Pioneer Square claimed the oldest buildings in the city, accommodating a constantly rotating lineup of the newest businesses. Tech ventures and gig economy start-ups, attracted by the allure of funky office space among the red bricks and cobblestones. Their companies either succeeded, moving somewhere bigger and less prone to crumbling, or they crumbled themselves.
The chamber of commerce kept pressure on the city to clean the square up, keeping it safe for tourists to join the underground tour or to stroll along First Ave’s art galleries and Persian carpet showrooms. Still, homeless people drowsed under the arches of the Victorian-era pergola, and the local missions never lacked for lines at mealtimes. The square refused to take the coat of whitewash, to be modernized, homogenized.
I watched from the shadows of a huge arched stone doorway, across the square from the Yesler intersection. Leo was across First Ave., watching from the inside of a café. Hollis waited with his Cadillac in a pay lot, three doors down from Leo. My chest throbbed, both on the surface and deep within. I couldn’t walk at much more than a stroll without my lungs pricking me with masonry nails. But I was still moving.
At ten minutes to nine, Zeke Caton walked up First from the direction of downtown and stood at the corner, leaning against one of the pergola’s posts. I continued to scan the streets. No sign of Fain or Rigoberto or Big Daryll. Or of the cars their team had used at the armored car job. Zeke wore jeans, a white Trail Blazers sweatshirt, and a black rain jacket, unzipped. Enough room under the baggy jacket for a half a dozen pistols, if he chose.
I could wait Zeke out, and follow him. Chancy. They’d be watching for a tail.
At five minutes past the hour, I texted Leo and Hollis that I was on the move, and abandoned the cover of the stone archway to walk around the fenced triangle of ornamental green space and its sixty-foot-tall totem pole, coming up on Zeke’s five. He didn’t turn around. That didn’t mean he hadn’t spotted me.
I stopped halfway between the totem pole and Zeke. A moment later he glanced my way, and derisively held up his empty hands as he walked toward me.
“Where are the others?” I said.
“Hey. We thought you’d been busted.” He made a show of looking around him. “Or maybe you were.”
“If you or I were wired, we wouldn’t be strapped. The Feds don’t arm informants.”
“Guess not.”
“So whatever this is, let’s get to it.”
Zeke showed his teeth. “No shoot-outs today.”
He tilted his head toward the cobblestoned edge of Yesler thirty feet away, where a black Chrysler minivan pulled up to the curb. The side door popped out and began to slide open. I stepped to put Zeke between me and the minivan.
“Take it easy,” Zeke said.
Through the minivan’s open door I saw Fain, seated in the first row behind the passenger’s seat. Rigoberto was driving, both hands visible on the wheel. Daryll was not in the vehicle, and I scanned the square again for his huge form.
Fain raised his hand slightly in greeting.
“Move,” I said to Zeke.
He did. I walked two arms’ lengths behind him to the Chrysler.
There was something off with Fain. His tanned face carried a tallow-white undertone, even as his cheeks flushed pink. As we drew closer, I could see that his car seat was padded behind and underneath with folded beach towels. His legs had been propped up on a stack of pillows.
“Shaw,” he said. I kept walking, to where I stood a little behind the door, in Rigo’s blind spot. Fain would have to turn if he wanted to see me. He stayed put.
“We just want to communicate,” he said.
“I got your last message fine. Straight to the heart.” I pointed at Zeke. “Get in the car.”
He glanced at Fain, who nodded curtly. Zeke shot me one last mocking grin and climbed into the passenger’s seat and closed the door. With the three of them facing the other direction, I felt a micron safer. We waited as a knot of pedestrians hurried past, absorbed in their morning routines.
“I’m grateful you made it out,” Fain said. “When you came toward us, you raised your weapon. Everything at that moment seemed like a threat. I overreacted.”
“Tell it like it is, boss,” Rigo said flatly. “You fucked up.”
I kept checking the streets. Leo was watching from across the avenue, but one man couldn’t cover me from every direction on a busy thoroughfare.
Zeke knew what I was doing. “Daryll’s dead, dude.”
I looked at him. “The cops?”
Fain paused, and for an instant I thought it was emotion choking him up. Then he exhaled long and low, as some kind of agony released its grip on him.
“Jaeger’s killed him,” he said. “After Chinatown, Daryll and I got away in the pickup while Zeke and Rigo covered us.”
“I caught that part of the show from my floor seat.”
“Jaeger and two of his animals spotted us a few minutes later. Pure chance. We were blocks away from the bank, trying to reach Rigo on the comm. They carjacked us. Pistol-whipped Daryll and took him, along with the pickup and the few bags of cash in back.”
“And Jaeger left you there.”
“He shot me. One round missed the armor and hit my gut. More bad luck.” He clenched in pain again. Somebody behind the stopped van honked. None of us acknowledged it. “I’m patched up for now. The general has a doctor waiting in Mercy River. He’ll keep it quiet.”
I wasn’t positive Fain would survive the six-hour drive, but nobody would profit from hearing me say it out loud.
“You’re sure they aced Daryll?” I said.
“Jaeger called me last night, using Daryll’s phone. He knows who you are now. Who all of us are. That’s why you and I had to talk.”
Fain didn’t have to spell it out. Jaeger had made Daryll talk. Daryll Abernathy, former All-American, had suffered through a long day and a bad death.
“Jaeger said he’d let us live, if we handed over the rest of the cash,” Fain said. “I told him to cram it.”
“Pretty much your only option.”
Jaeger, our target, had wound up with the only money anyone had managed to lift from the armored car. Outcomes like that made you question what sort of people Lady Luck favors.
Fain indicated his remaining men. “My team can watch each other’s backs in Oregon. I have to assume Jaeger forced Daryll to tell him about the Rally, and the general. He’ll be coming for us. We have time to prepare. You deserve the same. I figured I owed you that.”
A bright blue Interceptor SUV glided through the intersection. The city cops had bigger concerns than a minivan holding up the morning commute. We watched it go.
“You saw Jaeger’s men?” I said. “They might be his last survivors.”
Fain grunted. “A skinny turd with bleached white hair. The other was an iron freak. Too many muscles to move. I didn’t have time to see more than that.”
He exhaled another long release of pain.
“We should have taken Jaeger when we had the chance,” he said.
I didn’t reply. Fain didn’t mean it as an apology.
“Next time,” he said, closing his eyes. “Next time we won’t hesitate.”
He pressed a button and the minivan’s door began to slide closed. Rigo put the van in motion. They drove straight down Yesler toward the waterfront and out of sight.
I stood on the corner, letting foot traffic swirl around me, allowing myself a long moment to assess exactly how screwed the situation was. I had to assume Jaeger now knew everything Daryll had known. The names of Fain’s crew, including Leo. My name and background, too. Aaron Conlee’s relation to Macomber. Every detail of the Rally’s robberies, down to the cash taken. And more. How Macomber was the man who had forced Jaeger’s First Riders out of Mercy River. Dez and her relationship with Leo. Maybe even details about Leo’s family in Utah.
And Luce. Macomber had met Luce, knew her name. Had he mentioned her to Fain’s team? She could be vulnerable now, too. I cursed myself for introducing them, and then set my recriminations aside.
Fain was right about one thing. No percentage in second-guessing our past decisions now. They hadn’t worked out well for any of us. Especially Big Daryll. All we could do now was prepare for the fallout.