Red Tide (3 page)

“Hell of a mess,” Corso said.

Nisovic nodded agreement. The wind swirled around them, lifting the tails of Nisovic’s overcoat, prompting Corso to raise his collar.

Corso cleared his throat and said, “Well, hey…I gotta go…Dougherty’s…” he inclined his head toward the line of cabs.

“Please give Ms. Dougherty my regards,” Nisovic said. “And those of my family.”

Corso assured him he would. Nisovic turned and started for the bus. Corso’s brow furrowed as he stood on the sidewalk and watched Nisovic walk away.

“Mr. Nisovic,” Corso shouted.

The little man had one foot on the bus. He stopped and then stepped out of the way so the Chinese woman behind him could board.

Corso hurried over. “You got the key with you?” he asked.

“The key?”

“To the Underground.”

Slobodan Nisovic looked Corso over as if he were breaking in a new set of eyes. “They say it’s a very hazardous material,” he said finally.

“I know.”

“Is it so important to know?” he asked.

“It’s my nature,” Corso replied.

Nisovic thought for a long moment and then dropped into a squatting position. He set his briefcase in the street, popped the locks and pulled out a monstrous ring of keys. With great deliberation, he selected one and separated it from the others. He looked up at Corso. Offered the key. “Take the master key. I have another at home.”

He began to close his briefcase. Stopped and again reached inside. He pulled out what looked like a brochure. “You want a map?” He got to his feet. “We give them to the tourists.” He shrugged. “Mostly it’s too dark to read.”

“There’s a Groucho Marx joke in there somewhere.”

“Excuse?”

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a flashlight,” Corso said with a smirk.

“We keep it lit all the time,” Nisovic said, with a touch of annoyance. “Insurance insists.”

“Thanks,” Corso said.

Nisovic bowed stiffly at the waist before crossing the sidewalk and mounting the bus. Corso watched as he found a seat up in front, against the far window, then strode back across the pavement to the taxi. He pulled open the door, leaned down and spoke to Dougherty. Her face told him she knew what was coming.

“I’m gonna run a little errand.”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed the door handle. Corso jerked his head back just in time to avoid losing his face to the slamming door. He walked up to the driver’s window, peeled off a hundred-dollar bill and waved it at the driver. The window opened just far enough to accommodate the cash. Corso said, “Take her anywhere she wants to go.”

5

“H
er new boyfriend plays the saxophone in one of those Vegas shows,” the cabdriver said. “I haven’t seen my kids since July.”

“Must be tough,” was all Dougherty could think to say.

“Specially around the holidays,” the guy said. “Talkin’ to them on the phone was almost worse than not hearing from them at all.” He took one hand off the wheel and waved it in the air. “They’re telling me all the stuff they’re getting for Christmas…like you know they’re all excited and all…and I’m like…” He shook his head sadly. Checked the rearview mirror. “You got kids?” he asked.

She emitted a short, dry laugh. “Me? Kids? No…not me.”

Her tone caught his attention. “Never too late,” he said. “Nice-lookin’ lady like you. I bet you got lotsa—” The look in her reflected eyes stopped the words in his throat and sent his attention scurrying back out over the hood.

She checked the side window. The mist had cleared. Traffic was beginning to thin as they inched steeply uphill on Cherry Street.

The cabdriver snapped the radio on. War doing “Lowrider.”

“Where on the hill?” he asked above the rhythm.

“Thirteenth Avenue East and Republican.”

“Nice neighborhood,” he tried.

She flicked her eyes down at the laminated plastic ID card hanging from the back of the seat. His name was Steveland Gerkey. He’d grown his wiry black hair out since the picture was taken. “Steveland, huh?” she muttered.

“My mom named me after Stevie Wonder,” the driver said. “She named all of us that way. I’ve got a brother Marvin and a sister Diana…named after Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross. Mom was real big into Motown.”

Dougherty let herself sink into the seat. Only a couple of cars at a time were getting through the intersections. She sat in silence for five minutes as they inched forward, and then suddenly she leaned closer. Put her hands on the back of the seat.

“You happy with what you’re doing, Steveland?” she asked.

His eyes fixed on the mirror again. Trying to tell if she was serious. “Stevie,” he said. “Everybody calls me Stevie.”

“You happy with what you’re doing, Stevie?”

“You mean like driving a cab?”

“I mean like with your life.”

He thought it over. “Depends on what you mean,” he said after a minute. “You know…it’s not like this was what I was planning when I was a little kid or anything.”

“What’d you want to be when you were a little kid?” she asked.

“A cowboy,” he said. “I really wanted to be a cowboy.”

“What about later? After you grew up.”

He twitched his shoulders but did not speak. His long-term aspirations were not a subject upon which he allowed himself to dwell. Not because they were in any way bad or bizarre, but because he had come to realize he didn’t have any. Nothing specific anyway. He’d never pictured himself as anything in particular. Just a situation where he made enough money doing something…anything…enough to have whatever he wanted. A nice new Dodge pickup. A boat or maybe a little house someplace. The kind of things people wanted.

He looked in the mirror again. “What about you?”

“A ballerina.”

“I was gonna go to community college. They got a real good culinary arts program at South Seattle,” he volunteered. “But then…you know…I met Janie…we ended up getting married.” He seemed to shrink slightly in the seat. “Next thing you know we got two kids and there ain’t no going back to school after that.”

“How long you been driving a cab?”

“Last coupla years. Ever since they laid me off at Boeing.”

“What’d you do at Boeing?”

“Worked the tool crib…up in Everett. Janie’s dad…Harvey…he got me on. Harvey’s been with the Busy B thirty-two years. Knew the foreman.”

He slid the car forward three car lengths. They were second in line to cross Broadway. “Got my pink slip in the first big wave of layoffs.” He checked the mirror again to make sure she was listening. “That’s when it all started to come apart for Janie and me. I look at it now…you know like in hindsight…it was mostly about money, but, you know…at the time…seemed like we couldn’t agree on anything anymore.” He caught himself rambling and changed the subject.

“Whata you do?” he asked.

“I’m a photographer.”

“You mean like for one of the papers or something?”

“Freelance,” she said. “I work for myself.” She read the question in his eyes. “Sometimes I work for a famous writer. I take the pictures for his books.”

“What’s his name?”

“Frank Corso. He writes—”

“The crime books,” he interrupted her. He smiled for the first time and flicked on the overhead light. Opened the glove compartment. Rummaged around inside. Came out with a battered paperback copy of
A Blind Eye,
which he held up like a trophy. “I read all of ’em,” he proclaimed. “Soon as they come out in paper, I’m right there.”

The light changed. He kept the cab about four inches from the blue Volvo in front as they crept through the intersection and began to roll downhill, along the north side of Seattle University. A blinking yellow light marked the walkway leading from the university’s parking garage to the main campus. They stopped and waited as a solid line of chattering students crossed in front of the cab. While they waited, he thumbed his way into the center of the book, found the photos, turned the book sideways.

“Margaret Dougherty,” he read.

“Meg.”

That’s when it hit him. He moved his eyes upward for a second and then buried them in the book. She’d seen the expression so many times before there was no mistaking the look. That combination of palpable pity and carnal curiosity her story seemed to inspire. Especially in guys. They always seemed torn between offering their condolences and begging for a peek.

“They ever catch the guy?” he asked. “You know, the one who…”

She had the answer ready. It was like a part in a long-running play. A part where she never forgot her lines. “He left the country. France they think.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but, mercifully, changed his mind. The last student passed in front of the cab. He lifted his foot from the brake, allowing the cab to roll downhill, where they made the light and turned north on Twelfth Avenue. The meter read six dollars and ninety cents. An idea nearly brought a smile to her lips. She’d give Steveland Gerkey the rest of Corso’s hundred bucks as a tip. Make his whole damn day. Because Corso was such a goddamn fool and because Steveland had a well-developed sense of when to shut up. The song changed to Norah Jones. “Don’t know why I didn’t call…” Dougherty sat back in the seat and closed her eyes. The singer’s husky voice tickled her insides.

She kept her eyes closed, rolling around inside the music until she felt herself pressed back in the seat by the steep slope of East Republican Street.

“Left at the top of the hill,” she said.

He eased the cab over to the curb and brought it to a halt. “Which building?” he wanted to know.

She scooted forward in the seat and pointed out over his shoulder. “The little house with the gate,” she said.

He took his foot off the brake and the cab began to roll forward. “What gate?”

“Between the apartment buildings,” she said, pointing again. “See the white sign above the gate?” He peered out through the semidarkness.
GRAVEN IMAGES
,
the sign said.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY M
.
DOUGHERTY
.
BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
, and a phone number.

“Jeez,” he said. “All the times I been down this street and I never noticed that little place way back in there.”

“Most people don’t,” she said. “It’s what I like about it.”

“All the trees and bushes and stuff makes it real hard to see.”

He lifted his foot from the brake again. As the car began to move forward, the gate bordering the street opened and a shadowy figure stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Without thinking, Dougherty put a hand on the driver’s shoulder. He stopped again. The figure caught the flash of brake lights. His head swiveled. He stared intently at the cab, but did not move.

“You expecting company?” Stevie asked.

“No.”

“You know him?” he asked, switching off the car’s interior lights.

She started to say she didn’t when the apparition took a step forward, profiling his features against the security lights of the apartment building next door.

Her breath came quicker now. She heard it, but couldn’t control herself.

“Can’t be.”

“What can’t be?”

She shook her head in disbelief, as if the sudden movement would improve her vision or, better yet, make the apparition disappear altogether. The figure stopped on the sidewalk, pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jacket and lit one. Now she was sure. The old-fashioned Zippo lighter. The way he posed for a second before extinguishing the flame. Just in case he had an audience. It was him. No doubt about it.

“Holy shit,” escaped her lips. “I don’t believe it.”

The visitor cast another long glance at the darkened cab and then started up the street. Walking north along Thirteenth Avenue. She waited a moment, then pulled the door handle and stepped out into the street, nudging the door closed with her hip.

“Something wrong?” the driver wanted to know.

She didn’t answer. Just stood in the street watching intently as the dark figure walked away. “I don’t believe it,” she mumbled to herself.

“You okay?” the driver asked.

Before she could muster a reply, a movement in her peripheral vision snapped her head around. Someone was moving soundlessly along the sidewalk. Just as her eyes were beginning to focus, the apparition slid behind the massive oak tree and disappeared. She waited…squinting out into the gloom at the spot where he should emerge from behind the tree. Nothing. The silent stroller had stopped. Hiding? She looked at Stevie, who had gotten out of the car and now stood by her side; his attention was riveted on her.

“Listen, lady…,” he began, “I gotta get going here. I gotta…”

She tore her eyes from the sidewalk. Jabbed a finger in the direction of the retreating figure. “That’s the guy,” she hissed. “That’s Brian.” With her other hand she pulled down the front of her dress, revealing the cleft between her breasts, covered with tattoos. He squinted in the darkness until he could make out the images and the words that swirled around on her chest. His lips moved as he read the tattooed script until the language embarrassed him and he turned his face away.

“That’s the guy did this to me. Brian Bohannon. That’s him right there.”

“You sure?”

“Like I could ever forget.”

“I thought you said he moved to France.”

“He did.”

“Jesus.” He hesitated and then pulled a cell phone from the dash. “Maybe we oughta call the cops.”

She thought it over. Shook her head. Got back in the cab. “Every cop in town is downtown at the Weston or back there in the square. They’re not coming up here for a five-year-old assault beef that they never took seriously anyway.”

“Whata you mean they didn’t take it seriously?”

She waved a hand in the darkness. “They always treated it like some kind of lover’s quarrel. Like I was just another weirdo who got what was coming to her.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Said I had a marginal lifestyle.”

“Whata you want to do?”

She thought for a long moment. “Let’s follow him,” she said finally. “See where he goes.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “Let’s just do it.”

“Hey, lady…I’m just a cabdriver. I’m not good for any of that…”—he used his fingers to make quotation marks in the air—‘follow that car’ stuff. I’m just tryin’ to make a living here.”

Dougherty leaned forward. Put her face in his. “I’m freaked out here, Stevie. I don’t know what to do.” She made eye contact. “Please. Help me out.”

A van’s headlights came on. They sat in silence, watching as the van pulled up to the intersection, turned right and disappeared down Mercer Street.

“Come on, Stevie,” she pleaded. She pointed at the meter. It read nine dollars and seventy-six cents. “I’ve got ninety-three bucks to go.”

“Okay, lady,” he said finally. “If you put it that way.” He put the cab into gear and roared down the street, headlights off, poking the hood out into Mercer Street just in time to watch the van’s taillights turn left and disappear from view.

“But…you know…like no car chases or nothing like that.”

“Just drive.”