Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 10 - Midnight Come Again

by Midnight Come Again(lit)

  Ray said, "Have you ever noticed how all politicians sound alike after a while?"

  "Right from the beginning, I always thought," Kate replied.

  Both of them managed a smile.

  At the back of the crowd Kamyanka and Glukhov watched the candidate mount the platform. A red-faced, beaming mayor introduced him with fulsome praise, the local Boy Scout troop paraded the colors as everyone stood to attention, a zither player accompanied The Star- Spangled Banner and Alaska's Flag, and the president of the Chamber of Commerce led the Pledge of Allegiance. The candidate took center stage and gave an impressive reading of the Declaration of Independence, punctuated by enthusiastic and rebellious outcries from the crowd.

  He knew his audience, did Senator Christopher Over more of District 5.

  These were Bush dwellers, of whom many had settled in Bering because it was as far as they could get from the federal government, from government of any kind, and to which happy estate many others had been born and were glad to remain. Anything said against government interference in local affairs, state or federal, would be roundly welcomed, even if it was two-hundredandtwenty-odd years old.

  "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures."

  "You mean like Juneau?" somebody yelled.

  Senator Overmore, a man who lived and worked six months of the year in Juneau, grinned and continued. "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance."

  "Sounds like the Park Service to me!"

  "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury ... "

  Somebody yelled something in Yupik that time, which was immediately applauded by everyone, white and Yupik alike whether they understood it or not.

  The senator smoothly skipped over the section that referred to

  "merciless Indian Savages," and continued, "We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us."

  "Have we ever!"

  "Yeah, like they ever listen!"

  "Throw the bastards out!"

  "Native sovereignty!"

  "Rural subsistence!"

  "Fly and shoot the same day!"

  "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence--"

  "Praise the Lord!"

  "--we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

  The crowd erupted into applause as a chorus of catcalls and rebel yells went up. Thomas Jefferson might have been two hundred years in his grave, but in the Alaskan Bush his words lived on.

  Somebody shouted, "Is there a cold beer to be had in this goddamn town?"

  "Fine words. That Jefferson really knew how to write."

  "You think so?"

  "Of course! Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. America, the land of the free and the home of the brave." Glukhov grinned. "And ice in the glass of water they bring you at restaurants, and the four-wheel drive."

  "Give me a dictatorship every time," Kamyanka said. "The more repressive the better. Much more opportunity for profit." The applause had died down and people had begun to drift away in groups to other celebrations.

  "So that's our guy?"

  Glukhov nodded, his eyes hidden behind Ray-Bans, his hair tucked beneath a Seattle Mariners baseball cap. He was wearing a brand-new black-and-yellow Nike windbreaker, and hightop Nike sneakers with artistically thick soles. They were leaning up against a storefront on the other side of the street.

  "He's good with a crowd." It wasn't quite a question.

  "He knows banks," Glukhov said. "He used to be a banker. And he's married to a banker's sister. They all have a vested interest in seeing the business go through."

  "I hope you're right."

  "Why wouldn't I be?"

  Glukhov missed the annoyance that crossed his companion's face. "I've seen men like him before. They're fine until things begin to go wrong.

  Then they lose their heads and get people killed. The wrong people.

  He'll be fine, though. His type always is. They wreak havoc with everyone else, but they always survive." Glukhov was amused. "All this you can tell from seeing him once at a distance of ten meters?"

  "Yes." Kamyanka turned to look at Glukhov's unrevealing face. "Yes, I can."

  As they returned to the ship, Glukhov wondered if he shouldn't move up his retirement.

  As they returned to the ship, Kamyanka wondered if he had made a mistake in allowing Glukhov to live.

  A naked tree leaned down, its Chalkwhite skeleton jaunty --Hidden Creek at Northspur Junction Kate and Trooper Mary Zarr arrived at the hangar at precisely the same time, one minute before midnight.

  They nodded to each other, and since grunting and stacking sounds indicated that Jim was in the hangar, Kate went in the office, wondering at the odd look in Zarr's eye. Almost as if she were assessing Kate for damage.

  In the office, she found a stack of checks underneath the ashtray with a note in a greasy scrawl that said, "Add these up." She extracted the checks, excavated the adding machine from the pile of paperwork it resided beneath and began to fill out a deposit slip.

  With the best will in the world she could not avoid hearing the voices speaking just outside the door that led into the hangar.

  "Why didn't you stay this morning?" Zarr said in a less than official voice. "I hate waking up alone."

  Kate's pen stopped moving.

  There was the sound of skin on cloth. "Especially after such an enjoyable night. I wanted to do something to show my appreciation."

  There was the sound of what could have been a soft kiss.

  "I had to get back to work," Jim said.

  "You're about ready to knock off now, aren't you? Want a lift?"

  "Should you be here?"

  Kate's pen fell from suddenly nerveless fingers, and it began to roll, unnoticed, toward the edge of the desk.

  A note of annoyance crept into Zarr's voice. "Why not? No one knows who you are, so why should they suspect anything? Even if they did see us together?"

  "I just meant, with your homicide investigation, if you shouldn't maybe be--"

  "I'm a big girl, I can get my job done when it needs doing." A brief pause. "I can also sleep with whomever I want." Jim said nothing.

  "So you're one of the fuck-and-run guys after all."

  "No, damn it. I didn't mean that, Mary, I--"

  "Yeah, sure you didn't."

  Quick firm steps, followed by the slam of a door, the hard start of a truck engine, the squeal of tires.

  Jim's discouraged voice said, "Oh, goddamn it to hell, anyway."

  Kate's pen fell off the desk and she made a mad grab for it, knocking over the ashtray in the process. It crashed to the floor, scattering sand, stogie stubs and ashes beneath the desk, under the coffee table and the couch and everywhere in between.

  The hangar door was yanked open. Kate didn't want to look up, but she had to and, of course, there he was, standing in the doorway.

  It was difficult to say who was more horrified. His skin turned a deep, dark red. Hers did, too. Mutt, until then having a peaceful snooze with her nose beneath her tail, was on her feet in response to the ashtray crash, looking wide-eyed and ready for action, even if she didn't know what kind.

  The ticking of the Budweiser wall clock seemed to have slowed down, and also to have become very loud. "Fuck," Jim said, with bitter and comprehensive emphasis.

  The door slammed so hard that instead of catching it bounced back on its hinges and off the wall. Small pieces of already rotten Sheetrock crumbled and fell to the floor. Hasty feet were heard going the long way around the hangar toward the bunkhouse. If he'd gone the short way round, she could have seen him through the windows. And he would have been able t
o see her.

  The Here arrived, back from Anchorage, followed shortly by the Cub and the Cessna. All had to be serviced and ready for action with cargo stowed when the dawn came, five and a half hours hence. The DC-3 was in Dillingham with the Native association board of directors, being serviced by Cal Kemper. One plane less for her, and she was grateful.

  Kate swept up the mess in the office, returned the ashtray to the desk, finished totaling the deposit slip, slid checks and slip into a manila envelope she marked DEPOSIT in large black letters with a Marksalot and duct taped to the office door, and went back to work.

  She was hanging up the phone when Jim came in at noon. "That was Yuri," she told Baird. "The Kosygin's heading out tomorrow, and he wants to get another load off to Anchorage before then."

  "Fish or trinkets?"

  "Trinkets."

  "How many boxes?"

  "He said no more than six, same size as before, same weight as before."

  Baird grunted. "Hey, big spender. Here's taking a load of reds into Tenth and M Lockers later today. We'll put them in with that."

  Jim felt his ears prick up. He wondered what else Yuri was shipping besides trinkets. Maybe the Fibbies' obsession with this zirconium stuff was about to pay off. And maybe then he could go home. The sooner the better. He couldn't wait to get out of Bering.

  He wondered if Yuri was the Russian who had been visiting Kate late at night in the hangar. He wondered why. Not that he lent any credibility to the Fibbies' suspicions, or Zarr's speculations about Kate's state of mind. No, he knew Kate better than that.

  But he wondered about Yuri. A young man, perhaps? Good-looking? Every Russian Jim had met had had terrible teeth. Not their fault, Russia had lousy health care. He wondered if Kate knew that Russian men were only interested in Alaskan women as a means of gaining entry into the United States. He wondered if perhaps someone should tell her.

  Her voice brought him out of his speculations. "Oh, and Bill Larue called from Koot."

  "Oh yeah? And what did marvelous Mr. Larue want, exactly?"

  "Exactly, he wanted a ride into town."

  "He offer to pay?"

  "No, he seemed to think you'd be happy to put it on his tab."

  "Four-flushing con artist swindling son of a bitch," Baird said without heat. "And you said?"

  "I informed him that Mr. Baird had instructed me that until he, Mr.

  Larue, paid his outstanding debt to Baird Air, which at the moment totals an amount approaching six thousand dollars and change, that he, Mr. Larue, was unwelcome to fly the otherwise friendly Baird skies."

  "Well put," Baird said, admiringly.

  "Thank you. I also told him that his personal check was no longer good here. Cash, money order or cashier's check only." Kate almost smiled until she looked up and saw Jim. Her tone became very crisp. "Jessie Oscar called from Atmautluak; his wife is due to go into labor this week sometime and she needs a ride in to the hospital."

  "Jeeze, how many is it now, six, seven? You'd think they'd have figured out how that works by now. Anything for the Cessna?" "A few calls, nothing firm yet. Oh yeah, Shep says the Cub's tailwheel needed repacking. You'll have to sign off on it before he takes off for Atmautluak."

  She looked between the middle two buttons on Jim's shirt and said, "I'm done. See you tonight."

  Jim watched her very straight back march off with a vague, indefinite notion that he owed her an apology. He just couldn't figure out what for.

  Mutt's head nudged his hand as she followed. The gesture offered him some comfort.

  She showered, buttered two slices of bread, heated a can of cream of asparagus soup and forced herself to eat, managing to avoid even looking at Jim's side of the bunkhouse. Certainly she never strayed over the invisible line she had painted down the center of the floor.

  A soft whine told her Mutt was back. She opened the door and Mutt sidled inside with the smug look of the successful hunter.

  Kate wasn't sleepy, but she put on a clean T-shirt and a clean pair of underwear and made herself lie down. Her pillow smelled differently. She sniffed and realized it was Jim's aftershave.

  Before she knew it the pillow was sailing across the room. When it thudded to the wall and then the floor Mutt's head jerked up. She looked from Kate to the pillow and back again, her ears and eyebrows up.

  "Oh shut up," Kate said.

  Mutt heaved a sigh and lay back down. The next thing Kate knew was a knock at the door. She found herself out of her bunk and on her feet, her heart pounding. It was three o'clock in the afternoon by the battered alarm clock on the table, so she must have slept after all.

  The knock came again, more firmly this time. She went to the door and opened it.

  It was Stephanie.

  Kate made her cocoa. It was a family tradition; elders made cocoa for children when they came to call. Emaa had made cocoa for all the kids in Kate's family when they came over after school, kindergarten right up through twelfth grade. Lorna Doones were a poor substitute for fry bread, though.

  The red Super Cub sat to one side of Stephanie's feet, Mutt to the other. Stephanie dunked her shortbread into her cocoa with grave precision.

  The silence became burdensome. "How are you?" Kate said, and immediately wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

  "I miss my mother," Stephanie said.

  "Yes. Of course you do."

  Stephanie reached for another cookie. "She left something for you."

  "What?"

  "My mother. She left something for you." Stephanie dunked with one hand and with the other produced a fat, dirty envelope with Kate's name on it.

  Kate accepted it with a sinking heart. "Where was it?"

  "In her purse. They found it outside the bank. They think she dropped it there." Stephanie spoke with little emphasis, concentrating her entire being on just the right amount of cocoa soaking into her cookie.

  Kate opened the envelope and her worst fears were confirmed. Inside was a printout of the deposits and withdrawals made to Alaska First Bank of Bering by all the processors who had delivered to Bering so far this season.

  There was a note clipped to the top sheet in Alice's large, round handwriting, which hadn't changed much in thirteen years. She no longer dotted her I's with little hearts, but the big looping tails and extravagantly crossed T's took up a lot of room.

  Kate, the note read, sorry I took so long to get this to you. I got you the other ones, too, like you asked, so you can compare. Funny thing, it looks like Mike has been making some of the entries himself. I knew we were busy but not so busy that the bank manager has to do data entry (giggle). I'll drop this off at Baird's on the way home from work, so you ' get it when you come on shift. Where are you staying? You never said. Don't leave without saying good-bye. Thanks for letting me play Nancy Drew (giggle squared). Am I George or Bess? I'm not Ned! Love, Alice Kate closed her eyes, unable for the moment to read further.

  Alice had come through for her. Alice had located the information Kate had wanted, had printed it out, and had tucked it safely into an envelope addressed to her friend.

  But was what Kate was holding in her hand the reason Alice had been killed?

  The only way to find out was to keep reading, to see just how hot was the information Alice had uncovered.

  In the normal course of events, a processor came into the fishing grounds flush, prepared to take advantage of the early high market prices by topping other processors' bids in price per pound of salmon.

  That way high bidders got the best fish first, and most of it, for resale to potential buyers, gourmet restaurants as far away as New York, gourmet grocery stores, caviar makers, smokers, canners and packers.

  Because the business was so cash intensive and because Alaskan salmon were considered gourmet, as opposed to farmed European or Canadian salmon which seemed to get more pale and more bland and more disease-ridden by the year, and because the freezer life of even a wild salmon was not long, a quick turnaround was necessary. A quic
k turnaround was only possible with large quantities of cash on hand, and cash in good old American dollars.