“I’ve got plenty of money, Alex,” he said. “I plan on paying you for this.”
“It’s not the money, Randy. Are you listening to what I’m saying? I’m not really a private investigator. Two times now I’ve gone out trying to find somebody, and both times it ended up being a disaster. I’m not any good at it.”
“You were always a good two-strike hitter, Alex.”
I dropped the bag of ice and looked at him. “Say that again?”
“You were always a good two-strike hitter.”
“Randy, we played a whole season together. Were you ever watching when I went up to the plate?”
“Of course.”
“How many times did you see me go after a bad pitch with two strikes?”
“Offhand, I don’t think I can remember you ever doing that.”
“How about at least once a game, sometimes twice, sometimes three times. Hell, I remember doing it four times once. Swinging at a ball a foot outside and striking out. In fact, if you had to pick one reason why I never made it as a ballplayer, Randy, just one reason, that would be it.”
It was all coming back to me, and after already taking one in the eye that day, it wasn’t doing much for my mood. I was good behind the plate, I was great with the pitchers, especially the headcases like Randy, and I had a decent throw to second base. But I never batted over. 240, mainly because I struck out swinging too much. It didn’t take long for the pitchers to find out. If they got two strikes on me, I was dead.
I guess that says something about me. Two strikes and I’ll try too hard to protect the plate. I’ll swing at anything.
“Well, okay, then,” Randy said after a long moment. “Here’s your chance to make up for it.”
“Seriously,” I said. “We gotta talk about this.”
“Hold that thought,” he said. “I gotta hit the little boys’ room before we go.” He spun off the bar stool and started singing. “L’amour, l’amour, oui, ya da da…”
“Where’s Jackie?” I said. “I need more ice.”
“How does it go?” Randy said, and then he started singing it again. “L’amour, l’amour, oui, son ah something… What’s the next line?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s Romeo’s song,” he said. “From the opera, in French. It’s beautiful.”
“I don’t know the words, Randy. Especially not in French.”
“L’amour, l’amour… Oui, son ardeur… Is that it?”
“I don’t know, Randy.”
“You try to think of it while I’m in the bathroom, Alex.”
When he disappeared into the bathroom, Jackie finally came over with the new bag of ice.
“What am I gonna do with him?” I said.
“What do you mean?” Jackie said.
“I mean, what am I gonna do? He really wants to find this girl he met in 1971. How crazy is that?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s a moot point. You know you’re gonna help him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you have to,” he said. “You spend your whole life up here sitting in your cabin all by yourself. You don’t even have a television, for God’s sake. You’re so desperate for human contact, you gotta come in here every day and make my life miserable. If a new face comes through that door and asks you for help, you’re gonna do it, no matter what. I’ve seen it before, remember? In fact, you know what? One of these days, an alien spaceship is gonna land out there in the parking lot, and a couple of little green men are gonna come in here and ask you to help them. You know, take you back to their planet so you can help them ward off some other aliens who are trying to invade them or something. And of course you’ll just get your ass kicked again, but it doesn’t matter. Because you’ll go. In two minutes, you’ll be out that door and on that spaceship.”
I just looked at him for a while, with the new bag of ice pressed against my eye. “That’s quite a story, Jackie. Little green men, eh?”
“Yep. Right in that parking lot.”
“And they’ll come ask me for help. They’ll speak English and everything.”
“By the time they get here, yes. That’s why they haven’t landed yet. They’re still studying you. They’ve already picked you out as the biggest sap on the planet Earth. Now they have to learn everything about you before they come get you. Hell, I bet they’ll even have a case of Canadian beer in the spaceship waiting for you.”
Randy came back out of the bathroom, still trying to sing his song. “What do you say, Alex. Are you ready to go?”
“Randy, you better take him quick,” Jackie said. “While he’s still available.”
As he walked away laughing, I threw the bag of ice at the back of his head.
I followed Randy to the airport so he could turn in his rental car, and then he hopped in my truck for the ride over to Leon’s house.
He was quiet for a few minutes, looking out the window at the passing trees. “There’s not a whole lot up there, is there,” he finally said.
“Besides trees?” I said. “No, there isn’t.”
“It’s kinda nice,” he said. “Big change from L.A.”
“I imagine.”
“Hey, we’re headed for Sault Ste. Marie, right?”
“Yeah, Leon lives in a little town called Rosedale, just south of the Soo.”
“I’ve never seen the Soo locks before,” he said. “I think we should go up there first, while there’s still daylight. Then we can go see Leon.”
“What? I thought you said Leon was waiting for us.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” he said. “Come on, you gotta show me the world-famous Soo locks. When am I ever gonna see them again?”
“Randy, the locks aren’t even open yet. Not for another week.”
“There’s another reason why I don’t want to see your partner yet,” he said. “I sort of have to tell you a little bit more about Maria first.”
“Why? What are you talking about?”
“It’s just… some stuff,” he said. “I want to tell you this myself, so you don’t get the wrong idea.”
“Just tell me.”
“Take me to the locks, Alex. Some things you can’t talk about unless you’re looking at water.”
I shook my head and kept driving. “Why is this happening to me?” I said. “What did I do to deserve this?”
Twenty minutes later, the truck was parked in front of the Soo Locks Park. In the summer, the lot would be full, and the observation deck would have maybe forty people on it. On this overcast April afternoon, with a cold wind coming up off the bay and blowing right down the St. Marys River, we had the place to ourselves.
Randy stood on the observation deck, looking down at the locks. There were still great blocks of ice floating in the water. He was already shivering, with that poor excuse for a coat wrapped tightly around his body. But it was his own damned fault, so I didn’t feel too bad for him.
“This is it, huh?” he said. “The ships come right through here, and then what, they get lowered in the middle here?”
“Lowered if they’re going into Lake Huron,” I said. “Or raised if they’re going into Lake Superior. Twenty-one feet.”
“How long does it take?”
“Ten minutes maybe.”
“Must be an impressive sight.”
“When you’ve got a seven-hundred-foot freighter coming through here, it’s pretty impressive, yeah.”
“It opens up next week, you say?”
“Randy, are you gonna tell me about Maria before you freeze to death?”
He moved up onto the cement bleachers, where there was at least a little bit of shelter from the wind. “This
