The Kemp Marina is on the St. Marys River, not far from the Coast Guard station, east of the Soo Locks. There’s an old freighter docked on one side of the marina-you can walk through it and see how the seamen lived on it for months at a time. Then there’s the marina itself, where you’ll see just about every kind of private boat money can buy, from small sailboats to sport fishing boats, all the way up to the hundred-foot yachts. I stood at the front gate, asking myself two questions. First of all, why was I here? It had seemed to make some sense the night before. Now in the light of day I wasn’t so sure.
The second question was, how the hell would I find his boat? I walked down a couple of the docks. Some of the boats had a little sign with the owner’s name on it. Most didn’t. I finally went back to the shed by the front gate, hoping to find the harbor-master, or the dockmaster, or whatever you’d call the guy.
There was a woman in the shed, trying to type with two fingers on a manual typewriter and having a rough time of it. “Be with ya in a second, hon,” she said, as she hunted for the next key. “Two hundred dollars,” she finally said. “That’s how much it costs to fix a computer. Two hundred dollars. You’d think he’d spring for that, wouldn’t you?”
I listened to her say a few more things about the man who wouldn’t call the computer repairman. I hoped it was her husband, because some of the things she was saying you shouldn’t say about somebody you’re not married to. “Sorry about that, hon,” she said, finally looking up at me. “What can I do for ya?”
“I’m looking for Winston Vargas’s boat,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “Vargas, there’s a piece of work.”
“Do you know if he’s here right now? He told me to meet him at noon. I’m a little late.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t talk about him like that,” she said. “You must be a friend of his.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that.”
“Okay, then. Never mind. Anyway, let’s see. You go back out there, go to the last dock. He’s in the second-to-last slip on the right.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate it. I hope you get your computer fixed.”
“I’m not holding my breath,” she said, and then she went back to her typing.
I walked down to the last dock and then all the way down to the end. The sun was high in the sky and gleaming off the shiny metal trim on the boats. One man was sitting on a lawn chair on his deck, reading the paper. He looked up at me and nodded. The boat next to his was probably the biggest yacht in the marina. It looked like it probably slept twelve people quite comfortably. I couldn’t imagine what it cost.
Vargas’s boat wouldn’t be quite as big as this one, I thought, but I was betting on something pretty obscene. When I got to the second-to-last slip on the right, I was a little surprised at first. The boat couldn’t have been more than forty feet long. There was a cabin, but it probably slept three, maybe four people. Compared to some of the other boats here, it was downright modest. But then on second thought, it made sense. Those mega-yachts were probably slower than hell. Vargas’s boat had a long hull, and probably had twin diesel engines from the looks of the stern. This thing was built to go fast.
I didn’t see anybody on deck, but I didn’t want to just jump aboard. I remember somebody telling me once that a man’s boat was just as inviolate as his house, maybe more so. You don’t go on board without being asked.
“Ahoy!” I shouted. “Anybody home?”
The door to the cabin opened, and Vargas looked out. He looked even more bald in the light of day, if that’s possible. “Alex,” he said. “Come on aboard.”
It was a long step from the dock to the side of the boat. I felt a little zing in my groin muscles as I stretched for it, just another daily reminder that I was getting old. As soon as I stepped foot on the deck, the dog came running out of the cabin, barking at me like I was Satan himself.
“Miata, take it easy! It’s just Alex! You remember Alex!”
The dog danced around me like a bantamweight, moving side to side and looking for an opening. Vargas picked him up with one hand. “Sorry, Alex. He’s still a little high-strung since the other night.”
“That’s all right,” I said. Since the other night, my ass. That dog was born high-strung.
“Frankly, Alex, I’m a little surprised you came. I don’t imagine you had a very good experience at my poker party.”
“You didn’t have such a great time yourself,” I said. “I know it wasn’t your idea to get robbed.”
“No,” he said, rubbing the dog’s head. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“I guess I’m wondering why you invited me, though. I know I’m not your first choice for a lunch date.”
“There may be a thing or two I’d like to ask you about,” he said. “Just to get your opinion. But why don’t we head out first? It’s such a nice day for it. Do you fish much?”
“Once in a while,” I said. “Not as much as I’d like.”
“Perfect then,” he said. “We’ll catch a couple of whitefish.”
He put the dog back down on the deck, which set off another round of barking and carrying on. “Don’t make me put you inside, Miata. Just go lay down over there.”
The dog barked a few more times, but then finally backed away and sat down next to Vargas’s captain’s chair. He watched me as I sat down, ready to leap at my throat if I made any false moves.
“I had to bring the dog today,” he said. “My wife is out. Again.” He hung on the last word, shaking his head. I didn’t feel like asking him about it, or hearing anything about what was going on between his wife and the family lawyer. Or telling him what his wife had told me the night before, that she knew he had hired Leon to follow her. The whole scene was already uncomfortable enough, and I was beginning to regret it.
Vargas fired up the boat. I could feel the deck vibrating, the twin engines throbbing with so much power it was like sitting on a rocket. He stepped past me to untie a couple of lines, the dog barking again just on general principle. Then he sat back down in his captain’s chair and pulled the throttle back a notch. There was a furious churn behind the boat as he backed it and quartered, then he kicked it forward and we were on our way.
“You ever been through the locks before?” he said as we cruised down the St. Marys.
“No, that I haven’t done.”
“Sometimes you have to radio ahead,” he said, “but it looks like there are already a couple of boats lined up. It gets interesting when you’ve got a freighter in the lock at the same time. You feel like a very small fish in a tank with a whale.”
There were three pleasure boats waiting for the southern-most lock to open. Vargas fell in behind them. Almost immediately, the gates to the lock opened. Two giant steel doors, each one at least fifty feet across, swung open. The three boats ahead of us proceeded into the lock, and then Vargas joined them. I could see the viewing platform above us. With the water level down, it felt like we were at the bottom of a well.
A bell rang as the gates closed behind us. Slowly the boat began to rise, as the water from the other side was fed in from below. The gates on the far side were holding back the crushing weight of Lake Superior, which seemed at that moment like a ridiculous idea. A thin stream of water was leaking through the line where the two gates joined, like they would break open at any second. But of course they didn’t. Ten minutes later, the boats had risen the twenty-one feet, and the gates began to open. The people on the viewing platform were at eye level now. A few of them waved to us. The dog barked back at them.
Once we cleared the locks, we still had a couple of miles of river to negotiate, under the International Bridge. We went around the bend where the river narrowed, past the Shallows, O’Dell’s place prominent on the shoreline.
I could be in there right now, I thought, having a cold beer and watching a baseball game. Instead I’m on a boat with Vargas and his dog.
When we passed the last bend, we finally hit the open water of Whitefish Bay. The sun came out from behind a cloud and lit up the water, turning it a thousand shades of green and blue. Vargas pushed the throttle up and we were off, the bow rising as we gained speed, the cold spray lashing at our faces. He tried to say something to me, but his words were lost in the noise of the engines. The lake was as calm as it ever gets, but even so we started bouncing around on the deck. I grabbed onto the gunwale. The little dog was getting thrown around like a beanbag, until Vargas caught him in midair.
He really opened it up, pushing the boat to the limit and sending us screaming out into the heart of the bay. Any boats that were puttering around behind us were long gone. I imagine he was trying to impress me. I just held on and waited for him to slow down.
Finally he did, kicking it down to an idle and letting us drift. We were miles from shore now, so far out I could see only the barest outline of land on the horizon.
“Tell me the truth, Alex,” he said, wiping off his face. “Is this a boat or what?”
“You’ve got a boat here,” I said. “I’ll give you that one.”
“I’ve got some poles here, if you feel like catching some whitefish. Of course you can’t depend on catching your lunch, so I brought some sandwiches. And some cold beer.”
“I’ll pass on the fishing for now,” I said. “I was hoping you’d tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “But not on an empty stomach.” He pulled out a big cooler and opened it, set me up with a pastrami and Swiss on rye bread, and a cold Molson’s. It was American Molson’s, but it went down well enough as I sat there in the glare of the midday sun. It was all starting to feel a little surreal, with the bright light and the gentle rolling of the boat on the lake. I felt like I was being lulled to sleep.
Finally, Vargas broke the spell. “You have some problems with me, don’t you,” he said. “I picked up on that the other night, before everything else happened.”
“I’m sitting on your boat, eating your food and drinking your beer,” I said. “I’m not sure this is the right time to criticize you.”
“But I know you’ll give me an honest answer,” he said. “You’re a straight shooter.”
“Let’s just say I don’t agree with you on some things.”
“Like what?”
“We don’t have to go through them,” I said. “I know I’m not going to change your mind about anything.”
“Who says you won’t? Try me.”
“Look, the other night you were telling me how much you love it up here, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but it doesn’t seem to mean much to you if you can’t own it-if you can’t buy it just for yourself and maybe a few of your friends, rope it off and put a ‘No Trespassing’ sign at the gate.”
“Like Bay Harbor,” he said.
“Like Bay Harbor.”
He took a bite of his sandwich, and looked out at the lake. The dog watched him, waiting for some food to come his way.
“Even that stuff you collect,” I said, “up in that room of yours. Those things from the shipwrecks. The Indian artifacts. It’s not enough to just appreciate what they mean. You have to own them and put them in a glass case. In your own little room where nobody else can see them.”
“You seem to have a strong opinion about that.”
“Not strong enough to break into your house and destroy the whole room,” I said. “But yeah, it does bother me.”
“Like I said, I knew you were a straight shooter. I respect that. I happen to think you’ve got it all wrong. I don’t think you understand me at all. But that’s all right. That’s not why I brought you out here.”
“Are you gonna finally tell me why you did?”
“It’s simple,” he said. “I wanted to ask your opinion.”
“On what?”
“On what happened the other night. And who might be responsible.”
“I don’t see why you’re asking me,” I said. “And to go to all this trouble…Hell, I know it wasn’t fun getting robbed, Vargas, but if you only had five thousand dollars in the safe…”
“That’s the figure I gave the police.”
“Okay, so it was more. A lot more?”
He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me.
“Why would you want to keep a lot of money in your safe?” I said. “A guy like you, I figure you’d invest it in something. This way, you don’t even get any interest…”
“Yeah, no interest,” he said. “I also don’t have to give a big chunk of it to the IRS. Or to my first wife, for that matter. But let’s not talk about why I had money in my safe, or how much, or how it got there. I just want it back. I thought you might be able to help me.”
“You already have a man working for you.”
“Yes,” he said. “Your ex-partner, it turns out. Wasn’t that an interesting development.”
I didn’t say anything.
“But you’re the one with the experience,” he said. “You’re the one who wore a badge, down in Detroit. You’re the one with the bullet in your chest.” He looked down my chest, like everybody does when they happen to be talking about it. Someday I’ll get used to it.
“Look, Vargas…”
“Let me lay it out for you, Alex. Then you tell me what you think. That’s all I want. Then we’ll go back, I promise.”
“Lay it out.”
“Besides myself,” he said, “there were only five people in this world who knew about that safe. Not even my wife knew about it.”
“Come on, how could she not know?”
“I had the builder put that in. She hardly saw the place until it was done. Anyway, I’m at a poker game a couple of months ago. At O’Dell’s place, in the back room. Bennett was there, Jackie, Gill, Kenny, and Swanson. That was before I had any idea about Swanson and my wife, mind you. That was back when I still thought I was happily married. I had a few drinks that night. Too many, I suppose. I was losing a lot of money, and I said something stupid like maybe I had to go into my safe, to get some more cash.”
“That was it? That’s all you said?”
“All right, I may have said a little more. You know, I may have bragged about it a little. All the cash I had in my wall safe, and how my wife didn’t know about it. How she’d spend it all. Or something. Hell, I don’t even remember half of what I said.”
“So based on that…”
“Based on that, my first reaction to the other night is that it had to be Swanson. He knew it was poker night. He knew I’d be there to open the safe. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what you’d be thinking?”
“I only met Swanson once,” I said. “At Jackie’s place. We didn’t say more than ten words to each other. So I don’t know what to tell you.”
“But just based on the list of suspects, Alex, isn’t Swanson the name you’d come up with?”
“I know you can rule out Jackie,” I said. “And Bennett and Gill. I don’t know Kenny…”
“Assume it’s not Kenny,” he said. “Kenny’s got no reason to do this. No reason at all.”
“Okay, then that leaves Swanson. Assuming that nobody else knows about the safe.”
“Exactly,” he said. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
“That’s it? That’s the opinion you wanted from me? Just to agree with you on that?”
“That’s what I was thinking at first,” he said, “but now…Let’s say that certain things have caused me to see it another way.”
“Certain things. Like what?”
“Let’s talk about you for a minute,” he said.
“Why do you want to talk about me?”
“Leon had some interesting things to say about you. So did Roy.”
“By Roy, I take it you mean Chief Maven? What are you, best buddies or something?”
“Not at all. He’s just a good police chief trying to solve a crime. Naturally we talked about the other men who were at my house that night. He seemed quite…agitated when your name came up.”
“Why am I not surprised…”
“Leon paints a very positive picture of you,” he said. “Maven, maybe not so positive. But I put both pictures together and I see something very intriguing. A failed baseball player, a failed cop. A failure as a private investigator even, although naturally Leon didn’t come out and say that. He did say that he hasn’t spoken to you in a while, and that you seem to have changed. I’m thinking, with everything you’ve been through, all the hard knocks you’ve taken, what do you have to show for it? You’ve always done the right thing, stayed on the straight path, for what?”
“I don’t have a few million dollars like you do,” I said. “Is that what you’re getting at? Would it occur to you that I don’t care about that?”
“You’ve never committed a crime in your entire life,” he said, “but now maybe you’re in a state of mind where you’d be…a little more receptive to the idea of trying something.”
“I can’t believe this. You really think I did it.”
“No,” he said. “Not at all. I know you didn’t set this whole thing up. But maybe, just maybe, if some person…or persons…were to approach you with this idea of playing a key role in a takedown.”
“A takedown,” I said. “My God, you are completely insane.”
“You were the inside man, weren’t you? You’ve been around criminals, and around guns. You knew how something like this works, what bases had to be covered. You knew how to make sure it went smoothly. With you right there on the scene, how could it not? If anything unexpected happened, you’d be there to deal with it.”
“This is quite a yarn you’re spinning,” I said. “It’s downright entertaining.”
“At first, I’m thinking, why do it with all those other people there? Why not just catch me alone? Or just me and my wife? Then it hits me. This way is better. This way is actually a lot safer. If I was by myself, I might have tried something stupid. Figure what the hell, it’s just me here, I’m gonna try to disarm this guy, shoot it out. And if it was me and my wife…Somebody putting a gun to my wife’s head? Again, assuming that I didn’t know she was screwing Swanson behind my back and I still gave a fuck what happened to her? I’d be a madman. I could do anything. Try to take them all on at once.”
“I seem to recall you just about wetting your pants the other night,” I said. “But go ahead. I don’t want to ruin your fantasy.”
“With five guests in the house, five men who I feel some responsibility for, but not so much that I’m crazy about it, you knew I’d play along. No problem at all.”
“Okay, so if I was brought in as the inside man,” I said, “then who asked me? Whose idea was this, Vargas?”
“You know who we’re talking about.”
“Who? If it’s not Swanson and it’s not Kenny, who are we talking about? Jackie? Gill? Bennett? Hell, didn’t Bennett take a nice shot to the ribs trying to protect you?”
“That was just for effect,” he said. “He was acting. I know he wouldn’t have done it if it was for real.”
“Do these men know that you’ve foiled their grand plan?”
“No,” he said. “I thought I’d bring it to you first. If you can round up all the money and give it back to me, maybe I’d be willing to drop the whole thing.”
“That’s big of you.”
“Stop playing games with me,” he said. His face was red now. Hell, his whole head was red. “It’s bottom-line time. I could just as easily go back to shore with one less person on board. A tragic accident, and you on the bottom of the lake.” He stood up from his chair. The dog stood below him, right between his legs. Two against one.
“I assume you’ve got a gun,” I said.
“I don’t need a gun,” he said. “You know why?”
“Because you’re a total fucking moron?”
“You ever hear of Moo Duk Kwan?”
“Sure, with rice and an eggroll… It’s delicious.”
“It’s a Korean martial art,” he said. “I picked it up when I was stationed there.”
“Does it work on boats?”
“You’re about to find out,” he said. “Stand up.” He went into his pose, left hand down, right hand in a fist. He lifted his left leg slightly off the ground, no doubt ready to kick the living shit out of me. The dog stayed on all fours.
I didn’t get up. I figured that’s the last thing I wanted to do, get on my feet, put my dukes up, then get cut in half. If I keep sitting here, I thought, he’s not going to do anything yet. I didn’t think they taught him how to attack someone sitting in a deck chair.
“Stand up,” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m trying very hard not to laugh,” I said. Stay calm. Act like it’s all a big joke. Keep him off balance. I picked up my bottle of beer, took a hit off it. As I put it back in the little bottle holder on the gunwale, I glanced down at the little shelf that ran along the deck. Life jackets. A seat cushion. A fire extinguisher.
“McKnight, if you’re a man you’ll stand the hell up.” The dog picked up on the hostility in his master’s voice, started dancing around again and barking.
“You know what your problem is, Vargas?” I said. “Your problem is… Look out for the dog!”
He looked down. It was all I needed. I came out of the chair at him, and as he lashed out at me with a side kick, I dropped to the deck and swept his back ankle. Before he could get up, I grabbed the fire extinguisher and hit him in the head with it. I stood over him, ready to hit him again if I had to. The dog went absolutely rabid on me, jumping at me with fire in its little bug eyes, trying to tear my kneecaps off.
“You’re gonna be bait in about two seconds, dog. Get the hell out of my way.”
I grabbed some rope and tied Vargas’s hands behind his back. There was a big welt already rising on his forehead. For a sick moment I wondered if I had hit him too hard, but then he started to come to. I sat him up against the door to the cabin and took the captain’s chair, threw the throttle forward and nearly flipped the whole damned boat over. That got the dog going again. I had to kick him away a few times while I throttled it back to a reasonable speed and headed back to shore.
“What the fuck…” Vargas said, shaking his head. That welt was going to look terrible, I could tell. Not a good thing on a bald man.
“Hold on, Vargas,” I said. “We’re going home.”
“Goddamn it, I should have known you’d be a cheap-shot artist.”
“Vargas, you’re the one who brought me out here and threatened to leave me on the bottom of the lake. I figure that gives me the right to fight dirty.”
“You’re going to be very sorry about this,” he said.
I gave the steering wheel a quick turn, sending Vargas ass over tea-kettle.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “I’ve never driven a boat like this. Maybe you better just keep your mouth shut so you don’t distract me anymore.”
He worked himself back up and just sat there the rest of the way, staring at me like he was memorizing every detail. When I got back to the mouth of the St. Marys River, it occurred to me that I had no desire to take the boat all the way back to the marina, figuring out how to get into the locks, sitting there for ten minutes while all the people on the deck watched us, no doubt wondering why one of the men in the boat was tied up. As we rounded the bend, I saw the Shallows, and O’Dell’s place. It was a welcome sight.
There were a couple of docks right on the river. I picked the one closest to O’Dell’s and killed the engine, letting the boat drift into range. I threw one of the ropes over the post, and climbed out of the boat. The dog took one more shot at me, hanging on my shoelaces for a few seconds before I shook him free.
“You can’t just leave me here,” Vargas said.
“I didn’t tie your hands very tight,” I said. “You’ll work your way free. If you don’t, have your dog chew the ropes off, just like in the movies.”
“I gave you a chance, Alex. Just remember that. We could have settled this the right way. Everything that happens is on your head now.”
“Vargas, I don’t know where you came up with this idea, but-”
“I’ve got you nailed,” he said. He rocked himself forward, onto his knees. “All of you. And you, my friend, are about to find out what’s going to happen. In a big way.”
“So long, Vargas.” I left him there to work on his ropes. As I walked over to O’Dell’s place, his words rung in my head. He’s got us nailed, he says. What the hell could he be talking about?
Something started to come together in my head. A connection. I waved it off. I couldn’t imagine he really had something.
In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t imagine.