Kickback and Other Stories

by Peter Sellers

  Ryan frequently told people in the office to do things that made no sense. One plan involved promoting our car stereo client’s products by having thieves talk about why they liked to steal them. He was trying to arrange interviews with convicted felons. He wanted me to write sample scripts. I went to talk with Jackie and Alan.

  “This is insane,” I said, sitting on the sofa next to Alan.

  “Jesus Christ,” Alan said.

  Jackie corrected him. “Jesus wept.”

  I was hoping they’d have more to say about it when Ryan stuck his head in the door. “Have you written the scripts yet?” he asked, staring at me.

  “I’m not doing them. It’s a bad idea.”

  Ryan tipped his head to one side and gazed at me as if I were an unusual specimen. “I want the scripts. First thing tomorrow.”

  “Look, Ryan,” said Alan, “we all agree on this. It’s not happening.”

  Ryan glared at his two partners. “This is my client. I brought him in. And we deal with my clients my way.” He looked at me again. “Tomorrow. First thing.” He walked away.

  Seconds later, Jackie picked up his coffee cup and hurled it at the doorway. It was half full, and cold coffee flew across the sofa, Alan, and me. The cup hit the doorframe and smashed, shards of porcelain flying across the room. He put on his coat and left.

  I was stunned. Alan and I sat in silence briefly, until Ryan reappeared in the doorway. “What happened? Did someone throw something at me? Was someone trying to kill me?” He looked around the office in a frantic manner.

  “Ryan,” Alan said, “go home.”

  Ryan looked around one last time and went. Alan stood, brushing at the coffee stain on his trousers. “Remember, kid,” he said, “you’re the asshole who wanted to get into advertising.”

  I assumed that most of the agency’s accounts stayed on because of friendships, one of the partners knowing a CEO or an Advertising Director. Competence didn’t seem to enter into it. Then, late one Friday afternoon, I was at my desk after everyone else had gone. I was editing some copy by pen and being very quiet. When the shouting started I peeked out and saw Jackie waving a piece of paper and walking across the office towards Ryan.

  “What the hell is this?” Jackie yelled.

  Ryan took the paper, glanced at it, and handed it back. “It’s a cancelled cheque,” he said calmly. “That’s how we keep the account.”

  “Jesus.” They went into Jackie’s office, which adjoined mine.

  The voices through the wall were muffled but clear enough. “We’re fighting to make our nut,” Jackie said, “and you’re giving away what little profit there is.”

  “Think that through, Jackie. What I’m doing is investing part of the profit to make sure we keep the rest. Do you think if these cheques stopped going out the ones from the client would keep coming in? It’s been working this way for years. Stay out of it.”

  There was more, but that was the important part.

  Soon after, the cheques did stop because Ryan came up with an alternative. Ryan’s car was in the shop one day when he saw Gil standing in reception, yacking to anyone who would listen, looking like he had nothing to do.

  “Get your keys, Gilbert,” Ryan said. “You’re driving me to a meeting.” Ryan had never been in Gil’s car before and may not have believed the stories.

  “Do I get mileage?” Gil asked.

  “You get to keep your job.”

  When I asked Gil later, he told me he had dropped Ryan off in front of a café in the west end. As he waited for a break in traffic so he could pull away, he saw the client sitting at a table in the window. Ryan went in and sat across from him. Why, I wondered, were they meeting on the far side of town, away from both the agency and the client’s office? And why in a coffee shop? Both of them preferred places like Barberien’s Steak House and martinis.

  A month later, Ryan needed a lift again. Gil grabbed his keys. “Ready when you are,” he said.

  “Not on your fucking life,” Ryan said. He pointed at me. “You got wheels now, right?” He started towards the door and I followed.

  Ryan went back to the coffee shop and met the client at a table in the window. I made a quick U-turn and pulled over. From the far side of the road, I watched Ryan take an envelope from his pocket and hand it to the client.

  It wasn’t hard to put together. Just like Jackie asked, Ryan had stopped giving cheques to the client and had switched to an envelope full of cash. The money was probably being funneled out of the recording studio, so Jackie wouldn’t see it leave right away. It would show up eventually, and there’d be problems, but for a while this would keep the peace and the account.

  I drove Ryan the next month, too, and followed him the month after that. The pattern was always the same.

  I watched Jackie on kickback days, looking for indications that he suspected anything. By that point, though, he looked at Ryan with anger or contempt most of the time. It was hard to pick out days that were worse than others. Ryan seemed oblivious, smiling and whistling around the office, but you could feel the tension.

  In May, I left the office before Ryan did and waited outside the coffee shop. He did not show up. Neither did the client. I waited half an hour.

  Ryan was at his desk when I got back. He was on the phone giving his hearty salesman’s laugh.

  “Has Ryan been laughing like that all day?” I asked his secretary who rolled her eyes.

  It was clear that nothing was wrong or he wouldn’t be so jolly. Later, as I was pouring a coffee, Ryan asked, “Big plans for the weekend?”

  “Nothing special. You?”

  “Golfing with the client,” he laughed. “Betcha I win some money off him.”

  I thought it’d be the other way round, the envelope changing hands before they got to the second tee.

  After work that evening, I went out for a beer with a couple of friends at a bar down the street. I left my briefcase in my office and went back to get it before driving home.

  The office was at the far side of a closed-off courtyard. The front door could not be seen from the street. It wasn’t until I entered the courtyard that I saw the office lights still on. No big deal. Sometimes people forgot. But the door was unlocked, which was not normal. The place was silent. I walked in quietly in case of a burglar. Instead, Jackie was standing in Ryan’s office.

  There was a lot of blood. Ryan was on the floor, drenched and not moving. Except for his deep and steady breathing, Jackie was not moving either. His clothes were less bloody but still past cleaning. His hands were bloody, too, and the scalpel he held.

  “Jesus,” I said. “What the fuck?”

  Jackie looked at me sadly. “I lost my temper.”

  “Put down the blade, Jackie.” I didn’t think I was in danger, but there was no point taking the risk.

  Jackie looked at the scalpel and let it fall.

  “What happened?”

  “I told him to stop with the kickbacks. I gave him lots of chances. He laughed.”

  “Yeah, that laugh was pretty fucking annoying.” I didn’t bother to pretend I didn’t know what had been going on.

  “The amount was going up. The client threatened to take away the account. Ryan was paying him more.”

  “And you killed him for that?”

  “I told him to stop. I lost my temper. He laughed.”

  “Okay,” I said, “here’s what we do.” Jackie was in no condition to take the initiative. “Don’t touch anything.” His prints were all over the office so that was no problem, but bloody prints would raise eyebrows. I got some plastic wrap from the kitchen. “Wrap the scalpel in this and hand it to me. Handle first.” In a day or two, I’d take the ferry to the Island and drop it in the middle of the lake.

  I picked up a promotional T-shirt from a radio station, and a pair of rubber gloves from under the sink. “Put these on.”

  “I want to wash my hands,” he said.

  “No. Put on the gloves.” I took him to the front do
or. “Go outside. I’m going to lock the door. You smash the glass and unlock it. Understand?”

  He nodded. “What do I smash it with?”

  “Find a rock or a brick or something.”

  The rock bounced off the door a couple of times before the glass shattered and Jackie came in. I was grateful that the courtyard hid the office from view, though the sound of the rock did echo. But no one came to investigate.

  “Okay. Now follow me.”

  We went back to Ryan’s office. His top desk drawer was locked. I broke it open. The envelope was there as I’d expected. There was a lot of cash. It made my pocket bulge. I left the drawer hanging open.

  “I want a beer,” Jackie said. “Let’s go to a bar.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. Here’s what you do unless you want to spend a long time in Kingston. Go home. Get rid of those clothes. Burn them. Clean yourself up. Keep your mouth shut about everything that happened here. And keep your temper under control.”

  “What about this mess?”

  “We leave it. When he doesn’t come home, they’re gonna start looking. For sure they will when he misses his tee-off time tomorrow. Now get out of here.”

  “What about the money?”

  “I’m keeping it.”

  Jackie took out his car keys and started for the door.

  “Hang on,” I said. “Hold out your hand.” It was shaking badly. “You’re not taking your car. In that thing you’ll be all over the road and if the cops see a black guy all bloody driving a ‘Vette it’s not gonna end well.”

  Jackie nodded. “I’ll take a cab.”

  I marveled at how dense he was. “No you won’t. You get in a cab all bloody like that anywhere within five miles of here and you’re fucked.” I reached into my pocket and gave him my keys. “Take my car. It’s a piece of shit and it won’t go fast enough for you to do any damage. No one’ll pay any attention.”

  He dropped his keys on the desk and took mine. “Have a good weekend,” I said.

  On Monday, if he hadn’t done something stupid, I’d talk to Jackie about what was in this for me. And there had to be some way to make money out of the client. I figured he’d want all those years of kickbacks kept quiet.

  Before leaving, I called Lynne. “Hey,” I said, “do you want to go out for a drink tonight?” Before she could say no, I added, “I got lots of money.” I glanced at the keys on Jackie’s desk. “And I got a real nice car.”

  Dummy

  WHEN I MET GRANT, HE RAN A MODERN version of a sideshow and performed in bars and small concert venues around the province. His troupe of six was performing in a large club on Bloor Street in Toronto, and the place was packed.

  For two years, I spent a lot of time with Grant. We would get together for coffee or meals, which were mostly on me. Occasionally, we would go to magic shows or live music performances put on by people Grant knew. My world seemed to expand greatly. Through Grant I met musicians and performance artists. I met a man who had run a travelling circus for several decades. I met an advocate of extreme body modification who was polite and soft-spoken and looked like a banker. Under his clothes, I was informed later, he’d had things done to himself that I was assured I did not want to see. I met a young woman who told me how being suspended in mid-air by shark hooks pierced through her back was therapeutic and relaxing. I took all this in, wide-eyed and naive as a child. It didn’t take long before I was hooked in my own way.

  But, as time went on, Grant’s audiences dwindled. He was playing in much smaller venues that were maybe half full, and his troupe was reduced to him and one assistant.

  “It’s because these other pricks have come along and copied me,” Grant said. “Their shows are garbage. They have no class. And they stole my tricks.”

  He was right that competition had emerged. A handful of similar companies were putting on shows. Some were using the same routines that he did, though most of the acts had been around for years and were not his to begin with.

  That aside, everything he said about his competitors was true. I went to see a couple of the other shows, and they were crude. The patter was sexual, the volunteers from the audience were insulted and abused, and the audiences loved it. While Grant’s show was not a family event, to his credit he never swore on stage or made vulgar comments. That was probably part of his slow and steady decline.

  In several cases, the performers in these new troupes had worked previously for Grant. This was an affront that wounded him deeply. “I taught them everything,” he said, “and this is how they repay me.”

  One day, Grant decided to shut down the stage show and return to something he’d done successfully in his youth. He went on the road for the summer with the large carnival circuit that made its way across Canada, playing all the major fairs and exhibitions.

  He took the Wonder Wagon with him. This was a trailer converted into a tiny museum. It was the kind of show known in carnival parlance as a grind: customers entered at the front and walked along a passage the length of the vehicle. On their left was a row of oddities. There was a stuffed two-headed calf, which was real, if slightly moth eaten. There was the ossified body of The Giant Rat of Sumatra, ostensibly caught by a world-famous hunter more than a century before, but actually manufactured in Grant’s workshop in 1996. There was also the footprint of a Sasquatch, embedded in a tabletop size slab of dried river mud, and what purported to be the desiccated corpse of a real angel. The public ate it up.

  The item in the tent that drew the most attention, and the most gasps of astonishment, however, was Otto the Homicidal Dummy. Otto was a standard ventriloquist’s dummy, about three feet high, with the necessary mechanisms for the ventriloquist to operate his mouth and eyes. Grant had painted Otto in a way that made him look crazed indeed, with piercing yellow eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth. His hands were unusually detailed for a dummy’s, with fingers that curved like talons, ending in sharpened nails.

  A calligraphed legend on a large show card told Otto’s story. He had been found on the workbench of a puppet maker whose body lay on the floor, a chisel embedded in his neck. As part of the puppet maker’s estate, Otto was sold to a ventriloquist who used him for only a matter of weeks. For unknown reasons, the ventriloquist put Otto in a trunk. Then, one day, the ventriloquist was found brutally murdered in his dressing room, the trunk lid open, and Otto sitting in a chair, splattered with blood and grinning madly. Two more murders followed before Otto’s true nature was realized, and now he sat here, wrapped in heavy chains secured with a large padlock, where he could no longer do any harm.

  Even though I knew that everything about Otto was fake, when I visited the Wonder Wagon one afternoon in late summer and saw him seated on his wooden chair, staring coldly out at the world, I felt uneasy.

  “He’s really creepy,” I said to Grant.

  “Of course he is,” Grant said. “After all, he’s killed at least four people.”

  It wasn’t just me who felt creeped out by Otto. There was frequently a bottleneck of gawkers in the narrow passageway in front of Otto’s display. He looked for all the world as if he was about to speak. If he did, I wondered whether he would hurl insults or wheedle for his release.

  I knew that Grant was making very good money. I had seen the swarms lining up to enter the Wonder Wagon at the CNE the year before. Now, Grant figured that if he added a second attraction, and they sat side-by-side on the lot, he could make more than twice as much.

  “It’s going to be a big moneymaker,” he assured me. “A real mermaid.”

  “Real?” I laughed.

  “As real as they come,” he said. “I’m taking a Living Mermaid out on the circuit. I’ve got my spots booked here, Edmonton, Regina, the whole way, and now I just need to get the display built.”

  I did not know it at the time, but the Living Mermaid illusion was old, tried and true. But then I thought that Grant was onto something new and unique. It was only later that I realized that none of his ideas was original. He
just had a flair for repackaging them in a faux-Victorian, steampunk style.

  Grant went to the bank to get a loan. I couldn’t imagine how it sounded when he asked the bank loan officer for money to build a home for a real live mermaid, but he was turned down cold. Aside from the unusual nature of the request, Grant ran his business in an unprofessional way. He had not filed a tax return in more than a decade, so he had no proof of income. He had nothing to put up as collateral. The bank was not interested in his collection of sideshow memorabilia.

  “Those bastards,” Grant said. “They won’t give me a penny. You know me. I have no credit card, no mortgage. I don’t owe any money so I can’t borrow any money. What a bullshit system. They’re so petty and small minded. This is going to be a great moneymaker. All I need is three grand. They’re ruining me. Assholes.”

  The details of how it came to be don’t matter, but the upshot was that I loaned Grant the money to get the Living Mermaid finished. The deal was simple. He’d pay me back as soon as possible from the proceeds. I’d seen how people flocked to the Wonder Wagon. Repayment should take him no time at all. We shook hands and then we went for lunch, for which I paid.

  Grant invited me to the apartment he shared with his girlfriend Zoe, and that’s when I first saw the Living Mermaid. It didn’t look like much, just a large plywood box on top of which sat a clear glass bowl filled with what appeared to be water, like a goldfish bowl waiting for a fish.

  Grant sat on a chair hacking at a piece of wood with a hunting knife. Curled shavings lay on the floor by his feet. “Well,” he asked, “what do you think?”

  “I don’t know. It’s, um, a little plain.”

  “You have no vision,” Grant said. “You have no faith. Zoe, let’s see the magic.”

  She went around behind the box and ducked below the top of it. She vanished from sight for a few moments, and then she appeared again, as if shrunken and floating in the bowl.

  “Shut your mouth and wave to her,” Grant said. Obediently, I raised my right hand and moved it slightly from side to side. From inside the bowl, Zoe smiled and waved back.