Clean Sweep

by Michael J. Clark

  “Yeah, you like getting fucked like an animal, don’tcha?” said Pete, his face a festival of contortion and moist sweat.

  “Uh-huh,” said Jasmine, with the tempo of the thrusts. “Yup. Sure do.”

  “You like that hammer, don’tcha?” said Pete, building up speed. Jasmine smirked, dangerously close to laughter. She said a little internal thank you to the powers that be for the absence of a mirror for Pete to see her eyes roll. She knew he was getting close. Finally, she thought. There were books to cook, labels to stick, and a new shipment of lube to go through. There were just a few more minutes of sweaty laundry guy to endure.

  Pete started breathing harder. With it, an increase in the nipple squeeze and breast grab. Jasmine had experienced the manhandling before, but this felt strange. This was beyond excitement. She worried that he might be having an attack of some kind. He then made a strange sound, and the strength of his hands on her breasts increased. This time it hurt. She reached under her sweater to yank the hands off, finding that she could hardly pull the fingers loose. He let out a final gasp, falling like an indifferent sack to the floor. Jasmine attended to her pants first before she turned around. She saw Pete on the floor, sprawled half-naked with an ice pick stuck through his neck into his brain. She looked up just in time to see a balaclava-clad perpetrator and his left hook as it deprived her of consciousness.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Claire Hebert was pacing nervously, the Smith & Wesson now poorly concealed under her left armpit. Tommy and Cindy had yet to return, and the detoxification was only making the story in her head worse. She was past being cool about an attempt to flee. She would draw on the first one through the door. Would she shoot? Would she shoot to wound? Would she shoot to kill? The shakes were so bad, she wondered if she could even get a shot off, let alone aim. She’d also forgotten about the backway into the suite. Cindy walked past her to the computer. “Oh, look, it can walk too,” said Cindy. “I guess your back has most of the mileage.”

  Claire raised the gun and pulled the trigger. The click got Cindy’s attention, as did the additional five clicks in search of a bullet. She turned around slow, though not in fear.

  “So,” said Cindy, smiling. “Is this the part where you throw that at me, or ask for a do-over?” Claire kept a bead on Cindy. Even a useless gun seemed dangerous enough.

  “You wouldn’t be smiling so big if I knew where the bullets were for this motherfucker,” said Claire. She pulled the trigger once more, discovering that no new bullets had grown in the chamber. The clicks continued. Cindy, annoyed by this attempt at white noise, rose from her chair to remove the gun. Claire felt she still had the upper hand, swinging the gun at Cindy. The barrel sliced her forehead, though not enough of a tap to knock her out. She found herself quickly disarmed by Cindy, who pushed her into the couch behind them. Claire cowered in fear, grabbing a cushion as a shield.

  Cindy raised the empty revolver, aiming it at Claire-Bear’s forehead. “You best be right with your Jesus, missy,” Cindy said as she pulled the trigger.

  ~

  The shriek from Claire was enough to quicken Tommy’s steps double-time up the staircase. He flung open the door in time to find her sobbing on the couch, still clutching the cushion. Cindy was still holding the pistol, now lowered to her side. He was not impressed. He also couldn’t draw attention to the fugitive they were harbouring. He collected the gun from Cindy, putting it back in the filing box where Claire had found it.

  He sat in the chair at the computer desk, massaging his hands. He wanted to erupt and lash out in all manner possible at both women. He had never laid a hand on Cindy. Claire was another story. This was not a high point in the development of Tommy’s character. He had been taught, by those he had done his former business with, that you’ve got to keep them in line. It never ceased to amaze him how easily she could push his buttons. It was almost as though she wouldn’t stop until he struck her. She never cried out. It seemed an eternity before he spoke.

  “I talked to the rez,” said Tommy, not looking at either woman. “We can get you out probably by Friday, maybe sooner. We need some more personal shit of yours to put in at Brady: jewellery, undies, anything that will hint you’re in the landfill.”

  “You’re gonna put me in the landfill anyway,” said Claire, using the cushion to muffle her voice. “Especially since I know you’re in on it.”

  Tommy creaked forward for clarification. “In on what?”

  Claire threw the cushion aside, revealing the ledger. She threw it at his feet. “You’re in this fucking book. You’re one of them. So, you might as well load that fucking gun, You get ’em out alright. Right into a hole, you fucking asshole!”

  Tommy wasn’t sure if anything else would come flying at him. He kept eye contact with Claire as if she still had a gun. He flipped through the ledger, wondering if the pages were as valuable as Claire-Bear believed. His page flips must have seemed too casual to her.

  She grabbed the book and threw it on the desk in front of Cindy. “Take a closer look, bitch,” said Claire. “Your fucking water meter number is in there, as if you didn’t know.”

  Cindy looked at Claire, a combination of perplexed and pissed off. She slammed the book into her chest. “Show me where the fuck it is then, Einstein.”

  Claire raised the book to strike Cindy. “I’ll show you where the fuck it is!” Her arc of trajectory to Cindy’s face was halted by Tommy before it had a chance to gather any speed. He was more concerned with Cindy; he knew the colour of rage in her eyes. He knew she was on the edge. He grabbed an old chair next to the bed, still holding Claire’s arm aloft as her hand clutched the ledger. He moved the chair into position at the desk, so that the three could confirm what she saw. “Alright Bear. Calm down and show us what you got.”

  Claire complied, almost in slow motion, wondering why she hadn’t been struck. Her eyes darted back and forth, from the ledger page in question to those of Cindy and Tommy. She asked Cindy for the water bill. Cindy slid it forward as non-threateningly as she could. Claire moved the invoice down the length of the column, stopping at the number recorded. “There,” she said, pointing to the line. “Right fucking there.”

  Tommy and Cindy peered at the line. The water meter number was easily identified; the first digits in the numeric string. Six digits had been added to the end of the meter number. The first entry looked like it could have been a date — 021379 — though it seemed unlikely, judging from the condition of the ledger. They flipped through the pages, finding the meter number again and again. In all, there were fourteen notations concerning meter number 1263734119. The 021379 digit addendum occurred on seven notations. A new number appeared after each logged reference of the 021379 digit string. Cindy wrote the new numbers on an empty space, at the bottom of the ledger page.

  451790

  604512

  307856

  129774

  605652

  349221

  142511

  “I have no idea what the fuck this shit means,” said Cindy. “I’m just glad we drink bottled water.”

  Tommy turned her towards him in her chair, gently, but not slowly. He pointed to the area beyond the frosted glass. “Cindy, they drink from the tap. The only water they ever get is from the tap. They wash in it. They brush what’s left of their teeth in it. Christ, we even cook —”

  Tommy sat back in his chair. He didn’t know what the numbers meant. He didn’t know why they were in the briefcase of an HR captain. Killing Jimmy Stephanos was all that was needed to ensure a death warrant for Claire. What do these numbers mean? Tommy looked over at Claire. “Bear, did Jimmy ever talk about any of this stuff?”

  Claire looked at Tommy, somewhat perplexed. “We didn’t exactly ‘talk’ when we got together.” She used her fingers to punctuate the obvious non-occurrence in their contract-for-hire relationship. “I don’t want to know shit about HRs. Jus
t fuck me, pay me, and leave the extra coke.”

  Tommy pressed. “C’mon Bear, people talk. Even the ones you fuck for money talk.”

  “That’s why I stay fucked up,” said Claire. She had moved back to the couch. “I’m not a threat if I can’t remember what they said.”

  It may not have been the healthiest way to suppress information, but Tommy knew that Claire was right. The less you heard, the less you saw, and the less you remembered was the best way to stay alive while contracting with the HRs. Still, Tommy had to ask. “Bear, did any of the HRs ever talk about fucking with the water?”

  Claire was looking up at the ceiling now. “The only water the HRs were ever concerned with was the water that shot out of my snatch.” Her concentration was interrupted by Cindy, who had started rustling through the desk drawers. She pulled a vintage chrome flashlight from the recesses of the centre drawer. “Oh great,” said Claire. “Now the bitch is going to interrogate me.”

  Cindy walked past Claire, the flashlight already lit. “I’m going to check the meter. See if there’s some basket of fun pills attached to the main. Because that’s what always happens in fucking Hollywood.” She was almost at the back stairwell to the basement when she added a directive. “Tommy, we still gotta get this cunt outta here, wacky water or not.”

  Tommy waited until her footsteps diminished down the lopsided staircase.

  “Okay, Bear. You got a hunk of something you wear that’s got your name on it? Other than your gauch?” Claire smirked at the request. She reached through the neck of her sweater with both hands to release a necklace. It was a necklace that she quickly realized wasn’t there.

  “OH FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! DOUBLE-FUCK!” She reached around inside her sweater and rooted through the briefcase. She triple-picked her own pockets to be sure. She slammed into the couch, defeated, panicked, and started to cry. Slow at first, escalating to the convulsive wailing of an inconsolable child. “That was the only thing my mom ever gave me!”

  She was still in the throes of release when Cindy returned, unimpressed by the display. “What’s her fucking problem?”

  Tommy was still stunned by what he was seeing. He knew it was most likely tied to the detox, and yet, this felt as though there was something genuine attached.

  “There’s nothing weird on the meter, I think,” Cindy said, slamming the flashlight into his sternum. “The line coming in is as old as this place. If anyone is fucking with the water, it’s from the outside.” The flashlight jarred Tommy out of his trance somewhat. “Cindy, did you see a necklace around here? It’s uh . . . hey, Bear, what’s it look like?”

  Claire rubbed at her neck, using her fingertips to somehow assist in the description of the phantom necklace. “It’s a gold chain with a locket. It was my mom’s. Has a picture of me and her inside.” She rubbed at her neck a little more for additional details. “I had it engraved,” she said. “Momma-Bear and Claire-Bear.” It was just what they needed for the Brady Road Package. Convincing Claire of the importance of parting with it would come later. “When’s the last time you saw it?” said Tommy.

  “At Jasmine’s place,” said Claire. “It was after we had the fight.”

  “The fight?” said Tommy, taken aback. “What fight?”

  “I thought she was stealing coke out of the briefcase or something,” said Claire. “I fucked up her ear pretty good. She must have grabbed it off me when we were pulling each other’s hair.”

  Tommy pictured the scene in his mind; two working girls beating the shit out of each other. It was hard to believe that Jasmine would still have agreed to help Claire after their brawl, though nothing from this world seemed strange to Tommy anymore. Jasmine was one of a select group of people assisting those who didn’t deserve it, ask for it, or care one way or the other. That’s what the outsiders saw. Tommy only saw himself in their faces, alongside his own shortcomings. Even in the coke-fried brain of Claire Hebert, there had to be some sliver of good worth saving, something no one had seen yet, not even Tommy. He grabbed his jacket and headed for the stairwell.

  Cindy stopped him mid-stride. “You know what happens if they ever find out what you did, don’t you?”

  Tommy nodded. “I know, Cindy. I know.”

  “Then, why do it?”

  “You know why.”

  “It won’t bring him back, Tommy.”

  Tommy looked at Cindy close, and with purpose. He glanced over at Claire, thinking of his son’s lifeless, crumpled state in the Boscalow that fateful night. He looked at Cindy, squeezing her shoulders just the right amount of tight. “It’s not to bring him back,” said Tommy, as he kissed her on the forehead. “It’s to keep me from going.” He reached past her for his homemade cross, the one that had been given to him by the Padre after his suicide attempt. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jasmine Starr was starting to stir, though she knew it probably wasn’t a good idea. She could still hear the rustling of her assailant in her office. She kept as still as possible, her eyes closed, stifling the reflex need to wipe the moist clots from her nose. Her head was still pounding from the blow. Even in a state of recent unconsciousness, she knew that there was more to this than Claire Hebert murdering an underworld john. She opened her eyes in the finest of slits. Even in a view largely out of focus, the wide-open lifeless eyes of her former landlord were enough to rate a flinch. It wasn’t enough to register to the assailant, engaged in noisy rustle with the file cabinet drawers. She waited for what seemed an eternity until she heard the rear door of The Other Woman close. She groaned as she rose with caution, engaged in the self-checks of what did and didn’t work on her body. She teetered back to her office, finding equilibrium in the walls and the broken washing machines. Everything that could be strewn was. She found herself angrier at the state of her business records than her wounds.

  “Fucking asshole,” she muttered as she dampened a paper towel with what was left of a water bottle, one of the few things in the area that hadn’t been up-ended. Her nose was surely broken, and the wounds from the Claire-Bear scrap had broken clot. This was stirring up unwanted memories for Jasmine, an old beating that had required surgery on her left eye and had caused the loss of scent. She rocked slowly in the office chair, wondering if this would be the last of the unwanted visitors in search of Claire Hebert. There was still the matter of Pete. Whether he was dead, almost dead, or about to enter the next chapter of his life in assisted living, Jasmine knew she would have to make a call. Any of these scenarios would surely be ending her lease.

  ~

  Ernie Friday had parked his Parisienne on Machray Avenue, idling as he looked up the back lane to the rear of The Other Woman. The Two Pauls were out of sight, shielded by the north wall of the two-storey laundromat on Cathedral Avenue. Spence and Sawatski chose Cathedral, on the east side of Main Street, hoping to diminish the chance of panic that usually occurs when an unmarked detective car pulls up in front of a target. Tommy Bosco was negotiating a U-turn on Main Street, parking on the east side curb, directly across from The Other Woman. David Worschuk was coming out of The Video Cellar, a couple of blocks south on Main Street, with a new selection of XXX DVDs. That’s when Jasmine Starr flicked her lighter in front of her final Peter Jackson. She never smelled the gas.

  As natural gas explosions go, the Other Woman blast occurred at the right time for the general populace, with a break in traffic from both directions. The blast wave plus the accompanying debris blew out the side windows on the Guiding Light Econoline. Tommy fell across the engine doghouse, shielding his face from the tempered glass cubes, which had still managed to inflict some minor cuts. He felt the van lurch downwards on the driver’s side, thanks to the loose window bars of The Other Woman. The broken steel had punctured the side walls of the tires. A section of the bars had penetrated the driver’s side door and the side panel, fusing the door in place. Tommy had already d
ecided on a curbside exit. As he stumbled out of the van, he looked north. He recognized Sawatski, who had questioned him about drug connections when he first returned to Winnipeg. Sawatski had predicted that Tommy would be sleeping in a cardboard box, like the bum that he was, within a year’s time. He had even bet a twenty on it. Tommy figured that now wasn’t the time to collect. While Sawatski stared at the smouldering aftermath, his partner, Spence, was frantically relaying particulars on her cell phone. Tommy slipped down the narrow passage between two businesses. He checked his pocket: three loonies. It was enough to catch a bus on Mountain Avenue to Jarvis Avenue — enough to get to Freddie the Ford.

  Ernie Friday waited to see if anyone was going to emerge from the rubble. After five minutes, nobody did. If there was any remnant of life left in The Other Woman, it would be a paramedic matter, which would lead to a recovery period before useful words could be strung together. Friday was already turning left on Scotia Avenue by this point, heading to Inkster Boulevard. Inkster was far enough away that it wouldn’t be blocked off for east-west traffic. He had seen and inflicted enough to know that this wasn’t an accident. The Two Pauls felt the same. They had narrowly escaped injury when a sign fixture on the laundromat, a victim of the shock wave and shoddy attachment into the brick façade, fell on the Cathedral side. Neither Bouchard nor Lemay spoke as they chose a slow but steady back lane route. The debris cloud had masked their exit from Spence and Sawatski.