The hunting wind am-3

by Steve Hamilton

  It was time for a little tightrope walk. I held on to the fence as I made my way down the strip of land. In some spots, the erosion had eaten away all the way under the fence. I had to climb my way over the gaps until I could walk again. Finally, I came to the concrete embankment and the low fence that ran behind the guardrail. I could see the dim shape of the Cadillac up the road.

  I climbed over the fence, trying for silence and failing. I caught my pants on the top of the fence and nearly tumbled over onto my head. Another brilliant display of agility by the former athlete. I made it to the ground and dropped into a crouch, rubbing my right shoulder.

  I watched the car for a while. There were no signs of movement. I figured it was about two hundred feet away, with not much cover between us. I had to move fast and quiet.

  The wind kicked up, the sand swirling in my face. I closed my eyes, waited for it to pass. Then I moved.

  I kept low, hoping he wouldn’t see me in the rear-view mirror. I pictured him sitting there with his eyes closed, listening through the earphones. That’s it, just keep listening. No reason to look back here. It feels so good to just sit there and rest your eyes…

  The light went on inside his car.

  I dived to the ground, breathing hard. Had he seen me?

  I looked up. I was still a good thirty feet away. Why was his light on?

  I waited. The door didn’t open. Nothing.

  Okay, start moving again. Slowly. Very quiet. Why the hell did he turn his light on?

  This will actually help me. He won’t be able to see outside very well with that light on. I came up to the rear of his car. Okay, now which side? Driver’s side or passenger’s side?

  On the driver’s side, I can open the door and pull him out. If the door is unlocked. And if he doesn’t see me in the side mirror.

  On the passenger’s side, I can open the door and jump in beside him. If the door is unlocked. I peeked around on that side of the car. No mirror there. I thought Cadillacs always had mirrors on both sides. Maybe it fell off. Maybe it doesn’t matter and I should just do something before the night is over.

  And you know what, Alex? This would be a really good time to have your gun with you. Too bad it’s in a shoe box in the bottom of your closet, five hours away in the Upper Peninsula.

  Never mind. Let’s go.

  I picked the passenger’s side. I inched my way around to the back window, took a peek. One man. He had earphones on, which was good. Less chance of hearing me. He was looking down at something. Maybe reading? Also good.

  Is this door open? Yes. It was an older car, with the good old-fashioned metal lock sticking up a good two inches in the air. God bless old Cadillacs.

  Here goes nothing.

  I yanked the door open.

  A gun. Right there on the passenger’s seat. I grabbed it, just before he could reach for it himself. The man screamed his way through a few syllables until he could finally put words together. “Oh my God, you son of a bitch, I’m dying, for the love of… What the hell are you doing? Who are you?”

  “Good evening,” I said, sitting down next to him. “You must be Miles Whitley.”

  “Oh goddamn it,” he said, holding onto the steering wheel. “I’m dying here.”

  “Calm down,” I said. “Get a hold of yourself.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, you son of a bitch. Oh my God.”

  I looked him over. He was big, like Maria had said. A solid 250 pounds, easy. He was even bigger than Leon. His hair was thin, and he’d combed it over, in a losing battle to cover his head. His face was rounded and gray, the kind of face you see with a cigar in it down at the racetrack. The earphones had slipped off his ears and were now around his neck. As I looked down, I saw the stain all over his pants. In his left hand, he held a mason jar filled halfway with what could only be urine. I made every effort not to look at anything else.

  “God, my back,” he said through gritted teeth. “My whole back is locked up now. Goddamn it all.”

  “Looks like I caught you in the middle of something,” I said. “I do apologize.”

  “Goddamn it all, who are you?” he said. He found the lid to the mason jar and screwed it on. Then he started waving his hands around like a man who desperately needs a paper towel.

  “My name is Alex McKnight,” I said. “I left you a message today.”

  “So what?” he said. He started to arch his back. “Goddamn it all.”

  “You didn’t call me back,” I said. “I was worried about you.”

  He looked at me, really looked at me in the eyes for the first time. “What, is that some kind of a joke?”

  “I got a million of ’em,” I said. I looked down at all the stuff he had piled around him: newspapers, some candy bar wrappers, a bottle of Vernors ginger ale. I picked up one of the newspapers and saw the UHF receiver, which was plugged into the cigarette lighter. On the floor, there was a metal box with a lock, just as Leon had predicted. “You obviously get all the right catalogs,” I said. “Didn’t you see the special surveillance pants you can buy, with the little pissing tube in it? Just like the astronauts use in outer space?”

  “Are you gonna tell me what the hell you want? Jesus, my back.”

  “I want to know where Harwood is,” I said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The man who’s paying you to sit here listening to a woman who’s scared half to death,” I said. “The man who paid you to break into her house.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I got an idea,” I said. I flipped open the revolver, saw the back ends of six bullets. “You should learn to clean your gun, Miles.”

  “You should learn to blow it out your ass.”

  “Here’s my idea,” I said. “The other day, somebody held a gun against my knee and asked me what it would feel like if he pulled the trigger. Sort of like this.” I put the barrel of the gun against his right knee.

  He looked down at the gun. He didn’t say anything.

  “Of course, this man had a shotgun,” I said. “So you can imagine what I was thinking. One blast and my knee would have been gone. Nothing but knee soup all over the walls.”

  I saw him swallow.

  “Now, a little revolver like this,” I said. “It’s not going to cause nearly as much damage. Of course, you’ve got six bullets in here.”

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” he said.

  “The first bullet would probably penetrate right under the kneecap. Do you think it would come out the other side?”

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” he said again.

  “How do you know that?” I said.

  “Because you can’t.”

  “The second bullet would probably shatter the kneecap itself,” I said. “I think you’d forget all about your bad back at least.”

  “I’m just working here,” he said. “You know that. You’re a private dick yourself. You said so in your message.”

  “Private dick? You actually call it that?”

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “Harwood, the man who hired you,” I said. “Do you know why he’s been looking for that woman all these years?”

  He looked down at the gun. “I don’t need to know that.”

  “Of course not. Not if he’s paying you enough.”

  “I’m just keeping things together,” he said. “You know how it is. It’s a tough business.”

  “Do you have a cell phone in here?”

  “Under your seat.”

  “I hope I don’t accidentally pull the trigger,” I said as I reached for it. “There it is.” I flipped it open and turned it on. It scanned for two seconds and then locked right in. “You’ve got a better phone than I do, I’ll say that much for you.”

  “Who are you calling?”

  “My client,” I said. “You know how it is. You’ve got to check in now and then, keep the customer happy.”

  Maria picked up on the first ring.<
br />
  “It’s me,” I said.

  “Alex! My God! What happened? Where are you?”

  “I’m right outside,” I said. “On the street. I’m hanging out with Mr. Whitley.”

  “The man in the car? Alex, how did you… I mean, I was so worried when you hung up the phone before. I was afraid you-”

  “Everything’s okay,” I said. “You can relax now. Mr. Whitley has a much better cell phone. He was kind enough to let me use it.”

  I could hear her take a deep breath. “Thank God,” she said. “I didn’t know what to think.”

  “It sounds like I missed a good story.”

  “You did,” she said. “Too bad.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t even try.

  “What are you going to do now?” she asked. “If you’re right outside, why are we talking on the phone? Do you want me to go out there?”

  “No, that would be embarrassing for Mr. Whitley, I’m afraid.” I took the gun away from his knee and leaned back in the seat. Something brushed the top of my head. It was the fabric on the car’s ceiling, hanging down like some kind of harem tent. The smell of the car, a mixture of sweat and urine and God knows what else, was starting to get to me.

  This was not going to be pleasant, but it was the only way. I had no idea how long it would take. Maybe thirty minutes. Maybe all night.

  “You stay there,” I said. “We’ve got a little trip to make.”

  “What do you mean? Where are you going?”

  I gave Whitley a little wave with the gun. “As soon as he zips up his pants,” I said, “we’re both going to go say hello to his client.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Whitley surprised me. I figured he’d work his way east, back to one of the interstates. Instead, he drove north, right up M-31, the little two-lane highway that runs all the way up the shore of Lake Michigan.

  “Where are we going?” I said finally.

  “North,” he said.

  “Can you be a little more specific?”

  “Will you put the gun away, for God’s sake? Why do you have to turn this into a kidnapping?”

  “I’m not pointing it at you,” I said. “Just relax and drive. And slow down, eh? If you’re thinking about trying to get pulled over, think again. I’m sure the police would be very interested to hear what you were doing back there.”

  “I was doing my job, friend.”

  “You broke into her house and planted a bug,” I said. “You were eavesdropping on her.”

  “It sounds like such an ugly thing when you say it that way.”

  “Why were you doing it?” I said. “I don’t get it. I know Harwood was looking for her, so okay, you found her. Good for you. Why were you following her around and listening to her conversations?”

  He let out a long breath, then rubbed his face. “The client wants you to follow the mark around, you follow the mark. You know how it is. He wants you to spy on her, you spy on her. You sit there and you listen and you tell him what she’s saying. I’d have the phone right there with me. She’s talking to her brother; she’s talking to her kid. It didn’t mean anything to me. It’s just her talking, you know. But the client wants to know this stuff. As long as he’s interested, and he’s paying, you go along with it.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t do crap like that,” he said. “What’s the worst thing you ever did as a private eye?”

  “I’m the wrong guy to ask,” I said.

  “I’m just reaching for my pills here. Don’t get excited.” He went down between his legs and pulled a plastic pill bottle off the floor. “Here, open this,” he said, tossing it to me.

  I read the prescription as I opened it: Miles Whitley, one pill four times daily, as needed. A red sticker warned against driving or operating heavy machinery.

  I took out one of the pills. It looked familiar. It was a Vicodin, the same pill I’d once had a little problem with. After the shooting, I’d use them on the bad nights. For a while there, they were all bad nights.

  “Hell of a job to have with a bad back,” he said as he took it from me and popped it in his mouth. “Sitting around for hours. And then having people jump in my car and scare the piss out of me.”

  I thought about taking one of the pills myself. Instead, I put the cap back on and threw the bottle in the backseat.

  “How long have you been a private eye?” he asked.

  “I’m not a private eye,” I said.

  “You said you were, on your message.”

  “I was just pretending.”

  “Pretending, my ass,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for a lot of years. More than I care to admit. The business has changed, let me tell you. They got guys who do nothing but look at computers all day now. Christ, they got women private eyes now. There aren’t many of us old-timers left. It was a tough business back then. It took a special kind of man.”

  “For God’s sake, Whitley…”

  “Are you a private eye or aren’t you?” he said. “Do you have a license?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But it was an accident.”

  “What the hell does that mean? You’re working for this lady, aren’t you?”

  “She asked me to help her,” I said. “So I am.”

  “A private eye by accident,” he said, looking out his window at the lake. “And he gets clients that look like that. While I get-”

  “Harwood,” I said. “I know who hired you.”

  “I cannot divulge the identity of my client.”

  “Give it up,” I said. “We’ll see him soon enough. How long do we have to drive, anyway?”

  “Little over an hour,” he said.

  “That’s it? Where is he?”

  “This way.”

  “This way, where? Are we going to his house?”

  “Nope. Don’t know where he lives.”

  “What, he’s staying in a motel up here? So he can be close to her?”

  “Not a motel,” he said.

  “Stop jerking me around. Where are we going?”

  “He owns some land up here,” he said. “That’s all I know.”

  “The partnership land. That’s where he’s staying? How long has he been up there?”

  “Not long,” he said. “Just since he found out where she was.”

  “The name Randy Wilkins mean anything to you? Or to Harwood?”

  “Who would that be?”

  “He’s the man you followed.” I said. “From her brother’s house.”

  “Is that his name?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You followed him, and now Harwood knows where she is.” It helps to be mad at somebody when you’re making them do something at gunpoint. The thought of this clown staking out the house in Farmington, and then tailing Randy all the way out here so he could find Maria. It helped me build up steam again.

  “It’s what he paid me to do.”

  “Yeah, I know. Just doing your job.”

  “Look, I don’t get to ‘accidentally’ dabble in being a private investigator, okay? This isn’t my hobby.”

  “Just drive,” I said.

  He shook his head and kept driving. We stayed on M-31 all the way up to the outskirts of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. They were calling this whole area the “Gold Coast” now, or the “Michigan Riviera.” With all the new resorts going up, it was a good time to own land.

  Unless somebody wanted to kill you over it.

  “What are you going to do, anyway?” he said. We hit the little town of Beulah; then the highway turned east into the heart of the state forest.

  “I’m going to talk to him,” I said.

  “While holding a gun to his head.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m just doing my job. Just like you.”

  The woods opened up and we saw a golf flag in the middle of a green, and then, soon after, the lights of a ski lift running upward. By Michigan’s standards, it was a long slope. Go
lf in the summer, skiing in the winter. The place didn’t look too busy now, but in another month, I knew it would be booked solid.

  As we drove past the place, the pine trees reclaimed the land, thick enough to deepen the night into total darkness. Whitley slowed the car. I couldn’t see why. There was nowhere to turn. Just trees as far as we could see.

  He swung the car through a gap in the trees. I didn’t even see it until the headlights swung around. The trees towered over us on either side.

  “Is this the place?” I said.

  “No,” he said. “I just thought I’d drive down this deer trail here, see where it goes.”

  “There’s no reason for anybody to get hurt, Whitley. So don’t do anything stupid when you get there, okay? Don’t try to tip him off or anything. All I want to do is talk to the man and then leave.”

  “How do you plan on leaving?”

  “You’re gonna drive me back,” I said. “It’s not far.”

  “Now I’m a chauffeur. My life is improving by the minute.”

  He drove down through the trees for a good mile. There was nothing but the shaggy bark of pine trees on either side of us, and the sound of the weeds whipping at the bottom of his car. Finally, he came to a clearing and swung his car hard to the right. The headlights passed over something large and white.

  They used to call them campers. My father had one for a couple years, back when he was heading up to the Upper Peninsula every weekend to work on his first cabin. Now they call them RVs, and they’ve got kitchens, bathrooms, color televisions, you name it. The better ones run well over $100,000. The only difference between a small house and an RV is that the RV gets about three miles to the gallon.

  As we got out, I told Whitley to leave his keys in the ignition. “I’ll drive back,” I said. “It’s only fair.”

  “Not sure you want to do that. There’s still piss all over the seat.”

  “Leave the keys in anyway.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. As he got out, he reached down and pulled out a wooden cane.