forty-five:
thursday, late afternoon

“You’ve gotta help me,” said Bloom.

“How’s that?” said DiMarco.

“When I talk to my editor, I want to come bearing a few fucking gifts.”

Marjorie Hayes looked around quickly. She frowned on use of the F-bomb in the office. Bloom had an image of her working at Sunset magazine or Highlights for Children.

“A bottle of good whiskey might do the trick,” said DiMarco.

Bloom let the sarcasm die without a laugh, waited.

“How big a gift does it have to be?” said DiMarco.

On the phone, standing, Coogan stabbed the air with his finger.

“Size doesn’t matter,” said Bloom, cradling the phone tight to his lips. He turned to put his back to Hayes. “Preferably shiny. Gold is good.”

“And remind me again why I’m helping you,” said DiMarco. “I need my motivation if you want an Oscar-worthy performance.”

Bloom wanted to say the truth—that there is always a cop or two who get their limelight jollies by trying to be friends with the media. DiMarco enjoyed being the dark whisperer, relished the feeling of influence.

“You don’t want your reporter pal to have his fingernails harvested one by one via dull scissors,” said Bloom. “That’s your motivation.”

“Oh, thank you,” said DiMarco. “I was losing my focus.”

“Glad to help,” said Bloom. “Now don’t make me beg.”

“Okay,” said DiMarco. “First, that partial plate you gave me. My guys here said it only took an hour of crunch time on a supercomputer but they narrowed it down. Registered by a private corporation called Pipeline Enterprises. Out of Rifle.”

Two Pipeline Enterprises hits. That was enough. Bloom drew a mental dotted-line from Trudy’s house in the Flat Tops, through Ricardo Reyes’ rental home in New Castle to a place of business in Rifle.

“Some company names are pure genius,” added DiMarco. “You know? No messing around with cutesy.”

“What do you mean?” said Bloom. The connection made sense. The same people who had lost Alfredo Loya had come back to look for him.

“I mean you’ll do all your investigative reporter things with that name.”

“But you’ve already looked,” said Bloom.

“Why would I do that?” Self-mocking.

“Because you’re curious. Your middle name should be Alice.”

“And you deserve the thrill,” said DiMarco. “It’s your lead. Chase it down.”

“The name of a meaningless company in Rifle is not going to mollify, satisfy, or pacify my editor.” Bloom heard his own terribly white voice doing a Jesse Jackson impersonation. Weird.

“It won’t take you long,” said DiMarco.

Bloom inserted “Pipeline Enterprises” and “Rifle” into the search engine and retrieved a batch of hits. One looked likely. He’d have to check each link one by and one as well as the incorporation papers with the Secretary of State.

“Clean? Dirty? Legit?” said Bloom. “And let’s say it was a Pipeline Enterprises van that grabbed an innocent pedestrian off the street. Wouldn’t you want to talk to them? Isn’t that your old-fashioned, straightforward kidnapping?”

Bloom knew he had to play along, but leaving the office and re-connecting with Trudy couldn’t happen fast enough. She had stayed in Glenwood Springs for the night with Jerry but she had sounded tense and couldn’t talk long. New ideas were occurring to Bloom that didn’t involve enigmatic Allison.

“It depends,” said DiMarco. “What if we don’t have a complaint? Or a complainant?” He hit the last ‘t’ like a speech coach.

“It happened,” said Bloom.

One of the links from the Pipeline Enterprises search turned up some sort of bid notice on a purchasing process in Mesa County, one county west and home to the Western Slope’s largest city, Grand Junction. The type of contract was embedded in codes and bureaucratic jibberish.

“Oh, so you were there?” said DiMarco.

“I talked to the guy who got snatched. You don’t make this shit up.”

“Really?” said DiMarco. “Nobody ever pretends anything to serve their own purposes or needs? Ever?”

“I could smell the credibility,” said Bloom.

“How about we move on?” said DiMarco.

“You got something else?” said Bloom. “The drawing of that creep has to be bringing some hits.”

“Hits, sure,” said DiMarco. “Everyone thinks they’ve seen him. Everybody’s in show biz. Everybody’s a star.”

“So other than the usual pack of eyewitness wannabes, anything useful?”

“Each tip takes time,” said DiMarco.

“Let me put it to you this way,” said Bloom. “Are you on someone’s trail right this second?”

Bloom heard the rising intensity in his own voice. Marjorie Hayes shot him a look and now Coogan was off the phone and staring straight at him.

“No,” said DiMarco. “The answer is no. Would I tell you if we had someone cornered right now? Maybe not. But we’ve got nothing. It’s as if the shooter rode a transporter beam to the roof and escaped the same way.”

DiMarco’s image would have made for a dynamite quote. Bloom might be able to use it, even without DiMarco’s name. But if DiMarco used Star Trek imagery around the cop shop, it might give him a way.

“Later,” said DiMarco.

“That’s it?” said Bloom.

DiMarco hung up.

Bloom followed one of the Pipeline Enterprises links. The dull world of drilling rigs and all the related equipment, fluids, pumps, hoses, saws and bits came at him. Pipeline Enterprises, from what Bloom could gather from the lingo and the obtuse array of photographs, specialized in horizontal drilling and could help you get there faster, farther, and cheaper. ‘Fracking R Us,’ though the service was not specified. The website was an ugly mess. The design was a decade old. “Moderate drilling costs often $300,000 or less before casing point, 3-D seismic based exploration, a high occurrence of stacked pays on structural features.” The company touted “straightforward deals.”

Names of owners or any staff didn’t exist. The trucks drove themselves, the equipment loaded itself, the corporate office was run by robots. It did not seem like the kind of firm that needed a big passenger van, unless it was used to shuttle crews into the woods.

Marjorie Hayes packed her all-in-one bag, ready to head out. Each story was its own production and came with the needed rituals.

Coogan was back on the phone. It appeared World War III had been averted.

There had been an undercurrent to DiMarco’s tone. What had he been trying to say? You won’t have any trouble.

Bloom’s thoughts ran to Thomas Lamott in the hospital and around to Allison Coil and back to Trudy Heath. There was some spark with Trudy, no question. She lived in a bubble of tranquility. She was a wellspring of health and her smile was the antidote for any poison. It was another case of Bloom overlooking the obvious. He had picked up on an unmistakable vibe. Among all the rubble and puzzles in front of him, this was the only one with a clear path, though the footing might be treacherous.

Pipeline Enterprises.

Bloom stared at the computer screen.

The company names are pure genius.

Bloom studied the address: 1649 Airport Road. He flipped to Google Maps and switched to satellite view. The company was located in an industrial thicket south of the interstate and west of the Garfield County airport. The company’s home base looked to be a large metal box. Pipeline Enterprises had one of the biggest facilities on the block. Bloom switched to street view, but the street didn’t light up. No street-level pictures to go with it.

He would have to run out to Rifle. There was work to do on Ricardo Reyes and his Chevy Blazer. Maybe Trudy would want to go for the trip to Rifle but, in reality, Bloom couldn’t imagine ducking out of sight for an hour or two to Rifle. Coogan expected him to be covering the Lamott investigation like he had a hidden microphone on the wall inside the cops’ war room.

Coogan was now crossing the ten steps of office and, with Marjorie Hayes gone, there wasn’t much question who he was gunning for.

“Got a phone tip in,” said Coogan. “Search and rescue pulled someone off the Flat Tops. Injured hiker, something like that. Took him to St. Mary’s in Grand Junction.”

Bloom flashed briefly on the body Allison wanted him to track. He needed to check back with the cops on that one, too.

“As if there wasn’t enough already,” said Coogan. “Plenty going on. Sounds like it was a touch and go situation all the way.”