Bluetick Revenge (25 page)

I took a diet Coke from the refrigerator and sat down on the couch. My mom sat in a recliner. “You’re not eating enough,”
she said. “You’re thin as a rail.”

“Mom, I’m weighing in at about two-twenty these days.”

“How’s Jayne?” she said.

“Fine,” I said.

She started talking about the latest political turmoil at the hospital in Barrow and asked whether she could be sued if one
of the government doctors malpracticed on one of the natives. She doesn’t like it when the doctors disagree with her. She
has been a nurse for fifty years. She thinks they’re all incompetent.

Eventually she got around to asking me what I was doing in Barrow, and I explained that I was just trying to find a young
woman who needed some help. I didn’t tell her about Bugg, or the Sons of Satan, or Skull. Or Anvil or the FBI or the drug
money.

I updated her on Uncle Ray and told her I’d probably be heading back to Anchorage in a day or two. There are only four thousand
people in Barrow, and I could exclude all the men as well as all Eskimo women. It wouldn’t take long to find Karlynn. She
would stick out like a sore thumb.

I
FOUND HER THE NEXT DAY
. I use the term “day” in the broader sense; I don’t mean to imply that there was the slightest hint of sunshine or any other
kind of natural light. It was a Saturday, which for many people meant it was shopping day.

There is really only one store in Barrow. Sure, there are restaurants, liquor stores, and even some motels, but if you are
looking for groceries or hardware, there is really only one store. I stood just inside the entrance and showed Karlynn’s picture
to anyone who entered. A number of people recognized her, but some were natives and didn’t speak English. My Inupiat was rusty,
but eventually an Eskimo kid who spoke English looked at the photo of the dark-haired Karlynn and said, “She has red hair
now.”

“Yes,” I said. He offered to take me to her for twenty bucks. I climbed aboard his snowmobile and away we went.

Within a few minutes we came to a small house made of wood, aluminum, and possibly an old whaling boat. A satellite dish was
mounted on one side, just below the roof. There were two huskies out front, each with its own insulated shelter. I knocked
on the door, but there was no answer. It was unlocked. I signaled the kid to wait a minute and went inside. Nobody was home,
but I recognized the coat she had been wearing when she ditched me in Denver. I went outside, paid the kid, and told him to
take off.

I looked at my watch. It was noon. The place wasn’t bad on the inside. It had running water and a furnace. I removed my outer
clothes, flopped down on the couch, and watched TV for a while. She came in around four, saw me through the holes in her face
mask, and said, “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“I’m glad to see you, too,” I said.

“I’m not going back,” she said as she removed her face mask. She was still a redhead, but her hair was much shorter.

“I didn’t come to take you back.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m missing some T-shirts,” I said. “I thought you might have them.” She removed her parka.

“Why are you here?” she repeated.

“To make sure you are okay.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Do you need money? You left about three hundred thousand with Matt. I had to give some of it back to Bugg, but I brought
some of it with me.”

“You gave it back to him?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” I said. She offered hot tea and I accepted.

I spent the next hour recounting the tale of the road trip to Idaho, including finding her at the Lewis and Clark Trailer
Park, shooting Prince in the head, returning the money to Bugg, running into Anvil again, and tracking her down to Barrow.

“So Prince is okay?” she asked.

“He’s fine. He’s living with my uncle Ray in southern Colorado. They’re a match made in heaven.”

“Is Thad still looking for me?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if he bought my story. I’m pretty sure Anvil recognized me. Any idea why he didn’t just try to
kill me on the spot?”

“He knows you carry a gun. Maybe he didn’t think the time was right.”

“Scott and I discussed the possibility that he might be an undercover agent.”

“Anvil?”

“I don’t think he ever told Bugg about seeing you and me in the mall. He told Scott he hadn’t seen you for two months, and
that was shortly after he’d seen us together at the mall. And the other day at Bugg’s house he pretended he didn’t recognize
me.”

“Why would the feds need me to testify if Anvil is one of them?”

“I don’t know. We thought he might not be with the FBI, that maybe he is with the DEA or some other agency.”

“No way is Anvil a cop,” she said as she turned her head from side to side. “I’ve seen him get drunk; I’ve seen him smoke
dope; I’ve seen him rough people up. I don’t buy it.”

“Just a theory,” I said.

“I’ll tell you one thing about Thad. He won’t give up. If he finds out what you did, he’ll pursue you to your dying day. And
me.”

“He’ll never find you up here,” I said. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about the federal arrest warrant. Are you using
your real name?”

“No, I bought a new identity in Seattle. Got a new birth certificate and a new Social Security number. My name is Jenny Watson
now.”

“What about a driver’s license and a passport?”

“I don’t need those right now, so why take the risk?”

“You never answered my question,” I said. “Do you need money?”

“I have enough.”

“I still have something like a hundred grand.”

“Keep it. Give it to Matt. I don’t care. If I spend too much at one time, it will attract more attention than I need.”

“Are you working?” I said.

“I’m working the front desk at a motel. Today was my second day.”

“How did you get a job so quickly?”

“It’s not hard,” she said. “Anyone with half a brain and no alcohol issues can get a job here. I’m going to take some classes
after I get settled.”

“Is there a college here?”

“Ilisagvik College.”

“I bet it doesn’t attract many nonresident students,” I said. Yeah, my kid applied to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Ilisagvik.

She made more hot tea and we continued talking. “I want to show you something,” I said. I handed her my copy of Bugg’s address
book.

“How did you get this?” she asked. I told her.

“I’ve managed to figure out who some of the phone numbers belong to, but maybe you can help me with some of the others.”

We went through my copy of the address book page by page, and she was able to provide names for some of the initials associated
with some of the numbers. We spent more than an hour on it, and she provided a wealth of information about the Sons of Satan.
I took copious notes.

“One thing I noticed,” I said as we came to the end of the address book, “is that there are some numbers in the back of the
book that aren’t phone numbers. Each series has eight or nine digits, and there are no initials next to them.” I showed them
to her. “Any idea what those are?”

“I never noticed them before,” she said. “Thad never said anything about them.”

Was there anything else I wanted to ask her? This would probably be my only chance. I turned to the topic of Skull. I had
no way of knowing whether the Skull who had killed my cousin was the same Skull who had killed Agent Lowell. Maybe Karlynn
could help.

“Karlynn,” I said, “when the feds were questioning you about the murder of Agent Lowell, you told them someone named Mongoose
had told Bugg that Skull had done a good job. Do you remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“Had you ever met Skull?”

“No.”

“Had Thad ever met Skull?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He never mentioned it to me.”

“Do you know how Mongoose knew Skull?”

“No.”

“Do you remember anything else at all that Mongoose said about Skull?”

“Just that Skull had done a good job.”

“Anything else about that conversation that you remember? How did Bugg react when Mongoose told him Skull had done a goodjob?”

“I think Thad just said ’fuckin skinheads’ or something like that.”

“Skull was a skinhead?”

“I guess. Why else would Thad say that?”

At some point I ran out of questions. There was an awkward silence. It was time to leave. I stood and looked at her. “Are
you sure you want to stay here?” I asked. “You won’t be able to communicate with anyone you used to know. That’s how they’ll
find you.”

“I know.”

“It will be lonely.”

“I’m okay with it. There are worse things than loneliness.”

“My mother lives here,” I said. “She’s a nurse at the hospital. I’ll give you her phone number. If you’re ever in real trouble,
call my mom and have her call me.” I removed my pen from my pocket, wrote the number down on a notepad, and handed the piece
of paper to her.

“Okay, thanks.”

I put my parka and my other winter gear on, then opened the door and was greeted by an assault of cold, wind, and darkness.
“You want me to call a taxi?” she asked. “That’s how we get around up here.”

“Hell, no,” I said. “It’s a beautiful night for a walk.”

“You’re funny,” she said.

“That’s what I keep telling people,” I said. I stepped outside, so we had to speak louder because of the wind. The huskies
were still there.

“The dogs belong to the man I rent from. They keep the polar bears away. I’ve tried to make them indoor dogs, but they like
the cold. Prince wouldn’t be happy here.”

“No raccoons,” I said.

“I’m worried about you,” she said. “Don’t underestimate Thad. He plays for keeps.”

“Me too,” I said. “I’m going to help the feds put him away for good.

“Sooner or later I’ll have to come up to visit my mom. I’ll look you up when I do.”

“I’d like that. You’ll be my only connection with my past.”

“Who knows, I might even bring Prince if I come in the summer.”

I
LANDED IN
D
ENVER
on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, having opted to spend a night in San Francisco on that leg of my return trip. I took an airport
shuttle to my truck, which I had parked in an outlying lot. It started right up. I headed south to my brother’s house to retrieve
Buck and Wheat.

Nobody was home, so I loaded the dogs into my truck, then went back inside to rifle the pantry for any junk food I might be
able to consume during the hour-and-a-half drive back to Nederland. The pickings were slim. I had to settle for some beef
jerky and a diet Pepsi. I left my brother a note suggesting he show more consideration in the future.

I ended up having to drive through Denver at rush hour. Past tree forts that were now office buildings. Past rope swings that
were now fast food joints. Past vast grazing lands that were now municipalities. “All is flux,” said Heraclitus.

When I reached Boulder, I decided to swing by Scott’s house and tell him about my latest exploits. Bobbi was out showing a
home. Scott was reading an astronomy journal and apparently listening to a CD of old Donna Summer tunes.

I opened my jacket to reveal the Glock in my shoulder holster. I tapped the weapon a few times with my right index finger.
“If I hear ’MacArthur Park’ come out of those speakers,” I said, “I’m going to shoot you right here. For the good of the gene
pool. I want to be straight with you about that.”

“Where’ve you been?” he said.

“Barrow.”

“How’s your mom?”

“Almost as crazy as Uncle Ray. There’s no doubt they’ve got some of the same DNA floating around in their systems.”

He turned the music down. I took my jacket off, sat down, and told him how I had found Karlynn.

“Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”

“I was just playing a hunch,” I said. “ Didn’t want to drag you along on a wild-goose chase. Figured the time alone would
do me good, give me some time to think about my future with Jayne.”

“Did you make any decisions?”

“Not about that.”

“You made some other decisions?”

“Yeah. I think I’m going to give Bugg’s address book to the feds.”

“Why?”

“I think Bugg’s onto me. I know Anvil recognized me. If I’m right, giving the address book to the feds doesn’t put me in any
more danger than I’m already in.”

“Want me to move back in with you?”

“No, but I wouldn’t mind borrowing a shotgun, a rifle, and some ammo. All I’ve got is the Glock.” Scott is not a “gun nut,”
and he says half the members of the NRA are crackpots, but he grew up hunting and does not think it unusual to have a dozen
firearms in his home.

“Sure, take your pick before you leave. Sorry I don’t have any rocket-propelled grenades, but the CIA gave its surplus to
the Arabs.”

I smiled and I handed him my copy of Bugg’s address book. “I had plenty of free time in Alaska, so I spent some time online
trying to learn what I could about all the phone numbers in Bugg’s book. I learned quite a bit, and Karlynn was able to help
me fill in some of the gaps. I’ve got a name and address for most of these phone numbers. And in some cases I’ve got a lot
more than that.”

“That’s great,” he said.

“By the way, the Skull that killed Lowell was a skinhead.”

“That’s interesting.”

“It’s very interesting. We’ve got two different people killed by a skinhead named Skull. We know a skinhead in Idaho named
Skull. And we know Mongoose lives in Wyoming and hired a skinhead named Skull to kill Lowell.”

“Idaho and Wyoming are right next door to each other.”

“Yeah, I had the same thought.”

Scott opened the address book and began to thumb through it.

“Look at the back page,” I said. “There is a series of numbers there, and each one consists of eight or nine digits. No initials.
Any idea what those might be?”

“Not off the top of my head, but I’ll copy them down and give it some thought.”

“I guess I’d like to know what they are before I decide whether to give this to the feds.”