A Stolen Season

by Steve Hamilton

  Cap came out of the Escalade, lost his footing, and had to put one hand on the ground to keep from falling on his face. He staggered back too far the other way, trying to find his feet, looking like a man who’d been spun in a blender. I was on him before he even saw me.

  I planted my right fist in his gut, felt all the wind leave his body. He tried to grab me. I hit him with my left hand, caught too much of the crown of his head, and felt my whole arm go numb. He went down.

  I kicked him in the ribs, had the urge to keep doing that about twenty more times. Then I remembered the gun. It was still in the truck. I went back for it, looking up and down the road. My truck was off the road, but his back end was blocking half of it. If anyone came by, they’d have to slow down.

  So they’d get a good view of me putting a bullet in his head, I thought. I grabbed the gun, went back to Cap. He was on his hands and knees trying to draw a breath. I kicked him again, flipping him over. There was a bloody scrape on his forehead.

  I bent down over him. His eyes focused on me.

  “McKnight,” he said. “Fuck. You’re alive?”

  “Yes, I am. Surprised to see me?”

  He was. It was unmistakable. Under the circumstances, I didn’t see how he could be faking it. He was genuinely shocked to see me.

  “Brucie killed you.”

  “Obviously he didn’t.”

  “That pussy.”

  I put the gun to his temple. I remembered the last time I had pointed this gun at him, the way he had taunted me for sounding like some kind of yooper hick. “I’m going to kill you,” I said in a dead even voice. “How’s that sound? Am I doing better this time? I’m going to blow your brains out, all over this road. They’ll be picking parts of your head out of the bushes for a week.”

  His eyes went wide. He tried to slide away from me.

  “How am I doing?” I said. “Do I sound convincing now?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Where’s your partner?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I hit him in the face with the butt of the gun.

  “Where is he?” I said.

  “I told you, I don’t know.” He kept his face away from me while he spit out blood. “Brucie disappeared. If you’re alive, that might explain it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He knows what’ll happen to him if Mr. Gray finds out.”

  I thought about it. I could feel the flame inside me starting to burn out. I knew Brucie hadn’t done it. He had already proven to me he wasn’t a killer. And if Cap was truly this surprised to see me alive, then obviously it couldn’t have been him, either.

  What the hell was I doing here?

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What would happen to me?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You said Brucie knows what would happen to him if Mr. Gray finds out I’m alive. What would happen to me?”

  “Forget it. You’d be done.”

  “Would he send somebody up here to do it?”

  “Of course he would.”

  “He wouldn’t give you a call? Tell you to take care of me?”

  Cap swallowed hard, like he was thinking about what life would be like if Mr. Gray decided he couldn’t be trusted. “I have a feeling I don’t exactly work for him anymore,” he said. “But he has other people.”

  “What if I wasn’t home? What if there was somebody else in my cabin?”

  I felt dizzy, just saying the words. Cap didn’t answer me. He spat out some more blood.

  I grabbed him by the face, made him look up at me.

  “If there was a woman in my cabin, God damn you…If Gray sent somebody up here to kill me…what would happen to her?”

  He shook his head. “If you knew him, you wouldn’t even have to ask.”

  I wanted to hit him again. I wanted to use the gun like a hammer and smash his face in until there was nothing left. Then I wanted to put the barrel of the gun in my own mouth and pull the trigger.

  I didn’t do it. Instead, I grabbed his shirt and pulled his face close to mine. “Did he do it? God damn you, you stupid piece of shit. Did he do this thing? Tell me the truth.”

  “If Brucie left you alive, there’s no way he could keep it from Gray. There is no fucking way. Trust me, the next time he talked to him, it would all come out. Which can only mean one thing.”

  I kept holding on to his shirt. My arms were shaking.

  “Where does he live?” I said.

  “Mr. Gray?”

  “Yes, Mr. Gray. Where can I find him?”

  “It’s not a big secret, McKnight. You know where St. Clair Shores is?”

  “Yes.” It was an affluent suburb, next to Detroit.

  “The house is on Trombley Street, right on the water. But the place is a fortress, man. And he’s got a bodyguard who could take you apart with one hand.”

  “You’ve been to the house?”

  “Yeah, a few times.”

  “How do I get in?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Tell me how I get in the house.”

  “Don’t go in the front door. Go around to the back. He has a study on that end of the house. There’s a door by the pool.”

  “Do you think he’s home today?”

  “What, you’re gonna drive all the way down there right now?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then I’ll give you one more piece of advice.”

  “What’s that?”

  “As soon as you see him, shoot him in the head. Don’t wait one fucking second. Shoot him in the head and keep shooting until you run out of bullets.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. After everything that had happened, he was being almost helpful.

  “You never did pick up the drugs from Canada,” I said.

  He looked up at me. “Who are you, anyway? How the fuck do you know this stuff?”

  “Is that why you were buying those Vicodin from Caroline? You needed a little fix until the big shipment came in?”

  “Talk to Brucie. If you ever see him again. He’s the one with the pill problem.”

  “I meant what I said about staying away from her.”

  “I told you, it was Brucie. You think I wanted to hang around with that skank?”

  I took the gun out of my right hand and hit him with my fist. He didn’t try to cover up. He shook his head and spit out some more blood.

  “You’d better grow a set of balls before you get to Gray’s house,” he said, “and learn how to kill somebody. You try this little tough-guy act on him and he’ll rip your heart out of your chest.”

  “If I learned how to kill somebody, I’d be just like you.”

  “In your dreams, McKnight. But maybe you can manage it for one day.”

  “You’re alive on this earth,” I said as I got up. My right hand was throbbing. “And she’s gone. How fucked up is that?”

  He stayed on the ground. He didn’t say another word.

  I got in my truck, backed it out onto the road, and turned it around. To the main road, to the highway, to the bridge to the Lower Peninsula.

  To St. Clair Shores and the man they call Mr. Gray.

  Chapter Fourteen

  From where I was starting, it was over three hundred miles to Detroit. I crossed the Mackinac Bridge, hit the Lower Peninsula. I stopped for gas in Gaylord. An hour south and it already felt twenty degrees warmer. I got back in the truck and pointed it straight down I-75, the lifeline of the state but just another lonely road up here, going through little towns like Grayling, West Branch, Pinconning. Around Bay City the traffic started getting heavier. I kept driving. No music, no radio. Hardly a thought in my head, beyond I’m here and I need to get there. Not even thinking yet about what I’d do when I arrived. Everything turned off but the driving muscles.

  Except for the pain. I couldn’t turn that off. I didn’t see how I ever could.

  The thing was still there. Not owning me yet. Somehow I w
as still keeping it just outside. As long as I kept moving…

  Another hour and I was in Flint. The sun was out. I drove through Auburn Hills. I was getting close to Detroit now. My old hometown, the ring of suburbs on three sides, inching out farther and farther into the farmlands. All these sleepy little crossroads turned into boomtowns now, with all the new houses, the strip malls. I saw the places without recognizing them. Not that I was really looking. I kept my eyes on the road and ate up the miles.

  When I was on the edge of the city, I took I-696 due east cutting through some of the older middle class suburbs, Warren, Center Line, Roseville. The highway ended: I got on 11 Mile Road, headed straight for the water, where the original old-money suburbs were strung along Lake St. Clair like pearls. Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Shores, where the automotive families had their big houses. As a Detroit cop, long ago, I knew exactly where Detroit ended and the Grosse Pointes began. I knew it to the inch, and so did the people who lived on either side of that line. Needless to say, the Grosse Pointe cops were better paid and better equipped. Their motivations were slightly different than ours. As long as the trouble stayed on our side, they were happy.

  On the northern end of the Grosse Pointes was St. Clair Shores, always trying to keep up. Hell, maybe it had caught up by now. I had been away from the place for more years than I cared to count.

  I hit Jefferson Street, the main thoroughfare, turned right, and went south into the heart of town. There were nice houses, nice little shops. At every block a cross street ran east to the water. There were so many peninsulas, so many boat channels. In a way, it was sort of like Hessel, but here there was so much more of everything. More houses, more people, more money. The traffic was heavy. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had rolled my truck down a busy suburban street. I felt like a madman from the great white north, descended upon the big city.

  I kept driving down Jefferson, looking at the street signs. Lakeland, Manor, Madison. All the old money names. Statler, Benjamin, Revere. I was starting to wonder if I’d missed it. I figured a few more blocks and I’d be in Grosse Pointe Shores.

  Then I saw it. Trombley Street.

  On the water, Cap had said. I took the left, drove down the peninsula. The houses got bigger. Lots of Tudors, the occasional Victorian. Seriously upscale houses. I wasn’t surprised Mr. Gray lived here. I wondered if his neighbors knew he was a stone-cold killer.

  At the end of the street, there was a big iron gate. An intricate script G was centered on either side. I had just been wondering how I’d find his house, how I’d have to pull up to some woman walking a poodle, roll down my window so she could see my unshaved face, ask her where the Gray house was. Like that would go over well.

  But no, here it was. I was sure of it.

  The gate was wide open.

  I drove through. The driveway led up to a big white Mediterranean house. Columns, statues, the works. There was a yard big enough for a football game, with immaculately cut grass. A huge white tent was set up, like they were going to have a wedding here. Or just had one. Through the poles of the tent I could see down to the shoreline. A double-decker yacht sat next to the dock.

  I couldn’t see anybody anywhere.

  I parked the truck near the tent and got out. This time I knew enough to put the gun in my waistband right away, save me from having to come back for it. They were actually having summer weather down here, so it was too warm for my jacket. But I left it on to cover the butt of the gun.

  So now what? Do I just walk around to the back of the house?

  Yes, Alex. That’s exactly what you do. Walk right around the house like you belong here.

  There were tables set up under the tent. Some of them had vases with cut flowers in them. From the looks of the flowers, the event had already happened, maybe a couple of days ago. I grabbed the biggest bouquet I could find, took out a few of the wilted flowers, and carried it toward the house.

  I saw a pathway leading around to the back, flat circles of stone set in the grass. As I turned the corner, I saw the gate to the pool, between a statue of a man drawing a bow and arrow and a statue of a woman holding a big urn. The statues were blindingly white, like everything else around the place. It said something about the man who lived there, but I wasn’t sure what. At this point, I didn’t care.

  I opened the gate and walked through. The area around the pool was all white marble. There were more white statues. White pool furniture. A high white fence all around the place. I was wondering when I’d see something that wasn’t white when somebody hit me hard in the back of the neck.

  I went down on the marble. The vase came out of my hands, shattering when it hit the floor. There were shards of glass everywhere, water, flowers. I was lying in the middle of it. Before I could get up, I felt somebody’s foot on my back. I was pushed down hard on the marble. I could feel the glass cutting into my chest. Then something exactly like the barrel of a gun pressed against my back.

  “Don’t move,” a voice said. I didn’t. He gave me a quick one-handed pat-down, taking the gun from my waistband.

  “Up,” he said.

  I stood up slowly, brushing off the glass, pulling a few shards out of my jacket and pants.

  “This way.”

  He was a big man, bigger than Brucie. He probably had the biggest hands I’d ever seen on anyone in my life, so big the automatic in his right hand looked like a water pistol. This had to be the man Cap had mentioned, the man who could take me apart without breaking a sweat. He was wearing a white track suit.

  I walked ahead of him, as he gestured to the door leading into the house. He stopped me with one huge hand, opened the door, and ushered me inside. After all the white, this room was done up in dark wood. It was like stepping out of the sunlight into a cave.

  There was a plasma screen television on one wall. Mr. Gray sat in one of several leather chairs, watching a soccer game. An immense field of green. For some reason that surprised me. From the one time I had seen the man, he didn’t seem like someone who would watch television, or do anything a normal human being would do.

  “Sit down,” he said to me. He glanced at me for all of one second, then turned his attention back to the game.

  I sat down in one of the leather chairs. The man in the white track suit stood behind me. Nobody said anything for a while. Gray kept watching the game. I never cared much about soccer, and I was in no mood to pay attention to it today. The players on one team were passing the ball back and forth, looking for an opportunity to shoot. That much I could tell. This was the last result I could have predicted for myself that day, sitting in Gray’s house while he watched soccer.

  Somebody finally took a shot. It went a good thirty feet over the goal and into the crowd.

  “When it doesn’t bend,” Gray said, “you just look foolish.” He hit the pause button on the television, freezing the goalie in the middle of his goal kick. Then he turned to face me. He was wearing a gray golf shirt. Gray pants.

  He studied me for a few seconds. “You were at the summerhouse. You were the man with the gun.”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “Your name again?”

  “Alex McKnight.”

  “Apparently, Bruce couldn’t close the deal with you,” he said, shaking his head. “Yet another disappointment. What a team those two make.”

  “I have another name for you.”

  “Another name?”

  “Natalie Reynaud.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “That’s the woman who was killed in my cabin last night.”

  “I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”

  “I have good reason to think you were responsible.”

  “Why would you think I had something to do with that?”

  “You wanted me dead,” I said. “If you found out I was still alive…”

  “You think that would concern me? I didn’t want you dead per se, Mr. McKnight. I
just wanted you gone. There was nothing personal involved.”

  “You’re a killer. You’re a criminal who gets rid of people without a second thought.”

  Gray looked up at the man standing behind me. I was expecting to feel his hands around my neck, or the gun pressed to the back of my head. It didn’t happen.

  “A man can be many things,” Gray said. “A soccer fan. A father…”

  “A gangster. A drug lord.”

  He gave me a little smile. Not a warm one. “Is that what you think I do? You think I sell crack to kids in Detroit?”

  “You’re not out on the corner yourself, no.”

  “I make my living in imports and exports, Mr. McKnight. Imports and exports. I’m a businessman.”

  “Uh-huh. What kind of ‘import’ are your men up north working on?”

  “They’re not my men anymore. I can assure you of that. But let me ask you, do you know the difference between an illegal drug and a prescribed medicine?”

  I thought about it, what the right answer would be. “A doctor, for one thing.”

  “Yes. A doctor tells you to take the prescribed medicine. He gives you permission to take it.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Have you ever seen somebody die a slow, painful death?”

  I didn’t have to go far for that one. The darkest year of my childhood, watching my mother die. “Yes,” I said. “I have.”

  “Have you seen someone lose their very sanity because of the pain they’re in?”

  “Let me guess. That’s where you come in. You sell pills to people who need them. I bet you don’t even make a profit.”

  Gray looked up at the man behind me again. “What do you make of our Mr. McKnight?”

  The man didn’t say anything. If he made some kind of gesture, like a shrug of his huge shoulders, I couldn’t see it.

  “When we last met,” he said, “how come you didn’t tell me I owed you a great debt?”

  “I wasn’t aware you did.”

  “You saved my son’s life.”

  “I helped get him off the boat. That’s all.”

  “You’re being modest. Harold was knocked out cold. He would have drowned.”