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Skip tracing was Frankie’s favourite part of her job. She got to travel. She got to put people who thought they could get away with murder, or whatever, back behind bars. Her second favourite part of the job was getting paid.
The personally motivated trip to New York had given her some kind of closure and after a week of reflection and touching base with some old friends, her only family these days, she was ready to work again. Sleep was not coming easy to her and she definitely needed something to tire her out.
The first few jobs were run-of-the-mill. Nothing out of the ordinary. Working hard, she kept finding her bounty and she was slowly getting back to being able to sleep when she needed. It was 3am and she couldn’t sleep so she was finishing the paperwork for her third case in two weeks when her thoughts were interrupted by her phone buzzing and vibrating along the counter top.
“Hello?”
“Hey Frankie. Didn’t think you’d actually be awake. D’ya miss me?”
“Harper.”
“The one and only.”
“What do you want?”
“Is that any way to greet a friend.”
“A friend? You haven’t called since that night.”
“Aw, c’mon it’s only been a couple of weeks. I’ve been busy.”
“So, treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen?”
“Well are you?”
“What?”
“Keen?”
Frankie laughed. She shook her head and in her mind she could see Harper’s smirk.
“C’mon that’s not why you called. “
“No, it’s not. I was asked to give you a heads up.”
“For what?”
“For a text you’re going to get. It’ll be an untraceable number so don’t bother trying. It’s the same source I’ve been getting.”
“Hmm. And just how trustworthy is this source?”
“I don’t know about trustworthy but she hasn’t let me down yet?”
“She?”
“Apparently Thornhill – it’s the only name I got – is a she. The weird thing is every job seems to be helping someone in danger. Either directly or indirectly. And then I get handsomely paid. Win-win if you ask me.”
“Since when did you care about helping people?”
“I helped you.”
“Yeah, you saved your own skin.”
“Look, I can’t force you but all I can say is it’s the same people that Reilly works with and they seem like good people so...”
“Fair enough.”
“Oh so one mention of ‘Johnny boy’ and you’re all over it. I see how it is.”
“That’s not it. He... he gave me every reason to trust him so I hues I could give this thing a shot. See how it goes.”
“Alright then. So, uh, if you find yourself in New York again...”
“Yeah Harper, I’ll call you. Or whatever.”
“So you are keen.”
“Whatever. Bye Harper.”
She hung up to the sound of a chuckling Harper and it made her smile. Deciding that trying to sleep was definitely futile, she decided to finish the paperwork and then go for a run on the beach once the dawn was breaking. She often got her best thinking done during a workout.
The run did help clear her head. Working for this Thornhill person was an intriguing prospect and although she wasn’t convinced about the legitimacy of the work she remembered Detectives Reilly and Fusco and that was enough to convince her to give it a shot.
* * *
The text came that evening. Frankie had managed to get some sleep during the day and was out getting gas when she felt her mobile buzz in her pocket. Back in her car she looked at the screen. It was an address in Jacksonville. A little bit of research later, she was on the road and heading towards the location in a less than salubrious part of town. As she drove across the city towards the New Town area wondering what she would find there.
Twenty minutes later she pulled up, across the road from the address. It was a small cafe called J.J.’s. She watched as a few customers came in and out – nothing out of the ordinary. The final customers of the day caught her eye. Lingering outside until the previous customers had left – at this time of day everyone was getting takeout, leaving with brown paper bags – the tall man and his shorter friend were in and out in less than a minute and they had no bag. Frankie had taken some pictures of them before they went in and managed to get a few more when they re-emerged. Finally, the owner came out and pulled the shutters down, locking them before turning and heading across the road, almost heading for Frankie’s car.
She froze as the tired looking man got into the car in front of her. Not in fear of being spotted. She had just seen a ghost from her past. As the car in front of her pulled out and drove off she let out the breath she didn’t even know she was holding.
Her brain was telling her to follow the car but her emotions clouded her judgement. She would never forget that face. Taunting her as she used some borrowed duct tape to fix her shoes. Laughing at her as she got on her school bus home. Sneering at her from the open top car he got to drive back to his parents house (she imagined it was a mansion). Joe Johnston had a face she could never forget.
It was too late now. The car was out of sight. She took a deep breath and drove home.
* * *
She may only have slept a few hours in the past 48 but sleep wasn’t going to come to her tonight either. She put her leather jacket back on and headed downtown to a bar she knew well.
She ordered a beer and, sighing, took her phone out of her pocket. It had buzzed several times since she had left the cafe but she had ignored it. All the messages were the same: the same address she had been sent before. Not a chance. She grimaced and put her phone away. She drank that first beer fast, before ordering another which she drank more slowly, watching the sports highlights on the TV behind the bar. She was halfway through her third when nature called.
On her way to the restroom the payphone – this was the type of bar to still have one – rang. She ignored it and she heard the ringing stop as she went through the inner door of the restroom. As she emerged back out into the dimply lit bar she almost jumped as it began to ring again. A few people were staring at her. She shrugged, then sighed in resignation as she turned to pick up the receiver.
“Hello?”
Hotel. Echo. November. Echo. Echo. Delta. Sierra. Hotel. Echo. Lima. Papa.
She hung up the phone. “Yeah, well, so do lots of people.” It rang again. She rolled her eyes. Against her better judgement, she picked it up again.
Charlie. Hotel. Indigo. Lima. Delta.
“Ah shit.”
Frankie could have lived with not helping this guy but not helping a kid - that was low. She sighed and leaned against the wall. “Fine, tell me what to do.”
Sierra. Lima. Echo. Echo. Papa.
Frankie laughed. “Believe me I’d love to.” She hung up the phone, paid her tab and set off, heading back to her apartment. She still wasn’t used to living in the city but since her brother had died she couldn’t bring herself to stay on her own in her Hammerton. Still not used to the noises in her new home she often found herself lying awake at night unable to shut her brain down and relax. As she headed east towards her home she silently hoped that the beers she had would help her relax enough so she could sleep.
* * *
That turned out to be wishful thinking. She got a few fitful hours of sleep before getting some research done. Frankie found out Joe had got himself into debt after his wife had died. Not having good health insurance and not having any life insurance had left him with a mountain of medical bills and funeral costs to pay. At first Frankie discovered that the once relatively wealthy Johnston family had fallen on very hard times since the sub-prime mortgage crisis in 2008. Frankie felt no pity for them for this. They had been an arrogant family, looking down their noses at poorer families and putting very little into the local community. The only decent Johnston was Joe’s sister – who it now appeared was living with Joe, looking after his daughter while Joe was working.
Later on, she headed out to ask a few contacts about the guys she had spotted leaving the cafe the previous night. The two men were known associates of a loan shark. It didn’t take Frankie long to find out that Joe had borrowed money from them to pay off his debts. Now they were after their money.
Joe was in trouble. Frankie had a dilemma.
Except it wasn’t much of a dilemma. She couldn’t stand back and watch this widower, a father of a young child, get himself hurt – or worse – by some lower than life scumbags.
“Okay, so Joe needs help. How do I do that?”
Her phone buzzed with the answer to her question.
* * *
It was a simple set up. The loan shark was part of a local gang, mainly involved in gun trade and trading in other smuggled goods. Another local gang who ran most of the drugs trade in the city were often dealing in a property a few blocks away from J.J.’s. A few well placed tips from her new elusive contact and Frankie had found and knocked the smaller of the two men who had visited Joe out and stolen his gun. Five minutes later, wearing the jacket she had taken off the unconscious man, she used the same gun to knee cap a drug runner from the other gang before knocking him out too. She worked quickly, taking the bag of money from the bleeding man, removing most of the money and placing the bag on the short man before using the drug runner’s gun to shoot the other man in the leg making sure the bullet hit the bag too. She returned both guns to their original owners and used a burned phone to call 911 and direct the police to the alleyway before tossing the phone and getting away from the area as quickly as possible.
She made her way the few short blocks to J.J.s, stepping into the empty cafe and surveying the interior before turning the sign to ‘closed’ and locking the door from the inside. There were clear signs of panic on Joe’s face as he realised what was going on.
“Hey, I don’t have any cash here.”
“Relax Joe, I’m not here to take money from you. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“What? Wait, do I know you?”
“Yeah, Joe, you should.”
He surveyed her for a moment before a look of realisation came over his face. “Frankie? Frankie Wells?”
“The one and only.”
“Ah.” He nervously gripped his arm. The one Deacon broke when Joe’s bullying went too far. “Look-“
“You can stop right there. I can’t believe I’m actually doing this but, I’m here to help you.”
“You are?”
“Yeah, look don’t ask me how I know you’re in trouble or how I know you have a kid and that you were in danger but I do and so, uh – here.” Frankie shoved the bag she had brought with her, now filled with cash, across the counter towards a confused Joe.
“What’s this?” He opened the bag and his eyes widened at the sight of the cash. “How did you get this? And why are you giving it to me? Why on earth are you helping me?" He looked up at Frankie, fear and confusion in his eyes, "Because God knows, I do not deserve your help.”
“Let’s just say it was an anonymous benefactor who wants to help both of us. Actually I think they were testing me by trying to get me to help you. I suggest you find somewhere safe for that money so when they come calling next you can settle your debt and move on.”
Joe nodded dumbly, just staring at the cash. He shook his head, snapping himself out of the daze and placed the bag in a cupboard under the counter. He picked up the coffee jug and filled two takeaway cups, handing one to Frankie, wordlessly.
He walked over to one of the tables and sat down he took a long slurp of coffee and then sat with his head in his hands. Frankie sat at the table opposite him. When he picked his head up she could see tears were in his eyes. This was not the same Joe from Hammerton Regional High School.
* * *
“Look, for what it’s worth – and I’m not expecting forgiveness – I just want you to know I’m sorry. Truly sorry. I was a jerk back in high school. I have changed. I can’t change what I did and every time my arm aches I’m reminded that I need to be a better role model for my daughter than my parents were for me. That’s not an excuse for what I did. So thank you – for helping me. For helping her.”
Frankie studied his face while he spoke. He seemed sincere. She banished thoughts of the sneering immature Joe from high school and focused on the man in front of her. The father desperately trying to provide for his daughter.
“So what will you do now?”
“Well, now I don’t have that debt I can maybe hire someone part time to help me, I hope it means I can spend more time with my daughter.”
“You should do that.” She got up and started to walk away before turning to face Joe again. “Take care of her Joe.”
He nodded and she gave a faint smile before turning the sign back and opening the door, finally realising how exhausted she was.
Maybe she would sleep better tonight.