Mick O’Hasson had drifted off. The second time he’d zoned out since we’d started talking. Not fully asleep, just coasting on whatever cocktail of drugs the doctors had prescribed for him, while he lay in his hospital bed regaining strength.
I was riding a little high myself, on a fistful of painkillers. Even with pharma blunting the worst of it, my neck wouldn’t turn all the way to the left, and I limped as I made my way down the hall to splash cold water on my face at the drinking fountain. One nurse looked at me sideways, maybe suspecting that I had wandered away from my own sickbed. Ten minutes left in visiting hours. I’d intended to come earlier, but after leaving Cyndra with Addy, exhaustion had knocked me down and kept me there most of the day. When I finally rose, I moved like I was underwater.
O’Hasson was awake again when I stepped back into the room. He looked at me and sniffed.
“What were we talking about? Cyndra,” he said, answering his own question. “The old gal told you she’s sleeping a lot, right? Must be why I nodded off. Power of suggestion.” His mouth twitched, just a hint of his habitual grin returning.
“Addy’s worked in hospitals. She says a lot of rest is what Cyndra needs most right now.”
“And she doesn’t remember what happened to her?” he said. I’d told him Cyndra’s story already, but I couldn’t blame him for wanting some reassurance.
“She remembers driving to Pacific Pearl and sneaking up to the building and moving some pallets to look through a window. Then somebody stuck a bag over her head. After that, she has just vague impressions of being in a truck. They must have doped her almost immediately.”
Mick bowed his head, and it took me a moment to realize he was giving thanks.
“That’s what Cyndra can remember right now,” I cautioned, “and she’s handling it like a champion. But Addy told me she’s woken up a few times, crying out. She’s going to need help, Mick.”
“I wanna see her.”
“One of us will bring her by in the morning. Hey.”
“I’m here,” he said, jolting back to full consciousness.
“I’m sorry for threatening you. Especially in front of Cyndra. It was stupid of me.”
O’Hasson shook his head, making the vinyl underneath the cotton pillowcase squeak. “Screw that. Your buddy died.”
“Doesn’t justify it.”
“You got Cyndra back for me. That’s it, far as I care.” He stuck out a hand. I shook it.
He looked around the austere room, with its flat white walls and curtains the color of a parched desert, and every piece of furniture on casters. “Am I sick of these places. In the morning, I’m gone.”
“Not yet. The doc’s got a specialist coming to talk to you tomorrow.” And before O’Hasson could get more than half a word of protest out of his mouth, I added, “Let the cancer clinic here take a look at you. You can afford better than the state minimum now.”
“I know my own fuckin’ prognosis.”
“Then you’re guaranteed not to get any bad news. How many patients can say that?”
“Nowhere to go but up? That’s your sales pitch?”
“Your daughter will kick your ass if you don’t. That’s all the pitch I need.”
He laughed, not quite able to turn it sour. “Look who’s the sympathetic type after all.”
The following morning, Hollis and I agreed to meet at Bully Betty’s, before the bar opened for the day. He came straight from the funeral home where he’d been helping Nakri make arrangements for Corcoran. Lifting the metallic blue suitcase over the sill of the bar’s service door made my bones creak. My body was stiffer than ever, but my mind was finally letting me rest. I was coming off of the first real sleep I’d managed in two days.
“Damnation,” Hollis said. “You got it back.”
I gave him the short version of events as I unlocked the door and put on a pot of coffee. By the end of it, Hollis was seated in a booth, looking like I’d slapped him with a dead squid.
“Jesus, boyyo,” he said at last. “Jesus.”
“Yeah, he probably helped me out, there at the end.”
“The woman killed herself. And took both those sinful fucks with her.”
“I don’t know if Ingrid intended to die. But I’m sure if she knew it meant taking the Slatterys with her, she’d have made the same choice a thousand times over.”
“Laughing as she falls into the abyss. God, the madness of it,” Hollis said.
Ingrid Ekby had given her life—and maybe her humanity—to find and kill Joe Slattery. He’d damaged her so deeply that the wounds had never healed. Because she wouldn’t let them? Or because she had tried and found it impossible?
“And that’s half of the gold there? The suitcase you took off the bastards who killed Jimmy?”
“Less O’Hasson’s share, yeah.”
“What about yours?”
“We’ll get to that. How’s Nakri?”
“Forged of steel, that lady. She’d have to be, married to Jimmy.” Hollis allowed himself a small smile. “Maybe all Cambodian women are that way. Or she’s holding herself together for the children.”
I had seen the news story. Seattle man found shot and robbed in Magnuson Park. Corcoran’s kids would go on thinking their stepdad had been the victim of an unsolved mugging, though I’m sure Nakri would believe there was more to the story than that. We couldn’t tell them any part of the truth, even if it meant knowing that the men who’d killed Jimmy C. had come to bad ends themselves. That knowledge might not be any solace anyway.
Hollis cleared his throat. “Listen, about what I said. You moving Jimmy like that—”
“It was unacceptable.”
“I couldn’t have done it. And it had to be done.”
“Jimmy would have treated me better, if the situation were reversed. No matter what he thought of me personally.”
Hollis hesitated, and then got up and found mugs and poured the coffee for us. He nearly spilled the hot brew while shying away from a thatch of dreadlocks dangling from the ceiling.
“This is a very strange place, did I mention?” he said.
“Weird enough to suit me.”
“D’you know why Jimmy needled you so much? He was scared of Dono—hell, nothing to that, sometimes even I was frightened of your man. And you’re so much like him. But.” Hollis waved a finger at me. “You’ve compunctions your grandfather didn’t. Ideals. Jimmy was a little scared of those, too.”
“Here’s to him,” I said.
We drank. The coffee helped my aches as much as the codeine.
Hollis looked at the blue suitcase, leaning against the stool at the end of the bar. “It should feel like more of a victory, shouldn’t it? We’ve got the money. We lost Jimmy, but damn near every one of those shit-eaters paid with their lives, too.”
Ten dead. Maybe eleven. I’d lost count.
“War doesn’t work like that,” I said.
“No. I suppose not.”
“Having the gold didn’t make me happy,” I said. “Too much blood on those bars. Stealing it was fun. Getting O’Hasson away from Ingrid’s men was even better.”
“And the girl? You saved her.”
“That was best,” I said.
“A good day.”
“Good is the correct word.”
“So you’re not keeping your share? It’s for Jimmy’s family?”
“I kept some. Add the rest to Nakri’s cut. I trust you can come up with some tale.”
“What about rebuilding your house?” Hollis said.
“I’m giving up on the house. Selling the land.”
Hollis had trouble swallowing his mouthful of coffee. “Wasn’t the whole point of this—” He left the obvious ending hang.
“Money to rebuild the house was one reason. The bigger motive was giving me something to do that I could do well.”
“Safecracking.”
I smiled. “At the start, yeah. But mostly the planning, and the execution. The job we pulled at EverCon was the most focused I’ve felt since leaving the Rangers. And I want a little more of it.”
Hollis scratched his cheek, contemplating. “Just what are you getting at, lad?”
I leaned back, feeling the leaden burn of pain, the price of the fight. Enjoying it, just a little.
“How would you feel about some pro bono work?” I said.