Brian Freeman - The Crooked Street

“No, not her, either.”

His friend sighed long and hard. “I did warn you about all this, Frost.”

“I know you did.”

“It seems to me you’ve ended up with the worst of all possible worlds, haven’t you? You’re estranged from your brother, and you don’t have the woman you love in your life.”

“Yes, I’m setting new records even for myself,” Frost agreed. He was reminded of his mistakes every time he went inside the house on Russian Hill. There were no messages on his phone. No care packages in his refrigerator. No perfume in the air. Even Shack looked lonely without Duane and Tabby.

“My mother called me from Arizona,” he added. “She heard what happened.”

“How was that conversation?”

“Loud,” Frost said.

Herb chuckled.

Frost laughed, too, because there was nothing else to do.

Then he dug into his pocket when he heard the text tone on his phone. His forehead wrinkled with concern. It was another number he didn’t recognize, but he suspected that it had come from the man in the Bugatti.

You’re welcome.

Below the text was a link to the San Francisco Chronicle website.

“What’s that about?” Herb asked, noting the frown on Frost’s face.

“I don’t know, but let’s find out.”

Frost clicked the link and found himself on the newspaper’s home page. He spotted the breaking news article immediately, and he read the opening paragraphs of the story aloud.

Zelyx CEO Found Dead in Illinois

By Khristeen Smith

Martin Filko, the thirty-one-year-old wunderkind entrepreneur who built Zelyx Corporation into one of the most successful new tech companies of the past decade, was found dead in his car late last night in the garage of his Highland Park home. Police in the north Chicago suburb announced the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning.

An initial toxicology screening confirmed high levels of alcohol and opioids in Filko’s system, police said, but they noted it was too early to speculate whether the death was suicide or accidental.

As CEO of Zelyx, Filko was in the process of relocating the company’s headquarters to a new high-rise under construction in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco. A joint press release from the mayor’s office and the Zelyx board this morning promised that Filko’s death would have no impact on the relocation, which the statement called “a highly strategic move that is in the best interests of Zelyx and the people of San Francisco...”

Frost stopped reading.

Herb whistled in surprise. “Well, well, well. Apparently, Mr. Filko outlived his usefulness.”

“Apparently so,” Frost agreed, his lips pushed together in thought.

“Another gesture of goodwill?” Herb asked.

“Murder isn’t exactly goodwill, no matter who the victim is.”

“Well, in this case, I can’t say I’m sorry. Based on everything you told me, Mr. Filko had to go. The mayor and the city still get the Zelyx jobs but none of the awful baggage of its CEO. Everybody wins.”

Frost read the article again, and he could hear Prisha’s voice in his head. I know it’s not the choice you’d make, but it’s the best thing for everyone.

“So this was the deal they made,” Frost said.

Herb’s eyebrow cocked. “What?”

“Prisha and Zara paid Lombard to get rid of Martin Filko once and for all. As you say, with Filko gone, everybody wins. Fawn gets her revenge. That’s also why Prisha wasn’t worried about Lombard coming after them. They have as much to lose as he does if Lombard gets caught. They’d wind up in prison for murder.”

Herb frowned. “Is it brave or foolish to get in bed with the devil?”

“It never ends well,” Frost replied.

“No, I can’t say I approve of their methods,” Herb agreed, “even if their hearts were in the right place. It’s a dangerous thing to assume the ends justify the means. However, I’m not going to cry over the loss of Mr. Filko.”

Frost shook his head. “Except for every Martin Filko, there’s also Trent Gorham. And Mr. Jin. And Carla and Denny and who knows how many others? This man is a monster. He has to be stopped.”

Frost stared at the crowd again. His eyes went from face to face, wondering if Lombard was right there, looking back at him. He’d made a promise in the Bugatti, and sooner or later, he’d keep it. It didn’t matter how long it took. The two of them would meet again. He knew when they did, only one of them would walk away alive.

Herb had the look of a man who could read his mind and didn’t like what he saw. “I’ve lived long enough to be sure of one thing, Frost, although you may not want to hear it.”

“What’s that?” Frost asked.

His friend took him by the shoulder. “Sometimes the road to justice is a crooked street.”

When Frost got home to his house on Russian Hill after dark, he walked inside to the briny aroma of shellfish and the thump of Twenty One Pilots singing “Stressed Out” on his speakers. That could only mean one thing.

Duane.

He found his brother in the kitchen. Duane still wore his white chef’s coat, with his long black hair tied up in a ridiculous man bun. Below the coat, he wore khakis and Crocs. The patio door was open, letting warm air into the downstairs. The city’s spring heat wave continued with no end in sight. Shack sat on the counter, supervising the cooking process and getting the occasional nibble of crab as Duane made a stir-fry.

His brother’s shoulders bobbed to the song. The volume was loud enough that Duane didn’t even notice Frost until he was standing next to him. He acted as if it were no big deal to be here in Frost’s house, and any other time, it wouldn’t be. Duane pointed at a blender half-filled with thick orange slush.

“Carrot juice?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” Frost replied. He went to retrieve a beer.

After he opened a bottle of Sierra Nevada, Frost examined the damage to his brother’s face. The rainbow colors around Duane’s eyes had begun to fade, but he still wore a bandage over most of his nose.

“What did you do to yourself?” Frost asked. “Walk into a door?”

Duane shot him a sideways glance. “Something like that.”

“You should be more careful.”

“Uh-huh. You look like you’ve seen better days, too.”

“I have definitely seen better days,” Frost agreed.

He sat on a stool at the kitchen island as Duane worked. They didn’t say anything for a while. Shack hopped over to the island and climbed onto Frost’s shoulder. A chunk of crab in an Asian marinade flew off the grill, and Frost ate it before Shack could grab it for himself. It was delicious, because everything Duane cooked was delicious.

The music shifted from Twenty One Pilots to Tove Lo.

“So did Mom call you?” Frost asked finally.

“Yup. You?”

“Oh yeah.”

“She fights much better than we do,” Duane said.

“She sure does.”

Duane finished off the stir-fry and scooped the crab and noodles into bowls. “You hungry?”

“Not really,” Frost said.

His brother shrugged. “Yeah, me neither.”

Duane covered the bowls with plastic wrap and stored them in the refrigerator. He found a tulip dish in one of the cabinets and made up a bowl for Shack. Then the two brothers took their drinks and headed out to the patio. The cool fog hadn’t overtaken the heat of the day, and they sat around the table in the darkness, both of them sweating. Duane sipped carrot juice. Frost played with the bottle of beer between his fingers. Shack wandered out to the patio and sprawled on the table between them.

Ten minutes later, Duane said, “So you and me, we’re pretty different.”