Dutifully, Dale began tramping up the unplowed road toward the house, and Tom had the at once pedestrian and utterly ludicrous thought that he would have to give his plow guy shit for not having their road cleared yet. Ludicrous because after tonight, they might all be dead.
The thought sobered Tom and he reached into his pocket for the weapon Dale had given him, liking its heft, its cold assurance in his bare hand. He pulled back the slide to chamber a round. In front of him, without breaking stride, Dale said, “Be careful with that thing. If I get shot tonight, I don’t want it to be by you.”
Tom said, “Are you still up for this?” and Dale didn’t answer.
They came around a bend in the road and Tom put a hand on Dale’s shoulder, stopping him. Light from the compound was visible now through a dense stand of jack pines and Tom didn’t want them getting spotted before they even reached the grounds.
The men huddled there briefly and Tom said, “I asked you if you were still up for this,” and Dale said, “Fuck, no...but yes, I’m still up for this, all right?”
Tom said all right, then angled off the road into the knee-deep snow of the jack pine stand, taking the lead now, deciding to trust the terrified heroin addict with the gun in his hand who tramped into the woods behind him. When it came right down to it, what choice did he have?
They came out of the trees about twenty feet from the huge, stainless steel Quonset hut that served as a garage, repair shop and hangar, a windowless monstrosity that Mandy hated and joked could probably be seen from outer space.
“Okay,” Tom said, “This is it. Remember the drill?”
Breathing hard beside him, Dale said, “I got it, Tom. Let’s just get it done, okay?”
“All right. See you on the other side.”
The men moved off in opposite directions, Dale heading past the Quonset hut to the brightly lit front of the homestead, Tom angling around back. Years ago he’d hidden a key to the rear door of the hut above its metal frame, and was gratified now to find it still there, snug in it’s little magnetic box. He used it to open the seldom-used door, which gave a rusty bark as he drew it open against the accumulated snow, the harsh sound fading quickly to silence in the drooping boughs of the surrounding pines.
He paused there a moment, breathing puffs of frost into the still night air, listening, fearful the sound had alerted Sanj and exposed them before they even got started...but there was nothing: no movement, no sound.
Moving more carefully now, Tom used the side of his boot to clear away the banked snow, then eased the door open just wide enough to squeeze through.
Inside, he used a penlight to find a spare set of keys in a coffee can on his workbench, then tucked the light between his teeth, removed a single key from the ring with shivering fingers and tucked the lot of them into his pocket.
Finally, he lifted an extension ladder from its hooks and carried it out through back door.
* * *
As it had always been, Dale’s first instinct was to bolt. Fuck this nonsense. Get back to the Mercedes—Shit, Tom has the keys—grab the stuff and beat a trail for parts unknown. He didn’t owe these people anything—it was Tom who’d crashed the party, not him—and he sure as fuck didn’t want to die out here tonight. That fucking Sanj was a murdering maniac and Dale had seen the fury in those black eyes after he shot the man’s brother, a cold, sharklike death stare that had frightened him even more than the switchblade Sanj had been about to flay him with. Truth be told, he’d come close to shitting himself right there in the tub.
He really did know a guy in Montreal who’d pay top dollar for the dope—minus the half-key he’d hold onto for personal use—and that, plus the quarter mill in cash he already had, would be more than enough to comfortably carry him for the next five years. Someplace warm and very far away...
In spite of himself, Dale crept up to the first window he saw and peeked inside at what looked like a living room. Dimly lit in there. Abandoned.
But fuck, if he was being honest with himself, he really did owe this guy. If Tom hadn’t coldcocked Sanj he’d be dead right now, stabbed and fileted, bled out in his uncle’s bathtub. Eviscerated, probably. The thought of it raised a cold sweat across his scalp and for a moment, picturing it, Dale thought he might puke.
Breathing in shallow gasps, he hunched there in the shadow of the porch, hands on his knees until the feeling passed.
God damn it.
He’d actually taken a dozen quick steps toward the roadway when he turned, raised the gun to a ready position and started back toward the porch steps.
He thought, Fuck this. Oh, sweet Lord Jesus, fuck this.
Then he crept up the stairs to the patterned glass side-light and peered inside.
* * *
Tom was on the roof at the back of the house now, staring into the master bedroom through the big dormer window, barely able to make anything out in the unlit enclosure. Once his eyes adjusted, he could see that the bed was still made and Mandy’s work clothes were draped across the foot rail, which probably meant she was wearing a nightie and, hopefully, a housecoat. The thought of that animal’s eyes on her made his skin crawl. If he had so much as touched her...
But he knew this line of thinking was pointless, and would only make him impulsive and vulnerable once he was face to face with the guy, and he did his best to suppress it.
He started around the east-facing side of the roof, heading for Steve’s room at the front of the house. Partway there he lost his footing on the steep slope and almost went over the edge, just managing to stop himself by digging the edges of his boots into the frozen shingles.
Panting, he thought, Shit, they must have heard that.
Then Dale’s voice from below, a loud whisper: “You okay up there?”
Tom peered over the edge and saw Dale staring up at him, gun aimed at the ground. Tom said, “I figured soon as I took my eyes off you, you’d make a run for it.”
“Almost did,” Dale said. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. And keep it down, will you?”
“Be with you is a sec. Just going to check my son’s room. See anything yet?”
“Not a thing.”
“Okay, wait right there.”
Taking his time now, Tom crept to the front of the house and checked Steve’s room, the little guy’s green nightlight casting a creepy pall over everything in there. The covers on his bed were folded down, the bottom sheet wrinkled from the weight of his body, but Steve was nowhere in sight.
Tom felt his insides turn to mud. He crept back to the ladder and started down, Dale steadying his descent from the ground.
Stepping off into the snow, Tom said, “Steve’s not in his bed. Why would he bring a five year old child into this?”
“Insurance,” Dale said.
“Well, fuck him. Did you check the office yet?” Dale shook his head and Tom said, “Okay, follow me.”
He didn’t want to risk exposure by using the big picture window, so he lead Dale to the west-facing side of the building, coming full circle to the Quonset hut, the flank of which formed an eight-foot wide alleyway with the main structure. Near the front of the building they came to a small window in the side wall of the office, but the blind had been drawn. Mandy never drew those blinds, so it must have been Sanj.
Tom moved to the picture window next to find that the blind had been drawn on it, too. He returned to the side window and noticed a narrow space at the top where the blind was suspended from its base. He got Dale to give him a boost.
It took him a moment to orient himself, but then he saw the foot of the open sofa bed and the floor beside it. There was a blood stained sheet balled up on the floor, and the unmoving outline of two pairs of feet under a blanket on the bed, one pair adult, the other a child’s.
“Oh, no...”
* * *
Setting Tom down, Dale said, “What is it?” but Tom had tears in his eyes now and appeared catatonic, swaying in a near faint.
Dale spotted
a wooden skid leaning against the Quonset hut and pried it out of the snow, propped it against the office wall and scaled it to have a look for himself.
Jesus. It did not look good.
He heard Tom say, “That motherfucker,” and said, “We don’t know that yet, Tom,” and hopped back to the ground. He said, “Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Me neither. So let’s just stick to the plan.”
Tom nodded and handed him a key. “This is for the outside basement door; you passed it on the other side of the house.”
Dale remembered.
Tom said, “You go down six steps, straight across the basement and up another twelve. That’ll put you right across from the office door. He’s probably watching it, so be careful. I’ll be coming in through the other side of the house. If we time it right, we’ll end up flanking the office door. That way, at best, he’ll only be able to get the drop on one of us, no matter how fucking clever he is.”
The urge to flee welled up in Dale again, stronger this time, but Tom said, “Is your head clear?” and Dale said, “Crystal.” And it was.
“All right,” Tom said, and offered his hand to be shaken. Dale shook it, surprised by its gentle strength, its warmth out here in the snow.
Still holding Dale’s hand, Tom said, “Thanks, Dale. And no matter what happens next, you’re already twice the man your brother ever was.”
Then he let go and started away and Dale stood there for a moment in the chill winter air, an absurd sting of tears in his eyes, flight the furthest thing from his mind now.
He wiped his eyes dry and got moving.
* * *
When Tom stepped into the hallway that gave onto the closed office door, a part of him still half-expected Dale to have fled in the eleventh hour; but the man was already there, his back to the wall next to the office door, gun raised in a two-handed grip like a character in an action film, his expression tense, not with fear, Tom judged, but with a fierce determination.
Tom took a similar stance on the opposite side of the door and, with a confirming nod, grasped the knob and swung the door open, moving silently into the room and dropping to one knee, sweeping the room for targets. Dale stepped in behind him and remained standing, aiming over Tom’s head.
No sign of Sanj.
From his current vantage a dozen feet from the sofa bed, Tom could see only its bottom third, a wider view obstructed by the big storage room he’d built the previous summer. There was still no movement on the bed, and, glancing again at that bloody sheet, Tom braced himself for the worst.
Whispering to Dale, he said, “Cover me,” and rose to his full height, moving toward the bed now. He cleared the corner of the storage room, gun at the ready in case Sanj was waiting for him there, then turned his attention to his wife and son lying on their sides, facing each other as if posed, so utterly still that Tom felt certain they were dead.
Despondent, he touched Mandy’s ankle through the blanket...
And Mandy opened her eyes.
Tom turned to Dale—the man still standing guard in the doorway, trying to look everywhere at once—and gave him a relieved thumbs up.
Mandy glanced at Steve, still sound asleep beside her, then looked at Tom and brought a finger to her lips. Shh.
Tom mouthed, “Where is he?” and Mandy pointed at the storage room.
Tom turned again to Dale and nodded at the storage room. The men aligned themselves as they had at the office door, and after a silent three count Tom swung the door open and both men aimed their guns into the starkly lit room.
Sanj was hog-tied on the floor in there, duct-taped into a fetal position with an oily rag stuffed into his mouth and a strip of tape covering his eyebrows and eyes. When he heard them come in he began to wriggle and grunt on the floor.
Dale and Tom traded stares of amazement, then Dale followed Tom back to the sofa bed. Mandy was sitting up now, the blanket tugged up to her chin.
Both men simply stared at her.
Shrugging, Mandy said, “After I delivered the placenta, he fainted.”
But this served only to confuse Tom more.
With a coy smile, Mandy lowered the blanket to reveal their newborn son, soundly sleeping in her arms.
Trying to stifle a gale of laughter, Tom tucked his gun into the back of his pants and approached Mandy’s side of the bed. Giggling now herself, Mandy handed him their infant son and Tom sat on the bed next to her, stunned into silence by the circumstances and the beauty of this new life, so tiny and warm in the hammock of his arms.
Tom saw the dopey grin on Dale’s face and within moments all three of them were consumed by laughter, the same crazed, delighted laughter Tom had shared with Dale after the plane crash.
In the giddy commotion, Steve sat bolt upright in bed, screwing a fist into one sleepy eye and saying, “Is it still my birthday?” and the laughter escalated to a breathless, manic pitch. Incredibly, tucked into his father’s arms, the Stokes’ new infant son slept through the entire thing.
* * *
Helpless on the floor in the storage room, Sanj tilted his head at the rising laughter, wondering what kind of mad asylum he’d let himself into.
42
Tucked safely into his own bed now, Steve said, “Daddy, what’s going to happen to that man?”
Tom sat on the edge of the bed and snugged Steve’s button-eyed teddy into its usual sleeping spot, in the crook of Steve’s left arm. “He’s going to jail for a very long time.”
“But he saved my baby brother,” Steve said, his eyelids trying hard to close.
“Yes, he did, and we’re all very grateful for that. But it doesn’t mean the man shouldn’t be punished for all of the other bad things he’s done.”
Yawning hugely, Steve said,” Like what?”
“Like breaking into our house and pointing a gun at you and your mommy. And that’s just for starters.”
But the poor kid was already fast asleep. Tom brushed the hair off the boy’s smooth forehead and softly kissed him there. Then he got to his feet and, before he left, switched off the green night-light; he had a feeling that after tonight, this brave little guy wouldn’t be needing it anymore.
* * *
Ten minutes later Tom was sitting in the garage behind the wheel of his truck, speaking into the handset of a two-way radio to a Sudbury cop, the cop saying, “We just got a call from a guy up the lake from you says he’s got the entire chopper crew in his kitchen, two of them with non-lethal gunshot wounds. There’s a unit on its way to him now.” The cop said, “You’re certain this guy is adequately restrained?”
Tom said, “He’s not going anywhere.”
“All right. Give us about thirty minutes.”
“That’s great,” Tom said. “Thanks very much.”
“Ten four.”
When he got back to the office he saw that Dale had dragged Sanj out of the storage room and secured him upright in one of Mandy’s antique chairs, enough duct tape wrapped around the man to restrain a stallion.
Mandy was sitting upright on the sofa bed now, cooing to their new son, and Dale was standing directly behind Sanj, spinning the spool of an exhausted roll of tape on his index finger.
Tom said, “I think you got him,” and Dale frowned, as if he wasn’t so sure.
Mandy said, “Dale gave me the condensed version. Sounds like you boys’ve had quite a day.” Tom managed a weary grin and Mandy said, “Were you able to reach the police?” Tom nodded, telling her they’d be here in half an hour.
There were some questions he wanted to ask Sanj before the cops got here and he waved Dale over, the two of them standing in front of Sanj now.
Speaking to Dale, Tom said, “Do the honors?”
Dale said, “Gladly,” grasped a corner of the tape across Sanj’s eyebrows and eyes and ripped it off as brutally as he could.
Sanj roared into the gag.
Dale showed Mandy and Tom the sticky side of the tape, most of Sanj’s eye
brow hair and eye lashes glued to it in twin, startled arcs.
Smiling, Mandy said, “Now, boys, he did save our baby’s life.”
His eyes tearing up from the waxing, Sanj nodded his agreement. He was breathing hard against the gag now, sweating in spite of the cool office air.
Tom said to Mandy, “That much is true. It does overlook the fact that he broke into our home and held you and our son at gunpoint, in all likelihood precipitating your labor. It also overlooks the fact that, had he not fainted like a school girl and ended up gift wrapped by a five year old boy and a woman who’d just given birth, he almost certainly would have assassinated everyone in the room.” Speaking to Sanj now, Tom said, “But in spite of all that, you do have my sincerest thanks for saving our son.”
Sanj gave him an acknowledging nod.
“Now if I remove this gag,” Tom said, “will you try to be civil? My wife and child are in the room.”
Sanj nodded again.
This time Tom removed the tape, and did so gently. The gag came away with the tape and Tom dropped the whole mess into the garbage can by the desk.
“Thank you,” Sanj said. “It tasted like transmission fluid.”
Mandy said, “Correct.”
Surprising them all, Sanj looked up at Dale and said, “May I have a word with you, Dale?”
* * *
Nervous in spite of the fact that the man was mummy-wrapped to a chair, Dale thought, What the fuck do you want to talk to me for? Then he thought he knew and said, “If it’s about your brother, I want you to know how sorry I am. I was stoned and afraid and I just...lost it. I still feel sick about it. I’m not a violent person.”
Sanj said, “Life is about choices and most of ours were bad. It was really only a matter of time.” For a moment Dale thought he was done, but then he said, “But watching my brother die like that—and then being given the opportunity to save a new life...it’s been a kind of epiphany for me.”
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