under a single security light mounted high on a wooden pole, and then out to Lakeshore Drive. There was a half moon, reflected in the lake. There were no clouds.
The old railroad car was there on the corner, in shadows so dark you wouldn’t notice it if you didn’t know it was there. For some reason, that railroad car felt like the perfect thing just then. It felt like I could stop the car right there and go open the door and climb inside. For me, the door would open. I’d go to sleep on the bare floor next to the rats and raccoons and God knows what else, in an abandoned, useless old railroad car that would never go anywhere ever again.
I don’t know what made me think this way. I don’t know what made me imagine going to sleep in that old railroad car and never waking up. It was a hell of a thing to think about on your way back from an armed robbery.
“Well,” Jackie said, finally breaking the silence. “At least I got you out of your cabin tonight.”
“You did,” I said. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned for tomorrow night.”
“What were you thinking?” he said. “When we were lying on the floor?”
“With the guns pointed at our heads?”
“I seem to recall them pointed a little more at your head than at mine, but yeah, what were you thinking then?”
“You know the old expression about your life flashing before your eyes?”
“Yeah?”
“Turns out it’s true,” I said. “That’s exactly what I was thinking about. My whole life.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What did it all add up to?” he said. “Your whole life, I mean.”
“You really want to know?”
“I really want to know.”
“Not a hell of a lot,” I said. “What about you? What were you thinking?”
“Same thing, more or less. But mine had a happier ending.”
“How’s that?”
“I was thinking,” he said, “that if this was my last night on earth, then at least I don’t have to see this place get destroyed.”
“You really think it’s gonna happen?” I said. “We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere up here.”
“We’re beyond nowhere,” he said. “We’re way north of nowhere. But it doesn’t matter. They’ll come eventually. You can’t keep this place a secret forever.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” I said. “But I guess I wouldn’t bet against it.”
I kept driving. Jackie leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
“Speaking of betting,” I said. “You’re not going to make me play cards with that jackass again, are you?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t imagine he’ll be inviting us back.”
We were past everything by then. There were only the trees, the shoreline, waves gently breaking, the dark water going out forever.
Chapter Five
I went to the Glasgow Inn for lunch the next day. I wanted to see how Jackie was doing. I wanted to show him, too, that I wasn’t going to go right back into my hermit routine.
When I opened the door, he wasn’t there. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. When you go into the Glasgow, Jackie is there. That’s just the way it is. Instead his son was behind the bar. Jonathan Junior, usually just Jonathan, or when he’s in trouble, just Junior-he was a little squirt like his father, with the same salt- and-pepper color hair, just a little more of it. Behind his glasses, Jonathan’s eyes were as blue as his mother’s, a woman who I had seen exactly once in my life, the day her son graduated from Michigan Tech over in Houghton. He went down to work for a computer company in North Carolina, meaning to leave the Upper Peninsula winters long behind him. He was back in two years.
“Where’s your father?” I said, sitting on a stool.
“He’s upstairs in bed now. Finally. He was up all night.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “I dropped him off here a little after one.”
“I know, I heard him come in,” he said. “When I came down here this morning, though, he was sitting over there. He had a fire going in the fireplace all night, and I guess he was just sitting there looking at it.”
“Did he tell you what happened over at Vargas’s house?”
“He gave me the quick version,” he said. “It sure put him in a weird mood, which I can understand, I guess. Still…”
“What is it?”
“He actually hugged me this morning, and told me he loved me and he was proud of me.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “If I had a son,” I said, “after last night I would have done the same damned thing.”
“All right,” he said. “Whatever you say. If you think him sleeping at noon is okay, then I won’t worry about it.”
“He’ll be himself by tomorrow,” I said. “God help us.”
I had my lunch, and caught up with Jackie’s son. The man himself never came downstairs. When I got back to my cabin, the message light was blinking on my answering machine. I pressed the play button.
“Alex McKnight,” the voice said, as warm and soothing as a belt sander. “This is Roy Maven. I’d appreciate it if you could stop by today.”
That was it. I wasn’t surprised. I knew he’d find me eventually. With a full stomach and not a hell of a lot to do that day, I figured why not, might as well get it over with. I fired up the truck and headed to the Soo.
I didn’t feel like taking Lakeshore Drive again, didn’t feel like seeing the machines working on the golf course, or the old railroad car that had put such strange thoughts in my head. I took the main roads, M-123 to M- 28, a straight line east through Raco and Strongs and then north on I-75 to the Soo. The City-County building is on the east side of town, just past the locks and not that far from Vargas’s house on the river. I didn’t feel like seeing that house again, certainly not the very next day.
I parked behind the City-County building, back by the entrance to the jail and the little twelve-foot-square cage that serves as the outdoor grounds. There’s one picnic table in there, and on this day two men were sitting on top of it, one lighting a cigarette off the end of the other’s.
I told the receptionist at the desk that I was there to see Chief Maven. She led me to the little waiting area outside his office. It’s a place I knew well enough, having spent some time there on a couple of memorable occasions. Chief Maven and I had taken an instant chemical dislike to each other, and it had gone downhill ever since. I remembered reading about Prometheus, and how the gods punished him for giving fire to mortals by chaining him to a rock where a raven would come every day for eternity to pluck out his liver. For me, this would be my ultimate punishment, to sit outside Chief Roy Maven’s office every day, waiting to go inside to see the man himself.
Today, he didn’t keep me waiting. No sooner had I sat down when the door opened and he stuck his head out. “Alex,” he said. “Come in.”
I followed him into the office and sat down in front of his desk, trying to remember if he had ever called me by my first name before. His office hadn’t changed. It was still four walls of concrete. Maven hadn’t changed, either. He had the drill sergeant haircut, the weather-beaten face. He was yet another tough old bird, like Jackie, like Bennett O’Dell. It was a sort of natural selection at work. Men in their sixties who lived up here year-round had to be as hard as granite. If they weren’t, they either died of heart attacks shoveling snow, or just gave up and moved to Florida.
“I appreciate you stopping by,” he said. He looked down at the police report in his lap. “I understand from my men that it was a pretty tense situation you were in last night. I’m glad nobody was harmed.”
