"Tell me your theories," Del said, on the way out. "You give good theory."
"I'm thinking… drug deal," Lucas said. "Calb was probably right both ways: it's connected with Kansas City and Cash's jail contacts, and it's probably connected with the casino. The casino Indians don't have much truck with drugs, but the people who come in to gamble, have a good time… they'd do a little coke."
"So the money's drug money," Del said. "All in cash, all bundled up, but not fresh bricks. Cash makes the wholesale contacts, driving for Calb back and forth. Warr has the contacts up here, delivers it out to the individual dealers. Or deals it herself."
"Then they fuck with somebody. Or, somebody knows they've got that money, and they come looking for it."
"But then they'd just shoot them-they wouldn't hang them," Del said.
"Trying to get them to talk?"
"More likely they fucked with somebody and got made an example of," Del said. "A bigger network that's still up and running, where they need an occasional example."
"Maybe," Lucas said. "Where does Calb come in?"
"He doesn't. Not necessarily."
"Look at the farmhouse-there was a lot of work done in there, new work, and it cost a bundle. Believe me, I know." The Big New House back in St. Paul had cost $870,000. "If Calb knows Cash is only getting paid for driving, and if Warr is just dealing cards, where'd he think they got the money to fix that place up? There's a hundred grand in work in there, minimum, and a ten-thousand-dollar television set."
"Tell you what-if the total's a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars, that's not much for a house, with two incomes, and a guy upstairs who might be paying rent," Del said.
"C'mon," Lucas scoffed. "How many drug dealers do you know who have a mortgage? How many have bought a house?"
"Jimmy Szuza bought a house for his mother."
"Jimmy Szuza was working for his mother, the treacherous old bitch. He was fronting for her."
"Still." After a couple of minutes: "And what about the cell?"
"Beats the shit outa me."
"CALB WAS RIGHT about the travel time," Lucas said, glancing at his watch as they rolled into the casino's parking lot.
The casino looked like a larger version of Calb's truck shop, but a truck shop on steroids: a huge, rambling, two-story yellow-and-green metal building with a prism-shaped glass entry built to resemble a crystal tepee. "Liquor in the front, poker in the rear," Del said.
"Bumper sticker," Lucas said. "But I don't think they sell booze."
THE MOOSE BAY security chief was a cheerful Chippewa man named Clark Hoffman, who hurried down to meet them after a call from the reception desk. "Figured you'd get here sooner or later," he said, shaking their hands. He looked closely at Del. "Did you hang out at Meat's in the Cities?"
"Yeah, I'd go in there before it closed," Del said.
"It closed? Shit."
"Couple years back."
Hoffman thought about that for a moment, then said, "I used to kick your ass at shuffleboard. I thought you were a wino."
Del grinned and shrugged. "I remember. You told me you were at Wounded Knee."
"That's me," Hoffman said. "Sneaking through the weeds with a hundred pounds of frozen brats in a backpack. Fuckin' FBI-no offense. C'mon this way."
They followed him upstairs to his office, Del filling him in about Meat's. "Trouble with the health inspectors," Del told him. "You name it, they had it: mice, rats, roaches, disease. The only thing that kept you from dyin' was the alcohol."
"Everything did have a… particular flavor," Hoffman said. "Ever notice that?"
"Yeah."
"I always sorta liked it. What happened to Meat?"
"He moved to San Clemente and opened a porno store."
"Not much money in retail porno anymore," Hoffman said, shaking his head. "Not since they started piping it into every motel room in the country."
JANE WARR'S EMPLOYMENT file sat in the center of Hoffman's desk. He pushed it across at Lucas and said, "Not much there. She learned to deal at a school in Vegas, held a couple of jobs there, worked at a Wal-Mart for a while, outside of Kansas City, then came up here."
"We heard a rumor that she might have had a relationship here with a guy named Terry Anderson."
Hoffman frowned. "Where'd you hear that?"
"Downtown. Can't tell you exactly who mentioned it," Lucas said.
"I'll check, and I'll find out. I hadn't heard anything, but then-I might not have. About anyone else, but not about Terry."
"Why not Terry?" Del asked.
"He's my brother-in-law," Hoffman said. He grinned at Lucas, but it wasn't a happy face. "He's married to my sister."
"Aw, shit," Lucas said. "Listen, all we heard was one guy, who didn't like Warr, but maybe got turned down by her and knew we'd be up here talking to you. Maybe just a wise guy."
"One way or the other, I'll know in the next half hour," Hoffman said. He interlinked his fingers, stretched his arms out in front of him, and cracked his knuckles. "I'll let you know."
"Take it easy," Del said.
"I'll take it easy," Hoffman said. "My sister, on the other hand, might kill his ass. If it's true."
"Tell her to take it easy, too," Del said. "I mean, Jesus."
"You have any cocaine going through here?" Lucas asked after an awkward pause.
Hoffman spread his hands. "Sure. On the res, and some of the customers bring it in. We try to keep it out-we make so much money that we try to keep everything spotless. We don't need to give some asshole state senator an excuse to build state-run casinos. When we see it, we call the cops. Anybody caught with it is banned, no matter what the cops do."
"Any chance Warr was dealing?" Del asked.
"Not in here," Hoffman said. "We watch the dealers, and they know it. We tape them every minute they're working."
"Really? Do you still have last night's tapes?" Lucas asked.
"Sure do. We've got tapes for the last month, and tapes of anything that might ever come up in the future. Catch people stealing, they'll be on tape until the next glacier comes through."
Del said, "We don't have a line on who did this, but we'd sort of like to see a guy, big guy, new beard, dark watch cap or ski cap, dark parka and jeans, drives a Jeep Cherokee."
"I don't know about the Cherokee, but I know who you're talking about. We've got him on tape," Hoffman said.
"You know him?" Lucas asked. "Who he is?"
"Not who he is, but I looked at him pretty good. He'd be on the tapes, though most of what you'd see is the top of his head. The camera coverage on the slots isn't as good as it is on the tables, because the slots aren't as much of a problem."
"When can we see them?" Lucas asked. And, "How do you know it was him?"
"Right now. And I know who you're talking about, because some people don't act right, and you tend to notice them. This guy wasn't interested in gambling. I couldn't tell what he was interested in. I noticed him the night before last, and then he came in again last night," Hoffman said. "He was plugging dollar tokens into the slots, but slow, and he hardly paid attention when he won, like he didn't care. People don't act like that in casinos. They're always walking around counting their coins and looking at machines, or they get perched up on a chair and they start pounding away. One thing they don't do, is they don't not give a shit."
Del looked at Lucas. "Hell of a long thread, from the motel guy to here."