Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir) (30 page)

Now Harry Garson finally understood why he fit. He'd been
born here and was of the Pima people, but he wouldn't be of
them for very much longer if he didn't get a handle on what was going on. It occurred to him that Marissa LaTerre had
probably not taken off of her own free will and that she had
more than likely come to the end of the road prematurely
and violently. Harry spent the rest of the morning and afternoon visiting many of the offices he had visited in the last few
weeks, trying to collect copies of the documents he'd signed
and blindly filed without taking a second look. And once he
had gathered as much of the paperwork as he could, he made
two last stops.

While he drove back to the bungalow, a bungalow he was
shocked to discover he owned free and clear, in a pickup truck
he also owned free and clear, Harry ignored the thick envelope
on the seat next to him and kept staring at the photograph of
his biological father. Even after more than seventy-five years
of life, it was an amazing feeling to fit in and to belong, to
know your place in the world. Maybe all those years made
it that much sweeter. Rebecca and the ancient woman, Issac Hart's youngest sister and Harry's aunt, explained that his
father had fallen deeply in love with a teacher at the Indian
school and had gotten her pregnant. He had wanted to marry
her, but she refused. She'd had the baby, but disappeared a few
weeks later. He had never stopped trying to find her and the
child he had named Ben.

"He worked hard to purchase many acres of land off tribal
territory, so he could prove his worth to the teacher when
she returned or he found her," Rebecca explained. "He never
found her and she never returned, but in your father's will he
left the land to you and your children. Until you returned, it
was to be kept by the family. We were not allowed to sell it or
use it. I have been told this story since I was a child. The fact
that your father bought white land when he did has been a
source of great pride for us, but I always thought it was only a story." It was no story and the proof was there on the seat
next to Harry.

It was dusk when he got back up to the little abobe house
in the foothills, a place he had come to love. He also loved
how the light of the vanishing sun lit up the sky with streaks
of orange and purple, gold and blue. And although his eyesight wasn't great in the falling darkness without his glasses,
he caught sight of the jeep parked across the road from his
house. If he hadn't been looking for a strange vehicle, he
probably wouldn't have spotted it, but after what he'd learned
today, he expected it to be there. He rolled to the side of the
road, reached into the envelope, and pulled out one particular
document. He took his deep breaths, flicked up his famous on
switch, put the truck back in gear, and pulled onto the dirt
driveway. When he got out of the Ford, Harry held the document out in front of him like a shield. He had it all planned,
the words he was going to say to save himself. Yet, now out of
the truck, he decided not to speak. Harry Garson was an old
man, too old to be fully transformed into Ben Hart at this late
date. Belonging, being Ben Hart, son of Isaac Hart, even for
only a few hours, had answered all the important questions that
he'd kept locked up inside all these years. What he really hoped
for was that the end wouldn't hurt too much when it came.

The elegantly thin man with the pockmarked skin and cold
fish eyes stood in the trashed living room and dialed the untraceable number Walter had given him. He had been thorough, making sure it looked like his target had walked in on
a robbery, surprised the thief, and was shot to death in the
process. Joey had even used a .45 on the old man, not the kind
of weapon a professional killer would generally use.

"You're fucked," Joey said when Walter finally picked up.

"How's that?"

Joey explained about the document the old Indian held
when he got out of the truck.

"He was holding a piece of paper in his hand, so what?"

"It's a last will and testament," the assassin said, "a brandnew one, dated today."

"Shit!"

"Shit is right. He left the land to the tribe and some woman
named Rebecca to do with as they please. I don't know how he
managed it, but the will was witnessed by the mayor of Tucson
and a tribal elder. He's got a Polaroid of the signing stapled to
the will. You're fucked."

"You said that already."

"My money?"

"You did your job. It'll be in your account in the morning."

There was a click on the other end of the line.

As Joey left, he took one last look at his victim to make
sure everything was just so. And as he did, he thought he
recognized the old Indian from a TV show he had watched
as a kid.

"Bearstein!" he whispered to himself. "Sorry, chief."

Upper Peninsula, Michigan

e was wearing a Western-style shirt, scarlet and black
with a lot of gold piping, and one of those bolo string
ties, and he should have topped things off with a
broad-brimmed Stetson, but that would have hidden his hair.
And it was the hair that had drawn her in the first place. It
was a rich chestnut with red highlights, and so perfect she'd
thought it was a wig. Up close, though, you could see that it
was homegrown and not store bought, and it looked the way
it did because he'd had one of those $400 haircuts that cost
John Edwards the 2008 Iowa primary. This barber had worked
hard to produce a haircut that appeared natural and effortless, so much so that it wound up looking like a wig.

He was waiting his turn at the craps table, betting against
the shooter and winning steadily as the dice stayed cold, with
one shooter after another rolling craps a few times, then finally getting a point and promptly sevening out.

She didn't know dice, didn't care about gambling. Something about this man had drawn her, something about the wig
that was not a wig, and she stood beside him and breathed in
his aftershave-an inviting lemon-and-leather scent, a little
too insistent but nice all the same. The string tie, she saw, had
a Navajo slide, a thunderbird accented in turquoise.

Here in Michigan, the slide and its owner were a long way
from home.

"Seven," the stickman announced. "New shooter coming
out."

And the dice passed to the man with the great haircut.

He cradled them in his palm, held them in front of her
face. Without looking at her he said, "Warm these up, sweet
thing."

He'd given no indication that he was even aware of her
presence, but she wasn't surprised. Men generally noticed
her.

She took hold of his wrist, leaned forward, blew warm
breath on the dice.

"Now that's just what was needed," he said, and dropped
a black chip on the table, then gave the dice a shake and
rolled an eleven. A natural, a winner, and that doubled his
stake and he let it ride and rolled two sevens before he caught
a point, an eight.

Now it became hard for her to follow, because she didn't
know the game, and he was pushing his luck, betting numbers,
scattering chips here and there, and rolling one combination
after another that managed to be neither an eight nor a seven.
He made the point, finally, and the one after that, and by the
time he finally sevened out he'd won thousands of dollars.

"And that's that." He stepped away from the table, turning to take his first good long look at her. He wasn't shy about
letting his eyes travel the length of her body, then return to
her face. "When you get lucky," he said, "you got to ride it and
push your luck. That's half of it, and the other half is knowing
when to stop."

"And you're stopping?"

"For now. You stay at the table long enough, you're sure to
give it all back. Luck goes one way and then it goes the other, like
a pendulum swinging, and the house always has more money than you do and it can afford to wait you out. Any casino'll
break you in the long run, even a pissant low-rent Injun casino
way the hell up in the Upper Peninsula." He grinned. "But in
the long run, we're all dead-so the hell with the long run. In
the short run, a person can get lucky and do himself some good,
and it might never have happened if you didn t come along and
blow on my dice. You're my lucky charm, sweet thing."

"It was exciting," she said. "I don't really know anything
about dice-"

"You sure know how to blow on 'em, darlin'."

"-but once you started rolling everything happened so
fast, and everybody got excited about it-"

"Because the ones who followed my play got to win along
with me."

"-and I got excited too."

He looked at her. "Excited, huh?"

She nodded.

"And now," he said, "I suppose it's passed, and you're not
excited anymore."

"Not in the same way."

"Oh?"

She allowed herself a smile.

"C'mon," he said. "Why don't we sit down and have ourselves some firewater."

They took a table in a darkened corner of the lounge, and a
dark-skinned girl with braids brought their drinks. He'd ordered a Dirty Martini, and she'd followed his lead.