“The football?” I said. “You guys really call it that?”
“Shut up, McKnight,” Maven said, “or I’ll throw you back in that cell.”
“Sorry,” I said. “Go on.”
“God knows how many times you could have taken him,” Maven said. “But no, you gotta wait until you’re absolutely sure you got the right guy and you’re absolutely sure he has the drugs with him. “ ‘Can’t tackle the man without the football in his hands.’ Right? How many times did you say that? So then of course this Parrish girl takes the bag out of the place and goes to see McKnight with it. And you two are running around like idiots, splitting up, one of you trying to follow Bruckman, the other guy trying to follow the girl. And then you still won’t move in, because now your man doesn’t have the football anymore. Now the next morning she’s long gone, God knows where, run off or kidnapped by God knows who. McKnight’s running around like an idiot now, trying to find out where she is. And what do you guys do? You start following him! ” He pointed at me. “Like this jackass is going to take you right back to your football!”
I nodded my thanks but didn’t dare say anything.
“How many days did you follow him around?” Maven said. “Six days? The dumbest man on the planet and it takes him what, not even a day to figure out he’s being tailed?” Maven paused for effect and then drew out his next line like a torturer who enjoys his work a little too much. “McKnight even pulls you out of the snow when you get stuck trying to follow him?”
“You’re out of line, Chief Maven,” Champagne said.
“But now I’m still supposed to play along with you guys even though you didn’t tell me anything about the Mounties, or them seeing the plant, or any of this horseshit?”
He stopped for a breath. Champagne looked like he wanted to kill me or Maven or both. Urbanic just looked sick.
“Did they get Bruckman, at least?” Maven said. “As long as McKnight is doing all your legwork for you, did they at least pick up Bruckman in Canada?”
“No,” Champagne said.
“No?” Maven said.
“No,” Champagne said. “There were two undercover officers on the scene. The local police arrived to break up the fight. The undercover officers attempted to apprehend Bruckman, but he had, um… he had escaped through the bathroom window.”
I raised my hand. “I think I sort of put that idea in his head,” I said. “Sorry about that.”
“There was a lot of blood on the floor,” Champagne said.
“His nose was broken,” I said. “Me again.”
“We did apprehend two of his friends,” Champagne said.
“So go talk to them,” Maven said. “Why are you wasting everybody’s time over here?”
“Chief Maven,” Champagne said, “I think I’ve been showing a great deal of patience and restraint here. This man was stopped on an international boundary with drugs and a loaded handgun in his vehicle. If you’re not going to cooperate in our investigation, then we’ll proceed without you.”
Maven looked at Champagne for a long, terrible moment. If I wasn’t so tired and sore and scared, I would have pitied the poor agent. The DEA has a district office in Detroit, so I had met a couple of them when I was a police officer there. They were good. But they knew they were good. They knew it maybe a little too well. So they may have come off as a little arrogant when they dealt with the local police. And that was in a major city. God knows how much they would look down on the police in a little town in the middle of nowhere, with a force so small it shared the same building as the county deputies.
Maven hated me. I knew that. But how much more would he hate a couple hotshot DEA agents who treated him like a backwoods hick?
“McKnight,” he said, “the judge will be here at nine o’clock. When you’re arraigned, I’m going to ask the DA to dismiss the charges.”
That’s how much.
“What are you doing?” Champagne said.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Maven said. “I’m kicking him.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Sure I can. There was less than a gram in that bag, so it’s a misdemeanor. The gun was licensed. It just wasn’t reported on the way over. So that’s a misdemeanor, too. Any misdemeanor charges on that bridge belong to the city. You know that.”
Champagne pointed a finger right in his face. Another great idea. “You are making a big mistake,” he said.
“The next finger you point at me gets separated from your body,” Maven said.
“This is how it works up here, huh? This is how you run a police department?”
“Excuse me, boys,” I said. “You said I could leave, right Chief?”
“Get out of here,” he said. “Just be in the court building at nine.”
Champagne stood up, knocking his chair over. “This isn’t over, McKnight,” he said. He stood right in front of me, his face just a few inches from mine. “I’ll be watching you.”
“You go right ahead,” I said. “I hope you like watching a man shovel snow, split wood and drink beer. Because that’s all you’re gonna see.”
He stood there, probably trying to think up another tough guy line.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said. “I need some fresh air.” I stepped around him and went out the door, stopping just long enough to give my new buddy Chief Maven a little salute.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I had two hours to kill before my appointment in the courthouse, so I took a walk down Water Street in a winter light that made everything look gray and soft around the edges. The snow was wet and heavy. Ten minutes of walking and I was already wearing the snow around my shoulders like an old woman’s shawl.
I stopped at a little restaurant over by the Locks Park. The locks were closed, of course, but there was just enough business from the snowmobilers and the locals to keep the place open. I sat down in a booth with the newspaper and a cup of coffee, and asked for eggs and bacon and sausage and anything else they could fit on a breakfast plate.
While I was waiting for the food, I called Leon’s home number and left a message. Two minutes later he came banging through the door.
“My wife paged me,” he said. He was breathing hard as he pulled his coat off. “God, you look awful.”
“Were you at work?” I said.
“Yeah, I can’t stay long,” he said. “I just wanted to come down and see what the hell happened.”
I ran it all down for him, starting at the bridge.
“They left you a nice little present,” he said.
“A souvenir from our visit to the bar,” I said. “It was very thoughtful of them.”
“They could have really jammed you up,” he said.
“They should have put a full gram in the truck,” I said. “Then I would have been fucked. I guess they didn’t want to part with that much of it, though.”
“Ha, you’re probably right.”
“If you see two guys with hunting caps walk in here,” I said, “you better duck.”
“Maven really let you go?”
“The charges get withdrawn at nine o’clock,” I said. “I hope he doesn’t come to his senses by then.”
“Those guys were feds,” he said. “I should have known.”
“I was sure they were Molinov’s guys. Those two men Bruckman was talking about.”
“Molinov,” he said. He worked the name around a few times while the waitress brought over my breakfast.
“Gotta be Russian,” I said.
“Gotta be,” he said. “I could look him up.”
“Where?”
“I’ve got a computer now,” he said. “There’s all sorts of places on the Internet.”
I smiled and shook my head.
“You can’t be a private eye in the nineties without a computer,” he said. “Or at least a partner who has one.”
I stopped eating and looked at him. “I told those agents that you were my partner, Leon. And I meant it”
“That’s good to hear, Alex.”
“But this is the only case we’re going to work on,” I said. “And I think it’s about over.”