“I got halfway to the county road and realized I didn’t have enough money to fill the gas tank.”
“Then you’re in the same boat as the rest of us,” the old man said.
“I want fifty thousand dollars off the top,” I said. “That’s what I came here for. That’s all I came here for. More than enough to hide on until I can get to my own money. You can split the rest however you see fit. Don’t be surprised if it’s less than you expect. This is the Iron Range, not downtown Manhattan.”
“What if it’s more than fifty thousand?” Skarda asked. “The split, I mean. What if our share is more than that?”
“It won’t matter as long as I get my fifty.”
“What do you want us to do?” Roy asked.
I moved deeper into the living room and pointed at him. Jill was in the kitchen, my back to her, so I could only guess at her expression when I said, “Go home and make love to your wife.” I pointed at Skarda. “You, too.” He smiled; Elizabeth frowned. I pointed at Claire. “Since you’re reporting everything to your boyfriend anyway, tell Fenelon I want to meet.”
“What about?” Claire asked.
“He’s not her boyfriend,” Jimmy said.
I ignored them both and pointed at Josie. “You come with me,” I said.
“Any place in particular?”
I went to the map and tapped the blue dot Jimmy had drawn near Lake Vermilion.
“You know what it is, don’t you Dyson?” Josie asked.
“I think so.”
“What?”
“The mother lode.”
TEN
“In the 1940’s the National Geographic Society declared Lake Vermilion one of the top ten most scenic lakes in the United States. And it still is today. With its 40,000 acres of water, 365 islands and 1200 miles of shoreline, it stretches 40 miles across the heart of Minnesota’s Arrowhead Region.” Or so it says on the lake’s official Web site. To reach it, Josie and I followed Minnesota Highway 1 west of Ely through the tiny town of Tower, the oldest Minnesota city north of Duluth, population 479, which owes its existence to the long-closed Soudan Iron Mine. Its current claim to fame is that it holds the state record for the coldest temperature on a single day at minus sixty degrees. All that’s on the Internet, too. What isn’t is the name of the road Jimmy found that jutted north off of Highway 1 just outside of town.
Josie drove while I followed our progress on a state road map. We drove west away from Tower and then east back toward town. It was while driving east that I discovered the road. There was no street sign, fire department address marker, or road reflector. If I hadn’t already known it was there, I would not have seen it.
Josie drove north at a slow speed. The road was hard-packed dirt and wide enough for only a single vehicle to pass. It was flanked on both sides by tall trees that kept the road in shadows. One tree in particular was both wide and tall enough to be mistaken for one of those sequoias in California. The road curved around it.
We followed the road until it came to a huge clearing. In the center of the clearing was a large, white, windowless, one-story cinder-block building that reminded me of a warehouse. The bright sun made the walls shine like alabaster. There were no signs identifying it. A gray metal door had been built into the south wall of the building. A half-dozen vehicles were parked on either side of it, their bumpers nearly kissing the wall. In the center of the east wall was a metal garage door big enough for an armored truck to fit through. Well-worn tire tracks veering off the main driveway told me the trucks drove into the warehouse through that door and came out of a door in back that I couldn’t see, circling the building until they met the driveway again.
A tall cyclone fence with razor wire strung along the top surrounded the clearing, not unlike at the truck terminal in Krueger. There were no trees or brush for fifty yards around the building inside the fence and nothing but flat ground for twenty yards between the fence and the tree line outside of it. We stopped just short of the gate. It had one of those long arms that you see in parking ramps that was controlled with an electronic keypad. The arm was down. There was a small gatehouse next to the opening; however, it was empty. I counted at least three cameras without turning my head.
“Get out of the car,” I said.
“Why?”
“I want them to get a look at us.”
“Is that a good idea?”
I slid out of the passenger side of the Ford Taurus. I spread the map over the hood of the car and bent to it as if I were lost—certainly that was the impression I wanted to convey. Josie left the car without shutting her door. Instead of looking at the map, she looked at the building, the gatehouse, and the fence. I shouted at her and waved my arms.
“You’ve seen what there is to see, now pay attention to me.”
She did, a concerned expression on her face. “Why are you shouting?” Josie asked.
“I want the guards to think that I’m commenting on your lousy driving.”