Tumbler, page 16
“He knows,” said Bart.
“So … ,” said Milbank.
Ninety minutes, thought Du Pré.
He went outside to his cruiser and he put his hands on the top and he looked up at the Wolf Mountains. They were cut by clouds, and the white peaks floated in the sky.
Du Pré looked to his right.
Allison Ames’s little white SUV sat there.
She was in it, looking down at something in her lap.
Du Pré walked over the gravel to the little white four-wheel car.
She still didn’t notice him.
He jerked the door open.
“Jesus!” she screamed, looking up from the laptop computer.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“My fucking job,” she said.
“The Lewis and Clark stuff?” said Du Pré. “You want it?”
“That’s why I came,” she said.
“It is in the bar there, the cooler, a banana box,” said Du Pré. “Here, I get it for you.”
He went in and got the box with the lettuce on top of the journal and the artifacts. He carried it back out to Allison Ames’s white SUV. He set it on the hood.
Allison Ames got out of the car and she went very slowly to the box. She lifted the flaps and she peered in. She picked up the oilcloth-wrapped journal, the sextant and the bullet mold, and she touched the lead canister of gunpowder.
“It is theirs, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yah,” said Du Pré, “it is theirs.”
“I thought the old man had it,” she said. “Benett, Benee.”
“Benetsee,” said Du Pré, “him give them to me.”
“They were here all along,” said Allison Ames.
“Yah,” said Du Pré.
“It was true,” she said.
Du Pré nodded.
“What if I just take them?” she said.
Du Pré shrugged.
Allison Ames put the box in the back of her SUV and she got in.
“Why are you giving them to me?” she said.
“I am not,” said Du Pré. “You are taking them.”
“You could stop me,” she said.
“Don’t have to,” said Du Pré. “You think about what you will do with them?”
“Get them into a vault,” she said.
“You drive off with them,” said Du Pré, “you don’t make it very far.”
Ames looked at him.
“The old man,” she said, “he does magic. I don’t think so.”
Du Pré laughed.
She got back out of the SUV.
“What is the catch?” she said. “What is it? I can take them to Billings and hand them over to the government.”
Du Pré nodded.
Her computer began to beep.
Ames ignored it.
She sighed and she got the box and she gave it back to Du Pré.
“What do you want?” she said.
“Who is on your computer?” said Du Pré.
“An archivist,” said Allison Ames. “I write my stuff down and send it off so there is a record. It gets done instantly.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Do this for a long time?” he said.
“No,” she said, “I got a good deal. New company. Really cheap compared to the others. Really cheap.”
“This company,” said Du Pré, “it is in Texas maybe?”
“Yeah,” said Ames, “how did you know?”
CHAPTER 35
DU PRÉ LEFT AMES with Markham Milbank.
He put the banana crate back in the cooler.
Bart was sitting at the bar drinking club soda and lime.
“Do you know what is going on?” he said.
Du Pré shook his head.
“Du Pré,” said Madelaine, putting a ditch down in front of him, “how you like this? Computers? I get you one, your birthday.”
“I shoot myself now,” said Du Pre, “save me the trouble, you the money.”
“Computers are fine things,” said Bart. “Unfortunately people haven’t changed much. My grandfather tied business competitors to old jukeboxes or concrete blocks and sent them to the bottom of Lake Michigan. My father had his shot. I just mug them financially. I don’t even do it. I pay people to do that.”
“Your grandfather, father,” said Madelaine, “probably they pay people do the jukeboxes, fire the guns.”
“Indeed,” said Bart, “they did.”
“So,” said Madelaine, “what now?”
“That little prick,” said Bart, “is going to send the money. I am going to see he does that, and I am gonna see my niece again.”
The telephone rang. Madelaine picked up the receiver.
“Bart,” she said, “it is Julie’s mother.”
Bart winced and he went to the telephone.
“Don’t tell her anything,” said Madelaine, hand over the mouthpiece.
Bart took the phone and he went back in the hallway.
“So,” said Madelaine, “this Allison Ames, she is not part of this?”
“She don’t know she is,” said Du Pre. “Does now. They are better than I thought.”
“What you think, Du Pré?” she said.
Du Pré shrugged.
“Send the money,” he said, “then they will move I think. They are not far away. Billings probably. That Thommassen he is smart. Too smart to try to hide in the country. Lots of old buildings in Billings. Lots of places, people go in and out of. Nobody thinks about it.”
Benny Klein rushed in, face flushed, waving a sheet of paper.
“Du Pré,” he said, “lookit this.”
He handed it to Du Pré.
Du Pré read it.
“Guy was in the jail there,” said Benny, “said a couple other guys talked about beating up a Indian and a girl in the parking lot of a roadhouse. They were paid to do it by somebody they never saw. Couple grand apiece …”
“They are there?” said Du Pré.
“Not any more,” said Benny. “I was talking to a cop down there, happened to know about this, wondered about which roadhouse.”
Du Pré nodded.
“When they get out, them two?” he said.
“Yesterday morning,” said Benny. “They were in on some misdemeanor, got in a fight I think.”
Du Pré got up and he rubbed the back of his neck.
Bart was talking in soothing tones.
Du Pré looked at the sheet.
“We get pictures maybe of these guys?” he said.
Benny looked crestfallen.
“I shoulda thought of that,” he said. “I’ll go and see.” He ran out and his car roared off.
Du Pré drummed his fingers on the bartop.
“Make a mistake?” said Madelaine.
Du Pré nodded.
“Bad one?” she said.
“Julie, the Burrows,” he said, “no mistake is good.”
She put her hand on his.
“Find that coyote,” she said.
Du Pré nodded.
“I think maybe that Thommassen kills those two, Milbank’s people. Now I think maybe not. Maybe the two, the SUV that burned, are those guys. Ones Benny was talking about.”
“He don’t talk to me,” said Madelaine.
“Guy in jail, Billings, says two guys there talked, beating up an Indian, a girl, roadhouse, paid good for it. They get out yesterday morning, maybe they go, get the rest of their money.”
“He is too smart let them know where he is,” said Madelaine.
“He find them, say, come on, I give you a ride to the money,” said Du Pré. “Those two dickheads, Milbank’s, they are still alive then.”
“So?” said Madelaine.
“They are not so stupid after all,” said Du Pré. “I am stupid. God damn that Benetsee.”
“What him do?” said Madelaine.
Du Pré shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he said, “but he did it. I know that. Old son of a bitch.”
Madelaine put her hands in the air.
“You, ditch,” she said, making him another. “You get like this, chew on your own leg, me, I got to listen to the whining.”
Du Pré laughed.
Markham Milbank came running in, face alight.
“If the information is correct,” he said, “Ames’ stuff went to Texas. A blind box. But it has been used in the last hour.”
“Blind box?” said Du Pré.
“Somebody looked at the information,” said Milbank, “is all. But that means that they wanted it.”
Bart came back from the hall. He put the phone back on the cradle and he sighed.
“I just lied to my sister,” he said.
Madelaine laughed.
Bart looked at Milbank.
“You,” he said, “are going to send that money.”
Milbank nodded.
He looked at his watch.
“In seventeen minutes,” he said.
They went out to the motor home and sat in front of the big computer screen. It had a picture of snowy mountains on it. Clouds moved over their peaks.
Du Pré went outside to smoke.
He looked at the dirt.
He nodded.
He had his cigarette, and he went to his cruiser and got the flask from under the front seat and he had a swallow and he put it back.
He looked at the line of willows that banked the little creek. A bird flashed as it flew, blue iridescence.
Kingfisher.
This I understand, but what there is in that motor home I do not understand, Du Pré thought, but people they do not change.
How did this start?
He shook his head.
He rolled another smoke.
He looked up at the Wolf Mountains.
He snorted and he walked back toward the saloon and up on the board porch and he sat on the bench he had built long ago.
Julie, the Burrows, they maybe live, they maybe don’t.
No reason to kill them but there was no reason for any of this.
Money.
Madelaine came out with a ditch in one hand and a glass of pink wine in the other. She sat down.
“Susan is there now,” said Madelaine. “You are here, thinking about that coyote?”
Du Pré nodded.
“Pret’ smart, coyote,” said Madelaine.
Du Pré laughed.
God’s Dog.
A joker, a thief, a scoundrel.
“You like them coyotes,” said Madelaine.
“This one, I don’t like,” said Du Pré.
“All that crap,” said Madelaine, waving her hand at the motor home and the dish antennas, “all that crap and they are not happy. Are you happy, Du Pré?”
“I get Julie, the Borrows back, I am happy,” said Du Pré. “She is a good kid. Too much money. Her mother won’t spend money, it does not help.”
“Why they don’t ask Bart?” said Madelaine. “He is her uncle.”
Du Pré nodded.
“So they want, hurt this Milbank,” said Madelaine.
Du Pré nodded.
“Also Bart is tougher,” said Madelaine. “He is getting better, he don’t even get drunk this time.”
Du Pré laughed.
“This is all over,” he said, “Bart get drunk. I get drunk with him.”
“Maybe,” said Madelaine. “It is better long time gone. We fight over buffalo then.”
“Die maybe twenty-five,” said Du Pré, “starve every winter, one kid out of five maybe lives, eighteen, no, it was not better.”
“It will be all right,” said Madelaine. “Benetsee, he don’t tell you things, they don’t come true.”
“He don’t tell me nothing this time,” said Du Pré.
Madelaine looked at him.
“Think, Du Pré,” she said.
Du Pré rolled a smoke and he lit it and gave it to her. She took a long drag and handed it back.
“I don’t know,” said Du Pré.
“Think,” said Madelaine.
Bart came out of the motor home.
“He sent the money,” said Bart.
Du Pré stood up.
“Billings,” he said. “We go there now.”
CHAPTER 36
“NOT AS GOOD AS your old boat, is it?” said Bart. He glanced over at Du Pré. A security agent named Bollard was in the back, staring at a computer screen.
I don’t even want to know, Du Pré thought.
“Why do you think they are there?” said Bart.
“It is the biggest city in Montana,” said Du Pré. “Lots of shipping, oil refineries, trains, plenty of places to hide. Rest of Montana, it is not so easy to hide. Lots of ways to get out of it, I think that is what Thommassen will do.”
“And the last message from him said directions to Julie and the Burrows would arrive in six hours,” said Bart. “Which gives him a lot of time.”
“He won’t be leaving from the airport,” said Bollard, “and the cops are going to be watching the bus station. I doubt he’ll be going Greyhound.”
“Milbank just sent off forty million without a squawk,” said Bart. “I am trying not to hate him so much.”
Du Pré laughed.
They were well past the Missouri headed south. Bart was going about eighty in the huge green SUV. It began to shimmy if he went faster.
“It’s a big place,” said Bart.
Du Pré nodded and he watched the green on the plains. There had been a lot of rain, for Montana.
They were silent for an hour.
“Oh my God,” said Bollard.
Du Pré looked at him.
“Son of a bitch,” said Bollard, “we couldn’t figure why the hell Thommassen went bad. I will be fucked. Jesus. The FBI just posted up a Most Wanted on him. They were staying out of this, right?”
“Yah,” said Du Pré. He opened the shoehorn telephone and he punched the numbers into it.
A secretary answered.
“Wallace, it is Du Pré,” said Du Pré.
“He’ll be five minutes or so, Mister Du Pré. What is your number?” she said.
Du Pré recited the digits.
“What is going on?” said Bart.
“You maybe watch the road,” said Du Pré. Bart’s tires hit the rumble strip. He steered back to the flat pavement.
Du Pré rolled a smoke and he lit it and opened the window a crack.
He finished and flipped the butt out the window. The phone beeped.
“Doooo Preyyyyy,” said Harvey Wallace.
“You are in this now?” said Du Pré.
“Oh, yes,” said Harvey. “You know, Torbert Thommassen, the spook, turned out to be a spook for rent. Seems that there’s a fellow over the river there who long suspected old Torbert of being for sale, but they couldn’t get any proof. Then, of a sudden, some proof appeared. What proof they will not tell us, or how they came to get it, but judging from the uproar I’d say old Torbert sold some really good stuff to the Russians or the Chinese or somebody our government, such as it is, really resents. They are going batshit, actually. They wish to find Torbert in the worst way.”
“OK,” said Du Pré.
“Never made sense did it,” said Harvey. “Long and honorable service, makes over a hundred grand a year as Milbank’s security director, and of a sudden he goes in for kidnapping and all. Needed enough money to bribe a small country into letting him hide there. It’s expensive.”
“The money, the forty million, was sent,” said Du Pré.
“So I hear,” said Harvey. “You understand money these days? I never did. My wife says I am a financial imbecile. She gives me an allowance.”
“So what now?” said Du Pré.
“Oh,” said Harvey, “well, agents are converging on little old Billings from Denver and Salt Lake City. The Butte office is all on the way. Then I would expect all of those retired thugs who love to fly-fish and so they now live in Montana have been called up. Should be a lot of dust. I doubt it will mean a lot. Torbert was really cutting it close there. They are also very upset about that. They just found out and presumed they could close in on him. But somehow he knew, which in their world means there are sinners. The ungodly live in the house of spooks. I think they spend so much time playing Dungeons and Dragons for keeps they are all barking mad.”
“Shit,” said Du Pré.
“I wouldn’t worry about Torbert,” said Harvey. “He’s only interested in getting away. He won’t do anything to Julie or the Burrows. It is anyone around him you got to worry about. They could panic.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré.
“So,” said Harvey, “why are you going to Billings?”
“They are there, probably,” said Du Pré.
“Gabriel,” said Harvey, “remember this. Torbert did this for a long time. He will have thought about all of this. He will know that you will think those people are in Billings. They very well may be. They very well could not be, too. So don’t get too fixed on their being there. Torbert is smart, very smart, and he has the best training there is. Kidnapping is a crime usually committed by idiots. If Torbert thought this was his best chance, he was very careful. He isn’t dumb and he isn’t crazy and he is really dangerous if you get in his way. If anyone gets killed in this, it will be the people he recruited. Those fools Soldner and Henkel. They got into trouble, big trouble, they were embezzling and violating just about every rule there is on money except printing it yourself. Torbert must have found out and lured them in. He put this all together in a month. The spooks wanted to keep it quiet, of course, so they screwed around figuring out how to cover their asses. I love Washington. It’s like a big high school where the popular kids have nukes and navies and other toys.”
Du Pré laughed.
“Torbert won’t do anything unnecessary,” said Harvey. “Those other crapheads, who knows. I sincerely hope Torbert done liquidated them, myself. It’s harsh, but there I am.”
Du Pré shut up the telephone.
“What?” said Bart.
Du Pré told him.
“Jesus Christ,” said Bart.
“I think,” said Bollard, “that we had better handle this, Mister Fascelli. No offense, but that is what we get paid for. We know how to do this.”
Bart looked at Du Pré.
“What do you think?” he said.
