Service went outside and did the best he could to bring the leather back to life, using old military spit-shine tricks, and carried the polished boots up to the room.
“You forgot black shoes,” Nantz said groggily from the bed.
He shook his head. “I told you my brain isn’t working and you said the boots are fine.”
“They are,” she said. “C’mon, we have an hour to rest and I want to spoon.”
She patted his hip and sighed. “Don’t let us oversleep, hon.”
After the nap and a long bath, she dressed slowly, finally dropping a gold georgette gown over her head and adjusting the spaghetti straps. The dress dragged on the floor until she put on her shoes. “New,” she said, holding up pointy-toed shoes by their tiny straps. “This is one of my weaknesses.”
She added two strands of pearls and pearl drop earrings.
He dressed beside her and when he sat down to put on his boots, she rolled her eyes and smiled. “Are you going to tuck them or wear the pants over them?”
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Over,” she said. “Unless you want to look like G.I. Joe.”
Out in the Yukon she said, “Turn on the overhead light.”
“We’re gonna be late,” Service said.
He watched her apply lipstick and examine her work.
“I can do what I gotta do while you drive,” she said. “Thin lips,” she added. “Collagen can fix them.”
“Your lips don’t need fixing.” He couldn’t understand why when she looked in the mirror she didn’t see what everybody else saw.
“We’re not going to be late,” she said. “Stop worrying.”
“Late’s not an option for fifteen hundred a plate,” he said. “Thank God we’re not paying guests.”
She looked over at him. “That’s not exactly accurate.”
He looked back at her.
“I made a little donation?” she said hesitatingly.
“How little?”
“Twenty K to Lori’s campaign, and fifteen hundred each for us tonight.”
“Good God, Mar, you can’t be doing things like this! You’re going to be a CO and we’re not political.”
“When I’m a CO I promise not to make any more political donations,” she said. “Cross my heart.”
She had money, but he had no idea how much and rarely thought about it. She was not ostentatious. She owned a nice home and a private plane and spent generously on food and wine, but she rarely bought clothes or jewelry, and she never talked about money. Yet, she had coughed up twenty-three thousand for the senator and her dinner, and done it with as much thought as he would in leaving a tip for a bartender. “You didn’t make the sign,” he said.
She made a sour face, halfheartedly waved her hand over the center of her chest, said, “Okiiy?”
“It better be a great meal,” he griped.
She laughed and shook her head. “Just go with the flow, baby.”
Betty Very called when they were stopped in the line of vehicles at the security checkpoint, a half-mile from the Stagecoach Lodge. The area was lit by portable floodlights and blocked by a zigzag maze of Troop cruisers and trucks.
“The bank president looked at the photo,” Bearclaw said. “It’s Kelo.”
“Did he talk to Toogood when he made the request for the withdrawal?”
“For better than an hour. He tried to talk him out of it, but the old man wouldn’t hear of it. His mind was made up and he insisted on a cashier’s check to be picked up by somebody else and he left a photo of the pickup man.”
“Kelo.”
“Yes, the president said the photo that Toogood left with him matched the man, but he wasn’t about to give it away without some security. They had quite an argument and, in the end, Kelo grudgingly agreed to a fingerprint as a receipt.”
“Did he use his name?”
“No. He said the photo was enough and he refused to give a name.”
“You have the fingerprint?”
“And the photo. The fingerprints have been transmitted to AFIS already.”
“Great job,” Service said. “Thanks, Betty.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” she said.
Service turned to Nantz and told her about Trapper Jet and Kelo and all that he had learned and gone through. “I think Kelo’s a dead man,” he concluded. He didn’t know for sure, but almost everyone in this case was turning up dead.
“Why would he agree to give a fingerprint?” Nantz asked.
“The bank president boxed him in. He probably figured he was there to get the check and there was no way to run a single print through the system and, in any event, the bank president didn’t have his name. Kelo’s never been known as a bright bulb.”