But, eventually, Jacquie was walked to the doorway, her mouth still covered and her wrists still bound. Serena grasped her tightly from behind, still holding the knife to her throat.
Outside, the Mountie sniper trained his night-sight crosshairs on Serena and waited for the order.
Ignoring the peril around her, Serena purred, “Come over here, my sweet Vicar.”
Holding out his hands in front of him, palms out, Vicar moved deliberately to within arm’s reach of Jacquie. Her quaking and her bleeding neck spoke volumes. For a long moment, Vicar peered into her frightened eyes, attempting to reassure her wordlessly. He couldn’t be that sure he was having any effect on Jacquie, though, and he was afraid to lose his concentration on Serena — she was an armed threat and literally inches away.
There was a pregnant pause, then Serena flung Jacquie away from her and grabbed Vicar by the collar, covering her body with his and poking the knife a little too hard into his lower jaw.
The sniper tensed but held his fire. No command came. There was simply no room for error, and apparently Serena was canny enough not to make herself a target.
Vicar yelped, and Serena pulled him backward into the building along with her.
Jacquie ran stumbling toward the nearest Mountie and fell into his arms. The huge moustachioed corporal bear-hugged her, spun his back to the threat, and moved her quickly to safety as easily as picking up a jar of honey.
She collapsed and began to weep as a paramedic extricated her from the rest of the duct tape. She couldn’t believe Vicar had surrendered himself to Serena in order to save her. She was stunned, overwhelmed.
“Out of the frying pan, into the fire,” the hostage negotiator muttered.
---
Poutine was nowhere near as stealthy as Farley. He stumbled through the bush, tripping in the dark, making a racket that should have sent even the most aged and feeble forest creatures scattering. But there had been so much screaming and bullhorn crackling going on that he had managed to bumble up to the little portal — adorned with the drape of an unconscious bad guy — without being noticed.
Farley caught sight of Poutine when he was only a few feet away and frantically put his finger to his lips in a silent but desperate shush. Poutine, highly aggrieved by his stumbling journey and its attendant inconvenience, growled inwardly and moved aside so he could not be seen by anyone.
Farley watched as the baddies moved toward the far wall to scream back at the cops. He reached his hand through the hole and yanked Poutine inside the structure. The noise Poutine made was ungodly; hoarsely rasping curses like a longshoreman, his eyes burning with fury.
“Sonofabitch, Farley!” he rasped. “What the hell are you doing?”
Farley explained what he knew and that he had “improved the odds.” Poutine immediately got the picture. He looked curiously at Farley, who seemed to have transformed. Poutine wanted to do a double take to make sure this was the same guy he’d encountered two hours ago.
He was still mad at Farley for making him wade into all this crap, but since they were both here, he figured they could join forces and probably do in the last two goons. He was old, but he wasn’t useless. And he was damned angry. His Levi’s jacket was now torn to shit. Goddamn. He’d won it in a line-dancing competition in Williams Lake.
Thirty-Four / Cheese in
Many Forms
“Don’t be frightened, my Vicar. This is meant to be.”
Serena’s mad eyes seemed to be spinning and throbbing like fairground attractions as she gazed at him. Vicar knew in that moment that he’d have to step up himself and bring all of this to a close, without delay.
“With your power and my power combined, we can have anything.” She wasn’t exactly raving, but she was damned close.
Vicar glanced at the knife in her hand and swallowed once. He sat down in the taped-up chair, then launched into his plan.
“Yes, my love,” he said. Hearing this, her eyes flashed like summer lightning. “I knew we were meant to be.”
With that, she began to writhe, looking like a cat trying to cough up a furball. Her face flushed and her lips pouted. Yeesh, thought Vicar, that’s a bit much, isn’t it? Improvising now, he held out his open hands and extended cautiously toward her. He put one hand on her ample chest and the other on her abdomen.
“Can you feel our connection?” His question was as cornball as Darth Vader in drama class. He felt precisely the same as he had the day he’d fake-cried so he could skip out of school due to “a death in the family.” He was nervous, but he forced himself to stay in control. If he maintained the upper hand, he could steer this, but if he lost his mojo, then she or one of her half-witted gang might kill him or someone else. He scanned the room for firearms and bolstered his courage by thinking about the sort of blockheads who took made-up stories from pulpy gossip magazines like E-Obsession as gospel. Maybe Serena would buy this …
She did. She began moaning orgasmically, her tighty-whities-clad hips thrusting. Vicar couldn’t believe his eyes. For the first time in his life, he fully understood what it meant to be beside yourself. He felt as if he were watching the action from a distance, and he couldn’t decide if it was hilarious, deadly, or otherworldly. He felt as if his body were being pulled long and tall, like he was watching a distressing optical illusion. His brain could not connect to the melodramatic hypersexuality displayed for his sake, or the surreal but deadly circumstances surrounding it.
“Sing to me, my Vicar,” Serena whispered.
Vicar looked up at her, trying to hide his panic. “Sing? Now?”
“Sing now.”
He couldn’t tell if she was asking or ordering. Mentally, he was on Super Slider Sno-Skates and heading downhill fast. He skittered around in his head, desperately trying to remember a song to sing. Any song. He had to keep the ball rolling.
He squinted desperately, then flailed and grabbed at the only song that came to his panicked mind. Fixating on her long legs, he tremulously crooned, “… You are the wind between my knees.” He whimpered the lyrics like some palsied Chris de Burgh at climax. Horrified with himself, he looked down at the floor, positive he’d really pulled a Farley. Shit! I can’t be serious even when it’s life and death! He began internally screaming at himself. For all that was holy, how had he dredged up that send-up? Nervously, he looked up, expecting a very bad outcome.
Instead, he had to quickly force his head and chin backward to avoid being whacked by Serena’s spasming crotch. All the while, she brandished the fromage knife, slicing to and fro near Vicar’s neck and face. Trapped in the sphere of her bizarre psychosexual dance, he gritted his teeth and hoped she wasn’t headed southward with that damned knife blade. He swivelled his crotch as far away from her as he could.
Behind him, Jeet watched in disgusted silence. Such bullshit. What a fake bitch. Black, bitter jealousy began burning a hole in his brain.
Andy had taken notice of Dooley and Marco’s absence and set out to locate them, though he knew it might be tough, because it was totally dark now. He moved deliberately so that the long, flickering shadows didn’t trip him up. He peered out a knothole to one side but could see nothing. Out the other side, he could see floodlights shining and police wig-wags blinking. But no one moved out there.
Jeet had the front covered. So, there was only the back corner left to check. Andy stumbled through the dark, brick-strewn passageway and spied the outdoors through the small portal there. There was some ambient light coming from the police cars, making his path easier to see. He moved down what must once have been a hallway between offices or machine rooms and picked up speed as he moved toward the window, just as the po-po blared their demands on the bullhorn again.
At that moment, Farley and Poutine both let go with their attack: a bong to the jaw simultaneous with the butt end of a two-by-four to the solar plexus. The RCMP blared something unintelligible, and Andy went down on the brick floor, not soon to get back up again.
Vicar heard the blaring bullhorn
and its insistent tone. He knew it was time to move this drama to its conclusion.
“Now, my queen, we must leave this place.” He feared he might be trowelling it on a bit thick, but then again, people seemed willing to believe anything these days. Serena’s breath was heaving; he thought she might hyperventilate and fall over, and that would be for the best. The sad thing was buying his overwrought play-acting hook, line, and sinker. He looked at her with genuine pathos. She truly was mentally disturbed and needed help — long-term professional help. As he peered into her eyes, she seemed to change from a lethal siren into a needy little girl. He could feel her deflating before him. He would take her outside and gently deliver her into the arms of the waiting Mounties, who he hoped would be kind. It was such a shame that her life had led her to this. The tables had turned; it was he, now, in firm control.
Staying as casual as he had the nerve to be, he stood up and took the knife from Serena as if he simply wanted to unencumber her hand so that he could hold it. He set the knife down in plain view on the little makeshift table.
“Let’s just go out there and make them take us somewhere nice.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. They can’t refuse me, can they?”
“No. No. They’ll do what you want. They’ll do it.” Serena was convincing herself that this was true. Everything would be all right. Her Vicar would fix it.
Vicar turned to Jeet, still brooding on the sidelines. “We are going to go outside. Do you want to follow us?”
Jeet turned away. “Yes,” he said darkly.
Vicar and Serena turned around and faced the wall, beyond which lay the police and everyone else who awaited in suspense. “Okay, let’s go out and do this,” he said, smiling at her. She kissed his cheek and then the back of his hand.
The pair slowly moved to the entrance. Vicar was determined to exit first and signal that he was safe, that they should stand down from high alert. It occurred to him that he should call out loudly and warn everyone before poking his head out.
And then, Jeet called out from behind. “Serena?”
She turned to face Jeet, and in that instant, he plunged the cheese knife deep into the flesh of her shoulder, near the collarbone, as he howled a blood-curdling scream. Serena emitted an agonized wail and collapsed instantly, blood spewing everywhere. Vicar spun around, shocked, only to see Jeet yanking the blade out of Serena and turning on him. Jeet’s arm came up, with the ludicrous but deadly fromage shank ready to do its dastardly work once more and be plunged into Vicar.
At that very second, from the shadows behind him emerged the wraithlike forms of Poutine and Farley, denim- and Dacron-clad, both swinging for the rafters. The sickening crunch that followed was heard as far away as the police cordon.
Jeet lay in a heap. Vicar stood a couple of feet away, white as a sheet and stammering. He could not credit what his eyes had just seen.
“Farley, you eedjut, you barked my knuckles.” Poutine looked at his bleeding fingers and wiped them on his Levi’s.
Farley was holding the stump of his prized bong, now broken in two, the bowl having blown clean off with this last swing. That bummed him out. He looked at Poutine’s bleeding fingers and at the forlorn remains of the bong. “Oh man …”
---
Frankie was all alone and slipping gently into the vasty deep. But she held on. She knew they’d come, and she’d stay until they did. That was her only concern now.
Thirty-Five / Arithmetic of
Aftermath
An ambulance had been ready and waiting at the Diefenbunker, so Serena survived the knife attack. Her carotid artery had been nicked, causing her to bleed profusely. It howled off at high speed as soon as they’d got her aboard. Her minions had to wait for more ambulances, but none of them was in any state to complain. To a man, they were unconscious, and the Diefenbunker was littered with recently “repurposed” teeth. Most of them suffered broken jaws, one of them a busted-up cheekbone, plus a small handful of badly distorted noses and cracked sternums. It was not pretty, and they were going to wake up in terrible pain. The Mounties were in disbelief that there hadn’t been any fatalities in the melee; they even made a second sweep to be sure they hadn’t missed anyone lying dead in the bush.
Jeet suffered the worst. The double smackdown delivered by Poutine and Farley had done such a number on him that he would certainly be eating through a straw for months. Vicar heard the paramedics bending over him gasp when he winced, showing that he was still alive. Jeet would forevermore bear the scars, physically and mentally, of his foolhardy adventure. There was no doubt that he was facing a long prison sentence, during which he could collect his thoughts and perhaps make a wiser plan for the future. What a stupid waste, Vicar thought.
He was sitting beside Jacquie O inside a police car, safe from onlookers, both staring straight ahead. He limply held her hand.
“She actually believed you could make the police go away and then take her off to some safe place?”
“Uhh, yeah.” Vicar shook his head, feeling a sharp pang of sadness about the whole sordid affair. He had no degree in psychology, he had no expert knowledge, yet what was wrong with Serena seemed as plain as the nose on his face. He didn’t need to hear the details about a wretched childhood or the betrayal of a father figure. He simply knew that the abuse you heaped on a child came back a thousand-fold. He imagined how much of a success Serena could have been, had her development not been cruelly disrupted. Dejected, Vicar turned his head and gazed out the window. He made out Becky and her mother in the crowd, standing behind the crime-scene-tape cordon and looking at him with big, silent eyes.
In a daze, Jacquie stared blankly at the scene, mesmerized by the pattern of blinking lights on the police cruisers, occasionally glancing at Vicar beside her. She was still shocked at how he’d surrendered himself to Serena’s will, yet still come out master of the situation. She was deeply impressed.
The hostage negotiator, his square jaw set grimly, was trying to make sense of it, too. For all his training, he didn’t understand at gut level what was wrong with Serena. Geared to think only pamphlet deep, his first instinct was that she lacked discipline or that her morality was flawed. Her long arrest record, he thought, was proof positive that she was just a bad seed.
But to Con-Con, it was like two plus two: good parents made good kids, who eventually made good grandkids. Not socially slick pretenders, flashy frenemies, but truly good and kind people, loving and selfless, folks who didn’t mind getting their hands dirty even when there was no one around to ooh and ahh about it. Who you were reflected who your ancestors were, in a long string that stretched as far back as anyone could remember. Changing the route of that string took guts, brains, and a lifetime of effort. But it could be done. Con-Con had seen it happen. She hoped Serena could yank her string and bring everything back to zero.
Thirty-Six / Quiet Departure
Vicar and Jacquie hustled into the hospital, rushing as quickly as they could without making much noise. They were filthy, sweaty, and not at all emotionally prepared to see Frankie. Jacquie was a shaky mess, her hair gobbed with adhesive from the tape. Vicar’s white shirt was spattered with blood that had exploded from Jeet’s face. More than anything, they both needed a hot shower, a proper meal, and a good night’s sleep.
Right now, Jeet was probably on a lower floor of this very hospital, being prepped for emergency surgery. Vicar felt an odd spasm of guilt, realizing that he didn’t feel the slightest bit of sympathy for Jeet. That knife had been a half second from putting Vicar in his grave. Surely, there would be a heavy price to pay for that. Jeet could reflect upon his stupidity for a few months while his jaw was wired shut.
In Frankie’s room, Vicar and Jacquie rushed to her and took her hands. Frankie opened her eyes a little. Vicar could see the faintest glimmer of recognition.
“We’re here, Frankie. Sorry it took so long,” he said in a low, quiet tone.
He gently squeezed Frankie’s hand.
She didn’t speak, but Vicar felt a weak, trembling squeeze in return. He glanced up at Jacquie, who had tears leaking out of her eyes. She had been through so much today, and now this. Vicar was afraid that she might collapse at any second, but of course, they’d had to come.
They stood awhile in thoughtful silence.
“Jacquie, I’m going to pop downstairs and get us a coffee, and maybe rustle up another chair, okay?”
She nodded with big, sad eyes. Vicar headed for the door.
“She’s stopped breathing,” Jacquie said suddenly.
Vicar whisked back to Frankie’s bedside and felt her wrist for a pulse. It was fading, with only random spasms pattering. Her hand twitched a few times. Her chest was no longer rising and falling.
“I think she’s gone.” Vicar pressed his fingers against her neck and felt nothing. He looked at Jacquie and shook his head slowly.
They stood there feeling sober and sad, totally exhausted and slightly lost. Jacquie began to sob quietly, and Vicar wiped away tears, too. For just a moment he wished that he truly could summon spirits. But he refused to believe his own press. They would not come when he called them, of that he felt sure. All he and Jacquie could do was to hold Frankie’s lifeless hands and absorb this latest shock. She had managed to hold on until they arrived, and then she’d let go, just like that.
After a few minutes, Vicar walked over to the nurse’s station. “She’s gone.”
The nurse put a stethoscope around her neck and led the way back to the room without saying a word.
Thirty-Seven / Hocus-Pocus
Frankie Hall had planned her own cremation years before, but there was no next of kin to make any additional arrangements. Realizing this, Vicar called the funeral home. He and Jacquie would give Frankie a proper memorial service when they could do so without the careless disruption of TV production trucks and uninvited visitors in used underwear. They would scatter her ashes later, when the time seemed right.
The Liquor Vicar Page 14
