A Stolen Season: An Alex McKnight Novel (An Alex Mcknight Novel Series)

by Steve Hamilton

  “I called your roommates last night,” Mr. Gray said. “When I finally got a straight answer, imagine my surprise when I found out you were up here.”

  “I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m sorry.”

  “You left school?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?” he said to me.

  “My name is Alex.”

  “You have kids?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He nodded his head. “Good thinking.”

  “I was going to tell you,” Harry said.

  “Oh, I’m sure you were intending to,” Mr. Gray said. “I have no doubt about that. I’m just wondering if that would have actually happened before you came up here and got yourself killed.”

  Harry didn’t answer.

  “Let me guess,” his father said. “You wanted to see the real world. Hang out with two tough guys. Drink some beer. Play some blackjack at the Indian casinos.”

  Harry stayed silent. He looked down at the floor.

  “How about hookers? You get any hookers up here yet?”

  “Mr. Gray,” Cap said.

  “I’m not talking to you yet,” he said. There wasn’t a hint of anger in his voice. He sounded almost amused. Cap shut his mouth and kept it shut.

  Yeah, this was the effect I was going for myself, I thought. Now here was the real thing, in person.

  And I am totally fucked right now.

  “Harold,” Mr. Gray said, “I would like you to go out and wait in the car for me.”

  “I can’t stand up,” he said.

  “Why would that be?”

  “I sort of wet my pants.”

  “You wanted some real life, Harold. Here it is. Now go get in the car.”

  “But I have my car here.”

  “You can leave it for now.”

  “I need my car.”

  “I said you can leave it here.”

  “Can I go upstairs and change, at least?”

  “No, I think a ride back to Detroit in wet pants will be a good object lesson for you.” He looked at me again. “Don’t you agree?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Harry stood up. The dark stain down his pants was unmistakable. He gave Cap and Brucie a small nod and then left the room. I heard the front door open and shut. Now it was just the four of us and somehow the room felt ten degrees colder.

  “Caplan,” Mr. Gray said. “Bruce.”

  Cap looked up at him. Bruce didn’t dare. Mr. Gray went over to Bruce in two quick steps and grabbed him by the neck. With his back to me now, I couldn’t see what took place between them. A few seconds later, he moved over to Cap. He stood over him for a while, but didn’t touch him.

  “Before we discuss what you guys have done to my house,” he finally said, “and to my boat, and why in the world you would let my son come up here without calling me immediately…”

  He turned to me once more, and now it was like he was really seeing me for the first time.

  “Please tell me who this gentleman is, and why he had a gun pointed at my son’s head.”

  “Actually, I have no quarrel with your son,” I said, finally speaking up. “If you’ll let me explain.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Alex, was it? What’s your last name?”

  “McKnight.”

  He thought about it for a second. “No, I’ve never heard that name before. What do you do for a living?”

  “I was a cop once. Then a private investigator.”

  “Is that right?”

  “My partner knows I’m here right now,” I said. It was time to find some way to climb out of this. “He’s expecting me to call him about now.”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  “I’m serious, Mr. Gray.”

  He put his hand up to shush me, a simple gesture like a man waving away the man trying to top off his water glass.

  “I think it would be a good idea,” he said to Cap and Brucie, “if I removed myself from this situation as quickly as possible. If I don’t, I’m honestly afraid that I’ll end up killing both of you. You take care of our guest, you come back here and you clean this place up, and you give me a call when you’re done. At that point, I’ll tell you what we’ll be doing next. Do you think you guys could do that much without totally fucking it up?”

  Take care of our guest, he says. This was not sounding good at all. It was time to start looking a little harder for a quick exit, no matter what I had to do.

  Mr. Gray left the place without giving me another glance. As soon as the door closed behind him, Brucie started breathing again.

  “We’re dead,” he said.

  “Relax,” Cap said.

  “We are totally, completely dead.”

  Cap looked at Leon’s gun. “Is this piece of shit loaded?” The way he took out the cartridge, it was obvious this was not the first time he had handled a gun.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Brucie said, nodding in my direction.

  “You heard the man,” Cap said, slamming the cartridge back in Leon’s gun. “Let’s go take care of him.”

  Chapter Ten

  Brucie drove the car. The black Escalade. I didn’t have much chance to enjoy the luxury. Cap was next to me in the backseat, holding Leon’s gun. I had no idea where we were going.

  Neither did Brucie, even though he was at the wheel. “Where are we going?” he said. He spoke quietly, with a perfect calm that sounded almost resigned.

  “I know the place,” Cap said. With his free hand he rubbed his jaw.

  “You gonna tell me where?”

  “Just drive. I’ll tell you.”

  “We need a place by the water,” Brucie said. “With nobody around for miles.”

  “I think that’s the whole goddamned Upper Peninsula.”

  Brucie didn’t react to that one. He kept driving.

  I tried to study Cap without making it obvious. Gun in right hand. Maybe thirty inches away from me, a lot of room back here in this big vehicle. If he was distracted for a second, could I get the gun away from him?

  Hell, what other shot did I have? I needed to wait for the right moment, maybe when he was talking to Brucie, maybe looking out at where we were going. Anything.

  But no, he kept watching me closely. No expression on his face at all. Brucie kept driving. The speed limit on this road was fifty-five. He was going fifty-four.

  It was so obvious to me now. I was a cop once. I saw plenty of criminals. I saw enough regular-issue bad guys to last a lifetime. But only once in a great while did I see men like this.

  They were professionals. If either one of them had ever had a moral compass, it had been carefully dismantled until nothing was left. Now they were driving me to a safe place, far away from anyone else so they could kill me with my own borrowed gun and leave my body to rot in the water. They were driving like it was a trip to the hardware store. How did I not see this in them from the very beginning?

  We were going east now on M-134. It was a lonely highway, just trees and occasional views of Lake Huron. The sky was getting cloudier, like it would rain again soon. We came to Port Dolomite, passing the big limestone quarry, the high walls of white stone. This will be the place, I thought. It makes perfect sense, find some abandoned corner of the quarry, shoot your man, and leave his body there.

  Leave his body there.

  I started to feel dizzy. I couldn’t breathe.

  Think, Alex. Think. There has to be a way out of this.

  We passed one entrance to the quarry, then another. There were security gates everywhere. Brucie kept driving until it was just the trees and the water and the sound of the car again.

  “That one stretch of road,” Brucie said. “The other day, when we were out driving around.”

  “What I’m thinking,” Cap said.

  I kept waiting for him to take his eyes off of me. Just for one moment. I could go for the gun, try to twist that bad hand, take the gun, and shoot him quickly. Then either make Bruci
e stop or shoot him in the head and take my chances.

  At the same time, while I watched and waited, the seconds ticking by, there was another part of my mind thinking about Natalie, playing back everything we had ever done together. From the moment I had first laid eyes on her. On that lake in northern Ontario, seeing her jump off that plane onto the dock. The way she moved. The way she looked in that old farmhouse, when I drove all the way up there to find her and to share a bottle of champagne on a lonely New Year’s Eve.

  She wasn’t here with me now. From the sadness of it, the loneliness, to a strange calm I felt when I realized what a good thing that was. She wasn’t here to take this last ride with me, wouldn’t be standing next to me when the bullets started to fly. She was five hundred miles away, and now for the first time that distance was a comfort to me.

  She’ll be okay, I thought. She’ll feel bad when she hears what happened to me. Then she’ll get over it and she’ll go on with her life. This thing we were trying to hold on to, this impossible, unworkable thing—it will be nothing but a memory.

  We were heading into the heart of the DeTour State Forest Campground, the darkness under the trees making everything look colder. What little sun there was, all but gone.

  “Hey, Cap,” Brucie said.

  “What is it?” He didn’t take his eyes off of me. The barrel of the gun still thirty inches away, his hand rock solid. If I went for it, I’d have no chance. My options were running out.

  “I want him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m saying, I want to do him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s always you doing this part,” Brucie said. “Me waiting with the car. I want to switch it around this time.”

  “This is my gig. You’ve never done it. Not one goddamned time.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. It’s about time. You remember in the bar?”

  “What about it?”

  “When they came after us. You got the Indian, remember?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So this guy took my bad arm and tried to twist it right off. I can still feel it. Not to mention a fucking beer bottle on the back of my head. You know what I’m saying? I’ve got some personal motivation here.”

  “Number one, I seem to recall getting sucker punched today,” Cap said. “You don’t think I have some personal motivation, too? And number two…”

  “What?”

  “As soon as you start talking about personal motivation, I know you’re not ready. This isn’t junior high school, Brucie.”

  Brucie thought about it for a few seconds. He started to slow the car down. There was a turnoff ahead.

  “I want him,” he finally said. “It’s your turn to wait in the car for once. That’s the way it’s gonna be. You got a problem?”

  “There’s no reason to talk like that. If you want him so bad, go ahead. Knock yourself out, man.”

  Brucie made a right turn. It was a narrow road, leading down toward the water.

  “Leave the gun with him after you’re done,” Cap said. “It’s his, so it can’t come back to us.”

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  “Wipe off your prints, though.”

  “Gee, I never would have thought of that.”

  Cap shook his head and smiled at me. “The man’s always been too sensitive,” he said. Like I should be in on the joke.

  “I’ll go down here as far as I can,” Brucie said. The road was overgrown. I could hear the branches scratching at the sides of the vehicle.

  “This is far enough,” Cap said. He glanced behind us, then forward, checking out the empty access road. I had a fraction of a second, but it was gone before I could move.

  Cap tightened his grip on the gun, as if reading my mind. “You should feel honored,” he said to me. “Brucie’s gonna break his cherry on you.”

  Natalie and me in the guest bedroom. The first time.

  Natalie and me having dinner at the Ojibway Hotel.

  Natalie and me on the island. When I almost lost her.

  The road got even tighter. A large branch slapped at the windshield.

  “You can stop now,” Cap said, “before you destroy the car.”

  “I’m getting off the road, genius.”

  “Nobody can see you now.”

  “Like hell.”

  “The car’s black. Nobody can see you.”

  Brucie jammed on the brakes. If he had been going any faster, Cap would have been thrown into the front seat and things would have gotten interesting.

  “The fuck’s the matter with you?” Cap said.

  “Time to swap,” Brucie said. “You can be the chauffeur now.”

  “Yeah, time to swap, so I can back this thing all the way out of here.”

  Brucie opened his door and came around to our side.

  “Come on,” Cap said to me. “Slide out my way. Nice and easy.”

  He opened up his door and got out. He kept it open and waited for me, passing the gun to Brucie.

  When I was standing level with him, Cap looked me in the eye. “Sweet dreams,” he said. I wanted to hit him again. Or better yet, I wanted to grab my keys and rake them right across his neck.

  “Hurry it up,” Brucie said. He backed away into the brush so I wouldn’t be too close to him as we all maneuvered ourselves around. Cap went to the driver’s side. Brucie waved me away from the vehicle and closed the door.

  “Walk,” he said. “That way.” He pointed down toward the water.

  I walked. He stayed behind me. The way I was figuring it now, I had one last chance to improvise something. Create some sort of distraction, turn around and go for the gun. Either take it from him or knock it away long enough to make a break for it.

  At least there was only one man to worry about now. My odds were that much better.

  Yeah, right. I was fooling myself. I knew that. These were the last steps of my life. This air the last I would breathe.

  I tripped and almost went down. With the sudden movement, I was sure I’d get it right then, square in the back. But it didn’t happen. I regained my footing and kept walking. I could see the edge of the water now. Lake Huron, sister to Lake Superior. I never would have dreamed this would be the last lake I’d ever see.

  Natalie on the phone with me. The sound of her voice, so far away. To hear it one more time…

  No, Alex. Don’t give in to this. This is not the way to go out.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Brucie said.

  “If you’re expecting me to beg,” I said, “it’s not going to happen.” I didn’t turn to face him. I kept walking.

  “You’re taking it like a man. I’ll give you that much.”

  I wondered how this was going to happen. How many seconds I had left. It was dark here in the trees.

  “You shouldn’t have come to the house,” he said.

  “No kidding.”

  “You did this for your Indian friend?”

  “Yes.”

  A few seconds passed.

  “I had a friend like that once,” he said.

  “If that’s true, you probably didn’t deserve him.”

  A short laugh from behind me. “Tough to the end, eh?”

  “I’d like to see how tough you’d be without the gun,” I said. It was a reach at this point, but what the hell. It was worth a shot.

  He laughed again. “Yeah, I bet you would.”

  Pine needles under my feet. The smell of fresh water. The cold air in my lungs. I was starting to feel dizzy.

  “Stop here,” Brucie said.

  I stopped. We were overlooking the water now, on a little bluff about twenty feet above the shoreline. The waves were two feet high, maybe three. It was a tame lake compared to Superior. Smaller waves, warmer water. I could see a sailboat in the distance. The sail bright yellow against a gray sky.

  Clouds. No sun.

  I would never see the sun again.

  “It’s
not much of a cliff,” Brucie said, “but it’s as good as we’re gonna find up here, eh?”

  “If you’re gonna do it, do it,” I said. I turned to face him.

  “Don’t you want to know why I told Cap I was gonna do this?”

  “You gave him your reason.”

  “There’s more to it.”

  “Like what?”

  “I knew what he would have done to you if it was him. The thing you gotta remember about Cap…Fuck, man…”

  He shook his head, looked away like he was trying to banish a memory. If it was a distraction, I was too far away from him to try anything now. I had officially passed beyond all hope.

  “He would have made it slow,” he said. “Emptied the whole damned gun, even though that’s the stupidest fucking thing you can do. Make you get down on your knees, all that bullshit. Believe me, I’ve seen it. More than once. And each time it gets worse.”

  Natalie’s face. One more time. I had to see it. I closed my eyes and willed her to appear in my mind.

  God damn it all, one more time. Please.

  “You probably saved Harry’s life. Hell, for all I know you saved my life, too. Despite everything else…”

  Her eyes. Her hair. The scar on her chin.

  “I mean, I figured you should get it clean. That much you deserve.”

  He raised the gun and leveled it at my chest. I waited for the blast. I wondered how it would feel. Or if I’d feel anything at all. I didn’t know how long I’d last, how many seconds my eyes would be open before it all went black. If I’d fall back down this little cliff, feeling the rocks on the way down or the cold water at the end.

  He took dead aim at my heart. I could see the gun wavering in his hand. I stopped breathing.

  “Fuck!” he said. He pulled the gun up until it was cocked next to his ear, stood there looking up at the trees. “Son of a whore! Look at me!”

  He turned around, looked behind him, then up at the trees again, then back at me.

  “Cap enjoys this shit,” he said. “He really does. What kind of a man enjoys this?”

  He wheeled around one more time. He moved the gun slowly, down from his ear, back to the firing position.

  “Maybe you don’t want to do this,” I said.

  “Shut up.”

  “I’m pretty sure you don’t.”