Every Day Above Ground

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  Or maybe the fatigue was just an excuse and my mood was entirely appropriate. Sane, even. There was a whole lot of death surrounding the metal that glowed like a molten sun. The drugs that had been sold to buy it. April Slattery, murdered to find it. Fekkete, likely taking the first agonizing steps down his final path right now.

  Dono would have told me to shrug those thoughts off. That all money had pain in its history somewhere, whether it came from a corporation’s dividends or from the sweat of manual labor. Believing anything else was an illusion.

  I didn’t fully subscribe to that argument. But the gold bars seemed to hum their own tune. It wasn’t joyful.

  I woke in the guest stateroom of the Francesca. On the opposite wall, the setting sun painted a skewed copy of the porthole’s oval shape. My watch alarm hadn’t gone off yet. Something else had roused me.

  I got up and went to check on the O’Hassons. A note in Hollis’s crooked handwriting taped to my door said that he and Corcoran had gone out for provisions, and that he hoped to hell I was ready for some revelry.

  Cyndra was asleep in the second stateroom. Mick sat in the main cabin, leaning sideways against the back of the settee. He still looked ready to keel over, skin hanging on his face like it threatened to slide off and fall onto the rug. A sour odor that went beyond unclean to something like decay came from him.

  “Get any sleep?” I said.

  He shook his head no.

  “You were gone for a week.”

  His eyes sharpened a fraction. “Seemed longer.”

  “Did they keep you doped? I found a tranquilizer dart on the stairs in the building.”

  “Huh. So that’s what it was. I was at the top of the stairs, and my arm hurt all of a sudden. Thought maybe I was having a heart attack or somethin’. Then I heard them coming and ran away.”

  I thought of O’Hasson’s stiff jean jacket and the shirts underneath, needed to keep his thin body warm even in July. Those layers had probably spared him from taking a full dose from the dart.

  “Felt like crap,” he said. “Everything after that is all mashed together in my head, what I can remember.”

  “You torched the place. Nearly burned me down along with it.”

  “God.”

  O’Hasson was silent for a long moment. I thought maybe exhaustion had wiped his mind blank again. But when he spoke again, his voice had more strength.

  “I was—I went crazy, I know,” he said. “For weeks before my parole, all the meds and surgeries and shit. First it was Gar talking to me about the idea. Then it was me talking to him. If I could just hold on until I got out, and find the safe.”

  Slattery had set the hook deep into O’Hasson. The little thief sounded humiliated, remembering how he’d been suckered.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I am. I didn’t want nothing like this. All I could think about was what Cyn might be doing, every time I woke up.”

  “Where did they keep you?” I said.

  “Most of the time, just one room. Like a concrete shed. Outside, I think. Hot. There was a mattress and a hole in the floor like for an outhouse.” He made a disgusted face. “Reeked like rhino shit, especially during the hot part of the day.”

  “Most of the time?”

  “All of it, really. I had a scary-ass dream of being in a place with white tile and metal cabinets and shit like that. But it couldn’t have been for real. I was tripping on that trank dope, thinking I was back in the prison sickhouse.”

  “You’re safe now.”

  “I thought sure they were going to end me, every day. Instead of bringing me food, they’d just put a bullet in my head, or leave me without water.” He stared at me. “Why did they let me go?”

  I told O’Hasson a short version of the long war between Fekkete and the Slatterys, and the obsessive Ingrid Ekby.

  “She let you have the gold?” O’Hasson said, stunned. “Just for finding that asshole?”

  “She’s nuts,” I said, “and rich enough to get away with it. Whatever revenge she’s after, money’s no object.”

  O’Hasson thought about that. “Maybe not to her. Some of her boys asked me every day. What Gar had told me about the gold, how much he’d said would be in the safe, if there might be more gold somewheres-else. Those boys are in it for the profit.”

  I remembered the hunter Marshall, ticked off that Ingrid was willing to use the gold as bait. Dissent in the ranks. I wondered if Boule had been the one keeping them in line, or if they were scared enough of Ingrid to stay obedient.

  “If I hadn’t been so weak, they might have put it to me a lot harder,” O’Hasson continued. “Instead they said if I helped them find all the gold, they’d leave Cyndra out of it. I didn’t get it at first. Then he—explained it to me.” O’Hasson looked ready to vomit.

  “Explained that they would hurt her.”

  “Yeah,” he said, almost inaudibly.

  Everybody knew O’Hasson’s weak spot was threatening his kid. The suits and ties didn’t make Ingrid’s men any less scummy than the Sledge City animals.

  O’Hasson pointed a finger at me. “I knew you’d gotten away clean, Van. The shitheads never asked me about a partner. Never even occurred to them I might not have come alone to steal the gold. Morons.”

  “We stepped into a snake pit,” I said. “Lucky for us that they were more interested in sinking their fangs into each other. Ingrid Ekby got what she was after. So did we. It’s over. Get some rest.”

  “I can’t.” He waved an angry hand. “They’re still out there.”

  Ingrid and her hunters had taken something from O’Hasson. Pride, I guessed. The belief that he could protect his daughter. And the men who did it were still walking free. Hell, they’d finally captured Fekkete. If we’d won, so had they.

  “Forget them,” I said. “You and Cyndra are what counts.”

  “Is Cyn okay?” he said. “After those sons of bitches chasing after her?”

  “Your kid is tough as hell,” I said, “but she needs her dad. Ask her where she wants to live, and go there. Make something good out of it.”

  He grinned softly. A hint of his old charm.

  “Every day above ground is a good day,” he said, putting mocking quotes around it. “This prison doctor would say that to me. To keep up my spirits. You believe that? I got terminal cancer, I’m in max sec getting cavity searched every time they take me for a fucking X-ray, and he wants me to stay positive. It kinda worked. He was such an idiot, I laughed every time.”

  He stood up to shuffle off to the lower cabins.

  I foraged in Hollis’s cabinets, found coffee, found booze, decided I didn’t want either. Instead I went outside. The night was warm and promised to stay that way until long after darkness, even with the breeze picking up off the shore. I climbed the ladder to the flying bridge at the top of the boat. Hollis had the canvas roof folded down and the bridge was open to the sky. I sat behind the helm and watched the stars making their first hesitant gleams through the peach-colored ether.

  Fine advice, Shaw, even if O’Hasson wasn’t willing to listen. Take the money and build yourself a regular life. Make a few good days.

  Twenty-Nine

  Whatever sleep O’Hasson managed to grab that night, he was dead on his feet again by the time we reached Addy Proctor’s little bungalow later that morning. Cyndra raced from the truck into Addy’s arms, and the old woman clung to the girl as if a tornado was trying to tear her away. Stanley barked from the backyard, upset at not being included in the reunion.

  “Big damn dog,” O’Hasson mumbled. “He bite?”

  “Try not to look like an apple fritter,” I said.

  “Good Lord,” said Addy, getting her first real look at O’Hasson. “Sit down, please.”

  “Bed,” I corrected. “Addy Proctor, Mick O’Hasson. Any other small talk can wait.”

  Addy bustled about, grabbing extra blankets and directing the unsteady man toward the bedroom where his daughter had been crashing during the
past week. Cyndra and I were left in the front room. We mirrored each other collapsing onto the sofa and Addy’s overstuffed easy chair.

  “Gah,” Cyndra said. “Can I watch TV?”

  “Up to Addy. But far as I’m concerned, you’ve earned the right to do whatever the hell you want for the next year or two.”

  “Sweet,” she said, resting her head on the arm and lying down, limp as a sock.

  “You’ll have to go somewhere else once your dad can travel,” I said. “Not here, not Reseda.”

  “’Cause those guys might look for us,” she mumbled into the armrest.

  “You figured that already, huh?”

  “Dad’s still kinda freaked.”

  “He’s gone through a lot. Think you can look after him? Not give him too much shit?”

  “I guess. Can we live anywhere?”

  “Let’s stick to this continent,” I said.

  Cyndra folded herself into the corner, like she was trying to wedge her spare frame behind the floral-print cushions. “I dunno. Here?”

  “Seattle’s out, I told you.” Off her distressed look I added, “It doesn’t have to be far.”

  “Sure.”

  Maybe tiptoeing around the truth wasn’t helping. I was telling the kid she had to give up her entire life. Lousy news at any age.

  “Hey,” I said, “you won’t be alone. Addy would stick a saddle on Stanley and ride him to come and see you.”

  Cyndra gave a noncommittal tilt of her head. “What happens after?”

  “After your dad, you mean.”

  Her face fell. Jesus. I was really not good at this kind of relating.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Addy said your mom died young.”

  Thanks, Proctor. “Yeah. I was six.”

  “D’you remember her?”

  “Not really.” Then, after a moment, “I remember the impression of her more than anything. Are you worried you’ll forget your dad?”

  No reply was reply enough.

  “You’ve got time now,” I said. “He’s here.”

  She turned and stared up at the ceiling, which was a field of pristine white above the blue stenciled flowers at the top of the walls, unblemished by overhead lights or hanging plants. “I’d like to go somewhere where it snows a lot.”

  “So ask Mick to take you to a snowy place. Colorado, Utah. Somewhere the college students major in snowboarding.”

  “Ugh. College.”

  I laughed. “Okay. Get through middle school first.”

  “Bleah.” She giggled. “Ugh, too. All the sounds.” Stanley barked from the backyard, and that launched Cyndra into fits. “Woof,” she said.

  “You’re punchy. Go play with the hound.”

  She headed out, and within a minute I heard the sounds of them tearing around the grass. Kids were weird. Down one second, up the next.

  Give Mickey a few days of rest, get him back on his meds, and he should be strong enough to make the journey, whatever direction they chose. We’d have to establish some fake identities for them, solid enough to let O’Hasson get treatment and enroll Cyndra in school. A foundation to build their new life. I couldn’t play guardian angel to the O’Hasson family forever. But letting them wander off on their own now would be like leaving an unwanted dog far out in the woods. They might survive. The odds sucked.

  Thirty

  Hollis called me at a quarter after two the next afternoon, while I was waiting at a stoplight on my way to Bully Betty’s. I hadn’t yet decided if today would be the day when I gave notice, or whether I’d stick it out and see how much I enjoyed the job when I wasn’t doing it for the paycheck.

  “Where are you?” he said.

  “On the Hill. What’s wrong?”

  My phone buzzed in answer. Hollis had forwarded me a text, from Corcoran.

  All good. Meet me at boat. Thanks. Sent at 2:10 p.m.

  “That’s it?” I said.

  “‘Thanks’? From Jimmy Blessed Corcoran? He was supposed to meet with his fence at noon. Plus, he knew I was going to be down here in Thurston County all day. Why’s he asking me to come meet him?”

  A hot day, and suddenly my skin went cold.

  “I’m going to the Francesca,” I said.

  “Boyyo. That might not be the wisest plan.”

  Maybe not. But I had a sudden dreadful feeling about Hollis’s boat. And Corcoran.

  At far end of the big marina, Hollis’s dock floated a generous quarter-mile from the offices and yacht club. I forced myself to approach slowly, checking the scattering of weekday-morning cars in the lot. Scanning every moorage slip. If there was a soul aboard any of the nearby boats, they were keeping their peace.

  The Francesca strained gently at her lines, nudged by the current. I knocked on the hull. No answer. I grabbed the rail and climbed up and onto the foredeck. The boat groaned and rocked fractionally with my weight. I readjusted the Smith & Wesson under my jacket for a better draw and walked silently aft on the water side. No sounds or movement, other than my own.

  All looked normal in the cabin through the sliding glass door. Maybe even slightly tidier than usual. I used my lockpicks to open the door and slid it wide. Listened again, and heard only the breeze through the surrounding forest of masts.

  I made my way, very carefully, into the cabin and through every stateroom, checking the closets and lockers. The Francesca was a large boat, but even a sizable cruiser doesn’t offer many places for a person to hide. I was alone.

  The cabin was neater than normal. Most of the clothes and papers were strewn on the port side now, leaving the starboard free of clutter. The starboard, where Hollis had built his hidden compartments.

  Where we had stashed the gold.

  I yanked at the corner wedges and bookshelf rails, removing smaller pieces to unlock the larger ones as Hollis had demonstrated. I had to see. To make sure that the red and blue suitcases with their millions were still inside.

  My hands worked as my mind raced ahead. Who had known about the secret compartments, besides Hollis and myself? Who could have opened them without tearing the interior apart by force? Corcoran, for sure. O’Hasson? Cyndra, even? They were here with Hollis and the gold, after EverCon. I had thought they were both exhausted and asleep in the forward staterooms. Had one of them managed to spy on Hollis as he stashed the cases inside?

  I set about lifting the settee frame and attached flooring. The piece was long and awkward. I had to shift one side first, and then the other.

  A gap below, against the spider’s web pattern of strands in the raw fiberglass hull. No suitcases. No gold.

  Empty.

  I clutched at the wood of the wall, the larger of the two pieces that covered Hollis’s big hiding place, and yanked it away in one pull.

  I’d been wrong. Again.

  The compartment wasn’t empty.

  The body of Jimmy Corcoran stared up at me.

  Thirty-One

  Corcoran’s face and bald pate were watery white, liver spots and freckles standing out harshly. His mouth was slightly agape. Looking even more like an eel in death. The curve of the hull held his body almost vertically, like it was propped up on display in an undertaker’s window.

  In the very center of his chest, a small splotch of blood stained the plaid stripes a solid rust, surrounded by darker flakes. The cotton charred by a muzzle flare from something close, something small-caliber. A teacup could have held the amount of blood that had seeped from the wound.

  I touched his shoulder. Half to offer comfort that Corcoran would never feel, half to feel the encroaching rigor. He hadn’t been dead long. Two or three hours in his concealed coffin, I guessed.

  I let him lie, and sat down opposite him.

  You shitheel, he seemed about to say. You brought me into this.

  Yeah, Jimmy. I’m sorry.

  Shove your sorry. My family ain’t living off your sorry. My kids can’t say shit to your sorry. You’re r
esponsible, and any apology is just you trying to skate through on chance and charm. I hate you.

  I didn’t have an answer. Or any argument. Jimmy was right again.

  Replacing the wall would mean enclosing his body once again in the suffocating space. Instead, I took the blanket from the berth in the spare stateroom and brought it back to drape over Corcoran. The blanket had a pattern of small fleur-de-lis, white on blue. It gave his shroud an oddly ceremonial feel. Like a state funeral.

  Hollis picked up before the second ring.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Jimmy’s dead. I’m on board your boat.”

  He made a sound, something like a cough that was striving to become a word.

  “On my way,” he managed, and hung up.

  Something else occurred to me. Something I had to do while it was still possible. I looked outside to make sure there was no danger of anyone wandering past on the dock. I removed the blanket from Corcoran’s body and patted down his pockets. Completely empty. Then I picked him up and laid his body on its back on the hardwood floor.

  Sorry about this, Jimmy.

  I put one hand under his knee and another on his ankle, and pulled hard to fold the leg up toward his torso. Corcoran hadn’t been a muscular guy. His rigor wasn’t too far along. Those facts combined to make the job easy, at least in the physical sense. I bent his other leg more or less to match. I folded his arms to a severe ninety degrees.

  His head I left alone. Maybe it would be possible to bend it forward at the neck, to make his body into more of a ball. But I didn’t want to do it. I placed the blanket over him again and sat on the captain’s chair to wait.

  Hollis lifted the corner of the blanket to see the body. He didn’t examine it, just looked down at Corcoran’s face. It had been a bad year or so for Hollis. First Dono, and now Jimmy C.

  “Did O’Hasson do this?” he said.

  “I don’t think so. They left Jimmy in the hiding space, Hollis.”

  He looked up from the body to me. His arm holding the blanket lowered slowly.