“I expect you to front for us.”
“Oh, you do, do you.”
“You pay for the merchandise. In return, you get a full share of the take.”
“How much is that?”
“That’s hard to say.”
“Guess.”
“A quarter of a million dollars.”
Brand was not impressed by the figure. He glanced at the people sitting in the living room as if he were counting bodies. “How many shares will there be?” he asked.
“Does it matter?”
“I want a quarter of a million dollars,” he said, “plus expenses.”
“Agreed. Something else. It’s been my experience that no criminal enterprise of any magnitude can prevail in a community without at least the tacit approval of the local population, starting with the police.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Deputies James and Williams. They rousted me the other day for purposes of extortion. Like you, they wanted half of our profits. How they knew what my plans were…”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Get them off my back.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“How do you keep them off your back?”
Brand thought about it for about five seconds. “It’ll cost you,” he said.
“How much?”
“They’re very greedy men, Dyson. Very greedy. And you have no leverage. If they wanted to pick you up, they wouldn’t need to pretend they found a lid of grass on your seat during a routine traffic stop, would they?”
“Bastards,” I heard the old man mutter from the living room.
I sighed dramatically, again—I was getting good at it. “I’ll give you a third,” I said. “Not half. A full third. You can disperse it anyway you see fit.”
“How much is a third?”
“Will you settle for a conservative estimate? One million dollars.”
Brand sat there thinking it over, his eyes never leaving my face as if he could see the answers to all of his questions written there.
“Okay,” he said. He smiled some more as he reached across the kitchen table. I shook his hand, very much aware that the third was probably what he was willing to settle for all along. He held my hand for a few beats.
“A third plus expenses,” he said.
“Now who’s being greedy?” He continued to hold my hand. “All right, I’ll pay your expenses. I intend to inspect the merchandise before we accept delivery.”
“The Mexicans might not like that.”
“I don’t care.”
“Agreed,” Brand said.
He released my hand and settled back into his chair. I slid the wheel gun across the table to him. He caught it before it hit his chest. He was surprised by the gesture. From the intake of breath coming from the living room, so were a few other people.
“I won’t pretend that we’re friends, Mr. Brand, or that we trust each other,” I said. “You shouldn’t, either. However, if we can treat each other with the respect we both deserve, it is unlikely either of us will engage in a more profitable relationship.”
Brand took up the wheel gun—this time I held my breath—and shoved it down into his pocket.
“I believe, Mr. Dyson,” he said, “that we have an understanding.”
I nodded in approval, and he nodded back.
“There is one more thing,” I said. “It might give you an idea of what I have in mind.”
I left the kitchen table and gestured for Brand to follow me. I moved to the living room. The big man lowered his hands and stepped forward.
“I’d like my gun back,” he said. He might have been asking for the correct time for all the emotion he displayed.
“Roy,” I said.
Roy jettisoned the magazine from the butt of the automatic and made a big production out of thumbing all the rounds onto the cabin floor. He slammed the magazine home, ejected the round that was in the chamber, and tossed the now-empty gun to the big man. The big man shoved it into a holster hidden under his jacket. If he was upset by Roy’s behavior, he didn’t show it.
Everyone was standing now, and I shooed them out of the way so that Brand and I had an unobstructed view of Jimmy’s map still propped on the back of the sofa. I tapped the red dot next to Lake Vermilion.
“There’s a building here,” I said. “No address, no street name, no satellite images, but it’s there, and if it’s there, that means the planning and zoning department had to approve its construction.”
“So?”
“I presume you have contacts in county government.”
“One or two.”
“I need the blueprints.”
* * *
Afterward, Brand made some conciliatory remarks about how we all needed to put our differences aside and work together for the greater good—he reminded me of my old bantam hockey coach. He apologized to Roy, apologized to Roy’s wife, and shook a few hands. Before he left I told him not to be a stranger since he now knew where I lived. He promised he’d see me again, and soon. The vehicle holding him, Fenelon, and the thug disappeared down the road before anyone in the cabin spoke.
“That went well,” Josie said.
“A third?” the old man asked. “A third? You’re giving him a third while we do all the work? Couldn’t you Jew him down a little?”
“I doubt I could even Christian him down a little.”
The old man heard the annoyance in my voice. “Don’t mean nothing,” he said. “Just the way people talk.”
“No, it isn’t. Anyway, if he gets the guns and the blueprints, he’ll be earning his share.”
“I don’t trust him,” Dave said.
“He doesn’t trust us.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Liz said.
“Shhh, honey,” Dave told her.
“Don’t shush me,” she said. “A criminal points a gun at me for two hours and you shush me?”
“We’re all criminals,” Josie said.
“I’m not.”
Jill opened her mouth as if she were going to say something only to slowly close it again without speaking.
“What’s your plan?” Jimmy wanted to know. “Do you have a plan?”
“I’m going to drink one of the old man’s cheap beers—” I said.
“Cheap?” he said.
“Then go to bed. The rest of you can do whatever you want.”
“But what about the plan?” Jimmy asked.
“I have some details to work out. We’ll talk in a couple of days.” I looked Claire de Lune directly in the eye. “We’ll talk after we get the guns.”
Jimmy’s head swiveled from me to her and back again. “What are you talking to her for?” he asked.
“Dyson doesn’t trust me,” Claire answered.
“She’s my girl,” Jimmy told me.
“She’s Fenelon’s girl,” Josie said.
“Is not.” Jimmy turned to Claire for confirmation. “Is not,” he said again.
“I love you, not him,” she said.
“Oh, puhleez,” the old man said.
I remembered the family feud the old man described the day earlier and decided this was the beginning of round two and quite honestly, I wasn’t in the mood. I had phone calls to make.
“You kids work it out on your own,” I said. “Preferably somewhere else.”
“But—” Josie said.
“But nothing. I’m tired, Josie. In the words of a very wise and wonderful bar owner of my acquaintance—you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
* * *
“Must you always call so late?” Bullert asked.
“I forgot. Government work is strictly nine-to-five.”
“You’re a funny guy, McKenzie.”
“You know what, you’re the second person who told me that tonight.”
“Talk to me.”
“We’re getting close.”
“How close.”
/>
My explanation included an almost verbatim account of my conversation with John Brand.
“I can get my people in place in just a few hours,” Bullert said.
“The fewer hours the better. When this happens, I think it’ll happen in a hurry.”
Bullert explained exactly what he wanted me to do once I received the call from Brand.
“No problem,” I said. “Except…”
“Except what?”
“Brand can’t be trusted.”
“Kinda goes without saying, doesn’t it?”
“What I mean is, we should have a Plan B.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me.”
I did—in glorious detail. I was right. He didn’t like it.
“Not a chance,” Bullert asked.
“Before you say no, talk to Finny.”
“Who?”
“Assistant U.S. Attorney James R. Finnegan.”
“You and your nicknames. Fine. I’ll talk to him in the morning. I guarantee, he’s not going to like it any more than I do.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Just for argument’s sake, though—what will you need from us to make this happen?”
“Besides immunity? You’re not going to like that, either.”
TWELVE
My eyes snapped open the way they do when you hear a noise that shouldn’t be there, and I reached under the pillow for the SIG Sauer. My hands were closing around the butt when I heard her voice.
“I’m sorry, did I startle you?”
I released the gun.
“Dammit, Josie. What are you doing here?”
Josie sat on the foot of the bed. I rolled on my back and looked up at her. After I had shooed everyone out of the cabin the previous night, I retired to the master bedroom. Now a bright sun was shining through the window, giving her face a near-beatific aura, and it occurred to me that when we first met I didn’t think she was particularly attractive.
You must have caught her in the wrong light, my inner voice said.
“We need to talk,” she said.
I grabbed a fistful of sheet and blanket and pulled them up around my chest. “What time is it?” I asked.
“Little before eight.”
“In the morning? Josie, one of the reasons a guy might turn to a life of crime is so he doesn’t have to get up early.”
“Eight o’clock is early?”
“What do you want?”
“I’m worried.”
“Suddenly you’re worried…”
“Are you awake?”
“What? Yes, I’m awake.”
“You sound cranky.”
“JoEllen…”
“I like that you call me that. Almost no one ever does.”
“I have a gun. I will shoot you.”
“Are you one of those people that need a cup of coffee before they can start the day? I’ll make it.”
“No, no, no,” I said. “I’ll make it.” I swung my legs off the edge of the bed even while gathering the sheet and blanket around my waist. “Give me a minute to take a shower and get dressed.”
“If you’re going to do that, I’m going to go jump in the lake.”
“Yeah, you do that.”
Josie stood and started pulling off her scoop-neck shirt to reveal a bikini top. I averted my eyes but not before I noticed that her face wasn’t the only place that had freckles. All the while my inner voice chanted, She plays ball in a different league, she plays ball in a different league …
Forty-five minutes later I was clean, shaved, and dressed. Josie was sitting at the kitchen table. Her hair was damp and clung to her neck and shoulders; her bottom was wrapped in a beach towel, but her top was exposed. Again I tried not to stare. She took a sip from her coffee mug.
“How do you make such good coffee?” she asked. “You use the same ingredients I do, yet your coffee tastes so much better than mine.”
“It’s a gift,” I said. I filled my own mug and joined her at the table. “I’m awake, I’m dressed, my gun’s in the bedroom—what worries you, JoEllen?”
“John Brand worries me.”
“As well he should.”
“You don’t trust him, do you?”
“About as far as I could throw this cabin.”
“Are you really going to give him a million dollars.”
“I didn’t promise him a million dollars. I promised him a third of the take. I expect it to be closer to half a million.”
“Oh.”
“No need to tell him that, though, is there?”
“No. No, I guess not. What if…”
“He tries to rip us off?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry about it. I have it covered.”
“Something else.”
“Hmm?”
“The sheriff deputies—Dyson, how did they know where we would be when they pulled us over the other day? You don’t think it was a coincidence, do you?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences. On the other hand, they do happen. They happen all the time.”
“What does that mean?”
“Don’t be paranoid.”
“There’s a spy, Dyson. Someone in my family. Or Claire—I don’t think of her as a member of the family. Someone, anyway, someone who was in the cabin when we left. Someone who—”
“That’s what I mean by paranoid.”
“Are you saying it’s not true?”
“Sweetie, even the bartender at Buckman’s knows I’m here. You don’t think the deputies knew? They probably were on the lookout for me, waiting for a chance to have a private conversation.” I quoted the word “private” with my fingers. “If they rousted me in front of witnesses, they’d have to bring me in, and they didn’t want to do that. Too much paperwork. They saw us on the road, and there you go. Simple.”
“Are you sure?”
Hell no, my inner voice said. I wasn’t sure—nowhere close to it. The very last thing I needed, though, was for the Iron Range Bandits to start pointing fingers at each other. When the time came, I would do all the pointing that was necessary.
“Yes, I am,” I said aloud.
She stared at her coffee mug for a few beats. “Don’t call me sweetie,” she said.
“My mistake.”
“I like that you call me JoEllen, though.”
“So you said.”
“You shouldn’t—you should be careful about calling me that when other people are around.”
“Why, if you like it?”
“That’s what my ex-fiancé sometimes called me, and people might get the wrong impression.”
“Are you afraid they might think that you and I are … Wait a minute. Ex-fiancé?” I saw it then, the look in her eyes. It was like when you catch someone watching you at a party and they quickly look away, pretending that they weren’t watching at all. “You lied to me. You’re not gay. Or even bi, for that matter. Are you?”
“No.”
“What the hell?”
“You were getting all anxious and concerned and, I don’t know, guyish.”
“Guyish?”
“You know what I mean, the way guys behave when they’re around women.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Admit it, you were being guyish.”
“I don’t admit it, and even if I was—so?”
“I thought it would be best if I took it off the table, given the stakes and everything.”
“Tell me—given the stakes and everything, why are you putting it back on the table now?” She didn’t answer the question, so I did. “You’re the one behaving guyish, girlish, whatever, not me.”
“Am I?”
“Put your shirt back on.”
She glanced down at her chest and back up at me. “Why?”
“You know damn well why.”
“Explain it to me.”
“No. No. T
his is not happening. This cannot happen. Remember what I told you before? Double it.”
“You mean about wanting a slice of Dyson pie?”
I was standing next to the door of the cabin with no idea how I had gotten there. “Stop it,” I said. “C’mon, now.”
“I like you, Dyson. It’s as simple as that. Do you like me?”
“No.”
“For a macho professional thief, you sure are a terrible liar.”
“JoEllen…”
She smiled at the sound of her own name. “Nick,” she said. “We’re both adults.”
“Who says?”
“We could take the pontoon out on the lake—”
The noise of heavy footsteps on the steps of the deck outside cut her short. I stepped away from the door. A few moments later Skarda walked in.
“Hi, Dave,” Josie said. She was standing next to the coffeemaker. She was now wearing her shirt; the towel was still wrapped around her hips. “Do you want some coffee?”
“No.”
“Dyson made it.”
“Maybe a half a cup, then.”
I was standing in front of Jimmy’s map. “What brings you here?” I asked.
“I had nowhere else to go,” Skarda said.
“Liz?”
“Liz wonders what’s going to happen afterward. She wonders—I’m an escaped fugitive and she wonders what’s going to happen to us.”
You’re going to prison, I told myself. As soon as the ATF gets the guns off the border every law enforcement agency in the region is going to swoop down on you and the other bandits—and there’s nothing I can do about it. The thought made me feel low. I turned my attention back to the map so I wouldn’t have to look at him or his sister.
“One problem at a time,” I said.
“I could go to Canada with you,” Skarda said.
“No,” Josie said. She moved to the living room and handed Skarda his cup of coffee. “You can go to Canada, but not with him. Isn’t that right, Dyson? You told me yourself, you’re here for the money, and once you get it, you’re out the door and down the street and you won’t be coming back.”
“Something like that,” I said.
“And you prefer not to leave any misunderstandings behind.”
“None.”
Josie lifted both of her hands the way some people do when they’re about to ask a question and then let them fall to her sides. “I need to get dressed,” she said. A moment later she disappeared into the bedroom.
The Last Kind Word Page 19