Authors: John Donohue
When a Border Patrol agent came for Steve, he stood up
and extended a hand. “Good luck, Burke.”
“Thanks, Steve,” I said.
He nodded. “Come visit some time when you’re not in
trouble.”
I smiled sheepishly. “Might be some time.”
He nodded and shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere.”
A dour uniformed Border Patrol officer escorted me to the
civilian portion of the airport. He handed me off to an equally
charming guy in the white uniform shirt of a TSA agent, then
stood with folded arms to ensure that I didn’t set the metal
detector off and make a break for it.
I had hours to kill until the flight. I like airports: the sus-
pension of the normal routine and surroundings, the muted
wash of crowds flowing up and down the corridors, the end-
lessly fascinating parade of people in all their varieties. I sat
for a time in one of a series of white painted rockers by a huge
window and watched planes take off and land. I wandered the
aisles of the bookstore and scanned the magazines. The usual
suspects smiled at me from the glossy covers: golfers and movie
stars and thin, surly-looking musicians with names I didn’t rec-
ognize. I browsed the skimpy philosophy section: no
Decline of
the West
—probably not a fast-moving title out here in Arizona,
or anywhere else, for that matter.
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Kage
Back out on the concourse, I moved aimlessly, filling the
time with random observations. I had a mediocre sandwich
and a nice beer. I had another drink and watched the television.
I didn’t want to have to think too much. Watching the cable
station they had tuned in at the bar would probably actually
kill some of my brain cells and solve this problem for me.
Walking back to the gate area, something caught my atten-
tion. It was a peripheral glance at a lanky form waiting for his
seat number to be called on a flight to San Diego. I took a sec-
ond look: tanned, clean-shaven, with freshly cut hair and very
pale eyes behind rimless glasses. He wore a summer-weight,
tan suit and woven leather loafers. His blue shirt made his eyes
almost glow. He was finishing an apple.
Daley watched me as I approached, a crooked smile on his
face.“On your way back east?” he said.
I nodded. “And you?”
He crossed his legs, hiking up the leg of his trousers to pre-
serve its nice crease. “Heading west.”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” he echoed.
“Who are you really, Daley?”
He shrugged. “I work deals, Burke. Angles. I generate—
innovative solutions to thorny problems.” He smiled at that,
his long, yellow teeth showing in pleasure.
“But who do you work for?” I persisted.
Daley took off his glasses and wiped the lenses while look-
ing at me with those pale eyes. “Probably not a detail you need
to concern yourself with, Burke.”
I sat down next to him. “Know what I think?” He turned
toward me, a small gesture of polite interest. “I think you set
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up that whole ambush.”
“Now, why would I do that?”
“The opportunity was too good to pass up,” I said. “You
had the manuscript as bait…”
“And you,” he said, “don’t forget you.”
“And me. Once I arranged the meet with TM-7, you con-
tacted the Alphas and arranged for them to be there as well.”
I paused for moment, remembering the envelope the Capitán
had tossed Daley just before everything went haywire. “How
much did the Alphas pay you, Daley?”
He smiled briefly. “Given the situation, not nearly enough.”
“And you brought in the Border Patrol people.”
“Slick, wasn’t it? Like icing on the cake.”
I shook my head. “So what you do, is it just for money?”
“Burke,” he said quietly, “it’s never just about the money.
But if a little extra happens to come my way in the course of my
activities…” he shrugged. “I told you. I’m an entrepreneur.”
The gate agent called his seat and he stood up and offered a
hand. “You take care, Burke.”
I looked at his destination. “San Diego.”
“Border town,” he said, then winked at me as he headed
toward the gate. “Opportunity calls.”
He ghosted through the entranceway and was gone.
I spent the flight alternately pretending I was asleep on the
one hand, and sleeping and dreaming I was awake on the other.
It made for a tremendously restful experience. The cabin was
crowded, the engines loud, and my mind was like a vast floor
where the pieces of the past few days had been shattered, leav-
ing jagged and disconnected memories.
He was waiting for me at the airport; I knew he would be.
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Kage
I exited the concourse and walked up to him, saying nothing.
“Bag?” Micky said.
“No.”
He grunted and gestured for me to follow along.
Outside, he had parked the car in a no-parking zone—old
habits die hard. Micky waived to a transit cop on the pavement
when we emerged.
“How’d it go?” he asked. He pointed his remote at the car
and its locks chirped open.
“You know how it went.”
“Do I?” He moved around the car as if to get in. We looked
at each other across the roof of the vehicle.
I slide the cell phone he had lent me across the car top. “It’s
GPS enabled, Mick,” I told him. “You were tracking me every
step I took.”
He shrugged. “So?”
“And your pal Daley— he’s not some retired INS guy, is
he?”Micky looked at me and said nothing.
“You used me,” I said. “Me.”
He smirked. “Connor, don’t be an asshole. Like you weren’t
using me?”
“It’s not the same.”
“No? Lemme fill you on a few things.” His finger jabbed
angrily at me. “You had those lunatics from TM-7 on your
case. What was I gonna do? Nothing?”
“I thought we had agreed that I would handle it.”
He cut me off. “Connor, you were so far in over your fuck-
ing head, it was a miracle you could see daylight at all!”
“So you used me,” I repeated.
“I cut a deal! If we could work a way to nab some high-profile
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smugglers, I could get you some backup.”
“Nab ‘em? Mick, it was a fucking free-fire zone!” Now I was
getting hot.
He shrugged. “Like your plan was gonna be any safer? Con-
nor, when you get involved in these things, it’s always a little
iffy.”“You could have told me!”
Micky shook his head. “Nah. You’re not a good enough
actor. And we needed an outsider with no connections to the
local scene. I needed you strung out and working on the edge
for this thing to work.”
“And did it?” For a moment I was back there, the bodies in
the desert, the night falling and the lone sound of a silenced
pistol going off.
“Oh yeah,” he said.
“I don’t believe you did this…”
He snorted. “Don’t be so fucking high and mighty. You
were going out there to kill someone.”
“You know why I did that!”
He waived it away. “Doesn’t change the facts.”
I slammed the roof of the car in anger. The Transit cop
began to drift over, but Micky waived him away.
My brother’s eyes hardened. His face was tight and focused
and cruel in a way I’d never seen before.
“What is it you don’t like, Connor? The fact that all your
martial art skills weren’t enough? That I had to rig something
to get your ass out of a wringer?”
“I didn’t ask you for any help!”
He snorted. “Bullshit. Every time you need information,
you come to me. Every time you need help, you come to me. So
accept it and shut up. You take a good fucking look at yourself,
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you asshole,” he said. “Think about what you’re really mad at.
Is it me? Or you?” I started to say something, but he kept right
on. “You think this world is so cut and dry? Black and white?
Grow up!” He glanced around in fury, gathering more steam.
“You decided to get into this stuff, Connor. You walked in,
eyes wide open. It’s my world, and let me tell you, everyone
cuts deals. Everyone uses everyone. Once in a great while, like
now, it works out. But nobody walks away clean or comes out
whole.” His voice cracked. “Nobody.”
What was there to say? We glared at each other across a
car’s roof, snarling animals, bodies in rigid postures familiar
since boyhood. Around us, the bustle of the airport created a
jumbled, jerky background, both prosaic and surreal.
I turned away. Angry. Resentful.
“Where ya goin’?”
“Home,” I said.
My brother said nothing. No plea to stop or get in the
car—to think things through. He watched me with distant,
cold eyes. But his heart cracked for a moment.
“I gonna see you again?” he croaked.
I turned toward him, walking backwards for a minute.
“Now who’s being the asshole?” I said, and left him.
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23
Shells
Part of me wanted to head to the
dojo
in Red Hook, but I
wasn’t sure what kind of welcome I’d get. So I headed home to
the empty house in Sunset Park. I was weary and hoped things
were over. But I was wrong.
The red message light was winking, and I played the series
of phone calls that Sarah’s sister Deborah had left for me since
that morning, increasingly frantic with worry. By the time we
spoke, Deborah was almost incoherent. Sarah was gone. A
simple trip for groceries that shot her down a wormhole. Her
car empty in a local shopping center, and the cops advising
the family that they’d have to wait the usual forty-eight hours
before an official search could begin.
We didn’t have to.
“I have her,” he breathed. Even on my cell phone, I could
hear that his voice was thick, as if the excitement were choking
him.“Martín?” I asked. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“Anything, “I said then, a jet of adrenalin arching through
my chest but my voice as dry as dust. “Anything you want.”
“I need the manuscript,” he said. “You deliver it. Alone. No
cops.”
They always warn you about the cops. In a kidnapping, the
experts say that going it alone is the worst thing you can do. But
I knew deep down that this was more than just a kidnapping.
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Kage
And the ransom was simply an excuse: he didn’t even realize
that the people who had initially paid him were all dead. And
he didn’t care; Martín would want me there by myself for his
own reasons. So, it would turn out, did I.
Martín told me what he wanted me to do. I stalled, trying
to figure out my options. “I’ll need a car,” I explained.
“Call this number when you get it,” he said, reciting the
digits. “Hurry. I think your woman needs you.” He laughed
and then hung up.
I went first to the
dojo
, of course. I swallowed my pride and
Yamashita knew it. He sat, immobile, as I told him what had
happened. He pursed his lips, thinking for minute, then rose
to his feet; smooth and powerful, a wave swelling and gathering
momentum.
“I’ll get my weapons,” he said.
We were on the road for twenty minutes before I called the
number I had been given. The voice that answered was not
Martín, but it told me what to do. Yamashita sat beside me in
the car, watching me with the merciless intensity of a tiger.
“You know this place?” he asked.
I nodded tightly. “Port Jefferson. North Shore. Suffolk
County. With luck we’ll make it in an hour and a half.”
“You told the man on the phone two hours.”
“I lied,” I said.
Yamashita nodded approvingly. “And you are not telling
your brother.” A statement, not a question, but I answered
anyway.
“They said no cops. If I let Micky know, he’d probably have
to let them know. It’s probably best that he’s not involved.” I
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didn’t mention that we weren’t talking.
My teacher was silent for a time. He gazed out at the con-
crete flow of the road. I swerved around the traffic, frantic to
reach a destination where I would in all likelihood die. I was
like a man on a flimsy raft, desperately avoiding the jagged
rocks of the river, even as the distant roar of the falls thundered
ultimate disaster.
“This man Martín is the contract killer?” Yamashita asked. I
nodded. “And you have killed his lover.” I shrugged. Yamashita
swiveled his torso in my direction, his eyes intent. “So he has
no real interest in the manuscript, Burke.”
“No,” I admitted. We sat for a while in silence, working
through the implications in our own separate ways. The tires
hummed.
“What will you do?” my teacher asked.
“I don’t know,” I said evasively. I didn’t want to go through
this again. There’s a big distinction between self-defense and
premeditation. I knew I had almost stepped over that line in
Arizona; it was only my brother’s machinations that had saved