by Mark Lisac
The spade handle cracked against the steel inside Asher’s jacket sleeve. The metal bar protected most of his arm but its point dug viciously into the flesh near Asher’s elbow. Lenny, surprised and wondering what had stopped his swing, stood motionless for a second, apparently torn between smacking the shovel blade on Asher’s head and intervening in the other struggle, which was rapidly winding down with Finley kicking the biker’s right knee and chest.
Asher pulled the steel out of his jacket sleeve and said, “All right, you little moron.” He was happy to see Lenny pause; he needed a few seconds to let the stab of pain subside in his left arm.
Finley grabbed the zipper of the big man’s jacket and jerked it down. He found the knife he expected in a leather holder on the belt. Asher said, “You next,” and rushed toward Lenny.
A huge blast erupted from behind him. He saw Finley spin, his left leg swerving out in a motion that ridiculously reminded Asher of a Russian dancer, and go down. Blood flowed from the ragged margin of one side of Finley’s jeans. Asher had a sickening feeling that the leg was just as ragged underneath.
Lenny screamed at his brother. “You stupid fuck! I told you to leave the gun there. This wasn’t a shooting match.”
Kenny was snivelling and wiping the red moisture from his moustache with the sleeve of his jacket. “I wasn’t aiming at him,” he said. “I was aiming at this fucker. He broke my nose. The fucker broke my nose.”
They all looked at Finley, motionless with shock on the floor. Asher ran over and pressed his hands around what was left of Finley’s lower leg to try to stem the bleeding.
Lenny shouted, “Now you’ve got the cops involved, shit for brains! They’ll be all over us. You’re taking this. I told you we weren’t going to use the shotgun.”
Kenny’s mouth twitched. It started to form a grimace, threatened to break into a smile, and finally froze half-open, as he looked at Finley and Asher. “We could finish them both now,” he said. “Do them both and there’s no witnesses.”
Asher looked up at the barrel of the gun.
Lenny said, “You got shit for brains and you got maggots eating what’s left of them. Gimme that.” He took the shotgun, looked at the motionless form of the big man, and told his brother, “Help me drag that useless pile of crap out of here.”
Asher was thinking slowly in the emotional recoil of the fight, and of the memory of holding what had been Finley’s calf but was now a mound of shredded red muscle and bone splinters, and of staring down the barrel of a gun and not knowing whether the Rat Brothers would use it. It wasn’t until the two brothers began to lift the other man off the floor that he finally spoke: “We don’t have to have seen who pulled the trigger, Lenny.”
Carswell looked at him blankly for a second, then regained his habitual look of busy calculation. Asher asked for time to call an ambulance. He pulled out his phone, made the call, giving the dispatcher a minimum of detail, gave silent thanks that he was within range of a cell tower, and turned back to Lenny.
“It should take about ten to fifteen minutes for an ambulance to get out here,” he said. “I don’t know if the Mounties will be coming with them. We have to get this settled now. It could be that Finley and I came out for a meeting and someone fired a shotgun from the dark, probably because he was supposed to come alone, but I was with him. If you just leave here and are smart about getting rid of the gun and maybe putting new tires on your truck, it could be the cops won’t find much to follow.”
Lenny sneered. “We know how to cut evidence up into little pieces better than you do, dickhead.” But he was interested enough to add, “What do you want?”
“You stay away from Finley, you especially stay away from his sister, and you forget about this whole business. What you’re after doesn’t exist, and even if it did, you’re not in a position to pursue it anymore.”
“Why should we believe you?”
“The two of them want to live here in peace. You’ll still be in the neighbourhood. They have no reason to go starting a war. And my only stake in this is to try to keep them safe.”
Lenny bit a dirty thumbnail. “How do we know Boy Scout and his sister will stick to the deal?”
Asher turned to face Finley, groggy with shock and pain but lying with his eyes open. “Can you hear me, Gordon?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear the deal I offered Lenny?”
“Yeah. I’ll do it.”
“You heard him,” Asher said. “His sister won’t make trouble. She won’t be happy about his getting shot but she wants the whole thing over with.”
Lenny was a fast thinker. “All right. We’ve probably shot our wad with the buyer anyway. Just stick to the deal and make sure Boy Scout and his sister do too, or you’ll end up wishing a shotgun was all you were facing.” He turned to the big man again but Asher wasn’t finished.
“One more piece to the deal, Lenny,” Asher said. “Going after a stray piece of paper wasn’t your idea. Who hired you?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Kenny said.
“Shut up,” said Lenny. “We don’t owe him anything.” He turned back to Asher. “I can’t give you a name because he never gave one. He gave us cash. That was all we needed.”
“But you’ve seen him?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him.”
“What did he look like?”
“Like he wore an expensive suit but probably could have bought a more expensive one if he’d wanted. Medium height and build. Curly red hair liked rusted steel wool. Can’t remember his eye colour but it was probably light blue or greenish. Sounded like he thought everything was a joke and it didn’t matter because he was in on it. I don’t give a shit about him. He looked like he was enjoying dealing with the criminal element. If he wants to get off going slumming, he can find himself a hundred-dollar hooker.”
“That’s good enough. Time for you to take off. Remember to go in the direction away from town.”
Asher turned to Finley as the Rat Brothers got the big man into a semi-walking state and half-dragged him out to their truck. He listened for the engine and the sound of the truck dwindling into the distance, hoping that Lenny Carswell would not change his mind and use the few minutes he still had left to come back and kill two witnesses.
“Worth it,” Finley said in a ragged whisper before letting his gaze fix on the ceiling as he floated in a sea of pain.
Asher left him long enough to put his sawed-off stick and his sharpening steel into the cargo hatch of the SUV. When the ambulance arrived, Asher told the paramedics he was going to break the news to Finley’s sister and that he would get in touch with the police himself.
He drove back toward town, stopping to scrub the end of his stick with snow on the remote chance that a particularly zealous cop might seize it and order a check that could find particles of skin on it.
He arrived at Finley’s house with his stomach churning worse than when he had grabbed the bloody mess that used to be Finley’s leg. Angela opened the door to his knock and immediately asked where her brother was. He stepped inside and closed the door as she asked again, more urgently this time.
“Gordon will be okay, but he’s on his way to the hospital,” he said. She only looked at him so he kept going. “He was shot in the right leg. It was a shotgun and it’s pretty bad, but he’ll live.”
He was prepared for screaming and the possibility of fists pounding on his chest. Instead, she remained immobile, tears trickling down her cheeks. “I should have known,” she said. “I should have known you wouldn’t protect him. You’re like all the rest. Stupid, overgrown boys who can’t be trusted. I thought
you might be different. I thought… Get out. Go away.”
“I’ll go, Angela, but there’s something you have to know.”
“I already know everything I need to know.”
“I made a deal. We made a deal, Gordon said it was okay. We don’t know who shot him. We don’t know the identity of the men we were supposed to meet and we never saw them. They won’t bother you anymore. When the police talk to you, you tell them you received demands for some information your husband had and someone thinks you have, but we don’t know who might have been there waiting for us and you don’t either.”
“I told you I had protection. It didn’t matter about me anyway. How was this worth my brother getting shot?”
“Angela, I’m sorry. I need to know you understand what I just said. And that you’ll go along with it.”
“I understand. Yes, I’ll play your stupid game. We’ve paid the price, we may as well take whatever scraps can be gained from your recklessness. Maybe it will help protect Gordon against worse. Oh, Harry. Go away. Go away.”
He asked if she was sure she would be all right alone.
She said, “Go away. Go away.”
25
HE CALLED THE RCMP DETACHMENT AND WENT TO GIVE A statement before checking in at the motel nearest the highway. The next day he answered more questions and checked on Finley at the hospital. He learned that the leg had been amputated. The news was sickening but not a surprise. He drove home.
He spent the evening resting but thinking about the red-haired man. He had not fully expected Lenny Carswell to answer his question, or at least answer it honestly. He assumed that Lenny was sick of the whole business, saw no future prospects, and didn’t care about leaving a trail to the money man. He also assumed that Lenny thought a short description that could apply to any number of men.
Asher was certain the redheaded man was Gerald Ryan. He was not clear on Ryan’s motive. And he decided that he could not confront Ryan without real evidence. Going to him and saying the Rat Brothers had ratted him out would be funny but would result in nothing. Ryan would know the brothers had ample reason to stay out of sight, especially out of sight of any legal authority.
He went to Jackson’s office next morning, feeling tired after starting the day well. His legs seemed to weigh more with every step. He felt his mind going sleepy. It’s a normal reaction to stress, he thought. Just keep going. Yeah, but tell that to my legs.
Jackson welcomed him and asked if he wanted a coffee.
“Do I look that bad?” Asher asked.
“Only a little worse than usual.”
“Then I’m probably still semi-coherent. But yes, I could use a coffee. Thanks.”
The new assistant out front brought in a cupful, freshly made, while they talked about routine matters. Then Asher looked over his shoulder to double-check that the door was closed and gave a quick outline of what had happened at Barnsdale. He didn’t use the Carswells’ name but he sketched the deal he had made and the surprising information that had popped out.
Jackson said, “The RCMP like to get a full statement of what happened when someone gets shot. Especially from a lawyer.”
“I didn’t flat-out lie to them. I said it was dark. It was. I said I didn’t see who fired the gun, and I didn’t because it was behind me. Anyway, how many plea bargains did the firm do last year? And how many bad guys in this province got off without being charged or with a lesser charge because they agreed to provide evidence that could convict someone higher up? I just took a shortcut and saved a lot of time.”
“Except that now you seem to be stuck.”
“For now. I can’t go to Ryan without more to back up an accusation. And I don’t know why the Devereaux business would be so important to him. Worse, I don’t know whether he’s freelancing or working with Jimmy’s full knowledge and support.”
“You may have to approach him and see what happens if you can’t find another source of information.”
“I can’t go back to the brothers. He probably heard of them from a local party connection, but I can’t go fishing there. Maybe Angela Apson knows more than she’s told me. I didn’t think so, but it’s possible. I’ll have to wait, though. She’s beyond angry about her brother.”
“Do you think she has a right to be?”
“I took things pretty far.”
“And still are. Out on a long tightrope. And you’re getting tired.”
“In other words, I should let things rest for awhile.”
“Or let them be if Ms. Apson and her brother aren’t being bothered by anyone.”
“Gordon Finley has been more than bothered. He’s missing half a leg, and I’m responsible. I’m not letting that go. For that matter, Devereaux’s death still bothers me.”
“Let it rest. You’ve stirred things up. Let them settle down a bit and see if the situation starts looking clearer.”
“That’s what I was thinking. I guess I needed to hear it from someone else.”
“Happy to be of service. Would you have agreed if you hadn’t already come to that conclusion?”
“Morley, a man of your experience asking a hypothetical question?”
Asher returned to his normal work. He did enough to block out whatever might be turning over in the back of his mind, but not so much as to feel even more wrung out than he already was.
The following week he drove south again to the regional hospital where Finley was recuperating. He was fairly sure that Angela would not be spending weekdays there, but he checked the parking lot for her car first.
He walked into Finley’s room feeling empty. They said hello. Finley said he was doing okay. Things would be worse if his business had shut down indefinitely but the former owner of the shop had agreed to take over for the next several months until Finley could get around on a prosthetic leg.
“Who knows?” he said. “Maybe I’ll end up feeling better. I always felt a little guilty coming out of Afghanistan with only a scratch when so many of my buddies were getting fitted with artificial limbs or finding themselves screwed up with PTSD.”
“Small comfort,” Asher said. “Not much of a choice either, being badly hurt or feeling guilty.”
“I wasn’t letting it ruin my life, but it was there. I hope you’re not feeling guilty about anything. It was my idea to go out and talk to them.”
“You remember the deal?”
“Yes, I still think it’s a good one.”
“Meeting them face to face may have been your idea, but I should have talked you out of it. Angela expected me to. Do you have any feel for whether she might be willing to talk to me again? I wanted her to be more than someone I met on a case.” Finley stared at him. Asher laughed. “Should I be asking your permission first?”
Finley stared at him a few more seconds and said, “She hasn’t told you, has she?”
“She told me to go away the last time we spoke. Anything else I should have heard? I’m hoping to hear something else.”
“She has cancer. The same one that killed our mother.”
Asher felt the floor going unsteady. Then he felt his breath going shallow. A draining sensation made him think his face must be going pale. He looked for the nearest chair and sat down.
Finley waited. “I thought she would have told you,” he said. “She got the final confirmation that time she went up to the city toward the end of November.”
Asher thought back. “No, she said she had the day off for a teachers’ conference and was learning about tests.”
“Our Angela. She was learning ab
out tests, all right, only the kind they do at the cancer centre.”
“What’s the outlook? Can I ask?”
“I guess you should know. There isn’t any outlook. It moves fast. She’s already on disability leave.”
Asher talked with Finley a little longer. After a while, he felt like he was talking in order to have something to think about. Thinking might stop him from feeling. He said goodbye and promised to visit Finley in the rehabilitation hospital up in the city.
He walked out to the parking lot still feeling lightheaded. He thought he would need a few more minutes before he’d feel capable of driving. He leaned against the Jaguar and looked at the horizon over the bare aspens and snow-draped spruce. Streaks of dingy cirrus clouds scraped across what would normally have been a dazzling blue sky. Asher thought the clouds looked like the streaks of mud that were left when he swept slush and grit out of the parking stall at his condo. He wondered what dirt was doing up in the sky.
26
ASHER SAW ANGELA ONCE MORE BEFORE SHE DIED. HE TOLD her she was Angela Finley once again. She was in her home after chemotherapy. The treatment amounted to buying a lottery ticket; some people won sometimes. It took away most of her hair and left her skin unusually sensitive.
She was in her bed wearing her lightest nightgown. The lightest fabric was all she could bear having touch her. She joked that it was ironic she would be wearing her best negligee now, after subjecting him to flannel in the motel. They talked almost like friends. Angela said she still felt a lingering anger but wanted to let the emotion pass; being steeped in bitterness was no way to leave the world. But she conceded she could not bring herself fully to trust him. Trust was for older friends, she said.
