Nelson Demille - Wild fire

I asked him, “Who’s cooking tonight?”

“I’ll work something out.” He added, “I can do the cocktails. Scotch, correct?”

“Right. Well, that’s very nice of you.”

“And of course bring Ms. Mayfield.”

“I’ll see if she’s back from her yodeling.”

“Good. Dress is casual.” He added with a smile, “No tux.”

“Tux is tomorrow night.”

“That’s right. Wednesdays and Saturdays.” He prompted, “Please talk Ms. Mayfield into coming, and tell her not to worry about how to dress.” He said to me, man-to-man, “You know how women are.”

“I do? When did that happen?”

We both got a little chuckle out of that, and we were bonding again. Great. Meanwhile, I wondered if Kate and I would get out of here alive. “Will anyone be joining us?”

“Uh… I’m not sure yet. But you and I can retire to the library if we need to take care of some business.”

“Good. I hate to talk about murder at dinner.” I asked him, “Are any of your weekend guests still here?”

“No. They’ve all left.”

Maybe he forgot about Mikhail Putyov.

He stood and said, “So, seven for cocktails, then some business, then dinner if you can pull yourself away from the woodcock.”

“That’s a tough call.” I slipped on my shoes, stood, and said, “Hey, what’s étuvée of vegetables?”

“I’m not sure.” He gave me some advice. “Don’t eat anything you can’t pronounce, and never eat anything whose name has an accent mark over any of the letters.”

“Great advice.”

“Again, sorry about Detective Muller. I hope to God it had nothing to do with any of my staff, but if it did, you can be assured of my complete cooperation.” He added, “I’ll see about the information you asked for.”

“Thanks. Meanwhile, mum’s the word. We don’t want to spook anyone.”

“I understand.”

We shook, I left his office, and there was Carl standing a few feet from the door. He said to me, “I’ll show you out.”

“Thanks. You could get lost in this place.”

“That’s why I’m showing you out.”

“Right.” Asshole .

We descended the stairs, and I asked Carl, “Where’s the restroom?”

He motioned to a door off the hallway. I went in and took the hand towel from a ring and wiped some surfaces, collecting hair, skin cells, and whatever other DNA the forensic people liked to play around with. I wished I could have gotten Madox’s cigarette, but short of asking him if I could keep his butt for a souvenir, that wasn’t possible.

I stuffed the hand towel in the small of my back and exited.

Carl showed me to the front door.

I said to him, “See you at six.”

“Seven.”

Not too bright. But loyal. And dangerous.

Up ahead, the steel gate wasn’t opening as I approached the gatehouse, and I started honking.

The gate began to slide open, and as I reached the gatehouse, the two storm troopers gave me mean stares as they stood there with their thumbs hooked into their gun belts. If that was the best they could do, I wouldn’t bother to flip them the bird, but I did accelerate, veer close to them, then cut the wheel, and squeezed the Hyundai through the half-opened gate.

In my side-view mirror, I saw them kicking the gravel and stomping the ground. I think they were pissed off.

Maybe I didn’t have to be such a prick. But you need to establish who the alpha male is right up front. People like knowing their place in the pecking order.

Also, I had no doubt that one or both of these guys had grabbed Harry on the property. And if not them, then some guys wearing the same uniform. Right, Bain?

There was still no surveillance team visible, and I wondered what the hell Schaeffer was up to.

I drove out to Route 56 and headed north.

I replayed my conversation with Bain Madox, which made for some interesting side thoughts. Bottom line on that, Bain and John knew that Bain and John were playing head chess with each other.

Anyway, Madox asked me to dinner, and, of course, Ms. Mayfield was invited. And Madox deduced from my unchanged clothes that Ms. Mayfield and I had come here on short notice. So he went out of his way to make sure Ms. Mayfield would feel comfortable at the club in whatever she was wearing. That was very thoughtful of him-not to mention observant. Bain Madox would make a good detective.

I knew Kate was worried about me, and you can get away with a three-minute cell-phone call before it’s traced, so I turned on my phone and dialed the Pond House number. Kate answered, “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Thank God. I was starting to worry-”

“I’m fine. I can only talk for a minute. I need to run some errands, and I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“Okay. How did it go?”

“Good. I’ll fill you in when I get back. Did you get some of those things accomplished?”

“Yes, I-”

“Did you speak to Schaeffer?”

“I couldn’t reach him.”

“Okay… hey, did you get a pizza?”

“No. You can pick up something.”

“Hungry?” I asked.

“Famished.”

“Good. I swung an invitation for us for dinner at the Custer Hill Club.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you about it when I see you.” I informed her, “Dress is casual.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. It’s casual. Seven for cocktails.”

“I mean-”

“I have to hang up, see you later.”

“John-”

“Bye. Love you.” I hung up and shut off my phone. Did I say we were going to dinner at the Custer Hill Club? Am I crazy?

Anyway, I was approaching Rudy’s gas station, and there was Rudy, talking to another self-service customer. I pulled in and called out, “Rudy!”

He saw me, ambled over, and said, “You back?”

“From where?”

“From…? I don’t know. Where’d you go?”

“I tried to smooth things over for you with Mr. Madox.”

“Yeah…? I told you, I talked to him. He’s okay.”

“No, he was still pissed at you. Well, I got good news and bad news. What do you want first?”

“Uh… the good news.”

“The good news is that he’s not pissed at you anymore. The bad news is that he’s opening a GOCO gas station across the street.”

“Huh? He’s what ? Oh, jeez. He can’t do that.”

“He can and he is.”

Rudy looked across the street at the empty field, and I’m sure he could picture it: eight gleaming new pumps, clean restrooms, and maps of the park.

I said to him, “Competition is good. It’s American.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Hey, I need a favor. Rudy?”

“Huh…?”

“I gotta go pick up a deer carcass. You got something bigger I could swap for this Korean lawn mower?”

“Huh?”

“Just for tonight. And I’ll throw in a hundred bucks for your trouble.”

“Huh?”

“And I’ll fill your tank.”

“You need gas?”

I drove the Hyundai around the back of his station, out of view, and within five minutes I did a deal with Rudy, who was still acting like he’d been kicked in the head by a mule. In fact, he didn’t notice that the Hyundai keys were not in the ignition as I said they were.

My parting words to him were, “Don’t call Madox about this. That’ll make it worse. I’ll talk to him.”

“He can’t do that. I’ll go to court.”

Anyway, Rudy’s bigger vehicle turned out to be a beat-up Dodge van whose interior looked like it had suffered a fuel explosion during a food fight. But it ran like a champ.

I continued on, and in Colton, I passed up the turn for Canton and took the long route, via Potsdam.

When you’re running from the posse, you need to change horses often, shoot your last horse, and never ride the same trail twice.