The Last Kind Word (28 page)

“Beautiful evening, isn't it?” James said.

“Certainly is,” Williams said. “I'm surprised that the honey is driving, though. Kinda hard to have her head in your lap if she's behind the wheel, ain't it?”

“You kiss your mother with that mouth, Deputy?” I said.

Williams didn't like the remark. He abruptly pulled open the car door; the dome light flicked on, giving me a good look at the half of his angry face that wasn't illuminated by the spotlight. I was wondering if he had his brass knuckles when James intervened.

“Personally, I didn't have a mother,” he said. “We were too poor.”

“That's sad,” Williams said.

“I might buy one, though, with my end of the heist. What about you?”

Williams slammed the door shut. “Nah,” he said. “She'd just complain that I don't call enough.”

“Mr. Brand wants to see you,” James said.

“I'm going to guess that you and he have come to some kind of arrangement,” I said.

“That's right,” Williams said.

“Kinda sucks to be you, though, doesn't it? I was going to give you half. What is Brand offering?”

“Not as much,” James said.

“Seems unfair.”

“Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Go along to get along.”

“Brand gave us the greater-good speech, too.”

“We're all striving for Sir Thomas More's utopian society,” Williams said.

The remark so surprised me that I damn near gave myself whiplash turning toward him.

“Deputy Williams,” I said. “You read. I'm impressed.”

Williams actually smiled, but James's laughter wiped it from his face.

“He got that offa
Jeopardy!
” James said.

“Nonetheless,” I said. “Where is Brand?”

“He's waiting at Buckman's,” Williams said.

“What a coincidence. We were just headed that way.”

“We know,” James said. “We just wanted to make sure you didn't get lost.”

“We'll be right behind you,” Williams said.

“That's comforting,” I said.

“Think of us as guardian angels,” James said.

“Or cherubim, if you prefer,” Williams said.

James stared at Williams across the front seat of the Taurus. “Now you're just showing off,” he said.

*   *   *

We waited until the deputies were back in their cruiser and the spotlight was extinguished before pulling off the shoulder and back onto the county blacktop. The deputies followed close behind. Josie spent more time watching them in the rearview mirror than the road in front of her. Her fingers grasped the steering wheel, and she was breathing hard through her nose.

“Do you have something to say?” I asked.

“What, I get to talk now?”

“Josie…”

“This is bullshit. No way the deputies are working with Brand for less than half. If they're working with Brand, that means they plan to take all the money and split it between them.”

“I was wrong, what I said the other day. You just might have a future in this business after all.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, what are we going to do?”

“Nothing is going to happen, Josie, until we have the money. Until we actually have the cash in hand it's just a bunch of guys pretending they're tough.”

“You're saying I shouldn't be afraid.”

“Not yet.”

“When?”

“I'll let you know.”

*   *   *

Scott, the bartender at Buckman's, looked nervous. His eyes flitted all over the place, moving from me to the deputies to Brand and Fenelon seated in a booth to Brand's thug sitting at the bar and nursing a bottled beer, and then back again. I had no idea what he was thinking, yet my intuition told me he was afraid something bad was going to happen while at the same time wondering how he was going to profit off it.

I took hold of Josie's arm and whispered in her ear. “Sit at the bar, order a vodka Collins, let the boys see how pretty you are.”

“What the hell…”

I tightened my grip on her arm. “Make sure the thug can see your hands. Whatever happens, stay out of it.” Jose gave me a look as if she wanted to protest some more. “Please,” I said.

She nodded and went to the rail. I marched to the booth and sat next to Fenelon across from Brand. “Gentlemen,” I said. “Funny meeting you here.”

Brand showed me his empty hands, which made me flash on the knights of old. Whenever they met fellow knights they didn't intend to slaughter, they would make a production out of revealing that they weren't holding weapons—that's how the handshake was developed. Funny the things that pop in your mind when you're nervous.

“We heard this was your favorite spot,” Brand said. He seemed incapable of speaking softly; the words flew like bird shot from a 12-gauge, and I thought, this is supposed to be a secret meeting?

“It's the only place I know of up here, although I'm told you have a gentleman's club down the road somewhere.”

I felt Fenelon's body stiffen next to mine, yet his face gave nothing away.

“It's a few miles from here on County 21,” Brand said. “You should drop in sometime. I'll take care of you.”

“I'll bet,” I said even as my inner voice spoke to me—
He doesn't know about your conversation with Fenelon.

“Speaking of which…” Brand reached into the pocket of his charcoal sports jacket. It was the same color yet a different cut from the suit coat he wore the night before. He stopped, though, when the bartender appeared at the table and set a bottle of Summit Extra Pale Ale in front of me.

“Hey,” I said. “Thanks, man.”

“Anything I can get you others?” Scott asked.

Both Brand and Fenelon glanced at the drinks in front of them and said no, they were fine. While Scott drifted back to the rail I took a long pull of the Summit. “I love this stuff,” I said.

Brand didn't seem to care. His hand disappeared into his pocket again and reappeared with a thumb drive. He slid the device across the table.

“We scanned the blueprints you wanted,” he said. “We couldn't give you the actual documents, though, could we?”

“Of course not.”

“Someone might suspect we're up to no good.”

I slipped the drive into my own pocket. “What about the other half?” I asked.

“Other half? Oh, yes. The … other half. Do you know where Crane Lake is?”

“No idea.”

“Get a map,” Fenelon said.

I turned in my seat to get a good look at him. His bruises seemed more pronounced than they had that morning.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“None of your damn business.”

I liked hearing the anger in his voice. It suggested that he was pissed at me instead of Brand.

On the other hand …
my inner voice warned.

I took a long pull of the ale and contemplated the interior of Buckman's. It was half filled, and most of the patrons seemed to be having a reasonably good time. Except for the thug, who sat with his back to the rail and balanced a beer on his knee, and James and Williams, who were seated at the far end of the bar. They were watching us intently, a grim expression on their faces. Josie sat between them, sipping from a tall, frosted glass, her back to us. Yet I could see her unhappy face in the mirror behind the bar, and I knew she was watching us, too.

“Crane Lake?” I said.

“It's a U.S. Port of Entry in Voyageurs National Park near the border,” Brand said. “It mostly serves seaplane traffic. Something like five thousand takeoffs and landings each year. Do you know where Orr is? The town of Orr?”

“No, but I'll get a map.”

“After you find Orr, get on 23, follow it to 24, and then go north toward Crane Lake. Go east on County Road 425. That will take you to Scotts Seaplane Base, but don't stop there. Stay on 425. You want to take the first left after you pass Rocky Road. It's an unpaved road. No sign. Follow it to the end. That will take you to a private seaplane base. Mine.”

“Yours?”

“Radar follows the planes as they approach Scotts. In the last half mile, when they're below the radar, occasionally a plane will turn toward my dock.”

“Doesn't the Customs and Border Patrol mind?”

“What the CBP doesn't know won't hurt them.”

“Okay.”

“Meet us at noon tomorrow. My Mexican associates will be present, so, Dyson, don't embarrass me by keeping us waiting.”

“Okay.”

“When will you make your move on the remote vault?”

“Hmm? Vault?”

“I can read a blueprint, Dyson.”

“A couple of days after I have the weapons. No more than that.”

Brand motioned toward the thug at the rail. “I want my man going on the job with you,” he said. “Canada is only a few miles away, and I don't want anyone getting lost.”

I could have told him sure, why not. After all, there wasn't actually going to be a robbery. At noon the ATF was going to bust Brand and his Mexican associates, and by this time tomorrow night I was going to be explaining to Nina why I called Shelby instead of her. If I was going to hit the remote vault, though, I wouldn't be doing it with Brand's armed thug standing somewhere behind me, so, keeping in character, I said, “No frickin' way.”

“Oh?”

“He makes me nervous.”

Brand leaned in and spoke softly. It was the first time he'd used an indoor tone of voice since I met him, and I have to confess to a ripple of anxiety that rolled up my spine.

“He should make you nervous, Dyson,” Brand said. “Very nervous. He's a made man. You know what that means, don't you?”

“He pulled himself up by his own bootstraps? Oh, wait, that's a self-made man.”

“You're a real funny guy, Dyson. Don't you think he's funny, Brian?”

“Smart mouth,” Fenelon said.

“It's like my old man used to say, just because it's important doesn't mean it's serious,” I said. “In a couple of days we're all going to be rich.”

“I want to be there when you divide the take,” Brand said. “Me and my man.”

“Imagine that.”

Brand displayed his empty hands again. “Until tomorrow, then,” he said.

I left the booth without saying good-bye, lingered at the bar for the length of time it took Josie and me to down what remained of our drinks, and escorted her past the deputies outside to the Ford Taurus.

“What did Brand say?” she asked when we were safely inside the car and pulling out of the parking lot.

“We're on for tomorrow noon. A place called Crane Lake.”

“I'm going with.”

“No, you're not, Josie, and don't even think of arguing with me.”

“You're not going alone, are you?”

“No. I'll take one person with me. Someone who knows the area.”

“Who?”

 

FOURTEEN

“Why me?” the old man wanted to know. He had been asking the same question since we boarded the Jeep Cherokee that morning and started driving toward the tiny town of Orr, population 267—yes, I looked it up. Hell, he had been asking the question since I made my choice known the evening before. All the other Bandits had asked it as well, only the old man's voice was the loudest and most strident.

“Why not take someone else?” he asked. “Any of 'em, all of 'em be better use to you than me.” His hands trembled—his entire body trembled—and I knew he was desperate for a beer or a joint. I made sure he had neither. “It don't make sense to bring me.”

“Perfect sense,” I said.

“I don't get it.”

“Remember what you said when we were on the deck that one time? Take care of my JoEllen, you said. Take care of David. Take care of all of them. That's what I'm doing.”

“How? How are you doin' that?”

“Think about it.”

He did, for nearly thirty seconds. “Tell me, Dyson.” His voice sounded desperate, and I decided it was better to have the conversation now instead of later—we were about five miles shy of Orr.

“What we're about to do—meeting with your pals like this—someone might get hurt,” I said. “If that happens, I want it to be you.”

“Me? My pals? What are you talking about? What did I do?”

“You're the rat.”

I spoke the last word like it was an obscenity. The old man's eyes grew wide with the sound of it. His mouth fell open yet spoke no words.

“Did you think I wouldn't find out?” I asked.

He didn't have an answer for that.

“Anyone who was in the cabin Sunday could have told James and Williams to look for Josie and me out on Highway 1, could have tipped them to what we were planning. Truth be told, I suspected it was Claire. Turns out I was wrong about her. Well, at least wrong about that. Anyway, only you, Josie, Roy, and Jill could have told Brand that Roy and I would be out of the cabin checking on the remote vault—giving him plenty of time to settle in and wait for us Monday night, taking us by surprise when we arrived. I eliminated the others when I had Josie call and tell you we were stopping at Buckman's on our way back from the Cities. Deputies James and Williams pulling us over last night, telling us they knew exactly where we were going and that Brand was waiting for our arrival—that pretty much settled it.”

“No, Dyson, please.”

“Only one person knew our plans. Only one.”

“Dyson…”

“That's why you're here, old man. If something goes wrong with your friends, I'm going to make sure it goes wrong for you, too.”

“Stop saying that. They're not my friends.”

“If you say so.”

“You don't understand.”

“I understand perfectly. James and Williams scared the hell outta you. Dying in prison—you hadn't actually thought about the possibility until they pulled you over, and I believe the idea really messed with your head. The thing is, though, the thing that pisses me off, is that you didn't take the hint. You didn't quit. You didn't ask the other Iron Range Bandits to quit, either. Yeah, you're afraid of prison. You're afraid of being poor, too, afraid of ending up like the friend you told me about. So you kept thieving until this job came along and you saw a way to get what you needed for yourself even if it cost the others. That's why you made a deal with the deputies and with Brand. If I'm mistaken, tell me.”