Power Play (27 page)

Sure enough, Younger added, “Of course, Tomlinson will get the bill from the electric company.”

“Of course,” Jake murmured.

Jake thought about inviting Glynis to drive up to Lignite with him for the big day. Amy had rented rooms at the town’s hotel for him and other key people on Tomlinson’s staff. Jake wondered where Amy would be spending the night. With Tomlinson somewhere, he supposed.

Several times he picked up the phone to ask Glynis, and each time he decided against it. She thinks I’m a coward. Besides, she’ll want to be with Tim, not me.

So Jake drove to Lignite alone and checked in at the hotel. Somebody had given the old clapboard building a fresh coat of paint. The lobby still looked seedy, its carpeting threadbare, but there was a huge vase of fresh flowers just inside the revolving door and the desk clerk was a cute young woman with a bright cheerful smile.

The town was bustling with visitors. The streets were crowded with people walking up and down in the late afternoon sunshine: old men in faded uniforms, families with children clutching American flags in their fists, laughing teenagers sipping sodas and eating ice cream cones, their faces painted red, white, and blue. Parked cars lined the curbs, and several empty lots had been converted into parking areas for long lines of buses.

As Jake stood on the sidewalk outside the hotel, perspiring in the setting sun, he saw that Amy and her cohorts had done their job well. Lignite was swarming with eager, expectant visitors from all around the state. Half a dozen TV news vans were in view, reporters were interviewing people on the street.

Leverett Caldwell and Alice were strolling leisurely across the street. Lev spotted Jake and waved to him. Gesturing to the crowd swarming along the sidewalk, Lev made a circle of his thumb and forefinger.
Good job,
he was saying. Jake grinned like a schoolboy being praised by his teacher.

A blare of police sirens turned everybody toward the far end of town where B. Franklin Tomlinson had arrived, not in a limousine, but in a blocky Hummer painted red, white, and blue. Led by a pair of local police cruisers, Tomlinson’s Hummer paraded through town, flags waving from its fenders, and stopped at the freshly painted city hall. The mayor and entire city council stood at the front steps to welcome Tomlinson. He bounded out of the van, all smiles, and began to shake hands with the politicians. Tomlinson’s father climbed stiffly out of the Hummer behind the candidate, looking doubtful about this whole affair. Amy came right behind him, beaming beautifully in white slacks and a blue blouse with a red scarf around her throat.

Now all we need is for the MHD generator to work, Jake thought. He suppressed an urge to cross his fingers.

As Tomlinson and the mayor led a procession of VIPs and campaign workers from the steps of city hall, across the town’s main street, and up to the platform that had been erected on the edge of the town square, Jake scanned the crowd for Glynis. She was nowhere in sight. She’s up at the big rig with Tim, Jake told himself.

The sun was setting, but the streets of Lignite were still hot and dusty. Jake shuffled along with the crowd thronging around the speakers’ platform in the square, sweaty and more nervous with each passing instant. The people were in a holiday mood, laughing, happy. Children ran through the crowd. Somebody popped a string of firecrackers and everybody jumped, startled for a moment.

The town’s high school band—in uniforms that looked spanking new—broke into “Stars and Stripes Forever,” drowning out the hundreds of conversations buzzing through the crowd. Jake stood in their midst, feeling alone, searching for Glynis even though he knew she wouldn’t be there.

Jake had given Amy the precise time for sunset, and at that moment Tomlinson, his father, Amy, the mayor, and the city council and their wives all slowly climbed the wooden steps of the platform.

The band crashed to its conclusion and the mayor stepped up to the lectern. He was a pudgy man with bulging frog’s eyes and a wide, accommodating smile. The last rays of the setting sun made his face look florid. Then he mopped his forehead with a big white handkerchief and Jake realized that the man was perspiring.

“Friends, neighbors, and visitors,” the mayor began, his voice booming from loudspeakers placed around the square, “welcome to America’s birthday celebration!”

The crowd roared.

The speeches droned on as the shadows of dusk inched across the square. Each and every one of the city council members got to say a few words. Portable lamps that had been placed at the corners of the platform began to glow. Jake spotted the planet Venus gleaming beautifully in the darkening sky.

At last the mayor took the lectern again and began to introduce Tomlinson. “We are very privileged tonight to have with us…”

Jake felt as tense as a bowstring. He knew that a mile or so away, Tim Younger and his crew were going through their final countdown with the MHD generator, listening to the speeches piped to them through a direct radio link, waiting for Tomlinson’s cue to turn the generator on. He crossed the fingers of both his hands.

“… and here he is,” the mayor said, his sweaty face beaming, “our next United States senator, Benjamin Franklin Tomlinson!”

The band blared the first few bars of the Marine Corps hymn and Tomlinson stepped to the lectern, tall and handsome and smiling. The crowd cheered as he shook hands with the mayor, then raised his arms above his head.

Suddenly everything hushed. Tomlinson adjusted one of the microphones on the lectern, then began, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank all of you for coming here tonight for this wonderful celebration.”

While Tomlinson spoke on and the evening grew darker, Jake’s whole body tensed with anticipation. It’ll work, he told himself. It’s got to work. Tomlinson talked about new industry and new jobs for Lignite and the entire state. He ostentatiously held up the box with the big red button that was supposed to turn on the MHD generator.

“… and every light, every decoration, every watt of electricity to power the entire town,” Tomlinson was saying, “will come from the MHD generator that stands just a mile or so up the road from this spot.”

Total silence. No one moved. It seemed to Jake that no one even breathed. It was dark now, the only light coming from the lingering twilight glow in the western sky.

“All right, then,” Tomlinson said, “let’s turn on the lights!” And he stabbed at the big red button.

Jake’s heart stopped. And then the whole square, the entire town lit up. Huge beautiful lights of red, white, and blue. The Statue of Liberty stood outlined in lights on one side of the square, the marching men of
The Spirit of ’76
on the other.

The crowd gasped, then applauded and roared its approval. Jake started to breathe again.

Fireworks erupted into the sky. The crowd loved it, oohing and aahing with each colorful burst. It went on and on, until Jake’s neck became stiff from watching.

The square was brilliantly lit, and after the final burst of multicolored fireworks, the mayor grabbed the microphone again and invited everybody to the barbeque that was waiting on the far side of the square.

Jake pushed through the surging, laughing, chattering crowd toward the platform, where Tomlinson and the others were coming down the steps.

Tomlinson spotted Jake and waved to him. As Jake got within arm’s reach, Tomlinson grabbed his hand and pumped it happily.

“You did it, Jake!” he bellowed over the noise of the crowd. “It’s marvelous!”

“Tim did it,” Jake yelled back. He saw that even Tomlinson’s father looked pleased.

Amy came up and kissed him on the cheek. “Wonderful, Jake,” she said into his ear. “Just wonderful.”

As they trudged slowly through the crowd, Tomlinson shaking hands with every step, Jake spotted Tim Younger heading their way.

“What’re you doing here?” Jake yelped.

Younger laughed. “The rig’s running fine. I came for the barbeque. Going to take some back to the guys. They’ve earned it.”

“Isn’t Glynis with you?”

“No,” Younger said. “Haven’t seen her since yesterday. I thought she’d be with you.”

GLYNIS

Standing there in the middle of the swirling, boisterous throng, Jake’s blood turned cold. “When’s the last time you saw her?” he demanded of Younger.

The engineer thought a moment. “Day before yesterday. She came up to the rig, spent an hour or so.”

And she’s not here, Jake realized. My god, she’s gone up to Vernon. That damned Harraway’s probably tossed her in his jail. Or worse.

Catching the frightened expression on Jake’s face, Younger asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Glynis,” Jake said, hollering to be heard over the crowd’s din. “She might be in trouble.”

“Glyn?”

Jake pawed through the pockets of his jeans to find his cell phone, shouldering his way toward the edge of the crowd as he did so. Younger came along beside him.

“What trouble?” Younger asked.

“She thinks Sinclair was murdered and she’s trying to find out who did it.” Jake pulled up Glynis’s number and called it as he kept striding toward the edge of the town square, away from the noise of the crowd.

One ring. Two. Younger was watching intently.

“Hello.” Glynis’s voice!

“Glyn!” Jake’s heart leaped. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.” She sounded puzzled by Jake’s near-frantic question.

Feeling as if he’d just stepped off a high cliff, Jake stammered, “I … that is … you didn’t come out to Lignite.…”

“I watched the ceremony on television,” Glynis replied, her voice calm, curious.

“Why didn’t you come here?” he asked into the phone.

“You didn’t ask me.”

“I thought Tim…” Jake glanced at Younger, who seemed curious, also.

“Actually, I’m packing a few things. I’m driving up to Vernon tomorrow.”

“No!” Jake snapped.

“Yes,” she said coolly.

“Stay right where you are,” Jake said, his heart thumping. “I’m driving down to your place.”

Sounding almost amused at his consternation, Glynis said, “I’ll be here.”

Clicking the cell phone shut, Jake told Younger, “She’s okay. She’s all right.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Younger was starting to look irritated.

Heading toward the hotel across the street where his car was parked, Jake explained, “I was scared that Glynis might be going up to Vernon and getting herself in trouble.”

“What’s going on with you and Glyn?”

“Nothing,” Jake said. Then he added, “She’s got this notion that Sinclair was murdered and she wants to prove it. I’m trying to stop her from making a fool of herself—or worse.”

Younger looked very unconvinced.

“Look, Tim, I’m not trying to get between you two.”

“You’d better not.”

Jake raised both his hands, palms out. “Believe me, Tim, I’m not.”

But Jake knew he was lying.

*   *   *

Leaving a decidedly suspicious Tim Younger at the town square, Jake hurriedly checked out of the Lignite hotel, dumped his travel bag on the back bench of his Mustang, and peeled out of the parking lot, heading back to the capital and Glynis’s apartment.

It was after eleven o’clock by the time he nosed the convertible into the quiet, tree-lined street where Glynis’s apartment building stood. He found a curbside parking space and hurried across the street to her building.

His insides were quivering. You’re worried about her, he told himself. About her safety. But a voice in his head countered, Who’re you trying to kid? You care about her. You want her.

She’s going with Tim, he told himself as he pushed the buzzer for her apartment. She doesn’t have any interest in me.

But you have an interest in her.

Yeah, he admitted to himself. Fat lot of good it’s doing me.

“Jake?” Glynis’s voice sounded harsh, grating in the intercom’s tiny speaker.

“It’s me,” he said.

The front door buzzed. Jake rushed in and loped up the stairs. Glynis was at her half-open door, a questioning smile on her face.

“Jake, you look as though you’re being chased by the whole Apache nation,” she said, pulling the door wide so he could step into her apartment.

“I…” Jake felt relieved, flustered, yearning, all at the same time. “I was worried about you.”

Glynis closed her door and eyed Jake warily. The same slinky gray cat also stared at Jake briefly, then walked regally into the kitchen. Glynis was wearing a shapeless T-shirt several sizes too big for her and baggy sweat pants. Her hair was pinned up, off her neck. Her feet were bare. She looked beautiful.

“Worried about me?”

“About you running up to Vernon. You’d be heading into a nest of snakes. Poisonous snakes.”

She shook her head. “I don’t care, Jake. They murdered Arlan and I’m going to prove it.”

“You loved him enough to get yourself killed?”

Glynis looked away for a moment, then straightened up and admitted, “Yes. I did.”

“Getting yourself killed isn’t going to help him.”

“They wouldn’t hurt me,” she said. “They can’t afford another dead body on their hands.”

He reached out and grasped her by the shoulders. “For god’s sake, Glyn! You’re dealing with the people who run Las Vegas! They know how to deal with dead bodies. They know how to
make
dead bodies!”

She shrugged out of his grip. “Jake, I’m frightened enough as it is. You don’t have to scare me more than I’m already scared.”

“Don’t go to Vernon!”

“I’m going.” There wasn’t a shred of doubt in her voice, not a scintilla of hesitation. Jake saw that her mind was made up.

And so was his.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“That Jaguar of yours might get temperamental again. We’ll go in my car.”

Glynis smiled at him.

CONFESSIONS

Jake drove home, spent the night telling himself he was an idiot, then drove back and picked up Glynis before either one of them had eaten breakfast. They headed out toward Vernon, the convertible’s top down, the warm morning wind feeling good on their faces. The day was bright and clear, the sky a nearly cloudless blue.