Comeback (Gun Pedersen Book 1) Page 4

  Behind the gleaming mahogany bar stood a man in a black crew cut. He was short and looked like a rough bust of a Roman patrician, stoic, not a soft feature in his face. On the wall behind him hung a lighted glass shadow box with a pear-shaped bear paddling a canoe on a brilliant blue lake. In the sky above the bear, clouds spelled out the words Hamm’s Beer.

  “Earlier than usual.”

  “I came to talk, Jack, not patronize.”

  “You still gotta pay.” Jack set a cup of black coffee on the bar. “Twins beat your Tigers, see that? Ten-five.”

  “With a staff ERA pushing five they better keep hitting.”

  “Sour grapes.”

  “You seen Mazy the last couple days?” Gun asked.

  “Yeah, day before yesterday, in the evening. About seven-thirty.”

  “Alone was she?”

  Jack opened his mouth, froze for an instant, then shook his head. “Geoff,” he said.

  Gun stared ahead into the mirror behind Jack’s assortment of bottles and didn’t like what he saw. His eyes, dark above the high cliffs of his cheekbones, made him look like a man older than himself, a man not quite in control of his faculties. He felt a stab of anger in his chest, and to stifle it he squeezed the heavy mug of coffee in his hands. Something snapped. He looked down at the mug, in two clean halves now. Coffee spread on the ebony bar. He opened his fingers—they hadn’t been cut—and let his friend take away the broken pieces.

  Jack mopped up the coffee with a towel, replaced the cup with a new one, and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the bar. “Let’s hear about it,” he said.

  “Mazy’s gone.” Gun told him about Carol’s visit, and when he’d finished, pressed his palms together, matching finger for finger. “It just looks bad,” he said.

  Jack wiped at a spot on the bar with a rag, squinting. “Damnit, Gun, I didn’t think much of it, Mazy and Geoff together. Just figured she was getting her story

  together for the paper, pumping him for the inside stuff.”

  “I’m sure she was. But how did she seem? You know her. Was she in control?”

  Jack pointed across the room, behind Gun. “They were in that booth there. Hedman looked pretty eager, sat up straight as a little pup. Bought some nice wine, the most expensive stuff I keep. I saw him reach for her hand a couple times, that sort of thing.”

  “And Mazy?”

  Jack shook his head. “Friendly enough to keep him talking, cool enough to keep him honest, is how it looked to me. Gun”—Jack lifted a blunt finger— “if I’d thought for a second that she was having any trouble with him, I’d have broken his ass.”

  “I know,” Gun said.

  “I figured Mazy knew what she was up to. Didn’t want to put the chill on her interview.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m sure everything’s fine.” Gun shifted on his stool and tapped his white coffee cup on the bar. “Think I’ll take a little drive out to Lyle’s place.” He finished the last of his coffee and got to his feet.

  “You need any help and you know where to look,” Jack said.

  It was the year after the accident, Mazy sixteen and spending the summer with Gun, that he paid his first visit to Lyle Hedman. On that August night Mazy was having a party in the woods north of the house, and Gun had put up a big canvas Army tent for the girls to sleep in.

  At one in the morning Gun woke to screams,

  high-pitched girl screams that he could feel between his ears like razor-sharp wires, stretched and shivering. He pulled on his pants and ran outside. The night was warm and clear and the sky shimmered with heat lightning. The tent was several hundred yards north of the house, and Gun was almost there when he saw a flash of movement in the trees. He flattened himself belly to ground and scuttled forward.

  The tent was pitched in a clearing the size of a softball diamond, and Gun stopped at the edge of it. There were no sounds coming from the tent, no one moving inside it. Then a shout came from Gun’s left and three young men in swim trunks and Halloween masks charged from the trees. They ran straight for the tent, throwing what looked like tomatoes or apples as they came. The missiles thumped the canvas. The girls inside screamed. One of the boys yelled, “Sharon’s turn!” and all three of them pushed through the tent’s canvas doorway. After a few seconds of scuffling, the boys emerged with one of the girls, Sharon Turner, whose voice rose like an ambulance siren, so high and piercing Gun could almost see it. She was overweight and wore white pajamas, and the boys had her by the arms and legs, her bottom dragging on the ground.

  “Hey, Geoff!” This from a boy wearing a rubber Frankenstein mask who flicked on a high-intensity flashlight and aimed it toward the trees. Like magic, a naked body appeared, jumping, twisting, and goose-stepping over the grass. The streaker wore a Jimmy Carter mask and headed for the tent and the shrieking girl, veering off only at the last instant and disappearing into the trees.

  Gun stood and sprinted for the boys, who were laughing and still holding onto Sharon Turner. When they saw him they dropped her and ran. He knew where they had most likely parked, and when he was sure the girls were all right, he set off for the dead-end gravel driveway. He followed the shortest possible route, sliding down a twenty-foot embankment then fording a narrow stream, and intercepted the boys just before they reached their car. Three of them fled on foot, but Gun managed to hang onto the fourth, grinning Jimmy Carter, and tore away the mask. It was Geoff Hedman, twenty-year-old son of Lyle. The car parked on the dead-end drive was his—a new Jaguar. Gun found the keys in the ignition and told Geoff to get in, he’d drive him home. Geoff scrambled into the backseat, his head down, and shucked into his clothes.

  Hedman’s main house was a painstaking copy of an African hunting lodge. From its low-hanging eaves the roof extended steeply to a high peak and was thatched with long yellow grasses imported from Kenya. Lining the drive were gas torches mounted on bleached wooden poles carved to resemble large bones. That night the torches were all lit, and the flames wavered in the breeze off the lake. The windows of the lodge blazed. Cars were parked bumper to bumper along the drive.

  Gun pulled up beneath a flickering lamp. He spoke for the first time since he had started the car. “We’re going in together, and you’re going to do something for me.”

  “I swear, Mr. Pedersen, it wasn’t my idea. I didn’t want to do it. I’m sorry, I really am.” Geoff had been apologizing nonstop for fifteen minutes. “We were just out for some fun, trying to scare them a little.”

  “You scared them, all right. And now you’re going to have some real fun. You’re going to tell your old man what you and the boys were doing out there. And I’ll be listening to make sure you tell it right.”

  Geoff’s eyes watered in surprise. He shook his head quickly.

  “You heard me.”

  Without knocking, Gun opened the door of Hedman’s lodge, nudged Geoff inside ahead of him, then walked in himself. They stood on a woven cane welcome mat, Gun gripping Geoff’s upper arm. Geoff crouched and cowered, but Gun held him up straight. In the center of the room a stuffed African elephant was frozen in what appeared to be mid-beller, tusks lifted toward the ceiling. Beneath the elephant Hedman and his wife held court from the seat of a leather couch, nodding and smiling at a pressing cluster of guests. Throughout the big room groups of people formed intimate knots, arms draped around each other, heads moving agreeably with drink. For a full thirty seconds no one noticed Gun and Geoff standing there. Then Hedman’s eyes wandered toward the door and flashed open wide. His wife, then the people near him, and finally the whole crowd turned to look.

  In the silence Geoff moaned.

  Gun spoke quietly. “Lyle, your kid and his pals have been on my property, and now he wants to tell you what he was doing there.”

  7

  So this was Gun’s second visit to Hedman’s place, the first in daylight. He turned off the lake road about six miles northeast of Stony, at a black sign shaped like an elephant with tusks lifted. The white lett
ers of the sign said kenya drive—private. A hundred yards in, a gate with iron bars blocked the drive. Gun stopped his truck and got out. The gate hadn’t been here nine years ago. Neither had the twelve-foot-high chain-link fence that reached away in both directions, sealing off Hedman’s property. Maybe Lyle was as paranoid as Tig said he was.

  On the other side of the gate stood a young man wearing an orange sleeveless jumpsuit—probably sleeveless because the man’s upper arms were too big to fit inside a shirt. Gun estimated his height at five-ten, his weight at 230. He had the kind of body Gun had noticed on lots of young men recently, bulky and smooth and designed for the rather limited task of

  moving heavy barbells up and down. At the man’s side was a.38 in a holster with a safety strap.

  As Gun walked toward the gate, he took from his trouser pocket a receipt for two hundred-pound bags of cement he’d purchased from Darwin’s Lumber in Stony. He folded the receipt twice.

  “Hello,” said Gun.

  “You call ahead?” asked the guard.

  “No reservation, sorry.”

  “Then I guess you’re out of luck. Hedman doesn’t have time for walk-ins.”

  “Fine, I’ll just give you a note for him.” Gun moved up to the iron gate, reached his hand through the bars and offered the folded receipt. “Make sure he gets it,” he said.

  The guard’s fingers touched the receipt, and quick as a northern pike slamming a spoon, Gun seized the man’s wrist, yanked him off his feet, and pulled him hard against the bars. The man’s head knocked the iron like a block of wood. Gun let go of the wrist, took a handful of hair, and maintaining a steady pull on the guy’s head, he reached between the bars with his free hand. He unsnapped the holster strap, palmed the gun, and let the man go.

  The guard fell backward on his rear end, cradling the top of his head in his elbows. His eyes were clamped shut and he cursed in violent whispers, like a young boy trying valiantly not to cry.

  “Open the gate,” Gun said.

  Rubbing his crown with one hand, the guard shoved himself up to his knees. He sorted through the big circle of keys hanging from his belt and opened the lock.

  Gun swung the gate open wide. “Now,” he said, “if you want to look like a monkey in front of your boss,

  you can come with me. If not, start running toward Stony. It’s that way.” He pointed.

  The orange-suited guard glanced up briefly at Gun, then rose unsteadily to his feet and began trotting toward the road.

  “I said running,” Gun called out, and the guard picked up his pace.

  The winding drive cut through a forest of mature white aspen, then up a steep hill onto a small field of grass and wild daisies. Finally it tunneled straight into the deep shade of a thick pine woods before breaking through into a clearing of manicured lawn. Once more Gun saw the huge lodge, its thatched roof twitching in the strong breeze like the stiff hair on a dog’s back. Beyond it was Stony Lake, choppy today, blue-black waves capped with gray foam. He parked the truck and was about to walk to the front door when he saw Hedman down on the long floating dock. He was stowing gear on one of his boats and didn’t look up until Gun stepped onto the dock, rocking it slightly.

  Hedman finished tightening the cap on a red fuel tank and smiled without adjusting the muscles of his face. All that happened was the thin line of his mouth lengthened insignificantly. “Hello, Gun,” Hedman said. He picked up the tank and stepped into the black and gold bass boat. A long, skinny man, his movements flowed like water.

  “Lyle,” Gun said.

  Hedman stood on the floor of the boat, hands on hips. He wore a safari shirt and pants that were tailored to fit snugly around his tubular arms and legs. His fleshy, self-indulgent face belonged on a heavier body, and he kept it cocked to the left, showing Gun only the right side. “You going to shoot me?” he said. He was looking at the.38 Gun was holding.

  Gun tossed it to him. “You’re not an easy guy to drop in on.”

  From the prow of the boat came a low rumble. A huge Irish wolfhound sat there perfectly motionless, its face bearing an expression of intelligence and gravity. The dog’s eyes were the same color as Hedman’s, very light, the shade of watery beer.

  Hedman laughed. “Don’t mind Reuben, he’s very obedient.”

  “I bet.”

  “And about the weapon”—Hedman held up the .38 delicately with two fingers—”believe it or not, we need them here.” He spoke in an easy sibilant tone. “We’ve had trouble with vandals.”

  “Funny,” said Gun. “I heard the same thing from Tig Larson a couple days ago and Carol Long this morning.”

  Hedman smiled thinly again. “A beautiful woman, Ms. Long. Stunning, wouldn’t you say?” He brought his hands together. “What brings you out here? You’re a man known for preferring his own company.”

  “A visit.”

  “Well, I’m going fishing. Come along?”

  “You like to talk on the water?”

  “Untie us,” said Hedman.

  Gun undid the lines and stepped into the boat. In five minutes they were anchored off the northwest shore of Hambone Island, out of the wind and a few yards from a stand of rushes. Hedman was casting out and reeling in smoothly, the rod like an extension of his thin arm. As he worked he got careless, and Gun saw why he was hiding the left side of his face. The flesh around the eye was proud and discolored beneath a heavy application of tan makeup powder. The eye itself didn’t look so good either. A bloody red flag extended from the yellow iris all the way to the outer corner.

  “Somebody hit you?” Gun asked.

  Lyle’s quick laugh wasn’t convincing. “Hit myself. Had my truck up on the lift, changing the oil. The wrench slipped on the goddamn oil plug. Hurt like a bastard, I’ll tell you.”

  “Always change your own oil?” Gun asked.

  “Damn right!” Hedman flared. “Anything wrong with that?”

  “Admirable,” Gun said.

  Lyle glared at him, then looked suddenly toward his line and set the hook mightily. The fish didn’t put up much of a fight. It was a hammerhead pike and Lyle threw it back in.

  “You know what I’m here about,” Gun said as Hedman rebaited his hook.

  “Why don’t you just tell me and then I’ll know for sure.”

  “My daughter seems to be missing, and I hear she was with your kid the other night.”

  Hedman’s amorphous face didn’t show a thing. His beer-colored eyes blinked a couple times. He took a deep breath. “Gun, I’m sure you remember the night you brought Geoff home, naked.” He laughed and swung his line into the boat to remove a weed from the hook. “I was damn unhappy at the time, I don’t mind telling you. But after I found out what had happened, what Geoff had done to those girls—after I cooled off a little—I realized that what you did to my kid was just what he needed.” He cast his line again, then reached out and patted Reuben’s large head.

  “Mmm,” said Gun.

  “No, I mean it. You did the right thing, and I learned a lesson, a mighty hard lesson.”

  “Mmm.”

  “I learned it’s pretty damned hard to recognize the fact that you’ve lost touch with your own kid.”

  “That’s real nice, Lyle, but I came here to talk about Mazy, and I haven’t lost touch with her.”

  “Just a minute now, hear me out. The fact is, last night Geoff and Mazy did go out together, and it wasn’t the first time. Not by a long shot.” He smiled, flashed his eyebrows. “Gun, our kids—”

  “You and I both know that Mazy was on a story. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  Reuben made his presence known with a rumble, and Hedman stroked his neck.

  “You’re grievously mistaken, Gun.” Hedman’s eyes slid to starboard, where a Frisbee-sized turtle swam parallel to the boat, five or six feet away. He picked up a landing net from beneath his seat, eased it into the water behind the turtle, and thrust forward, snaring the turtle in the nylon netting. He dumped it upside down on the floor of
the boat. Its underside was waxy and mottled in a geometric pattern of Halloween orange and sea green. Its legs clawed at the air.

  Hedman looked up. “No, Gun. You’re simply wrong about Mazy and my son. And as for Mazy’s interest in Loon Country Attractions, I have nothing to hide. She was free to look at all my records, and I might add that her understanding of Loon Country’s economic implications far exceeds yours.”

  “Well, that’s good. Where the hell is she?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t know where Geoff is either. But I sure could guess who he’s with. Look, last week my son told me things between him and Mazy were . . . heating up. He didn’t come right out and announce anything, but I’m sure it was his way of sounding me out.”

  “Cut the crap.”

  The dog growled again, low muscular thunder rising up from its massive chest.

  “You don’t have to believe me.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Fine. But Geoff hasn’t been home since yesterday. Haven’t seen or heard a thing. My bet is that your daughter and my son have run off together.” With his toe Hedman nudged the turtle, which had managed to right itself.

  “If my daughter ran off with your kid,” Gun said, “it’s not because she wanted to. And if this thing has something to do with your development scam, you better believe I’m going to find out.”

  “I’ll believe whatever I please,” said Lyle, a little smile on his lips. “In fact, my inclination right now is to believe that you and I are relatives.” He reached down and flipped the turtle upside down again. It tried to turn itself over with its head and legs, but Hedman took a toad stabber from his fishing box and sliced the turtle’s craning neck from shell to mouth. Then he tossed the turtle into the water and it sank in a red cloud of its own blood. Reuben the dog whined, and bumped his nose nervously against the gunwale of the boat.

  “Always hated turtles,” Hedman said. “One bit me once, right here.” He held up his right thumb for Gun to see a tiny white scar.

  Gun said, “How about cats, you hate them too?”