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Furious, Dale kicked at the heap of refuse. Then he walked to the Quonset, dug around in the debris, and found an old leaf rake, a regular rake, and a shovel. He returned to the pile. Methodically, he cleared away the drug-cooking garbage until he revealed a square of railroad ties buried in the weeds.

The sand was damp from the rain and it was easy to spade up the thistles and burdock. Then he raked them in a pile and flung them away.

Sweating now, breathing heavy, he spaded over the sand, ran the rake through it until he had excavated several strata of buried refuse: old pop bottle caps, a spoon, one of his sister’s Barbie dolls.

He snatched up the brown plastic figurine and slowly snapped off the arms, then the legs, and finally the head. He hurled the pieces away.

Then he sat down on the ties and removed his boots and mismatched socks and stuck his bare feet in the clean raked sand. He wiggled his toes.

Dad had built the sandbox for him when he was four.

Slowly Dale shaped two squat castle towers in the sand. The damp sand set up well as he carefully smoothed off the tops, making them round and symmetrical. He took a can of Coke from his pack, opened it, and sat hunched forward, staring at the sand castles and sipping the Coke.

When he finished the soda, he threw the empty can toward the pile of crud he’d raked from the sandbox. Then he reached into his pack and took out a small yellow precision-die-cast replica of a John Deere front-loader.

Not like the toys he’d owned as a kid, a collector’s item from Dad’s dealership-the same dealership whose demise he was presiding over. The tiny tractor had sat on a shelf at home.

In the basement, where Dale lived.

He bent over on all fours and ran the small vehicle back and forth in the clean sand. Then, in a sudden burst of rage he slammed the replica into the towers, smashing them.

“Kashuusshhewww!” he shouted, making explosive sounds as he grabbed double handfuls of sand and threw them into the air.

“Ka-boom.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Aw, God, what an asshole. You all right?” Nina raised her hand gingerly to Ace’s cheek, which was a little red where Broker had hit him.

“I’m fine. Good thing his hand was hurt. You see the bandage?”

Nina improvised. “Nailgun, slipped on him. He was putting new planks on the deck for Gull’s Retreat. That’s what we call Cabin Six.”

“Lucky me,” Ace said. “Otherwise he would have coldcocked me. I did not see that punch coming.”

“Ah, that one punch was all he had in him, ’cause I put him down pretty quick,” Gordy said triumphantly.

Ace eyed Gordy like he wasn’t real sure about that. He turned to Nina and said, “What was it you said your old man did?”

Ex-old man.” Nina arched her back.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but what does he do?” Ace said.

“What the fucker did was change on me. He was nice enough when we were getting to know each other, then I got pregnant, and we got married, and…ah, shit.” She waved a hand in disgust.

“No, I got that part. I mean what he does for a living. He don’t look like a guy who hangs in an office,” Ace said.

“That’s for sure. He gets a bad stomach in an office. He likes being outside. So he’s got this landscape gig besides the cabins.” An old reflex of protectiveness crept into her language, distancing, wary.

“What about before that?” Ace said, narrowing his eyes.

“Well…” Her eyes hardened up a bit. “There was some stuff he was into before I knew him. Just stories I heard, because he don’t really talk about it.” It came out tone perfect, sounding rehearsed in a way Ace and Gordy would understand. Couched lines used to answer questions that maybe cops had asked.

They were sitting at the bar. Ace and Gordy were drinking coffee. Nina rotated a tumbler in both hands. It was a seven-and-seven she’d poured herself, but about 95 percent ginger ale.

“What kind of stories?” Ace said.

“He used to say the government had no business interfering with people’s rights to smoke a little grass and own a few guns.”

Gordy pounded his palm on the bar. “Hear, hear. For the grass part.”

Ace stared at Gordy, then turned to Nina. “Gordy here thinks the Canucks are going to legalize marijuana. He thinks when that happens it’s going to be like Prohibition again up here.”

“How’s that?” Nina played into their talk.

Gordy grinned. “During Prohibition there was stills lined up along all four thousand miles of the border on the Canadian side. This time it’s going to be one long field of hydroponic weed from Maine to Washington State. Box-loaders kicking out hundred-pound bails of the stuff, whole hay wagons chock-full coming through Mulberry Crossing…”

Nina shrugged, curled her lips a tad, nodded her head back and forth. Gave a knowing smile. The two men leaned forward, almost like dogs sniffing for some common ground. “Phil would dig that. You might say he dabbled in the grass business,” she said.

“He still peddling a little on the side?” Ace asked.

Nina went sour, irritable. “Nah, that was years ago. Christ, I guess what happened was all these heavily armed…black…guys showed up in Minnesota and took over the drug trade on the streets…He decided to head north and reinvent himself.”

Gordy smiled. “Don’t need to mind your language around us. We got nothing against niggers. Ain’t any up here. What we got is Indians. Like that Pinto Joe Reed; now, there’s one ugly son of a bitch.”

Ace smiled. “But you’d take him back in a minute working for you if you could get him away from my brother.”

Gordy shrugged. They dropped the subject.

“So…Phil,” Ace said. “That’s his name, your husband?”

“Yeah. Phil Broker.”

“So Phil got out of organic pharmaceuticals?”

Nina nodded. “He made a little money and bought some shore-front up north on Lake Superior, fixed up these old cabins, and now we’ve got the resort.”

Ace and Gordy looked at each other. Ace gave this nodding gesture, something like permission. Gordy shrugged. Then Ace turned his attention back to Nina, pointed at the travel bag Broker had left, and said, “You’re still in your pajamas. Think maybe it’s time to put on some clothes.”

“Got a point,” Nina said, feeling the tension thicken in the room. She started to slide off the stool.

Then Gordy reached for her purse that was sitting on the counter, tipped it over, and slid out her wallet. Flipped it open-“Your last name is Pryce on your driver’s license. How come his name is different?”

“He could have changed his name to Pryce if he wanted,” Nina said, poised, hands on the bar.

“Uh-huh.” Gordy continued to stare at her as she pushed off the bar, picked up her bag. As she started toward the stairs he snaked out a hairy arm and flattened his palm against her stomach, feeling around there. As she recoiled, he said. “Not upstairs. Pick some clothes out of your bag and put them on, right here.”

“Strip for you? Over my dead body,” Nina said in a steady voice.

“It could be arranged,” Gordy said softly, coming up off his stool. Nina saw Gordy was serious, and Ace was letting it happen. A ripple of goose bumps raised on her bare arms. She instinctively reached over and gripped her glass off the bar, holding it like a hand hatchet as her eyes measured the distance to the door.

“Slow down,” Ace said. “It’s just that Gordy has a suspicious mind.”

“You see, we got a bet,” Gordy said.

Nina narrowed her eyes.

Ace smiled. “Gordy bet me a hundred bucks you’re a cop. He thinks maybe you’re wired.”

“You mean wearing a tape recorder under this?” She plucked at the flimsy shirt.

“Ah, yeah.”

“You’re joking, right?” Nina said.