Winter of the Wolf Moon (5 page)

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I was hoping for,” I said. “That’s exactly why I let myself get shot in the first place.”

“No really, Alex—”

“Just stop right there,” I said. “Listen to me. I don’t want to be a private investigator. It’s the last thing in the world that I want to be.”

“I get it,” he said. “You just don’t want to be my partner.”

“It’s got nothing to do with you. I just don’t want to be one. Becoming a P.I. was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life, you understand me? Nothing but bad has come of it.” I wasn’t about to tell him the whole story. I didn’t even like thinking about it.

“Will you think about it?” he said. “Will you do that much at least?”

“There’s nothing to think about,” I said. “I’m not a private investigator anymore. And I’ll never be one again.”

“Fine,” he said. He got up from the chair and put his coat on.

I tried to stand up. My legs had other ideas. If Prudell ever wanted another chance to kick my ass, today would be a great day for it. “Look,” I said. “If anybody ever asks me about it, I’ll send him your way, okay?”

“Sure,” he said. “You do that. Thanks a lot.”

I gave up and sat back down. Prudell left the place, slamming the door behind him.

“What was
that
all about?” Jackie said.

“Nothing,” I said. “I just ruined his life again.” I took a drink of my American beer and nearly choked on it. “Goddamn it, Jackie. I am not going to sit here and drink this.”

“Canada’s thirty miles that way,” he said, pointing north. “You know the way.”

“I might just do that,” I said. “As soon as I can walk again.”

I sat there for another couple of hours. The place started to fill up with snowmobilers. I overheard a lot of talk about which trails were smooth and how fast the Yamaha was compared to the Polaris compared to the Arctic Cat. It was fascinating. Finally, when I had heard enough about fucking snowmobiles and I was tired of sitting next to a perfectly good fire with a fucking pathetic American beer in my hand, I told my body that it was moving whether it liked it or not. “I need some air,” I said to Jackie as I left. “I’m going to Canada.”

“Don’t bother coming back,” he said.

“In your dreams,” I said, and then I was out in the cold air, snowflakes coming down like a million white butterflies. I stood there for a long time, just listening to the silence. It was hard to even imagine the storms of November, the constant sound of the waves pounding on the rocks. And now, nothing. No sound. Just snow.

Then suddenly, from the woods, the silence was ripped apart by the whine of a hundred-horsepower engine. God, I hate snowmobiles.

I climbed into the truck. It was too hard. It hurt too much. Just climbing into my stupid truck. I yelled at myself, banged the steering wheel with both hands. You used to be an athlete, goddamn it. What happened to you?

This is some mood you’re in, Alex. What’s the problem? A little muscle soreness? A little lactic acid overload in the bloodstream? Is it the thought of three more months of ice and snow? Maybe it’s Prudell, that look on his face when you told him you didn’t want to be his partner. Like you took his dream away. Again.

Or maybe it’s Sylvia. You’re going to drive yourself crazy if you keep thinking about her. She’s gone. Accept it.

The daylight was already fading when I got to the International Bridge. Below the bridge I saw the frozen locks and then the burning smokestacks of the Algoma Steel Foundry. I paid the $1.50 toll and then sat in line at the Canadian customs booth. Traffic was light, so there was only one lane open. The man moved the cars through quickly, though. When it was
my turn, he asked me where I was headed and why. He looked familiar. You cross enough times and they get to know you. I told him just a quick trip into Soo Canada for beer. He just smiled at me and waved me through.

You come off the bridge and you’re right in the middle of downtown Soo Canada. It’s a big city by Canadian standards, at least four times bigger than Soo Michigan. I drove down Bay Street, past the fish hatchery and the Civic Centre, and pulled into a brightly lit parking lot. It used to be called Brewer’s Retail. Now it’s just the Beer Store. There’s one or two in every town in Canada, from Vancouver to Prince Edward Island. It’s a wonderful place. You walk in and you look at a row of bottles on the wall. You say that one, please, make it two, please. And two cases comes rolling out on the conveyor belt. They don’t roll them slowly. You have to be ready for them. I’ve heard a lot of things said about Canadians, good and bad. But when it comes to beer, they know what they’re doing.

With two cases in the back of the truck, I headed back to the bridge. I could feel my bad mood lifting as I drove under the streetlights of Queen Street. I paid the buck fifty toll again, and then this time I had to wait at the U.S. customs booth. When it was my turn, I drove to the window, said hello to the man. Another familiar face. He asked me the usual questions. I told him I had two cases in the back.

“You know you’re only supposed to bring back one case at a time,” he said.

“Can you blame me?” I said. “This is Canadian beer we’re talking about.”

He thought about it for a moment. “Go on, get out of here,” he finally said. “Be careful with that beer. You got it secured back there? You’re not going to break any, are you?”

“This beer is safe with me,” I said. “You can count on it.”

I drove back through Soo Michigan. The same roads, everything at least a half hour trip up here. No wonder my truck was pushing 200,000 miles. The snow was beginning to come down harder.

As soon as I passed the sign (“You’re entering Paradise! We’re glad you made it!”), a snowmobile came out onto the road. I jammed on the brakes, heard the bottles rattle behind me. The rider just sat there transfixed like a deer in the glare of my headlights. I couldn’t see his face through the visor.

If even one of those bottles was broken, I said to myself, there would be hell to pay. I gripped the steering wheel, made myself count to five, and then I opened the door. The snowmobile disappeared in a cloud of white.

I checked the beer and got back in the truck. I could feel my bad mood making a comeback. Just go to the Glasgow, Alex. Put one case behind the bar. Keep one in the truck. Better put it in the cab so it doesn’t freeze. Sit by the fire, take your boots off. Jackie will make you something to eat. You’ll sit there, you’ll have a cold Canadian. You’ll be a new man.

I took the case and backed myself through the door. The place was full of snowmobilers. A man walked by me to the bathroom with his suit open down to his waist, his boots clunking with every step and the shiny material on his legs going
zip zip.
Jackie was
behind the bar, leaning over it and talking to a woman. The string of lights that ran along the wall behind the bar were blinking on and off, even though Christmas was long gone. I put the case down. I stood up and stretched my back, looking around the room. There were a lot of strange faces, but that was normal for this time of year. All these men from downstate, filling the place with stories and bad jokes and cigarette smoke.

The usual scene. And yet …

And yet what? Something wasn’t right. A certain noise, or a lack of a certain noise. A feeling I was being watched, even though nobody was looking at me. Just a feeling that something was …

What? What was the problem? I couldn’t say. I didn’t pursue it. I chalked it up to a strange mood on a strange day. I didn’t listen to the voice in the back of my head, that little voice I relied on every day when I was a cop. I could have gone into the room and looked at every man, one by one, slowly and casually, not making any fuss about it. Just make eye contact, smile and nod, move on to the next. Maybe I would have narrowed it down to the man in the corner, sitting by himself. Or the man by the window who kept glancing outside. Maybe I would have sensed that something bad was going to happen that night, and maybe I would have found some way to prevent it.

But I didn’t. I shook off the feeling the same way the pitchers used to shake off my signs. A single quick tilt of the head and it was dismissed.

Jackie appeared next to me. “Alex, come on over here,” he said. “I want you to meet somebody.”

I looked at the woman he had been talking with. The face was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen her before. She was in her thirties, maybe mid to late. Brown hair, a streak of blond on one side. Blue eyes, a dark blue, almost violet. I probably would have found her attractive if Sylvia hadn’t just burned out most of my circuits. She was sitting at the end of the bar, the stool next to her empty, like there was an invisible bubble around her, keeping all the men away. She had her hands folded in front of her on the bar and she was looking up at the Christmas lights.

“Who is she?” I said.

“Her name is Dorothy,” he said. “She’s been waiting for you.”

She looked down in her lap, unfolded her jacket and pulled out a package of cigarettes. It was a leather jacket. Not nearly warm enough.

It came to me. I remembered where I had seen her before.

“It wasn’t hard to find you,” she said. We had taken the small table next to the fireplace. She sat across from me, looking around the room at all the men in their snowmobile suits. Jackie had come by, dropped a beer in front of me, asked her if he could get her anything. She asked for a glass of water. “I started at that bar, you know, from last night. The one with all the animals.”

“The Horns Inn,” I said. “You were there with the other hockey team.”

“Doesn’t that place give you the creeps? All those eyes looking at you?”

“I never thought about it that way,” I said. “Next time I’m there, I probably will.”

She smiled. Her eyes were red. She looked tired. “The bartender at that place knew you,” she said. “He told me you were a private investigator. The lawyer you worked for, he hung out there a lot, used to talk about you. Is it true you have a bullet in your heart?”

“Next to my heart,” I said.

“Okay, that makes sense then,” she said. “If it was
in
your heart, you’d be dead, right? How did that happen, anyway?”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

She nodded, biting her lip. I could see a small chip on one of her front teeth. “He told me you lived here,” she said. “In Paradise. I knew it’s a small town, so I didn’t figure I’d have any problem finding you. I hitchhiked, can you believe it? I haven’t done that in twenty years. When I got into town, the guy at the gas station told me to try this place. I got talking to Jackie over there.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “He’s a very nice man.”

“You’re the Indian, aren’t you?” I said. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. There was just the slightest hint of it in her face, a certain calmness in her eyes. “Vinnie recognized you. He said you grew up on the reservation.”

“Vinnie who?”

“Vinnie LeBlanc.”

“I don’t know him,” she said. “I don’t remember many people from that time. I’ve been gone for, God, it must be ten years. Until a couple months ago, I haven’t even been in the Upper Peninsula.”

“He remembers you,” I said. “From when you were kids, I guess.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Anyway, you’re probably wondering why I was looking for you.”

“I figured you’d get to that part.”

“It’s like this, Alex…. Can I call you Alex?”

“Of course.”

“What I’m wondering is, do you happen to be free at the moment? I mean, can I hire you?”

“Hire me?” I said. “Wait a minute. I’m not really a private investigator anymore. I’m not sure I ever
was
one.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“It’s a long story,” I said. “Another long story.”

“Oh,” she said. As tired as she already looked, this seemed to take a little more steam out of her. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

“Actually,” I said, “I was just talking to a real private investigator this afternoon. I promised him I’d send any business I got his way. Do you want me to call him?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to anybody else. Look, I’m sorry, this was a mistake. Just forget it.” She started to get up.

“Dorothy, sit down,” I said. “Just tell me what’s going on. Why did you come all the way out here? Just because you heard I was a private investigator?”

She picked up her glass of water, rattling the ice. She took a long drink and then put the glass back on the table. “All right, this is going to sound crazy, okay?”

“Go ahead.”

“I was at the game last night,” she said: “I saw what you did to Lonnie.”

“Bruckman? You were with him?” It was hard to imagine, after all he had said about Indians.

“Yes,” she said. “He makes me go to all his games.”

“It was just a league game,” I said. “A bunch of old guys playing hockey because they miss the good old days. All I did was block a couple of his shots.”

“You don’t know what that does to him,” she said. “You stopped him cold. Then in the bar afterwards, the way you stood up to him. I was listening, Alex. We all were. You made him look bad.”