Inside Passage. Burt Weissbourd

had done that. He was doing his job, and he had no way of knowing what this cabin meant to her. What it was, she decided, was that she wasn’t used to getting her way with people. She didn’t expect them to understand what she was saying. So she didn’t say much. She needed her energy for other things, like Dr. Stein. At least he tried to listen, even when he didn’t understand. She believed he was working hard and that he thought about what he did. Except at certain times—she could see it come on—when he seemed distracted, preoccupied. It made him miss some things, like setting that fire. Corey caught herself. That wasn’t her problem. She would make him see that she could be a good mom. She could do that. He could do that.

      Corey took the steep old wooden staircase that switch-backed up the bank toward the cabin. She went slowly, looking down, reminding herself to replace the unstable, weatherworn steps. She was checking out a wobbly tread when her hand hit something hard—a piece of wood, a cane. She saw him then, an outsized man in a shabby suit, staring down at her from the landing through those oversized, gold-rimmed glasses that made his weird, cloudy eyes even bigger. Nick’s man. Lester Burell. He had set his cane to block her way. Since her arrest, Lester had visited her twice. After those visits she knew two things: Lester had a reptile’s thick skin, and a reptilian heart. She thought about running, but she couldn’t move. She felt cold—on her skin, inside her bones.

      Lester tapped his cane against the stair railing. “You get one chance.”

      Corey didn’t respond. She didn’t even look at him.

      Lester didn’t seem to notice. “You work for me. Whatever I need.”

      She wanted to throw up. “Why are you here?” she asked, instead. “I haven’t said anything. I won’t bother Nick.”

      Lester ignored her. “Chance to redeem your execrable self—” Another tap, and a mean smile. He nodded. “Show your good intentions…”

      She looked out to sea.

      He nodded again, as if she had said something, then continued. “I went ahead and squared it with your PO. Dick liked the idea.” He cleared his throat, an attention-getter. “And it could help you get your boy back. Might be the only way. We agreed on that.”

      Corey tensed up, every single muscle. The lizard sonofabitch had talked with her probation officer. About Billy. She wanted to grab his ankle and pull, watch him tumble down the stairs onto the rocky beach. She waited, staring at the sea.

      Lester went on, his voice gravelly, “Here’s how I look at it.” He waited until she turned back, then he lifted his large left palm, held it out. “In my pocket, or…” He raised his right palm, lowering his left, as if weighing two objects on a balancing scale. “Off the radar screen. Poof!” He blew across his right palm. “Gone.” He held both palms at the same level. “Works either way.”

      Lester hawked up a wad of phlegm, lobbed it onto the beach—he was plainly finished here—then he climbed the steps and walked toward his car. Corey shifted, took slow breaths. She watched his back, his odd walk—a war wound. He had been a mercenary, he’d told her once. She knew that twenty years ago Nick had paid Al to ferry this man to Canada on his boat. Now, Al was dead and Lester was Nick’s grim messenger.

      She hadn’t spoken with Nick himself since that harrowing night at King County jail. She still remembered the exact time—10:13 p.m.—when she finally made bail. Al, she assumed, had been contacted. She was in a bad dream. Al would help her sort it out, wake her up. When she stepped into the waiting area, her bad dream turned to a sweat-soaked, screaming nightmare. Right there, sitting on a bench next to Billy—engaging him in lively conversation—was Al’s cousin, Nick Season. Nick waved. He looked like a million bucks.

      “Hey, Corey,” Nick said. “What a rough deal. We have to talk.”

      She ignored him, hugged Billy and looked anxiously at her friend Jamie, who sat on Billy’s far side. She asked her son, “Where’s dad?”

      “We couldn’t find him anywhere.” Billy frowned. “It’s really weird.”

      “We called everyone we could think of,” Jamie explained. “Even the Bainbridge police. They can’t find him either. No one knows where he is.”

       The pieces of the day’s puzzle were coming together for her.

      She remembered stepping away from them. “Who posted my bail?” Corey asked, afraid of the answer.

      “I did.” Nick took her arm, plainly concerned. “Let’s talk privately.”

      “Wait here,” she told Billy as Nick led her outside. He took her down Jefferson to a door stoop.

      She felt like she was underwater, drowning.

      Nick used his handkerchief to clear a place for Corey to sit on the stoop. He sat beside her. “Perhaps I can help,” he offered.

      She studied Nick’s handsome face, his perfect black eyebrows, his sure black eyes. “Where’s Al? What happened?”

      “Al’s gone,” Nick said, as if talking to a slow child. “He’s not coming back.”

      “Who did this? Did you—”

      “Listen carefully, please,” Nick interrupted softly. His voice was calm. “Here’s what happened: You and Al were selling confiscated drugs that Al stole from the evidence locker. You hid them on your boat. Twenty kilos went missing. You sold ten already. Someone found out. Al ran with the money. He just disappeared. You’re going to jail.”

      “Like hell.”

      Nick squeezed her arm. His grip was like a vice. “You’re not listening. Here’s the point. I don’t want you to miss the point.” His voice was still soft. He gave her a second. She saw the veins in his neck throbbing. “I like your son. Nice boy. I’m worried about him though. A young fella without his dad.” Nick leaned in, so close she could smell his cedar-scented aftershave. “He could disappear too.”

      She slapped him hard enough to leave a handprint on his cheek.

      Expressionless, Nick tightened his grip. Then he pulled her up the stairs to the dark entryway. With his right hand, Nick freed his brass belt buckle. A thin, icepick-like instrument was attached to the buckle, housed under his belt. In one fluid motion, Nick had the pick through her lower jaw, piercing the roof of her mouth.

      Corey gasped. She stood on her tiptoes, head back, leaning against the brick wall. Blood was pooling in her mouth. The way the muscle in his jaw was working, she thought he might kill her.

      “Remember this,” he went on, his voice raspy and cold. Her toes hurt, and she could feel the pick working its way deeper. “Tomorrow. During your trial. When you’re in prison. Remember this one thing.” He raised the pick, like punctuation—if she came off her toes, it would impale her brain—then he spoke into her ear, enunciating each word. “You plead out. You do your time. You cross me…you say one word…I’ll kill your boy. Sure as sunrise.”

      Nick slid the pick out. He stepped into a shadow, then he was gone. She huddled in the corner where the door met the brick wall. She held her arms tightly, trying to stop shaking. Then she was on her knees, biting down on her knuckle, tears running down her cheeks. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

      Corey held her arms that same way now, watching Lester drive his Mercedes up her steep dirt drive.

      At 11:30 p.m. she was back in the same worn leather chair. Her neck was tight, like a coiled spring, and her muscles, even her bones, ached. If she tried to talk about Billy now, who knows what could come out of her mouth. So she told the doctor that she would talk about Billy next time, since she hoped to see him for the first time later that day. He said that was fine and that he hoped her visit would go well. He was nice about it, and she wanted to offer something. So Corey told him, truthfully, that she loved her son and that she had let him down. She had to fix that, she explained. She didn’t tell him that Billy had missed their first meeting. Nor that she planned to find him this afternoon for an unauthorized visit.