at least once, right? So I’ll be up front.”
“What,” Bennett said, “you mean he’s supposed to think we’ve got the feds coming to the rescue or something?”
“That was what I was thinking originally,” Leon said. “Now I think I’ve got something better. Or for Blondie, anyway, it’s worse.”
“What’s worse than the feds?”
Leon looked over at Vargas. Vargas was sitting quietly in his chair, a few feet from the table, watching us.
“Mr. Vargas,” Leon said. “We need a name.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Somebody in Canada,” Leon said. “We need the one name that’ll make Blondie wet his pants.”
He thought about it. “If we use this man’s name,” he finally said, “you forget you ever heard it. When we’re done here, the name gets erased from your mind.”
“Understood.”
“The name is Isabella.”
Nobody said anything for a moment.
“I can see why he’d be scared,” Bennett finally said. “That’s the most terrifying name I’ve ever heard. For a ballerina, anyway.”
“It’s Mr. Isabella,” Vargas said.
“Yeah?” Bennett said. “Is he some mobbed-up wiseguy over in Soo, Canada?”
Vargas stared at him. It was the same look I got just before he did his Moo Duk Kwan act all over my body.
“Blondie and Isabella,” Bennett said. “Not exactly Bugsy and Scarface, are they. Dumb Canucks can’t even get their names right.”
“Take it easy,” I said. “You heard what he said. We use the name and then we forget it.”
“Is that the plan?” Jonathan said. “The second boat comes in like this Mr. Isabella is breaking up the party?”
“That’s the idea,” Leon said. “It only has to work long enough to catch them off guard. We want them to think that giving up Jackie is in their best interests.”
“And then what?”
“We see what happens,” Leon said. “We react accordingly.”
Jonathan didn’t look happy. But he didn’t say anything else.
It was almost eight o’clock at that point, almost time for Blondie’s call. We all sat there with our own thoughts, waiting for the phone to ring. Eight o’clock came and went. Five more minutes passed. Then ten.
When the phone finally rang, everybody jumped.
“Let me answer it,” I said. I went behind the bar and picked it up.
“Good morning,” he said. “Is this Alex?”
“Yes.”
“Good man. Are you ready to come get your friend?”
“Let me talk to him.”
“He’s tied up at the moment, Alex. You remember that gun I had stuck to your head at your little poker party? Your friend is getting the same treatment right now.”
“I swear to God, if anything happens to him…”
“If anything happens to him, it’ll be your fault, Alex. It’ll mean that something didn’t happen exactly as it was supposed to. Are we clear on that?”
“Tell us what to do.”
“That’s more like it. I want you and Bennett to meet us at a certain location on the lake. I’m going to give you the GPS coordinates. Are you ready?”
“Go ahead.”
He gave me the latitude and longitude in digital format. I wrote them down and showed them to Bennett.
“Bennett drives, and you carry the money, Alex. Nobody else is in the boat. We see anybody else, Jackie’s dead. We see a gun, we see somebody’s hand on a radio, we see a fucking seagull that looks suspicious, Jackie takes one in the temple. Are we clear on that one, too?”
Bennett held up a map of the lake and pointed to the general area. It was well past Whitefish Bay, into the heart of the lake.
“This position is almost a hundred and fifty miles away,” I said. “You know we can’t take a small craft out there. The weather can change in a second.”
“The weather is the least of your problems, my friend. We’ll see you there at noon.”
“At noon,” I said.
Bennett threw up his hands.
“We need more time,” I said. “I don’t think this boat can go that fast.”
“Let me put it to you this way, Alex. We’ll be there at noon. If you’re not there, Jackie’s going for a little swim.”
He hung up.
“Let’s go,” I said. “We’ve got a little less than four hours.”
We all piled out the back door. I told Margaret I’d call her on my cell phone as soon as we got back into range. “If you don’t hear from us by four o’clock,” I said, “call the police.”
Bennett and I got into the boat he had borrowed. Vargas drove the other boat, with Leon, Ham, Jonathan, and Gill aboard. The idea was they’d hang back about three or four miles behind us, and then catch up after we’d made contact.
“Wait, you need this,” Leon said, as he set a television monitor on the chair next to Bennett’s captain’s chair. He plugged it into the cigarette lighter.
“What’s this?” Bennett said.
“My wristwatch video camera,” he said. “Alex is going to put it on and keep it pointed at them. They’ll get to see themselves on the screen.”
“I don’t get it. What’s that going to do?”
“Just wait ‘til Alex tells them Mr. Isabella is watching them on a live feed. That should put the fear of God in them.”
Bennett watched me put the watch on. “There’s an actual camera in there?”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get going.”
Leon went back to the other boat, and then we all headed down the river and into the bay. Bennett pushed the throttle all the way forward. We were doing about thirty-five knots. The sun was finally starting to burn off the morning fog.
“Do you have enough gas?” I said. I had to yell over the din of the motor.
“I hope so!”
I thought about asking him why he hadn’t thought of that before. I let it go.
“This is all my fault!” he yelled.
“Don’t worry about it now!”
“I thought that money could do some good for my son! Like money could ever be good for anybody!”
I nodded my head.
“Money is bad, Alex! It’s that simple!”
“Okay, Bennett!”
“I hate it!”
“Just drive the boat!”
He frowned and shook his head. I looked behind us. Even with the heavy cargo, Vargas’s boat was having no problem keeping up with us.
Oh hell, the cargo, I thought. You should have had him take all that stuff out of the cabin, get a little extra speed. You gotta think, Alex. You gotta keep your head on straight. Jackie needs you.
