“I missed the hospital food,” I said.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” he said. “You’re also lucky to have your fingers and your toes still attached to your body.”
A couple snowmobilers had found me, a man and his son. The man was a scoutmaster and a volunteer fireman, one of those guys who are ready for anything at any time. He had the emergency heat packs. He had the electric hand warmers that connected to the snowmobile battery. He even had the pad on the seat that warmed your ass while you were riding.
“Those snowmobiles are amazing machines,” the doctor said. “Do you own one?”
“No,” I said. “Not at the moment.”
“You need to get one,” he said. “They’re a lot of fun, too.”
When the snowmobilers got back to Paradise, they called the sheriff’s office. An ambulance was sent out to bring me to the hospital. My core body temperature was eighty-seven degrees, three below the severe hypothermia line. They applied heat to my neck, armpits and groin on the way to the hospital. When I got there, they put me in a full body wrap. My temperature came back up, about two degrees an hour.
“Ninety-six degrees,” the doctor said, looking at the display on the thermometer. “How do you feel?”
“I still feel cold,” I said.
“You’ll feel better,” he said. “You’re still dehydrated from the vasoconstriction.”
“The vasoconstriction,” I said. “Of course.”
“We were concerned about all the blood,” he said.
“The blood…” I said.
“You were a mess,” he said. “But you didn’t have any bleeding injuries. That wasn’t even your blood, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t,” I said. “It’s a long story.”
“Somebody else’s blood,” he said, shaking his head. “Do me a favor. When you’re ready to tell the story to somebody, make sure I’m in the room. This I gotta hear.”
I did tell the story to Sheriff Brandow, and I did make sure the doctor was there to hear it. Brandow listened to everything I said and wrote it down without saying a word, then he sent his men out to find the ice shanty.
“They’re going to find two dead men in their underwear,” I said. “I don’t know what you guys are going to do about Bruckman.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “we can just wait until spring. If Champagne and Urbanic want him now, they can go in after him themselves.”
I passed those exact words on to the agents when they came by to see me. They weren’t happy.
“Let me get this straight,” Champagne said. “We’ve got two of Molinov’s men. Dead. We got Bruckman. Dead, and under the ice somewhere. We got no live bodies. We got no bag.”
“You’ve still got each other,” I said.
“It’s a good thing you’re in the hospital,” he said. “Because you’re going to need some type O in about one minute.”
I caught Urbanic’s eye. He was trying not to smile. After Champagne stormed out of the room, I asked him how he could stand having a guy like that for a partner.
“You were a cop once,” he said. “You ever had a partner you couldn’t stand?”
“Yes,” I said. “He got killed.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Every day,” I said.
“I’d feel the same way,” he said. “And besides, you should see him hit a golf ball. We’ve won the DEA Two-Man Best Ball seven years in a row.”
I was still thinking about that when Leon stopped by. He had more private investigator magazines for me and a small box.
“I’ve got a present for you,” he said.
I opened the box. Inside were at least a couple hundred business cards. “What’s this?”
“Read it,” he said.
I took out one of the cards. “Prudell-McKnight Investigations,” I read. There were two guns under our names.
“You see, that’s your service revolver, and that’s my Luger.”
“It’s looks like they’re shooting at each other,” I said.
“No, no,” he said. “It’s like the two musketeers. All for one and one for all. Or both. Or whatever.”
“You actually had business cards made up,” I said.
“I thought they’d cheer you up,” he said. “I’ll be back later, after work.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t like seeing my partner lying in a hospital bed,” he said. “I won’t feel right until you’re back on the case.”
“The case,” I said. “How much time have we spent thinking about this? How much trouble did we get into? Well, me, anyway. Not to mention two trips to the hospital. What do we have to show for it?”
“Well,” he said. He thought about it. “We’ve eliminated some suspects.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “You’re right,” I said. “We have done that.”
“Just get better,” he said. “Then we’ll get back to work.”
“Leon,” I said. “Seriously, I don’t know what the hell we’ve been doing, but I will say this. I’m glad vou were helping me.”
“See ya later, partner,” he said.
“See ya later,” I said. “Partner.”
When he was gone, I looked through the magazines he had left for me, then I took a nap. When I woke up, the two snowmobilers were there to see me, a man and his thirteen-year-old son from Traverse City. They both had crew cuts and firm handshakes. I thanked them and gave them my phone number, invited them up for a week in one of the cabins, whenever they felt like coming up again.
Bill Brandow came back again that evening. This time he had a brown paper bag with a cold Canadian beer in it. “I figured you could use this,” he said.
“The doctor will kill you,” I said.
“I’m going to be buying you drinks for a long time,” he said, “so I thought I might as well get started now.”
“And it’s just what I need right now,” I said, feeling the bottle. “Something cold.”
He looked down at the floor. “Guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“Don’t worry about it, Bill.”
“I shouldn’t have played along with those agents,” he said. “You were right. I’m an elected sheriff. They can’t do anything to me.”
“Yeah, but that Champagne guy is such a smooth talker, you couldn’t help yourself.”
“I see I’m going to be paying for this for a long time,” he said.
When he was gone, Jackie came by, the man who would rather kiss his ex-wife than leave his bar and go out driving in the snow.
“What did you do,” I said, “close the place?”
“My son’s there,” he said. “I just had to come by and make sure you were okay.”
“You didn’t come here the last time I was in the hospital,” I said.
“Yeah, but you were just beat up then. By the time I even found out about it, you were out. If you’re going to freeze to death, on the other hand, I wish you’d pay your tab first.”
“Good seeing you, too,” I said.
The doctor came by again, and then Leon again after work, and then around dinnertime I looked up and thought I must be hallucinating. Chief Maven was standing in the doorway.
“What, no flowers?” I said.
“I just had to come by and see for myself,” he said. “They found you lying in the snow in the middle of Luce County, without a coat on, and you didn’t even lose a body part to frostbite?”
“My parts are all here,” I said. “All the original equipment.”
“How’s that saying go?” he said. “ ‘God looks after fools and idiots’?”
“I think it’s fools and drunkards,” I said.
“Either way,” he said, “ain’t you the living proof.”
When he came close enough to stand over me, he put his gloves in his pockets and folded his arms. He looked tired.
“Why did you come here?” I said. “Really.”
“I came her
e to ask you a few questions,” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“That cabin on Mackinac Trail,” he said. “I’ve already read the statement you gave to Brandow, but I have to ask you this myself. Did you really hit that thing with your snowplow?”
“Yes,” I said. “It wasn’t intentional.”
“You meant to plow the driveway and missed.”
“Next question,” I said.
“You saw what was done to those people,” he said. “After you accidentally caved in the whole side of the place with your snowplow.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And those men in the ice shanty,” he said. “The dead men they found lying in their underwear. Pearl and Roman? Is that what they called themselves? They’re the ones who killed those people in the cabin?”
“Yes.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“And the other man?” he said. “Molinov? You saw him kill Pearl and Roman?”
“Yes,” I said.
He nodded his head. “Okay, last question. Was it fast or was it slow?”
“What are you asking me?” I said.
“You saw what those men did,” he said. “When they died, was it fast or was it slow?”
I looked at him for a long moment. “It was fast,” I finally said. “They never even saw it coming.”
He nodded his head again. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He took his gloves back out of his pocket and put them on.
“That’s all,” he said. And then he left.
I sat there, staring at the far wall. The doctor came in a few minutes later and broke the spell.
“I’d like to keep you here a couple of more days,” he said. “Make sure your stomach is ready to digest food again. Hell, I’d like to keep you here for a month this time, make sure you don’t do anything stupid as soon as you get out of here.”
“I feel fine,” I said.
“You don’t feel cold anymore?”
“No,” I said. Which was a lie. But I couldn’t take the hospital anymore, and the endless parade of visitors. Everybody I knew had come by to see me.
With one exception.
I left the hospital at eight o’clock the next morning. I was wearing the new coat Leon had brought me. My old one was under the ice, after all, presumably still wrapped around Lonnie Bruckman’s body. But that was okay with me. I had gotten twelve good years out of that coat.
My truck was waiting in the parking lot, just as Leon had promised. I told him I didn’t want him to pick me up. I didn’t want to see anybody that morning. I just wanted to have a few hours by myself to do something important. He understood that, without needing any kind of explanation. The mark of a good partner.
I headed west that morning. It was cold, like most days. It looked like it would snow again soon, like most days. But I wasn’t thinking about the weather. When I hit the turnoff for Brimley, I took the road north onto the reservation. I parked the truck in the casino lot and went inside.
It didn’t take me long to find him. He was working a five-dollar blackjack table. There were three, players, two women and one man. I joined them.
“Alex,” he said, without looking up. When he was done shuffling, he slid the shoe to one of the woman and handed her the cut card.
“Vinnie,” I said.
After the cut, he started dealing. “Are you playing?” he said. He kept looking at the cards as he dealt them. He dealt himself a jack, so he pushed the other card over the sensor to see if he had blackjack. He didn’t, so the hand continued.
“I’m playing,” I said. I took out the envelope from my pocket, the one the renters had left for me. After my adventures at the ice rink, I had one hundred-dollar bill left.
When the hand was finished and the bettors paid off, he took the bill from me. “Changing a hundred,” he said. The pit boss gave him a nod.
I waited until the next hand was underway. “You didn’t come see me in the hospital,” I said.
“I’ve been working,” he said. “Dealer shows nine.”
“You came and saw me the last time,” I said. “Suddenly you’re too busy? Did they change your hours?”
“Twenty-two,” he said, after the first woman drew a ten to her twelve. “Alex, I can’t talk right now.”
“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “I think I know why you didn’t come by.”
“Twenty-five,” he said, after the man drew a nine to his sixteen. “Alex, please.”
“You should have split the eights, sir,” I said to the man. From the look on his face, my advice was not appreciated. “I think you didn’t come by,” I said to Vinnie, “because you were consumed by guilt.”
He showed no reaction. He kept dealing. The third player stood on seventeen.
“Your turn,” he said to me. “Would you like a card?”
I just looked at him. The other three players looked at me.
“A card for you, sir?”
I slipped my hands under the table and gave it a little experimental nudge. “This thing isn’t too heavy,” I said. “I wonder what would happen if I flipped it right over.”
“You would be removed from the premises, sir,” he said.
“It would make a hell of a show, though, wouldn’t it?”
“Would you like a card, sir?”
“What I would like,” I said, “is for you to come outside with me.”
“Alex, I just got on this table,” he said. “I can’t leave.”
I gave the table another nudge. This time all the little piles of chips fell over. The three other players looked around like they were expecting somebody to help them.
Vinnie closed his eyes. “Finish the hand,” he said. “Then we’ll go.”
“Give me a card,” I said.
He put a six on my fourteen. Then he threw over his hole card and showed nineteen. “You win,” he said. He cleaned up the table, then signaled for the pit boss. “I have an emergency,” he said to the man.
The boss looked at me and then gave a little wave. Another dealer was there in three seconds to take Vinnie’s place.
I waited until we were in the parking lot. Then I started thinking about where I should hit him first. The problem was, I wasn’t sure that I had the strength to lift my arm high enough to swing at him. And I didn’t feel mad enough to start kicking him. Not yet, anyway.
“Tell me something,” I said. “What happened to that big lecture you were giving me about Indians not interfering in each other’s lives? That whole story about how your mother didn’t even make you go to the dentist. You make your own way, you choose your own path, all that bullshit.”
“What are you talking about?” he said.
“What about kidnapping Dorothy from my cabin?” I said. “Isn’t that interfering with her life? Just a little bit?”
He looked out at the road. A cold wind picked up. I barely felt it.
“So when are you going to explain this to me?” I said. “Before or after I beat the living crap out of you?”
“Alex, don’t.”
“Why do you say that? Because you don’t want to hurt me? You don’t want to have to use some secret Indian chokehold on me?”
He looked at me. “Stop it,” he said.
“How many of you guys did it take?” I said. “She must have put up quite a fight.”
“In case you’re forgetting,” he said, “I was in jail the night she was taken.”
“Yes, you were. But you’ve only got, what, seven hundred cousins? How many came out that night?”
“How did you find out?” he said. “Who told you?”
“Guess what, Vinnie. Nobody had to tell me. Some of us white people can figure things out ourselves. I knew it wasn’t Bruckman and it wasn’t Molinov. Neither of them even knew she was with me until the next day. Even if they did know, they wouldn’t have known to go to that second cabin. It had to be somebody who actually saw me take her there. Somebody who was in the woods, watchi
ng us.”
He looked away again.
“It also explains why she opened the door that night. They must have tricked her. What did they do, call her by her Indian name?”
“I didn’t know about any of this,” he said. “I swear. I didn’t know. I told you Jimmy and Buck were with me when I went after Bruckman. When I got arrested, I guess they kept following them. Bruckman and Dorothy, both. When Dorothy ran out on him that night, they split up. Buck followed Dorothy to the bar, then to the Glasgow, then to your place.”
“Of course he’s good at following people,” I said. “He’s an Ojibwa.”
“Will you knock it off?” he said. “He’s a college student. He’s gonna be a lawyer one day. He and my other cousins, I don’t know how to make you understand this, Alex. They’ve seen too much. This guy Bruckman, he had taken one of our people from us. Then he brought her back, like he was rubbing our noses in it. And he was trying to sell drugs to our people, Alex. To some of us, the ones who don’t know better. He was another white man trying to destroy us. They decided it was time to start doing something about it.”
“I came to that jail the next day and bailed you out,” I said. “You’re telling me you had no idea any of this was happening?”
“No,” he said. “I swear to you.”
“So when did you know, Vinnie?”
He hesitated.
“When did you know?”
“The night you were arrested,” he said. “I saw her.”
“Wait a minute, the night I was arrested? On the bridge? The next morning you came over and helped me clean up that last cabin, and you were asking me why I was still trying to find her.”
“I wanted you to stop,” he said. “You’d been through enough.”
“My God, Vinnie. Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I didn’t think I had to,” he said. “It sounded like you were done with it.”
“I can’t believe this,” I said. “And all this time, up until that night, you didn’t have the slightest idea that your own cousins took her?”
“I don’t live on the reservation,” he said.
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