Every Day Above Ground

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  I went back to the truck and retrieved one of my burner phones from the glove compartment. Stanley came with me and bruised my thigh with his head on every third step, asking for attention.

  “A new toy of yours?” Addy said when we rejoined her. I was already thumbing through menus.

  “Congratulate me, I’m a father. Great apps for parents these days.” I found the map portion of the controls and pressed Locate.

  “Did you install something on Cyndra’s phone?” Addy looked aghast.

  “She’d spot that. She’s probably smarter than I am about tech. I just hid a different phone in her backpack.” Way down in it, taped near the bottom. I could probably have hidden a soccer ball in that mess without her finding it. “Last night, while you guys were asleep.”

  “You worry me sometimes,” Addy said.

  “It’s not satellite positioning, but best I could do on short notice.”

  A red digital pin appeared, a block off Pine. I showed Addy. “She’s on the Hill. Probably walked there from here.”

  “Thank heaven.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  “Watch yourself on the road. Drivers in this storm—”

  “Your maternal instinct is in overdrive, Addy.”

  She reddened. “Fine, then.”

  I’d hit a nerve, though I wasn’t sure why or how. “I’ll take Stanley. Maybe it’ll grease the skids with the girl.”

  “Do that.”

  Stanley did a good job of getting every inch of the backseat wet while I drove up and over the hill, musing on how I’d managed to tick Addy off. Sometimes the fact that I’d only known the formidable Ms. Proctor for a tiny percentage of her life slapped me upside the head. She wasn’t all that forthcoming about certain parts of her history. I was supposed to be the one with secrets.

  The pin on the phone’s map hadn’t moved. I found a space at the curb by Anderson Park, threw on a Sounders cap, and clicked Stanley’s leash in place before letting him lunge out of the truck into the downpour. We walked through the sidewalk puddles, me with one eye on the map. The leash was mostly symbolic. I was pretty sure Stanley could snap the leather in half with a bite and a twist, and I was very sure he could yank me right off my feet if he set his mind to it. Addy had broken him of the instinct.

  I looked at the stores. A Brazilian churrascaria, a chain drugstore, a thrift shop for hospices, and a coffee roaster all had their lights blazing bright to ward off the gray of the day. I tugged Stanley away from what he thought was a very intriguing signpost and headed toward the coffee shop.

  Cyndra was sitting on a tall stool in the window, looking straight out onto Pike. Her stuffed pack and skateboard lay on the floor under her feet, and she cradled a bowl-shaped mug half the size of her head in her palms.

  She spotted me through the window and jolted out of whatever reverie had had her in its grip. A frown followed quickly.

  I brought Stanley with me into the shop, pausing in the doorway for him to shake the rain from himself with happy violence. The storm had cut into the shop’s business. The kid and I doubled the place’s clientele.

  “That much latte,” I said, “you’ll be awake until Tuesday.”

  She wore a hooded yellow rain slicker that was voluminous enough to fit over the backpack and still come down to her knees when she was standing. Seated, it looked like a cape. The slicker was unzipped to show denim overalls and the same stained white V-neck as before.

  “I’m not leaving,” she said.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “I mean it. Touch me and I’ll scream for help.”

  “Could make a rough day for both of us. You really want to talk to the cops about where you live?”

  Cyndra folded her arms tightly against her body. “How’d you find me?”

  “Stanley’s part bloodhound. What’s so fun about this place?” I looked across the street. One of the offices on the second floor had signs of movement. So did the drugstore.

  The kid’s father was dying. With every other piece of madness swirling around me lately, it was easy to lose sight of that.

  I looked at her. “His prescriptions?”

  Her lips got white. She watched the store fixedly. The first time we’d met, Cyndra had been exhausted from stress and a long journey. She’d cried. Maybe she was embarrassed at that, or angry, or both.

  I took the stool next to her, setting my wet cap on the narrow strip of table. Stanley lay down and started sniffing at Cyndra’s pack.

  “How do you know this is the right pharmacy?” I said.

  She stayed immobile, her thin shoulders hunched like the wing bones of a sparrow over her back.

  No harm in my guessing. “Your dad used your computer, like he did to find my house. To see where he could get his meds in Seattle. It’s a twenty-four-hour store. Did Mickey actually place an order here?” If so, O’Hasson might have used an alias, which would be useful to know.

  Cyndra fidgeted. I took that as a yes.

  “Okay. No way to tell, so you’re waiting. Is that it?”

  She continued to stare at the store.

  A man in a burgundy apron approached us from the counter, a fussy apparition in the window’s reflection.

  “Sir. We can’t have dogs in here. Unless they’re service dogs.”

  I turned to stare at him, stone-faced.

  “Oh,” he said. “Um. Okay. Sorry.” He retreated.

  I spun the stool back to the window. Cyndra glanced my way, and I winked without looking at her.

  “Sometimes scars are useful,” I said.

  She didn’t reply, but contemplated me in the window before resuming her surveillance of the pharmacy.

  “Addy got worried when you took off,” I said.

  Cyndra shrugged. “So?”

  “So, when Addy’s upset, she calls me. And I have to answer, because she’s my friend and I owe her, in that order. Then she gives me marching orders to make sure you’re not lying in a ditch somewhere.”

  “Tell the old lady I’m fine.”

  “I will do that. It might even keep that particular old lady off my back for a whole hour.”

  “That’s dumb. I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “Neither do I. It doesn’t keep Addy from fretting about me.”

  “Just leave me alone.”

  I waved a hand at the street. “Stay here until you grow mocha-colored roots. I don’t give a shit. But if I have to go looking for you, that’s time spent not looking for your dad. So keep Addy posted, or we both lose.”

  Stanley nosed at Cyndra’s shoe. His head came up high enough that she could reach down and scratch his ear without leaning far.

  “I’m not stupid,” Cyndra said. “I know Dad’s probably not gonna be here.” She shrugged again, like the truth of it didn’t matter. I got what she meant. It was something to do, other than sit and stew in her own fear at Addy’s.

  We observed the street. People went in and out of the drugstore. None of them was O’Hasson. Cyndra’s coffee mug was empty, but she still held it as carefully as if it were brimming.

  “I met your dad,” I said.

  Cyndra looked at me.

  “He came to Seattle to see me, like you thought. I don’t know where he is now. I’ll try to find him, because both of you deserve that. But there are things I’m not going to tell you. For him, and for me. You get why?”

  “Incriminating,” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Is Dad in trouble?”

  I took a breath. “Yeah.”

  She turned back to the window. Not watching the people on the street anymore. Just staring. The rain eased, allowing a minute of weak sunlight before the next sodden cloud would roll overhead.

  “I think those men in Reseda tried to grab you so they could make your dad do what they wanted,” I said. “That’s a good sign that he might be okay.”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “I don’t.”

  “So what do I d
o?” she asked, her anger suddenly boiling over. “If I can’t ask you, and he’s out there, and those guys—”

  “You can do at least one thing, for now. Tell me what else you know about your dad and Seattle. No more secrets like the pharmacy.”

  “I don’t know any more.”

  “Mick didn’t use your computer to look up anything else? Websites? Flight reservations? Rental car?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Calm down. I’m spitballing.”

  “He didn’t tell me anything.”

  We were attracting more attention from the barista. “Rain’s slacking off. Let’s walk.” I stood up and handed her the battered backpack before she could argue. Stanley leapt to his feet.

  Cyndra pulled her slicker hood up against the rain. Stanley happily lapped from every puddle we passed. On our way down the gentle slope of Pine Street, Cyndra stopped short.

  “Dad talked to somebody,” she said, “like the day after he got home.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Someone from jail. I know because we had to wait at home to take the call.”

  Phone privileges. Unless O’Hasson’s caller had access to a contraband cell phone in Lancaster, he would have had to make a collect call to a landline, during the hours allowed.

  Cyndra was deep in thought. “I heard the name. The phone was loud, I heard the robot voice ask if he’d accept the call before he made me leave. Wait,” she said before I could press her. “Wait.”

  I bit my tongue and let her think. If the caller had been O’Hasson’s prison attendant—

  “Gar Slattery.” Cyndra nodded her head. “That’s it.”

  “Slattery. You’re sure?”

  “Yes. I have a very good memory. I got tested once. Try me.”

  I looked at her. “Okay. What was I wearing yesterday when we met?”

  She considered it. “I hafta make the picture in my head,” she explained, and after a moment said, “Adidas. And—black jeans. And a green shirt, with buttons down to here and the seam ripped up here.” She pointed to her chest and her shoulder, describing the Henley.

  I put up a hand, and Cyndra high-fived it before she realized that probably wasn’t considered cool.

  “You hungry? I need food,” I said. Stanley heard the magic word and became very attentive.

  “Okay,” Cyndra said.

  “We can walk up to Dick’s. Burgers.”

  She nodded acceptance and we resumed our walk.

  Gar Slattery. The name might be nothing, just a cellmate or another con, marking the time by calling his buddy Mick. But I didn’t think so. O’Hasson had been obsessive about the gold. If he had talked to anyone in Lancaster the day after he got out, it would be his infirmary attendant.

  We waited in the ever-present line—a rainstorm would never keep customers from Dick’s; the line would survive the apocalypse—and I bought enough Deluxes with relish to feed a family of six. Cyndra tossed fries into Stanley’s waiting maw on the drive back to Addy’s.

  After we had eaten, I slipped away to search for the name Gar Slattery online. I found a few Garfields and Garretts. The one I wanted was Gareth. I knew the instant I saw the link that read Man, 31, charged with murder in killing of accomplice . . .

  The link led to a brief L.A. Times article in the paper’s archives, eighteen years ago, which described the formal charges filed by the prosecutor against Gareth Slattery. Slattery was noted as having a long history of arrests, most of them for violent crimes. There was a follow-up article covering a conviction of fifteen years to life for second-degree murder after the court accepted Slattery’s plea bargain.

  Another thread, starting to weave together with what I’d learned. Slattery had been into drug trafficking. I was ninety percent sure Pacific Pearl was a front for same.

  There was nothing more online for Gar Slattery. He had been inside prison walls while the Internet was still tightening its grip on the rest of the world. I could see if Hollis’s contacts might pull more on Slattery’s history. But that would just give me the official record. I needed the local view.

  Both of the articles had the same byline, Calvin Lorenzo. A search on Lorenzo’s name popped up more crime reporting, most of it from when I’d been in grade school, and one email address for the man.

  Addy and Cyndra were in the living room, absorbed in the television. They had discovered a shared love of the kind of science-fiction shows where the ideas were big and the budgets low. Before I left them to their rerun of Doctor Who, I fired off an email to Lorenzo, asking him to contact me if he could recall more details on Gar Slattery.

  I drove the Dodge down MLK Way, aiming for Beacon Hill and a zigzagging route back to a road I was coming to know very well.

  Had Slattery used O’Hasson as his pawn, selling him half-truths about drug runners and hidden gold? Just enough facts that the story held up to whatever O’Hasson could check. Until the dying man was in a frenzy, dreaming of a rich legacy for his daughter.

  So dazzled by that dream that maybe O’Hasson had missed the obvious. Gar Slattery was a killer. If O’Hasson succeeded in rescuing the gold from the safe, my guess was that the little burglar was a marked man.

  The poor son of a bitch had it coming and going. Steal the gold, become a target. Spring the trap, get abducted. Or just wait, as that tumor tightened its grip in his head.

  Hang on, Mick. If you’re still out there, hang on. Just a little while longer.

  Fourteen

  Fighting gyms had personalities. They could be blue-collar unions or boisterous frat houses. I’d known a gym in Georgia that was practically an ongoing family reunion, and another near Bergen-Hohne in Germany that had been as solemn as a monastery.

  When I stepped through the door at Sledge City, my gut reaction was Savage.

  It was late. The outside lights were already off. I’d been aiming to catch the gym owner or one of its employees closing up and wheedle some information about the big tattooed thug who’d tried to kidnap Cyndra. But a handful of men remained around the single boxing ring, like moths attracted to the bright tube lights at the far end of the long room.

  I wouldn’t have to talk to the owner to find Cyndra’s attacker. The son of a bitch was standing right in the center of the ring.

  The fleshy heavyweight faced off with a blond who couldn’t have tipped the scales at more than welter. They wore shorts and fingerless fighting gloves, nothing else. The heavyweight, unsurprisingly, was beating the crap out of his smaller opponent. Four other men around the ring were cheering the fight on.

  “Don’t let him out,” one of the onlookers hollered, as the welterweight ducked and tried desperately to move out of the corner the big man had herded him into. The heavyweight put out an arm and tossed him bodily back into place.

  “Yeah, Bomba!” yelled another of the spectators. He was ready for the beach. Mid-twenties, ripped, hair piled up into a topknot and looking like he lived 24/7 in board shorts and a tank.

  The welterweight landed a kick on the thug’s meaty thigh and was rewarded with three clubbing right hands, graceless and thunderous, that smashed him to his knees. Howls erupted from the men. The blond spat. A tooth, blood fluttering behind it like a tiny comet’s tail, bounced once before coming to rest on the canvas. No shirker, the welterweight got his feet under him. An uppercut lifted him up on his toes and he slid down the turnbuckle to the canvas again.

  “Enough,” said a high hoarse voice from the back of the room. The command stopped the heavyweight, who had been rearing back to deliver another haymaker. “He’s had enough, goddammit.”

  The older man who belonged to the voice was sitting on stacks of rubber matting, in the back half of the gym where the overhead lights were turned off. He grumbled as he stood. He was followed by a younger guy who walked with the languid ease of a bored leopard. Six feet tall, lank hair, sleeve tattoos of dragons and blue fire covering his sinewy arms. He looked just as unimpressed by the one-sided bout as the older trainer.
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  “Miguelito, get Roddy some ice,” the trainer said. A teenager by the ring hustled off. “The rest of ya get back to work.”

  Bomba ducked his head under the ropes to climb out of the ring. He was the first one who paid any attention to me, in the form of a heavy-lidded glower. As he stomped away to grab a water bottle, the beach bum clapped him on his sweaty back in congratulations.

  “Help you?” said the trainer, coming to meet me. He was somewhere past fifty, hard to estimate how far, thanks to a long history of wreckage and cheap restoration to his face. Steady punishment, one punch at a time. His cheekbones had been reset at some point, not quite identically. Scar tissue thickened his brow and eyelids. Age may have stooped him, but in his prime he would have matched Bomba for size.

  I nodded to the ring, where the welterweight Roddy was still sitting, leaning against the corner post as Miguelito held a produce bag of chipped ice to his jaw. Now that he wasn’t ducking and dodging, I recognized Roddy from the surveillance camera photos Juniper Adair had shown me.

  “Saw the fun through the window,” I said.

  While I’d been sizing up the trainer’s face, he’d been doing the same for mine. “You fight?” he said.

  “Not professional.” I tapped my left profile, where a good portion of the bone structure was bioglass beneath the white furrows that divided my cheek into three uneven sections. “Car accident. When I was a teenager.”

  “Ah.” He smiled. The row of teeth that gleamed from out of his grizzled whiskers was unnaturally even. Dentures, probably. “Well, if you’re looking for a gym, this is the best around. They got some serious warriors.”

  “I noticed.”

  He followed my eyes to the welterweight being helped to his feet. His hay-bale hair was dark with sweat and the left side of his face was already puffing, ice or no ice.

  “Yeah, that,” said the trainer. “That shit ain’t a regular thing, far as I know.”

  The surfer dude with the topknot spoke up from where he’d been practicing elbow strikes on the heavy bags. “Roddy fucked up,” he said, dancing in his fringed boxing shoes. “House rules.”