Echo Of An Ex

By David Machado

J.J. McCrae is heartbroken. Though he comes from one of the most deadly families in America it was not enough to save his first great love. Another highly skilled, and infinitely more ruthless man took his wife, and brutally murdered her on a cold mountain pass. That man wanted revenge. He got it. It wasn't enough.

McCrae, along with the help of his brothers began a worldwide search for the killer. The man hid in the shadowy recesses of the Earth in Asia, Africa, South America and the Near East. The man proved elusive.

Years pass, and now J.J. is settled in Portland, Oregon, struggling to get on with his life. He has used his very specialized set of skills as a former operator in the army's Delta Force to open up a small, two man detective agency with his brother, a former member of SEAL Team Six.

But the heart heals slowly. The past yet echoes in his life. He remembers her blue eyes, her blond hair, that English accent. And that man wasn't done. He'd demonstrated even more patience than when he'd been the sniper in J.J.'s counterterrorist troop. He still blames J.J. for what happened during their last operation. And he was out to get him.

Again.

The wait is over.

The time has come.

Proper sight picture, make adjustments, inhale-hold it, and shoot between heart beats...

He takes the shot. It echoes...like the past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Machado
• Release date: Dec 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988289703

David Machado

David Machado is a 911 operator/police dispatcher with over seventeen (17) years of experience in Billings, Montana, King County (Seattle), Washington, and Clark County (Vancouver), Washington. He is also a pastor of a non-denominational Christian church in Portland, Oregon. He lives with his dog Elvis and his son Elias.

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ECHO OF AN EX

PARAKLETOS PRESS

Gresham, Oregon

ECHO OF AN EX

_____________________

David Machado

PUBLISHED BY PARAKLETOS PRESS, LLC

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by David Machado

ISBN 978-0-9882897-0-3

All Rights Reserved

Published by Parakletos Press at Smashwords

Authors Note

This is a work of commercial fiction, indeed a crime novel. The characters herein often find themselves walking in a world of darkness; of depravity and deplorable events, and people. As a 911 operator for over seventeen years, it is a place I am intimately familiar with. Sometimes you take the calls; sometimes the calls take you. It is impossible to accurately portray such a place without a little scum sticking to the bottom of one’s shoe. Verisimilitude demands it. Ergo, for the Christian ear, I caution you. Though the discerning reader will find allegory, I did not write this book to preach, but to entertain, both myself, and the wonderful stranger willing to part with a little of their hard earned money for a glimpse into the lives of two brothers, former SpecWarriors, now private detectives, who love each other deeply, regardless of their religion, or lack thereof.

David Machado

Gresham, Oregon

For my exes, real and imagined.

Sometimes you faintly echo.

Acknowledgements

First of all, I’d like to give my thanks and heartfelt gratitude to God, only unto Him be the praise, honor and glory for ever and ever! Everything got started in Him and finds its purpose in Him. Amen! After the Lord, I’d like to thank the many innominate heroes that keep this great nation safe, both here and abroad, specifically those in combatant roles, and police officers. I write this to honor you in some small way. I found the following books instrumental in breathing life into the McCraes. I heartily encourage you to enjoy the following books.

The Holy Bible; Delta America’s Elite Counterterrorist Force by Terry Griswold and D.M. Giangreco; To be a US Marine by S.F. Tomajczyk; To be a US Army Ranger by Russ Bryant; Marine Force Recon by Fred J. Pushies; US Army Ranger 1983-2002 Sua Sponte-of their own accord by Mir Bahmanyar; To Be a US Navy SEAL by Cliff Hollenback and Dick Couch; To Be a Paratrooper by Gregory Mast and Hans Halberstadt; To Be a Military Sniper by Gregory Mast and Hans Halberstadt; 75th Rangers by Russ and Susan Bryant, Screaming Eagles 101st Airborne Division by Russ and Susan Bryant, USMC by Russ Bryant and W. David Perks; To Be a US Army Green Beret by Colonel Gerald Schumacher United States Army Special Forces (Ret.); US Navy Seals by Mir Bahmanyar; Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan by Leigh Neville; US Army Special Forces 1952-1984 by Gordon L. Rottman; US Counter-Terrorist Forces by Fred J. Pushies, Terry Griswold, D.M. Giangreco, and S.F. Tomajczyk; US Special Forces Airborne Rangers, Delta & US Navy Seals by Alam M. & Frieda W. Landau, Terry Griswold & D.M. Giangreco, Hans Halberstadt; US Navy Seals in Action by Hans Halberstadt; Weapons of the US Army Rangers by Russ & Susan Bryant; The Complete Book of US Special Operations Forces by Fred J. Pushies; Weapons of the Modern Marines by Michael Green and Greg Stewart; Special OPS America’s Elite Forces in 21st Century Combat by Fred J. Pushies; Secret Operations of the SAS By Mike Ryan; The Commandos The Inside Story of America’s Secret Soldiers by Douglas C. Waller; Delta Force The Army’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit by Col. Charlie A. Beckwith (Ret.); and Inside Delta Force by Eric L. Haney Command Sgt. Major, USA (Ret.).

I’d also like to thank former LAPD officers, (now Vancouver, Washington, police officers) Illia Botvinnik and Gerardo Gutierrez, for sharing a little LAPDese and stories. You’re The belly button of the world, thanks, guys.

And lastly, I’d like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, only unto Him be the praise, honor and glory for ever and ever! Jesus, I love You and I’d be lost without You.

Until then,

David Machado, the great state of Oregon.

Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life.

--Proverbs 4:23

ECHO OF AN EX

The Last Kiss

24 May, 2002

8 Rose Court, Venice Beach, California

She wasn’t marred by age, nor gravity, neither childbearing. She was flawless.

And she was leaving.

Don’t go. Please don’t go, I cried.

I bathed the back of her tanned neck with my salty tears. Something didn’t feel right. It felt like this was the last goodbye. The last kiss.

In the army I learned to trust my instincts, my gut, the hairs that stand up on the back of one’s neck. It kept me alive in battle.

There’s something about a woman that is like war. And yet, this woman, was like love and not war.

I begged her not to leave, but leave she did. She intended to travel across the Nation to visit some friends near Fort Bragg, where I had been stationed at one time in the Special Forces. A friend of hers had graduated from the University of North Carolina, which is about ninety minutes from Bragg. My wife, Marvena Ravenwood, was born in London, England, and hadn’t seen much of America. She wanted to drive across the Nation from our home in Venice Beach and take in the vastness of it. Then she’d visit and fly back.

Oh, Love! I’ll only be gone a little while.

Marvena reassured me and hugged me tight. I could feel her warmth, the softness of her skin, the smell of Jasmine in her hair, and the fragrance of rose petals on her neck. The love of my life kissed me softly. She tasted sweet, of wine.

I kissed my wife again. She took my hand and led me into our bedroom. The smell and sounds of the Pacific noisily at work met us in that place, through the open balcony. Marvena had set out dozens of candles and we were softly lit. She sat me down on our bed. She stood in front of me. My wife faced away and slowly began to shed her skintight Lawman jeans, the kind with a metal tag. She knew I loved to see her dress like an American for me. She was looking directly in my eyes in the dresser mirror. I my eyes, Marvena saw that I was enraptured. This was to be her going away present.

Unable to resist any longer, I reached out and felt her firm flesh in my rough hands. Callipygian. It was as though Michelangelo had sculpted her backside out of denim and muscle. She flicked her blond mane from side to side, turned, and straddled me. We made love. Hard. It was both furious and sensual.

Afterward, I dozed.

My wife kissed the glass in our bedroom mirror, wrote me a little love note, showered, and removed herself in our red BMW M3.

Later, I awoke to the pleasant soupcon of our last love, and burning candles. I blew out the candles, save one--which I kept lit for her, that her fragrance might long endure.

<><><>

I loved Marvena Ravenwood more than life itself. I suspect that’s why he took her from me, instead of taking me, from her. Daniel Raymond Runningbuck knew Marvena was my first great love. Everyone knows broken hearts are heavier than the dead.

Daniel Runningbuck waited until Marvena was far from my personal protection before taking her. It didn’t go easy for her. He abducted her from a rest stop, defiled her, and plunged her car down a ravine into the bottom of Look Out Pass, on the border between Idaho and Montana. She’d stopped to sketch; ink and blood were found on her fingers. Daniel took her from me and I hated him for it. He even took her gold cross from her corpse as a souvenir. It was never found.

How did I know it was him? Death card, his mercenary death card. Aces and eights. In neat penmanship Daniel Runningbuck had written All is fair… I’m sure he would have preferred Marvena to write it, but she would never have done such a thing. According to the autopsy report, I’m sure that refusal cost her dearly. All her fingers were broken, and some severed. Runningbuck still blamed me for what happened in Africa.

His death card was void of prints, of course. It was logged into evidence as Marvena’s murder was investigated, but the case grew as cold as the pass itself, and was finally shelved.

My brother Matthew Michael and I tried to find Runningbuck through our own resources but couldn’t, not even with the considerable clout and deep reach of the Ravenwood family.

After the army, Daniel Runningbuck worked in the dark places of the world. Places like Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Somalia, parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He loved to travel. Villagers all over the world feared Aces and Eights. Runningbuck would ask them if they wanted a smoke. If they said yes, he’d hack off their arms and place his death card in one severed hand and a lit cigarette in their other. He would hold up the cigarette to their lips, as they sat, or laid in shock and blood. Got off on it. If the victim was lucky, he’d only hack off one arm and then cauterize them, which might give them a little life. Then he’d take the other arm, cauterize that, and send them away. If they survived they became a messenger of death.

Runningbuck became an agent of slaughter. He performed pain for profit, murder for money, killing for kicks. But revenge was gratis and I was stained on his mind. The man may have been able to get me. He chose not to.

Daniel Raymond Runningbuck was a Cheyenne brave. He was the best stalker and sign cutter that I’d ever seen. Better than me; even better than my brother Matthew, which says a lot. During childhood in Four Crows, Montana, the McCrae boys had all been trained to stalk game. We boys benefited from our father, John, a Vietnam veteran. But Runningbuck? He benefited from the entire Cheyenne tribe. They have been hunting and tracking for thousands of years and he was the product of that experience. Daniel Runningbuck chose not to tear at my flesh.

He hurt me much deeper than that. He tore out my heart.

PART ONE

________________

THE VOICE

Let the enemy come till he’s almost close enough to touch. Then let him have it and jump out and finish him with your hatchet.

--Robert Rogers, 1759, 75th Ranger Regiment Standing Orders, Number 19

1

Early May 2006

Portland, Oregon

I'm field stripping my Wilson .45 with my eyes closed, hanging upside down in a filthy alley, and boy did my crotch hurt. I sure hope no one can see me. Embarrassing. I had been practicing Parkour and miscalculated my jump from the roof of the Towne Storage building to the lower fire escape of an adjacent building. When I landed, my legs had banged together fiercely, racking my groin. Pain had caused me to black out and fall. So, there I was, hanging upside down three stories above the alley floor, blood rushing to my head, and an intense, shooting pain in my crotch. Hurts. Some hotshot detective I am.

When I had regained consciousness I momentarily thought I was still in the Unit. In the army I was not unfamiliar waking up with blood on my face.

I need to practice Parkour more diligently. Fortunately, I’d tethered myself to roof of our office building in case I didn't make the jump. When I came to, I decided to use it as a training opportunity, thus the field strip. I can do it blindfolded easily, but I never tried it hanging upside down. Not even Delta Force trained me to do it that way. Dropped the slide already. I blamed it on my dual shoulder holsters and my mother's gold crucifix hanging in my face.

I cleared my head and pulled my self up along the tether to the fire escape. I glanced at my watch and calculated how long I’d been out. Crap. I’m going to be late and I hate being late. But my appointment will have to wait. I need to field check myself before driving. I had also crashed into the side of our brownstone on the tether and my head was bleeding a little. I did a cursory examination of my stones before checking my noggin. Of course.

Hello boys. You’ll live. Have a gud’ ‘un, I said sheepishly, zipping up my pants and glancing around the dark to make sure I was alone.

My head and face are a little worse for wear, but I’d be fine. At one time in my life I was a Special Forces medic. I am not unfamiliar with wounds. My pride was hurt more than anything else.

J.J., you’ll stick that landing one day. But for now ruck up and move out, I said, reassuring myself.

I ran down the fire escape to the alley below. The red neon blinking Wentworth Chevy sign illuminated my way. I made my way to a company truck, booted up a CD, and was off.

I picked up a homeless older gal that reminds me of my mom just as Diana Krall finished mournfully singing I’m Thru with Love. I convinced the homeless gal to store her shopping cart and come with me. Rumor has it that she was a former cop and drank away her career. Now she shuffles along the streets of southeast Portland, an invisible lady, night after night. But she is not unfamiliar with danger and risk. So, I like to use her on occasion and pay her well for her time. She always smiles when she sees me and that warms my soul. Her laugh lines are hard and deep. She likes me and she knows that I’ll give her a c-note, put her up for a night, and pay a month’s storage for her treasures that keep her out of homeless shelters. Stubborn.

She shuffles along until she sees me drive up in a beat up old blue 1988 Ford F-250. Mom smiles and her jowls stretch in a grin. She waves me over and I see layer after layer of rotting clothing shake.

Where we off to, my boy?

10804. That was enough for her. She knew we were going to a shady housing project on SE Bush Street. She’d gone with me before. She’d probably even worked there years ago.

Ah. How’s Marlowe? she asked.

She’s fine. Thanks for asking, I answered.

Marlowe is my pet pocket Beagle. Sometimes I bring her along with me, but not tonight. Mom grunted and said nothing further. Lots of smiles but not much talking with this one. I didn’t mind. She smelled of booze and worse. And I couldn’t roll down the window.

I explained the job and then we drove in the silence of the night, save for

Debussy’s Clair de lune playing soulfully soft. Mom didn’t bother to ask about my cat, Mr. Crazy Buttons; he’s mean, so most people don’t.

As we got close, Mom and I switched seats; she’s sober enough. Mom pulled into the next door neighbor’s driveway at my direction, backed out, and then parked in the correct drive. I want the neighbors to know we are there. I figure they may call 911 if there’s any shooting.Then again, in this neighborhood, gun shots may just be another night sound. Like crickets.

Through the window I saw my friend May, my church’s janitor. She is a razor thin Baptist woman. May’s older with mannishly short dirty blond hair. She is frail looking and wrinkled from almost constant smoking. She is very nice, generous, and compassionate. She loves her son Earl and her daughter in law Hayden, but realizes they need help, and lots of it. She has asked me to intervene and here am I.

May knows very little about where I have been, what I have done. I don’t share that side of myself with many people. They probably wouldn’t understand anyway.

May’s son Earl Phillips is a leach, a real taker. He knows two things, give and give. Earl is a minor player in the 108 Easy Rollers, a small white gang of Meth heads and street thugs. Earl had tried to stop chasing Meth, and with some success, but over the last month he had gone south, and thus my third trip out here this month. May said he recently scored some dope, a handgun, and went off on a binge.

His mother didn’t know what kind of firearm it was, or where he got it, only that he likes to keep it in his waistband. Lot of guys think the gun makes the man. It doesn’t. He has taken to calling himself Glower, claiming that he has fired his gun so many times that it glowed red. Now of course that’s not going to happen with a pistol, but who ever said nicknames have a basis in reality?

I left Mom my cell phone but don’t trust her to call for help if there‘s any trouble. Usually with a warm place to doze, she’ll take a snort from her silver plated flask, about the only classy thing she owns, and nod off.

I greeted my friend outside her apartment with a warm smile and she gave me an even warmer embrace, which temporarily warded off the chilly Northwest night.

Joshua, your face, May said.

It’s nothing. Really, I answered smiling.

She left it alone, must be used to the men in her life coming home injured. We talked briefly while waiting for Earl to return. I ask about Hayden, who is pregnant, and due to deliver soon.

May paused. She’s doing okay. She’s had …an incident.

Perplexing.

What happened? I ask. I looked directly into her eyes, study her face, and wait. I am willing to wait as long as it takes for her to honestly answer. After a season, she does.

Earl.

One word is all she needed to say. I rose and quietly went to Hayden’s room. I soundlessly cracked the door and saw beautiful, blond haired Hayden Phillips. She was barely nineteen years old and has the round face of a sleeping angel. I noticed her regular breathing. I noticed her round belly. I saw the teddy bear she clutches in the crook of her arm. And of course, I saw the cast on that arm. I saw that Earl even had the audacity to sign it.

I grew hot. I was close to rage. And I prayed. And I paused. And I thought. And the rage passed. I put it away in a compartment of my soul. But I know it won’t take much to open that Pandora’s Box of rage.

Earl, I’ve never even seen the weasel. Every time I made an appointment to talk to him, he broke it, or just blew me off. I’ve only seen him in pictures. Hayden’s arm influenced me to alter my strategy for the night. It’s a little unconventional and May raised her eyebrows as I explained how I want to play it. She was willing to go along. I am going to put the fear of God in Earl; he’s about to come to Jesus. Tough love.

About an hour passed and I heard a car approach and stop. Lights shone in the windows and grown men loudly laughed in an intoxicated stupor. I heard them cracking wise and then they depart into the Portland night. Save one.

Earl barged in, unaware or uncaring of the hour. He was clad in a dark brown Donnie Brasco type leather jacket. Expensive. But underneath he wore a grungy white wife-beater, blue jeans, and tan work boots. I saw the bulge in his waistband and the arrogant look that accompanied it. Earl is cocky, disrespectful, and simple.

May called out. There’s chicken in the fridge! Hayden made it for you.

Seeing me, Earl ignored her, and walked into the adjacent kitchen. I rose from the orange upholstered ‘70s furniture and approached with my hands in my pockets and a disarming smile. Ah, shucks.

Hello, Earl. My name is Joshua Joseph McCrae. I’m a friend of Hayden’s and your mother’s from Calvary Hill Church. I’ve talked to you briefly on the phone. I stretched out my hand with my Car Salesman smile, like I’ve just won the lottery meetin’ this cretin. Previously, my handshake would have been genuine, now it’s part of the plan. J.J. McCrae--Mr. Charming Disarming. Think nothing at all of me. There’s talk of making me an usher, I exaggerated, smiling.

Earl gave me the stink eye and opened the ice box, forgoing the prepared dinner, and taking out some cold meat and mayo. He began making a cold meat sandwich, ignoring me. He didn’t bother to turn on any lights to work; a little spilled in from the adjacent living room. Perhaps he preferred being in darkness, perhaps cold meat sandwiches prepped better in the dark, perhaps he just didn’t care. He went on about making his sandwich as though I wasn’t even there.

I pressed him. Your Mom asked me over, said you’d be willing to meet me at 2:30, after the bars closed. I waited. Do you have a moment?

I leaned in closer to him, still giving him the Car Salesman. I’m a handsome guy, even with a little dried blood in my blond hair. My brother sometimes teases that I’m a pretty boy. I stand six feet, weigh two hundred and three pounds, and posses the athleticism befitting a former Delta Force operator. I have tight ropy, but not bulgy muscles. Of course, with my brown, horsehide A-2 leather jacket, Frankie Says Relax T-shirt, and jeans, Earl can’t see them. I left my sable colored fedora on the couch with May as there was no hat rack; sadly you don’t find them much these days. My sandy blond hair is suffering from hat hair as well as the blood.

Earl took a long look, sizing me up, and then let his Donnie Brasco fall open to reveal his supposed ace in the hole. It’s an old beat up .38 special. Something that would have been issued to the police, back in the seventies. Earl said nothing and walked into the living room.

I pressed him again as he passed, putting my hand on his shoulder and then gripping. Firmly. He felt it and winced. I whirled him around to face me.

Well, at least let me have a bite since I had to wait so long, I said.

Without waiting for permission, I grabbed his cold meat sandwich and took a huge bite out of it.

Open mouthed, I chewed and said, Thank you.

I hit him the Car Salesman again.

He looked at the bite mark on the cheap white bread. Then he looked at me and said, Boy that was a real stupid thing to do.

I smelled the booze and cheap Brut aftershave as I chewed and waited for more.

Momma has talked good about you. Said some real nice things. Hayden, too. For their sakes, I’ll let you leave. Now git.

Did I forget to mention Earl is from Bastrop County, Texas? Not much for conversation, nor apparently good English in Bastrop.

He took a bite from his cold meat sandwich, careful not to bite where I had. He kept one hand on his belt near the cheap .38 the whole time. He thinks I’m just some idiot and this is the Old West. Just some Jesus freak with a lost message. He smiled back at me. Earl figured himself a killer.

But I know I am. He's a minnow in a bowl of piranhas. He is a twilight surfer above a circling tiger shark. And he doesn’t know his blood is in the water. Earl was in more danger than a buffet on a dieter’s Cheat Day. But I tried to reason with him, one last time.

"Earl, you don’t know me. You don’t what I’ve done, nor am capable of. You may just see me as some church dude. Indeed, I am a man of peace, but what I also am, is a man of war. Even now my brother Matthew, a Marine Corps sniper, is taking a bead on your head. No, he won’t do something foolish like let you see a laser beam on your chest, like in some movie. He won’t do anything rash unless you do. But I tell you, the man is the original point and click." I found the box of rage cracking open. I thought of the sleeping angel in the next room. I clinched my teeth and said, Change your life.

I didn’t feel bad lying to him about my brother. Yes, my brother, Matthew Michael McCrae, is a capable former Marine Force Recon Scout/Sniper. But we’re Scotch-Irish and he was off traveling the old country, not out on overwatch. Then again, he is Matthew, perhaps he was outside.

Earl got anxious, and began to lick his lips and think. I could see him processing. After a moment he just got angry, scoffs, and worked on another bite.

I was officially annoyed. Parley time is over.

Got a little something on your mustache, I said, smiling again.

He used his right hand to brush off what he thought was there. Now I confirmed he's right handed. I pressed him. One last time.

About the arm.

Earl’s eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed, his nose wrinkled and his face sneered. He finally went for the cheap .38. He moved his hand from his face to his waistband, but it’s already over. He won’t listen to reason. Now he’ll face violence of action. I let him reach for the revolver for the benefit of his mother. But I didn’t let him touch it. I can’t have him accidentally shooting Hayden or May.

I easily grabbed his gun hand with my right hand and I violently hit him in the throat with my left. I allowed his hands go up to his throat as I disarmed him. I quickly strike him in the solar plexus and I pushed him back down onto the orange upholstered couch. He clutched his throat and wheezed, tears in his eyes. I unloaded the shells and toss them at him. Then I threw the empty gun on an adjacent love seat near my fedora. I made another move as though I was going to strike him again and hit him in the neck with a tiny dart.

In about three seconds, I’m going to turn your world upside down, I told him.

Earl was still clutching his neck when it hits. I began to describe what is going to happen. I tell him it’s a little something I picked up in the Orient.

You are going to experience something out of an Asian nightmare. And it's going to hurt.

He began to feel it. His eyes went wide like those of a baby seal in the gaping jaws of a white shark. He clutched his throat, fell from the couch, and started to gurgle. He knocked over a lamp, causing more darkness. A thin ray of light illuminated the remains of his cold meat sandwich. Cold meat sandwich on the shag carpet at four in the morning. Earl was choking and gurgling. His mom was worried, so was he.

Now he can't breathe at all. His eyes widened, if possible. To alleviate some of May’s fears, I walked him through it. For her sake, not his.

In about ten seconds you are going to feel an incredible burning sensation all over your body, like you have been poisoned.

Which is what I had done. I had hidden a tiny dart between the second and third fingers nearest my thumb. The dart is almost imperceptible and unvaryingly gets knocked out of place by the victim clutching their throat. To an on looker it looks like one has feigned a blow, or missed, or perhaps some Ninjitsu when they see the effects. It was just practice, skill and knowledge. But I don't tell him that.

It's going to feel like you’re being dipped into gelatinous hot oil, I said.

May looked at me but spoke not. She looked at her suffering son. Mother's care even when their children go astray.

He needs this though, I thought. She had told me a little about Earl. As a little child no one had taught him to honor and obey his parents; his father had run off. He didn't regard his teachers either. Earl ignored all his positive influences. Now he's a doped up criminal, a minor common street thug. If little children aren’t disciplined and don't learn to respect their parents there will come a time when there is no hope for them. They're going to end up behind bars, in the grave or both.

I continued to walk Earl through the process of the poison. I told him he is going to be in indescribable pain about now, and he starts to jerk and convulse, even as he clutched his throat. I told him most people scream so he is doing better than most, which is not true. Most people can't say a word. They writhe, they convulse, they pass out, or if the dose is higher, they die of, apparent heart failure.

Earl’s dose was far from lethal. It won't kill him but for a few minutes he'll wish he were dead. I saw his soft belly writhe in excruciating agony under his dirty wife beater. He has lost his water now.

I told him he is going to listen to his mother, to his wife, that he needs to be a man. I inform him that if he doesn't, Matthew and I will be back. And I tell him if he ever touches Hayden again I’d be back alone. No witnesses.

I felt a little guilty about lying to him about picking up the skill in the Orient. I didn’t, Matthew did. He'd taught it to me. Matthew called it Seika, Japanese for sacred fire. My brother likes things of the Japanese and often insists on Japanese radio code names when operating together.

Matthew and had I perfected the dosage from lethal to Earl's present state of affairs. Initially he’d learned its effects on animals, but much later, we took turns being the lucky guinea pig. When it was my turn he’d hit me with a dart, and I'd try to count off two minutes, but couldn't concentrate due to the pain. Hurts. Matthew Michael McCrae can take it without soiling himself. But I've never known any other man able to.

A moment later the effects ended. As Earl's body relaxed he lost his bowels.

Earl Phillips began to listen that day. Earl Phillips began to take heed. Earl Phillips began to act like a man.

Sorry about this mess, I said to May.

She smiles. It’s ok. I reckon he needed it, she said thinking I was talking only about Earl’s soiled britches. And thank you, she added. I don’t know what’s got into that boy recently. For a spell he seemed to want to change, was even talking some of the Good Book to him, but then this last month it’s like Lucifer his-self has been part of his posse. Meth, she said, with finality.

I ran water and helped Earl into a bath. Then I took a final peek at Hayden, gave her an imperceptible kiss on the forehead, and let myself out as May bathed her incapacitated son. Mothers.

Before leaving, I retrieved the old .38 and my sable colored Herbert Johnson fedora. I’d turn the gun over to a friend I know at PPB.

I took a moment in the dark of the porch to breathe in deeply and ruminate as I looked around. Even in this rundown housing development in south east Portland, for some reason, God had been gracious to Earl and had given him a wife and a family. The Lord was using me to help patch it together just a couple of weeks before the anniversary of the day I lost my own wife.

In the distance I could smell rose petals and wine. The scents reminded me of my ex-wife, Marvena, and sometimes, like today, I missed her. I wept. Broken hearts are excruciating and as lethal as cancer. I think I went a little crazy after my wife was gone. In fact, I know I did. I’ll never forget her. She is the standard by which I judge women.

Slowly I compartmentalized my feelings and walked to the beat up Ford. I knocked on the window. Hard. Even so, Mom could barely hear me through the bullet resistant glass. She had fallen fast asleep as I suspected. I smiled at her sleeping frame; I didn’t mind. The silver flask was on her belly. When I roused her, she let me in and I asked if she felt safe. Mom grinned, rapped her knuckles against the thick glass and opened the jockey box revealing an assortment of handguns, cartridges, and knives. Think Matt may have even had a grenade in there.

Yes, Joshua, you always take very good care of me! Let’s hit IHOP shall we? Giving me excited. Giving me toothless love.

I was tired and still a little emotional about the coming anniversary of my wife’s death but I managed a grin for Mom. Anything for you, darlin’.

My spirits were a little refreshed. I smiled at her with my toothy grin as we drove off. They are going to love us at IHOP, I thought.

As we drove away, Marvena crept back into my mind, she does that.

Maybe that's why I didn't see the shadow slowly climb out of the neighbor’s bushes in a burlap Ghillie suit that even included a crushed up package of Marlboros, a torn condom wrapper, and some cigarette butts, along with the usual leaves, plants, and bushes. And I couldn't possibly see the smile under the Ghillie. Silly Joshua, traps are for kids.

2

Late afternoon,

Portland, Oregon

I slept a little after dropping off Mom at a Motel 6 on SE Powell. When I awoke I checked the voice mail on my cellular phone. Several messages simply contained sounds of loud bar noises; music, clinking glasses and something that almost sounded like a Scottish Elvis, but I couldn’t be sure. Then I heard Matthew loudly chuckle and say, Call me. We got a jay o bee.

He hung up. Hmmm, a job. We have plenty of local opportunities. The ones Matt tends to pick up overseas worry me.

I checked the time and seeing how it was about eight hours earlier there, decided to call Matthew later. I showered, fed my pocket beagle Marlowe, and briefly searched in vain for my white cat that seems to belong more to the Lair Hill neighborhood than to me. A mere singular owner is apparently simply beneath Mr. Crazy Buttons. I put out some tuna for him, fired up my Land Rover Dormobile and drove to our office at the Towne Storage building on SE Ankeny.

I admired our building as I neared it. It’s a captivating, if aged, brick five story brownstone which is easily visible from I-5. There is a romantic old rusty water tower on the east side of the roof that evokes the comic books set in New York I’d read as a child in Montana. Several little white bear’s heads with a red circle around them are painted in multiple places on the upper part of the building.

We rented out the bottom two floors to merchants but maintain exclusive roof access. Matthew and I installed a massive gym and shower on third floor, including a boxing ring in which to spar.

Our offices on the top floor of Towne Storage have stellar views of downtown. The Koin Tower, Big Pink, and many of Portland’s skyscrapers are visible from our little detective agency. I enjoy gazing at boats traversing the Willamette River as it meanders downtown cutting the city east from west. The graceful glass spires of the Convention Center are nearby to the north beyond the adjacent Burnside Bridge.

We allow some advertising on that side; we prefer Blazers ads. We also advertise the agency by putting the phone number in large white paint on the south side of the building. Not that we really need to, our former client list includes a leggy Uruguayan supermodel who insists on being in our TV ads. Gratis. She’s grateful we helped her with her brother about a year ago in South America. As a result our call level exploded. We have to turn people away. Thinking about getting another guy but haven’t.

I pulled the Land Rover Dormobile into my parking spot on the first floor and waved to Cheryl Belle, the pretty blond florist who rents a ground floor space. Cheryl Belle waved back to me, blew an air-kiss, and continued setting out a colorful assortment on the sidewalk to entice customers. Ask me, Cheryl is enough of an enticement.

As I exited my rig, I smiled seeing the mingling employees of American Medical Response and Tazo Tea. It was evident they preferred one another’s company. I enjoyed seeing the paramedic supervisors with their white dress shirts, and the Tazo Tea employees with their white hair nets. During breaks they smoke, read, laughed, and ate together at Kim’s Catering, a mobile chow wagon. Whenever Kim’s pulls up the driver blasts out a familiar Mexican horn with much fan fair. La Cucaracha, just what you want from a mobile food truck, a song about cockroaches. Keep Portland Weird.

I shook my head and continued to my office. Disdaining the elevator, I ran the five flights of stairs to our office. J.J., thirty-six and you still got it, I mused, smiling. I disengaged the alarm and entered.

Our lobby is very masculine. We have an antique oxblood red leather couch with a matching love seat as well as some dark oak chairs for those who preferred them. We have a beautiful salt-water fish tank filled with clown fish, sea horses, and other colorful creatures. There is a plasma TV with picture in a picture hanging on a wall and usually turned to CNN and Northwest Cable News.

I flipped on the tube and put on the Weather Channel instead. I could sit and listen to it for hours and hours. Today in Portland, Oregon, the weather is a balmy 65 degrees with the slightest chance of precipitation. We might see 72 degrees! Oh, the joy! We only get about 68 totally cloudless days a year.

The lobby walls are adorned with pictures of younger men in their dress uniforms. Matthew was in his gorgeous red, white, and blue Marine Corps uniform with the blood stripe running down the leg. In another he was in his dress white Naval uniform with the funny white hat that he loathed. He looks somehow reluctant. I was pictured in my class A army uniform, and another in a Sinatra custom made, dress blue LAPD uniform. There were more of our siblings, too.

I picked up the phone and listened to our messages, seemed like there were about a thousand. The supermodel. May had called to say thank you again; nothing exigent. Matthew had called the office in addition to my cell. I could hear loud music in the background, sounded like an accordion. Someone was singing in the background with a Scottish brogue. It was a Scottish Elvis!

Joshua, we got a jay o bee, he yelled, as though he was calling from about a million miles away.

You don’t have to yell, I thought. I can hear you just fine. Must be the booze.

He continued. We got a job. All we have to do is mean mug some gal’s boyfriend into letting her go. I met her grandmother here in Dublin at this pub called Macgilicuddy’s. She can throw darts like nobody‘s business! You would not believe the way this old lady threw, Joshua! She could drink like a fish, too. You gotta love a race of people that spend lots of time in pubs drinking whiskey, Matthew said, still shouting.

Hmm, I said aloud.

Last night notwithstanding, we don’t do mean mugs. Neither does Matthew. I wonder why he took the job.

Give me more, I said to the answering machine.

And, as though he could hear me, he did. The man never ceases to amaze me.

Yeah I know, we don’t normally take mad dogs, but this is different. The beau abuses her verbally and maybe worse, Grandma said.

Grandma? Like Matthew has taken to the old lady as his own grandma already? That was not like Matthew Michael McCrae, not even when he was in his cups.

All we got to do is put the habbeous grabbus on a guy named Cody Bowen, shake him up a little bit, and tell him in no uncertain terms that he is not to ever contact Mindy Fox O’Malley ever again, he said.

Ah, there it is, the reason for his passion, the reason for the job, and the reason for so much booze. The name: O’Malley. It’s a common enough name, especially, I would surmise, in Ireland. But Matthew’s late wife Marisa Rain shared the same last name. It didn’t end well.

Matthew rang off after saying we were offered an old silver Gaelic cross that was worth about twelve thousand Euros according to Grandma, but that we would be taking the job gratis, and he’d be on the next flight home.

I glanced at my Mac and hit a key to disable the Casino Royale screen saver. Penny, our office girl, had taken the liberty to install a Euro to dollar converter for me. That cross was worth over eighteen thousand dollars. There had to be more to this. Jobs such as this don’t pay so extravagantly.

Where did she get the cross I wondered? As if the man is prescient, at that moment I received an email on my mobile phone from Matthew: Cross is family heirloom. Grandma REFUSED to let me take the job for free, so played her darts for it. Played BADLY, so she wouldn’t lose face. Wasn’t too hard with all the whiskey & Guinness. I’m in the airport, leaving for New York, going to spend a few hours at the 1 World Trading Center while on layover, then fly directly to Portland, Pretty Boy.

He also sent his flight information. I checked the time and called the c-phone of a buddy of mine on the Portland Police Bureau, Tim Kim.

Hello? he asked, tentatively. Cops hate not knowing who they are talking to and I had blocked my number.

I gave him The Princess Bride, the bit about Inigo Montoya.

I could tell Tim Kim recognized my fake and intentionally poor Spanish accent. Still looking for the six fingered man huh, Adam Henry? he said.

Tim Kim curses frequently, but knowing I don’t care for it, he sometimes tones it down. Oh, but I still understood his meaning of course. Adam Henry.

We bantered a few moments before he said was driving without