Highway 61 (27 page)

“Vicki,” I said.

She covered her face with both of her hands and wept into the palms. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said.

I waited. Slowly her shallow, rapid breathing became more regular. I wondered if her cupped hands had formed a pocket that allowed her to breathe her own air, not unlike someone who breathes into a paper bag when suffering an anxiety attack—it allowed her to inhale the carbon dioxide she was expelling, thus producing a calming effect. I released her and stepped back. Eventually she dropped her hands to her sides and looked at me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“What should we do?”

I had already taken off my brown leather jacket and was removing my sweater. I gave the sweater to Vicki.

“Put this on over your blouse,” I said.

She did what I asked. The sweater was big and bulky on her. She had to push the cuffs up; the hem fell against her thighs. Still, putting it on over her bloodstained clothes seemed to cheer her somewhat.

“I look ridiculous,” Vicki said.

“Didn’t that used to be the height of fashion a while back?” I asked. “Oversized sweaters?”

“Not in my lifetime.”

The Kevlar vest was clearly visible beneath my blue dress shirt, and I had to button the shirt all the way to my throat to keep the top of it from peeking out.

“I thought you were shot,” Vicki said. “The vest—that’s why you weren’t hurt.”

“That’s why,” I said.

“I want a bulletproof vest. Can I have it?”

“I can protect you. Can you protect me?”

She shook her head.

“Then I’ll keep the vest.” I checked the Beretta, holstered it on my belt, and put my jacket on over it. “C’mon.”

Hotel Sofitel boasted a fine French restaurant called Chez Colette that had its own street entrance. There was an unoccupied maître d’ stand just inside the door near a sign that read
PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED
. It was still early for a Saturday night, and there were plenty of empty tables. I ignored the sign and the tables and led Vicki across the restaurant to a second entrance just off the hotel’s lobby. We crossed the lobby to the front of the hotel.

The doorman said, “Good evening, sir.” He touched the brim of his hat with two fingers when he looked at Vicki. “Miss.”

“Good evening,” I said. “I’d like a taxicab.”

I reached into my pocket and produced a handful of folded bills to prove I meant business. The doorman hailed the first taxi in line at the cabstand. The taxi drove up, and the doorman opened the back door for us. Vicki slipped into the seat. I gave the doorman a five-dollar bill for his trouble and slid in after her.

The driver put the taxi in gear and started driving off even before he said, “Where to?”

“Airport,” I said.

“Which terminal?”

Not long ago, the two terminals that made up the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport were named after Charles A. Lindbergh, the Minnesota-born pilot who was the first man to fly solo across the Atlantic, and Hubert H. Humphrey, the state’s longtime senator and U.S. vice president. However, it was decided by the powers that be that those names were far too confusing for travelers, who occasionally mixed them up. So now they’re designated Terminal One and Terminal Two. That, of course, cleared up everything.

“One,” I said.

“That would be the old Lindbergh Terminal,” the driver said.

See?

To pass the time, the driver waxed poetic about the ineptitude of the Minnesota Vikings and how their season had pretty much ended before it had even begun. He then segued into a dissertation on the continuing futility of both the Wild and the Timberwolves, his general thesis being that professional sports in Minnesota sucked and don’t get him started on the Gophers. For the most part I agreed with him.

“Except for the Twins,” I said.

“Baseball?” He spoke the word as if it were an obscenity. “Baseball?”

“My good man,” I said, “baseball is the only sport God approves of.”

“He tell you that Himself, did He?”

I held up my crossed fingers so he could get a good look at them in his rearview.

“We’re like this,” I said.

The cabbie thought it was pretty funny.

“Do you believe that, Miss?” he asked. “Him and God?”

Vicki didn’t answer. Vicki didn’t say a word throughout the drive. Instead, she kept glancing at me as if she were hoping to get a glimpse of my plans in my face, in my gestures, and in my words. Yeah, like I had a plan. Well, actually, I did.

After we arrived, I paid off the driver and escorted Vicki into the terminal. From there we went one level down and followed the signs to the Red and Blue parking ramps. Vicki still refused to speak. She let me lead her around like a visitor from abroad who didn’t know the language.

On the second level between the ramps, there were seven car rental companies. I chose the one with the shortest line. Twenty minutes later we drove off in a black Altima two-door coupe. A few minutes after that, we were on Highway 5 heading into St. Paul.

“McKenzie?”

“How are you holding up, sweetie?” I asked.

“Where are we going?”

I gave my standard smart-ass reply to the question—“Straight to hell unless we change our ways.”

She nodded as if it were the answer she was expecting.

SIXTEEN

Highway 61 ran through the City of Hastings as Vermillion Street. When Hastings was founded in 1857 and for many years afterward, it was considered important. The city was located at the junction of the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers and proved to be a good deep-draft riverboat port. Plus, it was close to the hydropower of the waterfalls on the nearby Vermillion River. ’Course, those days were far behind it and celebrated now once a year during Rivertown Days. Like a great many other small towns scattered across America, Hastings no longer had a reason to exist. If its population had increased in the past decade, it was solely because it was located eighteen miles south of St. Paul and twenty-six miles from Minneapolis—close to the Cities, yet not part of them, which, I was sure, came as a great comfort to commuters.

Hastings had a couple of nice hotels, including the Afton House and the Rosewood Inn, yet we registered at a cheap dive on this side of the river. To say the motor lodge was located in a strip mall would have been an insult to strip malls. The motel took up one end. It was surrounded by a hard-packed sand and gravel parking lot; you could park directly in front of your motel room door. A self-service gas station that also acted as a miniature grocery store and bait shop was on the other end. Between them there was a café that proudly served “American Cuisine,” including all-you-can-eat hotdish between 4:00 and 8:00
P.M.
, an office for State Farm Insurance, and a video rental store that looked as if it had been closed since the invention of the DVD. Across the street there was a fried chicken joint popular among customers who have never had really good fried chicken and a bingo parlor. The windows of the parlor had all been painted over with colorful promotional messages—“Thursday and Saturday late night sessions,” “Max Pack $10 Off,” “Thanksgiving Weekend Specials,” “Concessions! Everything from popcorn and pizza to burgers and Coke products. Mmmmm,” and “Viking Sundays! If Bret Favre plays all side packs are $4 (paper only).”

The motel manager smirked when I paid in cash and told him I didn’t know how long I was staying. The smirk gave me a creepy feeling that quickly turned to anger. I would have liked to correct his lewd impression of me with a quick spear hand to his throat, since demanding two double beds obviously had no effect, except Vicki’s golden hair if not her face was clearly visible in my car through the manager’s office window. If I were him, I probably would have smirked, too.

The city also had a couple of decent restaurants—the Mississippi Belle and Levee Café were well regarded—yet we ordered burgers at a drive-through and ate them in the Altima. Afterward, we stopped at a Target store, and I bought new clothes for Vicki, including a lightweight robe, as well as a few things for myself while she waited in the car. It was just after 10:00
P.M.
by the time we were safely ensconced in the motel room.

The first thing I did after we entered the room was turn on the light. There was a low-wattage bulb hidden behind a glass cover in the center of the ceiling that gave the room a sickly orange tint. I carefully locked the door behind me and went to the window. After making reasonably sure that no one was lurking outside, I closed the tattered drapes.

The first thing Vicki did was turn on the TV. She didn’t tune it to a specific channel or search for a program. In fact, she turned her back to it once it was on and went into the bathroom. It was strictly white noise. And I thought
I
was a member of the TV generation.

I heard running water. Vicki said something, but I couldn’t hear. I turned down the volume on the TV.

“What was that?” I asked.

Vicki stepped out of the bathroom. She had removed the sweater and was drying her hands with a small white towel.

“I look terrible,” she said. “I need to take a shower. Can I take a shower?”

“Sure,” I said.

Her eyes became wide, and her mouth hung open for a moment. A hand slipped out from under the towel, and she slowly pointed at the TV. I turned to see what she was looking at. A female news reporter standing in front of a coffeehouse filled half of the screen. Vicki’s face filled the other half. The photo had been taken before she switched her hair color from roses and wheat to startling blond; it was much shorter then, too. At least we had that going for us, I told myself. I quickly turned up the volume.

“Police are looking for Vicki Walsh, age nineteen, in connection with the shooting,” the reporter said.

A female news anchor started quizzing the reporter.

“Do we know that she’s a suspect in the shooting?” the anchor asked.

“Not at this time,” said the reporter. “It’s still very confused here. Vicki Walsh could be a suspect or she could be a witness. All we know for certain is that police want to question her as soon as possible and are asking our viewers for help in locating her.”

“Thank you, Karen.” The scene shifted to the news anchor sitting alone at her desk. “Once again, two unidentified men were shot and killed in a parking lot near Southdale Shopping Center in Edina tonight. Police continue to investigate. We’ll be right back.”

I turned off the TV just as the commercial began.

“Muehlenhaus,” I said.

“Who?”

“I think I might have mentioned him earlier.”

“The guy you said was the prince of darkness?”

“It’s been less than three hours since the shooting, and they haven’t identified your friends Sean and Tony, yet they’ve not only identified you, they’ve distributed your photo to the local TV stations. On top of that, they’re not actually accusing you of the shooting. They’re only saying they want to question you about it. It’s their way of letting you know that all this can be made to go away if you give them what they want. They’re using the news media to offer you a deal. Pure Muehlenhaus. That sonuvabitch.”

“You said I could trust Muehlenhaus,” Vicki said.

“Did I? I can’t imagine what possessed me.”

Vicki sat on the edge of the bed farthest from the door, holding the hand towel in her lap.

“I still have the high card,” she said.

I sat on the edge of the bed closest to the door.

“The flash drive with Roberta’s files?” I asked.

She smiled at my naiveté.

“No,” Vicki said. “Flash drive? Do you think anyone is going to be afraid enough to pay blackmail because their name appears in a ledger? I have photos, I have taped phone conversations, I have video of my johns in the act, I have audio
and
video. I have corroborating evidence like credit card receipts and hotel room invoices. And I have a friend, an accomplice if you will, who is prepared to upload all of it onto the Internet, put it on YouTube, send it to newspapers and TV, e-mail it to all those citizen journalists like the Drudge Report. I don’t even have to talk to him directly. The way we have it worked out, we have a code, a code word. He hears the code, he sees the code—it could be on his cell, could be something I upload on Facebook, could be a text, an e-mail, a postcard, someone whispering in his ear on the street—he hears the code and everything happens automatically. I’ve already paid him. Don’t bother to ask his name or what the code is. I’m not telling. I still have the high card, McKenzie. I’m keeping it.”

“I don’t think you understand, Vicki. These people are playing for keeps. They’re prepared to have you arrested for murder. Or worse. What good will your high card do you then?”

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“I have friends with the cops. We can arrange to have you turn yourself in, give up your files, and turn state’s evidence. You could bring Roberta down. You could bring them all down.”

“Do you really think they’d let me? Who am I? I’m a nineteen-year-old prostitute. Who are they? Pillars of the community. C’mon, McKenzie. You know how it works.” Vicki pointed at the TV. “Besides, this guy Muehlenhaus—you said he already has the police. I bet he has judges and prosecutors, too.”

“Not all of them.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have to take that chance. Fortunately, there’s an alternative.”

“What alternative?”

“The one I intended to take all along—get my money and disappear. No more collections. I am officially retired. All I ask is that you give me a ride down to Rochester and put me on a bus.”

“When?”

“Monday. After the banks open and I can get to my safe deposit box.”

“You placed all that money in a safe deposit box?”

“Some of it. Traveling money. The rest is in money market funds.”

“Where would you go? Ithaca, New York?”

Vicki smiled at that. “No, not Cornell,” she said. “Somewhere else. Somewhere no one can find me.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

Vicki smiled again. “I do,” she said.

“You think you do. Vicki, I know how to find people, and so do they—and they will find you. Maybe not next week or next month or even next year, but they will find you and they will hurt you. What happened tonight at the coffeehouse was only the beginning. They’ll find you and it’ll be the same thing all over again. Think of your friends Sean and Tony.”