The Last Kind Word (11 page)

“Where have you been?” Josie wanted to know the moment Skarda and I started up the steps that led to the deck.

“Silver Bay,” Skarda said. “We were watching.”

“I told you to stay here.”

“You're lucky we didn't. The cops came just as you were leaving the parking lot. If it wasn't for Dyson, they would have caught you.”

There was a murmur of voices. Josie turned to me. “Is that true?” she asked.

“More or less,” I said.

“Did any of you know that Silver Bay had a police force?” Skarda asked. “Did you know that the police station was five hundred yards away from the shopping mall? You could see it from the parking lot.”

“I only know that we took $2,347,” Roy said. “A lousy $2,347. That's $469 each.”

“And they say crime doesn't pay,” I said.

“I need more than that,” Jimmy said. “I have a townhouse to pay for. I'm getting married.”

“No one gives a shit about your problems,” Roy said. His face was flushed with anger and alcohol.

“Shut up, Roy,” Josie said.

“You shut up. This is your fault. You're the one who picked the supermarket. $469. We can't live on that.”

“None of us can,” Jimmy added.

“What are we going to do?” the old man asked. He had been standing at the railing and now moved to a frayed lawn chair at the head of the picnic table. He lowered himself into it the way the elderly sit when they're afraid something might break. He sure got old in a hurry, I thought.

“Ask your daughter,” Roy said.

“Josie,” the old man said. “Josie, what are we going to do?”

“I don't know,” Josie said. She turned her back to the people on the deck, leaned against the railing, and stared out at the lake.

“I knew I should have kept the marijuana farm,” Jimmy said. “Out in the forest, on public land, no one around to bother you. I would have had a huge crop by now.”

“You would have been in prison by now,” Roy said. “You rode around in an old Cadillac so everyone would think you were a player.”

“I told you, that was all about marketing.”

“No one in this family is going to deal drugs,” Josie said.

“This is better?” Jimmy asked.

“It would have been okay if you had gotten there half an hour earlier,” Skarda said.

“What are you talking about?” Jimmy asked.

I went to the cooler, lifted the lid, retrieved a can of beer, and closed it while Skarda answered.

“An armored truck picked up all the money just before you arrived. We were going to warn you, but it was too late,” he said.

“Is that true?” Roy wanted to know.

“You didn't do your homework,” I said. I reached for the two bags and looked inside. They both contained personal checks made out to the grocery store as well as some receipts.

How are these people not in jail?
my inner voice asked.
They're not even smart enough to destroy incriminating evidence.

“Maybe it's a sign,” Jill said. “Maybe it's someone telling us we should quit. We should stop doing this.”

Roy cursed and raised his hand to hit her. Jill made no attempt to escape. Instead, she cringed, raised one shoulder and ducked her head behind it as if she knew exactly where the blow would fall, and screwed her eyes tight in anticipation. Rushmore McKenzie wanted to step in to protect the girl. Nick Dyson did nothing.
Stay in character, stay in character,
my inner voice chanted. Fortunately, the blow didn't fall. Roy simply cursed again and turned away. I opened the beer and took a long sip.

“What we should have done,” Skarda said, “was rob the armored truck. Dyson said the guards were sloppy. He said we could have taken it with a slingshot.”

“That's not what I said, not exactly anyway,” I told him.

Josie turned to face me. “How much money does an armored car carry?” she asked.

“Depends on the customers,” I said. “Sometimes millions, sometimes only a few hundred thousand dollars.”

“A few hundred thousand,” Jimmy said. “That would be more than enough.”

“Forget it,” I said. “You guys can't even stick up a supermarket properly.”

“You can teach us,” Josie said.

“Me? I'm just passing through, remember? I'm going to Canada.”

“With only four hundred and sixty-nine dollars?” Jimmy asked.

“Josie insisted we give you a share, I don't know why,” Roy said. “Jimmy's right, though. How far do you think you'll get on four hundred and sixty-nine dollars?”

“I'll get more,” I said.

“How?” Josie asked. “With what? A stolen car? A deputy's gun?”

“It's a start.”

“You're on the run, remember? Every cop in the state is looking for you.”

“Dyson, you said it would be easy,” Skarda told me.

“No, I didn't,” I said. “Listen to me. Forget what I said about the local cops before. You hit an armored truck—that's a federal beef. The FBI investigates whenever federally insured money is stolen, and they never stop looking for you. Never. They're worse than the frickin' Mafia. When they catch you—there's no parole system for federal prisoners, no time off for good behavior. They'll convict your ass for aggravated bank robbery with a deadly weapon—which is how they look at armored truck heists, like they were bank robberies. You could draw a sentence all the way up to twenty years, and you'll serve every single day.”

“You said—”

“I didn't say, Dave. You weren't listening. That's the problem, you guys don't listen. Jimmy didn't listen about the automatic. Roy doesn't listen to anything. You think you're hardened criminals. You're not. We're talking about real cops and robbers now, and people can get killed.”

“You can teach us,” Josie repeated.

“C'mon.”

“What about it, tough guy?” Roy said. “You're supposed to be this criminal mastermind. What about it? Are you chicken?”

“You're damn right I am.”

“Dyson,” Jimmy said. “You told us about the FBI and all that. What's the upside? There's always an upside, isn't there?”

“You mean besides the money? The FBI has never solved more than thirty or forty percent of the armored truck robberies committed in any given year, so the odds are slightly in your favor. Unlike with a bank, there's little chance that the money will be marked. Also, you get to hit the truck at a time and place of your own choosing. If you work it right, you can do it where there are no witnesses. Or at least fewer witnesses than in a bank—no tellers, cashiers, customers, no security cameras. The problem is, it's an armored truck, emphasis on armored. The only way to get into the rear compartment where they keep the money is with a carefully guarded key, which requires an inside man that we don't have, or with explosives. Have you ever seen
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
where they accidentally blow up the train? You want to avoid that, which means the best way to do it is when the guards are outside the truck. Except these guys are macho men. They're like Roy here; they all think they're tougher than Israeli commandos. You can't expect them to give up the money without a tussle.”

“It can be done, though,” Skarda said.

“If it's done right.”

“You can teach us,” Josie said. “You need real money. We need real money. We can do this together.”

“Sounds like a marriage made in heaven,” Skarda said.

“Shut up, Dave,” I said.

“Dyson.” I turned to face Roy as he spoke. “I don't like you, but if you agree to help us, I'll do everything you tell me to do. No arguments.”

Will you stop beating your wife?
my inner voice asked.

“We will all do what you tell us,” Josie said.

I looked at them, one after another, my gaze sweeping from Josie to Skarda to Jimmy to the old man to Roy and finally to Jill. She was the only one who didn't look me in the eye.

“Roy,” I said. “The AK-47. Where did you get it?”

“That's for me to know.”

“Well, we're off to a great start.”

“Roy,” Josie snapped. “Tell him.”

“I can't say.”

Can't or won't?
my inner voice asked.

“Unlike what you might have heard, we're not going to do this with slingshots,” I said. “We're going to need firepower. Maybe AKs, maybe more—we might even need plastic explosives, Semtex 10, I don't know yet. The question is, can you get it or are you just blowing smoke?”

“I can get it.”

“How much lead time do you need?”

“I don't know.”

“What do you know?”

“It's going to be expensive.”

“It always is. When the time comes, I'll need to meet with your people. I don't know what kind of relationship you have with them, and I certainly don't want to put you on the spot, but if this is going to happen, I'll need a face-to-face. Can you arrange that?”

“I think so.”

“Okay.”

“We're going to do this, then?” Josie asked.

Off in the distance I could hear Bobby Dunston laughing.

*   *   *

The evening after I met Harry, Bullert, and Finnegan at Rickie's, I went to Bobby's house in Merriam Park, the blue-collar neighborhood in St. Paul where we were both raised. Bobby bought the house from his parents when they retired to a lake home in Wisconsin; growing up I had spent almost as much time there as he had.

“This is insane,” he told me while I paced the living room floor. Shelby Dunston was sitting on a blue mohair chair in the corner, her right leg tucked beneath her. Nina sat like that sometimes, I could never figure out why.

“You're not seriously considering doing this?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah…”

“McKenzie, you're not police anymore. You would be so exposed.”

“That's why I have the letter explaining my actions on behalf of the Justice Department, why I had Finnegan sign it—five copies. One to you, one to G. K., one to Kelly Bressandes—”

“That tramp?” Shelby said.

“The others I've squirreled away for safekeeping. Nina insisted.”

“I don't understand. Why do you need the letters?”

While Nina was a dark beauty, Shelby was all sunshine and windswept wheat fields. Nina's most dominant feature was those astonishing eyes. With Shelby it was her smile—the kind of smile that could encourage even the most conservative of us to do no end of foolish things. God knows I had. I met her at a party in college about three minutes before Bobby bumped into her, spilling a drink on her dress. It had pretty much been widely accepted that if Bobby hadn't married her, I would have. Bobby and I had never spoken of this, probably the only subject we hadn't discussed at great length since meeting in kindergarten. On the other hand, he asked me to be best man at his wedding and godfather to his eldest daughter, tolerated it when I spoiled both Victoria and Katie with ridiculous gifts, and thanked me when I made them the sole heirs to my estate, such as it was. From that I gathered he wasn't particularly anxious about my relationship with his wife, which, when you think about it, was kind of insulting.

“Have you ever seen
Mission Impossible,
the TV series, not the movie?” I asked. “You know that line they always say, ‘Should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions'? The letters are to make sure that doesn't happen to me.”

“They won't necessarily protect you,” Bobby told me. “I don't care if Finnegan is an assistant U.S. attorney. No one can give you permission to break the law.”

“That's what G. K. said. Really, though, is it any different than busting a dealer and then letting him work it off, wear a wire while he makes a couple of buys from suspects higher up on the food chain?”

“The dealer might not be arrested for those specific crimes, the ones he commits while he's helping the cops, but that doesn't mean he's going to get a free pass for everything else he does. What I'm saying is, there are limits, McKenzie. If you cross too far over the line”—he waved the letter at me—“this isn't going to be worth the paper it's printed on.”

“Point taken.”

“Do you want my advice?”

“Always.”

“Grow up.”

“That's a pretty tough thing to do, Bobby. It's why so few people succeed at it.”

*   *   *

I moved to the railing and gazed out on Lake Carl. The setting sun made the calm water sparkle. It occurred to me that wetting a line wasn't such a bad idea, but I ignored the thought and spun to face the six people on the deck. They were all staring at me—Jill included.

“We'll look into the possibility,” I said. “I'm making no promises until we sort it out. No promises, all right? But we'll take a look to see if there's anything there, see what we have to work with. In the meantime, no more jobs. No more crimes. No guns. No fights. No heavy drinking. I want you all to become model citizens; go through your day as if nothing is happening. You'll be given your assignments as we go.”

“What do we do first?” Jimmy asked.

“You mean besides getting a better grade of beer? We're going to find an armored truck to rob.”

 

SIX

It was easy to justify my behavior to myself. I was getting the Iron Range Bandits off the street—no thefts, no guns, no danger to themselves or their potential victims. I would go through the motions of organizing a stickup until everyone was comfortable, I would convince Roy to lead me to his friendly neighborhood gunrunner, and then I would turn the lot of them over to the ATF, FBI, BCA, Silver Bay PD, county sheriff, and whoever else wanted a piece. In the meantime, I wouldn't be compelled to participate in any criminal activities myself, which would please Bobby Dunston no end. The more I thought about it, the more clever I felt. Not to mention quick-witted, resourceful, and ingenious. I went to bed thinking I was smarter than Ernest Hamwi, the man who first thought to serve ice cream in rolled-up waffles. When I woke the next morning, I was just as impressed with myself.