Two in the afternoon. I was still alone. Four o’clock. Five. I ate again, whatever I could find in the cabin. Vinnie wasn’t there to bring me anything else. At six o’clock I started to think about when I should be on the road.
Six thirty. It was about time. I should get there early, I thought. Take a good look around the place. I gathered up my supplies. Leon’s Ruger in the right pocket of my jacket. The Taser in the left pocket. The backup pistol strapped to my ankle. I was ready.
Still no Vinnie. I should have been relieved that I wouldn’t have to fight my way past him, but all I could do was wonder what the hell he was up to.
I found out as soon as I got into my truck and tried to start it.
I didn’t even have to look under the hood. I knew what he had done.
“Son of a bitch,” I said as I got out. “You have got to be kidding me.”
I walked the quarter mile down to his cabin. His truck was parked out front. I went to his front door and opened it without knocking.
He was standing at his sink, filling up another plastic bag with ice. He didn’t say a word when I walked into the kitchen. He didn’t move.
“Why did you cut my battery cables?” I said.
“Same reason you cut mine.”
“I don’t have time for this. I need your truck.”
“You’re not getting it.”
“Vinnie, God damn it. Don’t even start this. I’m serious. Give me your keys.”
“You’re not driving my truck, Alex. If you have someplace to go, I’m taking you there.”
“You’re not coming with me. Give me your keys.”
“I’m coming with you,” he said. “Period.”
“Vinnie…” I closed my eyes for a moment, rubbed them, tried to think of the right words to say. Meanwhile, the time was slipping away from me. All day to wait and now I was suddenly racing the clock.
“You have to trust me,” I said. “I need to go somewhere, and I need to go there now. Alone. You have to give me your keys.”
“You think this has been easy? You think I like you fighting me every step of the way?”
“Vinnie…”
“No, let me finish. I’m trying to understand what you’re going through the last few days. I know it’s not exactly the same as what I had to deal with, but I think I’ve got the general idea. I’ve been trying to be your friend, Alex. Your blood brother. I’ve been trying to be there for you, just like you were for me. But instead of letting me help you, you’ve been sneaking away whenever I turn my back. You’ve been driving around, all over the place, looking for a way to get yourself killed. And now tonight…God knows what you’ve got planned. God knows. You really think I’m going to let you just drive off and do this by yourself?”
“You have to.”
“It’s not happening. I’m going with you, no matter what. You’d do exactly the same thing if the situation was reversed. You know that. Hell, you’ve done it.”
“This is different,” I said, sneaking a look at my watch.
“It’s not. It’s exactly the same.”
“Give me the keys.”
“No.”
“Where are they?”
I looked around the place, spotted his keychain on the counter.
“Don’t even try,” he said. “You’ll have to kill me to get them.”
He stood there, his hands at his sides. I knew I couldn’t take the keys from him. There was no way I could overpower him. And there was no way I could let him come with me. I’d want him on any other trip, but not this one.
Not if I honestly didn’t think I’d be coming back.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You don’t leave me any choice.”
I reached into my jacket pocket and took out the Taser. Before he knew what was happening, I did the unthinkable. I pulled the trigger. The front cap exploded with a dull pop as the two wires shot toward him. I didn’t have to do anything else. It was all automatic. The voltage was already moving as the wires hit his chest. Even after I dropped the Taser, the charge kept running through him for several seconds, doubling him up, putting him right on the floor like a tied-up calf in a rodeo.
I went to the counter and grabbed the keys. Then I bent down and put my hand on his head. He was trying to speak, trying to move.
“You’ll be okay in a couple of minutes,” I said. “It’s totally harmless. I promise.”
Cheap words from a man who’d do this to his best friend. I couldn’t quite believe I had just done this.
This is what you’ve come to, Alex. This is what losing Natalie has done to you.
I touched his head one more time. He stayed there on his kitchen floor as I walked past him. The Taser had released a spray of confetti all over the place. I knew each little piece of paper had a unique serial number printed on it. It was all part of the weapon’s design-incapacitate your man, but leave a trail of markers on the ground for full disclosure. In this case, I didn’t think it would be an issue.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him as I opened the door. My hands were shaking. “But it’s not your day to die.”
The sun was just starting to go down as I drove Vinnie’s truck out of Paradise, the lights from the Glasgow Inn in the rearview mirror. I took the same roads south, the same fifty miles, crossing the entire Upper Peninsula to Hessel, from the shores of one lake to another. I left the highway, drove down the peninsula to the summerhouse. My fourth time there now, and the road looked just as deserted.
I parked Vinnie’s truck at Gray’s house. I didn’t see any reason to hide it. I got out of the truck and walked up the driveway. The gun felt heavy in my jacket pocket. The small pistol strapped to my ankle brought back a sensory memory from long ago, the way the shin guards felt when I was working behind home plate.
It was almost eight o’clock now. I walked across the road and down the neighbor’s driveway. When I got to the house, I saw that everything was exactly as I had left it. The back-door window was still broken, the rock I had used to break it still there on the ground. The boathouse door in the same state. I looked through and saw the boat still sitting there, nose in. It was riding a lot higher in the water now that its cargo was resting on the bottom of Lake Huron.
I wonder how long I’ll have to wait, I thought. Hell, maybe Laraque is already here. Maybe he’s watching me right now.
I looked all around me. Behind me the empty canal. The backyard, two rows of trees on either side of me, the darkness under the branches growing with each passing minute. Ahead of me the house. The driveway. The whole place seemingly abandoned to the ghosts of summer.
He’ll be here, I said to myself. He has to be.
I stood there for a while. A half hour snuck by in the absolute silence. The sky got darker. Finally, I heard a vehicle up on the road. Two headlights appeared, turned onto the driveway, came closer, pointing right at me. I had to look away.
The vehicle stopped. The headlights turned off. My eyes took a moment to adjust, then I saw two figures, one on either side of the car. It was a red Jaguar, one of the new, smaller models with the round front grill. I heard the two doors shutting, almost at the same time. The two figures started walking down toward me. I stood my ground next to the boathouse.
I looked from one to the other as they got closer. The woman was on my left, the man on my right. He had been driving. They walked slowly, the woman stepping carefully on the uneven ground.
They were both dressed in black. The woman in a black raincoat, knee-high black boots, black stockings. A black bag hanging from her shoulder. The man in a long black trench coat, black leather shoes. He was wearing dark glasses, even now with the sun long gone.
They came closer.
“Alex,” the woman said. Her voice giving nothing away. No emotion at all.
“You’re Rhapsody,” I said. She was a lovely woman, no question about it. She had the killer eyes. The dark eyebrows. A model’s face, and yet something wasn’t quite right. There was a sharpness in her features that would have put me on edge, even under innocent circumstances.