6/6/66

by JN Lenz

  Perhaps all those years of beating through the bush had begun to take its toll on the aging Clyde, much like a Lion, or Hyena, after a life of chasing down prey, the still with the burning desire to kill, muted by an aging body.

  He managed the pain from the arthritis fine; pot had masked that for years. It would be the growth of the arthritis, spreading in all his major joints that were impacting his flexibility, and mobility. I think that is why he wanted to do this climbing trip now with Sid, while Clyde was still fit enough to complete the climb, and ensure he was not a liability to Sid, halfway up the mountain. A weak link in a climbing team is a recipe for disaster, Sid and Clyde always worked as a pair, even when climbing with a group.

  Retreating to the warmth of the rented condo; the wise old hunter wanted to make sure the cold would not impact the most important shot, the first one. Setting the alarm on his Tag Heuer wrist watch for twenty six minutes, at which time he would return to the outside balcony to wait for the return of Faol Dung. The lights in the rented condo had remained off, leaving both inside and the covered balcony in complete darkness, allowing Clyde to enter and exit the condo, without being seen by the surrounding towers. He would leave the riffle, a bullet already in the chamber, resting on shorter of two stools on the balcony. The gun would be picked up as he returned to the balcony following the Tag’s alarm chirp, taking a seat on the tall stool, he waited for Faol Dung.

  There would be no sign of Faol Dung; the alarm would chirp again, after another twenty six minutes had passed, he had forgotten to switch the alarm off. Clyde retreated back to the warmth of the condo; the rain had turned from a drizzle to a steady rain while he had been on the balcony. The balcony was covered; keeping Clyde dry while he waited, but the dampness, along with the cold affected his arthritis the most, much worse than the dry cold of Northern Ontario in the winter.

  Bringing the riffle inside as well, depressing the scope’s quick release lever on the base of the unit before setting the riffle against the wall. Pulling a bar stool from the breakfast bar over to the patio doors to the balcony, by using the removed scope, Clyde could still watch the bulk of Faol Dung’s balcony. The only area not visible from inside the rented condo would be the door to the balcony from the Solarium; Clyde would sit here watching for hours, with no sight of Faol Dung.

  The lights inside Faol Dung’s condo continued to peek light out from the sides of the closed blinds throughout the entire evening, but there would be no sign of life on the balcony. By eleven twenty six that night, Clyde was resolved to the fact that there would be no killing of Faol Dung, on this night. Retreating to the couch, he would watch the late night news, checking the balcony of Faol Dung’s every fifteen minutes. There was no sight of Faol Dung until well after midnight; Clyde would just catch a glimpse of Faol Dung, before he disappeared back into the Solarium entrance, his cigarette already finished. There was no time for Clyde to get into place on the balcony; Faol Dung had disappeared back into the condo within seconds of Clyde seeing him. This would be Faol Dung’s last visit to the balcony on that night, day six in the rented condo would become the day Faol Dung was set to die.

  The digital clock from the open kitchen’s stove would read two thirty six when he closed his eyes, sleeping on the couch again that night. The arms of the Tag indicated a time of twenty four minutes to nine, when Clyde opened his eyes the next morning. The sky over Vancouver remained overcast and dark, the thermometer, which was mounted out on the patio indicated six degrees Celsius. It had warmed up from last night but the continued steady drizzle made it feel colder, the surrounding buildings dreary against the grey sky, their grey stone blackened by the rain, as it streamed down the sides of the building facades.

  It was unlike Clyde to sleep past six, or six minutes after six, or five fifty six, it was almost one of those times. He had told me years ago that six of seven days each week, he would wake up with the clock reading in the sixth minute. I too would see a high numbers of the minute six when I looked at the time, but not to the excess Clyde claimed. Back when he first bought the farm house, that was really when he started keeping track; I remember how he changed the time on the four clocks around the house, the one in his car and his wrist watch, each clock set to a different time. With a variation between one to six minutes from each other, even then, regardless of which clock he looked at throughout the day, it was the sixth minute, six times out of seven. Clyde claimed he had the data to back the claim, for an entire year he recorded how many times the sixth minute appeared and the total times he looked for the time each day. He swore the six of seven ratios held true the entire time, the clocks around his house and car, remained unsynchronized to this day.

  Grabbing the riffles scope from off the coffee table, he had a quick look down at the balcony of Faol Dung, nothing to see. Not expecting to spend another day in the rented condo, there would be no food left to eat, requiring a coffee in the worst way; Clyde decided to head to a local java hut. There was a coffee shop close to the condo, but all of the grocery stores were a good half hour walk each way, so Clyde decided to take the motor home over to the market, after walking across the street to grab a coffee. The market was almost devoid of customers, Clyde picked up a few food items and a six pack of Dr. Pepper cans, enough to get him through what he planned on being his last day in Vancouver.

  Leaving the Food Market’s parking lot Clyde headed over to another box store parking lot to find a new parking spot to leave the motor home for the day. He thought it best not to leave it in the same lot for another day, in case security ended up towing it. As he prepared to wheel the motor home into the parking lot, a woman exited blindly from a laneway and slammed into the side of the motor home. Writing that his only other choice was to swerve into oncoming traffic, he watched as the car struck the side of the rental motor home.

  “She didn’t even turn her head to look for traffic, the stupid bitch just plowed right into me” he added, knowing the trouble it could potentially cause with the Police.

  Go figure, she was a scatter brain and began to freak out after she got out of her car, a late model BMW Z4.”

  Inspecting the crumpled front end of the ultimate driving machine, the woman instantly burst into tears, repeating several times that her husband was going to kill her. By the time Clyde settled her down, he caught enough facts through all of the blubbering that the car was a manual stick, and her heels had slipped off the clutch, she panicked hitting the gas instead of the brake pedal.

  Clyde immediately offered the irate motorist to just forget about the whole thing, telling the sobbing woman that he would take care of his own repairs and not to worry about a thing.

  “Put the whole incident behind you, forget about it”.

  Annoyingly, the woman refused, insisting that the two of them would need to report the accident to the Police and to the insurance companies. When Clyde realized his insistence on forgetting the whole incident was getting him nowhere, he returned to the motor home, preparing to drive away. Seeing Clyde was set to leave, the woman called after him, informing Clyde that it was illegal to leave the scene of an accident, and that she had memorized his license plate number.

  “Listen lady, you keep saying how your husband is gonna kill you, why not try to get it fixed before he finds out? Tell him the thing broke down, it’s in the shop, and BMW won’t have the part for a few days. You know, something to that effect, he sure as hell won’t hear it from me that you cracked the car up!” Clyde tried to put that positive pitch to his voice as he spoke, but it was all in vain

  “My husband is an insurance salesman, there is no way I cannot report this. The man has been a gold glove salesman for his firm for thirteen straight years, if management heard any word of this, there is no way he would get his fourteenth. That’s just not how we operate.” The irate woman sternly advised Clyde, like her entire future rested on the outcome of this tragic accident.

  “Yaa that would be a real fucking shame wouldn’t it, fine call the Police, b
ut can we get on with it” Clyde snapped back , he had enough of pandering to this fucking idiot of a woman, which was not getting him anywhere.

  “There is no need for that kind of language; I’m calling 911 right now”

  “I’m sure they are waiting for your call with eager anticipation” Clyde added as he turned and walked back to the motor home to wait for the cruiser, leaving the attractive, but obtuse woman to stand in the rain.

  The Police cruiser arrived quickly enough; it would be a young male RCMP constable. The cop was pleasant enough and efficient, completing all the required forms and statements from Clyde and the woman, she was still rattling on like a blithering idiot and Clyde. With the drizzle continuing to fall all morning, the irate lady who had now been out in the rain for over an hour now had a face full of black mascara and blue eye shadow. The long black and blue streaks which had made their way down half of her face, which held a look as empty as her head.

  The young constable made sure to clearly point out to both of us that she was clearly at fault in causing the accident. He would not lay any charges against the woman, but could have easily charged her any number of offences, such as failure to yield. No doubt the young officer was smart enough to know the ditsy woman would freak out if he charged her, perhaps like Clyde he had had enough of dealing with her as well.

  With the cop asking us to swap the insurance information between each other, before handing his license back the cop commented,

  “Looks like you decided to lose some of the beard Burt

  “Yaa, I had decided to shave it a month or so ago, but I didn’t like it, so back it comes.” This bitch is going to get me arrested, he cursed under his breath, as long as he does not ask for a road side sobriety scan. After the comment the cop handed Burt Wurflew’s license back to him, along with the rental agreement and registration.

  “I always wanted to rent one of these things and drive across the country, how do you like it?”

  “First time for me too, it has been good. I would do it again.”

  “Someday I guess. OK, you have a good day sir”

  “I will, take care officer”

  As the cop walked back to his cruiser, Clyde would take one last look at the idiot woman who could so easily have gotten him arrested, maybe sent to jail for life. She was still standing there soaked to the bone beside the tow truck; it had arrived to retrieve the car, even though it was still completely drivable. Over the past hour, she had been too stupid to come in out of the rain, standing there the whole time.

  “Adios you Fucking Idiot” Clyde yelled, as he drove past the wrecker. The tow truck had been winching the car up as Clyde passed; it was unlikely she could hear his comments from inside the motor home.

  Needing to find another parking lot for the damaged motor home, there would be another large retail area a couple blocks away. Once the motor home had been parked, Clyde removed his single bag of groceries from the back and walked the six blocks back to the rented condo. The bag of groceries included more sterilizer and sets of rubber gloves, along with the few groceries to get him through the day. The sanitizer and gloves would be to give the condo another whip down later in the evening, now that he had touched a number of surfaces in the condo again since yesterday.

  Clyde needed to kill Faol Dung that night, his gut felt uneasy and nearly every mole on his body had tweaked him at some point in the morning. Witting how he had felt more alive that day than he had in some time, his senses heightened with an uneasy excitement. All the while a voice was telling him to get back on the road, get the hell out of Vancouver, before this whole thing blew up in his face.

  The tone I sensed in Clyde’s writing, finally displayed to me some semblance of fear, or at the least his concern about his possible capture, he was a long way from home if everything went south on him. I think even that comment by the cop about his beard had him rattled a bit, with the increased facial recognition cameras being installed across the country; they had to worry him to some degree. The disguises he had relied on in the past, the heavy beards, the wigs of long hair, all of it would do little in tricking the computers. Even the pictures Clyde would use on the identification of Burt Wurflew, all taken with the same long hair and beard, albeit the wig and beard being mostly grey in colour.

  There was no way for Clyde to know what evidence Police investigators had gathered on him at the scene of Lance Lowey’s murder, did they have his DNA, his blood type? There could have been camera’s somewhere in that building, or on the street that digitally recorded his image. He had used the identification of Burt Wurflew for both the apartment rental and the car rental when he murdered Lance Lowey, on that sixth day in the rental condo Clyde questioned if using that same identification here for Faol Dung’s murder would be his undoing.

  Once police establish where the sniper attack had originated from they would discover the name of Burt Wurflew from the condo owner, Burt would become the number one suspect. The data from the accident earlier on the same day will match up once investigators punch in Burt Wurflew, the Police may be able to utilize facial recognition cameras in the box store parking lot and the streets around the condo towers. These same digital images taken through the facial recognition software could quickly determine a match between those images and Clyde’s actual Ontario license photo, which he had taken for his real license only half a year earlier just before his fifty ninth birthdays.

  Clyde wrote how his mind that day had been filled with a million thoughts and fears, ending the page stating he had resolved to killing Faol Dung that night, or not at all. If he failed to shot Faol Dung he was getting the hell out of Vancouver by day seven, regardless of what the outcome of the night would bring.

  Shaking off the events of earlier in the day, Clyde spent the day watching Faol Dung, who had returned to his pattern of smoke breaks on the balcony throughout the day. Clyde debated whether he should just kill him now, during the daylight, get it over with and disappear from the city for good. The streets below had remained busy all day, the chance of a quick getaway after the shooting would be nearly impossible. The emergency response units arriving for the splattered man would bring the already congested streets to a complete stand still; Clyde would keep to the original plan of a late evening assignation, hoping the body would not be discovered for some time. Faol Dung’s unit sat directly above a patio and green space, normally vacant in the later evening hours.

  Spending time between watching for Faol Dung’s smoke breaks to clean and wipe down all area’s he had touched or used around the apartment, cleaning and sterilizing as much as possible. The electronic scanners the homicide squads used in combing the crime scene had made it nearly impossible not to leave some small piece of evidence, a flake of skin or a single hair which they could match instantly, if the perp had been previously arrested. Of course the system also stored the DNA information, entering it into their data basis, to be matched against any future arrests or roadside tests.

  By the time the city lights came to life, as darkness descended across the city, Clyde will have watched Faol Dung smoke eight cigarettes, this after returning back to the condo following the accident with the BMW. Clyde was encouraged by Faol Dung’s return to the balcony throughout the afternoon; he must have been away from the condo last night. Watching as Faol Dung returned to the balcony five more times before Clyde decided it was time to kill him on the next smoke, it was now just past eight Pm, and the streets below had been cleared of the rush hour congestion. Each trip to the balcony would be welcomed by Clyde raising the riffle to his shoulder as he followed Faol Dung across the balcony, watching as he puffed on each of the cigarettes.

  Having collected the last pieces of garbage around the condo, Clyde had sealed it all in a plastic bag and shoved it into the same duffel bag that he would place the disassembled riffle in after the shooting Faol Dung. Apart from the bag, there was only his jacket which remained to be taken before fleeing the condo after the murder, after cleaning the apartment Clyd
e would slip on a pair of latex gloves to ensure no more prints would be left. Having everything inside the rented condo organized and ready for his departure, Clyde returned to the balcony to prepare for Faol Dung’s return. The weather had remained cold and rainy, but the increased adrenaline pumping through Clyde’s veins had muted their effects on his arthritis.

  Checking his watch, it had been sixteen minutes since Faol Dung’s last trip to the balcony; he would be back out in less than fifteen minutes. After checking over the riffle, he would use the gun’s night vision scope to search balconies close to Faol Dung’s for any sign of life, nothing. Sixty seconds before the half hour was up he would push the butt of the riffle firmly into his shoulder, standing in the dark shadows he brought the scopes field of vision to the area of the balcony where Faol Dung smoked.

  The green images of the scope on that same piece of empty railing would be filled soon enough with Faol Dung. The man had returned to precisely the same location at the edge of the railing, the glow from the end of the cigarette glowed bright white in the scope, hanging as always, from the corner of Faol Dung’s mouth. Before leaning over the edge, Faol Dung propped both hands straight out from his torso, along the top of the rail. As he stared out at the Vancouver skyline, Clyde would keep the scope’s cross hair remained fixed on Faol Dung’s head. Leaving the laser turned off, for fear of Faol Dung catching a glimpse of the red light, before diving for cover.

  He stood there for a moment, looking out into the darkness before repeating his routine of leaning over the railing. Keeping the cross hairs of the scope in the center of Faol Dung’s head, Clyde would activate the laser as his head turned away, looking down to the city below. The sharp little prick from the mole on the back of Clyde’s neck corresponded with squeezing the trigger, as the sound of the first muffled shot rang from the riffle.