Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  Felix had pushed the pause button. Now rewind. A blur of pale green.

  Stop.

  Forward. This time around, Mannie was privileged to sit through the feminine hygiene commercial from beginning to end before the little drama in the park got underway. Felix kept adjusting the volume, turning it higher and higher, until the speakers started to rattle and the voices were so distorted that Mannie wouldn’t have known what people were saying if he hadn’t already heard it dozens of times before.

  Felix showed him the tape a third time.

  And again.

  And once more, in slow motion this time, the voices seeming to come from deep under water. Mannie finding himself anticipating questions, rushing ahead of the conversation, guessing a word wrong here and there but mostly getting it right.

  Felix gave him the sanitary napkin pitch one last time and killed the picture. Mannie stared at the blank screen for a moment, then reluctantly turned to look out at the sun-bleached patio.

  Junior was standing in the open doorway, waving him over. His right arm hung at his side, weighed down by his Colt, the .357 Magnum with the ribbed and ventilated nine-inch barrel.

  Mannie stood up. “Where’s the bathroom?” he said.

  Junior pointed with the gun.

  Chapter 26

  Willows got into a firing stance. He pressed his cheek against the polished wooden stock of the rifle, aimed carefully and squeezed the trigger.

  The air rifle burped. A froth of water erupted around the leading duck in the back row. Willows heard the sound of pellets hitting tin. The duck fell over on its side and abruptly disappeared beneath the choppy surface of the water.

  Willows had the hang of it now. He started letting off single shots, picking his targets with a marksman’s skill, tracking the rusty metal birds in his sights as they moved from stage left to stage right.

  Sean was laughing; an eight-year-old delighted by his father’s skill. But Annie was looking away, making no attempt to hide her disapproval. At the age of eleven, she was very much her mother’s daughter — blessed by some prejudices and burdened by others. Willows wondered how much Sheila had told the girl, what she’d said to explain or justify Willows’ sudden departure. He put the empty airgun down on the counter. “What next, Annie? Any requests?”

  She shrugged disinterestedly. “Not really.”

  Willows looked down the length of the gallery. “I wonder if we should phone the SPCTA,” he said.

  “What’s that?” said Sean.

  Willows smiled. “The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Tin Animals.” He glanced at his daughter, gave a vaudeville wink.

  Annie giggled, her bad mood dissolving into laughter. “Can we go for a ride on the giant rollercoaster?”

  Willows made a face, miming abject fear.

  “You promised to take me on the bumper cars,” said Sean. “Remember?”

  Willows nodded.

  “The bumper cars are miles away,” said Annie. She made a sweeping gesture with her arm, and then frowned. “What’s the matter, you afraid of the rollercoaster?”

  “No way,” said Sean firmly. He took a bite out of his corn dog. “Dad promised, that’s all.”

  “Why don’t we go on the rollercoaster first, since it’s closer. Then we can ride the bumper cars. Okay?”

  “I guess so,” said Sean. He took another bite out of his corn dog, gnawed at the stick and growled low in his throat.

  Annie rolled her eyes in mock disgust.

  Hand in hand, the three of them walked slowly down the midway, making their way through the bright lights and the noise, the jostling, distracted crowds.

  *

  A skinny kid wearing a faded black T-shirt and jeans held up by a length of motorcycle drive-chain lowered a metal safety-bar, slapped it with the heel of his hand to make sure it was locked into place. He grinned down at Willows. “Lucked out, eh? Got yourself the best seats in the house.”

  Willows glared at him, and the kid moved on.

  They were sitting in the front row of the lead car, with nothing in front of them but narrow gauge track: twin bands of polished steel that climbed alarmingly towards the bright blue sky. It was so cramped that his knees touched the metal bulkhead. He sat up a little straighter, trying without success to find more room for his legs. The car lurched forward. He put his arms around his children, braced himself. Sean moved an inch or two away, asserting his independence. They climbed slowly upwards, the angle of ascent gradually becoming steeper.

  At the top of the incline the rollercoaster seemed to hesitate, as if balanced precariously on the fulcrum of the track. Willows looked down at the abandoned, rotting hulk of Empire Stadium. He’d won a shiny red ribbon there a quarter of a century ago, for placing third in a high school track meet. His time had been four minutes thirteen seconds. Not quite good enough to get him cast in bronze, but like Landy and Bannister, he’d given it everything he had. He smiled, remembering the scattered applause when he’d stepped up on the rostrum to accept his prize.

  “What are you thinking about, Daddy?” said Annie.

  “My misspent youth,” Willows replied. He had no time to explain because suddenly they were plunging down the track, swaying violently from side to side, the wheels thundering beneath them, their eyes filling with tears, Annie’s new dress billowing and her hair streaming out behind.

  They hit the valley with a jolt. Willows felt the safety-bar press hard against his stomach. Somewhere behind him a girl screamed. Then they were shooting back up again, momentum carrying them effortlessly towards the horizon, the complex of metal girders on either side a dizzy, sickening blur.

  Willows tried closing his eyes, but that only made it worse.

  At the top of the rise, the track turned sharply left. The blunt nose of the rollercoaster jutted out into space, and for a wild fraction of a second, Willows thought they were going to crash. He was vaguely aware of Annie searching his face for reassurance, and tried to smile. Then they were yanked sideways, tearing around a long, steeply banked curve. Sean flung his arms up in the air. The wind tore at the sleeves of his shirt, made a ripping sound. Willows resisted an impulse to shout at the boy. He held him a little more tightly instead, acutely aware of the small, fragile bones beneath his son’s flesh.

  The nose dipped and down they went again, but much faster this time. A lot of people were screaming now. He couldn’t tell if they were having fun or genuinely frightened. He knew how he felt, though.

  Like someone who’s just discovered an important phobia.

  *

  The rollercoaster ride lasted only a few minutes, but by the time it ended Willows felt he’d more than had his money’s worth. Standing on the platform beside the track, he flexed his knees and tried not to feel old.

  “Now can we go on the bumper cars?” said Sean.

  Willows glanced at his watch. It was half-past-two. He’d had a light breakfast and no lunch, and he was hungry.

  “Let’s get something to eat,” he said.

  Sean started to launch into a complaint, had second thoughts. “Can we have a pizza?”

  “Sure.”

  “And cokes?” said Annie.

  “Whatever you like.”

  “I wouldn’t mind sitting down for a couple of minutes, anyway,” Sean said.

  Willows could relate to that. Since they’d entered the fairgrounds they’d had rides on most of the wildlife and all of the major household appliances known to man; laughed at each other’s distorted images in the Hall of Mirrors; shrieked with fear and delight in the Tunnel of Doom — and spent at least ninety per cent of their time waiting in line-ups. The experience was remarkably similar to being on a stake-out: long interminable periods of enforced inactivity followed by a few brief moments of intense excitement. If you were lucky.

  Not that the children had complained. They seemed to take the delays for granted, and Willows for the most part was content simply to be with them, to share whatever small joys or sor
rows the day might bring.

  At one of the dozens of tiny take-out restaurants scattered throughout the fairground, Willows ordered a Greek salad and slices of pineapple pizza from a woman in her fifties who seemed to be naked under her faded lime-green overalls.

  “It’s the heat from the ovens,” she said, catching him looking. “Want anything to drink?”

  “A large coffee and two small cokes.”

  The woman reached under the counter for a small, pre-folded lidless cardboard box, used her thumb and forefinger to make the sides snap up into place. Willows watched her fill the box with pizza and salad and soft drinks. There was a stack of paper napkins on the counter. He took three. The woman picked up the chewed stub of a pencil, jotted some figures down on a scrap of paper, frowned.

  “That’ll be seven-fifty.”

  Willows handed her a ten-dollar bill and pocketed his change. Annie and Sean had laid claim to a nearby table. He sat down, distributed the food.

  “You get any straws?” said Sean.

  “They didn’t have any.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “No, I looked.”

  “Mom always gets us straws.”

  “She does not,” said Annie, moving in fast.

  Willows nibbled at his slice of pizza. It tasted even worse than it looked. He shovelled some salad on to his plate with a plastic fork.

  “You can have mine too, if you want it,” said Sean. He licked tomato sauce from his fingers, making a big production of it.

  “Gross,” said Annie. She made a face.

  Sean smacked his lips, grinned. “Can I have some candy floss for dessert?”

  “Sure, if you eat some salad.” Willows toyed with the empty cardboard box. The design was simple but elegant. He caved in the sides, popped them open. Why was he so interested? He pushed the box away.

  Annie slid along the bench seat, moving closer. “Can I ask you something, Daddy?”

  “What’s that, honey?”

  “How come you moved out of the house?”

  Even though he’d known it was coming, the question still took Willows by surprise. He looked across the table at Sean. The boy was playing with his fork, intent on measuring the tensile strength of the plastic tines.

  “Have you talked to your mother about this?” said Willows carefully.

  Annie nodded.

  “What did she say?”

  “That you spent too much time at work and not enough time with your family. That it wasn’t fair and she wasn’t going to put up with it any more.”

  No news there.

  Willows shredded a paper napkin, balling up the torn fragments of paper and tossing them at his coffee cup. He was keeping himself occupied while waiting for his daughter to unburden herself. It was a cop’s trick; a way of downplaying extended silences, easing the pressure. He’d used it in the interrogation room at 312 Main more times than he could remember. He flipped another ball of paper at the cup. It didn’t occur to him that his eight-year old son was playing a variation of the same theme.

  Annie took a deep breath, let it out. “I told her I’d rather see you a little bit than not at all. I told her I loved you, Daddy. And that I missed you a whole lot.”

  Willows couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He reached out and his daughter threw herself into his arms, her eyes bright with tears.

  “Are you ever coming home, Daddy?”

  “I hope so, Annie.” Willows swallowed, tasted his grief. “I miss you too, you know. I miss all of you, miss you very much. But right now, your mother needs some time to herself.”

  “Why?”

  Willows handed Annie the tattered remains of his napkin. “Because she has to have a chance to think about things and decide how she feels about them,” he said. He took the napkin from Annie’s restless hands and gently dried her cheeks. “I have to give her as much time as she wants, honey. It isn’t easy to explain, but that’s the way it is.”

  “Adult talk,” said Annie derisively.

  “That’s right,” said Willows, although in truth he had no more idea what was going on than she did.

  The fork snapped with a dry, brittle sound. Pieces of white plastic scattered across the table like the shattered bones of a small animal.

  “Sorry,” said Sean, grim-faced.

  Willows playfully flicked a piece of plastic back at him. He stood up. “Let’s get out of here, okay? Let’s go get ourselves a face full of candy floss, and then let’s grab some wheels and kick ass!”

  “Kick what?” said Annie, looking shocked.

  “That’s Formula One talk,” said Willows. “Bumper Car lingo.”

  “Swearing, if you ask me.”

  “Kick ass!” yelled Sean.

  The woman in the lime overalls gave her counter a quick wipe with a damp cloth and leant out to see what was going on. Willows waved hello and, after a moment’s hesitation, she smiled and waved back at him.

  “I’m so embarrassed,” said Annie.

  Willows gave her a sweeping bow. “Allow me to apologize,” he said, “by treating you to a bouquet of candy floss.”

  Annie thought about it for about two seconds and then said, “Pink or blue?”

  “Your choice, of course.”

  “Pink.”

  Chapter 27

  Mannie was waved into the only chair at the patio table that wasn’t shaded by the pink-and-white striped umbrella. He sat down, the hot, flimsy metal creaking under his weight. Felix was wearing a California Angels baseball cap, a pair of cheap rubber thongs, baggy white trousers and a fruit cocktail shirt. Misha sat on Felix’s left. She had on a pair of outsized aviator glasses with mirrored lenses, a bikini that looked as if it was made of mauve Teflon. Junior had gone back into the house. Now he came out again, carrying a huge glass bowl full of mixed vegetables.

  “You ever read Steinbeck?” said Felix to Mannie.

  “Who?”

  Ice clinked against Felix Newton’s teeth as he sipped at his wine. “What’d you think of the tape?”

  Mannie didn’t know what to say. He managed a shrug.

  “Ninety seconds,” said Felix.

  “Huh?”

  Misha turned towards Mannie, cocked her head to the side, sunlight bouncing off her glasses into his eyes. He looked away, at the pink, heart-shaped pool that dominated the yard.

  “Ninety seconds is what they gave your little caper on the eleven o’clock news,” said Felix.

  “Junior set up the Econoline. It was that fucking bordello on wheels caught everybody’s attention.”

  “Station got a news team out there pretty fast,” said Felix. “Cop leaning over a body makes a nice change from some stiff reading a prepared statement from behind a desk, eh?”

  “I guess so,” said Mannie uncertainly.

  “You phone ’em?”

  “Who, the cops?”

  “No, Mannie. The TV folks.”

  “Jesus! No, of course not.” The late-morning sun beat down on Mannie’s scalp, He wiped sweat from his forehead. Felix Newton was staring at him again, the eyes dark and the heavily lined face without expression.

  “Everything’s ready to go,” said Junior.

  Misha looked up at him, her mouth small and annoyed. She pushed herself away from the table, went over to the barbecue. Mannie heard the sound of metal on metal and then a sharp hiss. The sweet scent of melting butter mixed it up with the acrid smell of chlorine from the pool, and lost.

  Junior was hovering, trying to decide whether or not to sit down in Misha’s vacated chair. Felix snapped his fingers at him. “I got a few things I have to say to Mannie. Go swim some laps.”

  “Okay,” said Junior. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and drew the Colt .357, laid it down on the table next to Felix’s wine glass. His Hi-Toppers sucked at the tiles as he ambled towards the pool.

  “Shit,” said Felix softly. He waited until the last possible moment and then shouted, “Hold it right there!”

  Misha had been crac
king eggs, but now she stopped. Everybody watched Junior teeter on the lip of the heart-shaped pool, his arms windmilling as he fought to keep his balance.

  “That’s a three-hundred-dollar suit,” Felix yelled. “Take it off, stupid! And while you’re at it, get rid of those shoes. You sound like a fucking octopus, creeping around in those things.”

  Mannie reached across the table and poured himself a glass of white wine. He licked condensation from the glass and took a big gulp. Junior undressed quickly. His stomach looked like a washboard. He bent and unlaced the running shoes, pulled off his socks and stepped out of his pants. Mannie saw that he was tanned all over. His ass was as brown as the rest of him. Was that what they did in California, walk around nude all the time? Junior’s hard muscular body arced and he vanished beneath the pink surface of the water. Mannie counted to a hundred and fifty. Junior surfaced, rolled over on his back like a seal. He floated in the middle of the heart, eyes closed, his penis and testicles bobbing gently.

  Felix pulled a pack of Camel cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, shook one free and lit up.

  “I heard the kid looked as if a shark had got him,” he said. “That was dumb. Naomi Lister, on the other hand, was very smart. Some cop fishing way up there in the mountains. Fucking needle in a haystack. But what the hell, right? Two down and one to go. All that counts is the bottom line.” Delicately, with his little finger, he flicked ash from his cigarette. “Want to know what this is all about?”

  “Not really,” said Mannie.

  “Junior picked some kids up off Davie Street. Four of ’em. Brought them up here for a party. You know how these things can get out of hand?”

  Felix was looking at him, waiting.

  “Sure,” said Mannie, although he had no idea what they were talking about.

  Felix paused while Misha put plates down on the table. Translucent white china with gold trim. An omelette on one side, salad heaped on the other. Felix speared a chunk of tomato, skewering it on the tines of an Art Deco fork.

  “I strangled one of them. And Junior got it all down on videotape. At least, the dumb shit thinks he did. When the survivors took off, the tape went with them.”