I opened my eyes, yet I couldn’t see. And then I could. The sorrowful blackness became dark gray; I could make out shapes and figures. There was light slipping between the drapes and light emanating from the clock on the nightstand next to the bed. I sat up. A lightning flash of pain made me moan. It also cleared my head. The dark gray softened; the clock light became numerals—11:17 A.M.
That’s plenty late even for you, my inner voice said.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Nina said. She was carrying a bed tray. On the bed tray were two mugs of coffee, buttered English muffins, and a pile of sausage links. She set the tray on the bed next to me and went to the floor-to-ceiling windows. She pressed a button, and the drapes parted to reveal the curve of the Mississippi River as it approached St. Anthony Falls, the lock and dam, Nicollet Island, and the Stone Arch Bridge. The sunlight nearly blinded me. I shielded my eyes with my hand. Nina was wearing a silver-blue nightgown that matched her eyes; the light behind her exposed the shadow of her body beneath the silk. I lowered my hand and watched her.
“You must have had a rough night,” she said.
“How did I get here?”
“What do you mean? Home?”
“In bed.”
“I found you sleeping on the sofa when I got back from Rickie’s. I said, ‘Hey, McKenzie, go to bed.’ You did. Don’t you remember?”
“No.”
“A very rough night, then.”
“You have no idea.”
“Sounds like a story.”
Nina crawled onto the king-size bed and sat cross-legged next to the tray. She picked up a sausage with her fingers and ate it while I told her everything that had happened, starting with the Bignell gathering.
“Should we take you to the hospital?” Nina asked. “It sounds like you suffered a concussion.”
“I’ve had ’em before.”
“McKenzie…”
“No, I’m fine. F-I-N-E. See?”
I fingered the spot on my skull where I had been hit. The swelling had gone down, and while the pressure I applied caused some pain, it wasn’t much.
“A couple of ibuprofen and I’ll be as good as new,” I said.
“Who do you think Salsa Girl had a rendezvous with?” Nina asked.
“I’d only be guessing.”
“From what you told me about seeing them together at the party, I’m guessing—do you think Erin and Brian Sax are having an affair?”
“I honestly don’t know, but I intend to find out. In the meantime, if you would keep it to yourself…”
“Do I ever tell anyone the things you tell me?”
“No, you don’t. You have no idea what that means, having someone I can trust like I trust you.”
Nina raised and lowered her eyebrows Groucho Marx–style and sipped her coffee. She set her mug back on the tray. She bent forward to do it, and the top of her nightgown opened; I could see the swell of her breasts underneath. The ache in my head moved to my lower extremities. I took a bite of English muffin just to have something to do with my hands.
“You said you don’t know who hit you, either,” Nina said.
“No, but I’ll find out who he is, too. I have his license plate number.”
“If it was the man in the Camry. If it was a man. You don’t even know that for sure.”
“I’ll find out.”
“Then what?”
“That depends on what I find out. I might decide to crawl back under the covers and never leave my bedroom again.”
“There’s a thought.”
“I noticed you haven’t dressed yet.”
Nina ate another sausage.
“Why would I?” she said. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
I reached for her. She caught my hands.
“What do the commercials say, ‘Ask your doctor if you’re healthy enough for sex’?”
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
* * *
It turned out that Nina was lying when she said she had nowhere to go. There was Rickie’s, always Rickie’s.
After she left, I put myself back together and dressed in gym shoes, shorts, and a shirt. I sat at my desk and used my landline to call Sergeant Billy Turner, who ran the SPPD’s Missing Persons Unit. He worked out of the James S. Griffin Building, named after the African-American deputy chief who helped desegregate the department back in the day. Turner, who was also black, played hockey, didn’t hold it against me that I exchanged my badge for the reward, and wasn’t afraid of Bobby Dunston, which made him a true minority in my book.
We exchanged pleasantries, and he asked, “what do you need, McKenzie?”
“Can you run a license plate for me?”
“Not now, but if you give it to me, I can get back to you later this afternoon.”
I recited the number.
“Is this going to get me in trouble with the bosses upstairs?” Turner asked. “Bobby D gonna come down here and give me shit about what we can do and can’t do for civvies like you?”
“Not if you don’t tell ’im.”
“You guys still playing?” Turner asked.
“Nah. Our season ended the final week of March. You?”
“We have games till the last week of April, and I’m thinking that’s too long, man. I know guys who play hockey all year round, but when summer comes, I just can’t do it.”
“Neither can I.”
“It seems abnormal to play puck when it’s eighty degrees outside. There’s a time for everything, you know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
* * *
I decided to head down to the second-floor gym and get in an hour’s work. I don’t exercise just to look fit, although I do—a fine figure of a man, trust me on this. Occasionally, though, I’ve been required to perform vigorous activities, like those I had planned for the driver of the Toyota Camry, and taking a brisk walk around the park wasn’t going to cut it. Especially at my advanced age. I was also a member of a martial arts academy in St. Paul where I’d go from time to time to spar, but my headache had disappeared at about the same time Nina had removed the tray from our bed and I didn’t want to risk a recurrence.
First I took the elevator to the ground floor and approached the security desk. The guards were wearing blue suits with name tags that read SMITH and JONES.
“Gentlemen,” I said.
“McKenzie,” said Jones.
“What’s going on? Anything exciting?”
“No, it’s been very quiet.”
“We wouldn’t mind changing that, though,” Smith said.
They had both made it clear when Nina and I first moved in that they knew who I was and wouldn’t mind at all if I found ways to alleviate their boredom.
“I’ve got two things for you,” I said. “First, keep an eye out for a blue Toyota Camry.” I recited the license plate number. “Let me know if you see it on the street.”
They both glanced down at the monitors on their desk that gave them a clear view of the perimeter of the building as if they expected it to appear right then and there.
“Something else,” I said. “You guys don’t actually work for the owners of the building, do you?”
“No,” Smith said. “We’re employees of the security firm that works for the owners of the building.”
“Your firm supplies security for a lot of places in downtown Minneapolis.”
“It does.”
“What about the apartment building on Second Street on the far side of the Guthrie? I noticed the guys over there were wearing the same kind of jackets as you do.”
“Yeah, that’s us.”
“I’m hoping you can do a favor for me on the down low.”
They both smiled.
“I know it’s against the rules,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to get you guys in trouble.”
They kept smiling.
“If you could reach out to your colleagues,” I said.
“We can do that,” Smith said.
“There was a woman, five-six, one-twenty, blond, blue eyes, dressed in a white shirt and dark blue jacket and skirt. She entered the building at about ten fifteen last night. Ask your colleagues who she went over there to see.”
Smith and Jones glanced at each other. They seemed disappointed.
“Is that all?” Jones said.
“Don’t you want to know who the woman is?” Smith said. “What she was driving?”
“I already have that.”
“Oh. Well, yeah, we can make a call.”
“I appreciate that. It’s too bad your firm has a policy that forbids you from accepting gratuities.”
“We’ve always thought so,” said Smith.
“Tell me, though—did you ever find out who left that case of Irish whiskey in the hallway that I turned in to the lost and found awhile back?”
“We didn’t,” Jones said. “But the night shift must have, because you know what? It disappeared right after.”
“Hmm.”
* * *
I didn’t hit the gym as hard as I had intended. I just didn’t have the energy. I blamed Nina and not the events of the previous evening. Afterward, I showered again and dressed. I finished off what was left of the breakfast sausages Nina had made and went to my TV. It was Wednesday afternoon, and the MLB Network was broadcasting a get-away day game out of Camden Yards in Baltimore. I got in two innings before my landline rang.
“McKenzie,” Sergeant Billy Turner said.
“Billy,” I said in reply.
“The guy you’re looking at, his name is Darren Coyle.” Billy added an address in Columbia Heights. “You could’ve found that out by yourself, though.”
“Yeah, but it would have required a little work, and you know how much I like to avoid that. What can you tell me about him?”
Over the phone line I heard a sudden chill followed by a cheerful “Not a damned thing.”
“Is he in the system?”
“Nope.”
I might have believed him, yet Billy answered so quickly that I was sure he was lying. He didn’t say he anticipated my question and ran Coyle after learning his name and address, for example. That told me Billy knew exactly who Coyle was. There were only three reasons why he wouldn’t say so.
Coyle was the target of an investigation.
Coyle was an asset, a CI perhaps.
Coyle was a cop.
Why would a cop whack me on the head? I asked myself.
Why wouldn’t he? my inner voice answered.
“Thanks, Billy,” I said. “I owe you.”
“Take care, man.”
I hung up the phone and looked at my watch, which, in addition to telling time, counted the steps I took, the miles I walked, the calories I burned, and the beats of my heart. Right then my heart rate was higher than usual.
I was convinced Billy only told me Coyle’s name and address because he knew I could find them on my own. In Minnesota, civilians are no longer allowed to run the license plate of someone else’s vehicle, but there are ways even if you don’t have friends with legal access who are willing to bend the rules.
The question was—why were the police watching Salsa Girl?
If they’re watching Erin, my inner voice said.
I figured I’d find out soon enough. If the cops now knew that I knew what they were doing, I estimated it would take about two hours before someone reached out and told me to back off.
Unless whoever is running Coyle is smart enough not to confirm Coyle’s status by calling you.
Unless Billy is telling the truth and Coyle really isn’t in the system, which means he isn’t a cop, which means he’s working for someone else.
Unless Coyle knocked a screw loose when he hit you and now you’re jumping to conclusions.
“We’ll see,” I said aloud.
* * *
I returned to the ball game and settled in to wait. My landline rang during the seventh-inning stretch. I glanced at my watch.
That didn’t take long at all, my inner voice said.
I answered the phone. However, instead of a menacing voice threatening my life unless I listened to reason, I heard a far more chipper voice say, “McKenzie, it’s Smith from downstairs.”
I was actually disappointed.
“Hey, Smith,” I said.
“I have what you wanted. At exactly ten seventeen—the guys over there are sticklers about noting when people come and go. So are we. Anyway, at ten seventeen Ms. Christine Olson arrived to see Mr. John Ripley—”
“Wait. Christine Olson?”
“That’s the name she used. I thought you knew who she was.”
“I thought I did, too. Also, Ripley?”
Not Brian Sax like Nina thought, my inner voice said.
“John Ripley, yeah. A company based in California called Central Valley International owns the apartment. It’s used by its executives whenever they’re in town on business. I guess it’s a lot of business if the company is willing to spring for a luxury apartment with a view of the river.”
“Thanks, man.”
“McKenzie, we’ve been talking it over…”
“Oh yeah?”
“We hate to be presumptuous, but the Red Sox are coming to Target Field this weekend, and if you were to find some tickets lying around…”
“You never know.”
* * *
I went to my computer and Googled Central Valley International. It was a ninety-seven-year-old consumer goods and farm products company located in one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world, California’s Central Valley. It packaged and distributed mostly freshly prepared food products made from the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the valley to restaurants, stores, and other customers worldwide through three separate divisions. It was credited with helping to establish the California avocado industry in the mid-1920s, as well as markets for limes, coconuts, kiwis, mangos, persimmons, and papayas. Two different investment research groups ranked the company’s stock as “a great value pick.”
John Ripley was listed as an executive vice president for fresh products sales.
* * *
When I finished with Central Valley, I went to the Minnesota Twins website, bought four tickets for Saturday’s Red Sox game, and printed them out. I folded the sheets neatly and slipped them into my pocket. I promised myself I’d stop at the security desk while on my way to the underground parking garage to deliver the tickets to Smith and Jones, keeping up the charade by telling them that I found the tickets in the elevator and asking that they be placed in the building’s lost and found. That’s what you’re supposed to do with recovered property, right? And I’m a guy who always does what you’re supposed to do.
Before I left the condo, I went to my secret room. Yes, I said secret room. It was hidden behind a bookcase between the fireplace and the south wall and was the major reason why I let Nina talk me into moving to a high-rise condominium in Minneapolis (and haven’t my friends across the river in St. Paul been giving me grief about it ever since).
I do like my gadgets, and you have to admit, this one was pretty cool. To access the room, you needed to nudge the corner of the bookcase just so until you heard a click and then swing it outward to reveal an eight-by-ten carpeted chamber. I tripped a sensor when I entered, and a ceiling light flicked on. There was hockey equipment in there, plus golf clubs, bats, balls, and a baseball glove I hadn’t used in over a decade. A safe was filled with $40,000 worth of tens and twenties, credit cards, and a driver’s license and passport with my picture and someone else’s name. A few years ago I had to disappear for a while, and it was difficult because I wasn’t prepared; now I am.
There was also a gun cabinet with six weapons, four of them registered. I retrieved a nine-millimeter SIG Sauer and holster, made sure it was loaded, and positioned the gun and holster off my right hip beneath my sports jacket. I knew it wouldn’t have done me any good the night before when Darren Coyle attacked me from behind. I promised myself the next time I met the man, it would be face-to-face.
* * *
I left my Mustang in the underground garage. Instead I drove a beaten-up Jeep Cherokee that I had owned since long before I became a millionaire; Coyle hadn’t seen the Cherokee. I drove to Salsa Girl Salsa. This time, though, I tried to be clever about it. I entered from the east side of the industrial park and wandered up and down the various side streets searching for a blue Toyota Camry and didn’t find one. Nor was Coyle parked on Pelham Boulevard. I left the Cherokee in the back lot, used the Salsa Girl loading dock entrance, and made my way to the office.
Alice must have been getting used to seeing me around, because she gave me a wave when I marched down the corridor, followed by a “Good afternoon, McKenzie.” A woman I hadn’t seen before, another part-timer, I decided, looked up when I passed her desk and smiled, too. Erin was less charitable.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
I sat in a chair in front of her desk without being asked.
“John Ripley, executive vice president in charge of fresh products sales for Central Valley International,” I said.
She responded with the same calm, unruffled voice that I had come to admire, yet I could tell by the way she leaned forward and fixed her eyes on me that the woman was furious.
“You followed me last night,” she said.
“No, I wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh?”
“I was following the blue Toyota Camry that was following you last night.”
Erin leaned back in her chair.
“Oh,” she said.
“It picked you up when you left the parking lot.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“Why would you?”
“I’m usually pretty observant about those kinds of things.”
You are? my inner voice asked.
“Perhaps you were too preoccupied with your late-night meeting,” I said aloud.
“I don’t suppose you know who was driving the blue Toyota Camry?”
“Mr. Darren Coyle. He has an address in Columbia Heights. Do you know him?”
“No.”
“He was either very upset that I made him or very protective of you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He hit me in the head with something hard and heavy, left me on the sidewalk along Second Street.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’ve been better. Erin, tell me about John Ripley, executive vice president—”
“Close the door, please.”
I did. By the time I returned to the desk, Erin had her Woodford Reserve out and two glasses. She filled half of one glass with the bourbon and glanced up at me.
“Thank you,” I said.
She filled the second glass to the same depth and slid it across the desk. I took a sip. I felt it in both my head and my toes.
“You’ve asked me a question, McKenzie,” Erin said. “Knowing you, though, I presume you already have the answer.”
“I didn’t investigate as thoroughly as I’d like, but based solely on its website and Wikipedia page, I’d say Central Valley International must be three or four times larger than Minnesota Foods.”
“Closer to ten, but go ’head.”
“You’re looking to change distributors. You told me that you wanted to screw over the Bignell family before they did it to you. This is what you had in mind.”
“More than that. Salsa Girl was never a hobby with me, McKenzie. I never meant for it to be a boutique. I wanted a national presence and all that it entailed. Central Valley can deliver it to me. Minnesota Foods can’t. It’s as simple as that.
“More and more, people are buying healthy, they’re buying fresh. There are chains like Whole Foods that exist solely to tap into that market. Even so, it’s very difficult to get into the stores when you only have one product to sell. The big retailers don’t want to buy from you. They want to buy from distributors—one delivery, one bill, one payment, easy administration. That’s why I needed Randy. Otherwise, Minnesota Foods probably wouldn’t have even bothered to take a meeting with me. My success there opened the door to Central Valley. Not only do they have a national presence, they sell a wider range of complementary products such as guacamole, pico de gallo, cheeses like queso fresco and asadero, panela…”
“You can dump Minnesota Foods just like that?”
“It’s their own fault. When they negotiated our contract, the Bignells insisted on a clause that would allow them to opt out anytime they chose for any reason. I insisted on the same option, and they agreed. They could think of a hundred reasons to part company with the inexperienced little girl, yet couldn’t imagine that I would cut ties with them. I would tell you that it’s just business, McKenzie, only it’s not. I’ve had it with those sanctimonious, self-aggrandizing, misogynist bitches. I put up with them while they were useful to me. Now they’re not. At least they won’t be.”
“What’s the deal with Central Valley?”
“If it goes through, they’ll buy sixty-five percent of the company. I’ll retain thirty-five percent and management responsibilities for three years. After three years, Central Valley has the option to buy me out entirely.”
“You would sell your company?”
“In a heartbeat. Take the money—and it’s going to be a helluva lot of money, McKenzie. Take the money and become a philanthropist. See if I can buy my way into heaven.”
“Do your employees know all this?”
“Just Alice.”
“Randy or the Bignell family?”
“God, I certainly hope not. Only Alice is supposed to know. I want to keep it that way, too, until the deal is consummated. Otherwise, I could lose … I’m all in, McKenzie. Actually, it’s kind of exciting. You probably understand what I’m feeling. From the stories I’ve heard, you’re a gambling man.”
“I am, but your boyfriend will tell you that I’m not very good at it.”
“You mean Ian?”
“Does he know what you’re up to?”
I barely noticed when Erin shook her head.
“He’s your accountant,” I said. “How can he not know?”
“He keeps such good books that I was able to give CVI what it needed without involving him.”
“Don’t you trust Ian?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, then?”
“There are things I can’t tell him.”
“What things?” I asked.
“It’s complicated.”
Which I took to mean that Erin wasn’t going to tell me.
“At least we now have a better understanding of why Salsa Girl has been targeted,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“What would happen, Erin, if during negotiations with Central Valley, while the company was doing its due diligence, Salsa Girl Salsa started experiencing unexpected difficulties, such as, I don’t know, missing delivery dates because of problems with your trucks, or if you were forced to shut down your operation for a few days?”
Erin closed her eyes. This time, if she was counting to ten, she did it very slowly. She opened her eyes and took a long sip of her bourbon.
“Hmm,” she said.
“Perhaps your employees don’t want you to sell the company for fear they’ll lose their jobs.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“What’s the value of your company?”
“What do you mean?”
“What is Central Valley buying?”
“The brand. The recipes.”
“Not the physical plant, though.”
“They get that, too.”
“What I mean is, Central Valley could just as easily make Salsa Girl Salsa in California as here, am I right?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s keeping it from moving the operation?”
“I am.”
“For three years, at least. Anyway, do your employees know that?”
“They don’t know anything about Central Valley.”
“What happens to Randy Sax?”
“He’ll receive ten percent of the sales price, which is a great deal more than he deserves.”
“He’ll no longer be a business owner, though. He’ll lose Mommy and Daddy’s respect, not to mention Grandpa, who stands to be plenty pissed off when you drop the hammer on him, especially after adding all those Hispanic brands to complement yours.”
“You heard him yesterday. He’ll replace me easily enough.”
“Except retailers prefer the status quo. They don’t want change unless they’re the ones that make the change. It annoys them when they have to explain to customers why the products they want to buy are no longer available.”
“You know more about how this works than you let on, McKenzie.”
“What about your vendors, the guys across the river who supply your tomatoes, and those guys down south with the jalapeños? I’m guessing Central Valley has its own suppliers.”
“It has its own farms.”
“In any case, that’s four groups that might like to kill your deal with Central Valley without permanently damaging your company.”
“I told you, none of them are aware of what I’m trying to accomplish.”
“Someone knows.”
“I just don’t … I’m having a difficult time getting my head wrapped around that, McKenzie. It seems so—”
“Injudicious?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a smart woman, Erin. You must have thought it through.”
“In your head it’s merely ruminations. Spoken out loud gives it a different reality.”
“Which returns us to Darren Coyle of Columbia Heights.”
“Who does he work for, do you know?”
“Besides himself?”
“Himself?”
“He could be a sex maniac fixated on beautiful blond entrepreneurs.”
I thought I was being funny, but from the expression on her face, Erin didn’t agree.
“A couple of thoughts come to mind,” I said. One that included the cops, but I decided to keep that theory to myself. If the police really were interested in Salsa Girl, I didn’t want to interfere; she wasn’t that good a friend.
“For example?” Erin asked.
“Like I said, someone must know what you’re doing. The incidents of sabotage; the threat of greater sabotage pretty much proves it, don’t you think?”
Erin stared for a few beats before calling, “Alice.”
Alice Pfeifer knocked briskly on the door and opened it.
“Yes?” she said.
“Do we have any employees who live in Columbia Heights?”
“No.”
“No?” I said. “You can say that off the top of your head?”
“Columbia Heights is a North Minneapolis suburb. Everybody who works here is from St. Paul, mostly the East Side. A lot of them take the Green Line and get off at the Raymond Station, then walk the three blocks here. There’s no reason why that is. We don’t discriminate against Minneapolis or anything. It just worked out that way.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, Alice,” Erin said.
Alice continued to stand there. She seemed confused. At least I know I would have been confused.
“I’ll explain later,” Erin said.
Alice retreated from the office, closing the door behind her.
“So,” Erin said. “Not an employee, not a husband or brother of one of my employees. There’s no personal relationship.”
“We don’t know that. Could be a friend of a friend.”
“I suppose.”
Erin finished her bourbon and stared out the window at the Pelham Boulevard Bridge. I finished mine and did the same thing. She didn’t make a move to refill either of our glasses.
“Christine Olson,” I said. “Why did you use the name Christine Olson when you went to meet Ripley?”
“The meeting was supposed to be a secret, remember?”
“But why Christine?”
“It’s just a nice innocuous Scandinavian name that”—she waved her hand in front of herself—“that fits my appearance. What difference does it make? McKenzie, I told you before—don’t investigate me. Investigate…”
Her eyes met mine. I saw so many conflicting emotions in her face—anger and composure, fear and confidence, fragility and determination—that it was difficult to grab hold of any one. Yet her voice hadn’t altered a decibel during the entire conversation. It remained quiet and unruffled. I used to date a 911 operator who could do that, but only on the job. Off the clock she was a mess.
“Two weeks, McKenzie,” Erin said. “Help keep Salsa Girl alive for two weeks and I’ll buy you another Mustang. I’ll buy Nina a Mustang.”
Since it didn’t look like I was going to get any more bourbon, I stood up.
“It’s like what Shelby Dunston told me the other day,” I said. “If you want to know something about a person, just ask.”
“What does that mean?”
“Darren Coyle—I know where he lives.”
* * *
Only I didn’t need to go that far.
I left Salsa Girl Salsa through the rear entrance. The plant must have been on break, because Hector Lozano and Tony Cremer were back there chatting while sucking on heaters.
“Gentlemen,” I said.
They replied with silence and hostile stares.
I took the stairs down from the loading dock and walked to the Jeep Cherokee. The vehicle was too old for electronics, and I had to unlock the door with a key. I half expected the lock to be jammed with super glue, only it wasn’t.
I worked the Cherokee out of the rear parking lot through the industrial park and onto Pelham Boulevard and hung a left on Wabash Avenue. That’s when I saw a blue Toyota Camry parked down the boulevard with an unobstructed view of Salsa Girl’s front entrance. Coyle wasn’t looking for a Jeep Cherokee, so he didn’t see me.
Not a cop, I told myself. If Coyle had been a cop, he would have known that I had made him; my call to Billy Turner would have confirmed it. The police would have pulled him off surveillance and replaced him with someone smarter. Probably an entire team of someone smarter.
Why didn’t Billy tell me who he was, then? my inner voice asked.
“One question at a time,” I answered out loud.
I circled the block and parked a good hundred yards behind the Camry. I moved across the seat so I could depart the Cherokee from the passenger side. Coyle was leaning against his car door; he would have detected movement in his driver’s side mirror. I approached the Camry from his blindside. There were no pedestrians on the sidewalk and little traffic on the boulevard, so I felt comfortable drawing the SIG Sauer from its holster and holding it against my thigh.
Coyle did nothing to indicate he was aware of my presence, and I wondered if he had zoned out. Remember what I told you about surveillance—it’s a lot harder than it looks.
I took a chance that the passenger door was unlocked; it was. I yanked it open, squatted down, and pointed the SIG at Coyle’s head. He was jolted, but his hands had been comfortably tucked under his arms, and now they were of no use to him.
“Remember me?” I said.
He didn’t say if he did or didn’t.
“Put your hands on the steering wheel,” I said.
Coyle slowly unwrapped his arms and did what I asked.
“Move and I’ll shoot you right in the head,” I said.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Pound of flesh.”
“What’s that mean?”
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
“Huh?”
I crawled into the car and shut the passenger door, making sure the muzzle of the gun never wavered.
“Shakespeare,” I said. “The Merchant of Venice. Act three, scene—I forget the scene. Are you carrying?”
He didn’t answer, so I shoved the muzzle against his right ear.
“Yes,” he said.
“Where?”
He told me. I switched hands, shoving the SIG against his ribs with my left while I reached across his body with my right. I found his weapon, a .38 wheel gun in an old-fashioned shoulder holster. I plucked it out and waved it in front of his face.
“Is this what you used?” I said. “You suckered me and left me in the fucking gutter after hitting me with this? You’re lucky I don’t put a bullet in your spine.”
I dropped the .38 into the pocket of my sports jacket and leaned back. He turned his head to look at me. I told him to look straight ahead.
“What are you doing here, Coyle? Why are you following Erin Peterson? Who are you working for?”
He refused to answer any of my questions.
“Coyle, you should know I have a volatile personality.”
“You won’t shoot me. Not like this.”
“Who says?”
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and then looked forward again.
He knows you, my inner voice said.
I jammed the muzzle of the SIG hard into his ribs again. He winced at the pain it caused, and for a moment Coyle’s expression suggested that he didn’t know me at all.
I worked my free hand over his body until I found a wallet. I yanked the wallet free and leaned back again. I opened the wallet. My eyes flicked from Coyle to the contents and back to Coyle again. Minnesota has rules about the IDs that private investigators must carry. Along with name, address, head shot, and date issued and expired, they must also in really big letters disclose the name of the firm the PI is working for.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said.
Coyle didn’t answer.
I slipped the wallet into my other pocket and opened the car door. I slipped out cautiously, once again refusing to let the business end of the SIG leave my target.
“Call your boss,” I said. “Tell the sonuvabitch I’m coming to see him.”
* * *
Schroeder Private Investigations was a cop shop. Every field operative who worked there had been an investigator for one law enforcement agency or another—local police, sheriff’s department, state cops, even the FBI. I say “field operative” because the company also employed a platoon of computer geeks that ran skip traces, conducted background checks, hunted identity thieves, vetted jurors, uncovered hidden assets, and conducted cyber investigations without ever leaving the comfort of their workstations.
I walked into the office without knocking and made my way around the reception desk. The receptionist was named Gloria, and she knew who I was. Instead of trying to stop me, though, she smiled and said, “He’s in his office.”
I made my way to a corner office with a splendid view of the new U.S. Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis. There was a desk in the center of the office. A man was sitting behind it. I dumped Coyle’s wheel gun and wallet on the desk blotter in front of him.
He slowly swept them both into his drawer before looking up at me.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You’ve come to file a complaint.”
“What the fuck, Greg?”
Greg Schroeder was a trench-coat detective, or at least he tried real hard to maintain the image. He actually wore a gray trench coat over his rumpled suit when the weather allowed, along with a pinstripe fedora. He drank his coffee black and his whiskey neat and liked to sneer while he ran his thumb across his chin, which was exactly what he was doing while I sat in a chair across from him. For all I knew, he carried photographs of Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum in his wallet. Mostly I liked him. ’Course, he did save my life, after all. Twice.
“Did Coyle call?” I asked.
“Yeah. He’s pretty embarrassed.”
“Did he tell you that he laid me out last night?”
“No.”
“Sonuvabitch is pretty loose with his hands, Greg. I thought you didn’t condone that kind of behavior from your people.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Talk to him? You know what? Fuck you. I’ll go talk to him.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little sensitive about all this, McKenzie?”
“How ’bout I smack you on the back of your head with a .38 and we’ll see how sensitive you feel?”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry it happened. How can I make it up to you?”
“Where did you even find this guy, anyway?”
“He was on the job in St. Paul, same as you.”
“Oh, crap.”
“What?”
“Missing Persons?”
“That was one of his assignments. Why?”
That’s why Billy Turner didn’t give him up, I told myself. He was protecting one of his own.
Do you think he’d ever do the same for you? my inner voice asked.
Probably.
“Coyle is following Erin Peterson,” I said. “Why?”
Schroeder spread his hands wide as if he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“You asked how you could make it up to me,” I said. “Tell me who your client is.”
“You know I’m not going to do that.”
“Are you going to make me guess?”
“You know how it works, McKenzie. You don’t carry a license, but you know how it works.”
“Fuck you, Greg.”
“Jesus, you’re cranky today.”
“A concussion will do that.”
Greg stared at me. I stared at Greg. I had an ace in my hand, and I decided to bet it. I stood up.
“Where are you going?” Schroeder asked.
“Cambridge—but only after I stop to pick up my lawyer so we can both threaten Bruce Bignell with a lawsuit over the reprehensible behavior of his employees.”
Schroeder shook his head slowly. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said.
“Okay, I won’t.”
I sat down again.
“It’s not Bruce Bignell, by the way,” Schroeder said. “Our client.”
“Who is it?”
Schroeder sighed as if he had made a difficult decision and now had to live with it.
“In the fifties and sixties, divorce investigations were a major revenue stream for most PIs,” he said. “That changed in the seventies when more and more states started adopting a no-fault approach to divorce. Minnesota is a no-fault state, for example. That means if you or your spouse believe your marriage is broken so badly that it can’t be saved, and a judge agrees, the court will issue a divorce. You don’t necessarily have to prove infidelity, except to yourself, of course. As a result, divorce work dropped off. But things have changed lately, because more and more couples are signing prenuptial agreements. The majority have fidelity clauses. To beat them, well, sometimes now you do need evidence of adultery. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
I stood again.
“Thanks, Greg.”
“You’re welcome.”
“See you around. Oh, and tell Coyle to stay the hell away from me.”
“Love to Nina.”