HOLLIS BRANT KEPT HIS powerboat the Francesca moored in one of the bigger marinas of Shilshole Bay, one pleasure craft among hundreds. Raindrops pinged off aluminum masts and brasswork. Tiny puddles had formed wherever the dock’s planks were warped. Our steps made slapping sounds on the sodden wood as we walked. Leo stayed a step or two behind me, scanning each boat as we passed. So alert that I could feel his gaze when it swept across my back.
I knew the slip number, but I hadn’t seen the boat before. All of Hollis’s boats had been named Francesca, without any trailing roman numerals to let you know how many vessels had come before. Hollis once said that slapping a number on the name would be like asking a lady her age.
The latest incarnation of the Francesca was a fifty-foot Carver. I guessed it at about a dozen years old. A hell of a lot sleeker than his previous Nixon-era Chris Craft. But maybe a little less personality, too.
I rapped on the hull, and heard the cabin door thump open at the stern.
“Come aboard, for savior’s sake!” Hollis called. “It’s raining, or haven’t you noticed?”
Leo and I each made one high step up, and climbed over the rail to shuffle sideways back to the enclosed aft deck. Leo had to take his backpack off to squeeze through.
Hollis clasped my right hand as I shook the water off my cap with the other. With his round face and long, muscular arms, Hollis would have looked simian even without the orangey curls that reminded me of an orangutan. He was dressed in madras shorts and a blue-and-white-striped Ballymena United jersey that had been new around the same time I’d started preschool.
“Hollis Brant, Leo Pak,” I said.
“You’ve finally come to visit,” said Hollis. He gestured expansively to invite us into the cabin. I entered. Leo stayed in the open doorway. The main salon was a showpiece of teak cabinetry and tan leather settees. Because the boat was newer, the surfaces were shiny and without stains. Because it was Hollis’s home, it was untidy.
Hollis lived aboard, and sometimes worked aboard as well. He was a smuggler, and a scrounger. While most of his work wasn’t as directly larcenous as Dono’s, or as prone to violence as Willard’s, he was still a long throw from being a straight citizen.
“It’s got class,” I said.
“Doesn’t she?” said Hollis. “You should feel her take the swells. I’ll give you the tour.”
“I’ll hang here,” Leo said, angling his head at the aft deck.
Hollis looked uncertainly at me. I nodded. Leo staying outside would allow Hollis and me to talk business without couching any words. I fished the folded alarm schematic out of the messenger bag and set the bag outside by Leo’s backpack. Leo tugged a chair over to where he could see the dock through the glass.
Hollis led me below and I made approving noises over the staterooms and the engines. I was curious what compartments he had built in for smuggling, but I didn’t ask. Bad form.
“Your man, there,” Hollis said softly before we went back up to the main cabin. “Am I right in guessing he’s a soldier, too? Or was?”
“He turned up at the Morgen today,” I said. “I haven’t seen him in three or four years.”
“And home safe, like yourself. That’s a blessing.”
“Better than the alternative.”
“Coffee’s on, if you’ll have some. Or something stronger?” I stuck with coffee, and brought a mug out to Leo. He nodded and went back to watching the rain.
Hollis swept some half-folded laundry off one of the chairs and sat down.
“Got your message,” he said. “What’s this about Willard?”
I filled him in on the sad fate of Elana. Hollis had been my grandfather’s closest friend, and he knew Willard well enough. He seemed to know someone everywhere.
“Poor bastard,” Hollis said, “and those poor fucking kids.”
“That about sums it up.”
“You and Miss Elana, you knew each other. Or am I misremembering?”
“You’re not.”
“Ah. And you want me to do what, now?”
“Two things. First I want the police records for Elana and for Kend. They may come up blank, but it’s better to check. We know part of Elana’s history. I don’t know about Kend.” Maybe whatever burglary Kend was planning with his alarm schematic wasn’t his debut.
Hollis pushed against the floor with his bare calloused feet, letting the round chair swivel from side to side. “This, ah, isn’t something I should tell our large friend about, I’m guessing.”
“No.” Willard was torn up enough about Elana’s death without telling him I was looking into her life. “Elana Coll, and Kendrick Haymes.” I spelled them out for Hollis.
“What’s the second thing?”
I unfolded the schematic and spread it out on the table for him to see.
Hollis whistled. “I don’t know such things as well as you and your granddad. Wasn’t he a wizard? But this looks like serious business to me.”
“Industrial,” I said, “and expensive.”
“What was it for?”
“That’s the question,” I said. “The pencil notes tell me somebody planned to grease the system. But I don’t know if it was ever used, or if they were successful. The design looks American—see the way the zeroes are made, and the wireless frequencies noted here—but I couldn’t swear the score was even in this country.”
“And if I may ask, who was it for?”
“I found it in Kend Haymes’s apartment.”
“Did you now?” He looked up at me. “I’m feeling better about our decision to keep this from Willard.”
“Yeah.”
Heavy rain always sounded different inside a boat. The hollow shell of fiberglass and teak trim making a drum that bobbed gently with the beat of each gust.
Hollis felt the corner of the schematic with his fingertips. “Is this a blueprint?”
“It’s blueprint paper, I think. Maybe that has something to do with it, too.”
“So you want to know if there were any break-ins, or attempted monkeyshines, at larger businesses that involved cutting an alarm. Maybe in the U.S. and maybe not. That’s pretty damn wide.”
“I figured it was a stretch.”
“I said wide, not unworkable. We can start asking locally and see if anything matches. If we find a lot, maybe that’s good, maybe that’s bad. Would you like SPD, King County, or State?”
“Show-off.”
“Times are tight, lad. There’s always a friend willing to make a few extra dollars, so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.”
“How many dollars makes a few?”
“Their sheets shouldn’t run more than a bill apiece, with some bargaining. I’m not sure about the other. The schematic.”
I had taken my roll of fifties from its hiding place in the truck, where I kept it for emergency gas money, or whatever. Bribery counted as whatever.
I tossed the roll to Hollis. “Here’s five hundred. If you need more, let me know.”
My cell phone buzzed as he was happily pouring himself a second round from the coffee pot.
“Would this be Mr. Shaw?” Female. The barest touch of an accent, maybe British.
“It would.”
“This is Carissa Lee, calling from the office of Maurice Haymes, sir. Mr. Haymes would like to meet with you at your earliest convenience.”
Maurice Haymes. The late Kend’s father. The twelfth-richest man in Seattle, if Channel 3 news had it right.
“Would nine o’clock tomorrow morning be acceptable?” she continued, managing to imply that turning down such an offer would be unthinkable.
“I think I can rearrange,” I said.
“Wonderful,” she said. “Our offices are in Columbia Tower. Do you know where it is?”
Everybody in Seattle knew where it was. Columbia was the tallest building north of Los Angeles. It took up most of a full block of downtown.
“We’re on the thirty-fourth floor,” said the assistant. “The reception desk downstairs will have your name.”
I stifled a wiseass urge to ask her if the event was white tie, and said I’d be there. She thanked me again and the line clicked off instantly. Efficient.
“Who was that?” said Hollis.
“I’ve been granted an audience.” I told Hollis about Kend’s family. He hummed softly.
“Elana didn’t aim low, did she?” Then he grimaced. “Sorry. I’m speaking ill of the dead. If there’s a service for the girl, you let me know.”
I hadn’t even thought about whether Willard would be holding a funeral for Elana. Even Hollis Brant was ahead of me when it came to social niceties.
He slapped a hand to his forehead. “Christ, I’d nearly forgotten again. My mind these days. Here.” He handed me a small key attached to a plastic disk. “Locker twenty-four, up at the office.”
“What is it?”
He grinned. “Presents. Some items of your granddad’s. He asked me to hold them, years ago, and it wasn’t until I was cleaning through all my things to move aboard the new Francesca that I even remembered I had them tucked away in storage. I brought ’em here for you.”
He wouldn’t say more.
When I opened the door to the aft deck, Leo was looking at Kend Haymes’s bank statements, lost in thought.
“Hey,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said, not glancing up. “I was looking for something to read. Got distracted. These aren’t yours, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“Good,” said Leo. “’Cause this guy is shit at managing his life. And that’s coming from me.”
That was the first joke Leo had made today. I was a little pissed at him going through the messenger bag, but counted any humor as a good sign.
Hollis peeked around my shoulder, curious. “Those are young Kend’s?”
“Dude needs to stop partying and pay his bills,” Leo said, shuffling the papers back into a stack.
“Partying?”
“Yeah.” Leo picked up the first credit statement and handed it to me. “He’s taking rides everywhere he goes. See?”
He pointed to an entry from a company called Faregame. The entries repeated, sometimes three or four times a day. The amounts were small, less than twenty bucks each. In Kend’s overcrowded credit statement, I hadn’t noticed.
“He doesn’t have a car,” I said. “Faregame must be a taxi service, or some kind of ride-sharing deal.”
“I figured he was drunk off his ass all day, with that many rides,” Leo said.
Maybe he was. And I’d seen Faregame before. I pulled out my phone to look over the list of names and numbers I’d copied from Kend’s.
There it was. Selbey Faregame. Likely it was Selbey at Faregame, instead of firstname-lastname. Selbey could be Kend’s favorite driver.
“Leo,” I said, “you’re hired.”
“Hired? For what?”
“I don’t know yet, but you’re already earning your keep. Come on.”
Leo and I bade farewell to Hollis and walked up to the marina office to use the key Hollis had given me. Locker 24 was large, big enough for sail bags or fishing rods. Inside it was a rolled-up Persian rug.
“Your friends are strange,” Leo said.
The rug was a lot heavier and lumpier than it should have been. We carried it out to the truck, and I opened the tailgate and canopy to lay the rug on the truck bed.
Nobody was nearby. I unrolled the rug to reveal two long guns in soft carrying cases, three pistols wrapped in oiled cloths, and a cotton drawstring sack. The handguns turned out to be two Smith & Wesson Sigmas and a larger Glock, all with the serial numbers etched away. The long guns were a Mossberg 12-gauge pump shotgun and a very nice Merkel .30-06 rifle, with a burled wood stock and a Nikon scope. The drawstring sack was full of plastic baggies, sorted ammunition for all the guns, including a few non-lethal rubber shells for the Mossberg.
Leo looked at me, expressionless. “What kind of work did you say your grandfather did?”