Hap whistled his falling skyrocket. Ooops.
“Where,” Soliano asked, dialing his cell, “in Vegas?”
She rubbed her thumb against her fingers.
“In a public place?”
“Hid it in the closet in my room. Vegas is full of fuckin thieves.”
I sat stunned, listening to Soliano relay the information to his agents. Not only does she help herself to Jardine’s stash, she then takes that pack of hot beads to Las Vegas. Which room? Which maids? Which motel, hotel, of the hundreds in Vegas? What if she didn’t register under her own name?
She let it run, then said, “Hey dimwits, pack ain’t there now. Go look in your fuckin parkin lot. White pickup. Under the seat.”
Soliano gave her a long look, then phoned Scotty.
Chickie’s lips skinned back. Grin, grimace, hard to say.
Hap leaned in. “How long since you took the beads?” He looked her over. “I’d say your exposure started in the last twenty-four hours or so.” He studied her blistering arms. “You load the beads by hand?”
“That why I’m sick?”
Hap rolled his eyes. “Ooooh baby. Yowza.”
She swallowed. “Wore one of their fuckin moonsuits.”
“Just the suit?”
“The whole thing, tank and all. An I know how to use a fuckin air tank cuz I took a mine safety course so I knew what I was doin so why the fuck am I sick?”
“It’s not enough,” Hap said, almost gentle. “Unshielded beads — you got too close. For too long.” He studied her face. “How about the facepiece? You seal it up tight? Breathe in anything that felt like dust?”
I cut in, “Beads can be inhaled?”
“Yowza. Small ones can go aerosol. Don’t wanna inhale Mr. Alpha — he’s partial to the lungs.” Hap smiled a pained smile. “Tell me, Miss Chick, how long’d you wear your moonsuit?”
“Long as I had to, loadin the pellets.” She looked, suddenly, a little desperate. “But I wrapped my pack in one of them silver sheets they had for…whaddya call it?”
“Shielding,” Hap said. He did not add: it’s not nearly enough.
Soliano closed his phone and moved back in. “Ms. Jellinek, how far did you carry the pack?”
Her eyes filmed and I thought, she’s calculating. You don’t have to calculate distance if your car is nearby. She walked a good ways. And she’d worn her moonsuit only to load the pellets, which means she’d removed it before leaving the place, which means she’d removed booties as well, which means that’s good clean uncontaminated mud caked in her boots. I wanted to read it.
“How far, Ms. Jellinek? From the place you got your pellets?”
“You tryin to trick me, Mr. Fucker?”
“I am trying to get through to you,” Soliano snapped. “You have no time for this childishness. You are going to get sicker.”
Pria sucked in her breath.
“Hang on, Pree.” Chickie’s inflamed eyes slitted. “We’re negotiatin.”
Soliano grew a thin smile. “Then give us something. When did you see the two men?”
“Long time before you fuckers came.”
“Who did you see? Mr. Jardine?”
“Fuck him, yeah, Jardine.”
“Who was the second man?”
“Blond fucker.”
“Was the blond man named Ryan Beltzman?”
“Didn’t get introduced.”
“How did you come to find the place with the pellets?”
“Followed the blond fucker once.”
“Why did you return? This time.”
She let out a snort.
Greed, I thought. Jardine paid her for talc and the use of her mine, Jardine no doubt paid her to strand us in the desert, so after gauging the interest of the FBI, why not see if she can sell something else?
“Was Jardine there?” Soliano asked. “This time?”
She snorted again.
No, I thought, or she’d already be dead. Then where was Jardine?
Soliano pressed. “Did you see anyone at the place where you found the pellets? This time?”
She rasped, “Elvis fuckin Presley.”
“You act the fool.”
“Fuck you.” She grinned. “You all gonna get fucked. A real ranger-fuck. Enough play-dough for it.”
“What does this mean? Play-dough?”
Pria spoke. “Stuff to blast tunnels.”
Plastique. I recalled its effect on the cask in the borax tunnel. If there was enough explosive to reach us and the rangers, what did that mean? It’s nearby? Or maybe she just meant any of us who get too close. FBI, RERT, sheriff, cops, geologists — we’re all rangers to her, we’re all fuckers trying to shut down her mine.
“Ms. Jellinek. I repeat. Where is this place?”
She shifted her bulk to point to her rear.
Pria turned for the door.
Chickie hissed, “Wait girl. I’m countin on you. Your daddy’s mine ain’t gonna pay a nickel. Fuckers won’t let it. This is our due.” She extended her hand. “I ain’t never hit you. Do it for me.”
“You’re acting stupid, Chickie.”
Chickie rolled onto her side and put her face in the bowl, dry heaving.
“Stop her,” Pria said, “make it stop.”
Hap said, “She’s going downhill, Hector. For the love of your soul let me stop it.”
Soliano brought his hand to his forehead, that gesture of his. “Mr. Miller, you have perhaps Pepto-Bismol in your satchel?”
“The cheapo generic. If she can keep it down.”
“Give it to her.”
Hap brought out a bottle. “Here you goes, Miss Chick, courtesy of Doctor Hap.” He put a pink tablet to her lips. “Tastes jess like bubble gum.”
Chickie took in the tablet.
“Give it a minute or two, Hector.”
Soliano checked his watch, then turned to me. “You wished to inspect the nails? While we wait.” He hiked a shoulder at the bed.
I did not know if Chickie was worn down by her ordeal or just trying to digest the tablet, but she watched dully as I knelt beside her with my kit. I opened a specimen dish and placed it on the bed. I told her I was going to scrape under her nails. Her eyes narrowed but she made no objection. I took her right hand. She had a wide flat hand and skinny forearm that brought to mind a ping-pong paddle. Her puffed skin felt tender as a baby’s. Her fingertips looked as though they might pop. The ragged nails sat deep within the reddened flesh. Scotty had scrub-brushed those nails but the decon left a thin line of dirt. Maybe old dirt, from her mine. Or maybe newer dirt. She’d been a busy desert rat, what with sabotage and theft, and maybe a telling grain or two stuck with her. Maybe not. But my fingers, as they say, itched. I chose the pointed file from my kit — a tool I’ve used to pry grains from a nail hole, mud from a knotted rope — and now, aptly, a tool made expressly for its job. I popped out a crescent of soil from her thumbnail.
Hap said, “Y’all makes a good manicurist, Buttercup.”
I glanced up.
He was examining Chickie’s hand in mine as if he’d like to draw us.
34
The doctor had come and Hap had left. The rain had stopped. The shower and hoses and pump were gone. Out here on the lawn it looked as though nothing untoward had happened. Scotty and his team had disappeared, to the parking lot I assumed. Walter was nowhere to be seen so I guessed he’d claimed Chickie’s boots for analysis.
Ballinger was here, though, rooster-pacing the walkway. “She talk?”
Soliano shook his head and squatted in front of Pria, who sat against the wall hugging her knees. “Miss Weeks, help your mother by helping us. Tell her we agree to pay. Tell her you will watch out for her interests.”
Ballinger halted. “Pay?”
“Five minutes, Miss Weeks. To think. And then please I will need your help.” Soliano headed back to his room, saying to me as he passed, “Talk with her.”