Fair Trade

by Dustin Stevens

Ringer isn’t sure what he was expecting when he made the call. He’d thought she would hem and haw again, trying to buy more time, keeping them at arm’s length. That’s part of why he chose to head home to contact her. He didn’t want the others witnessing what he had to go through to extract what they needed.

  Never once did he expect it to be so easy, for a name to come tumbling out.

  “And how long have you known about this?” he asks.

  “Does it matter?” she replies.

  It did matter. A lot. It could have allowed them to circumvent everything that happened the night before, maybe even the visit from the cops that afternoon.

  But the time for such things has passed. Right now, the men were just as angry as he was about the intrusion that afternoon, and they needed somewhere to aim it.

  For the time being, Kyle Clady would do.

  “Give me the address.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  After only a couple of hours of sleep in the preceding days, I can feel myself flagging. I have forced down food when I could, made myself drink water, but there is truly no way to get around the fuel that is rest.

  Especially when already working to tamp down the emotions that I am, trying to move past the most cataclysmic shift my life has ever known.

  Twenty minutes ago, I left the Ogo’s in their room to eat dinner and watch TV and do whatever else they would like. I offered to drive them anywhere they needed to go, but both declined, whatever bits of stir crazy they might have felt evaporated by the knowledge that there were still men sitting outside their house.

  With the new information from Valerie still ping-ponging through my brain, I went to my room and fell back on the bed, the aging mattress seeming to mold itself around me. Staring at the last bits of daylight stretched across the textured ceiling, I thought of how much the day had yielded, and how much still left to be uncovered.

  For the first time since my wife’s death, I felt like I was getting ahead. Not enough to call it a full foothold, but a toehold at the very least.

  Somewhere out there was a list of people that needed to be eliminated. My wife was on it. Fran Ogo was on it. Who else might be, I don’t know.

  Serving as the triggermen for it are the Wolves. Whether it is through a vested interest of their own or if they are merely holding the guns, I also don’t know.

  Sure as hell don’t know who hired them if their only job is to act as paid assassins.

  What I do know is how Mira and the Ogo women first met. What their mutual interest was. And that it was so narrow, there is no other possible explanation for their interaction.

  The only reason they could be lumped in together as targets is because of the case they were working together. Or were about to begin working. Or had started to discuss working.

  Tomorrow, I will call Mallory. I’ll talk to her about referring Mira to the Ogo’s, see if I can get her to dig around on other cases like theirs that might have come through the office. I should also call my friends and give them an update. Let them know that I am here, that I appreciate all they’ve done, that we should all get some much-needed rest.

  Not tonight, though. Tonight, I have enough in me for one more phone call, one more point of contact, before drifting off to sleep.

  Lying flat on my back, I slide my phone from my front jeans pocket. The light of the front screen is bright inside the darkening room, my eyes squeezing tight in a wince as I stare at the screen, scrolling through my address book.

  Needing to go no further than a couple of entries, I find what I am looking for and hit send, putting the call on speakerphone and dropping it onto my chest.

  After a handful of rings, it is picked up, the voice on the other end low and contained.

  “Hello?” Angelique says

  “Hey,” I reply, “how’s he doing?”

  A long sigh is the first response. She sounds exhausted, and for a moment, a surge of guilt passes through me as I consider that I am already in bed and she is still sitting at the hospital.

  Especially when the root cause of it is my fault.

  “He is okay,” she replies. “They are going to discharge him in the morning, just want to give it a few more hours of observation first.”

  “Good,” I reply. “So he’s been awake, spirits are good?”

  “Awake, yes,” Angelique replies. “He keeps asking me what happened last night, what you’ve found out today. Just like the rest of us, he’s confused and worried. Just wants this to be finished so she can be at peace.”

  She doesn’t add anything further, but there is zero need to. I know who she is referring to and what she means, the same thoughts having gone through my head many times.

  Right now, Mira is still in holding at the coroner’s office. And she will stay there until this is finished. Only then can we lay her to rest knowing her spirit will be unburdened.

  Just like only then will we be able to truly mourn her passing, instead of these isolated bursts that we’ve all been dealing with for the past few days.

  “Do you need anything tonight? Food or clothes or anything?”

  “No,” Angelique says, another sigh evident in her voice, “but thank you for asking. I just had dinner, and I’m going home in the morning. I’ll be okay until then.”

  I begin to respond, but she barrels past it, continuing unabated.

  “You get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Bidding her farewell, I punch off the call, leaving the phone on my chest. My eyelids begin to sag as I lay sprawled in the center of the bed, precious sleep creeping over me.

  It never actually arrives.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The parameters were left quite vague on purpose. Byrdie knows that, recognizing it for what it is, a nod of silent appreciation the best he could offer Ringer on their way out the door.

  They had a name and address. If not for the man that had put down Linc, then at the very least the one they had encountered the night before. He and Gamer were to go to that spot, they were to find him, and they were to make a statement.

  What that was or how it was delivered was not spelled out, which Byrdie knew was the point.

  After getting his ass handed to him the night before, this was his chance to make amends, to save face with the other members.

  He will not let the opportunity pass.

  The mood inside The Wolf Den was aggressive as they’d departed. Every man inside the room was on their feet, ready to ride off into the night, to assert the full weight of the club down on the man that had dared offend them.

  The only things that had stopped them were Ringer and a bit of common sense, the address in Clairemont Mesa much too residential for such a thing. If the guy lived alone in Julian or on a hillside in Fallbrook, perhaps, but not in one of the more densely populated neighborhoods in the city.

  The law had already showed up once on the day. Riding out in force would almost invite them back for a follow-up visit.

  Rising from their spot in the corner, Byrdie and Gamer had been given nothing short of a hero’s sendoff. Slaps on the back and yells of encouragement had accompanied them all the way to the door, the men formed into two long lines for their departure.

  By the time they had climbed into the car, Byrdie could feel adrenaline coursing through his system. Veins stood out along his arms, goose pimples lining his skin.

  The man – the one they called Clady – was good. The night before, he had sniffed out Byrdie’s arrival, wrested his gun away, and gotten the better of him.

  But it wasn’t situational. Byrdie had been careless. He’d been focused on the women.

  It wouldn’t happen again.

  Tucked back into the passenger seat of the same sedan, Byrdie stares out. He lets the events of the night before, of the scene in the bar, play through his head on loop, feeding his internal furnace.

  Outside the city lights of Clairemont Mesa file by. Strip malls and shopping centers sit close to the roadway, neon beckoning
people forward, standing vivid against the dark sky.

  The only sound is Gamer’s cellphone between them, a digitized voice telling them when to turn next.

  Flicking his gaze toward the screen, Byrdie can see the red dot denoting their final destination grow closer. His heart rate takes another uptick, his hand tightening around his newly-acquired P239, his former one lost in the scuffle the night before.

  Following orders, Gamer hooks a left. He pushes them past an elementary school and into a middle-class neighborhood, the bustle of urban sprawl falling away behind them. Gone are any gas stations or bank branches, replaced by single-family dwellings, almost all of them built in the traditional Mission style.

  Again, Byrdie flicks his gaze to the screen. They are getting close. He can feel it.

  Make a statement. Those were the instructions.

  Byrdie plans to do that and then some.

  Chapter Thirty

  Mira’s hand is nestled in the crook of my arm. Her head lays against my shoulder, the smell of her shampoo filling my nostrils. The sound of her heels clicking against the sidewalk provides a soundtrack as we move forward together.

  Even in the ethereal state between awake and asleep, my mind immediately goes to that moment. It’s like a computer program returning to the same place after a reboot, my new baseline for the last second that anything in the world made sense.

  My Mira and I, together, walking along. My last night as an active duty SEAL. Our first chance to truly begin planning and discussing all the things we’ve been kicking around for years now.

  Having seen the montage hundreds of times before, my fingers claw at the comforter I am laying on. My heartrate increases, body temperature rising.

  Except, this time I don’t make it all the way to the end. I am spared having to witness the single worst moment of my life just once in exchange for something equally unexpected.

  And nowhere near as catastrophic, though certainly in the top five.

  The phone is still lying on my chest. Right where it was when I signed off the phone with Angelique, it begins to buzz, vibrating against my sternum. Needing no more than a pair of pulses to pull me from the dream state, my eyes pop open, the light of the screen casting a faint pallor across the ceiling.

  Beyond it, full darkness has now settled in, the details of the room around me barely visible.

  Raising the phone from my chest, the glare of the screen is almost blinding. It sears through my skull, a wince pulling at my features.

  Taking a moment to focus, I stare down at it, looking at the string of numbers scrawled across it, no name saved for the contact.

  No part of me wants to answer. Right now, I just want to rest. I want to put the last week aside, replenish myself, and then plunge straight ahead again with first light.

  But I can’t do that. I cannot ignore a local number, not with so much going on, so many different balls in the air, all involving people that I barely know.

  “Hello?” I manage, the grogginess I feel permeating my voice.

  “Is this Kyle?!”

  It is a woman’s voice. I don’t recognize it right off, but I can tell she is standing outside, a bit of wind moving through the mouthpiece.

  I can also tell she is on the verge of hysteria, which in turn activates my own physiology. Pressing the phone tight to my face, I sit straight up, my head spinning slightly before leveling out.

  “It is. Who is this?”

  “This is Bethany Stanson,” she says. “I live across the street from you.”

  She doesn’t need to add the last sentence. I know Bethany, and I know where she lives. Not well enough to have her number in my phone, but enough I don’t need the added explanation.

  Extraneous information is a classic sign of someone being nervous. Coupled with the fact that each word is louder than the one before, I slide to the edge of the bed and take my feet. I’m already dressed, my gaze moving over the room, searching for my keys.

  Something is off, I know it before she says a word.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “You need to get here now. Your house is on fire.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The words ring in my head. Time and again they sound off, spurring me forward through the night. My house is on fire. The last place I ever shared with my Mira. The bastion for all of our memories and possessions.

  The red needle on the speedometer before me nudges north of eighty miles an hour, though I make no effort to slow down as I speed toward town. In the distance, I can see various lights standing out against the night sky. Most are probably nothing more than ballfields or shopping centers, though I can’t help but imagine them as the ominous glow of my home being reduced to embers.

  Leaning forward in the front seat, I grip the wheel in both hands, practically willing the car forward. I push as hard on the gas as I dare, getting pulled over right now the one thing in the world I can’t afford.

  Not because I care what a patrolman might think or say, but because I can’t sacrifice the time it would take to deal with them.

  Uncurling my right hand from around the wheel, I reach to the middle console. I grab my phone and press a single button, balancing it on the top of the wheel.

  “Call Swinger.”

  A small button tone lets me know the order has been received and is being acted upon. In my periphery, I can see the face on the phone shift as the call is connected, the sound of ringing filling the car a moment later.

  On the freeway around me, traffic is mercifully thin. Late in the evening on a weeknight, the after-work crowd has fallen away without much of a nighttime pool to fill in behind them. A few businesses along the road have already gone dark, locking their doors for the night.

  I would love nothing more than to be doing that same thing. To be still laying in that bed at the Valley View, or better yet at home with Mira in the house that is now being reduced to rubble.

  The phone rings a second and a third time as my mind settles on the simple fact that I moved out into the desert because I wasn’t yet up to facing the house and all it represented. I had tried a handful of times, never making it more than a few minutes alone before it all became too much.

  “Yeah,” Swinger answers. In the background is noise, most likely out for a nightcap.

  Not that it will matter. He’s never not shown for me. Just like I will always do the same for him.

  “They torched it,” I say, skipping past most of an explanation. “The sonsabitches torched our house.”

  All sound fades away, a few muffled movements the only noise, punctuated by a car door slamming shut.

  “Who?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I reply. And I don’t know, though I have a pretty good idea. “Neighbor called a few minutes ago.”

  “How bad?”

  “Not sure,” I say. “Driving in town now.”

  There is a pause. Right now, I know my friend Jeff Swinger is buried beneath the surface, my colleague Chief Swinger taking over. He is taking a moment, analyzing what we know, considering things from every angle.

  “Could be a trap,” he says. “They’ve been on the place, seen you haven’t been back.”

  I had the same thought shortly after pulling away from the motel. “Yeah,” I agree.

  “You still carrying?”

  On the passenger seat beside me is the Mark 23. It catches a bit of ambient light as I pass beneath a highway stanchion pole, a tangerine hue sliding over its polished surface.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good,” he replies. “I’m rolling now. Don’t do anything until one of us gets there.”

  He doesn’t clarify who us refers to, and he doesn’t tell me to call anybody else.

  Just like I sign off without telling him that my house isn’t where I’m headed right now.

  At least, not at first.

  The sound of the party greeted us the moment we stepped out of the car. Echoing well beyond the outer walls of the home in South
west, it was a mixture of music and voices, the low din of conversation punctuated by the occasional spike of laughter.

  Accompanying the sound was a burst of light, bright glow pushing through the windows lining the first floor of the home, shining like a beacon into the darkness.

  “You know you don’t actually have to do this,” Mira said. Exiting from the passenger side of the car, she met me on the curb by the front headlight, a hand extended.

  Slipping her fingers through mine as I approached, she gave them a squeeze, two quick pulses relaying dozens of different sentiments.

  All of which were appreciated.

  “What? Why wouldn’t I want to do this?” I asked. “This is your big night.”

  This time, it was my turn to squeeze her hand, using the grip to pull her my way. Remaining on the street alongside the curb, I pulled her closer, the extra four inches it provided her bringing us nose-to-nose with one another.

  Making no effort to stop me, Mira allowed her stomach to press tight against mine, the puffy coats we both wore providing an inch of space between us.

  “No,” Mira replied, “my big night was a week ago, and you were there for that. That’s all that matters.”

  Even as she said words, I knew they were more for my benefit than hers.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I replied. “I mean, yes, actually winning the national championship was a big deal, but this is too.”

  A flash of white teeth appeared before more, striping through her perpetually tan skin. A puff of warm breath hit me full in the face as she lowered her gaze to the ground, dark hair swinging forward, brushing against my skin.

  Tonight was not actually a big deal in the slightest, and we both knew it, each going through the motions, trying to talk ourselves into actually stepping foot inside.

  The Oregon State racquetball program was the stuff of legend. Having won nine consecutive national championship, it had become the gold standard in the country, the equivalent of Alabama in football or Iowa in wrestling.