diving into water, not about to walk on the frozen variety, and then he was making his way with the mummy-like bundle out onto the lake, walking carefully, hesitantly, testing the ice with one baby step after another, always letting the tentative ground settle under him.
It took a long time-maybe two minutes. Harry would look at his feet, then off to the bank on the right and the thick darkness of trees, clearly considering that option. His breath was visible, small puffy clouds, and the heavy sound of it came back over the stillness of the lake, interrupted only by the call of a loon. Or something-some damn bird too stupid to fly the fuck south.
Subtle at first, the cracking seemed something I was only imagining, in my anticipation; but Harry had heard it, too, because he was poised out there as frozen as the lake.
Actually, more frozen, because suddenly the ice was snapping under his shoes, as if he were standing on a window, and that window was breaking…
He didn’t even have time to run. He was clutching onto Louis, which might have been bittersweet, only I think he was hoping he could use Louis like a big piece of driftwood or something, but it didn’t work out that way.
Louis disappeared, sliding under like a turd down the crapper, leaving Harry to flail, and try to hold onto the bigger chunks of ice; he was screaming my name and swearing, then the splashing was louder than the screaming and then the screaming stopped altogether and finally the splashing subsided.
And he was gone.
I studied the lake-soon you could barely see the hole Harry had made-with the black starry sky my only companion. Even the loon had nothing to say, the frozen expanse and the surrounding blackness of trees as quiet as, well, death. Suddenly this wintry world seemed austerely beautiful to me, a study in white and gray and gray- blue and black, but enjoying myself like that seemed vaguely creepy, so I headed back to the cabin, shotgun slung over my arm.
Back inside, I got the girl’s clothes out of the closet-her cell phone was in a pocket-and went in and gave them to her, keeping the phone. A black hip-hop t-shirt and designer jeans and Reeboks.
“Did you kill those men?” she said, breathlessly, her eyes dark and glittering. She had her clothes in her lap.
“That’s not important. Get dressed.”
“You’re wonderful. You’re goddamn fucking wonderful.”
“I know,” I said. “Everybody says so. Get dressed.”
She got dressed.
I watched her.
She was a beautiful piece of ass, no question, and even with those rings in them, the titties were cute as puppy dogs. The way she was looking at me made it clear she was grateful.
I said, “We need to call your father.”
“What’s your hurry? After a reward? There’s all kinds of rewards…”
I held her cell phone out to her. “We should call him.”
She shrugged and came at me and I found myself backed against the wall, as if she were holding a gun on me. Then her arms were around me and the pretty little mug was looking up at me devilishly.
She had to get up on tiptoes to do it, but she kissed me long and slow and her tongue knew things it shouldn’t have at her age.
Then she drew away from me, her arms still around me. “What do you say, hero?”
“Kind of a bad time, isn’t it?”
Her eyes flashed. “I think it’s exciting.”
“I mean…of the month.”
That made her laugh. She raised an eyebrow. “Other ports in a storm…?”
“Maybe later,” I said, and smiled.
She looked like AIDS-bait to me. I could be reckless, but not that reckless.
Disappointed, she took a step away and accepted the cell phone, and within seconds was saying, “Daddy?… I’m fine, I’m fine…yes!..Daddy, you know that man you sent…what?”
She frowned up at me in confusion. “He says…he says he didn’t send anybody.”
I gestured impatiently for the phone and she gave it to me.
“Good evening, sir. I have your daughter. As you can hear, she’s just fine…Get together one hundred thousand dollars in unmarked, non-sequential tens, twenties and fifties, and wait for the next call.”
I hung up.
She looked at me with wide eyes and wide-open mouth.
“Relax,” I told her. “I’m not going to kill you-just turning a buck.”
“You bastard! You prick! ”
She spit in my face.
I wiped it off with a hand and gave her a look.
She started backing up, her eyes wild, and I got hold of her, carried the squirming creature back to her bed and dumped her there.
I thrust a stern finger in that cute face. “Look! I gotta get some sleep. Pipe down, or I’ll duct-tape your little trap.”
She behaved after that, though she cried and sniffled and tried to make me feel as sorry for her as she did for herself, which would have been impossible; on the other hand, some of it was genuine-she did have cramps. I cuffed her to the bedpost and she was able to recline. I even covered her up.
Then I went over and curled up on the other bed, nine millimeter in my waistband.
I’d taken some risks tonight.
I lived and worked on this lake, after all. But it was winter, and the bodies wouldn’t turn up for a long time, if ever, and the Outfit had used this part of the world to dump its corpses since Capone was just a mean street kid. Very little chance any of this would come back at me. And killing Harry and Louis had, at least, killed my insomnia.
For the first time in a long time…
…I slept like a baby.
Four
The Log Cabin, true to its name, was a log cabin, a roadside gas station and latter-day diner a good hundred miles from Lake Sylvan, a minor intrusion of civilization into a world of snowy pines. At eleven A.M., breakfast was a memory and lunch the future, so the graveled parking lot was home to only a couple of cars and two trucks.
I was keeping watch through binoculars on the slope across the two-lane highway, sheltered and concealed by more of those snowy pines; the ground had only a dusting of snow but the air was brittle with cold. I’d left the ninja-black wardrobe home-in daylight, it would have only made me stand out against the winter whiteness-and was in work boots and jeans and a brown corduroy fleece-lined jacket that were comfortable enough. I’d been keeping tabs on this ransom drop for half an hour already, and it took that long for the girl to speak.
“He won’t come himself, you know.”
Julie Green was seated like an Indian, leaning back against a big nearby tree, looking utterly bored, an old brown leather jacket of mine loose over her shoulders, her nipples perked under the black hip-hop t-shirt that peeked out, her designer jeans brushed with snow, her handcuffed hands in her lap.
Basically, she looked like a surly high school student waiting outside the principal’s office.
“Well, Daddy should come,” I said, “if he has any use for you. Those were the terms.”
She shrugged and smirked. Her teeth chattered now and then. “He doesn’t have much use for me. Plus, don’t ever forget-he’s a lying untrustworthy shit.”
I lifted the binoculars again. “Good to know.”
A money-green Lexus was pulling in, taking one of half a dozen stalls next to the restaurant. I re-focused the binoculars and watched millions of dollars get out from behind the wheel.
Jonah Green was not exactly a typical patron of the Log Cabin. At least sixty, he had a commanding
