The Unlucky by Jonas Saul

It spun in a half circle until he faced out the window. Outside, the busy street was littered with lunch traffic, people walking left and right without a care about the criminals amongst them. Cars scurried by, racing around illegally parked couriers, horns blaring, drivers shouting.
     
    Tim ran a hand through his hair. It had been a long night interviewing Aaron Stevens, but in the end they got nowhere, no closer to locating Sarah. Aaron knew nothing. The last he’d seen Sarah was in California. She called and asked for a favor. He moved her car to a rendezvous point. That was it. That was all he knew. And there was nothing illegal about that.
     
    Between interviews, Tim had taken a break to pull Aaron’s file and to suck back a coffee with four painkillers for his aching broken hand. Reading the file, he discovered Aaron’s history with a Detective Folley regarding Aaron’s missing sister, Joanne Stevens. Maybe it was Aaron’s vigilante side that first attracted Sarah to him.
     
    Aaron’s case was unusual. He had not only investigated his sister’s disappearance on his own, he ended up being kidnapped, flown to Greece and shot multiple times in an ancient stone prison called Palamidi.
     
    Aaron, the trained fighter, had balls. But he was stupid, too. Investigating his sister’s disappearance could have cost him his life. Aaron would be dead right now if his friends hadn’t shown up in Greece to stop his murder. Life wasn’t something you left up to luck. Especially someone as calculated and disciplined as Aaron. But he had raced after his sister’s killer like a blind rodent wandering aimlessly into the mouth of its predator.
     
    Tim rose from his chair and headed for the door. They couldn’t hold Aaron. They had nothing on him. His story checked out. They had no leads and no Sarah Roberts.
     
    And Tim’s police issue weapon was still missing.
     
    At the door, his phone rang. He stopped, his hand on the knob. On the third ring, he decided to take the call.
     
    Behind his desk again, he picked up the phone.
     
    “Detective Simmons here.”
     
    “Detective,” a male voice said softly.
     
    “Who’s this?” Tim leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk.
     
    “Tim Sim. It’s been too long.”
     
    Tim Sim?
     
    He hadn’t been called that in a long time. The play on his name was something common in high school and later on, police college. The people he knew since making detective never called him that.
     
    “Who is this?” he asked again.
     
    “We’ve met once before.”
     
    “And …”
     
    “Look, I’ll get to the point. You’ve got a little mess that needs cleaning up.”
     
    “Listen asshole, I’m going to hang up now. Not interested in what you’re selling.”
     
    “A lot of people will die if you hang up.”
     
    The silence that followed allowed Tim to hear the caller’s breathing. A distant memory was surfacing. The voice was recognizable, but he couldn’t place it.
     
    “You’ve got my attention.”
     
    “Good.”
     
    Papers shuffled on the other end of the line.
     
    “Why is Sarah Roberts in Toronto?”
     
    “No idea.”
     
    “Is she of interest to you?”
     
    “What’s your stake in this?” Tim asked.
     
    The caller’s name was close. An old school friend, a neighbor, an associate. He had to keep him talking.
     
    “I’ll ask the questions. That agreeable?”
     
    “This kind of mysterious phone call only happens in the movies. Unless you’ve recently escaped a rubber room. Are you for real?”
     
    “That was your last question. Understood?”
     
    When he said understood in a deeper, more pronounced voice, the caller’s name popped into Tim’s head.
     
    Toronto City Councilor Marshall Machiavelli.
     
    He had worked close with Marshall during the last Toronto mayoral elections. Security detail had been compromised and detectives without a large case load were assigned to locate the insiders. Some believed there was an old boys’