A Criminal to Remember (A Monty Haaviko Thriller)

by Van Rooy, Michael

  At least I think that’s what happened.

  When they’d given him a job in the kitchen though he’d been happy as a pig in shit and had lasted all the way to lunch when he’d gone out of his way to sharpen a medium-sized skinning knife. That clued the prison cook finally, because he was making vegetable soup (opening cans anyway) and grilled cheese sandwiches (white bread with Velveeta and margarine). None of which really required a knife to make. When the cook had looked for the guy though it had been too late, he’d already cut off six fingers and was most of the way through his wrist. The guy bled out while the alarms filled the fucking place with sounds of panic and excitement.

  In the car Lester wasn’t doing too well.

  “Sweet Jesus Christ.” Lester repeated himself and I shook my head and took the flask away, capped it and put it into his briefcase.

  “No, Lester, Jesus has nothing to do with any of this. Take me home.”

  Outside of my place I thanked him and got out, and then I leaned back in. “Lester? What do I owe you?”

  His face was haunted. “Oh. I’ll try to run it by the Legal Aid system. They should cover it, if they don’t I’ll run it by the crown—you were helping the cops so they might have a little coin. Glad I could help. If no one can cover it then I’ll send you a bill, ’kay?”

  “Definitely. I’d still be in there if it wasn’t for you. May I make a suggestion?”

  He got defensive. “About my drinking?”

  “No. Drink yourself to death if you want. It’s your choice. No, I wanted to suggest you do something nice for your wife. It’ll help. And then she might have sex with you. And that is a sure cure for this kind of shit.”

  He snorted. “That doesn’t happen. Not anymore.”

  “Suck it up, buttercup. You’ve just gotten a big mouthful of death and the best way to wash the taste of it away is through life.”

  “What makes you an expert?”

  I looked Lester in the eye until he turned away, then I said, “Experience. Make love to a women you genuinely respect and like. If not your wife then someone else. Just make sure you like and respect her.”

  He drove away and I went inside to where Claire was waiting, drinking coffee at the dining room table with the crowbar and bayonet in front of her.

  She kissed me when I came in and followed me to the phone in the kitchen without asking any questions. Lester’s home number was in the book and I called it and spoke to his wife, Elizabeth, whom I’d met two or three times. She was a nice lady but tense. When you’re married to a drunk you get tense.

  “Elizabeth? This is Monty.”

  “Is Les all right?”

  “He’s fine. He saw some gruesome photographs and heard a pretty bad story today. He’s on his way home but he’s shaky.”

  Claire’s eyes asked questions and I kissed her again as Elizabeth asked, “How drunk is he?”

  “Pretty drunk. But he’s not handling it very well. He’s shaky.”

  She snorted into the phone. “It’s an excuse …”

  “No, Elizabeth, he saw thirty-four eight-by-ten glossy colour post mortem photographs of a young woman who was raped and tortured to death over a six-hour period.”

  “Oh.” Her voice got small.

  “I have no idea why he drinks in general but right now he has a reason to do so. I just thought I should tell you so you’re ready.”

  She said “oh” again and then waited in silence before asking, “What do you think I should do?”

  “Me? I’d make him a stiff cup of coffee, lace it with Viagra, pour it down his throat and then fuck his brains out. He’s feeling dead right now.”

  Claire’s eyes got wide and Elizabeth laughed harshly into the phone. “You assume a lot.”

  “Yep. You can tell me to fuck off if you want. It’s okay, you wouldn’t be the first and I might even do it for you.”

  She thought about it. “Is Claire there? Put her on?”

  I handed the phone over and listened in as she said, “Claire, make sure your idiot husband can’t hear.”

  “Sure, Liz. He’s in the other room.” Claire held the phone at an angle so I could hear better.

  “Okay, hon. Did you hear what he said? What do you think?”

  “I think,” my wife smiled and unzipped my pants with her free hand, “you should go put on that little dress your husband likes, you know.”

  Elizabeth sounded concerned and serious. “The one that lifts and separates?”

  “That’s the one.” Claire pulled me out of my pants and started to massage me. She’d learned a trick from a gay friend of hers in Edmonton and she was doing the one with the wrist twist that worked really, really well. Despite myself I was responding. Claire spoke brightly into the phone, “Then fuck his lights out.”

  “What about you?”

  Claire winked at me. “I’m going to do exactly the same thing. Only I’m going to wear the birthday present I bought Monty. I told you about that.”

  “Right. Oh, happy birthday Monty.”

  I couldn’t help myself, I was supposed to be in the other room but I answered anyway. In my defence, I was distracted. “Thanks, Elizabeth.”

  She laughed, only this time it was lower in her throat. “Stupid Monty. Really stupid. I’m amazed you got away with being a thief for so long.”

  Claire kissed the phone wetly and hung it up. We put Fred to bed and then Claire showed me my birthday present. Then she did two things we only do on special occasions and that cheered me up so much I forgot I wanted a drink and I did three things in return that I generally save for making points after I’ve made serious mistakes.

  #17

  The next morning my joining the race for the police commission was in the news and I had to unplug the phone because every reporter in the universe wanted to talk to me. I did however listen to the news and found out I was the only one running against Rumer for the position of chief commissioner and that eight people were running for the remaining five seats.

  At two I got a phone call from Dean telling me a lawyer named Virgil Reese would call and set up a meeting with the man who was paying my fare. I said that would be nice and called Claire to come home but I got her partner instead, a woman called Vanessa Rose. She was young and intense and smart, a brunette who rarely wore a bra and who hid her brains behind perpetual cheerfulness.

  “Monty? One sec, Claire’s going in for the kill …”

  She laughed into the phone and it sounded like running water and then she chanted a rhyme under her breath, “Sign, sign on the dotted line and everything will be just fine.”

  “And how are you and your boyfriend? You know, what’s-his-name?”

  She laughed again. “I traded him in on a friendlier and healthier model … and, she’s done it. The paper is signed and the deal is done and I’ll go deal with buyer’s remorse and you can talk with your lovely wife.”

  Claire came on. “Just sold a big house to a nice couple.”

  “Sweet.”

  “You bet. What do you need?”

  “You to come home. I’ve got a date with a man to talk about being chief commissioner.”

  “’Kay. I’ve made like $9,000 split in half anyway so far today, so I can take a break.”

  I hung up and tried to figure out why I had ever begun robbing banks in the first place—it could not have been for the money.

  Fifteen minutes later a man phoned and told me his name was Virgil Reese and that he’d like to pick me up and introduce me to my employer. I told him that would be fine and he was there thirty minutes later, pulling up in an older-model four-door car I couldn’t identify immediately. Before I could go to meet him he got out and came to the front door carrying a brown paper package which he handed to me. “For your wife.”

  I looked at him, surprised. He was in his fifties and wore a black silk suit and canary-yellow shirt with a string tie that emphasized his thinness and pallor. His politeness and poise were otherworldly.

  “What is
it?”

  “A bottle of Benedictine. A smart liquor for a smart lady. And a voucher for the Kai Ping restaurant in the south end—they deliver and their lo mein is fantastic. I’m sorry to say I’ll have to take you away for most of the evening so I figured I should bring your wife dinner as partial recompense.”

  Claire came to the door and accepted the package and the man actually kissed the back of her hand. “Virgil Reese, lawyer. You’re a good real estate agent. May I send some clients your way?”

  “Certainly. As long as they pay.”

  Mr. Reese smiled thinly. “If they didn’t they wouldn’t be my clients.”

  “How do you know I’m good?”

  “I do my research, ask questions, analyze, consider and think. You have a good reputation.”

  Claire put her forefinger on her lips. “Thank you, and keep Monty as long as you want.”

  He smiled thinly and handed her an embossed card on heavy stock. “Enjoy the Benedictine. It’s made from a 500- year-old secret recipe of twenty-seven separate herbs, known only by a small number of monks.”

  Claire gave her best smile. “I will. And you enjoy my husband. He’s not 500 years old and I’m pretty sure no one knows how he was made.”

  Sometimes my wife is a real comedian.

  I took the bottle from him and brought it into the kitchen before looking it over. No drill marks on the glass that I could see and the foil on the cork looked pristine. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers over but found no imperfections at all, which meant it probably wasn’t poisoned.

  I dumped it down the sink anyway.

  Upstairs I pulled on my black denim thief’s jacket that I’d had custom made years before by an understanding tailor. It had extra pockets sewn into the reinforced inner lining, steel chain mail around the left arm for dogs and knives and a hidden pocket in the back with a Gem razor blade. I also made sure my pocket knife was in the right pocket and my steel-toed shoes were on my feet. The last thing I did was pocket a little digital tape recorder from Office Depot with new batteries. Then we left.

  In the car Mr. Reese waited until I had buckled up before starting the engine which made barely any noise.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To my employer’s home. It’s up near Riding Mountain National Park, about three hours away.”

  “Ah.”

  “However, it will give us a chance to talk and I had a secretary pack us a lunch so we won’t be hungry. It’s in the back.”

  I looked and there was a real wicker picnic basket right out of a Yogi Bear cartoon on the leather seat behind me.

  “Okay, Mr. Reese. Sounds fine.”

  A block away from my house Mr. Reese asked, “Have you ever been to Riding Mountain Park?”

  “No.”

  “It’s fascinating. An escarpment—a mountain almost—rising up from the prairie with unique wildlife and vegetation. Lots of elk and deer and all looming over the fields and prairies. It’s the closest this miserable little lake-bottom province gets to an actual mountain.”

  I checked and he was smiling.

  “You should take the kids. However, there is a long hike listed on top of the, quote, mountain, and it is a nightmare. Close underbrush. Mosquitoes. Biting flies. Elk. And at the end of it a view of nothing because the trees haven’t been cleared in decades. Skip it.”

  The car ride was smooth and finally I asked him what he was driving. He patted the dashboard with every appearance of affection.“A Bentley Flying Spur. Not very common. English and very well bred.”

  We drove in silence out of the city and headed west and north. Reese set the cruise control at 110 klicks and then spoke again. “Do you know the name of our client?”

  “Aubrey Goodson.”

  “Excellent. How do you know that? I know Dean and Brenda would never have told you.”

  I had turned in the slick leather seat and was watching Mr. Reese carefully. “A man called Cornelius Devanter approached me energetically to betray Mr. Goodson.”

  “You agreed?”

  “I did.”

  He pursed his lips in thought. “I see.”

  “No you don’t. He offered me ten grand to throw the election to his good friend Rumer Illyanovitch. After bargaining the offer went up to twenty.”

  Mr. Reese stole a look at me and nodded. “You have no intention of following through on the agreement?”

  “The term ‘throwing’ the election is a slippery one.”

  He nodded. “True.”

  “I can ‘throw’ and he can avoid ‘catching’ and the deal is still met. So I want to see what Mr. Goodson offers. You see, Mr. Devanter and his lawyers pulled guns on me. I hate that. So, what does Mr. Goodson have on the table?”

  Mr. Reese looked unconcerned at the mention of guns. “Well. To start he offers to finance your election entirely out of pocket. Once elected, the income of the chief commissioner is $21,000 per annum.”

  “That’s not much.”

  “Can you pour me some coffee? It’s in the thermos back there.”

  I did and tasted it and it was good. “Timmie’s?”

  “Yes. Tim Horton’s finest. Let’s break that down: the $21,000 is paid for attending eighteen meetings, each roughly three hours long. So fifty-four hours of work. Plus homework, say ten hours for each hour in a meeting for a total of 594 hours a year, which makes for an hourly wage of $35.35 for four years, the term.”

  “But there’s no guarantee I’ll get elected?”

  “True. So make me a counter-offer.”

  He drove and we ate small fresh whole wheat buns, slices of Thüringen sausage, ripe black olives, chunks of Gouda and black cherries. And while we travelled I thought and then I made an offer. “Okay. Guaranteed election expenses, including covering house expenses I’d normally contribute—roughly a thousand a month—plus one-year salary to be banked in case I lose. Plus you let me take Devanter for the twenty grand.”

  Mr. Reese smiled. “Make it six months’ salary and it’s a deal.”

  “You don’t have to talk to Mr. Goodson?”

  “No. Not about this. He pays me for my decision-making ability.”

  Hours had passed and we were approaching a slowly rising chunk of land off to the right.

  “Almost there.”

  “Fine.”

  Mr. Reese drove without effort and finally opened his mouth. “What’s your definition of a fanatic?” He seemed genuinely interested in my response. I leaned back in the seat. Two responses quickly came to mind and I considered them both before pitching them into the abyss.

  “A fanatic,” I said slowly, “Is someone who has only read one book.”

  Reese’s mouth narrowed and tightened. “That’s hardly original.”

  “Let me finish. Someone who has only read one book and who has had that same book explained to him at length by someone who agrees with them.”

  Reese turned his head quickly and then back to the road and we swerved a little as he answered, “Ah. Well, Mr. Goodson is not a fanatic. He’s the opposite of a fanatic.”

  I wondered what that meant and we turned left off a secondary highway to a well-gravelled road that snaked through brush. Above the entry off the highway was a wrought iron sign that read “Goodson Ranch.”

  #18

  I trust my fellow man to fuck things up. I’m generally right. It’s kind of a business and life principle for me.”

  The old man was strangely compelling; he had stayed up on the wide cedar porch that surrounded the three-storey wooden house when we drove up in the late afternoon. We’d walked up the steps to meet him where he sat on a rocker hand-made out of antlers, with a red wool Hudson’s Bay trade blanket tucked over his lap. Around us were thick stands of trees.

  His first words had been a formal hello and his second had been about how he expected men to fuck things up.

  I stared openly at him and didn’t answer. He was old, in his seventies, maybe older, and he looked like he’d been awake for every
second of it. The man’s face was thin and sharp with patchy white hair and his brown eyes were set deeply into his skull. He wore a grey wool long-sleeved shirt buttoned to his neck with yellowed bone buttons and faded jeans that ended above his ugly, twisted toes sticking out of a pair of battered leather sandals.

  “Look there.” He pointed at a heavy-barrelled rifle and a scratched metal case beside his chair. I reached down and picked up the rifle by the butt. It took my breath away.

  “It’s gorgeous.”

  “It’s a drilling. A three-barrelled rifle/shotgun. That one’s Nazi German, issued by Goering to German Luftwaffe bomber crews in North Africa in case they were shot down and decided to survive. The aircrew were expected to be shot down and they were expected to survive. That gun reminds me of my rules that people fuck up.”

  I took the weapon out. The blueing on the barrel was slightly faded and the walnut stock was scratched but beautiful. I could still make out “J.P. Sauer & Sohn Suhl” on the butt plate. On the right side of the butt was an eagle carrying a swastika and the pistol grip was finely checkered.

  Bringing the weapon to my shoulder I found there was a selector switch on the receiver. I moved it to the centre and a folding site rose automatically graduated out to 100 metres. On the side of the barrels was written Krupp-Luftstahl and 9.3x74 R in one place and 12/65 Eagle/N in another. I looked up at the old man. “The calibre?”

  “Ya. I have to hand load them but that’s not hard, just painstaking and precise. I can’t do it no more so I pay a smart Filipino in Brandon to do it for me.”

  I put the weapon down and looked at the case. It had a leather handle and two locking latches and held a wooden cleaning rod with brass fittings, some bore-cleaning brushes and boxes of shotgun and rifle ammunition.

  “Beautiful gun.”

  “Thank you. Very old. Very accurate. I brought it out to start the conversation, better than many other things like a whore or cigars or a fine wine, don’t you think?” He gestured to the west. “Over there I’ve planted different kinds of grasses—timothy, orchard grass, clover designed to grow at different times so something is always young and tender, which elk like best. There are also patches of raspberries and blackberries for bears and deer. Then I go shooting.”