Joe Gores - Glass Tiger

At first light, Hatfield was in a raft on the Tuolemne, wearing the wet suit, life jacket, and helmet given him by the guides. The sheriff’s men conducting the search of the river banks had found a part of the rowboat, a curved piece of wood they said was a strake, part of the boat’s keel outside the gunnel. But it wasn’t enough for Hatfield. He needed Thorne’s body, or some semi-kind of proof that he was dead.

‘Tag it and bag it and leave it for the recovery team.’

Then they found the life jacket impaled on an aspen branch.

Adrenaline surged. ‘Don’t touch it!’

They were two miles from Ferry Bridge. The ripped life jacket swirled back and forth in the foaming white water like someone waving for help. No body was found, but there was no indication that he had climbed up from under the bridge to the road. Hatfield looked up at the ring of solemn faces.

‘This man is a major National Security risk. We have to be sure he doesn’t get away. Does anyone believe he is alive?’

They looked at one another, then away. Then shook their heads. That was enough for Hatfield. They were the river search experts. But even so, he told them, ‘Search the river banks for another ten miles tomorrow, just to be sure.’

Later, he told his Hostage/Rescue team that they could abandon the search.

‘Thorne is dead. Close the book on him. Make Kestrel our priority now.’

They did. But several hours later, Perry could only report, ‘No sighting of her anywhere. Indian casinos are under a lot of scrutiny in California these days, so the Sho-Ka-Wah will notify us if she shows up. They want to cooperate.’

‘Don’t hold your breath on that one,’ said Hatfield. ‘No reports of border crossings into Mexico or Canada?’

‘None,’ said Baror, ‘but she could have walked across.’

Corwin was dead. Thorne was dead also. The 4-Runner had not shown up. Kestrel had no paper life, and was probably in Mexico. Maybe it was time to figure out a way to somehow report all of these negatives as positives to the President.

At the outskirts of Manteca, where east-west 120 hit 1–5 running north and south through the great central valley, Janet parked the 4-Runner beside Fat-Arms LeDoux’s no-name gas station. Fat-Arms was 350 pounds, six-eight, hack boots, blue work shirt with the sleeves cut off to show his fat twenty-two inch upper arms, a red bandanna around his head like a pirate of the Caribbean.

He walked around the 4-Runner under the lights, glowering.

‘Somebody heavy looking for it, could get my nuts creamed.’

‘Looking for me,’ said Janet. ‘Not for the 4-Runner.’

‘I got a Suzuki thumper, we trade pink slips even up.’

An entry-level bike, but its single-cylinder, four-stroke engine had a hefty 600cc displacement. After they traded pink slips and Janet had roared away, Fat-Arms chortled aloud. He had stolen the Suzuki in Sacramento the week before, dummied up a pink, and switched plates with a totaled Yamaha V-Max. When she renewed the registration, the VIN would come back hot. Janet would get busted.

‘Stupid, fucking, stuck-up bitch.’

Served her right. She’d turned him down once, hard, when he had come onto her at Whiskey River.

Whiskey River was long and narrow, with an L-shaped bar along the left wall, a couple of tables along the right. In back, it opened out to a small dance floor with a bandstand for Friday and Saturday nights. But this was the usual slow mid-week night, just the way Kate Wayne liked it.

On the juke, Willie Nelson was grating out Whiskey River , their virtual theme song. Three wannabes she knew drove Harley clones were drinking draft beer at the bar. At one of the tables a guilty-looking couple, probably up from Modesto in separate cars for illicit sex, were having a drink before heading back to their respective dreary spouses.

A stranger shuffled in, paused to scan the room with deep-set, bitter chocolate eyes sunk deep in his face. Coal-black hair filthy and matted, ripe clothing. A three-day beard on his lean, feverish cheeks. He looked like a train wreck, but managed to climb onto a bar stool.

‘What’ll it be?’ asked Kate.

For answer, he put his head down on the bar and passed out.

Kate punched out her home number on the bar’s phone, whispered to Janet’s cautious voice, ‘He made it.’

Thorne woke to a pair of warm brown expectant eyes staring into his face from a foot away. A shorthair black-and-white mongrel was sitting on his chest, wagging its tail on his belly. His side, bandaged, hurt; his ribs, taped, itched. He had no idea why he was flat on his back with a dog on his chest. The dog lifted a front paw. They shook, solemnly.

‘His name is Jigger,’ piped a voice from beside the bed.

Thorne could just see the top half of a tiny girl’s face beyond the covers. She had big solemn dark eyes and cornsilk hair. Maybe two, about the age of Eden when...

‘I’m Thorne,’ he said, quickly stifling memory.

‘Lindy,’ she said. ‘Me’n Jigger wanted to say “hi”.’

‘Hi.’

She whirled and ran out of the room. She wore a pink frilly dress. Jigger jumped down and trotted busily after her.

When Thorne opened his eyes again, Janet was there. She wore jeans and a blouse and a sheath knife on the outside of her right boot. Her arms were crossed over her breasts in what could almost have been a defensive stance.

He gestured at his wrapped ribs and bandaged wound. ‘You?’

‘Jigger’s vet. He won’t talk. You got to Oakdale night before last and stumbled your way into Whiskey River and passed out. My friend Kate called me, we brought you over here. This is her house. Lindy’s her daughter.’

Thorne steeled himself. ‘We have to talk.’

‘Not here. Not now.’ She gestured after Lindy. ‘After hours at the bar. I’ll leave the back door unlocked.’

They were in the conference room under the White House. Just the two of them. No aides, no notes taken. Hatfield had to use smoke and mirrors to spin his essential lack of results to his utmost advantage.

‘Mr. President, we are concentrating on a blackjack dealer and casual prostitute named Janet Kestrel. She hooked up with Corwin in Reno in July, travelled with him until the election, then disappeared. I have a BOLO and an SIA out on her.’

For Wallberg, somebody new to worry about. With Corwin dead, he’d thought Thorne, snooping around in the past as Hatfield had said, was his only concern. But this Kestrel woman also sounded like trouble. This was dangerous ground; Hal Corwin might have remembered things and told them to her, things no one else could know about. With Kurt Jaeger gone, Wallberg knew he had to find someone new to trust. Probably Hatfield, but not yet. For now, dissemble, act as if Kestrel was of no importance to him.

‘So she traveled with Corwin. Corwin is dead and gone. Thorne is our priority here.’

‘Frankly, Mr. President, we want the Kestrel woman because Thorne was looking for her. Since we can’t ask Thorne himself, it’s vital to catch her and find out what he wanted from her.’

‘Can’t ask Thorne himself,’ snapped Wallberg. ‘Say what you mean, man. That you can’t find Thorne.’

‘Can’t ask him, Mr. President,’ Hatfield persisted. ‘We have every reason to believe that Thorne is dead.’

Wallberg kept his face and voice impassive. ‘Indeed?’

Hatfield spun his tale. Thorne exchanging fire with him, and, wounded, trying to escape down the Tuolemne. Water-logged rowboat, wreckage, life jacket. Absolutely nothing since.

Hope leaped up in Wallberg’s chest. ‘I find it symbolic,’ he intoned sententiously when Hatfield was finished, ‘that both Thorne and Corwin found their quietus in icy, rushing water, as if trying to cleanse themselves of their sins.’ He stood up. ‘Good work, Terrill. But find this Kestrel woman. Confirm that Thorne is dead. I need closure in this matter so I can get on with the business of running this great country of ours.’