"All right… all right," said Anderson.
"Do you think, uh, any of the rest of us might be in danger?" Bose asked.
Bone grinned at her and said, "That’s the first question I asked when the cops came over last night." After a bit of uneasy laughter, he said, "The police have nothing. I can’t see any connection, and no threats have been made… but then, O’Dell wasn’t threatened either."
"You think we could use a vacation?"
Bone shrugged. "That’s up to you."
The board members looked at each other; then Brandt said, "I really don’t think that’s necessary. But I do think it’s necessary for this board to talk privately amongst ourselves. We have some issues."
Several of the other board members nodded, and Bone pushed back from the table and said to McDonald, " Wilson, I think they’re kicking us out." He looked down at himself. "And I could stand a change of clothes."
"Not kicking you out," Brandt objected. "In fact, I’d appreciate it if you both would hang around for a while. I know you’re both tired, so we’ll give you a call in a half hour or so. Get you out of here for the rest of the day."
In the hallway outside the room, McDonald said, "You called me a dummy."
"I apologized," Bone said. Baki was standing just behind him, prim with a bundle of papers.
"Fuck apologies," McDonald said. "You’re going down, you prick."
"Yeah? What’s that supposed to mean?" Bone asked. "You walking around with a little handgun, Wilson?" Bone’s voice was quiet, and he looked almost as if he might be joking. But McDonald could see his black eyes, and knew that he wasn’t.
"Kiss my ass," McDonald said; and Bone, in his turn, took a mental step back. This was not the hail-fellow he knew. Baki caught the hem of Bone’s jacket and pulled. "No," she muttered, an inch from his ear. McDonald nodded at the two of them, then turned on his heel.
"Fat fuckin’…"
"Some other time," she said. "Did it work out in there?"
"I don’t know."
"What happened?" Audrey demanded, as soon as the door shut behind her husband.
"I damned near punched Bone out in the hallway, the prick," McDonald said. "Christ, I could use a drink."
"Punched him?" Audrey was confused, and her voice turned shrill. "Wilson, what are you thinking about? Punched him?"
"Ah, shut up," McDonald rapped. He peeled off his coat and tie. "Board wants us to wait around until they’re done."
"Are they going to pick someone? We’re not ready. We were going to work on Bose this weekend."
"The O’Dell thing spooked them," McDonald said. "I think half of them are getting ready to leave town. Hide out until it’s over with."
"But…" Audrey was flabbergasted. "They said next week…"
"I don’t know." Wilson shrugged. He turned to look out his window, down at the street. "Bone turned up looking like a motorcycle bum. He sure as hell didn’t look like a CEO, so that’s something."
"Okay," she said. She folded her skirt beneath her as she sat down on a plush chair. "So we wait."
The wait was an hour long, and seemed to take most of the day. A few people came and went; McDonald stared at a computer screen while Audrey read Vogue. Then Jack O’Grady came down, smiled at Audrey, and said, "Wilson, could you step back into The Room for a minute?"
Audrey patted him on the back and Wilson followed O’Grady out the door.
"Going to the Gophers game?" O’Grady asked.
"Always do," McDonald said brightly. "Good year, bad year, I don’t care…"
But he trailed off when he walked through the door. Bone was already sitting at the long conference table, but this time he was wearing a dark banker’s suit with a thin chalk stripe. And he’d shaved.
"Wilson, sit down," said Brandt, and McDonald’s stomach turned. He sat down. "Wilson, we’ve decided we need to get a new leader in place immediately; somebody who can handle the bank and give us a single voice to speak with. We’ve elected you and Jim Bone to the board of directors. I’ll be taking over as the board chairman, and if you’ll accept the job, you’ll be vice chairman, as well as maintaining the presidency of the mortgage arm. We’ve asked Jim to take over as president and chief executive officer. And we’ve directed him to continue with the merger plans."
Brandt looked at Bone, then back to McDonald. "So that’s it. Welcome to the board."
"I, uh…" McDonald shook his head as if he’d been struck. Vice chairman: he was dead meat. "I, uh, thank you."
Baki met him in the hall, eyes wide, almost vibrating with caffeine and anxiety, Bone thought, and demanded, "Well?"
He grinned. "I got it. Brandt is chairman, for now, and McDonald is vice chairman. For now."
She smiled back and six years’ worth of frost melted for a moment: "I’m very pleased for you, Mr. Bone."
"Jim."
"Not yet," she said; she refrosted.
"And we have to talk about that favor."
"Tomorrow," she said. "I’ve got some more thinking to do, and we’ve got some work. I should call Spacek, and tell him that you’re now the man to deal with on the merger."
"That’s the first thing," he said. "Second thing is, we’ve got to start talking about how to screw the merger."
"That’s not entirely consistent with your previous position," she said, with absolute equanimity.
"I didn’t used to be the CEO," he said. "So let’s go. We’re gonna need coffee and cookies. We’ve got some minor receiving to do."
"Down in your office," she said. "I ordered everything we’ll need this morning."
SIXTEEN
St. Paul Police Headquarters resembles a Depression-era WPA post office, but with new windows. Lucas dumped his Porsche in a reserved-parking space at the front of the building and went inside to a glass security window, where a woman at the desk didn’t recognize him, didn’t care about his Minneapolis ID, wasn’t sure that Lieutenant Mayberry had time to see him, and told him to take a seat in the reception area next to a kid with green hair.
Lucas sat down, said, "Nice hair," crossed his legs, and stared at the opposite wall. The kid, whose brain was moving in slow motion, struggled with the sentiment for twenty seconds before he said, "Thanks, dude," with sincerity.
Lucas waited another twenty seconds, then asked, "What’re you here for?"
Another twenty seconds and the kid said, "Fuckin’ smokin’ weed."
"Were you doing it?" Lucas asked.
"Fuckin’ yeah."
The conversation withered after that; then Mayberry pushed through the security door and said, "Hey, Lucas, what’re you doing out here?" Mayberry had a head the size and shape of a gallon milk jug, right down to the handle, which was a tiny blond ponytail tied into his hair at the back. He pushed through the security door and said, "Come on back… How ya been, I haven’t seen you since that goat-fuck over at Ronnie White’s place."
"Ah, ups and downs," Lucas said. "You heard about Weather?"
"You mean the bomb? Yeah, in the paper-and somebody said you guys busted up."
"I don’t know, we’re kind of working on things."
"She’s a good one," Mayberry said. He guided Lucas to an elevator, up a couple of floors and into a meeting room with a dozen chairs with red plastic seats, a blackboard, a wide-screen color television, and a VCR.
Mayberry shoved the tape into the VCR and punched a few buttons, bringing the television up. "I looked at the tape last night… man, it’s been a long time. I could hardly remember who was who. Anyway, Arris shows up at about 224 on the dial…"
He was running through the tape; at the index number 210 he stopped the tape, then restarted it at real-time speed. They were both standing to look at the picture.