Trust Me

by Paul Slatter

  Once upon a time it would have been him driving it himself, turning up with the wrecker and its huge tow bars and crane on the back. Coming in at speed, pulling up at the side of the road, blasting his air horns and revving the fuck out of the machine like some sort of idiot superhero who had come to save the day. The big oaf getting out his cab, dropping down and shaking his head like it was the worst thing that could have ever happened to him that day in Vancouver. The man strutting about, making a meal about nothing, with his arms hanging awkwardly and his legs apart—like he’d shit himself—because of the steroids. The guy doing his best work to look as though he was the one who was going to have to fix the truck back at the yard when in reality he couldn’t start the lawn mower.

  There were some mechanics out back on bonus and still operating at this hour, but most would have called it a day. Reaching out and up Big Carl pointed his porky, ring covered fingers towards the ceiling and then slapped his left hand down on the large red button that opened the gate as he saw a tow truck rounding the corner from out back getting ready to head out onto the street. Its chrome bumper shining in the night as its fog lights squared up to the office window and blinded him as the huge machine maneuvered itself towards the open gate.

  Then for a moment the huge tow truck he used to look so cool in stopped and the airbrakes came on. Its engine’s rhythmic rumbling powering the blinding lights crashing in through the office window as it idled.

  Big Carl sat there, shielding his eyes from the lights as he listened to the huge Detroit diesel engine rumble. Calling out through the office window with its little glass slot—the one he liked to slam shut when the general public whose cars he’d towed began to tell him how they felt—the man shouting out, “Come on move the fucking thing.” But the wrecker wasn’t going anywhere, for when he stepped outside with his hand to his eyes the truck’s side door was open and the Ferraris were gone.

  *************

  They took both the Ferraris east and then north over the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge both hitting 200kph as they reached the north shore on the other side and kept up that speed along Highway One as they headed west across the North Shore. Slowing at Capilano, they took a right through the chicane that took them onto it, hit the bottom moments later then took two more rights and a big swoop up onto and across the Lionsgate Bridge and into downtown Vancouver. And before the tow truck driver had got in and reversed the huge wrecker truck he wasn’t allowed to drive anymore back into its usual spot, Chendrill and Daltrey were back in Yaletown and parked legally outside Slave. “The one you drove is Dan’s, Sebastian had it fitted with a governor and it’s not supposed to go past 90. I went the long way so as I could tease you on the highway, but it looks like the little fucker’s been tampering with the electronics like he does,” said Chendrill when they got out.

  Picking up a cab, they cruised back along McGill, both of them sitting in the rear like a couple who had been together for so long they no longer held hands. They stopped in a side street at the rear of the compound and switched cars back to Daltrey’s Audi. Something was bothering Chendrill and it had been from the very start, but now more so.

  He said to Daltrey as they passed through the night back down to the lonely park by the water where Chendrill had staggered along like a drunk and sat down to sleep only an hour or so before, “Why would that phone owned by this stripper who Sebastian’s bought a house for end up with you that night you called me from the boat?”

  “Sebastian bought some stripper a house?” asked Daltrey.

  “He does things like that, he’s very generous.”

  “And you think the woman played him?”

  “Initially—yeah, that’s what I thought, but now no, I think she was just lucky, meeting him like she did. I went over there and her husband told me to tell Sebastian to get the boxes all the furniture came in out of there—you know, ‘get rid all that shit’ is the way I think he put it.”

  Daltrey sat there and looked out the window, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. Then she said, “Wow.”

  Chendrill carried on, “Truth is, I kind of put it all on the back burner because we had this other idiot trying to shake him down and I had Dan to keep an eye on as well.”

  “Dan?” Daltrey said, almost to herself.

  “Yep.”

  Then Daltrey said, “I still can’t get used to seeing him in these posters in town and at Slave. My friend says she’s so sick of him she wants to punch him out.”

  “Punch him out then fuck him—or fuck him, then punch him out?” Chendrill asked with a smile.

  “Neither, she’s a bulldyke. You know that prick once tried to kiss me straight after he’d puked up oysters.”

  Chendrill laughed, that was typical Dan. He said, “And they say romance is dead.”

  He lifted his right hand up and began to open the door. Just as Chendrill was about to get out, Daltrey grabbed his left arm from across the centre console stopping him. She said, “If I didn’t have my own issues right now Chuck I’d be inviting you home.”

  And Chendrill said straight back, “If I didn’t have Dan’s mother to lie next to every night these days we’d already be at my place.”

  Reaching out, he held her hand for a moment and then, raising it to his lips, kissed the back of it for a moment.

  Closing the door, Chendrill walked away as he watched Daltrey pass by in her Audi and take a turn that would lead her to her apartment—where he could have been on his way back to also had he wished. She was a good woman that Daltrey, he thought, still sexy as hell even if some of her hair was missing.

  He walked further along the road in the darkness towards the Aston, the kids on their bikes now just appearing from the park where he’d been sitting just before when Daltrey had come to visit.

  Fuck, thought Chendrill, knowing he’d missed the opportunity to give them a hiding and throw their trick bikes off of the seawall into the bay. The kids heading along the road towards him, automatically sizing him up as too big and alert to fuck with.

  Chendrill let them go without any acknowledgement whatsoever—their trick bikes tick tick ticking in the early morning calm. He reached the Aston and started it up, looking in the mirror to see which way they were heading home.

  The boys went south for a block, then as Chendrill watched from four blocks back they went east, winding along the pathway in and out of sleeping cars and doing jumps off the curb. They hit East Hastings, cruising through the junkies and homeless almost as though they were at home themselves, standing and riding with their bodies leaning forward and hats to the side.

  By the time they had reached the house Sebastian had bought for their mother, Chendrill was already tucked in along the road amongst the cars that would soon be taking their owners to work in the early morning sun.

  It was almost six when he woke and looked to see if any lights were on in the million-dollar home with its big bay window that Sebastian had liked so much. At seven nothing had changed, and by eight they were all up. In Chendrill’s mind, the school in Strathcona was two minutes walk away and if the boys went there they’d ride or walk. Either way, if school started at nine they’d be leaving at five after.

  At 9:03 a.m. the front door opened as the boys with their skinny faces passed by on the other side of the road, heading towards the school. Chendrill now saw in the light of the day that the taller of the two was sporting the shiner Sebastian had given him a few days earlier. Ten minutes later their mother was out and heading in the same direction. Passing in her tight jeans and high heels, the woman was tall like her boys and still looking good with her long hair and breasts the way ex-peelers do.

  Chendrill got out and walked along the road to the house. The husband who wanted him to clean up the shit last time he was there was now visible through the large bay window and walking around in the living room. He reached the steps and walked up to the door, knocked once and waited. Then again, and again until he saw the husband walk into the corridor and op
en the door. “I’m busy,” the guy said immediately.

  “I work for the landlord, he says you got stuff that needs doing.”

  “Oh, that fuckhead, come in.”

  Chendrill walked inside and looked around; the place was clean, but the ex-stripper’s husband wasn’t. The guy standing there smoking in his wife beater shirt, with his little feet that didn’t match the boots sitting by the door sticking out the bottom of his track suit bottoms. The man asking Chendrill as though Chendrill was his for the day, “Where’s your van?”

  “It’s not a van it’s a truck,” said Chendrill, “it’s up the road.”

  Chendrill walked further into the house looking about and saying, “Nice place.”

  The husband saying straight back as they walked into the living room, “Yeah I’ll be buying it right off the guy in the winter.”

  Knowing the man was full of shit and looking again at the size of the guy’s feet, Chendrill said, “Cool.” Then he asked, “What do you do?”

  The guy hesitated for a moment, then said, “Freelance.”

  “Oh, great—in what?”

  “At the docks. But now I’ve got other stuff, takes me down south.”

  Chendrill nodded, he knew the type, worked in the union, took day-calls when it was busy and went on EI until they had to go back to work. Employment Insurance or Worker’s comp if they could feign an injury—or, even better, get one for real. He said, “Cool. What you doing down south then?”

  The husband not answering and saying out of the blue instead, “You wanna beer?”

  Chendrill looked at the clock and saw it read 9:20 in the morning, so he said, “Cool.”

  The husband disappeared into the kitchen and came back out with three cold Coors, handing one over and taking a huge slug of one of his two. “You got any weed or blow?” he asked.

  Chendrill nodded and, lying, said straight back, “Yeah in the truck.”

  “Cool,” said the guy, as he sat down at the same time to drink his beer and not offering Chendrill a seat. He reached down the side of the sofa Sebastian had just bought the family, pulled out a bag of dope along with a pre-rolled doobie and lit it. Chendrill watched him and, sitting down without asking, Chendrill asked again, “What you doing down south?”

  The man smiled and said straight back with a wink, “Top secret shit.”

  “How old your boys?” Chendrill asked.

  “The skinny fucker’s 13 and the lanky fucker’s 16.”

  “Was that your missus that just left?” asked Chendrill.

  “Yeah, you see her? Hot hey? Girl’s still got it. Bet you’d like to be banging that?” the man said back, “If it weren’t for that bag now, maybe you’d be in for a bit.”

  Chendrill looked at him and asked, “Bag?”

  “Yeah bag, you know ones they put in you when you can’t shit. She used to be a peeler.”

  “Wow, she was a dancer?” Chendrill said.

  “Yeah, real good one, travelled with it and all, all over the U.S. and Canada. You may have seen her because she was here a lot.”

  “Cool,” said Chendrill, nodding, and wondering if he actually had seen her for real as the guy carried on.

  “Now she’s got herself all fucked up. All she’s good for now is the kitchen so she’s taking a job at the school—but she’s still a good fuck. Back in the day she’d have got me to watch her take a big guy like you in her mouth, same as she should’ve done before when she got all fucked up.”

  Chendrill looked at him, still playing it dumb and not believing what he’d just heard the guy say. The man carried on, “That’s why I took this gig going south, see she ain’t got it no more with the stripping.”

  He took a big hit on his joint, held it for what Chendrill thought was an age, then let it out, blowing the smoke into the carpet. Then almost as if he had not stopped at all, he carried on saying, “You know one time she was away a while, done a tour in the southern states, Miami and New Orleans, you know, on the stage and lap dancing like they do. When she got back she discovered she’d picked up gonorrhea. I said, probably got it off the carpets from all the shit holes she’d been working in, but truth was I was the one who give it to her cause I knew I already had it when we was fucking.”

  Chendrill hated the man, the guy betraying his wife like this to a complete stranger despite their history and thinking he was funny for knowingly giving his wife a sexually transmitted disease. Still playing it like an idiot, Chendrill said, “Cool,” again, for what now felt like the hundredth time. Then he carried on asking, “They not like dogs then your kids?”

  The husband wondered at the change of subject when he was about to tell this guy stories about the time he’d gotten his wife so stoned she’d done a gangbang. He said, “Big dogs yeah, they’re cool, they’re like their dad on that one. They just hate them little stupid fucking ones—the streaks of piss,” he took another drag on his joint before he continued, “kids and the wife want to get a pit bull—now we have the house. I said I’m not picking up the shit in the yard.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Chendrill said, “Maybe that’s a good thing. You know the guy who owns the place might come round and do it for you though.”

  The husband looked over at Chendrill and smiled just before taking the last hit on his joint, letting it out as he took another swig of beer as Chendrill watched the ash from the joint fall into the man’s lap and down onto the cushions of his friend’s sofa, hearing the man continue saying, “Yeah maybe he should. Fuck him, let him clean up the dog shit. But he can stay in the garden, the cunt’s not coming in here.”

  Chendrill nodded and, mirroring the guy’s sentiment, said, “Yeah. Fuck that guy.”

  Leaning on his knees and thinking of putting the TV on so they could both look at the chicks on the morning show—that, or one of his pornos he’d put together—he said, “Yeah, fuck him. Guy can’t be telling us what’s this and that—you know, it’s enough with the fucking faggot calling my wife like he does.”

  “He does that does he?” Chendrill asked.

  “Yeah, the guy pissed me off so much I sent the boys over to kill his dog.”

  Chendrill stared at the man for a moment, then said, “You did?”

  “Yeah, but first time they did it they got the wrong faggot. Other night they didn’t though, cause I told them straight—I told them, it’s the old shithead with the dog, not the fuckhead with the hair—if you see the fucker on the beach and he has the little rat on him, drown the fucking thing.”

  And that’s when Chendrill stood up and, with a huge rush of blood to his head, said, “Pick a window, you’re leaving.”

  Then he grabbed the husband with both hands and threw the prick upside down straight through the big bay window.

  Chendrill walked out through the front door and found the husband who liked to watch his wife get fucked laying in the garden in amongst the broken glass and smashed window frame still, strangely, holding his bottle of beer. Taking it off him, Chendrill chucked it back inside the house through the now smashed bay window. Chendrill then picked the man up by the scruff of his neck, dragged him along the road and threw him again, this time into the back of the Aston.

  **********

  The husband didn’t have a clue what had just happened. One minute he was having a joint and a beer with some cool dude from the seventies—the next the fucker had thrown him through the window. And now he was being kidnapped in a luxury car and the child locks were on. As he sat up in the back, he said, “Hey, where the fuck’s the truck?”—saying it like it was normal to have just been thrown through a window. Then he said, “If it’s about the container with the asparagus last year, then I’ve already said I was sorry.”

  It wasn’t.

  Then he said, “Okay, I can’t tell you what day a drug ship’s coming because I’m not working that crew anymore.”

  This was getting interesting, just like the old days except the car was a little nicer, Chendrill thought, as the man in t
he back with the wife who used to be a stripper started to blab, “It’s about the container with the kitchenware?”

  It wasn’t.

  “It’s about the container with all the tomatoes from Chile?” asked the man as he tried the car door handle and window once more for luck as Chendrill slowed the car at a set of lights. Then he asked, “It’s because I left the door open on Zero?”

  Nope. But that one was interesting, thought Chendrill.

  Then tired of the man and even more tired from being up every night for a week looking for the man’s two shithead kids who liked to mug people, Chendrill told him, “It’s about the dog.”

  “What fucking dog?”

  “The same one your eldest boy killed.”

  Then he went quiet, as the car made its way downtown. Then he said, “Jesus, is that it? It’s just a stupid fucking dog. Stop at the pet store and I’ll get him another for fucksake?”

  And Chendrill said, “It wasn’t just a dog—it was Sebastian’s dog.” And then he waited for a response, which wasn’t coming soon, and which still hadn’t as they hit Vancouver’s downtown core.

  Chapter Eleven

  They parked the Aston outside the offices of Slave right next to the two Ferraris that had yet to move. Chendrill got out in the same manner as he used to when he’d been a cop and had just caught the bad guy.

  With only his thumb and his forefinger around the husband’s wrist as cuffs, he marched the man across the road and only let go once they were through the doors and heading up the stairs to Slave. Then, with Chendrill guiding from behind like a teacher taking a naughty schoolboy to see the principal, they moved straight along the corridor without a word until he hit Sebastian’s office at the end. He opened the door, moved the guy inside, and said, “Sit down on the sofa.”

  The husband looking about the room all confused. Then he asked, “Is this the police station?”