The gun stayed where it was. “You so much as give me a paper cut, your friend here dies.”
“Yes, but he will die quickly. Whereas you …”
“How do I know you won’t kill me anyway?”
“I don’t need to,” Red Bear said. “If you don’t give me a reason to kill you, then I won’t.”
The man lowered the gun. Red Bear pulled it from his hand and brought it down on his head.
The man sank to his knees, struggled to rise, and Red Bear clouted him again. The man toppled and stayed down. Red Bear tossed the gun to Leon, slipped the rope off his shoulder and tied the man’s hands with a complicated knot.
Leon pulled at Kevin’s sleeve. “Come on.”
Kevin followed Leon through the doorway into the kitchen.
“Anybody home?” Leon yelled, then giggled. “I love this thing,” he said, waving the gun. “I could get used to this. Let’s do a circuit. I feel like making a withdrawal.”
They went from room to room, looking for the cash Red Bear had said would be there. The place had an unused look, definitely underfurnished. Kevin threw open a few closets, finding nothing.
Then Leon shouted from another room, “Found it!”
Leon was in a small bedroom, empty except for a narrow cot. He had already pulled the briefcase from the closet. It was the kind that had combination locks on the latches, but the Vikings hadn’t bothered to use them. He snapped them open, and then they were looking at the most cash either of them had ever seen, stacks of it bound in tight bundles.
“Oh, boy,” Kevin said. “Why do I have a desperate urge to pee?”
“‘Cause you’re wettin’ yourself, man. We’re rich.”
“Now maybe you believe in magic, hey?” Red Bear had come in behind them.
“I always did,” Leon said. “But now I’m a magic evangelist. I’m a magic missionary. I want to convert people to magic.”
“Back to the boat,” Red Bear said. “We don’t want to be here when the rest of the Vikings get back.”
When they were outside again, Red Bear slapped their biker hostage into partial consciousness. The man got to his knees, swayed and threw up. It took a while, and some prodding with the knife, to get him down to the dock.
Kevin didn’t like seeing so much of the knife. Nothing Red Bear had said before this adventure had prepared him for violence.
Toof started the motor as they stepped into the boat. He touched the briefcase as if it were a holy relic. “Are we on top, or what?”
“We’re on Mount Everest, man,” Leon said.
Red Bear pushed the groggy Rider, now reeking of vomit, on board. “Keep him below. Clean him up and put this over his mouth.” He tossed Leon a roll of duct tape. “But make sure he can breathe. I don’t want him to die on us.”
Leon shoved the biker down the steps ahead of him and disappeared below.
“What are we going to do with him?” Kevin said. A tumour of anxiety was growing in his belly.
“We’ll just hold him until this little transaction is over, then we’ll let him go.”
“The Riders will kill us, you realize. I mean, really kill us. Kanga disappeared from the face of the earth.”
Red Bear stepped so close to Kevin he could feel the heat from his face. The look in Red Bear’s eyes was so tender, Kevin was suddenly afraid he was going to be kissed.
“You don’t have to worry about anything any more, Kevin. I am looking after you now. And as you can see …” he gestured toward the shore, the sky, the lake, “… there are others looking after me. All you have to do is trust me.”
“I’m just scared, that’s all. We just ripped off a biker gang.”
“I understand. But don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you.”
Red Bear sat in the seat beside Toof, who had cast off. He put his face right up to Toof’s so that Toof drew back surprised. “Do you trust me?”
“Yeah, sure, I trust you,” Toof said. “’Course I trust you. You’re my Red Bear!”
Red Bear clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Good. Sit back and let me take the wheel.”
“Oh, come on. Lemme drive.”
“Another time.”
Toof looked disappointed but he got up and moved to the back of the boat.
Red Bear steered them toward the south side of the Manitous. The lights of Algonquin Bay brightened for a few minutes, then disappeared behind the black shoulders of the islands. The temperature had dropped, and Kevin hugged himself to keep warm. His arms were stippled with goosebumps.
After a while, Red Bear cut the motor and allowed the boat to drift, waves smacking the hull.
The buzz of a small airplane became audible. Kevin scanned the horizon, but all he could see were the outlines of moonlit clouds. The buzz grew louder. The plane dipped beneath the clouds, a four-seater at most. It came up behind them with a roar and then wafted down toward the water, wings see-sawing a little.
The pontoons skimmed the surface, then plowed up twin white furrows in the black water. Red Bear started the inboard and cruised up to the plane. There were numbers and letters on its side, but Kevin had no idea what they meant. It could be a local plane or it could be fresh in from Chicago or the Caribbean, for all he knew. The tiny door opened, and Kevin caught a glimpse of a face framed by shoulder-length dark hair, but not before he saw the shotgun.
“You Red Bear?”
“That’s me.”
“Show me your status card.”
“My what?”
“Your status card. Make it quick.”
Red Bear extracted the card from his wallet and handed it up. “Don’t take my word for anything,” he said. “You can check with Chief Whiteflint up at—”
“Up at Red Lake. Yeah, I already did that. He says you’re okay.”
“Just don’t ask me to speak any Ojibwa.”
“Doesn’t mean shit to me, either.”
There were some delicate manoeuvres while Red Bear and the man in the plane exchanged briefcases. Leon opened the new briefcase, revealing stacks of six-ounce Baggies filled with white powder.
“Test it,” Red Bear said.
Kevin pulled out one of the lower bags and poked a tiny hole in it. He took a deep breath and held it, trying to get his hands to stop shaking. He lifted a miniature heap of powder on the tip of his knife and dropped it on his tongue. The bitter taste of heroin filled his entire being. He opened up his “chemistry set” and tipped a speck of powder into a small flask. Then he broke an ampoule of clear liquid into it and swirled the mixture around for about thirty seconds. Traces of red and green appeared, then faded. He broke open a second ampoule, added it to the flask and swirled again for five seconds.
Red Bear aimed the beam of a large flashlight at the flask. The liquid had settled to one colour.
“Deep purple,” Kevin said. “We’re looking at something around eighty-percent purity. Virtually step-free.”
“You finished counting?” Red Bear called up to the plane.
The face reappeared in the window.
“I just got one question.”
“Go ahead,” Red Bear said.
“How’d you manage to take over the Viking Riders’ milk run?”
“We persuaded them that it was just better business to go along with us.”
“Uh-huh. And how’d you do that?”
“Magic,” Red Bear said.
A moment later, the plane took off, a shadow slipping across the moonlit clouds.
Red Bear piloted the boat across the bay and back to the private dock they had borrowed it from. Kevin had no idea if they had really borrowed it or if they had ripped off the boat as well as the money. Well, he supposed he could live with a rip-off, provided there was a little something in the spoon when you were done.
Red Bear got off the boat first. Then he turned to them and spread his hands like a priest giving a blessing. “Thank you, everyone. This little venture went like clockwork, and you will all be well paid. Tomorrow night we’ll have a major celebration. Really, you behaved like professionals, and I’m very proud of you all.”