“Yes.”
“Good man. Are you ready to come get your friend?”
“Let me talk to him.”
“He’s tied up at the moment, Alex. You remember that gun I had stuck to your head at your little poker party? Your friend is getting the same treatment right now.”
“I swear to God, if anything happens to him…”
“If anything happens to him, it’ll be your fault, Alex. It’ll mean that something didn’t happen exactly as it was supposed to. Are we clear on that?”
“Tell us what to do.”
“That’s more like it. I want you and Bennett to meet us at a certain location on the lake. I’m going to give you the GPS coordinates. Are you ready?”
“Go ahead.”
He gave me the latitude and longitude in digital format. I wrote them down and showed them to Bennett.
“Bennett drives, and you carry the money, Alex. Nobody else is in the boat. We see anybody else, Jackie’s dead. We see a gun, we see somebody’s hand on a radio, we see a fucking seagull that looks suspicious, Jackie takes one in the temple. Are we clear on that one, too?”
Bennett held up a map of the lake and pointed to the general area. It was well past Whitefish Bay, into the heart of the lake.
“This position is almost a hundred and fifty miles away,” I said. “You know we can’t take a small craft out there. The weather can change in a second.”
“The weather is the least of your problems, my friend. We’ll see you there at noon.”
“At noon,” I said.
Bennett threw up his hands.
“We need more time,” I said. “I don’t think this boat can go that fast.”
“Let me put it to you this way, Alex. We’ll be there at noon. If you’re not there, Jackie’s going for a little swim.”
He hung up.
“Let’s go,” I said. “We’ve got a little less than four hours.”
We all piled out the back door. I told Margaret I’d call her on my cell phone as soon as we got back into range. “If you don’t hear from us by four o’clock,” I said, “call the police.”
Bennett and I got into the boat he had borrowed. Vargas drove the other boat, with Leon, Ham, Jonathan, and Gill aboard. The idea was they’d hang back about three or four miles behind us, and then catch up after we’d made contact.
“Wait, you need this,” Leon said, as he set a television monitor on the chair next to Bennett’s captain’s chair. He plugged it into the cigarette lighter.
“What’s this?” Bennett said.
“My wristwatch video camera,” he said. “Alex is going to put it on and keep it pointed at them. They’ll get to see themselves on the screen.”
“I don’t get it. What’s that going to do?”
“Just wait ‘til Alex tells them Mr. Isabella is watching them on a live feed. That should put the fear of God in them.”
Bennett watched me put the watch on. “There’s an actual camera in there?”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get going.”
Leon went back to the other boat, and then we all headed down the river and into the bay. Bennett pushed the throttle all the way forward. We were doing about thirty-five knots. The sun was finally starting to burn off the morning fog.
“Do you have enough gas?” I said. I had to yell over the din of the motor.
“I hope so!”
I thought about asking him why he hadn’t thought of that before. I let it go.
“This is all my fault!” he yelled.
“Don’t worry about it now!”
“I thought that money could do some good for my son! Like money could ever be good for anybody!”
I nodded my head.
“Money is bad, Alex! It’s that simple!”
“Okay, Bennett!”
“I hate it!”
“Just drive the boat!”
He frowned and shook his head. I looked behind us. Even with the heavy cargo, Vargas’s boat was having no problem keeping up with us.
Oh hell, the cargo, I thought. You should have had him take all that stuff out of the cabin, get a little extra speed. You gotta think, Alex. You gotta keep your head on straight. Jackie needs you.
It took us a good two hours to clear Whitefish Point. The sun came out and warmed our backs as we rode the waves. A freighter went by us, heading the opposite way, toward the locks. The sound of the motor, the constant rise and fall of the deck, the spray in our faces-it all became mind-numbing, almost hypnotic. I looked at the GPS read-out on the console. We were approaching 47 degrees north, and 85 degrees west. The coordinates were still more than an hour away.
This was the biggest lake in the world, over thirty thousand square miles of open water, bigger than a few states. It all made terrible sense, why Blondie would bring us out here. Nobody would see us. There was no law out here, no consequences. And the lake was deep enough to hide a dead man. Or two dead men. Or three. You just dump them overboard and they disappear forever.
As we passed the 47th parallel, Vargas started to hang back further and further behind us. Soon his boat was no more than a speck on the horizon.
“We’re almost there!” Bennett said, looking at the GPS.
I picked up the binoculars and looked ahead of us.
There. I saw the boat. It was too far away to see any details, but it was there. Time to get ready.
I took my revolver out and put it on the shelf behind the gunwale. It would be easier to get to that way. I looked in the binoculars again. It was a big boat, about the same size as Vargas’s. It looked like it was pointed away from us. I could make out one man standing at the back rail, and it looked like he was holding a serious weapon-some sort of assault weapon, no doubt. A real one.
I untied the anchor from its rope and tied it onto the handle of the money bag.
“What are you doing?” Bennett yelled.
“They’re gonna shoot us as soon as we’re in range!” I said. “Unless I give them a reason not to!”
We got closer. Bennett throttled down to half speed. The man at the back rail was watching us through his own pair of binoculars. It was Blondie’s brother. I couldn’t see Blondie yet. Or Jackie.
“Show time!” I said. I put Leon’s video watch on my left wrist, then turned it on. An image appeared on the monitor-first the sky, then the side of the boat. I grabbed the bag and the anchor.
My hands were shaking.
Chapter Twenty-two
I held the bag out over the rail, with the anchor on the outside. I wanted them to see it. I wanted them to know one simple fact right away-if they shot me, the money would end up taking a bath, in about five hundred feet of water.
I saw Blondie’s brother holding the gun in one hand now, and waving at me with the other. It looked like he was yelling something, but I couldn’t hear it over the sound of the motor.
“Bring it in easy,” I said to Bennett, without turning to look at him.
“Where’s Jackie?” he said. “I don’t see Jackie!”
“He’s gotta be there,” I said, mostly to myself. “Come on, Jackie. Where the hell are you?”
As we came closer, I could hear what Blondie’s brother was saying. “Get back from the rail! Move back or I’ll shoot!”
“Go right ahead!” I yelled back. “You shoot and this money goes right to the bottom of the lake!”
He looked over his right shoulder. There, in the shade of the awning, I could make out two men. As we came even closer, I could see Jackie standing in front of Blondie. Jackie had silver duct tape over his mouth, and his hands were behind his back.
“Get about twenty feet away,” I said to Bennett. “And move that monitor out here a little more.”
He moved the throttle down to just above an idle. Then with his foot he pushed the chair out into the middle of the deck.
“What is that thing?” Blondie said. I could see his pistol now, pointed at Jackie’s head. “Do you want to see your friend die right now?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. Blondie’s brother had his rifle pointed at my chest. I tried hard to ignore him. It wasn’t working.
“Take that anchor off the bag,” Blondie said. “You’ve got three seconds.”