From the other side of the house, I could barely hear the murmur of the men and women talking, punctuated now and then by an outburst from one of the children. It all seemed to fade into silence as she leaned closer to me.
“Pleasing Sky is the sky of the west,” she said. “It is the end of the day. The end of life. I always thought it was an unlucky name, Alex. I never should have given it to him.”
“Mrs. LeBlanc-”
“No, don’t tell me I’m being a silly old woman.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Perhaps not. But you think that.”
“Please,” I said. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me all this.”
“I’m asking you to go with Vincent,” she said.
It took a moment to sink in. When it did, I knew I was committed. There was no way I could sit in that room with that woman and have it turn out any other way.
“I want the two of you to find him,” she said. “Prove me wrong. Go find my son with the unlucky name and bring him back home.”
Chapter Three
It was still dark when Vinnie knocked on the door. I let him in and poured him a cup of coffee while I finished dressing. He sat there and drank it without saying anything.
“You know where we’re going?” I said when I was ready.
“I think so.”
“We’ll take my truck.”
“We can take mine.”
“If we take yours,” I said, “we’ll never make it back. I saw the tread on those tires.”
“They have paved roads in Canada, Alex.”
“We’ll take my truck.”
A few minutes later, we were on our way. The trip started on Lakeshore Drive again, bending around Whitefish Bay, just as we had done the day before. But this time we didn’t stop on the reservation. At this hour the only signs of life came from the two casinos. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to gamble before dawn on a cold October morning, but there were enough cars in the parking lots to prove me wrong.
When we left the reservation, it was a straight shot down Three Mile Road into Sault Ste. Marie-or the “Soo,” as the natives call it. We got onto I-75 and headed over the International Bridge, passing over the Soo Locks, and then over the Algoma Steel Foundry Works. With the sun just starting to come up, and the fires burning in the sintering furnaces, the whole scene was like one of the outer rings of hell.
“Get your license ready,” I said as we came up to the Canadian Customs booth.
“Little problem,” Vinnie said.
I looked over at him. “What is it?”
“Tom’s got my license.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“We decided he might need it, just in case. He looks enough like me-”
“This is beautiful,” I said. I pulled up to the waiting line. There was one car in front of us. Going through customs can be a breeze, or it can be a pain in the ass, depending on who you’ve got in the booth and how they happen to be feeling that day. With the amount of time this guy was spending with the driver ahead of me, it didn’t look good.
“You got another ID, right?”
“No, Alex.”
“A credit card?”
He just looked at me.
“You gave Tom your credit cards?”
“Yes.”
“You got anything?”
“I gave him my wallet, Alex. The whole thing.”
The car in front of me finally pulled away.
“Pretend you’re sleeping,” I said.
“What?”
“You heard me. Go to sleep. Right now.”
“I’m not doing that.”
I started to pull forward. “We’re going in, Vinnie. For God’s sake, do your dead man act or we’ll be stuck here all day.”
He said a few unkind words and then did what he was told, dropping his head against the far side of the car and closing his eyes. As I pulled in front of the booth, the man looked at me, then at Vinnie, and then back at me. The man had razor burns all over his neck, and he was not happy. If I’d been sitting in his booth with a scraped-up neck on a cold morning, I don’t imagine I would have been happy, either.
“Identification, sir?”
I pulled out my license. He gave it a quick glance.
“And your friend?”
“He’s down for good,” I said.
The man narrowed his eyes. “Your business in Canada this morning, sir?”
“Just taking him home,” I said.
“He’s Canadian?”
“I’m afraid so. He’s one of yours.”
“Think you could slip his wallet out from underneath him, sir?”
“His wallet’s long gone,” I said. “Lost it. Or had it stolen. He’s had kind of a rough night. When I closed the bar, I thought maybe I’d do the right thing, make sure he got back where he belonged.”
“You own a bar, sir?”
“Don’t I wish,” I said. “I just work there a few nights a week.”
“Which bar would that be, sir?”
“Glasgow Inn. You ever been there?”
“No, sir. Don’t believe so. Apparently, this is part of the service, eh?”
The man was loosening up a little bit. He was even starting to sound like a Canadian.
“Like I said, just trying to do the right thing.”
“Any alcohol or firearms in your vehicle?”
“No,” I said. It felt good to say one thing to the man that wasn’t a lie.
“Have a good morning,” he said.
Vinnie waited until we were a hundred yards past the booth. “That was real cute,” he finally said. “You had fun with that one.”
“Matter of fact.”
I could tell he was about to say something else. He stopped himself and just shook his head. He didn’t say a word as we made our way through the quiet streets of Soo Canada. It’s a large city by Canadian standards, about four times bigger than Soo Michigan. But there’s something about the place, something I could never put my finger on. It always seemed a little forlorn to me. This cold, gray morning seemed like a permanent part of the city itself.
“You need a donut?” I said.
He shook his head.
“You gonna be this way all the way up there?”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. “You know how it is with us Indians,” he said. “One bad night and we’re down for the count.”
We took 17 north, out of the city and up the Lake Superior coastline. The fog was still heavy on the water as we rounded Batchawana Bay. An hour later, we passed through a small town called Montreal River, and then it was another hour to make our way through the Lake Superior Provincial Park. There was nothing but trees and an occasional glimpse of the lake, stretching out beyond the fog.
“Anytime you want to speak up,” I said. “Telling me where we’re going, for instance.”
Vinnie opened his eyes. “Go to White River,” he said. “Then take a right.”
“White River’s another two hours away.”
“What time is it?” he said.
“Little after nine.”
He picked up my cell phone. “We still get a signal up here?”
“I imagine,” I said. “On this road, anyway. Try it.”
He turned it on and dialed a number. “I’m gonna try Albright’s number again.” He listened for a short while, then he hung up.
“No dice?”
“He’s not picking up.”
“You said you left a message last time?”
“Yeah, I asked him to call my mother’s number. I said I was a member of Vinnie’s family, and was wondering why he hadn’t come back home yet.”
“You don’t think this has gotten to the point where you should come clean?”
“Does it really matter who they think he is? Either way, they should have brought him back three days ago.”
“I just don’t see how this lie is gonna help.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Tell me again. You don’t know anything else about this Albright guy? Where he works?”
“No, I really don’t. Tom didn’t tell me, anyway.”
“What’s his first name?”
“Red.”