Bad News Read online

  “I’m with John,” Kelp said.

  “Then what can we do?” Guilderpost asked, but nobody answered him.

  For a little time, they all just sat there, the six of them, listening to one another digest pizza. Everybody frowned and concentrated. From time to time, one or another sighed.

  “Stones,” Tiny said.

  They all looked at him. Kelp said, “Tiny? That wasn’t about the pizza, was it?”

  Tiny made a gesture with both hands, like a guy switching the shells over the pea. “Switch the stones,” he said.

  Dortmunder smiled. A burden lifted from his shoulders. “We could do that,” he said. “Thank you, Tiny.”

  “I could do that,” Tiny said.

  Irwin said, “You mean take the Redcorn headstone, move it to a different grave, replace it with the other headstone.”

  “Then the tribes come down,” Dortmunder said, “they dig up the wrong grave, they do what they do, and then we switch the stones back again.”

  “A lot better than grave digging,” Kelp said.

  Irwin said, “And that way, you don’t disturb the soil over the Redcorn grave. It’s been six weeks now, the soil won’t show any signs of recent digging.”

  “Particularly,” Guilderpost said, “if the tribes dig up the wrong grave.”

  “Now,” Dortmunder said, “I like it.”

  24

  * * *

  Friday, December 1. The only interesting workweek in Judge T. Wallace Higbee’s entire twelve-year career on the bench was at last, thank God, coming to an end.

  It had all started on Tuesday, when Frank Oglanda and Roger Fox had filed the charges of fraud and extortion against the young woman who, it seemed, must be known henceforward as Little Feather Redcorn. The case had at first seemed like no more than the normal run of stupidity, this time on the part of someone then named Shirley Ann Farraff, until Marjorie Dawson had come to chambers the next day to say the perp wouldn’t play the game.

  Then the Mohawks’ peacemaking plaque had surfaced to buttress Little Feather Redcorn’s story, and at that point, it seemed to the judge, the smart move would have been for Roger and Frank to cut a deal with the young lady. Not try to buy her off and send her on her way, but deal her in. That would have been the smart move, and the judge couldn’t help but wonder why Frank had decided to be stupid instead.

  Damn it, he didn’t want to think about this stuff. He liked the drowsy progress of his days, the slow shuffle of stupidity that passed his glazed eyes every day like the doomed peasants in a Breughel allegory. So why the hell were Roger and Frank insisting on behaving in mysterious ways, giving poor Judge Higbee’s brain tough hardtack to chew on?

  It had been so obvious, in chambers yesterday, that Frank Oglanda didn’t care if the Redcorn woman were Pottaknobbee or not; he just wanted her gone. Which could only mean he and Roger had something to hide, out there on the reservation. Now, what would that be? The casino was a gold mine; wasn’t that enough for them? Had they succumbed to the temptation of smuggling, being right there on the Canadian border, or drug dealing, or cooking the books? In other words, had those boys been stupid, even when they didn’t have to be? Was Judge Higbee going to have to think about them?

  Not this week. This week was done. This morning, the judge had rewarded several acts of gross stupidity with room and board at state expense, and he was in the process now of finishing the week’s quota of stupidity this afternoon. In between, Hilda, his secretary, had started to tell him about a phone call from some lawyer in New York City who was apparently Ms. Redcorn’s replacement for poor hapless Marjorie Dawson, but the judge had had enough for this week, thank you. “Tell me about it on Monday,” he’d ordered, not even wanting to listen to the lawyer’s name, much less whatever his message might be.

  Another smart-ass New York City lawyer; as though the judge didn’t have enough trouble. Were they going to start acting like smart-ass New York City lawyers together in his court? Were they going to play tricky games, challenge each other’s (and the judge’s) legal knowledge, come up with obscure precedents, send everybody to the law library, drag it out and drag it out, force poor Judge T. Wallace Higbee to make decision after decision?

  Damn! Why didn’t Frank and Roger just bite the goddamn bullet, bury the hatchet—well, maybe that wasn’t quite the right image, but whatever—get over the shock, fellas, the new girl in town is here to stay. That confidence of hers about the results of DNA testing wasn’t feigned, and Frank knew it as well as the judge did.

  In the meantime, the soothing sob stories of the severely stupid flowed like a warm bath in the judge’s courtroom. Firing a pistol at the dinner table to attract the family’s attention; forgetting you’d sold that car to your cousin and just happening to have the other set of keys in your pocket when it was time to drive to Florida for the winter; not knowing the drunk you’d decided to roll outside that bar was an off-duty cop and then complaining bitterly about police brutality for having been shot in the leg while trying to escape. Oh, sing these songs, sing them. Judge T. Wallace Higbee loves you all, see you in three to five.

  Midafternoon, the day and the week and the march of these morons nearly done, and a person entered the courtroom to sit in the rear row, near the door. Judge Higbee was immediately aware of him, of course, because from where he sat, he looked directly toward that rear door, but he would have been aware anyway, because who was that person?

  Within seconds, everybody else in court also became aware of the stranger, even though their backs were to him and they had to take quick peeks over their shoulders to get a gander at him. He created awareness simply by his existence, because he was a stranger, and there were never any strangers in Judge Higbee’s court.

  This courtroom had been constructed inside this ancient municipal building in the late seventies, and it was still as bright and shiny and impervious as the first day it opened for business. The churchlike pews were a honey-colored wood, and so were the tables for prosecution and defense, and the jury box, and the judge’s bench. The floor was pale blue linoleum tile, the walls creamy yellow, the dropped ceiling half white sound deadener and half shiny fluorescents. In this clean, well-lighted, and somehow inhuman space, there were, besides Judge Higbee and the court officers, four categories of persons: perps, lawyers, cops, and witnesses. Very rarely, there were also jurors, but that was an exception, the jury system of American law having long ago been replaced by the more efficient and less chancy plea bargain system.

  But, the point was, nobody else ever entered this courtroom, nor ever would. So who the hell was the stranger?

  And he was strange indeed. Very tall and very thin, he had a long, pale face that seemed to pucker and shrink behind thick-lensed eyeglasses with heavy black rims. He wore a black suit that looked a little too small for him, a white shirt, a thin black necktie. He sat primly, knees together, pale, bony hands crossed on legs, head straight, face expressionless, black eyes glinting in the fluorescent glare as he watched the activity in the courtroom.

  Not much activity left, today. Doing his best to ignore that black-clad figure in the back of the room—he was like a knife slash across a painting—doing his best not to distract himself with questions as to who the fellow might be and what trouble he might portend, Judge Higbee dispensed the rest of the day’s justice with dispatch, gaveled the final miscreant on his way to Dannemora, and was about to stand and flee to his chambers, when the stranger rose and moved down the central aisle toward the bench, walking rigidly and holding up one pale finger for attention.

  Now what? Judge Higbee wondered, and remained where he was, grasping the gavel as though to ward off attack. As attorneys lugged their briefcases past him on the way out, the spectral man approached the judge and said in a deep but faintly hollow voice, “Good afternoon. I am Max Schreck.”

  The name meant nothing. Wary, Judge Higbee said, “Good afternoon.”

  Schreck seemed a bit doubtful. The eyes behind the thick glasses
flickered, like a lightbulb thinking of burning out. He said, “My secretary spoke to your secretary this morning.”

  “Oh my God,” the judge said, and the heart within him sank. “You’re the new lawyer!”

  25

  * * *

  Benny Whitefish could not have been more excited. Intrigue! Danger! Beautiful women! (Well, one beautiful woman anyway.) Responsibility! A really important job at last for Uncle Roger.

  “You better not screw up,” he told himself, and gazed at his shining eyes in the rearview mirror. “You’re gonna be fine,” he assured himself, “you’re gonna be great.”

  Of course he was. He’d been doing this shadowing job just perfectly, hadn’t he? For three days now, he’d been following the Little Feather Redcorn woman around to see who her accomplices were, following her in and out of supermarkets and drugstores and movie houses, and not once had she even suspected he was there. It must be because I’m an Indian, he told himself; I have a natural genius for tracking.

  It was only too bad Little Feather Redcorn didn’t have any accomplices, because Benny was ready with his disposable camera to take their pictures and deliver the prints straight to Uncle Roger, just to show him how on top of the job Benny really was. But he could console himself anyway with the knowledge that he had a real aptitude for this job. He could just see himself moving swiftly and silently through the mighty forest, and never once stepping on a twig.

  But what was even better than discovering he did possess some natural skills and talents after all—the evidence had been pretty much solidly the other way up till now—was the fact that Uncle Roger and his almost-uncle Frank had taken him into their confidence and made him a part of their planning committee. Or should he call that their war party? Whatever; he was in it.

  Roger and Frank were conferring with their big-time lawyer today about ways to stall the DNA test as long as possible, while they worked out what steps they would take to eliminate the threat of Little Feather Redcorn for good. (Not eliminate her, that would be too dangerous; just the threat of her.) Something drastic, they would have to do—they knew that much—and Benny would be part of it.

  He was so excited, he could barely sit still in his little orange Subaru, but he knew he had to be as silent and patient and unmoving as a cat. That was part of the tracking genius. He was working on it.

  She was at the drugstore again today. Gee, she did a lot of shopping! Benny supposed women did that, though his mother and his older sisters, the only women he actually knew very well, weren’t into shopping much. They were mostly into TV, and snacks.

  Anyway, he’d followed her yet again in yet another taxi, and here he was parked in the drugstore’s lot, near the entrance, watching the door of the place but mostly watching for the next taxi to arrive. That was the way it always worked; she went into the store, whatever store it was, and then sometime later a taxi would arrive and she’d come out again with her bags of purchases and get into it.

  The first few times, he’d followed her into the store to trail around after her, making darn sure she never saw him, but when it became obvious she didn’t intend to meet anybody in these stores, he’d decided it would be better to wait outside in the car, so she wouldn’t see him too often and maybe start to recognize him and get suspicious. So here he was, not yet really expecting the taxi, because she’d only been in there a few minutes, when out she came, completely unexpected.

  Benny stared at her, startled by this change of pattern, and his heart began to pound, his mouth to get dry. What was going on here?

  Nothing at first. She had a sort of helpless, lost look to her as she stood in front of the drugstore, gazing around. Benny forgot to look the other way, because he was so flummoxed by her abrupt appearance like that, and then, all of a sudden, she was staring directly at him.

  Oh no! He quickly looked away, at the sale banners taped to the drugstore windows, but it was too late. Here she came, walking toward him, her brown leather coat open over her red fitted western shirt and short white buckskin skirt and high red boots. She didn’t look exactly like a real person at all, but more like one of the pinup posters he had on the walls in his bedroom, the ones that his mother and sisters always ragged him about.

  Benny had thought, sometimes, that it might be terrific if someday he could see Little Feather Redcorn in a bikini, his imagination not daring to wish beyond that, but he’d never expected to see her in complete real-life close-up. But that’s what was about to happen. She walked directly toward Benny across the asphalt parking lot, and it was hopeless to pretend he didn’t see her coming, and didn’t see her gesture for him to open his window. There was no way out of it; he rolled the window down.

  “Excuse me,” she said. She had a surprisingly light and musical voice, and her smile was really very gentle.

  Benny blinked at her. Does she suspect? Then why would she smile? He said, “He—hello.”

  “I feel like such a fool,” she confessed. “I came out without my wallet.”

  Benny nodded spastically. “You did?”

  “I got everything I needed, and I was just about to pay for it, and then I realized, No wallet. I can’t even take a taxi home.”

  “Oh,” he said. Was she going to ask him for money?

  No. She said, “I thought I’d have to walk all the way back to Whispering Pines. Do you know where that is? The campground?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. I shouldn’t have a long conversation with her, he warned himself, because then she’ll be able to recognize me later on.

  But now she said, “I wonder. I know it’s asking a lot, and you a perfect stranger, but could you possibly drive me there? Or are you waiting for your girlfriend?”

  “Oh no,” he said, and could feel himself blush. He’d be stammering soon. “I’m not waiting for my girlfriend,” he stammered.

  “Well, it would only take you ten minutes,” she assured him, “and I’d pay you when we got there, just as much as I’d pay the taxi. Could you do that for me?” She made a light little embarrassed laugh, then said, “You see I’m a damsel in distress.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “You mean you want me to drive you to the campground?”

  “Could you be a dear? Could you be a darling?”

  There’s no way to say no, he realized. “The car isn’t—” he began. “It isn’t very clean in here.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she told him. “And you’re a lifesaver. Thank you so much.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, and rolled up his window as she walked around to get into the passenger seat beside him, first tossing the comic books and empty soda cans into the back. “Why, it’s nice and cozy in here,” she said, and smiled at him again as she slammed her door.

  Do it quick and get it over with, he told himself. Ten minutes, and then leave. Don’t talk a lot, don’t do things to make her remember you.

  “My name’s Little Feather Redcorn,” she said. Her smile beamed into his right cheek like an auger. “What’s yours?”

  Lie? Tell the truth? Then he realized he had to tell the truth because he couldn’t think of any other names, not at this particular moment. “Benny Whitefish,” he told her.

  She said, “Are you from out on the reservation?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m going to be living there soon,” she said.

  Red light. He stopped behind the pickup truck already there and risked a glance in her direction. She just kept looking directly at him with those very bright black eyes, very close to him in this little car. She sat half-turned toward him, her coat open, and her shirt was really very tight. Even without her being in a bikini, he could tell her bosom was exactly like the bosoms on the posters in his bedroom.

  Feeling his face flame up, he wrenched his head forward to stare desperately at the rear of that unlovely pickup out there. “You’re going to live on the reservation?” he asked when he felt his voice might be reasonably steady.

  “Pretty soon,” she said. “I�
�m Pottaknobbee.”

  “Uh-huh.” The pickup moved, so he did, too.

  She said, “You know who the Pottaknobbee are, don’t you?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “They’re the extinct tribe.”

  She chuckled, a throaty sound, and said, “Do I look extinct?”

  He didn’t dare look at her again, but anyway, he already knew the answer. “No, you don’t.”

  “I think I look pretty alive, don’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You see, the thing is, Benny—is it all right if I call you Benny?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “And you can call me Little Feather.”

  “Okay,” he said, doubting he ever would.

  “Well, the thing is, Benny,” she said, “my grandmama moved out west years and years ago, when my mama was just a little girl, so nobody back here knew I was even born. But now I’m coming home at last. Isn’t that nice?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, and stopped behind the same pickup at a different traffic light. He hoped he was acting cool and relaxed on the outside, but on the inside, he knew, he was swirling like some huge storm. Hurricane Benny. And the only coherent thought to come out of the eye of that storm was the idea that maybe this accidental meeting could be turned to advantage somehow. Maybe it was a good thing after all that he was in conversation with Little Feather Redcorn, maybe he could just casually chat with her, and cleverly slip some questions in, and find out if maybe she did have some accomplices somewhere, like Uncle Roger and his almost-uncle Frank insisted she must. (And he never stopped to wonder, if she forgot her wallet, how did she pay for the first taxi?) So, when this new light turned green and the traffic started forward, Benny said, “You’re going to move out to the reservation pretty soon, huh? Do you know when?”

  “Well,” she said, “the tribes have to be sure I’m really me and not some imposter, so that’ll take a few days, and then I’ll move out. I think it’s very exciting, don’t you?”