The Ghost Syndicate

by K R Hill

  “This is the ugly side of the hill, tumble weeds and oily dirt, left behind by the oil boom of the 1920’s.”

  In the next block Ashley turned into a big dirt lot. The car bounced over ruts and holes as she drove toward an industrial building with a rollup garage door. Scrap lumber, spray-painted with graffiti, covered the windows. Ashley parked and touched Connor’s leg. “This is your stop, sailor.”

  Connor nodded, looked around the parking lot and over at the building. “It hasn’t changed a bit.”

  “Do you want me to come in with you?”

  “I can go alone. It just takes me a moment to go in. It’s hard to open up again.”

  “I know, baby. We’re going to get through this, and this is how we do it.”

  “Yeah.” Connor pulled the door lever and stepped into the dirt.

  The industrial garage door was half open. A tall, heavy man leaned against the wall smoking a cigarette.

  “Connor,” said the guard, standing up straight and flicking a cigarette into the parking lot. “It’s fucking good to see you, brother. It’s been too long. Welcome back to Safe Zone.” He wrapped his arms around Connor and lifted him off the ground.

  Connor stepped away. “Good to see you too, Mac, even if you were a jar head.”

  The two men crouched like wrestlers, and moved about as though one might jump on the other, then they laughed.

  “You go on in, brother. You know the ropes. It’s all the same. Augie will meet you at the door.”

  Word was that Dr. Vogel, the shrink who ran the group, was related to the owners of the building, that’s how they got to use it. Connor walked through the old shop, past dust-covered tables. Large machines stood bolted to the floor. From one of the machines, Connor picked up the piece of hardwood that he remembered, and sniffed it. That faint scent of mahogany took him right back to high school woodshop, and he reexperienced that boyhood feeling that all was right with the world. Just like all the other times he had come to Safe Zone, he needed that reassurance.

  Connor walked down a hallway and tapped on an old wooden door. The latch mechanism clicked as the door opened.

  Augie, his frizzy black hair sticking straight out from his head in all directions, clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. “Come on in and take a place,” he whispered, pressing a finger to his lips. “We got a new guy tonight, Connor. You remember the rules: Don’t mention time or place. Don’t reveal any military action. All you talk about is the hurt, what you remember about the day that causes that pain. You’re a hero.”

  Connor nodded, patted him on the shoulder, and stepped through the door.

  About the room sat six men in a circle. In the center sat a man on a fold-up chair. The guy was wringing his hands together and staring at the floor. He never looked at the people around him, but periodically raised his face to the ceiling.

  “… and we were just hunting doves,” the guy said. “The kid next to me raised his weapon and fired two rounds. I saw that little bird burst into a cloud of feathers, and suddenly I was right back in combat, mortars exploding around me.”

  Dr. Vogel, a tall man with heavy bones and muscles that you knew were there even through his pressed white shirt, stood up and patted the speaker on the shoulder.

  “You got nothing to be ashamed of, soldier. Letting all that pain out is the first step to recovery. Everyone in this room has been there. We want you to feel proud because you’re one of America’s heroes.”

  A moment later, Dr. Vogel turned and shook Connor’s hand.

  “Hey,” said Connor.

  “Welcome back to Safe Zone. You want to take a turn in the middle?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “There must be something that brought you back. What about those dreams of yours?”

  “You never make it easy, do you?”

  “Ain’t no healing in easy, Connor.” Vogel made a sweeping motion with his hand.

  Connor shook his head and walked to the chair in the center of the group. “Hell,” he said, waving at the soldier who had just been in the center. “I didn’t need a shotgun blast to send me back to war. My phone rang the other morning and I jumped out of bed with my .38 cocked and aimed. I was ready.”

  The chair creaked. The metal seat and back rest made him constantly slide forward, and he kept repositioning himself. Connor searched the room for something safe to look at. “I’ve been having dreams about a triple murder. That’s what I was dreaming about when I jumped up with the revolver.”

  Connor’s mouth went dry and he couldn’t swallow. He turned right and left. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down alongside his nose. It seemed like hours that he sat there, fighting to make words come out.

  After a short while, Dr. Vogel stood and said: “A woman called and asked if you could come to tonight. Tell me about her.”

  That prompt released the pressure inside Connor. Words jumped out. “I’ve been with a great woman for over two years.”

  Members called him by name and congratulated him.

  Connor nodded. “I know. It’s some kind of record. I don’t know what she sees in me, but she’s good for me. We’ve been getting close. I think she wants to get married. But one of the murder victims was a child, and I keep—"

  “You weren’t responsible, Connor.”

  Connor nodded, sat there and bit his lip. “Show me how to let it go, Doc. Please.”

  Dr. Vogel stood up. “You made good progress tonight, Connor. She must be a hell of a woman you’re with. Just stating the problem is more than you’ve ever been able to do in the past. So, everyone, we’ll be back here at the same time next week. If any of you want to hang out and talk, I sent Mac out to get tacos from the roach coach. Combat didn’t kill any of you, but those tacos might.” He laughed and snatched his jacket off the back of a chair, slapped Connor on the back and walked out the door.

  Chapter 14

  The next day Connor went to visit his father’s cop partner. Monty had taken Connor to the burger shack before. It was right after Monte retired and was thinking about going to work for Artie, just to pass time. Most of the customers in the burger joint were cops or ex-cops, who went there to tell stories and to see the people they had worked with, and Monte thought that seeing the old pals and hearing all the stories would be good.

  Connor remembered a huge restaurant with pool tables on one side. In Connor’s memory, the pool area was always hidden in cigarette haze like some mystical land that only adults could enter. As a boy he hated the burger joint because he had been forced to sit still while Artie and his father reminisced about how they used to bust heads.

  Today, the place didn’t look so different from his memory of it. Connor got out of his car in the parking lot, and stood staring at the entrance of the burger shack. There were other shops, a shoe repair stall, a hobby shop, and a yogurt bar, but Connor didn’t see those. He was remembering his old man. Not until a customer walked out of the burger shack and wiped his mouth with a napkin, did Connor move.

  Artie’s hair was now gray, contrary to the thick black hair in his memory. As Connor looked at him from across the restaurant, he realized that his father’s partner had a peculiar body style that would always make him stand out in a crowd. Although short for a man at five foot eight, he had heavy, wide shoulders, and a neck as wide as his head.

  As Connor walked toward Artie, who was scraping the grill and pouring a draft beer at the same time, he heard a billiard ball strike the concrete floor. “Here you go,” said Connor, turning into the billiard area and picking up the ball as it rolled across the floor.

  He handed it to a customer who laughed and headed back to his buddy at the table.

  “So that was your trick shot, huh Jack?”

  Connor pulled a stool away from the counter and sat down.

  The instant Artie looked up he froze. “Geez, look what the cat drug in. I look at you and it’s like going back in time. I thought my partner of twenty years ago was walking in the door
. You’re the spitting image of Monte back when. So, what, it took you more than a decade to get your butt back in here and have a burger?”

  “Took me that long to get over your first burger.”

  Artie laughed.

  Connor smiled and rubbed his hand across the fake wood counter. “For a while you used to come by the house for barbecues and whatnot, even after Monty was gone. Then you just stopped coming, Artie.”

  “Yeah well, you know, your old man’s house got sold. He moved to a condo, and you moved into that downtown loft. You and your brother weren’t kids no more. So, I figured the old stories might be boring the crap out of you.” Artie wiped his hands on the dirty white apron wrapped around his waist, picked up a coaster and tossed it to a customer who was wiping up condensation from his beer mug with a wet napkin.

  “Monty used to say, once family, always family. You’re welcome wherever I am, Artie. You know that.”

  “Thanks, but I’m guessing you didn’t come to shoot the bull about old times.”

  “Actually, it’s the old times that brought me in.”

  “Good,” said Artie. “That means I get another chance to tell my stories. They get better every year,” he laughed. “Come on, let’s go to the office. I got a bottle back there that hasn’t been cracked since Monty twisted it shut.”

  “Oh no, I’m not drinking any of his Old Crow. I haven’t been able to swallow it since me and Bart got drunk on it when we were 15, and threw up all over the bathroom.”

  Artie laughed. “Yeah, your old man told me how sneaky you guys thought you were, spraying the house of air freshener, mopping up the bathroom like nothing happened.”

  “He knew? How’d he find out?”

  Artie shook his head and looked down as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. You’re asking me why two 15-year-old punks couldn’t fool a seasoned detective?”

  “That was some of my best work.” Connor picked up a menu and ran a finger along a line of print.

  Artie pulled off his apron and tossed it onto the counter, flipped up the hatchway through the counter, and called: “Joe, can you take over for a few? I’ll be in the office.”

  Artie’s office was a 10 x 10 room. Against one wall stood two stainless-steel shelving units filled with books, photos, and police memorabilia. Behind Artie’s beat up old desk hung plaques, group photos, and Artie’s master’s degree from USC. Even from across the room, Connor’s eyes were drawn to the photo of his father and Artie. Both men were laughing with an arm around the other, and the pair was decked out in tuxedos as though they had just been out on the town.

  Artie sat down in a squeaky old desk chair, bent over and pulled a bottle from the bottom drawer. He twisted off the metal top, poured a swig into a glass, swished the bourbon around the glass, threw the contents into the corner, and poured again. “I know you’re not going to have a drink, but I sure want one.”

  When Connor finished poking around and staring at the photos of family, friends, and police cadets, he sat in front of Artie’s desk. “I was wondering if you can tell me what happened the night that Bartholomew and Alma moved in.”

  “Fuck me. I knew this was coming.” Artie threw back the alcohol and showed his teeth. “Damn that’s good … takes me back to the last night with your old man.” He flipped a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the photo, and raised both hands into the air. “But you want to know about a different night. I know the night you’re talking about. I asked Monte about that night more than once. Every time I asked, all he’d say was he had gotten in trouble with someone else’s woman, and that it was personal. He told me to butt out. So hey, I butted the hell out. Okay?”

  “But you were there with two other cop buddies. I remember you running around with weapons drawn.”

  Artie leaned back and looked at the ceiling.

  That immediate avoidance of eye contact, how Artie looked up and to his left, was textbook behavior of a suspect in the act of telling a lie. It made Connor remember the classroom training he received when he entered the Rangers. What the lieutenant who taught the class didn’t teach, Connor realized, was how to deal with the situation when the person lying to you was the closest thing in the world you had to a father.

  “Your old man called everybody he knew that night, said he needed help. He said he was helping a woman run away from a son-of-a-bitch sadistic boyfriend, and that the boyfriend may be searching for her. So, me and some of the guys headed over. We figured your old man had been tapping a married woman and it got ugly.” Artie shrugged, leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk.

  Because he didn’t know what to say, Connor got up and walked to the photos hanging behind the desk, and was asking questions about the men and women who were graduating from the Academy. And as he swept his gaze from one bright young face to another, Connor saw younger versions of the two men who had been at his house that night with Artie.

  Connor tried to hide his nervousness by joking about some old police stories, and as he walked out, he noticed three filing cabinets in a row, each with steel bars bolted to the front. Why did a poolhall have so many files? And why were they so well protected?

  Connor opened the door and stepped into the hall.

  “Look kid,” called Artie. “You want to tell me what the hell this is about. You come into my place of business, and I can see in your eyes that you know I’m lying to you. It pisses me off that I have to lie, all right?”

  Connor stopped and gathered his thoughts, turned and stared at the man who bought his first baseball mitt.

  “Okay, Artie, let’s cut the bullshit. Sure as hell you’re lying, and that hurts. You’re family. What the hell is this?”

  Artie leaned over the desk and grabbed each side with his big hands and moaned as he lifted it and pushed it forward so that it slid across the floor. Then he stepped back and kicked it and shouted: “What the fuck do you expect me to do? You ask questions about something that happened 20 years ago. You got no idea what the hell is going on, or what was going on back then. You were a snot nosed kid.”

  Connor shoved the desk and knocked Artie back. “I’m not a kid anymore. I came to the only man in my life that can give me the missing pieces that my old man left out. My life changed that night. I don’t know what the fuck happened. But I’m going to find out. And when I do, where are you going to be standing?”

  Artie dropped into the creaky old chair and slammed both fists onto the desk. “Fuck! Look here, your old man asked me, told me, not to tell you or Bart what the hell was going on. Loose lips sink ships, he said.”

  Connor shook his head. “Do you know how many top-secret missions I was a part of in the Rangers? I’m not a boy looking for your help or guidance any longer, Artie. I’m coming to you as a man and a friend, asking for the truth.” Connor stared into Artie’s eyes and tapped a knuckle on the desk.

  “Listen kid, the only thing I can tell you is that I’m watching out for ya.”

  “Really? That’s all you got?” Connor stared for a moment, and when he turned to leave his legs felt heavier than ever before.

  When he got back to the Mustang, Connor rolled down the windows to let in some cool air, started the engine and drove across the parking lot. Before he pulled into traffic, he called Bartholomew and put the call on speaker.

  “Hey, I just finished talking to Artie.”

  Bartholomew chuckled. “Did he try to get you to drink Old Crow?”

  “Yeah, but that ain’t happening.”

  “How’s he doing? Did he tell you what happened that night? Connor? You still there?”

  The top of the steering was so hot that Connor had to shift his hands to the lower part of the wheel. “Yeah, I’m here. You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I’d rather get my ass kicked than have to listen to somebody I love lie to me.”

  “Why would Artie lie?”

  Connor looked to the left and pulled out into traffic, drove across two lanes an
d entered the left-hand turn lane. “He says that dad told him not to tell us about what happened that night.”

  “But we gotta know. We have a right.”

  “With Artie or without Artie, we’re going to find out. It would be a lot easier with him, and we’d keep that link to dad. But something is going on at his burger joint. He’s hiding something.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The light changed and a green arrow appeared. Connor eased up the clutch and rolled across the intersection. When he got clear of traffic, he revved the engine and slammed the gearshift into second gear and chirped the tires as he accelerated, pulling away from the light, away from Artie. “He has three filing cabinets with steel bars bolted to them. That was clue number one that something’s going on. Clue number two was that hanging on the wall behind Artie’s desk is a photo of his graduating class from police academy. Standing beside Artie are the two cops that were at our house the night you and Tia moved in.”

  “Maybe he’s just being loyal to Monte. Maybe he’s storing old police files there.”

  “No, there’s more to it than that. He’s into something and he knows that I know, but still won’t tell me what happened, and that pisses me off. I’ll see you back at the office.”

  Chapter 15

  Saunders watched from across the street and counted the steps of the young man walking toward the marina. Thirty-two, he told himself, thirty-two steps between himself and freedom, between sure death and the bliss of the open ocean.

  He finished his coffee, counted change, set coins on the table, took the 9mm from inside his jacket, and slowly, with shaking, liver-spotted hands, pumped a cartridge into the chamber, looked over a shoulder, and smiled at the waitress. No one heard.

  With his other hand he patted the money belt beneath his jacket that held every dollar he had in the world, every dollar he would need to build a new life. He pulled a blood-stained bit of paper from the shaving nick on his jaw, lifted several tubes containing nautical charts, the pistol hidden beneath them.