‘‘Snakepit,’’ Sloan said.
‘‘Yeah, they’re setting up for a fight over there,’’ Lucas said. He pushed the paper back to Sloan and picked up a menu. Everything featured grease. ‘‘I bet Susan O’Dell is the unidentified executive.’’
‘‘Whatever. But this sounds like pretty heavy pressure to keep the merger going; which would piss off the killer if he was trying to stop it.’’
Lucas had been preoccupied by the firebombing, but now looked up from the diner menu and said, ‘‘Bone’s the main guy behind keeping it moving . . . which is sort of odd, when you think about it.’’
‘‘Why?’’
‘‘Because most of those kinds of guys dream about being at the top. Running something. If this goes the way the papers have it outlined, the Bone gets the job, he’ll be putting himself out in the cold in a few months.’’
‘‘With about a zillion dollars,’’ Del said.
‘‘Yeah, there’s that . . . The thing is, should we put a watch on him? If some goofball is roaming around out there, trying to stop the merger, he’d be the next target.’’
‘‘Maybe talk to him, anyway,’’ Sloan said.
LUCAS TOOK A CALL ON THE CAR PHONE, TRANSFERRED in from Dispatch: ‘‘Why haven’t you arrested Wilson McDonald?’’ A woman’s voice, angry, but under tight control.
He said, ‘‘Who are you? Who is this?’’ and in the passenger seat beside him, Del took a phone out of his coat pocket and started punching in a number.
‘‘A person who is trying to help,’’ the woman said. ‘‘He almost beat his wife to death last night. You’ve got to arrest him before he kills someone.’’
Click. She was gone. Del was talking to Dispatch, but Lucas said, ‘‘She’s off,’’ and Del said into the phone, ‘‘So do you have a number?’’
They did. ‘‘Find out where it came from.’’
Pay phone. Up north, off I-694. Nothing there.
‘‘Who is it?’’ Lucas asked Del. ‘‘She knows everything.’’
‘‘Who’d know that Wilson McDonald beat up his wife last night? Especially if they both try to keep it quiet?’’
Lucas thought about it, then said, ‘‘Somebody in the family, maybe—and then there’s Mrs. McDonald herself.’’
‘‘Anonymous calls—she doesn’t take the rap if her old man finds out about them.’’
‘‘Yeah . . . you remember Annette what’s-her-name?’’
‘‘Honegger: I was thinking the same thing. And what happened to her.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ Lucas bit his lip. ‘‘They ever find her hands and feet?’’
‘‘Not as far as I know.’’
SHIRLEY KNOX WASN’T A PARTICULARLY GOOD RECEPTIONIST, but she did know a cop when she saw one. As Lucas and Del climbed out of Lucas’s Porsche, she muttered, ‘‘Oh, shit,’’ picked up the telephone, pushed the intercom button, and said, ‘‘Mr. Knox—Mr. Johnson is here to see you.’’
Out in the warehouse, Carl Knox was standing next to a foot-tall pile of illegally imported Iranian rugs. He looked up at the speaker as his daughter’s voice died away, said, as she had, ‘‘Oh, shit,’’ and then, ‘‘Wonder what they want?’’ To the man standing next to him, he said, ‘‘I’ll slow them down, you throw the rugs back in the box. If you got time, put a couple nails in the lid. Hurry.’’
Carl Knox didn’t know exactly how it had happened, but over the years he’d become the Twin Cities’ answer to the Mafia—or to organized crime, at any rate. He’d gotten his start twenty-five years earlier, stealing Caterpillar earthmoving equipment, a line which he still pursued with enthusiasm. Half of the Caterpillar gear north of the 55th parallel had gone through his hands, as well as most of the repair parts when they broke down.
He’d done well stealing Caterpillar. So well, in fact, that he’d piled up a couple hundred thousand unexplainable dollars, which inflation—this was back in the late seventies— began eating alive. Then he’d met a man named Merchant, who explained to him the street need for quick untraceable cash, which led Knox to becoming the Cities’ largest primelending loan shark. He didn’t actually shark himself, he simply loaned to sharks . . .
And that led to his introduction to gambling, and it occurred to him that you could run a pretty sizable book with the computer equipment he was using to locate the Caterpillar equipment he was planning to steal . . . and pretty soon one of his subsidiary partners was running the Cities’ largest sports book. But he’d never put any hits out on anyone, and while the occasional broken bone didn’t necessarily make him queasy—especially when the bone wasn’t his own—his Twin Cities attitude toward violence was, ‘‘Damn it, that sort of thing shouldn’t be necessary.’’
Carl Knox hustled his skinny butt into the showroom. A nice rehabbed Caterpillar 966 wheel loader was on display, with a fresh yellow paint job, just outside through the big front windows where he could admire it. As he walked in, he saw Del Capslock slouching toward the reception desk, where Shirley was concentrating on her gum chewing. Capslock was followed by another man, bigger and darker. Knox knew both the face and the name, though he’d never met him.
‘‘Mr. Capslock,’’ he called, a smile on his face. The smile was almost genuine, because Capslock usually wanted nothing more than information. Del spotted him, and drifted over, in that odd street-boy sidle of his.
‘‘Mr. Knox,’’ he said. He lifted a thumb over his shoulder to the dark man behind him. ‘‘This is Mr. Davenport.’’
‘‘Mr. Davenport—Chief Davenport—I’ve heard much about you.’’ Knox beamed.
‘‘And I’ve heard about you,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘What can I do for you gentlemen?’’ Knox asked. ‘‘A D9 for that gold mine, maybe?’’
‘‘We need you to call up your assholes and have them ask about a firebomb thrown through the window of Weather Karkinnen over in Edina,’’ Lucas said. His voice was friendly enough, and Knox presumed.
‘‘My assholes? What—’’
‘‘Don’t pull my weenie, Knox,’’ Lucas said, and the friendliness was gone—snap—without transition. ‘‘This is a serious matter, and if I have to pull down this fuckin’ warehouse with a crowbar to convince you it’s serious, I’ll call up and get some crowbars.’’
The hail-fellow disappeared from Knox’s face: ‘‘How the fuck am I supposed to know about somebody gets a bomb?’’
‘‘You saw it on TV?’’ Del asked.
‘‘Saw it on Channel Three, they were talking about the Seed coming after your asses again. I got nothin’ to do with the Seed . . .’’
‘‘We’re off the Seed,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘We’re looking for a new angle. So we want you to call up all your particular jerk-offs and tell them to start asking around. You can call me at my office in say . . . four hours. Four hours ought to be enough time.’’
‘‘Jesus Christ, I’d need more time than that,’’ Knox said. ‘‘I can’t do nothing in four hours . . .’’
‘‘We don’t have any time. We want to know where this is coming from, and why,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘So I can ask—’’
‘‘Ask,’’ Lucas said. He held out a business card, and Knox took it. ‘‘Four hours.’’
‘‘WE’RE SPINNING OUR WHEELS,’’ LUCAS SAID, AS HE settled behind the wheel of the Porsche.
‘‘You know what you gotta do?’’ Del asked.
Lucas shook his head and started the car.
‘‘You gotta talk to Weather,’’ Del said. ‘‘We gotta know that it’s not coming from her direction, instead of ours.’’
‘‘Can’t do it,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Get Sherrill to do it,’’ Del said. ‘‘Another woman, that oughta be okay.’’
‘‘I’ll think about it,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Gotta do it, unless something comes up,’’ Del said. ‘‘I told the old lady to hang out at her mom’s tonight. Until we find out.’’
Del had a
n improbably good marriage, and Lucas nodded. ‘‘Good . . . Goddamnit, I can’t go see Weather.’’
Del didn’t answer. He simply stared out the passengerside window, watching the darkening fall landscape go by. ‘‘Hate this time of year, waiting for winter,’’ he said finally. ‘‘Cold coming. Wish it was August.’’
COPS WERE WANDERING IN AND OUT OF LUCAS’S office—nobody had anything—when Knox called back.
‘‘You owe me,’’ Knox said. ‘‘I came down on everybody, hard.’’
‘‘I said four hours, it’s been six,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Fuck four hours,’’ Knox said. ‘‘I had to take six, because in four I wasn’t getting anything.’’
Lucas sat up: ‘‘So what’d you get in six?’’
‘‘Same thing: nothing,’’ Knox said. ‘‘And that makes me think that whoever did it is nuts. This isn’t a guy , this is some freak. Bet it was a neighborhood kid has the hots for her, or something like that. ’Cause it’s coming out of nowhere.’’
‘‘Thanks for nothing,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘Hey: I didn’t give you nothing,’’ Knox objected. ‘‘I’m telling you serious: There’s nothing on the street. Nothing. Zippo. This was not a pro job, not a gang job, not bikers. This had to be one guy, for his own reasons. Or we woulda heard.’’
Lucas thought about it for a minute, said, ‘‘Okay,’’ and dropped the phone on the hook.
‘‘What?’’ Sherrill asked. She was parked in a chair across the desk and looked dead tired.
‘‘Knox got nothing, says there’s nothing on the street.’’
‘‘He’s right.’’
‘‘Damn it.’’ He turned in his chair, staring out the window at the early darkness.
‘‘Want me to talk to Weather? Del mentioned something . . .’’
‘‘Damn it . . .’’ He didn’t answer for a moment, then sighed and said, ‘‘I’m gonna do it.’’
‘‘Want me to come along?’’
‘‘No . . . well, maybe. Let me talk to her shrink.’’
ANDI MANETTE WAS ANGRY ABOUT THE INTERVIEW: ‘‘You’re not helping anything.’’
Lucas’s anger flashed right back: ‘‘Not everything can be resolved by counseling, Dr. Manette. We’ve got somebody throwing firebombs, and I’ve got cops hiding their wives and kids. They’re afraid it’s another comeback from the crazies. I gotta talk to her.’’
After a moment: ‘‘I can understand that. Weather’s probably at her house right now, salvaging what she can— there’s smoke in everything. It’d be better if you talked to her here, at my place.’’
‘‘All right. When? But it’s gotta be soon.’’
‘‘I’ll call her. How about . . . Give us two hours.’’
‘‘Do you want me to bring another cop? I can bring Marcy Sherrill if that’d help—maybe it’d make it seem more official and less personal. If that’d be good.’’
‘‘I don’t know if it’d make any difference, but bring her along. Maybe it’ll help.’’
HE HADN’T SEEN WEATHER IN ALMOST AMONTH; AND when Lucas walked in the door of Andi Manette’s house, trailed by Sherrill, the sight of her stopped him cold. She was curled in a living room chair, a physical gesture that he knew too well. She was a small woman, and often curled in chairs like a cat, her feet pulled up, her nose in a book— and when she turned toward him, she smiled reflexively and it was almost like everything was . . . okay.
Then the smile faded, and Sherrill bumped him from the back. He stepped forward and nothing was okay.
‘‘How’ve you been?’’ he mumbled.
‘‘Well: the firebomb . . .’’
‘‘Sorry; stupid question. But you know.’’
‘‘I know: I’ve been okay.’’ The smile was long gone now, and her face was tense, her voice controlled. ‘‘But the firebomb—do you think it might be the Seed?’’
Lucas shook his head, found a chair, sat down. Sherrill was wearing a leather jacket, and she pulled it off to reveal a very large cherry-stocked .357 Magnum in a black leather shoulder rig. She looked like an S-and-M magazine’s cover girl. ‘‘Not the Seed,’’ Lucas said. ‘‘I talked to their head guy, and we’ve had feelers out everywhere. It’s not the Seed.’’
‘‘A crazy man?’’
‘‘That’s the consensus right now.’’
‘‘Unless you’ve got something going on that we don’t know about,’’ Sherrill interjected. ‘‘Have you had any serious problems with unhappy patients, or relatives of unhappy patients, or maybe state cases from the psycho hospitals . . . like that?’’
Weather frowned, thought for a moment, then shook her head: ‘‘Not that I know of.’’
Sherrill leaned forward a bit: ‘‘I only know you a little bit, and I don’t want to step on either your feet or Lucas’s feet. But how about new relationships? Or men who think you might be interested, who you blew off? There’s usually some kind of emotional basis for a nut attack.’’
Weather was shaking her head: ‘‘Nothing like that.’’
‘‘Any kids?’’ Lucas asked. ‘‘Any teenage boys trying to cut your grass for you, water your lawn? Just hanging around?’’
‘‘No . . . Lucas, I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of anybody who might do this. Any hint. People from back home, people from the hospital, from the university, cops, but . . . there’s nobody. Not to just come walking up some evening and throw a bomb through the window.’’
‘‘Goddamnit,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘My best idea was that somebody was trying to get at you through me,’’ Weather said. ‘‘Remember that newspaper article after the thing with Andi and John Mail? ‘The Pals of Lucas Davenport’? Maybe somebody who goes way back read that article—maybe somebody in prison at the time—and decided to come after me. There’d be no way for an outsider to know that we’d broken off the relationship. So . . . I think you might look at your past, more than mine. That is, if it’s not just some random crazy man.’’
‘‘How about the landlords? Would they—’’
‘‘Oh God, Lucas, no. They’re the nicest people in the world. I called to tell them about the house, and they were worried about me . No. Not them.’’
‘‘All right.’’ Lucas looked at Sherrill: ‘‘Anything else?’’
‘‘Not if she’s sure she’s not the target. But Weather, if you think of anything . . .’’
‘‘I’ll call Lucas the next minute,’’ she said.
‘‘So is that it?’’ Andi Manette asked.
Lucas looked at Weather for a long five seconds, then to Manette: ‘‘Yeah, that’s it.’’
Outside on the sidewalk, with the door closing behind them, Sherrill pulled on her jacket and said, ‘‘Whew.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘She said that thing about breaking off the relationship, and you never even flinched. And she just said it like . . .’’
‘‘It was done.’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
‘‘I flinched,’’ Lucas said.
‘‘God,’’ Sherrill said. Then, after a while, ‘‘Bad day.’’
REAL BAD DAY.
That night, a little after ten-thirty, Wilson McDonald was shaking his hand in James T. Bone’s face, sputtering, ‘‘Vice chairman. That’s nothing! Nothing! You’re treating me like a piece of shit.’’
Bone said, ‘‘Look, Wilson—you’re not gonna get the top spot. You’re just not. I can commit to leaving you as top guy in the mortgage company. I can get you the vice chairman’s job with the merged bank. But I can’t say what’ll happen after the merger.’’
‘‘Not gonna be any fuckin’ merger,’’ McDonald said. He’d never taken off his coat. He headed for the door, turned when he got there, and said, ‘‘And you’re never gonna run the goddamned bank. Maybe I can’t get it myself, but I can fuck you up.’’
And he was gone.
Kerin Baki said, ‘‘If they go to O’Dell, we may
have a problem.’’
Bone shook his head. ‘‘Not necessarily. O’Dell needs ten. I can’t see more than seven or eight. And frankly, I don’t think McDonald can swing votes. Why should people swing on his say-so? He’s gone.’’
‘‘It’s not all power and money equations,’’ Baki said. ‘‘Some of it’s family and friendship. And all he has to do is swing maybe two votes . . .’’
‘‘I don’t think he can do it,’’ Bone said.
‘‘You’re underestimating O’Dell,’’ Baki said.
‘‘No. I just know what I’m willing to do, and what I’m not. If she gets it—so be it. But I don’t think she will.’’
REAL BAD DAY.
Susan O’Dell took a small red diabetic candy from a bowl on her coffee table, unrolled the cellophane with her fingertips, popped the candy in her mouth, and said, ‘‘I’m sure about Anderson, Bunde, Sanderson, Eirich, Sojen, and Goff. If you can give me Spartz, Rondeau, Young, and Brandt, then we’ve got it: we’ve got ten.’’
‘‘We can. Wilson talked to his father today, and he’s got Rondeau’s commitment. Spartz, Young, and Brandt have already committed to whatever Wilson wants to do,’’ Audrey McDonald said. Audrey was sitting on a love seat, her feet squarely on the floor, her purse squarely on her lap. Her whole body hurt, but nothing had been broken. When Wilson beat you, he did it carefully. Thoroughly, but carefully.
‘‘We’ve got to be sure,’’ O’Dell said.
‘‘I’ll get written commitments if you wish,’’ Audrey said stiffly. She hated O’Dell, but this was necessary.
‘‘That’s absurd,’’ O’Dell said. ‘‘Nobody would do that. And it’s not necessary. No—I want to talk to them. It’ll all be very pleasant, but we have to talk.’’
‘‘I’ll arrange it,’’ Audrey said. ‘‘But we do want your commitment in writing. We won’t be able to show it to anyone, of course, if you go through with your end . . . but if you don’t do what you say, we’ll . . . hurt you with it.’’
O’Dell shook her head. ‘‘Can’t do it.’’
‘‘You can if you want the job,’’ Audrey said. She twisted slightly, trying to ease a cramp in her back. He really had hurt her.