Unidentified Woman #15 (20 page)

“Who are you?”

Her voice was that of a woman who was scared silly. I wanted her to be frightened; I needed her to be frightened. Yet at the same time I felt like the biggest jerk.

“I told you. My name is Dyson.” I leaned forward and spoke softly. “I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m threatening you. Actually, I’m not sorry, because I am threatening you. But I mean you no harm, I promise. If you answer my questions, Emily”—I used her first name on purpose, speaking it as if we were friends—“I will leave you alone.”

What a sonuvabitch you are,
my inner voice said.

Her eyes flitted over the trophies arranged on her desk: a gold figure of a female athlete, her arms stretched over her head, mounted on a black cube with a tiny plaque that read
TOP CLOSER VOLUME AGENT OF THE YEAR
; next to it, a pair of crystal wings carved with the words
CONGRATULATIONS!
1,000
HOMES SOLD.

“I’ve been in real estate for thirty-five years without a mark against my name,” Emily said.

“We can speak privately. Or we can speak here. You decide.”

She replied so softly that I nearly missed it when she said, “In private.”

“There’s a coffeehouse down the street. Do you know it?”

Emily nodded.

“Meet me there. Don’t make me wait too long.”

*   *   *

I did a survey back when I was living in Falcon Heights and discovered that there were thirteen coffeehouses within a two-and-a-half-mile radius of my front door. How they all stayed in business, much less thrived, was a mystery to me. With a couple of notable exceptions, they seemed identical. Certainly the caf
é
mocha I was served ten minutes after I left Kenwood Real Estate tasted no different than any other caf
é
mocha I’ve ever had. It had been served in a paper cup with a plastic lid. The name Nick had been scrawled on its side although there weren’t enough customers in the coffeehouse to cause confusion.

There really was a career criminal named Nicholas Dyson who specialized in robbing banks, jacking armored cars, and burgling the occasional jewelry store. Google his name and you’ll find all kinds of information about him, along with photographs of me. In one I’m clean-shaven; in the others I’m wearing long hair and a scraggly beard. A couple of friends with the FBI and ATF coerced me into going undercover as Dyson to look for weapons along the Canadian border; they had edited the files and uploaded the photos to support my disguise. That was nine months ago, and although the case was now closed, they forgot to remove them. I never said anything about it because, well, there were times when a guy might want to pretend to be someone else. Like when there was a distinct possibility that his real name was known to the friends and colleagues of a dead gunman, a murdered college kid, and a young woman who might or might not have killed them both.

I sat at a small table next to a gas fireplace that wasn’t lit and watched the door, all the while trying to remind myself that I was the good guy. It was hard to believe, especially when Emily Hoover entered, clutching her bag to her chest as if it were the most valuable thing she owned. It took her a moment to find me. She came to the table and sat down, moving as if in slow motion. Her face no longer looked handsome, merely old.

“I’m here.”

From the sound of her voice, she could have been a condemned prisoner declining the blindfold offered by her executioner.

“May I get you something to drink?” I asked.

She shook her head.

A young man entered the coffeehouse; a chime that sounded like it came from an ancient clock rang when he stepped through the door. That coupled with the sight of him caused Emily to flinch. There was nothing about his appearance that was cause for concern, unless it was the Where’s Waldo stocking hat that he wore. Yet Emily’s eyes kept moving from me to him and back again as he ordered his beverage and set up a laptop on a small table near the door while he waited for it to be made.

“Friend of yours?” I asked.

“I thought he was a friend of yours,” Emily said.

She’s paranoid,
my inner voice decided. ’Course, if I were her, I’d be paranoid, too.

“I don’t mean to put you on the spot,” I said. “What I said before is true. I’m not trying to mess up your life.”

“Men have told me that before. Yet, here I am.”

“Tell me about them—the men using your properties. From your reaction, I’m guessing that you didn’t give them access willingly.”

My remark seemed to surprise her. Her eyes flitted to Waldo. He had retrieved his drink and was now sipping from the cup while he stared intently at his laptop. Not once did I notice him glancing at Emily. Her gaze came back to me.

“Who are you?” she asked again. “Are you the police?”

“Hardly.”

“Who, then?”

“Let’s just say I’m an interested third party and let it go at that. Your houses—”

“Not the police?”

I held up my cell phone for her to see.

“I could call them,” I said.

“They forced me.”

“How?”

“They have pictures. Videos.”

Ahh, hell,
my inner voice said. At the same time, I had to ask.

“Videos of what?”

“I bought computer equipment,” Emily said. “At one of their garage sales. Later, they sent an e-mail. It said they had a TV for sale. The exact kind that I told them I wanted. They have a video of me buying it. The TV was stolen. They said if I didn’t do exactly what they told me, they’d send the e-mail and the video to the police and to Kenwood. They said they’d post them on the Internet. I’d lose everything. My license. My career. My reputation. They’d send me to prison for five years.”

I was actually relieved to hear it. When she said “video,” my mind went somewhere else entirely. Still, blackmail was blackmail—there was nothing I hated more.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“I don’t know his name. At least not the first man.”

“Describe him.”

She gave me a pretty good
portrait parle
of John Kispert.

“What did he make you do?” I asked.

“I have houses for sale. Some of them are unoccupied. I was forced to make them available for their garage sales. They’d use them for just one day and then…”

“Do you know when the next garage sale takes place?”

Emily didn’t reply.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because I didn’t ask these questions in a loud voice in your office surrounded by your friends and colleagues.”

Emily set her bag on the table and let her arms drop to her side. She appeared utterly defeated.

“I always knew this day would come,” she said.

“When does the next garage sale take place?”

“Saturday.”

“Where?”

Emily recited an address in Apple Valley that I wrote into my notebook.

“This man who is blackmailing you, how does he make contact?” I asked.

“He doesn’t. Not anymore. Not after that first meeting. After that, he made me deal with two other men.”

“What are their names?”

“Mitch and Craig. That’s all I know. They’re the two that sold me the computer and the TV in the first place. They probably took the video, too. We’ve never spoken of it. We haven’t actually met since then, since they sold me the TV.”

“How do you communicate?”

“Cell phone.”

“Do they call you or do you call them?”

“Little of both.”

“The number that you call—is it the same number or does it change?”

“The same number.”

“Give it to me,” I said.

She read it off her cell phone log, and I inputted it into mine.

“Ms. Hoover, after I left your office just now, did you call them?”

She didn’t answer.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t mind. They probably want you to call back and tell them what I wanted. Go ’head and do that. Tell them my name is Nick Dyson, if you haven’t already. Tell them I forced you to give up their cell number. Tell them that I have a mutually beneficial proposition for them and that I’ll call soon to set up a meeting. Will you do that, Emily?”

She nodded.

I wanted to give her something to hang on to, words of encouragement. I wanted to let her know that it was all going to work out and that she would be okay. Yet that would have been out of character. Nick Dyson was a sonuvabitch.

I stood, put on my coat, and started for the door. If Waldo noticed that I was preparing to leave, he didn’t show it.

Emily called to me.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Nothing personal, lady. It’s strictly business.”

You’re sure it’s Dyson who’s the sonuvabitch, right?
my inner voice asked.

*   *   *

Rosita called my name and gave me a hug just moments after I walked through the front door of Tres Hermanas Mexican Restaurant and Grocery. I admit it made me feel special even though I knew she greeted many of her regular customers the same way.

“Estoy feliz de verite, mi amigo,”
she said.
“¿C
ó
mo est
á
s?”

“Bueno, bueno. ¿C
ó
mo va el negocio?”

Rosie flicked her hand at the nearly full restaurant behind her.

“I can’ complain,” she said. Which was how she always replied when someone asked how business was. Rosie can’t complain. Good, bad—she was one of the Three Sisters, and she had been living the dream ever since she and her family moved to South Minneapolis from Puerto Rico thirty-five years ago. I asked her once, since she was Puerto Rican and she and her sisters served Puerto Rican food, why they called Tres Hermanas a Mexican restaurant. She said when they first immigrated, she discovered that most people in the Midwest thought Puerto Rico was in Mexico, a part of Mexico, and they didn’t think it would be good business to contradict them. The customer, after all, is always right.

“Has Herzy been around?” I asked.

Rosie’s eyes narrowed and she began wiping her hands on her apron even though they weren’t soiled—it could have been the same apron she had been wearing when I first met her.

“I like ju,” she said.

“Thank you. I like you, too.”

“I like Herzy.”

“I like him, too.”

“Ju bad for ’im.”

“Me?”

“Ju get ’im in trouble, and he been tryin’ so ’ard to stay outta trouble.”

“Are we talking about the same guy?”

“I mean it, Mc’enzie.”

I held up both hands in surrender.

“Ning
ú
n problema, se
ñ
ora,
” I said. “I promise.”

From her expression, I didn’t think she believed me. Still, she led me through the gate that separated the grocery store from the restaurant. I didn’t need to work hard to find him. Herzog was African American and the largest man I had ever seen in person. He made the table for four near the bar look like a TV tray. The remains of an order of fried pastry stuffed with beef and chicken and a half-finished bottle of Tecate were set in front of him. Rosie picked up the plate.

“Ju two play nice,” she said before she left.

I sat at the table without asking permission.

“How you doin’, Herzy?” I asked.

He reached for the Tecate and brought the bottle to his lips without removing his eyes from the Spanish-language version of
SportsCenter
playing on the TV suspended above the bar. There was no way my Spanish was good enough to watch ESPN Deportes. Herzog, though, could speak it fluently. He also loved jazz and baseball, probably the only things we had in common.

“No,” he said.

“No, what?”

“No to whatever you’re gonna ask.”

“Herzy…”

“Uh-uh, McKenzie. I’m outta the life. I ain’t hurtin’ nobody no more.”

“Who asked you to?”

Along with size, Herzog was the most dangerous man I had ever known. He’d done time for multiple counts of manslaughter, assault, aggravated robbery, and weapons charges. He’d been out on parole for two years with another three to go.

“Oh?” Herzog said. “You come here to invite me t’ party at your new crib? Chopper told me about it. View of the river. Sounds nice.”

“There’s a couple of bucks in it.”

“Don’t need money. Been workin’ for Chopper. Sitting at a computer terminal all day buyin’ up tickets to concerts and such, then scalpin’ ’em. Well, brokerin’ they call it now since they made it legal.”

“Sounds like a lot of fun.”

“No one gets hurt, McKenzie. That’s the thing.”

“I’m glad you found religion, Herzy. I really am. But I need your help.”

“You ain’t listening, McKenzie.”

“There’s this girl…”

I explained about El, how they rolled her off the back of a pickup truck onto the freeway, how she’d gone missing. The thing about Herzog that I knew and Rosie knew and maybe one or two others knew was that, despite his checkered history, he had a kind heart.

“You’re not lookin’ to scramble these guys?” he asked. “Put ’em down?”

“I’m just trying to keep from getting hurt myself. Who’s going to start trouble with you standing behind me looking like, well, looking like you?”

“What I like about you…”

I wasn’t sure that you did,
my inner voice said.

“What I like about you, McKenzie, you got a code. Lives by it. You tell a brother you gonna do a thing, it gets done. You tell ’im no one’s gonna get shot, he believes it.”

“I can only promise that I’ll be the one carrying a gun, not you.”

“That’s good, cuz I ain’t violating my parole.”

“So, how ’bout it?”

“Your Nina, she took care of me that one time at Rickie’s. C
é
cile McLorin Salvant came to town, and she got me a table right up front, me and my date. Even introduced us after her set. That was sweet.”

“She’ll give you hell if something bad happens to me.”

“What do you want me to do?”

*   *   *

I called Craig and Mitch on a $19.99 burn phone that I bought at Target—I sure as hell wasn’t going to use my cell. Emily Hoover must have contacted them as I suggested, because they were waiting for the call. I told them I wanted to meet. When I gave them the choice of venue, they answered without hesitation. Red Lobster. I’m not making this up. A family restaurant surrounded by customers and an attentive waitstaff—I guess it made them feel safe. We arrived early because I wanted to feel safe, too. Herzog and I sat in the Jeep Cherokee and watched as they drove up. We could see them as they took a booth against the window in the bar.