Shadow Boys (2 page)

- CHAPTER ONE -

Dallas, Texas

Present-day

Springtime on the Grassy Knoll. The city’s only true tourist attraction.

The air was thick with pollen and the chatter of Japanese visitors.

I sat on the concrete steps at the top of the infamous hill, the Texas School Book Depository behind me, Reunion Tower off to my right.

My position offered a view of the sloping lawn that led to Elm Street, the strip of asphalt where President John F. Kennedy had met his demise a half century or so before.

A Japanese group stood between where I was and the street, clustered over a patch of Saint Augustine turf. They were snapping pictures, frantically pointing to several shiny objects on the ground.

No one was paying any attention to me, so I reached into the paper sack on my lap and grabbed another handful of empty rifle cartridges. I pitched them off to the right.

A little hobby of mine, tossing spent rounds on the Grassy Knoll. Gave the tourists something to talk about.

Amazing how much fun you can have with the simplest things.

My name is Jon Cantrell, and my mantra these days is to enjoy life whenever you can. Because you can never tell when the good times might end, a hard lesson I’d learned firsthand watching too many people die over the years.

A Latino man wearing a trim gray suit strolled down the sidewalk. He was headed toward Stemmons Freeway, following the route Kennedy’s motorcade took. When he reached the spot on Elm where Oswald’s first bullet had struck the president, he stopped and stared at the chalk marks on the road’s surface marking the location.

Then he looked up the Grassy Knoll and walked my way. As he moved, his jacket shifted, displaying a holstered gun on his belt opposite a gold shield.

He was a Dallas police officer, a deputy chief. Something of a public figure, for reasons having nothing much to do with his rank. He was also the reason I was sitting on the steps at the top of the Grassy Knoll.

A meeting, at his request, subject unknown.

I put the bag on the ground and waited.

He stopped in front of the steps and glanced inside my sack.

“So you’re the bullet guy,” he said. “You know that drives the tourism people nuts.”

Olive-skinned, maybe six feet tall, a trim 170. My age or thereabouts, midforties. He was good-looking in the way determined people are, bursting with energy and self-confidence, the type of man who attracts others by his personality as much as by his appearance.

“Everybody needs a hobby,” I said. “This is mine.”

He sat next to me, stared down the knoll at the Japanese group.

“I talked to some people on the force who knew you back in the day,” he said. “You come highly recommended.”

I shrugged. “I had my moments.”

Unfortunately, one too many of them were indictable.

Neither of us spoke for a few moments. The Japanese boarded a bus and were replaced by a group of Germans.

“There’s a problem that’s recently come to my attention.” He straightened his tie. “I think you’d be a good fit to handle it.”

The Germans noticed the empty cartridges. Lots of hand gestures and
achtung
-ing.

I didn’t reply. What service could someone like me provide a high-ranking police officer? An indiscretion that needed tidying up? Perhaps a bit of street justice for someone who had escaped the clutches of the legal system? Neither option appealed to me in the slightest.

He pulled an envelope from his pocket.

“I’m trying to locate a certain person. He’s gone missing.”

Two German men scampered up the hill, cameras in hand. They began taking pictures of their fellow tourists who were taking pictures of the empty cartridges I’d scattered earlier.

“My suggestion is you hire a private detective.” I looked at the deputy chief. “Or—here’s a thought—call the police.”

The two photogs began talking to each other in their native tongue. Loudly.

Why were the Germans always the most obnoxious tourists? Must be something in their DNA, like the need to start wars.

“I’d rather not get the department involved with this,” he said. “And most PIs, well, they’re desk jockeys. This situation requires someone with a certain amount of street savvy.”

I was an ex-Dallas police officer as well as a former federal agent. I had street savvy out the wazoo and the scars to prove it. But I didn’t want to work the streets anymore, or be involved with people like the deputy chief.

I didn’t say anything.

“Your background,” he said. “You know what doors to knock on. How hard to knock.”

In the distance, another bus stopped and disgorged a herd of tourists. This group was morbidly obese, so I figured they were good old-fashioned Americans.

“I’m not an investigator,” I said. “This is not my area of expertise.”

Neither of us spoke for a few moments. Instead we watched the tourists take pictures.

After a period of time, he said, “I wonder what motivates someone like you.”

I picked up my sack of shells.

“Can’t imagine it being money,” he said.

My employer was a law firm based in Washington, DC. They specialized in the legal issues private companies encountered when doing business with the federal government. My compensation package was generous.

“From what I hear,” he said, “you’re the best-paid janitor in town.”

I rolled my eyes but didn’t speak. The word “janitor” implied cleanup, which was such an unseemly term.

The law firm where I was employed needed certain situations handled in a discreet manner. The bulk of my work was to make sure property was returned to its rightful owner. This oftentimes required a delicate but firm hand. Feathers needed to become unruffled. Umbrages redressed. Inconveniences made less so, problems turned into opportunities.

“Oh, sorry.” The deputy chief chuckled. “You don’t like the term ‘janitor.’ ”

“No, I don’t.”

My business card read “Special Projects Facilitator and Collections Agent.”

That’s what I’m all about: facilitating and collecting. Thank goodness I don’t work at a sperm bank.

“Afraid I’m going to have to pass,” I said. “My company doesn’t like their people to moonlight.”

The Germans were getting yet more obnoxious. I resisted the urge to tell the loudest to shut his strudel hole.

“I talked to your boss. Theo. He’s willing to make an exception.” The deputy chief paused. “You know, in the interest of good relations with the local authorities.”

Subtext: if you don’t want to have your people hassled, let Jon Cantrell take this assignment.

I sighed. “Well, since you asked nicely, I guess my answer is yes.”

“Look at you.” He clapped his hands softly. “Making the right choice.”

“Tell me about your missing person.”

“He’s from West Dallas. Thirteen years old. Lives with his half-blind grandmother.”

“People disappear every day,” I said. “Maybe he ran away to join the circus.”

“He’s African American and autistic.”

I rubbed my eyes as the weight of another lost cause settled onto my shoulders.

“How long has he been gone?”

“About a week.”

“Odds are good that he’s dead.”

The deputy chief shrugged. “Then I need to know that he’s dead.”

“Why are you so interested in one kid from the wrong side of town?”

He didn’t speak for a few moments. The glint of self-confidence in his eyes had drifted away, replaced by a shadow of something else, a darkness that I was more familiar with than I cared to admit.

“I used to be a kid from the wrong side of town,” he said. “Maybe I’m trying to make sure the same mistakes don’t get made.”

The words were softly spoken but echoed loudly in the dark corners of the city’s history.

“His name is Tremont Washington.” He popped a mint in his mouth. “I believe you knew his father.”

The air in my lungs got hot, throat clenched. He’d saved the best for last.

Tremont’s father had been an undercover narcotics agent with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Ten years ago, he’d stepped in front of a drug dealer’s machete that had been swinging toward my neck. I lived; he didn’t.

“They told me his family was taken care of.” I shook my head. “Relocated to California.”

“They lied.” He handed me the envelope. “Here’s everything I have on him.”

I held the package at arm’s length. After a moment, I stuck it in my hip pocket.

He turned, started to leave, then stopped and said, “How’s Piper?”

The one person we currently had in common. My former lover. The deputy chief’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. Piper had set up the meeting. She’d obviously told him about my employment situation, given that he’d checked in with Theo.

I didn’t reply.

“Tell her I said hello.” He smiled. The expression had no warmth.

With that, Deputy Chief Raul Delgado walked away, threading his way through the tourists on the Grassy Knoll.

- CHAPTER TWO -

Captain Mason Burnett pondered his surroundings, Dallas City Hall’s green room, a well-appointed lounge behind the area where press briefings were held.

Leather sofas soft as butter. Mahogany-paneled walls. Coffee and bottled water on a side table. A fifth of Wild Turkey discreetly hidden in the corner in case someone needed a shot of courage before facing the media glare on the other side of the doors.

Taxpayer money at work.

The room was empty except for Mason, who was the commander of the SWAT team, and his boss, the chief of police.

The chief smiled at Mason but didn’t speak. It was the smile of an executioner right before the noose tightened.

The top cop in Dallas was an ingratiatingly insincere man with the political instincts of a medieval pope.

When the chief came after you, the knife always went into the exact center of your back, no chance to save yourself. Even if you could reach the handle and muster the will to go after the man, you had to take into account the fact that he was half black and half Asian, the equivalent of being born with bulletproof skin when it came to city politics.

Mason was a twenty-five-year veteran, one of the few Caucasians in the upper echelons of the force. He’d realized several years ago that he would never advance to the next level, assistant or deputy chief. He’d like to blame that on his ethnicity, but he’d come to understand that the next level required a certain degree of political skill, finesse that he did not possess or care to. This realization did not lessen the bubble of anger he felt at moments like these.

He served as head of the Field Services Division, a catchall department that handled special operations like the SWAT team, among other functions.

In normal times, no one got too close to Captain Mason Burnett or to his people, which was how he liked it.

In normal times, most people were afraid of Mason Burnett.

An aura of danger clung to him, something he cultivated.

But these were not normal times.

The crime rate in Dallas, which for the last decade had been on a steady march downward, had recently done the abnormal: it had risen.

This meant that all the affirmative-action gerrymandering and political machinations the chief could muster were for naught. More crime meant that the chief’s ass was on the line, and that fact didn’t bode well for those under him, especially a white guy who’d never really been a team player.

Mason stood, walked across the room, and opened a bottle of water.

The chief’s assistant, a lieutenant named Hopper, entered the room.

Hopper was in his early forties and average in every way. Pale skin, pale gray eyes, close-cropped hair that was neither blond nor brown nor gray, but a mix of the three. A trim six feet tall.

He held a whispered conversation with the chief and then approached Mason.

The chief had an interesting management style. He never talked with those below him in the command structure, his deputy chiefs or captains. Not in person or on the phone, or via e-mail. Not a word.

He used one of his assistants, usually Hopper, to communicate. He told them what to say and how to say it.

Lieutenant Hopper stopped in front of Mason, scanned his outfit, and smirked.

Mason was not dressed in a regulation uniform. He wore navy-blue fatigues, black combat boots, and a custom Colt .45 semiautomatic pistol on one hip. No one ever said anything about his clothes, however. Part of the aura. You did not jack with Mason Burnett—though Hopper was almost doing so with that smirk.

“The chief has a message,” Hopper said.

“Yeah?” Mason took a drink of water. “And what would that be?”

“Don’t fuck up.” Hopper turned and left the green room.

The mayor and the chief stood as far away from the podium as possible, a wide gulf between them and Mason. Several other members of the command structure—deputy chiefs, captains, a handful of ranking sergeants—stood along one wall.

Rule one of city politics: stay as distant as possible from potential train wrecks.

Hopper hovered a few feet behind the chief, his pale gray eyes never leaving Mason’s face. The man never seemed to blink.

The press conference had been scheduled for the lunch hour, a move that indicated they didn’t want a high attendance but at the same time they didn’t want to bury the briefing on a Friday afternoon.

If the plan tanked, the powers that be weren’t on the hook for making a big deal about it. They’d point to the sparsely attended press conference, making sure everybody focused on Mason Burnett. Then, they’d fire him.

There were maybe ten reporters present, about half of them Mexican, reflecting the makeup of the city—an unfortunate new reality, in Mason’s mind.

“Hello, everybody.” Mason adjusted the microphone upward.

He was a tall man in his midforties. Six-three, barrel-chested, muscular. His blond hair was close-cropped, slowly going gray.

“Thank you all for coming out today.” He smiled at the assembled people.

No response. One of the print guys was eating a hot dog. He spilled some mustard on his shirt.

Mason made it quick. He talked about the spike in offenses, how even though everyone thought it was just a momentary blip, the DPD was committed to lowering the rate of violent crime for the safety of the citizens. He told them about the new program: highly visible SWAT officers patrolling certain neighborhoods in an effort to dissuade violent crime.

He did not mention that the idea was not his, but a scheme foisted upon him by the chief, a man who knew about as much about actual police work as a stripper did about particle physics.

He did not dwell on the fact that SWAT officers were often viewed as soldiers in cop clothes and this initiative would effectively militarize the streets of Dallas.

Mason paused in his delivery, glanced at the mayor and the chief. The chief made a gesture like a gun cocking, aimed at Mason—not an image of support.

Mason wrapped up the presentation, asking if there were any questions.

After a brief Q and A, the press conference broke up.

The chief nodded once and left.

The reporters turned their cameras off, put notepads away.

In the back of the room sat an African American man in his early twenties, not part of the official press contingent. He wore a red beret and camo fatigues, the sleeves ripped off the jacket.

He raised his hand.

“Yes?” Mason flicked off the microphone.

“You gonna patrol in West Dallas?” the man asked.

Mason left the podium and sauntered toward the young guy in the red beret.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t catch what organization you’re with.”

The man crossed his arms, tried to look tough. “I represent the People’s Blog of Southern Dallas County.”

Mason put a foot on the chair in front of the man, leaned an elbow on his knee, and looked down at the representative of the People’s Blog. The effect was intimidating. He’d practiced the stance to get it just right.

“What was your question again, son?”

“Your fascist troops.” The man raised his voice. “Are you going to occupy territory south of the Trinity River?”

Mason shook his head, spoke softly. “I’m not at liberty to discuss operational matters at this point.”

One of the TV reporters glanced at them, obviously trying to see if a shouting match might erupt that would make his trip to city hall worth the trouble. Hopper glided over and engaged the reporter in conversation, glad-handing him toward the exit.

Neither Mason nor the man in the red beret spoke. They stared at each other until the TV reporter left.

When the room was empty, the man said, “Then maybe you can tell me how come the police don’t investigate missing persons cases.”

Mason kept his expression blank.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said. “Could you be more specific?”

“The readers of my blog, they’d like to know what the police are doing to locate a certain missing person.” The man paused. “He disappeared a week ago.”

Mason forced himself to ask the question. He already knew the answer.

“This missing person. What’s his—uh, or her—name?”

“Tremont,” the man in the red beret said. “His name is Tremont Washington.”