Steve Hamilton - Blood is the Sky

“Your prices went up,” I said.

“It’s a tough business.”

“Whatever your problem is-”

“My problem is as soon as you guys left here today, Stan and Brian got in a big fight. Brian’s in the hospital.”

I almost laughed. “Stan’s the guy who got his nose broken, right? And Brian’s the guy who didn’t stand up for him? What the hell does that have to do with us?”

Vinnie leaned in front of me. “We’re just looking for somebody,” he said, raising his voice over the noises around him. “Do you think you could help us out?”

“Who you looking for?”

“My brother.”

“Go check the parking lot. That’s about as far as an Indian gets before he passes out.”

The look Vinnie gave him right about then should have scared him. But the bartender didn’t know Vinnie like I did. He didn’t know the kind of day we’d been having, or that Vinnie’s seven-mile-long fuse was about to burn all the way down.

That’s when our friend Stan showed up. There was fresh white tape on his face, and his two black eyes looked even worse. “Lookee here,” he said. “It’s the Lone Ranger and Tonto again.”

He was still wearing his Maple Leafs jersey. It took Vinnie about two seconds to hit him twice in the face and then pull that jersey right over his head. Somebody else jumped in, and then me. Usually I’m smart enough to cover myself in a bar fight, especially when I’m fighting over something stupid in a roomful of strangers. But somehow it all boiled over at that exact moment, all the driving and the dead ends, and everything Vinnie had told me about Tom. Having your brother go to prison and then finding him in the shower, trying to hang himself. Somehow I was plugged into the same anger now, for Tom and for the men he had come up here with, and for everyone else in this goddamned backwoods bar. Fortunately, nobody else in the place seemed too interested in fighting. Most of them just watched us for a minute or two until they could step in and separate us.

“Easy now,” a man said in my ear as he wrapped me from behind in a bear hug. “Just take it easy.” I struggled to break free, but he was strong enough to wait me out.

Where all this anger had come from, I didn’t know. I was thinking about it thirty minutes later, as two officers from the Ontario Provincial Police station down the street had us sitting at a table in the corner. They weren’t happy about Vinnie not having a driver’s license, but they ran mine and stood around for a while, figuring out what to do with us. It wasn’t the first bar fight they’d seen that week-hell, maybe not even that night-so they let us go with the standard warning.

I was still thinking about it at midnight as we checked in at the local motel. I sure didn’t feel like driving another four hours to make it home. Spending the night in Wawa wasn’t my idea of a vacation, but at least it wasn’t the local jail.

I got Vinnie some ice for the scrape over his left eye, used the toothbrush the man at the front desk had given me, washed it down with tap water that tasted like pure iron. When the lights were out and I was staring up at the ceiling, I tried to let go of the anger. I tried to let go of it the way you let sand run between your fingers. When it was gone, there was nothing left but a question. And then another.

“These guys didn’t just vanish into thin air,” I said. “Where in hell did they go?”

Vinnie lay on the bed across from me. “I wish I knew, Alex.”

“And these other two guys, the ones who are looking for them. Who are they?”

He didn’t answer. He stared up at the same ceiling. We both listened to the night, a long way from home, and waited for the morning.

The chirping woke me up. Some kind of bird was making a racket, and it was doing it about three hours too early. I opened one eye and saw a dim ray of light coming through the window-whose window I could not say. I had no idea where the hell I was.

I sat up. There was a dull ache in my right hand. The bird started chirping again. What in goddamned hell, I thought. And then it came back to me.

I was in a motel room-in Wawa, Ontario, of all places. Vinnie was face down on the other bed, still wearing his clothes from the night before. The ache in my hand told me that I had gotten at least one good shot in before the fight was broken up. And that damned chirping had to be-

My cell phone rang again. Where the hell was it? I picked up my pants, then my coat, but I couldn’t find it. Finally, I stood still and listened. The ring was muffled, and it seemed to come from Vinnie himself, like maybe he had swallowed the damned thing. I rolled him over and picked it up off the bed.

“Hello,” I said. I looked at the clock. It was 6:32.

“Mr. McKnight?” It was a woman’s voice.

“Yes.”

“This is Constable Natalie Reynaud of the Ontario Provincial Police.”

I thought of two things at once. One was the sick feeling that the previous night was coming back to haunt us. Somebody must have filed charges-probably Stan, the guy Vinnie did a number on. The other thing going through my mind was just how little this woman sounded like a police officer. It was too early in the morning to be politically correct about it. Hell, most of the women officers I had known had voices like drill sergeants.

“Constable-” I said. That’s all I got out.

“You left a message on Mr. Red Albright’s cell phone,” she said. “That’s how we got this number.”

I ran my hand through my hair. “Albright’s phone? That was actually my friend calling.”

“Mr. Albright’s wife called the Michigan State Police yesterday. I assume they’ve been in contact with you already?”

“The police?” I needed to wake up, and fast.

“In Michigan, yes.”

I stood up and gave Vinnie a nudge. “No,” I said. “We haven’t made it back to Michigan yet. We’re in Wawa.”

“You were up at the lodge yesterday,” she said. “On Lake Peetwaniquot.”

I nudged Vinnie again. He slapped me away. “Yes, we were,” I said. “We were looking for Albright and the men who were with him.”

“We just spoke to Mr. Gannon and Ms. St. Jean. They told us you were up there.”

“Yes, we drove up to see if we could find out anything. The men were due back a few days ago. Are you telling me that Albright never got home, either?”

“None of the men did. Mrs. Albright and the other wives apparently decided to give them one more night, and then call the police. It’s been five days at this point. It doesn’t take that long to get back down to Detroit.”

“Even less to Sault Ste. Marie.”

“Now, that’s where we’re getting a little mixed up. You see, I’ve got four names here, Mr. McKnight. These were the names called in from Detroit. I don’t see anybody from Sault Ste. Marie.”

“They picked up another man on the way,” I said. “That’s the man we were worried about.”

“Okay, it’s starting to make sense now. That’s what Mrs. St. Jean seemed to be saying. There were five men on the hunt.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Can I get this man’s name, please?”

“LeBlanc.”

“LeBlanc,” she said. I could tell she was writing it down. “What’s the first name?”

I looked over at Vinnie. He was out.

“Mr. McKnight? I need that first name.”

“I know, I know.” It was way too early to try to keep the story straight. And now that the police were officially involved, I figured it was time to end it. “You see,” I said, “it’s kind of a long story.”

“If you’re telling me I’ve got a fifth man missing who the families in Detroit didn’t even know about, I’m going to need that name right now.”