making one disappear. I’ve heard about it for years. Maybe your hands aren’t dirty, you haven’t touched the body directly, haven’t pulled the trigger, but you sit in that throne over there, drink your drink, smoke your cigar, and give the orders on who lives or dies.”
Lich jumped in as if on cue, the good cop.
“Look, my partner here can be a little harsh.”
“Being an asshole is more like it,” Fat Charlie added.
“Fuck that,” Mac countered angrily, playing the bad cop. “What’s taking the chief’s and Hisle’s daughters to someone like you? It’s no different than going after someone trying to move in on your drug real estate here on the north side, like Pinky Miller ten years ago. One day he’s king shit over here, the next he’s gone, never to be heard from again, and you’ve got his ten blocks of real estate over by North High School.”
“Thanks for the history lesson,” Charlie calmly answered. “But again, I have nothing to do with the disappearance of those girls. It’s not my style.”
“What’s not your style?” Mac said sarcastically. “Killing? Taking lives? Abductions? Your name’s been attached to all of that stuff over the years. It’s the way people like you operate.”
“You’re a pugnacious shit, aren’t you?” A big smile washed over Charlie’s face, his perfect white teeth contrasting with his dark black skin.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Lich said and everyone laughed and the tension eased.
“I like it, no bullshit. We should all operate that way,” Charlie said, and he meant it. “But to directly answer your question Detective McRyan, I’ve got nothing against your chief or Mr. Hisle. I said those things, sure, and I was pissed — I was damn fucking pissed at that department of yours. But Hisle was just doing his job, and from what I know of Flanagan, I doubt he wanted the case to go south like it did.” Boone took a sip of his drink and gestured. “Now I’m pissed at the cops who blew the case and the prosecutor who screwed the pooch. And if I were to be going after people, that’s who I’d go after. Not the people responsible for cleaning up the mess.” Boone paused and then leaned over, elbows on knees, looking at Mac. “But Detective, I didn’t do this, because it’s simply not my style.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mac answered. “Maybe you’re feeding us a line of shit here, and you got the chief’s and Hisle’s daughters. Maybe that’s the price the chief and Hisle pay for screwing the pooch.”
Boone got a serious look on his face. He had enough of McRyan. “No. I have a rule, a rule which is not to be violated, ever.”
“Which is?” Mac asked.
“Never go after a citizen, never put a gun on a citizen, and never hurt a citizen,” Charlie responded. “I’ve never, ever gone after someone who wasn’t in the trade, who wasn’t in our line of business.”
“And you follow that rule?” Mac asked with a skeptical tone.
“It’s the golden rule,” Boone answered seriously, pointing at Mac with his cigar. “I ain’t gonna bullshit you, Detective. We’ve been in some nasty stuff over the years. But not once did any of that ever involve someone who wasn’t in the trade.”
“Cops are in the trade, aren’t they?” Mac asked. “I mean, aren’t we cops up in your shit all the time? And if cops are in the trade, wouldn’t their families be fair game?”
“For some people up here on the north side, maybe, but not me,” Boone answered, falling back into his chair. “Gertz and Subject, if they’re honest, will tell you that I’ve never, ever, picked a fight with the police. In this line of business, you don’t last long doing that shit. You keep your profile low. You buy for a dollar and sell for two is all you ever want to do.” Charlie took a sip of his drink and tacked in a different direction, “And one other thing.”
“What’s that?” Lich asked.
“I’ve got three daughters of my own, plus eight sons. Family is everything to me. I can’t imagine what those fathers are going through, but I sympathize with them.” He took a puff of his cigar and slowly blew smoke. “Taking those girls?” Charlie shook his head. “If I had a beef with someone, I’d go after them, not their wives or kids. What do they have to do with anything? Nothing. They’re just citizens. And I never go after a citizen.”
“So why then,” Lich asked, “is word out on the street that you’ve wanted payback on the St. Paul Police, the county attorney’s office, and Hisle? What’s all that noise about?”
“That’s my competition, I suspect.”
“Fellow drug dealers?”
“I think it might be someone worse.”
“Who’s worse? Lich asked.
“Politicians,” Mac answered, smiling.
Fat Charlie guffawed loudly.
“You’re perceptive, son. They’re some city-hall types who wouldn’t mind seeing me discredited. They don’t like the idea of my involvement in legitimate business, the real estate market, and the area around the ballpark. My money apparently has a different tint of green.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t sufficiently laundered,” Mac said acerbically.
Ten minutes later, they were driving back to the SuperAmerica gas station. “You guys knew this was a waste of time, didn’t you?” Mac asked Gerdtz and Subject.
“We both suspected that to be the case, although we heard the rumors, too,” Subject answered.
“So this golden-rule shit is the real deal?”
“Pretty much,” Gerdtz said. “While he’s never been afraid to drop a body, to the best of our knowledge, he’s telling the truth about that golden-rule business. He doesn’t involve citizens.”
“He sure talked out of school in front of you boys,” Lich said. “I mean, he didn’t exactly hide from his past.”
“No, he didn’t,” Gerdtz replied. “We’ve taken our run at him over the years, but now we’ll never get him. The county attorney’s office doesn’t want anything to do with him. They’ve been embarrassed too many times.”
“So what,” Mac asked quizzically, “there’s like a truce or something with him?”
“Kinda,” Gerdtz said. “You said it yourself, he’s the bank. There are just too many layers between him and the street. Hell, he’s making so much legitimate money now that I wouldn’t be surprised if he got out of the drug trade in two or three years. He’s gonna be what Michael Corleone always wanted to be.”
Subject echoed the thought.
“He’s even been helpful on occasion when other people operating in that part of town have violated Fat Charlie’s rule. People don’t know it, he asked us to keep it quiet, but you guys remember that stray bullet that killed the little girl four years ago?” Everyone nodded. “Fat Charlie clued us in on who to look at. Hell, Boone called me, me, the guy who’s been in his shit for years, to tell me.”
“What did he ask for in return?” Mac asked.
“Not one damn thing,” Subject replied. “He’s never even mentioned it since.”
Mac snorted. Fat Charlie Boone, one contradiction after another, a saint and a hood all at the same time. He exhaled.
“Well he did say he’d call us if he heard of anything.”
10
Smith and Monica left the safe house in a minivan. Ten blocks away, they pulled into an empty school parking lot and affixed an Airport Ride sign to the side window. Five minutes later they were at the Airport Park amp; Ride lot. Smith was now wearing stylish rimless glasses, dressed business casual in a navy blue sport coat, a blue-and- white striped, button-down collar shirt, tan cuffed slacks, and sharp, burgundy-tasseled loafers. He dropped out of the van, then reached back to hoist a travel bag over his left shoulder and a nylon laptop case over his right. He pulled out the keys, popped the trunk, and put both items inside, looking like one of the mass of business travelers doing the same thing. He gave the van, and Monica, a quick wave and then ducked into the Impala.
The kidnapper exited the lot and quickly mixed in with the Monday rush-hour traffic, driving east out of St. Paul along Interstate 94, listening to the 5:00 PM top-of-the-hour local newscast on the FM talk radio station. A
