The Last Kind Word (22 page)

My head was starting to ache almost as badly as my stomach, but the old man wasn't finished.

“Liz said she wasn't going to spend any more time in a cabin with someone like Claire. She leaves, slamming the door behind her, and Dave follows her out, trying to calm her down. Claire announces that she's tired of being insulted by a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites, which was the word she used—sanctimonious. Said whatever we thought about what she did for a living, it was a whole lot better than holding up liquor stores. So she grabs the kid and leaves—slams the door, too—which causes Jimmy to start chasing after her. That leaves Jill screaming at Roy for being no kind of man because one, he punched her brother and two, he went to see that whore Claire dancing naked. Finally she leaves and Roy follows her out, saying how sorry he is.”

“Okay,” I said. “Only why single out Roy? From what you said when I came in…”

“Before he left he pointed at me, pointed a finger right in my face, and said everyone in my family was crazy. I don't take that from anybody.”

“Old man, everybody in your family is crazy.” I gestured at Josie. “You most of all.”

“You're just out of sorts right now,” she said. “You'll feel better in the morning.”

“Do you have your cell?”

“Yes.”

“Let me talk to Roy.”

Josie dialed her phone and handed it to me. It was answered by Jill. I asked her how she was.

“Just fabulous,” she said.

“Really? I heard you and Roy were on the outs again.”

“Dyson, do you know what's the best kind of sex? Make-up sex.”

“Way too much information, Jillian. Let me speak to your husband.”

A moment later Roy was on the phone.

“Did you do any recon work while you were in uniform?” I asked him.

“Some.”

“Tomorrow starting early, you and I are going to do an all-day surveillance of the building Jimmy found near Lake Vermilion.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Not tonight?”

“No.”

“Good,” he said, and hung up.

I handed the phone back to Josie. “Looks like everyone is getting lucky tonight but us.”

“Speak for yourself, big boy,” she said, and patted my knee. “Dad, I have to go down to Virginia tonight. Need a lift home before I leave?”

It turned out he did. Twenty minutes later I was alone in the cabin with Jimmy's map still perched on the back of the sofa. I stared at it for a while, went to the refrigerator for a Leinenkugel, returned to my seat, and stared at it some more, while I wondered what to do next—it's what I call multitasking. Half a beer later I removed the secret cell phone from my pocket, called directory assistance, and had them connect me with Buckman's roadhouse. When the bartender answered the phone I said, “This is Mc— Dyson.”

“Who?”

“Nick Dyson,” I answered.

Dammit, you nearly used your real name,
my inner voice reminded me.
Focus.

“Yeah, what do you need?” the bartender asked.

“Got a minute to talk?”

“Yeah, a minute.”

“Hear anything about Fenelon? Has he been around?”

“Yeah, he's been in. He was talking to—well, I guess that would be interesting.”

“What?”

“He was real chummy with John Brand?”

“Who's he?”

“He's kind of a gangster.”

“Oh, God, not another one.”

“Up here, he's like, he's into a lot of things. He's on the Ely City Council and he owns a couple of businesses, a couple of outfitters, the strip club where Fenelon's girl works, Claire de Lune. They say he used to control all the gambling in the region right up until the Indians opened the casino at Fortune Bay and took most of the profit outta it. Now they say anyone up here dealing drugs or sellin' girls, he gets a piece. At least that's what they say. Don't know for sure. I do know he got busted a while back, got busted for running stolen car parts across the border and launderin' the profits through his businesses. Only right after the charges were filed they went away and nothing came of it, so I guess up here he's the closest thing we got to a gangster.”

“What were he and Fenelon talking about?”

“Couldn't say, cuz they, whenever I got close to the table to serve 'em their drinks, they'd stop talking. Heard 'em say only one thing, don't know how interesting it is.”

“What?”

“Brand—he's into everything, like I say, and people say, they say he always wants to put his ‘brand' on everything, you know what I mean?”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘My toys, my rules.'”

“I can see how he might take that attitude. Anything else?”

The bartender said nothing came to mind. I finished our conversation by telling him to keep his ears open and promising that he would see some money, soon. Afterward, I punched
LUNATIC
into the keypad of my cell—the word seemed to become more and more appropriate as we went along. Chad Bullert answered on the fourth ring. I gave him a quick update on my plans. He seemed pleased, although not for long.

“I need twenty-five hundred in cash,” I told him.

“Why?”

“Down payment on an informant,” I explained, and then gave him the details. He agreed to have someone stash the money at the Chocolate Moose, where I could pick it up the next evening, but not before chiding, “You're pretty free with the government's money.”

“Do you know how much I pay in taxes?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah … Do you think John Brand is connected to the guns?”

“More likely him than Fenelon. The bit about smuggling car parts across the border intrigues me.”

“What else do you know about him?”

“He has political connections.”

“So do we. I'll look into it.”

“You might also want to look at a couple of bent sheriff deputies named Eugene James and Allen Williams while you're at it.”

“Why?”

I explained.

“They know who you are,” Bullert said. “At least they know you're Dyson.”

“Yep.”

“They know what you're planning. They even knew you would be out on Highway 1—pulling you over the way they did, that wasn't a coincidence.”

“Nope.”

“McKenzie, you have a spy in your crew.”

“Uh-huh.”

There was a long pause, and for the second time that day I was afraid I had dropped his call. Finally Bullert asked, “What are you going to do?”

“I know what I'd like to do.”

“Yes, but what are you
going
to do?”

“If Brand really is Fenelon's gun connection, I doubt he'll wait for my call. He'll come to me at a time and place of his own choosing. He'll make sure he has the advantage.”

“And then what?”

“And then I'll call you.”

Bullert paused for a moment before saying something I didn't expect. “I really appreciate everything you're doing, McKenzie. I know it's not easy. I just want to say thank you.”

“Stop it, Chad. I'm starting to get misty-eyed over here.”

“Harry was right. You are a pain in the ass.”

 

ELEVEN

Roy and I never walked “around” the white building. Instead, we would creep up to the edge of the clearing, take our photographs, then edge straight back until we melted into the thick forest. After we were comfortably out of sight, we would move to our left forty or fifty yards and do it again, crawling on our forearms, knees, and the inside of our feet in a straight line while always being careful to keep our asses down. The first time we did it, I moved all the way up to the line where the field met the trees. Roy cursed under his breath and grabbed my leg, dragging me backward on my stomach until I was about five yards deep in the woods. “Relax,” I told him as I rolled on my back and started working the camera from its case. Roy leaned over and whacked me on the top of the head.

“Stop moving,” he hissed—actually hissed. He stole the camera case from my hands and motioned for me to follow him—on hands and knees and stomach—back down the trail. Once he determined we were safe, he spoke low and harshly.

“You don't move,” he said. “You don't wave arms and legs and camera cases in the air. Movement is what catches the eye. Movement is how the enemy sees you. Haven't you ever been hunting?”

I assured him that I had. I don't think he believed me.

“You're a real desperado, aren't you, Dyson? Fucking amateur is what you are; don't even know how to walk in the goddamn woods without being seen. You think you know my business? You don't know shit. Now you're going to do exactly what I tell you exactly when I tell you or I'm going to leave you here.”

He didn't like the smile on my face, but I couldn't help myself, his lecture was so similar to the one I had given him in the cabin before the Silver Bay raid.

“You've been holding that in for quite a while, haven't you?” I said.

“A little bit, yeah,” he said. Now he was smiling, too.

“Tell me what to do.”

“Get your camera out now,” he said. “Be ready by the time we're in position. No sudden movements of any kind, I don't care if a horsefly the size of an Apache gunship parks in your ear. Don't even take deep breaths. No talking.”

“Yes, sir.”

I followed Roy back toward the clearing. He spent as much time looking behind him as he did looking forward. We found a position with an unobstructed view of both the gate and the front and side of the remote vault. From there I was able to take photos of all the cars that entered the compound, emphasis on their license plates. Assorted vehicles started arriving at 8:00
A.M.
They'd roll up to the gatehouse, the drivers would lean out the window and punch a code into the keypad, the arm would rise, and they would motor down to the building, parking with their front bumpers nearly kissing the white brick. Afterward, the drivers would move to the gray metal door and punch a code into another keypad, wait a moment, then yank the door open. Three of the drivers were outfitted in crisp, clean guard uniforms. The others dressed as if they were planning on cleaning out their garages.

“It's dirty work handling money,” I whispered. It was the first time I'd spoken since Roy's lecture and I was surprised he didn't whack me on the head again. Maybe he didn't hear. “These people, there should be several containers of baby wipes on the tables where they count the money so they can clean off the black, waxy film that covers their fingers. It's the reason bank tellers take so many sick days; they get ill from all the germs on the money they handle.”

“Huh,” Roy grunted.

I guess he did hear me.

An armored truck arrived at exactly 9:03
A.M.
I wrote down the time in a small notebook. It had the name Mesabi Security printed on the side, except unlike the other trucks I had seen, this one was all shiny and new. It rolled up the gate and paused. The arm rose without the driver punching a code into the keypad. The truck followed the road leading to the remote vault, veered off near the end, circled the white building, and came to a stop in front of the large metal garage door. The door rolled up slowly; the truck went through it and stopped. I could see the rear bumper as the door slowly closed.

“Bandit trap,” I whispered. “Series of rooms. Impossible to open a door to the room in front of you without locking the door behind you first. Digital cameras cover each of the traps. If a door is left open for more than twenty seconds or so, alarms go off.”

“Hmm,” Roy said.

At 9:29, the armored truck exited the building from a door on the far side of the remote vault, circled the building till it reached the road, and drove toward the gate. The arm went up before the truck reached it. The truck didn't even slow down, and it soon disappeared down the narrow dirt road. At 10:33, the first of the armored trucks from the Krueger terminal arrived, followed by the second truck at 10:38.

“The money handlers are loading cassettes with twenty-dollar bills that they took from the first armored truck,” I said. “The guards in these trucks will take the cassettes and load them into ATM machines along their route.”

This time Roy didn't even grunt.

Both of the Mesabi Security trucks were gone by 11:15
A.M.
Fifteen minutes later, half of the employees working in the remote vault left, too. They drifted back at about noon, and the other half left. Everyone was on hand at 1:30
P.M.
when the third armored truck arrived. That truck departed at about 2:05, and a few minutes later, most of the employees left, too. We remained in our position, unmoving, until 3:00
P.M.
Afterward, we slowly and cautiously worked our way around the white building, approaching it from different angles, taking several photographs. When we reached the backside of the building, I was surprised to see what appeared to be a narrow abandoned road that moved from the forest right up to the cyclone fence. Yet there was no opening in the fence.

“Probably used it when they were building the place,” Roy said.

“For what?”

To find out, we carefully followed the road—without actually stepping on it—to the banks of what I thought was a river. Roy explained my mistake.

“More like a creek,” he said. “I don't even think it has a name. It winds down from Lake Vermilion.”

It was about twenty feet wide.

“How deep is it?” I asked.

Roy didn't know, so I walked into it. The creek was knee-deep near the bank and sloped until it came to my waist at the center; the water saturated the hem of the dark blue Minnesota Timberwolves sweatshirt I had borrowed from Dave Skarda. I cursed silently when I realized I had forgotten the cell phone in my pocket. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about it without Roy seeing. I followed the creek toward Lake Vermilion. There were no obstructions that I could find. I stood at the mouth of the creek where it opened onto Pike Bay. Beyond the bay, the forty-mile-long lake with its 365 islands beckoned.