The Devil May Care by David Housewright

Author:David Housewright
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250037404
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

THIRTEEN

The receptionist at the Lake Minnetonka Community Bank had green eyes that glowed like the numbers on an ancient calculator, the kind you used to be able to buy at Radio Shack. She was happy to inform me that Mr. Brodin wasn’t available, yet she would not reveal where he was or when he would return. So I dropped a bomb on her.

“Mr. Muehlenhaus is anxious that I speak to him immediately.”

Thirty seconds later I was walking away with Brodin’s location written out in a neat and firm hand on the bank’s stationery.

* * *

The sign read FUTURE HOME OF BRODIN PLAZA and featured a color illustration of a silver office tower surrounded by green grass, trees, and a glistening lake. All I saw beyond the sign was construction equipment, brown dirt, and a hole in the ground. Granted, it was a big hole …

I found Brodin standing at a folding table loaded with blueprints and the remains of a large fast-food meal. He was wearing an immaculate suit and a battered white hard hat that made the suit seem out of place and talking to a man, also with a white hard hat, who looked as if he dug holes for a living. Brodin smiled broadly and slapped the man on the shoulder as if they were both teammates on the same basketball team. The man didn’t seem happy about it and left. Brodin bent to the blueprints and studied them while popping french fries into his mouth one at a time. It seemed awfully late for lunch or awfully early for dinner, but what did I know? It’s not like I follow a standard schedule myself.

Brodin didn’t see me until I was standing next to him.

“Jeezuz, McKenzie.” He was visibly startled. “Where did you come from?”

“Mr. Brodin,” I said, “I just came from Casa del Lago. Mary Pat Mulally said she was going to have her lawyer take a quick look at the papers you sent over before she signed them.”

He shook his head. “I don’t like doing business with that woman. If it weren’t for Riley…”

I offered my hand. He shook it reluctantly.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“A few minutes of your time if you can spare them.”

Brodin popped another french fry in his mouth. “I’m a busy man, McKenzie.”

I thought it would be smart to move him over to my side quickly, so I waved my hand at the construction site.

“Brodin Plaza,” I said. “Sounds impressive.”

“Oh, it will be.”

“A little late in the year to start building, though, isn’t it? I mean in Minnesota.”

“No, no, no. This is the best time. With a fall start, excavation and foundations can be completed before freeze-up. The aboveground building core and structure can be erected in the winter, and the skin goes up in the spring. Used to be we’d have to wait because the old masonry skins—brick, plaster, stone—they were very difficult to work with in the cold. The newer skins, though, we can put those up almost anytime.

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