A Criminal to Remember (A Monty Haaviko Thriller)

by Van Rooy, Michael

  Alex spoke up. “The frauds, the cons, the schemes. Like the Fiji Mermaid, half a monkey sewed on a fish and presented to the public at five cents a view.” He had a childlike look of glee on his face. “I like circuses too. A gentler kind of crime and vice, an innocence.”

  Elena laughed delightedly. “And the Cardiff Giant, a stone statue shown as a petrified man. Barnum saw it and had a copy made and was sued by the original creator. The judge ruled that there was no crime in copying a hoax.”

  Claire looked at both of them as though they were insane and then she smiled as she remembered. “Something about an egress?”

  Elena nodded eagerly and watched people climb nervously into a centrifuge. “Yes! There once was a circus so spectacular that no one wanted to leave so the owner put up a sign saying ‘This Way to the Egress!’ People followed it and found themselves outside again. Lots of them went back to the front and paid again.” She frowned down at her son and he mimicked her expression exactly. “So many harmless cons not done anymore. The Three-Card Monte card game and shortchanging the flat diddlies on the high counters where they couldn’t see it.”

  Claire said, “Pardon?”

  “Cons. Picking the right card. Giving the wrong change at the cash counters to flat diddlies, the customers, which was anyone not in the life.”

  She flicked hair off the back of her neck. “People expected it. The circus came to town and they’d trade the limelight and spangles for a little harmless graft. Everyone knew the circus wasn’t honest but that was okay.”

  We had gotten past the rides to the booths, and barkers called to us, “Hey Mister, win a pretty prize for a pretty lady!” And “Show who’s got the muscles in the family!” And so on.

  Claire squeezed my arm. “I believe you promised me a prize.”

  “I did. But didn’t I do that thing you liked last night? Doesn’t that cut me some slack?”

  She spoke gently. “I don’t like that. You do. I simply tolerate it.”

  I had nothing to say to that patent lie. We ignored the calls of the barkers and watched the games—the baseball tossed into the wicker basket, ringing pop bottles with a plastic hoop and bursting balloons with darts. I watched out of the corner of my eye and saw that the baskets were rigged to make them extra bouncy. And I saw the pop bottles were too close together for the hoop and that each balloon had behind it a diamond of red hardwood. Nice harmless gimmicks designed to separate the mark from the money.

  I wondered if the crowd around me knew the games were rigged and I wondered if they cared.

  And I wondered if Elena was right about everyone knowing the circus wasn’t honest.

  Farther down there was a crowd shooting targets with gas-powered submachine guns firing copper-coated BB’s.

  Claire looked at the guns and then back at me. “Wanna try your luck?”

  Elena was smiling. She had a built-in cop instinct that made her always want to bash the cons (in this case me) down. On general principles. Most of the time she controlled it though. Which was fine because I had the same hard-wired need to bash the cops down to a manageable size.

  There was a lineup of kids and adults around the guns. I elbowed in and then came back with a report. “Not really. The guns are old and not very accurate. They’re also leaking air like you wouldn’t believe. I’ll keep my eyes open, though. I’ve got to win you a prize, huh? You’re sure?”

  “You have to win a prize. At least one. If you want to keep my respect.”

  “I do. I guess anyway. I mean, if I have to.” I looked over at Elena. “Now if it was a real Thompson submachine gun, maybe I’d show this pig something.”

  Elena snorted and Alex hid a smile. They both knew I’d been a thief and thug and general leg breaker for most of my life. And both knew I’d reformed and was reforming. But Elena was still sure she could take me.

  Inside my larcenous little soul I wondered about calling a cop a friend, and then I shut that voice up fast.

  #3

  I looked at Claire and she smiled and my heart lit up.

  It is much, much better on the outside of prison walls. That was a fundamental truth for me. A basic.

  Elena, with help from Alex, talked about the circus and we wandered down the rows of game booths and past haunted houses and funhouses.

  Behind me I finally heard the sounds of sirens as someone navigated an ambulance through the crowds to carry away my shit-kicked friends. Which meant the cops would be on hand soon but they’d be looking for someone rushing out of the fairgrounds. They wouldn’t be looking for someone walking with his son and wife in the company of an off-duty cop.

  To celebrate I bought everyone cotton candy and listened to Elena.

  “… these days it’s not the same. No more burning the territory with bent shows. Which is what happened when someone ran a really crooked circus on a tour. The next circus along would reap the whirlwind of rage and fury.” She smiled a little sadly. “Yeah, it’s all Sunday school shows these days for the lot lice and gullies. Which were the kids and the marks.”

  Claire linked her arm through mine. “Elena, you are an amazing font of knowledge. Monty used to work circuses and fairs. Didn’t you?”

  Elena looked at me, surprised, and I laughed. “Yeah. Back in the old days. It was a good way to travel under the radar back when I was a thief. I remember it fondly.”

  I didn’t, not really. It had been hard work and no glamour, setting up and tearing down badly made stalls and tents mostly. But some of it had been good.

  I remembered the face of a local girl in some forgotten Saskatchewan town as she’d climbed into my lap during a thunderstorm. I’d snuck her onto the fairground after hours to see the lions up close. She had had red hair down to the middle of her back and small breasts set far apart on her chest and her smile had been brilliant as she’d come. We were three feet from the cage, up against a pile of rope, and she’d taken off her panties and my pants and hiked her skirt up high as she’d ridden me and watched the lions. When she came the lions purred approval and she came again. It took her by surprise and she made a noise I’ve never heard again.

  The memory flared and vanished and Claire looked at me suspiciously and then smiled to herself when I winked at her.

  I remembered the way the children had cheered the clowns and the way the loaded trucks would cut along the highway and throw long shadows at dusk and dawn. I remembered sleeping in a stolen sleeping bag in a partially assembled haunted house, and I remembered eating day-old hot dogs forty feet up while putting together the roller coaster. And I remembered the way storms would come rolling across the horizon, black sullen clouds split with white fury, rolling forward and swallowing whole towns.

  Mostly, though, my memories were of hard work and shitty pay, but working the fairs had gotten me out of my home town.

  That was enough at the time.

  When I’d gotten tired of the fair we were in southern Ontario. I’d waited until a dark and stormy night before I’d tied the manager up and taken the cash box from the red money wagon. Then I’d vanished.

  The entirety of my circus experience until now.

  Claire and Alex wandered off to check out booths selling antique china, silver cutlery, buttons and other junk at very high prices while Elena went in the other direction to check out a booth selling dirty t-shirts. In between I waited with the two strollers and the boys who urged me to “Go-go-go!”

  Claire motioned me over to a china booth and I dragged the boys with me.

  “What do you think?”

  She was holding up a brilliantly white china plate covered in a pattern of tiny red roses and tight curls of green vines.

  “It’s beautiful. For us?”

  “For my mother. I think it’s almost a match to her old set.”

  The man behind the counter cleared his throat and I looked at him. He was small and dressed entirely in brown, an expensive old herringbone wool suit that looked uncomfortably warm.

  “If madam
would like to give me the makers mark of her lovely mother’s set perhaps I can find an exact match. The one you have chosen there is very rare.” He gestured, “This is only a small sampling of my wares.”

  Claire shook her head very slowly, with regret. “No, I think. Too expensive right now. But thank you.” Her smile was enthusiastic and passionate. The man blushed and she said, “You have beautiful things.”

  He started to stutter and we left to go look at the Fiji Mermaid or reasonable facsimile of same. Behind us I heard shutters shut and someone angrily say, “Hey.”

  Eventually we got to the end of the route through the exhibition which had circled around back to the beginning. There we were faced with the choices of doing the route again or of heading off towards agricultural and art exhibits. Claire and Alex leaned towards the route one more time but Elena and I voted for the new horizons. Fred and Jake agreed with us and off we went.

  Past the Deep Fried Twinkie stand there was a display of cop cars, Crown Vics mostly. Cop cars and bomb disposal robots and a real, genuine, antique portable prison. Around the cars were some handsome examples of the city’s finest and a dunk tank featuring a female cop in a water-skiing wet suit and dress hat daring everyone to knock her off her perch.

  Elena saw my face and said, “Community relations.”

  “And why aren’t you up there?” Claire took a found stick from Jake’s hand before he could do something bad.

  Elena looked offended. “I? I am a sergeant. And mean. I don’t have to do that.”

  “Anymore,” Alex cut in laconically.

  I stood there a little bemused and a young cop came up and asked if I wanted to ride in the back of a cop car. I stared at him while Elena started to cough and Claire stared politely at the sky. Finally I managed to say,“Thank you, no. Been there. Done that. Frankly, it’s lost its lustre.”

  He looked puzzled but went off to find other victims and I stared after him. I don’t like cops in general, and in specific, I’ve spent too much time running from them and being shot at by them to feel much affection for them. In my experience cops were either corrupt or blind. The corrupt ones would rip you off and then lie about it in court. The blind ones wouldn’t see anything the corrupt ones ever did.

  When I’d been stealing they’d been a serious occupational hazard, and even now there were lots of them who didn’t want to let me forget my past. Last year a corrupt cop with delusions of godhood had set me up towards prison or the grave and had almost caught my family in the crossfire. Eventually Walsh and I had had it out and I had won, barely.

  Then I’d been saved by another cop with a strong sense of fair play, but that wasn’t the point.

  Elena had done a lot to redeem the whole species for me. But later in the same year I’d been a bystander in a bank robbery that had gone sour and ended up spending time in remand while my lawyer pried me out.

  In that case I’d actually stopped the robbery. Out of self-interest, actually, but again, that didn’t matter. I’d been innocent and I’d still been bounced through the legal system one more time.

  In retrospect, I had enjoyed the actual bank robbery though. Maybe more than I’d expected.

  Which left me with an attitude towards cops that was in transition, and watching them play nice was a little surreal.

  Not that I held grudges—I wasn’t built that way, at least that’s what I told myself. They did what they did and I did what I did and, back when we were at cross purposes, bad things happened. No grudges, I kept telling myself that.

  Like the midway neon lies, I really wanted to believe them.

  Claire was gone when I turned to ask her something and then she came back holding three old and battered major league baseballs. She handed them to me and I must have looked deeply confused.

  “Huh?”

  Claire took me by the elbow and led me to a white line painted in the dirt. “Very simple. Stand here. Throw balls at target. Knock cop into water. Raise money to stop child abuse.”

  The cop on the perch chanted, “C’mon, take your best shot …”

  I looked at my wife, who was about to burst into laughter as she patted me. “It’s for a good cause. To prevent child abuse. I mean really, who’s in favour of that?”

  An angry teenager pushed past me and windmilled three balls that all missed.

  Claire leaned in and said, throatily, “Happy birthday.”

  It was my birthday in a few days; I was trying to forget it.

  I used to throw lots of baseballs in prison. I used to be really good. Playing baseball was a good way to burn off stress because you could hit something. And, when I was in Drumheller, my best throw was clocked at seventy-six feet per second, which is not bad and it was bang on target too. In prison baseball was a way to deal with rage.

  And outside of prison? I wasn’t sure of the role of baseball.

  Without thinking I wound up and threw, and it felt like a winner as the ball came off my fingers with everything all loose in my shoulders and back.

  The cop had time to say, “We want a pitcher …” when the ball hit the six-inch steel paddle and dropped her into water.

  Behind me there were cheers, and I turned to find Elena and Alex with huge cones of cotton candy and Fred standing up in his stroller. “Good one!”

  He sounded very mature and Jake echoed him.

  I turned back to the tank and the cop adjusted her hat and got back onto the perch. I waited until she was comfortable and let her call out, “Lucky …” before I threw again and the cop was back in the water.

  Some days are like that.

  When I’d thrown my third ball and turned to go, the angry teenager who’d missed handed me three more and said, “Nail da bitch.” But he said it with a smile.

  And I did. Bang-bang-bang. And when those balls were gone Claire was there with three more and a big smile, and when those were gone Elena brought me more.

  It was a John Wayne day, everything went perfect. Just like in the war movies when the bad guy leans around the tree into your site. Just like when the girl turns right into your arms at the perfect moment. Just like when the arrow leaves the string and for a second the shooter and the target are the same thing. Just like when you draw the fourth jack and everyone is betting strong.

  Just like when you hit the bank on payday.

  Throw.

  Those were bad thoughts, so I focussed on the positive; I’d been out of prison more than a year and I wasn’t going back.

  Throw.

  I had a wife and a son and friends, even a job babysitting. All for the first time in my life—I was basically stable and (fairly) honest.

  Throw.

  Shit, even the cops here were finding this hilarious. Their laughter pulled me partially out of the groove and then I was back in, me and the ball. The ball and me.

  Throw.

  After about ten dunks the girl in the tank called it quits, laughing, and a fat sergeant in a black Speedo climbed on and clenched an unlit cigar between his teeth as he perched his hat just right on his bald head.

  “Ready?”

  “You betcha!”

  Throw and splash.

  I’d never thrown this well before. Claire bought a whole bucket of balls and Elena dragged it over to the line. Elena kissed my cheek and said, “Claire told me it’s your birthday in two days, so happy birthday, and many more.”

  And I just kept throwing.

  When I stopped throwing it was because my arm was numb, not because I missed. I don’t think I missed once.

  As I turned away there were people cheering and they rushed forward to try their luck. I turned and put my face right into the lens of a TV camera and found myself talking into a foam rubber microphone held by an incredibly short blond woman. She was very pretty with a wide smile that made me think of enthusiastic mattress games and no regrets on either side.

  “Hi! My name is Candy! And I’m from the station that never sleeps!”

  “How utterly wonderful for
you.” I matched her enthusiasm with difficulty. I was clutching my right arm in my left, cradling it gently; I could feel a good ache. The ache in the muscle and not the bone. The sweet ache that meant tired and not hurt.

  “You just knocked cops into a dunk tank for more than an hour. How does that feel?”

  “Sore.” Rule number one about talking to journalists is don’t. Do not talk to them on the record, do not talk to them off the record, and do not talk to them. Do not talk to them.

  “Sorry to hear that! Are you burning off some rage?” Long pause and then she added, “Mr. Haaviko?”

  That stopped me. “How do you know my name?”

  Candy showed bright teeth and brought the microphone back to her face. “Because I do my research. You’ve certainly been in the news enough!”

  Behind her I could see Claire and I knew I had to wrap this up quick. “Ah. No, no rage. Just raising money to stop the abuse of children …”

  “A Good Cause!” She capitalized it enthusiastically. “So, you don’t hate the police?”

  “No.” I tried to back up and she followed, along with her camera guy, a round black man who sweated a lot.

  “You’ve been a felon most of your life?”

  “True.”

  “Yet you claim you don’t hate cops?”

  “True. You put news reporters in that same tank and I’ll be down here just as fast. Probably faster. I mean child abuse, who’s in favour of child abuse?” She didn’t get the joke.

  Candy smiled again. “So what do you think of cops?”

  She was not going to leave me alone. I exhaled. “I like cops. Really.” I didn’t finish the line with “but I couldn’t eat a whole one.” Instead I added, “There’s been four wrongful convictions for murder just here in Winnipeg in your lifetime.”

  I named four names from Winnipeg’s past.

  Candy’s brow furrowed. “What? Who are they?”

  I took a step forward and she took a step back. Around us the cops kept showing their cars and robots and taunting the ball throwers. I went on, “Those are four dead people, people murdered in the past twenty-eight years.”