The Animals After Midnight

by Jeff Johnson

  “Let’s boogie.” They got up too. Pressman looked down on me. “Gonna get home okay? You’re wasted.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Agent Conover is supposed to be sitting on your place,” Pressman said. “Sleep good.”

  I saluted with my beer. Pressman and Dessel left. Delia lingered.

  “You think the gun safe survived the explosion?” she asked.

  “No idea. But it’ll be weeks before we find out.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yep.” I looked up at her. “I’m gonna finish this beer and head home. Go get some rest.”

  “Darby. Just so you know, I’m looking, too. We’ll find him.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  Delia smiled sadly and left.

  I was too tired to cut through any backyards to get home, so I went the front way. Something told me that my days in my old place were numbered. The landlord was a weird old law office clerk, and one or two well-placed calls from Riley would inspire him to evict me and raise the rent to the current Portland standard, almost double what I was paying now. Agent Lopez was sitting on the bench outside my front door waiting for me. I staggered up the steps and crashed down next to her. We looked at each other.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey yourself. I sent Conover home.”

  “Right on.” I took my smokes out and offered her one. She took it.

  “Your storage space got torched tonight.” She lit her cigarette and then lit mine.

  “It happens.”

  “Happens to you a lot.” She blew smoke into the night.

  “Not a competition, lady. You just need to try harder.” I gestured at the night with my smoke. “Pick up a few solid enemies. Plenty to choose from out there. You’ll catch up.”

  “The iPhone was a dead end. Cameras, too. We got nothing.” She looked at me.

  “Bait. You got the perfect bait.”

  “Pressman and Dessel want me to work with you on this. The whole thing has already gone black because they’re afraid he’s hacking us, but there’s black and then there’s Black. You follow me?”

  I shrugged.

  “The Law, Darby, is something I don’t think you really understand. Riley Wharton is going down. But he’s going down by the letter of the law. He’s going to sing for a chance at parole and we’re going to get names. That’s the way the system works.”

  “I know how your system works, Lopez.”

  “Then you know why I can’t condone any kind of vigilante bullshit, Holland! Dessel says you can survive anything. Know what that means to me? It means that as soon as they have an in, as soon as they can find those names and those lists, they’re going to let you kill him.”

  “Let me kill him?” I turned to her. “That guy is a murderer a hundred times over.”

  “Indirectly. We have no proof that he personally pulled the trigger on anyone.”

  “Listen to yourself, Lopez. You’re brainwashed. Take a huge step back and open your eyes. Riley Wharton is a monster. He knows the rules of your ‘system,’ so he’s a certain type of monster. A smart one. I don’t know if it’s because I’m drunk or because you’re stupid, but we aren’t speaking the same language.”

  “You are a criminal, Holland.” She enunciated every word clearly. “A criminal.”

  “Let me break this down.” I smoked and we glared at each other. “Okay. For one second, just look at me. Not like you read my file. Not like you know anything about me. What do you see?”

  “A criminal,” she said instantly.

  “A human being!”

  “A man, then. Fine.”

  “Right. Now, what is that exactly?”

  “Flesh, blood, bone, teeth, hair—”

  “No no no.” I put my cigarette out. “A person is . . . a person is memories. Dreams. Feelings. A person eats and sleeps. A person has friends and lovers and jobs. You take all that away? It isn’t a person anymore. It’s just an animal. That’s what Wharton does. When person goes to animal? That’s what he’s interested in. It’s the animal he likes to play with, not the person. Now, look at me one more time. Now what do you see?”

  “Darby—”

  “I worked so hard to be a person, Lopez. I’ll fight to the death before I give it away.”

  She sat back. I did too. Eventually she cleared her throat.

  “That bar still open? The one you were hanging out in just now with Pressman and Dessel?”

  “Maybe. Why? You want a drink?”

  She looked at me. I smiled first.

  “I was just wondering if you were heading back out,” she replied. “I’m your tail for the rest of the night.” She stood up. “I’ll work with you in a limited way, Holland, but I wouldn’t have a drink with you if you were the last man on earth.”

  “Yes you would,” I said easily. “Don’t be like that.”

  I watched her go down the stairs. The rain was steady, just as it would be for the next several months. I closed my eyes and considered my place in the world.

  I wouldn’t be able to bribe Hank to get out of town. I was out of cash and the feds would be eyeing my accounts. A big withdrawal would raise too many questions.

  Riley Wharton was closing in. The next move he made would be the last one. Whatever it was was going to be his checkmate play.

  The players on my side of the board were already becoming divided. Delia, my genius Delia, was about to get married to the wrong man, and her inner turbulence had dulled her edge. Nigel in prison. A long-distance girlfriend I could never even tell about this. I still had Gomez and Santiago and Flaco, but endangering them was a terrible idea, and someone had to attend my funeral. Dessel and Pressman, my unlikely new allies, had a snitch on top of them and were hobbled because of it. I was already alone.

  Riley’s plan was unfolding.

  I woke up on the couch with my phone on my chest. It was ringing.

  “Oh my god,” I answered.

  “Darby.” Suzanne said it like she regretted calling. “Jesus, man. Let me guess. You were asleep on the couch. You got plastered last night.”

  “No, no,” I said, struggling into a sitting position. Chops and Buttons were staring at me, amazed that I was lying the instant I awoke. “I was, ah, shit you know what, I—what’s up?”

  “What are you doing!?” Already mad.

  “What am I doing?” I got up and staggered toward the kitchen. “Making coffee. Getting ready for a fun-filled day of wedding crap.”

  “The Halloween goat wedding.”

  “Chickens,” I clarified helpfully.

  She sighed with voice in it, extra dramatic. “Alright. Good. So we were talking about the weekend.”

  “Right!” I took the coffee down. “This is gonna be so great.”

  “I was thinking maybe we could go to the Gorge. I need some photos for something that just came across my desk. Then we can go to the railroad museum in Hood River.”

  “A working vacation,” I admired. “You multitasker, you.”

  “Is that gonna be a problem?” Probing now. This was all beginning to follow a set pattern. For the moment, even the phone call was a bad idea.

  “Nah. I think about trains all the time anymore.”

  “I figure the lighting in the Gorge will be about right at—”

  I put the phone on the counter and let her drone on while I made coffee. Old grounds into the compost, rinse out the filter, put it back. Add new coffee. Rinse out the pot. Add water. Hit the little red button. Then I wiped my hands on my pants and took my bent smokes out of my pocket, fired one up. It was cold in the house. The cats wanted breakfast, so I popped a can and put it on a dinner plate for them. While they ate, I picked up the phone again.

  “—second time. And then no one said anything at all. If the entire presentation hinges on a live feed, if there are more than five people in five time zones, then—”

  “That sounds fuckin’ terrible, baby,” I interrupted. “They don’t pay you enough for this
shit. Fuck those guys. You should move back home and get your old job back.”

  Silence. Then: “What did you just say?”

  Oops. “Chase was looking at fully furnished apartments in Barcelona on Craigslist yesterday. Unreal, Suzanne. We should think about something like that. We both dig pork. Olives and whatnot.”

  We listened to each other say nothing. It was hard to tell where she was calling from. I couldn’t hear any office sounds in the background. I poured coffee and leaned up against the counter. “Suze?”

  “Sometimes I think you’re not listening to me. That you just tune me out.”

  “What can I say to that. I hate your new job.” I put my cup down and massaged my eyes. “I kinda hate my job, too. I just wish we could go somewhere. Anywhere, as long as it was far enough away. Like we were talking about.”

  “We’ll talk about it more tomorrow. But you can’t run from your problems.”

  “Yes you can,” I snapped. “Don’t quote bumper stickers and expect me to bite.”

  “All we do is fight.”

  “All I do is fight,” I said clearly. “And I’m tired of it.” I hung up.

  I was counting on Riley listening in. Taking Suzanne off the menu was critical. It was a shame she’d made it so easy. I plugged my phone in and took a shower, then put on my Beating-Up-Hank clothes: construction boots, sturdy jeans I wouldn’t mind burning, nondescript black T-shirt, and my backup bomber jacket. Dessel and Pressman were parked a block down, so I headed their way.

  “’Sup, dudes,” I said as I got in the back. Their car was remarkably tidy. Dessel’s short hair was still wet from the shower he still smelled like. They were freshly on duty. Pressman handed me a coffee.

  “Finally got a ping,” Dessel reported. He turned around in his seat. He’d shaved. “One of the cameras we found was different from the others. Purchased locally. We ran down the credit card number and it was a dead end, no surprise there, but we did get a list of the other crap Riley bought at the same place.”

  “And? Tell me it’s some shit you can track.”

  “It is. Bob, get us out of here.”

  Pressman started the Prius and took a left, headed for Burnside. Dessel continued.

  “Three other phones. All burners. Lopez figures it’s possible to track each one of them for about thirty seconds, right when they’re activated. It’s complicated, but when you light a burner up for the first time, it shows up in the system while it comes online as a new number. How many phones with that make and model pop into the system in the Portland metro area every day? Dozens. But not hundreds.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Little things,” Dessel said, thinking. “The reason why it was always so hard to figure out what you were doing, Darby, is that apparently you were making it up as you went along. That makes you super fucking unpredictable.”

  Pressman snorted. “You wouldn’t even believe how much we’ve talked about this.”

  “Normal people aren’t like that,” Dessel said. “Don’t be offended. When I say ‘normal,’ I mean, well, you see—”

  “I get it.”

  “Right. So the U-Store-It. Cameras everywhere down there. Thousands in a twenty-block radius if you go wide. Riley covered his tracks extremely well. No footage of anyone planting bombs, putting cameras in place, that kind of thing. But we think it took more than one trip to get all that shit done.”

  “Maybe three,” Pressman added. “I’m thinking three is the magic number.”

  “Right,” Dessel agreed, his enthusiasm ramping up. “Simple enough to track all movement in and out of the area over the last month. Thousands of cars. Ton of them local. But late at night? In and out at one, maybe two-hour intervals?”

  “No wonder you guys could never catch me,” I marveled.

  “I know,” Dessel agreed. Pressman looked in the rearview.

  “How would you catch this guy, Darby? I mean, you know. Think like a criminal out loud for us.”

  I did.

  “First, think fury. The cold kind. This guy has had all these years to stew. Rage like that goes from fire to dead sludge in the guts after all that time. So—”

  “Let me interrupt,” Dessel chirped, “that’s way disgusting, I love it. Go on.”

  “And then, then . . .” I looked out the window. “Then consider the difference between a psycho and a lunatic. Now, I’m not talking your fancy textbook bullshit. I’m talking about the popular understanding of the words. Dudeboy fits into the psycho camp. Lunatics are too sloppy. This guy is up there on the Mission Impossible Tom Cruise end of things.”

  “Riiiight . . .” Dessel drew it out. “You totally lost me.”

  “Me too,” Pressman said.

  “I was just lecturing Lopez on something like this last night. She was waiting on the porch for me when I got home, by the way. But I chatted her up.”

  “That’s what happened,” Dessel marveled. Pressman snorted.

  “She’s warming to you,” Dessel agreed. “This morning she told us we should arrange for you to give a lecture at PSU in the humanities. A convincing portrayal of where not to go. But she smiled.”

  “Whatever. The point of my drunk-ass yammering had something to do with people. There’s a person in Riley Wharton. Somewhere.”

  “Still lost,” Dessel said.

  “Still lost,” Pressman echoed.

  “Right. Now, let’s go back to your pictures. The photos of the Mineral guy.”

  The mood darkened. Neither of them said anything.

  “It was contact. These guys like to see what’s happening with their own eyes. It’s important to them.”

  “You think he’s going to brush up against you before the end?” Dessel was worried now.

  “I think the end is super close, dudes. I think he’s going to be there in person, too. He won’t be watching my final moments on camera. He’ll be filming it in person.”

  Silence. I didn’t believe they could catch Riley before he made his big move and now they knew it. When they had nothing to say to that, I realized they’d been thinking along the same lines. I’d just been the first one of us to say it out loud.

  “Where to?” Dessel asked. His morning pep was gone.

  “Drop me at the Lucky. This is going to be one weird fuckin’ day.”

  Chase and one of the new guys were cleaning when I walked in. New Guy was on the mop, Chase on vacuum. The music, early reggae, was close to deafening. Fitting, because they were both unforgivably stoned. I nodded and went straight to the office lounge.

  It was noon, so early by Hank’s standards. I called Delia and it rang five times before it went to voicemail, so I sent her a text, something I try to never do. SOS. Suitably emergency. My phone rang almost instantly.

  “Caught it in your zipper again?”

  “Where are you?” I tried to sound casual, like I wasn’t about to go tell her fiancé to leave town or die.

  “Just woke up. Hank is making eggs. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Dessel and Pressman think they have a lead or two.”

  “Good. So strange talking to them last night, wasn’t it?”

  “Yep. Those guys have been after me for two years. And now, I mean. I don’t know. But my instinct is that we can trust them until this is over. They’re truly pissed.”

  “Speaks well of them, doesn’t it? That they can stop trying to claw you back into the gutter for long enough to catch this guy?”

  “Talked to Suzanne this morning.”

  Delia giggled. “Eww, neato! What’s my favorite Amazon up to? She go on about the romantic side of prime interest rates and the latest Google office fashion?”

  “Not sure. You got the day off, right?”

  “Why? Need a babysitter?”

  “Nah. Gonna help Gomez with this car thing. Commune with the kid again and impart more of my stellar wisdom.”

  “I got an appointment in about an hour.” She grunted as she got up. “Have to get all this material mea
sured and then pick up some new dye samples, then more excellent stuff you don’t care about.”

  “Rad. Call me when you’re done.

  “Dealio.”

  I hung up and went over to the Rooster Rocket. Flaco’s was busy so I made it past without getting slowed down. Gomez was waiting for me, car keys in hand.

  “You got a plan?” he asked as he handed them over.

  “I already feel bad, so I got a good one. Where’s the car?”

  “The Dildo’s new ride is in your parking lot. ’77 Town Car, black. No way a sane man would give it away. But for Delia, I make an exception.”

  I looked at the keys. Three, with dice on the ring.

  “Flaco has a line,” I said quietly. “Can you get me five juniors to go? I gotta go do bad shit.”

  “No problemo!” Gomez said brightly.

  An hour and a half later, Delia and Hank walked out of her house and got in Delia’s car. They were laughing about something. Delia was dressed professional, in a little power suit. Hank was braving the cold in skintight jeans, no shirt, and a red denim jacket, hanging open. I’d finished the juniors while I waited.

  The Town Car drove like a dream, I thought. They headed for I-5 and I stayed back. Dessel and Pressman had let me slide out without them and were off doing their own thing, so I was tailing her without a tail of my own. It was easier than I thought it would be. The rain and the heavier traffic helped. She dropped Hank off at the corner of 30th and Alberta in front of a music store. He blew her a kiss as she drove away, and then he lit a cigarette. When she was gone, he went past the store and took a right, headed into the residential area. I got out of the Town Car and followed on foot.

  Becky lived three blocks down. She greeted Hank on the porch and they hugged. Then he kissed her long and hard and grabbed her ass like he was digging for gold. She laughed and threw her head back, shaking her hair out. Damn, she was beautiful. They went inside.

  I walked back to the corner. There was a little Mexican convenience store, with cigarettes and candles and canned food. I went into the back and got a six pack of Hamm’s in a can, carried it up to the register. The tiny old woman looked at the beer, then me, then rang it up. The whole transaction was silent.