Bad News

48

Judge T. Wallace Higbee would have described himself, if asked, as guardedly optimistic. It seemed to him that at long last this excessively interesting Pottaknobbee case was nearing its conclusion. The DNA results had been in his chambers when he’d arrived this Monday morning, the eighteenth of December, just a week after the samples had been collected from the quick and the dead, and Judge Higbee had immediately alerted all the principals in the case to be in his courtroom at 3:30 that afternoon, which was the earliest he could be certain to have finished with the mounds of stupidity that would have piled up over the weekend.

And now, here was the time and here were the people. At the table on the left sat the Three Tribes, in the persons of Roger Fox and Frank Oglanda and Otis Welles, this morning armed with only one assistant. Roger and Frank looked very worried indeed, and Welles looked like a lawyer. In the first spectator row behind them sat four actual members of the Three Tribes, of whom Judge Higbee recognized only Tommy Dog, not because Dog had ever called upon the judge to certify his stupidity but because Dog was an electrician, when he could bother to work, and a good one, who’d done some of the rewiring when the judge had installed the indoor swimming pool.

Come to think of it—He made a note: Swim more. Everyone in the courtroom attentively watched him make the note.

At the other table, to the right, sat Little Feather Redcorn, looking as prim as such a person could, and exceedingly sure of herself. With her were Marjorie Dawson, as tense as though it were her own DNA at issue here, and Max Schreck, as pleased behind his great black-frame eyeglasses as though he’d just finished dining on a corpse. They had their own rooting section in the row behind them, a motley crew the judge had never seen before, consisting of a fairly ordinary-looking couple, some sort of man monster in a black suit that made him look like an entire funeral party, and a shabbily dressed, slump-shouldered fellow with the kind of hangdog look with which Judge Higbee was very familiar. He knew immediately that that fellow had never before in his life been inside a courtroom when he wasn’t the defendant.

Well, well, he thought. Now that it’s all over, Miss Redcorn’s shadow cabinet puts in its appearance. Disappointing; he’d hoped for once in his life to meet a mastermind.

Well, time to get on with it. “I have asked you to come here,” he said, not entirely accurately, “to inform you that the test results are in, and that there is no longer any question but that Miss Little Feather Redcorn is a descendant of Joseph Redcorn, a full-blooded Pottaknobbee, and is therefore a member of the Pottaknobbee tribe herself.”

Miss Redcorn beamed, having had no doubt. Marjorie Dawson nearly fainted, having had every doubt. Max Schreck looked hungry.

Across the aisle, “Consternation” was the only possible title for the tableau being presented, at least by Roger and Frank. Welles, getting to his feet, said, “Your Honor, naturally we will request a second series of tests to be done at a laboratory of our own selection.”

“And naturally,” the judge told him, “I will turn down that request.” Hefting the sheaf of papers that consisted of the test report, he said, “This is not a private lab, Mr. Welles, this is a federal facility, and I have no intention of questioning their report.”

“Your Honor,” Welles said, “federal facilities have in certain cases in the past—”

“They have not,” the judge told him. “There have been accusations, there have been no cases. If you wish to appeal my decision, by all means do so, but it will not impede the effect of my decision. Miss Redcorn.”

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 go

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.