“I just told you. They’re on the ferry. They’re going back home.”
He smiled again. He stopped twirling the knife.
“The Indians,” he said. “Carrick and LeBlanc.”
“I thought we agreed they had no part in this.”
“We agreed that the Kaisers’ story was a lie, and that the Indians almost certainly had nothing to do with the planning of the new drop site. Or even the execution, for that matter. But when they were offered up as part of this deal today, I agreed to take them. Do you want to know why?”
I didn’t answer. I sat there and waited.
“Those two men who were left on the ground up there… Those two men who were betrayed and gunned down…”
You mean the two hijackers who somehow found out about the new location, I thought. Who went up there armed to the teeth, no doubt to kill someone and make a point.
“One was my brother,” he said. “The other was just as close as a brother to me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, but-”
The blade came so fast it was invisible. It was just a sound in the air. I felt the steel against the skin of my cheek. He was already sitting back in his chair when I felt the first drop of blood hit my arm.
“But what, Alex? But what? What were you going to say?”
I didn’t reach up to hold my cheek. I let it bleed.
“They called me from the airport,” he said. “Eldon did. My brother. He was still alive. He said O’Neil was alive, too. They were both sitting on the ground, bleeding.”
He leaned forward and cupped a hand under my cheek. When he drew it back there was a great drop of blood in his palm. He looked at it for a moment, then he showed it to me, like he was sharing a secret.
“They were dying on the ground, on some godforsaken little airstrip in the middle of the woods. Eldon was talking to me and he was saying, you gotta send help, you gotta get up here, and I’m doing the math, Chicago to the UP, it’s at least six hours away. Then I hear him yelling at somebody, he’s saying, ‘Hey, over here, you gotta help us. Get over here. Hey, where you going?’ And it turns out it’s this Indian guy. Eldon even said that to me, over the phone, he said there’s an Indian guy here, he’s gotta help us. You gotta call him and tell him, like he expects me to know this man’s name and his number so I can call him up and tell him to go save the two men who are dying. He was getting delirious at that point. He started saying all these strange, random things and then he’d come back into focus and he’d call to the Indian again, saying, ‘Come on, don’t leave, you gotta help us.’”
He weighed the knife in his hand again. I wondered which part of me would feel the blade next.
“So I found out,” he said. “The Kaisers were saying it was the Indian Carrick who was there at the airport, and the Indian LeBlanc who drove him away. I asked them who else was involved and they gave me the name of a two-bit dealer in Sault Ste. Marie. They said he helped put it all together, which once again I knew was a total fabrication. But at the same time I wondered if perhaps ten percent of it was true, like most lies. I had to find out, so I went up there and I talked to the dealer up there to get his side of the story.”
Yeah, you talked to him, I thought. Him and his neighbor both. You talked to them with that knife in your right hand.
“The dealer had his own take on the situation,” he said, “as you can imagine. But he was solid on Buck Carrick. He confirmed that connection. So now I knew that yes, it was Carrick at the airport. When Harry and Jo offered me both of them, well, let’s just say that it’ll help me keep a promise I made. To myself. To my father. To O’Neil’s father. This is beyond business now, you realize that. So I’ll ask you one more time. Where are they?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I didn’t think anything would satisfy him, short of telling him that they were currently back in that boat, waiting on the other side of Gull Island. So I stayed silent. I began wondering how many times he would cut me, out here in the middle of the lake. How many times would he swing that blade before my life bled away and he dumped my body into the water?
He raised the knife until it was inches from my face.
“What am I supposed to do, Alex? Give me an idea, because right now I don’t have what I want. All I have is you.”
I looked him in the eye. I waited.
“Make him take us to them,” Mr. White said. It was the first time he had spoken, and his voice was surprisingly soft. “He must know where they are.”
Corvo didn’t look away from me. “Mr. White makes a good point,” he said. “Where are they?”
I shook my head. I didn’t say a word.
He brought the knife to my face. He touched my other cheek, the one that wasn’t already bleeding. I felt the point of the blade breaking my skin.
“Where are they?” he said.
I didn’t move. I didn’t close my eyes.
“Make him find them,” Mr. White said. “Make him find them and bring them to you.”
Corvo raised one eyebrow. He kept the knife pressed against my cheek.
“Now that’s an interesting idea,” he said, “but what guarantee do I have that he would deliver?”
“He looks pretty smart to me,” Mr. White said. “He knows that the two Indians are walking dead men. Nothing he can do will change that. If he doesn’t bring them to you, he’ll get exactly the same thing.”
“But if he does bring them to me,” Corvo said, “then he walks away. That’s what you’re saying. His payment for performing this service would be his life.”
“That’s right.”
“And what if he calls the police?”
“He won’t do that.”
“Why not?” Corvo said. “Why wouldn’t he do that?”
“Because he knows you’d smell a setup a mile away. Then it wouldn’t just be him and the Indians dying. It would be every family member of every man involved. It would be a river of blood.”
“What do you think?” Corvo said to me. “Are you really smart enough to understand what Mr. White is saying?”
It sounded like a conversation they’d already had, in the past, more than once, and it took me right back to what Janet Long had told me. These guys weren’t from the cartels, but they’d been shown the light. This is how you do your business now. No rules, no restraint. Everyone is fair game.
“Yes,” I said, figuring it was time to finally open my mouth. “I’m smart enough to understand what he’s saying.”
He kept the blade against my skin for another few seconds. Then he pulled it away. He folded the knife and put it into his pocket. He turned his chair around and looked at his compass. Then he opened up the throttle and turned the boat in a tight arc. We went racing back toward Gull Island, skimming across the waves like a smooth stone. I watched ahead, my eyes watering in the wind, wondering if the boat was still on the other side of the island. I hadn’t heard a motor, but maybe we’d been far enough away. Would they have taken the chance to escape?
A few minutes later, Corvo pulled up short of the inlet and drifted in, just as he had the first time. The side of his boat knocked against the jet ski and sent it drifting toward shore.
Corvo killed the engine. Then he reached into a side compartment and brought up a first-aid box. He opened it and took out a large, sterile pad. He opened the paper wrapping and gave it to me, careful not to touch the pad itself.
“Here,” he said. “Put this on your face. You need to take care of that.”
I didn’t move. I felt the blood all down the left side of my face now.
“We’ve already established you’re not a fool,” he said. “Don’t act like one.”
I took the pad from him. I pressed it to my face.
“I’m giving you this.” He took out his wallet and extracted a business card. Then he picked up my wallet and put the card inside. “You call that number and let me know when I should expect you. I’m giving you exactly forty-eight hours. You bring them both down and you turn them over to me. Then you drive away. You’ll never see me again.”