by Frank Zafiro
When I finally finished filling in the transcript, I glanced at the clock. It was pushing 4 o’clock. I’d skipped lunch, and now my stomach was grumbling about it. I reached into my desk drawer where I kept some snacks, but all I had was a nearly empty tin of cashews. I chomped on a handful of nuts and thought about going for a sandwich. Domini’s maybe.
My phone buzzed. I picked it up.
Anton.
Game time.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. Then I answered.
“H.? You awake?”
“It’s almost four o’clock,” I said. “Of course I’m awake. What’s up?”
“Nothing. I gotta push, that’s all.”
“Push what?”
“Our meet. It’s gotta wait.”
This didn’t sound good. “Why?” I asked.
“Why?” He repeated, his voice raising an octave in irritation. “What, you my fuckin’ mama now? I gotta tell you why?”
“Call it common courtesy.”
“Call it mind your own fuckin’ business, bitch.” His harsh tone was one he’d never used with me before. That worried me.
“Anton—”
“Look, some shit came up I gotta deal with. Two, maybe three days. Then I’ll get back wichya.”
I closed my eyes. Goddamn it, Anton. Two days? From the sounds of it, this entire operation would be over by then. “I already promised my clients the dark haired one and the blonde one you showed me yesterday. They’re very…eager. It can’t wait.”
“It gotta wait. And that deal’s off the table, anyways. I’ll have to find you some other young tail.”
“Off the table? Anton, we had a deal!”
“And now we ain’t got one. When I call you again, we’ll have a new one. With new girls. See how that shit work? Like magic.”
“I need those girls,” I said. “I promised them to—”
“You shouldn’t promise shit you can’t deliver,” Anton said.
I blinked. “Seriously? You didn’t just say that to me.”
“I gotta bounce. Talk to you in a few days, H.”
“Wait!” I said, but it was too late.
He was gone.
THIRTEEN
Bull
I slowed at the church, pulling into the parking lot and scanning the surrounding streets. We’d driven for almost an hour to get into the far eastern side of the valley.
Turning to the dazed girls, I spoke as calmly as possible. “How old are you girls? Don’t lie to me. This could be the difference between getting you help at a quality place or not. Please, be honest.” I couldn’t scare them, but taking them to the cops was out of the question once it sank in that I’d killed two men.
A sick twist in my gut pulled like a cramp each time I thought of how each guy had fallen. My stomach hadn’t stopped spasming since we’d left the house.
“Sixteen.”
“Fourteen.”
“Seventeen.” This from the girl who’d taken the lead at the house.
And the female passed out on the seat beside me didn’t even stir with our minimal speaking.
They would all be allowed in to the church safe house for abused children. I anonymously donated buttloads of money to the place because of their mission statement. The girls would get a clean bed for the night, clean clothes, and a shower. They would be safe and kept under wraps from everyone, police included, for as long as they wanted.
I motioned to the door. “Come on, you’ll be safe here. The lady in charge will make sure you have food and don’t go back the way we came, okay?” I didn’t want to tell them that they were too young to have experienced what they’d gone through, that a part of me didn’t regret killing the bastards who’d hurt them and most likely harmed Taylor… I didn’t want to seem more brutal than I already did.
How much of a savage would I become by the end? Whatever the end turned out to be? I couldn’t bring myself to consider the different directions my current path could take.
The girls didn’t make a sound as they waited for me to pull the unconscious one into my arms. The scent of stale body odor and dry sex slapped me in the face and I turned my nose toward my shoulder. The leader watched from beside me as the other girls left the truck.
She leaned close and whispered. “You never get used to it.”
I believed her. And that made me sad.
Arms wrapped around each other for support and maybe comfort, the three girls trudged in front of me as if walking through three feet of wet cement instead of across a well-maintained blacktop parking lot. Beside the inconspicuous door, I rested the unconscious one against the wall. “Take care. I don’t want to see you girls again.” They got my meaning and nodded before they knocked and pressed the doorbell.
I didn’t look back but walked swiftly to my truck and watched from inside the cab as a woman opened the door and welcomed them, motioning for help with the one who couldn’t move.
Only women worked inside. The girls wouldn’t be taken advantage of. Not at this place.
The woman smiled at each one individually and touched their shoulders as they passed like she knew they needed a kind touch for once.
The one I associated with the protection of the group turned toward the truck, offering a small smile filled with hope before disappearing behind the darkly tinted window.
I couldn’t go home. Not until I’d found Taylor or found out something on her whereabouts. But where else could I go? I fiddled with the radio, searching for a local AM station.
Nothing interesting unless you cared about the clear weather expected for eastern Washington and northern Idaho for the next two weeks. Which I didn’t. Weather had no effect on the hunt I was on.
Pulled over to the side of some random street in some unfamiliar neighborhood, I opened the Asian’s phone – an old school flip phone. I hadn’t seen one since smartphones made life easier with instant access to the Internet and apps I used as a business owner.
The text message center had indecipherable messages using letters and numbers instead of names and places or even normal English sentence structure I could make out.
Home menu led to the contacts list which… shit, yeah. At the top of the list, Anton’s name mocked me for my search.
With nothing better planned, I called the prick’s number.
“Yeah.” Oily. That was the word that I could apply to all the men I’d dealt with in the last twenty-four hours. Oily. Slick.
But I didn’t say anything. I just listened to the silence of his background and the slow even breathing as he held the phone close to his mouth.
He spit.
I listened.
A creaking, like he leaned forward in a chair and hung up.
Chair. Silent. That was all I could gather from the few seconds we shared the line. Nothing else. Then Anton, whoever the hell he was, must have figured it was a pocket dial, because he hung up without a word.
Something bugged me. I checked the text messages again. Three looked almost like repeats – Park. 19 21…two. :O. For H.
H. Husband? Harry? Maybe the messages meant to meet at the park? Which park? The numbers and punctuation kicked my ass. I didn’t do well with puzzles. The more straightforward the problem and solution, the better for me.
I closed the phone, frustrated with my stalled position. Shit. Shit. Shit.
The next day, I’d have to start searching again.
Checking the quiet street and even more silent houses around me, I decided that this was as good a place as any I’d found in the woods. I longed for the Taurus I’d dumped. Reaching under the seat for my spare Smith and Wesson, I stuffed it in the crease of the seat cushions in case someone surprised me. Damn thing didn’t fit my ankle holster. I’d have to pocket the piece, if I needed to go mobile.
I locked the doors, spread out on the front bench of my truck, and tucked my arm under my head for a pillow.
The cab of my truck wasn’t the ideal place to sleep for a man of my size – I didn’t com
e by my nickname just because I had a number of bull elk hunting records by the time I was fifteen.
Sleep didn’t come. I stared at the green numbers of the clock until five when I could drive out and get breakfast.
I had a slimy snake named Anton to find that day.
The conversations with the various pimps and prostitutes I came across blurred together.
“You know someone named Anton?”
Head shake, usually shifting eyes. “Nah, man.”
“Heard of an Anton?” I’d angle myself to get into their field of view, but most of them avoided looking right at me.
One large man, most of his size in the round belly dangling precariously over his waistband, growled at me to get lost. I almost removed one of his few remaining teeth over that one.
Twenty bucks to a group of scantily clad women got me nothing but the bird and the offer of more for more.
I pounded that damn sidewalk on Sprague for over six hours and I don’t know how many pimps and hoes I spoke with. How many times I’d said Anton’s name.
Energy waning, I finally stopped my search. I had no idea what I was doing but I had a sinking sensation that whatever I’d done throughout the day had done nothing to benefit Taylor.
Sitting in my truck on the street in front of a bar flashing alcohol signs and a motel whose neon lights missed the T and the L, I rubbed my face.
I needed a drink. A beer. A stiff whisky. I didn’t care. I needed alcohol to wash away the bitterness of defeat. For just one moment I needed to give in to the despair of the situation. I realized that I most likely wasn’t going to find my niece. TV shows made recoveries. According to the statistics for real life? She didn’t have a one-hour episode chance in hell to beat the odds and make it home.
I pushed into the bar, not even remembering leaving my truck. Dark smoke assailed me. Old leather, sweet brandy, and, holy crap, could it be? The smell of French fries crawled under the smoky overlay and caressed my senses.
Hell yeah, I was starving.
The inside opened up to a large open space with the dominant bar taking up the wall to my left. Pool tables spanned the back and booths and tables filled out the rest of the area. With a dark ambience, it didn’t feel unclean or even dangerous, but more mysterious and welcoming – like somewhere everyone knows your name.
Oh the long hours were getting to me. I laughed out loud at my joke.
A curvy brunette with legs that didn’t want to stop glanced my way from the farthest stool from the door. Her face… something about the soft angles that she held tight made me forget what I’d laughed at, forget my hunger – for food – and even let me off the hook from my search for my niece for the space of a heartbeat.
Her finger traced the edge of her glass and she turned her gaze back to the counter.
Something in her eyes… matched the defeat in mine.
FOURTEEN
Gus
Back when I worked patrol, I never got called to this place. Not for dope, not for a fight, not even a domestic situation away from home. Hell, I don’t remember even having to go remove an unwanted or over-served guest. To me, that meant it was either a quiet, classy place or they minded their own business. Or both.
That’s why I chose it.
When I left my apartment, my plan was to go to the store and pick up a bottle of wine. Halfway there, I started to think something harder might be a better idea. About that time, the idea of sitting alone in my apartment and drinking struck me as a bad cop cliché. Despite what I told Shepard about clichés, it wasn’t always cool to be one.
That’s how I ended up in the Red Fox. Just driving by, seeing the sign and realizing I’d never been there as a cop. So not only would my cover be safe but it might just be the perfect place to drink alone without being at home alone.
Because drinking at a bar made me so much less a loser, right?
The jukebox was on but the music was low. I could listen to the songs I liked and ignore the shitty ones that idiots paid to hear.
Oh, yeah. I was in a mood.
Anton, I thought.
That fucking Anton.
Two or three days, he said.
Off the table, he said.
Don’t promise shit you can’t deliver, he said.
Fucking Anton.
I drank lemon drops, and after I asked him his name and tipped him well for the first one, Richie the bartender didn’t give me any shit when I asked him to make them doubles. Richie was a man who obviously knew when someone needed to get a drink on. He smiled at me, was polite, chatted slightly while he put crushed sugar on the rim of my drink or when he shook up the magic concoction, but mostly he let me be.
After my second drink, I started thinking about going after Anton. Going after him right now. Just finding his greasy ass and screwing my gun into his ear and asking him if our deal was back on the table. Get those two girls, Faina and Taylor, and take Anton the Sleaze into the station for some old school interrogation. Go a little bit Sipowicz on his ass.
Jesus.
Like I said, I was in a mood.
I didn’t go after Anton, though. Not yet. I was buzzed enough to think about doing it but sober enough to stop myself from getting up and following through on the idea. Instead, I did the smart thing.
I ordered another double.
That’s about the time he walked in.
He was tall, and powerfully built. A little older than me, but not much. There was an air of confidence about the way he moved, but I could see weariness in his expression. He was a man who needed a drink almost as much as me.
I looked long enough to get an eyeful, then returned to my drink. I hadn’t noticed any of the men in the bar before that. Frankly, I wasn’t interested. I was there to drink, not to find a boyfriend. Like there was any room in my life right now for something like that, anyway. I hadn’t been on a date since going deep undercover. How do you keep your cover intact and still have a meaningful conversation? Was I supposed to find a husband for Heather Williams or something?
Yeah, right. I hadn’t even found the time or inclination to find something meaningful for Fergus MacIntyre in the year before this operation. It wasn’t like this assignment, or the job itself for that matter, was conducive to healthy relationships.
And I sure as hell wasn’t going to date cops. If you’re a female cop and you date another cop, you better marry him. Otherwise, you’ll quickly be labeled as a department punchboard. The guy in this equation, by the way? Oh, he’s just a stud. The double standard is alive and well in this enlightened age.
So what did that leave?
It left a choice.
I could be successful and fully committed to my career, or I could have a meaningful relationship. Pick one.
I did.
“And how’s that working out for you?” I muttered.
“How’s what working out for me?”
I turned to my left. He was settling into the chair beside me, drink in hand. His pale blue eyes watched me expectantly.
“I…was just talking to myself,” I said.
“Lonely habit.”
“Well, I spend a lot of time alone.”
“That’s a shame.”
“It’s a fact.”
“I believe you,” he said. “But it’s still a shame.”
I didn’t answer. I knew what was happening here. It was obvious. I just had to decide whether or not to let it.
He held out his hand. “I’m William. But most people call me Bull.”
“As in bullshit?” I asked.
He grinned slightly. “Only where the size of fish are concerned. Otherwise, I tell it straight. You?”
I took his hand. It was rough, and strong. “I’m –“ I hesitated. I almost told him I was Heather, but changed my mind. “I’m Gus,” I said.
“Gus?” He cocked an eyebrow.
“Goose,” I corrected. What the hell was I thinking?
“Your name is Goose?” His eyes danced playfully. “Th
at’s gotta be a nickname.”
I let go of his hand. “Yeah, it is. And if it bothers you, there’s a whole bar full of other places you can sit, mister.”
Instead of getting angry, his grin broadened. “Wow. You’re a little bit angry.”
I didn’t apologize. “I’ve had a bad day.”
His expression darkened. “Yeah. Me, too.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Family stuff.”
“Your wife?”
He looked surprised, then chuckled. “No. I’m not married. It’s my brother and his family that I meant.”
I didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t sure what I wanted right now besides the drink in front of me, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t to listen to the woes of his extended family.
“How about you?” he asked.
“Me?”
“Your bad day? Was it family, too?”
I shook my head. “Work.”
He nodded, but didn’t question me further.
“Sometimes…” I said, then shrugged. “Sometimes things can get a little overwhelming.”
“Amen to that,” he agreed.
I was quiet a moment, then said, “Well, good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah, good. Now we’ve got something in common.”
I half-expected him to follow up with something about how he’d tell me his tale of woe if I’d tell him mine, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he signaled Richie for two more drinks. We sat in silence while he prepared them. Once Richie plopped them down in front of us, he raised his glass to me.
“To the bear,” he toasted.
I squinted. “The…bear?”
He lowered his drink slightly. “Yeah, the bear.”
I shook my head. “I don’t need a reason to drink tonight, mister, so I don’t care about a toast, strange or not. But…the bear? What the fuck is that?”