“How long has he been in that?”
“Ever since Leopold threw him down the stairs.”
I stopped going through the pens. “Leopold has a thing about stairs, doesn’t he.”
She came closer to me.
“He wasn’t what I expected,” I said. “I’ve seen killers before, believe me.”
“But then he tried to kill you,” she said. “You said so yourself.”
“You have a point there.”
“Where is he now?” she asked. “Is he on his way here? He knows where to find me.”
“I don’t know if he will,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. We’ll get you out of here tomorrow.”
“Can you find the place again? Where he’s staying?”
“I’m sure he’s moved the RV by now,” I said. “I didn’t think to get the plate number.”
She closed her eyes. “This will never end.”
“Hold on,” I said. “I have Whitley’s cell phone.”
“What good will that do?”
I pulled out the phone and turned it on. “It’s gotta have a call history on it.” I turned the dial on the side. A number came up. It was Maria’s. “No, wait,” I said. “That was me. When I called you from his car.” I turned the dial again. Another number came up. I recognized it. “This is his office number,” I said. “He must have called to get his messages.”
One more turn. Another number, with a 313 area code. Detroit. “This could be it,” I said. “One way to find out.”
I pushed the send button. The signal went out into the air, to a tower somewhere, miles away. Then down the regular phone lines to Detroit, where it was received by the cellular service, sent back out on different lines, to a different tower, searching for the matching signal from one particular cell phone. Somewhere to the north of us, in an RV either sitting in the woods or already out on the road, that phone rang five times. Then somebody picked it up.
Silence. Then finally, “Who is this?”
“It’s him,” I said.
Maria’s face went white, as if I had summoned the man himself into her kitchen.
“Who is this?” the voice said.
“I just wanted to say good night,” I said. “You know, it doesn’t seem right to beat the hell out of a man in a wheelchair. It’s just not fair, you know? But next time, I’ll get over it.”
He hung up.
“Maybe we should get you out of here now,” I said. “Not even wait until morning.”
“No,” she said. “I told you, I’m not running anymore.”
I didn’t feel like fighting over it. “I’m dripping all over Rudiger’s carpet here,” I said, wrapping the ice tighter around my wrist.
“What did you do to your hand?”
“It’s just a bruise.”
“Like hell it is. Let me see.”
I put the ice down on the table and showed her my hand. “This must hurt,” she said.
“A little bit.”
She took my other hand and looked at it. Then back to my right hand.
“Your mother did that, too,” I said.
“She tried to teach me,” she said. She was close to me. There was a delicate scent of something in her hair, something exotic and wise and Gypsy-like. All she had to do was look up at me and I’d be a goner.
She looked up at me. “Did my mother do this?” she said. She kissed my hand.
“No,” I said. “I don’t recall her doing that.”
She kissed my hand again, right where it hurt the most. Then she took my hand in her own and led me up the stairs to her bedroom. She sat me down on her bed and undressed in front of me. The slightest moonlight came through her window, but it was enough to see her. She took my shirt off and laid me on my back. She unbuttoned my pants. When she pulled them off, I twisted my sore back in just the wrong way and let out a little yell.
“You’re just a wreck, aren’t you,” she said. “You’re a great big wounded bear.”
I watched her climb on top of me. She kissed me and then she put her hand on my chest. “You have something inside here,” she said.
“It’s a bullet,” I said.
“No, that’s not what I mean. Although I can see the scars.” She ran her fingers down the seams on my chest. “I mean in your heart. You are a good man. Maybe too good.”
She kissed me. “You’re too good, Alex,” she said. “You’re too good.”
“Kiss me again,” I said. “We’ll see how good I am.
She did. She kissed me and started moving on top of me, with her hair falling down in my face and the smell of her filling me up until I couldn’t help myself. I slid my hands down along her body, along every inch of her skin as she kept kissing me and punishing me, until her legs were spread open wide and I was about to enter her.
She stopped.
“Alex,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Tell me.”
“Tell you what, Maria?”
“Tell me he won’t kill me.”
“He won’t,” I said. She slid down over me. I was inside her.
“Tell me again,” she said.
“He won’t,” I said. “I won’t let him.”
She moved again.
“How are you going to stop him?”
“Maria…”
‘Tell me, Alex.”
“I won’t let him kill you, I promise.”
She slid down on me, and then again, and then again.
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me that you’ll kill him.”
“Maria…”
She stopped. “Say it,” she said.
I looked into her eyes.
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me you’ll find him and you’ll kill him.”
I kept looking at her. I didn’t say anything.
She slid off me and sat on the edge of the bed. I watched her for a long time, waiting for her to say something.
She didn’t.
I finally got up and put my clothes back on. I looked at her as I left the room. She hadn’t moved. She sat there naked and silent, looking at the floor.
I went downstairs and picked up the towel. The ice was mostly gone, melted into a puddle on the table. I got some more ice from the freezer and wrapped up my hand. I went to the big window and looked out at the lake for a while. Then I went to the back door and opened it. The cold air hit me in the face, but it was just what I wanted right then.
I stepped outside and walked down to the shoreline. Lake Michigan was calm on this April night. Lake Superior would have looked different. It would have looked wilder, more violent. It would have sounded different. But this was another kind of night, on another shore, a long way from home.
I stood there by the water for a while, until I started to shiver. I went back to the house, opened the door into the kitchen.
Maria was there. She had put on a long black robe. She stood with her back to me. I could see cigarette
