Lou Sternberg had been silent all this time, seated on the bottom of the boat because his balance wasn’t good enough to permit him to stand when it was running through the water. But now he said, “Parker, why are you still talking to this clown? This is a deep enough river, isn’t it?”
“We couldn’t find his landing on our own,” Parker said.
Hanzen said, “That’s right, and we all know it. I’ll take you to my place you probably want my car.”
“Naturally.”
“So there it is,” Hanzen said. “I’ll take you there, you’ll go ashore, you’ll kill me, you’ll take my car, my problems’ll be all over and yours’ll still be goin on.”
“Maybe not,” Parker said. “You’re cooperating, and you didn’t tell them till they made you.”
“Don’t try to give me hope,” Hanzen said, “it’s a waste of time.”
Which was probably true, too, so Parker didn’t lie to him anymore.
“Leaned on him,” Wycza said, scoffing. “They leaned on him. Made faces and said boo.”
“That’s right,” Hanzen said, “they did that, too. They also kicked me in the nuts a couple times, kicked me in the shins so I got some red scars you could look at, twisted my arms around till I thought they broke ‘em, closed a couple hands down on my windpipe till I passed out.” He turned away from the wheel, though still holding on to it, and looked Wycza up and down. “You’re a big guy,” he said, “so you figure it don’t happen to you. The day it does, big man, when you got seven or eight comin at you, not to kill you but just to make you hurt, you remember Greg Hanzen.”
“I’ll do that,” Wycza promised.
“And remember I told you this. They got wonderful powers of concentration, those boys, they never forget what they’re doing. They don’t stop. They won’t stop, no matter how long it takes, until you say what they want you to say.”
“I’ll remember that, too,” Wycza said.
“Good.” Hanzen turned back to the wheel. “We’re coming in now,” he said, and angled them toward shore.
It was still possible that Hanzen had some other scheme in mind, so Parker kept both guns in his hands and peered at the black and featureless shore as the boat slowed and the river grew wider behind them. How could these river rats find their way around in the dark like this? And yet they could.
“I’ll run it on up on the shore,” Hanzen said. “Make it easier for you all to get out.”
“Good,” Parker said.
Hanzen said, “I hope you take them, and not the other way around. Them’s the bunch I got a grudge against.”
“We’ll do what we can,” Parker said.
Now the shore was close, very close. There was a little moon, not much, just enough to glint off glass in there; probably the windshield of Hanzen’s car. Parker said, “Where are the car keys?”
“In my pocket. Wait’ll we stop.”
“Fine.”
“Brace yourselves now.”
Hanzen switched off the engine. There was a sudden tingling floating silence, and then the keel of the boat scraped pebbles in the mud, angled up, ran partway up onto the bank, and jolted to a stop. Hanzen reached into his pocket, came out with a small ring of keys, and extended them toward Parker, who took them. “It pulls to the left,” Hanzen said.
Wycza stepped over the side first onto the bank, then helped Lou Sternberg over. Parker jumped over the side, and Hanzen jumped after him. Then Hanzen stood there, just waiting.
Wycza took Hanzen by the elbow, walked him farther from the water’s edge, into the oval clearing, very dark now. They stopped, and Wycza stepped to one side. He said, “Greg.”
Hanzen turned his head, and Wycza clipped him across the jaw with a straight right. Hanzen dropped like a puppet when you cut the strings; straight down.
Wycza turned to the others. “Okay, let’s go,” he said. “I see it’s another goddam tiny car. Lou, you’re in back.”
Sternberg said, “Dan, he isn’t dead.”
“Oh, what the fuck,” Wycza said. “By the time he wakes up, whatever we’re doing, it’s all over and done with. He’s just some dumb poor clown. He helped us one way, and he hurt us another. Listenin to him, out there on the water, I kind of felt for him. Okay?”
Parker and Sternberg looked at one another. To be betrayed, to be set up, to be led into an ambush, and then not deal with the guy that did it? On the other hand, it was certainly true that Hanzen wasn’t a threat to them any more, and for whatever reason the ambush hadn’t worked, and in fact killing was never a good idea unless there were no other ideas.
“And now,” Wycza said, “he’s got a broken jaw, so it’s not like he’s singin and dancin.”
Parker shrugged, and so did Sternberg. “Well, Hanzen was wrong about one thing,” Parker said, as he walked toward the little Hyundai, the car keys in his hand. “His problems aren’t over.”
2
Parker drove. He was probably taking a long way around, going out to the main state road and then north, but he didn’t know all the back ways around here, particularly at night. Still, the main point was to get to the cottages before Mike and Noelle did, because they wouldn’t know they were riding into an ambush. But they couldn’t reach
