Fair Trade

by Dustin Stevens

  Angelique was right. He doesn’t have the constitution that his sister had. He isn’t made for this sort of thing.

  “And?” Ross prompts, ripping me from my moment of self-flagellation.

  “And when we get there, they invite us in for a second,” I continue. “We have a conversation, doesn’t last but a minute or two before I notice the doorknob turning.”

  I barely register as Ross pushes south, exiting from one freeway onto another, covering the last stretch of ground before National City, my mind back the night before. Visualizing the incident, I recall the glint of light off the polished knob that caught my eye.

  “First one through was smaller, wiry,” I say. “Middle-aged, maybe forty, packing. With civilians around, I had to neutralize the weapon, was able to gain the upper hand.”

  Flexing my right hand, I can still feel some tenderness in my knuckles, the swelling around the joints lingering. In turn, it triggers a ripple of pinpricks along the triceps of the same arm, the scab from the bullet that killed Mira grazing my arm finally beginning to heal.

  “Second one through was built like a damn Dumpster. Sucker punched me upside the head, sent me reeling. Picked up his friend and bounced.”

  There is no obscuring the facts, not with Ross. We’ve been through enough together, I have no shame admitting I got my ass handed to me.

  “By the time I picked myself up, they were running down the street, and Hiram was flat on his back having a panic attack.”

  That’s as far as I go with the narrative. I don’t fill him in about what happened to Hiram or the stitches now in my face. About Fran gathering the gun the Wolf left behind or taking them to a safehouse in the desert.

  There will be time for all that soon enough. Right now, we just need to focus on this task. Getting in to the house, getting the medications that are needed, and getting back out.

  Preferably without an end-of-workday public spectacle, but if it happens, so be it.

  Receiving the information with little more than a series of nods and grunts, Ross processes it all. Like me and Swinger both in recent days, I can see our occupation rising to the surface, his concern for me as a human shoved aside, replaced by the machinations our training has instilled.

  Strip away all but the most essential. Focus on how that applies to the end objective.

  “So the house sits in the middle of the street,” he begins.

  “Yes,” I reply, “though Valerie told me there is an alley that runs a block behind it. You can drop me off there and I’ll go in on foot.”

  The corner of his mouth hooks downward, the tiny frown the closest he ever shows to disapproval.

  “Where were they parked last night?”

  “End of the street,” I say. “North, near the intersection.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Mark 23,” I reply, the make and model one he knows intimately well, it being the gun of choice for SEALs.

  This gets a tiny nod of approval before he falls silent again. A longtime resident of the city, he knows the area well enough to know where to drive without being instructed, his focus never leaving the road.

  Exiting down off the freeway, we wait through a traffic light before heading south, falling into the gridded streets of local neighborhoods. Much more active than my previous visit, handfuls of cars slide past, people just returning home from work, anxious to get off their feet or get dinner on the table.

  Nobody so much as glances our way, a minority behind the wheel no sort of abnormality in this part of town.

  “No way they’re not still on the house,” Ross says. “I’ll drop you in the alley, then circle around out front.”

  Considering it a moment, I counter, “They might know the car, though. I drove it here last night.”

  “That’s the idea,” he replies. “Hopefully, it’ll get them to reveal themselves, maybe even buy you a couple of extra minutes.”

  I hadn’t thought of that, though the reasoning makes sense. Even if they had a make and model on the car, that wouldn’t trump the most basic of instructions, which would be to look for a thirty-something white guy. Once they saw it was Ross driving, they would be out of position, probably a little pissed, in no way paying attention to the house.

  Raising a finger, I tap on the glass beside me.

  “There’s the alley. Turn here.”

  The interior of the airport was every bit as small as the name Eugene Airport would indicate. Not going the unnecessary step of assigning someone’s name to the place, or doing as they had in Missoula and deeming it an international airport because it made the occasional hop into Canada, the place held no pretension about what it was.

  A small, single terminal affair that hosted a small handful of arrivals and departures each day from an even smaller handful of airlines.

  Replete with an off-brand book store and a small mini-mart, the place was free of pretension, a harsh contrast to Portland International, the only other option for making my way back to Corvallis.

  Which, given my state, was kind of the point.

  The harsh chill of December greeted me as I stepped off the small aircraft. It swirled the length of my body, icy crystals pelting my skin, as I clamped my jaw tight. Lowering my forehead into the breeze, my right hand held tight to the strap of my duffel bag, keeping the overstuffed item pressed tight to my knee.

  My opposite hand was pinned tight against my chest, fingers curled into a ball to protect them from the cold air. Held in place by the omnipresent sling that had become the bane of my existence, I walked across the concrete expanse toward the terminal, moving in exaggerated strides.

  Along either side, people moving much slower fell by the wayside, my singular focus on getting inside. On freeing myself from the cold air that enveloped me, causing every muscle to seize tight.

  On seeing my Mira again.

  Ignoring the urge to use the bathroom, the scratchy feeling in my throat from breathing plane air for the last couple of hours, I passed beneath the fans pushing out superheated breeze above the entrance into the terminal. As I burst through, I caught a few surprised glances from passengers already lining up for the next flight out, many dressed in shades of gray or brown, much better suited for the chill outside.

  Not that I gave them more than a passing glance.

  The last few months had been an exercise in masochism. Not only had the universe decided to take away the game I loved so much, but it had opted to do so in a way that ensured I couldn’t be near the woman I loved either.

  And serving as a double indignation, it had even gone the extra step of mandating I do so under a certain level of inertia.

  None of which were things I was especially good at.

  As I had been told an inordinate number of times, a torn rotator cuff was not especially rare. Especially not for a baseball player, it actually ranking as one of the more common injuries.

  Pitchers that threw from awkward angles. Guys that slid headfirst and snagged something they shouldn’t.

  A person like me laying out for a catch and coming down on it wrong.

  I also knew that a dislocated shoulder wasn’t too terribly uncommon either. A simple ball-and-socket joint, there wasn’t a tremendous amount of skeletal structure keeping it in place, most of the heavy lifting there done by soft tissue.

  The problem, and what made my situation so rare, was that in only the most extreme of circumstances did both things happen simultaneously.

  What that meant for the recovery time, or even my future in baseball, was not yet clear, questions that I had purposely pushed to the back of my mind. Instead, I had filled the necessary three-month waiting period by dutifully wearing the sling at all times, meticulously planning out my rehab schedule to fend of going stir crazy.

  An approach that I would say worked for me with only nominal success.

  Even less for my poor mama.

  “Welcome to Eugene Airport...” an automated voice announced, pulling me from my thoughts. Increasin
g my pace slightly, I hefted the bag up a few inches, adjusting my grip as the sign for the exit appeared on the overhead signage.

  Five months.

  Five long months had passed since I’d last seen Mira. Never had either of us intended to let it go so long, the plan originally for me to have returned at the end of the season months before.

  In the wake of the surgery, though, that had gotten pushed back. One time after another she had implored me to come out anyway, but there was no way I could impose in such a way on her. Not in that condition, virtually worthless for those first few weeks, relying on mama for everything as I slowly figured out how to live with one hand.

  It had been hard. I had missed her fiercely every day, bombarding the poor girl with text messages and emails, if for nothing else than to just feel like I had someone to talk to, wiling away the hours each day.

  And now, at long last, it had passed.

  The reunion wasn’t one from a movie, with two people calling out to one another amidst a busy big city airport. It didn’t involve the two of us sprinting through a torrent of strangers, shoving people aside, focused on seeing each other.

  It damned sure didn’t have a cheesy background soundtrack.

  What it did have was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen standing just outside the door separating the terminal from baggage claim, her dark eyes shining. It had a small handmade sign in her hands with my name written across, a playful gesture I couldn’t help but laugh at the instant I saw it.

  Just like it had the fiercest one-armed hug to ever occur, neither of us even minding the extra limb folded between us.

  And it had the longest, deepest, most passionate kiss the Eugene Airport had ever witnessed.

  It had everything I’d been missing so much, the look and touch and feel and smell of all I’d missed so much.

  In short, it had my Mira.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The key is to look completely natural. To not be furtive, casting glances to either side, checking to see who might be watching. To not have a hand cocked by my hip like some Old West gunslinger, ready for a showdown in the streets.

  To walk nice and slow, my pace never quicker than necessary, my arms and legs moving in a relaxed gait.

  Climbing out of the car at the end of the alley, I start forward, the concrete path wide enough to provide ample space for a single lane of traffic, but definitely not enough for two cars to try and slide past one another. Lining both sides are the rear entrances to homes and small apartment complexes, fences separating them from the thruway. Some are wooden, slats standing taller than I am, making it impossible to see what’s beyond. Others are chain link, providing glimpses into standard family dwellings, swing sets or clothes lines dotting the yards.

  A few have dogs, or at least signage warning of them. Almost all have oversized plastic bins along the back, black for garbage, blue for recycling.

  If the street I live on served as a basic snapshot of suburban life, this was a pretty accurate depiction of neighborhoods in an urban setting. Starter homes for people like the Ogo’s. A place where a family like Mira’s lived before moving on to their new location.

  Walking forward, I ease myself to the left side of the alley. As I move, I count the houses, trying to visualize the fronts of them, matching the color of their paint with the quick glimpse I got of the area the night before.

  It proves a futile task, my few memories coming back in ragged snapshots, the combination of trying to help Hiram and taking a wicked shot to the cheek both making any level of detail almost impossible to recall.

  Instead, I focus on the details that Valerie provided on the phone, walking by the better part of a dozen homes before finding what she referenced.

  From the back, the home the Ogo’s stay in is solid white, the owners having not made the time or financial investment to bother with paint. Strips of dirt and grime line the undersides of the aluminum siding that cover the backside, a few spots of rust forming around the corners of metal window sills.

  None of those things are too distinctive, falling in line with the vast majority of homes I’ve already walked past. What confirms the place is the address I’m looking for is the aging washer and dryer parked beneath a lean-to. Sitting on the concrete walkway along the back of the home, they are covered by a small awning, the top nothing more than a piece of unfinished plywood.

  Beside it is an older model woman’s bicycle, the body painted mint green, with a banana seat and a basket on the front.

  Any home can have dirt or rust, but only a very specific one would have both of those things sitting out in plain sight.

  Careful not to break stride, I can feel my heart rate pick up just a tick as I cast a glance the length of the alleyway. Made for passage and not for parking, there are no cars visible, nowhere for them to hide even if they wanted to.

  If the Wolves are nearby, they’re out on the street.

  Or maybe they took the extra step of going inside. Perhaps after we left for the hospital last night, they circled back, deciding to wait for somebody to return.

  The odds of that are low, the chances that they are still here almost a day later even lower, but I can’t go in making assumptions. That’s how mistakes are made. How people get hurt or worse.

  The gate on the rear of the property is exactly like the front, nothing more than a simple latch. Raising it upward, I swing it open just enough to pass through before closing it in my wake. Careful to make as little noise as possible, I pass straight over the patchy grass of the backyard, puffs of dust rising around my feet with each step.

  As I move, I check each of the rear windows in order.

  There are four in total, three on the first floor, just a single one extended out from a dormer on the second. Two of the four have lace curtains pulled closed over them, the thin material hanging lank, not giving away any signs of movement.

  The other two are open, one positioned where I would expect it to look out from above the kitchen sink, the other from the upstairs window. Each with the sun reflecting off them, I can’t make out anything behind them.

  The fingers on my right hand flex just slightly, practically itching to reach for the Mark 23 tucked above my haunch, though I refrain from going for it just yet. I’m still too exposed at the moment, the yard visible to at least a handful of houses on both sides of the alley. Needing nothing more than a single bored or nosy neighbor to be staring out the window, I keep the weapon stowed.

  The key to the backdoor is tucked up under the top corner of the awning extended over the laundry machines. Pausing just long enough to slide the pads of my fingers against the rough wood, I find the brass implement and pull it down, barely breaking stride as I unlock the door and step inside.

  The instant I am in, the rear entry shut behind me, I jerk my gun free. The textured grip fits snug in my hand as I extend it straight before me, left hand cupped beneath it for support. Swinging it from left to right, I make one quick pass over the space, seeing nothing, before bringing it back slow in the opposite direction.

  My breathing evens out, my senses turning to steel, years of training taking over I assess the situation before me.

  The home looks exactly as it did eighteen hours earlier, from the shattered coffee table in the center of the room to the drywall dust on the floor from the few errant shots the Wolf managed to get off in our tussle.

  Best I can tell, nobody else has been through, not a stray footprint or out of place shard of wood to signal any trespassing.

  Though that doesn’t mean they haven’t been through.

  Sweat comes to my face, the warm air of the house raising my body temperature, as I scan for any sign of life.

  Best I can tell, the sole movement in the place are the dust motes floating lazily through the light streaming in through the rear windows.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The bar is known as The Wolf Den, a not-so-clever moniker given to it no doubt by the motorcycle gang of the same na
me that calls it home. Made almost entirely of wood, the place looks like it was thrown together decades before, now held together by little more than nails, fading paint, and termites holding hands.

  The only signage of any kind is a wooden sign running along the top of the awning extended out over the porch, white lettering against a dark brown background. No logos or emblems of any kind. No mention of hours of operation anywhere.

  Detective Malcolm Marsh has never been to the place, has never even heard of it, but he isn’t surprised by what he sees. It’s the sort of place he would expect someone like Mike Lincoln to frequent, the line of motorcycles parked out front hinting that he is far from the only one to consider the place a second home.

  “Third bike in from the right is Lincoln’s,” Mike Tinley says from the passenger seat. Holding up a piece of paper with Lincoln’s plate number scribbled on it, he alternates his glance between the sheet and the row of bikes parked across the street, checking once more, before dropping the paper back atop the stack of printouts in his lap.

  The search of Lincoln’s home turned up precious little, the place a complete dump that looked to have been abandoned days ago, if not before. Spending a total of only ten minutes inside, Marsh had cut the search short after realizing there was absolutely nothing to be gleaned from sifting through the wreckage of the man’s life.

  Fast food wrappers, sweat-stained sheets, and moldy dishes tend to not provide a lot of workable evidence.

  Stepping outside before the stench of the place permanently seeped into his skin and clothes, Marsh left with just a single thing in his possession. Now tucked into the front console of their sedan, he glances over to the matchbook he’d snatched from the ground beside what Lincoln used as a bed, the words The Wolf Den spelled out in the same script as those above the front door.

  “Should we call La Mesa PD and ask for backup?” Tinley asks, his voice already carrying the slightest tinge of anticipation.

  Recognizing it instantly, Marsh cast a sideways glance to his partner, hopeful he isn’t about to say or do something they could both come to regret.