Sallow City

by Jim Heskett

  One was roughly Micah’s same height and build, one was scrawny with long blond hair, and the other a tall and thick guy with curly black hair. All of them seemed mid-twenties. Maybe late twenties.

  As Micah studied their features, he lost track of where he was walking and accidentally kicked a stray beer bottle. It skidded away from his foot and the noise echoed off the building.

  The average-looking kid stopped what he was doing and cradled the notebook against his chest. Protected it like a secret. They all glared at Micah as they converged into a line, as if expecting an attack. Either that, or a game of Red Rover. Kind of a sloppy group to be standing out in the open, conducting their business for anyone to see.

  “What do you want?” said the tall kid with curly hair. He balled his fists, trying to look intimidating. He did a decent job of it, actually.

  The average-looking one held out a hand across the tall one’s stomach. “It’s cool, Ethan.” Then, to Micah: “Are you lost, man? There’s nothing to see back here. Mall entrance is on the front side.”

  “I know where it is. I’m just looking.”

  “Not going to find anything back here but used condoms and broken bottles,” said the scrawny one.

  “How do you know that’s not what I’m looking for?”

  The average one smiled. “Fair enough. What’s your name?”

  “Micah.”

  “Okay, Micah, I’m Rourke. So which is it? Condoms or bottles?”

  The scrawny one scowled as he swept the blond hair out of his eyes. “What are you doing? This guy doesn’t need to know your name.”

  Micah held up the palms of his hands, a show of surrender. He could tell by how wound-up all of them were that they were up to something. They clearly hadn’t expected anyone to interrupt the grand plan they were orchestrating. “Whatever you guys are into, I couldn’t care less. I’m not here to cause any trouble. You may want to consider a more secluded spot, though, if it’s something you don’t want everyone to see.”

  Big guy didn’t like that. “You need to mind your own damn business.”

  “Like I mentioned,” Micah said, shrugging, “I’m just looking. I’m not trying to be up in your business.”

  The blond one crossed his arms and stared in a way that made Micah a little uncomfortable. “Do I know you?”

  “I doubt it,” Micah said. “I’m not from around here.”

  “If you’re not here for us,” Rourke said, “then what are you looking for?”

  Micah said nothing, since he didn’t quite know himself.

  “Maybe you should keep on walking,” said Ethan, the big guy. “Get your bottles and condoms and leave us be.”

  Even though he’d said he didn’t care, Micah did now feel the hint of an itch to ask. Hard not to. With how defensive they’d all been, it had to be something illegal. Still, their plans weren’t Micah’s business, and he didn’t have any right to ask.

  Ethan took a step forward because apparently Micah wasn’t responding to his command quickly enough.

  “Okay, guys, have a good one,” Micah said. He dug his hands into his pockets and pivoted on his heels. In a few seconds, he was out of their earshot, and glanced back to see them once again hovering over the notebook. Planning something.

  Micah strolled along the back of the mall, looking for clues or anything useful he could glean. It was a typical parking lot. Scattered ponds of broken windshield glass, discarded fast food bags, bits of paper blowing in the spring breeze. The occasional piece of tire rubber, but otherwise, nothing useful.

  A hundred feet down the backside of the mall, away from the defensive kids, Micah strolled by a door with no markings. It came flying open, and there stood Frank, at the top of a staircase. Panicked expression, the fingers of his hands tensed like claws.

  “Micah,” he said, panting. “We got to go. We’re not welcome here.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Lights flashing, alarms blaring. Passengers screaming.

  The front of the plane bowed and then snapped open. Like a twig with too much weight on one end, it bent under some invisible pressure and then tore as the front half dipped into blackness.

  In front of Micah was open air, sheets of rain slicing the night sky. Cold and black. With no cabin to hold their seats in place, passengers tumbled out of the severed front of the plane. Their faces spiraled into the darkness below, their wails fading as they spun out of view.

  Micah’s brain shouted at him to flee from his seat and sprint to the back of the plane, that he would be safe there. Ahead, seats dropped into nothingness as the fractured airplane folded back on itself like a candy bar unwrapping. The plane grew shorter and shorter, the darkness approaching Micah’s position. Hunks of metal screamed through the air like rockets. Wind whipped his hair back. Then Micah realized he shouldn’t have any hair. Hadn’t he shaved his head when he’d come to Michigan?

  He had to get out. Get to the back of the plane. Get to safety.

  The number of screams around him diminished as more and more of his fellow passengers evaporated. The remaining people started to blur, their faces turning into fleshy messes.

  Had to get out. But he couldn’t unbuckle his seatbelt. He pressed and pressed the button but it wouldn’t budge. With the pelting rain drenching his body, his hands slipped as they stabbed at the button. He felt heavy and unable to move. Helpless. The seconds slowed, and from somewhere, a clock counted time.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  He saw his death coming, and could do nothing to stop it. The row in front of him tore away and fell into the abyss.

  Then he snapped awake.

  Teeth gritted in anguish, hands gripping chunks of his dampened bedsheet. Sweat trickled from his temple to his chin. He could breathe, and he was inside, not flying through space.

  The room materialized around him like a television fading in. Beds. Nightstands. Dressers. A framed art print of a ship coming into port hung on the beige wall.

  Motel. Michigan.

  A thin slice of light came in through a gap in the motel room curtain. Micah squinted over at Frank’s bed, but he didn’t detect a shape underneath the floral comforter. He waited a second for his bleary eyes to adjust, but he still didn’t see Frank. No movement at all on that side of the room.

  Micah snatched his phone from the nightstand and checked the time. Early morning. They’d retired last night after an AA meeting, and Frank hadn’t mentioned anything about going out this morning. He wouldn’t have left without letting Micah know beforehand.

  Micah scrolled through his phone’s notifications and saw no texts or emails from Frank. Nothing since the voicemail from three days ago, when Frank had thought he was staring at Micah’s dead body on a slab in the morgue.

  His eyes flicked over to the bathroom, but the door was shut. Micah leaned over to spy under the door and didn’t see any light poking out. He waited a moment before speaking. His breath caught in his throat, a hangover from that terrible nightmare. The damn thing was too hard to shake.

  It had felt so real, so final.

  “Frank?”

  No response. Maybe he’d slipped down to the snack machine for a bag of chips? With everything they had going on, Frank probably would have woken him up to let him know about that, at least. It wasn’t like Frank to leave unannounced, and then not to check in.

  Micah dialed Frank. Held the phone up to his ear and felt the dampness of sweat rub onto the phone.

  A second later, something on top of the television vibrated.

  Frank was gone, and he hadn’t taken his phone with him.

  ***

  Frank first noticed a stinging in the side of his neck, before he could open his eyes. Like that pulse of pain after a shot at the doctor’s office. His head felt woozy, heavy. Mouth thick, an ache running up and down his spine.

  He’d been drugged. Syringe to the neck. He could tell that much right away. His hand hurt, probably from punching that casino bouncer in the face. And finally,
the same pain from yesterday still burned at his side. As far as the usual catalog of aches and pains that troubled Frank on a daily basis, this was a little above the norm.

  When he opened his eyes, he immediately recognized that he was in a motel room, but not the same room in which he’d gone to sleep last night. Not the same motel, either. These walls were blue, and not brown like the room he’d been sharing with Micah.

  Micah wasn’t here. Some other man sat in a chair at the end of the bed. White guy.

  “Hello,” the man said. East coast accent.

  Frank sat up, a little surprised he wasn’t tied to the bed. Had a flash of memory of waking up after a blackout drunk, more than thirty years ago. He’d started drinking in Chicago and ended up in Detroit, in a motel room a bit like this one. His wallet missing and a dislocated shoulder. That had been one mysterious bender he’d never fully pieced together.

  Now, Frank noticed the pistol in the man’s hands, topped with a noise suppressor. The gun was pointed at the ground, but the man’s finger was hovering above the trigger.

  “You must be confused,” the man said. “Wondering why you’re waking up in a strange motel room with a strange guy staring at you.”

  Frank’s throat was dry. His head was slow and full of wobbly jelly. He hated to feel intoxicated, because he’d given up the drinking and drugs over twenty years ago and hadn’t ever wanted to feel that way again. He wouldn’t feel this way by choice.

  “I’m not confused at all. I have a pretty good idea why I’m here.”

  The man tilted his head. “Oh? You might be surprised.”

  “Try me,” Frank said. This guy had to be part of the casino Crossroads gang, or possibly cartel. There weren’t too many other options. Frank didn’t have any other enemies that weren’t already dead or in jail. At least, none that he could think of right now.

  The man sighed. “You flew into the Bishop airport three days ago on Southwest Airlines. You had a ginger ale on the plane.”

  Frank didn’t feel intimidated by how much this guy knew, because he’d seen this tactic before. But it had probably eliminated the cartel possibility. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where the cartel would go to any length to find out his beverage choice. This kind of thing was more mafia style: we know who you are, we know where your children go to school, now tell us what we want to know.

  “Yeah, but what kind of ginger ale did I order?”

  The man grinned and wagged a finger at him. “What are you doing in Michigan, Frank?”

  “I used to live here. It’s not a state secret.”

  “Come back to see all the sights?”

  “I was a cop in this city for a long time,” Frank said, putting emphasis on the word cop. Not that it would probably scare his captor, but Frank figured the guy should, at least, know who he was about to kill. You could still get the death penalty for killing a retired cop.

  Frank tried to survey the room without moving his head too much, only using his peripheral vision. In the bed, on his back, he wouldn’t be able to get up and reach the door before this guy could put a bullet in him. His best hope was that the man would try to move him to some other place, and that’s when Frank would go for the gun.

  A hand-to-hand scramble might get iffy, though, with whatever they’d given him still slowing his reaction time.

  “I know what you used to do for a living,” the man said. “And I know all about your bail bondsman slash bounty hunter business in Denver. How does that work, by the way? Usually, those are two separate entities. Don’t bail bondsmen hire bail recovery agents when their clients fail to show up for court?”

  “I’m licensed in Colorado. My documents are fully on the public record. I also have an assistant who works for me as a skip tracer. It’s all legit and above-board.”

  The man frowned as if he didn’t get it. Frank was about to launch into the speech about cutting out the middle man when a knock came at the door, then a pause, then three more quick knocks.

  “Come in,” the man said, not taking his eyes off Frank.

  In stepped a woman holding a can of Faygo soda in one hand and a bag of potato chips in the other. She flicked on the lights. Attractive woman, flaming red hair and green eyes. She had the kind of statuesque figure Frank remembered actresses having in the movies he used to watch as a kid. Not like all the unkempt women in Hollywood today with their tattoos and stick-thin waists.

  There was something familiar about her, but Frank couldn’t place it.

  The woman held out the soda. “I had to guess what you’d like, but I know you don’t drink alcohol, right?”

  He nodded. Then, like a slap across the face, it came to him.

  “I’m gonna pass on the Faygo, but thanks anyway. Your name is Olivia, correct? Or, at least, that’s what you told my colleague your name is.”

  She tried to play it off, but her eyebrows did raise a fraction of an inch. Then a slight frame of a scowl lined her mouth. This pretty young woman didn’t like not having the upper hand at all times.

  “You two know who I am,” Frank said, “so it’s only fair, right?”

  Olivia tilted her head at the man with the gun. “Sure, Frank, we can do it that way. The man babysitting you is named Jeremy.”

  Jeremy appeared unfazed.

  “So,” she said, “now that we all know each other, there’s not much point in playing games. We’ll get right down to it, then.”

  Frank felt his pulse rise as the pain in his side intensified. “Wait a second. I’ve been down this road before, and I think I can save you some time. You’re going to ask me questions, and I’m going to give you answers. If you’re going to kill me no matter what I say, you might as well tell me now.”

  Needles of anxiety pricked his chest as Olivia and Jeremy shared a look. Silence bloomed in the room for several seconds.

  “Frank,” Olivia finally said. “I don’t know who you think we are, but we’re not monsters. We debated back and forth for hours about whether or not we should even speak with you.”

  Looking at the two of them, they didn’t seem like gangsters. And Frank had already ruled out cartel. That left only one option. “No, not monsters, I would suspect. Are you feds?”

  She spread a flat and annoyed smile. “We’re not that kind of monster, either. We’re not beholden to a lot of the rules those guys have to follow when working in an official capacity. We’re private contractors, out on loan to some important people who you don’t need to know about.”

  Frank wondered if they might know his sister Anita. Probably not, but it would be worth a phone call. If he left this room alive, anyway. “The almost-plane-crash that you were in with Micah. Did you somehow orchestrate that?”

  Both Olivia and Jeremy burst out laughing. “Good God, no. I’m not a wizard, Frank. That was just dumb luck. Didn’t hurt establishing a rapport with Micah, though.” She paused to sigh. “Not that it did me any good because now you know my face, so there’s not much chance of cozying up to him again. That was probably a pointless road to travel, to begin with.”

  “So you’re not planning on killing me.”

  Olivia pursed her lips. “I haven’t decided yet. That depends on how our conversation goes.”

  They wanted to keep him unsure and scared. Frank knew that she already had decided what to do with him, but making it seem like his future was up for discussion would instill a twinge of hope in him. Make him want to cooperate to ensure his survival.

  Jeremy passed the gun from one hand to the other.

  “Micah dropped out of Witness Protection some time ago,” Jeremy said. “Do you know why?”

  “He didn’t think they had anything else to offer him. Thought he could do a better job of protecting himself on his own, and he didn’t like having to check in with his handlers.”

  Olivia ran a finger along the length of one eyebrow, stroking it. “And they let him do that?”

  “Sure,” Frank said. “They couldn’t force him to stay. All the char
ges against him were dropped, as part of the deal. No parole.”

  Jeremy cleared his throat. “And what has he been doing since he started protecting himself on his own?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We know he officially works for you,” Olivia said, “but does he do anything on the side? Maybe some freelance work for Tyson Darby?”

  “Darby? The guy who owns the strip club? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “We’re just trying to close those loops.”

  Frank had a hard time believing this line of questioning. It didn’t make any sense. “Hell no, he doesn’t do any work for Tyson Darby.”

  Olivia leaned against the wardrobe, exchanged another look with Jeremy. “Any kind of illegal activity at all?”

  “No,” Frank said. “What are you getting at?”

  “We know how he made his living before he entered Witness Protection. And we know how dangerous he is.”

  Frank bit back a smirk. These people—private military or whatever they were—learned all about Micah from some government file. Thought they knew him.

  “Micah isn’t like that anymore. He’s not the same person. Seems like you’re going to an awful lot of trouble to look into him, when you could just tap into his phone or whatever the hell else you people do.”

  Olivia and Jeremy shared another look. Something else was going on here, and Frank could tell. Whatever it was, they weren’t going to spill it.

  “Look,” Frank said, “I don’t know what you want with Micah. But he is not at all involved in his old business, I can practically guarantee you that. Why would he be? Most of them think he’s dead, and the ones who think he might still be alive put out a price on his head. Micah Reed is not interested in gangster business. He’s interested in keeping a low profile and fading into obscurity.”