Bad News

by Linwood Barclay

  I said nothing.

  ‘All I’ve ever known are bad men. My father was a bad man. Even Katie’s father – he tried, you know? There was a lot of goodness in him. But he was no poster boy for stability. If he hadn’t ended up getting killed by Gary, he’d have died some other way before long. You can’t live that kind of life and expect it to go on forever. My sister, she got a good one. But my luck, it doesn’t run in that direction.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s someone out there for you. Someone who’d treat you right. Treat you with the respect you deserve.’

  ‘What can I really expect, Zack? Look what I do. I’m a step up from a hooker. I torture men. You know why I think I do that?’

  Again, I said nothing.

  ‘I think it’s my way of taking it out on all the men who’ve treated me like shit all my life. My father, Merker, the others. When I abuse those men, when I demean them, when I hurt them, I’m getting even.’

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘they like it.’

  ‘They have their fantasy, and I have mine.’

  Back at the house, we could hear Katie laugh about something in the kitchen. Trixie glanced back, and the wind blew a lock of hair across her face. She looked beautiful, but in a more natural, almost innocent way.

  ‘So what about you and Sarah? How bad is it?’

  ‘Not so bad that I’ve given up on it,’ I said. ‘I love her.’ I took a breath. ‘I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone else.’

  Trixie studied me. ‘I’ve thought about you a lot since I left you in my basement. I’m sorry. I’d like to make it up to you.’ She took a step closer, and for a moment, I felt dizzy. ‘Did you like it when I kissed you? When you were handcuffed to the railing?’

  ‘It took me somewhat by surprise,’ I said. ‘A simple peck on the cheek would have sufficed.’

  Trixie smiled. ‘Always with the joke.’ The wind caught her hair again, and she reached up and tucked the lock behind her ear. ‘There’s something I really need to tell you,’ she said.

  I had a feeling this was not going to be good. At the very least, it was going to be awkward. Was she going to tell me she loved me? Was she going to ask me to leave Sarah? That seemed unthinkable. She was enticing, Trixie was. No doubt. She was beautiful. Exotic, even. She’d have no trouble fulfilling almost any man’s wildest fantasies. I’d be lying if I said none had ever crossed my mind.

  But no matter how beautiful, how sexy Trixie might be, there was something she could never be.

  She could never be Sarah.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ I said. ‘Whatever it is.’

  ‘No,’ Trixie said, her hand reaching up and touching my shirt. ‘I think, before we go any further, that you need to know my secret.’

  I waited.

  ‘That night,’ she said. ‘When Zane Heighton, and Eldridge Smith, and Payne Fletcher, when the three of them got shot at the Kickstart?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I saw it happen.’

  My mouth felt very dry. ‘You saw it?’

  ‘I was there.’

  ‘Then you are a witness. If you tell the police what you saw, you can—’

  Trixie touched a finger to my lips. ‘Zack, you don’t understand.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I killed them, Zack. I killed them all.’

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  ‘Where was that place,’ Leo wanted to know, ‘where we got pizza the other night?’

  Sometimes it bugged Gary that, even though the Kickstart served food – some burgers, wings, fries, basic stuff – Leo always wanted to get something to eat from someplace else. The novelty of it, he guessed. The kid could eat, but he never got fat. Just stayed tall and stringy.

  ‘Rocco’s,’ Gary said.

  ‘Yeah, it was good,’ Leo said.

  Miranda listened to all this as she counted up the night’s receipts. The Kickstart had closed half an hour ago, everyone had gone home, including the girls. Now it was just her, Gary and Leo, and Payne and Eldridge and Zane. Those three – sometimes Miranda thought of them as the Three Musketurds – were getting into the booze again. A good night would do that to them, prompt them to raid the bar’s fridge for free beers. And Payne had some coke, and was willing to share.

  ‘We’re going out,’ Gary said. ‘Get some fucking pizza. Anybody want some?’

  The others said sure, yeah, bring back lots. Gary and Leo left. Miranda stayed at her desk, working.

  She figured this would be the week. She was ready. She had enough put away. About half a mill. It seemed unbelievable, that she’d been able to skim off that much. But so much money went through that joint, and when you didn’t pay the legitimate bills, or paid just enough to keep the creditors off your back, and used the money you actually did have to pay invoices that you’d manufactured yourself, well, it all started to add up.

  She’d already emptied out most of the accounts where she’d been squirreling away cash. She’d pulled together some fake identification. She’d come up with a new identity, for someone she’d decided to call Trixie.

  Miranda was as ready as she’d ever be. She just had to pick her moment. To go when it felt right. Maybe just after a shift that was followed by a couple of days off. She’d have forty-eight hours’ lead time before Gary started to clue in to what was going on. By then she’d be far away, already be establishing her new life with her baby daughter. She’d change her hair color, do her make-up differently, whatever she could to distance herself from the woman known as Candace.

  The guys were getting a bit rowdy. The hairs went up on the back of Miranda’s neck. Don’t let them try anything, she thought. Not now. Not when I’m so close to pulling this all off.

  And then there was Payne Fletcher, standing right next to her, a beer in one hand. And touching her hair with the other.

  She recoiled.

  ‘Hey, come on,’ said Payne. ‘I’m just being friendly.’

  Yeah, said the others. You got something against being friendly? But Miranda told them to leave her alone. She was working. Payne didn’t move away. He put his beer down and placed both of his hands on Miranda’s head, tried to turn her towards him.

  ‘Stop it!’ she said. Still in the chair, she tried to pull away, but Payne, standing next to her, was pulling her face toward the zipper of his jeans.

  ‘How about a lollipop?’ he asked.

  Miranda had sworn to herself that she would never let this happen again. It was this promise to herself that allowed her to keep coming to work at the Kickstart, to share space with the men who’d assaulted her a few months earlier. It was part of the plan.

  But she knew, if she was to be certain that it would never happen again, she’d have to be ready. Which was why she now always carried the gun that Eldon had taught her to use. The one she swore she’d never carry. She didn’t like guns. Too dangerous to have on you, she’d thought.

  But you had to adapt.

  ‘Come on,’ Payne said, still holding on to Miranda’s head. The other two were making whooping noises. Someone said, ‘Me next.’

  ‘Okay,’ Miranda said. ‘But you have to let go of me.’

  That sounded promising to Payne, and so he did. Miranda pushed back with her feet, the wheels of her computer chair sailing her over to the far end of her desk, where she’d left her purse.

  Miranda reached into it, her fingers hunting for the weapon. She slipped her hand around the gun’s grip, felt the trigger under her index finger.

  ‘What you doing?’ Payne said. ‘You don’t need no condom for this.’

  No, she thought, bringing the gun out of the purse. She didn’t.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  I guess I was nine years old when my friend Jeff Conklin, who, two years later, would find a dead guy, stole two Milky Way bars.

  Most days, walking home after surviving another day with our Grade 4 teacher Miss Phelm (we referred to her as Miss Phlegm, given her habit of clearing her throat every twenty seconds), we would pop int
o Ted’s, a small corner store. We’d buy a bottle of Coke, maybe split a package of Twinkies. Ted had an excellent variety of snack foods. Potato chips, Fritos, licorice, dozens of different candy bars.

  One day, Jeff told me to go over to the shelf of Hostess cupcakes, then call over to Ted at the cash register, and ask whether I could buy just one cupcake, even though they came in packages of two.

  ‘Why?’ I asked Jeff.

  ‘Just do it. I dare ya.’

  Well, that was all I needed to hear. So Jeff hung back as I went deeper into the store to the display of mass-produced pastries, examined the offerings, and then said, ‘Mr Ted?’

  We didn’t know his last name, but knew it was a mistake, at our age, to call him just by his first name.

  Ted, a man in his sixties, round-shouldered, wearing an old cardigan and wire-rimmed glasses, had been reading the Enquirer. He looked up, peered over the glasses in my direction, and said, ‘What?’

  ‘I haven’t got enough money for a whole package of Hostess cupcakes, so like, can I buy just half a pack?’

  ‘You outta your mind?’ He went back to reading his paper.

  I met Jeff back outside on the sidewalk. ‘That was great!’ he said. ‘You were perfect! I almost peed my pants laughing, but I held it all in!’

  ‘Why did you ask me to do that?’

  Jeff produced a Milky Way from each jacket pocket. ‘Look what I got! When Ted looked over at you, I grabbed these.’ He handed me one, and at first I tried not to take it, but he forced it into my hand.

  ‘You stole these?’ I asked.

  ‘Jeez, could you say it a bit louder so Ted can hear?’ Jeff said. He grabbed me by the arm and led me down the sidewalk, walking briskly. ‘It was so easy!’

  Once Jeff felt we were a safe distance from Ted’s, he dragged me into an alley and ripped the wrapper off his Milky Way. He bit off a huge chunk, his cheek bulging out like a chipmunk’s.

  ‘Aren’t you gonna eat yours?’ he asked.

  I handed my bar to him. ‘You eat it. I’m not hungry.’ Not only did I not want to eat it, I didn’t want to hold on to it.

  ‘Go on, eat it! I got it for you!’

  ‘I don’t want it.’ I felt short of breath and a bit nauseous. Sweaty. I thought I might throw up right there, in the alley. I was not cut out for a life of crime.

  ‘God, you’re such a baby,’ Jeff said, grabbing back the second Milky Way and stuffing it into his pocket. ‘Oh well, more for me.’

  ‘You have to go back and pay for those,’ I said. ‘You could say it was like a mistake, you picked them up and then walked out, like you forgot to pay and you remembered when you got down the street.’

  I peered around the end of the alley, expecting to see Ted, accompanied by the riot squad, charging down the sidewalk. I was listening for sirens. But there was no one looking for us.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Jeff, trying to talk through a mouthful of Milky Way. He seemed determined to dispose of the evidence as quickly as possible. ‘Shoulda got a Coke too, wash it down.’ I couldn’t believe Jeff had done this. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of such a thing.

  I’d never had a thief for a friend before. It was a new feeling, and not an exciting one. It took more than a week of sleepless nights for me to realize that Jeff and I, his unwitting accomplice, were going to get away with this. We were not going to be caught.

  I never went into Ted’s again.

  This thing with Trixie, well, I’d have to say this was bigger than the Milky Way incident. I couldn’t recall anyone ever confessing to me that they’d shot, and killed, three people. I’m sure I’d have remembered something like that.

  ‘Say something,’ she said as we stood out there, alone, in the field. A light breeze blowing from the direction of the Bennet farmhouse carried the smells of chicken and the sounds of a child’s laughter.

  ‘I’m sort of at a loss for words,’ I said.

  Trixie placed the palm of her right hand on my chest. ‘You need to know the whole story.’

  ‘Will that make me think it’s okay that you killed three people?’

  Trixie pulled her hand away. ‘Probably not. But I’d like to tell you anyway. All that I’ve put you through the last few days, I think you’re entitled to the truth, no matter what you think of me after hearing it.’

  ‘Sure, then. Go ahead.’

  She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans, turned her back to me, and took a step away. ‘You heard a bit, inside, from Claire, about what it was like. With Merker and the rest of them.’

  ‘I got a taste.’

  ‘I didn’t turn tricks for them. Some of the dancers, they hooked too. Made a lot of money that way. Guy sees you onstage, wants a piece of you real bad, he’s willing to pay. And a lot of the girls, they were happy for the extra cash. I won’t tell you I never did things I shouldn’t have. I’d be lying. Especially at first. But I was good, taking clothes off, doing the moves, and I was still a good warm-up for the business upstairs, even if I wasn’t one of the girls going up there. I was still good for getting them in the mood, you know?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  She turned back to face me. ‘But once I started giving Merker suggestions, how to make more money, worked my way into the back room and started helping with the books, I didn’t have to flash my tits anymore. But the thing is, with that crew, no matter how smart you are, no matter what other talents you might have, when it comes right down to it, if you’re a woman, you’re just a whore.’

  I closed my eyes for a second.

  ‘After Eldon, Katie’s dad, died, they started looking at me differently. No one would have touched me as long as he was around. He’d have beat the shit out of them, killed them, probably. But once he was gone, there’d be comments, little cracks, like “Hey, ledger lady, I’ve got six inches for you to calculate.” Or, “Let’s multiply.” Clever stuff, you know?’

  And then she told me about the night of November 18, 2001. The night they took turns.

  ‘They held me down. Like fucking dogs. Everyone except Leo. He just stood off in a corner, shaking his head, whimpering like. Fletcher was first, then Gary, then Smith and Heighton. One after another.’

  She waited, wondering whether I wanted to react, whether I had anything I wanted to say, but all I could do was listen.

  She told me about Gary’s visit to her apartment two days later. Finding her with her eleven-month-old girl in her arms. Hands her a ‘Come Back to Work Soon’ Hallmark card with $110 inside.

  I listened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hawk circling.

  ‘You know the part I can never figure out?’ she said, looking at me again. ‘The ten bucks. A hundred, and ten. Was that the tip? Was the ten bucks for expenses? What the fuck do you think the ten was for? Baby formula, maybe?’

  All I could offer was a shake of the head.

  ‘But you know what I did? I went back to work. Went back and did my fucking job. I’d already been planning my move, I was moving the money around, into accounts, skimming off cash where I could, and I wasn’t done yet. I still needed more. I was putting together getting some new ID, in the name of Trixie Snelling. I was putting things into place, to make a new life for myself and my daughter. But I didn’t have enough. So I had to go back there, go back and sit in that room, day after day, putting on my smiley face, with a pack of rapists.’

  Softly, I said, ‘I don’t know how you could do that. It must have been … I don’t know. I can’t imagine.’

  ‘And I carried on, making like nothing happened, like a hundred and ten dollars and a Hallmark card was all it took to make the memory of a gang bang go away. And for a while, they were even a little sheepish. Getting me tea, being real sweet, you know? Like, hey, sorry about turning you inside out, but here’s a cup of Earl Grey.’

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘that wasn’t the night it happened.’

  ‘No. Gary, round about this time, I thought maybe he was starting to get suspicious. I
was scared shitless that he’d start asking questions, about the books, questioning the totals. The club owed money everywhere, but he didn’t know. But I did my best to snow him, buried him in numbers. So he’d buy it for a while, but I knew I was running out of time.

  ‘I could have used another week at least, but things sometimes have a way of unraveling. Gets to be April 9, 2002. Gary and Leo, they’re out getting pizza.’

  And the ones left behind, Heighton and Smith and Fletcher, decide it’s time for a repeat performance.

  ‘No matter how much money I’d stashed away, even if it wasn’t enough, I’d made a vow to myself that what happened that other night, that was never going to happen again.’

  Back at the house, Claire was on the porch, waving to us. ‘Five minutes!’ she shouted.

  Trixie waved, turned back to me.

  I said, ‘Your sister and Don. You’ve told them this story?’

  Trixie nodded. ‘They know.’ She ran her hands through her hair, gave her head a shake. ‘Fletcher puts his hand on my shoulder, spins my chair around, puts my face up to his crotch. The others, they’re starting to laugh.’

  She rolled the chair back so she could get her purse, get the gun.

  Fletcher took a couple of steps back, couldn’t believe it, barely had a chance to say ‘What the fuck’ before the first shot went into him.

  ‘Then Smith and Heighton, they were on their feet, not sure whether to get the hell out of the room or come at me, but I was between them and the door, so they pretty much had to run at me regardless. I fired again, got Smith, then Heighton, and they both fell, almost on top of each other. I’d managed to shoot all three of them square in the chest. Eldon, he’d taught me a few things, and one of them was how to use a gun, and how to aim it. They were moaning, telling me to call an ambulance, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I knew I had to get out of there as fast as I could, pick up Katie from the sitter’s, get out of town as fast as I could. Gary and Leo, they’d already been gone half an hour, they’d be coming back at any moment, and someone might have heard the shots, already called the police.’