When Vinnie was done with his visit, he came up behind me and stood looking out over the edge. His hair was still wet and plastered to the side of his face.
“My sisters want me to move back here,” he said. “To the rez. They want me to take my mother’s house.”
“Are you going to?”
“I was just talking to my mother about it.” He nodded back toward the graveyard. “I told her I couldn’t. I told her I needed to stay in my cabin.”
“You built that place,” I said. “With your own hands.”
“Yes,” he said, pushing my shoulder. “Exactly. Right?”
He started to lose his balance then. I caught him and held him up straight until his head cleared.
“You do realize,” I said, “that tomorrow morning’s gonna be a little rough.”
“My first day back at work, too.”
“Ouch. Take the day off, eh?”
He shook his head. “No, I’ve been away long enough. I’ll get through it.”
I took him home then. He went to his cabin and I went to mine. I dried off and went to sleep and he tried to do the same.
A few brief hours of rest before Vinnie Red Sky LeBlanc began the longest day of his life.
CHAPTER FOUR
When I got up the next morning and went down to the Glasgow for breakfast, I didn’t see Vinnie’s truck parked outside his cabin. That was a surprise. I figured he’d be down for at least ten or twelve hours. You’re a younger man than I am, I said to him in my mind as I passed by, but you’re not that much younger. I know you wouldn’t lose your job at the casino if you slept in one morning, so you must have some kind of attendance streak going. Either that or you’re completely insane.
Jackie gave me two seconds after I walked in the door. Then he was all over me. “So what the hell happened last night?”
“What do you think happened? We drank a bottle of Jim Beam and talked about life.”
“An entire bottle?”
“Half a bottle, two-thirds, I don’t know. He’s the one who drank most of it. Did he stop in on his way to work?”
“He’s actually working today?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s his first day back. His truck is gone, so I just assumed…”
“And you had to go get him wrecked the night before. What’s the matter with you?”
“I didn’t get him wrecked, Jackie. He got himself wrecked. I just made sure I was the one driving.”
“Driving where? I thought you guys went back to your cabin.”
“We went up to Whitefish Point. You wouldn’t believe how warm the water was.”
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” he said, slapping down his bar towel. “You guys got drunk and went swimming? What are you, a couple of high-school kids?”
“I told you, I wasn’t drunk. And he’s the one who jumped in the water. I was just the lifeguard.”
“Madness,” he said. “Absolute madness. You should have your head examined.”
“Are you sure he didn’t stop in? Just for a quick bite or something?”
“I think I would have noticed him. Are you sure you even brought him back last night? He didn’t drown in the lake?”
“No, he did not drown in the lake. Now can you make me an omelet, please?”
“Unbelievable.” He picked up his towel just so he could throw it back down on the bar. “You’re a piece of work, you are.”
“He’ll be fine,” I said. “Although I’m sure he’ll be having a tough day. You better have a good hangover cure ready for him. You got some Bloody Mary mix?”
“You really are trying to kill him, aren’t you… You don’t give a man with a hangover a Bloody Mary. You give him gin with lemon and a little Tabasco sauce.”
“And you’re calling me crazy? That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’ll take care of him,” he said. “In fact, I don’t even want you in the building when he gets here. I think you’ve done quite enough damage to the poor man.”
We went on like that for another few minutes. My tried-and-true hangover cure versus his horrible mixture of death. I mean, anything that starts with gin. Just forget it. Then more about what a supposedly irresponsible friend I was in the first place.
I finally did get my omelet. I always do. But some mornings, I really have to earn it.
I had some renters leaving that morning, and with new renters coming in the next day, I wanted to make sure I had fresh supplies in the kitchens. That meant a drive to Sault Ste. Marie. “The Soo,” as the locals call it. It’s a good fifty miles away, but that’s nothing up here. People drive a hell of a lot farther just to get to a real grocery store.
I have this bad habit of driving insanely fast when I’m on the open road. It’s hard not to do when you see maybe one car every ten minutes. On top of that, every law enforcement official up here knows me by now. At least every Chippewa County deputy and every Michigan State Trooper who happens to be stationed up here. They know that I was a Detroit police officer for eight years. They know I took three bullets on the job, and that I still carry one in my chest, just behind my heart. It’s not like I told every cop personally, but word gets around. This guy got shot on the job, he’s still even got one slug in his chest, right next to his heart, and now he happens to drive a little bit over the speed limit once in a while. So if they happen to see a certain old F-150 truck coming down the road, they make a point of leaving me alone.
Reason enough right there never to buy a new vehicle. But lately I’d been trying to tone it down a little bit. Like maybe speed limit plus twenty, no matter where I was driving.
I thought about stopping in at the casino, just to see how Vinnie looked. But then I figured no, if the roles were reversed I wouldn’t want him coming into the place just to see what shade of green I was. So I kept driving down that straight empty road. That’s right about when the first county car came screaming toward me, going the opposite way. Lights flashing, siren on, the full treatment. About a minute later, a state car came down the same way, again with the lights and the siren. I was thinking an accident. More than one car if both the state and county were responding. I kept going.
When I hit the Soo I drove up the business spur to the hardware store. I bought a few more fans to put in the cabin bedrooms, even though I knew I’d wonder why I bothered the minute the weather went back to normal. Then to the grocery store for bottles of water. When I was on my way back to Paradise, another state car came ripping by me. Yet another cop going due west as fast as he could. I don’t know if I was starting to feel slightly anxious yet. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when it all started to turn, but this time I definitely thought it would be a good idea to stop in at the casino, just lay eyes on Vinnie one time.
So I cut north along the lakeshore and went through Brimley to the reservation, past that one little sign that lets you know you’re on sovereign land. I pulled in to the Bay Mills Casino lot. As always, there were plenty of cars there. I got out and walked inside, hearing the hollow sound of the slot machines as I made my way through the lobby to the casino itself, that huge stuffed moose looking out over my head as I passed beneath it.
I went back to the blackjack area and took a quick look around. I didn’t see Vinnie anywhere, but I knew the dealers rotated frequently. I poked around for a minute or two, checking out the restaurant at the back of the place, where Vinnie usually took his breaks. Still no sign of him.
Eventually, I went to one of the tables and waited for the dealer there to take a shuffle break.