Envy the Night

by Michael Koryta

  “I’m surprised you got the message so early,” he said and walked out of the living room and into the kitchen, got the coffeemaker running just so he could have a task to engage in instead of standing there with her, staring up at the starting point of the legacy.

  “I checked it last night.” She returned to her seat at the table. Today she was dressed less like a mechanic, having traded in the heavy denim shirt for a blue tank top worn over loose white linen pants. These clothes showed much more of her body, a very nice body, and taking that in Frank understood why she probably went for the shapeless look at work.

  “I’m going to be honest,” she said, dropping the friendliness, her words cool, “I thought about showing up here with the police. In the end, I decided I’d give you what you asked for, the chance to talk through this, but I also didn’t like what you said on that message last night. You made it sound as if you knew more than you told me yesterday.”

  “I might know more than I told you yesterday,” Frank said, pouring the water into the coffeemaker, “but I didn’t at the time. Everything you—and the police—heard from me was accurate. I’d never seen that guy before, Nora. That’s the truth.”

  “You said you knew where my car was.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How can you possibly—”

  “Ezra Ballard found it.”

  “Where?”

  “Hidden in the woods about two miles up the shoreline.”

  She pulled her head back. “On the Willow?”

  “Yes.” He finished setting the coffeemaker and turned to face her, leaning against the counter. “That guy, Vaughn, he drove it down there as soon as he left your shop yesterday, tried to hide the car in the trees. Ezra was out on the lake, watching.”

  “You’re sure it’s my car?”

  “I’m sure. He took me to see it last night.”

  “So Vaughn dumped it.”

  Frank shook his head.

  “No?”

  “No. He’s staying here. Ezra saw him go out to an island. There’s a cabin on it, has been for years. Apparently this guy is with a woman out there. Just the two of them.”

  She took that in, nodded. “Okay. Well, that’s good news, isn’t it? I can get my car back, and we can tell the police where to find this guy.”

  Frank didn’t answer.

  “What else do you know?” she said, watching his face carefully. “Frank? What else do you know about him?”

  “About him? Nothing. I know something about the cabin he’s staying in, that’s all. Something about the man who owns it.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That he’s a killer.”

  She looked at him for a long time, while the coffee burbled on the counter and the wind picked up and buffeted the cabin.

  “You mean he’s a murderer? Some sort of psychotic?”

  “A professional.”

  “A professional.” She echoed the phrase as if it were in a foreign language.

  “Yes.” The coffeepot was full, and Frank turned and lifted it free and poured, held a cup out to her. When she shook her head, he took a drink from it himself.

  “You’re serious,” she said. “I can see that you’re serious. That the guy who drove that Lexus is some sort of assassin.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if he is. In fact, after seeing him, I’d have to say he is very far from that. What I’m telling you is that the man who owns that cabin is. So if this guy with the Lexus, if he’s working with him or friends with him or whatever . . .”

  “It’s not good for me,” she finished.

  “Maybe it’s not. Like I said, Nora, I don’t know anything here except what I’ve told you. Whether this guy is someone for you to worry—”

  “How do you know that about the owner, though? He just came over once to make some neighborly conversation and told you that he kills people for a living?”

  He looked at her and remembered what she’d said about his grandfather’s medal—proud among other things, I suppose—and then he blew over the coffee cup and took another drink. “He worked with my father.”

  Those cool eyes she had were beginning to falter. Beginning to let some fear in. “Your father.”

  “Frank Temple,” he said. “Same name as mine. That doesn’t mean anything to you? Never heard of him?”

  When she shook her head, he was surprised. Always was, when someone hadn’t heard of his father. In Frank’s mind, everyone had heard of him, talked of him, still did. In Frank’s mind, his family’s shame was still dinner table conversation across the country.

  “All right,” he said. “I guess I’m glad about that. He made the news a while back. National news. Pretty big story.”

  “For?”

  “For killing people for money,” he said, and then he held her eyes and drank more of the coffee and neither of them spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” she said eventually.

  “You don’t need to be. I’m just telling you so that you’ll understand how I know these things.”

  “So your father and the guy on the island, they both kill people for money? This is some sort of retreat for assassins?”

  He set the coffee down on the counter, kept his eyes on the floor.

  “My dad served in Vietnam, part of a pretty elite group, very good soldiers. He made some friends there. Ezra Ballard was one. A man named Dan Matteson was another. They were from three different parts of the country, but after the war, they wanted to stay in touch. Stay close. Dan had property up here, and Ezra moved up and then convinced my dad to build a cabin with him. Thought they could use it as a way to stay together as the years stacked up. Dan kept the island, and my dad and Ezra bought this place.”

  “Is Ezra . . .”

  “No.” Frank shook his head. “He’s not part of the mess, Nora. Don’t worry about that. He’s a good man.”

  “But your father and the other guy?”

  “Dan Matteson got into trouble right after the war. Essentially he was a mercenary. Went into corrupt, beaten-down countries and took a lot of money to fight for one side or the other. He got into something in Central America, I’m not sure what, but he made some contacts out there and got involved in the drug trade. When I say drug trade, I don’t mean street corner deals, either. I mean dealing in weight, smuggling planes and boats, not dime bags. Became a very big deal with some very dangerous people in Miami. When I was a kid, I got to know Ezra pretty well, but Dan was never around. I never actually met him.”

  “Your father was working with him the whole time?”

  “No. My father was a U.S. marshal. From every account I’ve heard, he was a good one for most of his career. An honest one.”

  Frank lifted his eyes again, found hers. “When I was a sophomore in high school, Dan Matteson’s body washed up on the beach in Miami. They identified him through dental records, because he was missing his hands. His hands, and his eyes.”

  It had to be so strange for her, so unnerving, to hear him explain this fun little family history. She took it well enough, listening silently and watching his face.

  “Matteson had a son named Devin. By then he was working in the same world as his father. I think he’s about fifteen years older than me. After the body was found, Devin gave my dad a call. Made this pitch. This request for my father to help him avenge Dan’s murder. Find out who did it, settle up.”

  “And he did it,” Nora said softly. Then, when Frank nodded, “That doesn’t sound so evil. I mean, the people he killed, they were the ones who’d murdered his friend?”

  “Some of them were,” Frank said, “but he didn’t stop there. By the time they sorted that out, Devin’s boss made him another offer. My dad took it. And another after that. Last count I heard, he killed five people on contract. There might have been more. This while keeping his marshal’s badge. I’m sure he had access and information that was awfully appreciated by Devin and the rest of them.”

  He paused, then s
aid, “Eventually, the FBI got Devin into a jam, and to get out of it, he offered to trade some information. He gave them my father. Told them the information they needed to know to get the case moving, but Dad got wind of it, and he killed himself before there was an arrest.”

  The refrigerator kicked on beside them; for a while the only sound in the cabin was the whirring motor. Then it switched off again, and Nora spoke as if it were a cue to end the silence.

  “I’m sorry, Frank. The way you reacted last night when I asked about your father, it should have told me—”

  “That he was a killer?” He laughed. “No, I don’t think it should have told you that. You’ve got nothing to apologize for. The only reason I’m telling you this is that I don’t like Vaughn having a connection to Devin Matteson. It appears that he does.”

  When she spoke again, her voice was guarded and her eyes downcast. “And I’m supposed to believe that this connection between you and Vaughn is an honest coincidence. That you’ve never met him, don’t know anything about him, and somehow still manage to be involved with the cabin where he ended up.”

  What should he tell her? That he’d come up here because Ezra’s message had made him suspect Devin was returning, that he’d caused the accident with Vaughn because he thought it was Devin in the car, that he’d reached for his gun as soon as the Jeep was at a stop? Not a real reassuring sort of explanation.

  In the end, all he said was “Well, you can imagine I’m not real pleased by that little twist, myself.”

  She was quiet, and he could tell from the set of her mouth that she didn’t like the answer. Well, fine. He didn’t like it, either, but that didn’t change a damn thing.

  “What does that mean?” she said. “You don’t like the connection, and I understand your reason, but how does it change anything for me?”

  “The people Devin runs with . . .” Frank swung his body off the counter and walked to the big front window looking out on the lake. She turned her head to follow him. “They’re dangerous, obviously. And what they do, Nora, it’s not penny ante. Whatever’s going on, there’s probably a lot of money involved.”

  She forced a laugh. “Okay, I’ll let him keep the car. How about that? Just pretend I don’t know where it is, don’t know any of this.”

  “That’s a good idea,” he said, still with his back to her. “It’s not the only problem, though. Vaughn’s not the only problem. There are the two guys from last night.”

  She was sitting half turned in the kitchen chair, twisted to look at him, and he could see understanding begin to grow on her face.

  “You mean they might come back.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know anything about them, or Vaughn, but I know some things about Devin. One of those things is that the people surrounding him will be professionals. Professionals don’t like to leave loose ends. You were face-to-face with that guy yesterday. So was I. We both saw him attack you and saw his buddy attack that cop, and our testimony could put them in jail for a long time. You and I have just become loose ends. If these guys really are involved with Devin Matteson or anyone close to him, then that’s a very serious concern.”

  14

  __________

  Steve Gomes had wanted to take his boat out that morning, but Jerry passed on the offer and headed for the library. Though not much of a reader, he was a regular patron. The Tomahawk library had a handful of computers with Internet access, and Jerry had recently discovered the online auction sites.

  Jerry’s dad had owned a liquor store, an occupational choice less than pleasing to Jerry’s mother, a woman who went to church on Sundays and Wednesdays. Rare was the week that passed without a bout of criticism of Rob Dolson’s work, that selling of sin. There was one element of the liquor business, and one element only, that pleased her: the presence of mirrors. Alice Dolson loved mirrors, and her husband received plenty of them, shipped in from Stroh’s and Anheuser-Busch and the rest. Though she loathed the products they advertised, Alice couldn’t help but like the mirrors. Her favorites were the Scotch mirrors. Much more elegant than those silly beer mirrors, she’d insist. If you ignore the brand name, they’re really quite beautiful.

  So Rob Dolson hung on to the mirrors, and when he died, Alice kept them. She’d passed a few years later, leaving Jerry a fifty-year-old collection of bar mirrors. They decorated his home and filled his garage now. He’d hoped to build the collection, but classic mirrors were hard to find—or so he’d thought until he discovered eBay. If he felt a bit fruity shopping for antiques on the Internet in the library (and he did), it was easy enough to dismiss that with the recollection that the mirrors were, of course, advertising alcohol. Nothing embarrassing about that.

  He’d found a nice Genesee mirror with paintings of men engaged in various outdoor pursuits, the slogan reading The great outdoors in a glass, when his phone rang. Steve Gomes had talked him into canceling the landline in favor of a cell a year earlier, telling him that the cell had free long distance and none of those bastard telemarketers calling. What Steve had failed to anticipate was that Jerry made few long distance calls, and didn’t mind talking to a telemarketer in the evening, providing it was a woman with a nice voice and he’d already consumed a brew or two. He had the cell now, though, and when the damn thing rang he saw that it was Bud Stafford’s home number. Nora’s home number, now.

  Jerry turned the ringer off and matched the glare from the front-desk librarian with one of his own. Who couldn’t appreciate the Benny Hill theme song, anyhow? When he’d learned that was one of the ringer options, he’d been as good as sold.

  Two minutes later, the phone rang again.

  “It’s a Saturday,” Jerry growled. Nora had no right to bother him on a Saturday.

  This time the librarian lobbed a heavy sigh with her glare, and Jerry stood up and took the phone outside onto the sidewalk. Nora deserved a lecture for this one.

  “You never heard of a day off?” he said when he answered.

  “Just rumors,” Nora said.

  “That ain’t funny. I’m down here at the library and you got my phone ringing and bothering—”

  “You’re at the library?”

  “Ain’t the point, Nora. Don’t matter where I am. Point is, it’s Saturday, and that’s a day off.”

  “How’d you like another day off, Jerry?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You come in today, for just a few hours, and I’ll let you take Monday off. You’d be trading eight hours of work for about two or three, and you’re already in town. Tell me what the downside of that is.”

  No downside that he could perceive, other than caving in to her request. He was silent, thinking it over.

  “Time-and-a-half, Jerry. That’s what I’ll pay you if you come in today.”

  “What the hell do you need me there for? We don’t have anything all that urgent.”

  “We do now. I want that Lexus put back together, and I want it put back together fast.”

  “Nora, that car is not a one-day fix. Hell, we’re gonna need parts that’ll take a day or two just to get—”

  “You’re not fixing it. You’re just putting it back into one piece so I can get it out of my shop.”

  “Guy wants to take it somewhere else?” This was not good. Jerry had a thousand bucks riding on that car.

  “The police want to take it elsewhere.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to get into it on the phone, Jerry, but I need that car back together, and I need it to happen today.”

  Shit. If the cops were already onto this car, he might have lost his chance at the grand already. Of course, that AJ character had offered him half of that if he could get the little tracking device, and Jerry had turned him down because he didn’t have access to the shop over the weekend. Well, he did now.

  “All right, Nora. I can come down there. Time-and-a-half and Monday off, I’ll come down there.”

  “The very soul of generosity.”

&nb
sp; “No problem,” he told her, and then he disconnected the phone.

  This was working out to be a fine weekend. He had little on his plate for the rest of the day, and now he was going to make time-and-a-half plus the five hundred AJ had promised him in return for that tracking device. That Genesee mirror had just become much more affordable.

  He went into the library, purchased the mirror, and logged off the Internet. Giving the librarian a mocking wink and salute, he walked back into the sunlit day and reached into his pocket and extracted the bar napkin he’d put there when he left the house that morning. AJ was probably going to appreciate this phone call just as much as Jerry had ended up appreciating Nora’s.

  He answered on the second ring, and Jerry told him the situation while he walked away from the library and down the hill toward the river. The Wisconsin rolled right behind the library, wide and languid at this spot, a water skier working up by the bridge.

  “Deal still stands—you get the tracking box, I get the five hundred?”

  “You want to take me up on that deal.” AJ’s voice was different today. Kind of uneasy, wary.

  “I will take you up on it. If you ain’t interested anymore, though, shit, it’s no skin off my back.”

  “I thought you couldn’t get in the shop on weekends.”

  “I just told you, she’s paying me time-and-a-half to come in.”

  “And she didn’t tell you why that was?”

  “I assume the boy you’re so interested in is coming back for the car.” Jerry didn’t want to repeat Nora’s reference to the cops; it seemed like something that could kill this deal before he made a dime.

  “That seems unlikely.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I’m just saying if you want your gadget back, now’s the time to get it.”

  “You’re asking me to come back to that body shop?”

  “Man, I ain’t asking you nothing. I’m telling you I can get my hands on the thing. That’s all.”

  AJ went quiet for so long Jerry thought he’d hung up.

  “You there?”

  “Yes. All right. You get that tracking device, and return to the bar where we talked yesterday. Go there at seven o’clock.”