at him. “You a cop? A narc? I’d know you otherwise.”
He was no more a cop than her paperboy, but she scored points asking. Up close, she was surprised to find that he was barely as tall as she was—and three inches of that were the soles of a very funky pair of shoes.
Petite
was the best word to describe him. He wore mascara and lip gloss, and had five earrings in one ear.
“Just a concerned citizen,” he said, glancing up and down the hall.
“And what is it you’re concerned about?”
“Injustice.”
“You’ve come to the right place. Theoretically.” She dug a card out of her jacket pocket and handed it to him. “Maybe you’re just talking to the wrong people.”
Neon took the card. His manicure was better than hers. He looked at the card as if he were trying to memorize it.
“Maybe,” he said, and slipped it into his coat pocket and walked away.
6
CHAPTER
NEIL FALLON HAD forsaken not only his father but the city as well. Kovac drove west on the broad speedway multilanes of 394, which thinned down to four lanes, then two, then two with no shoulders, the last a narrow ribbon of road that wound around the fingers of Lake Minnetonka. On other tributaries of asphalt around this lake stood old mansions that had been built by lumber barons and industrialists, and new mansions built in recent years by professional athletes and rock stars. But here the strips of land were too meager for ostentation. Cabins perched on the banks, crouching beneath towering pines. Some were summer places, some fishing shacks that should have seen a wrecking ball a decade or two past, others were modest year-round homes.
Andy Fallon’s brother owned a motley collection of cabins congregated on a wedge of land between the lake and a crossroads. Fallon’s Bar and Bait Shop squatted nearest the road, a building not much bigger than a three-car garage, with green shingle siding and too-small windows that made the place look as if it were squinting. The windows were glowing with neon advertising Miller’s and Coors and live bait.
The thought of a late lunch shriveled and died in Kovac’s empty belly.
He wheeled the piece-of-shit Chevy Caprice into the small, frozen parking lot, turned off the engine, and listened to it rattle on. He’d been driving the same car out of the department fleet for more than a year. In that time, no mechanic had been able to cure its hiccups or make the heater give more than a token effort. He had requested a different vehicle, but the paperwork had gone into a bureaucratic black hole, and no one on that end would return his phone calls. His driving record might have had something to do with it, but he preferred to think he was getting fucked over. Gave him an excuse to be pissed off.
A pool table dominated much of the floor space in the bar. Walls paneled with old barn wood were hung with dozens of photographs of people—presumably customers—holding up fish. The television over the tiny bar was showing a soap. A lumpy woman with thin brown hair and a cigarette hanging from her mouth stood inside the horseshoe-shaped bar drying a beer mug with a dingy cloth.
Mental note to Kovac:
Drink out of the bottle
. On the consumer side of the bar, an old lake rat with half his teeth sat on a stool, a filthy red ball cap at a jaunty angle on his head.
“Hope would never do that to Bo,” the woman scoffed. “He’s the love of her goddamned life.”
“Was,”
the lake rat corrected. “Ain’t you been paying attention, Maureen? Stephano planted a microchip in her brain makes her fucking evil. Evil Gina, that’s what they call her
He was no more a cop than her paperboy, but she scored points asking. Up close, she was surprised to find that he was barely as tall as she was—and three inches of that were the soles of a very funky pair of shoes.
Petite
was the best word to describe him. He wore mascara and lip gloss, and had five earrings in one ear.
“Just a concerned citizen,” he said, glancing up and down the hall.
“And what is it you’re concerned about?”
“Injustice.”
“You’ve come to the right place. Theoretically.” She dug a card out of her jacket pocket and handed it to him. “Maybe you’re just talking to the wrong people.”
Neon took the card. His manicure was better than hers. He looked at the card as if he were trying to memorize it.
“Maybe,” he said, and slipped it into his coat pocket and walked away.
6
CHAPTER
NEIL FALLON HAD forsaken not only his father but the city as well. Kovac drove west on the broad speedway multilanes of 394, which thinned down to four lanes, then two, then two with no shoulders, the last a narrow ribbon of road that wound around the fingers of Lake Minnetonka. On other tributaries of asphalt around this lake stood old mansions that had been built by lumber barons and industrialists, and new mansions built in recent years by professional athletes and rock stars. But here the strips of land were too meager for ostentation. Cabins perched on the banks, crouching beneath towering pines. Some were summer places, some fishing shacks that should have seen a wrecking ball a decade or two past, others were modest year-round homes.
Andy Fallon’s brother owned a motley collection of cabins congregated on a wedge of land between the lake and a crossroads. Fallon’s Bar and Bait Shop squatted nearest the road, a building not much bigger than a three-car garage, with green shingle siding and too-small windows that made the place look as if it were squinting. The windows were glowing with neon advertising Miller’s and Coors and live bait.
The thought of a late lunch shriveled and died in Kovac’s empty belly.
He wheeled the piece-of-shit Chevy Caprice into the small, frozen parking lot, turned off the engine, and listened to it rattle on. He’d been driving the same car out of the department fleet for more than a year. In that time, no mechanic had been able to cure its hiccups or make the heater give more than a token effort. He had requested a different vehicle, but the paperwork had gone into a bureaucratic black hole, and no one on that end would return his phone calls. His driving record might have had something to do with it, but he preferred to think he was getting fucked over. Gave him an excuse to be pissed off.
A pool table dominated much of the floor space in the bar. Walls paneled with old barn wood were hung with dozens of photographs of people—presumably customers—holding up fish. The television over the tiny bar was showing a soap. A lumpy woman with thin brown hair and a cigarette hanging from her mouth stood inside the horseshoe-shaped bar drying a beer mug with a dingy cloth.
Mental note to Kovac:
Drink out of the bottle
. On the consumer side of the bar, an old lake rat with half his teeth sat on a stool, a filthy red ball cap at a jaunty angle on his head.
“Hope would never do that to Bo,” the woman scoffed. “He’s the love of her goddamned life.”
“Was,”
the lake rat corrected. “Ain’t you been paying attention, Maureen? Stephano planted a microchip in her brain makes her fucking evil. Evil Gina, that’s what they call her
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