“It’s Matt, from the bar last night.”
“I remember you. I wasn’t sure you’d call, but I’m glad you did. You want to join, then?”
“I thought I’d check it out.”
“Good. We’ll pick you up at 9. What’s your address?”
Matt waited outside his apartment block so that Harry couldn’t see the hole he called a home. Not that standing outside helped. It wouldn’t be hard for him to work it out from the address. The five-story converted residential hotel on the wrong side of I-5 looked almost as bad from the outside as it did on the inside.
A horn tooted and a blue-black SUV pulled up in front of him. Harry was driving, but he wasn’t alone; three other men sat in the vehicle with him. Matt wandered over and the guy in the back flung open a passenger door. Matt got in.
“Guys, this is Matt,” Harry said. “Okay, quick introductions. Riding shotgun with me is Brett Chalmers. Sitting next to you is Frank Tripplehorn. And taking up too much room in back there is John Stein.”
The Taskmasters smiled and nodded. Matt tried to do the same, but they were nothing like he’d imagined. Matt had taken the trouble to dress up, nothing too fancy, but then again he didn’t have anything too fancy. Surprisingly, however, he was the overdressed one. Everyone else was in jeans, polo shirts, and windbreakers. They all had Harry’s muscular build, except John Stein, who was another X-size up. His head scraped the underside of the SUV’s roof.
Introductions over, Harry turned the car around and took Madison over the freeway and into downtown. The Taskmasters bantered with one another, talking about nothing much. Matt interrupted them.
“Where are we going?” He hadn’t intended the level of fear in his voice. It didn’t go unnoticed by the others.
“We have a clubhouse where we meet,” Tripplehorn said.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know?” Chalmers asked. The jagged edge the man placed on his question didn’t invite further questioning. Matt shook his head and the Taskmasters returned to their conversation.
The clubhouse was an exaggeration of mammoth proportions. Before Matt had called Harry’s number, rich Corinthian leather and dark mahogany had sprung to mind. All that went out the window when Harry drew up in front of a largely ignored stretch of Yesler Way. By day, this area was home to the court and city workers. By night, it was nothing. Matt was checking out the restaurants dotted along the streets when Harry pointed across the road at a decayed building. Graffiti-strewn boards covered old busted-out windows.
“Home sweet home,” Stein said, sliding out of the SUV.
Harry popped open on a giant padlock on a security shutter protecting the entrance from bums and thieves and slid it back. He unlocked and opened the dark wood doors with amber-colored, leaded glass insets.
Stepping inside, Matt remembered this place. It was going to be some fancy five-star restaurant headed by some TV chef and financed by a dotcom millionaire. When the dot-com bubble burst, it took the millionaire and his restaurant dreams with it. The place had been festering ever since. It was a shame. The turn-of-the-century brick structure gave the place class, but only when it was in tiptop condition. In its current shape, the heavy brick construction turned the place into a dungeon. The place was rainproof, but the brick held the damp and didn’t let go. Someone had gotten into the building at some point. Graffiti covered the walls and either the contractor or opportunists had made off with anything that had salvage value. Someone at sometime had urinated in the building. A startled rat scuttled across the floor to hide in a darkened corner.
Harry closed the doors and locked them. The dead bolt sounded like a gunshot and echoed off the walls.
If the Taskmasters owned this place, they had a lot of work to do. But Matt knew these guys probably didn’t own it. Something was very wrong and Matt started planning how he was going to get out of this. He knew when he was out of his league. Harry and Co. weren’t the kind of guys he could punch his way past. He wondered if the Taskmasters were connected to someone he’d hurt, but couldn’t think of anyone with that kind of muscle on tap. Harry dropped a heavy hand on Matt’s shoulder and guided him toward a circle of raggedy looking La-Z-Boys.
“Don’t be put off by the surroundings. Take a load off and have a beer.”
Tripplehorn carried over the cooler he’d retrieved from the SUV’s trunk and deposited it at the center of the circle. He flipped it open and tossed Matt an MGD. “You’re in good company.”
Matt did as he was told and sat down.
Harry took a beer from Tripplehorn and flopped into a chair next to Matt. “I declare this meeting of the Taskmasters is now in session.” He raised his bottle and so did the other Taskmasters. Matt shifted in his seat. “Only two items of new business tonight,” Harry continued. “The first being our new member, Matt.”
“Good to have you, Matt,” Stein said, and raised his bottle to him.
“I think Matt can be an asset,” Harry said. “I believe he has a good heart, but he’s a little misdirected. I hope becoming a Taskmaster will straighten him out and put him on the right track.”
Harry’s character assessment embarrassed Matt. It made him feel like a kid at parent-teacher night forced to listen to a report being given about him. He hid his embarrassment behind his beer, drinking it too fast.
“I don’t know if Harry has explained what we do here at the Taskmasters,” Tripplehorn said.
“Not really,” Matt replied.
“Well, once a month we challenge each other.”
“One person from the group is given a specific task chosen by the others,” Chalmers chimed in.
“Which must be completed by the next month,” Stein added.
“Which brings us nicely to our second piece of new business,” Harry said. “This month’s challenge.”
Tripplehorn fished out a pack of playing cards from his pocket, but Harry stopped him.
“No low-card winner this time.” He looked at Matt.
“Taskmaster rules state that the new Taskmaster member is automatically assigned the challenge.”
Stein and Chalmers grinned at each other. An invisible noose tightened around Matt’s throat and he shrank into the damp-smelling La-Z-Boy.
“Harry, you’re right. I forgot the rules.” Tripplehorn did nothing to hide his smirk. “Matt, you’re this month’s automatic low-card winner.”
“Don’t let these goofballs scare you, Matt,” Harry said. “There’s nothing to worry about. As fellow Taskmasters, we’ll make sure that everything goes smoothly.”
“What do I do?” Matt’s fear began bubbling to the surface.
“Didn’t I tell you Matt is a born Taskmaster?” Harry said.
“You guys give speeches, right?” Matt asked. “Like Toastmasters do, right?”
He knew his assumption was wrong. This was no conventional organization. They were something else and their burst of raucous laughter confirmed the fact.
“I think you need another beer,” Chalmers said, and tossed another bottle at Matt.
“No,” Harry said. “We do things a little differently. Stein, why don’t you tell Matt here what you did for the Taskmasters last month.”
“Surely.” Stein wiggled in his seat, making himself comfy. “I killed a no-good pimp. Put a bullet,” Stein put a finger to his own forehead and made a popping sound, “right between his eyes.”
Stein handed around half a dozen Polaroids of a stick-thin Latino man lying dead in a gutter with a small hole in his face. He went on to describe how he’d stalked the pimp, some guy named Hernandez, and finally lured him to his death with the promise of a big score. The Taskmasters laughed and joked with each other as Stein walked them through the story. Matt didn’t laugh. He was too busy trying to hold it together. His worst fears struck him with freight-train intensity. He’d guessed the Taskmasters weren’t on the up and up when they’d picked him up in the SUV. Philanthropic tendencies were the last thing he felt from them now. He remembered Harry’s words in the alley. When he’d said that he could help Matt turn his life around, Matt had thought he would help him straighten up his act, not teach him how to hone his violent tendencies.
Chalmers fished out a letter-sized manila envelope from inside his jacket and tossed it over to Matt. Matt opened it, failing to hide his trembling hands. The Taskmasters glanced at each other, exchanging naughty schoolboy smiles. Matt scanned the details on the plain typed sheet and the handful of photographs.
“That’s Terrance Robinson,” Chalmers said, confirming the details Matt held in his hands. “He’s a hit-and-run driver. Killed a little girl six months ago.”
Matt examined a surveillance picture of Robinson crossing 1st with Pike Place Market behind him. He was twenty or thirty pounds overweight. According to the CliffsNotes, he was the same age as Matt, but his extra bulk aged him a good ten years.
