[b]Center City, WA
6:45 AM[/b]

Tracy's charger cruised slowly through the posh suburbs. Hunter's Creek was just a scant thirty blocks away from downtown Center City, but it may as well have been on another planet. There was no trace of the old junkies on the corner, doing the dope fiend lean as they shot up and fried what little brains they had left. No sign of the hookers who walked the streets, selling their bodies to feed themselves and their children. No dilapidated buildings with its copper piping and electrical wiring ripped out by money hungry fiends looking for a quick payday.

He felt uneasy surrounded by these big lawns and big houses shining in the early morning light. Tracy was just white trash from the city, something that would never change. The people out here were tantamount to American royalty with their fleets of cars, jets, and boats. His destination, the Flynn mansion, loomed on the hill above it all. Guys like Tracy and Hyde were called criminals for no other reason than the types of crime they committed. Hyde peddled drugs, the guys who owned the houses out here peddled Democracy to any third world country with finite natural resources to exploit. They robbed pension plans and left retiring employees penniless. Society condemned guys like Tracy, saying they were the problem with America, all while the people out here overthrew governments to avoid paying fifty cents on the dollar for exports. The only difference between Hyde's empire and the empires of business were that those criminal enterprises were deemed too big to fail by the government.

Tracy was stopped outside the big manor by an armed guard. His car idled outside a big iron gate while the man gave him the stinkeye and double checked Tracy's identification. Tracy had to hand over his gun before parking his car and being led into the big house by another guard. He wasn't too impressed by the large courtyard and expansive corridors. The place was small by House of Windsor standards. The guard showed Tracy into an office somewhere on the third floor and left him alone. He walked up to a wall that looked like a shrine to the home's owner. Three different photos of Thomas Flynn shaking hands with the last three US Presidents, one of him in New York ringing the stock exchange bell, a cover of a financial magazine with a younger looking Flynn on the cover. Photos of family accompanied the ones of achievement, but Flynn was always in the middle of whatever was going on. That didn't surprise Tracy. A man like that had to be center of attention in everything he did. For guys like Thomas Flynn, if you weren't first you might as well have been last.

"Are you the man Mr. Hyde sent?"

Tracy turned and saw Thomas Flynn enter the room. He was just a few inches shorter than Tracy, but lean and trim in a bathrobe and pajama pants, slippers covering his feet. If not for his white hair, Tracy would assume the man was closer to his age than the sixty some odd years he was supposed to be. He strode forward and shook Tracy's hand.

"Thank you so much for coming, Mr..."

"Tracy, just Tracy."

"Right," Flynn said with a nod. "Have a seat, Tracy."

Flynn took a seat behind the large mahogany office desk while Tracy took a chair from across the desk. He watched Flynn as he settled into the chair and leaned forward, both palms flat on the desk. He had a stern look on his face that read too stern for Tracy. It seemed more like a put on than anything.

"They said they would call again at noon to confirm I have the five million dollars they're asking for. Details for the hand off will follow."

"Will you be able to get the money that fast?" Tracy asked. "I know that a lot of rich people don't have that kind of cash on standby."

"I have enough bonds and stocks I can liquidate quickly once trading opens up on the Asian markets. I'll have to be quick about it since it's Friday and there won't be a chance to do it for the weekend."

"Hyde wants me to also look into who may have kidnapped your daughter. Mr. Flynn, can you think of anyone who might want to do this?"

"Take your fucking pick," Flynn said with a wave of an arm. "You don't get where I am in life without pissing people off. Rival capitalist, politicians, labor unions, even my own employees, you name it and I have stepped on their backs to get ahead. You don't make an omelet without breaking eggs."

"Right," said Tracy. "Anything recently?"

"Not at the moment, no. At least nothing obvious."

"Did you daughter live here? Would it be possible to look into her room?"

"As you wish," Flynn said with a nod. "I'll have a guard escort you."


--


Linda Flynn's room screamed trust fund brat. Expensive furniture in the big room with an ornate four-poster bed in the center. A walk-in closet held a wardrobe that cost as much as many people's homes. What Tracy thought was another closet turned out to be a whole room just to house Linda's jewelry. The guard shadowed Tracy while he searched the room. He found drugs in the dresser, a little bit of pot with a fair amount of coke and X. The CDs in her room were all electro club bullshit. Tracy pegged her as a club kid. All the rich kids with nothing to do but sponge off mommy and daddy all hit the clubs. 

A pink laptop on a desk was password protected. Tracy tried the usual common passwords, 1234 ABCD, but couldn't crack it. He settled for the consolation prize beside the computer. A post-it note had a phone number scribbled on it with just a single letter above it: X. It Linda Flynn was indeed a party-hard club girl, she would need her X if she wanted to party right. Tracy pocketed the number and headed out the room with his guard in tow.