Glass Tiger by Joe Gores Read Free Book Online Page A

white-coated, worried-looking man with a Sigmund Freud beard peered out. ‘Mr. Hedges?’
    Hairy-Ears jerked so violently that the
New Yorker
shot off his lap onto the floor like a tossed frisbee.
    ‘Yes, I, um, here, ah… present…’
    He went through the door. The shrink closed it behind both of them. Thorne went over to pick up the magazine and put it on a table. The frosty-haired woman winked at him. Three minutes went by. The right hand door opened, she entered, it closed.
    Out in Hopland, on northern California’s Redwood Highway, Janet Kestrel turned from the Sho-Ka-Wah Casino cafeteria’s pick-up counter with her order of chili and coffee. From beyond the plain partition walls came the ringing of bells, the whirr of slotmachine wheels, the cries of winners, groans of losers, the calls of blackjack dealers, amplified announcements of jackpots.
    She took an empty table. The reply to her letter had said she should be here for a twelve-thirty interview with Charlie Quickfox, president of the tribal council. She wasdeliberately early, uneasy because she had denied this half of her heritage for the past decade and felt like a fraud by coming here now.
    At 12:15, a stocky, elderly man sat down across from her with a mug of steaming black coffee. He had a seamed lived-in face as brown as hers, but his eyes were a piercing black to her blue. Grey hair made a long pony-tail down his back. His cowboy boots were muddy, his jeans pale with washing. His tie was a leather string held in place by a beaten silver clasp in the stylized shape of a perching hawk.
    He pointed at her water glass with its Sho-Ka-Wah logo that included the same stylized perching hawk, this one pink and gold.
    ‘The kestrel. Our tribe’s symbol. There is no Hopland clan name of Kestrel, yet that’s what you’re calling yourself.’
    ‘Better than my mother’s name – Jones. She was white. She’s dead. My father’s name was Roanhorse. He’s dead too.’
    Quickfox’s stern face softened. ‘Roanhorse. We played football together at Santa Rosa High School.’
    ‘He drowned in a pool of his own vomit.’
    ‘You reject his name because he was a drunk? Many of our people despair and become drunkards.’ His swung arm encompassed the casino. ‘Fighting that despair is what this is all about.’
    ‘When he was drunk he beat on my mom. He was drunk a lot. My sister Edie got out quick and married a Mexican.’
    ‘You reject your name, now you want to be recognized as a member of the Hopland tribe. And share in our gaming revenues.’
    ‘Recognized, yes. Revenues, no. But I’m hoping to get a job in the casino. I’ve dealt blackjack in Reno.’
    The old man pushed back his chair. ‘We will take up your petition at the next tribal council.’
    He stood up, leaving his coffee behind. Janet spooned her chili. Almost cold, but still with some bite to it. Hal had her 4-Runner and was out doing whatever it was he felt he had to do. And she had made her first move to build a real life for herself.
    At exactly three-thirty, a cute blonde receptionist with a short nose and big round blue eyes stuck a head full of tight ringlets out of the left-hand door. She was petite and shapely and a dead ringer for randy young bride Ellie in far-off Tsavo.
    ‘Brendan Thorne?’ she asked with bland neutrality.
    He nodded, followed her into a small orderly office, watching her hips work under her tight skirt. She turned and fixed him with an icy stare. Her voice was cold, professional.
    ‘I am Doctor Sharon Dorst.’
    ‘I am Mister Brendan Thorne.’
    Two leather loungers and a leather couch formed a casual grouping off to one side, but Dorst strode to her desk and sat in the swivel chair behind it. This left him with the straight-backed chair facing her across this bastion. No psychiatrist’s couch for the likes of Brendan Thorne.
    He let the silence build. It was her office. She finally asked, ‘What do you see as our main issue here, Mr. Thorne?’
    ‘That I