Dead of Winter

by Gerri Brightwell

  33

  IT’S NIGHT BY the time Fisher pulls into the parking lot outside Grisby’s apartment, never mind that the clock on the cab’s dash reads only 4.35. The day feels over, a leaden exhaustion weighing him down, and it’s all he can do to guide the cab between two cars and put it into park. The woman said Breehan, that accent of hers tugging at the sounds. Somehow Breehan’s here, or has been found. A wash of relief slips over him. It’s all over, isn’t it? The worst of it, at least.

  The cold wraps around him as he swings the cab door shut. No gloves: he should stop by the store and buy some, though maybe Breehan won’t want to, maybe she’ll want to go home. No, not home, not to her home, at any rate. So he’ll have to tell her: Brian’s gone. No trace of him left. He’ll explain all that before she tells him anything. Won’t that be easier?

  The snow on the stairs creaks under his feet. Of course the woman hears him before he knocks. The door opens just enough for her to see out, to let him slip inside. She’s wearing a short purple dress and so much makeup he wouldn’t have recognized her. It makes her look not just older, but old: the lipstick too dark, the skin around her eyes almost bruised. She says, “Grisby? You find?”

  “Grisby? No,” and he shakes his head. “No, no sign of Grisby. But Breehan—is she here?”

  The woman’s face tightens. “Bree-yan? I tell you, you drive, I tell you. OK?”

  “Why don’t you tell me now? Is Breehan here?”

  Her eyes are already on the door. “Please,” she says. “We go.”

  His heart slips inside his chest. “Where’s Bree? Tell me that, at least. Is she OK?”

  She walks past him and pushes her feet into her snowboots, pulls on a parka. When she lifts her hood she says again, “We go.”

  Outside the world feels abandoned, the darkness thick except where lights push back at it: the yellow glow of a bulb at the end of the stairs, the twin stare of the cab’s headlights. Fisher and the young woman don’t say a word, but hurry through the cold with their breath leaving trails of frost behind them.

  She sits in the passenger seat and presses down the door lock. She’s got a quick, nervous look about her, peering around, her hands twitchy as they hold her bag on her lap. She’s afraid, Fisher realizes, and now he’s looking about too, staring over his shoulder, watching a car turn in from the road, bumping over the snow, and he reverses out too fast, and pulls away, too fast, and the woman grips the edge of her seat. Headlights glare in his mirror: a pickup looming so close that Fisher shields his eyes and can barely see down the road. A jolt—the pickup’s hit them, and Fisher panics and stamps on the gas. He says, “Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it,” like that’s all there’s left to say, because they’ve found him already. How could he have been stupid enough to come back to Grisby’s place?

  Beside him the woman’s curled into herself on the seat. He’s driving too fast. Up ahead a light turns red and he bites his teeth together and keeps his foot hard on the gas. A car’s coming toward them and swerves, but the pickup’s still on their tail, comes closer and closer, and Fisher accelerates, up toward the railway tracks and the small strip of stores beyond, but there’s another jolt and the cab’s tires shriek, another, even harder, and his head bumps against the headrest and this time he can’t keep the cab straight. It swings around on itself and he brakes, but it tilts, tilts, rights itself and comes to rest just beyond the tracks. There’s no escaping now because the pickup’s pulled up right beside them.

  You’d think someone would call the cops. You’d think someone would stop at least. But cars buzz past leaving only their exhaust muddying the air, and when Fisher turns to look out the window, a guy’s standing on the passenger side with a crowbar in his hand. He brings it down hard on the hood with a dull clang then steps closer with it raised again and Fisher holds up both hands in surrender.

  The woman lowers the window and cold air rushes in. The guy wipes his nose on the back of his glove, says to Fisher, “Sorry about your cab, mister, this isn’t about you,” and he leans toward the girl. “Where’s that freak Grisby? Huhn?”

  She shakes her head quickly.

  “C’mon,” he says, “I ain’t got time for this.” His face has bunched up, his mouth small and angry.

  “Hey,” and Fisher spreads his hands, “she doesn’t know where he is.”

  “She’s fucking with me,” and he swings the crowbar. It hits the wing mirror and it dangles like a dead thing, wires exposed, glass shattered. He glances at Fisher. “Sorry, mister. The insurance’ll cover it, right?” Then he holds the crowbar at the open window. “You ain’t gonna be worth much to Grisby with your face all smashed in. You tell me where he is, or no one down at the Mirage is gonna pay to fuck you again.”

  She shies away from the window. She says, “Gone. Men, this morning. Took him.”

  “Then you pay me back. Five hundred bucks. Got it?”

  She shakes her head. “No have.”

  “Sure you do. How many tricks you turn last night? I saw you down at the Mirage. You weren’t home washing your hair.”

  “You ask Grisby. He have five hundred bucks.”

  The guy sucks in his breath. “Nice little arrangement Grisby’s got himself. He clears out for the evening, you turn your tricks, and he comes home to a warmed-up girlfriend and cash for his Hawaii fund. Oh yeah, I know all about that. Thing is,” and he presses the end of the crowbar under the woman’s chin, “he’s not gonna get to Hawaii by ripping people off. Not in a town this small. You pay me back and I’ll forget about it. OK?”

  Her head’s tilted up away from the crowbar, but her hands are at her bag, tugging at the zip.

  “Nice and slow,” the guys tells her. “You try anything, you’re gonna lose some teeth.”

  In her hand, a roll of bills. With the crowbar under her chin she can’t look down, can’t do more than pass the money to him, and he plucks it out of her grip. “That’ll do nicely,” and he stuffs the whole roll into his pocket and the woman, her face all stiff, her mouth jerking, raises the window then folds over on herself. “Go,” she tells Fisher at last, “we go now.”

  34

  FISHER’S HANDS ARE shaking. He pulls over at the strip mall because he doesn’t trust himself to drive, not until the fear thrashing inside him subsides. He turns to the woman. “You could’ve told me.”

  Her face swings toward him. Under their makeup, her eyes and mouth are dark and sinister.

  He says, “You knew he was waiting, didn’t you? That’s why you were afraid—that’s why you called. And now look,” and he nods at the dented hood, the wing mirror dangling from its mount.

  She turns away. “Who help me? No one. Grisby—where he gone? Not come back, and man shouts at door. Angry, very angry. Not go away.”

  His hands are still on the wheel and he leans his head against them. “But someone else came over too. Breehan.”

  Her eyes are glassy and wide. “Breehan gone. Colorado,” and her tongue trips on those four syllables.

  “What?”

  “Gone. Colorado.”

  “So she came by the apartment? Fuck,” and he closes his eyes for a moment. He let himself be taken by the militia, had been so pleased with himself because he thought he was going to find Bree and rescue her, and all the time she’d been in town planning her own escape. Maybe she came by his house, and of course he was out. So what did she do? She came by Grisby’s place.

  The woman must be watching him. She leans close now and says softly, “You drive. Mirage Club. OK?”

  Down at the parking lot beside Bear Cabs Co., some fucker’s unplugged his car. Reggie, Fisher thinks. It’s just the sort of small-minded crap he’d get up to.

  Everything’s stiff: the door, the steering wheel, and when he tries to crank the engine, nothing happens. The seat’s like a block of ice beneath him. Bree’s taken off to Colorado. Brian’s dead. Grisby . . .
well, who the hell knows for sure.

  He locks up the car, plugs the cord back into the socket by the wall and takes off in the cab, the broken wing mirror banging against the door. Fuck Reggie, he thinks, fuck them all.

  35

  WHEN FISHER GETS to the supermarket checkout, the cashier gives him a look that runs from his head to his boots and back again, then won’t look at him any more, as though the sight of him bothers her. He watches her ring up his purchases and stuff them into bags, is ready with a couple of bills to shove at her, then snatches up his shopping and heads for the washroom. In the mirror he stares at himself: his parka’s torn, his jeans stained with blood, his eyes watery as undercooked eggs, and on the top of his head sits the ski mask, all bunched up. A thug’s hat. He has to admit he looks like a man who’s been up to no good.

  He shuts himself into a stall and unzips his jeans. His fingers are raw from being frozen, and his longjohns peel painfully off the wound on his thigh. The cut’s smaller than he imagined, but still oozing. Blood’s run all the way down to his socks and crusted in his leg hair. He wipes what he can with toilet paper, then fumbles with the ointment he’s bought. He tries to close the wound with butterfly stitches, only they stick to his fingers, and the plastic bag hanging from his wrist, and by the time he gets them on there isn’t much stick left to them.

  The effort’s left him sweating. He lets himself out of the cubicle and yanks off the ski mask. One short toss and it’s in the trash. He holds onto the washbasin as though he might be sick. The wound’s stinging deep down into his muscle, and it’s riling up all the other pains he’s suffered. At least he bought some ibuprofen, and he pops open the bottle and shakes four into his hand. To tide him over, he thinks. Until he’s driven home and can take some of the Vicodin Grisby left him. The thought of those little white pills hangs golden and warm in his mind.

  The faucet’s low, but he holds his head under it and rubs in soap from the dispenser. The swelling on his skull feels overripe, like it’s about to burst. An old guy with a pinched face pushes open the door. He gives Fisher a quick glance and looks away, says, “We’ve all been there,” and shuts himself into a stall.

  Fisher dries his hair as best he can on a paper towel, and his face too, then he digs into the plastic bag. He pulls the tag off the hat he’s just bought, a green woolen thing with The Last Frontier embroidered across the front. He’s bought gloves too, and he slips them on as he walks out into the lobby where the ceiling heaters shed their red glow, and the air’s hot and cold like milk heated too quickly.

  The afternoon’s barely over and already it feels like it’s been night forever. His hair’s still damp. Even with the hat on, it chills his head the moment he steps outside. But that’s better than the ski mask with its stink of greasy skin and cigarette smoke and besides, the cold makes him hurry, the plastic bag swinging against his hip.

  Already his hands are aching, despite his new gloves. They haven’t forgotten the awful cold of the outhouse, won’t forget it for months, for years, perhaps. He thinks about calling Jan and telling her Bree’s OK, that she’s gone down to the States, to Colorado, of all places. Soon, he thinks. First he’s going to drive home and let Pax out, he’s going to put the pizza he’s just bought in the oven, then he’s going to take a Vicodin and watch an old movie, John Wayne maybe, then he’s going to sleep. Tomorrow? Well, Reggie’s not going to swallow a story about being kidnapped, and another guy taking a crowbar to the cab. He’ll have to come up with something else: a fare who went nuts and knocked him out—he has the lump on his head to prove it—but hell, how’s he going to explain not calling the cops? Fuck Reggie, then. He’ll buy some new clothes and get a haircut and apply to City Cabs, and if they don’t want him, hell, he’ll try Northstar Cabs, or Eagle Cabs. And this time things won’t get fucked up.

  He’s bought duct tape and he tries to tape up the smashed mirror. It’s too cold for the glue to stick—he should’ve known that—and besides, he hasn’t got the patience, not now. He tosses the duct tape onto the floor and steers the cab out onto Airport Road with the mirror still banging against the door. It’s the end of the workday and traffic’s heavy, or as heavy as it ever gets in a town this small. In places ice fog hangs like cotton wadding, in others the air’s so clear that the lights of the town seem polished and hopeful. Fisher follows along behind a red Subaru, watches the warm gleam of its taillights all the way through town and out along the highway to his turn-off where he slows, gently, drives across the earth bridge that bends across the old dredge pit, then he guns the cab up the hill. Here the trees close in like a tunnel leading him home. The cab lurches over ruts, squeals in the hollow at the corner and there, behind the trees, is his porch light, reeling him in.

  He pulls up and turns off the engine. Silence washes over him. He sits there for long enough to take a few breaths and let them out slowly. This time yesterday he pulled up here and Grisby was beside him. Everything looked the same. The porch light shining out, the snow banked up along the path to the trailer, the timbers of his unfinished house behind like a broken box. Grisby. Have the militia guys killed him, he wonders? Did they lock him up to freeze to death too? Or did he get away? But if he got away, where’s he now? An urge tugs at him: go find Grisby. But he’s too worn out, too beaten down, to even think of doing anything.

  It takes an effort to open the door, to pick up his bag of groceries through his thick new gloves, to root through the snow for the end of the electrical cord and plug in the cab. It’s stiff and he has to force the metal prongs into the plastic. Then he walks the few yards to his trailer and up the steps with his key in his hand.

  He doesn’t have a chance to use it, though. The door opens and there, with a gun held casually like this is all a joke, stands Mr Egg Face.

  36

  MR EGG FACE isn’t alone. Behind him, in Fisher’s recliner with a can of beer in his hand, sits Lyle. “You are so freaking stupid,” he says. “You go to all that effort to escape, then you come home?” He rubs his chin with the back of his hand. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, Mikey. I didn’t think you were that dumb.”

  Mr Egg Face has a knitted hat pulled down to where his eyebrows should be and it lends him a sullen babyish look. He gives Fisher a shove and the groceries knock against his leg. “I was supposed to have a date tonight—now look how I’m spending it, you asshole.”

  Lyle gets to his feet and the recliner squeaks. “Christ, shut the fuck up, Al.”

  Pax is huddled by the wall in the kitchen. He looks up at Fisher, doesn’t lift his head or wag his tail, just glances up then away, as though in warning. Then Fisher sees it: a pile of clothes on the floor. Brian’s. Shirts, pants, underwear. Beside it, gaping open, Brian’s bag with its silky lining ripped and its mesh pockets torn loose. One of these guys has taken a knife to it and a shiver of fear runs through Fisher.

  Lyle tilts back his head to take a gulp of beer. His adam’s apple sticks out like a knot on a branch. The underside of his chin is so pale it’s like it’s never seen the sun. He wipes his lips on the back of his hand and belches. “You even buy shitty beer, Mikey. You’re a total fucking loser and always have been.” He empties the can onto the carpet in a twisting yellow stream, then drops it and stomps it flat. “Now, why don’t you tell me what that bag was doing in your closet?”

  The label’s gone—how the hell did they know it’s Brian’s? He thinks, Ada. Lyle called her, or she called him. Christ—does she know he’s in the militia? Has she always known?

  Fisher’s tongue has turned heavy in his mouth. He can barely make it say, “It’s just a bag, Lyle.”

  Lyle smiles. His two front teeth are crooked and he has a habit of holding up his hand to cover them, so Fisher’s not ready when that hand belts him across the face and sends him staggering against his sofa. For a moment his arms wheel, the plastic bag looping through the air, then he falls against the cushions.

  Lyle�
��s mouth is pulled into a thin smile. “You fucking liar.”

  Behind him Al stoops and snatches up the bag of chips fallen from Fisher’s groceries. He rips it open and cradles it against his chest, the gun in his right hand pointed at Fisher and the left feeding chips into his mouth. He says, “Want me to shoot him?”

  Lyle doesn’t look away from Fisher. “No, fuckhead, because then he won’t be able to tell us where Brian is.”

  Al looks around him, licking crumbs from his lips. “How about I shoot the dog? He stinks anyway.”

  Lyle holds up one finger. “First let’s see if he can remember where Brian’s hiding.” He bends from the waist toward where Fisher’s lying on the sofa and says gently. “Is it coming back to you, Mikey?”

  Fisher’s too hot. His hands, his head, his face, they’re pulsing with the warmth of his blood and a tremble’s started up in his gut. “Brian’s dead. How many times do I have to tell you guys? I dumped him in the river.”

  Al walks over to the kitchen. He takes a chip from the bag and holds it out to Pax who barely sniffs it before letting his head sink back onto his paws. Al balances the chip on Pax’s nose, and another, and the dog shuts his eyes.

  Lyle sighs. “But somehow Brian’s bag ended up here. Isn’t that weird? I mean, it’s like you’re looking after it for him. You know, in case he decided to go someplace, like, say, Colorado.”

  So Ada did read the label. Colorado. Fisher hears it again in his head with the syllables off kilter. That’s how the foreign woman said it. Breehan gone. Colorado. And he understands now. She found the luggage label. She took it from his pocket after she hit him with the broom. He’d ripped it off the bag while Ada was here and stuffed it into his jeans. The label that he wrote. That he’d meant to make it look like Brian had left town. Brian. Or, if you were foreign, Bree-yan.