Hot Shots (A Willows and Parker Mystery)

by Laurence Gough

  8

  The client was a sushi freak. Paterson had arranged to meet him for lunch at one o’clock sharp at a trendy Japanese restaurant on Burrard. He’d reserved a private room. The room was about ten feet square, with authentic paper walls, a hardwood floor, and a low table with a pit beneath it so stiff-legged Westerners could hunker down and dine in comfort.

  The food was attractively presented and very tasty, but Paterson was so distracted by his thoughts that he hardly knew what he was eating. The client, his mouth full of Kirin beer and raw fish and bright ideas, spoke with such great energy and enthusiasm that he failed to notice Paterson hardly heard a word he said.

  That morning, Paterson had looked up his pal Jerry Ribiero, the programmer with the thirsty nose. He showed Ribiero a baggie containing a soupspoon of the white powder, asked him to confirm that the powder was cocaine.

  Ribiero had picked the bag up off his desk, hefted the weight of it and held it up against the blue-tinted light flooding in from the plate-glass windows of his office. “You wired, Al?”

  “What?”

  “Wearing a wire. Electronic listening device, know what I mean?”

  “Jesus, Jerry!”

  “Look me in the eye, Al. Narcs gotcha by the balls? You workin’ for the narcs?”

  “Do I look like a narc, Jerry?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, you do. But so does everybody else, ain’t life a bitch.” Ribiero tore open a pack of cigarettes, flicked a green plastic disposable lighter. “Where’d you get it, Al?”

  “I found it.”

  “Lucky you.” Ribiero nervously flicked the lighter, cupped his hand around the flame.

  “One of my kid’s school pals had it on him. Kid slung his jacket over the banister and the bag fell out of his pocket. Simple as that.”

  Ribiero grinned, kept flicking his Bic. “So you told him you were gonna have to confiscate the stuff, right?”

  “I didn’t say anything. When they went upstairs to Jamie’s room, I put the bag in my pocket.”

  “At today’s prices, who could blame you?”

  “I’m not going to snort it, Jerry. I just want to confirm that it’s coke.”

  The programmer fiddled with the bag, unfastening the tie-tab. “You’re saying you don’t want it? That once you have my professional opinion, it’s all mine?”

  “Why not?”

  “You should be wearing a fluffy white beard, Al, and big black boots and a red velvet suit.” The knot came loose. “You got at least fifteen or twenty grams here, the kid must be a dealer. If I were you, I’d make your boy piss in a bottle, run a urinalysis on him.”

  “He’s okay.”

  “Hey, sure. Whatever you say.” Ribiero licked his finger, dipped it in the white powder. Frowned.

  “Something wrong?”

  “It’s too fine, not gritty enough. Like somebody’s already chopped it.” Ribiero lifted his finger to his nose, sniffed. Licked. Gave Al a look.

  “What?” said Paterson.

  “This isn’t coke, it’s fucking heroin.”

  “Heroin?”

  “Smack. H. White lady. Junk. Call it whatever you want, it still bottoms out at about five years’ worth of hard time.”

  Paterson couldn’t think of anything to say. “Are you sure, Jerry?”

  “I tried it once. Back in the sixties. Remember the sixties, Al? Jesus, in those days I was doing every damn thing there was. Had a big glass milk bottle full of pills in the refrigerator. Peyote ... A friend of mine was a dealer. Ross Venturino. He was mostly into weed, but he did special orders. His wholesaler gave him a couple of hits, a freebie. We passed the stuff around. I had a taste. Ross was a little crazier. He shot up, mainlined. Drilled himself right in that big vein runs through the crook of your elbow. Said it was the best experience of his life. Better than sex. When he came down, he took the second hit and flushed it right down the toilet.”

  Ribiero sealed the plastic bag and pushed it across the table. “The drug itself can’t hurt you, if it’s pure. Unless you get unlucky and overdose. But once you’re wired, odds are you’re gonna die one way or the other, sooner or later. Starve yourself to death because you’d rather feed your veins than eat. Fall out of a window trying to break into somebody’s apartment. Get cut up by another junkie. Share a needle and cop hepatitis, or maybe AIDS. Pop a hot shot. Nod off smoking and burn to death.”

  “What’s a hot shot?” said Paterson.

  “Shooting up with smack that hasn’t been stepped on, diluted. When you’re wired, Al, there’s a million ways to go.”

  Paterson picked up the bag and put it away in his coat pocket.

  “Talk to your kid, Al. In fact, if it was me, I’d call the cops.”

  “Thanks for your help, Jerry.”

  Paterson winced as a hand fell on his shoulder. He twisted and glanced behind him and saw that it was only the waitress. She saw the look in his eyes and shuffled backwards, putting distance between them.

  “She wants to know if there’s something wrong with the food,” said the client.

  Al shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I just got carried away by what you were saying.”

  The client smiled.

  Paterson picked up his glass, drank some beer. It tasted warm and flat. He snuck a peek at his watch. Quarter past two. The client had done all the talking, but it was his plate that was empty, Paterson’s that was full.

  “Would you like anything more to drink?” said the girl.

  “Uh ...”

  “I wouldn’t mind another beer,” said the client.

  “Make it two,” said Paterson automatically. Then his brain clicked in and he added, “And could you bring me the bill, please.”

  “Busy afternoon?”

  Paterson ignored the hint of reproof in the client’s voice. “Booked solid. Christ, I keep thinking we’re as busy as we’re ever going to get, and we just keep getting busier.”

  It was almost three by the time he got back to the office, and by then he’d made up his mind exactly what he was going to do.

  He had his secretary, Kathy, get Lillian on the phone. His wife told him a registered letter from the bank had come in the mail, asked him should she open it. He told her not to touch the damn thing, crossed his fingers and told her a lie, that something had come up and he was on his way to the airport, was flying to Toronto and wouldn’t be back for at least three days.

  Kathy must have been listening through the open door, because when he came out of his office she asked him if he wanted her to call a cab.

  “I’ll take the Porsche.”

  “You’re going to leave your beautiful new car all alone in an uncovered parking lot for three whole days?”

  “My flight leaves in less than an hour, Kathy. I haven’t got time to wait for a cab.”

  “What about car thieves? Vandalism?” Kathy smiled at him with her mouth and eyes. “My God, what if it rains?”

  Paterson shrugged into his coat and grabbed his briefcase.

  “Have fun!” Kathy called after him as he hurried out the door.

  Paterson drove the Porsche to the nearest branch of his bank and used his Visa card to obtain a cash advance of one thousand dollars.

  From the bank he drove down to Coal Harbor and retrieved a half-pound bag of heroin and his Ruger and fifty rounds of hollowpoints from the Cal 29. The gun was still in the original box, coated in a thin layer of oil to protect it from the salt air. The weapon felt cold and sticky in his hands. He ejected the magazine and filled it with ten LR hollowpoints. Now that the pistol was loaded it was much heavier. He extended his right arm, locked his elbow and aimed at the porthole above the galley stove. The porthole was about the size of a man’s head. Paterson tried to imagine pulling the trigger, shooting someone. Impossible. So what in hell was the point of taking the gun? He put it back in the box and then, not knowing why he was doing it, put the box in his briefcase. On his way out, he used a penknife to scratch the varnished mahogany
around the door lock, making it look as if someone had tried a break and enter.

  The wharfinger wasn’t in his office. Paterson wrote a short note in which he said it appeared as if someone had tried to break into his boat, asked the wharfinger to keep an eye on the vessel. He folded the note in half and wedged it under the dial of the wharfinger’s phone.

  He walked back to the car, stowed the Ruger and fifty rounds of ammunition in the trunk, and drove to the part of the city known as Gastown.

  Gastown was located to the north of the downtown core, pressed up against the network of railway tracks that parallels the waterfront. It is one of Vancouver’s oldest areas, and was named after ‘Gassy Jack’, a riverboat captain and accomplished drinker who opened Gastown’s first retail business, the Globe Saloon. During the Depression, Gastown began its decline. By the sixties it was one of the worst skid rows in the country. In the midseventies, the city developed a plan to revitalize the area — cobble the streets and sidewalks, sandblast the old brick buildings, install atmospheric lighting — build a better tourist trap.

  Paterson parked his Porsche in the Woodwards parking lot. He locked the car and triggered the alarm system, then took the elevator down to street level, walked over to Hastings Street and east along Hastings until he found the kind of hotel he was looking for.

  The Vance advertised rooms by the day or month. A battered wooden door opened on a steep, dimly-lit flight of stairs. There was no lobby. Paterson walked slowly up the stairs. At the landing there was a wire-mesh door. The door was locked. He banged on it with the flat of his hand, making the mesh rattle. Someone yelled at him to shut up. He yelled back that he wanted a room.

  There was the sound of a buzzer. The door clicked off the latch.

  He pushed the door open and let it swing shut behind him. To his left there was a long hallway and another flight of stairs, to the right a small wired-in cubicle, and beyond the cubicle another hallway. Squinting in the glare of the lights, he walked over to the cubicle and looked inside. A man sitting in a plain wooden chair stared back at him. The man was in his late twenties, thin almost to the point of emaciation, wearing a vest of black leather, no shirt, faded jeans. He had a pale, narrow face and small, dark eyes. His hair was glossy black, combed straight back from a high forehead. He needed a shave. A tiny diamond sparkled in his left ear. He reached up to run his fingers through his hair and Paterson saw that his nails were painted pale blue and had been filed to a sharp point.

  The man waggled a finger. “Got a search warrant, honey?”

  “No, but I’ve got twenty bucks.”

  The man stood up. He rested his bony elbows on the counter and leaned forward, his eyes bright and mocking.

  “Saying you ain’t a cop, pretty face?”

  Paterson could smell the man’s perfume, his hair oil, aftershave, the scent of his deodorant. And lurking beneath the surface, the stench of his unwashed body.

  Paterson laid a twenty on the counter. “Got a room, sport?”

  The man eyed Paterson’s tie, his button-down shirt, the five-hundred-dollar suit. He got up on his toes and pressed against the edge of the counter, gasped in mock admiration at the crease in Paterson’s pants, the shine on his shoes. He stared unblinkingly into Paterson’s eyes, weighing and measuring him, clearly finding him wanting. Finally he shrugged and said, “The room’s ten bucks a night. Twenty’ll buy you two nights. There’s a five-dollar deposit on the key.”

  “Fine,” said Paterson.

  “Sign the register.”

  Paterson wrote Jerry Ribiero’s name in an illegible scrawl. The twenty disappeared. A room key was slapped down on the counter.

  “You go out, leave the key with me or whoever’s at the desk. You ain’t allowed to take it outta the hotel, unnerstand? And remember, you lose it you can kiss your deposit goodbye.”

  The number on the key was 318.

  The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder, glossy blue nails gleaming in the light. “Room’s down at the far end of the hall. No loud noises or music or company after ten o’clock. No alcohol or drugs. Bend the rules and we’ll kick your ass out on the street.”

  Paterson scooped up the key and started to walk away from the desk. He stopped, turned. “Can you get me a woman?”

  “Do I procure, you mean?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Lemme see your wallet. Flip it open for me, let’s see you got a badge.”

  Paterson flipped open his wallet. It was alligator, a little thicker than a credit card.

  “How many you want, sport?”

  “Three.”

  “Yeah? Really? Ambitious, eh? How long you gonna need ’em? Couple minutes? An hour? The rest of your life?”

  “An hour, probably less.”

  “Cost you sixty apiece.” He glanced at Paterson’s briefcase. “More, if you’re into whipped cream or whips, shit like that.”

  “Fifty,” said Paterson with as much firmness and conviction as he could muster.

  The man nibbled his lip, grunted. “I got no idea what game you’re playing, sweetie. But about half an hour from now, you gonna have all the players you need to make a team.”

  Room 318 had a floor of cracked green linoleum. The walls were painted a muddy yellow. A naked low-wattage bulb hung from the ceiling. The only furniture in the room was a narrow bed and a dusty bureau. A cracked sink occupied the corner diagonally opposite the room’s sole window. The window had a terrific view of the alley, a trio of dumpsters overflowing with rotting garbage.

  Paterson took the Ruger out of his briefcase. He checked the safety, put the gun in his trenchcoat pocket and sat down on the bed.

  Now all he had to do was wait.

  9

  Gary Silk was stretched out on the burgundy leather couch in the den, watching baseball on his big Sony TV, his head cradled in Samantha’s lap. Samantha was twenty years old, a Capricorn, born on December twenty-third. Gary had said it must be a bitch, having a birthday so close to Christmas. Samantha had given him a big smile, letting him know she considered him a pretty insightful guy.

  Encouraged, he’d asked her when she got off work and she’d said, “How about right this minute,” stripped off her apron and told him not to move, she was just going in the back to get her purse.

  Quit her job for him, just like that.

  She’d been on the wrong side of the Orange Julius counter at Oakridge, a big shopping mall up by Queen Elizabeth Park. She’d been kind of young for Gary’s taste; as a general rule he liked his women a bit older, because while age didn’t necessarily bring wisdom, it did tend to wear off the sharp edges, make the ladies a little less volatile, more likely to stay in line, do what they were told.

  But youth had its compensations, there was no doubt about that.

  One thing Gary liked about Samantha was that she was a real sports fan, liked to lick the salt from the rim of her margarita glass and watch those big black boys get up to the plate, adjust the crotch, take a practice swing with the bat. Gary had been kidding her about it all night long, pretending the sexy things she said pissed him off. But the truth was that the way she talked, the tone of voice and words she used, really turned him on, got the blood churning and galloping through his veins.

  Gary smiled into his drink. They wouldn’t have let her use those words back at the Orange Julius counter, that’s for sure. He reached out and ran his fingers down the long curving length of her, through her silky blonde shoulder-length hair and across her breast and hip, the smoothness of her thigh. He had a plan. At about the fifth or maybe sixth inning he was going to pick her up and take her down the hall into the bedroom. By then she’d have knocked off, the way she was going, at least three margaritas. Be interesting to see if she could remember what he liked when she was stone drunk. They happened to miss the rest of the game, Frank would tape it. He’d done it before.

  The Blue Jays were playing the California Angels. Gary watched Jesse Barfield wait on a slider that was low
and away, lean out over the plate and drive the ball high into the lights, over the fence and into the right field stands, thirty rows up. Two runs scored. It was top of the second, nobody out. The Jays were already leading three to zip, pounding those Angels into the dust.

  Gary ran his hand across Samantha’s hip, his mind on the route he’d jogged that morning, Frank trailing along behind in the Mercedes, a Mozart piano concerto pounding out of the speakers because Frank didn’t know how to work Gary’s new Compact Disc player and was afraid to mess with it because he might break something.

  Gary never had breakfast, but he thought about what he’d eaten for lunch and exactly how much time he’d spent playing squash with the pro that afternoon, and what he’d had for dinner that night. When he’d finished calculating, calories in and calories out, he gave Samantha a squeeze and told her to get her ass over to the bar, fetch him a nice cold bottle of Molson Lite.

  “Want one, Frank, while she’s up?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Samantha brought the bottles over to Gary and he screwed off the caps and threw them in the gas fireplace. He pointed at Frank and she crossed the room and handed him a beer.

  “Thanks, Gary,” said Frank.

  Gary said, “My pleasure, Frank.” He patted the couch. Samantha looked at him. Gary drank some beer. She sat down next to him and he put his arm around her and tilted her head up, kissed her. She finished off the first margarita of the night. There were a few grains of coarse salt on her upper lip. He stuck out his tongue and licked the salt off her and she said, “That’s gross!” pushed him away and made him laugh so hard he almost spilled his beer.

  He moved back, ran his hand over her. Watched the Jays score another run on a pair of singles and a sacrifice fly. He slipped his hand under her skirt. “Good game, Frank.”

  Frank didn’t say anything. He was staring fixedly at the screen, the untouched bottle of beer cradled in his lap. Gary had a feeling he was a million miles away. Frank was some fucking bodyguard. Gary wondered what he could be thinking, that was fascinating enough to take his mind off the game.