A Nose for Justice (21 page)

“Yeah, looks like. Anyone around here been talking? I mean about the pump,” Twinkie quickly added.

“Did when it first happened. Not much now.” Jake stroked his long beard. “Some people think it’s a way to get back at the politicians who keep bringing up seizing water rights. Others say SSRM is a monopoly and it’s about that.”

“Hmm. You think anyone around here might pull a stunt like that?”

“Hell, no. Couldn’t even set off a cherry bomb.”

“Good to see you, Jake. We were checking on the pump and figured we’d better check on you. Never know what you’re up to.”

“Twinkie, that warms my heart.” Jake climbed back up on his white Bobcat. “Oh, hey, there was something. Craig Locke stopped in to visit Howie Norris. Can’t hardly see anymore, but he’s still kicking. Howie told him to get lost. Guess Craig checks up on people in the upper valley once a year ’round this time.”

“Wonder why Howie threw him out? Craig’s never rude about it.”

“Howie’s just getting ornery. Said he doesn’t want to see anyone from SSRM, even once a year. Howie’s got that big well, you know. A lot of gallons per minute.”

“Up there on the northern edge of Wings. Yeah, it must be pretty good.”

“Howie, who I called on for Christmas, was just sputtering and stuttering. Said he told Craig as long as Jeep Reed rented his water rights, Craig could bugger off.”

“Given that Howie’s as old as Jeep, he won’t have to deal with anything much longer. The man’s probably pickled.”

“Ten shots of whiskey a day starting when he opens his eyes. He’s still going. I’d be dead. I can knock back a few, but that’s it.”

“Me too. Good to see you, Jake. Happy New Year.”

“You too, boys.”

Back in the truck, SSRM logo on the sides, they headed down toward Reno.

“Bunny, let’s check Pump Twenty-two now. It’s been an easy day. I don’t know why, but I keep thinking we’re missing something.”

Forty minutes later they reached Pump 22. The water had finally drained out of the bottom.

“We should ask George W. for some small sump pumps that can run off a generator. That way if a pump blows we won’t be standing in water to put in a new one,” Bunny suggested.

“Good idea.” Twinkie, at the pump with him, checked the seals. “Looks fine.”

“Yep,” Bunny agreed. “Don’t think we missed anything.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Just me.” Twinkie hoisted himself up and out.

On the way out, Twinkie jammed on the brakes.

“What the hell!” Bunny lurched against his seat belt.

Twinkie was out the door. “Bunny, get out!”

Bunny did. “What?”

“Look down.”

Clear tire prints snaked toward the pump.

“Could be one of our guys.” Bunny walked up to the pump as did Twinkie.

“Looks like a small car’s tire. SSRM doesn’t have any small vehicles.”

“True, but again, it could be one of our guys in his own car.”

Back in the truck, Twinkie dialed George W.

“Christina, will you get me the boss?”

“Sure.”

George W. came on and Twinkie asked, “George W., did you send anyone back to Pump Twenty-two?”

“No.”

“There are tire tracks here, and not just tracks of someone turning around. Someone drove up to the pump, then came back out.”

“I can check. We only have three crews on duty because of the holidays. You stay there. I’ll call back.”

Within ten minutes, Twinkie’s cell rang. “Bosun.”

“No one.”

“Any ideas?”

“No. I guess the sheriff can send someone out to make casts. I’ll see if that’s possible. Stay there awhile. I’ll call back.”

The team showed up two and a half hours later. In the meantime, Twinkie had sent Bunny down to the nearest convenience store for food. He didn’t want to leave the site. By the time the people from the Sheriff’s Department got there, the two men were full.

It didn’t take them long to make a cast.

“Small car?” Twinkie was curious about the process.

“Deep tread. Newer tires. Yeah, small car. Won’t be hard to find the tire make, but there has to be thousands of cars with this tire,” the man making the cast told them.

“Yeah, but if this shows up again at another pump, that’s some help for us.” Twinkie felt a rising anger at whoever was doing this.

T
hat evening at seven o’clock, Mags drove her great-aunt back from town in her new F-150. Once out of Reno, darkness settled over them, punctuated by all the headlights coming in the opposite direction. The extended cab allowed the dogs to settle in on the short backseats. A sheepskin throw had been fastened over the leather seats. Baxter, once lifted in, stood on the center console. King curled up. Both dogs loved to ride.

“So much for the white sale.” Jeep sighed.

“The four-hundred-thread-count sheets were marked down.”

“I’m no good at this stuff,” the old lady grumbled. “Dot always did it.
You’d think after all this time I’d learn, but I go in those department stores and I’m overwhelmed. For one thing, there’s no windows. I hate stores without windows.”

“Me too.”

“Don’t ever go into Walmart,” Jeep said.

“Never been. If there was one in Manhattan, I missed it.”

“They’re huge and the funny thing is, sound kind of woo-woos. Makes my ears feel like someone covered them with their hands. Here is this enormous big space with no windows. I can’t do it. However, millions of Americans can.”

“If you make a list of what you want, I’ll find it. Sheets and stuff like that.”

“Mags, I don’t know. I don’t notice until they get holes in them. I’m not cut out for this.”

“I’m no domestic goddess, but I think I can do better than you.” Mags smiled.

“Aren’t you a good woman?” Jeep teased her.

“It’s been on my mind. So I’ll ask you—why did you call the president of Silver State Resource Management to remind him about the series the paper did concerning water? It would seem to me that you and that company are enemies or maybe rivals is a better word. Wouldn’t they just kill to get all the water rights you own and those you rent?”

“We both want water rights for different reasons so we are on opposite sides of the fence. But Silver State owns a tremendous amount, far more than I do. What I control may be critical in the future, but it’s not in my best interest to create antagonism.”

“Makes life easier, that’s for sure.”

“Take the long view, Mags. They are the only company capable of supplying Reno. The noise about the city passing a law so they own the water rights is bullshit. It’s a way to get people upset and thereby divert them.”

“From what are we being diverted?”

Jeep smiled slyly. “You pay attention to national politics, right?”

“It’s like watching a train wreck. I can’t help it.”

“When did the issues of abortion, teaching creationism, and gay marriage surge forward? Well, gay marriage is a latecomer.”

“Right around the election, first term of George W. Bush.”

“Here it is in a nutshell, where it best belongs: Those issues are fundamentally irrational. I’m not saying they aren’t important, but they are so emotional all too often they preclude rational examination. If people are divided, pro and con, on irrational issues it means they aren’t paying attention to the store. It was during this time that the controls relaxed on brokerage houses, banks, mortgage lenders. I’ll go to my grave believing this latest blatant robbery of the American public was carefully planned and brilliantly executed by diverting the public’s attention.”

“Oh, Aunt Jeep.” Mags felt a flop of her stomach. “That’s a terrible thought. I never ever considered that.”

“Few have. When I was in the war, I thought I ought to read the classics, you know, von Clausewitz, stuff like that. I learned a lot, but the one phrase that sticks in my mind is from Shu Tzu, the Chinese writer about strategy in his
The Art of War
is, ‘
Uprising in East, Strike in West!
’ ”

“What suckers we are.”

“It’s a tactic that’s worked for thousands of years. We aren’t suckers, we’re just human. And maybe some of our problems are unsolvable. Congressmen who knew what was going on beat the drums for or against abortion or whatever issue would divert the public. That way they didn’t have to go home, face their constituency and say ‘I don’t have an answer to crime, a faltering educational system, the continued rape of our environment, but I am your champion to overturn
Roe versus Wade.
’ What’s going on in Reno isn’t too far from that tactic. Make a big noise, but do more by stealth.”

“In what way?”

“Scare people. Maybe folks will sell their water rights if they fear a year down the road they won’t get a penny for them if the city declares them public property for the public good. Or if people are all worked up, they might miss the real threat. Strangle the water supply. That will scare them, too.”

“So Silver State is behind it?” Mags paused, “Would they blow up their own pumps?”

“Don’t know. When there is so much money at stake, I wouldn’t rule out anything. Look, it isn’t just maintaining what Reno now has, it’s the ability to create new subdivisions. Up goes the construction industry, the nursery
trade, even interior design. The benefits extend outward. There really is a lot at stake, but to me the primary issue is environmental sustainability. Nevada isn’t meant to host large numbers of people demanding services. It is a hostile environment; it’s high desert.”

“And it’s cold.”

“Sure is now. You know, this is my home. I can’t put up border guards and say to people ‘stay out,’ but I think the most responsible thing citizens can do, forget the goddamned government, is to honestly assess just how many people Nevada can sustain.”

“I can see why you scare them at Silver State.”

She laughed. “I’ve always scared people, even when I was poor. But Mags, you have to cooperate with your enemies to some degree. Again, I shouldn’t call Silver State an enemy. I can’t deliver the services they can. Their machinery is in place. But what I can do is try to slow down further acquisitions. The whole idea of continued growth, an American faith, is suspect.”

“I learned that the hard way but, Aunt Jeep, some people are motivated by lust, some by greed, some by power. Seems to me the ones who are greedy, the ones who want power, win.”

“They do, but can they hold on to it once they get it? How long did the Wall Street boom last? Twelve years? Even states with huge internal machines of oppression like the old Soviet system didn’t last a century.” She paused, then her voice rose. “This is a fight worth fighting. It’s a fight not just for the physical space we know as Nevada, it’s a fight for the soul of Nevada.”

“Do you think people have souls?”
Baxter asked King.

“Sure. Most of them forget it, though.”

“I think so, too.”
Baxter stiffened his legs.
“King, there are headlights coming right for us.”

Mags, with quick reflexes, dropped a wheel off Red Rock Road, so they teetered on the snowy shoulder.

The SUV just missed swiping them. The driver slammed on the gas and sped away.

“Damn, he was headed right for us!” Mags exploded. “I couldn’t see who it was but it was a white SUV.”

“Looked like a Toyota 4Runner.” Jeep inhaled, grateful they hadn’t rolled off the road.

Mags wisely did not turn the wheel sharply to the left. She eased her foot off the gas and kept steering along the road, then gently turned the wheel left until they were fully back on the road.

Mags turned around. “You guys okay?”

“Yep,”
they replied.

“Drunk!” Mags exclaimed.

“I don’t think so, sweetie. That was deliberate.”

“A
nything?” Pete asked Lonnie, who was hunched over a department computer.

“Checked out all the local green groups. Not one of them advocates violence, at least not on their websites. Pretty much what you’d figure.”

“What about the list of water rights transfers over the last six months?”

Lonnie pointed to four papers to the right of his computer. “Names, prices—information kindly provided to us by Sam Peruzzi’s research.”