An inarticulate gargle and Mutt's continuing menacing growl were her only replies. The picture window confirmed her outside estimate of the view. "My goodness, how lovely. Why, you can see practically all the way to Kalgin Island from here. And look at Susitna, and Denali, and Foraker just as high and wide and handsome as anything I've ever seen, even in the Park."
Dischner made an abortive effort to move. Mutt barked once, sharply, right in his face, and restarted the growl. A log popped and broke in the fireplace. Kate stooped to put another log on. She gave some thought to raking a few coals out onto the rug, and decided against it only because she didn't know how fast Persian rugs burned. She wouldn't want to have to vacate the premises before the job was complete.
Dischner made a noise. Kate looked around and said, "I beg your pardon, Ed, I'm afraid I was miles away. Did you say something?"
He had. It was a struggle to get the words out. "Call it off."
Kate replaced the poker and rose to her feet, dusting her hands. "It's a she, not an it."
This time the words came out freely. "Call her off!"
Kate wandered back more or less in his direction, pausing to read a few of the titles in the bookcase on one wall. She admired the collection of plaques adorning another wall that attested to his extensive good works in both territory and state of Alaska, and the esteem in which he was held by communities from Anchorage to Juneau. She ran an appreciative finger down a soapstone musk ox, a much better piece of work than either he had on display in his office.
Dischner gave a convulsive twitch and this time Mutt snapped at him, big white teeth nipping at the skin of his throat. They left a drop of blood behind. He screamed.
Kate walked over to look at him over Mutt's shoulder. She heaved a mournful sigh. "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Whatever are we going to do with you?" She clicked her tongue, testimony to how hard she was working at solving this obviously insoluble problem. Her head cocked to one side as she considered. "You know, I can't help but think it might be a good thing just to turn Mutt loose on you right here and now." There was an inarticulate whimper, and she squatted down on her haunches next to him, elbows on her knees, hands clasped loosely, and said in a confidential tone, "Did you know that one adult wolf can eat twenty pounds of meat in one helping?" Eddie P's squeal was high and panicked. Kate's head gave a sorrowful shake. "Living way up here, all alone like you do, it wouldn't come as a surprise to most people that you'd been attacked on your own doorstep by a wild animal." She looked down into his terrified eyes and added softly, "And it sure would save a whole lot of people a whole lot of grief, now, wouldn't it." An acrid smell told her he'd lost control of his bladder. She leaned forward to say in a voice barely audible above Mutt's growl, "Tell you what, Ed. I'll call off my dog, if you'll call off yours."
The words burst out of him. "Yes, yes, yes, anything, just get it off me." There wasn't much left of the dapper man in the three-piece suit and the silk rep tie. His usually elegant mane of hair was plastered to his head and his face was running with sweat.
The sight pleased Kate deeply, and she said in an almost affable tone,
"If you've got a quarrel to pick with me, Ed, you send your goons after me. You don't send them to shoot up a suburban home with a child inside.
People could get hurt, people who have nothing to do with what's going on between you and me. That's a no-no. You understand what I'm saying?
It's just not done. It is beyond the bounds of decent behavior." She reflected for a moment, and added, "Well, at least it's beyond the bounds of most decent people. I understand you put yourself outside those bounds on occasion." She raised her brows in polite inquiry.
Dischner choked out something unintelligible that Kate did not bother to translate.
"And no more loosening the lug nuts on a car I'm driving, especially when I'm driving it in traffic." She wagged a reproving finger. "I could have killed somebody. Shame on you, Ed."
The words burst out with a force that sprayed Mutt with saliva. "All right, anything, anything, just get it off me!"
Mutt didn't like being sprayed with saliva and barked again. A new smell informed Kate that Eddie P. had lost control of his sphincter muscle.
"Now, Ed," Kate said, "let's not be hasty. I wouldn't want you to make any promises under duress, because as I'm sure you as a legal practitioner are aware, promises made under duress are not binding. Are you sincere about this? Can I trust you to keep your word?"
"Yes," he sobbed.
She patted his shoulder. "Good. Very good, Ed. That was the right answer. I'm proud of you. Mutt. Off."
As if she'd thrown a switch the growl ceased and Mutt backed off, yellow eyes fixed on Dischner. He didn't move.
"Sit," Kate said.
Mutt sat, eyes watchful, not straying from the target. Dischner couldn't see her from his prone position. "Can I sit up?" he said humbly.
Eddie P's present submissive demeanor only confirmed two of Kate's long-held and, if the truth be known, frequently-tested beliefs: One, that one-inch fangs were a great leveler, and two, that people who had to lease out their fighting were always lacking in personal backbone. It was time for more carrot. "Certainly you can sit up, Ed," Kate said cordially, and even gave him a hand. "That's far enough, though," she cautioned, motioning him to remain on the floor. " We aren't quite finished." One shaky hand raised to smooth his hair back, and Kate was almost amused that his first thought was of his appearance. Mutt, no less intimidating on defense than she was on offense, shifted her gaze from his face to his hand. Dischner's face lost what little color it had regained, and the hand froze before returning very slowly and very carefully to his lap. His voice was dull and defeated. "What do you want?"
"Well now, Ed. We've settled the personal business. Haven't we?" Kate waited until he gave a mumbled answer that might have been yes. "Good," she said, giving his shoulder an approving pat. "I was sure we had. What I'd like to discuss now is this little professional problem we have."
He looked bewildered. "Professional problem?"
"Yes, I think we could call it a professional problem." Kate pursed her lips. "Ed, I couldn't help but feel that there was something going on between you and Lew and Harvey Meganack and Enakenty Barnes and maybe even Billy Mike." She paused. "Something to do with Iqaluk, perhaps?" He started and dropped his eyes. She signaled to Mutt, who gave a sharp, warning bark. Dischner started again. Kate reached across his chest to give Mutt's head a soothing pat. "That's okay, girl, calm down, Ed's no danger to us."
But he was starting to regain some spirit and his eyes narrowed at the slur. Kate let her hand rest on Mutt's head, so that Dischner had Kate on his right, Mutt on his left and Kate's arm barring his way. "Ed,"
Kate said, dropping her voice to a low, confidential tone, "you know Mutt is only half Husky." Dischner looked at her. "Sometimes--" she sighed regretfully, "sometimes, the wolf half just takes over. Wolves, now--" She shook her head. "An appetite with attitude, that's what I call them. Did I mention she hasn't had breakfast yet today? Remiss of me." She smiled. "But then, Mutt always works better on an empty stomach. Don't you, girl?" She patted Mutt again. Dischner swallowed hard.
"Now about Iqaluk, Ed. I spent some time at the library yesterday afternoon. You knew that, of course. However, you might not know what I was doing there."
She waited, and he croaked, "What?"
"I was looking at maps, Ed. Maps of Iqaluk, and the Ragged Mountains.
The area east of the Kanuyaq River delta." She snapped her fingers. "Oh, and Katalla, of course."
Again, the tiny jerk of reaction gave him away, and she smiled. "Yes, 1 thought you might be interested. It took me a while to put it together, but once I saw those claim forms in your files I knew I had the key to the whole problem." Her smile thinned at his reaction. "Yes, that was me in your office night before last. But you knew that, too, didn't you."
It wasn't a question, and, wisely, he didn't answer it. "I know what's going on here, Ed. I will no
t permit it to continue. You are free to muck around in state and local politics as much as you like," she said, feeling extremely generous, "in fact, there are some who would say that you and the legislature deserve each other. I myself have always thought a small nuclear device detonated beneath the Capitol when all the real Juneauites are in Douglas on a sleepover would solve the legislative problem just fine, but I've never been able to get my hands on enough plutonium to do the job properly."
His eyes shot again to her face, clearly too near believing her, and she almost laughed. "But I digress. Ed." She put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched beneath it. "You keep away from Iqaluk. You keep away from Niniltna. Whatever connection you have with Harvey Meganack and Billy Mike, sever it. Today. If you floated the loan to remodel Harvey's house, sell the paper to NBA. If you've promised Billy you'll finance his run for state representative, renege. Any construction bids UCo has under consideration with the Association, contact the board formally and withdraw them. Any projects currently under construction, I will give you until close of business on December 31st, this year, to either complete or subcontract. UCo is fired, Ed. Consider this your sixty-day notice."
She was gutting a large piece of his financial substructure, and he mustered up enough nerve to produce a travesty of a sneer and say, "And if I don't?"
Her smile was without humor, no more than a stretching of her mouth into a thin line. From his left, Mutt duplicated the expression, with more teeth showing. Kate patted his shoulder again. "I don't think we have to worry about that. Do we?"
In all his sixty years, Edgar P. Dischner had never before felt physical fear. The kind of board-and courtroom piracy in which he usually engaged involved a three-piece suit, an easy chair, a telephone and a stockpile of political ious. Over the last forty years he'd been threatened with felonious prosecution, political evisceration and social ostracism, depending on how far the state government was into the current administration, but none of those things involved physical harm. He might have been able to face down the threat of a beating, but the sight of that cold, yellow gaze and all those teeth had convinced him the way even the muzzle of a gun would not have. To his shame and fury he found his head shaking violently back and forth. "No," he heard himself saying, "no, no, no, no worry, no."
Kate gave his shoulder another approving pat before rising to her feet.
"We'll be going now, Ed. You really do have a beautiful home here. I'm almost envious of your view. Magnificent. It's enough to make me consider relocating to town. But you know what they say." She smiled.
"Once a Park rat, always a Park rat." She paused in the doorway. "Oh, just one other thing, Ed." He looked up dumbly. "Arctic Investors. From what I could tell from your files, a profitable concern that bought up a lot of repossessed condominiums during the Anchorage real estate crash in the mid-eighties."
"What of it?" he muttered, eyes on Mutt.
"Is John King a partner in it?"
His silence was her answer.
They were getting in the car when they heard him shout, only it was more like a wail. "Bitch! Fucking, fucking bitch!"
"Who does he think he is," Kate told Mutt, "calling you names like that.
Want to go back and teach him a lesson?" Mutt yawned hugely and gave herself a brisk shake. "You're right," Kate said, "he's too skinny. Not really worth the effort." She jammed the Ford into gear and headed back down the mountain.
At Huffman Business Park she found a pay phone and dialed a number from memory. He was home. Like Dischner, he must keep banker's hours. "Hello.
It's Kate Shugak. I want to talk."
She listened. "You owe me." She listened some more. "You owe me," she repeated. She listened again. "You owe me," she said for the third time.
This time she winced and held the receiver away from her ear. When the volume slackened she brought it back, in time to catch the street address bellowed at her.
For the second time that morning she drove up into the mountains, this time by way of O'Malley Road. When they got to where the trees thinned out and the floor space of the homes quadrupled in square feet she started looking for street numbers. She found the right one on a gray-sided, geometric monstrosity that looked so New Age it might translate into the Fourth Dimension at any moment.
Like Dischner's the view was superb, and from this angle included Mounts Redoubt and Iliamna. The hint of cloud in the southeast had become a definite, precipitative presence. Kate could feel the rise in temperature and humidity on the skin of her face. The air, so calm and still all week, was stirring itself to wakefulness, promising more to come.
Mutt peed in front of the right front tire of John King's brand-new Humvee and wandered around the side of the house, following her nose.
Kate walked a flagged path to the front porch. The door was made of oak.
The knocker was the head of a longhorn steer made of brass. It was heavy to lift and came down hard, and before the tremor it left in the earth died away the door was yanked open and John King stood before her, dressed as usual in a scowl and mustard-yellow cowboy boots. He growled something and yanked the door wide.
Kate took the growl as an invitation to enter and walked past him into a sunken living room furnished in brown leather and sheepskin. Varnished wooden stairs led upstairs and down. A counter with blue tile inlaid on the surface separated the living room from a kitchen with more appliances than Sears. The floor was wood polished to so high a gloss that the morning sun reflecting off it was almost blinding. More sheepskin beneath the coffee table did not alleviate the glare. The walls were festooned with the heads of a brown bear, a Dall sheep, a mountain goat, a wolverine pelt, a black bear hide and something rectangular and scaly it took Kate a moment to recognize as a rattlesnake skin. It still had its rattle. She gave it a flick of a finger, and the resulting sound made John King jump and say explosively,
"Jesus!" Beneath Kate's speculative gaze, he changed color and looked away.
Through the windows the inside view was everything the outside view had promised, with the added attraction of a fireplace big enough to roast a stalled ox. Kate had always wondered what a stalled ox was. She should have looked it up while she was at Loussac; Dan and Bruce would have known right where to find it.
The couch, an overstuffed affair quite twenty feet in length, was graced by the indolent form of the trophy brunette Kate remembered from Mama Nicco's and the Raven party. Today she was dressed in a black body suit that looked as if it had been sprayed on. Kate wondered how she got her breasts up in that position and how she kept them there. The miracles of modern medicine, probably. The longhaired Persian in her lap stretched and yawned.
King jerked his head. "Get lost. And take that goddam cat with you."
Her smooth face as usual blank of all expression, the brunette rose to her feet without haste. The Persian leapt down lightly, jerked her tail at King and together they disappeared downstairs, both pairs of haunches moving in similar sinuous precision. King took the brunette's place and jerked his head at the opposite chair. Ignoring his gracious invitation, Kate walked over to the window and contemplated the view. "Nice view," she said to the window. "Nicer than Ed Dischner's." She turned and looked at King. "You can't see Redoubt and Iliamna from his place." He went from stiff to frozen. She smiled faintly. "He didn't call? Don't worry, he will." Her smiled faded. "Believe everything he tells you, King. Everything. And then some."
She sat down across from him and linked her hands behind her head, body relaxed, eyes watchful. "When do you make the announcement about the new discovery at Katalla?" His head snapped up. A multitude of expressions crossed his face, shock, alarm, anger. Their gazes held for a long beat.
His head dropped and he confirmed everything she suspected with one heartfelt word. "Shit."
She waited, patient. He raised his head. "How did you find out?"
She shrugged. "It wasn't all that difficult." Felonious, she thought, but not difficult. "Once I knew Dischner and a bunch of
his long-time pals were fixing to file for subsurface rights on that area if and when it became public property, all I had to do was look at the company he was keeping."
Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 06 - Blood Will Tell Page 24
