The Last Kind Word (Mac McKenzie #10)

The Last Kind Word (Mac McKenzie #10) Page 57

“What guards?”

“Don’t look now, but there are at least four cameras pointed at us.” I had spotted one more after I left the Taurus.

“What cameras?” She turned away and started searching for them.

“I said don’t look. Dammit, Josie.”

She turned back and waved her arms at me. “Sorry,” she said.

“You’re a terrible actress, too.”

“Why are you being so mean?”

I folded up the map and circled the front of the car. “That’s enough,” I said. “I’ll drive.”

“Why?”

“So the scene has a dramatic and satisfying conclusion.”

“Who are you? Martin Scorsese?”

“Get in the car.”

Josie quickly moved to the passenger door and slid inside. While she buckled her seat belt, I maneuvered the car through a series of Y-turns until we were back on the narrow road and heading for the highway. Josie glanced through the rear window even though there was only empty road and trees behind us.

“What is that place?” she asked.

“It’s a remote vault. It’s where the bank—the bank Mesabi Security works for—it’s where it processes its largest transactions with its most cash-intensive customers in the region. The Mesabi Security trucks roll in early in the morning to get cassettes loaded with money that they’ll insert into ATM machines along their routes. Later in the day, they return with deposits—canvas bags filled with currency from the bank’s largest depositors—the casinos, check-cashing stores, bank branches, and grocery stores that we talked about before. Inside the building there’s a huge processing room with cafeteria-style tables. The cash is dumped out on the tables, and a small army of bank employees count it. Afterward, two of the armored trucks will return to Krueger. The third will take the deposits to the bank’s vault in Duluth.”

“You’ve seen this—what did you call it, a remote vault? Have you seen this before?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Have you ever robbed one?”

“No.”

Josie didn’t have anything to say to that. Neither did I, although I was thinking as I hit the intersection of Highway 1, robbing a remote vault, damn, that would be something. The thought lasted only a moment before my inner voice started screaming, Are you out of your frickin’ mind? Still, the thought was there.

We drove east through Tower and back toward Ely. Traffic was light. WELY-FM, which promoted itself as “end of the road radio,” was playing an eclectic song list that included Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Mos Def, Bob Marley, Tom Waits, Janis Joplin, the White Stripes, Kool and the Gang, and Alberta Cross, plus a poem read by No?l Coward. It reminded me of “The Current,” a public radio station back home. I wasn’t listening that closely, though. Mostly I was wondering how I was going to get back home.

The problem—or the solution, depending on how you looked at it—was Claire de Lune. I would use her to get close to Fenelon, eliminating the need to involve Roy or any of the other Iron Range Bandits. I’d place my order and then make sure the ATF was on hand when Fenelon delivered the weapons. ’Course, since Claire was so close to the operation, it meant I would need to continue my preparations to rob the remote vault right up until Bullert and the badge boys bagged Brian.

Bullert and the badge boys bagged Brian, my inner voice repeated. Nice alliteration.

Thank you, I told myself.

I couldn’t really blame Jimmy for telling Claire everything. Well, yes I could. As Harry would testify, I was in the habit of spilling my guts to Nina. On the other hand, there was plenty that I kept to myself. For example, I knew I would never tell Nina about the woman who was sitting next to me in the Ford Taurus. Our relationship was complicated enough.

It was because I was thinking about Nina while half listening to a remix of “Sympathy for the Devil” by Fatboy Slim that I didn’t see the county sheriff’s department cruiser until its lightbar started flashing in my rearview mirror.

“What?” Josie saw me gazing into the mirror and turned her head to look out the rear window. “Oh, shit.”

I leaned forward in the seat, reached behind me, and slipped the 9 mm SIG Sauer out from beneath my shirt. “Take this,” I said. “Put it in the glove compartment.”

Josie took the gun reluctantly, holding it by her fingertips as if it were something she wanted to flush down the toilet.

“Where did you get the gun?” she asked.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t like the bartender at Buckman’s anymore. Put it away.”

Josie slipped the handgun into the glove compartment. As soon as she did, I pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. By then the deputy had hit his siren. I stopped the Ford and engaged the emergency flashers.

“Whatever happens, do nothing,” I told Josie. “Say nothing. Don’t even think of touching the gun.”