Highway 61 (28 page)

“They were not my friends. I don’t have any male friends.”

“Not even Denny Marcus?”

Vicki rose from the bed.

“I’m going to take my shower now,” she said.

Before she went into the bathroom, Vicki fished a purple BlackBerry smartphone out of her bag.

“No calls,” I said.

She carelessly tossed the phone to me.

“Take a look,” she said. “I’m a bitch. What are they?”

*   *   *

I surfed the files on the phone, watched videos, listened to conversations. It was all incredibly lewd. Vicki usually played the innocent. The men were always less than kind. Yet as evidence of a crime, I thought Vicki had overestimated the files. There wasn’t a single shot of money actually changing hands. The johns all had adhered to Roberta’s system of payment. There were ledger entries that listed names and amounts, yet nothing that actually linked the payments to the services provided. If it all got out, certainly careers would be damaged, marriages ruined, reputations irretrievably lost—but criminal charges? The johns, and I recognized a couple of them, could all argue they were having voluntary relations with a woman that they knew to be over eighteen. It would be their word against Vicki’s, and Vicki, after all, was a blackmailing whore, or so a jury would be instructed in no uncertain terms. It was all about ego. As long as the johns were afraid of publicity, Vicki did, in fact, hold the high card. If the johns decided to risk public exposure or if it was forced upon them, she would be defenseless.

I set the BlackBerry on the credenza next to Vicki’s bag. Watching her have sex with all those middle-aged men, listening to her pretend to enjoy it even when they hurt her, left me feeling a thousand years old. I spent a lot of time staring at the cheap motel room door, wondering why I didn’t just walk out it, jump in the Altima, and drive home. I had done my bit for God and country; I had gotten Jason Truhler off the hook. He could go on being an asshole, and I could go on pretending to Erica that he wasn’t. If I felt a need to make the world a better place, I could simply call Bobby, give him the names of Roberta Weltzin and Caitlin Brooks, and then watch while major crimes did its thing.

I lay back in bed and stared up at the light fixture in the center of the ceiling. The glass cover was square and undulated with a tiny sailboat painted on each corner. It looked like it hadn’t been dusted in a decade.

Why don’t you go home?
my inner voice asked.

Vicki needs help, I answered.

Vicki is not a nice person.

Neither are all the others.

Denny Marcus. Tony and Sean. They’re all dead because of her.

She didn’t kill them.

That doesn’t make her any less responsible.

She didn’t kill them.

Are you choosing sides in this?

For all her faults, Vicki never killed anyone.

You are choosing sides.

The lesser of two evils.

Oh, please.

What was it Bobby Dunston said—johns pay a fine and the girls do the time? Wouldn’t it be a kick to change that equation just this once? Besides, if I leave now, Vicki might be killed, too.

That’s not your problem. You saved her once. You’re under no obligation to do it again.

Would it be such an imposition to take her to Rochester? It’s a lousy sixty-minute drive from here.

What would that get you?

Peace of mind.

Bullshit.

Yeah, I know—but tomorrow’s Sunday. It’s not like I have anything better to do.

You could stay home and watch the Vikings.

Exactly my point.

*   *   *

I continued to argue with myself, with neither side giving way, until Vicki opened the bathroom door. A cloud of steam followed her into the room. She was wearing the faint scent of strawberry shampoo and a smile. Her face might have looked fourteen, but her healthy young body seemed to have been carved out of marble five thousand years ago by a particularly gifted Greek sculptor.

“Did I keep you waiting long?” she asked.

“Don’t do that, Vicki,” I said.

“What?”

I left the bed and went to the credenza. I pulled the lightweight robe out of the shopping bag and tossed it to her.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, but I wish you’d stop,” I said.

A petulant smile spread across her small mouth.

“You did save my life,” she said.

“There’s no charge for that.”

“I want to thank you.”

I admit she unsettled me. I had watched all the pretty young girls, as I’m sure most males my age had, with wistful imagining. Yet I had never ventured beyond the paternal smile and head nod, never really considered the possibility of bedding a child. Her eyes, her smile, the timbre of her voice—she had deliberately taken me beyond possibility and was now offering herself in no uncertain terms. The question demanded a simple yes or no.

“No,” I said.

I have never made any claims to virtue. Truth be told, there was a time, and not so very long ago, that I might have succumbed to the young lady’s charms. Why not? She was over eighteen. Yet the sordid images on her cell phone were still fresh in my mind, and instead of arousing me—which might have been the reason Vicki wanted me to see them—they had the opposite effect. Besides, it was just plain wrong.

“No?” Vicki asked.

“No.”

“I’ll be damned.”

Probably,
my inner voice said.

“Maybe not,” I said aloud.

Vicki carefully put on the robe and cinched it at the waist.

“I’ve been told no by men before,” she said, “but only after they carefully weighed the chances of getting caught by their wives or someone else. You’re not afraid of that.”

“I’m too old for you, Vicki. Too involved with someone I care about. Too—I hate to use the word—too mature for you.”

“I knew a mature man once. My stepfather. Being too old didn’t bother him. He loved me. He loved me every way he could think of, and when he couldn’t think of any more ways he got me high on drugs and loaned me out to his friends and they loved me, too. He had a lot of friends, and they had friends. One of them strangled me while he was ramming it in, called it erotic asphyxiation, said I’d enjoy it. He did such a thorough job they had to take me to the emergency room. To cover their crimes, they said I did it to myself; they said I attempted to strangle myself while masturbating. So, after I got out of the emergency room, they sent me to the psychiatric ward. I was fifteen. Don’t worry, I’m better now. While I was away, my mother divorced my stepfather. Last I heard he was married to another middle-aged woman with daughters. I’ve often thought of paying him a visit. I just never got around to it. Don’t look at me that way, McKenzie. I don’t want your pity. I don’t even want your understanding.”

“What do you want?”

“Acknowledgment. I exist.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Okay, then.”

“So to prove that you exist you’ve decided to get revenge against all men.”

“Not all men. Just those who try to take advantage of me.”

“I saw some of your videos, Vicki. There are those who would accuse you of entrapment.”

“You can’t cheat an honest man.”

“If you say so.”

“Are you telling me that I’m wrong?” Vicki pulled her robe tighter. “Are you saying I have no right to revenge?”

“No. I’ve sought revenge once or twice myself—and got it.”

“How did it make you feel?”

“Better.”

“Exactly.”

“There was always an endgame, though. A point that I reached where I could say, ‘I’m satisfied.’ What’s your endgame? When is enough enough?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Will you? Let’s say for argument’s sake that you pull it off. That you collect your money and you disappear and your enemies never find you. Are you going to rebuild your life? Find happiness? Or are you just going to do the same damn thing all over again?”

“Decisions, decisions.”

“Do you think it’s funny, Vicki? I’ve known prostitutes, I’ve known strippers; I met them on the job. They all had a plan. Every damn one. Go to school, start a business, get married. The same shit that Roberta preached to you. You remember Roberta? The woman who recruited you?”

“I remember.”

“Only a very few ever went through with it. They let the lives they were living destroy the lives they wanted to live.”

“Stop it, McKenzie. You’re breaking my heart.”

“Yeah, I get it. I’m just an old man talking.”

Vicki thought that was an amusing bit of self-deprecation.

“You’re not old, McKenzie,” she said. “Just old-fashioned.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” I said.

I went to the door of the motel room, made sure it was locked, then braced a chair against the doorknob. I looked down at Vicki as she slipped under the covers of her bed. I held up three fingers one at a time for her to see.

“Do not answer the door,” I said. “Do not answer the phone. Do not make any calls. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

I went inside the bathroom, carefully locking the door behind me. Five minutes later I was under the shower. I stood there for a very long time. For reasons I had a hard time explaining to myself, thinking of Vicki made me want to weep. I didn’t, though.

SEVENTEEN

The sound of two men shouting at each other woke me. I had been sitting in a chair behind the small table next to the motel room window. My Beretta was set on top of the table. My hand covered the butt of the gun, but I released it when I realized the voices were coming from the TV. Vicki was sitting on the edge of her bed and watching a Sunday morning interview program. The two men were pretending to discuss immigration reform. I say pretending because they were talking over each other, neither listening to the other, arguing vehemently about their own solutions, both of which seemed vague to me.

The sudden movement caught Vicki’s eye, and she turned to look at me.

“You slept in a chair all night when you had a perfectly good bed?” she asked. “I didn’t scare you that much, did I?”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” I said. “I was just resting my eyes.”

“Your eyes snore, then.”

“What time is it?”

“A little after nine. Do you want to get some breakfast? I’m starving.”

I glanced at the motel room door. The chair that I had braced against the handle had been removed.

“Did you go out?” I asked.

“I went for a run. I’ve been up for hours, McKenzie.”

Some sentry you are,
my inner voice said.

“You’re supposed to be in hiding,” I said aloud.

Vicki put on a pair of sunglasses and pulled the end of her long blond hair across her mouth.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I was in disguise.”

Vicki was wearing her new jeans, her new white shirt, and her new light blue cardigan sweater; her hair had been tied behind her head. Nothing in her appearance suggested what she did for a living. Nothing in her smile indicated how she had spent the past eighteen hours. If you had told me that she was the lead singer in a church youth choir, I would have believed you.

“You shouldn’t take chances,” I said.

“McKenzie, it’s Hastings.”

I took the chair I was sitting on and braced it against the door.

“I need a minute to get cleaned up,” I said.

Vicki’s smile followed me into the bathroom.

She was still smiling when I returned. I had reclaimed my sweater. The Kevlar vest was secured beneath it.

“Where should we eat?” Vicki asked.

“Prescott.”

“Prescott? Isn’t that in Wisconsin?”

“Just down the road and across the St. Croix River.”

“Why there?”

“I want to keep moving. We’ll cross into Wisconsin, drive to Madison, maybe Milwaukee. Stay the night. Come back tomorrow. Go to your bank. Stop at your place—”

“There’s nothing there that I can’t live without.”

“Then get you on the first stagecoach out of Dodge.”

“And that will be that.”

“Unless you decide to go back to Thunder Bay. There’s a detective constable up there who wants to chat with you.”

“I think I’ll avoid Thunder Bay, although Canada is awfully big. A girl could easily get lost in Canada.”

“Send me a postcard.”

I crossed the motel room. I seized the chair and pulled it away from the door. That was as far as I got before my prepaid cell phone rang. I read the name off of the screen before I answered.

“Who is it?” Vicki asked.

“Jason Truhler.”

*   *   *

I did not want to leave Vicki Walsh alone in a run-down motor lodge that was about as secure as a box of corn flakes, especially since I knew she’d probably break her promise to me before I reached the city limits. Despite protests to the contrary, I was pretty sure she’d leave the room to get something to eat or go to the movies at the multiplex down the road or shop for clothes or play bingo at the parlor across the highway or all of the above. Despite everything, she just didn’t seem to appreciate the danger she was in. I kept telling her.

“Remember what happened last night,” I said.

“It’s Hastings,” she said. “Nothing bad happens in Hastings.”

I couldn’t imagine what made her think so.

Unfortunately, Jason Truhler’s situation seemed much more dire.

“It’s the Joes,” he said. “The Joes.”

I knew I’d have to deal with them sooner or later, and now seemed as good a time as any. I contacted Dailey and Moulton. I told them that the Joes were putting the arm on Truhler today and I would give them the time and place as soon as I knew it.

“You can charge them with felony coercion,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Dailey said. “Arrest the pricks for felony coercion.”

I drove Highway 61 north to west Interstate 494 and worked my way to Truhler’s town house in Eden Prairie. It took about an hour, and I found myself becoming more nervous as the minutes and miles sped past. Even with Dailey and Moulton backing me up, the Joes were not people you wanted to trifle with. I checked the magazine in my Beretta before I left the car. I made sure there was no one watching when I went up the walk to Truhler’s place—God knew where the Joes might be hiding. I rang the doorbell and then rapped heavily on the door when Truhler didn’t respond quickly enough.