Eagle, Kathleen (40 page)

"No.
I've left several messages." She raised her voice above the noise of the
water. "I don't want to tie up the phone. You don't have call
waiting."

"We're
lucky there's a goddamn phone!" He slammed the water off and stood there
dripping into the sink. "I just don't understand why Carter didn't come
back after Dozer stopped him."

There
was no answer. She was gone. He felt her silent departure. He hung his head
between his arms, braced on the edge of the sink, and he wiped his dripping
chin on his sleeve.

Then
he felt her hand on his back. Something quivered deep in his gut. When he
turned, she handed him a towel, and he used it only because she had brought it
for him.

"He
hadn't been gone that long when Dozer caught up with Carter," she told
him. "Nobody else is going to get too upset until he's been gone a while.
He's twelve years old. Kids go off, they hide sometimes when they're..."

Her
voice failed her, just as he was doing. He could only take her in his arms,
apologize for snapping at her, and make promises like "We'll find
him."

She
allowed herself a few tears before she gathered herself up like a string purse,
tucking her raw parts inside. "I think he got in a car with someone."

"Would
he do that?"

"No.
I don't—no. Not by choice. Unless..."

"Unless
what?

"Unless
he was so angry he just wasn't thinking."

Reese
nodded. He'd been there, so angry all you can do is run. "Soon as we get
him back I'm gonna..." He gripped her shoulders. "Hang onto him. I've
been trying to be cool around him, only had my arms around him once, but after
this, I ain't lyin', he'll be calling me the ol' ball and chain."

"I
think he's hiding somewhere. He's probably sitting up in a tree, watching to
see how crazy he can make us. You checked—"

"Checked
the shelter belt, checked the out buildings. You're probably right. I'll go out
and cover all that ground again." He smoothed her hair back, swept tears
from her cheeks with his thumbs. "I know it's hard, honey, but we've got
the cops looking. You've gotta stay by the phone. Keep trying Carter."

***

Carter
didn't much like what he was doing, but he was running low on choices. As long
as he was the only one who knew where Sidney was, the boy would be safe. Tucked
into the rugged moonscape of the Bad River Reservation's outlying piece of the
Badlands was an old cabin Reese had shown him once after they'd borrowed the
ol' man's pickup to go to a football game. A good place to be alone or take a
girl, his new brother had told him, but Carter wasn't having much luck with
girls at the time, and he remembered Reese confiding that he wasn't, either.
He'd cherished that confidence.

They
had been on the verge of going their separate ways again. Reese was leaving for
college, and Carter would be going back to prep school. Reese had asked him
what that was like. It was the first time and only time he remembered his
brother asking him for any insight, and he remembered thinking,
My God, the
Big Man is actually scared.
He'd desperately wanted to say something wise
and memorable, but all he could come up with was,
Hell, it's easy, man.
He'd
thought Reese was asking about school, which, for Carter, had always been easy.
He'd forgotten that Reese had never been away from home. If his own young heart
had been in better touch with his mind back then, he might have told him that
that was the part that wasn't so easy.

He
had returned to the cabin many times. He'd never taken a girl. He'd never
brought anybody before today, but now he had taken his brother's son to the
cabin. The boy had deemed the place a cool hideout, better than his friend's
grandma's house. Carter had left him there with a flashlight, a sleeping bag, a
little food, and some bottled water.

Now
what? How could you use a child to get somebody to do something he didn't want
to do without actually doing harm to the child?

He
decided that was Bill Darnell's department. He found him in his office at
Little Pair-a-Dice, talking on the phone. Normally Darnell would have ignored
Carter or dismissed him until he was finished, but this time he saw what he
wanted in Carter, and it was the phone caller who was dismissed.

"You
look like you've been wrestling with the devil," Darnell said with a
smile. "I wonder who came out ahead."

Carter
could only stare at the man. His gut roiled. A terrible clamor in his ears
defied him to form the words he had come there to say.

"Have
you found a tender button in your brother's scrawny gut?" Darnell rose
from his chair, his detachment disintegrating. "You did, didn't you? You
got your thumb on it now, and you're digging in on him."

"I
have his son."

Darnell's
eyes fired up. "What, you nabbed him?"

"Not
exactly. The boy was trying to run away. He fell into my lap, more or
less."

"What
are you planning to do with him?"

Carter
sank into a padded chair. "I'm planning to steer clear of my brother while
you
do something. Get some anonymous phone calls going or
something."

"And
what good is that going to do?"

"I
can't threaten him.
You
have to threaten him. Tell him he'll never see
his son again unless he gets that contract approved."

Darnell
smiled. "That sounds good. I think I might have heard it somewhere before,
but there's nothing really new under the sun, is there?" He moved to the
front of his desk and sat on some papers, which was Darnell's favorite way to
cover his paperwork. "But you'll have to tell him, Carter. You're the one
who's holding the kid."

"I
told you, I'm not exactly holding him against his will. Not so far, anyway, and
if we work it right, I won't have to."

Darnell
mocked him with malicious amusement.

"The
cops are already looking for him," Carter said, evoking more twisted
amusement. "But the Indian police, mostly they're Reese's friends. If you
started the calls to him right now, tell him to keep the cops out of this and
shit like that..."

"That's
bullshit, all right. Hollywood bullshit. He'll know you're behind it, sooner or
later."

"Threaten
me, too. Tell him you'll ruin his brother," Carter offered. Darnell kept
laughing, and Carter thought wildly that maybe he'd go along with it just for
the laughs. He smiled, shrugged, knowing what a buffoon he'd become. "Tell
him you'll mess me up really bad."

The
last of the suggestions had Darnell tossing his head back and fairly hooting.
His belly was still jiggling as he used his hand to wipe spittle from the
corner of his mouth.

"Now...
ah, you slay me, Carter. But, seriously, how is this going to work once we have
the contract and he thinks we've kidnapped his son and, uh... threatened to
mess his brother up real bad?"

Darnell
stood, unconsciously clenching and unclenching his fists, and Carter began to
imagine what it might be like to be messed up real bad.

"You
haven't thought this through very well, have you, Carter? You know, for such an
intelligent man, you are one dumb fuck."

"You
told me to find a way to—" He glanced away from his overseer, his damned
puppeteer. "You told me to use the kid or the woman."

"And
now you have the kid. I don't have the kid.
You
have the kid."

"I
can't..." Carter stood also. He was almost surprised he had enough
backbone to get himself out of the chair. "I won't hand him over to
you."

"Did
I ask you to? I really don't want him. This is your show, Carter. It'll be
interesting to see how you handle it." Darnell whacked Carter's chest with
the back of his hand. "I'll give you a hint. If you want to get away with
this, you have to be willing to off the kid." He smiled. "That's
another expression you might wanna throw into your little script."

Carter
blanched.

"No,
I didn't think so," Darnell said. "Did you hear about Jones? Funny
name for an Indian guy, Jones. Marshall ain't much of an Indian name, either.
If I could have a name like Blue Sky, I'd be on it in a minute." He turned
to the window. "It's just...
Blue Sky.
Saying it makes you feel
good.

"And
when you see it in print, like in a newspaper or something, you know they're
talking about a redskin, don't you?" He looked at Carter again, his eyes
fairly glittering. "And I ain't talkin' football, either. Think about it.
Who else would have a name like Blue Sky? So everyone knows when they read
about what's going on at Pair-a-Dice City—the whole world knows that it's the
Indians who fucked it up. Oh, they'll probably say 'tribal member' or some
kinda language like that, if that's part of the story. But you guys are taking
bribes. We try to put you in management positions, and these card sharks come
in and rob you blind.

"And
you can't make any money for the Bad River people, running your business like
that. Your father knew that, but he's dead. Now we've got your brother. What
kind of headlines do you suppose we could make with him?"

Carter
was flabbergasted. Darnell had just laid out his cards as if the game were
over. And damn if he didn't have a startling hand. The funny thing was, Carter
had been wrong about the stakes. Ten Star wasn't nearly as interested in
profiting from Indian gaming as they were in destroying it.

And
the only reason Darnell had laid it all out for him now was that Carter was the
ultimate pawn. He had taken a decisive step today. He had screwed his own
brother.

"What
about Jones?" Carter asked.

"Oh,
poor Jonesie's dead. Took a bullet in the head." Darnell's bug-eyed smile
made him look like a bullfrog. "You like that? It rhymes, doesn't
it?" He shrugged. "He'd gotten in with shady characters before. I had
to deal with him myself at a casino we opened up in Wisconsin. Indian casino.
He lost his gaming license, but I believe in giving a guy another chance, don't
you? Especially when he can be useful.

"Funny
thing is, they found him in a pickup truck that didn't belong to him. You know
who it's registered to? Officer Earl Sweeney. Another dumb fuck. And the tires
on that truck match the tire tracks—"

Carter
felt sick, and it showed.

"That's
right, the truck that killed the old man. Sonuvabitch, huh?" Darnell laid
a clammy hand on Carter's shoulder. "Come on, Carter, you didn't think
that was a random hit, did you?"

"I
tried to get him to back off," Carter said tonelessly. "I've tried to
talk to my brother."

"And
that's the way it should be handled. Keep it in the family. Take care of your
own. You Indians are supposed to be good at that."

"I
like the gaming business." Carter was talking to himself now, pulling
himself away from Darnell. "I love managing Pair-a-Dice City. I could have
been good at that."

"Maybe.
Hard to tell. This wasn't much of a test, since I've been managing you."
Darnell rapped his knuckles on top of his desk a couple of times. "And
Sweeney, and a small operation within the operation. Gotta have a few card
cheats to make life more exciting."

He
folded his arms across his barrel chest. "So now that you've added
kidnapping to your offenses, what are you gonna do with the kid? Do you want me
to take him? I'm not making any threats
for
you, Carter. Not while
you're holding a witness." He withdrew one hand from the crook of his
elbow and made a "gimme" gesture. "Turn him over to me, and go
commiserate with your brother."

Carter
shook his head. "Right now, he's just playing a trick on his parents. And
I'm in for a little grief from my brother for going along with it, but that's
about it. If you lose the contract, so be it."

"So
be it?"
Darnell laughed and wagged his head. "Carter, between
you and Sweeney, I can't lose. You're all the insulation I need. You've sold
the Sioux down the Bad River. But all I need is one of you, and I don't care
which. The other one's a cushion, totally expendable." His smile was
chilling. "Do I get the kid?"

"Let
me think about it."

"Don't
take too long. No point in feeding him if you're turning him over to me."

With
Darnell's sick laugh following Carter out the door, he realized that maybe
there was such a thing as a good day to die.

***

Helen
had thrown the cigarettes in the trash, retrieved them, then thrown them away
again. But she'd kept one out, and now she was dragging deeply on it.
Come
back this minute, son, and you can catch me red-handed.

She
nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone rang. She reached for it,
hesitated, then ripped it off the hook in the middle of the next ring.

"Let
me talk to Reese."

"Carter?"
Finally.
"He isn't here, but we've been trying to get hold of you
all afternoon. We can't find Sidney. We haven't seen him since you were—"