High Plains Tango (19 page)

Chapter Fourteen

I
N HIS OFFICE IN FALLS CITY, RAY DARGEN WAS ADDRESSING
a group of local businessmen. “Boys, didn’t I tell you this was a chance to do some real business? I told you to trust your good buddy Ray, didn’t I? The road’s going through here, just like I told you it would, and—”

“Ray,” one of the men intruded, “it’s not a sure thing yet, is it? The plans we’ve seen are labeled
proposed
route.”

Ray Dargen grinned confidently. “The road’s going to go through here, just where the plans show. Ol’ Jack Wheems, my senator friend and head of highway legislation out there in our nation’s capital, guarantees it.” Dargen swung back and forth in his leather swivel chair, hands folded across his curving stomach, content with the power he had and even more content thinking of what was to come.

“You’re absolutely sure there’s no way we can get in trouble for buying up all that land last year?” asked another man, a Falls City doctor.

Dargen snorted and waved back their fears with his right hand moving in a generous sweep through the air. “Nothing wrong with a few of us making a buck or two outta something that was gonna happen anyway. Like the Bible says, go forth and prosper.”

Dargen paused and tried to remember if those words, in fact, came from the Bible and was pretty sure they had. Nobody in the group corrected him, so he went on.

“’Course, we’d all just as soon our foresight didn’t appear as public record in the
Inquirer
. Now let’s stop worrying and go over one more time how we divvied up these land purchases so none of us appears to have been buying property in amounts that might draw attention.”

THE OWNER
of a trucking company was sitting on Jill Remington’s left and had spent the evening admiring her breasts while he talked at her. His eyes toggled back and forth from her face to the downward sweep of her neckline. He droned, she was bored. But she locked a pleasant half smile on her face and pretended to be interested (God, don’t these men ever talk about anything except politics and business?).

Yet Jill Remington was pleased that Senator Jack Wheems had invited her to the intimate dinner party. His wife and the conservative people he represented back home prevented him from taking her to restaurants, but he liked to show her off when he could do it in relative safety. Tonight had been deemed modestly secure by the senator’s aides, who disliked Jill simply because of the senator’s interest in her and the political risk that interest represented.

On her right, at the head of the table, the senator was leaning over and talking to a New Orleans road builder. “Nah, we don’t expect any trouble out there. Those poor bastards in the high plains are so desperate they’ll do anything to get help. We’ll probably run into some problems from environmentalists in the Louisiana wetlands and maybe farther on north where we’re going through the edge of a national park, but that can be managed. I’m still quietly lining up votes on the Public Works and Transportation Committee, but we should be ready to announce the final route by sometime next year, which, of course, will be the route we’ve already decided on.”

“Listen, Senator, if you need more money for the final push, give me a call,” the road builder offered.

“Thanks, we might. I’ll let you know. One way or the other, we’ll get it all taken care of. Cal Akers over at the Chamber is spearheading this for me, and Cal knows how to stomp ass when he needs to. Behind that born-again bullshit of his is a real gunslinger.”

The senator tapped his cigar on an ashtray, shook his head, and let go a nominal laugh empty of humor. “Jesus, when those poor country folks see what the Mexican trade agreement’s going to do to their little hopes and dreams of attracting industry, they’ll crap bricks. The Mexicans’ll work for nothing or close to it, and the agreement’ll just pound those little shitburgs out west deeper into the ground with a croquet mallet, but they’re dying anyway, and that’s an altogether separate problem.”

The others up and down the table nodded their assent.

“What is it Cal Akers says?” Senator Wheems paused, looking up at the ceiling where the smoke from his cigar drifted through the bangles of a crystal chandelier. “American technology used by Mex labor to make products we’ll sell to the Japanese and Europeans. He calls it the Rio Grande Initiative. Good title.”

Jill Remington, gazellelike and head canted, was on time-share, listening to the senator and nodding while the trucker talked to her, counting on her breasts to provide filler for the well-practiced, innocuous words she said back to him. Tonight she was an object and knew it, disliking the role and yet glad at the same time she didn’t live out in that high plains area the senator called West Jesus and assorted other names.

“Ever been to Toledo, Jill?” The trucker leered, and the red flag in her brain, with “Question Has Been Asked!” printed on it, flipped to attention. Jack Wheems was looking over at her.

“No, I never have. Is it nice?” That, she figured, would be good for another ten minutes of mindless rambling by the trucker. She glanced at the senator; he puffed on his cigar and winked at her.

The trucker looked at her breasts, reloaded, and continued. “Little lady, we’re just going to have to get you out there and show you  .  .  .”

While he talked, Mexicana flight 32 bumped onto the runway at Dulles with Cal Akers, executive director of the United States Chamber of Commerce, on board.

THE DAY
after Jill Remington’s education on the pleasures of Toledo, Ohio, and with the dregs of his travel fatigue swept away by the Christian Businessmen’s Breakfast he had just attended, Cal Akers briskly entered his offices on Capitol Hill. The Mexicans were coming around on the trade agreement, and he could already visualize shoals of factories lining the border. Let the supercilious Europeans and the buzzing little Jappos suck on that prospect.

“Good morning, Jill.”

“Good morning, Mr. Akers. Welcome back. How was the trip?”

“Super, Jill. Just super. What’s the message board look like?”

In Cal Akers’s world, everything was always super in spite of one failed marriage, a second headed in that direction, and a possible bankruptcy flowing from investments he had made in a chain of jewelry stores. Over the last six years of working for Cal, Jill had come to hate the word
super.

“I’ve stacked them on your desk in the order they arrived, Mr. Akers. Mr. Flanigan at the High Plains Development Corporation has called several times. Also, Senator Wheems called and needs to talk with you right away.”

“Raise him for me. Then we’ll try Flanigan.”

The senator was riding his big horse, lathered up and rolling. A night on Jill Remington consistently did that for him. “Cal,” he roared, “get your buddy Bill Flanigan out there in West Fuckup to talk with this Ray Dargen, whoever he is, and get the son of a bitch calmed down before he wrecks this entire project. Harlan—you know, Senator Sterk from out there—tells me Dargen got a bunch of people together and they’ve secretly been buying land along the proposed route prior to the announcement last week. Been doing it for the last year or so, from what Harlan tells me. Christ, I knew it was a mistake for Flanigan to show him the route this early even if Dargen is a state highway commissioner.”

Akers flinched at the senator’s vocabulary, which echoed the way he used to talk before he stopped smoking and committed to Christ. “Who is Ray Dargen? Never heard of him except for the one time Flanigan mentioned him on a phone message he left for me on my answering machine.”

“Ray Dargen’s a real bad person, Cal,” Jack Wheems replied. “According to Sterk, Dargen skates around on his own private grease rink, one of the old-line guys who hasn’t figured out the world is changing. He’s not all that bright overall, but he’s shrewd-smart, and he’s so mean that he bullies people into doing what he wants. Nobody likes to confront him ’cause he’s got no conscience and no qualms about doing anything, no matter how nasty it is. While ago he got a Falls City woman who was running against Harlan tossed out of the primaries by printing up an anonymous flyer alleging she used dope and was screwing a Puerto Rican guitar player while letting her husband watch.

“It was all lies, but nobody could trace it to him. Dargen also contributes a lot of money to Harlan’s campaign pot, and you know Harlan’s a good friend of mine. I also happen to know that Dargen owns a big chunk of land out near a place called Wolf Butte. He bought it about fifteen years ago, so Harlan says. Something to do with trace elements of gold found in a stream near there. How that all fits into this I’m not sure.”

“Okay, Senator. I’ll call Flanigan right away and check on it.” Cal Akers hung up and asked Jill to get Bill Flanigan on the line.

“HIGH PLAINS
Development Corporation, Mrs. Andrews speaking.”

“Mr. Akers at the United States Chamber of Commerce is calling for Mr. Flanigan.” Jill wondered if Mrs. Andrews, whoever she was, had ever been balled by a senator.

Mrs. Andrews had not been balled by a senator, though she’d seen several of them on television. Aside from one careless and fumbling moment after the senior prom, there had been only her husband, and he had lost interest ten years ago.

Margaret Andrews was drooping. She had spent the previous night helping her daughter deal with the baby’s croup while her son-in-law watched a football game on television. She had known it was a mistake when Marilee dropped out of cosmetology school and got married to a certifiable loser. Somehow, though, with the faith of mothers everywhere, she had hoped it might work out, still did.

“Mr. Flanigan is on another line. Would you like to leave a callback?”

“When he’s free, please have him call Mr. Akers.”

“I’ll give him the message.”

“Thank you. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

Jill buzzed Cal Akers. “Mr. Flanigan is busy right now. I left a callback.”

“Thanks, Jill.” Cal Akers rapped his pen on the desk blotter. Geez Louise, you could never get anybody anywhere anymore.

In ten minutes, Bill Flanigan returned the call. Akers picked up the phone, pulling up his best smiley voice as he did it. “Bill, how are you? I’m sorry to be so slow about getting back to you. I’ve been over on the Hill and down in Mexico City for a week, working on what we’re calling the Rio Grande Initiative. It’s moving along, even though the liberals are all fussed up about cheap labor and environmental stuff.

“Anyway, I just wanted to fill you in on the highway project and check how it’s going on your end. Things are moving fast here, faster than I thought they would. The good senator’s swinging a meat ax on this one, calling in his chits, beating the crap out of anyone getting in his way. The Canadians are on board now, and New Orleans has helped form a national coalition of oilmen and truckers.

“We had some problems with the federal planners and engineers. The planners have been whining that they don’t have enough money to maintain existing interstates, let alone build a new one. The engineers are a separate case. They don’t like the big swing in the road to include Falls City and Livermore. The senator himself went over and talked to them two days ago. Told them if they expected any more money for concrete in the next ten years, they’d better get their minds straight on this project. That seemed to do it. There’s still some bitching, but they’re getting in harness.”

“Any chance of the road coming through Salamander?”

“None. We gave it a shot, like you asked, but the engineers really screamed on that one, so I let it drop. Anyway, we both know that little pond’s drying up, and a road won’t help it. Right now it looks like we’re staying with the proposed route, which will miss Salamander by about six miles, coming cross-country northwest from Livermore and then cutting over Forty-two and on up a dirt road to the north, same as we talked about before. Looks like a clear shot across open country after it leaves Livermore, which helps to minimize property acquisition costs. What about things out there? You see any problems?”

“Well, the Salamander thing would have helped, but we’ll smoke it by them, tell them the spin-off from the highway will be good for the town, even though it’s six miles west of them. The farmers and ranchers’ll scream like hell about it cutting through their land, but they can be handled. One other possible problem just came up. Word has it that the Sioux consider the area around Wolf Butte sacred land, even though they don’t own it. They did own it a long time ago, but that was inconvenient for the government and gold miners, so it got kind of slipped over into other hands. The Indians still feel proprietary about it, however. We’ve had similar problems with other development projects. Somehow we’ll work it out, give ’em the modern-day equivalent of beads—a truckload of beer or something—or just blow it past ’em, whatever it takes.”

“Good. Listen, Bill, the main reason I called is a fellow named Ray Dargen who is apparently buying up land along the highway route. That’s got to stop or at least be cranked up six more notches of secrecy. Apparently Dargen has been a force in getting the highway through your area, but the whole thing might collapse or at minimum get held up if he doesn’t quiet down.”