North of Nowhere (18 page)

I didn’t have anything to say to him. I just stood there and watched the men as they soaked the remains of the cabin with a fine spray of water, back and forth, back and forth. The water hung in the air and collected on my face, but I didn’t wipe it off. I clenched my hands into fists, released them, and then clenched again, over and over.

“This thing went up fast, Mr. McKnight. Please don’t touch anything until the arson investigator gets here.”

“I won’t,” I said.

“We’ll be back tomorrow to make sure nothing’s smoking.”

“Okay.”

“We did the best we could.”

“I know. Thank you.”

When they were gone, it was just me and a pile of black rubble. The chimney was left standing, the chimney my father built with his hands, stone by stone. It stood alone in the clearing now, looking strangely out of place.

I don’t know how long I waited there, or what I was even waiting for. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t walk away.

Finally, I did. I took the truck back to my cabin, went inside, and sat down in a chair. I stared at the floor until the phone rang. I looked at the clock. It was 1:42 in the morning.

“McKnight,” the voice said.

“I’m going to kill you,” I said.

“Hold onto those dreams. It’ll keep you young.”

“I swear to you, Blondie. I’m going to kill you.”

“Yeah, we covered that. Have I made my point yet? You guys gonna come through for me or what?”

“There’s nothing to come through with, you stupid fuckhead. I had nothing to do with the robbery, first of all. And even if I did, there was thirty thousand in that safe, and nothing more.”

“I know who Vargas is,” he said. “I know what kind of scam he’s got going on. That’s the only reason I bought into this. What I get for working with amateurs, I guess. Never again, eh? When Seanie gave up his share, that was like the first clue, you know what I mean? He gave it up because he knew there was a lot more. Hell, he might have had it stashed right on his person, underneath that big bag he was wearing. Would’ve taken more balls than I thought he had, but hell, why not? Maybe he did. As soon as your other three friends ended up arrested, it all sort of came together, didn’t it. When I found out who
you
were, this mystery guest who wasn’t even supposed to be there in the first place, it all made sense. I know all about you, McKnight. I thought you acted pretty cool when I had that gun on your head. Now I know why. You knew what the score was that night. You were in on this from the beginning.”

“You got it all wrong, Blondie. Everything you said is totally wrong.”

“Right now, what I really need you to do is understand something, McKnight. You gotta know what you’re dealing with here, eh?”

“I know what you are, Blondie. Believe me, I’ve seen ’em a lot better. Torching a cabin, that’s really chickenshit stuff, you know that? Why don’t you come here and talk to me face to face?”

“Oh, we’ll do that one, McKnight. We’ll most definitely do that one, eh?”

“How about tonight? How about right now?”

“Patience, eh? You Americans, I swear. What you need to do is round up all the money and go to O’Dell’s place. I’ll call you there tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.”

“There is no money, Blondie. Simple as that. When are you gonna get that?”

“I’m thinking Vargas had at least a half million in that safe, McKnight. It might have been more. If it was, I’ll just have to trust you to come through with the rest of it. I know you’re an honorable man. You’re the one with the cool head, too, so I’d appreciate it if you did all the talking tomorrow. We’re gonna do this one out in the open. I mean real open, eh? I suggest you have a boat ready. I’ll be giving you some GPS coordinates for a position out on the lake. That’s where we’ll meet you.”

“I’m not going to be there, Blondie. It ain’t happening.”

“I think you will be, McKnight. I know you’re a lonely old man, with no family, nobody you really care about. Except maybe one person.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I got somebody here you should talk to.”

There was a brief silence on the line, and in that one horrible moment I knew who it would be, before he even spoke. He dropped the men off, then he came back by himself. If he had made it home, he would have called me by now. I was too far out of my head to notice that he hadn’t.

“Alex, it’s me.”

“Jackie. My God. Jackie…”

“I’m sorry, Alex. I’m sorry.”

I picked up Jonathan on my way to O’Dell’s place. He came down the back stairs rubbing his eyes. As soon as he saw me, he knew something was wrong. While he got dressed, I went back out to the parking lot and looked at Jackie’s car. The driver’s side door was still open, the dome light still on. A dozen moths were flying around inside. The night had turned cold.

I told him what I knew as I drove. He listened to me and didn’t say a word. Finally, when I was done, he said, “What are we gonna do?”

“We’re gonna get him back,” I said.

“How?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

When we got to O’Dell’s place, Gill was already there. He was sitting at a table with Bennett and Ham. Margaret was pouring him a cup of coffee. Together they looked like the most tired, most miserable four people in the world. It was almost three in the morning.

When we were all sitting down together, Margaret included, I repeated once again everything Blondie had told me on the phone.

“He wants us to meet him out on the open water?” Bennett said. “How crazy is this guy?”

“How did Jackie sound when you talked to him?” Gill said.

“As good as can be expected,” I said. “Although he didn’t say more than a few words.”

“Why aren’t we calling the police?” Jonathan said.

“We can’t call the police,” Bennett said.

“Why not?”

“They’ll kill him if we do,” Bennett said. “This is between him and us.”

“Fuck that,” Jonathan said. “I’m calling them right now.”

Ham and Bennett both stood up to stop him.

“All right, knock it off,” I said. “Jonathan, sit down. We’ll keep that as a possibility. Although I’m not even sure who we’d call at this point. We don’t know where this is gonna happen, whether it’s Canadian water or American.”

“Hell, the police will just fall all over themselves,” Bennett said. “And probably get Jackie killed. Look what they’ve done so far.”

“Everybody just relax,” I said. “Drink some more coffee. We’ve gotta think of something.”

“I can get some money together,” Bennett said. “But not that much on such short notice. We’re gonna have to tell him we don’t have it yet.”

“He’s not gonna buy that,” I said. “He thinks we have it already, remember?”

“I can get some money,” Gill said. “I can talk to some tribal members.”

“We shouldn’t be paying anybody anything,” Ham said. “We’ve got them outnumbered. All we need is a good plan.”

“Like what?” Jonathan said. “Let’s hear your plan.”

“I don’t have one yet,” Ham said. “I’m just saying…”

“I don’t think it matters if we have the money or not,” I said. “Either way, I don’t think they’re planning on doing this in the middle of the lake and then letting us leave.”

We all sat there for a while thinking about that one. It didn’t do much for the mood.

“Where’s your other son, anyway?” I finally said to Bennett. “Shouldn’t he be here?”

“Why should he be here?”

“He’s the one who put this thing together, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Bennett said, looking a little sick. “He was. The thing is…”

“What?”

“The thing is, I’ve been trying to get hold of him. He hasn’t been answering his phone.”

“You think somebody got to him?”

“I hope not,” he said. “I mean, I don’t think so. After a couple of days, I called some of his friends down there. I didn’t like what they were telling me.”

“What did they say?”

“He had money, Alex. All of a sudden, Sean’s walking around like he’s loaded. Sounds like he paid off some debts, celebrated a little. And then left.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Nobody knows. He quit his job, moved out of his apartment. He just disappeared.”

“So what are you telling me?”

“That maybe there
was
more money in that safe. That maybe he
did
hold out on his partners.”

“Oh, this is beautiful,” I said. “This is just great.”

“Either way, it doesn’t change anything. We’re in the same spot.”

“Only this way, it’s your son’s fault,” I said.

“He’s gone, Alex. Okay? He’s gone. There’s nothing I can do.”

Jonathan stood up like he was about to go over the table at him.

“Jonathan, take it easy,” I said. “Let’s take care of Jackie first. You can take this up with him later.” Jonathan may have been twenty years younger, but he was giving up six inches and fifty pounds, so I hoped he never did.

“I’ve got one good son,” Bennett said, putting his hand on Ham’s shoulder, “just like Jackie does. I should have stopped there, okay? I’m sorry for what Sean did. What else can I say? I’m sorry.”

“All right,” I said. “Just keep thinking.”

We sat there some more. We were getting nowhere fast. I got up and made the one phone call I had to make.

A half hour later, the door opened. It was bad enough I woke up Leon Prudell and asked him to come over here in the middle of the night—the reception when he arrived was downright hostile.

“What’s he doing here?” Bennett said. “Alex, you didn’t really call him, did you?”

“Good evening, everybody,” Leon said.

“Leon always has ideas,” I said. “I figured we could use some about now.”

“Come on, Alex,” Bennett said. “What can he do for us?”

“He got you guys arrested, didn’t he? He’s a man of many talents.”

“He works for Vargas,” Bennett said. “He can’t help us.”

“I got fired,” Leon said. “I’m a free agent.”

“Why’d you get fired?” Bennett said.

“He wanted Alex’s head on a platter. I refused to help him.”

That shut Bennett up, but he still didn’t look happy. Leon pulled up a chair, had a cup of coffee, and listened to me as I went over it one more time.

“This Blondie is a pro?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“He’d kill Jackie if he had to? And anybody else?”

“In a second.”

“Doing this on the open water. That’s a total sucker bet, you realize. He can dump anybody he wants to, right in the lake.”

“Yeah, I sort of figured that was his plan.”

“He’s holding all the cards here,” Leon said. “Somehow, we have to outmaneuver him.” He sounded like the Leon of old, and for once, on a night that was too cold for July, with Jackie tied up somewhere on the other side of the bridge, his voice was exactly what I needed to hear.

“So how do we do that?” I said.

“Do you have some paper? We’ve got to draw some diagrams.”

Ham got him some paper and a pen. Bennett still didn’t look happy, but he watched carefully as Leon started drawing.

“Okay, we know there’s two of them, right?” He drew two circles at the top of the page. “Any chance there’s more?”

“Could be,” I said. “But I’d bet on just the two.”

“Okay, so they have Jackie.” He drew a square under the two circles. “And there’s how many of us?” He counted out the five men in the room, giving Margaret a little smile as he skipped over her.

“I’m a part of this,” she said.

“You’re the home base,” he said.

“Like hell.”

“He’s right,” I said. “We’ll need somebody here.”

“If anything happens to that man…”

“We’re gonna get him back,” I said. “I promise.”

“Okay, five men,” Leon said. He drew five squares in the middle of the page. “And me.” He drew another square below the five. “And Margaret.” He drew another square below that. “We’ve got them outnumbered, seven to two.”

“They’re not gonna let all of us come out to give them the money,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll only want one or two of us.”

“The rest of us can hide in the boat,” Ham said. “We can surprise them.”

“That puts Jackie at risk,” Leon said. “You know they’ll have a gun to his head.”

Margaret covered her face with her hands. Bennett tried to touch her shoulder, but she shrugged him away.

“We need another way to bring our number advantage into play,” Leon said. “We need a second boat.”

“We’ll be on open water,” I said. “They’ll start shooting as soon as they see it.”

“That’s the problem. There’s no place to hide it.”

“What if we don’t even try?” I said.

“How do you mean?”

“What if we don’t try to hide the second boat?” Something was coming to me. On a normal night I wouldn’t have even said it. But this was not a normal night. “What was that thing you tried once? Where you made those hockey goons think they were surrounded?”

“The illusion of overwhelming force.”

“Yeah, that was it.”

“The illusion of what?” Bennett said.

“Overwhelming force,” Leon said.

“You mean like in Desert Storm?”

“No,” Leon said. “That wasn’t an illusion.”

“How does it work?”

“You have a boat, right?” Leon said.

“A friend down the road has a good boat,” Bennett said. “I’m sure he’ll let me use it.”

“Okay, so now we need one more. It has to be big and it has to be fast.”

“Where are we gonna get a boat like that?” Bennett said.

“I know the perfect boat,” I said. “What do you think, Leon?”

“What’s he gonna do?” Leon said. “He can’t fire me twice.”

Bennett went off to wake up his neighbor, to ask him if he could use his boat. Leon and I drove across town to the Kemp Marina. At four in the morning, the streets were deserted.

“You think the marina’s open?” he said.

“It’s gotta be. Some people live on their boats, right? You can’t just lock ’em in.”

“There has to be
some
sort of security.”

“We’ll think of something, right? You’ve got your lock picks with you?”

He patted his jacket pocket. “Don’t leave home without ’em.”

“You think you’ll be able to get his boat started?”

“We’ll find out.”

“Good enough.”

A minute passed, then he cleared his throat. “You think everybody’s up for this?” he said.

“I don’t know. They’re all a little trigger-happy. I got to see that firsthand.”

“There’s only a couple of ways this is going to end up, Alex. Whether it’s us or them, somebody won’t make it out alive.”

“You’ve got little kids, Leon. You helped us with the idea. You don’t need to be there on the water when it happens.”

“You need me to be there,” he said. “Jackie needs me. I’m the only man those guys wouldn’t recognize, right?”

I thought about it. “Yeah, you’re right. Blondie saw all four of us at Vargas’s house, and he saw Ham when he came to O’Dell’s bar.”

“Besides, I’m your partner.”

“Not anymore,” I said. “I’m the one who walked away from that.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t.”

I looked over at him. My partner, Leon, sitting there in the dim light of the dashboard. “You’re really showing me something,” I said. “Once again.”

“Let’s do this,” he said. “Here’s the marina.”

We turned into the parking lot. There were maybe a dozen cars. We pulled up next to the fence. The whole place was well lit, which made sense when you consider how much money was floating here.

“I don’t see anybody at the front gate,” he said.

“Let’s hope it’s open.”

We got out and approached the gate. When I pushed it, it swung right open.

“Piece of cake,” Leon said.

Then a voice behind us. “Gentlemen.” A man came out of the little dockmaster’s shack and caught up to us. “Can I help you?”

“We’re meeting Win Vargas at his boat,” I said. “We’re going fishing with him.”

“Any unaccompanied visitor between the hours of nine
P.M
. and seven
A.M
. needs to be on the list,” he said. “I don’t see anybody for Vargas.”

“Oh, he did it again,” I said. “Win is such an idiot. Can you believe that?”

“He’s such an idiot,” Leon said.

The man wasn’t buying it. He had a tight-ass ex-military air about him, the kind of man who did things by the book. “You are not on the list,” he said. “You’re gonna have to wait here until Mr. Vargas arrives to meet you. What time did he say he’d be here?”

I remembered something. When I was here before, to meet Vargas on his boat, I had spoken to a woman, who had some colorful things to say about her computer, and about the man who wouldn’t pay to have it fixed. I hoped this was that man.

“Oh, any minute now,” I said. “Hey, by the way, I spoke to your wife a few days ago. She mentioned you were having some trouble with your computer.”

“Yes? What about it?”

“My friend and I would be more than happy to take a look at it. You know how expensive repairs can be.” I wasn’t sure what we’d actually do with his computer—maybe Leon could monkey around with it. It was the only way I could think of to make some points with him.

“Too late, already had it fixed,” he said. “I appreciate it, though.”

“Next time,” I said. “You just give us a call.”

“I’ll do that,” he said. “Here, you can come wait inside until Vargas gets here.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “We’ll wait in the truck. Give us a chance to get our gear together.”

“I got some coffee in there, help wake you up. You especially, sir,” he said, eyeing my face, “you look like you could use a little something.”

“No, thanks anyway,” I said. “We’ll wait out here.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “Don’t blame me if you fall right asleep.”

We went back out to the truck and got in.

“Now what?” I said.

“There’s razor wire on top of this fence,” he said. “We’re not climbing it.”

“We could grease him,” I said. “What did you used to call it? Slipping him a Franklin?”

“I don’t think he’ll take it. He’s too straight.”

“We need that boat, Leon. What are we gonna do?”

“Let’s go try the Franklin,” he said. “If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to find a canoe or something. Come in from the river.”

We got out, went back to the front gate. “You got a hundred dollar bill, don’t you?” I said.

“No, I assumed you had one.”

“Ah, hell.” I took my wallet out and started counting twenties.

“Alex…”

“Sixty, eighty. I only have eighty.”

“Alex…”

“What?”

“Be quiet,” he whispered.

I looked up to see him standing next to the shack. He gestured to the small window. When I took a peek inside, I saw our man with his head down on the table.