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Gall. A whole packet of gas receipts. A cash card for one of those electronic machines.BankAmericard. A California driver’s license, picture ID of a young man who looked like the boy out in the yard. Showing an address of 1623 Vallejo Canyon Drive, Los Angeles. Also a plastic hospital card showing that an Edward Gall had been admitted to something called the Sonesta Clinic in March of this year.
    And a couple of photographs of a strong-featured young Indian woman in what looked like a school uniform, a pink tunic and a white blouse. It made McAllister think of reservation schools like the one his first wife had attended, a long time ago.
    Interesting … looked like young Mr. Gall here wasn’t exactly hard up for cash when he apparently set himself to rob Joe Bell at knifepoint in the middle of the day in the middle of a crowd of people.
And
they brought along a young girl to watch them do it.
    There was an old joke about only an Indian being dumb enough to bring a knife to a gunfight, but this was pushing it. It ran contrary to everything in Beau’s experience of armed robbers, which was considerable. He moved his leg and felt something along the side of the desk.
    Bell had a rifle sling bolted to the inside well of his desk. Big enough for the Winchester. The top was a litter of bills, receipts, yellow pads, assorted junk. McAllister pulled open some drawers. The first one had checks and some loose cash. The second drawer was locked. The third one was full of magazines and videos.
    Swedish Nights. Ballbusters. Seka’s Greatest Hits
. The usual full-color hardcore entertainments, based largely on having low gag-reflexes and being double-jointed. This stuff always reminded Beau of autopsies, all that red flesh and slippery skin. Sexy as a federal audit. There was a television set on top of a filing cabinet, and a VCR beneath the TV. Bell’s wastepaper basket was stuffed full of old wadded-up tissues. Best thing to do with that was to take it out back and set it on fire.
    Porn videos and skin mags.
    This garbage was illegal in Montana, but McAllister had better things to do than police other people’s entertainments.A lot of unmarried men had worse than this under their bunks. At least it kept them away from the schoolyards—
    Oh, Christ!
    He grabbed up the handset and punched in seven numbers, looking at his wristwatch as the line started to ring.
    “Hello.”
    “Maureen, it’s Beau!”
    “You’ve done it again, haven’t you, Beau.”
    There was that tone—all sweet reason and razor blades.
    “Maureen, we’ve got a real thing going on down here at Joe Bell’s.”
    “Don’t you always? How do you think Roberta Lee’s feeling right now? Or do you care?”
    “Of course I care, Maureen. You know that.”
    “I do? She’s six years old today, Beau. In case you forgot that, too. She’s been out on the front step for an hour. She won’t come in because she knows you’re coming soon. She’s got her blue dress on, and she won’t come in. Do you
care
about that?”
    “I know, Maureen, I do care. I’ve got a whole party set up. Everybody’s gonna be there, and we have it all—”
    “You know the rules, Beau.”
    McAllister tried very hard not to pull out his Browning and send a round down the phone line. He imagined it hitting Maureen in the ear and going right through her head and out the other ear.
    “Maureen—”
    “You signed the agreement. Dwight says I’ve been more than fair about access.”
    “Let’s leave Dwight out of this, can we? Just for now? I can be there in half an hour!”
    Less, if I take the cruiser and don’t change. Use the siren. He sniffed at his shirt. God, he smelled like a dead bat dipped in gasoline.
    “The agreement says if you’re late one more time—”
    “Maureen, it’s her birthday. She’s just six. Don’t make her part of this. She’s too young to understand. All she’ll think is I don’t—”
    “She’d be right.”
    “You
know
that’s not true,