Karaoke Rap

by Laurence Gough

“I’m sorry, I thought you knew that. The left forearm, yes.”

  “He was shot once?”

  “At close range. The bullet smashed the bone, exited just below his elbow.”

  Fisher nibbled at the scar on his upper lip. He looked away, swallowed. “Your child has lost a considerable quantity of bone and tissue. Nerve damage was extensive, likely irreparable. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but it’s doubtful that he’ll ever regain full use of his arm.”

  Willows stared at him, his mind in turmoil.

  Fisher said, “That’s really all I can tell you, at the moment.” He stared hard at the clock. “Look, I’ve got to run ...”

  Parker thanked him for his time. She and Willows took the stairs to the third floor. Sean was in a private room directly opposite the nurses’ station. A uniformed nurse, an attractive young woman with blue eyes and short, sandy-blonde hair, stood by his bed. She glanced up as Willows and Parker entered the room. “If you’re hoping to question him ...”

  Willows never thought to ask her how she knew they were cops. He managed a grim smile. “He’s my son.”

  The nurse moved away from the bed. She said, “Well, it looks as if he’s going to be okay. Call me if you need me,” and quietly left the room.

  Sean lay prone on the bed, flat on his back. His eyes were shut. His legs were close together and his arms were close by his sides, as if he were standing at horizontal attention. His left arm was heavily bandaged. Willows wondered what the intravenous was feeding into him. Glucose. Antibiotics. Sedatives. Morphine, probably. He should’ve asked. He stepped forward, and gently rested the palm of his hand on Sean’s forehead. The boy looked as if he’d been dipped in wax. He was breathing steadily. As Willows stared intently down at him, his eyelashes twitched, and his breathing faltered. Willows’ thumb was on the red emergency button when Sean’s breathing steadied. He sighed heavily.

  Parker had let Willows have his moment alone with his son, but now she moved forward, and enfolded Sean’s hand in hers.

  Willows said, “Sit down, Claire. Relax, make yourself comfortable.”

  The room’s solitary chair was shaped red plastic with a perforated back and sprawling tubular chrome legs. It looked like something that had broken loose from “The Jetsons.” Parker’s snap judgement was that, if she wanted to relax and make herself comfortable, the chair would be the very last suspect on her list.

  Willows said, “I’m going to the crime scene, I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “No, stay here with me. And Sean.”

  Willows turned towards the door. Was he leaving? Parker said, “Jack ...”

  Willows flinched minutely. He cast her an uneasy, hunted look, and then hurried out of the room.

  Parker started after him, hesitated, decided to abandon the pursuit. Let him do what he needed to do. Dr. Fisher had stated categorically that Sean wouldn’t regain consciousness until the morning. What difference did it make to the boy where his father was? But on the other hand, what did logic have to do with compassion? Parker felt the anger boil up inside her, red-rimmed, hot as lava. In his present state, essentially a drug-induced coma, no one really knew what Sean’s emotional needs were, or what he knew, or sensed. She was deeply disappointed in Willows. She believed he should have stayed, and kept vigil by his son’s side, instead of indulging himself.

  The elevator doors slid open as Willows reached the fire door leading to the stairs. Inspector Homer Bradley stepped out of the elevator and peered around, getting his bearings. Bradley wore a bright yellow Gore-Tex rainjacket over tan slacks, a dark-blue golf shirt. His Adidas running shoes looked brand new. Their eyes locked. Bradley raised his hand in greeting. Willows nodded. He yanked open the fire door and hurried down the stairs.

  *

  There was an unmarked car up on the sidewalk around the corner from the convenience store. A blue-and-white pulled away as Willows got out of his car. Spears and Oikawa stood by the open front door. The sidewalk in front of the store had been fenced off with wide, yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS crime-scene tape. The three-quarter rectangle of brightly coloured tape somehow reminded Willows of a boxing ring. Maybe it was the fact that Spears and Oikawa were standing diagonally opposite each other, as if in the lull between rounds. Spears was smoking. Oikawa had positioned himself so he was upwind. The detective looked mildly annoyed, but whether it was the smoke or something else that was bothering him, Willows couldn’t say.

  He heard the clanging of bells, electronic hoots and whistles, a cry of triumph. He recognized Bobby Dundas’ voice, and, as he drew nearer to the store, caught a glimpse of him through the plate-glass window. Bobby was playing a pinball machine.

  Spears caught his eye, nodded. “Sorry about all this, Jack.” He pinched the glowing coal from his cigarette, thriftily stuck the butt in his jacket pocket.

  Oikawa muttered a few words of consolation. He glanced up and down the street.

  Willows entered the store, Spears and Oikawa trailing along behind. He ignored Bobby Dundas, the flashing lights, the noise. Splashes of dried blood streaked the shelves on the wall behind the open cash register. A few coins lay on the counter, in a sea of black fingerprint powder.

  Willows said, “Okay, what’ve we got so far?”

  Spears and Oikawa exchanged a quick look. Spears said, “By the time we got here, the CSU guys had already left. The 911 call came from the pay telephone across the street, by the Chevron station. We talked to the Chevron employee.” Spears consulted his notebook. “Brian LaFrance. Nice guy. Anyway, he remembered somebody standing by the bus stop out there, a ‘dark figure’ was the way he put it. That’s about it. He was busy with customers, couldn’t even say for sure whether he saw a man or a woman. We dusted the phone, got a couple thousand overlapping partials.” Oikawa said, “The Chevron guy heard the shot, thought it was a tire blowing. Stepped outside his little cubicle and took a look around, probably hoping for an accident. All he saw, there was a truck parked in front of the store.”

  A bell clanged stridently. Bobby said, “Go, baby, go!”

  “What kind of truck?”

  “Older-model pickup,” said Oikawa.

  “What colour?”

  “He wasn’t sure. Red, or dark brown, maybe even black.”

  Spears said, “It’s hard to tell colours, Jack. The streetlights do weird things. His booth over there, the glass is tinted ...”

  “Anyway,” said Oikawa, “he’s back inside the booth, this’s less than a minute later, he hears tires squealing, a vehicle accelerating down the street. He’s busy with a customer, but as soon as he gets a chance, he takes another look outside.”

  “The truck’s gone,” said Spears. “Vamoosed. Vanished.”

  Willows said, “We should be able to nail that down, get an exact time on that, the gas sale, the truck leaving ...”

  Oikawa said, “We’re working on it, Jack. Chevron can’t get a copy of the receipts to us until tomorrow morning. We asked the kid, was it a cash sale or credit? He can’t remember. We’ll talk to him again, but right now we’re going easy. We already grilled him once. He was totally co-operative. Believe me, we drained him dry.”

  “The responding officer ...”

  “Ken Gregory. A nice kid. He arrived, assessed the situation. On paper, he did it by the book. But the truth is, he barged right in there, no backup, just him and his piece. He drop by the hospital?”

  Willows nodded.

  Spears said, “Sean was only hit once, is that right?”

  Willows nodded again. His face was drawn, pale.

  Spears and Oikawa exchanged a quick glance. Spears said, “Well, he can count himself lucky ’cause there were spent casings all over the joint, eleven of ’em, all told.”

  “Prints?”

  “Yeah, partials, plenty of them. The CSU guys bagged ’em and took ’em to the lab ...” Spears trailed off. He was having a hard time dealing with the look in Willows’ eye, the desolate look of a man with too much t
o do and no way to get any of it done.

  Willows said, “You retrieved the bullets?”

  Spears said, “Not yet, Jack.” He yawned. His hand came up to cover his mouth.

  A sharp knife wielded by a CSU cop had cut numerous holes the size of his fist out of the drywall behind the counter. Willows had once told an outraged, under-insured store owner that the holes had been caused by wall gophers. That was a long time ago. He wasn’t thinking about that now.

  Oikawa said, “The rounds penetrated the drywall, insulation. A couple of them hit metal studs, but passed right through. We figure they must be inside the office of the insurance business next door.”

  The pinball machine clanked and buzzed. Flashing red lights stained Bobby Dundas’ face dull red. He slapped his hand down hard on the sloped glass top. “God damn it!”

  Spears said, “We can’t get inside. There’s a big sticker from one of the local security companies on the door, but they claim they’ve got no record he’s a customer. We phoned the emergency number on the door, no answer.”

  Willows rubbed his bristly jaw. He searched his pockets for a dollar, tossed it in the open cash-register drawer, and helped himself to a Diet Coke from the cooler. “Where’s the guy who manages the place, Sean’s boss?”

  “On his way over. We called him right away. He lives in Port Moody, told us it’s going to take him the better part of an hour to get here.”

  Dan Oikawa checked his watch. “Any time now.” Willows popped the tab on his Coke.

  Bobby Dundas yelled, “Hey, Jack. Got any quarters?”

  Willows turned and looked at him. He stared at him a long time, until finally Bobby caved in and said, “I’m all out ...”

  Willows turned back to Oikawa and Spears. He said, “Claire’s at the hospital. Sean isn’t expected to regain consciousness until the morning, but I should be there ...”

  The two detectives nodded vigorously, glad to be rid of him. Oikawa said, “Anything breaks, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Absolutely,” said Spears. He patted Willows awkwardly on the back as he followed him outside. Spears’ clumsy intimacy had led Willows to believe he intended to share a secret, tell him something of crucial importance. His heart clenched up in his chest as he turned helplessly towards his fellow detective.

  But Spears wanted nothing more than to finish his cigarette.

  11

  They’d been cruising around, come upon the convenience store. Dean was thirsty, wanted a soft drink. He jumped out of the truck before it had fully stopped or Ozzie had time to yell at him to pull his shirt over the Ruger.

  When Dean tried to pay for his root beer, the kid reached for the sky. Dean was confused, then pissed.

  Ozzie, looking through the window, saw the kid try to grab a handful of ceiling tile. He went inside. The way he saw it, an inadvertent robbery was in progress. No point wasting all that momentum. He told the kid to empty the cash register onto the counter, hand over the lottery tickets.

  The boy did exactly what he was told, no problem. A nice kid, kind of twitchy, but basically co-operative.

  He and Dean stuffed their pockets full of money and scratch-’n’-itch lottery tickets and went outside. The truck was parked just a few steps from the store’s front door. Dean broke stride to light a cigarette. He turned and saw the kid was staring at them.

  Doing what? Memorizing their faces? Dean ran back inside and started yanking the trigger. Rehashing in his mind how it had gone down, Ozzie’s face twisted into a bemused smile. Jeez, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been that surprised.

  And there was Dean coming back to the truck. Smoking pistol in hand, his eyes full of sizzle.

  Ozzie got out of there quick enough to rip the treads off his all-season radials. The hammer was back on Dean’s Ruger, the muzzle nestled in Dean’s crotch. Ozzie instructed him to de-cock the pistol, told him to put the damn thing away before he shot his balls off like that guy did a while ago, had the fight with his girlfriend, got so wound up he forgot to take precautions.

  Dean said, “He’s right there in front of me, close enough to touch. That first shot’s the hardest. I’m bangin’ away, the air’s full of smoke and thunder. All of a sudden the guy’s disappeared, I can’t see him no more. But then I see this big red splash on the wall, and I damn well know where he went.”

  “Straight to hell, huh?”

  Dean gave Ozzie a shocked look. Nonplussed, but only momentarily.

  “I lean over the counter. Sure enough, there he is. Blood all over the goddamn place. He’s staring up at me, no blinks.”

  “Dead,” said Ozzie, hoping it was so.

  “I was gonna shoot him a few more times, just to make sure. But what was the point? I could see he was dead. Shooting a dead man ...”

  Ozzie said, “You’d have to be the sickest puppy in the litter, pull a stunt like that.”

  Dean shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so ...”

  Ozzie drove three blocks and then Dean asked him to pull over for a minute. Ozzie stopped the truck and Dean got out, staggered over to a white Honda Civic and threw up all over the hood. Ozzie jokingly asked him what it was that he didn’t like about Hondas.

  Twice more on the way home he had to stop so Dean could dry-retch at the side of the road. Dean’s weak stomach made Ozzie wonder if he should take him out of the equation. But he’d spent a lot of time and energy recruiting Dean, putting him in the mood for the snatch. He needed Dean. For now.

  When he dropped Dean off at his shabby little apartment, Dean took a moment to scoop his loose scratch — ’n’-lose lottery tickets off the dashboard. Ozzie considered this a positive sign.

  Trying for a solicitous tone, he said, “You gonna be okay, partner?”

  Dean nodded weakly.

  Ozzie said, “Pick you up at seven, buddy.”

  Dean ignored him, walked slope-shouldered down the sidewalk towards the brightly lit lobby of his apartment.

  Ozzie yelled, “You win anything, I get half!” He drove home, parked, climbed the fire stairs and covertly checked the hallway. No heavily armed coppers lurked. He unlocked and entered, used the bathroom and then went into the kitchen, where he made himself a Kraft cheese sandwich. The sandwich hanging from his mouth, he cracked a Kokanee, and went into the living room and turned on the TV. Vanna White waved hello as he flopped down on the couch. Ozzie ate and drank. It had been a long and arduous but nevertheless wildly entertaining day. He drained the beer and went back into the kitchen for another. Sitting there in the truck, listening to Dean’s nine-mil had got his heart pumping. Though he desperately needed a good night’s sleep, he was wide awake, totally wired, lusting after the beautiful-but-mute Vanna.

  But then, half an hour later, he was watching the opening credits roll on a film called Aliens, had dumped Vanna and was lusting after Sigourney Weaver. The film ran for hours and hours. At seven, the alarm clock kicked him in the ear.

  And now here it was, ten minutes to noon, and he was so tired he could hardly think. He shifted the stone another quarter-inch to the left, stepped back and eyeballed the line. Straight enough. He sluiced sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, walked slowly over to the pile of granite and studied the stones. He heard laughter and slowly looked up, his eyes glittering in the shadow of his Mariners baseball cap.

  The twins had been basking in the sunlight on the far side of the pool, but now they were back in the water, splashing around in there, giggling and shrieking. Ozzie figured they were sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. Pretty damn young. Old enough to get him into plenty of trouble, though, and they sure enough knew it.

  Every so often one of them would strike a model’s pose by the side of the pool or on the diving board, glance over at the tanned and muscular men sweating over daddy’s new wall, to see how they were taking it. Hard. The men were taking it hard.

  During the ten-o’clock coffee break, one of them had smiled and waved at Dean, playfully invited him to take a qui
ck dip.

  Ozzie said, “Don’t even think about it. The first step you take in that direction, your ass is fired.”

  Dean scowled. Beads of sweat trembled all over his lean and hungry face. He stared at the ripply blue surface of the pool. He licked his lips.

  Ozzie said, “What kind of person are you? They’re schoolgirls. That kid you shot last night? He could’ve been her boyfriend.”

  “Then she’s in need of a replacement.”

  Ozzie said, “Not you, Dean.”

  Dean shrugged, neither agreeing or disagreeing. That’s how they’d left it, unresolved.

  Ozzie laid two more stones, good ones, and then pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in the back pocket of his jeans. He sat on the wall, straddling the warm rock. The morning hadn’t gone too badly, considering the night that had gone before. He could already see the form the wall would take, what it would look like and the impact it would have on the terrain it enclosed.

  He glanced at his watch. Five past twelve. The coffee-truck girl had promised she’d be there by ten past at the latest. The crew’d keep working until she showed up. Only Dean packed a lunch. The others ate whatever the coffee wagon brought them, and paid through the nose for the pleasure. Ozzie couldn’t understand such wilful, shortsighted stupidity. What kind of idiot couldn’t think ahead as far as his next meal?

  The sisters stood by the pool in their skimpy, peach-coloured bikinis, laughing at something that had amused them. In the harsh sunlight of high noon, they could’ve been stark naked.

  Ozzie swore, as he jerked back his hand and glared down at the bright line of blood that ran across the ball of his thumb. He’d sliced himself open on a splinter of rock sharp as a razor. He sucked at the wound, spat a gob of red onto the ground. Sucked and spat again.

  The coffee truck bumped up over the curb, stopped on the boulevard in the shade of a maple tree. The crew dropped tools.

  Ozzie sucked more blood from his wound, spat one last time. Dean had wandered off by himself. He sat down with his back up against the trunk of a copper beech, one of a clump of beeches that were marginally closer to the swimming pool than to the job site. Ozzie went over to the coffee truck to get himself a couple of nice cold Cokes. Waiting in line, he listened to the other guys flirt with the woman who drove the truck, a brassy blonde heavyweight with a great big screechy voice. He watched the way she moved as she served the crew cold roast-beef sandwiches, cans of hot soup, soft drinks. He turned and looked behind him, saw one of the sisters talking to Dean, standing over him, smiling down at him, a slim brown leg provocatively cocked. The Cokes were a dollar and a quarter apiece. Ozzie took a can in each fist and walked purposefully towards Dean. He stepped hard. The heels of his boots knocked little frown-shaped dents into the earth.