“Listen, rich boy-” Russell Blackwater tried to cut in.
“No, you listen. I don’t intend to lose this election because of your larceny.”
“What do you suggest, Sandy?” It was the judge’s voice. Calm. And, it seemed, slightly amused.
“Christ, I don’t know. Vernon, why the hell didn’t you keep your boy in line?”
“He is a man,” Vernon Blackwater replied indignantly. “Not a boy.”
“What he pulled with the casino sure as hell makes me wonder.”
A doorbell rang in the background.
“I have a suggestion,” the judge interjected. “I asked Joe John here. I thought we might all talk this out reasonably. Sandy, would you get the door?”
Sandy Parrant reached out and fast-forwarded the tape again.
“… you want, Joe John?” Sandy’s voice.
“The People deserve better,” Joe John replied. He sounded proud and incensed. “I thought you would understand and help.”
“I do understand,” Sandy insisted on the tape. “And I want to help.”
“I don’t think so. I think mostly you’re worried about your own ass.”
“Sit down, Joe John,” the judge ordered. After a pause, he requested, “Please, sit down. I have one final negotiation to offer.”
Silence. In the Cherokee, Jo leaned forward struggling to hear. Then a chair creaked on the tape as a body sat down heavily.
“Thank you,” the judge went on. “It’s been my own opinion since you first stumbled onto all this that the usual inducements we might offer would be ineffective. I’ve watched you carefully, Joe John. From a drunk to a man with good reason to have a lot of self-respect. I’ve thought all along you wouldn’t give up that hard-earned self- respect easily. Not for money, certainly. You’ve more than proven that this evening. And I just want to add how much I appreciate your promise to refrain from making all this public until we’ve had a chance to work things out. Now, the fact of the matter is that my son can’t lose this election. And for many reasons, Russell Blackwater should continue to manage the casino. What I’ve done, therefore, is invite an outside negotiator to help us reach a resolution. I believe he is, as the saying goes, prepared to make you an offer, Joe John, that you can’t refuse. Harlan?”
A door opened.
“What the-” Joe John began.
Three shots. Very close together. Loud on the tape. In the Cherokee, Jo jerked, startled.
“My God!” Sandy Parrant’s taped voice cried.
Behind the steering wheel, the real Parrant mouthed the words as if he’d listened to the tape a hundred times and knew it by heart.
“Jesus,” Russell Blackwater gasped.
“And that, gentlemen,” concluded the judge, “solves everything.”
Sandy stopped the tape.
“It was over so quickly I couldn’t do anything,” he explained.
“And then you had a choice, didn’t you?” Jo guessed bitterly. “Expose everything and probably lose the election. Or stay silent.”
His face in the dark was intense, fired. “I was born to greatness. I’ve known that all my life. Even when things started going bad, it was like I was favored by the gods. Fate smiled and everyone who could incriminate me was eliminated. My father, Lytton, the Blackwaters. I was clear of it all. No one was even looking in my direction except for that fucking husband of yours.” Sandy peered intently through the windshield and slowed the Cherokee to a crawl. “There it is.”
Jo could see the sauna, square and black, and farther up among the trees the light from inside the cabin. Cork had turned all the lights off when they left earlier. That meant he was there now, waiting innocently for them to arrive. Her fault! God, how could she have been so stupid, so blind?
Sandy stopped the Cherokee behind the sauna, out of sight of the cabin. He slipped the key from the ignition and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. “This shouldn’t take long.” He lifted the revolver from his lap.
“You’re not-” she began.
“Going to shoot him? In cold blood? If I have to. But I don’t think I will. Not yet.”
He took the roll of duct tape from his pocket, tore off a strip, and pressed it over her mouth. He reached into the glove compartment and drew out a flashlight. Stepping from the Cherokee, he came around to Jo’s side and opened the door. He took out his jackknife and snapped out the blade.
“I’m only going to cut your feet loose so you can walk. I’m not going to hurt you. But if you try something, I will.”
Slowly he knelt. He reached out carefully with the knife and cut the tape from her ankles.
“In here,” he said, leading her to the sauna door.
He switched on the flashlight. There were three tiers of seats in the sauna, hard, bare cedar planks. Sandy guided her up to the top, forced her to sit, and bound her ankles again with tape.
“I’m just going to have a peek and make sure Cork’s not planning any surprises of his own. I’ll be right back.”
He stepped down, clicked off the flashlight, and left her in total darkness. The boards creaked on the small deck outside as he crept around to the side of the building and headed toward the cabin. She waited a few moments after the creaking had stopped, then she rolled to her side and bumped down the tiers of cedar planks. She felt a jolting pain in her right shoulder as she hit the floor. She scooted toward the door, which opened inward. Pushing herself against the wall, she managed to slide to a standing position. With her hands bound behind her, she groped in the dark for the knob, finally found it, and opened the door a crack, just enough to wedge her body through. She tumbled onto the deck outside.
Like an inchworm, she coiled and uncoiled herself, crawling along the deck toward the edge. She came to the end, a sudden drop-off with the ice three feet below. She brought her body around until she lay parallel with the edge of the deck, then she rolled off. The wind had blown the snow on the ice into uneven depths; where she hit there was almost nothing to cushion the blow on her head. For the second time that night, she was stunned to the point of seeing lights. Her head felt thick and burning as if full of some scorching liquid. Vital seconds passed, a fact she was aware of even through the haze that clouded her thinking. On her side, her injured shoulder taking the brunt of the struggle, she began to move away from the sauna toward a pine tree backed by a small thicket just beyond the shoreline a dozen yards away. She dug at the ice, propelling herself with the side of her boot. Her jacket was a down-filled nylon shell, and the slick material helped her slide easily over the ice, the only piece of luck she’d had all night.
Five feet. Ten. She struggled against fainting. Goddamn it, no! She fed her pain to her anger. She wouldn’t give in. She wouldn’t give Sandy the satisfaction. The pine and the thicket seemed an enormous distance away. If she couldn’t make it there, she’d find another way. Desperately she scanned the area around her, looking for a drift against the shore that might be deep enough to burrow into, to cover herself with snow. Could he find her then? Could he follow a worm’s trail in the night? She was wearing dark clothing, a mistake she regretted now as bitterly as she regretted loving Sandy. She was too easy to see, especially in the unnatural brightness from the northern lights and the rising moon. Her best hope still was to make the thicket before Sandy came back.
She breathed heavily, pushing hard, turning inches into feet, feet into yards. The tree was almost within her reach. She glanced back at the snow-draped thicket just beyond. If she could reach it, nestle in, he might never find her. She hoped he wouldn’t kill one of them unless he was sure he could kill them both.
Ignoring the pounding in her head, the burning in her shoulder, she redoubled her efforts. A moment later she bumped into something hard. The trunk of the pine, she thought with relief. She looked back to gauge the distance left to the thicket and found that the pine tree had not stopped her. It was Sandy Parrant’s left leg.
“I would have been disappointed in you if you hadn’t tried,” he said. “One of the things I’ve always found most attractive is your tenacity.” He took out his jackknife, knelt, and whispered, “You’re also one hell of a piece of ass.” He cut her ankles free and lifted her brusquely.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Our pigeon is roosting.”
