“But he told me he wanted to. He said that he had a lot to tell you. Here.” I dug in the pocket of my parka. “He gave me his address.”
“Now he tells me.” She took it from me and looked at it. “No phone, though.”
We returned to the front desk. Kat made a point of whispering. “I’m a reporter for the Chicago Mirror.” She dug in her wallet for her press card, which I was gratified to see looked substantially like what I might have conjured in my most hopeful imaginings, PRESS printed vertically and in enormous letters down its left-hand margin, suitable for inserting in the hatband of a snap-brim fedora. “I had an appointment to interview Mr. Salteau today. I was wondering if you could give me his contact information.”
The librarian looked at us skeptically.
“I have his address,” Kat said, showing her the slip of paper. “But I don’t seem to have his phone number. I guess I didn’t think I’d need it, seeing as I was supposed to meet him here.”
The librarian sighed. She leaned to one side and heaved open a drawer, studied something.
“And can you confirm the address?” asked Kat.
“That’s what we have,” said the librarian. She wrote a number on a Post-it.
“Here,” she said, “we tried him already.” She looked at me. “And who’s this?”
“My photographer,” said Kat.
“I’ve seen him here before,” said the librarian. Clearly I was not going to be included in the exchange.
“He’s local. Not from Chicago.” She added, “He’s the best. Give her your card, Alexander.”
“I forgot to bring any,” I said. “You can look me up, though.”
“What’s your name?”
“Eigengrau.”
“Where’s your equipment?”
“It’s one hundred percent digital,” said Kat.
“OK,” said the librarian. It was a dismissal, but she remembered to add: “Have a nice day.”
WE TRIED THE number, but it rang and rang. We got into my truck and checked a map. Abbottsville was twenty-five miles away.
ORBITAL RESONANCE
SIX DAYS AGO
Wendell Banjo had packed the living room of his mobile home with things he’d had removed from the old house, which sat derelict about twenty yards away. Some of these things, like the enormous desk he sat behind, were in use, others were packed away in neatly stacked boxes, and still others were piled and clustered and leaning against the walls, jamming the dusty space. There were wall clocks and old radios, a console television set, dusty bouquets of artificial flowers, folding chairs, a folded ping-pong table, a box spring, lampshades nested inside each other, a portrait of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. A passage had been cleared to the front door. There was a whiteboard hanging from one wall, neatly divided with colored tape into rectangular segments, to keep track of various games, scores, and spreads, its surface wiped clean. Next to it a large flat-screen television was connected to the old satellite dish that perched on the roof. Wendell Banjo was a local bookmaker.
Hanshaw, a giant former tribal cop who took the occasional job, mostly collections, from Wendell Banjo, sat opposite in a bentwood rocking chair that had been pulled up before the desk. He sat gingerly because there was a tear in the caning and he was worried that his ass would fall through the seat.
“When you going to burn that dump down?” asked Hanshaw.
“It has its uses,” said Wendell Banjo. “So, what? Are you game?”
“Sure,” said Hanshaw.
“Sure, he says. Cool as a cucumber, ennit? You need anything from me?”
“You know it’s Argenziano for sure,” said Hanshaw.
“They know it’s him. And that’s good enough. Like I said,” said Wendell Banjo, “I am always interested in not stirring up trouble. These are serious people and they’re talking about a lot of money.”
“Some of which you ended up with.”
“Which the thing of it is I get to keep it. If I do this.”
“Me. If I do this.”
“OK, you.”
“Why not one of your boys?”
“These pussycats? Be serious. Reminds me. How’s your nephew, what, Jeramy?” Wendell Banjo lit a Pall Mall.
“He’s good,” said Hanshaw.
“Sharp kid,” said Wendell Banjo, generously. “My son’s a senior at Kalamazoo now. Wants to go to graduate school and get something called a MFA.” He pronounced each of the letters distinctly, as if speaking the name of a genus of insect. “You know what that is? You pay to go to school to learn to do something no one’s ever going to pay you to do.”
“And so you told him?”
“ ‘Good luck.’ ”
Wendell Banjo laughed. Hanshaw shook his head sympathetically. “So,” Hanshaw said. “When?”
“No rush,” said Wendell Banjo. “I mean, be on it. You need anything else?”
“Money.”
“Out back.” He gestured with his thumb in the direction of the derelict house.
“For Christ’s sake,” said Hanshaw. “I have mold allergies.”
“How long can you hold your breath?” asked Wendell Banjo.
TODAY
They drove to Abbottsville under a flat white sky, seemingly always on the outskirts of tiny settlements, a flip-book view through the windshield of manufactured homes clustering and then thinning out again, service stations and tractor supply stores, open country where a collapsing barn or a stone farmhouse persisted amid the snow-covered fields. The highway eventually fed them directly onto Abbottsville’s main street, a thoroughfare that was simultaneously shabby, utilitarian, and quaintly old-fashioned. Mulligan thought idly that the place was prime for what he thought of, with irony, as a revival; that when hopes ran high and credit came easy (and once a certain kind of person had been priced out of other towns), cafés, boutiques, galleries, and wine shops would virally multiply on these razor-angled plats.
Kat called up a map on her phone and directed him to bump over the railroad tracks separating the west side of town from the east. Now even the shoddier pretenses of the town’s facade fell away; here the story was all about evacuated capital: here were the low industrial structures, pitted and scored in their abandonment, the shuttered luncheonettes, the no-name gas stations, the dives with their neon beer signs, the tumbleweed trash. They passed a cluster of single-story residential structures, painted a noncommittal beige, with building numbers stenciled on the walls at each end and bedsheets and towels dangling askew, as curtains, in the windows. It reminded Kat of the apartment complex on the reservation.
“Here’s where you hang a left,” she said.
Mulligan steered onto Essex Street, where most of the lots had trailers smack at their center, some decrepit, some well cared for; a row of faded pastel shoeboxes on display.
“Slow down,” Kat said. Then: “Here.”
This shoebox was pale pink with rose-colored trim and poured concrete steps. Aluminum awnings were cantilevered above the windows and door. Wherever one thing had been bolted to another a filigree of rust had bled from the connection. An old barbecue grill sat to one side, and a soggy-looking bag of briquets and a rusty container of charcoal lighter were shoved under the trailer. A pair of white sneakers, an empty soda bottle nestled neatly in one, sat on the top step before the door. No vehicle was in the driveway.
“Nobody home,” said Kat.
She climbed the steps and knocked on the door, then tried the knob. It was locked. A neighbor strolled over from the shoebox next door, a wiry old man wearing a Brewers cap and an oversized pair of glasses that magnified lively-looking eyes.
“You looking for John, there?”
“That’s right. Do you know where he is?”
“He just takes off sometimes.”
“For a while?”
“Oh, yes,” said the man. “He’ll be gone, I don’t know.” He trailed off and gestured with his hands, trying to indicate the length of time as if it wer
e a fish. The two of them watched him. “He’s gone a whole day sometimes.”
“That long, huh?” said Mulligan.
“Oh, yes. He’ll come back, he’s got, you know, groceries. Trunk full of groceries. I help him carry them inside.”
“You help him? Does he help you?”
“Why would he?” The man drew himself up. “Anyway, Amy helps with that. She’s my daughter. Takes me shopping, takes me to my appointment. She’s a good girl. Or sometimes,” he continued, “he’ll have a video from the video store. Or sometimes I don’t know where he’s gone to.”
“He just takes off and comes back.”
“I don’t ask no questions,” said the man. He began to move off, heading back to his trailer, smaller than Salteau’s, but with a concrete patio and table and chairs to go with it. He paused midstride, alert, looking up the road.
“Looks like you’re in luck. Here comes his little Jap car now.”
An old Nissan rolled toward them slowly, hugging the right shoulder of the road. It came to nearly a complete stop at the entrance to the driveway, and they could see the figure in the driver’s seat effortfully cranking the steering wheel to the right before jerkily accelerating into the turn. The car bounced to a stop, and after a moment the door opened. A man slowly emerged.
“You got some visitors waiting here, John,” said the man.
“I can see that, Al,” said the other man. He peered at them over the open car door. “Who are they?”
“Can’t say that I know.”
The man who’d gotten out of the car maneuvered around to the other side of the door and gave it a shove, to close it. He had to be at least as old as Al. He walked slowly down the driveway toward them.
“Can I help you two?”
“Are you John Salteau?” asked Kat.
“That’s right,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I was trying to tell them where you might be, John. But I didn’t know.”
“Well, no, you didn’t, Al. There’s no reason why you should have known.”
“Sometimes I know.”
“Well, sometimes I tell you, now don’t I?”
“I thought it might be bank day.”
“It’s not bank day, Al.”
“Bank day?” asked Mulligan.
“He likes to go make sure his money’s in,” said Al. “He goes to the bank and checks.”
“Your money?”
“Social Security. Not that it’s anyone’s concern but mine, Al.” He paused for effect. “It’s direct deposit and I don’t have a computer.”
“I do,” said Al.
“Well, then you should know that it’s not bank day today, Al.”
“I could check for you, is all’s I’m saying.”
“That will not be necessary,” said John Salteau. “How can I assist you two?”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” said Kat, “how old are you, sir?”
“I know exactly how old he is,” said Al. “John graduated from Abbott High School in nineteen hundred and forty-three, five years ahead of me. So that makes him eighty-three. About.”
“I don’t know why I bother to have any personal business when I have Al here to share it with anyone who shows up,” said John Salteau. “Al is correct. I am eighty-three years old. Now, would you two please tell me what I can do for you?”
“I think,” said Mulligan, “that we might have mistaken you for somebody else.”
“That sounds perfectly likely,” said John Salteau. “I’d like to get inside now, please.”
Kat dug in her purse. “Before you go, can you take a look at this for me, please?” She held out Saltino’s driver’s license picture. “Do you know him?”
John Salteau held the photo at arm’s length, Al crowding in to peer at it over his shoulder.
“I’ve never seen him before. How about you, Al?”
“Oh, now you’re asking me.”
“I am.”
“I wouldn’t want to talk out of turn, John. Since that’s what I seem to do.”
“Please, for Pete’s sake.”
“I have trouble keeping it straight, sometimes.”
“For Pete’s sake. Have you seen the man or not? The girl is waiting.”
“No, I’ve never seen him. Since you ask.”
“Thank you,” said Kat.
“Who is he?” asked John Salteau.
“His name is John Saltino,” said Kat.
“What?” said Mulligan.
SIX DAYS AGO
Hanshaw came down the steps of Wendell Banjo’s mobile home and walked directly to the ruined house that sat farther back on the lot. He shoved at the warped kitchen door and then managed to wedge his enormous body into the tight space that opened up. Inside, it stank of mold. Holding his breath, he advanced through the kitchen into the parlor. A sodden old chesterfield sprouting with weeds and a rusty floor lamp whose shade had melted away, leaving only the wire armature, were the two pieces of furniture left in the room. He knelt before the heat register in the floor to remove the grating and reached into the opening. He found the envelope full of money with his fingers and pulled it out. He didn’t begrudge Wendell Banjo the cloak-and-dagger trappings that were, as far as Hanshaw was concerned, more melodramatic than they were necessary. He knew that this really wasn’t Wendell’s line. When Wendell had called him about Argenziano the day before, he’d sounded relieved to be putting it in Hanshaw’s hands. He put the envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket and went back outside, breathing deeply as he hit the fresh air.
One of Wendell’s crew, Ryan, was sitting on the steps of the trailer, a fat kid in a satin Cardinals warm-up jacket and a pair of sweatpants that were about two sizes too large. He was looking at Hanshaw a little too closely, Hanshaw thought. Without breaking stride, he made a pistol from the fingers of his right hand and aimed them at the kid, dropping his thumb like a hammer. The kid raised a hand in greeting but lowered his eyes at the same time. Hanshaw proceeded to his pickup and got in.
HE REACHED INTO a plastic bag stowed behind him and pulled out the three cans remaining of a six-pack of Pepsi, hoisting them by the empty plastic rings that had yoked all six into a team. He detached one from its ring. He was outside Manitou Sands, parked in the lot behind some desultory landscaping. He’d been there going on two hours. He’d moved the truck a couple of times, usually whenever anyone in some kind of semi-uniform seemed to be checking him out, but also to look at the various entrances and exits, particularly around back. In and out. He sipped the Pepsi and felt it burn his throat. His mouth was sticky and his teeth felt mossy. He drained the can, then got out of the truck and strolled across the lot, over the painted lines, past the landscaping, in the front entrance, and straight through the lobby to the casino floor. He walked along its periphery, keeping his eye on the glossy sheer curtains hanging from floor to ceiling along the walls. The curtains yielded here and there to stretches where fieldstone had been decoratively set into the wall. In each such stretch the wall contained a doorway of some kind: a restroom, an exit, a passageway. He paused to linger at a bank of slot machines near one door with a keypad lock, marked for employees only. After a little while, the door opened and a woman emerged, carrying a handful of files. Hanshaw caught the door before it shut completely and entered the space behind it. A single camera eye mounted near the ceiling at the end of a short corridor met his gaze. He shrugged. In and out. The first door on the left-hand side bore a nameplate that read ROBERT ARGENZIANO, LIAISON. The door opened when he tried the knob. He found no one inside. Argenziano’s office was a monument to busywork. A pristine desk, two visitor’s chairs, a telephone, a computer. A sofa. A framed poster for an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts entitled The Art of Chivalry, depicting a mounted knight, hung on one wall. On the desktop was a single sheet of paper, with a fountain pen laid across it, as if Argenziano had set it down in the middle of an important task. Hanshaw picked up the sheet and saw that it was a supply requisiti
on form. Argenziano wanted a teak bookcase. There were no books in the office. Also on the desk was a crystal jar filled with M&Ms and an elaborate toy that, on closer inspection, revealed itself to be a working model of an antique steam engine. A little brass plaque mounted on its base was blank, awaiting an inscription. He looked in the desk drawers and found nothing of interest apart from a Glock 26 pistol in its case. The gun was clean. A rosewood credenza had a row of binders lined up on its top. Hanshaw opened one of them and discovered that it was empty inside.
Five minutes later he was back in his truck, persuaded that there was nothing to be discovered in Bobby’s office. He was driving to pick up Jeramy, nominally his “cousin” but really just a footloose boy of uncertain pedigree who’d grown up within shouting distance. Hanshaw had, at various times, arrested three of the men who had, at various times, lived in Jeramy’s house; all on drug charges and one on a domestic dispute call. Two of the drug offenders had been all right if too stupidly obvious in their habits living next door to a cop. The third man had been mean, slit-eyed and half-smart, and Hanshaw was pretty certain that he’d been responsible for the poisoning death of his dog, so in the course of arresting the man for choking Jeramy’s mother he’d found a reason to break his jaw with the barrel of the Colt Python he used to wear when he was in uniform, a big, heavy, reliable gun that didn’t look ridiculous strapped to his massive hip. After that Hanshaw hadn’t been able to shake Jeramy, whose enthusiasm hadn’t waned even after Hanshaw had had his own troubles and left the tribal force.
Jeramy’s mother opened the door. She and Jeramy lived alone now.
“Hanshaw,” she said. The house was one long dim hallway, with doorways poking out on either side.
Hanshaw crossed the threshold. “Is he here?” he asked.
“’Course he’s here. Where’s he going to be at? The library?”
“Maybe he’s reading a book right now,” said Hanshaw.
She laughed once, a sharp bark. He passed her and went through one of the doorways. It was cold in Jeramy’s room. Jeramy was lying on the bed wearing a down jacket and a set of headphones. He was tall and thin, the stubble on his pale brown scalp mapping his already receding hairline. His eyes were closed.
The Fugitives Page 23