Bluetick Revenge Page 20

  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.

  37

  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 the
y’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.”

  38

  I LANDED IN DENVER 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.”

  Before I left, Scott led me downstairs to his “war room.” This room contains more telescopes, microscopes, radios, computers, maps, and electronic gadgets than any other basement in America. It also contains Scott’s two gun cases, so I picked out a shotgun and a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle with a scope. I loaded both before heading back up to Nederland.

  39

  I WAS ASLEEP but nevertheless conscious of the fact that I was dreaming about snakes. When I was a kid, I had frequent terrifying nightmares about snakes. Now, in my forties, such dreams are rare.

  The dream woke me up and I figured I might as well empty my bladder. Then I heard it. Just as I started to put my feet on the floor—the unmistakable warning of a coiled rattlesnake. I pulled my feet up and stood on the bed. My heart was racing. We’ll never know for sure, but I believe that in those few seconds I let loose with one of best examples of spontaneous cursing in the history of the English-speaking peoples.

  I stood for a minute so my eyes could adjust to darkness. The dogs, who had both been sleeping beside me on the bed, were alert now. I commanded them to stay, then retrieved a flashlight from the bedside table. I aimed the light beam at the snake, then scanned the room to see if he had brought any friends. I didn’t see any. Slowly I began to regain my composure.

  It’s just one fucking snake, I thought. I can jump toward the bedroom door and get out of the room without ever getting into snake range. Then I’ll get a rake or something from the garage and kill the damned thing.

  I saw no other snakes on my way to the garage. I would have seen them if there had been any, because I had turned on every light in the house on my way to the garage. I found an iron rake with a long handle. I also found a shovel I could use to chop the snake in half. I had no experience with this, but Dad had always told me the secret to success was to use the right tool for the job. I grabbed Scott’s shotgun on the way back up to my bedroom. Now I had three tools.

  I flicked on the overhead light in my bedroom. The dogs were on the bed barking. Mr. Snake was still there, quite content to lie coiled on my carpet. The only reason I didn’t shred the thing with the shotgun is that I didn’t want to have to clean up what would surely be a bloody mess. Carefully I made my way around the snake to
one of the bedroom windows. I opened the window as much as it would open.

  I began to slide the pronged end of the iron rake toward the snake. He didn’t like that and made that clear. I caught part of his underbelly on the prongs of the rake and lifted him up. I walked to the open window and flung him out, down onto the frozen ground below.

  I supposed he would die from the cold, and that was okay by me. He shouldn’t have been in Nederland in the first fucking place, and he certainly shouldn’t have been in my bedroom. But I’m not a herpetologist and I wasn’t absolutely sure he would die from the cold. What if it had been a female? Would the land surrounding my home be infested with baby rattlers next spring? I put my flip-flops on, walked downstairs, took the shotgun out on to the back deck, located the rattler on the snow, and fired two shells right at it.

  I looked at the clock in the kitchen. Two-seventeen a.m. I downed a few swigs of Jack Daniel’s to calm my nerves and started a methodical check of my house for snakes. When I was satisfied that there were no others, I took the Jack Daniel’s and Scott’s shotgun to my recliner, then leaned back to think it through.

  Contrary to popular belief, rattlesnakes can live at this altitude. But it’s extremely rare; you’ve got a better chance of meeting a Republican at a Planned Parenthood meeting than you have of finding a rattler at 8,236 feet. I had never encountered one above six thousand feet. And they hibernate in the winter. So this was not a case of a confused rattler that just wandered into my expensive mountain home. Someone had put the snake there, either to kill me or to fuck with me. I intended to find out who. Then I would kill him or find a way to fuck back.

  The phone rang. It was Glen, Nederland’s police chief. “We had a report of gunfire in your area,” he said, “and you naturally came to mind. Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I said. “You don’t need to send anyone.”

  “Good. There’s nobody to send except me. What happened?”

  “I took a couple of shots at an animal that got too close to the house, that’s all.”

  “Mountain lion?”

  “Rattlesnake.”