“Who else would tell me?”
“He’s got old information. I’ve been out for almost two years.”
“And you’re here now for what reason?”
“It’s been a while, I grant you. I never thought I’d get back to Michigan. But then I heard about Vinnie being in trouble.”
“Heard from who?”
“One of the old-timers. Sometimes he lets me know how my kids are doing up here. I think he just wants to rub my nose in it, you know, how well they’re doing without me. Or if they’re not doing so well, how it must be my fault. But either way, that’s how I keep up, at least.”
“Because there’s no way you could contact them yourself, right? It’s been, what, how many years?”
“They don’t want to hear from me,” he said. “I know that. And I sure as hell wasn’t gonna come back here. Not while their mother was alive.”
I still had the rolling pin in my hand. I felt like hitting him just on general principle.
“I got run out of here pretty good,” he said. “There’s no way she would have let me come back.”
“That’s not my understanding of how it happened,” I said. “I don’t think it’s Vinnie’s, either.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not surprised. She could spin it any way she wanted if I wasn’t here to defend myself.”
“Say one more disrespectful thing about her and I’ll put this thing right up your ass.”
“Okay, okay, take it easy. There’s two sides to every story, right? Let’s just leave it at that. Now will you put the bakery equipment away? I wasn’t kidding, you look ridiculous.”
I put the rolling pin back in the drawer and slammed it closed.
“Is this really his house?” the man said, looking around. “This is my son’s kitchen? What does he do, make pastries for a living?”
“He built it himself. You’ll have to excuse him for having a nice place to live.”
“He really lives here. All by himself.”
“Yes, he does.”
“Why isn’t he on the reservation with the rest of his family? And who are you, anyway?”
“My name is Alex. And Vinnie moved off the rez for his own reasons. You can ask him if you see him.”
“I will,” he said, nodding his head. “You’re a friend of his?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Are you a good friend?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“So you know he’s in trouble.”
I hesitated. “I don’t know much of anything. I know he’s gone. I know his cousin Buck is with him.”
“Yeah, Buck Carrick. I hear they disappeared together. Nobody knows where they are.”
“How’d you hear that?”
“I told you, I’m still plugged into things. I may live out West now, but I’m still a member of the tribe, whether they want me to be or not.”
“When did you hear about it?”
“Yesterday. I hopped on the first plane to the Soo.”
They all know, I thought. Every single person on that reservation, and even people who’ve been gone for years. They all got word of this before I did.
“The chief led me to believe this was some kind of secret,” I said. “I guess it’s not.”
“A secret? Are you kidding? On a reservation?”
“Okay, whatever,” I said. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why did you come all the way out here?”
“He’s still my son,” he said. “He’s in trouble. Isn’t that enough reason?”
“They haven’t heard a thing from you in how many years? Hell, you didn’t seem to care that much when your other son was in trouble. I don’t recall seeing you at his funeral, either.”
I could see that got to him. He flexed both of his fists and for a second I wished I were still holding that rolling pin. He was probably ten or fifteen years older than me, but he looked like he’d spent at least a few of those years in the prison weight room.
“I was doing my time at Ironwood,” he said, “so it’s not like I had any choice. Besides, like I told you, I don’t think I would have been welcome up here.”
“But now is different.”
“Now is different, yes. Now Nika is gone and I can come here without breaking my promise to her, to never step foot in this state while she’s alive. Now maybe I can actually do something good for Vinnie, who I understand probably wants nothing to do with me. But if he’s in trouble, I can probably find him and help him. I’m pretty good at finding people. That’s why I was here when you walked in and jumped me. I was trying to find out who might have called him on this phone.”
He picked up the phone and hit a few buttons.
“Look,” he said. “In the caller-ID record. This call three nights ago. Just after two A.M. Do you know this number?”
“It’s probably Buck’s cell phone,” I said. “But we can double-check.”
“Okay, good. You see, now we’re working together. We might even make a good team.”
“Who says we’re a team all of a sudden?”
“Do you want to find him or not? Or are you not that good a friend?”
“I helped him find your other son, okay? Did you hear about that one on your grapevine? When Tom disappeared in Canada? I helped Vinnie bring him back and bury him. So lay off with the friend business.”
He turned away from me and rubbed his forehead. “Okay, I apologize,” he said. “God, I can’t even believe I’m back here.”
“I know you came a long way,” I said, “but I don’t know how you expect to help find him. You don’t even know him anymore.”
“Where do you think he is?” he said, turning back to me. “Right this second?”
“If I knew, I’d be on my way there.”
“In general, I mean. What kind of place?”
I thought back to that map I’d looked at on the bar. “On one of the other reservations,” I said. “That’s probably how he got word up here to the chief.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “So let me ask you one question. If he’s on another reservation, who do you think they’re gonna talk to first, you or me?”
He had me on that one.
“While I’m at it, let me ask you something else. I know I’ve been gone a long time, but everybody on the plane was saying you guys have been having a big heat wave up here. People passing out on the street, having to go to the hospital… Is that true?”
“It almost hit ninety a couple of days ago. So yes.”
“When I left Vegas, it was a hundred and fifteen. You realize you’re all pussies up here, right?”
“Come back when there’s six feet of snow on the ground,” I said. “We’ll see who’s a pussy.”
He laughed at that one.
“Ah yes,” he said. “That part I don’t miss. But if I can ask you one more question. Last one, I promise.”
“Go ahead.”
“Is there anyplace we can get a drink around here?”
That’s how I ended up back at the Glasgow. I surprised Jackie, who’d already written me off as an early departure that night. I surprised him even more when he got up close to me and looked at my face.
“What the hell happened to you?” he said. “And who’s your friend?”
I wiped at the scrape I seemed to have received over my left eye. “Meet Lou LeBlanc.”
“You look even worse,” he said as he gave Lou the once-over. “What were you guys doing?”
“What do you think?” I said.
“LeBlanc, did you say? Any relation to Vinnie?”
“I guess you could say he’s related. He’s Vinnie’s father.”
Jackie stopped dead, halfway into his crouch to get down to the refrigerator under the bar.
“Are you kidding me?”
“He’s not kidding,” Lou said. “Pleased to meet you.”
Jackie finished his mission, coming up with two Molsons and putting them down in front of us. A bad idea, I thought. I should have stopped him before he went for the fridge.
“Let’s get it out of the way,” Lou said. “I don’t imagine either of you think that much of me. Running out on my family, never coming back. I’m sure people still think I’m a total monster around here.”