Garret sank the fourteen and twelve balls, then ran out of luck and missed, but accidentally left the cue ball tight up against the rail so Billy couldn’t get a decent shot.
Billy sank a ball anyhow, the seven. He dropped the five and the one. Garret was starting to look worried. Billy missed. Garret made that snickering sound again, his confidence instantly restored. What he didn’t know and would never in a million years figure out was that Billy was toying with him, leading him on.
Garret sank the ten cleanly. He went over to the counter, got Mike to make change and then bought himself another Coke. Billy waited until Garret popped the tab, then sank his last three balls and dropped the eight on a tricky three banks in the side shot, giving the ball just the right weight, so it rolled slowly up to the pocket and seemed to hang there for a tantalising second or two, before dropping with a thud.
Game over.
Garret, that clown, spewed a mouthful of Coke foam into the neon lights and made them sizzle. Mike glanced up from his paper. He frowned but didn’t say anything, because he wasn’t sure what had happened and didn’t care to risk making a fool of himself.
“Rack ’em,” said Billy.
They were halfway through their second game when Pony finally wandered back to the table. He moved in so close that Billy could count his eyelashes. “So, I hear you’re looking for a piece.”
“A piece of what, cherry pie?”
“No, a large calibre handgun. You know what it is, thing that you point and pull the trigger and it makes a real loud sound. Like, bang!”
“Then what?”
Pony shrugged. “The neighbour’s dog don’t bother you no more. Whatever.”
Garret was down at the far end of the table, studying the possibilities offered by the lie of the cue ball. He showed no interest in the conversation, which was fine with Billy.
“What’ve you got for me?”
“A Colt Python,” said Pony. “You like that name, Python? Powerful fucker, three fifty-seven Magnum. New out of the box, never been fired. Short barrel, about the size of your dick. Easy to conceal.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred and fifty-seven dollars,” said Pony, straight-faced.
Billy let his eyes go cold. The price they’d talked about on the phone was three hundred. The whimsical surcharge was Pony’s payback; what he needed to regain the face he’d lost by bringing the subject up in the first place. Billy said, “Want to shoot a game, double or nothing?”
Pony shook his head. “I’ve seen you play, Billy. It’s the one thing in the world you do better than me.”
“Three hundred and fifty-seven bucks. That’s real cute, Pony.”
“Includes a box of bullets and a big colour poster of Clint Eastwood, get you in the right mood.”
Billy gave a little jerk of his head. “Let’s have a look.”
“Linda’s got it.”
“Who?”
Pony jerked his thumb at the eighty-pounder wearing too much makeup and a fringed black leather jacket, faded blue jeans with little silver studs down the outer seams.
“Okay, fine. You want to introduce us?”
“Show me some money.”
Billy flashed his wad, stuck it back down inside his boot. “Don’t go away,” said Pony, and made his way back through the tables towards the girl.
“What?” said Garret from the far side of the table.
Billy ignored him. He watched Pony say a few words to Linda and then reach around behind her and slap her on her skinny little ass, make her jump.
“Ouch,” said Garret.
Billy lit a cigarette. The girl gave him a long, slow look, her dark eyes cutting through the haze of smoke, and then turned her back on him and disappeared into the women’s washroom. Billy looked at Pony, and Pony nodded. Billy glanced around the room. Nobody was paying any attention to them. He leaned his cue against the table. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t even think about moving any of those balls.”
Garret said, “Sure thing, Billy.” There was no law against playing eight ball. But they caught you carrying an unregistered handgun, that was entirely another set of circumstances. So if Billy wanted to act like a fucking cowboy and take all the risks, Garret was happy to oblige. No problem whatsoever.
“Anybody follows me into the can,” said Billy, “you jump in real quick.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I mean it, Garret.”
“Count on me. No problem.”
Feeling kind of weird, Billy yanked open the door and went into the washroom. There were two cubicles. Pony’s lightweight squeeze was in the one at the rear. She was sitting sideways on the toilet seat with her back against the plywood wall.
Billy looked down at her, his hands on his hips.
She said, “Come on in, Billy.”
Billy squeezed inside the cubicle. He said, “How’d you know my name?”
“I asked Pony. He told me.”
Billy shut the door and shot the bolt.
Linda said, “I asked him what your name is because I think you’re kind of cute.” She lowered her eyes, licked her lips. “Would you like me to do something for you?”
“Yeah,” said Billy.
She pushed away from the wall, rotated on the toilet seat so she was facing him. “Just tell me what.”
“Show me the gun,” said Billy.
The gun was in a plastic bag. It was a Colt, all right. A .357 Magnum stainless with walnut grips. The metal was cold and oily and felt very dense. Billy cocked the hammer. The gun made a crisp clicking noise and the cylinder rotated clockwise.
“Gimme the bullets.”
“Pay me.”
Billy lifted a leg, rested the heel of his boot on her blue-jeaned thigh. He retrieved his wad of twenties and counted out three hundred and sixty dollars. “Keep the change, honey. Buy yourself a couple more pounds of eye-liner.”
Linda folded the bills in half and shoved them in the back pocket of her skin-tight jeans. Billy was amazed — he wouldn’t have figured you could slide a dime in there, the denim was so snug.
“Okay, now gimme the bullets.”
“Pony’s got them.”
“Stand up,” said Billy. He turned her around so she was facing the knife-scarred, cigarette-burnt wall of the cubicle.
He frisked her carefully, ran his hands slowly over her body, cupped her small, soft breasts. He felt her nipples stiffen, and laughed.
“Pony care if I do this?”
“I don’t know.”
“What d’you think, baby?”
The girl shrugged. Billy pressed up against her. He kissed the back of her neck. “You gonna tell him?”
“Not unless you want me to.” She bit her lower lip, staining her teeth red with lipstick.
Billy dropped the Magnum back in the plastic bag. He stuck the gun under his belt in the small of his back and said, “Go get me the bullets. A whole box, your fag boyfriend said.” He squeezed her thigh, applying enough pressure to make her gasp in pain. But she didn’t move, made no attempt to get away. A tough cookie, he had to hand it to her.
He said, “I’ll wait right here, okay?” She nodded, and he unlocked the door and pulled it open and pushed her out of the cubicle.
He heard the heels of her cheap imitation cowboy boots on the tiles, the faint hiss of the pneumatic door opener. He dropped his cigarette in the toilet and lit another one.
A gun. A Colt .357 Magnum. Why had he arranged to make the buy? What did he have in mind, for Chrissakes? He didn’t really know. But the fact was, he’d always wanted to own a gun, and now he did.
*
Billy told Garret to drive the Pinto. He wanted both hands free to hold the Colt. My, but it felt nice. The weight of it, and the knowledge of what it could do. He rolled down his window and threw away the plastic bag, rolled the window back up and lit a cigarette. Cradling the revolver in his lap, he stared malevolently out the car window at the pedestrians slip-sliding through the
slush.
Garret kept bitching about the Pinto’s brakes, which were so bad he had to pump them when he wanted to stop.
“You ever get in an accident, Billy, it’s negligent homicide. Cops’ll toss you in the slammer for the rest of your fuckin’ life.”
“Yeah,” said Billy. He pulled back the hammer, took a bead on a woman in a white plastic raincoat tip-toeing her way through a puddle by the curb.
“You got to drive defensively. Know what a car is? A ton of metal goes about twenty times faster than most people can even think.”
Billy squeezed the trigger. The hammer dropped and Billy said, “Pow! Gotcha, baby!”
“Hey, put that thing away.”
“Shut up and drive, Garret.”
Billy tore open the box of wadcutters Pony had sold him, loaded the Colt’s cylinder with six fat bullets.
“You should leave one chamber empty,” said Garret.
“Why?”
“The one the hammer is on, it should be empty. So the fuckin’ thing don’t go off by accident.”
“What if I want to shoot six people, I’m supposed to ask the last guy to wait a minute while I reload? Or what if I wanna shoot one person but he’s a big mother and it takes six hits to put him down?”
“With a cannon like that,” said Garret, “the guy we’re talking about would have to be an elephant.”
“Fuckin’ expert,” said Billy scornfully. He stuck the muzzle of the gun in Garret’s ribs.
“Jesus, Billy!”
“I got to tell you, Pony saw the way you were lookin’ at his midget girlfriend, and he didn’t much like it. Fact is, he was so pissed off he paid me a hundred bucks to splash your guts all over the fuckin’ road.”
“What?”
Billy ran the blade front sight across Garret’s ribs. “Next side street, turn right.”
“A hundred bucks?”
“Yeah, I know. I even asked him, what happened, you win a fuckin’ lottery? Told him fifty’s plenty. More than enough.” Billy reached up and gently tapped Garret on the head with the barrel of the gun. “Hey, I’m just kidding. Relax.”
Garret’s shoulders sagged. “What the hell you want a gun for, anyhow?”
“Funny thing is, I didn’t know when I bought it. I mean, I wanted it, but I didn’t know why.”
“But now you do?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Beats me. Maybe that sometimes you know what you want before you know why you want it.”
Loaded, the Colt seemed about twice as heavy as it did empty. Billy aimed through the windshield at a big yellow McDonald’s sign about a block away.
“I’m hungry. Let’s grab a burger.”
“What’d you want a fucking gun for, Billy?”
“Big Mac and fries, a chocolate shake. That sound just about right?”
Garret made his face go all twisted and tight, so he looked scared to death. But inside, he was laughing. He’d been working on Billy for months, setting him up. Priming him for the jump from petty theft to something a lot bigger. Now, finally, it looked as if all his work was about to pay off.
“My treat,” said Billy. He unzipped his jacket and dropped the Colt into the inside pocket, zipped back up. The gun was sort of like Linda — small but deadly. There was no way anybody could tell he was packing. He popped open the glove compartment, tucked the box with its remaining bullets under a Shell road map. Vancouver City Council had recently voted not to give Shell any of its business because of the company’s commercial dealings with South Africa. Ever since then, it was the only place Billy bought gas.
He glanced at Garret, who was hunched over the wheel, staring straight ahead.
“Better get into the curb lane,” said Billy.
“I’m not hungry.”
Billy leaned over and grabbed the wheel. The Pinto swerved sharply. Behind them, a horn blared. Billy gave the offended driver the finger, not even bothering to look at him. Garret swore as he braked hard, fighting to bring the Pinto under control. They turned into the McDonald’s parking lot. Garret found an empty slot. He parked the car and turned off the engine.
“My treat,” said Billy.
“I already told you, I’m not fuckin’ hungry.”
“You will be, when you belly up to the counter and smell the fat.” Billy leaned over, yanked open Garret’s door and gave him a playful shove.
“You aren’t gonna bust the place, I hope.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Billy slid across the seat, out of the car. He gave the door a kick, slamming it shut. It went thunk, but it sure as hell didn’t sound like a Mercedes.
As they ambled across the asphalt parking lot towards the tinted sheet glass and tasteful, pastel-painted steel columns of the restaurant, Billy explained that he was tired of breaking into parked cars, the money was lousy and the work didn’t give him that fine adrenaline rush any more. He told Garret it was about time they moved up in the world, his thoughts when he’d sold Crayon the last batch of radios, how when you figured it out on an hourly basis, they were working for peanuts.
“I still don’t know what the fuck you’re getting at,” said Garret, watching the McDonald girl’s ass move as she industriously shook the fat from a wire basket full of french fries.
“If we’re gonna make some serious money,” Billy said, “we got no choice but to commit some serious crimes.”
“Serious crimes, huh. What the fuck does that mean, exactly?”
“Gimme six ketchups,” Billy said to the girl behind the counter. He turned to Garret. “I hate this goddamn place. They never give you nothin’, unless you remember to ask for it.”
“Well…” said Garret.
But Billy had spotted a table by the window and was already walking away. The hamburger and fries sat on the counter. What did Billy expect, that Garret was gonna scoop it up and trot after him like some kind of personal fucking valet, or something?
He turned back to the girl behind the counter, who was standing there with a blank expression on her face, like Garret had asked her for a date, or more likely a roll of toilet paper. “What’re you looking at?” Garret rapped the counter with his knuckles. “He asked you for six ketchups, and you gimme five. What’s the matter, you ain’t learned to count on both hands?”
Sitting in the booth by the window, his mouth full of ground beef and sesame-seed bun and dill pickle, Billy told Garret all about his brand-new wonderful idea.
They were going to pull an armed robbery, shoot people if they had to, do whatever it took to walk off with maybe a couple million bucks.
Garret choked on a Chicken McNugget.
Billy thought he was laughing and lost his temper and kicked at him under the table, lashed out and caught him on the kneecap.
“Fuck off!” yelled Garret, rubbing his leg.
People were staring at them. Mothers and little kids with shocked faces and hands full of dripping food.
Billy stared right back at them.
At home, late at night in the bathroom, his cold eye on the toothpaste-specked mirror, he’d practised the look he was giving them and the message was — leave me alone or I’ll shoot you dead.
Mothers whispered to their children and the jaws went back to chewing.
Billy turned his rage on Garret. “Know what your big problem is? You got no fuckin’ ambition.”
Garret gobbled into his chicken.
Something inside Billy’s brain twitched and he found himself thinking about Nancy Crown. He smiled at Garret and said, “Wanna play ketchup roulette?”
Garret nodded. His mouth full of meat made a curious whuffing sound.
“I’ll go first.” Billy tossed an individual-size, one-ounce plastic bag of ketchup in the middle of the table and flicked it with his finger. The bag of ketchup spun around twice and stopped. Billy’s fist came down hard. The bag burst and a red jet shot across the table and splattered over the pastel fabric of the
bench seat.
“Missed me.”
“Your turn,” said Billy.
Garret spun the ketchup, slammed his fist down hard enough to make his hamburger jump.
A stream of ketchup jetted up at a sharp angle and slammed into Billy’s chest, made a bright red smear right over his heart.
“Jesus, look at my shirt! My mom’s gonna kill me, you dink!”
Chapter 11
Christy Kirkpatrick rinsed the last of the antiseptic soap from his large, freckled hands, yanked a paper towel from the dispenser and dried himself off. He offered his hand to Mrs Kenny Lee.
Mrs Lee stared at the hand, but didn’t touch it. He understood her reaction. She was thinking that the hand he wanted her to shake was the same hand that had sliced into her husband, pried him open, discovered secrets her hands had never known…
Kirkpatrick went over to the far wall. He slid open a stainless steel drawer, gave Parker a quick look. She discreetly nodded. Kirkpatrick pulled back the pale blue rubberized sheet that covered Kenny Lee’s mortal remains.
Mrs Lee gasped. Her knees buckled. Parker caught her, took her weight. She was very thin, with the bone structure of a child. Holding tight, Parker said, “Is that your husband, Mrs Lee?”
A whispered response. Too faint to hear, but good enough.
“Thanks, Christy.”
The pale blue shroud billowed and then, with a faint rustling sound, like a distant wind rustling brittle dead leaves, collapsed across Kenny Lee’s puffy, sightless face.
The drawer hissed shut.
Parker felt something wet on the back of her hand. She looked down and saw that Mrs Lee was silently crying, the grief spilling out of her. Parker wondered if she should call car 66, the police unit that assisted with sudden death notification, victim trauma.
Serious Crimes (A Willows and Parker Mystery) Page 10