authorities about substandard construction. He knew the right jargon, things that sounded perfectly normal on the phone.
But this time, Rod would take out his contract with a real workman; someone you saw once if at all, paid in advance, and never heard from again.
Except that the target came down with a bad case of death. And it always looked like suicide, a hit-and-run, or another tragic case of random violence. Pretty girls were raped and killed all the time. And if the pretty girl was also a P.I., well, she just had been in the wrong place, and hadn't been careful enough. It'd be good for about two nights on the local news, and wouldn't even make the nationals.
Pros didn't leave tracks. And they didn't come back after blackmail money. It was bad for repeat business.
Smith ought to know some pros in this area . . . he'd certainly hinted that he did.
Should he call Smith in on this? That was the question. He rubbed his thumb over the leather of the fetish and looked out the window, noting absently the small flock of scrawny black birds in the tree outside. Funny; they were absolutely silent, so they weren't blackbirds, starlings, or grackles. They were too thin to be ravens, and too big to be crows.
Still, weren't black birds some kind of omen of death? Maybe that was the sign he ought to move on this. Let them 'pick the Talldeer girl's bones, not his.
He called Smith back.
'I need someone,' he said. 'A reliable Tulsa mechanic. I think our equipment needs about five grand worth of work.'
'I have just the right men,' Smith said.
'John Smith' hung up the phone, jaw clenched, and a vein in his temple starting to throb. Not that he cared if Calligan had the chick rubbed out; in his opinion, it should have been done before this. No, the real problem was that Calligan was stupid and small-time; if things went wrong, he could implicate Smith.
No-if anything went wrong, Calligan would implicate Smith. He would sing so fast and so well, they'd put him in the opera.
Even if things didn't go wrong, there was no guarantee that Calligan would stay quiet. He was getting nervous; sounded a little hysterical whenever Smith said anything about Talldeer. In fact, if he'd tried something of his own to get rid of the girl, he probably left a pretty messy trail behind him.
Damned amateurs.
It might not be a bad idea to collect a little insurance of his own.
He left his desk and took a quick walk outside, to a public telephone kiosk. Not one right outside his building, but one further down in the office park. He always had a roll of quarters with him, just in case.
He waited ten minutes, then called the same number he'd given Calligan.
'Fixers,' said the voice on the other end.
'I need some custom work done on my car,' he replied. 'Something really special.' That was the code that he needed a safe line to talk openly.
'Give me your number; I've got a customer. I'll call you back.' Brusque, businesslike, calm. These were real professionals, probably the best in Tulsa. They should be; they'd taken care of a number of embarrassing little problems for prominent people. For instance, that evangelist with the awkward and talkative relative. . . .
Smith gave the man the number of the pay phone and hung up. A few minutes later, it rang.
'About that custom job. Yeah?' It was not the same voice. He had expected that.
'Your people just got a call from a man who wanted an Indian girl shut up,' he said, quietly and calmly. 'I sent him to you. We've got a deal, but he's making me nervous. His name's Rod Calligan.'
'Construction.' Smith's estimation of the men went up a notch. 'He insisted on payment-in-person. You want some insurance on him, or do you want him shut down?'
Smith had thought about that while he made his walk and waited for the phone to ring. Calligan was still useful. 'Insurance,' he said. 'He's got a wife and kids. Get rid of his target first, then pick up the family. Maybe get rid of the wife to prove we're serious. Make sure the Indians get the blame for all of it, so far as the cops are concerned.'
'Easy, but it'll take some time to fill Calligan's contract, so it won't happen right away,' the man replied. 'Make your deposit, send us the spec sheet on him. That'll be fifteen. As soon as we get it, we'll open the policy for you, and fill your order as soon as we take care of Calligan's.' Send them all the details on Calligan with their fee, in cash, that meant, to their mail drop. Untraceable cash. It would take him a little work to collect the money-he had it, but he would want to get it in thousand-dollar lots, from several places, to make sure he didn't get sequential bills. 'That'll do fine. Expect it in a few days,' he told the man, and hung up.
So much for Rod Calligan and his little problem. You just had to know who to call.
Toni Calligan held back tears with the last of her strength; she was just about ready to sign herself into the asylum. She was afraid to let the kids out of her sight, after the attack on Ryan. Things kept happening, inexplicable things, but worst of all, so far as her sanity was concerned, they never happened when Rod was home.
Rod Junior had tattled; he'd told Rod how he'd come home to find Toni crying at the kitchen table after Ryan's near accident. She had been able to keep Rod from finding out about that for maybe five minutes; after a brief session of bullying, he had the story of the near miss out of her.
Unfortunately, she had,not gotten the stranger's name and phone number, so there was no one to corroborate her story but Ryan.
Now Rod was accusing her of making things up, and getting Ryan and Jill to tell the same stories. The few incidents that she had evidence of he somehow twisted around to being her fault, saying she was careless, a bad mother.
And somehow he'd found out what that one repairman had said about the dryer.
That was when he really lost his temper with her, which lately hadn't been very good, anyway. He'd taken it out on her ... he hit her, telling her she deserved it, deserved to be punished, because she was not only unfit to be the mother of his good son, Rod, but was crazy and was making the other two crazy, and he was just going to have to beat the craziness out of her.
Her life had become a nightmare.
But the real nightmare was not the attacks on her children, or even the bruises that Rod's beating had left.
The real nightmare was that she was beginning to think he was right. She was going crazy.
She didn't know what else to think, after what had happened this afternoon when she'd been making spaghetti sauce in the pressure cooker.
She had just put the pot on the burner. She had turned around to pick up a pot holder, and had looked up at a sudden movement, thinking one of the kids had come in.
There was an Indian in her kitchen.
An Indian with a mohawk, some kind of shell necklace around his neck, a blanket tied around his waist, fringed leather pants-carrying a hatchet with a shiny metal blade in one hand, some kind of wooden club in the other. And his face-it had such an expression of hate that she shrank back with a little squeak of panic, so terrified her voice wouldn't work.
Then he was gone. Just gone. He didn't leave, he vanished, completely.
Just as Ryan appeared in the doorway.
It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds from the time she'd lit the flame to when the Indian vanished into' thin air. She wasn't sure what warned her, then; some instinct, God only knew. But the moment Ryan appeared, she knew, something horrible was going to happen, and she just leapt on him, tackled him, and pulled him to the floor right outside the kitchen.
Just as the pressure cooker exploded.
She got both of them just out of the way of the shrapnel- for the pot had literally exploded, rather than having the lid blow off.
She sat there on the floor with Ryan and they both cried for a while. Then she got him calmed down, extracted a promise from him not to tell his daddy, and ventured into the kitchen. There was only one thing to do, if she didn't want another lecture-or worse-from Rod. She had to get the mess cleaned up, hide the damage from a cursory examination, and get some other kind of dinner going before he got home. And how she was going to
