"are you trying to be funny?"

"people keep asking that. no, i'm not trying to be funny. i'm just trying to avoid going to jail while i make your case."

"oh? you're going to make my case, are you? which case? tell me. i have so many."

"who killed scott noehring, that case. who killed patrick tarpley, that case, too."

rask shook his head slowly and muttered, "uh-uh, uh-uh, no way. you don't keep things from me."

"i told you last week when you dragged me into this that i was high maintenance."

"you think i'm fucking bobby dunston? i'm not going to play this game with you, mckenzie."

"i'm sorry. aren't you the one who told me to get the lily back-which i believe is conspiring to receive stolen property? aren't you the one who told me to get intel on the artnappers in order to help you in the noehring investigation?"

"oh, you're helping me, is that what you're doing? you're withholding information because you're helping me."

"give me a couple of days and then i'll tell you everything."

the way he shook his head, i knew rask wasn't buying it, so i played my ace.

"give me a couple of days, lt, and i'll throw in a sweetener."

"what sweetener?"

"pozderac and hemsted on a silver platter."

i could see that rask liked the idea. he rolled the thought over his tongue like a piece of amedei chocolate but wouldn't swallow it.

"pozderac has diplomatic immunity," he said.

"maybe not. neither pozderac nor hemsted, for that matter, is here representing his country. they're both just a couple of punks looking for a payoff."

"i can't touch them."

"you might not be able to, but the fbi ... that's a different matter."

"have you spoken to the fbi?"

"yes, i have."

"what is their position?"

"they would love to arrange a perp walk with these two clowns."

yeah, i know; i was laying it on pretty thick, but rask seemed to like it.

"i wouldn't mind seeing that myself," he said. "all right, what do you need from me?"

"you said you had a photo of the man who registered at the motel."

rask glanced around his cluttered desk, found a large white envelope, and removed a color photograph that looked like it had had been printed on white office stock with a laser printer. i gave the photo a long, hard look. it was a man in his midtwenties; dark-skinned, maybe hispanic, maybe not, although i was sure the boys in arizona would pick him up just to be sure. there was something familiar about him, only i couldn't place it.

"know him?" rask asked.

"never saw him before in my life."

he thrust his face at me. there was a hard warning in his eyes. "are you sure about that?"

i couldn't imagine what i had done to make him so suspicious of me.

"i'm sure," i said.

"if you say so."

i held up the photo. "can i keep this?" i asked.

"frame it if you want."

while i carefully folded it and slipped it into my inside jacket pocket, i said, "last time we spoke you were waiting on a ballistics report."

"yeah, the gun-the bullets that killed patrick tarpley and lieutenant noehring were fired from the same piece," he said. "a .25."

"then it wasn't a professional shooter."

"no. a pro would never have kept the gun. anyone who watches csi would know not to keep the gun."

"if the shooter didn't dump the weapon after the first killing, odds are he didn't dump it after the second."

"from your lips to god's ear," rask said. "the question is, where do we look for it?"

it was a long walk down the marble corridor from room 108 to the fifth street entrance of the minneapolis city hall, and i was feeling light-headed and a little dizzy by the time i reached it, not unlike the way you do when you get up too fast after lying on a couch for a while. except the feeling didn't go away after a few moments. it stayed with me while i pushed open the door and descended the steps to the street. the tracks for the hiawatha light rail line ran along fifth, but i didn't notice them. i walked across the tracks and into fifth street, and then two strong arms yanked me forward, pulling me out of the street and pushing me up against an suv. i felt the jagged ends of my fractured collarbone rubbing together. my blurred vision became a flashing red light.

"what the fuck, mckenzie?" a voice shouted at me.

"huh?"

"mckenzie?"

my head cleared and the world came into sharp focus.

"mckenzie," herzog said again and gave me a shake.

"don't do that," i said. "shaking a guy with a concussion is not a good thing."

not to mention a fractured clavicle, my inner voice said.

"fuckin' a, man. you almos' got hit by a fuckin' train."

it was cold. herzog's words condensed into clouds that rose up in the air between us. i tilted my head so i could follow the clouds.

"i did?" i said.