In the Company of Wolves_Thinning The Herd

by James Michael Larranaga

  Quin yawned, and Candy leaned against his shoulder. She felt warm, and he put his arm around her. She slipped her hand into his pants pocket.

  “Uh, what are you doing?” he asked.

  “Show me your phone,” she said. She pulled it out and Quin noticed her studying the artwork on the back of his phone case.

  “Is that a crow?” Candy asked.

  “No, it’s a raven,” he said.

  “What’s the difference?” she asked.

  “The raven is the keeper of secrets. He knows spiritual truths,” Quin replied.

  “Oh, that’s cool! Unlock the phone,” Candy said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m curious what kind of music you’re into.”

  Quin unlocked the phone and quickly looked to see if Zoe had left a message or a text, but there was nothing.

  “Here.”

  Candy spun through his songs, smirking. “It’s all nineties music. You’re as bad as Ben.”

  Quin closed his eyes, attempting to catnap even for a minute. When he opened them, he noticed Candy scrolling through his contacts.

  “Hey that’s private,” he said, taking the phone away from her. “What were you doing?”

  “Nothing,” she said, giggling.

  He tickled her ribs, and she shrieked with laughter.

  “They’re having fun,” Macy said to Big Ben.

  “I was searching for Zoe’s phone number,” Candy said. “Don’t you want a booty call with your girl?”

  Quin was so tired, that was the last thing on his mind. “Did you text her?” he said, searching his sent messages.

  “No,” Candy said. She sat up and whispered in Quin’s ear. “I added myself to your contacts.”

  Maybe he was tired, but this persistent flirting was starting to have an effect on him. He could see Big Ben staring at him from the rearview mirror.

  “Quin, are you behaving back there?” Big Ben said. “Candy, hands where I can see them.”

  She sat up and gave Big Ben the finger with both hands, giggling. She whispered again to Quin, “If you ever have a craving for Candy, call me.”

  Quin’s phone vibrated again somewhere in the darkness of his room, and he struggled to pull himself from his warm blankets. There was little heat in his apartment, and the chipped tiles were cold under his feet. Make a note of that for the property owner, he thought. He found the phone on the floor next to his boots. He squinted at the time display: 6:40 a.m. He’d slept only an hour since Big Ben and the girls dropped him off. Zoe was already gone, off to her first class.

  “This is Quin,” he said, disguising the sleep in his voice.

  “Quin, it’s me. How are you?” Kirsten, his favorite shrink, asked in a loud voice as she shouted over the wind.

  “Kirsten, can you call me back on my land line?” Quin was nervous about his phone and what Harold might’ve done to it.

  “Ah, sure. What’s the number?”

  Quin gave it to her and powered off his phone.

  A loud ringing came from the kitchen. He remembered that this luxury efficiency apartment, with its hand-me-down furniture and broken toaster oven, had only one phone, mounted on the kitchen wall.

  “OK, that’s better,” Quin said. “My battery was about to die.”

  “How are you?” she asked.

  He was glad to hear from her, impressed that she’d called from her vacation. “I’m fine. What’s up?”

  “I can’t talk long. We stopped by a tourist campsite, and I’m borrowing somebody’s phone that gets better reception,” she said. “Have I introduced you to my boyfriend Jeff?”

  He could hear her holding the phone up into the wind. Jeff hollered. ”Hi, Quin! Your camping idea has been a terrific adventure.”

  Yeah, yeah, there’s nothing more frustrating than turning a woman onto one of your hobbies only to discover she’s sharing it with another man. “Can I speak with Kirsten, please?”

  Another jostling of the phone, more wind, and she shouted again. “I’m concerned about you, Quin.”

  He’d figured this call might be coming—the worried therapist touching base with her client. “I’m feeling great. You’ve got nothing to be concerned about.”

  “You’re not supposed to be working as a bounty hunter, remember? Hunting and stalking would not work well with your illness,” she said.

  Why did she have to call it an illness, as if he had something contagious? He’d heard all of this before. She had a psychobabble theory that his career choice had brought out the worst in him. Tracking people and capturing them for the FBI had somehow dug up anger within him that he needed to release.

  “Are you taking your medication?” she asked.

  Her voice was soft, empathetic. He wondered what she wore out there in the windy mountains. She looked good in tight jeans and knee-high leather boots.

  “I take it every day,” he said. “I’m fine.”

  “Any outbursts?”

  Did she have to ask? She was putting him on the spot, and he couldn’t lie to her even if he wanted to. He had agreed to always tell her the truth.

  “One. It was hardly anything.” He’d been drinking beforehand, and Lunde was a traitor anyway.

  “Tell me about the outburst,” she said.

  “I got into scuffle with a guy I know, nothing serious. I calmed myself down.”

  “Any hallucinations?” she asked.

  He hated this question even more. She asked about his hallucinations often. Sometimes he’d hear sounds or see objects that weren’t there. He once thought he was clairvoyant, but it turned out to be a symptom of his illness. Now he controlled his life with medication.

  “No hallucinations,” he said without hesitation.

  “Hallucinations could be a stress response. Remember we talked about how the mind can cope by—“

  “Yeah, I remember,” he said. I don’t need another psychology lecture this early in the morning.

  “Good! I’ll be back in town this weekend,” she said. “I want you to end that assignment you’re on and get back to the clinic. You should also attend the anger group session. I think that works well for you.”

  How could he tell her that what he really needed to do was finish this assignment so he could cash in on a dying woman’s life insurance policy? It wouldn’t make sense to Kirsten and might even make him look crazy.

  “Tell me you’ll pack up and go home right now,” she said.

  He thought about her demand. She was waiting for an answer. Quin had planned to go home today anyway to drum up the money for the policy. He could stop by the clinic, fill up on pills, maybe check out a group session.

  He phrased his sentence carefully. “I promise you I’ll pack up today.” Now quick, change the subject. “How do you like tracking wolves?”

  She raved about the joys of winter camping, how she felt so connected to the earth. White people always had to get connected, for some reason. She told him how she and Jeff had found a wolf den and camped near it, taking pictures and a video. The alpha wolf in the pack was a female, Kirsten explained. How politically correct.

  He wanted to tell her about the den he’d stumbled onto as well, but like all of her ancestors, she might not understand what the Indian was trying to tell her. And more: she might think he was hallucinating. Save it for later.

  She rattled on for another minute or two and then suddenly stopped. “Well, I have to go.” Jeff was probably standing behind her pinching her ass.

  “Go home, Quin,” she said loudly into the wind. “Go home!”

  “I can’t hear you,” he said. “You’re breaking up.”

  The wolf den is always impeccably clean.

  Harold was inside the carriage house wiping down the Suburban. He would’ve taken the vehicle to the car wash, but the temperature had dropped to twenty below. He wiped the doors with a damp cloth, his fingertips going numb.

  He noticed Quin parking his rusted truck along the snowbank outside. The Indian stepped out
of the truck and tied his long black hair into a ponytail, just like a woman.

  He wished he could get that intern out of here. The preliminary background check had found nothing. He’d made calls to the college and the Indian reservation, but nobody had much to say about him. When he called the reservation to speak with friends, Harold had gotten the cold shoulder.

  He had been about to dig further and call one of his law enforcement buddies when Ben stopped him. The boss thought Quin was too important to closing the deal with Rebecca Baron; the Indian intern was now the anointed one, untouchable.

  Harold watched him walk across the icy driveway and stop under the branch of an oak tree. Quin was looking up into the tree, talking at it.

  Harold dropped his rag into the bucket and moved closer, out of the carriage house, for a better view. Was Quin talking to the tree? Indians do that sort of thing. They think their ancestors are trees and rocks, don’t they? God, is that weird or what?

  Quin raised his arms, waving them frantically into the cold wind above his head, as if he were swatting at something. He looked up again and spoke to the tree. Must be an Indian morning ritual, Harold thought.

  “Cold out today, huh?”

  Quin whirled around on the icy driveway, startled. “Good morning, Harold. Yeah, very cold today,” he said, warming his bare hands.

  “What are you doing over there?”

  Quin looked up at the bent branches and sparse leaves still clinging to the oak tree. “Oh, it’s those ravens.”

  Harold looked at Quin and then back up at the empty tree. He even stepped out onto the driveway, into the frigid wind for a closer look, but saw nothing.

  “Ravens, you say?” He hadn’t seen any birds around here, except for a few desperate sparrows, since the snow had come back in October.

  Quin pointed to the lowest branch. “There was one there, but it must’ve flown off.” He swung around and pointed toward the house. “Sometimes you have one on the roof, but it’s gone now too.”

  What was the Indian talking about? Harold saw no birds in the trees or on the roof. There was something odd about Quin.

  “You better hustle inside,” Harold said. “Ben wants you to drop off our proposal to Rebecca Baron first thing this morning.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Quin said, walking steadily up the sidewalk, careful not to slip on the ice. As he walked along the mansion, he seemed to be watching the roofline, as if tracking something. The Indian waved his arms a couple more times and then ran his pass card and opened the door.

  Incredibly strange, Harold thought.

  Quin walked the hall through the main foyer, passing secretaries and accountants. The nervousness and first-day jitters he’d experienced only three days before had now become a growing paranoia about this place.

  When you’re inside a wolf den, you’re vulnerable.

  He ran his pass card through the slot on the wall and entered the sales department. The library books, the wooden desks, and the domed skylight still impressed him each time he entered. Surely there were security cameras recording him.

  He noticed a stack of morning newspapers, the obituaries he would read and compare against the company database. The front page of the Star Tribune highlighted another story about WONDER BOY SENATOR ALMQUIST, and just below the fold, Quin noticed a headline: DEPUTY MONICA JENSEN’S DEATH A SUICIDE. Quin sat in his chair and read the article. He recognized the woman’s photo. She shot Munroe Pilson and then turned the gun on herself? The article had quotes from her boss and the sheriff, who said she’d been depressed after the shooting but was receiving counseling. “She was a great public servant,” the sheriff said. “The whole incident is tragic.”

  Quin turned the page to read more, but James approached him, hovering.

  “Big day today,” he said, raising his coffee cup. “I heard you and Ben partied last night.”

  “Yeah, I haven’t slept much,” Quin said, shuffling newspapers. He removed his coat and rolled it onto the back of the chair. “I’ll clear my head and stop by, meet Rebecca for coffee, and leave our proposal behind for her to review.”

  James smiled, rubbing his beard. “And you’ll work that Indian magic on her, no doubt.”

  Indian magic? “Excuse me?”

  “The charm. You got that indigenous thing going for you,” James said, as if he were quoting a chapter in some book on negotiating. Chapter Five: How to Use Your Indigenous Magic To Seal The Deal.

  “I’ll do my best,” Quin said. Asshole.

  “You’re a lucky man,” James said, strutting back to his desk. “You’ve been here three days, and you’re already handing out a proposal for a $10 million policy. I’d kill for that kind of opportunity.”

  I bet you would. Quin looked around the room at the other wolves. I bet you all would.

  Bob and Richard had their faces buried in the sports page. Both of them looked tired, as if hauling bodies across the lake yesterday had taken a toll on their old bones.

  Richard glanced up with bloodshot eyes that matched his red nose. “All I can say is you better close this deal, Quin.”

  “He will,” Bob said without looking up from the paper.

  “How do you know?” Richard asked his partner. “If you were going in there, if I were going in there, we’d do great. We know how to close the deal. Who knows what will happen when this kid hands her that proposal?”

  Quin looked back at Stray Dog, who nodded with a wink. They both knew the whole idea was to meet with Rebecca and drop off the offer, but not to let her sign anything.

  “If you have any advice, I’d love to hear it,” Quin said out of respect for the older, more experienced wolves.

  Without even looking up from his newspaper, Bob said, “Tell her whatever she wants to hear. Sell the dream.”

  “The dream?” he asked.

  Bob leaned back in his chair. “If she wants the money to pay for medical expenses, sell her that dream. If she wants the money to escape on a vacation, describe to her how she can do that. That’s selling the dream, Quin. You parrot back whatever it is she wants to hear.”

  The advice from the old wolf sounded more like classic sales manipulation. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Big Ben breezed into the room with a large white envelope, and the men sat down at their desks, adjusting their headsets, typing on their keyboards. Big Ben said nothing. He just gave them all a quiet stare, and they began making calls.

  “Good time last night, huh? Are you hung over?” Big Ben asked, his eyes examining Quin’s attire.

  Was he dressed well enough? He had his Armani uniform on.

  “I feel great, Ben.”

  “Don’t blow it,” he said forcefully, as if he weren’t offering encouragement so much as a threat. “In this packet is our revised written offer. We decided to go in at $8.2 million if she signs this week. As soon as she signs it, return it to me so we can get moving on the other paperwork.”

  “I will,” Quin said.

  “Can you get the money, Quin? There must be money on your reservation. This whole deal assumes you can help us raise the funds,” Big Ben said, pacing now like a caged wolf at the zoo: back and forth, back and forth.

  “How much money do you expect my tribe to contribute?” Quin asked.

  Big Ben leaned in close. “I need you to come up with $4 million. I can get the rest.”

  Quin waited for a smile. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I know it’s unusual to rely on a single investor for half the offer,” Big Ben said. “But we don’t want to involve many investors. We offer Rebecca $8.2 million, and when she dies, we get paid $10 million and we split the 1.8.”

  This was why Munroe Pilson died, and how many other clients? Big Ben was fundraising for this deal, and Quin’s tribe was a critical part of it. Another reality hit him too. If he and Stray Dog were going to make their own offer, they would also have to come up with the full amount of at least $8.2 million to buy the policy. Stray Dog had no ex
perience with investors and no access to funds.

  “If it’s OK, I’ll head back home to the reservation today to speak with some people, but I can’t make any promises for the amount of money.”

  “You can do it. I know you can. Take a couple of days if you need to,” Big Ben said. “I spoke with Rebecca this morning. I told her you’d be stopping by. Why don’t you go now?”

  Quin looked down at the stack of newspapers and the mail on his desk. “What about my work?”

  “Forget about the database; you’ve got more important things to focus on.” The alpha then turned and looked across the room. “Christopher, come here.”

  Stray Dog trotted across the office, more confident today, with his headset still around his neck. “What’s up?”

  “Quin’s meeting with your prospect, Rebecca Baron, this morning,” Big Ben said. “After they meet, he’ll be heading home for a couple of days. I want you to fill in. Make sure the mail is opened and the obituaries are screened in his absence.”

  Quin knew Stray Dog needed this deal to go through so he could collect enough cash to get the hell out of this place, to find a new pack to run with.

  Stray Dog faked a disappointed, almost defeated look, as if the alpha had demoted him yet again. “Sure, I’ve done it before,” Stray Dog said. He reached out to shake Quin’s hand. “Good luck.”

  Shaking his hand, Quin felt a small piece of paper. The omega was handing him a note. Quin slipped the paper into his pocket.

  “Remember what I told you on Monday,” Big Ben said. “A good salesperson takes an interest in his client. Spend time with her, get interested in the things she likes, and you’ll close the deal. But don’t sleep with her, Quin.”

  “No, of course not,” he said. He couldn’t take much more of these threatening pep talks.

  “If Rebecca has any questions, my number is in the packet,” Big Ben said, smiling with one of his big toothy grins. How could a man who kills people have such a choirboy smile?