Joe Gores - Glass Tiger

‘Closure you will get, Mr. President.’

Alone, Wallberg felt a rising excitement. Corwin was dead, Thorne was probably dead, no longer able to pick at certain forty-year-old knots in the fabric of his life before the presidency. Hatfield would find Kestrel, extract whatever information she had, tell it only to him. The man was proving his dedication to the Presidency — and to Hatfield’s own ambition: to become the Director of the FBI. As Edith had said on New Year’s Eve, no one could stop Gus Wallberg now.

Walking the perimeter of the Whiskey River lot, Thorne felt surprisingly good. The vet had done his job. No real pain. In front of the bar, no vehicles. In the dirt parking lot out behind, no bikes. In the wall he faced, no windows. A good place for a talk. Or a take-down.

He drifted the door open. Smells of beer and booze; this being California, none of cigarettes. Janet was sitting at a small round table across the dance floor, nothing in her hands, a bottle of whiskey and two thick-bottom shot glasses in front of her. He slid the deadbolt shut, sat down across from her.

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘now tell me about Hal.’ Her eyes were hot, intense on his face.

‘I’d better tell you about me, first. It’s relevant. I grew up in Alaska, did a lot of hunting and trapping. I joined the Rangers, when I became an ex-Ranger, the CIA hired me as a contract sniper for a CIA front in Panama. Seven years ago I lost my wife and infant child, about Lindy’s age, to a drunk driver. I vowed to my wife’s memory I would never kill again, and became a camp guard in Kenya at a fancy tourist lodge. Any of this sound familiar? Like a parallel to Hal’s life? Anyway, Hatfield framed me so I would be deported back to the States.’

‘Sure, I see the parallel. But I think I hear violins.’

‘This isn’t a sob story. Hatfield framed me to get me back here to hunt down Corwin for the president.’ He outlined for her the presidential pressure to find Corwin, the way he had done it, the cat-and-mouse with Corwin, blind chess — in Minnesota, in the Bitterroot Mountains.

‘So you’re saying Hal shot at Wallberg and hit Jaeger.’

‘That’s what I’m saying. From twelve-hundred yards out.’

‘That’s what I can’t believe. Hal wouldn’t miss. Not even from twelve-hundred yards.’ Her eyes were chips of blue ice, glacier-cold. ‘I think he meant to hit Jaeger, and that’s enough bullshit about how and why. I want to know where. Goddamn you — where is Hal Corwin?’

Thorne’s own personal Rubicon. ‘Dead. I killed him. I know it’s not worth anything, but I’m sorry he’s—’

She came across the table at Thorne, knocking him backward out of his chair, landing on top of him. Her left hand was a claw that scored his face with long bloody parallel grooves. Her right hand was jerking the knife from her boot. She stabbed downward at his throat. He knocked the blade aside. The knife buried itself two inches deep in the hardwood floor.

Thorne swung an elbow against the corner of her jaw. She sagged. He threw the knife away. It hit the bandstand with a clang. He got up, panting, righted his chair, retrieved the bottle and unbroken glasses. He sat down heavily, hunched over with pain from his ribs, watching her like a hungry hawk.

Her eyelids fluttered. She moved her head, pressed a hand against the side of her jaw, yelped. Her eyes opened, filled with malice. She measured the distance between them.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said.

After a full minute, she sighed and got to her feet and went around him to her chair and sat down. She poured herself a drink, held up the bottle. He nodded. They drank, set the glasses down. He resumed as if she hadn’t tried to kill him.

Their stalk of each other down the mountain. Firing at the same time Corwin fired. Corwin’s crawl to the stream. She didn’t interrupt, just kept her eyes on his face.

‘I told Corwin, “You missed.” He said, “Did I?” and rolled over into the water and was dead and gone forever.’

To his surprise, the story seemed to calm rather than incense her further. She just said, ‘I repeat: he must have meant to shoot Jaeger instead of President Wallberg.’

‘I thought of that. But he had a history with Wallberg, none with Jaeger. It just doesn’t make sense, unless you know things I don’t. You can see why I had to find you, why I hope we can work together to find out the truth. What were you to Hal? Lover? Co-conspirator? How did you two meet? What did he tell you about him and Jaeger? Him and Wallberg?’

‘If I said he told me nothing about anything, then what?’

‘If that’s the truth, then we’re both screwed. Hatfield isn’t going to stop. I thought he just wanted me in a Kenya jail. Instead he tried to kill me. If I was dead, I couldn’t tell Wallberg that it was I who saved him, not Hatfield. So now he has to kill me. It’s not urgent with you, but he thinks you might have some knowledge he wants. He’ll get you, then he’ll stick you away somewhere until he has your story.’

She poured them each one more shot, as if needing the time to make her decision. They sipped, then she sighed and said, ‘First, you have to tell me about that night in the Delta.’

‘Everything? You won’t like it.’

‘I have to know. Tell me anyway, even if some of it’s... awful.’ He did. She blanched fish-belly white at the state of Nisa’s body, but didn’t stop him. When he was finished, she said, ‘I spurred Hal on. I said that if I was his daughter, I’d kill my husband for trying to kill him.’

‘So you knew his story. How did—’

‘We met in Reno. He saved me from a beating by a guy who wanted to turn me out with him as my pimp. Hal and I left that night and traveled the west together. There was never anything sexual between us. He became the father I wished I’d had, I became the daughter he wished he’d had. When we heard on the TV that Wallberg would be at the Grand Canyon, I told Hal he had to talk with Nisa because I knew it was chewing at him, what she did. She told him that Damon shot him for Wallberg. He didn’t believe it, because Wallberg had once been his best friend.’

‘So why did Nisa yell for security?’

‘What she said made him so angry that he said he was going after Damon. She panicked. But then she just said he had tried to snatch her purse, to give him time to get away.’

‘Were you there, too?’

‘Outside. I was dressed up like a squaw girl to be inconspicuous. But Jaeger saw me and came on to me. He told me they’d be at the Desert Palms Resort in California later that month, and wanted me to meet him there. Said he’d show me a good time. Instead, I told Hal about the Desert Palms, and talked him into going over the wall to find Damon Mather. I waited for Hal in the 4-Runner. But neither Damon nor Nisa was there. Hal saw Wallberg alone in the mineral pool and tried to get the truth out of him. He got nothing except shot at.’

‘So he didn’t go there to kill Wallberg.’

‘He didn’t even go there to kill Damon Mather, though I thought he did. He just was going to get the truth out of him. That night the two of us ended up in a little desert motel halfway back to LA, drunk. I was in a rage at what all of those people had done to him, and that’s when he said it was Mather who pulled the trigger and that he didn’t care any more, he was going to quit, get on with his life.’ Her eyes were miserable. ‘I left while he was asleep. I abandoned him.’

‘Not much else you could do at that point,’ said Thorne.

‘I should have stuck with him. When I read in the LA newspapers that Wallberg would be at a Beverly Hills hotel for the election, I saw a way to make up for it. I conned my way into Jaeger’s room as the stupid little squaw girl from El Tovar, and saw Nisa’s name and a phone number and ‘Terminous’ on the pad by his phone. I pretended I hadn’t.’