Drawing Dead (37 page)

Joey had decided back in Madison, Wisconsin, to begin his avenging with the Tom and Ben Show, since he might have only this one crack at them. He wanted to be there to see their faces. According to Freddy, they were meeting with the comic book guys at a cabin on the end of Sorenson Point on Crook Lake. Karl had quickly located Crook Lake on his map, which clearly showed the wing-shaped land- mass jutting out from the western shore.

“I can put you right there on the tip,” Karl had said, touching the map with the sharp point of his mechanical pencil. Twenty minutes and eight hundred dollars later, they were airborne.

Joey sat back in his seat and watched the lakes slide by. He imagined what Crook Lake would look like, coming up on the horizon. He hoped he would get there before Freddy did his thing. The little .32 caliber Davis in his pocket wasn't much of a gun, not compared to some of the stuff he had at home, but what the hell—he'd always wanted to use it.

“Back
off, would ya? He's gonna see us.”

Catfish snorted and continued to creep up on the yellow Cadillac, but after a few seconds she slacked off on the accelerator and fell back until it was almost out of sight.

“If he turns off and we don't see it, we'll lose him.”

“We won't lose him.”

“The hell we won't.”

“I'm hungry.”

Catfish dug in her purse, came out with a half-eaten roll of butterscotch Life Savers.

“I'm more hungry than that,” Tommy said. He took the roll, stripped the paper away, and put all six of them into his mouth.

“Thanks a hell of a lot,” Catfish said.

“I didn't think you wanted any.”

“How much farther do you think it is?”

“All Dickie told us was it was a few miles north of Brainerd.” Tommy's knee was pumping up and down.

“Brainerd is coming right up. He's going after those comic books, I just know it.”

“Backoff! Back off!”

“I see him. Relax, would you? You're going to wear a hole in my floor mat.”

Many gamblers make the mistake of applying their poker strategies to real life. Such persons soon discover that, while they may be playing their cards with great skill and subtlety, their opponents are often choosing from a deck containing an infinite number of aces.

At Wicky's insistence,
Freddy stopped at a Little Falls liquor store. Wicky had decided that if he was going to listen to any more of Freddy's stories, there was no reason he had to do it sober.

Fifty miles back, trying to make small talk, he had asked Freddy how he had come to work for Joey Cadillac.

“He seen me hit a guy in a bar one time, and so he give me a job,” Freddy bellowed, grinning, enjoying the memory, his hair whipping in the wind. He had insisted on taking the blue Eldorado, driving with the top down, the roar of the bad muffler nearly blocking out the sound of the wind. Freddy had gone on to describe the first job he had done for Joey Cadillac: slamming a car door nineteen times on the left hand of a delinquent account, once for each day the payment was late. “That was Mister C.'s idea. Then I told the guy I was gonna come back the next day and do it twenty times.”

Freddy had laughed, slapping his huge hand on the steering wheel.

Wicky thought he was going to be sick.

“Mister C., he's so smart. He said to be sure it was the left hand on account of the guy needed his right hand to sign the check.”

Freddy had gone on to regale him with other professional success stories.

Wicky bought a fifth of Stoli and a sixer of Mooseheads. He took the Stoli bottle down a full inch before they were out of the liquor store parking lot.

Ben
turned right off Highway 371 and followed County 42, broken asphalt with weeds growing up through the cracks, through the heavily wooded countryside. The map showed Crook Lake as a jellybean or maybe a peanut shape, with a bump of land cutting into the west end. Sam O'Gara's cabin was on the tip of a wing-shaped peninsula known locally as Sorenson Point, or so Crow had told him. Did the bump on the map represent Sorenson Point, as delineated by a lazy cartographer? Ben hoped so. Every few miles the trees would open and he would find himself skirting the shore of a lake, or occasionally traveling an isthmus between two lakes. He turned off County 42 onto a camelback dirt road marked with an arrow sign: Crook Lake Public Landing.

The camelback ended at the landing, a small beach with a short concrete ramp where boaters could back their boat trailers into the water. A narrow, unmarked road followed the shoreline in either direction. Guessing that he was on the south side of the lake, Ben followed the shore road to the left. Poplars, oak, and white pine chopped up the sunlight into a bewildering spatter; the dancing spots of brightness on the road confused his eyes. Ben didn't like the trees. He preferred the city or, at least, open spaces. The trees felt like a barrier, like a living wall. What was out there? He did not want to know. He felt like an intruder, as if all the beasts of the forest were watching his every move. The Fleetwood, elegant, smooth, and whisper quiet on the highways, moved like a crude tank through these silent woodlands. He slowed and peered down each driveway and logging path, wondering how he would know the road when he saw it. Most of the time, he couldn't even see the lake. He was ready to turn back, thinking he had passed it, when he spotted a mailbox with bright-orange lettering spray-painted on the side: O'GARA.

The road, or driveway, leading out onto Sorenson Point was the worst of all—lumpy, wet, and almost too narrow for one car. Branches raked the sides as the car limped along, its wheels riding in two ruts. Ben could hear grass scraping the Cadillac's belly. Suddenly, the trees opened and he was at the edge of the lake. He hit the brakes, nearly getting his front tires wet, and looked around. No cabin. But the driveway continued—a sharp bend to the right. He backed up a few feet, cranked the wheel, and continued up the driveway another quarter of a mile, until he reached a cleared, rocky area containing a yellow log cabin and two vehicles: an Oldsmobile and an old flatbed truck. Two men were standing beside the truck, watching him drive up. One was a big, happy-looking man with a shiny red face, a kelly-green blazer with gold buttons, a yellow golf shirt, and chartreuse polyester trousers. Even from several yards away, his eyes were intensely blue. The other man, older, wrinkled, and compact, wore a lumberjack shirt and work-faded denim bib overalls. He was holding a crowbar.

Ben stopped the Fleetwood and lowered the window.

“How you doon?” The older man grinned.

Ben nodded, keeping his eyes on the steel bar. “I'm looking for Sam O'Gara?”

“Yep,” Sam O'Gara said. “You got 'im.” He knelt down on the sparse grass, one hand grabbing the front bumper, and ducked his head down to look under the truck. “Be right with ya.” He lowered himself onto his back, then wriggled his body underneath the engine compartment. Ben could hear him muttering, “Goddamn sumbitch mothafucka.” He sounded like Tommy. Ben got out of the car.

The man in the green blazer pushed forward a manicured hand. “Jim Bobick. They call me Jimbo.”

“Ben Franklin.” Ben shook the hand, looking down at the feet sticking out from beneath the truck. A series of ear-wrenching ka- whangs blasted out from the underbelly of the old Ford. Ben stepped back a few feet.

“Goddamn fang-fuckin' bastid.” Another series of thuds and clangs. After a few tentative scrapes and more muttered curses, O'Gara worm-walked his way out from under the truck and hopped to his feet.

“Did you fix it?” Jimbo asked.

“Prob'ly not, but I sure give the fucker something to think about.” The old man cackled and tossed the crowbar onto the hood of the truck. He looked up at Ben. “So what kin I do you for, mister? You selling something?”

Ben extended a hand. “Ben Franklin,” he said. “I'm an associate of Mr. Wicky.”

O'Gara reached out a large, greasy paw, grabbed the hand, and squeezed. Ben gasped as bone ground against bone. “So you're one a them fellas Richie was talking about,” O'Gara said. “He ought to be here anytime now. You want a beer or something?”

Ben took back his throbbing hand and shook his head. “I was hoping we could talk some business.” He looked at Jimbo. Jimbo smiled uncomfortably.

O'Gara said, “Jimbo, you mind if Ben and me have us a little one- on-one?”

“I was just leaving,” Jimbo said, moving toward the Oldsmobile.

“You don't got to leave,” O'Gara said. “Go grab yourself a brew out of the icebox.”

Jimbo hesitated, wavered, then shrugged and headed for the cabin.

“So what's this all about?” O'Gara asked.

Ben said, “To get right to it, Mr. O'Gara, I was hoping I could examine your comic book collection and perhaps make you a good, fair offer on it.”

“Hell, man, I already got an offer. Everything's all packed up and ready to go.” He jerked a thumb toward the back of the truck. “Soon's Richie shows up with the loot, I'm gonna run the whole kit 'n' kaboodle down south.”

Ben licked his lips and stepped toward the truck, which was loaded down with twenty or thirty cardboard cartons strapped to the bed.

“That's good,” he said. “Would you mind if we take a quick look at the merchandise?”

O'Gara said, “Goddamn it, I just got all them fuckers packed in there. Why don't we just wait for Richie, and I'll drive 'em on down for you. He should be here pretty quick now.”

Ben looked at the cardboard boxes. They were crisscrossed with ropes, tied securely to the bed of the truck.

“Has Mr. Wicky made you a firm offer?”

“You think I'd've gone to all the trouble of packing 'em up, he didn't? Richie, he wanted me to haul the whole kit 'n' kaboodle down to the cities last week. I told him I'd have to see some cash before I did a damn thing, but I figured I could pack 'em up, at least; save us all a lot of time later. I sure as hell didn't think you was going to want to unpack the damn things first thing you got here.”

Ben looked back down the driveway. He didn't have a lot of time. It was almost eleven-thirty. Wicky would be arriving soon, if Crow's information was correct. Another even more alarming possibility occurred to him—suppose Freddy Wisnesky had come along for the ride? Ben didn't understand what the relationship was, exactly, between Dickie Wicky and Freddy Wisnesky, but if they were going to baseball games together, anything could be true.

The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. He decided to make his play.

“How much did Mr. Wicky offer for your collection?” he asked.

O'Gara pushed his hands in his pockets and let his head sink between his shoulders, a crafty squint in his eyes. “You don't know? Thought you fellas was partners.”

“I want to be sure we're offering you a fair price.”

“What's fair?” O'Gara asked, pulling his hands from his pockets and crossing his tanned arms across his narrow chest.

Ben shrugged. Wicky had claimed he'd offered sixty thousand for the collection, but that didn't mean a thing. “I would have to see the comics,” he said.

“Goddamn it, didn't Richie show you that list?”

Ben nodded. “A blue notebook. Is it accurate?”

“Hell, yes. Why d'ya think I give it to him?”

“Mr. Wicky has examined the collection?”

“Sure. Richie looked it over good. That's why I figured I'd get 'em all ready to go.”

Ben shook his head. “I have to see what I'm buying. You want to sell the books, you're going to have to let me examine them.”

Jimbo
did not know what was going on, exactly. He had gone to the cabin expecting to find Ozzie LaRose and Joe Crow. Instead, he had met Sam O'Gara. After some confusion—O'Gara mistaking him for Ben Franklin—they had gotten their identities straight. Crow, O'Gara had told him, would be there soon. Whatever was going on now, it was none of his business.

He found a cold Leinenkugel in the refrigerator, cracked it open, and watched through the window as the two men negotiated. O'Gara was jabbing his finger toward the boxes and flapping his arms. Franklin was leaning backward at what looked like an impossible angle, as though blown back by the torrent of words coming from his smaller opponent. He kept looking down the driveway, as if he was expecting someone. From the body language alone, Jimbo concluded that neither of these men was looking for a win-win situation. Neither one of them would make it in the real estate game, he decided. He was thinking about how he was going to spend his commission on the Whiting Lake property, when he saw O'Gara throw up his arms and grab the crowbar.

Jimbo thought, Now that's negotiating.

O'Gara
squeezed his thin lips together. Both his eyes and his cheeks were bulging. He held himself together for nearly three long seconds before exploding. “You want to see the goddamn comics? I'll show you the goddamn comics!” He grabbed the crowbar off the hood of the truck. Ben sprinted backward ten feet before he saw that the old man was going after the comic books, not him.

“Wait!” he shouted, but O'Gara had already jabbed the chisel end of the greasy crowbar into one of the boxes and ripped through the corrugated cardboard. “Be careful with those!” O'Gara gutted the box, pulling out handfuls of vintage comic books, throwing them at Ben.
Police Comics. World's Finest. Captain Marvel.

“Okay!” Ben shouted. “Take it easy!” He picked up a copy of
Comic Cavalcade #50
—not a great comic, but not in bad shape. O'Gara was bringing back the bar, preparing to tear into another box. Ben ran forward and grabbed the bar.

“All right, Mr. O'Gara. There's no need to destroy them.”

O'Gara scowled and relaxed. Ben started to pick up the scattered comics. They looked to be in excellent condition, except for a few that had been shredded by the crowbar. Quite salable.