Free Chasing the Lost by Bob Mayer

and under, who owed what. He’d never gambled in his life and he found those that did interesting, or at least he used to. It was as close as most of them would ever get to a real adrenaline rush, watching the scoreboard, knowing how much they had riding on a result they had absolutely no control over. The latter was the part Riley didn’t understand, although he knew many clients believed their knowledge of the game, whatever game it was, gave them some control, but Riley knew there was a huge difference between knowledge and control.
    He also knew there was a big difference between betting money on something and betting your life on it.
    Riley walked toward the dock. He stopped in the shade of a palmetto, just short of the wood planking. The two men and woman disembarked and headed toward him, Kono in the lead.
    The Gullah halted ten feet away, folding muscular black arms, his eyes hidden behind wrap-around sunglasses. He wore a red Hawaiian shirt, untucked, over worn jeans that made Riley’s seem new, and was barefoot, his feet callused and hard. His skull was shaved, and gleamed in the sunlight. He had a machete dangling off his left hip, and Riley knew he usually carried a pistol in the small of his back underneath the shirt. There were undoubtedly more lethal weapons onboard the boat.
    The white man came forward, stopping about six feet away. Out of reach of immediate physical attack, but close enough that an exchange of gunfire would most likely be mutually fatal. The woman stood by his side, close but not too close, indicating a relationship Riley couldn’t quite decipher. She wore a big rock of an engagement ring, nestled next to a wedding band. Bagged and tagged, most husbands thought, but while they were cavorting here on their golf trips, it never seemed to occur to them to wonder what their wonderful wives were doing back home in Ohio with the tennis pro at the country club. He wondered what this wonderful wife was up to, because it was obvious the man with her wasn’t her husband. Plus, she didn’t have that bagged and tagged look; she was someone who was still out there in the wild.
    And not as prey.
    Riley waited. They were on his turf, they had to lay down first.
    “Dave Riley?” the man asked, but his voice indicated he was pretty sure who he was talking to. He wasn’t wearing sunglasses. The bulge under his jacket indicated he was strapped. So much for a quiet day drinking beer, watching the tide.
    “Yeah.”
    “I’m Horace Chase.”
    “What can I do for you, Horace Chase?” Riley asked.
    “Call me Chase.”
    “If there’s a need to call you,” Riley replied, “I might do that.”
    “There some place we can talk?” Chase asked.
    “What’s wrong with here?”
    “A little more private, please.”
    “I know who he is,” Riley nodded at Kono. “And you’re ...” Riley kept the definition open as he nodded at the woman.
    “This is Sarah Briggs,” Chase said. “Her son is the reason we’re here.”
    “Don’t know her son,” Riley replied.
    “He’s been kidnapped.”
    Riley sighed and headed to the Shack at an oblique angle, keeping both men and the woman in view. He had no idea why Kono would be with buckra . The Gullah boatman was infamous throughout the area for his distaste of white people. Given his own genetic makeup, Riley understood racism in all its directions.
    Riley pulled a set of keys out and unlocked the front door. He walked inside and went behind the bar as Chase and Sarah entered. Kono also came in, sliding to the left, as if the two were quartering the room.
    Riley grabbed a bucket of beers resting in ice. It was off-season, but this was Riley’s home for the winter. He carried the bucket to a table overlooking a panoramic view of the Intracoastal. Chase sat down across from him, pulled out a beer, and offered it to Chase, and then one to Sarah.
    “A bit early?” But Chase took it, twisting off the top.
    Riley glanced at Kono, holding up a bottle.
    Kono