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SEATTLE, WA (Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012, 10 p.m.)—Mac Davis lined up his bank shot, shifted his eyes toward the side pocket and tapped the five ball. It angled off the cushion and into the pocket. He straightened up, a tall, well-built man in his late 20s, and stretched his back. He took a deep breath, smelling cigarette smoke and old beer. Betty Lavotte’s “Let Me Down Easy” played in the background, her soulful voice echoing through the bar. Pretending to study the lay of the balls on the table, he let the crowd's interest build. More bets were placed. Good pool hustling was part theater, he thought. He leaned down for his next shot.
"Someone lookin' for you, Mac," the bartender said.
Mac didn't glance from the table. "How’s she look?"
Johnnie Calhoun, owner, bartender, bouncer, snorted in appreciation. "It's a guy."
"For real? He’ll wait," Mac said. The guys watching the game laughed. His opponent didn't. Money was riding on the game, and right now he was sweating. Mac smiled at him; he was likely to clean the table. His opponent didn’t smile back.
Mac leaned down, lined up another shot and tapped it in.
"Maybe you want to take a look at this guy. Go see what he wants, get him out of here. He's causing some tension, you know?” Johnnie's voice had enough anxiety that Mac looked around.
The man wasn't hard to spot. He didn't belong. Johnnie's was a smoky run-down bar with a couple of pool tables and a nearly all black clientele. Mac was the only white man in the room, and people would have look closely to tell. Mac’s features wouldn't be described as "black", but that was true of half the others in the bar. Mac's skin was darkened by a summer of sun. He was lighter than most in the bar, but not all. His hair, right now, was short, brown and tightly curled. Even when people looked close, many weren't sure if he was white or black. His gray eyes added to the confusion. Some guessed Hispanic. Hell, even Mac's mother wasn't sure.
Leaning against the bar just inside the door was a white man who clearly didn't belong. He was too old, late 40s probably, while the rest of the crowd was under 30. He was tall, fit enough, with brown eyes and brown hair. His skin had the permanent tan of an outdoorsman from somewhere like Texas. The brown hair was cut short, too short. Police? Military? The Rolex on his wrist was enough to draw attention, and flashes of gold jewelry were catching the eyes of more than one man. Mac figured he would be good for $10,000 if he was rolled, and that didn't count what was in his wallet. If he hung around here much longer someone was going to follow him out to the parking lot and find out if his wallet was as rich as his rings. Mac grunted and turned back to his game.
"Don't know him," he said.
Johnnie waited until Mac straightened up from his next shot. "He knows you. And if you don't get him out of here there's going to be trouble. I don't need the cops busting my joint, you know?"
Mac sighed. He looked at the table. He could see the shots he'd need to clear it. The uppity asshole coming in here bragging he was visiting here from L.A. and he'd be glad to give pool lessons to any of the brothers in little ol’ Seattle. He needed the lesson Mac was teaching right now. Mr. L.A. was sweating now and knew he was done for.
Mac glanced again at the stranger. The bar was tensing up. It was a Wednesday night; a fair number of regulars were here. He didn't care about the jerk, but he liked Johnnie. Johnnie didn't need the grief.
Mac handed his stick to one of the guys who had money riding on his win. "Finish the game?" he said. "Don't fuck up."
He walked to the door. "Hear you're looking for me."
"Mackensie Davis?” The stranger had a slight accent. Mac couldn’t place it. The man looked upper-class Texan, but the accent didn’t fit, not quite. Maybe an East Coast overlay? What did Harvard-educated Texans sound like anyway?
"This isn't a place for strangers to come looking for me," Mac said.
"It’s urgent. Your... aunt told me I could find you here."
Mac noticed the hesitancy on the word aunt. He doubted his aunt had told anyone where he was. Not without calling down here and telling him. His eyes narrowed. "So talk."
"Somewhere more private?"
Mac shrugged. "Nothing wrong with right here."
The man reached into his jacket and pulled out a photograph. He handed it to Mac. "My daughter."
The girl was pretty. Seventeen or thereabouts, brown hair, brown eyes. A smile that lit up her face. Mac glanced at it; a ghost of familiarity tugged at him.
"So?"
"She's missing, ran away from her mom. Been gone a week. Someone thought they'd seen her, downtown.” The man paused, swallowed hard. He gave the appearance of being distraught, but his eyes never left Mac. "Walking the streets."
"I don’t know her," Mac said, not smiling. He looked at the picture again. She didn't look like a girl who'd run away and be turning tricks in a week. She looked like a runaway who'd end up dead in an alley—too innocent to know how to survive.
"The police can’t seem to do anything, told me to look you up."
Mac scowled. "Me? What cop told you that?"
"Justin Donnelly."
Donnelly was no friend of his. The bastard was setting him up for something. Mac just couldn't figure out what. The guy’s story sucked. Seattle wasn’t the kind of town where a runaway playing hooker was hard to find. If a pimp were operating somewhere, the cops would know him or could find him. This wasn't L.A. He looked at the girl's picture again.
The stranger was watching him intently. Mac didn’t like it. Something, bad vibes maybe, said the man was looking for something besides his daughter.
"Look, step outside, let’s talk," the stranger said, turning to the door. Mac hesitated. Johnnie caught his eye, gestured with his head toward two empty seats at the bar.
Damn, Mac thought. The guy was a dumbfuck to be coming in here. He started back toward his pool table, stopped when he saw Johnnie watching him. Johnnie didn’t say anything, but his eyes....
"Keep my winnings for me, will you, Johnnie?" he said disgustedly. He followed after the stranger, slipping the picture into his shirt pocket.
Mac stepped out the door and stopped, puzzled. Where did he go? Warily he looked around, shaking his hands loose. Something bad here—the hair on his neck crawled.
A shadow moved to his left and Mac whirled to face it. Something crashed into the base of his skull from the right. Played me for a sucker, he thought, as he went down.
He came to when fresh air hit him. Two men were dragging him from the trunk of a car. Mac stayed limp. Not a robbery; he didn't have anything on him worth stealing. Besides thieves didn't walk into a bar and ask for their marks by name. Had to be a hit. Been a long time since anyone wanted him dead.
"Lot of work to cart him down here. Could have just left him in the parking lot," one man grumbled.
"He said take him out and throw him in the Sound. Make it look like he fell or jumped or whatever. We do what he says."
Neither voice sounded familiar. Neither sounded like the man in the bar. Mac focused on keeping his breathing shallow and slow, his body limp, his eyes half-closed. A dark Lincoln idled in front of him. A shadowy shape sat in the front passenger's seat. The man who had set him up? Or had the guy in the bar been a victim to these two thugs as well?
The men were breathing hard as they carted his dead weight. Older, big, a bit out of shape, Mac thought. But that had been a precision tap on the head. He had a thick skull, or he'd still be out. He fought to stay limp, not wanting another tap. Staying limp was harder than it looked. His body wanted to fight; his mind said flight was the better option. Both his mind and his body wanted to tense up and move. Stay limp, he commanded himself. The odds were against him.
Even so, it was hard when they swung him over the edge of the dock of the ferry landing into the Sound. He had time to grab a deep breath before he hit the water hard, sinking down in the cold, dirty water. The cold sharpened his senses, cleared his head. He stayed below, swimming strongly with the current, intent on getting out of sight of the men overhead.
Holding your breath wasn’t as hard as going hungry when you’re six, and beating up the fat kid for his lunch money so you could eat. Holding your breath wasn’t as hard as being on your own on the streets at 12, running drugs for the gangs because that was how you survived. If he could out wait that sniper in Afghanistan, he could hold his breath a little bit longer.
The Sound was deep and dangerous if you got pulled out away from the docks. And dirty. He could feel the oil slicks coating his body and his hair. He didn't want to make a move too quick, but the filth in the water made his skin crawl.
A bit longer. A bit farther down the docks. If he could survive what he had survived, he could hold his breath long enough to survive now.
He surfaced, gasping for breath. The water was dark and merged with the dark sky. The sky was overcast, no moon. On the bank, city lights sparkled against the sky. Ahead was the ghostly outline of a pier. He couldn't see anyone. Sloppy, he thought. Should have made sure I was dead before I went in. Should have watched longer than a man could hold his breath. He watched the pier for a few more minutes, and then started swimming. The current was powerful, and he didn't try to swim against it, content to swim only hard enough to get out of sight and climb out.
Cold. Too cold. He started to swim harder. Hypothermia was a real possibility, no matter what time of the year. Shit, the water was cold.
It took a while for the sounds of the night to change, to include the crashing of water on the pilings. Mac kicked powerfully toward the sounds, reaching up and eventually pulling himself out of the water. He lay there, shivering, letting the water drain out of his clothes and shoes. His head ached; and there were other pains as well from the swim.
Someone had just tried to kill him, and he had no clue why. He pulled himself to his feet and started toward a phone. No wallet. No keys. No phone.
A small, all-night grocery ahead. An elderly Chinese man stood behind the counter.
“I need to make a phone call,” Mac said.
“Pay phone outside,” he said.
“Do I look like I’ve got some spare change in my pocket? I just need to make a local call.”
“You leave, no trouble, you leave now,” the store owner repeated.
Trouble he had already. In disgust he followed the old man’s instructions to the pay phone outside. Should be grateful to find a working pay phone.
Strange. He’d been out of the game two years—since college. No drug deals gone bad, no rival gangs, no enemy soldiers, shit, there wasn’t even any girls with jealous boyfriends that he could remember. No one should have a reason to order a hit on him.
He dialed collect.
“Shorty, it’s me,” Mac said.
“What’s up,” coughed out the voice on the other end of the phone.
“I need you to come downtown and pick me up.”
“For real?” Shorty laughed. “It’s getting late, and you know I have to teach in the morning.”
“Listen jackass, grab your shit and meet me downtown in 10 minutes,” Mac barked at his long-time friend. He gave Shorty the address. “You better come strapped too.”
“For real,” Shorty said with a new sense of seriousness.
“For real,” Mac said as he hung up the phone.
While he waited, Mac made a mental list of questions to pursue. The girl, she still seemed familiar. He touched his pocket. He still had her picture, that might be useful. How had they known where to find him anyway?
Donnelly. How did they know that asshole? Mac dialed another number. Collect, again.
“Jules, you know Donnelly?” Mac asked.
“The cop?” a wary female voice said.
“Yeah. Need you to watch his ass tonight.”
“I don’t know. I don’t need to be hanging around a cop’s place.”
“J, someone tried to kill me tonight. Came using Donnelly’s name.”
She was silent. Mac waited. She had good reason to not want cops to notice her. Not like this.
“Yeah. Just watch, right?”
“Just watch,” he agreed.
A black Lexus pulled up at the curb. “Got to go, Jules, wait for me there. I’ve got something to take care of first.”
Mac was greeted on the passenger side of the Lexus by a thick plume of smoke. “Damn, Shorty,” Mac said. “How can you smoke so much damn dope and teach the future of America?”
Shorty just shook his head. “You know, it ain’t no thing. Damn, you didn’t tell me you’d be all wet. You’re going to ruin my leather seats.”
“Shut up.” Mac climbed in the car. “We need to get home. See if Lindy’s okay.”
Shorty looked at him, saw the seriousness on his face and headed the car back downtown and then up the hill to 33rd Street. “Your aunt? Why her?”
“They came looking for me at Johnnie’s. She’s the only one who would know where I was tonight.”
Shorty slowed down as he approached the house Mac shared with his aunt. The house looked out over the Sound, and like many Seattle houses, it had a garage at street level with the house above. In back, the house was at ground level. A great deal of slope on the lot.
“See anything?” Shorty asked as he slowly went by the house.
Mac studied the street. Quiet. The red car had been there for a long time. None of the cars looked unfamiliar. He saw no one. No lights were on at the house. “Drive around the block,” he said.
Shorty turned north, then back around. It was quiet. Too quiet? Mac hesitated. “I’ll roll through the back,” he decided.
Shorty parked in view of the back gate. “Think I’ll come along,” he said.
Mac opened the back gate slowly, stopping it short of the point where it always squeaked. He eased through. Shorty followed him silently, his gun in his right hand, hanging loosely at his side.
The back door opened into an enclosed porch and from there to the kitchen. Shorty went to the left; Mac to the right. They listened, no sounds. Shorty slipped into the living room. He looked around. “We’re alone,” he said softly.
"Lindy?" Mac said in a low voice. He listened, hearing nothing. "Lindy!" he called louder, with more urgency.
A sound came from the dining room. Both men flattened against the wall, listening intently. Mac slid along the kitchen wall, moving cautiously to the doorway to the dining room. The sound came again, a moan. He slipped around the corner into the dining room.
"Shit!" he whispered. His aunt was tied to a dining room chair, her face battered. She moaned again.
"Lindy," he said, kneeling beside her. Shorty flipped on the lights and went to look through the rest of the house.
Mac pulled a blindfold off his aunt’s eyes. "Can you hear me?"
"Mac?" she asked with a sob. Tears ran down her cheeks. "Mac. They were looking for you. I'm sorry. I had to tell them where you were. They were hurting me."
"You did right," he said gently, untying her wrists. "Everything is going to be okay.” He checked her arms and legs, looked at her face carefully. No permanent damage, he thought. Designed for maximum pain and shock to get her to talk. Someone knew what they were doing.
"It's okay, Lindy," he repeated. "Did you get a good look at them?"
She shook her head, then moaned. "No, grabbed me from behind. Blindfolded me. Hit me. Wanted to know where to find you. I told them I didn't know. You were a big boy, didn't tell me where you went. But they said guess. I knew you'd be at Johnnie’s. Didn't want to tell them...."
"Hush," he soothed. "It's okay. I'm all right. I'm right here. I'm going to call an ambulance, get you to a doctor. Everything is going to be okay."
Lindy shook her head. "Why did they want you? Is it Toby?"
"I don't know," he said grimly. "I'll call him. But first, we got to get you to the hospital."
"I'm sorry," she murmured, as he stroked her hand.
Shorty came back. He shook his head. “Empty,” he said.
“Stay with her,” Mac said. "Let me call 911."
The phone was beeping with a message when he picked it up. He called for the ambulance and then checked the message.
It was Jules. “What the hell are you trying to do to me? I show up at Donnelly’s and there’s cops everywhere. Lights flashing, street taped off. What kind of shit is this? I’m out of here.”
“Sorry, J,” he muttered, wondering what he’d walked into. That sounded like a crime scene to him. First, he’d get Lindy to a doctor. Then he’d go hunting. No one messed with his family. No one.