Lake Country Read Free Page A

driving the other car. Wouldn’t let it go. “And he does ten days for it.”
    “Yeah, well.” Mike shambled over to the wall and racked his cue stick. They hadn’t really been playing anyway. “I’m sure he’s sorry.”
    “Hell. Killed three people, if you look at it.”
    “Depends how you look at it, I guess.”
    “Get more’n ten days for a bar fight,” Darryl said. “That’s how I look at it.”
    “Good point,” Mike agreed. He could have made the counterpoint that Darryl had started that bar fight, and he’d broken a guy’s cheek, and there was his record to contend with, and he’d also called the judge a not-so-nice name at the arraignment. But it was getting late.
    “Guy’s still got his wife and kid. Still got his nifty address. Bet he’s made himself a pile more dough than he had five years ago too. What’s Lily Morse got?”
    “I don’t know, man.” Mike didn’t really know Lily Morse, and neither did Darryl. “I gotta hit the head.”
    By the time Mike came back, Hal had turned on the lights. He caught Mike’s eye from behind the bar, then glanced toward the rear. His expression delivered the message:
Better deal with him
.
    Darryl was leaning on his pool cue, beer in hand, staring at the eight ball as if daring it to look back.
    “Come on,” Mike said. “Man says it’s time to clear out.” He’d wanted to go home for an hour, and his leg was killing him.
    But Darryl felt like driving around. And since Darryl had filched the keys out of Mike’s unattended jacket while Mike had been in the men’s, they drove around.
    “Tell me another thing,” Darryl said at one point, waiting at a red light on Fairmount, over by the college. “You see anything about the kid’s big bro on that news story? One word about any dead Marines at all?”
    “Not a one,” Mike said. He couldn’t see any reason why there should have been, but arguing with Darryl only made him stubborn, and Mike wanted to avoid making Darryl stubborn tonight. He only wanted a Vicodin and some sleep.
    At some point, they crossed the river. At some point after that, Mike nodded off.
    When he woke up, they were parked at a curb on a leafy, darkened street on the south shore of Lake Calhoun. Not that Mike knew where the hell they were, until Darryl told him. The clock in the dash said 3:35 a.m.
    “Right there he lives,” Darryl said, looking out his window.
    “There who lives?”
    “The asshole.”
    “Who?” Mike yawned. His mouth had gone dry, and his tongue felt thick. He leaned forward, looked at the house Darryl was watching. It was one of those stylish modern-looking things, set back on a wooded rise, all geometric planes and cantilevered sections and floor-to-ceiling views of the lake. All at once Mike felt nervous. “You mean the architect?”
    Darryl made a rough sound in his throat. He swiveled his head, nodded out Mike’s window. Across the dark water, beyond the far shore, downtown Minneapolis glittered in full view against the night sky. It looked nice.
    “Some punishment, huh?” Darryl said.
    He’d gotten into the glove box while they were rolling, Mike saw. Darryl sat with an elbow on his door, resting the open pint of Old Crow on his knee. His eyes had taken on that loose, liquid sheen Mike knew for what it was: a warning sign. Like clear oil shimmering in a hot pan. It seemed to Mike that he’d been seeing this look of Darryl’s more often than he used to.
    “Jesus,” he said. Rubbed his face. “We gotta get better jobs, man.”
    Darryl was quiet. After a bit his mouth twitched. Not quite a grin, but closer than a few seconds ago. “Speak for yourself,” he said.
    Mike glanced at his friend’s eyes and breathed a little easier. The storm had passed. “Gimme the damn keys,” he said. “You lose your turn.”
    He opened his door and got out. It was a clean night, scrubbed fresh by the rain. The cloud cover had pulled apart in spots overhead, showing starry black patches here and there,