You been to Sturgis lately?
Went this year, Loring said. Pretty decent.
Not like the old days, though.
No. Everybody gettin old.
Thats the truth. Everybodys got gray hair. We look like the Grateful Dead.
Loring nodded: Half the people out there brought their bikes in vans, just rode in the last five miles.
Were you there the year we burned the shitters?
Yeah, that was good, Loring said.
Lucas broke in: This is them? Two red bikes?
Bob leaned sideways to look out the window. Two bikers in jackets, sunglasses, and gloves were rolling slowly toward the garage. Thats them, Bob said.
The bikers coasted to the side of the alley, killed the engines, climbed off, a little stiff, maybe a little wary. Lucas dropped his hand in his pocket around the stock of his. 45, which hed cocked before they went in. His thumb found the safety and nestled there. Lorings hand drifted to his hip: Loring carried a Smith. 40 in the small of his back. A second later, the door popped open, and Charlie Cotina slouched through the door, pulling off his gloves. He was dressed in a plain black leather jacket and jeans, with black chaps and boots. His escort wore Seed colors with a red bandana. Cotina looked quickly at Loring, nodded, then at Lucas, at Lucass hand, and then back to his face.
Is that a gun?
Yeah.
Bet you can get it out of there fast, he said.
I took the jacket to a tailor, and had him fix the pockets, Lucas said.
Cotina nodded, looked at Loring: This was supposed to be friendly.
This is friendly, if youve got anything to say, Lucas said.
I aint got much, Cotina said, looking back to Lucas. Just this: We didnt have nothin to do with that firebomb. Nobody in the Seed is looking for the cops. Whatever happened to LaChaise and his friends is their business. They was out of the group when they come after you. None of us have nothin against you, and were stayin away.
Maybe youve got some crazy in the group, Lucas said.
But Cotina was shaking his head, again looking at Loring: You know this bunch of fuckin hosers: if anybody threw a bomb through this broads window, itd be all over town in fifteen minutes. Nobodys said shit, which means to me that nobody we know did it. And I been askin.
Lucas looked at him for ten seconds without speaking, and Cotina stared back, eyes small and black, like a ferdelance. Finally, Lucas nodded, put his free hand in his opposite coat pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to Cotina. If you hear anything, call us. Might be worth something to you someday… if you ever go to court.
Do that, Cotina grunted. And he turned and left, his escort pulling the door shut behind them.
Lucas relaxed a notch, and Bob said, Itd be polite to give them a minute to get out of here.
Fuck em, said Lucas. But he handed a card to Bob as the bikes fired up: Same thing applies to you. If you hear anything, it could be worth something in the future.
Bob took it: Get out of jail free?
Lucas said, Depends on what youre in for. But could be.
Good deal, Bob said. He tucked the card in his hip pocket.
Lucas nodded and Loring led the way through the door, squinting in the brighter light outside. Cotina and his escort were just disappearing around the corner, leaning into the curve. Lucas bent over and picked up his card where Cotina had dropped it. Must not want to get out of jail, Lucas said.
He had to do it; hed have to face problems if he kept it, Loring said. As they walked back to the city car, Loring asked, What do you think?
Youre the expert, Lucas said.
I think he was telling the truth. Lucas nodded. So do I. Which creates some problems. Like, who the fuck bombed Weather?
THEY MET SLOAN AND DEL AT A NORTHSIDE DINER, and Sloan pushed the business section of theStar-Tribuneacross the table at Lucas.
The bank deal has people freaking outturns out three or four public pension funds own a big piece of Polaris, and if this merger caves in, so does the stock price, Sloansaid. I dont know if that could have anything to do with Kresge.
Dont see how, Lucas said. He took the paper and scanned the article. Bone was quoted as saying the merger was still on track, and the bank was continuing to work toward the merger. Further down in the article, an unidentified executive said that the merger was being reconsidered.
Snakepit, Sloan said.
Yeah, theyre 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 ODell 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, Bones 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, hell be putting himself out in the cold in a few months.
With about a zillion dollars, Del said.
Yeah, theres that… The thing is, should we put a watch on him? If some goofball is roaming around out there, trying to stop the merger, hed be the next target.
Maybe talk to him, anyway, Sloan said.
LUCAS TOOK A CALL ON THE CAR PHONE, TRANSFERRED in from Dispatch: Why havent you arrested Wilson McDonald? A womans 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. Youve got to arrest him before he kills someone.
Click. She was gone. Del was talking to Dispatch, but Lucas said, Shes 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.
Whod 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, maybeand then theres Mrs. McDonald herself.
Anonymous callsshe doesnt take the rap if her old man finds out about them.
Yeah… you remember Annette whats-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 WASNT A PARTICULARLY GOOD RECEPTIONIST, but she did know a cop when she saw one. As Lucas and Del climbed out of Lucass Porsche, she muttered, Oh, shit, picked up the telephone, pushed the intercom button, and said, Mr. KnoxMr. 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 daughters voice died away, said, as she had, Oh, shit, and then, Wonder what they want? To the man standing next to him, he said, Ill 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 didnt know exactly how it had happened, but over the years hed become the Twin Cities answer to theMafiaor to organized crime, at any rate. Hed 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.
Hed done well stealing Caterpillar. So well, in fact, that hed piled up a couple hundred thousand unexplainable dollars, which inflationthis was back in the late seventies began eating alive. Then hed 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 didnt actually shark himself, he simply loaned to sharks…