“You did act surprised that night,” I said, “when you saw me come in with Jackie.”
“Yeah, I was. But at that point, it was too late.”
“So now the pro from Canada thinks everybody has a big chunk of the money, and he’s getting ripped off. And of course I’m the mastermind.”
“He must have figured Sean was hiding most of it. Remember they were wearing those big plastic bags. You could hide a lot of money in there. I mean, that must be what he was thinking. So now he wants the rest of the money. All of it. Or what he thinks is all of it. I don’t know what I’m going to do, Alex.”
“Go to the police. Tell them everything that happened.”
“Then what happens to my son?”
“You should have thought about that before.”
“So he goes to jail. And I go to jail. And Blondie still thinks we stiffed him. What’s going to happen then, Alex? What’s going to happen to my wife?”
“Fuck, Bennett.” All the adrenaline I was riding on suddenly ran out. I was tired and sore, and I needed very much to eat some dinner and drink some beer and then go to sleep. When I woke up, maybe this would all have been a bad dream.
“You gotta help me, Alex.” He was looking down at the table.
“You think so?”
“You gotta.”
“You got your son to rip him off,” I said. “And you used your best friends for cover. Why should I help you now?”
“This wasn’t about the money, Alex. Not for me.”
“What are you talking about?”
He took a long breath and looked me in the eye. “Sean was in trouble. He had this debt, you see. These men he owed the money to, down in Cleveland…They owned him, Alex. I wanted to help him out. Is that so hard to believe? I wanted to help out my son.”
“So you told him to come rob the house,” I said. “At gunpoint. While we were all there.”
“No, that was sort of his idea. I just told him, I said, I know this guy with some money in his safe. A real son of a bitch who I happen to hate-somebody who could use a good sticking up anyway. Hell, maybe it would even make him move back to Bay Harbor, forget about building up here.”
“So he tells you to make sure we’re all there when it happens.”
“Yeah, he said it would go down better that way. If Vargas was alone, he’d think it was one of us behind it. With all of us there, it looks more like a random hit.”
“Because who, after all, would be so dumb or crazy to do it while we’re in the house…”
“Yeah, something like that.”
I sat there and thought about it. It didn’t get any more believable.
“There were no bullets in those guns,” he said. “Did you know that? At least, there weren’t supposed to be. Although, hell, I bet Blondie’s gun was loaded.”
“That’s even more stupid,” I said. “What if Vargas was armed? He could have drawn on your son.”
“I guess that was another part of me being there, to make sure everything went down the right way.”
“All right, now this business about giving Gill and Jackie that stuff…”
“That was part of the deal.”
“What deal?”
“With my son. I told him, you take this money and get yourself out of your situation, but you gotta do one thing for me. You gotta take this stuff and give it to my friends.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“You saw those things up there, Alex. He shouldn’t have them. They don’t belong to him.”
“So you told your son to take them.”
“Yes.”
“And give them to Gill and Jackie. Like Robin Hood.”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Gill told me those artifacts are worthless. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t. Hell, what can I say? They looked like they were important-you know, with all those Indian markings on them…”
“And that stupid cup, just because it had the Royal Navy flag on it…”
“That cup meant something to Jackie,” he said. “That much I know. You should know it, too.”
I threw my hands up.
“His father, Alex. You know about his father.”
“No, I don’t.”
“He never told you the story?”
“No.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Tell me.”
“Okay,” he said. He took a breath and settled into the story. “Jackie’s father was named Elias Connery. Eli for short. He came over here around 1939, just before the war. He was a deckhand on an ore freighter. You know how when the ships go through the locks, sometimes they’ll sit in Whitefish Bay for a while, waiting for the weather to clear? Back then, there used to be all these little boats that would come out to the freighters, and take the men to shore to go to the bars. The Coast Guard would be running all over the place, trying to round them up and send them back. Anyway, young Eli, he came ashore with a bunch of other guys and ended up right here at O’Dell’s. This is where he met Jackie’s mother. She was a barmaid here. In fact, this is where Jackie was conceived, right down the street at her house.”
“I thought he was born in Glasgow.”
“He was. Eli’s mother found the letter she wrote him, and made her come over. I guess she figured it was still safe, as long as she came over on an American ship, on account of them not being in the war yet. Eli had already enlisted in the Royal Navy by then. He was serving on a corvette, based out of Scapa Flow.”
“That was the emblem on the cup.”
“Yeah, that’s why I knew he’d want it. Especially with Eli going down right here in the lake.”
“What do you mean?”
“Alex, hasn’t Jackie told you anything about this?”
“No, Bennett. He hasn’t.”
“They all moved back here to Michigan when Jackie was twelve years old. There were a lot of jobs here after the war, especially for experienced seamen. A lot of men from Scotland came over to be skippers on tugboats. That’s what Eli did. He was a real character, Alex. He used to spend a lot of time here at the bar. I remember him saying that the lake was more dangerous than any ocean. It was just as deep in some parts, and other parts were shallow, with jagged rocks waiting to tear you apart. Anyway, that’s when I met Jackie. We got in a fight the first week he was here. After that, we were buddies. Fifty years now. He was the best man at my wedding, did you know that?”
“Yeah, that much I knew.”
“He was in love with my Margaret. Did he tell you that, too?”
“He might have hinted at it. But tell me about his father. You said he went down in the lake.”
“Yeah, in 1965. Last they heard from him, he had his boat out by the Devil’s Chair. They never found it, Alex. Not a trace.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re not telling me you think that cup belonged to Jackie’s father.”
“I told you, there were a lot of Scottish men on the lake back then. It could have been anybody’s. Hell, maybe it was his. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, Alex. Either way, I wanted Jackie to have it.”
“Did you ever think to ask Vargas for it?”
“I mentioned it once. He didn’t even say a word. He just gave me that little look with the eyebrow and his big fat bald head. He didn’t even bother to open his mouth and say ‘No.’ All the more reason to take it from him.”
“Yeah, he really had it coming.”
“That’s right, he did. Running his mouth off all the time, about what a big shot he is, how’s he’s gonna build these big houses all over the place. And all the money he’s got hidden away in that safe of his. Which he didn’t even have, turns out. Fuck him, Alex. That’s what I say. He deserved everything that happened.”
“And Jackie and Gill, they deserved to be arrested. And this old friend of your son’s, he deserved to get killed.”
“I told you, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Hell, this whole thing went wrong, from beginning to end. I told you, Sean even gave up his whole share of the money, trying to make this Blondie guy happy. He got nothing out of this, Alex. He got completely screwed here.”