That one had training. Not much, but some.
Maurice nodded toward Jacob. “Shame what happened. Darren gets heavy-handed when he drinks.”
“You mean when he tortures children.”
His eyes cooled. “Careful.”
“No. You be careful.”
For the first time, something like surprise crossed his face.
“I’m giving you forty-eight hours,” he said. “You apologize to my brother. Pay his hospital bills. Fifty thousand for the disrespect.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Your bar burns. Your apartment burns. Maybe your sister’s little house in Portland catches bad luck. Maybe your son gets scared again.”
I felt Jacob stiffen behind me.
That was Maurice’s mistake.
Darren had been cruelty with fists. Maurice was cruelty with reach. He thought reach made him safe.
I memorized the license plate. The scars. The shoes. The man with gum favored his left knee. The big one had a split right knuckle. The gunman had nervous eyes.
“Forty-eight hours,” Maurice repeated.
Then he walked away, leaving cheap aftershave and threat in the damp air.
I drove Jacob to Portland myself.
Six hours of highway. Six hours of him sleeping in the rearview mirror, his face pale, arms propped with pillows. Six hours of my phone lighting up with blocked numbers I did not answer.
My sister Bea met us in her driveway wearing slippers and a winter coat over pajamas. Her house glowed warm behind her, all porch plants and yellow curtains. She hugged Jacob like he was glass.
“Uncle Micah coming?” she asked me quietly after Jacob went inside.
“He’s on his way.”
Her mouth tightened. Bea had never liked my Army friends because they reminded her of funerals.
“Nate, don’t turn this into Afghanistan.”
“It came to my son’s hospital room.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
On the drive back, the rain stopped. The sky opened into a hard, cold blue. My mind built maps: Maurice’s territory, McGrevy’s exits, police response times, names I had heard from bartenders, old veterans, off-duty cops who drank quietly and tipped well.
When I reached the apartment above the bar, Micah Trujillo was sitting on the stairs with a duffel bag.
He stood and pulled me into a hug that nearly cracked my ribs.
“Where’s Jacob?”
“Safe.”
“Good.”
He looked older than the last time I saw him. Gray in his beard. Scar along his jaw whiter than before. But his eyes were the same: calm, dark, built for bad weather.
Inside, he opened the duffel.
I closed it halfway.
“No war toys.”
“You called me because men threatened your child.”
