A Cold-Blooded Business (11 page)

"What more?"

Sue opened the door to the suite's anteroom. "Notice how each suite has four rooms, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a shower?"

"Yes," Kate said, fascinated, "I had noticed that."

"Notice how all the doors to the suites lock from the inside?"

Kate began to have a clue. "Yes."

"We wait until Jensen's in the shower tomorrow morning and lock his bedroom door, and all the suite doors on the hall." "Are we sure he showers?" Almeda said, brow wrinkled.

"Good question. Does anybody know if he has his own truck?"

"Yes," Kate said, glad to be able to have an answer. "He followed me out to the airport today."

Sue looked pleased. "Good. One of Number Two's control techs owes me a favor. We'll get Jensen out there and make his truck disappear."

This was beginning to get out of hand, and Kate said, "Oh, hey, guys, I--"

Sue looked at her, square chin thrust out, little eyes narrowed. "You know why men don't suck their own cocks?"

Kate, unnerved, said in a small voice, "No."

"Because they can't."

Kate looked around the circle of stern faces and swallowed. "Oh."

That seemed to cover the situation for the rest of them, and Sue Jordan marched into the hall attended by a train of five. Kate meekly brought up the rear, beginning to feel a little sorry for Frank Jensen.

The next day she stayed as far away from Field Maintenance as was physically possible. It was easier than she had expected because Saturday was race day, and business as usual in the Western Operating Area of the Prudhoe Bay field was suspended for the duration.

The deal with the turtles, Toni had told Kate on her first day up, was that a turtle representing each of the departments would race in the Base Camp Saturday evening. "Why?" Kate had asked, which she thought was a valid question, and Toni had replied, "Because it's there."

"What does the winner get?" Kate had inquired further, and Toni had raised her face to the heavens, closed her eyes and intoned, "Glory."

No one was ever able to explain to Kate's satisfaction from whence the idea of racing turtles had sprung, let alone why race them at all, but the Slopers threw themselves into the event with passion and verve.

Each department had one turtle, each turtle had two departmental trainers, and bribery and corruption was the order of the day. Saturday morning an official race judge was named, bribed, impeached, removed and replaced in the space of two hours, Saturday afternoon Deputy Dawg was kidnapped again, and Saturday evening began with a junk-food junkie's dream come true set up in the dining room. Gideon had outdone himself, having scattered individual stands for hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza and tacos among the dining tables. A fifth, with by far the longest line in front of it, dispensed hot fudge sundaes piled high with real whipped cream and chopped walnuts and even the cherry on top. Kate had two. She would have had three if Dale hadn't forcibly dragged her from the room.

The turtles hadn't even raced and already Kate was disposed to approve.

The race was to take place in the Astroturf room. The Astroturf room occupied the center section of the second floor of the main module of the Base Camp, overlooked by the windows of every inside room of the two residence floors in the module. All of them this evening were flung wide and shoulder to shoulder with spectators. Every now and then someone fell out, but no one was hurt because the room was so packed with people they never made contact with a hard surface.

A roll of green plastic tarpaulin was spread in the middle of the room and two white circles painted thereon. One was large and touched the edges of the tarp, the other small and occupied its center. The turtles would race from the outer circle to the inner one, a distance of precisely five feet. The race would be in three heats, the winner the turtle with the shortest average time.

Cheerleaders appeared, dressed in down snowsuits, bunny boots and balaclavas pulled over their faces and with mop heads for pompoms. They were unsteady on their feet, and they forgot their cheer halfway through, but Kate was charitably inclined to think their snowsuits had constricted the vascular flow to their heads, limiting brain function.

The cheerleaders retired and Production's Xaviera arrived in a gilt sedan chair borne on the shoulders of her pit crew, followed by Control Systems' champion pulled in a chariot and escorted by a twenty-man honor guard. Kate wondered who was manning the Production Centers' control systems. Probably the same guy who had stolen Frank Jensen's truck, for which a security bulletin had been issued over the public address system that afternoon. Catering's Hump appeared in a mayonnaise jar, led by a drum majorette dressed in the most beautiful kuspuk Kate had ever seen.

The knee-length parka was made of cinnamon-colored corduroy with gold cord and red fox fur edging hem, wrists and hood. The wearer was a redhead with pale redhead skin and the combination was enough to cause a momentary pause in the din, but only momentary.

"What a gorgeous kuspuk," Kate said.

Dale looked around. "Oh, yeah, one of Cindy Sovalik's. I think she makes more money making kuspuks than she does making beds."

For a moment Kate couldn't place the name, and then remembered the close encounter with the snow machine her first day up. She looked back at the redhead. Cindy Sovalik sewed better than she drove.

Projects' entry, Tom the Twertle, arrived at the head of a conga line of Twertle cheerleaders, followed by Safety's RP 1 on a miniature fire truck complete with hook, ladder, lights and siren. Deputy Dawg, rescued from kidnappers for the second time that week, rode in in Glen Lefevre's shirt pocket. Behind Kate someone hissed, "I hear Deputy Dawg's high on Absorbine Jr."

"No!"

"That's what I hear."

"Hey! Judge! Judge! Deputy Dawg's been doped!"

The first heat was delayed while race officials called in Official Race Veterinarian Jerry Mcisaac to administer a breathalyzer test. Deputy Dawg passed, and Security lodged an official complaint with the officials, alleging slander, calumny and harassment. A loud yelp of electronic sound cut across the uproar, the crowd pressed forward, the noise level increased exponentially and the race was on. During the first heat, trainers inspired their champions with shouts of

"Turtle soup!" and

"Tortoiseshell combs!

Think tortoiseshell combs!" During the second heat a motorized turtle materialized out of the crowd and, with silver antennae whipping back and forth, ran circles around the mortal turtles. During the third heat, Hump was humped.

It was no contest. Deputy Dawg won all three heats by a good five lengths. Second place was tied three ways, and officials announced a runoff between Xaviera, RP 1 and Tom, during which Deputy Dawg took off on his own and again finished first. Attempts on Security's part to claim both first and second place were thwarted. Catering's complaints of sexual harassment against their runner were ignored. During a post-race interview conducted by a reporter from the Campfollower, the company's in house newsletter, Glen Lefevre attributed Deputy Dawg's resounding success entirely to his trainer, Chuck Stange, who had been drafted by Security specifically for his experience and expertise in amphibian athletics. He added that they were looking forward to more competition next year.

For a moment, for just one admittedly fleeting moment, Kate wondered who was ahead in the Iditarod. She was pretty sure she was the only person in camp that night who did.

Fascinated with this new insight into the process of getting oil out of the ground, she bore witness to the events of the evening from beginning to end. Nearly everyone attending the races stayed up all night at various parties in various rooms scattered throughout the Base Camp.

Kate, in Dale's tow, attended them all, and after she'd been offered her fourth toke and her fifth line began to appreciate John King's concern.

Up until now, she had seen no evidence of drug use in the Base Camp itself, but tonight it was everywhere; in Ziploc bags, cut into lines on mirrors, in the ubiquitous waxed paper envelope, on one man's knuckles when he substituted it for salt as he knocked back straight shots of tequila. Eyes were unnaturally bright, laughter was loud and raucous and Kate saw at least one incipient orgy. "Caligula would have felt right at home," she remarked finally, caught between amazement and disgust.

"What?" Dale said. She followed Kate's gaze to see a production supervisor who was old enough to know better empty an envelope of cocaine on the inside of Toni Hartzler's wrist, who made great play with her lashes as the supervisor raised her wrist to his nostrils and snorted. "Oh, hell, that's just Hartzler. That gal goes through men the way Hobo Jim goes through guitar strings." "I meant the dope," Kate said. "It's all over. It's everywhere we've been." "I admit," Dale said, her brow creasing, "it's not usually like this.

People must have been stocking up for Race Day for the last year."

Virtually everyone was using, but Kate couldn't find anyone selling and she walked miles through the Base Camp that night, down hallways, in and out of suites, through the break room half a dozen times, around the Astroturf room twice, looking. All she found was a dozen little waxed paper envelopes and a smeared pocket mirror. It wasn't enough, not nearly enough. I'll have to come back up at least one more week, she thought, and forgot to wonder why the realization did not annoy her.

The par tiers were present in force, if groggy, when the kitchen doors opened at five-thirty A.M. Sunday morning. Gideon had put together a magnificent brunch celebrating the successful conclusion of the races, featuring tiger prawns, oysters Rockefeller and chocolate cheese torte.

Along about six-thirty A. M." the public address system crackled into life. "Frank?" a feminine voice said. "Frank, are you there?"

The diners sat up and looked around themselves for a Frank. "Yeah, I'm here."

"Oh, Frank," the female voice said, "I miss you so much, I need you so much, when are you coming home?"

"As soon I can get on a plane in your direction, baby. Where are you?"

The woman's voice dropped an octave. "In bed, where else?"

"Oh, baby. What have you got on? That little pink thing with the cutouts?"

At this point a distressed yawp went up from a far corner and Frank Jensen raced out of the dining room as if his ass were on fire. A few minutes later the broadcast cut off abruptly, ending with just an echo of Sue Jordan's gravelly chuckle. The dining room was roaring with laughter. Kate looked across the table at Dale with respect and not a little awe. "Remind me never to piss you off."

Dale clucked her tongue and gave her head a mournful shake. "It's his own fault. If Frank would just learn to use the pay phone in the break room instead of the company tie line, those darn communications operators couldn't listen in on his private conversations." She anointed her oysters Rockefeller with a lavish amount of Tabasco sauce, picked up one shell with her little finger elaborately crooked and let the bivalve slide slowly onto her tongue. She swallowed. "Or tape them for broadcast at a later date and time."

Sunday, the Western Operating Area entered into a field wide conspiracy to let the oil pump itself out of the ground, which it did anyway, while everyone slept off their excesses. The Sunday night buffet featured prime rib, and if Kate had been dead she still would have been there, plate out and salivating.

On Monday morning Kate and Toni toured the Saudis and the Russians around the field, delivering them over to the Amerex guide at Checkpoint Charlie at noon, receiving in return the head of Ducks Unlimited and his wife. He was very friendly, his wife even more so, and Toni was friendliest of all. That evening, Kate saw her being even friendlier with Gideon Trocchiano behind a cart loaded with Bismarcks and maple bars.

On Tuesday, five pounds heavier and no closer to discovering who was retailing cocaine to RPetco's employees, Kate flew back to Anchorage.

She spent most of the ninety minutes enroute thinking, not without a trace of envy, of Toni Hartzler's comprehensive love life.

The phone rang early the next morning, too early. The bed in Kate's cabin loft didn't have a phone next to it. The cabin had no phone at all, or electric lights, and nothing she had experienced thus far in cohabitation with Jack had led her to believe that she might ever wish to install either. Jack had her immobilized in a comprehensive bear hug and had naturally slept through the first ring. He slept through the second, too. "Jack. The phone."

His arms tightened and he nuzzled his face into her hair. "Leave it.

Machine'll pick up."

The phone rang again and stopped, and Kate heard the mutter of a voice from somewhere downstairs. By now she was wide awake. She rose early at home, but there she didn't have any incentive not to. She turned over and found one, and was served breakfast in bed for her pains. "Who was it on the phone?" she said around a mouthful of Jack's specialty, eggs scrambled with anything he found in the refrigerator that wasn't actually moving off the shelf on its own.

He filched a pillow and nudged her over so he could sit next to her.

"Jane."

"What did she want at six in the morning?" "She says something smells from under the duplex."

"Does it?"

"I wouldn't be surprised, considering who lives in it." Jack picked up a piece of her toast and put it between his teeth and leaned toward her.

She laughed and bit into the other end, and for a while it was the best it had ever been between them.

Later Kate watched through Jack's kitchen window, coffee mug suspended halfway to her mouth, as the owner of a Scotch terrier came to blows with a jogger who had just trodden in the terrier's morning bowel movement.

"Life in the big city," Jack said over her shoulder, his arms sliding around her waist.

She allowed herself to rest against him. He nibbled the side of her neck. It felt good, so good that she disengaged herself on the pretext of refilling her mug. "Where's it go?"

"The bike trail?"