The Bodies Left Behind: A Novel Page 12

  “Your laziness?”

  “Yep. Because I stopped looking for that son of a bitch.”

  “But six months, Hart. That’s a long time.”

  “Didn’t matter if it was six years. Either you’re in all the way, a hundred and ten percent. Or don’t bother.” Hart shook his head. “Hell, Lewis, forget it. This’s my problem. I was the one hired on. It’s not your issue. Now, I’d consider it a privilege if you came with me. But if you want to head back to Milwaukee, you go right ahead. No hard feelings at all.”

  Lewis rocked. Back and forth, back and forth. “Ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “What happened to the prick killed your brother?”

  “He enjoyed life for three more days.”

  Lewis debated a long time. Then he gave a what-the-fuck laugh. “Call me crazy, Hart. But I’m with you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You bet I am.”

  “Thanks, man. Means a lot to me.” They shook hands. Then Hart turned back to his BlackBerry, moved the bull’s-eye to the closest part of the Joliet Trail and hit the START GUIDANCE command. The instructions came up almost immediately.

  “Let’s go hunting.”

  A SLIGHT MAN

  in his thirties, James Jasons sat in his Lexus, the gray car slightly nicked, a few years old. He was parked in the lot of Great Lakes Intermodal Container Services, Inc., on the Milwaukee lakefront. Jasons was watching the cranes offload the containers from ships. Incredible. The operators lifted the big metal boxes as if they were toys, swung them from the ships and set them down perfectly, every time, on the flatbed of a truck. The containers must’ve weighed twenty tons, maybe more. Jasons was always impressed by anybody with skill, whatever their profession.

  A rumble filled the night. A horn blared and a Canadian Pacific freight train ambled past.

  The door of the old brick building opened. A brawny man in wrinkled gray slacks, a sports coat, blue shirt, no tie, climbed down the stairs and crossed the parking lot. Jasons had learned that the head of the legal department of the company—Paul Morgan—regularly worked late.

  Morgan continued through the lot to his Mercedes. Jasons got out of his car, which was parked two slots down. He approached the man, arms at his side.

  “Mr. Morgan?”

  The man turned and looked over Jasons, who was nearly a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than the lawyer.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’ve never met, sir. I work with Stanley Mankewitz. My name’s James Jasons.” He offered a card, which Morgan glanced at and put into a pocket where it could be easily retrieved when Morgan found himself near a trash can. “I know it’s late. I’d just like a minute of your time.”

  Morgan’s eyes swept around the parking lot. Meaning, Here, now? Friday night? He hit the key fob and with a click the Mercedes unlocked.

  “Stanley Mankewitz didn’t have the balls to come himself? Doesn’t surprise me.” Morgan sat down in the front seat, the car sagging, but he left the door open. He looked Jasons up and down, from the delicate shoes to the size-36 suit to the rock-hard knot in the striped tie. “You’re a lawyer?”

  “I’m in the legal department.”

  “Ah. There’s a distinction for you,” Morgan said. “You go to law school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Yale.”

  Morgan grimaced. He wore a pinky ring that probably had a DePaul crest on it. Well, Jasons hadn’t brought up the alma mater issue. “Tell me what your noble leader wants and then scoot off.”

  “Sure,” Jasons said agreeably. “We’re aware that your company hasn’t been particularly supportive of Mr. Mankewitz and the union during this difficult time.”

  “It’s a federal investigation, for Christ’s sake. Why the fuck would I want to support him?”

  “Your employees are members of his union.”

  “That’s their choice.”

  “About the investigation—you know that no charges have been filed.” A good-natured smile on Jasons’s face. “There are a few officials looking into some allegations.”

  “Officials? It’s the fucking FBI. Look, I don’t know what you’re after here. But we’re a legitimate business. Look out there.” He waved toward the brilliantly lit cranes. “Our customers know we’re a union shop and that the head of that union, Stanley Mankewitz, is under investigation. They’re worried that we’re involved in something illegal.”

  “You can tell them the truth. That Mr. Mankewitz hasn’t been indicted for anything. Every union in the history of the country has been investigated at one point or another.”

  “Which tells you something about unions,” Morgan muttered.

  “Or about people who don’t like the common folk standing up for their right to fair pay for hard work,” Jasons replied evenly, remaining close to the man despite the odor of garlic rising on Morgan’s breath. “Besides, even if Mr. Mankewitz was found guilty of something, which is highly unlikely, I’m sure your customers would be able to draw the distinction between a man and his organization. Enron, after all, was ninety-nine percent hardworking people and a few bad apples.”

  “Again, ‘hardworking.’ Mr. Jason…Jasons? With an s? Mr. Jasons, you don’t understand. You ever hear of Homeland Security?…We’re in the business of moving shipping containers. Any hint of something wrong with the people we’re connected to and everybody goes right to anthrax in our warehouses or a nuclear bomb or something. Customers’re going to go elsewhere. And your hardworking common folk’ll lose their fucking jobs. I repeat my question. What the hell do you want?”

  “Just some information. Nothing illegal, nothing classified, nothing sensitive. A few technical things. I’ve written them down.” A slip of paper appeared in Jasons’s gloved hand and he gave it to Morgan.

  “If it’s nothing classified or sensitive, look it up yourself.” Morgan let the slip float to the damp asphalt.

  “Ah.”

  Morgan studied the thin, smiling face closely. He laughed hard and ran his hand through his thinning black hair. “So, what’s this, like, The Sopranos? Only, instead of sending Paulie or Chris to extort me, Mankewitz picks a scrawny little asshole like you. That the plan? You whine at me until I cave?” He leaned forward and laughed. “I could fuck you up with one hand. I’ve got half a mind to do it. Send you back to your boss with a broken nose.”

  Again, a good-natured grimace. “You look like you could, Mr. Morgan. I haven’t been in a fight in probably twenty years. School yard. And I got whipped pretty bad.”

  “You’re not worth the sweat,” the man snapped. “So what’s next? The big boys come back with lead pipes? You think that scares me?”

  “No, no, there’s nobody else coming. It’s only me here and now, this one time. Asking if you’ll help us out. Just this once. Nobody’ll bother you again.”

  “Well, I’m not helping you out. Now get the fuck off our property.”

  “Thanks for your time, Mr. Morgan.” Jasons started to walk away. Then he frowned, as if he’d remembered something, and lifted an index finger just as the lawyer was about to close the car door. “Oh, one thing. Just to be helpful. You hear about tomorrow morning?”

  Paul Morgan gave an exaggerated grimace and said, “What about tomorrow morning?”

  “Public Works is starting some construction on Hanover Street. On Saturday, can you believe it? And at eight-thirty. You might want to check out a different route if you want to get to the school by ten.”

  “What?” Hand on the half-open door, Morgan was frozen, staring at Jasons. The word was a whisper.

  “For the concert.” The slim man nodded pleasantly. “I think it’s great when parents take an interest in their children’s activities. A lot of them don’t. And I’m sure Paul Junior and Alicia appreciate it too. I know they’ve been practicing hard. Alicia especially. Every day after school in that rehearsal room, three to four-thirty…Impressive. Just thought you might want to
know about the roadwork. Okay, you have a good evening, Mr. Morgan.”

  Jasons turned and walked to his Lexus, thinking that the odds of getting rushed were about 10 percent. But he got inside safely and started the car.

  When he looked out the rearview mirror, there was no sign of Morgan’s Mercedes.

  The slip of paper was gone too.

  The first of this evening’s tasks was finished. Now for the second. His stomach rumbled again but he decided he’d better get on the road right away. The directions told him it would take more than two hours to get to Lake Mondac.

  THE GROUND AROUND

  Brynn and Michelle was swampy and they had to be careful not to step on what seemed to be solid leaves but which was only a thin facade covering a deep bog. The frogs’ calls were insistent, piercing and they irritated Brynn because the creek-crack could obscure the sound of anyone approaching. They walked for twenty minutes in tense silence—following the least choked route they could, sucked farther into the forest’s discouraging labyrinth. Brynn and Michelle descended into a gully that was matted with blackberry, trillium, wood leek and a dozen plants Brynn didn’t recognize. With considerable effort they climbed to the top of the other side.

  Where Brynn realized suddenly that she was lost. Completely lost.

  On higher ground they’d had more of a sense of the correct direction—due north to the Joliet Trail. Brynn had used certain landmarks to guide them: peaks, a stream, unusual patterns of tall oak trees. But they’d been forced farther and farther downward into the low ground by rocky cliffs and the compacted mass of brush and thorny bushes. All of her navigation beacons had vanished. She recalled the instructor at the State Police tactical procedures course saying that if you put somebody in unfamiliar territory without recognizable landmarks, they’d be completely disoriented within thirty-five minutes. Brynn had certainly believed him but hadn’t realized that too many landmarks could be as much of a problem as too few.

  “Did you and your friends ever hike this way?”

  “I don’t hike,” Michelle said petulantly. “And I’ve only been to their place once or twice.”

  Brynn looked around slowly.

  “I thought you knew where we were,” Michelle muttered.

  “I thought so too,” she said with more than a little exasperation.

  “Well, find some moss. It grows on the north side of trees. We learned that in grade school.”

  “Not really,” Brynn replied, looking around. “It grows where there’s the most moisture, which is usually on the north side of trees and rocks. But only if there’s enough sun to dry out the south side. In deep forest, it’ll grow everywhere.” Brynn pointed. “Let’s try that way.” Wondering if she was taking that route simply because it seemed less daunting, the vegetation less tangled. Michelle followed numbly, limping along with her polished rosewood crutch.

  A short time later Brynn stopped again. If it was possible, she was even more lost than ten minutes earlier.

  Can’t keep going on like this.

  She had a thought, asked Michelle, “Do you have a needle?”

  “A what?”

  “A needle, or a pin, maybe a safety pin.”

  “Why would I have a needle?”

  “Just, do you have one?”

  The woman patted her jacket. “No. What for?”

  Her badge! Brynn pulled it out of her pocket. Kennesha County Sheriff’s Department. Chrome. Ridges radiating like sun rays out of the county seal.

  She turned it over and looked at the clasp pin on the back.

  Could this actually work?

  “Come on.” She led Michelle to a nearby stream and dropped to her knees. She began to clear away a thick pelt of leaves, saying, “Find me some rocks. About the size of a grapefruit.”

  “Rocks?”

  “Hurry.”

  The young woman grimaced but began walking up and down the bank, picking over stones, while Brynn cleared a space on the bank. The ground was cold; she could feel the chill through her knees. They began to ache. From her pocket she took the clear bottle of rubbing alcohol, the Chicago Cutlery knife and the candle lighter. Set them on the ground in front of her, next to her badge.

  Michelle returned, limping along with five large rocks. Brynn needed only two. Forgot to mention that.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making a compass.” This had been in the survival manual issued by the State Police, though the team Brynn was on had not actually made one. But she’d read the material and thought she remembered enough to craft the instrument.

  “How can you do that?”

  “I’m not sure I can. But I know the theory.”

  The idea was simple. You pounded a needle or pin with a hammer, which magnetized it. Then you rested it on a piece of cork floating in a dish of water. The needle aligned itself north and south. Simple. No hammer now. She’d have to use the back of the knife blade, the only metal object they had.

  On her knees, Brynn set a rock in front of her. She tried to break the pin off her badge by bending it. The metal would not fatigue, though. It was too thick.

  “Shit.”

  “Try to cut through it with the knife,” Michelle suggested. “Hit it with a rock.”

  Brynn opened the pin as far as she could, laid it on the rock and set the blade against the base of the needle. Holding the Chicago Cutlery in her left hand, she tapped the back with another rock. It didn’t even make a mark.

  “You’ll have to hit it hard,” Michelle said, now intrigued with the project.

  She slammed the rock into the pin once more. The blade made a slight scratch on the needle but danced along the chrome metal. She couldn’t hold both blade and badge down on the rock in one hand.

  Handing the rock to Michelle, she said, “Here. You do it. Use both hands.”

  The younger woman took the second rock, the “hammer,” which weighed about fifteen pounds.

  In her left hand Brynn continued to hold the wooden knife handle. She cupped her palm around the badge and, with her fingers, gripped the end of the blade, near the point.

  Michelle looked at her. “I can’t. Not with your hands there.” Michelle had about an eight-inch target on the back edge of the knife. A miss could crush one of Brynn’s hands. Or flip the blade sideways and slice the pads off her fingers.

  “We don’t have any choice.”

  “I could break your fingers.”

  “Go ahead. Don’t tap. Hit hard. Come on, do it!”

  The young woman took a deep breath. She lifted the rock. Then grimaced, exhaled and swung the stone in a blur.

  Whether it was headed for Brynn’s fingers or for the knife was impossible to tell but Brynn didn’t move a muscle.

  Snap.

  Michelle hit the blade clean, driving it through the metal and cutting off a two-inch bit of needle.

  Which spiraled through the air and disappeared in a shadowy sea of leaves near the stream.

  “No!” Michelle cried, starting forward.

  “Don’t move,” Brynn whispered. Presumably their prize had landed on top of the pile, though it wouldn’t take more than a footstep to send it slipping into the leaves, lost forever. “It couldn’t have gone very far.”

  “It’s too dark. I can’t see anything. Damnit.”

  “Shhhh,” Brynn reminded. They had to assume that Hart and his friend were still after them.

  “We need the lighter.”

  Brynn leaned toward the leaves. The young woman was right. In this dense grove, with the light of a half moon, sliced to pieces by a thousand branches and stubborn leaves still clinging to them, it was impossible to see the metal. But the candle lighter would shine like a warning beacon atop a skyscraper for Hart to see.

  Again, the bywords for the evening came to mind: no choice.

  “Here.” Brynn gave her the lighter. “Go around there.” She pointed to the far side of the pile. “Keep it low and wave it over the ground.”

  Michelle hobbled
off. “Ready?” she whispered.

  “Go.”

  A click and the flame blossomed. It was far brighter than she’d expected. Anybody within a hundred yards could have seen.

  Brynn leaned forward and scanned the ground, crawling forward carefully.

  There! Something was shiny. Was that it? Brynn reached out carefully and picked up a tiny twig covered in bird shit.

  A second possibility turned out to be a streak of mica in a rock.

  But finally Brynn spotted a silver flare in the night, sitting on top of a curl of oak leaf. She picked up the needle carefully. “Shut it out,” she said to Michelle, nodding at the candle lighter.

  The area went soot black—even darker now because the light had numbed their eyes. Brynn’s sense of vulnerability soared. The two men could be walking directly toward them and she’d never see them. Only a cracking branch or crunch of leaves would give away their approach.

  Michelle crouched. “Can I help?”

  “Not yet.”

  The young woman sat down, crossed her legs and fished the crackers out. She offered them to Brynn, who ate several. Then Brynn began tapping the needle with the back of the knife. Twice she struck a finger hard and winced. But she never let go and never paused in the pounding—like the flare of the lighter, the sound of the tink tink tink seemed to broadcast their position for miles.

  After an eternal five minutes she said, “Let’s try it. I need some thread. Something thin.” They unraveled a strand from Brynn’s ski jacket and used it to tie the needle to a bit of twig.

  Brynn dumped out the alcohol from the bottle and refilled it halfway with water, slipped the twig and pin inside and set the bottle on its side. Brynn hit the candle lighter trigger. They stared at the bottle. The bit of wood slowly revolved to the left and stopped.

  “It works!” Michelle blurted, giving her first true smile of the night.

  Brynn glanced at her and smiled back. Damn, she thought, it does. It surely does.

  “But which end’s north and which’s south?”

  “Around here the high ground’s generally west. That’d be to the left.” They shut the lighter out and after their eyes were accustomed to the dark Brynn pointed out a distant hilltop. “That’s north. Let’s head for it.”