The Devil's Copper

by Jamie Crothall

  “It’s in your best interest to not contact the local authorities about this. Do not put him in any more danger than he already is.”

  With that, he left, leaving the front door wide open and our home in tatters.

  Once he was gone, I weakly got up and stumbled to the front door. But by time I got there, their vehicle had already driven away. It was too much. It was all too much. My legs didn’t have the strength to hold me up. My brain didn’t have the capacity balance. I fell to the floor and cried.

  It had to be a dream.

  THREE

  I didn’t sleep that night. By the time I got any semblance of sanity back, I could only think about simple tasks. I picked the bedroom door back up. I tried to get the front door to close and lock. My hands were still shaking too much to do either with efficiency. No one came to our apartment to see what the commotion was. I guess the arresting officers managed to keep it all under the radar. I wasn’t sure if I found that disappointing or a general relief. I kept falling back on the one officer’s parting words: ‘don’t involve the local authorities.’ Was that a higher agency trying to avoid involving local police? Is that even protocol? The more I thought about it, the more unusual it seemed. No one showed any identification. No one read him his rights. And the use of force seemed excessive; neither of us showed any sign of resistance. I wanted to go to the police to inquire. But what could lead to, if they weren’t connected to the police? Then who the hell were they, and what did they want with Jack?

  I took a shower, and tried to shake off my sense of unease before heading downtown.

  ***

  The police station wasn’t what I expected. Not like the movies, where a bustle of officers and colourful perps all wait to be processed. It was open and quiet. Surprising, following a Saturday night. A counter limited further entry into the building, manned by a single officer, a young black woman with a tag that read ‘Simpson.’ She was in the process of writing something. As I neared, and could see over the counter, I saw it was a crossword puzzle. She looked up at me and smiled. Then she realized I saw her crossword. She pushed it aside. I’m not sure if it was that or the rather daunted look on my face that changed her expression.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “I’m, uh…looking for my boyfriend.”

  “Do you have reason to believe he’s here?”

  I hesitated before nodding.

  “What’s his name?” she asked, as she pulled a computer keyboard close.

  “Jack. Jack Spry.”

  She typed and used the mouse to hit a few buttons but did not seem happy with the result.

  “I don’t see anything. Are you sure he would be here?”

  “I think so.”

  “Were you contacted by someone from this station?”

  I wanted to come up with a clever dismissal but couldn’t think of anything. “I, uh…I think I made a mistake.”

  “Are you sure about that? Are there any alternate spellings?”

  “No, it’s nothing, I think I just…”

  “Are you in any kind of trouble?” she asked, her tone a note more serious.

  “No,” I replied, perhaps a little too quickly. “I, uh…I think someone was just screwing around with me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to waste your time.”

  “Okay,” she said, her skepticism not at all veiled. “I want you to take this though, okay?” she said as she handed me her card. “If this turns out to not be a mistake then you get back to me? Understood?”

  I nodded, eager to find my way back out. I cursed myself as I left the building and made my way back to the car. That was so stupid! I was warned by a man with a gun to NOT do something and the first thing I do is that very thing. Was I trying to get Jack killed? I drove home and buried my face in my pillow. I didn’t have the mental or emotional awareness to do anything else at that moment. I felt scared and alone. I debated calling my friends, but I knew they’d be no help. My parents were a write-off, so there was no point in that. I didn’t know who else to contact, and though my better sense told me ‘no one,’ I knew there was no way I could simply sit by and wait without knowing what was happening. I had a thought. I had an idea. I hated it but at that moment I couldn’t think of any other course of action.

  I called Walter.

  Of course, he didn’t answer his phone. He was probably sleeping, but I left a message anyway.

  “Hi, Walter. It’s Billie. Look, I really need to talk to you. It’s about Jack. Please call me back as soon as you get this, okay?”

  I hung up and busied myself by trying once again to lift the bedroom door, and at least place it back into position. I managed to find a way to latch the front door shut using a wire coat hanger and some of the exposed doorknob workings. It was able to be shut from either side, but it was by no means secure. It wasn’t until about two hours later that I heard back from Walter. When I answered the phone his groggy voice simply stated “buy me breakfast.” I begrudgingly agreed and was already questioning my brilliance by pulling him into this when I left to meet him at the food court in the New Sudbury Centre.

  Walter Blunt was hard to define by several means. First of all was his ethnicity – I could never determine what his background was and his last name gave nothing away. I had first assumed he was native, however he would sometimes make jokes that only a middle-eastern person could get away with. Unless he was just that racist. In addition to this was his age. The fact that he and Jack were such good friends and went back ‘a long way’ made me assume they were roughly the same age. Both in their late twenties. However, I would not be surprised if Walter was considerably older. It’s hard to explain, but he had one of those faces that looks young however are probably older than you’d think.

  He was seated at a table in the food court when I arrived. He was already working on a breakfast meal from one of the kiosks. He was dressed in a tattered old drab trench coat, and wore blue jeans and a flannel shirt. His shoulder-length, oily, black hair hung loosely about him as he ate.

  I was immediately suspicious the moment I sat down, when he stated plainly “Jack’s in trouble.”

  “Yes, he is. How did you know?”

  “You told me.”

  “No I didn’t.”

  He glanced up at me. “Your expression. Your voice. I can tell.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well, anyway, after he got home last night from dropping you off…”

  “You went to bed and then what time did they come?”

  “I think it was about two…”

  “Two-fifteen?”

  “I mean…maybe?”

  “What did the fourth guy say before he left?”

  “Wait, how do you…”

  “You’re taking too long, was it the fourth guy with the moustache, or was it…”

  “How the hell do you know all this?” I asked. I’d have pushed my chair back if they weren’t fixed to the table. Within seconds, he was already starting to make me wonder how much he already knew.

  He finished his piece of toast then licked the butter off his fingers. “We can argue the small details or we can get to the important stuff. What else did they say?”

  I shook my head. “What do you know?”

  He seemed genuinely confused. “What do you mean?” I then heard him quietly begin counting to himself. “…one…two…” He then seemed to snap himself out of it. “Jack’s my friend and I want to help him out, but in order to do so I need to know what you know.”

  “You already seem to know most of what I know. You can see how that’s a little alarming.”

  “What’s alarming is that you went to the police when they specifically told you not to.”

  I immediately stood up. I didn’t plan to, I just did.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “This was a mistake. For some reason I thought I could trust you, but clearly I was wrong.”

  “Why wouldn’t you trust me?”

  “Oh I don’t know, maybe because y
ou already know everything about what happened? Why did they take him? Why didn’t you do anything? I thought you were supposed to be his friend!”

  “Sit down,” he hissed. I didn’t want to comply but I realized that people were looking. “Don’t go challenging my friendship. You have no idea what kind of history we have, and I don’t need you going and getting all jealous.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Yeah, jealous. Why else would you have such an issue with me?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “You want to talk about trust issues? Why should I trust you? This never happened before, but the moment he starts associating with the likes of you, then boom, his door comes down in the middle of the night?”

  “That is hardly fair.”

  “Then you see my point.”

  “What do you mean?” I exclaimed. “You have no point!”

  “Look, I want to trust you,” he said. “But I’m going to need a little reassurance.”

  “This is absurd!”

  “I think we both need to trust each other, and I know how you can put my mind at ease. You do that for me, and I’ll do whatever you need to trust me. And then maybe if we both trust each other, we can find out where they took him.”

  I threw my hands up in frustration. “Sure. Whatever. What do I need to do? Buy you breakfast? Oh wait, you did that already.”

  “You took too long. What time is it now?”

  “I don’t know. Like, two?”

  “Jesus, really? Well then you can buy me lunch.”

  “Is that what you need me to do in order to trust me?”

  He shook his head. “No no, I need you to do one thing.” He paused as though for dramatic effect. “Pick a number between one and ten.”

  “What?

  “Pick a number between one and ten.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it.” Then, quietly, “…one…two…”

  “I don’t see a point.”

  “Oh my god you never get to the point. Pick one, now. One…two…”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, seven?”

  He paused, then tilted his head to the side and gave a “huh”.

  “What?”

  “Okay then,” he said. “I trust you.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yeah. Just like that.”

  “Are you high?”

  “What do you need me to do in order for you to trust me?”

  “Tell me how you know so much without me having told you anything.”

  “I told you, I’m good at reading body language.”

  “Well that’s not good enough for me.”

  He shrugged then proceeded to stand. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you then, princess. Now I’m going to go get that burger you’re going to buy me, then we’re going to go back to your place so we can look for clues.” He stopped and looked at me. “You coming? Cos’ I kind of need you to pay.”

  I huffed as I stood, realizing I had my arms crossed like an angry child.

  “What are we going to look for?” I asked.

  “Something with extra fries.”

  “At our place.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure something will jump out. I’ll take a number four.”

  I ordered the burger combo at the kiosk. I had no idea how he was going to eat it after just finishing a full breakfast, but I could hardly care at that point. I used my debit card to pay, but got that alarming buzzing sound, notifying everyone around us it was declined.

  “Shit! Sorry. Here, try this.”

  I pulled my credit card out of my purse. The kid swiped my card. It gave the same noise. He handed it back with an expression that said ‘sorry about your embarrassment’.

  “Problem?” Walter asked.

  “Nothing works.”

  “Ma’am, there’s a line. Do you have a way to pay for this?” the kid asked.

  Walter sighed. “Here,” he muttered, placing down a ten dollar bill. “I guess I’ll get this too.”

  I shook my head in confusion as he swooped in to collect his food and change. “I don’t know what’s happened,” I offered.

  “I’m sure you can guess.”

  “I’ll try at a bank machine.”

  “I doubt it will work.”

  “Let’s just go then.”

  I started in the direction of the door I arrived through, but he started walking in the opposite direction.

  “Hold on,” he said. “I need to recoup some expenses.”

  I followed him to a lotto booth where he produced a few coins and requested a Nevada ticket. The attendant opened the clear box and allowed him to reach in. He lingered a moment, then began to count as he rifled through them and withdrew one.

  “One…two…three…four…” He continued as he pulled back all the tabs. “At last!” he exclaimed. “About time!” He turned back to the attendant and handed over the ticket. “Hundred bucks, man.”

  “Congratulations,” the attendant said warmly, though thoroughly rehearsed.

  “Yeah you’ll hate me in a few weeks,” he muttered. He then waited until he was paid in twenty dollar bills.

  “Can we go now?” I asked coldly.

  “I told you that you were the jealous type, princess.”

  “Would you…listen, speaking of gambling…Jack once told me that his only vice was…”

  “Jack hasn’t played cards for years. I don’t see him getting into that ever again. He likes making legit money too much.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. He’s boring as hell now. Are we going to your place or what?”

  ***

  Fighting off hundreds of doubts, I led Walter to my car. No point in hiding; he knew where I lived anyway. And it’s not like I could lock him out just yet, and I certainly couldn’t hire a locksmith to fix the door until I found out why my cards weren’t working. We went to the car and began the short drive to our place.

  “Who do you think would have the ability to…”

  I turned to Walter but he was already asleep in the passenger seat. For all I knew, he had been sleeping all morning, and was up all of an hour, and already he was fast asleep in my car cradling a bag of burgers and fries. This man was not right. I gently woke him up when I pulled into our driveway by slamming my door as hard as I could. He jumped to attention and nearly lost his fries in the process. I heard him muttering obscenities as he got out of the car. I stopped to check the mailbox. When I returned, he was already ascending the steps to the front door. He managed to effortlessly open my rigged door latch in order to get inside.

  “How did you…?”

  “I figured it out. That was clever though.”

  Walter entered the house with a self-assured demeanor, like an investigator ready to line up all the clues. When he looked around however, he found very little out of note, except for the bedroom door off its hinges.

  “I’ve already looked around, but there’s not much out of place.”

  “Then we have to look at what is in place.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Did you check his computer?”

  Huh. I never thought of that. “No.”

  “The place where he keeps all his records of important financial dealings…you never thought to have a look?”

  I shook my head in frustration. “Look, I had a very stressful morning, okay?”

  Walter pulled out the chair and sat down at the desk. “What’s his password?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  He peered up at me. “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t use it!”

  “It has the internet! You don’t use it? Do you have any idea what it might be?”

  “No idea,” I replied. “Might be something to do with…”

  “I got it.”

  I looked over his shoulder and saw the main desktop screen. “How did you…?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  Okay, th
is was getting a little too convenient. I should have listened to my suspicions the moment they started to whisper in my ear.

  “Do you see anything?” I asked, as I wandered away from the computer desk.

  “No, it’s just a bunch of financial stuff. It means nothing to me.”

  “That’s too bad,” I muttered as I made my way into the bedroom. I recalled a day-planner that Jack often looked at first thing in the morning – he kept it on his dresser with his keys and wallet. I wanted to look at it but I didn’t want Walter to see. While he busied himself with the computer I went over to it and opened it up. I thumbed through the pages and nothing jumped out at me at first until I got a few pages in. I found an entry on a Saturday that simply said ‘T @ 10am’. Had it been on a weekday then I would have assumed it was work-related, but this was on a Saturday. Also this was on a Saturday where he said was going to the gym. I began flipping through his planner and found a few entries marked as ‘T’. All during non-working hours, all at times where he told me he was otherwise engaged, either at the gym or helping Walter with something.

  “Well I don’t know,” I heard his voice say. “I don’t see anything here.”

  I quickly closed the day-planner and dropped it in the top drawer moments before Walter entered the bedroom. His attention was caught by the door that was leaning against the wall.

  “Wow, they really did a number on it.”

  “Listen, I thank you for your help but I’m really tired. I never slept at all last night and it’s really starting to catch up with me.”

  “One…two…okay if you’re really going to insist then you’re going to insist.”

  “Yeah. I, uh…insist. I’ll let you know if I find anything, and you let me know if you find anything, okay?”

  I didn’t know how he’d get home but he had a hundred dollars cash in his pocket so he could at least get a cab. I politely ushered him out the door and closed it behind him as best as I could. I peered out the window and watched him aimlessly walk down the sidewalk until he was definitely gone. I returned to the bedroom but didn’t find anything else in the day-planner aside from what I had already uncovered. I heard a buzz from the other dresser and realized that my pager had been attempting to alert me of important messages all morning. I could hardly care at that point and simply ignored it. Instead I reached into Jack’s wallet and withdrew his debit and credit cards as well. I got into my car and drove to the nearest bank machine and attempted to withdraw cash from each and I was continuously declined. This was no coincidence.