I planted my right fist in his gut, felt all the wind leave his body. He tried to grab me. I hit him with my left hand, caught too much of the crown of his head, and felt my whole arm go numb. He went down.
I kicked him in the ribs, had the urge to keep doing that about twenty more times. Then I remembered the gun. It was still in the truck. I went back for it, looking up and down the road. My truck was off the road, but his back end was blocking half of it. If anyone came by, they’d have to slow down.
So they’d get a good view of me putting a bullet in his head, I thought. I grabbed the gun, went back to Cap. He was on his hands and knees trying to draw a breath. I kicked him again, flipping him over. There was a bloody scrape on his forehead.
I bent down over him. His eyes focused on me.
“McKnight,” he said. “Fuck. You’re alive?”
“Yes, I am. Surprised to see me?”
He was. It was unmistakable. Under the circumstances, I didn’t see how he could be faking it. He was genuinely shocked to see me.
“Brucie killed you.”
“Obviously he didn’t.”
“That pussy.”
I put the gun to his temple. I remembered the last time I had pointed this gun at him, the way he had taunted me for sounding like some kind of yooper hick. “I’m going to kill you,” I said in a dead even voice. “How’s that sound? Am I doing better this time? I’m going to blow your brains out, all over this road. They’ll be picking parts of your head out of the bushes for a week.”
His eyes went wide. He tried to slide away from me.
“How am I doing?” I said. “Do I sound convincing now?”
“What do you want?”
“Where’s your partner?”
“I don’t know.”
I hit him in the face with the butt of the gun.
“Where is he?” I said.
“I told you, I don’t know.” He kept his face away from me while he spit out blood. “Brucie disappeared. If you’re alive, that might explain it.”
“What do you mean?”
“He knows what’ll happen to him if Mr. Gray finds out.”
I thought about it. I could feel the flame inside me starting to burn out. I knew Brucie hadn’t done it. He had already proven to me he wasn’t a killer. And if Cap was truly this surprised to see me alive, then obviously it couldn’t have been him, either.
What the hell was I doing here?
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What would happen to me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You said Brucie knows what would happen to him if Mr. Gray finds out I’m alive. What would happen to me?”
“Forget it. You’d be done.”
“Would he send somebody up here to do it?”
“Of course he would.”
“He wouldn’t give you a call? Tell you to take care of me?”
Cap swallowed hard, like he was thinking about what life would be like if Mr. Gray decided he couldn’t be trusted. “I have a feeling I don’t exactly work for him anymore,” he said. “But he has other people.”
“What if I wasn’t home? What if there was somebody else in my cabin?”
I felt dizzy, just saying the words. Cap didn’t answer me. He spat out some more blood.
I grabbed him by the face, made him look up at me.
“If there was a woman in my cabin, God damn you…If Gray sent somebody up here to kill me…what would happen to her?”
He shook his head. “If you knew him, you wouldn’t even have to ask.”
I wanted to hit him again. I wanted to use the gun like a hammer and smash his face in until there was nothing left. Then I wanted to put the barrel of the gun in my own mouth and pull the trigger.
I didn’t do it. Instead, I grabbed his shirt and pulled his face close to mine. “Did he do it? God damn you, you stupid piece of shit. Did he do this thing? Tell me the truth.”
“If Brucie left you alive, there’s no way he could keep it from Gray. There is no fucking way. Trust me, the next time he talked to him, it would all come out. Which can only mean one thing.”
I kept holding on to his shirt. My arms were shaking.
“Where does he live?” I said.
“Mr. Gray?”
“Yes, Mr. Gray. Where can I find him?”
“It’s not a big secret, McKnight. You know where St. Clair Shores is?”
“Yes.” It was an affluent suburb, next to Detroit.
“The house is on Trombley Street, right on the water. But the place is a fortress, man. And he’s got a bodyguard who could take you apart with one hand.”
“You’ve been to the house?”
“Yeah, a few times.”
“How do I get in?”
“Are you serious?”
“Tell me how I get in the house.”
“Don’t go in the front door. Go around to the back. He has a study on that end of the house. There’s a door by the pool.”
“Do you think he’s home today?”
“What, you’re gonna drive all the way down there right now?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Then I’ll give you one more piece of advice.”
“What’s that?”
“As soon as you see him, shoot him in the head. Don’t wait one fucking second. Shoot him in the head and keep shooting until you run out of bullets.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. After everything that had happened, he was being almost helpful.
“You never did pick up the drugs from Canada,” I said.
He looked up at me. “Who are you, anyway? How the fuck do you know this stuff?”
“Is that why you were buying those Vicodin from Caroline? You needed a little fix until the big shipment came in?”
“Talk to Brucie. If you ever see him again. He’s the one with the pill problem.”
“I meant what I said about staying away from her.”
“I told you, it was Brucie. You think I wanted to hang around with that skank?”
I took the gun out of my right hand and hit him with my fist. He didn’t try to cover up. He shook his head and spit out some more blood.
“You’d better grow a set of balls before you get to Gray’s house,” he said, “and learn how to kill somebody. You try this little tough-guy act on him and he’ll rip your heart out of your chest.”
“If I learned how to kill somebody, I’d be just like you.”
“In your dreams, McKnight. But maybe you can manage it for one day.”
“You’re alive on this earth,” I said as I got up. My right hand was throbbing. “And she’s gone. How fucked up is that?”
He stayed on the ground. He didn’t say another word.
I got in my truck, backed it out onto the road, and turned it around. To the main road, to the highway, to the bridge to the Lower Peninsula.
To St. Clair Shores and the man they call Mr. Gray.
