Way Up North: The Outside Job, Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The next morning was colder and windy, with snow swirling across the pavement. Just like you see in the movies, Rick thought. He stopped at one of the numerous coffee kiosks and bought a large latté for the road. His rental car had studded tires; he’d asked about that. The clerk told him that all their cars and trucks came with studded tires in the winter. “Good heaters and tow hooks, too,” she said.

“Why tow hooks?”

“Because so many of you Outsiders wind up in a ditch,” she replied with a serious look. “Have you ever driven in a white-out?”

Nope. Nor did he hope to do so, today.

Heading north out of town, he drove past car lots, dance joints, aircraft supply houses, another airport for smaller planes, gas stations, an army base, a couple of malls … it seemed to take forever just to get past all the commercial places. And then another several miles of residences and other neighborhoods, set farther back from the road. He’d been told that Anchorage city and county … oops, borough… was nearly 2,000 square miles. While much of that consisted of steep, heavily-forested mountainsides, Anchorage was still more than 60 miles from north to south, along the single highway that went south from Palmer to the literal end of the road at Homer.

The skies were a leaden gray as he continued north. The mountain peaks he could see from the highway were starting to disappear as what looked like fog was descending. He hoped it wasn’t snow, but had a feeling that prayer might not be answered.

Rick’s first stop was at the offices of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. He was glad that locals referred to it as the Mat-Su.

Something the banker had mentioned, the day before, was that Ng hadn’t restricted his favors to just the Anchorage area; there were businesses in “the Valley”. The phrase, he’d learned, could be applied to the whole borough, but generally referred to the western half, which was flatter but ringed by mountains on all sides. Mt. McKinley was to the northwest, but he still hadn’t seen it.

His meeting this morning was with the director of business development. He dreaded another meeting with yet another middle-aged former businessman-turned-bureaucrat.

* * * * *

Director Riggs turned out to be an attractive woman (a nice surprise), a brunette (even nicer), but Rick’s attention was drawn to her eyes. He couldn’t quite figure out if they were hazel or light brown, but finally had to remind himself not to stare.

After introductions, she got right down to business. “You said on the phone that you were tracing some problems, Mr. Maxwell. What kind of problems are you talking about?”

“Please call me Rick.”

“All right, if you'll call me Rebecca. Now, about those problems ..?”

Rick told her of his conversation with the banker in Anchorage, and explained that he was on the trail of a bad guy who’d been doing dirty deals. Her face grew sober. “This may sound strange – and forgive me if I'm off-base, here – but you don’t mean Richard Ng, do you?”

He was surprised, but recovered quickly. “Yes, but how did you know?”

“I attended a Chamber of Commerce meeting this morning, and they were talking about his latest fiasco. I apologize for blurting out his name – that wasn’t very professional – but it was fresh on my mind. He’s been rubbing people here the wrong way for quite awhile, and this latest maneuver may wind up in court.”

The Chamber had filed a complaint with the Borough Manager. It seemed that Ng had been working behind the scenes, playing one property owner against another, and things had gotten ugly, again. She said, “Anyone is welcome here; don’t get me wrong. It’s just that we don’t like people coming in and trying to make a fast buck at our expense. The folks here are good people, Rick, and we don’t take kindly to Outsiders playing games like this. Those good people get hurt, and that might not just be financially. You know what I mean?”

Rick thought he did, but Rebecca continued, “We haven’t been a state very long. There are quite a few people who remember territorial days, without much fondness. What’s the phrase? Oh, yes: ‘frontier justice can be swift’.”

“Are you saying that, um, folks might be taking the law into their own hands? I can’t believe I'm asking that in 2011.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I'm saying. It may be 2011, but like I said, frontier days weren’t that long ago. So take that for what it’s worth. Anchorage is more "citified" now, but the rest of Alaska isn’t, really.”

She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “And one more thing, Rick. What are you doing for lunch?”

* * * * *

Over a lunch of pancakes with birch syrup and reindeer sausage – “They’re really good,” she’d said – Rebecca expanded on what she’d said at her office.

“I wanted to tell you more about what’s going on here, but needed to get you alone first.” Rick’s eyebrows went up.

“Oh, really?” he asked as she blushed a little.

“That’s not what I … dang it. I meant I couldn’t speak as freely, there in the office. The walls have ears, as they say.”

“Well, you have mine. Ears, I mean.” She had a way of looking up at him, head slightly lowered, that had him breathing a bit faster. Get a grip, old man, he thought to himself. You just met this woman.

“Now you’re doing it,” she said with a grin. “Guilty as charged,” he replied. “But what’s so secret that no one in your department can hear it?”

“I want you to see what we’re talking about, and then I can tell you more. So your car or mine?” she asked with a glint in her eye. Rick wasn’t sure he was reading her correctly, and then realized – with a bit of a shock – that he not only had it right, but liked it.

“Let’s take my car,” he said. “It won’t cost your taxpayers anything.”

“On second thought, we’d better take mine. I'm still on the Borough’s dime, after all.”

“Okay, but I have to tell you: you were right.”

“About what?”

“Birch syrup and reindeer sausages were really, really good,” he answered. She grinned again, and he decided he liked it even more.

* * * * *

They headed west on the Parks Highway while Rebecca spoke about where they were going. “There’s a mall near the Placer Creek that I want you to see. Ricky Ng tried to buy it a few years back, but the owners were considering an offer from local buyers. Ng threw a tantrum; at least, that’s how it was described to me. He stormed out of the realtor’s office, but only after bad-mouthing everyone there.”

“At least he’s consistent. Not exactly a Dale Carnegie graduate, is he?” Rick asked with a grin of his own.

“Nope. He’s got quite a way with people. Anyway, the little mall by the creek caught fire a couple of days later. The fire department put it out, but they said it was deliberately set. How did they put it? Oh, yes: ‘multiple points of origin with definite indications of accelerant’.”

They had turned off the highway, and were traveling north on a gravel road. Rebecca went on, “Sure sounds like arson to me, too. So the reason I drove you out here was to meet one of the owners. She’s a friend of mine, and was in that meeting where Ng had his little tantrum.”

“Another businesswoman from the community?”

“Nope. Jamie’s a pilot.”

Rick was surprised. “A bush pilot? I thought that was just in Alaska’s frontier days.”

“Technically, that’s right. We have lots of pilots who still fly the Bush, but the old-time days of open cockpits and seat-of-the-pants navigation – you know, flying off into the wild blue without any support system – those days are long gone. Most modern pilots would balk at calling themselves ‘bush pilots.’ But a lot of them are still out there, doing the same things. Some of them fly commercial routes, some work on a charter basis – tourists, hunters, and fishermen trying to reach remote destinations – and some fly for carriers who cover the popular flight-seeing routes.”

“What’s ‘flight-seeing’?”

“If you want to fly from Anchorage over Cook Inlet, land on a glacier at Denali, or see the Chugach Mountains up close and personal … you aren’t going to do that in a 767, now are you?”

“No, I reckon not.”

She smiled at him again, and his pulse got a little faster. Dang it, what is she doing to me? he asked himself. I like her.

* * * * *

They turned into the gravel drive toward a rustic log home. Rick could see a larger metal building in the back, with sliding doors opened to reveal a bright yellow plane of some sort.

The pilot was a striking redhead, nearly as tall as Rick’s height of two inches over six feet. She smiled when she saw Rebecca, and said, “Who’s your friend?”

“Don’t rev your engines, Jamie,” Rebecca laughed. “What would Bobby say?”

Jamie stuck out her hand to Rick, and her tongue at Rebecca. “I'm Jamie Kavanagh. And you are?”

Rick winced a bit at her hearty grip, and said, “Rick Maxwell. Rebecca wanted me to meet you. Are you really a bush pilot?”

Her green eyes twinkled. “No, not like my dad was. I'm a registered guide, and fly into the Bush on a charter for an outfit out of Talkeetna. Want to go with a friend on a hunting trip out back of the outback? You’ll need a ride, and that’s pretty much what I do.”

Rick said, “I’d love to hear about that; I’ve been a wannabe since … well, since forever. But I actually have a question about that little mall by the creek, in Wasilla.”

Jamie’s face fell. “That’s a long story, and not one I’d talk about, if Rebecca wasn’t the one asking. Are you checking into that?”

“I'm certainly going to try, although I'm not sure how much good it may do. By the way, who’s Bobby?”

Jamie and Rebecca both grinned at him. I wish they’d stop that. It’s doing funny things to my pulse, he thought.

“Bobby is Jamie’s significant other,” Rebecca said. “He’s the other pilot in the family.”

Jamie’s face turned nearly as red as her hair. “He’s in the hangar, so we’ll go see him, too. Bobby’s six-foot-six. He’s always talking about me being … well, delicate, he says … and it’s kinda nice. I like it.”

Rick said, “I take it he’s a romantic, then.”

Jamie replied, “Yeah, if by ‘romantic’ you mean he could pin a grizzly two out of three falls.” Both ladies laughed at that.

Rick decided he’d better work on strengthening his grip. These Alaskans were hard on his hands.

To be continued ...