A Stolen Season

by Steve Hamilton

  It was her.

  “Alex,” she said, “you’re there.”

  “Yes. Sorry I missed you last night. Things got a little crazy…”

  “I wish you had a better cell phone. It would make things a lot easier.”

  “I told you, cell phones work like crap around here.”

  “Bad cell phones do. I’m telling you, next time I see you, we’re getting you a new one.”

  “Next time you see me? I like the sound of that…”

  “I don’t have much time to talk today,” she said. “I was thinking I’d just leave a message again, tell you that we’re finally moving. We’re pretty close to taking them down, and I’m not sure when you’ll hear from me again.”

  “How long have you guys been setting this up? I never worked any undercover, but from what I remember hearing, the longer the setup, the more chance of getting compromised.”

  “You’re sounding like my CO again.”

  “Natalie…”

  “I know, I know. It wasn’t the plan. But we’ve gotten this close. We can’t back out now after all this work.”

  “Is something going to happen today?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I have to hook up with Rhapsody. She’ll know what the next move is.”

  I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to tell her I thought the whole thing was crazy. I didn’t want to plant any doubts in her mind when she was this close to the payoff.

  “Just be careful,” I said. “If anything looks off…”

  “I know, Alex. I’ll pull the plug.”

  “But nothing will go wrong. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

  There was a long silence. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking. I waited for her to say something else.

  “So what did you do last night?” she finally asked. “Were you hanging out with Vinnie and Jackie?”

  “Well…Vinnie.”

  “I bet you guys were working on the cabin.”

  “No, actually, we were in jail.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Listen, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you, okay?”

  “You’re telling me to be careful here and you’re the one getting thrown in jail?”

  “Okay, I know it looks bad on paper.”

  “What, you got drunk, you got in a fight…My God, Alex.”

  “I wasn’t drunk. Come on.”

  “This is almost kinda funny. I should be laughing.”

  “Yeah, it’s hilarious.”

  “Are you going to be charged with anything?”

  “No,” I said. “Chief Maven let us go this morning.”

  “Chief Maven…That’s beautiful. Did you say ‘hi’ for me?”

  “Your name didn’t come up, no.”

  “Okay, I’ve got to go now.”

  “Natalie. Please. Do you want the whole story now?”

  “I really have to go. Don is here. We’re getting ready to roll.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay. Give me a call later, please? Let me know how you’re doing?”

  “I’ll try. Unless things get crazy. Just do me a favor, eh?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Try to stay out of jail tonight.”

  When I finally headed down to the Glasgow, I looked for Vinnie’s truck as I passed his house. It wasn’t there. The sun was going down now. It was officially time to start getting worried.

  I was hoping maybe he’d be down at the Glasgow. No such luck. Jackie said he hadn’t seen him all day.

  “You weren’t here again last night,” he added. “That’s two nights in a row. A new record.”

  “It might be a hat trick,” I said. “I’ve gotta go find Vinnie before he does something really stupid.”

  It was almost dark by the time I got to the rez. I cruised down the main street, past Vinnie’s mother’s place. No sign of his truck. I checked both casinos. Nothing.

  “God damn you, Vinnie. Please tell me you’re not tracking those guys down.”

  There was only one place left to go. I headed east to the Soo. I had nothing to think about all the way there except the way Natalie sounded on the phone, and what she’d be getting herself into next. Maybe even right now, as I was driving down this lonely road. Maybe right this very moment, she’s five hundred miles away, in the dark corners of a big city, putting it all on the line.

  Thinking so much about Natalie and Toronto…It was a jarring segue when I hit Sault Ste. Marie. I think of the place as a city, but it’s not. Not by a long shot. It’s a small village on the edge of the water, the last stop before you leave the country. A true border town, dwarfed by its sister with the same name on the other side of the river. Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, is a good four times bigger. All the clubs are over there. The music and the dancing girls. You know you’re in the minor leagues when you have to go over to Canada to find the real nightlife.

  The only bright lights in town were at the Kewadin, as usual. I didn’t see Vinnie’s truck there. I drove up Seymour Street, past Caroline’s house. The place looked completely dark, like nobody had lived there in years. If I hadn’t been there myself the night before, if I hadn’t stood in the kitchen and seen Caroline’s husband smoking his cigarette and drinking his beer, I would have sworn that this was an abandoned house.

  I parked the truck on the street, got out, and knocked on the door, just in case. There was no answer.

  “Come on, Vinnie. Where the hell are you?”

  I got back in the truck, drove down Portage Avenue. I slowed down in front of all eight bars. Then I cut back and drove by the Antlers. I was running out of options.

  “All right, I’m done, Vinnie. If you want to do this that badly, I can’t help you.”

  I drove back to Paradise. I was getting tired again. I went through Brimley, through the rez. Up around the edge of the bay, with the water looking dark and cold in my headlights. If I was hoping he’d be there at the Glasgow, I was disappointed. If I was hoping his truck would be parked in front of his cabin…No dice. The man was still out there somewhere, doing God knows what.

  And Natalie…I can’t call you. I can’t even call your station to ask if you’re safe. I have no idea what the hell is happening to you.

  Yeah, this is wonderful, I thought. I’ll be bouncing back and forth between both of these little worries all night long.

  No rest. No sleep.

  Just me alone in a cold cabin with a silent phone, going quietly insane.

  Chapter Seven

  I didn’t know all of the details, but this was the night when Natalie Reynaud first met the man named Antoine Laraque. It’s an almost lyrical name, something that would fit a writer, or a dancer. I can picture the car moving down a dark street in Toronto. The car has to be black. The driver has to be a man paid well to be doing it. The lights ahead, Chinatown, then the harbor. Most of the big hotels there, near the convention center. The Hilton is three blocks from the water. The elevators are glass, running up the outside of the building. You can see the whole city as you go up higher and higher. The stadium. The CN Tower. Beyond the city the vast expanse of the lake.

  Two people going up the elevator, while the driver waits below. Antoine Laraque and Rhapsody Rowan. I don’t know if either of them enjoy the view on the way up, or if either of them even notice it. Somehow I picture dark sunglasses on both of them, even though it is night.

  I don’t know what it took to bring the two of them up to the fifteenth floor of the Hilton that night. If you think about it, it’s an inherently risky move. You’re way off your home turf, in a confined space, cut off from your vehicle fifteen floors below you. It takes a certain level of trust to make such a move, especially when the person waiting for you is someone you didn’t even know a month ago. It takes trust, or if that’s running thin, then it takes the promise of great riches or great power or preferably both.

  Or hell, just cold blood. Maybe that’s all it takes.

  I can’t imagine what Natalie was
feeling. An actor goes on stage, plays a part. If it’s not convincing, the audience starts to slip away. If it’s really bad, they might stand up and boo. They generally don’t take out guns and start firing. Or they don’t wrap their arms around the actors’ necks, point the guns at their temples, and use them as human shields. The Actors Guild would definitely not go for that.

  It’s Natalie Reynaud and her partner, Don Resnik, in a room on the fifteenth floor. The room is wired for both sound and video. The backups are stationed in the adjoining rooms. The rest of the floor is empty, except for one man in a bathrobe, posing as a guest going down to the end of the hall for ice. He’s there to make sure the hallway doesn’t seem too empty. The man’s service revolver is hidden underneath his robe.

  The whole point of the operation, of course, is to catch Antoine Laraque offering some amount of Canadian dollars, some specific number of “loonies” to use the local slang, in exchange for a large number of automatic handguns, to be delivered sometime thereafter. The double fake-out, as Natalie herself called it, setting up a woman to be the contact. It’s so unusual it has to be convincing.

  The other important part of the operation—the size of the net, as they call it. A big net instead of a small net. When the police move in, the idea is to bust all four of them, Natalie included. You do this just in case there’s a chance to keep the identity intact, to have the fictional character get out on bail, or on a technicality, or whatever else, to go back on the street and set another trap. That’s when the real acting begins, when Natalie plays the part of a career criminal getting taken down. If she can sell that one, then she’s really earning her Oscar.

  If it goes well, then nobody gets hurt. They get a clear and unimpeachable offer on tape. Maybe with Rhapsody on the hook, she flips and helps put Laraque away for the rest of his life. Rhapsody, the woman with more lives than a dozen alley cats put together.

  That’s the plan. Set the trap, catch the big mouse. Take a few hundred guns off the streets of Toronto. Save lives. Maybe even build some careers for the officers involved.

  Of course I didn’t know anything about it at the time. I’d hear all about it much later, in vivid detail.

  How the mouse walked right into the trap, and then how he walked away.

  Vinnie’s night, on the other hand…He was a lot closer to home, and I’d get the whole story as soon as I opened my eyes.

  I fell off the chair. It took me a moment to realize what had happened, where I was. I had finally dozed off, or at least I had slipped into that half sleep with the half dreams about the real events in your life. Me in jail, but instead of Maven standing there, it was Natalie. For some reason she was smiling at me. Vinnie was in the cell next to me, a row of bars between us. He was calling my name. Then I was falling.

  I looked around me. Why was I lying on the floor?

  God, Vinnie…

  I was still in my clothes, so I was out the door in ten seconds. The sun was just coming up, to start another losing battle against the cold morning mist. It was too early to be out there. Too early to be doing anything at all, but I had to see if he was home.

  His house was only about a quarter mile down the road, but the days I could have run that distance in less than a minute were a distant memory, so I got in the truck, fired it up, and drove around the bend to his house.

  Vinnie’s truck was in the driveway. That was the good news.

  The driver’s-side door was open, but I didn’t see Vinnie anywhere. That was the bad news. Probably very bad news.

  I pulled up behind his truck, slammed mine into park and got out. I went to his door, opened it without knocking.

  “Vinnie.”

  There was no answer. I didn’t see him anywhere.

  “Where are you?”

  A muffled sound, from somewhere. I looked around the place, couldn’t find him. Until I got to the bathroom. He was there, on the floor, his head over the toilet.

  “Vinnie,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

  I bent down next to him. As I put my hand on his back, the unmistakable smell of alcohol hit me. Which would have made sense for just about anybody else. But before I could figure that one out, he looked up at me.

  “Oh my God,” I said when I saw his face. “What the hell happened?”

  His left eye was completely swollen shut, his right eye almost as bad. I couldn’t tell how bad his bottom lip was with all the blood on it. Instead of answering me, he went back to spitting the blood into the toilet. The water was pink.

  “Talk to me. What did they do to you?”

  “Whazzit look like, Alex?” It was hard for him to talk.

  “I mean, how bad? Did they break anything? Did you lose any teeth?”

  “Whed I can feel anyfing, I tell you.”

  “I’ll get some ice.”

  I went to his freezer and got both ice trays. When I came back, he was sitting on the floor, his back against the tub.

  “We’ll get the swelling down,” I said. “That’s the first thing.”

  I was about to start wrapping the ice in a towel, but when I looked at him again I figured, hell, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Instead, I dumped the ice in the sink and filled it with cold water.

  “Can you stand up?” I said.

  He shrugged one shoulder.

  “Come on. I’ll help you.”

  I pulled him up to his feet. He swayed back and forth a few times like he’d pass out, until he finally found his legs and we got him over to the sink.

  “You ready for this?”

  He went down facefirst into the ice water. He stayed down a lot longer than I would have. I was about to yank his head out when he finally came up for air. There was blood in the water, blood dripping on the edge of the sink, blood on the floor. He took a few uneven breaths and then put his face in the sink again.

  I left him for a moment, went back to the kitchen and grabbed the roll of paper towels. He was coming up for air again when I got back. I stopped him for a moment so I could get a better look at his face. It was hard to tell exactly where he was bleeding.

  “Open your mouth.”

  He did.

  “I don’t see any teeth gone,” I said. “I think your gums are cut up, though. Here…” I ran some fresh water on a big wad of paper towels and handed it to him. He worked it carefully into his mouth and held it there. When he took it back out it was red.

  “Keep doing that.” I gave him some more paper towels. “When we get that stopped, we’ll start icing your eyes.”

  He spit more blood in the toilet and then put the paper towel in his mouth again.

  “Vinnie, you don’t have to answer this right now if you don’t want to, but how come you smell like a gin mill?”

  He looked at me out of the one eye he could still see through. “Vey pord idod me.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head and waved me away. I’ll get the story later, I thought. Right now, it’s time to do something else. I went out to the kitchen and picked up his cordless phone.

  “Whaf that for?” he said as he came out of the bathroom.

  “I’m calling the police.”

  “No. No poleef.”

  “I’m calling.”

  I started to dial. Instead of fighting me for the receiver he went over to the base unit and unplugged it.

  “Vinnie, don’t be an idiot.”

  “What are the poleef gonna do?” He took the towels out of his mouth.

  “Arrest them? Charge them with assault?”

  “I went after them. They defended themselves. They just did a lot better job of it this time.”

  “Why did you do this alone? What’s the matter with you?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it, Alex. But even if I was…Hell, I got you in enough trouble already.”

  “Oh, cut that shit out. You should know better. If you were gonna go after them, you should have brought me with you. Period.”

  “I told you, I didn’t go after th
em. They showed up at Caroline’s house.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. Late.”

  I thought back to the night before, how deserted the house looked when I stopped to knock on the door. “It must have been after midnight,” I said. “I drove by looking for you.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Why do you think? What were you doing there, anyway?”

  “I was trying to get her to stop what she’s doing.”

  “You know what she needs to do now.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand. How much further are you going to go to protect her?”

  He wiped more blood off his mouth. “They poured it on me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You asked about the liquor smell before. I was trying to tell you they poured it on me. I smell like I took a fucking bath in it.”

  I didn’t have to ask for details. I could picture it all, the whole ugly thing. Or at least the general idea. Beating the hell out of him and then pouring the firewater on the Indian.

  I put the receiver back in its charger. I didn’t bother trying to plug the thing back in. Instead I pulled what was left of the ice out of the sink and wrapped it in a kitchen towel.

  “Did you take anything yet?”

  “No.”

  I went and got him four ibuprofen out of the bathroom. “Here,” I said. “Take these and keep icing your eyes.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “Alex, do not call the police.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I’m not calling the police. I promise.”

  “And don’t go after them. We don’t even know where they are, anyway.”

  “Vinnie, sit down and put the ice on your face, okay? When I get back, we’ll talk about where they are, and who’s going after who.”

  “After whom.”

  I stopped at the door. “It’s a good thing you’re already beat up.”

  “Yeah, good thing.”

  “Ice,” I said. When I was outside, I went over to his truck and closed the driver’s-side door. The thud was as solid as the decision I had just made.