The Stringers, page 42
Whoever was behind the wheel of the Mercedes had driven Seattle streets many times. He reacted so fast he seemed to know which street I intended to go on. Frustrated, I aimed for the Aurora Bridge leading into Freemont, but then I diverged off onto several side streets into a nearby neighborhood, hoping they would drive more cautiously rather than risk the ire of the locals. But they kept within a close distance, though not so close that I could slam on the brakes and destroy their engine while absorbing little impact in our rear. I also couldn’t risk injury to our contact, as pitiful as he was crumbled in the back with his hands covering his head.
Tom leaned out his window to determine if he had clear shots. He aimed and steadied himself, but the erratic and terse motions of the vehicle left him without a solid target for more than a moment, not enough to take a shot without possibly hitting something or someone else.
We finally came onto the Aurora Bridge, the unmaintained surface bumpy and flecked with cracks the size of foxholes as we drove across the water below. Tom searched for something to toss out of the car and slow down our pursuers, but all we had were our weapons.
Across the bridge, we entered Fremont territory. The newspaper there, as Tom had described it, was neutral when it came to McCullen and their SoDo rival. Mutual agreements and understandings prevented costly wars between otherwise uninvolved parties. There was too much money to be made wasting time and manpower killing each other. Still, if the opportunity to make money at the other’s expense opened itself up, they weren’t morally opposed to that, either.
I was hopeful they would not take a side in our personal feud with the Tongs.
We got off the bridge, taking a left. I intended to stick close to the water. There, we’d at least stand a chance if we got to a boat. On the road, the Mercedes outgunned us, and it was clear that whatever else the Tongs used for transportation was top-notch, too. They employed other creative methods to avoid placing themselves in the ISA’s snooping eyes on the Net. Bribery was the best candidate. With billions imported from their homeland, they had the money to spare.
Tom started shooting, but it was hectic and inaccurate. On a long stretch of street, he took several shots at the cracked windshield and the edge of a man’s head appeared near the opening. Tom kept firing until he realized the head wasn’t moving and wouldn’t move again.
“One down,” he said as he came inside the car to reload.
I smiled briefly until I spotted a person lean out from the Mercedes with an object in his hand. It wasn’t very big, no more than my shotgun. But the arrogant look on the man’s face suggested its tremendous firepower.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Tom looked through the rear mirror, then jerked his head back as his eyes bulged in disbelief. He instantly dropped his pistol and grabbed my head and pulled me away from the wheel.
“Get down!”
A moment later, a flash and boom occurred. Then something struck the vehicle.
At first, we kept moving. It seemed like whatever the gangster had fired had been a dud. I went to poke my head above the seat, but Tom kept me down. I opened my mouth to ask him why but was cut off by an explosion that rocked the car and flipped it on its side. Without a seat belt to restrain me, I flew against the side of the car, my head smacking against the thick glass. My skull throbbed and ached so painfully I nearly passed out, but somehow I managed to hold on to consciousness as I bounced back and forth between the seat and the side. Out of the blurring sights I saw a pale blue electrical current racing through the dashboard, sparks and smoke flying out of the controls. Looking out the windshield, I glimpsed an old condominium building ahead and then my vision faded to black like a night sky following a beautiful sunset.
***
When I came to, the first sensation I felt was the trickle of blood on my face. I reached up and touched my forehead and looked down to see my fingers dripping red. I clenched my teeth as another severe ache seared through my skull. Allowing it to subside, I looked around, my vision blurred. I waited a little longer and then gazed around me.
I was outside the car, lying on the sidewalk. The car was in the middle of the street, lying on its side like a mortally wounded horse. Not remembering anything after the crash, I had no idea how I had crawled out of it alive. I didn’t wonder for long, as I looked to my side and saw Tom sprawled beside the iconic statue of Lenin, whose features had worn from abuse and the elements. He had one hand resting against the base of the statue, his other hand still aiming his pistol at the Mercedes at the other end of the three-way intersection. He pulled the trigger, but it clicked vacantly and he tried to curse but could only mutter a groan and toss the pistol away.
Unable to think of anything except surviving, I crawled across the sidewalk and around the statue for cover. Without my shotgun, I was defenseless and easy to pick off. Maybe the Tongs were just there for the bureaucrat. Knowing of their reputation, however, I wasn’t ready to risk it.
From around the statue, I looked back at the Mercedes sitting idly in the middle of the road. The passenger doors opened and three men stepped out. They wore an assortment of clothes, baggy trousers and waistcoats with cotton shirts underneath. Their newspaper had no official uniform. It made them hard to identify, hard to track down. They carried automatic pistols and held them at their sides, wary of their environment as they glanced around continuously. Now that they were in another newspaper’s territory, they had to be more selective about their shooting. A wrong shot could initiate a war they weren’t willing to fight.
Approaching the wrecked vehicle, they kicked aside the passenger door and two of them reached in and grabbed the ISA officer. Unconscious from the impact, he lay limp and inert as they carried him to their Mercedes and threw him in the back and got it. They drove off as Tom limped down onto the street, his hand clutching his stomach. His fedora was gone, his hair stuck up and speckled with blood. He turned around and looked at me, a tired, defeated expression on his face. He deliberated over what to say and finally shrugged.
“Well, that’s the end of that.”
He said it as if they were his final words. His hand dropped down to his side and he collapsed on the ground, his face buried in the cracked asphalt.
Seeing him there, possibly dead, numbed my pain. I immediately summon the strength to get onto my feet and hobbled over to him, bending down to check his vitals. His pulse was weak, but still there, and most of his injuries on his chest appeared to be superficial. If he had expected to die, he was going to be disappointed when he revived.
I wasn’t going to chance it, though. I had to get him back to the newspaper building in the International District. They had basic medical personnel there to help him.
A despondent realization swept through me as I realized how dire the situation really was. The newspaper was miles away, and in Seattle every mile was full of its own dangers and hazards. Our car was destroyed, and all the others required identification to start the engines. There were ways to circumvent them, but it required specialized training and skills I didn’t have. Tom might have known how, but he was unconscious, and even then he was in no condition to attempt it. Boats were also out of the question. I would be traveling through either Lake Washington or Puget Sound without any weapons to defend us from attack. I would also need to land it, and there were only certain places in the port where our newspaper had privilege to dock, none of which I knew of specifically.
As time passed I decided no matter what I chose to do it was far better than standing there waiting for someone to take a potshot at us. Weakened by the crash, I had trouble trying to lift Tom up, first with his arms with the intent of throwing him over my shoulder. But after several attempts I was forced to accept that his weight was more than I could bear for more than a few hundred feet before I’d drop him. With my arms wrapped around his torso, careful to avoid pressing against his wounds, I pulled him off the icy street and placed him beside the statue, resting him against it as I revaluated the situation. The small effort taxed me thoroughly, and I sat next to him and panted ravenously for air.
My ears perked up again as another faint sound fell through the empty street. I listened to it with dread. It couldn’t be more Tongs. If it was them, we’d be dead, and there were more preferred ways to die than by their hands.
A twig snapped, and then a figure emerged from the bushes behind the statue and walked slowly around the pavement. He looked down at the two of us with a darkened countenance, his body placed right out of the sunlight. He studied us for a minute, then looked over at our wrecked car. A light chuckle emanated from him.
“Yours?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Somebody should call a tow truck.”
“Got a Prizm?”
“I did. You?”
“Same.” The man then stepped closer and out of the sunlight, revealing his dark, weathered features and two eyes of different color, one blue and the other white. He was balding and his black hair was shaved leaving only sharp white whiskers on his face.
“What did the Tongs want?” he asked.
“You saw them take that man,” I replied.
“And?”
“What more do you need to know?”
The man shrugged and gestured at Tom. “He alive?”
“Yes,” I said. “But I need to get him back.”
“Where?”
“SoDo, or the International District.”
“Ah, one of McCullen’s errand boys.”
“No, stringers,” I said.
“Ah, even worse.”
“I thought we were on good terms with you,” I said.
“What makes you think you know me?”
“You talk like you’re in the same business,” I said.
“Nope. I just deliver them in my van.”
He waved to a large van parked by the condominium building.
“Who do you deliver for?” I asked.
“The highest bidder. Depends on the week. Sometimes it’s McCullen. Other times it’s the other people. I don’t care, as long as they pay.”
He lifted back his overcoat, displaying his vest with three separate pistols strapped to it, as well as a taser and another device I didn’t recognize.
“Can’t go anywhere without them,” he said. “Your boys shot up my van last week. Or tried. Thank God for armored plating.”
I tried to be diplomatic.
“You on the job right now?”
“I’m always looking for an opportunity to make some money,” he said.
“Good. We need a ride to the International District.”
The man rubbed his whiskers and knitted his eyebrows. He was feigning deliberation. I had seen it before too often. He would fake business next, try to haggle for the best price. We didn’t have time for that.
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” I said. “I have the money. But we have to get back now.”
“I only accept payment on the spot. No exceptions.”
“I don’t have it.”
The man shrugged. “Sorry to hear that.”
I looked down at Tom. His complexion had turned ashen white, a quality of impending death about him. His wounds had clotted, but if there was internal bleeding it was undetectable. We had to get moving.
My eyes drifted over to his chest, where his spare .32 caliber pistol was partially visible in its holster. Slowly, my hand also drifted over to it as I bent down and retrieved it, shoving it into the front of my trousers. I hated myself for once more turning to guns as a solution to a problem, but I didn’t have time to come up with another idea.
I approached the man with a hopeful expression. Perhaps he would relent and not make it necessary for me to hold him up and take him and his vehicle hostage. I felt corrupted by the mere thought of doing it. But all other options were gone.
Before I got to him, someone called out to me.
“You!”
I looked over to my left, where a man pulled up in a small car. He peered out of the driver’s window and at Tom, then at me.
“You look like you need a ride,” he said.
His tone indicated his profession was as equally dubious and illegal. Perfect.
“I do,” I said, my fingers lowering away from the pistol where I had held it in anticipation.
“Where to?”
“International District.”
“Got money?”
“Not on hand. I’ll pay you on delivery.”
The driver gave me a long look and then nodded. He then pointed at me. “Deal. But you have to surrender the cannon before I’ll let you in.”
I glanced at my pistol wedged between my shirt and my trousers. It was my only protection left, but if it was a condition for safe travel, I wouldn’t argue. Either way, we’d be dead if we stayed there, and forcing the other man to help me at the point of a gun was dangerous. That part didn’t bother me as much as the possibility he’d get the upper hand and then kill me and Tom. Or, he’d come back for me as soon as the job was finished.
I came to the car and handed the man my pistol, after unloading it in front of him. He was obviously distrustful, as he had to inspect it himself and then have me open my coat to show I had no other weapons hidden before he’d help me get Tom off the ground. Tom proved to weigh far more than he appeared, but the two of us managed to get him into the car. Laying him down in the back seat, the driver took off hurriedly after seeing how critical a condition he was in. As we pulled away from Fremont, I looked out the back window at the man who had refused to help. His look of disappointment forced me to smile.
As we drove farther south, the driver was quiet and stuck to navigating us through several particularly unpleasant areas of downtown, where men openly carried rifles and gunshots could be heard. Sometimes, screams accompanied them.
Turning around, I examined Tom. His lips had turned slightly blue, and his skin was cold. An unsettling air fell over me as I checked his pulse. I could scarcely feel it.
“Which paper you a stringer for?” the driver asked.
“Does it matter?” I asked politely, not wanting to offend him. But I also wasn’t in favor of disclosing anything I didn’t need to. Secrets didn’t make friends. But it didn’t make enemies, either.
“You’ve got the look of a stringer. I was just curious.”
“I hope you don’t have a beef with any of them.”
“Just the ones that don’t pay me when I do them a favor.”
“You’ll get paid. I promise. You have my word.”
The driver pressed his lips together, a contemplative look on his face.
“Is he a stringer, too?”
I looked down at Tom as I answered, my voice trailing off until it became a whisper.
“He’s a friend…the only one I’ve got right now.”
Chapter Seventeen
In the hallway, melting droplets of snow fell onto the floor from a crack in the ceiling, slashing in timed intervals. Shivering in the unheated place, I sat at one of the tables in the darkened restaurant. My head hung over my knees, my eyes transfixed on the worn carpet. My flat cap sat on the table beside an unfinished meal of beans and toast. A terrible sensation in my stomach deprived me of my hunger. I endured the aching without a sign of pain in my face, allowing the bitter taste of tobacco to curb my appetite and the smoke to swirl above my head before dispersing throughout the room.
I held a pack of cigarettes in my hand. I had gone through two of them already, taking my time on the third. I had consumed them in a state of apprehension, and now soothed for the time being, I calmly inhaled and exhaled as if detoxing my body of fear.
My waistcoat was on the floor, specked with dots of crimson red. I hadn’t noticed the stains until I had come back home—that was how I was beginning to see it—and looked at myself in the mirror. They were to me like boils on my skin, the telltale sign of leprosy or some incurable skin disease. Ripping it off and the buttons along with it, I had tossed it on the ground and left it there while I had distracted myself with cooking.
I looked at it again. The red spots weren’t as prominent as they had first seemed. It wasn’t the brightness. I knew the blood wasn’t mine.
The remaining drive to the newspaper had gone smoothly. The security guards outside had been smart enough to assist me in bringing him into the foyer without interrogating me first. There, they had brought him to a physician who worked solely for McCullen. Taking Tom to a hospital was out of the questions. All were run by the state, and all required a Prizm confirmation or a DNA sample to be allowed in. As the physician tore away at his shirt, his pallor pronounced his diagnosis without a need to speak. At that point I had shirked away from Tom, afraid that he had gone and all there was left was a corpse. I hadn’t waited to hear a confirmation and fled to the street and cried in the same alley where I had first realized what it was like to stare death in the face. I hadn’t cried for long. There had been too many men there to remain hidden for long. And crying seemed beneath me, for children and young girls. But tears that before had been easy to suppress overflowed as if lapping over a weakened levy or dam.
News of the Tongs’ attack on us had spread up to the editor’s office, and shortly McCullen came down and found me just as I had finished rubbing the last hint of moisture out of my eyes. He demanded to know what had happened, but when I mentioned the Tongs, he immediately took hold of me and brought me back up to his office. There, he had taken his time asking questions, some of them twice to see how close my answers were to one another. Still in a near catatonic state, I had been direct and succinct. When I spoke of the ISA contact being taken, McCullen paused and asked me to describe exactly what I saw. Had he been alive when they had gotten to him? Did they seem to harm him?
