Gun Lake (23 page)

She whisked back up to the table and stood, casually brushing back a lock of hair that had worked itself loose. That hair looked too good to belong to a waitress in a lake town in Michigan.

“Do you know what you’d like?” she asked.

Kurt noticed her nails. They looked recently done—or was the correct term
manicured?
Not colored, but glossed over. All evened out and looking smooth, healthy.

It’s been years, years since I’ve seen a hand that looked so absolutely perfect
.

“Yeah, I’ll get the—” and so she wouldn’t realize he’d been checking her out and thinking about her hands, he ordered the first thing his eyes fell on: “uh, fajita omelet.”

“What kind of toast?”

He moved his gaze from the coffee-stained menu to the waitress’s eyes.

“Dark,” was the word that came out of his mouth.

beauty

She looked puzzled, then asked if he meant wheat. He nodded, looking back down at the menu.

Then something astonishing happened, something that Kurt knew for a fact had not happened in years.

He felt his face blush.

I beat off Lopez with a shaft of wood and managed to live. I don’t blush. A guy like me is not allowed to blush
.

Sean’s cackling laughter sounded in his head. He could just hear what the guy would say. Sean wouldn’t even disparage Kurt or make fun of him. He’d encourage him in some sick way, and that was even worse.

The waitress left Kurt at his table and disappeared into the kitchen. For the first time, he studied the room. Lakeside Grill was actually a large log cabin. On the walls were various types of
miniature trains, planes, and automobiles. (Craig would like the reference to the movie of the same name, and would start another list.) There was a good-sized bar to the right of the entrance, in front of the kitchen. It looked clean enough, but with a tinge of rustic flavor for the tourist trade.

Not one person gave Kurt an odd look. That was good. Very good.

He sipped the coffee and looked at the two older men sitting at the table nearest him. Everything about them seemed stretched-out and elongated, like their ages. They talked in low, contemplative voices, not necessarily to make conversation but more to pass time. They had probably finished breakfast two hours ago and were just biding time before they either went golfing or went out on a boat to do more of this lethargic, laid-back dialogue.

Perhaps this was the end of the line for them, just as Stag-worth had been the end of the line for a lot of people Kurt knew. You retired and moved up to Gun Lake and came to places like this in the morning to talk about how good the fish were biting and how nice the weather was and how you’d be getting the sausage instead of the bacon this morning and how the ol’ bladder wasn’t holding out the way it used to.

Kurt and the rest of them had never had the option to choose this route, this end of the road. They didn’t get to sit back and relax and contemplate a life well lived—or even a basically good life with a handful of regrets. For them, the end of the road had been handed down in the form of a sentence—for most of them, a life sentence. Sure, it was nice to imagine starting over again. Making small talk with the dark beauty who had refilled his coffee and actually smiled—even if it was a haunting, sad smile. That’s what Kurt realized now that she was away from him and his head was clearer. Something lurked underneath that head-turning splendor that he certainly didn’t deserve to notice. Something …
something
was all he could come up with in his mind.

Another life would certainly be nice. And he could banter all he wanted to with Craig. Or be full of high hopes from listening to Sean. Or start listening to Ossie’s earnest but gentle God talk.

But in the end it didn’t matter. That’s what he was beginning to realize. He was at the end of his road and nothing could change that. And if this turned out to be his last meal, that would be fine with him. Just being able to be in her presence was more than he had expected. Certainly more than he deserved.

His food came, and when the woman brought his check and asked if he needed anything else, Kurt shook his head without looking up at her and then lied by saying he was fine.

“HOW’RE YOU GUYS DOING up there?”

“Better,” Michelle said into the phone. “At least he’s coming home at a normal hour at night.”

“Where is he now?” Ted asked her.

“On the Jet Ski. He loves it. Takes it out several times a day. I’ve been having to get gas for it every day.”

“Sounds like fun, actually. We might have to think about getting a place up there.”

“Did you win the lottery?”

“Funny,” he said.

“But it is nice up here,” she said. “I’d like for you to be here.”

“Why do you think I’m working my tail off?”

“Why
are
you working your tail off?” she asked him. “You should take some time off. Pack up Lance and Ashley and come up here.”

“I might be able to come this weekend, or maybe the next.”

“I won’t believe it until I see it.”

“Be prepared,” he said in a silly, mock ominous tone.

“So, how’re the kids?” Michelle asked, changing the subject.

Ted began to talk about the latest developments in Ashley’s high-octane life. Their ten-year-old daughter was a first-class drama queen, and having Mom gone had allowed her to take things
up a notch with Dad. And of course it worked. Ted always crumbled when it came to his pride and joy, the spark in his life. Michelle listened to his animated tale with both amusement and melancholy, resisting the urge to tell him how to handle things.

Talking on the phone wasn’t like being there in person, and Michelle hoped that her husband and the rest of the family would make it up there. Soon. She didn’t tell him that she was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic, or running out of conversations to have with Jared, or sensing that all of this was for nothing. Would he do the same things when he got back to Chicago? When he went off to school?

“Hey,” Ted said into the phone.

“Yeah.”

“I know we get free long distance, but do you think we could actually talk when we get on the phone?”

“Sorry,” Michelle said, suddenly aware she had been silent.

“How’s Jared doing?” he asked. “How’s he really doing?”

“I honestly don’t know. Seems like we’re talking more, but I don’t know if anything is really getting through. I just wish I knew what I could say.”

“Sometimes you can’t say anything.”

“I know.”

“Just be there for him,” Ted said.

“Easy for you to say.”

“Hey—”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just—I can’t tell where this is going.”

“Give it time. You’ve only been there a few days.”

“But time for what?” Michelle asked her husband.

“Who knows? Maybe there’ll be something. Anything.”

“At least we’re talking,” she said to him again. “Sometimes we have a conversation and I suddenly remember those weeks on end when he hardly said anything.”

“He needs to grow up, get past this phase.”

“And just how long does this phase last?”

Ted chuckled into the phone. “I don’t know. Sometimes they never grow out of it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Don’t give up, all right?”

They talked for another twenty minutes, with Michelle listening about the prospects of Ted’s job and the various things he had planned for the next week. She wanted to care—she did care—but it wasn’t the same. She felt detached and oddly uninterested in what her husband had to say. She kept thinking of Jared and thinking of Ted’s comment.

Sometimes they never grow out of it
.

SEAN STOOD OUTSIDE the gas station next to the phone booth. He looked around and thought for a few minutes as he finished his cigarette.

Sometimes people thought men like Sean acted on their impulses, did whatever they felt like doing, and were therefore dangerous. But even when he first arrived at Stagworth, Sean had had a plan. He’d always had a plan.

He’d known from the beginning, for instance, that a guy like him—good-looking, well built but not huge in a Wes Owens sort of way, in the prime of his life—would be a walking target in a place like Stagworth. A guy like him needed to watch his back. He needed to show that nobody had better mess with him.

That’s why it only took him days before he assaulted an officer and got himself thrown into ad seg. The guys in Stagworth had initially thought of him as a cocky, pretty-boy type. After the assault, people wondered if he might have a few screws loose. And that’s the way Sean wanted it. Nobody wanted to mess with a guy like that. A guy who had enough guts to plant a homemade shank in your gut if you tried something. A guy who had nothing to lose and who’d do anything.

Eventually, of course, he’d proved that he wasn’t insane. He’d also proved he would do whatever it took to get what he wanted.

I’m a back-door man
.

The idea for escaping and going on this journey came late at night at Stagworth as his thoughts drifted away from early memories to the here and now. Sometimes those memories were so vivid he could smell them and taste them. Smell the mesquite and the dust and the seats in his dad’s car back in Texas. Taste the sweetness of the life he’d known a long time ago and still believed he could have again. He knew he could have it again. It didn’t have to be Texas. Or Michigan. Or anywhere in particular. It was more a matter of getting out, being a free man. And also, of course, about taking care of business. About righting a few wrongs.

Thus the idea came.

It was simple, really. And he first brought it up with Wes Owens, who said it sounded good enough. Wes wasn’t a rocket scientist and never would be. Some of his brain cells had probably bled out into all the ink on his arms and chest. But Wes was strong and loyal, a good guy to have on board.

Wes was the one who mentioned they should bring Kurt Wilson in on it, since Kurt was a decent guy and had privileges and could probably get things done. Kurt, of course, had nearly beaten to death one of the heavies at Stagworth, a guy named Lopez. And Sean had naturally taken notice of Kurt after the incident. He knew the guy had been protecting himself, waiting for the right time to make a stand—and boy, what a stand it had been. So Sean decided to observe Kurt for a while. And think about it. And eventually he asked him.

And so it went.

Altogether, there were five of them. Sean wondered if five might be pushing it, but each of them brought something to the table. Kurt, the role-model convict with privileges. Wes, the big bruiser. Craig, Kurt’s recommendation, the guy who could fix almost anything.

And Lonnie—well Lonnie, would do anything not to go back to the joint.

Lonnie Jones—a hard man to kill
.

And Sean Norton, the man with a plan.

Sean picked up the phone and decided it was time. He called for information and then got patched through to the number he needed.

“Hello?”

He held the receiver. Stopped breathing for a second. Waited.

“Hello?” the irritated voice said.

Sean didn’t move, didn’t speak. He still waited. He didn’t know himself what he might do or say.

The phone went dead and he continued to hold the receiver, even when the phone began to blare out the disconnection.

Sean hung up the phone. He couldn’t help the smile that spread over his face.

It’s begun
, he thought.

“NAME YOUR BEST all-time prison movie.”

Kurt let out a chuckle at this new challenge from Craig in the darkness. He felt a bit like he was back at grade school camp after lights out. He and his friends would stay up talking halfway through the night just because. Because they could. Because they had all sorts of ideas festering inside of them to talk about. Girls, gross things, sports, trouble, dirty jokes. Stuff that would either shock or amuse.

They’d turned off the lights in the cabin half an hour ago, but Craig was still going strong. They were in the living-room area of the cabin. Sean and Wes had the bedroom door shut, and Kurt could already hear Ossie’s haggard breathing deepen with sleep.

“What’s yours?” Kurt asked Craig, suddenly drawing a blank on any movie titles.

“I got a top five.”

“Why does that not surprise me?’

“Number five,” Craig said, sounding like they were talking across a bar table from each other, “is a toss-up between
Escape from Alcatraz
and
Birdman of Alcatraz.”

“So this is actually your top six?”

“No, man, my top five. You can only have five. Like they do in the Academy Awards. They only have five finalists.”

“But you have six.”

“Sometimes they give out two awards—you know, when two people tie for best actor.”

“Uh-huh,” Kurt said with a wide grin Craig couldn’t see. “But they still only nominate five.”

“Well, whatever. I’ve got six in my top five.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“Seen those movies?”

“Escape
was with Clint Eastwood, right?”

“Yeah. You didn’t see
Birdman?’

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Burt Lancaster. Great flick. Okay, my fourth is
Cool Hand Luke.”

“Great one,” Kurt said. “That could be my favorite.”

“This is my list.”

“So I can’t pick one from your list?”

“That’s copying.”

“I see.”

“Three is
The Great Escape.”

“Another excellent one. I’d pick that one too.”

“You’re supposed to come up with one yourself. That’s part of the game.”

“You ever read
The Count of Monte Cristo?”
Kurt asked, knowing the answer already.

“No. Books don’t count either.”

“They’ve made a couple of movies out of it.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen them.”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “This is loads of fun.”

“Yeah, I know. My second is
Tango and Cash.”

Kurt let out a laugh that seemed to stop Ossie’s light snoring for the moment.

“What’s so funny?” Craig asked.