Serious Crimes (A Willows and Parker Mystery)

by Laurence Gough

  “Pawn shops?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Nothing from any of the people who worked for him, his friends?”

  “Not yet.”

  “When was the last time he made a trip to Vegas?”

  “Late August.”

  “Maybe you ought to make a long-distance call. See if the Vegas cops have got anything on him.”

  Willows nodded. “Melinda’s very protective of her brother. I thought I’d phone Boston, see if we can trace his movements during the weekend of the murder.”

  “He a suspect?”

  “No, I just think it’s kind of odd he hasn’t made it into town yet.”

  Bradley struck one of his big wooden kitchen matches against the side of his desk. He worked the flame around the cigar, blew a cloud of Cuban smoke at the ceiling.

  It was his way of saying the meeting was over.

  Chapter 14

  Garret, sucked in by the sexy blonde starlet on the cover, was reading a magazine. Newsweek, or maybe it was People. Billy always had a hard time telling the two apart. He drank some beer and watched Garret’s eyes scan back and forth, up and down. He was the only guy Billy had ever met who moved his lips looking at pictures.

  Garret’s boots were up on the coffee table. Billy kicked him in the ankle. “Whatcha readin’?”

  “Thing on Burt Reynolds. Does he wear a rug, or what?”

  “Hair by Dupont,” said Billy. “He don’t comb it, he vacuums it.”

  “Think so?” Garret turned the magazine upside down, trying for a different angle. “Looks pretty real to me.”

  “Sinatra, he wears a hairpiece, right? I mean, it’s a fact. But you couldn’t tell by looking at him. What it boils down to is how much you got to spend.”

  “Those guys got a lot,” said Garret. “Millionaires, both of ’em.”

  “We could be that rich,” said Billy.

  “Sure thing, Billy.”

  “Almost,” said Billy defensively.

  Garret turned to the next page. “I thought Madonna had gone and died or something, but look, there she is.”

  “I got a real good idea,” said Billy.

  “She’d never go for it.”

  “I’m talking about an idea for making a whole lot of money.”

  “How much is it gonna be this time?”

  Billy’s intention had been to make Garret wait a minute, build the suspense. But he lost his cool and blurted it out. “Maybe half a million.”

  Garret rolled his eyes, as if Billy was out of his mind. He said, “Okay, that’s more like it. Back at McDonald’s it was a couple million. Now you’re being reasonable.”

  Billy said, “I was thinking about robbing an armoured car.”

  Garret thought that was pretty funny. Garret sure got a laugh out of that one.

  Billy lit a cigarette. He waited until Garret had calmed down and then said, “I wanna show you something,” and clomped out of the living room, his back stiff and angry.

  Garret didn’t know what he was supposed to do — go after him or wait where he was, or what. He said, “Hey, Billy?”

  Billy came back into the living room. The stub of his cigarette drooped from the corner of his mouth. He stopped on the far side of the coffee table, the Colt Python held loosely in his right hand.

  “Maybe robbing an armoured car ain’t such a bad idea after all,” said Garret.

  The tendons on Billy’s wrist stood out as he pulled back the hammer. The Python made a sharp double click.

  “That thing loaded?”

  Billy crouched, brought up his arm. His voice low and throaty, he said, “Get ready to die, mothafucka!”

  “Quit foolin’ around,” whispered Garret, staring into the black hole of the muzzle.

  Billy pulled the trigger. A tongue of orange and yellow flame leapt at Garret’s empty face. The sound of the shot seemed to explode inside his head, reverberate endlessly through the house.

  Garret shrieked in pain, slapped at his face with his hands. “Jesus Christ, Billy!”

  Billy had put the .357 Magnum round in a vice, pried out the wadcutter. A home-made blank. What he hadn’t counted on was the burning powder fragments that peppered Garret’s face.

  “Lighten up,” said Billy. “It was only a blank.” He laughed. “Still kicked like a mule, though. No wonder cops always act so tough. You got one of these babies riding on your hip, you are tough.”

  “I don’t want nothin’ to do with any armoured car,” said Garret, his voice hardly more than a whisper.

  “Why the fuck not? You’re walking out of a liquor store pushing a dolly loaded down with a bunch of bags full of cash, you think you’d have had time to go for your piece?” He shook his head. “No way, man. Hands up or you’re dead meat.”

  “Think about it, Billy. Those guys have got guns. You won’t catch ’em sitting on the couch trying to look down Madonna’s neckline. They’re professionals. We mess with them, they’ll blow our heads off.”

  “No way,” said Billy firmly. He stuck the Python in his waistband, went into the kitchen and got a couple of cold cans of Moosehead beer out of the fridge, came back into the living room and tossed a can to Garret, slumped back down in his chair. Garret popped the tab and drank thirstily.

  Billy said, “We’d be wearing masks. Ski masks. You know the kind I mean, made like a big sock that you pull right over your head. Couple of holes cut in ’em so you can see out?”

  “Got it all figured, do you?”

  “Wanna spend the rest of your life stealing radios, Garret?”

  Garret shrugged.

  “Have you even bothered to think about it?”

  Garret licked some foam off the top of his beer can. “I’m only eighteen years old, Billy. Jesus, I’m still a fuckin’ teenager. So tell me, what’s the rush?”

  For a moment, Billy’s face was solemn and still. He said, “It’s now or never, Garret.”

  “Why’s that, exactly?”

  “Because as people get older, they get worn out by life, afraid of things. Afraid to take chances. You and me, we might think we’re different. But if we don’t do something now, take advantage…”

  “What?” said Garret.

  “We’re gonna end up just the same as everybody else, tight-ass and broke.”

  “Speak for yourself. I’m doing okay.”

  “Oh yeah, sure. Cleaning out car ashtrays, wiping down the hubcaps. Big deal.” Billy stared at Garret, gave him that refrigerator look he did so well. Garret stared back for a minute and then caved in, ducked down behind his beer.

  “C’mere,” said Billy, “I got something else I wanna show you.”

  “What, another gun barrel? Gonna take another shot at me, is that it?”

  Garret followed Billy out of the living room and down a narrow grungy hall into Billy’s bedroom. Billy shut the door and locked it. On the wall he’d taped a number of Playboy pin-ups, and a new thing — a map of the city. He said, “Take a look at this, tell me what you see.”

  Garret studied the map, but Billy ran out of patience before he could figure it out. He thrust a finger at the intersection of two thin blue lines. “See the little red cross?”

  “Yeah, right.” There were crosses all over the map, fifteen or twenty of them, drawn in red ink. The lines were very straight. Billy must’ve used a ruler.

  “Liquor store,” said Billy. “That one’s at Broadway and Maple. There’s also a Safeway and a gardening supply store. Lots of parking.”

  “Convenient,” said Garret.

  Billy went over to his bed, lifted the mattress and hauled out a twelve-gauge Remington pump. He worked the slide and pointed the weapon at Garret and squeezed the trigger. The gun made a sharp clicking sound. Garret’s body flinched even though his brain knew what was coming.

  “Too late,” said Billy. “If it’d been loaded, your brains would be splattered all over the wall. A bad day for you, Garret, when you come right down to it. I mean, you been s
hot twice and killed both times.”

  “What’s the fuckin’ point?”

  “Point is, you didn’t have time to react. You saw me reach under the bed and haul out the gun, point it at you and pull the trigger. And what did you do? Stood there like a dummy.”

  “It wasn’t loaded.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t know that, did you?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t shoot me.”

  Billy grinned. “You did, huh?”

  “If you’d wanted to shoot me, you’d of done it with the pistol.”

  “You’re right,” said Billy. “Not as messy.” He tossed the shotgun to Garret. “For you. A present.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Stole it. Know how many handgun permits are given out in this city every year, Garret? About five hundred. Know how many handguns get stolen out of people’s houses every year? Almost three hundred.”

  “So why didn’t you steal a pistol, if it’s so easy?”

  “Because I was shopping for you, and I wanted a piece you didn’t have to be a deadeye dick with, to hit what you were pointing at. Scatterguns, they call ’em. The pellets fly out all over the place. Also, a shotgun’s a lot scarier looking. The average citizen, from watching so much TV, he knows a twelve-gauge can cut him in half.”

  “Got any ammo?”

  “A whole box,” said Billy.

  “Lemme see.”

  Billy jabbed a finger at the red cross he’d drawn at the intersection of Broadway and Maple. “I stood in a line-up there last Friday night and they had four cash registers working. The one I was watching did almost two hundred dollars’ worth of business in less than seven minutes. I worked it out, and you know what it adds up to? Almost two grand an hour. That’s one cash register, and they had four of them in there.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Nine, a little after.”

  “Friday night, nine o’clock. That’d probably be the busiest time, they wouldn’t usually be that crowded.”

  Billy looked a little startled. For a split second his face was like the Python exploding, all angry and red. Then he said, “Jesus, you think I don’t know that? All I’m saying is that we’re talking about a hell of a lot of cash, is all.”

  “How often does the armoured car come around to pick the money up?”

  “I don’t know. It’s one of the things we got to find out.”

  “How’re we gonna do that, Billy?”

  “Like I said, the liquor store’s right next to a big supermarket, a Safeway. Parking lot must hold a couple of hundred cars. Plus you got a gas station and 7-Eleven on the other side of Maple. So there’s always people coming and going, to pick up a quart of milk or whatever. Kids hanging around, playing the video games or hoping to score some beer. We can park at the far end of the lot, sit there and smoke and listen to the radio. Couple of days, we’ll know how often the armoured car guys come around.”

  “What if somebody spots us?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Can’t happen. Like I told you, the place is a goddamn beehive.”

  Garret considered the bleak prospect of spending two long days with Billy in his rusty Pinto, slowly freezing to death because the heater was busted. Billy toying with his pistol, taking a bead on the shopping carts as they went by. He tried to imagine pointing the Remington at a two-hundred-pound combat-trained male adult. He’d had better luck fantasising about Madonna.

  Still, it was what he wanted, more or less. A grab at the brass ring, serious money. And Billy was right. They offed the guards, just walked up and shot them and scooped the cash, chances were real good they’d get away with it.

  Billy, watching Garret, saw every syllable drift through his brain as clearly as if there was a billboard mounted on his acned forehead.

  He said, “Maybe you’d rather spend the rest of your life licking BMW’s clean with your tongue.”

  “Not really.”

  Billy smiled. He gave Garret a carefully weighted punch on the meaty part of the shoulder; a blow that was both a bashful display of macho intimacy and a lurking threat of future violence, brutal and intimidating.

  “Wanna take a ride?”

  “Where?”

  “No place in particular. Out and around. Get some fresh air, grab something to eat.”

  “I was gonna go home for dinner tonight. Told my mom I’d be in by six.”

  “So you lied.”

  It took them almost forty-five minutes to make the trip from Billy’s house to the liquor store at Broadway and Maple. The sky was dark, low, solid-looking black clouds from horizon to horizon. It had stopped snowing. The air smelled damp. There was slush in the gutters, but the roads were clear. During the ride Garret kept twisting in his seat, glancing back down the road.

  “Something bothering you?”

  “Why this particular store, Billy, instead of one a little closer to home?”

  “This is the West Side. People around here buy a case of Scotch instead of a six-pack of beer. More cash in our pockets.” The car in front of them, a white Honda driven by a blonde with shoulder-length hair, indicated a left turn. Billy switched lanes, shot past her. “See that? This neighbourhood, you take the trouble to signal when you’re gonna make a turn. Somebody in a crosswalk, you hit the brakes instead of the pedestrian. What’s the word I’m looking for? Polite.”

  Billy lit a cigarette, tossed the empty pack out the window.

  “Notice the houses? Big, well taken care of. The people look better fed, the cars they drive are shiny and new. Except for guys like us, nobody litters. The West Side, Garret, where the fat cats live.”

  “Fat cats, huh,” said Garret.

  “Thing is,” said Billy, “the crime rate over here is a hell of a lot lower. Which means there are less patrol cars cruising around. And that’s why it’s worth driving all the way over here.”

  “Because there aren’t as many cops.”

  “Right.”

  “But if there isn’t as much crime, the cops don’t have as much to do. So if they get a call says a couple of guys have knocked over an armoured car, they’ll probably respond to it.”

  “Don’t matter where you are,” said Billy, “everybody responds to an armoured car robbery. It’s the kind of stuff cops live for.”

  “Terrific.”

  “Hey, let’s go in with both eyes open.”

  They drove past the liquor store. It was set well back from the street on the far side of the parking lot. The shopping market and 7-Eleven were right where Billy had said they’d be. Billy drove to the far end of the block, turned left on Arbutus and drove another block and made another left. Now they were heading east on Tenth Avenue. They bounced over a set of railroad tracks and Billy made another left, into the parking lot. They cruised slowly past the liquor store. There was a lot of foot traffic, people coming out carrying cases of beer and brown paper bags full of wine or maybe hard liquor, vodka, rum. You name it.

  Billy was right, the place had four cash registers and they were all clicking away, making music.

  “Check out the redhead at the end,” said Billy. “You ever see jeans that tight? She farts, she’s gonna spray denim all over the block.”

  Garret laughed, some of his tension easing. There was a shaggy-looking black guy banging away on a guitar outside the liquor store’s double glass doors. Garret craned his neck to see how much money he had in his hat. He patted himself down, frowned. “Got a smoke?”

  “All out.” Billy waited until a dark gray Camaro got out of his way and then slid into a parking slot. He turned off the engine and climbed out of the car.

  “Where you going?” Garret opened his door but didn’t get out of the car.

  “Thought you wanted some cigarettes.” Billy started across Maple to the 7-Eleven.

  Garret trailed along behind. “Yeah, but I’m broke.”

  Billy kept walking. “What happened to the money we got for last week’s radios, for Chrissake?”

  “
I spent some of it, gave the rest to my mother.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Because she needs it.”

  Billy reached for the 7-Eleven door, but didn’t open it, forcing Garret to break stride. “And now your wallet’s flapping in the wind. Real smart.” He pushed open the door, and, as he went inside, turned and looked back across the street at the bright plate-glass windows of the liquor store. He thought about the cute clerk in the skin-tight jeans, how her big green eyes would widen in amazement if she knew what they’d been talking about, what he was about to do.

  The 7-Eleven was crowded, people buying gas, kids loaded down with six-packs of Coke or Pepsi, more kinds of junk food than you could even think about. A video game at the back was making puffy explosive sounds. Billy and Garret wandered down the aisle, past banks of a million different kinds and flavours of chewing gum and candy bars.

  The video game was called Rambo. The kid playing the game dropped a quarter. An animated helicopter thundered onscreen, hovered and dropped a soldier wearing green jungle fatigues and a red headband. He was armed with a knife about three inches long, and an automatic rifle. The chopper thundered off-screen. The soldier started towards the forest and was immediately attacked.

  The kid started hitting a red button, punching it with his thumb. Rambo’s automatic rifle erupted, and the slaughter began.

  Billy went over to the rank of glass-doored coolers that lined two walls of the store. He swung open a door and grabbed a Coke.

  “Want one?”

  Garret shook his head. They headed back towards the cash register. Billy slammed the can of Coke down on the counter. The clerk, a short, fat kid wearing an ugly 7-Eleven jacket that was about two sizes too small for him, gave him a hard look.

  Billy said, “What kind of smokes you want, Garret?”

  “Players Filter.”

  “You heard him,” said Billy.

  The clerk reached up and fumbled in an overhead rack. His armpits were stained with sweat. He dropped the pack of cigarettes on the counter next to the Coke and turned to the cash register.

  Billy, his voice low, said, “Don’t bother to ring it up.”

  The clerk paused, staring at him.