Charon's Landing (30 page)

The bar was one step below a hole in the wall but better than a dive. The floor was chewing gum-smeared carpet with a pile so worn it looked like cement. The walls were yellowed by the cigarette smoke that hung in the air like smog. The U-shaped bar could seat about twenty people, and as he approached, he saw that its heavily varnished top was covered with carved initials. Like so many bars, this place relied on a gimmick to attract patrons; in this case, the immortality of etching your name into the bar top. There were about a dozen tables in the room, a tiny dance floor, and an even smaller stage, although the music was now coming from the battered jukebox next to the front door. The establishment was maybe half full.

Mercer wanted a vodka gimlet, but this was the type of place where you drank either beer or straight whiskey. He ordered a beer from the busty bartender and took a corner stool next to a guy he figured was a fisherman, given his size and the rubber boots he sported. The woman behind the bar bent deeply as she slid a Coors to Mercer, giving him an excellent view of what she kept barely hidden under her plunge-necked blouse. He smiled at her for both the beer and the view. If bars had gimmicks, well, so did bartenders.

“Are you an Us or a Them?” the man sitting at Mercer’s left asked without preamble.

“I guess that depends on who we are and who they are.” He couldn’t tell if the man was drunk or crazy.

“
They
are that ecology group and the mess of reporters here with them.” He nodded at a group of tables pushed together against one wall, the ten or so people forming an exclusive enclave. “
We
are just about everyone else.”

“Trust me, I’m one of us.” Mercer caught the man’s humor. “I’m a mining engineer. You?”

“I work aboard one of the ERVs, the ships that guide the tankers out of Prince William Sound,” he responded before taking a swallow of his beer. “I tell you, I just don’t understand how these protesters can survive. Do they get paid for screwing around with other people’s lives?”

“You’d be surprised how well funded most environmental groups are. And at least one member of this group has got more money than God.”

“Figures, the idle rich feel guilty, so they try to make sure no one else can make any money.”

“Modern noblesse oblige,” Mercer muttered.

He took a moment to study the group at their tables. Deciding who was a journalist and who was a member of PEAL was simple. The reporters had a hard-edged cynicism, whether gained through experience or affected, that they all wore like a badge of honor. The environmentalists were usually younger, fresh-faced and eager, with open smiles and easy laughs that made them look like a victorious college football team and their girlfriends. There was a scrubbed innocence to them and a strong sense of camaraderie that bound them much more strongly than simple friendship. They were crusaders, brothers in arms fighting a holy mission.

“So what do you know about them?” Mercer asked his neighbor, who, like so many Alaskans, was more than willing to talk to a stranger.

“Not much, other than I want ’em out of my town,” he spat. “They been here a few weeks, them and the reporters. One group getting in everyone’s faces, preaching at us about this and that, treating us like morons.” Then he quipped, “And the protesters are even worse.”

The ERV crewman had just started telling Mercer about the overturned fuel truck when the door to the bar opened, letting in a blast of cold air. Mercer turned to see a large group of people enter, laughing as they stepped across the threshold. There were nine men and five women, though it was hard to distinguish between the two if one judged by hair length alone.

When he saw her, he wasn’t surprised. It was logical that she’d be in Alaska. Her organization’s largest protest was happening right here in Valdez, and their flagship was anchored in the bay. There was no reason why she wouldn’t want to be part of it. And this bar was the closest to where Mercer had seen several PEAL Zodiacs tied against the public docks. He wondered, as he looked at her, if his being here was as random as he liked to believe. Or had he come to this particular bar hoping that she would be here too? Even if some part of him had wished for her entrance, he was unprepared for her arrival.

Aggie Johnston didn’t see him as she was swept into the bar with her friends, her face radiant. They immediately headed for the tables already staked by PEAL and the sycophantic reporters. Like the day he’d first seen her at George Washington University, she wore a shapeless green anorak.

His eyes tracked her across the room, listening to the joyous cries of her fellows as she joined them. It was obvious that they had not seen her in some time, and her presence was the reason for their celebratory mood. He watched for a few moments longer, then turned away abruptly, angry at himself for acting like a lovelorn teenager suffering through the end of a summertime romance.

“Jesus,” Mercer’s neighbor breathed, “I’d rather feel that than feel sick.”

Mercer looked and saw that Aggie had taken off her coat, revealing a tight black turtleneck. He expected that his friend’s taste in women ran toward the bosomy centerfold type, yet he too had felt Aggie Johnston’s allure.

“I don’t think you can’t have one without the other,” Mercer said darkly.

Two beers later, Mercer was getting ready to leave. The bar was filled to capacity and the band was just going on its first break, the house lights coming back up. A few of the locals had tried to approach the PEAL table to ask the women to dance, and had all been rebuffed with casually cruel snickers. Aggie had had the most potential suitors, and while her refusals seemed a little kinder, they were no less absolute.

One of the men at the table, a black-bearded giant who appeared to be some sort of leader given the deferential quiet he received when he stood, hoisted his glass to make a toast in the silence following the band’s last song. “To Brock Holt, a polluter who paid for his actions.”

Although the toastmaster spoke to his group, his eyes scanned the crowd, clearly hoping for a response. His eyes were glazed with fervent conviction and several pitchers of beer. No one knew he had been on that lonely stretch of road with Jan Voerhoven. Even the jaded reporters were stunned by his inappropriate words.

He didn’t have to wait long for a response. A voice from the far side of the bar, ten or so stools from Mercer, bellowed drunkenly, “What did you say, asshole?”

“I don’t believe I was talking to you,” the environmentalist menaced.

The air in the room had gotten tight. The bartender was already reaching for the phone to call the police. The club’s three bouncers would be sorely outmatched if things turned ugly.

“Brock was a friend of mine.” The local stood on drunken legs, his lips rubbery but his emotions as clear as crystal. He wore a blue parka with a Petromax logo over his left breast.

“Then you should be as relieved as we are that he’s no longer hauling poison across the state,” came the reply with a mocking sneer. Aggie tried to pull her friend back to his seat, but he shook her off, too hyped to think about what he was saying or where he was.

The antagonists started walking toward each other, and chairs began scraping back from tables as the room galvanized into two camps. This fight between activists and locals had been brewing since PEAL had arrived in Valdez, and after a few more heated insults, the room exploded, each side believing that it was right; the ecologists knowing their struggle was to save a planet, the locals fighting to preserve their livelihoods and families. The reporters ducked behind their tables and watched the melee with ghoulish glee.

It was apparent that only about thirty of the locals wanted to get involved; the rest made for the door as quickly as possible. Nearly all twenty-five members of PEAL were eager to brawl, including several women. At first, Mercer wanted to join the hurried exodus, but as he moved toward the exit, he realized that he couldn’t leave Aggie until he knew she was safe. He turned and struggled back into the bar, shoving and pushing through the panicked throng.

Forcing himself into the clear, he heard her scream over the shouts and yells, over the grunts and cries, over the breaking of glass and the crash of furniture. She was pinned near the far wall of the bar, bent backward over one of the band’s large speakers, red stage lights flashing against her pale, pained face. A swarthy man in a black leather jacket held her hands over her head, a sheen of eager sweat gleaming on his skin. To get there, Mercer fought his way in, out, and around a half dozen fights, punching and kicking with little regard for his target.

A blow landed solidly in his stomach and another caught him on his jaw. He rolled with the shots, giving himself a few moments to recover. A PEAL advocate came after him, hands held low and at the ready. Mercer let him come, gauging the man with an expert eye. As soon as his attacker had committed himself to a powerful roundhouse punch, Mercer eased back just enough so that the fist slid past his chin. He grabbed the man’s outstretched arm, steadied his target, and fired off a series of punches at the man’s exposed flank, fists sinking into the hard pad of muscle below the activist’s arm. A couple of ribs snapped with sickening pops.

Mercer sidestepped the falling environmentalist and targeted the man holding Aggie. Her attacker had freed one of his hands so he could grope between her legs. His shoulders were hunched to protect himself from her futile ripostes. Mercer shoved aside two struggling men who staggered into his path and reached Aggie only sixty seconds after the fight had broken out.

Had her assault not turned sexual, Mercer might have been willing to let her feel the consequences of her action. She was playing with other people’s lives as a pet project, disregarding what was at stake for the men and women who lived in Valdez. Protests like this were strictly geared for the media. PEAL wasn’t in Alaska to raise environmental awareness, just the world’s awareness of the group’s existence. Their interest in Valdez would last only as long as they could hold the media’s attention, then they would move on. But the man holding Aggie had made the mistake of trying to satisfy some perverse desire by fondling her.

Even as Mercer swept a half-filled beer bottle off one of the few unoverturned tables, he hoped that a less amorous man had pinned Aggie. She wanted to be part of the Green Revolution, and this was its reality. Tear down what exists and worry about the aftermath later. With a strong downward jerk, the bottle shattered over the man’s head and he hit the floor before the last of the disintegrated glass found its way to the carpet.

Aggie was pulled off balance by his fall, sliding off the speaker and onto her feet. Her eyes widened to almost impossible proportions when she recognized Mercer standing before her.

“Now, what’s a nice girl like you… Oh, never mind, let’s get the hell out of here.” Mercer grabbed her wrist and led her out a back door just as the police stormed into the bar. As they fled, Mercer took an instant to notice that nearly all the PEAL activists were still fighting while the floor was littered with the dazed forms of Valdez’s toughest citizenry.

The alley behind the bar was dimly lit and the Dumpster next to the back exit was filled to near overflowing. Aggie tried to stop, but Mercer wanted to be as far away from the bar as possible. He didn’t want to spend the night in the town’s drunk tank with a group of hungover antagonists whose fight was far from over. He dragged her to a lit street, one block inland from the bar.

Once under the protective pool of a streetlight, she stopped and jerked her arm out of Mercer’s grip. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You’re welcome.”

“Answer me, goddamn it.”

“Hey, I was in the right place at the right time. If you want to go back, be my guest. I’m sure that guy would love to have another go at you,” Mercer said with more anger than he felt.

“Fuck you.”

“Good-bye, Aggie.” He started to walk away and was relieved when she ran up and grabbed his sleeve.

“I’m sorry. I don’t care why you were there tonight, but I’m certainly grateful.” She looked up at him, her eyes like gems.

He wanted, more than anything else, to kiss her, to capture that mouth with his. But he turned away instead and continued walking. He hated being this confused, and his natural reaction was to leave, as if getting away from her presence would ease the hurt in his mind.

“Mercer, wait!” She caught up to him again, and they began walking in stride, her long legs matching his angry pace. Without a word, he shed his leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She snuggled into it like a favorite blanket. After a moment she said, “We need to talk.”

“I really don’t think we do.”

“The man who broke into your house, I knew him.”

“Yes, I know,” Mercer replied evenly, thankful she hadn’t dodged the other issue that had been plaguing him since that night. “I’ve never seen anyone face death the way you did. Your expression wasn’t fear or disgust, it was recognition.”

He might have expected her first revelation, but he wasn’t prepared for her second. “He worked for my father.”

“What?” Mercer stopped, whirling her around so that she faced him.

“Well, he used to. I confronted my father about it yesterday. He told me Burt Manning hadn’t worked for him for a couple of months.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes. No. Well, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Aggie, we’re talking about lives here, mine in particular.”

“When I talked to my father, he knew what time I was at your house and the only way he could have known that is if Manning had told him before breaking in to kill you. Manning must have been working for him.” Aggie went quiet for a second, on the verge of tears. “I just can’t believe it. My father is a monster, but he would never have someone killed, especially you. You two are friends. After I talked to him, I was so scared, I didn’t know what to think, so I came here a couple of days before planned.”

“Aggie, do yourself a favor and get the hell out of Alaska. You’re not safe here.”

“I’m safer here than I was in Washington.” They started walking again.