City of Crime

by Warren Court

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know.” She touches my face. “Give me a couple of days and then you can come over. Gotta run.” She makes a shooing motion with her hand. I lean in and plant one on her cheek and then bolt.

  To my surprise, I book both of my appointments. I linger at the second one, discussing the Leafs with the old guy. He even pours me a beer, and I get the impression he would have kept pouring, but I told him I had to drive back to the office.

  I head back to Henderson to put these moves in the book. It’s late, already dark out. Rick’s car is in the owner’s spot; a little presumptuous of him. I see one of the movers outside, bringing the door down on the warehouse unit. I run towards him.

  “Yo, hold on. Don’t lock me out.” He’s just about to slam it closed but stops.

  “Thanks, dude.”

  “No problem,” he says.

  I duck under it and he slams the metal door behind me. I hear the latch lock. I can leave by the front door. I just can’t get in it that way.

  I enter the darkened building. The lights have been turned down in the hallway. Rick’s office light is on but the door is open. He might be in the crapper. I can slink upstairs, drop my briefcase off and hide out before he even knows I’m here. I see the dispatcher’s book in Mike’s office, but he’s already left for the night and his office is locked. Damn. Okay, I’ll just drop my briefcase off and get out of here.

  I make my way upstairs. About halfway up I see a light coming from the sales floor. I know the girls who book the moves for us aren’t in tonight; they never work Fridays. Instead, they come in Saturday morning and book our Monday appointments. Rick must be up here, snooping around.

  I soften my footsteps and slowly creep onto the second floor. Sure enough, there’s light coming from my computer monitor. I slow my breathing down. It’s still whistling through my nostrils so I breathe through my mouth. My steps are heel to toe, very soft on the carpeted floor. I approach my cubicle and I can see a bit of Rick’s blonde hair. He’s at my desk, typing away.

  Then I see the screen. My god, that sick bastard. I see a picture of a semi-naked young girl. I mean young, like maybe twelve years old. I hear the scrape of the mouse on my desk and another shot of the girl pops up on my screen. The girl is totally nude now. I move a step closer, careful not to let my reflection show up on the screen. I take my phone out and punch in my passcode. I flip it to video, move one step closer and start filming.

  It’s definitely Rick sitting there in the darkness. He’s the only one with a big head of blonde hair like this. I take a video of him scrolling through pics. Then he adjusts himself and I hear him fiddling with his pants. Then he starts to breathe heavily and I hear those unmistakable sounds. Rick’s having a great old time at my desk. I’m disgusted but conflicted: should I bust him now? I have the proof. Catch him with his pants down, pun intended.

  No. I start to back away. The sounds of Rick pleasuring himself start to fade as I reach the rear doors to the sales floor. The irony is not lost on me, Rick has always insisted that both the front and back doors to the second floor remain open. If the rear door had been closed, he would have heard me coming through it.

  I get to the stairwell and descend as softly as I came up. When I’m down on the ground floor I review the movie, keeping the sound down. It occurs to me that I’ve just made a video of someone watching kiddie porn and getting off on it. Is that in itself a criminal offence? Minus the horrific imagery that is on my computer screen, the video is amazing. I can even see the reflection of Rick’s face in the monitor.

  Gotcha, prick!

  TWENTY TWO

  I review the tape a couple of times over the weekend, but other than that I keep a low online profile. I call Laura and she’s still a no-go zone – her choice, not mine. She also sounds like she has a cold, unlike my fake illness of the past week.

  I continue to read every newspaper I can. The Hamilton library has copies of the Brantford Examiner but they’re old. The last one they have is from the day I made Waltz disappear. I am desperate to go online but I do not want to leave any trail anywhere. If I used a computer at the library, I’d still have to reserve it with my library card.

  TWENTY THREE

  I’m at work by eight fifteen, bright and early. I beat Kevin, John and Darryl in, but not Rick. Though the door to his office is closed I can hear him talking on the phone. The old man hasn’t shown up yet. I can’t wait for the sales meeting and I can’t wait to see the old man’s face when he and Ricky read my numbers. Twenty-two thousand dollars in booked sales, plus those two moves I booked on Friday. They’re little fish, of course, less than eight thousand pounds each, but it puts my sales for this month at six booked moves. It would have been three local moves booked if Gillian Lent hadn’t attacked me. That reminds me – I should go down to dispatch and make sure her move has a line through it.

  I go up to my office. No leads on my desk. I go and check out Kevin’s and John’s desks; they each have two leads. I go over to say something about this to Ida, but she isn’t in. The plastic cover is over her keyboard, another one over her monitor. I slam my briefcase down on my desk for no one to hear.

  Laura is on the phone and I just wave at her before I go into the meeting room. Everyone is here now. The old man is in his office, already shuffling money around. I hear a snippet of his latest trade.

  “Forty thousand – no, make that forty-two thousand to Merck. No, make it forty-one. Christ’s sake, I don’t know.”

  I smile. Oh, what a bugger to be moving such loads of money around. Poor old guy.

  Rick and Darryl are already in the meeting room. Darryl nods at me; Rick just glares. Kevin and John come in behind me so there’s no time for Ricky Boy to bore into me. Not that I wouldn’t put it past him to do so in front of others. He might get his rocks off on that. Anyway, I intend to test him.

  Jack Henderson comes in last. It’s now nine fifteen.

  The usual big business is talked about up front. Further training from the corporate carrier on the new software is to be scheduled. The Mississauga office is doing well; they’re looking to hire new people if we know of anybody. Then we get to the numbers.

  Kevin, as senior man, is up first. He’s had a good week, his usual. How does he do it, day after day, saying the same things over and over?

  Then they go through John’s numbers. They’re respectable, and he entertains us with an amusing story from one of his sits. He’s earned that right, and the Henderson family oblige him.

  I think about the situation with the leads – two on his desk and none on mine. I’m not pissed with him; he probably doesn’t even know it’s going on. Just thinks the girls are doing an exceptionally good job this past week getting him more cards than usual.

  Then they get to me. I grin, look right at Rick, then at the old man. Even Darryl gets my eye. Darryl just fake smiles and looks down at a piece of paper.

  “Two moves,” Rick says. “Total, two thousand dollars.”

  “What about the two corporate moves?” I say. “I booked those.”

  “We don’t count those in this meeting.”

  “Bullshit,” I say, and the old man snaps his head around to glare at me.

  “Watch your mouth.” Haven’t seen him move that fast, ever.

  “But it is.” I continue. “I booked two huge moves last week. Corporate ones, the ones you want me to get, and you don’t count those on my list? Twenty thousand dollars, full service. Packing and unpacking all the way down to California.”

  “They’re not established yet,” Ricky Boy chimes in, grinning.

  “When Kevin books a corporate move it goes on the list. It’s reported in this meeting.”

  “He has established customers. You got a walk-in that has asked you two give two quotes and pencil in a truck. There’s no contract with them.”

  “I’m nurturing the relationship,” I say. “And their guy in Brantford, he signed off on them. What’s his name – Waltz, I think.�
��

  “You got two local moves and one is cancelled. That woman that was murdered,” Rick says, and he eyes me suspiciously. I feel he is waiting for me to respond to that. Maybe Marco has gotten to him too.

  “I don’t know anything about that. I brought in two moves Friday, put them down in the book first thing this morning. I would have put them down Friday night but Mike’s office was locked.”

  “You were here Friday night?” Rick asks.

  “Yeah, I came by. To book those moves, but like I said, I couldn’t.” I don’t want to play my hand yet; don’t want to let Jack Henderson know his golden boy likes little girls.

  “And besides, maybe I would get more moves if you stopped taking my leads and dumping them on the other guys’ desks.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Yeah, this morning – no leads on my desk, two on Kevin’s and two on John’s. I went and saw them. It’s not fair. Sorry, guys,” I say to them. “I don’t mean to drag you into this.”

  “Look,” Rick says his voice rising.

  His father puts his hand on his arm to silence him. “We’re not going to get into this in this meeting. Maybe we’d better talk in my office afterwards,” Jack says.

  I say nothing, and they move on to final business. I ignore it. I’m fuming and I feel my face turning red. I look over at John and he just shrugs.

  I look at Rick and a grin comes over my face. I don’t take my eyes from him. He glares at me, tries to give it back. But there’s something there. He knows I was in the building. He probably saw me drive away; he had to have. Unless he was so absorbed in what he was doing he didn’t bother to look out the window. Finally, he looks away and won’t look at me again for the whole meeting.

  We’re about to leave and Darryl speaks up. “We have something else to take care of.”

  Rick says nothing.

  The old man looks puzzled, and then it dawns on him. “Oh, right. How we could forget?” he says. He goes to the door and motions for someone to come in. Laura comes in carrying a cake. No candles or anything. It’s still in a cake box and on top of it is a yellow Henderson Moving van. How cute. Congratulations Kevin on twenty-five years is written below it in blue icing.

  All of us start to clap for Kevin and he blushes. I join in for show. Then the old man quietens us down. We’re all standing at this point. My outburst is forgotten, but it has still salted the mood.

  Rick makes a quick speech; it’s forced and focuses more on Henderson Moving’s growth over the last twenty-five years than the part Kevin has played in that. Then a gift bag is brought out. The girls from the office have crowded in, and Mike the dispatcher and Tony the office manager come in. They’re oblivious to the rage that was flying around in this room just ten minutes ago.

  Kevin opens the gift bag and pulls out a plaque engraved with his name and years of service and a chrome moving truck. I let myself get pushed into the corner so that the other people, the ones who will be here in November and beyond, can get in on it. He’s their guy, not mine.

  Then Kevin opens the gift box and pulls out a pin. A lapel pin. Not a watch or anything. I watch his face and for a split second I see a flash of disappointment, a smirk, then he smiles and looks at it in his hand and says “Thanks.” The inevitable “Speech, speech, speech!” rings out, and Kevin blusters through a heartfelt but short round of accolades. He focuses it on the people he’s worked with. It’s more about the girls in the office and Mike and John. Rick and Jack are not mentioned. He singles Darryl out. Darryl, friend to every man.

  As he’s talking, I can’t stop staring at Rick, and he finally looks at me quickly and then away. The cake is dished out but, typical of the tight-fisted Henderson boys, no drinks are provided so most people take their cake back to their desks. That’s probably what Rick and the old man wanted anyway: Eat your cake and get back to work!

  We file out of the room. I hide myself in the flood of girls and movers leaving the room and leave the Hendersons behind.

  I get back up to my desk just in time to see John slinking out the back way, two appointment cards in his hand. Ida is still not in. I remember now that it was odd she wasn’t at the party. She and Kevin go way back; she has a Henderson twenty-five-year plaque on the wall in her office.

  Kevin returns to his desk. I hear the plaque slam down on his desk and I go over.

  “Ida not in today? She sick again?”

  “Twenty-five years,” he says. He sits down and puts his hands behind his head, revealing sweat stains on an overused striped shirt.

  “Huh?”

  “Twenty-five fucking years I’ve spent here. For this?” He pushes at the plaque. “And this piece of junk?” He pulls the pin off the lapel of his coat and throws it at the wall of his cubicle. It bounces off onto his desk. I can tell by the sound it makes that it’s cheap plastic. I pick it up. It’s a little symbol of a moving truck with “25” emblazoned over it.

  “They want you to wear this when you go out, to help sell their company and put more money in their damn pockets,” I say.

  “You got that right.” He takes the plaque and throws it into a drawer and slams it closed.

  “I guess I won’t have that problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Being around here twenty-five years.” The thought of it makes me shiver.

  “Afraid not, kid. The notice has already gone into the newspapers: ‘Position vacant.’ You might not even make it until the end of the month. And that’s bullshit about those two cross-border moves. Those are killer – we usually eat that up with a spoon in our meetings. Two fully packed corporate moves to the States come in like that? You really nurtured the crap out of that woman. Oh, sorry. She was the one who died. I forgot.”

  “Dude, I didn’t know her. I just signed her up for a move to Brantford.” I look at Kevin’s pin again. “I guess the Hendersons don’t care that Christmas is coming, huh?”

  “Stan, that’s two months away. Might as well be two years. And no, they don’t care. If your number was up on December twenty-fourth they’d fire you Christmas Eve just to keep you from coming out to the Christmas party and getting pissed with us. That’s the only time the Hendersons open up their wallets. Correction – Darryl pays for it all.”

  “They’ve stopped giving me appointment cards.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. You want one?” He shoves his pile across the desk to me. “Hell, take both.”

  “No, I don’t want to get you in trouble. They mark down who these go to.”

  “You think I care? Here, take ’em. I’ll say I wasn’t feeling well and am completely in the dark that you are on your way out.”

  I take the cards and drop the plastic pin back on his desk.

  “Thanks, bud.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  TWENTY FOUR

  I put the cards in my briefcase and head out. Instead of going out the back way, I swing down into the central office to see Laura.

  “Someone just called for you,” she says.

  I swallow hard. “Really? Who?”

  “Here.” She tears a sticky note off with the details on it. “She asked for you by name. Wants you to call her and come over ASAP.”

  “Why me?”

  “She said you were referred to her by a satisfied customer.”

  I take the card. I now have a busy day: three appointments.

  “You all right?” she asks.

  “Yeah, just tired.”

  “Dinner tonight? A proper meal?”

  “Oh, go on, then.” My saviour.

  “Italian place down on Main Street. I can meet you there. Five thirty?”

  “Fine.”

  “Don’t sound so enthused.”

  “The bullshit is starting to rise around here.”

  “Don’t I know it. See you.”

  I explain to my first appointment, one of the ones Kevin gave me, that Kevin had an emergency personal matter. I make a note to tell him that later in case she talks to him. She sounded disappointed whe
n she hears he’s not going to come by. Maybe she and Kevin have had past dealings of the Gillian Lent kind?

  When I arrive, she reluctantly lets me in. Gorgeous place right on Lakeshore Boulevard in a small hamlet known as Bronte, between Burlington and Oakville.

  “Lovely home.” I wander around on automatic pilot, marking things off. It’s just not in me anymore. I keep thinking about that ad in the paper. My job. Why bother with this, then? Let Ricky Boy take the Midi moves and push me out. I think even Detective Marco is done with me. Hallelujah.

  I vow to whip out to Brantford today to pick up the paper, listen to the local radio show and do something about it. Next call isn’t until four, so plenty of time.

  Half an hour later and with no signed move, I’m on my way to Brantford. I watch my rear-view mirror more than I watch the road in front of me.

  I pick up a copy of the Examiner at a Brantford grocery store. No notice about Waltz and his connection to Lent. What the hell is going on? I turn on the local radio station and wait half an hour for the news to come on. It hits me like a ton of bricks: Waltz’s car has been found. The report is short and blunt.

  The car belonging to a missing Brantford man, Christopher Waltz, has been located in a river near Milton. No sign of Waltz’s body. Police aren’t saying if they suspect foul play. They are holding a press conference at noon at police headquarters.

  That’s in ten minutes. Where’s the Brantford police department? I pull out my phone and open Google Maps, and then I remember I don’t want to leave any trace. I can justify doing a Google Maps search, of course – it’s part of my job – but I won’t be able to explain pulling up the coordinates of the police headquarters. Instead, I take my book of maps out and flip through the few pages that cover off downtown Brantford. It’s not that large a city.

  I skim through the pages until I spot one that has the police department headquarters located on it. It’s not a large force; they probably only have the one building. I know how to get there. I pull out of the grocery store and burn rubber.