The Man Who Killed

by Fraser Nixon

  “Mick! Done!”

  Upon my return Charlie seemed freshly kicked about the head. Jack trained the hose over him.

  “We have an address and a ride, right Charlie?”

  The lawyer-cum-mechanic pointed to a set of keys on a hook. Jack tossed them to me. From outside I heard the snarl of dogs fighting. We left Charlie on the floor. At my last look at him I could swear he was smiling at Jack and me.

  In the lot were three automobiles: a Locomobile, a Ford, and an Auburn. The keys fit the last, a right-hand drive. I pushed the self-starter and the motor rattled to life. The auto had a left-hand brake and gear-shifter and right pedal accelerator. I released the brake and gave the engine petrol, lurched forward, and stalled. Bloody hell. Jack slid into the back through a suicide door. I pushed the starter again and heard a roar. My foot pressed the pedal and I pumped at the gear-shifter as we lurched forward again, this time over a curb and onto the road. How much horsepower in this beauty? The interior was all blond wood and soft tawny leather, a far cry from the Tin Lizzies I’d learned on. Couldn’t remember the last time I’d been behind the wheel. We swayed and bucked as I pulled into a lane, thieves and bandits both.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  Jack read from a wrinkled scrap of paper:

  “Numéro 1302, coin de Mont-Royal et Chambord.”

  I cranked left at Mont-Royal, one hand clenched around the steering apparatus, the other clumsily grinding from gear to gear in an attempt not to stall again. East past St. Denis the city turned French-Canadian. On a rattletrap iron staircase that twisted down to the street stood a big-breasted black-clad matron cursing out children fooling in the alleyways. On another stair an old crone beat at a rug. A rag-and-bone man pushed his cart past three whiskered old worthies headed into Chez Normand’s Bienvenue aux Dames to sprinkle salt in quarts of flat Molson’s. My eyes moved between jaywalkers, horses, competing motorcars, darting urchins, and two elegant women walking arm-in-arm into a boutique.

  “Here we are,” Jack said.

  Number 1302 had a kind of pus-yellow painted thistlehead turret at its top corner with the rest an artificial blue. It was an unsightly, unlucky combination of colours, a poisonous warning. The Auburn choked to a stop and I resisted the urge to sound the horn. I left the keys in the ’car and we got out, Jack squaring up at the entrance, his boxing posture.

  “Second floor, looks like,” he said.

  “Oke,” I said.

  A steep flight of stairs pointed up. I thought about our chances. The only entrance or exit was this spinebreaker. We made it to the top and a door.

  “One more time,” Jack said.

  “Ready?” I went.

  “Steady,” he said.

  “Go!”

  Jack shouldered the door and it splintered open on a weak lock. He burst through and tripped flat on his face, with me stepping nimbly over him onto the empty level, my gun at my side. It was hot, with a dark hallway facing a kitchen to the left. Jack stumbled up behind me. I walked into the room and from the opening to the right a rude shape crashed towards my head. Then a blackness absolute.

  FROM THE BOTTOM of the sea I rose, my ears ringing and eyes red. Chin on my chest and blood on the white linen of my shirt, head heavy, and a thick taste of copper and salt. Thirsty, tied upright to a chair, my hands lashed behind my back to the rear legs. A crushing headache and something sticky on my face. Blood, more blood. I straightened up and next to me a shape like me, bound, eyes open, Jack with his own bloody mouth. His eyes motioned mine forward and I complied groggily. Two tough louts leaned with their backs to the wall. On a low table before us rested our guns, the display a taunt. Jack hacked up and spat out a suspension of reddish fluid onto the linoleum. We were in the wrecked kitchen of a flat, a dirty place with a Virgin on the wall. The toughs looked like farmhands tricked out in city clothes. One raised an apparatus to his face and there came an explosion of light. He’d taken our photograph. Jack cursed at them. They didn’t speak.

  Time slowed and the quality of light changed to a thin dimness. My hands ached and Jack seemed to slip in and out of consciousness. They’d given him a good drubbing. I closed my eyes and rested. Both trapezius muscles began to spasm. From a place came the laboured sound of heavy breathing. When I opened my eyes a fat man in a three-piece houndstooth-check suit sat behind the table. A little terrier bitch rested on his lap and one of the toughs handed him a bottle of Vichy water. The man wiped his neck with a silk handkerchief. He was curly-haired and covered in a fine stipple of freckles. My soul lusted for a drink of that water. He saw this and chuckled with a lazy wet mouth. Make no error, boyo, those eyes are hard and black as jet. The fat man turned and spoke to my companion.

  “Monsieur Jack,” he said.

  “Enchanté, Sénateur,” replied Jack.

  That was a genuine surprise. Now we were moving up in the world. One of the toughs crossed his arms and I revised my opinion: they weren’t farmhands but hockey players, though in Quebec the crushers were usually one and the same.

  “You have been very foolish, I think,” said the Senator.

  “You might say that,” said Jack.

  “You disappoint me. This wildness. It is not good. Time for it, I think, to end.”

  “Now that I’m of no use to you.”

  “It is true. This business with Charles Trudeau and Pierre Martin is how do you say, irresponsible. These man are innocent.”

  “So you say. I say they sold me out.”

  “Impossible. For them I vouch. For you that is enough.”

  “Or what?”

  “I am not so cold. For what you have done in the past I am willing to turn the blind eye for this indiscretion. An opportunity of grace, I think.”

  “Mercy buckets,” said Jack.

  “You will stay away from Monsieur Trudeau and Monsieur Martin. I protect them.”

  The Senator stroked his terrier. I couldn’t help but think we were Bulldog Drummond before Fu Manchu the way he gloated. My life had become a story from Black Mask. The Senator motioned to his toughs and spoke a fast incomprehensible quacking French, the sort from up in Gaspé. It was pure Greek.

  Jack turned his head to me, looked down, moved his right boot and looked back up. There was some weapon there, I surmised. Our Webleys remained on the table before us. The Senator said something to the farmhand who’d photographed us; the brute picked up the camera and left by a different door from the one Jack and I’d used to enter the apartment. The odds were better now. I flexed my bonds as the dog on the Senator’s lap yapped then curled a hind leg over its head to lick at its vagina.

  “Alors, what is it we will do with you, I wonder,” the Senator mused.

  “You could recommend us to Mackenzie King.”

  “It is very droll, but, I think, unlikely.”

  “I know what,” Jack said.

  “What?”

  “You could cut us in the line-up to fuck your wife.”

  “Quoi?”

  “She’s been had by every hack in Ottawa.”

  The Senator rose and his dog leapt. The remaining tough stiffened and balled his fists. My bonds seemed loose; they’d tied us badly, the peasants. My left hand slipped free. I waited.

  “Connard,” the Senator breathed.

  “Yep, your missus is the biggest roundheel on the Hill. Takes it up the trou as well.”

  “Infâme,” whispered the Senator.

  There was no way of knowing what’d been planned for us. I couldn’t see a Liberal Senator having us killed, unless he learned we were Tories. A good beating was more the Grit style. Nevertheless, Jack’s strategy of provoking the man didn’t seem the soundest. Even if Jack had a knife in his boot we still had to cut ourselves free. The Senator’s dog scrambled to a corner and seemed to start laughing. The Senator, breathing heavily, placed his hands on the table before us. I could see his swarthy skin darkening with fury.

  “Perhaps I am making a mistake with you, Monsieur Jack. The police wil
l perhaps be interested in you and your friend here. Some information anonymous, I think.”

  “What good’ll that do you?” asked Jack. “You were the Minister of Customs when this started. You think that because you’re in the Red Chamber King’ll protect you if I start to spill?”

  The Senator motioned to his thug and the helpmeet came over and punched Jack hard in the stomach. Jack buckled and gagged. The goon blew his knuckles and turned to me. The Senator patted the thug’s shoulder and brushed him away.

  “This I find distasteful, as I do your treatment of Charles Trudeau. But you are fortunate today, I think. I am merciful. It is simple: you and your comrade will leave the city. You are allowed to live a little more, hein? You should, I think, be happy.”

  It was possible. My left hand was free and I could simply reach out and pick up my revolver. They’d been damned careless and arrogant, mocking us in our powerlessness. It was the same mistake we’d made with crafty Charlie Trudeau. Jack gulped air and the Senator loomed above me. I didn’t like his smell, rosewater and dog intermingled. My mouth was parched and my head still repercussed with the blow that’d knocked me out. The dog started pissing against a rotting wall, distracting the Senator and his tough.

  “Rex!” the fat man barked.

  Very cleanly I picked up the Webley with my left hand and pulled back the hammer with my thumb. The fat man froze. The tough backed up against the kitchen wall. Jack laughed, and slowly the Senator joined him in a baritone.

  “You will not shoot me,” he said.

  “You’re right.”

  I pointed the barrel at Rex. The terrier came to me, interested.

  “Aimez-vous votre canaille?” I asked.

  “An Englishman would never harm an innocent creature,” the Senator said, his eyes widening.

  “I’m Irish,” I said.

  I pointed the barrel at the tough and fired. He dropped to the ground screaming: “Calice! Calvaire!”

  With eyes screwed shut he grasped at his upper thigh. Lucky bugger. I’d aimed below the belt buckle. The dog skittered away in fear.

  “You’re next after all,” I told the Senator. “Cut Jack free.”

  The fat man’s skin had paled beneath his freckling. His dog and tough both whimpered. Smoke and a cordite reek hung in the close air. If the police caught me and I wanted to pass a paraffin test I’d have to scrub my face and hands with eau de cologne or an abrasive soap. The Senator moved stiffly to the countertop and found a rusty knife.

  “Attention,” I said.

  Awkwardly I hopped the chair around to keep the Senator in my line of fire. With thick, stupid fingers he sawed at Jack’s bonds. Partially free, Jack took the knife and finished the job. He stood, stretched, and gently prodded the Senator with his index finger.

  “Get in the corner with your dog,” Jack said.

  The Senator complied and scooped Rex up. The tough was shivering and putting pressure on his thigh where dark blood oozed out between his fingers.

  “Hurry up,” I said. “We don’t want a shooting match.”

  Jack cut me loose. I stood and felt my body itch and tingle upon its release. Jack’s face swelled and my head was logy and sore, ears ringing, copper in my mouth, bladder fit to burst. I leaned over the man I’d shot.

  “You’ll need a doctor,” I said.

  His shivering redoubled. I’d used the revolver at last, a prophecy come true. The Senator tried to make himself small and cradled his bitch. Jack picked up his own shooting iron and turned to the door. We heard the hard pounding of feet up the back stairs. More trouble there. Jack went over, laughed, and snapped his fingers in the fat man’s face.

  “À la prochaine, monsieur.”

  With that we scarpered. I started slipping down the stairs halfway down and rode the treads on my heels, turning backward at the door and bashing out onto the sidewalk. I landed on my coccyx but felt nothing save dizziness and exhilaration. Jack mounted the Auburn and pushed in the keys. A long black saloon ’car with chauffeur was parked opposite but the driver did nothing. He’d heard the shot and seen two bloodied men with guns come tumbling out of the building and decided his salary didn’t include getting plugged. Wise bird.

  Jack started the engine, choked into gear, added essence, and swung around into the black ’car, the fender screeching across the enamel of the Senator’s ride. I jumped on the running board and waved my Webley.

  “The South’ll rise again! Sic semper tyrannis!”

  Jack roared down Chambord and I crawled in a window. Perhaps my cerebellum had been damaged by the blow I’d received. I was having trouble thinking, and everything was hilarious: Jack lighting a cigaret while driving with his knees, the sign on a storefront of a gap-toothed idiot sucking up spruce beer with a straw, the startled looks of pedestrians as we rocketed along the quiet street.

  My hands only started shaking as I broke open the cylinder of my revolver and removed the spent cartridge. Jack was driving erratically, weaving along and finally stalling out by Lafontaine Park. We traded places and I turned right on Rachel and then left to line up with the clock tower at Victoria Quay. We rolled along downhill and crossed St. Catherine, then worried our way in low gear westerly to Griffintown and Jack’s hideout. I parked the motor on a dismal block behind a pile of empty chicken coops and kept the keys. The Auburn looked out of place in this part of town but we were too walloped to do much else. At a corner store I bought a bag of cracked ice and from under the counter a bottle of overproof rum. Jack sat on the curb in front of the building, his head in his hands.

  “Come on,” I said.

  I helped him through the entranceway and up to the third floor. Jack managed to pull out the large key and open the door. He made it to the bed and fell into a swoon. I collapsed into a chair, where I sat still for a spell and blinked out.

  LATER ON I heard a voice.

  “Charlie got his revenge,” Jack said.

  “And how,” I groaned.

  “Should’ve known better, dealing with a lawyer.”

  “He was ahead of us,” I said. “It was a trap.”

  “Didn’t give him enough credit.”

  Jack nursed his face with ice balled up in a stained cloth. I lifted the rum bottle, cracked its seal, and added melting ice from the waxpaper bag to a chipped cup. George V’s own. Dusk now upon us. Jack took out his medicine and rubbed cocaine powder on his gums to numb the pain. I sniffed a little for renewed pep. We were well-hid in this bolt-hole but it felt as though the other shoe was about to drop. What I’d liked least about the Senator’s talk was his threat of the police; they’d been far too absent throughout our series of crimes. Jack and I had operated in a vacuum, abhorrent in nature. Bootlegging, armed robbery, and now a shooting. The man might bleed to death. Testing my sentiments I was interested to discover that I didn’t care. Sensation had been dimmed by the shock of my beating, further blunted by the drug and drink.

  “Do you think the Senator’ll set the dogs on us?” I asked.

  “No. His hands’re too dirty.”

  “What about the shipment tomorrow?”

  “He doesn’t know about that.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Fairly.”

  “That’s bloody reassuring.”

  Time slipped by as Jack and I coughed over Charlie’s Caporals. I examined my fingernails and smelled my hands for tell-tale residue. There remained the faint aroma of gunpowder. Jack grimaced.

  “Nice shot,” he said.

  “You ever plug anyone?” I asked.

  “Germans, mostly.”

  “Maybe we should take the fat man’s advice and get out of town while we can,” I said.

  “We will. After tomorrow. Now it’s war.”

  “Plains of Abraham redux,” I said.

  “Best two of three,” Jack laughed

  We fell into talking Lower Canada: of English and French, Wolfe and Montcalm, Benjamin Arnold, Thomas Jefferson, Na-poleon, Louisiana, and the Empress Jose
phine. To be followed by a little treason concerning the King and Emperor of India, and how we might depose the throne in the name of Marxism and an international revolution of the proletariat.

  “That Stalin’s a tough bugger,” Jack said.

  “United Soviet States of America,” I said.

  From nowhere a crow flew past the window, barely visible in the growing gloom. The bird the first corbeau I’d ever seen in Montreal, or the first I’d ever noticed. Its wings scratched like an umbrella opening and closing, or the black taffeta dress of a particular waitress at the Cherry Bank Restaurant long ago. What was her name? When it came I sang: “K-K-K-Katie, beautiful Katie, you’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore. When the m-m-m-moon shines over the c-c-c-cowshed I’ll be waiting at the k-k-k-kitchen door.”

  Jack lay on the bed, his necktie unknotted. I refilled my glass and swallowed more kerosene. I’d shot a man, and might be a murderer. I was a criminal. No more peace, order, and good government whilst Mick was around. The Pater’d be mortified. This drinking and fornication and more. And what was he doing on the other side of the Dominion? Three hours earlier there. Four o’clock. He’d be taking a nap.

  “What’re we up against with this Senator?” I asked.

  Jack motioned for more rum. I checked his face. He winced as I touched the bloated flesh.

  “How’re your teeth?”

  “Loose.”

  The glass protecting the print of St. Veronica reflected my own map back, eyes like pissholes in snow.

  “Who is he?”

  “A Grit,” Jack said.

  “That’s plain.”

  “I was bagman for the party last election and did some other things as well.”

  “Such as?”

  “Running a crew in the cemeteries writing down names of the recently deceased so we could use them to vote at the polls. That’s a dodge old as Confederation. Our friend the Senator was a mere cabinet minister then. Customs and Excise.”