Free North of Nowhere by Steve Hamilton Page A

enforcement.”
    “Why are you telling me this?”
    He let that one hang. “That’s just the way it has to be,” he finally said. “You know that.”
    “Sure,” I said. “Of course. When you’re done with all this, give me a call. I’ll buy you a beer.”
    He nodded and gave me a little smile. Then he turned and looked down at the street. I left his office, closing the door behind me. “What the hell was that about?” I said aloud as I walked down the stairs. Something was going on in Leon Prudell’s head, and as usual, I couldn’t even guess what it was.
    I made my way back up Ashmun, cutting east behind the Coast Guard installation, back to the City-County building. I got in my truck and headed out of town.
    Just for the hell of it, I stopped in at O’Dell’s place. It was a big wooden two-story building at the end of Bermuda Avenue, in a neighborhood they call “The Shallows.” The river narrows there, just before opening up into Whitefish Bay. I figured I’d have a quick one, and see how Bennett was doing.
    I parked right in front of the place. It looked like it had been there for at least a hundred years. The cedar siding was weathered gray by the wind off the water. You’d have to pay a lot of money to get your house looking the same way. The “distressed” siding alone would kill you.
    Bennett was pouring a draft behind the bar when I went in, looking just like the owner you’d expect—a big man who’d seen it all, rough around the edges, like the bar itself. He was looking up at the Tigers game on his big-screen TV. The place was pretty quiet for a late summer afternoon—I knew it would pick up around five o’clock, and stay busy until two in the morning.
    “Alex McKnight!” he said when he saw me. “What brings you here? Where’s Jackie?”
    “Last I heard, he was still in bed,” I said. “And while you’re pouring…”
    “Coming right up,” he said. “Yeah, I don’t blame the guy for sleeping that one off. I was awake myself most of the night. You know what I mean? Just staring at the ceiling.”
    He did look a little ragged. But then he was no movie star to begin with. “Thanks,” I said when he slid the draft over.
    “You know what I was thinking as I was staring at the ceiling all night? That it was all my fault.”
    “How do you figure that?”
    “Vargas, that horse’s ass, when he was building that house over there, he stopped in here a few times. I got to talking to him, he asks me if there were any regular poker games going on. So I told him yeah, I got a few guys who play here a couple of times a month. You know, Jackie and Gill and a few other guys. He starts coming over on poker nights, but he’s playing for bigger stakes than most guys here want to play for. So eventually we sort of break off this other game, just Vargas and that Kenny who works for him, me and Gill, and Jackie. And Swanson…”
    He stopped and looked at me. He couldn’t help smiling.
    “Until he started nailing Vargas’s wife, I mean. Then we needed another player, so Jackie dragged your ass along. Don’t you feel lucky now?”
    “I am truly blessed.”
    “Jackie was feeling a little bad for you, Alex. I hope you don’t mind me saying that. He said you were keeping to yourself too much. Said he hasn’t seen you much lately.”
    “I was in a little slump,” I said. “I’m okay now. Really.”
    “That’s good to hear, Alex. Jackie’s just looking out for you, you know that. He’s a good man. Hell, Jackie and me, we go back almost fifty years now, can you believe that? We used to do our homework together, right over there in the corner.” He pointed to the far corner of the bar, where now a dartboard hung on the wall.
    “Must be a lot of memories in this place for you.”
    “Alex, you don’t know the half of it.” He looked up at the screen again. “Can you believe this new ballpark they’re playing in now? Comerica Park, they call it? Is that for real?”
    “I’ve seen