Past Crimes (18 page)

T
HE ALLEY LEADING TO
the Morgen was empty. I could hear muffled music coming from inside, slow electric guitar with a bass shoving it roughly from behind. The bar had no windows that faced out onto the alley, and a single bright bulb illuminated the only door, so that the emerald rectangle almost leaped from the brick wall.

It was a smaller crowd inside than when I’d met Davey, and I quickly realized why. The music was even worse at close quarters. Two guys in black T-shirts stood shoulder to shoulder on the tiny stage, each trying to make his instrument the lead. Most of the prospective audience focused intently on their drinks and iPads.

A light crowd and fewer staff. I didn’t see Davey’s brother, Mike, anywhere in the room. A guy behind the stage was busy adjusting the amps, probably making sure that Lennon and McCartney didn’t blow out the subwoofers with their noise.

Luce Boylan was behind the bar, slow-pouring a Guinness. She looked over and saw me, and a bemused smile touched her lips. I wound my way through the tables to the long, pale bar.

I was surprised at her height up close—the top of her head came almost up to the bridge of my nose. Then I remembered that when I’d seen her earlier in the week, I’d been sitting down the whole time. Ungentlemanly of me, Hollis would have said.

“Davey’s not here,” Luce said, raising her voice over the music. She wore a white bar apron over her blue jeans and a dark gray short-sleeved shirt with epaulets.

“I came to see you.”

“Well.” She set the two-thirds-full pint aside and started pouring another. “Give me half an hour. My latest favor-for-a-friend will be mercifully over.” She grimaced at the musicians, who had begun mangling a Soundgarden tune.

“I’ll sing along,” I said.

Luce turned away to grab a bottle of wine off the shelves. “Don’t suffer. You know where the office is.” She tilted her head toward the back of the bar. Her hair was pinned up, showing the fine blond hairs at the nape of her neck.

I tore my eyes away and walked around the end of the bar and down the short hall into the back.

I remembered being disappointed the first time Dono had let me join his meetings in the back rooms. They hadn’t come close to what my imagination had cooked up. No cavernous chamber shrouded in smoke. No arsenal of weapons. Just one small office, reeking of cigarettes and made even more cramped by cases of liquor that overflowed from the two storage rooms. And the only item of interest had been a badly stained pine table used for card games and, occasionally, careful plans.

But the office had changed since Albie had parked his narrow ass behind the desk. It was clean and cluttered at the same time, with stacks of papers and books piled on every surface and a wall completely covered in tacked-up photographs and band flyers and stickers and ads and artwork, making a mural of riotous color. Against the other wall was a couch covered in cracked black leather. A folded blanket and pillows were stacked neatly on the couch seat.

I sat down on the other side of the couch and closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew, Luce was tapping my shoulder.

“Hey,” she said. “You were really out.”

I inhaled deeply and stretched my shoulders until they popped.

“Rest when you can,” I said. “That’s what we always teach the boots.”

“Why do you think I have pillows? You could crash here.”

Luce had taken off her bar apron and put on a blue suede coat. She’d unpinned her hair and brushed it out, too.

“Let’s take a walk,” I said.

We went out the front and through the alley and down Lenora Street, toward Pike Place. The asphalt changed to rough brickwork, and we walked slowly over the uneven ground, taking our time. The big neon signs above the market washed the gray streets with pink and orange, a glow of false warmth on cold pavement.

Luce put the collar of her coat up and folded her arms. “What do you think of the place?” she said.

“The Morgen? Doing better than I ever remember.”

“I’ve worked at it. This area doesn’t draw the frat boys or sororities from the U-Dub or the bar crowd from Capitol Hill. Too many closer options. And nobody who can afford condos in Belltown comes to a place like the Morgen.”

“Seattle State?”

She nodded. “Heavy advertising around campus. Plus hosting a few bands—better ones than tonight—just to get their asses to come a couple of miles south.”

“I’m guessing Mike helped with that when he was a student.”

Luce frowned. “He’s worked hard, too.”

“Or you wouldn’t have him working there.”

“Damn right.” She turned to me and squared her shoulders, jaw lifted in challenge.

“I missed something,” I said. “Are you and Mike …?”

“What? No! No, nothing like that. I mean he deserves it.”

“The job?”

“No, not the job.” Her blue-gray eyes widened. “Oh, shit. Dono didn’t tell you.”

There was a hell of a lot Dono hadn’t had the chance to tell me. I had the feeling Luce was about to add a new entry.

“
Shit
.” Luce turned away and stared down the street. I waited her out, just watching the wind catch her hair and twist it into ropes, letting it fall and picking it up again.

When she turned back, her face was tight. “I really don’t want this. You shouldn’t be hearing it from me.”

“It’s the bar,” I said. “Dono’s leaving it to Mike.”

“You knew?”

I shrugged. “Dono’s lawyer told me that Dono was looking to change the terms of his will. When you got all mama-grizzly about Mike, I put it together.”

It felt right. After ten years Dono had asked me to come back, to break the news to me in person. I never wanted a dime from the old man. The bar would mean more to Mike.

“When did Dono tell you?” I said.

“Last Saturday night. He came to the bar to see me.”

The night before he was shot.

Luce hugged herself tighter. “Dono told me he was going to sign over his half of the bar to Mike.”

“Did he tell you why? And why now?”

“He just said that he’d gotten what he wanted out of the bar.” She looked embarrassed, like she was telling me gossip. “That Mike and I had proven ourselves.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m glad Mike was around.”

“You know what Dono was like. Smooth as glass on the surface ninety-eight percent of the time.”

“It was the two percent that I couldn’t live with. Go on. He told you that you’d proven yourself. What did he leave you?”

She took a breath. “Selling rights.”

When Dono and Luce’s Uncle Albie had bought the Morgen twenty-five years ago, the deal was that Albie would run the place and they’d split the profits—Albie earning a little extra juice from the cash that Dono laundered through the bar’s registers.

But Dono had retained control over all major decisions, including first rights of refusal on Albie’s share for the same amount that Albie had put into the place. Which was next to nothing.

So Albie got a decent living, and Dono got control. Which he was willing to pass on to Luce. She would run things and split whatever profits she could make with Mike.

“He really did trust you,” I said.

Luce’s eyes welled up, and she started to walk again. I stayed at her side as we made our way along the brick road that ran parallel to the market stalls. The stalls were empty, but the lights above them shone twenty-four hours a day. All the vendors had packed away their candles and paintings and wooden spoons at dusk.

“I’ve been working at the Morgen one way or another since I was fifteen. Legal or not,” Luce said after we’d gone a hundred yards, out of the market and onto the smooth black surface of paved streets again. “I
made
that damn place. When Albie died, I got offers from every shitty little development company around. They didn’t know that Dono held the controlling interest. I figured out that if they were offering a twenty-one-year-old kid what sounded like a good price for the business permits and licenses, then the real value had to be huge.”

“Hard to get those.”

“Damn right. The economy’s crap right now, but the lease has another thirty years on it. If we waited and built it up—maybe eight or ten more years—we could clear seven figures. I saw that future, plain as day. Albie never did.” She shook her head. “And I don’t think Dono had either. But he agreed with me.”

“He’s not sentimental. Not about owning things.”

“Me neither. I don’t want to be still pulling drinks when I’m sixty, shackled to that place.”

“Like Albie?”

“Exactly like Albie. You know how he died?”

“Heart attack, Mike said.”

“Mike doesn’t know the whole story. Albie had that heart attack in a county holding pen. He’d been arrested the night before, trying to run away—literally running from the cops—after breaking into a jewelry exchange.”

She was crying now. Eyes fixed on the street ahead, she gritted her teeth against the old pain.

“Trying to earn an extra few bucks. Or relive past glories. Shit, I don’t know what Albie was thinking. He never got the chance to tell me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too, damn it. And the bar is yours now, and all the joy that comes with it. If you want to sell out, I won’t kick at it. I’ve had enough.”

“Dono’s not dead, Luce.”

“But he’s probably not signing papers anytime soon either. Oh, fuck.” She wiped at her cheeks angrily. “I’m sorry. Shit, I am sorry, Van. That was cruel. I’ve been on a roller coaster these last few days. Saturday night after Dono told me, I was bouncing off the stars I was so happy. Now …”

“Shut up for a second,” I said. Luce looked up, startled. A teardrop clung to her lower eyelash. I reached out and brushed it off with my thumb.

“I figured Dono had changed his will years ago,” I said. “I didn’t come home for the damn bar.”

“I know, but now …”

“I never expected to inherit anything. If Dono wants to give Mike his share and hand you the steering wheel, I’ve got no problem.”

“And you don’t want anything in return.” Her strong jaw lifted again, ready for the blow. Not a woman used to hearing good news.

“I do want something. I want a straight answer.”

“About?”

“Has Dono been laundering money through the Morgen? I don’t mean the usual spare change. I mean has he suddenly started pushing money through as fast as the books can stand?”

Luce looked as surprised as if I’d suddenly sprouted wings. “Through the Morgen? No. God, he hasn’t done that in a couple of years.”

“Not at all?”

“Not since I proved we could turn a profit without it. He knew I never liked the Morgen being a front, even if it had been Dono’s deal with Albie. I didn’t push it. But one day I realized he hadn’t handed me the usual stack of cash to enter into the accounts in weeks. And he never did again. I didn’t ask why. I guessed he was handling whatever money he needed through his contracting work.”

“So the Morgen is legit?”

“As legit as I can make it.”

If Dono wasn’t floating cash through the Morgen, maybe he hadn’t fenced any of the diamonds yet. He’d renegotiated his deal with Ondine to hold on to the stones. Maybe that was his long-term plan, squirrel them all away until the heat was off.

Luce and I went back to walking, turning onto Virginia, leaning into the steep slope. A slower pace, both of us lost in thought. The wind coming off the water was blunted by the office buildings around us, but we could hear it, rushing like rivers through the cross streets.

Luce took my arm. “Do you like it in the army?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m good at it. And I’m needed.”

Her eyes moved over the left side of my face as we walked. Not the embarrassed flicker of most people’s glances at the scars. She was taking a hard look.

“Are you in for life?” she asked.

“I haven’t found anything better.” My call with Unser came to mind, and I shoved the memory down. My career might be circling the drain, but it wasn’t anything I could fix right this minute.

“I read that the war is winding down,” Luce said. “What? What’s that smile?”

“There’s always a war somewhere,” I said. “Not always a big one, and not all of them make the news. Some guys go into private contracting after they sign out.”

“So there’s always work for you.”

“Pretty much. Though I can’t see myself bodyguarding some oil prince.”

Luce grinned. “You’d look good in a tuxedo and sunglasses. Talking into your sleeve.”

“Ouch.”

Her face suddenly became serious. “How much longer are you in town?”

“Five days.”

“Then we shouldn’t waste time,” she said, turning to me.

I leaned in and kissed her. She was a tall girl, and neither of us had
to strain to meet in the middle. For a long moment, it was only our lips touching, testing. Then she pressed against me, and I held on to her, and she held me just as tightly as we continued to kiss. She smelled like jasmine.

My cell phone rang. And vibrated. We both jumped a little at it, and there was nothing to do but answer the fucking thing.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I got a name.” Jimmy Corcoran. Just about the worst mood killer I could imagine.

“Go ahead.”

“Julian Formes. A real pro with listening devices and that crap, not bad with B&E either.”

“I already know that.”

“I’m just saying, that’s his rep. He just got up from his second fall at Walla Walla a few months ago, so he’s in town. And icing on the fucking cake, he matches the description you gave me. Well, what little you saw after he clocked you.” Corcoran chuckled. “Pint-size, white hair. He’s our guy.”

“How’d you find him?”

“’Cause I’m a certified genius, that’s how. I figured Formes would be scanning through all those hours and hours of recordings sitting in a chair in his nice comfy home, wherever it was. I found the cell site that caught most of his calls and all the base stations passing the signal from apartment buildings nearby. His name jumped right out at me off the list of residents. Abracadabra.”

“So where is he?”

“Pioneer Square, kid. Pendleton Court Apartments. He must know his shit, ’cause I wouldn’t mind living at that address myself.”