“We’re in a blackout zone. No cell coverage. My landline isn’t working either.”
“Fuck. I got to talk to Jo.”
“I thought you set it up for there to be no communication with her in case the cops are monitoring the phones,” Professor said.
“She has burn phone like this. Pigs know nothing about them.”
“I thought everything was all set up with Jo. We do nothing but wait here until she arrives. What did you want to talk to her about?”
“Tell her we are at house.”
“She’ll find out when she gets here tomorrow morning.”
Did this mean come morning they would be gone?
“Jo did good job, ne?” Slobo grinned. “The crash work perfect.” He breathed in deeply and flung out his arms, narrowly missing a shelf on the wall behind him. “Feel good to be free.”
“I couldn’t agree more. And let’s keep it this way by not doing anything stupid, okay?”
“Da, sure.” Slobo turned his eyes on me.
I found myself staring at a single teardrop tattoo under the corner of his right eye, similar to the one Larry had.
Slobo touched the teardrop. “Prison tat. Mean we kill somebody.”
He’d just confirmed my worst fears.
“But I not like Viper. I have only two tattoos. Jo no like them.”
I noticed that the letters D.F.F.D. were tattooed across the knuckles of his left hand, one letter per finger. “What does that mean?”
He held up his hand as if admiring it. “Devil forever. Forever devil.”
I guessed once you were committed to the dark side, there was no point in pretending otherwise.
“Red, it means he’s a full patch Black Devil.” A smile stretched Professor’s snakes into a coiled mass.
I gulped. “You don’t have a teardrop, so what were you in for?”
“Tax evasion.” Another broad grin was accompanied by more raucous laugher from the Serbian. “But enough questions. I’m starving. Start making dinner. You had better have some decent food in this establishment.”
SEVENTEEN
The nightmare had gone from bad to worse. Three escaped convicts, two of them murderers and one a member of the notorious Black Devils, or Les Diables Noirs, as they were known in Quebec. I’d already had one bad run-in with members of this powerful biker gang. I dreaded another. But for the moment I couldn’t do anything other than ensure neither Jid nor I did anything to provoke their anger. I would worry about the morning when we got there.
But if these cons were expecting a gourmet dinner, they weren’t going to get it. My culinary skills were limited to boiling water and opening cans. I couldn’t even make proper coffee. My tea, though, wasn’t bad, since it basically involved boiling water.
When Eric moved in, he realized he had to take over the cooking or starve. I agreed to do the wash-up. Since he was an excellent chef, I felt I received the better end of the deal. Often, when he took off on a trip, he would leave me a few tasty dishes that only required microwaving to fill the kitchen with their enticing smells. But this time he had left me nothing, not even a pot of soup.
In an attempt to placate him, I had ironed his shirts, something I hated doing. But he merely grunted as he threw the shirts I’d carefully folded into his bag and zipped it up without so much as a smile, let alone a thank-you.
More signs of the extent of his unhappiness.
Despite changing into a dry pair of jeans, Jid continued to shiver. So I sat him in Aunt Aggie’s rocker, next to the hot woodstove, where I could also keep him within sight while I made dinner. The tattooed man glowered at me from his perch at the kitchen table, the sheath of Eric’s knife in plain view. After vacuuming up her kibble, the puppy, no worse for her excursion in the storm, pattered between the man and the boy in an attempt to get as many pats as possible. The biker had gone to the den to check on the injured man, and I suspected the rest of the house.
I figured I couldn’t do too much damage to Kraft Dinner, since it basically involved boiling up noodles and adding the package of ready-made cheese sauce. Moreover, I hadn’t met a person yet who didn’t like KD.
But when I pulled a couple of packages out of the cupboard, Professor groaned, “Not that shit. Make something else.”
I showed him a can of beef stew.
“No, I’m a vegetarian.”
That stopped me for a moment. He probably practiced yoga too. “How about baked beans?”
“Does it have pork in it?”
I thought of lying, but wasn’t sure what he’d do if he encountered one of the few chunks of pork they put into these cans.
“I’ve got a jar of tomato basil sauce. What about that with spaghetti?”
“Sounds good. Do you have any vegetables?”
“A couple of cans of peas.”
“We’re served that junk all the time. I want some fresh stuff.”
“If you know how to cook it, go right ahead. There’s some green beans in the fridge.”
He sat bolt upright with his hand resting on the hilt of Eric’s knife. “I told you to make dinner, so do it.”
“She’ll burn them,” Jid piped up.
Thanks, Jid.
“Red, if you burn them, I think you know what you can expect from me.”
Maybe he was only joking, but I didn’t want to test it. I pulled the remaining beans out of the fridge. Though they dated from my last dinner with Eric, I didn’t think they looked too old.
“I know how to cook them,” Jid volunteered, dumping the bag onto a cutting board. “Shome showed me.”
He used the short form for mishomis, meaning grandfather. It was an endearment he used for Eric. I’d kidded my husband the first time I heard it. He was hardly the grandfather type. But Eric had replied that he felt very honoured to be given the name.
“Good for you, kid, just don’t burn them.”
Other than reaching down to pat Shoni or lifting her onto his lap, the man didn’t budge from his station on the chair the entire time we struggled to make dinner. It was a challenge working in the meagre light from the one oil lamp and the narrow beam of our headlamps. Without a working electric stove, we were forced to cook on the six-burner wood cookstove, which dated from the time of Great-Grandpa Joe. According to Aunt Aggie, he’d gone to great lengths to transport the latest in stoves from Detroit via lake transport and canal barge to Ottawa before having it hauled many dusty miles via horse-drawn wagon to his newly built cottage.
I, however, was neither my great-aunt nor my husband. Although Aunt Aggie had eventually installed a rudimentary two-burner electric stove, she continued to cook most of her meals on the cookstove. Eric thought it perfect for simmering stews and soups. I, on the other hand, used it as a source of heat. I also kept a kettle of simmering water on one of the burners to add humidity to the dry winter air. The only time I attempted to cook on it was during power outages like this one.
By the time I finished stoking the firebox with enough wood to provide sufficient heat to boil the pasta water, the three of us were removing our sweaters and jackets. This prompted Professor to push up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, revealing more snakes writhing up his arms.
No doubt psychologists would have countless theories for his snake obsession. I figured with this guy it was a simple matter of wanting people to be afraid of him. Jid, though, seemed more intrigued than put off. After exclaiming “awesome,” his latest favourite word, he asked what kind of snakes they were. And so ensued a conversation about snakes in greater detail than I wanted to hear.
“Jid, watch out, your beans might burn.” The pot’s lid was clattering from the force of the rising steam.
Because I’d generated too much heat, I had to wait until the fire cooled enough to put the pot with the tomato sauce onto the burner. Jid had his beans perfectly cooked and ready long before my sauce was hot enough to be poured over the spaghetti, which had cooled too much despite attempts to keep the pot warm with a towel. All of t
his took time, more time than my unwanted guests were prepared to wait.
“Where the fuck food?” Slobo poked his head through the kitchen door, causing Professor to wake up with a start.
So intent was I on ensuring dinner wasn’t burned that I’d failed to notice the man had fallen asleep. Damn. We’d missed a chance to escape. Regardless, it told me that he was very tired, particularly with all that alcohol in his system. After watching the Serbian struggle up my road, I was certain he was close to dropping from exhaustion too. I had no idea how long it had been since their escape, but I doubted they had stopped to rest. Before the night was too far gone, these dangerous men were going to finally fall into a sound sleep, and when they did, Jid, Shoni, and I would be ready to slip out the back door and be gone.
Slobo held up the bottle of rye from the den. It was empty. “Need more.”
I was about to tell him it was the last when I realized more would make them go to sleep sooner. “Yes, I’ll get it for you.”
Reluctant to leave the boy alone with these men, I brought him along with me. But if I was looking for some privacy, it was not to be. As Professor had done earlier, the Serbian followed our every step into the dark, frigid dining room.
He whistled when the headlamp lit up the silver tea service.
“Like I’ve already told you, Slobo, we leave everything as we found it,” Professor said, sauntering into the room.
“Milos give top dollar for stuff like this.”
“Please, don’t take the tea service.” Even to me it sounded weak, but it was worth a try. “It belonged to my great-grandmother, a wedding gift from her grandparents. See the crest. It’s the Harlech family crest. Family history has it that King George III gave it to an ancestor for his loyalty during a difficult time for the king.”
This tea service had been a source of contention with my mother. She’d wanted it. She thought it was the kind of family heirloom that should be passed down through the male line, namely to my father. Instead, Great-Grandpa Joe had given it to his daughter, Agatha, instead of his son John, my grandfather. And in turn, Agatha, with no children of her own, had bequeathed it to me along with the rest of her estate, including the 1,500 acres of Three Deer Point.
“It’s not something that could be easily sold without proper provenance,“ I continued.
“It is a worthy treasure to have in one’s possession,” the tattooed man replied. “Don’t worry, Red, I’ll make certain Slobo doesn’t take it, or anything else in your house. It’s not the reason for our visit.”
“So why you are here?” I asked.
Ignoring me, he said, “I envy you your rich heritage. I once had a friend with a similar family background. But we are off topic. I believe you came here for more liquor. Get it for us.”
I reached into the cabinet and pulled out the only remaining liquor in the house, a bottle of Eric’s precious Lagavulin.
Professor’s amber eyes lit up. “Finally something worthy of my palate.”
EIGHTEEN
Though dinner didn’t come close to meeting Eric’s lofty standards (the pasta was overcooked, while the once perfectly cooked beans were limp from sitting too long), at least nothing was burned. I suspected this was the first real food the men had eaten since escaping. They devoured every last bean, strand of spaghetti, and molecule of sauce, even Larry’s portion, and insisted that I make more. Thankfully, I’d stocked up on pasta and sauce a week ago.
The two men also consumed a good portion of Eric’s Scotch. I waited for them to pass out. But other than an occasional drooping of an eyelid, they both remained stubbornly awake.
I’d had no opportunity to forewarn Jid about my intention to escape. The chance came when I offered to take soup and a slice of bread to Larry, who hadn’t felt well enough to join us at the kitchen table. Professor and Slobo were laughing boisterously over some raunchy jail joke and didn’t notice the boy and me leave. Instead of heading straight to the den, I detoured into the dining room.
Outside, the storm continued to rage. Though the verandah protected this side of the house, the odd stray gust still managed to rattle the French doors. This monster of a storm had been thrashing us since early yesterday and didn’t look to be letting up any time soon. It might even beat Eric’s once-in-a-lifetime blizzard. Whenever we were being pounded by winter’s wrath, he would bring up the record-breaking storm more than thirty years ago that buried the reserve in roof-high drifts and kept the community cut off for days.
I shuddered at the thought. There was no way I wanted to be stranded inside my house for days with these guys.
I checked one last time to ensure neither man had followed us before saying, “I’m so sorry you’re caught up in this mess.”
“Did they really escape from jail?”
“You heard the guy.”
“Awesome.”
“It’s not awesome. They’re dangerous. Look what the guy did to your face.”
Jid gingerly touched the puffiness. “Yeah, but I kicked him good in the you-know-what.” He grinned.
“Don’t do it —” I stopped at the sound of a creaking floorboard coming from the hall. When it didn’t sound again, I stuck my head around the doorframe to make certain Professor wasn’t there. Their laughter was still going strong in the kitchen.
“I’m hoping that they’ll soon pass out from too much alcohol, and when they do we’ll leave. But in case they don’t, I want you to take off without me if you get the chance and go straight to the police.”
“No. I don’t want to leave you alone with these bad guys.”
“I’ll be okay. It’s going to be easier for you to slip out unnoticed than for the two of us to try to do it together. When these guys leave the kitchen, I want you to sneak back in, get your gear, and run. I’ll do what I can to distract them.”
I tried not to think about the backlash on me. But it was more important for him to be safely away from these thugs than to spare me more bruises. Besides, I felt it would be easier to protect just myself than both of us. I could see these men threatening to harm him to force me to do something.
He remained silent, his mouth firmed in stubborn resistance.
“Make sure everything you need is at the back door.”
“I need a headlamp. That guy took mine.”
“There’s a spare one in the kitchen drawer.”
“I don’t want to go without you.”
“Someone has to let the police know about these escaped convicts. That’s your job.”
Chewing the inside of his lip, he fiddled with the deerskin amulet he wore around his neck as if seeking strength from its powers. He’d first started wearing it to please his grandmother, but after her death he tossed it aside until the day Eric sat down with him and chatted about the importance of upholding Algonquin traditions. Now he wore it proudly.
Finally he nodded sombrely. “Okay.”
I ruffled his wavy brown hair, which had grown enough to tickle the collar of his red Senators sweatshirt, his favourite hockey team. Wanting to emulate the thick mane of his hero, Eric, he’d decided last summer to grow out his brush cut.
“Good. Shome will be proud of you,” I said. “Tell me, how did you get caught? I thought you were miles away on the trail to the rez.”
“I started out along it. Snow wasn’t so deep in the woods, so I could go fast. But I came across some fresh wolf tracks going after a deer. Shome says best not to get near a wolf and his prey, so I took the trail that goes out to the main road.”
“Where did you meet up with the biker?”
“When I was walking along the road, I saw this guy acting real strange. The snow was coming down real hard, so I couldn’t see what he was doing very well. So I went closer.”
“Where were you?”
“You know the old gravel pit near the Hawk Lake turnoff? He was trying to push a car into it.”
“Did he succeed?”
“Not totally. It got hung up on a big rock, so he left it
. But you can’t see it very well from the road. Looked like a really awesome car, one of those fancy Range Rovers, like you see on TV.”
By now it was likely hidden under a thick layer of snow, so there was little chance of anyone seeing it in the dark. Come daylight, though, maybe someone would notice.
“I guess he saw you.”
“Yeah, he started yelling at me, so I ran. But I tripped on my snowshoe and fell. He fired his gun at me. That part was scary. He made me take off my snowshoes. That’s when I bit him and kicked him in the nuts.”
“Jid, your language.”
“Sorry, forgot. Boy, I sure made him mad.” Another grin erupted. “That’s when he slugged me and made me go with him.”
“How passable was the main road? Did you see any cars?”
“Lots of snow. Think the snow’s falling faster than they can plough. We passed a truck stuck in a snowbank. Looked like Billy’s Ram, but it was empty. The guy made me check to see if anyone was inside. He kept pointing his gun at the window. Looked like he was going to shoot. Just like the bad guys in the movies.”
“Lucky Billy wasn’t in the truck.”
“Yeah, I was really scared. I’ve never seen anyone get shot. Only animals.”
“And no sign of the police?”
“Nah. Snow’s too deep. You need one of those Hummers to get through.”
I jumped at a sudden loud clatter. My initial thought was the men in the kitchen had broken something, before I realized the sound was closer and came from outside. Figuring it was another branch falling onto the verandah roof, I shone my headlamp through the dining room window. It lit up a porch filled with snow, and thankfully the underside of a roof that appeared sound.
The laughter in the kitchen had changed to shouting.
I thought I caught the words, “Why you? It my job,” before something metallic was slammed against a hard surface.
“Jid, let’s take this soup in to Larry.”
At that point, Shoni padded through the archway and promptly squatted down for a pee.
A Cold White Fear Page 7