The Guise of Another

by Allen Eskens

  On his way, he passed their fishing boat, pulled up on the shore. On the seat where Max sat to steer, Alexander saw the aluminum-foil wrapper of Max's cigar package. He picked it up and found a single cigar remaining in the bottom of the pack. Alexander lifted it out and put the cigar to his nose to smell the tobacco. He had no lighter, so he held the cigar in his teeth and continued his walk to the dock.

  There he lay down and thought back to a time when he was a child and he would lie on that dock, contemplating the great unknowns of life. It was on that dock that he drank his first beer with Max when he was thirteen, and it was on that dock that he rehearsed the words he would say to Desi when he proposed to her.

  He remembered a time when he was sixteen, he and Max lay on the dock and watched the stars and talked about what they were going to do with their lives. Max was eighteen and already had graduated from high school. He had been accepted to Mankato State University and knew that he wanted to be a cop. Alexander didn't understand why. They had no relatives who were cops, no cop friends. Max plucked the vocation out of the deep night sky, and that was it.

  Alexander, on the other hand, didn't know what he wanted to be—maybe a fireman or a stuntman, something exciting. He talked to Max about someday being a dad and a husband. He told Max that he wanted three or four kids and a beautiful wife. He wanted to bring them all to the lake. He could envision his kids flinging themselves off of the rope swing and into the water like he and Max did. He looked around the lake now and tried to remember that life, but all he saw was the darkness.

  A light shiver pulsed up Alexander's spine—a chill in the breeze coming off the lake, he thought.

  He breathed in deep through his nostrils, taking in the smell of pine trees and cigar tobacco and memories. Then he set free the thought that he had been trying to suppress: he would never again see this place; he would never again see his brother or touch his toes to this lake. Never again would he and Max troll back and forth across the lake, drinking beer, smoking cheap cigars, and waiting for that elusive pull on the fishing line. He let those thoughts—those memories—cascade through his mind, and he watched them fall away.

  He tried to replace his old memories with visions of the future. He tried to imagine his toes bobbing in the crystal blue of the Mediterranean Sea, but he couldn't hold that picture. He tried to think about sipping brandy and coffee in a room overlooking the Alps or the Andes. He tried to imagine him and Ianna eating nectarines and crackers, and listening to the faraway strum of a flamenco guitar. But all of those thoughts sank into a dark place in his mind, hidden behind a black panic that oozed through him like blood itself.

  What had he done?

  He was on his way to Canada, and from there, who knows, with a woman who smiled when she watched a man die? Alexander thought back. What was it she said? “We've all done things in our lives that we wish we could do over.” What did she mean by that? He never bothered to ask. For that matter, he hadn't asked her anything about her past.

  But now it was too late—wasn't it? There would be a warrant out for his arrest. And Desi would be home now. She would have found Ianna's suitcase and…the negligee. And what about Max? He would miss Max, and that would be a wound not easily healed.

  Alexander started to lapse into another memory of him and Max when a crackle stirred the ground behind him. At first he assumed the sound came from a woodland critter, maybe a raccoon or opossum, but then it occurred to him that it might be Ianna stepping out of the cabin to look for him.

  He craned his head around to look and at first saw nothing. Then a shadow stepped out of the trees, a figure crouching low, tiptoeing toward the cabin. It wasn't Ianna.

  The blood stopped in Alexander's veins as he watched the dark figure slide as weightless as the mist toward the door. The lights of the cabin were off, but the moon bled enough to make out the form of a man holding one arm bent as though he might be holding a gun.

  The man moved to the porch, testing each step for sound before transferring his weight. The door into the cabin was a glass slider, new enough to not have a squeak. The man paused at the door to look inside. He was patient. He waited. When he saw no movement, he tried the door, opening it only a couple inches. Again he waited, listening. Then he opened the door enough to slip through.

  Alexander ran through options.

  He could go for his phone in the glove box of the Cadillac, but by the time he replaced the battery and made a call, Ianna would be dead. He had laid his gun and holster on the kitchen counter beside the refrigerator, so the intruder now stood between him and his gun. Yelling would make him a target, but it might save Ianna. If she understood his shouts, she would realize the danger and maybe slip out a window and make for the woods, but the man might track her down after he killed Alexander. The only clear path would be a direct assault. But how?

  Then he thought of an ax that Max had brought to the cabin years ago, an ax that he drove deep into a tree stump for decoration. Jenni used to hang small pots of flowers from a nail on the tip of the axe's hickory handle. It hadn't been out of that stump for the better part of a decade, but it was a weapon.

  As the man slithered through the cabin, Alexander padded to the stump. He gripped the tip of the axe handle and pressed down. The handle didn't move. He grabbed it with both hands and jumped on the handle, heaving his entire weight on the tool. It gave way with a crack that may have been loud enough to reach into the cabin, but Alexander wasn't sure. He dropped behind the stump and watched through the glass door.

  Alexander grabbed the ax and ran in a low crouch to the edge of the porch, peeking in, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer setting inside. The man stood beside the door to the left bedroom. He appeared to be listening for sound to see if the room had an occupant. Alexander watched as the man teased the bedroom door open.

  Between Alexander and the man lay a distance of thirty feet. He'd left the glass door open. A couch stood as an obstacle to be hurdled, but that would be easy.

  The man leaned into the empty bedroom, and Alexander launched his attack. He gave up any pretense of stealth as he ran through the open door, the blood thumping in his ears. He leapt over the couch, going airborne with the ax held in a ready position.

  He hit the floor with a thud that announced his presence only three steps from the man. Without breaking stride, he raised the ax over his head just as the man straightened up in the bedroom doorway. Alexander saw the gun in the faint light and swung for it with all his might.

  The speed of Alexander's charge gave the man little time to react. He fired a shot before he had the gun fully raised, and the bullet narrowly missed Alexander's chest. The second bullet never had a chance to sail. The blade of the ax found its mark, smashing into the man's right forearm. Alexander heard the crack of at least one bone. The blade on the ax had become dull over the years and crushed more than it cut. Had it been sharp, it would have cleaved the man's hand clean off.

  The man swallowed his scream, and the gun tumbled into the darkness. Alexander expected him to retreat into the bedroom, to regroup and plan a counterattack, but instead, he rushed Alexander, clutching Alexander's throat in the vicelike grip of his left hand. The man twisted and tried to rip Alexander's trachea out of his neck. Alexander swung the ax again, but they were too close to one another.

  He jammed the head of the ax into the man's temple, knocking him backward. And again, the man didn't retreat. Instead, he reached down and slid a knife from a sheath around his ankle and charged at Alexander, aiming the blade at his chest.

  Alexander hit the man's wrist with the ax handle. The blow deflected the blade away from his chest, causing the knife to plunge into his thigh instead. Alexander howled and spun away from the attack but continued his spin in a full circle, giving force behind his next swing of the ax, which landed on the man's ribcage. Alexander heard another of the man's bones break.

  This time, the man shrieked in pain and tumbled back a step, but still he didn't let up. He cam
e at Alexander again, the knife blade glinting in the thin moonlight. Alexander had already begun his next swing of the ax, an arching undercut like teeing off on a long par five. But at the penultimate moment, the man juked back to avoid the swing. Alexander saw the flinch and let go of the handle, sending the ax into the man's chest, knocking him back again.

  Alexander turned and hobbled toward the kitchen, where his gun lay on the counter. The knife wound to his leg bit into the nerves and drained the strength from his thigh, knocking him to the ground. He got up on one leg and hopped, refusing to trust his bad leg. He could hear the man—now on his feet—fighting to get around the table.

  Alexander knew that he would be killed if he didn't get to his gun. With one final leap, he grabbed the gun from the counter and fell to the floor. The man turned the knife in his hand to prepare for a downward stroke.

  Alexander pulled his gun out of the holster, chambered a round, and fired a bullet into the man's chest. Then two more in quick succession.

  The first bullet made no impression upon the charging man. But the second caused him to twist with the impact and drop his knife. With the third shot, the man took a step backward, teetering near Alexander's feet. The man raised his hand and touched the last of the three wounds, a hole in his chest just left of center. He dipped his finger in the blood that spurted out, and looked at Alexander through disbelieving eyes. For the first time, the moonlight radiating through the kitchen window cast enough light on the man for Alexander to recognize his face. Drago Basta.

  Basta's eyes grew large, as if trying to take in more information, wanting to make sense of the strange sensation that he was drowning. One leg gave out, then the other, and he fell to his knees. Alexander raised the gun again and aimed at Drago Basta's head, but he didn't fire.

  Basta began to sway, and his eyes rolled up into his forehead. Alexander could hear the gurgle as Drago fought to press oxygen past the blood that now filled his lungs. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and fell. By the time he hit the floor, his heart had stopped beating. Alexander kept the gun trained on Basta, but he knew that it was no longer necessary. Basta's eyes remained open and fixed, staring at Alexander's right knee.

  The lights came on, first in the bedroom, then in the dining room and kitchen. Ianna carefully walked to where Drago Basta lay dead on the floor and Alexander sat, wounded, against the cupboard.

  “It's Drago Basta,” Alexander said, jabbing his toe into the dead man's shoulder. The move sent a bolt of heat and pain up his leg, causing him to wince.

  “Oh my God,” Ianna said, clasping her hands over her mouth. “Oh my God, you…you got him.” She stepped over the body and knelt down at Alexander's side, gently touching the deep scratches on his throat. “Are you okay?”

  “He stabbed me in the leg.” Alexander used both hands to lift his thigh and could feel the warm, wet stain spread into the side of his pant leg. “Yeah, he got me.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “No. I don't think so.”

  Ianna grabbed a towel from the kitchen counter and handed it to Alexander, who wrapped it around his leg and tied it tight. “Help me up.”

  Ianna helped Alexander to his feet and stayed under his arm while he steadied himself. When he found that his legs held him okay, he took a couple practice steps, wincing in pain but not falling down.

  Ianna turned back to the body on the floor. “He's the guy from the yacht?”

  “Yeah, the one who killed Richard Ashton,” Alexander said, “He probably killed Billie Rider too…and a couple girls in New York back in 2001. And I'm sure that's just the start. I think he's killed a lot of people.”

  “You know what this means, don't you?” Ianna looked at Alexander like a girl who just got invited to her first dance.

  “What does this mean?” Alexander groaned.

  “It means that we don't have to be looking over our shoulders. He's probably the best they've got, and you beat him. They won't send anyone else. They'll just pay us our money and leave us alone. Don't you think?”

  Alexander turned to face the counter, putting his gun back into its holster. His shoulders slumped as he thought about what he was about to say.

  “Baby?” Ianna whispered.

  Alexander paused as he struggled to find words, then said, “I'm not going to Canada.”

  Ianna spoke with hesitation. “Um…that's okay. We don't have to go to Canada. We can go anywhere you want.”

  “I'm not going anywhere. I'm sorry. I can't.”

  The room went silent. Alexander took his time locking his gun into its holster, stalling so that he wouldn't have to face her.

  “You're not going? But what about everything we planned—our dreams. We can have everything we want. We can be together anywhere in the world.”

  Alexander turned around to find Ianna sitting at the dining-room table, her hands resting somewhere below the tabletop. She looked stunned by Alexander's reversal. “I'm sorry,” he said again. “I can't have everything I want by running away. I have roots here. I have family here. I want that. I…I'm not ready to give that up.”

  “What about all that stuff we talked about last night—the grand-jury crap, your wife cheating on you. That's still there. That's what you're going back to.”

  “I'm not going back to my wife. That's over.” Alexander leaned against the counter to take some of the weight off his leg. “But I can't leave. That's not me…Yeah, I fucked up. I'll just have to face those consequences. Maybe on balance, my bringing down Basta will even things out a bit.”

  “So it's ‘Fuck you, Ianna’? Is that what's happening here? You killed the bad guy, so I can go to hell?”

  “No, Ianna, I still want to be with you. But I'm not going to blackmail Garland. I'm going to put his ass in prison. That doesn't mean that we can't still be together.”

  “Please, Alexander, please don't do this.” She leaned forward in her chair, her chest pressing into the table, her words turning plaintive. “I'm begging you. Don't do this.”

  “I'm sorry, Ianna, I've made up my mind.” Alexander dropped his head, no longer able to look into her deep, green eyes.

  He didn't hear the gun fire, and he didn't feel the bullet rip into his stomach. But he did hear the crack of bone as the bullet slammed into his spine. The lower half of his body went limp, and he fell to the floor, unable to move his legs. Then he smelled the sulfur of the gunpowder. Only then did he look up and see the wisp of smoke lifting from the tip of the silencer as Ianna held Drago's gun steady in her hands.

  “Wha…What…” was all Alexander could muster.

  “I'm sorry, but this is my flash drive. James wanted me to have it.” Ianna held the flash drive in her hand, waving it with angry swipes. “You think you can take it so you can be a hero?”

  Alexander pulled his hand away from the entry wound and saw enough blood that he knew something inside of him got torn up pretty bad. He tried again to will his legs to move, but he may as well have been trying to will the refrigerator to dance.

  “I'm sorry, Alexander. I really did kind of like you.”

  Alexander tried to speak, but the pain in his gut knotted his tongue. He shook his head no, and then he used any reserve strength he had to lift his head to watch Ianna.

  She went back into the bedroom, and Alexander could hear her packing her things. When she came out, she didn't have Basta's gun. Alexander wanted to reach to her and rip the life from her body, but he couldn't even hold himself up on his elbow, much less launch an attack against her. He tried to reach for his own gun, but he couldn't raise his arm. He let his body give way, and he dropped back to the floor.

  He watched Ianna through an ever-darkening veil. When she got to the door, she paused and looked outside, her eyes squinting to see something. Then she grunted, “Fuck.” She put her bags down and walked back to the bedroom. When she came out, she carried Drago's gun and Alexander's jacket. She draped the jacket over the gun and headed out the door.

  Max saw Desiree
Rupert's Ford Explorer parked in the ditch where the dirt path to Torch Lake left the county highway. A shiver of foreboding passed through him, and he hurried to get to the cabin. Max had never driven his unmarked squad car to the lake, but when Niki told him about the ping in Hill City, he caught the first current north. Now his Charger scraped along the dirt trail as he headed back to the cabin.

  The cabin glowed in the night, the incandescence casting a halo where the light reflected off of the pine trees. Max parked behind a black Cadillac. He paused to peer into the car and was about to open the door when a woman came running out of the cabin, her blond hair tussled, a jacket clutched tightly to her abdomen.

  “Help!” she screamed. “He's been shot. Alexander's hurt.”

  Max took a step toward the woman who fit the description of Ianna Markova given to him by Alexander.

  “Are you Max? Are you his brother?”

  “What happened?”

  “He shot Alexander.” Ianna pointed to the cabin.

  Max took off in a dead sprint but had only taken two steps when a voice in his head screamed for his attention. The voice had to break through the noise of Max's panic—the vision of Alexander lying wounded in the cabin. But by that second step, he heard it. Why was Ianna not running with him? She came out to get help, to get Max, but she stayed beside the car as he ran to help his brother. And something in her eyes wasn't right. She seemed properly distraught when she screamed for help, but as soon as Max committed to his run, he saw a change in her eyes—a split-second of calm.

  By his second step, Max knew something was wrong. On his third step, he felt the bullet punch into his left shoulder blade, sending him tumbling to the ground. A second bullet slammed into the ground beside his head, splashing dirt into the air.