Ridley Pearson - Killer View

They both went quiet, as the old cow approached and delivered the drinks. She asked if the younger woman wanted a menu and the younger woman laughed. She didn’t understand the concept of eating. Not anymore. The cow trundled off.

“Listen, I gotta have a backup plan. We lose this chance, no one’s going to listen.”

“I told you: I don’t know.”

“I’d hate to miss my next delivery,” he said.

Her hand clasped the glass more tightly, turning the skin beneath her unpainted fingernails a bloodless white. Her face remained impassive. “As if,” she said.

“Don’t push me.”

“I’m on it. It’s not easy.” She leaned across to him, her breath giving lie to the myth that the smell of vodka went undetected. “It’s an atomic research facility, Roy boy. What do you expect?”

“Delivery,” he said equally softly. He despised the nickname, despised her weakness, despised most everything about her but her body. Her talking in that husky voice aroused him. “All those degrees of yours…”

Her eyes went off someplace over his head. He wondered what was going on in there, if she could grasp even a glimpse of her decline at the hands of the meth. He’d taken her from a lonely, bored, successful physicist and reduced her to a skeleton-eyed addict who showed no remorse over her breaches of security. Maybe it hadn’t been him or his cause but instead the tedium of a professional life that required total secrecy, performed in the middle of an enormous desert. The government contractor daily bused three thousand specialists just like her in from Pocatello -nerds with their laptops-a Mormon town where the idea of an exciting night out was a decaf latte at Starbucks. She’d walked into a four-year contract and had burned out within six months. She’d been waiting for someone like him to come along.

He passed the paper bag beneath the table. Collected no money for it. If she’d thought about that, it might have given her pause. He’d never charged her for the meth. He understood the ways of an addict. If she wasn’t totally behind his cause, she was at the very least accustomed to his keeping her high.

His knuckles brushed her knee under the table. Her hand met his and she took possession of the bag, and, with it, an eagerness flashed across her otherwise-dull, yellowing eyes.

“I could take a room at the Lazy Horse,” he said. “You wouldn’t have to wait. To risk smoking in the car. We wouldn’t want you to get busted.”

She no longer rode the bus from Pocatello. She’d moved to a double-wide near Moore, a few miles down the road. This to be away from her coworkers, thrust into the roaring nightlife of Arco, Idaho, population one hundred and fifty. The movie theater ran two shows every Friday night.

“I think I can make it seven miles down the road, Roy.”

He wasn’t so sure. “But you wouldn’t have to,” he said. “Not if I took a room.”

“What else do you want from me?”

He smiled.

“Oh, Roy, what are we going to do with you?”

“Just about anything you want,” he said.

She upended the vodka, leaned close to him, and whispered again, “You terrify me. Whenever we meet, I leave shaking. A pit in my stomach. You scare the piss out of me, Roy. You scare everyone who meets you.”

He heard all that, but he barely reacted, because she rose and pumped her way back to the EXIT sign. Next time, he would withhold the meth. Next time, she would pay for that mouth of hers.

DESPITE THE PROMINENT SIGN-PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE, THIS IS A NO CELL PHONE ENVIRONMENT-Walt was on the phone for a good deal of the time his physical was being conducted. Dr. Royal McClure, a good friend who sometimes wore the hat of pathologist for Blaine County, drew his blood and ran him through a variety of tests while Walt raised his own blood pressure trying to locate a Geiger counter. Nancy was on the receiving end of his irritation, as it became increasingly clear to him that Idaho State University owned two such devices but didn’t loan them out; the state’s environmental agency used a lab in California; and buying a Gamma-Scout would cost five hundred dollars. After a number of calls back and forth, he relented and approved the purchase. He asked her to call the Idaho state crime lab and confirm that they’d tested the mess of broken glass and ice discovered on his back porch for radioactivity.

While Walt was sitting on the edge of the examination table, the paper liner crackling beneath him when he buttoned up his uniform, his cell phone rang as he was putting it away. McClure glowered at him. Bothered, Walt barked his name when he answered: “Fleming!”

“Sheriff Fleming?”

“Speaking.”

“Hold for Congressman McMillian, please.”

The line clicked.

“Sheriff?”

“Congressman?”

“I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“No, sir.”

“I was speaking with George Carliner and your name came up.”

“If this is about my suggestion we drop party affiliation as a requirement for-”

“It’s not,” the congressman interrupted.

“I told the attorney general it was an idea still in its infancy,” Walt said.

“Nothing to do with that. Let’s put a pin in that and come back to it another time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m calling about the National Law Enforcement Conference here in Washington next week. I don’t know if you’ve heard but Mel Tooley has had to withdraw at the last minute.”

“I hadn’t heard.”

“His wife, I think. Something medical.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.” Walt liked Tooley, who was sheriff of Ada County, one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation.

“George and I were discussing a replacement. You’ve headed the Western Regional Sheriff’s Association, as I understand it. You held two terms as president, and you gained high-profile status in that fine work you did involving Vice President Shaler.”

“She hadn’t been elected at the time, Congressman. She was a candidate. And I really didn’t-”

McMillian cut him off again. “The point is that George has recommended you to replace Mel Tooley at the conference. To represent the state for us. I wish I were asking here, Walt-may I call you Walt?-but I’m not. The state needs you. I need you. The federal government is at the start of a major reorganization of everything, from communication to hardware assets for state law enforcement. A lot of us want them to keep their hands off. We need you there. You’re respected. You’re recognizable, and George and I think others will listen to you. I’d like you out here by Friday. My people will work through the talking points with you, and you’ll come out to our home in Bethesda for some meetings over the weekend. You’ll hit the ground running Monday morning on the Hill.”

His head was spinning. To be seen on the national stage was certain to open job opportunities. It was just the kind of appointment he could see his father arranging for him. Elizabeth Shaler, now the vice president, had told him she could use him in Washington; he wondered if this appointment had anything to do with her. He wondered if Mel Tooley’s wife was actually ill or if Mel had been asked to step aside so that Walt could be offered the appointment. Wheels within wheels.

“Can I think about it, sir?”

“Hell, no. You can pack your bag, and you can thank me later. One of my guys will be in touch shortly to iron out your itinerary. The state picks up the bill for everything, Sheriff. Make the necessary arrangements on your end. You’ll hear back from us by the end of the day.” The line went dead.

“Good news?” McClure asked.

Walt stared back at him, dumbfounded.

“Unexpected,” Walt answered honestly. Unexpected and slightly unbelievable, he thought. In spite of his accomplishments on a state and regional level, there were at least a half-dozen more-senior sheriffs in line for such perks. Whether Mel had dropped out or not, the chiefs of Boise, Pocatello, Coeur d’Alene, and Moscow would typically have been considered first. Should have been considered first. Someone had gotten to the congressman and had convinced him to put Walt’s name in ahead of others.