Into Thin Air Read online

  “I’m sorry, sir. If you leave your number, I can have him call you when he checks in.”

  “Was it Primavera?”

  “I can beep him if it’s an emergency.”

  “Yes, of course it’s an emergency, darling. I’m late for dinner.”

  “Please give me your number and I’ll let him know you’re trying to reach him.”

  Kurt found another quarter in his jeans and rang Mrs. O’Carroll to tell her he might be later than he thought.

  “No bother. Take your time. Everything’s fine here,” she said. “We’re making fudge brownies.”

  “Oh, lord,” Kurt said. “Please don’t let him have more than one. He’ll start climbing your walls.”

  He ordered coffee and waited at a table near the telephone. Twenty minutes, thirty. The call never came. He decided to go find Jake Pfeil the hard way.

  Among his many real estate holdings, Jake owned the Blake Building, an entire block of downtown Aspen he had purchased a decade ago and converted into bars and boutiques. The penthouse suites on the upper floor rented for four thousand dollars a night during ski season. Kurt walked two blocks to the Blake’s apartment entrance and pushed the button marked Pfeil. No one answered the intercom. He crossed the street and leaned against the brass railing in front of the Hard Rock Cafe, determined to wait him out. After a few moments a teenage girl wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt banged out of the café, looked around, then hurried over to Kurt. “Are you Dweezer’s dad?” she asked, her teeth a sprocket of silver braces. “He said to tell you he’s still not finished with his milkshake but he can find his way back to the condo by himself.”

  “I think you want one of those guys over there,” Kurt said, nodding at a couple of fathers waiting impatiently against a brick wall.

  He had never imagined he would end up this way, a middle-aged man mistaken for someone’s cranky dad. He could envision himself in ten years, killing time out here with the other frustrated parents: ‘Lennon said to tell you to stop acting like a fat cop on a half-ass stakeout and go home. You’re embarrassing him.’

  He listened to Hendrix sing “All Along the Watchtower” on the café speakers and remembered when this place was the Elks Lodge, a spare, dim-lit hall where old codgers played dominoes at long cafeteria tables. The Blake Building across the street had been abandoned for years, a beehive of squalid rooms before some wealthy patron fashioned them into artist’s studios for a handful of New York renegades in the late sixties. Kurt had crashed one of their parties the night before he went off to boot camp. A painter named Rosenquist was spraying antiwar graffiti on the Sheetrock walls while a strange, messy-haired Yugoslav wrapped the old wood banisters with cellophane. Kurt’s friends found him sleeping in the Hyman fountain the next morning and dragged him to the army bus.

  A turnstile of parents came outside to smoke, bitched about the music, returned to argue with their kids. One guy began to reveal the painful details of his custody battle back in Atlanta. Kurt left his post and moved closer to the Esprit shop to get away from these people. After an hour of this he was ready to give up his son for adoption.

  Around ten o’clock Jake appeared on Galena Street with his entourage. Kurt watched them saunter toward the Blake, a boisterous band of revelers walking arm in arm. One of the laughing women draped herself around Jake as he applied his magnetic card to the double doors. This was obviously not a good time to question Jake. But then, it was never a good time to question Jake Pfeil.

  After the group had disappeared into the suites, Kurt went around to the alley and found the fire escape up the side of the building. At the top landing he looked off across the flat roofs of the original town, that miner settlement called Ute City, and watched an ATV’s single light bounce along the dark slope of Ajax, a crewman for the Mountain Association making his rounds. Kurt knew those ruts and ridges and shadowy formations the way someone might know the body of an old and familiar lover in the night. The surface was as immutable now as the face of the moon.

  He preferred to believe that the mountain itself had brought his father and Rudi Pfeil together, but in reality it was the industrialist Jacob Rumpf who had bought up this obscure little ghost town as a getaway diversion after the war and convinced his two friends to come out from Chicago and help him transform the place into a classical European notion of Utopia. In Austria, and later at the University of Chicago, Kurt’s father had been a professor of music and an aspiring composer, and with Rumpf’s financial backing he created the Aspen symphony, the artist retreats, the literary festivals. Rudi Pfeil was an experienced ski instructor who knew how to groom a slope, where to run cable for a lift, what kind of gear to stock in the shops. For a dozen years the three men and their families were dearest friends. But when Jacob Rumpf died in 1962 there was a fierce and unexpected struggle for control of their corporation, and the family friendship quickly disintegrated into a rubble of backstabbing, rash accusations, and costly lawsuits.

  Kurt crossed the crunchy gravel toward a rooftop patio, an umbrella table with garden chairs, and stood before a sliding glass door that looked in on a horseshoe-shaped sitting area with more cushions than a sultan’s palace. There was a murmur of conversation somewhere inside, sudden laughter. He recognized the theatrical trilling of the woman draped around Jake’s neck. When he tried the latch, the door slid open. Foolish man, he thought. Still living in the Aspen of yesteryear, when no one locked their doors.

  He passed through the sitting area and down carpeted steps to a bedroom where purses and handbags had been left on an immense circular bed. The suite had that unmistakable smell of newness: strong wood polish, synthetic fabric, drapes fresh from a box. Jake lived here only four months a year.

  Light wedged into the dark room from a door ajar and Kurt was drawn to the opening with a reckless curiosity, his movement quiet and swift. In the next room Jake knelt over a silver coffee tray, cutting rails of cocaine with a razor blade. His friends were lounging around him on the floor, exchanging witty remarks and tittering at one another’s observations.

  “So much better for the cholesterol than cheesecake,” said a balding man with a Florida tan.

  Kurt stepped back into the shadows, trying to remember when he’d first realized that the kid next door had become a drug dealer.

  Back in the mid-sixties Jake had gone to UCLA on a football scholarship but tore up his shoulder the first season and dropped out of school. No one knew where he was for two years, until he started sending postcards from Morocco. When Kurt returned home from the army in 1970, he learned that Jake had set down stakes somewhere in Mexico and was living off the harvest of the land. Then one day, a few months after Kurt took a job managing an outfitter store, Jake wandered in looking for camping gear.

  “Well, well,” Jake said. “The hero is home from the war.”

  Kurt didn’t recognize him at first. Jake was wearing a soiled poncho and worn-out huaraches, and his hair was long and stringy, his sunburned face disguised by a Fu Manchu mustache.

  “I was in Germany,” Kurt told him. “Bert was the one in Nam.”

  “Mighty white of Uncle Sam not to send you both,” Jake said.

  They talked for a while about the war, about music. They avoided any mention of their fathers.

  “How’s my favorite receiver?” Jake asked. “He back in one piece?”

  Jake and Bert had been the best pass-and-catch combination in the history of Aspen High football, and Jake still owned the passing stats in the Valley.

  “You ought to go say hello,” Kurt said. “He’s working at the electroplate shop on Hunter.”

  That evening the two brothers had a good laugh about Jake’s change in appearance. “He’s dealing, you know,” Bert said.

  “Come on. Jake?”

  “He’s tied in to some kind of Michoacán pipeline. He asked if I wanted to be his connection in the Valley. He promised it would be a more liquid career than making leaf necklaces.” Bert laughed. “In two years I’ll have my
own penthouse with a private pool.”

  “What did you tell him?” Kurt asked.

  “Does it come with a lava lamp?”

  And now, two decades later, Kurt was fairly certain that their old chum had been involved in a murder. The Chad Erickson hit. Kurt wasn’t able to prove it, of course, but Jake was where all the arrows pointed. His longtime business associate had decided to roll over for the Feds.

  Kurt noticed something on a dresser and went over to examine it. He lofted a small gold football trophy inscribed DISTRICT CHAMPIONS, 1964. His own had disappeared years ago, probably in one of those charity sales his mother was so fond of. He touched the jagged place where the player’s stiff-arm had broken off.

  No Aspen team in thirty years had equaled their 11-1 record. Kurt had played defensive end that season, the only sophomore starter. Jake led them all the way to the regional 2a playoffs, where they lost a close one to the farm boys in Delta.

  The door opened and a young woman wobbled into the bedroom, her arms outstretched in front of her, warding off the darkness. “Oh,” she said, startled by Kurt’s presence. She was wearing a black spaghetti-strap dress as flimsy as a slip. “I’m looking for the little girls’ room.”

  “That must be it there.” Kurt pointed to a door near the bed.

  The woman took several uncertain steps on stiletto heels, then paused. “You a friend of Jake’s?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Kurt said. “We’ve known each other since we were kids.”

  “Oh, reeeally,” she cooed, as though he’d just told her a heart-warming story about a found puppy. “I love that,” she said, leaving the door open while she peed.

  He watched her at the mirror. She was a stunning young woman, blonde hair snarled in a fashionable mess, skin like ice cream. With a small wand she applied a rich red gloss across her top lip and then worked her mouth.

  “Were you at dinner?” she asked, catching Kurt’s eyes in the mirror.

  “No,” he said.

  “I didn’t think so,” she said. Her teeth were grinding from the cocaine. “I would have noticed.”

  She turned and walked toward him, her pretty green eyes jittering wildly, showing a dark curiosity about the bandage on his brow. She grasped his beard with both hands and pulled his face down to hers. Her mouth tasted like paté and lipstick and something sour. The spaghetti straps fell off her shoulders and the dress loosened in front, revealing small girlish nipples, pink as evening primroses and erect. She kissed him with a thinly veiled hostility, biting at his lip, chewing him. He wasn’t enjoying this and took hold of her wrists.

  “A little too rough for you, baby?” she asked. Hairs from his beard curled in her open palms.

  “Do me a favor, darling,” he said, leading her to the door. “Go tell Jake his old friend wants to speak with him in private.”

  He sat down in a reading chair in a corner of the bedroom. On the lampstand Jake kept a framed photograph of Jacob Rumpf with his faithful lieutenants, Rudi Pfeil and Otto Muller. The three friends were standing halfway up Ajax on skis as long as rails, their arms around one another, smiling triumphantly. Somewhere in a trunk Kurt still had that silly knit hat his father always wore when he skied. He looked so damned young and happy back then. It was hard to believe that all three men were dead.

  “Well, little brother, you just about got yourself shot.”

  Jake Pfeil stepped into the room and tossed a small pistol onto the bed next to the purses.

  “I’m going to have my lawyer here in five minutes, Muller,” he said, lifting a portable phone to his ear. “You got some kind of search warrant or court order, friend, you talk it over with him.”

  “Relax, Jake,” Kurt said. “Put down the phone. I’m not here to bust you. I’m not even a cop anymore.”

  Jake looked at him, the receiver still in his hand. “I guess I should have shot you, then.”

  A large square-shouldered profile appeared in the doorway, blocking out most of the light. “Everything okay, boss?” the man asked.

  “Sure, Rusty. Tell my guests I’ll only be a minute.”

  After the man left, Kurt held up the photograph. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one before,” he said.

  “You like it, I’ll have one framed for you,” Jake said.

  He was wearing a summer-weight dinner jacket, Italian cut, with a tieless black silk shirt buttoned at the neck. Long vanished were the days of the Mexican poncho and patched jeans.

  “What happened to the badge?” Jake asked.

  “A misunderstanding with some old friends of yours, the Feds. But it doesn’t matter, I never was worth a damn as a cop, anyway. If I had been,” Kurt said, “your ass would be in jail right now.”

  Jake shoved aside a woman’s shawl and sat on the edge of the bed. “You know, someday, little brother, we’re gonna have to get over all this shit between us,” he said.

  For a man blown on coke he seemed amazingly relaxed, reflective.

  “Not real soon,” Kurt said. “I’m just starting to enjoy it.”

  “Anger’s a waste of time, man. Don’t let it own you.”

  “I’m not angry anymore, Jake.”

  “Sure you are. You’re so angry and bitter you won’t even acknowledge what’s eating you alive.”

  “I’m only human,” Kurt said. “I don’t like it when somebody gets away with murder.”

  Jake shook his head slowly. “I’m talking about Bert,” he said.

  They hadn’t exchanged a word about Bert’s death in the four years since the fall. Real estate investments, yes. Business arrangements, property holdings, Jake’s whereabouts on the day Erickson was killed. But never Bert. Not one word. Kurt didn’t even send Jake a thank-you card for the wreath.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about Bert,” he said.

  “I’m sure you have a good reason for breaking into my apartment, little brother.”

  Kurt stood up and went to the window. Down below, at the tables of a sidewalk café, a quintet of summer music students played for passersby. Cello, violin, woodwinds. Teenage prodigies, two of them Asian girls with faces as delicate as paper masks. Kurt’s father had started all of this forty summers ago.

  “Last night you were at Andre’s with a young woman,” he said, peering down at the busy foot traffic. “Italian girl, I think. Who was she?”

  “I thought you were giving up the cop business.”

  “This is personal,” Kurt said.

  Jake was silent for a few moments. “She’s not your type,” he said. “You’d have to spend a lot more time on your wardrobe.”

  “I don’t want to share her fluids, Jake. I just want to talk to her.”

  Jake smiled, deliberating with himself. Kurt knew he was on delicate ground. Everything depended on whether Jake was in a generous mood.

  “I don’t know much about her. I met her at the Nordic Club,” Jake said. “She’s just another spoiled college girl. Her family has a place here somewhere.” He snorted and cleared his throat. “But she’s a kinky little bitch, I’ll say that for her. Likes to tie up her date and slap.”

  Kurt watched a father walking hand in hand with his son. They stopped to look in the window of a camping-gear store. Kurt glanced at his watch and realized it was long past Lennon’s bedtime. “She hangs out at the club?” he asked.

  “Try the weight room,” Jake said. “That’s where I met her. She breaks a nice sweat at the Cybex machines.”

  A loud chorus of laughter erupted in the living room. Someone was telling a humorous story.

  “I’ve got to get back to my party. I’m sure you can find your own way out.”

  “Jake…”

  Jake picked up the pistol on the bed and slid it into his jacket pocket.

  “He broke the first commandment of climbing,” Kurt said. “He went up there alone.”

  He hadn’t said these words aloud before. Not to anyone.

  “You’ve got to put it behind you, little brother.”

/>   Kurt had no idea why he was saying these things to Jake Pfeil. “He was the best fucking climber in the Valley,” he said. “He never made mistakes.”

  Jake looked at him. “It only took one.”

  They regarded each other, a long calibration of the years. Kurt had known him forever. He couldn’t remember a time before Jake. There was so much between them, some of it good, most of it very bad.

  “Jake, darling, what’s keeping you so long?” a woman said from the door. “We’re starting a game of charades.”

  Chapter nine

  As he made his way down the alley toward his Jeep, Kurt looked up at the dark mountain and thought again that he’d like to take Lennon away from this narrow valley and the rock walls that hemmed their lives into a remote and claustrophobic corner of earth. There was no reason to stay here anymore. His wife had left him. His family was gone. The handful of friends with the same shared history had drifted somewhere into America. Only the job had kept him here, a stretch of years past common sense, and now that was over and done with too.

  When he grabbed the door handle a gun went off near the Dumpster and the bullet struck the Jeep, a jolt like an electric shock up his arm. He dropped to his belly and rolled, and another bullet tore out a chunk of ground, splattering dirt in his hair. He scrambled to the far side of the Jeep and reached under the seat for the .45, then remembered Muffin had flung it over a cliff. In an instant he saw Lennon sitting on his bed in somebody else’s home, looking at old photographs of his father and trying to recall the sound of his voice, the feel of his beard.

  He raised up slowly and saw a dark figure dashing across a parking lot toward the center of town. Who the hell is after me? he wondered.

  Promenading tourists scattered from the sidewalk when they saw Kurt’s 220 pounds lumbering toward them. The only one who didn’t stop to stare was the running man, the dark-haired shooter racing past the art galleries and bars, a youthful build on short swift legs.

  “Everybody down!” Kurt commanded. “Out of the way, goddammit! Get down!”