Die a Stranger: An Alex McKnight Novel

by Steve Hamilton

  “I’m still not following you.”

  “Look, you live here. You’ve got a good business going. You know something bad happened, but what if you’re not absolutely sure it’s going to find its way to you.”

  He mulled it over for a while. Then it came to him.

  “You don’t go anywhere,” he said. “You just make it look that way. You get your neighbor to act as your beard for a few days, and you see what happens.”

  “Maybe you even keep the sales going,” I said. “No need to shut down the cash flow, right?”

  “Okay, so your neighbor’s selling for you, you’re saying. As long as the customers are people he can trust. If it’s a stranger who shows up, then he just sends the bastard packing, tells him you’re long gone and you’re not coming back.”

  “That’s how you’d play it halfway,” I said. “You stay in business, but you keep your eyes open for trouble.”

  “So while your neighbor’s keeping the business going, where does that leave you? Where are you hiding?”

  “Where else?”

  He thought about it, and this time it took him only a second.

  “Dukes is in the neighbor’s house,” he said. “He was there last night when we knocked on the door.”

  “That part I’m just guessing. But how else are you gonna keep the customers straight? He was probably watching us from a window.”

  “God damn,” he said. “You just might be right.”

  A few minutes later, we were on the other side of town. We drove down that same street, the modest rows of houses looking all the more threadbare in the light of day. We stopped a few houses short, pulled over, and made sure we had a good sight line. This was why we had the rental car that day, in case the neighbor had noticed my truck well enough to remember it. I wouldn’t have put money on him being half that sharp, but there was no reason to take any chances.

  Dukes’ house still looked abandoned, and the neighbor’s house looked just as quiet. But then it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet.

  “That car in front,” Lou said, pointing to an old gray beater. “That’s gotta be the neighbor’s, right? Dukes’ car is probably in the neighbor’s garage.”

  “If we knew what kind of car he had, we could check.”

  “Yeah, we just have to wait to see what happens.”

  “That’s the part I’m gonna hate,” I said. “I never did like stakeouts.”

  “Well, if prison teaches you one thing, it’s how to wait. Unless you have another idea.”

  “We could go break the door down and start counting heads. One, I’m wrong. Two, I’m right.”

  “I’m pretty sure that could get us arrested,” he said. “Unless they’ve changed the laws around here.”

  “Arrested or killed. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re armed.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of it.”

  “I’ve already been shot twice,” I said. “I think that’s probably enough.”

  *

  We sat there for a long time. I don’t know exactly how long, because I was doing everything I could to turn off the clock in my brain. I leaned back in the passenger seat, my eyes just high enough to see over the dashboard. For all of his talk about learning how to wait in prison, Lou seemed even more anxious than I was. In the end, we agreed to take turns watching the houses while the other closed his eyes for a while and recharged his batteries. It made it a lot easier, but it still wasn’t going to rank as one of my favorite ways to spend a summer morning.

  “Did it really happen twice?” he said, finally breaking the silence.

  “What’s that?”

  “You said you got shot twice.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  “Fair enough. Whatever.”

  More silence.

  “The first time was on the job,” I said after a few more minutes. “I let my guard down. We both did, my partner and I. He didn’t survive it.”

  “But you did. And you blame yourself.”

  I looked over at him.

  “Which is only natural,” he said. “Even though I’m sure it’s wrong.”

  I didn’t try to argue. It was a thousand sleepless nights’ worth of old ground for me, and I had no desire to go over it again.

  “That was the first time,” he said. “What about the second?”

  “That was pretty recent. In fact, I’m not sure my doctor would love me doing this right now.”

  A car came by. It was going slow, but it didn’t stop. A few minutes later, it came by again, obviously having taken one lap around the block. We both kept our heads down as the car pulled over a few spots ahead of us. The driver got out. He was young and white and he had a ratty blond ponytail down his back. He wasn’t actually wearing a ratty denim jacket with a big embroidered cannabis plant on the back, but something told me he had one at home.

  “And here we go,” I said. “If anybody’s sleeping late in there, they’re about to be woken up.”

  He went to Dukes’ door and knocked. When nobody answered, he started looking around the place like his dealer might be around the side of the house, washing his car or something. That’s when the door to the neighbor’s house opened. Our big friend stood in the doorway. He was still wearing the same outfit, undershirt and black pants. Hell, he’d probably slept in it. Maybe right there in front of the television set, after Lou and I had left. He called over and the customer just about jumped out of his skin. A few words were exchanged. Then the customer went over to the other house and went inside. The neighbor took a careful look up and down the street. Then he closed the door.

  “Good call swapping the vehicles,” Lou said. “This guy probably would have made us in the truck.”

  As we watched the house, I tried to imagine each step of the transaction. You make your buy. Then you get the hell out, right? You don’t stick around and chat afterward.

  “So far your theory is holding up,” Lou said. “Now as soon as this guy leaves, we go knock on the door again, right? Have you figured out what you’re going to say yet?”

  “Something friendly yet persuasive,” I said. “My specialty.”

  Before another word was spoken, we saw a man moving between the two houses. It wasn’t the neighbor. It wasn’t the customer. It was a third man, taller and thinner than the other two. He moved quickly, glancing out at the street as he disappeared behind the other house.

  “That’s gotta be Dukes,” I said. “What do you say we call an audible?”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  We both got out of the car and walked down the street, trying to be quick and smooth and unassuming all at the same time. He’s going into his house to get some of his product, I thought. Then he’ll come right back out and retrace his steps to the neighbor’s house. That’ll be our chance to stop him, and once we do that, we have to convince him as quickly as possible that we’re just here to talk.

  We got up to the neighbor’s house. I willed the front door to stay shut, the neighbor and the customer safely inside, waiting for Dukes to make his way back with a bag of the good stuff. When we got to Dukes’ house, Lou gestured to the far side and went across the front lawn, keeping his head down. Now we were split up and approaching him from both sides of the house.

  I heard the back door opening and I had to make a quick decision. There was no need to give the man a heart attack, but at the same time it would be better to surprise him than to give him time to react.

  Okay, maybe you didn’t quite think this through, I told myself. Maybe you’re about to force the man to do something stupid.

  I kept my back pressed against the side of the house. Wait until he’s close, I thought, then step calmly around the corner. Hands up, showing him you’re unarmed, but still ready for anything. Tell him you just want to talk to him. Nobody gets hurt. Piece of cake, just like that.

  I waited for the sound of his footsteps. Where the hell was he? Was he walking on the grass? Hell with it. Time to move.

&n
bsp; I stepped around the corner and saw him standing a good eight feet away from me. Not the distance I had planned.

  “Mr. Dukes,” I said, barreling right ahead. “I need a word with you.”

  He was tall and gangly enough to do a good Ichabod Crane impression, complete with the expression of wide-eyed, pants-pissing shock. He was wearing an untucked striped rugby shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and as he took one step backward he reached under his shirttails and drew out a revolver.

  “Don’t shoot!” I said, already bracing myself for what I knew was coming.

  He barely had time to raise the gun when Lou was already on top of him. Lou spun him around and grabbed the gun with his left hand, giving Dukes a quick chop to the throat with his right. It wasn’t deadly force, just enough to surprise him and to loosen his grip on the revolver. As Dukes doubled over, Lou gave him a little hip check and knocked him to his knees.

  “This thing is cocked,” Lou said, as he carefully let the hammer down. Then he flipped open the cylinder. “And loaded. What were you just about to do?”

  Dukes was trying hard to catch his breath, one hand on his throat and the other on the ground.

  “I asked you a question,” Lou said. “Were you seriously going to shoot us just now? Was that your plan?”

  Dukes shook his head, but he still couldn’t speak.

  “Not to mention having a cocked pistol stuck down your goddamned pants,” Lou said. “You’re lucky you didn’t blow your own dick off.”

  “Lou, take it easy,” I said. It was finally starting to catch up to me, the simple fact that this man on the ground probably would have shot me if Lou hadn’t stopped him.

  “Take it easy yourself,” Lou said. “We could both be lying dead on the ground right now.”

  “I didn’t mean it,” Dukes said, finally finding his voice. “I’m sorry. You guys just scared me. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody, I swear.”

  “Oh just shut up,” Lou said. “I oughta put one through your head just for being such a dumbass. We came here to talk to you, all right?”

  Dukes swallowed hard as he looked back and forth between us. That’s when his neighbor came bursting out his back door, holding a baseball bat.

  “Put the bat down!” Lou said, pointing the gun at him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Put it down, Eddie!” Dukes was making no effort to get up yet. “For God’s sake, put it down!”

  Neighbor Eddie did as he was told. He stood there on the other side of the driveway, his hands in the air and the bat at his feet. I looked around and wondered if the police cars would be here in two minutes or just one. But the street looked quiet.

  “Can we take this inside,” I said, “before we all get arrested?”

  We led them back into Eddie’s house. The customer took one look at us and the gun in Lou’s hand and bolted out the front door. Which was fine by me. Lou told the two men to make themselves comfortable on the sofa. I stayed on my feet, pacing back and forth across the room and trying to bring my heart rate back into double digits. Lou just stood there glaring down at both men, his arms folded and the gun still in his right hand. Never mind the fact that we had just spent most of the last twenty-four hours together … The way he had disarmed the man, and now the absolute calm on that ageless weathered face, made me realize how little I really knew about him.

  “Lou,” I said, “you can put the gun away.”

  “I’ll keep it right here, Alex. We don’t want these gentlemen to get any funny ideas.”

  “Okay, now you sound like a gangster. We all need to turn it down a notch.”

  “This clown brought the gun into the equation,” Lou said, nodding toward Dukes. “It wasn’t our idea.”

  “The man is scared out of his mind,” I said, and as I looked down at him I could see how true that was. His hands were shaking so badly that he could barely keep them together. Beside him, Eddie was trying to look small and inconspicuous, probably for the first time in his life. He was failing miserably.

  “What are you scared of?” Lou asked Dukes.

  He started fumbling around for an answer, but it was like he just couldn’t put the sounds together into words.

  “Okay, stop,” I said. “We’re not here to hurt you, I swear. Just take a breath.”

  He nodded his head and did his best to compose himself. As he did, I took a good look around Eddie’s house. It was the house of a man living alone, that much was obvious. The furniture was ugly and simple. There was a big-screen television across from the couch and a collection of empty beer cans on either side table. The carpet needed vacuuming. Everything needed vacuuming, including the air itself. On what passed as a dining room table, there were newspapers and magazines and a small scale. Something told me it wasn’t a Weight Watcher’s scale for measuring out food portions.

  I grabbed one of the dining room chairs and positioned it in front of the two men.

  “Let me start,” I said. “My name is Alex. I know your name is Andy Dukes and this man here is Eddie, right?”

  They both nodded.

  “We’re looking for two men. One is named Vinnie LeBlanc, the other is Buck Carrick. They’re both from Bay Mills. Do either of those names mean anything to you?”

  “No,” Dukes said. “No, I swear.” He looked me in the eye for the first time since sitting down. He didn’t look away. I would have bet everything I owned that he was lying to me.

  Lou obviously had the same impression, because he went right over to Dukes and put the revolver to his temple.

  “You know how much I hate liars?” Lou said.

  Eddie made a move to get up.

  “Sit down or I’ll shoot both of you.”

  Eddie sat back down and closed his eyes. He was shaking just as badly as Dukes now.

  “Lou, for the last time,” I said, wondering how many felonies we’d actually end up committing that day, “put the gun away before somebody gets killed.”

  This was not going the way I had planned it, to say the least. This was light-years away from any possible way I would have imagined it. But we were here and the gun was in Lou’s hand and I figured, what the hell. If there was ever a time for a little game of good cop/bad cop …

  “I don’t want him to shoot you,” I said, “but I honestly think he might if you lie to us again.”

  “What do you want from me?” Dukes said. “Who are you guys?”

  “I told you, I’m a friend of Vinnie LeBlanc’s. This is his father. He’s going to try to cool it for a minute so you can talk.”

  Lou looked over at me for a moment, then he took a step backward.

  “Buck Carrick is Vinnie’s cousin,” I said. “We have reason to believe that Buck may have been at the Newberry airport the other night when those five men all had their shootout. We know that the airplane was carrying in marijuana from Canada, and we know that you’re a dealer.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “One of your customers. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I told you, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re obviously connected to what happened at the airport. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be hiding in your next-door neighbor’s house.”

  “I’m not connected to it. I swear I’m not.”

  “Here’s a little tip,” I said, sneaking a quick look at Lou. “Every time you say, ‘I swear,’ you give yourself away.”

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’m not really connected. I just…”

  He let out a long breath and looked down at his hands.

  “You just what?” I said.

  “I didn’t think anything like that would happen. I just helped them with an idea. That’s all I did.”

  “Who are we talking about?”

  “Some people,” he said. “From downstate.”

  “All right, we’ll come back to who those people are. Tell me about this idea you helped them with.”

  “They wanted to find another airpo
rt, after what happened the last time. With those guys ripping off the delivery in Sandusky. Or wherever that was. When the plane landed, the regular pickup dudes who were going to meet the plane, they were handcuffed to the fence. These other guys took all the bags and they told the pilot to fly back to Canada and to tell the growers over there that they had new contacts in the States.”

  “That part I know about,” I said. “So you’re telling me your friends decided not to stand by and let this happen?”

  “They’re not my friends,” he said quickly. “Come on, this is all business. I just get my supply from them. But when I knew they were looking around for another airport, I told them they should think about up here.”

  “So it was your idea, you’re saying. You weren’t just helping them with the idea.”

  “Yeah, I guess it was. It was my idea.”

  “It got five people killed,” I said. “You realize that, right?”

  “Those guys weren’t supposed to find out. It shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Whatever you say. Keep talking. What happened next?”

  “These people from downstate, they came up here to check it out, and I was showing them around, you know, and at first they weren’t too sure about it, because for one thing you gotta take everything back down over the bridge. But I was like, hey, you just pull up and pay your three-fifty toll. It’s not like they’re gonna search the truck or anything. So then they were like, okay, let’s see some of the airports, and I took them around to Saint Ignace and Sanderson, and then I finally took them out to Newberry. And they were like, this would be perfect if it wasn’t so deserted.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I thought that was the whole point. I thought you wanted it to be deserted so nobody would notice the plane landing.”

  “You don’t want anybody to notice,” he said, “but you also need to have more than one road out of there. That way, if somebody does see you, you can still get away. With Newberry, you just got the one road going east–west, or maybe you could take the crossroad north, but then you’d just be driving all that way up to Paradise and then you’d still have to loop back around. It wouldn’t take more than two cop cars to totally nail you.”

  “All right,” I said. “I guess I see the logic there. If it’s forty miles to the next turn, they can seal you right off. So what changed their mind?”