My first run north, by borrowed Porsche, had been a breathtaking mix of German engineering, fast speeds and precise, road-hugging turns. I’d had time, and something of a plan.
Now I was clattering to upper Wisconsin in an aged Jeep Wrangler that shook and trembled in perfect accompaniment to the fear and confusion playing tag in my gut.
I’d lied to Amanda. I had no belief that Wendell was innocent of anything. He and Lamm were friends, going way back. Some sense of loyalty, or just as possibly some sense of greed, might well have gotten Wendell to fold himself into whatever Lamm was up to, including buying into the scams Lamm was running from his insurance brokerage.
I could only blunder around blind. I’d ask around town to see if anyone had seen Wendell, or Lamm. I’d confront Wanda, the hostile girlfriend of the dead Canty, or at least see if the sheriff’s department had protected her from Lamm.
Only as a last resort would I come up on Lamm’s camp to see if he, or Wendell, was there.
Amanda demanded two things before I left her apartment. The first was that I take the two-million-dollar Carson payout along to Bent Lake, for no other reason than Arthur Lamm wanted it and it might be leverage, somehow, in keeping her father safe.
Her second stipulation was simpler: if any danger arose, I was to call Krantz.
I phoned when I got to within an hour of Bent Lake. She answered on the first ring.
‘No word from my father,’ she said.
I told her I might lose cell phone contact in a few miles, hung up, and went back to hoping Wendell wasn’t involved up to his neck in whatever Lamm was doing.
I got to Bent Lake later than the last time. It was now pitch black. The used-to-be service station was closed, its concrete island, shorn of pumps, looking like a casket vault left low and forgotten in the shadows. Of more interest was the phone booth next to the service bays. It had been awhile since I’d seen one, but then again, it had been awhile since I’d been any place where cell phone reception was considered so unpredictable.
Like last time, though, the Dairy Queen across the street was bright with lights and lust, and the same carb-swelled high school lovers were framed, embracing, in the order window beneath the yellow bug lights. Such was their intensity that neither looked up as I drove by.
I passed by the neon Budweiser sign beckoning in the middle of the block and pulled to a stop in the gravel lot of Loons’ Rest. As I’d feared, it was dark. But there was a note handwritten on lined tablet paper taped to the inside of the front window. ‘Closed for a while,’ it read. ‘Off for New Adventures.’
I drove back to the gas station, parked in the dark next to the pay phone, and took the aluminum case for a walk to the bar down the block. My footsteps echoed off the deserted store fronts, loud and alone, though I imagined the Bent Lake Children’s Club would soon come to fill the evening air with joyous sounds of beating brooms and stomping feet. It felt like a night for death all around.
The same three flannel shirts were perched at the bar, talking with the bartender. All four remembered me. In appreciation, I slapped a five-spot on the bar and bought short beers for the house.
‘Come back for more excitement?’ the beard behind the bar asked. I wondered whether he knew I’d been shot at during my last visit, or was just being witty. I played it like he was a comedian.
‘The excitement’s already started,’ I said. ‘There’s a note taped at Loons’ saying it’s closed.’
‘Wanda and Herman took off,’ the bartender said.
The faces above the flannel shirts nodded in agreement.
‘Who would know where they went?’
‘Who would want to?’ the bartender asked.
The flannel shirts laughed.
‘I don’t suppose Arthur Lamm’s been by?’
The bartender shook his head.
‘How about this guy, drives a tan Buick?’ I set an Internet photo of Wendell Phelps on the bar.
The bartender’s eyes narrowed. No longer was I some fisherman pal of Lamm’s. Now I was a guy asking too many questions.
I laid another five on the bar for a second round, and tapped the photo. ‘This is my girlfriend’s father. He’s a friend of Lamm’s, too. I think he came up here looking for him.’
The bartender relaxed, and they all shook their heads. The second five-dollar bill disappeared, and more beer was poured.
I put the photo back in my pocket. ‘I’m afraid I know the answer to this, but is there a place I can stay for the night?’
‘Yep,’ the bartender said. ‘Chicago.’
That brought outright guffaws from the gents in the flannel.
‘How about the ski lodge?’ Red Flannel asked.
‘Closed by now, I think,’ Green Flannel said.
‘No place within thirty miles, mister,’ the bartender said. He poured me another beer, set it next to the second I hadn’t yet touched. ‘On the house. Just kidding about the Chicago part.’
‘No offense taken,’ I said, and took a sociable sip of one of the beers in front of me. ‘You’re sure there’s nobody watching Loons’ for Wanda, someone who might rent me a room?’
‘Like I said, she ain’t got nobody,’ the bartender said, ‘exceptin’ Herman.’
‘Best I get looking for a room elsewhere,’ I said, getting off my stool.
‘What you got in that metal case, mister?’ one of the flannel shirts at the end of the bar asked as I started towards the door.
‘Two million in cash,’ I said.
It dropped them. They were howling as I walked out.