The Severed Thread

by Dione C. Suto

  “How much money?”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  I whistled. Fifty thousand in cash was a lot of money to magically show up in the bank account of a Port Authority employee. I guess it was possible that he had a great aunt die recently or something, but usually money like that came in the form of a check, not cash.

  “Anything else?”

  “Lots of phone calls to Andrei and Luca, starting about a week before the deposit. There were also a few calls to Lassiter, which I found interesting.”

  Hmm… He received a chunk of cash around the right time, he definitely started or at least amped up his friendship with the goons during the right timeframe, and he was talking to someone at Lassiter – which could have been Jason.

  “Is there any way to track which extension he was calling at Lassiter?”

  “No,” she said apologetically. “I asked. Once the call comes into the main number, our phone system doesn’t keep track of the transfer to the extensions. Apparently that feature requires an upgrade.”

  “Alright, since we are racking up a bill with our new contractor anyway, I think I will put her to work on my other problem,” I said. “Can you ask her to look into what the hell is going on with the Lassiter Shipping retirement fund? I just had a fun and uninformative chat with dear old dad. The old man is hiding something for certain, I just can’t figure out what.”

  “This is going to start getting expensive.” I could almost see her cringing through the phone at the amount of money we were getting ready to spend.

  “Can’t be more expensive than the missing 2.8 million.”

  “True,” she snorted.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I start hesitantly, changing the subject.

  “God forbid!”

  “No really. I’m serious here. I think we should make a trip to The Howler.” There was silence on the other end of the line. It lasted so long that I thought I had lost the connection.

  “Sam, you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m still here,” she said, sighing. “Do you really think that is a good idea?” Probably not but I still wanted to go.

  “I want to figure out what Harvey is up to. I want to find out more about his recreational activities since all I currently have to go on is opportunity and a large cash deposit.”

  “What do you expect to discover at a club?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” I admitted. I just knew I had to do something. “Tomorrow night?”

  “Alright,” she conceded reluctantly. Actually I think she would have sounded more excited about a root canal. “For the record, I think that this is a stupid idea.”

  I was just glad she capitulated. It was the best I could hope for I guess. We made plans to meet at my house at nine-thirty tomorrow night. Just as I hung up with Samantha, the phone started to ring. I looked at the number. I couldn’t place it but it looked vaguely familiar.

  “Hello?”

  “Yeah, this is Joey. You left a message.” The voice on the phone was pure South Philly.

  “Joey Jansk?”

  “That’s me.

  “Do you know why I called earlier?” I asked carefully. It didn’t seem like the best idea to be talking about smuggling illegal drugs through the port over the phone.

  “I think I have a feel for the situation.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Can we meet somewhere?”

  “Sure, how about the Greenwich Diner?” I thought about that a minute. I had never actually eaten there before but had driven by the place.

  “That’s a little close to the Packer Avenue Terminal isn’t it?” The Packer Avenue Terminal was up river from Tioga and just a couple of blocks from that particular diner. I couldn’t imagine explaining what I was doing having lunch with Joey if he or I were recognized by anyone.

  “Nah, don’t worry. The food and the coffee are lousy. No one from the terminal goes there.”

  “Something to look forward to,” I replied dryly. “When?”

  “Tomorrow, around noon?”

  “That works for me. How will I recognize you?”

  “I will be the only guy there without grey hair and a walker,” he said and I laughed.

  “Gotcha.”

  Chapter 24

  The next day I made my way to the Greenwich Diner with a sense of nervous dread setting like a lead weight in my belly. Now that I was actually in the process of making the arrangements to smuggle in the Sapphire, I was struggling with the reality of what I was doing. Morally this whole scheme rubbed me the wrong way. I kept telling myself that I was doing it to protect my friends but it still irked me. How many nameless somebodies was I sacrificing in order to keep my friends safe?

  I had never used illegal drugs myself. I mean, come on, they were illegal for a reason, right? In the case of Sapphire, the high caused the user to act in ways that could threaten their personal safety. Thinking back to that night on the docks I knew I would have done anything to satisfy the craving for sex and the room had been filled with at least a hundred others on the same euphoric journey.

  I parked in the lot in front of the diner and looked around. It had an enormous light-up sign, the type that was fashionable in the nineteen-sixties. It advertised a cocktail lounge and an on-site bakery. I looked over at the building itself. My idea of a good place to have a cocktail and theirs were obviously drastically different. I was never going to be interested in having a cruller or a bear-claw served up alongside my Fire-Lemon Drop.

  A bell over the door jingled when I entered, causing a waitress to hurry from behind the counter to greet me. “Would you like to sit at the counter?” she asked.

  “No actually, I’m meeting someone. Can I take a look around?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” she shrugged, waving her hand out towards the booths.

  “Thanks,” I smiled and made my way past the tables against the front window. Joey hadn’t been joking. All the booths contained an assorted collection of blue-haired patrons. There was a table with three ladies gossiping right near the door and half way down the row an older married couple were eating without making eye contact, the husband so intent on devouring his soup that I wasn’t sure he even knew his wife was there. Similar scenes could be viewed across the aisle.

  I got to the end of the row and turned left. There was a man sitting in the corner booth watching me intently over the rim of the coffee mug he was holding. I studied him as I approached. He appeared to be in his late forties but I was guessing he was much older since he was a Were. He was thin and wiry and even though he was sitting I got the impression that he was of average height. He was a ginger with matching eyebrows, close cropped beard and a smattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks. The most arresting thing about him was the color of his eyes. They were an unusual light amber color that was nearly identical to the color of his hair.

  I raised my eyebrows in question. He nodded and indicated that I should take the seat across the table from him.

  “Joey?” I asked before officially seating myself. Seemed like it would be awkward to sit down and find out I had the wrong booth.

  “That’s me. I know who you are already,” he said with a smile. “Everyone at the docks know the Lassiter’s.”

  “Really?” I said with a wry laugh as I scooted across the vinyl seat. I wasn’t sure what I thought about everyone at the port knowing who I was.

  “Yeah. Really.” He shrugged before taking a sip of his coffee. He grimaced at the taste and set the cup down carefully. I guess he forgot to take his own advice about the bad food and coffee. “You own a huge shipping company with Philly as its home port. That’s pretty unusual.”

  “I hadn’t really ever thought about it I guess,” I admitted truthfully, shrugging. We employed hundreds of people on our ships and quite a few in the office as well but it never really occurred to me that the dock workers and port authority personnel would pay much attention.

  “Huh,” was his reply. I guess that surprised him. The waitress show
ed up before either of us could say more.

  “What can I get you?” she asked, looking at me. I remembered Joey’s warning that the food was bad and from his grimace, so was the coffee.

  “I’ll just have a cup of tea, if you have it.” I said with a smile.

  “No breakfast?”

  “No, just the tea,” I said smiling up at her. “With a little side of milk.” I couldn’t stand creamer in my tea.

  “Sure,” she said looking disappointed, already anticipating a slim tip with only coffee and tea on the order.

  “So,” I drug out the word after the waitress departed to fetch my tea. Here was the part I had been dreading. “Jonathan seems to think you can help me with a problem I have.”

  “Yeah, he mentioned that.”

  “What is your job at the port exactly?” I couldn’t figure out how to say, ‘Hey, any interest in helping me smuggle some Sapphire?’

  “I monitor the gamma scanners mounted on the cranes.” He shook his head as if thinking about something amazing. “The things that can be found in those containers never ceases to surprise me. Especially the things no one wants reported to the Port Authority.” He eyed me meaningfully.

  “Actually,” I said beginning to feel heat creep into my face as I contemplated what I needed to say next. “That is what I wanted to talk with you about.”

  “That’s what the pack-master said. He told me you might have something that needed to stay under the radar.” He tilted his head inquiringly. “That sound about right?”

  “Unfortunately,” I said pulling a face, “that does sound right.”

  “What type of shipment we talking about?”

  I couldn’t seem to stop another grimace from forming on my face before I replied. “A reefer container of bananas coming out of Panama.”

  His face hardened a little. I knew that he knew exactly what that meant. I decided I might as well spill all the gory details.

  “I need to get eleven shipments through over the next year, the first of which is coming in next week on the Lassiter Tempest.” It came out in an apologetic rush. I kept watching Joey, hopeful that he would help me. If he didn’t, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

  The waitress chose that moment to return with my tea. “Anything else I can get you?” She looked at me and then Joey. We both shook our heads. “Alright,” she said before making her way to another table.

  “You don’t strike me as a smuggler, if you don’t mind my saying,” Joey said, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

  “Thank you,” I smiled weakly at him. “I don’t mind at all because really, I’m not.” I looked down at my fingers twisted in my lap and sighed. “I have to pay off an inherited debt. If I don’t, people I care about are going to get hurt.”

  “Inherited huh? Well I always wanted to find myself the recipient of a nice inheritance. I guess it pays to be careful what you wish for.”

  I laughed bitterly. “You definitely don’t want to wish this inheritance on anyone.”

  “The only dead person I have heard of lately that concerns you would be your brother Jason. Sounds like a good thing not to have been his heir.”

  “Yeah,” I said running my hands through my hair. That was the understatement of the week.

  “No need to worry,” he said after studying me a few moments. “I’ll help you to get your debt settled.”

  “Oh thank God,” I said in a rush. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. There are still things that can go wrong, even with my help.” He scratched his beard as he thought. “The biggest potential problem is that I might not get stationed on the crane offloading the Lassiter Tempest. If someone else is running the scanner, I can almost guarantee that they will find whatever it is you don’t want found.”

  I thought about that a minute. “Do they run those assignments through a computer system?” I asked.

  “They do,” he said nodding.

  “How far in advance are the assignments made?”

  “The night before I think, why?”

  I smiled. “I think I can arrange it so you are working the right crane.” It was going to cost me but I was betting Nemesis could do it.

  “Don’t tell me how,” he waved his hands back and forth in front of him. “I’m sure I don’t want to know.”

  “One more thing, this might seem a little odd but can you take this with you next week when the shipment comes in? For luck,” I added, handing across a small black pouch. He looked at the bag and then to me questioningly.

  “Open it,” I reassured him, nodding my head.

  He slipped the contents from the bag and looked at the heavyweight gold chain with my pinky-ring dangling from it, his eyebrows knit in puzzlement. I could tell he was baffled by the request but to his credit, the man didn’t ask any questions.

  “Sure, I can’t see any harm in a little extra good luck.” I didn’t tell him the token was less about luck and more about the emotion absorbed within it. “But before anything happens I will need the shipment and container details and there is also the issue of my fee.” He slipped a piece of folded paper across the table on which was written the sum of money he expected to be paid.

  I blinked at him. Not because the figure was unreasonable, it wasn’t. I had just assumed Jonathan told him to do it so he would do it out of some allegiance to the pack. For some idiotic reason it never occurred to me that I would be paying him. Naïve much, Abigail? I must have had all my thoughts written across my face because he looked at me and whistled softly.

  “What? You thought I was going to risk going to prison without getting paid?” He laughed softly before a serious expression settled onto his face. “I don’t like smugglers Miss Lassiter, and drug dealers are the worst scum of the earth. I’m going to help you because the pack-master has asked me too. Asked,” he clarified. “Not told.”

  I blinked in surprise again.

  “I surprised you again. You need to develop a better poker face,” his expression serious. “Jonathan Wilder is a fair leader. He very rarely requires any of us to do something that goes against our individual moral code. When he does, it’s important. Very important.”

  “Why are you helping me then?” I had to ask. He just said he hated smugglers and drug dealers. This whole thing seemed to go against his principles.

  “Two reasons. I have decided I like you Miss Lassiter. I didn’t expect to but I do. Never did have much time for the rich and famous.”

  “I’m hardly famous,” I scoffed.

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice you didn’t try to say you weren’t rich.” There was a little twinkle in his eye. “You been in the paper more than once?”

  “Sure, I suppose,” I said with a shrug.

  “That’s famous.”

  “If you say so,” I laughed. I liked Joey. He was a good guy. And he was going to help me! I wanted to reach across the table and hug him.

  “I do.”

  “And?” I prompted. He looked up from his coffee with a puzzled expression.

  “You said there were two reasons.”

  “So I did,” he answered with a smile. “You smell like pack and nothing aggravates me more than seeing one of my pack-mates between a vampire and hard place.” I was becoming less annoyed and increasingly more grateful to Corbin for his little ‘mark Abigail’ extravaganza with each passing day.

  Chapter 25

  “You are so not wearing that!” Samantha said later that evening when I opened the door to let her into the house.

  I looked down at my outfit and frowned as she breezed past me into the foyer. I had on heels and black slacks with a green V-neck sweater. I knew it was perhaps a bit conservative but I still thought I looked nice. "What's wrong with my outfit?"

  "Nothing, if you are going out for afternoon tea!" Samantha said flinging her hands up in exasperation. "This is a club, Abigail! A club where people will be high on Sapphire and grinding their bodies against each other."

  "I'
m not planning on being high or doing any grinding." Samantha gave my outfit the hairy eyeball, completely unmoved by my argument.

  "I realize that, but you need to look like that's what you want to do, or else you’re going to stand out, and not in a good way."

  “I still think I look fine,” I said stubbornly, shutting the door on the muffled laughter of the two wolves standing guard outside.

  "Mmmhmm," she said before grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the stairs. "Come on. I know you have to have something in that huge closet that will work."

  She started pulling things out of my closet as soon as we got to my bedroom. She threw a pair of indigo skinny jeans on my bed, followed by a pair of four inch strappy silver sandals that I wore to a wedding once.... as the bridesmaid! Then I heard a muffled, “Oh this is perfect!” before she emerged from the closet holding up a slinky beaded top that had been an impulse purchase that I had never gotten up the nerve to actually wear.

  “I will only wear that under a jacket.”

  “Not tonight,” she said giving me a wink. I must have had a stubborn look on my face because she sighed deeply.

  “Abigail,” she said. “Why do you want to go to The Howler tonight?”

  “To see if Harvey shows up and to see if I can find out what he is up to.”

  “So, tonight is sort of like a secret spy mission, right?”

  “I guess,” I said uncomfortably, guessing where her logic was headed.

  “Spies wear disguises," she said smugly. "Think of this as your disguise." She picked up the heels and shook them to emphasize her point.

  “I just wish there was more of it,” I grumbled fingering the thin straps of the glittery silver top.

  “That’s the point,” she said happily.

  An hour later I found myself standing outside The Howler waiting in a ridiculously long line in four inch heels, way too much eyeliner and the skimpiest top I had ever worn out in public. Since it was one of those odd early fall evenings when the weather was balmy despite the chance of frost predicted in the ten day forecast, I could not even use the weather as an excuse to bring along a jacket. Samantha was having a wonderful time watching me adjust the silver material – trying unsuccessfully to gain more coverage out of the thin fabric.