Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  Frank trotted down the stairs from the gallery. He didn’t say anything, but he looked worried, his eyes a little closer together than usual.

  “What?” said Gary.

  Frank eyed the pro.

  Gary picked up a thick white towel with his initials stitched into one corner in shiny purple thread. He snapped the towel playfully at Frank’s crotch. “Give him fifty.”

  The pro mumbled his gratitude. Fifty bucks an hour for doing something he was good at and probably spent a lot of time doing for nothing anyway, simply because he liked it, the game was fun. Probably thought the fifty was easy money, life was a fucking bowl of maraschino cherries.

  Frank snapped three crisp twenties out of his wallet. “Got a ten?” he said to the pro, offering him the money.

  The pro made a big production of going through his wallet, his pockets. Nothing. He started fooling with his bright red Adidas sports bag, pushing around a bunch of damp towels and unwashed clothes.

  Frank waited patiently, not saying anything even though the guy was obviously broke.

  Finally the pro zipped up his bag of dirty laundry, glanced at Gary, shrugged and smiled.

  “You cut us short,” Gary said to Frank. “We only played what, about half an hour? Maybe fifty’s too much, twenty would be more reasonable.” Gary paused, letting the suspense build and the pro squirm. “But what the hell, right? Guy rode all the way over here on a fucking bicycle. And wasn’t he ready to play? Wasn’t he ready to do his job?”

  The pro made a grab for the money. Frank, sweetheart that he was, let him have it.

  “Thank you, Mr Silk,” the pro said.

  Gary nodded. In five years the sucker’s smile would be all worn out, his reflexes gone. He’d have a bad case of melanoma from too many summers in the sun, too many winters spent under the heat lamps. What then? With no education and no street smarts, he’d be lucky to get a job washing dishes.

  “Same time next Friday?” The pro tucked the money into the key pocket of his shorts, screwing up his face as he worked at the flap.

  “Maybe,” said Gary vaguely. “I could be outta town on Friday. Do a long weekend, y’know? Miami, or maybe Vegas.” He shrugged. “Let’s leave it like this — plan to be here but be ready to get cancelled. Okay?”

  “Sure,” said the pro. Gary was trying to think of his name. Peter something. Disappointment was smeared all over his face.Gary felt a bit better, like he’d rallied, picked up a few late points. He liked to keep the people around him a little off balance. It was a habit, something he worked at automatically without even thinking about it. He strongly believed that the art of living was at least ninety percent habit. If you had good habits, you enjoyed a good life. You developed bad habits, you were fucked. Of course it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

  There was a kicker, as always.

  Because good habits didn’t matter one way or the other if you were the kind of person who didn’t know how to deal with the other ten percent of life — the shit that popped up when you least expected it, and had to be dealt with quickly and correctly.

  “Mind if I stick around and take a quick shower?” said the pro.

  Gary glanced at Frank. Frank’s face said no. The pro zipped up his bright red Adidas bag and Frank showed him the door.

  “So what the hell is it?” said Gary as he and Frank walked along the heated, glass-enclosed passageway that connected the squash courts and gymnasium to the main house.

  Frank cleared his throat. Frank was six four and two hundred and seventy pounds, hard as a brick. Gary Silk stood five foot six in those bright red iguana-skin high-heeled cowboy boots he liked to wear, and he weighed in at maybe a hundred and forty pounds, including a three-piece suit with a silk hankie, pocketful of change and fully loaded Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum stainless tucked away in a back pocket.

  Gary liked to think of himself as a John McEnroe type. He had the same lean and compact body, pale eyes that never seemed to blink. He also had, Frank had to hand it to him, an overpowering intensity of purpose.

  The big difference was, McEnroe swatted tennis balls and Gary swatted people. He scared the living shit right out of Frank, and Frank was secure enough about himself so he didn’t care who knew it.

  Gary reached up and playfully bounced the flat of his racket off the top of Frank’s head. Frank favoured a brushcut. His hair went flat and then sprang back.

  “C’mon, give,” said Gary. “What’s going on?”

  “Pat Nash and Oscar Peel just showed up,” said Frank. “Parked out on the street by the gate, right in front of the house. Walked up the driveway and here they are.”

  “What about the dogs?”

  “They’re at the vet’s.”

  “Yeah, right.” Gary smirked, remembering. He was hard on animals. They came, suffered, disappeared. “You got somebody keeping tabs on our two guests, make sure they don’t pinch the silverware?”

  Frank nodded, not meeting Gary’s eye. Gary bounced the racket off Frank’s head again, a little harder this time. The strings made a sound that was almost musical.

  “What the fuck they doing here, Frank?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Gary’s mind raced. “They clean?”

  “Spotless.”

  “What kind of car they drive up in?”

  “Beats me. Like I told you, they left it down by the front gate.”

  Gary picked up the pace. They reached the end of the walkway. Frank stepped in front of Gary and pushed open the door, which was made of heavy gauge steel plate with a thin oak veneer. There was the mud room, and then the huge kitchen, all copper and chrome, gleaming white tile.

  A video camera equipped with a wide-angle lens and heat-activated tracking device followed their progress across the room. Another camera picked them up as they passed through double swinging doors and started down the wide central hallway that bisected the house. There was a six-foot barrel cactus in a big clay pot. Gary paused to check the soil. Nice and dry.

  “Where are they, in the living-room?”

  Frank shook his head. “The den. I turned on the fireplace.”

  Gary nodded. “You’re a good host, Frank. A real peach of a guy.”

  2

  Detective Jack Willows sat on the edge of his bed with the telephone in his lap. He dialled a one to get long distance, then four-zero-six, the area code for Toronto, and finally his father-in-law’s number.

  The phone rang twice and then the answering machine picked up. He was invited to leave a message. There was an unspoken option, of course. Willows took it. He slammed down the phone and carried his lowball glass back into the kitchenette for a refill.

  3

  There was dark oak paneling on both sides of the hallway, a pale shipdeck oak floor. Recessed pot lights to highlight the quartet of Chick Rice portraits Gary had commissioned.

  When Gary was drunk or maybe a little coked up he often asked Frank what he thought of the photographs. Frank always said he thought they were terrific, which was a lie.

  Kind of a lie.

  Fact was, Frank thought the pictures were fantastic, sensational. They were true to Gary and yet at the same time subtly flattered him, managed to project him in a good light. But, and Frank had no idea how this was accomplished, the portraits also somehow managed to show the real Gary, the nasty, vindictive little dink that lurked under the thirty-dollar haircut and twice-weekly facials.

  Frank was sure that Gary had no idea just how good Chick Rice’s portraits were, which was fine with him, because if Gary ever did wise up, the pictures would hit the fireplace and Frank would probably have to waste a couple of days convincing him it wasn’t such a hot idea to bump off a high-profile photographer.

  In the entrance hall, stained-glass panels on either side of the big front door sparkled under the lights of the chandelier. Gary paused at a small alcove beside the wide, curving staircase that led to the second floor. In the alcove there was a reproduction Queen Anne table with a Pr
incess phone on it, and a brass pot with three legs made out of clenched fists. The pot contained a cactus that bloomed red flowers at Christmas time. Gary had a thing about cactuses; the weird prickly plants were all over the house. Frank had stuck himself more than once.

  On the wall directly behind the table hung an oval bevelled-glass mirror.

  Gary peered into the mirror, checking himself out. He took off his diagonal-striped blue and white headband. The strip of elasticized cloth had left a broad red streak across the pale flesh of his forehead. He scrubbed himself with the palm of his hand but the mark wouldn’t go away. He put the headband back on, curled his lip. He looked sort of piratical. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

  “I look like a pirate, Frank?”

  “Sure thing, Gary.”

  Gary laughed, openly admired his teeth in the mirror.

  They went up the stairs and along a hallway, past a number of closed doors. The house was three storeys high, a little under ten thousand square feet. On the second floor there were six bedrooms and five bathrooms and the den. The den was down at the far end of the house. It was one of Gary’s favorite rooms, because the windows overlooked his backyard acreage; the glassed-in pool and tennis and squash courts, the maze and solar-heated greenhouse, vegetable garden. Frank opened the door and they went into the den. Frank shut the door behind them and leaned against it.

  Pat Nash and Oscar Peel were standing on the tiled hearth in front of the fire. They were both naked.

  Peel’s hands were cupped protectively over his crotch but Nash was warming his hands, holding them out to the flames. Nash had hair all over his body. He looked to Gary like a goddamn animal that had learned to stand on its hind legs. Peel was almost hairless except for a scrawny moustache and the hair on his head, which was reddish blond and swept straight back. Both men turned towards Gary as he came into the room. Nash said hello and put his hands on his hips. Peel kept his mouth shut, which was a point in his favor.

  Gary looked at Pat Nash as if Nash was a guest at the city pound and Gary was thinking about maybe getting himself a new pet.

  “What’s in the car?” Gary said to Nash. “Why’d you leave it out on the street?”

  “Nothing, Mr Silk.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The car’s empty. It’s hot, is all.”

  “Hot in here, too,” said Oscar Peel. He licked his lips, moved a little way away from the fireplace, bare feet silent on the tiles.

  “Get back where you were,” said Frank.

  “I’m gonna fry my ass,” said Peel. But he did what he was told.

  “We lost the shipment,” said Nash.

  “Bullshit.”

  “What happened ...” said Peel.

  Gary took three quick strides across the red and blue and gold Star Usak carpet and slashed at him with his racket. Peel’s head snapped back. He grunted with pain. A line of blood rose up across his cheekbone, just below his left eye. He lifted his hand to touch the wound and Gary reared back and hit him again, swiped viciously at him, the graphite racket making a hissing noise in the air. Peel screamed as the racket chopped him across the bridge of the nose.

  “Hurts, does it?” said Gary.

  Peel groaned and dropped to one knee.

  “Get up,” said Frank.

  Peel dragged himself upright. Blood splattered from his broken nose to the priceless sixteenth-century carpet. He cupped his hands under his nose and stood motionless, his manhood shrunken with fear.

  Gary poked at his groin with the handle of the racket, sadly shook his head. “What’d you do when you’re horny, grease a thimble?”

  Frank chuckled.

  “Was that funny, Frank?”

  “Really funny.”

  “Am I good enough for the Catskills?”

  “Almost,” said Frank.

  Gary mimed bashing him with the racket. Went over to the bar and yanked open the fridge, grabbed himself a beer. Lost electrolytes and maybe eighty million dollars worth of heroin were leading him straight down the road into migraine country. He popped the cap off the beer and threw the cap at Oscar Peel. He grinned at Pat Nash. “Before I kill you, I’m gonna give you a chance to tell me what happened. Fair enough?”

  Nash looked at Oscar Peel, whose hands were filled and overflowing with blood.

  Gary drank some beer. He glanced at Frank, to make sure he was paying attention. Gary had a feeling that before the night was over, somebody was going to die. Since he liked to think he was an equal opportunity employer, he wanted to make sure he got it right. “What the fuck you waiting for?” he yelled at Nash.

  Nash jumped. “Everything went real smooth at first. We offloaded from the tender at eleven o’clock sharp, no problem.”

  Gary nodded. The heroin, smack, white lady, call it what you wanted, had come in on a Japanese freighter full of shiny new cars. It was a regular run; they’d used it before and never had any problems.

  “There was a lot of fog,” said Nash. “It was so thick you couldn’t see the end of the fucking boat. We came in along English Bay, went past the Coast Guard wharf and under the bridge. We could see lights on the wharf, but nothing else. We were coming in real easy. At the bridge the channel gets narrower. We had to give the engine more power, because of the tide.”

  “The current there gets pretty strong,” said Peel. The bleeding had stopped but his head was still bowed and his nose was full of congealed blood. It was hard for Gary to understand what he was saying. He gave Frank a look.

  Frank said, “Shut your fuckin’ mouth, Oscar.”

  “We were worried about the Coast Guard,” said Nash. “But it was the city cops that spotted us. We didn’t hear their engines or even see them until they were right on top of us. Coming right at us, you know? Guy up on the bridge yellin’ at us through a megaphone, we couldn’t understand a fuckin’ word.”

  “Twenty kilos of ninety percent pure,” said Silk. “Don’t tell me you already made bail.”

  “We chucked the dope overboard,” said Pat Nash.

  Gary struggled to control his temper. He went over to the window and looked out at his floodlit backyard, the vegetable patch enclosed with netting to keep out the birds.

  “Why didn’t you run for it? Dincha have the brains to figure, in the darkness, if you couldn’t see them, they wouldn’t be able to see you?”

  Nobody said anything.

  “There’s eighty million of my dollars sitting on the bottom of the harbor, is that what you’re telling me?”

  “That’s retail,” cautioned Frank.

  Gary ignored him.

  “It was in a plastic garbage bag,” said Nash. “A dark green one, sealed with that silvery tape they use for duct pipe.”

  “Duct pipe? What the fuck is that? What the fuck you talking about?”

  “It’s out there somewhere,” said Nash. “The tide would’ve carried it right out of the harbor.”

  “Eighty million bucks. What am I supposed to do, take it out of your allowance?”

  Frank laughed and Silk glared at him. Frank studied the shifting flames in the gas fireplace, looking for a pattern.

  “They had us in the fucking bag,” Nash said. His voice was low, calm, unhurried. “Anybody would’ve dumped the stuff. Twenty kilos, Jesus. We’d of gone down for life.”

  Gary smiled. “Could work out that way anyhow, the way I see it.”

  “With all due respect, Mr Silk, what would you have done?”

  “Something different. Something a whole lot smarter. What happened after you deep-sixed my drugs?”

  “Nothing,” said Pat Nash. “The cops just veered away. It turned out what they were yelling was that we didn’t have any running lights.”

  “Which one of you assholes actually grabbed the bag and threw it overboard?”

  There was a pause, an ominous silence that was broken only by the thick wet sound of a drop of Oscar Peel’s blood hitting the tile hearth. And then Pat Nash said, “I did. It was my decision.�
�

  Gary said, “Put your clothes on, both of you.”

  While they were getting dressed, Gary went over to the bar and grabbed himself another beer. Pat Nash had been wearing knee-length black leather boots and dark green wide-wale cords, a black leather jacket. Oscar Peel had dressed less formally — faded Levis and a thick green and black plaid workshirt, a yellow rain slicker, black sneakers.

  “Take ’em back to the beach,” Gary told Frank. He pointed at Pat Nash. “Find someplace nice and quiet and leave him there.”

  “What about him?” said Frank, pointing his Colt at Oscar Peel.

  “Oscar can pull the trigger, then go find my drugs.” Gary smiled. “That okay with you, Oscar?”

  “Me’n Pat have been partners for years, Mr Silk. I mean, he’s almost my fucking brother-in-law, I’m married to his cousin.”

  “Do both of them,” Gary said to Frank.

  Frank nodded. He waved the Colt. “Let’s hit the road, fellas.”

  “You wanna take somebody else along, give you a hand?” said Gary.

  Frank gave Gary a look. Three years together and he still couldn’t tell when Gary was serious and when he was pulling his leg. “I’ll be okay,” Frank said.

  Gary shrugged.

  “I’m a married man,” said Oscar Peel. “I got a wife, a nice apartment ...”

  Silk turned to Pat Nash. “What about you, got any dependents?”

  Nash shook his head.

  “Your choice,” Silk said to Oscar Peel. “You do Pat or Frank shoots both of you.”

  Oscar Peel wiped his bloody hands together. He made a whining noise.

  “What?” said Gary.

  Peel nodded his head.

  “Is that a yes?”

  Oscar mumbled something.

  “Louder,” said Gary.

  “Yes,” whispered Oscar Peel.

  Gary anointed him with the racket. “You’ll shoot the fucker?”

  “Yes,” said Oscar, not much louder. He wiped his upper lip and his nose started bleeding again.

  “Right now, right this minute?” Gary’s eyes were hot and moist. Oscar stared at the carpet. “Don’t anybody move,” said Gary.