Steve Hamilton - North of Nowhere

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Let’s go get the keys. We’re running out of time.”

“What, you mean-”

“We’ve got some leverage now,” I said. “Let’s go wake up your former client.”

We rolled into Vargas’s driveway around 5 A.M. The sky was just starting to brighten on the eastern horizon. With no sleep, with the sight of the cabin still burning in my head, and the sound of Jackie’s voice on the phone, I was running on pure adrenaline. There’d be plenty of time to deal with it after this was done. If I lived through it.

I knocked on Vargas’s front door. As we stood there waiting, I remembered the night Jackie and I had stood on this very spot, waiting for Vargas to let us in to play poker. Somewhere inside, we heard the familiar barking of the world’s toughest Chihuahua.

Mrs. Vargas answered the door wearing a bathrobe, sticking her head out and blocking the dog with her leg. “Alex,” she said, “what’s going on?”

“We need your husband.”

“Nice face you got going there, Alex. And this must be Mr. Prudell. Didn’t he fire you yesterday?”

“Where is he?”

“I’m right here,” Vargas said, appearing behind her. He was wearing purple silk pajamas. He had the dog in one arm. “What the hell’s going on? Why are you here?”

I pushed the door open. “We came to ask you a little favor.”

“What are you doing? You can’t come in here.”

“Call the police,” I said. “Tell them we’ll all meet down at your boat. Have them bring somebody from Customs, too.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We don’t have time for games, Vargas. We need to use your boat.”

“Ha, that’s good.”

“Leon, you got your cell phone handy? Call the police, tell them to go to the marina.”

“All right, just hold on,” Vargas said. “Let’s talk about this. Why do you need my boat?”

“I’ll give you the quick version,” I said. “One of the men who broke into your house has Jackie. He wants us to meet him out in the middle of the lake. We’ve got one boat, and we need one more. Something fast. You let us use your boat, we bring it back today, we forget everything we know about your little side business, you never see us again. That’s the deal. Now give us the keys.”

“You’re telling me one of the men who broke into this house and put a gun to my head is gonna meet you out on the lake?”

“He wasn’t the guy who took you upstairs,” I said. “He was one of the men who stayed down here with the rest of us.”

“Good enough,” he said. “Give me five minutes to get dressed.”

“Vargas, you’re not coming with us.”

“The hell I’m not. You want the boat, you get me, too.”

“No way,” I said. “Absolutely not.”

“You can’t take the boat out of the marina without me,” he said. “Mr. Shadmore will never let you out.”

“That would be the dockmaster, I take it? Yeah, he’s a sharp one, all right.”

“You don’t even know how to get through the locks,” he said. “Who do you call? What channel are they on?”

I gave Leon a look. “Go on and get dressed,” I told Vargas. “Make it fast. And so help me God, if you think you’re taking that dog with you…”

“The dog goes where I go,” he said.

“Vargas, I’ve got a gun in the truck. If you bring that dog, I swear, I’ll shoot him right between the eyes.”

Somehow the dog picked up on that one and started barking again. Vargas was still trying to calm him down as he went up the stairs to his room.

“You shouldn’t threaten that dog,” Mrs. Vargas said. “That’s the only thing in this world he loves. Besides money.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said.

“You’re so welcome,” she said. “Where are you taking the boat?”

“Mrs. Vargas, I’m sorry. We don’t have time to talk about this right now.”

“Okay, fine,” she said. “We won’t talk about it. You know, the two of you look like you could use some coffee about now.”

“If you happen to have some.”

“No,” she said, as she left the room. “I don’t.”

We stood there for five more minutes, until Vargas came back down the stairs, dressed in black nylon from head to toe. Add the mask and he would have been a ninja. My heart stopped when I saw the black Baretta in his hand. I was waiting for him to point it at me. Instead, he checked the safety, unzipped his jacket, and slipped it into a shoulder holster. “I’m ready,” he said.

“I hope you know how to use that gun,” I said.

“We’ll go to the shooting range someday, McKnight. I’ll show you.”

We drove to the marina in my truck. It felt a little cozy, the three of us crammed into the front seat, with Leon in the middle, but it was a short trip. When we got there, Leon took the truck and went off to pick up some supplies. “Thank God for the twenty-four-hour Super Kmart,” he said. “I’ll meet you back at O’Dell’s place.”

That left Vargas and me on the boat. The dockmaster gave us the fish-eye when we checked in. “Where’s the other one?” he said. “I thought there were two of you waiting.”

“He had to go home,” I said. “He was too sleepy.”

When we got to the boat, Vargas jumped aboard and fired it up. I jumped in behind him. “I did quite a job on your face,” he said as he backed the boat out. “You been putting ice on it?”

“I hear you’ve been walking a little funny,” I said.

He didn’t say anything. He just pushed the throttle forward, heading down the river toward the locks.

“So the deal went sour,” he finally said. “Your little team fell apart?”

“What team are you talking about?”

“You said one of the robbers has Jackie. You must have had a disagreement on how to split up the money.”

“When this is all over,” I said, “I promise you, I’ll make sure you know everything there is to know. For right now, I’ll tell you two things. Jackie had no part in this, and neither did I. That’s the God’s honest truth, Vargas. I’ve got no reason to lie to you.”

“Okay, whatever you say.”

A light fog covered the river. The sun began to rise behind us.

“So how much did they really take?” I said.

“If you were in on it, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

He thought about it. “They got just over seven hundred thousand.”

“That’s a lot of refrigerators.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Was this all from payoffs to avoid the duty? Or was there more to it? Maybe a few stoves that fell off the back of a truck? That would be a hundred-percent profit, wouldn’t it? Or maybe there’s something else you’re moving, as long as you’re going around Customs?”

“You’re not giving me your whole story,” he said. “Why should I give you mine?”

“Fair enough.”

I could see the locks appearing in the fog.

“Who’s this man you’re gonna meet?” he said. “The one who has Jackie…”

“They call him Blondie.”

“I’ve heard that name. Blondie. Canadian guy, right?”

“What do you know about him?”

“I’m trying to think. Blondie. He was one of the men in my house?”

“Yes.”

“Son of a bitch. Blondie.”

“Anything you can tell me about him would help us.”

“I’ve never met him. I’ve just heard his name somewhere. From some of the, um…well, from some of the people I deal with.”

“Keep thinking,” I said.

“That guy they found, Cox, he was in the house, right? I assume Blondie killed him?”

“Apparently.”

“Blondie was in my house. He broke into my house with a gun.”