by Tom Wood
In that room they had a dentist’s chair.
They had bought it for a fair price from a widower selling off his dead wife’s things. They had bought many other things too: scrapers, drills, pliers and more. Not gas, though. Not anaesthetic.
None of them had trained in dentistry but they were enthusiastic amateurs.
No one who watched their loved one in that chair ever missed another payment.
Word got around.
The cousins weren’t just bad to the bone, they were beasts. Psychotic. Crazy. Some said they were demons.
Such traits could be useful to others from time to time. The cousins discovered, to their happy surprise, there was much profit to be had in rented cruelty.
The youngest cousin had the best social skills and could even be polite on occasion, so he dealt with people. He could be trusted to answer the phone without starting a turf war.
‘Speak to me,’ he said.
The voice on the other end of the line belonged to a partner in the protection racket that sometimes employed the bare-knuckle boxer who knew the brother of a former cellmate of McAllan’s guy. The partner had recently paid the cousins to torture some of their competitors until they saw sense.
‘I have a job for you, but not for us. Good money if you’re willing to travel for it. You gotta move fast, though. You need to be on the road before we even finish this conversation. You get me?’
‘I’m listening.’
The voice explained the pertinent details in an efficient manner: run some guy out of town and make sure he never comes back. A job for three, so no one sits it out.
‘Bring some firepower, just in case.’
‘He’s one guy. And I don’t like driving with a piece. Too risky.’
‘I’m only passing on the specifics. They ain’t up for negotiation. You want the payday, you do it their way. This guy’s a problem. So they want it done right. They don’t want any wriggle room for this character.’
‘Understood,’ the youngest cousin said. ‘How bad are we allowed to hurt him?’
‘What kind of a question is that? I’ve already told you. Hurt him real bad. They don’t want him ever coming back.’
The youngest cousin fought his irritation and remembered his manners before he replied. There was money on the line, after all.
He said, ‘With respect, what you’ve told me tells me nothing. Hurt him real bad can be taken in all sorts of ways. One man’s agony might be another’s kink.’
‘You need me to draw you a picture?’
‘I need a number.’
‘You need a … number?’
‘Yeah,’ the youngest cousin said. ‘Because numbers are inarguable. They don’t lie.’
‘Okay … ’
‘So, on a scale of one to a hundred, how much are we allowed to hurt him?’
A long exhale came down the line. ‘Well, this is not weird at all, but whatever. You want a number? Sure, I’ll give you a number. On a scale of one to a hundred I’d say you’re good all the way up to ninety-nine.’
‘Then consider us on the road.’
FORTY-ONE
Fendy was a very fit seventy-year-old woman. Victor knew she was seventy because it was one of the first things she told him after he entered her office. He knew she was very fit because she told him this too. She seemed proud of both facts and their apparent contradiction.
‘The second you’re out of here I’ll be doing Pilates. Forty-five minutes. Every day. I run every morning too. I row or cycle at the weekends. I bet I can do more pull-ups than you.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Victor said.
Given the grey sedan was upside down along the side of the highway, Victor had let Sal – the guy he’d run off the road – drive his truck.
Once he had recovered from the crash, of course.
‘You weren’t really going to break my arm, were you?’ Sal had asked as he drove.
Victor nodded. ‘Every single bone of it.’
Sal had said little else as he drove Victor to meet his boss and the boss of both McAllan and Castel. He had driven back into town and parked near the police precinct and the courthouse because Fendy was the district attorney.
‘My great-grandfather was Indonesian,’ she told him to explain her surname.
He hadn’t asked.
‘Three dollars in his pocket when he stepped off the boat,’ she continued. ‘Can you imagine?’
Victor remained silent.
She said, ‘You’re not big on small talk, are you?’
‘However did you guess?’
‘Okay,’ she said, taking a seat behind her desk and gesturing for him to sit in the visitor’s chair opposite. ‘I like a man who knows when to shut up.’
He sat.
Sal left them and the door clicked shut behind him.
‘He’s limping,’ she said.
‘He had a car accident,’ Victor said. ‘He’s lucky it wasn’t a lot worse.’
‘I’m sure he thinks so.’
‘Why are you following me?’
‘Why are you stirring up trouble in my town?’
Victor said, ‘I’m no trouble at all.’
She said, ‘Who are you working for?’
‘I’m getting a little tired of answering the same questions over and over again, so I’ll make this simple for you. I work for no one. I’m not interested in anyone’s criminal activities. I’m only looking for a missing child and his mother.’
‘Then why are you making Castel and McAllan nervous?’
‘You’ll have to ask them.’
‘I can’t get hold of Castel,’ Fendy told him. ‘One of his guys is in the hospital with half a face and Castel’s on the warpath. Did you have anything to do with that?’
‘He runs a meth-producing operation,’ Victor said.
She nodded. ‘And you’d like to know how I fit in?’
‘The question has crossed my mind.’
‘I’m an old Colt .45,’ Fendy said, forming a pistol shape with her fingers. ‘I’m a peacemaker. Pow, pow. I like a quiet county and my job is to keep it that way. I ensure the crime here is as low as possible by putting bad people behind bars, but bad guys are like weeds and two spring up to replace whatever weed you tug out of the ground. That’s not in anyone’s interest, so I make deals with people like Castel and McAllan. They get a pass if they play by my rules.’
‘What rules?’
‘The rules of fair play, of course. Namely, don’t do anything that would make the front page in the local paper.’
‘And make regular donations to the Fendy retirement fund?’
‘Hey, I’m never retiring,’ she said with faux outrage. ‘And also: no. I don’t take a cut. I’m a peacemaker not a racketeer.’
‘I see.’
‘I invited you here because I want to keep things friendly. I don’t want you to think we have opposing goals.’
‘Reassuring,’ he replied. ‘But why did you feel the need to reassure me?’
‘I can’t help it. I’m the last honest lawyer in the northern hemisphere.’
Victor remained silent.
‘But, in all seriousness, I don’t want you thinking we’re enemies when we can be friends.’
‘Why would I think you an enemy?’
‘Are you going to challenge everything I say?’
‘I might.’
Fendy tapped her lip. ‘What do the police say?’
‘Given there are no signs of foul play and no one has actually reported them missing then there isn’t a lot to go on. Officially speaking. Officer Linette is doing what she can.’
‘Why do I know that name?’
‘She’s McAllan’s daughter.’
Fendy said, ‘Ah, yes. Of course.’
‘I guess she uses her mother’s name because of the association.’
‘She’s his stepdaughter.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Victor said. ‘Are they close?’
Fendy chose her words with care. ‘I think it woul
d be fair to say that their respective career choices put a certain strain on the relationship.’
‘She joined up to rile him?’
‘Maybe he became a criminal to rile her.’
She smiled at him and he humoured her with a half-smile of his own.
‘I’ve had McAllan on side for a long time now,’ she explained. ‘He does what he’s told and I’m sure even he would admit he does better for himself playing by my rules. Castel is a more recent addition to the club and a more volatile member, but he’s calming down slowly. Now, instead of fighting to keep his turf he calls me. Same as McAllan has always done. Any new players try to muscle in on their respective businesses, or if they know of anyone else setting up shop in my district, they tell me right away and I go after them hard by way of our dedicated boys and girls in blue. Violent crime is almost non-existent in this county, and crime as a whole has fallen year on year for the past three. Like I said: I’m an old Colt .45. Pow, pow.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I don’t care how you run this town,’ Victor said. ‘I don’t care about Castel’s meth. I don’t care about McAllan’s corrupt city contracts either. It’s none of my business. But if either of them is involved in the disappearance of Michelle and Joshua Levell, or if they know what happened and are holding out on me, I’ll burn their clubhouses to the ground before I’m gone. I will rip this entire town wide open if I have to.’
He didn’t raise his voice. His tone didn’t alter. There was no emotion in his words.
Fendy regarded him with an intense curiosity, almost surprised, as if the man sitting opposite her had become a whole different person right before her eyes.
‘You should care how I run my town,’ Fendy said after that moment had passed. ‘Because if you cause trouble for them you cause trouble for me. I told you we help each other out, didn’t I? That means I take care of their problems too.’
‘You don’t want to come for me.’
She smiled a little. ‘I don’t? Maybe you should enlighten me as to why not.’
‘Right now, as you said, we’re not enemies. So you might think that the last thing I want is you causing me trouble. That would be a reasonable assumption given your position in this county and the power it provides. But you really need to trust me when I say the very worst decision you could ever make would be doing something that encourages me to think you are in fact a problem.’
Again, he didn’t raise his voice. Again, his tone didn’t alter. Again, there was no emotion in his words.
If Victor had transformed in her perception before, he changed again now.
Fendy swallowed, then said, ‘You’re a salesman from Las Vegas on a fishing trip.’
Victor remained silent.
‘All I’m after is maintaining the peace I fought so hard to create,’ Fendy said once she had cleared her throat.
‘If you want peace then you need to encourage Castel and McAllan to open up. I’m almost out of patience.’
Fendy said, ‘You told me you’re only here to find Michelle and Joshua.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Once they’re found, you’ll move on?’
Victor nodded.
Fendy said, ‘Then you and I can help each other.’
‘How so?’
‘This town is a duck pond. I try very hard to keep the water smooth and glassy, yet you’re standing on the edge tossing in pebbles. I want you gone. I want the calm restored. So, I’ll do whatever it takes to find them. How does that sound?’
‘I’m going nowhere until they’re found.’
‘I can see that. I didn’t mean I would take over the search to get you out of town. I’ll help you and then you’ll have an easier time of finding them with my assistance. In return, you leave once they’re located, and my duck pond can settle back down to glassy smooth again.’
‘If McAllan and Castel are involved—’
‘Listen, if either of them has anything to do with a missing mother and child then that overrides any prior arrangements I have with them. I’m not kidding in the least little bit. If they’re involved, my professional friendship with them is null and void. My protection vanishes like that’ – she made a fleeting gesture – ‘and I’ll go after them with everything I’ve got.’
‘Then I accept your assistance.’
‘Tremendous,’ she said. ‘I will instruct both esteemed gentlemen to keep their distance for the time being, but you should leave the motel to bring McAllan on side.’
‘I can do that but I’m not sure he will back off.’
She exhaled. ‘Let me try, okay? And given you burned off half the face of one of Castel’s crew he might take longer to convince.’
‘I didn’t admit to that.’
Her eyebrows pinched closer. ‘Nevertheless, you might want to take a road trip until I can talk him down.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Victor said. ‘Worry that Castel still needs to convince me he has nothing to do with Michelle’s and Joshua’s disappearance.’
Fendy showed her palms to say she understood.
Victor said, ‘Can you get me a list of everyone who works at McAllan’s quarry? With their phone numbers, addresses and so on.’
‘I can. Why?’
‘Michelle might have a boyfriend who works there. So far I haven’t been able to find out who he is.’
‘You can pick him from a list?’
‘This town has a population of about eleven thousand, give or take?’
‘Give or take.’
‘That’s five and a half thousand males,’ Victor said. ‘Discount half as too young or too old and that leaves two and—’
‘I get it,’ she said. ‘Probably only two hundred men work at the quarry in comparison.’
‘Less than a hundred. Maybe sixty guys in the right age range. I’ll knock on all sixty front doors if I have to.’
Fendy nodded along as he spoke. ‘I’ll get right on it. Take my card and call whenever you need something. In fact, call anyway so I have your number in case I find out something and need to get hold of you. Remember: we both want you to succeed here. We both want you gone. And while we’re working towards that end, I’d really appreciate it if you can try not to make anyone else in my town nervous. Think you can manage that?’
Victor raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ll do my best.’
FORTY-TWO
The French barman was not serving when Victor walked inside. Instead, Big Pete was running things. Turned out he owned the bar as well as being one of its regulars. Big Pete gave him a chin-raise greeting and Victor returned it with a nod.
‘When I’m not working here, I’m drinking here,’ he told Victor as he fetched a couple of bottles from the cooler. ‘And when I’m not drinking here, I’m working here.’
‘Efficient,’ Victor said as he took the beers. ‘Saves on gas.’
‘I never thought of it like that,’ Big Pete said with a nod of approval. ‘But that’ll be my excuse going forward. I’m going to claim it as my own, just so you know.’
‘Then I want my beer on the house,’ Victor said.
Big Pete grinned. ‘Nice try.’
Linette was waiting for him.
‘I want you to know there are no conflicts of interest concerning me and my dad,’ she told him as he took his seat at her table.
Victor listened.
‘I mean it,’ Linette insisted. ‘He breaks any law and I’ll bust him if there’s evidence he did. He’s well aware of that. But he’s no kidnapper. Why would he even kidnap a mother and her child?’
‘He’s a criminal. There have to be a dozen reasons why he might need to kidnap someone who works at one of his businesses,’ Victor said. ‘But if he had kidnapped them then they’d be dead by now.’
‘Whoa, hold on a sec—’
‘Given I’m looking for them, given you’re looking for them, he would be under too much pressure and would either release them – and he h
asn’t – or he would kill them. Easier to hide corpses than people.’
‘You’re so full of shit.’
‘Don’t swear,’ Victor said. ‘I didn’t say that’s what’s happened. I said if he had kidnapped them then they would be dead. But he didn’t kidnap them. They went willingly with Michelle’s boyfriend and they never came back again. Either he has them or he took them on someone’s behalf.’
‘Someone like my dad?’
‘He can’t be ruled out just because you don’t want to believe he’s capable of it.’
‘But why? How?’
‘I don’t know why, but the how is simple enough: Michelle’s boyfriend works for your father at the quarry so there’s a direct connection between McAllan and the boyfriend. Maybe he was coerced. Maybe he was simply paid to do it. Maybe he was never really her boyfriend and the whole relationship was a cover so he could gain their trust.’
‘What kind of monster would pretend to be someone he wasn’t just to get paid?’
Victor remained silent.
Linette sipped her ginger ale. ‘You were right about Michelle, by the way.’
‘No credit card has been used since she went missing?’
‘She doesn’t have a credit card. No bank card either. She gets paid in cash, pays her bills in cash. Her cell is prepaid.’
‘Interesting,’ Victor said. ‘Has that always been the case?’
‘For the last two years,’ Linette answered. ‘That’s how long she’s been in town.’
‘Where did she live?’
‘The big city. Vancouver.’
Victor said, ‘That’s a long way.’
‘A whole world away,’ Linette said. ‘Perhaps Michelle wanted a simpler life. I can’t say living in a city sounds particularly appealing to me. All that stress. People are nicer in the country.’
‘Did she have a credit card or bank card back then?’
‘Not for almost ten years.’
‘What happened ten years ago?’
‘She got married,’ Linette said. ‘To some guy named Bellarmien Robidoux. What kind of a name is that?’
‘Joshua told me he had no father.’
‘They’re not divorced,’ Linette said. ‘They’re estranged. Two years is a long time for a kid not to see his dad. Might as well not have one by then. Hell, Michelle and Bellarmien might have been separated before Joshua was even born.’