Her eyes bugged out.“Elias Conover, Hollis Kettler, and Ezra Calhoun?”
That surprised the hell out of me.I figured maybe she’d know one, but not all three.“I take it you know them?”
She let out a stunned breath.“You’d have to be dead and dumb to not know those names if you live in Madison.”
Good to know.
“Kettler and Conover both left town, though,” she added.“At least a couple of years ago.”
I nodded.
That lined up with what we’d found.
“What about Calhoun?”
“He was on the city council,” she said.“And is loaded.Hell, all of those names are loaded beyond your imagination.”She folded her arms over herself again and looked back out the window.“Kettler had a son my age growing up.Once we hit high school, every girl made it her mission to catch his eye because he was so rich.”She wrinkled her nose.“He was an asshole, but for the amount of money he had, most girls didn’t care.”
That got my attention in a way I didn’t love.“You think the same way?”I asked before I could stop myself.
She turned and looked at me like I’d just asked if she liked licking the sidewalk.“No,” she said flatly.“Money is nice, but there is no way I would have been able to be with that guy for a gajillion dollars.”
That eased something in me that I had no business feeling.“The son still around town?”I asked.
She shrugged.“I don’t think so.But he’s not really one to hang around State Street and The Badger Den.”
“His loss,” I said.The words were out before I could think better of them.
Britta looked at me.Just looked.
And I had the sudden feeling I’d said more than I meant to.
Her mouth curved slightly, but she didn’t call me on it.Probably because she was smart enough to know pushing me too hard would make me shut right back down.
“You’re sure those three guys are behind all of this?”she asked.
I shrugged.“We’re not really sure of much, sugar.We just know those three names keep popping up wherever we dig.”
“Kettler and Conover left town, though.”
“In this day and age, you don’t need to be in town to make things happen,” I said.“And with all of their bajillion dollars, they can do whatever they want.”I looked back out at the street.“At least they think they can.”
She was quiet for a second before she asked, “If you guys are right, how do you go up against them?”
I took one last drag off the cigarette and stared out at the city like it might offer me an answer if I looked hard enough.“No clue,” I admitted.“But the Saint’s Outlaws always figure it out.”That part I believed in.Always would.“We’ve got our own kind of power backing us.”
Loyalty.
Brothers.
Money enough to make moves when we had to.
Men who didn’t scare easy.
That counted for something.
I crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray on the windowsill and shut the window the rest of the way.The apartment got a little quieter without the crack of city noise sneaking in.
I looked down at Britta.
