A Stolen Season

Chapter Twenty-two

He had a gun just like Rhapsody’s, with the same long suppressor screwed onto the end of the barrel. He walked over to me with a smile, like he was renewing his acquaintance with a long-lost friend.

“Alex and I have come to an agreement,” Rhapsody said. “Your idea was ridiculous.”

“Is that right?” He moved closer to me, never taking his eyes from mine. He put his gun in his back pocket for a moment, just long enough to pat me down and to take Leon’s gun out of my jacket pocket. I waited for him to go down each of my legs, to find the ankle holster.

But he didn’t.

“Alex saw right through it,” she said. “Jacques never had a chance.”

“The man wanted Laraque,” Cap said. He transferred Leon’s gun to his right hand and threw it in a high arc. It splashed in the middle of the channel. Then he started to walk around me in a slow circle. “So we gave him Laraque. I thought it would be easier this way.”

The fake Laraque put his hands up. “Hey,” he said, “you didn’t tell me this guy would be here.”

“Shut up, Jacques,” she said.

“No, this guy’s crazy. I didn’t sign up for this.”

“Just shut the fuck up.”

“Seriously. I’ll let you guys work this out. I’ll be right over here.”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“The hell I’m not. I just quit.”

Cap turned from me and shot him twice in the throat. Shoomp shoomp, two muffled shots like the sound a nail gun would make. Me on the roof of my cabin, nailing down a shingle. That was the exact sound.

At first, the man showed nothing but surprise. He tried to speak, but couldn’t make a sound, his vocal cords obliterated with everything else as the blood rushed down the front of his coat. He went to his knees, looking at the ground like he still couldn’t quite fathom what had happened to him. He tried to speak again. Then he pitched sideways and spent the next few seconds staring up at both of us.

“Was that necessary?” she said.

“You told me he wasn’t even a good driver.”

I watched the man die on the ground. It occurred to me, maybe this was one of his reasons for shooting him in front of me, so I’d know exactly what he was capable of.

“I thought you were long gone,” I said to him. “After you tried to trick me into going after Mr. Gray.”

“What’s this?” she said. “This sounds interesting.”

“Never mind,” he said. He kept circling me. “It was just an idea, a spur of the moment thing.”

“I thought you weren’t afraid of Gray,” she said.

“I just put a bullet in his head two days ago. Does that sound like somebody who’s afraid of anybody?”

“You killed Gray?” I said.

He stopped in front of me. “Yes, I did. Now tell me where the guns are, or you’ll get the same deal. I promise you.”

“I think he was afraid of you, too,” she said to me. “I think that’s why he came up with this idea.”

“Rhapsody…”

“‘Get Jacques to pretend,’” she said, imitating him, exaggerating the swagger in his voice. “‘McKnight won’t know any better. If he ends up killing him, so what?’”

“What do you think?” he said to me. “Do you think I’m afraid of you?”

“I think you talk pretty big,” I said, “when your woman has your back.”

He made like he was going to turn away, then surprised me with a punch right in my gut. It folded me in two. I went with it, going all the way to the ground, feeling for the mini automatic under my pant leg. Lift and fire, if I do it fast enough…

No. Not yet. Either one of them would mow me down in a second.

“Okay, enough chit-chat,” Cap said. “Where are the guns?”

Play this out, I thought. Buy some time, figure out what the hell is going on.

“They’re out there,” I said, pointing to the water. I was struggling to get my wind back. Laraque was dead. Gray was dead. I couldn’t believe it was all coming down to these two.

“What are you talking about, McKnight? Out there where?”

“I have to take you to them.”

“What did you do, hide them on some island like a pirate?”

“That’s exactly what I did, yes.”

He leaned down closer to me. “Do you have any idea how much you’ve fucked up my life already? Do you?”

“The man says he’s going to take us to the merchandise,” Rhapsody said. “So let him do it.”

“You actually believe him?”

“He looks like a smart man. He knows if he gives everything back, we’ll let him walk away.”

He grabbed me by the back of the collar. “Where are they, McKnight?”

“He said he’d take us to them,” she said. “Are you deaf?”

“I’m not falling for it,” he said. “I swear to God…”

“You got a better idea?”

“Yeah, I do.”

He put the gun against my temple.

“That would be smart,” she said. “We’d definitely get the guns back that way.”

He made a long muffled sound in his throat as he let go of me. I was starting to see the way things were between them. They obviously had a long history together.

“We need to clean up here first,” she said. “Why don’t you drag Jacques into the boathouse?”

“We can take him on the boat,” he said. “Dump him in the water.”

“I’m not riding in the boat with him. Just put him in the boathouse for now. You take him back out and dump him later.”

“McKnight can do that.” He kicked me. “On your feet.”

“He’s still recovering from you little cheap shot, Cap. Just shut the fuck up and drag Jacques’s ass into the boathouse, will you?”

“Rhapsody, I’m going to say this once. We’re partners now. That means you don’t get to talk to me that way anymore.”

“Pardon me. Will you please relocate Jacques to the boathouse? Is that better?”

He stared her down for a while, then he finally hooked his wrists under the dead man’s underarms and started dragging him.

“Let’s go,” she said to me. She waved me forward with her gun, careful not to step in the blood. “Cap, you better hose this all off when we’re done, too.”

He spat sideways and kept dragging. When we got to the door, he dropped the man for a moment and rummaged around in his pockets for the key to the door.

“Do you really need a key?” she said.

“I suppose not,” he said. “On account of our friend breaking into the place. Real smooth, McKnight. Did you use a sledgehammer?”

“I thought your pal Brucie was watching over things,” she said. “Where is he?”

“We can go see him if you like. But I don’t think he’s in any state to receive visitors.”

“Just open the door,” she said. “It’ll be dark by the time we get out there.”

He did as he was told. Then he dragged the dead man in and left him on the gangway.

“How far are we going, McKnight?” Cap jumped into the boat and turned around, the gun pointed at my chest.

“It’s not far,” I said. “I’ll take the wheel.”

“Like hell you will. You’re going to sit there and you’re going to tell me where to go.”

I got in and sat down on one of the chairs. Rhapsody sat across from me, a good six feet away. Cap climbed up to the captain’s chair and started the engine. A minute later, we were pulling out into the channel.

“Which way?” Cap said, his voice raised enough for me to hear him over the engine. “To the right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Go all the way out to the lake.”

He turned around and looked at me, then at Rhapsody.

“You heard the man,” she said. “Go to the lake.”

He shook his head and swung the wheel to the right, flipping on the GPS to follow the safe route, same as I had done. I sat there and thought about what was happening, and what my options were. With Laraque gone…Hell, it just wasn’t making any sense to me.

“Did you really kill him?” I said to Rhapsody. “I can’t see you doing that.”

“Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“Now you’re trying to collect his guns. You really are taking over.”

“That’s the idea.”

“And if Cap here really took out Mr. Gray, then I’m looking at both ends of the deal now. You’ve got the Canadian side and Cap has the U.S. side.”

She looked out the boat at where we were going, then back at me.

“I hope you can trust him,” I said. “He seems a little psychotic to me.”

Cap looked back down at us. “Just tell us where to go,” he said. “Other than that, you can keep quiet.”

“I’m just making an observation,” I said. “The two of you don’t seem to get along so well.”

I was fishing now. I was trying to find any kind of leverage I could, or anything I could use to distract them, even for a moment.

“We get along fine,” she said. “When we have to.”

“Whatever you say. It’s not my business. I’d just be a little worried about having a partner who’s so unstable.”

“Cap and I go way back, Alex. We’re the ones who hooked up Laraque and Gray to begin with.”

“You had this planned all along? Wait for the right moment and then take over?”

She smiled at me. I wasn’t getting anywhere. I needed something else, something to throw them off course.

“How far are we going?” Cap said. “Do I stay in this channel?”

“All the way out,” I said.

“Then what?”

“I’ll remember when we get there.”

He took both hands off the wheel for a moment to tighten the suppressor on his gun. He looked down at me as he did it.

“You’re not messing with us here,” Rhapsody said. “Are you? Because I’d be really disappointed.”

“Would I do that?”

“You don’t want me to be disappointed, Alex. Believe me.”

“I understand.”

She had her gun in her lap now, her right hand still gripping the handle. There has to be something, I thought. What would Leon do?

“Things must be kind of hot right now,” I said. “Maybe killing two cops wasn’t such a great idea.”

“Yeah,” Cap said without turning around, “maybe that wasn’t such a great idea.”

“Don’t start,” she said.

“Start what?”

“Did you hear me? Don’t even go there now. It was an unavoidable mistake.”

“You still don’t think I would have figured it out before shooting the guy?”

“How could you?”

“Well, let’s see…If I went to his apartment…Yeah, maybe I would have noticed something first. His badge on the table, maybe? His official Mountie coffee mug? His diploma from the police academy on the fucking wall?”

He stopped himself, closed his eyes for a few seconds, like he was counting to three. When he finally looked back at the GPS, he had to jerk the boat hard to the left to get back on course. Rhapsody almost fell out of her chair. I had a sudden vision of her gun falling out of her hand, me making my move. But the moment passed.

“Nice driving,” she said. “Is there anything you don’t do well?”

“Go fuck yourself,” he said. “And ask your buddy where we’re going here. We’re almost out in the lake.”

“Keep going straight for a while,” I said. “Hold the same direction.”

She killed Natalie’s partner, I thought. Probably with that very gun. But over here in Michigan…There was no way Cap could have killed Natalie. Unless…

Wait a minute, why would they even kill them at all? If they didn’t even know they were cops until afterward…

“McKnight,” Cap said. “I’m starting to think you’re just stalling here.”

“A few more miles,” I said. “Hold your course.”

If they didn’t know they were cops…then they must have thought they were real gun dealers.

“I don’t remember any islands out here,” Cap said. “You’re taking us right out into the middle of fucking Lake Huron.”

If they thought they were real gun dealers…

God damn it. They thought they were competitors. They had this takeover all set up, until these new players arrived on the scene. Hell, that’s probably why Cap and Brucie were stuck here for a few days. Maybe it wasn’t the weather. Maybe it was Laraque trying to play the two U.S. angles off each other, work a better deal.

“McKnight, you’d better say something. Or I swear to God I’ll kill you right now.”

Natalie and her partner didn’t die because their cover was blown.

They died because their cover wasn’t blown.

“McKnight?”

She killed Resnik, picked up his cell phone, and got my number. Gave that to Cap. Hell, that might have been a big surprise to him. Or maybe not at all. Maybe it explained a lot, why me and Vinnie were trying to drive him away. It would have all made perfect sense if he thought I was part of Natalie’s supply chain.

So he came over to my cabin…thinking I was already dead, of course. But so what? Nobody else would have known that. I would just be missing at that point. He came to my cabin and he saw Natalie’s Jeep there. Not my truck. Again, which would have made sense to him. I was just down the road, but he didn’t know that.

He opened the door and found Natalie inside. He must have figured she had come there looking for me, and when I wasn’t there, she had just settled in to wait for me.

Did he tell her she was waiting for a dead man? Did he say one word to her before he gunned her down in cold blood and then left?

Cap cut the engine and let the boat drift. He came down the stairs.

“Start talking,” he said, leveling the gun at my head. “Where are they?”

“You killed her,” I said. “You killed Natalie.”

“Yeah, no kidding. That’s what I do, remember?”

I wanted to go for my gun right then. I wanted to empty every round into his body. Then take his own gun from him and do it all over again.

“Cap, just cool it,” Rhapsody said. “Let me do this.”

“You’ve done enough,” he said. “Look at where it got us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look at us,” he said, gesturing in every direction. “You don’t think this is strange?”

“It’s strange, yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Cap. It’s strange.”

“And yet you seem to be going along with it just fine. Take the boat out to the middle of the fucking lake. No problem.”

“I’m just playing it out,” she said. “I’m taking Alex at his word.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t you?”

“What else are we supposed to do?”

“Nothing. You’re right. Everything’s going great. As soon as Alex gives us the guns back, wherever the hell they are, we go and make the switch. The other boat’s not even that far from here, eh? St. Joseph Island’s right across the lake.”

They’re distracted, I thought. They’re totally focused on each other right now. This will buy me another second.

“That’s the plan,” she said. “If you’ll let us get on with it.”

“We just zoom right over there. Your guys are waiting for us?”

“Yes, Cap. For God’s sake…”

Right hand to pant leg, lift, remove the gun. Fire. How quickly can I do this?

“Oh, after we take Alex back and let him go,” Cap said. “I almost forgot that part.”

“Are you trying to ruin everything here? Because you’re doing a great job.”

She looked at me, just as I was starting to lean forward. I stopped.

“I’m just getting it clear in my head,” Cap said. “We’re not going to shoot Alex and dump his body in the lake.”

“Of course not.” She looked at me again. I wasn’t going to get my chance if she kept doing that.

“And you weren’t thinking of shooting me and dumping me in the lake, either,” Cap said. “I mean, once you have the guns and you don’t need me anymore.”

“What are you talking about?

“I’m just saying, you went along with this pretty quickly. This whole crazy boat trip.”

Yes, I thought. Keep fighting with each other. I can use this.

“Stop it,” she said. “We’re partners now.”

“So I thought.”

“We are. And this is just the first deal, remember? We took care of business and now we’re running the show.”

Think, Alex. There’s a little fire here. How can you pour on some gasoline?

“Yeah,” Cap said. “I guess we did. We killed the bosses and took over.”

Wait a minute, I thought. Something’s not right here. What did Natalie say about that meeting in the hotel room? Rhapsody and Laraque together, the way she described them…

“We did it,” Rhapsody said. “We can own the world now. Both of us.”

Every word coming back to me now. How scared Rhapsody had seemed, until he touched her. The power dynamic that only Natalie could see.

“Yeah,” Cap said, his eyes narrowed now. He was thinking hard. “Both of us.”

There’s no way, I thought. I knew it was a lie. She couldn’t have killed him. She couldn’t do any of this on her own, without him. It felt like Natalie was right there next to me now, giving me this one last card to play.

“How did you kill him?” I said.

They both looked at me.

“I’m talking to you, Rhapsody. How did you kill Laraque?”

“Shut up.”

“Just tell me. I’m sure Cap wants to know, too. How did you kill him?”

“I said shut the fuck up.”

“Tell him how you did it,” Cap said. “Go ahead.”

“Knock it off. I’m serious.”

“Tell him,” he said. He was with me now. I had him on the hook. “Tell the man how you killed Antoine.”

“I shot him. You know that.”

“Where did you shoot him?” Cap said.

“In the head.”

“No, where was he when you shot him?”

She let out a long breath. “In the tub.”

“In the tub, right. In the bathroom.”

“No, his tub’s actually in the kitchen.”

“Did he see it coming?”

“I’m not going to do this now,” she said. “I told you to knock it off.”

“That’s a pretty hardcore thing to do, Rhapsody. I’m impressed. It must have made a real mess. His brains all over the bathroom tiles?”

“Stop it.”

“But that’s what it takes, right? That’s what you have to do to get to the top.”

She didn’t answer him.

“You know what would be a real shame?” he said. “If you didn’t actually kill him. If you just said you did.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Because that would mean, what, that the two of you are already thinking about double-crossing me? Cutting me out of the deal and finding a new American partner? Now that Gray is gone?”

“Cap, I mean it.”

“After all, who wants a partner who’s unstable?”

“That was Alex’s word, not mine.”

She looked at me one more time. I saw her right hand tighten on the gun. Cap saw it, too.

He shot her in the stomach. Shoomp, the same muffled noise.

Rhapsody let out a low moan, dropped her shoulder bag to the deck, brought one hand to her stomach and leaned over like she was going to be sick. “Cap,” she said. “Cap, God damn. What are you doing?”

“I’ll tell Laraque you had a little accident on the boat. I’m sure he’ll get over it. Especially if he hasn’t gotten his delivery yet.”

She wobbled like she was about to go down. Then she raised her gun. Cap shot her again, shoomp, this time in the chest. She stumbled backward and collapsed against the gunwale, her gun falling overboard into the water. The blood soaked her blouse, turning it an even darker shade of black.

I slipped my right hand down, against my left knee. Lift the pant leg, remove the gun, fire. Just like that.

He turned to me. I froze.

“Okay, now you,” he said. His eyes were wide open and he was looking at me like I was the one who just shot her. “It’s your turn. You are going to tell me where the guns are.”

“If I don’t?”

It was all so simple now. All that was left was me and the man who killed Natalie, alone on a boat, in the middle of the lake.

“You even have to ask that question?”

Just turn away one more time, I thought. Give me two seconds.

“You kill me,” I said. “I get it. So what if I don’t care?”

I honestly didn’t. Forget the gun on my leg now. If I had a bomb, I’d blow the boat up right there, without hesitation. Take him down with me.

“I’ve got a new deal for you,” Cap said. “Something else for you to think about. If you don’t tell me where the guns are, not only do I kill you, I go right back to shore, get in my car, and I go kill everybody else you care about. Your Indian friend. Your other friends, on the lake…What were their names, Tyler and Liz? That fat guy, Leon. Hell, might as well take out his fat wife while I’m at it. That old guy at the bar. Am I leaving anybody out?”

A bomb, I thought. Blow the boat up right now. I’d take that deal in a second.

“I’ll do them all tonight,” he said. “Do you doubt me anymore? You don’t think I’ll do it? By the time the sun comes up, every single one of them will be dead. You’ve got three seconds.”

A bomb.

“You want to know where the guns are?” I said. I slowly got to my feet.

“What, are you deaf and dumb? Yes, McKnight. Yes, I want to know where the guns are.”

“I think we’re above them,” I said. “Right about now.”

“What are you saying? Are you saying they’re in the lake?”

“Yes.”

“Are you saying that the fucking guns are in the fucking lake?”

“Yes, they’re in the fucking lake. About a hundred fucking feet down.”

He stood there for a moment. If nothing else, I got the man to finally stop talking.

“Of course, it doesn’t matter anymore,” I said. “Because the bomb will go off in about one minute.”

I took a quick glance at my watch. Somewhere, Leon was smiling.

“What are you talking about?”

“This is why I wanted to meet you at the boathouse at eight o’clock. I knew I’d have you out here by nine. Right in the middle of the lake, too. Which is perfect. I wouldn’t want to blow up anything else. Just us.”

“You’re not serious.” He took a step closer to me.

That’s right, I thought. Get closer. Another step.

“It’s the last thing I need out of life,” I said. “If I take you down with me, I’m happy.”

“No way, McKnight. There’s no way.”

One step closer. Come on.

“Even if you turned around right now,” I said, “we’d never make it to shore. It’s a done deal.”

“Nice try. I’m not buying it.”

He took another step.

“I was at the boathouse a long time before you got there. You think I just sat there waiting?”

He didn’t say anything this time.

“I put it right under the deck,” I said. “Right there.” I pointed to a spot on the deck behind him.

In the same motion, I reached for the barrel of his gun. I felt it tingle in my hand as he fired it again. I pushed the gun upward, tried to get it over our heads so I could get a clean shot at him with my free hand. I swung him around as hard as I could, driving my left elbow into his chin. He kicked at me, tried to knee me in the groin, tried to swing the gun back around toward my head.

I went with his motion, ducked as he pulled the trigger again, and pushed him all the way through until he lost his balance. I got my knee up onto his back and drove him into the ladder, twisting the gun out of his hand. It fell away from both of us, clattering across the deck.

He swung around and elbowed me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. Then he tried to drive the crown of his head into my nose. I turned away just in time, but everything went white when I caught most of the blow right in the cheekbone.

I tried to hold on to him, but I could feel him slipping away from me. I tackled him from behind as he went for the gun. He kicked at me, caught me a few times in the stomach, in the hip. I dug my fingers into his sides, grabbed onto his belt, and pulled him back as hard as I could. He had the gun in his hand. He tried to turn over to shoot me. I grabbed his wrist, tried to bend it back. I needed to get up on my knees, get some leverage on him, but he was beating me to it. He was pulling himself up off the deck.

I got up on one knee. Then the other. I got one foot under me and put my shoulder into him. I felt all the air go out of him as I drove him hard into the gunwale, right next to Rhapsody’s body.

Whatever leverage I had now, I lost when I stepped in the blood. There was just enough of it on the wooden deck to make us both start sliding around like we were on ice, until I finally got both hands around his right wrist. I pounded his arm against the edge of the gunwale. Again. Then again. I could see the gun slipping from his hand. One more time and it was free.

It fell into the water and sank. It disappeared forever, just like Rhapsody’s gun, like all the other guns that were down there, every gun in the world on the bottom of the lake.

Every gun except the small pistol still strapped to my ankle.

Cap swung at me a few times without connecting. I hit him in the gut. Then I hit him in the face. He went down on the deck and rolled over. When he came back up, he had Rhapsody’s black bag. Before I could get to him, he reached inside and pulled out a switchblade. He hit the button and I saw the long gleam of metal.

“I’m going to carve you up like a turkey, McKnight.”

I bent down for the ankle holster. He came at me, faster than I would have thought possible. I dived backward, reaching out one leg to trip him as he made his rush. I felt the lick of the blade against my forehead.

When I turned around, he was getting back to his feet. Blood trickled into my left eye.

He stood there for a moment, breathing hard. He spat blood as he wiped the blade clean against his coat.

“Everything was just great,” he said. “Until you came along.”

“I feel the same way,” I said. I pulled up my pant leg and drew the pistol. I pointed it right at his face.

“Oh, fuck me.”

“Drop the knife.”

“I don’t believe this. What next?”

“Drop it,” I said. “Throw it overboard.”

He tossed the knife in the water. He stood there with his arms hanging at his sides.

The blood was really flowing into my eye now. I picked up Rhapsody’s bag and turned it over. Her wallet fell out. Her cell phone. A makeup bag. A little dispenser of tissues. I pulled out all the tissues and held them to the cut on my forehead. There was blood all over my face, all over my hands. My clothes. Rhapsody’s blood mixed with Cap’s mixed with mine.

“So what are you going to do now?” he said. He wiped more blood from his mouth.

It was getting dark now. There was no fog tonight. The stars were starting to appear high above us. The only sound now was our breathing and the boat creaking gently as it drifted in the water.

“I’m not moving,” Cap finally said. “I’m going to stand right here.”

“Good. You’ll make an easier target.”

“You can’t shoot me.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t do it. You know that.”

I kept the gun pointed at him. I didn’t say anything.

“You don’t have it in you, McKnight. Neither did Brucie, remember? Hell, neither did Rhapsody, it turns out. There aren’t many people in this world who can kill a man in cold blood.”

“Brucie didn’t have a good enough reason,” I said. “Neither did Rhapsody.”

“It doesn’t matter. Either you can or you can’t.”

I stood there. I held the gun.

“You’re not a killer,” he said in a low voice. It was almost a whisper. “You can’t do it.”

He stared into my eyes. He didn’t blink.

“You can’t do it.”

I picked up Rhapsody’s cell phone off the deck and turned it on. After it played a few notes of music, I could see in the faint glow that it was getting a weak signal. She obviously had a much better phone than I did.

I fumbled with the buttons, looking up at him every couple of seconds, finally found the menu, then the call history. I went through the numbers, saw my own number in the outgoing calls, the three times she had called me, kept going, saw another number appear several times. I recognized the 416 area code. I knew it well from every time I had called Natalie in Toronto.

“What are you doing?” Cap said.

“Just a little trick I learned from you guys.”

I hit the talk button.

“McKnight,” he said. He couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice. “Who are you calling?”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m not a killer. I can’t shoot you in cold blood.”

The signal was weak, but the call was going through. It was ringing.

“But I know someone who’d be happy to.”

He grabbed one of the plastic deck chairs. He threw it at my head and made a diving lunge for the gun.

I ducked the chair and shot him dead.