Karma

by Grant McKenzie

  What did he expect? The cops weren’t going to tell him anything. If they did find the card — and how could they miss it — there was no reason they would think anything of it. Not yet.

  Reddy grinned to himself and wondered if he had enough money to buy a sandwich and a Pepsi for the ride home. He should have searched J-Cloth’s pockets before leaving. The bum might’ve paid for his first and last meal in New York City.

  I’ll need to remember that, he thought as he jingled loose change in his pocket, for next time.

  Chapter 11

  Chandra rested her head on Hackett’s chest as his fingers delicately traced the bruised skin around her puffy eye.

  “We should put some ice on that,” he said sleepily.

  “Mmmmm.” She kissed his skin but kept her eyes closed.

  They were lying in a heap on the floor, cushions from the couch surrounding them like the destroyed remains of a child’s play fort.

  Chandra felt Hackett’s finger drift to the soft square of flesh in the middle of her forehead.

  “Where’s your Bindi?” he asked, referring to the tiny, stick-on circle she liked to color-match to whatever outfit she was wearing.

  Her choice of Bindi was one of the most common things she fought about with her mother who still believed only a married woman should wear the symbol. Her father wasn’t too keen on her fashion sense either, but he was one of those men who couldn’t bear the thought of criticizing his only daughter. Needless to say, her relationship with a white ghost like Hackett was the next most common problem.

  Chandra smiled without opening her eyes and stretched her naked body like a cat, her back arching upwards, her fingers and toes pointing in opposite directions.

  “It must have fallen off somewhere,” she purred. “Why don’t you look for it?”

  Chandra could feel Hackett staring down at her elongated body. With a mischievous grin, she reached out one of her hands and placed it between his legs.

  “Mmmmm,” she purred again. “Maybe we should put some ice on this, too.”

  The phone rang just as their lips met.

  HACKETT SAT UP as the phone’s robotic resonance announced: “Mother calling.”

  With a groan, he looked around for the time but came up empty as all his electronics had powered down into sleep mode. It was like living in the ’70s.

  “Better answer it.” Chandra’s eyes were open now, her lips curving in a grin. “Can’t keep mommy waiting.”

  Hackett disentangled limbs — the pale, hairy ones belonging to him — and stumbled over to the phone.

  “Hey, mom, what’s up?”

  The voice on the other end was sobbing.

  “Mom, you okay? What’s wrong?”

  Chandra sat up, slipped into her baggy sweatshirt and moved to the edge of the couch.

  “It’s your uncle,” said the frail voice. “Something terrible.”

  “Uncle Frank?” Hackett asked anxiously.

  “No. My brother Robert.” Her voice broke again for a moment before steadying. “He was murdered tonight. Frank found his body in a park ... in ... in a public toilet. What was Robert doing there?”

  The blood drained from Hackett’s face and his brain swirled as if suddenly released from gravity’s hold.

  “Volunteer Park?” he asked, already knowing the answer. He had seen Frank’s face.

  “Yes,” his mother replied. “How did you know?”

  “I heard a report on the radio,” he said quickly, “but I didn’t know it was Bob.”

  “Everyone is meeting at Aunt Gloria’s tomorrow. You need to come, pay your respects.”

  “I will, mom. I’m so sorry. Are you going to be okay?”

  Her voice sounded so distant and for the first time, Hackett realized his mom was actually growing old.

  “It’s Gloria and the girls we should be worried about,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You need anything? You need me to come over . . .”

  “That’s okay, dear,” she interrupted. “I’ll call if I need you. Give my love to Chandra. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Night, mom.”

  The line went dead and Hackett returned the handset to its base.

  “Shit!”

  “What’s wrong?” Chandra went to his side.

  “You know that body in the park this morning? It was my Uncle Bob.”

  Chandra gasped. “That’s terrible.”

  “That’s not the worst part.”

  Chandra looked at him, confused. “What could be worse?”

  “I haven’t told you yet, but I got pictures of the body. It’ll be splashed all over the front page of the Times tomorrow.”

  “You didn’t know it was your uncle?”

  Hackett shook his head. “But try explaining that to a grieving Irish family. My mom is going to kill me.”

  Chandra quickly covered her mouth to trap an impulsive giggle.

  Hackett glared at her. “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing,” Chandra said quickly. “It’s just so adorable when you sound like a little boy.” She mocked, “My mommy’s going to kill me.”

  Hackett tried to smile, too, but the corners of his mouth curved down in a pout.

  “I didn’t say ‘Mommy’,” he protested. “Besides, you won’t think it’s so funny when she starts talking your ear off about what a louse I am. And if you think her temper is bad, wait until you meet the rest of the family. Uncle Frank will probably shoot me and bury the body in his vegetable garden.”

  Chandra giggled again. “I guess we better get some sleep then.” She headed to the bedroom.

  Hackett followed her with his eyes until she reached the bedroom door. She stood still for a moment, framed in the empty space, before slowly lifting the sweatshirt over her head and tossing it behind her.

  When she turned to smile, Hackett was already closing in.

  Chapter 12

  Hackett opened his eyes to darkness.

  His skin was damp and clammy and his heart pounded so violently that his whole body trembled from the vibration.

  Mists of dream evaporated around him in ghostly tendrils, a faint residue of distorted faces and nightmarish events the only evidence to mark the trail.

  He glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand, more to reassure himself he was still lying in his own bed than to read the time.

  It was 3 a.m.

  His uncle was dead.

  Hackett inhaled deeply, feeling a long-buried cocktail of guilt and anger churn within. He turned to Chandra and pressed his body against her sleeping form. Their shapes fit so tightly it was as if they were organic Lego.

  He nestled his face in her jumbled nest of hair that smelled of mango and coconut shampoo, and wrapped his arms around her to get closer than flesh would allow. She barely stirred, her breathing deep and tranquil.

  Tears formed in Hackett’s eyes, but they weren’t for the dead.

  Chapter 13

  Eric Twain stood on the edge of town, one shoulder leaning against the circular, mustard-yellow sign that proudly proclaimed: New York is Big, but this is Biggar.

  Biggar, Saskatchewan. Population 2,351 and dropping; home to the Hanson Buck, the world record whitetail deer; and the 100-year-old Majestic Theatre that boasted weekly Hollywood movies and occasional local live theatre.

  It wasn’t much to walk away from when you looked at it like that, but Eric still felt uneasy as he shivered under a heavy blanket of stars, gaze fixed on a pair of distant headlights that had been traveling towards him forever.

  The bite of winter was definitely in the air, especially standing unprotected on the bald prairie, the season’s crop of wheat, barley and canola nothing but a stubby shadow of memory on the endless horizon.

  Harvest had seemed a particularly backbreaking chore this year. His body had relished the work, but his mind had been elsewhere and his father’s farm equipment paid the price for too many lapses in concentration.

  Something had h
appened to him over the summer. He wasn’t sure exactly what, but for the first time he had begun to see the opposite sex in a different light.

  And what had happened to Jacqueline McQueen?

  Sure, he had always kinda liked her, but this year she blossomed into a creature so bright and beautiful it practically hurt his eyes to look at her.

  But look at her he did, and often.

  The curious part was that she had begun to look at him as well.

  Even the Sears catalogue had been transformed this year. Usually, he couldn’t wait for the seasonal Wishbook because it was jam-packed with the latest action figures or remote-controlled planes for Christmas. He liked to get first crack at it, so he could fold down the corners of the pages that featured the toys, sports or camping equipment he was most interested in to make sure his parents got the hint.

  But this year, he had sneaked it into the bathroom and hadn’t even made it to the toy section. Instead of hockey and super heroes, his thoughts had been filled with images of Jacqueline wearing something called a Wonderbra.

  And what a wonder it was, too.

  Yet every time he felt himself growing hard, the face of the Other would slam to the front of his mind and wreck everything.

  He fought against it, straining to keep an image of Jacqueline’s lips, hair and curves.

  His hand stroking, imagining it was Jacqueline’s hand, his fingers playing over the Wonderbra ad, trying to envision the dots of ink as Jacqueline’s flesh, but it was like a curtain trying to stop a rampaging bull.

  The Other won every time until the excited bone of flesh in his hand withered, softened and curled up to die.

  When he thought about Jacqueline now, it made him want to turn around and head back home, strip off his clothes and bury himself beneath a mountain of heavy covers, let his imagination cloud his eyes, maybe even sneak another peek at that catalogue and try again.

  Tears stung and he shook them away. Anger made his teeth clench and the muscles of his jaw ache. He knew if he went back, the Other would be waiting, ready to crawl into his bed again and again.

  All Jacqueline would ever see was a terrified little boy who couldn’t even get a hard-on.

  The Other warned him the girls would laugh. Cooing in vodka or rye whispers: no one can love you like I do.

  At least it didn’t know about Jacqueline.

  Not yet.

  It couldn’t take away her smile even though it wanted to blind him to everyone else.

  Jacqueline was his beacon, his only light.

  He had to leave before it spoiled even that.

  Eric wiped at his eyes as twin beams of yellow halogen flooded over him and the squeal of worn brakes sent a shiver of fear down his spine.

  He wondered, not for the first time, if that was the path he should have chosen. It would be easy to hide in the night’s deep shadows until a vehicle drew near. To leap into the road, hear the squeal that couldn’t stop in time, feel the metal tear into flesh to release his soul from its fragile cage.

  It would be quick if not painless.

  Everyone would come to his funeral and Jacqueline would weep . . .

  But so would the Other.

  And its tears did not deserve to be shed alongside Jacqueline’s. Its tears belonged in hell, a boiling, torturous pit with demons who would rip out its tongue and slice off its lips, poke out its eyes and piss down its fucking throat.

  Eric had to make sure that day would come — and soon.

  The boy inhaled deeply, forcing himself out of the trance as the truck’s passenger door popped open with a metal-on-metal screech.

  He stared into the face of a white-haired man with a Halloween face, sallow flesh making him appear as if one of the hellborne demons from Eric’s imagination had magically sprung to life.

  The man’s nose was wide and flat like a squashed tomato and his cheeks glowed with spidery veins. His rough skin had been sandblasted by too much dust and wind. And arcing above milky, pale gray orbs sprouted wild, untamed eyebrows that reminded Eric of tumbleweeds, bleached white by the too-short summer sun.

  The man was dressed in oil-stained jeans, a moss green checkered shirt that looked afraid of water, and a darker green baseball cap with the words John Deere stitched in white thread across the front.

  “Need a ride, son?”

  The man puckered his lips and spat a wad of brown juice onto the floorboard at his feet. A baseball-sized hole had eaten through the metal panel beneath the clutch and the man’s poor aim was only bound to make it larger.

  Eric nodded, numbed to any sense of fear, and tossed his backpack into the bed of the old Ford. He also carefully removed a five-foot-long, black plastic tube from his other shoulder and placed it gently beside his pack.

  “So where you headed?” the man asked as Eric climbed into the cab and closed the door.

  “Medicine Hat,” Eric said. “Visiting my aunt. She’s ill.”

  The man nodded in contemplation. “Well, I’m heading to Moose Jaw, eh? But I can drop you on the TransCanada. Shouldn’t be tough to get a ride to the Hat from there.”

  “I appreciate that, sir.”

  The man laughed. “Hell, don’t be polite with me, son. I’ve seen an’ done things that’d turn your hair white.”

  He laughed again and spat another wad of brown tobacco juice in the general direction of the hole beside his left foot. “Just look at me.” He lifted his baseball cap to show off tangled wisps of white hair.

  Eric stayed silent, mostly because he just plain didn’t know what to say.

  “The name’s Charlie by the way.”

  The man stuck out a large hand. Eric accepted it with a firm squeeze. It was like rubbing his palm over sandpaper.

  “Mike,” Eric replied quietly. “My name is Mike.”

  “So you plannin’ a little fishing there, eh Mike?” Charlie threw the truck into gear and climbed back up to cruising speed.

  Eric looked at him, puzzled.

  “The kit,” the man prodded. He nodded to the back window and the truck bed beyond. “That’s fly fishing equipment in the tube, right?”

  Eric smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m a bit distracted with my aunt being sick and all.”

  “Sorry to hear that. How come your folks ain’t driving you?”

  “They went up earlier in the week. I still had chores to do around the farm. She didn’t seem so bad then, but now it looks like she’s not going to make it. They asked me to come up and join them. Say goodbye, you know?”

  Charlie nodded. “Fishin’s good for that. Takes your mind off things, though I’m more of a bait-n-wait kinda guy. Fly fishin’ always seemed like too much damn work.”

  “My dad says a bad day’s fishing beats a good day working anytime.”

  Charlie laughed and dug in his back pocket for a fresh pinch of Copenhagen.

  “Ain’t that the truth, eh?”

  He offered the round tin of tobacco to the boy.

  Eric declined. “Never developed a taste.”

  “Me either,” Charlie agreed before stuffing a fat wad between his lower lip and gum. “But I do like to chew.”

  It took just over two hours before they pulled to a stop at the intersection of the TransCanada highway. Moose Jaw was to the east, Medicine Hat to the west.

  Charlie stuck out his hand and Eric shook it. It didn’t seem so unpleasant this time.

  “Nice meetin’ you, son,” Charlie said. “Hope your aunt goes peacefully and not kickin’ and screamin’ like I plan to.”

  Eric nodded his appreciation. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “No problem, son. And if you catch a nice fat one,” he winked towards the tube as Eric fished it out of the truck bed, “sneak a beer out of your dad’s fridge to wash it down. Nothin’ goes better with fresh trout than an ice-cold Pilsner, eh?”

  Eric smiled. “I’ll do that.”

  He rapped his knuckles on the roof to let Charlie know he had all his gear.

  Charli
e waved and turned east as Eric stuck out his thumb from the shoulder of the westbound lane.

  It took half an hour for a vehicle to stop, but this one had no holes in the floor and its heater churned out a welcoming warmth.

  “Where you headed?” the driver asked.

  “Calgary,” lied the boy. “I’m visiting my aunt.”

  Chapter 14

  Hackett opened his eyes, senses confused by the sputter of the shower in one ear and his own disembodied voice in the other. Then he heard heavy pounding on his apartment door and realized the automated security system had kicked in.

  Groaning, he dragged himself out of bed and weaved unsteadily into the living room. With eyes half-closed and his mind in a fog, Hackett caught his foot on one of the scattered cushions that littered the carpet and tumbled face first to the floor.

  His fall was ungraceful, his landing awkward, and his $10,000 entry into America’s Stupidest Home Videos was marred only by the fact he wasn’t wearing any clothes and thus unsuitable for family viewing.

  “End program,” he groaned. Rolling onto his back, one hand cupped the tender spot that had suffered a nasty brush with rug burn.

  A robotic voice asked: “Authorization?”

  Rubbing himself, Hackett uttered the code word before peering bleary-eyed at the small window on his computer monitor. Standing with their backs to the camera were two broad-shouldered men in off-the-hanger suits: one gray, the other brown. The shorter, bulkier man in the gray suit continued to pound persistently on Hackett’s door, while the taller one scanned the area, his eyes finally coming to rest on the tiny camera high up on the wall.

  “I’m coming,” Hackett yelled.

  He scanned the room for a robe, came up empty, and settled on a black T-shirt that lay crumpled in a ball on the skeletal remains of the couch.

  Hackett wrapped the T-shirt around his waist and leaned his head against the apartment door to compose himself. His mouth tasted like he had spent half the night chewing on his pillow and he desperately wanted a cleansing mug of something hot.