DreadfulWater Shows Up

by Thomas King

  Thumps didn’t much like the look of the saw, and the high-pitched whine it made reminded him of the scream of an injured animal. “What’s that thing for?”

  Beth waved the little saw around in a circle. “I’m going to take a look at Mr. Takashi’s brain.”

  Thumps could feel his body go numb.

  “You all right?” Beth put the saw down and stripped off her rubber gloves.

  Thumps found a stool just before he passed out. “Just fine,” he said, but the words came out sounding like a moan.

  “You guys are such a bunch of babies, you know that?”

  “I’ll be okay in a minute.”

  Beth smiled. “You had dinner?”

  Thumps glanced at the corpse. “You’re hungry?” he said, making sure to keep his teeth clenched.

  “Starving,” said Beth. “You can really work up an appetite down here.”

  The Golden Harvest was one of those combination restaurants that specialized in mediocrity at good prices, where you could serve yourself off the long steam table in the centre of the room or order from a menu and be assured of getting the same food.

  Beth was a good sport. “I left a corpse for this?”

  “The salad bar is terrific.”

  Thumps helped himself to the spaghetti on the supposition that the only way to harm pasta was to overcook it. Beth poked at the fried chicken.

  “You really know how to turn a girl’s head.”

  Thumps was trying to decide between the red Jell-O and the green Jell-O, when he saw Archie slide out of a booth and head his way, all smiles and good cheer.

  “Hey, big shot,” said Archie as he crossed the room, sweeping everyone out of his way. “Where have you been?”

  Archimedes Kousoulas was one of those people everyone should have in their life. Whether they wanted one or not. Archimedes, or Archie as everybody called him, ran Chinook’s only used book store. A Greek, originally from the island of Evia, he was a patchwork of distinct and disparate passions that ran from rare books to buried treasure.

  Books were Archie’s life, and he was happiest when he was searching attics, rummaging through estate sales, or surfing the Net, looking for first editions and hard-to-find volumes. A couple of months back, Archie had called Thumps on the phone to announce that he had found a rare first edition of Tony Hillerman’s The Blessing Way, as well as a first edition of Evan Connell’s Son of the Morning Star with the original soft paper jacket—for no other reason than that both books were about Indians.

  “You’re eating just the pasta?” Archie slipped in behind Thumps and followed him down the steam table.

  “It’s safe.”

  “They overcook it.”

  Treasure hunting, on the other hand, was Archie’s passion. Not the Treasure Island variety or the “sunken galleon on a coral reef loaded with gold” kind. What Archie loved was western treasure. The army payroll. The strongbox from a stagecoach robbery. The fortune of some recluse who had hidden his money under the floor boards of his shack. Every minute that Archie wasn’t on the prowl for another book, he was poring over letters and maps, researching western lore, confident that if he looked long enough he would locate that lost gold mine and become famous and rich, all at the same time.

  “Hi, Archie.” Beth’s tray was bowing under the weight of the food she had heaped on the plates. “How go the books?”

  Thumps liked Archie, but being in the man’s energy slipstream was exhausting. He had gone on one of Archie’s “treasure expeditions,” partly out of friendship and partly out of curiosity, and one trip tromping through the wilderness had been enough.

  “I have to get back to the shop,” said Archie. “But for you, I can be late.” He herded everybody to a booth. “So,” he said to Thumps, “how come you don’t come by and see me? I got some new postcards in.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy? Taking pictures isn’t busy,” said Archie. “I’m the only one who buys them.” He looked at Beth and smiled. “Do you know what this man does for a living?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a living,” said Beth. “How you doing, Archie?”

  “Fine. Always fine.” Archie put his arm around Thumps’ shoulder. “Do you know what this woman does for a living?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “That anatomy volume you wanted,” Archie said to Beth as she began excavating a mound of mashed potatoes. “I think I know where to find one.”

  “Expensive?”

  Archie shrugged. “We’ll see. But first you eat. Then we talk.” He got up from the booth. “I’ll be right back. It’s a surprise, so don’t ask.”

  Thumps watched Archie head out the door, thankful that he wasn’t going to have to spend dinner listening to the man’s latest treasure story.

  Beth leaned her head over the coffee cup and took a deep breath. “So, you didn’t come by just to tell me the victim’s name.”

  “Why were you going to . . .” Thumps paused, appalled at what he was about to ask.

  Beth waited to see if he was going to get to the end of the sentence. “Why was I going to cut open his head?”

  Thumps could feel the waves of nausea rising up out of the depths of his stomach and heading for shore. “Yeah,” he managed.

  “Murder cases generally involve full autopsies.”

  “But he was shot. In the chest.”

  “Looks that way, all right. But I won’t know for sure until I . . .” Beth waved her finger around in a circle. “You know.”

  Thumps wondered about the smells that Beth worked with. Did they dissipate quickly or did they hang around like cigarette smoke, lurking in your hair or sticking to your fingers like an oil slick.

  “Does the sheriff know you’re nosing around?”

  “I’m not nosing around.”

  “Could have fooled me.” Beth raised the cup to her face and rolled it against her cheek. “So, why are you here?”

  “Just curious if you found anything unusual.”

  “You want to tell me the difference?”

  “Between what?”

  “Curious and nosy.”

  The window behind Beth was bright, and the light tangled in her hair in a way that made Thumps think of cotton candy. The late afternoon sun also made him remember that he had missed his nap. He could feel his eyes begin to droop.

  “I’m not that boring.”

  “I was up early.”

  Beth shifted and rested her head against the wall. “Okay, here’s what I know. The man was Asian in his early thirties, and he was killed Saturday morning around eleven, give or take half an hour.”

  “That’s it?”

  “The last thing he had to eat was a doughnut and a cup of coffee.”

  “Hockney is going to be thrilled.”

  “How’s the Jell-O?”

  Thumps checked his fork. One of the tines was bent. How people could stand to eat with a bent fork was beyond him. He put the fork down and picked up a spoon.

  “He’s back,” said Beth.

  Thumps looked up just in time to see Archie come in the front door.

  “Guess what?” said Archie as he slid in next to Beth.

  Beth looked at Thumps.

  “Don’t look at him,” said Archie. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  Whenever Archie asked “guess what?” it was generally about treasure. When he wasn’t in his shop, he was up in the hills, looking for caves, secret trails, and suspicious landmarks. Archie knew the mountains as well as most of the people on the reservation, but in all the years of looking, he hadn’t found anything.

  This didn’t stop him, of course. Archie’s philosophy was that if he hadn’t found the treasure, then it was still out there. Thumps had to admit that this reasoning made sense. So far as it went.

  “I know where the Aztec treasure is.”

  The Aztec treasure was the big cheese in this part of the world. After Cort
es destroyed the Aztec empire, a small group of enterprising Spaniards under the leadership of one Antonio Garcia de la Vega supposedly slipped out of Mexico with a fortune in stolen gold. According to the legend, they got as far as the mountains around Chinook before they ran into the Blackfoot and had to take cover in a cave. Along with their gold.

  In Thumps’ opinion, all stories about lost treasure had slightly fantastic elements to them. This one was no exception, and what happened next in the story depended on who told it. Version one: the Spaniards were killed and the Blackfoot took the gold. Version two: some of the Spaniards escaped but had to leave their gold behind. Version three: the Spaniards hid the gold somewhere in the cave before they were killed to a man.

  Archie liked them all. “You know where the Ironstone comes over Blackfoot Falls?”

  “Didn’t you look around there last year?”

  “Maybe you could tell your boyfriend to shut up.”

  “My pleasure,” said Beth, and she turned to Thumps. “Shut up.”

  “So, I’m looking around Blackfoot Falls, and guess who I see?”

  “Okay, what did you see?”

  “Not what. Who.”

  Sometimes these conversations were short, but Thumps could sense that Archie was just warming to the story.

  “An Aztec?”

  “Tell your boyfriend to shut up again.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” said Beth.

  “That’s because you’re a smart woman.”

  “Okay, Archie,” said Thumps. “Who did you see?”

  “Stick Merchant.”

  Thumps sat up.

  “Ah,” said Archie. “Now Mr. Smart Remarks is interested.”

  “You saw Stick at the falls.”

  “At the pools below the falls. And you know what that means, don’t you?”

  Thumps stopped listening and began putting pieces together. From the trailhead on the northwest side of the reserve, Blackfoot Falls was about a three-hour hike. If you were going to fish the pools below the falls, that was the way you would go in.

  “When?”

  “What?”

  “When did you see Stick?”

  “Saturday.” Archie looked at Thumps and winked. “He was on his way to visit the Aztec treasure.”

  The trail to Blackfoot Falls ran in behind Buffalo Mountain Resort. But if you knew where to drop off the trail and had a reasonable sense of direction, you could make it to the resort in an hour.

  “What time did you see him?”

  “Who cares,” said Archie, who wanted to get on with his story. “You know who killed the Spaniards, don’t you?”

  “The Blackfoot,” said Thumps, trying to head Archie off. “When exactly did you see Stick?”

  Archie shrugged. “Late afternoon. What difference does it make? The important thing is that I know how to find the Aztec treasure.”

  Beth leaned forward. “How?”

  “All I have to do is follow Stick the next time he goes into the mountains.”

  “What was he doing?” Thumps nudged Beth’s leg with his foot. “Was he fishing?”

  “Fishing?” said Archie, looking at Beth for help. “Your boyfriend doesn’t listen, does he?”

  Beth gave Thumps a reproachful look and moved her leg. “So, did you follow him?”

  “I was too far away.” Archie made a disgusted noise. “By the time I got to the pools, he was gone.”

  Thumps took his money clip out of his pocket. “We should be going.”

  “Going?” Archie frowned. “You eat. You run. You going to get cramps.”

  “I have to get back to the office,” said Beth. “I’ve got a guy waiting for me.”

  “A man?” Archie raised his eyebrows and forgot about Thumps for a moment. “You got a man?”

  “Don’t ask.” Thumps shuddered as his brain fired a reflex glimpse of Daniel Takashi stretched out on the metal table in Beth’s basement. “Look, did he see you?”

  “Who?” said Archie.

  “Stick.”

  “Of course not.” Archie helped himself to some of Thumps’ Jell-O. “What do you plan to do with your share of the Aztec gold?”

  “Thumps gets a share?” asked Beth.

  “Sure,” said Archie. “He’s my partner.”

  “Partner?” Thumps was beginning to feel uneasy. “You don’t need a partner.”

  “You don’t want to be my partner?”

  “It’s not that,” said Thumps, but as soon as he said it, he wasn’t sure that this was the right answer.

  “Good,” said Archie. “So, the first thing you need to do is talk to Stanley about the treasure.”

  “Me?”

  “I think that’s what ‘partner’ means,” said Beth.

  “You’re Indian,” said Archie, “and Stick’s Indian. What’s the problem?”

  “Archie . . .”

  “We’ll split it three ways even though you probably don’t deserve a full share.”

  “I don’t want a share.”

  “Fine. We’ll split it two ways.” Archie pushed away from the table. “I got to go back to work. Don’t let me down.”

  “That was fun.” Beth folded her napkin and tucked it at the side of her plate. “But I better not keep ‘my man’ waiting.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “You know,” she said, “for a photographer, you’re quite perceptive.”

  Thumps stayed at the table and watched Beth through the window. Outside, the light was beginning to drop and flatten out against the sides of the buildings. Too late to do anything more. Time to call it a day and go home. Maybe Stick would show up with a string of fish and a good alibi. Maybe Duke would catch the killer. Maybe some rich guy from Los Angeles would fly in and buy a bunch of Thumps’ photographs.

  Maybe there was something good on television.

  EIGHT

  Freeway was waiting for Thumps when he got home, and she wasn’t happy. Not that she was ever truly happy, unless you counted the eight to ten hours each day that she spent lying on her back in the sunlight.

  “You hungry?”

  Freeway closed both eyes and pretended to ignore him. Thumps walked to the refrigerator. Freeway opened both eyes, yawned, stretched, and stood up.

  The can of wet cat food sat on the top shelf, away from everything else. And even though it was sealed in two plastic zip-lock bags, the smell of it seemed to work its way into everything-the tomatoes, the sliced ham, the cottage cheese, and especially the fruit, which was all the way at the bottom of the refrigerator in its own drawer.

  Freeway began sliding across Thumps’ feet the way water flows over rocks. “So, now we’re pals again?” Cat food, Thumps grimaced, smelled like vomit. He tried to breathe through his mouth as he spooned the chunky brown lumps into a bowl. “Don’t be a pig.”

  Freeway was not a dainty eater. She enjoyed shoving her nose into the bowl and sucking up the food like a vacuum cleaner. Thumps didn’t particularly care that the cat was a slob, but he knew if she ate too fast, she would throw it all up on the carpet.

  “Cute cat.”

  Thumps spun around and reached for his gun before he remembered that he no longer carried one.

  “She’s a little standoffish.” Floyd Small Elk was sitting on the sofa in the shadows. “Hope I didn’t startle you.”

  “Wasn’t expecting company.”

  Floyd nodded. “Yeah, I can see that.”

  Thumps reached for the light switch.

  “Leave it off.”

  Unlike Kimberly at Shadow Ranch, Thumps was not particularly fond of surprises. And finding Floyd Small Elk camped in his living room was a surprise. “How’d you get in?”

  “Door was open. You weren’t here.” Floyd shifted his weight on the sofa. “I figured you wouldn’t mind if I waited.”

  “You want tea or something?”

  Floyd shook his head. “I can’t stay. Friend of min
e asked me to stop by.”

  Thumps put a pot of water on the stove. “And here you are.”

  Floyd smiled and nodded. “My friend was wondering if there was a . . . reward.”

  “Reward?”

  “You know. For the dead guy.”

  “Takashi?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know who killed Takashi?”

  “My friend might.”

  Floyd didn’t have any friends. At least none that Thumps knew about. He was one of those men that other men left alone, a man who carried the stench of danger and pain with him wherever he went.

  “Tribe has a shitload of money,” said Floyd. “What do you think information like that would be worth to them?”

  “Floyd . . .”

  “Five thousand?”

  There was only one person Floyd knew who might know something about Takashi’s death.

  “Ten?” Floyd waited to see if he would get a reaction. “Publicity like that couldn’t be good for business.”

  Thumps decided to do a little fishing. “Floyd, if Cooley knows anything about the murder . . .”

  “Good guess.” Floyd cocked his head and smiled. “But Cooley don’t know squat.”

  “But your friend does?”

  “Maybe.” Floyd leaned forward and stood up. “I hear Hockney is looking to hang this one on Stick.”

  “Stick didn’t do it.”

  “You’re guessing again, cousin.” Floyd opened the door and let the warm night air float in. “Talk to Claire. Tell her I’ll give her first option. But tell her not to wait too long.”

  The kettle on the stove began to whistle. Thumps slid it off the burner and turned back to tell Floyd that he was playing a dangerous game.

  “Look, Floyd . . .”

  The doorway was empty. Thumps waited, half expecting the man to return, to pop his head in to tell Thumps something he had forgotten, the way that detective on television with the rumpled trench coat used to do. But Floyd was gone.

  Thumps poured the water over the tea bag. Just what the hell was that about? When he had talked to Floyd earlier in the day, the man didn’t have a clue about Takashi. Thumps was sure of that. Now he was acting as though he had everything solved. Thumps wouldn’t put it past Floyd to try to run a con. But this didn’t feel like a scam. Floyd had been sure of himself, almost pleased.