The guy stopped and probed Nina fast with cold brown eyes so intense she could almost feel her bones glow. Then he turned to Gordy and said, "We got nothing else to talk about, you and me. You understand?"

"Sure, Joe."

"Where's Ace?"

"He ain't here," Gordy said.

"Tell him George says it's tonight, at the old remote missile bunker east of town."

"Jesus, Joe." Gordy rolled his eyes at Nina, alarmed.

Joe's eyes stayed fixed on Gordy but his voice turned contemptuous. "Since when are we scared of women?" He inclined his damaged face toward Gordy for emphasis, then, "You tell Ace."

Gordy stepped back, eyes wide; trying to make the best of things. "Yeah, sure, Joe."

Then Joe continued on past the stairs and went out through the storeroom. Gordy, minus most of the color in his face, grinned nervously at Nina. "Just joking around, right?"

"Yeah, sure, Gordy. Ha ha. Who was that?"

"Joe Reed," Gordy said, clearly agitated. He shook his head. "I don't get what's going on anymore. It wasn't like this when Ace's dad ran things."

Nina folded her arms across her chest and watched him go into the office. Then she went to the table, where Ace's morning newspaper was spread out. As she sat down she released a delayed shudder.

The Indian's presence lingered in the room like a cool shadow. Tonight, he said. George, he said. She was with Gordy, thinking, Why was this guy putting it on front street? What the h.e.l.l's going on? Why was this guy putting it on front street? What the h.e.l.l's going on?

Gordy reinvented himself fast, coming out of the office, smiling, bringing her a cup of coffee, and holding up two fingers in a V peace signal. Ace came in a few minutes later and set a still-warm Dairy Queen breakfast bag next to her.

"You're still here," he said with a wry smile.

Gordy watched her carefully from the bar to see if she'd let on about their confrontation. She didn't and he occupied himself with his clipboard.

Ace said, "I had to leave early to go to court. Overslept, didn't even have time to make coffee."

"No problem," Nina said airily. "Good old Gordy whipped up a pot."

"Anywhere, anytime," Gordy said.

Ace observed the touchy back-and-forth, filed it away. Gordy joined him, walked him to the stairs, and lowered his voice. "Joe was by, playing hard-a.s.s. George sent him. George says it's on for tonight. He'll meet you at the old RLS site east on 5. Didn't give a time."

Ace nodded, stared at Nina's back for a long moment, then went upstairs. The phone on the bar rang, Gordy crossed the room and picked it up. Nina opened the Dairy Queen bag. It contained an egg m.u.f.fin.

Gordy talked for a moment, put down the phone, then said to her, "That was Dale across the road. Your husband was over there this morning. Thought you should know."

Nina lowered her eyes, picked up her coffee cup in both hands, and took a sip.

Dale really wanted to get a closer look at this woman who had come to spy on his brother. He wanted to so bad he kept putting it off just to build up the antic.i.p.ation. He had Gordy's request to intervene with Ace as an excuse to mask his curiosity.

Woman comes all this way just to see Ace. Well, isn't she in for a surprise. Well, isn't she in for a surprise.

It was an accepted fact that some new floosy blowing into town would be attracted to his brother. This had always been the case, all his life. And that's why he found this woman so tantalizing.

Just showing up, kind of mysterious.

So he puttered around in the office, brooding, periodically glancing across the road. He'd glimpsed her twice now. First in that clingy tank top, then wearing one of Ace's T-shirts. Tallish, lean. Short red hair. His eyes drifted up to the windows over the bar. He remembered playing there as a child, when his dad had an office there. Now Ace was probably sticking it to the woman up there-maybe right where he'd put his Tinker Toys together.

He peered out the window and finally he saw Ace's Tahoe pull in and park in back. He picked up the phone and called. Gordy answered.

"Is he there?" Dale asked.

"Yeah. He just got back."

"That guy you hit was here this morning with a little kid. He pretended he wanted to look at machinery."

"I'll pa.s.s it on."

"Okay. Maybe I'll come over in a little while," Dale said. He hung up, then stuck his head out the door. "Give me about five minutes to clean up," he said to Joe. "Then we'll go across."

Joe nodded, raised his good hand and pointed. Across the highway, toward town, a small, single-engine plane took off, banked, and headed east.

Dale shut the front door and went into the small bathroom next to the office and inspected the toilet to see if the smart-a.s.s little kid had left any unpleasant messes. She hadn't. So he washed his face and brushed his teeth and gargled with Scope. Then he took a moment to study his reflection in the mirror. His teeth were normal and healthy but his gums were slightly oversized and made his choppers look slightly like lingering baby teeth.

At rest, Dale was plain. In motion, he tended to look deliberate, the power in him deep, hard to see. Clothes never meant much to him. But he wore a heavy leather belt; keeping himself real tucked in and tightly cinched. If you had stuff you had to keep inside, every little bit helped.

The way his life had worked out he wound up uncomfortable with his body. He had always suffered from a debilitating shyness, and now he went to great lengths to avoid looking at himself disrobed. If he used a public restroom on the highway he made sure the door locked. Then he'd turn out the lights and do his business in the dark.

Dale was a big man with a layer of fat on the outside. But he was solid on the inside. Years spent working around the big iron had given him a hefty core of muscle.

Sometimes he snuck looks at his brother, Ace, and had the impression that there had been a screw-up. Ace, with all his flaws, should have this awkward tub of guts. He He should have Ace's body. should have Ace's body.

As it was, he was just over six feet tall and weighed 240 pounds, with sloping shoulders and a longish neck. His skin was smooth and white. He wore wide-brimmed hats and long-sleeved shirts. This habit struck people as odd in a farming community. "Dale, he avoids the sun," people said.

That wasn't it. Dale was hiding his body. Even from himself.

Everywhere he looked he was reminded of his grossness. The images of little-bitty tanned bodies shrieked at him from magazines, TV commercials, and especially the hours of "paid commercial programming" on cable-all those bikini babes demonstrating exercise equipment.

His face was the polar opposite of his older brother's; as if Ace's handsome face had been turned inside out. Where Ace's cheeks were smooth and defined, Dale's were lumpy with moguls of persistent acne. Where Ace's nose was straight, Dale's was thick.

Being plain and naturally reticent, his quiet voice had grown softer and softer over the years.

His hair was dirty blond, unruly even when short, as it was now. It sprouted from his scalp like a neglected lawn taken over by weeds. His eyes were pale blue and flat, without sparkle.

And now he was ready. So he stepped out into ninety-two muggy degrees wearing distressed Levis, steel-toed work shoes, and a long-sleeved blue cotton shirt b.u.t.toned to the neck and to the wrists. A broad straw Stetson perched at an angle on his head.

He looked to the east, at the ambiguous sky. According to the Weather Channel the rain had finally tapered off in Minnesota. But the solid cover of clouds remained.

He locked the door to the office and motioned to Joe, who pushed upright in the lawn chair on the concrete ap.r.o.n in front of the office.

"Let's go have a look," Dale said.

Joe squinted and said, "I just was over there. I don't think this is a good idea."

"C'mon," Dale cajoled and Joe grunted, reluctantly heaving to his feet. And so they walked across Highway 5. When Dale was little, the Missile Park had smelled like a saloon early in the morning. Sawdust and soap covering a deep underscent of alcohol and tobacco smoke. He remembered the morning sun catching fire in all those bottles behind the bar. Now the bottles were gone. Now it just smelled musty, like what it had become, an empty warehouse.

They stepped inside and saw the woman sitting at Ace's table at the back of the room, next to the pinball machine.

Gordy was standing at the front window, sipping on a c.o.ke. Without turning, he said, "Christ. Here come both of them." Then he spun on his heel and went past her up the stairs.

She heard them before she saw them; heavy footfalls on the porch. Then the creak of the screen door, the two men coming into the bar. The big one came in first-a Yogi Bear ramble of a walk, heavy in the middle, a long neck. Grinning. This would be Dale, Ace's odd brother. She was prepared for him being a little off. But not the way he wore his shirt b.u.t.toned up to his neck and down to his wrists on such a humid hot day. At the moment, however, she was more interested in the Indian, Joe Reed.

He took her in as his eyes swept the room; dark eyes doing that cold burn. They shot a fast dagger thrust. Quick, sharp, and deep. Too quick to read, but Nina thought she felt contempt in his eyes, maybe even hatred.

She didn't know a whole lot about the social range of disfigured Indians. She'd only had one acquaintance with a Native American for any length of time: Ranger Sergeant Norby Hightower, a Cheyenne from Wyoming. Nina worked with Norby in Bosnia. Strong as a bear, Norby's handshake was child-soft, a dissimulation of his true strength. His whole style had been probing, cautious, indirect.

Not point-blank and icy, like this guy's.

Joe peeled off, walked behind the bar, opened a cooler, and took out a can of Mountain Dew. He popped the top, shrugged at Dale, and walked out the front door.

It bothered Dale deeply that she was more interested in watching Joe than him. But he brushed the slight aside for the moment.

She was pretty.

Maybe not as pretty as Ginny Weller had been-she was older and she'd had a kid. But still pretty.

As Dale walked down the length of the barroom toward the table, she looked up. When he felt her eyes he knew she was acting. The lazy, slightly vague, expression on her face was a mask. Behind that pretend mask she was watching Joe go around the bar, get a can of pop.

Dale swallowed and stared. He could hear Gordy and Ace talking upstairs. Joe got his look and now he walked back out. They were alone.

He was close enough to smell her now; a clean, rain-in-the-forest scent, distinct in the musty air. He knew he should look away, look down, be humble, or at least polite, but he stared. Starting at the top of her head, where her short red hair was carelessly combed by her fingers, then her face.

Her coloring, freckles, the strong cheekbones, the shamrock eyes. The red of her lipstick, hair, and freckles brought to mind images of a lake trout-smooth and supple, but also spiny with fins and stinging to the touch.

She crossed her legs and, staring at the flash of thigh, he had the powerful recollection of holding a struggling fish, feeling its life squirm against his encircling palm, peering into the red spasm of the gills.

As this sensation shuddered inside his bulk his gaze dripped down over her body like greasy water, gathering in her hollows, racing over her curves, marking every detail. Her strong body promised a lot of struggle.

She oozed confidence, like she wouldn't bat an eye at the dirtiest joke. Like she'd seen it all before. She watched him walk up with a neutral expression in her eyes. She smelled like the Herbal Essence shampoo Ace kept in the upstairs bathroom.

She had this body that clothes always looked good on, lean and long-legged, but sinewy too. She was wearing a casual cotton-print dress with a green-and-amber pattern creasing down into her lap. The rounded neckline dipped low and he could see a only a suggestion of the firmness of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but what he saw looked more taut than soft. As Dale's eyes drifted up, he mentally diagramed the apartment upstairs, all the rooms she had moved through, until he came to the bathroom shower stall. He imagined her naked up there, drawing a sponge across her stomach. "Hi," he said, inhaling her.

Joe continued on across the road, finishing the soda in several long gulps. As he tossed the can, he noticed the green Ford Explorer was back, parked next to his van. He walked directly to it, tried the door. Locked. But the window was open a crack. Joe went to his van, rummaged in back, came back with a coat hanger, straightened it, hooked one end, slipped it through the crack, rotated it, and pressed the straightened end down on the lock b.u.t.ton. He opened the door, ducked low, checked the glove compartment, the front seat. Almost immediately he found a holstered .45 under the driver's seat with a Minnesota deputy sheriff's badge. He took the pistol and badge, shut the door, got in his van, tossed them into the back. He started the van, pulled onto the highway, and removed a satellite phone from the glove compartment. He activated the phone and pressed in a number. When he had the connection, he said, "I delivered the message, but I'm not so sure about this."

[image]

"Hi yourself," Nina said.

Dale realized he was holding his breath and she was looking at him, taking in his appearance, a.s.sessing him, and being patient with him. She knows I'm Ace's brother, and all the rest. She's patronizing me. She knows I'm Ace's brother, and all the rest. She's patronizing me. Finally in a burst of released air he said, "I'll bet you went to the prom, didn't you?" Finally in a burst of released air he said, "I'll bet you went to the prom, didn't you?"

She c.o.c.ked her head and laughed, a feminine laugh that was pleasant to hear, like she was spontaneously amused.

"See," Dale said, "I made you laugh."

"I guess you did."

"And you did go to the prom."

"Guilty as charged."

"Were you the best-looking girl there?"

She shook a cigarette out of a pack on the table, lit it with a blue plastic lighter, and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. Then she tilted her head as if to let her mind roll backward. "Actually, I was about third or fourth in line for looks. I was on the skinny side." She brightened. "But I'll bet I was the smartest."

Dale thought, but did not say, Oh yeah? Then what are you doing in this nowhere place? Oh yeah? Then what are you doing in this nowhere place? He studied her intently for several heavy heartbeats. He had no idea what a woman cop would really look like. All he'd seen were the ones on TV and in the movies, and they all had bigger chests. He studied her intently for several heavy heartbeats. He had no idea what a woman cop would really look like. All he'd seen were the ones on TV and in the movies, and they all had bigger chests.

He just nodded. "It's good to be smart. But it helps to be pretty, too."

She diplomatically didn't answer that. She just shrugged her shoulders.

Dale smiled and said, "When Ace breaks your heart, I'll take you out. I'll be real nice to you."

That amused her, too, because again she smiled a big smile, parting her teeth. She had good even teeth. And a hearty laugh. "I'll tell him to keep an eye out for the compet.i.tion."

"Oh, I ain't the compet.i.tion. In fact I don't mind being the last in line. I don't mind sloppy lasts." He broadened his grin, showing his gums, as she adjusted to the remark. Drew herself up. Tensed. Like she could bound right out the chair and pound him through the floor with kung fu or something. He imagined what it would be like to have all that vitality under his control.

"Dale? That's your name?" she said in a measured, no nonsense voice that gave away the lie of her act, the way it presumed to arrange life in straight lines, like she knew all the rules. He nodded his head, his smile oblivious to the warning in her tone.

"Dale, that crack was pretty obnoxious."

He shrugged. "Just want you to know I'll never lie to you." He stared at her hard, marking her with his eyes.

"I guess we just ran out of things to talk about. So why don't you move it on down the line."

Dale wiggled his fingers. "Bye." He walked past her and went up the stairs. As he went up, Gordy came down the stairs, smiled tightly, and went into the office.