Dead End Fix

by T. E. Woods

  She set that document aside. The next item in the file was a single sheet of paper listing the contact information of four individuals to be notified upon the occasion of Lydia’s death. Three names belonged to attorneys bound by client confidentiality. They were paid a substantial annual retainer to do one thing only. After verifying that Lydia was dead, each would notify two other attorneys. Those six lawyers would, in turn, by Lydia’s arrangement, access the nested funds she had set up in various foreign banks under aliases and corporate fronts. The multimillion-dollar fortune the Fixer had earned over six years spent delivering vigilante justice would be dispersed. The bulk of her holdings was earmarked for organizations with a mission to care for children. Her endowments would fund psychological treatment as well as college educations for boys and girls who had survived sexual and physical abuse while in the foster care system. One million dollars of her estate would go to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.

  All disbursements would be anonymous.

  The final name on the list knew what to do when notified of Lydia’s death. From his own computer, Dylan, an autistic computer savant who cared more about pushing the boundaries of software capability than about the confusing interactions of humans, would enter a series of commands to shut down Lydia’s computer equipment. Files would be scrubbed. Relays would be rendered impotent. Billions of meaningless bits of code would take the place of erased information. Her basement office would look like nothing more than an at-home workstation. At the same time, an electronic pulse would disable the switch that opened the steel door to her arsenal. Should anyone press the button hidden behind her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, they’d get nothing more than befuddlement as to why that button existed. Her armory would rest undetected forever.

  Then Dylan would open the envelope she had entrusted to him and find a cashier’s check for two hundred thousand dollars.

  All signs of the Fixer would disappear. And everything linking Mort Grant to the Fixer would be gone forever.

  She closed the file. Then she closed her eyes and focused on the comforting crackle and woodsy aroma of the logs in her fireplace.

  Her phone rang. She pulled herself from her meditation and glanced at the screen.

  “Hello, Mort,” she answered.

  “How you doing?”

  Lydia looked down at her hands. The cuts and scratches from her encounter with Allie’s Englishmen were disappearing as quickly as the bruises on her legs and shoulders.

  “All’s well,” she lied. Allie would come again. But she’d come for her. There was no need to bring Mort into this. “How about on your end? Robbie and the girls okay?”

  Mort assured her everyone was fine.

  “You sound exhausted. How go the gang wars?”

  Mort told her about his frustration. The body count was high. His investigation was at a standstill.

  “Street gangs inspire terror,” she said. “People don’t want to talk.”

  “I get that. And I got more than a couple of people telling me to be glad the gangsters are taking each other out.”

  “That’s not the Mort Grant way.”

  “You make me sound like Dudley Do-Right. It’s not like that.”

  “What’s it like, then?”

  He hesitated. She hoped he wasn’t filtering his words for her. The secret they shared, that she was the Fixer and he’d let her go free, made Mort the one person in the world with whom she could share complete honesty.

  But you’re not honest with him, are you?

  “Those thugs,” Mort finally answered. “They know what they’re in for when they sign up for a gang. But Benji was a kid. Maybe he had some crazy, superhero idea of who his brother was. Probably couldn’t believe he would have anything to do with anything bad.” She heard weary exasperation in his sigh. “I need to know who gunned Benji down.”

  “Stay with it, then. Something will break. Someone knows something. They’ll talk.”

  “There’s a snag with that, too.” Mort described what had happened at the community meeting at Our Joint that afternoon. Martin Lester, aka D’Loco, had offered fifty thousand dollars for information leading him to Benji’s killer.

  “I tried to get him to shift his reward to the proper channels. He all but rubbed my nose in the dirt. Offered ten thousand if someone came to us. The fifty is available only if they deliver the name straight to him.”

  “And you don’t think this D’Loco would take care of things?”

  “You mean street payback?” Disgust dripped from his voice. “I have no doubt that if D’Loco gets a name, that person will be dead within a day.”

  “Then Benji’s death is avenged. And if that’s what this gang war you’ve got going up there in Seattle is about, that goes away too.”

  His voice rose. “Fifty thousand dollars is going to tempt people. I could see people dropping by D’Loco’s place with any number of names they might want to sell. That’s going to bring more bodies.”

  “Does this D’Loco character know who you and the other people—what did you say their names were, Lane? Does he know you’re Seattle PD?”

  “He does. I interviewed him about Benji’s death. And Lane and his team bring D’Loco in periodically to shake his tree. They can’t get anything to stick.”

  “If D’Loco’s smart enough to have eluded them so far, you don’t think he’d take the time to make sure he really had Benji’s killer before he made his move?”

  “Benji deserves real justice.”

  “Which means what, Mort? Justice your way? All the i’s dotted? Every high-priced lawyer given the opportunity to let Benji’s killers slither away? Is that what Benji deserves?”

  “Of course not. I want whoever killed Benji put away.”

  “On your terms.”

  “Yes…no…I mean—”

  She interrupted him. “You and I both know that doesn’t happen often.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  Lydia looked at the file in front of her, the one directing the distribution of millions of dollars earned dispensing swift and sure justice.

  “Maybe you let the people who know how things really work take care of it for you.”

  Chapter 36

  Seattle

  D’Loco sat in a corner of the clubhouse front porch watching the sky decide if it wanted to rain. J-Fox, Big Cheeks, and Mouse were out there too. The three men would never leave their leader exposed. So they donned hooded parkas and occupied themselves with a halfhearted game of poker at the top of the stairs. D’Loco had asked them to give him some space. Time was running out and he needed every minute of it to figure out his next move. This war had cost him four good men. The Picos had showed him three more 97s could easily have been in the ground too. Spice, his counterpart in the Picos, had proposed a way out. Hand over the 97 who killed the brother of Spice’s top man and the killing would stop. Throw in a juicy block of business and everything would go back to normal.

  Except nothing was ever that easy. D’Loco hadn’t ordered a hit on any Pico. His men would never take out a rival gang member without his approval. When the kid had come to him, waving that Pico sleeve and swearing he killed a Pico to show his allegiance to the 97s, there wasn’t one brother who challenged him and took credit for the kill. What was he to do but bring the kid into the fold?

  Spice would hafta understand that, he thought. Wannabe shows his stuff. Willin’ to kill for the right to wear the colors. No way Spice would turn away somebody like that. He’d do same as me. Bring the brother into the family and put him to work. Spice could even come to understand the kid’s mistake. Banjo was wearin’ his brother’s jacket. A man could make a case it was Three Pop’s own fault his brother was dead.

  But Kashawn didn’t kill that boy. D’Loco had bought the story Kashawn brought to him. That he had shot the boy on impulse and disposed of the weapon. But when Spice and Three Pop told him witnesses saw Benji shot down in a drive-by, D’Loco knew it couldn’t have been Kashawn who gun
ned that boy down.

  The way D’Loco figured, it had to be some minor gang making a play. Whether it was the Chinese, the Puerto Ricans, or some other, he wasn’t sure. But it made sense. Who else would benefit from inciting a war between the Picos and the 97s? With every death, each gang was weakened. Both would have fewer men on the streets to protect their territories. Blocks would become vulnerable. Ripe for some upstart group to take over.

  Givin’ up Green K is a fast way to make this war end. But that ain’t gonna stop whatever punks is thinkin’ they can take what’s ours.

  Since he left the community meeting after announcing his reward for the name of the real killers, D’Loco had been sitting on the porch, waiting. One man, a longtime customer asking to trade what he knew for a lifetime of free product, swore he was there when Banjo got shot. Said he knew for sure it was a white dude wearing a baseball cap driving a car with Oregon plates. Spun a tail of Portland gangs plotting a takeover of Seattle blocks. But when D’Loco pressed him for details, the junkie couldn’t name the street where Banjo died. Couldn’t recall the time of day the hit went down.

  A man and woman came by too. Husband and wife. Strolled up the walk arm in arm, looking scared to be so close to the center of 97 activity. Said their daughter was dating some hotheaded buck. Described him as a no-good, lazy piece of worthlessness bound and determined to steer their little girl into a mess of hurt. Wanted to know if D’Loco might consider this guy as the one who took out Banjo. Told him they’d be grateful for any assistance D’Loco might offer.

  “What you think this is?” D’Loco asked them. “I ain’t no Don Corleone. This ain’t no fuckin’ Godfather movie. Get on out of here and take care of your own by yourself.”

  Late in the afternoon a patrol car pulled up. Two uniformed policemen approached the 97s on the porch with their hands on their holsters. J-Fox, Big Cheeks, and Mouse turned to D’Loco, looking for instruction.

  “Play your hand,” he told them. “This ain’t no thing.”

  One cop was black. He told D’Loco he’d heard about what happened at the community meeting.

  “You start throwing that kind of money around, people get ideas,” the cop said.

  “Ain’t no laws against offerin’ a reward, officer,” D’Loco said. “Folks go to you with a name, they gonna pick up a nice payday.”

  “Streets have been quiet for a coupla days,” the cop said. “We’d like to keep it that way.”

  D’Loco nodded. “That’s just what me and my boys here were talkin’. How nice it been.”

  The two cops gave the four men on the porch a long, slow once-over. They promised to increase their patrols in the area. D’Loco nodded his thanks. Told them he appreciated all their hard work.

  Then he said that unless they had any other reason for being there, he’d appreciate it if they’d move on and let his boys get back to their game.

  D’Loco hoped his offer of fifty thousand dollars would give him fast answers. But as the streetlights came on, signaling the end of another day in the Pico truce, he was running out of options. He thought of Kashawn, upstairs in his room, clinging to his story that he killed Banjo, prepared to die rather than admit he didn’t belong in the 97 brotherhood.

  I’ma stop this war. I’ma save my men.

  D’Loco stood and stretched his arms over his head. He walked to the table and stood behind Big Cheeks as J-Fox dealt another hand.

  “Watch him, now,” D’Loco teased. “Brother need one more card to be right and he’s takin’ all your money.”

  J-Fox and Mouse started a round of trash talk, laughing and sounding relieved that their time on the damp porch might be coming to an end.

  “Come on,” D’Loco said. “Let’s go see what the ladies cooked up for dinner. I’m smellin’ roast good enough for a Sunday.”

  The three men stood, gathering their winnings and rehashing long-shot draws to winning hands. J-Fox and Big Cheeks went into the house. Mouse picked up the cards and told his leader he hoped there might be some mashed potatoes sitting next to that roast beef. D’Loco was about to second that motion when he saw a woman at the end of the walkway. She hesitated, then took a few steps forward. D’Loco thought he’d seen her before. It wasn’t until she came closer, bathed now in the glow of the front porch lights, that he recognized her.

  She was the last person he expected to see standing at the bottom of the stairs leading to the 97 clubhouse.

  “What you want?” he asked.

  The woman looked over her shoulder, then pulled up the hood of her jacket. “I got something you’re going to want to hear.”

  D’Loco turned to Big Cheeks. “Go on inside. Grab a plate. I got nothin’ to fear from this lady.” He stared back at the woman. “That’s right, ain’t it?”

  The woman climbed up the stairs.

  Well now, D’Loco thought. This gonna turn into somethin’.

  Chapter 37

  Seattle

  Kashawn stepped out of the shower and rubbed himself dry with a towel that smelled like flowers. He wondered how the cleaning ladies made that happen. He remembered one of his foster families. He must have been about six, because he was in kindergarten for the few months he lived there. He’d been given an air mattress in the laundry room, right next to the litter box the woman’s four cats used. He woke up every morning to the smell of cat piss. She was the one who let him color on grocery bags when he came home from school. Despite that kindness, Kashawn was relieved when he got moved. He had to share a bed with another kid in the next house he lived in. And he didn’t get to go to kindergarten anymore. But it was worth it. He’d take the stink of that kid’s morning breath over cat piss any day.

  Kashawn opened the top drawer of his dresser. What they gonna do with all these underpants? What was I thinkin’ buyin’ ten pairs of tighty whities? He ran a hand across the neatly rolled briefs. He selected a fresh pair and shifted the remainder to close the gap. He pulled a white T-shirt from the stack. I’m a man who has hisself ten undershirts. One of ’em gets a tear, I throw it away and buy a new one.

  Kashawn never would have the need to replenish the contents of that drawer. But the notion he would have been able to walk into any store and buy himself a new stock of underwear comforted him.

  Kashawn had three pairs of jeans hanging in the closet. He considered wearing the khakis he’d purchased for his lunch with LaTonya but decided against it. He already knew he’d wear the Seahawks sweatshirt he’d found waiting for him that first day he woke up in this room.

  First thing I wore as a 97.

  Kashawn had been relieved of his territory after that meeting between D’Loco and Spice, but he’d been allowed to stay at the clubhouse. With no responsibilities on his corner, with no need for war council meetings as long as the truce held, and with D’Loco not asking him to ride along with him anymore, he kept himself busy helping out the ladies in the kitchen. His brothers still greeted him and never hesitated to offer him beer or weed, but Kashawn sensed they knew his status was changed. Conversations stopped when he entered a room. Nobody asked him why he wasn’t out earning his money. D’Loco’s attitude toward him was different, and every brother took a step back as a result.

  They know what’s comin’. Might not know the details, but they know it’s somethin’.

  And when J-Fox came to his room that afternoon, telling him D’Loco wanted him ready to ride at nine o’clock sharp, Kashawn knew it was about to go down. The three-day truce was coming to an end.

  Kashawn slipped his feet into the same shoes his brothers had left for him that first day. He smoothed a hand over his sweatshirt and stepped to the mirror for one last check. Only one thing was missing. He tied a strip of blue cloth around his left bicep.

  I earned these colors. Could be I didn’t come into this family in the way I said, but I stood on that corner. I ran my business. I brought home good money and I took care of my brothers. I’ma die a 97.

  He fussed with the knot until his gang’s
colors hung just right. Wish you could see me, Ettie. Wish you knew you got nothin’ to worry ’bout me. Your boy made it just fine.

  Kashawn looked at the clock: 8:47. He counted on his fingers, then sat on the bed and spent his last thirteen minutes memorizing every detail about the only space on earth that had ever been his alone.

  —

  J-Fox pulled the Escalade behind a row of one-story buildings. Kashawn had never been to this part of the city before. They’d driven more than forty minutes and he didn’t even know if they were still in Seattle anymore. J-Fox and D’Loco hadn’t said a word the entire trip. Kashawn had thought it best to do the same.

  “You keep your mouth shut.” D’Loco kept his eyes straight ahead after J-Fox turned off the ignition. “You stupid enough to bring a piece with you, best you leave it here in the backseat.”

  “I ain’t packin’.” Kashawn’s mouth was dry.

  “This gonna be a hard night for you.”

  Kashawn nodded, even though D’Loco couldn’t see him. There were no lights in the parking lot and the fog made everything seem even darker than it was.

  “You got anything to say, boy, you say it now.” D’Loco still didn’t look at him.

  “I know what you gotta do.” It was difficult for Kashawn to find breath for volume, but he wanted to speak loud enough for both men to hear. He hoped J-Fox would tell his brothers Kashawn took what was coming like a true 97. Not like that no-good Ax. J-Fox could tell the tale of how Kashawn saved his brothers, stopping this war by offering himself up. “And I know what I gotta do.”