“No kidding? Sorry about that. Did you lose your stuff?”
“No. I wasn’t even moved in, and I’m probably better off.” Tom glanced around the store. Empty. “So what is it you need me to do for you?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Gary took a
closed
sign out from behind the counter, shut and locked the front door, and mounted the sign in the window. He tossed his head. “Let’s go to the back.”
Tom recalled the miniature office, and briefly considered admitting to the claustrophobia, but it was not the way to start out with a new employer. He sought to distract himself from the terror of the wee room, and the first thing to come to mind was the pizza oven back in California. And opening it up, and…not that, anything but that!
“Something wrong?” probed Gary.
Tom had stopped walking, stopped dead, and was holding onto a shelf full of feminine hygiene products. He was stalled by the fear of having to enter the little office. He blurted, “What kind of oven do you use, in your pizza business?”
“Huh? I don’t remember mentioning that operation yesterday.”
“Your delivery man, Robert Matthews, ran into me.”
“You met him on campus?”
“No, he truly ran into my car while he was making deliveries. I thought he might have told you.”
“No. It always takes him a while to fess up. Was this reported?”
“No. Robert promised to pay me out of pocket to cover my repairs.”
“No kidding? He did that? I may have to give the boy a raise. I owe you both, I guess. We’re going to get along, you and I. Come on in the office.”
Somehow Tom did, managing to block Gary from closing the door. He took the same chair as the day before, and winced again as Gary’s chair screeched the same protest.
Gary leaned across the little table. “It’s better you don’t know about the pizza business. There’s nothing in it for you anyway, at least not until you’ve been in class for a while and met some students.
“Likewise this grocery store has nothing for you. I operate from here, and I have real customers. Nearly every last one of them is on Social Security, a military pension, or a railroad pension. Nice old people who don’t want to have to drive to Houghton to shop too often. The store runs a loss, but I don’t care. It’s useful to be beloved by a hundred people, including most of the village council, in a town this size. It lets me run my other operations with only a reasonable requirement for discretion. Hey, I made tea twenty minutes ago. Do you want some?”
“No, I’m good, thanks. But if you don’t need me for this store or your pizza business, just exactly what do you need me for?”
“There are several more technical things. I’m interested in buying some mineral rights. I need an engineering guy involved.”
“I’m not a mining engineer or a metallurgist.”
“No, but you’ll be able to understand what those types are saying a lot better than I can. Another big thing, and you’ve
got
to keep this secret, is I’m planning to build a gambling casino.”
“So you need an architect and maybe a civil engineer. I’m a mechanical engineer, no more.”
“You’re a wet blanket, is what you are. I can’t afford to hire a cast of thousands. I need one general purpose guy who can interpret all the technical bull crap for me.”
“Is Robert doing any technical work for you?”
“Lord no, he’s fine with keeping the books, but asking him to do anything else practical is like asking pigs to fly. You’ll be my main man now, my tech guru. I’m going to call you
Tomahawk
.”
Tom had been waiting for that one, wondering why it took so long for someone in Houghton to do it. He was working up a sickly grin when there was a loud banging on the grocery store’s front door. A familiar voice cried, “Gary, let me in!”
Gary got up wearily. “Robert is back,” he sighed, maybe to Tom, maybe to no one at all. He went to the front of the store and unlocked the door.
From the office, Tom saw Robert Matthews tumble into the grocery shop. “You’ve got to hide me. Those maniacs are going to scalp me.”
“Come on back to the office, Robert. I’ve made tea,” said Gary, re-locking the door. Robert followed him meekly into the office, took the other straight chair, and the room became smaller. “I understand you and Tom Hawk have met.”
“Oh, sure. What are you doing here, Tom? Is the Nash okay?”
Robert’s lack of confidence in his English car was unnerving. “Yes, it’s still running”
“Tom is working with us now,” Gary told him, giving him a mug of hot tea with President Nixon’s picture on it.
Robert regarded the President’s image with loathing, but he sipped the tea.
To Tom, Gary bragged, “Robert is my liaison to the tribal center. He’s one-quarter Native American, but his work has had its ups and downs. When he came here and took a job with me I was just putting together an investment deal with the tribe. I arranged for him to live there in my old travel trailer.”
“But he doesn’t live there now.”
“No, there was a little misunderstanding about Israeli war bonds I sold out there. Also, I’d convinced him to exaggerate his ethnicity a bit, tell them he was full-blood. They got suspicious when my fellow Young Republicans started sending Nixon/Agnew campaign mail to him in my trailer. The Indians are all McGovern people. Anyway, after the war bond thing collapsed, they checked up on his genealogy and found out he’s three-quarters German.”
“Half German, one-quarter Dutch,” corrected Robert.
“Uh-huh. They got real mad about the bonds. They rolled my trailer into a ravine and he had to move to a rooming house here in New Range. The trailer thing was really no big deal.”
“No big deal? I was inside!”
“It was a piece of crap, that trailer. Anyway, we patched all that up with the tribe. I got them fifty cents on the dollar back on the war bonds. Today, when I was called down to the courthouse at the last minute about some other misunderstanding, I sent Robert out to the reservation to update the tribal elders on a mineral rights deal. Why did that upset them, Robert?”
Robert looked uneasily at the open door, his path of escape blocked by Tom. “I got confused, Gary. I mentioned the casino.”
“You didn’t!”
“You know how nervous those guys always make me. You’ve been telling me all the time how great they will make out on your casino if they let you put it up out there. I forgot they don’t know anything about it yet. They got real mad about you not telling them what you were doing. When they went to get the Chief, I bugged out.” Robert mopped his brow with a frayed handkerchief.
“Geez, Robert; that only made things worse.”
Gary told Tom, “They’ll thank me later. I’m planning a nice upscale casino with a restaurant, maybe a motel in a couple years.”
“Aren’t gambling casinos against the law in Michigan?” Tom questioned.
“They have been, but now they’re going to be legal on tribal lands. Isn’t it cool? This is the biggest money deal since the Beatles. We can…”
Gary was interrupted by a thunderous pounding on the front door. Robert whispered, “I think the tribal elders are here.”
Tom stepped out to the store aisle and Gary followed. Three large and fit-looking brown-skinned men had their faces pressed near the front window glass of the store. They didn’t look very elderly to Tom. The one in the Purdue t-shirt looked more like a vicious drill inspector he would go to his grave hating.
“Those guys?” he asked Gary.
“Yup, it’s the elders.”
Robert called from the back, “For Pete’s sake, hide me, Gary.”
“Hide yourself. Let me think.”
“You want me to go with you and talk to them, see what they want?” suggested Tom.
Gary shook his head. “I don’t think so. We can’t out-muscle them. Any fool can see you’re all but crippled by that hurt back, so that glorious Marine physique of yours won’t slow them down. Plus I don’t want them to meet you yet, Tomahawk, and certainly not while they’re in a snit. I’ll go and reason with them.”
Robert cried, “No, Gary, they’re pissed. Let’s go out the back. I didn’t sign up to hold off Indian attacks.”
There was a sound of shattering glass and, shortly after, a door opening. Gary admitted, “They
are
a bit testy. You two stay here out of sight and I’ll go straighten this out.” He headed to the front of the building, saying loudly, “Hi there, guys, what’s wrong? Is my door sticking shut again?”
A voice barked, “Gary, how long have you known about this special gambling casino deal? How long have you been holding out on us?”
“Oh come on, boys, I’d never hold out. I’ve got a presentation all but ready to bring to the council. You know how confused Robert gets. I can explain everything.”
“You damn bet you will. You’re coming with us to make a real good explanation this time. Get in the car. The Chief is waiting.”
“Hey, guys, let’s not go off half-cocked. We can talk here. I’ve got some single malt stashed in the back.”
“No firewater today, white man. Get in our car and watch your head on the roof.”
Tom and Robert heard the opening and slamming of four car doors. Tom got to the front of the store in time to see an old cream-colored Lincoln sedan speeding away from the curb.
Tom took Robert by the shoulders. “Those fellows were really worked up. We’d better follow them. You know where to go, right?”
“No, leave it be. We’d just make it worse.”
“What if they hurt him?”
“Probably they won’t—much.”
“You thought they were going to hurt you.”
“They’ve got something special against me, the jerks. Gary is much better at these situations.”
“Robert, we
work
for the man and he was just dragged off by three royally ticked-off guys. You’re sure he’ll be safe?”
“Absolutely, this sort of thing happens to him a lot. If they planned anything violent, they would have done it here in the store. At worst, they’ll bust a finger or two.”
“And you’re good with that?”
An uncharacteristic slyness twinkled in Robert’s eyes and just as quickly disappeared. “Okay, look, Tom, I’ll go out there and make sure he’s all right if you do something else for me.”
“What would that be?”
“Meet someone at the airport. You’ll just make it in time unless the plane is running late. I’ll swap you the Plymouth for the Nash since she might have a lot of luggage.”
Tom struggled not to salivate at a chance to get out of the little Nash. “She?”
“Her name is Renada Schneider. She’s sort of a friend coming to, ah, to visit me, from Europe.”
The idea of Robert having international female friends—of Robert having female friends—surprised Tom. “And you’ll really check up on Gary?”
“Scout’s honor; I’ll head straight out there.”
Tom didn’t know whether or not to believe him. But he had no idea where the tribal elders might have taken Gary, and Robert did.
Robert must have seen his resolve weakening. He promised, “You can keep on using the Plymouth until your car is fixed if you’ll do this for me.”
It was an escape from a tiny English prison. Tom capitulated. “Done deal. Where do I take this Renada after I get her from the plane?”
“She’ll be staying out at Beth’s place. Just take her there. We both need to get going, Tom.”
The Plymouth was in the alley behind the Nash. Robert had wired the front bumper approximately back into place, and he had somehow even re-attached the missing tooth of the grill. The thing was still butt-ugly, though. At the cars, as they exchanged keys, Robert gave him a small black-and-white wallet photograph of a stiff-looking, thin, almost gaunt woman perhaps in her mid-thirties.
“What’s the flight number?” asked Tom.
Robert looked puzzled. “Geez, Tom, I don’t know. We only get two airplanes in here a day and one on Sundays, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Oh. Yeah, got it. Call me at Beth’s in an hour and tell me if you and Gary are all right.”
“You got it.” Robert started the Nash and was off.
The Plymouth was enormous after the Nash, and Tom luxuriated in the tattered front bench seat. He found a parking place a hundred feet from the terminal door as a Douglas DC-9 made a placid descent to the airstrip. By the time he was at the gate the first handicapped passenger was being helped into the terminal. Then he watched what seemed like a full planeload of passengers enter before finally seeing Renada Schneider. She looked like the photograph, but even stiffer in posture. She was, he guessed, a fairly muscular five-foot-seven, hair pulled severely back to a bun.
Tom approached her as she stopped and looked about, perplexed. “Miss Schneider?” he asked.
“Yah, I am Renada. My, you are so much better looking than your photograph. We will get along famously.” Her English was good enough, but she was German. She snatched his hand like a drowning woman, and flashed a 300-watt smile. Once he recovered from the light, he realized the problem.
“Miss Schneider, I’m not Robert Matthews. He sent me to meet you, with his apologies. He was called away on some urgent business.”
The radiance of a moment before was replaced by thunderclouds in her eyes and a furrowed forehead. “Oh, you are not he, and he has business more urgent than me. How interesting. You bear his picture some resemblance, you know. Your name is?”
“My name is Tom Hawk. I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Yes. Do you know where is the baggage claim?”
Tom could see it from where they stood: a stationary rack rather than a carousel, but bags were being brought in rapidly. He pointed toward it. She smiled and stroked his arm. Maybe that was the European social custom. She held on to his arm as they walked to the bags.
Her luggage filled a cart. She was happy to let him do the heavy lifting while she gathered two small cases, bumping against him twice as they worked. He disguised the discomfort in his back and shoulder from her, and wondered why he did so. He was not attracted to Miss Schneider.
When they reached the Plymouth she looked incredulous. “This is your auto?”
“It’s Robert’s, one of his two cars, that is.”
“Indeed. I hope this is not the good one.”
Tom knew how she felt. She stood by the car while he filled the sizeable trunk and opened the door for her. He was starting to dislike this woman. But he’d cut her some slack as a foreigner. Driving to the B&B, he made small talk to see if she had softened up any. “How is it you know Robert?”