had an impulse to reach out for her, to give her some comfort and tell her it would be all right.
He was about to, when he suddenly felt like he was watching the moment from above the room, and in that instant he saw it for what it was. She was gaming him. She’d laid out the sexual suggestion, and when that hadn’t worked, came over the top with the tears. And dupe that he was, he’d almost gone for it.
“Stick around,” Behr said, his voice cold. “I’m not your mark.”
She looked up at him, pushed a strand of hair back, and wiped a cheek. The tears were done.
“I see that,” she said. Her voice was low and quiet, but colder than his nonetheless.
FORTY
Charlie Schlegel didn’t give two loose shits about the Bully B-B-Q or whether their dogs took any honors. No, he was here for business, not for fun this time. He and Kenny stood by a table gnawing on the half-dozen corn dogs they’d bought, dropping pieces for their brindles, Mr. Blonde and Clarence. As always, Kenny couldn’t let it go at that. He got down on his knees and started feeding Clarence a corn dog out of his mouth.
“Come on, boy,” Kenny said, “grrr.” The dog took the meat, lapping saliva all over Kenny’s face. But Kenny kept the stick clenched between his teeth, and the dog clamped down on the other end. Then Kenny and Clarence commenced a vicious tug-of-war. “Let’s go, Clarence,” Kenny urged between gritted teeth. The dog’s muscles rippled under his shining coat as he hunched his shoulders and pulled.
“Get up, you dipshit,” Charlie said. He didn’t listen, and Charlie gave Kenny a kick to the ribs. “Come on, knock it off.” Kenny transferred the stick from his mouth to his hand, then pushed Clarence’s nose back until he let up on the stick.
“What, man?” Kenny said.
“The point’s gonna hurt his mouth,” Charlie answered.
“Nah. His mouth is like leather.”
“Nah. His mouth is soft.”
“Whatever,” Kenny said, dusting himself off.
“There they are.” Charlie pointed. Coming across the tented area, with a measly blue bull pup on a thick leash, were Peanut and Nixie.
Charlie handed off the leashes to Kenny and walked toward them, Kenny following. When the two groups came together, the dogs greeted each other with friendly curiosity, sniffing and circling. The men weren’t so civil.
“What is that thing, a squirrel on a leash?” Kenny asked, for the moment able to keep the smirk off his face.
“Man, shut the fuck up. That’s a pedigree dog,” Peanut said, taking the bait. Nixie’s narrowed eyes just went deader than they’d been in the first place.
Kenny shook his head. “If you bought that, you got took. Hope you used food stamps.”
“What about your mangy-ass mutts?”
“No, these beauties are pure class,” Kenny said. And now the smirk followed. Nixie stepped forward and squared with Kenny, who stuck his chest out and went eye to eye. He also let the leashes drop from his hand and Clarence and Mr. Blonde took the opportunity to light out across the tent.
Charlie shoved Kenny in the shoulder, breaking the stare-down. “Get the fucking dogs, would you?” Kenny shook his head and walked off after them.
“You pricks finally ready to do this?” Charlie asked. Peanut nodded and slid a wad of money up from his pants pocket so it was just visible.
A lot of barking and an angry “Tend your damn dogs!” reached Charlie from the owners’ pens. In another few minutes he’d be dealing with a chewed-up dog thanks to Mr. Blonde or Clarence, or Kenny beating the shit out of some owner or enthusiast.
“Good,” Charlie said, “let’s put the dogs up and figure a place to meet.”
Knute Bohgen hated being right. And that was the thing of it-he usually was. He thought Terry’s pea-shake play sounded nuts when he’d first heard it, but then he thought maybe shit had changed while he was inside and he was out of step, and then he had gotten swept up in the ambition, so he went with it. Now they had a nice mess on their laps. Knute lived in the back unit of a two-family house, but he was currently in the front kitchen fixing a peanut butter sandwich. The couple that usually lived in the unit had gone away for the rest of the summer after the Brickyard 400, so Knute had let himself in and had the run of the place. He preferred it to his own, which was an under-furnished rathole, and wondered what he was going to do when the couple got back. He crossed to a recliner that was in front of a thirty-six-inch flat-screen. He supposed he could get some of his own stuff, but he wasn’t particularly flush at the moment-especially after last night. That little pecker Kenny had busted him out in the poker game. Knute thought he’d caught the kid with his hand in the cookie jar raising from the small blind, and went all in pre-flop with a wired pair of fours, but Kenny called and showed a pair of Kokomos that stood up when no one improved. The rest of them had howled when he lost his three hundred. He would have paid double that to skip the ribbing. He shouldn’t have even been playing, drunk and distracted as he was with today’s task-booking the Chicago guys as soon as Terry got his ass here.
Knute stopped chewing a few minutes later when he heard tires on gravel outside. Then came a car horn and he exited out the front door. Terry was there by the side door behind the wheel of his Charger, a scowl knotted on his face.
“Gimme some of that,” Terry said absently as Knute climbed into the passenger seat. Knute tore the remaining half of the peanut butter sandwich in two and handed a piece over.
“I thought you live in back,” Terry said.
“I do.”
“Chalky,” Terry remarked of the sandwich.
“It’s all they had,” Knute responded. Terry gave him a quizzical glance but didn’t say anything. “Did you meet Camp?” he wondered, though based on the grimace Terry was sporting, he had a pretty good idea of the answer.
“We’ve got issues there.”
“You ready to do this thing then?” Knute asked.
Terry nodded. Knute pulled out a prepaid cell and dialed a number he had memorized. It rang several times. Knute felt Terry’s eyes scanning his face, but he kept his gaze forward. Finally, the ringing stopped.
“Who’s this?” a dry, granular voice asked.
“Knute from down south,” Knute said. He could hear the noise of plates and glasses clinking in the background, and the sound of a televised baseball game. “This Bobby B.?”
“You got me. Indy Newt?”
“Right. What’re you doing?”
“Watching the Cubbies. They were in first place, looking like they were gonna get something done post- season, but now… The fuck’re you doing?”
“Hold on,” Knute said, extending the phone, which Terry took.
“Hey man,” Terry said, “we have a complication from that other piece of work.”
“This T?” Bobby asked.
“Yes, it is.” A moment’s angry silence passed.
“What kind of fucking problem?” Brodax demanded, his voice charged and not so low that Knute couldn’t hear it bleed out of the phone.
“A cleanup problem.”
Silence reigned on the line.
“Some asshole’s been poking around,” Terry went on.
“Law enforcement?” Brodax asked.
“He has that smell.” There was a breath; Terry wasn’t happy about what came next. “He turned up-someone turned up- that… package down by the river.”
“And now you want me to make another package,” Brodax volunteered.
