“Would you do it again?” I finally asked.
Frank gave me a hard look. “Bet your sweet ass. In a fucking heartbeat.”
“Then do it again.”
I started to go back inside the house when Frank said, “You think she can do it, man? You think she can pull a trigger?”
“Something tells me if the time comes, she will.”
Smoothing things over with Colleen took some effort. Neither one had any particular reason to trust me or Frank. And I couldn’t blame them. But in the end Colleen’s only concern was for Vivian’s safety. If things didn’t pan out the way I thought they might in the next two days, I promised Colleen that Frank and I would be on our merry and she should feel free to report us to an FBI agent named Megan O’Donnell. I gave Colleen O’Donnell’s card.
The grey disk of the sun was now nearly submerged in Lake Michigan and a strong wind had kicked up when Frank followed me out to my car.
“Jesus,” Frank said, staring at the weapons in the trunk. “You got enough here for a platoon.”
We brought the guns inside, put the firing pins in and loaded them with ammo. Then we sat in the library and went over the layout of the house and the surrounding grounds. If anybody was going to make a run at us, it would be either dead-on through the front or from the northern lake side. Maybe both in a pincer move.
Frank said there was a Ducati Streetfighter 848 motorcycle and an old Ford pickup with a broad snow plow in the shed. And while the Ducati was a thing of beauty, the truck would be considerably more useful in blocking either street access or maybe a portion of the sunroom at the northern side of the house. Colleen and Frank, when not eating sandwiches from local delis or drinking expensive coffee, had made several trips to the hardware and farm supply store. They had purchased and unspooled thirty yards of razor wire along the perimeter of the sunroom, hiding it within the still-green shrubbery. Frank had gone so far as to hook the wire up to the power. Low voltage that would stun but not kill. Colleen and Frank had made other security enhancements that might give us a fighting chance. But these guys—the guys Brewster rolled with—could march through a mile of razor wire and not break a sweat.
It was late and Frank said he would take the first watch.
“I’ll take the first,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Frank said. “Aside from having had the shit kicked out of you, looks like you ain’t slept in twenty-four. Get some rack time, man.” He gave me a look and said, “Something happen you’re not telling me about?”
I didn’t say anything. I just sat in a high-back leather chair feeling my body begin to quiver from the beating I’d taken earlier and the lack of sleep. I’m sure whatever guilt I was feeling over Ray Danbury’s death figured in, too.
Frank said, “Well, whatever it is, I got your back, man. Solid on your six.”
I forced a smile. “Army strong.”
“Hoo-raa.”
We bumped fists.
Frank got up from his chair, went to the library’s liquor cabinet and poured me a shot of vodka. I tried to decline, but I discovered Frank could be a hard-nosed bastard. Fucking Rangers.
“Viv and Colleen make it the old-fashion Polish way,” Frank said. “With honey. How her grandma used to make it. Down the hatch, Auggie.”
“Call me ‘Auggie’ again and I’ll shoot you in your pecker.”
“Down the hatch, August.”
I snapped the honey vodka back. It was strong and good.
Colleen entered the library, and glared at us. After a few tense seconds, she nodded to Frank and said, “Pour me a vodka, asshole. Big one. With ice.” Frank poured and handed it obediently to her. “You got a jaw like toilet porcelain,” she said before taking a long pull on her drink.
“And you got a right cross like a young Mike Tyson,” Frank said.
Colleen took several more long pulls off her drink before looking at me and saying, “I hope I’m not wrong about you guys. God help you if I’m wrong.”
Colleen knew the land of Northern Michigan. Every twist and turn, nook and knoll, every river, stream, lake and creek. She’d farmed it. Hunted and fished it. I had the distinct feeling that if I proved to be wrong, it would probably be several decades (if at all) before anybody found my body and Frank’s buried in the land she knew so well.
“Viv’s exhausted, so I made some chamomile tea and put her to bed,” Colleen said. “I fucking hated what you did, Frank. But I understand why you did it.”
There was silence between us for a minute or so. Then Colleen said, “It’s that bad?”
“It’s that bad,” I said.
“You think they’ll come tonight?”
“No,” I said. “But soon. Maybe tomorrow. Certainly the day after tomorrow. But no question, they’re coming.”
Colleen stared at me for what felt like a long time. Finally, she said, “You’re hoping they come.”
“Sorry to say, I am.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Colleen said. “But if we’re gonna work things out between us, we’re gonna start with the goddamn truth.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
Frank poured me another honey vodka shot. I didn’t fight him on this one.
I lifted the shot glass up in a toast. “The Three Musketeers.”
“The Three Musketeers,” the two of them said.
“Hopefully four,” Frank added.
We were all silent for a long time, each of us wrapped in our own thoughts. I imagined Colleen was thinking about how much she loved Vivian and how she would take the fight to anybody who threatened that love. And I imagined Frank was thanking God for work that employed not only his military skills, but the true core of who he was: somebody whose sole purpose in life had been the protection of people who couldn’t protect themselves.
And me?
I was thinking about Oslo, Norway, and a woman named Tatina Stadtmueller who smelled like jasmine, tasted like warm mango and had breached my walls with a kiss.
And I was thinking about blood.
Lots of blood.
All of it spilled on fallen autumn leaves …
Thirty-one
I awoke with a start: I’d been dreaming about Ray Danbury.
Heart racing and disoriented, I looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. A white bedroom with a tall single window softened by floor-length white curtains. The sun was already high and the curtains iridescent. There was a tall white armoire with delicate hand-painted green tree branches on the doors and a white dressing bureau with pewter handles.
I was lying in a white four-poster with yards of cream damask wrapped with stylish laziness around the posts and covered with a white goose down comforter. Beneath the comforter I was naked. Nothing unusual, considering men’s pajamas are dumb and very learned men’s health magazines suggest us guys sleep in the buff. Only problem was I couldn’t remember coming upstairs, undressing myself and climbing into bed.
At the foot of the bed on a linen chest was my bag and the clothes I’d arrived in, freshly laundered and pressed. There was also a blue string-handle bag on the floor near the linen chest. The bag was from one of the Traverse City shops and contained a navy-blue terry robe.
On the white nightstand next to the bed was my Glock, an ice pack, a cut-glass pitcher of water, a drinking glass and a bottle of aspirin. I poured some water and downed three aspirin.
I looked at my watch: ten o’clock.
I had started to get out of bed when there was a knock on the door. I tucked back beneath the puffy white comforter and said, “Come in.”
There was the rattle of china and silverware before the door opened.
Vivian entered carrying a wicker serving tray and was wearing a loose, off-white linen top and matching linen chimney-leg pants that hung precariously low on her hips. Her whitish-blonde hair was pulled up and secured in back by two red enamel chopsticks. She was barefoot and as she moved toward me her high, ample breasts swayed, punctuating her fluid movements.<
br />
She sat the tray on the bedside table and said, “There’s formaldehyde-free decaf coffee, antibiotic-free creamer, a gluten-free blueberry muffin and sliced fruit. If you want a fuller breakfast, there’s plenty in the fridge downstairs. Except bacon. Or sausage. We mostly don’t eat meat.”
Then she turned and started to walk out. Looking at her I was reminded of something my father used to say on occasion as he watched my mother walk away from the dinner table: “It must be jelly ’cause jam don’t shake like that.”
Vivian stopped near the door and with her back to me said, “Frank was cruel. He scared me. You scared me.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Colleen explained why he said those—things,” she said, her back still to me, “and I suppose I should be grateful. But it was—awful.” Then she turned to me. “I love Colleen. Very much. I would do anything for her. To—protect her.”
“‘Love is fierce/It is the heart, aflame/Ignited in small hands/Refusing the wasteland/Where such fires burn so few.’”
She turned fully to me, the diffused sunlight of the room drifting through the sheer filaments of her pajamas, revealing the shape of her body. Her pale blonde hair caught the same diffused sunlight and seemed a halo about her head.
“That’s beautiful,” she said.
“A lesser known poet,” I said. “My father. He wrote it for my mom.”
Hesitantly, she said, “Do your parents love each other?”
“They did,” I said. “They’re gone now. They were Tristan and Isolde without the political machinations. Romeo and Juliet without the swordplay. Harry and Sally without the long exposition.”
She smiled.
“I’m envious of what you and Colleen have,” I said. “And I mean to protect it.”
She looked at me with pale blue eyes for a moment, nodded and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
I drank the lame-o decaf coffee, had a bite of the muffin, which had the consistency of packed wet sand, and all of the fruit. Then I showered, got dressed, checked the clip and chamber of my gun and navigated my way downstairs, carrying the breakfast tray.
“Well, you look a helluvalot better,” Frank greeted me in the kitchen.
“You shouldn’t have let me sleep that long.” I was irritated with Frank’s bright attitude. “This ain’t a goddamn vacation.”
“Nothing from the hotels or motels,” Frank said. Colleen had friends who worked at the local hotels and motor lodges. If anyone suspicious showed up, they would call. “And we did shifts. I did a perimeter check at two, scared off a couple of deer and spooked a vicious gang of raccoons. Now it’s morning. I don’t think whoever’s coming are daylight kinda guys.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“I know we ain’t known each other long, but I gotta ask. You trust me?” Frank folded his muscular arms across his broad chest and casually leaned against the double-doors of the large Thermador refrigerator.
“Yeah,” I said. “I trust you.”
“Then start fuckin’ acting like it.” Frank walked out of the kitchen.
August Snow: Friend to Mankind.
I caught up with Frank and asked him to take me on a full security tour of the estate. He walked me through the house, floor by floor, room by room, from the long, dark attic to the expansive wine and fruit cellar and mechanical room. We walked the grounds and talked about entry points and escape routes. Frank had been thorough in his security assessment thanks in part to his military experience, security job at Eleanor Paget’s estate and his obvious brotherly affection for Vivian and Colleen. It was still a lot of house and a lot of land for three people—or even four—to make a stand, but it was possible.
Then again, I’m sure this is what Jim Bowie and Davey Crockett thought at the Alamo just before General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna went through the whole drunken lot of them like a hot sabre through warm butter.
On the side porch I stopped Frank and said, “There’s something you should know.”
I told him about Ray Danbury. From Danbury I backed through the story, giving him everything I knew, everything I’d done, everything that was on the line. I told him that if he wanted out I’d understand and he was free to pack up and bug out. No harm, no foul.
“Man, I loved the army,” Frank said after a moment, “except for the—you know—the thing. After those two years nailed to a desk—I had to see what else life had to offer. Imagine my surprise when I found out life back in the world had fuck-all to offer. I don’t cry about it ’cause I know who I am. You know who I am, August?”
“Tell me,” I said.
“I’m a guy who stands by people who stand by him,” Frank said. “Listen, man, I’m sorry about your friend. I really am. But you don’t have to go through this alone. You stood by me. Big time. Now it’s my turn to stand by you. It’s the right time to be at the right place to do the right thing.”
“Thanks, Frank,” I said, offering my hand, which he took and shook.
“Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it, jarhead.”
Continuing our tour of the grounds, I asked Frank about how Vivian had conducted herself when the three of them had gone to the shooting range. Frank said she mostly jumped and laughed nervously every time a round went off.
“I think you and me are getting to know each other pretty good,” Frank said. “One thing I’m getting to know about you, August, is you don’t ask questions just for polite conversation.”
“Just a feeling,” I said. “Can’t really say more than that.”
Frank nodded.
We walked back inside the warm house. Frank went to check on Vivian. I found Colleen in a small office connected to the library.
She sat behind an antique cherry desk, a pair of red-framed reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Her attention moved quickly between a stack of papers and her laptop. Instead of looking her usual Goddess of Rock self, she looked like an accountant eyeball-deep in the minutia of household and business financials.
Save for the attic and Vivian’s studio, the office was the messiest part of the house crowded with stacks of cardboard filing boxes and antique wood filing cabinets. There were photos displayed on the wall and on the uncluttered areas of the large desk: Colleen and Vivian looking happy near the Eiffel Tower. Drinking colorful drinks on a beach beneath a palm tree. Looking spectacular in micro-bikinis.
There were photos of them each as little girls. A few photos of Vivian looking glum in a dark blue school uniform blazer bearing an embroidered emblem.
And there were photos of young Vivian with Rose Mayfield. Vivian was smiling. Laughing. Eating cotton candy or looking messy as they stirred cake batter. Mayfield reading Goodnight Moon to a five-year-old Vivian.
Colleen saw me standing in the doorway, smiled and took off her glasses.
“Well, good morning, sunshine,” she said. “You look a lot better.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” I said. “Still feel rode hard and put away wet.”
“Well, cowpoke, I’d call you a pussy but I don’t like maligning the manna of the goddesses,” she said, giving me a wry look.
“Thank God for the healing power of honey vodka,” I said.
“My grandma Czewbak’s recipe,” she said. “And I don’t dispute its healing powers. She used to give it to us when we were kids and had colds.”
“Grandma’s Nyquil,” I said.
Colleen offered me a seat and asked me if I still thought the threat was real and I said I did, but I wouldn’t make my encampment a permanent thing. I’d see how things played out for another day or two, then leave. But even if nothing happened and Frank and I left, I wanted her and Vivian to be hyper-alert. “So what you got going here?” I asked.
Colleen laughed. “Even true love has its price. Viv’s the one with the money. I bring some in, but I’m the chief bottle washer on this yacht.”
“Looks to me like you’re co-captain,” I said.
Like
most artists, Vivian didn’t have a head for or interest in business. Colleen served as her business manager. She paid the bills, maintained Vivian’s website, filled orders for Vivian’s artwork, talked to galleries, booked showings and answered inquiries. She also made travel arrangements. Vivian had been invited to show at two galleries the coming spring, one in Milan and the other in Brussels. And she had been contracted to do twenty illustrations for a university press book on women scientists starting with Hypatia, Greek mathematician and astronomer, and ending with Dr. Mae Jemison, astronaut.
“Try to get to Bruges,” I said. “Nice town. There’s a bar there called L’Estiminet. The owner—Jacques—has an extensive collection of blues and Motown he plays night and day. Tell Jacques I sent you. And watch out for his dog Tampa Red.”
“Vicious?” Colleen said with a smile.
“No,” I said, “but he’s a master sandwich thief.”
“There’s more to you than meets the eye.” Colleen sat back in her chair.
“One could only hope so.” Looking at the photos of Vivian as a smiling child, I said, “Tell me a little bit about Viv and Rose Mayfield.”
Colleen swiveled her chair to look behind her at the photos, then turned back at me. “You believe in second bites at the apple, August?”
“I believe in a lot of things,” I said with a shrug. “Including second, third and fourth bites at the apple. Except for Adam and Eve, of course.”
Colleen told me her mother had died when Colleen was in her early twenties. That her mother and her grandmother had been her best friends growing up. She knew she was different in a time when being different was a very lonely and potentially dangerous thing. Especially in a northern Michigan farming community where life was often narrowly focused on the challenge of tilling fields, tending livestock and fending off predators, all in an effort to wrestle enough money from the earth to endure and survive long, hard Michigan winters.
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