New Canadian Noir

by Claude Lalumiere

  She starts humming to herself, cradling the warmth she feels inside. Her stomach rumbles. She goes into the kitchen and pulls open the fridge door, remembering the horror the first time she’d looked inside and several cockroaches had come tumbling out, nearly frozen to death. But a half-can of spray and several hours scrubbing had taken care of that. Now, neat piles of cold cuts, cheeses, and vegetables are flanked by vitaminized apple juice and Double Grade A Extra-Large eggs. She pulls out the cheddar and a piece of celery and cuts both into strips. These she places fan-like in an alternating pattern on a dish from which a bluebird is forever bursting out of what seems a fig cracked in two. It had been a gift from her mother-in-law, who had late in life taken up the feminist ideology, complete with its sexual imagery.

  She puts a piece of cheddar on a piece of celery and bites down. The softness followed by a solid crunch has a satisfying texture to it. She leans back on the rickety chair, a leftover from her husband’s bachelor days, and sighs. The snow is coming down faster now and it’s pleasant to watch as it covers the city’s customary greyness. But it’s nothing like the countryside she’s left behind. Maybe someday, when their children are grown and they have a little bit put away, they might invest in a small farm. After all, her husband is an up-and-comer – the boss had said so himself – and money will be no problem. In fact, she might pitch in as well, go back to school, upgrade her skills, as the fancy magazines put it. She immediately visualizes herself seated behind a large desk in a huge office, a Dictaphone in one hand, a baby in the other. “Hold all calls,” she says, and offers her breast to the gurgling infant. The buzzer rings. “I said hold all calls!” The buzzer rings again, followed by a knock.

  She falls forward on the chair. The buzzer rings for a third time. It’s the doorbell.

  “Yes, who is it?” she says, leaning her ear against the closed door.

  “It’s your friendly mailman, madam,” a stentorian voice answers. “A special delivery package for Harold or Jenny Jones.”

  “Slip it under the door, please.” She tears a piece of dry skin from her lip and chews on it.

  “Madam,” the mailman says, his voice overflowing with reasonableness, “it’s a parcel, not a letter. Besides, you have to sign the receipt.”

  “Just a minute,” she says, and leans back. What to do? She has been expecting a package for several days – a Sears catalogue baby doll negligee. It’s to be a surprise for her husband. Not that she really needs it. Yet. But one can never be too well armed.

  “Madam, I’d like to stand out here all day but I’ve other parcels to deliver. If you don’t want it just say so. I’ll leave a card and you can pick it up at the post office.”

  “No! No, it’s all right. I’ll open the door.” She turns the lock and pulls it back till the chain is taut. Another smiling face greets her (to think she’d been told that all city functionaries were dour and glum) and says he doesn’t blame her for being cautious. “You can never be too careful in the city. Lots and lots of crazies out here.” He eases the package through the opening. It’s wrapped in plain brown paper held together by a frayed bow that has been obviously reused many times. “Sign here, madam. X marks the spot.” The mailman holds out a piece of paper and a pen. Only his hairy arm and hand are visible. She reaches up to take the paper and he grips her wrist as if in a vice. “Gotcha!” he says gently, yanking her toward him like a rag doll. She screams and, without meaning to, puts all her weight against the door. His fingers catch between the door and the frame. Yelping, he lets go her wrist and withdraws his hand. She tries to shut the door completely but discovers she can’t. He’s jammed his foot into the opening. “Now, now, my dear,” he says breathing heavily, his arm snaking in, hoping to trap her again, “why don’t you just make things easy on yourself and release the chain? You know it’s only a matter of time anyway.” He rams his shoulder against the door. The chain holds but the impact sends her flying. For several blind seconds she lays sprawled on the floor, listening to his ever-increasing invective, to the things he would do to her once he gets in. He rams the door again. One of the screws comes loose.

  She tries to scream but there’s a large bone in her throat. Softly, calmly, she pulls at her hair. Several strands fall out and cascade to the floor. Where’s her husband when she needs him? She goes into the bedroom and works to open a window. It won’t budge, sealed shut by the new paint and the winter cold. The man on the scaffolding waves to her, then starts to tap dance. From the front door, the banging and the heavy breathing increase. “It won’t be long now, sweetie. Won’t be long. Look, I’m taking off my clothes so you won’t have to wait once I get in.” She goes from room to room turning on all the lights. In the kitchen, she finds herself staring at the table – actually two pieces of wood strung across a pair of sawhorses. On it are alternating pieces of cheese and celery and – balancing across a fork – the carving knife. Something inside her jumps. She remembers, back on the farm, the clean slit it made across the pig’s neck, leaving almost no sign of its passage. Wood from the front door splinters. She reaches for the knife and, holding it with both hands to keep it from shaking, advances toward the door. Most of the screws holding the chain have fallen off. That it still holds is a miracle. “The best money can buy,” the landlord had said. “Actually, don’t tell anyone else, but my brother is a locksmith.” She kneels at the foot of the door and waits for the pseudo-postman to ram it again. Then she drives the knife down into his foot. The first blow misses and she has to rock it back and forth to pull it out of the hardwood floor. She stabs again, this time slashing the edge of leather. “You fuckin’ bitch!” he screams and pulls the foot back just as she comes down for a third time. “You goddamn fuckin’ cunt! You tried to stab me! I can’t believe it! You good-for-nothing whore!” He pulls at the door again but it is too late. She’s already managed to lock it.

  “Oh now, wait a minute,” he says, suddenly speaking very softly, as if he were whispering directly in her ear. “Wait just a minute. You’re asking for it. You really are. All I was going to do was show you a few tricks. And I bet you would’ve liked it too. I bet you would’ve moaned for more. But now you got me mad. I don’t like people trying to stab me. That’s not playing fair. So you go ahead and lock the front door. You just go ahead. Don’t worry about me. I’ll find another way to your heart. Why, I’ll ooze in through the cracks in your plaster. Or maybe through the skylight. That’s it. You just go into the bathroom, take your clothes off and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right there. See you soonest.”

  Shaking to the point where she can hardly stand up, she still forces herself to check every window in the apartment, making sure they all have metal bars across them. It’s now dark out. The man on the scaffolding is gone, his bucket left dangling precariously. She pulls the skylight shut. For one ridiculous moment she actually has a terrible urge to take a bath. But it passes. To reduce the number of openings, she locks the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom doors. She’s left in the living room, sitting once again in the exact centre of it, beneath the bas-relief of two sexless angels from the middle of which hangs a cheap chandelier. Holding the carving knife against her chest and feeling the coolness of the blade between her breasts, she dozes off. It’s the kind of sleep that provides no rest and makes her feel more fatigued as time passes. As well, it distorts her sense of reality to the extent that, when the first knocks come, she isn’t certain of their origin.

  “Honey, I’m back. Open the door, will you? I think I’ve lost my keys again.”

  Her husband! She leaps up and runs to the door. She’s about to pull it open when she stops. Can she be so sure it’s her husband? What if – ?

  “Honey, what’s wrong? Is the door stuck or something?”

  “What’s your name?” she asks suddenly.

  “My name? Honey, what is this? I’m tired. It’s been a long day. Let me in.”

  “Yes, your name. And mine. What are they?”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake.
Harold. And Jenny. There. Now are you going to open up?”

  She unlocks it, but keeps the chain on.

  “The chain, you silly goose.” He laughs – and that’s when she knows for sure it’s him. She undoes the chain and falls into his arms with a moan.

  “Honey, is something the matter?” he asks as he locks the door behind him.

  She kisses his strangely cold face and blubbers out her story: how glad she is to see him after the horrors of the day; how they have to move from the apartment; no, from the city; how he is never to leave her alone again, not even for a minute; how they’d better get that cell phone. Pronto.

  “Promise me you won’t,” she pleads, burying her head in his strong chest.

  “Won’t what?” he says, his voice rumbling basso profundo in her ear.

  “Leave me alone. Promise.”

  “I promise,” he says, and begins slowly to peel away the lifelike mask.

  To reveal a pleasant face with a thick moustache.

  To reveal an unshaven man with yellow gap-spaced teeth.

  To reveal the postman’s smiling features.

  To reveal that of her husband of two days.

  PEARLS AND SWINE

  Colleen Anderson

  The guy who casually enters the almost claustrophobically narrow shop seems to gather shadows and light to himself. He ignores the warm wood and wallpapered walls, the photos of cops with Gatling guns and one of Bonnie and Clyde, and the etchings of various guns, as well as the cop who is leaving as he glides to the counter. He glances at the sign, Treat em well and they won’t desert you in a pinch. His hand goes in under his jacket and pulls out a derringer. Laying it carefully upon Diana’s counter, he then pulls out and lays down its mate.

  Diana never lets her guard down in her shop. She’s never had trouble either. Speers’ Gun Maintenance and Accessories is a neutral ground. Everyone knows that if Diana can’t clean or fix your gun there’s no one else in town who can. Good guys and bad guys come to her place. No one wants to be in a critical situation and have his gun fail.

  This man has warm brown skin and a familiarity that would make some people drop their guard. He wears a loose black jacket, baggy pants, and a white T-shirt. On someone else his clothes would look as if they were two sizes too big – but not on him. Long and lanky, the kind of guy who looks better in clothes than out of them. Naked, he would look close to starving but not there yet. He balances that vulnerability with his reputation.

  Johnny Jawbreaker. Diana pushes escaping tendrils of hair back into hairpins, and picks up the twin derringers. Johnny Jawbreaker’s profession is a mystery, but that’s true of most of her clients. Yet, he is known for being faster with his guns than with his fists.

  He grins. “I want pearl handles for these babies. And a design; something with a heart surrounded by ivy, and an animal.”

  Diana’s tall, but still she must look up to meet his eyes. Not-quite-tamed wisps of black hair fall on his brow. Something clacks against his teeth, and a wisp of licorice sails out on his breath – the jawbreakers he’s famous for. Of course, it’s possible there are other jaws he breaks as well. He smiles again, with the jawbreaker between his teeth, then sucks it into the warm cavern of his mouth.

  She pushes her hands into the pockets of her worn jeans, trying to ignore the sensuality of his mouth. “What kind of animal?”

  He shrugs. “I’ll leave that to you. Something that fits in – and represents wildness.”

  Diana has seen all types before. Those who often go for the pearl handles are hollow like their guns. They are collectors who can’t afford originals, or they think the designer handle will give a measure of self-worth, or respect that they can’t gain otherwise. Others hope for a sliver of reputation that says, Back off, I know how to use these. Confidence has to be in the man, not the gun, or a man won’t stay one for much longer.

  Johnny is confidence born. He doesn’t try for cool or control; he exudes them naturally, and Diana suddenly wants to touch him, feel the vibration of his will touch hers. She caresses the smooth metal of his weapons, loving the coolness they return, wondering if Johnny is as hard as his guns.

  “Three weeks from today,” she answers, and names her price.

  Johnny nods, then waves in a half salute. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  It’s the “ma’am” that makes her realize Johnny has only seen her as a labourer, someone with whom to conduct business, not as a woman at all. Somehow it is important that he does notice her; that he realizes she is as unique as the designs he wants on the gun handles.

  Diana Speers needs no man. She’s proved that over and over. Best shooter around, her own business by twenty-five, knows more about guns than any man within a hundred miles, and able to make it on her own. Daddy had taught her a lot, and to trust no one. She’d learned that lesson best of all when he’d abandoned her at sixteen.

  Diana wants to know the inner workings of a man such as Johnny Jawbreaker. It’s the same reason she likes guns: all mechanical, guts and bearings on the inside, but on the outside, like sculpture, interesting quirks and turns that make you wonder again what’s hidden.

  A man she’s never seen before drops by the shop to say something to a taller, muscular blond guy who is staring at the photos on the wall while waiting for Diana to wrap up a package. The customer, chewing a toothpick, his hands clenched in his pockets, turns and raises one eyebrow at the new guy, who responds in a voice as soft and unprepossessing as his attitude. “Johnny wants us to be on time for tonight. Big show he doesn’t wanna miss.”

  Not a bad looker, Diana notices, but innocuous and invisible as those models who all look the same. Too all-American.

  The tall guy grunts. “Where we going tonight?”

  “Savoir Faire. You know Johnny and babes; he likes ’em better than jazz, and at the Faire he’s got both.”

  Diana pushes the guns across the counter. “Here you go. Treat ’em well and they’ll be good for a few thousand rounds.”

  The customer winks. “As always, thanks.” He shoves some bills her way.

  She closes up early. At home, she showers, then digs through her closet floor. Hip waders, running shoes, steel-toed boots and sandals jump out of the closet like maddened fleas. “There!” She backs out holding a pair of patent-leather candy-apple red pumps. Her wet hair slithering over her shoulders, Diana dusts the shoes off on the towel wrapped about her. “Alright, guys. You don’t get out much. Time to do your stuff.”

  The towel slips away as she bends over to put on the shoes. In the mirror, Diana examines herself: nothing but red shoes and wet flesh flushed by the shower. She runs her hands over her milk-chocolate nipples, over her ribs, the flat plane of her belly and down along her hips. “He’ll notice me. Now, which dress? Class with sexy.”

  A quick comb and gel through wild hair, a dash of carmine to her lips, a caress of silk the shade of fresh cream over her bare body – Diana is ready to bring light and colour to the shades of night.

  The restaurant is amber light and earthy wood, subdued and elegant with touches of brass. The cool air has puckered her nipples. Their slight bulge is plain through her clinging silk dress. Her ears flicker highlights of diamond, enough to draw the maître d’s eyes from her dress. Almost hesitantly, he asks, “Reservation?”

  She shakes her head, flashes a small, not overly friendly smile. “Table for one.” Looking around, she spots the clumped shadow of Johnny’s table. One or two women are at the table but none sit near him. “I’d like a table over there, near the painting.”

  The painting is dark; late summer trees, woods filled with winking shadows, and the sense of something hidden, waiting.

  The maître d’ checks his list – and her body – again. “I’ll see what I can do. One moment.”

  Diana considers slipping him a fifty but decides to see how far she can go on will and sensuality. She pays no attention to anyone in the room while she waits. In moments she is ushered in and seated. Crossing her
legs, showing shin, she pulls out her cigarette. There is no need to look around.

  It doesn’t take long. She scans the menu, then takes out her lighter. Johnny lightly brushes her shoulder, kneeling down to light her cigarette. Like the shadows that seem to cross him, his lighter too is dark, ebony. At least he didn’t send one of his guys to come and ask her over. He dressed in a loose jacket, black pants that fit smartly with a black belt and tight T-shirt. Tonight he is all shadow until he smiles at her and rolls a jawbreaker across his teeth. “Care to join our table? Your beauty should not go to waste by being alone.”

  Diana slowly drags on her cigarette, then blows out the smoke. “I’m rarely alone.” Then she rises; for a moment she looks down at him as he looks up. Surely that is not awe upon his face, but merely the momentary wonder of a child confronted with a Christmas morning haul.

  The other women are gone and his guys look sullen, but brighten momentarily at her arrival. After she’s seated, Johnny straightens up and leans forward. “You’re the pistol woman.”

  “Diana Speers. You’re Johnny Jawbreaker.” She holds out her hand.

  He shakes it but continues to hold on. “Johnny Morton. Jawbreaker’s because of these.” He sticks out his tongue with the hard candy pearl on its tip, then he sensually, slowly, sucks it back.

  The waiter appears for drinks. “Gin martini, dry, with a twist of lime,” she orders.

  Johnny pops out his jawbreaker. “Scotch, straight up.” After the waiter leaves, he turns to her on the wide plush seat. “How’s the guns?”

  She hopes he doesn’t show his true calibre as lacking. The conversation will have to change. “I never mix business with pleasure.”

  “Good point,” he nods. “Why are you here, for the food or the music?”

  She stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray beside his jawbreaker. “The atmosphere, something sultry and slow, the way it wraps around you and then insinuates itself.”