A Cold-Blooded Business (14 page)

"No," she said, but she didn't sound all that certain.

He sat up. "You aren't, are you? You're not feeling like you have to personally escort him home?"

She shifted in her seat. "I don't know. I've never been to St. Lawrence Island. I'll never make this kind of money again. Maybe I should." She set the otter on the table next to the seal. The seal was the color of old ocher, lined with tiny cracks, bearing its weight of culture and tradition with a life force undimmed by the passing of the years. Next to it, the otter was the color of fresh cream, every etched line sharp and clear, the heritage of the past and a legacy for the future captured by the carver's art in a three-inch piece of ivory.

"I could pay my compliments to Wilson Oozeva personally."

Jack wet his forefinger and picked up crumbs of bread, licking them off one at a time. Without looking at her he said, "He won't be there tomorrow, you know."

She looked out the window. "Maybe. Maybe not."

His voice was gentle but inexorable. "You shouldn't have given him the money. You know he headed straight for the nearest bar."

"Maybe," she said, her eyes fixed on the foot traffic passing in front of the restaurant, at Mutt waiting patiently next to the door. One man paused as if to give her an approving pat on the head, met that unblinking yellow stare, thought better of it and moved on. "Maybe not."

Her profile was obdurate, the line of her mouth stubborn. He sighed and drained his second beer. "What are you going to do with that?" He nodded at the box.

"Keep it for him."

"What if you never see him again?" She shot him an annoyed glance. He persisted. "That stuff belongs in a museum, Kate."

Kate picked up the seal again, admiring the taut spotted skin stretched smoothly over a layer of fat, its round nose, its delicately carved flippers. She remembered Olga Shapsnikoff, on a day in October of the previous year, in a town far out on the Aleutian Chain, answering Kate when Kate had said much the same thing of an ivory story knife wielded by her daughter.

It's a beautiful thing, Auntie, Kate had said. And valuable. It should be in a museum.

Its spirit would die, locked up in a place where it was never touched, Olga had replied.

"Maybe," Kate said slowly.

"And maybe not," Jack said, nodding his head as if he understood everything when in fact he understood nothing at all. He was good at it; with Kate, he got plenty of practice. "What are your plans for the afternoon?"

She put the seal back in the box and forced a smile. "You've got cable.

I figured I'd channel-surf. Find me an old John Wayne movie while I wait for Childress to deliver that paperwork."

He made a face. "Can't you think of anything better to do?"

She looked him over, letting her gaze linger in places. "Uh-huh, but not alone." He told himself he was too old to blush and made a business of examining the face of his watch. "Gotta go."

"Chicken," she said softly.

"Late," he retorted. "Want the Blazer? I can get a lift home."

She looked at the box and the sack of books. "Sounds good." On the street Jack said, "By the way, I called Axenia this morning."

"Oh."

He looked at her quizzically. "Such enthusiasm. I thought you'd want to see her."

"I do," she said.

It didn't sound much like it to him. "Good. I invited her to dinner Saturday night."

Three days and two nights away. She might be ready by then. "How nice."

They walked down to the Captain Cook Hotel's parking garage and found the Blazer, and Jack kissed her goodbye with enough promise to make her look forward to five o'clock.

Back home, she rummaged through the chest freezer in Jack's garage and found Mutt a bone with a roast still attached. Jack would curse them both, but who had shot the caribou in the first place? Shot, skinned, gutted, cut and wrapped, she might add, overlooking the fact that Jack had been along on that hunt. Leaving Mutt and bone on the porch, she went inside and curled up with one of the morning's purchases, Susan Faludi's Backlash, not the most restful book she could have chosen after a week in male-dominated Prudhoe Bay. She turned a page and the phone rang. Kate picked it up. "Hello?" "Hi," a young voice trembling on the verge of tears said. "Is this Kate?" "Yes," Kate said. She sat up, book slipping from her lap. "Johnny?" "Yes. Dad told me you were in town."

"For a little while. How are you?" There was a sniff and a gulp.

"Johnny? Are you all right?" This time there was a definite sob.

"Johnny, where are you?"

She heard traffic in the background, another sniff. "At the 7Eleven."

"The one down the road from the duplex? On the corner of Lake Otis and Northern Lights?"

"Yes."

"What are you doing there? Why aren't you in school?"

"It's an in-service day, nobody's in school except teachers."

"Then why aren't you at home?" No answer except a sniffle. "Where's your mom?"

"I don't know."

Kate didn't like the sound of that. "Do you want me to come get you?"

The young voice quavered. "Would you? Please? I called Dad's office but he wasn't there. I thought he might be home."

"Wait right there, Johnny," Kate said. "Don't move. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

She was there in ten. The thin, towheaded boy with the tear-streaked face was waiting for her outside as she pulled up. She put the Blazer into park and swung out the door in the same motion. He was dressed in T-shirt and Technicolor jams and nothing else. "Johnny, where's your coat? And where the hell are your shoes?"

He looked at his feet, curled bare on the sidewalk in front of the store. He mumbled an answer and Kate leaned forward. "What?"

His face was pinched, his voice numb and exhausted. "She took them.

When I said I was going to Dad's. She took my shoes and socks away and hid them."

He shivered, hugging himself, and Kate collected her wits and hustled him into the Blazer. They detoured on their way to Jack's by way of Fred Meyer's, where Kate bought the boy a pair of Air Jordans, not having spent any of RPetco's money yet that afternoon. At first Johnny objected but when she explained the situation he got into the spirit of things and they went for broke on an official NFL Seahawks jacket. She bought him clean underwear and a couple of Markie Mark T-shirts while she was at it. She was eyeing a Nintendo Game Boy when she came to and took herself and the boy firmly in tow and got the hell out of there.

Back at Jack's, she made a tuna sandwich and poured out a glass of orange juice, and was pleased when Johnny showed enough spirit to make a face at the juice and ask for Coke. She gave him the same answer she had given his father. "Real women drink Diet 7UP."

He shuddered. "Yuk."

She watched him chew in silence for a few minutes. "You want to talk about it?"

He looked down at his plate. "No."

Johnny was about a foot taller than she remembered and consequently would have approximately three thousand more exposed nerve endings per square inch. Kate wasn't so old that she couldn't remember the feeling.

"Okay," she said equably, rising. "Finish your sandwich. Your dad ought to be home around five or five-thirty." She paused. "You want to call your mother?

Tell her where you are?"

"No."

Kate kept her voice gentle. "She'll be worried about you."

"She won't be worried, she'll be mad. She'll know I came here."

Oh-kay, Kate thought. "Okay," she said. Johnny was warm, clothed, fed and, for the moment, safe. Let Jane worry. "Come on into the living room when you're done. We'll watch a movie."

"Kate."

His low voice stopped her at the door.

"Don't tell him."

She looked back at him, towhead bent over his sandwich, and felt a wave of weariness sweep over her. How many children had she interviewed in her time, how many broken, bleeding babies had she seen in a panic, begging her not to put their parents in jail, begging her not to hurt the monsters who had hurt them. It never changed. Sometimes she lost hope it ever would. "Okay." He looked up, relief in his face, and she said, "On one condition. I won't tell him if you will."

His face twisted. "I can't."

She kept her tone gentle, the words undemanding. "Yes, you can."

He was silent, and she turned again. "Kate." She turned back. He raised his head and met her eyes with a look in his own that shouldn't have been there for another ten years, if ever. "Thanks."

"Hey, no prob. Shugak's the name, rescue's my game," she said, keeping it light.

When he joined her in the living room she put The Terminator on the VCR and they settled down to watch one of two movies in which Arnold Schwarzenegger had been perfectly cast. When the first one ended they started the second, and had Sarah Connor nearly out of jail when the doorbell rang.

Johnny jumped, paled and looked at her, mute. Kate gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze and went to answer it.

To Kate's surprise, it wasn't Jane, it was Axenia, her cousin and a younger, shorter, plumper edition of herself. "Axenia," Kate said, surprised. "Why aren't you at work? And what are you doing here tonight?

I thought you weren't coming to dinner until Saturday." A movement caught the corner of Kate's eye and she looked around.

Oh, joy, O rapture, O bountiful Jehovah. Axenia had brought Ekaterina with her.

"Come vid me iff you want to liffe," commanded Arnold Schwarzenegger from the living room.

Kate took a deep breath. "Hello, Emaa," she said, and stood back, holding the door open.

Axenia beat them both to the first punch. "What are you doing here, Kate? I'm fine, I really am, I'm all grown up now and I can take care of myself. I don't need my big cousin checking up on me every five minutes to see if I--" "Time," Kate said mildly, closing the door. "Axenia.

Axenia, just hold it!" Axenia did and, if the expression on her face was anything to go by, was furious at herself for doing so. "I'm not here to check up on you. I've got a temporary job, and I'm staying with Jack while I do it. That's all."

Axenia wasn't convinced. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Then how come you sicced her on me?"

Kate looked at her. Just looked, one long, paralyzing stare out of suddenly very cold, very hard hazel eyes. When enough color had climbed into Axenia's face to satisfy her, she said in a voice no less deadly for its mildness, "If I ever hear you speak of your grandmother in that way again, in or out of her presence, I will personally kick your ass from one side of this town to the other. You show respect for your elders. Is that understood?"

Axenia hung her head, her face sullen, and inexorably Kate repeated, "Is that understood?"

Axenia mumbled something Kate chose to hear as

"Yes." Ekaterina, her lined face impassive, watched Kate out of calm eyes, hands in the pockets of her black cloth coat. Kate took a deep breath and got out her self-control. She even managed a smile. "Emaa.

It's good to see you. Come in, sit down. I'll make some tea."

The door knocker was plied with vigor. Kate's smile felt as if it had been pasted on. "Excuse me," she said to her grandmother. Wonderful.

Now she got to fight with Jane in front of emaa.

But it wasn't Jane this time either, it was Childress, carrying a large cardboard box and wearing a bad-tempered scowl. "Here," he said without preamble, shoving the box at Kate, who staggered a little beneath its weight before shoving it back. "Just remember, Shugak, you're responsible for these files. They are by God confidential and I expect them to be treated as such or I'll by God fire your ass no matter what John King says."

Ekaterina took one look at the RPetco logo on his cap and stiffened into a short, stout pillar of outrage. If she'd been wearing skirts she would have gathered them up to keep them from any contaminating contact.

"I should be done with them by Monday," Kate told Childress. "You can come get them then."

"We can't have them out of the office over the weekend," he informed her with no little relish. "If you're working for me, you'll have to follow procedure."

"Why, those files turn into a lot of little pumpkins Friday night at five?"

Next to her, Ekaterina drew in an audible breath and in spite of herself Kate cringed inside. "You are working for him?" her grandmother demanded, an inch of frost on every syllable. "You are working for an oil company? And for RPetcot

"And what's so terrible about that?" Childress demanded pugnaciously.

"Don't yell at my grandmother!" Axenia said, bristling.

The door slammed back--really, Kate thought, proud of her detachment, Jack's house was beginning to resemble Toni Hartzler's office on the Slope--and Jack roared into the room. "What's all the shouting about?

I could hear you from the car! Oh. Hello, Ekaterina."

The older woman inclined her head. "Jack."

"I'm sorry I yelled, I--"

"Hi, Dad!" Johnny made a standing jump from the living room doorway that landed him with both legs wrapped around Jack's waist.

"Johnny? Hey, hi, kid. I thought I didn't get you until Friday afternoon, I was going to--"

Someone hammered at the door. "How delightful," Kate told Jack with an extremely sweet smile he instantly and intelligently distrusted, "it's going to be a party."

She opened the door and, finally, there stood Jane.

Once again Kate was struck by Jack's ex-wife's resemblance to a medieval gargoyle, and an early thirteenth century gargoyle at that, back when pre-Renaissance sculptors harbored no illusions about the material shape of evil. It wouldn't have been all that bad a face, really, Kate thought, trying to be fair, if Jane could just get the jealousy and the malice out of it.

"Hello, Jane," she said, determined to maintain at least the bare minimum of civility Ms. Manners called for in these situations.

"Kate," the tall, thin blonde spat. Her eyes were small and near-together and Kate could barely make out their cold blue color between the heavy eyeliner and the heavier mascara. There was so much of both that Kate was surprised Jane could keep her eyelids up beneath the weight. She could, though, and her gaze was first surprised and then venomous. "I might have known you'd be here."

At this point Mutt decided it was time to make her presence felt and padded forward. Kate put a restraining hand on her head. "So you might," she replied affably.

"You kidnapped my son!"

"For shame, Katya," Ekaterina said, and for a moment Kate thought she was talking about Kate's alleged kidnapping of Johnny. "For shame."

She singed Childress with a look. "To take money from these people, how could you?"

"I guess our money's as good as anybody's," Childress snapped, bristling, "and the salmon and the herring are coming back into the Sound, our biologists say so."

Jane yanked Johnny out of his father's arms--shoeless, Kate noted, Jane made a habit of that--and propelled him toward the door. "I'm sure the judge will have something to say about your living arrangements when it's time for the hearing, Jack," she said, with what Kate felt Jane was sure was a magnificent sneer, preparatory to making a grand exit.

The effect was spoiled by her recalcitrant son and the equally recalcitrant door, which had a built-in bitch detector in the knob and stuck. Jane tugged, cursing. It sprang open unexpectedly and the leading edge caught Jane a hell of a crack across the forehead. She paused, momentarily stunned.

Nose in the air, Ekaterina swept through the open doorway as if she were wearing a long satin train and Jane was only one of many footmen.

Axenia followed, looking less majestic and, Kate was glad to see, a little embarrassed. "See you Saturday," Kate said. It was as much threat as it was promise, and from the expression on Axenia's face, she knew it.

Johnny wriggled free, and coming to, Jane grabbed him.

"Don't let her take him, Jack," Kate said.

Improving on her sneer, Jane said, "I've got custody, he can't stop me."

So much for Ms. Manners. "I can." Kate separated Jane from her son, spun Jane around by her shoulders, planted a foot in Jane's derriere and pushed. Jane flew outside, arms outstretched, to fall face forward in four inches of new, wet snow that must have fallen since Kate had brought Johnny home because Kate didn't remember it being there before.

Neither did Johnny. "Hey, cool," he said, "I didn't know it was snowing.

Can we go sledding, Dad?"

Jane scrambled to her feet, spit snow out of her mouth and began screaming a predictable mixture of obscenities and threats. Axenia's car door slammed, Ekaterina's car door slammed, Jane's car door slammed, and Kate kicked Jack's front door and it slammed shut for the last time with a loud, satisfying thud.

"I'll be back," Arnold Schwarzenegger intoned from the living room.

Jack looked from his still-reverberating front door to his wide-eyed son to a thin-lipped, furious Kate. "So how was your day, dear?"

Next to him, Childress observed, "For an old, fat broad that dame moves pretty fast. Now where do you want these goddam files?"

Jack was right. The next morning Kate dropped him off at work, ran a few errands and by a quarter to ten had commandeered a parking space strategically located near | the Army-Navy store. She waited for four hours, plugging the meter, the box of ivory in the seat next to her, a wad of bills in her pocket from the cashing of her first Slope paycheck. The old man never showed.

Friday morning Kate began the Augean task of wading through the RPetco files. The medical logs overflowed with the jargon so dear to the hearts of all medical practitioners, a translating job that was not aided by the cuneiform calligraphics equally dear, but a morning's worth of sifting, a lot of coffee and the stubborn conviction that she could in fact read English brought to light several interesting observations.

One was that there had been two previous rashes of drug-related incidents on the west side of the Prudhoe Bay field, each occurring within a twenty-four-hour period. There were other drug-related cases spread out throughout the year, but these two were the most concentrated and bore a striking similarity to the experiences of Wednesday night of the previous week. Kate read the list of injuries suffered by the A

Shift physician's assistant on the first occasion with a sympathy tempered by relief she hadn't been the one on the receiving end of the pool cue.

With a tablet and a pencil she made a list of dates and names.

Cross-checking the names against the employee roster she'd filched from the Slope the previous week, she placed each employee on the list in his department or, in the case of contractors, with his employer, and on his assigned shift. Finishing, she stacked the medical logs and reached for the pile of manifests.

There were a lot of them, one per flight for the last year. There were nine flights in an ordinary week, one on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays, two on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The manifests were fairly straightforward: lists of passengers in alphabetical order, varying from

63 to 102, depending on whether the 727 had been reconfigured to carry freight and passengers or passengers only.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays it usually carried two igloos of freight on all four flights. An example of an exception was the day the plane had been delayed due to weather, Kate's first flight north.