Till the Butchers Cut Him Down (15 page)

In spite of the fact that I’m an excellent shot and enjoy practicing on the range with my .38, I try to avoid carrying it
unless it’s absolutely necessary. And I’ve always been uncomfortable about people owning handguns when they don’t have a professional
need for them. I asked, “Would you actually use one of your guns against an intruder?”

She hesitated, the set of her mouth becoming grim. Then she turned the question aside, saying, “Let’s walk south. I’ll show
you the cave where the bootleggers used to stash their hooch.”

She quickened her pace; I did the same. Why, I thought, did I feel she’d been on the brink of telling me something important
at some point during the conversation, then decided against it?

“Anna,” I said after a moment, “did Suits send me on this walk so you could answer my questions about his private life?”

“He didn’t specifically ask me to, if that’s what you mean. But it’s possible that was in the back of his mind.”

“This mania about his privacy seems to have been a lifelong preoccupation. I’ve known him for over fifteen years, and I wasn’t
aware he went to Harvard until one of his associates told me just the other day.”

“I suppose it has to do with all the attention that was focused on him when he was a child prodigy. Those early years weren’t
a good time for him.”

“There’s another thing that interests me: why, when he had a Harvard M.B.A., did he choose to roam all over the country peddling
stuff like dope and term papers?”

“Suits never had a childhood or an adolescence. Rather than start on a high-powered adult career at seventeen, he decided
to catch up on what he’d missed.”

Ahead of us the cliff face curved toward the sea, then disintegrated into a tumble of rocks that extended into the water,
forming a natural jetty. I stopped walking, my eyes drawn to the top of the sandstone; a feeling had stolen over me—that of
being watched. I scanned the cliffs, but saw no one.

“This way,” Anna called.

I shrugged the feeling off and followed her around a jagged mass of barnacle-encrusted stone to an A-shaped opening in the
cliff’s wall. “Our smugglers’ cave,” she said.

Inside, the cave was damp and echoing, noticeably colder than the beach. Deep shelflike hollows gouged its walls, suitable
caches for crates of illegal liquor. I went over to one and ran my hand across its mossy surface, then perched on a reasonably
dry rock that protruded from the pebbled sand. Anna came over and leaned beside me.

I said, “Suits and I could only pinpoint a couple of people in his organization who have access to enough information to have
planned these attacks on him—Noah Romanchek and Russ Zola. Do you know them?”

“Not well enough to hold an opinion on what they’re capable of.”

“We also isolated a couple of turnarounds that may be at the root of the trouble—Keystone Steel and Lost Hope, Nevada.”

She nodded slowly.

“I have the files on those,” I went on, “but I’d like your impression of how things were for Suits personally during those
periods. You talk on the phone every night, so you probably have insight—”

“Unfortunately, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

She pushed away from the rock and began to walk restlessly around the cave. “Last night when I said the marriage wasn’t without
its flaws? Well, I meant it as a joke, but there’s a good deal of truth in it. Suits and I weren’t getting along around the
time he went to Pennsylvania, and we agreed to a trial separation. It wasn’t until after he finished Nevada that we worked
things out and got back together.”

“All together how long was that?”

“Four years, give or take.”

“And you had no contact the whole time?”

“Very little.”

“Didn’t you ever discuss those years with him?”

She shook her head. “We decided to start over from the day we got back together. That meant no dwelling on past problems,
no delving into what went on during the years we were separated. Those years were hard on both of us; I think Keystone would
have been more successful if he hadn’t had the breakdown of our marriage on his mind. And I … There were things I would have
done differently, too, if I’d been safe in the marriage.”

Anna interested me; I wanted to ask her about those things, but they really weren’t any of my business. I said, “Suits has
made a lot of enemies over the years. Can you think of any who might go to this extreme?”

She considered the question thoughtfully, drawing a pattern in the pebbles with the toe of her sneaker. “No one comes to mind.”

“This next question may seem offensive, and I apologize in advance, but I have to ask it. Have you ever known Suits to do
drugs?”

“I’m the ex-druggie in the family. He hardly even drinks; you saw how little wine he had last night. Why do you ask?”

“A number of people have described him as paranoid, and even though I believe someone really is out to get him, I’ve noticed
paranoid behavior, too.”

“Suits has always been on the paranoid side of the scale, so I know what you mean. Frankly, I’m worried about him. A few weeks
ago he admitted that he’s had his phones wired with recording devices. He keeps tapes of his conversations and examines them
for sinister connotations. And he’s taken to conducting most of his business meetings in public places or on the helicopter.
He says they can’t get to him there.”

“They?”

She nodded.
“They.”

“Not good. Do the people he’s talking with on the phone know they’re being taped?”

Anna shook her head.

“He’s committing a crime.”

“I know that. I’m the only one he’s told about it, so don’t you let on to him.”

“I won’t. There’s another reason I asked about drugs, though: a man he knows in the city described him as having what sounds
like a flashback.” I explained what Carmen had told me. “A railroad overpass, two or three people, heat lightning on the water,”
I repeated. “Do those images mean anything to you?”

She became very still. I could see her hug herself beneath the folds of her cape. “Did you ask him about them?”

“I wouldn’t have gotten a straight answer. Might even have damaged our rapport.”

Anna’s face was pale now, her gaze turned inward. Finally she said in a flat voice, “Well, I don’t know what they could possibly
mean.”

Maybe she didn’t understand their exact significance, but I was sure she’d recognized something in the images. Before I could
ask more, she moved outside the cave and began walking toward the tide line.

I went after her, but it was obvious that the subject was closed. As soon as I caught up she began to chatter, trying to divert
me with tales of bootleggers and shipwrecks, with a skill that her husband would have admired. As we walked, the feeling of
being covertly watched came over me again; I scanned the beach and the cliff tops, but saw no one.

* * *

When Anna and I got back to Moonshine House, the Jet Ranger was idling near the edge of the cliff on a flat cleared area.
Suits met us halfway up the slope, turned me around, and pointed me toward the cottage. “Get your things together,” he said.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Trouble. We’ve got to go back to the Bay Area. I’ll meet you at the copter.”

“Suits—”

He was already heading toward the house.

I glanced at Anna; her lips had pulled tight and her eyes were stormy. She looked at me, shrugged, and started toward the
cottage.

I remained where I was, my brimming annoyance with Suits spilling over onto her. What was wrong with her, anyway? She wasn’t
going to protest, wasn’t even going to ask the reason for his abrupt departure! After a moment I followed, gathered my things
in silence.

When I’d zipped my travel bag, I saw that Anna was staring out the window at the sea, arms wrapped around herself under the
cape. She turned—mouth dejected, eyes bleak now—and my anger deflated. I touched her shoulder. “Why don’t you let me help
you pull the sheets off the bed.”

She shook her head. “I’ll take care of them after you leave. I’m expecting a young friend from the reservation—Franny Silva,
the woman who wove this cape. Getting the cottage fixed up for her will give me something to do.”

When we got back to the house, Suits met us in the gallery and handed me my briefcase, looking haggard. He whispered his apologies
to Anna during a quick embrace. Then he hurried out the door, motioning to me.

I slipped out of the borrowed parka, pulled my own damp one from the hall tree, and turned to Anna to give my thanks. She
hugged me, then enfolded me in her lovely handwoven cape.

“Anna, I can’t take this—”

“I want you to have it. It’s special to me; so are you. In a way I feel like we’re sisters. And now you’ll excuse me if I
don’t come outside to say good-bye.”

I hugged her in return, pulled the cape’s hood over my head so she could see how it looked, then ran after Suits. He and Josh
were impatient to be off; they helped me aboard the copter quickly. After I put on my headset I looked out the window toward
the greenhouse gallery, but saw no sign of Anna.

As the copter lifted off, I asked Suits, “
Now
what’s happened?”

He hesitated a moment before replying. “It’s Carole Lattimer. She was mugged and beaten in the garage across from our building,
where she parks her car.”

“She’s alive?”

“Barely. We don’t know the full extent of her injuries yet.”

“When did it happen?”

“Middle of this afternoon. Noah—he’s at the hospital—Noah says they’re afraid there’s brain damage.” Suits slumped in his
seat, chin on his collarbone. “The police … they say it’s the neighborhood. They say she should’ve been more careful. They
say … ah, hell! I know there’s more to it than that.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“I can. It’s just more of the same.” He put his hand over his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice rasped with emotion. “Sherry-O,
I hate this. I just plain
hate
this. The goddamn butchers can do what they want to me, but why do they have to hurt my
people
?”

* * *

Later that day the Mendocino County authorities would tell us that we must have just cleared the ridge of coastal hills on
our inland journey when Moonshine House exploded, fragmenting everything and everyone inside.

September 28

Black smoke belching from a helter-skelter heap of wood and stone. Orange flame licking at its edges. Firefighters scurrying
like frightened insects, leaving a spoor of hoses across the charred vegetation.

Wind sweeping the smoke higher, buffeting the copter; Josh crying so hard he was having trouble setting it down.

Suits’s hand in mine—limp as the corpse of a small animal. Face a rigid plaster-of-Paris mask, and just as fragile. His eyes
… no, I can’t look into his eyes.

Hot tears now. Whose? Mine. Burning tracks on my face.

Suits couldn’t believe it when the Oakland P.D. met us on the roof of the building and told us. Insisted we fly straight back.
He believes it now.

Sob catching in my throat. I believe it, too.

Close to the ground. Closer. Visibility nil. A bump. Door open, smoke billowing in. Filling my lungs, I can’t breathe. And
the smell …

Smell of countless things incinerated, shattered, ripped apart, ruined. And, faintly, the smell of charred human flesh—

I’m strangling on it. Trying to scream, but the sound won’t come. Straining harder, and now it does—hoarse, raw. And I’m falling—

Arms catching me, folding me close. A voice, Hy’s voice. Over and over he’s saying, “No, no, McCone, no. …”

* * *

After I’d fought free of the nightmare that was more a memory than a dream, I told Hy I needed to get some air. September
was a hot month here in the high desert; Hy’s ranch house had been closed up since early July. Perhaps it was the lingering
heat and stuffiness that had suggested flame and smoke.

Who was I trying to fool? The nightmare had recurred on an almost daily basis in the cool, fog-washed air of San Francisco.

We dressed and went out into the gray dawn. Sheep huddled in their fenced pasture; they moved restively as we went by. Hy
led the way across rough sagebrush-dotted ground to a grove of gold-leafed aspen. A dry creek bed meandered through the trees;
we bridged it on well-worn stones. On the other side of the grove, the land dropped off sharply in a series of ridges to the
volcanic plain where Tufa Lake nestled. As we sat on the cliff’s edge, our feet dangling, I could see the landing light at
the nearby Vernon airstrip wink green.

Hy said, “Can’t just be thirty-ninth birthday nerves.”

“No.”

“And it can’t just be your friend Anna getting killed. You hadn’t known her all that long, and besides, you’ve dealt with
worse things.”

“Dealt with them better than I am with this, you mean.”

“Uh-huh. Your friend Suits—”

“Is being a total
asshole!
I
hate
him!”

The vehemence of my response surprised both of us. Hy frowned and waited. When I didn’t go on, he said, “McCone, talk to me.”

My fingers clenched together. I bowed my head. So far I hadn’t been able to relate more than the surface details about the
explosion, certainly hadn’t been able to describe my feelings. The feelings only crept forth in the night, in my dreams. Otherwise
they lay buried as deep as what few fragments they’d been able to find of Anna. To look at me as I dealt with clients and
conducted interviews and instructed Mick, you’d never have known that I was only part there—that the greater portion of me
was lost in the smoke and the smells at Bootlegger’s Cove.

I thought of the many things I hadn’t told Hy: Of the framed photo of Anna and Suits that I’d come upon near the helipad,
miraculously thrown free and unharmed by the blast that had destroyed all else. Of Josh’s anguished cry when he saw me holding
it. Of Suits talking with a sheriff’s deputy and the fire captain, then growing more and more still, as if he were flipping
a series of internal circuit breakers to disable all human connection. And of the suspicion that had grown in my mind during
this past month, that was the worst thing of all. …