Sallow City

by Jim Heskett

  She held up a second finger. “And Frank or Micah knowing who we are doesn’t change anything. We were going to have to interact with them at some point, so from that perspective, nothing has changed. We’re still going to ensure the chain of events stays pure, and if those two are there when it happens, that’s fine too.”

  “I understand.”

  Olivia sat on the bed and crossed her legs, ensuring she had Jeremy’s attention. “But we need to be wary. If they do get in the way, we won’t let them become a problem.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Micah stood tall, didn’t let his shoulders slump or roll forward. “I’ve told you people twice already,” he said to the big casino owner Harvey, “I’m here checking it out. I might come back later with some friends and spend more time, but I’m only looking to get a feel of the place today.”

  The air changed, and Micah knew that at least two people were now standing behind him. Harvey didn’t look over Micah’s shoulder, but he didn’t have to. Micah felt their proximity.

  The claustrophobia surrounded him. Not quite as intense as being strapped into an airplane seat, but the feeling indicated he wasn’t in control over the space around him. A flush came to his cheeks and his chest tightened. He didn’t like being enclosed.

  He lowered on his haunches an inch or two, just enough to prepare himself to run if a hand gripped his shoulder. He didn’t want to flee since Frank was still missing. Also, Frank had already used up his one chance to investigate the casino. Wouldn’t do much good if Micah also imploded that bridge.

  The slot machines blinked and clinked and made their cartoony sounds all around, but the little patch of carpet Micah and Harvey were standing on seemed as quiet as a church. Harvey breathed, didn’t say anything.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Micah noticed the pretty blue-eyed girl who’d tried to serve him drinks. She clutched an empty drink tray to her chest, her face full of fear. Maybe she’d seen her share of people come into the casino through the door and leave in the trunk of a car. The worry lines etched into her forehead suggested she thought the same would happen to Micah.

  He wanted to wink at her, to say hey, it’s okay, I know what I’m doing. But before he could, she lowered the tray and strode back through a set of swinging doors. Gawking too long would probably get her in trouble. How did this ratty underground casino recruit pretty women like that to come work here? What could they have to offer?

  Then, Micah remembered how Frank said that Crossroads dabbled in prostitution. He didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to picture that waitress taking her clothes off for money.

  After the longest pause in history, Harvey slipped his meaty hands in his pockets and sucked through his teeth. “Okay then, Mr. Templeton. Have a good time.”

  Micah tried not to make it obvious that his breath was exhaling in a shudder. Harvey and the men standing behind Micah dispersed. He stood unmolested in the dimly lit, smoke-filled room. Only one anonymous gambler among three or four dozen others, hoping to turn cash into more cash.

  He wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans and picked a direction, toward a blackjack table. Approached a chair next to two older men, opposite a dealer in a slick white three-piece suit. The dealer wore a smirk, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “Hello, sir. Is your phone off?”

  “Yes,” Micah said.

  “Then have a seat at the table.”

  Micah sat and threw down one of his two chips. An image of Olivia popped into his head, her long red hair like coils of satin. He wondered if she’d been thinking about him, puzzling over why he hadn’t called yet. Maybe he would call her later, engage in some small talk. But then he’d have to lie to her about where he was, or lie about why he was in Michigan, and Micah was tired of lying. Tired of perpetuating the same fake backstory to all the new acquaintances in his life. Something close to the truth, in which he would say he grew up in Oklahoma, but would conveniently leave out the parts about dropping out of college, stumbling into the employ of Luis Velasquez and the American branch of the Sinaloa cartel. Leave out the violence he’d committed during his time there, his arrest and participation in Witness Protection. Leave out going to prison and reinventing himself in Colorado with a new name and a new profession.

  The true story of his life didn’t make for a good conversation topic, since Micah still had living family members who would be at risk if anyone uncovered his old identity.

  The dealer dropped two cards in front of him, but Micah barely noticed. His eyes were tracking Harvey as he ducked into a door at the far corner marked maintenance. Not manager’s office. Why would Harvey disappear into a maintenance closet?

  That had to be where they were keeping Frank.

  “Sir?” the dealer said.

  Micah looked down at his cards. A king and a queen. He tried to remember the hand motion that meant stay, but couldn’t. He hadn’t ever been much of a gambler, had never understood the adrenaline rush that made some people lose themselves in it. An ironic mystery. Alcohol had thoroughly conquered him for so many years, but gambling—something as equally as addictive for others—had never hooked him.

  “Sir?”

  The two other gamblers at the table were starting to grow annoyed. One of the older men was chewing on a drinking straw. The mangled piece of plastic danced as he swished it around his mouth.

  “Sorry. Stay.”

  “Very well, sir.” The dealer flipped over his cards. A jack and an ace. The two older men at the table groaned, but Micah didn’t bother. He got up and walked away from the table, on a path toward that maintenance door.

  He weaved through a group of four men who were all stumbling drunk, trying to count their chips. One of them was holding a stein of beer, and a bit sloshed onto Micah’s leg. Back when Micah was drinking, he’d had a habit of spilling alcohol on himself. Now it seemed, other people did it for him.

  The door was in sight, but a couple of casino guards stood on either side of it. His brain sped through options about how to lure them away from that door without starting a fight.

  He didn’t get very far into the thought process.

  Still twenty paces away, someone appeared before him. A familiar man, and it only took Micah a second to recognize him as one of the two assailants he’d seen fleeing the scene of the plastic surgeon’s murder. The man Frank had identified.

  He slipped a hand into his coat pocket and shifted a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  ***

  Micah half-walked, half-stumbled out of the Dort Mall as he was half-escorted, half-thrown out. The man who was pushing him along the barren interior of the mall didn’t say a word. Micah thought of a dozen snappy one-liners to whip out, but didn’t see the benefit.

  They guy opened the door and gave Micah one last heave, sending him a couple feet into the parking lot. With a sneer, he shut the door behind him. Micah could have easily snatched the man by the hand and used his momentum to flip him onto the ground, but what would be the point?

  Micah had gotten off easy. They hadn’t recognized him as being the same as the lookalike they’d killed. Or at least, they hadn’t let on if they had recognized him. But why wouldn’t they have recognized him? Even with the fake blue eyes and shaved head, it should have been obvious.

  Micah fished his phone out of his pocket and powered it on. A text message from Frank appeared.

  I’m okay. Back at HQ.

  Micah jumped in his car and raced to the motel. He was only a couple miles away, so he didn’t bother calling first. The knowledge that Frank was still alive, and not dead in a dumpster somewhere made him feel less stupid about his pointless venture into the belly of the mall.

  Micah paused in the parking lot before leaving the rental.

  There was something strange about the lot at the motel. Something different. He ignored this bit of weird intuition as he headed for the exterior stairs and ran to the secon
d floor. Jogged down the concrete breezeway, slapping the metal railing for balance.

  When he opened the door to the room, he found it empty.

  “Frank?”

  “Back here, kid,” came a voice from the bathroom. A moment later, Frank emerged, dabbing the corner of his mouth with a hand towel. His eyes were drooping, his skin tinged with green.

  “Frank, you look like shit.”

  Frank grinned, a sour crease to his lips. “Yeah.” He sniffed the air.

  “That’s me you’re smelling. Some jerk spilled beer on me today.”

  Frank leaned against the wall for support. “I hate it when they do that.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Food poisoning, I think. My stomach is in knots.”

  Micah hustled to him and helped Frank get into bed. The old man groaned as he reclined.

  “Where did you go last night?”

  “I was kidnapped. They came right into the room and snatched me. Pumped me full of something, maybe that interacted with whatever I ate.”

  A pang of guilt throttled Micah. He should have known Frank was being taken, but he’d been too busy with his paranoid dreams about a plane crash. Too busy thinking about himself, as usual.

  “Who snatched you?”

  “Olivia.”

  Micah sucked air into his lungs, but still found himself short of breath. The room seemed to shrink to the size of a closet. Frank couldn’t have said Olivia.

  “My Olivia? With the green eyes and the red hair?”

  Frank nodded. “That’s the one. But I don’t think she’s really your Olivia.”

  Micah’s head spun as he sank onto the bed next to Frank. He didn’t know how to process such a bombshell. But Frank wouldn’t lie about something like this, and besides, Micah was reasonably sure he’d never said Olivia’s name to Frank before.

  “She and her partner are government contractors. They didn’t say, but private military would be my guess. I checked with Anita and she’d never heard of them.”

  “What did they want?”

  “They wanted to know if you were involved in any gangster business. They heard about the lookalike in the morgue and thought maybe you’d faked your own death so you could start up a criminal enterprise or something.”

  Micah paced around the room, tapping a finger against his temple. The shock was already wearing off, and Micah carefully considered Frank’s words. It made sense. Olivia had been on the flight so she could verify it wasn’t him on that slab in Flint. The whole thing had been a sham.

  “This is crazy,” Micah said. “After all that? Damn. I liked her.”

  “Them’s the breaks, kid.”

  Micah realized he was standing in the middle of the room, so he took a seat next to the bed. “Do we need to be worried about her?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. She and her partner said they’re satisfied, but that doesn’t mean anything. I can expect they’ll be watching us, at the least.”

  Micah recalled their conversation on the flight, about why she’d been in Fresno. Now that he thought about it, her responses had sounded rehearsed.

  “What did you do with yourself this morning?” Frank said.

  “I went back to the casino.”

  “That explains the spilled beer. Learn anything interesting?”

  “Not really. I was looking for you. I saw your guy Harvey and the guy who killed our plastic surgeon. There’s something wrong going on there, Frank, I know it.”

  Frank moaned and put a hand on his side. “I don’t doubt that.”

  “Do we need to get you to the hospital?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Frank said as he waved a dismissive hand. “I need some rest, that’s all.”

  He didn’t look fine, but Micah wasn’t going to force him to go. No one spoke for a moment, and Micah felt a sudden darkness. Doubt wrapped its arms around him like a hug from an overbearing aunt.

  “Frank, I’m not sure what we’re doing here anymore.”

  Frank pushed himself back onto the pillows, grimacing as he did so.

  “Maybe you’re looking at it the wrong way.”

  “How should I look at it?”

  Frank sighed. “You spent a year in prison?”

  “Almost. Eleven months in Ohio.”

  “So you’ve seen how people act when they’re locked up. When they lose everything. How, when the color of their skin is the only thing they can claim as their own, they split off into natural groups divided by it.”

  Micah shrugged. “It was a little like that, yeah. But I was in a protective custody wing, so it wasn’t quite like genpop. Most of us had the bond of being snitches, which was a pretty exclusive group. But I don’t get what this has to do with our current situation.”

  Frank nodded and clucked his teeth a few times, collecting himself. “Harvey’s gang isn’t like a regular drugs and numbers operation. They’re driven by something much deeper than the love of money and power. They’re driven by a need to purify the world. It gets to me like nothing else does. Makes me feel powerless and full of resentment, in a way I can’t describe.”

  Frank didn’t usually open up like this about his feelings. He and Micah talked sobriety and higher power all the time, but never about politics or race or religion.

  “You asked me what we’re doing here,” Frank said. “I would have come back here to confront Harvey someday, morgue John Doe or not. It was time for me to face up to this resentment I’ve been carrying around.”

  Frank’s sudden revelation made Micah feel like he needed to do the same. The secret that had been tugging at his insides. Something he’d been carrying around for a long time, but hadn’t ever been able to bring himself to mention to Frank.

  His lips formed the words, and he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. But the words tumbled out anyway.

  “The first person I ever killed was a cop,” Micah said. “I don’t think I told you that before.”

  Frank adopted a grave look as he shook his head. “You haven’t.”

  “I’d done lots of terrible things in the cartel before, put people in the hospital, and was usually too drunk to know how wrong it was. But the cop, he was my first. It was self-defense, but no one else would have seen it that way.”

  Frank’s eyes fell to the bedspread. Micah didn’t know how Frank would take the news, since Frank himself had been a cop for decades. Even though the old man was his closest and only friend, that’s not the kind of thing he might shrug off.

  “I was in a situation,” Micah said, “and I didn’t have any other choice. Is that like the powerlessness you were talking about before?”

  “Not really. But it doesn’t matter. The things you did when you were drinking… that’s the old you. The abandoned person you don’t have to be anymore, as long as you stay sober.”

  Micah felt the grip of shame squeeze him. He knew that the drunken cop-killing person was his past, but it still felt so raw and fresh. He decided to change the subject.

  “What happened down there in the casino, Frank?”

  “When I went in, I didn’t know if I’d make it back out. But I had to see it for myself. Had to see if that evil still thrived after all these years.”

  “And what did you find?”

  Frank laughed, a wet and gurgling sound. “Nothing so bold and earth-shattering. Facing up to my own resentment turned out to be anti-climactic. I got into a scuffle with a bouncer as soon as I got in there, and I made a break for it. It was either that or shoot up the place. I chose to run.”

  Micah let out a slow, labored exhalation. “And we’re right where we started, with nothing. Nowhere closer to finding out who that John Doe in the morgue was, or how to prove who killed him.”

  “So, we’re stuck. What do you have in mind for our next move?”

  Micah didn’t know. They could turn everything over to the cops and go home, and that seemed like the smartest plan. Remove themselves from the whole messed-up equation. But som
ehow, doing that didn’t seem right. Seemed like failure. He couldn’t walk away, not when these people had made it so personal to him. There had to be a way to reveal who this lookalike was.

  As he was considering his options, Frank groaned and gripped his side. His face became a twisted portrait of pain.

  Micah stood up. “Okay, we’re taking you to the hospital.”

  For once, Frank didn’t fight him. “Okay, yeah, maybe we should go. It’s getting worse.”

  He helped Frank get out of bed and lifted the old man to his feet. Gathered up his phone and supported Frank on the way to the door.

  When Micah threw back the door, a bullet whizzed past his head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Rourke sat behind the wheel, engine humming. He passed a baseball back and forth between his hands, squeezing it too hard with each toss. His palms ached from the grip.

  The car was parked on the unused bridge over Saginaw Street, among the collection of fast food packaging and hypodermic needles. On a slab of concrete where junkies came to lose themselves, where lonely men came to get blowjobs from sick hookers while they watched the cars thunder along the road below.

  Carter sat beside him in the passenger seat and Ethan was in the back. Carter was texting, his fingers flying over the phone keyboard at warp speed. Ethan had his earbuds in, bopping his head to some music. Rap, probably, because that was all the kid would listen to.

  “Ethan,” Rourke said, trying to catch his eye in the rearview.

  Ethan took out his earbuds. “What?”

  “We’ve been sitting here too long. Is your guy usually on time?”

  “First of all,” Ethan said, “this isn’t my guy. It’s not like I know him or anything. You guys got to understand that he’s a friend of a friend of some Yooper named Scully that I barely know who goes to my gym. If makes him my guy, then sure. So I don’t know, is the answer to your question.”