John Sandford - Secret Prey

"He never worked at it. He’s always been a salesman, and a damn good one. Knows everybody. Everybody . Access to all the old money in town-his family built a mill over on the river, hundred and some years ago, and eventually sold to Pillsbury to go into banking and real estate. Like that."

"Okay," Lucas said. "So here’s another question. Everything I’ve heard about him says McDonald’s rich, he comes from an old family, and all that. Why would he kill Kresge, just ’cause Kresge’s gonna merge the bank? He’s got all the money in the world anyway."

"No, not really," Isley said. He dabbed at his lips with a linen napkin, tossed the napkin aside, and made a steeple out of his fingers. After a moment of silence, he said, "He’s maybe worth… seven or eight million. The older generation was a lot richer, relatively speaking, but there were a lot of kids, and a lot of taxes, and the money got cut up. After taxes, and including his after-tax salary, I’d imagine his real expendable income is something in the range of a half-million. If he doesn’t dip into his capital, and assuming he puts aside enough to cover inflation."

"Well, Jesus, Dama, that just about is all the money in the world," Lucas said.

"No, it’s not. It’s a lot by any normal standard, but having ten million dollars is nothing compared to being the CEO of a major corporation. Being an American CEO is like being an old English duke or earl." He paused again, his eyes unfocusing as he looked for the right words. "Say you have a spendable income of a half-million a year, and your wife likes to fly first-class to Hawaii or Paris every so often. You can spend fifteen thousand after-tax bucks flying a couple first-class to the islands. You go out of town a half-dozen times a year-Hawaii, the Caribbean, Europe- you can spend a hundred and fifty grand, no trouble. And it’s all out of your own pocket. Plus you’ve got big real estate taxes, you’re probably running a couple of fiftythousand-dollar cars… I mean, you can spend a halfmillion a year and feel like your collar’s a little too tight. But if you run a business the size of Polaris, screw first class-you’ve got your own Gulf-stream waiting at the airport. You’ve got several thousand people kissing your ass day and night. You’ve got people driving your cars, running your errands. From everything I can tell by watching it, this all must feel better than anything in the world…"

"So even if he had a lot of money, a guy might have reason to waste old Kresge."

"Especially McDonald. Bone, O’Dell, and Robles are essentially hired guns. They are very good at what they do, but they’re here mostly by chance. They could go anywhere else. But everything Wilson McDonald is is tied to the Twin Cities. In New York or L.A. or even Chicago, they could give a rat’s ass about a Wilson McDonald."

"Do you think Bone would talk to me about McDonald? Off the record?"

Isley shrugged: "Maybe. If the idea appealed to him. He played a little ball at Ole Miss."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Good quick guard. Probably not pro quality, but he would’ve been looked at. Called him T-Bone, of course. If you want, I could give him a ring. Just to say you asked about him, tell him you’re okay."

Lucas grinned. "Maybe I’m not."

Isley said, "Ah, you’re okay… if he’s innocent. And I’m pretty sure he is."

"Anybody mourning Kresge?"

Isley had been about to stuff a slice of chicken in his mouth, and stopped halfway to the target. Shook his head. "Not a single person that I know. He spent his life fucking people in the name of efficiency." He stuck the chicken in his mouth, chewed, swallowed. "Why would you do that?" he asked. "I know all kinds of people who do, but I can’t figure out why."

"Make money."

"Hell, Lucas, I’ve made a pile of money, and I don’t fuck people. You made a pile, and your ex-employees think you’re a hell of a guy. But why would you do things in a way that you’d end up in life with a pile of money, but not a single fuckin’ friend?"

"Maybe you figure that if you get enough money, you could buy some."

Isley nodded gloomily. "Yeah, probably; that’s the way they think."

Lucas finished the last of the three olives, and the last of the pleasantly cool martini, and said, "Listen, Dama. I got a pickup game once a week, bunch of cops, couple lawyers. You start eating those Big Macs and I’d like to get you out there."

"Goddamnit, Lucas…"

"Feel good, wouldn’t it? Playing horse in the evening. Down on Twenty-eighth?"

Isley tossed his fork in the salad bowl. "Get out of here, Davenport."

Lucas stood up. "Call Bone for me?"

"Yeah, yeah, soon as I get back." He looked at his Patek Philippe. "Give me twenty-five minutes."

Lucasgot back to the office, stuck his head into Administration, and said, "Got anything for me?"

The duty guy said, "Computer’s down."

"How long?"

"I don’t know, it’s not just us. Some state road guys cut a major fiber-optic. Half the goddamn city’s down."

"Road guys?"

"Shovel operators."

James T. Bone’s secretary suspected Lucas of making sport of her. When she told him, peremptorily, on the phone, that Mr. Bone was making no new appointments, Lucas had answered, "Go tell Mr. Bone right now that a deputy chief of police wants to talk to him, and if he says no, I’ll have to come down and shoot him."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I think you heard me," Lucas said. He almost added, "sweetheart," but decided that might push it too far.

She went away for a moment; then another voice came on, feminine, cool: "Mr. Davenport? This is Kerin Baki, Mr. Bone’s assistant. Can I help you?"

"I need to talk to Mr. Bone."

"When?"

"As soon as possible."

"Come over, and we’ll get you in," she said.

Baki was a chilly northern blonde, with an oval face and pale blue fighter-pilot eyes. She met him without any softening smile. In the spring, Lucas thought, she probably had genetic dreams of turning her tanks toward Moscow…

She led him through into Bone’s office, said, "Mr. Bone, Mr. Davenport," and left them, shutting the door behind her.

Bone was dressed in a subdued single-breasted wool suit with a crisp white shirt and an Italian necktie; but somehow the ensemble came off as a wry comment on Yankee bankertude. He had a telephone to one ear and a foot propped on the N-Z volume of the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary , which lay flat on his desk. He waved Lucas in, and as Lucas dropped into a bent-oak chair across the desk, said into the phone, "Two? That’s as good as you can do? Last week it was one and seven… Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll get back to you, but I think we might have to talk to Bosendorfer or Beckstein… Yeah, yeah. By four."

He hung up, made a notation on a legal pad, and said, "I can give you all the time you’d need this evening, but if you gotta talk now, you gotta talk fast. And this is all off the record at this point, right?"

Lucas nodded. "Yes. If we need an official statement, we’ll send you a subpoena and get a formal deposition."

Bone leaned forward. "So?"

"So do you think McDonald did it?"

"If one of us did it, it was McDonald. I didn’t do it. Robles, no motive. O’Dell, too smart. Unless I’m missing something. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think it’s McDonald. Way down at the bottom, I don’t think he’s got the grit to pull it off."

"Then why’s he running the place?"

"He’s not. He’s only speaking for it. And that’ll only last until O’Dell and I get the board sorted out. Then it’ll be one of us."

Lucas said, "Huh," and then, "Have you ever heard of George Arris? Does the name ring a bell?"

"Yes, of course. He was a famous case around here, around the bank. He was murdered-this must’ve been a few months or maybe a year or so before I came here. Must’ve been back in ’85."