Vacant Shore

by Jack Hardin

  Then Deneford saw him. The red nicks littering his chin and cheeks and neck and the plumpness of his face. The face that matched the picture in his dossier. He locked eyes with his target as the doors moved together. Deneford raised his arm, extended his thumb and index finger, and pointed them at Virgil.

  He pulled the imaginary trigger and smiled.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They had come for him.

  As soon as the doors closed and shut out the view of his assassin, Virgil punched the button to the second floor. He nodded toward a certificate on the elevator wall. “Looks like this contraption needs an inspection.”

  “What’s that?” When the nurse followed his gaze, Virgil used that as an opportunity to unhook the badge from his shirt and slip it under the blanket.

  “Oh,” the nurse said. “Well, next month, I suppose.”

  “Ah,” Virgil smiled. “Maybe I need to get my eyes checked.”

  As the doors opened, Virgil said, “You mind just pushing me out?”

  “Sure.” He grabbed the chair grips and wheeled him out.

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Yep.”

  Virgil wheeled down the hall and passed up a young family before turning left through a set of double doors. He looked around and, seeing no one, kept on until he got to the custodial elevator. He scanned the badge on the card reader and the doors opened. He went in and pressed the button to the ground floor.

  The doors parted onto an open air cavity in the rear of the hospital. He put the service elevator behind him and wheeled out to a staging area that sat between a row of receiving docks and a cluster of dumpsters. A young man wheeling a tilt truck filled with garbage materialized from around the corner and stopped when he saw Virgil.

  “Hey. You’re not supposed to be down here, man.”

  “I’m getting discharged tomorrow. My nurse said I could come down here and get a little exercise so I wasn’t in anyone’s way. An early jump on physical therapy, you know?”

  “Down here?” The man’s brows drew together, and it looked as though he was trying to visualize his area being used for therapy. But then he shrugged. “Well, okay, I guess. Just be careful. We have a delivery truck scheduled to come in a few minutes.”

  Virgil mustered a smile. “Of course. I won’t be long.”

  The custodian nodded and wheeled his load of garbage away.

  The entrance to the cavity sat just off a wide alley. Virgil got across the concrete floor and squinted in the late morning sunlight as he came fully outside. A sidewalk lined both sides of the road, a small mercy. He used the sidewalk ramp to cross the narrow back street. Twenty yards later he turned onto a side alley empty of cars.

  He turned another corner as he fought back a fresh wave of nausea. He had no idea where to go. The pain in Virgil’s shoulder was unrelenting. Same with his knee. Another click off that morphine drip would really hit the spot right about now.

  He came to another alley and grimaced as he turned into it. He had to keep weaving, keeping out of primary and secondary lines of sight. The police, if they hadn’t already, would drop a net and begin a search for him. He had to put as much distance between himself and that hospital as he could.

  And that, he knew, would not be very far.

  ____________________

  The nurses’ station now sounded like a nervous bee hive. The guards were on their phones, both looking like men who had just let a prisoner get away. Deneford turned toward a nurse. “Where are the stairs?” he barked.

  She pointed to the wall behind her. “Northwest corner.” Deneford rushed down the hall, removing the ammunition from his pocket and starting to reload.

  He did a quick check of the floor below before flashing his fake badge to a janitor who was busy pushing a mop bucket down the corridor. “I need your badge. Now.” The janitor looked on him uncertainly, so Deneford snatched his badge off his lapel and ran to the service elevator, the janitor protesting loudly from behind him. The doors opened as soon as he scanned his badge. Deneford stepped in and hurriedly pressed the button to the ground level.

  He knew that hospital security would cover the patient and visitor entrances first. Virgil would know that too.

  The elevator opened on the ground floor, and Deneford stepped into the open air cavity of the service entrance.

  “Can I help you?” a custodian called out.

  “A man in a wheelchair. Cuts on his face. You seen him?”

  “Well, yeah. Just a couple min—”

  “Where did he go?”

  The custodian raised a hand and pointed past the loading bays near the side street. “That way. Went to the left, I’m pretty sure.”

  “How sure? It’s important.”

  “Oh. Uh, yeah. I’m sure. He went left.”

  Deneford ran across the pavement, past a couple concrete pillars, and turned left down the side street, his eyes searching the road ahead and the cross alleys as he ran past them.

  His phone rang. He looked at the number and, due to the nature of the current situation, debated whether or not he shoulder answer. But you didn’t ignore Scott Reardon. He drew up and answered.

  His boss cloaked his voice in Russian. “Is it done?”

  Deneford realized he was half holding his breath. “No, sir. His room was empty. He escaped.”

  The line was silent for a long time. Then it went dead.

  Deneford’s blood pressure rose as he jammed his phone in his pocket and sprinted down the street.

  ____________________

  Only eight people had shown tonight. They had Ellie and her group of tramps cleaning the warehouse floor. Everyone had been given a mop and a yellow bucket that included a mop wringer. Each were assigned two aisles and were told to empty their buckets at the end of each aisle before going over it a second time.

  The work was redundant, but Ellie figured they could be cleaning dumpsters behind daycares. An hour later, after the floors were clean, they were put on the snow flurry of paper cutouts again. Ellie asked a couple people if they knew what they were from. They did not know, nor did they seem to care.

  Ellie slid her broom underneath a roller leg and brought out a few pieces that had been missed earlier. She kneeled down with her dustpan and swept them in, then stood up and emptied it into the large plastic trash bin.

  A middle-aged man with thick black hair falling to his shoulders came down the main aisle. He had a wide, flat nose and penetrating eyes. He wore a dark blue wife beater tucked into the waist of his jeans. He watched her work for a while. “You’re new around here,” he finally said.

  She shrugged and didn’t look up. “That a problem?”

  “I don’t know yet. What’s your name?”

  “Heather.”

  “Heather, you from around here?”

  “For now. Trying to make my way up to Orlando. Just need more cash first.”

  “You like this work?”

  Ellie raised her brows. “It’s work. Am I supposed to like it?”

  The man didn’t reply. He stood with his hands folded across his chest, watching her work the broom. “How did you find out about this place?”

  She shrugged again. “Heard some chippies talking about it at the park.”

  “And you’re looking to fund a habit?”

  “I don’t get off anymore. Not in a long time.” Then, strategically, she said, “I’d rather make money on other people's habits than spend it on my own.”

  A minute later he walked off without saying anything more.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Q & K Bait and Tackle was a modest structure on north Monroe Canal that wasn’t much larger than a sizeable shed or a small tire shop, depending on who was doing the looking. Twenty years ago it had sat vacant, the carcass of a failed used bookstore, and Quinton signed a three year lease on it before securing a bank loan two years later and putting it in his own name. The property was a half acre and covered in crushed gravel that shone brightly in the sunligh
t. A concrete boat ramp fed boats and kayaks into the canal.

  Quinton was outside at the back of the shop, wearing his typical garb of cargo shorts and sleeveless T-shirt. He had a casting net stretched across the back wall and was preparing to repair it. Some locals claimed he offered the fastest and best net repair around. Quinton had never afforded the assessment much weight, as he was of the opinion that repairing a casting net did not require the greatest of talents. Like anything, it was a learned skill and, once you got it, it was easy going from there.

  There were three main areas where a net would tear: the lead lines, braille lines, or the mesh itself. This particular net had a two foot tear in the mesh. Quinton unspooled a length of braided line and severed it with his pocket knife. Monofilament matched the net better, but he preferred braid line as it made for a tighter knot. He wove the strand up through the mesh and wrapped it half a dozen times like he was tying onto a hook and then pushed the end back through the eye, forming a double clinch knot. Then he wove the string through mesh and, leaving a loop in the line, wove the tip of the braid through it three times before pulling it tight and moving down the net. Five minutes later his expertise had a net that some might think to throw away fully repaired and ready for casting. He finished by cutting off the tags and placing a dab of super glue over the knots to ensure they stayed tight. He left the net to hang while the glue dried hard and walked around to the front of the shop and went inside.

  Abel Del Olmo had been Quinton’s assistant for the last five years, and he had taken care of the business while Quinton was away these last five months. Yesterday Abel had left for a trip of his own: six weeks in Puerto Rico to see family in Mayagüez and Boquerón. Abel had seen to it that Quinton came back to a clean shop. Quinton wasn’t untidy by nature, but the daily tasks of running a small business meant that he didn’t often think about wiping down slow-to-move inventory or the shelves on which they sat. He didn’t think to organize the fishing lines and bait hooks into clearer categories or change out the display items behind the glass of the front counter. But, in his absence, that’s exactly what Abel had done. It looked as if a pay raise was in order upon his return.

  The small back room behind the counter served as his office, and Quinton sat into the chair behind his desk. The ticket stub sat next to his mouse pad. He had always loved ticket stubs. But this particular one, the one with the Cubs logo that represented the empty seat from that first day, was the most special of all. He picked it up and flipped it back and forth across his fingers as his window unit blew cool air over his skin.

  His first stop, back in April, had been to see the Mariners in Seattle, then it was down to the Bay Area to see the A’s and the Giants and then the Royals in Kansas City. After St. Louis, where the Cards had played the Dodgers, he slowly made his way to Chicago for his final game with the Cubs. He had a ticket for a May 10th game—a center field seat right up on the wall. It’s where Kat had wanted to be. But Quinton discovered, on his way to the Windy City, that the closer he got the sicker he felt. The game was the next afternoon and his hotel reservation was on N. Halsted, not a couple blocks from the stadium. He got as close as Naperville before he skirted up an exit ramp, eventually catching I-90 north. He didn’t stop until nearly three hours later when he arrived in Madison, Wisconsin. He stayed there for a month, watching TV in his hotel room and visiting local bars until he went up to Minneapolis, where he spent a couple weeks before making his way through Des Moines, Lincoln, and, finally, Denver. Andrés had called in the middle of it, wondering where he was. “I need more time” was all Quinton had initially said. But then he told Andrés that while he was roaming the country he would get in touch with some of their distributors’ connections and see what additional relationships he could make. And he had done it. But only half heartedly, and nothing much came of it.

  Finally, after postponing it for over three months, Quinton mustered up the courage to go back to Chicago. He made it to the city, to his hotel, and the next day he finally saw a game at Wrigley Field. What happened after the game was over, as Quinton walked out of the ballpark, was what some big-haired television preacher might call ‘a miracle of divine healing’. Quinton found that he didn’t hurt like he thought he would. In fact, he felt, for the first time in ten years, free. He had done what he set out to do. He had fulfilled his promise to his little girl.

  So he bought tickets for the rest of that series and all of the next. The Cubbies were in town for the next four days, gone three days after that to play the Pirates, and then back to the Windy City for four more game with the Brewers. There wasn’t another ticket available for the remaining games in that same seat in center field. But that was all right. He found an available ticket for the next eight games two sections over that put him closer to right field, still right up on the wall. Once he had the tickets, he called Andrés and told him when to expect his return.

  That next day the sun was high above the ball park as the second inning got up and going and a middle-aged man in a Cubs hat and blue Báez jersey sat down next to Quinton. He set his drink in the drink holder and the container full of nachos on his knee. He had a small nose and pinched but cheerful eyes. He stuck out his right hand.

  “Hi there. Zeke Beaker.”

  Quinton shook his hand, told Zeke his name. “Beaker?”

  “Yeah, but my friends call me Beak. You can call me Beak if you like.”

  “Okay, Beak. You come to games here often?”

  In fact, Beak did comes to games often. He was a full-season ticket holder for the seat he was currently occupying. “My dad took me here as a kid. I sat right here and he sat where you are. He’s gone now, but every year I’ve got to do it when they’re home. How about you? You get down here a lot?”

  Quinton said he was just doing a little traveling around the country and left it at that. They spoke intermittently throughout the game.

  And so it went the next night. And the next. It was at game number four when Quinton asked Beaker what was good to do around here for a guy who’s in town for a couple more weeks.

  Zeke Beaker perked. “What’re you doing in Chicago for that long?”

  Quinton motioned toward the field.

  “Ah, yes. The ol’ Wrigley Wrangle as I like to say. There’s no better ballpark in the country. I don’t care what those brats up at Fenway say. The ivy bloomed well here this year. You know there are people around here—I wouldn't call them fans by any stretch—who say we should just rip out the ivy and install padding against the warning track? Pleeease.”

  “A tragedy, indeed,” Quinton agreed.

  “However,” Zeke continued, “if you want more sun you could stroll the lake front or lay out on the Oak Street Beach. You could catch some blues and barbecue at Kingston Mines if you’re into that kind of sound.” Then Zeke, like he had been struck with a bolt of hospitality, said, “Why don’t you come over to my place tomorrow night? We can have a few more beers, and I’ve got some old Cubs games on DVD that I carried over from VHS. Matter of fact, one of them is the ‘The Sandberg Game’. Remember that one? When we were playing the Cards and Ryno hit two, two home runs off Bruce Sutter in as many innings?”

  Quinton smiled. “That was a helluva game. I think I watched that one from my granddad’s living room.”

  “So you’re in?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Why not?” Spending all his time alone these past several months was starting to wear him thin, and Beaker seemed like a nice enough guy. Quinton wasn’t a full-on introvert, but he wasn’t an all-out extrovert either. Probably somewhere in the middle. Happy hour but not cocktail parties; aisle, not center seat.

  And so, the next night, and for the next three evenings thereafter, Quinton went over to Zeke’s place for dinner, beers, and baseball. It turned out that Zeke Beaker lived alone in a high-rise condo overlooking Lake Michigan and was neighbors with Dicaprio, when he was there, which was almost never. On the third night, as they sat on Beak’s couch, both of them became progressive
ly wasted as they worked their way through two cases of Coors. But Zeke more so than Quinton, bringing the former to lapse into a moment of unbridled transparency. “Quinton. You know how I afford all this and can still make all the afternoon home games?”

  “How’s that?” Quinton asked.

  Beak stared stupidly at the ceiling, his chin nearly resting on his chest, his words starting to draw out. “Cocaine, man. People looove the cocaine, and I looove to give it to them.”

  Over the last decade Quinton had been more tight-lipped about his extra-vocational activities than an Amish preacher selling iPhones on a side hustle. So because his host had broken the proverbial ice and because his brain was floating in a bog of Rocky Mountain Pilsner that served to drown all his daytime inhibitions, Quinton popped the top. “No joke? Huh. Me too. Go figure.”

  Beak slowly turned at the neck and looked at him, his eyes swimming around in their sockets. “You run it too?”

  “Yeah, brother. Down in Florida. Mostly bring it in and run it north.” Then he burst out in a fit of laughter, his Coors spilling over the lip of the can. “Maybe...maybe you get yours from me!” There was much laughter after that, but the conversation turned to making fun of the Pirates and commercials dealing with ear and nose hair. Finally, the fermented hops had the final word and lulled them both to sleep.

  The next day neither man woke until after ten. Zeke had somehow made it to his bed during the night. Quinton found that he had drooled a soft, wet spot into the leather couch and his mouth tasted like a diseased racoon had crawled in during the night and died. Zeke made them coffee and a protein shake and they sat on the porch, watching people that were not hungover run through the park and swim in the lake.

  Neither spoke for a half hour. When their second cups of coffee were lukewarm and half their shakes gone, Zeke said, “That’s crazy that you run the cocaine too, man. So crazy.”

  Quinton felt his fingertips turn to ice. “What’s that?”