FIFTEEN

Southdale Center is the oldest enclosed shopping mall in the country and home to over one hundred twenty specialty stores. It was built in Edina, one of Minnesota’s richest suburbs, before I was born and over the decades has become more or less the center of the city. A hospital, public library, courthouse, and city historical society have all been built within a stone’s throw of Southdale’s gigantic parking lot, not to mention countless professional offices, supermarkets, restaurants, bars, coffeehouses, bookstores, gas stations, auto repair shops, movie theaters, computer outlets, and, yes, a second shopping mall.

I sat next to the window inside one of the coffeehouses located between the two malls and looked out at the traffic moving recklessly through the parking lot. I wasn’t happy about that, sitting next to the window. I knew I made an inviting target for anyone driving by in an SUV armed with, say, a Ruger MP-9 submachine gun. Yet it was one of the conditions that Vicki demanded in return for meeting me. I might have argued with her except she insisted on ending our conversation in a hurry.

I was drinking a sixteen-ounce French vanilla almond coffee straight while resisting the impulse to set fire to the store’s PA system. It was playing an innocuous smooth-jazz cover of the Dizzy Gillespie classic “Groovin’ High,” surely an affront to civilized man. A good-looking black kid wearing a beige windbreaker with a blue lining moved past to a second table next to the window and sat facing me. Another good-looking kid, this one white and wearing a jacket in the green and red colors of the Minnesota Wild hockey team, sat at the table directly behind me. They were both about twenty, and each had ordered a coffee drink that was heaped with so much whipped cream and sprinkles he required a spoon with a long handle to “drink” it. I wondered briefly if the two of them were members of the same club.

Finally, Vicki Walsh arrived. She didn’t look around like someone who was expecting to meet a man she had never seen before. Certainly she didn’t look at me. Instead, she went directly to the barista and placed her order. I couldn’t help but notice that she had changed her hair color again. Her roses-and-wheat tresses were now brilliant blond and seemed to flash like a yellow caution light. There was no mistaking her brown eyes, though, or her pretty nineteen-going-on-fourteen face. She was wearing a short, thin violet-colored sweater over a long white tank top and blue jeans and carrying a small green leather handbag that didn’t match her outfit.

I watched until Vicki picked up her order, an ice-cream-and-coffee concoction that caused me to shake my head. Did kids these days even know what real coffee tasted like? Vicki glanced my way but did not acknowledge my presence. She moved with utter confidence, claiming the table closest to the door, and settled in.

What the hell, my inner voice said.

I picked up my coffee and stood. The two kids sitting on either side of me rose at the same time. My plan was to join Vicki at her table, but when I took a step toward her the white kid positioned himself to intercept me. He was smiling. The black kid moved to my left flank. He wasn’t smiling. I glanced at Vicki. She had produced a purple cell phone from her bag and was punching in numbers. A moment later, my prepaid cell rang. I answered.

“McKenzie—you are McKenzie?” she asked. Even over the cell her voice was like a silk nightgown. “I’d prefer that you remain seated at your table. I am taking no chances.”

“As you wish.”

I sat. The two bodyguards—if you could call them that—returned to their tables.

“What do you want, McKenzie?” Vicki asked.

“What did Caitlin tell you?”

“She said that Denny Marcus had been murdered.”

“Did she tell you how?”

I could see her hand squeezing the cell phone she held against her ear.

“She told me,” Vicki said. “Who killed him?”

“I think it was the Joes.”

“The Joes? Why?”

“Roberta Weltzin hired them to find you. Apparently they thought Denny knew where you were.”

“He didn’t.”

“I’m sure he told them that before he died.”

Vicki looked away. She continued to press the cell against her ear, yet did not speak. Her two friends looked at her as if they felt sorry for her, as if they both wanted to hold her in their arms and tell her it would be all right. They held their positions, though. I waited until she resumed the conversation.

“How could they have known about him?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I learned about him through your Facebook page.”

Vicki gritted her teeth and breathed through them.

“It’s my fault,” she said.

If I had been sitting next to her I might have patted her hand and told her that she was not to blame, that she couldn’t be held responsible for somebody else’s actions, and so on and so on. I wouldn’t have believed it, of course, but I might have said it.

“Why are you looking for me?” Vicki asked. “You don’t work for Roberta.”

It was ridiculous to keep speaking to her across the room over a cell phone. I couldn’t imagine why Vicki thought that would make her safe.

“You’re right to be cautious,” I said. “These two, though, they won’t be able to protect you.”

“They did all right the other day.”

“Were they the guys in the SUV? Are they the ones who shot up my car?”

“You didn’t answer the question, McKenzie. Why are you looking for me?”

“They’re your partners, too, aren’t they? They’ve been with you every step of the way, helping with Jason Truhler in Thunder Bay and all the rest.”

“Junior partners. You said Jason?”

“Truhler asked me to find you. He’s tired of paying your blackmail. I’m sure all of your victims are.”

“That just breaks my heart.”

“I thought it might.”

“Just out of curiosity, what is Jason paying you?”

“Why? Are you going to bid higher?”

“I just want to know.”

“He’s not paying me anything.”

“Why help him, then? You’re not his friend. Jason doesn’t have any friends.”

“I’m a friend of Erica’s.”

“Erica, Jason’s daughter? Yeah. I know her. I like her. She’s a sweetheart.”

“Yes, she is.”

I kept glancing from one of Vicki’s bodyguards to the other. They both now seemed more interested in their frilly coffee drinks than they were in what was going on around them. Amateurs, I thought.

“Does Erica know her old man is a pedophile?” Vicki asked.

“I don’t think it’s come up in conversation.”

“I actually thought about recruiting her, you know, recruiting her for Roberta. God knows she’s pretty enough, although I’m not sure how important that is to our clients. I decided against it, partly because I didn’t think she’d go for it, but mostly because Erica doesn’t look like someone you can take advantage of, and in our little market niche, that look is essential.”

“Who’s taking advantage of whom?”

I would have heard Vicki’s laugh even without the phone.

“I still can’t get over how easy it was,” she said. “The johns all wanted underage girls, expected underage girls. Yet they were all so very surprised when they learned that the girls really were underage.”

“How did you convince them of that?”

“I sent them copies of counterfeit student IDs. Naturally, Roberta told them it wasn’t true, but whom would you believe in a situation like that, Roberta or the IDs? Besides, I had photos. A picture is worth a thousand words. Lots of money, too.”

“What about Truhler?”

“Jason? Jason was my masterpiece. Jason knew me from fencing. Do you know he actually hit on me at a high school fencing meet? In front of his daughter? I knew the underage girl scam wouldn’t have worked with him, so I had to try something a bit more theatrical. If he had caught me, or called the police, something like that, I would have told him it was just a practical joke. Turned out it wasn’t a problem. He never even felt for a pulse, just ran as fast as he could. I had a good long laugh over that.”

“I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself.”

“My, don’t you look fierce when you’re being all self-righteous. Go ’head, tell me how much you pity all those poor family men who hire young girls for prostitutes. Tell me how your heart bleeds for each and every one.”

“I have no sympathy for them, Vicki. But what you’re doing…”

“I’m not losing any sleep over what I’m doing.”

“Why are you doing it?”

“For the money. Call it my college fund. Do you know how much it costs to go to a top-flight school these days? Cornell gets over fifty thousand a year after you add room and board. I couldn’t afford it when they accepted me. Now I can.”

“So quit. According to my calculations, you already have more than enough to go to Cornell.”

“Yeah, but not in style. Besides, money is only part of it.”

“Given who you’re dealing with, I’d say you’re playing an awfully dangerous game.”

“I have it under control.”

“Tell that to Denny Marcus.”

Vicki looked away again. I heard her gasp over the cell even as I saw her body cringe on the other side of the room, and for a moment, I thought she might actually start weeping. She didn’t. She closed her eyes, then opened them abruptly. When she spoke, it was again through gritted teeth.

“Do you know why most gamblers lose, McKenzie? It’s because they stay too long at the table, because they don’t know when to quit. I’m not greedy. One more round of collections and I’m through.”

“You might be through with your victims, but they won’t be through with you. They won’t forgive and they won’t forget. No matter where you go or what you do, they’ll still believe that you’re a threat to them.”

“They wouldn’t pay me if I weren’t a threat, now would they?”

“Vicki, I’m trying to help you.”

The way she laughed, I knew she didn’t believe me. I didn’t take it personally, though. I doubt she would have believed the pope when he did the benediction.

“Caitlin said that you said you could help me,” Vicki said. “I don’t need help. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“Because you offered and because you’re a friend of Erica’s, I’ll let Jason off the hook. Poof. See how easy that was? Now you can leave me alone.”

“It’s not enough, Vicki. Roberta and the Joes are still after you. They killed Denny Marcus, remember? They might go after other people who are close to you. Your mother. Caitlin. Your victims, they’re still after you. Some of them are scarier than the Joes. Then there’s a man named Muehlenhaus who’s scarier than all of them put together. Do you know who he is? He’s the prince of darkness, Vicki. He wants you, too, but I made a deal with him. If you give up the files you downloaded off of Roberta’s computer and whatever other incriminating material you have, he’ll let you keep your money, he’ll let you disappear, and he’ll see to it that you’re left alone.”

“Oh, please, McKenzie. We both know better than that. My files are the only things protecting me. Not knowing where they are or what’ll happen to them if they lay hands on me is what’s keeping my enemies at bay. If I give them up, it’ll be open season. I might as well paint a target on my forehead.”

“It might be your only chance.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Good-bye, McKenzie.”

Vicki deactivated her cell phone and dropped it into her bag. I stood and called to her across the coffeehouse. Her pals stood at the same time.

“You can trust Muehlenhaus,” I said.

The white kid slid between us. I might have done something about it except I couldn’t think of any reason why I should. Jason Truhler was off the hook, Vicki said so. That’s what I came for. As for Muehlenhaus, I delivered his message. That’s all I said I would do. I remained by the table. Vicki didn’t even bother giving me a backward glance. She stepped outside; the door of the coffeehouse closed slowly behind her. The black kid soon followed. A moment later, the white kid joined them. I watched the trio through the window. They stood in a tight circle and talked it over, a foolish thing for someone on the lookout to do. The two kids were looking at Vicki, oblivious to what was going on around them, another error in judgment. The lights of the parking lot were bright enough to play ball under, yet there were still plenty of shadows between parked vehicles where someone could be lurking. They should have been watching the shadows.

If Vicki’s bodyguards had been any good, their vehicle would have been close at hand, their route carefully mapped out, their itinerary already planned. One guard would have stayed with Vicki—inside the coffee shop—while the other inspected the vehicle and then brought it up. Transferring her to the vehicle would have been done swiftly and efficiently, and then the vehicle would have moved out. Instead, the three of them sauntered through the parking lot as if they didn’t have a care in the world, taking a circuitous path to their SUV parked nose-in in the third row—I recognized it as the vehicle that had ambushed me on Highway 61. It was yet another mistake. The SUV should have been parked to allow for a fast exit.

I didn’t hear the gunshot through the thick pane of glass.

The white kid took the round low in his shoulder, and the way the back of his green jacket exploded with blood made me think the bullet went straight through. He fell against a parked car and slowly slid down into a sitting position on the asphalt.

The black kid didn’t turn to face the threat or move to cover Vicki as he should have. Instead, he bent to help his friend. He took two rounds in his back that lifted him off his feet and threw him on top of the white kid.

By then I was out the door and moving up on the scene. I was shouting, “Get down, get down.” I found Vicki crouching between two parked cars and screaming. Her clothes were splattered with blood. The fact that she was still alive proved that she had been right—her enemies wanted her files as much as they wanted her. I didn’t see the killer, but I knew he was close at hand.

I automatically moved into a Weaver stance just as I had been trained to do at the police academy, the Beretta in my right hand, my left hand supporting it, my left arm close to my body, my head slightly bent to align the gun sights on the target. Only there was no target. Whoever had fired on Vicki and her bodyguards must have seen or heard me coming and backed off. I swung the gun slowly to my right and then to my left. Bystanders were gathering, attracted by Vicki’s screams like moths to a flame, yet I saw no one with a gun.

“Get up,” I said.

Vicki’s screams had become howls of anguish.

“Get up,” I repeated.

I reached down with my left hand, clutched her elbow, and pulled upward.

“Get up, dammit.”

She rose reluctantly. I had parked my Jeep Cherokee close to the door of the coffeehouse, where Vicki should have parked her SUV. I spun her toward it and gave her a push. She staggered but kept her feet.

“Go, go, go,” I said.

I kept swinging my gun right, then left, in a short, controlled arc, searching for a target, trying hard not to be distracted by the bodies on the pavement in front of me. Vicki was moving at a snail’s pace, her body racked with fear and sorrow. I turned, grabbed her arm above the elbow, and half pulled; half pushed her toward the car.

That’s when they shot me.

The bullet smacked high into my back between the shoulder blades. The force of it propelled me forward until I fell to my knees, yet it did not penetrate the Kevlar vest. Which isn’t to say that it didn’t hurt. I felt as if I had been hit by a fastball delivered by a pitcher with major league potential. Yet knowing that the vest worked, that it had stopped the bullet, made me feel wonderful.

I pivoted on my knees and looked behind me. A shadow was ducking down behind what appeared to be a Toyota Tercel, a subcompact I didn’t think they even made anymore. I threw four shots at it. The bullets smashed into the rear quarter panel where the shadow had fled. I was point shooting with one hand from the shoulder, a not particularly accurate firing position, yet if I missed it wasn’t by much.

Vicki had resumed screaming.

“You’re shot,” she said.

I thought it was nice that she noticed.

I scrambled to my feet and pulled her to the Cherokee. I opened the passenger door with my key and stuffed her inside, all while gazing behind me and sweeping the lot with the sight of my gun. I circled the SUV, keeping it between Vicki’s assailants and me until the last possible moment, then dashed to the driver’s door, opened it, and climbed inside.

I started up the vehicle and drove off. There was a maze of unmarked thoroughfares throughout the massive parking lot. I chose to ignore them. I threaded the vehicle through the spaces between parked cars until I found an opening. I hit the accelerator and aimed for the lot’s high curb. A curb can be easily jumped as long as you remember to hit it at about a forty-five-degree angle at a speed under forty-five miles per hour. The Cherokee made the jump and began skidding down a grassy hill toward the boulevard bordering France Avenue. Vicki bounced in her seat and her head banged against the roof of the Cherokee as we jumped another curb and landed on France heading in the wrong direction.

“Put on your seat belt,” I said.

Vicki started adding actual words to her cries.

“Oh my God, we’re going to be killed,” she said.

I wove around two vehicles coming straight at me and a third driven by a man who was smart enough to turn hard to his right while I cranked the wheel to mine, missing him, and pushing the Cherokee across the median into the proper lane. I accelerated hard even as I glanced through my side and rearview mirrors, searching for a trailing vehicle. Vicki fastened her safety harness.

“What is happening?” she asked.

“Who knew you were going to be at the coffeehouse?”

“No one.”

“Think.”

“No one.”

“Then you were followed.”

“We weren’t followed. We were extra careful. Sean and Tony—oh, God, Sean and Tony.” Up until then I didn’t know the kids had names. “They shot them. They shot them. Do you think they’re dead?”

I didn’t answer. By then I could see a high-performance German sedan coming up fast on my left in my sideview mirror, and I was starting to worry about me becoming dead. I was outmatched. My Jeep Cherokee was unstable. There was a very real chance that it could tip over when cornering at high speeds, unlike a vehicle with a low center of gravity and a powerful engine like, say, my Audi or whatever the hell the shooters were driving. Also, the Cherokee had four-wheel drive, which was swell for off-road excursions yet greatly reduced its acceleration. On the other hand, I didn’t just learn how to shoot at the police academy. I also learned how to drive.

The shooters were about two car lengths behind me when I swung the steering wheel of the Cherokee hard to the right, jumped another curb, careened across the lawn of a small office building, and ended up on a side street heading west. The shooters followed, yet by the time they made the turn I was already a full block in front of them. I was relieved to see that they weren’t leaning out the windows of their vehicle and spraying the street with bullets the way they do in the movies.

Not the Joes, my inner voice said. Professionals. They’re the guys who followed you last night.

The most important thing to remember in a high-speed pursuit—especially if you’re the one being pursued—is not to crash, because even if you survive the accident you’re going to be a sitting duck. That’s why high speeds are not recommended. By keeping your speedometer under sixty miles per hour, you’ll have greater control of your vehicle, and evasive maneuvers will be easier to accomplish. At least that’s what I was taught. ’Course, if I had a superior car, I would have been able to flat outrun the sonsabitches.

“I can’t believe you killed my Audi,” I said.

“What?” Vicki asked.

She was turned in her seat and staring out at our pursuers.

“Never mind,” I said.

“What are we going to do?”

“I’m working on it.”

I let the Cherokee drift to the far side of the narrow street as I approached the corner. I started braking the car, gradually at first, then more heavily, as I downshifted. I swung the steering wheel hard to my right again, making sure my tires were as close as possible to the inside edge of the corner as I turned, then stomped on the accelerator. It is a commonly held belief, sustained by most Hollywood action movies, that the best way to handle a corner is to blast through it. Not so. Any NASCAR fan will tell you that the speed at which you exit a corner is far more important than the speed at which you take the corner. If you don’t believe me, just ask the guys chasing us. Even though my taillights warned them in ample time to prepare for the turn, they still lost ground.

Unfortunately, they gained half of it back when a woman in a Subaru backed out of her driveway in front of the Cherokee, forcing me to brake nearly to a stop. Vicki screamed into my ear as I accelerated around the woman.

“I wish you would stop doing that,” I said.

The area of Edina located between France Avenue and Highway 100 on the east and west and Highway 62 and Interstate 494 on the north and south was mostly residential. There were plenty of high-priced houses, parks, and at least three lakes that I knew of. Most of the time it was a fairly quiet neighborhood. However, at six thirty on a Saturday night, it was alive with traffic. The Subaru wasn’t the only car I encountered. I had to ease around several others as well as avoid a handful of pedestrians. I turned on my high beams, but they didn’t help much. What I should have done was replace my sealed-beam headlights with quartz-iodine headlights that throw off twice the light and would have allowed me to see better at night. I should have bought the best radial tires money could buy and filled them with run-flat puncture repair foam in case they were shot. I should have invested in better shocks and springs. I should have paid the extra twenty thousand dollars to armor the Cherokee against a .30 caliber rifle round. My psychiatrist ex-girlfriend called such thinking hindsight bias, which was one of the reasons we broke up. She had an answer for everything.

Yet even without the extras, I continued to gain ground. I took a left, then a right, two more lefts, circled a lake, took another right and then a left again. Each time I felt the Cherokee listing precariously against the turn, yet it always remained on all four wheels.

Somewhere along the line, I lost the shooters. To make sure, I blasted through a stop sign and drove two blocks going the wrong way on a one-way street before I found a quiet avenue without streetlamps, parked, and shut down the Cherokee.

“What are we doing?” Vicki asked.

“Waiting.”

“Why?”

“Because I have no idea where I am, and I’m afraid that if I start wandering around looking for a familiar landmark, they’re going to find us again. We’ll sit for a while.”

Despite the chill in the air, I rolled down the window. I could hear the sound of traffic like surf in the distance, yet I had no idea where it was coming from. Vicki leaned back in her seat. She closed her eyes and rested her hands in her lap. She inhaled, held her breath for a beat, then slowly exhaled, and I thought she was doing some kind of Zen breathing exercises to control her emotions. It didn’t do any good. After a few moments her shoulders began shaking, followed closely by the rest of her body. She wrapped her arms around herself, leaned forward, and rested her head against the dashboard. Long, painful sobs drowned out the traffic noise.

“It’s my fault,” she said. “It’s all my fault.”

I didn’t say a word. What was I going to do? Argue with her?

We sat there for what seemed like a long time, yet was only a few minutes, until I saw the car. It had its high beams on and was coming fast.

“Nuts,” I said.

Vicki’s head came off the dash. She swung around and looked out the rear window.

“Are they back?” she asked.

“Get down,” I said.

Vicki did what I asked without hesitation.

I slid down in my seat as well.

The German car flew past, and for a moment I thought it had missed us.

It got half a block before it slammed on its brakes. Its squealing tires sounded like an alarm.

I immediately fired up the Cherokee and threw it into reverse. I accelerated until I was traveling backward at about thirty miles an hour. I got off the gas, cranked the steering wheel all the way to the left until the car spun ninety degrees, jumped back on the accelerator, and straightened out the steering wheel until I was driving nearly fifty miles an hour in a straight line.

“Yes,” I shouted. “Yes, yes, yes. Did you see that?” I patted the dash of the Cherokee. “Good car.”

I glanced at Vicki. She didn’t seem nearly as thrilled by the maneuver as I was.

I made a few turns, yet it didn’t take long before the shooters were back on my bumper. The Cherokee just didn’t have enough giddy-up.

The shooters feinted right and then left, causing me to swerve to block them. It was obvious that they were trying to pull up alongside, either to shoot us or run us off the road. It was just as obvious that they preferred to come up on my left. I decided to let them. I didn’t know what else to do. I was running out of options.

“Hang on,” I said.

It was a simple act of pure desperation.

When the shooters feinted to the right, I purposely moved too far to block them, giving them the opening they wanted. They accelerated hard, coming up on my left side. When their front bumper was even with my passenger door, I pulled up hard on the emergency brake. The Cherokee skidded across the pavement, making a sickening high-pitched screeching sound. The shooters flew past. I released the brake, downshifted, and stomped on the gas. The Cherokee lunged forward. The shooters tried to escape, but it was already too late. I rammed their bumper on the left-hand side with the right-hand side of my bumper as though I were trying to pass but didn’t give myself enough room. At impact, the rear of the German car started sliding sideways toward the right. The driver tried to compensate. He spun his wheels in the direction the car was skidding—like any good Minnesota driver who hits a patch of ice—but instead of slowing, he stepped on the gas. His tires gained traction. The car shot off in the direction it was pointed, off the road, up a boulevard, and into a tree.

Vicki looked back, but I didn’t.

*   *   *

I worked my way west, using the bridge at Edina Industrial Boulevard to cross Highway 100. I drove along Normandale Boulevard until I entered the City of Bloomington, then hung a right at West Seventy-eighth Street. From there I drove to the back of the parking lot of the elegant Hotel Sofitel.

“What are we doing now?” Vicki asked.

“We have to get rid of the car.” I opened my door and slid out.

Vicki followed me. “Why?”

I circled the Cherokee and examined the damage to my front end. The right-side headlight was broken. Beyond that, the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be; I was guessing not more than a thousand dollars’ worth of body work, including paint.

“Because it’s possible you weren’t followed to the coffeehouse,” I said. “It’s possible that I was followed. I didn’t see a tail, but someone could have tagged my car with a bumper beeper or something. That would explain how the shooters found us after we parked.”

“What’s a bumper beeper?”

“It’s an electronic bug with a two-mile range that attaches to the underside of your car with a magnet. It’s usually kept in a small metal box with two skinny antennas sticking out. Unfortunately, we haven’t got enough time or light to do a sweep. Nuts.”

“What?” Vicki asked.

“Your clothes. They’re covered with blood.” I looked at the hotel behind me. “You can’t go anywhere looking like that.”

Vicki looked down at her violet sweater and white tank top. The red splotches were clearly visible in the lot’s harsh lights. She picked at the stains as if they were pieces of lint she hoped to pull off her clothes, starting slowly and delicately at first, then increasing in speed and fury until she was grabbing and slapping herself in a frenzy. She moaned loudly, and I quickly searched the lot for witnesses.

“Vicki,” I said.

She covered her face with both of her hands and wept into the palms. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said.

I waited. Slowly her shallow, rapid breathing became more regular. I wondered if her cupped hands had formed a pocket that allowed her to breathe her own air, not unlike someone who breathes into a paper bag when suffering an anxiety attack—it allowed her to inhale the carbon dioxide she was expelling, thus producing a calming effect. I released her and stepped back. Eventually she dropped her hands to her sides and looked at me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“What should we do?”

I had already taken off my brown leather jacket and was removing my sweater. I gave the sweater to Vicki.

“Put this on over your blouse,” I said.

She did what I asked. The sweater was big and bulky on her. She had to push the cuffs up; the hem fell against her thighs. Still, putting it on over her bloodstained clothes seemed to cheer her somewhat.

“I look ridiculous,” Vicki said.

“Didn’t that used to be the height of fashion a while back?” I asked. “Oversized sweaters?”

“Not in my lifetime.”

The Kevlar vest was clearly visible beneath my blue dress shirt, and I had to button the shirt all the way to my throat to keep the top of it from peeking out.

“I thought you were shot,” Vicki said. “The vest—that’s why you weren’t hurt.”

“That’s why,” I said.

“I want a bulletproof vest. Can I have it?”

“I can protect you. Can you protect me?”

She shook her head.

“Then I’ll keep the vest.” I checked the Beretta, holstered it on my belt, and put my jacket on over it. “C’mon.”

Hotel Sofitel boasted a fine French restaurant called Chez Colette that had its own street entrance. There was an unoccupied maître d’ stand just inside the door near a sign that read PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED. It was still early for a Saturday night, and there were plenty of empty tables. I ignored the sign and the tables and led Vicki across the restaurant to a second entrance just off the hotel’s lobby. We crossed the lobby to the front of the hotel.

The doorman said, “Good evening, sir.” He touched the brim of his hat with two fingers when he looked at Vicki. “Miss.”

“Good evening,” I said. “I’d like a taxicab.”

I reached into my pocket and produced a handful of folded bills to prove I meant business. The doorman hailed the first taxi in line at the cabstand. The taxi drove up, and the doorman opened the back door for us. Vicki slipped into the seat. I gave the doorman a five-dollar bill for his trouble and slid in after her.

The driver put the taxi in gear and started driving off even before he said, “Where to?”

“Airport,” I said.

“Which terminal?”

Not long ago, the two terminals that made up the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport were named after Charles A. Lindbergh, the Minnesota-born pilot who was the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic, and Hubert H. Humphrey, the state’s longtime senator and U.S. vice president. However, it was decided by the powers that be that those names were far too confusing for travelers, who occasionally mixed them up. So now they’re designated Terminal One and Terminal Two. That, of course, cleared up everything.

“One,” I said.

“That would be the old Lindbergh Terminal,” the driver said.

See?

To pass the time, the driver waxed poetic about the ineptitude of the Minnesota Vikings and how their season had pretty much ended before it had even begun. He then segued into a dissertation on the continuing futility of both the Wild and the Timberwolves, his general thesis being that professional sports in Minnesota sucked and don’t get him started on the Gophers. For the most part I agreed with him.

“Except for the Twins,” I said.

“Baseball?” He spoke the word as if it were an obscenity. “Baseball?”

“My good man,” I said, “baseball is the only sport God approves of.”

“He tell you that Himself, did He?”

I held up my crossed fingers so he could get a good look at them in his rearview.

“We’re like this,” I said.

The cabbie thought it was pretty funny.

“Do you believe that, Miss?” he asked. “Him and God?”

Vicki didn’t answer. Vicki didn’t say a word throughout the drive. Instead, she kept glancing at me as if she were hoping to get a glimpse of my plans in my face, in my gestures, and in my words. Yeah, like I had a plan. Well, actually, I did.

After we arrived, I paid off the driver and escorted Vicki into the terminal. From there we went one level down and followed the signs to the Red and Blue parking ramps. Vicki still refused to speak. She let me lead her around like a visitor from abroad who didn’t know the language.

On the second level between the ramps, there were seven car rental companies. I chose the one with the shortest line. Twenty minutes later we drove off in a black Altima two-door coupe. A few minutes after that, we were on Highway 5 heading into St. Paul.

“McKenzie?”

“How are you holding up, sweetie?” I asked.

“Where are we going?”

I gave my standard smart-ass reply to the question—“Straight to hell unless we change our ways.”

She nodded as if it were the answer she was expecting.