“And don’t pull your gun unless they draw first. The last thing we want is a shoot-out. Okay, you ready?”
“No, I’m not. Just wait a minute.”
“C’mon, Alex. They’re not gonna be in there all night Let’s go do this. Remember, give me three minutes to get things started.” He opened the door. “Three minutes!”
“Leon, wait!”
“I gotta go now,” he said. “While I’m psyched up.”
I tried to grab him, but he closed the door on me and ran through the snow to the bar.
This is a bad dream, I told myself. All of this. I’m gonna wake up and go out and plow the road, and then I’ll go wake up Dorothy in her cabin and help her find a good, safe place to go to. Nobody will have taken her or trashed my place or be following me around or dragging my ass behind a snowmobile. And I won’t be sitting here in front of a dive bar in Soo Canada, waiting three minutes so Leon can go in and create an illusion of overwhelming force. Whatever the hell that is.
I looked at the clock on the dashboard: 1:13. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Two more minutes. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths.
When I opened my eyes, the clock read 1:14. One more minute. A gust of wind rocked the truck.
I counted down the last minute, then I gave him one more. Then I got out of the truck. The cold air assaulted me, but it was a short walk to the door, so I was only half numb when I stepped into the place. Like all small buildings, it looked bigger once you were inside. The bar was on the right, a television set high in the corner with a hockey game on. There were Christmas lights still strung around the ceiling. They blinked on and off in the smoky haze. To the left was a pool table and a jukebox. Bruckman was standing there with a cue stick in his hand, watching one of his teammates attempt a shot. His other two teammates stood in front of the jukebox, looking down at the playlist. They had cue sticks, too. Four hockey players with heavy sticks in their hands, at least one of them half out of his mind.
I hesitated. This may not be such a great idea.
Then I saw Leon at the bar. He gave me a little nod. Then he put his glass down and turned around to face the pool table. I counted seven other men at the bar, including the bartender. As soon as Leon turned around, they all fell silent and turned around, as well. Somebody found the remote for the television and turned it off. Then the bartender flipped his magic switch behind the bar to turn off the jukebox. The only sounds left in the room were the impact of the balls on the pool table and Bruckman’s rough laughter at a missed shot. As the balls all rolled to a stop, Bruckman stopped laughing.
“What the fuck,” he said. He looked up to see eight men staring at him. He scanned the faces left to right. The last face he saw was mine.
“I got next game,” I said. I walked to the pool table. It was quiet enough to hear the floor squeak under my feet.
“The fuck you doing here?” he said.
“You know, Bruckman,” I said. “Just once I want to hear you say one sentence without the word ‘fuck’ in it.”
Bruckman looked at me and then at his teammates.
“There are eight men in this room,” I said. I wish Leon had explained his plan a little better, I said to myself. I hope this is what he had in mind… “Every single one of them has a gun. I’d love to see you try something stupid right now.”
He looked at his teammates again, and then at the men at the bar. I could practically hear the wheels spinning in his head. “So like… what?” he finally said.
“So like I want to ask you a few questions,” I said. “That’s all. If you play along, I won’t shoot you.”
“Like you really would,” he said.
“In the bathroom,” I said. “Unless you want me to kill you right here.”
“What?” His eyes were shining with fear, or chemicals, or maybe both.
“You heard me,” I said. “Go into the bathroom. While we’re in there, all three of your friends are going to just stand here and look stupid. Is that clear?”
He swallowed hard.
“Move,” I said.
He looked around the room again, like he was waiting for somebody else to do something. It didn’t happen, so he finally leaned the cue stick against the table and moved toward the bathroom. I followed. As we passed the biggest of his teammates, I looked up just long enough to give him a little smile. “Good to see you again,” I said.
When we were in the bathroom, I shut the door behind us. There was one stall, one urinal, and one sink. Whoever’s job it was to keep the room clean was clearly not an overachiever. I opened the stall door. “Have a seat,” I said. I pulled the service revolver out of my coat.
“I’m keeping my pants on,” he said.
“Good for you,” I said. “Just sit down.”
He flipped down the lid and sat on it. In the cheap light he looked tired and thin and used up.
“You don’t look so hot,” I said.
He didn’t say anything. He just sat there staring into some sort of middle distance only he could see.
“Let’s see,” I said. “If the bullet goes in this way, it should come out like so.” I looked past his head at the wall. “Unless it stays in the skull.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s gonna make a hell of a racket in here,” I said. I reached down and gave the toilet paper roll a quick spin. I tore off a couple feet, wadded it into a ball, and stuck it in my left ear. Then I made another ball and stuck it in my right ear.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m getting ready to shoot you,” I said. “It’s gonna surprise the hell out of everybody, I know. Nobody out there really thinks I’m gonna do it. But I am.” I looked over at the sink and the window above it. “I should probably go out that window. What do you think?”
“What…”
I made a show of checking the gun and then I held it in both hands. “You ever see a bullet go through somebody’s head?” I said. I closed my left eye and looked down the barrel with my right. “It’s quite a sight. God, this place is going to be a mess.”
“You can’t shoot me,” he said.
“Sure I can,” I said.
“What do you want from me?” he said. He started to rock on the seat.
“I want you to stay still,” I said. “So I can get a clean shot.”
“You’re crazy,” he said. “You’re fucking crazy.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said. “I guess you should have killed me when you had the chance.”
“No,” he said. “I wasn’t going to…”
“Stop talking,” I said. “You’re ruining my concentration.”
“What do I have to do?” he said. “Just tell me.”
I opened up both my eyes and looked at him over the gun. “I suppose you could entertain me,” I said. “That might buy you a couple minutes, at least.”
“What?” he said. “How?”
“Start talking to me,” I said. “What’s in that bag?”
“What bag?”
I raised the gun again. “You’re not very good at this,” I said. “The bag you were looking for when you jumped me in my cabin.”
“Drugs,” he said.
“What kind?”
“I’m not exactly sure. Some kind of speed. Real intense shit, like it had to be mixed with something. Probably some crack. Maybe something else.”
“Where did you get it?”
