Bluetick Revenge (22 page)

I followed him in and then made a show of searching all around the area in the living room where I had been sitting. “Shit,”
I said, “it has to be here somewhere. Where else did I go? Maybe I lost it in the kitchen.”

I walked into the kitchen. Jerry didn’t follow me, but he could still see me. I stopped by the refrigerator. “Here it is,”
I said. “What an idiot I am.” I bent down, picked up the pen, and put it in my shirt pocket. But how was I going to put the
address book back in the drawer without Jerry seeing me do it? “Hey,” I said, “mind if I help myself to some water?”

“Go ahead,” he said.

I found a clean glass and filled it with chilled water from the refrigerator. Then I pushed my glass up against the device
that is supposed to dispense ice cubes, but I jammed the ice up in there with my palm so it wouldn’t come out and I held it
that way for a few seconds so that the grinding sound of the jammed ice dispenser was obvious. Then, pretending to be frustrated
because of the jammed ice dispenser, I opened the freezer door to grab some ice from the ice holder. Using the open freezer
door to shield myself from view, I used my right hand to open the top drawer nearest to the refrigerator and I slipped the
address book into it.

I walked back out to the living room, carrying my glass of water, and there he was in all his splendor. Anvil.

I set my water down on an antique hutch and slowly started raising my right hand to reach inside my jacket for my Glock. Anvil
looked at me, then looked at Jerry and said, “Who’s this guy?”

“He’s a private eye Bugg hired to find Karlynn. Take your coat off; I’ll tell you all about it. I guess we don’t have to worry
about that bitch anymore.”

L
ATER THAT MORNING
I said good-bye to crazy Uncle Ray and Prince. As long as Ray didn’t start drinking again, Prince would be in good hands.
He’d eat what Ray ate, sleep when Ray slept, and always have a roof over his head. And he’d have miles and miles of land in
southern Colorado to call his own.

Feeling lonely and more than a little lucky, I drove down to Wanda’s bakery.

“Where did your stripe go?” Wanda said.

“Long story,” I said.

I gave Wanda’s black Lab, Zeke, a pat on the head, then bought a few donuts and some coffee. A tradition at Wanda’s is that
each customer supplies his own special coffee mug. She washes them each night and hangs each one on a peg until that customer
comes in again. Sadly, the Foghorn Leghorn mug I had used for years had broken recently, so I had replaced it with a mug featuring
the face of Mr. T and the words “Don’t Be a Fool; Stay in School.”

Mr. T, for those who don’t know, played the role of B. A. Baracus in a TV show called
The A-Team
, which was popular in the 1980s. I’m an educated man, but I am not ashamed to say that I believe
The A-Team
was one of the greatest television programs ever. The good guys always won, the bad guys always got what was coming to them,
nobody ever got seriously hurt, and the four members of the A-Team always accomplished their mission with pizzazz. At the
end of each episode, the A-Team’s leader, Colonel “Hannibal” Smith, played by George Peppard, would light a cigar, flash a
big grin, and say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

My heart was still beating faster than it should have been. I needed to put Anvil out of my mind for a few minutes, so I started
reading the paper. I was pleased to see that mine was not one of the names on the obituary page.

Scott walked in and sat down across from me. It was the first time I had seen him since our return from Vegas. Immediately
upon saying good-bye to Uncle Ray and Prince I had phoned Scott and asked him to meet me at Wanda’s.

“What’s up?” he said.

I told him the whole story, starting with the tale I had told Bugg about tracking Karlynn down to the Lewis and Clark Trailer
Park and how we had just missed nabbing her. I told him about my having to put a bullet into Prince’s head and how we had
conducted a nice Protestant ceremony for him in the Idaho pines. I told him that I kept about a hundred thousand dollars and
gave the rest back to Bugg.

“Sounds like everything went well,” he said. “Bugg thinks you’re a hero and you’re a hundred thousand dollars ahead.”

“That’s not the end of the story,” I said.

“I’d better get some coffee,” he said. Scott does not maintain a special mug at Wanda’s, so he had his coffee in a Styrofoam
cup.

I told him about stealing Bugg’s address book, speeding down to Nederland to copy it, then hightailing it back to Bugg’s place
to return it under the pretense of searching for my gold pen.

“Jesus H. W. Christ,” Scott said. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I don’t know. Put that out of your mind for a minute, because here’s where the story gets interesting.” He just looked at
me. “As I am coming back into the living room from the kitchen, getting ready to get the hell out of there, who do you think
walks in?”

“Karylnn?”

“Anvil.”

“Anvil? I did what you told me to. I kept an eye on him for two hours. How was I supposed to know you were going to steal
Bugg’s address book and go back to his house a second time?”

“I’m not mad at you,” I said. “You did your job.”

“What happened?”

“Anvil and I make eye contact, and I’m getting ready to shoot both him and the other goon before I make a beeline for my truck,
but Anvil just looks at the goon and asks who I am. The goon tells him I’m a private eye Bugg hired. I say adios and walk
briskly to my truck.”

“Anvil didn’t recognize you?”

“I don’t know. The only other time he ever saw me was when I had my stripe.”

“What’s your gut?”

“He recognized me. He was within two feet of me at the food court. How could he not recognize me?”

“Why didn’t he take you out or say something to the other goon?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to brainstorm with you.”

“Maybe he wanted direction from Bugg before doing anything. Some organizations are managed from the top down. Maybe the Sons
of Satan is one of them.”

“There’s been a bounty on my head since I took the dog. Anvil saw me with Karlynn, so he should’ve known I took the dog. He
doesn’t need Bugg’s permission to take me out.”

“Maybe he figured Bugg wants you alive so you can explain what you and Karlynn were doing together and where the rest of his
money is.”

“I don’t think Anvil ever told Bugg about seeing Karlynn with me. If he had, Bugg would have shared that with me to help in
my search for Karlynn. Bugg never mentioned it.”

“Maybe Bugg’s been onto you since he first hired you, and he’s just waiting for the right moment.”

“Maybe Anvil isn’t Anvil.”

“What do you mean?”

“What if Anvil is undercover? That would explain why he didn’t push things too far when he saw me with Karlynn.”

“He was just maintaining his cover for Karlynn’s benefit?”

“Yeah. And he never told Bugg about seeing Karlynn with me, because he doesn’t give a shit about what Karlynn did to Bugg.”

“When I talked with him in that bar in Longmont, he said he hadn’t seen Karlynn for a couple of months, and we know that’s
a lie because he had just seen you and Karlynn at the mall.”

“He doesn’t want Bugg to kill me. Or Karlynn.”

“Okay,” said Scott. “If Anvil’s undercover, why does the FBI need Karlynn’s help in the first damned place? Anvil has been
with Bugg for a few years; he knows the operation inside and out. You put him in front of a grand jury, and it’s ‘so long,
Sons of Satan.’”

“That’s a good point,” I said. “I thought about it. The only answer I can come up with is that maybe it’s one of those situations
where the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”

“Anvil’s working for some other agency?”

“It’s happened before,” I said.

“What other agency would be interested in Bugg?”

“DEA, ATF—who knows? Could be the Forest Service for all we know.”

Scott shook his head from side to side. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves here. We don’t even know if Anvil recognized you.”

“I’m not willing to gamble,” I said. “The safe approach is to assume that he did.”

“You want me to stay up here until the situation resolves itself?”

“Would you mind? I sent Uncle Ray and Prince home this morning, and I can’t ask my brother to stay away from his gym that
long.”

“No problem,” Scott said. “I just need to call Bobbi and make her think that she’s giving me permission.”

B
OBBI MAY HAVE GIVEN
Scott permission to stay with me for a while, but Scott was smart enough to know that he couldn’t leave her by herself in
Boulder on New Year’s Eve, so we invited her up to my house. It was Friday evening.

After a brief discussion we decided to eat at the Black Forest in Nederland. We chose the Black Forest for three reasons.
First, the food is good. Second, the atmosphere is outstanding; the view of the mountains is panoramic and the indoor waterfall
provides nice background noise. Third, it wasn’t the kind of place where you were likely to run into anyone associated with
the Sons of Satan. I didn’t tell Scott or Bobbi, but I actually had a fourth reason—the Black Forest serves only Coca-Cola
products. No Pepsi whatsoever.

We went back to my house and I built a fire. We drank some red wine and talked while Buck and Wheat curled up near the fireplace.

“Did Jayne make it back to China?” Bobbi asked.

“What you’re really asking is, where do I stand on the adoption issue?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. It’s not like there haven’t been other things going on in my life lately. Her timing sucks.”

“Maybe you should talk with someone,” Bobbi suggested.

“Yeah,” Scott said with just a hint of mischief in his voice. “Maybe a good therapist is just what you need.”

“I think I’ll just flow with the great Tao for a while and see what happens.”

Bobbi stayed the entire weekend. Scott and I worked out in my basement gym on Saturday and Sunday. He told me to relax more
when performing my kata. We watched a lot of football on Sunday, and when I wasn’t working out or watching football, I continued
to read about Jack Dempsey. I imagined what it would have been like to ride the rails in the early part of the twentieth century
at the age of nineteen. I think I would have preferred that over what kids do today—hang out at the mall.

On Monday morning, shortly after Bobbi drove back down to Boulder, I sat down at my dining table and really studied the photocopy
of Bugg’s address book for the first time. It contained no names or addresses, just initials and numbers. I wasn’t really
sure why I had even taken the risk involved in taking the address book and copying it.
Why climb the highest mountain? Why fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
I was really starting to like that as a potential response to any “why” question.

Scott had just finished taking a shower and walked into the kitchen for some coffee. “Is that the address book?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Not so far. It’s just initials and phone numbers. I’m sure the feds would love to have it.”

“You going to give it to them?”

“I don’t know. If I give it to them, sooner or later they’ll indict Bugg, and when that happens, they’ll have to give a copy
to his lawyer and reveal how they obtained it in the first place. And then I’ll be back to looking over my shoulder for the
rest of my life.”

“You could send it to them anonymously.”

“Yeah, but I’d still be pretty high on Bugg’s list of suspects. The only person higher than me on that list would be Karlynn,
and I’ve got Bugg convinced she moved to Canada and isn’t a threat. As long as I don’t give it to the feds, this thing is
an insurance policy for me. It gives me something to bargain with if Bugg ever comes after me. Matter of fact, I ought to
make a copy for you just in case I ever turn up dead.”

The phone rang. I walked over to the counter and picked up the receiver. “Mr. Keane?” It was a female voice.

“Yeah.”

“This is Detective Simmons from the Denver Police Department.”

“Michelle, hi, how are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Listen, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“The yin and the yang,” I said. “You can’t have one without the other.”

“The voice of the man on the tape you gave me is the voice of the man that called the radio station after your cousin was
killed.”

“I assume that’s the good news.”

“It is. The bad news is, Skull won’t talk with us. I flew up there with another detective to interview him—we thought it would
be best not to give him any advance notice—but we couldn’t get near him. He lives on some sort of heavily guarded compound.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“When we got back to our motel, we had a message from an attorney in Spokane.”

“He lawyered up?”

“Yeah. I told the lawyer about the voiceprint match and she basically told me to pound sand.”

“Great.”

“I did obtain a photo of him from the local sheriff up there, and I showed it to the witness that gave us a description of
him the night your cousin was killed, but he was just too far away to get a good look at the guy’s face. The DA doesn’t think
we have enough to charge him.”

“This guy killed my cousin, a police officer, calls a radio station and claims responsibility for it, and there’s nothing
we can do?”

“We don’t have any other evidence. You’re a lawyer. You know how it works. Assuming our voiceprint expert can’t be discredited,
Skull will admit calling the radio station but deny being involved in the killing. There are plenty of nut cases out there
who make a habit of claiming responsibility for crimes they didn’t commit. That will be his defense. He’ll probably even come
up with some alibi witnesses to say he was a thousand miles away at the time of the murders.”

“Thanks for trying,” I said.

“Are you okay?”