The Deep Dark Descending

by Eskens,Allen

  “Caviar’s Gentlemen’s Club. Dawby speaking.”

  In the background, AC/DC blasted out Shook Me All Night Long.

  “Dawby, this is Ana. I need to speak to Mikhail. It’s important.”

  “For fuck sake, Ana. What the hell’s going on? You ‘bout got me fired.”

  “I’m sorry, Dawby, but—”

  “You come in here with a gun and then some cop pulls you out. Mikhail’s pissed. He got all up in my shit and threatened to fire me. What the hell was I supposed to do? Fight a cop?”

  “Dawby, is Mikhail there?”

  “No. He and Reece had a powwow upstairs for a few minutes. Then Reece ran out of here like his ass was on fire. A little while later, Mikhail tells me he’s gone for the rest of the week, maybe longer. Says I’m in charge of things. I mean, what the fuck. One minute he’s firing me and the next, I’m the boss. What’s going on?”

  Ana hung up the phone.

  “Where’s he going,” I asked.

  “North. He has a cabin in the Superior National Forest, just on this side of the Canadian border. He has friends who live in a cabin ten miles into Canada. When things get too dangerous, he crosses the border until it is safe to return. He will need to walk across the border, so he’ll wait until morning. Then he will leave the United States. If he makes it across, we will never see him again—not after what happened to Reece.”

  “You know where his cabin is?”

  “I know where it is.”

  I ran to retrieve an old atlas from the coat closet.

  “I cannot show you where Mikhail’s cabin is—not on a map. I only know what it looks like from the road. I have to go with you. It’s on the Gunflint Trail. That’s the only road name I remember.”

  “Well that narrows it down to about sixty miles.”

  “I will know it when I see it. You must take me with you?”

  “Just until you show me where his cabin is. Then I’m dropping you at a resort. Is that agreed?”

  “That is agreed.”

  I went into my bedroom to grab some winter clothes: gloves, boots, a coat, and a pair of thin grey ski pants, more for fashion than function. I also grabbed some sweaters that I thought might fit Ana. We’d be going through the heaviest band of snow, eight inches or more, and the possibility of sliding into a ditch was all too real.

  My unmarked squad car, a Dodge Charger, didn’t stand much of a chance in eight inches of snow, so we piled our supplies into Jenni’s Durango. I rarely drove the Durango and hadn’t started it for almost a year, so I had grave doubts that it would even turn over. I held my breath as I turned the key. It gave a short moan, but then caught and started up.

  Before pulling out of the garage, I went over my checklist of supplies: my gun, bottled water, winter clothes. I had a snow emergency kit in the car and a near-full tank of gas. What was I forgetting? A plan? That didn’t seem to matter. Time mattered.

  As I pulled the car out of the garage, a thought struck me, and I stopped the Durango, the back bumper sticking halfway into the alley.

  “Let me see your phone,” I said, pulling my own phone out of my pocket.

  “Why?”

  “Give it to me.” I held the side button down on my phone until it gave the option to shut it down, which I did.

  Ana hesitated but then gave me her phone. I turned on the dome light so I could see to pop the back of her phone off. I pulled the battery out, put it in my shirt pocket and tossed the dead phone back to her. She wasn’t expecting the toss and it hit the back of her wrist and fell between the seat and center console.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked as she slid her fingers into the crack to retrieve her phone.

  “Cell phones talk to towers. Towers leave a trail. No phone calls. No evidence. We never left the city.”

  “I would have shut it off.”

  “I’ll feel better if I can hold onto the battery.”

  She pulled her hand up but she did not have her phone. Instead, something shiny dangled from her fingers. A bracelet—Jenni’s bracelet with the engraved charms of her mother and aunt and grandmother.

  “What the hell?” I grabbed it away from Ana, holding it under the light to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. How did that bracelet get between the seat and console? Why wasn’t it in the sewing box upstairs? I didn’t understand.

  Then I saw it—a charm brighter, more polished than the others. I counted. Where there had been six charms, there were now seven. The newest held no name, its golden surface unscratched, untarnished, waiting for a name to be engraved upon it.

  Jenni knew she was pregnant.

  Everything grew hot. My eyes filled with tears. All that I knew for certain was that I had to get out of the car. I pulled the handle and half fell out of the driver’s seat, the bracelet twined around my fingers.

  I ran toward the mouth of the alley where the glow from a streetlight flickered through the static of falling snow. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see past the blur of tears in my eyes. The very air around me pulsed with an off-pitch ringing that I was pretty sure was only in my head.

  At the base of the streetlight I fell to one knee, holding the bracelet to my lips, a ball-peen hammer pounding in my ears. She was going to use the bracelet to tell me about the baby, wear it to dinner or maybe have it on her wrist when she curled up in my arms at night. I would have noticed the tinkling of the charms and asked why she was wearing it. She would have smiled and said nothing until the light came on in my thick head. That’s how she would have done it.

  Tears fell hard down my cheeks. My lungs heaved and stammered as I tried to catch my breath. I put one hand on the light pole to steady myself.

  In that last second before the impact, in that moment when Jenni understood that a speeding car would rob her of her life, she knew about the baby. Her pain was shared. Her fear was shared. Her death would be shared. Her last thoughts would not have been for herself; they would have been for her child, a universe of love and hope and regret folding into her womb, cradling a baby no bigger than a single jelly bean.

  Something hardened inside my chest. The man who killed Jenni was fleeing north, hoping to never be seen again by the likes of me. With that I found a new hunger, a passion strong enough to unseat my memories of Jenni. I had prey to pursue and a commitment to keep.

  I heard a scuffing in the alley and glanced over my shoulder to see Ana standing there watching me. She must have thought that she’d thrown in with a mad man the way I frothed and sobbed against that light post. I stood up, despite some objection from my shaky legs, and turned to face her.

  I could see no readable expression on her face. I took that as a sign that she hadn’t changed her mind about leading me to Mikhail. I slid the bracelet into my pocket and headed toward the Durango, which was still half in and half out of the garage.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I was far from okay, but I nodded as I passed her, and she followed me to the car.

  Chapter 34: Up North

  Chapter 34

  Up North

  By the time that I’m drilling my sixth hole, the clouds are almost gone from the sky. The line between low and high pressure systems is passing over our heads, and I can feel the temperature falling. It has to be well below zero now. Clear skies in Minnesota are the coldest skies. I ball my fingers into the palm of my shredded gloves to keep them warm. My fingertips touch against the tender skin and blisters on my palms. My pectoral muscles feel like they’re clamped in a steel-jaw. I’ve gone past hungry to numb. Every turn of the auger takes focus and effort. My left foot is screaming in pain, and my right foot isn’t too far behind. I try marching in place as I dig. I try hopping. Nothing seems to warm my feet. I can’t stop now. I’ve come too far.

  “Someone’s been feeding you a pack of lies,” Mikhail says. “You’re being used.”

  “Uh hum,” I say.

  Mikhail has to be cold, but he isn’t showing it. Maybe he thinks I’ll give up if I
get too cold. If that’s what he thinks, he’s wrong.

  “If I was doing all that,” Mikhail says, “if I was running prostitutes out of my club, there’d be a record. Someone would have noticed and I’d have been arrested. There’d be some proof other than your belief. But I’ve never been arrested. I have a clean record because I’ve never done those things.”

  “You have a clean record because you’re smart. You know how to cover your tracks.”

  “You’ll choose to believe what you want to believe. I’ll never be able to prove that I didn’t kill your wife as long as you want to believe that I did. You have nothing.”

  “I have the words of Zoya Savvin.”

  “Who the hell is Zoya Savvin?” I can hear a slight quiver in Mikhail’s confidence. He pauses for a second to put this new piece in place before he continues. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Sure you have. She used to work for you. She was one of your prostitutes.”

  “Of course, she was.”

  “She wore your tattoo. You branded her.” I tap on my neck just behind the ear. “Yes, Mikhail, I know all about the ruble tattoo. That’s your brand, isn’t it?”

  “That’s sick! How can you—”

  “That’s how you mark your girls.”

  “I don’t have girls. If this Zoya is saying that I’m a pimp then bring her here. Let her say it to me directly. Let me face my accuser.”

  “Zoya’s gone.”

  “I suppose I killed her too?”

  “I didn’t say she was dead.” I pause in my drilling to look at Mikhail. In his eyes, I see trepidation. “But, yes,” I say. “You killed her too.”

  “Why would I do that—if she was my prostitute?”

  I lean on the auger. “My wife loved her job. She loved trying to help people like Zoya. The officers found Zoya wandering down the street in a daze. She’d been beaten and thrown through a motel window. Of course you already know that.”

  “I’ve never heard of the girl. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “The girl,” I say slowly, letting his mistake sink in. “Not the woman?”

  “It’s just an expression.”

  “My wife wanted to help the girl. She wanted to protect Zoya from you, and you killed her for it.”

  “And how, exactly, did I kill your wife? Knife? Gun? I’d really like to know how I did it.”

  “Oh, you didn’t do it yourself. No, you ordered it done.”

  “You are sounding more and more like one of those crazy conspiracy theorists, Detective. Now I have lackeys and hitmen working for me? I must be a regular gangster.”

  “Ray Kroll. You remember him.”

  Mikhail pauses, pretending to give my question some consideration. “Yeah, I remember Ray. He used to be a bouncer at the club. He quit some years back. Too bad. He was a decent bouncer. So you think Ray killed your wife?”

  “At your direction. He and Reece Whitton.”

  “Reece Whitton? That name sounds familiar. I think he’s a customer at the club. Spent a lot of money there. He was a cop, wasn’t he?”

  “Was? Past tense?”

  “I . . . it seems I heard a news story on the radio this morning. Something about a guy falling off the roof of a parking ramp. I’m pretty sure they said his name was Reece Whitton—a cop. You a friend of his?”

  I just shake my head.

  “I think the guy on the radio said that Mr. Whitton was dead.” Mikhail purses his lips, probably to keep from smiling. “So, let’s see if I have this right,” he says. “You’re going to execute me because you say that I ordered my former bouncer and a cop to kill your wife. And the evidence that you have for this is a prostitute, who is dead, my former bouncer, who is dead, and the cop who fell off a roof yesterday, and he’s also dead. Too bad the dead can’t testify.”

  “Sometimes they can,” I say. “Before you killed my wife, she left a voicemail message with an interpreter.” I watch as Mikhail’s face goes slack. “On that recording, the girl you killed, Zoya, names you. She says that you are going to kill her—and then you did just that.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “I also have the blackmail CD Kroll made.”

  “What blackmail CD? What are you talking about?”

  “The one where Kroll and Whitton are planning my wife’s death. Kroll says your name: Mikhail Vetrov. I have the recording. I’ve heard it.”

  “That’s a lie.” Mikhail raises his voice in anger. “That’s a goddamn lie and you know it.”

  “You know, Mikhail, you’re right. That was a lie.” I say. “They never actually said your name. Of course, you knew that because you listened to the recording.”

  “Okay, he played it for me,” Mikhail says. “Kroll was in trouble for beating some guy up and he wanted money for an attorney. He said that he was going to tell the police that I ordered some hit if I didn’t give him a hundred thousand dollars. I didn’t know what he was talking about. It was all a lie. I fired him on the spot. I didn’t know they were talking about your wife. I swear to God I didn’t.”

  “God dammit!” I stop drilling and straighten up. “What are you doing?”

  “What?”

  “I’m giving you a chance here. You can’t keep lying to me. You’re hanging off a cliff, and instead of grabbing the rope I’m offering, you spit in my face.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Soon, you’re going to beg me for forgiveness. You’re going to want me to believe that you’re sorry for killing my wife. I can’t believe you if all you do is lie to me.”

  “I’ll never ask for forgiveness for a crime I didn’t commit.”

  “You killed my wife. And you’re going to make me execute you because somehow you think you have cards yet to play. You think you can talk your way out of this. You’ve misjudged the situation.”

  “Don’t you turn this around, Rupert. If you kill me, that’s on your conscience. Don’t you believe for one second that this is my doing. You want to kill an innocent man, that’s on you, not me. I had nothing to do with your wife’s death. Kroll worked jobs for Reece Whitton. I had no part in what happened to your wife.”

  “You ordered it.”

  “Where’s your proof? You want to believe it’s true, but that’s not proof. Kroll’s dead. Whitton’s dead. That recording never mentions my name. You have nothing except what you believe to be true. No prosecutor in the world would buy what you’re selling.”

  “You’re right,” I say as I go back to drilling. “No prosecutor would buy this, but this isn’t going to a prosecutor. You’ll never see the inside of a courtroom. You’re running out of time.”

  “And you’re running out of bluffs. You have nothing.”

  “I have Anastasia,” I say.

  “You’re going to believe the word of a whore?”

  “Whore? She’s Reece Whitton’s wife. You say you barely remember Whitton, yet you feel comfortable calling Mrs. Whitton a whore? Why is that?”

  Mikhail goes silent again.

  “Your lies are falling apart, Mikhail,” I say.

  “You think you know something, don’t you Rupert?” he says with a slight shiver in his voice. “You think you’ve figured it all out, but you don’t know shit. You’ve got it all backwards. You’re being played, and you can’t see it.”

  I hear his words, but they fall numb on my ears. It’s all a game to him. He’s still trying to get in my head. I’m sore, and I’m tired. I haven’t the energy to care about his bullshit anymore. I break through to the lake in hole-number six, and I watch the water fill it up. The sun is growing weak in the west, and my shadow is growing long. I have two more holes to drill and only enough sunlight for one.

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 35

  Snowflakes attacked my headlights and windshield, obscuring the edges of Interstate 35 as we headed north. Ana hadn’t spoken to me since my breakdown by the light pole. That was at least an hour ago, and we hadn’t
even made as far as Forest Lake yet, a drive that, on a clear day, takes under thirty minutes. I stayed in the passing lane, but got bottled up behind those less intrepid drivers who preferred to jam up my lane as opposed to getting the hell out of my way. I was glad to have the all-wheel drive of the Durango, but I really missed my strobe lights.

  I figured that Mikhail had a good hour lead, maybe more depending on how soon after the strip-club ruckus he’d hit the road. He might have even gotten enough head start to be in front of the storm and the cluster-fuck of bad drivers stacked up in front of me.

  A gap opened up as a minivan reconsidered its lane choice and moved over behind a semi. I eased on the gas, bringing the Durango up to thirty-five miles per hour. A cloud of white rose up behind the semi next to me, and I disappeared into the cloud, blind to everything except the truck’s running lights to my right.

  I felt the cushion of thick snow against my tire as I pushed the limits of safety. The truck encroached into my lane enough that it put me on the shoulder where a ridge of plowed snow hip-checked me into a slide. I twisted a few degrees clockwise and then another few degrees counterclockwise before regaining control.

  “We won’t get there if we’re dead,” Ana said. She was holding onto the door handle with both hands.

  I maintained my death grip on the steering wheel and slowly moved past the truck.

  “You should give me the battery for my phone. When you crash, I don’t want to have to dig through the pockets of a dead man to call for help.”

  “No offense, but I’ve only known you for a couple hours. It takes me a little longer than that to sum up a stranger.”

  “Have I done anything to make you not trust me?”

  “Other than try and kill a man? I guess not.”

  “And yet only one of us succeeded on that score.”

  I looked at her to see if she was serious or joking. In the dark I couldn’t tell.

  “You don’t trust me,” she said. “I understand that. I am, in your eyes, one of them. You think that my life with Mikhail and Reece ties me to their actions. They killed my sister. How could I be a part of that?”