In the first photo, Benteen was smiling. “As a kid growing up on a horse ranch in Montana, it never seemed like I could fill myself up. I was an only child. Dad was off flying choppers in Vietnam; Mom was busy running the ranch. I grew up around people who got things done. That was how they were built. Fear wasn’t part of the equation. I don’t think I ever even heard the word failure until I was sixteen.”
She wore a pensive expression in the second photo. “Renaissance woman? Spare me. I’ve just got a low boredom threshold. I got tired of barrel racing when I was fifteen. Moved on. Got tired of diving into swimming pools when I was twenty. Dried off and chucked the Olympic medal in a drawer. My uniform. . they took that from me, but I’m not going to cry over spilt milk. Now I’m here in Hollywood, but watch out for my dust. Been there, done that. . those are words to live by.”
In the third picture, her lips were interstate-straight-no expression at all. “People want to make me into some kind of American hero. That’s not for me. I don’t think this country’s always right. But I was proud to do my part in the Saudi. I was a soldier. And being a soldier means you take it the way it comes, you live by the soldier’s code. I didn’t panic when our chopper went down. I never lost hope when the Republican Guard locked us in Saddam’s dungeon. But it wasn’t my country that got me through. It was the people who were with me in that hellhole-and what was important was their faith in me and my faith in them. My fellow Americans. God, that sounds corny. This sounds worse-One fellow American in particular. I’m not talking about love. I’m not talking about romance. In that kind of situation, there’s no room for any of that. That came later. What I’m talking about goes much deeper. It’s a special kind of intimacy you don’t get to any other way. A special kind of trust that you build on. I hope it lasts forever.”
Kate Benteen said, “That’s a good question. Sheriff. Much as I hate all that introspective shit, I gotta admit that I’ve been thinking about it myself. And the only answer I can come up with is Vincent Komoko. He’s what gets it done for me.” One corner of her mouth twitched, but she stuck with the grin. “But ol’ Vince doesn’t seem to be around. Not anywhere. I think maybe his days of getting things done for anyone are long gone.”
“We know that he phoned you,” Wyetta said.
Benteen nodded. “Vince got my answering machine, actually. Not that it mattered. He didn’t have anything important to say.”
Wyetta’s fingers brushed the butt of her pistol, lingering there long enough so that the little gash was sure to notice. “You sure about that?”
Benteen spit a short laugh. “I’m sure. All Vince wanted to talk about was some money. Two million bucks. He hid it somewhere. Wanted me to come and get it. Like giving it to me really made a difference.”
“Where is it?”
Another laugh. And then her words, deadpan: “It’s in a safe place. Like I told you: Vince told me exactly where to find it. Hell, I’ve been here a couple days. It wasn’t like I had to figure out a puzzle or anything.”
Wyetta glanced at Rorie. The deputy rolled her eyes. Benteen shrugged. A rumor of a blush glowed on her cheeks, and she shook her head as if she were terribly embarrassed. “I know it sounds crazy,” she said.
Rorie laughed out loud.
“If you’ve got the money, what the hell are you doing hanging around here?” Wyetta asked, nearly exasperated.
“I don’t quite have that one figured out. Sheriff.” Benteen glanced down at the Cosmopolitan magazine. “Maybe I’m just looking for closure.”
“Bullshit.”
“C’mon now. . Helen Gurley Brown would understand.”
“Fuck Helen Gurley Brown and the horse she rode in on.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Wyetta said. “If you so much as try, you’re going to be one sorry little-”
An insistent ringing interrupted her.
“Is that your pocket?” Kate asked.
“It’s my phone, idiot.”
Wyetta flipped open her cellular.
“Kirk to Enterprise,” Kate said. “Two to beam up.”
Baddalach sat in the barber chair, an electric razor buzzing around his ears. He didn’t squirm-didn’t move his head at all. Only his eyes moved as he scanned the pages.
He’d figured out that Kate Benteen talked the talk about two minutes after meeting her. But reading her interview in Playboy convinced Jack that she walked the walk, as well.
Because it was all right there, between the celebrity layout and the centerfold spread. All the stuff she’d talked about. The rodeo titles, and the Olympic silver medal, even the stuff about being in the movies.
And the stuff about the Saudi, too. Kate Benteen had been in the Gulf War as a flight surgeon attached to a chopper battalion. Jack had always thought of Operation Desert Storm as one of those pleasant little wars, a lopsided exercise that could be measured in hours rather than days. To him, the whole thing had seemed like putting a featherweight in with the heavyweight champion of the world. Didn’t matter how good the featherweight was; he was going to get crushed.
But Desert Storm hadn’t been easy for Kate Benteen. She’d been on a rescue mission, looking for a downed pilot. Her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down, and she’d broken both arms and a collarbone in the crash. That was bad enough. Worse was getting captured by Saddam’s troops.
Not just grunts. The Republican Guard got her-Saddam’s true believers. They tossed her in the back of a truck along with the chopper’s other survivor-the pilot. Drove them through the desert and locked them up in a dungeon God knows where.
It was just the two of them for days. With the broken bones, Benteen could barely move. The pilot fed her, took care of her. After it was over, Benteen said she’d never felt so close to another human being. She said you couldn’t buy that kind of closeness. It was something you’d never give up because you’d gone through hell to get it.
Jack wondered if the pilot agreed with that, but he knew he’d never find an answer to that question.
Because the pilot’s name was Vincent Komoko.
Kate watched as the cops drove off.
Judging from the sheriff’s tone and the things she’d said, Kate figured the phone call that had interrupted their little chat wasn’t official business. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t urgent. The sheriff and the deputy had taken off faster than a speeding Bullitt (if you knew your Steve McQueen).
They said they’d be back, of course.
That was fine with Kate.
Because she’d decided exactly what she wanted. Not that it was a conscious decision-it was just that all of a sudden she knew what she had to have before she could leave Pipeline Beach.
Could be a handful of people might give her what she was after.
The sheriff and the deputy were definitely on the list.
“All done,” the barber said, spinning the big chair with such unrestrained enthusiasm that Jack figured the guy had missed his true calling as a Tilt-a-Whirl operator.
Jack came face-to-face with a large mirror.
Decided his Tilt-a-Whirl assessment had been dead on.
Because the guy sitting in the barber chair was a complete stranger.
Jack said, “Shit.”
The stranger in the chair said the same thing.
PART FIVE
ONE
Rorie hated coming out to her sister’s place. Not that she hated her sister. She loved Priscilla. In truly sisterly fashion, too. The person Rorie hated was Priscilla’s husband. Ellis Aaron Perkins. One look from him and she felt like some little cutie out at the Spahn Movie Ranch being sized up by Charlie Manson himself.