I cast a backward glance at Vee and Stan on the reddened floor. She had passed out, and Stan would soon join her.
Digweed pushed me out of the cabin, and the others followed.
There was movement at both corners of the cabin as, from either side, a man with a weapon stepped out.
Elbert Tighe, the well digger, carried a double-barreled shotgun, while his skinny young assistant, Kirwan Allen, had a handgun of some sort.
“Gentlemen,” Tighe said, “please don’t try anything loco. For starters, you can release that young feller, and drop your gun. Then head toward the squad car.”
Freed from Digweed’s grasp, I dashed back inside. Both Stan and Vee were unconscious but breathing. I fumbled out my phone to call 911, but a siren was already approaching.
Sandralene banged on the bathroom door, shouting, “Let us out!” Ignoring her for the moment, I raced back outside.
Sheriff Broadstairs, miraculously unharmed, was busy bundling the handcuffed trio into the back of the squad car.
Elbert Tighe walked up with the sheriff’s precious bush hat. Broadstairs doffed his Kevlar helmet and took the hat.
“Thanks kindly, Deputy Tighe. You, too, Kirwan.”
Broadstairs turned to me and rapped his knuckles against his chest, producing a resonant thump.
“Ain’t quite as fat as I appear—vest adds a few pounds. Course, they could’ve aimed for my face, but professionals usually don’t. And I didn’t think either of them hunter boys was much of a shot, if all they could bag was one sorry turkey between ’em.”
The ambulance pulled up, and the EMTs hurried toward the cabin as employees and some guests began cautiously to appear, goggling at the scene.
The EMTs brought out the wounded on stretchers. Sandralene, Nellie, and Ray followed under their own power.
Sheriff Broadstairs regarded me pleasantly enough, but his words were ominous.
“Now, you and me, son, we got a lot to discuss.”
Epilogue
The main hospital in Centerdale proved to be a well-run institution: light, clean, and cheery despite the downtrodden economy of the region. Stan’s knee had been repaired nicely, although the surgeon told him he would “not be running any marathons ever again.”
Stan sounded unusually sober. “That’s okay, Doc. This last one near did me in.”
Stan’s history with heroin caused the doctors to prescribe fewer opioids, and the pain got to him more some days than others.
They tended to Vee’s lesser but nonetheless serious injury even more efficiently, and she had been released a week ago, after just a couple of days in the hospital. She and Ray Zerkin had driven off in her blue Volkswagen without any goodbyes.
For a day or so, I was hurt by her cold departure. But then I realized there was really nothing between us left to say at this moment and place. Which did not necessarily mean we would never talk again. I had a sense that Nancarrow’s satisfying arrest had removed some vital component from her obsessive psyche, and she was struggling to realize who she had to be, who she could be.
Now it was Stan’s mustering-out day, and I was here to drive him back to the lodge. Once there, we would have to figure out what to do next.
I just found it strangely wonderful that we were alive and free.
I walked into the room. Sandralene was sitting on the edge of his bed, fussing with his meal, making sure he was eating properly. She looked like a zaftig Valkyrie from some Eastern Valhalla.
I said, “Did that bullet in the knee affect your hand-eye coordination somehow? Or did brain damage during the operation regress you back to childhood?”
Stan’s glower might have intimidated someone who had not crouched shoulder-to-shoulder with him staked out in a rhododendron thicket. But I found myself cheerfully immune.
“Listen, Glen boy, I know this pampering ain’t gonna go on forever, so I aim to make the most of it while I can. You’d do the same thing in my shoes.”
“Fair enough. Now, chow down so we can leave. I want to see Nellie.”
Everything was still unsettled between Nellie and me. I had been here in Centerdale since the night of the home invasion, and she had been back at the lodge. We had talked a couple of times, keeping it formal and businesslike. She had told me that since the headline-making incident, the lodge had been booked solid, and visits from day-trippers had doubled. But I was sure our popularity would die down as the notoriety waned, and that even with the extra business, we were probably still running in the red.
Stan finished his meal, and the nurse officially discharged him. Her assistant got him into a wheelchair and delivered him to the sidewalk, where he switched to crutches. Sandralene and I helped him into the Impala, and we motored off.
“You know I want to help you all I can, Glen. But I’m gonna be busy back in the city for a while once ol’ Algy’s trial gets under way.”
“Yeah, I do realize that.”
The law had been playing Stan and me for suckers all along. We had not been masters of our fates for one minute. Paget, Broadstairs, Schreiber, and a host of others behind the scenes, all the way to the state attorney general, had taken us for a ride.
The government had been gunning for Nancarrow for years, it turned out. A few too many lucrative fires had at last piqued their interest. But they had no solid case against him. They knew that Stan had been his firebug, but also that Stan wouldn’t cooperate in any prosecution. Still, they had begun keeping tabs on Stan after his release from prison, in the hope that he would lead them somewhere. So once Stan and I began conspiring against Nancarrow, the authorities tumbled to our scheme. Their cybersquad, for one, had followed Ray Zerkin’s moves with ease. So much for secrecy and stealth. The locals and even the feds used us as bait, hoping to trip Nancarrow up on some lesser charge that would open up a wider case against him. And now they had him in jail on the home invasion and could count on Stan’s testimony in the larger set of charges. Stan’s loyalty to the Gulch ethos of “snitches get stitches” had been utterly undone by his shattered knee.
All these things Broadstairs related to me during several recorded sessions at the local courthouse, with many interested law and court officers present.
When Broadstairs had finally finished, and I had recovered somewhat from feeling very stupid, I said, “And what about any charges against all of us, for our scam? All the false pretenses, like our line of credit?”
“Scam? What scam? All’s I can see is a couple of entrepreneurs who bought a business, then tried to sell it. The DA’s got no interest in such innocent affairs. And as far as false pretenses go—why, if you stick to what you claimed you set out to do, then there’s no false pretenses at all, is there?”
“No, I guess not.”
“But that twenty-one million dollars, Glen—that is all gone.”
“So I suspected. How did you get hold of it? Ray swore that account was impenetrable.”
“Probably woulda been, if it was the genuine Swiss thing. But the Feds spoofed your boy right along. He never was dealing with any foreign bank. You see, they need all of Nancarrow’s money they can claw back.”
None of us in the car said much as we got closer to the lodge. Then Stan spoke. He sounded uncommonly downbeat.
“This trip reminds me of that day we drove around the city with me showing you all the buildings I torched. Only back then we had prospects. We were gonna get rich and get even. Now where are we? A couple of stumblebums stuck with Camp Who-Gives-a-Fuck. And what’s worse, we had a taste of the good stuff. Only for a few minutes, but you can’t forget.”
“Aw, Stan, don’t look at it that way. Count your blessings. We could be dead or in jail. Instead, it’s the status quo ante. Back to square one. We can make it work somehow.”
Stan heaved a mournful sigh. “Yeah, the sunny side of the street.” He visibly hoisted himself togeth
er. “Oh, well, I got a woman and a buddy and a roof over my head, and I ain’t taking orders from some jumped-up mortgage monkey. We’ll take it from there.”
I was touched to be included in Stan’s inventory of benedictions.
We pulled into the lodge, which seemed to be just as hopping as promised. Music issued from the dining hall, and I thought I recognized the cool strains of the Lucky Graves trio.
Stan and Sandralene headed toward their cabin. I hoped all the blood had been washed away, but knowing Nellie’s efficiency, I wasn’t too worried.
Stan’s loping gait with the crutches somehow conveyed his renewed zeal for life. “See you at dinner, Glen boy. If we’re a little late, don’t come looking for us. Me and this lady ain’t knocked boots in way too long.”
I grinned, shook my head, and went to the office.
Nellie was sitting at her desk. She didn’t jump up to greet me, but she didn’t run away in disgust, either.
“So. We had a serious misunderstanding.”
“You lied to me big-time, Glen.”
“Not about loving you.”
“I don’t know if that makes up for the rest.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see, then.”
“Day by day, one step at a time. That’s the way I feel.”
It wasn’t a honeymoon, but it would have to do.
There was a pile of mail on the desk, all addressed to me. For something to do to cover the awkward moment, I started sorting through it. Bills, bills, bills …
The office phone rang. Nellie looked at the caller ID.
“Merda! This guy been calling for you for days, Glen. Won’t say nothing to me.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Hello, Mr. McClinton? This is Rafe Lonergan, from Ghent, Goolsbee, and Saikiri.”
It took me a few seconds to wrap my mind around the caller’s affiliation. Was I being offered my job back? Getting sued? Luckily, Rafe Lonergan continued his spiel. I switched to speakerphone so Nellie could hear.
“Mr. McClinton, we’ve been retained as the local representative of MGM Resorts International. Our client has some potential business to discuss with you. Could you name a convenient place and time?”
I stammered out something about getting back to him, then hung up.
Nellie came at me like a rugby player. She shoved me in the chest with both hands, and I staggered backward.
“Filho da puta! You even think of selling this place, I will finish up what that Needles started—only I’ll use a rotisserie spit!”
I gave her a wary smile. “Oh, baby, we got so much to talk about. We’ve got to figure out what’s best for everyone now!”
The Big Get-Even Page 25