“How’d a clown like you get involved with Isotope in the first place?” John asked.
“Your manner is starting to annoy me, Mr. MacClough.”
“Slap me on the knuckles with a ruler like the sisters at St. Mark’s. It didn’t improve my manner any, but it made them feel better. So how’d ya get involved?”
“Weakness,” Dallenbach replied matter-of-factly. “Weakness.”
“That covers a lot of territory,” I noted, pointing my head at George. I thought Dallenbach almost blushed. “Well, yes, I am rather fond of George’s type.” George wasn’t so fond of the word ‘type.’ “But it was my gambling, I fear, that did me in. It is one thing to be a compulsive gambler with few resources. It is quite another to be one and have access to a well-funded school’s endowment.”
“But you’re just a dean!” I exclaimed. “You shouldn’t have-”
“But I had access to someone who had access. Money, money, money. . ”
“But the well went dry,” MacClough said.
“It always does, Mr. MacClough. My friend got faint of heart and was afraid of being found out. You see, he was using the school’s purchase of the Old Watermill to cover our tracks and I got just the slightest bit greedy and asked that he divert some additional funds to cover another investment. I thought that other investment would see us through our old age and cover my debts.”
“Cyclone Ridge,” I said.
“Very good, Mr. Klein. Cyclone Ridge.”
“That well went dry, too, and quicker than you thought,” MacClough put his two cents in.
“Much too quickly. Cyclone Ridge was a dog, an albatross.”
“Don’t tell me,” MacClough smirked, “you found some new partners.”
“To be perfectly accurate, Mr. MacClough, they found me. Gamblers do tend to wear their debts on their sleeves. My creditors saw an opportunity and called in their markers. It was a set up that suited their purposes quite well. Cyclone Ridge was a perfect storehouse and transshipment point for the distribution of Isotope across Canada and the Northeast. Who would think to look for drugs in sleepy, little Riversborough? Until that fool Markham loaded the goods into the wrong BMW, the arrangement worked out rather nicely for all parties involved.”
“Yeah, everyone but your old boyfriend who got you access to the endowment,” John said. “It’s a good bet your new partners had you dissolve your old partnership.”
Dallenbach soured. “I’m afraid they insisted on it.”
“What happened,” I wondered, “a convenient midnight skiing accident?”
“I don’t know, frankly. I didn’t want to know.”
I was curious. “But you did have Steven Markum killed?”
George got all happy at my question. That alone was answer enough.
“Yes,” Dallenbach confirmed, “and he bloody well deserved it. If it were not for his abject stupidity, we wouldn’t all be standing here. Valencia Jones would be just another student struggling with her second tier course in metaphysics.”
“And Kira would still be alive,” I growled.
“That’s on your head, Mr. Klein. If you had spent more time looking for your nephew and less time chasing a piece of skirt, your friend would still be drawing breath. It was you who presented us with the opportunity. We simply took it.”
No matter the situation, chatting reduces the level of tension in a room. That’s how I managed to get my fist into Dallenbach’s teeth without interference. Some of his teeth splintered. Normally, I might have felt some of the jagged enamel dig into the skin of my knuckles, but I was way too preoccupied with the bullet ripping through the top of my left shoulder to notice pieces of broken teeth. Christ, it burned like acid on fire inside me. The floor reached up and yanked me down hard. I forgot how to breathe and why. The shot’s report rang in my ears.
“Not in here!” Dallenbach screamed, spitting out blood and bits of his teeth. “You nearly shot me, you fool!”
George enjoyed being called a fool almost as much as he liked being called a type.
“I just clipped him,” George did speak. “And I didn’t come close to hitting you.”
Zak and MacClough, his hands still cuffed, came to attend to me.
“Leave him!” Dallenbach had completely lost his sense of humor. “We’ve wasted enough time, Mr. MacClough. Where’s the disc?”
“Fuck you, asshole! There is no disc.”
I winced for MacClough, expecting George to punish him for his delightful use of the English language. But George wasn’t smiling, flashing his fists, nor pistol-whipping anyone just now.
“Oh, God, not that again. I warn you, my patience is at low ebb.”
“It wouldn’t matter if your patience were at neap tide,” MacClough laughed, “there is no disc.”
“If you’re stalling for time, Mr. MacClough,” Dallenbach said, grabbing the 9mm out of George’s hand, “you needn’t bother. The cavalry isn’t coming. I’m afraid that DEA agent who’s been following Mr. Klein about had a rather nasty accident in the fire at Cyclone Ridge. Unless you’ve got an in with Ezekiel, and can conjure up charred bones, no one’s coming to your rescue.” Dallenbach ejected a bullet from the gun’s chamber for dramatic purposes, pointed it at Johnny’s heart and began counting backwards from ten: “Ten. . nine. . eight. . seven. . six. . five. . four. . three. . two-”
The spring-loaded door flew open, clanging against the wall. Zak and John jumped. I was already so wired that I barely reacted. Dallenbach, however, and his two boys seemed unfazed. I thought I saw Dallenbach check his watch. Two men-one dressed in a loose-fitting trench coat, the other in a full-length vicuna coat-came into the tunnel.
“You’re late,” Dallenbach tapped his wrist.
“Fuck you!” vicuna coat said, “these fuckin’ tunnels get me all whacky. It’s like a fuckin’ sci-fi movie down here, people livin’ in tunnels and shit. Hey,” he screwed up his face, “what the fuck happened to your face, you suckin’ on concrete lollipops or what?”
“One of your partners?” John surmised.
“Actually, Mr. Lippo’s one of their representatives. How ever did you guess?” Dallenbach wondered, tongue in cheek.
“With that vocabulary it had to be a toss-up between a wise-guy and Werner Von Braun. Since Von Braun’s dead. .”
“Shut the fuck up!” Lippo ordered. “These the guys?”
“Those three, yes,” Dallenbach confirmed, “but not yet. They have some information I need.”
“Bullshit! The boss says I gotta whack ‘em, I whack ‘em. He didn’t say nothin’ about waitin’ time. And you,” he glared at Dallenbach, “I’m supposed to teach you a lesson.”
“What,” the dean’s voice was breaking, “could you possibly teach me?”
Lippo looked at Zak, Johnny, and me. “Which one of youz girlfriend’s got whacked?”
“Me,” I said, propping myself up.
“That shouldn’t’a happened,” Lippo said. “That was sloppy like every other fuckin’ thing around here.”
“Thanks for the sympathy.”
“Gino!” Lippo snapped his fingers and held out his hand. Gino placed a.38 police special in Lippo’s hand. “Here!” Lippo held the gun out to me. “Go ahead, kill either one a those two pricks. And don’t get no ideas. Gino boy’ll cut you down before you fart the wrong way.”
Suddenly, my left shoulder didn’t hurt so much. I took the gun and swung the tip of the barrel between George and Jerry. George looked particularly unhappy, but not especially frightened. Jerry, on the other hand, was a whisper away from begging. I picked Jerry. Dying at my hand would have no special significance to George.
“Okay,” Dallenbach threw his hands up, “I get the point. We shall endeavor to be more careful in the future. Now take that gun away from Klein and let’s get on with this.”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Lippo puzzled. “I ain’t jokin’. Go ahead and kill the prick,” he urged me.
Dallenbach was sweating now.
“Don’t!” MacClough shouted. “Don’t do it, Klein. It’ll stay with you forever.”
I pulled the hammer back on the.38.
“They’re gonna kill us, Dylan. You’re just makin’ it easier for them to have it look like we all went down in a gun-fight between us and Dallenbach’s boys.”