“Where should I be?”
It was the Russian.
“Listen carefully,” he said when I didn’t reply. “I want you to get out of your car and walk straight out on the lake and we’ll meet you.”
I opened the window and flicked my half-smoked cigarette out into the snow. “Where’s Manuel?”
“He’ll be there.”
I scrutinized the area again. I couldn’t see anyone. All the trucks were locked and empty. The Russians had to be out on the ice. Probably felt right at home too.
“Let me talk to him.”
“Just do what I’m telling you to,” the Russian said. He sounded hoarse, as if he had a cold.
“Not unless I can speak to him.”
“You want to hear him die?”
“I’d rather hear him sing the Sharks and Jets song from West Side Story.”
“You don’t believe I’d do it.”
“No. Then you won’t get what you want.”
“You want to take that chance?”
We were playing a game of chicken, and I turned away first.
“No,” I whispered. “How far do you want me to walk?”
“Until we meet you. Oh. And tell your friend to stay away.”
“What friend?”
“Because we speak with an accent doesn’t make us stupid.” And the Russian clicked off.
I called George.
“Where the hell are you?” I asked him.
“Outside the park. Waiting for Phil. He’ll be along any minute.”
“Great. By the way, they know you’re here.”
“They’re guessing.”
“They said to tell my friend to stay away.”
“They still could be guessing,” George said.
“No. They know. They want me to walk out on the lake.”
“Stall for time.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“You have to.”
The beeping in my phone got louder.
“What can I say?”
“I can barely hear you.”
“This phone is going dead.”
There was no response on the other end of the line. I’d lost the connection.
Not good. Not good at all.
Chapter Forty-One
I watched the flakes coming down. It had been snowing yesterday afternoon when Phil was sitting in my living room. He’d been sprawled out in the armchair when I asked him about the down side of the operation he was proposing.
“There is no down side. It’s a piece of cake. No problems.” To emphasize the point, he’d adjusted his tie. I could still see it. It was yellow with fine brown lines running through it. “It’ll run smooth as silk.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Smooth as silk?”
“Yeah.” Obviously Phil didn’t do irony. “I guarantee it.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“It’ll be fine.”
And he’d smiled at me as if I was an idiot to believe anything less. Yeah. Right. Things were going really well.
If I walked out on the ice, I’d be a sitting target. If I didn’t, Manuel would be dead. Of course he could be dead already. No. I refused to think about that possibility. I wished I’d brought the bottle of Scotch with me. Another possibility I refused to think about.
It started to snow harder. Now the snow was coming down so fast, it was impossible to see. I felt as if I were in the middle of one of those paperweights I’d loved when I was a little kid. Lake effect. I hoped it didn’t last long. Storms like this could stop within ten minutes or go on for three hours.
I lit another cigarette and took the gun George had given me out of the glove compartment and laid it across my lap. That way I’d be able to get to it quickly if I needed to. Then I took the car out of park and put it in drive.
It had been an extremely cold winter, so the lake should be frozen solid. Driving out onto the ice should be all right. The Russians were out there. And ice fishermen did it all the time. Not to mention the snowmobilers.
I remember a man I met in a bar one night when Murphy and I were shooting pool telling me he lived to fish. Especially in the winter. He loved watching the auger bore through the ice. He loved seeing that dark circle of water below come into being. Like discovering a hidden world, he’d said. He loved lowering his rod down, never knowing what was waiting for him. He loved the solitude and also belonging to something at the same time.
He’d said that one day he’d looked out over the ice. Every twenty feet or so there’d been a man sitting on an upturned twenty-gallon drum. And they were all wearing their parkas with their hoods up. And they were all sitting in the same direction with their backs against the wind. All of them were bent over their holes in the ice, watching their rods bob up and down. And it occurred to him that they were like the crystalline structure in a snowflake. Separate, but bound together.
Then he’d gone on to say that the ice was a living thing. It constantly moved and shifted. Cracks came and went. Ledges formed. Rotten spots popped up. Sometimes there were hot springs underneath. You had to be able to read it. At which point he’d apologized for talking so much and wandered off.
I wished he was here now. I could certainly use some help. But even so, I still stood a better chance in my car than out of it. Out of my car, I stood no chance at all.
I was wondering how much my car weighed as I drove onto the lake. Probably too much. I could feel the difference in the way the car drove as soon as the tires hit the ice. I felt as if I was sliding along. So far I didn’t hear any cracking sounds. What had that guy said? Ice breaking sounded like a rifle shot? So that was good.
How long did you have in the water before you got hypothermia? Three minutes? Five minutes? I’d read somewhere that if you fall off a fishing boat in Alaska, they don’t go back for you. There’s no point. Not that it mattered. Most of the people who go through the ice in their cars don’t come back up again. You read about one or two of them every year over breakfast. Well, if that happened, I wouldn’t have to worry about lung cancer, would I?
I stubbed my cigarette out and drove some more. I thought I was driving straight, but I wasn’t sure, because I was beginning to lose my bearings. Several years ago, I’d been rafting down a river in a cave in Belize. It had been pitch black. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and when I’d come out I’d been turned around in the wrong direction and hadn’t even known it.
I felt like that now. Only everything was white. I didn’t see how the Russians were going to find me, because I certainly couldn’t find them. Or how Phil or George were going to get the Russians. Even if my cell were working, it wouldn’t help in weather like this. God, I hoped this stopped soon. Then I made out a wavering outline of something looming up in front of me. As I got closer, it got clearer. Jesus. It was a shack. Where the hell had that come from? I didn’t remember anything being in front of me.
As I slammed on the brakes someone rear-ended me. I heard a whoosh as the air bag exploded. My head snapped back as if someone had punched me in the jaw. I was pinned to the seat. I couldn’t move. But, the car was.
A moment later it plowed into the building. A big board landed across the hood, right next to the windshield. Another one glanced off the top of the windshield. The insurance company would be so pleased, I thought, as I noticed the radiating crack appearing on the left-hand side of the window. Part of the shack’s roof came down in front of me. Then, just as suddenly as my car had picked up speed, it stopped.
I was trying to untangle myself from the air bag when my door flew open. Someone grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the car. I stumbled and fell to my knees. As I did, I noticed the front tire on the driver’s side was in a hole in the ice. Then I heard the click of a gun and thought about my gun, which was probably down on the floor, under the front seat by now. Way to go, Robin.
The older Russian, the one who had done most of the talking the night I’d met him at the bar, said, “Get the money,�
�� to someone I couldn’t see.
He was dressed in a gray parka and had a hat pulled down over his head and a scarf wrapped around his mouth. If it weren’t for the accent, I’d never have known who he was.
“I didn’t bring it,” I told him, even though I was sure he knew I was lying. But it was the only thing I could think of to say.
Which was when I realized my jaw was throbbing. Then I realized that at some point or other the storm had let up as quickly as it had come. Which meant George could find me. He had to be around here somewhere. Unless . . . no. I refused to think that.
The person the Russian had been talking to lifted me up by my collar. I was still woozy from the crash. I stumbled, and he jerked me up again.
“We don’t believe you,” he said.
“It’s true.”
“Look in the car,” the older Russian ordered.
Who was he talking to? There must be a third person there as well. Off in the corner somewhere. Which was why I couldn’t see them.
“Where’s Manuel?” I asked.
The older Russian laughed.
“Is he dead?”
“You Americans. Always so afraid of dying. Of growing old.”
“So you said. Spare me the philosophical discourse.”
“It makes you weak.”
“We’re weak? At least we didn’t lose most of our country.”
The Russian went into a diatribe about the Ukraine and Chechnya, but I wasn’t listening. I was paying attention to the ice under my feet. The boards from the shack that looked like a thrown deck of cards littering my car and the ice. Flakes of snow swirling around my face. The boiled wool smell of the coat of the man standing behind me. The feel of the barrel of his gun between my shoulder blades. He pressed it into my spine.
“Maybe we don’t kill you,” he whispered into my ear. “Maybe we just leave you paralyzed for life. Da? Then we come back and fuck you when we want.”
“Is that the only way you can get a woman to sleep with you?”
“What you say?” the man asked.
“You heard me. And by the way, where’d you learn to handle a gun? Central Casting?”
Before he could do anything, I leaned back into the gun and kicked at his leg as hard as I could. After all, what did I have to lose? I’d be dead anyway soon. At least this way it would be over faster. I bent my leg at the knee and brought it straight back with as much force as I could manage. I felt a crunch as the sole of my shoe connected with bone.
The Russian gasped as I whirled around. I grabbed for his gun, but it wasn’t there. He’d dropped it on the ice. As he was bending down to get it, the older Russian raised his and fired. Little pinpricks of hot metal from the car peppered my face as I dove under it and began wiggling to the other side. I figured my only chance was to try and get to the gun George had given me. The Russian wouldn’t miss next time.
Someone grabbed at my foot and I kicked at him. As I moved along, it dawned on me that my legs were wet. I put my hand down. I felt water. Then my fingers felt a fissure. I moved forward a little and reached down into the crack. Oddly, the water felt warmer than the air. This was not good. Not good at all. I was wondering how bad a shape the ice was in as the Russians screamed at each other. Too bad I couldn’t understand what they were saying.
I was coming up on the other side of the car when one of the Russians stepped on my shoulder, pinning me down.
“I think you should know that the ice is breaking,” I told him as he dragged me up by my hair.
He was smiling. He threw me across the hood of the car and raised his gun. I tried again.
“If the car goes in the water, you won’t get your money.”
I could hear his breath. I could smell the alcohol on it. You know how they say your whole life passes in front of you in moments like that? It’s not true. All I thought was, I hope Bethany keeps Zsa Zsa.
I heard a shot. But I didn’t feel anything. Maybe when you’re dead, you don’t, I thought. Instead I felt a heavy weight pressing me to the car. Something was dripping on my neck. Which was what made me realize I was still alive. Nothing drips when you’re dead. Or at least you can’t feel it.
I managed to twist partway around. The man who had been going to shoot me was lying on top of me. He looked like a badly done horror movie character. There was a hole in his chest and part of his forehead was gone, but the eye that was still there was staring at me.
I was pushing him off me when I heard another shot. I turned toward it in time to see the older Russian, the one I’d talked to in the bar, fall. Then there was another crack and the third Russian, the one I thought was in the corner, fell.
I ran over to him first. He was dead. No doubt about that, considering the way his face looked. So were the other two guys. Suddenly George and Phil and a dozen guys in black were there.
“Are you all right?” George asked.
“Fine. But Manuel . . .”
I heard a roar. Everyone turned. A red pickup truck was heading toward us. Two men were sitting in the front seat.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a man dressed in black crouch down and take aim at the truck.
“Don’t shoot!” I yelled as I ran toward him.
But I got there too late.
I reached him just after he got off a volley of shots. As I pushed his arm down, I saw a crimson splatter on the windshield of the truck coming toward us. The horn blared as the driver’s head hit it as he slumped onto the steering wheel. Then one of Phil’s guys appeared beside me and started dragging me away.
“Leave me alone,” I shouted.
“You need to calm down,” he said. Like I was hysterical.
“I need to find Manuel.”
“Let us handle the situation.”
I was in the middle of trying to pull my arm free when the door on the passenger side of the oncoming truck swung open. The man who’d been sitting in the passenger seat jumped, rolled a couple of times, and lay still.
The truck kept coming toward us. Everyone scattered. The next thing I knew, it had crashed into my car. When I looked again, the man who had jumped out was reaching toward his waistband as he started to get up.
“Don’t!” one of Phil’s guys yelled.
“Freeze!” another of them yelled.
But he didn’t stop. He yelled something in Russian and kept reaching for his waistband.
“No!” I screamed as two people opened fire.
The Russian’s body jerked and twitched as the bullets hit him. The smell of cordite hung in the air. I wrenched away from Phil’s man and ran over to the Russian. He was lying on his side. Blood was streaming out of his nose and his ears, forming a pool on the ice. I knelt down beside him.
“Where’s Manuel?” I asked.
He blinked. I reached down and shook him.
“Tell me!” I screamed.
Suddenly George was beside me. I hadn’t heard him come up.
“He’s dead,” he said.
“He can’t be.”
“I’m sorry. He is.”
As I got up, I looked down. My hands were covered with his blood.
“Maybe Manuel is in the first car.”
“He’s not,” George said.
“I want to see.”
“They checked. He isn’t there.”
“Maybe he’s in the trunk.”
“Robin . . .”
I brushed George’s arm away. “I’m going to look.”
And I started for the car. I hadn’t taken more than three steps at the most when it started getting lower and lower and lower. And then it disappeared. Without a sound. Poof. Just like that. It was gone into the water.
The ice had been pristine when I’d driven out on it. Everything had been perfectly white. But now there were patches of red and black. Pieces of timber were scattered all over. A faint odor of gasoline hung in the air. I realized that men in parkas and heavy boots, ice fishermen, had started gathering near where Phil’s people were
.
Phil walked up to where George and I were standing.
“I’m sorry things got fucked up,” he said to me.
As if that was supposed to help. I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. Instead I turned to George and held out my hand.
“Give me the keys to your car,” I told him.
“Why?”
“I’m going to find Manuel.”
“Odds are he’s dead, Robin,” Phil said.
“Don’t say a word to me.”
“You have to accept it.”
“I won’t.” I looked at George. “I need the keys.” I could see the pity in George’s eyes. “Don’t,” I said as he handed them to me.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
He handed them to me and I slipped them in my pocket.
“Thanks,” I told him.
“You can’t go,” Phil told me. “We need you here.”
“Like you have a right to tell me what to do.” And I started walking away.
“I can make you stay,” Phil called after me.
I turned around. “You just try.”
And I turned back around and kept on going.
I heard George say, “Let her go.”
It wasn’t until I got to George’s Taurus that I realized I was crying.
Chapter Forty-Two
I dreaded the idea of going home and having to tell Bethany that I’d failed, that Manuel wasn’t coming home. I couldn’t face saying the words that would make Manuel’s death real, so I went to the store instead. I didn’t know where else to go. It was a mistake. I saw Manuel leaning on the counter by the cash register talking to his friend on the phone. I saw him shelving stock.
“How come I have to do this?” he was saying to me. “Why can’t you?”
I heard him asking me for a twenty-buck advance.
“Just this once, Robin. You know I’m good for it.”
I saw him sitting in my chair with his feet on the desk eating a sandwich when I went in the back room.
I heard him say to me, “You want to stay out of some people’s line of sight,” as I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.
My face and my jacket were flecked with blood. One side of my face was purple from where the air bag had hit it. Clumps of my hair were sticking out of my head in odd directions. I took my jacket off and threw it in the corner. Then I washed my face and combed my hair and changed into the spare clothes I keep in one of the cabinets for emergencies. It didn’t make me feel better.
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