The Dead Caller from Chicago (9 page)

A dock appeared in the sleet, a barely visible spindly contraption that looked to have been built of scrap lumber by mumblers with dull hatchets. One hard bump would surely splinter it into kindling. Only thirty feet separated us now.

Yet Pine whistled on, at least for another few seconds, until at last he spun the wheel sharply to cut the boat's trajectory. Only then did he turn the spotlight toward the dock.

The boat barely grazed the thin posts as the lake heaved us up three feet higher than the dock. Two of the young men, no doubt veterans of earlier passages, jumped off with ropes. Faster than snake handlers, they looped the ropes around the spindly posts and pulled the pitching boat close to the dock, leaving slack for the roiling water. Jumping off would only be possible on the rise, and even then, mistiming it by even one second would mean tumbling into the lake and getting crushed between the hull and the rocks.

The other young workers had done it before. One by one, agile as cats on a fence, they jumped perfectly off the bucking boat.

Then there was only me, alone with the whistling, insane Arnie Pine. He'd turned his head to look at me, impatient, I supposed, for the two of us to be off. I took my hand off the scarred top rail. The boat rose. I jumped and fell more than landed on the slick dock. Strong hands seized my arms and legs before I could slide off and pulled me up. I staggered, steadying, and lunged to grab one of the spindly posts.

Two of the workers tossed the ropes back onto the
Rabbit,
and Arnie gunned the boat around. I heard him whistling, above the diesels and the shriek of the wind, as he disappeared into the darkness.

The young men started up the hill, single file, their heads bowed against the storm raging down on them. Lightning flashed, and a monstrous shape of peeling gray wood and dangling shutters appeared at the top of the hill. It was the old hotel, converted now to cheap rental rooms for young men who could find no better work.

I shivered in the rain, waiting, for I'd seen no houses. Another bolt of lightning tore through the sky, and in its brief glare I saw a string of cottages strung loosely along the bluff to my left. All looked to be perched on rock; no trees or lawns had found foothold around them. All were as dark as the old hotel. I wondered if I was alone on the island, except for the seasonals, trudging up the hill.

The granite was slick. I slipped and fell twice, hurrying up to the first cottage. Plywood, secured by wing nuts, covered the front windows. The house was still closed for the winter. I knocked anyway. There was no answer.

The second cottage was not boarded up, but no one responded there, either. An elderly man answered at the third place. I started to ask if he knew a Mrs. Wilson. He slammed the door. I would have, too, if a drenched stranger had come out of such a storm to bang on my door.

The windows of the fourth cottage were boarded over, like the first. I barely heard my fist on the door, for the rage of the water below.

No one answered. By now, my shivers had turned to shakes. I was soaked clear through, frozen colder than anything I'd felt on the boat.

Dark spots moved in a paper-thin ribbon of light that showed at the bottom of the door. Someone was home and had come to the other side of the door. I beat on it again, yelling, “It's Dek Elstrom, damn it. If you know me, let me in before I die.”

The door opened, and a high-powered handheld searchlight beam shot onto my face. I shut my eyes tight against the glare.

There was no shutting out the sound of a woman screaming.

 

Twelve

“Is he—?” she shrieked.

A cough began rumbling deep in my lungs. I doubled over, hugging my arms, unable to speak for the shakes, and the rumble.

“Do you know this man, Endora?” another woman called out from back in the cottage.

“Of course, of course,” Endora's voice shouted.

“Then stop blinding the poor bastard and let him in out of the rain,” the other woman said, her voice getting louder as she came closer.

I stepped inside, and someone, perhaps the other woman, slammed the door behind me.

The glaring light dropped away, and the world outside my eyelids darkened from bright orange to a soft red. I opened my eyes enough to see into the soft gloom of a room lit with stubs of candles stuck in ashtrays, furnished sparsely with straight-backed chairs, a braided rug, and a table made of pine planks. An ancient cast-iron stove stood in the corner, its door open, sending out heat and a little more light.

The woman standing beside Endora possessed her height, slimness, and beauty. The only real difference was her silver hair. That, and she was holding not a high-powered searchlight but rather a snub-nosed revolver, aimed at my chest.

“She knows me, Mrs. Wilson,” I managed, through manly chattering teeth. My eyes were wide open now. Behind me, the storm raged against the door.

The gun dropped, pointing at my crotch. It was small improvement.

“You're sure he's all right, Endora?” her mother asked. The gun moved restlessly in her hand, as though anxious for explosion.

“Of course, of course,” Endora said again, almost inaudibly. She wore faded jeans and a man's flannel shirt and stood stock-still, staring down at the big-lensed searchlight in her hand, unwilling to look at my face.

“Leo's not here?” I asked.

She raised her head slowly. “He's not dead?” she asked softly.

“Leo? Dead?” I said, confused, too.

She shook her head. “I thought that's what you came to say.”

Theodea Wilson put the revolver into a leather holster clipped to her belt. “This man knows nothing, Endora. That's good news.”

She motioned me to sit in a ladder-back chair directly in front of the wood-burning stove. “You may shed your wet pants if you'd like, whatever your name is.”

“Dek Elstrom, Mother,” Endora said, her voice a little more alive.

“That oddball friend of Leo's who lives in a castle?”

“A mere part of one,” I said, taking off my two coats. Incredibly, the blue button-down shirt underneath was dry.

“A part of which?” Theodea asked. “Part oddball, or part castle?”

I remembered then that her neighbor back in Blenton told me Theodea Wilson was a teacher. Certainly she possessed her daughter's fast intellect, along with Attila the Hun's directness.

“Perhaps both,” I stammered through my still-chattering teeth. I went to stand by the stove.

It was then that I noticed Ma Brumsky. She sat in almost total darkness in the far corner of the room. I couldn't see her eyes. Her head was down. She'd not said a word since I came in.

Noticing me noticing Ma Brumsky, Endora said, “She's been like that since we got here. She's frightened and isn't saying much.” We sat, I in the chair by the stove, she across the table. “Tell me about Leo,” she said.

“I thought I'd find him here with you.”

Theodea handed me a water glass half full of whiskey. “This will work quicker than the stove.”

“You're sure you've brought no bad news?” Endora asked.

“I've brought no news at all. They're building a new house on Leo's block; he's disappeared, and you and Ma are on the run. What's going on?”

“Were you followed?” Theodea cut in.

A new wave of chills grabbed me. I leaned closer to the stove. “There was a man, back at the ferry ticket shack in Mackinaw City.” I took two long sips of the whiskey.

Theodea touched the handle of the gun at her belt. “You think he could have followed you here, to Eustace?”

“Not even Arnie Pine will venture out again in this storm.”

“Later?”

“No doubt.”

“How can you not know anything?” Endora asked, struggling to keep her voice steady. “You're Leo's best friend.”

“Leo told you nothing?”

“He was frightened. He said to take his father's old Ford because no one knew that car. He didn't want to know where we were going. He said he couldn't say more because it would endanger us.”

I looked over to the corner. Ma Brumsky sat passively. I couldn't tell if she was listening. I wondered if she was in shock.

I told them what little I knew, beginning with the phone call Leo received.

“You never thought to return Leo's call when you were in Iowa?” Endora's words came fast, clipped. Furious.

“It's like that with us—”

“Damn it, Dek. You could have returned his call.”

I lifted my glass of whiskey to hide behind another sip.

“And now you've led someone to us?” she added, her voice shaking.

“Endora!” her mother said.

Ma Brumsky stood up, grabbed an umbrella from a brass urn, and went toward the back of the tiny cottage. A second later, a door slammed.

“I'm sorry I put you in jeopardy” was all I could think to say.

Theodea Wilson shook her head and offered a half-smile. “No. Outhouse. She brought lots of little bottles of alcohol. And big bags of prunes.”

It cut the tension. Even Endora laughed, briefly. Then, “How do we help Leo?”

“I need to hear anything else you can remember.”

The wind blew hard. Endora looked over at the front door, as though someone were about to charge in. “Leo said we had to be careful, to make sure no one was following us. He said we were in danger. He said to stay away, until he called. I'm not using the phone, to save the battery—”

The door began banging in rapid succession, as though someone huge were pounding on it. Mrs. Wilson took a yellow slicker from a hook by the door, slipped it on, and stepped outside. She was back in less than a minute. “The wind's blowing forty, fifty miles an hour. The lake is white. Not even Arnie Pine would attempt the crossing now.”

“Leo said powerful people might try to get to us,” Endora said, turning to me.

“Why?”

“I told you I don't know!”

“He said nothing about something he'd been given, a long time ago?”

She shook her head.

“How about a Snark Evans?”

“Who?”

“It was a name he mentioned, during that phone call I overheard.”

“No; never.”

The plywood shuddered against the window as Mrs. Wilson hung her slicker on a peg by the door. “This is a cheap movie,” she said.

“
Key Largo,
” Endora said.

Her mother forced a laugh. “
Key Largo,
” she agreed. Her hand had strayed again to the handle of her revolver.

Ma Brumsky came in the back, a huge gust of wet wind slamming the door shut behind her. She eased out of her coat and took her place in her chair. She said nothing.

“You're sure: He told you nothing about where he'd be?” I asked Endora.

“Only that he'd be safe. He was angrier than I'd ever seen him. Angry, and frightened at the same time.”

We went over it all again, but Endora could offer nothing more. Leo had kept everything to himself.

Theodea heated canned stew on a tiny propane stove. When it was done, she and Endora and I ate it with pieces from a thin wheel of Swedish cracker bread suspended on a string from the ceiling, safe from mice. It was rustic. Through it all, Ma sat silent in the corner, seemingly unaware of anything. Again I wondered if she were in shock.

By now, every shutter was beating on the tiny cottage. We tried to talk above the clatter but finally gave up. Our ears wanted only to listen for sounds beneath the storm, of a man who shouldn't have been able to get to Eustace. We sat silent, Endora and her mother drinking whiskey, me drinking coffee, afraid of what Arnie Pine might bring, if the money was right and he drank dinner the way he drank lunch.

Several times, Theodea got up to open the front door. There was nothing to see except rain.

Then, an hour later, when the candles were low and the whiskey was gone, something crashed on the rocks below.

Theodea jumped up and hurried to put on her slicker. “Probably flotsam hitting the rocks,” she said, in an unnaturally high voice. She grabbed the big spotlight and opened the door.

Sounds of men yelling came in with the rain.

“What the hell?” she shouted down, above the drum of the storm.

I pulled on my sodden coats and followed her out. Down below, two high-powered flashlight beams were being aimed at the frothing water at the shore. Two men, one the elderly person who'd slammed the door on me, the other much younger, perhaps a seasonal worker, were standing on the rocks.

Arnie Pine's
Rabbit
lay at the edge of their pools of light, crashed up on the rocks. A huge hole had been torn in its hull.

“Get back inside,” I shouted to Theodea. “Lock the door, keep your gun in your hand. If someone tries to get in, and it's not me, shoot through the wood.”

She hurried back toward her cottage. She'd seen what was lying directly in the centers of the searchlight beams.

I worked my way down to the dock and stopped. I could see well enough, even from a distance.

Arnie Pine lay sprawled facedown on the rocks. His hat was gone; his light gray hair was matted back. The rain and the splash from the roiling lake hadn't completely washed away the spot of glistening red at the back of his head.

“Anyone in the boat?” I called to the two men.

The younger man shook his head.

“Got a radio?”

“An old ship-to-shore,” the old man shouted back. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.”

“Pray it works. Call the cops.”

He gave a contorted laugh, his face shiny with sleet. “You think they'll come out in this,” he yelled, “especially for a damned drunk fool?”

He was right. It would be hours before anyone could come and see it was a bullet, and not bad boating, that had dropped Arnie Pine. Pine had taken on a passenger who'd waved enough big bills to get him to go back out in the storm, a man who'd become menacing enough for Pine to run his boat aground to try to get away. A man who'd shot him in the head, to keep him from raising an alarm.