Sleight (9 page)

Have you ever tried to move quietly and quickly when you’re scared?

Not easy to do.

As I retraced my steps every noise I made seemed to be horrendously loud and my speed frustratingly slow. My neck started to hurt from looking over my shoulder every thirty seconds. It wasn’t until I was out of the tunnel and back up at street level that I felt like I could take a deep breath and control my nerves. My legs were heavy. I was spent from all of the physical activity and high emotional tension I’d been bathed in since the moment I’d woken up.

Unwilling to hoof it back up the hills to my neighborhood I angled toward the nearest bus stop. Sun having set, street lights were now shining brightly, giving the whole area a different feel. The relative warmth of the day was replaced by near freezing night air. The earlier pungent smells that had wafted in from the water had been replaced by the aroma of grills heating up for the night, and music drifted in from nearby restaurants. As I swung aboard a bus I scanned the seats before taking one myself. I’d been cornered more than once when I’d been on a bus and it was now a habit to check out the other passengers and to grab a seat as far back as possible. The seat at the rear was open so I slid in against the window. A few people got on after me, the door closed, we pulled away from the curb and I was left with my thoughts.

Having just heard two people planning on kidnapping or killing me I felt queasy and frankly, a little scared. But, I’d knocked out both of them once already, and I’d been in pretty bad shape when I’d done it. In the current situation I had one very big advantage: I knew they were coming and they didn’t know that I knew. First thing to do would be to bring Kenwoode into the loop. Number two would be to move Breno and myself into Mr. Goodturn’s apartment.

Early December weather buffeted the bus as it chugged up the hills back to my neighborhood. On top of the immediate issue of safety and getting to a secure location, I had Justine to worry about, not to mention Mr. Goodturn’s improvement and what that might mean. And just in case I was bored, I had the plan for removing Baffle from my high school population to think about. I’d have to deal with all that business while looking over my shoulder when I went back to school, but I was close to finishing something that might solve that problem for me.

Justine would have to go through some issues when she officially showed up too. It would be interesting to see how her mother would react to her reappearance, because she had never let go of the fact that Justine had been with me when she was taken. It hadn’t mattered to her that the police had found me and Breno unconscious in the warehouse next to my apartment building. She’d continually spun conspiracy theories that the media was willing to print, with disclaimers of course. My name had figured prominently in almost all of them.

The bus’s brakes squealed as we pulled up to my stop. Cold wind rushed into the bus as the doors slid open. Standing up, I waited for other passengers to get off, and scanned the street for anyone that looked suspicious.

“You getting off?” the driver asked, eyeballing me in his mirror. I nodded and got off.

It was a short walk to my building, but I was on high alert, whipping my head around constantly. Anyone watching me would have had no trouble figuring out that I was worried about being followed. I got to my building without anyone trying to jump me.

Knacking myself in I let the door close behind me and

walked up to Breno’s door and knocked.

Nothing. I waited a moment and knocked again. More nothing. Starting to worry I put my face up to his door and sniffed deeply. No smoke odor, but still no answer. Fearing the worst I knacked the lock and let myself in. The place looked okay, not as tidy as I’d left it after my quick cleaning, but not trashed or smelling weird. I stepped in and closed the door behind me.

“Breno?” I called.

No answer.

“Breno!” I called loudly. A muffled sound came from his bedroom.

Moving cautiously I pulled my stun gun from my shoulder holster and inched toward his bedroom.

“Breno, are you okay?” Creeping slowly I got close to the open door to his bedroom.

His voice trembling, came to me in a weak whisper, “I’m hurting Benny. I hurt.”

Holding my stunner and pointing in front of me I swung around the door frame of his bedroom. I quickly dropped my arm and re-holstered it. Breno was sitting on his rumpled bed, head bowed and his shoulders shaking as sobs wracked him. His hands were lying in his lap, cradled there like broken china, and covered with the same pair of yellow rubber gloves he’d been wearing the last time I’d seen him. My scalp tingled with apprehension as I entered the room.

“Breno,” I said. “What’s going on? Where are you hurt?”

Raising his head he looked at me from red-rimmed hollow eyes. His face was tear-stained. “I feel bad Benny. Mr. Goodturn is going to be mad and I cleaned the floor real good. But it’s not shiny enough. Not shiny. He’s sick because I made a accident isn’t he?” He looked down at his hands again.

Sitting down next to him I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Breno, Mr. Goodturn being...sick has nothing to do with you.”

Shaking his head, he drew his hands closer to his stomach. “I feel real bad Benny. I’m scared.” He snuffled.

Speaking softly and slowly I said, “Breno, he’s getting better and the only person who should be feeling bad about him being sick is me. But he’s better and pretty soon he’ll be fine. Okay?”

Breno’s head swung in my direction and the pain in his eyes and thoughts was so strong that it shook me. He gave me the slightest nod of his head and squeezed his eyes shut, as if to flush away the pain he was feeling.

“When can I see him Benny? I think he needs the monkeys.”

The skin on my arms raised in gooseflesh at the mention of the creepy three monkey clock. “Real soon.” I hoped that it was the truth. “What’s up with the monkeys Breno?” My palms felt sweaty when I asked, afraid of what secret might spill out next.

“It’s his heart. He needs it,” Breno whispered, rocking slowly.

His heart. His favorite memento from the ‘olden’ days. Me and my suspicious mind. Breno thought Mr. G needed his teddy bear.

My heart twisted. I’d been sweating over all the garbage in front of me. Breno’s heartbreak made me realize something I should have been paying more attention to him. And others as well.

It wasn’t all about me. The things that were happening affected all of us.

AN HOUR LATER I was up in Mr. Goodturn’s suite in a spare bedroom watching Breno snoring loudly. Kenwoode had given him a mild sedative to help calm him down. He looked down at him, frowning with his arms crossed over his chest. His jacket and vest had been put aside while he had helped me get him into bed. His crisp white shirt sleeves had been rolled up to the elbow, revealing thickly muscled arms that surprised me.

Breno’s face was relaxed and peaceful. It was the most normal I’d seen him since I’d found him at the pier. Rather than putting on his vest and jacket, Kenwoode picked them up and folded them over his arm. While he’d been tending to Breno I’d filled him in on One-Eye and his buddy Tank.

Turning to me, he said, “I think having the two of you stay here is best based on what you’ve told me, but I don’t think Mr. Giacomo’s agitation will be allayed by seeing Harald in his current condition. Best to wait until the appropriate time.”

I nodded, but I was already thinking about something else.

“Mr. Kenwoode, what do you do?” I asked.

Arching an eyebrow he said, “Pardon?”

“What do you
do.
You know, work.” I said.

“I’m retired.”

Stifling a groan I pushed for more. “Yeah, but retired from what? What did you do before?”

He patted at the sleeves of his coat, smoothing them out. “I was an independent contractor. I provided a number of services that others found useful.”

Not willing to accept that vague answer I asked, “Like what?”

Looking up from his jacket, he stopped fussing with it and stared at me with icy blue eyes. My ability to sense what went on inside people had never given me any insight into what he was feeling. It was as though he could clamp down on any stray thoughts or emotions.

“Why do you ask Benjamin?”

This kind of redirect was his patented response to a question.

I shrugged. “I’m curious. You’re super smart, and the way you...handle people is like you’re used to giving directions, and having them followed. You just handled Breno like you were familiar with dealing with people under stress. You’re friends with Mr. Goodturn, but I really don’t know much about you. Were you in the military?”

The ghost of a smile played on his lips. Shocking, because I’d never seen anything remotely like a smile on his face. He turned and motioned for me to follow him into the hall. When we were outside the room he closed the door behind us. We began walking down the hall toward the library and he cleared his throat.

“I am not enamored of the armed forces. I would like to allay any concerns you might have about me but the fact is that my background is not something I discuss much. What I will tell you is that Harald and I met on the East Coast. He was running a business that was perceived as interfering with one of my clients and when I began my research to determine how to best prevent said interference I began to notice anomalies in his past. I was intrigued.”

Rather than interrupt and run the risk of turning off his willingness to talk I just nodded in response.

“My client’s resources were significant, and Harald, on the surface, did not appear to be much of a threat. But as I dug deeper I was surprised by his confusing personal history and frankly astonished at how vast his resources were. It was only after months of careful investigation and a slowly developing respect for each other that Harald and I became more than business competitors. Although to be precise he was not truly competing with me, just my client.”

I couldn’t help myself, “What was his business? What was the business your client had that he was so concerned about Mr. Goodturn?”

I had trouble imagining a pawnshop owner getting into a turf war with another purveyor of discarded items. We walked into the library and sat down in a couple of chairs set in a corner near the windows. The comfortably familiar smell of old books made me relax. Diffused light from the street glowed at the bottom edge of the windows. Mr. Kenwoode carefully laid his jacket and vest over the arm of the chair and looked at me.

Narrowing his eyes slightly, he continued, “Harald assisted people who were...desperate. Some of his customers owed money to my client. Harald also provided...protection for people who were being...pressured. My client often applied pressure to people who owed him money. Harald and I were on opposing sides of a conflict.”

Protection? Desperate people getting loans? That all sounded like organized crime. Mr. Goodturn a mobster? I couldn’t get my head wrapped around it. “So you made Mr. Goodturn stop interfering with your client?”

“Oh, no. Quite the reverse. I’m pragmatic if nothing else. I went to work for Harald,” he said.

“What happened to your client?”

“Ah, some details are best left undisclosed. He is no longer in business, at least in that particular city, and after Harald and I concluded our agreement Harald relocated here.” He waved his hand in the air in a sweeping gesture that I took to mean all of Seattle.

“Do you work together anymore?” I asked, unsure whether I wanted to know.

“No, no. My pursuits have changed and Harald never really needed the money he generated from the business that brought us together. He just enjoyed getting in the way of someone who was taking advantage of people who were experiencing misfortune.”

That sounded a little more like Mr. Goodturn. Nevertheless it made it clear that there were hidden layers and details to Mr. Goodturn’s life. “How did you get familiar with medicine? Like being able to help Breno the way you did.”

Glancing out the window at the city lights now visible in the darkness he shook his head, “Not medicine per se, more a good basic understanding of first aid. A woman I knew was a practitioner, she shared some of her knowledge, and my vocation required it.”

“Why were you the one that Mr. Goodturn wanted me to call? He has to have other people. Why you?”

“I owe Harald a debt. More than one actually, and he knows that even though we do not agree on some issues that he can count on me to meet obligations. Helping him recover was only one of two issues he required me to attend to.”

“Two? What’s the other?”

He didn’t respond, but I didn’t want the conversation to stop. I was learning more about him than I had in weeks of living together.

“Were you like an enforcer?”

Squaring his shoulders he stood up, brushed at his slacks where there was nothing to brush off and picked up his jacket. “Again, some terms are so inadequate. No, I was not an enforcer, as you put it. My skills were more refined. Well, enough of old times. You young man should get some rest.”

He started to leave and then turned back to me, chin raised, giving me an appraising look. “Benjamin, I believe it is time to engage in a lengthy conversation, but beginning that discussion at this late hour is not good timing. I’m going to check on Harald and then retire for the evening, but let’s have a chat over breakfast.”

He walked out of the library with his trademark stiff-legged stride.