Inside the house, Jake’s trusted right-hand man, Marty, said, ‘Here they come.’
‘Wunnerful,’ said Jake. He snapped his fingers. ‘Gimme muh wha-wha glaff.’
Marty went over to the fireplace and took the water glass down off the mantel. He averted his gaze but held the glass rock-steady as Jake fished around for his teeth.
‘Yeah, t’anks.’
The glass was empty, Jake’s mouth was full. It wasn’t just his natural-born teeth that had abandoned him. So had his good health. He was hard-wired to a portable oxygen tank. Not a small tank either, but something that would have looked at home strapped to the flank of a Saturn rocket. Flexible plastic tubes ran from the tank’s equalizer into Jake’s hirsute nostrils. His favourite chair, a souvenir from a long-ago trip to his native Italy, had recently been motorized and equipped with a set of wheels. An elevator would be installed as soon as Marty had dealt with the snails down at city hall.
Marty, like his father before him, had been working for the old man for as long as he could remember. No, much longer. Once, and one time only, he’d tried to shed Jake. Take the high road to his own low future. He hadn’t been able to pull it off. He was bound to Jake as if by a sticky spiderweb of blood.
Downstairs, the cops were pounding on the door.
‘Dere some kinda cop’ting against usin’ da buzza?’ complained Jake bitterly in his stones-rattled-in-tin-bucket voice.
The antique gangster’s ears clung to his head like outsize clumps of pizza dough cut to the shape of a butterfly’s wings. Ugly they might be, but man oh man, were they ever functional. Jake’s hearing was so sharp he could detect a dropped pin in a mattress factory. His mind, in Marty’s unhumble opinion, was sharper than a brand-new switchblade. For sure, age hadn’t mellowed him. His ruthlessness quotient was way up there in the stratosphere. If there was a Mensa equivalent for viciousness, Jake would have weighed in at the head of the class.
Large feet thumped ponderously on the stairs. Marty recognized Klaus’s loping, thunderous tread. Klaus, aka ‘Claws’ aka ‘Sandy,’ was another in a short, but not short enough, line of East German recruits that Jake regretted signing. The contracts were all the same. One year, plus option. A variety of performance bonuses based strictly on the number and seriousness of crimes successfully accomplished.
The bonuses usually were freshly laundered cash, but sometimes Jake handed out all-inclusive weekend trips to Vegas, or triple-A baseball or Grizzlies basketball tickets. The past winter, the local hockey team, the Canucks, had performed so badly that recipients of gift tickets correctly assumed they’d been given the equivalent of a black spot.
The cow bell cunningly located above the front door jangled a cheerful warning, as the door was opened.
Muted voices drifted up from below, and then Klaus bellowed, ‘Jake! Der polizei be mit us!’
‘Send’em up!’ hollered Jake.
Marty drifted over to the top of the stairs. In the foyer stood homicide dicks Jack Willows and his dishy partner, Claire. What a classy babe. In his bedroom wall safe, in the personal scrapbook he kept, even though the incriminating contents could lock him up for several lifetimes, Marty kept a dozen photographs of Parker that he’d clipped from local newspapers, over the years. He craned his neck so he could see her left hand, whether she was wearing a ring.
A couple of Jake’s recent acquisitions, identical twins named Dave and Danny, were milling around down there, crowding his view while they tried to figure out if it was appropriate to frisk a policeman. The twins were slim and pale. They sported identical military-style haircuts, wore identical black plastic-framed prescription glasses, the same off-the-rack double-breasted black suits. The D-ringers even shared the same taste in music and food: salsa and Greek. They also worshipped the same film stars: Catherine Deneuve and Marlon Brando.
The twins were professional killers with impeccable reps, but they were a pain in the ass, because from the day they’d hired on, they’d bickered more or less non-stop about their possessions, and who owned what.
Worse, both twins wore several flashy quarter-carat diamond-stud earrings, one for each murder they had committed.
Dave owned three diamonds. He was everlastingly envious of the fact that Danny owned four.
Marty saw to his considerable relief that Parker still wasn’t wearing a wedding or even an engagement ring. Lately, he’d heard rumours that she was going out with Willows. A married man!
Marty was mildly scandalized - about as scandalized as he’d have been scalded, had he fallen into a vat of lukewarm water. The pathetic truth was that he was jealous.
From time to time he wished he was a chartered accountant, or maybe a swim instructor. His gripe with the life of a gangster had nothing to do with the size of his retainer, or the macabre threats and infrequent-but-messy spurts of violence that were an unavoidable aspect of the profession.
What bugged him was that, despite his flashy clothes and good looks and smooth charm, not to mention his money clip full of hundred-dollar bills, he had a really hard time meeting women.
Not broads, or molls. What he wanted was a life partner. An attractive, sexy, wholly realized, totally mature, hard-thinking woman.
Some precious jewel who didn’t chew gum all the time. Someone who didn’t find it absolutely necessary to backcomb her hair, splash on a quart of Chanel, and change into a push-up bra and five-inch stiletto heels, before she drove to the Safeway for a jug of milk and a couple loaves of sliced white.
Willows and Parker were on the stairs, had almost reached the landing. She was close enough to reach out and touch. He realized he was staring. Jack was aware of him, his undue interest.
Marty lowered his eyes and glided laterally towards his usual position by Jake’s right elbow.
Jake greeted the cops with a casual wave. His hand was so liver-spotted he might have been the recipient of a skin transplant from a dalmatian.
He said, ‘Don’ ya love it when Marty does dat Michael Jackson moonwalk’ting?’
‘Very nice,’ said Parker.
She had a lovely smile. Man, her smile was brighter than the night lights at Yankee Stadium.
Marty blushed. His acute embarrassment transmogrified into an unfocused, burning rage. His face felt hotter than a four-alarm fire. He was so overheated that his gold caps were in danger of melting. He spun on his heel and tramped out of the room.
Jake yelled, ‘Hey, where ya goin’! Don’t leeme alone wit’ dese bloodhounds!’
His rheumy eyes catalogued the highlights of Parker’s body. Losing interest, he poked a finger in his ear, screwed it clockwise and then counterclockwise, and reluctantly withdrew it. Wax. He said, ‘As ya get olda, ya spoim count drops and ya production a wax quadruples. Is life ironic, or wha?’
He turned on Willows. ‘Ya got any kids, Jack?’
Willows nodded reluctantly. His private life was none of Jake’s business. He felt threatened by the slightest interest Jake might show in him, and Jake knew it.
‘Still in school, are dey? Waste a fuckin’ time. Get’em out onna street, where de can doin somethin’ useful, a trade a whateva.’ With an effort, he sat up a little straighter in his chair. ‘Should de find demselves unemployed dis summa, send’em ovah. Dey can tend da gahden, mow da grass a’ whateva. Fifty bucks a hour sound about right?’
Jake’s collapsed cheeks twitched spasmodically; Willows realized the ancient killer was chuckling at his own surly wit.
Parker said, ‘Jake, we’ve got some names. Photographs, if you’d care to look at them.’
‘Photos a wha?’
Parker enumerated the roll call of the dead, junkies and dealers. The fatality rate had not declined, in the days since the addicts had started falling. The fallen numbered more than two dozen.
Jake said, ‘Yeah, Lestah Rules. I knew him. Used ta be a jockey, one a dem li’l midget-type lightweight guys ride da ponies. I admit I made a few bucks offa him, placin’ bets. He got inna da pain killa
hs, pretty soon graduated ta coke, den smack.’
Jake stroked his nose.
‘So he’s dead, huh? Too bad.’ His smile segued with startling swiftness into an unholy scowl. He reached up and grabbed his incisors between his thumb and index finger, and yanked hard, jerking his entire set of teeth sideways in his mouth. ‘I’member dis one time he was ridin’, his pony stumbled, an’ fell. Den it picks itself up offa da track an’ runs full tilt boogie, headlong inta da rail. Knocked itself stoopid. It staggas around inna circle, does a nosedive inna toif. Lestah stayed inna saddle trew da whole’ting. Aftah dat, we always called him ‘Velcro.’’
Parker said, ‘Did Lester work for you, Jake?’
‘Nah. Who tol’ ya dat?’
‘What about Tom Klein?’
‘Da guy woiks inna theata, directin’ a whateva?’
‘No, that’s Tom Kerr. Klein’s a junkie.’
‘Never hoid a him.’
‘What about Melvin Ladner?’ said Parker.
‘He drive a race car?’
‘They’re all junkies, Jake. Most of them are dealers.’
‘You guys suggestin’ I’m mixed up inna filthy drug scam?’ ‘Not at all,’ said Parker. ‘What about Warren Fishburg?’
Jake thought about it for a long time. When Marty came back into the room, he was so engrossed in his memories that he didn’t look up.
Marty tapped him lightly on the shoulder.
Jake flinched, glanced up, blinking in fear.
Marty said, ‘It’s that time, Jake.’
‘Fo’ da pills?’
Marty nodded.
‘Yeah, okay. Feed me, Marty.’
The premier henchman’s cupped left hand held a cornucopia of pills. Most were shaped like torpedoes, in subtle two-tone hues. Some were like buttons, and these were usually painted in the ever-popular primary colours. More than a few were tiny cannonballs, and these were black as the devil’s heart. One pill that caught Parker’s attention was a puffy orange triangle with electric-blue points. Marty fed the pills one after another into Jake’s gaping, saliva-bright mouth. Now and then he offered him a glass of Italian red, to wash the pills down. Jake slurped and gulped, spilling far more than he drank.
Marty didn’t seem to mind playing the role of nurse. His glossy eyes brimmed with heartfelt compassion. He was relentlessly attentive, and constantly murmured trite-but-encouraging phrases as he filled his boss with meds.
Dave and Danny slid silently into the room, and took up their usual positions by the fireplace.
Their earrings glittered in the light.
Jake said, ‘Scram, da bot’ a ya.’
The brothers beat it.
Willows reeled off a few more names.
Jake’s eyes snapped open. ‘Run dat last one past me again.’ ‘Madeleine Kara.’
‘Yeah, dat one. Rings a bell. Ya got a snap?’
Parker handed him a morgue photo.
Jake flinched. ‘Jeez. Talk about da ravages a time. Ya get da licence plate a da freight train what run ovah her face?’
Marty said, ‘Jake… ‘
‘Ya right, I shouldn’ speak ill a da dead.’ The photo fluttered into his lap. ‘I knew her twenny years ago. When she was hookin’.’ ‘She was hooking until the day she died,’ said Parker.
‘Ya kiddin’ me? I’d ratha have sex wit’ a couple a cold bricks! Anyways, I ain’t seen her inna long, long time.’
The names, most of them, apparently meant less than nothing to Jake. It was unclear whether this was because the murdered dealers played an insignificant role in his organization, or because he was a master at concealing his emotions, or because his memory was failing.
What was clear was that Jake was obsessed with his rapidly faltering health. He told the detectives that cigars had done him in. Cuban cigars. They’d turned his lungs into a couple of tar pits.
‘I get aroun’. I know damn well itsa fashionable’ting to hang out inna bars and lounges, smokin’ cigars and lookin’ cool. I hoid from Marty, who never lied to me in all his life, dat dere’s women smokin’ dem lethal, stinky’tings. Women! What in hell’s da woild cornin’ to?’ Jake fixed an accusatory eye on Parker. ‘Ya indulge in da evil weed?’
‘No,’ said Parker.
‘I hope ta God ya tellin’ me da gospel trut’, truly I do.’
Jake twitched minutely when Willows told him about the Polaroids left at several of the crime scenes.
‘I don’’member nothin’ about dat on da TV,’ he said suspiciously, nibbling on his pendulous lower lip.
‘We haven’t released that information to the public,’ said Parker.
Jake knew something, she was sure.
She said, ‘Whisper a name, Jake. All we need is a name.’
‘I got nuthin’ fo’ ya. Whaddya harrassin’ me? Do I gotta call a bunch a lawyas? Leeme alone, why doncha. I’m a helpless ol’ man, and I’m tired, I wanna go ta bed an’ watch dat 90210 show,’wit da babes.’ He waved a limp hand. ‘Marty, get’em outta here.’
Jake’s eyes eased shut. His snoring was overly loud and totally bogus.
Marty said, ‘I’ll walk you to your car.’
Parker’s smile was dazzling. Marty was sweating. He hoped like hell that she wouldn’t give him a hug and ask him to confess to a felony.
Chapter 25
A glittering wraith drifted across the room. Lewis raised his head an inch or two. He must have been dreaming. Or hallucinating. A smear of pain emanated from the crook of his left arm. He let his weary head fall back on the pillow, and rolled over on his side. He’d lost patience when April was shooting him up, and had grabbed at the hypo, thrust the needle too forcefully into his arm. The pain had been agonizing, but he’d hardly cared…
‘Psssf.’
Lewis reluctantly opened his eyes. The thing was back, looming over him, dancing festively away. It was wearing some kind of gold suit, like an astronaut’s idea of formal wear. Its eyes were hidden behind dark goggles.
Now it was coming back at him, bouncing around, limbs flailing like a brutally misaligned puppet.
The bed creaked as the shiny, rumpled creature sat down. It wriggled and squirmed, making itself comfortable. Lewis found to his great relief that he was more confused than terrified.
He reached out and touched the shiny, silky-smooth material. It felt tougher than it looked.
The thing had something in its hand - a disposable lighter, a slim tube of burnished metal. Lewis couldn’t help noticing that the creature’s skin was so loose and wrinkled it looked as if it was about to shed. The snaky hiss of escaping gas tickled his ears. A lighter sparked, and a pointy, thin blue flame leapt towards him. He jerked back.
Wayne held the blue flame up to his face, illuminating the dark green goggles, his twinkling eyes.
‘Hi there, Lewis.’
Lewis said, ‘Hello, Wayne.’
‘Thirsty?’ Wayne dipped his hand into a voluminous pocket, came up with a couple of cans of beer. He popped the tabs and offered a can to Lewis.
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re so very welcome,’ said Wayne. He turned the propane torch so it was pointed directly at Lewis’s eye. ‘How’s Mr. Pupil? Expanding? Contracting? You still high, Lewis?’
It was definitely Wayne.
He was wearing a shiny suit, goggles, latex gloves.
He wasn’t some terrifying, extraterrestrial, X-Files thing that was about to wriggle out of its skin. Lewis smiled, and then, to his consternation, began laughing uncontrollably.
‘What’s so damn funny?’ Wayne’s voice was sharp. He extended his arm, and the blue jet of flame swept across Lewis’s chest, scorching the faux Harley jammies and making Lewis fall back as if he’d been struck with an anvil.
‘Hot enough for you?’ Wayne’s shrill cackle was reminiscent of disgruntled poultry. He said, ‘April sure is fond of you.’
Lewis lay quietly. He looked as if he were trying to figure out what direction the next blow was going to come
from. That suited Wayne just fine. He liked to keep people off balance, groping for something to hold onto, rather than having the leisure time to figure out how they were going to land their next punch.
Wayne said, ‘No offence, but I don’t get it. What does she see in a loser like you? I mean, you got no job, you got no car…’
Lewis opened his mouth as if to speak.
‘What?’ said Wayne.
‘I’ve got a truck.’
‘Yeah?’
‘A van. An Econoline.’
‘Ford Econoline?’
Lewis nodded.
‘There should be a song about Ford Econolines,’ said Wayne. ‘Them things been around forever.’ He unzipped his liquid-gold jumpsuit and fished around inside until he found his Marlboros. He lit one from the torch, but didn’t offer the pack to Lewis. ‘What colour is it?’
‘Brown.’
‘Nice colour,’ said Wayne, not putting much into it. He’d noticed a drab brown Econoline parked in front of an empty lot about three blocks away. No doubt the truck was Lewis’s ride. Wayne smiled, and stroked his beard. Three blocks was just about exactly as far as he’d have guessed April was willing to walk, under any circumstances. Had she left the keys in the ignition, or thrown them away, or hidden them somewhere half-clever? He’d look before he asked. April was smart, but she wasn’t much good at planning for the future. He remembered asking her about RRSPS and getting a blank look, the same kind of look a rock cod might give a waiter in a Chinese restaurant, as it was being carried into the kitchen.
Basically, a look that was dull far beyond merely uncomprehending.
He said, ‘Would you like to go for a ride in your Econoline, Lewis?’
‘Where?’
‘Where’d you meet April?’
Lewis struggled to remember. ‘The Eaton’s parking lot.’
‘Metrotown?’
‘No, downtown Vancouver.’
‘Man. I wouldn’t shop there. That white tile wall on Granville Street? Looks like the world’s biggest urinal.’ Wayne turned down the torch’s flame, to conserve fuel. He said, ‘I’d take you home, eventually. But there’s a guy I got to drop in on, along the way. I’ll introduce you. He’s a dealer of quality narcotics. If you find you can’t kick the habit, you’ll probably want to keep in touch with him.’ Wayne patted Lewis’s knee. ‘Think you’re gonna be able to kick, Lewis?’
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