The Last Kind Word (24 page)

“Why the attitude, John? I'm trying to let you in on a very good thing here and you're giving me attitude. Hey, man, you came to me, remember? Look, if you want in, you're in, if you want out, you're out. The AKs and plastic explosives, hell, I can pick that up almost anywhere.”

“This is my town.”

“There you go again.”

Fenelon cleared his throat. “Maybe we should—”

“Shut up, Brian,” Brand said.

“Yeah, Brian,” I said. “John and I are talking here.”

“Don't call me John,” Brand said.

I let my shoulders sag as if I were conceding the point. “Mr. Brand, please.” I gestured toward his chair. He sat down and made himself comfortable.

No time like the present,
my inner voice told me.

“Roy,” I said.

Roy rose slowly from the sofa.

The big man standing at the door spun toward him, his back to me. “Don't be stupid,” he said, although he did not raise his gun.

Brand was also watching. “You heard him,” he said. “Sit down.”

I stood quickly, pulling the kitchen table up with me and pushing it forward. The edge of the table hit Brand in the center of his chest. I kept pushing until Brand, his chair, and the table toppled over. He landed backward hard against the floor and I used the table to pin him there. Someone screamed. I reached down and yanked the wheel gun out of his slacks. The big man was pivoting toward me, still holding the gun low. I was quicker. I brought the revolver up and snapped a shot toward him. Someone screamed again. The round drilled a surprisingly large hole in the wooden cabin door. Splinters from it tore into the big man's cheek and ear, and I thought, damn, that was closer than I intended. I nearly shot him in the face.

Oh, well,
my inner voice said.

“Drop it,” I said aloud.

He hesitated. Blood dripped down his temple and cheek and stained his shirt collar.

“Do I look like I'm playing?”

The big man stooped slowly forward and carefully set the gun on the floor. He stood, again moving slowly, and put his hands behind his head without being asked to. Not once did he touch his face to inspect the wounds, which impressed the hell out of me. Most people would have been whimpering in pain by now, myself included.

“Roy,” I said again.

He crossed the living room, took up the handgun, and whipped the big man across the jaw with it. The big man fell to his knees in the same way Roy had and cradled his face in his hands. Jill screamed Roy's name—I didn't know if it was she who made all the noise earlier or not. Roy was going to hit the big man again. I asked him not to.

“An eye for an eye,” I said.

“What?” he asked.

“Enough already.”

I turned my attention back to Brand, who had managed to ease the table off of his chest. I gestured at Fenelon, and he helped me put the table upright. Before that he hadn't moved a muscle. I suspected Brand would both remember and comment on that, later. Still, Fenelon did have the presence of mind to help lift Brand back into his chair. I sat across from him.

“Shoot him,” the old man said from the living room. “Shoot the bastard.”

“Now, now, now,” I said. I began to spin the wheel gun around by the trigger guard in front of me, acting as indifferent as I could manage. “Let's not get crazy.”

Brand's eyes went from the handgun to my face. He smiled. “Why don't you shoot me?” he asked.

I wasn't impressed by his nonchalance. After all, I had done the same thing myself when the big man threw down on me earlier. I stopped spinning the gun, making sure the muzzle was pointed at Brand.

“We're businessmen conducting negotiations,” I said. “No one actually intended to shoot anybody. Am I right? The guns are all for show.”

Brand shrugged. He and I believed it, although a quick glance around the room told us that nobody else did.

“Now, Mr. Brand,” I said, emphasizing the “Mr.” “Three AK-47s, eight magazines, four Kevlar vests, eight ounces of Semtex 10—I'll settle for C-4 if that's all you have. What else? Two blasting caps.”

“Detonators?” he asked.

“I'll make my own.”

“How resourceful of you.”

“Can you get all that or not?”

“I can get it.”

“When?”

“I won't know until I make a call.”

“Fair enough. Are there really Mexicans on the Canadian border?”

“Why not? It's a free country. Canada, I mean.”

“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.