by Jeff Abbott
I walked over to her table. “What’s the problem?”
“Steve said you wouldn’t be nosy.”
“You’re afraid and now he’s worried.”
She glanced up at me. “You’re a lot younger than Steve is.”
“So?”
“I don’t think you can help me.” She got up and looked out the window, but didn’t stand close to it.
“Are you his client who needs an inside man?”
She didn’t answer me. “It’s not what you’d call a nice bar, but I like it,” she said. “I like that you have left that checkers game untouched. That’s some customer service, there.” She tried out a smile. It was lovely.
I shrugged. “Every game should be finished until there’s a winner.”
“I agree completely.” She watched for him at the window. Steve’s motorcycle was parked out front, under the awning, and he’d left his jacket and his helmet on the barstool. I moved them down to his table and I could hear his bike’s keys jingle in the jacket pocket.
I joined her at the window. A block down was another bar, with no one sitting outside. A moderate rain had started, chasing the Sunday-night drinkers inside. Traffic had thinned, a light mist coming with midnight. The street was empty. “I’ll be fine waiting for him.”
“He asked me to stay with you,” I said.
“That’s my car,” she said. I wondered why on earth he would have insisted that he bring her car around rather than just walk her to it if he were concerned for her safety. Steve was Steve. It was an older Jaguar, in mint condition. I saw Steve at the wheel, turning onto the street from the prepaid lot, three blocks from us.
He pulled up in front of Stormy’s. He stepped out onto the brick sidewalk. He started to walk along the car, checking the fenders and the wheel wells, I realized, for a tracking device.
Then from the opposite direction, from the road Steve took to his house, a heavy SUV roared down the street, slowed when it reached Steve. He turned to look at them.
I heard a single shot, muffled.
Steve fell. The SUV roared past us.
The woman screamed.
2
I RAN ONTO the bar’s front patio. I could see Steve, eyes open, the top of his head obliterated, lying next to the Jaguar. I touched his throat for a pulse. Gone.
The SUV had roared away. I didn’t have its license. I wasn’t even sure of its model. The back of my brain took over. I ran back inside, grabbed Steve’s jacket and helmet.
“What are you doing?” she screamed.
“Lock the door! Call the police!” I yelled.
Then I ran to Steve’s vintage bike. Pulled on the windbreaker, fastened the helmet. Found the keys in the jacket pocket, started the ignition. I wheeled in the direction the SUV had gone.
I leaned down into the bike, revving through red lights on the vacant streets, roaring past the entrance to The Barnacle State Park, where boats had delivered supplies to Coconut Grove’s first residents. I headed toward Cocowalk, the large shopping district, full of chain restaurants and stores. I glanced down the side streets as I raced through the intersections. I zoomed through another light, a car honking at me. Then I saw the SUV; it had already turned to my left and I veered across the scant traffic. It was three blocks ahead of me.
The SUV was driving through the old Bahamian neighborhood of Coconut Grove, where the houses were smaller and often colorfully painted.
The driver took a hard right and accelerated. He had a gun, at the least, and I had nothing. So I wasn’t exactly about to ride up close. But I could hear the engine and I stopped at the intersection, watching them accelerate fast down 32nd, headed toward the US-1 highway. That was how I tried to refer to it. Every major road in Miami seems to have three names, which had caused me endless confusion when I arrived.
I took off after them, hanging back. The license plates were smeared with mud. I could maybe get close enough to read it, but a fever—that deadly burning that wouldn’t let me walk away from trouble—began to ride my brain hard. They’d killed my friend, the one friend I had in this town. Did I just let them walk away? Steve hadn’t left our family in our moment of need; he didn’t abandon us and call for help, he stayed with us, made sure the job was done. I could get their license plate and then what? Go back to the bar and call the police? What if the car was stolen and dumped? They were here, I was here, the fever told me: stay with them. Here’s the reality after a hit: you want to run and you want to blend in. You have to vanish, twice, first from notice that you killed someone and then into the crowd. They hadn’t accomplished stage one yet.
I followed.
They pulled onto the entrance ramp for Highway 1, heading toward downtown Miami, and I followed. If they recognized this motorcycle as the one parked outside the bar, then they’d know I was chasing them. Hopefully they didn’t see, with the rain and the head start they’d had, that I was following them.
So I let myself get a little closer. I wasn’t armed. They were two cars ahead of me and I could hear my own hard breathing over the rush of the late-night traffic.
We zoomed onto I-95 North, went past the towers of downtown. Miami is a city of light, and through the rain the skyline glowed. I thought they might veer off toward the dazzle of Miami Beach, but they stayed on the highway. I risked getting ahead of them; glancing over I could see a driver and a passenger. I slowed and they revved ahead of me and I let a few cars get between us.
I wondered, Are they leaving town? How far are they going to go?
We entered North Miami, them four cars ahead of me. On one side was the town itself, on the left was an array of businesses and warehouses. The SUV was in the left lane and suddenly it boomed across all the lanes and took the exit.
No choice. I followed them. A noble citizen honked at me and I wondered if the sound carried above the rain, which had begun to ease. At the bottom of the ramp they caught the green light just as it changed and veered hard to the left, under the highway, toward the warehouses and complexes.
I stopped at the yellow light. Counted. The light turned red. I watched their taillights turn out of sight, and then I ran the light. I got to the highway’s opposite frontage road and saw them heading south. In a matter of seconds they turned into one of the business complexes. I followed, at a distance.
They’d just killed a man. They were either waiting here to be paid if this was a hired job, or to celebrate, or hide. Or to ambush me. They stopped at a building two blocks ahead of me, fire-escape stairs running up its side, a For Lease sign prominent on the front. I suppose the smartest thing for me to do was to watch them go into the building, surveil them, see who arrived there next or when they left.
But I wasn’t set up to spy on them. Later I would think about why I did what I did, and the reasons for it would shine like stars coming awake in a sky without clouds. But I wasn’t calm, cool, collected. I was…vengeance. I was a fury, with a motorcycle instead of black wings. Not my finest moment.
Two guys got out of the SUV. One skinny, one heavy, the skinny one on the driver’s side. Guns in hand. Talking. Not noticing me.
Then I realized I was armed. No turning back.
So I roared Steve’s bike—my weapon—straight at the skinny one. Normally I would have attacked the bigger guy first, but the skinny dude was the driver and therefore had the keys. I didn’t want the other one escaping into a locked building if this was home base. The skinny guy turned at the approach of the motorcycle and fired at me and I felt the bullet ricochet off Steve’s motorcycle helmet.
Then I slammed into him. Hard. He went down, the tires skidded across his groin, chest, and head. I lost control of the bike and I hit the wire fence that lined the lot. My leg got trapped and I squirmed free. The heavy guy was running, down the gap between the buildings.
I grabbed for the driver’s pistol. I steadied my aim, my right arm and leg hot with pain, Steve’s windbreaker in tatters.
“Freeze!” I yelled. He rounded a corner. I fol
lowed, running as best I could. I waited at the alley’s bend, risked a glance, saw the heavy guy running, trying to find a place to hide in the maze of warehouses and office buildings, probably just long enough to phone for help.
I stayed low. Trying to keep my breathing silent. Moved through the labyrinth, listening to his footsteps. The driver’s gun was a Beretta 92FS and I made myself check the clip. It was fresh, just two shots fired, one in the chamber, twelve in the clip.
“You’re not a cop, who the hell are you?” the voice rang out. From my left.
I didn’t answer. I don’t believe you have to answer every question, every e-mail, every phone call. I like to keep my own counsel.
“You don’t know what you’re messing with!” the guy yelled.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Tell her it’s for her own good.” Then the distant thunder rumbled and his words went indistinct.
I stopped and listened. I’d seen but not registered in the few moments he’d stood in the pool of security lights that he was wearing a dark suit and cowboy boots. Bad choice, but one presumed he didn’t anticipate being chased on foot. And those thick heels were loud on concrete.
I could hear him, heading back into the maze of buildings in the complex. Then his boots against metal.
A fire escape.
I turned a corner and then I saw him, two buildings ahead. He ran up the four-story fire escape. I waited until he reached the roof and vanished. I followed, much more quietly.
All the advantage was his. I’d seen that he had a gun. If he were bright he’d wait and see if I climbed to the roof and then shoot me. So I got off the fire escape, silently, finding a sliver of ledge. My hobby in happier days had been parkour, the extreme running sport where you vault walls and jump over spaces and ignore heights. But the building’s ledge wasn’t made for walking, it was decorative, and if he decided to risk a glance down he could simply fire straight down into my head. Two feet out onto the ledge I questioned my decision: I should have smashed through a window, except that would have telegraphed where I was and what I was doing. I had no guarantee that from the top floor I could reach the roof—the door might be locked, there might be people inside—and in that time he could retreat onto a neighboring building or back down the fire escape.
So the ledge. I just had to hope he was too freaked-out—Steve’s killing had not gone quite the way it was supposed to go.
I moved faster. If I fell I’d be dead and with Steve at some heavenly bar and he’d probably say, What the hell were you thinking?
What was I thinking? The flame in my brain raged, the need to stop them, to not let them get away with cold-blooded murder. For a moment I saw my brother Danny’s face, shaky on a handheld camera, kneeling before his executioner. I couldn’t think about him. Then Steve’s face, looking at me through a broken car window in a long-ago African night, the distant sounds of shelling a fierce echo. I shoved all the thoughts away.
I rounded the corner of the building. He wouldn’t expect me from this side. I wanted to be behind him.
At the same moment, I heard the rising approach of sirens. Someone had heard the earlier shots. And here I was, stuck on the side of the building.
I raised my head past the parapet and risked a glance onto the roof. I could see the heavy guy standing by the fire escape, peering along the complex’s alleys, trying to see me in the shadows.
In one move, I pulled myself up. I hurried toward him. He spun toward me and I fired, aiming at his leg. I missed; he jumped back; and in his surprise and fear he lost his balance against the roof’s edge.
He fell. He plummeted toward the alleyway. Twice I heard sharp clangs, him hitting the metal of the fire escape. When I reached the edge and looked down, he lay broken on the asphalt. Dead.
I ran. But not down the fire escape, because the approaching sirens told me I had less than thirty seconds and no way could I clear the steps before the police arrived. So I ran to the opposite edge of the roof and jumped. Grabbed hold of a sign jutting out from the building, swung, and jumped again, landed on the lower roof of the neighboring building, hit, rolled onto my back to spread the force of the impact, ran at higher speed, jumped, landed on the next building, which had a lower roofline. Normally when I do this kind of parkour run, I’ve walked the route, studied it to plan my jumps and runs. Here I ran fast and unsure of what came next. I was lucky the buildings were close together, their loading bays all facing the same road. I heard the sirens hold position and I figured the body had been found. At the edge of the next building was the frontage road, and I ran out of room. I went quietly down that building’s fire escape and walked away. I tucked Steve’s motorcycle helmet under my arm.
I walked into the night, into the rain.
The heavy guy was dead. The skinny guy, I didn’t know. Had he seen my face, under the helmet? Had he realized I’d followed him from the closed bar? Who else would be there after closing but the owner? Would the skinny guy tell the police? My heart felt hot.
I was without a ride. I ducked under the highway bridge and along a major thoroughfare. I walked for a mile. Miami is not a town with cabs roaming in the rain. But I found a small, closed bar in a strip mall and I took shelter from the rain in front of it. Every responsible barkeep has a taxi app on his smartphone, and I used mine to find and electronically hail a vacant cab.
I sat in the back of the cab and shivered from the rain and thought, Why did they kill Steve? Steve was kindness, and goodness, and bad jokes, and a round of drinks for the bar. I would have to tell my parents. He’d asked me for help and I’d said no. I’d failed him, utterly. My thoughts were a jumble: guilt, fury at the killers, fear I’d be caught. The CIA taught me to think clearly in a dangerous situation but it was as though my brain had abandoned me.
I had the driver drop me off a few blocks from Stormy’s with a very hefty tip, paid in cash. I watched the cab pull out of sight before I took a step. I slowly walked toward the bar. Half the street was closed, the police working Steve’s murder scene. A forensics team, hurrying in the rain. Not much traffic but the late-night crowd—there’s always a late-night crowd in Miami, even on Sunday—was a thin gathering along the edges of the police barricade.
My bar stood dark—it looked deserted. The pools of light near the entrance were turned off. I had left those on, I was sure.
I didn’t see Steve’s friend.
I didn’t see the police interviewing anyone.
And her Jaguar was gone.
Still three blocks away, I turned and walked over one street. I went to my bar’s back door. It was unlocked. I went inside; I left the lights off and locked the door behind me. I hid the gun I’d taken from the driver—it might have been the weapon used to kill Steve. I went upstairs and in the dark I hid the gun in a safe. I hid the dented motorcycle helmet under the bed.
Very quietly, and in the dark so the cops outside wouldn’t notice, I came downstairs and I gently tested the front door. Locked.
She was gone.
I went back upstairs, again without turning on any lights. I dried off and put my rain-wet clothes in the dryer and turned it on. I put on pajama pants and a T-shirt from the bar (IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY AT STORMY’S!). I took a deep breath. I turned on the TV and put it on the classic movies channel, turned up the volume. Then I flicked on the upstairs light. I scrunched my hair into a bedhead tangle.
Me turning on the lights didn’t go unnoticed by the police. Within a minute there was an officer and a detective knocking on the bar door. I went down to answer it.
“Sir?”
“Yes?” I said. I sounded sleepy, or a little drunk.
“There’s been a shooting about forty-five minutes ago. Did you hear the gunfire?”
“No,” I lied. “I just woke up. What…what happened?”
The detective told me there had been a man shot to death on the street. I said I knew nothing. I said that I’d closed the bar promptly at midnight and then gone straight upstairs and gone
to sleep, because I wasn’t feeling well. My story was hard for him to dent. I hadn’t heard a shot; I had the TV turned to an old movie, which, along with the pattering drone of rain, lulled me to deep sleep. Or if I’d heard a shot, I hadn’t recognized it as such. He talked to me and around me some more, lots of questions. We stood in the bar, me dressed for bed, the police puddling rainwater on the floor.
“The ID on the man was Steve Robles. You know him?” the detective said.
I let some of the emotion I felt bleed out. “Oh, hell. Yes, sir. I know Steve. He’s a regular here. Oh God, no.”
“Was he here tonight?”
There had been no mention of another witness, certainly not one here in the bar. So she had said nothing. So I gambled, and if I was wrong I’d be spending the night in jail for lying to an officer. “Yes. But he left when I closed.” And yes, I knew I shouldn’t lie, but I couldn’t tell the police I’d chased down his murderers and maybe killed them both. I thought of the video feed of Daniel, sleeping in his crib. I couldn’t risk losing that sight.
“He’s a really good guy. Everyone likes him. Who would do this?” I asked.
“He didn’t argue with anyone here tonight?”
“No. Argue? Steve is very easygoing. Everyone likes him. Who would…did someone see him get shot?” I asked.
“A man driving by saw him lying on the sidewalk, called us.”
So she didn’t call the police. And maybe from the street you couldn’t see Steve’s body if the Jaguar was still parked there.
“I can’t believe this.” I went and got a glass and poured a shot of bourbon. I needed to play the part of the rattled barkeep. The bottle clinked, clinked, clinked against the glass as I tried to steady the pour.
“Sir, please don’t drink that right now.”
