It took five minutes to wheel the bike behind the farmhouse and down a matted trail that led to a collapsed outhouse, where I left it; a present to whomever. Two big steps took me into heavy, cold brush. I waited and listened and looked but heard nothing. After an hour I ate some food, drank some water, and left the duffle bag with most of my stuff still in it under a fallen pine tree.
Before I went I patted myself down. I had the Bionic Ear and extra batteries which might, might, give me an edge. I also had the compass and the map, in case. The bulletproof vest was on under my dark thief’s jacket and I had two grenades (with the spoons taped down to prevent accidents) in my jacket pockets. I had the pistol, locked and loaded, in its holster on my hip with the flap buttoned down so I wouldn’t lose it, and beside it was the Leatherman tool with its assortment of blades. I had the Cold Steel knife strapped to my right arm, the twine cutter on my finger, a can of pepper spray in my back pocket, and two highway flares in my right-hand coat pocket.
And if none of that worked on Smiley, I could call him names.
I slung on the air rifle and I was ready to go. Grenades and pistol ready and the Bionic Ear pointed ahead, I moved very slowly and carefully through the fallen trees and underbrush.
Every few minutes I stopped, and when I didn’t move at all, life came back to the spaces around me. Gradually the animals returned. There were red-winged blackbirds in the bushes, grey squirrels in the trees, prairie chickens moving through assorted low vegetation and bushes, and other things rustling and moving carefully. Once there was even a deer who looked offended I had gotten so close.
But no Smiley and no anyone else, and I kept crawling along.
When I stopped to eat in a clearing a tiny prairie chicken came out of a wild rose bush about three feet from me and stared at me blankly. Then it looked down and ate a fleck of corned-beef gristle I’d spat out onto my pants leg and cocked its head in silence, observing me with a black-on-black eye. After a long time it turned and vanished and I was alone again.
Six hours later I reached the edge of the forest and could see the fishing camp about 100 metres away across the water. With that established on my map I crawled back into the forest a bit and started heading west, towards the base of the peninsula. When I got there I circled around to the edge of the road just out of range of the alarm sensors. While I caught my breath I unslung the air rifle and loaded it, jacking the barrel down to open the breech and sliding in the single bright lead pellet.
It was early in the afternoon and the scope made everything nice and clear. It only took two minutes to find one of the motion sensors I had installed. The air rifle was accurate but not that powerful, so it took five shots to reduce the first sensor to shards of plastic and I moved up underneath it (avoiding the trip wires) to start scanning for the next sensor. That one took longer to find but I did eventually and shot it to pieces as well, each shot being heralded by an almost silent click of the air being released from the reservoir. As I moved I used the Bionic Ear constantly to check what was going on around me, and it took me almost until dusk before I was through to the edge of the camp itself.
From where I was I could see a small black sedan parked in the lot in front of the cabin and two of the camera mounts covering the space. Five shots into each camera took care of both of them and the Bionic Ear finally started to pick up movement and words in the nearest cabin:
Smiley: “Where the fuck is he?”
Don: “Why don’t you go out and see?”
Al: “Or you could always go fuck yourself. That’s an option.”
Sounds of a blow—waiting had to be stressing Smiley. Or else he wouldn’t have lost his temper. He knew I was coming, it was what he would do and he knew I would be somewhere outside working and waiting.
And inside he would be seeing his cameras go out one at a time and there was also a good chance one of Sam’s crew would have called him from the city after I’d shot up the house in Saint Boniface.
He had to know I was outside.
I looked at the second cabin, which was maybe fifteen metres away from me, and thought like Smiley for a minute: he would keep all his bargaining chips in one place, there would be no hostages in the other cabin, they’d be useless there.
Actually they’d be useless no matter what he did; having Don or Al there would not stop me.
I laid the air rifle down and turned the Bionic Ear off first. Then I took one of the grenades out of my pocket, unrolled the tape from the spoon, pulled the pin (which made the spoon flip off somewhere), and then pitched it through the porch of the second cabin.
About three seconds later it blew up, scattering splinters for about thirty metres in all directions.
“Shit!” Smiley yelled from the first cabin. I turned the Bionic Ear on in time to hear the rear door slam shut and then I was moving around the cabin. I found Smiley standing in a patch of dandelions and weeds, all sere with the approaching winter.
He was about seven metres away from me and smiling.
#51
Smiley …”
“Monty. Can’t say I’m surprised.” He sounded calm, almost relaxed. There was time and experience holding us together and apart at the same time. I said his name again and he cocked his head to the side and answered, “That’s me.”
“How much do you know?”
“Everything. I planted a GPS on Marie’s truck and her van. I wired her house for sound. I followed her and you and her two hick sidekicks when they came to town. I know everything so don’t try to tell me you have one key piece of knowledge I have to know.”
“I wouldn’t do that but …”
He spat and spoke again. “Go ahead, say it.”
“Smiley … what the hell are you wearing?”
His mouth twisted in a grin but his hands didn’t move from where they were on his belt and jacket lapel.
“This? It’s a rattlesnake-hide necktie. Like it?”
There was a moment of clarity and I could see the scales of the leather from where I stood and the diamondback design on the short, fat tie. It sat in the middle of his chest framed by a black vest and a dove-grey duster, all leather and all expensive.
“It’s certainly memorable.”
He shrugged at the compliment and continued in a monotone. “Found a company in the States that made me a replica of Holliday’s shoulder holster. Want to see it?”
“No.”
“Found me a beauty of a gun too, a Smith & Wesson target revolver. Accurate as all get out.”
“Nice to hear.”
“A nice piece. Not anything like what Holliday carried but so it goes.”
I exhaled through my nose, “You took it out of a dead woman’s apartment. After you killed her and her boyfriend.”
He ignored that. “I also bought me a genuine Bowie knife. An antique, holds an edge like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I believe and I don’t want to see that either.”
A few tiny, tentative flecks of snow fell out of the darkening sky and he kept talking, “I went back to the river. Went swimming and fuck was it cold. Finally found my shotgun, cleaned it up, still works like a charm.”
“I believe you. Trust me, I believe you.”
He spat moistly.”That’s good. I loaded one barrel with a magnesium round, shoots out a lick of fire like a flame thrower, and sets fire to whatever’s in front of it while dumping a full load of double-ought buckshot at the same time. The other barrel holds flechettes, military-issue shit, know what those are?”
I knew. Flechettes were tiny heavy metal arrows that would slice right through Kevlar armour and out the other side. Leaving little bleeding holes behind as they bored through meat and bone. But Smiley was going on. “Of course you do. Not that Holliday had shit like that but if he was around today then he would have.”
The wind started to blow and he said something I couldn’t hear.
“What?”
“I said, did you like what I did to your house?”
Two heartbeats passed and I was in control of the hate again. “I have to say this. Smiley, it’s not too late.”
“Not too late?”
“Yes. You can put down the guns, walk away.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
He stood there and for a minute I thought he was going to go for it, I thought he was going to give it a chance.
“Fuck that! I can’t go straight, neither can you, this is what we are.”
There was nothing to say to that, but he repeated himself after a moment, as though his answer was a revelation to him, “So fuck that.”
“That’s not an option.”
He laughed but his hands never wavered at his sides and his eyes never moved from mine. “You going to stop me? I’m better than you.”
The truth hung between us and he went on. “It’s just us right here and now and I’m better than you so you’ll be dead if you make me shoot you. And that’s where we’re at.”
I said the words. “So draw. Or you’ll be picking daisies, that’s what Doc said, right?”
“What did you say?”
“I said, draw.”
I kept my hands motionless at my belt until he moved and then I did too.
His left hand flashed across his chest and drew his pistol. His right hand flipped his coat tail back and grabbed the butt of the sawn-down shotgun and pushed it towards me as he thumbed back the hammer.
And while all that was happening the Radom pistol slipped into my right hand and my thumb clicked the safety to off. The gun was coming up and out as Smiley filled the sights and blocked out the reticule. He became the sight and the bullet and the target and I became my index finger squeezing very gently and the trigger started its journey, a third of an inch against about three pounds of pressure.
But I was too late.
The shotgun boomed and his little pistol chirped and my bigger pistol barked and barked and barked as I jumped and fell to the left. Dragon breath blew copper balls into my chest.
The fucker had always been too good for me.
#52
The gunfire echoed away and died and I was on the ground and Smiley was still standing.
“How do you like me now?”
His words were slurred, full of phlegm and blood, laced with pain, but his hands were graceful as he moved towards me, the shotgun falling back under his arm on its string while his fingers manipulated the revolver. Cylinder open, bright brass cartridges tumbling to the ground, lead-headed new bullets sliding into place, clickety-click. I tried to breathe through broken ribs and reached for a new magazine. Smiley’s face split wide with a smile through his own pain.
My gun was in my hand and I dumped the magazine and fumbled for a second one out of my jacket pocket. His thumb seated the last bullet and gently closed the cylinder as I was still slapping the new magazine into place. Before I could work the slide Smiley fired twice and my calf exploded into pain and the pistol flew from my hand and landed somewhere behind me. I grabbed my right leg and felt blood well under my fingers as Smiley fired twice more, but I could barely feel the impact.
“Wearing a vest, huh?”
He didn’t sound angry, just curious. He gestured with the gun like a magician with a wand and put another round into my left shin. Splinters of bone slicked with more blood showed through my jeans and I grabbed at that wound. He was maybe three metres away and I could see gaping flowers of wounds in his chest and right arm. Blood oozed out and stained his fine clothes, but not enough to stop him.
Smiley winced as he knelt down with ponderous grace and his gun forced me back down until he could kneel on my chest. The noise of my ribs cracking some more was loud and more flakes of snow started to fall out of the sky.
“Any last words? For Claire? Anything I should tell her? When I see her, I mean? Because I do intend to visit her. I do intend to spend some time with her, yes indeed I do.”
He leaned back on his heel to brace himself and pressed the long barrel of the pistol into my left eye.
“’Bye.”
I could feel the eye being pressed back, almost crushed by the force, and I reached very gently and slowly for his gun hand with my left hand. It was so gentle that Smiley didn’t react as my fingers brushed against it. He started to laugh, but it turned into an indrawn hiss when the twine cutter on my middle finger stroked through the meat on the back of his left hand.
With a moist noise the tendons parted. Pinky finger, ring finger, middle finger, forefinger, a long narrow wound greased and lubricated with blood. Without strength his fingers opened and the gun fell onto my face as Smiley leaned forward to scrabble for it with his injured right arm. He was focused on the revolver and didn’t notice as my fingertips touched the hilt of the Spike knife on my right wrist. He grabbed the butt of his pistol and I grabbed the barrel with my left hand while I tightened my grip on the knife. For a second we wrestled over the gun and then I drove the knife roundhouse into the side of his neck just above his fine silk collar and that stupid rattlesnake tie.
Smiley’s eyes bugged out and he stood up swaying above me and started to die.
But not fast enough.
Never fast enough.
Spasmodically he threw the pistol away and lurched about, fumbling awkwardly for the hilt of the knife in his throat with one hand while the other, the slashed one, pawed at the shotgun under his arm. Blood bubbled from his nose and mouth and almost covered the sound of his thumb cocking the hammers back.
“Asshole.”
My voice sounded very far away and I rolled onto my right side and pushed my left leg out through the pain and then rolled and swung back and up as hard as I could. The side of my foot connected with the hilt of the knife and drove it all the way through his neck until the hilt vanished entirely into the flesh under Smiley’s ear.
For a second Smiley stood there and then he fell straight back.
“Asshole,” I repeated. “Bringing a gun to a knife fight …”
I crawled over and wrenched the shotgun away from him, sat up on one hip and opened the gun. There was one unfired shell in the left barrel and a spent one in the right barrel. With the point of the twine cutter I extracted the bright red spent shell and dropped it. Then I closed the shotgun and propped it up under his chin. If he had been telling me the truth, that shell was loaded with nineteen flechettes, razor-sharp steel arrows about an inch long.
“’Bye.”
The shot erased his face and his mind and I crawled towards the cabin.
EPILOGUE
I untied Al and Don and they took me to Marie’s place and she took me in and filled me with guilt and recriminations. I ignored her and called Claire, who arrived two days later, although I didn’t notice at the time because I was drifting, awash in a sea of agony. I was feverish and dreaming the whole mess over and over again, trying to make it come out differently.
Claire sewed the holes in my body together with undyed silk thread and heavy-gauge needles. She used a pair of needle-nosed pliers to push the needle through the astonishing thickness of my skin as I screamed into a rolled-up towel. We salted the wounds with diluted iodine to stop infection. We could have used fresh urine but we agreed that would have been gross.
We were terrified of infection and of doctors both. Infection would have killed me ugly, and doctors would have led to cops, who would have led to jail and a different kind of ending. The wounds went sour quickly, turning septic, and Claire drained them over and over and washed them clean with more iodine and distilled water.
When I could walk without too much pain I started to take the children again, using Marie’s house while I figured out what to do with my own booby-trapped home. And when I was fairly steady and the fever itself broke, I was sent off to deposit t
he money I’d earned from Marie. My first honest pay, carefully washed in casinos, earned by helping to smuggle and by theft and assault and assorted violence.
But still the first really large sum of honest money I’d ever made, and I took it to the local bank to deposit it just like a real citizen.
That is where the bank robbery happened. Where I started this, and, you know what?
When I think about it honestly, it was all entirely my fault.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to acknowledge the support and aid of the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. I’d like to thank Turnstone Press for their superb editing, advice and support. More thanks goes out to David N., William, Lois, Alison, Sanin, Morgan and Erik for putting up with me. Even more thanks goes out to Robert and T, Kathryn L., Pat S., Rick R., Bill and Joan M., Ron and Carol, Chad and Wendy, Paul and Holly, Wayne T., Joan, Charlene, Mary Lou, Karen, Perry, Tavia and Cameron M. along with others too numerous to mention.
And, as always, my thanks to those in the shadows. Quis ipsos …
Michael Van Rooy was born in Kamloops, BC and raised in Winnipeg. His first book, An Ordinary Decent Criminal, won the 2006 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book by a Manitoba Writer, and Van Rooy was a finalist for the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. He lives with his family in Winnipeg.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD CRIMINAL. Copyright © 2008 by Michael Van Rooy. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal Page 25
