Karaoke Rap
Laurence Gough
© Laurence Gough 1997
Laurence Gough has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1997 by McClelland & Stewart.
This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
This one’s for Mrs. Audrey Rogers Boates, AKA my dear mother
Table of Contents
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1
The light was green but it had been green ever since Marty first started watching it, from more than a block away. If his timing was right, the light was going to turn red any second. In his professional opinion there was no way they were going to make it through the intersection. He eased his black size-ten Florsheim off the gas pedal. The Bentley immediately began to lose momentum. Steve, sitting bolt upright in the front passenger seat, glanced anxiously around. In the back, Axel stirred restlessly. Beside him, Jake continued to read his Financial Times, unperturbed.
Steve and Axel were muscle. Axel was paid by the week but Steve, in a family that seemed to go on forever, was a distant relative who’d landed on Jake’s doorstep.
Steve was new to the job, had been lifting and dropping things for Jake for less than a month. Most of the time he stood idly in a corner, his narrow brow furrowed as he tried with the limited tools that were available to him to grind his attitude into an appropriate shape.
Axel was worse. He insisted that he was a mournful expatriate Austrian, but Marty had gotten him drunk on schnapps one morning, and Axel had let it slip that he was from Zwickau, East Germany, where he’d worked at the Trabant factory.
Axel’s father, Heinz, had been a low-ranking member of the Stasi, the East German secret police. Axel, quoting his mother, described him as stolid, acned, clumsily furtive. For these reasons and many better ones, none of his friends had liked him. Heinz had been murdered the day the Berlin Wall tumbled. He’d been lighting a cigarette when he was run down by a long-oppressed-but-finally-free G.D.R. citizen driving a brand-new Trabant.
Heinz was picked off in a narrow cul-de-sac located at the bottom of Zwickau’s steepest hill. The Trabant has a cruising speed not much faster than a brisk trot. But the murder car, aided by gravity and a strong tailwind, hit him at nearly one hundred kilometres per hour, as he attempted to scale a ten-storey-high wall of sturdy German brick. He was instantly turned to something akin to mortar. The Trabant’s driver, who happened to be Axel’s mother, was also killed.
Little orphan Axel fled his doomed country that same evening, eventually making his way to Canada via Chile and Mexico. “I haff got so extreme high resistance to pain!” he’d proclaimed to Jake, and promptly butted his cigarette in his mouth to prove it.
Jake had hired him, but not before giving him fair warning that capitalism was a risky business. Screw up while doing business for Jake, he might chain you to that post in the basement, cut slices off you and feed them to the trio of Dobermans that ran wild in his backyard. Vivisection, Jake called it.
Axel knew all this. It had been explained to him in great detail during the employment interview. But it wasn’t easy, being a neophyte hoodlum. He was never sure where he should carry his switchblade — in his pants or a jacket pocket. His pistol, spare magazines and matched silencer weighed heavy on him. His leather shoulder holster chafed his skin, and gave him a rash he couldn’t seem to get rid of. With every step he took, the extra bullets he carried loose in his pocket rattled like a fistful of snakes. That very morning, Marty had humiliated him by publicly criticizing his chocolate-brown suede Hush Puppies as being insufficiently lethal, should he be required to kick the shit out of somebody.
Worse, he couldn’t get his hair to stay slicked back and flat.
Even worse, he kept misplacing his mirrored sunglasses. He hated it when everybody stood around waiting for him, rolling their eyes and cursing and sighing with exasperation, while he hunted those damn glasses down.
What Axel wanted was to be like Marty. He wanted to look just like Marty and think just like Marty. He wanted nothing less than to be Marty. He wanted to wear Marty’s clothes, tip Marty’s barber, drink at Marty’s favourite bar and make crazy passionate love to Marty’s girlfriend, once he found out who she was.
Steve said, “Why’re we slowin’ down?”
“Red light,” said Marty.
Axel said, “I haff excellent vision but I don’t see no red light.”
“Me neither,” said Marty.
Jake’s low chuckle was the sound of a raven being roughly asphyxiated.
Marty wore mauve-tinted sunglasses, an undertaker’s suit, crisp white shirt, plain black tie, and a chauffeur’s cap with a shiny black peak and gold badge, that Jake had special-ordered from a supplier in New York.
From the Bentley’s backseat came the abrasive sound of Jake rattling his Financial Post. Jake cleared his throat. He spat a shred of tobacco down at the thickly carpeted floor, and Marty made a mental note to get the Dustbuster out of the trunk before he picked up Melanie.
Jake said, “What’re we slowin’ down for, wassa problem?” He had a voice, the old man. His words seemed to have been fired out of a churning cement mixer filled to overflowing with cigar smoke, booze, flakes of rust. Whenever he said anything out loud, which was rarely, people turned and gawked. Jake could put the fear of God into a man just saying hello.
Marty glanced in the rearview mirror. “Light’s gonna change, Jake.”
Jake raised his bony, withered head. His teeth gleamed yellow, but he wasn’t smiling.
The light turned amber, then red. Marty feathered the brake pedal. The Bentley came to a full stop with the white-painted crosswalk line reflected in the gleaming chrome bumper. Marty automatically glanced left and right, checked the traffic backing up behind him and saw nothing unusual. Not that he felt vulnerable. The Bentley had been fitted with armour plate in the doors and roof and in front of the firewall and behind the backseat. The thick, aquarium-green glass was bulletproof, the door locks were heavy-duty, the bumpers reinforced with sturdy bars of titanium. The car had been built for a Kuwaiti who didn’t much care for the genuine pigskin upholstery. Jake had traded him straight up for a Harley-Davidson Road King with zero clicks on the odometer and a gas tank full of uncut cocaine.
Marty shifted in his seat. To his left the ocean moved restlessly, big rollers heaving themselves up and bashing themselves to smithereens against the granite seawall. The wind hurled flecks of foam into the trees. A couple of women about ten years younger than Marty, both of them in their early twenties, strolled past the windshield. A blonde with a buzzcut, a ponytailed brunette. Model types, leggy and thin, wearing more makeup than clothes. Marty believed that, if he were given half a chance, he could fall in love with either one of them, or both simultaneously.
The wind played with their skirts. He caught the smooth curve of a white thigh, a flash of black silk. He blushed, and looked away.
Jake said, “Ya see dat, ya see all dat leg? What a fuckin’ miracle a fuckin’ genetics! Ain’t she a beauty?”
Steve said, “Yeah!”
“Hübschen Mädchen,” observed Axel. He smiled. “Pretty girls. Roy Orbison.”
“Pretty Woman,” said Steve.
“Shaddup da bot’ a ya!” Jake powered down the window, spat shreds of cigar into the wind, powered the window back up. He said, “I seen racehorses with shorter legs. Man oh man, how I’d like ta ...”
Marty glanced in the rearview mirror. Jake was staring stolidly at his lap. Either he’d forgotten what he was talking about, or he’d had an orgasm. Marty would’ve bet his precious life at twenty to one on the former.
There were a few sailboats out there, goofing around. Not many. Little ones, with mini-spinnakers and red dots on the mainsails. Fireballs, playing tag between moored freighters long as a city block.
Axel said, “Look at the pretty sailboats!”
Steve twisted in his seat and gave Axel a look that was equivalent to a gentle poke in the eye with a switchblade knife.
The light turned green. Marty pressed down on the gas pedal. The Bentley eased through the intersection. Eight miles to the gallon. He might have been driving a smallish cruise ship, for all the sensation of movement that he felt.
Jake said, “Base metals, dat’s where da money’s gonna be made.”
“Yeah?” Marty checked the rearview but the old man had his nose buried in the paper.
“Steel an’ aluminum.”
“What about gold?”
“Diamonds,” said Jake. “Ya got any, get rid a dem. T-bills would be excellent, a person could explain where dey came by da cash.” Jake fell to peering out the window at the new highrises that had sprung up like so many aroused mushrooms in front of the Bayshore Hotel. The past few years, Jake had taken to spending most of his time at home, dreaming and scheming. But at least once a week, rain or shine, he liked to crawl into the Bentley and go for a ride, check out the city’s ever-changing landscape and ogle the city’s women. He’d talk about parcels of land that had been worth thousands and were now worth of millions. He’d spot a shapely redhead and start talking ten miles a minute about the dozens of redheads he’d had carnal knowledge of, in one way or another. Of all the world had to offer, Jake’s top three were murder, women and the stock market.
They were in the park now, the remains of the zoo coming up on Marty’s left, Coal Harbour to his right. A flock of hunchshouldered Canada geese with heads as black as balaclavas moved like cloned gangstas across an expanse of patchy, anaemic grass. Not too far ahead of them, the road split left and right. Marty said, “Hey, Jake, wanna go past the aquarium or take the long way around?”
“Take a right,” said Jake.
Marty nodded, relieved that he didn’t have to drive past the aquarium. It was a complicated world. People sometimes went crazy, had to have terrible things done to them to bring them under control. But animals were different. All they wanted was to be left alone to live out their lives as best they could. So what happened? Whales got stuffed into pools the size of a hot tub, and civilized people made money off them.
Jake said, “Pull over.”
Marty eased the Bentley up against the curb. There was a guy down there by the seawall, beating a Rottweiler with a big stick. Marty powered down the window. The dog made shrill yelping sounds that were completely out of character, not the kind of sounds you’d expect a dog that large and powerful to make. Marty was reminded of John Madden, the television sports announcer. Madden was a huge man, the size of a bus, but he had the shrill voice of a guy who made his living selling high-end English bone china.
The dog lover lifted up on the dull black toes of his Doc Martens. Marty figured him for six-foot-something, maybe two hundred and twenty. He wore a studded black leather jacket, ragged jeans, those stylish boots. His wallet was chained to his belt. The chain threw off sparks of light as his arm came up, and metal flashed all across his tight-clenched fist. The length of wood bounced off the Rottweiler’s skull. The dog winced, and turned its massive head towards Marty. Its smouldering coal-black eyes zeroed in on him.
Axel said, “I think that great beast is in love mit you!”
“Shaddap!” yelled Jake.
Marty glanced around. Nobody. Not a soul. Except for the four men and the dog, the park was empty.
Jake said, “Whatta ya see?”
“Not a fucking thing!” said Axel.
“Not you, dimwit.”
“Nothing,” said Marty. He took another look around, his eyes cutting through all points of the compass. He said, “There’s just him and us, Jake.”
“Fuckin’ act a God.” Jake’s cigar glowed red as his eyes. He spat tobacco at the carpet. He leaned forward in his seat, bounced his knuckles off the back of Steve’s shiny hair. “Whatta ya waitin’ for? Go get ’im.”
“Let me do it!” said Axel. He clapped his hands together. “I promise to be efficient!”
Marty shifted the gearshift into park.
Steve thought, Go get ’im. What did that mean, exactly? He popped open the glove compartment and got out his leather gloves and wriggled into them finger by finger. Behind him, Jake worked on his cigar, rattled his newspaper. Axel stared at Steve, with eyes full of jealousy and venom. Steve unfastened his seatbelt and pushed open the door, got out of the car, eased the door shut and pulled his pistol, a Beretta, out of his pocket. He’d checked the weapon that morning and he could tell by the weight that it was loaded, but he ejected the magazine anyway, just to be on the safe side.
Wood crashed on bone. The dog whined piteously.
He slammed the magazine back into the gun. Metal clanged on metal, the sound plenty loud enough for Jake to hear it, if he wanted to. Steve pulled the Beretta’s slide back a quarter-inch, what the cops called a push-check.
His mind slipped away. He wondered where the leggy, racehorse-type women had gone, what they were up to. He imagined them perched on stools at one of the dozens of Starbucks that littered the city, slurping cappuccinos. Or maybe buying clothes at one of those expensive little shops on Robson. He watched the blonde step into a changing room and shut the door behind her. Alone, or believing she was alone, unaware that Steve’s overheated imagination had slipped in there with her, she lifted her skirt and ...
At five-eight, Steve was two inches shorter than Axel and six inches shorter than Marty, barely tall enough to look over the Bentley’s glossy roof at the dog basher, who was still hard at work, but starting to tire.
On the far side of the harbour there was a building going up, another highrise. The construction crew was the size of ants. Steve reasoned that, because of his diminutive physique, to anyone over there who was looking at him he’d be even smaller than an ant. In a lineup, who could distinguish one ant from a bunch of other ants?
He screwed the noise-suppressor onto the pistol’s snub nose as he worked his way diagonally across and down the grassy slope to the asphalt pathway that ran along the seawall all the way around the park.
The dog lover heard him coming, turned and gave him a hostile stare. Steve held the pistol by his side, close up against his thigh, the gun hidden by his unbuttoned sports jacket. He made it to the asphalt, walked directly towards the man. The guy had a gold earring in each ear. He accurately read Steve’s posture and the look in his eyes. The chunk of wood he was using on the Rott was about eighteen inches long. Oak, by the look of it. The guy pointed it at him and said, “Shove off, buddy.”
Steve kept walking towards the man. He waited until the piece of wood bumped against his chest, then lifted his pistol and squeezed the trigger three times. The gun huffed and puffed, spat fire and lead. A look filtered into the man’s eyes. Surprise. Dismay. Steve reached out with his left hand. He gave the leather jacket’s zipper a savage yank. Beneath the jack
et the man wore a peach-coloured sleeveless T-shirt. He looked down at the three small holes, his bloody chest. Steve used the pistol to lever up the man’s chin, so he could look into the shattered windows of his soul.
Meanwhile, the dog panted feverishly, tongue hanging loose. A furry eyewitness to the mayhem as Steve pulled the trigger and a killer bullet raced up through the dog owner’s soft palate and into the heart of his brain.
The dead man’s legs went out from under him. He fell, face up and heavily, onto the asphalt. Steve leaned over him and unhesitatingly shot him twice in the forehead, in that narrow span of barren ground between the bushy black eyebrows and prematurely receding hairline. The copper-jacketed bullets drilled through bone, pulverized grey mush. The head snapped back, bounced and rolled. The muzzle blasts speckled pasty skin. Dead eyes bulged, and sank back.
In the Bentley, there was nothing but consternation.
Jake said, “Ya see dat?”
“Pow!” sang Axel. “Pow! Pow! Pow!”
Marty nodded.
Jake said, “He squibbed da guy, din’t he?”
Marty nodded again.
“Squibbed him, what, five a six times?”
“Eight!” said Axel, holding up seven fingers.
“Six,” said Marty. But really, what difference did it make?
“Jeez, what a asshole. Fa kickin’ a fuckin’ mutt. Jeez.” Jake chewed on his cigar. He said, “Should I mention I’m surprised?”
“Me too!” said Axel.
“Shaddap!”
Down on the seawall, Steve turned towards the dog, his heart pumping, more than ready to do whatever had to be done. Blood oozed thickly from a deep cut on the animal’s skull. It’s big brown eyes held steady on Steve’s, seeing all of him, watching. Steve vaguely remembered reading something in a newspaper or magazine about a killer who was identified by the victim’s dog. He believed the snitch was a sheepdog, but it might’ve been a border collie. He aimed his pistol at the Rottweiler. The dog sat up a little straighten It woofed at him, as if introducing itself, then got busy licking itself clean.
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