He sat there a minute at the mouth of the lane, engine idling, headlights illuminating the path ahead of him. He’d driven two and a half hours nonstop, and the truck’s big dual tanks were nearly empty.
Mike’s tank was nearly empty. His leg was stiff and aching. His eyes felt raw. After about a quart of bitter Go Stop coffee, his stomach was sour and full of acid, and his bladder felt ready to burst.
He killed the ignition, got out of the truck, and relieved himself in the tall grass. He limped a circle around the truck, tried to work the rigor out of his leg. He was miles from anything, and everything was quiet. No bugs, no night birds, not even the whisper of a breeze in the trees.
All he could hear was the sound of the truck’s engine ticking under the hood. The sound of his own feet kicking through the gravel along the rutted lake road, swept down to hardpan by the winter melt. Drifting clouds of tree pollen swirled in the headlight beams, otherwise invisible to the eye.
You’re stalling, he thought, and climbed back in the truck.
Ahead of him, just beyond the reach of the headlights, the rock-topped lane made a bend and disappeared into the trees. The lane wound through the timber another quarter mile, wide enough for a single vehicle abreast, and now that Mike was here, he realized he didn’t want to go down this road after all. Didn’t want to face whatever was waiting for him at the end of it.
Half an hour to midnight, according to the clock in the dash. Almost a new day.
Hal would be waiting for his call.
He forced his hand up to the ignition. Turned the key. The new starter fired up on the first try. The engine rumbled. No excuses.
Mike dropped the truck into gear. Rocks crunched heavily under the tires as he turned into the lane.
When this is over, he thought, I’m repainting that sign.
12
By the time the guys from Dobry Automotive came back across the street, jingled the bell over the door on their way in, and ordered their first free pitcher of Leinenkugel, Hal Macklin was about ready to crawl out of his own damned skin.
“What’s the matter with you?” Regina finally wanted to know, drumming her nails across the damp cork of her drink tray while he made change out of the register for the guys in booth five. “You’re even grouchier than normal.”
“I got a pain in my ass, that’s what,” he said. “It costs me nine bucks an hour and keeps going, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ ”
“Fine, be that way,” Regina said. “See if I give a shit.”
“Like you don’t give me enough shit already,” Hal said, as if it was her fault he’d let himself get talked into waiting around here with his thumb up his ass while who knew what was happening up at the lake.
It wasn’t right. He knew that now, only two hours along. Hell, he’d known it two hours ago.
But he’d given his word.
He gave Reggie her change, wiped down the bar for the hundredth time, and tried to stop checking the clock over the jukebox every five minutes.
When the ten o’clock news came on, Hal left Regina behind the bar and went back to watch on the little twelve-inch set on his desk in the office, where he could hear better.
Five minutes later, he came out, cut the juke, turned on the lights, and said, “Drink up, folks. Closing time.”
It took half an hour to round everybody up and get their mopey asses all moving in the same direction. First nobody believed him. Then came the griping and the bellyaching.
“Tommorrow night, first round’s on the house,” Hal kept telling them, herding and prodding them along. “Sorry, Bill; sorry, Tom; sorry, fella. Can’t be helped. Here’s what you do: You come in tomorrow night, you order a drink, you tell me, ‘This one’s for last night.’ Got that? Now your left. Right. Left. Attaboy.”
On his way out, Wayne Miller from the garage winked and handed Hal most of an unfinished pitcher of free Leinenkugel. “I see how it is,” he said.
Ray Duncan joined in, saying, “Gotta watch you all the time, huh, Mackie?”
“I’m sorry, boys.” Hal nodded to Wayne, clapped Ray on his meaty shoulder. “I owe you. Mark it down.”
Reggie was the last person out the door. She stood there with her purse and jacket, arms crossed, until Hal thought he was going to have to go back to the stockroom, get the hand truck and some bungee cords, and wheel her out to her car at the curb.
She said, “What’s going on, you?”
“Nothing,” he told her.
“Don’t give me that.”
“I got some business.”
“What kind of business?”
“The none-of-your-business kind of business.”
“Harold William,” she said, and gave him that look of hers. It was one of the reasons he’d married her, that look. One of the reasons he’d given her the divorce, come to think of it.
“Regina Christine,” he said. Left it there.
She stood planted like that and stared at him a minute before she finally gave up. Right before she walked out, she did the last thing Hal expected: She leaned at him quickly, planted a hard kiss on his cheek, and said, “I don’t like the look on your face.”
She smelled like lipstick and cigarettes. Hal missed her a little just then.
“Shoo,” he said.
He watched her to the curb, digging around in that twenty-pound rucksack she called a purse until she found her keys. Reggie looked back at him once, shook her head, then opened up her little Honda and got in.
She needed a new muffler, Hal thought, watching her drive away. He decided he’d talk to Wayne and Ray about that next time he saw them. He flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED and locked the door.
The place seemed too bright and too quiet, now that it was empty. Hal killed the main lights on his way to the office. When he got there, he grabbed the phone and the pad of notepaper he’d left next to it.
Barlowe wouldn’t be more than halfway to the lake by now, he figured. Hal didn’t like selling the boy out.
But that was how it was going to have to be. He couldn’t let it go now. Not after what he’d just seen on the news.
Sorry, kid, he thought, and began dialing the Sheriff’s hotline number he’d scribbled on the pad two hours ago. This wasn’t the deal.
Halfway through the number, Hal heard a muffled jangle in the bar: the bell over the front door.
“Jesus H. Jones,” he said, and slammed the phone down. He went up front to run off whoever had wandered in already, knowing as he went that he’d locked that front door.
He came out into the bar and stopped. Saw the guy in the front entrance, just now stepping out of the shadows. In the light from the back bar, Hal recognized him right off the bat.
“Gotta be hard staying in business,” the guy said. “I mean, a bar? Closing at ten when everybody else in town stays open ’til two?”
The kid had said the guy’s name before. Hal couldn’t remember it.
The face was too ugly to forget. Hal didn’t bother asking the guy how he’d gotten in; he could see him slipping a little flat black case inside his jacket as he strolled on in, helped himself to a bar stool. That would have been the lock picks.
Hal felt his heart beating. All his senses sharpened up. He said, “The hell do you want?”
The guy smiled. “How about a beer?”
13
“Hey, I got a joke for you,” the guy said. “You like jokes?”
Bryce, Hal thought. That was his name.
Didn’t look like a Bryce. Hal came around the bar, taking care where he put his eyes. He could play casual too. Son of a bitch was going to find that out soon enough, whatever his name was.
“Sure, I like jokes,” he told him, pulling up a mug from the rack under the taps. “If they make me laugh.”
“Here’s a good one,” Bryce said. “Guy’s selling brains on the black market. Right?”
“Brains,” Hal said.
“Human brains, yeah. Like for transplants.” Bryce waved a han
d. “It’s a new science.”
“Why not,” Hal said. He set up the mug and started pulling a beer. Shittiest brand he carried.
“So he points to a jar with a brain floating in it and says to his customer, ‘This one’s from a schoolteacher. Cost you twenty thousand bucks.’ ”
Bryce pointed along in the air with his finger while he narrated, indicating imaginary jars.
“Guy points to the next jar and says, ‘Now, this one here? Belonged to a heart surgeon. Run you fifty thousand.’ Well, sure, the customer thinks to himself. Heart surgeon, schoolteacher, that makes sense. Then the customer sees a third jar and says, ‘Who’d that one belong to?’ Guy tells him, ‘United States Marine Corps, friend. That jar right there goes a million-two.’ ”
Bryce dropped his jaw and sat back on his stool, miming amazement. A regular performer, this one.
“The customer, he can’t believe it. Says to the guy, ‘You must be kidding. Why does a Marine cost so much more than a heart surgeon?’ The guy looks at him and says, ‘Pal, do you have any idea how many Marines it takes to come up with an ounce of brains?’ ”
At his own punch line, Bryce rapped the bar top with his knuckles, grinning like a crocodile. A crocodile, Hal thought, that had tried to eat a lawn mower. And just might have succeeded.
Hal put the beer down in front of him. “You’re right,” he said. “That’s a good one.”
“Makes me laugh every time I hear it.” Bryce raised his beer. “Cheers.”
Hal waited for him to finish off his victory chug, then said, “You got any more?”
Bryce sucked foam off his top lip. “More what?”
“Jokes.”
“Can’t think of any off the top.”
“Then I guess you can answer my question now.”
“What was the question again?”
Hal didn’t repeat it.
“Wait, I remember,” Bryce said. “You asked me what I wanted.”
“Starting to think you didn’t hear me,” Hal said. He made a show of stacking clean mugs in the rack below the bar, keeping his hands below bar level.
“Oh, I heard you. I just figured it was rhetorical.” Bryce drained what was left of his beer in one long pull, then set the dregs on the bar. He slid the mug across. “I figured, we’re both smart guys. We know why I’m here.”
“For a smart guy, you don’t listen so good,” Hal said. “I told you once already. When you came around here the first time.”
“Yeah, but see, I’m thinking you weren’t being honest. I can tell that about people.”
“Can you, now?”
“Hang on a sec,” Bryce said. He held up a finger, fishing a cell phone out of his jacket pocket with his other hand. He slid the phone open, thumbed a few keys, put the phone to his ear, listened a minute. Pretty soon he nodded and said, “Sorry, I think I have the wrong number.”
He snapped the phone closed, put it back in his pocket. Looked at Hal. Shrugged. “See what I mean?”
Hal couldn’t wait to wipe the smile off this guy’s fucked-up face. “I guess I ain’t smart like a heart surgeon,” he said.
Bryce arranged himself on the stool like he was willing to go nice and slow.
“Try and look at it from my perspective,” he said. “I come in here before, ask you politely about this guy I’m trying to find. For business reasons. You tell me he hasn’t been in all day—okay, maybe I can buy that. Except then you run me and my partner out of here like you’re John Wayne and we’re the Indians.” He shrugged again. “I mean, fair enough, I’ve got a little Chippewa blood on my mother’s side, but still. At that point I have to pause and ask myself: Being my bar, is this the way I handle a couple of clean, mostly white paying customers who aren’t causing me any trouble? If I’m telling them the truth?”
Hal didn’t respond. He only moved a little to his left.
“Then when I come back to try again,” Bryce said, “I find the whole bar closed. At ten on a Wednesday, no less. And then,” he said, nodding toward the counter, “when I call the number I see you have written down there?”
Hal followed his glance to the notepad he’d carried out with him from the office. He hadn’t even realized he still had it in his hand.
“A gal from the sheriff’s hotline answers,” Bryce said. “Something about that missing girl they’ve been talking about on the news. Imagine my surprise.”
Within view, Hal arranged bottles along the rail. Below view, he felt the smooth walnut stock of the 12-gauge coachman’s gun he kept on hooks beneath the liquor well.
“So, couple things,” Bryce said. “First, and this is important, you want to think twice about bringing up whatever kind of peacemaker you’ve got hiding back there.” He reached inside his jacket, brought a nickel-and-black autoloader out from the shoulder holster Hal had glimpsed earlier. Gunmetal clunked heavily on wood as Bryce placed his hardware on the bar in front of him. “Mine’s a lot closer.”
Hal gritted his teeth. Thought, Hell.
He exhaled slowly. From his angle, the way the son of a bitch had positioned the gun on the bar, Hal could see straight up the pipe. Like a dark, empty round eye looking at him. The eye didn’t blink.
He thought it over and changed his angle. Straightened his back. Crossed his arms.
“Better,” Bryce said. He took his hand off the gun. Left the gun on the bar where it was. “Now, I can sense you’re a man with some principles. I respect that. Problem is, me, not so much.”
“Huh,” Hal said. “Hard to believe.”
“Could be genetic,” Bryce said. “Or maybe just bad parenting. But you see the conflict we’re left with. You being you and me being me.”
While Bryce talked, Hal studied the guy’s eyes. Not because he particularly wanted to, but because he couldn’t make himself look away. Once, in ’67, in Quang Tri, he’d run across a Force Recon sniper who carried half a dozen blood-crusted Vietcong teeth around with him in a cigar tin. He used to dream about that after the war. That guy then had the same kind of flat, cold light in his eyes as this guy now.
“Thing is, I already know I’m walking out of here with what I came in here to get,” Bryce said. “You don’t want to give it to me, but we can’t both win. And I don’t lose.”
“First time for everything,” Hal said. His voice came out sounding weaker than he liked.
Bryce nodded. “True. And I can see you’ve got a stubborn streak. Question is, how stubborn are you? Because if you’re stubborn enough, we both lose. At that point, I won’t feel like I have much choice but to give my partner a call. You remember him from before?”
“I remember him.”
“Well. If we get to that point—and I hope we don’t—I’ll probably feel like I’ll have to have him bring back that nice-looking lady in the Honda he followed away from here a bit ago. See if she can help us sort all this out.”
Hal felt his pulse jump. He thought: Goddamn son of a bitch. “She can’t help you,” he said.
“Yeah, but you’re stubborn, remember? How could I be sure?” Bryce shook his head. “I don’t know. It looked awfully sweet to me, the way you two parted company. I’ll bet if push came to shove, she wouldn’t be as stubborn as you are.”
In twenty-five years owning this place, Hal couldn’t remember ever feeling the way he felt just then: trapped behind his own bar.
He couldn’t stand the way his mouth had gone dry. Couldn’t stand the way his blood hummed inside his ears. He couldn’t stand standing there. Letting this guy talk to him.
“I think she needs a new muffler, by the way,” Bryce said. He leaned back on his stool, put his hands on his knees. He patted an easy rhythm with his fingers, then held his hands very still.
This was an invitation, Hal understood. The way the guy was sitting: hands on his lap, gun sitting alone on the bar between them, unattended. A regular Old West routine. The barkeep and the gunslinger. Goddamned ridiculous.
“So, you tell me,” Bryce said. “What’s
next?”
Hal looked at the gun. Looked at its owner. He wondered: Who was closer?
“Three bucks,” he finally said.
Bryce tilted his head. “Pardon?”
“For the beer.” Hal nodded to the empty mug still sitting on the bar near the gun. “You owe me three dollars.”
“Oh,” Bryce said. His crocodile eyes seemed to twinkle in the back-bar neon. “Right.”
He reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. Without looking down at his hands, he opened the wallet, pulled a bill, and handed it over.
“Sorry I don’t have anything smaller,” he said.
Hal looked at the bill. A twenty. “I’ll get your change.”
“Much obliged,” Bryce said.
At the register, Hal traded the twenty for a ten, a five, and eight quarters. Something caught his eye as he counted the money into his hand, and an idea came to him. His pulse jumped again.
He forced himself steady. Thought, Easy, now.
Nice and easy does it.
Hal finished counting coins, then made the same move he’d made a few hundred times a night for the past twenty-five years: He turned and slid the register drawer closed with his hip.
Only this time, in the half second his back was turned, using the clackity-shuck of the closing drawer for cover, he used his free hand to scoop a handful of margarita salt from the glass rimmer on the ledge.
“Funny,” he said on his way back. “I’m out of singles myself.”
“Perfect,” Bryce said, watching him all the way. “I can use the change for parking meters.”
Fast, Hal thought. Just be fast, is all.
“But I like how you’re thinking business,” Bryce added. He held out his hand deliberately. A symbolic gesture, Hal interpreted. “We’re making a transaction, you and me. Simple as that. Business doesn’t have to be complicated.”
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking, you hatchet-faced prick, Hal thought.
He placed the bills in the guy’s open palm. Weighted them down with the quarters.
In the next motion, he flung the salt hard with his other hand, aiming straight for those open eyes.
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