“Are you with the police?” he asks.
Already I am growing tired of his endless questions. Once more I am reminded of my visits with Botkins, this starting to feel like a decidedly one-way conversation.
Even if it is a fair question, I can sense agitation rising.
“No. I am the widower of a woman that was shot last week, also in the wake of attempting to help.”
No matter the clear edge that I put on the words, it takes a moment for Wagner to turn his focus back to me. Remaining completely transfixed, he stares at the wall for nearly a full minute before regarding me full.
“I am very sorry for your loss.”
I know the words are the colloquial response, something I will no doubt hear hundreds of times moving forward as the news of my wife’s passing becomes public. Still, sitting here now, I can’t help but feel that he actually means it.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
His gaze locked on me, Wagner draws in a slow breath. Like myself a few minutes before, he seems unsure on how to proceed, visibly choosing his next words.
“I don’t know anything exactly related to what you’re referring to. As you can tell by our sitting here now, the Chuukese mass is a pretty separate entity. I’ve popped in on occasion when requested to help with a special service, but with the language gap and all...”
His voice trails away, his face revealing some small measure of guilt.
A reasonable response. One I myself have had no less than a hundred times in the last week, for an equal number of reasons.
“What I can tell you is, six weeks ago, the man that normally hosted the Chuukese mass left rather abruptly. Didn’t really offer much in the way of reasoning, just said he needed to return back home.”
I’m not sure of the significance of this, though I can tell by his expression that there certainly is some.
“And that was odd?” I ask.
“Considering he hadn’t missed a Sunday in more than twenty years? Yeah, I thought so.”
Chapter Fourteen
As much as I want to respect the site that I’m now parked outside of, the collar of the newest item in my admittedly meager wardrobe was just too itchy. Combining with the warmth of the later afternoon sun, it left my neck sweating as I sat in the front seat of the car, trying to get comfortable.
After my conversation with Father Wagner, I was able to give the shirt another fifteen minutes before peeling it off. Currently folded onto the backseat behind me, I sit behind the wheel in my slacks and plain white undershirt. The door beside me is propped open, my left foot on the ground.
My gaze is aimed toward the front doors of the church, though my focus is more on the phone balanced across my thigh. The volume on it is turned down low, just loud enough I can hear without anybody else that might happen by being able to pick up anything.
“How was church?” Jeff Swinger asks. Any lingering effects from last night appear to be gone, his voice clear.
“Still going on,” I reply. “Though I just heard the music kick up again, so I’m guessing it won’t be long.”
“You left them alone?”
“Divide and conquer,” I reply. “They went in to work the congregation while I met with the head priest.”
He seems to ponder this for a moment before accepting it. Like me, he is trained in threat assessment and time management, likely reaching the same conclusions I had.
The odds of the Wolves coming anywhere near this place are microscopic. Adding to that the chances of them being foolish enough to make a move takes that likelihood down to non-existent.
“Anything?” he asks.
I relay what Wagner shared with me about the previous leader taking off abruptly before adding, “To his knowledge, the man wasn’t harmed in any way, though...”
“Doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Swinger finishes, reaching the same conclusion. Six weeks was a long time ago. At that point, whoever was pulling the strings could have been content to merely resort to scare tactics to ensure compliance.
Now, for whatever reason, things seem to have accelerated, my Mira and Hoke both becoming casualties in the last week or so.
“Any mention of the Wolves?” he asks.
“No,” I reply, watching as one side of the front doors to the church swings open. Right after, the opposite side parts wide as well, the sound of music growing much clearer. “Said he hasn’t noticed anybody suspicious around. No threats at the church. No warnings of any kind. Nobody showing up with unexplained injuries.”
Taken as a whole, the news wasn’t quite what I was wanting to hear. Especially not after what he had shared about the previous leader. My initial hope had been that he had some sort of information about what had caused the man to run off. Or at least someone I might be able to ask.
Much to my chagrin, he’d had neither. The only family the former leader had was his wife, passed on six months before. Any attempts Wagner had made to ask about his sudden decision to depart were stymied or brushed aside.
A litany of actions that now seem even more mystifying given what I told him.
“Damn,” Swinger mutters. “What’s your plan now?”
Before I have the chance to respond, the first of the churchgoers begins to spill out through the open doors. An elderly couple moving slowly, the woman is stooped over a walker. Beside her, a man I presume to be her husband walks in time, a hand placed against her back.
The descent of the stairs takes several moments, the crowd behind waiting until they reach the bottom before exiting. Moving in twos and threes, most have departed before I see the Ogos step out into the sun. Between them is a woman that looks to be the same age as Fran, dressed in a floral sundress with a white piece that looks vaguely like a bib lining the neck.
Moving in a trio, they make their way down to the sidewalk before turning toward the car. Locked in conversation, smiles adorn their faces, the faint sound of laughter finding its way to me.
“Not sure just yet,” I say, watching as they grow nearer. “Let me call you back.”
Without waiting for a response, I cut off the call and shove the phone into the middle console. Swinging myself up out of the driver’s seat, I wait alongside the car, putting a smile in place to match theirs.
“Hey there. How was it?”
“Wonderful,” Valerie replies. Turning to the side, she motions to the woman beside her and adds, “Kyle, this is Inina. We got to talking after worship and she mentioned how much she could go for a cup of coffee.”
The smiles remain on Fran and Inina’s faces. Beside them, the one Valerie wears fades a bit, her eyes bulging just slightly in an unspoken message.
“Weren’t you saying earlier you could use some coffee as well?”
Chapter Fifteen
The events of the morning, the night, even the last week, are not what Ringer wanted. None of it did a single thing to better the position of the Wolves or his position at the helm. Quite the opposite, in fact, with the police already showing up once and almost certainly lurking somewhere nearby, ready to do so again.
It is like any of the old clichés so often purport. Trust must be built over a lifetime, but can be blown in a single instant.
Since he took over, the club has made an effort to work itself into the community. Not to the point of undermining the freedom that is their reason for being, but enough that people aren’t acutely aware of their presence at all times. People don’t instinctively reach to lock their car doors or cross to the far side of the street when seeing them.
And law enforcement doesn’t sit and stare as they pass, watching to see where they go and why.
With the visit from the detectives a few days prior, any hope of such cover continuing is almost assuredly gone. The timing of which could not be worse as their search for Kyle Clady continues, as does the lingering contract still holding over from Mike Lincoln.
Taken as a whole, it is all a mess. A shitstorm formed as a confluence of bad luck and timing and
greed and a handful of other things.
But at least that much was understandable. One of the members had taken on something bigger than he realized and was killed as a result. Doing the only thing possible, the sole reasonable route left to them, the club had taken up his cause. A sign of respect to his memory and a show of force to anybody on the outside that might get the wrong idea.
What happened this morning, though, was different. It was a sign that things under their own banner were askew. Not just from some new member that needed to be shown the ropes, but from a longtime member. A deputy of the organization. A man that at one point was in line to be considered for the top spot.
Standing in front of the refrigerator in the home carved into the wall of a canyon twelve miles north of The Wolf Den, Ringer lets the cold air of the freezer wash over his face. Hand wrapped around a frosted mug, he can feel the chill working through his hand, easing a bit of the stiffness resulting from the fight earlier.
In the moment, it had felt good. It had been a welcomed release, a place to aim the pent-up aggression the last several days had built within him.
It was no secret that things with him and Byrdie were never what one might call good. Always at least a degree or two below outright contentiousness, the two had managed to figure out a way to coexist. A system for putting the vest above whatever personal history they had.
Even when Byrdie had made repeated errors. Miscues in judgment that caught him a beating or ruined the best chance they had for tracking Clady.
When those errors had grown to include insubordination though, Ringer could no longer abide. Already, he knew there were eyes about, both within the organization and outside of it.
If they were to see what was happening, it could be the end for the crew as a whole.
Something he was not about to let happen.
The mere thought of such a thing causes his right hand to clench. His jaw clamps down tight, his molars grinding together. Every muscle and tendon in his upper body squeezes tight, pushing until the glass in his hand is no match for the hostility roiling through him.
Shattering into a half dozen pieces, Ringer feels the sharp bite of shards entering his palm. Piercing his skin, his fingers automatically open, bright red droplets of blood dotting the bottom of the freezer.
“Sonuvabitch,” he mutters, the acrimony he feels spiking within him. Turning his palm upward, he holds it out in front of him. Taking a step back, he flings the fridge door closed, the power behind the movement setting the ancient appliance rocking on the uneven floor.
Thick rivulets of blood settle into the lines and crevices of his hand as he turns toward the sink, making it no more than a couple of steps as his phone erupts from the table beside him. Unexpected in the silence of the home, his focus on the glass protruding from his hand, the sound jerks his attention to the side.
Eyes wide, his hands both curl into fists, driving the glass further into his flesh.
“Dammit,” he spits, snatching up the phone from the table beside him. Intent to fling it across the room, to mash it into the hardpacked earth comprising the rear wall, he makes it only as far as seeing the string of digits splayed across the screen.
On sight, both nostrils pull back in a snarl. Every inclination is to ignore it. To go ahead and destroy the phone and any chance of ever being contacted on it again.
To tell the woman calling now to go to hell, every bad thing in his life occurring the moment she entered it.
“What?” he spits out instead. Flipping it to speakerphone, he keeps the phone extended in his left hand, the bloody palm of his right hand held up beside it.
“Well, a happy Sunday to you as well,” Elsa Teller replies, her voice bordering on singsong.
A tone that only deepens the vitriol flooding through him.
“What do you want?”
It takes a moment before there is a response. When it comes, any of the previous mirth is gone, replaced by a tone closely matching his own.
“Right to it,” Teller replies. “Good, because I can guarantee neither one of us want this call to last any longer than necessary.”
Scads of retorts come to mind as blood stripes over the side of Ringer’s palm on one side and down the length of his thumb on the other. In tandem, they begin to drip to the floor, shiny wet spots on a dusty surface.
“You currently have two men stationed outside of the house of the second target,” Teller says. “You need to call them off.”
“No,” Ringer spits, hurling the word out with all the hatred he can muster.
“No?”
“No.”
“Okay,” Teller replies, bits of venom apparent. “Allow me to rephrase. Your services are no longer needed. You already have the name of who killed your guy and have been paid for whatever you did – or didn’t – do.
“It’s over. Go home.”
“No,” Ringer says once more. “It’s not even about the old woman. We’ve got eyes everywhere Clady might be until we find his ass. And that includes the house.”
For a moment, there is no response. In the background there is a slight bit of breeze, Ringer almost able to see her sitting along the coast somewhere. Used to barking out orders, she can’t fathom somebody saying no, indignant that someone would even consider such a thing.
To hell with her. And Clady. And Byrdie.
And this damn glass digging into his hand.
“Look, I can appreciate that you’ve got a little pissing match going with the guy that has now kicked your asses repeatedly, but I still have a task that needs completing and a professional who can actually finish it.
“So you need to either go the hell away so he can do that, or things are going to get very ugly.”
Ringer can feel his scowl deepen as he stares from the phone to his hand. Blood continues to drip from either side of it, more than a dozen misshapen circles dotting the floor below.
Twelve more drops added to the total of the last week, all of it taken from the Wolves.
It is time for it to end.
There are some things a man just knows. Things that, no matter how much time passes, the memory refuses to fade.
The lyrics to a favorite song. The smell of mama’s best Sunday dish. The feel of a fastball giving in to your bat.
And the sound of your first love’s voice.
Pulling to a complete stop, my head snapped to the right. A ribbon of palpitations fluttered up through my core, the oppressive summer air somehow seeming to gain several more degrees.
“Mira,” I muttered as moisture sprung to my lower back and armpits. For a moment, it felt as if my lungs forgot their most basic function, my entire body seizing tight.
The last time we spoke was eighteen months prior. The final time we saw each other, almost a full year before that, spending Christmas with her and her family not twelve miles from where we now stood.
At a glance, the time had been good to her. Dressed in jean shorts and a black tank top, her skin was heavily touched by the sun, a full shade darker than I could ever remember it being in Oregon. Her hair was pulled back, drawing even more attention to her eyes.
And the uncertain smile gracing her features.
“Hey there,” she said, pushing through the side exit of the theater. Taking two quick steps forward, she lifted her arms a few inches as if going in for a hug, muscle memory taking over.
Just as fast, she seemed to catch herself, pulling up short and dropping them back to her side, the smile growing a bit tighter on her features.
“Uh, hey yourself,” I managed. Beside me, I was aware that Swinger and Ross had both pulled to a stop as well. Turning to the side, I said, “You remember Jeff and Wendell, right? I think you guys all met-“
“Yeah, back at the graduation,” Mira said, lifting a hand to flash a quick wave their direction. “Nice to see you again.”
The initial moment of surprise gone, a smile had formed on Swinger’s face. His gaze flicked between us as he matched Mira’s ges
ture, though no words passed his lips.
Thankfully, Ross was a bit more diplomatic.
“Nice to see you as well,” he said before turning to me and adding, “We’re going to go ahead and grab tickets, let you two catch up for a minute.”
Part of me was thankful for the graceful exit. For my friend having the foresight to see what was already growing awkward and help eliminate some of the audience to what could be a colossal train wreck.
The other part was equally concerned that without the coverage of extra participants, the conversation might somehow grow even more difficult.
“Yeah, I’ll be over in just a second,” I said, ignoring the look of disappointment on Swinger’s face as I waved them off. Waiting until both departed, I shifted back. Extending a hand to Mira’s friend, I said, “Hi, I’m Kyle.”
Appearing a couple of years older than Mira, the girl had blonde hair twisted into a braid, the tail of it snaking down over her left shoulder. Blue eyes were set into pale skin, her light complexion stained pink by the glow of the neon lights shining down from above.
For an instant, my outstretched hand and the greeting seemed to surprise her. As if calculating things, putting together what was happening, she slowly reached out, returning the handshake.
Icy fingers met mine as she managed, “Bethany.”
Pulling her hand back, she glanced over to Mira, a flicker of recognition settling in behind her eyes.
There was no way to be sure how they knew each other. Never before could I remember Mira mentioning a Bethany, though it was quite obvious she’d definitely heard about me.
“Hey, why don’t I go grab the car?” she asked. “I’ll bring it up while you guys chat.”
Before even giving Mira a chance to respond, she took off at a diagonal, crossing down from the sidewalk and out into the parking lot. In her wake, I couldn’t help but turn to watch her go, waiting until she was beyond earshot before turning back.
“Um, so it would appear my reputation has preceded me?”
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