William Krueger: Iron Lake

She gave no sign that she heard or that she agreed at all to his terms. He kept away a little, reaching far out this time to grasp her legs. She lifted her feet suddenly and swung them at his face. He moved fast, dipped his shoulder and tilted his head in the way of a fighter trained to dodge a glove. Her feet struck the door uselessly. Almost immediately, she felt the blow he’d promised, hard to her head, and she saw fireworks. When the light show faded, she was left with a ringing in her right ear and a terrible throbbing in her jaw. Sandy had bound her ankles tightly. He was already backing the Cherokee out of the garage and was saying something about being truly sorry it had to be this way.

He drove down the plowed lane toward the lake. Beside the boathouse he stopped and turned off the engine.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised, and patted her knee. He stepped inside the boathouse and flipped on the light.

Sandy had strapped her in tightly with the seat belt. Even so, she was able to lean forward almost to the dash. With her hands still taped behind her, she struggled to reach the door handle. She made it, wrapped her fingers around the cool metal, and tested to make certain she could, if she had the chance, open the door. Satisfied, she sat back as the light went out in the boathouse.

He came back carrying a clear plastic bag full of negatives, which he set on the floor of the rear seat. He slipped behind the wheel and started the Cherokee again. “It was in the footlocker where I keep the ropes. And this”-he held up his right gloved hand in which he gripped a revolver-“a thirty-eight Police Special, registered to Corcoran O’Connor.” He headed out onto the ice and started across the lake toward Molly Nurmi’s. “You see,” he explained in the self-satisfied tone that until that moment Jo had always forgiven, “while everyone else was looking for Russell Blackwater’s body in the lake, I was looking for Cork’s gun. I had a sense that, with all his prying, I might have to implicate him at some point. In life, as in politics, foresight is all.”

Sandy drove without headlights, but he had no trouble seeing the way. The northern lights made the snow ahead of them dance with color, and the moon was just rising as well. The lights of Aurora drifted past far to their left, thinning out gradually until there was nothing paralleling the Cherokee in its journey but the dark, forested shore.

“I thought I might have to use it on the Nurmi woman,” he said after a while. “But I only had to threaten her with it to get her into the water. I figured a few minutes in the lake and she would be ready to tell me anything. She turned out to be tougher than I imagined. But no one can last forever in cold like that. A tap on the head after she got out and it looked exactly like a terrible accident.” He glanced at her, his face a kaleidoscope of shifting colors that changed with the lights from the sky. “I honestly thought you’d be good beside me in Washington,” he said, clearly disappointed. “I thought we had the same dream, Jo. Greatness. I guess I was wrong.”

“You’ll never be anything, Sandy,” Jo said. “Look how you’ve got what you have. Lies, bribery, extortion.”

“That’s politics.” He shrugged.

“And murder?”

“I’m not the first. I suspect I won’t be the last.”

“How could I have loved you?” she asked bitterly.

“How could you not? Once I decided I wanted you, it was all over. I always get what I want, Jo. That’s part of my attraction, isn’t it?”

They drove in silence after that. The moon went on rising, bright enough in its part of the sky to wash out the colors of the northern lights. Moonlight defined more clearly the details of the lake and shoreline. Shadows below the rims of small drifts curled across the moonlit snow like black snakes. The evergreens on the shore looked dark and ragged. Jo tried to think what was out this way besides Molly Nurmi’s cabin. If she could slip away somehow, was there a place to run to? She eyed the big pines for a break, a light, a sign of hope, but she saw nothing.

“Yesterday,” Jo said, “it was you who tried to kill Cork at Harlan Lytton’s.”

“You were sleeping so soundly.” He smiled. “I was gone and back and you never left the safe territory of your dreams. But I wouldn’t have killed Cork. I only wanted the negatives. Same for the Nurmi woman, actually. You see, I’m only dangerous if you get in my way.” He laughed to himself. “Not like my father. There was a real son of a bitch. After he died, I found keys and other things that led me to his office in Duluth and to that shed of Lytton’s. Cork was right about everything. The old bastard had documented every evil a town can generate. He even kept files on me. I think he had an idea he was going to keep me in line in Washington, make me dance to his tune. If he hadn’t killed himself, I might have done it for him eventually. Here,” he said, pulling a cassette from his coat pocket. “Maybe this will help you understand. For the last year or two, the tricky son of a bitch taped every conversation that took place in his office. The Richard Nixon of the Iron Range.”

He put the cassette into the tape player in the dash, pushed the fast-forward button a few moments, then let up.

“… in the middle of a campaign, goddamn it,” Sandy’s voice declared angrily on the tape.

Sandy fast-forwarded again.

“… don’t understand why, Russell.” Sandy’s voice again. Still angry. “You had a good thing going. Why fuck it up with something like this?”

“Listen, rich boy-” Russell Blackwater tried to cut in.

“No, you listen. I don’t intend to lose this election because of your larceny.”

“What do you suggest, Sandy?” It was the judge’s voice. Calm. And, it seemed, slightly amused.

“Christ, I don’t know. Vernon, why the hell didn’t you keep your boy in line?”

“He is a man,” Vernon Blackwater replied indignantly. “Not a boy.”

“What he pulled with the casino sure as hell makes me wonder.”

A doorbell rang in the background.

“I have a suggestion,” the judge interjected. “I asked Joe John here. I thought we might all talk this out reasonably. Sandy, would you get the door?”

Sandy Parrant reached out and fast-forwarded the tape again.

“… you want, Joe John?” Sandy’s voice.

“The People deserve better,” Joe John replied. He sounded proud and incensed. “I thought you would understand and help.”

“I do understand,” Sandy insisted on the tape. “And I want to help.”

“I don’t think so. I think mostly you’re worried about your own ass.”

“Sit down, Joe John,” the judge ordered. After a pause, he requested, “Please, sit down. I have one final negotiation to offer.”

Silence. In the Cherokee, Jo leaned forward struggling to hear. Then a chair creaked on the tape as a body sat down heavily.

“Thank you,” the judge went on. “It’s been my own opinion since you first stumbled onto all this that the usual inducements we might offer would be ineffective. I’ve watched you carefully, Joe John. From a drunk to a man with good reason to have a lot of self-respect. I’ve thought all along you wouldn’t give up that hard-earned self-respect easily. Not for money, certainly. You’ve more than proven that this evening. And I just want to add how much I appreciate your promise to refrain from making all this public until we’ve had a chance to work things out. Now, the fact of the matter is that my son can’t lose this election. And for many reasons, Russell Blackwater should continue to manage the casino. What I’ve done, therefore, is invite an outside negotiator to help us reach a resolution. I believe he is, as the saying goes, prepared to make you an offer, Joe John, that you can’t refuse. Harlan?”