The Informers (The Stringers Book 2)

by TJ Martinell

  I grabbed some of the spare tools from the trunk and went to work.

  “Do you know how to fix the engine?” she asked.

  “If you look at it the right way.”

  I finally found the main problem. The fuel line had been damaged by one of the many bullets they had shot at us. Thankfully, Hernandez had insisted we carry spare car parts. I cleaned the damaged fuel line with a rag and then applied several wraps of duct tape. This fix should hold till we get back if an unexpected spark didn’t ignite the gas that had sprayed over the engine.

  Working fast, I could finish in fifteen minutes.

  When I was finished I had Jean lean inside the car and turn the ignition. She whispered a short prayer and then twisted the key. The car cranked for a terribly long moment. Then finally a wonderful sound of tiny explosions of gas and air and fire led to continuous rumble as the engine revived.

  We threw ourselves inside the car and took off. It was dangerous to drive so aggressively in a neighborhood controlled by a hyper local newspaper fiercely protective of their territory, but I couldn’t delay another second.

  Jean was prepared for another fight. Her Tommy gun was loaded and cocked, nestled against her chest as she gazed out at the street in anticipation. The rest of the drive was silent as finished remaining three miles to Pike Place and reached the dilapidated hovels lining the streets of Belltown. I slowed down the car and turned the lights off and on in a deliberate succession to indicate our arrival to friendly parties.

  To the pedestrians on the street it was a visual nuisance, but anyone who knew Morse Code would be able to read it. Few knew how. Even fewer would be looking for it on car headlights.

  We came to 5th Avenue and Virginia Street. A small section of the old Monorail still stood at the intersection. Underneath it was a gathering of makeshift shacks, the barbed wire surrounding it a mark of ownership by the local enclave. To the right a theatre building stood with worn stone beading and jagged cornice decorating the outside, its shattered balcony looming above the street. A front window overlooked the corner, covered by wooden boards.

  A small beam of light flashed in-between the boards.

  Coming to a near stop, I flashed the headlights. The reply came. I then gave the countersign.

  The front door to the theatre opened slowly.

  I snatched my notebook, checked to ensure the contents were still there, then looked at Jean for a fleeting moment.

  “I’ll meet you later,” I said.

  I didn’t wait for her to reply. I sprinted up the steps to the building. The man at the door opened it and then turned as the door closed and thrust his gun back into his jacket. Inside the lobby the darkness was thick. Musty air greeted me with its pungent aroma. I didn’t need the dim light fixture to find my way around, having memorized the layout from my hundreds of other prior visits. I headed west to the edge of the lobby where another obscure man stood smoking and coughing violently. He looked up at me anxiously, shaking his head.

  “Sonuva bitch! Ya have any idea―”

  “Yeah! Move!”

  I pushed him to the side and ran up to the phone booth converted from an old elevator. I closed the door, flipped open my notebook and clutched the phone as I dialed for Phil Nguyen’s desk phone. Each ring was like a death knell until he finally answered. I quickly dictated my notes to him with a trembling voice. Gradually my nerves calmed.

  Once again, I had narrowly pulled it off.

  “How are things there?” I asked, still dictating to him.

  “Olan is already flipping out. It’s almost deadline. But don’t worry about it.”

  I made small talk to the two guards who kept the safe house, consumed two cigarettes quickly before taking long drags on the third. When I had finished it, I spat the taste out of my mouth and paced around the lobby, looking again at my watch as deadline passed unceremoniously, the same way it had hundreds of other times. Initially, each successful story completion had been a cause of celebration for me. Now, I was settling into a frame of mind where I expected myself to deliver them. I was more productive than ever, yet that fact offered me little happiness.

  Near the back of the lobby, I leaned against a column as I took a long drag on a fifth cigarette, flicking the ashes down at my feet and spitting off to the side as I let the tobacco dissipate the anxiety from my mind. It had become a custom, a tradition of mine. Some days were better than others.

  I gestured to the two men and walked up to the front door. The one guard came over to me and inspected the street through the window, then waved me a clear signal. I exited and walked onto the street, buttoning up my coat.

  Seconds later Jean returned with the car. I went to get inside but she shifted over to the passenger side and insisted I could drive if I was well enough. The pain in my arm had subsided. Jean would insist I see a doctor. I’d agree, but never do it.

  “Are you all right?” Jean asked. “You do not look all right.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  “I know looks can be deceiving. Your looks are not deceiving me.”

  The rest of the drive to the International District put me at ease. Pike Place and the adjacent area were regarded as neutral. Newspapers operated out of them, but there was a strict no-shooting policy. The market’s association insisted their businesses not be hampered or affected by fighting.

  Things had changed a bit since I had first joined on. White Center’s paper the Urban Dispatch had been bought out through a very literal – and violent - hostile takeover. Now, the new owners were struggling to keep control of their unruly pressroom. Ballard’s Snoose News had reorganized after struggling to keep up with nearby competition with Fremont’s Tribune.

  Despite their nicknames, the Fremonties had stuck with a formal newspaper title that also reflected their internal organizational structure. Their delivery crews were slowly working their way into Queen Anne, muscling in on territory traditionally controlled by the Royal Gazette.

  Meanwhile, minor newspapers like Rainier Valley and Belltown were reportedly profitable, primarily because they avoided conflicts with other newspapers. Together, the Tribune and the Examiner were the two biggest competitors of McCullen’s Press.

  I was thinking of Polchinski. I couldn’t put his dead face out of my mind. It was a face of a man who did not expect death at that moment. Had it not been for our unknown saviors, they would have had us. I had respect for them, respect for their abilities, and that respect brought with it guilt. I had lived only because someone else had mysteriously intervened.

  I thought of what Tom had told me during my first days as a stringer, how if killing had to be done to do it and not think twice. He had also warned me again and again and again not to think too much about it, said it’d drive a man crazy.

  I believed him.

  I turned to Jean, smiled weakly. She reached out with her hand and I instinctively took it and grasped it. I eagerly contemplated the imminent pleasure of soothing music, a drink and a newspaper to take my mind away from all my troubles.

  Chapter Two

  The library was nearly empty when we entered. The SoDo Quarter was on the stage, the soft lull of jazz song gently resonating out into the room until it petered out as though dispersing into the cold, fresh air that hinted of aged wood. Depending on the day, the owner Jamal would toss in an aroma that fit well with the mood he wished to set for the night’s entertainment.

  That night, it was relatively empty. The beginning and end of the work week saw the most action, hardly standing room. I avoided those days. The company was no less agreeable, but there was something about the library I appreciated when the patrons were few, creating a sense of intimacy not otherwise available. Just us and the musicians. Like our own private club.

  A waiter bustled across the room with a stack of newspaper thrust under his arm. Tom sat alone at the same booth he always sat at in the northeast corner of the room. He had a lit cigarette wedge betwe
en his fingers and a newspaper half-folded in his hand. Two glasses of brandy sat on the table, one half-filled in front of him and the other topped off at the brim on the opposite end waiting for me to enjoy. He never ordered a drink for Jean, and it never seemed to bother her.

  He looked up and smiled but it was a pretentious smile. Something bothered him.

  “Nice to see you alive.”

  Jean scooted to the end of the booth and I sat across from Tom. He put his cigarette down and held up his brandy to make a toast.

  “To another day alive and in one piece,” he said. He raised his eyebrow. “Have you looked at the wound?”

  “Yeah. It’s fine. I’ve taken care of it.”

  He then looked at Jean again and asked her if he and I could speak alone.

  “You may,” she said as she motioned for me to move. She slid between me and the table and walked over to the bar counter. The bartender wasn’t overtly friendly to her. Nobody had liked her when she had been with the Fifth Avenue Boys, and that hadn’t changed just because they were dead and she was with me now. The bartender only made her a drink after I nodded in approval. He knew I was good about paying my tab.

  “How bad is it?” Tom asked.

  “Didn’t get shot,” I replied. “Some shrapnel from the metal plate in the driver’s seat.”

  “Lucky bastard.”

  “I am. Polchinski ain’t. Unless his brains are located somewhere other than his head.”

  “You got him?”

  “No. Someone did. Not sure who.”

  “Why did that same person not kill you?” Tom asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  Tom sighed and breathed deeply and drank more brandy. He was probably on his third glass, but there were no signs he was inebriated. Years of going to the same library every week drinking the same drink every night built a strong tolerance.

  “I’m impressed,” he said. “I’d like to tell you that you shouldn’t have done it. I’d like to say it was too big a risk. But it’s not exactly something I avoided myself. However, Polchinski getting bumped off ain’t gonna go over well with them.”

  Tom drank more brandy, tapping his fingers against the tabletop as he paused to listen to the final notes resonating from the stage. The quarter stopped except for the violinist, Adrianna, a tall girl who maintained a perpetually stoic expression as she played whether her music was joyful or melancholic. I knew it was only a part of her onstage persona.

  “Can I give you some advice?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t want to make more enemies than friends here. You’re still new. You’re also young. That’s not in your favor in anyone’s eyes. They see you as young and stupid, and yeah, maybe lucky. The last thing you need right now is to be on someone’s radar, on a list of targets in an editor’s office. As it is, right now you’re probably just a nuisance. They can forgive one incident. But you keep it up and they’ll decide you’re worth sending the delivery boys into our territory, and before you know it we got ourselves another war, but by the time the real shooting starts you’re already dead.”

  I took a prolonged sip of brandy, letting the smooth liquor slid down my throat as I avoided Tom’s gaze.

  “Luck isn’t infinite,” Tom said. “You’ll run out of it eventually. When it does you want it to be when you don’t need a lot of it, or any at all. Your father learned that the hard way.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He grinned. “I never figured it would turn out like this for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the opposite of what you were when McCullen first dumped your ass in my place. You could hardly stand to see a gun. Now you look for a chance to use it. You could hardly stand to be around someone who smoked. Now you burn through more my packs than I do.”

  I looked over at Jean sitting at the bar counter with a small glass of whiskey. She had a serene air about her as she sipped on her drink and looked at the stage with a subtle expression that hinted at a private pleasure she derived from the music. She had untied her ponytail and let her tangled hair fall in front of her face and she brushed it off onto her shoulders with a child-like youthfulness.

  She looked back at me and smiled, then turned back to the quartet.

  “So, what’s with the crazy gal?” Tom asked.

  “She’s not crazy. She’s just not normal.”

  Tom groaned. “I’ve never heard that one before. If we took the word of every young red-blooded guy with the mating habits of a jack rabbit, there ain’t no bad women in this world. Just different.”

  “I don’t keep her around for that.”

  “Why, then?

  “What are you really worried about?”

  Tom finished the rest of his brandy, refused the offer when the waiter came by to take it and replace it with a full glass. He rubbed his eyes and sighed.

  “I’m not trying to make you mad as hell at me, kid,” he said. “I’m trying to keep you alive. If anything were to happen to you, I couldn’t look Carl in the face again if I ever see him again. Hell, I might not even be able to look at myself in the mirror. He was the only friend I had, and you’re the only son he’s got. What kind of friend would I be if I let his only son go and get killed because he did something stupid that I might have prevented?”

  He wasn’t speaking of it directly, but it was obvious what concerned him. A few months ago, I had finally moved out of the place with him to take up residence in an old dining car by the train station. Jean lived in the car as well, in her own separate compartment. I hadn’t told Tom until afterwards, knowing he would attempt to talk me out of it. The bitterness of my abrupt departure still lingered in his voice, but his pride forced him to conceal it.

  “Look, you may think you know that girl,” he said. “I’m not sure what you’re whole thing is with her, but―”

  “I trust her,” I interrupted, looking at him firmly. “She’s loyal and helps me. That’s it. There’s nothing more to it.”

  He laughed nervously, stammered for a bit before he got more words out.

  “You think you know someone,” he said. “I get it. Carl thought he knew someone, too.”

  “Yeah. Who?”

  He shook his head. “Not my story to tell.”

  Belching, he wiped his mouth and reached for his coat, throwing it on as he got out of the booth. We walked together to the bar where Jean was applauding Adrianna.

  “By the way,” Tom said, “McCullen is going to call you in tomorrow to his office.”

  “What for?”

  “Your ISA side project.”

  I paused, turned and looked at Tom with concern. “What about it?”

  “Just be prepared.”

  I shook Tom’s hand and offered him help if he needed assistance on a story. He had something in mind but gave few details about it, and it was evident Jean’s presence was the cause for the ambiguity. He threw his fedora on and left while buttoning up his coat, hurriedly shaking hands with the library’s owner, Jamal as he departed.

  I paid for my tab. Jean’s hand on my arm, we took the main exit from the library and came out on the sidewalk, standing beneath the decaying façade of the building. No longer among the fugitive list, my record unofficially erased, I was free to wander and travel without dreading detection from a raven or a surveillance camera identifying my face.

  But as far as the ISA were concerned, Jean did not exist at all. Her records had been taken care of, thanks to Casey, who had done so at my request. Jean knew all except the part I had played making it happen.

  ***

  I didn’t want to admit it in front of Tom, but he was right. I had changed much in the year since I had first arrived. So much so, that the time before it seemed like the life of an entirely separate person unknown to me now.

  A year ago, my future was set in the opposite direction. Working as an apprentice at one of Bellevue
’s news sites, well on my way to earning my journalism license, the last thing I could have envisioned was working for one of the illegal newspapers I read about all the time on the other side of Lake Washington. To me, they had been mysterious but brutally violent gangs of men defying federal laws, such as the Cybersecurity Act, which created a de facto ban on print news publications while heavily regulating publishable content online.

  It was the task of the ISA, a.k.a. the Information Security Administration, to enforce those rules. As I had learned by now, they would use any measures needed to crush resistance to their authority.

  However, I had initially regarded the presence of their officers within every newsroom to review and approve stories for publication to be an innate part of the journalism world, an inconvenient but necessary procedure to prevent misinformation from spreading through the Net. It had not been mine to question why, only to write – or rather, think and let my thought processor do the writing for me. Outside of my father’s distaste for them, I also had never questioned the legally-mandated use of Prizm, thin strip-like devices attached to our right temples connecting our minds to the Net and our IGPS, or Individual Government Profiles.

  How optimistic I had been. And naïve.

  All that had changed the night my father had been arrested by the ISA without a word of explanation by the officers that had trashed our home in the process. My search for his whereabouts eventually drew the ire of the ISA. Had it not been for Tom’s intervention, I would have languishing in a detention facility rather than driving freely along the streets of Seattle.

  The old dining car was on the tracks farthest to the left at King Street Station. The car was kept away, beneath an overhang protecting it from weather and ravens’ surveillance lens. The lines of dark red covered the formerly enamel exterior like vines of crimson ivy. Rough patches on the roof covered holes where the rust had fully eaten away at the metal. Most of the glass in the window has been shattered, replaced with boards I had installed myself.