Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron (best ereader for pdf .TXT) 📕

contemplative sip of his whiskey, closed his eyes to savor it, and then heaved the deep sigh of someone who was about to say something of great import.

“Harold,” he began. “I’ve gotta tell you, everyone worries about how much these Hernandez brothers can be tied back to you.”

By everyone, Fawsey meant he and Loop.

Grimsson filled his pipe with tobacco from a leather pouch. He used his thumb to pack it down and then pointed at the other man with the stem. “Don’t you worry about the Hernandez brothers.”

“Ah, but that’s the problem,” Fawsey said. “We have to worry. Dirt from your hands gets on our hands. We are tied to you. And if you are suddenly connected to two heroin smugglers, then we are connected to two heroin smugglers by association.”

“They can’t be linked to me.”

Fawsey drained his glass quickly, as if he thought Grimsson might take it away for disagreeing. “There are two assistant US attorneys prosecuting this case. One’s a dinosaur, doing his duty, but not going out of his way. Ah, but the other guy, he’s young, ambitious, trying to make a name for himself. Are you saying that no matter how deep this ambitious guy digs, he won’t discover that you were the one bankrolling the Hernandez brothers?”

“He does seem awfully determined,” Loop said.

“I’m telling you that there’s nothing to worry about,” Grimsson said. “There are things underway that—”

Loop’s hand shot up, as if to ward off a blow. “If you say not to worry, then that’s enough for me.” It was clear from the hollow tone that the man didn’t believe his own words. He wanted something to be done, but was terrified of finding out the details. Neither senator wanted to know anything about how the sausage was being made.

“And the new mine road?” Fawsey asked, trying to change the subject.

Butane lighter in one hand, Grimsson clicked the pipe against his teeth with the other, pondering the fate of the Native kid who’d made such an issue of finding the Native burial site. Dollarhyde had offered to pay him – a lot, but the idiot kid remained devoted to his science right up to the moment he realized he was going in the water. By then it had been far too late to bargain. When Dollarhyde decided to dump you overboard, no amount of pleading kept you in the boat.

The senators would both shit themselves if they knew that little detail. Grimsson contemplated telling them, just to watch Fawsey’s head explode. Instead, he sighed, and grunted around his pipe.

“We’re good as far as the road is concerned. Should get the main bed cut in by late tomorrow. I’ll have equipment at the mine by—”

The whine of a boat motor cut him off.

Dollarhyde stood easily, even from his low chair.

“That’ll be your entertainment, sir,” he said, heading for the door.

Even the gloomy Senator Loop brightened at that. He downed the rest of his drink, but continued to clutch the empty glass like a security blanket. Fawsey hung his head, slightly embarrassed by the boat’s arrival. He’d lost his wife the year before and used the company of these women as his drug of choice.

Dallas Childers came in first, shaking the rain off his jacket and stomping his boots in the entryway. He was one of Grimsson’s heavy equipment operators at the Valkyrie mine, but Dollarhyde borrowed him often for more sensitive work. Schimmel, Childers’s sidekick, brought up the rear, keeping the girls bunched tight between them as if they might scurry off like mice. The boat they’d come in on had an enclosed cabin, but it was raining hard enough to soak the little group on the short walk from the dock to the front door. The girls’ hair was plastered to their exhausted faces.

“Rough seas?” Grimsson said, eyeing a fragile-looking blond waif. She swayed on her feet and was awfully green around the gills. Loop would choose this one. Grimsson was certain of it.

“Rain’s coming down in buckets,” Childers said. “But the waves weren’t too bad, sir. Rhonda here just has a little case of the jitters. I offered to take her back to the plane, but she said she needs the money.”

“Is that right?” Grimsson asked, tilting the young woman’s quivering chin up with the crook of his index finger. “Rhonda, is it?”

She nodded, licking her lips like a nervous animal.

“Do you want to stay? No one is forcing you to be here.”

“No… I mean, yeah…” Her tiny body trembled like a birch leaf in the breeze. Dark half-moons, part smeared mascara, part malnutrition, puffed her eyes. “I mean, I’ll stay.”

Grimsson smiled, almost smirking. “There’s booze and a few other items you might be interested in through that door.” He looked at the senators. “Why don’t you men entertain these ladies for a few minutes. I have some things to discuss with Mr. Dollarhyde.”

Childers and Schimmel led the way into the great room. The four women, all of them prostitutes from Seattle flown up specifically for this evening, followed obediently. They no doubt hoped the “other items” their host mentioned was something a little stronger than alcohol to help take the edge off. They would not be disappointed. Senators Loop and Fawsey brought up the rear. Seattle was only some nine hundred miles away by air. Grimsson doubted the girls even knew they were in Alaska, let alone recognized anyone here. Still, his private plane was stocked like a pharmacy, so they were already beyond caring by the time they arrived.

“I need an honest assessment,” he said, as the door was shut.

Dollarhyde sat down again and picked up his ginger ale. He held the glass and sighed. “Honestly, sir, it’s not good. We need to take some drastic action to settle things down.”

“Meaning it’ll get worse before it gets better?”

“In a word,” Dollarhyde said.

Grimsson groaned, long and low, animalistic. “Gone are the days when you can dump someone into the Stephens Passage and be done with it.”

Dollarhyde peered up, no doubt thinking how he