by Stan Jones
"Aaron would have been suspended for a month if he got caught with those," Werner said. "Since the Gray Wolf isn't a democracy, we don't need an election to ban liquor up here. But, like I said, I never heard of it causing problems for him on the job. He seemed fine."
Active closed the shopping bag and set it beside him on the couch. "That's what puzzles me about these two deaths. Two of them so close together, neither with much reason to do it, one guy well past suicide age, and they both worked here. Were they friends?"
"Not that I know of," Werner said. "But I wouldn't expect it. Different ages, the families weren't related."
Active wrote in his notebook for a moment, then looked out the window.
"What did you find in George Clinton's locker?"
"Nothing. Looks like he took everything with him when he rotated off shift. Most of our workers do."
"So do you think they killed themselves?"
"How can anyone know?" Werner said. "But if they didn't, that means somebody murdered them and made it look like suicide. Who would do that? You think some outsider is shooting Eskimos?"
Active shrugged.
"They don't need to, Nathan. They just send in liquor and we kill ourselves."
They were silent. Werner got up and walked over to the window. He smoked as a dump truck thudded past with a load of concentrate, headed for the coast.
"I have a theory," he said at last. "Not really a theory, more of a feeling. You know, the old-time Inupiat weren't much afraid of death. They thought of it more as another phase of life, and one that would probably be easier than hunting seals in a blizzard. At least, that's what they told the white anthropologists."
"You're saying suicide is more natural for the Inupiat?"
"I think it's possible," Werner said. "I think I'm too westernized to really grasp the idea. I speak hardly any Inupiaq, you know. When I was growing up, the government still sent Native kids to those Outside high schools where we weren't allowed to speak anything but English. But sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of how the old-timers thought, like how you could barely see that snowy owl up on the ridge just now."
He left the window and returned to the couch.
"We Inupiat used to have to leave our old ones out on the ice to die when times were hard," he said. "Or sometimes the elders would decide on their own when they couldn't contribute any more. I read one book about the early days where an old man ordered his family to help him hang himself, and they did it. I think maybe it wasn't so hard for them, because they all thought he was just moving on to the next phase of life."
"But George Clinton and Aaron Stone were still contributing."
"Maybe they just got curious or impatient. Who knows what they were thinking?" Werner shook his head. "Whatever it was, I hope this liquor vote Tuesday will make suicide less common." He looked as forlorn as he had on the bluff the day before.
"Yeah, I heard you at the funeral," Active said.
"I've been to so many, I can hardly drag myself anymore." Werner was silent for a long time. "Well, do you need anything else from me?"
"I guess not," Active said. "When will the next shuttle be up? Or should I call Chukchi for a charter?"
"The plane you came in on is still here." Werner pointed out the window at the runway. "They held it for some guys who had to finish work on the ball mills."
They left the office and climbed into Werner's truck. "So how are things with the troopers?" he asked as they bounced toward the airstrip.
"Oh, not bad," Active said. "I think the honchos are just relieved we're between political scandals at the moment, so we can chase regular crooks."
"I'm sure," Werner said. "How's your boss, Carnaby, doing, anyway?"
"He professes great happiness at being in the Bush again, where the real work of the troopers is done."
Werner chuckled. "Too bad about that mess with Howell. I knew Carnaby when he was starting out in the Nome detachment. He seemed like a pretty straight shooter. Liked Eskimos too, as far as I could see."
"He's a good man," Active said. "He was teaching at the trooper academy when I was there. I think a lot of the village guys would have dropped out if he hadn't been around. They used to call him Super Trooper."
"What does he think of your suicide investigation?"
"Actually, he's on leave," Active said. "Personal business in Anchorage."
"In other words, Senator Howell's problems are far from over?"
Active turned and stared at him. Werner kept his eyes on the road.
"I wouldn't know about that," Active said. "We're barred by court order from investigating the good senator. It's now a federal matter. If it's any matter at all."
"So I hear. But I also hear this: If Carnaby was investigating Howell, on his own time, say, he'd be looking for a woman named Bobbi Jean Jenkins. Stripper, party girl, little bit of a cocaine whore? Key witness in the Howell matter, but hard to find?"
Active froze. How would Werner know what Carnaby was up to? Who else knew?
"Don't worry, I want to help Carnaby and you too," Werner said. "It's just that our present senator, who happens to be my cousin Darryl Beaver, hears things in Juneau now and again and he passes them along to me. This was one of the things he heard."
"It's on the street in Juneau that Carnaby's still after Howell? MyGod."
"Not on the street, exactly," Werner said. "But Darryl's very inquisitive. And since Senator Howell opposes us on the Native hunting-rights bill, I suggested Darryl ask around some more to see if there's any way we could help in this investigation that Carnaby isn't conducting." He looked at Active and winked.
Active shook his head and stared out the side window of the pickup.
"So Darryl talked to some lobbyists," Werner said. "He talked to some of Bobbi Jean's girlfriends, and, sure enough, somebody knew something. She's dancing in Las Vegas."
Werner slid a strip of yellow lined paper across the seat toward Active. "Helen Ready—Lodestar Lounge" was scrawled on it, along with a telephone number in the 702 area code.
"Take it. You give it to Carnaby, he gives it to the FBI, and Howell's out of our way on the hunting-rights bill. Carnaby gets his career back and maybe he recommends you to run the Chukchi detachment when he heads back to headquarters."
Werner turned the pickup onto the apron and stopped beside the airstrip. "And maybe about the same time, Cousin Darryl calls the director of Public Safety up before the Rural Affairs Committee to testify on the trooper program to get more Natives into management. We Inupiat have to take care of each other, like the whites do."
Active stared at the paper. Werner stared at Active and dragged on his Marlboro. Active pushed the paper back to Werner. "Thanks, but I just can't take it."
"Whatever." Werner shrugged and put the paper in a pocket of his windbreaker. "I just hope Carnaby finds Bobbi Jean before too many more people hear he's looking."
Active got out of the pickup and walked onto the shuttle. Before he buckled his seat belt, he pulled out his notebook and wrote down the number of the Lodestar Lounge in Las Vegas, Nevada.
CHAPTER 10
Saturday Night, Chukchi
ACTIVE SLIPPED INTO THE Dreamland and stood quietly beside the double doors as his eyes adjusted to the gloom and his ears to the roar.
A bar covered with linoleum floor tiles ran down the right side of the long room and tables ran down the left. Neon signs high on the walls beamed out Heineken and Budweiser and Arctic Gold through the thick haze that always hung near the ceiling. And there was that Dreamland smell: sweat, beer, cigarettes, and dust.
It was only nine o'clock, but already most of the bar stools and chairs were filled. Glasses, bottles, and cans rattled on tabletops. People laughed and swore, and shouted to make themselves heard over all the voices and the heavy metal band screaming from the little dance floor at the end of the room. A poster stapled to the wall beside the door said they were the Catastronauts, "direct from Anchorage."
Some of
the serious drunks were already head-down over the tables. Active watched as Hector Martinez grabbed one by the collar and belt and frog-marched him toward the double doors. You had to be sober enough to sit up and drink if you wanted to take up space at the Dreamland.
Active squeezed in at the bar and caught the bartender's eye as he returned from his ejection duties.
"What do you want?" Martinez asked sourly. "I got no problems tonight and if I did they'd be city cop problems, not yours."
"A Diet Coke and some information," Active said.
Martinez moved down the bar, towards the cooler. He was Chukchi's unlikeliest citizen, in Active's opinion. As dark as the Inupiat he lived among, but taller, Martinez always looked as if he had just stepped off the set of a Western: cowboy boots, cowboy shirt, bolo tie, and, except in the coldest weather, a Stetson.
He was bartending and waiting tables in Nome, the story went, when two of the Okolona sisters hit town with the Chukchi High School girls' basketball team for a tournament. Martinez had been in the north long enough to know the Okolona family was the closest thing to old money in Chukchi. When the basketball team flew home a week later, Susie Okolona, the rare homely daughter in a bloodline fabled for beauties, was Susie Martinez. And Hector was on the first rung of the American opportunity ladder.
Now, three little Martinezes were making their way through the Chukchi school system and Hector ran the Okolona empire: general stores in two of the outlying villages, a grocery and snowmachine dealership in Chukchi, and the Dreamland money machine.
The mystery was, why was Hector Martinez in Nome in the first place? The gossip river had it that he had fled north—far north—after shooting his wife and her boyfriend in Guadalajara.
Active doubted it. For one thing, similar stories trailed half the outsiders in the Arctic, especially those who, like Martinez, never spoke of their pasts. For another thing, Active had checked Martinez out in the national crime computer and found nothing. Of course, the computer wasn't reliable when it came to aliens and Hector Martinez could be the Hispanic equivalent of John Smith. Still, Martinez had been around the Arctic for fifteen years without shooting anybody, so Active had not pushed it.
Martinez set a Diet Coke on the linoleum bar top and took Active's money. "Information, huh? About what?"
"About George Clinton. Did you talk to him when he was in here that night?"
"Just to take his order. I already told all this to the city cops. Why don't you ask them? I got work to do."
"Did he talk to anybody except the guys he was with?"
"How would I know?" Martinez opened the cash register, fished out three quarters, and put them on the bar in front of Active. "I didn't see him talk to anybody, but how do I know what he did in the John or if he went outside for a smoke?"
"Did he come here a lot?"
"Nah, not much. That night was the first time he been in for maybe a couple of months. I think one of his buddies said it was George's bachelor party. I guess he was going to marry Emily Hoffman."
"Yeah, I heard," Active said. "I guess she's taking it pretty hard. Know where I could find her?"
"She's right over there." Martinez pointed to where a bearded nalauqmiut with a ponytail was drinking beer with a slender, delicate-featured Inupiaq girl who looked about seventeen. "She's been coming in a lot since he shot himself."
Active felt relieved—first, that Emily was alive, and second, that her baby wasn't showing yet. Then he realized he had no idea whether liquor was worse for a baby early in pregnancy or late. He picked up his Diet Coke and scooped up the quarters from the bar.
"Maybe I should charge for my information," Martinez said. "The liquor ban passes, that's all I'll be able to sell. Goddamn, it's un-American. I come here, work hard, build this place up, now the do-gooders and the government want to take it all away."
"Tell the Okolonas to open a Chinese restaurant, like the Koreans."
"Goddamn Koreans are taking over everything," Martinez said. "You watch, pretty soon you Eskimos and the nalauqmiuts too will all be working for the Koreans. Me too, if the liquor ban passes. We should close the borders."
Active turned from the bar and walked to Emily Hoffman's table. Her drinking partner wore a down vest over white coveralls and had a daub of white paint on his beard. He also had a diamond stud in his right ear. Probably a construction worker from the new National Guard armory going up at the north end of town, Active decided.
"Mind if I join you?" he asked. "I'm Trooper Nathan Active."
The girl nodded in recognition, though he didn't recall having met her before. The painter turned in his chair and looked up at Active. "Sure," he said cautiously.
"I didn't catch your name."
"Oh, sorry," the painter said, putting out his hand. "Travis Taylor, Local 618."
"How long have you known Emily, Mr. Taylor?"
"Since Thursday," Taylor said. "In fact, she's been staying with me at the Arctic Inn. You gonna sit down?"
Active stayed on his feet and looked down at the painter. At least he knew now why Emily had been so hard to find. "Been keeping her liquored up, have you?"
"She claims she's twenty-one. The Mexican carded her when she came in. Gimme a break."
"I am twenty-one!" the girl said.
"You aware she's expecting a child?" Active asked. "You know you're pouring those Olys into an unborn baby? You ever hear of fetal alcohol syndrome?"
"You shut up, Nathan," Emily said, slurring her words slightly. "Stay out of my business."
"Jesus," Taylor said. "All I wanted was a little . . . company. Spare me the cultural genocide rap, there, Officer Nanook."
"Fuck you, Travis," the girl said. She began to sob.
"Jesus," Taylor said again. He picked up his beer, stalked away, and glared at them from a stool at the bar.
Active sat down, shrugged out of his parka, and hung it on the back of his chair. Emily grabbed his arm and buried her face in his neck, bawling into his uniform shirt.
He stiffened, detached her hand from his elbow, and gently pushed her back into her seat. He wiped his collar with a handkerchief, then handed it to her and sipped his Diet Coke while she mopped at her eyes and blew her nose.
"You shouldn't be here, Emily."
"Why did George do it?" she asked. "Now he never see his baby. Am I too ugly? Too mean with him?"
"You're very pretty. But you'll be ugly if you spend much time in this place. And you'll hurt your baby. George's baby."
"Fuck him. If he don't care about his baby, why should I ?" She took a drink from her Oly. "Got a cigarette?"
Active sighed. "No, and you shouldn't smoke, either."
"Fuck you, Nathan." She took another drink from the Oly.
"Look, I need to talk to you. Can we leave this place?"
"No, we could talk here," she said.
"Did George tell you anything special when he came back from the Gray Wolf on Monday? I heard the nalauqmiuts up there were giving him a hard time. Was he mad at the nalauqmiuts?"
"He tell me he love me, take me to Hawaii for honeymoon." She started to cry again.
Active waited until the sobs subsided. "Did he tell you anything about work?"
"He say something about a problem up there, but not about the nalauqmiuts. I think he like the nalauqmiuts at the mine OK. He go hunting with them couple times."
"What was the problem at the mine?"
The girl's mouth moved, but Active couldn't hear the words. The Catastronauts' drummer was finishing off a song in a barrage of rim shots. Active waited until the drummer bashed his way to silence.
"I couldn't hear you," Active said. "What was the problem at the mine?"
"Something about leashes," the girl said.
"Leashes? At the Gray Wolf? You mean like for dogs? Do they have guard dogs there?"
"No, not leashes. LEASHES. You deaf?"
"Leases? You mean like leases for the land the mine is on?"
"No, like suck your blood,
Nathan. LEE-CHES." She said it slowly and loudly, with great concentration. "You mental?"
"Leeches? At the Gray Wolf?"
"That's what George say. Leeches killing fish at the Gray Wolf, something like that. I can't remember for sure, we barely talk about it. He don't seem very worried." She blew her nose into his handkerchief again, then offered it to him in a sodden lump.
"No, thanks, you keep it." He pushed her hand back. "You say George wasn't worried about the leeches?"
"No, he say GeoNord will take care of it. I guess he talk to somebody about it when he get off shift last week."
"Who did he talk to?"
"Somebody at GeoNord, I guess."
"Was it Michael Jermain?"
"I dunno. He never say." She put the Oly to her lips and turned it up.
He looked away as it gurgled down her throat. What on earth was she talking about? It made so little sense, he could hardly think of another question.
Finally, Emily set the can on the table, then looked at him dreamily. "You think Travis would adopt George's baby? Maybe we could call him George Taylor."
Active studied the painter, still eyeing them from the bar. "I doubt it. He doesn't look like the marrying kind."
"You never know," the girl said. "He seem nice."
"He's just—" Active started to explain exactly what it was that Travis Taylor saw in Emily Hoffman, then gave it up as hopeless. "Look, how did George find out about these leeches?"
Emily lowered the can and twirled it, studying the shiny aluminum as if it were a crystal ball, full of answers. "Let's see, what he say? I think he say he find pick—" Emily's eyes widened and Active heard a commotion behind him. "Look out, Nathan!" she screamed, shoving herself back from the table.
He was halfway out of his chair when something thudded into his back. He staggered forward a few steps, right hand going for the .357 on his hip, caught his balance, and turned to see he wouldn't need the gun.
Two men were wheeling slowly in a drunken minuet, grasping each other's arms, shoving and occasionally throwing clumsy, ineffectual punches. "Goddamn you shit, you stay away from her," one said.
