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The Bar
“Do me a favor, son,” the gruff voice on the other end of the line said.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t ever call me again.”
The conversation had already been nearing completion, but Jake Parker made things official by smashing the end button to disconnect the call. He then slammed the phone facedown onto the top of the epoxy-covered wooden bar top.
“Careful, son,” the bartender said. “Don’t want to scratch my fancy new bar.”
Jake gave him a look through one squinting eye and considered telling the older man not to ever call him son, but decided instead to let it go. Crockett was playing with him, and he felt no need to rile him up.
“You and I both know this bar top ain’t getting scratched anytime soon, Crockett,” Jake said. “I should know, you had me slaving in here all night to make sure the epoxy wasn’t going to crack.”
The barman shrugged and continued the circular motion over the same spot on the top of the bar that he’d been wiping for the past five minutes. Jake was confident that whatever dirt had been in the white rag before had now been successfully buffed onto the surface of the counter.
At this point, the bar—officially unnamed for years until Jake told Crockett to just call it The Bar—was Jake’s bar as much as it was Crockett’s. Sure, the older man owned the building and paid the property taxes and utility bill, but Jake had put his blood, sweat, and tears into fixing
it up and keeping it nice inside. It had never been a looker, so Jake had recently undertaken a total interior renovation that he had—for some stupid reason—talked Crockett into taking on.
It’ll be easy, he had told Crockett. A few weekends—you front the cash, and I’ll do most of the work. It’ll save you tens of thousands of dollars, and you’ll get a younger crowd in here.
Crockett had laughed at first. “What makes you think I want the younger crowd in here, Parker?” he had asked.
In the end, Jake had won, but it had been one of those victories that came with so much annoyance and misery that it might as well have been a total defeat. He had, using the ancient woodworking tools Crockett had scrounged up from wherever the guy actually lived, struggled through cutting and shaping a massive L-shaped butcher-block countertop that stretched from one end of the bar to the other, then wrapped to the right and ran up to hit the far wall. To make matters worse, Crockett had insisted they pour epoxy over the entire thing—an entirely new skill that was so difficult to perfect it had nearly left Jake unable to complete the work. Jake had finally had to tell Crockett to stop watching YouTube videos so the man would run out of ideas.
But the work had eventually been completed, and both men secretly enjoyed the fresher space. Crockett would not admit it, but Jake knew the bar owner saw the younger ex-detective as family. Crockett had no children, and Jake wondered if he had unknowingly become the man’s surrogate son.
Crockett would also never admit he enjoyed taking money from the younger Boston suburbanites who made their way out to Hudson, Massachusetts. Jake smiled as he thought of it—the older man had never understood the appeal of small-batch, localized craft beers, but he was now raking in the cash from the stuff.
Jake lived in the apartment space directly above the bar. It was a building Crockett purchased many decades ago, lived in for twelve years, then converted the convenience store that originally filled the downstairs space into a simple eight-stool, four-table bar when the owner of that business retired. Crockett’s bar had occupied the spot ever since, and Jake had moved in upstairs after his wife’s death almost four years ago.
“Sounds like she’s breaking up with you,” Crockett said
now.
Jake glanced up and frowned, almost having forgotten about the conversation he had just had. “What? Oh, yeah, I wish it had been a girlfriend. That might have been an easier conversation.”
“I was hoping you’d try to fool me,” Crockett said, shaking his head. “That way we wouldn’t have to pretend like you didn’t have some serious daddy issues.”
Jake smiled and sniffed in disbelief. “How’d you know it was my old man?”
Crockett turned to the patron on Jake’s left—a young businessman stopping in from out of town for the night—and poured him a new beer. When he returned, Jake saw that twinkle in the old man’s eye that said he was about to drop a hard-earned nugget of truth on the younger man.
“Let’s just say I’ve been on both sides of that dilemma, Parker,” Crockett said.
Jake chewed the liquid in his mouth for a few seconds, swishing it around, then swallowed as he considered Crockett’s statement. This was new information to him. “Are you saying you got a kid out there somewhere?”
“I am.”
“Estranged?”
Crockett nodded.
“Take it from me, Jake. There is no scar that can’t be healed. There’s no grizzled old man so very grizzled they can’t be un-grizzled by a make-up call with their son. It might have to be a big-ass patch, but there is no hole that can’t be fixed by patching things up. He’s your dad, and—”
“What? He loves me?” Jake asked, a smirk on his face. “Yeah, sorry, Crockett. That ship sailed when I was twelve years old.”
“When your mom died?”
Even though Crockett meant no harm by it, the abruptness in Crockett’s voice took Jake by surprise. For some reason, his mother’s passing was still jarring to him. He’d had plenty of time to cope with and grieve the loss, plenty of time to sit in the emotional struggle of losing a mother at that age. But something about it was still fresh. Something about it made him feel raw.
He had a feeling it had to do with the newer scars he’d recently earned.
Crockett must have read the expression on his face. “You know I mean no harm, Jake. Hell, I can’t afford to
mean you any harm—you’re the only person who comes in here and talks to me.”
Jake laughed. “If you’d be nicer to people, maybe they’d stay and talk to you more, old man.”
Crockett chuckled, then frowned. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah,” Jake answered. “I’m sorry about that. It’s just… I’m not sure what it is. I’ve been feeling strange lately, and that call…”
“Well, let’s see,” Crockett said, reaching across the epoxied countertop and grabbing Jake’s now-empty beer glass. He turned and poured Jake another—the same IPA he had been drinking. “Your mom left behind a prepubescent young man who hadn’t quite figured himself out yet. Add to that a father who probably meant well, but didn’t know what he was supposed to do with you. On top of allof that, you’ve been through hell lately, Jake. Everything in Puerto Rico, now a call from your old man. It’s got to be reminding you of Mel.”
Mel, Eliza, Vero.
While Eliza was the only one of the women he had cared about recently who was still alive, he hadn’t heard anything from her in over a month. No response to his last text, no response to his last phone call.
He wasn’t sure why she had gone quiet but he figured they had had a good run—he needed to just let it go.
“You’re probably right, Crockett,” Jake said.
“Probably? I’m always right. Sooner you realize that, sooner things will be easier for you.”
Jake laughed. He needed to get to bed. He had never been one for late nights, and even though it was only nine o’clock, he knew how easily a couple of beers could turn into four or five, and how easily four or five beers could easily turn into two o’clock in the morning.
He smacked his credit card down on the table. “I’d better be going, Crockett,” he said. “Got a long drive home.”
“You sure you ain’t a dad?” Crockett asked suddenly, taking Jake by surprise.
Jake frowned again, cocking his head sideways.
“A terrible joke like that is usually reserved for dads. Just thought I’d clarify.”
Jake offered a smile. “Pity I can’t stay longer to entertain you,” Jake said. “I’ve got a meeting tomorrow in town.”
Crockett made a knowing face but didn’t ask any more
questions. Jake appreciated that—he didn’t mind sharing some details of his life with Crockett, but he felt differently about letting strangers like the businessman next to him in. He had learned long ago that some things were better kept private.
Jake’s life had been in upheaval lately, starting with the very reason he had met Eliza Mendoza. An expert parasitologist and professor, she had helped him uncover a conspiracy at the highest levels of government earlier that year. After that, he had been roped into an investigation in Puerto Rico, hoping to find a lead that might trace back to the same crime organization that had caused his wife’s untimely death in Boston. While there, he had helped find a link between the Puerto Rican crime organization and some of the pharmaceutical companies on the island.
He had been successful in both cases, but—like his debacle with Crockett’s bar-rehabilitation project—those victories had come at a steep cost.
Crockett turned away, then came back around with Jake’s credit card. He placed it down onto the bar. “Almost got me.”
Jake laughed. “I figured I could distract you and get you to finally ring up my tab.” Jake slid the credit card back into his wallet behind his Massachusetts ID. “It’s got to be, what? A hundred beers I owe you for by now?”
Crockett waved him away with a flick of his wrist. “The day I ask you to pay for your beers is the day you finally realize what’s best for you and stop hanging out with an old geezer like me.”
Jake chuckled and slapped his palm on the countertop as he stood up from the bar stool. “Appreciate it, Crockett. Seriously. And if you need anything, you know where to find me.”
1369 Coffee House, Cambridge, MA
Jake pulled his chair closer to the tiny table. His stomach bumped the edge of it, sending everything on top teetering, including his tea and a mug filled with piping hot coffee, spilling a bit of liquid from both beverages.
“Damn, man,” Jackson Holland said from across the table, as he tried to dab at the liquid with an already soaked napkin. “Guess you need to lose a little bit off that beer gut.”
“Please,” Jake replied with a smile. “My stomach is as flat as your ass.”
Holland’s eyebrows rose. “Checking out grown men’s asses now, are we, Parker?”
Jake had walked right into it, and there was nothing he could say. He simply did his best not to meet Holland’s eyes while he worked on his own tea-based mess. A barista had thoughtfully brought another stack of napkins to the table prior to Jake’s arrival—apparently the two grown men looked to her more like clumsy children who would need to be watched carefully and were bound to spill something at some point.
Turned out she was right.
“Tell me again why you’re in town?” Jake asked. Jake had made the forty-five-minute commute to Cambridge, where Holland was staying. He had flown into Boston Logan from LA and rented a car, but had not yet explained to Jake why he was in town.
“What?” Holland asked. “Coming to see you wasn’t a good enough reason?”
Jake smiled. “Nobody comes to Boston all the way from LA on purpose. Everything we’ve got here, you’ve already
got a better version of it out there. Sports teams, food, good-looking people.”
“That is true, I do live there,” Holland said. “And I am very good-looking.”
Jake tried to stifle his grin. Jackson Holland might possibly have been the ugliest man Jake had ever seen. With a feature set that would make a seventeen-year-old pug look like a contender for the world’s most naturally beautiful dog, Holland would have been stopped at the door of any beauty pageants.
What he lacked in the looks department, however, he more than made up for in physical prowess. Holland was a career soldier, a man who had been through the shit and had held himself together well enough to fully compartmentalize it on the other side. About ten years Jake’s senior, he had kept his body in immaculate shape.
It was one of the traits Jake had come to admire in the man. While they had only worked together briefly while Jake had been in Puerto Rico, the pair had connected after the mission, and kept in touch after his return to the United States. Jake had spent a week in California to attend a conference, and he had crashed at Holland’s place in the city. Their friendship was one that had originally been born out of necessity—the common bond of high stress and a shared adventure—but it had been proven in the mundane and lazy rhythms of normal life.
“To be honest, I’m not even sure why I came,” Holland said. “It was supposed to be a family reunion or something down in Worcester. Turns out Aunt Edna has worse dementia than we thought. She only sent three invitations, and one of them was addressed to her husband. He’s been dead for twelve years.”
Jake couldn’t help himself. He chuckled as he brought the tea up to his lips. “Well, good to see you, no matter what.”
“Definitely great to hang out with you, too,” Holland said. “You going to tell me why you came all the way to Cambridge for me?”
Jake swallowed the tea in his mouth, nodding. “She got back to me last night. Agreed to meet.”
Holland raised an eyebrow. “She…”
“Yep,” Jake said. “Eliza.”
“I see. Well, in that case, don’t let me keep you.”
Jake laughed. “You’re not. Our meeting’s in an hour. I
got a better version of it out there. Sports teams, food, good-looking people.”
“That is true, I do live there,” Holland said. “And I am very good-looking.”
Jake tried to stifle his grin. Jackson Holland might possibly have been the ugliest man Jake had ever seen. With a feature set that would make a seventeen-year-old pug look like a contender for the world’s most naturally beautiful dog, Holland would have been stopped at the door of any beauty pageants.
What he lacked in the looks department, however, he more than made up for in physical prowess. Holland was a career soldier, a man who had been through the shit and had held himself together well enough to fully compartmentalize it on the other side. About ten years Jake’s senior, he had kept his body in immaculate shape.
It was one of the traits Jake had come to admire in the man. While they had only worked together briefly while Jake had been in Puerto Rico, the pair had connected after the mission, and kept in touch after his return to the United States. Jake had spent a week in California to attend a conference, and he had crashed at Holland’s place in the city. Their friendship was one that had originally been born out of necessity—the common bond of high stress and a shared adventure—but it had been proven in the mundane and lazy rhythms of normal life.
“To be honest, I’m not even sure why I came,” Holland said. “It was supposed to be a family reunion or something down in Worcester. Turns out Aunt Edna has worse dementia than we thought. She only sent three invitations, and one of them was addressed to her husband. He’s been dead for twelve years.”
Jake couldn’t help himself. He chuckled as he brought the tea up to his lips. “Well, good to see you, no matter what.”
“Definitely great to hang out with you, too,” Holland said. “You going to tell me why you came all the way to Cambridge for me?”
Jake swallowed the tea in his mouth, nodding. “She got back to me last night. Agreed to meet.”
Holland raised an eyebrow. “She…”
“Yep,” Jake said. “Eliza.”
“I see. Well, in that case, don’t let me keep you.”
Jake laughed. “You’re not. Our meeting’s in an hour. I
figured if you’re still yammering on forty-five minutes from now, I’ll just get up and leave.”
“Deal,” Holland said. “Let’s get to it, then. You mentioned in your text that you talked to your old man again? How’d that go? Did you get any more info from him?”
Holland had been on-board the Navy hospital ship in Puerto Rico, in Jake’s room while he recovered from minor injuries, when Jake had gotten the first call from his father. Having not heard from his dad since the brief sorry for your loss after Mel’s death, Jake had thought it strange to hear from him.
And what his father had told him in Puerto Rico had been even stranger.
Don’t mess with Dominguez.
The Dominguez gang controlled the island of Puerto Rico, at least unofficially. Working closely with one of the leading pharmaceutical companies on the island, Dominguez had put together a network of drug dealers, corrupt police officers, and pharmaceutical executives. They had even been working on the general population of Puerto Rico to push their own agenda of sovereignty from the United States.
They had gained a lot of power along the way, and Jake had narrowly missed being destroyed by the ever-churning jaws of crime.
Jake had been sent down to the island by McDonnell, an old West Point friend and now intelligence officer with the United States government, to dig up whatever connection Dominguez might have with the pharmaceutical companies that were doing business with them. He had unraveled a bit of the conspiracy, leading to the arrest of the CEO of the biggest pharmaceutical company around, as well as the indictment of many other top-level executives who had had their hand in the cookie jar.
All in all, it had been a success… on paper. It gave the Feds back home more reason to snoop around, and the US Army and Navy had increased their permanent personnel presence on-island.
It had not, however, given Jake much of the closure around his wife’s death that he’d been promised. While he had discovered who the real target of the bomb at the Boston cafe which had killed his wife had been—a mid-level executive from one of the pharmaceutical company’s
chief rivals—having a picture next to a name and now a motive for the attack certainly hadn’t done much to bring back Mel.
Jake wasn’t sure how to answer Holland’s question, so he decided to come clean. “I called him this time, trying to figure out what he was talking about when he told me not to be messing around with Dominguez. It was such a weird thing to hear him say, and not just because I hadn’t heard from him in four years.”
“You mean like how the hell he knew you were messing around with Dominguez in the first place?” Holland asked.
Jake nodded. “Yes, precisely. How did he know I was in Puerto Rico? Who is he talking to that knows and tracks my movements? And why does he even care?”
“Sounds like a loving father, wanting to keep tabs on his son.”
Jake rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat. The chair creaked loudly but held. “It made me wonder: What kind of stuff is he involved in? He was a colonel in the Marines, but I have no idea what sort of job he took after he retired.”
“At that level, and with the connections I would assume someone like that would have, I’d say ‘just about any job he wanted.’”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. He could be doing something intelligence-related, but I figured, if that were the case, he would have reached out to his son about something like that long ago. You know, to his West Point-graduate son, who spent five years in the Army as an intelligence officer.”
“Fathers have a knack for not wanting advice or opinions from their kids, Parker,” Holland said.
It might have been meant as a throwaway, tongue-in-cheek comment, but Jake heard the truth behind it. He had never asked Holland anything about his own family or personal life, but for a relationship like theirs, it didn’t seem abnormal. Jake had had plenty of guy friends whose private lives he knew next to nothing about.
“Right, that’s all very true,” Jake said. “But I figured he would give me a little more to go on than just a threatening sentence. Hell, he knows I was a detective. If he didn’t want me to be suspicious, he should have told me what was bothering him in the first place. He should have just come clean. Why shouldn’t I have been looking into
Dominguez?”
Holland cocked an eyebrow and stared at Jake with his trademark quizzical-meets-annoyed expression. His eyes drooped, the eyebrows on his forehead too heavy to stay out of their way. His jowls matched, hanging loosely around his mouth. As such, his response was perfectly deadpan. “Perhaps it’s the fact that what your father is doing is absolutely something to be suspicious of,” Holland said.
Jake had, of course, already considered this. What if his father had gotten himself into something unscrupulous? What if he were working with Dominguez for some reason? Jake knew the gang in Puerto Rico had been trying to make inroads into the drug-trafficking business on the United States’ mainland, but he had no idea the extent to which they had succeeded, if at all.
Could his father have invested in helping them?
No, it didn’t add up—to his knowledge, Jake’s father had never struggled with drugs or alcohol, or any addiction, for that matter. He had never been a gambling man, nor one to chase vices of any sort. He was intelligent, and more than capable of making money in a legitimate fashion. So why would he get in bed with a criminal organization trading in illicit contraband? It was an unnecessary risk, and it didn’t fit the image Jake had of his father.
There was more to the story, but Jake didn’t even know where to begin.
“We used to run skip traces all the time in Puerto Rico,” Holland said suddenly. Jake looked back up at him, not realizing he had been staring down at the circular stain of the tea ring on the tabletop. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it didn’t. Most of the time, even if it didn’t work, it ruffled a few feathers.”
“What are you saying?” Jake asked.
Holland shrugged, then pulled the loose skin on his face up into what Jake knew was the man’s best version of a smile. “I’m saying maybe we try to ruffle some feathers.”
