The Never Game

“That was the second time Braxton’s man screwed up, so he’s no longer among the living — if it’s any consolation.” Then Rodent tilted his head and gave a faint smile. “The first time was he got kicked off the property by some kid. A teenager. A kid who drew down on him, some old revolver... My goodness, would that’ve been you, Shaw?”

You’re kind of like a Deliverance family, aren’t you?

The hunter... That’s what he had been doing there, gunning for his father. Ashton Shaw, who — everybody believed — possessed a mind so troubled it invented spies and forces set against him.

Ashton Shaw, who had been right all along.

Oh, Russell...

Colter Shaw had never felt his brother’s absence more than at this moment. Where are you?

And why have you vanished?

He said, “You know a lot. What about my brother, Russell? Where is he?”

“Lost his trail years ago. Europe.”

Overseas... This surprised Shaw. Then he wondered why that should, since he’d had virtually no contact since the funeral. Paris was no more far-fetched than the Tenderloin in San Francisco or a tract house in Kansas City.

“What’s this all about?”

Rodent answered, “I told you. Not your concern, don’tcha know.”

“What is my concern is Braxton. Accident or not. She’s responsible.”

“No, that’s none of your concern either. And, believe me, you don’t want it to be your concern.”

Shaw wondered where the facial pocks had come from. Youthful acne? An illness later in life? Rodent had the wiry build and staccato glances of a military man or soldier of fortune. Maybe a gas attack?

Rodent’s phone hummed. Lifted it to his ear. “Yes... Okay. Back at the place.”

The FedEx caper had apparently been successful.

He disconnected. “Alrighty, then.” He put away the black silencing handkerchief and, moving back to the far side of the camper, slipped his Beretta away. “I’ll leave the cuff keys under your car, the Glock and the Colt in the trash can by the front entrance. Don’t try to find us. For your own sake, don’tcha know.”

76

Fifteen minutes of contortions on unforgiving blacktop to fish the keys out from under the Malibu with his feet. The duration of the discomfort expanded because he needed to field questions from a ten-year-old boy.

“What’chu doing, mister? That’s funny.”

“Got an itch on my back.”

“You do not.”

After freeing his wrists, it took another five minutes to find the Glock and Colt. He was particularly irritated that Rodent had dropped them in a trash can containing the remnants of a Slurpee. Shaw would have to strip both weapons and apply heavy dosages of Hoppe’s cleaner to remove the cherry-flavored syrup.

Back in the camper, he prescribed a Sapporo beer to dull the pain from the pulled thigh and neck muscles. Then he transferred his contacts, photos and videos from his iPhone to his computer, checked them for viruses and placed the mobile in a plastic bag and took a hammer to it. He texted the new number to his mother at the Compound, his sister and Teddy and Velma.

He then dialed Mack’s number in D.C.

“Hello?” the woman’s sultry voice said.

“I’ll be on burners till I get a new iPhone.”

“’K.”

Charlotte McKenzie was six feet tall, with a pale complexion and long brown hair, her brows elegantly sculpted. During the day she wore a stylish but dull-colored suit, cut to conceal her weapon if she was wearing her weapon, and flats, though not because of her height; her job occasionally required her to run and when it did she had to run fast. Shaw had no clue what she’d be wearing now, presumably in bed. Maybe boxers and a T. Maybe a designer silk negligee.

Shaw loved the way she made lobbyists cry, the way she sheltered whistle-blowers, the way she found facts and figures that, to anyone else, were as invisible as cool spring air.

Those who knew both of them wondered, Shaw had heard, why they’d never gotten together. Shaw occasionally did too, though he knew that, like his heart, Mack’s was accessed only by negotiating an exceedingly complex and difficult ascent, rather like Dawn Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite.

“Need some things,” he said.

“Ready.”

“There’s a picture on its way. I need facial recognition. Probably a California connection but not certain.” From his computer he sent her an email containing an attachment of a screenshot of Rodent from the video he’d taken during the Molotov cocktail incident.

A moment later: “Got it. On its way.” Mack would be sending it to a quarter million dollars’ worth of facial recognition software running on a supercomputer.

“Be a minute or two.”

A pause, during which clicks intervened. Mack made and received her phone calls with headset and stalk mic so she could knit. She quilted too. In anyone else these would jar with her other hobbies — of wreck scuba diving and extreme downhill skiing. With Mack, they were elegantly compatible.

“Something else. I’ll need everything you have on a Braxton. Probably last name. Female, forties to sixties. She might’ve been behind my father’s death.”

The only response was “B-R-A-X-T-O-N?”