Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal

by Michael Van Rooy

  Not ever.

  #31

  I woke up Smiley early the next day and told him all about Marie and the smuggling operation she was running. I told him about the money I was making, I told him about the potential of the route, and I told him about Samantha.

  In biblical terms I took him up on the mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world.

  And he listened and I waited and I saw greed spark deep in his eyes.

  I talked about drugs. “We can pick up crack cocaine in Minneapolis for cheap and move it across the border and then straight up north to the mining towns, where it sells at a premium …”

  He became more and more excited and added his own words. “We can run loads of hydroponic weed from up here straight down to Chicago …”

  He was pumped now and I kept talking. “We can pick up top-of-the-line Glock semi-autos for $400 in Macon, Georgia and sell them for $1500 to Japanese sailors in Churchill …”

  He was so excited he made mistakes. Like I said, there are no coincidences when dealing with bad guys.

  Smiley was transcendent. “We can take away the route from Marie and her crew; she’s only got two guys …”

  I’d never mentioned the size of Marie’s crew.

  Ever.

  A few minutes later he proposed cutting Samantha out of the picture permanently and taking over her business.

  “We can take her out. Shoot her down or wire her van to go boom …”

  I’d never mentioned Samantha had a van and he knew one hell of a lot about what she did and how she did it.

  I agreed, agreed, and agreed, and let Smiley tell me, “Let me set it up, man, it’ll be great …” He grinned, ear to ear.

  “I knew you weren’t straight. I knew you were conning everyone.”

  He looked abashed and then challenging. “You knew Sam hired me, right? This honest shit—that was just a con, right?”

  I nodded and the final words from both our mouths were, “It’ll be just like old times.”

  From him it sounded like a promise, from me it was full of sorrow.

  Then he went out to, in his words, take care of everything.

  #32

  After supper Smiley called. “Monty? Can you come down to a bar? It’s in the McDiamond hotel? I’ve found Samantha.”

  “Sure. When? What’s the bar called?”

  “It’s called Hell. I don’t know the address.”

  “I have a phone book. Don’t worry. When?”

  “Make it 7:30. I’ll be in the bar.”

  He hung up and I told Claire what was going on.

  “He’s going to betray you?”

  “Probably. Or he’s going to betray Samantha, if he’s working for her.”

  Claire had been working on a large pile of paperwork and she tapped her teeth meditatively with a pencil and spoke slowly. “What do you think?”

  “I think I don’t know.”

  She smiled and stood up and kissed me and I went on, “I think I’m operating in the dark here.”

  Claire wiggled her eyebrows. “You do some of your best work in the dark. Remember what you told me: instinct, reflex, and momentum.”

  I’d told her about my dream and she agreed. She’d promised to skin me alive if I fucked up but she’d agreed that it was the best way to deal with all the problems at once. Have one problem deal with the other.

  I kissed her and said, “Right.” Then I went upstairs and changed clothes. A plastic cup to protect my testicles. Jeans with reinforced knees and butt. A tight black T-shirt in case someone tried to grab me. Steel-toed shoes in case I had to kick someone. Lastly I pulled on a black denim jacket 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 single-edged razor blade as a last-ditch weapon. At the dresser I selected some ID and tucked it away in my front pocket along with four twenty-dollar bills and a roll of quarters in case I had to punch someone. Then I was ready to dance. On my way out Claire called again and then repeated, “Instinct, reflex, and momentum.”

  Her smile was sweet and she went on, “And if Smiley comes back alone I will kill him. It’s a promise.”

  It took thirty minutes on the bus heading west and north to reach near to where I wanted to be. Had I walked I could have been there in about the same time. East/west travel in the North End really had a way to go.

  Hell had been built into the front of a hotel with a beer vendor around back, rooms on the second and third floors, and parking space in lots on either side of the hotel so no one had to park on the busy street. Some effort had been made to grow trees and bushes along the outer edges of the parking lot and there were two planters right in front of the doors full of juniper bushes that you could smell a block away. The windows of the bar were painted black and the noise shook me as I neared. Heavy country rap about saving a horse, with the bass turned up so high the sidewalk itself seemed to vibrate. I paused between the junipers and looked down at a ground littered with spent cigarette butts and a brick wall covered in burn marks where people had butted out.

  The sharp brick corners of the entryway were covered in sheets of stainless steel, marred by deep scratches. The steel was there to stop the brick from crumbling away if hit by fists or skull or whatever. Up close I could see that some of the scratches were words, but not good ones, not the happy graffiti that I occasionally saw in the city. No, I LOVE YOU! and IT’LL GET BETTER or (my favourite) YOU’RE A GOOD PERSON AND YOU DESERVE TO HAVE GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO YOU! Instead there were words and ideas of pain and rebellion and hate. RAHOWA, for racial holy war, a white supremacist credo, anti-Jew, antiblack, anti everyone who didn’t have “blood in the face,” by which the racists meant people who could blush. There was also 88, the eighth letter times two, or HH for HEIL HITLER, and 198 for SH or SIEG HEIL, and of course the infamous 13 for marijuana. Some song lyrics flashed into my head about a guy wanting ink done and getting 31 instead of 13. So I was smiling when I walked into the place, which was a mistake.

  “What the fuck you smiling for?”

  There was a big guy, six eight and 300 pounds at least, not much of it fat, standing just inside the door, holding a wall up. It was very dark and he didn’t sound angry, just someone doing their business, which was to be intimidating.

  “I’m just a happy man.”

  He didn’t believe me but accepted my three-dollar cover charge. I walked into a big room full of noise with pool tables, lots of battered tables for customers, and a crooked bar along one wall.

  The whole place was a dance. People at the tables stood up and went to talk closely to other people at other tables, slot-machine players raised their hands for more change, pool players shot the balls, won and lost, and moved away or towards another table.

  A pool player missed a shot and slammed his cue down and stalked away to a table in the corner where a young white girl curled her hands protectively around something blue in a tall glass. In the States they passed a law requiring that manufacturers start putting blue dye in Rohypnol, the date-rape drug of choice. The result was an increase in sales of blue lagoons and blue Hawaii’s and blue daiquiris in a certain kind of nightclub.

  It was that kind of nightclub.

  A drunken guy came out of the bathroom energized and headed into the music. A girl in a bright red silk shirt ran her nails up the jean-covered thigh of a balding man whose leather vest advertised the United States 101st Airborne Division. From where I was I could see her other hand was making small loving circles in the lap of the man’s middle-aged female companion. Everyone was smiling.

  “… you…”

  A loser at a pool table reached for the white ball and I could see a band of tension crease his forehead as the brown bouncer stepped behind him and put his arm neatly around his neck. Slowly the ball was lowered to the table and the man apologized and walked away.

  “… arreste
d DWI …”

  There was laughter from a nearby table where two thickset middle-aged white guys and two equally beefy brown-skinned men sat. DWI, driving while Indian. Or DWI, driving while intoxicated. One of the brown men snorted and said loudly, “It wouldn’t have been fucking funny if it happened to you.”

  Which meant he’d been Driving While Indian.

  Out of curiosity I went into the men’s bathroom and washed my hands. There were no mirrors, only a sheet of polished steel along three walls. There were also no urinals, just a porcelain lead to a trough in the floor. No one was using the facilities, so I popped into a stall and saw that the toilet tank’s top was covered in sheets of sandpaper glued into place. That stopped people from cutting lines of cocaine but wasn’t quite as extreme as some bars I’d been to, where the owners would spray surfaces with WD-40, which turned coke into unusable slush.

  The sandpaper also stopped casual bathroom quickies quickly and painfully. The WD-40 stopped the same quickies but in a funnier fashion.

  Back outside there were signs behind the bar so I walked over to read them. NO GANG COLOURS ALLOWED, WE WILL NOT SERVE ANYONE WHO APPEARS INTOXICATED, and NO WEAPONS ALLOWED.

  As I watched, a tightly wound redheaded guy walked up and ordered a pitcher of draft. He wore a red bandanna like a dew rag on his forehead, which would have meant he was a member of the Crips street gang in East LA. He also had MM embroidered on his jacket above his heart, which in prison might mean Mexican mafia. It also had a line through it and three red drops falling down.

  Which meant what? A wannabe? A been there? Or maybe he was an active member in diametrically opposed organization?

  He went back to his table, where he sat by himself and drank the beer directly from the pitcher. I could see his high-topped runners and a bit of brown leather that showed when he seated himself. This satisfied me because it meant he had to be an undercover cop. No one else carried a pistol in an ankle holster.

  I turned back to the signs and a vacant-faced blond girl came up and ordered two rye and gingers. When she paid I could see into her purse, where the bright red plastic handles of two carpet-cutter razors rested on top of her wallet. When she saw me looking she closed the oversized purse and went back to her table with her drinks.

  “Gonna order something?”

  The bartender brought me a coffee and accepted the payment and tip with bland indifference. Idly I looked at the bouncer on the stool and found he was very busy talking to a girl in a pink blouse and black leather skirt who looked underage. His hand was busy up her skirt and his face was flushed, which made the tattoos on his neck stand out even more. He had two on the left and two on the right, under his ears. Black lightning bolts, a Gestapo collar they were called, a bad tattoo, unless you were a bad dude. His hand kept busy and the girl squealed. I leaned back against the bar and watched and waited.

  #33

  At a quarter to eight Smiley came in from the hotel entrance.

  “Waiting long?”

  “No. Nice place.”

  He looked around and then back at me with a blank expression. “Are we looking at the same thing?”

  “It’s honest. Not many places can say that. It’s crude, vicious, and alive. But honest.”

  “I suppose.” He swayed back and forth and belched.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No, I’m just tired.” He ordered a rye and ginger at the bar and then shook his hands to loosen the muscles. “This is where we’re at …”

  The bouncer moved between us and forced us apart with his bulk. He didn’t have to do it but he did it anyway, his way of showing everyone he was in charge. In a strangely high voice he ordered a pink torpedo on his tab and handed it to the girl. Still the place was loud enough that no one could hear Smiley when he started to talk to me, quietly and with minimum lip movement, which is the second thing you learn in jail.

  “Like I was saying, Samantha’s upstairs in a room. She has two guys with her; one’s a boyfriend and one’s muscle. I’ve asked around and I think that both are semi-pro. Sam’ll be carrying a gun and she’s good. The guys might be carrying.”

  He said it without passion, without caring, and I knew it didn’t matter to him. I asked, “How do you want to handle this?”

  “We go in and kick ass. Are you heavy?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither. So we bluff. However, I sure do wish your lovely wife had left me a gun. Or anything.”

  He didn’t look nervous and I didn’t feel nervous, and when he finished his drink I gestured. “Let’s go …”

  I wondered when he was going to betray me and then I wondered if he was going to betray me.

  I followed as he went through the doors to the hotel. Once the door was shut behind me the noise level dropped by more than half. The lobby was small and cramped, with industrial carpet a painful shade of blue, and real hanging ivies and spider plants festooning the ceiling. Beside the front desk was a staircase. Smiley went up it without hesitating and I followed.

  My hands were loose at my sides, fingers open and spread. Strangely enough I was calm, relaxed, and ready. The situation hadn’t begun to cause me fear or stress and the adrenaline hadn’t kicked in. I was ready to kick, bite, punch, whatever was needed, but I wasn’t looking forward to any of it. At the top of the stairs Smiley turned right. As we moved down the scrubby hallway the noise of the bar beneath our feet became louder and more strident. At the end of the hallway was a fire door with a large sign stating an alarm would ring if it opened. We were about three metres away when I whispered to Smiley, “So, will the alarm ring?”

  “Nope. Fixed it.”

  He knelt down to tighten the laces of one of his expensive running shoes and kept talking. “The door will open fine. Head down to the first floor and there’s an exit to the parking lot. I’ve jammed that door. Instead head towards the middle of the building and pop the sealed door into the hallway between the vendor, the lobby, and the bar. Then you can go out the bar front, the lobby back, or the vendor side. Whatever works best.”

  “You’ve done your homework.”

  He stood up and brushed some dust off the back of his right hand. “Yeah, about an hour ago when I came through the place, just to make sure. Let’s do this.”

  He knocked on the last door, which opened immediately, and a thick-bodied man I’d never seen before waved us into a small room full of furniture. From where we stood I saw two double beds, a dresser with TV, a small table with a coffee pot, two chairs, and two bed tables. On the wall were three big pieces of art, crude paintings of twisted trees and rocks, clear water, and bright leaves. One whole wall was blocked with a lime green drape; behind it I supposed was a window. There were also three people: Samantha lying on the bed farthest from the door, a man standing right beside the TV, indeed his hand rested on the box; and lastly the guy who’d let us in; he’d stepped back into the bathroom to let us pass.

  “Smiley! And I recognize Mr. Haaviko behind you.”

  Samantha was up on one elbow facing us, with one hand under her pillow, and I focused on her. Women were always more dangerous than men; ask any soldier, any cop; for both groups it was a rule, a mantra: shoot the women first. Women didn’t have second thoughts or fears once they’d decided on what to do. Women succeeded more often in suicide than men, and women were much more likely to shoot if they had a gun. They were less likely to panic and make mistakes. And in the back of my mind was a poem Claire had recited to me once by Rudyard Kipling; a poem about what happened to wounded British soldiers when the Afghan women came out.

  Smiley grinned from ear to ear. “We’re here to talk.”

  He paused for two heartbeats and I closed the door behind me. The noise from the bar beneath us reverberated in the room. I was keenly aware of where everyone was in the room and what they were doing.

  I was keenly aware of momentum and instinct and reflex. I was keenly aware of the dark. I was keenly aware of the potentials in the room.

&n
bsp; The two men were nothing special and no one I recognized; maybe Sam was trying to show me how many people she had on salary or maybe she was using disposable guys or maybe this was her A-team.

  I still wasn’t impressed.

  The guy in the bathroom looked like a hockey tough; the other guy looked like an amateur bodybuilder but nothing really scary. Neither of them had enough scars. I could feel the tension building and the adrenaline started to move. Sam said, “You gents carrying?”

  “What do you think?”

  Smiley was still smiling. The guy beside me in the bathroom doorway inhaled and exhaled while the guy by the TV took his hand off it and brought it down to his belt. I noticed that he was wearing a badly fitting suede sports jacket over his blue shirt and that his hand trembled a lot. Sam nodded and gestured, “That’s fine. Let’s talk.”

  That was the signal. I was watching Sam and Smiley, focusing on them. I caught a brief look of surprise on her face when he started to move forward.

  Apparently that was not part of the plan.

  Sam was fastest, drawing a long-barrelled pistol from under her pillow and sweeping it towards me, trying to avoid Smiley.

  While she was doing that the guy by the TV squatted a bit with his legs wide apart, a shooting stance he’d seen on some cop show. He flipped his coat open with his right hand and pulled out a darkly blued pistol from the small of his back. And the guy in the bathroom suddenly had a knife in his right hand as he adjusted his feet and lunged.

  But by then it was all too late.

  Smiley jumped over the bed towards Sam, moving slightly to the left so she had to reverse the track of her pistol as she tried to target him.

  She didn’t want to pull the trigger until she was sure and while she was making sure I took one step forward and kicked the guy with the pistol square in his testicles. The crack of my steel toe slamming into his pelvis made me wince but I was already spinning back towards the guy in the bathroom who was slashing at me with the edge of the knife.