Michael looked at the whore. “Why don’t you take a walk?”
She snatched her dress from the floor and ran out the door. From elsewhere in the building came an assortment of screams and shouts, the sound of glass breaking, a single gunshot.
“It was going to happen sooner or later,” Michael said to Dunk. “Might as well make the best of it.”
“You think you’re so fucking smart? You’ll be dead the minute you walk out of here.”
“We’ve pretty much cleaned house, Dunk. I was saving you for last.”
Dunk’s face lit with a phony smile; beneath the bluster, the man knew he was looking into an abyss. “I get it. You want a bigger share. Well, you’ve certainly earned it. I can make that happen for you.”
“Rand?”
The man moved forward, gripping the wire in his fists. Three others grabbed Dunk as he attempted to rise and shoved him hard onto the mattress.
“For fucksake, Michael!” He was squirming like a fish. “I treated you like a son!”
“You have no idea how funny that is.”
As the wire slipped around Dunk’s neck, Michael stepped from the room. The last of Dunk’s lieutenants was putting up a bit of a struggle in the second stall, but then Michael heard a final grunt and the thump of something heavy striking the floor. Greer met him in the front room, where bodies lay strewn amid overturned card tables. One of them was Fastau; he’d been shot through the eye.
“Are we done?” Michael asked.
“McLean and Dybek got away in one of the trucks.”
“They’ll stop them at the causeway. They aren’t going anywhere.” Michael looked at Fastau, lying dead on the floor. “We lose anyone else?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
They loaded the bodies into the five-ton that waited outside. Thirty-six corpses in all, Dunk’s inner circle of murderers, pimps, thieves: they’d be carted to the dock, loaded onto a launch, and dumped in the channel.
“What about the women?” Greer asked.
Michael was thinking of Fastau—the man had been one of his best welders. Any loss at this point was a concern.
“Have Patch put them under guard in one of the machine sheds. Once we’re ready to move, get them on a transport out of here.”
“They’ll talk.”
“Well, consider the source.”
“I see your point.”
The truck with the bodies drove away.
“I don’t mean to press,” Greer said, “but have you decided about Lore?”
The question had preoccupied Michael for weeks. Always he came back to the same answer. “I think she’s the only one I trust enough to do this.”
“I agree.”
Michael turned toward Greer. “Are you sure you don’t want to be the one to run things around here? I think you’d be good at it.”
“That’s not my role. The Bergensfjord is yours. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the troops in line.”
They were quiet for a time. The only lights burning were the big spots on the dock. Michael’s men would be working through the night.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to bring up,” Michael said.
Greer cocked his head.
“In your vision, I know you couldn’t see who else was on the ship—”
“Just the island, the five stars.”
“I understand that.” He hesitated. “I’m not sure how to put this. Did it … feel like I was there?”
Greer seemed perplexed by the question. “I really couldn’t say. That wasn’t part of it.”
“You can be honest with me.”
“I know I can.”
The sound of gunfire from the causeway: five shots, a pause, then two more, deliberate, final. Dybek and McLean.
“I guess that’s that,” said Greer.
Rand walked up to them. “Everybody’s assembled at the dock.”
Suddenly Michael felt the weight of it. Not ordering the deaths of so many; that had been easier than expected. He was in charge now—the isthmus was his. He checked the magazine on his sidearm, decocked the hammer, and slid the pistol back into its holster. From now on, he would never be apart from it.
“All right, that oil ships in thirty-six days. Let’s get this show on the road.”
30
Iowa Freestate
(Formerly the Homeland)
Pop. 12,139
Sheriff Gordon Eustace began the morning of March 24—as he did every March 24—by hanging his holstered revolver on the bedpost.
Because a carrying a weapon wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be respectful. For the next few hours, he’d be just a man, like any man, standing in the cold on aching joints to think about the way things might have been.