Ms. Redcorn said, “And I gotta have a new lawyer.”
They all looked at her with surprise, none more so than Marjorie. Ms. Redcorn gave her a friendly head shake and said, “You do your best, Ms. Dawson, but I need somebody who’s a specialist in this DNA business.”
Judge Higbee said, “Very sensible, Ms. Redcorn. As a matter of fact, you know, if we proceed and then the tests go against you, the penalties could be quite severe. No one wants to go to that expense on what could turn out to be a frivolous contention.”
“I’m not frivolous, Judge,” Ms. Redcorn said. “Trust me.”
“Yes, well,” he said, “I could, if you like, draw up a list of recommended counsel.”
“Thank you, sir, but no,” she said. “I’ve got some friends out west can help me.” Then she turned to Welles and said, “Which company you work for?”
“My firm,” he answered, “is Holliman, Sherman, Beiderman, Tallyman & Funk. You wouldn’t be able to use us, of course.”
“I know,” she told him, “that’s why I wanted to ask.” Turning back to Judge Higbee, she said, “I’ll be all right, Your Honor.” Beaming at the judge, she pointed toward Welles and said, “I’m gonna get me one of them.”
22
* * *
Roger Fox had never seen his partner so upset. “Calm down, Frank,” he said. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”
“Well, it can’t be worse,” Frank told him, “so maybe it is as bad as all that. Roger, they’ve got a way to prove whether or not that damn woman really is Pottaknobbee.”
“What, that list of relatives she throws around? All right, they existed, but that doesn’t mean they have anything to do with her.”
“DNA testing,” Frank said. “I want a drink, and so do you.”
They were meeting this afternoon in Roger’s office, the one that had been shown on TV, and in his office the bar was a mahogany and chrome and mirror construction built into the corner to the right of the desk. (It had been out of sight, to the left of the camera, on television.) Roger had been seated comfortably at his desk when Frank came in from his meeting with Judge Higbee, but now he angled forward, his heavy stuffed swivel chair propelling him to his feet as he said, “DNA? That proves paternity, doesn’t it?”
“It can prove it in the other direction, too,” Frank said, taking down two of the heavy cut-glass whiskey glasses from the chrome shelf and placing them on the mahogany bar. “And prove whether you did the rape,” he said, opening the low refrigerator and adding two ice cubes to each glass, “whether you stabbed the person,” he said, reaching for the bottle of Wild Turkey on the back bar, “whether you had sex with the boss’s wife,” he said, pouring a very generous portion into each glass, “whether your goddamn great-grandfather is goddamn Joseph goddamn Redcorn!” he yelled, and pushed one glass toward Roger—a little slopped, no matter—then drained his own glass by a third.
When next his glass was away from his face, Roger had crossed the room to the bar and was standing there looking at him, but he hadn’t moved a hand toward his own drink. Roger said, “DNA?”
“You said it.”
“What does Welles say?”
“One hundred percent reliable.”
“No, no, I know that. What does he say about can they do it? Did you mention sacred tribal lands?”
“The son of a bitch is buried in New York City!”
Roger reared back, clasping tighter to the bar with both hands. “What the hell is he doing down there?”
“That’s where he fell off the building, the goddamn stumble-footed . . .”
“The rumor was, the Mohawks pushed him.”
“The Three Tribes blame the Mohawks for everything, they always have. He was probably drunk,” he decided, and drank another third of his Wild Turkey.
Roger said, “But why there? The Pottaknobbees, all of us in the Three Tribes, we’re buried here on the reservation. Unless somebody moves away, loses touch.”
“The builder would pay for the funeral,” Frank explained, “only if it was in New York. Nobody up here cared enough, apparently. And Roger, realistically, you know, a lot of the Three Tribes are buried way to hell and gone all over the place.”
Roger at last reached for his glass. “So much for sacred tribal lands,” he said, and drank, not quite as much nor as rapidly as Frank.
“I tried to suggest,” Frank said, “that Redcorn’s grave is sacred tribal land just because he’s in it, but Welles thinks that won’t fly. It could help us stall awhile, but sooner or later a court would order the test to go ahead. And we’ve gotta be careful not to push that stuff too hard, we don’t want to look like we’re trying to stiff-arm that woman, whether she’s Pottaknobbee or not.”
“We are, though.”
“Yes, but quietly,” Frank said.
Roger considered. “What did she think of the idea of DNA testing? She was there, wasn’t she, at the meeting? What did she think?”
“She loves it,” Frank said sourly. “‘That’s my great-grandpa,’” he mimicked, and emptied his glass.
Roger followed down that trail, more slowly, and as Frank refilled his own glass, Roger said, “She’s pretty damn sure of herself, isn’t she?”
“Goddamn it, Roger, I’m becoming pretty damn sure of her! I think the goddamn bitch probably is the last of the Pottaknobbees, and how we’re going to keep her out of these offices, I have no idea.”
“If only we were murderers,” Roger said, and sipped a little more Wild Turkey. It was very warm going down, very comforting.
Frank shook his head. “Come on, Roger,” he said, “you know better than that. I thought of that myself, and of course we could do it. We could find some bum right here on the reservation to do the job for us for five hundred dollars, and guess who the only suspects would be.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Roger said.
“And once we’re suspects, Roger,” Frank said, “their next question is, what were you boys trying to hide?”
“Oh God,” Roger said, and drained his glass. Pushing it toward Frank, he said, “Could we make a deal with her?”
“Never,” Frank said, refilling Roger’s glass and topping up his own. “She’s the coldest, nastiest piece of work I’ve ever seen. Give her an inch and she’ll take a foot, and I do mean off your leg.”
“Then we have to—” Roger said, and the intercom buzzed, and he turned to give his desk a reproachful look. “And what fresh hell is this?” he asked.
“You might as well answer,” Frank said. “I think I’m becoming fatalistic, Roger,” he added as Roger crossed to the desk. “Do you suppose the Indians have their own gangs in prison?”
“In the Northeast? I think you’d really get to know what a minority is,” Roger told him. “Don’t give up yet, Frank.”
“Be sure to tell me when to give up,” Frank said, and drank some more.
Roger reached over his desk for the phone. “Yes, Audrey.”
“Benny’s here,” came the voice of his secretary.
“Good,” Roger said.
Surprised, Audrey said, “Good?”
“Just send him in, Audrey.”
Frank, fumbling with the top of the Wild Turkey bottle, said, “Send who in?”
“Benny.”
“Oh, him,” Frank said, and the door opened, and Benny Whitefish entered.
About thirty, Benny Whitefish was a chunky little guy in faded blue jeans and a red plaid shirt, and his usual expression was hangdog, as though he’d just broken some keepsake of yours and was hoping you wouldn’t notice before he left. “Hi, Uncle Roger,” he said, because, in fact, he was Roger Fox’s nephew, via his otherwise-estimable sister, but there was, in any event, just something essentially nephewish about Benny, as though he would be a nephew at ninety, even with no older relatives to be nephew to. The family gofer, forever.
“Come in, Benny,” Roger said, with more warmth than Benny was used to.
Benny came in, shutting the door behind hi
mself, grinning eagerly, and stood hunched in the middle of the room, basking in the rare pleasure of his uncle’s approval, while Roger said to Frank, “I was about to say that what we need to do is discredit the woman somehow. Stall as long as we can, while we get something on her.”
“Something like what?” Frank asked from out of sight behind the bar, where he was looking for the other bottle of Wild Turkey.
“Something reprehensible. Something that would make people want to shun her even if she was Pottaknobbee. Something to make the tribes get together and throw her out, and be damned to DNA.”
Frank reappeared, holding the fresh bottle. “I don’t know, Roger,” he said.
Roger said, “Benny, help your uncle Frank open that bottle.”
“Okay!”
Frank readily gave up the job, to lean on the bar instead and say, “What reprehensathing? There are no Commies anymore. Nobody would believe an Indian lesbo. We already know she’s got no police record. Thank you, Benny. Pour some in there, and see if your uncle Roger needs any more.”
“I do.” Benny hurried on his rounds, and Roger said, “If there’s nothing else, Frank, how about bad associates?”
Frank peered at him across the room from bar to desk, where Roger stood holding his glass like anyone at a cocktail party, Benny standing beside him, smiling, holding the bottle by the neck, not knowing if he was expected to put it down or keep it at the ready for further pouring, and deciding to hold on to it to be on the safe side. “Bad associates?” Frank demanded. “What bad associates?”
“There’ve got to be some, Frank,” Roger told him. “Where did this Little Feather Redcorn come from? Out of the blue, she’s suddenly here with histories and claims. There’s got to be somebody behind her, some whadayacallit, puppeteer, pulling the strings. She can’t be doing all this on her own, so the people who put her up to it, why are they hiding? Because they’re no good, Frank.”
“You lost me somewhere in there,” Frank admitted.
Roger offered Benny another encouraging smile. Two, in one day! “That’s why,” he told Frank, “I’ve had Benny follow the woman ever since she got out of jail, so he can tell us who she associates with. Benny?”
Benny looked alert. “Yes, Uncle Roger?”
“Little Feather Redcorn,” Roger said, extremely patient. “Who does she associate with?”
“Nobody,” Benny said.
Roger blinked at him. Frank said, “Where’s that bottle I just opened?”
“Just a minute, Frank,” Roger said. “We have to keep our wits about us now.”
Frank looked thoughtful.
Roger said to Benny, “She doesn’t talk to anybody?”
“Mostly, she stays in that motor home thing, down at Whispering Pines,” Benny said. “Sometimes she takes taxis, but only to the supermarket or the drugstore and like that. Last night, she went into Plattsburgh and went to a diner by herself and had dinner and then went to a movie by herself and then took another taxi home again to the motor home. This afternoon, she associated with Judge Higbee and a lawyer woman named Marjorie Dawson and Uncle Frank.”
“She didn’t associate with me,” Frank said.
Roger said, “I don’t believe it.”
Benny looked stricken. “Honest to God, Uncle Roger! I swear I been on her every—”
“No, no, not you, Benny,” Roger said. “I’m sure you did the job right.”
Benny looked astounded. “You are?”
“Frank,” Roger said, “leave that bottle and—”
“I don’t have the bottle.”
“I have it, Uncle Frank!”
“Put it down, Benny. And Frank, leave your glass then, and come over to the conversation area, and let’s have a conversation, the three of us.”
“Me, too?”
“Yes, Benny, come along.”
The three went to the burgundy sofas L-ing around the glass and chrome coffee table as Frank said, “What are we going to do?”
“We don’t know yet,” Roger told him. “That’s what the conversation’s about. The one thing I know for sure, though, it’s got to be something drastic.”
23
* * *
I don’t like this,” Dortmunder said.
“What, the pizza?” Kelp asked. “The pizza’s fine.” “It’s very good pizza,” Irwin declared.
“Not the pizza,” Dortmunder told them, “the story Little Feather just gave us.”
“Well, it’s the truth,” Little Feather said.
“I know it’s the truth,” Dortmunder agreed, “that’s what I don’t like about it.”
Since Little Feather hadn’t gotten back to the Winnebago until after five, there’d been general agreement that she should order pizza and beer delivered in, even though, as she’d pointed out, that was a hell of an order for a woman living alone. “You’ll reheat the leftovers,” Kelp had told her.
“I’m ordering with pepperoni, without pepperoni, with and without extra cheese.”
“You’re an indecisive person.”
So they had the pizza delivered in, and Little Feather reported on her meetings, first with Marjorie Dawson and then with the bunch in judge’s chambers, telling part of the story before the pizza arrived and the rest after the pizza left, when Dortmunder announced that he didn’t like it.
So now Guilderpost said, “I don’t see what the problem is, John. We’ve reached the first plateau, the DNA.”
“From here,” Irwin said, “it’s plain sailing.”
“No,” Dortmunder said. “They’re fighting it. From the beginning, they’re fighting it. They don’t want Little Feather in their clubhouse.”
“Well, they’re going to have to get used to it,” Irwin said.
Dortmunder said, “No, listen. You’re acting like these people are the same as the people you sold the Dutch land things to, like you come in and scam them and they take it like a sport and that’s it. But they aren’t like that, not from the get-go.”
“I don’t believe their attitude matters anymore, John,” Guilderpost told him. “At first, it was certainly troubling, particularly for Little Feather—”
“I didn’t like the night in jail,” Little Feather remarked.
“Of course you didn’t, my dear,” Guilderpost agreed, and then said to Dortmunder, “But we’re past that now. I spoke with my contact at Feinberg today, and he put me in touch with their DNA expert, Max Schreck. Little Feather will phone him in the morning, he’ll phone Judge Higbee, and we’re well on our way.”
“That’s right,” Irwin said. “From now on, it’s simply the lab work, and the judge says, ‘Look at that, it’s a match. Little Feather is hereby declared a Pottaknobbee. Welcome to the casino.’”
“And you fellows collect a not-inconsiderable recompense,” Guilderpost added.
“I don’t like it,” Dortmunder said.
“You don’t like the recompense? We agreed—”
“Not the recompense,” Dortmunder said, “the story Little Feather come back with. The meeting she had.”
Tiny said, “You listen to Duh—John. He’s got a nose for this kind of thing.”
“All right, John,” Guilderpost said in his most kindly fashion, “tell us what it is you don’t like about today’s events.”
“The whole thing,” Dortmunder told him, “starting from yesterday. No, starting from the day before yesterday. Now today the guy from the tribes shows up with a lawyer that isn’t even his regular lawyer but is a lawyer from another outfit like your Feinberg outfit from New York, meaning what they declared here is war. And when those guys declare war, I don’t think they mean to play fair.”
Irwin said, “But, John, what can they do? We’ve got them cold.”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure,” Dortmunder said. “I’m thinking, if I was them, and I wanted Little Feather out of my hair, and I was beginning to think the DNA thing was gonna go against me, what would I do?”
“Kill me,” Little Feather sa
id.
“They thought of it,” Dortmunder assured her, “but they know they’re too obvious. So they gotta do something else.”
Guilderpost said, “I suppose they might try to negotiate with her, buy her off.”
“They tried that,” Little Feather said.
“If I was them,” Dortmunder said, “and I’m in the spot they’re in, what do I do? And I’m beginning to think I know what I do.”
Tiny said, “What you did.”
Dortmunder nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking, Tiny.”
Kelp said, “They would, wouldn’t they?”
Dortmunder and Kelp and Tiny all nodded, not happy. Guilderpost and Irwin both looked baffled. Guilderpost said, “What do you mean?”
Dortmunder said, “What did we do, to make sure the DNA was gonna be a match?”
“You put grampa in there,” Little Feather said.
“So if I’m on the other side,” Dortmunder said, “what do I do?”
“No!” Guilderpost cried. “They wouldn’t dare!”
“I bet they would,” Dortmunder said.
Irwin said, “That isn’t fair! We worked hard for this!”
“I told you,” Dortmunder said, “these guys don’t mean to play fair.”
“We’ll have to guard the grave,” Guilderpost declared, “twenty-four hours a day.”
“Yeah, that’ll be good,” Dortmunder commented, “a bunch of dubious guys hanging around one grave in a cemetery for a week or two, day and night. You don’t think anybody’s gonna start to wonder something, do you?”
Guilderpost said, “Then what do you suggest?”
“I dunno,” Dortmunder told him. “That’s what I’m trying to think.”
Irwin said, “I can’t believe anybody would actually do that. Dig the man up and put a different body in there?”
“We did it,” Guilderpost said, and Irwin frowned deeply.
“I really don’t wanna have to dig him up again,” Dortmunder said. “Dig him up, put something else in, wait for the tribes to do whatever they do, then dig up the grave again and put him back. Once a grave robber could just be circumstances, but three times? By then, it’s a career.”
Bad News Page 14
