Thriller Box Set One: The Subway-The Debt-Catastrophic

by Dustin Stevens

  “Do not for one second think you have any effect at all on my pants,” Skye said, her voice distant as she continued to work her way through the images.

  What had once been nothing more than a fact finding mission had morphed into something much different in the preceding months, necessitating her need to reach out, to take on a pair of aides. The situation was far from perfect, but there was no way she could pull up short now.

  Not with so much riding on what she had once seen, knew to be lurking just beyond the shadows.

  All they had to do was keep pounding until they found it.

  “Mhm, right,” Raz said, finishing the last of his meal and depositing the container back in the brown paper bag it had come in. “Don’t fool yourself, girl. We both know I’m wearing you down.”

  In her periphery Skye could see the same open-mouthed grin he often employed, could just make out the splash of hair dyed light orange styled into a twist above his head.

  Even if he wasn’t a full two inches shorter than her 5’4”, that alone would be enough to keep her from ever even considering him as a viable love interest.

  The fact that he was very much dating the girl currently sleeping behind them only added to the list.

  “Wearing my patience down,” Skye corrected as she stood and extended her arms overhead, her neck popping twice from the effort. “Now come on, let’s do this.”

  Once more there was an audible sigh as Raz finally shifted to face forward. He reached out and shifted his own mouse, the far side of the bank of monitors coming to life, a series of images matching Skye’s coming into focus.

  “You got it, boss.”

  Chapter Five

  When the address first arrived, one of my initial concerns was finding a place to park. As I mentioned before, I’ve generally made a habit of avoiding big cities, but even I knew that finding a place to leave my truck wouldn’t be easy in a town like Chicago.

  Infinitely less so around a park in the downtown area, the kind of place that no doubt saw thousands of tourists wander through each day.

  Upon arrival, I found my initial reaction was quite incorrect. There was no shortage of parking garages and towers all within easy walking distance of the place. The bigger concern was going to be trying to get it out later without having to mortgage the ranch, the posted rates being something close to what I paid for the thing to begin with.

  Forcing down the bile in the back of my throat and the caustic comments resting on my tongue, I parked on the first floor of a structure two blocks away, wedging in tight between a BMW and an Acura. Both considerably nicer than my ride, their owners would probably be a bit peeved by the presence of my truck, thinking it a sign that somebody was targeting them for theft or vandalism.

  Not once would they stop to consider that my truck was most likely in far more danger than their car would ever be, that they were providing enough coverage to ensure I never considered doing anything harmful to them.

  Swapping out the pair of Lariat ropers I had worn on the drive up, I laced on a pair of black hiking shoes, the outsides stained with red clay. As much as it pained me making the switch, I didn’t yet know who exactly I was meeting, if the need for quick movement would arise.

  My boots might be many things, but agile they were not.

  Sticking with the basic jeans-and-t-shirt look I had been in for two days and counting, I locked the truck and left the garage, already missing the familiar click of my boot heels against the concrete. At the edge of the garage I fell in with a line of Japanese tourists moving north before catching the light at the corner and jogging across Michigan Avenue into Millennium Park.

  At some point during my time in the military, cell phones had transitioned from being a novelty to a necessity. Every last person on the planet between the ages of five and eighty-five seemed to have one, the devices ranging in size, shape, and cost, capable of doing what had previously taken a computer, a phone, and a gaggle of nerds to pull off.

  After spending fifteen years with somebody always aware of my every movement, I wanted no part of such accessibility, only breaking down and getting the most low-tech model I could once I purchased the ranch.

  A number for the bank to record on the loan application and nothing more.

  The very most it was capable of performing was making calls and receiving simple texts, the one received twelve hours earlier being the upper end of its capabilities. Before leaving the hotel, I visited the business center on the first floor and fed the address into Google, printing out a thin stack of maps and directions before heading off for the day.

  Never before had I been to Chicago, nor had any reason or inclination to do so. The first time I had even heard the name Millennium Park was earlier that morning, the moniker showing up on the map.

  In person, the space appeared much larger than I would have imagined, the place seeming to be Chicago’s answer to Central Park in New York. Arranged in a basic rectangular pattern, it was stretched north-to-south along Lakeshore Boulevard, no more than a couple hundred yards from Lake Michigan.

  Cold as hell in the winter I would guess, based on the chilly breeze that was hitting me square in the face as I took a foot path into the park. It tugged at my shirt, making me almost long for the bright west Texas sun as I passed by the Museum of Art and swung in a lazy arc to the right. Around me scads of tourists walked by with their phones extended on collapsible sticks before them, their complexions and languages suggesting no less than a dozen different nationalities.

  Somewhere deep inside me the familiar disinclinations for crowds and noise both kicked up a bit, each present in equal amounts.

  The park, from what I could see, looked to be several city blocks in length, the vast majority of it filled with tourists or locals needing a quick break or a place to eat their lunch. I had no idea what the man I was meeting looked like, or where exactly in the sea of humanity he might be, so I did the only thing I could, grabbing an empty bench in the dead center of it and sitting down to wait.

  If the man knew I was staying at a random Holiday Inn in central Missouri, surely he could find me in a park he had directed me to.

  In front of me, a polished silver sculpture shaped like a kidney bean rose from the earth, seemingly the epicenter of the tourist world. More than a thousand people were bunched tight around it, the crowd thinning as it spread away from the structure, the skyline of the city stretched out behind it.

  For the briefest of moments the entire scene seemed almost comical as I sat and watched, nothing more so than my presence in it.

  Just as fast the notion passed, replaced by the sound of a voice that was quickly becoming far too familiar.

  “Do you know where the safest place to have a private conversation is?”

  The question came in from behind me, clearly another of the tricks that had started on the phone the night before. It was a purposeful approach, an attempt to catch me off guard, to get me to wheel on the bench and see who was behind me.

  I gave no such reaction.

  “Where’s that?” I asked, letting my voice relay I was fast growing weary of this entire charade.

  There was no response as the man appeared in my periphery, walking around the far end of the bench and taking a seat. Fighting every inclination to turn and openly stare at him, I kept my gaze aimed straight ahead, picking out every detail I could from the corner of my vision.

  “Right out in the open. I mean, take this situation for example. Anybody walks by, we’re just too guys having a chat, no more inconspicuous than anybody else walking around out here.”

  My initial reaction to his comments the previous night seemed to be correct. Obviously there was no way to know if he was former military, it wasn’t as if he was wearing fatigues or one of those hats vets seemed to prefer, announcing his service to the world.

  He certainly had the look though, his slacks and dress shirt both pressed, his hair cut short and pushed into position. His age appeared to be at least a decade
older than my 42 years, his face weathered, lined from a lifetime of enduring the elements.

  On his right hand was a large ring, an insignia on it I couldn’t quite make out for his continued twisting of it between the fingers of his left hand.

  “Isn’t that what we are anyway?” I asked. “Just two guys having a conversation?”

  A flicker caught the corner of his mouth as he nodded just slightly. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

  I had known the answer to the question before I asked it. I just wanted to know how much he would admit.

  All in all, it was pretty much exactly what I had expected.

  “Where’s Jacoby?” I asked, starting in a little different position than I had the night before.

  The question seemed to surprise him, a small sound escaping as he nodded. “He’s a little tied up right now, as you may or may not have heard.”

  “I have.”

  “So he asked me to step in for him,” the man finished, ignoring my comment.

  “And you are?”

  A moment passed before he replied, “You can call me Celek.”

  The way it was phrased left little doubt that the name was phony, though I didn’t press it. Oftentimes people chose aliases that were at least somewhat close to the truth because it was much easier to remember.

  Whether or not that was the case here I couldn’t be certain, though it was likely to be the best I could do.

  “And who are you, Celek? Some lackey? A hanger-on hoping to be taken care of if everything plays out the right way?”

  Just as he had spent the previous 12 hours needling me, it was time to start going back at him a bit, if nothing else than to prove that I didn’t appreciate anything that was happening and would not hesitate to bounce if pushed to it.

  “The only thing you need to know about me, Laredo Connor Wynn, owner of the Bar-Dub Ranch, is that I’m here to oversee the favor that Mr. Jacoby has asked of you.”

  Again with the unnecessary comments. Finding out my middle name and the title of my ranch was the kind of thing even an Internet neophyte like myself could do.

  Calling me in the middle of the night and letting me know he didn’t approve of my choice in accommodations had been far more impressive.

  “A favor, huh?” I said. “Is that what he told you?”

  “No, but it seemed a far kinder way of putting things than the truth.”

  From there we both fell silent again, he probably thinking he had finally hit flesh, me thinking the entire thing was fast evolving far past ridiculous.

  The long and short of things was, I owed a very powerful man a debt. I had no real desire to pay it, but even less liked the thought of owing him anything and having my name, face, or backstory become a campaign talking point.

  “And once it is done?”

  “As he promised you, the slate will be wiped clean,” Celek said. “You can forget you ever knew Meyers Jacoby or that he saved your life, and I can damn near guarantee he will do the same for someone like you.”

  It was clear he was again just trying to establish a pecking order, to assert himself as the alpha in the situation. Despite every inner thought telling me just that, reminding me to stay calm, not to let it work, I couldn’t help but feel my body temperature starting to rise.

  The fact that the man worked for Jacoby was no surprise.

  They were both grade-A assholes, and that kind seemed to attract one another.

  “What’s he want?”

  To my right, I could see Celek glance my way, a look bordering on approval on his face.

  “That’s the spirit. The faster we get past all this posturing, the faster you can do what he wants, we can all go our separate ways.”

  “What’s he want?” I repeated, not matching his gaze, keeping my face aimed forward. Despite the position of my head, my eyes had glazed over, my full attention on the man beside me and the conversation we were having.

  “Six blocks west of here is Union Station,” Celek said. “You familiar with it?”

  In my entire life, I had spent a total of an hour in Chicago, most of it on the park bench I was now sitting on.

  “I can find it.”

  “Good,” Celek replied. “On the lower level, near the train platform running to the western suburbs, is a bank of storage lockers.”

  I tracked his movement as he reached into his left pants pocket and extracted a single key, a thick orange chunk of plastic making up one end, a short piece of polished metal comprising the rest, and placed it on the bench between us.

  “This will unlock number 12. We both thought you would appreciate that.”

  I had picked up on the choice of number the moment he mentioned it, though I gave no response to his statement.

  “Inside it you will find everything you need to know, along with a few essentials to help you along the way.”

  My mind raced, forcing everything into place, processing what I was hearing, words such as locker and essentials.

  “Why me?” I asked. “If he has someone like you on the payroll, why bother?”

  “Hmm,” Celek replied, pondering the question for a moment. “Not sure, maybe you should ask him if you get the chance.”

  We both knew the chance of that happening was only if something went cataclysmically wrong. Again I remained silent.

  “My guess, though? What’s the point in having someone owe you favors if you never call them in?”

  The answer did nothing to appease the myriad questions running through my mind, instead just serving to make the hair along the nape of my neck stand up a bit.

  Already it was becoming clear where this was going. I had no details, no clear ideas in mind of what may be tucked inside that locker, but I could tell for certain it all pointed some place I had no desire to be.

  “And when it’s done?”

  “Like I said, the slate is clean,” Celek said, his voice starting to take on a placating tone, as if a salesman angling for the final signature to finish things up. “You will both go on to live the lives you were destined to before ever meeting.”

  Again he glanced in my direction, “You know, assuming you’d still be alive if you two had never met.”

  A muscle twitched in my cheek as I clenched my jaw tight. I was already painfully aware of what Jacoby had done for me, that day being the only reason I wasn’t now sitting atop my horse checking fence lines for breaks.

  The fact that this prick insisted on mentioning it every chance he got was fast rubbing me the wrong way.

  “And I don’t end up on some damn campaign poster? Nobody from the local news is going to show up one day wanting to interview me?”

  A snort sprang up instantly, sharp enough it rocked Celek’s head back a few inches. “No, somehow I highly doubt any of that will ever occur.”

  Every inclination in my body was to stand up and walk away, to leave the man sitting where he was, the key beside him. To wag a middle finger and head back home to Rae.

  At the same time, because of my home, because of Rae, because of everything else that I had put in place in the preceding years, there was no way I could do that.

  And we both knew it.

  Chapter Six

  Bret Celek remained in place and watched as Laredo Wynn rose from the bench and walked away. He made no effort to follow him, had nothing in place to track him as he went. There was no doubt where the man was headed, and knowing that, he had made arrangements to pick him up again soon enough.

  In the meantime, he didn’t really care if the bastard took a scenic stroll or stopped off at Giordano’s for a slice of deep dish along the way.

  Leaning back against the cool bench seat, he took out a smart phone and pretended to fiddle with it, just another middle-aged working stiff enjoying a few minutes of sunshine. Dressed in slacks and a dress shirt – an outfit he openly loathed, the dress code being one of the few things he genuinely disliked about working for Jacoby – he knew he could sit for as long as he desired, completely un
recognizable.

  In total he lasted just over ten minutes, past the point where the brisk breeze whipping off of Lake Michigan began to nip at his ears and the chaos of the tourist crowd in front of him started to impinge on his nerves. Rising slowly, he kept the phone out in front of him, his head angled downward as he walked to the opposite corner of the park from where Wynn had disappeared.

  Melting into the flow of foot traffic was easy enough, Celek letting it carry him two blocks north before turning inland and going three more. From there he passed through the front door of the Hard Rock Hotel he was staying at and caught the elevator up to the top floor.

  When he had first signed on with Jacoby, the agreement was for him to be as inconspicuous as possible, to keep expenses to a bare minimum. Often that had meant eating McDonald’s for days at a time, staying in places that made the Holiday Inn he had given Wynn a hard time about look like a five-star resort.

  As years had passed and his boss’s star had risen, access to discretionary funding had come with it. Celek had been upgraded from a guy just paying the bills to one doing quite well, with a large expense account to boot.

  Still not quite the $25,000 a night suite at the Atlantis in the Bahamas, but certainly enough to afford one of the more upscale locales along the Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago.

  Exiting on the 20th floor, Celek walked past a glass case containing three original Keith Richards guitars, all signed, with full-sized pictures of the legendary Stones lead behind them. Always more of a Who man, he walked right past without glancing over, descending the dim hallway to his room and stepping inside.

  By the time he made it there, the phone in his hand was vibrating with an incoming call from the man himself.

  “Celek.”