“So, Roy, why did you want to see me?”
The question slaps the humour from his face.
“We’re in real trouble, Rock. They’re looking for you and they mean business. If they catch you they’re gonna put you in the morgue for sure this time, eh.”
“How do you know?”
“They tracked me down, the same guys as beat you up the last time. They told me that if I didn’t help ’em I was a dead man. They even gave me a goddamn fancy cellphone telling me I had to call ’em if I saw you; that if I didn’t, that was it. What are we gonna do?”
If I needed any further proof of George’s involvement with the guys who beat me up, this is it. Making the link between George and Blondie has sealed my fate. If they find me, they’ll kill me. And poor Roy’s in the middle. For some reason he’s risking his life to meet me here and warn me. I need to make the right moves to protect us both.
I look all around for our server and when I catch her eye I signal that we would like to order some food. I’m not going to be eating but it gives me a chance to scope out the bar again. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch ring-of-thorns watching us. As my gaze sweeps past him, he looks away.
“Roy, when you called me did you use the cellphone they gave you?”
“Yeah, Rock. Why?”
“Show me the phone. Hand it to me under the table.”
He slides it out of his pocket. It is a new model iPhone. There’s only one reason they would give him such an expensive phone: they have set it up with apps that are monitoring his calls and tracking him with GPS.
“OK, listen Roy. This is important. I want you to go right now into the can, phone them and tell them I’m here.”
“But Rock—”
“Listen Roy. They already know I’m here. Whatever you do, don’t look around. We’re being watched. They’re already here. If you don’t call them right now and tell them, they’re going to know you double-crossed them. You know what that means.”
Roy’s face pales under the grime. “Are you sure, Rocky?”
“Yes. Just go do it while I order us some food. Tell them that you lured me here for them and that I just arrived. Tell them that you are calling them now because you wanted to make sure I showed up before you bothered them. Tell them exactly that, OK?”
Roy just nods and heads to the washrooms.
Now, I need to work out how I can get myself out of this. I’m going to be outnumbered so there is no way I can fight my way out; they’re likely to be armed anyway. What I need is cunning. And I have it. I check my watch; it’s a cheap digital but it should be accurate and in the plan which is forming in my mind, timing is critical.
While the waitress takes our food order, I get the chance to check out the opposition. The wiry, hard looking guy is sharing a joke with a couple of people at his table and I’m pretty sure that he really is their co-worker. Ring-of-thorns however, has his eyes on the washrooms. I would accuse myself of being paranoid except that he has the look, the look I’ve seen on too many criminal faces over the last fifteen years.
Roy returns and slumps down in his seat. “OK, I done it. But I ain’t happy about it,” he says.
“OK Roy, that’s good.” I check my watch. “Listen, in exactly four and a half minutes, I’m going to make a run for it. I want you to stay here and finish your beer and eat the food the waitress is going to bring. About five minutes after I leave I want you to start looking about for me. Maybe call the waitress over and ask if she saw where I went. Get up and walk about like you’re looking for me. Check in the washroom. Then you phone again and tell them I must have taken off. You got that?”
“Yeah, sure.” He’s looking worried.
“Eventually, they’re going to come and talk to you and ask you what we talked about. Tell them about how we were laughing about the waitress and then tell them that we were talking about your buddy, Tommy. Now this is important. You’ve also got to tell them that just before I left, I told you there was a guy with a tattoo around his neck who I thought was watching us. That way they won’t think you tipped me off. You got all that Roy?”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”
Three and a quarter minutes: I slip my hand into my pocket, take out three twenty dollar bills and slide them under a menu. “Grab hold of this money when I walk away from the table. Use it to pay the bill. Call me on my cell tonight but make sure you do it from a pay phone. OK?”
Roy just nods.
Sailor Hagar’s has only one entrance, so I’m guessing they will be waiting for me out front. I check my watch. 12:22. I take the time to rehearse Roy on what he is going to say and do over the next ten minutes. After exactly three minutes I stand up and say, “I’m going for a smoke.” I do a brief mime of smoking and hope that I’m not overdoing it. I turn and head for the back deck and see out of the corner of my eye that ring-of-thorns is on his cellphone.
During the winter months, the back deck is covered in plastic sheeting and provides scant cover for smokers to huddle over their addiction. As I go through the door, I pat my pockets like I’m trying to locate a package of cigarettes. The door swings closed behind me. A quick backward check confirms that the right hand side of the deck is out of the line of sight of ring-of-thorns. I head there and, to the consternation of two young woman, who look too young to either drink or smoke, I pull back the plastic sheeting and swing first one leg and then the other over the railing.
The surface of the deck is about ten feet from the pavement below. In one movement, I slide my hands down the vertical bars of the railing until they reach the bottom so that I am crouching, then I let my body drop until I am hanging from the bottom of the railing. I look down and let go, land awkwardly and stumble forward, falling onto the asphalt.
I should have at least a five minute head start.
The screech of brakes is very close. I forgot that the deck is over the entrance to the pub’s underground parking. I look up and see the hood of a Ford Expedition looming over me, six inches from where I am lying. I don’t know who is more shocked: me or the elderly man driving. As I leap to my feet, he honks his horn angrily. The smoking teenagers are looking over the railing and laughing; they must be thinking I’m doing a ‘dine and dash’.
I try to silence the driver with frantic hand signals but he just hits the horn again, long and loud, several times.
I hear a shout from above, “At the back.” The Harley t-shirt is shouting into his cellphone. There goes my head start.
12:26: I take off through the teeming rain, running down the alley towards Chesterfield. The alley is empty and the end is clear, for now. I push myself harder. Halfway down, I glance back and see two men have just turned into the alley and are running after me. If my exit is cut off they will take me easily.
Right now one of the gang will be walking Roy out of the pub so he will not be calling the police for me this time.
Despite my speed the end of the alley gets closer way too slowly. I don’t fear another beating. Their orders will be to take me alive and relatively unharmed; they want to be able to question me at length, in a place where we will not be disturbed. My insides turn to liquid at the knowledge of how they will do this to me; it squeezes an additional burst of speed out of my muscles.
After an eon, I charge out of the alley and dash across Chesterfield, narrowly avoiding going under the wheels of a bus on its way down to the Quay. I lengthen my stride as I run downhill towards Esplanade. There are three men heading up the hill toward me.
12:27: another check over my shoulder. My pursuers are closer and I catch a glimpse of Blondie’s black Mercedes pulling onto the street behind them.
One of the men in front of me, the only one without an umbrella, reaches inside his jacket. If it’s a gun and if he’s prepared to use it in broad daylight in a busy shopping area, I’m dead meat.
Behind him, the lights at Esplanade are just turning red against me. If I can get past him, that’s good because they will also be red for the Mer
c. He pulls out his hand and I catch a glimpse of metal but it’s not a gun. My stomach tightens, I cannot handle the thought of the knife blade sliding into my viscera; I would almost prefer it were a gun. My only hope is that with all these people around he won’t dare…
It’s an iPod; I’m flooded with relief until I check over my shoulder. One of my pursuers is gaining on me.
12:28: I dash diagonally through the traffic on Esplanade—drawing honking and the finger from several drivers—and up onto the pedestrian walkway that leads to the SeaBus. The Mercedes can’t follow me here.
My chest is heaving as I draw great gulps of air into my lungs. I put my head down and dash past the long architectural horror that is the ICBC building. The wet sidewalk is slick here and I slow down a fraction to avoid slipping. Just before I reach the end of the walkway, I sneak a look back. One of my pursuers has fallen way back but the other is gaining on me; he’s small and wiry and his legs are pumping like an Olympic sprinter.
Back at the far end of the walkway, I can see the blond head and leather jacket of George’s buddy, shouting into his cellphone. At whom, I wonder.
12:29: I dodge around the end of the building and head for the escalator. I get a flash of a movie where the hero slides down the handrail. I think not. The escalator is stationary, out of service. I dash down three steps at a time.
Now it’s all in the timing. If I’ve got it right, I’m home free, otherwise…
The pavement comes up to smash into my body. At the speed I have been moving, I misjudged the step from the stationary escalator onto solid ground. I curse at the pain that lances through me from my partly healed rib. I can hardly draw breath but I have to get up… Now… But I can’t. A quick check reveals my tail just arriving at the top of the escalator. I can sense his feeling of victory as he sees me on the ground.
I force breath into my lungs and somehow struggle to the vertical.
I hobble across the plaza as fast as I can and see the display that tells me the SeaBus is leaving in fifteen seconds. I’m screwed, unless there’s a margin of error.
Ten seconds: I accelerate down the covered gangplank, the pain on the point of blacking me out.
Two seconds: I run past the ticket machines.
Zero: almost at the turnstile.
Minus two: I’m through the turnstile—thank God for the honour system—and the terminal doors start to close.
Four hard paces and I just squeak through the terminal doors. The seaman who operates them raises his eyebrows at me in disapproval as I dash across the aluminum gangplank and into the ship. I collapse into a seat, chest heaving, as the ship’s doors close behind me.
The flat tones of the safety announcement are music to my ears as the ship starts its glide out into the waters of the Burrard Inlet and I silently thank Translink for the unfailing timeliness of the SeaBus. I look back and see my pursuer, staring impotently at me through two sets of doors. I have just the strength to raise my hand, grin and wave goodbye to him.
The SeaBus will make the crossing in about twelve minutes. Not even the five hundred horsepower of Blondie’s Mercedes is going to get him downtown that fast.
Despite the pain that tears at my ribs with each indrawn gulp of breath, the flush of victory courses through me. Every moment since I walked away from detox, I have doubted my decision but this tells me I did the right thing. The gang’s considerable efforts to lay their hands on me tell me that they and George are deeply involved in Kevin’s murder. I just need to find out how. And I will. I am going to nail them all.
I lean back in the seat and, with a pang, my exaltation is blunted by the thought that Blondie may take out his frustration on Roy; then it is eclipsed when I see their faces, two rows away.
I have been outguessed and outmaneuvered: on the left, Goliath, now without his crutches; on the right, the hard looking face from the alley, the one whom I stabbed in the neck with a discarded needle.
They look pleased to see me. How nice.
40
Cal
A massive overdose. That’s how I would do it. Leave the body in some flop house: another careless, dead junkie. It happens all the time. Even as I contemplate my own death, my mind toys with the promise of the orgasmic high a massive overdose might deliver.
But I’m not doing it. They are. It’s gone beyond the fact that I stole from them. These guys want to know what I know about their connection with George—which, I realize, is virtually nothing—and are going to enjoy trying to extract that information from me in the most painful way they know how. I know how it works; in the past I’ve seen the mutilated bodies of their victims, fingers and toes broken, eyes and genitals torn away. My sphincter tightens and a trickle of cold sweat goes down my back.
I have to hand it to Blondie, his planning was flawless. He predicted I might make a run for the SeaBus and stationed two of his soldiers at the terminal. They followed the orders he shouted into his mobile and boarded the vessel ahead of me. My captors have been joined by three others; I recognize the guy I knocked out in the alley and the bodyguard from yesterday, the one who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, supposedly hired to help protect Ellie from them. With a brass-knuckled hand, the latter pulls back his jacket to show me the military knife he’s carrying.
As we take the walkway over the railroad tracks—like the President of the US surrounded by his Secret Service detail—my mind is working overtime. For sure they have a car waiting at the entrance to the terminal; if I enter that car, I’m a dead man.
I have to find a way out. I don’t want to die but the thought of Ellie’s pain, left as an orphan and doomed to grow up with George as a father, is what fuels my determination.
But what? I am surrounded by five hard guys. Goliath alone, walking behind me, could pick me up by the scruff of my neck and hold me helpless at arm’s length. Brains not brawn will win this day.
By the time we walk though the swinging doors onto the marble flooring of the terminal’s main concourse, I’ve still got nothing. I sweep the area with my eyes. There are people everywhere: hurrying to and from the SeaBus and SkyTrain; buying tickets from the machines or just lining up at the Starbucks. There are two security guards, one standing by the front door, the other far away, standing in front of the bar of the Transcontinental restaurant, drinking water from a plastic bottle. They are unarmed, of no use to me.
In desperation, I consider shouting ‘Bomb!’ but that is not an option; my guards will have me on the floor and hustle me out of there, telling the crowd that they are the police and I’m a terrorist, the current zeitgeist working in their flavor As we walk towards the front doors of the terminal, I see a black Chrysler 300 glide into view and stop at the curb.
My available time is dilating.
We are through the terminal doors and I cast about looking for something, anything that I could turn to my advantage. A number 50 bus is pulling up at the bus stop. The driver honks at the Chrysler to no avail. A homeless guy, pushing a supermarket cart loaded with his possessions, stops in front of us and starts shouting verses from Revelations at the hard guy that I jabbed. He screams, “By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone.” My guard detail stops in a moment of confusion just as a VPD cruiser appears, going east on the other side of the street. That cruiser is my one chance.
Now!
As I spring forward, one of Goliath’s meaty hands grabs the back of my jacket, immobilizing me, the other clamps over my mouth. “No way, José,” he chuckles in my ear.
The moment passes. Schwarzenegger hustles the vagrant along the sidewalk and in seconds I am being forced into the back seat of the car. My options are now severely limited.
Needle guy is on my left and the Terminator on my right. In the driver’s seat is a fat guy with straggly grey hair. He is slouched down in the seat, his right arm stretched along the back of the empty passenger seat, his left wrist draped over the top of the steering wheel. He smells of sw
eat and peppermint.
With an ugly grin from Goliath, the car pulls away from the curb, turns up Granville for a block and then heads east on Hastings towards Main. I don’t know where they’re taking me but I’m betting it’s not too far. We leave downtown and enter the five blocks between Abbott and Dunlevy which are the centre of Vancouver’s drug trade and the crime that goes with it. I wonder how I will withstand their interrogation. I have been told that everybody caves under torture but I have no solid information about George, the gang and Kevin’s murder; it is all just suspicion. How long will they linger over their ministrations, trying to unlock information from my mind, information that is not there? How long before I am screaming for mercy?
My heart accelerates.
I see a slim chance, my only chance.
A block ahead two uniformed police officers are on the sidewalk interrogating a tattooed man with a plethora of piercings, his hands cuffed behind him. Their cruiser is double parked. Traffic has slowed as two lanes merge into one in order to pass the cruiser. We are now in the left hand lane and approaching the incident.
I stay relaxed, I do not want any tension transmitted to the guys pressed on either side of me.
Wait… Wait… Wait… Now!
I reach forward and grab the headrests of the front seats. In one movement, I pull my upper body over the seat backs. The sloppy driver is completely unprepared. My left hand grabs his right knee and forces his leg downward. The car leaps ahead as his foot pushes on the gas and with my right hand I drag the wheel to the right. My guards are trying to pull me back into my seat but their efforts are countered as we plow into the back of the police car. The world goes white as the airbags deploy.
The impact of the crash has thrown me into the front seat. As the airbags hiss their way to flaccidity, I open the door and wriggle out onto the pavement. The uniforms are running over, a white man and a tall East Asian woman. I stagger towards them and shout, “I’m a member! Cal Rogan, badge number 56113. There’s a man in that car with a prohibited weapon.”
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 1, 2 & 3 (Box Set) Page 22