In the Company of Wolves_Thinning The Herd

by James Michael Larranaga

  “Oh, so you’re one of Ben’s men now?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “You just said, ‘We don’t fall in love with our clients’ as if you were reciting the Safe Haven employee handbook,” Zoe said.

  “I’m in deep with these guys,” Quin said to reassure her. “I have to play the part to survive.”

  She searched Quin’s eyes for the truth and seemed satisfied with this response. “I have a study group, so I will see you later?”

  “Yeah, call me when you’re done.”

  She pulled Quin in close, kissing him gently on the lips, and nuzzled her face onto his shoulder. He felt her warm tears on his neck and realized this assignment was hard on both of them. What could he say to ease her pain and fear?

  She let go of him, reached for her backpack, and slung it over with both arms in the straps, as if she were hiking. He remembered their time together in the Boundary Waters, how she had appeared out of nowhere into his life. Could she disappear just as easily?

  “I’ll be all right,” he said. “We’ll both be all right.”

  Zoe smiled through her tears. “I hope so,” she said as she left the apartment.

  “Call me when you’re done with your study group,” Quin said.

  The room was quiet, and Quin returned to checking his e-mail as he thought about her concerns. And he wasn’t sure how his boss would react to knowing he had competition on the deal. Wait until he learns that Benson & White isn’t even a factor; it was Stray Dog and Quin who were about to steal away the big kill.

  The late afternoon darkness filled the small apartment as he continued sifting through his e-mail. Kirsten had a message waiting for him labeled “Good news”:

  Quin,

  We’re coming home this weekend. Can I meet with you?

  Kirsten

  Ordinarily he would’ve agreed, but he had too much going on. He and Stray Dog had to draft papers and close Rebecca’s deal. Now his shrink was getting curious. She wanted to check up on him. What would she think if she discovered he was living in the apartment that Lunde owned?

  Quin had his own place on the reservation, but Lunde wanted him living here during the investigation. That had made sense when he thought Lunde was a fed, but now that Quin knew he worked for Benson & White, the shabby apartment made him apprehensive. His shrink might think it was odd behavior too. And he couldn’t tell her the truth about this case until he and Stray Dog closed the deal.

  He wrote her back a short message explaining that he was busy and that he promised to catch up with her by the middle of next week to see her vacation photos. And for good measure, he added that he’d been taking his medications regularly. She had nothing to worry about, and he was fine.

  Before he logged off, he mentioned that he had met a beautiful woman named Rebecca. He wasn’t exactly sure why he wrote this to Kirsten, whom he once had a crush on, but he felt a need to tell her. His moods were better, the smoldering embers of anger extinguished when he was near Rebecca.

  He realized, without actually writing the words, that she was possibly a new form of therapy for him, making it easier to let go of his attachment to Kirsten and his friends-with-benefits relationship with Zoe.

  He closed the laptop, grabbed a duffel bag with his clothes, and left the apartment. When he got to his truck, he was surprised to see Lunde driving up in his big vehicle. He was grinning from ear to ear and wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a cap. Lunde had never dressed like anybody at the FBI. Looking back on it, Quin figured the man must be a hired hand, a private investigator working for Benson & White.

  Lunde was with an overweight man in a double-breasted suit and long coat: two big bears lumbering out of the Ford Expedition like a circus act, right here in the parking lot. The vehicle’s shocks let out a sigh of relief as the men stepped out.

  “Quin! Glad we caught up with you,” Lunde said, slamming the door.

  Quin tossed his duffel bag in the front seat of his pickup. He had no time for idle chat with the enemy.

  “Hey, Spencer,” he said anxiously. His smoldering flames of anger were back, burning in his gut.

  “Quin, this is Louis Schultz. He’s vice president of Benson & White.”

  The man stuck out a pudgy hand. “Hello, Quin. Spencer tells me you and I are about to save a woman’s life.”

  Yeah, right. We’re real bosom buddies.

  “I dropped off Safe Haven’s proposal to Rebecca Baron,” Quin said to Lunde.

  Lunde looked surprised. “They got you selling now, huh? Man, I gave them quite an asset when I sent you in there.”

  Smoldering flames increasing. Ignore that and move on.

  “I dropped off the proposal, that’s all. She says Benson & White is the high bidder at this point.”

  Lunde turned, smiling at Schultz. They were encouraged by this news.

  “She’s got to go with Benson & White so we can protect her. She better sign with us,” Lunde said, playing hardball now in front of Schultz.

  He was proving to him that Quin had done what they’d hired him to do: steal leads from a competitor. Lunde was smart, and Quin was curious how much they paid him for this kind of work. After Cassy and Martin turned up missing, Lunde wasn’t dumb enough to go into Safe Haven on his own. He hired the job out. He found an underemployed bounty hunter to do the work for him.

  Quin thought about the payment the man had once promised him. “Let’s settle up now. I found Cassy and Martin, and I gave you the name of the $10 million policyholder, and now you’re about to close the deal. When do I get my $50,000 bounty?”

  Lunde shifted on his feet, looking back at Schultz. “Take it easy, Quin.”

  “We need the database first,” Schultz said, speaking for Lunde.

  “Who needs the database? You, Mr. Schultz, or the FBI?” Quin asked.

  Schultz coughed nervously, nudging Lunde. “He needs them: the FBI needs them.”

  “Yeah,” Lunde said. “I need the database in hand before I can pay you.”

  Quin figured Benson & White wanted the database so they could put Safe Haven out of business for good. Why pick off accounts one at a time when you can steal the whole company?

  As for the bounty, Quin wouldn’t need it. If he and Stray Dog could pull off their heist, the fifty grand would be icing on the cake. But he liked icing on his cake.

  “I’ll get the database, and I’ll call you before the weekend is up,” he said, assuming Stray Dog had a copy by now. “But no database until you hand me $50,000 in cash. I want you to pay me before Rebecca makes her decision. And I want to be paid whether she signs with you or not. I found her. That’s all you hired me to do.”

  Lunde did a double take, wincing. “What do you mean ‘whether she signs with us or not’? I thought we were the high bidder.”

  “You are,” Quin said, enjoying Lunde’s pain. “But there’s a third company bidding as well. I guess their bid isn’t in yet.”

  “Who? What company?” Schultz asked, looking around the parking lot, as if he were going to slug the next person he saw.

  “I don’t know, gentlemen,” Quin said. “Rebecca didn’t mention the company’s name.”

  Lunde and Schultz nodded to each other. They were still confident they would win the proposal. And Schultz was buying Safe Haven’s database for $50,000. Quin saw this as the kind of inexpensive hostile takeover that every underhanded executive dreams of—it’s just never mentioned in the footnotes of the annual report.

  Quin entered the Barrio Tequila Bar in south Minneapolis and searched over the sea of heads to find Stray Dog seated in a small booth along the wall. He was gnawing on a short stack of barbecued ribs, dipping them into guacamole.

  How long had he been here? How many tequila shots had he slammed to work up such an appetite? Quin ordered a light beer from the bar. Booze hadn’t mixed well with his meds lately; maybe light beer would be better.

  “Where you been?” Stray Dog asked without looking up, biting into the pork
bone.

  “I ran into Spencer Lunde and his boss, Louis Schultz.”

  Stray Dog dropped the short stack and looked up. His fingers dripped red sauce. “Louis was my old boss. What did you say to him?”

  “Nothing much. Told them they had competition with Rebecca’s policy.”

  “Louis hates to lose. How did he react?” Stray Dog asked.

  “Seemed angry to me. He loosened up some when I told them I’d hand them the database, though,” Quin said.

  “You offered them the database?” Stray Dog asked. “I want those names so I can launch my own viatical business. I need leads.”

  “Make a copy so we can hand it over to them, and we’ll split $50,000,” Quin said. “Once the feds get involved, both Safe Haven and Benson & White will be shut down anyway.”

  Stray Dog chewed on the idea and shrugged. “Yeah, that works for me. I’ll copy the disk for you.”

  “So you do have the database?” Quin asked with relief.

  “Here in my briefcase along with all my other belongings,” Stray Dog said. “I resigned today.”

  Quin swallowed his mouthful of beer so hard he could feel it splashing up his throat again. “You resigned?”

  “Why stay there? Once they find out on Monday that we’re the ones taking the business away, the shit’s hitting the fan,” Stray Dog said. “I took the files and slipped my letter of resignation under Ben’s door. I’m a free man, Quin.”

  Stray Dog swilled his beer, smiling through the tall glass. He was proud of himself, and this was the big move he’d planned for a long time. Quin felt partly responsible for his friend’s sudden boost of courage.

  “You can come up with the money, right?” Stray Dog asked, wiping his drunken face with a dirty napkin.

  “I’m heading back to the reservation after we eat,” Quin said.

  “And you can get the money, right?” Stray Dog asked again, as if he now realized he had jumped from his company without first checking his golden parachute.

  “I hope so.”

  Stray Dog nodded, his glassy eyes fixed on Quin. “You’ll get the money. Rebecca needs you to.”

  “Benson & White has offered $8.5 million. Rebecca told me as long as we match the price, we got it,” Quin said. ”That’s a lot of money for me to raise from the tribe.”

  “I know, and we’ll split the proceeds however you think is fair,” Stray Dog said.

  “And the paperwork?” he asked Stray Dog. “I plan to meet with her tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll have everything ready to go,” he said. “I won’t sleep tonight until I get it done.”

  Quin wondered if he’d sleep much either. How does a college student go home and ask for $8.5 million? This would be another example of how Quin was an outsider to his tribe. He needed the tribe more than the tribe needed him. That was why he understood Stray Dog so well—they were both outsiders, men who lived on the fringe of their societies. That could change, though.

  Give a man a chance to close a big deal, and who knows what might happen? This could create a new name for Quin. They might call him the Rainmaker instead of the Outsider.

  Many Native Americans identified with the wolf lifestyle.

  Like the wolf, they too had to be both an individual and a member of a pack.

  A red sky, a snow-dusted white prairie, and flashing casino lights were the welcome mats that Quin drove past, entering the Mdewakanton Sioux tribal lands. Towering hundreds of feet above Mystic Lake Casino was a teepee made of searchlights shining into the night sky like a ghost teepee.

  Quin appreciated the structure. It was like flipping the white man the bird every night before the white man went to bed.

  After the Indian Gaming Act passed in 1988, the Shakopee Mdewakanton had opened their lands to Vegas-style gaming, with video slots, blackjack tables, and live entertainment.

  Mystic Lake was one of the largest, most successful, Indian casinos in the country. Other tribes envied the Mdewakantons’ entrepreneurial spirit, and many tried to imitate it, including Quin’s smaller band that went only by the name Wakan.

  His tribe had broken away three generations ago to pursue a more spiritual way and had settled on a smaller reservation. Today they offered gaming as well.

  He slowed his truck so a busload of weekend gamblers could ease its way around a snowbank. The traffic peaked in the evening, especially around payday. It was difficult for his tribe to live so close to the Mdewankatons’ success. The Wakans’ little-known reservation was ten miles south of Mdewankaton land, and they had their own gaming parlors but much less traffic.

  The Wakan had a public relations problem. To compete with their neighbors, they needed a large searchlight teepee, but the city of Shakopee wouldn’t allow it; one was enough. The Wakan lived in the shadow of the late-night teepee.

  They’d decided to pick a niche—since they couldn’t bring in the crowds, they went in the other direction, catering to high-stakes gamblers. The Wakan had rented mailing lists, bought advertising space in magazines such as the Robb Report and Cigar Aficionado, and paid big incentives to travel agencies to recommend their casino to the heavy hitters.

  They flew these people in private jets onto their own landing strip, just like Vegas. And for the most part, their niche paid off. Prairie Sun Casino wasn’t as well known as Mystic Lake, but the establishment raked in enough money to provide a better way of life for its people. This was gambling by invitation only.

  His grandfather, Hawk, lived in a village in a valley behind the hotel and casino, in a home he’d built with tribal funds. Quin drove slowly through the private entrance. Most of the homes in the village were new or still under construction, and he noticed that another stack of lumber had appeared since he left last week; somebody was building another new home.

  Hawk’s log home sat at the far end of the village, his backyard hidden behind a wall of birch trees. His house was one of the smaller ones, a rambler with a porch. Next to his stood a two-story with cedar siding; beyond that another rambler. Some Indians displayed their wealth through the size of their homes or their new vehicles, while others kept it hidden, living more modestly. They were all the millionaires next door.

  Quin parked in front of Hawk’s house on the street because his cousin, Slim Jim, was chipping ice off the driveway. Jim wasn’t slim at all. He had a barrel chest, wide shoulders, and a big gut. He wore a designer leather jacket and snakeskin boots. Jamming his shovel hard into the ice on the driveway, he looked much older than nineteen.

  Slim Jim stopped chipping ice long enough to spit chew toward Quin. “Oh, thank God you’re back,” he said sarcastically. He wasn’t fond of his cousin. Quin didn’t care much for him, either.

  “Getting your workout in, I see,” Quin said.

  “When will you stop coming around here?” Slim Jim asked, resting his fat hands on the shovel. His knuckles were large and beefy, like overcooked sausages.

  “Whenever Hawk asks me to,” Quin said, walking up the driveway carefully. “He likes my company, so I stay here once in a while.”

  “What is it that you want from Hawk?” Slim Jim asked.

  Money, actually.

  “I’m visiting to say hello.”

  Slim Jim grabbed his coat and wedged the shovel handle between Quin’s legs. His breath smelled of menthol chew. “If you take advantage of Hawk, I’ll mess you up.”

  Quin’s own rage burst through his arms. He grabbed Slim Jim by the leather collar and whipped him around on the icy driveway, the shovel clattering to the ground. The big kid’s momentum pulled him to the ice, where he lay flat on his back, the way Lunde had a few days before. He looked shocked.

  Déjà vu. Quin’s new move worked.

  “Don’t ever raise your voice to me like that,” Quin said.

  “You’re crazy, bro,” Slim Jim hollered, sitting up on the driveway. “Cousin or no cousin, I ought to kill you myself!”

  Harsh words from a kid chilling his fat ass on the ice.
<
br />   Quin had heard stories from Hawk about how Slim Jim had been bailed out of jail for starting fights in bars downtown. For the most part he was a good kid, prelaw at the University of Minnesota; but lately he’d spent too much time studying the inside of a jail cell. Rap sheets don’t earn you extra credit at law school.

  Quin stuck out his hand and helped him up. They stared at each other closely, as if Slim Jim thought he might go another round.

  “Jimmy!” Hawk cried out from the doorway. The white light from the porch cast shadows on the old man’s bony face, making his beak nose seem bigger, his gray hair more silver. Hawk’s silk shirt had beadwork over the pocket, and he wore boot-cut denims with a sliver belt buckle the size of his palm.

  Slim Jim backed away, picked up his shovel, and chipped at the ice again. “You’re his guest here. Don’t forget that.”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Quin said, walking up the driveway. Quin was an interloper—that was the subtext of what Slim Jim was saying.

  He stepped onto the porch and gave Hawk a hug as a Cadillac, loaded with young men, pulled into the driveway. The vehicle blasted rock music, the bass line vibrating the porch, and Slim Jim ran down to the car.

  How could another fat Indian squeeze in there?

  When Slim Jim opened the door, the music screamed like an unleashed demon.

  The young men inside first greeted Hawk with respect, then began chanting, “Quin! Quin! Quin! Quin!”

  Next to Slim Jim were King-Fish, Pony, and Hunter, all rowdy fat cats with the world at their moccasins. They drank too much and spent most of their free time at the neighboring casino blowing all their money.

  “Nothing but trouble,” Hawk said, watching the Cadillac accelerate and slide through an icy bend in the road. “Where you been?”

  “Out and about,” Quin said. “I picked up a bounty assignment across the river.”

  They stepped inside the log home. He could smell the familiar sweet scent of tea wafting from the kitchen. Hawk always drank a homemade brew by grinding roots in a blender. Lately he’d been adding kava root to calm his nerves. Quin drank the stuff too, and preferred it to coffee.