Island of Thieves

by Glen Erik Hamilton

  “Yes. Perfect.”

  They walked out of the hotel and down to the car. Karla tilted her head at the sight of the Barracuda, with its gleaming paint the color of an old penny and its black vinyl top.

  “A muscle car,” she said.

  “Happenstance,” said Shaw. “I needed a vehicle. The owner’s heir was letting this go.”

  “Handy when Smokey’s on your tail, I’ll bet.”

  He grinned and opened the passenger door for her. “Yeehah.”

  They parked the car in a lot across from the blobby red façade of MoPOP, the museum for pop culture. By the undulating bronze walls at its north end, Karla stopped at the statue of Chris Cornell. Shaw pointed out the monorail speeding toward them on its elevated track. It hissed past, a dragon on urgent business.

  The Needle stood almost directly behind the museum. Karla inhaled as she leaned back to take in the sight.

  “It’s . . . delicate,” she said. “Amazing.”

  Shaw looked at the spire. He’d seen it half the days of his life, it seemed. Often from an angle just like this one, when he would mess around Seattle Center as a kid. Just another part of the landscape. A big tree in the backyard.

  The summer-evening crowd around the Needle was thick with families, the kids tired and complaining after a day of activity and the parents anxious to be on the observation deck in time to see the sunset. Shaw and Karla opted out of the line and bought tickets for two hours later. They walked three blocks south to Denny Way and a Thai restaurant Shaw knew.

  “Sebastien Rohner offered me a job,” Shaw said once they’d ordered and poured tea.

  “Really? I thought . . .” Karla mimed breaking a twig.

  “That was my impression, too. That Droma wouldn’t trust me to change the soap in the company bathrooms. But Rohner said he liked how I handled the trouble with Nelson Bao. A two-year contract as their new security chief and an apology from the man himself rolled into one.”

  “That’s wonderful. So you and I will be working together.”

  “Nope. If I take the job, I’ll be on a plane tomorrow for Budapest.”

  “What’s in Budapest?”

  “Goulash? Rohner was a little vague. Site security for a new client was as far as he would go until I sign the papers.”

  “Ah, those lovely NDAs.” Karla blew on her tiny cup of tea.

  “Have you heard whether their deal with Jiangsu is going to continue?” said Shaw, thinking of Chen Li making off with Zhang’s passports and the little vial of chemical.

  “We hope so. It’s up to Mr. Chen. He has to come to the table and prove viability.”

  “Viability to do what?”

  “To create a product with a decent ROI. Return on investment. Within three to five years, ideally. Chen’s company is expanding now because they say they have a breakthrough, or at least a good shot at one, theoretically. Nelson Bao was brought in to talk through the details on Chen’s innovation. Morton’s here to explain it to us laypeople.”

  That would explain the laboratory, if they’d intended to demonstrate some part of the chemical reaction or whatever that Chen had invented. And it would certainly explain the secrecy.

  “I’m guessing you can’t tell me what this innovation is,” Shaw said.

  “I can’t. It’s proprietary information for Bridgetrust Group. But even with that, I hardly know anything beyond a cursory description. The conference at the island didn’t get too far.”

  “So what happens now? Chen brings another chemical engineer from Hong Kong to replace Nelson?”

  Karla’s eyes widened. “If we’re being detached about it, yes.”

  “Sorry if that sounded cold. If I’m going to be Droma’s new security chief, my first concern is for the safety of the next guy in line.”

  “I thought Nelson died by accident.”

  “Rohner says that theory isn’t holding up. The cops are looking at Warren Kilbane now.”

  “Oh, my God. Why would he have killed Nelson? He’d barely met him.”

  The food came. They both let the plates sit.

  “I didn’t have a clue before,” Shaw said. “But from what you’ve told me, now I’m wondering how much Kilbane knew about the pending deal with Chen. If he was going to get canned from Droma, maybe he came back to the island looking for information on Chen’s breakthrough. A formula, a design spec, anything that might help him sell the innovation to another manufacturer.”

  “And Kilbane found Nelson Bao. Could he have forced Nelson to tell him the details? Or . . .”

  “What?”

  Karla looked at him, her hazel eyes doubtful. “If Bill knew I was talking about this, I’d be as finished as Morton . . .” She sighed. “Chen’s team brought a sample of . . . of a chemical they’d created to the island. Morton and Bao weren’t only there to talk about the process—they had planned to do some actual tests. Preliminary assessments, but enough to build some confidence that Jiangsu Manufacturing had the goods.”

  Shaw thought of the vial of chemical at Bao’s. Had that vial been the sample? Or just one of multiple batches? Chen might have brought a gallon of the stuff from his manufacturing plant.

  “Could Bao have been carrying some of the chemical on him?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Once Nelson was found, Mr. Chen and that tough guy Zhang just clammed up. I’m not even sure they talked with the Rohners. I know Chen didn’t tell Bill what was going on. Only that they would be in touch soon. My boss is chewing his nails off. He wants answers, and Sebastien doesn’t have any to give. I’m talking too much.”

  She looked at the restaurant. No one was seated near them, and the staff was well out of earshot, which Karla likely knew, but her glance seemed more from nerves than any real concern.

  “Whoever has that chemical sample—if it was taken—is holding something that could ruin the deal if it’s not returned,” she said.

  “It’s that critical?”

  “A career maker. No, a company maker.”

  “Can’t Chen just whip up more of it?”

  “Sure. But if the sample falls into other hands, like a rival manufacturer, then they might reverse-engineer the formula. It becomes a race to see who can perfect the product and provide the details to apply for a patent. A company has to provide rafts of testing data, which can take months or years. They must prove its marketability or utility, too. A big corporation could put a lot of resources behind that race.”

  Shaw understood. Secrecy was paramount until Chen got his backers and made enough progress to outpace any competition. Rohner’s job offer and the gag order that went with it were making more sense. Maybe the hasty travel plans, too.

  “If Kilbane did steal the chemical,” Karla said, “the smart thing to do would be to offer it back. He could conceivably get more money by selling it to a rival company, but it’s a bird in the hand. Chen would pay very well just to keep it safe.”

  She looked at her bowl of red curry. “I guess we should eat. Though I’ve lost some of my appetite.”

  “Let’s change the subject. Tell me about growing up in Boston.”

  They talked through the meal. Shaw learned Karla was thirty-two and had been divorced six years from a guy who sold commercial real estate. She and her husband had both had enough doubts about the marriage to put off having children. She made use of her background in dance by teaching classes for kids and teens at a local studio. Shaw told her some of the more socially acceptable parts of his history, including adjusting to civilian life after the Army. They agreed that good things came out of those unexpected swerves in life, but at the time they were a bitch and a half.

  “Are you seeing anyone?” he asked.

  The left corner of her mouth turned up again. Shaw was growing to like that expression of hers. It hinted at sly humor.

  “For once I’m not the first to ask,” she said. “Nothing serious. You?”

  “One thing serious. But not exclusive, and it’s not going to be.”


  “Huh. Is that her choice or yours?”

  “Started as hers. I think we’ve come around to both of us. The relationship works.”

  Karla nodded. “Well, that’s the prize. It’s hard enough just creating something functional. I’ve tried.” She toasted that sentiment with tea.

  Shaw neglected his food to watch her as they talked. When Karla told a story, she committed. Her mouth was wide. She had a habit of tucking the locks of her red hair behind her right ear when she said something even mildly risqué. He was so wrapped up in their conversation they nearly overshot their ticket time. The sun had set by the time they left the restaurant. Karla took Shaw’s arm while they walked quickly back to the Needle and gripped it tight as the elevator whisked them skyward to the observation deck.

  They stood at the rail on the western side for a time, just looking. A few last paint strokes of silver hovered over the Olympic Mountains. The rest of the sky had become a precarious balance of blues: midnight for the clouds, navy to match Lake Union to the east, and sapphire for the open horizon ahead. The truce was short-lived. Even as they watched, the blues bled into a more uniform charcoal gray, like a blackboard wiped with a sponge at the end of the day’s lessons.

  Karla tugged Shaw downstairs to the showpiece of the renovated landmark, a revolving glass floor with a view of five hundred vertical feet to the pavement. They looked down past their shoes at the gilded glow of the streetlights and the brighter ant-farm paths of traffic, until the inexorable movement of the floor, shifting a single degree every ten seconds, gave them vertigo.

  “That’s not fair, Van. You promised me a tourist trap.” Karla looked out at the horizon. “This is beautiful. How often do you come here?”

  “This is it. First time.”

  “How is that possible? You grew up here.”

  “How many people in Cairo never visit the pyramids? You’re here, you see it every day, going up to the top seems redundant.”

  “Huh. Well, I got you to try something new.” She grinned. “And I’m buying the drinks to celebrate, since you bought the tickets. C’mon.”

  They discussed possible bars while waiting for the elevator. Shaw asked what Karla liked to drink, and the revelation that they both leaned toward whiskeys, neat, led them to talking about favorite bars in their pasts.

  Karla was also doing a more direct kind of leaning, pressing softly against Shaw’s arm. The crowd for the elevator wasn’t so tight as to demand such close contact. Her hair smelled faintly of cloves and a flower he couldn’t place. A rose, maybe, like on the island. He found himself inhaling slowly.

  “We could just buy a bottle . . .” he said.

  “And take it back to my room.” Karla raised a skeptical eyebrow, but the twist at the side of her mouth was back. “Is that what you had in mind?”

  “That’s in my mind. Yeah.”

  Karla tilted her head up to whisper in his ear. “Okay. But I pick the poison.”

  Karla’s room was on the fifteenth floor, with a view of the interstate winding its way out of downtown. She kept most of the lights off so they could enjoy the diffused orange radiance of the city coming in through the window. They drank, and talked, and then without more discussion set their glasses down at the same time and began to kiss.

  She undressed with a kind of urgency. Shaw helped with her skirt, sliding it down and off her elegant legs as she leaned forward and caressed the muscles of his back with her fingers. When he stood up, she kept her arms around his neck, and it was the easiest thing in the world to lift her and carry her to the bed.

  Naked, their paces met and matched. They drew their hands over each other, finding the places that evoked low, trembling reactions and circling back to them a little faster each time. Karla moved sinuously, without apparent effort. Gliding with his movements. Shaw wondered briefly whether her fluid harmonization was a by-product of her dance training, before what she was doing to him made any coherent thought impossible.

  He woke much later. The tangerine glow from outside had dimmed as wind swept the overcast sky. No clouds to catch and hold the light. He stared at the black wedge of night for a time. Karla lay beside him, breathing the easy rhythm of deep sleep, the bedsheet pulled so far up her body that only her feet and a tangle of red locks showed.

  Shaw rose and went to the bathroom. He closed the door before flipping the broad switch and squinted in the aggressive brilliance of the mirror bulbs. The water was cold out of the tap. He splashed his face and shoulders. An assortment of folded towels had been left by the housekeepers on a rack above the toilet. He took one and dried himself, looking idly at the collection of makeup and other sundries that covered the narrow shelf below the mirror. Karla invested in higher-end cosmetics.

  Her travel kit hung from the back of the bathroom door, atop the hotel robe. A plastic card was tucked into one of the mesh pockets; Shaw recognized the edge of the purple-and-blue logo of a national chain of gyms, whose selling point was being open around the clock in every location. No photo on the back, just a magnetic strip and a bar code and a name at the bottom in block letters. The name wasn’t Lokosh. He drew it out to look. haiden, k.

  Haiden. Karla had been married. The card looked new. Maybe she used her maiden name for her professional life and her married name for personal stuff, or vice versa. Seemed complicated, but then Shaw didn’t have to worry about privacy and safety in the same way that a woman did.

  He set it back in the travel kit and returned to the bed. A couple more hours of rest, and he would leave his car where it was and walk up the hill to see how Addy was doing with her friend Penelope.

  Karla rolled to nestle against his back. She murmured and was asleep again. He felt her slow exhalations on his spine, the condensation of her breath warming and then chilling the vertebrae there.

  THIRTY

  Shaw emerged from the hotel onto Seneca Street. The sky atop First Hill was a lusterless gray, the clouds backlit but not yet given definition by the dawn. Addy would be at Holliday House. Less than half a mile’s walk, and Addy was usually up before the sun.

  He’d meant to start even earlier. But Karla had been the first to wake and had roused Shaw in a way that, if he were King of the World, he might choose to start every day. The situation had escalated. By the time they parted, overheated and gasping, the red digital numbers on the hotel clock had ticked past 5:30. They had showered and shared a cup of coffee from the in-room brewer. She’d asked him to let her know what he decided about the job with Droma.

  Chalk it up to Karla’s considerable charms; Shaw had hardly thought about Rohner’s offer since early last night. He might be on a plane to Hungary within hours. Fifty grand richer, plus benefits, if he was prepared to become a corporate employee for the first time in his life. Addy might offer some advice on that.

  He made a straight path across the empty intersection into Freeway Park. Following the diagonal slash of green space in the heart of the city would take him over the interstate and deposit him near Terry Avenue and the care home.

  He hadn’t been through the park since before he’d left Seattle for the Army. The city had cleaned it up some. When he was a kid, Dono had warned him about walking through the park at night, which of course had just encouraged Van and Davey Tolan and other friends to go there whenever they could. At least four of them were required, their unvoiced rule for safety in numbers. If the fountains were turned on, they would wade in the pools until someone told them to get the hell out. They’d climb the striated concrete blocks like monkeys to sit on the top ledge and watch the traffic on the overpass or, later, to look at girls walking the paths. Somewhere around age fifteen, they’d lost interest in just looking and began to hang out in other parts of the city. The park had been forgotten.

  Seeing the park now, Shaw appreciated the contrast of the trees and lawns with the Brutalist boxes above the fountains. The concrete slabs would have been ugly anywhere else, rain-streaked and spotted with lichen. The enveloping green and the wat
er below made the blocks seem like misplaced bits of some ancient Incan temple. As he walked past, he caught the glitter of dozens of coins beneath the still, shallow water. Offerings to the rain god. Or maybe for sun, since that was the rarer deity.

  Running footsteps, coming from behind. More than one set. Too fast and too purposeful to be casual joggers.

  Shaw didn’t hesitate, just sprinted forward. Instinct told him that turning to look would be enough for his pursuers to close the distance. He heard a curse from one of them as he launched himself forward.

  He had started from a walk. They had already been in full flight. Their steps neared even as he accelerated. Almost at his heels now. A relay baton could have been passed between outstretched hands.

  Shaw was fast for his size. Sprinting had come easy to him as a kid, and he could still burn up a track. One of the men grunted, maybe reaching to grab a handful of Shaw’s jacket and missing. They rounded the turn at the end of the park. Up the long stone staircase, his pursuers one step behind, then two. He was winning. The interstate was below them now and the top of the stairs within a few steps. A fast dash to 8th Ave and he would be home free.

  The tackle came from his right. Shaw saw the man coming, saw the triumphant eyes above the surgical mask, and he juked to dodge the hit. A heavy arm caught him for an instant around the waist, and it was over. One of his pursuers slammed full tilt into his back, and the other hit him low on the thigh, and they all crashed to the concrete paving.

  Shaw threw a fist into the mask to his left. Something crunched behind the fabric. His legs were pinned beneath the weight of one of the others. A third man grabbed his right arm, trying to twist it over his head. Shaw flailed wildly, getting enough space to reach out, feel the man’s mask with his fingers. He jabbed his thumb into the eye socket. The man yelled, and for an instant the pressure lightened. Then one of them fell, knees hard into Shaw’s chest. His head banged off the pavement. He couldn’t breathe.