I swung the cylinder in, shoved the gun into its holster and let the windbreaker fall back in place. “You never know. What’s the job?”
* * *
If I’d known before I put the gun away, I might’ve…okay, lucky for him, I realized I would’ve had to clean the gun. I’m picky about that. A dirty gun is an unreliable gun. Of course I could have pistol-whipped him. There’s more than one way to use a gun. But after hearing about the job I left the revolver at Greg’s. Just as well, considering how the afternoon went.
By ten twenty I was in the Toyota, northbound on Kietzke Lane, headed for Skulstad Meat Co., a wholesaler in the city of Sparks. Sparks is to Reno what a person’s left buttock is to their right. The two towns started up four or five miles apart, grew, finally slammed up against each other until they became RenoSparks, and there’s not much more to say about that. Happens all the time now, all across the country. Pretty soon it’ll be wall to wall from coast to coast, one big fun place, like the mess around L.A. I could hardly wait.
As mayor, Jonnie Sjorgen had been doing his part to make it happen as soon as possible, backroom deals and kickbacks under the table, slippery damn folks scratching each other’s backs, which is one reason I’d never voted for the guy, even before he started running around with Dallas. What voters want doesn’t mean shit to politicians once they get in office. They lie as effortlessly as they breathe.
Two years ago, when Tom Carson was still at the helm, Skulstad Meats had been a client of Carson & Rudd. Pilferage. Now they had an accounting problem. Normally that wouldn’t be PI work at all, but Humphrey Skulstad, now in his seventies, had consulted with Greg and, lucky me, Greg had told old man Skulstad he had just the guy for the job, a veritable accounting genius.
I wondered…is it homicide if it’s your own kin, or is there a lesser charge?
It wasn’t entirely my fault I ended up an IRS agent—or auditor, if you prefer. Goon is also popular. Working for the IRS was almost certainly the result of the same genetic accident that had produced much of the Angel family and its unremarkable offshoots, the least auspicious of which was the Angel/Rudd union nearly thirty years ago that had given the world Gregory Rudd.
IRS auditing is the world’s most boring work and, relative to plumbing which is its metaphorical equivalent—unplugging drains to get things flowing—it doesn’t pay for shit. You get an accounting degree and think that’s it, you’ve got it made. Then, somehow, instead of turning right toward the golden glow of money, you turn left and enter this long dark tunnel. Strangely enough, it looks okay at first, you’re doing good work, it’s necessary, you’re needed, or so you’re told—then one day you wake up and find you’re in too deep. You’ve learned too much to turn back. The tax code, in all its shifting, side-stepping glory, becomes your life. Twenty thousand La-Brea-Tar-Pit pages of it. A horse couldn’t eat the index of that son of a bitch in a week. You can’t think past that kind of thing, past noncompliant and frivolous returns, tax delinquent accounts and “nonfilers.” There is a phrase, “Tax Professional,” but we on the inside know there’s no such thing. No one knows the tax code in its entirety. It isn’t possible. Phone the IRS with a simple question and there’s a fifty-fifty chance they’ll get it right. Make it a hard question and you’re on your own—just don’t get it wrong or you’ll need a lawyer, and good luck finding one who has a clue regarding the pride and joy of the IRS: the Federal Tax Code. So, numb and blind and part of a bureaucratic system that would’ve made Stalin weep with joy, you find yourself slogging waist deep through the archeology of people’s lives, dust flying off old ledgers, a confetti of receipts kept in random order in shoeboxes, bored out of your skull, lunging at trivia like a Black Lab at chicken bones.
But there’s an element of danger in it, too, wondering if this or that John Doe has finally reached the end of his rope and is going to whip a shotgun out of a nearby closet and start blasting. Field audits are stressful times, hence the license to carry. You sit with your back to the wall and check people’s eyes, looking for that final, murderous spark. That might have been all that kept me going during my sixteen years with the IRS, that sweet hint of danger, but in the end it wasn’t enough.
I pulled up in front of Skulstad Meats and left my Toyota—faded to an indecisive shade of yellow—to broil in the sun.
Humphrey Skulstad met me at the door and whisked me into his office before I could give his secretary my phone number. A nameplate on her desk said Rachel Cabrera. Thirty-five, give or take, beautiful, nicely filling out a knee-length summer dress. No ring on her finger. And she’d given me a wink. Several winks, in fact. Either that, or she had something in her eye the size of a number two pencil. Skulstad hauled me into his office before I could determine which.
The place reeked of hamburger, animal fat, and cheese—the anteroom, Humphrey’s office, all of it. The aroma at Skulstad’s was part of the job.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said, pale-blue eyes darting between his office door and my face. He looked well-scrubbed, pink-faced and tidy, even in shirt sleeves.
“We don’t?”
“You’re my newest employee.”
“I am?”
He stopped and stared at me, growing wary. “You are from… ah…that is…”
I could tell he wanted me to say it first. Or get the hell out of his office. “Carson & Rudd,” I said.
He relaxed slightly, but kept up a squint.
