She was close to the end of her decks, so we got only two hands in before she had to shuffle. That was Lou’s chance for a little small talk.
“Nice place you got here, Jennie.”
“Where are you from?” She handled the cards like she’d done this a few thousand times before.
“Vegas.”
“You must play a lot out there.”
“I try not to. I know it’s a losing proposition.”
She smiled and shrugged that off, offering Lou the yellow cut card. Lou placed it in the deck and she completed the cut.
“You know Vinnie?”
She paused at that. There was a subtle change in her body language, then she was right back to all-business again. “Vinnie LeBlanc?”
“Yeah, Vinnie LeBlanc.”
“He’s a dealer here, too. I haven’t seen him in a while. His mother died.”
“You must be a cousin,” Lou said.
“Everybody’s a cousin up here. But maybe you want to talk to Phil, sir.”
She tilted her head and called his name without taking her eyes off the cards. A dealer never takes his or her eyes off the cards when they’re in play, after all. We finished up the hand and then Lou thanked her by sliding her the rest of his chips. I did the same. As we stood up, the pit boss came out with his head cocked, waiting for our story. I knew him well enough to say hello to, and in fact he was the exact same pit boss I had taken aside just a few days ago.
“You’re Alex,” he said to me, looking right past Lou. “Vinnie’s friend, right? We already had this conversation, remember? I have no idea where he could be.”
“I guess we’re just stopping by again,” I said, “on the off chance you might have heard something new.”
“No, not a word,” he said, looking back and forth between us. His eyes narrowed as he focused on Lou. “Have we met before?”
“Maybe a long time ago. Last time I was here, this place wasn’t even built yet.”
“You’re Bay Mills?”
He took a few seconds to answer that one. The pit boss and I both waited while everyone else around us kept doing their casino business.
“No,” Lou finally said. “I’m not. I thought I still might be, but no.”
The man gave him a strange look.
“I appreciate your time,” Lou said. “I’ll let you go back to making money. That’s a nice golf course you’ve got across the street, too.”
The pit boss kept waiting for the punch line, or for Lou to start making some kind of sense maybe, but Lou just turned and walked away.
“Don’t mind him,” I said to the man. “He’s had a long day.”
When I caught up to him I grabbed his arm.
“What the hell?” I said. “Was all of that really necessary?”
“Did you notice?” he said, shaking his arm free. “As soon as I said his name, it was like a big red flag went up. Like I’m under suspicion all of a sudden, just for asking about my own son.”
“Nobody in there knows he’s your son. They’re just looking out for him.”
“I wanted to find him,” he said. “Today. I wanted to get off the plane and find Vinnie.”
There were a dozen comebacks I could have made to that one, but I let it go. Whatever the circumstances, however belated the effort, he was here to help Vinnie, and that was the one thing we could agree on.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Figure out what to do next.”
We went outside. We weren’t ten steps from the door when a car pulled up. A black four-door sedan that looked sort of like an unmarked police car, and I was already getting our story ready. But when the car stopped, the driver’s-side door opened, and I recognized the man who stepped out. He had long gray hair tied behind his head, like a lot of the old-timers around here. I’d see him over at Vinnie’s mother’s house every time I went there. He would nod to me once in a while, but I don’t think he ever said one word to my face.
“Lou LeBlanc,” the man said, coming around the front of the car. “It is you. I thought those guys must be losing their minds.”
“Henry,” Lou said. “It’s good to see you.”
“Yeah, like hell. What are you doing here?”
“Alex, this is Henry Carrick,” he said to me. “One of Buck’s uncles, I believe.”
“I’ll ask you again,” the man said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for my son,” Lou said. “Excuse me, I’m looking for my son and your nephew.”
“I’m amazed you’d even show your face around here,” the man finally said. “I mean, hell, I’m amazed you’re still walking around with all your teeth. If some of the other guys see you here-”
“Yeah, go give them a call,” Lou said. “Round up every last one of them. In the meantime, I see you’re all talk. Just like always.”
“You’re banned from the reservation, LeBlanc. You know that. Hell, you’re banned from the whole state. I thought that was made clear when you got run out of here.”
“I didn’t get run out of here,” Lou said, stepping closer to him.
“Okay, you ran away with your tail between your legs,” the man said. “Like a beaten animal. However you want to put it, the result was the same. You were supposed to leave and never come back.”
“I stayed away for as long as Nika was alive. I kept my promise.”
“Don’t you even dare say her name. Not anywhere on this reservation. Do you understand me?”
“She was my wife, Carrick. She chose me. Not you.”
“And look how well that turned out.”
Lou grabbed him by the collar. I took a step forward and Lou put out his other hand to stop me.
“This is between two old friends,” he said to me. “Just stay out of it.”
At that point, I would have been happy to do so. Hell, I would have just driven home and left the two of them there to have it out. But we were starting to draw a small crowd of people coming in and out of the casino. I couldn’t just let him kill this guy, anyway. Which is exactly what would have happened if they’d started swinging at each other.
“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “We’ve got more important things to do.”
Lou finally let the man go and tapped him lightly on the cheek.
“It still must hurt,” Lou said. “What is it, forty years now? The love of your life and she dropped you like a hot rock.”
“You’ve got five minutes to get off the rez.”
“Yeah, I know,” Lou said, walking away. “And then you’ll call the whole gang to come beat me up. I heard you the first time.”
“You got a lot of nerve, too,” he said. “Talking about Vinnie and Buck, like we’re not doing everything we can to find them. This from a man who abandoned his whole family.”
Lou stopped. Mr. Carrick finally found some degree of sense and went around to the other side of the car, putting two and a half tons of metal between himself and a prison-hardened man who probably could have taken him apart with his bare hands.
“You’ve been warned,” the man said. He got into his car and drove away. The people who had gathered around us continued on, into or away from the casino.
“You did mention the welcome wagon,” I said as we walked back to my truck. “I guess that was it.”
“I’m obviously not welcome here,” he said. “But can we make one more quick stop?”
“Where’s that?”
“I just want to say hello to her. And goodbye. One more time.”
I stopped there in the middle of the lot and looked at him. This was exactly what Vinnie had asked to do.
“Come on,” I said. “Get in.”
A few minutes later, we were up on top of Mission Hill. It was just as dark and empty as that night I had brought Vinnie up here. Once again, I stayed by the truck and watched a lonely LaBlanc man make his way through the graveyard to find the stone next to the freshly turned earth. Once again, it was a clear summer night and I could see all the way across to the blinking lights on top of the wind turbines in Canada.