by Ty Patterson
Broker slowed fractionally, and the bike came on, cutting through the traffic, gliding through it, man and machine one, the Yamaha’s purr putting tarmac behind it effortlessly. It came on their tail and slowly crept up on them, and the universe melted away for Bear and Roger, their breathing steady, their heartbeats low, their fingers ready to pull and send damage.
The visor turned slowly toward Broker, the purr of the engine blending with the throatier growl of the Tahoe, light glancing off the visor and disappearing, just blackness looking at Broker.
The Watcher looked. Saw Broker, stubble winking in the light; saw Bear and the Mossberg, a volcano ready to explode. Through the dimness, he could just make out Chloe, her eyes large, her hand aiming her Glock, a shape across her thighs. Through the corner of his eyes he saw Roger behind him, on his five, knew there was at least another gun on him. The Watcher didn’t twitch, didn’t flinch, didn’t react. This was him slowing time, seeing all that he wanted to see.
The visor swiveled back smoothly straight ahead, the purr became louder, and the rider became a speck and then became night.
Bear and Roger followed it till it disappeared and then slipped inside the Tahoes, and they sped up. There wasn’t any other traffic at that time of night, and if any of the passing traffic witnessed the byplay, they didn’t stop. Bwana presently broke the silence. ‘Is it him? Our stalker?’
‘Could be. Then it could also be just a curious rider.’ There was doubt in Broker’s voice, though. No rider would be so relaxed with weapons pointing at him. He shrugged, putting it behind them. The stalker, if that’s who it was, would have to take a stake in the game if he wanted to play. Till then he was irrelevant.
The others were still sleeping when Roger and Bwana left early the next day to retrieve Lisa’s bag. Roger headed to the driver’s side of their Tahoe when he paused. ‘Think we should switch vehicles?’ We can carjack one and return it before the owner realizes it.’
Bwana looked at him strangely. ‘Now why would we want to do that, partner? Why make it difficult for trouble to find us?’
That settled it for Roger, though he still took a long, circuitous route to the Rocka residence. ‘No need to be stupid,’ he said aloud and looked at Bwana for a reaction and got a gentle snore in return.
He didn’t spot any tails, not that he expected to, and when he neared the home, he shook Bwana awake. They parked their wheels a block away and flagged down a cab and drove past the residence and then reversed and drove by slowly again. Roger noticed the driver eyeing them curiously through the mirror, looked up his name on the permit, and said, ‘Relax, Miguel, we’re undercover cops.’ He flashed the badge Broker had issued them, and Miguel nodded once and forgot all about them, his suspicions allayed.
When Miguel reached the end of the street, Roger motioned him to a halt and, thrusting a sheaf of bills at Miguel, asked him to take a break for an hour. They drove the cab, the most anonymous car in the city, back, parked it four hundred yards away, and settled down to watch.
Three hours later they were still the only people showing an interest in the home. He looked at Bwana, who nodded.
They walked casually to the house, taking cover from the parked vehicles on the street, and split up, Bwana heading to the rear and Roger to the window in the front. Roger picked up a rock from a flower bed and, when he heard Bwana’s soft grunt in his ear, swung it against the window, shattering it. He heard the rear window give way with a louder crash, ran round to the rear, and followed Bwana through the wreckage. Covering each other, they went through the house swiftly, relaxing only when the last room was ‘clean.’
Bwana holstered his gun. ‘Too late.’
‘House was wrecked. Someone had been there before and tossed it. Totally.’ Bwana glanced at Elaine Rocka and looked away when her face hardened, her fingers whitened. He poured hot water in a couple of cups, inserted tea bags and, when they were the right shade of brown, handed one to Roger. He looked at her again, a glance that was part apology, part embarrassment. They should have realized the gang wouldn’t have waited till the morning.
‘Ma’am, we’ve wrapped police tape all around the house. It’s a good neighborhood, so it will be respected and the gang – we’re pretty sure it was them hunting the journal – have no reason to go back there now,’ Roger told her gently.
She nodded, cleared her throat and forced a smile. ‘It needed a makeover anyway, what with the dogs around. The insurance will cover it.’ The battle-axe returned, and steely eyes looked at Chloe. ‘You’ll get them?’
Chloe nodded once. That had always been the plan.
Before they could say anything further, Lisa and Shawn burst into the room and climbed on Rocka’s lap. She held them close, her eyes asking them not to mention the house. Chloe nodded fractionally and asked the kids, ‘Right, guys, I bet you’re hungry. What do you have when you’re hungry?’
She jammed fingers in her ears at the loud yells in reply and grinned. ‘I can’t hear you. Now you’ll have to get your own cereal.’
‘Will you go to the locker today?’ Shawn put an end to their gaiety.
‘We’ll hunt for it, yeah,’ Broker replied, choosing his words carefully. The locker was lost to them now, the key either in the debris of the house or with the gang.
Shawn frowned, puzzled at Broker’s choice of words. ‘What’s there to search for when you have the key.’
‘They don’t have it, honey. They went to get Lisa’s backpack but couldn’t find it. They’ll go back and search again.’ Rocka combed his hair with her fingers, her touch calming him.
‘It’s with me.’ Green eyes looked at them from beneath tousled blonde curls, as if to say why wouldn’t it be? Lisa giggled when she saw most of them had their mouths open.
Bear was the first to recover. ‘Your backpack…’
‘Is with me,’ she replied firmly, and then her face became indignant. ‘You didn’t think I would leave Dino behind, did you?’
‘Dino?’ Broker asked for all of them.
Lisa sighed long and theatrically. Adults. They didn’t come with enough training.
‘Keys,’ she held her hand out and demanded.
Broker looked at her blank faced, and when Lisa thrust her hand out again, he gave her the Tahoe’s keys.
She reappeared minutes later with a pink backpack festooned with ribbons and badges. Reaching inside it, she drew out a tattered green dinosaur and placed it in the center.
‘Dino.’ She pointed. ‘Backpack.’ She pointed at it.
Broker closed his eyes briefly, gathering his thoughts and his wits. He started, ‘When did you–’ and stopped when she held a palm up. Adults couldn’t be trusted to ask the right questions.
‘I was carrying it when we left home. Guess none of you noticed.’ She smiled smugly. ‘Now, Broker, can you find my dad’s key?’ she challenged him.
Broker would willingly face off with entire gangs, but kids were beyond him, and he wisely kept quiet. He reached out and emptied the bag, glancing curiously at a pink diary with a tiny padlock, a key dangling next to it. Lisa snatched it out of his hand, saying it was her private journal. He felt the insides of the bag, then the outside, turned the straps inside out, checked the folds, and came up with nothing. He started again, slowly this time, and still found nothing. He noticed Lisa and Shawn grinning, and it clicked.
‘A key and a lock go together, don’t they?’ he asked casually, and Lisa smiled cheekily at him. ‘Took you a long time, Broker.’
He examined the key. It looked like the key to the padlock at first glance, but closer inspection showed that it didn’t match. ‘Your dad did this? I thought he taped it inside your backpack.’
Lisa shook her head. ‘He did, but then I removed it and hung it from the lock. It looked more natural there,’ she said proudly.
Chloe beamed at her. ‘That was very smart, honey. Not many kids would have thought of that. Did your dad say anything when he gave you the key?’
S
he scrunched her face, trying to remember, and then the blonde curls bounced. ‘He said I should give it to Zebra only. He would know what to do.’
They looked nonplussed for a moment, and then Shawn rolled his eyes. ‘Zeb. Zebra is that striped animal.’
Lisa was on a roll and let that pass airily. ‘Whatever. And I know.’ She stuck her tongue out at him.
‘Dad didn’t say anything else?’ Shawn took the key and inspected it and handed it over to Chloe. It wasn’t anything special, like a billion keys out there, its sole purpose to go in a lock and uncover its secrets – but that was possible only if they knew which lock it fit.
The other men inspected it, but all of them came up blank. Broker went to his bag of goodies, his backpack, and taking a magnifying glass, examined the key, shaking his head in frustration finally when it stubbornly remained anonymous.
He leaned back and half-closed his eyes, thinking. Zeb would know what to do. Why would he? When he opened his eyes, Bwana and Bear had rolled out a map of the city and were marking the gang’s businesses they had hit. Of course.
He leaned over them and marking Brownsville Autos with a cross, drew a large circle around it. Broker fired up his iPad and read out addresses within the circle.
Storage lockers, half an hour’s commute from the garage.
Far enough to have enough distance from the garage, close enough that his absence wouldn’t be missed. He probably went during his lunch hour.
Zeb used to have storage lockers all across the city, where he stowed several emergency stashes of cash, fake passports, identities, clothing, and weapons. Everything that a sudden exit needed.
They studied the twenty addresses, and after some more research, Broker drew a red line through five of them. ‘Not big enough. He would want someplace that was large enough for him to feel anonymous.’
It was at the eleventh self-storage unit that they hit pay dirt.
The locker was empty save for a few clothes and, beneath them, a thin notebook.
Broker ruffled the pages and saw that only a few of them were filled. He went back to the first page and read.
‘If you’re reading this, then I am dead.’
Chapter 32
Broker finished reading in half an hour, breathed deeply, and passed it to Bwana and Roger. They read it in silence, and in silence they headed back to Marine Park.
Shawn looked at them expectantly when they returned and smiled when Broker waved the notebook at him, the smile fading when the three of them didn’t say anything. ‘Nothing in there?’
‘Some clues. Will need some legwork.’
Shawn looked at him for a long moment, looking past Broker’s game face and noncommittal answer, fearing the answer, not ready for it. He slid out of his chair and left the room. Lisa looked at them uncertainly and then, snatching Dino, ran after him.
‘Not good?’ Chloe asked them.
Broker handed her the notebook wordlessly.
Shattner’s journal started from his days in Iraq. He wrote about his wife, his kids, the journal sunny and cheerful, a lot of pages focusing on his ‘sprouts,’ and then he started writing about his marriage coming under strain, and the jottings became darker. ‘… marriage has become a black hole for my money. If only she worked.’
There were several blank pages, and then one started with, ‘There were a million reasons not to go down that route, and I knew all of them. Giving my kids a good life outweighed them all. Keeping her quiet was worth it.’ He wrote about selling small arms that were on the verge of being deactivated, his way of rationalizing.
The entries became swiftly written, the pen digging deep in the journal, words bottled in Shattner finding a release.
The next entry was dog-eared, and the page was heavily smudged, as if Shattner had revisited it again and again.
‘He was an odd one. He never socialized with anyone, didn’t encourage conversation, never smiled… no one knew what he did and when asked, he said, “This and that.” Rumor was that he was Special Ops, working with the rebels, but no one ever knew for sure.’
Next entry.
‘He caught me.’ The caught underlined. ‘–saw me stuffing my duffel. One moment I was alone in the store, the next moment he was there. He didn’t ask me what I was doing. He just flat out told me, with those dark eyes looking deep in me. I could see he didn’t buy my explanation. I told him why and am ashamed that I cried. He didn’t fucking react. I lost it and trained the gun in my hand on him. He didn’t move and didn’t react, just said, “Soldier, you’re in deep shit. Don’t dig yourself in deeper.” He walked away and before I could leave, the MPs came and arrested me.’
The next entry was more than a month later.
‘He spoke for me at the trial. Said my circumstances should be taken into account, and the insignificant value and deactivated status of the arms should be considered. He has some juice because my pension is intact.’
Another entry, three weeks later.
‘I am like cancer. No one approaches me or talks to me. I sleep alone. On the last day he came and gave me his number. I asked him why, and he just walked away.’
Elaine Rocka was reading over Chloe’s shoulder, and she asked them, ‘Is that your friend?’
They nodded, and silence fell again as the women resumed reading.
The entries for the next few months were about his winning custody of the children – ‘They’re my everything and I’ll be theirs’ – and the challenge in finding a job.
‘Everything’s okay till I tell them I was court-martialed. Then the doors slam shut.’
A couple of months later, drifting around the city.
‘Sold my first gun. Got it from a gangbanger, sold it to another. Food for a few weeks. Pension not enough. Lisa and Shawn need clothes, books, school money.’
The entries became further spaced out and shorter, about reviving his arms-dealing contacts, time with the kids. The writing became terse, as if Shattner didn’t want the journal to question him. There was one page the two of them lingered long over.
‘Both of them are smart, maturing faster than normal kids. Don’t think they know, but the boy sometimes looks at me, and I hurt. Suicide? I can see why now, but not until they’ll be taken care of.’
A couple of months later, just one line on the page.
‘Caught by the cops in a sting. Offered amnesty in return for being an informant in a gang. 5Clubs.’
A few days later.
‘Many discussions with cops. Detective Kirkus will be my contact. Met with him a few times and got my backstory from him. It’s not difficult to memorize; it’s not far from mine. Discussing ways to connect, phone numbers. Light appearing at end of tunnel.’
The next entry didn’t have a date.
‘In now. Cruz and Diego scare me. Kirkus happy. Worried that other than assurances, nothing from the cops about amnesty. Deal done with the devil.’
The last sentence was underlined twice.
The entries, brief, came rapidly now.
‘Most valuable mechanic now. Kirkus not happy. Says repairing cars is worth jack shit to him. Can’t exactly tell Diego to involve me in gang. Kirkus evades when I ask him about amnesty or payment.’
There were many one-line entries after that, mostly about Kirkus urging him to be more valuable to the gang.
Then, four months later.
‘Shortage of drivers. Drove Diego and a gorilla, Rajek, to a small deal. Sat in car. Kirkus happy. Shawn is man of house, takes care of Lisa. My son has no childhood. Because of me.’
He had recorded the time of the deal and drawn a crude map of the location. He’d also drawn a boy’s face next to Shawn’s name.
Elaine Rocka sighed deeply, and Chloe started to close the book, but she urged her to go on.
They flipped through the pages rapidly, stopping only where he went into some detail.
‘Drove to a hit. Diego killed a guy in front of me. Suspects me of being a snitch since I was very calm. Told t
he bastard to shoot me. I have nothing to lose anyway, but my kids. Kirkus found the body. Says story is gang warfare.’
He had started recording deals by then, estimates of kilos, money and other parties involved, in small writing in the corners of the pages.
‘Kirkus happy with flow, finally. Says cops are busting some deals. Puts more pressure on me. Kirkus continues to evade amnesty question,’ went an entry.
Bear had moved behind them and was reading over their shoulder, and noticed Rocka’s shudder at the next page.
‘Found a bug in my house. They suspect a snitch and obviously I’m the newest. Carrying my gun with me now.’
The women didn’t notice Lisa and Shawn creeping in the room, Bwana and Roger shushing them and leading them out. They were reading about a deal in Gloucester City; Shattner hadn’t written much, but they could sense his fear and relief at living through it.
The next entry was the last.
‘Garage closed. Diego’s asked me to meet him, not said why. My kids are safe with Elaine. Shawn will call Zeb if I don’t return. He may not remember me, but I don’t have anyone else. I don’t know anyone else I can turn to. I have failed all my life. I should see this one through.’
They turned the pages, but there wasn’t anything else, but Bear stopped them and flipped back the last few pages.
It was there at the bottom of the page, in very small writing.
‘Tried to be a good father. Failed. Forgive me Lisa, Shawn.’
Chloe remained bowed for a long time as Rocka fingered the notebook, opening it, riffling the pages, as if it had more on Shattner. Bear looked around and outside, at the pool glistening in the silence, the distant sounds of the city creeping in on them, and back at the notebook.
Elaine Rocka cleared her throat. ‘Now what?’
Chloe lifted her head then and looked at her, at the others, and that thing in them stirred and then leapt out and roared silently.