Never Play Another Man's Game

by Mike Knowles

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I came to sitting in an uncomfortable position. The hard wooden chair under me dug hard into my spine; I tried to readjust, but my hands and feet couldn’t move. My fingers explored the bindings and I realized that they had tied me tight. The rope was thick and the knots were complicated. My gun was gone and I could feel a lump pulling at the tight skin of my scalp. Franky was in front of me, still on his futon. He was awake now and propped up on some pillows so that he could see me.

  “Hey, Franky,” I said.

  Franky’s half-lidded eyes blazed for a second and I noticed a new bandage over the wound I had opened on his face. He wasn’t happy to see me.

  “Where are Ruby and Rick, Franky?”

  “Fuck you,” he said. The words seemed to seep through his clenched teeth.

  “They coming back for you?”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about them.”

  I turned my head to the doorway and saw Ken standing there.

  “Doctor Parish, I presume.”

  “Funny, but I’m no doctor, just an old grunt. I could never prescribe anything that didn’t come in a rucksack, but I can patch a man up — the army taught me that much. Know what else the army taught me? How to sleep light.”

  Ken came into the room and stood behind me. His two hands gripped my shoulders and began to roughly massage them. When I next heard his voice, it was right in my ear. “Are you the one who shot up Franky?”

  “Yeah.” Franky’s voice was so low it was hard to hear.

  “Franky tried to make off with my money,” I said. “He got himself shot.”

  “Your money. It was an armoured car’s money, if I heard the story right.”

  “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” I said.

  “You stole it from them and he stole it from you. How mad could you be at someone who did exactly the same thing you did?”

  “Plenty,” I said.

  “So you believe in honour among thieves?”

  “I believe in getting paid.”

  “Not revenge?”

  “Revenge doesn’t pay the bills.”

  “I believe in revenge, boy. I’m serious about it, like a religion, and I know some other people who will share my interest. Believe me, they can’t wait to see you again.”

  I felt a sharp pain in the side of my neck like a bee sting. I turtled my neck into my shoulders instinctively and the insect went away. The pain faded away fast as the futon went out of focus. My eyes started to have trouble staying open. Finally, everything went black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The taste in my mouth was what woke me. My tongue was dry and every time I swallowed, I re-sampled the stale, rotten flavour. I opened my eyes and the futon was in focus again. Franky was still in bed, but no longer propped up; he was lying flat with his head on a single pillow. Ruby Chu sat in a chair next to the bed holding his hand.

  “You’ve been a bad girl, Ruby,” I said.

  She looked up from the bed and found my eyes. “Look what you did to him.”

  I looked around the room. The walls were white and there was a television on top of a chipped and scuffed stand in the corner.

  “He needed his hand held all the way through the job. What made you think he’d be able to help you pull a double cross?”

  Ruby ignored my question. “He won’t wake up. Yesterday, he made jokes with me, funny jokes, but now he won’t wake up.”

  “Bullets tend to make people do funny things, Ruby.”

  She dropped Franky’s hand and lunged towards me. “Don’t you make jokes about this. My son is dying because of you.”

  “Son? You said Rick was your son.”

  “They’re both my sons.”

  I hadn’t seen it. Ruby must’ve known I wouldn’t, otherwise she would have never let Franky be a part of the job. Other than skin tone, Franky didn’t have any of Ruby’s features; he took after Ken and his Anglo ancestors. I laughed loud and long. The sound was unnatural in the room and it made Ruby uncomfortable enough to take a step back. “Very fucking sly, Ruby. Is my uncle really the father of your oldest?”

  She picked up Franky’s hand again. “No, Ken is their father.”

  “So it was all bullshit from the start. Why?”

  “I needed the money,” Ruby said.

  “You did, or Rick did?”

  “Rick did,” she said. “He owed the triad. That much was true.”

  “How much did he owe?”

  “More than his share.”

  “So you decided to cut me and D.B. out.”

  “I had no choice. I told you, a mother will do anything to protect her child.”

  Ruby stood up and walked towards me. “How did you find Franky?”

  “It’s what I do, Ruby. I find people.”

  “And you kill them. That’s what you came to do, isn’t it? Kill my son?” Ruby pulled my Glock from the front pocket of her hooded sweatshirt and put it against my temple.

  “I came for my money,” I said.

  “Too late. The money is all gone.” The front sight of the gun dug hard into my skin and I felt a trickle of blood roll down my cheek.

  “Then you’re in some trouble,” I said.

  Ruby laughed. It was a witch’s laugh, full of malice and evil. “I think you have it backwards.” She pressed the gun harder against my head and pursed her lips.

  “You check the news today?”

  The question fazed her. “What?”

  “The news. Did you watch it?”

  “I’ve had more important things going on.”

  “Before you pull the trigger, you might want to turn on the television.”

  “I know what we did will be on the TV. I always knew that.”

  “It’s better than that, Ruby. Turn on the TV and see if you still want to kill me.”

  I knew it wouldn’t take much to get Ruby to postpone killing me. I had felt the gun shaking against my head. She didn’t have the guts for up-close wet work.

  She placed the gun on the edge of the futon and walked over to the television in the corner. She found the local news channel and waited, with her back to me, for the commercials to end. She had said Franky had been talking yesterday, meaning it was now today. I said a silent prayer to whatever gods watched over people like me that it was late enough for the morning news to be on. The news came back on and I watched the highlights from last night’s Leafs game through the gap between Ruby’s elbow and her body.

  “What time is it?”

  Ruby didn’t turn to look at me. “TV says five forty-five.”

  “Wait for the headlines at six.”

  “We’ll see,” she said. Her voice was monotone, almost robotic.

  We watched the sports and celebrity highlights. The final commercials before the headlines came on when Ken came back.

  “You didn’t do it.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not? What the hell are you doing?”

  “Just wait,” Ruby said. “Something isn’t right.”

  A third voice sounded in the room. This voice was reverberating with rage. “What’s not right is that this motherfucker is still breathing.”

  I heard Rick coming across the floor; I knew better than to look in his direction. The punch would be coming and meeting it face first would be just stupid. I shrugged my shoulders and the punch glanced off the top of my skull. The second punch was a hook to the back of my head. The force of the blow sent the chair tilting forward on two legs. I hung in the air, between falling forward and back, until the momentum ran out and the chair slapped back down again. Rick stepped in front of me cradling his right hand. The punching was over and the kicking was just getting started.

  “Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker.” Rick kept swearing and kicking. The first was the worst; every subsequent kick had less fire behind it. The kicks kept pushing the chair backwards, tilted on the rear legs, a few inches at a time. I took the fourth kick in the chest and
gave it a little extra juice with my feet. The chair went over and broke on impact; Rick’s feet followed me to the floor like an angry swarm of bees. The kicks to my head had me seeing white fireworks and losing sight of the futon all over again. The beating only ended when Ruby yelled, “Oh my God! David, look at the television!”

  I saw Rick, who apparently also answered to David, wind up again, but Ruby grabbed a hold of him and twisted his face towards the small television in the corner.

  “Holy shit,” he said.

  I could hear the news anchor in the sudden silence:

  Hamilton Police have confirmed that they have two suspects in yesterday’s brazen robbery of an armoured car on the Hamilton Mountain. Information on the identity of the robbers given to the Hamilton Herald has been confirmed by Detective John Campbell. The suspects are Ruby Chu and her son Rick Chu. Police will not say the role each played in the robbery, but anyone with information about the pair is asked to call Crimestoppers or the Hamilton Police.

  “Holy shit, they have our pictures,” David said.

  Ken shushed him.

  Police have released the following footage from inside the grocery store yesterday morning. In the circle you can clearly make out one of the suspects. Police say Ruby Chu is known to police and sources say that she has an extensive criminal record.

  The video of Ruby in the store played on the screen. The news was nice enough to put a highlighted circle around Ruby while she lifted the guard’s keys.

  When the next story started, everyone turned around to look at me. Their faces all had the same look of bewilderment. That was good. It meant none of their faces had to change when they saw me on my knees holding the Glock.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Ken might have been a good medic and a light sleeper, but he was shit at tying people up. Instead of binding my wrists together, he had tied my arms to the chair by wrapping the rope around my body; my feet were wrapped the same way. When the chair went over, the frame broke and the rope loosened enough for me to move my hands. I was able to shimmy my way back across the floor to the futon while Ruby, Ken, and their boy watched themselves on the news.

  The beating had been loud enough to rouse Franky from his sleep and he had managed to prop himself up on his elbow. His eyes were wide as he watched me coming for the gun Ruby had left on the futon. He tried to mouth words of warning to his family, but he didn’t have it in him.

  Every inch was a fight. I was swallowing mouthfuls of blood and spit and I had to constantly wipe my eyes on my shirt so that I could see. I got to my knees as the video of Ruby in the grocery store started playing. I made eye contact with Franky and gave him a painful wink before twisting my body and picking up the gun Ruby had pointed at my head a few minutes before.

  The rope was still wrapped around my body and there were still parts of the chair hanging off my back. There was just enough slack for my hand to get a hold of the gun. I held the Glock at my side the same way Bogey used to in the movies. It wasn’t the way I wanted to hold the gun, but if it worked for Philip Marlowe, who was I to complain?

  Eight eyes were all on me and the barrel of the gun aimed at Rick’s groin; I said, “Let’s talk.” The words fell out of my mouth and I heard myself slur the S and the T so that it sounded like “Letshstalk.” If anyone had any trouble understanding me, they didn’t say anything.

  “Turn off the television,” I said.

  “How did they get our pictures and my name?” Ruby demanded.

  I shot the screen. Ruby and Ken jumped a second too late. The bullet had already travelled between them and bored its way through the TV. David started backing away from the gun, but I waved him back to his family.

  “Sit on the floor,” I said.

  This time no one said anything. Everyone did as they were told.

  “I gave the papers your name and picture. They know all about you.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Ruby hissed.

  “You try and kill someone, make sure they die. The living have a hell of a way of fucking things up,” I said.

  Ruby’s lips quivered and she started to cry. Ken reached for her and I said, “Stop.”

  “What the hell are we going to do?” David asked. “I’m not going to jail.”

  “Jail is the least of your problems.” That got me a look from everyone.

  “You going to shoot us?” Ruby said. Her face was a wicked mask of anger and hatred.

  “I don’t mean me. Junior here shot D.B. up, but he didn’t finish the big guy off. You’ve got a few hours until Roland reads the paper. By then, you might be better off just turning yourself in.”

  “Who the hell is Roland?” Ken asked.

  David shrugged.

  “Tell them, Ruby.”

  Ruby’s mouth stayed shut. Her eyes said it all; they were glassed over with tears. Eventually, the water crested and spilled down her cheeks.

  I sighed and swallowed a mouthful of blood. “Roland is in charge of the Forty Thieves. D.B. is his lieutenant. Your son shot D.B., Ken. Roland didn’t know what kind of job his second in command was moonlighting on, but he sure as hell knows he was shot up. He would have figured out how it happened when he heard about the armoured car, and when he reads the papers, he’ll know who did it. He’ll be looking for you two. Bikers love settling scores. He’ll want the money too — all of it. He’ll take it personal that you used one of his guys and never cut him in. When he hears that it was you two that did it, he’ll come looking for his cut and to make a few cuts of his own.”

  Ken whirled on David. “Is this true? You shot a biker?”

  “Ma said we had to. There was no other way to get the money.”

  Ken looked at Ruby. “How could you let this happen?”

  “Let? We didn’t have a choice. He needed the money and it was the only way.”

  Ken shoved David. “The money! The money! Look what happened because of your stupid gambling. As if gambling hasn’t cost us enough.”

  “What is he talking about?” I asked.

  “None of your business,” Ruby snapped.

  “No, why shouldn’t the man with the gun in my house, the man who shot my Franky, why shouldn’t he know about that?” Ken looked at me; his face was flush. “Why do you think she’s still working? Why do you think she’s gone so low that she has to fake cancer? She’s broke. She gambled everything away. And this one,” he said pointing to David with a finger shaking with anger. “He picked up right where she left off. Except he wasn’t happy with bingo and slots. No, he played for big money and lost more than his mother could have if she had twenty more years and four more hands for stamping those fucking cards.”

  “You drank everything you had,” Ruby shouted. “Don’t act like you’re better.”

  “But I still have my house. I didn’t swallow that. What do you have?”

  “You don’t own your house, Ruby?”

  Ken laughed. “She doesn’t have a house. When she’s not convincing people to donate money for her expensive treatments the horrible government won’t sponsor, she’s out conning her way into other people’s houses. She finds terminal cases in the hospital with no family and steals their keys so she can sell off everything they own while she squats.”

  I pointed the gun at Ruby and she started to creep backwards. “Goddamn,” I said. “It was so perfect, I didn’t see it. You were penniless, cancer stricken; the only thing you had left was a house. And what did I need? A fucking house.”

  Ruby wouldn’t meet my eye.

  “Look at me.”

  She shook her head. I twisted my torso and felt my body complain. After a few twists, the rope and the pieces of chair tied to my back fell to the floor. I lifted the gun until it was pointed at the frail body on the bed.

  “How about now?”

  Ruby flashed me a look probably expecting to see the gun in her face. When she saw Franky in front of the business end, she said, “Please, no.”

  I could barely see Ruby’s look of p
leading terror because of the blood in my eyes. I swallowed some more of the blood in my mouth and used my free hand to pull a bit of my shirt across my eyes. The second of blindness was what David was waiting for. I heard him slide off the floor while the shirt scraped the blood off my face. I gave David a second to get up, knowing that like most people, he would use his hands to get off the ground. There would be a split second when his arms had just finished their push and his legs were taking over. As the shirt fell away, I saw my opening. The butt of the Glock hit David in the temple. He was three-quarters of the way to his full height, with his hands still below his waist, when the blow to the head sent him tipping into the wall. His head and shoulders put a hole in the drywall and then the floor caught him.

  I put the gun back on Franky and said, “Put your cards on the table, Ruby. All of them.”

  Ruby rubbed the tears off her cheeks. “I heard that you were back in town. I remembered your uncle’s place, so I looked there first. I knew you wouldn’t help me, not on a job like this, but I needed you. I needed someone who would be able to rob the truck without a whole crew.”

  “A crew would be harder to kill,” I said.

  Ruby nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t sign on, not unless you needed something. So I called the police and told them about the house.”

  I wanted to pull the trigger. Put Franky out of his misery and watch Ruby dive head first into hers. My finger tensed on the trigger, and it hovered between life and death. I reluctantly chose life.

  Ruby kept talking. “I’d been using the cancer con to get into cancer clinics and hospital rooms, but I knew that it wouldn’t be enough to get you on board. Too much like your uncle. No feelings in you; none human, anyway.”

  “So why bother telling me David here was my cousin Rick?”

  “So you’d think I was trying to use your emotions to get what I wanted. It’s like making a bad play for your watch when what I really want is your wallet. If you thought you had me figured out, you wouldn’t be so suspicious of the job. You might not feel, but you’re greedy like everyone else. I needed you to see the job and decide you wanted it for the money. I let you think I was trying to con you with family when I was really pulling on your need for money. The cancer kept you from wondering about the serendipity of me offering you a house at the exact time you needed one. No one suspects cancer patients of doing anything wrong; believe me, I know. People in those clinics tell me things that they wouldn’t say to anyone else because they’re too busy pitying me to think I could ever be up to something. Even when I stand outside the clinic smoking, no one ever says a thing. They think I deserve the cigarette, like I’ve earned it. They never hassle me because cancer gets everyone a free pass.”