Serious Crimes (A Willows and Parker Mystery)

by Laurence Gough

  It wasn’t a bad way to make a buck. A bit on the risky side, but they’d usually come away, in the space of two or three hours, with anywhere from two to four grands’ worth of electronics.

  From the fences, of course, they’d be lucky to get twenty cents on the dollar. Still, it was a lot easier than shovelling hamburgers at McDonalds. And there was always the chance of catching a bonus. One warm summer night in July, Billy had busted a Porsche and walked away with a hundred grams of coke. Garret had wanted to deal it but Billy said no. His argument was they didn’t know shit about dealers or dealing, might put somebody’s nose out of joint without even realising it. End up in some back alley garbage can with a couple broken legs. “Let’s don’t fuck with luck,” was the way Billy put it. So they had a couple of girls over and got all bright-eyed and snuffled. Had a pretty good time, all in all.

  Garret said, “You hungry, wanna grab something to eat?” Billy shook his head. He sucked on the cigarette, flicked ash at Garret’s lap.

  “Steal some more radios? I know where there’s a Jag, guy keeps it…”

  “I ripped my fuckin’ hand wide open. Look at that, for fuck’s sake.”

  Billy thrust out his hand. They passed under a streetlight, and in the sickly blue glow Garret saw the cut, a raggedy slash that ran the length of Billy’s thumb.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “Fucking dashboard. Pulling the Blaupunkt.” Billy sucked at the gaping wound, rolled down his window and spat blood, rolled the window back up again.

  “Wanna smoke some dope?”

  Billy didn’t answer. Garret took that for a maybe. Encouraged, he said, “I got a six-pack of Coors. We could…”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “The dope?”

  “No, stupid. The booze.”

  “Off a guy outside that liquor store in the mall, on Broadway by Kingsway.”

  “What’d you pay him?”

  “Ten bucks.”

  “Plus the beer.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Ten bucks for a six-pack. Whyn’t you get him to buy you a case?”

  “Too heavy. I got no wheels, remember?”

  Billy flicked his cigarette. The butt hit Garret square in the chest, a shower of orange sparks on black leather.

  “Jesus, Billy!”

  They were about three blocks from Garret’s apartment. Close enough. Billy pulled over to the curb, turned off the lights.

  “Beat it.”

  “Huh?” said Garret.

  “Read my lips,” said Billy. “Fuck off.”

  “You expect me to walk home? In this cold? C’mon, I’m gonna freeze my ass off.”

  Billy leaned across the seat, opened Garret’s door and gave him a push. Garret sat there for a minute, his head down. Billy could see he was working out his options — climb out of the car or get his head kicked in. Even for a dummy like Garret, it wasn’t all that tough a choice. He got out of the car. His lungs puffed small clouds into the night. “See you tomorrow?”

  “Shut the door,” said Billy. “And don’t slam it.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Everybody’s got one.” Billy’s thumb had stopped bleeding. He tilted his head, sniffed the cold night air. Night lights lit up the peak of Grouse Mountain. Lots of snow up there, cold and white and pure. Pastel ski bunnies shifting ass as they cruised the powder.

  Garret eased shut the Pinto’s door and turned his back on Billy and started walking down the street. The sky was dark, stuffed with heavy black cloud. An icy wind seeped through his jacket and began to gnaw at him. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. It was so damn cold his eyes were watering. He glanced over his shoulder, wondering where in hell Billy was going, this time of night.

  Billy and he had been together a long time, but there were parts of Billy’s life that Garret knew nothing of. Fair enough. Garret had plenty of secrets himself. His worst secret was that Billy didn’t scare him one little bit. Billy thought he was in charge. In many small ways, he ran roughshod over Garret, and Garret let him do it. There was a reason for this. Garret was fast approaching the time when somebody dangerous and dumb and disposable would be exactly what he needed.

  *

  Billy was headed for the West Side of the city, an address on Point Grey Road. He didn’t know exactly why he’d decided to make the trip, and it troubled him.

  Garret’s idea of a fun time was cruising up and down Kingsway or maybe Hastings Street, cutting in and out of traffic, leaning out the window and yelling at people, spitting at pedestrians. Billy was just the opposite. He didn’t like to waste time. Everything he did, he did with a purpose. As far as he was concerned, wasting time was a waste of time. So what did he think he was up to, driving halfway across the city for no reason that made sense?

  Truth was, he didn’t know.

  He crossed Main Street at Twenty-fifth, running a yellow. Now he was an East Side kid on the West Side of the city. Unknown territory, where there were a lot more parks and the parks had trees. What else? People owned poodles instead of dobermans. The girls were prettier. Better dressed, anyhow. He’d heard about West Side girls. That they’d put out for anybody, but didn’t much enjoy it.

  At Oak Street, he stopped for a red and pulled out Nancy Crown’s chequebook. He squinted at the address in the glare of passing headlights. Point Grey Road. What the fuck kind of address was that? Thirty-six-hundred block. He was still miles away. He revved the engine, waiting for the green. A police car pulled up beside him. Billy leaned back in his seat, looked straight ahead, letting the engine idle. Be calm, look calm, act calm. So what if they pulled him over, took a peek in the trunk and saw he could tune in a dozen different stations at once? At his age, there wasn’t a whole lot they could do to him — he’d be in and out of jail faster than an egg in a frying pan.

  The light turned green. The cop punched it and the patrol car cut in front of Billy, turned sharply right, made him hit the brakes to avoid a collision, the blue and white flashing past in front of him and accelerating down Oak. Cowboys. Like Garret, cops were always in a hurry and never going anywhere. Billy lit a cigarette. Probably they had a hot date with a jelly donut.

  At Broadway and Arbutus, Billy stopped at an all-night Chevron station, pumped ten dollars’ worth of gas into the Pinto and cleaned the windshield. The kid guarding the cash register had long black hair combed straight back, a rash of pimples across his chin and down his neck. He was too big to rob. Billy asked him for directions. By the time the kid finished talking to him Billy was still lost but at least now he didn’t have any doubt about it. He bought a city map for a dollar and a quarter.

  3682 Point Grey Road was easy to find, because the address was written over the green-tinted glass roof of the garage in hot pink neon.

  A glass garage. What the fuck kind of mess had he gotten himself into? Jesus.

  Billy parked the Pinto on a side street about half a block away. It was half past three, dark as it was going to get. He checked to make sure he had his knife and flashlight, took a quick look up and down the street, locked the Pinto and ambled along the sidewalk towards the house.

  The house was set well back from the street, behind an evergreen hedge that screened a sound-deflecting six-foot-high wall of textured concrete blocks. Billy forced his way through the hedge, got a hand on top of the wall and levered himself up in one easy, fluid motion. He sat there for a moment, orienting himself.

  The garage was at the front, to the left of the house. The walls were textured concrete blocks painted dove-gray, and the sloped roof of huge sheets of green-tinted safety glass was supported by green-painted metal joists. The garage doors were also made of big sheets of green glass. The interior of the garage was brightly lit by a dozen or more twenty-foot lengths of neon suspended on wires from metal tubes. The outwash of neon lit up the whole front yard, stained everything pale green, made it look as if it was under water. Billy had never seen anything like it. He felt as if he’d just
come off the farm, and it made him angry.

  There were two cars inside the garage: a bronze Mercedes and Nancy’s shiny black BMW cabriolet. The Mercedes had a vanity licence plate that read, HIS TOY. A third car, another bronze Merc, same year and model, was parked at a careless angle in the driveway. The plate read, HER TOY.

  The forecourt — what Billy thought of as the front yard — was paved with interlocking pink brick. There were a number of small trees and shrubs in oversized clay pots, each plant individually lit by a cleverly sited spotlight.

  The house was low, very modern. Stained wood siding and small aluminium windows. Billy thought it must be pretty dark in there, and that it was weird they had so few windows in the house when the whole damn garage was glass. As if the cars had a need to look outside but the people didn’t. Or, taking a minute to think about it… The people who owned the cars wanted to show them off but didn’t want anybody to know who owned them… Then what was the fucking point? Billy shrugged, giving it up.

  The front door was sunk deeply into the house, in a kind of alcove about fifteen feet wide. A fancy double iron gate prevented anyone from getting to the door. The wattage put out by the security floods was bright enough to read a goddamn comic book, had Billy thought to bring one along.

  Billy stepped up to a small window on the right-hand side of the house. The blinds were drawn. All he could see was a faint reflection of his own face.

  He followed a concrete path around the side of the house. No windows, not even one. Security spots placed under the eaves laid overlapping pools of light on the pathway. But the neighbouring house had no side windows either. It was crazy. He was right out there in the open but there was no way anyone could see him because of the lack of windows and the fact that the hedge and concrete wall hid him from the street.

  The path sloped steeply downhill. The house loomed above him. It was a hell of a lot bigger than it looked from the front. He placed the palm of his hand, fingers splayed wide, against the wooden siding. He felt, or at least thought he felt, a barely perceptible vibration — as if the house was a huge sleeping beast.

  He continued down the path, found himself in the backyard. There was a weird effect down at the far end. Steven Spielberg stuff. Pale mist, a soft, curling vapour. Lights dancing in the air. He paused, giving his eyes a few moments to adjust to the gloom. It was a swimming pool. A goddamn heated swimming pool and the dancing lights were the subterranean lights of the pool reflected in a fence made of glass panels.

  Billy raised his eyes, looked beyond the pool. There was nothing out there. No more houses. Just a huge inky black expanse of nothingness and then, miles and miles away, a sweep of tiny glittering lights. He realized the blackness he was staring at was the ocean. Nancy Crown lived right on the water. Jesus! Billy’s mind raced. He tried to calculate how much money it would cost to own a great big slab-sided house on the water. To own waterfront. And a glass garage and a matched pair of Mercedes Benzes and a fat black BMW ragtop. And Christ knows what else. Millions, probably. And he’d dinged her for eighteen bucks and a handful of loose change. With his back to the house, he hunched his shoulders and lit a cigarette. Then he moved past the steaming pool, across thirty feet of electrically-heated slate flagstones to the wind-break of glass at the far end of the yard. The lights of the city, bright and glittering, were off to his right. He pulled hard on the cigarette, sucked smoke deep into his lungs, exhaled slowly. And then glanced down.

  His stomach lurched. The ocean was forty or maybe fifty feet below him, and it was a sheer drop.

  Billy had a thing about heights. Turned his legs to jelly. He moved away from the glass wall, squatted down on his haunches and fought to get his breathing under control.

  The house was three stories high, each level set back from the one below it. There were balconies on all three levels, and through the rising mist from the pool Billy could see matching sets of ghostly white patio furniture on each balcony. Except for the concrete posts and beams that supported the structure, the back of the house was made entirely of huge sheets of plate glass.

  No curtains had been pulled. It looked to Billy as if every light in the joint was burning. The house had an open floor plan, to take advantage of the view. From where he was sitting at the back of the yard, Billy could see most of the ground floor, about half of the second floor and a little bit of the top floor. There was no sign of life anywhere inside the house. No movement and not a sound.

  Despite the three cars parked out front, he had a hunch nobody was home. He tilted his watch towards the house, studied the luminous dials. Almost four o’clock in the morning, all the fucking lights blazing away… Maybe something went wrong with the gas stove and she was in there lying on the kitchen floor, half-dead, dying…

  Billy pictured himself doing a B&E. Picking up one of the wrought-iron chairs over by the pool and tossing it through a window. Finding her lying there with her skirt up around her hips… Yeah, sure. He flicked the cigarette butt over the glass wall and into the ocean. A car sped past on the road out front, tires whining on the asphalt. Billy tried to imagine the view on a sunny day. Like something out of a magazine.

  Maybe she was alone, maybe there was no one else in the house. Her husband had to be a pretty heavy guy, to afford a place like that. Probably had to do a lot of travelling. He could be anywhere. Toronto or New York or Hong Kong. That’d explain the lights. Nancy was nervous, frightened of being alone. Billy stood up. He walked around the pool and sat down in one of the webbed deck chairs. The metal frame was bitterly cold, but the chair was more comfortable than it looked, and the night air was warmed by the steaming water. He lit another cigarette, stretched out his legs, thought about what he should do.

  Assume the house had a security system.

  Not outside, because down here by the beach they’d get all sorts of birds, raccoons… The alarm would be going off every ten seconds. But inside, there’d be something real sophisticated. Expensive stuff, top of the line. Motion detectors. Infrared. Maybe a direct line to a security company. Shit Billy knew existed, from talking to a guy he knew who did a little burgling, and also from watching TV. Stuff he’d have to watch out for, if he went inside, but, really, he had no idea how to handle.

  Sitting there by the pool, the steam falling on his jacket and turning to frost, Billy smoked the cigarette down to his fingers and then flipped the butt into the pool.

  Case the joint, that’s what he’d have to do. Case the joint. Figure a way in and a way out.

  The top floor was where he wanted to go. Because that’s where the bedrooms would be.

  Billy imagined Nancy Crown lying on her back on white silk sheets, mirrors all around, her naked body reflected from a thousand different angles.

  He wondered what her husband was like, what kind of guy he’d be. A what, stockbroker? Some fat, sweaty jerk who was always shooting off his mouth, always needed a clean shirt and a shave.

  Billy lit a fresh cigarette.

  An accountant. Accountants handled other people’s money and some of it stuck to their fingers. They knew how to make money make money. He pictured a skinny guy with wire-frame glasses, pink cheeks.

  But what if he was, say, a crook? Not corporate, white-collar crime, either. Maybe a big dope dealer or somebody who was into gambling. Heavy. Well connected. The kind of guy who’d have Billy killed and the next morning not even remember doing it?

  Nah, that was bullshit.

  But the point was, Nancy Crown’s husband could be anybody. A gun nut, packed a .45 around the house and was just itching to blow somebody away.

  All Billy knew for sure was that to own a house like that, you had to be rich. And if you were rich, chances were pretty good that the money you owned had belonged to a whole lot of other people, and you had taken it away from them, one way or the other.

  So he was probably in over his head and he ought to get out of there. Right now, right this minute. Before the rich, powerful, ruthless son of a bitch who was N
ancy Crown’s husband hauled his ass out of bed to take a whiz and happened to look out the window.

  Billy pushed himself out of the metal chair. He went over to the lip of the pool and knelt down and trailed his fingers across the surface of the water. So warm, so soft.

  What he needed to do was distance himself. Clear his head so he could think straight, work out all the angles, possibilities.

  He stared at the house and thought about how she might look. Baby-doll pyjamas? Or was she naked between the sheets? He imagined her lying on her side, the curve of her hip, the sweeter curve of her ass. Mist rose from the pool and vanished in the freezing night air and Billy let his mind focus on Nancy Crown, imagined her this way and that way, in all the poses he could remember from all the magazines he had ever read.

  He smoked the last of his cigarettes down to the filter and tossed the butt into the pool. Then he stood up and stared out across the harbour, miles and miles of cold black water.

  She was almost close enough to touch. There was nothing between them but half a dozen quick strides and a thin panel of glass.

  It drove him crazy, just thinking about it.

  Chapter 7

  A few flakes of snow — or maybe it was ash from a distant chimney — drifted down from a slate-gray sky.

  Inspector Homer Bradley leaned back in his dark green leather chair. He put his feet up on his desk, used the toe of a polished black loafer to nudge aside the carved cedar box in which he kept his expensive Cuban cigars. The three silver crowns on his right shoulder gleamed in the light from the fluorescents.

  He waved the Kenny Lee file at Willows. “Not a lot here, Jack. What else have you got?”

  “Not much,” said Willows. He glanced at Parker but she was looking out the window, peering over the top of the adjoining building, watching the snow fall into the harbour. Due to the influence of the ocean, the city’s climate was fairly mild. It rarely snowed more than two or three times during a winter, but this year the mountains on the North Shore were glistening and white.