by Brad Smith
She’d called ahead to say she needed to talk to Ronnie Red Hawk, not wanting to drive for an hour and a half to find that he wasn’t around. A receptionist had put her on hold for nearly ten minutes, then returned to the line to tell Claire to come on over. She’d hung up before Claire could ask if Ronnie was actually going to be made available to her.
Upon arriving, she was informed that he wasn’t. The information came from a skinny Native who introduced himself as Marvin Nightingale. He claimed to be the talent coordinator for the casino before adding that he would be representing Ronnie today. He met Claire in the main foyer of the Red Hawk Hotel and led her into a restaurant a few feet away. When he offered to buy her a coffee, Claire declined.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“Couldn’t say,” Marvin replied. “Guy like the Red Hawk, he could be anywhere. He’s building a golf course, he’s running a casino, he has many charities here on the reservation. And sometimes he just disappears, like Crazy Horse would, off into the hills to seek counsel from the spirits.”
“And what do you do here?” Claire asked. “Other than talk a lot of shit?”
Marvin’s face fell. “That was uncalled for,” he said before apparently deciding to rise above the comment. “I book the acts for the casino. I’ve been with the place since it opened. You want tickets to Faith Hill next month? I can get you front row, free of charge.”
“No thanks.”
“Have you ever been to the amphitheater? It’s a world-class facility. Neil Diamond said the acoustics there are better than Carnegie Hall.”
Claire nodded. “I’ve been there. I busted some shithead for dealing coke to some college kids over there one night. I think Carrot Top was performing.”
“You must be mistaken,” Marvin said. “We have a strict no-drug policy here. And our security system is top-of-the-line. We have Gulf War veterans, ex–Navy SEALs, working here. This place is as clean as a hound’s tooth. You’re thinking about someplace else.”
“I’m thinking about going out to my car and running your name through my computer, Mr. Nightingale,” Claire said. “Let’s quit screwing around here. I called ahead to say I needed to have a little talk with Ronnie Red Hawk, and some woman on the phone told me to come along. Now you’re telling me he’s not here. All this is doing is pissing me off. So either you turn up your boss or I’m heading back down that mountain to find a judge willing to sign a warrant for his arrest. And that means he and I will be having our little talk after all. We just won’t be having it here. You got that?”
Fifteen minutes later Claire was on the top floor of the hotel, sitting across an outsize desk from Ronnie Red Hawk himself.
Ronnie was wearing baggy brown pants and a hooded sweatshirt with a print of an eagle across the chest, his lank red hair hanging loosely to his shoulders. He’d told her when he had shown up in the foyer that he was extremely busy, so Claire did him a favor and got right to it.
“Did you kill Olivia Burns?”
“I can’t answer that question,” Ronnie said at once.
Which gave Claire pause, at least for the moment. The receptionist in the outer office had given her a cup of very good coffee and she took a sip of it. “Why not?” she asked after swallowing.
“It’s simple,” Ronnie said. “If I killed the woman, I would answer no. If I didn’t, I would obviously also answer no. So what good would it do either of us if I answer?”
Claire had to admit there was a certain distorted logic to that. After all, what had she expected from the man—a confession? She rotated the coffee cup on the arm of the chair. “Might be good just to get it on record,” she suggested.
Ronnie showed his palms. “All right. No.”
“How long have you known Kari Karson?”
“Personally? Three days.”
“Isn’t personally the only way you can know someone?” Claire asked.
“Oh no,” Ronnie said. “Spiritually I’ve known some people for centuries.”
“Have you put any of them in a movie?” Claire asked.
“Don’t mock my beliefs,” Ronnie snapped. “I’m doing you a courtesy here. You don’t have a warrant, which means I’m not under any obligation to talk to you. Correct?”
“Correct,” Claire said. “Did you cast Kari Karson in this movie?”
“I’m one of the producers, so yeah, I was definitely involved in the process. Filmmaking is a collaborative undertaking, Detective.”
“So she wasn’t your idea?”
“What if she was?” Ronnie replied. “Casting Kari is a brilliant idea. I’m known for brilliant ideas. Do you expect me to deflect the credit from myself?”
“I get the feeling you’re not much of a deflector when it comes to taking credit,” Claire said, taking another drink of coffee.
“A less secure person might take offense at that,” Ronnie told her. “Not me. Take a long look around you. Everything you see is because of me. All these Indians are rich because of me. Because I had a vision. I’m not about to hide my light under a bushel, act like this all happened by accident. I see things other people don’t. That sounds like I’m boasting but I’m not. To tell you the truth, my abilities are so inherent that it’s almost as if I have nothing to do with them. Like your beautiful brown eyes, for instance. You can’t take credit for them. They’re just there.”
Claire smiled, not so much at the compliment but at the smooth manner in which he’d managed to slide it into a monologue about himself. “We’re getting off topic here,” she said. “Remind me—just how long have you been involved in the movie business?”
“Not long.”
“Not long,” Claire repeated. “Can you be more specific?”
“Couple of weeks.”
“And how did you come to be involved with this particular movie?”
“The producers came to me looking for money,” Ronnie said.
“Why you?”
“I suspect because they know I have money,” Ronnie replied. “Where would you go for money—to a pauper? Of course, I also suspect that they thought they could hit me up for a few million, give me a little tour around the set, and then tuck me in a corner somewhere and invite me to the premiere next year. Well, that’s not how I roll.”
“You’re a hands-on guy?”
“I am that.”
“Were your fellow producers happy to discover that you’d be involved in the day-to-day filming?”
“Probably not. Their happiness level is of no concern to me.”
“What about yours?” Claire asked. “Were you happy with Olivia Burns in the lead role?”
“She was a good actress.”
Claire remained silent, watching him expectantly. From what she’d seen of him the two times they’d met, she knew he couldn’t keep quiet very long. So she waited; she wanted to see where his brain took him when he wasn’t responding to her prompts.
“Not just a great talent, but an interesting woman as well,” Ronnie continued. “Very smart. We had dinner together the night she died. Well, you knew that. She asked a lot of questions about the reservation here, about my people.”
“And about you?”
“Of course.”
“I suspect you told her how you made all this happen,” Claire suggested.
“You bet I did.”
Claire leaned forward to place the empty cup on the edge of the desk. “Did you tell her about your carjacking career and how it landed you in prison at Attica?”
She fully expected him to flash anger at the question. In fact, a part of her wanted him to react. She needed to see what was behind the monstrous ego, the matter-of-fact persona he put forth seemingly without effort. Instead she got nothing. Although that wasn’t quite true either. He sat looking at her with something akin to sadness in his eyes, as if she’d disappointed him somehow.
“My past is an open book,” he said. “Anybody with a computer can read about it. The New York Times did a four-part piece about me a few y
ears ago. They sent this blonde babe here, a condescending Jewish chick, thinking she would find some sordid story of greed and opportunism. Instead she ended up writing a tale of redemption. And make no mistake—Americans love tales of redemption. It gives them hope in their own little lives.” Ronnie paused. “Well, maybe not all Americans. Thinking about it, I’ve never met a cop who cared about redemption. With you people, it’s all crime and punishment. Isn’t that true?”
“Oh, I believe in redemption,” Claire said. “I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed otherwise. But I can’t allow myself to get sidetracked by it. So, while I’m sure your little journey from car thief to casino magnate makes for an inspirational tale, I really don’t give a shit. I’m being paid by the state of New York to find out who killed Olivia Burns. You got any thoughts on that?”
“You’ve got a smart mouth,” Ronnie told her. “You’re quite obviously trying to piss me off. Well, you’re not going to do it. What you’re going to do is get up and leave my building. On your way off my reservation, take a good look around. I have janitors that make more money than you. And you come up here thinking you’re smarter than me? You’re in way over your head.”
Claire got to her feet. “You do like to ramble on, Mr. Red Hawk. You don’t say a hell of a lot but it takes you quite a while to say it. Before I leave, would you like to take another shot at my question—who do you think killed Olivia Burns?”
Ronnie reached into a drawer and brought out a Snickers bar, which he proceeded to unwrap. “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he said, taking a bite. “Now get the hell off my reservation.”
Claire walked to the door before turning back to him. “Someday,” she said, “when I’m finished ruminating about redemption and crime and punishment and after I’ve figured out who it was that killed Olivia Burns, then I might come back and ask just when it was you decided that this is your reservation.”
She smiled at Ronnie Red Hawk and left.
THIRTEEN
Virgil got a call from Tommy Alamosa on Thursday night, asking him to bring the Percherons to a rural address a few miles west of Haleyville the next day.
“There’s a log cabin there up in the hills,” Tommy said. “It’s going to play the main homestead in the film. We start shooting there Monday but we thought we’d come up Friday afternoon and get some second-unit stuff. Exteriors, the cabin at dusk, the horses grazing in the field while the sun goes down, stuff like that.”
He asked Virgil if he could be there by noon and Virgil agreed. The cabin was in a broad meadow about five miles off the main road running into the little town, the meadow itself another mile or so behind an impressive fieldstone home of recent construction. The house was a massive A-frame, with a few acres of manicured lawn stretching out before it, and a detached garage large enough for a dozen vehicles. To the rear of the building was a large steel barn, red with a green roof, and a paddock where a half-dozen quarter horses grazed.
Using a map he’d drawn from the directions Tommy had given him, Virgil drove the truck and trailer past the mansion and onto a dirt road that led up into the hills to the cabin. He didn’t need the map; somebody, presumably from the production company, had planted signs reading FRONTIER WOMAN starting at the main road, showing the way.
The property looked authentic enough, with split-rail fences and a woodshed and a small barn and smokehouse. The meadow was open on three sides with what appeared to be deep hardwood forest to the north, which Virgil assumed served as a windbreak. The cabin itself was small, built of rough-hewn logs and chinked with what appeared to be real mud and grass. It was maybe thirty feet square, and featured a stone chimney off one end and a low porch across the front.
There was nobody there when Virgil arrived, so he parked in the meadow and unloaded Bob and Nelly into a small pasture field contained by the rail fencing. As the horses began to pick at the plush grass there, Virgil set out a couple buckets of water for them and sat down in the shade of the trailer to wait.
Tommy Alamosa showed up a little after two o’clock in a cube van with a cameraman and a couple of grips. Also with them was a woman Virgil recognized from the food trailer on the set back at Fairfield Village. She was a kid, tall and loose-limbed, with breasts like a centerfold’s and long, shapely legs. Her dark hair was pulled back in a French braid, revealing a number of piercings in each ear from the lobes to the tops. Her name was Nikki, Virgil knew; he’d talked to her a few times at the pioneer village. As he watched, she walked around to the back of the van, where the grips were unloading equipment, and pulled out a couple of stainless steel coolers, which she toted over to the shade of the little barn.
Tommy, drinking a can of Red Bull, walked over to Virgil and shook his hand.
“Find it okay?” he asked.
Virgil nodded, then indicated the little cabin. “What is this place anyway?”
“You see that big fieldstone on the drive in?” Tommy asked. “The guy that owns it is some rich dude, story is he made a lot of money in the market back in the nineties and got out before things went to shit. He’s got a jones for the old west. Apparently he owns a ranch outside of Tucson that’s all done up like the 1880s. The mansion over the hill yonder is his summer home, and he built this little homestead as a getaway. Apparently he and his wife ride their horses here and spend the night sometimes. Just like the pioneers, Virgil—well, except for the billion dollars in the bank. Come on, I’ll show you the place.”
He and Virgil walked over to the cabin. There was a coded lock on the door—the only modern convenience Virgil had seen—and Tommy punched in a number and pushed it open. The interior was sparse and very clean. Rough plank floor, a wood table surrounded by four bent-back chairs, a Navajo rug in front of a large open fireplace, oil lanterns atop the mantel. There was a single bedroom off the rear of the main room with a queen-size bed and scarred pine bureau.
Virgil had a look around and then turned to see Tommy sitting at the table lighting a cigarette, then dropping the spent match in the empty Red Bull can.
“The guy doesn’t mind you taking over his retreat?” Virgil asked.
“According to that dickweed Levi Brown, he was dead against it,” Tommy said. “But then Levi charmed the wife. Again, the gospel according to Levi. Apparently she’s a lot younger than the old guy, and Levi thinks he’s God’s gift to the ladies. So he got her all excited about her place being in a big Hollywood movie and she just had to have it.”
“Is this a big Hollywood movie?” Virgil asked.
“It’s a fucking rat’s nest, is what it is.”
Virgil crossed the floor to look out the window by the front door. The grips were still unloading the truck, while Nikki had set up a folding table by the barn and was laying out sandwiches and fruits and vegetables.
“So what are we doing today?” he asked, turning to Tommy.
“Basically we’re going to do a three-sixty around the place, shooting it from all angles and different lengths. Inserts that they can use when they edit the thing. We’re running behind, though. The crew has to dress it first and they were supposed to be here this morning. Tractor trailer broke down on the thruway.”
“So we wait,” Virgil said.
“Like being in the army,” Tommy said.
Virgil sat down across from him. “Were you in the army, Tommy?”
“Reluctantly,” Tommy said, squinting as he pulled on the smoke. “Drafted. I ended up working on some film stuff, what you might call propaganda, and because of that I never shipped out to Vietnam. Didn’t exactly break my heart.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Virgil said. “So you’ve always worked in film?”
“Since I was sixteen. Began toting cable for a lunatic German director who would smack me with a crop if I didn’t move my ass.”
“Speaking of directors,” Virgil said, “where’s ours?”
“Oh, I sent him back to the hotel to rest his muddled head. I’ll direct this, it’s just second-unit stuff.” Tommy
leaned back and looked at the ceiling, then exhaled heavily, as if releasing the tension from within. “Man, I am way too old for this shit. The director’s a fucking idiot, the lead actress doesn’t know what movie she’s in, and the producers spend their days whistling past the graveyard, pretending everything’s hunky-dory.”
“How’d you get hooked up with them?” Virgil asked.
Tommy laughed. “Shit, I could ask you the same question.”
“I was on my farm bringing in a load of hay,” Virgil said. “Turned around and there they were. The director and the other one.”
“Like Lana Turner in Schwab’s drugstore,” Tommy said. “I met Sam a couple years ago on a thing we were shooting in Atlantic City. We got along pretty good, got high a couple times, talked about film. She’s a savvy chick, on a lot of levels, but blind as a bat when it comes to the nitwit she married. They had a good director hired for this, guy named Peter Dunmore, but they did an end run on him. I think Sam had it planned all along, to get the hubby a big-time directing gig. For some reason she thinks the sun shines out of his ass, and nobody can figure out why. The fucking guy—it’s his first rodeo and he’s practically catatonic. But you know, in a weird way, it’s not his fault. He’s not very bright and he has no clue what the movie is about, so why would you expect him to be any good?”
