“I didn’t think so.” Vincent ran his fingers over the cash. “Too bad. I really liked working with you. I didn’t think you were going to get cold feet on me.”
I stood up and, with some measure of surprise, realized that I wasn’t going to fall flat on my face. Vincent looked surprised too.
“Hey, pretty good,” he said. He unbuttoned his suit and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I gave you enough to whack out a gorilla.”
“Let me see,” I said, or sort of said.
“See what?” Vincent asked.
“Money.”
Vincent smiled. “Sure, kid, come on over.”
I took a couple of unsteady steps. “Need help,” I mumbled.
“Aw, Christ,” Vincent exhaled. “Sure, why not? You know, there’s someone coming over who I want you to meet.”
“Someone?”
“Yeah, sure. Someone who’s going to clear all this up for us.”
Vincent helped me across the thin carpeting toward the desk. My legs were heavy, and I heard him grunt with effort and finally place my hands on the edge of the desk.
“Like what you see?” he asked.
I stared at the money. It was in hundreds.
“All for you?” I rasped.
Vincent laughed again. “Know anyone else who needs some?”
I took a pen from the set next to the briefcase, turned, and, using all the strength I could muster, plunged it deep into the big artery rising from the right side of Vincent’s neck. It was, frankly, amazing how deep it went.
His eyes opened with shock, a moment of rage, then something that I took to be a quick nod of respect, before Vincent fell to the floor and began the process of bleeding to death.
I wasn’t particularly steady on my feet, but by holding the railing I was able to methodically get myself down to the lobby. I passed a man at the door who nodded when I held it open for him.
Outside I tucked the briefcase under my arm and made my way for the bright lights of downtown. Because, after all, business actually hadn’t been going very well for me, and it was undeniable that it was time for a change. My friend Sam Vincent had just made one possible.
HI, I’M GOD
BY STEVE THAYER
All day long a Canadian cold front had been sweeping south along the lake, bringing with it the first real storm of the winter season. By the time the sun went down the temperature was dropping at a rate of one degree a minute. Snow flurries raced by sideways. Droplets of lake water shot by like bullets. Waves thirty feet high crashed ashore, driven by winds up to fifty miles per hour. These ungodly crests hit the Duluth Ship Canal with a force so potent, so ferocious, that the earth shook beneath the concrete.
The three high school boys standing at the foot of the canal that hellish night had no way of knowing the November gale was about to become another enchanting piece of North Shore lore, a haunting story that would be embellished and embossed and then served over beers at waterfront bars for years to come. The boys themselves had polished off a six-pack on their way down to the ship canal. Sensing the storm, they had come to the lake to play the game. But now, facing waves as tall as buildings, they were a lot less enthusiastic than when they had started down the steep hill.
“Have you ever seen them like this?”
“Never. My dad said in the old days they got this big, but I never believed him.”
“That is one angry lake.”
“You guys talk like it’s some kind of avenging spirit.”
“It is.”
“Bullshit…it’s just friggin’ water.”
It was Pudge Abercrombie who muttered the bold remark. Pudge topped out at 5'7" in a pair of football spikes, and his weight often rolled past 170 pounds. He was a dark-haired, curly-haired, relatively handsome kid with something of a bulldog visage, which at an early age had earned him the nickname Pudge. And though he may have appeared short and pudgy, he was a good athlete. One of those bowling-ball type of runners. Built low to the ground. Hard to tackle, with good speed. Whether on a football field or a hockey rink, his stubby little legs had carried him fast and far. On the stormy night at the end of football season, those angry little legs of his had led him and his pals Jack Start and Tommy Robek down to the waterfront.
Along the canal where the giant ore ships came in, there was a long, wide walkway that speared its way into Lake Superior. The walkway was about the length of a football field. It ended at a lighthouse. On sunny summer days, crowds of people would line this walkway to watch the ocean-going vessels sail beneath the famous Aerial Lift Bridge and into Duluth Harbor. But at nighttime, the ship canal was a no-man’s land. Shabby and neglected. Poor lighting. Once in a while, the Harbor Patrol would cruise Canal Park looking for prostitutes and drunken sailors, but for the most part the area was forgotten about until the sun came up.
