Night passage

Neither of Tammy Portugal’s parents said anything else as Jesse carried the diaries from the house.

Chapter 60

They sat in Hasty’s car in the parking lot of the Northshore Shopping Center. The nose of the car pointed north so that the afternoon sun streamed in over Hasty’s shoulder and made him a dark silhouette as Burke turned in the seat to look at him.

“Something will have to be done about Stone,” Burke said, squinting, trying to look at Hasty. But the sun was too fierce. Burke gave up and looked away.

Hasty was silent.

“He knows,” Burke said. “He knows I was in Denver. He knows more than that. Sonova bitch doesn’t say much, but he knows.”

“Maybe he doesn’t say much because he doesn’t know,” Hasty said.

“He knows,” Burke said. “We made a bad mistake with him.”

“Mistakes are part of life,” Hasty said. “The important thing is to overcome them.”

To Burke, Hasty’s voice seemed disembodied, coming as it did out of an unseeable place in the hard middle of the sun glare.

“Well, we better overcome this one pretty quick,” Burke said. “Or he’s going to overcome us.”

“What do you recommend?”

“We have to kill him.”

“The death of a second police chief from this town in less than a year?”

“Better than having him take us all down,” Burke said. “We can find a way to cover it, an accident or something.”

“All of us?” Hasty said.

“Well, you know what I mean, he gets me, sooner or later he’ll get you, and . . . everybody.”

“You are required in these circumstances to give only your name, rank, and serial number.”

“For crissake, Hasty, I’m not a fucking prisoner of war.”

“Of course you are. If our movement is about anything, it is about war with the forces of international mongrelization.”

“I know,” Burke said. “I understand that. But they’re going to arrest me for murder, Hasty.”

“What they do has no effect on what we know to be true,” Hasty said.

“Hasty, I can’t afford theory right now. My ass is on the stove, you know? We need to get Stone out of the way.”

In black silhouette Hasty nodded slowly.

“To save us all,” Hasty said.

“Absolutely,” Burke said.

“What have ‘us all’ to do with your trip to Denver, Lou?”

“Christ, Hasty. You sent me.”

“To do what?”

“To blow Tom Carson up.”

“Because?”

“Because he knew too much and you didn’t trust him to be quiet about it.”

“Un huh.”

There was silence in the car. Across the parking lot, people in bright fall clothing surged in and out of the vast mall. Shop early for Christmas. Take advantage of pre-holiday sales. No payments until January. Many of the people in the late-afternoon surge were teenaged mall rats. For them the mall had replaced playground, Boys Club, street corner, home. The new marketplace.

“I wouldn’t tell them, of course,” Burke said. “But once they start they’re bound to find out.”

“How?”

“Well, I mean they investigate.”

“What?”

“Well, you know, they backtrack my story . . .”

“And?”

“And who the hell knows what physical evidence they have. Who knows what the Wyoming militia might tell them. They get somebody in jail they can squeeze them, make a deal, go easy on you if you give us the others, you know . . . I would never do that, but we don’t really know the Wyoming people.”

“Yes,” Hasty said. “Of course. Who’s to do the killing?”

“I figured you could get Jo Jo to do it. He’s got a mad on about Stone anyway.”

“Well,” Hasty said. “I don’t know, Lou. I can promise at least to give it serious theoretical consideration.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’ll think about it, Lou. Meanwhile you sit still, and keep your mouth shut. Until you hear from me.”

“We need to move fast,” Burke said.

“I’m aware of that, Lou. And we will, but we will move with deliberate speed. I agree with you that we’ve underestimated Stone, and we don’t want to underestimate him further.”

“Yeah, sure, Hasty. Just as long as we get him before he gets us.”

“He won’t get us, Lou,” Hasty said. “You’re on suspension. Go home, sit in your house, stay there, and say nothing.”

“I’m counting on you, Hasty,” Burke said.

“Of course,” Hasty said.

Chapter 61

Jesse began reading Tammy’s diaries from the most recent entry back. It took him a day to reach the parts that seemed interesting, and yet another day to cut and paste them together into a narrative that he could study.

May 11—Talked to Hasty Hathaway at the post office. He is the most important man in Paradise, kind of old.

Memorial Day—Hasty Hathaway was talking to me today at the Parade. He acts kind of interested. It’s hard to tell with a guy as geeky as he is, but a girl can listen.

June 28—Had a drink at the 86 last night. Looking good if I do say so. New white sweater, the black jeans I got that make my butt look really good. Hasty Hathaway bought me a drink, took me home. We stopped at Indian Hill on the way, and I thought he was going to come on to me, but we just talked. He’s really kind of nice, sort of a sad person. Who’d think so, all that money and everything. But he says him and his wife haven’t got much going in the sex department. Says he’s pretty lonely. Said he needs somebody like me to talk with. I told him he could take me out to di

July 9—ate at the Ritz—Wow!!!—fancy as hell, lotta food I didn’t know what it was. We had caviar. I didn’t like it much. Hasty was asking me a lot of questions about Bobby and me and how come we got divorced and did I have a boyfriend. Mostly I think he was trying to find out about our sex life, sort of weird, but he can show you a pretty nice time.

July 13—We had lunch at a place in town called Loc Ober’s. Really fancy. Had French Champagne too. After, he said he had a room at the Parker House and would I want to go there with him. Just like that, he said it. Like he was inviting me to go fishing or something. I didn’t answer him at first, cause I was thinking about how he’d be kind of fu

July 29—Hasty’s getting better. He lasts long enough now so I get something out of it. I mean it’s not like Bobby and me, but he’s getting the idea about touching me a little bit, first. I’m teaching him different positions. It’s like he thought there was only one. No wonder his old lady isn’t interested. I hope what I teach him doesn’t get her interested. He’s a good thing for me. I don’t want to lose him.

August 13—Hasty says he loves me. He gave me a real pearl necklace for our one month a

August 24—We had our first fight. Hasty doesn’t want me dating any other guys and I say to him “what about you. You got a wife. Maybe you should stop fucking her, you want me to stop.” Hasty says they only do it twice a month, but he can’t stop because she’d be suspicious. And I tell him he stops fucking her, I’ll stop dating other guys. I told him everybody knew his wife was fucking other people. And he said he didn’t like that kind of talk, like if he didn’t talk about it it wasn’t happening. At the end he cried and said he loved me and we did it twice and he gave me a nice gold ankle bracelet.