A Stolen Season (6 page)

I got up slowly, wishing hard that I had told Jackie a little more about what had happened the night before. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been so fast with the hospitality.

“What are you having, Mr. McKnight? May I call you Alex?”

“Jackie knows what I drink.”

Cap took one stool at the bar. The big man, Bruce, took another, leaving one open for me, right between them.

“Here you go,” Jackie said, setting me up with a cold Canadian. “Are you gonna share some of your private stash with your friends here?”

I gave him a look that should have taken ten years off his life. But before another word could be said he was taking out two more Canadian beers and putting them on the bar.

“What do we have here?” Cap said.

“Alex only drinks beer that’s been bottled in Canada,” Jackie said. “See if you guys can tell the difference.”

I kept staring at Jackie. I couldn’t imagine why he was acting like a good host all of a sudden. He certainly didn’t use it on most people. Hell, if it was wintertime and you stopped in for one, he’d probably be yelling at you about the snow on your boots before you closed the door behind you.

It was the day, I thought. The strange, strange day, and the fact that he hadn’t seen a real paying customer all week. It was going to his head.

“This is outstanding,” Bruce said. He was holding the bottle in his huge hand, looking down at it with admiration. “Absolutely outstanding.”

“I agree,” Cap said. There was something about the way he talked. He was too self-aware, too smooth for his own good. I thought I had him figured pretty well, the type of guy I’d run into my whole life, in high school, in baseball, then later on both sides of the badge. Three inches too short, always trying too hard to make up for it. All car and haircut, and not much else.

Yeah, I thought I had him pegged.

“Did Alex tell you how we met last night?” Cap said to Jackie.

“No, he didn’t.”

“Well…we were out in a boat. It was pretty dark. And foggy.”

“Last night?” Jackie said. “You were out in a boat? You’re kidding me.”

“Pretty dumb, I know. We paid for it, believe me. Yes, sir. We were at the casino down in Bay Mills, and we ended up going out across the bay.”

“Don’t tell me,” Jackie said. “Those old bridge pilings…”

“Is that what those things are? We never even saw them. Next thing I know, we were stopped dead and the goddamned boat was sinking.”

“What kind of boat was it?”

“Ah, some old thing,” Cap said. “A wooden boat.”

“A Chris-Craft,” I said. “It looked like somebody had put a lot of work into it.”

“Wait a minute,” Jackie said. “You guys drove an antique Chris-Craft into those pilings?”

“Whose boat is it, anyway?” I said.

Cap looked at me. “It’s Harry’s boat.”

“It’s his dad’s boat,” Bruce said.

“It
was
his boat,” Cap said.

“Harry was the driver.”

“Yes.”

“How many drinks did he have before you guys went out?”

Cap hesitated again. “Two drinks. Maybe three. Harry can hold his liquor. Believe me, he wasn’t drunk.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s legal, don’t worry. He looks younger than he is.”

“And where is he now? Is he still in the hospital?”

“Yes. In Sault Ste. Marie. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Alex.”

“Did you talk to the doctor?”

“I talked to Harry. He’ll be fine.”

“He looked pretty banged up last night. I’m surprised he’s even awake today.”

“Alex, as I told you, we just came out here to show our appreciation.”

“That didn’t seem to be your attitude last night,” I said. “As I recall, you accused us of hitting you. Like we’d actually be out there on the bay, waiting for someone to come by so we could ram them.”

Cap didn’t say anything. He kept looking at me, straight in the eye. Jackie stood on the other end of the bar, watching us. He must have been wondering what the hell was going on.

“I think we’re getting off on the wrong foot here,” Cap finally said. “Everything happened so fast last night. I think we were all a little in shock or something.”

“Yeah. Or something.”

He started tapping his fingertips on the beer bottle. “Okay,” he said, drawing out the word. There was a little smile on his face.

“Before you guys got in the boat,” I said, “did you happen to run into a little trouble at the casino?”

“What do you mean?”

“At the Bay Mills Casino. Did you happen to have a little altercation with someone who works there?”

“There may have been a little misunderstanding. Some Indian trying to act like a tough guy.”

“The pit boss, you mean.”

“Yeah, whatever. Without the casino he’d probably be selling little totem poles to tourists.”

“I kinda doubt that. Anyway, he’s a friend of mine. You guys gave him some nice bruises.”

“This
is
a small town,” Cap said. “Didn’t I tell you, Brucie?”

I didn’t see the big man’s reaction. I was still looking at Cap.

“Why are you really here?” I said.

“I told you.”

“Okay, then. You bought me a drink.”

“Maybe there is one more thing.”

“Surprise.”

I saw it in his eyes just then. The little flash of anger. It came quick, like it wasn’t that far away to begin with. Not far away at all.

“There was a box in the boat,” he said. “About this big.” He held up his hands about four feet apart.

“What about it?”

“It was yellow and black. Airtight. You know, designed to float.”

“What was in it?”

“Some valuables. Wallets, cash, that kind of thing. It’s just a box to keep things safe. Like a lockbox.”

“I never heard of a lockbox that floats.”

“It was in a boat,” he said. He seemed to be measuring his voice carefully now. “Everything in a boat should float, don’t you think?”

“You may have a point. But why are you telling me all this?”

“I was just wondering if you happened to see it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It was in the front of the boat,” he said. “At one point, I remember seeing it. I was going to grab it, but that was when the other guy jumped in to turn off the motor. And then after that I think we were all pretty occupied with Harry. You know, making sure he was still alive and everything. I never saw the box after that.”

“I never saw it at all. It probably just floated away.”

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Or else it sank. It might have gotten damaged and filled up with water.”

“You’re answering pretty quick. Are you sure you don’t want to think about it?”

I counted to three in my head. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t touch it. I don’t know anything about it. I can’t help you.”

He finally blinked. He looked down at his bottle. I could see the veins in his forearms standing out as he worked his hands. If something was going to happen here, it was me and Jackie against the two of them. And the biggest man in the room was right behind me.

“Do you…,” he started to say, slowly, “have any idea…”

“Cap,” Bruce said.

“Shut up, Brucie. I’m talking to the man. I think he needs to understand some things.”

“Or not,” I said. “I think I’ll just stay in the dark, if you don’t mind. I’d like you both to leave now.”

“He needs to understand, Brucie. The man needs some enlightenment.”

There was an old baseball bat under the counter. Jackie had had it there for years, and never had to use it. Not once. At that moment, I couldn’t help wondering if it was still there.

“He really, really needs to understand.” He was working his hands harder and harder. Opening them and closing them. The only question now was how fast I could hit him with my bottle, and then what the big guy would do to the back of my head.

That’s when the door opened and Vinnie walked in.

Five hundred miles. Paradise, Michigan, to Toronto, Ontario. Across the International Bridge, then up around the North Channel, right through Blind River in fact, past the house where Natalie grew up. Turning south finally around Sudbury, down the eastern edge of Lake Huron, through Big Chute, through Barrie. Finally coming to the city itself, on the northern shore of Lake Ontario.

Or if you’re a bird, you fly right over all that water. Like many other things in this life, how much quicker it is if you don’t have to go around something so unimaginably big.

Or in my case…It’s almost immediate. I’m already there, in my mind, a thousand times every day. When I open my eyes in the morning, cold sunlight in my cabin window, I’m thinking about her doing the same in her own bed. Somehow I can feel that she is awake at the same moment I am. I can hear the shower as she steps into it. I know how long it takes her to be ready to face the day. Her hair dried, a few brush strokes across her cheeks. That’s all she needs. How much she hates to waste time.

I know when she’s driving her Jeep. The music she is listening to. The sounds of a city all around her. It’s a miracle that I know this, moment to moment. A miracle both wonderful and terrible at the same time. After so many years, to feel this way.

I don’t know how long it can last. Even now, I can feel it start to fade sometimes. A faraway station on the radio, lost in the air. In the mornings especially, when she goes to the operations room instead of to the precinct. Her whole routine different now. I have to ask her about it after the fact to fill in the blanks. That she has to take more time in the morning to put herself together. That she’s already wearing her undercover clothes when she drives into the city. That she’s still meeting with the task force before she heads out to the coffee shop.

It’s become a regular thing now. Seeing Rhapsody there, spending a few minutes at one of the tables. It’s hard for me to imagine how that would feel, to be on stage every day. To be somebody completely different from yourself. I don’t know how long it will take for Natalie to win Rhapsody’s trust, assuming she ever does. How long it will take, with just a few words every morning, to steer things around to a certain type of merchandise that might find its way from the States to Toronto for the right price.

Five hundred miles away from me, it’s all coming together, day by day. Natalie is inching her way closer to the man they call Antoine Laraque.

It took about
five seconds for the men to remember where they’d seen Vinnie before. That was just enough time for Jackie to grab his bat from under the bar, and for me to slide out from between Cap and his pal Brucie. Now it was two against three plus a baseball bat, on our home field.

Cap played it cool. He took another long pull off his beer, like he had never had any other intentions. Vinnie kept standing in the doorway, looking like something out of an old western. Brucie just looked at Jackie and his bat, like the sight was vaguely amusing.

“I get the impression,” Cap said finally, “that we’re not welcome here anymore.”

“Leave this bar,” Jackie said. “Leave it now.”

“How much for the beers?”

“Just. Leave.”

Cap put the bottle down. He gave his friend a little tilt of his head and then aimed for the door. When he got to Vinnie, he looked him up and down for a moment. “We have to stop meeting like this,” Cap said.

Vinnie didn’t say anything. He stepped aside slowly and let them pass. They opened the door and left the place. Through the window I could see them getting into one of those big Cadillac Escalades. It was black with silver trim.

“What did they want?” Vinnie said.

“They wanted to buy me a drink,” I said. “So Jackie gave them some of my beer.”

“How the hell was I supposed to know better?” Jackie said, putting the bat away. “You could have said something.”

“Is that all they wanted?” Vinnie said. “It looked like they were getting ready to tear this place apart.”

“After they expressed their gratitude, they sort of moved on to another topic. Apparently, there was some kind of floating box in the boat last night. They seemed to think I might know something about it.”

“Did you?”

“I honestly never saw it.”

“A floating box. What the hell could have been in there?”

“They said it was just their wallets and cash.”

“Who gets in a boat, takes out their wallet, and puts it in a box?”

“Yeah, it sounded a little fishy to me, too.”

Vinnie thought about it for a while. “I’m gonna head out,” he said. “We can get back to work tomorrow, eh?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I just want to check on something.”

“On what? Vinnie, for God’s sake, you’re not gonna do something stupid, are you?”

“No, I just want to go see somebody, make sure she’s all right. A woman who was working at the casino last night.”

“You want me to come with you?”

“No, she might not talk to me if you’re there.”

“Vinnie, you’re not going after them now, are you? Am I gonna have to bail you out of jail again?”

“One time, Alex. One time in my whole life. You make it sound like I get put in jail every week.”

“I’m just saying. If you’re gonna go do something stupid, let me know first. So we can do it together.”

“Okay, I promise. I’ll see you later.”

And then he was gone, too. I finished my beer and watched Jackie trying to calm himself down.

“I would have hit the big guy,” he said. “I swear to God. If he had laid a hand on you, I would have broken that bat right over his head.”

“Nothing like a wood bat,” I said. “Don’t you hate the sound those aluminum bats make?”

“What?”

“When you hit him, it would have been ‘clang!’ I hate that sound.”

“You’re worse than Vinnie.”

“No, I think it’s a tie.” I got up, went back to the chair by the fire, and grabbed my coat.

“Where are you going?”

“Same deal,” I said. “I’ve gotta go check on somebody, too.”

I thought about
what the man had said as I drove. He needs to understand, Brucie. The man needs some enlightenment. Unless it was the most useless bluff in the history of bluffing, this man named Cap knew something important. Maybe he was important himself. Although, hell, I didn’t even know his last name. I had no idea who the hell this man was.

The rain started. I took Lakeshore Drive, my favorite lonely road in the world, but today the view was nothing but a study in gray. Water. Sky. The whole mood of the day.

I took the road all the way down to Brimley. I could have stopped at the reservation, tried to find Vinnie, but I let him be. Instead I went to Tyler’s house. I parked in front, happy not to see the black Escalade there. Although from what they had said, it sounded like they had already paid a visit here. I knocked on the front door.

A woman answered. She was about five foot nothing, and she looked like she came from the same hippie culture as Tyler. She had a wonderful smile, though. The kind of smile that makes you feel welcome. On a day like this, it was exactly what I needed.

“Is Tyler here?” I said.

“He’s in the studio. Come on around.”

She opened the door farther, and together we walked around the house to the back, where the big garage was. “How do you like this weather?”

“I think we should all get our money back.”

“It’ll warm up soon. It always does.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said. I was thinking maybe I should hang around this woman for the rest of the day. Maybe some of her optimism would rub off.

Tyler was in the studio, earphones on his head and a cigarette in his mouth. In the daylight I could see out the big picture window. There in the cold water were the two rows of dark wooden pilings leading out toward the point. I couldn’t see the boat, at least not in the water. But there was something on the shore, covered by a large blue tarpaulin.

“Alex!” he said when he saw me. He took the earphones off. “Did those jackasses pay you a visit, too?”

“I’m afraid so. It sounds like they were here earlier.”

“I’m sorry about that, man. I would have called you if I had your number. I don’t think I ever got your last name.”

“It’s McKnight.”

“This is Liz,” he said. “The old lady.”

“The next time he calls me ‘the old lady’,” she said as she shook my hand, “I’m going to throw him in the lake.”

“Come on outside,” Tyler said. “You gotta see this.”

We went out to the backyard, to the same spot we had been standing when it all happened the night before.

“The Coast Guard finally came around midnight,” he said. He started moving the rocks that were holding the tarpaulin in place. “After everyone else had already left. They were gonna put out lighted warning buoys.”

“Not that anyone else would be stupid enough to go out there,” Liz said.

“So I told them, just see if you can pull the wreck loose. I’ll tow it closer and then pull it onto the shore with my winch. It was so low in the water, I wasn’t sure they’d get it free. But eventually they did. And here it is.”

He pulled the tarpaulin off with a flourish, like he was unveiling a great piece of art. Actually, that’s exactly what this thing was—but it was a piece of art that had been rammed full speed into a wooden post. In the light of day, the damage was spectacular. The hull was opened up halfway down the centerline, the planks either broken clean through or splintered in every direction. In some places, you could see the unfinished wood, the way it must have looked decades ago, before it was varnished.

“Can you believe this?” He ran his hand across the topside, where the wood was still smooth and perfect. “All the work somebody must have put into this thing.”

“And the money,” Liz said.

“I had to cover it up last night,” he said. “It’s just obscene. It hurts me to look at it.”

“Can you imagine how hard they must have hit that thing? I can’t believe those guys lived through it.”

“I wonder how the driver is. They said he was in the hospital, but they didn’t even know how he was doing today.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be real happy with those guys,” I said, “if they were my friends.”

“I’m not too happy with them myself. They showed up here this morning and wanted to see the boat. I was thinking they might want to salvage the motor or something, but no, they just started looking inside the thing. Then they started looking on the shoreline. Eventually, God, they must have gone down a half mile in each direction, looking in the water. Going through everybody’s backyards and out on the docks. They even wanted me to get Phil’s boat and take them out to where the wreck happened. I told them there was nothing to see out there. That’s when they started to get weird on us. You know, like when they first got here, they were telling us how grateful they were for the help last night. But then they started talking about some box they were looking for.”

“A floating lockbox,” Liz said.

“Whatever the hell that is. They didn’t seem to believe we didn’t know anything about it.”

“That sounds familiar,” I said.

“We told them there was nothing else we could do. But they didn’t seem to like that. Eventually, we had to persuade them to leave the property.”

“Okay, and how did you do that?” I was having a hard time picturing how these two could be so persuasive. Unless…

“I brought out one of our shotguns,” Liz said. “I believe it was the Remington.”

“Yeah, the over-and-under,” Tyler said. “You should have seen the look on their faces when she racked that thing. They changed their tune pretty fast.”

They were both smiling at the memory now. God love them, I thought. Only in Michigan.

“Well, I hope you guys are going to be careful,” I said. “They could come back.”

“Let them come,” Liz said. “I’m a good shot.”

I took out one of the cards Leon had made for us and gave it to them. I told them to call me if they ever saw the men again.

“What’s this?” Tyler said. “You and Leon are private investigators?”

“We were,” I said. “For about five minutes. Which reminds me…Oh no…”

“What is it?”

“If they came to see you, and they came to see me…”

“You’re right, they probably stopped by Leon’s place,” Tyler said. “Is that a problem?”

“That all depends,” I said, “on who was home.”

From Brimley I
kept heading east on Six Mile Road, past the old abandoned railroad car, through the last of the Hiawatha National Forest, and then out into the open hay fields. I didn’t know how this weather would affect the crop this year, but I didn’t imagine it would help any.

I crossed the highway and drove through Sault Ste. Marie—“the Soo,” as the locals call it. Up to Three Mile Road, and into the parking lot for the Custom Motor Shop. That’s where Leon worked these days. It was a far cry from his dream job, but the man had a family to feed. The place looked pretty quiet today. No surprise given the miserable weather. When I went in, they told me that Leon had left early. In fact, he had received a phone call, and had left in a hurry without saying a word.