Dead on Arrival

DeMarco did.

‘Jesus,’ Hall said, ‘are you nuts?’

‘Probably,’ DeMarco said.

‘I could lose my job if I did this,’ Hall said.

‘You won’t lose your job. Right now you’re bulletproof. And unless something goes wrong, there’s no reason for anyone to even know you were involved.’

‘Something always goes wrong,’ Hall said.

66

Patsy Hall had never been to Montana before, and the beauty of the place just overwhelmed her: the mountains, a cloudless sky like an inverted blue bowl over her head, the wide rivers cutting through the landscape. When she saw the rivers, she was immediately reminded of that Redford movie A River Runs ThroughIt, and just like in the movie, there were men fly-fishing on the rivers. She didn’t know if these guys ever caught any fish but they created the prettiest picture — the fishing line looping out behind them, then snapping forward, the fly landing on the water as light as a butterfly’s kiss. And she loved the names: Bitterroot River, Sapphire Mountains, Anaconda Range. Maybe next summer she’d come out here with her husband and her girls, do a little fly-fishin’ herself or take a rafting trip down one of those gorgeous rivers.

But that was next year. Right now her job was to con Jubal Pugh.

Pugh lived in a trailer park on the outskirts of Victor. His trailer was white with green trim and only a month old, yet it was already showing signs of neglect. Weeds were growing up around the blocks the trailer sat on, and a piece of sheet metal near one window was hanging loose. Hall knocked on the trailer door. She could hear a television playing inside, and when no one came to the door, she took out her gun, the big.40 caliber that was always digging into her ribs, and hit the door with the butt, hard enough to leave a dent in the metal.

The trailer door flew open. Jubal Pugh was barefoot, dressed in baggy grease-stained jeans and a white sleeveless T-shirt. Broad suspenders held up the jeans. In his hand was a Coors. He hadn’t shaved in days and, judging by his eyes, the Coors in his hand wasn’t his first.

Patsy knew Jubal liked his beer, but it looked to her like he’d gone considerably downhill since he’d left Virginia. She supposed that losing everything you owned and working in a scrap yard might have that effect.

‘Why in the hell are you bangin’ on-’ Then Jubal recognized Hall. ‘You bitch! What are you-’

‘Let me in, Jubal.’

‘Don’t call me that. My name’s Steve now.’

‘I don’t give a shit what your name is. Let me in.’

Pugh hesitated, but he finally stepped back so Hall could enter the trailer. It was worse than she’d expected, clothes lying on the floor and over the backs of chairs, beer cans and take-out food cartons scattered all over the place, unwashed dishes in the tiny sink. The man had definitely gone downhill.

‘I don’t know what the hell you’re doin’ here, you bitch, but the DEA-’

Hall executed the move so fast that Pugh was taken completely by surprise. She whipped a leather-covered sap out of the back pocket of her jeans and cracked it right across the bridge of Pugh’s long nose. She didn’t hit him all that hard, barely hard enough to break the skin, but Jubal’s legs turned to jelly and he collapsed to the floor, landing hard on his butt.

Hall had wanted to do that for a very long time.

‘Now, Jubal,’ she said, looking down at him, ‘I’m here to make you a proposition, one that’s going to be very profitable for both of us, but you need to learn that I don’t like being called a bitch. So quit being such a lousy host and offer me a beer.’

Pugh got up and walked unsteadily over to the small kitchen in the trailer and tore a sheet off a roll of paper towels. While he was dabbing the paper against his bleeding nose, he opened the refrigerator and got a Coors for Hall and another for himself. The one he’d been drinking had spilled when Hall had hit him. He handed her the beer and then fell into a fake-leather recliner and continued to press the paper towel against his nose as he glared at her.

Hall looked around for someplace to sit. There was a bench seat that wrapped around a small dining table and a built-in couch along one wall of the trailer. The couch appeared to be the cleaner of the two, so she sat there, took a sip of beer, and then leaned back and crossed her legs to give the impression that she was relaxed. ‘Jesus, this place is a dump,’ she said. She was still holding the sap in the hand that wasn’t holding the beer.

‘How did you know where to find me?’ Pugh said. ‘Those marshals said my location was secret.’

‘Yeah, it’s secret, all right,’ Hall said, ‘unless you work for the government and know who to ask.’

‘So what do you want? You already ruined my life. I’m living in this shit hole and making about two hundred bucks a week. And since you can’t put me in jail, there ain’t a fuckin’ thing you can threaten me with that’ll make my life any worse.’

‘You need to develop some listening skills,’ Hall said. ‘I told you I came here to make you a proposition.’

‘What proposition?’

‘You and me, Jubal, we’re gonna blackmail Oliver Lincoln. We’re gonna make him give us four million dollars, two for you and two for me.’

‘What the hell is this?’ Pugh said. ‘You expect me to believe that?’ Pugh pulled the paper towel away and tenderly touched his nose; the bleeding had stopped. He wadded up the paper towel and tossed it on the floor.

‘Jubal, I tried for five years to put you in jail, and I know everything there is to know about you. But you — you don’t know anything about me, so I’m gonna tell you a little about myself. I make about eighty grand a year, which isn’t a bad salary unless you take into account that my dumb shit of a husband took out a mortgage on a house that’s three times what we can afford, and then, after he gets the loan, he loses his job and hasn’t worked since. So about three quarters of my salary goes to pay for a house we never should have bought in the first place, and I’ve got two daughters that are expecting to go to college in a couple of years. And while I’m dressing in clothes from Kmart, there’s guys like you and Oliver Lincoln making money hand over fist. How much did you make last year, Jubal? Two, three million?’

‘I don’t buy that you’re willing to risk jail time because you’re a little short of cash,’ Pugh said.

‘First of all, I’m not a little short, I’m a lot short. But you’re right, this isn’t totally about money. Mostly, but not totally. You know what happened after I nabbed your ass? After the goddamn FBI made you that deal?’

‘No.’

‘Well, other than the fact that you didn’t go to jail, my boss, this D.C. asshole, blamed me for you getting off. He blamed me! I didn’t have a damn thing to do with the deal the Bureau cut you, but my boss was pissed because the FBI got all the glory, so he decided I was the one who’d screwed up. So even though I finally got the evidence to put you away, I’m no longer a supervisor and I’m working for some jackass who doesn’t have half my brains. I might even get demoted. So I’m not a happy girl, Jubal. But I think two million dollars will make me happy, particularly if it comes from Oliver Lincoln.

‘But enough talk about me. Let’s consider your situation. You’re livin’ here in your double-wide-’

‘It’s not even a double-wide,’ Jubal said.

‘Whatever,’ Hall said. ‘It’s like living in a coffee can. And this job you’ve got. A junkyard, for Christ’s sake! But if you had two million bucks, you could get yourself a new identity, go live someplace nice, maybe even start making meth again.’

Jubal nodded his head unconsciously.

‘How would we get the money out of Lincoln?’ he said.

‘All the FBI needs to put Lincoln in jail is proof that you actually met with him,’ Hall said. ‘If they had anything tangible, a good-citizen witness, a decent photograph of the two of you together, then they could use your testimony to nail him. Unfortunately all they have is that one crummy picture Randy took and your word that you met with him, and we both know what your word is worth. But what do you think the FBI would do if they had something like this?’ Hall reached into her purse and handed Pugh an envelope.