Jack in a Box

by Pringle McCloy

  “Ok, already! I did not. End of discussion. I do not know where Leonard went or why. Nor do I care. But think about this, Jillian. Maybe, just maybe, he skipped. Did it ever occur to you that he might have just left town? All by himself. On his own two feet?”

  That straightened her up. “Oh, now I feel a lot better! Rejected. Abandoned on my thirtieth birthday. Thanks, Hampton.”

  “My pleasure. Can we change the subject?”

  “No,” she said in a little girl voice. “We can’t. I miss him. He was my English professor. A man to respect. Unlike two lowlifes I happen to know.”

  Sweet. I checked my watch.

  “I miss the silly things about him,” she whined, “like his hoarding habit and his apartment packed with Wall Street Journals dating back to 1889. You don’t think he was alive then, do you?” She killed herself laughing at her brilliance. “And his socks. That’s the weirdest part! Brown socks. One pair. How boring is that?” Her head bobbed. “Well, that was Leonard. So boring. So mediocre. So very, very dull.”

  “Leonard never wore socks.”

  Her eyes widened to saucer-size. “That’s what’s so weird! When I asked him about it he said he was saving them for a special occasion.” She hiccupped. “I wonder if he took them with him. What do you think, Dick Tracey? Or maybe just Dick. You’re a dick, Hampton.”

  I decided not to tell the little drunk that at this juncture Leonard was likely wearing the socks he’d been saving. Along with a little cement.

  She was growing whiter by the minute and shaky.

  “You’d better come down from there, Jillian. You’re going to fall.”

  “I can’t come down. I can climb up but that’s it. I’m too scared to come down.”

  “I’ll come and get you then.”

  “I’d rather die here! I’d rather die than have you touch me, you bully. You killer. I hate you!” With that she tumbled out of the tree and passed out in my arms.

  Chapter Two

  ON GOOD DAYS I LIKE to walk to the water from my office on Denman Street but on April sixth last year I drove through torrents of rain to the Oceanic Hotel. As a snappy valet screeched away in my Beemer I figured he’d be cruising the town while I met with Leo ‘the Lizard’ Cheng. I was in a bad mood and didn’t care who knew it. Who wouldn’t be, knowing they were about to deal with deadly Asian hackers? And not the computer kind. Dead. I decided to act dead just to see how it felt. It felt bad.

  I called Jack from the lobby to see if I could feel worse. I could. He was grouchy.

  “It’s lonely at the bottom. I’m an orphan now. Did you know that, Hamster?”

  “I heard.”

  Due to the Leonard fiasco both Julia and Jillian had moved out, Julia to her West End penthouse and Jillian into seclusion. They were shunning Jack now. They blamed him for Leonard’s vanishing act and for breaking Jillian’s heart.

  “You still have Tony and Maya.”

  Tony Chan - Sharp-dressed Tony, as he was known in Chinatown - was Jack’s chauffeur and was to Jack what Jack was to me, his surrogate dad. He’d raised Jack from a pup and hadn’t done such a terrific job. He and his wife Maya, Jack’s cook, occupied the guesthouse at 33 Terrace Place.

  “Maya’s not speaking to me. And Tony isn’t either unless he has to. I think she’s gotten to him by withholding sex.”

  I tried to smile. The idea of the elderly Chans having sex was half-funny.

  “And they’re hardly ever here in the evenings anymore. I’ve had to come to the warehouse to socialize with vandals. It’s embarrassing.”

  “I’ll come over tonight.”

  “No you won’t. You’ll be working. For me. And don’t get any bright ideas from your buddy, Willy Chan.” He hung up.

  When the elevator door opened on the thirty-third floor Tony’s nephew said hello. I smiled back at him. “Mr. Chan, I presume?”

  He batted my hand away. “The Lizard is expecting you.”

  My best friend since childhood days, ‘slick’ Willy Chan oozed class. Of medium build with shiny dark, shoulder-length hair he was known for his secretive brown eyes and white teeth that glisten when he smiled. And Willy had a lot to smile about, such as several million dollars stashed away, possibly in sacks under his bed. It was like that when you worked for the Triad and, as a double agent, you also worked for Jack.

  Willy looked immaculate in his designer threads and highly-polished shoes. “Don’t say anything goofy, Charlie,” he warned me at the door. “The Lizard has no sense of humor. None at all.” He stomped out his cigarette under the No Smoking sign. “But it’s like I told Jack this morning. Julia’s lawyers have contacted Leo about buying out her shares. Of course, Leo is ecstatic. He’s been courting her for years. And if he happens to get his hands on Jillian’s ten percent too, well, I don’t have to tell you what that means.”

  He didn’t. Jack and Julia each owned forty-five percent of Jones Import/ Export. Jillian owned the remaining ten percent as in the terms of her grandfather’s will. “Jack will be out the door. He has first right of refusal though. He can buy Julia out.”

  “That’s not her game, Charlie. She wants to teach Jack a lesson. Whatever he did to Leonard – and nobody seems to know just what – he hurt Jillian. And you know how protective Julia is of her niece. She wants to punish Jack. And to see that he never does anything like this again.”

  “He won’t,” I said, and we both giggled.

  Inside the Loyal Suite Leo had put his stamp on things. Two jade Foo Dogs stood poised in the doorway, their stern teeth eager to rip my butt. Ming vases of various sizes stood like soldiers here and there about the room. It was a sterile place, polished and immaculate, everything in order and with the lone occupant sitting motionless by a bank of windows on his pristine throne. Hmm… What was Leo the Lizard thinking as he watched the freighters pass below? Microwave ovens… satellite dishes… foreign cars? Highly unlikely, since Leo’s kind of cargo came in little powdery packages packed inside an oil drum or a hot air pipe.

  He turned to the tray of sandwiches beside him. “They charged me for five and only sent four and a half. Call downstairs and tell them to take the gratuity off the bill.”

  Willy left the room.

  The Lizard, on first take, seemed to be the type of guy to keep records, a lot of records, maybe even fudging them a bit, like maybe recording his bowel movement on a Saturday morning as ‘a sizable stool’ when, in fact, he’d produced only gas. Well, you couldn’t hang a guy for farts, could you? He somehow didn’t strike me as a killer. No, Leo’s killer knives came with other people.

  “Mr. Charlie.” Leo’s eyes remained fixed on the ocean below. “I have been hearing good things about you.”

  Right. Willy had conjured up some lies. I’ve been hearing good things about myself, I wanted to say, but for Willy’s warning. “I’ve heard good things about you too, sir,” I lied.

  The Lizard wasn’t gorgeous. Quite the contrary. A ball bearing bore more hair than Leo and a shark fewer teeth. He wore a yellow silk kimono with red dragons on the sleeves over karate pants to the knee. And while I’d never quite taken to Birkenstock sandals, especially worn with socks, Leo had. In a desperate way. He wore them to meetings with suits, to the casino for luck, and to the spa for protection should he need to thwart the masseuse.

  Willy returned to pour the tea and to arrange a pair of sandwiches on two plates with red flowers, handing one to Leo, the other to me. The Lizard was known for his affinity to ham – and his childish tantrums if denied his patent lunch.

  “Where is your sandwich, Mr. Chan?” While his eyes stayed fixed on Burrard Sound below Leo had perfect peripheral vision.

  “I’m not hungry today, sir,” Willy replied politely.

  “You’re not what?” roared Leo. “You’re not what? You will be hungry, Mr. Chan. You will eat your sandwich.”

  Willy shrugged. “I don’t like ham sandwiches much these days.”

  I figured that having to eat ham every day
for seven straight years might turn a guy off pork but Leo didn’t think like me.

  “You don’t like it?” He ground his teeth. “What’s not to like about a ham sandwich? What, you don’t like the bread? You don’t like the ham? Or maybe you don’t like the butter.” He laughed a bitter laugh. “Or maybe you’re scared of it. Is fear your problem, Mr. Coward?”

  Never had I seen such badgering of a full-grown adult but Willy took it well. He snatched up a half-sandwich and nibbled away. “Delicious!” He winked at me.

  “I saw that,” barked Leo before stuffing a whole half, ham-on-white into his cavern. He chewed wide-open, debris raining onto his chest.

  Somehow I wasn’t hungry either. Not for three more days. “I just had a banana on the bus,” I mumbled. “I couldn’t eat another thing.”

  Willy shot me a look.

  But Leo seemed impressed. I could almost hear the cash registers clinking in his head. A man who rode the bus might be had for cheap. He looked right at me.

  “You don’t drive a car, Mr. Charlie?”

  “Not on rainy days.”

  Leo was calculating. Nine months of rain equaled one hell of a saving on tires.

  “I like you, Mr. Charlie. You think like me.”

  Yep. Leo with table manners. That would be me.

  Bonding like Velcro to his new twin, Leo attacked business. “I understand that you are acquainted with the daughter of Mr. Jack Jones.”

  I sneaked a peek at Willy who grinned back. The little bowling ball was going for control.

  By mid-afternoon the rain had eased to a drizzle. I therefore had no excuse for my Beemer almost bumping an old man pushing his walker through the intersection on Marine Drive. Not a good excuse, anyway. So, after rolling down my window to say sorry, I headed back across the Lions Gate Bridge, through downtown Vancouver, and towards False Creek. I was thinking about my buddy Willy, about his brilliance and computer hacking savvy, about his millions salted away. Personally, I preferred to stay middle class. I took some comfort in going to bed at night knowing there was a good chance I’d wake up in the morning. Willy didn’t have that luxury.

  I drove into False Creek thinking that the rows of condos stacked together, with trees trimmed like poodles on the lawns, might cheer me up. They didn’t. Down at Sea Village on Granville Island I nodded to the floating houses and live-aboard boats, our quaint Vancouver dwellings. Nothing. I parked and dragged my feet to a narrow, two-story home beside a pier.

  “Go away!” she hollered.

  I kept pounding. “Open up in the name of the law!”

  “Fuck off, Hampton.”

  More pounding.

  Jillian peered at me through the crack in a door secured by a flimsy chain. “Why are you spying on me? Have you no legs to break?”

  I flashed my best plastic smile. “I’ve reached my quota for the day.”

  “Go away.” She closed the door.

  “Get dressed. We’re going for a walk.”

  “Will you leave me alone after that?”

  “What do you think?’

  “I think you’re a big fat liar. I think you’ll tell me what I want to hear. Then you’ll double cross me as usual.”

  I smiled as she opened the door wide. Funny, but I was in a better mood now with everything to look forward to. I was going to go for a walk with the girl of my dreams who’d rather stick a hot poker in her eye than be anywhere near me. Nevertheless, we headed to the Granville Market for candied salmon jerky, which we mostly munched in silence on our way back to Jillian’s hideout. I finally said,

  “Leo Cheng is preparing an offer to buy out your aunt. And he wants to buy you out too.”

  “Sold!” she shouted. “Tell him to mail me the check.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jillian. You don’t want him controlling your grandfather’s company, do you?” Well, that’s what Jack told me to say. He said to put the guilt of ancestry on her and not to mention his name unless all else failed.

  She stopped short. “Do you know that you sound just like him? I mean, your singing his tune. You’re trying to guilt-trip me.”

  “I never knew your grandfather.”

  “Cut the crap! You’re a Jack clone. An abomination of sorts. To think that there are two of you.” She looked beautiful with her cheeks the color of her pink sweatshirt. I pictured her long blond curls on my pillow and Jack standing over me with an axe. So maybe that’s how I got dead.

  “Ok, Jillian. Let’s start again. Jack needs your help. You don’t want an Asian consortium taking over his company, do you?”

  “Try me.”

  “You’re still pretty mad, huh?”

  “Irate.”

  “He had some pretty damning evidence against Leonard you know. Big stuff.”

  She laughed too shrilly and too long. “Right. Like Leonard had an outstanding parking ticket. Or maybe he J-walked.”

  “More.” I stopped there. She didn’t need to know about the young students, female and male. But I knew since I’d been hired to follow him. “Trust me, Jillian. You don’t want to know.”

  “Why? Because Jack made up a pack of lies? And produced phony detective reports to substantiate them? Or you and that double cop, Peter, produced them for him. It doesn’t matter who did what. His MO is your modus operandi. You’re one and the same.”

  I was tired of getting burned for Jack. “Can we change the subject?”

  She sighed. “Do you want to know what was wrong with my childhood, Hampton?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “You.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “You were Jack’s favorite and I never had a chance.”

  “Right, I was Jack’s favorite. He adored you. Still does.”

  “But he adored you differently. Remember how he used to dress you in his identical clothes? And have Maya perm your hair to make it curly like his?”

  I shuddered. “I do. I also remember shaving my head in protest when I was twelve years old. After that Jack called me ‘the monk’.

  She finally laughed. Legitimately. “You were allowed to wear your hair straight though. From then on. But Jack didn’t like it. Not one bit. Your straight hair was a declaration of independence.”

  I remembered it all like a good dream. My new family and sudden baptism by money. “I have a confession to make. I was in love with your Aunt Julia until I was about twenty-five. Maybe even thirty. What am I now, thirty-six?”

  “You and every other red-blooded male. Julia is a goddess. I can’t believe she’s going against Jack, though, because she loves him so fiercely. He’s everything to her. I mean, you and I are distant seconds. Equally, maybe. But Jack? Jack is her baby brother and she’d kill for him in a flash.”

  Chapter Three

  AFTER SECURING THE TOP TO my convertible and robbing the gulls of an address I strolled down the hill to the pier. The harbor was bustling as usual with huge cranes rising like long-necked geese to deposit grain, sulfur, and lumber into the bowels of freighters. Back to back helijets arrived at the Waterfront pad just as the coast guard took off in a hovercraft, skimming away. The Port. I wallowed in it. I was home.

  At the warehouse I saw Jack through his office windows but it wasn’t a pretty sight. He was slumped in his chair staring into space and with stubble sprouting on his face faster than fungus. Since I was in no hurry to inherit his motley crew I started to worry.

  “It’s all set up,” I told him after pulling up a chair. “Right next door to Leo. I can monitor his every move.”

  “Can you see him?”

  “On a half-dozen screens. And I can hear him clearly too. Willy planted the equipment.”

  “Good. We’ll take him down.”

  I smiled. What he meant was, ‘Take him down, Hamster. You’re entirely on your own. And don’t come bawling home’. “We’ll take him down, Jack.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Just remember that Leo doesn’t act alone. He’s a sluff boy for the big guys.
He’s low down on the totem pole.”

  “I was born at night, Jack. Just not last night. This much I know.”

  “Sorry wise ass. I just want to keep you safe.”

  Right. Safe. Next door to the biggest heroin racketeer on the west coast. I sharpened my gun.

  Jack returned to his habit of staring into space. It was his trick when he wanted to change the subject. “Did you sign the checks, Hamster?”

  “I did. Tony and I did. 1.5 for the Children’s Hospital and .5 for the remaining, for the summer camps, the downtown shelters, etcetera.” Jack was a philanthropist when trying to ease his conscience. “Is there anything else?”

  He scratched his chin. “I think so. I want to do something for Hollyburn. Something for the old folks since I’ll be there soon enough myself.”

  “Done.”

  Just then Tony Chan arrived with a garment bag slung over his shoulder. “Here, Jackie. Put these on. After you clean up, grunge boy. There’s a shower in your bathroom there, in case you forgot, and a razor in the medicine chest so smarten up.” Tony was a highly-polished guy, a character straight out of Guys and Dolls. When not in a chauffeur’s uniform he wore double-breasted suits - not made in China - although he regularly smuggled his relatives in from there. He was old but not too old to be the boss of Jack, whom he slapped on the head.

  “I’ve been taking care of this big mutt since he was an infant, Charlie. In his father’s home. He spit strained peas back at me when I tried to feed him. Yuk!” He made a sour face. “So, why do I care about the ingrate?”

  Jack’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Because I pay you to.”

  Bantering was how Jack and Tony communicated. But together they were like Siamese cats if you fought them. One would cleverly distract you while the other batted you down.

  “Your visitor is outside with Trish,” Tony said. “I dropped him there. And when she gets finished mauling him she’ll likely show him in. So get cleaned up. Take your meeting and call me when you want the shyster picked up.”

  I pushed back my chair. “I’ll be off too.”