Winter of the Wolf Moon

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I sat in the back seat, directly behind the driver. I could see the back of his head, the fur on his collar, and nothing else. The other man sat next to me, wearing the same kind of coat. Fur on the collar, maybe sable. He had a strong chin and a nose that might have been broken once or twice. He kept looking straight ahead. He did not turn to look at me. He did not speak.

You’re a hard man to find, they said. The words rang in my head. You’re a hard man to find.

The driver had opened the door for me. He had stood there waiting for me. It would have been a perfect imitation of a chauffeur, except for the gun in his hand. The other man stood on the other side of the car, waiting patiently for me to accept the invitation. He had a gun, too.

I had gotten into the car. What else was I going to do?

You’re a hard man to find. It didn’t make any sense.

The driver kept going west on M-28. He turned north on the road to Paradise. I cleared my throat. “You’re Pearl and Roman,” I said.

They said nothing. The man sitting next to me didn’t even turn his head.

“You trashed my cabin,” I said. “Saturday.”

“We will not talk now,” the man said. He looked straight ahead.

We kept going in silence. When we came into Paradise, I saw the lights on all along the road, all the places that made up my town. The gas station. The post office. I tried to keep the fear down, someplace deep inside me, in a little box where fear can have its place without controlling you. I knew if I let it out of that box, I would have no hope of thinking clearly.

You’re a hard man to find. Meaning that they had been looking for me, but could not find me until tonight? They broke into my place on Saturday. How many days have passed since then? What day is it today? Think, Alex.

We came into the center of town. I could see the Glasgow Inn up ahead. Jackie is in there right now. He has a cold Canadian waiting for me. But no, we’re turning.

The driver took a left at the blinking light, taking 123 west out of town. “Where are we going?” I said.

“We will not talk now,” the man said.

We kept going west. The driver held the steering wheel with hands in black gloves. He was a good driver. He was confident in the snow, but he never drove too fast.

You’re a hard man to find. It’s starting to make sense now. They trashed the place on Saturday. I didn’t sleep in the cabin that night. I was in the other cabin. The next day Bruckman put me in the hospital. I spent four nights there, then most of yesterday at the Glasgow, then I went over to Canada last night, spent the rest of the night in jail. I haven’t been in my cabin more than ten minutes at a time since Dorothy disappeared. That’s why I’m a hard man to find.

But now they’ve found me.

These men took Dorothy, I thought. They probably killed her. They killed Gobi and that woman. The nightmare I saw in that cabin, they did that. Now they’re going to kill me. They’re going to drive me deep into the woods and then kill me.

I closed my eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. Think.

I could open the door, try to make it into the woods.

They’d shoot me down like an animal. I’d have no chance.

If they wanted to kill me, they could have done it when they stopped me on the road. Nobody would have seen them. Maybe they want something else.

Yeah, maybe they want something else first. And then they’ll kill me.

Okay, then. If they’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me. As long as I’m still alive, I have a chance. Hold on to that.

We kept going deeper into the woods, past the turn-off for the Tahquamenon Falls. The road was getting narrower, the snow deeper. The driver kept a steady hand on the wheel, working the Jeep through the snow.

I kept talking to myself, trying to make myself believe that I was going to live to see another day.

A small sign told us that we were leaving Chippewa County, entering Luce County. I knew this road. It went through nothing but forest until it finally hit Newberry, a good thirty miles southwest. Just as I started to wonder how much farther we would go, the driver slowed down. There was an access road running north. It had been plowed recently, by whom I could not imagine. As far as I knew, there were no cabins in this part of the woods, just small lakes and snowmobile trails. We went up the road for three miles, maybe four. The driver had to work a little harder to keep going. The wheels started to slip in the snow.

Then we stopped.

The man next to me spoke. “We get out now.”

The driver opened his door, got out and then opened mine. The other man stayed where he was until I stepped out of the car. It was dark. With the headlights off it took a while for my eyes to adjust. The driver took out a flashlight and turned it on.

“This way,” he said. I saw his face for an instant. His features were more delicate than his partner’s.

“Where are you taking me?” I said.

“This way,” he said again. He turned and walked down the road. The other man was behind me. Neither of them had their guns out. They didn’t jab the barrels into my back and tell me start walking and to not try anything funny. They didn’t have to. It was an unspoken understanding between us that as long as I came with them, they would not pull the guns out of their coats and shoot me.

We walked down the road, following the thin beam from the driver’s flashlight. The road ended. The snow got deeper. It was almost up to my waist. I fought my way through it, pulling one leg out and then the other. It wasn’t long before I was breathing hard. The other two men moved through the same snow, but it didn’t look like they were working nearly as hard as I was.

“I’m too old for this,” I said. But my words were lost in the cold night

We came to a clearing and walked toward its center. Finally, I started to see a building ahead of us. It was small, no bigger than a shed. It’s an ice shanty, I thought. We’re walking on a lake now. I tried to picture a map in my head. It could be Little Two Hearted Lake, or it could be one of a hundred other lakes whose names I could not remember. Wherever we were, I knew that we were alone. If there was another building within five miles of us, besides other empty ice shanties, I wouldn’t know how to find it.

We walked the last hundred yards to the ice shanty. There was a faint glow coming through the cracks. The driver opened the door and held it open for me. Another polite gesture. Right this way, sir.

I stepped inside. The building was made like most ice shanties I had seen. Unfinished walls and ceiling, bare two-by-fours everywhere, one small window. A rough wooden floor with a square hole in the middle, where someone had opened up the ice to expose the dark water. I saw the fishing line first, traced it up out of the water to the pole and then to the man who was holding it. I saw a long fur coat. The same fur as on the two men’s collars. Black leather boots and gloves. The man’s face was like something carved from stone. He looked up at me with eyes as dark as the square of water at his feet. A propane lantern sat on the bench next to him, casting its pale light. “Mr. McKnight,” he said. “Welcome.”

“Is your name Molinov?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Please come in and join me. I believe you’ve already met Mr. Bruckman.”

I stood there in front of him, wondering what the hell he was talking about.

And then I saw Bruckman.

He was behind Molinov, huddled against the back wall near a kerosene heater. He was completely naked, his skin like blue steel. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive until I saw him move. He was shaking.

“Sit down,” Molinov said. He gestured to a rough wooden bench to his left. I sat down on it, moving slowly as if I were in a dream. I looked down at Bruckman again. His face was turned away from us.

The other two men sat on the bench across from me. Molinov picked up a cigar, took a long puff, and then put the cigar back on the bench. The smell of cigar smoke mixed with the smell of burning kerosene. “Perhaps you will answer a few questions for me,” he said. “As long as you are here.” I didn’t hear much of an accent in his voice, but he said each word as carefully as a man drawing notes from a violin.

He took out a handheld tape recorder from his coat pocket and pressed a button. The tape began playing, filling the room with Bruckman’s voice. “This is Lonnie. Leave a message.” That was all he said. There was a long silence, and then the messages came one by one.

“Yo, Lonnie, this is Miles. You coming over here or what? Give me a call, man.”

“Yeah, Bruckman, this is Charles. Patty gave me your number, said I should hook up with you. I’ll be at the ice rink tomorrow around ten o’clock. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

“Hey, Lonnie, this is Gobi…” Molinov looked at me. He held the machine up a little higher. “You ain’t gonna like this, man, but I think you got a problem. I’m over at the Horns Inn here and I saw your girlfriend come in here. She was up at the bar asking about that McKnight guy who was playing goal against us last night. Turns out he’s some sort of private investigator or something. I don’t think she saw me there, but I didn’t know what I should do, you know? She had a white bag with her. If that’s what I think it is, you better get over there and find her, man. I got something going with that waitress who works here, and it’s like a lot colder out there than it is in here, you know what I mean? So if you want to find him, he lives up in Paradise. That’s all I heard. I’ll talk to ya later, man.”

He hit the stop button and took the tape out. “Do you know where this tape came from?”

“I think so,” I said.

He put the tape back into the machine and then put it back in his coat pocket. “This girl, Dorothy Parrish,” he said. “She came to you that night, did she not?”

“Yes.”

“I understand that she was gone the next morning.”

I looked over at the two men. I still didn’t know which was Pearl and which was Roman. They looked back at me without an ounce of emotion between them.

“Yes,” I said. “She was gone.”

“Perhaps you could tell me where she went.”

The words hit me like a slap in the face. “I don’t understand.”

“The girl,” he said. “Where is she?”

“You’re asking me? You kidnapped her.” I pointed at the men. “ They kidnapped her.”

“That is not true,” he said. “By the time these men inspected your cabin, she was already gone.”

“Inspected my cabin? Is that what they did?”

“It was necessary,” he said.

“I don’t know where she is,” I said. “I swear.”

Bruckman made a noise behind him. It was a low, gurgling moan that made me bite my lip to stop from shaking. Pearl and Roman looked over at him as casually as you’d look at the family dog whimpering in the corner.

“Mr. Bruckman seems to be feeling a chill,” Molinov said. “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to give him your coat.”

I looked at him. Was he serious?

“Please,” he said. “Your coat.”

I stood up and took my coat off. Nobody moved, so I figured the rest was up to me. I went behind Molinov, to where Bruckman was huddled against the wall. He had his face next to the kerosene heater, so close I could smell the singed hair. “Bruckman,” I said. He didn’t respond. I touched his back. His skin was so cold, I couldn’t see how he could still be alive. I put the coat over his body.

“Thank you, Mr. McKnight,” Molinov said. “I’m sure Mr. Bruckman appreciates that.”

“Why did you do this to him?”

“Come back to the party, Mr. McKnight. I’ll explain.”

I sat back down on the bench. I could barely feel the warmth from the kerosene heater. The cold air came rattling through the cracks in the shanty, making me shiver.

“Mr. Bruckman took something that belongs to me,” Molinov said. “This is the result.”

“He’ll die,” I said.

“I’ve been fishing for quite a while now,” he said, pulling his line out of the water. A metal lure, the kind you’d use for trolling in the middle of summer, gleamed in the lantern’s light. “Perhaps I’m not doing it correctly. Would you like to try?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Perhaps Mr. Bruckman would like to try,” he said. “Why don’t we find out?”

Pearl and Roman stood up in unison. They picked up Bruckman from the back wall, one arm apiece, and lifted him over to the bench they were just sitting on. I saw his face for the first time. His eyes were swollen shut. I could barely recognize him. My coat slid off of his naked, blue body.

“Please, his coat,” Molinov said. “We wouldn’t want Mr. Bruckman to catch cold.”

The men pulled his arms away from his body and somehow managed to get my coat on him.

“Much better,” Molinov said. “Now, Mr. Bruckman, perhaps you’d like to try your luck at some ice fishing?”

Bruckman started to fall sideways. One of the men caught him.

“I think Mr. Bruckman needs some more assistance,” Molinov said.

With one smooth motion, the two men picked him up and dropped him head first into the water. The splash hit me across the front of my shirt and across my face, as cold and shocking and painful as a thousand icy needles. Bruckman’s body hung against the edge of the opening. It was barely big enough for him to fit through. But then as my coat soaked up the water it pulled him down until only one foot was left above the surface. And then that too was gone.

I kept staring at the water. I could not move.

Pearl and Roman sat down. Molinov looked at his wet cigar for a moment and then threw it behind him. “Mr. McKnight, I can understand your reluctance to reveal her whereabouts.”

The surface of the water was still trembling. I kept expecting Bruckman’s head to come bursting back up through the hole.

“But I should think at this point you see how important it is to me that I find her, as well as a white bag that was in her possession.”

“I don’t know where she is,” I said. “I don’t know where the bag is.”

He nodded slowly. “When I found out that Miss Parrish had come to you, naturally I was curious about who you were. The man on the tape states quite clearly that you are a private investigator. I made some inquiries and discovered that yes, you do in fact have a license. I was surprised to find, however, that you have no office, you have no listing in the phone directory, you apparently make no attempt whatsoever to advertise your services. I thought that rather odd, until I learned more about your recent past. Is it true that your last clients were the Fulton family?”

I looked up at him.

“It’s a very wealthy family, is it not? I understand they have a vacation home on the lake, just north of your cabin. I actually paid the house a visit today, did you know that? It’s an impressive building. Of course, it’s empty now. I couldn’t imagine living here in the winter if one had a choice. We have places just like this where I come from, you realize. I can assure you, though, that nobody ever builds a vacation home there.”

The water on my clothes was soaking through to my skin. I tried not to shake.

“I made some more inquiries, Mr. McKnight. It seems that the Fulton family suffered a great misfortune recently. The Fulton heir, Edwin the third, was tragically killed. Of course, this is not news to you. I understand that you were employed at the time by a lawyer named Lane Uttley, and that Mr. Uttley was in fact representing the Fulton family. Am I correct?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Mr. Edwin Fulton,” he said, “the man who died so suddenly. He led a rather interesting life, did he not? I have heard many rumors. Voices in the wind, if you will. It made me think, here is a man, Alex McKnight, who has a license to be a private investigator, but doesn’t seem to do any investigating. Yet when a wealthy man with many problems disappears, Mr. McKnight is close by. Then comes a young woman with many problems, different problems to be sure, but just as serious. When this woman disappears, once again Mr. McKnight is at her side. It makes me begin to wonder if perhaps this is… Am I using the correct word here? His specialty?”

The room was getting colder. The kerosene heater was hissing like it was running out of fuel.

“This place,” he said. “It does seem to be perfectly suited for disappearances, does it not?”

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

“The next question, of course,” he said, “is does Mr. McKnight help these people disappear, or make them disappear?”

“I don’t know what happened to Dorothy,” I said. “But I do know what happened to Edwin Fulton. He’s dead.” I was starting to feel dizzy. My own voice sounded far away from my body.

“I wonder what Edwin Fulton’s widow might say if I took up this matter with her? What is her name again? Sylvia?”

“No,” I said. “Not her.”

He drew the gun out from his breast pocket. He didn’t point it at me. He didn’t hold it away from his body or wave it around in the air like most men would. He held the gun close to his body, as naturally as holding a telephone or a fountain pen. “I am offended,” he said. “Do you believe that I would harm this woman?”

I looked at his gun. I didn’t say anything.

“To harm a woman,” he said. “An innocent woman. That you would even think such a thing. I’d like to show you how strongly I object to the very idea.”

I looked up at this face.

The heater had gone out. There was silence.

“Gentlemen,” he said, without taking his eyes off me. “Please remove those coats. They are quite expensive. I would not want them to be ruined when we perform our little demonstration.”

The two men stood up and took their coats off. They put them on the bench behind them. The bigger one, the one with the hard face and the nose that had been broken, he looked at me with the cold eyes of a natural killer. He flexed his hands in their black leather gloves.

I waited for what would happen next. My whole body was tight. I will not shake, I told myself. I will not let them see me shake.

The other man. I saw him blink. He sneaked a look at his partner, and then at Molinov.

Molinov raised his arm sideways and shot both of the men.

They fell backwards, first one, then the other. The bench fell over with them. The shots rang in my ears. Molinov’s upraised arm did not move.

“I understand,” he finally said, lowering his arm, “that when my associates were questioning Mr. Gobi and his female companion about Mr. Bruckman’s whereabouts, they committed an act of extreme brutality. The woman was innocent. There was no reason to kill her.”

“You’re crazy,” I said.

“Not at all,” he said. “Now I wonder if you’d be so kind as to collect their coats. I believe you’ll find the keys to the vehicle in Mr. Pearl’s pocket.”

“Which one is he?”

“They didn’t introduce themselves? How impolite. Mr. Pearl is on the left.”

When I stood up, the room began to spin around me. I grabbed the bench to stop from falling over.

“Careful, Mr. McKnight,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to fall through that hole and join Mr. Bruckman.”

I shook my head clear and went over to the two men on the floor. They were both staring at the ceiling, with holes perfectly centered in their chests. I pulled the coat out from under him, the one named Pearl. I found the keys and pulled them out.

“Bring them to me,” he said.

I turned and took two steps toward him. I looked him in the eyes.

And then I dropped the keys into the water. They disappeared instantly.

He looked down at the water, then back up at my face. He smiled.

“You have seen death before,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“You’re not afraid of me right now, are you? Not enough to beg me for your life.”

“I don’t have to,” I said. “We’re both stuck out here together.”

“Are you cold?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You don’t know what it is to be cold,” he said. He slipped his free hand out of its glove, switched the gun, then took the other glove off. His fingers had all been amputated down to the first knuckle, all of them except his right index finger. His trigger finger.

“I believe the heater has run out of kerosene,” he said. “This room is not comfortable anymore. The smell of death isn’t very pleasant, either.” He stood up, his fur coat reaching all the way to the floor. We were exactly the same height, his dark eyes dead-even with mine. He picked up the lantern and walked to the door. On his way, he pulled the other coat out from under the other dead man. He looked at it closely, brushing away some sawdust.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“To the car,” he said.

“You don’t have the keys.”

“I have my own keys,” he said. “I asked you to take Mr. Pearl’s keys because I wanted to see what you would do with them. If you had given them to me, I would have been very disappointed. But you didn’t. I believe you when you say that you don’t know where Miss Parrish is. As for the matter of Mr. Fulton, I will need to look into that situation a little further. I believe I see some unique… opportunities there. If you really are a private investigator, I assume that your services are available for hire. Sometime in the future, I may wish to retain those services.”

“You’re going to leave me here,” I said. “I’ll freeze to death.”

“Perhaps you will,” he said. “Perhaps you won’t. If you survive, then that will tell me something very important about you. It will tell me that you are a man who may be of great use to me.”

I stood there watching him. There were no words to say.

“If you survive,” he said, “we will have something in common. Something very rare. You see, I was in a similar situation myself once. I didn’t freeze to death. But I must warn you. The cold can take away a piece of you. Not just your physical body. I mean inside of you.”

He opened the door, then stopped. The brutal air rushed in. I could feel my shirt frozen against my chest. “Once you freeze all the way through to your soul,” he said, “you will never feel warm again. You’ll see.”

He closed the door, leaving me in the cold darkness.