Drawing Dead (39 page)

“That was Ben!” Tommy said.

The tall man clutching the gym bag had erupted from the woods, crossed the road at high velocity, and been swallowed up by the trees on the other side. The sighting had lasted less than one second.

“Stop the car! Let me out.” Tommy opened the door and let his foot drag on the road until Catfish slowed down enough for him to hop out. “Ben!” He looked in at Catfish. “I'll go get him. You wait here.”

Catfish watched him disappear into the forest. She could hear dogs barking.

“Like hell,” she muttered. She reached over and closed the door. Two spotted yellow hounds crossed the road a few feet in front of the Porsche, entering the trees at the same point where Tom and Ben had disappeared.

Catfish laughed, put the car in gear, and started forward.

Karl
tapped Joey on the shoulder and pointed. “Crook Lake.”

The lake grew larger as they approached.

“Where's the point? Show me the point,” Joey said. Karl banked the Grumman, tipping the left wing down, and headed toward the west end of the eight-mile-long lake. Joey peered through the windshield. “Is that it?”

“Should be. You want me to set you down right at the end, right? Looks to me like there's a dock.”

“Swing us over. Let me see what we got down there.”

Karl let the plane drop to two hundred feet and passed by the tip of the point, just off the shoreline.

Joey was staring past him out the Plexiglas window. “I can't see, I can't see.”

Karl banked to the right and passed the point on the land side, keeping the right side of the plane down to give Joey his view.

“I see a building. I see Freddy's car, goddamn it! There it is! Put it down, let's go! Shit, I see a yellow Caddy too. They're there! Land this fucker!”

“You want me to bring you into the dock?” Karl asked.

“I pay you eight hundred bucks, you think I want to swim? Let's go. I got business down there!”

Crow crouched and motioned for Debrowski to stop. He could see a flash of baby blue at the end of the drive.

“Dickie and Freddy are here,” he said over his shoulder.

“Ben?”

“I can see Freddy's car. Let's fade off to the right here. If Sam's got the deal working, I don't want to ball it up.” He stepped off the driveway and into the trees, trying to walk quiedy through the sticks and leaves and brush. Debrowski followed. Crow could hear the quiet sound of chains on leather. A loud thrumming sound filtered through the woods—an airplane just off the point. They took advantage of the noise to proceed quickly, but slowed as the sound of the engines faded. They were several yards off the driveway, moving parallel to it. He could hear faint sounds of men talking and, in the distance, Sam's hounds giving voice.

The seaplane made another pass, this time lower and direcdy overhead, its noisy reciprocating engines rattling the leaves. Crow moved forward quickly, jogging through the woods, then stopped suddenly. He heard Debrowski halt breathlessly, directly behind him. They were looking through a V formed by a pair of mature bass-

woods. The clearing began a short distance beyond. Sam's truck, loaded down with boxes, was parked at the head of the driveway, ready to roll. Beside it, pointing in the opposite direction, were Freddy's Eldorado convertible and a white Oldsmobile. Sam O'Gara and Dickie Wicky were sitting on the hood of the Cadillac, facing a third man, dressed in a two-tone green suit. The three men were passing a bottle, laughing.

“Where's Freddy?” Debrowski whispered. “Who's the big guy in the leprechaun suit?

Crow shrugged and held up a hand. He watched Sam take a hit off the bottle, Jack Daniel's, and felt his stomach roll in sympathy. He wanted to hear what they were saying, but they were too far away, their words masked by the wind in the leaves, the waves on the shore, and the buzz of the seaplane. The man in green turned his face to the side, giving them a look at his profile.

“Oh, shit,” said Crow.

“What?”

“It's Jimbo Bobick, the realtor from hell.”

Debrowski grabbed Crow's arm and squeezed. He looked at her, then looked where she was pointing. Behind them, ten yards off to the side, Ben's yellow Cadillac was mired nose-first in a shallow sinkhole. Crow scanned the woods, suddenly aware that danger could arrive from any direction. The trees were still, revealing nothing. The sound of the seaplane grew louder again.

The only thing he knew for sure was that nothing, so far, was going according to plan.

Wicky
took a hit off the bottle and, following Sam's example, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He continued his story.

“So this guy, I owe the guy a few bucks, you know? Hey, Jimbo, you played with Crow a few times, didn't you?”

Jimbo nodded. He was enjoying the unexpected late-morning cocktail hour but keeping his hits on the bottle light. With no idea what was going on, he didn't want to get too blasted. Smiling va- candy, he listened to Wicky's tale.

“Now this is I guy I known for years,” Wicky explained to Sam. “Joe Crow. And he gets all uptight on me about this money, so I said to him, 'Here, take my Rolex. I don't have you paid off in a couple weeks, you got yourself a fifteen-thousand-dollar watch.' I mean, I'm going to pay the guy, so what do I care if he wears my timepiece for a few days? The guy is being an asshole, but hey, I'm flexible, you know?

“So a week later, this Crow comes back at me. 'Gimme my money, Rich,' he says. I tell him I'll have it for him in a few days. So the son- of-a-bitch says, 'Fuck you, I'm gonna hock this sucker.'“ Wicky took the bottle from Sam, wiggled his eyebrows, swallowed.

“So what do I do? I get on the horn to the pawnshop, and I say to the pawnshop guy, I say, 'This guy's going to be there in about five minutes to hock a Rolex.' The pawnshop guy says, 'so?' I say, 'so it's a counterfeit.' 'Yeah?' he says. 'How come you're telling me this?' I say, 'And I got a hundred bucks for you if you agree with me.'“ Wicky laughed. “Son-of-a-bitch made me give him my Visa number! Anyways, a few days later, Crow gives me the Rolex back!” He held out his wrist and turned the gold watch in the sunlight.

“How come he did that?” O'Gara asked.

“I'm not sure. I guess he got pissed. Hey, you know what time it is?” Wicky examined his watch with raised eyebrows. “It's time for another drink!” He reached for the bottle.

Sam,
Wicky, and Jimbo were laughing. Wicky was looking at his watch. Past the cabin, through a window in the trees, Crow could see the seaplane coming in low over the lake, heading south, into the wind, the pontoons kissing the water, then it was out of sight.

Debrowski hissed, “What's going on? Where's Ben?”

“I don't know, but I'm guessing he's with Freddy.”

“What are we doing?”

“Waiting for Sam to do something.”

“Do something? He's getting wasted is what he's doing, Crow. I think I should go talk to them.”

“We don't know what's going on. Maybe Sam's closing a deal with Dickie. Maybe Ben and Freddy are in the cabin having milk and cookies. Let's lay low for a while, see what happens.”

“We wait much longer, those three are going to be unconscious.”

The sound of the airplane taxiing across the water was growing louder. Sam and Wicky seemed to notice it for the first time; Sam was pointing toward the dock. Crow saw the nose of the plane come slowly into view. One pontoon nudged the dock, a door opened, and a man wearing a shiny black sport coat and gray pants jumped clumsily out onto the dock.

Crow said, “It can't be.”

“Who is it?” Debrowski asked. “It looks like—”

“It is,” Crow said.

Joey
was feeling extra good. He had started to think of himself as Joey the Avenger. The two Dex he'd popped just after they took off were doing sprints up and down his arteries, and the last few ounces of Martell, swallowed only minutes ago, had him running smooth as a new Seville. The fact that he hadn't slept all night did not bother him, though he supposed it would later. Right now he had business to take care of, old business, and it was gonna feel good. The comic book guys had been niggling at him for months; now it was payback time. He hoped that Freddy hadn't finished with them yet. He wanted a chance to explain it to them, to watch them regret their sins.

“You stay here,” he shouted into the cockpit.

Karl nodded and shut down the engines.

Standing on the dock, brushing his sleeves, straightening his lapels, adjusting his sunglasses, Joey looked toward shore. Three men had come out to the base of the dock to greet him. Joey knew, almost before the particulars registered on his consciousness, that the men were drunk. That they were standing shoulder to shoulder was one clue. That they were rocking from side to side was another. The bottle dangling from the short, fat one's left hand was also a reliable indicator. Much to Joey's regret, none of them resembled either half of the Tom and Ben Show.

The short, fat one was the drunkest. He had greasy blond hair that was pushed carelessly to the side, protruding lips, and tiny pink-and- blue eyes. He was wearing a blue oxford shirt, a red-and-navy rep tie, and red suspenders. Two red patches floated high on his cheeks, making him look like a thirteen-year-old who had awakened in the body of a thirty-five-year-old alcoholic businessman.

The scrawny one, the old man, looked like all the water'd been sucked out of him. Skinny, wrinkly, wiry guy in a lumberjack shirt. He appeared happy. The third man seemed happy too, a big, bald- faced grinner in a sharp-looking green outfit.

“Hey, fella,” the old man yelled. “You sure you got the right dock?”

Joey looked past him. He could see the blue Eldorado convertible he had loaned to Freddy.

“This is the O'Gara place, right?” he said. “Which one a you guys is Rich Wicky?”

“Hey, I know that voice!” The one with the botde in his hand nudged the older one. “You know who this guy is?” He put out a hand. “Mister Cadillac? How d'you do? I'm Rich Wicky. Hey, nice plane!”

“Still no sign of Freddy or Ben,” Debrowski said.

“Wait here,” Crow said. He ran out and across the clearing, looked in the cabin's south window. Empty room. He circled to the screen door that led in through the porch, then slipped inside. The cabin was unoccupied by the living or the dead. He had half expected to find Ben Fink, or what was left of him. What he did find was an aged and rust-mottled shotgun, twelve-gauge pump, propped in a corner with a broom and two fishing rods. He looked out the window; the three men were walking back up the path from the dock. He pressed the thumb release and pulled on the pump, which moved back with a grinding grit-on-metal sound. There was a shell in the chamber, a paper-bodied number-eight shot that had to be twenty-five years old, at least. He forced the pump forward.

Sam was leading Wicky, Jimbo, and Joey Cadillac toward the truck, pointing, his arms performing whiskey-enhanced gesticulations. Crow went to the screen door and listened. Closer now, only thirty feet away, he could hear them. Sam was pointing toward Ben's mired car.

“…and they just took off through the woods there, one right after t'other. Prob'ly lost by now, but I wouldn't worry—they just keep on walkin', they'll come out someplace or another.” He cackled. “Else my dogs'll find 'em.”

Joey Cadillac did not appear to be amused. “What about the other one? Tom.”

“Well now, the only fellas I seen here today, 'cept for you fellas, was them two. Don't know no Tom.”

“We're supposed to meet him at the Pop Top over in Brainerd, Mister Cadillac,” Wicky said. “Later this afternoon.”

A series of distant howls floated through the trees.

Joey stared at the woods. “That fucking Freddy, off running with the animals.” He shook his head sadly. “So where are these comics everybody's so excited about?”

“I just bought 'em from Sam, here,” Wicky said. He pointed toward the truck. “All ready to go.”

“They ain't bought till the money's got,” Sam said. “You got that money we was talkin', Richie?”

“I'm good for it, Sam, you know I am.” Wicky threw an arm over Sam's shoulder.

“I know you are, Richie,” Sam said, “but business is business. Maybe Ben, he'll make it on back here. He's got this whole fuckin' bag full a money.”

Joey was watching them with a sour, amused expression. “I got a better idea. How about if you two start hauling them boxes down to the dock. I'll take them into, like, protective custody. You two get your deal figured out, then find me this Tom and Ben Show, and I'll give 'em back. How's that sound?”

Sam fitted a Pall Mall into his mouth. “That don't sound so good to me,” he said. “Them comics ain't a-goin' nowheres without I get me some fuckin' bazookas.”

Crow winced. Even at a moment such as this, he was embarrassed by what happened to Sam's speech when the old guy had had a few drinks. Sam was trying to light up, having trouble matching the flame of his lighter with the tip of the cigarette.

Joey said, “You want some bazookas? How about this bazooka, wise guy?” A small silver handgun appeared in his hand. It was pointing at Sam, pointing at a spot just above his ear, inches away.

Sam froze, staring at the gun, lips impaled by the unlit cigarette. Wicky took two unsteady steps back. Jimbo Bobick, a vacant, uncomprehending smile on his face, watched the other three men as though they were holograms: there but not there.

Joey snapped, “You just hold still now, Rich. Now do you boys want to help me get them boxes down to the dock?”

Crow took a deep breath and pushed through the screen door, holding the shotgun at his shoulder, lining up the bead with the center of Joey Cadillac's abdomen.

“Little Joey,” he said.

Joey's head swiveled. He started to bring the handgun around.