Lizardskin

by Carsten Stroud

  Beau opened the glove compartment. The kid yelped at him, but he held up a hand to quiet him. He stepped back out and looked at the foil-wrapped package in the light of an arc lamp.

  “What’ve we got here, son?”

  The kid looked like he was going to wet himself. He backed away a couple of steps, absolute terror in his eyes.

  Heartbeat ruffling, thinking maybe he had found Bell’s package, Beau ripped the tinfoil cover. The musky scent rose up out of his palm. Buds and dark-brown leaves rolled in the foil.

  Suddenly Beau felt ashamed of himself. Why was he taking all this out on poor Hubert Wozcylesko? All the kid was trying to do was get away with his stash.

  “Hey,” he said, putting his hands up, trying on his friendliest smile. “Relax, kid. I was looking for something else.”

  The kid’s face went through a number of changes, settling on relief. “I didn’t mean nothing, Sergeant.”

  “Son, I’ll never understand why we go to so much trouble to ban something that grows by the side of the road. Might as well ban wildflowers or dandelions, right?”

  “Yeah … say, you’re chilly. You’re okay, Sarge.”

  “Sure I am. Chilly as penguin shit. And we forget about our little snit-fit in there, too, right, Woz?”

  “Oh, sure. All forgotten … say, … aahh?”

  “Hope you’re not going to ask for your dope back, kid.”

  “Oh, no, sir. No, sir! In no way, sir!”

  “Kid, your truck smells of kerosene or solvent. You got a leak or something?”

  Woz swallowed and looked a little startled, but his voice was steady when he answered. “No. That’s fixer for fiberglass. I’m doing some bodywork on my car, and I got a can of the fixer in the back there.”

  “You not into sniffing or anything, Woz?”

  Woz rose up in righteousness. “No, sir! I seen what that shit does to you. Some of those poor Crow kids, they get into that. Fries their brains! That stuff is poison. I’ll get that can outta there soon’s I get back to the yard!”

  “Good. Now let’s see about those phones.”

  They were fine. It troubled Beau that the kid was out here, rooting around in a crime scene, and it troubled him even more that the kid might be leaving with that disk from under Bell’s desk.

  Beau felt a new wave of fatigue. He had been a cop for a very long time, and the more he saw of people, the more he disliked them. Anybody who wanted to be a cop ought to be required to spend a few days cleaning up in the monkey house. He’d learn all he ever had to know about human beings while he was working in a monkey house. There were only three reasons a monkey did anything! Food. Fuck. Or fight.

  In human terms, that’d be money, sex, or revenge. Beau had never seen a crime that didn’t come down to one or the other, or sometimes two out of three.

  Maybe the kid was just a kid, and the phones had nothing to do with anything. He thought for a long while about calling Ident to get some prints off the pay phones but finally decided against it. He could hear Vanessa Ballard taking that one apart in a prelim.

  “Now, let me get this straight, Sergeant McAllister. You found fingerprints belonging to Joe Bell on these pay phones?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “These pay phones that actually belong to Joe Bell?”

  “Ah—er,… well, not to him technically.”

  “Pay phones placed on or around his legal business?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you suggest that you found it suspicious that these pay phones, which were placed on Mr. Bell’s property, actually had Mr. Bell’s prints on them?”

  “Along with others, ma’am.”

  “What others?”

  “Well, we haven’t been able to determine that yet.”

  “Haven’t been able—Sergeant McAllister, I submit to you—”

  God, he hated it when Ballard submitted to him.

  Well, actually, if you put it that way …

  Putting it that way, it was clearly time for a beer.

  7

  2315 Hours–June 14–Pompeys Pillar, Montana

  He saw the kid off in his Mountain Bell truck, did a final walkaround to secure the premises, and climbed back into the cruiser. It was now close to midnight, and he had been on duty since six that morning. Close to eighteen hours in the saddle. Time to call it a night. Whatever the hell else was going to happen, it could happen without Beau’s help. He thought about the sound of Emmylou Harris coming from Fogarty’s New York Bar. There’d be enough time to drop in for a couple of cold beers, see how Fogarty was doing.

  “Five eleven to Central. You there, Beth?”

  “Hi, Beau.”

  “Anything on that wagon?”

  “Not a peep. Heard from Tony Pietrosante a while back. Said he was on his third tank, and that you could … that you’d know what you could do with this search.”

  Beau laughed. “He’s got that right. Anything from Trooper Benitez?”

  “Trooper Benitez seems to have gotten his vehicle stuck in a coulee somewhere off the Ballantine side road, Beau.”

  Shit.

  “Somewhere? Somewhere? Benitez doesn’t know his ten-twenty?”

  “That seems to be the sitrep, Beau.”

  “Sitrep? Jeez, Beth. We got anybody out looking for him?”

  “Negative, Beau.”

  “You gonna talk like that, Beth, you gotta say negatory!”

  “Negatory, Beau. All the Charlie cars are either doing patrol around Twilly’s or along the interstate. We have no one to clear for him at this time.”

  “What about traffic?”

  “No cars at this time. Benitez has one. The others are on a RADD program down the line.”

  “You hearing from him?”

  “Ten-four, Beau. Last time was ten minutes ago. Says he’s up to his ax-holes.”

  Beau could feel that smile stretch his tired skin all the way to his sideburns. “Up to his ax-holes, Beth?”

  “Actually, he said he was ‘stock up to my focking ax-holes in theez focking ay-roy-oh!’ Beau.”

  “Yeah? Well, Beth, my dove, I am looking at eighteen hours in the saddle, and I feel like somebody put kitty litter in my boxer shorts. I propose that I reconnoiter in the vicinity of Fogarty’s New York Bar to see if I can identify any undesirable elements such as might be contemplating the violent overthrow of the sovereign State of Montana and the tugging down of the pants and garters of our appointed representatives. I will be OTA should Trooper Benitez manage to clarify his locationary die-lemma. Five eleven is OTA, my darling.”

  “Ten-four, Beau. Have one for me.”

  Fogarty’s New York Bar was tucked away in a reconstructed blacksmith shop two blocks off the main street of Pompeys Pillar. It was lined in faded gray barnboard, dark and full of the smell of pipe smoke, whisky, cigarettes, and the wood fire that Fogarty always liked to keep burning in the old forge. A long and battered mahogany bar ran the length of the big taproom, at least forty feet. The footrail was supported by brass elephant heads. A huge bull-buffalo head towered over the centerboard.

  Fogarty had raided an old pool hall in Butte and come away with three classic green felt pool tables, solid slate, and a truckload of green-glass-and-brass hanging lamps.

  The ceiling rafters were cluttered with New York State licenses, pictures of New York cops and detectives, Fiorello La Guardia in his fedora and dandy’s collar, replica badges, and hats and nightsticks. There was even a model of the Brooklyn Bridge in a glass case.

  Fogarty had made it clear that he’d personally shoot dead any cowhand or truck driver who managed to knock it over in a fight. Since Fogarty had actually shot and killed a man eleven years back during an attempted robbery, shot him twice in the chest with an old army .45 that he kept in the buffalo’s mouth, the customers took him seriously. Everybody who just had to fight, fought outside like gentlemen.

  Fogarty himself was a soft-spoken and easy-going man of no particular size or weight,
but there was something in his eyes and the lines around his mouth, something in the huge white handlebar moustache and the precise way he had of talking, almost too low to hear, that kept the bar quiet and peaceful.

  Maybe part of the charm was that you had to know where it was to find it. Fogarty didn’t like signs, and it was two blocks off the highway. So in the end, only his friends and their friends and friends of those friends found their way there on a weekend evening. The place was full of people, older retired ranchers and their ladies, some cowhands from the government spreads, even a table full of Japanese cowboys from a big beef ranch being operated by a Kyoto company a few miles west of Billings. Actually, it was Ingomar’s old spread. What was the name? Fargo? Far … Farwest. Farwest Beef and Dairy—something like that, anyway.

  Go figure the Japanese. Talk about the samurai, act like the world’s most tightly wrapped obsessive-compulsive race. Then come out here and buy up everything that looks like Real America. Well, God bless them. Beau figured this was their year. The circle turns.

  Fogarty and his daughter Colleen were walking the bar, serving up tap ale and draft and bottles of Lone Star and Coors. A few solitaries, wrapped in their own trials, stood at the bar. A couple of waitresses Beau didn’t recognize were moving through the tables with trays of beer and plates of hot wings.

  Fogarty saw him come through the door and reached under the bar. By the time Beau had settled down on a stool, Fogarty was just topping off his glass. He set the bottle of Beck’s aside and wiped the spillage away with an old chamois. Fogarty took good care of this bartop.

  “Patrick. Busy tonight.”

  Fogarty’s eyes flicked around the room.

  “Everybody’s come to see the Japs.”

  Beau swiveled around in the stool. A couple of tables away, eight young Oriental men in denims and plaid shirts were leaning back in their chairs and talking in high, animated voices, arms waving, heads bobbing.

  “How they doing?”

  “Ahh, they’re good kids. Couple of ’em not bad riders, either. That one with the black jacket there, he took a fifth in the amateur rodeo in Hardin last month.”

  “Yeah? Good for him. Anybody pissed about the size of their spread?”

  “Nooh. People figure, Ingomar priced it up around the snowline, the greedy prick. Who else could buy it? Not the Japs’ fault—they could afford it. Big market for Montana beef back in Japan now. Plus the Japs really love that cowboy stuff. Ranch is owned by some big corporation.”

  “Farwest Beef and Dairy?”

  “That’s it. Probably the same guys bought most of Manhattan last year. Anyway, these guys try hard to be good neighbors, too. Gave a lotta help last year when those kids got lost up in the Bulls. Plus Doc Darryl got them to cough up a big check for the hospital. They’re okay.”

  “Hogeland’s a hell of a fund-raiser, isn’t he?”

  “Yep. Got himself a whole new—what do you call it? For babies who are born too early?”

  “Neonatal?”

  “Yeah. Neonatal unit. So how’s Bobby Lee? She like her party?”

  “Well, that party there, it didn’t actually get right down to happening.”

  Fogarty nodded, looked up the bar and down again, and polished a mark with his chamois.

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “Not really. How’s Colleen doing?”

  Fogarty swelled a little around the edges.

  “Now, she’s a downy bird, she is. I had a couple more like her, I’d retire. She does more work around here than all three of my boys.… Heard about the shooting over at Joe Bell’s.”

  “Hard to miss.”

  “That it was. Heard it was Bell did the killing, too.”

  “That he did. Almost killed us all.”

  “Shooting away at that propane tank, I hear.”

  “Yeah—where’d you hear that?”

  “Talk of the town, Beau. It true you shoot him in the …?”

  “In the ass? Yeah, that’s true.”

  “That cold enough there?”

  Beau drained the beer, set the glass down, and watched while Fogarty capped another Beck’s and slowly filled the glass again.

  “Just about right. Yeah, it was a bad thing all round.”

  “Too bad about the youngster. Nice-looking kid, too.”

  Beau just nodded his head, feeling the cold beer working on him, feeling the sadness at the outer edge of everything tonight. He was thinking that if he got drunk enough, he might get up the nerve to go over to Hardin, climb up the back porch to Bobby Lee’s room, wake her up, and give her her presents. Nice as it would be to see Bobby Lee, it would be just as sweet to do that and think about how Maureen would feel when she came into Bobby Lee’s room the next morning and found the kid surrounded by balloons and stuffed teddies and that new Ninja Turtle skateboard.

  Kids …

  Youngsters …

  “Patrick—what’d you say there?”

  “I said the kid was nice-looking.”

  “Which kid?”

  “The kid was shot.”

  “How’d you know that? Were you out there?”

  “No. Been here since noon. But I saw him in the back of the wagon.”

  “What wagon?”

  “Bob Gentile’s wagon. Danny Burt was in here for a coupla hours. He took a bunch of us out there, showed us the body.”

  Christ.

  “Did Finch Hyam or Rowdy Klein come in here?”

  “Not today. What’s the matter?”

  “Anybody from our guys? Any law at all?”

  “Not a soul. Too early for them.”

  “When did Danny Burt get here?”

  “I don’t know. Little after six.”

  “Was anybody with him?”

  “Yeah, some young punk. Sat over there and drank French water. Irritating little snot. Burt hates him.”

  “What time’d they leave?”

  “Don’t really know. Burt only stayed to piss the kid off. You ever hear of something called grief managers? Something like that? If that ain’t the stupidest—”

  “But you didn’t see them leave?”

  “I saw them outside later. They was giving a guy they were talking to a lift.”

  “A lift? They went off with someone from here?”

  “They drove off maybe around seven-thirty. Dark guy. Long black hair, mid-forties. An Indian.”

  Seven-thirty. Almost five hours ago. Beau pushed the stool back.

  “Going already?”

  “Yeah. That wagon’s been missing for five hours. It never got to Billings. Put this on my tab.”

  “You don’t have a tab, Beau.”

  “I do now.”

  Beau got back to the cruiser and called Central.

  “Five eleven? Hi, Beau?”

  “Beth, you hear from Benitez yet?”

  “Not for maybe a half-hour, Beau.”

  “Try to raise him, will you?”

  “Okay, Beau.… Four six three, this is Central. Come back?”

  The air crackled and popped. Beau drummed his fingers on the wheel. Come on, Munchkin.

  “Four six three, do you read? 463? Trooper Benitez, are you reading?… 463 … 463?”

  “Beth?”

  “Beau, I can’t get him up. Maybe he’s got his radio off.”

  Not the Munchkin. The radio was his lifeline. Besides, Benitez loved all that cop-tech stuff.

  “Beth, here’s what I’m thinking. I just got out of Fogarty’s here; he says Danny Burt and the Hinsdale kid were in here for a couple of hours, says they left with an Indian sitting up front in the wagon with them. Looks like those peckerwoods and their big goddamned search started on the far side of Fogarty’s bar and just plain missed them. Now, where’d Benitez say he was?”

  “Just a minute.” Beau knew she was scanning her Post-it Notes. She stuck them all over her computer monitor. Worked better than a floppy, and when the power went down or the system crashed, Beth always had her
notes handy.

  “Yeah. Somewhere on the Ballantine side road. Said he was maybe at mile fifteen. Stuck in a coulee.”

  “Beth, raise Sugar if you can. Tell him to get me a couple of backup cars. I’m gonna do a pass down there. Thing is, there’s no other side road between Pompeys Pillar and Huntley, and nobody west of Ballantine saw that wagon all evening. Also, the Ballantine side road splits near Arrow Creek. That’s the only county road runs anywhere near a sandy section or anything Benitez might call an arroyo. I’m going to do the circle, coming in from the north. You get onto those backup cars.”

  “You think Benitez might have stumbled on them?”

  “Beth, if anyone was gonna stumble on something, it’d be 463.”

  • • •

  He found the cruiser at mile marker twenty-five of the Arrow Creek branch of the Ballantine side road. Doors wide open, engine still running, brights on full. The left rear wheel was buried to the fender in soft white sand and clay. A long rooster-tail of black sand and burned rubber marked the dirt for ten feet behind the wheel well. The Ithaca twelve-gauge was missing from the dashboard mount. Trooper Benitez was nowhere around.

  Beau killed his own lights. Away from the white spots of 463’s headlights, the darkness was absolute, as deep as the well of souls. A few pale stars rode above the black bulk of a hillside. Lizardskin was maybe ten miles away over that hill.

  “Beth, I’m at mile marker two five, the Arrow Creek fork. I’ve found 463. Trooper Benitez is not visible. Where is my backup?”

  “Beau, they’ll be there in seventeen minutes.”

  “Beth, you tell them to crank it. Tell ’em to kill their lights at mile marker two three. Tell ’em no sirens.”

  “What’re you gonna do, Beau?”

  God-damn that trooper. He might be lying in a ditch. He might be drunk in a tree. Or he might have attracted some attention.

  He keyed the radio and spoke in a low tone. The darkness seemed to slide in close and press against the window glass.

  “I guess I’m gonna go look for him.”

  “Why not wait for backup?”

  Seventeen minutes. Too long. Too much could happen.

  “Hey, Beth. I am backup.”