Page 36 of Blue-Eyed Jacks
My breathing was heavy.“I can’t run anymore.”
“I know.You won’t have to.We’ll keep you safe.”
“You got a mouse in your pocket?”
She smiled.“Ye of little faith.Us transplants stick together, didn’t you know that?We might not be true Mainers, but when push comes to shove, we’re just as ornery and insular.”Crystal wetted a washcloth and wiped my face like I was a child.
A child, about to have a child of my own.What the hell was I going to do?
Chapter 11
Upstate New York, July 27, 2008—Jackson
Ihit the Finger Lakes region at midnight.The cabin at about three in the morning.The dealer I’d dubbed “James Metfield” answered the door with a gun in his hand.He should have used it.But when he saw it was me, his shoulders relaxed, and he let the thirty-eight drop to his side.“It’s you.What the fuck, man?I thought you said Thursday.”
“I got delayed.”
“I bet you found some hot chick and was banging the shit out of her, right?”He laughed and jabbed me in the arm with his elbow.
The truth could set you free, right?“She was smoking hot.I think I’m in love.”It felt wrong to think of Kate right now.Already, I’d forgotten the smell of her hair.
James, not his real name, led me into the fishing cabin.What was it with me and properties that looked like shit?At least I didn’t own this one.And the rental was under a fake name, and a face behind it that wasn’t mine.Maybe someday in the distant future someone would connect his face to this place, but that was part of the plan.“You ready?”
“Fuck man, when you said pretend you’re me, I didn’t expect to like it so much.I could fish my life away.”
What an unexpectedlyconvenientthing to say.“Did you do any night fishing?”
“Night fishing?”He shot me a look that clearly thought I was crazy.
“Yeah, about a half hour before dawn, the really big boys bite.”I wasn’t lying.
“No shit?”He was drunk.Evidence of his latest binge littered all over the cabin.Beer bottles on every flat surface.A bottle of whisky sat on the counter, almost gone.Missing lines of coke were outlined in the residue on the mirror that lay flat on the table.The little TV in the corner blared porn.
There were black panties on the easy chair.I picked them up and let them dangle from my finger.“You had guests?”
“Don’t get mad at me.I went to the local strip bar.I picked up this chick.You’d do the same if you’d have seen her tits.She never even asked my name.Tits, man.”
“How big?”I wasn’t interested; I was just biding time.
He mimed the size.
I nodded with appreciation.“Big.”
James snapped his fingers.“Speaking of big, let’s do that.Biggest I caught all week was maybe a ten-inch trout.”
“Fuck, man, that’s smaller than my dick.”
“Bullshit.You’re such a liar, Jackson.”
“Yeah, that’s me.Come on.”I swept up the poles and led him to the boat tied to the dock.While he busied himself with getting it loaded with a fresh case of beer and a cooler of ice, I went to the rental car.I pulled out a duffle from the trunk.The one I’d put in there over a week ago.
I set it under the seat of the boat and helped James push off from the dock.
“We forgot the running lights.”
I scoffed.“This hour of the morning, no one’s going to care.Besides, we’ll keep to the shallows, go over there to that point.”I knew this lake.It wasn’t shallow there at all.Locals sometimes used the cliffs to dive from.But dumb James didn’t know that.I rowed for a spell, pausing in open water, just past the point where the weedy shoreline dipped drastically from about twenty feet to over seventy.“Fuck.Rowing sucks.”
“You’re the one who didn’t want to use the trolling motor.”James’s laugh echoed in the night.
