“How sweet.”
“What the bear does, it’s a guarantee the diamond came from a Canadian mine, dug out of the ground by well-paid Canadian miners. What that means is some cute babe can slip a couple carats on her finger and not have to worry about whether some poor African bastard was exploited to death. Like she’d give a rat’s ass anyhow.”
“You’re a cynical person, Matt.”
“If you got a couple of hours, you can ask me why.” He gave her arm a squeeze, and let go. “Point is, we pull the robbery, the jeweller can’t whine to the cops. He’s in a box, totally fucked. All he can do is go home to his wife and bitch about how rotten life can be.”
“How much money are we talking about?”
“Don’t even ask.”
Jan said, “Do you have any idea what it feels like to be paid thirty thousand dollars for a crucial part in a robbery that netted your partner almost half a million?”
“Didn’t I do the right thing?”
“Not really.”
Matt gave her a very direct look that was a challenge and a warning. He said, “Some guys would have handled the situation in a completely different way.”
“Think I wasn’t ready for that?”
“Don’t kid yourself. Please don’t take this as a threat, but if you’re going to mix with people like me — not me personally, you understand, but people like me — then you got to always, every last minute, be thinking about the well-being of Tyler. Because in the end that’s how they’ll get at you, through him.”
Jan stiffened and drew back.
Matt said, “That security guy at the club, beat the crap outta me? I could’ve shot him, but I chose not to. I chose to take the rap, instead of killing a man. You know me, Jan. I’m not, at heart, a violent person. Even if I was looking at life, I am sure as hell not the kind of person who would ever harm a child. But the thing is, you and I can’t do this job alone, it’s gonna take at least three of us.”
“Why me, this time?”
“’Cause you took care of me while I was in the slammer. Visited me, put that money in my account. You were my friend. Now it’s my turn, if you’re interested.”
Jan looked into his eyes, shrugged. The simple truth was that the money from the ATM robbery was long gone. Worse, her tattoo business wasn’t all that profitable. If business didn’t pick up in a hurry, she was going to lose everything, and she’d have to go on welfare. There was no way she and Tyler could have a decent life on the miserly pittance the government doled out.
Matt told her about the jeweller, Andrew Cooper. Cooper was a boozer. Matt had met him in a downtown bar, told the guy he was an ex-cop with his own security business, handed him his gold-embossed business card with the four-colour picture, but backed off in a hurry when the jeweller told him he was already covered. Cooper was a lonely guy. Unfortunately for him, he and Matt had found other things to talk about that night.
“Like what?” Said Jan.
Matt said, “All kinds of stuff. The best brand of vodka. How the real estate and diamond markets have both been depressed by the trend towards late marriages, or no marriage at all. The high cost of insurance … Fascinating stuff like that.”
Night after night, Matt smiled through hours of boozy conversation so tedious a normal human being would have been driven to smash his lowball glass on the bar and slit his own throat. As the days and weeks slipped by, the two men became close friends. Or so Cooper thought.
The most interesting thing Matt learned, after a long night of heavy drinking, was that, two or three times a year, Cooper bought large quantities of African black-market diamonds.
“Isn’t that illegal?” Said Jan.
Matt said, “Bet your ass.”
*
Home sweet home
Claire heard Jack unlock the front door at three minutes past midnight, by the bedside clock. She listened as Willows kicked off his shoes and padded down the hall and into the kitchen, where he rattled around for a few minutes before he made his way upstairs. She was mildly surprised when he walked quietly past the open bedroom door and into Hadrian’s room. She tensed when she heard his voice, low and soothing, but a little garbled. Jack had been drinking.
Claire listened carefully as he walked out of the nursery and down the hall the few short steps to the bathroom. The light snapped on and then he eased shut the door. A few moments later she heard the low thunder of the shower.
The drumming of the shower suddenly stopped. Claire heard the glass door slide sideways in its tracks. She decided that she would pretend to be asleep when Jack came to bed. It was late. She’d had a long day. She’d spent too much time in the sun. She was tired. They both needed a good night’s sleep. In the morning she’d call in and take another sick day, and try to get Jack to take a day off. She’d drop Hadrian off at the daycare and drive straight home and make a big breakfast. When they’d finished eating, they would talk.
Claire rolled over on her side so when Jack came to bed she would have her back to him. Her heart was pounding away, beating fast as a hummingbird’s. She tried to get her breathing under control, but it was hard, because for some reason it felt as if she were suffocating, couldn’t get enough air in her lungs.
Jack’s side of the bed sagged under his weight. She smelled his soap and shampoo.
Claire realized she was terrified. She knew Jack had spent the day at 312 Main, watching grainy ATM tapes so he could tie Peter Markson to as many robberies as possible. He’d told her he’d be at it for days, but that hadn’t stopped her from constantly worrying about the possibility that he might, at any time, be killed in the line of duty. She was terrified for Hadrian, because if Jack was killed he would never know what a fine man his father was, would only know Jack as a series of disjointed second-hand memories, vague images shallow and haphazard as snapshots.
Jack laid his hand gently on her shoulder, as if he somehow knew what she was thinking.
“Claire … ”
She turned towards him. She struggled to control herself, but it was no use. She shuddered from head to toe, and burst into a flood of tears.
Jack held her tightly. He told her he loved her.
Claire knew it was true, because it had to be true. She clung to her husband, and knew the weight of his sorrow, and the weight of his tears.
Chapter 6
Rise ’n’ shine
Hadrian woke Claire at 6:15. She rushed into his room to find his mattress and bedding and Hadrian himself smeared with vomit. He stood at the bottom end of his crib, fully erect, his little fists gripping the railing. As soon as he saw his mother, the volume of his screaming tripled. Claire scooped him up in her arms. Her first thought was that he could have choked, and her second thought was that he smelled disgusting, and her third thought was that she was getting vomit all over her pyjamas, and after that it was nothing but guilt, for thinking of herself when her child was in crisis.
Hadrian was flushed, his plump cheeks a fiery red and his eyes too bright. She didn’t need a thermometer to tell her he had a fever. She shot a resentful glance at Jack as she cut through the bedroom to the bathroom, and was surprised to see that he wasn’t in bed. Where the hell was he? She expected to find him in the bathroom, but he wasn’t there, either.
She called out his name, tentatively at first and then loudly, with unrestrained anger, as she hurried into the bathroom.
She heard hurrying footsteps on the stairs, but it was her twenty-year-old stepdaughter, Annie.
Annie took a half-step into the bathroom. She gave Claire a look that Claire irrationally judged accusing, and said, “What happened to Hadrian?”
“What does it look like? He threw up. He’s got a fever.”
“Sorry,” said Annie. Her tone making it clear she meant she was sorry she’d bothered to ask.
Claire ran the tap and soaked a hand towel with cold water. She squeezed out the excess water and wiped Hadrian’s face and hands clean, tossed the towel in the sink and soaked a
washcloth and draped it over his forehead.
Hadrian stopped screaming. His tiny fingers plucked at the towel.
Annie said, “Is there anything I can do?”
“Get my bathrobe from the bedroom closet. The old one. Its pale green, with white stripes.”
“Be right back.” Annie hurried off. Claire fumbled with the vomit-slippery buttons of Hadrian’s pyjama top. As she undressed him, he windmilled his arms. His small fist caught her flush in the eye. It was as if a bolt of lightning had exploded into her brain. For a split second, she was blinded by the intensity of the pain. She hurt so much she couldn’t think, and tightened her grip on Hadrian for fear of dropping him. Her eye throbbed. Tears streamed down her cheek.
Annie came back with the robe. She said, “What happened to your eye?”
“I got punched.”
“Hadrian punched you?” Annie was simultaneously shocked and amused. She said, “You’re going to have a black eye. A real shiner. You should put a cold compress on it before it swells up.”
Parker held her temper. The pain was ebbing, and her vision was restored. She said, “It was an accident. I’ll be okay. Is your father downstairs?”
“I doubt it. The car’s gone.” Annie hesitated, and then said, “Did you guys have a fight last night?”
“Of course not.”
Annie allowed herself to look puzzled. Claire felt herself blushing. She laid Hadrian on his back on the counter. She managed to get him out of his pyjama bottoms and diaper.
Annie said, “Yuk, what a mess. Can I go to bed now?”
“At this time of the morning? Shouldn’t you be getting up? Where were you, last night?”
“Out.”
Claire nodded, too busy to argue. She said, “Thanks for your help.”
Annie bridled. “You don’t have to be sarcastic.”
“Really? I thought it was my turn.”
Annie stomped off down the hall as loudly as she could in her stockinged feet. Claire folded up the dirty diaper and put it aside. She kept Hadrian pinned in place with her left hand while stripping off her pyjamas. There was vomit in her hair, on her breasts. She desperately wanted a shower but that would have to wait. She rested Hadrian on her knee as she bent and filled the tub. The day had hardly started and she was already wondering how she could possibly get through it. She tested the water, and adjusted the flow. She wanted it cool, but not cold. Hadrian suddenly lost his temper and pummelled her face with his fists. She yelled, “Stop that, it hurts!” He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to scream. Parker eased into the tub. Hadrian’s tiny feet turned the water to froth. She gave him her breast. That shut him up.
Men. If they weren’t all alike, it was a very close thing.
*
Firepower
A fight down on the sidewalk below his open window woke Harvey at a few minutes past eight. His room had a toilet and a shower, so he didn’t have to join the line of grumbling bastards that snaked down the hallway past his door. He showered and shaved, got dressed, lit a cigarette, and strolled up the shady side of Main Street to a McDonald’s, where he read the sports section of a complimentary newspaper while eating three Egg mcmuffins washed all the way down with four cups of strong black coffee. After breakfast, he walked back down Main Street, north towards the harbour and mountains. Behind him was an elevated Sky Train station and track that he didn’t believe had existed when he was back-handed his sentence.
To his left, three identical high-rise apartments blocked the view, or would have blocked the view if there’d been a view. The high-rises had been half-built when he’d gone inside. He smiled, thinking that in some ways he was kind of under construction himself. Always changing, hoping to better himself in some small way.
He’d met a lot of guys in the slammer. Most of them were still there. The vast majority of those that had got out would soon be back. A life of crime wasn’t all that bad, really. The cops might nail you, but probably wouldn’t. If they did, chances were pretty good a butter-brain judge would let you off easy in the mistaken belief that you were truly repentant and would never do another crime, now that you’d been caught. But if you were a reasonable person, why wouldn’t you continue your career as a crook? Nothing engaged the mind like plotting a caper. Putting a crew together was a lot more fun than a backyard barbecue. Actually pulling off the crime was almost as good as sex, and sometimes maybe even better. Not working a regular job was the cherry on the cake. There was a reason nine-to-fivers were called stiffs.
True, crime was a risky business. It was generally true that, the more often you got caught, the heavier your sentence would be. But getting caught was a learning experience. It tended to sharpen your concentration. Every time you got caught, it made it that much less likely it would ever happen again. Harvey had pulled twelve hard years in a maximum-security institution for his first known offence. His lawyer had advised him to plead guilty, and that’s what he had done. The judge liked that. How could you be truly repentant if you wouldn’t admit you’d done wrong? Harvey had sheepishly ducked his head and sworn on his mother’s grave that he was sorry for what he’d done and would never do it again. The judge hadn’t climbed down from his pulpit to give him a great big hug, but Harvey could see it was a near thing.
Twelve years was a long time to spend in one place, but it wasn’t like the days and weeks and months were wasted. They just became kind of predictable, that’s all. Not that twelve years added up, the way the system worked, to a grand total of twelve full years. It was a lot more complicated than that. First you had to subtract whatever time you’d served waiting for your hour in court, and then you could get your original sentence chopped by one-half for being a model prisoner. On both sides of the wall, there were thousands of rules and unseen legions of bureaucrats busy making up dozens of new rules every single day, but there was only one rule that was worth worrying about — don t get caught.
It seemed to Harvey that he’d hardly had time to get comfortable before the screws were insisting that his time was up and showing him the door.
One of Harvey’s fellow cons had tipped him to a dump on Main called The Western Hotel, and he found the hotel without much trouble. A blond stripper was hard at work on a stage not much bigger than a postage stamp, working a brass pole in the soft-core glare of pink and blue spotlights. She was kind of lumpy, like her implants might have shifted, but pretty tasty-looking all the same. Harvey stood just inside the door, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light, watching the stripper bump and grind, chew gum, swing around a shiny brass pole, clumsily lip-synch the lyrics to “Stairway to Heaven.”
There were half a dozen customers in the bar. None of them were well-dressed or looked in the tiniest bit affluent. Harvey sat down at a front-row table. A thin waiter with hairy arms asked him what he’d like to drink. Harvey ordered a pint of draft and a packet of beer nuts. The waiter was quick. Harvey dropped his roll on the table. He peeled off a five and told the waiter to keep the change, kept his eyes on the stage as he ripped open the package of beer nuts with his teeth. The blond stripper fluttered her eyelashes at him. He tossed one, two, three beer nuts into his mouth and wondered what else she’d flutter at him, if he asked her nice.
He’d knocked back about a half-inch of beer when a kid in a black leather coat shuffled up to his table. The kid had the body of an overweight fireplug. A white scar under his eye looked like a tiny half-moon. He had pudgy hands, fingernails that were bitten bloody, identical cheap silver skull rings on all his fingers and both his thumbs. The skulls had eyes made of beads of translucent red plastic that caught the light and glowed brightly.
Before the kid could pitch him, Harvey told him to take a seat.
The kid sat down. He looked a little worried. No wonder. Harvey’s roll sat there on the table, almost a thousand dollars in well-used fives to fifties. The cash took up a lot of space. It looked like it weighed a ton and would last forever. The kid wanted every last penny. Harvey could see his h
unger in his beady little eyes.
Harvey said, “What’s your scam, kid?”
“You a cop?”
“No, I’m a criminal. The name Bill Shale mean anything to you?”
The kid shook his head. “No, why?”
Harvey said, “He’s my parole officer. Thought you might know him.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Harvey said, “Not yet, anyway.” The kid was dying to ask him what kind of work he did, but knew enough, barely, not to ask. Harvey said, “Armed robbery. Tried to knock off a nightclub, the Roxy.”
“I been there.”
“This was about three years ago. The bouncer jumped me. Black guy, size of a refrigerator. I had a choice of shooting a bunch of holes in him, or going quietly.”
“You blast him?”
“Lay down on the floor with my paws in the air.”
“How come you didn’t shoot?”
“He was a nice guy. Married, or at least wearing a ring. Soon as I gave up, he stopped punching. I had to ask myself if a few years of my time was worth his whole life. The answer was no.”
It was Matt Singh’s story as told to Harvey by Jan, but Harvey told it well. The kid was genuinely interested, as if he expected to run into the identical scenario himself some day and wanted to know how to behave when the time came. He said, “I still don’t get it.”
“Why I didn’t shoot?”
The kid’s eyes went slightly out of focus as they drifted across the unfurled roll of money. The pupils swelled as the eyes snapped back to Harvey. He said, “Yeah.”
“There was seven or eight of them, the bouncer and manager and a couple bartenders and waitresses or whatever and their boyfriends. I shot one of them, I knew I’d have to shoot them all.”
“So?”
“I was armed with a revolver. Six bullets. The bouncer’s coming at me at about fifty miles an hour, arms spread wide, smiling like he just won the lottery. I had about a millionth of a second to do the math on six counts of murder at twenty-five years each.”
A Cloud of Suspects Page 6
