by DL Barbur
I was probably most vulnerable during my morning run. It would be a simple matter for somebody to pull up in a car, or even on a motorcycle, and shoot me. For that matter, they could just get a big truck and run me over. But I ran anyway. The constant, grinding paranoia was getting to me. I was tired of waiting for the attack that never came. Making myself vulnerable was my way of defiantly giving a metaphorical middle finger to my circumstances. You want me? Here I am. Come try me.
During last year’s unpleasantness, my old house had been burned to the ground, courtesy of a firebomb. After the remains had been carted away, I sold the empty lot to a nice couple who had just gotten married. Steve was an architect and Rick was a construction contractor, so they were excited at the possibility of building their own home. I was excited to pocket their check, along with my insurance settlement and get rid of a bad memory.
My new neighborhood was one of the last vestiges of what I considered “Old Portland.” It was solidly working class, something that was going away in Portland, as housing prices rose and working families fled to the suburbs. Compared to my old neighborhood, which was rapidly gentrifying, the cars were older and had fewer bumper stickers. There were more than a few work trucks with ladders and tool boxes attached. I liked it.
Every week, I found that I had to do one more lap around the neighborhood before the burn really kicked in. I’d gotten out of shape and complacent working as a detective. I spent too much time sitting at a desk, writing reports, or sitting in a car, drinking cold coffee and surveilling a suspect. In the last six months, I shed fat and gained muscle. The last time I’d been this fit, I was a 21-year-old Army Ranger. There were quite a few things that hurt now, that hadn’t hurt twenty years ago. My knees, my ankles, and my back kept telling me this wasn’t a good idea. I tuned them out, and just kept running.
I pounded my way around the last corner, pausing to make sure Mrs. Lee saw me as she pulled her minivan into the street. Up the road Jorge and his brothers were piling into their crew cab pickup truck, heading out for another backbreaking day of hanging drywall. One of the many things I liked about this neighborhood was there was no through traffic. I’d quickly learned the vehicles that belonged here, and any newcomers stuck out like a sore thumb.
The house was nothing special, a rambling two-story bungalow that needed paint and a new roof, but I’d bought it cheap, with cash, which made obscuring the purchase through a shell company LLC and a real estate trust easier. It wasn’t bulletproof security, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for people to find me with a property records search.
I scanned the house before walking in. Everything looked good. Doors, windows, and curtains were as I’d left them. The unobtrusive security cameras didn’t look like they’d been tampered with. The only thing different was Casey’s bike was no longer locked to the front porch rail.
I let myself in, passed through the kitchen for a drink of water on my way to a shower and sighed. One of the kitchen cabinets was left open, and there was a dirty spoon sitting in the sink. I maintained a level of cleanliness and orderliness in the house that even I admitted bordered on the obsessive. My roommate, Casey, wasn’t quite so fastidious, and it grated on me even though I knew it shouldn’t.
After a shower, I checked email on my laptop. I was hoping for work. I was spending much more money than I was taking in. What I got instead made my heart stop.
It was an email from Alex.
Dent. I’ve been thinking and it’s time for me to come home to Portland. I’m finishing things up here and will fly home soon. I’ll let you know when I arrive. Alex.
I sat there for a minute at my desk, still dripping from the shower and watching the blinking cursor on the screen. I’d wanted this for months, but now that it was happening I was apprehensive. Alex and I had connected during the tumultuous events of last fall, become lovers, but she’d watched her father shot down right in front us and had withdrawn. Before I’d known it, she was on a plane to Hawaii. She’d ping-ponged back and forth all over the Pacific and Asia, Japan, Indonesia, back to Hawaii, then to Nepal for a month, then back to Hawaii.
She had been constantly in my thoughts, and frequently in my dreams. I’d worried about her safety. The people we’d fought had a global reach. But she’d made it clear she wanted me to leave her alone. Her emails were infrequent and brief.
I shook myself, made myself get up and get ready. It was out of my control. Whatever would happen would happen. I resolved to go about my day and shove it out of my mind.
My next form of torture was physical therapy. Last fall I’d taken a nasty knife slash across my left forearm, from my elbow to my wrist. Alex had patched me up, kept me from bleeding to death. But I had lasting damage to muscles, nerves, and tendons. I could move my hand, and it didn’t hurt most of the time, but occasionally I would twist my wrist the wrong way, and my pinky and ring fingers would go numb. I still frequently dropped things when I tried to pick them up with my left hand, and my grip was weak.
My physical therapist was fifteen years younger than me and looked like Eddie Vedder’s little brother, but he knew his business. Once he figured out that I would actually go home an do the exercises he prescribed with gusto, he threw himself into my case. I’d made quite a bit of progress.
I left my forty-five-minute session the way I always did, with a sore arm and a new sheet of exercises to do at home. In the parking lot, I did my usual routine, looking for signs of surveillance, then checking the car for any signs that it had been tampered with. After finding no signs of a GPS tracker or a bomb, I could finally be on my way.
I spent hours out of every day on things like this. Every time the car left my sight, I had to check it. A vehicle that stayed in my rear view mirror too long could trigger the need for half an hour of aimless driving around through side streets, checking for a tail. Once a cable TV crew had parked out front of the house, and I’d watched them carefully with binoculars, making sure they were legit.
It got old. But I wanted to keep breathing.
The smart money would have been to get the hell out of Portland, go somewhere else entirely, but I was stubborn. Portland was my home. I’d worked countless hours, bled, and nearly died protecting it. One way or another, this was where I was going to make my stand.
In some ways, I wanted them to come for me. We had unfinished business.
I spent a few hours at home, in front of the computer. I told myself I was working, but really I was just passing time. I checked messages, made sure my company website was up and running, it was all busy work. Clients weren’t exactly beating down my door. I’d had a few fraud investigations for local businesses, some security surveys, that sort of thing. I’d resisted doing divorce work, but soon I might have to do.
Then I did my usual round of web searches, checking up on a company named Cascade Aviation. They were a pretty shadowy outfit, contractor to intelligence agencies. Some of their employees and the owner’s son had been involved in a human trafficking ring. I’d discovered it and it had kicked off the festivities last fall, which had left me with no job, a nasty scar on my arm and my best friend dead.
There was nothing new. I don’t know why I expected there to be. There never was.
Finally, it was time for Krav Maga class. I headed farther east, and south, to Milwaukee, Oregon and spent the next hour in constant motion, sweating my ass off. I’d tried and rejected various martial arts half a dozen times over the years. They were too intricate, too flowery and I’d find myself in the middle of class thinking “there’s no way in hell this would work,” and I’d quit.
Krav Maga was different. The Israelis had taken the best, simplest and most brutal techniques from all over the world and blended them together. Every time I went to class, I found myself nodding my head because everything I was learning jibed with my experience dozens of fights on the street.
Today was kick day. Steve, my favorite workout partner, was as big as me, and a glutton for punishment. We gave eac
h other a high knuckle and wasted no time, taking turns holding a kick shield and blasting full power kicks into each other. We worked round kicks, side kicks, and front kicks for an hour, and by the time we were done there was a puddle of sweat on the mat around us and my hips and hamstrings were screaming.
I had just enough time to gulp a bottle of water, and out of deference to my next partner, change into a shirt that wasn’t soaked with sweat, then it was time for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu had a complicated history, starting in Japan, but coming to the US via a family in Brazil. Most of the time was spent fighting on the ground, maneuvering for dominance and trying to apply joint locks and submission holds.
I wasn’t very good at it. I took to the striking in Krav Maga like I was born to it. I like to hit things. Jiu-Jitsu was like a chess game. You defeated your opponent using sensitivity and technique, not brute strength. When I first started, I found myself routinely getting folded up like a pretzel by people half my size. It was frustrating but I stuck with it and I was making slow progress.
Most of the class was tough going. I struggled with applying new techniques, and barely held my own. At the end of the class though, I surprised myself by applying a sneaky little weight shift and rolling my opponent into an arm bar. I think Ron, my opponent, was actually happy for me, despite the pressure I was applying on his elbow. He’d displayed a tremendous amount of patience with my newbie clumsiness.
After class, I had nothing to do. That was the biggest adjustment to life after police work. Before, I worked non-stop, chasing criminals, slept whenever I could, and then got up to do it again. I’d managed to squeeze in some time here and there with a girlfriend, but had no other life than that. Now I had hours of free time, time to sit and stew, rehash old memories and worry about the future.
Casey wasn’t home when I got back. She ran her own computer security consulting business. I’d told myself I’d taken her on as a roommate because I needed the money. That was partially true, but the real reason was she had gone through the events of last year with me. It all seemed so surreal that I think I wanted to keep her close. I wanted somebody around me who had seen the same things, just for reassurance that I wasn’t crazy, that it hadn’t all been a delusion.
I’d finished my second shower of the day when one of my cell phones rang. It was the one I used for my business. I got excited at the prospect of work, both for the money and for something to do.
“Miller Investigations and Security,” I answered on the third ring, still holding a towel around my waist.
“Dent?” It was a woman’s voice. I recognized her, but I couldn’t quite place it. I wanted it to be Alex, but I knew it wasn’t.
“Yes, this is Dent,” I said, refusing to play the whole “who is this?” game.
“Dent, it’s Gina.”
Finally, the voice clicked. Gina. Al Pace’s widow, and Alex’s stepmother.
“Gina. How can I help you?”
“Dent, I need help with something. Can I meet you?”
I blinked. Frankly, I hadn’t thought much about Gina since Al’s death. I’d never liked her, and had never expected to see her again. But she was Al’s wife. Even if I didn’t care for her, I cared for Al and his memory.
“What’s going on, Gina?”
“I can’t tell you. Not on the phone. I need to see you.” Her voice trembled like she was on the verge of crying.
“Ok,” I said. “I’ll try to help you. Let’s meet somewhere. Downtown? Say in a couple of hours?”
She paused for a long moment, and I thought the call had dropped when she finally said, “I can’t… I’m not able to travel right now. Can you come to me?”
A warning bell went off in my head. If I let her set the meeting place, I was letting her control the situation. I was giving up all control. I could be walking into anything.
I rationalized it. It was Al’s widow for crying out loud. My paranoia had to stop somewhere.
“Ok,” I said. “Tell me where.”
She rattled off an address in East Portland, the Hazelwood neighborhood. It wasn’t really all that far away from me. I was surprised. Gina’s usual haunts were over in the northwest corner of town, where the rich people lived.
I looked at the clock. “Ok, Gina. I’ll be over in a little while. I’ve got some things to finish up.”
“That’s fine, Dent.” She sniffed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Gina. See you soon.”
I put the phone down, wondering what I was about to get myself into.
CHAPTER THREE
I’d lied to Gina. I didn’t really have anything to do, but I wanted to keep my arrival time vague. I wanted to get there as soon as possible.
One of my old sergeants in the Army had a saying: “make haste slowly.” I don’t think he invented it, but he used it often enough it stuck in my head. So I hurried, but I did it deliberately. I dressed in khaki pants, a t-shirt, and a button-down shirt with a square bottom that would cover my gun. Then I took a few minutes to look up the address Gina had given me.
It was a rental house in a neighborhood between Glisan and Halsey streets. The lots were small and the streets were narrow. There were no unpredictable ways in or out. If I tried to drive by and reconnoiter the neighborhood ahead of time, I’d be spotted.
I tried to figure out what was bugging me as I strapped on my equipment. The Wilson Combat 10mm went in a holster on my right hip, inside my waistband. I slid a little five-shot .38 revolver in my front right pocket. I clipped a funny looking little fixed blade knife, called a Clinch Pick, to my belt, just to the left of the buckle. The sap in my back pocket completed the ensemble. That was how I dressed when there might be trouble. If I was certain there would be trouble, there was body armor, a rifle, and a shotgun in the back of my SUV.
It was nine o’clock, but just starting to get dark as I drove. I’d splurged for the satellite radio when I leased the Ford Explorer I was driving. Jimi Hendrix’s version of “Killing Floor” was coming through the speakers as I made my way through Portland traffic. I hoped it wasn’t an omen.
Al’s first wife had died when Alex was twelve years old, a suicide. He’d raised Alex himself, juggling the demands of being a beat cop, then a detective, then a lieutenant, with the demands of a single dad until Alex was safely off to college. Gina had appeared out of nowhere. Before any of us knew it, the two were married. I’d seen much less of my old mentor after the marriage. Gina didn’t seem to approve of his old cop buddies.
Al had gone to work for the federal government. He’d teamed up with a shadowy FBI agent named Bolle, who ran a Department of Justice anti-corruption task force that had been investigating Cascade Aviation. When I arrested the son of Cascade Aviation’s owner for murder, all those worlds collided, and Al wound up dead, shot by a sniper only an arm’s length away from me.
I wondered what Gina had gotten herself into. I wondered if it had something to do with a man. It probably did. She’d cut quite the swath through Portland before Al. I was a little fuzzy on how many ex-husbands she had.
I told myself I would be polite and respectful to Gina. She was Al’s widow. But if she wanted me to spy on her latest husband or boyfriend to see if he was cheating, I would draw the line.
The route I took was nonsensical, with plenty of doubling back, lane changes and last minute turns. I was certain nobody was following me. I had my phone turned off, and inside a special pouch that blocked signals. The car was clean, it had sat in the garage the whole time it had been out of my sight.
Fairly certain I wasn’t being followed, I turned off Halsey and headed towards the address Gina had given me. The neighborhood was quiet. Most of the houses were old enough not to have driveways, so there were many vehicles parked on the street. They all looked like they belonged there, though. They were older, bunches of mini-vans, little commuter cars, and beater sedans. I was keeping my eyes open for bland looking, late model sedans, SUVs and vans, particularly ones with
lots of antennas, but I didn’t see any.
I drove past the address and parked. The house looked vacant. There were no curtains and there was no furniture on the porch. A single light burned inside. The porch light wasn’t on. There was a Volvo parked out front. I recognized it as Gina’s car.
There was a satchel hanging from the headrest of the passenger seat. I reached over and found what I wanted by feel, a night vision monocular. It was just dark enough for the monocular. I gave the street and the area around the house a look.
Nothing.
I still felt like something was wrong.
I pulled my phone out of its signal blocking wallet and sent Casey a quick text message, letting her know what was going on. I waited a minute or two for a reply, but the phone stayed silent.
I got out of the car and pulled a tan windbreaker out of the back seat. It wasn’t really cool enough to need it, but I put it on anyway. I fished my little revolver out of my pants pocket and slid it into the pocket of the windbreaker. Somebody watching would have been hard-pressed to see what I’d done. The gun was small and I did it quick.
Hand in pocket, on the grip of the little revolver, I walked toward the house. It was a nice night. A gentle breeze blew from the west, carrying the scent of flowers from the yard of the house next door. The traffic from busy Halsey and Glisan streets was a barely heard murmur. Many folks had their windows open and I could hear the clank of dishes being washed, the murmur of conversations, the laugh of a child.
In my pocket, I felt my cell phone vibrating with an incoming text message. Unlike most people, I was able to ignore an incoming message. I was busy right now. I’d get back to it later.
The porch was still dark. I knocked with my left hand, my right was still on the grip of the gun. I stood off to the side, in case somebody decided to cut loose with a shotgun.
Gina popped the door open so quick she must have been standing right on the other side waiting for me. As soon as I saw her I knew something was wrong. Her makeup was streaked and her eyes were red. There was a smudge of dirt on her blouse. Something was very wrong. Even if she had a new husband and she thought he was cheating, even if she’d killed her husband and had asked me over to help hide the body, the Gina I knew, would have fixed her makeup and put on a clean shirt.