“The hell you do,” he said. “Where would you be without snowmobilers? What would you do between December and March?”
“I’d go to Florida,” I said.
“Yeah, I can see that. Alex McKnight sitting on a beach. Drinking a margarita.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve been up here too long,” he said. “It’s in your blood.” I remember Jackie leaning over the bar, grabbing me by the collar. “You’re a ‘yooper,’ Alex. You’re one of us now.”
The snow was as dry and light as talcum powder. I plowed it off the road without even feeling it or hearing it. Then I turned around and went east back toward the main road. I passed my cabin and plowed right past Vinnie’ place. His car wasn’t there. Probably spent the night at the reservation. Normally I plow his driveway on my way through, but today I felt like leaving him snowed in. Let him shovel for once.
I rumbled by, then I stopped. I backed up and did his driveway.
I went into town, picked up my mail. I stood next to my truck and filled it with gas, feeling the cold morning wind off Whitefish Bay. It was frozen as far as you could see, but somewhere out there, maybe two miles, the water was still open. That’s the water that fed the snow gods. I could remember one night a couple years before, we got over four feet of snow in twelve hours. That’s the kind of night where you play a kind of musical chairs-wherever you are when the snow hits-bar, restaurant, house-that’s where you’re going to stay for the next couple of days.
A big truck rolled into the gas station, pulling a trailer. On the back there were two snowmobiles, looked like they cost at least seven thousand dollars each. The driver got out of the truck. He had a new snowmobile suit on, another thousand dollars right there. He looked at me standing there in my jeans and hunting boots, my down coat that had seen twelve hard winters, standing next to a beat-up truck that was even older than my coat, with a sheet of plastic where the passenger side window should have been.
“Howdy,” he said.
“Howdy,” I said.
“Nice little town you got here.”
“Glad you like it.”
“We’ve been driving for seven hours,” the man said. “This place is hard to get to.”
“Not hard enough,” I said.
He smiled and nodded. I guess he wasn’t really listening. “Well, have a good one,” he said.
With those good wishes and a tank full of gasoline, I was all set for the day. I stopped in at the Glasgow Inn to have some lunch and to bother the owner. Jackie had the whole place done up like a Scottish pub, with the fireplace and the tables and the big overstuffed chairs. Jackie was born in Glasgow. He didn’t have the accent anymore, but he certainly looked like one of those old weather-beaten golf caddies. The place was almost empty at this time of day, just a few locals sitting with their newspapers. Jackie was sitting with his feet up by the fireplace.
“Where were ya last night?” he said.
“What, I’ve got to call in when I’m not going to be here now?”
“Forgive me for asking,” he said. “I was just wondering where you were.”
“If you must know, I was playing hockey.”
“Sure you were,” he said. “Right after the aliens abducted you and took you for a ride on their spaceship.”
“Vinnie’s got a team,” I said. “A thirty-and-over league.” I bent down very slowly and carefully. Finally, I made it into a chair. “I’m a little sore today.”
“Alex, when they say thirty and over, that usually means over thirty and under fifty.”
“I’m forty-eight, smartass. Now get up there and bring me a beer. And make me a sandwich while you’re at it.”
“Such manners,” he said. He went behind the bar and opened up the cooler. I put my feet up on his little hassock and closed my eyes. The heat felt good. I could have gone to sleep right there.
“Here,” he said. He put a plate down on the table next to me, along with a bottle.
“Jackie,” I said. “What is this?”
“It’s a sandwich, genius. Ham and provolone.” He went back to the bar, which was a good thing because I wasn’t going to give him his footstool back.
“No, the bottle,” I said, across the room. A man in the corner looked up from his newspaper, smiled and shook his head, looked down again.
“That’s beer, Alex.”
“What kind of beer?”
“Molson beer. You can read.”
“What kind of Molson beer?”
He let out a long sigh. “American Molson beer.”
“Where’s my Canadian beer, Jackie?” We have this little arrangement. Whenever he goes across the border, he picks me up a case of Canadian Molson. He’s not supposed to be selling Canadian beer in the United States, but he keeps a few in the cooler, just for me.
“I ran out of the Canadian,” he said. “I’ll get you some more tomorrow.”
“You’re supposed to keep an eye on it,” I said. “You’re supposed to let me know if you’re getting low.”
“Like I got nothing better to do than to monitor your personal beer supply.”
“No, Jackie, as a matter of fact you don’t. That should be your number one priority in life.”
“Just drink the goddamned American beer, will you? I swear, I’m gonna make you put on a blindfold some day, see if you can even tell the difference. I’ll bet you five hundred dollars you can’t.”
The door opened before I could take him up on his bet. A blast of cold air swept through the room, and a man walked in who was just about as welcome as the cold air. Leon Prudell.
“Oh yeah,” Jackie said from the bar, “I was supposed to tell you. Leon Prudell was here last night looking for you. I told him to come back today at lunchtime.”
“Thanks a lot,” I said.
Prudell came over to the fireplace and sat down in the chair next to me. “How’s it going, Alex?”
“Prudell,” I said.
“Call me Leon, ay,” he said. He hadn’t changed much. He was still all, flannel and messy orange hair and that yooper twang.
“Leon. What can I do for you?” The last time he showed up here, he drank a great deal of whiskey and then he tried to take me apart in the parking lot. Come to think of it, that was the same night my whole life started turning inside out. I hoped his coming into the bar again wasn’t an omen of more of the same.
“I just wanted to talk to you,” he said. “I got a business proposition.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t even try.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about getting back into private investigation, ay. I really miss it, Alex. I mean I still have my license and everything. Here, I had these made up.” He handed me a business card. It read “Leon Prudell, Investigation, Security, Bail Bonds.”
“You’re serious,” I said.
“I thought it would be a good idea to add the bail bonds in there. Did you know that there are no bail bondsmen in the whole county? Until me, I mean. If you had to get bailed out of jail, you’d have to wait for somebody to come up from Mackinac.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said. “But what does this have to do with me?”
“Alex…,” he said. He gave the room a quick scan and then he bent his head closer to mine. “Alex, here’s the way it is. I’ve been trying real hard to be an investigator again, because it’s what I love to do. And I think I’m real good at it. I helped you out that one time, remember? Getting into that guy’s house? You could tell I was pretty good at that kind of stuff, right? Am I right?”
I looked at him. “Yes,” I finally said. “You knew what you were doing.”
“Okay,” he said. “But the problem is, most people, they look at me and they don’t see that. You know what I mean? They look at me and they think of that goofy fat kid who used to sit in the back of the class.”
“Prudell-”
“Alex, I’m not saying I remind them of that goofy fat kid. I’m saying I was that goofy fat
kid, okay? Everybody I went to school with, they’re still in Sault Ste. Marie. They still see me like that. You know how hard that is to deal with?”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to be my partner.”
“Oh God,” I said. “Are you kidding me?”
“McKnight-Prudell Investigations,” he said. “Although, I don’t know, maybe Prudell-McKnight sounds better.”
“Prudell, come on…”
“Okay, McKnight-Prudell. We’ll put your name first.”
“Just stop,” I said. “Please.”
“We’d be perfect,” he said. “You’re an ex-cop. You look like an ex-cop. You’re not from around here. You don’t talk like you’re from around here. And you’ve got that.” He looked at my chest. “You know, you’ve got that bullet thing going for you.”
I just looked at him.
“You really have a bullet in there, right?” he said. “Next to your heart? Do you have any idea how great that sounds? People hear that, they think, ‘Now this guy is like somebody out of a movie.’ ”
“Yeah, that’s kinda what I was hoping for,” I said. “That’s exactly why I let myself get shot in the first place.”
“No really, Alex-”
“Just stop right there,” I said. “Listen to me. I don’t want to be a private investigator. It’s the last thing in the world that I want to be.”
“I get it,” he said. “You just don’t want to be my partner.”
“It’s got nothing to do with you. I just don’t want to be one. Becoming a P.I. was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life, you understand me? Nothing but bad has come of it.” I wasn’t about to tell him the whole story. I didn’t even like thinking about it.
“Will you think about it?” he said. “Will you do that much at least?”
“There’s nothing to think about,” I said. “I’m not a private investigator anymore. And I’ll never be one again.”
“Fine,” he said. He got up from the chair and put his coat on.
I tried to stand up. My legs had other ideas. If Prudell ever wanted another chance to kick my ass, today would be a great day for it. “Look,” I said. “If anybody ever asks me about it, I’ll send him your way, okay?”
“Sure,” he said. “You do that. Thanks a lot.”
I gave up and sat back down. Prudell left the place, slamming the door behind him.
“What was that all about?” Jackie said.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just ruined his life again.” I took a drink of my American beer and nearly choked on it. “Goddamn it, Jackie. I am not going to sit here and drink this.”
“Canada’s thirty miles that way,” he said, pointing north. “You know the way.”
“I might just do that,” I said. “As soon as I can walk again.”
I sat there for another couple of hours. The place started to fill up with snowmobilers. I overheard a lot of talk about which trails were smooth and how fast the Yamaha was compared to the Polaris compared to the Arctic Cat. It was fascinating. Finally, when I had heard enough about fucking snowmobiles and I was tired of sitting next to a perfectly good fire with a fucking pathetic American beer in my hand, I told my body that it was moving whether it liked it or not. “I need some air,” I said to Jackie as I left. “I’m going to Canada.”
“Don’t bother coming back,” he said.
“In your dreams,” I said, and then I was out in the cold air, snowflakes coming down like a million white butterflies. I stood there for a long time, just listening to the silence. It was hard to even imagine the storms of November, the constant sound of the waves pounding on the rocks. And now, nothing. No sound. Just snow.
Then suddenly, from the woods, the silence was ripped apart by the whine of a hundred-horsepower engine. God, I hate snowmobiles.
I climbed into the truck. It was too hard. It hurt too much. Just climbing into my stupid truck. I yelled at myself, banged the steering wheel with both hands. You used to be an athlete, goddamn it. What happened to you?
This is some mood you’re in, Alex. What’s the problem? A little muscle soreness? A little lactic acid overload in the bloodstream? Is it the thought of three more months of ice and snow? Maybe it’s Prudell, that look on his face when you told him you didn’t want to be his partner. Like you took his dream away. Again.
Or maybe it’s Sylvia. You’re going to drive yourself crazy if you keep thinking about her. She’s gone. Accept it.
The daylight was already fading when I got to the International Bridge. Below the bridge I saw the frozen locks and then the burning smokestacks of the Algoma Steel Foundry. I paid the $1.50 toll and then sat in line at the Canadian customs booth. Traffic was light, so there was only one lane open. The man moved the cars through quickly, though. When it was my turn, he asked me where I was headed and why. He looked familiar. You cross enough times and they get to know you. I told him just a quick trip into Soo Canada for beer. He just smiled at me and waved me through.
You come off the bridge and you’re right in the middle of downtown Soo Canada. It’s a big city by Canadian standards, at least four times bigger than Soo Michigan. I drove down Bay Street, past the fish hatchery and the Civic Centre, and pulled into a brightly lit parking lot. It used to be called Brewer’s Retail. Now it’s just the Beer Store. There’s one or two in every town in Canada, from Vancouver to Prince Edward Island. It’s a wonderful place. You walk in and you look at a row of bottles on the wall. You say that one, please, make it two, please. And two cases comes rolling out on the conveyor belt. They don’t roll them slowly. You have to be ready for them. I’ve heard a lot of things said about Canadians, good and bad. But when it comes to beer, they know what they’re doing.
With two cases in the back of the truck, I headed back to the bridge. I could feel my bad mood lifting as I drove under the streetlights of Queen Street. I paid the buck fifty toll again, and then this time I had to wait at the U.S. customs booth. When it was my turn, I drove to the window, said hello to the man. Another familiar face. He asked me the usual questions. I told him I had two cases in the back.
“You know you’re only supposed to bring back one case at a time,” he said.
“Can you blame me?” I said. “This is Canadian beer we’re talking about.”
He thought about it for a moment. “Go on, get out of here,” he finally said. “Be careful with that beer. You got it secured back there? You’re not going to break any, are you?”
“This beer is safe with me,” I said. “You can count on it.”
I drove back through Soo Michigan. The same roads, everything at least a half hour trip up here. No wonder my truck was pushing 200,000 miles. The snow was beginning to come down harder.
As soon as I passed the sign (“You’re entering Paradise! We’re glad you made it!”), a snowmobile came out onto the road. I jammed on the brakes, heard the bottles rattle behind me. The rider just sat there transfixed like a deer in the glare of my headlights. I couldn’t see his face through the visor.
If even one of those bottles was broken, I said to myself, there would be hell to pay. I gripped the steering wheel, made myself count to five, and then I opened the door. The snowmobile disappeared in a cloud of white.
I checked the beer and got back in the truck. I could feel my bad mood making a comeback. Just go to the Glasgow, Alex. Put one case behind the bar. Keep one in the truck. Better put it in the cab so it doesn’t freeze. Sit by the fire, take your boots off. Jackie will make you something to eat. You’ll sit there, you’ll have a cold Canadian. You’ll be a new man.
I took the case and backed myself through the door. The place was full of snowmobilers. A man walked by me to the bathroom with his suit open down to his waist, his boots clunking with every step and the shiny material on his legs going zip zip. Jackie was behind the bar, leaning over it and talking to a woman. The string of lights that ran along the wall behind the bar were blinking on and off, even though Christmas was long g
one. I put the case down. I stood up and stretched my back, looking around the room. There were a lot of strange faces, but that was normal for this time of year. All these men from downstate, filling the place with stories and bad jokes and cigarette smoke.
The usual scene. And yet…
And yet what? Something wasn’t right. A certain noise, or a lack of a certain noise. A feeling I was being watched, even though nobody was looking at me. Just a feeling that something was…
What? What was the problem? I couldn’t say. I didn’t pursue it. I chalked it up to a strange mood on a strange day. I didn’t listen to the voice in the back of my head, that little voice I relied on every day when I was a cop. I could have gone into the room and looked at every man, one by one, slowly and casually, not making any fuss about it. Just make eye contact, smile and nod, move on to the next. Maybe I would have narrowed it down to the man in the corner, sitting by himself. Or the man by the window who kept glancing outside. Maybe I would have sensed that something bad was going to happen that night, and maybe I would have found some way to prevent it.
But I didn’t. I shook off the feeling the same way the pitchers used to shake off my signs. A single quick tilt of the head and it was dismissed.
Jackie appeared next to me. “Alex, come on over here,” he said. “I want you to meet somebody.”
I looked at the woman he had been talking with. The face was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen her before. She was in her thirties, maybe mid to late. Brown hair, a streak of blond on one side. Blue eyes, a dark blue, almost violet. I probably would have found her attractive if Sylvia hadn’t just burned out most of my circuits. She was sitting at the end of the bar, the stool next to her empty, like there was an invisible bubble around her, keeping all the men away. She had her hands folded in front of her on the bar and she was looking up at the Christmas lights.
“Who is she?” I said.
“Her name is Dorothy,” he said. “She’s been waiting for you.”
She looked down in her lap, unfolded her jacket and pulled out a package of cigarettes. It was a leather jacket. Not nearly warm enough.
It came to me. I remembered where I had seen her before.
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