Ice Lake (37 page)

“How do you mean?”

“How would you get in touch?”

Honigwachs had to shake his head. “You’re right. You’re right. I don’t know how to do that. I could only get in touch through Andy, and—” He briefly held up his hands as a sign of helplessness.

“So, what, you were just going to forget about our association?”

Honigwachs tried to smile himself. He was having difficulty. “No, I assumed, I guess, that you’d be in touch.”

“So you’re glad to see me?” the man suggested. He had one foot on the floor, and the other swung freely back and forth.

“Yes, of course. You could say that.”

“We’re not going to forget about you, you know that.”

“Of course not. No.”

The man nodded, looking down at the floor a moment. Finally, he looked up and said what was on his mind. “Was it you whacked Andy?”

“No,” the president objected, “no—”

“Because if you did, maybe you had your reasons. Sometimes people have reasons. Maybe we could talk about those reasons. Maybe Andy got out of line—”

“No! No, Andy was, Andy was great, actually. He was. He was great.”

“That’s true, in my opinion,” the visitor emphasized. “Andy was great. He had talent, you know. He could be different people. Maybe you didn’t know that about him. He could see things in ways different from other people. He could see things the rest of us missed. He was quite a guy, Andy.”

“Yeah,” Honigwachs said.

“Don’t you think so?”

Honigwachs answered with greater conviction. “Absolutely. He was quite a guy. I liked him. A lot. Andy—he was a great guy. Really.”

The man stood. He held his arms out from his body, and one of the men from the door came over and helped him out of his coat. Then Jacques removed his gloves and placed them neatly on the desk, one exactly on top of the other. He used the index finger on his right hand to draw a line down his left cheek. “If you didn’t whack our Andy, Mr. Honigwachs, who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. He was in your care.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that necessarily. He worked for me.

“No, no, Mr. Honigwachs.” Smiling again, but with only one side of his mouth, as if it was a strain to do so, Jacques came alongside the company president and, gripping his arm above the elbow, twisted it back. He hurt him. He steered him toward the window for a look at the view. When he spoke again, he lowered his voice.
“Andy didn’t work for you.
You
worked for Andy. You work for me, and you work for anybody I send out here. You understand that? You’re in my pocket. See this?” Reaching into a trouser pocket, he pulled out a quarter. “This is you. This is you, Mr. Honigwachs. You’re in my pocket. Maybe you had a misunderstanding about that. Maybe you thought Andy worked for you, like you just said, maybe you had some kind of miscommunication like that. Maybe Andy set you straight and you got carried away with your response. Maybe you wasted him.”

“You can’t believe that.”

“Why not? Somebody did. I see you had cops here this morning. Maybe they’re thinking the same thing.”

Honigwachs was stunned that this man knew about the other visit. What else did he know? “No, no, they’re not thinking anything like that.”

“Maybe they should,” Jacques said.

“No, I, I didn’t shoot Andy. I’d never do that. Even if I wanted to, which I
didn’t
I’d never have the guts for something like that. I’m not some kind of Rambo.” He tried to laugh, and to get Jacques laughing along with him. “Besides, I mean, I had no reason.” Honigwachs wished that he could just shut up. That would be the preferred strategy. Take charge of this conversation through reticence and disdain. He’d be more convincing that way. Sit back in his swivel chair and scoff at this man, as he had scoffed at Cinq-Mars, let him know how preposterous he was being. He also knew that he could not pull off that pose right now. He was too nervous. He had to hang in there, he had to keep talking, he had to keep denying and denying until the message got through. “I’d never shoot Andy. He was like a son to me.”

“A son!” Jacques boomed. For the first time, he looked back at his men waiting at the door. They smiled, encouraged by his glance. “A son. Well, you
wouldn’t be the first father to bump off his kid, now, would you?”

Honigwachs declined to answer.

“Would you?” Jacques slapped the back of the larger man’s head.

His head bent, Honigwachs gasped from the shock of the blow. “No,” he admitted, panting. “I guess not.”

“You shoot him?” He whapped the back of his head again.

Honigwachs was unaccustomed to humiliation. The burning feeling that was building in his head was partly his rage and partly his fear. “No, sir. I did not.”

“Were you in that shack at the time?”

Honigwachs flinched even before the hand came up to hit him again. After he had flinched, Jacques smacked the back of his head. “No, sir!” Honigwachs said.

“You weren’t there?” He hit him, the back of his fist thumping his temple, hard.

“No, sir.”

“Where were you?” He hit him with a closed fist behind the right ear, three quick, solid punches that caused Honigwachs to lift his shoulders to defend himself and try to hold his head away.

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?” Jacques smacked the back of the man’s head again. “You don’t remember where you were when the man who was like a son to you got whacked?” He gave him a karate chop across the back of his neck.

Honigwachs was reeling, blood throbbing in his brain. “At home, I guess.”

“You guess?” He gave him a harder chop across the neck again.

“I was home. Stop hitting me.” He heard a ringing in his ears. His vision had become obscured, as if tears had sprung to his eyes. He hoped they hadn’t.

“You’re telling me what to do?” Jacques rammed the heel of his palm into the man’s ear and Honigwachs grunted with the shock of it. “You don’t get to do that,” Jacques warned him, then smacked his temple again. “All you get to do is take it.” He slapped the top of his head again. “All you get to do is hope maybe I get tired.” He punched him behind the ear again. “Not so tired that I don’t just whack you, because I’m inclined to do that. Maybe you did it, maybe you didn’t, maybe I’ll whack you in case you did. You ever think about that? You ever think I might whack you
just in case
you were the one?” He did not hit him again, but Honigwachs stood curled against the window, waiting for the smack.

Jacques backed away and put on his leather gloves, as if this was a ritual that carried meaning, as if it indicated a change in procedure.

“I can have you whacked just by thinking about it, Mr. Honigwachs. Don’t forget that. Right now, I’ll keep you alive because you might help me find out who did Andy, and because I need you to take real good care of the funds that’ve been turned over to you for your safekeeping. I hope you take better care of that money than you did Andy, who, as I recall, was also turned over to you for you to look after. At all times, remember, all I have to do is think about it. I don’t even have to change my mind. All I ever have to do is just get a look in my eye, then Jesus Christ, you’re gone, you’re done. All you can do then is pray the job gets done by somebody who does it properly, who keeps it neat. Some guys, you know, are sloppy about the work they do. When they do a whack it can be a mess. Keep that in mind.”

Honigwachs nodded, as though consenting to the terms.

Once again, Jacques lifted his arms away from his body and one of his associates came over and helped
him on with his coat. “Any suggestions? Give me a name. Tell me maybe who might have done it, who maybe was thinking about it in some kind of delirious moment.”

Honigwachs shrugged. He was so thrilled to see him putting on his coat.

Jacques chuckled. “I’m not leaving here without a name.”

“I don’t know. He was friends with Lucy Gabriel. She’s an Indian girl.”

“Naw, it wasn’t her.”

“How do you know that?”

“That’s my business. Why are you giving me the name of somebody who didn’t do it? That’s what guilty men do. You’re looking and sounding to me like a guilty man, Mr. Honigwachs. I might do some careless thinking about you if you don’t watch out.”

He put up his hands as though to defend against a physical barrage. “I’m sorry. You asked for a name. She popped to mind. I wasn’t saying it was her.”

“It wasn’t.”

“So I don’t have any other names.”

“Just give me the name of somebody I can talk to. Because let me tell you something. Andy Stettler, he was a friend of mine. So give me the name of somebody I can talk to, and we’ll see where that leads. Give me that name.”

“I don’t know—”

“Give me a name!”

“I …”

Honigwachs stopped talked because Jacques had reached under his coat and taken out a gun. He held it down by his side in his gloved hand, and he told him to take off a shoe.

“What?”

“Take off your right shoe, Mr. Honigwachs. Quickly, please.”

Standing on one leg, the president undid his shoelace, then kicked off the shoe.

Jacques moved close to him. “Pull off that sock.”

Honigwachs obeyed.

“Put your right foot forward.”

“Please.” Honigwachs pointed his right foot forward. The big toe sunk into the plush, dark-grey carpet. It trembled.

“Now I’m going to shoot off your toe or you’re going to give me a name.”

Honigwachs started hyperventilating as Jacques aimed the pistol at his toe.

“Camille Choquette,” Honigwachs said.

“Who’s that?” Jacques continued to aim along the barrel of the gun toward the other man’s foot.

“She works at another drug company. I think they went out. They knew each other, I know that.”

“So? He knew lots of people.” Jacques pulled back the trigger.

“It was her hut!”

“What?”

“It was her hut! Where Andy was found. That was her hut.”

Jacques looked up at him then. He nodded, and put away his gun. “Put your shoe back on,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to stink out the joint.”

Honigwachs fumbled with his sock, but his hands were shaking too much to get it back on his quivering foot.

“God, what’s that stink? Did you shit your pants, Mr. Honigwachs?”

“No.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. It can’t be a nice thing to contemplate, your toe blown off, all that blood, not being able to walk again except with a limp. You got a fear-stink all over you.”

He just couldn’t get his sock back on, he was trembling too much.

“I’ll look up this Choquette. See where that leads. Meanwhile, you don’t have to worry about contacting me. That’s never going to happen. But I’ll be in touch. I want you to know that, Mr. Honigwachs, that you can count on me being in touch.”

Jacques and his well-dressed toughs opened the door and went out.

Werner Honigwachs was finally able to put his sock back on, and he stood there holding his shoe. Time had stopped for him. He could not keep track of his thoughts. He turned and faced the Lake of Two Mountains again, looking out on the ice-village where the fishing huts stood as multicoloured sentinels in the sun. He remained still like that for a while, and he did not move until some time later when his secretary came in to ask him if everything was all right. She wondered why he was standing there, not moving, not saying anything, just holding his shoe and staring out the window like an imbecile.

Throughout the spasms and volcanic indignities inflicted by his body, Emile Cinq-Mars sat with a bemused resignation, too weary to indulge his misery much. Upon emerging from the cubicle into the large employees’ restroom he noticed that he was pale, and washing his hands, he sank into a stupor of indifference, the swirl of water consuming his full attention. Honigwachs had talked about the planets in their traces, this spinning, this spiralling downward, a distortion of time. Straightening, he felt his feet glued to the floor, his energy sapped.

Mathers pushed open the door and, seeing him at the sink, came inside to commiserate. “Head home, Emile. We can cover this ground another time.” The
young cop leaned against a sink while Cinq-Mars dried his hands slowly. “You look like hell, and if you’re a time bomb I don’t want you going off in the cruiser.”

“I’ve got another question to ask those two.” His voice had a gravelly, weary timbre. “But I’ll keep it to myself for now. This is a story, Bill.”

“What is?”

“How an unemployed, destitute guinea pig, a lab rat, became Head of Security in no time at all while still in his twenties, and all that got him was a premature and violent death. I want to know why. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”