FireWatch

by Scott Blade

  Now he understood. She was scared, but not of the fire. She was scared of a person.

  “Are you saying that someone else is here? Did someone do this? Did someone start this fire?”

  He went for his gun, which was a Glock 17 in a belt holster, right side. He didn’t pull it out. Not yet. He just unsnapped the safety clasp. Readied the weapon. He rested his hand on the butt.

  She slowly came out and walked over to him. Her bare feet stepped carelessly through the grass and the dirt, until they trailed through hard gravel.

  She grabbed at him. Her small hands rested on his shoulders. She said, “I need your help.”

  Portman looked at her. He looked at her soot-covered body. There were bruises on her arms and legs. She had a black eye on her face.

  “Did he do this to you? Again?”

  She stopped and stepped back away from him. He let her do it. She got about six feet away. She looked back over the driveway, down to his car, and back at the blazing house. Blasts of wind hit them both. Her body trembled. Even against the fiery heat coming off the house.

  “Did he do this to you?” Portman repeated.

  The wife stayed quiet.

  “Where is he?”

  She looked up at him. Her bangs covered most of her black eye. She still didn’t speak. She raised her right hand, pulled down on her shirt with her left. She pointed at the house, at the fire. She pointed at the second-floor bedroom, where she used to sleep.

  “Is he dead?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you sure?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Portman took off his coat. It read County Sheriff on the back. He stepped over to her, slowly. He wrapped the coat around her. He pulled her close to him, hugged her.

  She was a girl that he had known before she was even a baby.

  He asked, “Did you kill him?”

  CHAPTER 5

  SU-JIN RETURNED TO WIDOW after he had drunk one full cup of coffee. She smiled at him and asked if he’d like another. He did not refuse. He never did.

  After a moment, Chung walked over to the table. Su-Jin followed and dropped off the coffee. She bowed her head at him and walked away. She said nothing.

  Chung’s nose had stopped bleeding. Widow saw makeshift nose plugs stuffed up into each nostril. They looked like two halves of the same cotton ball.

  Chung asked, “Can I sit?”

  “Sure.”

  Chung pulled out the metal chair across from Widow and sat.

  “You are stranger here?”

  “I am.”

  “You want job?”

  Widow shook his head.

  “I’m retired.”

  “You young.”

  Widow said nothing.

  “You retired from what?”

  “Navy.”

  “You were soldier?”

  “Sailor. Navy has sailors, not soldiers,” he said. Then he asked, “Why aren’t the paramedics here?”

  “No hospital.”

  “Why not? Didn’t those cops call them?”

  Chung looked down.

  “Why didn’t they call them?”

  “They no call. We ask them not to call. Ambulance company almost as bad as insurance company.”

  Widow nodded. The guy didn’t want to pay for an ambulance ride and an emergency room check in. He understood that.

  “Who did this to you?”

  Chung said, “Bunch of hooligans.”

  “Who?”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t know their names. Not exactly. Just street names like Capone.”

  Widow had seen this kind of thing before. A lot of cops have. Robbers don’t bust up cooler doors and break glass inventory. Robbers get in, take what they can take, and get out. It wasn’t just a robbery. There was a clear message being delivered. The message was “pay up or else.” This had been a shakedown.

  Widow said, “I can help you.”

  “I thought you retired?”

  “Just because I don’t want a job doesn’t mean I don’t want to help you.”

  “How you help?”

  “Tell me who did this? What hooligans?”

  “I should not say.”

  “Don’t be scared. They won’t know it was you.”

  Chung paused a beat and then he said, “What you do?”

  “I can take care of it.”

  “It not that simple.”

  “Tell me.”

  Chung adjusted the half cotton balls in his nose. He winced as if he had hit a tender spot. He said, “It’s these guys. Local guys. They work this neighborhood. They’re just junkies. Drug addicts. They not real problem.”

  “Junkies?” Widow asked. In his experience, junkies were usually the bottom of the barrel. They weren’t organized enough to do any real crime other than desperate, half-ass things like mugging. They certainly weren’t organized enough to operate a shakedown operation.

  “Who’s the main guy? Who’s the real problem?”

  “Their leader is real problem. He is some mob guy. Only not really. He joke. Everybody know it. But people around here are scared of him.”

  Widow listened.

  Chung said, “He just some guy who think he mob. He dresses in suits and fancy secondhand clothes. Like ties and cufflinks and fancy hat. He talk like a gangster too, but he no gangster.”

  “He talk like gangster? Like from the 1940s?”

  “No. Not like impersonation. He talk tough. But he no tough.”

  Chung leaned in closer. He must have not wanted his wife to hear him. He said, “There more. Not just drugs. He also run girls.”

  “Girls?”

  “Yes. Rumor is they young. Not good. Not good person. He no tough gangster, but he bad man.”

  Widow didn’t like guys like that, tough or not. He asked, “What’s his name?”

  “They call him Capone.”

  Widow looked at him, cockeyed. He asked, “Capone? Like Al Capone?”

  Chung nodded.

  “Whatever. Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe street people know. But not me. I don’t associate with his friends.”

  “Someone knows. What are street people?”

  “Homeless people and junkies. Tweakers. They might tell you. Maybe.”

  “These tweakers. Where do they buy?”

  Chung shrugged. A car passed by on the street. Followed by a second one going the other way. More city street sounds wafted in through the open door. Widow looked out the window.

  He asked, “How many junkies came here and did this?”

  “Two of them. But next time they bring more guys. They say I not pay enough. They bring more. They probably bring all of them.”

  Chung stopped. He looked back over his shoulder for his wife. Then he leaned in again and said, “They say next time, we don’t pay, they break Su-jin nose. Time after that, they break her fingers till I pay.”

  “How long have these guys been shaking you up?”

  “This second time. They used to never come down this street. They must have territory somewhere north. Now they expanding.

  “First time they come month ago. They threaten me. They say we have one month to pay. I told them get out of my store. I told them I call cops.”

  “What did the cops say last time?”

  “They come. They take report. Then they do nothing.”

  Widow nodded.

  “I met the cops. Outside. Are they the same ones that came last time?”

  Chung nodded and said, “Same cops. Every time. This the edge of their neighborhood. They okay. But they do nothing until…”

  He paused. Then he said, “Until I dead.”

  Widow sat back, took a last pull of his coffee. He asked, “When are these hooligans supposed to come back?”

  Chung said, “Two days from now.”

  CHAPTER 6

  A BLACK CHEVY TAHOE with
government plates waited across the street from the visitor parking lot of Sheriff Portman’s stationhouse. Which was about a thirty-minute drive from the fire, including one long, barren road.

  The stationhouse was farther inland and farther away from clusters of suburbs closer to the ocean. It was built closer to the more rural areas. Something about fairness.

  Time had passed, as time always does. It was midafternoon now. The sun charioted across the sky. Cloud formations fanned out like a five-finger spread. The stationhouse visitor parking lot smelled of gun barrel smoke. The driver of the Tahoe had gotten bored waiting around and had found a way to pass the time. He patched a suppressor onto an untraceable Glock 19 that he had for emergency situations. He used it for target practice at the sheriff badge logo mounted on the outside wall. He did not go overboard with shooting at it. No rapid fire. He knew that there was at least one deputy posted inside. But he was too good to be speaking to a low-level deputy.

  The Tahoe driver stood at the opposite side of the Tahoe’s hood, set his elbows and arms over the hood, took aim and squeezed the trigger. He wound up using two full magazines before giving up.

  The fire had burned all night. And the Tahoe had been parked there since the early morning, waiting for the sheriff to bring the wife in for questioning. The Tahoe had been parked there like the driver knew about the fire in advance. The driver had been waiting the whole time, like a stakeout, only the subject was a rural county sheriff.

  The Tahoe’s cab was empty. Besides doing target practice, the driver of the Tahoe stood out front, smoking a cigarette. Still waiting. No rush. Not really. He was calm and patient and collected. He had to be, in his line of work. There was no real margin of error.

  Although, it was east to be calm in a place like Washington State. Even dealing with rural lawmen, like Portman, was far less pressure than dealing with the kind of men that he dealt with on a regular basis. Just about every day, he had to deal with unpredictable men. Men who would just as soon put a bullet in his head, rather than hear an excuse.

  A moment later. A puff on the cigarette later. And he spotted movement coming from the road leading up to the stationhouse. He saw Portman’s old Crown Vic driving up to the lot. Portman drove past, at first. He went out of sight like he was headed to the rear entrance. He was about to pull into his secure lot, but saw the Tahoe and realized it was the exact same one that was parked in the garage of the burning house, only it couldn’t be the exact same one. That one he had had one of his deputies move to another location, along with the Bronco.

  Portman let out a long, exhausted yawn. He had been up all night because of that fire. He had found only one survivor. He had taken her into custody and he had listened to her story. He locked her up in cuffs, in line with his better judgment, but against his better angels, but the law was the law. Everything was preliminary. But she looked guilty. It looked like she had set her house on fire on purpose. An unhappy marriage. A violent spouse. A black eye. The two packed bags. It looked like she had killed her husband.

  Before the fire crew arrived, she had sat in the back of his squad car and begged for him to release her. Portman was a good cop. He was the Boy Scout type. Never in over twenty-five years of public service had he even considered breaking the law, looking the other way, or abusing his authority. Not once. He never even thought about cutting in line at the local grocery store. Not ever.

  Not even when his wife had gotten a speeding ticket from the highway patrol one time. And he could have. It was pretty common practice to call in favors. He could have picked up the phone, called the chief of the Washington Highway Patrol and requested a little favor. But he didn’t.

  The law was the law. And he was not above it. No one was.

  But the wife that he had known for so many years, she was once the little girl that he had known. He had been close to her family, when they were still alive. Her father had gone to Vietnam with him. They had served side by side. Once he had even saved Portman’s life. Nothing dramatic. He hadn’t taken a bullet for him or anything like that. It was just a case of being under fire. And her father had told him to duck at the right moment. One second later, he’d be dead. He never doubted it. And her father had never brought it up. Not in the decades of friendship. Not once.

  When they returned to life in the States, Portman never forgot it. How could he? The Army didn’t give his friend a medal for it, like they should have. But Portman wasn’t going to forget. No way. As far as he was concerned, he owed a life debt.

  Now, her father was long gone. Over a year ago he had died from cancer. Portman wasn’t even sure that the daughter knew about the debt he owed her father. To her, there was no debt. He owed nothing.

  Only he did. He owed her more than the debt. He owed her the same thing that he owed everyone in his community—protection. So, he listened.

  She had told him a story that he couldn’t believe. But he listened.

  Just in case she told the truth, he took her Ford Bronco. He had one of his deputies move it. Not to the impound, which was standard procedure. He asked him to move it to an abandoned parking lot in front of an abandoned oil change hut, not far from the sheriff’s stationhouse. It was out of sight enough not to be seen by passing cars, but close enough to grab in case her story panned out.

  Right then, she was handcuffed inside his stationhouse, not in a cell. She was handcuffed in his office.

  He had left her there earlier that morning. Last he saw, she had laid down on his office sofa and closed her eyes.

  One of his deputies was in the bullpen. Doing everyday deskwork. Answering phones. Typing up reports. And standing guard.

  His other deputy was out on the road. Patrolling the community. Everyday police work had to go on. Fire or no fire.

  It wasn’t until he saw the man standing in front of the sheriff’s stationhouse that he started to believe her. She might have just been telling the truth. Why else would the guy be there so fast?

  Portman turned the steering wheel, and the police car scooted up onto the gravel lot. He drove over to the man at the Tahoe. He rolled down his window.

  “Can I help you?”

  The man took a drag off his cigarette. He blew out the smoke.

  The guy had a completely shaved head, not from Mother Nature or bad genetics, but from a portable electric razor. He kept his hair completely shaved. The guy had facial stubble, neatly groomed. It wasn’t until Portman had gotten close to him that he saw that he had a teardrop face tattoo. It wasn’t anything dramatic. It was right underneath his right eye. It was small and colored blood red, like a blood droplet and not a teardrop.

  Portman had never seen that before. Not a red one. He wondered what it meant. If it meant anything at all.

  The guy was wearing light blue jeans with small holes ripped out at the knees. He wore a long-sleeved black knit shirt. The sleeves rolled up sloppily over his elbows. He had natural dark skin like he had at least one Hispanic parent.

  A pair of Ray-Bans covered his eyes with wide black lenses. He took them off and hooked the temple down the collar of his shirt.

  Portman noticed he wore an expensive watch. It was silver and big and shiny. He also had a huge cowboy belt buckle. It was exposed from under the bottom of his shirt. The buckle showed a pair of crossbones—black and metal. No skull, like on warning labels for poison. It was just the crossbones.

  None of that was the thing that Portman kept his eye on. Those were just details. The main thing that made Portman nervous was a Glock 19, out in plain view in a pancake holster on the guy’s hip.

  Wearing a gun in the state of Washington wasn’t an illegal act, not with the right permit. And he might’ve had that permit. Plus, this was the country. Odds were he did not need the permit. Odds were this guy was exactly who the wife said he was. Odds were he was licensed to carry by the federal government.

  Still, Portman kept one eye on the Glock, regardless of whether or not it was holstered.

  Portman repeated hi
s question.

  “Can I help you?”

  The guy put the cigarette back in his mouth and pinched it with his lips. He reached down and grabbed the bottom of his shirt, to the left of his buckle, and he pulled it up and over to reveal a police badge.

  Portman looked at it. No, it wasn’t a police badge. It was a DEA badge.

  Portman saw a gold eagle, huge on the top. Underneath were the words: Department of Justice, the DOJ. And underneath that was a star with the words US Special Agent, and then Drug Enforcement Agency wrapped around it.

  He was DEA.

  The guy pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and spoke with a hint of an Irish accent. Which didn’t throw a monkey wrench into Portman’s theory of one Hispanic parent, not necessarily.

  The guy said, “Danny Ryman. DEA SWATters. A special ops unit of the DEA.”

  “Portman. Local Sheriff.”

  Ryman smiled and offered his free hand for Portman to shake. He offered it through the window.

  Portman took it and shook it. Ryman had a big hand, a strong grip. He seemed more military than cop, which meant that he was Special Ops. The DEA was not like other civilian law enforcement agencies.

  That’s because the drug cartels weren’t like most criminals. They operated on American soil every day. They had elaborate drug operations. And they were headquartered in foreign countries. Most other law enforcement agencies dealt with Americans committing crimes on American soil. Not the DEA. They fought a losing battle with foreign entities. Some of these entities were governments. And all of them were ruthless. And many of them had small armies to fight back.

  The cartels were equipped better than some armies of small countries. They had better weapons, more manpower, and endless supplies of cash. The DEA was underfunded, outmanned, and outgunned.

  The DEA was more like a paramilitary law enforcement agency. It had to be just to keep up the fight.

  Ryman looked like he was more a part of that military side than the civilian side.

  Portman asked, “SWATters? What is that?”

  “It’s like SWAT only worse. We are like special ops for the DEA.”

  Special ops for the DEA sounded more like black ops.

  “What can I do for the DEA?” Portman asked. He kept one hand on the wheel, obvious. It was his right hand, his gun hand. His department-issued weapon was in plain view in a holster on his right hip. Ryman could see it. And he looked directly at it. He did not make any attempt to hide his gaze. No discreet look around. Nothing casual. He just looked right at it.