Every Day Above Ground

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  “It’s Van.”

  There was a pause. “What’s wrong?”

  Trust Luce to know this wasn’t my attempt at a late-night hookup.

  “Five minutes,” I said, amending it with, “If you can.”

  Another few seconds ticked by before the lock answered with a harsh drone. I pulled the door open and walked up the long flight to the first story of apartments. Luce waited in her doorway at the far end. I hadn’t woken her. She wore jeans and her faded Karen O t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, instead of the oversized cotton tees she favored on warm nights. Her blonde hair was pulled back and held in place with a large black claw clip. Her feet were bare.

  “Sorry to surprise you,” I said.

  “You often do.” Luce walked back into her apartment. It was a feminine space, lots of snapshots and soft textures, and it managed to be cluttered and spotless and homey and precise through a method I hadn’t quite figured out. Like the woman herself. I waited as she retrieved her mug of tea from the bedside—hardback book open on the blanket, no sign of any other recent company—and followed her into the tiny kitchen where I declined a cup for myself and we sat in the only two chairs at the table.

  “Jimmy Corcoran is dead,” I said.

  Her face hardly changed at all, but sadness was suddenly there, in her eyes and in the set of her mouth.

  “Today?” she said.

  I nodded.

  “How?”

  “He was killed. Shot.”

  Luce took in my soiled appearance. I was sure she had spotted the gun in my jacket pocket before I’d even crossed the threshold.

  “Has Jimmy’s wife heard yet?” she said.

  “I expect so.”

  Luce leaned back. She’d known Corcoran as a friend of her uncle’s, and of Dono’s. A presence for her whole life. Even if she and Jimmy weren’t close, it was still a loss, another permanent absence in a generation with whom we had few surviving connections.

  “Was it a job?” she said. “Something that you were part of?”

  “Yes.”

  She tilted her head in a question. “But that’s not all of it.”

  “Jimmy got involved because he wanted to make money. I’m not making him out to be better than he was. He also helped some people along the way. He figured that made the hazards worth it.”

  “Regular people?”

  “At least one kid you could rightfully call innocent.”

  “And you wanted me to know that,” Luce said, catching on, “because you can’t tell Jimmy’s family.”

  My long exhalation sounded more like a sigh than I’d intended. “I just wanted to say it to somebody who knew him,” I replied.

  “I understand.” And after a moment, “Elana had told me it was some sort of rescue effort.”

  Dammit. “Elana talks too much.”

  “I sort of forced her to tell me.”

  “Dangling something shiny in front of her, I bet. Freaking magpie.”

  Luce laughed softly. I hadn’t had the pleasure of hearing her laugh in many months, and it gave me a feeling like a drink of hot cider on a frozen day.

  “I should go,” I said.

  “If you want.” She stood up when I did. “Thank you for telling me about Jimmy. What he did. You were always good at protecting people.”

  “From some things.”

  “You know how to protect yourself, too.” There was sadness again, in a different key now.

  True enough. I wasn’t looking to turn back the clock. Luce and I were better off as we were. If we tried to right all of our wrongs, we’d be as crazy as Ingrid Ekby.

  Thirty-Seven

  A night without dreams, every second of it, until my calendar app beeped to remind me I had half an hour before my appointment with Dr. Mattu. I showered and dressed and skipped the usual coffee to get out the door on time.

  The smell of Mattu’s lapsang steeping in its pot permeated the outer office. He popped his head out.

  “Here? Great. Let’s start early.” He disappeared before I could reply.

  “You look tired,” he said, pen already scratching as I sat down. “Dreams?”

  “I want to talk about purpose,” I said.

  The scratching stopped. “Beg pardon?”

  “You cautioned me about using the house as a crutch. I haven’t been doing that the past two weeks. I’ve pursued that other work.”

  “The work you didn’t want to do,” Mattu said.

  “Yeah. And it made money, and it still wasn’t satisfying. Not completely, anyway. But on the way, I helped some people.”

  He straightened in his chair. “Which was fulfilling?”

  “For me.”

  “Helped them in what way?”

  “Out of danger. Into a safer place, at least.”

  “That’s good,” he said with some hesitancy, “if you weren’t the one who put them in danger in the first place. And if you didn’t deliberately put yourself in harm’s way for the thrill of it.”

  I shot a finger-gun at Mattu. The irony of that gesture probably wasn’t lost on him, either.

  “You recall our first sessions,” he said, “when we talked about the attraction of war for you.”

  “Not violence,” I said.

  “Not killing, certainly. You are not a psychopath. But the acceptance of your fellow soldiers, the rush of combat.” Mattu spread his hands wide. “Those are hard to surrender. War is terrible, and it can also make you happy.”

  “Purpose.”

  “Correct. So if you’re diving into trouble, ask yourself why.”

  “Because it feels right,” I said.

  “Are you looking for praise? Tangible rewards?”

  I liked the money fine. It just hadn’t been enough for me.

  “Is it some form of penance?” Mattu said.

  “I don’t think my sins are so heavy that I have to get myself dead.”

  “Look at the kind of situation. You could help people at a soup kitchen. Instead, you put yourself in physical jeopardy.”

  “I’m accustomed to that.”

  “Perhaps. Also, you might be gambling.”

  I frowned. “Meaning what? I live for the risk? Sounds like we’re back to me being a war junkie.”

  “High risk, high reward. Your sense of satisfaction might come from winning.”

  I knew enough about gambling to know it was less about winning than surviving. For as long as you could. The crash was inevitable.

  “I do like winning,” I said. “Achieving objectives, the Army would call it.”

  “But?”

  “If I just wanted to bust heads, I could stick with bouncing. Or MMA.”

  Mattu’s picture window looked out onto a pinched atrium with a Zen garden. Its rocks had been raked into wave patterns, by an unsteady hand. I sometimes wondered if it was a test. Did patients with OCD fight the urge to go out and make the waves even?

  “Making a change,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “The situations are dangerous because I can handle danger. If I can’t handle it, I want to stay out entirely. It’s about using what I’ve got. If I could make soup, I’d be in that soup kitchen.”

  “Then maybe the answer is to find something that helps people and matches your skills. Firefighting, or police work.”

  I looked at him.

  He cleared his throat. “Perhaps not police. We can delve into your complicated feelings about the law another time. You might also volunteer with veterans’ services. Either the VA, or something local for soldiers in need.”

  I had thought of that. And there was a germ of an idea there, lying dormant.

  “Thanks. This helped,” I said.

  “Do you realize this is the most open you’ve been with me in the months we’ve been meeting?”

  “Enjoy it while it lasts, Doc.”

  And, for once, my joke got a laugh.

  I had to square things with O’Hasson. A lot of things. Accusing him of selling us out, threat
ening him in front of his kid, who I’d terrified in the process. I had to try to make things right with Cyndra, too. That might be impossible. Mickey could be my warm-up. At least I could tell him I’d recovered half of the gold. His share should pour some oil on the waters.

  No answer at Addy’s door, except for Stanley barking from the backyard. Maybe they were all out at the movies or something to take their minds off the last week.

  I was debating whether to go up the block to my house, or to walk the other direction to the arboretum and revisit the site of my fiasco with O’Hasson, when Addy’s Subaru coasted down the block. Cyndra glowered at me from the passenger seat as Addy pulled in. Great.

  “Perfect timing. Help me unload these,” Addy said, popping the trunk. Cyndra jumped out of the car and skirted the house toward the backyard before I could say anything to her.

  I slung the handles of Addy’s grocery sacks over my arms, loading myself like a pack mule to carry the trunkful of food in one trip. “Where’s Mickey?”

  “He’s not here?”

  “I knocked.”

  “Sleeping again, I expect,” Addy said.

  We went inside. Addy let Stanley in and started putting the food away. Cyndra stalked inside and into the bedroom, and came out again, fast.

  “Where’s Dad?” she said.

  “Not there?”

  “No.” The girl went past me, all gangly elbows and knees, and into the front room. “Dad?”

  “He might be out for a walk, sweetheart,” said Addy.

  Cyndra shook her head emphatically. “He’s not. He’s gone to find them.”

  I set the bag I was holding down. “Them? The men who kidnapped him?”

  Addy frowned at me, maybe disagreeing with my mentioning O’Hasson’s ordeal in front of the kid.

  “What makes you think Mickey did that?” I said to Cyndra.

  “He’s been talking.”

  “Talking about wanting to get back at them?”

  “Van,” said Addy. Cyndra caught her warning tone, too, and glanced at her uncertainly.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “He kinda sleeps,” she said, “and kinda doesn’t. I dunno. But he talks. Like he’s still there. He says please and don’t and water. Sometimes he just says fuckers over and over and . . .”

  “All right, enough,” said Addy. “Van, I need to speak with you.”

  “It’s true,” Cyndra said, waving her birdlike hands in frustration. “He wants to hurt them back. I know he does.” Stanley whined, upset at the mood.

  “I believe you,” I said, “but even if he were strong enough, even if he decided to go, he wouldn’t know where to find them, Cyn.”

  “But what if he remembered where?”

  “Enough,” Addy said again, with more heat. “Let’s all calm down. Your father will be back soon.”

  Cyndra stomped and wheeled around to race off to the bedroom. The door slammed.

  “That was just marvelous,” Addy said.

  “What if she’s not wrong?”

  “Good God, Van. That poor man is so worn down he can barely stay alert for more than an hour at a time.”

  Or that was what he wanted us to think. I’d stopped believing I could anticipate Mickey O’Hasson.

  “Did he leave a note?” I said.

  She sighed and walked around in a fair imitation of Cyndra’s stomp to check the kitchen counters and her desk. Stanley nosed at her each time she passed.

  “Nothing,” Addy said, gesturing to the desk.

  “Does he have any money?”

  “I left him forty dollars in case he needed to order food. Hardly enough to finance an airstrike. Or even much of a taxi ride.” She glanced at the cubby where she kept her checkbook and other papers, and paused.

  “What?”

  “My ORCA card is gone.” Mass transit. Buses and local trains.

  “So he’s not out for a walk,” I said.

  “Don’t start.” She reached out to hold Stanley’s snout and keep him from pushing at her. “He couldn’t possibly have gone after them. You said.”

  But Cyndra could be right. What if O’Hasson had figured out where they’d been holding him? What if, in his addled state, revenge was worth everything?

  “Lend me your car,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to drive around and visit some places where my truck might be recognized.”

  She reached into the pocket of her cardigan and handed me her Subaru keys. “Could he really do it?” she said before I was out the door.

  “I would,” I said.

  Afternoon traffic was already heavy, and getting heavier by the hour. It took me until early evening to check all of the places O’Hasson might know or have gone in Seattle. I asked about him at the twenty-four-hour pharmacy, saying he was an uncle stricken with dementia. I tried Hollis’s marina. The hulk of the burned-out office building. The rental car company at SeaTac. Even Lloyd’s Own, the bar where he’d first spun me the story about hidden treasure. No one had seen the frail ex-con with the surgical scar.

  Eventually I was out of options, and my headache reminded me that I hadn’t eaten today. I stopped at Mama’s in Belltown, which had been one of my favorite haunts when hanging around Dono’s old bar. Time had forced Mama’s to adapt from the dive covered in kitsch art I’d grown up with, but I could still order an Elvis burrito with extra corn tortillas without looking at a menu. Comfort food, when the rest of the world was chewing on me.

  What the hell was O’Hasson up to? If Addy was correct, he could barely handle the walk up the hill to the bus stop. Cyndra thought her dad was out for blood. After seeing how deeply Ingrid Ekby’s men had wounded him, I leaned toward the kid’s way of thinking. But could little Mick O’Hasson, dying burglar, really shoulder that kind of weight?

  The plate arrived. My phone rang. Maybe that was the man himself. I stuffed a bite into my mouth and answered.

  “She’s gone,” Addy said. “Cyndra.”

  I made an interrogative sound.

  “She—I think she stole your truck.”

  I slapped a twenty down on the table and ran out the door, an instant ahead of my chair toppling to the floor with a bang.

  “She found the spare key you left me,” Addy explained as I dashed into the house past her. “Did you know she could drive?”

  I was already tearing apart the bedroom, looking for some clue. “She didn’t take her backpack this time. I can’t track her again.” Where the hell would Cyndra go? She knew even fewer places in Seattle than her father.

  “We should call the police,” said Addy.

  “What has Cyndra been doing since I went looking for Mickey?” I said.

  “She stayed in her room for a time. Then I convinced her to have some food, and she played that mining game on the computer, like she’s done every day. She can’t have gone far, can she? She’s only twelve.”

  “She made it a thousand miles on the train.” Being tricky must be in the O’Hasson blood. Cyndra was a renaissance delinquent. Between low-level hacking and driving, I wouldn’t be surprised if—Wait.

  “Was Cyndra on her old laptop? Or this one?” I thumped the flat screen with my fist.

  “Mine. She likes the screen size.”

  “Were you using this to talk to Enid and the others about the shell companies?”

  Addy’s face blanched. “Why?”

  “Because I’ll bet the kid found a way to trace everything you’ve looked at.”

  I turned on the monitor and was greeted by an imitation 8-bit rendering of a castle. Cyndra’s supposed play on Minecraft while she was otherwise occupied. I shut down the game and checked the browser history. Cyndra had deleted the entire day.

  “She doesn’t want us following her,” I said, grabbing my phone.

  “Tell the police that she’s been gone about an hour.”

  I wasn’t calling the police.

  Juniper Adair answered.

  “Send me the camera
feed,” I said immediately. “I want to see what’s at Pacific Pearl.”

  “What? The man called two days ago. Told me they don’t need the photos anymore.”

  “The camera’s still running.”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Then send me the goddamn feed.”

  “What camera?” Addy asked me. “Who is that on the phone?”

  “Someone with a lot to lose,” I said so Juniper would hear.

  Juniper sent the latest photo. It showed the same picture I’d seen in a hundred of her raw images, half of the squat bulk of the Pacific Pearl freight office, captured by the hidden camera across the road.

  “It’s just the building,” she said.

  “Back it up. Look for anything in the last hour. A car passing on the road, or someone walking by.”

  Juniper was smart enough not to argue. Maybe realizing that if she didn’t cooperate, my next step would be to come to her house and look through the images my own damn self.

  “Here,” she said after two minutes. “I’m sending you every picture that’s got something in it besides the building.”

  The sun was below the hill now, but during the past hour it had been high enough that the colors in the images were suffused with a gilded glow. I swiped through the series Juniper had sent, spotting the mottled paint of my Dodge’s roof immediately, like blue alligator scales at the bottom of the picture as the truck passed the camera.

  “She’s been there,” I said to Addy. A few more images of cars passing, the light already fading. Then, in a picture gray from dusk, a small thin figure in the distance, crossing the railroad tracks to the left side and behind the building. Just clear enough to make out a white shirt and very short, very dark hair.

  Half an hour ago. Cyndra might still be nearby, poking around. I could—

  Then I realized I had seen something else, and flipped back to make sure.

  The door. The man-sized exit, at the side of the two rolling doors of the loading bays. In most of the images the door showed as a flat rectangle in the same ugly brown as the rest of the freight building.

  Then, in just one picture of a passing car, the door was open. Not much. Such a small amount that Juniper probably hadn’t noticed the difference. But the door was definitely cracked, as if someone inside had eased it open a couple of narrow inches to look out.