the next morning to talk with Mr. Foote in person.
Elroy went first to the gun room and noted the Ruger’s absence (one of his favorite handguns, dang it!) and then to the garage. It might be that one of his regular cowboys had gotten drunk and a little out of hand. Then again, it might be one of the Unknown Soldiers, several of whom were staying on the place. In any case, there had been an inexcusable breach of security. It was bad enough that his gun and car had been stolen, but the telephone call from a Wyoming state policeman was beyond tolerating. The idea that state cops would insist on entering his personal domain, and that he probably had to permit them access, reminded him once again why he was dedicating himself to fighting government oppression. A crime, after all, had been committed against him! It ought to be Elroy Foote himself who administered punishment. But they’d taken away that right. When it came right down to it, though, Elroy just did not like having to deal with government lackeys, especially low-level ones.
Danny Crease was in the ranch house kitchen drinking coffee and reading Soldier of Fortune, about to be served pancakes and bacon by Elroy’s dim but suitably reactionary wife. Elroy told him about the thefts and the shooting, and sent him to the bunkhouses to see who was missing. He went straight to Shane and Dirtbag’s cabin, where there was of course no sign of the former, and the latter was still sleeping heavily, making a sound like a wrecking ball working on an old Vegas casino. Danny smacked him hard. Dirtbag snorted twice and turned over, curling up in his bunk like a kitten. Drugged.
“It was Shane,” said Danny, annoyed to find upon returning that Arthur Stopes had joined Elroy at the table and had taken Danny’s place and was tucking into his breakfast. Mrs. Foote, who didn’t like scenes, gave Danny another plate and went upstairs to take a Valium.
“How did he get out?” Arthur wondered.
“He must have slipped Dirtbag an elephant trank. Bastard’s still zoned out.”
“So what do we do?” asked Elroy, excusing both the use of personal names and the profanity in this time of crisis.
“What have they got? Your car. If they find a bullet, they can potentially identify your gun, provided they also find the gun. Crimes were committed with your property. Stolen property,” Arthur explained.
Danny stuffed a piece of bacon in his mouth, chewed hard, took a scalding sip of boiled coffee. “Figure they also have Shane’s prints off the car, which they can match since he has a sheet. They make him as their only suspect within a few hours. If they find him and take him, he’s liable to talk to cut a deal. You think a couple of state cops showing up today is bad—we’ll have the FBI crawling all over this place in a week.”
Elroy did not at all like the idea of the FBI invading his private property, let alone finding out what he had stashed up at Freedom Ranch. He could, of course, see that the various convicted felons currently on the place scattered before the police arrived. And it was not in al
l cases illegal for private citizens to possess the kinds of armaments he had managed to purchase from various offshore entrepreneurs. But he knew that it was frowned upon. He admired militia heroes like Randy Weaver, but considered himself too rich for martyrdom, or even bad publicity. “So we have to try to find Parker before they do,” he acknowledged, mentally excommunicating Shane from the U.S. with the mere mention of his actual last name.
“Give me your plane, Mr. Foote. I want to fly down to Laramie and see if I can’t pick up a trail. If I can get to him before the cops find him, I’ll shut him up for good,” Danny said, looking scary.
“But in the meantime, Number One,” Arthur cut in, “it’s important that you make some explanation to the police. They’ll call back any minute. Perhaps you might say that one of the men you hired on a temporary basis, say, to help pull cattle out of snowdrifts, is missing.”
“Not bad, Arthur.” Danny smiled nastily. “Give them Shane’s description and a fictitious name, phony social security number, all that. Obviously, he fed you a line, then ripped you off. It’ll keep them busy until I can get to the little pencil-dick. We should have taken him down when he screwed up the Dunwoodie job.”
Arthur nodded sadly. “We must do what we can to rectify the mistake, even as we construct a position that enables us to restore security.”
“What the hell does that mean, Art?” Danny sneered.
“It means we step on it. And it means”—Elroy fixed a steely stare on Danny—“that when you carry out the sentence, you must under no circumstances leave witnesses or evidence that might implicate the Unknown Soldiers or in any way jeopardize our mission.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Foote,” Danny said, choosing bluntness, “we’re up to our ass in implications. But if it makes you feel better, I promise not to waste him when anyone’s watching.”
“See that you don’t. I’ll call the state police back. You,” he said, indicating Danny, “call my pilot and have him gas up the plane. Call a leasing outfit in Laramie and make sure they have a car waiting at the airport. Then, get a couple of men and wake up Number Seventeen to take him to the stockade for discipline. As soon as I’m done talking to the police”—Elroy nearly spat on the last word—“I’ll call Number Two in Casper and brief him. I want him here before the police arrive. Now let’s go!”
Shane was shaking hard by the time he got to to his place south of Albany, the mouse-infested, dilapidated dwelling that was all that remained of a once-thriving Parker family ranch. Halfway down the muddy, rutted driveway, the truck high-centered and stalled out. Somebody’d torn up the road since he’d driven the Pontiac in and out at Thanksgiving. Shane didn’t feel like trying to get unstuck, so he trudged the rest of the way to the house. The front door creaked on its hinges, but thankfully didn’t fall off as it had once before when he’d returned after a long absence. He was way too wired to have the patience to fix it, terminally too tired to have the strength, and it was maybe eight degrees above zero outside, tops.
His tongue felt as if it had been Velcroed to the roof of his mouth. He went to the kitchen, still piled with his dirty dishes from months ago, and found a glass. But when he turned on the tap, nothing happened. His pipes were frozen solid.
Now thirst was really getting hold of him. He’d have to melt snow. He found a saucepan, went outside, filled it with snow, and came back in to turn on the burner on the stove. Nothing again. Hadn’t paid his propane bill since September. No gas.
Panic struck. His heart was pounding his chest so hard he wondered crazily if it would break his ribs. That meth had really done a number on him: He needed something to take the edge off it. Shane had once had a girlfriend who’d left a bottle of Librium in his bathroom. He considered it a “chick drug,” but this was an emergency. He went in the bathroom, carrying the saucepan, found the pills, ate five, and washed them down with a handful of snow. He was still shaking so hard his teeth hurt.
At least there was nice dry wood stacked next to the fireplace. He laid some logs on the grate. Grinding out the last of the speed rush, he rummaged through cobwebby cupboards until he found an ancient copy of Reader’s Digest. He ripped it up ferociously, crumpled a bunch of pages, shoved them under the logs, and found his lighter. Amazingly, it occurred to him to open the flue before he flicked the Bic on the paper.
To his enormous relief, the fire roared to life at once, shooting up flames high into the chimney with a great whoosh. The room warmed right up, and Shane fell gratefully onto a couch that most people would have declined to touch without rubber gloves. The Libriums kicked in, his head spun hard twice, and he sank into unconsciousness. High in the chimney, which hadn’t been cleaned in twenty years, the residues of a thousand dirty fires began to smolder, and the mortar between the bricks began to crumble. Sparks shot out high above the chimney top, showering fireproof asphalt shingles, except in the places where the shingles had fallen off the aging roof, exposing tar paper and even bare timbers. The chimney was going off like a roman candle as Shane lay senseless below, and some of the sparks caught on wood and paper and began to blaze. The Parker place was known for its great privacy. No one passed by to notice as the fire licked its way down from the roof to the studs, roared down walls, engulfed the house.
At eight a.m., when Sheriff Dickie Langham arrived at his office in the Albany County Courthouse and heard the news of the incident in Muddy Gap, he gave himself a good cussing out about not getting officers into position in time to have a chance to head off the suspect. The bad guy might very well be speeding along one of the roads in his jurisdiction, or holed up somewhere in his county, or, God forbid, committing another senseless crime upon some undeserving citizen. Dickie drank a cup of coffee, ate three donuts, smoked two Marlboros and put in a call to PeeWee Corkett, the investigating officer from the DCI. PeeWee had been an instructor at the law enforcement academy when Dickie was there, and he recalled PeeWee telling a memorable joke involving a can of BBs mistakenly poured into a blueberry pie. Dickie laughed in spite of himself.
“Glad to hear from you,” PeeWee told Dickie. “We’ve got a lab team taking prints off the Mercedes. They’ll run the prints through the FBI computers and maybe come up with a match by the end of the day, if we’re lucky. It’s a bitch of a case in more ways than one. The car belongs to a rich shithead named Elroy Foote, who’s claiming it was stolen by some drifter he’d hired recently, along with a Ruger automatic. Foote gave me the guy’s name and social security number, but when we traced the number it turned out to be a phony.
“Then,” PeeWee continued, exasperated, “I got a call from some asshole lawyer in Casper who claimed to be Foote’s ‘representative.’ What’s this with a guy having a representative? Must have too much money and not enough brains to pour piss out of a boot. Anyhow, this representative told me how much he appreciated the state’s effort to retrieve Mr. Foote’s stolen property, and how he hopes this whole affair will be handled with minimal invasion of Mr. Foote’s privacy.”
Dickie was sympathetic. “A representative talking about privacy? You’re gonna be wadin’ through it on this one, PeeWee.”
“Tell me about it,” PeeWee said. “I explained to the lawyer that we’d do what we can to protect Mr. Foote’s property and his privacy, but it was likely that a felony had been committed with a weapon registered to Mr. Foote, and a nineteen-year-old kid was seriously injured, and the perpetrator was still at large.”
“Was he impressed?” Dickie asked.
“No, but we’re gonna go impress him. My partner and I are on our way up to Teton County to Foote’s ranch. We’ll scope things out and talk to Foote. I’m sure this Helwigsen fella, the representative, will be up there by the time we make it.”
Dickie cradled the phone between his ear and his shoulder, taking notes. “Well, we’ll keep a lookout for your bad guy, PeeWee,” he said, wondering how in hell he’d do that. “What was that lawyer’s name again?”
“Helwigsen,” said PeeWee, taking a puf
f off a Marlboro of his own and chasing it with a bite of a congealing Egg McMuffin. “Robert Helwigsen. Name ring a bell?” he asked.
Of course. “Yeah, it does. Let me make some calls. I’ll let you know if we come up with anything.”
“Likewise,” said PeeWee.
Danny Crease arrived at Brees Field in Laramie not much after noon and instructed Foote’s pilot to wait at the airport until he returned. A car rented to Freedom Ranch was, of course, waiting for him. He drove down route 130 to the intersection with 230, headed southwest. One of the Unknown Soldiers had been to Shane’s place once (getting high, he didn’t admit) so Danny knew where to go.
Two miles from the turnoff to the dirt road that led to the Parker place, Danny saw the smoke. Even with the windows closed and the heater on, he smelled it. He turned into a torn-up mud driveway he didn’t really want to take a rental car down, just in time to see the roof fall in, sparks and flame exploding all around. A ranch pickup with county 6 plates was mired some ways from what had once been a house but was now a roaring blaze. Danny parked his rental car, got out, and thought he smelled roasting meat. He couldn’t be sure it was Shane—hell, for all he knew it could be a dog or an antelope—but then again, the fire had to have started somehow. If the asshole had burned himself up alive, it just saved Danny the trouble of killing him. Sparks were falling on the trees around the cabin, hissing out on wet, snowy branches. Given the amount of smoke, fire trucks would show up eventually, and Danny didn’t want to be around when they did.
Danny got back in the car, heading for the airport, then realized that he might as well take his time. In fact, he decided he’d grab a motel and stay the night. There was no reason for him to be at Elroy’s place when the state troopers showed up. Why not drive around Laramie, do a little reconnaissance? He still meant to exact payment of the debt Dickie Langham owed him. Maybe he’d stop for lunch at Foster’s Country Corner where, he knew from experience, the customer was always right. On his way back into town, a Laramie fire engine screamed by, siren blaring, headed the other way. It was followed by an Albany County sheriff’s car, lights flashing. Danny drove on, grinning.
Brown-Eyed Girl Page 24
