hell, even el cid skated. all charges against him were dropped at just about the same time various joint task forces conducted a half-dozen large-scale gun and drug raids across the twin cities. apparently cid was correct when he said he could always make a deal with the police.

as for jeremy gillard-fiegen never did cancel the check as i thought he would. when the feds were trying to jam him up on the bribery beef, they suggested that paying gillard $3.8 million for a "worthless knickknack, isn't that what you called it, sir?" was awfully excessive. fiegen told them that how he spent his own money was none of their damn business.

months later, long after everything had settled down, i checked out a few exhibits at the city of lakes art museum. perrin stewart told me that she'd had no choice but to fire india and had not seen her since, but that a mutual friend told her that gillard had given india some of fiegen's money-she didn't know how much-and took her to las vegas. personally, i hope they had a wonderful time.

acknowledgments

i wish to acknowledge my debt to tom combs, m.d., india cooper, tammi fredrickson, keith kahla, alison j. picard, lisa vecoli of the minneapolis institute of arts, and renee valois.