She snapped to seated attention, but couldn’t help the grin. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“Have you an accountant, Miss Redcorn?”
Schreck stood to answer: “We will have accountants here, Your Honor, by tomorrow.”
“By one P.M. tomorrow?”
“Certainly, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Welles, at one P.M. tomorrow, your clients will be prepared to show every courtesy and the casino’s books to Miss Redcorn and her accountants.”
“Your Honor, the casino is on sovereign land of the Three—”
“Mr. Welles, if your clients attempt to delay this process one second past one P.M. tomorrow, I shall jail them, in the United States, for contempt of court. Miss Redcorn, a Pottaknobbee, a member of the Three Tribes, has come to this court for redress, and the court has accepted jurisdiction.”
Tommy Dog popped to his feet behind Welles, exhibiting both stage fright and determination. “Your Honor?”
Now what? Judge Higbee lowered several great white eyebrows in Tommy Dog’s direction. No more complications, damn it. “Yes, Mr. Dog?”
“Your Honor,” Tommy Dog said, “I’m head of the Tribal Council this quarter, and I just want to say the tribes are perfectly happy to accept that test result you got there, and we accept Miss Redcorn, and we’re happy to know there’s still a Pottaknobbee around, and every one of us is gonna welcome her.”
I can think of two who won’t, the judge thought, looking at the horrified faces of Roger and Frank. “Thank you, Mr. Dog,” he said. “I’m encouraged by your statement.” He looked down at his pad and saw the note: Swim more. Exactly. “Court adjourned,” he said, and went home and swam.
49
So where was Roger? Frank had no idea, that’s where Roger was. No idea. And the hell with him.
Just when you need, Frank thought, and stooped for another bottle of Wild Turkey, and lost the thought. But found the bottle. Straightening with it, slowly, not wanting to get dizzy again, he placed the bottle carefully on the mahogany bar, then concentrated himself to the task of opening the damn thing.
He was here in Roger’s office, later than two in the morning of a sleepless night after that damn session in court, here in Roger’s office instead of over there in his own office, for three reasons. First, he wanted to talk with Roger, who somehow wasn’t here. Where was he?
Anyway, the second reason was, this was the office with the bar with the bottles of Wild Turkey on the shelf underneath. And the third reason was, this was where they kept the books.
Books as in books, the old-fashioned way. The casino had started without computers, just before computers had become ubiquitous, and because of the way Roger and Frank operated their business, it had always seemed to them a good idea to let computer ubiquity end at the reservation border. Computers lose half what you tell them anyway, except that, when the feds show up, everything is still in there all along, particularly the stuff you tried to erase. What with one thing and another, stick with books.
All the books. All three sets of books.
They had to have three sets of books because they had different needs at different times. They had to have an accurate set of books because they themselves at least had to know what the package was they were skimming from, and they had to know enough about the operation to be able to run it efficiently. But those books couldn’t be shown to anybody else, because those books were streaked with the hands of Roger and Frank, reaching in and taking out.
While it was true that the casino was free of federal taxes, it was also true that there were certain taxing and regulatory agencies who did keep track of things here, sales of alcohol and tobacco, gambling income, things like that. These official snoops were mostly from New York State, but also from Ottawa, since the reservation spread over into Canada. For those outfits, there was the second set of books, in which income and outgo were more or less similar to events in the real world, but the skimming hands of Roger and Frank were replaced by other, perhaps plausible expenses.
And then there was the Three Tribes. From time to time, Roger and Frank had to present an accounting of their stewardship to the tribes—it was never a big deal, just pro forma, nobody wanting to rock a very successful boat—and for that purpose, neither the first nor the second set of books would do, because both showed far too high a cash flow, and it wouldn’t take the tribes long to realize they were getting just about 50 percent of the money that was actually due them. So for the tribes, and only for the tribes, there were the books, variant number three.
So there they were, the three sets of books. The straight books, the cooked books, and the fried-to-a-crisp books. And they were all kept in Roger’s office, because that’s where the safe was.
And where the hell was Roger anyway? It seemed to Frank there was only one thing they could do now, but before he got started on it, he wanted to run the idea past Roger, bounce the notion off old Roger, run it around the block with Roger. So where was Roger? Where was old Roger anyway?
Not at home, or at least he hadn’t been home two hours ago, when Frank had last phoned there and had last spoken to Roger’s increasingly irritated wife, Anne, who had said, “Frank, stop calling here. He isn’t here, I don’t know where the hell he is, and when he does come home, I intend to take a baseball bat to him. Tell him that when you see him.”
“Oh, okay,” he’d said, so he knew he shouldn’t phone Roger at home anymore. But where was he?
Here. In came Roger all at once, moving fast, still in his topcoat. “Roger!” Frank cried.
Roger gave him a sour look. “Frank,” he said, “this is no time to drink.”
Frank stared at him in astonishment. “Roger? If this isn’t a time to drink, when the hell is a time to drink?”
“When we’re safe,” Roger said.
“Safe? How can we be safe? Don’t you remember, Roger? That damn woman is coming here tomorrow to look at the books!”
“Today,” Roger said, looking at his watch.
“Today,” Frank agreed. “There!” he cried, having finally gotten the damn bottle open. “Roger, have a drink.”
“No,” Roger said.
Frank paused before refilling his glass. “Roger,” he said, “they want to look at the books. They’re going to look at the books. Do you know what that means?”
“I know precisely what it means,” Roger said.
“That judge—”
“The judge doesn’t worry me,” Roger said. “None of that legal shit worries me. Frank, what we have to worry about is the tribes.”
“Oh, I know that, Roger.”
“Once the tribes find out what we’ve done,” Roger said, “they’ll kill us. They’ll flat out kill us.”
“That’s a very strong possibility,” Frank agreed, filling his glass. “Very strong possibility.”
“I have just fini—” Roger started.
But Frank wasn’t done. “What we have to do, Roger,” he said, “and I’ve just been waiting to discuss it with you, but what we have to do is burn those books. All of them, all three sets. Just burn them all.”
“No,” Roger said.
“We have to, Roger. We can’t let anybody see those books.”
“And what are you going to say?” Roger demanded. “You were careless with cigarettes?”
“We’ll say,” Frank told him, “they disappeared, we have no idea where they are, and everybody can search all they want.”
“You’ll never get away with it,” Roger told him. “The only possible thing for us to do, Frank, is flee.”
Frank gaped. “Flee? Whadaya mean, leave?”