Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 01 - Lost Angel

by Mike Doogan

  Little John tried to shake Kane’s hand off his head but failed.

  “You leave my brother out of this,” he said. “He didn’t have nothing to do with it.”

  Kane gave the man’s hair another jerk and was rewarded with another curse.

  “Oh, but he did,” Kane said, “In fact, it’s possible he was the last person in these parts to see Faith Wright. If anything’s happened to her, he could be in for some trouble. Big trouble.”

  “I said leave him out of this,” Little John said, trying to sound tough.

  “What do you care?” Kane asked.

  Little John seemed surprised by the question.

  “What do you mean, what do I care?” he said. “He’s my brother.”

  Kane let go of his hair and stepped back.

  “That’s just biology,” he said. “Otherwise, the boy hates you. In fact, he was telling me that he hoped I’d kill you.”

  Little John was almost on his feet when Kane grabbed his collar and pushed. He slumped back into the chair.

  “He didn’t say that,” he said.

  “Oh, but he did,” Kane said. “He also said you didn’t have the balls to stand up to your father.”

  Little John looked at his feet for a while.

  “Families,” he said at last. “What a fucking joke. Nothing but trouble. I’m so sick of this place, and my old man, and having my kid brother look down on me, and the shit I have to do. If I had any brains, I’d roll right out of here and never look back.”

  Kane leaned against the counter and waited. Minutes passed.

  “If I tell you,” Little John said finally, “you got to promise not to make any trouble for Johnny. Or me.”

  Kane shook his head.

  “I’m not the troopers,” he said. “They want to knock this crib over, or grab you up for something else, there’s nothing I can do about it. And if something bad’s happened to Faith, and you or your brother were involved, I’ll burn you. Otherwise, I could give a rip what you do.”

  Little John was silent for another long stretch.

  “Okay,” he said finally, “I’ll tell you what I know about the girl. Johnny brought her around, said she wanted to meet my dad. But he never deals directly with anybody if he can help it. So I talked to her. She told me she wanted to spend a few months as a sex worker here—that’s what she called it, sex worker—to make money for college. I asked her, what, was she wearing a wire? She just smiled and said no and that she’d prove it and took all of her clothes off, right here in front of me. Then she just stood there, naked, like it was nothing. I told her, all right, all right, put your clothes back on. I mean, anybody could have walked in.

  “I was tempted. She was a looker and, frankly, I could’ve used some new blood around here. The others were looking pretty wore out. Still are. So I told her I’d think about it. Then I went to talk to my old man, to tell him one of the Angel girls wanted to spend some time working on her back.”

  Little John shook his head again.

  “He did what he always does whenever I have an idea,” he said. “He said it was stupid. That if we started using Angel girls, we’d be shut down for sure. So I figured, what the fuck, and started to leave. When I got to the door—we were talking in the cabin. He don’t come around here much. Doesn’t like the risk, even though he takes most of the money, the old bastard—he asked me the girl’s name. And when I told him, he got this big grin on his face. ‘Faith Wright?’ he said. ‘Moses Wright’s granddaughter?’

  “ ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘the old man’s granddaughter. So what?’

  “ ‘Well, that makes all the difference,’ he said. ‘Put her to work. She’s fresh, so save her for the good clients. And work her in the video room. I wants lots and lots of tape of her at work.’ Then he laughed like he’d just heard the best joke in the world.

  “Now, I know Moses is always preaching against us over there in Rejoice, so I figure my old man wanted something to get even with. So I did what he said. I didn’t want to, but I did.

  “And everything went fine. The girl was mainly servicing the high rollers from up at the mine, so it’s not like she was getting knocked around or anything. She was making money and seemed satisfied with the arrangement. We were making money, good money, off her. And my old man got his dirty tapes to cackle over. And then, boom, she just disappeared. And that’s all I know.”

  Kane stood looking at Little John for a while.

  “So, you put a seventeen-year-old virgin to whoring, and everything was just hunky-dory?” he said. The look on his face must have been something, because Little John put his hands in front of him like he knew he was going to be hit.

  “Hey, look, it was a business arrangement,” he said from behind his hands. “It’s not like we went out and grabbed her, held her against her will. She came to us. She was of age. And she wasn’t no virgin.”

  Kane could feel himself grinning again. The grin felt so wide he thought his face might split. He wanted Little John to keep talking, needed him to keep talking, because he was sure that this was the way to find Faith. But he also wanted to shut him up, to grind his face into the floor, to punish him for what he’d done, to wash away with Little John’s blood the things he’d heard. He could feel the anger boiling up from his stomach to the base of his throat, threatening to make him throw up. He took a deep breath.

  “Wasn’t a virgin, eh?” he said. “And you’d know that how?”

  Little John dropped his hands. Kane watched the bad news pass across his face in waves. First that he’d said too much. Then that he’d have to say more. Then that what he said might very well get him hurt or worse.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Little John said. “I gave her a try-out. Who wouldn’t? I had to know that she knew what she was doing.”

  Kane just looked at him.

  “Okay, okay, and she was prime, too,” he said. “She didn’t know a lot about the stuff the girls do, the faking and everything, but she knew where the noses went. She wasn’t no virgin.”

  Kane took in air through his nose and pushed it out through his lips. Once. Twice. Three times.

  “She tell you where she got her experience?” he asked.

  “Crap, no,” Little John said. “I didn’t need to know nothing like that. I felt bad enough about turning her out as it was. If it hadn’ta been for that fucking old man of mine, I never would have done it.”

  The whining note in the man’s voice pushed Kane over the edge. He went for Little John, lifting him out of the chair like he was made of feathers and bulldozing him up against the wall. Kane’s breath was coming in hot gasps, and red was gathering at the corners of his vision. Everything that was wrong in his life was in that anger. His right hand was around Little John’s throat and he was squeezing, squeezing.

  “Hey,” a woman’s voice said, “hey, what’s going on?”

  Kane looked over his shoulder. Tracy, the waitress from the café, was standing in the doorway with some bills in her hand. She took a step back when she saw his face.

  “I just needed some change,” she said. “I’ll come back later.”

  She turned, jumped through the doorway, and pulled the door shut behind her.

  Kane laughed. He let go of Little John’s throat and laughed some more.

  “She just saved your miserable life,” he said.

  He lowered Little John to the floor, spun him around, pulled a pair of Slade’s cuffs off his belt and handcuffed the man’s hands behind him.

  “What’s going on?” Little John said.

  “I’m taking you somewhere you can’t make any phone calls, like to warn your father,” Kane said.

  “You can’t do this,” Little John said. “You ain’t no cop.”

  Kane pushed Little John across the room to the outside door, his captive trying to dig his heels into the ratty carpet. Then he spun him around.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I’m no cop. So I’m going to leave it up to you. There’s two ways this can
go. You can come along and spend a few hours in a nice, warm cell over at the trooper office. Or I can beat you so badly you don’t wake up for a while. Your call.”

  Without a word, Little John turned around and let Kane take him out the door and into the pickup. As they pulled away from the roadhouse, Kane said, “Tell me something. You really think all this shit you do is somebody else’s fault? I mean, you’re what, thirty? Thirty-five? Isn’t that a little old to be blaming everything on your father?”

  “Wait’ll you meet my father,” Little John said.

  23

  So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone,

  and smote the Philistine, and slew him.

  1 SAMUEL 17:50

  KANE TOOK THE HANDCUFFS OFF LITTLE JOHN AND locked him in the cell.

  “But you promised to leave me alone if I told you about the girl,” Little John said as Kane closed the cell door.

  “Looks like I lied,” Kane said, taking a seat in front of Slade’s computer. Ignoring a steady stream of questions, complaints, and demands, he pecked away at the keyboard. When he’d finished, he printed out his page and went upstairs to make coffee. He was back at Slade’s desk working on his second cup when the trooper came in.

  “Burglary my ass,” he said to Kane. “There wasn’t anything worth stealing in that dump. Guy probably trashed the place when he was drunk and forgot he’d done it.”

  He took off his coat and hung it on a hook.

  “What’s this?” he asked, motioning with his head to Little John.

  “That’s a citizen’s arrest,” Kane said. “Turns out he is running a house of prostitution.”

  “No,” Slade said. “Who knew? Are you breaking the law, Little John?”

  “Fuck you guys,” Little John said. “What are you, comedians?”

  Kane handed Slade the piece of paper he’d typed.

  “We just want to keep this guy away from telephones while we go see his old man,” he said. “This affidavit should be enough to hold him.”

  Slade read the page and shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Look,” Kane said, “the old man is the toughest of this crew and he knows the most. We don’t want him running, and we don’t want him warned, not with all the guns he’s supposed to have. What do we care if some judge says this wasn’t legal in six months?”

  Slade looked at Kane, then at Little John.

  “He does look good in there,” the trooper said. “You ask him anything about the mine payroll robbery?”

  “Nope,” Kane said. “Figured I’d leave that to the authorities.”

  Slade pondered for a moment.

  “If he was involved in the robbery, it’s a felony murder rap, two counts now,” he said, “so we can’t question him while he’s locked up on this.” He shook the paper. “It might be enough to keep him inside for twenty-four, but anything he says about the robbery won’t stand up in court.” He paused. “Christ, I hate all these rules and lawyers and shit.”

  “Welcome to the wonderful world of police work,” Kane said. “Do you know where the old man’s cabin is?”

  “Yeah, it’s out a dirt road north of town,” the trooper said. “Harding Drive, the old bastard calls it.”

  “Fine, let’s go see him now,” Kane said. “If anybody was involved in the robbery, it was the old man. This one doesn’t have the sand to do anything by himself. We’ll brace his father and see what happens.” He thought for a moment. “We’ll take my rig. You’ll hide in the back. I’ll try to talk my way in. If I do, you can sneak out and cover my play. If I don’t, no harm done. We’ll come back, turn this one loose, and start grilling him. Unless . . .”

  He got up and walked over to the cell.

  “Listen up,” he said. “We’re going to see your old man now. We’re going to find out what he knows about Faith, and about that payroll robbery at the mine. If you’ve got anything you want to tell us about those things before he gets to talk, now’s the time.”

  Little John laughed.

  “You’re wasting your time,” he said. “You won’t get anything out of my father.”

  “Okay,” Kane said. “That’s not your best move, but if that’s the way you want to play it.”

  Slade rode most of the way sitting next to Kane in the pickup’s cab.

  “He tell you anything about videotapes?” the trooper asked.

  “Yeah,” Kane said. “He said his old man has them. Claimed he doesn’t know where they’re kept.”

  Following Slade’s directions, Kane turned off the highway onto a narrow road that led through the trees. The road had been plowed, and polished in spots to glare ice. Kane drove slowly. After they passed two or three side roads, the trooper told him to stop.

  “Time for me to get in the back,” he said. “The road you want is the next left. It takes off just where this one starts to climb to the right.”

  He got out of the truck and, carrying his shotgun, got into the back.

  The road to Big John’s cabin was even narrower and hadn’t been plowed. Kane followed old tire tracks along it.

  The cabin was a big log A-frame. The front door faced uphill, toward a large clearing filled with snow. A new four-wheel-drive pickup was parked under some spruce trees off to one side. On the other was a tall woodpile. Smoke curled from the cabin’s chimney. It was full daylight, or as full as daylight got, and Kane could see that the A-frame’s windows were covered with wooden shutters.

  “Doesn’t look all that welcoming,” he said to himself as he pulled up. He parked the pickup so that Slade could slip out the back without being seen from the door, got out, climbed the steps, walked into the Arctic entryway, and knocked.

  No answer.

  He pounded this time, his gloved fist making the door rock as he struck it.

  “Knock that off,” a voice called from inside. “Get off my porch and get off my property, or you’ll wish you had.”

  “John Wesley Harding,” Kane called. “I’m here to talk to you about Faith Wright.”

  “Go away,” the voice called.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Kane called back. “I’m staying until you talk to me.”

  No answer. Kane pounded on the door some more, keeping up a steady battering until the door slid open and a gun barrel poked out.

  “You got more guts than brains,” a voice said. “Who are you?”

  Kane put his hands out to the sides to show that they were empty. Behind the gun barrel he could make out what might have been white hair and a white beard surrounding a lined face.

  “My name’s Nik Kane,” he said. “Faith Wright’s father hired me to find her.”

  “What makes you think I know anything about this Faith whatever-her-name-is?” the voice asked.

  “I’ve talked to your sons,” Kane said. “I know she was turning tricks at the roadhouse for you. I don’t care about your whorehouse, but I need the answers to some questions about Faith.”

  The voice was quiet for a moment, then said, “You’re a complication. I don’t need no complications right now. I could shoot you, but the ground’s too froze for burying.” The voice laughed. “Come on in.”

  The gun barrel disappeared and the door swung open with a creak.

  “Just keep your hands where I can see ’em, and walk on in here,” the voice said.

  Kane did as the voice instructed. The interior of the cabin was dark and he couldn’t make out much.

  “Push that door shut and lock it,” the voice said from the shadows.

  Kane turned and pushed the door shut, then fiddled with the lock. A hand shoved him out of the way.

  “Just get over there,” the voice said. Kane moved away, then turned. He heard the lock click into place and saw the old man straighten. The gun in his hand was an Army-issue .45. From where Kane was standing it looked like you could drive a Mini Cooper down the barrel.

  “Rightee-ho,” the old man said. “Now, take
your coat off, careful like, and let it fall to the floor.”

  Kane did, then followed the gun barrel’s instruction to turn slowly in a circle. That seemed to satisfy the old man.

  “Well, you ain’t got a gun, at least not one easy to get at,” he said. “Walk over there to that chair and sit.”

  Kane’s chair seemed to have been made from willow poles, the cushions made of caribou hide and stuffed with God knew what. He sank into them like he wouldn’t stop until he hit China.

  The old man snapped on a lamp, and Kane got his first good look at the place. It was all done up in rustic, the walls covered in wood paneling, a big wood stove blazing in the fireplace. There was even an honest-to-God grizzly rug in front of the fireplace.

  Big John seemed to go with the room. He was of average height and build, with broad shoulders and a big head framed in a lot of white hair that didn’t look to have been washed recently. His face was deeply lined and his mouth turned down at the corners in a permanent frown. He was wearing Carhartt pants held up by suspenders and a flannel shirt rolled at the sleeves to expose long underwear. He had some sort of moccasins on his feet.

  If Kane hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the man was some harmless, worn-out old prospector. But the glint in his eye and the .45 trained on Kane said different.

  The old man took a similar chair across from him.

  “Rightee-ho,” he said, “ask your questions.”

  “Do you know where Faith Wright is?” Kane said.

  “No, I don’t. I truly don’t. But you know, these hookers aren’t too stable.”

  “Uh huh. Why did you change your mind and put her to work?”

  Big John smiled.

  “Oh, that. I like to help enterprising young women.”

  “So it didn’t have anything to do with the fact she’s Moses Wright’s granddaughter?”

  The old man’s smile grew.

  “I didn’t say that. Sure, I like the fact the old fraud’s granddaughter was doing the dirty for money. After all the wrong he’s done me all these years.”