The Shadow Broker (Mr. Finn Book 1)

by Trace Conger

  Bishop and Fat Sam watched as the officers spoke with Mercer. He handed a license or ID to the officer, who studied it. The officer at the car door stepped back a few feet and spoke into the walkie-talkie clipped near his shoulder. After a few minutes, he motioned to the other officer, who slipped his service revolver back into its holster. The officer at the car door handed back whatever Mercer gave him, pointed down the street and then returned to the cruiser with his partner.

  Mercer looked up at the balcony window before throwing his car into gear and slowing pulling away from the curb.

  “Let’s go. We won’t have much time,” said Bishop. The two men waited at the front door. Bishop stared through the front window, his fingers tapping on the backpack’s shoulder strap. The cruisers pulled away, and Bishop and Fat Sam were out the door, heading toward the corner of Hatch Street.

  They arrived at the corner, but no cab. Bishop checked his watch and looked over his shoulder down Hatch, then Fort View. Bishop noticed a black SUV approach from the east. Fat Sam reached into his bag and gripped his Glock. The SUV slowed as it came to the stop sign at the corner where the two men stood. The teenage driver nodded before pulling forward and disappeared down the road. A moment later, the Yellow Cab rounded the corner and stopped in front of Bishop and Fat Sam. The two men climbed into the vehicle. It pulled away, riding slightly lower than when it arrived.

  AFTER I CAME TO, SOMEONE pulled a hood off my head. I was strapped to a chair in a dank, unfinished basement. My hands cuffed behind me. The gray walls were wet, smelled of mildew and the room was bare except for a few storage boxes, a furnace and a seven-foot-tall black man. If Fat Sam was the biggest person I’d ever seen, this guy was the most solid. He had a square head and a look that would make a Navy SEAL shit his wetsuit. He wore a light-brown suit that had to be a special order. Maybe from one of those big and tall stores that advertises on daytime television. After the suit, the next thing I noticed was his knuckles. They were the size of half dollars, and I hoped I wouldn’t get a closer look at them. Someone shuffled behind me, but I couldn’t see them.

  “You Mr. Finn?” said the big man.

  Before I could answer, he swung. The chair tipped, but I’m pretty sure I blacked out before I hit the floor.

  WHEN I CAME TO THE second time, my chair was back on all fours. Same basement, but now a man in a black turtleneck and the woman I saw in the coffee shop stood next to the big guy. I opened my mouth wide to see if my jaw still worked. It did, but it felt like I took a fastball to the face. It was a strange sensation. Numb, but stinging at the same time. It reminded me of the punch I’d taken in Rollo’s lobby times four.

  The big man crouched so we were eye to eye. “You Mr. Finn?”

  I braced for another blow, but it didn’t come. “Yes,” I said. Normally, I would have led with a tough guy “who’s asking,” but I knew that wouldn’t go over well. I’d been in deep shit before. You don’t work with the people I do without stepping in it from time to time, but this was the first time I actually thought I’d be checking out. And from the size of this guy’s fists, it wouldn’t take much effort on his part.

  “Do you know who I am?” said the big man.

  “No.”

  “Dunbar. From Detroit.”

  Earlier, Bishop had mentioned Rollo’s boss in Detroit. This must be him.

  “And who are they?” I nodded to the others standing next to Dunbar.

  “They’re none of your fucking business. The only thing you need to be worried about right now is your pain threshold.”

  I looked at each person in the room, taking them all in. “I won’t waste your time saying you got the wrong guy,” I said. “I’m sure you do. But maybe you could tell me what’s going on.”

  “Rollo Watkins,” said Dunbar. “That’s what’s going on.”

  “Rollo. He works for you?”

  “You say that like he’s still alive, and we both know he ain’t.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Heard you splattered his insides all over his office. That accurate?”

  “That’s about right,” I said.

  “Good to know we got the right guy.” Dunbar nodded and Turtleneck walked behind me and returned with three brown plastic bags. He opened the bags and set the contents on the floor next to me. A full-face respirator, a piece of black hose, a large gray bottle, a smaller white bottle and a roll of duct tape.

  This wasn’t going to end well.

  “Is this the part where I offer you a bunch of money to let me go?” I said.

  “I already got a bunch of money,” said Dunbar. “This is the part where I tell you all the heinous shit we’re gonna do to you.”

  From my periphery, I saw Turtleneck pick up the respirator. It had a plastic face shield and a filter, about the size of a can of shoe polish, attached to the chin area. Two straps crisscrossed to secure it onto someone’s head. I assumed that would be my head.

  “You’re actually a lucky man,” said Dunbar. “If we were back home, you’d get the five-star treatment. I won’t go into a lot of details, but it involves a belt sander, a pair of pliers and a circular saw. It’s a bitch to clean up, but fun to watch. Since I ain’t dragging your sorry ass back to Detroit, you get the road package.”

  Turtleneck popped off the respirator’s filter and tore a long piece of duct tape from the roll. Then, he attached one end of the black hose to the respirator where the filter had been and bound it with the tape.

  I searched my brain for anything that could get me out of this. “What’s the road package?” I asked, not really wanting to know.

  “Ammonia and plant fungicide,” Dunbar paused. “Does a number on the eyes and lungs. Takes about a minute or two to start eating through your mucous membranes. Then, all sorts of nasty things happen. Throat closes up; fluid builds up in your lungs. You start bleeding from the nose and mouth. I’ve seen eyeballs turn yellow and skin turn black. Awful shit.”

  Turtleneck unscrewed the cap from the gray and white bottles. He walked next to the furnace and dumped some of the liquid from the gray bottle down the drain in the floor. Then, he poured some of the liquid from the white bottle into the gray bottle, capped it and shook it. He unscrewed the cap and attached the other end of the black hose to the top of the gray bottle with duct tape.

  Dunbar nodded to Turtleneck. “Breathe that in for a bit,” he said. “If you’re still conscious in ten minutes, we’ll start cutting things off.”

  I wasn’t confident I had anything to get me out of this. “What about Bishop?” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “He ordered the hit on Rollo. Shouldn’t he be in a chair too?”

  “That’s not what I heard,” said Dunbar. “Bishop said he sent you over to Rollo’s to make a drop. Said during the drop you grew a pair and took Rollo out. To cut him out. Impress Bishop.”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “That’s what Bishop said. He’s got no reason to lie.”

  I shifted in the chair. “You put a gun to a man’s head and he’ll say anything you want,” I said.

  “You got a different story?”

  “I do.” I arched my back and tried to slip my hands from the cuffs, but they were clamped tight. “Bishop hired me to take Rollo out. End of story. The drop was just a cover to get close to him. I pulled the trigger, but Bishop ordered it.”

  “Why?” said Dunbar.

  “The Dark Brokerage. He was tired of cutting Rollo and you in on it. He wanted to go off on his own and keep the profits. He took out Rollo’s man Hickman, too. Needed everyone that knew about the operation gone.”

  Dunbar looked at the ground and played it through in his head.

  “What brokerage?”

  “His website. He’s been pulling in three point nine mil a year, but he’s been shortchanging Rollo and you. He cooked his books and told Rollo he was only doing one point three mil. The cash drops he made to Rollo was his and your cut. A third each. But he
calculated your third against the one point three figure, not the actual cash he pulled in. He was fucking you and Rollo out of ...” I tried to do the math in my head.

  “Out of seventeen thousand dollars a week,” said the woman holding her mobile phone. She tapped the screen. “Or eight hundred eighty-four thousand dollars a year.”

  “It’s more than that,” said Dunbar. “Because I’ve never heard of this Dark Brokerage, and Rollo hasn’t been cutting me in on any of Bishop’s business.”

  My head spun with the notion of inhaling an ammonia cocktail, but it was clear enough to understand what was going through Dunbar’s mind. Bishop was fucking Rollo, and Rollo was fucking Dunbar. He hadn’t seen a dime from the Dark Brokerage. That was my out.

  Dunbar squinted his eyes and then he looked down. Connecting the dots. “What’d you say about a man telling you whatever he wants to hear when he’s got a gun to his head?”

  “Look, I’m probably not getting out of this one—”

  “You’re goddamn right about that,” Dunbar interrupted.

  “But I’m not going to be Bishop’s bitch. He played us all on this. Bishop ordered that hit as sure as I’m sitting here right now.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Dunbar said. “After I’m finished with you, I’ll head back over there and straighten things out with Bishop. We’ll get the truth and our money.”

  “You said you’ve already talked to him. That he gave me up. He knows you’re in Cincinnati. Knows you’re coming for me, and knows I’ll turn on him. He’ll go underground. You won’t be able to get close to him again. But I can.”

  “I got a man on him,” said Dunbar.

  “Your man isn’t on him. If Bishop slips, your money’s gone.”

  “Call Mercer,” said Dunbar, turning to Turtleneck.

  Turtleneck set the gray bottle on the floor, pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed.

  “Bishop still inside the house?” he said.

  He listened to Mercer. “Find him then.”

  He looked at Dunbar and shook his head as he hung up the phone.

  “We’ll find him,” said Dunbar.

  “You won’t,” I said. “Bishop works in the shadows. That’s his whole business model. He’s invisible. He’ll disappear. With your money.”

  “Let’s end this shit,” said Dunbar.

  Turtleneck snapped the respirator over my head. He pulled tight on the adjustable straps, and the mask pinched into my chin and cheeks. He slammed his fist into my gut and I emptied my lungs. As I inhaled, the fumes hit me. My throat stung as though I’d swallowed a handful of screws. My nasal passages turned into an incinerator. After a few seconds, my chest tightened and felt like Fat Sam was sitting on it. This would be over in minutes.

  “If Bishop goes underground, your money’s gone.” I’d hoped Dunbar could understand me through the muffled respirator. “Am I really worth eight hundred grand? I can get it for you.”

  He looked at me and squinted again. More dots. “Pull it,” he said. The respirator came off. “How can you get to Bishop? If he’s so invisible, how’re you gonna find him?”

  I coughed and drew in a lungful of fresh air. “That’s what I do. I find people. People who don’t want to be found.”

  “And I’m supposed to take you for your word? Just let you go? Not likely.”

  “I get that you don’t know me from anyone, but I’m the guy who walked into Rollo’s headquarters and crushed his entire operation with a car key. I can find Bishop.”

  Dunbar didn’t say anything. The wheels turned and I hoped he wouldn’t hit the brakes. He looked at Turtleneck, who stood next to me with the respirator in his hand, and waved him off. Dunbar knelt down in front of me and leaned in close enough that I could see the silver fillings in his molars.

  “You’re the luckiest motherfucker on the planet.”

  I exhaled, my chest still tight.

  “Here’s what’s gonna happen,” said Dunbar. “I’m gonna let you walk outta this basement, and you better thank your goddamn lucky stars that you’re still breathing. You’ve got two days to find Bishop, put a bullet in his fucking head and get my money.” Dunbar pointed to his crew. “These two are gonna be on your tail. You don’t deliver on your end in forty-eight hours, and you’ll be right back in this fucking chair, and that mask ain’t coming off again. You got me?”

  My chest heaved in and out as I sucked in more fresh air. Everything burned. “I got you.”

  “Now, you repeat that back to me so I know we’re clear.”

  “Two days to find Bishop, get your cash and put a bullet in his head.”

  “That’s good.” Dunbar gave another signal to Turtleneck, who snapped a black hood back over my head. Soft and welcoming compared to the tight respirator. The punch that followed wasn’t that bad, either.

  I WOKE UP BEHIND A garbage bin in an alley next to Winans. It smelled like my boat. I grabbed the side of the bin, pulled myself up and wiped the garbage scraps from my jeans.

  I swallowed hard. My throat was dry and my teeth chattered even though it was sixty-five degrees outside.

  My brain wanted to reflect on my existence and my daughter, contemplate how close I came to punching out, and ponder how bad this entire thing just got, but I didn’t have the time. I had two days to find Bishop and deliver Dunbar’s money. For the next two days I could still fix this. After that, who knew?

  No matter what I told Dunbar I could do, two days wasn’t that much time. It took me longer to find Banks and while he was hiding behind an obscure identity, he wasn’t trying to hide his location. Bishop would be completely underground. And I had dick to go on. Two days to set this right and get out from under Dunbar’s thumb. Ten days to get the FBI the information they wanted.

  Time to get started.

  ELABORATE SCHEMES NEVER WORK. YEARS ago, I took my father shopping for a new car after his ancient Honda finally crapped out. We hit several dealers, looked at dozens of cars and he always said the same thing: “Too much technology.” My father didn’t see the convenience of heated seats, NAV systems, power everything or backup monitors. He only saw the potential for something to go wrong. “The more bells and whistles, the more there is to break,” he’d say. Never did replace the Honda.

  It’s the same with complicated plans and schemes. Bishop should be seeing that now. The more moving parts, the higher the likelihood that one of those parts is going to fail. That’s why I prefer the simple, direct approach. Just like Dad.

  The Feds gave me a USB drive to slip into Bishop’s laptop. How it got into that laptop was my problem. I could dial up any number of plays, but the simplest would be the most effective.

  I hedged that Bishop didn’t know Dunbar picked me up, strapped me to a chair and threatened to burn my face off. To Bishop, if I called, it meant Dunbar hadn’t found me. It’s tough to call anyone when you’re dead. I pulled up my cheery, everything’s-kosher voice and dialed Bishop’s cell. Four rings later, he answered. A good sign. Most people answer a cell phone within two rings. It took Bishop four. Thanks to caller ID, he’d know it was me and four rings meant he was thinking through the conversation in his head before he picked up the phone. Wondering.

  “Bishop, it’s me. I thought you might be interested in something.”

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “When we were with Banks ... before we did the job, Little Freddie asked him what info he had on you. He admitted to having the usernames and passwords for your site, but he also had some other files that he’d downloaded. I don’t know what they are. He gave me a USB drive with the info before, you know, he cashed out. I thought you might want it.”

  Bishop was quiet. He was questioning the call. In his mind, I was still a dead man. Dunbar just hadn’t found me yet. Everything should still be fine between us.

  “Why didn’t you give it to me earlier?” he said.

  “Forgot I had it. With all that happened that night, it slipped my mind.”

  Bishop w
as a paranoid guy. You have to be, in his business, so I knew he’d want to know what was on the USB drive. To see what else Banks pulled from his site.

  “You don’t know what’s on it? What files he has?” said Bishop.

  “He just said it was account information, but he didn’t elaborate. Maybe it’s nothing. I can destroy it if you want.”

  “No,” he said. “I’ll take it. I want to see what else was worth fifty grand a month.”

  “Want me to head to your place?”

  “No.”

  That confirmed he was underground. Otherwise, we’d meet in his Mount Adams home like before.

  “There’s a restaurant on Vine,” he said. “Olive’s Café.”

  “I know where it is,” I said.

  “Meet me there in twenty minutes.”

  THE USB DRIVE BURNED A hole in my pocket as I parked and walked toward the restaurant. I didn’t take a direct route.

  I arrived fifteen minutes early and ordered a small cup of coffee. It was steaming, but I asked the guy behind the counter to microwave it for thirty seconds anyway. It would be near boiling. I wasn’t carrying a weapon. If Bishop were to see that, he’d be suspicious. I could toss the coffee in a pinch.

  Bishop arrived a few minutes after me, carrying a black computer case. He sat across from me at the table in the back of the restaurant.

  “Good to see you again,” he said, pulling a water bottle from his computer case.

  “You too. Want to get a drink or something?”

  “I’m good. Let’s get to it. Where’s the drive?” He looked over his shoulder, toward the door and tapped his fingers on the table as I reached into my pocket and set the USB drive in front of him. It was an orange fob about the size of a cigarette lighter with rounded edges, a cap on one end and a key ring on the other. Bishop studied it for a moment and then pulled his laptop out of his computer case. He pressed the power button and it beeped to life. He inserted the drive into the USB slot and waited for the computer to boot up.