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SHREVEPORT, LA. (Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012) — Danny Brown looked out the window of the helicopter as it landed at Arco Field. He was always ready to get off that damn oilrig by the end of his week-long shift. He liked the work and the guys he worked with. And he really liked the money. But one week on a rig the size of a city block with a hundred guys—and maybe a dozen women—well, that was enough.
He hopped out of the copter, grabbed his bag, and trotted toward the parking lot. Home was in Shreveport, a two-and-a-half-hour drive north. He stashed his stuff in the lockbox of his pickup, a Chevy Silverado that every state patrol cop on Highway 171 knew. He patted it lovingly. He’d been torn between the dark blue and the sliver, finally gone with the blue. Behind the wheel, he grinned, started it up, and gunned it out of the parking lot. Free.
And God damn it, he was going to get some answers from Troy as soon as he got home. He tried dialing Troy’s number in D.C. but there was no answer. He dialed home, but no answer there either. He glanced at his watch; his sister must be working late.
Some of the guys teased him about living in Shreveport with his sister, but Danny didn’t care. She was all the family he had. His kid sister. They’d grown up in Shreveport, she’d gotten her teaching degree and got hired there. He made good money, the two of them had a house together. One of those old Southern-style houses. Three stories, white, lots of trim around the large front porch. He loved it. One of these days, one of them—hopefully both of them—would get married, have kids. And there’d be real family again. He’d missed that feeling since his parents died when he was 14.
Being out on the oilrig for Thanksgiving this year really sucked, but Kristy had promised they’d celebrate it this week with all the trimmings. He smiled. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, sweet potato pie. Kristy was a damn fine cook.
But God damn it, he wished he’d asked Troy more questions or something. Yeah, yeah, Troy was an old Marine buddy, but in hindsight, he wasn’t happy to have taken that package for him. What was Troy into?
Danny wasn’t worried about drugs, or any of that shit. Troy wouldn’t need to hide that crap with him. But the more he’d thought about it — and he’d had a whole week to do nothing but think — the more he realized how scared Troy was, and how odd it was he’d come to Louisiana. It wasn’t just a short little jaunt.
Danny brooded about it for the long drive. He drove fast — to hell with the cops — with a country station blaring as loud as the stereo would crank.
He slowed down when he reached the edge of Shreveport, tried calling his sister again. Where was she? Wouldn’t be at school this late.
“Come on, boy,” he said out loud. “She’s probably out with friends, stopped at the grocery store, whatever.”
Still, one of the things he loved Kristy for was the lengths she went to make a home for the two of them. She understood his desire for family — even if it was just the two of them. She wouldn’t be someplace else when he was due home. He couldn’t remember a time, ever, when she hadn’t been waiting at the door, with the smells of a good meal wafting around her.
He turned off the main thoroughfare into the quiet neighborhood they lived in. Old trees lined the streets. The houses and yards were well cared for. He smiled. He liked what he’d been able to do for his sister, for himself. It beat the hell out of the foster homes. Four years of being tossed from home to home, his sister in tow behind him. He wasn’t going anywhere without her. The system had caved.
He pulled into the driveway, opened the garage door, rolled in. The garage was a white shed unattached to the house. An old house in an established neighborhood.
Danny got out, grabbed his duffel bag, and trotted into the house through the back door. “Kristy, I’m home!” he called out, entering the kitchen
He stopped in his tracks. “Holy shit,” he whispered. The kitchen had been trashed. Every drawer was opened, dumped on the floor. Flour scattered. Dishtowels in a heap by the stove. The oven door was ajar. The dishwasher door was completely off.
“Kristy!”
Scared now, Danny dropped his bag, raced through the house. Each room was like the first. Torn apart, thoroughly searched, then trashed in rage at not finding whatever the person was looking for.
“Kristy?” Danny took the stairs at a trot. The upstairs looked like the downstairs, only worse. Mattresses ripped with a knife. Clothes torn and thrown around.
“Kristy!” His voice sounded like some old dog wailing for its owner.
The message light was blinking. Please God, let Kristy have been away when this happened, Danny prayed. He pushed in the access code, did it wrong the first time, fumbled through it again.
There was one message.
“Listen asshole. We know you’ve got what we want. We have your sister. We’ll trade. How’s that? You sit tight. We will be in contact with you.”
Danny stood in the middle of Kristy’s bedroom, listening to the message again and again. He was breathing hard. His muscles in his shoulders hunched, fists clenched. He wanted something he could hit. He hung up the phone. It rang.
“Hello?”
“You got our message?”
Danny looked around him. “Yeah.”
“Then listen up. We’ll trade. You give us the package Maxim gave you, and we let your sister go.”
“I don’t have any package,” Danny said urgently.
“Don’t give us that shit. We know Maxim brought you a package a week ago. We want it.”
“I don’t have it!”
“Then you can say goodbye to your sister.”
The phone went dead. Danny looked around him wildly. He didn’t have the package. Troy had asked him to put it in a safe place. He had. Yeah, so safe you can’t find it again, he thought wryly. Like the crayons he’d hidden as a kid. Couldn’t find them himself. Well it wasn’t quite that bad....
The phone rang again. Danny grabbed at it. “Yeah!”
“Thought it over?” said the same gravelly voice. A smoker, Danny thought.
“Look, you have to believe me. Yeah, Troy came here. He asked me to hold something for him. But I didn’t. You got to believe me. If I had it, I’d give it to you.”
“Troy says he gave it to you.”
“He’s lying. Look, you turn Kristy loose and take me. She’s got nothing to do with anything! She teaches second graders, for God’s sake.”
“Look you dumb shit, we need that package. You can’t get it for us if you’re locked up here, now can you? We keep your sister. You find that package. When you do, you leave open your garage door. Someone will be in contact.”
There was a dial tone again. Garage door. Someone was watching the house. Danny thought furiously. He wished he’d told Troy no. He’d been wishing he had told him no. But now....
He dumped the dirty clothes out of his duffel bag, stuffed in some clean ones. He looked at the book that fell out of his bag, hesitated, and stuffed it back in.
He was going after Troy. He left the house as it was, left the car in the garage. Cutting out the back through the alley, he jogged down to the street behind his house. It was early evening, dark enough to give him some protection. He hiked out to the main thoroughfare and caught the local commuter to the city center. The Hilton had a bus to the airport, he caught it. Bought a ticket to D.C.
Washington, D.C. is too much for a country boy like me, Danny thought, as he took the bus into the city from Dulles Airport. Hustle and bustle. People moved too fast, going places he didn’t understand. He’d been to Troy’s place Christmas before last when Troy had just moved to Georgetown. The city was fine when you were with someone who knew their way around. He’d liked seeing the sights, and Georgetown had some pretty happening spots.
Trying to navigate on his own, however, stressed him out. He used the buses simply because he understood buses, could watch out the window, see if he was going in the right direction. He didn’t know what to tell a taxi driver, and the Metro scared the hell out of him. The Iraqi desert wasn’t this bad, he thought ruefully, but then he hadn’t been alone there. He didn’t do well alone.
He found Troy’s apartment complex, watched it all afternoon. He saw Troy’s parents—recognized them from the pictures Troy carried—come out once, and go back in. Shit, that didn’t look good, he thought. What were they doing here? They lived in Chicago or someplace like that. The second time Troy’s dad came out alone; Danny walked up to him.
“I’m Danny Brown, a friend of Troy’s,” he began.
Dr. Maxim nodded. “I remember Troy talking about you,” he said. “Have you seen him? Heard from him?”
Danny shook his head. “Not since about a week ago. What’s happened?”
“He’s missing, oh God, we....” Dr. Maxim shook his head, blinked back tears. He started to walk away.
Danny touched his arm. “Please. Tell me what’s going on.”
Dr. Maxim turned back toward him. “He’s disappeared. Twice — I guess. His office—he works for Senator Murray, you know—says some FBI agents came and got him last Monday—a week ago—to ask some questions. He didn’t show up for work Tuesday, called in sick, the phone log says.” Dr. Maxim shook his head. “When he didn’t show up for Thanksgiving, we were alarmed. Started calling. No one has seen him. When did you say you saw him?”
“The weekend before that,” Danny said, figuring it out. “FBI? What would they want with him?”
Dr. Maxim shook his head. “We flew out here last Friday. Asking questions. Finally filed a missing persons report. Don’t think they took it seriously until we showed him Troy’s apartment. It had been completely trashed. And it’s a secured building!”
Danny took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “No word? No messages? No nothing?”
Dr. Maxim shook his head. “He wouldn’t have missed Thanksgiving without saying something! We thought maybe a girlfriend, but he’d have told us. And the apartment....”
Danny started walking away. Shit, he thought. Dr. Maxim called after him, “If you hear from him?”
Danny turned and nodded. “I’ll let you know,” he promised.
God damn it Troy, what the hell did you do? he thought. He found himself a bar, ordered a Bud, sat down to sort out his thoughts. He needed to go back to Shreveport. He could get the package, somehow, and open that damn garage door. Trade it for Kristy. Let Troy... he trailed off there. Would they really let Kristy go? He thought about that for a bit. No, he decided. He didn’t see how they—whoever they were—could let either of them go. Too risky. The FBI angle confused him. He thought about that. Didn’t sound like going to the cops would help matters either, he decided.
What now? He drank a second Bud while he thought about it. Go back to Shreveport. See if he’d missed anything at the house that would give him some clues. Hell, he hadn’t looked at all, hardly. And then.... Danny sighed. He’d think about that when he needed to.