The Redeemers

by T. J. Martinell

  Carl nearly passed out from the incredible aroma of opium saturating the air. He had never smoked before, and incense-like mist left him dazed as he grappled the banister and leaned on it. Behind him, Tom paused in the middle of the stairs, his eyes drifting off aimlessly. Putting his hand to his head, he recovered from the initial onslaught of smoke and follow the man through another door.

  The next room was small and intimate, the ceiling barely a foot above Carl’s head, and even closer to Tom’s. A thick red and brown wicker carpet was rolled out on the floor, the walls plastered over with Oriental-style artwork. A lamp hung from the center of the ceiling, the electrical bulbs imitating the flicker of candlelight.

  It was hard to see anything else through the opium haze, but as they advanced across the room they found several men reclining around a table situated between them, a tray on it with tea cups and a kettle along with various pipes. They were dressed in robes and took sips of tea as they leisurely inhaled through the pipes, lifting their heads up briefly to blow the smoke up to where a ceiling fan channeled it through a vent.

  The Chinese man approached one of the men lying on a sofa and tapped him on the arm.

  “You have visitors,” he said.

  The man stood up, brushing back his long black hair that fell to his shoulders. He had a scraggly appearance, an unkempt beard that covered his facial features. However, somehow it seemed to accentuate his dark green eyes. Bare-chested, he tied his robe as he straightened up, setting down the pipe he had in his mouth.

  “Who are these guys, Fong?” he asked in a silky-smooth voice.

  The Chinese man blinked rapidly. “They are not your friends?”

  “Not unless I met them right before a really good smoke. But I doubt it.”

  Fong shot them a dirty glare before attending to one of the other men requesting a second tray of green tea.

  Carl walked up to the man’s table. “You Usher?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I do.”

  “And who are you?”

  “The name’s Carl Farrington. My friend here is Tom.”

  Usher offered no salutations, eying them worriedly. “What do you want?”

  “We need your help.”

  “Ha! Get in line.”

  “We work for the Cascadian.”

  Usher shrugged. “What the hell is that?”

  “A newspaper. Just started up. We’re reporters for it.”

  The word “newspaper” and “reporters” had a strange effect on the mood in the room. The other men reclining adjacent to Usher raised their heads attentively, one of them pushing their pipe away from their face as they blew out the smoke and studied Carl.

  Usher’s expression gave him away. He knew the score.

  “How can I help you?” he asked.

  “We’re doing a story and thought you might be able to assist us.”

  “Possibly.”

  He went to smoke his pipe, but Carl grabbed it and set it on the table next to the tray of tea. It was a risky move, one that could ruin their chances. However, Carl sensed he had to make it adamantly clear he wouldn’t be pushed around.

  “We don’t have time for that,” he said. “I want either yes or no. If you can’t help us, we’ll find someone else.”

  Usher said nothing. He glanced at his pipe, then at Carl. He sighed as he tied the cloth rope around his robe, then stood up and directed them to a connecting room ahead.

  “You know how to make an entrance,” Usher said when they had switched rooms. “I thought Norton wasn’t starting the thing up until next week.”

  “They decided to start today,” Tom explained. “Some other newspaper is putting out their first issue tomorrow. They want to beat us to it.”

  “Sounds like Norton alright. He always was an incurable hustler.”

  “Are you going to help us?” Carl asked. “We need information. Have you heard anything about a report a city engineer did of the remains of the Alaskan Viaduct? The report said that its total collapse is imminent, but they’re keeping the news under wraps for some reason.”

  “Why do you think I’d know?”

  “A hunch.”

  Usher put his hands on his hips, regarding the two young men in front of him with a mixture of humor and solemnity. “I can’t believe Norton’s sending out kids like you to do this. But that’s his deal, not mine. I’m just the unlucky bastard who owes him a few favors.”

  “So, what can you tell us?” Carl asked.

  “I’ll tell you what: I’ll make a few phone calls. When I’m done, I’ll see if there is anywhere to go with this.”

  “We need the information ASAP,” Tom said. “Our deadline is this afternoon.”

  “And what if you don’t have it by then?”

  “Well, we’re not exactly getting pink slips,” Carl remarked. “But we might as well.”

  “Hell, Norton’s wasn’t shitting me, like usual. You better hope he prepared you for this.”

  “Let us worried about that.”

  “Fair enough. Give me a few hours.”

  Carl went to protest, but Usher threw up a casual hand.

  “Trust me, kid. I know you don’t want to wait, but if you’re going to get anything, it’ll be through me. This is not the time to play it cocky. It will get you killed in this city.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Come back here at noon. I’ll have something, if there’s anything.”

  They were escorted back to the entrance by Fong, who chided them for lying to him. They stood idly on the sidewalk, unsure of what they should do with the leisure time.

  Carl hated the wait, yet as much as he hated to admit it to himself, he knew Usher had been honest with them. But it wouldn’t make a dime’s worth of difference if they didn’t have anything by deadline. Norton would still boot them out. There had been no conversation about it, but Carl couldn’t conceive of going to another paper or working for another man other than Norton.

  If he had to shoot his way through City Hall to get the report, he’d do it.

  ***

  With time to spare, they drove back to the Cascadian headquarters. The newsroom was almost empty. Several reporters were talking on the phone at their desks, scribbly on their notepads as they queried their interviewee. The other remaining reporters were perusing their notebook of contacts or coordinating their assignment with a partner.

  “Check out our notebook again,” Carl said as he tossed it to Tom from his desk. “See if we have any backup people to speak with. I doubt it, but it’s worth trying.”

  “What about the engineer himself?” Tom asked. “There can’t be a lot of them. Maybe we track them and interview them until one of them talks.”

  “We could, but how do we know if we find the right one if they lie? What incentive do they have to talk to us?”

  “What incentive does anybody have?”

  “I’ll figure that out. Meanwhile, check the notebook.”

  Tom did a mock salute as he opened the notebook on his desk, turning the pages after a moment or two. Carl rummaged through his desk again in the hope that he might have missed something.

  He then approached Childs’s closed office door, knocked twice. The man’s deep voice bellowed for him to open it. He entered and found two other men chatting with the news editor. Like the opium den, the room was shrouded in a mist, except it was of cigarette smoke.

  “What can I do for you?” Childs asked.

  “Thought some background context might help us. Any kind of news source keeping record of things in the past decade or so?”

  “No. Nothing except the city’s website, but you know how that is. You might think to check out the old newspapers we have in storage, but you could spend hours digging through it all.”

  “Right. Thought I’d ask.”

  Outside the office, Tom was waiting for him with an opened notebook. He pointed to one of the pages. “It’s not better than our friend Usher, but it might be a last r
esort. The problem is all we have is an address, no contact info. We’d have to drive there.”

  Carl inspected the page, saw the address was in Shoreline. He shook his head as he pushed it away.

  “We don’t have time,” he said. “We know which roads are usable, but we don’t know what the traffic is, if any. And even then, we don’t know if that person is there. If they’re not, we don’t know where else to find them.”

  “Like you said, Usher is our best hope.”

  Tom nodded in the direction of the parking lot. “The Mustang was running a little rich when we were driving back. I was thinking of popping the hood and making sure everything is alright before we go back. Wouldn’t want it to die on us when we need to get there.”

  “Good idea.”

  Now alone, Carl listened to the heavy clack of the teletype in the corner spitting out pages as one of men accepted them, giving Childs a nod as he peeked out of the office. He moved to the window and admired the view of the docks, the old cranes overlooking the water like dragons guarding a treasure.

  Concerned about the Mustang, he went to join Tom in the parking lot.

  He suddenly bumped into someone. The surprise encounter knocked them both to the ground. Paper flew up into the air, softly landing on top of them.

  “Hey!” the person exclaimed. “Watch where you’re going!”

  Carl frowned as he got up. The voice was low and unmistakably feminine. He knelt and pushed the papers away from her head as she scrambled to pick them up.

  She had a small face, her cheekbones high. Her round but distinct chin stuck out at him. She looked no older than twenty, though her relatively calm reaction made her seem mature for her age.

  “You should look before you move that fast,” she remarked quietly.

  “You’re the one who was hurrying down the hallway with papers in front of her face. Hard to see what you’re about to hit.”

  “Not exactly an apology, is it?”

  “You should pick those papers back up and not waste time trying to get something you don’t need from someone who won’t give it to you. I don’t do apologies.”

  “I can see why you’re over here.”

  “Aren’t you charming?”

  He was surprised when he got no indignation from her. She studied him quickly and then resumed picking up the papers as though he had already left. He chuckled and walked off.

  In the parking lot, Tom was bent over the front of the car, his head buried in the engine. He stood up when Carl came over to him, rolling his sleeves with oily hands.

  “The verdict?” he asked.

  “A few tweaks, but nothing serious. Never hurts to check, like I said.”

  “I wonder how you’ll get spare parts for it here.”

  “They’ve got to have some sort of auto parts store in the city,” he said as he closed the hood. “Seattle’s not in that bad of shambles, is it?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll find out if it isn’t, or if a good chunk of it is about to slip into the water.”

  ***

  Usher was waiting for them in the upstairs of the building, now dressed in a discreet gray suit. He had a sly grin apparent. Fong handed him a cup of tea and then disappeared into a separate room.

  “Tell me you found something,” Carl said.

  Usher laughed as he produced a note from his jacket. Carl took it and brought it out underneath the faded light.

  “He’ll meet you at the actual viaduct,” Usher said. “And he should have a copy of the report.”

  “Who?”

  “Sorry, but that part I can’t say. You won’t recognize him, and he won’t give you his name. All he’s handing over is the report. Don’t ask him any questions.”

  “Why couldn’t he just drive here?” Tom asked. “Would have made it easier for us.”

  “For you, but not for him. Remember; he’s got his own agenda. Best remember that.”

  Back in the car, Carl turned to Tom. “You want to come along?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “We don’t need two to be there to get the report. One of us could be at the paper ready to go.”

  “Can’t write without the report, can I? What else am I going to do?”

  He tapped the steering wheel lovingly. “And you’re not driving the Mustang, that’s for damn sure.”

  ***

  They had great difficulty reaching the location. Unable to withstand the tremors that had rocked the entire region, the upper half of the viaduct had fallen, causing the second roadway beneath it to buckle and collapse under the weight.

  In the aftermath, the wreckage had been left alone as the communities braced for the upheavals that followed.

  Carl hadn’t been old enough to remember. His memories were only those of his father, recalling the terrible riots that had followed afterward. It had taken weeks for the police and National Guard to put an end to the chaos. Still, they never fully regained control of the city. It was left to degrade like a vacant building.

  Taking out a copy of the city map, Carl navigated around the ruins and found a spot to enter the downtown section near Yesler Way and came to the old Pioneer Square. Most of the brick buildings had been demolished.

  As they drove past them they saw signs of activity; some construction crews worked several sites, either repairing or clearing away the debris. One of Norton’s “associates” had mentioned how the properties had been deserted. They were now considered owned by anyone who placed a mark of some form on it.

  It was a tragic ironic that land once worth a small fortune was now all but neglected to the point where owning it simply required the will to claim it. The Seattle City Council’s claims to the contrary, their land use code wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Code enforcement officers voluntarily confined themselves to places where they knew they had police support to protect them should an irate land owner direct them off their property with more than unkind words.

  Driving between two heaps of concrete, Tom took them to the waterfront. He quickly slammed on the brakes when he got a clear look at how close the road was practically hugging the edge. In fact, only one side of it was there; the rest had dropped into the water, joining the remains of the pier buildings that stuck up like the mainmast of a partially sunk ship. Boats rusted from age wobbled back and forth with the waves like a buoy, still tethered to the docks that had long ago sunk to the seabed.

  “I can see why they think the viaduct will sink,” Tom remarked. “I just can’t see why it hasn’t sunk already.”

  “We’ll find out,” Carl replied. “If we can find our man, that is.”

  Staying as far away from the edge as possible, they headed down the road until they saw a man on a bench by the water tossing bread crumbs to the seagulls. Eying him carefully, Tom parked a few hundred feet away. Carl took a long hard look at the man, spotting a bulge in his coat.

  “That’s him,” he said.

  “How do you know?” Tom asked.

  “His coat is too fat for his body.”

  “A lot of people look like that.”

  Carl stared harder. The man was about to throw more breadcrumbs when he paused as another car drove by. The seagulls waited, but his arm didn’t move even as the vehicle was out of sight.

  “This is him,” Carl said as he got out of the car along with Tom. They walked toward the man slowly.

  Their sudden arrival frightened the seagulls away.

  The man reacted nonchalantly. “What can I do for you?”

  “You got the report?” Carl asked.

  “Is that a way to treat a friend?”

  “Sorry, but we’re in a hurry.”

  Pushing himself off the bench with a sigh, the man stood up and slowly walked up to them. He had pock marks all over his face, his eyes clouded as though stricken from a disease. A humorous grin indicated that whatever illness he suffered from, it had no impact on his mood.

  He opened his coat and pulled out the document. Judging by the
thickness, Carl put it to be at least a hundred fifty pages. A lot to read and copy onto paper before deadline.

  Speaking as though he had just read Carl’s mind, the man chuckled as he opened the report and flipped through some of the pages marked up in red ink, with annotations on the side.

  “I took the liberty of doing you a favor this one time,” he said. “Usher informed me that it’s your first day on the job, so I didn’t want you to endure the agony of translating this jargon. I trust, however, that you are familiar enough with the dialect of the bureaucrat by this point in your careers.”

  The man moved to give the report to Carl.

  A gunshot interrupted the transaction.

  Carl immediately ducked and rolled off to the side.

  More gunshots followed.

  Carl grabbed Tom and ran back to the car. He would have used his revolver, but he knew judging by the gunshot that the shooter was far out of range. They had to find cover first.

  Behind them, the man had taken cover behind the bench, clutching the report against his chest. He frantically looked to Carl and Tom, hoping to run over to their positions. When he tried to stand a bullet narrowly missed him. More shots splashed off the cracked sidewalk.

  Carl thought the man intended to throw the report in the hope it would get close enough for them to retrieve it. Whatever his plans, they were interrupted as an engine roared in the distance. A moment later a car appeared on the road; it was the same one that had just driven past their position. It pulled up in front of the city engineer and stopped.

  The engine still revving, a tall, dark individual got out, leaving the door ajar as he confronted the city engineer. Offering an open palm, the engineer surrendered the report. The man opened it, checking over the pages. He nodded, closed the report, and tucked it into a satchel slung over his shoulder.

  He then revealed a handgun. The seconds passed like hours for Carl as the stranger pointed the weapon at the city engineer and shot him in the heart. With the report in hand, he away his gun and got back into the car.

  “My God,” Tom whispered.

  A quiet rage filled Carl. “Let’s go!” he said as he pushed Tom into the car.

  Tom got the engine going and slammed on the gas, the car nearly leaping across the grass and back onto the road, where the other car was moving at full speed up Alaskan Way.