“Yeah, sometimes. When I have to be. Tell me where they are.”
“They’re in Hessel.”
“Hessel? Are you serious?”
“The kid, Harry, his father’s got a summerhouse down there.”
“Where is it?”
“It’s a maze down there. All those little islands.”
“I know that. Is the house on one of the islands?”
“No, there’s a road that goes down from the center of town. It branches a couple of times.”
“Draw me a map.”
She gave out a long sigh like she was the most tired and beaten-down person who ever lived. “You want a map,” she said. “Why don’t I just chauffeur you down there myself?”
“No, thanks. The map will do.”
She went into the kitchen and drew it on the back of a pizza menu. She handed it to me without looking at me, then sat down at the kitchen table.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll come back sometime, if you want me to.”
“Why would I want that?”
“I told you. I can help you.”
“You can’t help me.” Her voice was flat, like she was reciting a simple fact that anyone with any sense could see.
“I can try. I’ll start by smacking your husband a few times.”
That almost got her to smile.
“Just say the word,” I said. “Just let me go do this other thing first.”
She nodded her head. That was all I was going to get from her. I left her sitting there at the table, went out the front door to my truck. Eddie had left a set of tire tracks across the thin grass, and as I stood in front of the truck I could see where he had dented my bumper.
“Oh yeah,” I said out loud. “I’ll definitely be watching out for you, Eddie.”
Before heading down to Hessel, I had one more stop to make. I drove over to the Custom Motor Shop, but Leon wasn’t there. His boss Harlow told me that business was so slow, they had to cut him loose for a while. With the lousy weather, who was going to buy a boat? I almost told him I knew a few guys who were looking for a new boat, but I didn’t feel like explaining the joke. So I just thanked him and left.
Exactly what I was afraid of, I thought. I have to go to the house again.
Eleanor answered the door. That same cloud came over her face as soon as she saw me. I wondered how many perfectly innocent visits I’d have to make for that cloud to go away. Whatever the number, today wouldn’t be the start of them. I was there to borrow a gun.
I asked Leon to be discreet about it, not to parade through the house with the gun in his hand. He brought it out to me in a shoe box, but I don’t think Ellie was fooled. It’s not like I make a habit of borrowing shoes from the man.
I hate guns, that’s the thing. I hate everything about them, even though I carried one every day for eight years. When I threw my last gun into the lake, I was in no rush to replace it. So now here I was, using a loaner from my ex-partner. I had my driver’s-side window open, hoping he’d just give me the box so I could be on my way. Instead, he opened up the passenger door and got in the truck with me.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“I’m not giving you this until we talk.”
“Leon, come on.”
“Tell me the situation.”
“Leon…”
“It’s the men from the boat,” he said. “That much I can guess. Last I saw of them, they were going around looking for that stupid lockbox. What’s happened since then to make you need a gun?”
I gave him the short version. How the men were getting the pills from Caroline. How close to her Vinnie had been, way back when. Then how he’d gotten himself beat up the night before.
“How bad is it?”
“They got him pretty bad. But he’ll live.”
Leon shook his head. “So you’re going to go make the same mistake.”
“I was hoping a gun in my hand would make a slight difference.”
“Think it all the way through, Alex. You’re upping the ante here.”
“Yeah?”
“You stick a gun in their faces, tell them to stay away from Vinnie, to stay away from this woman on the reservation…What do you think happens?”
“Well…”
“I’ve seen those guys. Lord knows you have. You don’t think it’ll be like poking a stick in a bee’s nest?”
“Okay, Leon. So what do you suggest?”
He thought about it for a minute. “First way I can think of…”
“What is it?”
“If you hurt them, Alex. I mean if you hurt them so bad you get right into their souls…”
“That does have its appeal right now. If you could have seen Vinnie…”
“No, I mean you’d really have to beat them within an inch of their lives,” he said. “To these guys, you’d have become the devil himself. So bad they’d shiver every time they thought of you.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You can’t do it, Alex. You can’t go that far. I know I couldn’t.”
“So what does that leave me?”
“Well, there’s one other way I can think of. You remember my little principle for maximizing a perceived threat?”
“Oh no,” I said. “Please don’t tell me. Not that thing…What was it?”
“The illusion of overwhelming force.”
“Every time we try that one, it blows up in our faces. Remember?”
“We’ve had bad luck with it, I admit. Something always breaks the spell. But the idea itself is solid.”
“I can’t believe I’m even going to ask,” I said, “but how would it work this time?”
“It’s simple. You have to make these guys believe that it would be in their best interest to stay as far away as possible. That messing with you, or Vinnie, or anybody else you care to name would be the biggest mistake of their lives.”
“I thought that’s what I was gonna do.”
“As what? A guy who rents out cabins?”
“More than that. An ex-cop, for one thing.”
“That won’t do it, Alex. These are bad guys. You gotta go in a lot harder than that, know what I mean? You gotta go in like this is something you do every day and twice on Sundays.”
A classic Leonism, I thought. Somebody should write this stuff down.
“It would help if I went with you,” he said. “We could double the effect.”
“You’re not coming with me.”
“I really think I should.”
“Leon, I appreciate it. Really, I do. You’ve saved my ass more times than I can count. But I can’t keep dragging you into things, okay? I can’t keep putting your wife through this.”
“I’ll tell her we’re going fishing.”
“She can see right through you, Leon. Through me, too. I’m doing this alone.”
He looked out the window at his house. He was about to say something, but he stopped himself before he made a sound.
“Thank you for the gun,” I said. “I’ll bring it back when I’m done.”
“Okay,” he said. He put the shoe box down on the seat. “Be careful, all right?”
“You know I will.”
