The Calumet Inn served a pretty good Sunday brunch in its dining room. I was working hard at a Belgian waffle and some strawberries; Erin just picked at her eggs Benedict.
“Did you make your phone calls?” she asked.
“While you were in the shower. You take long showers, by the way.”
“I almost didn’t get out at all. How much time do we have?”
I glanced at my all-purpose watch.
“Three hours if they’re hurrying,” I said. “They’re not hurrying, though. Not like they did in Wabasha. They’ll make sure they get it right this time.”
“What’ll we do while we wait?”
* * *
Although it was located in the heart of Yankton Sioux territory, the quarries that later became the Pipestone National Monument, located about ten minutes north of the city, were considered neutral ground by most Native American tribes. It was their only resource for catlinite, or “pipestone,” the red stone that was used to make the ceremonial pipes that were vitally important to traditional Plains Indian religious practices, so it was agreed that, regardless of their differences, the tribes would have unfettered access at all times. Even today, only people of Native American ancestry are allowed to quarry the pipestone. Nothing bad was ever supposed to happen there.
At least that’s what I told Salsa Girl as we strolled along the Circle Trail that was squeezed along the quartzite cliff walls. Still, we were both on high alert, more interested in the people that approached us than we were in the historical markers, tallgrass prairie, and the quarries themselves. When a man said, “Excuse me,” we both flinched.
He was old and accompanied by a woman who claimed that her walker was only temporary while she recovered from some unnamed surgery. He asked if we would take their photograph against the walls of the cliff—without the walker—and we did. The woman was very friendly. She told Erin, “You have red hair; you must be from Ohio”—don’t ask me why—and asked, “Are you a college student?”
Erin said she wasn’t but thanked the woman for saying so just the same. As they passed us on the trail, the woman told me, “Your wife is very beautiful.”
“I think so, too,” I said.
Erin watched them move up the trail and then turned her gaze out at the park.
“Like Dr. Samuel Johnson, I set a high value on spontaneous kindness,” she said. “I want to be like that woman.”
I glanced at my watch again; I had been doing so every ten minutes since we arrived. I told her, “As another wise man once said—ain’t nothing to it but to do it.”
* * *
Erin dropped me off at the Pipestone County Courthouse. It was built in 1901 in the neoclassical style with the same reddish quartzite stone that was found near the pipestone quarries and featured a Renaissance dome on top of a high clock tower. A bronze statue of Lady Justice stood on top of the dome. I found it comforting, but just barely.
As I started to slide out of the Solara, Erin grabbed my arm. I turned to look at her looking at me. Her face seemed to be filled with words, but the only ones she spoke were “I’ll see you soon.”
I gave her a nod.
After I got out of the car and shut the door, she drove off. I didn’t watch her. Instead, I walked the two blocks back to the Calumet Inn. I walked slowly.
Sunday in the historic part of Pipestone was very quiet; that was one of the reasons why I picked it. I saw no pedestrians on the street and no one sitting in a parked car. Nor was there anyone loitering in the hotel lobby. I made my way to the third floor and moved toward the room designated Summertime.
I unlocked the door, opened it, and started to step inside. I stopped when I saw Carson Brazill lying on the queen-sized bed, both pillows stacked behind his head. Levi Chandler was sitting in the stuffed chair and reading something on his phone. A strong hand fell on my left shoulder and shoved hard; I tried not to react to the pain it caused. I stumbled into the room, nearly falling. The door was closed and locked behind me.
“The girl?” Brazill asked.
“Just him,” said the henchman who pushed me. “Frankie went down to the lobby to watch for her.”
Play it cool, my inner voice said.
“Hotel management is going to be very annoyed when it finds out you guys—”
I didn’t finish the sentence because the henchman hit me hard in the mouth, driving me to the floor.
That hurt.
While I was on the floor, the henchman searched me thoroughly to make sure I wasn’t armed or wearing a wire. When he finished he said, “Clean.”
“Pick him up,” Brazill said.
The henchman grabbed me by the shoulders and hoisted me onto my feet.
“Where is she?” Brazill asked.
“Who?”
The henchman hit me again, and again I ended up with a face full of carpet.
That hurt, too. Clearly cool isn’t working for you.
“Do I have to ask you again, McKenzie?” Brazill said. “I don’t mind, but Carl’s hand is probably getting sore.”
“No, it’s okay,” Carl said. “I could do this all day.”
“Did you hear that, McKenzie?”
“Yeah.”
Carl pulled me to my feet and tossed me into the straight-back desk chair that I had propped against the door handle the night before. It was made of carved wood and wasn’t very comfortable. I fought the urge to bring my hand up and caress my shoulder, which hurt just a tad more than my face.
“Where … is … she?” Brazill asked.
“I … don’t … know.”
Brazill shook his head. Carl cocked his fist as if that were a signal to punch me again. I brought my arm up to fend him off. I spoke quickly.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t. She dropped me off and drove away. I don’t know where. We thought it would be safer if I didn’t know.”
Brazill rolled off the bed and found a corner to sit on. He glanced at Chandler, who had turned off his phone and stuffed it into his pocket.
“He thinks he’s clever,” Brazill said.
Chandler shrugged in reply.
“Did Christine tell you why I’m looking for her?” Brazill said.
“Something about $680,000.”
“To be precise, $683,240.”
“She only gave me a round number.”
Carl smacked the back of my head with the flat of his hand.
“C’mon,” I said.
“Speak respectfully,” Carl said.
“The money is only part of it,” Brazill said. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”
“What?”
“Didn’t Christine tell you?”
I tried to look confused. It wasn’t hard; confusion was my natural state of mind.
“She said—she said she’d be willing to pay the money back,” I said. “With interest. She doesn’t want to run anymore. She said she’s tired of running.”
“Too bad for her.”
“Brazill—”
Carl slapped me again.
“That’s Mr. Brazill to you.”
“Mr. Brazill, what do you want?”
“What do I want? After fifteen years? I want her head”—I waited for him to say “on a plate”; instead he finished with the words “in my lap. You know, I never touched her while we were working together. Not once. It would have been unprofessional. But after what she did—the contract in North Carolina that I made with the Outfit went unfulfilled because she left. My superiors were very annoyed. I lost several other contracts after that because I couldn’t find a woman with the proper skill set to take Christine’s place. The Outfit shut me down. I went from a top earner to middle management just like that.”
You know what? my inner voice said. This is going to work.
“All good things must come to an end,” I said aloud.
Instead of using the flat of his hand, Carl used his fist, this time connecting just below my ear. It shook me off the chair onto my knees. I didn’t need to pretend that they were beating me into submission.
“Do you want those to be your last words?” Brazill said. “Is that what you want carved on your tombstone?”
Carl used my collar to drag me back onto the chair.
“The money,” I said. “We can make a deal.”
“Deal? You think I drove all the way to this bodunk town to make a deal with you? I might make a deal with her, but not with you, McKenzie. With you I’m offering a trade. Christine Olson for Nina Truhler.”
My heart skipped several beats. I sounded out of breath when I asked, “You have Nina?”
Brazill laughed.
“No,” he said. “That would be kidnapping. A federal crime, and me with no desire whatsoever to get involved with the Feds. I know where she lives, though, when she’s not staying with your cop friend and his wife and daughters. I know where she works. I even know where her daughter’s apartment is in New Orleans. The Outfit has people down there. It would be an easy matter to reach out to them. But let’s concentrate on Nina, for now. You have good people watching over her, McKenzie. How long is that going to last, though, hmm? How long can you afford to guard her day and night? How long will she let you? I’ve spent fifteen years chasing Christine. Do you have that kind of patience?”
I made a show of anger. Brazill would expect anger, I told myself.
“If you touch her—”
“What? Are you threatening me? Well, are you?”
I glanced up at Carl, who was sneering, and at Chandler, who looked like he was waiting for a bus. I altered my expression from anger to fear.
“No,” I said.
“You’re not as dumb as you look. McKenzie, you’re trying to be a gentleman; I can see that. It fits your reputation. Yes, I know who you are. But do you know who Christine is? Did she tell you about the archbishop she seduced in St. Louis? How about the woman who ran a homeless shelter in Philadelphia who just wouldn’t be a sport and move a lousy two blocks? Christine is not a good person, McKenzie. She’s not deserving of your loyalty. Even if she was, are you willing to trade Nina Truhler for her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? McKenzie, this should be an easy choice to make. Or did she turn you just like she did all those other marks, make you her bitch? I notice there’s only one bed in this room.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like?”
“You don’t understand. I was just trying to do Christine a favor. Someone was sabotaging her business, Salsa Girl Salsa.”
“We know all about that now. What she did with her life after she ran out on me. Erin Peterson—what a name.”
“It turned out to be her partner who was messing with her. He was using Christine’s business to mule heroin up from Mexico. It was sold on the streets of St. Paul, well, throughout the Twin Cities, I guess, by a man named Alejandro Reyes.”
“How much heroin?” Chandler asked.
Brazill looked at him as if he were speaking out of turn yet said nothing
“At least four keys a week,” I said. “Probably Reyes could have sold a great deal more, but he was trying to maintain a low-profile operation. His competitors are the Red Dragons, and they have a corner on the OxyContin market. Reyes doesn’t have the numbers to go up against them.”
“What’s the grade?”
“Pure white.”
“So we’re talking approximately seventy G’s a week; about three-point-six million a year.”
“Closer to four million, I think.”
“You’re saying that Christine didn’t know anything about this, the heroin?” Brazill said.
“No, it was all her business partner.”
“Business partner,” he repeated slowly.
“Junior partner. Punk named Randy Bignell-Sax. Erin was using him as a front. She didn’t want any part of his side job. She made much more than that selling salsa.”
“How much more?” Chandler asked.
“I heard the number six million.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, what?” Brazill said.
“Just wondering if there’s a way to make a profit from all of this.”
“I was wondering the same thing.”
“What profit?” I said. “I shut down the pipeline, told Reyes he’d have to find another way to ship his H. Besides, the Outfit doesn’t have a presence in the Twin Cities or anywhere else in Minnesota. Not since they put Kid Cann away something like, what, sixty years ago?”
Chandler leaned close to his employer’s ear, although I could hear his whisper anyway.
“Mr. Brazill,” he said. “If you should reopen the pipeline, think how happy the bosses would be to get a foothold in the Twin Cities again.”
“No,” I said. “Erin won’t have anything to do with that.”
“But Christine might,” Chandler said. “Especially if it squares things with you.”
“She’ll have to do more than that to square things with me,” Brazill said.
“I’ll be happy to watch the door while you take what you want.”
“No,” I said.
I jumped to my feet. Carl knocked me down.
“Tell me where Christine is,” Brazill said.
“I don’t know. How many times do I have to say it?”
Brazill slid off the bed onto his knees. He grabbed me by the hair and yanked upward. His face was one huge snarl as he spoke.
“I’ll be happy to take Nina Truhler behind closed doors instead. Or her daughter. Would you like that better?”
“Please…”
“Where is she?”
“I told you, we separated. She took off without telling me where in case you didn’t take the deal. She has a go-bag filled with fake IDs and credit cards, even a passport. I don’t know what names they’re under. I only know she’s been preparing to run for something like ten years.”
Brazill yanked my hair some more out of pure antagonism; pain rippled through my core.
“McKenzie,” Chandler said. “McKenzie, if we had agreed to the deal she offered, how would you have contacted Christine to let her know?”
“I wouldn’t have. I can’t. Instead, she’s supposed to call me. I have a burn phone in my bag. Here, I’ll get it.”
I tried to rise, but Carl put his shoe against my spine and pushed me down. Chandler crossed the room to the bureau where my gym bag was resting. He opened it. “Would you look at this?” He pulled out a packet of cash and a wallet filled with fake IDs. “Oh, tsk, tsk, tsk.” He found the nine-millimeter Taurus and held it up for everyone to see.
“You disappoint me, McKenzie,” Brazill said.
Carl put the point of his shoe in my ribs as if that were what he always did when Brazill was disappointed.
* * *
I sat in the straight-back chair and waited. I waited for a long time, all the while pretending that my shoulder and my ribs and my face weren’t throbbing. Brazill was waiting, too, only he was doing it in the queen-sized bed. A couple of times, he dozed off.
You had to admire the man’s patience. Most criminal masterminds on TV and in the movies are portrayed as volatile lunatics, just as apt to take out their frustrations on their own people as they were on their enemies. I always wondered why anyone would ever work for them. But Brazill was calm and quiet. Like Salsa Girl.
Chandler not so much. He sat in the comfy chair and played with his phone, making comments, mostly unfavorable, on whatever he was reading without explaining what he was reading. When he became bored with that he watched some TV, flipping between the NBA and NHL playoffs and a baseball game, again tossing in a lot of derogatory remarks, until he shut off the TV and dropped the remote on the table. He left the room, came back, watched more TV, left the room again, and came back again. I wondered if he was wandering down to the lounge for a bump or just stretching his legs.
Meanwhile, Carl and Frankie had worked out a schedule, taking turns at the door. Half hour on, half hour off. I had no idea what they did during their downtime.
“You had better be right about this,” Chandler said. He said it at least half a dozen times as the afternoon dragged on.
Brazill didn’t say much of anything.
Finally my burn phone rang. Even though we were waiting for it, the sound made us all recoil.
“Put it on speaker,” Chandler said. “Don’t forget what we talked about.”
He showed me his gun just in case I did.
I answered the cell. “Erin.”
“Are you all right?”
We could all hear the sound of wind blowing through a window; clearly she was driving somewhere fast.
“I’ve been better,” I said.
“Did they rough you up?”
“Of course. They had to prove to me that they were in charge.”
“I’m sorry, McKenzie.”
“It’s okay.”
“Did they accept my offer?”
“Brazill wants one million dollars.”
Carl was miffed that I left off the “Mr.” and clenched his fists, but didn’t do anything with them.
“A nice round number,” Erin said.
“Do you have it?”
“I can get it.”
Brazill grinned at Erin’s response.
“What else?” she asked.
“He wants to be partners again.”
“In what? The salsa business?”
“Heroin.”
“He knows about Reyes?”
“I’m afraid so.” I didn’t tell her how he knew; I figured Erin could guess. “He wants you to let Reyes use Salsa Girl Salsa to mule his heroin into the Cities. He’s going to try to make a deal with Reyes to take over part of his operation.”
“And eventually take over all of it. I get it. What else?”
I didn’t say.
“McKenzie,” Erin said, “what else?”
“He wants to hurt you.”
Brazill’s grin became a smile.
“Yeah, I figured,” Erin said.
“Do you know what I mean by hurt you?”
“I know.”
“Fuck these guys, Erin. Just keep driving. You have nothing to come back to.”
Brazill slid off the bed and hovered above me. Chandler raised his gun.
“Ten years ago I would have agreed with you.”
“Erin…”
“All those marks we hustled over all those years, do you know why they nearly always did exactly what we told them? It’s because they were like me. They didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Erin, please. What the bastard has planned for you…”
“Yeah, well, maybe I have it coming. Let me think about it. I’ll get back to you. Probably tomorrow.”
Erin turned off her phone.
I turned off mine.
Brazill smiled down at me.
“A hero to the end, aren’t you, McKenzie.”
He nodded at Carl. Carl’s fist drove me back to the floor.
* * *
The Pizza Ranch was next door to the Calumet Inn, and Brazill sent Frankie over for a couple of large pies. I would have preferred Dars about a mile away, but it’s not like they gave me a vote.
The pies arrived along with bottled beers that Carl scrounged. It was hard to eat; my teeth felt loose, and my mouth and jaw were sore. Dinner conversation centered on where the best pizza could be found. Chandler said he had grown very fond of the thin-crust sausage pizza at the Side Street Saloon near St. Alphonsus in Lake View, which I guessed was a neighborhood in Chicago. Brazill favored the deep-crust pie you can get at Lou Malnati’s.
“Which location?” Chandler asked.
“The one on Rush and State Street in the Gold Coast.”
I suggested that the best pizza I ever had was at an Italian joint called La Trattoria on Rue de la Convention in Paris.
“Who asked you?” Brazill said.
“Shut the fuck up, McKenzie,” Chandler said. “They don’t have pizza in France.”
Yeah, okay.
Night came without any message from Salsa Girl. The boys tied me up and left me on the floor. I asked for a pillow, which they thought was pretty funny. I didn’t think there was anything funny about it unless you count the fact that I was paying for the room and I had yet to use the bed.
What seemed like a short time later, someone opened the window blind. A harsh sun found my face on the floor. I opened my eyes into a glaring light. The way my mind worked, my first thought was of the old Harry Belafonte song—Day-o, day-ay-ay-o, daylight come and me wan’ go home …
My burn phone rang while the boys were discussing breakfast plans. I was quickly untied, but not quickly enough. The phone stopped ringing before I could answer it.
“The bitch had better call back,” Brazill said.
She did, ten minutes later. I answered, putting the cell on speaker as ordered.
“McKenzie, are you all right?” Erin asked.
“Yeah. I’m sorry I didn’t answer the first time you called. I was tied up.”
“They’re listening, aren’t they? We’re on speakerphone like we were the first time I called, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good morning, Carson.”
“Hello, Chris,” Brazill said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, it has. Are you doing well?”
“Not as well as I was doing before you ran out on me.”
“How angry are you, exactly?”
“Pretty angry.”
“Angry enough that you would let it obstruct a lucrative business arrangement?”
“That depends on the deal.”
“First the money. You’ll get it, but not in a lump sum. Not unless you want the Treasury Department to knock on the door and ask what I’m doing with all that cash.”
“You have thirty days,” Brazill said.
“I need six months.”
“Are you trying to negotiate with me, you fucking whore?”
Erin responded in her typically serene voice. “Don’t call me names. Do you want your million dollars or don’t you?”
“You’re going to give me a lot more than that.”
“First things first. Do you want—”
“All right, six months. You better not try to screw me.”
“Perish the thought. About the heroin—what the hell, Carson? Do you think you’re going to sell it in open-air markets like they do on the West Side? People lined up in their cars like it’s a drive-through? This is the Twin Cities, not Chicago.”
“Reyes is moving four keys a week in your squeaky clean Minnesota. I can do better.”
“If the Red Dragons let you.”
“What do you know about them?”
“I pay attention.”
“You haven’t changed at all, have you? You’re still the same girl who used to fuck old men for money and stock tips.”
“Four keys, you say.” Erin paused as if she were impressed by the number. “If I do this for you…”
“If you do this for me, you get to keep breathing. Take it or leave it.”
“Carson—”
“You hurt me, Chris. Taking off like you did without even saying good-bye, that hurt a lot. After all we’ve been through—I thought we were friends. Worse, what you did embarrassed me with the Outfit. It nearly ruined my career. So you’re going to do what I tell you to do. Otherwise, I will find you and I’ll do what I’ve been promising myself I’d do for the past fifteen years.”
“I’ll let you use my business—”
“Damn right you will.”
“But you will not interfere with my business. You will keep your operation separate. I don’t want to know anything about it.”
“That’s because you’re such a sweet and innocent little girl.”
“I know exactly what I am, Carson.”
“What you are is my bitch. From now on, whenever I say jump you’re going to say how fucking high.”
“Don’t do it, Erin,” I said. “Keep running.”
Carl hit me in the back of the head and drove me to the floor once again; he hit me hard enough to knock me unconscious. Only I wasn’t unconscious. I was pretending.
“McKenzie,” Erin said. “McKenzie?”
“He’s fine,” Brazill said. “But he won’t be if you try to fuck with me.”
“McKenzie has nothing to do with our arrangement. Let him go.”
“I’ll let him go when you and I have a face-to-face.”
Erin paused again.
“All right,” she said. “Tonight at Salsa Girl Salsa. Make it seven thirty, after everyone’s left.”
Erin silenced her cell phone. Chandler closed mine.
“Do you trust her?” he asked.
“Of course not,” Brazill said. “She’ll try to find a way to protect herself, if she hasn’t already.”
“Cops?”
“I don’t think so. That’ll bring too much scrutiny. Someone might ask her if Erin Peterson was her real name. They might ask how she got the money to start Salsa Girl. No, no cops. What you have to remember, Levi, is that when Chris and I worked together, the first thing we always did when sizing a mark was to ask, What does he want? What can’t he live without? In Christine’s case, it’s her business. She won’t do anything that’ll jeopardize it. She loves it too much. Which is why I’m going to take it away from her. After I take her body. After I take her pride.”
“What’s our play?”
“Get McKenzie up.”
Carl and Chandler dragged me to my feet and wrested me into the straight-back chair. They held both of my arms while Brazill tossed a glass of water into my face. I sputtered and opened my eyes.
“Still with us, McKenzie?” Brazill asked.
“What happened? What did Erin say?”
“It looks like we’re going to do business after all. Now I have something for you to do.”
“I want no part of your shit.”
Carl raised his hand to hit me again, but Brazill stopped him.
“No need for that,” he said. “McKenzie’s going to cooperate. Aren’t you, McKenzie?”
I didn’t say if I would or wouldn’t.
“I have a few tasks for you to perform,” Brazill said. “You do those for me, you’ll get to go home—go home to Nina Truhler and her daughter and live happily ever after.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I’m a businessman, McKenzie. First and foremost. I only hurt people to get what I want and only if they won’t cooperate otherwise. If you had cooperated from the beginning, no one would have laid a finger on you, no one would have threatened your woman. We can get past all that, though. Please, just do what I ask.”
“What do you want?”
“I need you to make a couple of phone calls.”
“To who?”
“To whom. First, Christine’s business partner, what’s his name?”
“Randy Bignell-Sax,” Chandler said.
“Yes. First we’ll call Randy. Then I want you to contact this Reyes punk.”
“Reyes doesn’t know me as McKenzie,” I said. “He thinks my name is Dyson.”
“Same as the name on the fake IDs in his bag,” Chandler said.
“I don’t care what name you use just as long as you convince him to meet with me.”
“Where?”
“At Salsa Girl Salsa. Make it eight o’clock tonight.”
“He doesn’t know us,” Chandler said.
“Yeah, I know. He’ll need an incentive.”
I hesitated as if I had to think about what I was going to say before I said it. “I have $80,000 worth of his heroin.”
“My, my, my, McKenzie, aren’t you full of surprises,” Brazill said. “Tell me—what were you going to do with all that dope?”
“Flush it down the toilet.”
“You have no vision. That’s your problem. All right, after Reyes, the Red Dragons. Tell me you know someone connected to the Red Dragons?”
“Why talk to them?” Chandler asked.
Brazill waved his finger at his lieutenant.
“She’s getting careless in her old age,” he said. “Either that or she’s out of practice. The old Christine would never have mentioned the Dragons.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s who Christine is going to use against us. She probably already has them itching to take us out when we get to Salsa Girl. Don’t forget, I know how that bitch’s mind works. By the way, what makes you think we’re going to talk to them? Hmm? I want you to call Chicago. We’re going to need a couple more soldiers. We’re going to need them right away.”
“Yes, sir.”
“McKenzie, I asked you a question. Do you know someone connected to the Dragons?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said.