“I’m sure it’s changed a lot,” I said.
“I forgot how you just drive down the road and all of a sudden you’re on the rez. Out West, you gotta drive for miles through absolute desert. There’s not much doubt about it when you finally get there. Out of sight and out of mind.”
“That’s the King’s Club,” I said as we passed the first casino. “Was it even here when you were here?”
“They were just building it,” he said. “Although I thought they were gonna call it something else. I understand it was quite the bust when they first opened it. They had to close it and try again, right?”
“So I’m told. I wasn’t here yet.”
“You’re not a native Yooper?”
“Born and raised in Detroit.”
“Is that where you were a cop?”
“Yes.”
There were a few cars on the road, most of them gamblers on a warm summer night, or Bay Mills members who were driving to or from work.
“They got nice houses here,” he said. “I don’t see one place I recognize.”
“All the shacks are gone. But again, that was before my time. Which reminds me. Your daughters’ houses are coming up on the right.”
I slowed down.
“Who lives there?” he said. “Mary?”
“No, this is Regina’s house. Mary is a few doors down. You want to go say hello?”
“Wow, I don’t know. It’s kinda late, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s late.”
“I mean, even so. Maybe after we find Vinnie. Maybe we can all sit down together.”
“They have kids, you know. Both of your daughters. I just saw them the other day.”
He nodded his head at that. But he didn’t say anything. I kept driving.
When we passed the big Bay Mills Casino, he looked it over. Then he turned to take in the Wild Bluff golf course on the other side of the street. The back of Mission Hill rose into the darkness.
“My God,” he finally said. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”
“Sorry you left now?”
He just shook his head again.
“We’re almost there,” I said.
“There’s a rez out by Las Vegas,” he said. “It’s called Moapa Valley. You ever hear of it?”
“No.”
“Instead of a golf course they’ve got a coal-burning plant. Right next to the houses. Down the road there’s a place called Yucca Mountain. It’s sacred to the Paiutes, so of course you know what the government is trying to do? They’re trying to use it as a storage area for nuclear waste.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t know. I’m just thinking, I hope these people know how good they’ve got it up here.”
“These people work hard,” I said. “They earned everything they’ve gotten.”
I could feel him watching me for the next few moments. Then he gave out a tired laugh.
“Now I know why you’re not a cop anymore. You had to quit so you could get into politics.”
I fought off the urge to slam on the brakes right then. Bounce this joker’s head right off the dashboard.
“Listen,” I said, “you want to know why I’m not a cop anymore? Because I got shot.” I was about to tell him about my partner lying dead on the floor next to me, and then about another cop who died on another floor, a lot closer to home. But I swallowed the words. It was none of his goddamned business.
“Just knock it off with the cop jokes,” I said. “Okay?”
“Easy, friend. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“We’re not friends, Lou. But if you really came all this way to help Vinnie…”
“I did, man. I swear.”
“Okay, then let’s find him.”
I kept going down the road. Neither of us spoke for a while.
“Vinnie says you went to prison because you got drunk and ran into a car,” I finally said. “Is that accurate?”
“It’s not polite to ask that.”
“I’m asking anyway.”
“It’s accurate,” he said. “I would give anything to take back that night.”
“I also understand this was not your first brush with the law.”
He let out a long breath. “You understand correctly. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, before I got clean.”
“Did I not just watch you drink a couple of beers tonight?”
“I didn’t say clean and sober. Just clean.”
“I won’t even ask,” I said. “But you’ve been out for two years now, you said?”
“Coming up on two years, yeah. I’m already on the other side of sixty years old now. I don’t figure I have much chance to do something good with my life. So when I heard about my son being in trouble, well, I just figured I should try doing one thing right.”
“Okay,” I said. “I get it.”
“By the way, you didn’t have to point out the fact that I’ve got grandkids sleeping in those houses back there. You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I recognize that that’s the saddest thing in the world, that they’ve probably never even heard of me?”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Sorry I got a little sensitive about the cop business.”
“It’s all right. I was out of line.”
We passed the sign letting us know we had just left the reservation.
“This place we’re going,” Lou said, looking behind him, “it’s not on the rez?”
“No, it’s in Brimley. Just around the bay here.”
“You gotta leave the rez to drink?”
“You can drink at the casino, or hell, you can drink at home if you want. But yeah, most of them seem to end up at the Cozy.”
“The Cozy! Are you kidding me? That place is still around?”
A minute later, I pulled up in front of it. There were a good dozen cars in the lot. When we got out, Lou took a quick walk across the street, stopping over at the guardrail where the river came out from under the road and fed into the bay.
“Good old Whiskey River,” he said, “and Whiskey Bay.”
“You better not let Vinnie hear you say that.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s Waishkey,” I said. “Not whiskey.”
“So what’s the big deal about that?”
“Try drinking a few shots while he’s in the same room. You’ll find out.”
“I can’t wait.” He turned back and looked out over the water.
“The water’s pretty calm tonight,” I said.
“I know that can change in a second. That’s something you don’t forget. But we didn’t come here to gaze out at the lake, huh? This is the place where you figure Buck might buy his weed?”
“It’s where he drinks most of the time. So I’m just guessing.”
“All right, then. Let’s go see if anybody’s holding in there.”
As we crossed the street, he stopped dead in the middle. It’s the kind of thing you can do in a place like Brimley, Michigan. After midnight, or hell, pretty much anytime of the day for that matter.
“Something’s not right here.” He looked back and forth from one side of the road to the other.
“They dragged the Cozy over to this side a few years ago,” I said. “Then they added on to it.”
“So I’m not crazy,” he said. “At least not in this particular case.”
We finished crossing the street and went inside. As you step into the place, you’re greeted by the heat and the noise, and you can see where they built on to the one side of it, turning the place into a genuine restaurant and not just a corner bar. Although you can eat dinner there with your family only up until nine o’clock. Then they kick out everybody who’s underage and the only thing you can do there is drink. Either that or play pool on the one table in the middle of the room.
We picked out an empty table and sat down. A waitress came by and we ordered a couple of beers. I knew they wouldn’t be real Canadians, but we didn’t have much choice. As we sat there drinking, Lou looked the place over.
“How many Bay Mills’ you figure are here right now?”
“Maybe half.”
“Seriously? What about those guys right there?” He nodded to a table where six young men sat quietly. The empty bottles were gathered in the center of the table like bowling pins.