Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

table and counted three minutes. By then, the song had ended. Which produced a moment of silence before the next one started. In that silence I heard voices from the karaoke room. Not many. Two people speaking in normal tones. I got up from under the table and put my jacket on. The music started back up, then a man’s voice singing. I walked to the door and pushed it open.

A large man was on the stage reading lyrics from a flat screen on the wall. He was middle-aged and balding, and swaying drunkenly in front of the neon wok. In the foreground a man and a woman stood with their backs to me. The woman was blonde, slim, and wore a blue dress. The man wore a plaid flannel shirt and had a hand at the small of the woman’s back making tiny circles. He was speaking into her ear. The guy on the stage stopped singing and stared at me. I noticed another woman, a tall and thin brunette sitting on the stage and staring into a phone in her hand. She didn’t notice anything.

The two in front turned around.

Not Chapman. The woman in blue had Asian features and wore heavy eyeliner to match the dress. The blonde hair was a wig.

I said, “Sorry, wrong door.”

I turned right and took three steps through the karaoke room to the corridor. The stairwell was up ahead and to my left. The guy with the pointy ears was no longer there. I took the stairs two at a time up to the restaurant.

Thirty-Seven

The energy had gone up a couple of gears in the restaurant. Someone had changed the music. Before, it had been a generic playlist with moaning strings. Now there was rhythm. A thumping close to that of the human heart, but slightly faster. The alcohol had helped take it up a notch. June was laughing with her friends. Faces were red. Good times.

June noticed me a few seconds after I stepped into the main room. As if she had been waiting for me. Which she had, because she’d seen Chapman and couldn’t wait to tell me about it. She came scampering across the room to me, holding a long-necked bottle of Coors in one hand. The other clutched at my arm.

“I saw her. Tall blonde with pale skin. She looks like a goddamned model. Is that the one?”

“More than likely.”

June had her eyes wide. She understood the importance of this black swan event. I didn’t know if it was important to her because of Chapman’s looks, or the fact that she’d been in special company. June said, “Well, she left a couple of minutes ago with Mister Lawrence and a bunch of other guys. Did you see him?”

“I must have been in the bathroom.”

June stepped back and smiled at me. She was done with that conversation. She twirled happily. “It’s my birthday.”

I said, “Have a good one, June.” And walked out of the restaurant.

Out front of the Golden Lights Wok, it was once again Port Morris, Alaska. The street was empty, damp, and dark and getting chilly. I looked across at Dave’s Ford. It was still there, and still faded red. But I didn’t see Dave. No silhouette in the car. The driver’s side window was down. Nothing in there but empty space and hardware, like the steering wheel and the rear-view mirror. I stepped across the road. Four paces and I was looking in. Nobody in the driver’s seat. But the passenger door was open and a body was spilled onto the sidewalk.

I went around the car. It was Dave. I could tell by his endomorphic shape and by his brown leather jacket. I crouched down beside him and observed. Dave’s legs were inside the car, but the rest of him had fallen out. His face was turned to the ground. I could see him breathing, so Dave was alive. No blood pooling under his head. So far so good. I stepped away and grabbed him by the armpits. Then I tugged him away, pulling his legs out of the car. I turned him over so that he was laid out on his back. The face was the issue. Broken nose and a nasty bruise on the side of his forehead. When Dave’s nose had been busted, a jet of blood had sluiced out over his mouth and onto his shirt. I touched the blood on his lip. By now it was congealing.

I played out the scene. Someone had punched him in the face through the driver’s side window. Another guy had dragged him out from the passenger side door. Then the first guy had walloped him again on the head, knocking him out. The Mister Lawrence people had not enjoyed Dave’s amateur surveillance operation.

I slapped his cheek.

Dave mumbled something. I gave him a minute and he went back into a stupor. I slapped again, almost hard enough to break something, but not quite.

Dave’s eyes opened wide. He was in pain. “What the fuck.” The eyes focused, pinwheel pupils expanding like twin apertures on a mechanical camera. “Keeler.”

I said, “How many?” He was confused. “How many guys?”

Dave rubbed his head. “I feel terrible.”

“I bet you do. How many guys?”

Dave rolled onto his side and drew his legs up so that he was sitting on the curb, feet under the car. He said, “Two of them. They saw me. Then one of them came over and asked me to roll down the window. When I did, he just punched me in the face. I didn’t see the second guy. He came from behind me and pulled me out. Then I don’t know. Just this, now.”

“You’re alright. Just a broken nose.” I cocked my head and examined his nose. It was crooked, turning to the left at the tip. I figured I’d save him getting gouged by private hospital expenses. “Hold still a second.” I reached over and grasped his nose in my fist. Like holding onto a doorknob.