A voice, from far away: “Alex.”
I came back. I was in the Glasgow Inn again, sitting in front of the fire.
“Welcome back to planet Earth,” Jackie said. “Do you want dinner or not?”
“I need the phone,” I said. “Can you bring it over here?”
“That’s why I have a cordless phone,” I heard him say as he left me. “So you don’t have to get out of your chair.”
When he brought the phone back to me, he set it down on the little table next to my chair and bowed. “Your highness,” he said.
“Thank you. Now go away.”
He shook his head and went back to the bar. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said aloud as I punched in the numbers. An officer answered.
“Is Chief Maven still there?” I said.
“He’s just about to leave,” the man said. “May I tell him who’s calling?”
“This is Alex McKnight,” I said.
I heard some muffled voices on the other end and then Maven’s said, “McKnight, what do you want?” he said.
“Chief Maven,” I said. “I just called to thank you again.”
“The hell you did,” he said. “State your business. I’m on my way home to dinner.”
“I want to talk to Agent Urbanic,” I said. “Can you have him call me?”
“What am I, your secretary now?”
“I figured you’d know how to reach him,” I said. “They don’t seem to be staying here in town anymore.”
“All right, all right,” he said. “I’ll have them call you. Let me guess, you’re at the Glasgow Inn.”
“Not Champagne,” I said. “I want to talk to Urbanic.”
I heard him muttering something to himself. “Is there anything else you want me to do, McKnight? Come out and shovel your driveway for you?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I have a plow. Oh, but while you’re having the DA drop charges, how about throwing out Vinnie’s assault charge?”
“That officer came back to work today,” he said. “He looks almost as bad as you do. Good night.”
“Good night, Chief,” I said, but he had already hung up.
The phone wasn’t lying on the table more than two minutes before it rang. “McKnight,” I said.
“This is Champagne.”
“I wanted to talk to your partner,” I said.
“You’ll talk to me.”
“That’s what you think,” I said, and hung up.
The phone rang again a minute later.
“This is Urbanic. What the hell’s going on?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” I said. “You seem like you might be half human.”
“So talk.”
“Tell me about Molinov.”
“Why do you want to know about Molinov?” he said.
“Because he took her. We have to find him.”
“Who’s ‘we,’ Mr. McKnight?”
“You, me. I don’t care. Damn it, Urbanic. If you could have seen how scared she was that night…”
“We’re working on it,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re looking for that stupid bag. I know how you guys operate.”
“The bag came from Molinov,” he said. “Find the bag and you find the man. Find the man and you find Dorothy. At least according to you. Am I right?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Just.” I hesitated. “What’s your first name? I don’t want to keep calling you Agent Urbanic.”
“My name is John.”
“Okay, John. John Urbanic. Is that German?”
“Polish,” he said.
“John, you gotta tell me what’s going on. Who is this Molinov guy?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. I sat there listening to the silence, watching the fire. “We don’t know that much about him,” he finally said. “The name is Russian, that much is obvious. Whether it’s his real name or not, we don’t know. Nobody has ever seen him, not in America anyway.”
“Bruckman said he saw him,” I said. “He said he stole the bag from him in New Jersey.”
“We heard that much,” he said. “We’ve been trying to catch up with Bruckman for about two months. We were about to put a move on him last week, but we weren’t sure where the bag was.”
“The football,” I said.
“That’s my partner talking,” he said. “He likes code words.”
“What’s in the bag?”
“It’s methcathinone,” he said. “It’s a synthetic stimulant, similar to methamphetamine.”
“Speed,” I said.
“It’s like speed,” he said. “Maybe a little worse. They call it ‘cat,’ or ‘wild cat’ if it’s got a little crack mixed in. It’s got the same energy boost on the way up, but sometimes it’s a hard ride down. Paranoia, hallucinations. Seizures, even.”
“So that powder they put in my truck,” I said. “That wasn’t from the bag?”
“No,” he said. “That was good old-fashioned cocaine. Not even good cocaine. I guess they didn’t want to waste any of the good stuff just to set you up.”
“If she took the bag, they must be running pretty low on this, wait a minute, did you say they call this stuff ‘wild cat’? Like the cat’s in the bag?”
“It sounds cute, I know, but believe me, this stuff is a killer. It’s been tearing up Russia for years.”
“It comes from Russia,” I said. “So Molinov…”
“Yes,” he said. “Whoever he is, it looks like he’s testing out the market, see if he can start a little import business.”
“And these two guys who work for him,” I said. “Pearl and Roman? What kind of names are those?”
“You got me,” he said. “They don’t sound like nice guys.”
“What was she doing?” I said. “Why did she take the bag? She should have just run away.”
“We’d like to talk to her about that,” he said. “We know she came to you on Friday night. On Saturday, we had no Bruckman, no Dorothy. Only Alex McKnight. You can see why we were interested in you.”
“I suppose so,” I said. “I was your only lead.”
“I’m sorry it… well, it didn’t turn out to be a very pleasant experience for you.”
“John, you’re moving up from half human to almost human here. Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because you had nothing to do with it,” he said. “I could see that as soon as we questioned you.”
“You should do something about your partner,” I said. “Make him shut up while you do all the talking.”
“He’s better with the guilty ones,” he said. “And believe me, they’re almost always guilty.”
“John, you’ve got no idea where this Molinov guy is now? Or these guys who work for him?”
“No idea,” he said. “But if they got the bag back, you gotta figure they’re not sticking around.”
“And if he has Dorothy?”
Another pause. An awful silence before he said what I already knew. “If they got to her, then I don’t like her chances.”
I squeezed the phone. There was not a word I could think of saying.
“Alex, are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“We’ve got the Mounties looking for Bruckman. If we find him, we’ll try to trace Molinov back to New Jersey or wherever the hell he is right now. You’ve had no involvement in this from the beginning, right?”
I said nothing.
“Alex?”
“Right,” I said.
“Okay, so now it’s time to let us do whatever we can do. Just let it go, Alex.”
“Let it go,” I said.
“Stay home and stay warm,” he said. “If we find out anything, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, if my partner sees you again, I think he’s going to kill us both. I can’t imagine what he’s going to say when he finds out I told you all this.”
“You mean he’s not right there, listening in?”
“No, I made him wait in the next room. I think I hear him tearing the drapes down.”
“Send me the bill,” I said.
“Take care of yourself, Alex.”
I thanked him and hung up.
Let it go, he said.
I picked the phone back up and dialed Leon’s number.
“He’s Russian,” I said.
“We figured that,” he said. “From the name.”
“Now we know for sure. He’s from Russia.” I told him everything Urbanic had told me, and then I gave him the punch line. “Any ideas on how we can find him?”
“Not that I know of, Alex. Not any way that the DEA couldn’t do a hundred times better.”
“No, I didn’t think so,” I said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you. You’ve got me thinking you can do miracles now. The way you found Bruckman’s place, and then the way you found Bruckman himself.”
“That was just common sense and hard work,” he said. “With Molinov we don’t even know where to begin. I thought you said this was over, anyway?”
“It is,” I said. “I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “If I think of something, I’ll call you.”
“Thanks, Leon.”
“Good night, partner.”
“Good night, Leon.”
I hung up the phone, put it back down again. Now there was nobody else to call, nothing else to do.
I stood up. From across the room Jackie expressed his amazement at the feat. Then he asked if he could have his phone back sometime that evening.
When I stepped outside, I regretted it instantly. I pulled my coat tighter around my body and went to my truck. I just couldn’t stand the idea of sitting in that place all night again. I didn’t feel like going back to the cabin. The renters were all gone, anyway. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
You’re going to drive yourself crazy, I thought. You’re going to keep thinking about this until you’re ready to kill yourself.
I got in the truck and drove. I didn’t even know where I was going. I just wanted to keep moving.
Let it go, he said. He actually said that.
Out of sheer habit, I drove east toward the Soo. Maybe I’ll go to the casino, I thought. See how much money I can lose playing blackjack. I’m already sitting on five empty rentals at the height of the season. Let’s see just how low I can go.
“There’s nothing you can do,” I said out loud. My voice sounded thin against the roar of the heater and the cold air whipping against the plastic window. “They’re gone. You can’t find them.”
When I thought it was Bruckman, at least I had a shot at him. I had reason to believe he was still around. I had a way to find him. Or Leon did, anyway. But Molinov. Pearl and Roman. The names were absurd even, like something out of a James Bond movie. What could I do with names like that? These men were ghosts to me. They were invisible monsters in the night.
“You can’t find them,” I told myself again. I was in the Soo now, driving north on 1-75 toward the International Bridge.
I seem to be driving to Canada, I thought. Why am I doing this? What am I going to do in Canada? Try to find Bruckman again? What will that get me?
I want to get back at him.
No, it’s not worth it.
Yes, I want to hit him again, with my hands this time. I want to feel the point of his chin against my right fist. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t brought her here.
It doesn’t matter. I won’t be able to find him, anyway. He won’t be at that bar. And besides, I don’t think I should go over that bridge again for a while. Not after what happened the last time.
I pulled off the freeway, just before the bridge. I took Easterday Avenue into the center of town, past the college. There was a hockey game going on at the arena. Alaska-Fairbanks was in town to face the hometown Lakers. What a long way to come to play hockey, in a place that’s just as cold as the one you left.
Hockey. Bruckman’s teammate. What was his name?
I kept driving. A right on Spruce, another right on Shunk Road. I was going south now, toward the other arena. The Big Bear, where we played our game. The first time I saw Bruckman.
What was his teammate’s name?
When we were in that bar, in the bathroom. Bruckman talking finally, with a gun pointed at his head. A teammate who lived in town, the one who was at the bar when Dorothy asked about me. He called Bruckman, left a message. Bruckman came home, saw the police cars, took off to Canada. Never got the message. He called the teammate back a couple days later, asked what the hell had happened. What did that guy say? He told Bruckman about Dorothy then, two days after she was kidnapped. So Bruckman couldn’t have taken her. But what else? “He was freaking out.” I heard Bruckman say the words again in my head. “Said he was getting fucking paranoid, like they were coming to get him.”
They. He said they were coming to get him. When Bruckman had told me that, I thought it was just something this guy would say because he was coming down off a high, with no more speed to take him back up. But maybe there was more to it. Maybe this guy knew where this stuff came from, and who was looking for it.
Gobi. His name is Gobi. Like the desert.
What the hell, I thought. I pulled into the parking lot. It looked like the Big Bear was having a busy league night. I went into the arena, stood against the glass and watched the game for a while. It was another “slow puck” league game, but this one seemed to have a real referee. Then I went back into the locker room. A dozen players were getting dressed for the next game. They were making a racket, so I had to shout. “Hey! Anybody here know a guy named Gobi?” The shouting made my ribs hurt.
The players stopped what they were doing and looked at me. There was one man who was sitting on the bench, lacing up his skates. “Don’t tell me Gobi did that to you,” he said.
“Did what?” I said.
“Destroyed your face. Gobi’s that little shit who plays with Bruckman, ain’t he?”
“He didn’t do this to me,” I said. If there’s one good thing about having bruises on your face and a bandage above your eye, it’s that you have no trouble passing for a hockey player. “I’m just looking for him.”
“I haven’t seen him since last week,” he said. “I think Bruckman’s team is out of the league.”
“Ain’t that a shame,” somebody else said.
“Do you know where he lives?” I said.
“Nah, no idea,” he said.
“Anybody else?” I said. Nobody did.
I went back out to the rink and sat in the stands, waiting for the game to end. When it did, the Zamboni came out and cleared the ice, then the teams I had just talked to came skating out. About ten minutes later, I figured more players would be in the locker room, suiting up for the next game. I was right. There were a dozen new faces in the room when I walked in.
“Anybody here know a player named Gobi?” I shouted again. I was already getting tired of this game. I couldn’t imagine how Leon had done this for hours on end.
“Who wants to know?” said one player.
“I do,” I said. “Why do you think I’m asking?”
“I might know him,” he said.
“Either you do or you don’t,” I said. “When you make up your mind, let me know. Anybody else know him?”
He stepped up to me. He was young, not more than twenty years old. There was a shine in his eyes like maybe he wasn’t always on the same planet as the rest of us. “I might know him,” he said, “if the price is right.”
“I just need to find Gobi,” I said. “It’s important. Can you help me or not?”
“For a hundred bucks I can.”
“What? Are you crazy?”
“There was a guy in here a few nights ago looking for somebody. He paid me a hundred bucks for the information.”.
“I’ll give you twenty,” I said.
“No way, man. The way I see it, this guy sort of set the market value at a hundred, you know what I mean?”
“Fifty bucks,” I said.
“He had hundred-dollar bills, man. He was flashing them around like they were nothing. It was my pleasure to help the man.”
“Thanks, Leon,” I said as I reached into my coat pocket. I took a hundred-dollar bill out of the envelope the renters had left me and handed it to him. “Where does he live?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But Eddie does. Hey Eddie!”
A teammate came hopping over, one foot in a skate.
“Eddie’s gonna need a hundred, too, man. He’s the one actually knows where Gobi lives.”
“Then why am I paying you?” I said.
“Finder’s fee,” he said.
“Finder’s fee,” I said. “This is great. How about the two of you just share that hundred?”
“I guess you don’t want to find Gobi too bad,” he said.
I pulled out another hundred and gave it to Eddie. “All right, that’s it. Now where does he live?”
“Whoa, who’s this dude?” Eddie said, peering at the bill.
“That’s Benjamin Franklin,” the first player said. “Don’t you know your presidents?”
“Where does he live?” I said.
“He lives in a little cabin,” Eddie said. “Just south of town. He had a party one time, invited like fifty people. You couldn’t get more than twenty people in that place. We were all outside standing around in the cold.”
“Where was I?” the first player said. “I didn’t get invited.”
“You were there, man,” Eddie said. “You were just too stoned to remember. That was the night Mike pissed on you.”
“Give me the address,” I said.
“Mike pissed on me? I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna fucking kill him.”
“The address,” I said.
“Shit, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that,” Eddie said.
“Eddie,” I said, trying very hard to control myself. “Will you please give me the address now?”
He gave me an address on Mackinac County Road.
“Thank you,” I said. “Have a nice game, boys.”
“Do you know what it’s like to wake up and have human urine all over you?”
I didn’t stick around to find out. I went back out to the truck, fired it up and took the business loop through the south end of town. The bank sign flashed the time, 9:28, and the temperature, an even zero. When I looked again in the rearview mirror it had gone down to one below.
I got off the loop near the state police barracks and went south down Mackinac Trail. I passed a small subdivision of houses and then it was just pine trees and the occasional driveway leading off into darkness. I watched the numbers on the mailboxes, counting them down until I found the one I was looking for. When I pulled into the driveway, I hit snow. There had to be at least two feet of it. I could see the driveway snaking through the trees, beyond the reach of my headlights. There were no tracks, no footprints. No sign of life.
I sat there and thought about it. The wind came and rocked the trees, sending down a fine white mist from the branches. He might use a snowmobile in the wintertime, I thought, instead of trying to keep this driveway clear. I knew of a few people who did the same thing in Paradise.
I backed up onto the road for a running start and then put the plow down. What the hell, I thought. I’ll do him a favor. I gunned it down the driveway and started pushing the snow off. It was heavy work on a narrow track. I had to be careful to keep the truck away from the trees. More than once I had to back my way up all the way to the road and take another run at it. A good fifteen minutes later, I broke through into the clearing and saw his house. It was dark.
I pushed the snow all the way up to the back of his car. I got out, leaving the truck running with the headlights on. As I walked past his car I saw that it was buried in snow so deep you could barely tell what color it was. I made my way through the snow to his cabin and knocked on the front door. As I stood there waiting for an answer, I gave the cabin a close look. Even in this light I could see that it was a cheap job. It would have made my old man sick to his stomach to see all the chinking somebody had packed in between the logs to keep the wind out.
I knocked again. No answer.
I stepped back and looked around the place. There were two windows on either side of the door, but they were small and set high off the ground. I walked all the way around the cabin, working hard to get through the snow. It was a simple rectangle, with two more high windows in the back and a big skylight.
“Now what?” I said to myself. “How bad do you want to know what’s inside this place?” I knew the answer right away. Bad enough to break in, but not bad enough to try to crawl through one of those windows.
I went back to the front door and leaned against it. It seemed solid. It’s hard to build a good cabin, I thought, but it’s easy to buy a good door. I had a set of lock picks, but they were back in my cabin. Plus I had no idea how to use them.
Leon. He could do it.
I went back to the truck, took off my gloves, picked up the cellular phone, and called him. “Leon,” I said, “I’m outside somebody’s cabin. He was a teammate of Bruckman. I think he might have had some connection to Molinov and his men. From what Bruckman told me, he might have at least known about them.”
“Sounds promising,” Leon said. “What’s your plan?”
“My plan is for you to come out here and pick the lock,” I said. “We might be able to find something useful. Phone numbers, addresses, who knows what.”
“That would be breaking and entering,” he said. “Unlawful trespassing.”
“Are you coming out here or not?” I said.
“I’m on my way,” he said. “Give me the address.”
I gave him the address. “Just look for the freshly plowed driveway,”. I said.
I put my gloves back on and held my hands down by the heater until they stopped hurting. Then I sat back and waited. I figured it would be a twenty-minute drive from Leon’s house in Rosedale. He was there in eighteen.
He pulled up in his little red car and jumped out. “You rang, partner?”
“Right this way,” I said. I led him to the front door.
“Nobody can see us,” he said, looking around the place. There was nothing but trees. “This is good.”
“Can you get in?”
“Let’s see,” he said. He went down on one knee and gave the doorknob a rattle. “Hold this flashlight.”
I took the flashlight from him and aimed the beam at the doorknob.
“The trick to picking any lock is applying the right degree of tension,” he said. “You do this by first choosing the correct size tension bar.”
“Leon, save the lesson for a warm day, okay? Just get the door open.”
“Such gratitude,” he said. He put a tension bar into the lock with one hand, and then with a pick in the other hand he started to work at the tumblers. “It’s kinda tricky. It’s hard to get a good feel for it in this cold.” He blew on his hands and tried again. “Damn, I’m losing the feeling in my hands.”
“Are you gonna be able to do this?” I said.
“Have no fear,” he said. “I just have to warm my hands up. Let’s go sit in your truck for a minute.”
We went back to the truck. He held his hands down by the heater, rubbing them together. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s very good. Let’s go give it another shot.”
We went back out into the cold, back to the door. He went down on one knee again and set the tension bar, working more quickly this time. “I’m losing the back tumbler,” he said. “It won’t stay put by the time I get up to the front.” He worked at it for a few more minutes. In the faint light I could see him gritting his teeth. “Goddamn it all,” he said. “I’m losing my hands again. I almost had it! Let’s go back to the truck.”
We went back to the truck again. He warmed up his hands again. Then we got out of the truck and went back to the door.
“All right, this time I’m going to get it,” he said. He worked at the lock. I could hear the faint ticking of metal against metal until the sound was swallowed by a gust of wind. “Almost there,” he said. “I’m almost there.”
“Leon, this isn’t going to work,” I said. “Come back to the truck.”
“Wait,” he said. “Wait…” He worked at it. “Wait…” The pick fell from his hand. “Damn it! All right. Let me warm up my hands one more time.”
We went back to the truck. “Let’s go through the window,” I said.
“I can do this, Alex. Give me one more shot.”
I put the truck in gear. “I’ve got a better idea,” I said.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“I’m gonna pull the truck up to the front of the house,” I said. “We can climb up on the plow and go right in.” I pulled off the driveway and started plowing a path to one of the front windows. When I had pushed my way to within five feet of the cabin, my wheels started slipping. I slammed it in reverse and backed up to the driveway again.
“Alex,” he said, “be careful.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. I put the truck back in drive and started down the path to the window. I gave it a little extra this time, just enough to punch my way through the last few feet of snow.
I gave it too much. When I tried to hit the brake, my boot with all the snow on it slipped right off the pedal. I tried again and hit the gas pedal instead.
“Alex, look put!”
I slammed all twelve hundred pounds of snowplow into the side of the cabin. The wall caved in. The window frame hung from a corner for a second and then fell on top of the plow. Then the roof buckled, sending a full load of snow onto my windshield. We couldn’t see a thing.
Neither of us said anything for a long moment.
“Well, this is one other way of getting in,” I said.
“Alex,” Leon finally said. “Have you lost your mind?”
“I knew this was a cheap cabin,” I said.
He choked out a few words, unable to put a sentence together.
“Come on,” I said. “As long as we’re in.” I opened my door.
“As long as we’re… I cannot believe this.”
I stepped around the snowplow and into the cabin.
I stopped.
Leon came up behind me. “Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to us if…”
He stopped.
There was a body in the center of the room. On the floor.
Another body in a chair.
Blood.
Blood everywhere.
Old blood. Dried hard and black. The body on the floor spread out, face up. A man. What was left of the face. A man.
The body in the chair slumped over. Long hair. A woman.
Blood everywhere.
I couldn’t see the woman’s face. The hair hanging down to the floor like a final curtain.
Blood everywhere.
Leon swallowed hard next to me. “Sweet Jesus,” he said. “Let’s get out of here, Alex.”
I couldn’t move.
“Come on, Alex. Let’s go.” I felt his hands on my arm. “I said let’s go.”
I turned around and went back to the truck. I opened the door and got in. Leon was still outside the truck, wiping the snow off the windshield. When he finished and got in the truck, I turned the key in the ignition. There was a sudden grinding sound that went right through me.
“The truck is already running, Alex. Put it in reverse.”
I put it in reverse. As I pulled backwards, part of the wall came with it. In the beam of the headlights, we could both see into the cabin. The light hit the blood and somehow made it come alive again, a brilliant shimmering red.
“Nice and easy,” he said. He sounded calm. “Look where you’re going. Right back to the driveway.”
“I got it.”
“Keep going,” he said. “Straight back.”
“Okay, I got it.”
I moved back slowly, all the way back to his car. “Oh God,” he said when I had stopped. His calm was gone. He started to rock back and forth in the seat. “Holy God in heaven.”
“Take it easy,” I said. “Are you going to be all right?”
“God, did you see all that blood?”
“Yes,” I said. I was fighting it. I couldn’t let the blood overwhelm me.
“It looks like they’ve been dead for a couple of days,” he said. “At least a couple of days.”
“I wonder why nobody came looking for them?”
“We have to call the police,” he said.
“Hold on,” I said. “Think about it for a minute.”
“Think about what?” he said. “What’s there to think about?”
“Leon, think. What good is it going to do to have them come out here and see what we’ve done to this place? It’s not going to do them any good. Gobi, and… it was a woman, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “His wife maybe?”
“We’ll both go home,” I said. “And then I’ll call it in, anonymously.”
“I don’t know, Alex.”
“Think about it,” I said. “Play it in your head, both ways. Think about what happens in the end.”
He took a long breath and sniffled. “Let me call,” he said. “They might know your voice.”
I looked at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll call. I’ll wait about an hour after I get home.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Leon. I’m sorry I dragged you out here.”
“Don’t worry about it, partner.” He took one more breath and let it out. “Okay,” he said. “I’m good now.” He got out and went to his car. I followed him down the driveway, both of us backing our way down through the trees. He hit the road and went south. I went north.
When I was back on M-28, heading toward Paradise, I tried not to think about what I had seen. I couldn’t keep the image out of my head.
The waitress. Bruckman said something about Gobi working on the waitress from the Horns Inn. That’s who the woman was.
I pulled over, kicked the door open. I threw up all over the road, everything I had until I was heaving up nothing but air. I tried to breathe. So cold it hurt. I closed the door and kept going.
By the time I got to Strongs, I was having second thoughts about our plan. I’ve got to call the police myself, I thought. I can’t just go home and let Leon do this, pretend we weren’t there.
I picked up the phone, put it down, then picked it up again. I dialed 911.
Then to my left, something flashing by. A vehicle. It pulled over into my lane, cutting me off. I hit the brakes, started to skid on the icy road. I saw the car in front of me sliding sideways, then straightening out again. It was a Jeep. Champagne and Urbanic.
The Jeep was coming to a stop. I pumped the brakes. I wouldn’t be able to stop in time. Closer, closer. Goddamn it, stop! I swerved to the right, hitting the snowbank. The impact sent me bouncing off the steering wheel and then back against my seat.
When everything finally stopped moving, I looked up at the Jeep in front of me. They must know about what happened, I thought. This is going to take some explaining, why I’m driving back home, why I didn’t call it in.
Maybe if I can cut Champagne out of this, don’t even talk to him. I’ll have a better chance with Urbanic.
I winced as I got out of the truck. The sudden stop hadn’t done my ribs any good.
Go right to Urbanic and throw yourself at his mercy, I thought. Pretend Champagne isn’t even here.
The Jeep’s doors opened. Two men stepped out.
It wasn’t them.
I reached for my gun. It wasn’t there. My right pocket was empty. I never got it back from the police.
The road was deserted. Nothing to see in any direction but trees and snow. No sound but the wind.
“Good evening, Mr. McKnight,” the driver said. “At last we meet. You’re a hard man to find.”