by Nick Petrie
“Of course.” He put his hand on hers. “I’m all in. This is your show. I’m sorry I’m an idiot.”
She shrugged. “You can’t help it,” she said. “It’s genetic. You’re a man.”
“At least you noticed.”
After an hour of driving with no evidence of a tail, he knew either they were clean or the enemy had enough skilled people to fool him completely, which didn’t yet seem likely. Despite everything that had already happened that evening, it was only nine o’clock.
A block from the Journal Sentinel, she told him to pull over in front of the Calderone Club, where a young guy in a dirty apron walked a pizza box out to the car. Peter drove inside the paper’s gated lot and they sat in the car with a clear view of the street while they ate sausage and onion pizza, the wafer-thin crust cut into Milwaukee-style squares instead of wedges.
Peter said, “Do you have a theory on Mr. Cheerful?”
“Aside from the fact that he’s a few tacos short of a combination plate?” June surveyed the remaining squares and selected the piece with the most meat. “He’s not an independent player. He’s working for someone else.”
“Not the shooter, though. Spark’s boyfriend. He seems more like the DIY type.”
“Huh,” June said. “Talk about that a little.”
“All the weird gear,” Peter said. “The Cardinals jacket, the old gun, the funky bike. But there’s something more. I mean, I couldn’t really get a read with the beard and sunglasses hiding his face, but he seemed really intense, really focused. Like it was personal between him and Holloway.”
June nodded. “And Holloway, if he’s the guy who took Oliver’s tech, has an incentive to keep the shooting quiet, too. Making me disappear would accomplish that. And we know he has the money to hire help.”
Peter’s phone buzzed with a text. “That’s Lewis,” he said. “Come on, I’ll walk you in.”
He got her past security with her work bag and the leftover pizza, then stepped out the front door, where Lewis waited in his Yukon at the curb, engine running.
On the dashboard stood the small metal sculpture they had taken from Spark’s workshop. The man in the wheelchair, a welder’s mask covering his face, hammer in one hand and cutting torch in the other.
* * *
—
Lewis watched his mirrors as he drove, but didn’t take an active anti-surveillance route. Both men were still wound up from the day and silently half-hoping for some kind of confrontation.
They’d already changed out of their carpentry clothes. Lewis wore black jeans and a crisp white button-down shirt, along with a black leather coat tailor-made to hide the matte-black automatic he carried in a shoulder rig. Peter wore scuffed mountain pants, a Lakefront Brewery T-shirt, and a hard-shell fleece that covered the Colt Commander in a left-handed pancake holster.
Walker’s Point was jumping on a Friday night. Lewis found a spot on Florida, three blocks from the gallery, which in the low-key world of Milwaukee parking was like leaving your car on the moon. As they walked past Coakley Brothers and Mobcraft Brewery, both men kept their eyes moving across the knots of pedestrians and passing traffic, looking at faces, seeing nobody out of place.
The event posting had noted that, along with the celebration of the new show, studios would also be open for visitors, an opportunity for artists to network and meet collectors and promote their work.
By the time they got there, though, most collectors had gone home to their babysitters and the party had kicked into a high gear. A dozen smokers clogged the sidewalk outside the front entrance, spilling wine and waving vape pens as if nicotine addiction was the next new thing. Retro-psychedelic funk bounced through the door, held open by a thigh-high cactus in a five-gallon pickle bucket.
Inside, the enthusiastic crowd was a broad mix of ages and ethnicities, with an emphasis on nose rings, strange hair, and gender fluidity. The dress code seemed to be head-to-toe black or ironic clashing plaids, with the occasional paint-spattered overalls or hot pink party dress. Peter was not remotely hip enough for this party.
They navigated toward the back of the building, passing through a series of gallery rooms. Stark white walls highlighted bright paintings that tugged at the eye like a fishhook. At first glance they seemed abstract, until Peter realized they were also portraits, loaded with wild emotion. Terror, anger, fierce joy. Peter’s mom was an artist in northern Wisconsin. She’d love this stuff, he thought.
The studio hallways smelled of incense and pot smoke and reheated spaghetti. People wandered in and out, chatting and drinking wine. The static revved higher as Peter tried to imagine a winning strategy against Kiko’s sledgehammer and the hydraulic wheelchair that could make him nine feet tall.
29
They rounded the last corner and found Kiko’s shop closed and padlocked. “Crap,” Peter said.
“Jarhead.” Lewis pointed across the hall, where another studio door stood open.
Directly inside, an open display case held several dozen metal figures. A woman riding a Harley, her speed evident in the invisible wind blowing back her hair and clothes. A man in a tool belt with a crosscut saw, bent over a board, the muscles flexing in his back and arms. Other figures dancing or on a skateboard or in firefighter gear, each one unique and vivid and beautifully made. None of them was a welder in a wheelchair, but they were clearly made by the same hand.
Peter crossed the hall and peeked into the room. It was as big as the welding shop, but set up as an office suite. On the left was a long leather couch and an oval table with three metal chairs and wine and cheese on a tray. In the back stood a polished steel desk facing into the room, with a high-end monitor on top and file cabinets behind, rolled blueprints stored upright in a wire-frame rack beside a bright red fire extinguisher. Eight or nine people stood chatting while some kind of electro-flamenco music played. Aside from the fire extinguisher, it was all tasteful and stylish and completely unexpected.
He had to step inside to find Kiko. The metalworker sat in a low-slung wheelchair beside a woman in a peroxide blond beehive and cat’s-eye glasses, deep in conversation. He was barely recognizable in a gray button-down shirt with a faint paisley pattern, metallic jeans, and electric blue socks under black leather slip-ons. His hair and beard were neatly brushed and designer reading glasses perched on top of his head.
But the biggest change was Kiko’s ride. If his hydraulic work platform was a utility truck with a crane, the new chair was a sports car. Obviously a custom job, it was sleek and stylish with a red frame and polished chrome wheels. Kiko’s meaty palms rested comfortably on the hand rims, rocking the chair slightly in place as he talked, as if tapping his toe to the music.
The hydraulic beast sat hulking in the far corner, under an elegant metal tree that appeared to grow from the floor, up the wall, and across part of the high ceiling. The trunk and branches showed the patterns of bark and the leaves were hammered steel, the whole effect somehow both impressionistic and natural. A pair of trapeze handles hung from the sturdiest limbs, directly above the chair, evidently Kiko’s method of moving himself from one seat to the other.
Peter had never crashed an art opening to confront an ex-con in a wheelchair before. It seemed like an oddly delicate operation. He wished June was there instead of doing research at the paper. He leaned closer to Lewis. “You got any ideas about how to do this?”
Lewis raised a shoulder. “Walk up, stick a gun in his face, ask the question. My experience, that works pretty good.”
“In a room full of people?”
“We both got guns,” Lewis pointed out. As if the lack of firepower was the problem.
“Maybe later.” Peter reached into the display case, grabbed a figure of a blacksmith at his anvil, and carried it into the studio. He wandered toward the back of the room as if admiring the tree sculpture. In his peripheral vision, he saw Kiko’s weathered f
ace snap in his direction. As he moved deeper into the room, the red wheelchair turned to track his progress.
When the chair pivoted away, Peter knew Kiko had spotted Lewis. Kiko couldn’t watch them both at the same time. It would make him nervous.
Peter stopped at the big work platform. A cardboard shoebox sat on the seat, with a power cord plugged into it, reminding Peter of the phone-charger shoebox at the bike shop. He made sure the bag with Kiko’s lethal wrist rocket was still strapped to the arm of the chair, then slipped a pair of heavy C-clamps from the tool rack and jammed them into his back pocket. When he circled back to Kiko, the metalworker did not look happy to see him.
The woman in the beehive hairdo and cat’s-eye glasses felt differently. She looked Peter up and down. “Well, hello, there.”
Peter held out a hand. “Hi, I’m Peter.”
She pressed his hand in hers. She didn’t quite lick her lips. “Helga. I’m a collector. Are you an artist?”
“Not exactly.” Peter shifted his weight to let his coat fall open. The Colt Commander wasn’t small. Helga blinked in recognition and pulled her hand back. Most normal civilians got a little nervous at the sight of a firearm. “Hello, Kiko.”
Kiko didn’t look nervous, although the muscles in his big arms bunched and flexed under his shirtsleeves. He gave Peter a baleful prison-yard stare. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Spark,” Peter said. “How do I find her?”
Kiko shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Peter held the little blacksmith up to the light, admiring the details. Hammer in one hand, tongs in the other. “You do beautiful work, Kiko. How long does it take you to make one of these?” Kiko didn’t answer. “Must be a couple of days, at least. And they’re all unique?”
As Peter turned the figure in his hand, he lost his grip, intentionally bobbling the blacksmith before catching it again.
“Whoops, that was close.” A small white sticker on the base showed the price. “Eight hundred dollars? You are not charging enough. These must sell like hotcakes.”
“He’s already sold five tonight,” said Helga in the peroxide beehive. She’d recovered her nerve and was leaning in again.
A vein pulsed in Kiko’s temple. He glanced at Lewis on the far side of the room, one hand in the pocket of his leather jacket, opening the front to show Kiko the matte-black automatic in the shoulder rig. The other guests hadn’t really noticed him yet, but they would soon enough. The gazelles always saw the cheetah.
Kiko turned back to Peter, his prison-yard stare at maximum intensity. “You and your friend need to leave. Now.”
“Making bike frames, that’s a decent gig,” Peter said. “But these sculptures are in a whole different world. They’re really good.” He held up the blacksmith figure and gestured at the tree growing up from the floor. Then nodded at the chattering, oblivious crowd. “You’ve got a nice thing going. Meeting collectors, selling your work.”
He didn’t make the threat, but he didn’t have to. It was, Peter admitted, a total dick move, and he wasn’t proud of it. But he also wasn’t going to pound on a man in a wheelchair, even if the guy did have arms like pistons. So he needed some kind of leverage. If he had to hold the man’s artistic aspirations hostage, he’d do it.
Kiko heard him loud and clear. “What the hell do you want?”
“I told you. I need to reach Spark, and she’s not at the MakerSpace. She’s in serious trouble. She’s connected to someone very dangerous. Tell us how to find her.”
Kiko’s face went tight. “Go fuck yourself. I told you, I don’t know anyone named Spark.”
Helga watched the conversation like a tennis match, her face alight. To the victor goes the spoils.
Peter smiled. “Sure you do. I saw your sculpture in her workshop, the welder in the wheelchair. It’s not like your other pieces. It’s a self-portrait. It’s personal. You’d only give it to someone you know well. Someone you care about.”
Kiko’s shoulders tensed, muscles popping under the stylish dress shirt. Would the metalworker make a move? Peter watched the meaty fingers on the chair’s hand rims.
Then he relaxed, decision made. “What are you gonna do? Break my legs? Shoot up the place?”
Peter dropped the little blacksmith sculpture to the floor. It bounced with a metallic clatter. “Oh, darn.” Peter moved as if to pick it up, but stepped on it instead, just enough to bend the figure’s legs. For the first time, he saw Kiko flinch.
Helga gasped in shock. “What are you doing?”
Peter held the figure under the rough lugs of his boot. “We don’t want to hurt Spark,” he said. “We just want to talk to her. To help her.”
Kiko looked like he was in physical pain. But he didn’t cave. “Go ahead. Flatten it. Flatten them all. I’ll make more tomorrow.”
Peter had to admit, the man had sand. Across the room, Lewis grinned and shook his head. Telling him that if he’d just stuck a gun in the guy’s face, they’d be done by now.
Then Lewis tipped his chin toward the desk and the row of filing cabinets, and it was Peter’s turn to shake his head. Not at Lewis, but at himself.
When they’d first met Kiko in his welding shop, he’d said that he didn’t keep records, that he got paid in cash. It made sense at the time, but now, in this office, it was obviously a lie. If they couldn’t find what they needed in the file cabinets, they’d find it in the computer.
Peter scooped up the fire extinguisher from the floor, pulled the pin, and squeezed the handle, giving Kiko a quick blast of dry monoammonium phosphate, trying not to spray him directly in the face.
While Kiko coughed and sputtered, Peter raised his voice. “I’m so sorry, everyone, Kiko’s having one of his episodes. This is why we take our medication, right, Kiko? Thank you all so much for coming out tonight.” Peter hit him with another short blast, then hosed down the room for a few seconds, yellow powder coming down like piss-colored snow.
Through the coughing and clamor, Lewis called out, “This way to the exit, folks. Nothing to worry about.”
Peter had caught Helga with some of the plume, and her cat’s-eye glasses looked like she’d been caught in a whiteout. Peter took her by the elbow and propelled her toward the door.
In fifteen seconds, the room was empty and Lewis had thrown the deadbolt. His black leather jacket was dusted with the dry chemical mixture.
“I’m gonna rip your goddamn arms off.” Kiko coughed and wiped powder from his face. Peter set down the red canister and dropped to his knees behind the wheelchair, where he pulled the C-clamps from his back pocket and cranked them around the chair’s crossbars so they captured a few wire spokes of the wheels and locked the chair into place.
Lewis pulled out one file drawer after another, raking his fingers across the folder labels. Kiko finished wiping his eyes, then grabbed the hand rims and shoved himself forward with his massive arms. The spokes sang with the tension. Peter got behind him and pulled back on the chair’s push handles, doing his best to keep Kiko from breaking the spokes and freeing himself. It was like trying to restrain an angry rhino.
“Get your fucking hands off my shit, you fucks.”
“Spark’s in trouble, Kiko. We’re trying to help.”
Kiko bellowed wordlessly and thrashed harder.
“Hang on.” On his fourth drawer, Lewis pulled a file and flipped through the contents. “Here’s one.” He unfolded a sheet of paper and held it up. “See this?”
“Kinda busy,” Peter said. Kiko abruptly went into reverse, and Peter stumbled backward. The spokes popped with a metallic ping. Kiko spun in place, an acrobat on his apparatus, then reached out and picked up a chair by a single leg and flung it.
Peter got a hand up and tried to brush it aside, but the edge of the seat hit the nerve cluster on his forearm and a spike of pa
in rolled up to his shoulder. The chair crashed to the floor and Peter grabbed the fire extinguisher, sorely tempted to smash Kiko’s head into cherry pie. Instead he pulled the lever and give Kiko a nice long dose, sending him into another coughing fit.
“It’s an engineering drawing for an electric bike,” Lewis said. “Looks a lot like the shooter’s. The name on the print is La Chispa. With an address in Silver City.”
Peter had a fair amount of Spanish. “La Chispa means Spark.”
Kiko sputtered and coughed. Peter grabbed his wrists and held them down. “Who was that bike for? Who’s her goddamn boyfriend?”
Kiko stopped fighting, his chest heaving. His face and torso were frosted in pale yellow.
“She’s got nobody,” he said. “She’s got me, that’s it.”
30
That was all Kiko would tell them. Peter wrote his number on a pad on the desk, in case the metalworker changed his mind. They left him swearing in his chair with his cell dropped behind the file cabinets to keep him from warning Spark.
Kiko’s guests clotted the hallway outside, exclaiming their indignity. Peter still held the fire extinguisher. He hit the ceiling with a short blast and shoved his way toward the back door.
He didn’t know how long it would take before Kiko found a way to contact her.
It was three blocks to the Yukon. They ran the whole way.
* * *
—
The apartment where Spark lived with her boyfriend was on a residential section of National Avenue between a low-rent Layton Boulevard mini-mall and the multiethnic restaurants and retro-hip bars of Silver City, a historically poor neighborhood that was clawing its way back. Traffic was still brisk at eleven o’clock at night.
Lewis parked on the far side of the four-lane street and killed the engine. They got out and Lewis opened the back of the Yukon. He dipped into a canvas tool bag and came out with something that looked like a bulky screwdriver with a plastic cap over the business end. It was an electric lock pick, a remnant of his former life. “You know how to use this thing?”
