Chapter 9
Roger Teal wasn’t in his room when Edward Kenney dropped by the hotel shortly after ten a.m., but neither had he checked out.
Kenney left a message in a sealed envelope, suggesting they meet at the Lager House on Michigan Avenue at two p.m., though Kenney added that he’d be there from earlier in the afternoon.
He hoped Teal would realize it had to be important if Kenney, the most vigilant of them—and a stickler for the rules, as Mike Hurvich had learned in his final moments—was prepared to breach protocol in this way.
The Lager House had been around since Prohibition, when it operated as a speakeasy under cover of a furniture outlet.
By night it was a loud music joint, but it was quieter during the day and the beer was about the cheapest Kenney had ever come across in a major city.
At two dollars for a can of Hamm’s, a man could get a decent buzz on for ten bucks and be close to incapacitated for twenty.
But someone would have had to put a gun to Kenney’s head to make him drink more than one can of Hamm’s, let alone ten, so he ordered a Blue Moon and nursed it while watching YouTube and X videos on his phone and thinking about Nola Maddick, the woman from the previous night.
In between footage of car chases and bar fights, Kenney browsed a few news websites, including the Detroit Free Press, Bridge Michigan, and MLive, but there was nothing yet about a missing Black woman.
All things considered, Kenney was minded to take a positive view, especially with no car to link Maddick to the area from which they’d snatched her.
The Game had been played as close to textbook as they could manage.
Like any sport, the Game involved an element of chance, and three or four times the players had been forced to leave a city unfulfilled, with the options being to reschedule or let the Game go for that year.
Nobody had ever yet gone for the second choice, the risks associated with trying again only adding to the pleasure.
But one or two facets of the night’s events nagged at Kenney.
Until they’d really gotten into it, and the blood began to flow, his impression was that Maddick was more angry than frightened.
She had a core of steel to her, which took the two men time to break.
Also, on reflection, “worn” wasn’t the right word to describe her.
Rather, she might have been older than her license indicated, which meant it could have been false.
She was muscular, too: well built for her height, but not fat.
Kenney was distracted by Teal’s arrival.
Teal looked weary; his exertions had caught up with him.
Kenney wondered where he’d been earlier.
He’d hardly gone sightseeing. The center of Detroit might have been undergoing a kind of renaissance, but that revival was progressive, and starting from a low mark.
Teal slumped into the chair opposite and ordered a Foggy Geezer, a fancy IPA in a can.
The music in the background was set at the perfect volume for Kenney’s purpose: loud enough for them not to be overheard, but not so loud that they couldn’t hear each other.
Kenney waited while the server went to get Teal’s drink.
The can, when it arrived, was a nineteen-ounce monster, and the beer came in at 7. 3 percent ABV.
“That’s strong stuff,” said Kenney. “I’d need a ride home after.”
“I walked here,” said Teal. “I wanted some air.”
“You won’t be walking back, or not in a straight line. I can drop you.”
Teal didn’t jump at the offer, and Kenney knew why.
They’d seen enough of each other, in every sense of the word, after what was done to the woman.
It was one thing to get caught up in the moment, but another to come down from it.
Even after so many years, it was better to process the backwash alone.
“Why are we here?” asked Teal.
“I’m worried.”
“About?”
“The Saint.”
No proper names. Better safe than sorry.
“Why?”
“Something he let slip a week or so back.”
Teal glanced around. For a moment, Kenney believed he was checking that they were unobserved, until Teal signaled to their server. She was young, and wide at the hips and chest but narrow at the waist. Kenney briefly entertained an image of her struggling against him.
“How’s the food here?” Teal asked her.
“It’s good. You like Cajun?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s still good. Have the Butcher Burger.”
“I’ll take it with fries.”
Teal raised an eyebrow at Kenney.
“You?”
“I’m not hungry,” said Kenney.
Teal shrugged.
“I’m not sharing,” he warned Kenney.
“You’re not listening either,” said Kenney, once the server departed.
“Just get to the point. I want to eat, pick up my bag from the hotel, and be gone from here. I never liked the Midwest. It’s too far from the sea.”
Teal picked up his beer again.
“Hey!”
Kenney spoke with an edge, compelling Teal to focus, however much he might have preferred not to.
Kenney looked soft, and more than one man had mistakenly judged him to be an easy mark, but he was rock-solid, and ruthless with it.
Teal had witnessed that with his own eyes, and as recently as the previous night.
But Kenney’s wife and kids adored him, which meant he was very good at keeping this other side of himself hidden.
“Yes,” said Teal. “I hear you. You’re worried. About what?”
“Scott Theriault. And Mallory Norton.”
Now Kenney had Teal’s attention.
“Theriault drowned.”
“So they say. And the girl?”
“Still missing.”
“She’s the Saint’s type. He likes them slim and dark.”
Teal knew that was true. Kenney liked them soft, while the Saint preferred the bones barely to have skin on them. He said it made them easier to snap.
“It doesn’t mean he took her.”
“Hear me out,” said Kenney.
Teal did. When he was done, Teal said: “Were you planning on asking him straight?”
Kenney didn’t reply, because the server had come back with silverware for Teal and a second set for Kenney, “should you change your mind.”
Kenny glared at her.
“I said I wasn’t fucking hungry.”
The server took the second set away, but not before giving Kenney the old stink eye.
“Why did you have to make a big thing of it?” Teal asked.
“Because she, like you, didn’t listen the first time.”
“You’re going to give yourself a stroke, you know that?”
“No, other people are going to give me a stroke, but only if I allow them.”
Teal drank his IPA. Kenney swallowed the last of his Blue Moon.
They said nothing more until the food arrived.
This time, the server didn’t even bother looking at Kenney and didn’t inquire whether he wanted another beer.
As it happened, Kenney wasn’t in the mood for another drink, but it would have been polite of her to ask.
It was also what she was being paid to do.
Kenney had another flash of the server in pain.
These were dangerous thoughts. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up breaking the cardinal rule, which brought him back to why they were here.
Teal tried a french fry.
“I asked if you were planning to confront him.”
“Not yet,” said Kenney. “Not until I know more.”
Teal had thought as much. Kenney might have looked soft while being hard, but the Saint was a different creature.
Cut him, and what spilled out would come with a biohazard symbol.
It was why Teal preferred the years when he was partnered with Kenney, because Kenney was better at pretending to be normal.
“So what if he did take her?” Teal asked.
“If he hurt her, he’s endangering all of us. That’s why we keep to the rules.”
“But as long as no one finds out—”
“That’s a slender thread on which to hang our freedom,” said Kenney. “Or our lives.”
They had played the Game in multiple states, which meant they were gambling with federal penalties if caught. This, too, added zest. The higher the stakes, the greater the pleasure.
Teal dug into his burger. Kenney watched him eat, making no effort to hide his distaste.
Kenney’s concerns about the Saint had affected his sleep and his appetite, though he hadn’t allowed them to cloud his enjoyment of the girl.
Teal, on the other hand, gave every impression of being untroubled by what Kenney had just told him.
For a shrewd man, Teal could be a disappointment.
But as it turned out, Teal was thinking while he ate: about Kenney, and how much the sight of his naked doughy body repulsed him; about the Saint, and how he liked to order Teal around when they played the Game together, like Teal was his bitch; and about his future, because as much as Teal enjoyed playing the Game, he was a calculating person.
He used a napkin to wipe ketchup from his chin and took another mouthful of beer.
“If you’re right,” he said, “it can’t be allowed to slide.”
“My view exactly.”
“If you’re right,” Teal emphasized.
But he was already sizing up the challenge of killing the Saint without blowback.
It wasn’t just about silencing the Saint, but disappearing him.
The Saint wasn’t some nothing girl in a decayed Midwestern city.
He wasn’t even Mike Hurvich, a self-employed handyman and borderline alcoholic. The Saint had a public profile.
Kenney spotted the change in Teal, the brightness in his eyes and the set to his mouth. It was the way Teal had looked as he choked Nola Maddick to death with her scarf, choked her while he was inside her so that he orgasmed as she breathed her last.
“Tell me more,” said Teal.
They parted after an hour. Teal made Kenney leave a generous tip for the waitress— in cash—but didn’t bother asking him to apologize; the money would be worth more to her, and its sincerity couldn’t be doubted. They agreed to speak again once they’d both had time to think.
Like Kenney, Teal was now of the opinion that the Saint might have killed a girl outside the Game, and not unaided, because the Saint had apparently suggested to Kenney that they should increase the number of players from three to four, as in Hurvich’s time.
It would break up the pattern, the Saint argued.
Kenney had responded that there was no pattern, or none that extended beyond a couple of years, to which the Saint replied: “We’re the pattern.
We’ve been playing as three for too long. We need a fourth.”
Then the Saint told Kenney who he had in mind to be the new player, which was when Kenney realized that the Saint, if he’d killed the girl, hadn’t acted alone.
But Kenney didn’t voice his suspicions, not then.
He was now potentially dealing not only with a rulebreaker but also with an accomplice, and two against one was bad odds.
Two against two was better, right? That was why Kenney had brought Teal into his confidence, because a confrontation was looming, one that might well end in violence.