Die a Stranger: An Alex McKnight Novel

by Steve Hamilton

  Jackie stopped dead, halfway into his crouch to get down to the refrigerator under the bar.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “He’s not kidding,” Lou said. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Jackie finished his mission, coming up with two Molsons and putting them down in front of us. A bad idea, I thought. I should have stopped him before he went for the fridge.

  “Let’s get it out of the way,” Lou said. “I don’t imagine either of you think that much of me. Running out on my family, never coming back. I’m sure people still think I’m a total monster around here.”

  “To tell you the truth,” I said, “they don’t think about you at all. Or if they do, they don’t say anything. I don’t think I’ve heard Vinnie mention you more than two or three times, up until a week ago, when his mother died.”

  “Ouch,” Lou said, nodding slowly. “That’s even worse.”

  Now that I was sitting next to him, I could see all the scar tissue around his eyes and ears, and the long scar running along the left side of his jawline. With all of the sun damage on top of that, he looked a little unreal. Like he had spent a couple of hours in a Hollywood makeup chair, getting ready to play an old, ravaged warrior.

  “I think maybe we should put these away,” I said, collecting the two beers. “How about a Coke or something?”

  “It’s fine,” Lou said, taking one of the bottles from me. He had quick hands. “It’s just one beer.”

  I was about to say something else, but he cracked it open and took a hit.

  “What brings you back here?” Jackie said. He was eyeing the man like he still wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. Which made two of us.

  “Damn, what is this?” Lou said, looking at the label. “Molson doesn’t taste like this back home.”

  “He says he’s good at finding people,” I said to Jackie. “He thinks he can find Vinnie.”

  “I said I wanted to try,” Lou said. “I know it’s a little late to be doing something for one of my kids.”

  “Twenty-five years late,” Jackie said. “No, wait, almost thirty?”

  Lou put the bottle down and raised his hands. “I’m not defending myself,” he said. “If you want me to get up and walk out of here, I’ll do it right now.”

  “Let’s hear your angle first,” I said.

  “My angle, huh? Okay, fair enough.”

  He took another long draw from the bottle and appreciated it for a long moment, maybe flashing back to a lot of thirsty days in a hot prison cell.

  “Let me start this way,” he said. “Put yourself in Vinnie’s place. Why did you go to the airport?”

  “Because my cousin called me and asked me to come get him.”

  He looked at me while he thought about it.

  “You seem pretty sure about that part. There’s no way Vinnie could have been there himself? I mean, when everybody started shooting each other?”

  “I can’t see that.”

  “No,” Jackie said. “No way.”

  “Okay, let’s say I’m with you on that one. We’re saying it was just Buck who was there when it all goes down. What kind of player is he? Is he a shooter?”

  I had to smile at that one.

  “I don’t know Buck nearly as well as I know Vinnie, but I can’t see him playing the heavy in any of this. Maybe it was just a case of wrong place, wrong time?”

  “What, you mean he just happened to stumble onto the airport runway in the middle of the night? Like he took a wrong turn or something?”

  “Look, I don’t know. I’m just saying, he always seemed pretty harmless to me.”

  “Yeah, I did time with some guys who seemed pretty harmless. But either way, the bullets start flying, and he’s the one guy who walks away. So he calls Vinnie, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Vinnie’s the kind of guy who would go get him? In the middle of the night?”

  “He’s that kind of guy, yes.”

  “You both are,” Jackie said. “There’s not a lick of sense in either one of you.”

  I shot Jackie a look, not that it would have slowed him down one bit.

  “Okay, so he’s an easy touch,” Lou said. “He goes out and picks up Buck. Then what? Where does he take him?”

  “Maybe to another reservation,” I said. “We’ve already been over this. How many are there?”

  “There’s a few. Some of them are pretty big. Hell, the Saginaw rez is like two hundred square miles. But why did they run in the first place?”

  “Because they’re freaking out,” Jackie said. “Why else?”

  “Alex, is Vinnie the kind of person who would freak out like that?”

  “No,” I said, “but I don’t know about Buck.”

  “Maybe he got shot,” Jackie said. “Maybe Vinnie’s trying to take care of him.”

  “I think you have to take him to the hospital right away,” Lou said. “Don’t you? Unless you’re a complete idiot.”

  “Yeah, he would know better,” I said. “Vinnie probably just took him away to calm him down. To figure out what to do next.”

  “Everybody’s dead now,” Jackie said. “What’s he afraid of?”

  “If they find out he was there and that he walked away alive,” I said, “then he must think they’ll be coming after him.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “Anybody,” Lou said. “On either side of it.”

  “There’s three sides,” I said. “The delivery side, the receiving side, and the hijacking side. I don’t imagine any of them are real happy right now.”

  “Damn,” Jackie said. “Poor Buck, he might be right in the middle of all these guys.”

  “That’s exactly right,” Lou said. “So now if you’re Vinnie and you’re looking after him, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you have to turn yourself in,” I said. “It’s the only thing you can do.”

  Lou was already taking another swallow and he just about spit it right up. “Are you serious?”

  “It’s the only safe play. Turn yourself in. Explain why you were there.”

  “You sound like a cop or something.”

  “I was,” I said. “For eight years.”

  He took a long look at me, like he was seeing me for the first time.

  “This is getting better and better.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He put the bottle down and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “You really think he’d be safest if he turned himself in? If he ended up sitting in a holding cell somewhere? Where everybody in the world would know exactly where he was?”

  “Okay, I understand, just because he’s in a cell…”

  “You really think that’s what Vinnie’s telling him? Like right now, wherever they are? ‘Hey, Buck, let’s go turn your ass in to the authorities? And oh by the way, me too? Because I was an accessory to helping you run away?’”

  “Look…”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Alex. But if you’re gonna approach this like an ex-cop, then maybe we should part ways right now. No use having us get in each other’s way if we’ve got completely different ideas.”

  “So what’s your idea?” I said. “If you find them, I mean. What would you suggest they do?”

  He picked up his bottle again. “That,” he said, “is something we’d just have to play by ear.”

  “So let’s start by finding him,” I said. “Let’s not even worry about what happens next.”

  “Fair enough.” He looked at me. “You were really a cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should have known. You fight like a cop. Totally clean. No cheap shots.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  He smiled. “Whatever you say.”

  Jackie looked at me and I just shook my head. I was already past having second thoughts and was well into the third thoughts. But I decided to let him keep talking.

  “Tell me more about Buck,” he said. “Start with whe
re he buys his weed.”

  “What good is that going to do us?”

  “Follow the weed,” he said. “Right back to the seller. Right up the supply chain, from the seller to somebody else, to maybe somebody who might know something.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “So you know where to take us?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

  *

  It was close to midnight now. We were both in my truck, on the way down to Brimley. As we passed through the reservation, he sat up straight and stared out the window.

  “This is seriously one place I never thought I’d see again.”

  “I’m sure it’s changed a lot,” I said.

  “I forgot how you just drive down the road and all of a sudden you’re on the rez. Out West, you gotta drive for miles through absolute desert. There’s not much doubt about it when you finally get there. Out of sight and out of mind.”

  “That’s the King’s Club,” I said as we passed the first casino. “Was it even here when you were here?”

  “They were just building it,” he said. “Although I thought they were gonna call it something else. I understand it was quite the bust when they first opened it. They had to close it and try again, right?”

  “So I’m told. I wasn’t here yet.”

  “You’re not a native Yooper?”

  “Born and raised in Detroit.”

  “Is that where you were a cop?”

  “Yes.”

  There were a few cars on the road, most of them gamblers on a warm summer night, or Bay Mills members who were driving to or from work.

  “They got nice houses here,” he said. “I don’t see one place I recognize.”

  “All the shacks are gone. But again, that was before my time. Which reminds me. Your daughters’ houses are coming up on the right.”

  I slowed down.

  “Who lives there?” he said. “Mary?”

  “No, this is Regina’s house. Mary is a few doors down. You want to go say hello?”

  “Wow, I don’t know. It’s kinda late, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s late.”

  “I mean, even so. Maybe after we find Vinnie. Maybe we can all sit down together.”

  “They have kids, you know. Both of your daughters. I just saw them the other day.”

  He nodded his head at that. But he didn’t say anything. I kept driving.

  When we passed the big Bay Mills Casino, he looked it over. Then he turned to take in the Wild Bluff golf course on the other side of the street. The back of Mission Hill rose into the darkness.

  “My God,” he finally said. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

  “Sorry you left now?”

  He just shook his head again.

  “We’re almost there,” I said.

  “There’s a rez out by Las Vegas,” he said. “It’s called Moapa Valley. You ever hear of it?”

  “No.”

  “Instead of a golf course they’ve got a coal-burning plant. Right next to the houses. Down the road there’s a place called Yucca Mountain. It’s sacred to the Paiutes, so of course you know what the government is trying to do? They’re trying to use it as a storage area for nuclear waste.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just thinking, I hope these people know how good they’ve got it up here.”

  “These people work hard,” I said. “They earned everything they’ve gotten.”

  I could feel him watching me for the next few moments. Then he gave out a tired laugh.

  “Now I know why you’re not a cop anymore. You had to quit so you could get into politics.”

  I fought off the urge to slam on the brakes right then. Bounce this joker’s head right off the dashboard.

  “Listen,” I said, “you want to know why I’m not a cop anymore? Because I got shot.” I was about to tell him about my partner lying dead on the floor next to me, and then about another cop who died on another floor, a lot closer to home. But I swallowed the words. It was none of his goddamned business.

  “Just knock it off with the cop jokes,” I said. “Okay?”

  “Easy, friend. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “We’re not friends, Lou. But if you really came all this way to help Vinnie…”

  “I did, man. I swear.”

  “Okay, then let’s find him.”

  I kept going down the road. Neither of us spoke for a while.

  “Vinnie says you went to prison because you got drunk and ran into a car,” I finally said. “Is that accurate?”

  “It’s not polite to ask that.”

  “I’m asking anyway.”

  “It’s accurate,” he said. “I would give anything to take back that night.”

  “I also understand this was not your first brush with the law.”

  He let out a long breath. “You understand correctly. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, before I got clean.”

  “Did I not just watch you drink a couple of beers tonight?”

  “I didn’t say clean and sober. Just clean.”

  “I won’t even ask,” I said. “But you’ve been out for two years now, you said?”

  “Coming up on two years, yeah. I’m already on the other side of sixty years old now. I don’t figure I have much chance to do something good with my life. So when I heard about my son being in trouble, well, I just figured I should try doing one thing right.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I get it.”

  “By the way, you didn’t have to point out the fact that I’ve got grandkids sleeping in those houses back there. You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I recognize that that’s the saddest thing in the world, that they’ve probably never even heard of me?”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Sorry I got a little sensitive about the cop business.”

  “It’s all right. I was out of line.”

  We passed the sign letting us know we had just left the reservation.

  “This place we’re going,” Lou said, looking behind him, “it’s not on the rez?”

  “No, it’s in Brimley. Just around the bay here.”

  “You gotta leave the rez to drink?”

  “You can drink at the casino, or hell, you can drink at home if you want. But yeah, most of them seem to end up at the Cozy.”

  “The Cozy! Are you kidding me? That place is still around?”

  A minute later, I pulled up in front of it. There were a good dozen cars in the lot. When we got out, Lou took a quick walk across the street, stopping over at the guardrail where the river came out from under the road and fed into the bay.

  “Good old Whiskey River,” he said, “and Whiskey Bay.”

  “You better not let Vinnie hear you say that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s Waishkey,” I said. “Not whiskey.”

  “So what’s the big deal about that?”

  “Try drinking a few shots while he’s in the same room. You’ll find out.”

  “I can’t wait.” He turned back and looked out over the water.

  “The water’s pretty calm tonight,” I said.

  “I know that can change in a second. That’s something you don’t forget. But we didn’t come here to gaze out at the lake, huh? This is the place where you figure Buck might buy his weed?”

  “It’s where he drinks most of the time. So I’m just guessing.”

  “All right, then. Let’s go see if anybody’s holding in there.”

  As we crossed the street, he stopped dead in the middle. It’s the kind of thing you can do in a place like Brimley, Michigan. After midnight, or hell, pretty much anytime of the day for that matter.

  “Something’s not right here.” He looked back and forth from one side of the road to the other.

  “They dragged the Cozy over to this side a few years ago,” I said
. “Then they added on to it.”

  “So I’m not crazy,” he said. “At least not in this particular case.”

  We finished crossing the street and went inside. As you step into the place, you’re greeted by the heat and the noise, and you can see where they built on to the one side of it, turning the place into a genuine restaurant and not just a corner bar. Although you can eat dinner there with your family only up until nine o’clock. Then they kick out everybody who’s underage and the only thing you can do there is drink. Either that or play pool on the one table in the middle of the room.

  We picked out an empty table and sat down. A waitress came by and we ordered a couple of beers. I knew they wouldn’t be real Canadians, but we didn’t have much choice. As we sat there drinking, Lou looked the place over.

  “How many Bay Mills’ you figure are here right now?”

  “Maybe half.”

  “Seriously? What about those guys right there?” He nodded to a table where six young men sat quietly. The empty bottles were gathered in the center of the table like bowling pins.

  “Those are all guys who work at the casino,” I said. “I saw them at the funeral.”

  “I forgot how much the blood gets mixed up here, man. A couple of them look whiter than you do.”

  “So, what next?”

  “I think you should stay right here for a minute,” he said. “No offense, but I don’t think these guys are gonna believe you’re really looking to score.”

  I couldn’t argue with him. He walked over to the table. “Hey, little brothers,” he began, putting on a big smile and talking so loud I could hear him across the room. “I’m from out of town, wondering if you can help me out.”

  He bent down for the rest and I couldn’t make out a word. From the body language at the table, it didn’t look like he was getting anywhere. But he was smiling when he wished them a good night and came back to our table.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Not a damned thing. But I mentioned a sum of money that will get them thinking. At least one or two of them. Now all we have to do is wait.”

  It started getting a little too noisy to talk, so we just sat there for a while. That was fine with me, anyway. I still wasn’t sure what to make of this guy.

  I had to admit, though. His plan was solid. If Buck was involved in that drug ring, this was the best way to find out more. And there was no way I could do this on my own, even if I had thought of it.