him.
They'd said that a big chunk of land had gotten washed out, that Mingo had temporarily changed its course, and the Army Corps had to put in a fair amount of work to get it to go back to its bed. Well, that was baloney. Rivers and streams changed their beds all the time in Oklahoma. They couldn't point the finger at him, or at anybody. It just happened.
But he'd had to take a stroll down there himself, when it had happened, just to make sure that there was nothing that could point to him and his development as the cause. That was when he'd found his good-luck charm.
The little fetish bundle was simply lying on the ground beside the now-shrunken stream, in the middle of a flat patch of sand, as if it was waiting for him. God only knew where it came from; it was as clean as it was now. He picked it up.
And he still didn't know why. But ever since that moment, things had been going all his way.
Even then, the Riverside Mall project was sinking like a lead boat. There were no stores signed up, and no prospect of any. It was a combination of the abysmal economy and the fact that there was no one who was fool enough to sign up for a site that was inevitably going to flood some time in the next twenty years. Tulsa summers were getting wetter, not drier; 'hundred-year floods' were happening every couple of years.
He had a choice at that point; close the project down and take a loss, or keep going and chance a bigger one. But the rest of the investors in the project would demand their money back, and that would be a disaster.
Until he picked up the bundle-and 'John Smith' at Romulus Insurance gave him that fateful little call. His name wasn't Smith, of course, but that was how Rod was told to refer to him from the time of that conversation.
It started badly, with 'John Smith' telling him he'd been checking into the Riverside Mall project for Romulus, and that it didn't look good. That he didn't see how Romulus could possibly insure a project that was going to go under at any moment.
Rod tried to bluff; John Smith wasn't having any.
But then the conversation took an abrupt U-turn. Smith suggested that he might 'forget' some of the things he'd uncovered in his report, for a price. But that wasn't all Smith had in mind.
'You're a good businessman, Mr. Calligan,' Smith had said. 'Let me make you a proposition.'
John suggested that there might possibly be a way to close down the project and still turn a profit-if he could find a way to get some kind of extremists or terrorists to close the project down for him because of sabotage.
He was holding the bundle at the time, and that was when the entire plan sprang into his mind, as if it had been placed there. He and Smith had most of the details worked out between them before he'd hung up.
First, he would go to a remote Indian burial ground on private land, a place he knew existed because he had camped and hunted there as a young boy. The place was supposed to be haunted, and none of his friends would stay there overnight or take any of the artifacts that occasionally surfaced in the area. Now he was glad he knew it existed, because it was going to be the key to his plan. He would dig up some of those graves, take the bones and artifacts, and seed his own site with them.
He would wait until his men uncovered the planted 'graves'-and being superstitious Indians, they would, of course, raise a fuss. Probably they would even refuse to continue working there; certainly they would refuse to work until he brought in some kind of witch doctor. He would order them to continue digging and to burn what they found-and if they were not already refusing to work, that would ensure that they walked off the job. Then he would arrange a 'terrorist bombing' that he could blame on the Indian activists.
While he was setting all this up, he would be siphoning development money into a fund at Romulus; probably some kind of investment fund that he and John Smith had access to. He would invoice things he had not purchased and put the cash into the fund. He could blame the Indians for stealing the supplies, too. Once the first bombing took place, he would have a scapegoat. Indian activists.
He could then stage several more 'accidents,' giving credence to the idea that Indian activists had turned to terrorism. Then he would complete the plan with a final bombing that would destroy the office, his office computers, and all the records, covering his embezzlement.
At that point, he could even declare bankruptcy; it was about time to get out of the development game in Oklahoma anyway. The gravy train had run out a long time ago, and the economy of this region was not likely to get better until the year 2000: He wasn't prepared to wait around, working on piddly shit, until that happened. He could try something else. Ostrich farming, maybe; there would be good money in it for a while.
Whether or not he declared bankruptcy was secondary anyway. He'd also be able to collect insurance money from Romulus. So, he would have his secret nest egg, shared with John Smith, and his insurance payment.
Well, right now he'd worry about Phase One: making sure all the blame for the bombings and other sabotage fell on the damn Indians. With any luck, he could make himself look really good-make a big point about how he'd gone out of his way to get them jobs, and carry on about ingratitude and superstition. He'd have to wait until the press came out and asked him if the rumors of Indian terrorists were true, but the way he figured it, that should happen some time later in the week. Certainly it would happen as soon as the second bomb went off.
The phone rang on. Periodically, Rod would hang up and hit the redial button, just to end the monotony. Smith picked up his phone, finally. And as always, Calligan activated the tape recorder. He had all kinds of recordings and paper trails, just in case. It always paid to have 'insurance'. . . .
'Calligan. I got to the records. We have a problem.'
Rod frowned; he'd gotten to know the subtle cues in Smith's voice over the past few weeks, and Smith was nervous.
'So what's the problem?' he asked cautiously.
'Sleighbow hired a Private Investigator to make sure you didn't know there was real trouble before the bombing,' Smith said. 'He's looking for conspiracy to commit fraud- that's not just civil, that's criminal.'
Rod didn't see the problem. 'What's the big deal?' he asked. 'There's nothing to find. There wasn't any conspiracy, remember? We made it all up.'
'Yeah, and that's the problem-that there isn't anything. You don't have any way to substantiate this terrorism shit.' Smith definitely was nervous. 'If there isn't anything there, the P.I. just might look deeper, and find some of our tracks. Or else clue the cops in.'
'No problem.' Rod had dealt with small-timers a lot; he knew how to handle them. 'We just wait until he doesn't find anything, slip him some change under the table to quit right there and-'
'The big deal is the P.I. he hired,' Smith interrupted. 'For starters, this one isn't on the take. She's as clean as they come. It's a woman, a local, and she's likely to know what to look for. And she's Indian, so you can bet she's going to be looking for things that will clear her people. I've got a file on her right here-Romulus hasn't ever done work with her before, but one of the companies we bought out not too long ago did. According to this, she not only refused a payoff, she had herself wired by a security firm, and reported the bribe with the tape as evidence. She got some Olympia people fired over that one. She's straight, and she could be trouble.'
But the moment Smith revealed his opposition's sex, Rod knew he had the situation sewed up. Indian and female- uneducated, unthinking, relying on instincts; no way was this chick going to give him a hard time. 'No woman is going to be trouble,' Rod said arrogantly. 'I haven't seen a bitch yet I haven't been able to outclass and outthink. But I need more information-I need to know where I can get some leverage on her. See what you can dig up for me, and see if you can have someone at your end throw her a red herring. Get somebody to tell her there really was trouble with Indians before the explosion.'
Smith snorted; he was clearly not that confident. But then, he didn't know Rod, did he? 'All right-' he said reluctantly, 'but it's your funeral if you screw up.'
Then he hung up, abruptly, leaving Rod with a dial tone. Rod dropped the receiver into its cradle, frowning, and killed his recording. This was stupid; Smith was spooking over nothing. One insignificant female P.I., Indian or not, wasn't going to ruin the plan. All he needed was a little more information, a way to get a handle on her, and that would be it. Was Smith a weak link in this? He might be, and Rod needed to think about a way to protect himself from his ally.
Finally he got up and tucked his fetish-bundle back into his jacket pocket. It was time to be heading home, before another stupid reporter decided to track him down. He was not ready to deal with them yet. He needed to think out everything he was going to say and do before he confronted another reporter. He needed to control them; he could not let them take the situation out of his hands again.
