Crime Machine (37 page)

Nikki didn’t know what he was talking about. Sometimes Papa saw things totally backwards. “I didn’t do anything,” she said.

“Nikki, Nikki, what am I going to do with you?” He squeezed her shoulder. “Always putting yourself down. Minute Jack was out the door, you were right there for me. Whisky in one hand, clean towel in the other. You were my battlefield medic. I could not be more grateful.”

“If I’d been thinking, I’d have got the hunting rifle and put one in his head.”

“Jack’s your brother. No one wants that.”

“Was
my brother.”

“Oh, don’t be surprised if Jack comes slinking back. I’ve seen it happen before, and he’s not going far in this storm. When he does come back, he’ll need forgiveness, and you know what? He’ll get it.”

He handed her the box of Kleenex and she blew her nose and tried to get hold of her feelings.

“Sit up, now. There’s no call for a posture of defeat.” He gripped her biceps and hauled her into a seated position beside him. He draped a comradely arm over her shoulders. They were facing the dresser mirror. “You’re looking so pretty today. Did you do something to your hair?”

She pressed at the frizz. “My crazy hair.”

“Crazy beautiful. That hair’s got spirit, kid, same as you.”

She met his gaze in the mirror and smiled.

“You don’t know how proud I am,” he said, “how grateful I am, that you’ve shared your beauty and your spirit with me. I know I don’t deserve it.”

“But you do everything. You look after everyone.”

“Not so well sometimes, the way it seems lately.”

“Jack’s just psycho. He’s not your fault.”

“I was hoping to be a better influence.”

“You are, Papa. You are. Like you say, he’ll probably come back.”

“You think so?”

She nodded.

“You’re a fine individual, Nikki the Kid. You truly are, and you make me one proud Papa.”

Nikki’s heart was full and she wanted to give him something. Sex was the only thing she had of any value, and she would have really liked to show him what she could do in that regard. But Papa didn’t want sex from her.

“I need you to do something, Nikki.”

“Sure. Anything.”

“We talked about it before. It’s something for the family. It was going to be Lemur’s job, but Lemur’s no longer with us.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s a hard thing and it’s crucial and it just absolutely has to be done. And to be honest, Nikki …” He looked at her, those honest blue eyes creased with worry. “To be honest, I’m not a hundred percent sure you’re ready.”

—

Delorme tried her phone again. She got crackle and fizz and nothing else. Cardinal had been trying to tell her something. Something he didn’t want the man sleeping in the other room to hear.
Go outside
, he had said.

She got up on her good foot again and steadied herself against the wall, waiting for the pain to subside. It didn’t, but she moved anyway, taking a quiet hop into the other room.

The man had turned on his right side. His mouth was open, but he had stopped snoring. In his left hand, an automatic. Well, you could have an automatic with you in case you wounded an animal and had to finish it off, Delorme told herself. Not exactly a sporting weapon, but possible. Balancing herself against the door frame, she took a short hop forward, noisier than she wanted.

The man stirred but did not wake.

Another hop. Delorme nearly fell, and touched the end of the bunk with her fingertips to keep her balance. She held her breath. The man didn’t stir. She bent forward, fingers still on the end of the bunk, to try to see the make of the gun. It looked almost identical to the one at the ATM scene, but she had to squint to be sure of the manufacturer’s imprint: Browning Hi-Power.

The man’s eyes opened. “You got a problem?”

“I was just trying to see if you were awake. You want some tea?”

“Thought you had a broken leg.”

“I’m thirsty. I’m going to make some tea.”

“You look like you’re in pain. Maybe you should lie down.”

“I’m all right.”

“Plenty of room right here.” He tapped the bunk with the gun.

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on. See if we can make that leg feel better.”

“You want some tea or not?”

“Tea. Sure. Why the fuck not? Where’d your partner go?”

“He went looking for the house,” Delorme said, and regretted it right away. Wished she’d said something that meant he’d be back in one minute.

“If he finds it, he’s gonna wish he had an army with him.”

Delorme turned and took a hop toward the door.

Behind her, a creak, and the sound of the man’s feet hitting the floor.

She hopped as hard as she could and that got her into the other room, but the man’s full weight hit her and slammed her to the floor, the pain forcing a scream out of her.

He pulled back hard on her hair. “Hold still.”

Delorme twisted onto her back and brought her good leg up and around his face. She forced him back and he let go of her hair, but as he fell he yanked at her broken leg and she shrieked in agony.

When Delorme regained consciousness, he had her belt buckle undone and was trying to slide her pants down. He had put the gun aside on the floor. Delorme reached for it, but he got to it first and clouted her in the temple.

She hit him a hard backhand, her knuckles catching him in the eye.

He swung again with the pistol, but the floor took most of it. Delorme got hold of the barrel and twisted and the man let go. The gun flew out of her grasp and hit the floor somewhere behind her head. The man lunged for it, his face so close she could smell his breath. She pulled him closer and bit his cheek. The sudden heat of his blood on her face.

The man roared and clutched his cheek, blood spilling through his fingers. Delorme reached back for the gun and the man grabbed her throat and punched her face. His knuckles slid on blood.

Delorme grabbed his waist and felt the knife handle. The man lunged for the gun and she undid the snap and got the knife out. He reared back with the gun in her face and she brought the knife up and jammed the blade just under his arm.

He screamed and dropped the gun and fell sideways to the floor. When he reached for the gun again, Delorme twisted and brought the knife down hard on the side of his head. The bone gave way and she could feel the blade lodge in his temple.

She held on to it and felt the force drain out of him. It was as if he were becoming smaller under her hand. He lay there, half curled, still breathing, staring at some fixed point through and beyond Delorme. Blood flowed from his face wound into his eye, but the eye didn’t blink. Delorme kept her grip on the knife until he stopped breathing, and for a while after.

She rolled back and dragged herself toward the bunk. She took up the gun and, when she had twisted herself into a seated posture with her legs out in front, held it in her lap.

“Fucker,” she said. Her breath came in ragged gasps. “Teach you. Fucker.”

“W
E’RE NEVER GOING TO GET TO THE HIGHWAY
if you keep falling on your face,” Nikki said. The old man was floundering just ahead of her. The storm had abated somewhat, but the snow was still flying and sticking to Nikki’s eyelashes so that it was hard to see. And it was deep. Their snowshoes sank six inches and more into the top snow, making progress difficult for Nikki, let alone for an ancient geezer like Mr. Kreeger.

He staggered to one side, nearly toppled, but finally managed to right himself.

“The sooner I get you to that highway,” Nikki said, “the sooner I can get back and curl up in front of that fireplace.”

The old man turned to face her. “If we were really going to the highway, the obvious way to go would be the road. There’s a plough blade on the front of the Range Rover, you know.”

“I’m not old enough to drive.”

“I am.”

“We’re going this way.”

“Even on foot, the road would be faster.”

“For the last time, we can’t take the road. Papa will be coming back that way, and if he sees me helping you escape, it’ll be game over for
both of us. Jack could come back that way too, and I don’t want to die, Mr. Kreeger, do you?”

Papa said the old man had to die but how she did it was up to her. So she had come up with this phony escape plan. There was no reason why the guy should die miserable. This way he would go out happy at least. He thinks he’s finally free and
boom
, she shoots him in the back of his head and puts him to sleep.

“When did your so-called Papa go out? I didn’t hear him leave.”

“You didn’t hear the fight? He booted Jack out and then he took off himself.”

“Uh-huh. Drove out into the blizzard, did he?”

“As a matter of fact, someone came to pick him up. Guy in a Jeep.”

The old man looked at her and shook his head in disgust.

“Yes, sir. They took off right after Jack did. Guess those Jeep tracks got covered pretty fast. I have no idea where they were going or when they might be coming back, but this is the first and likely only time I’m gonna be on my own with you, so would you please for Christ sake take advantage of it and keep your skinny butt moving? I thought old people were supposed to be wise.”

“That’s right. And young people are supposed to be innocent.”

“Okay, so we’re even.”

The old man kept looking at her. His face was thin, elongated, and his papery cheeks were blotchy from the cold. He put Nikki in mind of a rabbit, and she was about to yell at him to turn around when he finally did so. Turned and took a step through the snow, then another, wide-legged, duck-like.

“See, it’s not so bad,” Nikki said. “We’ll have you on that highway in no time. Someone’ll come by and pick you up.” She knew it didn’t really make sense. What possible reason could she have to send him safely into town? She’d made him solemnly promise that he’d wait a day before he called the police, but obviously he’d call them first thing. He must know Papa was at the house waiting for her to come back and announce she’d done it. Meanwhile she was terrified of bumping into Jack. Jack clearly inhabited the boundary line between the kind of craziness you can live with, and the kind you can’t.

The old man stopped. Even through his heavy parka she could see his shoulders heaving. He turned to her again.

“Dude, are you on crack? We have to keep moving. Or have you just not noticed we’re in the tail end of a blizzard?”

“How old are you, young lady?”

“I’ll be fourteen in February.”

“Fourteen in February.” He smiled, long rabbity teeth amid cheeks of high pink. “In February I’ll be seventy-six years old.”

“OMG, we have such a lot in common! Would you keep it moving, please.”

The old guy didn’t move, intent only upon her, the hunting rifle in her hands—in case she saw a pheasant for dinner, she’d told him. “That man isn’t your father.”

“Yes he is. In every way that counts, he is.”

“Raised you, did he? From the time you were a baby? Changed your diaper? Got you into school? Made you do your homework? Read to you at night? Taught you to read and write, and how to get along with people? Raised you like a dad?”

“Raised me, no. Rescued me, yes. I was one death-bound fuck-up, Mr. Kreeger, and Papa saved me from the solid brick wall I was smashing my head into.”

“You were living on the streets?”

“Anything bad you can imagine, I was doing it. Now get moving before I become hostile.”

“I wouldn’t call where you are right now rescued.”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t call the place where you find yourself right now being rescued.”

“You don’t know the place I was previously.”

“And I wouldn’t call Papa anything resembling a father.”

“You don’t know the man.”

“Have you looked in the bunkhouse, Nikki?”

“I had no reason to.”

“You mean you were told not to.”

“I don’t care what’s in the bunkhouse.”

“Not what—who. His name was Henry. He was an Indian—a First Nations person, though he always referred to himself as Indian. He’d be about forty-four, forty-five. Younger than your self-styled Papa by quite a
bit. He was probably about your age when he discovered he was alcoholic. Just couldn’t let it go. He had some pain raging inside of him that only alcohol would stop. Imagine that. Only alcohol could stop it. But it also made it worse.”

“Uh-huh. And I’m supposed to care about this drunkard why?”

“Imagine having a constant pain. A burn, say—your skin feels like it’s on fire. Or maybe not so dramatic. You just feel that your heart is breaking. All the time, every day, for no reason—and the only time this pain stopped was when you were drunk. That was Henry’s life. It rendered him uncongenial and unemployable. It got him thrown off the reserve. It got him thrown in jail countless times. And all the time, that burn, that heartache. He got himself sober for a time. By some Herculean effort of will, he managed to do that. He even got himself married and got a job. The job didn’t last. The kind of work he could get never does. So he started drinking again. His wife left him.”

“A loser. What you’re describing’s a loser.”

“What I’m describing is a human being. Henry quit drinking. And no, it didn’t happen overnight. It took him many tries and many setbacks, many failures, but the man stopped drinking. Sober, Henry was good with his hands, a skilled carpenter. He did some work on the house. How I met him. He knew lots of things: electricity, plumbing, hunting, fishing. And he was a big reader. Liked books. Liked a good story. Liked a good joke. Nice sense of humour. Kinda dry.

“He came to work for me. Just doing whatever needed doing. I don’t pay him much—didn’t pay him much—but his rent was free and he liked the quiet. Liked the woods. I think maybe he even liked me. Seemed to, anyway. I asked him once what he did about all that pain, where it went, and he told me it never went anywhere. It was still there. Every day. He just didn’t do anything about it anymore. He just let it be, and sometimes he forgot about it. He had a hard life. Incomprehensibly hard to someone like me, a lucky person. But he found a way to smile now and again. A way to laugh. And he took pleasure in small things—making breakfast, hanging a door. In keeping an old man company. I can’t say he was a happy man, Henry, but he was a good man, and he thought that little bunkhouse was the finest place he’d ever lived. And now he’s lying dead in it with a bullet hole in his forehead because your so-called Papa
preferred him that way. There was no reason for it, and that was the end of Henry’s life.”