A Dangerous Breed

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  “I don’t really give a crap about your stock market dabbling. Leave Dr. Claybeck out of any future business, and we can forget the whole thing.”

  Listening over the wind, I could almost hear the gears gnashing as Ondine pieced together how I could have met Paula Claybeck.

  “You go too far,” she said.

  “Come on. Of all the things I might demand, this is easy.”

  “I’ll be forced to take your word on it, I suppose?”

  “So long as I stay hale and hearty, no one will ever know. And think how great it will be to never hear from Bilal Nath again.”

  “If I were truly fortunate, that would extend to you as well.”

  “We can dream,” I said, and hung up.

  I’d let Hollis tell Dr. Claybeck the good news. A token of his affection.

  Shit, it was Friday. I was supposed to meet Wren tonight. She’d sent a text earlier this morning. I’d seen it but had been focused on Bilal and the warehouse.

  8 o’clock @ Clifford’s in SODO okay?

  I replied with an apology that it had taken me so long and, yes, I’d meet her there.

  Two hours later, as the wind worked on freezing my nose shut, the valet brought Bilal’s SUV back. Only two of the blocky goons flanked Bilal and Aura this time, with Juwad taking the driver’s seat.

  The goons carried suitcases. Aura carried a black leather Gladstone bag, cradled under one arm. I could guess what was inside.

  Saleem brought up the rear. He walked past the Mercedes and stopped to scan the street beyond the Neapolitan’s gate. I knew I was invisible in the sheltered entryway, but it still felt as though his furious gaze paused on me for a moment. Did he suspect I’d be watching? A deep violet bruise marred the side of Saleem’s face where I’d struck him. After another moment, he turned on his heel and stalked back to the car.

  Within a minute they pulled away from the hotel. I called Willard.

  “I’m on them,” he said.

  “Boeing Field,” I said. “I’ll bet a buck on it.”

  If I’d successfully convinced Aura to leave us alone. And if she had convinced Bilal. That was the trickier part. I wished we’d had time to bug their room. Having a fly on that particular wall might have helped me relax.

  No point in continuing to freeze my ass off. I walked up Madison and found a pizza place that served lunch to the neighboring office workers locking its doors for the evening. A twenty convinced them to give me an unclaimed white pie and a bottle of Peroni lager to go. Not wanting to wait, I ate the warmish slices across the street in the partial shelter of a bus stop.

  A scarlet sign on the building wall above the pizza place directed emergency vehicles to go around the block to access the E.R. at Virginia Mason.

  That’s where she died, a voice told me.

  Moira. I hadn’t even known that memory was in my skull. But there it was, as unyielding as any foundation block. After she’d been run over by the car downtown, the ambulance had taken her to the Mason E.R. Where the daycare worker had taken me. Where I got my earliest firm recollection of Dono, as he told me as plainly as he could manage that my mother, his daughter, was gone.

  Willard called back. I tossed the remaining pizza and the unopened beer in the trash.

  “I owe you a buck,” Willard said. “Bilal just took the exit to BFI. The guy must have some pull to charter a flight this fast.”

  “He was prepared to leave tonight, no matter how it went down.”

  “I’ll hang around until I’m sure he’s gone.”

  “Thanks. Hey. You never knew Moira, right? My mother?”

  There was a silence, which didn’t prevent Willard’s puzzlement from coming through loud and clear. “Naw. I started working with Dono not long after you were born, but I never met your mom. Hollis said something the other day about you tracing your roots.”

  “Did Dono ever mention what Moira did after she left high school? Besides raising me?”

  “Dono never mentioned shit. He wasn’t the kind for small talk, unless he was soused, and I hardly ever had tickets for that show. I remember we had some extra cash after one of our first scores together. He asked me to drop an envelope with some paperwork and a few bills off at a school on my way home. I think that was for Moira.”

  “What school?”

  “Hell, Central? I don’t know. One of the college buildings by Broadway. There was a woman’s name on the envelope, but don’t even try asking me what it was. Maybe just one of Dono’s girlfriends.”

  Maybe.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Keep your head on straight. Sure as shit this ain’t over.”

  My apartment was a twenty-minute walk from the Neapolitan. I used every step of it to shake off the unpleasant energy that was powering me now. A combination of leftover adrenaline, too much stress during the past days, and the frustration of crossing paths twice with Sean Burke, both times with guns involved. I needed a shower and a catnap and food with some actual nutrition.

  A mile later I caught myself grinning. I’d realized my jittery feelings weren’t stemming completely from bad soil.

  I was excited to go meet a girl. For the first time since Luce. Was it really that simple?

  Thirty-Two

  I found my way to Clifford’s Brewing Company without needing to check the address. South of the stadiums, near Holgate Street and the loose row of cannabis shops on the avenue competing for who could offer the widest variety of edibles. I’d driven past the brewery’s neon orange sign with its yellow flames dancing where the apostrophe would be at least a dozen times but had never been inside.

  Most of the weed purveyors were open late, their green crosses ablaze as if warding off Clifford’s devilish fire. I left the Barracuda in an empty lot of a wholesale food distributor a block away and jogged toward the flames.

  Friday night had the bar packed shoulder-to-shoulder, including the people smoking on the sidewalk. I bobbed and weaved through the door and went looking for Wren Marchand. It took a while, shuffling through the throng without knocking anyone’s drink out of their hands or getting overly familiar. One girl in a sundress—maybe she’d planned for the crushing humidity in the crowd—laughed and raised her longneck bottle over her head to let me by. We about brushed noses as I edged past, and she winked.

  Life was famine or feast. I seemed to be on the verge of the better half.

  I’d just about completed my circuit when a combined shout of voices rolled out from somewhere beyond what I had thought was the back of the bar. Loud enough to carry over the freight-engine rumble of a hundred conversations. I changed direction, knowing somehow that Wren would be where the action was.

  Halfway down a short hallway—also packed, here with people waiting for a restroom—I heard the THUMP of something very solid striking wood. The crowd in the room ahead groaned, but all I could make out were more people. I pressed closer. The throng shifted, and I saw what I was missing.

  At the right side of the room, tall sheets of plywood lined the wall, each sheet painted with a classic target in blue, red, and yellow concentric circles. An instant later a short axe sailed through the air, landing with a THOCK this time as the blade hit properly and stuck. The audience whooped encouragement.

  In another moment the mass of spectators undulated like an amoeba, and my guess was confirmed. Wren, grinning and holding a silver-bladed hatchet aloft like the cover of a fantasy novel, if warrior women wore black jeans and T-shirts advertising Cubana Perfecto cigars.

  Her opponent looked much more the stereotype to wield an axe, in short-sleeved plaid flannel tight over his biceps and a full beard cut square at the bottom. A paisley handkerchief had been tied around his head as a blindfold.

  Wren grasped his shoulders to turn him toward the target and handed him the hatchet. I couldn’t say the crowd exactly hushed, but the din at least hit a lower register. The lumberjack drew back his arm and threw in a practiced, almost casual motion.
His blade spun twice and hit home between the yellow center and the red stripe. The resultant roar caused beverages to slop from every glass.

  The end of the match, it seemed. A Clifford’s employee in his safety-orange polo began to collect the axes into a large bucket. Spectators drifted back toward the main room, and I found myself swimming upstream just to stay in place. In another minute I could make headway toward Wren and a circle of friends, still at the throwing line.

  “You made it,” Wren said.

  “I’d have been here sooner but I didn’t bring a bulldozer,” I said, matching her volume to hear myself.

  “This is Ulf.” She squeezed the arm of the bearded axeman, who took the bucket of hatchets. “And Sara, Estrid, and Bo.”

  Bo arrived carrying two pints of ale, with another Clifford’s staff member behind him toting four more. They began passing them out. I wound up with one somehow.

  Ulf was selecting specific axes from the bucket, examining their edges for nicks before slipping the weapons into a leather carrying case. “Beer,” he said. “Finally.”

  “‘Drink and throw, lose a toe,’” Estrid said at my questioning look. “They don’t serve until we’re done.”

  “And done I am, beautiful people,” said Wren, draping a leather jacket over her shoulders. “Thanks for the game.” She toasted the group with her pint with one hand and took me lightly by the wrist with the other.

  We snaked our way to a heavy wooden door, beyond which was a large enclosed patio handling overflow from the bar. Less crowded than the inside, thanks to the nighttime temperature, which threatened a frost before midnight. Wren set her pint on a flat plank railing to don her jacket. The heat lamps Clifford’s had set on the patio kept the immediate surroundings thawed but a long way from warm.

  “Hell of a show,” I said.

  “You caught me on a good night. I’m still getting the hang of it.”

  “Is it a league, like with roller derby?”

  “Just with friends. I stumbled into it one night. Since my date was already throwing, I wanted to try it for myself.”

  “You and Ulf?”

  “Me and Estrid. For a while.” She gave me an assessing look. “I see who I want to see, and I don’t apologize. Anyone I like. You cool with that?”

  “Works for me.”

  “Okay. I’m glad.”

  “And I’m glad it’s not Ulf. Never cross a guy who brings his own axe.”

  She laughed. We touched glasses.

  “I don’t know what you do,” I said, “besides crush every sport you try.”

  “I’m an herbalist.”

  “That’s . . . plants as medicine?”

  “Botany, right. Everything from digestion to chronic pain relief. I have some private clients and classes now, but my friend Lettie and I are working on opening an online shop. It’s the clinical part I really enjoy. Like with pharmaceuticals, you have to understand someone’s history to consider what treatment might work for them, and know what drugs they might already be taking. You have to work with modern medicine, not against it.”

  “You like your job.”

  She shot me that self-aware grin. “I’m talking a lot, huh? It stokes me. We share a plot of land up in Skykomish where I grow what I can in this climate. I’ll make the cures and consult with the patients, and Lettie will handle the inventory.”

  “I’ve used some of those remedies before. Addy has them. Calming essence drops, under the tongue when I don’t want to knock myself out with trazodone or something like that.”

  “Do you have trouble sleeping?”

  Not at all. But I couldn’t explain to Wren why.

  “Not as often anymore,” I said.

  “Can I ask something personal?”

  “About my face?”

  She dipped her chin, not quite daring a nod.

  “It happened during my first deployment with the Rangers. Rock shrapnel off an RPG—a grenade—blowing up near us.”

  “Your first deployment? You had more after?”

  “Lots. I was in the Army for ten years. Our rotations were usually around four months long each time. It adds up.”

  “How old were you?” Wren said, not to be deflected.

  “Twenty.”

  “God. That’s so young. I knew the wound must have happened when you were an adult, but I just assumed it was the reason you left the Army. Childhood scars look different. See?”

  She turned around and pulled up her jacket and shirt to show me the small of her back. A slim pinkish line traced the soft humps of her lower vertebrae, vertically from her pelvis halfway to her shoulder blades. The scar was slightly wider at the middle, with tiny white notches every inch or so along the edges. On my pale Irish skin the line would have barely made an impression, but Wren’s richer complexion gave it contrast.

  “Spinal surgery, when I was eleven,” she explained, “to correct a defect in my discs.”

  “That must have been terrifying as a kid.”

  “Yes. But it was very painful before, living with the condition. I was old enough to understand why I needed the operation. And that it wouldn’t be a magic cure. Even if the surgery helped, it might not help forever. They fused three of the bones together back there. The recovery period was awful. Then it got better.”

  “Does it hurt now?”

  “No, not at all. And every day I get up and I use my body. While it lasts.” Wren smiled. It wasn’t a rueful smile at all. She’d found honest joy in the reprieve.

  Wren touched the lowest scar, the thin line along my jawbone. “Do you feel yours?”

  “The opposite. My face is slightly numb on those spots.” I tapped my bisected eyebrow and the Y-shaped furrows at my cheekbone. “They filled in some of the bone and my back teeth with Bioglass. I can’t grow a decent beard anymore.”

  “You’re joking. How long were you in the hospital?”

  “A week or two in country. Then they sent me to Italy for more cosmetic surgery. I rotated back to my platoon after a couple of months.”

  “So fast. And you were barely out of your teens. It’s horrible.”

  “I wanted to get back to work. Waiting around was driving me batshit.”

  “No, I understand that part. Having to take control. To do something for yourself. I meant it was horrible being so young and having such—” She stopped herself. “How did you feel then?”

  I took a moment to find the words. It had been almost the full ten years since I’d spoken out loud about that time after my injury, and I’d only said anything then because the Army made wounded soldiers jump through psych hoops before they would cut you loose. We all knew what to tell them. Feeling good, feeling strong, ready to go, Doc.

  Which wasn’t at all what I had really felt. Not since that first look in the mirror, once the doctor was done slathering me with caveats like This will look much better once the swelling’s down, and There’s more we can do once your natural bone bonds to the new materials. He’d finally removed the bandages and allowed me to see for myself.

  A horrid puffed mass of purple and pink and black covered the left side of my face. So swollen that I could make out those livid colors at the corner of my eye without needing the mirror. Dozens of individual stitches protruded like tiny spines from a deep-sea creature. And an awful hollowness beneath it all, my face unable to feel, or refusing to accept, the alien material under the shredded flesh.

  “I felt like a door had been slammed,” I said to Wren. “Like normal life wasn’t ever going to happen for me. So I might as well throw myself into my job.”

  “You couldn’t be a regular person again. Because of your face.”

  I nodded. “I avoided mirrors. For a year or two, what I was seeing wasn’t what I was seeing. Even after I’d healed, if that makes any sense.”

  “Body dysmorphia. Like what anorexics have, seeing themselves as fat no matter how thin they’ve become.”

  “Yeah. How was it for you? You were just a kid.”

&n
bsp; She shifted closer, tucking her head against the chill breeze. “I wouldn’t show my back to anyone, all during school. I’d change shirts in the bathroom stalls if I had to, and I was late for P.E. all the time. It wasn’t until I was in college that I dared to wear a bikini to go swimming. No one said a thing. And after a while I stopped being so self-conscious. But you”—Wren frowned—“you couldn’t hide at all.”

  “Overseas, it didn’t matter. There were plenty of other casualties around, some a lot worse than mine. Guys missing limbs and still doing their part. My Ranger buddies would maybe crack a joke. Happy it didn’t happen to them, yeah, but so long as I could do the job, no one gave a shit.”

  “Acceptance.” She tilted her head, considering. “You couldn’t stay overseas forever. What happened when they sent you home on vacation?”

  “Leave,” I corrected automatically. “Our battalion would deploy, rotate home for weeks of rest and training, and then do it again. So I didn’t have to spend long stretches of time stateside. I usually hung around the barracks. Bachelor enlisted guys live on base.”

  “My brother lived at the bars near Pendleton.” Wren laughed. “You can’t tell me you never went out. Never wanted a girl.”

  I smiled. “I gave it a shot. I’d go drinking with my team, looking to hook up like anybody else. But . . . I could feel eyes on me. Whether people were really staring or not. After two beers, I’d make some excuse and head home.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “You got over it eventually.” She looked at me through her dark lashes. “I trust.”

  “Yes.”

  “How? A girlfriend?”

  “Now, that’s really getting personal.”

  Wren laughed. “I’ll trade you secrets, then. Ask me anything you want. And just to be up front, I’m not going to bed with you tonight.”

  “No?”

  “No. So whatever you tell me, you don’t have to worry about it ruining your chances. Or that I won’t see you again.”

  “You first?” She smirked agreement. I thought about it for a minute, my fingers prickling around the cold pint. “Okay. What are you most afraid of?”