Die a Stranger: An Alex McKnight Novel

by Steve Hamilton

  I was expecting her to come around and sit beside me, but instead she opened the door right behind me and sat in the backseat.

  “This gun is six inches away from the back of your head,” she said. “Do one thing wrong and I will literally paint that windshield with your brains. Are you with me? Are we still on the same page?”

  I nodded. Then I heard a collection of keys hitting the seat beside me.

  “Take the key that says ‘Jeep’ on it and put it in the ignition.”

  Under different circumstances, I would have had a quick comeback to that. Like thanks, I would have tried this house key instead. But this obviously wasn’t the time for wisecracks, so I did as I was told. I put the right key in and turned it. The engine came to life.

  This is the vehicle that was missing from the farmhouse, I thought. This is the vehicle that brought Vinnie and Buck to this place.

  “Now you’re gonna back out and then go to the street, at which point you will take a smooth left turn. You need to keep believing me when I tell you that I’ll kill you in a second if you give me any reason. At this point, I will happily tell the police that you tried to kidnap me, and then I grabbed your gun and shot you with it. The gun is not registered to me, and I am a very good liar. So I’m quite sure I’d get away with it.”

  I’m quite sure that would make me the most inept kidnapper in history, I thought. But if the paper on that gun was really that clean, I had no doubt she’d be able to sell the story. Or at least that she believed she’d be able to sell it, which was all that mattered.

  I put the vehicle in Reverse and backed it up using only the mirrors. Something told me she wouldn’t have appreciated me turning around. I put it back in Drive and went to the street. I waited for a few cars to go by. Then I took the left.

  “Now you’re going to keep going straight and you’re gonna keep the speed at exactly twenty miles an hour. You got that? If you hit twenty-one, well, you know what happens.”

  There was a strange spin on everything she was saying now. When she had first stuck that gun in my ribs, back on the dock, I could hear the fear in her voice and I could practically feel her hands shaking. Now, she had clearly gotten her nerve back. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn she was almost enjoying this.

  How ironic it was, having had two different men point a gun at me that week, first Dukes with his already-cocked revolver stuck stupidly down his pants, then Perry with the empty shotgun. Both bumbling and useless in their own way, and now here was this woman a few years older than me, and she was clearly starting to get the hang of this.

  “May I say something now?” I said.

  I felt the sharp jab of the gun barrel against the back of my head.

  “You’ll speak when I ask you a question,” she said. “For now, just keep driving. When this road comes to a T, you need to make a right.”

  I wasn’t about to tell her that I knew that. I still had the map from the postmaster, after all. We were cutting through the interior of the island, and then we’d have to head north along the western shore.

  “Okay, so here’s your chance to talk,” she finally said. “How stupid does Corvo think we are?”

  “What are you talking about?” I expected the gun barrel to jab me in the back of the head again, but it didn’t.

  “I thought we were square,” she said. “After today we’re all back in business, and everybody knows we’re gonna play nice from now on. That was the deal.”

  “You’ve got the wrong idea, ma’am. That’s not why I’m here.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath. I waited for what was going to happen next.

  “I should kill you right now,” she said.

  I struggled to keep my foot light on the gas pedal. One good push and I could send her backward in her seat. Then slam on the brakes and with any luck she’d be dumped right in my lap.

  Just thinking about it, I was already starting to creep up above her twenty-miles-an-hour speed limit.

  “You’re going too fast,” she said. “Slow down right now.”

  I eased up on the pedal. It would be a high-risk move and she was agitated now, making it even more likely she’d pull that trigger. Maybe the first shot would go through the roof, but I didn’t like my odds on the second.

  That’s when my cell phone rang. It was in my right pocket.

  “Who’s calling you?” she said. “Is that Corvo?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Toss your phone back here. Without answering it.”

  I leaned over so I could reach into my pocket. I had to struggle to keep the vehicle going straight while getting the stupid phone out, while at the same time not doing something that might be construed as offensive. When I finally got the phone out, it had rung a few more times. I tossed it into the backseat. I heard her fumble to pick it up off the floor and for one split second I thought I had a chance to do something.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said, a genuine mind reader on top of all of her other charms.

  She flipped open my phone and apparently looked at the display.

  “There’s no name,” she said. “Big surprise. But the number has a 702 area code. That must be one of those other Chicago area codes, right?”

  “That’s Las Vegas,” I said, picturing Lou still on the boat, close enough to the island now to be in range. Calling to check in, to see if I’d made any progress.

  “Las Vegas, what the hell? Are you kidding me?”

  She snapped the phone shut.

  “You know, they make real cell phones now,” she said. “This thing belongs in a museum.”

  “That was Vinnie’s father on the phone,” I said. “He’s looking for his son. Vinnie and Buck, both of them. That’s why I’m here. I’ve got nothing to do with Corvo.”

  “You don’t say,” she said. “Just looking for the Indians. Wouldn’t that be interesting.”

  “It’s the truth. I need to know if they’re alive.”

  “You need to shut your mouth is what you need to do. Make this right turn, then I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  “You’re not going to shoot me. We both know that.”

  Say it like you believe it, I thought. Like it’s a calmly observed statement of undeniable truth. If she had any doubt, she’ll start to believe it. At least that’s the general idea. Whether it really works or not, I guess we’re gonna find out.

  “The day is young,” she said. “I got a feeling a lot of different things are gonna happen before the sun goes down.”

  The phone rang again. She didn’t answer. She didn’t even look at it. I tried to guess how much time had passed, tried to imagine where Lou was at that moment. Maybe off the boat by now. Standing on the dock, looking around and swearing at his phone. Maybe his car was off by now, maybe not. Either way, it was hard to put together any series of events that would lead him my way.

  Unless …

  “We’re close now,” she said. “Slow down.”

  Unless he follows the same general plan that I did. Take a look around at the main street, register the fact that everybody seems to know everybody else. Then start fishing. All you have to do is walk into that post office and you’ll be one big step closer.

  “I said slow down!”

  I hit the brakes, not quite hard enough to send her flying but I heard her give out a little yelp of surprise.

  “You want to die right now?” she said. “Turn into this driveway.”

  I made the turn. There was an empty driveway leading to a nice little summer house. The trees were thick on either side of the house, but I could see the lake through the branches. I could gun it right now, I thought. Make it through that one gap in the trees and I’d be in the lake before she could even think twice. She’d shoot me for sure, but at least she’d probably drown a few minutes later.

  “Right here is fine,” she said. “In case you’re wondering, the houses on either side of us are empty right now. I could shoot this thing as many
times as I want and nobody would notice.”

  Not exactly true, I thought. If you shoot outside, they’ll hear it halfway around the island. If you shoot it inside, you’ll still get people all up and down the street looking up from their papers and wondering what the hell just happened. Of course, maybe she knows that and she’s just saying it for my benefit. Somehow, I didn’t think it would be worth calling her bluff.

  “Take the key out of the ignition and toss it back to me,” she said when we were stopped.

  “I assume you want me to put it in Park first.”

  “Watch the mouth,” she said. “Yes, put it in Park.”

  I took it out of gear, turned the vehicle off, and tossed her the key.

  “Now open your door, but stay seated.”

  I opened the door. She got out behind me and came up next to the side mirror. My door wasn’t all the way open, so for one instant I thought about kicking it right into her, but she took a step backward before I could even try it. She kept taking quick looks behind her, as if expecting someone to come out of the house.

  “Get out and put your hands on your head,” she said. “You leave them there until I say otherwise. You got that?”

  I didn’t bother answering. I got out of the car and stood in the sunlight, with my hands on my head like some kind of prisoner of war. In a way, maybe that’s exactly what I was.

  “Turn and walk to the house. Nice and easy. You keep cooperating, you stay alive.”

  The first positive thing she’d said, I thought. The first ray of hope.

  “Harry!” she yelled. “Where the hell are you?”

  There was no answer from the house.

  “God damn him. Just keep walking. Go all the way onto the back porch.”

  There were stairs leading up to the side door, and that same landing wrapped around to the rest of the porch. I went up the stairs, looking for some advantage, something I could use to knock the gun from her hand, or at least to use as a shield. But she was being way too careful.

  As we turned the corner, I saw two men sitting there on the porch. They were both in their twenties, one of them long and lean, the other shorter and heavier. They were both wearing long shorts and elaborate tennis shoes and nothing else. The shirtless look did a lot more for the lean guy than the heavy guy, but either way it was like a visual battle of the tattoos. Between the two of them, they must have been carrying around ten square feet of ink.

  “Sugarpie and Dumpling,” the woman said. “Get the hell up and take care of this fool for me.”

  It took a few seconds for the two men to process what they were seeing. The joint they were sharing probably didn’t help any. When it finally broke through that a stranger was standing on the deck and that Jo was pointing a gun at his back, they jumped up out of the chairs and grabbed me by each arm. The joint got put down in the ashtray and there it lay, still smoking, filling the porch with a dull haze.

  “I didn’t say pull him apart,” she said. “Just sit him down there.”

  They did as they were told, planting me in the chair and standing over me like they both expected me to try something. Even though one had a few inches on me and the other about eighty pounds.

  “Who is he?” the tall guy said, looking down at me with his hands clenched. “What the hell’s he doing here?”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out,” she said. “Where the hell is Harry, anyway?”

  “He’s not back yet.”

  “Not back from where?”

  They both sneaked a look at her and then at each other.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Are you seriously telling me that Harry went out there by himself?”

  “He had a lot of money with him,” the heavy one said. “I guess he doesn’t trust us.”

  “What were you gonna do, Dumpling?” she said, going over to the heavy man and squeezing his cheek. She literally squeezed his cheek like he was five years old, and at the same time she solved forever the mystery of who was Sugarpie and who was Dumpling. “Did he think you were gonna run off with the money or something?”

  “Apparently that was the general suspicion, yes.”

  “God damn,” she said, turning to the other one. Sugarpie, apparently. “And you just let him go on with this foolishness? You let him go all the way out there by himself? What, like ten miles of open water?”

  “What was I supposed to do?” the tall one said. “He had his mind made up. You know how he is.”

  “He’s an idiot is how he is. God damn both of you. You should have tied him up right here on this porch, like this guy. Which by the way I notice you haven’t done yet.”

  “I’ll go get the zip ties,” Dumpling said. He bounded off the deck and down the stairs. That left me with just Sugarpie hovering over me, balancing on the balls of his feet and extending his hands out in front of him like we were about to wrestle.

  The woman went to the railing of the deck and looked out onto the lake. She still had the gun, and she was still too far away for me to make a move for it. Especially with Sugarpie watching me.

  I turned my head to look out at the lake. It was a beautiful view, I’ll say that much. There was a path leading down from the house, through the wildflowers surrounding the trees. Out on the water, the sunlight was dancing in every ripple. The shoreline itself was rough and unforgiving, but for me that would have made this place even better. No docks, no boats, no noise beyond the light breeze tickling the wind chimes hanging in the corner. On any other day, this would have been the best place in the world to be.

  Today, well, maybe it was just the perfect place to spend my last hours on earth.

  “Eyes straight ahead,” she said without looking at me. “Sugarpie, keep a lid on our guest, will you?”

  He went to grab my hair, but I dodged my head out of the way. He responded to that by smacking me across the face.

  “You don’t have to beat him to death,” she said. “Just keep a lid on him.”

  He folded his arms and stared down at me with a sick little smile.

  “It’s not like he could have gotten lost,” she said, turning back to the water. “It’s impossible, right? Even for him.”

  “That’s right, Jo. I’m sure he’s okay.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure he’s okay,” she said, speaking more to herself now than to anyone else. “There’s no way anything could have gone wrong.”

  We spent another couple of minutes this way, as she stood there watching the lake, rocking back and forth in her sandals. Finally, the sound of a motor began to cut through the breeze. It was coming from the lake. A boat.

  No, not a boat. As it got closer, I could hear that the motor was in a higher register. It was a small craft, probably a jet ski. Which made sense because you sure as hell weren’t about to dock a boat down on that rocky shoreline.

  In my peripheral vision, I saw her whole body language change as she watched someone dock whatever it was he was driving or riding, and then she followed his progress up the trail to the house. I was interpreting everything through her face, because it was all happening behind me, but she was obviously relieved and for one quick moment I could almost even see her smiling.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” she screamed at him as soon as he was close enough to hear her. So much for smiling.

  “That was the worst ride of my life,” the voice said from behind me. “I’d like to see you go try it.”

  “You had me worried half to death, you idiot.”

  “Hey, I got back here as fast as I could! The currents were a lot stronger than I thought, so just get off my back, okay?”

  I heard steps on the stairs and then the man himself, Harry, came around the corner, onto the back deck. He was dressed in a wet suit, and his hair was slicked back against his head. He was bald on top, but he was one of those guys who tries to make up for it by growing it as long as possible on the sides. Whether he tried to comb it over or not, I couldn’t say, because now he just looked like a half-
drowned rat.

  He might have been older, but he processed the situation a lot quicker than Sugarpie and Dumpling had.

  “Who the hell is this?” he said, nodding at me. “What’s going on?”

  “He’s been looking for us,” she said calmly. “He was asking about us, all over town.”

  “What are you talking about? How was he looking for us? How did he end up here? How did he…”

  His brain overloaded about then and he couldn’t speak any more. He just kept looking at his wife, then me, then Sugarpie, then back at his wife. All the while he continued to drip water onto the nice wooden deck.

  “I thought he must be working for Corvo,” she said. “I thought maybe we were getting double-crossed or something.”

  “What, you mean sending one of his men out here? Are you serious?”

  He came closer to me, bending down a bit to look closer at me like I was some kind of exotic animal.

  “Is that what this is?” he said to me. “Is this the old double-cross, Corvo-style?”

  He straightened up and looked at his wife before I could answer. Then he bent down again. He was dripping water on my shoes now.

  “I did everything he told us to do,” the man said. “The Indians are out in the boat, along with the money.”

  That got me to the edge of my chair. Sugarpie knocked me back with one long arm and then he put his hands on my shoulders. If the railing hadn’t been behind me, he would have turned the chair over with me in it.

  “Stay right there,” Jo said, pointing the gun at my head. “You try that again and I’ll kill you.”

  “Are you talking about Vinnie and Buck?” I said. “God damn it, where are they?”

  “He doesn’t work for Corvo,” she said to her husband. “There’s no way.”

  “I don’t know,” Harry said. “Why else would he be here?”

  “Look at him. He’s too old, for one thing. And he’s not all pumped up on steroids.”

  “I don’t care who sent him,” Harry said. “He’s still trouble. He could have messed up everything.”

  “Relax,” she said. “We’ll be out of here on the next ferry, remember? We’ll be long gone by tonight.”