The Dead Man: Ring of Knives

'All right.'

'What's that mean, all right?'

'It means I took care of him. Ingrid here?'

Lancy looks away from me, draws on his cigarette, taps the ash. When he turns back the moonlight shines off his glasses. 'She's here. Now tell me, Frank. Tell me about Cranovicz.'

'I took care of him.'

Lancy asks me something else but I don't hear it. There's someone in the Merc. In the passenger seat. I start walking.

The two suits step in front of me. One's big, one's thin, but with the glare of the headlights behind them, they're featureless. A voice I've never heard before says, 'Hold on, Big Guy, the man asked you a question.' When the big suit puts a hand on my chest I slap it back where it came from.

'Frank.' Lancy catches up to me as I push past them, his hand on my arm. 'I asked you a question, Frank.'

'What?' I turn.

'Is he dead? Is Cranovicz dead?'

'I said I took care of him.'

'What's that mean, Frank?'

'It means I did what I could.'

For a time, we just stand there, facing each other, listening to the engines tick. Then he lets go. 'All right boys,' he says, sounding tired, 'we've got a train to catch tomorrow.'

I don't know what he's talking about, train to catch, and I don't care. I make for the Mercedes. With every step my throat gets tighter. By the time I reach it I can barely breathe.

Ingrid.

But is it? My first thought is, it can't be. In the darkness the dashboard throws a green light on the cords of her neck. That can't be her, I think, Ingrid's not old. But then I remember my own age, and all the time that's passed.

'Ingrid?' I cross to the passenger side window, and crouch to look in. She's still looking straight ahead. The black veil divides her face into diamonds, all but her mouth. When I see her mouth, there's just no question. I lean closer. The window is half-open, and I catch the scent of lilacs.

'Baby, it's me.' I pull on the door handle.

Clunk. Locked.

'She doesn't want to talk to you, Frank.'

I turn. Lancy's standing in the headlights, tapping the ash of his Camel. 'What are you talking about?' I say. 'She came all this way.' I turn back to the car. 'You came all this way.'

She turns so that her chin is almost pointing at me. Almost. Her hand reaches for the door and for one moment my chest gets tight with hope. Then the window rolls up, cutting me off from the scent of lilacs.

'Come on, Frank.' Lancy puts a hand on my elbow.

I shake him off.

'Ingrid.' My palms are flat on the glass, but she's turned back, her eyes looking to where the headlights vanish into the fog. Then she begins to vanish too. She lifts a Chesterfield to her mouth with a shaking hand. Her lipstick is black in the green dash-light. She drags, exhales, and the haze in the car deepens.

'Frank, don't make it any worse than it is. Let's go.'

'Not until she looks at me.'

'Christ, Frank, I can hardly look at you. Have you seen yourself lately?'

And suddenly I do. Suddenly I'm not looking at Ingrid but at the glass between us, and I see what she sees. It isn't pretty. There are three long furrows in my cheek where the girl clawed me. Half my face is slick with blood. It's dripping off my chin.

'Mr. Lancy sir, there's lights up on the hill.'

'All right, that does it. Frank, you ride with Morris and Hinks.'

'No.' I shove Lancy away. 'No.' I look around. My chest hurts. I say, 'I'm not going anywhere with those two Bible salesmen.'

There's a pause. I hear voices in the fog, far away but getting closer. We all stand there for a minute, listening. 'Fine,' Lancy says, turning away. 'You'll ride with me, but not in the Merc. Morris, we're switching.'

'Fine by me,' the big one says, and makes sure he says it in my direction. I watch him walk over to the black car, I see her long white arm stretch to the driver's door and do for him what she wouldn't do for me.

Clunk.

And he's in.

It's too much. I turn away, follow Lancy to the agency car. Ahead of us, there's lights moving through the woods, past the watertower, toward the clearing. Lancy gets in and revs the engine. I slide into shotgun and slam the door shut. Clouds have finally smothered the rain-moon high above us, but before they do I spy the old familiar Ashe Agency logo on the car window, the flame-within-a-flame.

And beneath it, the words Lux et Calor.

'Can you try not bleeding on the seat? Thanks.' Lancy pulls a rag from somewhere and tosses it my way. He looks over at me but I'm watching the two taillights ahead of us, weaving down the mountain. He clears his throat, spits out the window. Something dead appears in the road. He swerves smoothly around it.

'You shouldn't give those fellows such a hard time, Frank. Morris came to us after a stint in Sing-Sing, eight years for touch bargained down to three. He's a good man for spotting yeggs and boosters, plus he boxes like a kangaroo. And Hinks may look pennyweight but he's an ace shadow. Same with Morris, for all his size. In fact, Morris reminds me some of you, back in the day. Give them a chance. You three are going to be tight as twins this week. Tomorrow morning you all catch a train for Texas.'

Something else dead in the road. Lancy doesn't bother to swerve this time and there's the double thump as we pass over it. A rank smell fills the car.

'Christ,' Lancy says, rolling up his window. 'Skunk.' He looks for it in the rear-view. 'I said I'm sending you to Texas, Frank. Don't you want to know why?'

'What I want to know,' I say, 'is who owns that goddamn Mercury. I want to know if it's who I think it is.'

'Jesus, but I can still smell that thing. Would you please roll up your window, Frank?'

'We're past it,' I say. 'What good's it going to do now?' But I roll the window up all the same. 'The Merc,' I say. 'Tell me it isn't Kepler's.'

For a minute there's no sound but the jounce of wheels on the dirt road. Lancy sighs through his nose, a whistling sound. 'I don't know why you have to assume.'

'Why? Because she's smoking goddamn Chesterfields is why. Because she's got a rock around her neck as big as my fist.'

He looks away, shrugs. 'I'm not a part of this, Frank. Kepler tells me what to do, I tell you. It's been a long time, and we're glad to have you back. The rest, Ingrid and all the rest, well, like you said about the skunk, that's all past. What's the good in going into it now?'

'That's cute,' I say.

He gives me a look. 'Don't play the hard case with me, Frank. I'm not the one who botched this thing. Your first job.'

'My first job is right, and I only agreed to do it because you said she—'

'Stop yelling, Frank. That wasn't my decision. She said she wanted to talk to you is all. She's the real reason you're all heading down to El Paso.'

'What?'

'Lionel.' He looks at me. 'Her son Lionel.'

'I know who Lionel is.'

'Well, he's in El Paso, on Agency business. Or he was. We lost contact with him three weeks ago. That's where you guys come in.'

I'm staring at him. 'Lionel?'