The passenger in the front had retained his cool and now he was leaning around the screaming driver and shooting at me with a short-barrelled semi-automatic pistol, one of those useless nine-millimeters cops are always bitching about. “Crack.”
The bullet hit the tree beside me and peeled off a big square of bark. “Crack—crack.”
The bullets went past me on the other side as the wagon was bucking and grinding against the van, but by that time I had the shotgun re-aimed.
“Boom! Ratchet-click.”
The barrel was almost touching his hand as it went off and took off about half his forearm. For a brief moment I could see the twisted chunk of plastic and alloy that had been his pistol buried in his arm up around his elbow. He started to scream and lost interest.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
The guy with his head on the ground was fumbling at his belt for something, a gun, a knife, who knew?
“Boom.”
The barrel was actually touching his right knee and suddenly the guy had more and better things to worry about than me.
The heat was unbearable so I stepped back to the tree and looked at my handiwork. Guy in the back, still screaming, cooking and howling, guy on the ground, holding a knee that wasn’t there, guy in the passenger seat minus an arm, driver silent now, either bled out (maybe), or hit by stray pellets/bone fragments/bits of the pistol and out of it. I flipped the shotgun into the rear of the wagon just as the fuel tank cooked off.
Time to go. I went through the park, fast as I could sprint. The park ended in a chain-link fence and I went up over it and down the alley.
As I walked downtown, cop cars and ambulances passed me, and I walked and thought and in about an hour, I reached a thrift store that sold me new-used blue jeans, a black turtleneck, black runners, and a generic black baseball cap. Once my original clothes were in a garbage bin, I sat back and counted money before taking a cab back to the archery shop, where three teenagers were using recurve bows to make small holes in paper targets. I watched them for a moment while Frank did something under the level of the counter by the cash register.
“Yee-ha!”
He held up a scratch-and-win lottery ticket and waved it in my face.
“Won ten bucks.”
His eyes were alight with glee and he barely registered as I counted bills out onto the counter.
“I’m gonna do something nice for myself.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. Gonna take the bow home today.”
His face split in a grin and he took it down from the rack behind him. “That’s great. She misses you.”
I looked carefully into his face but he seemed serious so I didn’t say a word until he’d put the money away. “I’d also like to get some broad-head arrows.”
“No problem. Got just what ya want.”
He pulled out some sealed foil packets and I examined them gingerly and poked them with the tip of my finger.
“All right, I don’t understand.”
He tapped the foil packets. “These are the edges. Surgical steel so sharp they’re only good for one shot before they’re dull. They’re called Thunderhead Broad heads and I can let you have six of them for sixteen dollars each, which is my cost.”
I winced and made the exchange.
“Good hunting and remember that deer season hasn’t started yet. So don’t be caught.”
He had provided me with a garbage bag to hide the bow. Outside the shop, a police car whipped past with the sirens wailing and I turned back to Frank.
“Oh, I’m not hunting deer. You still coming to the barbecue?”
“Yessirbob. Wouldn’t miss it.”
Outside, I used a pay phone. “Hi, Claire.”
“Hiya, babe. Still working?”
“Yeah. Still working.”
“No problems here. Bit of excitement down the road, though. Car caught fire.”
I gave her a chance but she had nothing to add.
“Anyone hurt?”
She sounded concerned. “Four of them. Two dead and two really badly burned.”
Hey, I was getting better at this not-killing schtick. “Well, that’s good. Talk to you soon.”
“Love.”
“Love.”
39
With Frank’s permission I took over one of the lanes and started to shoot. An hour later my arm was exhausted so I took off and went around to the rear and stashed the carefully bagged bow behind a dumpster.
It was still light outside so I took a bus downtown and started to walk around, thinking about Walsh until it was dark enough to deal with Robillard. Inside, the anger roared for release.
But I didn’t let it go.
A block away from Buttes, I stole a Honda Civic and drove off to pick up my bow, then headed to Robillard’s. I parked nearby and walked into the woods beside the road, where I pulled a balaclava down over my head to blur my outline and eliminate the shine of exposed skin. The dark clothes helped and over top I pulled a dark green, hooded, fleece jacket about four sizes too big that the owner of the Civic had left in his trunk. That blurred my outline even more.
But the main thing to being invisible is how you move. It’s the hardest thing there is to teach anyone, how to move invisibly. If you want to be unnoticed and invisible, move slowly. Go as slow as you can and as quiet and precise as you can. Are you there yet? Good, now move slower.
Lift your foot an inch, pause, scan slowly by moving your eyes first and then your head, rely mostly on the corners of your eyes, they’re more sensitive to movement. Move your foot forward a couple of inches. Put your foot down, toe first, brush any twigs or sticks aside now with the edge only. Scan again. Put the weight on that foot, raise the other an inch. Scan again. If someone is ten feet away from you in the dark, they won’t recognize you as being human if you move that slowly. Half the time they’ll edit you right out of what they see.
And you can kill them.
It took an hour and a half to cover the hundred yards to the house and another ten minutes to find a window that led into the basement. Crooks don’t like alarms in general so I took a chance and popped the latch with my pocket knife and then went in headfirst. It was luck and skill that I caught myself before falling into a sink some ass had put directly under the window. My muscles ached as I held myself there for a good five minutes while I listened for any sign that anyone had heard me. After, I lowered myself the rest of the way through and reached back for the bow on the grass outside.
Only when it was ready with the arrow in place did I look around the room. It was a small utility area with a washer and drier and a rack for fine clothes that needed to air-dry. The surfaces were so clean that I could see in the pale light reflected through the open window. Off to the side, bright light was shining under a door. I took two steps and listened.
After the noises of the crickets and the frogs, the two human voices seemed strangely pedestrian. One was male and agitated and the other was female and calm. Underlying the voices was a strange sound that took a minute before it finally registered, the tinkle of glass on glass, as though something was being drunk. Carefully, I turned the knob of the door until it opened a little and pulled it towards me until I could hold it in place with my foot.
No one reacted so I took a deep breath, pulled the string back to full draw, and stepped out into the main part of the basement.
“Just the man I want to talk with.”
Robillard’s wife was on the padded cocktail stool nearest the wall and she froze in the act of pouring a drink while the man himself stood closer to me with nothing in his hand. The woman was three yards away and beside her was a short-barrelled, lever-action carbine with its barrel resting in an ornamental (I hoped) spittoon.
“Don’t move.”
He froze and I looked hard at him. The tracksuit he wore was a deep purple and it had the tiny design of a devil with raised pitchfork above where his right nipple would be. Sandra put her gl
ass down and placed both hands flat on the bar, but I focused loosely on the circular sight installed in the bowstring itself. It lined up neatly with the tiny plastic marker just above the bow’s grip, which in turn lined up with Robillard’s stomach.
“Great. Now let’s keep this civilized. If I let the string go, then the arrow goes whoosh and plants itself right into fat-boy’s belly. The arrow is made of fiberglass and is tipped with a broad head tipped with three blades. The blades are sharper than a scalpel and come in foil pouches as an added guarantee of both cleanliness and sharpness. The arrow will burrow a two-inch-wide hole through your stomach and come out your ass at the same speed.”
He made some kind of gobbling noise.
“Now, the arrow won’t kill you right away, not where I’m aiming. You will be, in hunter’s parlance, ‘gut-shot.’ Sorry about that in advance in case you get stupid and this gets out of control.”
Sandra cleared her throat but I rode over whatever she was going to say. “So let’s talk. Oh, yes, one more thing: you should know that I am holding the string back against fifty pounds of pressure, so I can’t keep this up for too long. That should encourage conversation. If someone shoots me, then I let go of the arrow anyway and the same gut-shot situation comes about.”
Robillard spoke in a cold voice full of imitation arrogance. “You can’t be serious, to threaten me with a toy?”
“I am. You tried to hurt my family, of course I’m serious.”
The woman looked at me intently but I paid no attention to her.
“So, fat-boy. Do I have your attention?”
His voice came out in a kind of enraged croak. “Yes.”
“Good. Now why shouldn’t I shoot you?”
“Fuck you! You ain’t got the balls.”
He gobbled some more and it sounded like a question and a statement so I shook my head.
“I thought we had an agreement.”
He snarled and tremors ran across his body. “You killed my cousin and fucked up four of my boys and threatened me and then Walsh comes around and . . .”
The woman didn’t move but her eyes were shifting to the rifle even as I answered Robillard.
“Slow down. We had an agreement, right? You were to stay away from my family and me. Right?”
“FUCK YOU!”
His roar made Sandra twitch violently.
“I said: RIGHT?! Or don’t you fucking UNDERSTAND?!”
Robillard flinched, Sandra edged her fine-boned hand a little bit along the edge of the bar and Robillard gathered himself, so I changed aim and let the string roll off my fingers. I forced myself not to move while the arrow purred off the rest and slashed through the air across the rec room. While it was in the air, I reached out with my right hand for the second arrow in its holder mounted beside the bow’s grip. My fingers closed on the nock of the arrow as Sandra reached for the carbine. Robillard twisted to the side and started forward towards the pool table.
The next arrow came free and I put the still quivering string into the nock of the arrow and put the shaft of the arrow on the rest just above the grip. The woman’s hand touched the slender part of the stock of the carbine, just below the receiver. Robillard stared blankly with his left hand on the top of the table and his right snaking underneath, feeling for something.
I drew the string back until the nock was right under my right eye and the first arrow struck the carbine right between the barrel and the tubular magazine below it.
With a sound like fingers on a chalkboard, the metal parted and tore, and the split carbine hung there, pinned to the bar itself. With that noise, Robillard stopped moving and the woman withdrew her hand from the wrecked weapon. The next arrow pointed right between Robillard’s panicked eyes and he blinked frantically.
“Fat-boy. Why don’t you show me what you’ve got under the table? Remember, if you shoot me, I’ll just let the arrow go and you try to digest it.”
Slowly he raised his hand and showed off a brightly chromed revolver the size of a small cannon. He put it on the table and took a step back.
“Another magnum? Fuck, you’re civilized. Very civilized. Now, what do we do? Should I just walk out of here and . . .”
He didn’t say a word and neither did his wife and I went on, “No, doesn’t sound all that . . .”
The woman spoke up. “Bottom line it.”
“The smart thing for me is to kill you both and burn your house down around your dead asses. See if the crime scene geeks can or want to pull my DNA out of the ashes.”
Robillard spoke up. “Now, WAIT a minute.”
I answered him conversationally. “And my arm is getting tired.”
“No, wait. What if I promised to back off and leave you alone?”
The woman pursed her lips and listened.
“You already did that and you didn’t,” I said. “I’ve got no reason to believe you’ll be honest this time.”
Sandra spoke. “Okay, what if I promised? Not him, me?”
I switched aim at her and she didn’t flinch.
“You?”
Her voice was soft. “Yeah. Me.”
“Come here.”
She got up and walked over very slowly with her hands held out to either side. Robillard’s eyes flickered to the pistol on the table and back again and I addressed myself to him.
“Go ahead.”
He stopped looking and stared off somewhere above me. The woman stopped about three feet away with the arrow pointed squarely at her chest.
“You’ll promise?”
“Yes.”
She took a deep breath. “We’ll leave you and your wife and your son alone. We’ll stop helping Walsh. We’ll back off and let whatever happen naturally.”
It was almost funny.
“Why should I believe you?”
She shrugged and there was no humor in her eyes. “Because I promise. I didn’t know about whatever my husband sent at you. I would have stopped him. And I’ll promise.”
Robillard was getting angry. “Well, what about me? I already fucking promised.”
She glanced at him. I shook my head and answered. “Your promise is worth nothing. Hers might be.”
I looked her over again and saw a young, thin woman in mended blue jeans and a soft wool lumberjack shirt with a black and red checkered pattern. By no means would I have called her pretty but she did have character and her dark eyes were steady and unflinching.
“Can you control him?”
She glanced at him again and his face was turning purple with rage.
“Yes.”
“Or?”
“If he breaks my promise, then it’s my problem. May I?”
I nodded and she reached over and picked up the big pistol and held it loosely in her right hand while I lowered the bow and relaxed my arm. She turned to face Robillard and spoke slowly and carefully.
“Hon? You understand I gave my promise?”
“SHOOT HIM! Shoot him now, you dumb bitch!”
She went on as though he hadn’t said a word.
“I gave my promise and I won’t break it. Neither will you.”
He roared something inarticulate and started around the table towards me.
“Kill him, you dumb bitch, just kill him. Here, let me do it . . .”
He kept coming and his right hand came up and dipped into his back pocket. A glittering straight razor with a pearl handle appeared in his fist and he moved easily towards me on the balls of his feet. Like a man intent on his enjoyment, he was riveted on me and breathing heavily. He passed Sandra and she slipped aside to let him go with an apologetic glance at me.
“You’re . . .”
I never did find out what I was because she waited until his back was to her before she touched the barrel of the pistol to the back of his head.
“Put it down, hon.”
She waited and he did nothing, and she whispered, her mouth about six inches from his ear, “Or I will shoot you.”
I waited and
he finally dropped the razor when she cocked the hammer.
“ ’Kay. Mr. Parker, you can leave.”
I walked over and pulled the arrow from the carbine and then put both away in the holder attached to the bow. For a moment I was at a loss for words and then she spoke. “I’ll deal with this.”
She touched the side of her husband’s face with her free hand but the gun stayed steady.
“My promise still stands.”
Robillard’s eyes were focused inward and his mouth opened and closed in confusion.
Behind him, Sandra kept her eyes veiled while the corners of her mouth turned down slightly as though at an unpleasant memory. When I spoke, his eyes caught mine and then the gaze slipped slickly away.
“Never doubted it for a minute.”
Oddly enough, I never had. Less oddly, I never heard of Robillard again.
40
The Civic ended up parked behind a strip club and I washed up in a ditch before taking a cab back home, where the cops and the firemen and all their superhuman crew were still working down the road. Claire took the bow and put it aside and then kissed me gently on the forehead before putting me to bed.
I dreamt of nothing and awoke to a large mug of tea sweetened with syrup. And another kiss.
“Long day?”
“Yeah. Longer. Longest.”
She brought Fred in and he slept beside me on the futon while I held my wife and let the tea work.
“So what time is it?”
“One.”
“ ’Kay. Gotta go to work.”
“I figured. Is it almost over?”
“Yeah.”
Claire watched while I dressed and then kissed me again before leaving.
In the rear-most booth of a Salisbury House diner, I lowered my head and exhaled bacon fumes and fried onion toxins. The coffee went down like a bomb and drove me into the bathroom and the cramps made me flee back onto the streets.
Walsh was in the Princess Street cop shop. That’s where he was stationed. That’s where he felt most secure. Surrounded by a blue wall.
That’s where he was weakest because he felt most secure.
An Ordinary Decent Criminal Page 22