Karaoke Rap

by Laurence Gough

  “I’m not much of a reader,” she confessed to him.

  “Me neither,” he said, his friendly smile twisting the balaclava. He was thinking, okay, so she doesn’t like magazines. What else can I do for her? He smiled down at her. He said, “What else can I do for you?”

  “I’m claustrophobic.”

  Dean thought she was trying to tell him it was that time of the month. But all she wanted was to be let out of her tiny little room. Taken for a walk or whatever.

  Dean flatly refused.

  Melanie suggested he handcuff her to the big La-Z-Boy in the living room. If they tilted the chair back so the foot rest was extended, they could cuff her ankle to the metal support.

  He assessed the risks and found them nonexistent. Melanie looked in pretty good shape, for a woman her age. But she sure as hell wasn’t gonna run off with a La-Z-Boy chained to her leg.

  Even so, he told her he’d have to think about it, and went downstairs and told Ozzie what she wanted.

  Ozzie kicked the chair. He kicked it hard, and it moved about an inch. He said, “Okay, fine. Go ahead and cuff her to the chair, if it’ll make you happy.”

  “It’ll make her happy,” said Dean. “Or, at least, less unhappy. She can watch TV. ‘Days of Our Lives.’ ”

  Ozzie was careful. The chair was situated a good ten feet from the TV, and that’s where he insisted it remain, too far away from the set for Melanie to reach out and change the channel or fiddle with the sound. He wouldn’t let her have the remote control. He pointed out that if they let her have the remote she could turn up the sound so loud that it might attract somebody’s attention.

  Dean wondered to himself why Ozzie didn’t worry about her screaming.

  As if reading his mind, Ozzie said, “You scream, I’ll drag your cute little ass down to the basement, put a bullet in your head. Kill you. Understand?”

  Melanie nodded. Her eyes wide, hair tangled in fragments of duct tape. Looking kind of tousled and sexy, vulnerable in ways that made Dean want to give her a gentle, reassuring hug that somehow turned into something else. Something passionate and wild. He told her they were going into the village to get some supplies. He paused at the door. Did she want anything? Ozzie damn near chopped his fingers off, he slammed the door so hard.

  The drive into the village took about fifteen minutes. Ozzie parked in a paved lot an easy walk from the shops and hotels. He stood by the van for a moment, peering at the hundreds of well-dressed people who strolled idly in the sunlight, taking in the sights. Every last one of them, even the smallest child, looked as if he believed he was the only reason the world bothered to keep on spinning. What a wealth of smugness. Ozzie pushed the Ruger a little deeper into his waistband. “Think any of them are armed?”

  Dean, alarmed, stood up a little straighter and glanced wildly around. He said, “Who’re you talking about?”

  Ozzie gestured vaguely at the crowd.

  “Armed with charge cards,” said Dean, relaxing. “Armed with fat wallets, and a solid line of credit.”

  They walked across asphalt and grass, into the village. The architects had apparently tried to give the place a high-Alpine, European look, but as far as Dean was concerned, they’d pretty much fallen flat on their faces. Whistler and Blackcomb combined had been North America’s number-one ski resort for several years running. When the snow inevitably melted there was a nice golf course, trails for summertime hiking and biking. Lakes for wind-sailing and canoeing, fishing. Bears for the truly adventurous. But surely it was obvious to anybody who gave it a moment’s thought that, despite all its attractions, Whistler was soulless as a bank. In fact, it was a bank, in that it had been designed as a final destination for money.

  Ozzie took Dean by surprise when he suddenly made a sharp left and entered a restaurant’s patio area. He sat down at one of the few unoccupied tables, his face to the sun. A small vase contained a long-stemmed rose. He leaned forward, sniffed mightily. He said, “Sit down, we’ll get something to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Okay, something to drink.”

  Ozzie straightened his leg. A white resin chair skittered across the pavement. The chair banged against Dean’s shinbone.

  Dean sat down. The chair wasn’t as comfortable as it looked, but it would do.

  A pretty girl wearing a white T-shirt and grey suede shorts, bright red suspenders and lightweight hiking boots came smiling up to the table. Her hair was red, in short braids. Her eyes were bluer than the sky. She told them her name was Terry. She offered menus and a wine list, smilingly asked if they’d like something to drink. Ozzie thought she could be the next Vanna White, if Vanna ever decided to retire. He opened his menu. Ten-dollar burgers. Ouch! It was like being at Denny’s, some time in the middle of the next century.

  He said, “You got any champagne? Imported champagne?”

  Terry bent from the waist, displaying a little cleavage. Her smile widened as she opened the wine list. Her scarlet fingernail tapped the plastic-sheathed paper as she pointed out the champagne list.

  Ozzie said, “What’s the most expensive brand you got?”

  The finger moved, sharp nail sliding across plastic. In the 750-millilitre size, the Salon Blanc de Blancs, at a cool two hundred and fifty bucks per bottle.

  Ozzie ordered an oysterburger and fries, the champagne. Two glasses. He told the waitress he wanted the champagne in an ice bucket, to keep it nice and cold. And that his oysters had to be cooked right through.

  No problem.

  Dean decided on a cheeseburger and a half Caesar salad.

  “You don’t want nothing to drink?” said Ozzie. Big laugh from Terry. Ozzie touched her arm, told her Dean was a lush, he didn’t get some alcohol in him, he was gonna have a seizure any minute. More laughter. Ozzie stared hard as she walked briskly away from the table, through open French doors into the shadowy interior of the restaurant.

  Dean loudly said, “Are you thinking the same thing I am? That girl’s sure got herself a real nice ass. Five stars, man. She walked backwards, I bet she’d meet twice as many people.”

  Two tables away, a fork clattered. Ozzie turned and looked. A family of four. The guy still wearing his golf togs. A sweater that looked like a checkered flag, lime pants, spike shoes with tassels. The kids and little woman had been idling away the hours in the hotel pool; the kids still wore their bathing suits and the wife’s hair was wet, combed straight back from her scalp. Ozzie caught the golfer’s eye. He said, “Or don’t you think so?”

  The guy fired Ozzie’s hard look right back at him, until his wife said something only he could hear. He shrugged, lowered his eyes and went back to his meal. Tough guy.

  Dean took out his cigarettes, lit up.

  Ozzie said, “Gimme one of those.” He helped himself to the pack. He sneeringly blew smoke at the golfer, frowned as the breeze that was coming down the valley shredded his insult and carried it away in the wrong direction.

  A guy in a gleaming white shirt, ironed bluejeans and brand-new white leather sneakers came towards them carrying a silver ice bucket nestled in a wrought-iron hoop welded to a wrought-iron tripod. Inside the bucket, ice rattled against the bottle of Blanc de Blancs.

  Ozzie said, “Where’s that babe Terry?”

  The waiter smiled, shrugged. He offered up the bottle for inspection and, when Ozzie didn’t respond, asked him if it was what he’d ordered. Ozzie took a close look at the label, nodded. The waiter stripped the wire and gold foil away from the bulbous cork and slowly eased it out of the bottle.

  Ozzie said, “Don’t spill any. We’re talking dollars a drop, dude.”

  The cork pulled out of the bottle with a soft pop.

  The waiter filled their glasses and stood back. Ozzie emptied his glass. He said, “Yeah, good.”

  The waiter poured him a refill.

  Ozzie said, “So, where is she? Terry, the girl with the cute little shorts, fit so nice and snug. I say something that offended her?”


  “I hope not,” said the waiter.

  Ozzie flicked ash on the table. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The waiter smiled. His teeth were almost as white as his shoes. “Enjoy your wine, gentlemen.”

  Dean made himself a private bet that they wouldn’t see the girl in the suede shorts again. Wouldn’t see hide nor hair of her, he told himself, and permitted himself a tiny smile. But, a few minutes later, there she was, her smile lighting the way as she brought their food to the table. She put Ozzie’s oysterburger down in front of him, along with a little bowl containing three slices of lemon. She’d brought a small bottle of malt vinegar too, in case that’s what he wanted, and a pepper grinder and a cute little bowl of ketchup for his fries. Ozzie imagined her pouring ketchup out of a Heinz bottle into that little container, her brow furrowing prettily as she concentrated on the task.

  She avoided Dean’s eye as she put his plate down in front of him.

  Ozzie said he’d love a little fresh-ground pepper. He patted her hip as she moved away from him, towards the golfer’s table.

  They sat there in the sunshine, eating their overpriced burgers and drinking the champagne, Ozzie slouched low in his chair with the sun beating down on him. His brooding eyes in shadow but the rest of him brightly lit, his hair glossy and his dark-tanned skin sweaty and gleaming, muscles gliding this way and that with every move he made. He ate the last of his French fries and lit another of Dean’s cigarettes. He tilted back his head. Smoke leaked out of his open mouth. He snorted hard, and sucked it back into his nose, recycling.

  Dean said, “Want some dessert?”

  Ozzie shook his head.

  “Triple-layer chocolate cake, maybe a slice of peach pie ...?”

  Ozzie forced a tight belch.

  Dean lit a cigarette. Five left. He made a mental note to buy a carton, when they finally got around to the groceries.

  “This is what it’s gonna be like for us,” said Ozzie, “when the money comes in. The easy life, Dean. The easy life.”

  Dean nodded, but felt glum inside. Two hundred and fifty bucks on a bottle of sneezes. He would rather have had a Heine-ken, no lie. The truth was, they were working stiffs, both of them. Lower-class guys. Was Ozzie really dumb enough to think two or three million dollars was going to make a dime’s worth of difference to the person he was, the way he thought about things, his day-to-day life and the shitty way he lived it?

  The bill came to just under three hundred dollars. Ozzie paid with six fifties, fanning them out on the table, laying them down one by one. He waited a moment and then laid a seventh bill down on the table, separate from the others. He told Terry that was her tip, waved away her thanks, and then got up and followed her as she went back inside the restaurant. Dean thought there was going to be trouble, but all Ozzie wanted was a toothpick from the bar. He told the bartender he was glad to see they had the kind he liked, with a little twist of cellophane. The bartender offered him a choice of red or yellow or green. Ozzie chose all three. He dropped a ten on the bar and invited the bartender to buy himself a drink. The guy thanked him. Ozzie laid another bill on top of the first and told the bartender to buy Terry a drink, too.

  Drug dealers, thought Dean. That’s what they’ll think we are. Fucking dumb-ass drug dealers. Expendable guys from out of town, intending to horn in on the local action, bite a piece out of somebody else’s tasty little pie. He made himself a small bet that, if he turned around, the bartender would already be on the phone. But would he be calling the cops, or the guy he moved a little product for, now and then?

  He spun on his heel and stared into the cool darkness of the restaurant. The bartender was talking a mile a minute into a black cellphone.

  He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He imagined his hamburger and the Caesar churning around down there, in a lake of digestive juices, stomach acids and champagne.

  Ozzie tugged at his arm. He said, “C’mon, let’s go buy some groceries.”

  *

  The local supermarket was about a mile down the road. Ozzie put Dean in charge of fresh vegetables and miscellaneous goods, and strode off in the direction of the meat counter, to hunt up a few pounds of T-bone steaks. At the checkout, he gave Dean a hard time about his choice of frozen vegetarian pizzas, diet soft drinks and even his choice of toilet paper. Dean told the girl he wanted a carton of Player’s Light. They, and everyone else in the lineup, had to wait while she got a key from the assistant manager, so she could unlock the glass-fronted cabinet.

  Ozzie paid from his rapidly diminishing roll of crisp new fifties and hundreds. He loudly told the checkout girl to keep the eleven dollars and fifty-eight cents change.

  Dean hoped Harold’s wife coughed up the five million pretty quick. For one thing, they had yet to plunder the liquor store, and he was concerned they might be running short of money. But it wasn’t cash-flow problems that really bothered him, it was Ozzie. He seemed to think that the snatch was already a total success, just because they had Harold. It seemed to Dean that the tricky part — getting the money — was yet to come.

  *

  Back at the house, Melanie was stretched out in a seductive pose on the La-Z-Boy, watching “The Bold and the Beautiful.” Upstairs, Harold snored with unabashed enthusiasm.

  Ozzie jerked a thumb at the ceiling. “How can you stand that?”

  Melanie said, “Believe me, he gets a lot noisier.”

  “Yeah?” Ozzie, his arms full of paper grocery bags, stared speculatively at her. “He does, huh? How much noisier, Melanie?” He smiled. “There’s only one way for me to find out, isn’t there? And I’m not going to try it, am I?” His smile broadened. “Harold better hope not, anyway.”

  The television discharged a burst of laughter. Those bold and beautiful actors were having a high old time. Melanie’s pretty eyes drifted back to the screen.

  In the kitchen, Dean put away the groceries, put the beer and wine in the fridge and then leaned against the stove and looked out through the French doors at the view. The lake was about fifty yards away. It was a fair-sized chunk of water, but nothing moved upon it. No canoeists or sailboarders. No swimmers. Not even a duck. Dean walked across the green tile floor to the French doors, slid back the deadbolt and pushed both doors open wide.

  He stepped outside, onto the cedar deck. He took a deep breath. The air was hot and dry. He could smell pitch leaking from the trees.

  He lit a cigarette, pinched the match between his fingers and let it drop into the narrow gap between the deck’s planks.

  He walked over to the railing, for a better view down the length of the lake. Almost directly below him, a man crouched low behind a bushy green plant. The man was very still. He wore cream-coloured slacks, a snug-fitting red T-shirt and a lightweight blue jacket emblazoned with the cablevision company’s logo, a cablevision cap with the name RICHARD on it, sunglasses with purple lenses and heavy black plastic frames. His hair was close-cropped. His scalp was pink. An unlit cigar jutted from his small mouth.

  Dean pulled the Ruger. He said, “Hey, you!” The guy looked up at Dean. Hot shards of sunlight flashed off the purple lenses of his glasses. Dean said, “Stand up.”

  Reluctantly, the man stood up. Dean leaned over the railing and swung at him with his pistol. Four pounds of steel and assorted high-tech alloys bounced off the guy’s pink skull.

  The man’s mouth gaped open. The cigar fell onto the lawn. He reached up and yanked the purple sunglasses off his face and gave Dean a weird, undecipherable look.

  Dean hit him again.

  A line of blood sprang up across the guy’s forehead. His knees buckled. He dropped face down on his cigar.

  Dean trotted across the deck and down the stairs. He rolled the man over. Third-degree cigar burns. Where the Ruger had cut him, six stitches, easy. Dean patted him down. No gun. No badge.

  He pried open an eyelid, wiped blood from his fingers. The man’s eyes were pale brown. Correction, the left eye was brown. He
pushed up the other eyelid. Okay, both eyes were brown. Or were they? The left eyelid had already slid back down over the eye, like a defective Venetian blind. Dean pushed both eyelids up and held them in place. Yeah, both eyes were brown. He rolled the man over on his side and yanked a wallet fat with cash out of his pants. He stripped away the cash and sent the empty wallet skittering far under the deck.

  The man’s pulse was faint, but steady. Dean grabbed a handful of red T-shirt and began to drag him across the lawn towards the house.

  This was exactly the sort of unexpected development that control freaks like Ozzie went crazy over. With any luck, their unexpected visitor would keep him occupied long enough for Dean to make his move on Melanie.

  31

  Bobby Dundas lounged against the flank of the cube van. He wore a lizard-coloured suit, burnished gold shirt, immaculate chocolate suede brogues. Orwell, sitting in the van, could see Bobby in the rearview mirror if he tilted a few degrees to his left. There he was, a cigarette dangling jauntily from his mouth. Posing as if for a calendar. HotCops. Bobby lifted his hand, studied his fingernails. Not liking what he saw, he stuck a finger in his mouth, chewed, and spat. He drew deeply on his cigarette, exhaled a thin stream of smoke as he studied his newly trimmed fingernail.

  Bobby was taking his third smoke break of the hour. For Bobby, time spent in the claustrophobic funk of the van was nothing but a break between smoke breaks. The motor-pool guy had forcibly warned them not to use the air-conditioner. Some kind of mechanical problem. Orwell was completely at home in the sauna-like atmosphere. Bobby, on the other hand, couldn’t take the heat. Not that Orwell objected to Bobby slacking off. His partner’s new cologne could have been called Urinale.

  Joan Wismer’s phone rang. She picked up between the first and second rings. She said only one word, “Hello.” When it came to human emotions, Orwell’s ear was made of sheet tin. Even so, he noticed that her voice was congested, as if she’d being crying.