“You’re an early bird, Jack.”
Everybody here called me by my first name. I was a boss who didn’t stand on ceremony. A lovable son of a bitch.
“Yeah, any business this morning?”
She got up and came over to her counter. Her University of Wisconsin sweatshirt was gray with red letters with the Bucky Badger mascot swaggering between its formidable contents.
“Hardly any,” she said, leaning an elbow. “Guy bought some cigarettes is all.”
“What did he look like?”
She shrugged. “Just a guy. Dark hair? Pointy features, kinda?”
I nodded. “Dressed how?”
“Overcoat, I guess. Gray? He asked when we opened for breakfast and I said late April. I don’t think that’s what he meant.”
“Probably not,” I said, and managed a little smile.
“He wanted to know where he could get breakfast and I told him Marv’s.”
That was a diner in Twin Lakes, not far from here.
“Gave him directions,” she went on with a shrug. “Said they’d be open. Six AM, they open.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Carrie.”
“Any problem, Jack?”
“No. Just a guest who left something in his room. Thought maybe I could catch up with him.”
“Well, if it’s important, he could be at Marv’s. I mean, he got directions.”
I smiled and nodded.
“Not important at all,” I said.
Marv’s, in nearby Twin Lakes, had an enviable view on Lake Mary. In summer, they always had a line down the block and nobody minded. But things right now were so slow, I had no trouble parking right out front — no Mercury station wagon taking up a space, either. I’d already checked the small parking lot in back, which had a few cars, but no fake woodie.
I just sat there in the Impala a while, wondering whether I should drive around looking for Simmons and his ride outside some other restaurant. But Marv’s was about it for Twin Lakes right now. There’d be more options if I drove the twenty miles to Lake Geneva, but was that the right move?
Shaking my head at this frustrating shit, I stepped out into surprising cold. Despite my bomber jacket, the morning chill cut through me like a knife. A sharp one. I hadn’t noticed the cold snap when I clipped across that parking lot earlier. I guess I’d been distracted by the thought of kill or be killed.
I went inside. This time of year, the locals hardly put a dent in Marv’s booths, tables and counter seating. The building had been a private home once upon a time, but the lower floor had been a diner and kitchen going back to the ’40s. The walls were cheap paneling with framed local sports pages, religious images, and Bears pics hanging crooked cheek to askew jowl. Big mounted shellacked fish hung here and there. That kind of thing never made me want to order the catch of the day.
I sat at the counter. A skinny waitress named Hazel, who had been here since the Depression, and still seemed pretty depressed, came over and squeezed out a smile. Her hair had never been blonde but still was.
“Usual, Jack?”
“Sure.” The kitchen sink omelet, ingredients varying day to day. “Put the order in and come back, would you, beautiful?”
“Anything for you, honey.”
Rumor had it she’d been through several husbands, all of whom had lived off her. You had to wonder about a guy content to live off a waitress. How could you respect a guy who couldn’t find a woman with a better-paying job?
She put my order in at the window — mustached Marv was doing the cooking himself, no help back there off-season — and then she brought me a Diet Coke. She knew I didn’t drink coffee. I sipped the pop while she lingered, to see what it was I wanted of her. Also, I was one of maybe half a dozen customers. All local, of course. So she didn’t have much else to do.
I asked, “Anybody in today you didn’t recognize?”
“Nope.”
“You sure? Guy about my size, my age, but not as good-looking?”
“We get those all the time, honey.”
“Kinda pointy nose. Pointy chin.”
She was shaking her head. “Nobody in here so far today that I had to bother askin’ what they want.”
“Regulars.”
“Regulars.” She leaned on the counter. Somewhere in that creped face hid pretty features that should have given her a better life. “You asking for any special reason, Jack?”
“No.” I figured I better keep the same story going. “Guest at the Inn left something in his room. Hoped to catch him. Our girl Carrie at the grocery said she recommended this place to him for breakfast.”
“Nice of her. The little colored girl, right?”
“Right.” She wasn’t that little, but right.
Hazel shrugged. “I never had any trouble with her.”
Nobody had, but people said things like that around here.
A bell dinged and she went to the window, then brought me my omelet. She seemed like maybe she’d keep lingering, so I smiled and nodded and carted my eggs and Diet Coke off to a corner table to think. No, to ruminate. That’s the word.
So Simmons had asked “the colored girl” where to get breakfast, got directions here, then hadn’t used them. Either that, or he didn’t like the looks of the place and drove on by.
But Marv’s looked clean enough from outside, and from within — if he’d stopped and stuck his head in — seemed no better nor worse than your usual eccentric local eatery. And the food smells were pleasant enough.
Whatever. He hadn’t stopped here.
But had he driven on past?
Had I scoped this out all wrong? Maybe we were talking about that rare specimen, the genuine, sure-enough, honest-to-God coincidence. Maybe Simmons was on his way to a job upstate that had nothing to do with me. Maybe he had just happened to stop at Wilma’s Welcome Inn to spend the night somewhere quiet and out-of-the-way.
Was it possible I wasn’t the target at all?
Simmons was certainly not acting like the backup half of a hit team. You don’t do one day’s surveillance and then split. Of course, Simmons might be working the active side, and had stayed a night at the Inn at the direction of the passive partner, to get a room with a view on the scene of the coming crime. That made some sense...
Not much, though. What I would have done — following a procedure I knew others in the trade plied — was check in with my partner and go over the intel he’d gathered. Do some final planning. Coordinate with my partner. Determine whether the passive half could split or needed to stick around and provide literal backup.
Possibly that was what Simmons was doing right now.
Making contact with his stakeout guy to put the finishing touches on my finish.
I finished the Diet Coke but left half the omelet behind, paid Hazel at the register and headed to Paradise Lake, not sure what my next move should be. Also not sure what Simmons and his nameless partner’s next moves might be.
Still in the Impala, I drove back to my A-frame. No car was parked along the lane, and the gravel apron in front of the deck revealed no guests, either. I sat for a moment in the car, my thoughts doing their best not to go too fast or too far. What were my options?
It was doubtful Simmons would be waiting inside. Either he had not come to my turf with me in mind, and had driven on to his real job, as opposed to the one I’d imagined for him; or he would wait till nightfall. Middle of the night, most likely. If I was the target, that meant somebody knew who and what I was, and you don’t confront a professional killer head on. You sneak up, you surprise, or...
...shoot him from a distance.
With all those empty cabins and cottages hugging the lake, a sniper finding a suitable position for some artistry with a high-powered rifle would be a fucking snap.