Deadline Man

***

That night, I arrive at the main downtown ferry terminal in plenty of time to make the 10:30 sailing for Bremerton. I use my credit card for the last time to buy a ticket, which I place on the dashboard. It is full dark but the sky above the city gives off a washed-out turquoise glow under low clouds. The parking lot is brightly illuminated. Beyond it is the blackness of Elliott Bay and, in the distance, dots of lights from Bainbridge Island.

The lot is hardly full, maybe forty cars spread out into three lanes. Just about the right size crowd. A few pedestrians walk past us to be ready to board. Sailors going back to the Navy base, young couples that enjoyed a weekend in the city, a family with a stroller. People who probably don’t read the newspaper. We sit in our cars and wait. I make fists and unclench them, over and over. The big boat emerges out of the dark and slides into the dock. In a few minutes, cars stream off in the opposite direction, headed into downtown.

The ferry has the same green-and-white paint scheme I’ve seen my entire life. It’s anchored securely to the massive terminal. But I can detect a menacing rise and fall of the boat as it holds its position, the water of the bay pushing and pulling the riveted steel. A vague nausea that I’ve felt for hours becomes more pronounced. I make myself watch the streetlights. A cop with a dog wanders by but he pays me no mind. Other cars line up behind me, to my right and left. Most shut off their lights and engines. I scan the mirrors but see no sign of pursuers.

I am out of the remains of my suit, now wearing a black leather jacket, gray long-sleeved T-shirt, and black jeans. Amber did not pack a varied wardrobe. In the right-hand pocket of the jeans, the Airweight sits in its holster. It’s barely noticeable when I stand up and the bulge doesn’t look like a revolver. In the passenger seat is the small, black duffel that Amber packed for me, along with the old brown leather briefcase. The briefcase has a Macbook, my old Blackberry, and a number of files from work. In a few minutes, it’s time to drive onto the ferry.

The ferry is named the Hyak. What an irony, a sick, sick irony. It has five decks standing out of the water and bridges on each end. I follow the car ahead, a new Accord: we slide toward the water as crew members direct us. The car bumps slightly as it crosses the platform that connects the dock to the boat, then I’m inside it, on the long car deck. The confinement tightens my chest. The boat ever so slightly sways and my nerves start to eat through my skin. Why the hell do I live in a city nearly surrounded by water?

I slide the gearshift into park, turn the ignition off and grip the wheel for several moments until the feelings pass. Then I grab the duffel and walk toward the stairs. I leave the keys in the cup holder and the briefcase in the passenger-side floor well. For just a moment I look back: the Toyota is eight years old and paid for, but I never fell in love with it. Then I turn and follow a lanky young man up the narrow, metal stairway.

The main cabin is warm and spacious, far bigger than we need tonight. My quick count shows about sixty people in the room as a voice makes announcements over the PA system and the ferry prepares to sail. Then the big engines rev up and we’re moving. The sense of pushing hopelessly against the great waters of the sound. I walk to the restroom, lock the door, and lean my head against the cool wall, just standing there. I fight my gag reflex, remind myself I can breathe.

It takes a long time for the wooziness go away. I finally sit on a long cushioned bench against a wall, staring at the floor, my hands wrapped under my arms for warmth. A column is due in a little more than fifteen hours. But, no. I am due to be “tapped,” as the managing editor warned me. Pretty soon, no more columns. I wonder if they would have let me write a farewell. I wonder if they would have let me tell the truth. My stomach gradually settles into a stew of acid, but I have plenty of time to feel better. The crossing takes an hour. I just want to sit here in the cabin, imagining that I am in the banquet room of a third-rate country club or an old American Legion hall on firm ground. I want to, but I can’t.

The dead trail me. Now I know the three Praetorian employees are hired killers and torturers. Troy needed to be silenced quickly. But did they take their time with Ryan Meyers? Holding him to the floor as they tightened the belt around his neck? I wonder only a second about the difference between the two. Ryan might have known where Megan is, so he needed to receive their full list of services. He didn’t talk—so they worked me over to find out. Where is Megan? Somehow Megan mattered more to them than the tattoo on Ryan’s leg. They must have seen it. Without the information they believe Megan possesses, “eleven/eleven” means nothing. Two numbers. And it’s not as if they could have removed the tat easily; messing with it would only have raised suspicions. So they left it. Ryan had information about Megan; it was his death warrant. I don’t know why Troy had to die.

I zip up the leather jacket and lever myself up from the seat. A sturdy door opens against my push, leading out onto the upper deck. It’s deserted in the cold, wet wind. The blast helps my stomach, does nothing to help my mind. The black water spreads out around us, churning from the distant engines that leave a shadowy white wake. It’s cold enough to kill, even in late October. Looking back, Seattle looks like a dream city, an open jewel box of tall prisms with lighted diamonds inside. I push back against the damp metal of the cabin wall. A young woman and her son dart past. He wants to look over the side. I zip my jacket higher against the cold and pull my head down into the collar. Then I walk to the rail and force myself to stare over the side.

In a few minutes, I make my way to the forward cabin. On a busy morning or afternoon, it could comfortably hold fifty commuters. Now it’s nearly deserted. I push through the door to the forward deck, push against the wind and it finally opens, and I watch the sea come at us, the arms of tree-thick land at a far distance on both sides. I think about my sister, sick with guilt. I stare into the undulations of the water, pulling off my leather jacket to find some relief against the sweat that has engulfed me.

I leave the jacket off as Bremerton hoves into view and I put on a snug, black ball cap that Amber had given me. It has a small Phoenix Suns logo. I hate ball caps. As the crew starts to make announcements, I sling my duffel over my shoulder, return to the main cabin, and sit at a table until the right moment comes to join the crowd going down to their cars. Then the big boat bumps into the terminal and the sound of starting car engines fills the crisp night air.

I’m not with them. I walk off with the pedestrians, in the middle of the crowd, just a tall man in a gray T-shirt, carrying a jacket, wearing a ball cap, lugging a duffel. I walk neither fast nor slow, just the right pace to keep with the group. From the walkway I can see the water much more clearly, smashing and gurgling between lan

d and boat. Somehow it has lost its power to frighten me. I did not want to be here. I did not want my happy alignment of the planets destroyed or my life dug up and used against me. I didn’t start this. Now I am going to finish it. I’m not feeling terror or grief. I’m not feeling anything except that I am running out of time, trying to claw my way out of an hourglass.

My legs carry me onto the firm land, past the news racks, across the parking area, and out into the night. It’s a choice I make, very different from the course Jill chose when she boarded the very same ferry five years ago on a cold night. It was a week before they found her body.

Chapter Thirty-five

Monday, November 1st

At 8:15 a.m., I board an Amtrak Cascades train going south. As the countryside rolls by, the pictures of Megan Nyberg and Heather Brady sit in my lap. I memorize their faces. Megan is already in my head from the constant repetition of television: the straight fair hair that seems to hold every color from gold and honey to the lightest brown as it sweeps down to her shoulders. It is a limited rainbow, but more than enough for any man to find irresistible. Perfect crescents of brows set off large blue eyes hardly innocent. Her smile is wide. If she smiled at you, it would make your whole day. Heather’s smile looks more uncertain and shy. Her brown hair is lush and thick, falling across and down a red cheerleader sweater. Her nose is a little long, her chin has a small, pale mole on the left edge, and her smile too crooked to be considered classically beautiful. But she’s very attractive, or was. Something in her smile reminds me of someone. It’s a fleeting recognition and I don’t want to think about women in my life.

I try to read the Tacoma newspaper. It’s a shell of its former self and I am through it in ten minutes. Most of it is dutiful reading—there’s little that’s compelling or interesting among the stories. Bland. Safe. I guess that’s the intention of the bosses, but it has nothing in it that I would pay to read. I am the only person in the car reading a newspaper.

Still in wi-fi range, I check several papers online, including the Wall Street Journal. I’m a news junkie. No news is out concerning Olympic International. Its stock price has settled around $35. Maybe the takeover has fallen through. Maybe I was wrong about it.

The day is starting at the Seattle Free Press: the clerks dropping newspapers before the closed doors of the editors with glass offices, the early reporting staff straggling in, phones ringing, the section chiefs preparing for the morning news meeting. One thing is sure: my column won’t be on the business department’s budget for Tuesday.

Even the scenery won’t let me alone. The train takes a siding at Centralia to wait for a passing freight train, and along the tracks line up long buildings bearing the logo and name of Olympic International. The name shouts out from the tall structure that is the centerpiece of the plant. They’ve seen better days. The paint is fading and part of one building’s roof is gone. The place looks deserted, the parking lot and truck loading dock empty.

I know this much: I am rusty. It has been years since I was a reporter.

The train trundles over the Willamette River bridge and into the historic red brick station on time at eleven. I check my bag at the baggage counter and walk out front to wait for the light rail train. Portland is beautiful and compact, but to me it always feels small and stifling. That’s a prejudice from growing up in Seattle, I guess. But the MAX Green Line train shows up almost instantly—Seattle should be so lucky to have such a system. The train is new and crowded. It takes me down the transit mall to the busy center city.

I stop by a luggage shop, then check into my favorite hotel, a lovingly restored monument on Broadway. It’s filled with memories from weekend trips here with two different lovers over the years. I’ll pay cash for one night—but I have to be careful how I handle it. Terrorists and drug dealers pay cash—cash attracts attention. So I say that I was a victim of identity theft, how it makes me prefer cash. I can be a good actor. But I have to take a chance and let them run my credit card for “incidentals.” Up in the room, I break down the small brick of federal money Amber packed for me: plenty of twenties, then hundreds. Some of it goes in the newly purchased money belt, a little in my wallet. Other bills are stuffed into the pairs of socks she packed.

Thirty minutes later, I walk back outside. The day is clear and cool. A short walk and I pick up the MAX train to Portland State University.

At noon, just as Amber promised, I see Megan Nyberg.

The woman lingers uneasily near a half-circle of benches that look like concrete pallets. She’s medium-height, petite, angel face. She drops a backpack on the bench and looks around.

I say, “Are you Tori?”