Authors: T. E. Woods
“This becomin' a regular thing.” Vanessa looked up when Mort walked into Our Joint. “Folks start seein' so many Caucasians up in here, they gonna be mistakin' us for a Starbucks.”
“You want me to bring you a coffee, all you have to do is ask.”
“That's all I need.” Vanessa nodded toward a group of women and children seated in the waiting area. “You come in here bearin' gifts, folks start talkin'. Next thing you know they have me datin' some old white cop. I got a position to maintain, know what I mean?”
“That be so bad?” He decided to show her he could give as good as he got. “People could call us âMortessa.' We could get all the tongues flapping.”
Vanessa shook her head. Her eyes glistened with good humor, but he knew she wasn't about to grace him with even a whisper of a smile. “Them tongues take a notion to flap, I guarantee it won't be 'bout me and your sorry behind. Gigi in the gym.” She tossed a handful of her tiny braids behind her shoulder. “She's talkin' with them other cops. I swear, there's enough of you around we needin' our own precinct number.”
“I'll see what I can do about that.” Mort turned to make the now-familiar walk. He smelled ginger and cinnamon as he walked past the kitchen and was surprised when he made the turn at the end of the hall. At least a dozen people leaned against the walls, focusing on what was happening inside the gym. Mort excused himself as he passed and stood against the closed back bleachers.
Lincoln Lane stood behind a long table at the opposite end of the gym. Mort estimated at least seventy-five people, mostly women, sat on folding chairs, listening to what the Seattle Police Department's gang specialist had to say. Gigi Vinings sat to Lincoln's left. To his right was his brother, Franklin.
“So that's about the size of it,” Lincoln summed up. “These gangs seem hell-bent on doing one another in. We have no idea what this war is about, but typically it's turf. Best thing you can do is stay clear of known trouble spots.” He pointed to a map of Seattle projected onto a screen behind him. “These areas in red. We know them to be active gang turf. Picos, 97s. For the sake of what's happening now, we're not making a distinction as to who's got what territory. But if you can, stay clear of these red zones until things cool down. If you live in one of these red zones, keep your kids inside.”
There was a rumble of discontent from the crowd. Lincoln held up his hands.
“Until this war settles down. That's all I'm saying.”
“How long that gonna take?” a woman called out from the middle of the room. “I got four kids. Kids gotta burn off energy. Gotta play. I tell them stay inside, they not gonna take it well.”
Lincoln nodded in sympathy. “I got kids of my own. I know. And for what it's worth, these turf wars typically don't last longer than a few weeks. These guys only got so many soldiers. It doesn't take long for them to realize body counts aren't good for either side.”
A man near the back of the crowd stood. “What about school? My kids pick up the bus on the corner. I know other folks have kids who walk to school. What we s'posed to do? Keep 'em truant?”
The crowd murmured its discontent.
“The department will increase its presence during pre- and postschool hours. Extra squad cars will patrol the main bus and walking routes around every elementary, middle, and high school,” Lincoln promised.
Gigi Vinings stood. “And we recommend every parent, no matter what age their children are, encourage their kids to come directly here after school. We've got volunteers at most crosswalks ready to escort your kids. We could use more, of course. So if you've got the time and would like to help, come see me.”
“My girls have schoolwork and chores,” a woman toward the front called out. “I don't get home from work till close to seven at night. What they supposed to do?”
“We're prepared for that,” Gigi assured her. “We'll have supervised homework rooms as well as recreational activities. Our kitchen will provide after-school snacks, and until these gangs calm down, we're prepared to provide your children with a simple meal. You can come by here and pick your kids up after work.”
“Then what?” the woman asked. She pointed toward the projected map. “My house is right in the middle of the red zone. How many cops you gonna have after dark?”
Lincoln looked toward his brother. Franklin shrugged.
“Like I said, ma'am,” Lincoln continued, “keep your kids inside. Stay away from windows. Pull your beds into the middle of the room, away from the walls. These bangers are aiming at each other, but sometimes bullets stray.”
The room erupted in agitated reaction to Lincoln's warning. The Lane brothers and Gigi all stood, calling for calm. Mort walked up the center aisle, hoping the presence of another police officer might reassure the concerned citizens. He nodded to Gigi and the Lanes and stood between the brothers behind the table. Before he made the decision to add his own voice to the call for order, the situation took care of itself.
A giant of a man strolled into the gym. Mort put him at least six foot five. His shoulders were massive, but his waist was trim. He wore basketball warm-ups that did little to hide the man's chiseled physique. His hair was closely cropped. The man glanced neither right nor left as he made his way toward the head table. As he passed, row after row of citizens fell silent.
“Well, looky, looky,” Lane whispered as the man approached.
The man stopped two feet in front of the table. He stared first at Lincoln Lane, nodding in recognition. Then he did the same to Franklin Lane. He offered Gigi Vinings a slight bow. When he brought his stare back to Mort, his eyes were cold.
Mort shifted his right hand to his holster.
The man noted the move, shook his head in dismissal, and turned to face the silent audience.
“Most of you know who I am. I'm here to say you good folks got nothin' to fear from me.”
Mort scanned the crowd. Some men slipped a protective arm around the woman standing next to them. Some women shook their heads in disgust. Others held nervous hands to their necks.
No one said a word.
“Some weeks back a boy was killed,” the man said. “Shot dead in the street not far from here. Name of Benji. Folks called him Banjo.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Mort saw Gigi weave forward, then back. She took a seat behind the table. Mort kept his attention on the giant intruder.
“I'm here to tell you anybody come to me, give me what they know about who did this, I'ma give them ten thousand dollars.”
There was subtle movement in the crowd as people looked at one another. Still no one said a word.
“You know I'm good for it. You know where to find me.”
“Hold on.” Mort stepped from behind the desk, stood next to the man, and spoke loudly enough for the entire room to hear. “I'm Mort Grant. Chief of Detectives for the SPD. If anyone here has any information that can help us with this investigation, I want you to contact me first.” Mort turned toward the man standing next to him. “Your reward is generous. But it's got to be run through the proper channels. People need to come to us first.”
The man stared straight ahead. He waited a few moments before speaking. Mort had the impression he was waiting to see if the nuisance beside him had anything more to say.
“Policeman here got a point,” he finally said. “Gotta do things proper. Anybody take their information to the police gonna get ten thousand direct from me.” The man glanced toward Mort, as if placating a willful child, before he addressed the room again. “Anybody bring information straight to
me
'bout who killed Banjo gonna get five times that.”
Finally there was sound from the crowd. Mort glanced back to Lincoln and Franklin Lane, who both were looking toward Gigi.
“Today's good,” the man spoke to the murmuring throng. “Spread the word.”
The man strolled down the center aisle without a backward glance. Everyone stood in place. But three minutes after he disappeared from the gym, so did the crowd.
Mort turned to Lincoln Lane. “You wanna tell me why the head of the 97s strolls in here and you didn't slap the cuffs on him?”
Lane glanced toward his brother. “We've been tracking him for years. Bring him in time to time when we think we've got something. He arrives with his lawyers and things fall off him like he's coated in Teflon. Guy's got no warrants. This was a neighborhood meeting. Folks are free to come say their piece.”
Mort turned to where Gigi, visibly shaken, sat with her head in her hands. When she looked up, Mort read the look in her eyes from ten feet away.
Fear.
Lydia sat at her dining room table and watched the skies darken as the unseen sun, hidden by low clouds, set behind the Olympic Mountains. It wouldn't be long before another November rain began to fall. Night came earlier each day. But the prancing flames in her fireplace stemmed the chill in the early-evening air.
She opened the file in front of her, a duplicate of what her attorney held, and reviewed the first document. Her last will and testament. Drawn in her own name and covering the assets and holdings one would expect of a woman at her career stage. Her home carried a modest mortgage. She owed less than a thousand dollars on her Volvo. Her years as the Fixer had been lucrative and she had invested well. But she needed to leave a legacy that wouldn't raise suspicions, so the estate of Lydia Justine Corriger carried liabilities and assets befitting a thirty-nine-year-old clinical psychologist with a thriving private practice. After satisfying outstanding debts, there would be enough to provide a modest donation to the local humane society.
She set that document aside. The next item in the file was a single sheet of paper listing the contact information of four individuals to be notified upon the occasion of Lydia's death. Three names belonged to attorneys bound by client confidentiality. They were paid a substantial annual retainer to do one thing only. After verifying that Lydia was dead, each would notify two other attorneys. Those six lawyers would, in turn, by Lydia's arrangement, access the nested funds she had set up in various foreign banks under aliases and corporate fronts. The multimillion-dollar fortune the Fixer had earned over six years spent delivering vigilante justice would be dispersed. The bulk of her holdings was earmarked for organizations with a mission to care for children. Her endowments would fund psychological treatment as well as college educations for boys and girls who had survived sexual and physical abuse while in the foster care system. One million dollars of her estate would go to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.
All disbursements would be anonymous.
The final name on the list knew what to do when notified of Lydia's death. From his own computer, Dylan, an autistic computer savant who cared more about pushing the boundaries of software capability than about the confusing interactions of humans, would enter a series of commands to shut down Lydia's computer equipment. Files would be scrubbed. Relays would be rendered impotent. Billions of meaningless bits of code would take the place of erased information. Her basement office would look like nothing more than an at-home workstation. At the same time, an electronic pulse would disable the switch that opened the steel door to her arsenal. Should anyone press the button hidden behind her copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird,
they'd get nothing more than befuddlement as to why that button existed. Her armory would rest undetected forever.
Then Dylan would open the envelope she had entrusted to him and find a cashier's check for two hundred thousand dollars.
All signs of the Fixer would disappear. And everything linking Mort Grant to the Fixer would be gone forever.
She closed the file. Then she closed her eyes and focused on the comforting crackle and woodsy aroma of the logs in her fireplace.
Her phone rang. She pulled herself from her meditation and glanced at the screen.
“Hello, Mort,” she answered.
“How you doing?”
Lydia looked down at her hands. The cuts and scratches from her encounter with Allie's Englishmen were disappearing as quickly as the bruises on her legs and shoulders.
“All's well,” she lied. Allie would come again. But she'd come for her. There was no need to bring Mort into this. “How about on your end? Robbie and the girls okay?”
Mort assured her everyone was fine.
“You sound exhausted. How go the gang wars?”
Mort told her about his frustration. The body count was high. His investigation was at a standstill.
“Street gangs inspire terror,” she said. “People don't want to talk.”
“I get that. And I got more than a couple of people telling me to be glad the gangsters are taking each other out.”
“That's not the Mort Grant way.”
“You make me sound like Dudley Do-Right. It's not like that.”
“What's it like, then?”
He hesitated. She hoped he wasn't filtering his words for her. The secret they shared, that she was the Fixer and he'd let her go free, made Mort the one person in the world with whom she could share complete honesty.
But you're not honest with him, are you?
“Those thugs,” Mort finally answered. “They know what they're in for when they sign up for a gang. But Benji was a kid. Maybe he had some crazy, superhero idea of who his brother was. Probably couldn't believe he would have anything to do with anything bad.” She heard weary exasperation in his sigh. “I need to know who gunned Benji down.”
“Stay with it, then. Something will break. Someone knows something. They'll talk.”
“There's a snag with that, too.” Mort described what had happened at the community meeting at Our Joint that afternoon. Martin Lester, aka D'Loco, had offered fifty thousand dollars for information leading him to Benji's killer.
“I tried to get him to shift his reward to the proper channels. He all but rubbed my nose in the dirt. Offered ten thousand if someone came to us. The fifty is available only if they deliver the name straight to him.”
“And you don't think this D'Loco would take care of things?”
“You mean street payback?” Disgust dripped from his voice. “I have no doubt that if D'Loco gets a name, that person will be dead within a day.”
“Then Benji's death is avenged. And if that's what this gang war you've got going up there in Seattle is about, that goes away too.”
His voice rose. “Fifty thousand dollars is going to tempt people. I could see people dropping by D'Loco's place with any number of names they might want to sell. That's going to bring more bodies.”
“Does this D'Loco character know who you and the other peopleâwhat did you say their names were, Lane? Does he know you're Seattle PD?”
“He does. I interviewed him about Benji's death. And Lane and his team bring D'Loco in periodically to shake his tree. They can't get anything to stick.”
“If D'Loco's smart enough to have eluded them so far, you don't think he'd take the time to make sure he really had Benji's killer before he made his move?”
“Benji deserves real justice.”
“Which means what, Mort? Justice your way? All the
i
's dotted? Every high-priced lawyer given the opportunity to let Benji's killers slither away? Is that what Benji deserves?”
“Of course not. I want whoever killed Benji put away.”
“On your terms.”
“Yesâ¦noâ¦I meanâ”
She interrupted him. “You and I both know that doesn't happen often.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
Lydia looked at the file in front of her, the one directing the distribution of millions of dollars earned dispensing swift and sure justice.
“Maybe you let the people who know how things really work take care of it for you.”