Cut You Down

by Sam Wiebe

  The man behind the counter was cutting keys. He was wearing a polo shirt, blue with white piping, with a crude approximation of the Ralph Lauren logo stitched to the breast pocket.

  I asked for two cartons of Marlboros. He retrieved them out of the case. Tax stamped and still in their plastic. I looked at him, at the cigarettes, and at the floor behind him. He put the smokes back, disappeared for a moment and came back with two unstamped cartons.

  “Turkish?” I asked hopefully. He nodded. “Nothing smokes like a Turkish Marlboro.”

  As he bagged one carton I opened the other and took out a pack. Tapping the counter absentmindedly, I said, “You know the guy who comes in here with the thing on his nose? You think you’ll see him today?”

  He nodded, grimaced a bit. Evidently Larry wasn’t a popular customer.

  “I left my wallet at home, ’bout a week ago. He gave me his last smoke. I wouldn’t’ve done that for me, I was him.” I pushed one pack back across the counter. “He comes in, would you give him this?” I slid over another one. “For your trouble. Thanks, man.”

  I found a café up the block with a few tables out front, from which I could watch the front door of the tobacconist’s without drawing attention. If in fact Larry worked at the restaurant, and if he decided to stop into the store on his way, and if I could spot him—too many ifs.

  But sometimes you get lucky. It was two hours later when he showed, and the cigarette ruse was all but unnecessary. He pulled to the curb in a lime-green Civic with spinning hubcaps, climbed out, working the door handle with a tenderness toward the machine. The cartilage of his nose was still noticeably askew. He came out of the store holding the cigarettes and a wad of shiny gold strips. Once he got his smoke lit, he held the pack in his armpit while he dug out change and attended to the strips. Scratch tickets. I watched him scratch and curse his way through four before I approached.

  “Son of a motherfuck,” he said, tossing another loser into the gutter.

  “I’d like a word with you, Larry,” I said.

  He jumped a few steps back. When he realized I was between him and his car, he returned, wary. “You the Cigarette Fairy?”

  “More lucrative than teeth,” I said. “Another carton and a half if you let me buy you a drink.”

  “Jesus,” he said, “you’re not from—”

  “Anthony Qiu and Chris Chambers? No.”

  “Good, ’cause I’m up on my payment. I’ll even be ahead if a couple things work out.” He paused. “You said no but you know their names.”

  I said, “You know the parking garage on Beatty, near Victory Square? Park there, second floor. I’ll meet you in ten minutes.”

  “I’m busy, I got to work—”

  “I got a picture of you, a description, and your license number.” I aimed my cell phone’s lens at Larry’s face and snapped a shot. “I’m not going to hassle you and I’m not a cop. See you in ten.”

  Larry was late. I crossed the street to the Medina Café. There was always a long lineup, extending out into the street, hip young couples with money. I bought a coffee and a lavender latte and two Belgian waffles. Larry’s green Civic pulled into the garage. I crossed the empty road to meet him.

  “Not what I thought you meant by a drink,” he said, accepting the coffee and waffle. I moved to enter the car and he stopped me and climbed out. “Nobody eats in her,” he said.

  Leaning against a concrete pillar I said, “A couple months back Chris Chambers beat the shit out of you.”

  “Only because my hands were cuffed behind me,” he said. “My hands were free, or cuffed in front? ’Tirely different story.”

  “You owe him money.”

  “He collects for the guy I owe. Winslow.”

  “You were behind on installments.”

  He lit another cigarette, dragged on it thoughtfully. A tour bus rumbled down Beatty, the uncovered back section crowded, cameras hanging limp around the necks of tourists.

  “That restaurant should be half mine,” Larry said. “My parents put it in my big brother’s name, but the profits were always ’sposed to be split. When my brother found out about my gambling addiction, know what he did? You think he offered to get me counseling, his little brother who used to sleep in the same bed with him? No. Offered me cash money for my share. You believe that?”

  “And you took it.”

  “Well, way he runs the restaurant I figured I can’t do worse.”

  “And?”

  “Turns out I can do worse.” Larry shook his head, thinking of lost fortunes. “The money got me into this table game, and that’s where I met Winslow.”

  “Playing?”

  “Working,” he said. “Thought he was a bouncer or one of the guys’ drivers. Who else wears shades in a dark room? When I busted out he stopped me at the door, offered to loan me another K. And then two more. I was into him for seven by the end of the night.”

  “Why’d he lend you the money? Just to pick up debt?”

  “He thought my name was still on the slip for Pho Sho. When he found out I’m just another broke-ass prep cook, he gave me two weeks.”

  “Then he sent Chambers.”

  “Right. My brother gave me two—‘gave,’ fucking advance against my minimum wage job—and Winslow said not good enough. I told him I didn’t have a cent to my name. He said to have another grand ready for Tuesday. That would let me put the rest on installments. I didn’t know he’d send a cop.”

  “How bad did Chambers hurt you?”

  “I’ve been beat on since I was little,” Larry said. “My dad was against it but my mom—shit, she used to break spoons beating my ass. With the cop, I just wish I got a fair chance, y’know? Easy to whip on someone who’s tied up.”

  “When’s your next payment due?”

  “Two C-notes every Friday,” Larry said. “Only half of one counts toward the principal. I never missed a payment.”

  “Then why’d he beat on you?”

  “This.” Larry patted the hood of his Civic. “I won it off one of the other chefs—not that he had it legally. When word got back to Winslow that Larry Tranh had a new car, he sent his dog after me, even though it was him said I couldn’t pay extra to work down the debt.”

  “Still pissed at Chambers?”

  “Hell yes.”

  “Interested in payback?”

  “Tell me where he lives, I’ll roll by with a Molotov.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe handcuff him, too. Show him how it feels.”

  “Punk stuff,” I said, shaking my head at his bravado. “I’m talking about really hurting him. That takes a certain skill which you possess in spades.”

  “And that’d be what?”

  “You annoy people to the point they want to hit you.”

  Nine

  Friday night I stood in Thornton Park, across from Pacific Central Station. I was reading a placard dedicated to the memory of the women murdered during the 1989 shooting at L’Ecole Polytechnique. Strange to be in a city known for its missing and murdered women, and see reminders of an atrocity in Montreal. But you go numb assigning priority to the dead.

  The work van turned off Terminal onto Main. It parked in front of the station. I walked over to it and pushed my credit card into the meter, buying us four very expensive hours.

  Kay opened the driver’s side door and dropped to the pavement. She’d gone all out. Black lipstick, peroxide streaks in her hair, sequined dress and exposed bra straps. Heavy eye makeup and press-on nails. The getup was garish, almost comical. I watched her teeter on the stems of her stiletto heels.

  Larry Tranh emerged from the back. He was wearing yesterday’s clothes, but under a new leather jacket with an oversized collar. He’d gelled his hair into something like a pompadour.

  I told them the route and went over the instructions again. Down Main to Hastings, then to Cordova, then to the Waterfront. I had them memorize the names of the bars. The Waverley, the Cobalt, Grand Union, t
he Irish Heather, moving down to Steamworks and then to Docherty’s. One drink each, pay up front, and have it at the bar. When you speak to each other, speak loud but not too loud, and make sure people can hear.

  At Docherty’s you stay at the bar and wait.

  I told them not to look around for me. Text if anything goes wrong. And don’t feel you have to finish every drink.

  “Get sangria,” I told Kay, “or something else low-alcohol.”

  “I can hold my liquor.”

  “I know you can, Hemingway. But not while you’re working.”

  When they were out of sight, I locked up the van and took the Skytrain down to Waterfront.

  Larry had been under wraps the entire day. He’d phoned in sick to work that morning, pissing off his brother. That alone probably sold him on the plan. The rest would be less enjoyable.

  Docherty’s was a dark, sparsely furnished bar with grimy tables and little in the way of décor. A video projector shone grainy, desaturated footage onto a wall beside the DJ booth and dance floor. The bar was owned and tended by a middle-aged couple, Rick and Steve, who rented it out to whoever would hustle to draw a crowd. Including Miles Irigary.

  I’d explained to them what I wanted and why. I dropped the dead man’s name. When I did, Rick paused from scraping frost off the inside of the ice machine to remark that, while Miles was a prick and a chiseler, he was their prick and chiseler, and they’d be happy to do something to honor the bastard. They acquiesced to all my camera placements, except the washroom.

  “The alley, too,” I said. “At the Crossroads Inn, that’s where he dragged Miles.”

  “How many of these cameras will you have?”

  “As many as it takes.”

  Rick thwacked his partner’s arm. “Get a load of Stanley Kubrick over here.”

  Without looking up Steve said, “Ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille.”

  “That’s Billy Wilder, you fucking philistine.”

  “Pretty sure it was Gloria Swanson.”

  Rick rolled his eyes. Turning to me he said, “How bad do you think it’ll be?”

  “I’d count on blood.”

  Ten

  Sitting by the half-crowded dance floor with a view of both entrances, I waited. I imagined Larry and Kay making their rounds. A drink at the bar. Kay saying she wanted something expensive. Larry telling her to get whatever she wanted, flashing a stack of fresh twenties when he paid. Her prompting him. Didn’t he have to pay Anthony Qiu? And Larry’s response: Fuck Qiu. Fuck Winslow Wong. Fuck Chris Chambers. This was his money and he was through paying those punk bitches.

  Then on to the next bar, and hopefully word trickling back to Wong, then to Qiu, then delegated to Chambers.

  And me, nursing a bottle of Dark Matter, waiting for my movie to unfold.

  My phone buzzed, incoming text. Sonia’s number. She was parked on a residential street near Boundary, waiting for the headlights of Chambers’s white Lexus to snap on. Her text said: IN CAR. ALONE. LEAVING.

  Chambers might be carrying a gun. He might also bring friends. There was no way this wasn’t going to end ugly, but I didn’t want a bloodbath. I had my flashlight. Kay had bear spray. Sonia would have her sidearm.

  Out back people smoked on the wooden porch. The steep geography of the waterfront put the bar’s entrance at street level and the porch ten feet above an alley. I had a camera over the back door, four inside the bar, and two covering the street out front. All of them feeding into a laptop I’d stored in the bar’s small office.

  An hour passed. At twenty to two Larry Tranh and Kay walked in. They made for the bar. Kay stayed in character, didn’t look around, didn’t seem nervous. I felt a surge of pride. Tranh seemed jittery and I wondered if he was having second thoughts. I couldn’t blame him—it was his head. I hoped the same cockiness he’d exuded for the last few days would shame him into carrying through with the plan.

  I texted Kay the words OFF THE HOOK, our code for “everything on track.” I watched her show it to Larry, laughing, as if it were a friend’s comment.

  Sonia’s texts became one-word updates as she shadowed Chambers through the bars along Main. I bought another beer. My adrenaline was rising. I began to fidget, tapping my feet against the club music emanating from the dance floor. That awful disco version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.” All the laws against secondhand smoke, not a one for secondhand sound.

  2 BLKS, Sonia texted. I thumbed the keypad of my phone, typing TIME TO DANCE and sending it to Kay. I watched her peel herself off from Larry and cross to the dance floor, joining the dozen or so dancers.

  NOW, Sonia texted.

  Staring over the mouth of my bottle I watched Chris Chambers push the front door open and stride in. He was decked out all in black. I watched him scan the dance floor and tables, then fix on Larry at the bar, gabbing to Steve.

  It was quick. Larry had turned around and Chris was already at the bar. Something in his hand glinted, a gun, and he struck Larry full in the face, knocking him back into the bartop. Chambers struck him again. Not a gun, something else.

  Larry sprawled. Chambers grabbed him by the hair and collar and started for the back exit.

  I could’ve stopped him from taking Larry outside. I didn’t stand up. Didn’t even look up, not until the back door had swung shut. I wanted that perfect image on film, the full entry and exit. When I trimmed that footage, it would tell a whole story.

  When the back door swung shut I sprang for it and crashed through. I saw Chambers, his back to me, arms on Larry who was bent backward over the porch railing. Trying to throw him over. The porch and stairs had cleared out rapidly.

  I seized Chambers from behind and pulled him off. We back-pedaled, hitting the wall. Chambers struggled free. Larry had sunk down to the porch floor, clinging to the guardrail post. Chambers kicked him, not even turning to see who’d restrained him.

  “Off him.” Kay’s voice, followed by a blast of bear spray that caught Chambers in the face.

  Chambers thrashed and fell forward, cursing, rubbing at his eyes. My own eyes watered. Kay pulled Larry to his feet and they ducked back inside.

  I thought of tossing Chambers over the rail and to hell with the cameras. He deserved it and more. But I wanted him unscathed. Any contusions, he could say Larry had done it before entering the bar. It would be a cop’s word, a white cop’s word, against an Asian gambler’s. Better that Chambers stayed unharmed. You want your animals healthy and clean before you slaughter them.

  I moved inside and retrieved the laptop from the office. Kay and Larry had left, hopefully with Sonia in her Mazda. The bar patrons were animated with theories and stories of other fights. The dancers danced on.

  Eleven

  Kay and Larry called it The Escape. Sonia and I were more comfortable with Exit Strategy. Sonia had parked out front and stationed herself with a view of the club’s front door. When Larry and Kay burst out, she hustled them into the backseat of her car and drove them up the block. Kay had a spare key, in case Chambers had come out and Sonia needed to walk away. Sonia dumped them by the van, which is where I headed.

  Chambers hadn’t seen me, though it didn’t matter much. He’d divine things for himself in a week or so. I was ready for that. I didn’t want him or anyone else connecting this to Sonia. When she drove Larry, she wore sunglasses and didn’t give her name. I wanted him thinking she was just another operative.

  At the van I found Kay dressing Larry’s wounds. The blow to his face had bled wildly but didn’t seem to have done any serious damage. I thought of Blatchford, cutting himself secretly to draw a reaction from the crowd. Getting color, he’d called it. All part of the show.

  Two lacerations to the face, a deep bruise along the kidneys, various bumps and contusions and a close call with a second-story plunge. For that I paid Tranh five thousand dollars of Sonia’s money. He received it grimly, perhaps knowing it would soon line the pockets of a casino owner.

  He said, �
�You see how close he got to tossing me over the railing? What’d you do if that happened?”

  “I’d try to summon the strength to go on living,” I said.

  “You’re a cold motherfucker, know that?”

  His anger diminished as he counted his money. I told him if he wanted me to try and smooth things over with Qiu, he could leave the cash with me. He politely declined my offer. I recommended he get out of town, maybe go up to the Interior, Kelowna or Penticton, or maybe Calgary.

  “Nah,” he said. “I got a friend in Malaysia said I could crash on his couch. He runs a junket, Singapore to Cambodia. The gamblers over there are serious. Round the clock, and the hotels know how to treat people. Catch you later.”

  I dropped Kay at my mother’s, then returned the van to the Wakeland & Chen parking space underneath the Hastings office. Walking up the ramp I saw Sonia’s car idling across the street. She wasn’t supposed to be here.

  “You were going to walk to your place?” she asked.

  “It’s hard to come down after that sort of thing,” I said. “Walking gives me time to cool off.”

  She unlocked the door. “Let me drive you.”

  I did. Only when we neared Broadway and Commercial she missed the turn and drove southeast, rolling into the gravel lot near Trout Lake. The still, black water seemed to reject the moonlight, instead soaking up the darkness of the trees and their shadows. A few rowdies chugged brews from the bleacher steps.

  Sonia undid her seatbelt. She fumbled with her purse and brought out a check for seven thousand dollars. I reminded her I’d talked Larry down to five.

  “For your sister, then.”

  I pocketed the money. Sonia asked me if I had any qualms. “About using Tranh like that. Putting your sister in harm’s way.”

  “Kay can handle herself.”

  “She risked something. You put her in that position. Larry, too.”

  “Once I explained that a repeat performance would cost Chambers his job, Larry was eager to do it,” I said. “Maybe not eager, but the cash tipped him. With Kay, she needs the experience. I won’t have her doing this job and holding back out of fear. You have to be willing to stand a beating.”