by Paul Slatter
Grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, Chendrill pulled him from his stool past the bouncers and through the entrance out of the bar with Dan shouting as he went, “I need to go back to pay for the beers.”
Not letting go, Chendrill said to him as they walked, “Leaving without paying is a good thing, now you won’t be allowed back.”
They reached the Aston and in one swift move the rear door was open and Dan was thrown into the back. “Don’t think about trying to escape I have the child locks on,” Chendrill said as he opened the driver’s seat and started the engine.
He pulled away into the flow of traffic and into Gastown, passing the streetlights of an era long forgotten, passing the crowds, passing the homeless looking for a handout, passing the drug dealers hiding in the alleys, passing the park where the people did smack on one side and the girls sold themselves for it on the other. Dan spitting out as they passed, “You should have come here, they’re cheaper. How much you spend up there for 5 minutes?”
Still pissed and not listening, Chendrill just looked in the rear-view mirror until he heard Dan carry on saying, “Maybe Mum would be interested, you know with you spending up there what she earns in a shift—what was it, $200?”
“Actually it was $250,” Chendrill replied without missing a beat.
They reached Tricia’s house and, without speaking, Chendrill opened the rear door of the Aston for the supermodel who still lived in his mother’s basement, then watched as he walked up the short steps and opened the door, went inside, and slammed the door behind him.
Dan walked straight to the kitchen and opened the fridge. Grabbing a knife from the sink, he cut away half of the new slab of butter his mother had just bought from the supermarket and pulled out a carton of milk. Opening the cupboard, he pulled a two-pound bag of sugar out and opened it, spilling the sugar all over the counter. Dropping the butter into the bag of sugar, he shook it up, spilling more onto the kitchen counter, then reopening the bag he pulled the butter out and, holding the slab to his mouth, began to scrape and lick the sugar from the butter until there was no butter left. Picking up the milk carton, he took a swig straight from the opening at the top, dropping more mess down his front and onto the counter and floor. He then repeated the process again until there was just enough butter left to use to dab out the mess he’d made on the counter.
Dan wiped hands on the curtains and headed down the stairs to his room and locked the door. It was time to knock one out, there was little doubt about that—those girls at the club getting him all revved up like they had, with their sexy asses and legs, showing him that bit of extra snatch and attention because he was the ‘BlueBoy’ guy. But then Chendrill had turned up looking like a peacock and ruined it all—the fucking asshole. Had the prick not, he’d probably have managed to get one of them back here to his basement so he could fuck them—just the way Adalia had been teaching him. Except a stripper would be naturally young and tight, a new experience, not like what he’d been getting it on with lately. Then afterward he could have driven the Ferrari over to the Sutton and fucked Adalia from behind as well, which is the way he liked it best because he could watch TV. Then maybe he’d tell her what he’d done—fucking a stripper and making her come. Maybe she’d like that. Maybe?
But that fuckhead Chendrill had fucked all that up and the Ferrari with the governor which no longer worked because he’d over ridden its circuitry was still at the strip bar’s carpark. But that was not his problem, that was the big ape’s problem—after all, he was the big boss for shit like that around here.
He turned on the computer and typed in the name of the girls he’d seen that afternoon. Seconds later they were up on the screen looking all sexy and seductive, staring back at him from the computer screen. Reaching down, he pulled down his trousers and whipped out his already hard dick and looked at it. Perfect, he thought, Rock Solid. This was it. He was there, he thought, there was no hard-assed stripper coming over for him to fuck but that didn’t mean his mother’s late shift was going to be wasted. In actual fact, he may be better off, he thought. He could please himself all evening and then when he was done, he could look at wiring circuitry or whatever else he fancied without having to listen to a load of blah about how the girl felt or some shit like that, the same way he did with Adalia.
He reached down to the bottom of the computer desk Sebastian had bought him and pulled out the small bottle of expensive olive oil his mother had thought she’d forgotten to buy and began to unscrew the top, but with the butter and sugar he was unable to remove with the curtain still stuck on his hands it was proving difficult. Hang on, Dan thought, as he set the bottle of olive oil down on the desk and looked at the streaks his slimy hands had left on the dark brown bottle. Butter, sugar, olive oil? He could use all three, why not? Maybe he was in for a new experience after all, especially with that full packet of sugar and half a slab of butter still left in the fridge. He was hungry after all. Now he could wank and eat, it couldn’t be better, the evening wasn’t wasted. He was back on track.
************
The Italian couldn’t remember being this upset even when he’d been married to his bitch of a wife. This guy Chendrill had come into his private space and humiliated him. The fucking prick.
Now people were disrespecting him, laughing at him when he’d gone and found them asking for the money they owed. Word was out—he was a pussy. Chances are though it wouldn’t have been the big guy, who had been faster than he’d expected; he was too cool to go shooting his mouth off. It had to have been one of those whores in training calling themselves lap dancers—although he hadn’t seen one dance yet. Them or maybe one of the meathead bouncers who had been too lazy to get a real job. The guys knew who he was and liked it that he’d taken a slap. They were outside the door, at least one of them was anyway—had to be to protect the girls from maniacs.
“Fuck you,” he shouted out at no one in particular as he walked down the alley for a chat about money with one of his regulars. He kicked him once, then again, and then again. The prick moments before telling him he couldn’t get any money this week and refused to take another block to cover what he owed because he was back with his family and clean now and wanted to stay that way for his children. The man promising the Italian he’d get the money but that it would take time as he wasn’t going to break into cars anymore and received a head-butt in the face for his troubles.
Now the Italian was kicking him while he was down and holding his nose, kicking him, and thinking about Chendrill. He was pissed. He was supposed to be the tough guy loan shark around town and, despite that, this prick in the loud shirt had still insulted him. First, he had come into the private room where he knew he was with his girls. Second, he had told him straight to his face that he sucked cock the same as his stupid fucking brother had, and he may have well have done just that for the way he’d tried to kill the prick for telling him so, not once but twice, and the fucker had still made a fool of him in the process.
How long would it take for his new girl to hear about it from her coworkers, he thought. How was he supposed to make her his after this?
It wasn’t good.
And now there was this fucker on the ground who didn’t want to pay because he wanted to support his family, word was definitely out on the street that he, Mattia, was a pussy—but pussies don’t kick guys who owe money and leave them for dead. Pussies talk about it without actually making good on a promise. But not me, he thought, as he continued relentlessly kicking the man’s body for wanting to make it clean. Not now, no way. This fucker below him now, who used to be a good payer, a guy who’d do whatever necessary to get a fix, who would now either die or survive, and who would then have to pay later or go through another beating. Either way it didn’t matter, all he wanted now was for word to get back around town that he was still the man—even if Chendrill had stuffed a $250,000 cheque into his mouth like it was his dick. That cunt doing that when truth was he should have been begging him for his
life instead—just as the man below him who wanted to start afresh was.
And that’s exactly what the big fuck would be doing soon, the Italian thought, as he saw the man below him beginning to lose consciousness, curled up in a heap at the side of a dumpster. The big fucker who’d been quicker than him was going to die. That’s right, he’d kill the fucker, then when he was lying down in a gutter he’d lean over him and look down and see him with his eyes all watery—just like those of the guy below him now as he kicked him. Then doubling his power, like the crescendo to the fireworks he’d watched with his kids on the beach only days ago, the Italian kicked again and again. Saying to the man who he wished was Chendrill as he did, “Tell me what it was you were saying back there in that room. Yeah, the bit about being a cock sucker. Tell me again, you fucking piece of shit—tell me again. Tell me again. Tell me again. Tell me again. Tell me again.”
***********
With the light fading quickly, Chendrill drove the Aston deep into Burnaby and wondered where Dennis was. He’d passed twice since he’d last seen him at the house when he’d been there watching a man with a diamond in his front tooth who thought he could sing. He could call, he thought, but on the end of the phone he wouldn’t be able to look into the man’s eyes and that’s what he needed to do. There was a problem and it wouldn’t go away. The problem being that Patrick had been asking to find Alla, which was almost impossible to do. He wanted her in the movie because she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen—though from what Chendrill could gather it wasn’t exactly as though the man had seen a lot of her face when he’d been in her company. But now Sebastian had gotten involved, saying almost out of pure curiosity, “Well let’s see what she says, Chuck.”
He got out of the Aston and looked around, then walked along the road to where Archall Diamond had been parked with his truck and stopped. He carried on to the now empty basement. From what he could see there was oil on the driveway that hadn’t been washed away by the rain and there were no cobwebs on the door. Dennis was still living there, but just wasn’t there at the moment. As for his wife Alla, the most beautiful woman in the world according to Patrick—and no doubt Dennis—with the doors all being shut and her in a wheelchair, then the odds were that she’d left and not come back.
He headed south and reached Archall Diamond’s place and on opening the door could see the slight tracks of a man and the tracks of a wheelchair in the dust of the cocoa pops that were all over the floor. If they were there to stop anyone sneaking up on him because of the crunching then it hadn’t worked, he thought, as he walked around the house and then up the stairs into the bedroom. Last time he’d been there, the bed had been covered in cash and pills, but now the bed was clear and the tires tracks at the bottom of the stairs led to the ramp at the front door. Alla, it seemed, had left and not come back.
****************
Well I looked for Alla and she’s vanished, Chendrill thought as he looked at the clock on the dash of the Aston which read 11:00 pm and knew he could do a lot more. Then making a mental commitment to search out Dennis sometime soon, he forgot all about it and began to wonder if he should call Dan’s mother. He could have picked her up from work, but he’d learned over the years of finding and losing women that sometimes less was more.
He reached the end of Dan’s mother’s road and looked down the street. Dan’s Ferrari wasn’t there but his light in his basement cave was on. Parking the Aston in its usual spot, he got out and walked up the short steps to the front door. Inside through the door he could hear Tricia was crying. With a soft knock on the door’s small window he pulled out the only set of keys to her home she’d ever given to a man and opened the door.
As soon as he was inside, Tricia was on him running down the corridor and when she reached him, Chendrill could see her tears were a mix of pure anger and worry. She said before he could get a word in, “Chuck, call Sebastian and tell him he needs to get him out of here.”
Placing his arm around her slender back, Chendrill walked her to the kitchen and as soon as he entered he could see the mess. He said, “What’s the problem?”
Pulling away from him and screaming as she pointed to the counter, the floor and the curtains, Tricia said, “That’s the problem, look what I’ve come home too!”
Chendrill looked around the kitchen—it was a mess. The butter was everywhere, sugar, flour, some sauce, but he’d seen worse. He said, “Has someone been baking a cake?”
Almost as quickly as Chendrill could finish his words, Tricia replied, “No one’s been baking a cake okay! You don’t bake a cake and not use a bowl, and you don’t bake a cake in the fucking bathroom or the hallway and you don’t use the fucking curtains either.”
Without a word, Chendrill walked away from the kitchen and into the bathroom. The light was still on and as soon as he entered he could see butter and sugar all over the sink and mirror, and what looked like blood. He walked back out and into the kitchen and asked, “Is that blood in there?”
“It’s not food colouring Chuck, okay? Of course it’s blood.” Then she carried on, “It’s everywhere, blood, flour, butter, and sugar.” She walked to the top of the stairs and screamed down towards the door where her son lived, “Dan, what the hell is going on, there’s blood and crap everywhere.”
Then they both heard Dan’s voice calling back through the door, “Listen leave me alone, I’ve got a problem.”
And he did—it was his mother. Calling straight back down the stairs, she said, “What the hell have you been doing all evening? Where the hell is the blood coming from?”
Dan said again, “Leave me alone. I’ve got a problem.”
Then it hit her. It was obvious what had been going on, he had a girl back here and they’d been in the kitchen making food and they’d started screwing and there was a possibility whoever it was had her period. She said, “Have you got a girl down there?”
“No,” came Dan’s voice from the basement.
“Why’s there blood everywhere then and where’s my kitchen roll gone?”
Then they both heard Dan call up through his door, “It’s Chendrill’s fault.”
Tricia looked to her boyfriend, whose job it was to look after her son, waiting for an explanation. Chendrill stared back, shrugging his shoulders without a clue. Then Chendrill said, “Maybe he was making some food and he cut himself?”
Tricia said back, “Some detective you are, where’s the knife? You think if he’d hurt himself while cooking he wouldn’t be up here? Besides, he doesn’t cook, the closest he’s ever gotten to cooking is putting bread in the toaster. And—what does he mean it’s your fault. What’s been going on while I’m at work?”
**************
Sebastian sat at his desk at home with the side light on and worked his way through the paperwork he needed to get done before he went back into the office in the morning to sit at a meeting that had been originally set up for nine but which, now his old friend Roger had come on board, had been pulled back to eight.
He liked to be busy, and busy he was now that he had a movie starting in a couple of weeks’ time, but it was hard to concentrate with little Fluffy rubbing his ass on the carpet like he was. He looked at his dog as he came over settling back at his feet. Rock Mason would be in town soon and it was funny how things had changed around the office since the director, who didn’t like Chuck, had gone out of his way to get him on board. Even Adalia had quieted down with her demands—at least a bit. He picked up his half empty cup and took a swig, the tea was cold now and it surprised him as it hit his lips. Had it been that long? he thought, and turning he looked at the clock—it was almost one in the morning, a whole two hours late for little Fluffy to have his nighttime walk. He said, “Fluffy, what am I doing, you poor thing, I should have had you outside hours ago. No wonder your bottom is itching.”
He put the dog on his leash and tucked his arms into a light Merino cardigan to protect him from the night air and stepped into the elevator. T
he park out front next to the beach was quiet now in the early morning. They crossed the road and walked along the sloping path which led to the beach and stopped at a group of rocks separating the path from the sand. He shouldn’t be there with the dog, he knew that only too well, and it was another slight adjustment to make once he became king of the city—well, kind of. He could feel the wind picking up now as he sat down on a rock and looked out over the waves lit dimly by the street lamps. Taking a deep breath he felt the fresh air fill his lungs as he listened to the gusting wind as it hit the trees behind in the park, rustling their leaves as it passed through like a ghost moving in the night—the leaves blowing, the surf breaking and spreading itself thin across the sand of the beach, the clicking of the young boys’ bicycles as they circled up on the road and dropped down to pass Sebastian as he sat there quietly alone.
He watched them go almost out of sight in the distance, both of them talking as they rode together. Then, almost in sync, they broke formation, turning in an arc and headed back towards Sebastian with their faces no longer visible from their t-shirts pulled up above their noses. Reaching Sebastian, the larger of the two moved in close, punching Sebastian hard in the face as the smaller of the two grabbed his dog.
“You want some more of what you just got or shall we just shit kick the dog?” said the larger of the two kids.
