Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  Patterson turned off the meter and put the gearshift lever in park. Twisting in his seat, he caught a glimpse of a large brown nipple as Judith unhurriedly buttoned her blouse. Sid, his face empty and smirking, fumbled with his wallet. He pulled out a crisp new ten-dollar bill, crumpled it in his fist and tossed it negligently at Patterson.

  “Keep the change, pal.”

  Patterson looked down at the money lying on the seat beside him. He didn’t say anything. He reached for his pack of cigarettes, lit up.

  On the far side of the street, fifty feet away, a rusty maroon-coloured Ford LTD pulled up to the curb. The driver rolled down his window. His blonde wig reflected light from the distant chandelier as he turned to look at the cab. Picking up the Winchester, he slid a cartridge into the breech and pushed home the bolt. A few drops of machine oil had leaked from his rifle to the upholstery of the seat. He rubbed the oil with the ball of his thumb, smearing it driving it deeply into the fabric.

  Sid opened the rear door of the cab.

  The sniper rested his forearm on the Ford’s door sill, peered into the telescopic sight.

  Sid stepped out of the cab and into the crosshairs of the scope. He was fumbling with his trenchcoat, shaking out the folds so he could throw the coat over his shoulders to protect himself from the rain.

  Judith, as she followed Sid out of the cab, trailed her hand through Patterson’s hair, across the nape of his neck. In the same moment, she gave him a look that made it clear she’d much rather be spending her time with him.

  Patterson was amazed. He was short, pudgy, shaped like a pear. It was obvious that he was gay. Why would she be interested in him? Why would she even bother to pretend to be interested in him?

  The rear door of the cab was wide open. Sid hadn’t bothered to shut it. Patterson watched as Judith leaned against the glass door of the lobby. He saw the wash of relief on Sid’s face as Sid found his keys. Through the windscreen, Patterson saw Sid push open the door, saw Sid and Judith hurry hand in hand into the brightly lit glass bowl of the lobby, across the polished marble floor towards the bank of elevators.

  Patterson unfastened his seatbelt and reached behind him, straining as he groped for the handle of the open door. Grunting, he stretched an extra inch backwards. His fingertips touched cold metal.

  The first bullet punched a neat hole in the side window and then disintegrated as it sheared through the vertical steel support post on the far side of the car. Fragments of metal ricocheted off the sidewalk.

  The sniper fired again.

  The window split into a thousand precariously balanced pieces and then collapsed. The air hummed and vibrated. The left side of Patterson’s face went numb. He brought his hand to his cheek. His fingers slid across warm, wet flesh. He realized that he had been shot, and reacted instinctively, without conscious thought.

  His hands slapped wildly at the steering wheel and gearshift lever, his foot jabbed hard at the gas pedal. The taxi lurched forward, striking the Corvette at an angle and tearing away half the rear deck. Chunks of fibreglass and plastic rained down on the cab’s yellow hood. The Corvette’s surviving tail-light flashed at an accelerated rate.

  Panicked, Patterson kept his foot on the gas pedal and never thought of putting the transmission in reverse. The taxi bulled the Corvette slowly forward, then slipped away and veered sharply towards the lobby. Patterson heard a shot. He felt the cab lurch as the left rear tyre blew out. A shower of bright orange sparks bounced across the sidewalk. A hubcap whirled straight up into the night, shrieking madly. Patterson fought the wheel as the taxi burst through the huge plate-glass windows in an explosion of glass, skidded sideways across the marble floor and shuddered to a stop directly beneath the enormous chandelier. His elbow hit the meter and knocked down the flag. The big red numbers blossomed on the display screen, began to turn over dime by dime.

  There was a moment of silence, and then another thirty-foot panel of glass collapsed in a welter of shards and splinters that dropped hissing and spinning to shatter on the marble. Patterson lay across the seat, his right arm tucked awkwardly beneath him at an impossible angle.

  The sniper, peering through the rain and into the haze of light, caught a flicker of movement inside the cab. A bloody hand rose slowly into view, clawed at the rearview mirror. The sniper fired, and the mirror vanished in a red and silver froth. He opened the door of the Ford and stepped into the street. A gust of wind tugged at the broad brim of his hat, ruffled the lace trim of the white dress.

  Standing in the middle of the road, pelted by the rain and buffeted by the wind, he fired steadily into the body of the cab. Spent brass tinkled on the asphalt as he emptied one magazine after another. When he had fired a dozen rounds, he paused to scrutinize the taxi through the Lyman scope. The front door on the driver’s side was shot to pieces. The big, soft-nose bullets had fragmented on impact with the sheet metal and ripped through the interior of the cab with all the force of a shotgun blast.

  Balancing on one foot, the sniper kicked out. His right shoe described a shallow arc and landed in the gutter on the far side of the street. He turned and climbed back into the Ford, slammed shut the door. He released the emergency brake, depressed the clutch pedal, put the car in gear and revved the eight-cylinder motor. The valves clattered noisily. The exhaust vented a cloud of greasy blue smoke. He eased out the clutch. As the Ford started down the street, the rain suddenly doubled in volume, cobbling the windscreen and lashing down at him through the open window.

  The car slowly picked up speed. The sniper was just about to shift into second gear when something small and furry bolted into the glare of the headlights. He hit the brakes and then accelerated as the creature, a racoon the size of a large cat, stared at him with luminous green eyes from the safety of the boulevard.

  From the moment the first shot was fired, Sid and Judith had stood transfixed against the far wall of the lobby, next to the bank of elevators. As the sniper kicked free of the high-heeled shoe and turned to get back into the Ford, Judith broke free of Sid’s grasp. He cried out as she ran lightly across the field of glass and outside, into the middle of the circular driveway.

  The Ford, trailing a stratus of burnt oil, continued steadily down Jervis.

  Judith, searching frantically through her purse, came at last upon her platinum Sheaffer, a fat booklet of personalized cheques. Rain plastered her golden hair to her scalp and trickled down into her eyes as she squinted into the night. The licence number was, she thought, GHN 121. She uncapped the pen. The Ford’s brake lights flared an angry red. For a terrifying fraction of a second, Judith thought the sniper had seen her in his rearview mirror. Then she saw that an animal had run in front of the car and that the driver had braked to avoid hitting it. Trembling, she scribbled the plate number down on the back of the chequebook.

  “Judith!”

  Turning, she saw Sid standing on the sidewalk where it was bisected by the curving driveway. He shouted her name again, and wildly waved his arms. She saw that the rain and fitful wind had played havoc with his artfully arranged hair. He was very thin on top, almost bald. He took an uncertain step towards her. Suddenly he was bathed in light. Judith heard a sound behind her, the roar of an engine. She spun on her heel, stumbled, and sat down in the middle of the road. The lights were aimed straight at her now, blinding her, pinning her to the asphalt. She stared, horrified, as the police car raced towards her, fishtailing crazily from side to side, dome and headlights flashing out of sync with the piercing scream of the siren.

  Judith scrambled to her feet. She twisted an ankle and sat down again.

  The on rushing car swerved sharply away from her at the last possible second. Judith heard the shrill whine of tyres on pavement. She was splattered with rainwater. The nearside bumper missed her by fractions of an inch, the chrome flashing incredibly bright.

  Sid’s face went slack with fear as the squad car abruptly skewed towards him. He tried to run, but found to his horror that he had forgotten ho
w to bend his knees. He opened his mouth.

  He screamed, and heard nothing but the scream of the siren.

  XI

  BECAUSE IT WAS standard departmental policy to team the young with the old and so temper foolhardiness with caution, Paul Furth and Chris Lambert should not have been riding together the night that Andy Patterson was shot and killed.

  Furth and Lambert were both rookies, with less than six months’ seniority between them. But Furth’s regular partner had come down with the flu less than an hour into their shift, and since the police union insisted on two men to a car during the night hours, the sick man had to be replaced. And that’s why Lambert had found himself temporarily reassigned from his usual shift as a foot patrolman on the south end of the Granville Street mall. So far, he hadn’t missed the dime baggers, amateur musicians, feisty drunks or bulk-rate hookers one little bit.

  As Furth drove slowly around the block-square perimeter of Nelson Park, Lambert thought about how nice it felt to have a roof over his head and a cushion under his ass, a steady flow of warm air across his feet. He glanced at Furth, envying him the luck of his assignment. They turned south on Thurlow. Over on Jervis, the shooting started.

  Furth gunned the engine, turned right on Comox and stopped halfway up the block, at a distance from the noisy flow of traffic on Thurlow. Pulling the squad car over to the curb, he turned off the engine and rolled down his window.

  The second shot came almost immediately. Lambert opened his mouth to ask Furth why they were just sitting there not doing anything, but before he could speak there was the sound of a collision — the taxi pummelling the white Corvette.

  Furth started the engine of the squad car.

  Close behind the sound of the third shot came the crash of the taxi hurtling through the floor-to-ceiling windows, an avalanche of shattered glass.

  “What the hell was that!” said Lambert.

  “Shut up!” snapped Furth, his head cocked to one side, listening.

  Another string of shots bounced and echoed off the surrounding highrises. The acoustics were too tricky to get an exact fix on the location, but Furth guessed that the shooter was less than two blocks away, probably on either Jervis or Broughton. He hit all the switches and put the gas pedal to the floor. The Dodge Aspen leapt forward, lights blazing through the rain, siren wailing at a fever pitch.

  Lambert shifted his weight to his left hip, and drew his revolver. He felt very, very good. And why not? So far, all he had to his credit was a mixed bag of jaywalkers and drunks. Hardly the stuff of rapid promotions and a meteoric climb through the ranks. But now, for the first time in his short and unremarkable career, he was involved in some meaningful police work. He flipped open the cylinder of his revolver and checked the load. Furth glanced at him, but didn’t say anything.

  There were several more shots, each one a little louder than the last. Furth counted three, then a short pause and then three more.

  “Left on Jervis!” said Lambert.

  Furth was already spinning the wheel. The rear tyres skidded on the wet pavement. He overcorrected and the car slewed sideways, rocking on its springs. The street was narrow, crammed on both sides with parked cars. The steering wheel twitched under Furth’s hands as the squad car’s rear bumper grazed the flank of a carelessly parked station wagon. Furth heard metal grind against metal. He swore loudly, but kept his foot down on the gas.

  Furth had just managed to bring the Aspen under control when he saw Judith sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road, spotlighted in the rapidly narrowing beam of his lights. He yanked at the wheel and the Aspen drifted sideways, tyres slithering. Furth caught a brief glimpse of a strained white face, big blue eyes. Then they were screaming down the sidewalk in hot pursuit of a maroon Ford, the wheels on Furth’s side tearing through the uncut spring grass and bumping over the roots of the big chestnut trees that lined the boulevard. An indistinct grey shape ran along a branch a few feet above them, stopped and seemed to double in size. Furth had a fleeting impression of emerald eyes and a toothpaste snarl.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “You know something?” said Lambert. “You’re really weird.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “That guy back there on the sidewalk, you missed him by inches and didn’t even blink. Then you see a racoon sitting in a tree and go crazy.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Furth. “What guy on the sidewalk?”

  “The bald guy,” said Lambert.

  Furth didn’t know anything about Lambert, he had no way of telling if he was kidding him or what. He decided not to worry about the bald man until later, when he wasn’t so busy driving. Down at the far end of the block, the Ford was making a left turn. Just for a moment, Furth wondered why the car had managed to gain so little ground on them. Then he had the Dodge burning rubber, engine howling as the car shuddered through a tight ninety-degree turn and hurtled down the slippery, blackly-gleaming street.

  Lambert, eyes bright, was hunched on the edge of his seat, his revolver clenched in his hand.

  Furth leaned over and punched him hard on the shoulder. “Get on the radio, let’s get some backup down here!”

  “Calm down,” said Lambert, sounding annoyed. He reached for the microphone, picked it up and pressed the transmit button, then sighed and lowered the mike.

  “Something wrong?” said Furth.

  Lambert gave him a lopsided grin. “I got no idea where we are. How can I call for backup when I don’t know where to send them?”

  “Shit,” said Furth. He pumped the brakes and then hit the gas again. They rocketed down the straight, closing fast on the maroon Ford. “We’re heading south on Bute,” he shouted at Lambert, “between Pendrell and Davie!”

  “Pendrell and what?”

  “South on Bute!” screamed Furth. “South on Bute!”

  They caught the light on Davie, crossing on the green seconds after the Ford had raced through the red, and then Furth saw the flare of brake lights as the Ford swung left on Burnaby. They roared past a parked squad car, but there was no one inside. The Ford turned down Thurlow. A block away, Pacific led straight to Burrard Bridge and the maze of Kitsilano.

  “Get a roadblock set up on the other side of the bridge!” yelled Furth.

  “What bridge?”

  “The Burrard Street bridge!”

  “Okay,” said Lambert, “take it easy.” He lifted the mike to his lips and pressed the transmit button, at the same time using his gun hand to brace himself against the dashboard. Fifty feet in front of them, a woman wearing a bright yellow rain slicker bicycled out of an alley and into their path. They were travelling south, down the steep slope that led to the mouth of False Creek. The Dodge aquaplaned down the hill on overlapping sheets of rainwater, fighting gravity and a lack of traction. A collision seemed inevitable.

  In his mind’s eye, Lambert saw the car hit the bike, saw the girl cartwheel gracefully over the handlebars and under the onrushing wheels of the police car. He wondered what she could possibly have been thinking of, not to have heard the siren or seen the lights.

  At the last possible second the girl took evasive action, twisting her front wheel sharply to the left. A thin layer of gravel had been washed out of the mouth of the alley by the continuing rain. The bike skidded, wobbled, and went over on its side. The girl hit the asphalt and rolled. Furth took a right at Harwood, and accelerated. The Dodge surged forward. Lambert twisted in his seat to look behind him, but the girl was already lost from view.

  Furth wasn’t exactly sure why, but they had continued to gain on the Ford. It was less than two hundred yards in front of them when the driver suddenly cut his lights and turned right up an alley. Furth braked hard, and swung in behind him.

  The alley was typical of the West End — narrow, filled with potholes, crowded on both sides with illegally parked cars. The Ford reached the far end of the block and raced through the intersection, a dark, fleeting shadow. Furth charged after it, his foo
t on the gas and his heart in his mouth.

  Without warning, the Ford suddenly turned sharply right and vanished. Furth felt his stomach muscles tighten. Chasing the bastard had been bad enough, but now they had come to the gristly part, catching him. He hit the brakes and the Aspen lurched to a stop at the lip of a steeply-pitched driveway that led down to the underground garage of a newish three-storey condominium. The Ford was at the bottom of the driveway, parked at an angle with its front bumper up against the garage’s steel mesh security door.

  “Now we’ve got him,” exulted Lambert.

  Furth wouldn’t have bet money on it. There were floodlights mounted in the concrete retaining walls on either side of the garage entrance, and more lights scattered among the ornamental shrubbery at the top of the walls, but none of the lights were working. The Ford was hidden in deep shadow, and somehow Furth doubted this was a lucky accident. He flicked a switch, and the quartz spotlight mounted on the right front fender blazed into life. He started to crank the beam around to focus on the Ford. A hot orange gout of flame spouted from somewhere near the front of the Ford. The spotlight disintegrated in an explosion of glass and metal fragments. Shrapnel starred the Apsen’s windscreen.

  Lambert yanked open his door. The inside light came on. He bailed out into the rain, Furth right behind him. The sound of the rifle shot echoed down the alley. Furth kicked the door shut, and the inside light went out. He drew his revolver. His hands were shaking.

  “What about the shotgun?” said Lambert.

  “It’s in the boot.”

  “Well, go get it.”

  “You get it, if you need it so bad.”