“I do,” said Al.
“Well, then you should know that it’s not bank day today, Al.”
“I could check for you, is all’s I’m saying.”
“That will not be necessary,” said John Salteau. “How can I assist you two?”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” said Kat, “how old are you, sir?”
“I know exactly how old he is,” said Al. “John graduated from Abbott High School in nineteen hundred and forty-three, five years ahead of me. So that makes him eighty-three. About.”
“I don’t know why I bother to have any personal business when I have Al here to share it with anyone who shows up,” said John Salteau. “Al is correct. I am eighty-three years old. Now, would you two please tell me what I can do for you?”
“I think,” said Mulligan, “that we might have mistaken you for somebody else.”
“That sounds perfectly likely,” said John Salteau. “I’d like to get inside now, please.”
Kat dug in her purse. “Before you go, can you take a look at this for me, please?” She held out Saltino’s driver’s license picture. “Do you know him?”
John Salteau held the photo at arm’s length, Al crowding in to peer at it over his shoulder.
“I’ve never seen him before. How about you, Al?”
“Oh, now you’re asking me.”
“I am.”
“I wouldn’t want to talk out of turn, John. Since that’s what I seem to do.”
“Please, for Pete’s sake.”
“I have trouble keeping it straight, sometimes.”
“For Pete’s sake. Have you seen the man or not? The girl is waiting.”
“No, I’ve never seen him. Since you ask.”
“Thank you,” said Kat.
“Who is he?” asked John Salteau.
“His name is John Saltino,” said Kat.
“What?” said Mulligan.
SIX DAYS AGO
Hanshaw came down the steps of Wendell Banjo’s mobile home and walked directly to the ruined house that sat farther back on the lot. He shoved at the warped kitchen door and then managed to wedge his enormous body into the tight space that opened up. Inside, it stank of mold. Holding his breath, he advanced through the kitchen into the parlor. A sodden old chesterfield sprouting with weeds and a rusty floor lamp whose shade had melted away, leaving only the wire armature, were the two pieces of furniture left in the room. He knelt before the heat register in the floor to remove the grating and reached into the opening. He found the envelope full of money with his fingers and pulled it out. He didn’t begrudge Wendell Banjo the cloak-and-dagger trappings that were, as far as Hanshaw was concerned, more melodramatic than they were necessary. He knew that this really wasn’t Wendell’s line. When Wendell had called him about Argenziano the day before, he’d sounded relieved to be putting it in Hanshaw’s hands. He put the envelope in the inside pocket of his jacket and went back outside, breathing deeply as he hit the fresh air.
One of Wendell’s crew, Ryan, was sitting on the steps of the trailer, a fat kid in a satin Cardinals warm-up jacket and a pair of sweatpants that were about two sizes too large. He was looking at Hanshaw a little too closely, Hanshaw thought. Without breaking stride, he made a pistol from the fingers of his right hand and aimed them at the kid, dropping his thumb like a hammer. The kid raised a hand in greeting but lowered his eyes at the same time. Hanshaw proceeded to his pickup and got in.
HE REACHED INTO a plastic bag stowed behind him and pulled out the three cans remaining of a six-pack of Pepsi, hoisting them by the empty plastic rings that had yoked all six into a team. He detached one from its ring. He was outside Manitou Sands, parked in the lot behind some desultory landscaping. He’d been there going on two hours. He’d moved the truck a couple of times, usually whenever anyone in some kind of semi-uniform seemed to be checking him out, but also to look at the various entrances and exits, particularly around back. In and out. He sipped the Pepsi and felt it burn his throat. His mouth was sticky and his teeth felt mossy. He drained the can, then got out of the truck and strolled across the lot, over the painted lines, past the landscaping, in the front entrance, and straight through the lobby to the casino floor. He walked along its periphery, keeping his eye on the glossy sheer curtains hanging from floor to ceiling along the walls. The curtains yielded here and there to stretches where fieldstone had been decoratively set into the wall. In each such stretch the wall contained a doorway of some kind: a restroom, an exit, a passageway. He paused to linger at a bank of slot machines near one door with a keypad lock, marked for employees only. After a little while, the door opened and a woman emerged, carrying a handful of files. Hanshaw caught the door before it shut completely and entered the space behind it. A single camera eye mounted near the ceiling at the end of a short corridor met his gaze. He shrugged. In and out. The first door on the left-hand side bore a nameplate that read ROBERT ARGENZIANO, LIAISON. The door opened when he tried the knob. He found no one inside. Argenziano’s office was a monument to busywork. A pristine desk, two visitor’s chairs, a telephone, a computer. A sofa. A framed poster for an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts entitled The Art of Chivalry, depicting a mounted knight, hung on one wall. On the desktop was a single sheet of paper, with a fountain pen laid across it, as if Argenziano had set it down in the middle of an important task. Hanshaw picked up the sheet and saw that it was a supply requisition form. Argenziano wanted a teak bookcase. There were no books in the office. Also on the desk was a crystal jar filled with M&Ms and an elaborate toy that, on closer inspection, revealed itself to be a working model of an antique steam engine. A little brass plaque mounted on its base was blank, awaiting an inscription. He looked in the desk drawers and found nothing of interest apart from a Glock 26 pistol in its case. The gun was clean. A rosewood credenza had a row of binders lined up on its top. Hanshaw opened one of them and discovered that it was empty inside.
Five minutes later he was back in his truck, persuaded that there was nothing to be discovered in Bobby’s office. He was driving to pick up Jeramy, nominally his “cousin” but really just a footloose boy of uncertain pedigree who’d grown up within shouting distance. Hanshaw had, at various times, arrested three of the men who had, at various times, lived in Jeramy’s house; all on drug charges and one on a domestic dispute call. Two of the drug offenders had been all right if too stupidly obvious in their habits living next door to a cop. The third man had been mean, slit-eyed and half-smart, and Hanshaw was pretty certain that he’d been responsible for the poisoning death of his dog, so in the course of arresting the man for choking Jeramy’s mother he’d found a reason to break his jaw with the barrel of the Colt Python he used to wear when he was in uniform, a big, heavy, reliable gun that didn’t look ridiculous strapped to his massive hip. After that Hanshaw hadn’t been able to shake Jeramy, whose enthusiasm hadn’t waned even after Hanshaw had had his own troubles and left the tribal force.
Jeramy’s mother opened the door. She and Jeramy lived alone now.
“Hanshaw,” she said. The house was one long dim hallway, with doorways poking out on either side.
Hanshaw crossed the threshold. “Is he here?” he asked.
“’Course he’s here. Where’s he going to be at? The library?”
“Maybe he’s reading a book right now,” said Hanshaw.
She laughed once, a sharp bark. He passed her and went through one of the doorways. It was cold in Jeramy’s room. Jeramy was lying on the bed wearing a down jacket and a set of headphones. He was tall and thin, the stubble on his pale brown scalp mapping his already receding hairline. His eyes were closed.