Grant Mckenzie

by Switch (v5)

  ‘I work nights, but I know what you mean,’ Sam agreed. ‘The quiet times when the outside doors are closed and it’s just the three of you.’

  ‘I lived for those,’ Zack said. ‘Stretch out on the couch with a new book; Kalli watching a silly movie with her headphones on; Jasmine curled up beside me, smacking her lips as she flips through one of her cookbooks.’

  He paused, a cloud drifting over his face.

  Sam broke the silence, his need for the words to be aired outweighing their possible impact. ‘I called one of the detectives last night.’

  Zack’s face fell. ‘Oh, fuck. How could—’

  ‘I had to know,’ Sam blurted.

  ‘Know? He warned you—’

  ‘I had to know if what I was doing . . . if the violence . . . if there was a reason for hope. And . . .’ Sam paused, thinking of his connection to Davey.

  ‘And?’ Zack pressed.

  ‘And if I could really trust you.’

  Zack shook his head violently and dropped his gaze to his hands, the fingers of his right twisting the gold wedding band on his left.

  ‘Trust?’ Zack leapt to his feet and began to pace the room. ‘Trust?’ He moved in close again, his face looming over Sam’s, his voice angry. ‘You can’t trust anyone, Sam. Not me, not the cops, nobody. We all have our own agendas. You want your family. I want revenge. The cops want someone to lock up. What good can the cops do except piss him off?’

  ‘The detective confirmed the child wasn’t MaryAnn,’ Sam said in the hope of defusing the situation. ‘You told me the truth. She was black.’

  Zack staggered backwards as if he had been struck. Tears overflowed and began to pour down his cheeks in a waterfall of grief. He didn’t try to hide it, but as the news sank in, grief was once again replaced with anger.

  He rose up straight with clenched fists and gritted teeth, his whole body shaking and his breathing shallow and fast.

  ‘What gave you the right?’ he seethed. ‘You selfish son of a—’

  Zack lashed out, his right fist rising from the floor to catch Sam under the chin.

  Sam spun across the bed, blood spraying from his mouth.

  ‘What gave you the bloody right?’ Zack staggered like a drunk as his voice crumbled into a blubbering mess of disjointed words. His hands moved to his head, fingers lacing into his hair before curling back into fists. He pulled his flesh tight until panic stopped him cold and he ran for the bathroom.

  Zack heaved his guts into the toilet, but the bile in his stomach was nothing compared to the churning in his mind.

  Sam had crossed a line. How could he have been so stupid? The watcher had warned them. He had been clear about that. If he found out that Sam had called the police, he might decide to cut his losses and kill his hostages . . . kill Jasmine.

  Zack crossed to the sink and splashed cold water on his face.

  Without knowing it, Sam had forced him to choose a side. He could never tell the watcher what Sam had done, but in choosing to go against him, Zack knew he could lose everything – again.

  53

  When Zack returned, Sam was standing at the window with his back to the room. He had a towel pressed against his mouth and his body language spoke volumes.

  Zack moved behind the bed and cleared his throat. ‘We didn’t meet by accident, Sam.’

  Sam turned, his eyes burning.

  Zack held up one hand. ‘You were right not to trust me, but let me say my piece before you react.’

  Sam glanced down at the bed. The handgun he had left on top of the covers was missing.

  ‘My wife is alive,’ said Zack.

  Sam was taken aback. ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought she was killed in the explosion, with . . .’ his voice faltered ‘. . . with Kalli. But like you, I received a phone call.’

  ‘You talked to her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He said you could save her?’

  Zack nodded.

  ‘By betraying me?’ The towel fell as Sam’s hand formed a fist.

  ‘What would you do?’ said Zack quickly. ‘He asked me to spy on you, to make sure you kept your end of the bargain. I haven’t told him any—’

  ‘Fuck!’ Sam screamed.

  ‘I haven’t told him anything he didn’t already know, Sam.’

  ‘Then what good are you?’

  ‘I know how to get the money. I can help you get the full million.’

  ‘And then what? Then you and him—’

  Zack snapped, ‘I still plan to kill him, Sam. I wouldn’t be telling you this if I was going to keep lying.’

  Sam turned and drove his fist into the wall. The plaster buckled and cracked under the blow. He was lucky he missed the studs. He spun back around, his face red, his knuckles raw. ‘And I’m supposed to trust you?’

  ‘YES!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we both have something precious to lose if you don’t. For the first time we’re both in the same spot. I won’t tell him about you calling the cops. I just want my wife back.’

  A troubling thought cut Sam to the bone. ‘Hannah. Is the other body Hannah?’

  Zack winced. ‘I don’t know. Who can tell with this sick fuck? But you have to have hope, Sam.’

  Sam bristled. ‘How can I be sure that you don’t know who he is? Where he’s holding them?’

  Zack’s eyes narrowed into slits. ‘Because if I did, he would already be dead.’

  Sam exhaled heavily, his heart thundering in his chest. He turned back to the window. Rage and anger weren’t helping him, he needed facts.

  ‘Why did he pick you?’

  ‘To spy?’

  ‘No. To torment. Why you? Why me? He sent me to torture an old friend from high school last night. Why? I hadn’t seen or spoken to Davey since grad, but the caller wanted me to burn him alive.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Zack gasped. ‘Did you?’

  Sam turned and locked eyes. ‘I followed your example with the actress. He screamed enough to make it convincing, but he’ll be OK.’

  A heavy silence filled the room, and then Zack took a deep, staggered breath that made his whole body shake.

  ‘There’s another connection,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Do you remember Rick Ironwood?’

  Sam thought back, faces he hadn’t thought of in years flickering in front of his eyes. ‘Ironman. Football player. Running back or something. Egotistical meat puppet with a scholarship all sewn up.’

  ‘I killed him.’

  ‘What! When?’

  ‘It was my last assignment before driving to your house to collect my family.’ Zack’s voice was distant. ‘When I first saw him, I barely recognized—’

  ‘Recognized?’

  ‘I went to Brookside High, too. Graduated the year before you did, but I didn’t put it together until . . . high school was a long time ago.’

  ‘You knew Ironwood?’

  ‘He was the golden boy who terrorized every nerd in the hallways.’ Zack’s voice drifted. ‘He used to grunt like a pig when he caught me: “Piggy Parker. Piggy Parker.” That’s how he made all the girls laugh.’

  ‘Sounds like a reason for revenge.’

  ‘True,’ Zack agreed. ‘And even though I hadn’t thought about him in years, I must admit the first punch felt good. But that’s all I needed. He wasn’t the young bully who tormented me in the hallways. He was just another overweight, middle-aged guy trying to make ends meet. My revenge was my life – my family, my career – until this bastard took that away from me.’

  ‘How did you kill him?’

  ‘I shot him. In his garage. It was quick.’

  Sam couldn’t keep the flash of horror off his face.

  ‘It’s not as though you wouldn’t have done the same,’ Zack said defensively. ‘After all, you thought you killed that guy in the liquor store.’

  ‘You couldn’t fake it?’

  Zack shook his head. ‘He was filming me. I had no choice.’

&n
bsp; Sam’s eyes were stone. ‘Why Ironwood?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he thought it would be easier for me to kill him if it was someone I hated.’

  ‘Or did the kidnapper hate him, too?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Zack sighed. ‘That thought crossed my mind when he chose you next.’

  ‘So what now?’ Sam asked.

  Zack reached into his pocket and pulled out Sam’s gun. He tossed it on the bed. ‘That’s up to you, I guess.’

  Sam picked up the gun. It felt cold in his hand.

  ‘I promised to kill you if you ever lied to me.’

  ‘You weren’t the first.’

  ‘How can I believe you now?’

  Zack shrugged. ‘Cause I’m all out of secrets. Cause my daughter is dead and my wife is missing. Cause we want the same thing and we’re both out of other options.’

  Sam weighed the gun in his hand before slowly slipping it into his waistband.

  ‘You know how to get the money?’

  Zack nodded. ‘I met with an old acquaintance last night and explained what we needed. He’s agreed to meet you.’

  ‘This friend can deliver a quarter million?’

  ‘He definitely has the money,’ Zack said carefully. ‘I just don’t know what he’ll ask for in exchange.’

  54

  Preston’s breathing was laboured as he bent over in the passenger seat and shoved his back-up piece, a snub-nosed .38, into the top of his cowboy boot.

  ‘Remember when they used to give cops decent cars with lots of elbow room and a trunk that could hold three bodies?’ Preston smoothed his pant leg over his boot. ‘Hell, I had a Caddy in Texas once that could fit four if you folded them just right. These new compact models make it difficult to get ready for a good door kickin’. And just try and get forty winks in that back seat.’ He snorted. ‘Do your bleepin’ back in, let me tell you.’

  Hogan ignored his partner as he studied the grey house with primer trim that matched the address on his blue piece of paper. He remembered the neighbourhood from his days in uniform.

  It had been a good family community at one time, tossed up in a hurry during the last building boom in the early eighties. But the years hadn’t been kind and most of the houses looked in bad need of repair.

  ‘Think we need back-up?’ Hogan asked.

  ‘For a bleepin’ actor?’

  ‘For an armed security guard,’ Hogan clarified.

  Preston grinned menacingly. ‘With the training those guys get, I could give him the first two shots free and he still wouldn’t be able to hit me.’

  ‘Let’s wear vests,’ Hogan said. ‘We don’t know who might be in there.’

  The two detectives approached the suburban house and Preston tested the first rule he ever learned about house invasion: Try the damn handle.

  It was locked.

  He waited.

  His radio squawked.

  ‘I’m at the back door,’ Hogan said. ‘It’s locked, but there’s no fancy security. Any sign of movement?’

  ‘Negative. You?’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘On three,’ Preston said. ‘One, two—’

  Both detectives kicked in their respective doors at the same instant and rushed into the house with guns drawn. At a quick, but meticulous pace, they swept through the three-bedroom split-level.

  They met in the living room, a barren rectangle of carpet holding a single loveseat and a sad-looking pair of analog TVs.

  ‘Anything?’ Preston asked.

  ‘Half-eaten plate of cold spaghetti on the kitchen table and an open bottle of beer.’

  ‘For breakfast?’

  Hogan shrugged. ‘Man after your own heart.’

  A scratching noise made both men turn to a shallow hallway off the living room that led to a narrow doorway.

  ‘Garage?’ Preston muttered.

  Both men made their way to the door. It was slightly ajar and the scratching sounds were coming from within.

  Preston held up three fingers, folded one into his palm, then the second. He yanked open the door as Hogan dropped low—

  A black cat with a lightning bolt of orange running between its ears wrestled with the broken windshield wiper of an old Trans Am. The faded screaming eagle logo on the hood was covered in tiny paw prints. The prints glistened red in the cold light of a lone bulb hung from the rafters.

  The detectives rounded the car to see the stark white body of a big-bellied man sprawled on the garage floor. Dressed in baby blue boxers and an old Kiss T-shirt, he was face up in a congealed pool of blood and surrounded by oilcans. The man’s destroyed face, especially the mangled lips, appeared to have been partially eaten.

  ‘Death by bored house cat?’ Preston asked.

  ‘Apart from the bullet hole in his skull,’ Hogan said drily. ‘I would say you were on to something, Detective.’

  The forensics services squad swarmed the dead man’s house with cameras, tweezers, powder and tape, while Hogan and Preston waited outside with nothing to do until the crime scene was recorded, tagged, dusted and bagged in minute detail.

  ‘Detectives!’

  Hogan and Preston turned as the garage door slid open. A lanky officer in a baggy white jumpsuit approached and handed Hogan a clear plastic bag containing a worn, leather wallet.

  ‘It’s already been dusted,’ the officer said. ‘We found it on the victim.’

  Hogan reached in to retrieve the wallet. Inside was a driver’s licence that matched the name on his blue piece of paper. He showed it to his partner.

  ‘So, Mr Ironwood,’ Preston said, ‘what’s the bleepin’ actor doing with your cellphone?’

  55

  Zack parked the Mercedes at a kerbside meter outside the aptly named Old Towne Fish House. The historic Old Town district was located just north of Burnside and within easy walking distance of the popular Waterfront Park.

  Sam looked at Zack suspiciously as the smell of garlic, grease and seafood was sucked through the air vents into the Mercedes’ interior.

  ‘Your friend runs this place?’

  ‘I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend, but, yeah, he manages it,’ Zack said. ‘The outfit he works for owns this one, plus a few other choice spots in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Nice neighbourhood,’ Sam said, ‘but what can I offer a restaurateur in return for a quarter million?’

  ‘Let’s find out.’ Zack’s face was unreadable as he opened the car door and stepped out.

  Sam resettled the gun deeper in his waistband and pulled the tail of his vest over the top before following behind. A menu posted on the front door showed the restaurant wouldn’t open to customers for another three hours. Despite that, the door was unlocked.

  Zack led Sam through the deserted dining area to a large industrial kitchen strung with a garland of glistening steel pots in every shape and size imaginable.

  Two men in immaculate white aprons, their hair flattened against their skulls by elastic hairnets, sat on bar stools, chopping a mound of white and yellow onions into a large bowl.

  One of the men nodded at Zack and wiped his burning eyes on the back of his hand before standing up and leading the way to a walk-in freezer.

  Inside the large freezer, the cook reached down to the floor, hooked his hand into a steel ring and yanked. An insulated trapdoor swung open noiselessly on a pair of shiny red pistons. Zack walked to the dark opening, nodded his thanks to the cook, and descended a wooden staircase. Sam followed, but glanced nervously over his shoulder as the cook slowly lowered the door to seal them in.

  When the trapdoor closed, there was a second of complete darkness before twin rows of electric lights flickered to reveal a large passage carved into the earth. The packed-dirt and red-brick walls had been smoothed into a wide opening that curved to a height of nearly eight feet and a width that allowed both men to stand side by side with a little extra elbow room on either side.

  Where parts of the tunnel walls had crumbled, they were patched with fr
esh brick, new timber and modern concrete pilings. The dirt roof, however, still looked original and was supported by ancient, fourteen-inch wooden beams and incredibly intricate stone archways. The archways were made from hand-cut grey stones, at least twelve inches square that climbed in perfect vertical columns until gently curving at the top to form an inverted U.

  Near the bottom of the stairs and set directly into the right-hand wall, a small wooden door, six inches thick but barely three feet tall, sat ajar. Cut into the door was a single, square opening lined with three jagged iron bars flecked with rust.

  Sam glanced inside. It was a dirt and brick cavity, barely six feet wide by eight feet deep, with crumbling walls braced by thick cedar planks. The wood was scratched and chipped as if it had held back a tiger.

  ‘That’s where the crimpers kept their men until the boats were ready to sail,’ Zack said. ‘I did a history paper on it in university.’

  ‘Crimpers?’

  ‘The original corporate head-hunters. Portland was infamous for it back in the 1800s. Get a drink in the wrong bar on the wrong night, and you woke up on a ship bound for China. Sold for the going rate of fifty dollars per head. They say thousands of men were kidnapped and sold over the years.’

  Sam touched the tender bruise under his chin. ‘I guess if you were going to kill me. This would be the perfect spot.’

  Zack stopped. ‘I only want one thing, Sam.’ His voice was barely controlled. ‘And that’s Jasmine. I don’t know how to prove it to you, but we need each other. No more secrets, no more lies.’

  Zack headed further down the passage, which quickly narrowed as it left the restaurant’s small cavern behind.

  ‘These tunnels run everywhere,’ Zack continued in a voice that strived for normality. ‘It was a good way to transport men and goods to the river without being seen. At the turn of the last century this whole area was full of bars, flops and whorehouses. Perfect fodder for a crewless captain heading out on a long voyage.’

  ‘Charming.’

  Sam ducked beneath another elaborate stone archway and entered a second cavern, much larger than the first. A thick, blood-red carpet covered the dirt floor, and in the middle of the ceiling, a large trapdoor had been sealed with a heavy steel lock.