A Dangerous Breed Read online

  Dedication

  For Bruce and Marjorie,

  who raised a large and wonderful family, and made room for one more

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Junior Year, Part One

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Junior Year, Part Two

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Junior Year, Part Three

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Junior Year, Part Four

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Junior Year, Part Five

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Glen Erik Hamilton

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  We were in the air, falling backward. The black water of Puget Sound coursed ten feet below, glints of moonlight defining gentle waves. For an instant there was no sound at all.

  Then the police car hit hard and speared below the surface, bobbing swiftly back up to slap the waves flat. The impact threw me face-first into the clear plastic barrier separating the rear of the car from the empty driver’s seat. Blood erupted from my lip.

  I yanked myself upright, hampered by handcuffs that bound my wrists behind my back and the heavy bulk of the man lying half across me. The car window pressed his head into an awkward angle, deforming his cheek. A puff of breath condensed on the glass.

  He was alive. For now.

  We began to dip forward, borne down by the mass of the cruiser’s V-8. Seawater bubbled and splashed into the front compartment. In seconds it had swamped the pedals. A briny reek overwhelmed the tang of blood in my mouth. I twisted in my seat, trying to feel for the tiny piece of bent metal I’d dropped in our fall.

  The car leaned toward the icy deep as if eager for its embrace. Half a minute, maybe less, before the roiling water would fill the interior.

  I pushed at the unconscious man with my shoulder, trying to gain a few more inches of space, but there was nowhere for his body to move. The cold lent a razor sting to every gasp of air. My grasping fingers brushed the hard plastic seat, only to slide away again.

  Heavy diesels churned nearby. The barge from which we had fallen began moving away from the sinking car and toward the shore. Four miles off, the city sparkled in the clear night. I had one final glimpse of those glittering lights before the waves shrouded the windshield outside and darkness consumed both of us.

  Me, and the man I’d met for the first time barely one week before. A week of violence and death—and the hard proof about the identity of the man about to drown alongside me.

  My father.

  One

  Thirteen days ago

  Bully Betty’s grand reopening was a triumph threatening to collapse into tragedy. By midnight the main room of the bar was almost bulging at the seams, a crush of two dozen warm bodies past any sensible capacity.

  Word about the new location had spread, and then some. Betty’s first weekend on Capitol Hill attracted her kind of crowd. Queer techies. Theater vamps wearing tailored tartan suits. Horn-rimmed creatives with enough side hustles to fill a résumé. A combined target demo that might be narrow anywhere but Seattle. All the revelers temporarily free from their holiday obligations and end-of-year deadlines. Ready to shake themselves slack.

  “Van.” A-Plus, shouting from ten feet away. I read her perfectly glossed lips more than I heard the words over the din of a hundred other voices: “Two sour ales, three tequila shots with lime, two house bourbon.” She flashed French-manicured fingers to make sure I caught the count.

  A-Plus and the other bartenders handled the showy job of making cocktails. I pulled all the pints and poured bottles with both hands to keep the river of well drinks flowing. Factory work. The arrangement suited both sides. They kept the tips, and I didn’t have to make small talk.

  Betty had allowed a few concessions to her loyalists in the new place. At the corner of the bar nearest me, a muted television streamed a rerun of the U-Dub women’s basketball game against Oregon State. The Huskies had an ace power forward this year who was expected to turn pro a year early. I knew all this because the knot of women glued to the action had been singing the player’s praises since tip-off.

  “All that technical crap, like executing the game plan,” one fan in a sleeveless T-shirt proclaimed. “The team can learn that shit from the coach. But that.” She jabbed a finger at the screen. “That’s fuckin’ mean. You can’t learn mean.” Her nugget of wisdom prompted affirming whoops from the others.

  Betty had noticed my self-imposed exile, of course. She’d thrown me the side-eye, but that was all she had time for. Too busy keeping order, nostrils flared for anyone vaping, making sure Maurice on the door was confirming that every pretty face matched with an ID photo.

  “I’ll have a gin fizz,” a woman said to my back, over the babble of the crowd.

  I knew the voice and angled my gaze downward before I turned around.

  The bar counter was tall. Addy Proctor was not. Only her head and shoulders could be seen above the edge. Her cherubic crinkled face poked out from the hood of a cherry-red quilted parka lined with fake fur. A scowling circle.

  “Do I look like I know how to make a gin fizz?” I said.

  “No more than I look like I belong here.” Her neck trapped in the parka, Addy turned her whole body to examine the throng that moved like wheat stalks in wind every time the door opened to admit just a couple more. Drops of rain suspended from her fur collar broke loose. “I’m a gnome among mermaids. Look at these children. It’s marvelous.”

  “I’m working,” I said.

  “You can spare a minute for an old woman up past her bedtime. If you can’t make a decent drink, pour me a vodka. Something that pairs nicely with a fixed income.”

  I ignored Addy’s restriction and pulled the Woody Creek Reserve from the top shelf to fill a shot glass for my former neighbor. A-Plus brought another stack of orders. I waved her toward the taps to fend for herself, ignoring the gorgeous pout she fired my way.

  “You haven’t returned my phone calls,” Addy said, sniffing at the vodka.

  “It’s been busy.” I nodded to the bar. “Betty lost her lease. We wanted to relocate before the end of the season.”

  She frowned. “That’s not the cause. You’ve been a damn ghost since you got back from Oregon, and t
hat was over two months ago.”

  I didn’t want to talk about Oregon. I had been practicing hard to not even think about what had happened there, and I had finally reached the point where I managed the trick most hours of the day.

  “I’ve come by your house,” I said. “At Thanksgiving, with Cyndra.” Cyn was Addy’s foster kid.

  “You came, you brought a pie, big whoop. You spoke about ten words, Van. It hurt her feelings. I know Luce getting married must have been tough for you—”

  “What do you want, Addy?”

  “Fine. Cyndra went to L.A. to have Christmas with her father. Which means she spent the holiday in a convalescent home with Mickey, who is nowhere near a suitable host for her, dad or not. She’ll be on the morning flight back. You’re going to help me welcome Cyndra home and make sure she has some fun. Starting with taking her to her team practice tomorrow afternoon.” To underline her point, Addy downed half of the shot glass.

  Betty had spotted our conversation and angled her path toward us through the crowd. I was reminded of an icebreaker, its armored prow shoving aside tons of frozen floes.

  “If I say yes, are we done?” I said to Addy.

  “For now,” she muttered, understandably distracted by a seven-foot sylph in green sparkle makeup using the bar mirror to freshen their mascara.

  “Bring your next luncheon group here,” I teased.

  “Please,” Addy said. “I lived through Haight-Ashbury.”

  Betty reached us. She had no problem making room for herself at the counter. Besides wielding shoulders as wide as mine, twin ebony boulders covered in purple tattoos advertising the combined Aztec and Ghanaian heritage she claimed, Betty possessed a force of personality that encouraged the world to make way, or else.

  “You got to be Addy. Hello,” Betty said, giving our parka-encased guest the once-over.

  “I must be. I’m surprised Van has mentioned me. Congratulations on your new place.”

  “I’ll exhale when it’s still standing in the morning. I’d forgotten how wild the Hill can get.” Betty turned to me. “Maurice is taking over the taps.”

  I shook my head. “He made me a deal. He’s on the door. I close up.”

  “Big Mo doesn’t frighten off drunks. Dickless wonders keep cruising past and hollering shit at the clientele.”

  “That’s harassment. Can’t the police help?” said Addy.

  Betty and I both looked at her.

  “Or is that a foolish question?” Addy finished, eyeing me.

  She knew enough of my personal history to predict my opinion. Being raised by my grandfather, a professional thief and onetime armed robber, had lent me a different true north on my personal compass. Betty had suffered her own challenges with the cops, like pretty much anyone black and queer and raised in poverty. Maybe that shared suspicion toward the rest of the world was why she and I got along.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I told Betty.

  “Don’t forget about Cyndra,” Addy said. “Tomorrow morning. And we’re not done talking about this.”

  Betty offered me a penlight to use when checking licenses. “No one paying you for conversation here. Go scare somebody.”

  I retrieved my jacket and gloves from the back room.

  Addy wanted to know what had been bothering me since my return. She’d assumed it was my ex-girlfriend, Luce, tying the knot earlier that month. Wrong guess, Addy. Thanks for playing.

  I had made some choices in Oregon that I couldn’t ignore, or walk back, if I had cared to try. I hadn’t. Living day by day had been tough enough these past weeks without worrying about something as ephemeral as atonement.

  On my way out into the cold, I reflected that the basketball fan had been dead wrong, too.

  Someone could learn to be mean. Start as young as I had, and there was no limit.

  Two

  One night just before the start of the school year, Cyndra had found a movie on cable about young women competing in roller derby. She used her own money to buy a digital copy that same night and pasted her nose to the screen, watching the film six more times before Monday rolled around.

  Within a week her skateboard had given way to quad-wheel boots. Cyndra would have worn the skates to bed if Addy had allowed it. They found a junior league team called the Screaming Mimis. When I arrived at Addy’s on Sunday morning to pick up Cyn for practice, she was already outside in the cold, gear bag over her shoulder for added weight as she did calf raises on the porch step. She heard my car pulling up and sprinted to meet it.

  The Mimis’ derby league was flat-track, meaning the skaters competed on smooth concrete. Parents had arranged a fund drive to have a new floor poured in an old cinder-block warehouse near Northgate. I’d handed Addy a short stack of cash to donate. She knew better than to ask where the money had come from.

  At fourteen and undernourished much of her childhood, Cyndra weighed about as much as a loaded sack of groceries. But what she lacked in size she made up for with speed. She was a favorite jammer among the newer players, the fresh meat. Jammers scored points by making it past the opposing team’s blockers, who did their level best to knock the jammers on their asses. Sportingly.

  I sat against the sage green blocks of the warehouse wall, watching Cyn lean into the curve, picking up velocity, angling for the inside, and then suddenly juking right to find daylight between two blockers who hadn’t linked arms. She whooped elatedly. A fraction too early, as her skate caught another player’s and she fell, skidding two yards, her plastic kneepads and wrist guards rasping harshly on the concrete. I winced. But Cyndra popped back up as if the impact had been a cool breeze.

  Speed, and guts.

  The instructor, a slim woman with a dark braid and a band of tattoos spiraling up her right arm, blew her whistle to bring the girls in for a lesson. They gathered with a clomping of wheels like pony hooves on hard dirt.

  I turned my attention to the stack of mail Addy had given me. My old house, the home I’d shared with my grandfather Dono as a boy, had been up the block from Addy’s. Mail still trickled in at that address. The family that had bought the property and built their own house on the land left anything sent to the Shaws under Addy’s welcome mat.

  Grocery fliers and tool catalogs made up most of the stack. One expiration notice of union membership for nonpayment of dues, forwarded by a mailing service to Dono—or, more accurately, one of Dono’s aliases. My grandfather had always maintained a couple of identities. Handy for emergencies, and for purchasing items unavailable to people with felony rap sheets.

  I nearly missed the last envelope, which had been tucked into a bulk-mail magazine of coupons. I glanced at the handwritten address. And then stared at the name.

  Moira Shaw, it read.

  My mother.

  My mother had died when I was six years old. A distracted driver tapped the wrong pedal at the wrong moment and jumped the curb in downtown Seattle. I wasn’t there. My daycare worker brought me to the hospital. No one had really told me what was going on. Not until Dono arrived. He took me to his home that same night, and there I stayed.

  Moira Shaw. I barely remembered her. Dono hadn’t kept pictures. Hardly ever spoke of his only child. Seeing her name again, for the first time in I couldn’t remember, felt like I’d swallowed a small but very sharp icicle.

  I headed outside, ducking under the rolling door the Mimis kept partway open to allow some ventilation in the airless warehouse. Drizzling rain, a near-constant in December Seattle, coated my face and hair. I opened my car to sit in the driver’s seat.

  The return address at the top corner of the envelope was a stick-on label with a Christmas theme, green holly and candy canes. From a John and Josephine Mixon in Redmond. Our house address had been handwritten on the envelope in purple ballpoint.

  I opened the envelope and removed the single sheet of paper. Only the salutation and a phone number at the bottom had been written with the same purple pen. The rest of the text was a typed copy.
<
br />   Dear Moira,

  I hope this note finds you! We are just starting to plan the Emmett Watson High 30th Reunion (WOW!) for sometime next summer, and would love to include you. Please call me at the number below to let us know!

  Go Paladins!

  Sincerely,

  Jo Mixon (Gerrold!)

  Just a form letter, sent by someone so far out of the alumni loop that she hadn’t even heard Moira Shaw had died almost a quarter of a century before.

  I had only a few sparse facts about Moira’s life. Her own mother, Dono’s wife, Finnoula, had also died while Moira was still young. The Shaw women traveled tough, short roads. Moira had gotten pregnant and left Dono’s house a few years after that.

  So far as I knew, she’d never spoken a word about who had knocked her up. Out of shame, or maybe to keep Dono from murdering the guy. Probably the latter. That secrecy had driven a wedge between father and daughter.

  Cyndra’s practice was about to end. I tossed the letter from Jo Mixon on the passenger’s seat and stepped out into the cold mist.

  Granddad knelt to wrestle the heavy bench grinder free from the other tools crowded under his worktable. He muttered curse words with every tug. My homeroom teacher, Ms. Heffler, had put the word involuntary on last week’s spelling assignment, and Granddad’s swearing was the first example that came to my mind. I didn’t write that down for my practice sentence, though. I wasn’t that dumb.

  While Granddad set up the grinder, I opened the cardboard box of papers he’d told me to sort. We were making space. We called the little room carved into the hill below our house the garage, but only about half of Granddad’s truck would have fit inside. Mostly the garage was his workshop and a storage place for whatever he didn’t want in the house. The box of papers he’d given me was so full, it bulged at the sides. The cardboard was soft to the touch and smelled like rags left out in the rain.

  Make three piles, he’d said. One for records from his contracting business, one for home stuff, and one for instruction manuals or anything else that didn’t fit the other two piles. I pulled out a handful of papers and started looking through them.