Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  “Quick as I can,” said the stew. “I only wish I could join you.”

  Junior tried on a look of concern. “Something gone wrong, sweetie?”

  “A clearance problem. Nothing serious.”

  “How long we gonna be here?”

  “Not long,” said the stewardess. She gave him a tired smile. “Would you like a pillow or a magazine?”

  “No,” said Junior, “I want a drink.”

  Things hadn’t started out well, but they soon got worse. A woman in a plain white blouse and pale blue pleated skirt sat down in the seat next to Junior. Even though the red light wasn’t on, she put her seat in the upright position and fastened her safety-belt. Junior looked out of the window. He could see the woman reflected in the glass. She was smiling broadly at the back of his head. There was a JAL 747 parked in the next slip. Junior counted the jet’s windows with the same sense of boredom and terror he’d experienced once while counting the holes in an acoustic ceiling tile in his dentist’s office.

  When he finished counting the windows he counted them again, to make sure he’d got it right the first time. The woman was still watching him, still smiling. He could smell her perfume, feel the heat escaping from her body.

  “I’ve never flown before,” she said. “This is my first time.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Junior. “How interesting.”

  “A little nervous,” said the woman. “But then, who wouldn’t be?”

  Junior gave her a look he’d learned studying the boa-constrictor at the San Diego zoo.

  “Do you believe in God?” said the woman.

  “I’ll show you what I believe in,” said Junior. He flipped open his alligator billfold and waved his Amex platinum in her face. “Easy credit, that’s what.”

  “Money is the root of all evil,” said the woman. She spoke in a flat monotone, as if reading from a giant celestial cuecard that nobody else could see.

  “That’s pure bullshit,” said Junior. “It’s the lack of money that causes all the problems.” He paused for a moment, thinking, and then grinned slyly and said, “How’d you pay for your plane ticket, with a truckload of fucking beets?”

  Half an hour later, they were airborne. By the time they’d reached cruising altitude, Junior had put away three quick doubles and had a blood alcohol level of point zero eight and climbing. Better yet, the credits for a Charles Bronson movie were crawling up the little screen tacked to the wall of the head. Junior paged a stew with green eyes and bright red fingernails. He held her hand tightly while he ordered a couple more ounces of Scotch and a pair of headphones. The stew nodded energetically, in a hurry to retrieve her hand.

  Junior settled happily back in his seat. Beside him, the thumper was silently reading her bible, rippling heat waves of resentment coming at him every time she turned a page. Not that Junior gave a fuck. Race, creed and colour meant nothing to him. Freedom for all! Let the cream rise to the top! He drank some Scotch, wiped his chin with the back of his hand. Bronson’s eyes narrowed. He started blasting away, a big chromed automatic in each hand.

  Junior blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the screen.

  The sound of the shots reverberated in his head. A girl in the movie screamed prettily. If only the quiche-slinger from Ignacio had been sitting in his lap, everything would have been perfect.

  Chapter 7

  Constable Christopher Lambert slipped a button and scratched his chest. The dry cleaner had put too much starch in his shirts again. Peevishly, he adjusted his utility belt to shift the weight of his revolver off his hipbone.

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon and eighty-four in the shade. There was no wind. The traffic in both directions was oozing along Georgia Street at a barely perceptible crawl. Lambert yawned. The exhaust fumes were getting to him. He was dying of carbon-monoxide poisoning, heat, and boredom. When a woman in a thin, translucent white summer dress came out of a building and started walking down the sidewalk towards him with the sun backlighting her, he hardly noticed.

  “Doesn’t she look cool and sweet!” said Constable Paul Furth.

  Lambert shrugged. The heat had drained everything out of him. He was exhausted.

  “Heat getting to you?” said Furth.

  “Was I complaining?”

  “You got a rash?”

  “Too much starch in my shirt.”

  They were approaching the intersection of Georgia and Denman. The light turned yellow. Furth tapped the brakes of their Dodge Aspen. A battered Volkswagen van pulled up next to them, in the outside lane. The van needed a new silencer.

  Furth concentrated on blocking out the sound. He stared at the traffic light until it turned green, took his foot off the brake pedal and hit the gas. The squad car leapt forward.

  The Volkswagen’s horn squawked a warning. At the same instant, a low-slung blur of yellow shot in front of the Aspen. Furth stabbed at the brakes with both feet. The nose of the car dipped and Lambert slid across the naugahyde and banged his knee on the metal edge of the computer terminal. The sound of his swearing was drowned out by the screech of rubber on asphalt.

  “Fucker ran the light!” said Furth by way of an apology.

  Lambert rubbed his knee. He watched the rear end of the yellow Corvette fishtail crazily as the driver struggled to bring the little car under control. Then the Corvette was rocketing down Georgia towards Stanley Park, sprinting for a small gap in the wall of congested traffic that shimmered and glittered in the sunlight half a block away.

  Lambert leaned forward and flipped a row of toggle switches, activating the siren and lights. The Corvette bolted, cutting sharply across three lanes to take a right on the one-way road that encircled the thousand acres of the park.

  “You know what the difference is between a Corvette and a cactus?” said Lambert.

  Furth didn’t answer. He was concentrating on his driving.

  “The cactus has the prick on the outside,” said Lambert.

  Furth turned into the park. They sped past the faded brown bulk and sloping roofs of the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, hundreds of moored sailboats and a gently swaying forest of masts.

  A hundred yards in front of them, the Corvette took the zoo turnoff, and pulled into an angled parking slot at the foot of the complex. The driver was still in the car when they caught up with him, the Aspen’s siren moaning and shrieking, all the lights spinning and flashing crazily.

  Lambert reached over and turned off the siren. He and Furth got out of the squad car and walked over to the Corvette. The driver was leaning back in the seat with his hands behind his head. His face was hidden by big mirrored sunglasses. He had on a pair of mini headphones; a thin wire ran from a tape deck, split into two thinner wires that terminated in small black foam pads stuck in his ears.

  Furth pulled the plug. The man’s head jerked up, and sunlight flashed off the silver lenses of his glasses.

  “Would you please get out of the car, sir,” said Lambert.

  “Yeah, sure.” The man climbed awkwardly out of the Corvette. He smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Larry Snap. Is there a problem?”

  “Can I see your driver’s licence, please?”

  Snap handed Furth his licence. “Black Belt Revolving Records,” he said. “The name ring any bells?”

  “You ran a red light back there at Denman and Georgia,” said Lambert.

  “I did?”

  “Why do you think we were chasing you?”

  “Chasing me?” Larry Snap was amazed. He looked from Furth to Lambert and then back to Furth, as if he suspected a joke and was waiting for the punch line.

  “You didn’t hear the siren?”

  “I had my headphones on. The Sennheiser’s. I was listening to a tape.”

  Furth pulled his ticket book out of his hip pocket.

  Larry Snap grimaced anxiously. “I already got a lot of points,” he said. “Another bad rap could put me over the edge, cost me my licence.”

  Furth pushed the button on the end of his bal
lpoint pen.

  “You like a deal on some Springsteen tickets?”

  There were five tickets left in Furth’s book. It was just enough. He started writing.

  Larry Snap waved his arms in the air. “If I can’t drive, how in hell am I gonna motivate myself to keep up the payments on my little yellow bird?” he said.

  “Have a nice day,” said Furth when he had emptied his book.

  “And you guys have two nice days each,” said Larry Snap. But it was an automatic reaction. They could tell that his heart wasn’t in it.

  Now that they were in the park, Furth and Lambert had no option but to drive all the way around it. They cruised slowly past Lumberman’s Arch and a neglected Parks Board swimming-pool full of sand and debris. From the road there was a sweeping view of the North Shore mountains and much of the inner harbour. Lambert saw a Seabus scoot like a bright orange waterbug out of its berth on the far side of the harbour, and pointed it out to Furth. They drove across the viaduct with its scenic elevated view of Lion’s Gate Bridge. It was cool under the canopy of trees, and there was a breeze coming in off the ocean. Lambert looked at his watch. At the rate they were moving along, they’d just make it back to 312 Main in time for end of shift.

  They drove slowly past the turn-off to Second Beach, and then left past the fancy restaurant with the glass dome at Ferguson Point.

  “You ever eat there?” said Furth.

  “Never.”

  “I hear the food’s good but the service is lousy.” He paused, thinking. “Or maybe it’s the other way around, I forget.”

  A girl in a yellow bikini ran out of the thin strip of woods that separated the road from the sea wall and the ocean. Lambert was thinking that yellow seemed to be the colour of the day when the girl waved at him. Surprised, he sat up in his seat and waved back. The girl called out, and started running after the car.

  Furth pulled over to the side of the road. “Anybody you know?” he said, staring into the rearview mirror.

  Lambert twisted in his seat. “Not yet,” he said, “but I think I’m already in love.”

  The girl was breathing heavily by the time she caught up with the car. She was maybe nineteen years old. Her skin was golden brown and she had a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Lambert looked deeply into her dark green eyes. What he saw made him immediately realize that whatever she had on her mind, it wasn’t romance.

  He pushed open his door and started to get out of the Aspen.

  Chapter 18

  Eddy Orwell and Judith Lundstrom were sitting side by side on matte black padded stools at the veggie bar at Orwell’s gym. Orwell had three tall glasses of lukewarm water lined up in front of him, and one small glass of carrot juice. On the polished wooden counter next to the juice was a paper cup containing his daily intake of vitamin pills. Orwell picked up the cup and shook it gently. The pills made a faint rustling sound. He emptied the cup into the palm of his hand and began eating the pills one by one, washing them down with mouthfuls of water.

  Judith sipped her milk, watching him.

  Orwell had just finished bench-pressing two tons of iron in increments of 250 pounds. He was pumped up, his blood racing through distended flesh. Judith could see the bulging outline of his muscles through the thick material of his sweatsuit, and she could smell the perfume of his overheated body. He smelled good. He also smelled nervous, worried. It had been more than a month since they’d stopped going out together. Judith had missed Orwell a great deal, but her sense of pride had stopped her from getting in touch with him, despite the temptation.

  And now, finally, Orwell had called her.

  They were both on their lunch hour. Judith was in her summer uniform — a white blouse and a medium blue A-line skirt, white flats. A dark blue leather purse lay beside her on an empty stool. There was no one else in the veggie bar except the bartender, and he was fifteen feet away, his nose buried in a weightlifting magazine.

  Orwell knocked back the last of his pills. His big hand closed over the paper cup, crumpling it. He drank some more water, and swallowed noisily. He’d never been much good at apologies. He felt awkward, and dull. The silence between them started to assume a life of its own, building in intensity.

  Judith decided she’d let him stew long enough, that it was time to get the ball rolling. “I had a weird one this morning,” she said.

  “Oh yeah?” Orwell gave her his full attention. Being a meter maid was not without its hazards.

  “Nice, though.”

  Orwell frowned. What the hell was that supposed to mean? He drained the third glass of lukewarm water, wiped the gathered sweat from his face with a fleecy grey sleeve.

  “It was a Trans Am,” said Judith. “A black one, with a sunroof and a tinted windscreen.”

  “Big eagle on the bonnet, all wings and beak?”

  Judith nodded. Like most cops, Eddy knew his cars.

  “Meter expired, was it?”

  “No, he was parked in front of a fire hydrant.”

  Orwell frowned. “Can’t let ’em get away with a thing like that.” There was a celery stick in his glass of carrot juice. He nibbled.

  “I was writing the ticket when the guy showed up,” said Judith. “Big guy in his late twenties, tall, with a good build. He sat down on the bonnet with his arms folded across his chest, watching me.”

  “He didn’t say anything, just sat there?”

  “Showing me his macho hairy chest, all his gold chains. I finished writing the ticket and went to stick it under his windscreen wiper. That’s when he made his move, slid off the bonnet and held out his hand. I gave him the ticket. ‘You know what I’m going to do with this?’ he says. But in a nice tone of voice, sort of kidding around, not mad at all. I shook my head and put my book away. Being careful, letting him know I wasn’t going to get involved in an argument.”

  Judith smiled, remembering.

  “He was so quick. In about three seconds he’d folded that ticket up into a cute little dragon with feet and wings and wide open mouth. It had a long twisty tail and everything. You should’ve seen it, Eddy.”

  “Just so long as he pays his fine,” said Orwell.

  “I kind of had a feeling he was the type who wouldn’t bother,” said Judith. She licked a smear of milk from her upper lip. What happened to a ticket after she’d slapped it on a windscreen was none of her concern. In her business, you had to be a bit of a philosopher.

  “What’s that called,” she said, “folding paper like that?”

  “Beats me,” said Orwell. He glanced up at the clock over the bar. He was supposed to meet Farley Spears in twenty minutes, and he was probably going to be late. Really late, if Judith was in the mood. He picked up the glass of carrot juice and drank it down, made a face.

  “What’s the matter?” said Judith.

  “Stuff tastes awful.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing. It always tastes awful. It’s supposed to, I guess.”

  “Why do you drink it, then?”

  “Because it’s good for me.”

  “Better than eating carrots?”

  “You know how many carrots it takes to make a single glass of carrot juice?” Orwell asked.

  “No,” said Judith. “Do you?”

  She looked so sweet, sitting there on the stool with her knees pressed together and her elbows on the counter, leaning towards him, a loose strand of blonde hair falling across her cheek, looking earnest and concerned. Judith spent a lot of money on clothes, but Orwell never found her more attractive than when she was wearing her uniform. He turned towards her, his eyes full of love.

  “I can’t, Eddy. I have to get back to work.”

  Orwell started to work up an argument, then decided to let it go. One of the things he liked about Judith was that, like him, she was very conscientious about her job.

  “How about dinner?” he said.

  “I don’t know. You hurt me once, Eddy. I don’t want it to happen again.�
��

  “It won’t. I promise.”

  “Let me think about it. Call me about six, okay.”

  “Fine,” said Orwell, trying hard not to let his disappointment show.

  Judith leaned towards him. She kissed him on his warm, moist, salty cheek, and then slid off her stool and strode towards the door, hips swinging, giving it a little bit extra because she knew he was watching.

  At the door, she stopped and turned back to him and said, “Why don’t you just come over, Eddy, instead of phoning.”

  “I could bring a couple of steaks,” said Orwell, “and a nice bottle of wine.”

  Judith shook her head. “No, Eddy. You’re taking me out to eat. And it won’t be to McDonald’s, either.”

  The door swung shut, leaving Orwell in a celebratory mood. He called out to the bartender, and asked for another glass of carrot juice.

  Chapter 19

  Felix Newton, trying to check out the legs of the brunette who was engaged in an apparently futile search for his car, pressed his belly up against the Hertz counter at Seattle International Airport. The girl was easy to look at. She had terrific legs, and looked real chic in her spiffy tailored jacket with the company logo over the breast pocket. But Felix was close to losing patience with her anyway. The beige four-door Caprice he’d reserved at the Hertz counter at LAX was lost somewhere deep in the electronic bowels of the Hertz computer. He’d been waiting for the car to pop up on the screen for ten minutes now, and he was still feeling nauseous from his flight; all that altitude and the cheapo cold plate they’d served for lunch.

  Felix glanced around the terminal. He’d told Junior not to bother coming out to meet him, but had hoped that the kid might show up all the same. Fat chance. He was all alone, and likely to stay that way until Misha got back from the carousel, where she was waiting for her matched set of six pigskin suitcases to drop down the chute. Felix had given her the suitcases for her last birthday. It had been a big mistake. The fucking things were beautiful to look at, but they were also bulky as hell and weighed a ton. Naturally, since then, Misha had never gone anywhere without them.