“He told you to take me in?”
“Yes.”
“He told you to get into my bed?”
“Yes.”
Jesse laughed ruefully. “And I thought it was because I was so irresistible.”
“I’m sorry; it’s so difficult to tell you all this, but I felt I had to.”
“Why?”
“Because I fell in love with you that first night, and I don’t want us to go any farther on false pretenses. If, having heard all this, you want to forget about marriage, I’ll understand.”
He took her shoulders and turned her toward him. “I’m glad you told me all this,” he said. “None of it matters, but I’m glad you had the courage to tell me.”
“You don’t mind about... my background?”
“I’d change it if I could, but I want you the way you are, no matter how you got to be you.”
She snuggled her face into the hollow of his neck. “Oh, I love you so much, Jesse. Even more, now, I think.” Then she jerked away from him. “We can’t stay here after what I’ve told you,” she said.
“I don’t want to stay here, but I have to for a while. Can you stand it a little longer?”
“How much longer?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I have to get Carey away from that school and these people. She’s Jack Gene’s child, I’m as sure of that as I can be, and he’ll want to keep an eye on her. He’ll use her as he used me; marry her off to one of his cronies, or just put her into a house of women, as he did with me. I’ll kill him before I’ll let that happen.”
“I understand, and I want to take you away from here, but I can’t just yet.”
“Why not? What is there to keep us here?”
“Did Pat Casey ask you to pass on information about me?”
“Yes, he calls once or twice a week. I brought you out in the yard, because I thought he might have some way of listening to us in the house.”
“What have you told him?”
“Whatever he wanted to know. I don’t know anything about you that he would think derogatory. If I had, I wouldn’t have told him.”
“I’ll take you away from here, Jenny, you and Carey, I promise; but I have to stay on for a while, and I can’t tell you why. I don’t want to put you in the position of knowing about me and having to lie to Casey.”
“What I don’t know, I can’t tell him, is that it?”
“It’s for your protection. I’d trust you with my life, but you and Carey are safer knowing only what you know now, that I love you, and I’ll take care of you both.”
“I guess that’s good enough for me,” she said.
“Good. You have to go on living your life as usual, for a while. You can’t say anything at all to Carey. We have to let Coldwater do this ceremony; I’ll give you a better one later. And one of these days I’ll say to you, ‘Let’s get out of here,’ and—”
“And I’ll go with you the second you say it,” she said, and put her arms around him.
Jesse’s mind was elsewhere. He was having fantasies of castrating Jack Gene Coldwater.
Chapter 37
They were married on the Sunday after Christmas, in a brief, entirely conventional ceremony performed by Jack Gene Coldwater. Jesse had trouble with the occasion. Up until Christmas Day, he had not hated Jack Gene or Casey or Ruger; now he did, for what they had done to Jenny. His best chance of bringing revenge to all of them lay in calling in the feds, and he could not wait to talk to Kip Fuller again.
Eight days passed before the first business day of the new year, and they were difficult for Jesse. He was glad to be married to Jenny, but nervous about the possibility of the house being bugged. Coldwater’s people stayed away from him, and for that he was grateful.
On Monday, the fourth, he took his telephone into the woods behind the plant and called Kip Fuller.
“Jesse, I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”
“What kind of reaction did you get from Barker?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“They don’t believe me?”
“Something like that.”
“Kip, my deal is that I get Coldwater on a felony indictment, and I’m out of here. Well, I’ve got him; it’s a felony to buy or possess the kind of armament he’s got stashed up on that mountain.”
“That’s Barker’s point,” Kip said. “He thinks you’re making this up to get out.”
“Well, I’m prepared to prove it; all he has to do is to bust Coldwater, Casey and Ruger, then search the place. What’s the big deal?”
“It’s too fantastic, that’s all. You’re going to have to get proof of your allegations.”
“Jesus Christ! What are you, a judge of the federal court? Act on my information and you’ll have your proof.”
“The proof has to come first.”
“What do you expect me to do? Walk in there with a camcorder and tape Coldwater posing with a lot of munitions?”
“Not exactly; you’ll have to use something a little more subtle than a camcorder. I can take care of that.”
“Kip, I don’t know if I’ll ever be allowed into that place again. It was a fluke that I saw it at all. How am I supposed to get back in?”
“That’s up to you,” Kip replied, and he didn’t sound happy about it. “We’ve got to find a way to get a small camera to you.”
“This is insane; I’ll never be able to do it.”
“What about some other way, some other felony?”
“I think they may be bombing abortion clinics, but I don’t have a shred of evidence to back that up.”
“Get them to take you along, then.”
“They haven’t asked me to do anything illegal, so far. Oh, I did shoot a guy, and Coldwater finished him off.”
“Tell me about it.”
“We were target shooting with M-sixteens and handguns, and a guy named Partain appeared out of nowhere and tried to waste Coldwater. I hit him in a shoulder, and Coldwater, cool as ice, took my pistol and put one into the back of his head. Casey was there; does murder count in our deal?”
“You got any other witnesses?”
“Just Coldwater, Casey and me.”
“Then it’s your word against theirs, and I’ll be willing to bet it would be hard to prove this guy Partain ever even existed. Also, Ruger wasn’t there, and we’ve got to have him, too. Come to think of it, he wasn’t at the fort with Coldwater and Casey, was he?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, then, you’ve got to tie all three of them in a neat bundle, or your deal’s no good.”
“Ruger runs the local bank; I’d be willing to bet that a stiff audit would turn up all sorts of stuff. There’s the money I took to the Swiss bank in New York, for instance.”
“You want me to call in the bank examiners while you’re there in the middle? That might make them suspicious, since you’re the new boy.”
“You have a point.”
“Listen, the fort is your best chance. Can you find an excuse to go to Coeur d’Alene this week?”
“There’s no office supply store in St. Clair, and we’re low on some things at the plant. I might be able to manage it.”
“What day?”
“Let’s try for tomorrow.”
“Okay, on the outskirts of town — you’ll pass it on your right driving from St. Clair — is an old fashioned hamburger joint called Mack’s. What time will you go?”
“I should be there by ten, if all goes well.”
“Okay, from ten to eleven, there’ll be a guy at the counter drinking coffee and reading a Seattle newspaper. He’s six-four, two-fifty, and he’ll be wearing a checkered shirt and a down vest and a New York Yankees baseball cap. You sit next to him, have a cup of coffee, and when he has a chance he’ll pass you a package. There’ll be a camera inside a Zippo cigarette lighter; it’ll be loaded with thirty-six exposures of a special, low-light color film, and it will shoot in anything but total darkness, if you brace it against something to hold it still. There’ll be typed directions inside; memorize them and burn them — the lighter works. The guy will leave first; you finish your coffee, then go on your way. When you get your shots, FedEx them to me, care of the Justice Department, and don’t get caught doing it.”