The words came out in a rush. “You are absolutely stunning.”
Nina bowed her head. “Thank you, sir. And may I say that your appearance has improved greatly since last we met.”
“It’s a new diet.”
I released Merci’s hand and moved toward Nina, halting a few paces short when a tall man standing behind Nina set a hand on her shoulder. Nina didn’t seem to mind the familiarity. She tilted her head up and he spoke into her ear.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Nina told him.
The man was at least ten years Nina’s junior—which also meant he was ten years younger than me. When he moved away I said, “Your date?”
Nina smiled brightly. “Jealous?”
“I have no right to be, but, yeah. I’m jealous. Isn’t that amazing?”
“I like it.”
Nina leaned close to my ear. “He’s just a friend, I promise. I came here tonight with two vans full of friends. Besides, he has the emotional maturity of asphalt.”
“Some women like that.”
“Puhleez.”
“You do look wonderful.” I had been smiling constantly since I first saw her and my mouth was beginning to hurt.
“Thank you again.” She took my arm. “I’m surprised to see you here. For some reason I didn’t think it was your kind of scene.”
“I’m working.”
“When do you get off?”
I snickered at that. Suddenly my back didn’t seem so sore.
“Are you alone?”
“No.” I turned to introduce Merci. “I’m here with …” Only Merci Cole had vanished.
I called her name.
“Dammit.”
“What is it?”
“Dammit, dammit, dammit.”
“What’s wrong, McKenzie?”
“The woman who was with me. She was wearing a raspberry-colored dress.” I stood on my tiptoes, trying to see above the heads of all the other guests. An impossible task. “Do you see her?”
“I saw a woman with blond hair …”
“Where?”
Nina seemed to catch some of the fear in my voice. She pointed at the staircase. I went quickly toward it. The tide of people slammed me right and left, up and down, like flotsam caught in surf. I finally reached the railing and looked down. The top of Merci’s blond head was bobbing away from me. She was between two men. Whelpley and Kamp. They were holding her arms tightly, pulling her along. Her face was pale against the color of her dress.
They are moving quicker than I thought they would.
I dove into the river, trying to fight the current, working my way down the stairs. Merci was at the door now. I pushed harder, flailing guests with my hands and elbows and lame excuse-me’s. They were dragging Merci out the door when I heard my name.
I pivoted and looked back up the staircase. Mellgren was standing at the top. His right hand was inside his jacket.
“Stop where you are, McKenzie,” he called to me.
I ignored him. What was he going to do? Shoot me in front of a thousand witnesses?
“Stop, I said!” He started down the steps quickly but something happened. Suddenly, Mellgren’s empty hand swept out from under his coat and over his head, his body spun in a half circle, and he seemed to dive, head first, down the staircase, crashing against this body and that, knocking over at least four guests, finally slamming into a woman in an ivory dress, landing and rolling on top of her. Screams followed.
Mellgren’s unexpected tumble caused me to look past him. At the top of the steps stood Nina, her palms turned upward in innocence, her eyes wide, and a most delightful “who, me?” expression on her face.
She had tripped him.
I blew Nina a kiss and moved on.
The swirling tide grew increasingly stronger as people stopped to see what the commotion on the stairs was all about. It took me a long time to get to the door—too long—and when I did, Merci Cole was nowhere in sight. I pushed past the protesters and searched the street, noting that Devanter and Casselman’s limo were gone. I had a very bad feeling about that. I reclimbed the concrete steps of the Minnesota Club, stopping at the top. There. On the other side of the public library building. Three men dressed in tuxedos were pushing Merci Cole into the back of a limousine—not Casselman’s, someone else’s.
I felt like the guy who got his fingers caught in the mousetrap while setting the cheese.
15
Ass. Bastard. Creep. I called myself every name in the book in alphabetical order as I rushed to my car. Dimwit. Excrement. Fool. Fortunately, every time the luxury car rounded a corner it was slowed by a traffic light. That gave me enough time to muscle the Jeep Cherokee between and around the traffic, speed through the signals and sneak behind the limo as it entered I-35E below the St. Paul Cathedral, going south. Geek. Halfwit. Imbecile.
I-35E in that part of town is only two lanes wide and lightly traveled. It was easy to tail the black limousine while hanging way back. We drove past old suburbs and new suburbs and soon-to-be suburbs, putting over thirty miles between us and the city, speeding south into farm country. The temperature had dropped to fifty-three degrees and I was worried that dressed only in lace Merci would be cold. Like that was her most urgent problem. Meanwhile, I was sweating.
Finally, the limo caught an exit and hung a left, traveling east on a county road just below Lakeville. I chased the limo’s red tail-lights, hanging back as far as I dared. The car went three miles east before turning off onto a dirt road that led into the forest. I followed. I lost the limo’s lights in the road’s twists and turns but that was all right—there didn’t seem to be any turnoffs. I continued to hang back, following the road—and the limo’s dust—for several miles. I ignored a spur that jutted off in a right angle from the road, then realized when the dust cleared and I was forced to stop for a fallen tree about a half mile beyond it that the limo must have taken the spur. I drove backwards until I discovered a place to turn the Cherokee around near the spur. It was there that I abandoned it—I thought it was safer to investigate the spur on foot.
At first you notice the quiet. Then your ears adjust and you realize that it’s not quiet at all. You begin to hear sounds that rarely register in the city—birds and insects and wind blowing through the leaves. I waited next to the Cherokee until my eyes adjusted to the moonlight. When finally I moved, I moved slowly, carefully, holding the collar of my black jacket closed over the white shirt. I tried to remember the lessons my father taught me as a child, the “hunter’s rules” about surviving in the forest. I could recall only one. Stay the hell out of the woods after dark. A man could disappear in the woods at night, Dad had warned.
I was startled by the hoot-hoot of an owl, hesitated, spun around, and jogged back to the SUV. I unlocked the passenger door, reached under the seat and retrieved the hand grenade I had hidden there after my adventure with the Family Boyz. I should have locked it in my safe, but I never got around to it. Now I slipped it into my pocket. It made me feel safer.
I followed the spur for a tenth of a mile. It reminded me of the little-used logging roads that crisscross the woods near my property up north, but I was unaware of any logging operations this close to the Cities. I marched on. Were those my footsteps? I paused to listen, but then pushed on. This was taking way too much time. Merci was in danger and I had put her there. Yet at the same time I didn’t want to be careless. Careless would get us both killed.
I finally came to a tight bend in the road. Beyond the bend was the glimmer of a distant light. I left the spur and walked into the woods, trying to sneak up on it. I went about ten feet and tripped over a pile of garbage some environmentally-conscious individual had dumped there. It was a big pile, filled with cans, bottles, disposable diapers. I brushed the debris from my tuxedo. Some people just refuse to recycle.
I circled the garbage and discovered still another road, this one even less traveled than the spur. It led me closer to the light, but I froze when the moon flicker
ed off something metallic fifty yards ahead of me. I waited, listened. I heard no sound so I crept forward. There it was again. Another flash of light on metal. A gun? I had no way of knowing. To be safe, I drifted to my left. So did the reflection.
I slipped the Beretta out of its holster and moved in a crouch toward it. I relaxed only slightly when I realized I was stalking a car, the moon playing off its trim and windshield. The car was much too small to be the limousine. It wasn’t until I ran my fingers over the vehicle’s front grille that I recognized it. Stalin’s Jag, backed in and facing the spur, ready for a quick getaway. The doors were unlocked.
My first impulse was to foul the ignition so the Jag couldn’t be started. Then I had a better idea. I crept back to the pile of garbage, almost missing it in the dark, and rummaged through it until I found an empty Campbell’s soup can, bean with bacon, mm-mm good. I kept sifting until I found a suitable length of thick string that someone might have used to tie a package. I returned to the Jag and opened the door. The car’s interior light gave me enough to work by.
I jammed the can into the opening between the front seat and the floor, working as quickly as I could. Next, I tied one end of the string to the neck of the grenade. I slid the grenade into the soup can. It fit snugly. Sitting inside the car, just above the grenade, I secured the other end of the string to the car door. Next came the tricky part. Lying across the seat, I eased the grenade just far enough out of the can to grasp the pin. I removed it gently. Held by the wall of the soup can, the lever did not detach, the fuse did not ignite.
I hurried out of the passenger door of the Jag, closing it quickly and quietly behind me, and jogged into the woods. I stopped and waited until my breath returned to normal. When I assured myself that an explosion was not imminent, I again moved toward the beacon I had first seen from the road. A few minutes later I reached the edge of a large clearing.
I could see the light clearly now. It hung from a high post about twenty yards in front of a metal shed that could have been a small airplane hangar. Several vehicles were parked around the structure, including two flatbed trucks and two black Chevy vans. The large door to the shed was open. Bright lights shined inside. I could clearly see a limousine. I crawled along the tree line to position myself for a better look, my aching back protesting every inch of the way. There were several figures loitering in front of the vehicle, but I didn’t recognize any of them until a tall thin black man roughly pulled a woman from the back seat of the limo. She was dressed in raspberry lace, her golden hair piled high on her head. Merci protested, but Stalin didn’t care. He said something to her and then shoved her back inside the car.
At least she’s all right, I told myself. Aloud I whispered, “This is not good.”
“No, it’s not,” a shadow whispered back.
The chill that ran up my spine could have frozen ice cream. Someone put a heavy knee in the small of my back—just what I needed—and brushed my cheek with the cold muzzle of snub-nosed .38.
“Not a sound,” the shadow whispered. He took the Beretta from my hand and passed it to another shadow behind him. Both of them pulled me to my feet, each taking one arm.
“Come with us and keep your mouth shut,” the first shadow told me. I did what he said. I didn’t know who they were, but I knew they couldn’t be Stalin’s people. If they were Stalin’s people, I would have been dead by now and no one would have cared how much noise it took to kill me.
The two men hustled me to the spur, down the spur to the dirt road and across the road into the woods on the far side. Neither spoke.
We hiked for twenty minutes through the underbrush. I was the only one making noise—the other two seemed to know the location of every twig, root, or branch that I tripped over or ran into. My damaged body protested their rough treatment but I tried mightily to keep from crying out—I had a reputation to protect, after all. Unfortunately, my body betrayed me and several low grunts escaped my clenched teeth.
“You’re such a whiner, McKenzie,” one of the men told me.
Finally, we broke into a small clearing filled with men, maybe two dozen of them, who flinched visibly when we emerged from the underbrush. They all carried automatic weapons, M-16s mostly, plus a smattering of shotguns, and they all wore nylon jackets with big, bright letters on the front and back over their dull body armor. Some of the letters read ATF. Some read FBI.
My companions led me to where two men stood, reading a map spread across the hood of a vehicle with a red-filtered light. “Look at what we found.” Both men turned in unison.
“Who the hell are you supposed to be, James Bond?” asked the smaller of the two, the one I had dubbed Harry Dean Stanton.
“I told you,” said the man I knew as Alec Baldwin. “That’s ten bucks you owe me.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Harry as he reluctantly flipped through several folded bills he fished from his pocket until he found the correct denomination.
“We weren’t properly introduced,” Alec said. “I’m Bullert. He’s Wilson.”
I preferred the names I had given them.
“So, tell me, McKenzie,” said Alec as he took the ten from Harry and shoved it into his pocket. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”
“It was such a nice evening, I thought I’d take a stroll.”
“You know something, McKenzie?” said Harry. “This is the only thing you’ve done that I didn’t anticipate.”
I looked from one to the other and then at the small knots of agents waiting in the clearing.
“I have a feeling you guys have been playing me like a violin ever since this thing began. Want to tell me what’s going on?”
“It gets complicated,” said Alec as his agent handed my gun to him.
“It doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere.”
“My partner says you’re pretty smart,” said Harry. “I think you rely too much on bluff and muscle. Why don’t you tell us what you think you know.”
“Warren Casselman and his pals are gunrunners,” I said. “They buy discarded Warsaw Pact ordnance from former Russian communists and smuggle it into Minnesota using their various businesses—Belloti, CK Computers, Mellgren’s, Katherine Katzmark’s Worldware. I saw their crates and cartons in Stalin’s crib. Stalin and the Family Boyz handle distribution and muscle. You can jump in at any time.”
“You’re doing fine,” Alec said. “I told you he was good.”
“Dumb luck,” said Harry.
“David Bruder probably used his used car lots to help launder the money—he wouldn’t be the first car salesman to do it. Jamie Carlson Bruder had worked for his attorneys—maybe she found out about it and threatened to blow the whistle. Or maybe she didn’t. The point is, Napoleon Cook learned that Jamie was talking with a former cop and panicked. Cook was a nervous guy. He probably told Stalin that they were all going to prison unless something was done. Stalin killed Jamie or had her killed after torturing her to find out what’s what. Then he came after me. I’m guessing Bruder grabbed his son and went on the run to avoid the same fate. When he came out of hiding, the Boyz killed him.”
“Oh yeah, he’s Einstein,” Harry told Alec.
“He got most of it right.”
“I want my ten bucks back.”
“What did I miss?” I asked.
“You’re correct about the Entrepreneurs and the Family Boyz,” said Alec. “They’ve been selling arms for about five years, now. In fact, their operation has become so lucrative for the Boyz that they gave up their daytime job.”
“Dealing grass from Mexico,” I interjected.
“But September Eleventh changed all that. Suddenly, these fine, upstanding citizens are wondering if they’ve been subsidizing Osama, if the weapons they buy and sell are going to terrorist groups like al-Qaida. Apparently, the thought had never occurred to them before. In any case, they held a vote—very democratic, our Entrepreneurs. Six to two they voted to get out of the arms smuggling business, with only Belloti
and Mellgren in the minority. But they forgot their partners. Stalin and the Family Boyz voted to stay. They also voted that the Entrepreneurs stay, too. The Entrepreneurs didn’t like it, but what could they do? Stalin, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, can be very persuasive.”
“Only Katherine Katzmark wouldn’t go for it,” Harry said. “She walked into my office without an appointment one morning, sat down, and told me everything. She wasn’t looking to make a deal, didn’t ask for immunity. She was willing to take whatever punishment she received. She had seen the Twin Towers fall on TV and she figured she deserved whatever happened to her. I always admired her for that. Anyway, we called the ATF … .”
“We were already on it,” Alec assured me. “We knew through our sources in Bonn that Geno Belloti was using his import-export packaging company to move surplus weapons …”
“But they didn’t know about the rest of the Entrepreneurs or the Family Boyz,” Harry said. “We supplied that intel.”
“We’ll be sure to invite you to the office Christmas party,” Alec told him.
“The Boyz and the Entrepreneurs were easy,” Harry said. “We could have busted them anytime.”
“But you also wanted the Russians,” I guessed.
“To get them, we used Katherine,” Alec said. “The relationship between the Entrepreneurs and the Family Boyz was strained, to say the least. We convinced Katherine to suggest a solution that would satisfy both parties. Arrange a face-to-face between the Russians and the Family Boyz. They could then negotiate purchase and distribution between them. If they decided to continue using Belloti and Mellgren as mules, fine, but the other Entrepreneurs could then be eased out. That way Stalin no longer had to worry about keeping them in line and he could keep more of the profits. Plus, Stalin gets to be an ‘international’”—Alec quoted the air—“‘arms dealer.’ Believe me when I tell you he liked that idea very much.”
“Oh, I believe it.”
A Hard Ticket Home (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels) Page 22
