Endgame

by Jeffrey Round

  Verna tucked her compact back in her purse and looked up. The woman sharing her compartment had got on somewhere south of Seattle, but they hadn’t said a word past a quick hello. Verna studied her plain features and sallow skin — nothing a little makeup couldn’t improve. Funny how some women couldn’t be bothered to make the most of what they had naturally. Dull brown hair parted on the side. She looked like a Debbie or a Karen. Dull name, dull hair, Verna reasoned.

  The woman turned and caught Verna watching her. She smiled, but it didn’t help her appearance. Verna saw the signs. The pallid, lifeless skin said she was some kind of user. Alcohol could do that after a few decades, but drugs would do it sooner, and this woman wasn’t that old. Verna hadn’t touched any sort of illegal substance since she was a teenager. She’d learned her lesson back then — painfully so. There were better kinds of highs.

  “You’ve got such beautiful hair,” the other woman said in a husky alto.

  Verna melted a little. Why be unfriendly? She smiled and crinkled her nose. “Thanks,” she said breathily, reaching up to her curls. “It’s a lot of work.”

  “I know.” The woman listlessly touched her own hair. “Too much work for me, though I’ve never been blessed in the looks department.”

  “Oh, sweetie!” Verna exclaimed. “Never say that about yourself. It’s just not true.” She smiled and crinkled again, as though to prove her sincerity. “You’d be amazed what can be done these days.” She took a good hard look at the woman. “Your hair, for instance. I can recommend a good conditioner and cream rinse that does wonders. I mean, just look at me — colour for days, and I still have great shine.” She batted her eyelashes. “As for the rest, well, a nip and tuck never hurt a body.”

  “You mean you …?”

  Verna shrugged. “Just a little. To enhance the natural. It never hurts.”

  The woman looked a little shocked. “I’ve never really considered surgery. You see, I was — I mean, I am — a nurse, and the thought of it … well, it’s just not me.”

  Verna’s interest was piqued. She was fascinated by surgery and anything medical. “A nurse! How exciting. Do you get to sit in on operations?”

  The woman shook her head sadly. “Not anymore. I used to work in hospitals. Now I mostly work for private sources. I’m on my way to a new job, in fact. It’s a place called Shark Island. I doubt you’ve heard of it.”

  The look on Verna’s face was pure astonishment. “Why — I’m going to Shark Island, too.”

  “Are you? How peculiar.”

  Verna laughed suddenly. “That’s amazing. I mean, to think we both ended up in the same compartment. Are you going for the reunion?”

  “What reunion?”

  “You mean you don’t know?” She shrugged. “Oh, it’s nothing, really. Just a band getting together again after quite a few years. I’m sort of a … a groupie.”

  The woman gave her a funny look. For a moment, Verna had an intuition. Then again, it was hard to say, especially with women. Wouldn’t it be ironic, she thought, if this woman hit on me? She definitely looks the type.

  Verna shook the thought aside. “But why Shark Island? What are you going to do there?”

  “I’ve been hired as a domestic, to look after the owner and his guests. I’ll only be using my medical expertise as required.”

  “How fun!” Verna’s mind retreated to the rumours she’d heard. “Is the island really owned by Bono?”

  The woman laughed. “Oh, I don’t think so! Who told you that?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard. I’m just dying of curiosity. Who hired you? Can you say?” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business, anyway. But surely you must have heard the rumours?”

  The woman shook her head. “I hadn’t, to be honest. I … I’ve been out of touch. All I know is I was hired by some rich entrepreneur to work on his island for the summer. The offer came completely out of the blue when I needed it most.” She paused and gave Verna a timid smile. “Sorry — that’s probably TMI.”

  What she didn’t say was that she’d been only too happy to accept. With her past, jobs weren’t easy to come by. And she wasn’t about to tell this glamour queen sitting across from her that she’d been incarcerated as a guest of the government for the last eighteen months after borrowing a few painkillers from the hospital she’d worked at. Or that she’d lost her previous job for exactly the same reason. The first time it had been hushed up, but now she’d lost her licence and was no longer eligible to work in medical facilities.

  “My name is Sandra,” she said.

  “Verna,” the platinum blonde said enthusiastically, extending her hand.

  “Good to meet you,” said Sandra.

  “Likewise,” Verna said, crinkling her nose again. “Well, Sandra. Whoever hired you, I predict it’s going to be a thrilling time for us all!”

  Chapter 4

  David Merton left the dining car and made his way along the swaying passageway. Just inside the bar, a dark-haired woman caught his eye. Her pink, V-neck sweater showed off her cleavage. A plaid skirt and high-heeled boots completed the outfit. She was a cougar, but David didn’t mind them a little older. And this one obviously took care of herself.

  He glanced around. All the other booths were occupied.

  “This seat taken?” he asked, trying not to be thrown off balance by the train’s sudden movements.

  The woman looked up, taking in the man with the salt-and-pepper hair, trim body, and muscular arms.

  “Why, yes it is.” She flashed an inviting smile. “By you, I think.”

  David laughed and sat across from her. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’m Janice, by the way.”

  “Good to meet you, Janice. I’m David.”

  “A pleasure.”

  David took another look at her face. For a moment, she reminded him of someone else. Someone he hadn’t thought of in years. The past vanished as the woman’s smile faded.

  A waiter came by balancing a tray. David ordered a Coors Light. Janice asked for a refill on her rum and Coke. Small talk ensued. The weather was mentioned.

  Their drinks arrived. Janice picked up her glass and sipped.

  “So what brings you to Washington, David?” she asked, unwrapping a stick of gum and inserting it lengthwise into her mouth.

  David smiled. He preferred to be asked instead of bringing up the topic himself. Not that he was overly proud of what he did. It just seemed less like bragging. When he mentioned what he did, people usually assumed he was rich, though that was far from the truth.

  “Real estate. I’m a broker. I’m here to assess an island off the coast. Apparently I’ve got what it takes to sell offshore property.”

  An interested look. “And what is that, if I may ask?”

  “A big client list.” He winked.

  For a moment, he stopped to wonder yet again why the owner had requested him personally. He didn’t have much of a track record, getting by mostly on small apartment rentals and bungalow sales in the suburbs. Who would ever think him qualified to sell an offshore island — particularly one rumoured to have been the site of highly suspect government experiments? Not that the owner had told him anything about it — he’d done his own investigating before accepting the invitation. But no matter. The letter said he’d come highly recommended. That was good enough for him. In his business, referrals were everything.

  Selling real estate wasn’t the worst thing in the world, though there was a time when he’d been a high-flying moneymaker who got his kicks selling tricks of a very different kind. But he’d lost his claim in the sweepstakes of life. Or rather, his claim had been tossed aside when he took the fall. He’d been compensated, of course, but those days were definitely over. If he knew what was good for him — and he thought he did — he would stay on the straight and
narrow, making the odd sale and picking up over-the-hill sweethearts like this one. Strange how she reminded him of that other girl he hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years.

  “What’s that funny look for?” Janice asked.

  David shook his head. “Nothing. You just reminded me of someone.”

  “Someone good?” She licked her lips and sat back in her seat to watch him. “Or someone bad?”

  He smiled. “Good. Sort of. Though it ended badly.”

  She picked up her glass and raised it in a toast. “Story of my life,” she said. “Drink up.”

  David took a swig of beer and set his bottle down. “What did you say you were doing in Washington?”

  “I didn’t.” She raised her chin and looked at him smugly, exactly the way Sarah used to. “I’m here for a reunion,” she said. “Some old friends I haven’t seen in a while. Quite a while, in fact.”

  He held up his bottle. They clinked. “Here’s to old friends,” he said. “And a few new ones.”

  Two booths over, a white-haired man turned at the sound of their voices. His clear blue eyes moved over the crowd. The word “reunion” had caught his ear, but the piped-in muzak swelled and drowned out the rest of their conversation.

  Crispin LaFey, world-renowned music critic, was on his way to a reunion, too. He was about to witness the return of the Ladykillers after more than fifteen years. Though for Crispin it would be a metaphoric witnessing, of course, since he was legally blind.

  The get-together was expected to be an historic event. Still, Crispin wondered whether they would live up to their reputation as one of the most badly behaved groups of all time. Once an anarchic thrash band of the loudest, most garrulous sort, the Ladykillers’ reputation had rested as much on their off-stage antics as anything they could reasonably claim to have created musically. After more than a decade, they managed to produce only three slim recordings, since re-released on CD, two of which Crispin believed stood the test of time — but just barely. The third and final album had been crap. Tellingly, it was their most popular work. A much-anticipated fourth record was never finished, though it was rumoured to be just waiting in the wings for a few finishing touches.

  Crispin knew the Ladykillers well. He’d covered them since the early days when they were little more than a garage band from the wrong side of the tracks in Spokane. Long after The Who, long after Hendrix or the Motor City Five, the Ladykillers were known for destruction — and not only in the midst of their sets. Loud, violent, and bad-tempered, at times it seemed annihilation had been their intent more than anything that smacked of music-making.

  Back then, of course, you could always chalk it up to artistic excess. Nothing succeeded — or sold — like excess. Then came that unfortunate incident at a CD release party where a young woman died. At the time, she’d seemed like just one more victim of an excessive age. Fingers had been pointed all around. Someone went to jail for it for a few years. But if the truth be told, more than one person had been responsible. Even the critics had to shoulder some of the blame. They’d stroked the band’s egos and made them into something far bigger than they deserved. Ultimately, their legend had grown to such an extent that everyone thought they were the only important band around. The second coming of punk rock. And for that, he, Crispin LaFey, had been as much a part of it as anyone.

  The music died down as a Carpenters tune came on. Crispin heard the couple talking again. She was asking about the island he was heading for.

  “It’s called Shark Island,” he replied.

  For a moment, there was a lull broken only by the shushing of the rails beneath them.

  “But that’s where I’m going,” the woman said, placing a hand on his forearm.

  The real-estate agent gave her a knowing smile. “Then let’s order another round. We’ll have a good time getting to know each other.” He looked over his shoulder briefly then turned back to Janice. His voice took on a smooth, practised sound. “I know we haven’t known each other long,” he said, “but I feel I know you already.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Yes, it is. So I’m just wondering — is there any chance you’d like to help me in my bid to become a member-in-good-standing of the Ten Foot High Club?”

  She looked at him quizzically. “The what?”

  He nodded over his shoulder at the washroom door. His eyebrows arched coyly as the tip of his tongue traced the outline of his lips. “The Ten Foot High Club. Seeing how this is a train and not a plane …”

  She sat back in her seat and shook her head. “Brother, you are forward.”

  “Never hurts to ask,” he said, taking another pull on his beer.

  She smiled. “And sometimes you end up getting what you ask for.” She picked up her purse. “Give me thirty seconds. Then follow me.”

  He watched in the mirror as she headed over to the washroom, unlatched the door, and let herself in.

  Chapter 5

  The limo swerved and came to a stop at the side of the road. An aging rocker, tall and thin in peg-leg pants, sleeveless T-shirt, and black leather vest, got out of the driver’s seat and looked at the back tire on the passenger side.

  “It’s fine!” he shouted to the pair inside, a little louder than necessary.

  The rear window rolled down. Clouds of cigarette smoke emerged. A Japanese woman with ragged purple hair and too much eyeliner squinted at him. She looks like an Asian vampire, he thought. Neurotic bitch. And still as big a pain as ever.

  “Check it again, Pete. I don’t want to die in this cock-sucking hellhole. Where the fuck are we, anyway?”

  Pete made a show of kicking the tire. “It’s fine, Sami Lee.” Now that he’d started, he would have to go round to all four tires, kicking them one at a time. Always complete, the Voice reminded him.

  “We’re almost there,” Pete said, trying not to glare at the woman sitting in the back seat next to Max Hardcore.

  Max was the one Pete really worried about. Max with his thinning hair and his middle-aged paunch. He was still bad news, like the number thirteen or a black cat on Halloween. Max was the guy Pete didn’t want to offend. If they were going to pull off this reunion gig, he’d have to stay on Max’s good side. Hell, they’d all have to stay on Max’s good side. Not that Max had a good side. This was one hellbent bad boy. A vicious, drug-addled twat. It was a wonder Kent died of an overdose rather than Max.

  Crap, Pete thought. An entire week on an island with Max and Spike and Sami Lee. Was there a worse hell he could think of? Not likely, but this was probably the last chance any of them would have to revive their careers. And if anybody needed it, it was Pete Doghouse, né Peter Harrison, from Spokane, Washington. Of all the losers from the Lilac City’s gutters, Pete was the least likely to have made it. If he hadn’t clung to the ragged coattails of Max and Spike as they battled their way up the punk-rock ladder, he might never have got out. For all the good it did him, though, it almost seemed he’d never left. He’d spent the last decade working in a factory warehouse just to make ends meet.

  At work, no one cared that he used to be Pete Doghouse, bassist for the legendary Ladykillers. No one would be impressed if he told them he’d met Joe Strummer or traded dirty jokes with Johnny Rotten. So he didn’t tell them. They didn’t need to know who he was. Every once in a while, someone with a keen eye and a good memory asked if he was Pete Doghouse or if he might be related to Pete Doghouse, or even if he knew that he looked a little like Pete Doghouse, but he always denied it. To his fellow workers, he was just another down-and-out Joe who lifted boxes for a living and drank bad beer in dirty pubs after-hours.

  He also didn’t tell them about the Voice that told him to touch each box twice or crack his knuckles and pat that one three times on the top and another one on the bottom before piling them up in a corner and continuing with his work. They would only have laughed. And Pete Doghouse hated being laug
hed at. Worse, he could never have explained why he felt he had to do everything the Voice told him. So Pete kept to himself as best he could. He didn’t have much of an urge to talk anyway. No sense in reliving past glories.

  It was hard now for Pete to believe some of the things he’d seen and done in his time, but the heyday had ended. After the band broke up, he’d faded into the woodwork, like so many other out-of-work musicians from back then. He couldn’t even get studio work. Not surprising, since he wasn’t much of a musician. No one noticed for years that they could barely play a note, because most of their gigs had been such noisy bash-ups. There’d always been musicians to fix the mess they made of their early records. Max used to joke that he knew only three chords on his guitar. That was close to the truth, but it didn’t seem like a joke now.

  Pete peered into the car. Sami Lee had crawled onto Max’s lap and was giving him little pecks on the cheek. If she didn’t keep her mouth shut, Pete thought, he might do something he’d regret. It was bad enough that he had to book time off work to come out here, making some lame excuse about a dying mother-in-law. Then, once they’d decided to drive up together, Sami Lee insisted on going by limo. With her chain-smoking and constant carping, it had been pure torture. Worst of all, Pete had been the one to put the car on his credit card. How the hell did she expect him to pay for it? She probably hadn’t thought about that. Max spoiled her, so it wouldn’t occur to her that someone had to pay the fucking piper. Bitch!

  As he stood there fuming, a red Saab zoomed over the crest of the hill and headed straight for them. Pete had just enough time to leap to the shoulder as the car went roaring by. He caught a glimpse of an over-dressed business-type with dark skin sitting behind the wheel. The man barely glanced at Pete as he raced past.