Better To Rest

FOUR

They were having a great time until Liam walked in.

Tim was a math whiz, and Gary, a building contractor, was showing him how to calculate how many trusses were needed to hold up the roof of your average split-level house. Jo was not helping by telling the story of the time Gary had made the family of a burned-out home wait through three tries before he got the truss size right.

“It wasn’t me; it was the fabricator,” Gary said in protest. “And in the interest of full disclosure,” he told Tim, “it took four tries for them to get it right. I was downtime thirteen days on that job.” He shook his head and drained his beer. “Plus the granite for the kitchen counter kept breaking. Hard to get quality work done right and on time in this state.”

“Unless they get you to do it,” Jo said, regarding him with a sister’s sapient eye.

Gary grinned and did not deny the accusation.

“So you build people’s houses,” Tim said.

“And remodel them.”

“Remodel?”

“Yeah, rip ’em apart and start over.”

“Like?”

Gary tucked into his New York strip. Wy had always appreciated an enthusiastic appetite, being a feeder herself. “I just finished up the remodel of a split-level home in Spenard. The owner has had the house for three years and she’s just getting around to correcting everything the previous owners did to it.”

“Like?”

Gary cut off another piece of steak and used it for punctuation. “Like, they put up teak paneling, and stained all the trim mahogany and took down the old kitchen shelves and put the new ones up wrong. In the bathroom, they walled off the window and put in a six-hundred-dollar wall-hung toilet, which leaked. Lucky there wasn’t any insulation between the floors.”

“Why lucky?”

“Man, I’m going to be able to hire you on as an apprentice, you keep this up. Lucky because instead of pooling near and rotting the floor joists-”

“What’s a joist?”

“Same thing as a truss, only under the floor instead of the roof.” Gary reflected. “Well. Sort of. Same principle, anyway, supporting the structure. So, the water from the leak migrated down and only ruined the Sheetrock in the downstairs bathroom.”

“So what did you do?”

“I gutted it right down to the studs, renewed all the plumbing. I closed off the door to the hallway, made it a master bath. I put the window back in-I love glass brick-and took out the wall-hung toilet and replaced it with a floor-mounted one. I built new cabinets-maple slab, looks great, if I sez it who shouldn’t-and laid down new linoleum. Now it looks about twice as big and feels ten times as light as it did before, and everything’s new and done right. That bathroom’s good for thirty years.” His grin was not modest. He cut another piece of steak and inserted it into his mouth as if he were receiving the Year’s Best Contractor award.

“You like doing that?”

Gary chewed while he thought. “Yeah,” he said, swallowing. “It’s fun to take something that’s messed up and straighten it out, make it right again. You should have seen this woman; you’d have thought I was some kind of magician. She acted like she hadn’t had to pay for it, like I’d given her a gift. Like I said, it’s fun. Except I’m allergic to mahogany,” he added, shaking his head, “and I sneezed all the way through the remodel. But other than that. It was fun.”

“What’s your next project?”

Gary let his gaze drift ever so slowly toward Wy. “I’m between projects at the moment.”

Wy felt heat rise up into her face. Tim looked from one to the other with a gathering frown. Jo grinned, and if she’d been part Yupik and forty years older you’d have sworn she was Moses Alakuyak’s twin sister.

At this auspicious moment, Liam walked in.

He didn’t see them at first, walking straight to the bar and pulling off the ball cap that seemed suddenly too tight for his head. “I need a warrant.”

“I’ll give you a warrant,” Bill said, “if you’ll move this lush out of my bar.”

Liam craned his head. “Oh. Eric.”

“Yes. Again.”

“Poor old bastard.”

“What is it with you guys,” Bill said, disgusted.

“I’m sorry?”

“Never mind. Who’s the warrant for?”

“I’m not sure, exactly.”

“Arrest?”

“Yes. At least I think so.”

“For what?”

“I’m not sure about that, either.”

“You’re not helping me much here, Liam.”

“I know. I’m sorry. The damnedest thing.”

“What?”

“I got something I need you to keep in your freezer until I can get it on a plane to the lab.” Liam opened up the white plastic garbage bag he’d carried into the bar with him.

Bill peered inside. “Sweet Jesus!” she yelled, turning heads all over the bar, which was when Wy saw Liam for the first time. “What the Sam Hill hell is that!”

Since Bill didn’t seem to be in any hurry to take custody of the bag, Liam, who was even less thrilled to be carrying it around, set it on the floor at his feet. “It’s exactly what you think it is.”

“Where the hell did you get it?”

“I first saw it coming out of John Kvichak’s house on a fly pitch that nearly brained me.” He shook his head. “At first I thought it was a prosthetic. That clenched fist looked like somebody’d forgotten to throw the switch on the circuits.”

Bill’s face began to regain some of its natural color. “For crissake. Where the hell did he find that? I mean, I know John and Teddy are scavengers, but…” Her hands were shaking a little when she poured out two fingers of Glen-morangie, neat. She frowned down at them and they steadied as she put the glass on the bar. “Oh. I forgot. You on or off?”

Liam sat down next to Eric Mollberg, who stirred and moaned a little, and turned his face to Liam in a preliminary attempt to surface from the sea of alcohol in which he had been submersed for going on three months. “I,” said Liam, “don’t give a damn if I’m on duty or off at the moment.” He drank and felt the heat and flavor of the single-malt seep straight into his bloodstream. Comfort food, he thought, and finished it. Bill held up the bottle. He shook his head. “No. That did it. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”

Bill cast a surreptitious glance over his shoulder at the group in the booth, one of whom was staring back with an undeniably guilty look all over her face, and thought, And it’s not over yet. Because she was a woman, too, and had her own men problems-for starters the Alaska old fart sitting in the corner knocking back enough beer to fell Paul Bunyon and whooping it up with his pals-she bought Wy some time. “Where’d it come from?”

“You’ll love this.”

Bill ran a couple more margaritas down to the end of the bar for Moccasin Man, who was putting the moves on Susie Akiachak. Susie was a smart girl and knew better, but her defenses had been weakened by a nasty breakup with Jimmy Koliganek, and Evan Gray was first and foremost an opportunist. On the way back up the bar Bill hooked her foot beneath the bottom rung of the bartender’s stool and sent it sliding into place across from Liam. “Okay,” she said, settling in for the duration, “let’s hear it.”

“John Kvichak and Teddy Engebretsen were hunting.”

“They’re always hunting when they get into trouble. When they’re not in town and getting into trouble. Or out fishing and getting into trouble.”

“All too true.” Liam rolled the glass between his hands as if the heat of his palms would evaporate anything left of the scotch and he could inhale the fumes. “So they were hunting, up around Bear Glacier, and they found it.”

“Found what?”

“A plane wreck.”

“What? What plane wreck? Did somebody go down?”

“Evidently.”

“I haven’t heard a thing.”

“Neither have I, and neither has anybody at the airport. I called Anchorage Flight Service to see if anybody had gone missing and they said not to their knowledge. I called Elmendorf, to see if the air force was missing a mission. Nope. They checked with Eilson. Still nothing. So then I ask Teddy and John what are they talking about a plane wreck. And they say it was a plane wreck they found, and they found that”-he jerked his head at the bag, on the floor between him and Eric-“in the wreckage. So I take another look at it.”

Bill repressed a shudder. “And?”

“And it’s old.”

“Old? What do you mean, old? You mean like from an old man? How can you tell?”

“No, I mean like desiccated old. I mean like from an old plane wreck, years and years old.”

“You can tell that just from looking?”

“Bill, I’m telling you, it’s practically petrified, it’s so old. You want another look?”

“No.”

“You don’t see how old it is when you first look at it; all you see is… well.”

“Yeah.” Bill took a deep breath. “Bear Glacier, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Ice is a great preservative.”

“Yeah.”

“No telling how long it’s been up there.”

“No.”

“You’re going to have to go look.”

“Oh, yeah,” Liam said, with no visible enthusiasm.

“So? Tell me more about Teddy and John.”

“So I talked to Teddy and John, and John says it’s an old plane, and it’s painted army gray, and he knows that color because he slopped enough of it on anything that didn’t move out of the way in time while he was in the army.”

“He get the tail numbers?”

“Said they didn’t see the tail. Said there wasn’t much wreckage, if it came to that. They weren’t real coherent about it.”

“Probably weren’t real sober, either.”

“I think they were sober when they stumbled across the wreck. They weren’t by the time I got to John’s house, that’s for damn sure, and I can’t say I blame them.”

“Why didn’t they call you?”

“I got the impression they were about to when we knocked on the door. By then, they’d had a few, and they panicked.”

Bill reflected. “Is there a law against possession of a severed limb?”

“You’d know that better than I would.”

“I’ll have to check my index of Alaska statutes. I’m sure it’ll be right under ‘Limbs, Severed.’ Right after ‘Lifesaving Medical Procedures’ and right before ‘Limitation of Actions.’ ” She shook her head. “I’d love to preside over that case.”

“Yeah, right.” Liam tilted his glass and the last droplet of whiskey dropped onto his tongue with something approaching a sizzle.

Someone besides Moses had gotten to the jukebox, and Santana was telling everyone within hearing to make it real or else forget about it. On the tiny excuse for a dance floor, Mark Walker was showing Cindi Guttierez how to do a natural underarm turn, only he missed her hand. She, an enthusiastic if uncoordinated partner, spun wildly out of control, careened off the table where Jerry Lee Kwethluk and Lyle Willoya were hunched over their usual battle for the Newenham arm-wrestling championship, and slammed up against Eric Mollberg.

Jerked rudely from his peaceful slumber, Eric snorted, sat up, lost his balance, and fell off his bar stool. He might have stayed upright if that garbage sack hadn’t been sitting at Liam’s feet. As it was, he tripped over it and fell flat on his face. The arm with its clenched fist was propelled out of the bag and slid across the floor to come to rest against Eric’s face.

The way he’d kicked it must have loosened the fist, because suddenly the fingers relaxed. Something small and round and bright rolled out of the palm, around Eric’s head, and into the middle of the dance floor. The music kept playing but people had stopped dancing, and it looked like stopped breathing as well.

The coin rolled and rolled, right into the middle of eleven pairs of paralyzed feet, where it spun in an ever-shrinking circle and eventually came to rest, the side up gleaming dully in the dim light of the bar. Everyone watched it, mesmerized, or perhaps just reluctant to look again at the severed arm.

Eric, whose eyes had followed the coin like everyone else’s and watched it until it came to rest, traveled back to the now almost-open hand, forefinger outstretched to where it nearly touched his nose.

He screamed, a high-pitched sound of pure terror. He screamed again, leaped to his feet, and raced to the door, hitting it with both hands held straight out in front of him and disappearing into the night.

“Oh, hell,” Liam said, and got down from his stool to stuff the arm back in the bag. He took a few steps forward and picked up the coin, trying unsuccessfully to read the raised print. It looked like it was in English, and it was heavy.

When he stood up, his eyes met Wy’s, who was staring in horrified incomprehension from his face to the bag in his hands and back again.

Tim sat next to her, and his eyes were pretty big, too. The back of Liam’s neck prickled in an unpleasant sort of way, and he took a step forward to see who was sitting across from them.

“Hey there, Liam,” Jo Dunaway said with a sunny smile that was all teeth. “You remember my brother, Gary.”

December 3, 1941

The goddamn radio went out again. We were coming back from Attu and the ceiling came down and we were wandering all over hell and gone. I know the way Ive been over it enough times but even I cant see through clouds. It doesnt help that the frigging maps are all wrong. Half the rivers are missing and the lakes are fifty miles away from their actual locations and we almost ran into a mountain that was only supposed to be 3600 feet high and was really 4600 feet high. Jesus!

Another letter from Helen. There’s some kind of problem with the baby she dosnt say what. I wrote and told her to go see the doctor and tell him well find the money to pay. If old Doc Bailey was still alive this wouldnt be a problem he knew my father and he delivered me he would know I was good for it. I wrote to Mom to go over there. I know they dont like each other but Helen shouldnt be alone. God how I hate being this far away.

Peter the old Eskimo guy is quite a storyteller. He says he’s not really an Eskimo hes from a little village on the coast southwest of here. Hes got a name for his tribe but I can’t pronounce it let alone spell it. He was telling me the other day about how his people used to paddle big canoes from Alaska to Russia to fight each other. He showed me a vest he said was armor. It dint look real substantial to me but then I want to be bullet-proof and his folks probably only needed to be spear-proof.