Ambush

by Barbara Nickless

  Hoping for something more useful, I opened up the Department of Motor Vehicles photos Taft had attached.

  Two of the five were white, two black, and Sonia Martinez was Latina. They ranged in age from eighteen—Leroy—to Napierkowski’s sixty-seven.

  None of them looked like psychopaths.

  Correction. They all looked like psychopaths. These were DMV photos, after all.

  Sonia Martinez, age thirty-two, was soft eyed and pretty. Maybe Kane had been doing nothing more in his final moments than letting his gaze rest on an attractive woman.

  Pushing away my frustration, I mentally filed away the five candidates and returned to the Dark Web. But while I knew my brief foray into the back alleys only scratched the surface, I didn’t have any better luck searching for Valor there than I’d had on the sun-splashed streets of the regular internet.

  Agitated, I closed my laptop. “Let’s get some air, boy.”

  The desk was between Clyde and the door, but he still beat me there.

  Music and laughter filtered from the bar into the hallway, and the clash of pans in Paul’s tiny kitchen suggested a busy night. Things were rocking and rolling up front. Stallone had given way to the Bee Gees. Tonight’s clientele must have celebrated their youth during the heyday of the disco era. I imagined there were a few gold lamé jumpsuits and metallic halter tops in the narrow space that passed for a dance floor.

  Clyde and I pushed through the back door into a balmy night filled with the chirp of crickets. In the distance, headlights flowed like a halogen river on the interstate, the whine of traffic muffled by the kings of disco and the wind breezing through nearby trees.

  “Scout,” I said to Clyde. He dutifully trotted in a widening half circle out from the building until he was thirty yards away. Nothing caught his attention. I whistled him back.

  “Good boy.” I gave him a treat from my pocket.

  While Clyde checked out the local flora and fauna, I stretched and ran through some light calisthenics in the faint light falling from the windows, disregarding complaints from my assaulted ribs. I wanted another cigarette the way a baby wants a bottle, but I ignored the siren call. No one but me was going to clean up my act.

  Finished, I leaned against the bricks in the shadows, propped a foot flat against the wall, and folded my arms. Inside, the jukebox took a break, and I soaked in the sounds of a normal neighborhood. Kids shouting, a dog barking, the thump of a basketball, and the rise of cheers from a nearby court—the locals enjoying a pickup game. Clyde nosed through the weeds, tail wagging.

  “Just don’t eat anything,” I called.

  My phone buzzed. Taft.

  “I have those names,” he said. “People who might be a match for the Pushman.”

  I dropped my foot and pulled my notebook and pen from my pocket. “Ready.”

  “Before I read them to you, you need to know that this is just speculation. You understand that, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So no going all Kill Bill on these people once I send the list.”

  “Going what?”

  “Uma Thurman. She kills a bunch of people after they kill—never mind. Just tell me you’ll coordinate with Gorman.”

  I had another flash of Gorman holding a business card from Valor. He’d clearly found someone to talk to. I bet he could fill in a few of the blanks on my page.

  I crossed my fingers. “Pinkie swear. Just give me the names.”

  I jotted the names down as he spoke. None of them looked familiar. Taft gave me addresses for three of the four. The fourth person, a man named Mark Fadden, wasn’t in the Colorado DMV—his most recent address was Atlanta, Georgia. Taft had flagged him because a few years earlier, Fadden had been convicted of a crime by a military court and given an eighteen-month sentence and a bad-conduct discharge.

  Bingo.

  “This Mark Fadden, how often does he use public transportation?”

  “The other three are regular users. But Fadden has ridden an RTD bus exactly four times, twice into Union Station and twice out. Each time, he walked up and down the upper-level platform a couple of times, then went into the station and bought a beer and a newspaper. After that, he sat at a table for an hour.”

  “A guy goes to Union Station for a beer and a paper?”

  “I’m crushed by your cynicism. The place has ambiance.”

  “Sounds to me like he was scoping things out.”

  A pause. “That’s how I read it.”

  “What about the day of the murder?”

  “No sign of him on any buses or trains that day. Which is a strong argument against him being our suspect.”

  “Unless someone dropped him off and he put on his Pushman persona.”

  “Sydney, be careful with this. Don’t read too much into the biometrics. We’ve crossed a line by matching up Fadden and these other men with a theoretical avatar. We don’t know that any of these guys are the one we’re looking for.”

  I glanced at my watch. “I got it, Ryan. But it doesn’t hurt to poke around a little. Did Fadden take the same bus both times?”

  “Number fifteen to and from East Colfax. He got on and off at the Tower Road stop.” Taft spoke slowly, like he was picking over his words. “If he’s our guy, and I mean if, there are a lot of places for him to hole up out there. Used to be the only things living that far east were prairie dogs. But there’s a bunch of subdivisions now. Tower Triangle. Friendly Village.”

  I pulled up a mental image of Kane’s photo of the strip joint. There were a lot of clubs like that on Colfax. And a lot of them had gone under.

  I thanked Taft and disconnected. My skin tingled, as if my bones were electrified. I whistled Clyde in.

  Back inside, I collected my belongings and left cash on the desk to cover the food and drinks. Clyde and I found Paul in the bar setting up shots for a group of women about my age. The ladies were pimped out for a night on the town in short skirts and high heels, and one of them wore a shoulder-length bride’s veil. A Royer girl, enjoying her last night of freedom before her walk down the aisle.

  Watching the bride-to-be’s giddy excitement, I experienced a strange twinge in my stomach. The woman was taking a lot of selfies, half of which involved holding up her engagement ring and blowing a kiss, presumably to her fiancé.

  Another pang. I pressed a hand to my stomach. It had to be the chili.

  I waited while Paul finished pouring and added the drinks to a tab.

  He turned to me. “Still working?”

  “I’m done. Thanks for the use of your office.”

  “Anytime. I mean it.”

  “See you later, then.” Clyde and I headed for the door.

  “Hey, Sydney,” Paul called.

  I turned. Something in his voice.

  “You look tired,” he said. “You should give it a rest sometime.”

  “I’ll—”

  “I know. Sleep when you’re dead.” His face had slumped, lines and creases I’d never noticed carving new shadows on his skin in the dim light over the bar. He looked crushed, as if an anvil had dropped on him when he thought there was nothing overhead but blue sky.

  Maybe men got pangs about engagement rings, too.

  “Have a good night, Sydney Rose,” he said.

  “You, too.”

  I walked out the door with images of bridal veils and late-night whiskeys banging through my mind like doors on a deserted house.

  CHAPTER 19

  The only way you feel safe in a relationship is if you feel free to leave it.

  —Effie “Grams” Parnell. Private conversation.

  A full moon shone down on Denver as we exited the interstate and turned east onto Colfax Avenue. Silver light flooded the city; it was as if we moved through mercury. A yellow-and-black checkerboard—Denver’s downtown high-rises—patterned the sky. It was a flawlessly perfect night, the kind that invites contemplation over action, peace over vigilance. A perfect night to live and the wrong kind of night
on which to die.

  But I had murder on my mind.

  And Kane’s photo of the strip club on the dash.

  The man on the RTD recordings, Mark Fadden, had exited the Route 15 bus at Tower Road, the very last stop. From there, he’d presumably headed straight south on Tower—the cameras hadn’t picked him up on the sidewalk or crossing the street.

  It was just this side of midnight, and traffic was light. I reached Tower Road in a few minutes, and after cruising along Colfax for another four blocks in search of the club, I decided to start my reconnaissance in the same direction Fadden had disappeared. I pulled a U-turn and went south on Tower Road. There wasn’t much. Storage facilities, the Colorado Department of Transportation offices. Further south, the buildings vanished, and the land flattened into a two-dimensional plane of pure black. My headlights picked out a rabbit as it darted across the road and disappeared into the grass.

  I reversed course and drove along the northern stretch of Tower. On my left were a few scattered businesses, none of them dance bars. To the right, a sprawling residential area. If Fadden was renting a home or staying with a friend in one of those houses then, short of a door-to-door search, I’d never find him.

  Working from the premise that Fadden was the Alpha’s hit man, I figured he’d still be in town—an assassin on retainer, waiting for his next job. My biggest worry was that Fadden wasn’t even our guy. That I was not only looking for a needle in a haystack, but it was the wrong needle and the wrong haystack.

  I turned right and went another block east, drove down Himalaya Road, and worked my way back to Colfax, heading toward the bus stop. There was only one street between the RTD stop and Tower Road. Zeno ran south from Colfax, taking a straight shot through a run-down neighborhood of dilapidated businesses before making a ninety-degree turn east and relabeling itself 14TH STREET.

  Fingers crossed, I went south.

  Just before we reached the ninety-degree turn, the headlights picked out a strip joint on the right.

  Wary of being watched, I drove by without slowing.

  The club looked every bit as lonely as it did in Kane’s photograph. The sign said CLOSED. The front door was boarded up. Someone had taken a rock to the sign, partially destroying what had once been an artist’s rendering of a stylized woman clinging to a pole.

  No lights, no vehicles. No movement of any kind.

  I went around the corner and doused my headlights, then waited five minutes before making a U-turn and coming back around. I pulled to the curb a hundred yards down and on the opposite side of the street, killed the engine, and stared through the windshield.

  The building, a play of silver and shadow in the high moon, was two stories tall, fronted by the weedy lot I’d noted in the photograph. The lower floor jutted out from a narrow upper story like an obstinate jaw. The entire place gave off an aura of dreary resignation. Probably not much different from the way it had been when it was open for business.

  Maybe the resignation was cut through with despair.

  Maybe I was projecting.

  The area immediately around the club was hard-packed dirt; the place had a lot of exposed flank. Even from this angle, no lights showed in the solitary upper-floor window, which still tossed back a glaze of moonlight from a full pane of glass.

  The rest of the neighborhood lay quiet. The only other moving vehicles were back on Colfax, the lone sounds the occasional thrum of a car engine from the same direction.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Sarge. When he didn’t answer—presumably he was in the midst of getting his friend Hutch “the Handler” drunk and malleable—I sent a text telling him I’d found the club and that Kane’s killer might be inside. I sent the location and ended with, I will wait for you here.

  I adjusted my seat and leaned back, prepared for a quiet stretch of surveillance. If the place was as empty as it appeared, we’d be able to do some reconnaissance. If not, then better that there were three of us—two handguns and a set of teeth. I folded my hands across my lap and practiced deep breathing.

  When my phone buzzed, I figured it was Sarge, giving me an ETA.

  What greeted me instead was a picture of Cohen.

  He was in a chair, hands wrenched behind his back, his head held in place by a strap across his forehead. The left side of his face was bloodied, the eye swollen, his ear scraped raw. His good eye glared at the photographer.

  He’d been gagged with his own tie. His white button-down was red with his blood.

  A second text lit up the phone.

  23 hours.

  Below it was a smiley face.

  My entire body went hot. The bones holding me upright turned to liquid, and I crumpled in the seat.

  No. No, oh no, no.

  I sucked in air and threw the phone to the floor. Then snatched it back up. I shot back a text.

  Hurt him, you won’t get your intel.

  The answer came immediately.

  Keep the intel, he dies.

  I let loose a long, low moan. My stomach flipped, and I squeezed my hands together, telling myself I could throw up later. After we had Cohen. After he was safe.

  “I’m so sorry, Mike,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  Clyde pushed against me, licked my face, answered my moans with his whimpers.

  In my mind I heard Sarge’s voice.

  Scuttlebutt was they also use it for doing things they don’t want anyone to know about. Like when they need to break someone who can’t be bribed or threatened.

  There were no cars on the property, no recent tracks, no indication that this was where they were torturing Mike. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t here, either, on the other side of a single door.

  Hurt. Maybe dying. Hoping someone would come.

  I sent a final text to Sarge. They have my friend. I’m going in.

  I buckled Clyde’s Kevlar vest under his belly and yanked my own vest over my shirt. I racked a round in the Glock and put the backup pistol in a holster. Ignoring the way my hands shook, I grabbed a flashlight and my lock-picking kit and jammed them into the pockets of my jacket along with the silenced phone. I zipped the pockets closed.

  The thought of calling the police rode across my mind. But the notion quickly vanished, chased away by an image of Gorman holding a business card from Valor. It may have meant nothing.

  It may have meant everything.

  Outside my window, Angelo materialized in a silver haze. His ruined face carried a single message of warning. Move fast.

  Beside me, Clyde was a coiled spring, ready to explode.

  We slipped into the dark.

  Clyde and I crossed the street in the shadows, then sprinted across the open space to the strip joint. We hugged the walls and did a fast jog around the building, looking for a point of entry.

  The front door was boarded up tight. No ground-level windows. The plywood over the back door was a ruse—it swung aside when I pushed. But the door was held fast by a hefty lock body, suggesting a dead bolt of industrial strength. My kit could not manage that.

  We went around to the front again, where a few feet of roof fronted the single window.

  A drainpipe clung to one end of the building. I gave it a test shake. Solid.

  We could do this.

  I jogged Clyde out to the edge of the parking lot and signaled for him to stay. Then I ran back to the building, stopping a few feet away. I bent at the waist, making my back as flat as possible, and signaled Clyde.

  He surged forward, racing toward me across the lot, gathering speed.

  We’d done this trick numerous times at Avi’s training center. But this was our first real-world application. My heart was in my throat at what might go wrong. Clyde could slip. The roof might be weak.

  Whoever was inside could hear us and come out shooting.

  And then Clyde leapt. His paws hit my back with the force of a falling boulder, and just as suddenly, the weight was gone. I straightened and looked up.

  Clyde grinn
ed down at me from the roof. I ordered him to his belly, then it was my turn. I got a running start toward the drainpipe and jumped as high as I could. I gripped the pipe, planted my feet on the wall, then worked my way up.

  At the top, I hauled myself onto the roof and dropped flat beside Clyde. Together we belly-crawled to the building’s single point of vulnerability.

  An old double-hung window. It was set low in the wall and looked solid, the glass reinforced with wire mesh that obscured whatever lay on the other side.

  We froze when a car drove by. Headlights swept the lower floor as a sports car raced past without slowing. It rounded the corner with a squeal of tires, and the sound of its engine faded into the distance.

  The club remained quiet.

  I removed a flat-head screwdriver from my kit, then rose to a crouch on one side of the window. The wind had died down, and the only sound was the gentle seesaw of crickets. I jammed the screwdriver between the sash and the sill. The window resisted for a moment, then slid up a quarter inch.

  I paused, listening for any indication that our arrival had been noted. The building creaked in another gust of wind, then quieted.

  The rest of the world stayed silent.

  I wriggled my fingers in and raised the window, then reached in my pocket for the flashlight. I bent my knees and shone the beam into the room. The space was large, the floorboards clotted with debris. The beam caught a sleeping bag and a lantern. In one corner, someone had created a rudimentary kitchen out of a portable electric burner, a pan, and a stack of paper plates. To my immediate right stood an old filing cabinet. I played the light across the room, then leaned in and angled the flashlight down to make sure the floor was clear of anything that would hurt Clyde’s paws.

  The filing cabinet crashed to the floor. Fingers gripped my wrist and jerked me forward. My head cracked against the sash as I was yanked through the window and thrown to the ground. My attacker spun toward the window and slammed it shut just as Clyde lunged for the space. My partner hit the reinforced glass and fell back. His barks rolled through the night.

  The world was swimming. The flashlight beam ghosted in and out from somewhere nearby. I yanked my gun from the holster. Before I could bring it up, a sneakered foot stomped on my wrist. My fingers went numb, the weapon dropped, and my attacker kicked it away. I scrabbled for the second gun, but the man wrenched it free and sent it flying after the first.