A Matter of Malice

by Thomas King

  Gloria handed him a card. “If you need me,” she said, “call this number.”

  “And you’ll come running?”

  “James Taylor,” said Gloria. “Like the song, yeah?”

  Thumps stood at the front door and considered the new keypad and intercom that Beth had had installed at the start of the summer. Before, the building had had a one-button intercom that serviced all three floors. Now there were three buttons. The first buzzed the second floor. This is where Beth lived, where Thumps could count on a comfortable sofa, a cup of tea, and a cookie.

  The second buzzed the first floor. This is where Beth had her medical practice. The space wasn’t as nice as the second floor and the wood chairs were hard, but it had the benefit of being on the same level as the front door and made for an easy escape if an escape was necessary.

  The third button buzzed the basement, where Beth maintained the morgue, where she performed autopsies and stored dead bodies.

  Thumps liked the new keypad. Now he didn’t have to guess. He could press the button for the second floor or for the first floor, and if Beth didn’t answer, he’d just come back another time. With the floors organized, he saw no reason or need to risk the third button.

  So he didn’t.

  Beth was probably in her office on the first floor, waiting for him. But he pressed the button for the second floor, hoping he’d get lucky.

  “Yes?”

  Sometimes optimism was rewarded. “It’s me.”

  “Basement.”

  “What?”

  “Just kidding. Come on up.”

  Beth was waiting for him when he got to the top of the stairs. She was smiling and looked much too pleased with herself.

  “Not funny.”

  “Sure it was,” she said.

  The last time Thumps had been in Beth’s apartment, the walls had been painted a medium taupe. Now they were a soft yellow. There was a new rug on the floor and a new sofa that looked to have been made out of a couple of recliners.

  Beth stood in the middle of the room and waited for Thumps to say something.

  “Place looks great.”

  Beth cocked her head. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  “My car’s totalled,” said Thumps, hoping to change the subject and elicit a little sympathy. “And I think my cat’s dead.”

  “Freeway?”

  “I came home and she was . . .” Thumps let the sentence fragment dangle in space.

  “She’s really dead?”

  Thumps shrugged.

  “So what you mean is . . . she’s missing.”

  Thumps shrugged again.

  “Stop shrugging and sit down.”

  Thumps tried the sofa. He was right. Recliners.

  “It’s from Norway,” said Beth, “and it’s expensive, so you better say something nice.”

  Thumps adjusted the one side until he found a comfortable position.

  “How’s Claire?”

  Thumps had been hoping that Beth wasn’t going to ask that question. Claire’s health was Claire’s business. She had made that quite clear.

  “Okay.”

  “That’s it? Okay?”

  “Okay’s good.”

  Beth rolled her eyes. “Okay, then let’s talk about you.” She sat down at the kitchen table, put on her reading glasses, and opened a folder. “This is you.” She held up a page. “And this is your blood chemistry results. You know what they tell me?”

  Thumps checked to see if the sofa had a lumbar support. “I’m cured?”

  Beth snorted. “Have you been watching your diet?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Beth went back to reading and making small sympathetic noises. “Okay, then I’m going to take you off the pills.”

  “Great.” Thumps tried not to sound too pleased, but the pills had been expensive, and remembering to take them all the time had been annoying.

  Beth looked at him over the top of the glasses. “We’re going to have to put you on insulin.”

  Thumps stopped playing with the recliner sofa and sat up straight.

  “Insulin? Like with a needle?”

  “Normally your pancreas makes insulin.” Beth paused and softened her voice. “But yours isn’t doing that anymore. So, yes, with a needle.”

  “Aren’t there other pills we can try?”

  “I’ve already sent a prescription over to the pharmacy. You can pick it up any time.”

  “What if I cut out the ice cream?”

  “This isn’t Let’s Make a Deal.” Beth closed the folder and set her glasses on the table. “This is serious. Did you ever read that brochure on diabetes I gave you?”

  Thumps tried to remember if he had ever seen a brochure on diabetes.

  “Sure.”

  “The part about blindness, stroke, organ failure, and amputations?”

  Thumps brought the recliner back to a full and upright position. “So I have to inject myself with insulin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Once a week?”

  “With every meal.”

  Thumps knew a joke when he heard one. “Not funny.”

  “The pharmacy will give you a booklet and a chart that explains carbohydrate counting and how to gauge the amount of insulin you’ll need in each injection.”

  “You were kidding about after every meal.”

  “But in the end, insulin is an art rather than a math formula.” Beth leaned back in the chair. “If you exercise after a meal, you’ll need to take less insulin. If you plan to sack out on the sofa and watch TV, you’ll need more. There’s the chance that your body will still produce insulin from time to time, and that can throw things off.”

  “Every meal?”

  “In the end, you’re going to have to get attuned to your body and what high and low blood sugars feel like. It will be a little tricky at first.”

  “Am I dying?”

  “Yes,” said Beth, “and the insulin is going to help to keep you alive.”

  “The sofa isn’t all that comfortable. I liked the old one better.”

  “I’m sorry.” Beth nodded. “I know this isn’t good news.”

  “You and Ora Mae back together?”

  “You really want to go there?” Beth’s face darkened into a storm front. “It’s not my fault you’re diabetic.”

  Okay. He was sorry he had brought Ora Mae up. That had been unkind. Beth was right. It wasn’t her fault he was diabetic. It was a disease after all, not some form of punishment or retribution.

  Thumps was at the door when Beth stopped him.

  “Tell Claire I’m here if she wants to talk.”

  “Sure.”

  “The needles are not a big deal,” she said. “You’ll get used to them.”

  “Sure.”

  “But I’m really sorry about your cat.”

  Fourteen

  Thumps stood on the sidewalk in front of the old Land Titles building and considered the possibilities. To his left was Chinook Pharmacy and the exciting new diabetic regime. To his right was Al’s and a late breakfast. He hadn’t eaten much at Shadow Ranch, and he was hungry. If he was lucky, he could sneak in before the lunch crowd arrived.

  The decision was an easy one. The pharmacy could wait.

  There was only one other person in the café. A woman in a hooded windbreaker several sizes too big. She was at the counter hunched over a plate of food and a cup of coffee.

  Not a regular.

  That happened every so often. A tourist would get lost and wander in, or someone passing through town had heard about the café and decided to give it a try.

  In spite of its uninspiring interior.

  Most good eateries had their own personality. Al’s had smells. Grease and damp wool, strong coffee and sweat combined to form currents and eddies that ran through the café like tides, and Thumps imagined that the main sensation people who walked in off the street for the first time had was that of being shoved underwater.

 
Thumps was already on his favourite stool, waiting for Al to bring the pot, before he realized who she was.

  “Mr. DreadfulWater.”

  Sydney Pearl. Malice Aforethought.

  “Al and I were just talking about you.”

  Al was standing at the grill, a steel spatula in her hand. She didn’t look happy to see him.

  Pearl pushed the hood off her head. “I understand you had breakfast with Calder.”

  “At Shadow Ranch?” shouted Al. “Some people might consider that collaborating with the enemy.”

  “I told her it wasn’t your idea,” said Pearl. “Don’t think she believed me.”

  Thumps had hoped for a quiet sanctuary, a place where he could contemplate his failing health and feel sorry for himself, a place where he could drown his sorrows in crispy hash browns and scrambled eggs.

  Al waved the spatula at him. “Good thing I’m a generous and forgiving person.”

  Pearl had a waffle in front of her. Along with two large sausages.

  “A waffle?” Thumps stared at Al. “You only make waffles and sausages for people you like.”

  “Sydney’s going to put me in the show.”

  “Are those honey garlic pork sausages?”

  “Colour,” said Pearl. “We try to involve local people in the show.”

  “Is that real maple syrup?”

  “Don’t be a baby.” Al brought the pot and filled his cup. “I don’t make you waffles because you’re diabetic.”

  “So did Calder cry on your shoulder?” Pearl stayed bent over her food.

  Thumps pointed his lips at the grill. “Scrambled eggs, hash browns, multi-grain toast, and salsa. Please?”

  Al wiped her hands on her apron. “Oh, so infidelity makes you hungry?”

  Pearl pulled the hood off her head. “Did he tell you that Malice Aforethought was his big chance to get back into the game?”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes,” said Pearl. “And no. Calder’s got the looks and the camera likes him. He’s long on the visuals, but he’s short on the talent. If this were a dramatic series, he’d be the guy they kill off in the first episode.”

  “But it’s not.”

  “Nope,” said Pearl. “It’s reality TV. Calder doesn’t have to act, he just has to narrate.”

  “And he’s got a good voice.”

  Pearl cut a piece off the waffle. “For Calder, reality TV is as good as it gets. He just doesn’t know it.”

  “And you’ve told him this?”

  Pearl smiled. “Do I look like I care?”

  Al took longer than usual with his breakfast. She was known to get grumpy if her regulars ate somewhere else. But Thumps hadn’t really eaten at Shadow Ranch. He hoped she didn’t know about Mirrors.

  “Here’s your breakfast,” she said. “I cut back on the potatoes and eggs, seeing as you’ve already eaten.”

  “I didn’t eat anything.” Thumps sagged on the stool for effect. “My blood sugars are dropping fast.”

  Al kept the pot on her hip. “Jimmy said he saw you coming out of that new joint across from the Tucker.”

  Okay. So she knew about Mirrors as well.

  “Malice Aforethought is network prime time,” said Pearl. “Hard to get to the top. Harder to stay there.”

  Thumps dumped the salsa over his eggs.

  “We have eight episodes in the can.” Pearl settled her forearms on the counter. “They’ve been okay, enough salaciousness, innuendo, and violence to keep the audience awake. But for the last two episodes, we need something stronger.”

  The low light in Al’s wasn’t doing Sydney Pearl any favours. In the gloom of the café, she looked gaunt. Her hair was thin and limp, the skin around her eyes slate grey and desert dry. Thumps wondered if she was still packing the .38.

  “Have you reconsidered our offer?”

  And there it was, staring him in the face. Thumps mentally kicked himself. He should have seen it sooner.

  “You need Rattler.”

  Pearl tilted her head to one side. There was a faint rash on the side of her neck that started below her ear and disappeared under the jacket.

  “And you don’t have him.”

  Pearl went back to her waffle.

  Thumps turned on the stool. “What’s it cost to bring your cast and crew to Chinook?”

  “It’s expensive.”

  “And you wouldn’t have made that commitment unless all the pieces were in place.”

  “What’s your point, Mr. DreadfulWater?”

  Thumps ran through the various scenarios and came up with the same answer. “What you have is a cold case. You want it to be a murder, but right now you have zip. Buck Samuels is dead. Sheriff Tull is dead. No witnesses. All you really have is a rich family, an angry stepmother, and a dead girl.”

  Pearl closed her eyes.

  “And Tobias Rattler. Reservation bad boy. Famous novelist. Was he Trudy’s lover? Did he kill her? Did he cause her to commit suicide? How am I doing?”

  “Please,” said Pearl. “Continue.”

  “The only way the show works is if you can fabricate a confrontation between Adele Samuels and Rattler.”

  “Mr. Rattler agreed to be on the show.” Pearl turned on her stool. “He signed a contract.”

  “But now he’s decided that he doesn’t want to do it?”

  “Three days ago.”

  Thumps spooned the last of the salsa out of the container. There were a number of ways for Pearl and Malice Aforethought to have come to this impasse. But there was only one that made sense.

  “Because you lied to him.”

  Pearl’s poker face was impressive. She picked up her coffee cup as though she were examining it for cracks.

  “That’s not very friendly.”

  Thumps saw his mistake. “No, not you. Nina Maslow. Maslow told him that Malice Aforethought just wanted to interview him about Trudy Samuels. What did she tell him? A documentary? A memorial? A tribute? A short conversation with Calder? Remembering Trudy? Something like that?”

  “For an ex-cop,” said Pearl, “you’d make a decent producer.”

  “But what Maslow really planned to do was to spring Adele Samuels on him. A surprise. He’d be on set chatting with Calder and then Samuels would arrive and accuse him of murdering Trudy. You wanted to embarrass him, suggest that he killed the girl. The Jerry Springer moment. Two dogs in a box. How am I doing?”

  “It’s a little gauche, but you’ve managed the plot quite well.”

  “And Rattler found out about your little plan.”

  “So it seems.”

  “A slaughterhouse with nothing to slaughter.”

  “You should have stopped at ‘two dogs in a box.’”

  Thumps tried to see all the possibilities at once and came up short. “What I don’t understand is what you expect me to do. You don’t want me to investigate the case. The only thing that makes sense is you’re hoping I can talk Rattler into being on the show.”

  “We want you to do both.”

  Thumps could feel it. There was something he was missing. “I don’t know Rattler. He doesn’t know me.”

  “Do you know the difference between legality and justice?”

  “Sure,” said Thumps. “And I also know the difference between truth and lies.”

  “No need for cynicism, Mr. DreadfulWater,” said Pearl. “It doesn’t become you.”

  “There is nothing to suggest that Rattler had anything to do with what happened to Trudy Samuels.”

  “Mrs. Samuels believes he did.”

  “Emmitt Tull looked at him hard,” said Thumps, “and Rattler was never even charged.”

  “Legal versus justice,” said Pearl. “Surely you know the two are not the same.”

  “Which brings us back to my question,” said Thumps.

  “My job is to make sure this program is a success.” Pearl kept her voice calm and even. “And I only have two more shows to make that happen.”

  “And if th
e last two episodes are terrific?”

  Pearl finished up the waffle. “Network picks up the option for another year. Fame and fortune.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “In order to survive in this business, you have to be a hopeless optimist or a high-functioning sociopath.” Pearl pushed the rest of her waffle to where Thumps could reach it. “We have a production meeting at 3:00. Why don’t you stop in, see what we’re doing. Maybe you’ll discover that we have mutual interests.”

  Thumps tried to imagine what those interests might be. “So which one are you?”

  “Me?”

  “Optimist or sociopath?”

  Pearl dropped a twenty on the counter, pulled her hood up over her head, and pushed off the stool. “Who the fuck cares?”

  Thumps didn’t realize that Al was standing in front of him until he looked up from his coffee.

  “I like her,” Al said. “She’s tough and she’s smart.”

  “She has a gun.”

  “Hell,” said Al, “I have a gun.”

  “So you’re going to be a TV star.”

  “You’re not getting off that easy.”

  Thumps held up his hands. “I didn’t ask to go to Mirrors, and I didn’t ask to go to Shadow Ranch.”

  “That’s what the Nazis said.”

  “The Nazis said they were following orders.”

  “Same thing.” Al looked at his plate. “Something wrong with my hash browns?”

  “No.” Thumps sighed. “Just tired.”

  Al filled his cup to the top. “Okay,” she said. “Seeing as you lost your car and your cat, and can’t find Claire, and the diabetes has gotten worse, I’ll cut you some slack.”

  Thumps sat up with a start. “What about my diabetes?”

  “Having to shoot up with insulin after every meal is not the end of the world.”

  “Jesus.”

  “What?” said Al. “It was a secret?”

  Thumps closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “You really going to be in that show?”

  Al threw the dish towel over her shoulder. “Why not? Looks like fun. I get to stand around just like I do here, except I get paid better. And I don’t have to clean up after.”