Envy the Night

by Michael Koryta

  “And you’ll bring the money.”

  “Yes, Mr. Dolson. I will bring the money.”

  Being alone in the shop again wasn’t a good feeling. Believe it or not, Nora was anxious for Jerry’s arrival, something that had never occurred before. Frank Temple had offered to come into town with her, but she’d declined, disliking that maiden-in-distress vibe of relying on some strange male for protection. Besides, she was still reeling from what he’d told her. A hit man? At the Willow Flowage?

  She wanted to consider it a joke. Might have been able to, were it not for the sorrow she saw in Frank’s eyes as he’d told her the story. That haunted look he wore when he talked about his father was chilling. If he could conjure that up just to screw with somebody’s mind, he needed to head to Hollywood on the next bus, get to work winning his Oscar.

  So then it was real. That stirred a queasy blend of emotions within her, one that would hopefully be quieted once the Lexus was out of her garage and into police hands.

  She left the office and went out into the main body of the shop and looked at the Lexus, sitting alone under the glare of the fluorescent lights. Since she’d taken over the shop, she’d found herself unappreciative of most of the new cars that came in. They had no personality, no soul. The old cars, your ’55 Chevys and ’68 Mustangs and any of a two-decade stretch of Cadillacs, those cars were like friends. She felt not unlike a doctor while tending to them, considered the removal of rust and addition of fresh paint to be healing effects, and she was sorry to see them leave the shop. It wasn’t that she loathed the new cars; they just didn’t inspire any feeling within her. Until this one.

  She hated it now. Feared it. Just standing in its presence and looking at those twisted and crumpled quarter panels on the floor beside it was creepy. She was shaken by the sense that the piece of plastic and metal was somehow aware of her fear, was studying her now like a large strange dog unfenced and unchained.

  Her sophomore year of college, she’d taken a trip to Rome with some classmates, an art history study project that her stepfather had financed without so much as a blink. Her mother had made the request, and after he’d written the check, she leaned down and kissed his neck, nipped his earlobe, and rubbed his back as he smiled distractedly and turned back to his desk. Nora, standing in the doorway watching it all, felt a cold ripple spread through her stomach.

  That trip got off to a bad start. Due to delays from bad thunderstorms over the Midwest, Nora missed a connecting flight and had to wait for nine hours in LaGuardia, alone. To pass the time, she visited the airport bookstore and grabbed the first Stephen King paperback she saw, Christine. For most of the layover, she huddled in a corner seat in the terminal with that book, amazed at King’s ability to make even a car seem scary. That was a real miracle of storytelling, she’d thought, to give menace to a car.

  This Lexus, though, put King’s ’58 Plymouth Fury to shame. It wasn’t something out of a book, it was real, felt firm and cold under her hand, and its presence had already produced the most terrifying moment of her life. She caught herself rubbing her wrist as she looked at the car. There were thin blue lines on her flesh now, reminders of fingers closed over her arm.

  A sudden, powerful rattling at the side door made her jerk, and when she stepped backward her foot hit the front bumper, which was resting on the floor, and nearly put her on her ass.

  “Nora! Let me in.”

  Jerry. She put both hands on her temples, took one long breath, and then moved to the door.

  “Take my keys away, and then you can’t even unlock the door when you know I’m coming?” He entered the shop with customary good cheer, griping and scowling. It must be exhausting to be Jerry, carry all that hostility at all hours of the day.

  “After last night, I’m never leaving a door in this shop unlocked again,” she said. “Not when I’m alone, at least.”

  That caught his attention, made him tilt his head and lift one of his wild eyebrows.

  “What do you mean?”

  She told him what had happened and was surprised by his face as he listened. He looked concerned in a way she wouldn’t have imagined he could be, concerned and almost guilty.

  “Shoot, Nora. I can’t believe that. This fella walking in here and putting hands on you . . . shoot.” His chest filled with air and he looked around the shop as if hoping to find the culprit still on the property. “You say they hit Mowery, hurt him bad?”

  “He looked real bad, Jerry.”

  “I known that old boy since I was a kid. Sure, he’s given me a hassle a time or two, but he also drove me home from Kleindorfer’s once when he sure as shit didn’t have to. Other guys, situation like that, they just take your ass down to the drunk’s cell.” His hands had curled into fists at his sides.

  “I didn’t know him,” Nora said, “but I was scared for him. I want to go down to the hospital today, see if he’s all right, and thank him.”

  “Yeah.” Jerry’s eyes weren’t on her, didn’t seem to be on anything in the shop.

  “What’s wrong, Jerry?”

  “Nothing. I mean, shoot, just what happened, that’s all. I wish I’d been here, Nora. Got in the habit of cutting out ahead of Bud at quitting time, but I shouldn’t do that with you. Shouldn’t leave a woman alone in a place like this.”

  “I’m not your responsibility, Jerry. Don’t worry about that.” She was touched by his concern, though.

  “Well, that’s the last time, you hear? This is a good town, Nora, a darn good town, but in the summers you get people coming in from all over, people you don’t know and can’t trust. Long as that’s going on, I shouldn’t be leaving you alone around here.”

  He looked up at her with a surprising sincerity in his face and said, “I’m sorry, Nora.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. And I really do appreciate you coming in here to get that stupid car put back together and out the door. I’ll be glad to see it go.”

  “No problem.” Then, banging his fist on the hood of the Lexus, “You think the son of a bitch who drove this thing is going to come back for it?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t want it here if he does. I’ve heard some things I don’t like, Jerry. Things that scare me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She didn’t want to give him the whole story, hadn’t yet decided who she was going to give that to, but she was also worried and wanted to talk. It was one of the problems of her existence here; she was an outsider, a strange woman in a strange role, and her only confidant in the entire county was a man who needed help to write his own name. She and Frank still hadn’t come to an agreement on whether she should even tell the police about the Mitsubishi. It would be nice to talk things over with someone.

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind with this thing,” she said, pointing at the Lexus. “Last night was bad enough, but this morning I talked to the other driver, and he . . . he offered some theories I don’t like.”

  “The kid?” Jerry frowned. “Where’d he go, anyhow?”

  “He’s staying at the Willow. I drove him out last night.” Best not to mention her return trip and invite more questions she wasn’t comfortable answering.

  “What’s he know about it?”

  She hesitated. No, it wouldn’t do to share any of this with Jerry. For one thing, he ran his mouth, and for another, he elaborated. Even a toned-down version of Frank’s account would soon be the sole topic of conversation over the bar at Kleindorfer’s, only by the time it got there it would probably involve terrorists and nuclear weapons.

  “He saw a gun in the Lexus,” she said. “The guy took it with him.” This wasn’t a lie, and hopefully it would be enough to appease Jerry.

  “You tell the police that?”

  “Yes.”

  “They say anything about this car? Have any, uh, ideas of what’s going on?”

  “Not last night. I don’t know if they do today.”

  He wouldn’t look at her. “Get on out of here. I’ll have
this thing done fast.”

  “I’ll wait on you.”

  He turned back to her, shaking his head emphatically. “No, you don’t need to do that. Tell you what—you go on down to the hospital like you said, check in on Mowery, tell him old Jerry says hello. Then I’ll give you a holler on the cell phone when this fancy-ass thing is ready to go.”

  “I think there should always be two people in this shop, Jerry. Until the car’s gone, we should both be here.”

  He lifted a hand to his forehead, rubbed above his eyes like an exhausted man with many miles ahead. “I leave you here on your own last night for all that shit to happen, and now you want to stay around for me. Want to keep me safe.”

  It wasn’t a complaint; he was more musing to himself than talking to her.

  “I just think it would be safest for both of us.”

  “I got something to tell you, Nora.” He looked anguished. “And I want you to understand this first—I didn’t know nothing about this car or what had happened to you at the time, okay? I mean, shit, if I’d known what happened . . .”

  “Jerry, what are you talking about?”

  He lowered his hand and walked past her, to his locker. Pulled it open and reached inside and withdrew a small plastic box. Even when he passed it to her and she held it in her own hands she had no idea what it was.

  “It’s a tracking device, Nora. Sends out a signal, and if you got the receiver you can follow it along.” He ran his tongue over his lips. “It was on that car. I pulled it off the bumper reinforcement yesterday.”

  She ran her fingertips over the smooth plastic. This was the secret. This little thing was the source of the chaos. It had brought those bastards into her life.

  “You found this yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t tell me.”

  “I’m sorry, Nora. I just . . . I don’t know what to say. I wasn’t thinking, that’s all.”

  “Okay.” Perhaps she should have been furious, screaming at him right now, blaming him. Instead, all she felt was confusion. Was this discovery good or bad? Would the device help her, or was it an increased risk just to hold it in her hand?

  “I’m sorry,” Jerry said again.

  “It’s all right. You’re telling me now. That’s what counts.”

  “Hang on,” Jerry said. “There’s more.”

  15

  __________

  Frank had no intention of watching the Matteson island—no conscious intention anyhow. When he got the boat in the water and the motor fastened onto the transom, his only thought was of taking a ride, seeing the lake again.

  He made it all of five minutes with that as the morning’s lone goal. Out of the little bay and around the sandbar—the lake was still high enough that he probably could have gone right over the top of the bar, but old habits guided him around it—and then, just after he hit the main body of the lake, he opened up the throttle and pointed toward the Four Islands. Past them and around the point, out into the more desolate stretches of the lake, was the Matteson place. He had to see it. Just a look.

  It was twenty minutes with the little outboard running at full throttle before the island came into view. There were so many islands out here that it could get confusing; half of them looked like the shore from a distance, and then you’d be around them and into a bay that looked big enough to be the main portion of the lake and suddenly you were damn lost.

  Toward the northernmost reaches of the Willow the lake became more desolate, and tucked into the eastern shore was an area called Slaughterhouse Bay, so named because of the liberal collection of stumps and dead trees that protruded out of the water and could easily and swiftly ruin a boat. Navigating among the dozens of stumps, even at slow speeds, was treacherous, and though Frank and his father had always assumed it would be a treasure trove of pike and perhaps bass, they’d never taken a good fish out of the bay. It was an eerie spot, particularly at dusk, when the partially submerged trees blended with long shadows and made the place look almost like a Florida swamp.

  Skirting the bay and its stumps by several hundred yards, Frank crossed Slaughterhouse Point, approaching the headwaters where the Tomahawk River fed the flowage. Between Slaughterhouse Point on the south side and Muskie Point on the north, lying offshore of hundreds of acres of unbroken forest, he found the Matteson island. After a seven-year absence, maybe it should have been difficult to locate, but he didn’t have any trouble. The place was burned deep in his memory.

  Although there were dozens of good-sized islands on the flowage, few would have been hospitable to development even if not state owned. The waters in the flowage fluctuated too much; in a low-rain year the lake was responsible for feeding much of the Wisconsin River valley, and the dam would be opened to the point that the lake level would dip as much as much ten feet below the norm. A high-rain year, they’d close the dams up and the lake would rise dramatically, creating an ever-changing landscape that turned islands into mainland one summer and partially submerged them the next spring. The Matteson place was an exception due both to the high bluffs that bordered it and its placement in the middle of the lake. The water would never reach the ground level upon which the cabin was built, and any major recession simply expanded the beach below the bluffs.

  He passed the island on the west side, keeping about a hundred feet out, saw the roof of the cabin and two of the no trespassing signs, then circled and was ready to head back when he saw the woman.

  She was walking out into the lake, waist deep now, testing the footing and moving slowly. What in the world was she thinking, going for a swim in this lake in April? Even though the air temperature was unseasonably warm, at least ten degrees above normal, the water would be frigid. She didn’t seem concerned, though.

  Frank didn’t react to the sight of her, didn’t slow or cut the motor or do anything else that would make a clear show of his interest. Instead, he turned his head and stared straight out over the bow and gave the throttle an extra twist, picking up speed. He took the boat out into the lake, angled away from the island. The day had risen clear and beautiful, the breeze warming as the sun rode higher, everything reminding him of a number of days spent on this water with his father. He’d been ready for the memories today, but now they were sinking away, pushed down by that woman in the water.

  She was a beautiful woman. Even from fifty yards out, he’d seen that. Tall and elegant, and from the short look he’d gotten at her body, it probably seemed more suspicious that he had not slowed the boat to stare. She would be used to stares.

  Dave O’Connor, or Vaughn, or whoever the hell the gray-haired man really was, did not seem a match for that woman. He was such a strange-looking man, so nervous and awkward. On the other hand, he drove a Lexus and had thousands in cash on him, along with a gun. Maybe she was the sort who was attracted to money or danger.

  That was another problem with Vaughn, though. He didn’t seem like a dangerous guy. Even with the gun, even with the duo that had shown up on his heels, he didn’t fit the mold. Those guys at the body shop yesterday had been a different story. Vaughn didn’t seem anything like them or like other dangerous men Frank had known. Didn’t seem anything like his father.

  There he was, though, sitting in Devin Matteson’s cabin with a woman who could turn heads from across the lake, two gun-toting badasses in pursuit. Nothing about that scenario felt right to Frank. Not after the time he’d spent with Vaughn yesterday.

  He brought the boat around in a circle and ran back across the lake, a little farther out this time. She was leaving the water, and he could see another figure on shore. The distance was too great for a definite identification, but he assumed it was Vaughn.

  Down maybe three hundred yards to an osprey nest, then back around for another pass, watching that island. This time he couldn’t see anyone on the beach. They’d gone inside, maybe. Or he’d spooked them. In retrospect, this was a pretty stupid approach; if he wanted to watch them, he should just
anchor somewhere and watch them, the way Ezra had yesterday. These continued passes were more likely to attract attention. His father would have pitched him overboard if he’d been here to witness it.

  Enough with the half-assed surveillance attempt. They were gone, and he’d already made one pass too many. Better to continue on, leave those two to their own affairs and hope his didn’t coincide with them again. Nora Stafford had left his cabin with a measure of uncertainty, but he suspected what she planned to do now was simply get that Lexus off her property and leave the Mitsubishi in the woods. As he’d told her, there was a good chance it would still be there long after Vaughn left. If not, he’d pay for the rusted old heap himself. It was a better option than calling the police out to the Matteson place and attempting to repossess the vehicle. The less interaction Nora had with Devin Matteson’s associates, the better.

  He found himself alone in North Bay, no other boat in sight, and cut the motor. The flowage would never seem busy, but during fishing season there would be plenty of other people out and about. Today, though, it was empty.

  The sun was unhindered by cloud, and he pulled his shirt off so he could feel it on his skin, take in this moment and this place. They’d caught a lot of fish out here, shared a lot of laughs.

  A harsh ringing spoiled the silent day then, sounding louder on the water than it ever would back on land. He couldn’t believe he got cell phone reception out here. That damn tower that had irked his father so much was doing its job. He took the phone out, saw the same number he’d dialed the previous night to leave his message for Nora. She was back at her body shop.

  “Hello?”

  Static and garbled words, Frank catching no meaning at all. He took the phone away from his ear, looked at the display again. Still connected, but showing just one bar, a weak signal. Okay, maybe the tower really wasn’t anything but an eyesore. He tried again.

  “Nora? I can’t hear you. Nora?”