A Cold White Fear

by R. J. Harlick

  Though I hadn’t expected to see blood seeping out of every orifice, as it does with mice, I had expected to see these men show some visible reaction to the poison. But there was none, not even a nosebleed. Maybe the poison was too old.

  My last hope was with Larry and the tattooed man.

  “Jid’s going to be okay, isn’t he?” I asked. “No one is going to hurt him.”

  “Larry will keep him safe. That’s right, isn’t it, Slobo,” Professor said.

  The Serb had the audacity to grin, which quickly vanished under Professor’s penetrating glare.

  “No touch boy.” He held his hand away from his gun.

  This only managed to ramp up my apprehension, particularly when I realized he was staying behind. For a few minutes, I thought there would be a neutralizing influence when it looked as if Bébé Jean was staying also. After he helped with Gerry, I’d decided that he was less bloodthirsty than the others. But that changed when he told Jo that he was going with them.

  “Now that the driver is dead, you need someone to drive his snowplough. I can do it.”

  “Good, but that means Freddie, you’ll have to stay behind. You okay with that?”

  “No, I’m not. You need me to identify the target. I’m the only one who knows him.”

  “No problem. I downloaded a photo of the guy before we left.” She held up her iPhone to show a photo of a man who looked familiar, but for the moment I couldn’t place him. “Besides, it’s probably best you’re not there in case he recognizes you. Remember, we don’t want this to come back on the Devils.”

  I tried to close my ears, to not hear what I was hearing, for I knew with a certainty that it was my death warrant. But it also settled in my own mind that I must do my utmost to ensure Jid came out of this alive.

  “Professor, can I speak with you?” I said in a low voice while I moved away from the others. I didn’t want them knowing what I was about to tell him.

  He hesitated for a second before following me into the hall. “Make it quick.”

  “I know Larry is a valuable part of your life, and you do what you can to protect him.”

  “What do you want?

  “You would protect someone Larry deems just as valuable, wouldn’t you?”

  “Like who?”

  “The boy. Jid is his son.”

  It took a few seconds for this to sink in, and when it did, his body jerked with the shock. “How do you know? Larry hasn’t lived on the reserve for more than sixteen or seventeen years.”

  “I imagine he came back to visit friends, even girlfriends, before he was locked away thirteen years ago. Jid is almost thirteen. Larry could’ve got his girlfriend pregnant before he was arrested.”

  “But he would’ve shared this with me.”

  “Maybe his girlfriend never told him.”

  “The timing is there, but that doesn’t mean the boy’s his.”

  “Jid was brought up by his great-grandmother. From the things Larry has said, I think this woman was his grandmother. You just have to look at the two of them together. They have the same slight stature, their faces are the same oval shape with the same eyes, and they share similar mannerisms.”

  He nodded. “You’re right. I’ve noticed this myself. Okay, so he’s Larry’s kid. What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Keep him alive. I know this isn’t going to end well for me, but I want Jid to survive. He has his whole life ahead of him. He’s a smart kid. He can become what Larry never had a chance to become. You could be his mentor.”

  I said this last out of desperation because I thought it would appeal to the man’s vanity. There was no way I wanted this supposed professor anywhere near Jid. But I didn’t think it was in danger of happening. I figured if he got out of this in one piece, he would end up far from here, either in prison or on the run.

  “Okay,” came his answer.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Bébé Jean shoved me out the back door and down the stairs with such force that I almost lost my footing. A last-second grab of a roof support kept me from doing a face plant into the snow. As it was, I landed in a less than ladylike fashion at the bottom of the steps with my legs spread out like a drunken sailor and my arms pumping frantically to stay upright. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of falling on my bum.

  “You come with me,” he ordered. Squeezing my upper arm, he thrust me in front of him.

  The second I felt his touch, a jolt of revulsion and fear surged through me. I twisted my arm free. “Don’t you dare touch me,” I yelled, backing away.

  I expected him to grab me again, but he must’ve sensed my panic, for he said instead, “Bon. Get your ass to the snowplough.”

  “Fine, I’ll do it. Just don’t come near me.”

  I remained standing for a few seconds longer in an effort to bring my shaking under control before attempting to move forward. I followed the Ski-Doo track toward the front of the house. Jo was loading the machine with Freddie’s help into the back of the bikers’ pickup. Jean trudged behind me a safe distance away.

  “Auntie, auntie,” Jid suddenly called out. “Where are you going?”

  I turned to see him standing at the top of the porch steps. The biker stopped too, a good metre or so away.

  “Stay with Larry. I’ll be back soon,” I lied.

  “I want to come with you.”

  As much as I feared being separated from him, he would be safer remaining behind. “It’s better you stay here, okay?”

  “No, we got to stay together.”

  “Jid, listen to me. You’ll be much safer with Larry. Trust me, okay?”

  “What about you? I’m worried. It doesn’t feel right you leaving like this.” He started walking down the stairs, but Slobo jerked him back.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Before you know it, I’ll be back with you and Shoni.”

  Growing impatient, Jean began walking toward me. I slowly backed up while trying to maintain my balance in the uneven footing.

  “If you want … but I’m scared.” Jid’s voice wavered.

  “Think about tonight’s hockey game and scoring the winning goal, okay?” I tried not to look at the startling splotch of red and its deadly message. I wasn’t sure what I would say if Jid asked me about the blanket.

  “I guess.” He was quiet for a second. “Do you know where Shoni is? I can’t find her.”

  “She’s outside. Look for her,” I called back. But the back door slammed shut before I finished.

  Although I could see the crater where Shoni had landed, the surrounding snow was too churned up to tell where she had gone.

  Jean started walking toward me.

  I spent another second trying to determine if the dog had gone under the porch for protection, but the drifts piled up against the footings looked impenetrable.

  When the biker was almost upon me, I turned back around and resumed walking.

  The snow was up to the windowsills of the cottage, while the outbuildings looked more like igloos than wooden sheds. Several fir trees had come down under their heavy load, with one cantilevered over the garden shed. The snowplough had buried my truck under another mound of snow. Eric was either going to have to bring an excavator to dig it out or wait until spring for the snow to melt away.

  But what was I thinking? I was the one who was going to have to deal with the snow. I was coming back. Somehow, some way, I was going to survive. I wasn’t going to write myself off, no way — not yet.

  Freddie was attempting to close the door of the truck bed against the back of the snowmobile. It was a tight fit, especially with the ramp squeezed in beside it. It took him three tries before the door clicked closed.

  Professor was leaning against the passenger side of the truck, rubbing his head as if it still pained him. Perhaps it had grown into a headache, which wasn’t good. A headache meant a possible brain injury, which could get worse. If the man died, there went any chance of keeping Jid alive, or Larry, for that mat
ter. He was as expendable as the boy.

  As we tromped past the pickup, Jo stuck her head out from the driver’s side. “Hey bitch! Don’t even think of escaping. If you do, the kid’s dead.”

  “But he’s under Professor’s protection.” I waited for the man’s confirmation.

  Instead, “Don’t escape,” was his succinct reply. Turning his back on me, he climbed into the pickup truck.

  “I told Tiger if we’re not back in an hour to kill him,” Jo added.

  The “we” had better include me. But even if it didn’t, I wasn’t about to do anything that would prevent Jo from returning within the stipulated hour. However, an hour would be cutting it close.

  “Lake Robinson is a twenty-five-minute drive from here, but with these snowy road conditions it will likely take longer. Can you make it two hours?”

  “Google Maps says it’s a fifteen-minute drive, not twenty-five. We can make the return trip easy in one hour.”

  So I had exaggerated. “But the road into the lake won’t be ploughed. Depending on how far in you need to go, it could take thirty minutes to clear.”

  She shrugged. “One hour it is. If you have thoughts of getting us lost, forget it. I will be following the route on my iPhone.”

  “If you have a map, why do you need me?”

  Ignoring me, she climbed into the truck.

  “Walk,” Jean ordered, advancing. I ran more than walked to the plough. I opened the door and struggled to pull myself up onto the step of the cab, which wasn’t exactly designed for someone at thigh level. I closed the door and leaned against it as Jean climbed into the driver’s side with considerably more finesse. But I almost tumbled out when my door abruptly opened.

  “Move over,” Freddie said, climbing in.

  I hastily slid across the seat but was stopped by the gears to the plough filling the middle of the foot well. Freddie squeezed in beside me. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. Panic consumed me. I started to thrash around, and then I felt the cold metal of a pistol against my head. I froze.

  “You are beginning to really annoy me,” Freddie said. “If we didn’t need you for directions, I’d kill you now.”

  I tried to get my panic under control.

  “I thought you weren’t coming,” Jean said to Freddie.

  “The boss lady told me to come. Thought the bitch would need watching while you drove. Looks like she was right, eh?”

  FIFTY-THREE

  I would admit taking a detour to the police had crossed my mind. But I’d rejected it out of fear that bringing this amount of gun power to the doorstep of the Migiskan police station would result in a battle that would get many more people killed. I could only hope that somewhere along our journey we would cross paths with a police cruiser. But since it was only a few short kilometres along the main road to the Lake Robinson turnoff, I didn’t think it likely.

  I agonized over the hour turnaround. There were no shortcuts to the lake. I couldn’t see how I was going to get them there and back in time, especially with the lumbering speed of Gerry’s truck.

  “Can’t you speed it up?” I asked, watching Jean manipulate the tricky gearshift.

  He wasn’t lying when he said he knew his way around a snowplough. He’d expertly set the wing blade at the right angle to push the snow completely off my road.

  Gerry had only cleared one side of it, so Jean was forced to plough the other side to allow for easier passage. But this slowed us down even more. By the time we reached the main road, the normally three-minute trip had become eight. Fifty-two minutes to go. Thankfully, Migiskan Road was as drivable as a road could be after a major storm.

  “Turn right and drive until I tell you to turn,” I said. I figured it should take about eight minutes. “Can you get this truck to go faster?”

  Though he ignored me, I sensed the trees beginning to move slightly faster past us. And so we plodded along the main road until we almost ran into a hydro truck blocking our way. The crew was removing a half-dead balsam that had fallen on the line. They had positioned the truck in the middle of the road so the cherry picker could be used to lift it off.

  “Don’t even think about it.” Freddie jammed his gun into my side while at the same time shoving my head below the dash.

  My skin rippled in protest. “Don’t touch me. I won’t budge until you tell me.”

  “Can’t stand men, eh? You a lesbie or something?”

  Just a victim of a rape, I thought.

  “Not a peep,” he hissed and removed his hand.

  I slowly let out my breath.

  I felt the cold rush of air from a window opening.

  “How long you going to be?” Jean called out in French. “I got clients waiting for their roads to be cleared.”

  I was surprised he would risk talking to them. But he’d probably come to the same conclusion I’d reached. The chances were almost nil that these hydro workers were from the area. So they wouldn’t be the least suspicious to see someone other than Gerry driving his truck.

  “Give us five,” one of the guys shouted back.

  Shit, another wasted five minutes. If I had any thoughts of suddenly raising my head and shouting for help, the gun against my head was enough to dissuade me.

  “Business gotta be good, eh? With all this damn snow. Calice, I never seen it so bad,” the man said.

  “The more the better,” Jean chuckled. “I’m raking in the millions.” He paused. “Any more of you guys up ahead?”

  “Oui, a couple of crews from Vermont fixing a downed pole about five k along.”

  “Vermont? That’s a fair distance. Where you guys from?”

  “St. Bruno, just outside Montreal. We weren’t so badly hit, so we could spare some crews.”

  “St. Bruno, eh? Small world. My buddy, Pierre Gagnon, lives there. If you see him, tell him Bébé Jean says hi.”

  “Sure will do. He’s the…” The sudden revving of the plough’s engine cut off the sentence. The truck lurched forward and then jerked to a stop, ramming the back of my head against the underside of the dash.

  “Christ, what did ya do that for?” Freddie exclaimed. “You coulda castrated me.”

  “M’excuse. I hit the gas pedal by mistake.”

  “Hey, I forgot to tell you,” the hydro guy called out. “A lot of cop cars up the road. Not sure what that’s all about.”

  Just when I thought all hope had gone, it raised its welcoming promise.

  “Jesus H. Murphy,” Freddie muttered.

  I heard what sounded like a truck moving.

  “How far along?” Jean shouted back.

  “A kilometre or so after the Vermont crews. Okay, you can go now. Good talking to you.”

  The plough rumbled forward. I started to raise my head, but Freddie pushed it back down again and kept it there for another minute or so. Then he released his hand. I took this to mean that I could finally sit up.

  I looked back to see the hydro truck disappearing behind a curve in the road, which, apart from Jo’s truck, was now as empty as the road in front. Up ahead, I could make out the hill formation and the giant white pine that marked the turnoff to Lake Robinson.

  “Bitch, how much farther before we turn off?” Freddie demanded.

  I debated telling him that it was a good ten kilometres to see what they would do about the police, but the feel of his gun in my ribs convinced me to be honest. “It’s just up ahead.”

  “Christ, Jean, I don’t like it. How do the pigs know we’re here? Someone must’ve squealed.”

  “Relax. No one talked, unless you did?”

  “What? You accusing me of being an informant?”

  “Sacrebleu, it was a joke. No way the cops know.”

  “Someone must’ve told them. Why else they here?”

  “Could be any number of reasons. An accident, a burglary.”

  “A grow-op,” I offered, thinking of the one I stumbled onto a few years ago.

  “Oui, a grow-up. We sure know about them, eh,
Freddie?” Jean laughed and was joined by the other man.

  “Not one of ours, is it?” Jean asked.

  Freddie shook his head. “Nah, we don’t have any in this area, though I looked into a possibility a few years back. What a laugh. The pigs could be getting rid of our competition.” He broke into another loud guffaw. “But fuck, they’re going to ruin our operation.”

  “Pas possible. We’ll be gone long before the cops clue into there being one less judge to worry about.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  It took less time than it took to take a breath for me to connect the dots. “The judge” could only be one person, The Honourable Richard Meilleur, one of the most senior and well-respected judges in Quebec, known for his impartiality and fair-handedness. He was heading up a commission on organized crime and had vowed to unravel every last tentacle organized crime had interwoven into the judicial and police systems of Quebec.

  He was indeed a man a gang like the Black Devils would want to silence.

  He was also the judge who sent Larry to prison for life. So this hit would be more than a business arrangement for Professor. It would also be personal.

  The judge’s cottage was a rambling timber building like mine, though not as old, dating from just after the Second World War, when the first cottages were built on the lake. A couple of summers ago, Eric and I spent a delightful evening over dinner with him and his wife on their expansive deck overlooking the lake. But I’d heard that she’d died from cancer in the spring, and the judge hadn’t been near his cottage since.

  It seemed highly improbable that he would be there in such wintery weather, particularly in a cottage intended only for summer usage. But these gangsters were here, so they must be very certain of his presence. After all, they’d gone through a lot of effort springing their assassin from jail, though I couldn’t begin to guess why they would take such a risk for an outsider. Surely there were more than enough gang members walking free who wouldn’t hesitate to put their hand up to do the job.