Shallow Grave
Chapter 8
OK, we're on the streets of Chicago now. I've taken creative license with the distance between locations. If some of you have been to the city in which this is set, you'll know what I mean.
Thank you again for your wonderful response to this story. It truly makes the effort worthwhile.
Disclaimer: Would love to say they're mine and that I make money from this but I've never been really good at deception. Just ask the cats. They didn't fall for it when I tried to convince them that taking a bath was a pleasant experience and no cause for kitty melt-downs. Scars not yet healed.
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Synchronicity
It took only a quick moment. A blink of an eye and Danny was on his face on the carpet, his arm twisted painfully behind him. Steve may have been out of it but it hadn't lessened his lethal moves.
"Let me up, you moron!" yelped the blonde to the man whose knee pressed painfully into the small of his back.
"Danny, I don't want to hurt you. I have to get out of here for a while. I have to lose myself somewhere. There's too much going on in my head. There's too much to remember . . . I . . . can't do that right now. Please." pleaded McGarrett.
"Steven, you're not leaving my sight. I don't care what kind of ninja-SEAL moves you have in your arsenal. You're not going out there alone! Now let me up! Right now! I mean it!"
Danny only heard an amused huff from his friend as Steve stood and released him but before he could even roll over, the SEAL was out the door.
Ignoring the painful twinge in his knee, he quickly regained his feet and rushed out the door only seconds behind his friend. Charging into the corridor, he saw the stairway door at the end of the hallway close.
His feet couldn't fly fast enough toward it. Flinging it open, he looked down from the landing and saw a flash of dark hair and navy blue two flights below. By the time he'd even made it to the first landing on the next set of stairs, Steve was gone.
Fuck!
….
The neon lights advertising tarot card reading blinked feebly from a storefront window in the freezing night. It was one of the many small businesses that lined the narrow side street off Michigan Avenue. The others were all closed, it was almost two A.M. Danny wondered what the tarot card reader's regular hours were. Maybe this was special 'winter hours'? What would possess someone to have their cards read at this time of night, err, morning?
He idly thought that maybe seeing the reader could help him find Steve. There wasn't much else they could do other than drive the streets hoping to get a glimpse of the idiot.
The late night drive reminded Danny of the time his sweet-natured but easily distracted dog went for an unauthorized stroll in the middle of the night in Newark. He and Rachel had done just this, driven the streets until dawn. Finally giving up, they went home in defeat to find the mutt sitting happily on the front step, wagging his tail after his nocturnal adventure.
Maybe if they went back to the Drake, they'd find Steve sitting there with that 'who me?' look on his face that he used when he knew Danny was pissed at him. He had to admit, it did take some of his anger away to see that goofy expression on his partner's usually stoic face. He sighed tiredly as his eyes searched the frigid darkness for the tall, spare figure of his best friend.
Danny knew that wherever the big idiot is, he'd be cold. The temp had dropped and what had been rainfall then sleet, was now giant wet blobs of snow on the windshield of the sedan.
Danny shivered in the heavy coat, maybe not even for himself. Steve had to be freezing. All he'd been wearing were Levi's and the long-sleeved sweatshirt. At least his boots offered more protection than sneakers – though surely not enough.
Chicago was a big town and his partner could be anywhere in it. In parts of it, it wasn't safe to wander alone. In parts of it, it wasn't safe to wander with a platoon of tanks.
They'd been searching for what seemed hours, though in reality, only since half past midnight or so. The only one Danny trusted enough to help find his friend without it turning into a clusterfuck of a standoff was the man sitting beside him confidently guiding the big car through the slippery streets; one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around a Styrofoam cup.
The burly man had been one of the first guys he'd ever partnered with back in Newark. Bill had moved on to the big city, (or bigger city), when his wife of several years had been promoted to a higher position within the national chain of home center stores that employed her. Fortunately, along with the prestigious title came a prestigious paycheck.
Not wanting to rain on his wife's parade and aware of the advantages of having a few extra bucks in the bank, Bill, (who after nearly twenty years if marriage was still stone in love with the woman), had agreed to move to where her company was headquartered. He'd bid a sad goodbye to his comrades and followed his beloved.
He could have retired then but he'd long since come to the conclusion he was a 'lifer'. Quickly securing a job with Chicago PD he'd been here ever since.
The big detective had offered to put out a BOLO on McGarrett but Danny had declined. He knew considering Steve's current state of mind and the man's uncanny ability to find trouble that the chance of something going drastically wrong was a strong one. Better to do the searching on his own with the help of his ex-partner.
"So, Tiger," asked the man behind the wheel, his eyes continually scanning for McGarrett as he spoke, "What's it like living in paradise?"
"You mean the one on the smoking pile of lava surrounded by miles of shark infested water?" asked the blonde man in the passenger seat whose nickname 'Tiger' would never be known outside the vehicle in which they now rode.
"Come on, Danny. Hawaii can't be all that bad." chided O'Mara. The big man was familiar with his ex-partner's griping. He'd heard a saying once that applied perfectly to the tough little detective – 'You'd bitch if you wuz hung with new rope'. Yup, that was Danny Williams, aka Tiger.
"Oh, it might be okay sometimes." conceded the blonde. "Gracie really likes it. She's even learned to surf."
"Gracie?" gasped the big man in astonishment. "She's old enough to surf?"
"Yeah well, everyone there seems to think so." huffed Danny as if even thinking about his baby on a piece of fiberglass coated styrofoam in the horrifyingly dangerous ocean was too stressful to even consider. "Steve and Kono had her up on a board two months after I joined Five-0."
"I can't believe you let your little girl get into water that has actual sharks in it."
"Yeah, sharks, stinging jellyfish, poisonous sea snakes . . . you're right, she's never going near water again unless it's in the bathtub."
"That's my boy." smiled Bill. It was almost as though Danny'd never left. He'd missed the little tough-guy. "So, this partner of yours, what's going on with him? Why'd he split?"
"Steve . . . " began the detective, " . . . well, the guy's a force of nature and the biggest badass mofo that ever lived but . . . he's got issues right now – bad ones. He just got out of the hospital a couple of days ago after coming back trashed from deployment in fuck-knows-where and we were on our way back to Honolulu. He had some nightmares that kinda set him on edge and he said he had to get away for a while."
Danny didn't want to violate Steve's privacy but he felt he owed O'Mara an explanation. It was only right considering his frantic phone call had pulled the man from a warm bed on a miserable night that would freeze the balls off a badger.
"I take it his issues aren't all physical?" asked O'Mara; ever the astute detective. "PTSD?"
"Yeah, most likely. It's been pretty fucked-up lately for him. Hell, things've been fucked-up for most of his life but he'd always been able to keep it together until . . . " he trailed off, tiredly rubbing his hand over his stubbled jaw.
"Something happened when he was out on whatever classified secret squirrel mission in wherever classified hell-hole he'd been sent a few weeks ago. I know I'd mentioned in past conversations that he's a Navy SEAL and he's in the reserves. He gets called up every so often when they need someone with his skills which I can only guess at since he won't tell me because he says he'd have to kill me if I knew . . . that may or may not be a joke bye-the-way, but when he came back this time . . . " Danny sighed , his mouth drawing into a grim line ". . . this time, he's a mess."
"Don't worry, Danny, we'll find 'im. He can't get that far. You said he didn't even have a jacket when he left?"
"Yeah but the man's used to deprivation crap. Who the hell would voluntarily get up before dawn every morning, run five fucking miles and then go swimming for an hour . . . in the friggin' ocean no less!" Danny's hands had begun their usual dance.
"That's just so wrong." said O'Mara, shaking his head and clucking as Williams did nearly the same next to him; the two resembling synchronized bobble-head dolls.
Beefy hands turned the wheel as the sedan continued its way on the sparsely traveled streets. Eyes searched alleys and doorways for the tall, crazy, SEAL who wanted to lose himself in the windy city.
…
He ran for what seemed miles. For the last few, he'd been pelted with stinging pellets of sleet that struck the back of his neck and felt like thousands of little needles. He didn't know how long he'd been running. He guessed it was awhile, he didn't know how he'd gotten all the way to the Wrigley Building but there it was; its white façade looming in front of him.
The frozen rain was coming down so hard, he couldn't even see across the river that ran right next to it. He almost couldn't feel his feet. He knew that wasn't good.
Blinking and squinting against the sleet he barely made out a passing taxi and raised a hand to hail it. It seemed to hesitate before stopping and had actually gone past him. Now in reverse; the tail-lights glowed and the back-up lights cut-off as the driver put the orange cab in park in front of him.
The SEAL knew it looked at least a little odd - a guy dressed only in jeans and a soggy sweatshirt standing out in the middle of a storm. To be able to avail himself of this suddenly presented mode of transportation, there had to be some sort of synchronicity thing going on. He'd needed a cab and there it was.
Opening the door and sliding into the heated car, he pulled out a wet wad of bills to allay any fears the cabbie may have had about picking up such an iffy passenger. Handing a couple of twenties to the man behind the wheel, he said, "Take me to a bar."
"What kind of bar you like?" asked the cabbie in a thick accent. It startled his passenger. It sounded familiar. He'd heard it long before he'd woken up in the hospital in Germany. He vaguely remembered hearing the same lilt in the dialect spoken by one of the people who'd found him and taken him to get help. He'd never learned that person's name and, at the time, he'd been too out of it to ask but he remembered the accent.
Zafir Ibrahim hoped picking up this fare wasn't a mistake but the tall guy looked miserable and something would surely happen to him wandering around without a jacket in the middle of this freezing night. It didn't seem right to leave him to expire in the cold. He tried again.
"I ask what kind of bar you like?" repeated the cabbie, Maybe picking up this space cadet wasn't such a good idea.
"Uhh" muttered Steve, trying to shake off the memory before getting on to the task of a reply.
"You like bars with girls maybe?" Steve hadn't yet answered and the cabbie went on to the next category, "Maybe bars with boys? I know of such places too, just tell me, I take you there."
Steve smiled then, "No bars with anyone. Just a safe place to drink. A place where I don't have to worry about getting rolled as soon as I get wasted. That's the plan anyway . . . what is your name?"
"Zafir, my name is Zafir."
"Ah, nice name, that means victorious, doesn't it?"
"You speak Urdu?"
"A little, enough to get by. Anyway, that's the plan, Zafir, to get incredibly drunk without being mugged."
Zafir shook his head. Imagine, meeting an ajnaabi in the middle of a storm in Chicago who knew what his name meant and spoke his language as well. Allah works in mysterious ways, he thought, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all.
"No worries my friend. I take you to nice place with nice people. You can get as drunk as you want there. No one will harm you."
"Thanks, that sounds great Zafir" answered the tall man shivering in his soggy sweatshirt.
The cab made its way into the night toward a bar where it was safe to get lost in a bottle.
…..
The night grew even colder. What had been wet snow, was now a proper East Coast Winter blitz. The roads that were still open had become treacherous with ice. It took only a slight miscalculation or lapse in attention and one could wind up in a ditch or in a pile of intermingled metal with another unfortunate driver or two. Zafir Ibrahim had the misfortune to meet such a vehicle as he powerlessly watched the scenery go by - sideways.
There was absolutely nothing that could be done but hang on and hope for the best as the tires found absolutely no purchase on the glassy roadway. They weren't going very fast; it seemed to happen in slow motion. In the flash of headlights he could see the horrified expression on the big red-head's face and on the face of the smaller blonde man beside him.
There was a thud and a crunch as the two sedans met in a slow-speed collision.
Crap! His cab was almost paid off. He knew he shouldn't have tried to work tonight. He didn't really need the money that badly, his rent had already been paid and the other bills weren't due until the end of the month. Something made him restless and he'd decided to go out and pick up a few fares though he didn't need to.
It had been lucky for that tall guy who spoke Urdu that he had. Maybe it was Allah's plan for him . . . for both of them. Whatever. Right now he had to deal with a very large angry looking man who stood in the snow staring at his seriously dented fender and door.
"I knew I shoulda stayed in bed!" said the big man disgustedly as he tried to pull the metal away from the tire so his unfortunate vehicle could be driven.
He turned to the smallish olive-skinned man who approached him with paperwork in hand to exchange information. He wasn't mad at the little guy. Shit happens, especially in the middle of fucking snowstorms when he should be at home cuddled next to his wife instead of driving all over the fucking city looking for Danny's nut-case of a partner wandering around without even a jacket – IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING SNOWSTORM!
"I am so sorry." apologized the cabbie in a thick accent.
"Eh, shit happens" was the frustrated reply, "Let's just get out of this storm so we can exchange information. There's a coffee shop on the next corner. It looks like your cab made out better than my car, meet you there."
The coffee shop was nearly deserted. It's deserted because anyone with half a brain is at home right now, thought Danny as he ordered coffee for himself, Bill and their sudden, new friend. He rubbed his hands across his wind-burned face. The longer Steve was missing, the more time the idiot had to get into real trouble . . . if not freeze to death.
"You look tired my friend." said Zafir to the blonde on the other side of the table as he pushed his paperwork toward the big, red-haired, man who in turn slid his information across the Formica toward him.
"Been out looking for a friend for most of the night." was the tired reply.
"Is he lost?" asked Zafir curiously.
"You could say that." sighed the blonde.
"It's a very bad night to be lost. It is very cold to be out without a very heavy jacket. I just dropped off a fare I found standing outside the Wrigley Building. The crazy man had no jacket! He wore nothing but Levis and a sweatshirt. That was not a very smart thing for him to do. He was lucky I saw him in the storm."
There was a brief moment when the two cops looked at each other, both with the exact same thought, No fucking way! It couldn't be!
"This guy you picked up . . . what did he look like?" asked Danny, his heart beginning to thud a little faster.
"Well . . . he was tall, he had dark hair . . . and he spoke Urdu very well."
Bill looked doubtfully at Danny who now looked about to rocket out of the room.
"Steve speaks a lot of different languages. I don't even know how many, Urdu could be one of them." said Danny to his ex-partner who still didn't look convinced it could be their wayward man.
"Where did you take this guy?" asked Bill, snapping back into detective mode.
"He said he wanted to get very drunk in a safe place. I took him to Scrappy's. It's on . . . "
"I know where it is." interrupted Bill, throwing down some bills onto the table and yelling to the waitress as he and Danny rushed toward the door. "Rhonda, bring this guy the biggest piece of pie you have."
"Hell, bring him the whole pie!" said Danny as he rushed out the door after the big man.
Zafir Ibrahim only shook his head as he took a sip of the hot, strong coffee and watched the two hurry out the door. This is a very strange night indeed.
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My apologies to anyone who speaks Urdu. I tried to come up with accurate translations but if I goofed, I'm sorry.
Reviews are very welcome if you're of a mind to give them. Next chapter up in three or four days.
