He used the TV’S remote to crank up the volume until it was so loud it hurt, to ensure that he remained alert.
He smoked his cigarette, blew imperfect smoke rings through the steam rising from his cup of tea.
More stuff blew up. Windows exploded. Roiling orange balls of fire lit up the inky-black sky.
He was determined to get it absolutely right, this time.
The setup, the knockout punch.
He was going to yank Harold Wismer into the ring, knock him flat on his pudgy ass. Hit that fucking leech of a stock promoter so hard he wouldn’t move a muscle, though the count climbed all the way to five million.
Ozzie lay there on the couch, watching the destruction with half an eye. Nothing moved but the steam from his tea and the smoke from his cigarette, as he waited for Stallone to say the magic “yo” word.
6
Jake’s special chair was over by the window, where he could sit in it and look down at the city, enjoy the view, think about the pretty girls out there. The thing was, Jake was tired of the view, there was a draft coming up off the plate glass, and he was cold.
He told Marty he wanted to be moved over to the gas fireplace. Marty snapped his fingers. Steve and Axel lumbered over to the big bronze-coloured leather chair, squatted and grunted and hoisted it up a little higher than necessary. Jake had bought the chair the last time he'd visited Italy, way back there in ’84.
That’d be 1984.
Axel's job, until there was a vacancy in the organization and he got a one-rung promotion, was to mind the back door, junk the junk mail, wash and wax all the cars except the Bentley, which was Marty’s responsibility. Now he could add a second line to his résumé — furniture mover.
Marty watched carefully, ready to jump in and lend a hand, as Steve and Axel huffed and puffed the chair over to the fireplace until it was so close to the hearth there was barely room for Jake’s legs. The chair weighed a ton, and the sweat was pouring off the boys by the time they got it exactly where Jake wanted it.
Jake kept his eye on a vein on Steve’s temple that looked as if it was ready to pop, spray blood all over him, like that time back in New York City, they were taking Tony Brillo for a ride, poor Tony couldn’t stand the pressure, pulled a blade and slit his own throat. Snuffed himself in Jake’s immaculate new Cadillac DeVille that had an automatic transmission, AM radio, electric cigarette lighter, pure wool carpets. The DeVille’s gas tank still registering full because the fuckin’ car only had three fuckin’ blocks on the odometer.
That fuckin’ dimwit Tony. Thinking Jake’d blast him in a showroom-new 1936 DeVille. Turnin’ the fuckin’ vehicle into a fuckin’ abattoir. Jeez, the damn car’d be worth a small fortune by now, if he’d held on to it.
Jake watched Steve’s distended vein. With every heartbeat, the blood surged, a rising tide that vanished into Steve’s sweaty hairline. The kid’s face was the colour of a fuckin’ chili pepper. He looked like he was gonna croak like a fuckin’ frog.
Jake thought maybe he should have got out of the chair before he told them to move it. But he was as light as a bag of dry leaves. What did he weigh nowadays? Nothing. Maybe a hundred and five pounds.
Ninety, without the wrinkles.
He told Steve to go get himself a glass of water, come back when he no longer had the complexion of an overripe tomato. Steve beat it. Jake told Marty to tell Axel to turn up the fireplace as high as it would go. Axel waited for Marty’s command, then jumped to it. Jake felt his temperature climbing. Maybe he wouldn’t freeze to death after all. He looked out the picture window at the fabulous city. The sun was low on the horizon. A million windows reflected squares and rectangles of gold. The highrises sparkled like giant bars of gold. Kind of pretty, in a way.
Jake’s stomach churned. As if he didn’t have enough fuckin’ problems, goddamn Steve had shot that fuckin’ guy in broad fuckin’ daylight. Squibbed him, what’d he confess, six times? For what? A fuckin’ dog? A nice dog. But even so ... Steve was clean, well-groomed and dependable. But the kid was dumb as a ball of mud. Had a little bitty dried pea rattling around in there where his brain was supposed to be. Jeez ...
Steve came back in, looking better. Marty told him to take care of the Bentley, vacuum the car and wash it with a bleach-and-water combo, get rid of the blood, the doggie hairs ...
“What blood and doggie hairs?” said Steve, flabbergasted that he was being trusted with Jake’s favourite car.
Jake cast a weary glance at Marty. Marty was muscle and brains. An ideal combination. Jake was proud of Marty — a project that had gone right. He owed Marty’s father and would never ever shirk from the promise he’d made him to do right by the kid.
Marty said, “I’m not saying there’s any blood, or hairs of any kind, human or canine. What I’m saying is, if there’s hair or blood, get rid of it.”
Steve frowned.
Axel opened his mouth, and then shut it.
Marty said, “Just wash the car, okay? Do a good job. Pretend the car is covered in blood, okay? Visualize the blood, Stevie. Imagine it, and make it real.”
Axel said, “I haff the skills to do that.”
Jake asked for a couple of fuckin’ Tums, some fuckin’ Pepto to fuckin’ wash ’em down.
Marty took care of it, not trusting Axel with such a complicated task, anything that hinted at medicine.
Sitting there by the fire, not quite scorched by the heat, Jake drifted off, and dreamed of Italy. He’d been seventy-three years old at the time of his most recent visit. A relatively young man. A fuckin’ sprightly tourist stud, if he did say so himself. What a time he’d had.
His head, wreathed in a thin halo of snow-white hair, lolled against the bronze leather of the chair. His mouth fell open. His blue-veined eyelids flickered. He was in a hotel room, with a woman. He took her into his arms. What a gorgeous young woman she was! Dusky, olive-skinned. Vine-ripened and ready to pluck. Her dark eyes were huge, liquid. Her black hair glistened. Jake had forgotten all his Italian except the swear words. Fortunately, though the woman’s English was minimal, she had command of a few crucial phrases.
“Yes,” Jake had said to all her smiling questions. “Oh yes,” he said. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Jake dreamed through a spectacular sunset, and far beyond his usual dinner hour. He slept so long he missed a Barbara Walters special he’d been looking forward to all week. But it was okay, because Marty taped it.
In the kitchen, Steve and Axel squatted shoulder to massive shoulder at the butcherblock table. Hunched over their throwaway paper plates, they ravenously gobbled takeout pizza from Domino’s, and guzzled Granville Island beer. Marty leaned against the refrigerator, eating but keeping his distance. Steve’s hands were red and wrinkled. An odour of bleach rose off him. He had ripped the filtertip from a Marlboro cigarette and exhaled clouds of smoke between huge, half-moon bites of pepperoni.
Axel considered it improper to eat with his fingers. His knife and fork clattered incessantly against his dinner plate and front teeth with the sound of demented wind chimes. His greasy blond hair rose stiffly above eyes murky blue as windshield-washer fluid. From time to time he accidently stabbed himself in the chin or upper lip with the tines of his fork. Parallel flecks of blood spouted from the wounds. Soon he looked like a failed connect-the-dots experiment. He seemed blissfully unaware that he had mutilated himself.
Or perhaps he was blissfully aware that he had mutilated himself.
Marty, observing the carnage, sadly wondered, Are these Martha Stewart rejects my pals? Am I a bird of a feather?
Meanwhile, Jake dreamed and dreamed.
He dreamed of lace curtains, and skin smooth as silk, appetites long since dwindled, a longing of the heart.
He dreamed of how things were. Or might have been.
He dreamed a full moon that lifted silently up into the window, and tilted towards the lovers, and gilded them in silver.
Jake dreamed on and on and on.
What a wo
nderful time he had.
7
An Irish stew had been simmering in the crockpot since early that morning. Willows lifted the stainless-steel lid, shifted the stew around with a wooden spoon. It didn’t look like much, but it sure smelled good. He turned as Parker came into the room. Claire had gone straight upstairs to shower and she was dressed now in a loose-fitting black cotton blouse, silvery-blue silk slacks. Her feet were bare. Her tousled jetblack hair was still damp. Jack’s heart fluttered. He smiled and said, “Dinner’s ready.”
Parker smiled. ‘I know, I can smell it.”
“Wine?”
Parker gave him a look of mild disapproval. “Not for me, Jack. I don’t think I’m going to want another drink for at least a week.” She disappeared through the swinging door that led to the dining room. Willows wondered what he had been thinking. The last thing he wanted was a drink. But lately, they’d habitually enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner. He supposed that in itself was not such a good thing. Through the swinging door, he heard Claire alert the children to dinner, Annie’s sweet response and, a few moments later, Sean’s rumbling denial that he was hungry.
Annie came into the kitchen, peered into the fridge. “Are we out of chocolate milk?”
“Unless you bought some.” Willows ladled generous portions of stew into a trio of steep-sided bowls. “Give me a hand with this, Annie.” He handed her a bowl, carried the other two bowls past the swinging door and into the dining room, held the door with his foot until Annie had passed through. Where was Claire? He put the food down on the table and went back into the kitchen to fetch the loaf of French bread that had been warming in the oven.
From behind him Parker said, ‘I’ll get it, Jack.” She turned off the gas, swung open the oven door, and adroitly juggled the hot loaf onto a maple cutting board. Willows, who had been hunting everywhere for the bread knife, vented an exasperated sigh and then thought to check the knife rack for the second time. Aha!
Annie had made a tossed salad and set the table, arranging the place settings so Willows was sitting at the head of the table with Claire on his left and Annie on his right. He held Parker’s chair for her, and sat down. His mouth watered. He reached for the elusive bread knife.
“Daddy!”
Willows paused. His daughter was glaring at him. She shut her eyes and bowed her head. Willows glanced at Claire, but she had already followed Annie’s lead.
Sheila, Willows’ estranged and soon-to-be-divorced wife, had been a lapsed Anglican. Willows thought of himself as a wide-eyed agnostic. He liked the idea of God, and slightly envied people who had a strong faith. On the other hand, he didn’t know a hell of a lot of deeply religious homicide cops. Where was God when people went looking for the bread knife for all the wrong reasons? It was an easy question to ask. Too easy, maybe. But there was a fat book of corpses forever lodged in the private library of Willows’ brain. Men and women of all races and creeds, children, infants in swaddling clothes. Every face owned a vivid full-colour page all of its own. He bowed his head.
Annie’s voice was clear and pure, strangely musical. She said, “Give us this day our daily bread ...”
Claire joined in.
“... and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Amen,” whispered Willows, too quietly for anyone but himself — and God, if He was listening — to hear.
Grace finished, Annie ate quickly. Her brand-new boyfriend, Lewis, was coming over after dinner for a game of Scrabble, and to meet Willows and Parker. Annie wanted the table cleared before he arrived. She was going to bake some cookies, if there was time.
“Bake some cookies?” said Willows.
“Chocolate chip.” Annie gave him a look. She said, “Lewis loves chocolate-chip cookies. They’re his favourite.”
“Mine too,” said Willows. He spooned the last of his stew into his mouth, cleaned his bowl with a slice of bread, licked the last smacks of gravy from his fingers. He asked Annie about school, but she wasn’t interested in small talk, no doubt distracted by the impending appearance of sweet-toothed Lewis.
Willows had known a kid named Lewis, once upon a time. Back in the days when he was pounding the streets. But that Lewis had been a snivelling, runny-nosed drug addict and part-time snitch, not an honours high-school student.
Even so ... He said, “How old is Lewis, Annie?”
“Seventeen.”
Parker said, “What’s so amusing, Jack?”
“Work,” said Willows.
Annie made a small sound of disapproval. She reached for Parker’s bowl. “Finished?”
“Not quite,” said Parker firmly.
Willows said, “Say now, I’ve got a great idea. When Lewis gets here, instead of slaving over a hot oven, why don’t you suggest that we all drive over to McDonald’s for dessert?”
Annie smiled sweetly. “Like that nice family in the TV ad?”
“We’ll take the Ford. I’ll turn on the fireball, and the siren.”
Giggling, Annie said, “Forget it, Dad.”
*
By the time Lewis bounded up the front porch, the rich scent of baking cookies permeated the house, the dirty dishes had been hurriedly stuffed into the dishwasher, and Parker and Willows had been tucked away in the den.
The only sour note, from Annie’s point of view, was Sean. Her recalcitrant nineteen-year-old brother sat slouched on the sofa in his black jeans and black T-shirt, eating lukewarm Irish stew with his fingers. The cats, Barney and Tripod, sat on his chest, dining off his largesse. They were neutered male marmalades, almost identical in size and weight but easily distinguished from one another, as Tripod’s left front leg had been amputated following a hit-and-run accident. The missing limb had no measurable effect on the cat’s appetite, or feistiness. When Sean offered up a particularly succulent fragment of meat, the cat growled low in his throat, forcefully wedged his blunt head in front of Barney, and snatched the titbit from Sean’s greasy fingers.
The doorbell rang. Annie shouted, “I’ll get it!”
Willows turned up the TV. Parker rested her book in her lap. She said, “It’s absolutely crucial that you hear that putt drop, huh?” She cocked her head as the front door was opened. A deeper voice, the voice of a seventeen-year-old male, thundered down the hall. Parker said, “I guess that must be loverboy.”
“Please don’t use that word,” said Willows. Parker smiled, but he wasn’t trying to be funny. He thumbed the mute button, frowned. Lewis’ voice was a little too deep, in his opinion. The boy was telling Annie how much he liked her hair in braids and she was laughing, insisting she’d had her hair in braids all week long ...
Willows suddenly realized the voices were closer, moving down the hall, zeroing in on the den. He turned off the television. Parker smiled at him, and held tight to her book. Annie appeared in the doorway. She said, “Lewis, I’d like you to meet ...”
Lewis was, Willows soon learned, a recent immigrant from Taiwan. He was a tall kid, a shade under six feet, with a long, thin face, bright eyes. His thick black hair had been parted right down the middle, and was marginally shorter at the back than at the front. It hung over his eyes in a glossy black sheet. Thirty bucks minimum, thought Willows. A downtown cut, for sure. Lewis moved purposefully towards him, smiling, right hand extended. His nails were glossy with a clear lacquer. Willows stood. They shook hands. Lewis had very white teeth. A nice smile. He was casually dressed but his clothes were expensive, tasteful. The sort of clothes a high-end financial consultant might wear if he visited the office on the weekend. Willows noted the gold watch, diamond stud earring. Lewis oozed confidence. Seventeen, for sure. The car would be a BMW or entry-level Mercedes ...
Lewis shook hands with Parker, said a few words about having looked forward to meeting her. He kept smiling as Annie took his hand and led him out of the den. Annie shut the door behind them. The latch clicked. Had the door been shut when she’d come down the hall to introduce Lewis? Willows wasn’t sure. He didn�
�t think so.
Parker said, “Seems like a nice kid.”
Willows, still thinking about the door, nodded distractedly. Annie had never dated an Asian boy before. He didn’t know why he should be surprised that she was going out with an Asian now. Fear of repression in Hong Kong, together with posturing by the Chinese military over the island of Taiwan, had resulted in the sudden influx of tens of thousands of Asians. Huge numbers of immigrants had settled on the West Coast, in Vancouver and the suburbs. At Annie’s high school, the student population was 70 per cent Asian and climbing fast. A few years ago Willows had visited the school for a heart-to-heart with Sean’s counsellor. Even then, Caucasian students had been a visible minority.
“What’re you thinking, Jack?”
Willows shrugged. He turned the TV back on.
“That Lewis is Chinese?”
“No, not really.” Eddy Orwell was a racist, though Willows had no doubt he’d vehemently deny it, and mean every word, if you cornered him. Willows had sometimes laughed at his jokes. Funny was funny. Wasn’t it? Sure it was. But whenever Orwell started telling a racist joke, Dan Oikawa slipped away, found a reason to be somewhere else until the laughter had faded.
Parker said, “You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Willows took a moment to collect his thoughts, take a peek inside. People were people. The colour of a person’s skin was the worst reason in the world to form an opinion about them. Case closed. But there was something else. He said, “What bothers me is that he’s too old for her.”
“C’mon! Really?”
“Annie said he was seventeen. I believe it. I’d believe eighteen, or even nineteen. Hell, the way the kid handles himself, I’d believe thirty. Annie’s only fifteen, Claire. Two years is a lot of time, at that age.”
Parker sat there, thinking. On the television, a nationwide chain store was offering cheap furniture at nothing down and no interest and nothing to pay for almost two years.
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