enough business from the snowmobilers and the locals to keep the place open. I sat down in a booth with the newspaper and a cup of coffee, and asked for eggs and bacon and sausage and anything else they could fit on a breakfast plate.
While I was waiting for the food, I called Leon’s home number and left a message. Two minutes later he came banging through the door.
“My wife paged me,” he said. He was breathing hard as he pulled his coat off. “God, you look awful.”
“Were you at work?” I said.
“Yeah, I can’t stay long,” he said. “I just wanted to come down and see what the hell happened.”
I ran it all down for him, starting at the bridge.
“They left you a nice little present,” he said.
“A souvenir from our visit to the bar,” I said. “It was very thoughtful of them.”
“They could have really jammed you up,” he said.
“They should have put a full gram in the truck,” I said. “Then I would have been fucked. I guess they didn’t want to part with that much of it, though.”
“Ha, you’re probably right.”
“If you see two guys with hunting caps walk in here,” I said, “you better duck.”
“Maven really let you go?”
“The charges get withdrawn at nine o’clock,” I said. “I hope he doesn’t come to his senses by then.”
“Those guys were feds,” he said. “I should have known.”
“I was sure they were Molinov’s guys. Those two men Bruckman was talking about.”
“Molinov,” he said. He worked the name around a few times while the waitress brought over my breakfast.
“Gotta be Russian,” I said.
“Gotta be,” he said. “I could look him up.”
“Where?”
“I’ve got a computer now,” he said. “There’s all sorts of places on the Internet.”
I smiled and shook my head.
“You can’t be a private eye in the nineties without a computer,” he said. “Or at least a partner who has one.”
I stopped eating and looked at him. “I told those agents that you were my partner, Leon. And I meant it”
“That’s good to hear, Alex.”
“But this is the only case we’re going to work on,” I said. “And I think it’s about over.”
“We make a great team, Alex. You know that.”
“This is a small town,” I said. “If there’s any business here at all, you’re more than enough to handle it. I told you that before. Look at everything you did, the way you found Bruckman. You’re a real private investigator, Leon. I’m not. And I don’t want to be.”
“I think we should find him again,” he said. “He’s gotten you twice now. Don’t you want to even the score? He might know more about this Molinov guy, too.”
“I don’t think we’re gonna get anything else out of him,” I said. “We’ll probably just get ourselves killed this time.”
“Alex, if I have to go back and sell snowmobiles every winter and outboard motors every summer for the rest of my life, I swear to God I’m gonna lose my mind. Just don’t close the door on this thing yet, okay? Wait a few days and see what happens.”
“All right, we’ll see what happens,” I said. I didn’t feel like fighting over it.
“Good man,” he said. “I’m going back to work. I’ll let you know if I find anything on Molinov.” He stood up, zipped his coat and left the place. He gave me a thumbs-up as he passed the window.
I sat there and watched the snow for a while. Then I paid my bill and went back out into the snow. I walked back directly this time, shielding my face from the wind. I saw Bill Brandow walk in the door just ahead of me, but by the time I got into the lobby he had already disappeared into his office.
I went over to the receptionist’s desk and asked her if the sheriff was free. She picked up the phone and talked to him for a few seconds, then looked up at me. “And you would be…?” she said.
“I’m the drug kingpin everybody’s looking for,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, not missing a beat. She gave Brandow my title and watched me as she listened to whatever Brandow was saying on the other end. “The sheriff will see you,” she finally said.
“Thank you,” I said. I went through his door and found him sitting at his desk with the newspaper.
“Every time you come in here,” he said, “you track in enough snow to make a snowman. You look terrible, by the way.”
“Why didn’t you tell me those guys were DEA agents?” I said.
He put the paper down. “They asked me to stall you,” he said. “I wasn’t happy about it, believe me.”
“They have no leverage over you,” I said. “You’re an elected sheriff.”
“They asked me for one week, Alex. I told them they were wasting their time following you. But come on, they’re agents from the federal government. I was just trying to do the right thing. You were a cop once. You know how it works. I really didn’t have a choice.”
“Of course not,” I said. “That’s why you sent your deputies out to search my cabins this morning, too.”
“I could have let them call in their people, Alex. They would tear your cabins apart. I figured at least this way we could be a little more careful about it.”
“I appreciate the gesture,” I said. “Remind me to pick up the tab the next time we drink together.”
“We did that once,” he said. “And only once. It’s not like we’re best friends.”
“No,” I said. “We’re not. And we never will be. Because I’m not from around here, am I? I wasn’t born here. I didn’t grow up here. No matter how long I live up here, I’ll always be a downstater to you. I’ll always be from ‘below the bridge.’ ” It was a term I had heard used many times in bars all over the county. The bridge, in this case, being the Mackinac Bridge that separated the two peninsulas. Back in the sixties and seventies, when I was down being a cop in Detroit as it burned all around me, a lot of guys up here were actually talking about blowing up that bridge. They were scared to death that we’d all come up there and ruin the Upper Peninsula.
“One more day,” he said. “I would have made them come to you directly. If you don’t like that, then I don’t know what else to say.”
“This has been some morning,” I said. “I always thought you were the good guy and Maven was the bad guy. But you’re the one who rolls over for these clowns, and he’s the one who tells them to go fuck themselves.”
He folded his hands together and looked at me. “Are you about done?” he said.
“I’m done,” I said. “I’ll see you around.”
I left his office, went out to the lobby and walked around for a few minutes, trying to make some sense out of everything that had happened that morning. It didn’t happen. At nine o’clock I went over to the courthouse and watched my charges get dropped. It would have been better if Champagne and Urbanic had been there to see it, but maybe that’s asking too much out of life. When I was free to go, I went looking for my truck and finally found it in the parking lot behind the City-County Building. I went inside and asked for the keys. After a few minutes of poking around, an officer finally found them and gave them to me. When I opened the door to the truck, the interior door panel fell out into the snow. Everything that could be taken apart had been taken apart, just in case I had any more drugs stashed away. They hadn’t bothered putting anything back together.
I threw the door panel onto the other side of the seat and started her up. I’ll put this all back together later, I thought. Just get the hell out of here.
The sun was actually trying to shine a little bit as I left Sault Ste. Marie, but it was a losing battle. By the time I made it to Paradise, the snowclouds had returned. The agents’ car wasn’t in the motel lot as I drove by. Too bad. I wondered what they were going to do to amuse themselves now that they couldn’t follow me anymore?
Or could they? It wouldn’t have surprised me, although I knew they weren’t behind me on my way back home that morning. Maybe they’ll take the day off and start again tomorrow, I thought.
I put the plow down when I hit my access road, pushing off the few inches of snow from the night before.
