Every Day Above Ground Read online

  “To spend your last months like a maharajah,” I said. “Live rich, die broke.”

  He withdrew his hand. “Not the sympathetic type, are ya?”

  “At least you get a warning bell. I’ve known a lot of guys who didn’t.”

  The grin was back. I could feel the aggression that fueled it now. “’Scuse me if I don’t feel fucking fortunate.”

  He threw back the last of his stout and fished a crumpled fast-food receipt out of his chest pocket. He scribbled on it. “Here’s my number. Just think about it, right? I’ll be around.”

  O’Hasson stood, all five feet of him, and marched out of the bar. I’d be damned if his step didn’t have a spring in it.

  Two

  Giridhari Mattu, Ph.D., had an office on the ground floor of the small professional building that his firm shared with two dentists and a chiropractor. A junior partner like Mattu rated just enough square footage for a rosewood desk and two Eames knockoff chairs. The single blank wall was given over to a framed Rothko print and Mattu’s diplomas. U of O undergrad, U-Dub doctorate. They were positioned behind the desk where a seated patient would always have them in view. I could have drawn them with my eyes closed after the first few visits.

  “How much have you been drinking, Van?” he said.

  “Not much.”

  “Coffee, other stimulants?” He pointed to the travel mug I’d brought with me. In a previous session Mattu had noted that I brought it every time, and we’d gone on a tangent about whether I was a creature of habit, edging into more pointed questions to see if I was showing obsessive tendencies.

  “A lot of coffee,” I said. “No meth this week.”

  Jokes never got a reaction out of Mattu. I made the jokes anyway. Maybe it was obsessive.

  “Do you feel the coffee might be adding to your sleep troubles?” he said.

  “No.”

  “But you’re still waking in the middle of the night.”

  “Less than before. The new dosage is right.”

  “Spell out ‘right’ for me.” Mattu had thick bristles of brown hair and a boyish plumpness to his face and body. A casual observer might guess he was still in his twenties. He liked wearing corduroys and high-end hiking boots and sweaters, until the Seattle summer finally warmed up enough to force him to switch to denim shirts. On our first meeting, he had shaken my hand and drawn me in for a hug.

  “I wake up once every two or three nights,” I said. “Usually after a dream.”

  “A nightmare.”

  When I woke I was inevitably drenched, my heart hammering, but strangely calm despite that. I considered that a win.

  “I don’t recall the dreams much,” I said. “It’s not the same one on repeat. Not anymore.”

  “That’s good. Social engagements? Have you spent time with company?”

  “Nothing lately.”

  “What about your friend Leo Pak?” He didn’t have to glance at his notes to remember the name.

  “He’s at home in Utah. Reconnecting with family.”

  “After his inpatient program. Do you feel that program was beneficial for him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I haven’t recommended similar treatment for you.” Leaving the question hanging.

  “I don’t need it. Leo’s issues are more severe.”

  Mattu nodded and tugged with satisfaction at his denim cuff. Leo was setting a fine example.

  “Have you been dating?” he said.

  “No.”

  “And the rebuilding of your house?”

  “It might have to go on hold.”

  “Because of your finances. Are you still working security?” What Mattu called bouncing.

  “I’m still pulling a couple nights a week. And . . . there might be other work coming. More profitable work.”

  My hesitation hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Is that good?”

  “I’m not sure I want it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s not the kind of job I want to do,” I said.

  “You realize that’s a circular argument.”

  “But accurate.”

  He ran through the few remaining questions from his greatest hits list, making careful notes as he proceeded. The official form would be turned in to the VA, as confirmation that Mattu’s firm was donating pro bono time toward PTSD treatment. The VA would get their biweekly paperwork, and I’d get my prescriptions refilled.

  He glanced over at the brass clock on his desk. Neither of us needed to look at its spidery hands to know we had two minutes left. But it was Mattu’s unconscious way of signaling that time was getting short and he was about to launch into his summation.

  “I’m not terribly concerned with the decision you have to make about this job,” he said. “Whether you choose a steady income over your preference of work, either way could be the right path. I am concerned about the large block of time that will be available when you can’t work on your house. That has been a focus for you, Van. Maybe overmuch.”

  “You’re saying I need structure.”

  “In the military your time was extremely regimented.” Mattu had made a pun, but I wasn’t sure he knew it. “You’ve adjusted to civilian life very well, after so many years and many intense cycles of activity. Your family house has been at the center of your thoughts. Be careful when that center cannot hold.”

  We stood up. He shook my one hand in both of his, three pumps. Habit.

  Three

  Hollis Brant whacked the throttle with the heel of his broad hand. The Francesca, his fifty-foot Carver cruiser, responded with a mounting rumble and Hollis and I leaned forward to counterbalance as the bow rose from the water. He turned the wheel a few easy degrees, pointing us in a direct heading away from his marina at Shilshole.

  “Not so long ago, you’d have pissed all over the idea of cracking a safe,” Hollis said over the noise. “And maybe all over Mickey O’Hasson for suggesting it.”

  We stood on the flybridge at the top of the boat. The waters ahead were clear and about as flat as Puget Sound ever got. To our stern, a couple hundred vessels ranging from speedboats to schooners crowded the shoreline. Pleasure craft, hell-bent on enjoying the long Independence Day weekend. If half of their owners touched a helm more than twice a year, it would be a shock. Sailing close to land was like navigating a freeway crowded with student drivers. And no lanes. Hollis liked a little distance from the chaos.

  “Tell me about O’Hasson,” I said.

  Hollis’s bowed legs, about the same length as his apelike arms, meant that he had to jump a little to reach the tall pilot’s seat. The wind pushed his tight orange-white curls to and fro. “Dono was never much for running his mouth. Look who I’m talking to. You know that. But he hadn’t worked with O’Hasson before. And Nogales was a long way from home.”

  “So who put them together?”

  “Jimmy. It’s why I invited him along this morning.” Jimmy Corcoran was down below, using the head. Probably as a receptacle for whatever he’d eaten for breakfast. Corcoran’s face had been paler than usual, even before I’d cast off the Francesca’s lines at the dock.

  “The job in Arizona, that I remember something about,” said Hollis. “Dono had to drive back to Seattle with a few paintings in his car, and he picked my brain about ways to hide them.”

  Hollis was a smuggler. Anything that seemed low-risk for moderate reward, which left out the kind of contraband that law enforcement declared wars against. To my knowledge, Hollis had never been arrested.

  He spun the seat around to reach for his coffee cup. “Dono told me afterwards that the job was so fast, he never bothered to stay overnight in Nogales. They drove in. The house was where and how O’Hasson said it would be. They took the paintings. That was that.”

  “So O’Hasson did all the casing? He was reliable?”

  “Dono was happy with the results, I can say that much.”

  The thump of the cabin door sliding open on the lower deck interrupted us. U
nder the thrum of the engine came an equally steady stream of curses.

  “Y’all right there, Jimmy?” said Hollis with a wink to me.

  “—can’t believe you talked me into—Yes, you shithead, I’m just great.” Corcoran came up the ladder to the flybridge, carefully taking each rung in turn. His hairless head and light eyes gave him the look of an especially pallid eel. An angry one, a moray ready to bite some careless skin diver’s hand off. Jimmy C. was brilliant with electronics. A virtuoso. Maybe all that talent had stolen bits from the rest of him, with charm and courtesy being the first to go.

  Corcoran pointed to the bottle of Baron Otard cognac that Hollis had used to strengthen his coffee. “Give me that.”

  I didn’t question his choice of remedy. Corcoran snatched the bottle from me and downed a gulp large enough to distend his throat. He gasped.

  “Fucking ocean,” he said.

  “Talk quick and maybe Hollis will turn us around.”

  “It’s a good day,” Hollis protested. He spun the wheel and knocked the engines to idle. The Francesca settled into an easy drift. “Look, calm as a sleeping babe.”

  “Spare me,” said Corcoran. “What’s this shit with Mickey O’Hasson?”

  “He wants me in on a job,” I said.

  Corcoran’s eyebrows furrowed, and his characteristic sneer edged up to try to meet them. “Ha. Suddenly you’re not the white knight. What’s wrong, you burn through your pension from Uncle Sam?”

  The Army wouldn’t have handed me a pension unless I’d served a full twenty, and I guessed that Corcoran knew that. But he wouldn’t pass up a chance to needle me about my career choices. To Corcoran, any straight job was a sucker’s job.

  “Hollis says you vouched for O’Hasson with Dono, twelve or thirteen years ago,” I said.

  “Cutting right to it.” Corcoran eased himself down onto the all-weather vinyl cushions. He took another small swig. “I didn’t know O’Hasson, but I knew guys who’d worked with him. He was a house burglar, mostly. No tough-guy shit. You seen the man in person, yeah? Can’t blame anybody the size of a damn peanut for sticking with the soft approach.”

  “Was he any good?”

  “He had chops. You think I’d have spoken for him if I wasn’t sure of that much?”

  “Nobody’s calling you a liar, Jimmy,” said Hollis.

  I held up a hand against the glare off the water. We were a couple of miles out, closer to Bainbridge than Seattle. A freighter trundled past, two hundred yards off our starboard, pushing with deceptive speed south toward the piers. Business in progress, over long, long distances.

  “How did the connection start?” I said. “Who called who?”

  Corcoran shrugged like it was obvious. “O’Hasson had reached out to some people in Seattle. Asking if they knew a safecracker. They knew me and I knew Dono.”

  Hollis frowned. “Why would O’Hasson want a box man from all the way up here?”

  “Maybe every professional he knew in L.A. was connected,” I said. “Their bosses would want a big cut. Or just take it all.”

  “An outsider.” Corcoran nodded. “That’s the word I remember being kicked around.”

  Hollis took the bottle of cognac from Corcoran and poured half a shot into his mug. “So O’Hasson was an independent. Like Dono.”

  “I didn’t watch a fricking biography on the runt. He steals shit. I dunno who he steals it for, or why.”

  I had been wondering that myself. Why a dying man would spend his last days chasing dreams of gold.

  “Thanks for the background,” I said to Corcoran. “I owe you.”

  He snorted. It was apparently the wrong thing to do, because his face went the color of a hard-boiled egg left out in the sun. He lunged for the ladder, shouldering me aside in his haste.

  When the cabin door had slammed again, Hollis sighed. He stuck a finger in his coffee and stirred it absentmindedly.

  “You need money this bad?” he said.

  I had been granted a deferral on property taxes the previous year, after Dono’s death. Those were now due, and this year’s on top. On Friday, the assessor’s office had turned down my application for a second deferral. Plus there was the looming cost of rebuilding the house. A bank loan was out of the question. After ten years in the Army, most of it overseas with no real property to my name, my credit rating was low comedy.

  During the afternoon hours yesterday on my newest part-time gig, dull seasonal work packing boxes in the warehouse of an outdoor supply company, I’d run the numbers in my head. The taxes amounted to four months of earnings, assuming the work stayed steady. And if I didn’t need to pay rent. Or eat.

  My silence was enough answer for Hollis. “I could scratch up a few dollars, if it’ll keep the wolves away,” he said.

  “Thanks. But no.”

  “I supposed not. You’ve made up your mind about O’Hasson, then?”

  “Six times in the last hour,” I said. “I didn’t think the house meant so much, until I saw the land without it. It looked like—it felt like—a tooth had been torn out at the root. That place was the last thing left of him. Of Dono.”

  “Except yourself.”

  “Not what I mean. He’s dead and gone. His bar belongs to somebody else. But our house—he left that to me. I lived in it for less than a month before it burned down, and all of his things with it.” I exhaled. “Dono didn’t give a shit about what he owned, I know. Every dollar he earned from a score, he’d sink fifty cents into setting up the next one.”

  “Your man cared more about having his own rules,” said Hollis.

  “And to hell with everyone else. Jesus, I heard that philosophy enough times.” I put the coffee mug down harder than I’d intended. It banged off the metal catch-rail and a chip broke from the base.

  “It’s nothing,” Hollis said before I could apologize.

  I turned my back to the sun and gazed at the city in the distance. Only the very tops of the tallest buildings were visible over the hills. As the Francesca bobbed on the water, rays of morning light would bounce off the glass and steel, giving the skyscrapers glittering crowns.

  “Screw it,” I said. “If I had the money, I’d rebuild. But I don’t, and I won’t steal to get it.”

  “You don’t need to convince me.”

  “I’m convincing myself, Hollis. I’ve broken a lot of laws since coming back home. Maybe this thing with O’Hasson is a kick in the ass to remind me where to draw the line.”

  Hollis picked up the shard of broken coffee mug from the dash and examined it. “I might not be the most impartial judge, but Lord knows you’ve had good reason to bend the rules.”

  “Better reasons than just paying my bills. Or wanting some last hurrah, which is what I suspect is driving O’Hasson.”

  “Could be that.”

  He began to clean under a fingernail with the sliver of ceramic. I looked at him. He remained intent on his inexpert manicure.

  “You want to show whatever card you’re hiding up your sleeve?” I said.

  “Sorry.” He coughed. “Just making some decisions of my own.”

  He opened the chart locker and took out a slim manila folder. “I’ve a fellow who works for a private dick in Los Angeles. He’s not a bad sort, for a citizen. When you said you were looking for background on O’Hasson, I took the liberty and had my friend pull whatever public records he could on short notice.”

  I smiled as Hollis handed me the folder. “Have you got a friend in every town?”

  “And a lady in every port. Keeps me young.”

  I opened the file. Tightly spaced columns of text on the first two pages covered the long criminal history of Michael John O’Hasson, age fifty-eight. I’d taken him for older than that. Mileage outpacing the years. He’d been busted a lot for petty crap as a youth, less often as he gained experience and also spent a few idle seasons behind bars. O’Hasson’s latest stretch of seven years had been the result of a larceny conviction and an eight-to-twelve sentence
. His third fall.

  Printed on the third page was a screen capture of a County of Los Angeles birth certificate. Cyndra Ann O’Hasson, born at Kaiser Bellflower. On the line for Full Name of Mother it read Lorelei Michelle Eaton. Michael O’Hasson was listed as the father.

  Cyn. Twelve years old, on her last birthday. She must have been about five when O’Hasson was put away.

  The next document I recognized instantly, before I’d read a word of it. It was the summary cover page from a foster child’s record of temporary guardianship. Cyndra Ann had gone into the system at age six. The following pages showed that she’d bounced around, four different families in three different towns. Her latest family was listed as the Tyners, in Reseda. There was no mention of what had happened to Cyndra’s mother.

  Dead center on the final page was a black-and-white photocopy of a color picture, two inches on each side, like a passport’s. Cyndra’s face, long and snub-nosed with big light-colored eyes. Blue, maybe, like her dad’s. She had straight brown bangs and the rest of her hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. The photo was out of date. Probably taken when she’d gone to the Tyners at age ten. She was pretty in the way that all kids are before adolescence starts to wreak havoc.

  “I considered tossing the pages to the seagulls,” said Hollis.

  Cyn’s expression in the photo was resigned, with a dash of hostility. Or maybe that was just me, projecting.

  “But I figured you’d want to know,” Hollis continued.

  I returned the papers to the folder and walked across the bridge to set them down on the dash. Much more deliberately than I had the coffee mug.

  “So,” I said. “We know why O’Hasson’s got a head of steam. He wants to leave something behind for the kid.”

  Hollis made a thoughtful hum. I glanced down at the folder. Caught myself before I picked it up again.

  “It explains the guy a little,” I said. “It doesn’t change anything.”