Fall Down Easy

by Laurence Gough

  Willows checked his watch. He said, “Was any member of your staff absent today?”

  The telephone on Ross’s desk warbled. A red light blinked on and off. He said, “No, everyone was here.” The phone continued to ring. He picked up, glanced at Willows and said, “Yes, just a moment,” and passed the phone to Willows.

  Willows listened for a moment, said, “Right away,” and hung up.

  Ross spread his arms wide and said, “Look, can I go home now? There was a piece on the six o’clock news. My daughter knows there was a shooting, and she’s worried sick.”

  Willows glanced at Bradley, who looked away. Willows asked Ross for his home address, repeated it back to him as he wrote it down in his notebook.

  Parker said, “Nice neighbourhood.”

  Ross thought it over, reluctantly agreed.

  Willows put away his pen, turned to Bradley. “Know how he got away?”

  “Clean,” said Bradley.

  “That’s right. The name Max Zimmerman mean anything to you?”

  Bradley shook his head, no.

  Willows said, “Max was his wheelman.”

  Parker listened to the staccato click of her heels on the blood-stained, bullet-scarred terrazzo as she walked towards the door. She broke stride and went into a brief tapdance routine she’d learned as a child, and had long forgotten that she still remembered. The acoustics were wonderful; the sound of her heel-and-toe work sharp and clear. Out on the sidewalk, the bank’s janitorial crew waited patiently for her to finish her act.

  *

  The traffic squad sergeant had sent a pisskid rookie off to a nearby deli to buy Max a disposable foam cup of strawberry tea and a couple of poppy-seed bagels crammed with bean-sprouts and cream cheese. Max had eaten and now was sprawled out on the backseat of the pisskid’s blue and white, watching the cops sniff his tires as he tried to figure out how he could sue the city for loss of income.

  The taxi had been turned into a ghost by the dusting of white fingerprint powder that covered it from bumper to bumper. When he’d seen what they were up to, Max had gone over there and told them flat out that the guy with the busted nose had touched a rear doorhandle and nothing else. They’d ignored him. Naturally. He’d been driving almost his whole adult life, and had long since become resigned to being treated as if he was several rungs down the evolutionary ladder from a jellyfish.

  But now he was shaking hands with a couple of cops who were treating him with a little respect; a gorgeous young woman named Claire and a guy, Jack, who had a nice smile and a solid but not overpowering grip. Max didn’t say a word but to his eyes Jack looked a little underfed and overworked. The woman seemed to get along okay with her partner even though Max thought he wasn’t quite right for her, was maybe a little too old around the eyes.

  *

  Max expected the cops to come on like gangbusters, beat on his ears about the guy who’d stuck a gun in his face and stiffed him for a three-dollar fare. Instead, they made a point of asking him if he was okay, was he offered medical attention, did he get enough to eat … Nice.

  And when they finally got down to nuts and bolts, Claire asking most of the questions and jack slipping in one of his own now and then but mostly hanging back, they both listened carefully to his every word, treating him with respect.

  He admitted he’d hardly even looked at the guy, until the gun came out. And after that, he’d been twice as careful to keep his eyes down. But he was able to give them a general description, height and weight, remembered that the guy’s nose was smeared all over his face, that his ears were pretty banged up, lots of scar tissue.

  Jack wrote it all down.

  Parker said, “That’s pretty good, Max. Anything else?”

  “You mean about the way he looked?”

  “Anything at all,” said Parker, smiling.

  “Well, he was pretty tense. But I got the impression that how things went was up to me. He wasn’t like a lot of guys nowadays, that bust people up just for the fun of it.”

  Parker wrote her home phone number on a cream-colored card. “We’ll be in touch, Max. But if you should happen to think of anything in the meantime … ”

  Max said, “He took my bankroll, plus I got stiffed for the fare. A hundred eighty, easy. Can you help me with that, talk to somebody at city hall?”

  He saw that he’d been right about Jack. The guy was definitely looking a little old around the eyes.

  One of the robbery squad team — “Windy” Windfelt, a tall, overweight guy with unfocused eyes and a heavily waxed wraparound moustache — had pulled a large metal key ring out of his pants pocket about ten minutes ago, and had kept himself amused rotating keys to the apex of the key ring, trying to balance them on end. As he let go of each key and it inevitably tumbled and slid down the ring, he’d utter a little grunt of frustration, and try again with the next key on the ring. The jangling was starting to grate on Willows’ nerves.

  Windy’s partner, Sherman “Fireplug” O’Neill, had made the force when the mayor degraded the height requirement to tempt the ethnic vote. Fireplug was five feet eight inches tall and weighed a hundred eighty pounds. His explosive temper was legendary, his weakness for bright red shirts well-documented. Mel Dutton claimed to have taken a photograph of him being urinated on by a cockatoo outside the Hong Kong Bank of Canada at Cambie and 42nd, but nobody had ever seen it.

  Neither cop was very happy about turning the Bank of Montreal heist over to Willows and Parker. As they’d viewed the grainy black and white film from the bank’s surviving security cameras, both detectives had become convinced that the guy they called “The Magician” had scored again.

  And now that he’d actually used his gun, they wanted his ass real bad.

  Parker said, “I still don’t get it. You’ve got him pegged for what, twelve or thirteen heists?”

  “Right,” said Windy. “The guy’s scored more times than Wayne Gretzky”

  “Or even me,” said Fireplug.

  “But nobody’s ID’d him, you don’t have any physical evidence, the MO’s never the same … ”

  Fireplug turned to Parker. “Ever get a hunch so strong it makes your hair stand up on end?” He grinned. “No, I guess not.” He tried Willows. “Jack?”

  Willows nodded without enthusiasm. It was late — a gallon of coffee and too many donuts past midnight. The unburnt adrenalin had left a sour taste in his mouth. He was tired and cranky.

  Fireplug said, “What I’m talking about, me and Windy, we’re both absolutely convinced that asshole up there on the screen is a one-man crime wave.”

  Cops were such macho, hunch-brained … Parker stared at the monitor.

  They were getting to it now, the perp walking up to the teller’s cage and the woman, Hilary Fletcher, smiling at him and then standing frozen for a moment before her mouth opened wide and she started screaming. Then he must have said something to her, something to make her shut her mouth, yank open the cash drawer and begin pushing money across the counter … There was nothing in the witness report about him speaking to her. Maybe it was just the initial reaction, fear, supplanted by shock. She’d forgotten to step on the silent alarm button or pass the wad of bills containing the dye bomb.

  She’d done a great job of screaming, though. Too bad it was a silent movie.

  Martin Ross had said it was the teller’s scream that brought him out of his office.

  There he was, on cue, coming into frame from bottom right.

  The victim was waving something that looked like a badge. He had a gun, too. The 32. Now the perp had his piece out. The 9mm semi-auto, the Browning. Parker clearly saw the perp shift his grip, his thumb come up on the hammer, the tendons of his wrist stand out as he cocked the weapon.

  The perp and victim exchanged shots. The victim got off two quick rounds. The perp got off eleven. Parker’d counted the spent 9mm cartridges that were now bouncing off the terrazzo and out of frame. The victim raised his arms as if to ward off a blow. The badge —
if that’s what it was — fell out of his hand and skittered across the shiny waxed floor. The perp’s last round caught him just above the right eye. Suddenly he looked as if he’d had all the sawdust let out of him.

  Dead.

  Deader than silent movies.

  He dropped.

  Camera two. Hilary screaming silently, pounding the counter with both hands. A ballpoint pen leapt out of its holder and rolled across the counter and disappeared out of frame.

  The other teller’s eyes were squeezed shut and she had her hands in the air.

  Boss clutched at the perp’s ankle, brought him down. The perp stuck the Browning’s muzzle up against Ross’s skull, then changed his mind and used the weapon as a club, mussed the banker’s silvery hair.

  Parker stared at the monitor.

  Fireplug said, “The guy moves like a pug, don’t he? Kind of a sideways shuffle, hunches his shoulders … ”

  Parker said, “You think he’s the same guy, wearing different faces. Different personalities, even. Could he be an actor?”

  “Or an actress,” said Windfelt, “for all we know.”

  “If that’s makeup he’s wearing, he’s wearing a lot of it. You check to see if he’s in the film business, TV, or a related industry, modelling … ”

  Fireplug said, “You think the perp could be a makeup artist?”

  Parker nodded.

  Windfelt said, “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause we wore out a couple of pairs of shoes each, checking it out.”

  “Expensive shoes,” said Fireplug.

  Windfelt nodded his agreement. His eyes were sunk low in their sockets. He had all the charisma and spark of an elderly basset hound.

  Ninety seconds later — the time recorded on the tape was 5:06:42 — the shooter hurried off camera. At 5:06:59 the bank was flooded with blue uniforms. A moment later, the videotape ended and the machine automatically began to rewind.

  Parker stifled a yawn.

  Fireplug said, “Bored? I got some terrific footage of that jewellery store robbery in Chinatown last month, the owner goes for his baseball bat and gets his ear shot off.”

  Willows said, “You catch those guys?”

  “Nope. Recovered the ear, though.”

  Parker said, “That’s the Asian Crimes Squad. What are you doing with the film?”

  “We rented it.”

  “They got a better selection than Blockbuster Video,” said Fireplug, “and they don’t charge any tax. But don’t forget to rewind, or they’ll cut your nuts off.” He gave Parker a slow wink. “Or whatever.”

  Parker said, “I’ll bet you don’t worry about that as much as most of the guys.”

  Fireplug leaned forward in his chair. “Why’s that?”

  “Less to lose,” said Parker.

  They rolled the film again. The perp walked up to Hilary. She cocked her head to one side, hair falling on her shoulder. Then started screaming.

  Fireplug said, “Terrific body. Real nice hair. A natural blonde, too.”

  “Strawberry blonde,” said Windy. “Twenty years old. I asked could I see her driver’s licence. Twenty! Can you remember that far back?”

  “If she helped me out a little, I bet I could.”

  The phone on the desk at the front of the room rang shrilly. Fireplug and Windy paid no attention at first, but after a moment, they turned on Parker. The look in their eyes was slightly puzzled, mildly disappointed.

  Fireplug said, “They didn’t teach you how to answer a phone at the Academy?”

  “I must’ve missed it. Probably I was off somewhere learning how to wash dishes.”

  The phone fell silent, and then began ringing again. Willows pushed out of his chair and walked the length of the room and picked up. He listened for a moment, said, “Yeah, we’ll be there,” glanced at Fireplug, and hung up.

  Windy said, “What was that all about?”

  Willows walked back to his chair, but didn’t sit down. He said, “Official police business.”

  “Don’t gimme that shit. Why’d you look at Fireplug like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “You know what I’m talking about, Jack.”

  Willows grabbed his jacket. “Let’s call it a night, Claire.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Fireplug. “I was gonna suggest we go out for Chinese.”

  Windy gave Willows an evil grin, whispered, “Bet you got something even tastier in mind, right?”

  “Right,” said Willows, smiling back. The phone call had come from the morgue. Two spent 38 calibre and nine spent 9mm rounds had been dug from the bank’s ceiling and walls. The coroner had phoned to let Willows and Parker know he was ready to take up the hunt for the two missing rounds.

  *

  The City Morgue is located on Cordova, just around the corner from 312 Main. It’s an old building, three floors high, with a facade of pale orange brick, white-painted mullioned windows, an antique cast-iron skylight on the top-floor ceiling.

  The pathologist, Christy Kirkpatrick, was a large, heavily boned man in his mid-fifties. He glanced up from a tattered copy of Mad magazine when Willows and Parker entered the room, said, “About time you got here”

  “Lonely?” asked Willows.

  Kirkpatrick offered his freckled hand. “Nice to see you, Claire.”

  “And you, Christy.”

  Kirkpatrick held up the magazine. “Haven’t read this stuff since I was a kid — I’d forgotten how good it is.” He rolled up the magazine, shoved it into the back pocket of his crisp white lab coat. “Windy and Fireplug couldn’t make it?”

  “They weren’t invited.”

  “Might as well get started, then.” Kirkpatrick adjusted his facemask and tapped the microphone at the end of a metal stalk fixed to the ceiling above the autopsy table. He noted the time and date and gently pulled the pale blue sheet off the corpse. As he folded the sheet he said, “What we have here is a male of apparent South American descent, John Doe number nine two dash four seven. All we can say for sure about him is that he isn’t Elvis.” Kirkpatrick smiled at Parker. “Know why I’m sure he isn’t Elvis?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Because he’s dead.” When Kirkpatrick stopped chuckling, he noted the corpse’s length in centimetres and weight in kilos. He made a minor adjustment to the angle of the microphone, cleared his throat, and said, “I’m now about to make the initial incision.”

  It was a warning, a formal declaration of intent. Christy Kirkpatrick’s eyes above the cloth facemask were a cheerful, mischievous blue. The blade of the scalpel hung steady for a moment, a motionless sliver of light, and then descended, melted into melting flesh.

  Parker’s mouth was dry. The blood churned in her veins. She glanced at Willows, then Kirkpatrick, down at the body.

  Star players in another silent movie.

  Seven

  The telephone was a see-through model with colourful bands of blue and pink neon that more or less matched the decor of Hilary’s apartment. She’d bought the phone at a mall outside Bellingham, smuggled it across the border in the trunk of her car. The phone wasn’t cheap — she’d paid forty-nine dollars and fifty cents for it in US funds. She hadn’t bothered to save the receipt because the sales clerk told her that the moment she crossed the border the warranty was null and void.

  The instant she lifted the receiver off its cradle it began sounding a busy signal. Hilary felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She knew exactly what had happened — Greg’d thrown the phone at the wall and scrambled the instrument’s electronic innards so badly that it was no longer able to digest information. What a jerk.

  There was an identical forty-nine dollar and fifty cent phone in the bedroom, but she didn’t want to go in there because she was afraid of what she might see. For example, what if Greg had fouled the bed in some awful way? She stamped her pretty foot, but the carpet easily absorbed the blow.

  Randy’s eyes blinked open. He cl
utched at the coffee table, sent an ashtray spinning.

  Hilary said, “Poor baby.” She sounded pissed.

  Randy said, “If you’re calling Domino’s, forget it. I don’t want a pizza anymore.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Randy sat up a little straighter. Everything hurt but nothing was broken. He pointed at the phone. “Who’re you calling?”

  “The police, but I can’t get through.”

  Randy said, “Good.” He stood up, flexed his knee. It was a little stiff, but otherwise okay. He gingerly explored his skull. It felt as if someone’d slipped a walnut under his skin, but there was no blood. Lucky thing. He stained Hilary’s bone-white flokati, there was no telling what she might do. Finish him off, maybe.

  Randy said, “How long was I out?”

  “You didn’t miss anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Randy found that when he trusted his knee with his weight, the pain was pretty intense. He limped into the bedroom. His brand-new stainless steel handcuffs were gone. So were the Polaroids. The camera wasn’t going to capture any more magic moments — it was in splinters. His new suit was still hanging in the closet, thank the Lord, but his wallet lay on the floor and his credit cards and the two hundred and fifty bucks he’d withdrawn from his checking account that morning were gone.

  Sonofabitch!

  Randy slammed shut the closet door hard enough to cause a shockwave of air to rattle the hangers.

  Hilary, lounging hip-cocked against the bedroom door, said, “If you’re going to indulge in a tantrum, I’d much prefer you went somewhere else and did it.”

  Randy said, “I’m gone six months, it’s a long time, I don’t expect you to hold your breath. But a guy like that … “

  “He isn’t that bad. Everything would’ve been just fine if you’d let him look for his briefcase.”

  “And you did have a date with him tonight, didn’t you?”

  “I was held up, remember? I had other things on my mind.”

  “Where’d you meet him?”

  “What difference does it make — or are you the only one allowed to ask the questions?”

  Randy said, “He took the pictures. What d’you think he’s going to do with them?”