I’d never known her to invite one of them into the bar. Where was she?
“Anybody home?” I called. No answer from the back rooms.
I walked toward the bar counter, a lengthy stretch of pale birch. On the wall behind the bar hung a tapestry. A medieval image of a nude woman riding a horse into the sea, which gave the Morgen its name. I watched the man in the hood as I walked, and he watched me in continued silence.
“You got a name?” I said.
He nodded. Hands still under the table.
“That’s a start,” I said, moving behind the bar. Luce kept a collapsible police baton taped under the lip of the counter. Albie had kept a Louisville Slugger in the same spot for decades. The steel baton was both a nod to his legacy, and an improvement. The eight-inch handle would telescope out to triple its length with a flick of the wrist, a lot quicker and just as effective as a baseball bat. I reached underneath for it.
The baton was gone. The loose ends of masking tape where it had been stuck to my fingertips.
The beard moved in a smile. His left hand came out and picked up a chicken wing, and dipped it in the plastic cup of blue cheese dressing.
“Lemme finish these,” he said around a mouthful, “’fore you shoot me.”
I knew that voice. And saw his combat boots, scuffed from their original tan to a patchy gray.
“Pak?” I asked.
“Hey, Sergeant.”
Leonard Pak had been a specialist in the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment, serving in Afghanistan. On his second deployment, he’d been assigned to the platoon I had led. Leo got into the rhythm of working with his new fire team faster than most. He was smart and quickly proved his rep as a hell of a shot with a sniper rifle. As happy as I was whenever any of my guys went home safe, I’d been sorry to lose Leo from the unit.
“Goddamn,” I said, and walked down the bar. He wiped his hand on his pants before shaking mine.
“Sorry to yank your chain,” he said, “but the look on your face when you walked in and saw me . . .”
Leo tugged the hood all the way off. His ink-black hair had grown long enough to touch his shoulders. He had the same broad, square face as I remembered, with a few extra creases framing his eyes. Handsome enough that at least two girls on post at Benning had labored through killer crushes on him. The way his facial bones pressed at his skin, I didn’t think Leo had been eating a lot of home-cooked meals.
I sat down on the bench across from him. Up close, spots on his wool coat shone bright with wear. “Luce let you in?”
“The hot blonde? I told her how I knew you. She made me prove it. I dug my Ranger tabs out of my pack.” He grinned. “And I told her about when our team extracted that HVT in Kabul, and you had to cold-cock one of his wives when she jumped you.”
Jesus. “I apologized to her.”
“That’s what I told the blonde girl. The woman was unconscious, but you said ‘Sorry’ to her just the same while we hauled ass out of there.” He shrugged. “Saved us from having to shoot the crazy bitch.”
Of all the stories, Leo had picked that one.
“Nice beard, Pak.”
“Huh. Still better than you can do.”
He wasn’t wrong. Ever since the left side of my face was stitched back together, any attempt I made to grow facial hair looked ridiculous.
“How’d you find me here?” I said.
“You told me and Johnny Hargreaves one night about a bar near Pike Place that your dad owned. I thought, what the hell, I’d knock on a few doors, see if you were around.”
“Granddad,” I corrected automatically. “You could have just asked the battalion office to pass along a message. They’ve got my e-mail.”
The lines around Leo’s eyes crunched together. “I’m done with all that, Sarge,” he said. Before I could ask what he meant, he pushed away his empty plate. “Man, those were good. Are you working here now?”
I shook my head. “It’s not in the family anymore. I just help out sometimes.”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded pointedly toward the back. “You and her?”
“Yeah.” I said. “Me and her.”
“Good deal. You haven’t been out very long, right? Your hair still looks reg.”
“Middle of January. How long for you now?”
“Over a year.” He said it like the amount of time surprised him.
“Did you go back home?” I remembered Leo was from Utah. His mother had emigrated from South Korea, and his dad was serving a full thirty-five in the Army, which was why Leo had signed up.
“I was there for a while, after I got out.” Leo nudged the loaded backpack with his foot. “Then I went for a hike.”
“From Salt Lake to Seattle?”
“Not directly. Medford, first.”
“They have these things called buses now,” I said.
“I took ’em. When I had to.” The half-hidden smile appeared again.
“You didn’t come to Seattle just to find me,” I said.
“Nah. Figured I’d look you up while I was north, something to do before the next leg. It’s nice, you know? Peaceful out there.” His eyes went to the closed front door of the bar, then over to the doorway leading to the storage rooms. Then back again.
“I can open that, if you want,” I said.
“How’s that?”
I spread my hands. “You picked a table where you can see the whole place. Watch the points of entry. Which you haven’t stopped doing since I came in. You squared away, Leo?”
He met my gaze. The muscles under his eyebrows tightened.
“Good days and bad,” he said finally.
“I hear you on that.”
There was a thump from the back rooms. Leo twitched. I knew it as the sound of the small loading hatch off the alley closing.
“Need any help?” I called to Luce. She yelled back that she had it handled. Leo’s right hand was out of sight again.
I looked at him. “You packing?”
He smiled, a little sheepishly. “Security blanket,” he said, pulling up his hand to show me a foot-long iron rod, like a bigger, heavier Kubotan self-defense stick. “Can’t carry a gun or a knife. Not when cops take any excuse to pat you down.”
Luce entered the room. I stood up, and Leo followed along. He was only about five-eight, boots and all, but his thick wool jacket added to his naturally muscled build.
“Hi,” said Luce. She wore her work togs of black jeans and white button-down oxford. It was a man’s shirt, but no one would ever guess that when she was wearing it. “I’m sorry that took so long. I figured you two would be on your second round by now, nine in the morning or not.”
“Crap,” I said, turning to Leo. “A whole damn bar and I didn’t offer you a beer.”
“Forget it,” said Leo. He quickly picked up his backpack and slid the iron rod into a sleeve in its base. A good place for it. It would look like a reinforcing brace on the pack if he were searched, and still be within quick reach.
“Thanks again for the wings,” Leo said, wrestling his pack on.
Luce nodded. “You get enough? I’m running late, but Van can throw something on the grill for you both.”
“I’m cool,” said Leo, looking at the closed green door.
I wanted to talk to Leo in private. Despite what he’d claimed, I had the feeling that I was the reason he’d come to Seattle. But he was acting squirrelly enough that I thought he might bolt for the exit before he could spit out the reason.
“Hang out a minute,” I said to him.
I steered Luce toward the back. We went to her cozy, surprisingly feminine office. Running the bar allowed her very little time to sit and enjoy it, but she had still papered the walls with a lilac pattern and decorated with photographs of friends and happenings at the Morgen. Now they reminded me of the pictures Kend and Elana had left behind, and I pushed that dark idea away.
Luce had framed a snapshot of me on the shelf above her computer. I’d dredged it up and mailed it
to her from overseas when she’d asked. I didn’t have a lot of pictures of myself. This one had been taken at Camp Eggers in Kabul, not too long before the raid that Leo had told her about. I was dressed in ACUs and plates but no helmet, sitting on the hood of a Humvee and grinning stupidly at the camera, with the scarred side of my face angled away.
“Leo said you checked his story,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Still.”
“I was careful, Mr. Ounce of Prevention.” She took the collapsible police baton out of her back pocket.
First Leo, now Luce. Everyone was walking around armed like ninjas today.
“Good,” I said, and stepped forward to kiss her.
When we parted Luce’s face was flushed. I spoke before I changed my mind.
“Leo’s going to go out and find a place to crash. On the street,” I said.
She nodded. “I thought our plans today might change. Are you going to put him up at the house?”
“If he wants. I have to ask.”
“Yeah. Okay.” She sighed, exaggeratedly. “Guess I’ll show you what I bought at Bellefleur another time.”
“Jesus.”
Luce laughed, but had one eyebrow raised. “He is a friend, right? I mean, you trust him? He’s kind of edgy.”
I trusted every Ranger I’d served with. It was part of what made us the best at what we did.
“He’s a good guy,” I said. “And maybe he needs somebody who can hear what he’s saying. Thanks for giving him a meal.”
“Another night, then.”
I made myself let go of her. “You have no idea.”
Her smile, full of promise, stayed with me all the way back to the main hall.
I had spent more minutes with Luce than I’d planned. Leo might have taken off, his restlessness forcing him out of the confines of the bar. But he was still there, studying the stained glass of the windows intently.
“Hang with me,” I said to him. “I have a friend to see. Then we’ll set you up at the house. You can crash there.” I had meant to say it casually, but it came out with the undertone of platoon sergeant. I wasn’t sure if Leo heard it, too.
“You don’t mind?” he said.
“Mind, hell. It’ll do me good to talk to somebody who doesn’t think a magazine is what you read at the hair salon.”
He grunted a short laugh. “All right, hell with it. Let’s go.”
On the way out I lifted a case of Saw’s Porter from the storage room, and left a note for Luce saying: I owe you for the beer and a lot more. Looking forward to paying the tab.
CHAPTER TEN
HOLLIS BRANT KEPT HIS powerboat the Francesca moored in one of the bigger marinas of Shilshole Bay, one pleasure craft among hundreds. Raindrops pinged off aluminum masts and brasswork. Tiny puddles had formed wherever the dock’s planks were warped. Our steps made slapping sounds on the sodden wood as we walked. Leo stayed a step or two behind me, scanning each boat as we passed. So alert that I could feel his gaze when it swept across my back.
I knew the slip number, but I hadn’t seen the boat before. All of Hollis’s boats had been named Francesca, without any trailing roman numerals to let you know how many vessels had come before. Hollis once said that slapping a number on the name would be like asking a lady her age.
The latest incarnation of the Francesca was a fifty-foot Carver. I guessed it at about a dozen years old. A hell of a lot sleeker than his previous Nixon-era Chris Craft. But maybe a little less personality, too.
I rapped on the hull, and heard the cabin door thump open at the stern.
“Come aboard, for savior’s sake!” Hollis called. “It’s raining, or haven’t you noticed?”
Leo and I each made one high step up, and climbed over the rail to shuffle sideways back to the enclosed aft deck. Leo had to take his backpack off to squeeze through.
Hollis clasped my right hand as I shook the water off my cap with the other. With his round face and long, muscular arms, Hollis would have looked simian even without the orangey curls that reminded me of an orangutan. He was dressed in madras shorts and a blue-and-white-striped Ballymena United jersey that had been new around the same time I’d started preschool.
“Hollis Brant, Leo Pak,” I said.
“You’ve finally come to visit,” said Hollis. He gestured expansively to invite us into the cabin. I entered. Leo stayed in the open doorway. The main salon was a showpiece of teak cabinetry and tan leather settees. Because the boat was newer, the surfaces were shiny and without stains. Because it was Hollis’s home, it was untidy.
Hollis lived aboard, and sometimes worked aboard as well. He was a smuggler, and a scrounger. While most of his work wasn’t as directly larcenous as Dono’s, or as prone to violence as Willard’s, he was still a long throw from being a straight citizen.
“It’s got class,” I said.
“Doesn’t she?” said Hollis. “You should feel her take the swells. I’ll give you the tour.”
“I’ll hang here,” Leo said, angling his head at the aft deck.
Hollis looked uncertainly at me. I nodded. Leo staying outside would allow Hollis and me to talk business without couching any words. I fished the folded alarm schematic out of the messenger bag and set the bag outside by Leo’s backpack. Leo tugged a chair over to where he could see the dock through the glass.
Hollis led me below and I made approving noises over the staterooms and the engines. I was curious what compartments he had built in for smuggling, but I didn’t ask. Bad form.
“Your man, there,” Hollis said softly before we went back up to the main cabin. “Am I right in guessing he’s a soldier, too? Or was?”
“He turned up at the Morgen today,” I said. “I haven’t seen him in three or four years.”
“And home safe, like yourself. That’s a blessing.”
“Better than the alternative.”
“Coffee’s on, if you’ll have some. Or something stronger?” I stuck with coffee, and brought a mug out to Leo. He nodded and went back to watching the rain.
Hollis swept some half-folded laundry off one of the chairs and sat down.
“Got your message,” he said. “What’s this about Willard?”
I filled him in on the sad fate of Elana. Hollis had been my grandfather’s closest friend, and he knew Willard well enough. He seemed to know someone everywhere.
“Poor bastard,” Hollis said, “and those poor fucking kids.”
“That about sums it up.”
“You and Miss Elana, you knew each other. Or am I misremembering?”
“You’re not.”
“Ah. And you want me to do what, now?”
“Two things. First I want the police records for Elana and for Kend. They may come up blank, but it’s better to check. We know part of Elana’s history. I don’t know about Kend.” Maybe whatever burglary Kend was planning with his alarm schematic wasn’t his debut.
Hollis pushed against the floor with his bare calloused feet, letting the round chair swivel from side to side. “This, ah, isn’t something I should tell our large friend about, I’m guessing.”
“No.” Willard was torn up enough about Elana’s death without telling him I was looking into her life. “Elana Coll, and Kendrick Haymes.” I spelled them out for Hollis.
“What’s the second thing?”
I unfolded the schematic and spread it out on the table for him to see.
Hollis whistled. “I don’t know such things as well as you and your granddad. Wasn’t he a wizard? But this looks like serious business to me.”
“Industrial,” I said, “and expensive.”
“What was it for?”
“That’s the question,” I said. “The pencil notes tell me somebody planned to grease the system. But I don’t know if it was ever used, or if they were successful. The design looks American—see the way the zeroes are made, and the wireless frequencies noted here—but I couldn’t swear the score was even in this country.”
; “And if I may ask, who was it for?”
“I found it in Kend Haymes’s apartment.”
“Did you now?” He looked up at me. “I’m feeling better about our decision to keep this from Willard.”
“Yeah.”
Heavy rain always sounded different inside a boat. The hollow shell of fiberglass and teak trim making a drum that bobbed gently with the beat of each gust.
Hollis felt the corner of the schematic with his fingertips. “Is this a blueprint?”
“It’s blueprint paper, I think. Maybe that has something to do with it, too.”
“So you want to know if there were any break-ins, or attempted monkeyshines, at larger businesses that involved cutting an alarm. Maybe in the U.S. and maybe not. That’s pretty damn wide.”
“I figured it was a stretch.”
“I said wide, not unworkable. We can start asking locally and see if anything matches. If we find a lot, maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad. Would you like SPD, King County, or State?”
“Show-off.”
“Times are tight, lad. There’s always a friend willing to make a few extra dollars, so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.”
“How many dollars makes a few?”
“Their sheets shouldn’t run more than a bill apiece, with some bargaining. I’m not sure about the other. The schematic.”
I had taken my roll of fifties from its hiding place in the truck, where I kept it for emergency gas money, or whatever. Bribery counted as whatever.
I tossed the roll to Hollis. “Here’s five hundred. If you need more, let me know.”
My cell phone buzzed as he was happily pouring himself a second round from the coffee pot.
“Would this be Mr. Shaw?” Female. The barest touch of an accent, maybe British.
“It would.”
“This is Carissa Lee, calling from the office of Maurice Haymes, sir. Mr. Haymes would like to meet with you at your earliest convenience.”
Maurice Haymes. The late Kend’s father. The twelfth-richest man in Seattle, if Channel 3 news had it right.
“Would nine o’clock tomorrow morning be acceptable?” she continued, managing to imply that turning down such an offer would be unthinkable.
Hard Cold Winter Page 7
