I told them everything I knew from direct experience. I didn’t speculate about anything else. Like how willingly or unwillingly Buck became involved in the first place. I gave short, direct answers and told them what had happened. Except for the parts involving Lou. I didn’t say one word about being taken to the swamp, or what happened when we got there. My story was that the Kaisers left me alone in the house, taking their two lackeys with them, and then I went to find Vinnie and Buck in the boat.
I also left out my entire conversation with Corvo. I was still waiting to hear back from Janet. I knew she was my one last hope to get any real help.
Then it was Vinnie’s turn again. Then Buck’s again.
It wasn’t clear for a while whether Buck or possibly even Vinnie would be taken into immediate custody. In the end, Vinnie was allowed to leave. The chief said we shouldn’t bother waiting for Buck. Even if he was released that day, he lived just down the road, so he could walk home.
So I drove Vinnie back to Paradise. He put his head back, yet again, and closed his eyes.
“Your father saved my life yesterday,” I said to him. “So really, he saved all of our lives.”
“I know that.”
“I’m not trying to tell you how you should feel about him. But you should try to talk to him.”
He didn’t answer.
“Let me ask you one thing,” I said. “That night Buck called you, why did you go out to get him?”
“I had to. He’s my cousin.”
“The first night you ever got drunk, in your entire life, is the night you drove to Newberry. That’s what you’re telling me?”
He looked over at me.
“I’m just saying, if you had hit somebody, you would have gone away. Just like your father.”
“So I’m no better? Is that your point?”
“No. My point is that you had a good reason, so yeah, maybe there was more to the story than just another drunk Indian. If you had a chance to explain yourself, maybe somebody else could understand it.”
I let that one hang for a while. Finally, he opened the door, but then stopped before he got out.
“Tell me the truth,” he said. “We’re not done with this guy yet, are we?”
“Who, Corvo?”
He waited for me to keep talking. He wasn’t going anywhere until I did.
“No, we’re not done with him,” I said. “You get some rest and I’ll meet you down at the Glasgow for dinner, okay? We can talk about it then.”
He didn’t move.
“I promise. Get some rest and I’ll see you down there.”
He got out of the truck. Before I could back out, he came over to the driver’s side. I rolled down my window.
“Thanks for everything,” he said. “I’m not sure I even said that yet.”
“It’s okay. I figure we’re about even now.”
He put a hand on my arm for a second. Then he let me go.
It was a couple of hours later, after a shower, a change of clothes, some new bandages, and four aspirin. My landline-phone rang. It was Janet.
“Alex, are you there? I tried your cell earlier…”
“I live on the edge of the world, remember? Cell phones are always a crapshoot up here.”
“You need to come down here and talk to us,” she said. “Right away. Even if you get here late.”
“What, in Detroit?”
“Yes. Do not initiate any further contact with Corvo. Just get down here and-”
“Janet, are you guys close to moving on Corvo, or not?”
“We’ll talk about that down here.”
“Tell me now. Do you have a case or do you not have a case?”
“We have pieces,” she said. “Okay? We don’t have enough to move on yet. In fact, if you really want to know the truth, we’re not even close. If you have something to give us, it might help…”
“Yeah, it’ll help all right. Look, I know how it works. It takes months to put together a RICO case. Sometimes years.”
“Alex, what do you have for us? You have to tell me.”
“I have talk,” I said. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, feeling suddenly very alone. “I have a bunch of words between three men sitting in a boat, in the middle of Lake Michigan. That’s what I have.”
“Okay, then. I can’t wait to hear about it. You’re coming down, right?”
There was a knock on the door.
“Yes,” I said. “It’ll be good to see you again. I should have come down by now, taken you to dinner like I promised.”
“Alex-”
“I have to go. Somebody’s at the door.”
“Do not hang up, God damn it.”
“I’ll come down, Janet. Not tonight. But soon, okay? It’s good talking to you.”
I hung up the phone and unplugged it from the wall. Then I answered the door. It was Lou. He had obviously gone back to the other cabin for a shower and some clean clothes himself. Between the two of us, we looked almost like regular humans.
“Is Vinnie in his cabin?” he said.
“He is. He said he’d meet us down at the Glasgow a little later.”
I could tell he was about to say something about how we were supposed to be watching him closely for any signs of PCS, but he let it go. If I knew Vinnie at all, I knew he’d want a few hours to himself.
“Alex, what’s going on? Who were you talking to?”
“My friend in Detroit,” I said. “I thought maybe she could help us.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to contact anybody. Wasn’t that one of the things they made very clear to you?”
“Look, I’m an ex-cop,” I said. “I had it drilled into my head, all those years. Call for backup. Do things by the book. But you know what? I’m just realizing tonight… even if I still had a badge and a gun, I don’t know if I’d even believe in the book anymore.”
Lou stood there in my cabin, his wet hair slicked back, looking tough and old at the same time, like he’d seen everything there is to see in life, most of it bad. He listened carefully to every word.
“The rules are all gone now,” I said. “They’ve been torn up. People do things that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. I mean, when those guys told me that they’d kill everybody… not just us but every family member they could find… Meaning your family, Lou. All of them. When they said that, I believed them. I know they weren’t just talking. I know it. I saw their eyes when they told me what would happen. You understand what I’m saying?”
He nodded slowly.
“But still, I figured I had to try, you know? Just take one chance to get somebody else on our side. ”
“There’s nobody,” he said. “Not for something like this. I could have told you.”
“We can’t run, either. Not forever. So yeah, that leaves one choice. We go down there and we take it to ’em.”
“I’m with you,” he said. “But it’s just you and me, right? We leave Vinnie out of this?”
“I think he has the right to know what’s going on.”
“No, Alex. We can tell him afterwards. I’d like to keep Buck out of it, too. Maybe for different reasons. I mean, we’ve already seen how he functions under pressure.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but come on, we don’t have much time left. Tomorrow’s the deadline.”
“We’ll have time. How ’bout we all have a meeting over breakfast? See who’s really up for it?”
“I’m just thinking, if Vinnie’s feeling better tonight…”
“You gotta promise me,” Lou said. “He gets one more night to recover. No talking about this until tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, I promise.”
“Thank you,” he said, grabbing my shoulder. “We’ve got a deal. But right now, I think I need a drink.”
The sun had gone down on another tough day. At least I knew that Vinnie was in his cabin as I drove by. That was one thing that was right in the world. Lou and I drove down to the Glasgow in his rental car and sat at the bar. Jackie broke out the cold Molsons for both of us from my personal fridge. A Tigers game was on the television over the bar, the sound turned low. It was cold outside tonight. Legitimately cold. Logs burned and crackled in the fireplace.