Matt scanned the paperwork, then wrote across the top of the form:
You’re a hit-and-run killer.
Robinson returned to his desk and Matt handed him the application. The color drained from the loan manager’s face as the sheet of paper slipped from between his fingers. A response failed to make it past his lips.
“I know you killed that little girl and I’ve been sent to kill you.”
“I… I… didn’t.”
Matt held up a hand to silence Robinson’s gibbering. “Doesn’t matter. It’s been decided that you have to die.”
Robinson’s eyes flitted from person to person in the bank.
“They can’t help you.” Matt let him see the gun tucked into the front of his pants. “It’s closing time in a few minutes. Just excuse yourself early. You’re having a business meeting with me. Make a fuss and you’ll still have to explain the girl you killed. It’s a no-win for you. Are we cool?”
Robinson nodded.
“Good. Let’s go.”
Matt followed Robinson to the tellers. He told them he was leaving, then Matt guided him out the doors and onto the street. This was the tricky part. Robinson kept his car parked in a garage two blocks away. It wasn’t an inconsiderable distance in itself, but it was when there were hundreds of people filling the street and you had a frightened hostage in tow. But holding the barrel of the gun where Robinson could feel it kept him docile.
Matt made Robinson drive. When he pulled onto the street, Matt scanned for the Taskmasters. He didn’t spot them but he sensed them shadowing his every move. He couldn’t imagine them not being there at the kill. They’d still be worrying about him. Oh yeah, they would be close.
“Don’t shoot me,” Robinson squeezed out between sobs.
“You brought this on yourself. You shouldn’t have killed that girl.”
“I didn’t.”
“The least you could do is man up here.”
Robinson shook his head. “They sent you, didn’t they?”
Matt went cold. Robinson knew the Taskmasters. That couldn’t be right. “Who’s
they?
”
“Jesus, I told them I wouldn’t say anything. I even paid them. Ten grand. All the money I have. I should’ve known they’d send someone to get me. Lying bastards.”
Robinson’s ramble came out too fast for Matt to take in. “Whoa. Slow down. What are you talking about?”
“The cops. I saw them kill that guy. Shot him in the face. I’d never seen anyone die before. It was horrible. I can’t get it out of my head. It’s so stupid. I shouldn’t have been there. Wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t needed to take a short cut through the alley to Spring Street. I didn’t want to pay for parking and I have a space I use sometimes. Christ, I tried to save a buck and it’s cost me everything.”
The revelations slammed into Matt one after another. But instead of leaving him punch drunk, they gave him clarity. Pieces fell into place of a much larger picture.
Robinson had broken down into nonsensical sobs. If he didn’t get his shit together, he was going to crash the car.
“Hey, snap out of it. I need you straight. This guy you saw killed, what’d he look like?”
“I don’t know. Skinny. Hispanic. All I saw was the hole in his forehead and four pissed-off cops.” Robinson stared at Matt. He’d picked up on Matt’s change of heart.
Some things had changed. Some things hadn’t.
“Keep driving.”
“Do I get a last request?” Robinson asked.
“What?”
“All condemned men are granted a last request.”
“What is it?”
With a shaking hand, Robinson reached inside his jacket. Matt’s grip tightened on his gun and he fixed his aim on Robinson’s stomach just in case the bank worker carried a weapon. Instead, Robinson brought out a phone.
“Can I call my family?” Tears ran down his face. “Just this last time?”
Matt was softhearted but not soft in the head. He snatched the phone away. “No way. Do I look retarded? I’m not giving you the green light to call 911.”
Robinson broke down. Matt examined the phone. He wasn’t too up on these things but it looked to be the latest in cell phone technology.
“Does this thing have video capability on it?”
Robinson palmed away his tears. “Yes.”
Matt punched in a number and waited for an answer. “It’s me. I’m going through with it. I’ll be at the clubhouse as arranged.” He hung up.
Robinson looked at him with questioning fear. “There’ll be others?”
“Don’t look so worried. This’ll all be over soon.”
Matt directed Robinson to the derelict restaurant on Yesler that served as the Taskmasters’ clubhouse. He pulled Robinson out of the car and shoved him toward the rear of the building, ignoring the slowing sedan across the street.
The backdoor wasn’t as fortified as the front. Matt kicked it in without too much trouble. The dead bolt remained intact, but the rotted frame gave way. He pushed Robinson inside the building and into a large dining area. He wished he had the keys to the main doors; he only had one means of escape. He stopped Robinson by a table with a missing leg.
“Show me how to record a message.”
Robinson helped Matt record two video messages of him, one for his family and the other about the hit he witnessed.
“I’ll send these when it’s all over.”
“Thank you.”
Up until this point, there’d been a pleading element to Robinson. Everything from his posture to his expression had revealed a thin hope that Matt wouldn’t go through with the execution—but not anymore. He knew these were his last moments on earth.
“Facedown, please.” Matt pointed to a nook which must have served as some sort of station for the waitstaff. Robinson did as he was told and lay in the dirt and rubble without complaint. “I’m sorry to put you through this, but it should be all over soon.”
Matt waited for a response, but Robinson said nothing.
Matt took a breath, aimed, and fired the gun twice.
With the reports still bouncing off the walls, the Taskmasters, in uniform, poured in through the rear entrance with guns drawn and spread out until they each had Matt in their sights.
“Drop the gun!” Harry shouted.
Matt dropped the gun and raised his hands. “I figured this would come next. There’s no Taskmasters. No vigilante hit squad. Just a group of dirty cops who got seen killing a pimp. Who was Hernandez?”
“A scumbag who didn’t want to pay a toll for working our streets,” Stein answered.
“You should have taken him up to the roof to do your business,” Matt said. “Fewer witnesses up there.”
Stein ground his jaw in quiet fury. Chalmers and Tripplehorn didn’t like having their noses rubbed in their own mess. Harry was the only one unaffected by Matt’s jibes.
“So I’m the patsy you need to take the fall for Robinson. What happens now? You shoot me, pin it all on me, and you guys walk off into the sunset?”
“I’m afraid so, son,” Harry said. “You’re just a punk kid, a loser who’s going to pay for our mistakes. I hate to do it to you, but it’s for the greater good.”
“You left it a little too late to get smart,” Tripplehorn added.
“Maybe not.” Matt nodded at the cell phone. “That’s one of those phones with the video camera built in. It’s recording right now.”
Chalmers cursed and shot the phone off the table.
“There’s still the problem of the murder you just committed,” Harry said. “You’re still a killer.”
“No, I’m an innocent man with a witness.”
Robinson rose awkwardly to his feet, looking dazed and confused. He stared at the two bullet holes in the ground to the right of his head.
“We’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way,” Stein snarled, and made for Matt’s gun on the ground.
“Hold it right there!” a voice barked.
The Taskmasters froze as the men wearing King County Sheriffs’ windbreakers from the courthouse just a street away stormed the room through the upper level and kitchen area. The Taskmasters quickly surrendered and the sheriffs relieved them of their weapons. The Taskmasters cursed Matt—except for Harry, who just smiled.
Matt walked up to Harry. “You kept a tail on me to keep me from leaving, but you couldn’t stop me from using the phone. I’ve been talking to some friends.”
“I underestimated you,” Harry said, as a deputy cuffed him.
Matt grinned. He’d underestimated himself. “You said you’d make me a better man.”
“Enjoy this moment.” Harry leaned forward and whispered in Matt’s ear: “Smile while you can. Do you honestly think we’re the only Taskmasters inside the SPD?” He winked at Matt as the deputy hauled him away. “You’ve still got a lot of work ahead of you, son.”
G
us Maloney struggled awake, fighting the pain that shot electrical currents through his head. “Who the hell’s out there?” His words rasped, hurting his raw throat. The sound of his own voice thudded in his ears. His mouth tasted foul, like he’d been guzzling Lake Union’s polluted waters.
How long have I been out?
He pulled off his tangled blankets, belched, and tasted bile. He rubbed his gut.
When was the last time I ate?
The tin door to his shack rattled again.
I’ll kill Sweet Sue for making that racket!
“Mister Mayor, ya gotta get up.”
Gus swung his feet to the dirt floor and sat on his cot, elbows on thighs, and cradled his head in his hands. Then he ran a hand over the stubble of whiskers on his face. Slowly, it sunk through the fog in his brain. The voice yelling wasn’t Sweet Sue’s.
Gus staggered to the door and moved the heavy metal trunk he’d placed there. It was his insurance that no one could push the door open without him knowing. Dead drunk or not, his old cop instincts kicked in when trouble was about to kick
him
in his face.
When he pulled the makeshift door open, Muffler Man stepped back on his good leg. His face puckered up and his faded blue eyes stared over Gus’s right shoulder at nothing. He had his signature plaid wool scarf around his neck.
At the sight of Gus’s murderous scowl, Muffler Man hitched back a step. “We got bad news,” he said. He half turned around and nodded at the small woman standing behind him. “Me and Bets here, we been hollerin’ a long time.”
Gus looked around Muffler Man at Bets, who seemed scared as a kid about to be whipped. She didn’t return his look but bent her head and hunkered down inside the worn pea coat dwarfing her skinny body.
Gus had slept in his clothes and couldn’t remember the last time he’d changed them. His stink hung close. He felt like hell and looked worse. “Where’s Sweet Sue? Why the hell are you bothering me?”
Even with his alcohol-hazed brain, Gus knew something had gone very wrong in the camp. Like it or not, he’d been elected the “go to” man by its inhabitants. That’s because he was an ex-cop. Once the word had gotten out in the homeless camp set up below St. Mark’s Cathedral, Sweet Sue had started calling him “Mr. Mayor.” The label stuck. So did the responsibilities. He’d questioned himself.
Why stay?
But then he’d shrug.
Why not!
Maybe it was Sweet Sue, the thin old relic who’d attached himself to Gus. The man had been drifting since he was a boy. He’d been called a tramp and a vagrant then, and not the niced-up label of
homeless.
Sweet Sue liked to say that he was Mr. Mayor’s “aide-de-homeless-camp.” Then he’d laugh his high-pitched cackle.
Just about everybody in the camp went by a street name. Sweet Sue’s came about because he liked to suck on hard candy and told over and over about hearing Johnny Cash sing “A Boy Named Sue” in San Quentin.
Mudflat Manor was a loose collection of pitched tents, tarps, and a few lean-tos set on the wooded hillside below the Episcopal cathedral. When the rains came, the place was a muddy, slippery slope. But Gus kept the camp clean, so to speak, so that the Seattle PD and the do-gooders, including the big church’s minister, left them alone. Gus didn’t allow dope dealers or druggies—he could be persuasive. And he made damn sure there weren’t any syringes or used condoms littering 10th Street in front of the cathedral. That way, the police and uptight citizens in the Capitol Hill neighborhood could pretend the homeless squatters didn’t exist. If they did, then they’d have to do something about them.
Gus let alkies like himself stay—if they didn’t make trouble. A core group of drifters and homeless came and went with the seasons. Before he’d gotten the news about his daughter and went on his bender, some had already left and headed south. It was closing in on November. The rains had started and the temperature dropped the last few nights.
Muffler Man’s fingers twitched at his pants legs. He looked away from Gus and mumbled, “I gotta say this: Sweet Sue’s hurt bad.”
Gus grabbed Muffler Man’s arm. “What happened? Where is he?”
Muffler Man stammered. “Huh-huh-Harborview. A dope dealer beat him up. He was a b-b-big black man. Wore his hair in them funny kind of braids. Sweet Sue tried to stop him peddling his dope. Had all kinds on him—kinda like a one-stop drugstore.”
“Why the hell didn’t you get me?”
Muffler Man stumbled back into Bets. “We tried. Honest. But you was worse’n dead—out cold.”
“Did the cops come? How’d Sue get to the hospital?”
Bets wrung her hands behind Muffler Man, her face crumpling like a child’s about to cry.
Muffler Man shook his head. “He dragged off old Sue, said he’d teach him a lesson. Billy found him in the alley up by the brick apartments. He had kicked in Sue’s face. We called 911 from a pay phone and said we’d seen this body and where and hung up, quick.”
Bets raised her hand to catch Gus’s attention. “Mr. Mayor, I went to the emergency room at the hospital and asked if someone found on Capitol Hill had been brought in. They said yes, he was being operated on. I got scared and didn’t stay. I was afraid they’d ask questions or call the cops on me.”
Gus groaned and rubbed his shaved head. “When did this happen?”
“Last night. Late-like.” Muffler Man wrung his hands together.
Gus glanced at his watch, forcing his eyes to focus. It was almost noon. He shivered. It was getting colder.
He nodded at Bets. “You did good.” She dimpled and smiled. Then Gus added, “Can you give me any other description of the man?”
“He had a long kind of a blouse on.” Bets peered down at her clothes and then shyly back to Gus. “It had a picture of that singer on it…” She paused, her face distressed. Then she started humming and her face brightened. “Bob Marley. That’s who it was. No, not the bad man who hurt Sweet Sue. I mean the face on the shirt. Bob Marley.” Then Bets backed up, as if she’d done something wrong.
Gus smiled to reassure her. His teeth hurt; everything on him ached. “Way to go, Bets. Now, heat me up some water. I need to clean up and take care of business.”
* * *
Gus made it to the hospital an hour later, his face raw from shaving because he used an old blade. He’d put on decent clothes, a pair of clean Levi’s and a T-shirt under a Mariners jacket. He kept them stashed in a plastic garment bag for emergencies. He didn’t want a nurse calling security when she saw him, hollering to get the bum out of the hospital. Gus knew he could pass, at first glance, as a middle-aged, common Joe; someone with a house, a wife, and a kid he was putting through college. He’d had them once—he could play the part. The hospital security wouldn’t shuffle him off.
Gus also had a stash of cash in a bus station locker and a drop mailbox in his name at a place on Capitol Hill. That’s where he received his disability check. It was a kiss-off from the San Jacinto Police Department: leave the force, get out of the state, and don’t come back. Gus had been working a child molester case where a six-year-old kid died after being repeatedly raped. Following a four-month trial, the monster got off on a technicality. Gus couldn’t let him do it to another kid. The boy’s bruised body, his face like an angel’s in one of the cathedral windows, haunted him. He saw him in his sleep and would wake up crying. Hitting the bottle didn’t make the images go away. So Gus tracked the guy down, tailing him day and night and stoking himself on good old Jose Cuervo. When the guy took off on Highway 101 to get out of town, Gus followed him. On a lonely stretch, Gus did some fancy tailgating that he had learned in police academy training, fished the asshole in his Toyota off the road and over an embankment. The car rolled and then caught fire when it hit bottom. The perp toasted inside. Better than going to hell, the way Gus figured it.
Of course, the San Jacinto PD had their suspicions but didn’t work the case hard. Gus’s captain didn’t do much talking, but some suggesting. So Gus left the department after eighteen years, with a couple of commendations, a hearty handshake, and the warning, “Don’t come back.” Same held true for his marriage. “You’ve changed and I can’t live with you anymore,” his wife had said. She kept the kids and booted him out of the house.
He didn’t look back.
Gus had called from a pay phone to find out what room Sweet Sue was in—found he was in a ward, the kind with beds in rooms that ringed a nurses’ station. Gus fingered the hard peppermint candies in his pocket, Sweet Sue’s favorites. The ends of the cellophane wrappers crackled when he touched them.
The nurses and hospital aides at the station were deep in conversation when Gus walked by and entered Sweet Sue’s room. His roommate was sleeping, and so was Sweet Sue. The tread mark from a sneaker was outlined in ugly red and purple bruising on the old man’s left cheek. A bandage covered part of his skull and one eye. His arm was in a cast, and he had more bandages around his chest. A fury that Gus hadn’t felt in a long time boiled up in him, so thick and red that he couldn’t see for a moment. Then it subsided, chilling, turning into a sharp edge of calculating revenge that cut through the fuzz in Gus’s brain.
He stared at Sweet Sue. The man didn’t have a mean bone in his body and was as simple as they come. His shallow breathing hardly moved the covers on him. Gus thought he’d slammed the door on caring for anyone. But now Gus groaned and bent over the bed. He didn’t want to hurt, to feel. He couldn’t open up the logjam inside that kept everything behind it sealed out of sight and touch. Neither his daughter Jenny nor this old, broken-down hobo deserved what happened to them.
Gus leaned over and put his mouth close to Sweet Sue’s good ear. “I’m here, buddy. Gawd. I’m sorry.” He lightly clasped Sue’s scrawny good shoulder. “I’ll get the bastards. I promise.” Then he put the hard candy on the nightstand and left.
Gus took a bus and transferred and then got off on the east side of Lake Union. He had a favorite spot, a bench, where he could watch the boats and the seagulls. It was too cold, and there were no boats out sailing. The waves were an ugly gray, looking as mean as Gus felt. The seagulls did their thing, squealing and wheeling about, and he took the lid off his triple-mocha shot that he’d bought at Starbucks. He shivered in his thin shirt and windbreaker—but welcomed the cold. It crystallized his thinking. He didn’t have a lot of time. It was strange that a Rasta had kicked in Sweet Sue’s face—not any Rastafarians around, except the wannabes he’d seen from time to time. And the guy sure as hell wouldn’t be hanging around in the cold and rain of Seattle if he didn’t have to. He’d be on the first plane out of SeaTac, headed for Jamaica or wherever he came from, as soon as he’d peddled his weed and made some bucks.
The cold seemed to freeze the fuzz in Gus’s head, but made clear channels, letting ideas flow. It was like the synapses in his brain were snapping together, ones he hadn’t used in a long while.
He’d learned the hard way in investigations: look first for the obvious. Why was this guy hanging around a homeless camp, peddling dope to someone who probably only had chump change? He’d have easier chances making a sale with the potheads who hung out on Capitol Hill. A black man with dreadlocks, wearing a T-shirt with Bob Marley’s picture on it, would be accepted, fit in.
Gus reached into the bag of cookies he’d bought with the coffee. He broke off a piece from one and threw it by a dirty gray seagull, which inspected and then rejected it. Gus reflected again on the Rasta and thought about the stores and cafés that lined Capitol Hill’s main drag. They catered to a cultural mix of apartment/condo dwellers, community college kids, fringies, and refugees. Gus blew out his breath and it turned white in the cold air. Damn. He should have remembered before. A Caribbean jerk chicken place had opened up recently on Broadway. What if the creep was related or connected? It would make sense. Could be a reason for him setting up shop on the hill, making it his territory. Not much to go on—it was a stretch. But better than nothing. Gus drank the last of his cold coffee and then threw the remaining cookies on the grass. It’d be sunset soon. The leaden sky promised a dark night.
He shivered and stood up. What he needed was a plan…and a warmer jacket.
On the way to his locker at the bus station, Gus stopped at a liquor store and bought a couple bottles of Jose Cuervo. Then he continued on to the station to collect his winter jacket and stow away the one he had on. He took out his emergency envelope of cash and a gym bag that carried his essentials for late-night work. Then he stopped in the washroom. Now he had the beginning of a plan. But first he had to find this creep.
On the bus ride up Pill Hill, he kept his mind on Sweet Sue, picturing his pale, stomped-on face. He wanted to keep his focus. But then at his stop, a young woman stepped in front of him as the bus door opened. She flashed an apologetic smile, and Gus’s heart froze for a moment. She looked so much like Jenny—at least his memory of her. How long had it been since he’d seen his daughter? Six years? No, seven. She was fourteen then. Now a mother… No, not a mother. That’s what the letter from his ex-wife was about. The one that sent him on a long-term bender. The baby had been stillborn.
Gus
,
I’m only writing because Jenny wanted you to know. She was going to name the baby after you. Why, I’ll never know. I don’t even know if this letter will reach you. You’re probably dead too. But I did what our daughter asked me to do and it’s done.
His ex hadn’t even bothered to sign her name.
Gus didn’t blame her.
Old emotions, the guilt and anger, and a sorrow he couldn’t handle, collided inside him. They churned in his stomach and his hands trembled. He clutched the sack with the two bottles of tequila in it like they were his only lifelines. He needed a drink bad. He needed a whole damn bottle worse.
Gus forced himself to walk in the direction where he thought the Caribbean restaurant was located—he remembered it as a kind of hole-in-the-wall place. Along the way, he wandered around the area sizing up the traffic and turning down drug offers. Doorways and alleys drew dealers and buyers like old lovers who could sense a soft touch and a score a block away.