36

MR EGG FACE isn’t alone. Behind him, in Fisher’s recliner with a can of beer in his hand, sits Lyle. “You are so freaking stupid,” he says. “You go to all that effort to escape, then you come home?” He rubs his chin with the back of his hand. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, Mikey. I didn’t think you were that dumb.”

Mr Egg Face has a knitted hat pulled down to where his eyebrows should be and it lends him a sullen babyish look. He gives Fisher a shove and the groceries knock against his leg. “I was supposed to have a date tonight—now look how I’m spending it, you asshole.”

Lyle gets to his feet and the recliner squeaks. “Christ, shut the fuck up, Al.”

Pax is huddled by the wall in the kitchen. He looks up at Fisher, doesn’t lift his head or wag his tail, just glances up then away, as though in warning. Then Fisher sees it: a pile of clothes on the floor. Brian’s. Shirts, pants, underwear. Beside it, gaping open, Brian’s bag with its silky lining ripped and its mesh pockets torn loose. One of these guys has taken a knife to it and a shiver of fear runs through Fisher.

Lyle tilts back his head to take a gulp of beer. His adam’s apple sticks out like a knot on a branch. The underside of his chin is so pale it’s like it’s never seen the sun. He wipes his lips on the back of his hand and belches. “You even buy shitty beer, Mikey. You’re a total fucking loser and always have been.” He empties the can onto the carpet in a twisting yellow stream, then drops it and stomps it flat. “Now, why don’t you tell me what that bag was doing in your closet?”

The label’s gone—how the hell did they know it’s Brian’s? He thinks, Ada. Lyle called her, or she called him. Christ—does she know he’s in the militia? Has she always known?

Fisher’s tongue has turned heavy in his mouth. He can barely make it say, “It’s just a bag, Lyle.”

Lyle smiles. His two front teeth are crooked and he has a habit of holding up his hand to cover them, so Fisher’s not ready when that hand belts him across the face and sends him staggering against his sofa. For a moment his arms wheel, the plastic bag looping through the air, then he falls against the cushions.

Lyle’s mouth is pulled into a thin smile. “You fucking liar.”

Behind him Al stoops and snatches up the bag of chips fallen from Fisher’s groceries. He rips it open and cradles it against his chest, the gun in his right hand pointed at Fisher and the left feeding chips into his mouth. He says, “Want me to shoot him?”

Lyle doesn’t look away from Fisher. “No, fuckhead, because then he won’t be able to tell us where Brian is.”

Al looks around him, licking crumbs from his lips. “How about I shoot the dog? He stinks anyway.”

Lyle holds up one finger. “First let’s see if he can remember where Brian’s hiding.” He bends from the waist toward where Fisher’s lying on the sofa and says gently. “Is it coming back to you, Mikey?”

Fisher’s too hot. His hands, his head, his face, they’re pulsing with the warmth of his blood and a tremble’s started up in his gut. “Brian’s dead. How many times do I have to tell you guys? I dumped him in the river.”

Al walks over to the kitchen. He takes a chip from the bag and holds it out to Pax who barely sniffs it before letting his head sink back onto his paws. Al balances the chip on Pax’s nose, and another, and the dog shuts his eyes.

Lyle sighs. “But somehow Brian’s bag ended up here. Isn’t that weird? I mean, it’s like you’re looking after it for him. You know, in case he decided to go someplace, like, say, Colorado.”

So Ada did read the label. Colorado. Fisher hears it again in his head with the syllables off kilter. That’s how the foreign woman said it. Breehan gone. Colorado. And he understands now. She found the luggage label. She took it from his pocket after she hit him with the broom. He’d ripped it off the bag while Ada was here and stuffed it into his jeans. The label that he wrote. That he’d meant to make it look like Brian had left town. Brian. Or, if you were foreign, Bree-yan.

Breehan isn’t safe. She hasn’t gone to Colorado. She’s still hiding, all alone because Fisher gave up looking for her.

He hears a sigh and braces himself, imagines Lyle’s hand smacking into his face again, or a boot catching him in the groin, but instead Lyle, stupid, lazy, rat-faced Lyle, saunters to the kitchen. He takes the bag of chips from Al and tries one. “Do you only buy cheap crap?” he says and tips them out over Pax like a fall of petals, then drops the bag on him too. From the pocket of his flannel shirt he takes a pack of cigarettes, lights one, and pulls his lips tight against his teeth as he sucks in the smoke. Next he snaps his fingers at Al, who swings his round bland face toward him.

Al says, “What?”

“Your gun, fuckhead,” and Lyle holds out his hand.

“Use your own. I mean, what the hell?”

But Lyle snatches it from him and Al shoves his empty hands into his jeans pockets.

Lyle turns the gun over like he’s never seen one before. He says, “Thing is, Mikey, we’re busy men. We’ve got better things to do than ask you nicely a dozen fucking times where Brian fucking Armstrong’s hiding out.” He plucks the cigarette from his lips and forms his mouth in an odd O-shape. Out of it floats an off-center smoke ring. He tilts his head to watch it wobble and fade. “Last chance, Mikey.”

Fisher gets to his feet. “C’mon Lyle,” he says, but his voice sounds lost. “I’ve told you, he’s dead.”

Lyle lifts the gun and shoots. The sound’s curiously flat. The dog’s body jerks and the legs splay out. One’s missing a paw. It ends in a bloody stump, and a soul-curdling whine fills the trailer.

Lyle looks at the end of the gun, then lets it hang loose from his hand. “Feel like telling us now, do you? ’Cos I’m just getting started.”

Pax is trying to get to his feet. His claws are scraping against the floor and blood’s everywhere, like he’s scratched it up out of the linoleum. He slides in it, his eyes on Fisher, and when at last he heaves himself up, Lyle kicks him under the chin. Pax flies against the wall, a ghost of a dog with a flaring red stump where a paw should be.

Fisher’s barreling across the room. Fuck them, he thinks, fuck anyone who’d shoot a goddamn dog, then the gun’s pointed at him and he keeps going until Al kicks his legs out from beneath him. From the floor he yells, “Christ, he’s just an old dog. What’s wrong with you?”

Lyle’s turns the gun back to Pax. “Five . . . four . . .”

“He’s hiding out someplace. Wouldn’t tell me where. OK? OK?”

Pax is on his feet again but he’s shaking hard.

“Three . . .”

Fisher’s on his knees. He crawls toward his dog and lays a hand on his head. “Fuck—of course he didn’t tell me where! He wanted me to keep the bag in case—in case he decided to fly down to the States. Wasn’t going to go home again and pack, was he?”

Lyle’s thin face has twisted. Deep under his brow, his eyes are nothing but dark specks. “Down to the States—listen to you. You sound like a good ol’ sourdough, don’t you? Except for the fact everything you said’s a pile of crap.” He lifts the gun again, cocks an eyebrow. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He’s a shit—I’d tell you if I knew, if—”

That flat sound again and Pax’s old body judders. The white fur of his chest is a slick red, then he’s still. All Fisher can hear is his own breath. When he looks up the gun’s aimed at his crotch. Lyle spits, “Talk, you fucker.”

Fisher’s filling his mouth with words, any old words, anything to fend off Lyle and the bullet about to come at him, when a phone rings. He recognizes the bland bleating. His phone. The skin around Lyle’s eyes tightens. He gestures at Al, and Al pulls Fisher’s phone out of his coat pocket and slaps it into Lyle’s hand. Lyle says, “Y’allo?” Then his eyes widen in delight. “No, but this is his phone. . . Well, he’s kinda busy. What’s this about?” He bends his head to listen. “No, this is a friend of his . . . Oh sure . . . Yup . . . Really? . . . Just a second.” He stares at the phone for a moment, then presses a button and Fisher hears Jan’s voice all tinny through the speaker saying, “Mike? You there? You’ve got to help me—you saw the paper, didn’t you? And Brian’s taken off with Bree. Christ, I could kill him. You there?”

“Yeah,” he calls back. “But I thought you were supposed to take her to Anchorage.”

A sigh. “She was being a little bitch. So I come home and . . .” She stops, like she can’t find the words.

“You want me to find her?” His voice is knotted up.

“You sound weird, Mike.”

“I’m OK.”

“Can you go after them? Out to the cabin?”

Fisher says, “The cabin?”

“Your mom’s old cabin. Brian sold it for you like he said, Mike, only he bought it for himself. Christ, even I didn’t know,” and she laughs, “not until Marcie asked what he was doing out at Moose Lake all those weekends. I thought he was off camping in the White Mountains. That’s what he told me.” She laughs again and the sound of it makes Fisher wince. “Now I’m worried. Real worried. He’s got himself mixed up in some dangerous stuff.” He can hear her breathing, too fast like she’s been running. “He’s gone too far, way too far. But why’d he have to take Bree?” and her voice catches.

“I don’t know, Jan. It’s not like they ever got on.”

She’s crying now, her voiced stretched and loose. “It’s been so hard. The last few years. I was . . . well, we all make plans, don’t we? But for now, we have to find Bree. They’re watching me, the cops are, and you know how Brian can be. He might do something crazy.”

Fisher cranes his head closer to the phone. “It’s all right, Jan. I’ll find her. I’ll head out there tonight, OK? And the moment I find her, I’ll let you know.”

“Want me to take care of Pax?”

Fisher can’t bear to look where what’s left of his dog is lying at the foot of the wall. “No,” he says quietly, too quietly probably, then more loudly, “Pax’s dead. But—look, if you don’t hear from me, call Ada. Tell her Lyle’s coming with me. He’s Brian’s friend, after all.”

“Who’s Lyle?”

“Her neph—”

But Lyle jerks the phone away. “Talk to you later, Jan,” then he turns it off. He rounds on Fisher. “You smartass fucker,” he says. He balls his fist and goes to hit Fisher, but Fisher ducks. When he straightens up Lyle’s aiming the gun at his crotch again. “I don’t forget crap like that, you hear me? You’ll pay for it, well and good.” He steps closer. “Now, where’s this place?”

“On Moose Lake.”

“Christ, which fucking Moose Lake?”

“The one out by Tomlin.”

He calls out to Al, “Make some coffee, for fuck’s sake, and find a thermos.”

Al runs a hand over his head. “You’re fucking joking. I’m not driving all the way out there in this kinda cold.”

“Think about it, Al—how else we gonna find him? And if we don’t . . .”

They give each other a grim look, then Al starts opening cupboard doors and slamming drawers, and the whole time he’s muttering under his breath, “Fucking Moose Lake, fuck.”