Grinder

by Mike Knowles

  “Trunk. No more. Trunk.” His voice was quiet and gravelly, but understandable.

  The magic show continued as I pulled Johnny higher off the deck. I muscled him over the side as he continued to groan his new mantra, “No more. Trunk. No more.” His body splashed on the water and disappeared as the waves erased his existence. His hands stayed visible above the water in the boat lights, groping for something to hold on to — something that wasn't there. I breathed hard from the exertion and wiped my face with the arm of my shirt. It was then that I noticed my face. For a second time, my face had stretched into that grin I had shelved so long ago after leaving the city. It wasn't a sadist's smile; I took no pleasure in what I had done to Johnny. It was the smile of someone welcoming back an old friend. I knew then that Johnny was wrong — there was going to be more. Much more.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I used the bucket to wash the blood off the deck. After three buckets of water, no one would ever know about what took place on Wendy after her captain went home for the night. I pushed the engine of the clean ship harder and drove the boat fast through the waves, feeling each impact like a punch. I made it back to the dock in under ten minutes. I collected Johnny's belongings tucking his gun into the waistband under the front of my shirt — the back already taken by my knife. I pocketed his phone and wallet, but kept the car keys in hand. I left the boat keys in the ignition for Jeff to find and tied off on the dock before making my way to the parking lot.

  There were only two cars left in the parking lot — mine and a black Lexus. I used Johnny's key fob to pop the trunk as I approached. Inside, I saw the body of my landlady bound with duct tape. Nellie lay still in the trunk, but her rapidly blinking eyes told me she was alive. Her eyes registered fear when they adjusted to the new light from the parking lot and saw me standing over her, and panic when she saw me pull my knife. I cut the tape on her hands and feet leaving her to handle the strip on her mouth.

  “Mr. Wilson! There was a man. He grabbed me and tied me up. He said he was looking for you.”

  I admired the steel in the old girl. She didn't cry. She kept her wits about her despite just being let out of a trunk.

  “That man, he . . .”

  “He's gone,” I said.

  “You mean you . . . you . . .”

  “I mean he's gone. Now let's get you home.”

  I drove, and except for her directions, there was silence in the car. When I pulled into her driveway, I spoke up, putting an end to the quiet. “I'm sorry for what happened,” I said.

  “Why did he do that to me?”

  “He needed me to do something. He took you to make sure I would do it.”

  “He was just so rough.”

  “He wouldn't have hurt you,” I lied.

  She paused and considered my lie before asking a question in a low voice. “What did he want?”

  “It doesn't matter now,” I said, ending that line of questioning. The answer seemed to satisfy her, and she opened the car door with a shaky hand.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Wilson.”

  I said goodbye, then drove to the rental house. Speed limits on the rural island roads were eighty kilometres an hour; I pushed the car to one forty. I needed to clear out before Nellie decided to call the cops about tonight's activities. I figured I had half an hour until the shock wore off, and five minutes after that until her sense of civic duty kicked in. The house had been mine for close to two years, but no one would be able to tell by looking at it. In the kitchen sink were the spoon, fork, and pot that I used for every meal. There were a few books and magazines in the small living room and a gym bag on the floor of the bedroom I slept in. I picked up the books as I walked through the living room and dropped them in the gym bag. Then I lifted the mattress and collected the even stacks of bills that were distributed across the expanse of the box spring.

  I had spent little of the money on the island. The cash paid for food, rent, and incidentals, and could not be traced to me. I had worked hard to keep myself off the grid of the small town. There were only three people on the island who knew where to find me, until today. Now, Paolo knew where I lived making the house, and the island, as safe as a burning building. Worse, Jeff's wife, his business, everything he had was at risk too. They would become chess pieces in a madman's game if I didn't knock over the board. I loaded the bag with the rest of my belongings and stopped to use the bathroom. I scanned the house over one last time as I moved towards the door. In the kitchen, I pulled the house keys from my key ring and left them on the counter before walking out of the house for the last time.

  In an hour I was at the bridge, in line to get off the island. The bridge was a provincially funded con. It had cost nothing to enter the province from New Brunswick, and $27.50 to leave. There was no way out that didn't involve a wallet. The government was still the best thief I knew. The visit from Johnny and getting swindled by the province ruined my second experience with the bridge.

  I drove the Trans-Canada Highway through New Brunswick at 130 kilometres an hour. I wanted to drive straight through to Hamilton, but I knew the day's work combined with the evening's action would anesthetize me before I got out of the province. I had put two more hours between me and the bridge when Johnny's cell phone started to ring. I had left the phone and wallet out on the passenger seat, so I barely had to take my eyes off the road while I picked the phone up and debated answering the call. Paolo sent Johnny to me, and if Johnny didn't answer his phone it wouldn't take Paolo long to piece together what had gone down.

  I opened the phone and answered, “Yeah?”

  “Is everything set up?” It was Paolo's voice riding the digital signal from Hamilton to me in the car. “You hear me, Johnny? Did you do what I told you to do?”

  “I told you not to come looking for me, Paolo.”

  There was a ten-second pause before Paolo's voice crossed the country into my ear. “Figlio, I need to see you. I need your help.”

  “I can't help you, Paolo. You said it yourself — I'm a crow. I turned on my own, remember.”

  Just days before I drove to the island, I had been working for Paolo Donati — the man who ruled the Italian mob in Hamilton. I wasn't Italian, just some kind of mutt with ancestors all over parts of Europe. This made me automatically distrusted by every one of Paolo's crews. The distrust was intensified by my total lack of an identity. No one knew me so no one could vouch for me. I grew up invisible and worked with other invisible pros on all kinds of jobs. My only tie to anyone had been through blood. My uncle and I worked together; he provided the jobs through the contacts he had. Our last job was for Paolo, personally, off the books. My uncle ended up dead and I ended up unemployed. I was invisible, with no connections to any world, legal or otherwise. Paolo knew this and decided that he would use me personally for jobs he needed to distance himself from. I worked against Paolo's enemies whether they were Russians, the cops, or even his own people. No one who saw me would think I worked for a man like Paolo — a fact that made me even more useful. Over the years, I earned Paolo's trust, and eventually the hatred of everyone in his organization. Those who knew I existed saw me as an insult to everything their organization stood for. I wasn't family so I should never have been involved with jobs that should have been left to important made men. But Paolo was different from his underlings. He was unconventional as a leader, and as a result, he was more successful than any of his predecessors. He was educated and loved to muse about the nature of animals. He compared those around him to the beasts of the jungle, showing everyone how short the trip was from jungle to pavement. Better than his knowledge of animals and human nature was Paolo's understanding of the underworld he ruled. He knew how to use the mob and its rules, and more important, he knew how, and when, to circumvent them. He kept me in the fold, under wraps from his subordinates, because I did things that helped him maintain his position as king of the jungle. He believed he had me under control because I was alone and without support. He had no idea that I lived the w
ay I had been trained. I was disconnected and solitary by choice because it made me untouchable. I was invulnerable so long as I controlled every situation by anticipating everyone's next moves. I stayed one step ahead of everyone, and survived in the most inhospitable environment. Everything I did was calculated and covert until my friendship with Steve challenged that.

  Without any conscious effort, I had formed a bond with a local bar owner and his wife. Steve and Sandra were my friends — the only human contact I had. One of Paolo's men, Tommy Talarese, tried to destroy their lives, and in doing so set in motion a chain of events that rocked the underbelly of the city. Tommy Talarese wanted to show his kid how to collect protection like a man, after Steve had thrown Tommy's son out into the street. Tommy kidnapped Steve's wife, unleashing the bar owner like a wiry hurricane on the neighbourhood. Steve and I worked our way up the chain of local muscle to Tommy's front door. Many died getting Sandra back, including Tommy and his entire family.

  I took the news to Paolo, attempting to spin the situation. Paolo, upon hearing the news, was already thinking of how to use the events to his advantage. That showed why Paolo held such a grip on the city: he would use anything to his advantage, even the death of one of his lieutenants. I convinced him of what he already decided for himself — that Tommy's death was best pinned on the city's other underworld organization, the Russians, rather than on a bartender. Paolo listened to me and did what he would have done anyway. He used Tommy's death to unite his crews to one purpose. Paolo struck out at the Russians, who were trying to take over everything Paolo had established. Paolo fired me and filed away what I did for later retribution. He told me I was a crow because they eat their own kind to protect themselves.

  Less than a month later, Paolo brought me back into his employ. My second career with Paolo involved me only with his number two, Julian. I worked jobs that were more hush-hush than before and asked no questions. One of the jobs was stealing a bag from some computer nerds. The bag turned out to be full of Russian property. The Russians came after me, and I had no escape or backup from Paolo. Paolo was going to use what I stole to crush the Russians and he was going to let them kill me before he did it. The Russians were going to act as Paolo's payback for what I did to Tommy. Paolo was also using me to create confusion for the Russians, who had no idea who I worked for and no way to find out after I was dead. Once I figured out that Paolo hung me out to dry, I stole the bag back for the Russians, and they moved on the Italians first. The whole ordeal ended in blood with me in the middle. I saved Paolo's life, and told him I was out. He honoured the deal for almost two years.

  “Figlio, forget what I said. You and me are square. I need you for a job. The kind of thing you used to do. Please, it has to be you. I'll pay you whatever you ask, just meet with me.”

  This was a new side of the man who had plotted to kill me. He seemed sincere in his desire to peacefully meet. He called me figlio, “son,” trying to rebuild our bond over the phone like a horrible telephone commercial. “If you need to see me so bad, why didn't you come yourself?”

  “This is a delicate situation. Leaving would attract too much suspicion,” he said.

  “Sending Johnny attracted suspicion,” I said. My voice was cold and flat, betraying nothing.

  “Why? What did he do? Where is he? I told him how I wanted this done. Put him on.”

  “Johnny crossed the line and he paid for it. You crossed the line too. I told you we were done. All you did today was force me to move.”

  There was a heavy sigh that must have come from deep down inside Paolo fifteen hundred kilometres away. “I was wrong about what I said about you. You're not a crow. You're a lioness. You know what lionesses do, figlio? They protect their cubs. I sent Johnny to ask nicely, and what do you do? You overreact like a hungry cat.”

  “The fancy punk kidnapped an old lady before he even met me. He wasn't here to talk.”

  Paolo laughed in my ear. “Ah, you see, I'm right. You are a lioness. You protected your own from the jackals, didn't you? Johnny was overeager, probably angry. He knows what you did to Julian — everyone does.”

  I crippled Julian before I left the city. He was Paolo's number two and a hero to all of the up-and-comers. He was a vicious dinosaur who made his bones crushing other people's. “Julian and I were bound to collide one day. People aren't mad we fought, just that I won.”

  “They aren't mad, figlio; they hate you for it.”

  “And you want me to come back to that because you think I'm some lion?”

  “Not a lion, figlio, a lioness — the mother. This has nothing to do with you being less than a man. No, it's because you left two of your cubs back in my jungle. Those cubs are still here nestled in their bar. I keep them safe for you. Now I need you to do something for my cubs. I need to see you.”

  “Give me a number,” I said. He did, and I spoke up. “I'll tell you where and when.” I closed the phone before he could argue.

  I made it across the border into Quebec just as my eyelids started to get heavy. I found a motel off the highway and paid cash for what was left of the night.

  I hit the mattress and all of the trouble I had sleeping over the past months didn't touch me in the lumpy bed. I slept and dreamed for the first time in ages. I dreamed of a city awash in violence and shadows. I dreamed of it and smiled.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The motel alarm clock woke me before the sun and told me my eyes had been closed for four hours. The sleep felt longer; it felt like the kind of sleep you wake from to find the day half over. I showered and changed my clothes. I dug lightweight olive pants with deep pockets and a grey T-shirt from my bag. I also pulled out a thin blue shirt to go over my T-shirt. The shirt was not necessary in the early September heat, but it buttoned down the front and hung loose, making it perfect for concealing a stolen gun. I left the keys on the night table and was on the road before the water I had splashed on my face dried in my hair.

  The road through Quebec was straight for hundreds of kilometres. I drove beside Johnny's powered-down cell phone thinking about home. PEI had always been the island. The rental house was just that, a house. Neither could take the place of where I had grown up invisible to everyone.

  Hours after I left the motel, I found myself fighting my way through Montreal traffic. The barrage of cars felt like a scene from Star Wars — the one where the kid makes a run at the death star through a sky full of spaceships and laser beams. Vehicles came at me from all angles, most a high-speed blur. I was grateful when a break in the tension came in the form of a small traffic jam. As I sat in the still car, watching six construction workers watch two others work, I decided to power up the phone. It chimed to life and showed it still had half of the battery left. I dialled the number Paolo left me and was left speechless when he himself answered. Any other time I dealt with him, I had to work my way through layers of intermediaries before I could even leave a message.

  “You around tomorrow?” I asked, looking at the time on the dashboard clock in the early afternoon sunlight.

  “I got some things to do, but I can move them around.”

  “You want to see me then I name the time and the place.”

  “And the time is tomorrow. So where is the place, figlio?”

  I hung up the phone without answering and powered it down. I thought back to all of the dinner-table conversations I had with my uncle. He taught me to read between the lines of books, to use the language to decode what was underneath. It wasn't long before I could do it with people. Using what they said and sometimes what they didn't to decipher what was going on under the surface. Paolo answered the phone himself and he was willing to meet whenever I wanted; he was even willing to adjust his schedule to accommodate me. This was unlike any interaction we ever had before. Paolo was the top of the food chain; he had people answering his calls so he didn't have to get his hands dirty dealing with the mundane. His people understood what he wanted and showed their capability, and worthiness of advancement,
by handling the small day-to-day matters. No one was managing me. I got through on what sounded like a personal cell phone — something I never knew Paolo had. The more telling part of the call was his willingness to meet me. Out of principle, Paolo never accommodated anyone. He loved to think of himself as the king of the jungle; he saw himself elevated above all others. He would never obey someone else's schedule; it didn't fit with the personality of a methodical sociopathic kingpin. If Paolo was out to kill me, he never would have changed his methods; he would have seen that as beneath him. He wouldn't try to fool me in order to kill me; he would have kept things as they were and sent men to make it happen, more men after that if necessary. Paolo was into something deep, something big enough to change him, something he needed to see me about. He needed to influence a situation without being directly involved. Using someone who crossed him and left the city two years ago would do just that.

  By four p.m., I was entering the outskirts of Toronto. I avoided the 407 highway and its camera tolls even though the road was newer and empty. I was leaving nothing to chance coming home. I was in the city by 5:30 and at a Mediterranean restaurant on Upper James Street by quarter to six. I chose to stop on the Hamilton mountain because most of the action in the city took place downtown away from the bright lights of chain stores and their younger clientele. The restaurant had a sign up that read “New Management.” I figured it must have once been a lousy dive and someone must have still believed it could make a comeback. I could tell that the owner and I were the only ones who thought so when I walked through the smoke-grey glass doors into the vacant dining room.

  The restaurant smelled wonderful, and I wondered what gruesome hidden secrets caused the management turnover. I took a seat in front of the dark-tinted glass so that I could see outside without being observed from the parking lot. I ordered gyros and ate them with water. The owner was pleasant and chatty, but both qualities faded as I ate in silence. The place stayed empty for the twenty minutes I ate; there were no other staff — just the owner and me. He was a short Arab man with a stubbly shaved head whose body shook from time to time with uncontrollable spasms. With each episode, he seemed to grit his teeth in an attempt to will himself to regain stillness. He was washing a plate behind the counter when I yelled out to him.