It was night, just past nine o’clock, before I got out of the clinic and then only with dire warnings of my likely demise from infection.
‘I expected Amanda would be hauling you back to Rivertown horizontally, like truck-smacked venison,’ Leo said, explaining the long Cadillac Escalade he’d rented for the drive up. Amanda had parked it behind the Jeep at the front of the clinic.
‘I don’t know if I trust you driving my Jeep back to Chicago,’ I said.
‘It’s a wonder it still runs,’ he said. ‘Or why.’
I maneuvered myself up onto the Cadillac’s passenger seat and handed him my crutches to toss in back. My wounds weren’t much – a gunshot that missed bone in my left arm and ligaments torn in both legs from straining to throttle the Jeep into the Buick while trying to lie beneath Canty’s gunfire. But working the Jeep’s clutch and shifter was out of the question for a couple of weeks.
‘You noted the extent of the Jeep’s damage?’ Leo asked, trying for light as I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain to go away. ‘To restore it to its previous, uh, condition, you’ll have to find a used fender in cracked, faded black plastic; a used front bumper, also faded black, but in rusted metal. You’ll need a radiator cover and a hood in the same tarty red, if you can find one mottled with enough of the aforementioned rust to match the rest of your heap. The whole repair shouldn’t set you back more than two hundred bucks.’
Amanda would be coming out at any moment. ‘You forgot to take off the spare tire,’ I said.
‘Ah, yes, the spare.’ He left me to hustle forward in the Escalade’s headlamp beams.
Amanda came out of the clinic holding a big white envelope with my medical instructions and pills. She went up to Leo, who’d taken out a lug wrench and was removing the Jeep’s spare tire. He shook his head and jerked a thumb back at me. She shrugged, gave him a hug, and came to slide in behind the wheel of the Cadillac.
‘He won’t tell me what he’s doing,’ she said.
‘Putting my spare tire into the back of this thing for the night,’ I said.
He came back and tossed the Jeep’s spare in the back of the Escalade.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘The tire is out of air.’
‘Is that supposed to make sense?’ she asked.
‘Must be the meds,’ I said, patting my pockets like I was missing something. ‘I think I left my phone in my room.’
‘I’m not sure they should have released you,’ she said, managing a laugh. She went back inside.
Leo shut the rear door and came around to the passenger side.
‘You’re clear on what to do when we get to the ski lodge?’ I asked.
‘Let me do it alone. It’ll save me another round trip up here.’
‘The less you know…’
‘You’re being irrational. It’s Lamm in the trunk of that car at Second Securities.’
‘Who knows what Canty and Delray were thinking? I have to be sure it’s not Wendell, and if it is, I want him moved, away from such a link to Lamm.’
He gave it up. ‘That nurse that called Amanda and me?’
‘Yes?’
‘She also called Jenny’s cell number. Jenny called me from California, and made noises about flying in. I said you’d had a slight accident, nothing serious.’
‘I’ll call her when I’m done.’
‘If we haven’t been arrested.’
I held up my phone as Amanda came outside. ‘Had it after all,’ I lied, by way of explanation.
‘Meds,’ she said, accepting, and we drove away.
Fifteen minutes later, she pulled to a stop under a stone-pillared canopy. The resort was old, made of logs darkened by tens of decades of winters and moss-covered, rough-hewn roof shingles. She told me it had gently sloping halls, a restaurant with wide booths, and firm leather couches that were easy to get out of. They were used to people on crutches.
‘I can bird dog the sheriff by myself,’ she said, for the fifth time.
And I agreed, for the fifth time, telling her I knew she was perfectly capable of harassing the sheriff until he found her father. Her worst fear, and my second-worst fear, was that Wendell was lying dead somewhere in the surrounds of Bent Lake.
They walked, and I hobbled, to the registration desk. The lobby was deserted.
‘You said three rooms for tonight, then two for the next week?’ the desk clerk asked.
From old habit, Amanda hesitated. So did I. So did Leo.
‘That’s correct: three for tonight, then two,’ she said.
‘As I told you on the phone, I can only do coffee, cold cereal and milk in the morning,’ the desk clerk said. ‘Our handyman goes home at three. After that, I’m the only one here until the next morning.’ She smiled at me. ‘You’ll have the run of the place,’ she said to me, offering a joke about my crutches.
Amanda said we’d manage. She and Leo were given rooms down the long hall, in the new wing. The desk clerk gave me a room just four doors past the lobby, saying it had been fitted with thick grab handles and wider doors should a wheelchair become necessary, of which she had two, right on the premises.
The desk clerk handed us old-fashioned, square steel keys. I walked, of a fashion, the few steps to my room. Leo went ahead, as if to go into his room.
‘You’ll sleep?’ Amanda asked.
‘I’ve been well medicated,’ I said, offering a yawn as proof. I unlocked my door and went in.
I waited a minute, then stuck my head out. The hall was empty. The door to the back parking lot was only a few feet away.
Leo had pulled the Jeep around to the back. He pushed open the passenger door; I put in my crutches and got in.
‘Que?’ he asked in Spanish. It is a language he does not know.
‘Pronto,’ I responded in kind, sounding every bit as fluent as him.