Chump Change (15 page)

“Did it?” I asked.

Herbert looked back over his shoulder. “Nope,” he said. He gestured out toward the field of colored stakes. “Nobody
ever
lived out here. None of the tribes. Before the dams, bottom of this bluff was underwater for seven months of the year.” He leaned close to me. “It was kinda like a communal fishing hole. This is where everybody came to dip net,” he said. “In those days there were so many damn fish there wasn’t no point in fighting over them. Heck . . . the tribes used to help one another. Just so’s they could be next in line. Not like today, where we fight each other in court over every little thing.”

As if to punctuate the point, the roar of diesel engines began to fill the air.

Everybody screwed their heads around to see what the commotion was as a pair of low-boy flatbed rigs rolled over the top of the rise carrying a backhoe and a front loader.

A pair of the EPA guys came hustling up to the big rigs, pointing where they wanted them to go, and shouting directions. We watched in silence as they eased down the grade in granny gear and began to unload the machinery from the trailers.

“Just a couple of pottery shards,” Herbert mused. “That’s all we’re lookin for.”

“Only thing we got in your size,” he said. “Heck, mister, if Pete Moon hadn’t popped a temple vein a few weeks back, you’d be goin out tonight looking like you were wearing your little brother’s clothes.”

His name tag said his name was Milton. First or last, I didn’t know. He was holding down the fort at Lewiston Menswear, on what had turned out to be a rather balmy late afternoon. The only thing he had in my size was in a raucous plaid so demented it practically screamed
buffoon coming
as you walked along the street.

“Pete was into . . . you know . . . bold prints,” Milton said.

“Bold print? This thing isn’t bold, it’s . . . it’s . . .” For the life of me, I couldn’t come up with a word to do it justice. I was gonna look like all I needed to complete the outfit was a red rubber ball nose and a couple of duck feet.

“Haven’t you got something maybe you could alter?” I asked.

He was afraid that he didn’t.

“Something a little more . . . staid?”

Still didn’t.

“Okay,” I said finally. “Put it in a bag, please.”

He did. A clear plastic bag. Just what I was hoping for.

I plopped down my debit card and looked in the other direction as he did the paperwork, then slung the bag over my shoulder, so’s it would be behind me, as I sauntered back to the Blazer.

I pulled open the rear door and laid the coat on the seat.

Keith looked over the seat and grinned. “You’re not going to wear that, are you?”

“Only thing he had in my size.”

“Well . . . at least it’s gonna be nighttime,” he said.

“Thanks,” I growled.

“Least till you get there,” he blurted out, before losing it to wild laughter.

“Shut up,” I said as I started the car.

“Pete Moon,” Irene said, nodding after I’d told her of my outfit’s provenance. “That would make sense. He’s the only one around here gonna wear anything even remotely like that.”

“If he hadn’t’ve died, it might’ve killed him,” I said.

“Pete was one of a kind,” Irene said with a wry smile. “And you know, Leo . . . I know this is gonna be hard for you to believe, but that plaid you got there is one of Pete’s more subdued wardrobe choices. My personal favorite was the one with bright red and green chili peppers all over it. You coulda seen that one from space.”

“I was hoping this sort of thing was all the rage around here.”

She laughed.
“
Fraid not.”

I folded the jacket inside out and draped it over my arm.

“You . . . on the other hand, Irene . . . are looking like, if I might be so bold as to say . . . you’re something beyond beautiful.”

Not only was she stunning in a sky-blue silk dress, but she made that noise women make when they’re all dressed up. That swooshing sound that drives men to distraction, as they imagine what’s exactly rubbing against what.

She actually blushed. “Been a while since I got this dressed up.”

“Believe me, Irene. It was well worth the effort.”

Her cheeks got even redder.

She laughed again, and said, “I’m kinda glad I asked you to meet me here at the cafe. You come out to the ranch in that getup, you mighta scared the stock.”

“Coulda had a stampede on our hands.”

“Come on.” She chuckled. “Let’s get going.”

I followed her around the corner to her car. Dodge Grand Caravan. Maybe five years old. She read my mind, as we walked along.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s a PTA van. I bought it a while back when Ginny was still in high school. Seemed like I always had a herd of local kids who needed to get someplace. Still runs great, so I keep drivin it.”

“Got one just like it at home, for the wife and kiddies,” I said.

“You’re not married,” she scoffed.

“What’s that . . . marital profiling?”

“Common sense,” she replied. “Hell, I’d be willing to bet you’ve
never
been married. How’s that for profiling?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Pfui,” she said as she started the van. “You’re way too unilateral for a married man. You don’t answer to anybody but yourself.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“But you’ve got somebody.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“So I can count on you not to try to jump my bones, later this evening.”

“Long as you don’t make things too hard for me,” I said.

She laughed. “That might be the closest thing to an honest answer I’ve ever gotten from a man.”

I stood by the passenger door and watched as she walked around to the driver’s side. She looked back over her shoulder and caught me gawking.

“Are you lookin at my ass?” she said.

“Yes ma’am, I am.”

“Get in the damn car,” she said.

I followed orders.

Nearly as I could tell, what didn’t belong to the state of Idaho or to the city of Lewiston belonged to Roland Moon. Just about the time the lights of Lewiston began to fade in the rearview mirror, the white three-rail fence started. Seemed like we drove for fifteen minutes before we came to the gate.

Looked a lot like they were holding the Idaho State Fair out at the Moon place. Two guys dressed as old-time riverboat gamblers, ruffled shirts, arm garters, and all, working the gate, checking for invitations and stowaways. More liveried help than I could count, orange-flagging us up the wide driveway and into a makeshift parking lot set up between the barns.

A big, single-story ranch house, about the size of a light-blue junior high school, squatted in front of an enormous swimming pool, and what seemed like most of Lewiston’s business community spread out across the expansive lawn, sipping cocktails and stuffing their faces with catered canapés.

Irene set the parking brake and looked my way.

“Quite the shindig,” I said.

“Communing with ‘the little people.’ ”

“Into the Future Together,” I intoned, in my best basso profundo voice of doom.

“My ass.”

“That’s a whole nother subject,” I assured her solemnly as I liberated my new sport jacket from the backseat and stepped outside the van.

She hid a grin behind her hand as I slipped the jacket on.

“Shall we?” I said, holding my arm out from my side.

“Ol Roland got em eating out of his hand,” Irene commented as we strolled arm in arm toward the festivities.

“It’s the promise of a better life,” I said. “The message seems to be something like ‘Come along with us, and this is what your life will look like from now on.’ ”

“But it won’t.”

“No . . . probably not,” I said.

Stainless steel gas heaters had been set all over the yard, like shimmering, oversized toadstools. Above the subdued hiss of conversation, I could hear their muted roar as they discharged their heated gasses into the night sky.

We headed right for the bar. Irene went for a glass of chardonnay. I opted for a champagne cocktail. When I turned back toward the party, there he was, standing right in front of me. Deputy Rockland Moon, wearing a pure white disco suit and a frown.

He glowered at me. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“He came with me,” Irene said immediately.

He reached out, as if to grab her. I stepped between them.

“Don’t,” I said quietly. “Wouldn’t want to ruin a lovely party like this.”

“I’ll ruin you, boy,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” I said with a smile, as I set my glass on the service table and stuffed the paper cocktail napkin into my jacket pocket.

When he reached for me, I grabbed his wrist with one hand and pushed his thumb most of the way backwards with the other. He whinnied like a Shetland pony and dropped to one knee. Several nearby faces glowered in our direction. Not wishing to make a further scene, I let him go and stepped back.

He scrambled to his feet. Stood there rubbing one hand with the other, like a big six-year-old, with a fresh green stain besotting his right pant leg.

He was about to take a poke at me. I could feel it.

“Can I offer either of you gentlemen a drink?”

One of the small army of drink servers had arrived at our side, holding a tray of cocktails above her shoulder. White shirt. Black bow tie. Took me a minute to put two and two together. It was the African American girl who worked for Irene at the Chat ’n’ Chew, moonlighting at the Keeler party for a bit of extra cash, I figured.

I reached out and took a drink from her tray.

“Thank you, miss,” I said with a bow.

Rockland Moon leaned close to me and sneered. “You like colored girls?”

“Girls . . . boys . . . as long as they’re colored,” I said.

Irene snickered.

Moon straightened his shoulders inside his jacket. “This ain’t over,” he said to me.

“I’ll look forward to finishing it,” I told him.

He backed up two steps, then turned on his heel and strode off in a full snit.

“Remind me to give you a raise, Jasmine,” Irene whispered as Moon disappeared into the crowd. Jasmine said she surely would and then went back to working the guests.

“What a jerk,” Irene said under her breath. “Sorry about that.”

“The deputy doesn’t like me much.”

“It’s more than that,” she said.

“How so?”

She sighed. “That bozo Rockland has been trying to get in my knickers since I was thirteen years old. Used to tell me we were fated for each other. That no matter what else happened in my life, I was eventually going to end up being his mate. All these years . . . he’s never given up. Used to come to the cafe all the time. Drove me nuts. Drove my customers nuts. I’ve turned him down what surely must be thousands of times. It’s like he don’t hear it.” She looked me in the eye. “If he didn’t like you before, Leo . . . he’s
really
gonna hate you now.”

“I’ll sleep with the night-light on,” I assured her, then held out my arm. “What say we work the room?”

“What room?”

“Figuratively speaking, of course.”