Crow’s Row (43 page)

“Things change,” Cameron said plainly. And then, in a haughty-tone, he said, “I’m a busy man, Hawk. If you don’t want to talk business, I’ll take my business elsewhere. I don’t like to waste my time.”

While Cameron and Hawk stared each other down, the older man continued to look intently at me—like he was waiting for me to make a mistake. I was trying hard to ignore his stare and keep my facial muscles tensed and expressionless. But I could feel the corner of my mouth starting to twitch as the exerted muscles of my face were slowly surrendering. I had no idea that being purposefully uptight was so much work.

Hawk finally acquiesced and hesitantly turned on his heels to have us follow him and his older counterpart. They led us through a pearl white marble tunnel. Because of the narrowness of the tunnel, Cameron and I were forced to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, which made it even more difficult for me to neglect him. I focused on looking ahead.

Unlike the cave tunnel under the barn, the winding tunnel was sparkling clean and tailored with silver lanterns on the walls and expensive-looking cameras on the ceiling. Every few feet, we awkwardly brushed past armed guards that would look me over as we passed by.

Hawk and the old man continued to move ahead of us. I could hear their echoed voices as they started discoursing in French. Though the men’s dialect was definitely different, with a little concentration, I could understand most of what they were saying. My mom had grown up in Marseille, France, and was, by no stretch of the imagination, a proud Frenchwoman. Of the few childhood memories I had of my mother, almost all of them included her correcting my French.

Suddenly aware that I had been intently staring at the back of the men’s heads, I averted my eyes just as Hawk anxiously glanced back. He thankfully didn’t notice, or at least I didn’t think that he had. He turned back to his partner, while I continued to eavesdrop with my eyes on my feet.

“Why the hell would they bring a girl like that here?” Hawk exclaimed in French to the old man, “The crows are hiding something, Pops. I can feel it.”

“I don’t know about the boy, but I think you are right about the girl. She is without a doubt hiding something,” croaked the old man.

“Like what?” Hawk asked nervously.

“I’m not sure yet, but I sense something distinctive in her.”

“Do you think she could hurt us?”

“How much harm could one young girl do?” the old man said pensively, like he was talking to himself rather than his partner.

“I don’t know. There’s definitely something strange about her,” the young leader continued.

“There’s something strange with all the crows, son,” said the old man. He chuckled hoarsely. “At least the girl is easier on the eyes than the unpleasant baldheaded crow they call Spider.”

Hawk groaned in annoyance and wondered, “What should we do?”

The old man paused before answering. “Call the guards. Tell them to be on high alert. We’ll see where this goes.”

Hawk took out his shortwave radio, and his uneasy voice reverberated within the marble tunnel through the radios that were holstered on the belts of the tunnel guards. While I was growing nervous, Cameron remained unchanged. I doubted that he had understood any of the men’s discussion and wished that I could warn him. But I knew that if I could so easily hear the men ahead of us, they would just as easily hear me if I spoke. I remained silent, for now.

A pungent smell had started to seep into the tunnel. By the time we had reached the end, the stench was unbearable. I understood the source as we stepped out of the passageway and into a large greenhouse. Fluorescent lights were hanging low from the ceiling, acting as artificial sunlight to the illegal plants. People in white coats were moving about the room, tending to them. Lined up against the walls were more armed guards, all of whom were glaring in our direction—now on high alert.

Cameron and Hawk met up and walked ahead between the tables, while the old man joined me behind. Cameron spied the plants and disapproved. Their color, their size, and their quality were, apparently, unsuitable. This, of course, sent Hawk into an uproar, and the two business men commenced arguing over proper pricing of the crops. While I fixed on the argument, I could feel the old man studying my every move. That was when I realized that, in an unconscious response to the overpowering smell, my face had recoiled into a grimace. I corrected this immediately, but not before the old man had noticed and smirked at his detection of my defection.

I was starting to feel sick from the reek of the plants. Eventually Cameron and Hawk were able to agree on a price that neither seemed pleased with. I was really glad when we continued to move forward. The old man had rejoined Hawk ahead, and Cameron was back at my side, continuing to artfully ignore me.

Hawk turned to the old man—his face was red and sweating. “That insulting … How dare he attack the quality of our work? We have been growing for generations, before that kid was even born.”

The old man was calm. “You know as well as I do that it’s a bad crop. The boy is smart, and he’s a good businessman. You shouldn’t be severe with him for doing his job.”

Hawk huffed. “Well, whatever his reasons, I’ll make sure to give him the worst of all of the plants. Maybe next time he’ll think twice about insulting us.”

The old man quickly peeked back and caught me looking at him. I veered my eyes away and felt my cheeks burning. He only smiled and kept walking.

We passed the endless tables of plants and headed into another marble tunnel. Large vents were churning out fresh air over our heads. I cheerfully took several large inhalations.

I could see the old man’s mouth moving but couldn’t hear what they were saying because of the noise from the vents. This was the opportunity I had been waiting for. I waited until I was certain that they weren’t watching then I turned to Cameron with urgency, unsure as to how long I would have before they noticed us talking.

“They think that I’m hiding something … they don’t trust us … they put the guards on high alert … you’re right, the crop is bad … the Hawk guy is planning on giving you all the worst plants … oh and, why do they keep calling you crow?” I finished, out of breath.

Cameron first looked at me with puzzlement, and then his face quickly turned to fury. He pushed me behind him so quickly, so fiercely that I almost fell to the floor. Hawk, who had come running in my direction, looked violent, his rage equal only to Cameron’s.

“What game are you playing at? You brought the girl so that you could spy on us?” Hawk screamed. I had been tricked into thinking that they couldn’t overhear me. Hawk and the old man had now heard everything.

Cameron shoved Hawk away and looked like he was ready to kill him. “Step away. Now.” His voice was sharp, leaving no doubt that he would kill if pushed to it.

The old man stepped between the two boys and urged them to calm down. He then he turned to me with an excited smile.

“I knew I recognized those green eyes,” he said in French. “You looked like you understood what we were saying, but I had to be sure. There aren’t many people in these parts who speak French. Your brother Billy was the only one I knew outside our tribe.”

The old man started to move toward me, but Cameron barred him and looked at me—absolute confusion on his face.

I translated in a hurry. “He knows I’m Bill’s sister.” That was the gist of it anyway.

Cameron continued to stand his ground, glancing from me to the old man, trying to figure out what to do. In my mind, there were only two options: fight through an army of armed guards and try to escape without too many bullet wounds, or let the defenseless old man approach me. Deciding for both of us, I held Cameron’s gaze and tugged his arm down. He let me by with great reluctance. The old man gleefully looped his arm around my shoulders—Cameron flinched as he did so.

“In Manuuk tribal legends, crows,” he explained in French as we moved ahead of Cameron and Hawk and continued to wind our way down the vented tunnel, “are said to be spirits of great powers that move between the worlds of the living and the dead. They are highly intelligent creatures. They learn and adapt quickly.”

“Crows are also greedy and tricky,” bitterly added Hawk, in English for Cameron’s benefit—the effect was lost on Cameron, as this was the only portion of the conversation that he had understood.

“Yes, crows are mischievous—they like to play tricks on us, but they are also extremely loyal to their kind. When a crow is struggling, it will seek out its kind to survive. They take care of each other like a family, blood ties or not. Your brother and this one,” he said pointing at an oblivious Cameron, “were a lot like the crows of my tribe’s legends when I first met them.”

We arrived at another elevator, and the four of us squeezed in. Hawk pulled the elevator grid closed.

“I’m Emily,” I blurted out. From the look on Cameron’s face as I said this, I thought he was going to jump out of his skin.

“Your brother called you Emmy, yes?” the old man asked, his inquisitive eyes persistent.

I figured that I wouldn’t be able to lie to him, so I chose not to. “When I was young.”

“And you’re not young anymore,” he said. This was funny to him. “I’m Jerry, but call me Pops.”

The elevator motor hummed. Pops still had his arm looped into mine. He patted my hand like he could feel my heart beating a mile a minute. His skin was cold and rubbery, and I could smell pipe tobacco off his clothes. I usually didn’t like to be touched by strange old men. But I decided that I liked him, even if he was a drug dealer … distributor.

We stepped out of the elevator into a darkened grotto. The rock walls and ceiling were glistening with dripping water, and a stream gushed along one of the walls through gaping holes, from one side of the cave to the other. The room was barely lit by lanterns that were clumsily hung on the walls. I couldn’t see my feet in the darkness and had to rely on the old man to guide me to a small bench that was next to the gushing stream. We sat down, while Cameron and Hawk silently stood behind us. Men with guns against the walls completed the scene. We waited. For what, I didn’t know.

“I was really sorry when I heard your brother passed on. He was a good kid. Much too young to die.” Pops was sincere.

“Thank you,” I said in English.

The water bubbled. It was too dark, I couldn’t see, so I leaned in for a closer look. A big fish suddenly surfaced, and I screamed, almost falling over the bench. Cameron caught me before I busted my skull open on the rock floor. Everyone laughed, except me. Cameron chuckled, only a bit. The men quickly went to work as more fish broke the surface. Pops and I watched from the sidelines. One by one, the whale-sized fish were pulled from the water by the gunmen and gutted—guts in the form of plastic bags fell out.

“Look real, don’t they?” Pops said proudly. I nodded, still in shock.

“They’re just robots covered in latex,” he explained.

“Where do they come from?”

“From everywhere—boats, submarines, neighboring states, Canada. This batch came from a German boat two miles off the eastern coast.”

“Aren’t you afraid that they’ll get seized?” Or fished?

“Hasn’t happened yet.” He seemed amused by my questions. “They can’t be traced back to us anyway.”

A string of curse words erupted between Hawk and Cameron. They had resumed their earlier argument over the market value of the merchandise. I had to plug my ears as echoed profanities bounced off the rock walls.

“Are they always like this?” I asked loudly.

“This is the most well-behaved I’ve ever seen them. By this point, I usually have to order them to put their guns away or get one of the guards to pull them apart,” he said. “Both as stubborn as mules.”

Pops caught Cameron nervously glancing over at me for the hundredth time. I quickly distracted him.

“What was my brother like?”

From the smile on his face, he knew it was a diversion, but went along with it anyway. “Your brother was just a boy when I first met him,” he remembered. “One day he showed up unannounced and demanded to speak to me. The first thing he said to me: you need to change your alliances. I didn’t know what to make of this kid. He was either a fool or pretty brave for strolling in here like that. I decided to listen to him. Well-spoken kid. Made a good case. He convinced me. Been doing business with these crows since.”

I inertly smiled at this memory of my brother. Apparently his charm had also worked on drug dealers, not just girls’ panties.

Pops’s voice brought me back to reality. “This one, on the other hand,” he said nodding in Cameron’s direction, “was very young. Too young to be in this business. Your brother relied on him quite a bit. The boy’s smart, but I always thought it was more than a kid like that could handle.”

Pops eyed me, like he was waiting for a sign that this part of his discourse had mattered to me. He didn’t need to wait long for me to falter. Cameron glanced to check on me again, and our eyes locked for a split second. I motionlessly signaled that I was okay. I was starting to recognize Cameron’s subtle changes in demeanor—and he was definitely angry with me. I would have to deal with this later. I had bigger fish to fry for now.

It had pleased the old man to spy us silently communicating. “He’s a quiet young fellow. Impossible to read. He seems lost, as if he’s already in the spirit world. We don’t like to do business with crows who don’t have any roots in this world,” he qualified. “But he’s a good businessman and has always been fair to us. I’m glad to see that he’s human after all.” His smile was telling.