40 Nickels

by R. Daniel Lester

  I stumbled out the other side of the hedge at the end of a yard that could’ve been an orchard had it wanted to work a little harder. The nearest tree provided shelter while I waited for any sign that my presence had been noted. Nothing happened and a furtive glance at the mansion windows told me only that the inhabitants did not like light one bit. Everything was sealed shut. Perfection. Still, caution was warranted so I crept tree to tree until I was at the rear of the massive structure.

  One locked door and three shut windows later, I was crawling through an open window in front of a very prickly rose bush and very gracefully knocking over a pile of tin cans with my feet as I dropped down from the window ledge.

  Wait a second: tin cans?

  My eyes slowly adjusted from bright sun to dim lighting. I looked down and, yes, a pile of cans, placed right under the windowsill of the room I’d entered the hard way. Upon closer inspection it was a laundry room and the cans were for corned beef, baked beans and peas.

  Thud clink.

  The sound was coming from down the hallway.

  “Oh shit,” I said, under my breath.

  Thud clink.

  The sound was getting closer. The steadiness of it chilled me to the bone.

  Thud clink.

  Very close now.

  Thud clink.

  Frozen, I watched as a knight filled the doorway, sheathed head-to-toe in shiny armour. Probably an expensive get up but what had all of my attention was the very large sword the knight raised and pointed in my direction.

  “That looks sharp,” I said.

  The knight nodded, said nothing.

  “And that suit must be heavy.”

  Again, nothing, just a thud clink as the knight stepped closer.

  It was all too familiar. Last year, neck deep in dead janitors and Dead Clowns, I’d followed up a lead on an unrelated insurance fraud case. Bartell Rightly was under investigation but had disappeared, until I tracked him to a remote cabin deep in the woods of Surrey. Well, he did more of the tracking because as I watched the smoke curl out of the chimney, thinking my rabbit was inside, he was creeping up behind me. I didn’t realize until he sneezed and I turned around to see him dressed up in his military best and pointing a large rifle at my face. I’d thought Bartell was going to punch my ticket with a few slugs to the cranium but he smacked me with the butt of the rifle instead. Gave me a one-way ticket straight to the city of Sore Jaw in the country of Knocked Out.

  Now, though, I feared there was only one course of action the knight wanted to take and I liked my intestines where they were, inside, doing intestine things.

  Thud clink.

  “Hugo, you don’t want to do this.” Hearing his name stopped him in his tracks. The sword stayed raised but he took one hand off the hilt and tipped up the face protector.

  “They said I shouldn’t talk to you. But that I should protect this house at all costs. They called you an infiltrator. They said you wanted to turn the TV off, kill the glow.”

  “They?”

  “Mr. Quest, Mr. Montrose.”

  “And let me guess, Reynold was nothin’ but grunts.”

  Hugo nodded. “They’re my family now.”

  “What about your mother? She was here yesterday.”

  “Yes, she was. She wouldn’t relent, she never does, so Mr. Quest thought it a wise choice to let her in, to see that I was fine. I tried to make her believe, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “Where did they take her, Hugo?”

  He pointed. “Out the back door. To the garage.”

  “Can I see?”

  “I’m not sure. I was told not to leave the house or to let you live if you came knocking.”

  “Tell ya what: let’s go look at the garage, you can stab me later.”

  Hugo thought about it. I wasn’t sure if the longer he considered the better for my guts remaining where they were or not. Eventually, satisfied, he muttered, “Okay, this way.”

  Inside the huge garage, there were two cars: a maroon Ford in decent condition and an impeccably shiny Rolls Royce the colour of expensive, very expensive.

  “That’s mother’s car,” said Hugo, pointing to the Rolls. “She never walks.”

  “So you mean it’s a little odd it’s here and she’s not?”

  Hugo didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

  I checked out the Ford first. The exterior may have been okay to look at but the interior was a disaster. Candy bar wrappers, cigarette packs, clothes strewn everywhere and what appeared to be small, jagged rips in the seats.

  “That’s Butch’s car,” said Hugo.

  “Yeah? He own a tiger?”

  “No, a house cat. It’s inside now, hiding probably. That thing’s scared of its own shadow.”

  I opened the passenger side door and rooted through the glovebox. Insurance papers listing the car under Butch’s name, a few city maps, an empty Oh Henry! wrapper. The usual. I moved on to the Rolls. I suppose it was okay, if you liked driving around in a luxurious tank. I opened the door. Mrs. Brasher’s lilac perfume hit me like a freight train. It was definitely her car. By the time I got to the rear, the trunk area, I could still smell the lilacs but there was also a bad smell underneath. The stink of rot.

  “There a fight? When your mother was here?”

  “No, not at all. My mother was displeased but she’s usually that way. It was all quite cordial. Mr. Quest had me explain that everything was fine and that it was my choice not to leave the house and sign the warehouse over to the Disciples of the Sacred Glow. Mr. Montrose even offered to help my mother to her car.”

  “Oh, did he now?”

  Thud clink thud clink.

  Hugo stood beside me now, sword at his side. He stared down at the trunk. “No,” he said.

  “It might be, Hugo.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t open that trunk, okay? Trust me.”

  “It can’t be. Not her, too. Not…”

  I looked at Hugo. He didn’t look so good. Probably roasting alive in that armour, for one. Throw in whatever drug cocktail he was on and it was no shockeroo he was woozy and off balance. Sure enough, ten seconds later, he was wobbling back-and-forth, each wobble getting increasingly large, as his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

  Thud clink.

  The Knight of Shaughnessy fainted.

  He went crash.

  Not knowing how long I had until Hugo woke up, and whether or not he’d want to turn me into a human pincushion when he did, I decided it’d be best to stay on track and not treat the Brasher abode like a museum. Which would be very easy to do. The place was a showroom, an ode to wealth gone overboard. Paintings. Statues. Giant vases. Many precious objects behind glass and putting your nose up against it to take a look left a smudge where no smudge had gone before. But that was the old days, the days of butlers and maids. Now, the shine had worn off. A layer of dust coated everything and the inside of the house smelled like what I imagined a thousand burps blown into a glass jar and stored on a shelf for a decade would smell like.

  Made sense, though, considering I knew Hugo had let the maid go and now had three new male houseguests who must’ve been feral chimpanzees by the looks and smell of the house. Dirty dishes piled in the kitchen like mountains in a range. Fingerprint-smudged highball glasses, beer bottles and cans of open food with spoons stuck in the jellied muck littered the living room. Dust bunnies nearly the size of actual bunnies observed from the corners and a layer of grime and stink coated everything.

  I quickly made my way through the main floor of the house to the study. The room seemed exactly as it was the day Janssen had tried to bribe me into silence, if not a piece of the cult guru pie. But I wasn’t interested so he’d tried the usual way: dentistry and drugs. I got lucky and escaped. Now I was back to take a little revenge and maybe right a wrong or two.

  I sat down at the desk and opened the drawer. The way Janssen loved this room and had taken
ownership of it suggested to me that if there were any damning documents to be found they would be here, not the warehouse. And I wasn’t right but I wasn’t wrong. No smoking gun or bloody knife but there was a sheet of paper in the drawer that listed Hugo Brasher and Copernicus Janssen as co-owners of Fell Brothers, Inc. According to Tucker, they’d been the outfit to buy A-One Towing after Rolly’s incident. Two “falls”: Peter Brasher and Rolly Stevens. Now, Fell Brothers, Inc. Janssen was having a great ol’ time, wasn’t he?

  I put the sheet of paper back where I found it and rifled around some more. Most of the documents pre-dated Janssen’s move-in and were old Brasher Industries forms and Brasher house receipts. Snore-fest. Plus, I had another mission and the clock ticked-tocked. Better hurry and get down to the most important task:

  There, on the pedestal, where Janssen had left them after showing off, were the 40 nickels. I breathed deep. It was happening. I grabbed the roll of coins and gripped them in my palm. Finally, they were back in my possession.

  A movement caught my eye, in the doorway. I turned. A cat was staring at me, a calico cat to be more exact. A calico cat I’d seen before.

  “Nah, couldn’t be,” I said, slowly reaching for my wallet so as not to disturb my new buddy. But the cat didn’t care at all about me and was seemingly undisturbed by anything as he methodically splayed his legs and groomed his crotch in a narrow ray of sunlight on the hardwood floor. I unfolded the sheet of paper crammed in my wallet. It was Billy’s missing cat flyer. I compared the photo to the cat in front of me.

  “Yeah, it is. Holy shit. Mr. Jangles?”

  The cat meowed.

  17

  They braced me at dusk in the alleyway behind my rooming house. Reynold and Butch stepped out to block the back door as I was about to enter. Janssen waltzed up behind me, emerging from the cover of a garbage bin. Fitting.

  “If there’s one thing you can count on in this life it’s a filthy rat returning to its filthy nest,” he said, very pleased with himself and wanting the world to know it. “You think I didn’t plan for you trying to sneak in?”

  No, Janssen, I thought to myself, I’d been counting on it. But no need to tip my hand so I played it up and said, “Golly gee willikers, guess I got out thunk.”

  “It seems so. Reynold, let’s show Fitch how we feel about him having our car towed, shall we?”

  Reynold walked forward. I kicked him square in the balls. A good strike, too. Somehow he took it and only grimaced slightly. Tough son-of-a-bitch. He held up one finger. He was giving me one more shot. So I did the ol’ point-over-there-what’s-that? bit with my left hand, wound up with the right hand, waited for him to turn his head back, and slugged him square in the jaw.

  That didn’t go so well either.

  Several bones in my hand broke like glass, maybe all of them. My hand was a bowl of Rice Krispies: snap, crackle, pop. And what gives? A punch that should’ve swiveled Reynold’s head around like a spun top, barely registered more than a little flick to the side. Like hitting a brick wall with a bowl of Jello. It was that damn neck.

  Reynold grunted a “That all you got?”

  “That would’ve been harder,” I said, trying to shake out the agony, “but I had to spend a few of those nickels along the way.” The half-depleted roll of coins rolled out of my injured hand onto the alley concrete.

  Janssen recognized them. He gasped. Reynold bent down, picked up my nickels and handed them to Janssen. Then he enclosed my hand in his mitt and squeezed, real hard. Bones, already shattered, turned to dust.

  I screamed.

  Reynold grunted.

  Butch laughed.

  Janssen said, “Yes, that’s for the car, now what to do about these precious nickels you stole from my office? Butch, you have a score to settle with Mr. Fitch for dislocating your kneecap. Maybe you have something in mind?”

  Butch limped forward, still favouring the wheel I’d kicked out of place. The nasty look on his face said Janssen was right. Butch was full of bright ideas. The knife he removed from his boot top said he’d decided on one in particular.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s be civil about this.”

  Janssen shook his head with mock sincerity. “If only, my old friend. The train we’re on passed civility many stops ago. Now, I’m afraid, there’s only one stop left.”

  I put up my left hand to stop Butch. “Fine, the wrecked wheel I can take my lumps for, but don’t stick me over some lousy nickels. I didn’t spend them, Janssen, how could I? They’re sacred. And in my pocket, in an envelope. Look for yourself.”

  Janssen eyed me suspiciously then reached into my jacket pocket, removing a white envelope. He shook the envelope, listening for the sound. The nickels answered back. “Of course, how could you? These coins mean as much to me as they do to you, don’t they?”

  “Well, I did steal them in the first place.”

  “Reynold, help me, will you? Butch, you keep an eye on our friend. But don’t take any drastic measures quite yet.”

  Butch seemed disappointed but nodded in agreement.

  Janssen shook the loose nickels from the envelope out into his hands. He cupped them in his palm. He brought them to his nose. He sniffed. He gave a satisfied “Ummmm.” He put on a show. Personally, I loved it. It was more than I could’ve ever hoped for. I was the happy fisherman with a good piece of bait in the water and about to reel in a catch, hook, line and sinker. I had to contain myself not to shout for glee when Janssen dropped the nickels in Reynold’s cupped hands and the henchman held them while he carefully, one-by-one, placed them back in the roll with the other nickels. It’s what I wanted to happen but I needed to slow down the proceedings, distract him a little bit.

  “Nickel by nickel, eh, Janssen? Like scamming hobos for a percentage of their wages?”

  Janssen stopped and turned to me. “You figured that out, did you? Well, what was I supposed to do? Beautiful new teeth like that don’t come for free. Call it a lifelong re-payment plan.”

  “And they default on the loan and you take your teeth back.”

  “What good would my name be if a broken contract didn’t come with a penalty?”

  “Slick. From hobos to rich widows, there wasn’t a pocket you weren’t willing to dip your hand in was there?”

  “As you said, Fitch, ‘nickel by nickel.’ It adds up. Only 40 nickels and you have two dollars.” Janssen turned back to Reynold and got back to the task at hand.

  I turned my attention to the bulldog giving me the eye daggers. “This is riveting stuff, ain’t it, Butch? They do a Saturday matinee?”

  “Shut yer mouth, Fitch.”

  “Oh, the doggie talks.”

  “Woof woof.”

  “You know who else talks? Hugo. Not to me, of course. No, he was too busy walking around the house talking to a Mr. Jangles.”

  That got Butch’s attention. “Say that again.”

  “Yeah, he had a bunch of tuna cans open all over the house and was looking for Mr. Jangles. A cat, I assume?”

  “Yeah, my cat.”

  “Ooh.”

  “What?”

  “Nevermind. I’m sure he wouldn’t…would he?”

  “Do what?”

  “Nah, he probably wouldn’t. Be a stretch, even for him.”

  “Spit it out, Fitch, while you still have a tongue.”

  “Okay, I don’t know for sure, so don’t quote me on it, but I think he was looking for this cat because he wanted to eat it. I shit you not. Said he was tired of canned food and wanted some real meat for a change. Hugo flipped his lid, me thinks. Wasn’t even going to cook the cat from the sounds of it.”

  Butch went green. “You hear that, sir? What’ve you got him on? He capable of that?”

  Janssen dropped the last coin in the roll and folded the formed end of the coin wrapper over. The 40 nickels were back together once again. “Hmm, let’s see. I have been experimenting with some different doses lately. Hu
go’s been showing an increasing tolerance to my custom drug cocktail and I need to keep him obedient and signing those cheques for the near future, in order for the next part of the plan to come to fruition. I suppose the occasional setback could be a possibility.”

  I decided not to mention that Hugo was currently in full knight get up and wielding a large sword. And maybe still unconscious. Let that all be a nice surprise.

  Butch turned back to me. “When was this?”

  “’Bout a half hour ago.”

  “There’s still time. Sir?”

  Janssen sighed. “Fine, Reynold can take over. You go back to the house and check on Hugo.”

  Butch handed the knife to Reynold and scampered off, favouring the knee I’d dislocated from its socket. A proud moment, one of my greatest accomplishments. I heard Butch reach Hastings and begin to shout for a taxi.

  One scumbag down, two to go.

  “Well, that settles it,” I said. “Doggies do love cats.”

  Reynold began to giggle.

  The dosed nickels had been the bait. Expensive bait. Cost Adora a loan repay plus the vig. I’d asked for a crooked pharmacist and got a pharmacy school dropout instead. He was the brother of her new head chef. Adora overheard some kitchen chatter one night as the head chef told the sous chef about his fuck up of a brother, Stanley. Smart as a whip, kid prodigy, but dumb in a way that boggled the mind. Got kicked out of pharmacy school for selling scrips. Reckless, too, and not especially known for his impulse control, not when he was on roll, when the dice were hot hot hot. Seems he’d had a wild night out at an underground gambling den in Chinatown and got into some scary Triad boys for 300 scoots he didn’t have. The due date on the loan was fast approaching and they were making their presence known, showing up at the bookstore where he worked and leaning up against a lamppost across the street when he left his house in the morning.

  So Adora intervened, paid off the Triad on his behalf and gave me the kid’s name and number. Said he’d be very motivated to help. And he was. Stan shook my hand and invited me into his kitchen for a chat. He dug my plan right away. He was hip to the scene. He was drug savvy and a drug den dabbler. But he didn’t think western pharmaceuticals were the way to go. No, he spent six months last year deep in the Northwest Amazon stripped to the skivvies, living in a hut, licking hallucinogenic frogs, sipping root teas that’d make you see God and being ritually scarred in front of by the village elders.