North of Montana Read Online Free Page A

answer.
    “That makes you pretty good. Not great. But good.”
    I show him the two surveillance photos, one from his most recent work, the other stretching back into history.
    “We pulled down these photos. That’s you. Both times.”
    He looks at the photos and back at me with heavy eyes.
    “It’s okay, Dennis. You don’t have to say anything. We’ve got you on two.”
    I slip the photos back into the envelope.
    “You’ve got me on dick.”
    His first words. How charming.
    “Is that so?”
    “You don’t know the half of it.”
    “Why don’t you tell me?”
    He puts both hands on the table and pushes his chair back. I tense involuntarily, even though there is a six-foot-four cop standing at the door.
    Dennis runs a hand through his greasy hair.
    “You know where I used to live?”
    “Paris.”
    “Palos Verdes. In a house that was worth at the time … maybe half a million dollars.”
    “You must be a better robber than I thought.”
    He shakes his head. “I was an executive sales director at Hughes Aero-Space. Made two hundred thousand dollars a year.”
    He is quiet, as if waiting for me to put the pieces together. I remember my first impression when I confronted him in his car in the parking lot. He didn’t resist. He seemed edgy … down … on the down side of a high.
    “Who got you into the powder?” I ask gently.
    “Nobody but myself. High roller. Big deal with women. Nice car. Liked the ponies. Big shit, you know?”
    I nod. “You got in over your head. Started selling your assets to pay for the habit. And when you lost it all you got desperate and robbed a bank. It was easy. So you did it again.”
    A tremble goes through him. “I’ve got a son. He came to see me this morning. He still loves me.”
    He bites a corner off the nail on his thumb.
    “You’re a smart, educated guy, Dennis. Why didn’t you go for help?”
    “Because I happen to love cocaine.”
    We sit in silence for a while. He loves cocaine. I have never heard it said more clearly or more completely without apology. He loves cocaine more than he loves his own son.
    I believe I can smell the sweat on him and the sweat on the cop and the rancid layers of sweat on the grimy tile walls of a thousand other murderers, pederasts, rapists, junkies, movie stars, and thieves who will tell you with the same unself-conscious certainty that they did it, whatever it was, because they were in love. And being in love absolves them and makes them innocent.
    I stand up. “Let’s get a stenographer in here and get your statement.”
    “Statement on what?”
    “The other robbery.”
    Of course he hasn’t actually admitted to the Culver City job. I’m angling. I’m hoping.
    “I didn’t do another robbery.”
    I wait it out a moment, thinking, I’m getting somewhere with this guy. We have a rapport. I’ll come back—
    Then he says, “I did six.”

    •  •  •

    Donnato treats me to lunch the next day at Bora-Bora, a collegiate hangout where the waitresses wear skimpy little shorts and Hawaiian shirts and everything is served in plastic baskets and it is so noisy we can hardly hear each other.
    “This is the one that’s going to do it for you,” he says. “Get you above the crowd.”
    “I’ll miss you, Donnato.”
    He shrugs and takes a bite of a chicken burrito. “You’ve got to move on. I told you: seven years. That’s the time most agents light their blue flame.”
    “You think the Kidnapping and Extortion Squad is the right move?”
    I have asked him this before but for some reason I want to prolong the moment.
    ‘I told you: less pressure. More involved cases. You can take some in-service courses, and the supervisor is a nice guy.”
    I reach over and smooth some tortilla flakes from his beard.
    “What are you going to do without me?”
    “Drive some other split-tail crazy with lust.”
    “Is that what you think?”
    “Ana, I can read you like a book.”
    “You are so full of it,” I tell him. “You