On the runway, the Lear had its turbines running. Beau saw a blast of heat from the exhausts twist the air into a crazy shimmer that curled and eddied behind the jet like water. There was an Exxon truck parked some distance away, and a long black hose had been pulled up to a wingtip. In the slanting light, the black figure of a man crouched on the wingtip.
As the squad car approached the jet, Beau could see that the lights were on inside the plane, a row of white lights along the slender fuselage. The port was open, the boarding ladder flipped out and down. In the yellow oval of the door, Beau saw a large man bending over, staring out at them as the squad car crossed the final runway. He stepped down the ladder and walked forward as the squad car came to a stop. He waited outside the window, his craggy face a stony gate slammed down over his emotions. He watched as Beau spoke into his cellular phone for almost five minutes.
Finally, Beau hit the END button and climbed out of the cruiser.
“Beau,” said Doc Hogeland. “I’m so sorry about Maureen.”
Beau slammed the cruiser door. The patrolman at the wheel leaned across the seat and raised his hand. Then he was rolling away, and Beau turned back to the jet. “I was talking to Meagher.”
Hogeland nodded, impassive.
“You’re refueling with the engines on?”
Doc Hogeland glanced up at the wing. The attendant was stepping off onto the ladder, wrestling with the avgas line. He waved at them and jumped to the ground.
“Fifteen hundred miles to Billings. Plane has a three-thousand-mile range, but she feels funny without a full load. Takes time to cool and restart. That’s why I asked them to put me way out here. It’s risky, but I’ve done it before. The nozzles are grounded and the intake port is lined with latex, and there’s a ground wire to the truck tank. I used to do it on the carriers. It’s a military procedure. Come on—we’re going to miss our clearance.”
Hogeland went ahead of Beau, lumbering up the steps, huge and bent, an old man in jeans and boots, but there was muscle in the frame. He wore a leather flight jacket, and his white hair was yellow in the cabin lights as he turned to look at Beau coming up behind him.
“We can be off the ground in five minutes. Shut that port—the button’s the red one by the crank. It’s automatic, so don’t get your fingers in the way. Then come on up to the cockpit.”
He stalked off up toward the controls. The interior of the Lear was like the inside of a sleek cabin cruiser, in various tones of deep blue tapestry and rosewood veneer. A salon next to the cockpit curved around a black ebony coffee table and connected with a low bar and two passenger seats with belts and headrests. Through the portholes, Los Angeles glimmered in the haze, a hectic grid of neon and reflected sunlight. Hogeland had something playing on the stereo. It sounded like Waylon Jennings.
Beau came forward to the cabin. Hogeland grunted at him.
The doc was speaking into the headset, the radio crackling. He had his right hand on the T-bars, and the turbines were winding up. The Lear was already rolling forward.
He nodded toward a headset. Beau put it on as the plane started to turn left toward a runway, following a line of amber lights. The city moved out of the picture as the nose came around to face a line of white lights that receded into a point. Beyond that was the ocean.
“This is Flight 55 private requesting clearance.”
The control tower voice was clipped and raspy with static. “Roger, five five. Hold on six.”
“Roger, tower. Five five holding.”
There was a short pause.
“Roger, five five, you are clear for take-off.”
“Roger, tower. Flight five five taking off.”
Hogeland’s big hand eased the throttle forward, and the little jet began to roll forward into the runway. The lights began to flicker past the wings, and Beau felt himself being pressed back into the seat. Then the jets were howling and the nose was coming up, and suddenly the lights were falling away to the left as Hogeland powered up and banked right and the broad flat plain of the ocean was under the wings. Hogeland held the bank and watched the altimeter, and now the land came around again, the city under them, a glittering horizon of lights and towers and beyond it the dark slopes of the mountains. They rose up through haze into a deeper blackness. Now stars filled the windshield.
Both men were silent through all of this until the jet reached thirty thousand feet.
“Tower, this is five five. We are at altitude.”
“Roger, five five, you are at thirty-two thousand. Transponder functional. Your hand-off is coming up in thirteen minutes. Have a good flight.”
“Roger, tower.”
Hogeland steadied the plane, leaned forward to punch a code into a computer board. Beau felt hydraulics kick in, and a green light began to pulse in the control panel. Hogeland unstrapped his belt and rubbed his face with his hands.
Beau turned away to watch the city lights far below, sliding away under the wings. Up ahead the mountains rose toward them, and the night was a tilted horizon of stars.
“Why’d you come to get me? I could have taken a commercial flight.”
Hogeland grunted again and looked sidelong at Beau from under his shaggy brows. “I guess I wanted the time alone with you. Maybe to talk, get things out on the table.”
“You know they traced the Cadillac.”
“Yes. Dwight called me after he heard from Meagher. The car was leased through his office in Denver.”
There was a long silence. Finally, Hogeland said, “I wonder why Eustace let you fly with me, Beau. Considering.”
“He didn’t like it. But the only alternative was to pull you off the plane at LAX and cuff you, and Vanessa wouldn’t come up with a warrant. She’s waiting to hear from Maureen. Right now, there isn’t sufficient evidence to charge you. I told Eustace, maybe I better stick with you, see you get home safe.”
“You thought I’d fly away, try for Brazil or someplace? Come on, Beau. You know me better than that. I need a drink.”
The old man slipped out of the belts and went back to the bar. Beau stayed in his seat. He could hear him at the bar, glass clinking. He came back and handed Beau a very cold bottle of Beck’s beer. Hogeland held a crystal glass of pale Scotch. He climbed back into the pilot seat and raised his glass to Beau in a salute.
“So.… I gather that our Danny boy has gone on ahead.”
“You could say that.”
“I tried to calm him down. After Friday night, there was no holding him back. He was determined to take it all apart. I think Spellman Sterling spooked him. Danny didn’t kill that boy, you know.”
“Hinsdale?”
“Yes. Oh, true, he was worried about Peter. He thought the boy had heard everything. He was trying to talk his way out with Jubal and the others. Apparently, you interrupted that.”
“Who did kill him?”
“No idea. Who do you think? You were there.”
“I guess Earl, or one of the others. It wasn’t the girl. She was busy with me. Does it all come down to Danny Burt, Doc?”
“Danny was mean and greedy. I needed him to transport the harvested fetuses. He wanted out. He and Bell were blackmailing me. Danny had taken a CD ROM disk. It had most of my data on it, stupid of me, but you see, I wasn’t really doing anything illegal. And I wanted the project documented. The need is great, Beau. Eventually, we will have to face up to that. I did ground-breaking work. But Danny was in it for the money. He thought the boy had heard too much. And he saw only the profits.”
“But not you, eh? Not the old country doc.”
Hogeland signed. “Beau, I was hoping we could talk straight. I think, if you can try to understand, I feel there’s not a lot of distance between us. You might be surprised.”
“I’ve been everything else this last week. Go ahead, try me.”
“How much have you figured out, Beau?”
“Fair amount. I’ll stop you if I get confused.”
The doctor grimaced and looke
d sideways at Beau, up from under his thick white eyebrows, his lined face tinted green from the cockpit lights. His eyes glittered with intelligence and a kind of cynical humor.
“You won’t do anything too physical up here, will you, Beau? Unless you think you can land this thing?”
Beau pulled at his Beck’s and felt the cold liquid burn through him. The doctor spoke again. “They didn’t hurt Maureen, you know.”
Beau suppressed the wave of rage and held on to the bottle, as if the bone-aching cold in it could reach his heart and lungs. “How about Bobby Lee, Doc?”
“He didn’t hurt Bobby Lee at all. Of course, she was frightened. And the policeman seems to be stabilizing.”
“I’m glad to see you’re taking this so well, Doc.”
“I’m doing what I can. I’m sorry about the policeman.”
“His name is Dell Greer.”
“Dell Greer. Some of this has to be laid at his door, Beau. He should have been doing his job. He was taken from behind, according to the report. He has a concussion and a severe subdural hematoma. Maureen was taken right away.”
“Bobby Lee saw this?”
“Yes, but she’s sedated. Moses Harper is with her, and your other daughter is coming in from Wyoming. The County sent a helicopter for her.”
Beau was quiet for a while.
“You hear about Joe Bell, Doc?”
Dr. Hogeland looked bleak. “I heard some of it. I gather it was bad.”
Beau looked at the old man, at his green-tinted face and the black holes where his eyes were, hidden in shadows. Finally, Hogeland had to ask him.
“Did Eustace describe … apparently your man went out there and found him.”
“It was Moses, according to Eustace.”
“Yes. He found Bell?”
“Most of him.”
Hogeland winced. “Eustace wouldn’t go into details.”
“He was skinned.”
“What do you mean, skinned?”
“Just what it sounds like. Moses figured he had been alive for most of it. The guy used Stretch ’N Seal, you know?”
“Stretch ’N Seal?” The old man thought it over. “Yes, that’s clever of him. The wrapping would prevent immediate shock and heart failure. Very … ingenious.”
“You get the idea this guy’s done it before? He covered the parts he’d skinned with Saran Wrap, and that sort of held Joe together. Moses told Eustace he’d never buy beef in a Safeway again.”
Hogeland wasn’t listening. From the look on his face, he was trying to get his mind around what had happened to Joe Bell. Beau let him do it. He deserved it. Finally the doctor spoke. “Why was your man out there in the first place?”
“He was trying to trace the Caddy, figured he’d get Bell to give him a better description.”
“Why the Caddy?”
“Bell had you on video, the day of the shooting at the Oasis. I ran across it that night, when I went back to look around. You could see him leaning in the window, yelling at someone.”
“And you knew it was me?”
“No, but I knew the car. I mean, there are a lot of old Caddys in Montana, but I had a feeling it was yours. I’ve seen yours around, ridden in it twice.”
“Why not say so? Instead of letting them go to all the trouble of chasing it down?”
Beau let the question hang for a while.
“Damned if I know, Doc. I guess I didn’t want to drag you in. It might have been another car, might have had nothing to do with what happened. Hell, on the face of it, it didn’t mean a thing anyway. So there was a blue Caddy at the scene. So you drive a blue Caddy. That’s not a connection. But if it was you at Bell’s Oasis that day, and you don’t mention it later, then that’s interesting. Why were you there, anyway?”
“Bell wanted me to meet with Jubal and the rest. Bell figured we could buy them off or scare them off. I told him he was an idiot, and he blew up at me.”
“You could have done that over the phone. Why drive all the way out to Pompeys Pillar?”
“He said if I didn’t come out there, he’d bring them in to the hospital, bring them right up to my office. I had to try to talk sense to him. But it was useless.”
“So he decided to try and kill them?”
“Bell was a bad-tempered man. I know they were pressing him because he’d been asking questions around the reserves. He was known among the prostitutes. I think, when they confronted him in the office, he just went over the top.”
Beau had figured it the same way. Hogeland spoke again.
“So what was the connection with the Caddy?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
Hogeland was staring at him. “You had nothing!”
“I had some suspicions. You’ve just confirmed them. Sig Tarr chased Oceanic down through the Merced bankruptcy. The law firm handling it was Dwight’s. Meagher wanted to nail Dwight for all of it. He figured it all went back to him. But I was the one who saw your Caddy at Bell’s. I didn’t want to believe it, but when Dwight’s name came up, I figured you had to be the one. Who else would have the medical connections, the money? So in a way, the Caddy did it, but only for me. And the jet, of course.”
“Records, eh, Beau? Damnable records.”
“Why take Merced into bankruptcy, Doc? It just drew attention.”
“That was Charlie Kellerman. He panicked. He figured, if we took Merced into bankruptcy, we could close down the routes, hide it behind the trustee. Oceanic was well back. No one could get access to the shareholders’ list.”
“Maybe. But this plane, it stands out. Why the plane?”
Hogeland sighed and drank some more Scotch. The plane rose up and shuddered in an air pocket, dipped and rose again and leveled out. The green light blipped hypnotically, the reflection staining Hogeland’s left cheek as he turned to look at Beau.
“You’re young yet, Beau. You get old, you figure there’s not a lot of time left, you better do some of the things you love. The grave’s a fine and private place, as they say.”
“No Learjets for the dead?”
“I flew Corsairs in the war. Not your war—the good war. We were the lords of the South China Sea. Mindanao, Subic Bay, Burma, Corregidor, Bataan. I was in the Battle of the Coral Sea. I flew at Midway. Those were great days, Beau. You’ve never been to war, have you, son?”
Beau shook his head, thinking that there were many wars and many ways to lose yourself in them.
“I have, Beau. I’ve seen a great deal of the world, seen the glory and the destruction in it. A man can see a lot in life, and even in the most horrible kinds of struggle, there are epiphanies, there are times when a man’s life can seem … he can feel God at his side. A man can sense himself at the outer edge of life, like we are here, at the outermost reaches of existence. Out here, a man can see a long way into himself, into what it means to be alive, and what it means to approach the … infinite.”
Beau was thinking that there wasn’t a bad man he’d ever met, didn’t like to put a nice shine on his crimes, work it out so he was really a good guy, like he really had no choice or it was all for the good of the nation. He said nothing.
“You know, Beau, I often wonder why men think that the next hill or the next ocean wave has the great mystery concealed behind it when all a man has to do is look up, fly a few miles, and he comes to the real frontier—not a thousand miles up the Amazon or three days’ ride into the Bridger range or halfway up Kilimanjaro. There isn’t a dull little town or a shopping mall or a bank or a gas station that isn’t just a few short miles from the perfect silences of space. Just a delicate membrane of air. We could peel it back.…” He shuddered and slapped the controls.
“This machine will approach Mach One. I had it refitted according to military specs. I can even cut oxygen into the afterburners. It’ll go up to fifty thousand feet. If I pushed it, maybe sixty thousand. That’s as far as this plane goes. I could take us up in a climb, go to the afterburners, we could break out of t
he atmosphere and ride a perfect arc, like a slingshot rides the opposing forces of gravity and velocity. We could break through into the … immensity around us. See it, however briefly.”
“What would happen if you did?”
Hogeland laughed, sipped some Scotch.
“Flame-out. You’d lose all power. No control. You’d wing over, go into an uncontrollable dive. We used to call it ‘auger in.’ ”
“So it would be damned brief.”
“Hell, Beau! Life is brief. We get up above the grasses, break out of the earth and glide for a while, we feel the sun and we see the wide world, and then we come back to the earth and sink into it. Why not go higher and fall farther? In the end, what’s the cost?”
“So far? Seven people. Dell Greer almost died. God knows how many women who had their babies stolen. The babies themselves.”
The doctor was shaking his head. “My intent was not to—”
“It happened. Your intentions have nothing to do with it.”
“My intentions have everything to do with it. Did you understand anything of what I’ve been saying, Beau?”
“Yes.”
“I know you did! I can sense it in you. You play the bull cop, but you don’t have the flatness in your eyes, that wild boar look. You think and you feel, Beau. You try to keep it hidden, but it shows. I think you can understand where I was trying to go, where I was trying to take all of us.”
“I know what I found in your truck, Doc. I saw where that was going.”
“But did you? Really see?”
“Doc, I got it on my boots. That’s real enough for me.”
They flew awhile in silence. Outside the cabin the air was clear and ice-cold. The jets whistled softly behind them, and the wind flowed over the screen. The stars glittered like knives against the limitless black night.
Hogeland let out a long breath.
“Was I wrong, Beau?”
“It looked wrong.”
“They weren’t alive, Beau. Not like you and I are alive.”
Lizardskin Page 41
