Tumbler, page 12
“Long time gone,” said Du Pré.
“So what do you think of all this?” he said. “I worry about Julie. That was a very bad business, when she got maced and that other fellow was clubbed.”
Du Pré nodded.
“And no one knows who did it?” said Burrows.
Du Pré shook his head.
The door opened and Bassman came in, walking a bit slowly. His head was shaved and he had a bandage on the back of it. Kim followed, carrying his bass case.
“I help them,” said Du Pré.
“Me, too,” said Burrows. They went out to the van and got the amplifier and speakers and suitcase of odds and ends. The stench of marijuana was thick.
“Jesus,” said Burrows, “I may fall over.”
They pushed the stuff through the doors and over to the stage. Bassman and Kim were waiting.
“Give you new brain?” said Du Pré.
“Non,” said Bassman, “put new plugs and points, the old one. Man, I had some fuckin’ headache.”
Kim looked away.
“You hit him?” said Du Pré.
“I am beginning to wish I had,” said Kim. “He seems to think I want him to get a job. He has a job. Making music.”
“She don’t mean it,” said Bassman. “She is just waiting, say, Bassman, you go now get a nice job.”
Du Pré set up Bassman’s equipment. He got a chair and he put it where Bassman usually stood.
“I am sorry,” said Bassman. “I stand too long I get dizzy.”
“You play that good bass,” said Du Pré. “Don’t care you lie down. You lie down some anyway.”
“Not beginning the evening,” said Bassman.
Kim threw up her hands and she went to the bar and began to talk to Madelaine.
“One thing,” said Bassman, “my strap, it is on the dingus next, the steering wheel.”
Du Pré nodded and he went out to the van and he reached in and grabbed the strap. When he got back out Markham Milbank was standing there.
Milbank looked around and he nodded to a shadow by the outbuildings. He walked there swiftly, Du Pré after him.
“There’s something about this that doesn’t make sense,” said Milbank. “I can’t see it. Tor and that other guy are in there telling war stories. There is someone playing a double game and I can’t figure out who. It isn’t me. I am appalled that your friend got hurt.”
Du Pré looked at him.
“Games,” he said. “There is a lot of money, people start playing for blood.”
“God,” said Milbank, “what can I do? I don’t even know who to trust. Could it be our own security people, for God’s sake? I pay mine well. I can’t find a crack. I can’t see anything and I’m good at seeing things …”
“You want them journals,” said Du Pré. “You are leaving money. Lots of money. You send me that violin. Books. Leave big cash. Some people, they maybe want that money.”
“Tor hasn’t got a goddamned reason to steal ten grand,” said Milbank, “or fifty. It wouldn’t be worth it, for God’s sake.”
Du Pré shrugged.
“I screwed up,” said Milbank. “I want to make it right. What do I do?”
Du Pré didn’t say anything.
“Something,” said Milbank.
Du Pré rolled a smoke.
“Those guys with you,” he said, “who are they?”
“Pat and Jerry?” said Milbank. “They have millions. They have stock.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Somebody,” said Du Pré, “is very dangerous. They kill this reporter. That is not a game. He is dead. Twenty-two in the head.”
“God,” said Milbank.
“Them journals,” said Du Pré. “Ten million dollars. Lot of money, ten million dollars.”
“I’d pay more,” said Milbank, “they are priceless. I wanted to donate them to the National Archives. That is our epic. That journey.”
“How much you pay?” said Du Pré.
“What do you mean?” said Milbank.
“You are asked for fifty million,” said Du Pré, “you pay that?”
Milbank nodded.
“They are priceless,” he said.
“So,” said Du Pré, “you pay anything asked.”
Milbank shrugged.
“Go home,” said Du Pré. “Get these people of yours out of here and go home. You are not helping.”
Milbank looked at Du Pré.
“All right,” he said.
“Go now,” said Du Pré.
Milbank shook his head.
“I want to hear you play,” he said. “I have a couple of your tapes.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Then you go,” he said.
“Tor could stay,” said Milbank. “He’s damned good.”
Du Pré shook his head.
“All right,” said Milbank, “we’ll leave right after you’re done.”
Du Pré finished his cigarette and he dropped it on the ground and he stepped on it.
They went back inside.
Thommassen and Beck were still talking and laughing. Pat and Jerry, the vice presidents, were drinking colas.
Du Pré went back to his stool.
He sipped on his ditch, and then he took it to the stage and he got on and Père Godin came in, carrying his accordion case.
They turned up and began to play. Bassman was just a little slower but not enough to matter.
Du Pré fiddled and sang, and the crowd finally got up and began to dance on the tiny floor. Julie and Conor held each other close, barely moving.
… black forest, black water, long time gone … long time gone …
Du Pré kept the tunes and tempos a little slower than usual. Bassman seemed fine but he was probably tired.
They finished and the lights in the saloon were turned up. It was a few minutes past closing time.
Du Pré helped Bassman pack his stuff in his van.
The huge motor home owned by Milbank pulled away, and Thommassen’s SUV after it.
“He might have helped,” said Beck, watching.
“Non,” said Du Pré.
CHAPTER 27
MADELAINE PUT KIM AND Bassman in the spare room for the night and she went to the kitchen to make something to eat. Soon there was a baking smell.
Du Pré came in and he looked at the sheet of cookies. Madelaine took a spatula and she picked them up and set them on waxed paper to cool.
Kim came in.
“He’s asleep,” she said. “He gets tired easily. They said it might be like that for months.”
Du Pré made himself a cup of coffee. He drank it down quickly and he got his jacket and hat.
“It is three o’clock in the morning,” said Madelaine.
“I got something to look at,” said Du Pré.
He went out and got in his cruiser and he drove off toward the bench road and Benetsee’s. He turned in the rutted drive and he bounced up to the old cabin.
Allison Ames’s little white SUV was there. Du Pré could see a flashlight inside. He got out and he shut the door carefully and he went to the porch and he sat and waited.
She opened the door and came out. Her light beam fell on Du Pré and she screamed.
Du Pré just sat.
“Jesus!” said Ames. “God. Look, I know I’m not supposed to be here.”
“I arrest you,” said Du Pré, standing up. “That breaking and entering.”
“It was unlocked,” said Ames. She eyed the distance to her SUV.
Du Pré pulled handcuffs from his pocket.
“Jesus,” said Ames, “Benson was a friend of mine. He was a good guy and now he’s dead.”
“You do this much,” said Du Pré, nodding at Benetsee’s cabin, “you will be dead, too. You think they won’t kill you?”
“Why?” said Ames. She sat down on the porch steps.
Du Pré rolled a smoke.
“Money,” he said.
“I want those journals,” said Ames. “I want that story.”
“You are pret’ stupid,” said Du Pré. “Come out here, poke around, you are alone. That Benson guy, he does that, too, he gets shot, one shot, twenty-two.”
Allison Ames put her hands to her face.
Du Pré snapped one handcuff on her left wrist and he pulled her up and spun her round and grabbed her right wrist and pulled it back and snapped the other handcuff on her right wrist.
“You son of a bitch!” Ames screamed. “God damn you!” Then she began to cry.
Du Pré put her in the back of his old cruiser and he drove to Cooper and he went to the jail. He put Ames in a cell and she yelled and Du Pré shrugged and he walked out and left a note on the desk. There was no one there and there wouldn’t be for several hours.
He drove back to Toussaint and then out to Bart’s. There was a light on in the house.
Bart was sitting up, with Booger Tom. They were playing cards. Cribbage. Du Pré looked at the clock on the wall. Five-thirty. It was getting light out.
“Julie was supposed to be back in an hour,” said Bart. He looked mournfully at the clock.
Du Pré laughed.
“I lent them my rig,” said Bart.
Du Pré yawned. He went to the room that he rented from Bart and he sat on the bed and he began to pull off his boot.
Bart appeared in the doorway.
“You think they ran off again?” he said.
Du Pré put his foot on the floor.
He shrugged.
“For God’s sake,” said Bart, “some bad things have happened here. I can worry, can’t I?”
Du Pré sighed.
“Come on,” he said. They went out and got in Du Pré’s cruiser and they drove off toward Toussaint.
Bart’s big dark-green Lincoln SUV was parked behind one of the trailers Susan Klein used for motel rooms.
“They aren’t old enough to—” said Bart.
“Go ahead,” said Du Pré, “be an uncle. Go pound, the door.”
Bart sat there.
The door opened and Julie and Conor came out, disheveled, and they looked at Bart and Du Pré sitting in the cruiser.
Julie put her hands to the heavens. She walked over, and Bart rolled down the window.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Bart,” she said. “I would have called, but there aren’t any telephones in the rooms.”
“I’m going to send you home,” said Bart.
“Uncle Bart …,” said Julie.
Bart got out and he stalked over to his SUV and he threw open the door and he got in.
Julie ran after him. She spoke to him through the open door and then she got in. They sat, talking.
Conor stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at the ground.
Du Pré looked at Eamon Burrows’s Volvo parked down the way in front of another trailer.
Julie got back out of Bart’s car, and she slammed the door. Julie and Conor talked for a few minutes and Conor shook his head, still looking at the ground. He went to his father’s room and he tapped on the door and Eamon Burrows opened it, wearing just his pants.
“Christ,” said Du Pré.
He got out and he went to Bart’s SUV and he got in and Bart looked at him, his face red.
“Quit,” said Du Pré. “They are good kids you quit now.”
“Christ,” said Bart, “I had Beck watching them and I know that he is. I just worry, for God’s sakes. That Drew character ended up dead, and Markham Milbank isn’t anyone I’d trust. Those goddamned journals. I wish to Christ you’d never found the fucking things.”
“Beck?” said Du Pré.
“Yeah,” said Bart, “he was supposed to take care of this, and then I couldn’t reach him. I thought maybe he was away from his car or something, but he didn’t answer at all.”
“Christ,” said Du Pré, “why you don’t tell me this?”
“I …,” said Bart.
Du Pré jumped out of the SUV. He went to his cruiser and he picked up the radio microphone.
He jumped back out.
“What?” said Bart.
“Get somebody up there,” said Du Pré, “find Beck’s car.”
“He’s around here someplace,” said Bart.
Du Pré looked at him.
Bart walked off and he picked up his telephone and he made a call.
“Carl will be here in a little bit,” said Bart. “Beck isn’t here?”
Du Pré walked round the Toussaint Saloon and he went across the road to the little airfield and he waited. A small silver plane appeared on the western horizon and it soon began to descend and it landed and taxied up to the limp windsock.
Du Pré climbed in and Carl looked at him.
“The roads the front range,” said Du Pré.
Carl pulled around and he got up speed and the little plane lifted off. He flew toward the Wolf mountains.
“What color is it?” said Carl.
“Red,” said Du Pré. “Big damn Suburban.”
They flew one leg and Carl came back a half mile north of the first.
They went across the whole front of the Wolf Mountains.
Du Pré saw a flash of red on a logging road.
“There,” he yelled.
Carl followed Du Pré’s finger.
The big Suburban was parked back in the trees, and hard to see from any direction. There was enough light now.
Carl flew back to the little Toussaint field and he landed and Du Pré jumped out and he ran to his cruiser and he got in and he drove with Bart behind him and Benny far back, light bar flashing.
Du Pré came to the road that led up to the Wolfs through the forest. There was a gate. He opened it and went on through.
The Suburban was set against the trees.
Du Pré felt the hood.
Cold.
He looked at the ground.
Bart drove up and Benny came wallowing along behind him, in the police cruiser, with the siren blowing.
Du Pré circled the Suburban.
“Jesus,” said Bart.
Du Pré nodded.
Benny came running up.
He looked in the big truck.
“He’s just gone?” said Benny.
Du Pré nodded.
He bent down and picked up a little brass shell. He tossed it away.
“What was that?” said Benny.
“Too old,” said Du Pré.
“What the hell is going on?” said Benny.
“I’ll call Foote,” said Bart.
CHAPTER 28
DU PRÉ PUT THE telephone back on its cradle and he sighed.
He went to the bar and he sat.
“Somebody tell me what is goin’ on?” said Benny Klein. He looked rumpled and sleepy. “If there’s been another killin’ or a kidnappin’ as sheriff I think maybe I oughta know.”
“What is going on, Uncle Bart?” said Julie.
“Look,” said Eamon Burrows, “let me take Julie. She will be safe in Portland.”
“I am not,” said Julie, “going to Portland. No way. Forget it.”
Du Pré sighed and he drank his coffee. It had brandy in it.
“We don’t know,” said Du Pré. “Beck is gone. It maybe means something and maybe it does not.”
“What do you think it means?” said Bart.
“You want that,” said Du Pré, “you call some psychic. They got 900 numbers, the telephone, I don’t know.”
“Foote is sending more people,” said Bart. “This is my fault. I should have let him do that sooner.”
Julie went to Bart and she put her arms around him.
“Not everything,” she said, “is your fault.”
Bart nodded but he didn’t look like he believed her. He looked at Du Pré.
“That little prick,” said Bart, “went only as far as Billings?”
“Yah,” said Du Pré. “Foote said he was there, rented some offices, he is messing away, maybe sending hired people.”
“Who?” said Julie.
“Markham Milbank,” said Bart. “And Beck is gone. That little shit, I’ll—”
“Why he take Beck?” said Du Pré.
Bart shrugged.
“He’s a very wealthy man,” said Bart. “He made millions by his middle twenties, more millions after that. I doubt that much he has wanted in his life escaped him.”
“Them journals,” said Du Pré.
Bart nodded.
“No end of trouble,” he said. “I wish. …” But he didn’t say it again.
Conor Burrows nodded toward the corner and he and his father went there and they talked with their heads very close together and finally Eamon threw up his hands and nodded.
They came back.
“Conor is staying,” said Eamon. “He won’t go to Portland if Julie won’t and—”
“Who can blame him?” said Bart.
“Jesus,” said Madelaine. “Some good sense finally. Maybe you all live to get false teeth after all.”
They all laughed.
“You may have the guesthouse,” said Bart, “if you keep up the schoolwork.”
He looked at Du Pré.
“Foote’s sending several men from the security agency,” he said. “They’ll be in this evening, the first ones anyway. Beck is one of their own and they mean to get him back.”
Du Pré nodded.
Bart looked at Conor and Julie.
“You’ll have to bear being guarded,” he said. “There is something very dangerous here.”
The youngsters nodded.
Du Pré finished his drink and he put his hat on and he went out to his old cruiser and he got in and he drove to the red SUV that Beck had last been seen in. He opened all of the doors and he looked carefully under the seats and through the few papers in the glove box. Then he began to walk round the SUV, eyes on the ground, spiraling out and away.
Then he reversed direction and spiraled back. He shut the doors of the SUV.
Not a goddamned thing, Du Pré thought.
He walked out to the main road and back. There had been some traffic on it, several pickups in the last couple of hours.
Du Pré drove on to Cooper and he went to the jail and through the front door and past the dispatcher who hated him to the cells.
Allison Ames was weeping, sitting on the steel bunk. Du Pré took the key from the wall and he opened the cell.
“You don’t go to my friend’s again,” he said. “Maybe you just go on home now. There is nothing here for you.”
