by David Haynes
He laughed. “A week. Is it obvious?”
Leo laughed too. “Not really. This your first sale?”
He nodded and then looked serious again. “But I’ll make a good job of it, Mr. Newman, I can promise you that.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Leo replied.
*
Two weeks later, the security refit was complete. One camera at the front of the store, three inside, all digital and high definition. The steel shutter was like a portcullis. It dropped down at the touch of a button and clicked into place, keeping people out, keeping them in.
Chris was as good as his word, taking pride in what he achieved and carefully running Leo through the software. He hoped he would never have to use any of it. When the team left, he made a coffee and stood in the doorway looking out onto the street.
His breath steamed as much as the hot coffee in the frigid air. The snow was light and fluffy, not layering on the ground, just leaving the street wet enough for the cars to zip along the tarmac. Twenty years ago, both sides of the street had been lined with shops, cafes and bars. Now, every third building stood empty, boarded up, never likely to reopen. Twenty years was a long time. He knew that only too well.
He turned around and stepped into the warmth of the shop. Maybe he’d close up early tonight, take a bottle of the good whiskey upstairs and watch crap on TV. He stared at the liquor cabinet.
“Mr. Newman?”
He turned around. A cop was standing in the doorway, a thin layer of snow on the peak of her cap.
“Come in,” he said. “Coffee?”
The cop shook her head. “No, thank you sir.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Just doing my rounds.” She stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Officer Knowles. I’m your new beat cop.”
Leo’s eyes widened. “Beat cop? We haven’t had one of those for fifteen years. Good to see you.” He took her hand. “You sure you don’t want that coffee? It’s cold out…”
She smiled. “Thank you, but no. I’d be in the restroom all day if I drank every cup of coffee that was offered. Another time. I came by to ask you a couple of questions about the incident. If you’ve got a few of minutes?”
“Sure,” he replied. “I thought Detective King was dealing with it.”
“Oh, he is, but it wouldn’t hurt to have more eyes on the ground.”
“Shoot,” he said and then cringed.
“You ever had any problems with gangs around here? Asian gangs, specifically.”
He shrugged. “Can’t say I ever really had anything to do with them.” He pointed across the street at the Asian supermarket. “They tend to do their shopping over there. Keep themselves to themselves.” He paused. “Until…until that guy…”
“Have you heard of Yakuza?”
“Sure,” he replied. “Seen a couple of Hollywood movies about them. One had Sean Connery in, Wesley Snipes too, I think.”
Knowles nodded.
“You don’t think those guys were anything to do with Yakuza, do you? They were just punks, a couple of…”
He stopped. Knowles was just staring back at him.
“Jesus,” he hissed.
“Look,” she said. “We don’t know who the shooter was, not yet, and the other guy isn’t talking too much. Not least because his jaw is still wired shut.” She raised her eyebrows at him before continuing. “But he’s got the tattoos, so at some point he might have had some involvement with them. We’re working on that.”
Leo took a sip of his coffee.
“You’ve probably noticed the immigrant population is growing down here fast, and we’re getting reports of threats, extortion and assaults. It only takes a handful of guys who think they can do what they want to ruin everything. Maybe they’re just wannabes. We don’t know.”
“Okay, well if I hear anything, I’ll let you or Detective King know.”
“I see you’ve got some new cameras. That’s good.”
“A shutter too.”
She nodded and then turned back to the door. The snow was falling heavier now. A thin layer had formed on the sidewalk. Winter was coming.
“Anytime you need a hot cup of coffee, just drop in,” Leo called.
She smiled at him and then stepped out into the weather.
Yakuza? Really? It didn’t seem likely. A couple of gangs had tried to strong-arm folk in the past, without success. The people around here were too proud, too determined, to allow that to happen. Or at least, they had been. Not many of the old guard were still here. He was one of the last. The immigrant population was diverse and mainly compartmentalized. There was no strength in numbers. But still, organized crime gangs, here?
3
At a little after ten Leo closed the store, bringing down the steel shutters. They dropped into place with a reassuring click. The bottle of whiskey was waiting for him on the counter. He picked it up and switched off the lights, before making his way to the rear of the store under the green glow of the fire exit sign. He passed through the dark storeroom, ignoring the jumble of untidy boxes crammed against the shelves. He’d been walking this way every night for the last twenty years. He tapped the new security code into the glowing box and walked on.
At the back of the storeroom, he opened a door that led directly up to his apartment. He took the stairs quickly, locking and bolting the door behind him. At the top, he flicked the light switch. It was one large room, stretching over the store and halfway into the abandoned store next door. Kitchen at one end, lounge in the center, and at the other end his bed and bathroom. It suited Leo just fine. It looked like an industrial warehouse, all exposed brick and steel beams. Had it been in a different area, it would have been prime real estate. As it was, it was just home and had been since his retirement from the ring.
A warm orange glow filtered through the blinds, falling like flaming spears on the exposed wooden floor. He used to keep the blinds open all night, just to feel that he wasn’t as alone as he actually was, that the world still existed outside.
He didn’t do that so much anymore. He didn’t care for what was outside the window now. He walked over and pulled the cord. The entire row of floor-to-ceiling vertical blinds flipped closed. The outside world, populated by crazy men in Halloween masks robbing stores, could stay where it was.
He grabbed a glass and collapsed on the couch. Chris, the security guy, had given him a tablet computer to use in conjunction with the new cameras. “You can control them from your bed if you want, Mr. Newman!” Chris had been excited about pretty much everything, but the ability to control it from the bed seemed to excite him the most. Leo wasn’t exactly sure why he’d ever have to do that.
He opened the software and poured himself a drink. The images were crystal clear, better than his television, even with only the low-level lighting on in the store. He moved the camera around using a touchpad on the screen, and then changed to the other internal camera. The chips were all there, the candy bars and the magazines too. Just sitting there waiting for someone to come up and pick them. Behind that, the crap he’d been talked into stocking by Marvin the wholesaler. The garden tools, the kids’ toys and the camping equipment. It was all there, right where it had been for nearly a year. And it wasn’t likely to be going anywhere soon either. Not unless you liked camping in the snow.
He flicked to the outside camera and moved it from side to side. A couple walked past, arm in arm. He couldn’t hear them but they looked like they were laughing. He poured another drink.
He’d had that once. A good woman standing right beside him, taking care of each other, looking out for one another. That was how it should be. Best friends. Things hadn’t quite worked out how he’d planned. Especially not with women. He’d always thought he’d be a family man by now. A couple of kids, probably at high school, getting ready for university. The boxing nest-egg secure and ready for them to take to college. Then he’d be able to enjoy more time with his wife, take some trips, maybe even abroad. No sir, thing
s hadn’t quite worked out that way. Would they ever? He sipped the whiskey, watched the snow swirl in the eddy of his doorway. He couldn’t see it. The only person he ever went to see was Marvin, and a sixty-year-old, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed slob wasn’t his type. Not too many suitable women came knocking either.
The cop had been pretty, in a hard-nosed kind of way. You wouldn’t want to take any liberties with her. How old was she anyway? Forty, maybe? Seven or eight years younger than him, possibly.
He laughed, pouring another drink. What the hell was he thinking? Why on earth would she ever be interested in him? He had a face that had been punched too many times, a nose that was flatter than a pancake, and an ugly scar on his eyebrow that made him look as if he had a lazy eye. No, she was married, probably to another cop, some detective on homicide. Maybe she was seeing Detective King.
He sat back, discarding the glass, taking sips straight from the bottle. It had been a long time since he’d got drunk but he was going to do just that tonight. And when he woke up in the morning, he was going to pack away all this maudlin crap that had been rolling around in his skull for the last month and start planning for the future again. That was how things were going to be.
*
Leo woke up stiff and cold. Outside, he could hear the wind picking up speed, thrashing snow against the windows. The apartment might look great but it was always cold up here. The heating was as inadequate as the previous security system had been.
He sat up, swinging his feet off the couch. As he put them on the floor, he slid backward, falling onto the cushions. The whiskey bottle rolled across the floor, the last dregs swilling around inside. The couch was wet where the bottle had slipped from his hand, spilling the liquor. He had no idea how much he’d drunk, but a burgeoning headache seemed to suggest it was just the wrong amount.
He took a couple of seconds to get his senses working and stretched, releasing a long yawn. The screen beside him lit up when he moved. He looked at it, shook his head and knuckled his eyes.
“What the…?”
The screen showed the front of the store, where he’d left it before falling into a whiskey-induced stupor. The time at the foot of the screen showed it was 3.15am. Snow-static fizzed around the lens, but there was no mistaking the figure standing out there. Right in front of the store.
Whoever it was was wrapped in a huge blanket, covering the head and most of the face. He couldn’t see any arms either. It looked like they were hugging themselves, holding tight to generate warmth. He or she was just standing there, right in the middle of the sidewalk, not even trying to get under the minimal cover of the doorway.
He was about to stand up when his eyes grew wide with horror. It wasn’t just one person. Whoever it was – a woman, it had to be – wasn’t hugging herself, she was holding a baby. He rubbed his eyes again. He glimpsed the top of the baby’s head before she pulled the blanket over them both again.
Leo dropped the tablet and ran across the room, staggering as his legs tried to catch up with his brain. He bolted down the stairs, unlocking the door and sprinting across the storeroom.
The new alarm sounded, shrill and piercing. It gave him an instant toothache. Chris had said it was loud, but this was unbearable. He checked his run, found the box and tapped in the code. The alarm continued.
“Fuck,” he hissed. He’d tapped in the old code. He tried again. This time it fell silent. He sprinted into the shop, activated the shutters and waited for them to lift. A wedge of orange streetlight expanded by his feet. It was slow, much too slow. He ducked down, trying to get a view outside.
“Come on, come on!” he shouted. Nobody should be out there in that, least of all a baby.
He unlocked the front door and stepped outside. He was immediately hit by the temperature. It had to be thirty degrees. Ice was forming thin shards in the slush-filled gutters.
She was gone.
Leo stepped further into the street, looking both left and right. No sign of anyone moving about out here. A haze of snow fell across the streetlights like static on a TV screen.
He looked down. A set of footprints – small, almost child-like – were being obliterated by the snow. They led across the sidewalk to the road and then disappeared where the snow had melted, heading for the store across the street. The Asian market was in darkness, as it should be. Wherever she was, he hoped both she and the baby were safe.
He narrowed his eyes and wiped snow from his face. Was that movement in the window above the market? A figure at the glass? He was getting old, maybe he needed spectacles. There was nobody there.
Leo shivered and turned back inside. He had to open up in a few hours. He needed to get some sleep. He locked up and went upstairs to his apartment. He closed down the app on the computer, dropped his wet clothes to the floor and fell into bed.
*
Leo slept badly and at 5.30, when the alarm sounded, he was already awake. He’d been tossing and turning since seeing the woman on his screen. At one point in the few hours between then and now, he’d accessed the software on the tablet and checked out the footage again. In the back of his mind was the suspicion that it had been an alcohol-induced, sleep-deprived hallucination. But she was on the footage, standing outside the store, just as he remembered; grimly holding onto the bundle of blankets that covered the infant.
As he’d thought, she appeared to walk across the street toward the Asian market. But as soon as she stepped off the sidewalk she was gone, out of range. Then he’d appeared a few seconds later, looking bewildered.
Leo shut it down and showered, changing into clean and dry clothes. He shouldn’t let it prey on his mind. It wasn’t his business if some homeless mother decided it was a good idea to take her child out in the middle of the freezing cold night. He had a store to run, to try and save from going under.
4
A couple of uneventful days passed by. The snow fell heavier and for longer. For a short time each morning, the sidewalks and street were carpeted in white sparkling crystals. Within an hour they were gone, the white turned to a dismal gray under a procession of feet and tires. Despite Leo’s best intentions, the days took on a familiar dismal tone. And so did the nights, waking up cold and stiff on the couch with the TV blaring.
The woman and her baby didn’t return, but she never quite left his thoughts. He hadn’t seen her face, nor any of her body, but his mind filled in all the blank spaces. She was young, probably late teens or early twenties. She must have fallen pregnant to someone who couldn’t give a damn; wandering the streets in the early hours trying to find somewhere to sleep, something to eat, and with each passing day, the life of her baby becoming more and more precarious. She became more than just a faceless shape on his camera. She was someone.
By midweek, the weather had truly turned. The snow was continual, falling in a thick cloud over everything and everyone. A perpetual haze of swirling white feathers blew along the street, sending most people back to the warmth of their homes. Business dropped another level.
Nevertheless, Leo kept the store open until eleven. He set up an old TV set on the counter, watching the various weather forecasts and warnings roll in. It was the same every year.
He checked the refrigerators and then walked to the stock room to get a few more bottles of soda. Even in the cold weather, people still seemed to want them. What he needed to do was invest in a better coffee machine. The coffee that came out of the ancient thing in the corner tasted like crap. Nobody used it, partially because of the taste but also because it looked like a health hazard.
He picked up the bottles and turned. Then froze. A couple of the sodas slipped from his hands.
She was back. Her face pressed to the window in a rictus of pain and suffering. Her mouth was open in a silent scream as she huddled the bundle of blankets to her chest. She was Asian.
In his mind, Leo heard the scream as clearly as he heard the hum of the refrigerators. It was mournful, full of grief. Her eyes were as black as oil as they
fixed his, holding him to the spot.
She turned and walked slowly away from the window.
Leo couldn’t move. The shock of seeing someone so utterly and wholly filled with despair was chilling.
“Hold on!” he shouted. Why hadn’t she just come inside the store? The lights were all on. It was obviously open.
She stepped off the sidewalk and vanished into the haze of the storm before he’d made it to the door. A truck slid slowly past, tires spinning, sending showers of icy snow into the air.
Leo charged through the door. “Hey! Wait up!” he called. The snow stung his eyes. She was gone. Her footprints stopped halfway across the street where the truck had driven. Had she been run down? No, there was nothing on the street except the rapidly disappearing tire tracks. What the hell?
He looked across at the building on the other side of the road. The row of windows was much like his own. He’d never seen anyone up there, never seen a light on either. He squinted and waited. A second or two passed, then a shadow moved across the window that mirrored his own kitchen. Just a shadow, nothing more, but his mind told him it had to be her.
He shook his head and exhaled, his breath jettisoned from his mouth in a long stream that vanished as quickly as she had. He waved his arms toward the window, but it was all darkness again. No sign of movement.
It didn’t make sense. Should he call the cops? What should he tell them? That some girl had come to his store, made a face and then disappeared back to her apartment across the street? It sounded like bullshit, something the cops would roll their eyes at and tell him to go back to bed. They were probably right. Maybe he’d go over the road tomorrow and introduce himself, try and find out who she was.
*
Leo held his hand out. “Leo Newman. I own the store over the street.” He pointed at it.
The man shook his hand, a warm smile on his face. “Michael,” he replied. “Michael Abe.” He spoke with an American accent.