Steve Hamilton - Winter of the Wolf Moon

“This way,” he said. I saw his face for an instant. His features were more delicate than his partner’s.

“Where are you taking me?” I said.

“This way,” he said again. He turned and walked down the road. The other man was behind me. Neither of them had their guns out. They didn’t jab the barrels into my back and tell me start walking and to not try anything funny. They didn’t have to. It was an unspoken understanding between us that as long as I came with them, they would not pull the guns out of their coats and shoot me.

We walked down the road, following the thin beam from the driver’s flashlight. The road ended. The snow got deeper. It was almost up to my waist. I fought my way through it, pulling one leg out and then the other. It wasn’t long before I was breathing hard. The other two men moved through the same snow, but it didn’t look like they were working nearly as hard as I was.

“I’m too old for this,” I said. But my words were lost in the cold night

We came to a clearing and walked toward its center. Finally, I started to see a building ahead of us. It was small, no bigger than a shed. It’s an ice shanty, I thought. We’re walking on a lake now. I tried to picture a map in my head. It could be Little Two Hearted Lake, or it could be one of a hundred other lakes whose names I could not remember. Wherever we were, I knew that we were alone. If there was another building within five miles of us, besides other empty ice shanties, I wouldn’t know how to find it.

We walked the last hundred yards to the ice shanty. There was a faint glow coming through the cracks. The driver opened the door and held it open for me. Another polite gesture. Right this way, sir.

I stepped inside. The building was made like most ice shanties I had seen. Unfinished walls and ceiling, bare two-by-fours everywhere, one small window. A rough wooden floor with a square hole in the middle, where someone had opened up the ice to expose the dark water. I saw the fishing line first, traced it up out of the water to the pole and then to the man who was holding it. I saw a long fur coat. The same fur as on the two men’s collars. Black leather boots and gloves. The man’s face was like something carved from stone. He looked up at me with eyes as dark as the square of water at his feet. A propane lantern sat on the bench next to him, casting its pale light. “Mr. McKnight,” he said. “Welcome.”

“Is your name Molinov?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Please come in and join me. I believe you’ve already met Mr. Bruckman.”

I stood there in front of him, wondering what the hell he was talking about.

And then I saw Bruckman.

He was behind Molinov, huddled against the back wall near a kerosene heater. He was completely naked, his skin like blue steel. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive until I saw him move. He was shaking.

“Sit down,” Molinov said. He gestured to a rough wooden bench to his left. I sat down on it, moving slowly as if I were in a dream. I looked down at Bruckman again. His face was turned away from us.

The other two men sat on the bench across from me. Molinov picked up a cigar, took a long puff, and then put the cigar back on the bench. The smell of cigar smoke mixed with the smell of burning kerosene. “Perhaps you will answer a few questions for me,” he said. “As long as you are here.” I didn’t hear much of an accent in his voice, but he said each word as carefully as a man drawing notes from a violin.

He took out a handheld tape recorder from his coat pocket and pressed a button. The tape began playing, filling the room with Bruckman’s voice. “This is Lonnie. Leave a message.” That was all he said. There was a long silence, and then the messages came one by one.

“Yo, Lonnie, this is Miles. You coming over here or what? Give me a call, man.”

“Yeah, Bruckman, this is Charles. Patty gave me your number, said I should hook up with you. I’ll be at the ice rink tomorrow around ten o’clock. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

“Hey, Lonnie, this is Gobi…” Molinov looked at me. He held the machine up a little higher. “You ain’t gonna like this, man, but I think you got a problem. I’m over at the Horns Inn here and I saw your girlfriend come in here. She was up at the bar asking about that McKnight guy who was playing goal against us last night. Turns out he’s some sort of private investigator or something. I don’t think she saw me there, but I didn’t know what I should do, you know? She had a white bag with her. If that’s what I think it is, you better get over there and find her, man. I got something going with that waitress who works here, and it’s like a lot colder out there than it is in here, you know what I mean? So if you want to find him, he lives up in Paradise. That’s all I heard. I’ll talk to ya later, man.”

He hit the stop button and took the tape out. “Do you know where this tape came from?”

“I think so,” I said.

He put the tape back into the machine and then put it back in his coat pocket. “This girl, Dorothy Parrish,” he said. “She came to you that night, did she not?”

“Yes.”

“I understand that she was gone the next morning.”

I looked over at the two men. I still didn’t know which was Pearl and which was Roman. They looked back at me without an ounce of emotion between them.

“Yes,” I said. “She was gone.”

“Perhaps you could tell me where she went.”

The words hit me like a slap in the face. “I don’t understand.”

“The girl,” he said. “Where is she?”

“You’re asking me? You kidnapped her.” I pointed at the men. “ They kidnapped her.”

“That is not true,” he said. “By the time these men inspected your cabin, she was already gone.”

“Inspected my cabin? Is that what they did?”

“It was necessary,” he said.

“I don’t know where she is,” I said. “I swear.”

Bruckman made a noise behind him. It was a low, gurgling moan that made me bite my lip to stop from shaking. Pearl and Roman looked over at him as casually as you’d look at the family dog whimpering in the corner.

“Mr. Bruckman seems to be feeling a chill,” Molinov said. “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to give him your coat.”

I looked at him. Was he serious?

“Please,” he said. “Your coat.”

I stood up and took my coat off. Nobody moved, so I figured the rest was up to me. I went behind Molinov, to where Bruckman was huddled against the wall. He had his face next to the kerosene heater, so close I could smell the singed hair. “Bruckman,” I said. He didn’t respond. I touched his back. His skin was so cold, I couldn’t see how he could still be alive. I put the coat over his body.

“Thank you, Mr. McKnight,” Molinov said. “I’m sure Mr. Bruckman appreciates that.”

“Why did you do this to him?”

“Come back to the party, Mr. McKnight. I’ll explain.”

I sat back down on the bench. I could barely feel the warmth from the kerosene heater. The cold air came rattling through the cracks in the shanty, making me shiver.

“Mr. Bruckman took something that belongs to me,” Molinov said. “This is the result.”

“He’ll die,” I said.

“I’ve been fishing for quite a while now,” he said, pulling his line out of the water. A metal lure, the kind you’d use for trolling in the middle of summer, gleamed in the lantern’s light. “Perhaps I’m not doing it correctly. Would you like to try?”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Perhaps Mr. Bruckman would like to try,” he said. “Why don’t we find out?”

Pearl and Roman stood up in unison. They picked up Bruckman from the back wall, one arm apiece, and lifted him over to the bench they were just sitting on. I saw his face for the first time. His eyes were swollen shut. I could barely recognize him. My coat slid off of his naked, blue body.