Die a Stranger

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Put down the rolling pin,” he said. “You look like a housewife getting ready to brain her husband for coming home late. Like in that old comic strip. What was that guy called, Andy Capp?”

“You’re supposed to be in prison,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Vinnie told you that? That I was still in the joint?”

“Who else would tell me?”

“He’s got old information. I’ve been out for almost two years.”

“And you’re here now for what reason?”

“It’s been a while, I grant you. I never thought I’d get back to Michigan. But then I heard about Vinnie being in trouble.”

“Heard from who?”

“One of the old-timers. Sometimes he lets me know how my kids are doing up here. I think he just wants to rub my nose in it, you know, how well they’re doing without me. Or if they’re not doing so well, how it must be my fault. But either way, that’s how I keep up, at least.”

“Because there’s no way you could contact them yourself, right? It’s been, what, how many years?”

“They don’t want to hear from me,” he said. “I know that. And I sure as hell wasn’t gonna come back here. Not while their mother was alive.”

I still had the rolling pin in my hand. I felt like hitting him just on general principle.

“I got run out of here pretty good,” he said. “There’s no way she would have let me come back.”

“That’s not my understanding of how it happened,” I said. “I don’t think it’s Vinnie’s, either.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not surprised. She could spin it any way she wanted if I wasn’t here to defend myself.”

“Say one more disrespectful thing about her and I’ll put this thing right up your ass.”

“Okay, okay, take it easy. There’s two sides to every story, right? Let’s just leave it at that. Now will you put the bakery equipment away? I wasn’t kidding, you look ridiculous.”

I put the rolling pin back in the drawer and slammed it closed.

“Is this really his house?” the man said, looking around. “This is my son’s kitchen? What does he do, make pastries for a living?”

“He built it himself. You’ll have to excuse him for having a nice place to live.”

“He really lives here. All by himself.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Why isn’t he on the reservation with the rest of his family? And who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Alex. And Vinnie moved off the rez for his own reasons. You can ask him if you see him.”

“I will,” he said, nodding his head. “You’re a friend of his?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Are you a good friend?”

“I’d like to think so.”

“So you know he’s in trouble.”

I hesitated. “I don’t know much of anything. I know he’s gone. I know his cousin Buck is with him.”

“Yeah, Buck Carrick. I hear they disappeared together. Nobody knows where they are.”

“How’d you hear that?”

“I told you, I’m still plugged into things. I may live out West now, but I’m still a member of the tribe, whether they want me to be or not.”

“When did you hear about it?”

“Yesterday. I hopped on the first plane to the Soo.”

They all know, I thought. Every single person on that reservation, and even people who’ve been gone for years. They all got word of this before I did.

“The chief led me to believe this was some kind of secret,” I said. “I guess it’s not.”

“A secret? Are you kidding? On a reservation?”

“Okay, whatever,” I said. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why did you come all the way out here?”

“He’s still my son,” he said. “He’s in trouble. Isn’t that enough reason?”

“They haven’t heard a thing from you in how many years? Hell, you didn’t seem to care that much when your other son was in trouble. I don’t recall seeing you at his funeral, either.”

I could see that got to him. He flexed both of his fists and for a second I wished I were still holding that rolling pin. He was probably ten or fifteen years older than me, but he looked like he’d spent at least a few of those years in the prison weight room.

“I was doing my time at Ironwood,” he said, “so it’s not like I had any choice. Besides, like I told you, I don’t think I would have been welcome up here.”

“But now is different.”

“Now is different, yes. Now Nika is gone and I can come here without breaking my promise to her, to never step foot in this state while she’s alive. Now maybe I can actually do something good for Vinnie, who I understand probably wants nothing to do with me. But if he’s in trouble, I can probably find him and help him. I’m pretty good at finding people. That’s why I was here when you walked in and jumped me. I was trying to find out who might have called him on this phone.”

He picked up the phone and hit a few buttons.

“Look,” he said. “In the caller-ID record. This call three nights ago. Just after two A.M. Do you know this number?”

“It’s probably Buck’s cell phone,” I said. “But we can double-check.”

“Okay, good. You see, now we’re working together. We might even make a good team.”

“Who says we’re a team all of a sudden?”

“Do you want to find him or not? Or are you not that good a friend?”

“I helped him find your other son, okay? Did you hear about that one on your grapevine? When Tom disappeared in Canada? I helped Vinnie bring him back and bury him. So lay off with the friend business.”

He turned away from me and rubbed his forehead. “Okay, I apologize,” he said. “God, I can’t even believe I’m back here.”

“I know you came a long way,” I said, “but I don’t know how you expect to help find him. You don’t even know him anymore.”

“Where do you think he is?” he said, turning back to me. “Right this second?”

“If I knew, I’d be on my way there.”

“In general, I mean. What kind of place?”

I thought back to that map I’d looked at on the bar. “On one of the other reservations,” I said. “That’s probably how he got word up here to the chief.”

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “So let me ask you one question. If he’s on another reservation, who do you think they’re gonna talk to first, you or me?”

He had me on that one.

“While I’m at it, let me ask you something else. I know I’ve been gone a long time, but everybody on the plane was saying you guys have been having a big heat wave up here. People passing out on the street, having to go to the hospital… Is that true?”

“It almost hit ninety a couple of days ago. So yes.”

“When I left Vegas, it was a hundred and fifteen. You realize you’re all pussies up here, right?”

“Come back when there’s six feet of snow on the ground,” I said. “We’ll see who’s a pussy.”

He laughed at that one.

“Ah yes,” he said. “That part I don’t miss. But if I can ask you one more question. Last one, I promise.”

“Go ahead.”

“Is there anyplace we can get a drink around here?”

That’s how I ended up back at the Glasgow. I surprised Jackie, who’d already written me off as an early departure that night. I surprised him even more when he got up close to me and looked at my face.

“What the hell happened to you?” he said. “And who’s your friend?”

I wiped at the scrape I seemed to have received over my left eye. “Meet Lou LeBlanc.”

“You look even worse,” he said as he gave Lou the once-over. “What were you guys doing?”

“What do you think?” I said.

“LeBlanc, did you say? Any relation to Vinnie?”

“I guess you could say he’s related. He’s Vinnie’s father.”

Jackie stopped dead, halfway into his crouch to get down to the refrigerator under the bar.

“Are you kidding me?”

“He’s not kidding,” Lou said. “Pleased to meet you.”

Jackie finished his mission, coming up with two Molsons and putting them down in front of us. A bad idea, I thought. I should have stopped him before he went for the fridge.

“Let’s get it out of the way,” Lou said. “I don’t imagine either of you think that much of me. Running out on my family, never coming back. I’m sure people still think I’m a total monster around here.”

“To tell you the truth,” I said, “they don’t think about you at all. Or if they do, they don’t say anything. I don’t think I’ve heard Vinnie mention you more than two or three times, up until a week ago, when his mother died.”

“Ouch,” Lou said, nodding slowly. “That’s even worse.”

Now that I was sitting next to him, I could see all the scar tissue around his eyes and ears, and the long scar running along the left side of his jawline. With all of the sun damage on top of that, he looked a little unreal. Like he had spent a couple of hours in a Hollywood makeup chair, getting ready to play an old, ravaged warrior.

“I think maybe we should put these away,” I said, collecting the two beers. “How about a Coke or something?”

“It’s fine,” Lou said, taking one of the bottles from me. He had quick hands. “It’s just one beer.”

I was about to say something else, but he cracked it open and took a hit.

“What brings you back here?” Jackie said. He was eyeing the man like he still wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. Which made two of us.

“Damn, what is this?” Lou said, looking at the label. “Molson doesn’t taste like this back home.”

“He says he’s good at finding people,” I said to Jackie. “He thinks he can find Vinnie.”

“I said I wanted to try,” Lou said. “I know it’s a little late to be doing something for one of my kids.”

“Twenty-five years late,” Jackie said. “No, wait, almost thirty?”

Lou put the bottle down and raised his hands. “I’m not defending myself,” he said. “If you want me to get up and walk out of here, I’ll do it right now.”

“Let’s hear your angle first,” I said.

“My angle, huh? Okay, fair enough.”

He took another long draw from the bottle and appreciated it for a long moment, maybe flashing back to a lot of thirsty days in a hot prison cell.

“Let me start this way,” he said. “Put yourself in Vinnie’s place. Why did you go to the airport?”

“Because my cousin called me and asked me to come get him.”

He looked at me while he thought about it.

“You seem pretty sure about that part. There’s no way Vinnie could have been there himself? I mean, when everybody started shooting each other?”

“I can’t see that.”

“No,” Jackie said. “No way.”

“Okay, let’s say I’m with you on that one. We’re saying it was just Buck who was there when it all goes down. What kind of player is he? Is he a shooter?”

I had to smile at that one.

“I don’t know Buck nearly as well as I know Vinnie, but I can’t see him playing the heavy in any of this. Maybe it was just a case of wrong place, wrong time?”

“What, you mean he just happened to stumble onto the airport runway in the middle of the night? Like he took a wrong turn or something?”

“Look, I don’t know. I’m just saying, he always seemed pretty harmless to me.”

“Yeah, I did time with some guys who seemed pretty harmless. But either way, the bullets start flying, and he’s the one guy who walks away. So he calls Vinnie, right?”

“Right.”

“Vinnie’s the kind of guy who would go get him? In the middle of the night?”

“He’s that kind of guy, yes.”

“You both are,” Jackie said. “There’s not a lick of sense in either one of you.”

I shot Jackie a look, not that it would have slowed him down one bit.

“Okay, so he’s an easy touch,” Lou said. “He goes out and picks up Buck. Then what? Where does he take him?”

“Maybe to another reservation,” I said. “We’ve already been over this. How many are there?”

“There’s a few. Some of them are pretty big. Hell, the Saginaw rez is like two hundred square miles. But why did they run in the first place?”

“Because they’re freaking out,” Jackie said. “Why else?”

“Alex, is Vinnie the kind of person who would freak out like that?”

“No,” I said, “but I don’t know about Buck.”

“Maybe he got shot,” Jackie said. “Maybe Vinnie’s trying to take care of him.”

“I think you have to take him to the hospital right away,” Lou said. “Don’t you? Unless you’re a complete idiot.”

“Yeah, he would know better,” I said. “Vinnie probably just took him away to calm him down. To figure out what to do next.”

“Everybody’s dead now,” Jackie said. “What’s he afraid of?”

“If they find out he was there and that he walked away alive,” I said, “then he must think they’ll be coming after him.”

“Who’s they?”

“Anybody,” Lou said. “On either side of it.”

“There’s three sides,” I said. “The delivery side, the receiving side, and the hijacking side. I don’t imagine any of them are real happy right now.”

“Damn,” Jackie said. “Poor Buck, he might be right in the middle of all these guys.”

“That’s exactly right,” Lou said. “So now if you’re Vinnie and you’re looking after him, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you have to turn yourself in,” I said. “It’s the only thing you can do.”

Lou was already taking another swallow and he just about spit it right up. “Are you serious?”

“It’s the only safe play. Turn yourself in. Explain why you were there.”

“You sound like a cop or something.”

“I was,” I said. “For eight years.”

He took a long look at me, like he was seeing me for the first time.

“This is getting better and better.”

“How do you mean?”

He put the bottle down and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “You really think he’d be safest if he turned himself in? If he ended up sitting in a holding cell somewhere? Where everybody in the world would know exactly where he was?”

“Okay, I understand, just because he’s in a cell…”

“You really think that’s what Vinnie’s telling him? Like right now, wherever they are? ‘Hey, Buck, let’s go turn your ass in to the authorities? And oh by the way, me too? Because I was an accessory to helping you run away?’”

“Look…”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Alex. But if you’re gonna approach this like an ex-cop, then maybe we should part ways right now. No use having us get in each other’s way if we’ve got completely different ideas.”

“So what’s your idea?” I said. “If you find them, I mean. What would you suggest they do?”

He picked up his bottle again. “That,” he said, “is something we’d just have to play by ear.”

“So let’s start by finding him,” I said. “Let’s not even worry about what happens next.”

“Fair enough.” He looked at me. “You were really a cop?”

“Yes.”

“I should have known. You fight like a cop. Totally clean. No cheap shots.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

He smiled. “Whatever you say.”

Jackie looked at me and I just shook my head. I was already past having second thoughts and was well into the third thoughts. But I decided to let him keep talking.

“Tell me more about Buck,” he said. “Start with where he buys his weed.”

“What good is that going to do us?”

“Follow the weed,” he said. “Right back to the seller. Right up the supply chain, from the seller to somebody else, to maybe somebody who might know something.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess that makes sense.”

“So you know where to take us?”

“I think so.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

It was close to midnight now. We were both in my truck, on the way down to Brimley. As we passed through the reservation, he sat up straight and stared out the window.

“This is seriously one place I never thought I’d see again.”

“I’m sure it’s changed a lot,” I said.

“I forgot how you just drive down the road and all of a sudden you’re on the rez. Out West, you gotta drive for miles through absolute desert. There’s not much doubt about it when you finally get there. Out of sight and out of mind.”

“That’s the King’s Club,” I said as we passed the first casino. “Was it even here when you were here?”

“They were just building it,” he said. “Although I thought they were gonna call it something else. I understand it was quite the bust when they first opened it. They had to close it and try again, right?”

“So I’m told. I wasn’t here yet.”

“You’re not a native Yooper?”

“Born and raised in Detroit.”

“Is that where you were a cop?”

“Yes.”

There were a few cars on the road, most of them gamblers on a warm summer night, or Bay Mills members who were driving to or from work.

“They got nice houses here,” he said. “I don’t see one place I recognize.”

“All the shacks are gone. But again, that was before my time. Which reminds me. Your daughters’ houses are coming up on the right.”

I slowed down.

“Who lives there?” he said. “Mary?”

“No, this is Regina’s house. Mary is a few doors down. You want to go say hello?”

“Wow, I don’t know. It’s kinda late, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s late.”

“I mean, even so. Maybe after we find Vinnie. Maybe we can all sit down together.”

“They have kids, you know. Both of your daughters. I just saw them the other day.”

He nodded his head at that. But he didn’t say anything. I kept driving.

When we passed the big Bay Mills Casino, he looked it over. Then he turned to take in the Wild Bluff golf course on the other side of the street. The back of Mission Hill rose into the darkness.

“My God,” he finally said. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”

“Sorry you left now?”

He just shook his head again.

“We’re almost there,” I said.

“There’s a rez out by Las Vegas,” he said. “It’s called Moapa Valley. You ever hear of it?”

“No.”

“Instead of a golf course they’ve got a coal-burning plant. Right next to the houses. Down the road there’s a place called Yucca Mountain. It’s sacred to the Paiutes, so of course you know what the government is trying to do? They’re trying to use it as a storage area for nuclear waste.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t know. I’m just thinking, I hope these people know how good they’ve got it up here.”

“These people work hard,” I said. “They earned everything they’ve gotten.”

I could feel him watching me for the next few moments. Then he gave out a tired laugh.

“Now I know why you’re not a cop anymore. You had to quit so you could get into politics.”

I fought off the urge to slam on the brakes right then. Bounce this joker’s head right off the dashboard.

“Listen,” I said, “you want to know why I’m not a cop anymore? Because I got shot.” I was about to tell him about my partner lying dead on the floor next to me, and then about another cop who died on another floor, a lot closer to home. But I swallowed the words. It was none of his goddamned business.

“Just knock it off with the cop jokes,” I said. “Okay?”

“Easy, friend. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“We’re not friends, Lou. But if you really came all this way to help Vinnie…”

“I did, man. I swear.”

“Okay, then let’s find him.”

I kept going down the road. Neither of us spoke for a while.

“Vinnie says you went to prison because you got drunk and ran into a car,” I finally said. “Is that accurate?”

“It’s not polite to ask that.”

“I’m asking anyway.”

“It’s accurate,” he said. “I would give anything to take back that night.”

“I also understand this was not your first brush with the law.”

He let out a long breath. “You understand correctly. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, before I got clean.”

“Did I not just watch you drink a couple of beers tonight?”

“I didn’t say clean and sober. Just clean.”

“I won’t even ask,” I said. “But you’ve been out for two years now, you said?”

“Coming up on two years, yeah. I’m already on the other side of sixty years old now. I don’t figure I have much chance to do something good with my life. So when I heard about my son being in trouble, well, I just figured I should try doing one thing right.”

“Okay,” I said. “I get it.”

“By the way, you didn’t have to point out the fact that I’ve got grandkids sleeping in those houses back there. You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I recognize that that’s the saddest thing in the world, that they’ve probably never even heard of me?”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Sorry I got a little sensitive about the cop business.”

“It’s all right. I was out of line.”

We passed the sign letting us know we had just left the reservation.

“This place we’re going,” Lou said, looking behind him, “it’s not on the rez?”

“No, it’s in Brimley. Just around the bay here.”

“You gotta leave the rez to drink?”

“You can drink at the casino, or hell, you can drink at home if you want. But yeah, most of them seem to end up at the Cozy.”

“The Cozy! Are you kidding me? That place is still around?”

A minute later, I pulled up in front of it. There were a good dozen cars in the lot. When we got out, Lou took a quick walk across the street, stopping over at the guardrail where the river came out from under the road and fed into the bay.

“Good old Whiskey River,” he said, “and Whiskey Bay.”

“You better not let Vinnie hear you say that.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s Waishkey,” I said. “Not whiskey.”

“So what’s the big deal about that?”

“Try drinking a few shots while he’s in the same room. You’ll find out.”

“I can’t wait.” He turned back and looked out over the water.

“The water’s pretty calm tonight,” I said.

“I know that can change in a second. That’s something you don’t forget. But we didn’t come here to gaze out at the lake, huh? This is the place where you figure Buck might buy his weed?”

“It’s where he drinks most of the time. So I’m just guessing.”

“All right, then. Let’s go see if anybody’s holding in there.”

As we crossed the street, he stopped dead in the middle. It’s the kind of thing you can do in a place like Brimley, Michigan. After midnight, or hell, pretty much anytime of the day for that matter.

“Something’s not right here.” He looked back and forth from one side of the road to the other.

“They dragged the Cozy over to this side a few years ago,” I said. “Then they added on to it.”

“So I’m not crazy,” he said. “At least not in this particular case.”

We finished crossing the street and went inside. As you step into the place, you’re greeted by the heat and the noise, and you can see where they built on to the one side of it, turning the place into a genuine restaurant and not just a corner bar. Although you can eat dinner there with your family only up until nine o’clock. Then they kick out everybody who’s underage and the only thing you can do there is drink. Either that or play pool on the one table in the middle of the room.

We picked out an empty table and sat down. A waitress came by and we ordered a couple of beers. I knew they wouldn’t be real Canadians, but we didn’t have much choice. As we sat there drinking, Lou looked the place over.

“How many Bay Mills’ you figure are here right now?”

“Maybe half.”

“Seriously? What about those guys right there?” He nodded to a table where six young men sat quietly. The empty bottles were gathered in the center of the table like bowling pins.

“Those are all guys who work at the casino,” I said. “I saw them at the funeral.”

“I forgot how much the blood gets mixed up here, man. A couple of them look whiter than you do.”

“So, what next?”

“I think you should stay right here for a minute,” he said. “No offense, but I don’t think these guys are gonna believe you’re really looking to score.”

I couldn’t argue with him. He walked over to the table. “Hey, little brothers,” he began, putting on a big smile and talking so loud I could hear him across the room. “I’m from out of town, wondering if you can help me out.”

He bent down for the rest and I couldn’t make out a word. From the body language at the table, it didn’t look like he was getting anywhere. But he was smiling when he wished them a good night and came back to our table.

“What happened?” I said.

“Not a damned thing. But I mentioned a sum of money that will get them thinking. At least one or two of them. Now all we have to do is wait.”

It started getting a little too noisy to talk, so we just sat there for a while. That was fine with me, anyway. I still wasn’t sure what to make of this guy.

I had to admit, though. His plan was solid. If Buck was involved in that drug ring, this was the best way to find out more. And there was no way I could do this on my own, even if I had thought of it.

We waited there another thirty or forty minutes. The group of six men got up to leave. They all went outside, and for a moment it looked like the whole thing had been a waste of our time. But then about two minutes later, one of the men came back inside. He looked over at us and gave us a little head bob. We got up and went to the side door.

When we were outside, he came out and joined us.

“Who’s this?” he said, pointing at me.

“He’s my friend,” Lou said. “Don’t worry, he’s cool. He looks pretty straight, but he needs his herb, man. Helps him with the nausea.”

“What, like you mean he’s sick?”

Lou put a finger to his lips. “Let’s not even go there,” he said, “but yeah, it’s pretty bad. You’re really helping him out.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of money. It went into the young man’s hand before I could see the bills, and something else was passed from the young man to Lou. For one brief second, I flashed back to the streets of Detroit. This was where I’d make my move, handcuff them both and call for backup.

“My man Buck says this is the place,” Lou said. “I’m glad he was right.”

“You know Buck?”

“We go way back. Haven’t seen him in a while. Have you?”

“Not lately. He was supposed to be here tonight, but he’s been gone for like three days.”

“Ah, whatever,” Lou said. “He’ll turn up. You know how Buck is. So listen, if we need a little more of this, where can we go?”

“You come right here, man. I’m here most every night.”

“No, no, I mean if we really need more, you know what I’m saying? There’s gotta be somebody else up the line, right?”

“I don’t know, man.”

“Come on, be a good friend to a couple guys in need,” he said. “Do it for Buck. Or hell, do it for a little finder’s fee, eh?”

Another wad of money came out of the pocket and disappeared into the man’s hand.

“All right, man. I’ll give you an address. But it can’t come from me, you got it? Tell him Buck sent you or something, but you can’t give him my name.”

“You haven’t even told me your name,” Lou said. “So how could I pass it along? You’re as anonymous as the wind.”

That seemed to satisfy him. Lou produced a folded receipt from his pocket, along with a pen. The man wrote down a name and address on the back of the receipt and passed it back to him. They exchanged a complicated handshake, then the man looked at me like he still wasn’t sure what to make of me. Then he was gone.

“How much money did you give him?” I said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lou said, holding the paper up in the cheap light. “If this works, it’ll be a bargain.”

“I’m serious. You already flew out here on short notice. That had to run a couple thousand dollars. Now you’re here throwing money around like some kind of big shot.”

“I got some saved,” he said. “So what? What else am I gonna spend it on?”

Maybe child support, I was thinking, going back a number of years. But I let it go.

I looked at my watch. It was after one o’clock now. Inside the Cozy, somebody started the jukebox and the bass notes came rumbling out under our feet.

“I haven’t been to the Soo in years,” he said, handing me the paper. “You think you can find this address?”

“I’m sure I can.” I didn’t even bother looking at it.

“Then it’s your turn,” he said. “Mr. Ex-cop. Let’s go pay this guy a visit, see how good you are at sweating a suspect.”