Run, Girl, Run: A Thriller

by Alex C. Franklin

  Almost simultaneously, another man stepped out from behind a nearby door marked “Toilet;” he pulled up a seat to the right of Tremblay.

  Quinn jabbed Tremblay’s shoulder and nodded in the direction of the other man.

  “You remember Young, don’t you?”

  Tremblay nodded.

  He had met both only once before, for a few hours at a casino in Sault St Marie, a town two hours from Syron Lake. That was six weeks ago. He didn’t care for Quinn slapping him and punching him on the arm now as if they were fast friends. Heck, he didn’t care to even know Quinn, and the same went for his stocky companion with a goatee and plaited ponytail.

  The bartender, an aged and slightly-built man, brought a beer, hastily plunked it on the table before Tremblay, and, without a word, disappeared again to wherever he’d been hiding.

  Quinn raised his beer and tipped it toward Tremblay. The three men clinked bottles.

  “Drink up,” Quinn said. “You deserve it.”

  “You brought the money?” It was the first time Tremblay spoke.

  Quinn shot a glance at Young and then looked back at Tremblay.

  “Of course we did.”

  “Well, let’s get on with it.”

  “Not so fast.” Quinn clasped Tremblay’s shoulder again; the thumb pressed down hard on Tremblay’s collar bone. “Enjoy your beer. There’s enough time for business.”

  “I’m not here to hang out,” Tremblay said.

  He had done what they had asked him to do. Now all he wanted was to get his money and get the hell away from these guys.

  “Finish your beer, at least,” Quinn said. “You can do that, can’t you?”

  Despite his urge to get the money and run, and forget he had ever met these Americans, instinctively, Tremblay knew he had better not upset or insult them. He put the beer bottle to his lips.

  “This doesn’t have to be the end of this road.” Quinn leaned in. “The company has need of someone they can rely on, long term. This could, in fact, be only the beginning.”

  Tremblay pretended to sip his beer in silence. He would not be drinking tonight. Doctor’s orders.

  Young, the one with the ponytail, leaned in as well toward Tremblay.

  “Of course, the company wouldn’t be too happy with someone who didn’t want to continue to cooperate.” Something between a smile and a sneer forced itself across Young’s face. “I mean, once you’re in on something like this, you’re in for good. Otherwise, things could get a little messy. Understood?”

  Tremblay’s expression remained unchanged. He hadn’t heard a word Young had said; he was deaf in his right ear.

  “So?” Quinn grabbed Tremblay’s upper arm. “We’re good for the long haul, then?”

  “We’d better be,” Young said. He looked Tremblay squarely in the eyes. “Otherwise I’ve got a buddy named Colt that won’t hesitate to spring into action, if you know what I mean.”

  Tremblay’s mind was on the cash that he was yet to collect. It was best to just bear the men out and try to keep his cool.

  “We’re good,” he said.

  They finished their drinks without another word.

  “Good,” Quinn said finally with a nod.

  Young stood up. He removed his jacket from the chair and slipped off a black duffel bag that had been under it. He passed it across to Quinn.

  “It’s all there.” Quinn slammed the bag into Tremblay’s chest. “And just to show how trustworthy we are, we’ll stay right here and let you go in there and count it.” He nodded in the direction of the toilet.

  Tremblay didn’t move. He had dreamed of having the cash — fifty thousand in cold, hard American dollars — in his hands ever since the men had taken him aside in the casino in Sault St Marie. They had given him a small velvet pouch with two thousand worth of chips as a down payment and it had succeeded in convincing him to go along with their plan.

  He’d worked for good money in the mines, but money never seemed to last too long in his hands. This was the first time he had such a pile of dough all at once to call his own.

  “Go on.” Quinn practically pushed Tremblay out of his chair. “Lock the door behind you.”

  His knees weak and his limbs shaking, Tremblay stumbled into the toilet.

  When they heard the click of the door, Quinn nodded to his companion.

  Young yanked Tremblay’s jacket from the back of his chair. He carefully made a tiny slit in the seam at the base with a penknife. He took a miniature listening device from his pocket. With deft movements, he implanted the device, then replaced the jacket on the back of Tremblay’s chair.

  The two men continued to wait as if nothing had happened.

  The door clicked open.

  “All there?” Quinn said.

  “Yes.” Tremblay immediately picked up his jacket and slipped it on. “Well, so long, I guess.”

  He had stepped not more than three paces when he heard the voice behind him.

  “Hey! Hey!”

  He turned around.

  “You’d better remember what I told you about my friend, Colt,” the man with the ponytail said.

  In an alley opposite a parking lot in walking distance from the bar, a third American, Williams, waited for Tremblay to appear.

  It was Williams who, in the wee hours of that morning, had smuggled the cash into Canada through Mohawk territory that stretched from New York into Ontario. He had picked up a stolen midnight blue SUV with a false license plate in Cornwall and had made his way to Ottawa.

  His job this evening had been to cruise the neighborhood until he had located Tremblay’s red pickup. It wasn’t too hard to find. The battered Dodge stood by itself in the parking lot.

  Williams had passed the last half hour twiddling his thumbs as he watched the dead-quiet scene. Now, he almost burst out in laughter as he saw Tremblay appear, clutching the black duffel bag to his chest and running up the street like a scared rabbit.

  Tremblay unlocked the door of his truck and jumped into the driver’s seat. He sat behind the wheel, panting. After a short while, he pulled off with a screech.

  Williams followed at a discreet distance. The ten-minute pursuit took him up King Edward Avenue, across the Macdonald-Cartier bridge into Quebec, and onto the Autoroute de la Gatineau. The sign above the exit that Tremblay took left no doubt as to his destination: Boulevard du Casino.

  Chapter 19

  His pants folds tucked into his socks, Marcus Osgood pedaled furiously on his fluorescent green and orange bicycle. His long hair fluttered in the cool, early morning breeze. He sped along the main road that ran through Syron Lake and, after a while, turned down a cul-de-sac.

  The gray stucco bungalow at which he stopped was closed. All the blinds were drawn and the garage door was down. The red Dodge he had been expecting to see parked out front was nowhere in sight.

  Osgood climbed the steps and banged on the door.

  “Eric Tremblay, you dirty dog,” he shouted.

  The greeting brought no response.

  Osgood hopped back on his bicycle.

  It was just before seven, Saturday morning. The sun was gentle and a light mist hugged the ground. Osgood didn’t feel terribly fatigued by the hour-long ride on the road leading out of town that took him deeper into the forest.

  He stopped at a narrow side road, got off the saddle, and wheeled his bicycle along the gravel. He walked for five minutes down the road that cut through the dense stands of pine and cedar. A sharp turn to the right brought him to the shore of a lake. A thin layer of mist hovered over the placid water. He sq
uinted and looked out for a boat with a solitary fisherman.

  Nothing.

  At the end of the driveway, tucked under a tall cedar was a big, old mobile home with two canoes on a rack at the side. Osgood had been certain he would have seen the red truck here, with a boat trailer hitched to it. But it was not here. And the mobile home was shut tight.

  He walked around to the back.

  “Eric? Eric!”

  The crows in the trees cawed, but there was no human response.

  Chapter 20

  I thought the figure looked familiar. He slowed down as he approached the house. He got off his bicycle and waited as I climbed down from an old, wooden ladder that I’d found and had been using to get at a leak in the eaves-trough.

  Osgood remained at the side of the road and shouted out to me. “You should get Carlton to do that.”

  “What’s that you said?” I walked out to meet him.

  “Carlton, you should get Carlton to do that. That’s his job.”

  “Who’s Carlton?”

  “Carlton, the owner.”

  I bent my head and chucked.

  “A tenant isn’t responsible for repairs, you know. That’s the landlord’s job. Or you should get your husband to do that kind of stuff for you.”

  I laughed even louder.

  Osgood stared at me with eyes that seemed wilder than ever.

  “There’s no husband here,” I said. “And I own this place now. Bought it back in August from Carlton. I’m more accustomed to calling him Mr Milken, though.”

  “You live here all by yourself?”

  “Certainly do. And I can handle my own repairs, thank you very much.”

  “That’s not right.” He shook his head.

  “What’s not right?”

  “Pretty, young thing like you shouldn’t be living on her own out here like this.”

  I smiled. I hadn’t thought of Osgood as a man who would pay attention to a woman’s looks, let alone remark on them. I’d never considered myself a beauty in the least, and I certainly didn’t think Osgood’s opinion on the subject could ever be definitive. Still, his words made my cheeks tingle.

  “I can take care of myself,” I said with a chuckle.

  “Still doesn’t make it right.”

  The night before, my visceral reaction had been to recoil from him. Sure, he looked…different. But now, I found his awkwardness and the gentleness of his demeanor somewhat disarming.

  “Nice morning for a ride,” I said.

  “Didn’t plan on it. My fishing buddy bailed on me. He was supposed to come pick me up by five and didn’t show up.”

  “That’s a bummer.”

  “He works up at the old Syron Lake mine. First, I figured he’s been run off his feet since the spill and he overslept this morning and forgot to come get me. I kept calling and he wouldn’t answer the bloody phone. Finally, I got so fed up, I rode over to his place. No sign of him. Even went over to his camp. Nope. Wasn’t there either.”

  “Maybe he’s doing overtime today.”

  “That’s what I ended up thinking. I’m gonna ride up and see if I can get in. See if he can show me how bad things are up there.”

  I slapped my forehead. “That’ll be a long, long ride.”

  “These old legs can take it.” His broad smile creased his already wrinkled cheeks.

  He got on the saddle.

  “Oh, wait, I wanted to tell you something.” I grabbed hold of his shirt sleeve to stop him. “I sent an email this morning to formally request to appear at the hearing.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I don’t know when I’ll find out whether or not they’ll let me speak, but I’ve begun writing up the presentation already.”

  “Go for it. Get the greedy bastards!”

  I watched him ride off, still unable to believe the journey he was about to undertake. There was no way he would use the alternative route to get back after visiting the site. It was too long and too hilly. He had to return the same way.

  I was determined to catch him on his return. Hopefully he would meet his fishing buddy. If he did, his report on the damage could make a valuable addition to my presentation.

  It was not until dusk that I caught sight of him through the living room window. The thin, white beam of his bicycle light was impossible to miss.

  I dashed out the door, just as he passed the house.

  “Osgood, wait!”

  The bicycle slowed, then stopped. He turned around and pedaled the short distance back to me. We stood in the square of light that shone from my window.

  “How was it? What are they doing up there?”

  “Didn’t get in.” He panted.

  “Okay, catch your breath.”

  “Got past the barricade,” he continued after a pause. “But they stopped me before I could get anywhere near the tailings pond.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad.”

  “Some guy acted like a hog. Threatened to have me arrested.”

  “I’m not surprised to hear that.”

  “Seems like a lot of activity up there, though. Saw four, five pickups go in and out in the short time I was there. Looks like they brought in outside people to help. I asked for Eric and nobody knew who he was.”

  “So, you saw nothing that I could add to my presentation?”

  He couldn’t have missed the disappointment in my voice.

  “Well, I’ll tell you, I thought of something when those strangers kicked me out.” His entire body shook and even in the dim light, the fire in his eyes was unmistakable.

  “What did you think of, Osgood?”

  “I mean, it’s my own damned town and they bring in strangers to run me out of the place and tell me I can’t go see what’s happening with radioactive waste that could kill me? I tell you, I thought of something. It came to me right then and there.”

  “What?”

  “Sue the bastards!”

  He punched the air with his fist.

  “What?”

  “That’s right. Sue the hell out of them.”

  I stared at him.

  “Money! That’s the only thing the greedy pigs behind these corporations understand. That’s what this is all about in the first place. They rape and pillage Mother Nature and now, when it’s time to take care of the mess they created, they want to get out of it. They’ll say this clean-up is beyond what one company can be expected to handle. They want taxpayers to pick up the tab for their mess. I say sue them.”

  “What are you talking about, Osgood?”

  “A class action lawsuit.”

  His words meant nothing to me. I stared blankly.

  “File a lawsuit on behalf of every living soul in the town. And maybe the Indian reservation too, I say. God alone knows how bad that spill is. What if it gets into the water table? What if it’s letting off gases into the air? I bet that spill’s already put all our lives at risk. I say they should be taken to the cleaners for this.”

  “We can do that?”

  “I could get you newspaper clippings about class actions, if that would help. I might have one or two in my bag.” He stretched his hand toward the worn pouch on his bike.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll Google it.”

  Chapter 21

  Saturday had been uneventful, as far as they were concerned.

  Taking turns tailing him, Williams, later replaced by Quinn and then Young, had observed Eric Tremblay disappear into the Casino de Lac-Leamy after the Friday nigh
t meeting.

  Just before daybreak, Saturday, Tremblay had left the casino with a buxom, barely-clad woman on his arm and had driven to a nearby motel. The woman had left half an hour later in a cab.

  Tremblay had stayed in his room for most of the day, emerging only at five in the afternoon to return to the casino. He’d gone back to his motel just before dawn on Sunday with a different woman, who’d left after forty-five minutes.

  Now it was late afternoon, Sunday. All together in the SUV, with Quinn at the wheel, they followed the red Dodge over the bridge as Tremblay crossed back to Ottawa.

  “So far so good,” Quinn said. “Looks like the gambling loser is staying true to form.”

  “I’m still worried that we can’t understand hardly a word he’s saying,” Young said. “Williams here speaks French and he can’t make head nor tails of it.”

  “I know just a few words here and there that I picked up from that girl, Monique.” The youngest of the three, and out for the first time on such a mission, Williams kept mostly quiet as he rode in the back. “We were together for just about four months; then she had to go back to France. But she spoke proper French, not this pig French they speak over here.”

  “Not a problem, boys.” Quinn pointed to the glove compartment, where he stored bits of his spy equipment. “It’s all being recorded. We’ll just have to get somebody to translate, if it comes to that. But from the sounds of it, looks like he hasn’t had a significant conversation with anybody since he left the bar Friday night. It’s just, ordinary, everyday crap.”

  “That’d be some expensive crap if it had to be translated.” Young cackled.

  “The boss is good for it.” Quinn had not let the others in on exactly who they were working for.

  “How much longer you think the battery on that thing will last?” Williams asked.

  “Should have enough juice up to Monday morning or so.” Quinn answered Williams’ reflection in the rear-view mirror. “Gives us plenty of time. It’s the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours after an amateur does a job like this that are the most dangerous.”