The Informers (The Stringers Book 2)

by TJ Martinell

  “Eleven.”

  Nearly six hours ago. Fifteen minutes to deadline. That didn’t bother me as much as his absence.

  “Try him at his usual place,” I said. “Did Jamie go with him?”

  “Didn’t ask, but he always does.”

  I relayed the news to Olan. He seemed suspicious.

  “That Shoreline fella is somethin’,” he said. “Ya still trust him?”

  That didn’t worry me, either. Griggs had already crossed the Rubicon.

  “Relax, boss,” I said.

  “He still needs to get that story in. We’re runnn’ it on the front friggin’ page. Do what it takes.”

  I studied reports on my desk while fighting off a strange anxiety. I glanced at Laurie, amused at his straightforward mannerism. He was everything Griggs was not; young, perpetually somber. He also had pale complexion not unlike Port’s, but the similarities ended there. Olan had hired him on my personal recommendation without having spoken a word to him.

  I realized what troubled me. The ISA had not launched a single raid into the city as they had done so many times before. Their drones floated overhead harmlessly like kites gliding over a coastal beach in the summertime.

  My message had gone out. Our men inside the ISA reported no discussions or internal memos on the matter. I had sent out Griggs that morning to find out why.

  I looked through my office window at Laurie waiting for him to pick up his phone. If Griggs didn’t have a story, fine. But we needed to know, and if so if it belonged on the front of the news section or as a three-inch one column sidebar note.

  The deadline clock rang.

  Laurie’s phone was still mute.

  Swearing under my breath, I was reaching for my phone to inform Olan when distressed voices echoed from the stairway. Seconds later Jamie limped around the corner with Griggs thrown over his shoulder.

  Guards took Griggs and set him on one of the long tables by the wall. Blood covered his face, and an oil-stained rag was wrapped around his right hand.

  I went over to Jamie, who appeared shocked but unharmed. One of medical personnel arrived and began taking off Griggs’ bandage as he requested a dosage of morphine. Using the confusion as a distraction, I grabbed Jamie and brought him into my office and locked the door before he could say a word.

  He stared at the floor like there was something horrible on it. I said his name several times. He lifted his head and peered beyond me.

  “They’re dead,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “The boys you hired.”

  I forced back the shock. I had to appear as I was, fully in control of myself.

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Four.”

  “How do you know for sure?”

  He laughed humorlessly. “I saw ‘em eat it.”

  “By who?”

  “Pravdites,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Rainer Valley.”

  “What the hell were they doing there?”

  “Helping Griggs and me.”

  “Helping you do what?” I asked, my voice rising.

  The boy trembled. I poured him a glass of moonshine from my private stock, forced him to finish it before handing him a cigarillo. He inhaled twice and then tossed it into the ashtray.

  “Griggs got a call from his contact,” he explained. “The guy told him he had the lowdown on some undercover ISA officers. Griggs agreed to meet him at Warsaw Street and MLK Way. So we go there. Griggs gets suspicious. I don’t know why and he don’t tell me. All he tells me is that he wants to make sure things are good. So he calls in a few of our boys and has them on standby in case things get hot. We get there and everything looks cool. He and his guy start chatting.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Then everything went to hell. They came outta nowhere, boss. Nowhere. They were shootin’ outta the houses all ‘round us. I try to shoot back, but the car got fulla lead and we had to get the hell out. Griggs and I, we climbed out the back and headed for some cover. The other boys, they didn’t fare so well. Neither did Griggs’ friend. It wasn’t pretty, boss, I can tell ya that.”

  “You’re sure they’re all dead?”

  “Ya don’t need no photos to confirm it. I saw it with ma own eyes.”

  “Was Joey Lauter among them?”

  “Yeah.”

  I filled the office with cigar smoke as I pushed away the image of the dead young men lying on the side of the road. I thought of Joey Lauter. Just more wasted potential.

  It dragged me back to the Pike Place massacre, forcing me to relive memories I couldn’t repress any longer. The sight of charred bodies and smoldering vehicle. The smell the burnt flesh and blackened smoke. The cries of the wounded and the dying called to me.

  Gathering myself, I wiped my eyes and then looked at Jamie.

  “It wasn’t a drone?” I asked.

  “No, boss. They were all guys inside the houses. But they knew we was comin’. Funny thing, though. They didn’t fire our guns. They fired ISA guns.”

  It was too convenient. Our ISA contact had been slaughtered along with the four. How would the killers have known he wasn’t on their side, unless they were the ISA themselves? Unlike the drone operators, they had received no warning, and our intelligence gathering had concentrated only on the drone operators.

  Jamie looked at me with his big eyes, hoping to hear some comforting word or reassurance. A large vein in his neck throbbed as he swallowed.

  “We gonna hit ‘em, boss?” he asked.

  “You let me worry about that. Go check on Griggs.”

  Alone, I struck my desk with all the force in my arm, broke off a piece of the edge. I drank moonshine, drifting into a quasi-intoxicated state while clinging to sobriety in an effort to retake control of the situation.

  The ambush demanded a response. But at the moment we were past deadline and had no front-page story.

  Outside my office, someone muttered.

  “Hope they don’t have an open casket burial for the poor bastards.”

  Burial. Funeral.

  I grinned as I called Olan, shouting him down as I explained what had happened to Griggs.

  “What the hell we gonna do?” he asked.

  “Can you hold the presses for an hour?”

  “An hour? Ya shittin’ me! The hell do ya think we’ll get?”

  “Just trust me.”

  “Oh, God. Fine.”

  I grabbed my phone book, flipped through the pages until I found the “F” contacts. Xavier Proctor, the Fremont newspaper publisher, sounded slightly entertained as he answered my call.

  “I heard about ya boys down at Warsaw,” he said. “Big shame, ain’t it?”

  Proctor was an old timer, and no fool. He knew the reason for me reaching out.

  “I need a favor,” I said. “I know your boys got connections, hear things we don’t because we’re bugs underneath the ISA’s magnifying glass. I don’t resent you none for it, but I got a proposition for you.”

  “I’m listenin’.”

  “Find out who gunned down my boys.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “I’ll tell you what, consider it an open favor. When you need one from me, you call. As long as it’s within reason, I won’t refuse.”

  Proctor detected the earnestness in my voice, knew I wouldn’t haggle with him on this.

  “Deal,” he said. “I’ll get ya what ya need.”

  “Send your man to our office.

  Next call went to our delivery crews, an order to retrieve the bodies, send them to a mortuary. Then I instructed several men to construct four coffins – no, five. Never mind how crude they were. Just get them ready in half an hour.

  In the newsroom, the writers had gathered. Their guns remained holstered, but their hands were all held close by them in anticipation. I silenced them and announced they were to gather on the street a
t the entrance.

  “What’s goin’ on, Farrington?” one of them asked.

  “No time. Just get down there.”

  Kowalski somehow read my face perfectly. He smiled and called to them as he went for his coat.

  “Look sharp, boys,” he said as he tucked in his loose shirt. “And make sure you wear a mask. We’re gonna be on the front page.”

  ***

  The funeral procession was short, just the length of the city block. Four men to a coffin carried them like the Hebrew priests might have the Ark of the Covenant. There was a reverent quality in their stride as they looked out behind their masked faces with solemn eyes.

  At the end of the street, a musical trio at the back of the procession played a dirge. Fitting and appropriate.

  The onlookers were few, at first. Most remained inside the building, afraid the ISA would use it as an opportunity to strike. I, however, stood among the crowd lining the sidewalk, and as it became apparent what the ceremony was about, more and more civilians joined us by the curbside until it resembled an old-fashioned parade.

  Jean appeared out from a row and stood next to me, transfixed on the coffins as they moved past us. The procession halted at the intersection, where limousines waited to take the bodies to the cemetery. Before placing them in the vehicles, the pallbearers lifted them on platforms. Photographers knelt in front and snapped away, hoping to get the right picture

  Everything else was ready.

  The story had been typed, edited, proofed, and waiting for the accompanying photo.

  Even the headline was already splashed across the front page with big, bold letters.

  WARSAW MASSACRE

  Only one thing was left out of story. The perps would go unnamed, “not yet confirmed.”

  It wasn’t a lie. We didn’t know, for sure. And it would make the killers complacent, cocky.

  I grinned as the photographers pushed each for ideal spots to shoot from. I had offered a week’s salary to whoever’s photo we ran. This was not the occasion to spare expenses.

  Jean reached for my hand, but I refused to take it. Others would see it, misinterpret its meaning.

  The photographers moved away from the platforms. Further down the street, more people had gathered, calling out in unison with their fists raised in the air.

  Everyone looked at the coffins with a quiet anger in their hearts. They knew there was nothing inside. It wasn’t about the bodies. The wooden boards represented the lives of four men who had been massacred after everything else had been taken away.

  It was a fate too many of them shared in all but one factor.

  They had their lives, but little else.

  Jean looked at me, bemused when she noticed the fifth coffin. I smiled subtly. The story put out the next day would mention five victims. Griggs would be listed among them. I had explained the scheme to my writers, warned them to keep their mouths shut. Their united looks confirmed no gossip would leak out on this one.

  “I thought the newspaper was committed to accuracy,” Jean said.

  “It is,” I said. “Griggs will be dead. Just not today. News of his death was greatly…premature. Besides, we can always issue a correction, when everything has been taken care of.”

  The smell of cannabis swept through the air. I turned to find a man reeking of it behind me.

  Proctor’s man.

  “That was quick,” I said.

  “Let’s talk.”

  We moved to the side of the building. Despite the stench, the man was sober.

  “It was a co-op,” he said. “ISA undercover boys posing as stringers alongside delivery boys from the Examiner. They’re known by locals as the Bog Gang, operate out of a place near Ronald’s Bog.”

  “You got names?”

  “Just the Examiner, but I just got the addresses for the ISA.”

  He pressed a folded note into my hand, closed my fingers around it. “Remember, ya didn’t hear nothin’ from nobody, right?”

  “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  He cackled and disappeared through the fence line. I took the note to Jamie at the sidewalk and pressed it in his back trouser pocket.

  “I want this planned well,” I said. “Griggs will know these bastards. He’ll know where to find them.”

  “Sure, boss.”

  The photographers scurried back into the newspaper building, eager to have their pictures considered first. At the front entrance, a guard opened the door for me, a smile from ear to ear.

  He got it, as did plenty of the other men standing in the lobby.

  None of them had known the boys personally. The coffins symbolized something greater than the deaths of a handful of strangers. They looked at the raw pine boxes and saw someone they had known whose killer had walked away free because he belonged to a privileged class of society who considered themselves above all laws, including the laws they imposed on the people underneath them.

  Olan appeared in the lobby and congratulated me, having observed the procession from his office. We went upstairs and poured ourselves a celebratory glass of brandy and was drinking it when the clack of gunfire resonated from the ground.

  No bloodshed. Men had decided to honor the fallen with a salute they all understood.

  The pravdas had made yet another error. So had the ISA.

  For every casualty they claimed, they left us with a martyr to avenge.

  And they would be avenged.

  ***

  Griggs walked alongside me into the garage, waving in the remaining eight members of our outfit. We entered the garage and approached the table. The boys placed their weapons on top after unloading the live rounds from the chambers.

  I took the head of the table, letting the boys burn their cigarettes to stubs and toss them in the ashtrays.

  I was quite proud of them. They were taking the loss stoically, without a word of apprehension. Not that they didn’t desire revenge, but it assured me the job at hand would be carried out dispassionately. Emotion would not come into play.

  Griggs winced as he stepped forward. His injuries made him unsuitable for the actual job. But his plan had been meticulously prepared.

  “We’re hitting ‘em tonight, boys,” he said.

  I handed each of them a document containing the addresses of their targets near Ronald’s Bog, all ISA undercover operatives.

  “Don’t be arrogant with these men,” I advised. “They are experts, each with over ten years of experience. If you think it’s an ambush, if you so much as suspect one, pull out and leave. Don’t go for it. But don’t waste the opportunity, either. I promise you, you won’t get another one.”

  “What if someone else is in the way?” one of them asked.

  “Only those on the list are to be harmed. No one else. Under any circumstances. Is that clear?”

  “What about the Examiner?” another asked. “Aren’t we hitting them?”

  “I’ll take care of them myself,” I said.

  Griggs nodded discreetly. The three targets were known to him. Luckily, they had hated him, and the feeling was mutual.

  “Don’t waste time admiring your work,” I said. “As soon as the attack is made, the ISA will send all their people. They might even get the police involved.”

  The boys said nothing.

  “Good luck,” I said. “I will see you tomorrow at the agreed location.”

  As they were about to disperse, I made a final comment. “Find another place to stay tonight. Somewhere you’ve never stayed before. We’re not letting them get the upper hand on us. Not this time.”

  They left. Griggs popped opened a bottle of aspirin and took a handful, chasing it down with a flask from his coat.

  “Not exactly water,” I said.

  “I’m coming with you on this one, you know that? I know I can’t do the job myself, but I want to be there.”

  “I didn’t think otherwise.”

  He r
aised an eyebrow, cocked his head skeptically. “I figured you’d be pissed off for what happened to those kids. Poor bastards didn’t even have a chance. All because I led them into a trap.”

  I shrugged, familiar with that kind of guilt. There was nothing useful about it.

  “You can’t think like that,” I said. “How were you to know?”

  “Doesn’t seem fair I live while they got shot to hell.”

  “Life isn’t fair.”

  He rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Don’t throw that shit at me. You know what I mean. Doesn’t make sense.”

  “We don’t get to decide who dies and who lives.”

  We prepared to leave, securing all the doors and double-checking the room for listening devices. On the table and the floor, I set down several gold and silver coins.

  One of Tom’s old tricks. Few intruders could resist them.

  After locking the door to the garage and leaving another marker to indicate a break in, we walked to the street corner. Griggs nursed one of his injuries and took another swig from his flask. I climbed up a tattered street sign, its letters faded beyond comprehension.

  I held up a small lamp and flicked it on and off. The window in a nearby structure flickered brightly and then went dark. I hopped off the sign and stood next to Griggs and held out my hand close to his flask. He muttered but let me have a taste. The liquor burned my insides like gasoline, forcing me to double over while Griggs laughed until he too bent over in pain.

  Emerging from the growing fog, Jean arrived in Tom’s old car, the headlights switched off. I took over in the driver’s seat and drove north.

  “Where exactly are we going?” Jean asked, siting in the back.

  Griggs leaned over his seat across from me. “Shoreline.”

  “Why are we going to Shoreline?”

  “We have to take care of some business there.”

  She looked at me through the rearview mirror, her green eyes dark and small. I hadn’t informed her of our plans beyond meeting us with the car. There was no reason to think she wasn’t up to the task, but her behavior of late had caused me to hesitate.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “What do you think?” Griggs replied.

  “I did not ask you. I asked Roy.”

  “We’re going to take care of the men who ambushed Griggs and our boys,” I explained.