‘Hey, do me a favor, Lenny.’
The boy stopped and looked back nervously. ‘What?’
‘You say you like Olivia. If you hear about any trouble involving her, you do the right thing, okay?’
Lenny didn’t respond, but he stared at his feet and gave the barest nod. Chris let him shuffle away. Somewhere inside Lenny was a decent kid, but he would always be doing the wrong thing to impress the wrong person. It was the way of the world. Chris thought about Olivia and realized that even sweet kids with parents who love them can make terrible mistakes.
Chris had made his own share of mistakes in life. Deep down, in the privacy of his conscience, he was thinking about making another one. He was conscious of the heaviness of Marco Piva’s gun in the small of his back, where he had it tucked inside his belt.
He knew how to use it, and thanks to Lenny, he knew where Kirk Watson lived.
20
Kirk Watson sat in his pick-up truck three blocks from the Post Office building in Madison, which was a flyspeck town twenty miles from Barron. He had the window rolled down, and he dangled a cigarette between his fingers. Toby Keith played on the radio. With his other hand he used binoculars to watch the cars coming and going from the parking lot. People in, people out, nothing to worry about. Even so, he took his time and kept an eye on the traffic in the mirrors.
You couldn’t be too careful.
That stupid son of a bitch in Hugo had gotten himself arrested on embezzlement charges, and then they’d found the stash of porn on his computer. The asshole wasn’t even smart enough to destroy the envelope in which he’d received his last delivery. Thanks to him, the feebs were watching the Post Office in Ortonville now. Kirk had driven by the building earlier in the day, and there they were, in their sedan, in their suits, as obvious as Vegas hookers. That was why he stuck to the rules he’d made for himself. Always wear gloves. Never lick a stamp. Never use the same mailbox twice. Never buy materials in the same store. Use a prepaid phone, and keep it turned off between calls. Keep the house clean, because you never know when a cop will show up with a warrant.
When he was satisfied no one was watching, he drove down the rural street to the parking lot and got out of the truck. The town’s co-op corn elevator towered in gleaming silver behind the Post Office. He leaned on his door, finishing his cigarette as he took a last, hawk-eyed look around the street. He crushed the butt on the asphalt, pulled his baseball cap low on his forehead, and went inside the red-brick building, avoiding the ceiling-mounted cameras. Damn government employees, snooping on everybody. Like terrorists would want to blow up the Lutefisk Capital of the USA.
He squatted at his P.O. box. There was junk mail inside, but stuffed among the coupons was the package he’d been expecting. It was the size of a greeting card and just slightly thicker where the flash drive was secreted inside. The foreign stamps showed paintings of purple flowers. On the back of the envelope, someone had written ‘Hapy Bithday’ in an awkward hand. Sometimes it read ‘Mery Christmass’ or ‘I Love U.’ Stupid sentiments always deflected suspicion for anyone inclined to take a closer look.
He shoved the card in his back pocket and left the Post Office. He’d been inside less than thirty seconds. He headed south on Highway 75 into the desolate rural lands. He picked a dirt county road at random, turned east, and stopped on the shoulder. He got out of the truck, opened the envelope, and slid out the slim black USB flash drive from inside the greeting card. He flicked his cigarette lighter and incinerated the card and the envelope, letting them burn to ashes at his feet. After the fire was out, he scattered the ash with the sole of his boot.
That’s what you do with deliveries, fucking Hugo man.
Kirk drove on the county road until he reconnected with the Barron highway. A mile from downtown, he reached the dirt road that led south toward the ghost town where Ashlynn had been killed. He didn’t go as far as the deserted town; instead, he turned at a driveway with a battered U-Stor sign. The driveway led to two rows of self-storage units in the middle of an old field.
His own unit was at the far end of the first row. He parked and snapped on gloves, then undid the heavy padlock on the metal door and threw the door upward on its track with a clang. Inside, he lowered the door again. When he was alone inside the windowless space, he pulled the string that lit up a single bare bulb.
This was his man cave. His business headquarters. His armory. Only Lenny knew about it, and he’d made it clear to his brother that he would bury a pick-ax in the kid’s brain if he told anyone. The guy who owned the U-Stor lived in Marshall, which was an hour away. He didn’t ask for identification, as long as he got his fee in cash. When you ran a storage business, you knew that people stored things behind those garage doors that they didn’t want anyone else to find, and if you were smart, you didn’t ask questions.
Kirk kept his guns here. Almost a dozen pistols, mostly Rugers and Glocks bought from online dealers. A smaller number of revolvers. Two shotguns. Three hunting rifles. Ammunition in several dozen boxes on metal shelves. Solvents, oils, brushes, and rags. There was an abandoned farm near Hazel Run where he practiced every month, and he was careful to collect his spent casings and dig his bullets out of the barn wall where he hung his targets. Whenever he needed a gun, he wanted it to be a virgin. Untraceable.
The revolver he’d used in St. Croix, shooting up Hannah Hawk’s house, was already at the bottom of the lake behind the Spirit Dam.
He sat down behind a garage sale desk and booted up his computer. He played with a burnt hole in the leather of the old chair through the finger of his glove. There wasn’t a fingerprint to be found anywhere in the storage unit. He kept his long hair tucked under his cap to avoid leaving DNA samples. He always told Lenny: You don’t even blow your nose in here, okay? Snort up your snot, and keep it there.
His own name and address couldn’t be found anywhere inside the unit. Not on the computer. Not on an envelope or piece of paper. If the feebs found this place, they couldn’t tie it back to him. He was a ghost.
Kirk had to be careful. Prosecutors and judges played hardball with child porn, because it made great get- tough shit for the voters at re-election time. Get caught, and expect to give up twenty-five years, maybe more. This wasn’t juvie time.
He removed the Vietnamese flash drive from his pocket and shoved it into one of the USB ports on the front of his computer. The drive contained four gigabytes of material, including hundreds of photos and videos. It was top-quality shit, hi-res, good close-ups. Everybody wanted the eyes; you had to see the eyes. He sifted through the photos and shook his head in disgust. This kind of sick shit did nothing for him; he was normal, not a fucking pervert. To him, it was about money, end of story. If he could have put a bullet in the head of every one of his customers, he would have done it. Once, with a problem customer in Mankato, he’d had to do just that. The guy had come down with a fit of conscience and threatened to call the cops. Most of the ones with conscience were fakers; they were like chain smokers, always taking one last cigarette and promising to quit. This one was different. Every now and then, you got a real reformed sinner.
The guy was a threat, but he didn’t realize that Kirk knew who he was. That was his big mistake, thinking you could be a buyer of this shit and keep your secrets to yourself. Kirk had photos and video of all of his customers; it was like an insurance policy. It was leverage against bad things happening. He’d scouted every house, every office, every P.O. box, where he’d made a shipment, and he’d identified every buyer. They belonged to him. The guy in Mankato thought he could vanish and make an anonymous confession to the feds, but Kirk got to him first. Shot him in the head. Sanitized his apartment. Dumped his body near a crack house in south Minneapolis.
He’d sent a newspaper clipping about the murder to all of his other customers. It was an object lesson in keeping your mouth shut.
Kirk reviewed the flash drive, looking for a special folder. It was a custom order, like buying tile for your kitchen floor, or commissioning an artist to do a portrait of your wife. This was a service biz like anything else. You gave the customers what they wanted. If someone had a special request, they could have it. For a price. He found the folder and examined the files to make sure they met the specifications: the layout of the bedroom, the angle of the photos, the specific positions in the video. The devil was in the details. He didn’t ask why the jerk-off wanted it this way, and he didn’t care. He took the specs, and he delivered.
Kirk turned on his prepaid phone in order to make the call. He plugged in his voice changer to disguise his voice. There were four settings. You could sound like a robot, or an alien, or a sexy woman, but he always picked door number four. The little child’s voice. He loved the joke. He loved twisting the knife.
