31
They found a motel in Red Lodge called Benjamin Beartooth’s Last Chance Inn that promised Wi-Fi. The supposed last chance did not have anything to do with rooms, apparently-when they asked if there were two available, the clerk laughed and said they could have twenty if they wanted to pay for them. Mark’s mind was still on Jay Baldwin as they walked to Lynn’s room so she could set up her laptop and download the files her office had sent. She sat at the desk, clicking away, and he went to the window, looked out at the same street he’d traveled a hundred times in what now seemed like another lifetime, and wondered about the fear he’d seen in Baldwin. It was a particular kind of fear-fear of being caught.
But caught doing what?
Lynn said: “I thought you said Eli Pate had never done prison time.”
“Correct.”
“Incorrect.”
Mark turned from the window in surprise. “I ran his name last night.”
She had a small smile, one that was smug but not in an unattractive way. Pleased with herself, that was all. Still, he felt stupid, a step behind.
“What did I miss?”
“Amsterdam,” she said.
“What?”
“We have an office there.”
“Of course you do.”
The smile widened and filled her eyes. “Pinkerton Global,” she said. “Isn’t this what you were having so much fun with, giving me shit over my firm?”
“I gave you only respect. If anything, it was envy disguised as respect.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Just tell me what the hell I missed.”
She pushed back from the desk so Mark could come close enough to see the screen. He bent down and looked at the dossier her office had sent.
In 1998, a youthful Eli Pate had been arrested in Rotterdam on charges of conspiring against the state, which led to four years in prison in the Netherlands before his eventual extradition back to the United States. He’d been in the Netherlands on a student visa, studying petroleum engineering and history.
“What exactly does conspiring against the state mean?”
“Keep reading.”
There was a short abstract detailing the charges. According to the Dutch authorities, Eli Pate had been involved in a plan to blow up sixteen ships in the Waalhaven harbor of the Port of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port. Although he was aligned with members of a self-described environmental watch group, all parties agreed that he was not himself a member. Rather, he’d attempted to recruit them to his cause. Affidavits claimed that Pate’s express goal was to “make a statement” about the shipping industry, which was responsible for more air pollutants than all the cars in the world, he explained. Due to the fact that nobody had made any real progress with the plan-news of it was leaked to Dutch intelligence agencies before Pate had secured any recruits, let alone explosives-the prosecution didn’t garner as much attention as it might have. Following his prison stay, he was sent back to America, leaving behind an unfinished degree and a two-hundred-page thesis on the energy theories of Nikola Tesla.
“I wonder what that thesis reads like,” Mark said.
“I can ask our Amsterdam office to put together a file.”
“You really like saying that, don’t you? Our Amsterdam office.”
She grinned at him. She had a hell of a smile. Mark hadn’t seen much of it because she was all business most of the time, and he felt the same-this wasn’t a pleasure trip. He felt the same, at least, until he saw that smile. When the smile reached her eyes and they took on that beautiful dark light, he wanted to forget why they were there. He wanted to forget about Eli Pate and Janell Cole and even Garland Webb.
He wanted to forget about his wife.
“What?” Lynn said. Her smile was gone and she looked concerned.
“Sorry. Mind wandering.”
“Low blood sugar.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“Well, it sure is for me. We haven’t eaten all day. You’re the local guide. Surely you can find a decent meal in this town for us?”
“There’s a Mexican-and-pizza restaurant called Bogart’s that isn’t bad.”
She raised an eyebrow. “A Mexican-and-pizza restaurant called Bogart’s?”
Mark shrugged. “It’s Montana. We don’t need to make sense to the tourists.”
We. He’d said it easily, no hesitation, as if he belonged to the place. You can’t go home again, or so the saying goes. Bullshit, Mark thought. You just take it with you.
They walked down the street to Bogart’s, a brick building with a sign featuring Bogie’s face, and Lynn said, “You weren’t kidding. It’s really about him. Why?”
“I honestly have no idea. But the food was good once. It maybe still is.”
They went in and sat at the bar and Mark looked at the beer taps and saw that they had Moose Drool. He ordered one.
“Moose Drool,” Lynn said. “You actually wish to consume this. You’re even willing to pay for it, I gather. Unless the bartering system is employed here? Do I need to find some pelts and beads?”
“It’s a damned good beer. Now, my uncles drank Rainier, mostly. They didn’t have much interest in craft beer. Rainier they called fuel. ‘Markus, run in the gas station and grab us a case of fuel for the road.’”
The Moose Drool tasted the way he’d remembered, a brown ale with a smooth finish. Lynn ordered the same, took a drink, and gave a small nod indicating that it was at least palatable.
“How’d you end up with the Pinkertons, anyhow?” Mark said.
“Swung and missed on the FBI. Came out of law school and wanted to get into the Bureau but they didn’t take me. I didn’t blame them, really, I was straight out of school and didn’t have any other experience. I thought I’d beef up the résumé with private-sector work. I ended up just liking the private-sector work.”
“You enjoy it?”
“I enjoy it. It’s hell on relationships, though. I travel a lot, and I can’t talk about why I’m traveling. All the things that men expect women to tolerate, they don’t do a very good job of tolerating themselves.” She held up a hand. “Sorry.”
“No need to be. It sounded like the truth.”
She nodded. “So I like the job. Enough that I didn’t try to get into the Bureau again. I’ve been treated well, I’ve been promoted fast, I’ve gotten good cases. I didn’t love the Boca Raton assignment, but it was a step forward. Just not my scene.”
“Where are you from?”
“New Hampshire, originally. My first assignment was in Cleveland. You’d think it’d be hard to miss Cleveland, but I do. I miss the seasons. Florida, it’s hot or less hot, you know? You don’t feel the turnover. Spring comes, and it’s nice, but…”
“You don’t feel like you’ve earned it.”
She smiled and pointed at him. “That is exactly the problem. If you don’t have to work to get through winter, what difference does spring make?”
They ate and drank and talked about the intel report on Pate. Drank more. As the beer went down Mark began to feel looser about the town, that cold dread of arriving here going a little warmer, and then he was telling Lynn stories about his uncles. The good stories, the ones that always got laughs. They got plenty from her. He loved hearing that laugh. He didn’t tell her any of the bad stories, or the sad ones. He didn’t tell her any about his mother. Lynn didn’t ask either. She’d heard all she needed to from the deputy in Powell, probably. Mark was grateful that she was content to leave it there. Lauren always had been too.
“You said Ronny is dead,” Lynn said after he’d told a particular classic about Larry getting arrested for public intox. Larry had been cuffed and was being guided to the patrol car by a cop when Ronny walked leisurely across the street wearing a ski mask and carrying a shotgun, which, as one might expect, got the attention of the cop. Both activities were perfectly legal in Montana; it was an open-carry state, and although wearing a ski mask in July when it was damn near ninety degrees outside was strange, there wasn’t anything criminal about it. While Ronny was explaining his fears of sunburn and skin cancer to the officer, Larry simply walked away from the patrol car, still wearing his handcuffs. Mark cut the chain later that night with a hacksaw, which made life easier for Larry but not exactly problem-free.