Willows and Parker Box Set

by Laurence Gough

  Paterson picked up the bag and put it away in his coat pocket.

  “Talk to your kid, Al. In fact, if it was me, I’d call the cops.”

  “Thanks for your help, Jerry.”

  Paterson winced as a hand fell on his shoulder. He twisted and glanced behind him and saw that it was only the waitress. She saw the look in his eyes and shuffled backwards, putting distance between them.

  “She wants to know if there’s something wrong with the food,” said the client.

  Al shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I just got carried away by what you were saying.”

  The client smiled.

  Paterson picked up his glass, drank some beer. It tasted warm and flat. He snuck a peek at his watch. Quarter past two. The client had done all the talking, but it was his plate that was empty, Paterson’s that was full.

  “Would you like anything more to drink?” said the girl.

  “Uh ...”

  “I wouldn’t mind another beer,” said the client.

  “Make it two,” said Paterson automatically. Then his brain clicked in and he added, “And could you bring me the bill, please.”

  “Busy afternoon?”

  Paterson ignored the hint of reproof in the client’s voice. “Booked solid. Christ, I keep thinking we’re as busy as we’re ever going to get, and we just keep getting busier.”

  It was almost three by the time he got back to the office, and by then he’d made up his mind exactly what he was going to do.

  He had his secretary, Kathy, get Lillian on the phone. His wife told him a registered letter from the bank had come in the mail, asked him should she open it. He told her not to touch the damn thing, crossed his fingers and told her a lie, that something had come up and he was on his way to the airport, was flying to Toronto and wouldn’t be back for at least three days.

  Kathy must have been listening through the open door, because when he came out of his office she asked him if he wanted her to call a cab.

  “I’ll take the Porsche.”

  “You’re going to leave your beautiful new car all alone in an uncovered parking lot for three whole days?”

  “My flight leaves in less than an hour, Kathy. I haven’t got time to wait for a cab.”

  “What about car thieves? Vandalism?” Kathy smiled at him with her mouth and eyes. “My God, what if it rains?”

  Paterson shrugged into his coat and grabbed his briefcase.

  “Have fun!” Kathy called after him as he hurried out the door.

  Paterson drove the Porsche to the nearest branch of his bank and used his Visa card to obtain a cash advance of one thousand dollars.

  From the bank he drove down to Coal Harbor and retrieved a half-pound bag of heroin and his Ruger and fifty rounds of hollowpoints from the Cal 29. The gun was still in the original box, coated in a thin layer of oil to protect it from the salt air. The weapon felt cold and sticky in his hands. He ejected the magazine and filled it with ten LR hollowpoints. Now that the pistol was loaded it was much heavier. He extended his right arm, locked his elbow and aimed at the porthole above the galley stove. The porthole was about the size of a man’s head. Paterson tried to imagine pulling the trigger, shooting someone. Impossible. So what in hell was the point of taking the gun? He put it back in the box and then, not knowing why he was doing it, put the box in his briefcase. On his way out, he used a penknife to scratch the varnished mahogany around the door lock, making it look as if someone had tried a break and enter.

  The wharfinger wasn’t in his office. Paterson wrote a short note in which he said it appeared as if someone had tried to break into his boat, asked the wharfinger to keep an eye on the vessel. He folded the note in half and wedged it under the dial of the wharfinger’s phone.

  He walked back to the car, stowed the Ruger and fifty rounds of ammunition in the trunk, and drove to the part of the city known as Gastown.

  Gastown was located to the north of the downtown core, pressed up against the network of railway tracks that parallels the waterfront. It is one of Vancouver’s oldest areas, and was named after ‘Gassy Jack’, a riverboat captain and accomplished drinker who opened Gastown’s first retail business, the Globe Saloon. During the Depression, Gastown began its decline. By the sixties it was one of the worst skid rows in the country. In the midseventies, the city developed a plan to revitalize the area — cobble the streets and sidewalks, sandblast the old brick buildings, install atmospheric lighting — build a better tourist trap.

  Paterson parked his Porsche in the Woodwards parking lot. He locked the car and triggered the alarm system, then took the elevator down to street level, walked over to Hastings Street and east along Hastings until he found the kind of hotel he was looking for.

  The Vance advertised rooms by the day or month. A battered wooden door opened on a steep, dimly-lit flight of stairs. There was no lobby. Paterson walked slowly up the stairs. At the landing there was a wire-mesh door. The door was locked. He banged on it with the flat of his hand, making the mesh rattle. Someone yelled at him to shut up. He yelled back that he wanted a room.

  There was the sound of a buzzer. The door clicked off the latch.

  He pushed the door open and let it swing shut behind him. To his left there was a long hallway and another flight of stairs, to the right a small wired-in cubicle, and beyond the cubicle another hallway. Squinting in the glare of the lights, he walked over to the cubicle and looked inside. A man sitting in a plain wooden chair stared back at him. The man was in his late twenties, thin almost to the point of emaciation, wearing a vest of black leather, no shirt, faded jeans. He had a pale, narrow face and small, dark eyes. His hair was glossy black, combed straight back from a high forehead. He needed a shave. A tiny diamond sparkled in his left ear. He reached up to run his fingers through his hair and Paterson saw that his nails were painted pale blue and had been filed to a sharp point.

  The man waggled a finger. “Got a search warrant, honey?”

  “No, but I’ve got twenty bucks.”

  The man stood up. He rested his bony elbows on the counter and leaned forward, his eyes bright and mocking.

  “Saying you ain’t a cop, pretty face?”

  Paterson could smell the man’s perfume, his hair oil, aftershave, the scent of his deodorant. And lurking beneath the surface, the stench of his unwashed body.

  Paterson laid a twenty on the counter. “Got a room, sport?”

  The man eyed Paterson’s tie, his button-down shirt, the five-hundred-dollar suit. He got up on his toes and pressed against the edge of the counter, gasped in mock admiration at the crease in Paterson’s pants, the shine on his shoes. He stared unblinkingly into Paterson’s eyes, weighing and measuring him, clearly finding him wanting. Finally he shrugged and said, “The room’s ten bucks a night. Twenty’ll buy you two nights. There’s a five-dollar deposit on the key.”

  “Fine,” said Paterson.

  “Sign the register.”

  Paterson wrote Jerry Ribiero’s name in an illegible scrawl. The twenty disappeared. A room key was slapped down on the counter.

  “You go out, leave the key with me or whoever’s at the desk. You ain’t allowed to take it outta the hotel, unnerstand? And remember, you lose it you can kiss your deposit goodbye.”

  The number on the key was 318.

  The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder, glossy blue nails gleaming in the light. “Room’s down at the far end of the hall. No loud noises or music or company after ten o’clock. No alcohol or drugs. Bend the rules and we’ll kick your ass out on the street.”

  Paterson scooped up the key and started to walk away from the desk. He stopped, turned. “Can you get me a woman?”

  “Do I procure, you mean?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Lemme see your wallet. Flip it open for me, let’s see you got a badge.”

  Paterson flipped open his wallet. It was alligator, a little thicker than a credit card.

  “How many you want, sport?”r />
  “Three.”

  “Yeah? Really? Ambitious, eh? How long you gonna need ’em? Couple minutes? An hour? The rest of your life?”

  “An hour, probably less.”

  “Cost you sixty apiece.” He glanced at Paterson’s briefcase. “More, if you’re into whipped cream or whips, shit like that.”

  “Fifty,” said Paterson with as much firmness and conviction as he could muster.

  The man nibbled his lip, grunted. “I got no idea what game you’re playing, sweetie. But about half an hour from now, you gonna have all the players you need to make a team.”

  Room 318 had a floor of cracked green linoleum. The walls were painted a muddy yellow. A naked low-wattage bulb hung from the ceiling. The only furniture in the room was a narrow bed and a dusty bureau. A cracked sink occupied the corner diagonally opposite the room’s sole window. The window had a terrific view of the alley, a trio of dumpsters overflowing with rotting garbage.

  Paterson took the Ruger out of his briefcase. He checked the safety, put the gun in his trenchcoat pocket and sat down on the bed.

  Now all he had to do was wait.

  9

  Gary Silk was stretched out on the burgundy leather couch in the den, watching baseball on his big Sony TV, his head cradled in Samantha’s lap. Samantha was twenty years old, a Capricorn, born on December twenty-third. Gary had said it must be a bitch, having a birthday so close to Christmas. Samantha had given him a big smile, letting him know she considered him a pretty insightful guy.

  Encouraged, he’d asked her when she got off work and she’d said, “How about right this minute,” stripped off her apron and told him not to move, she was just going in the back to get her purse.

  Quit her job for him, just like that.

  She’d been on the wrong side of the Orange Julius counter at Oakridge, a big shopping mall up by Queen Elizabeth Park. She’d been kind of young for Gary’s taste; as a general rule he liked his women a bit older, because while age didn’t necessarily bring wisdom, it did tend to wear off the sharp edges, make the ladies a little less volatile, more likely to stay in line, do what they were told.

  But youth had its compensations, there was no doubt about that.

  One thing Gary liked about Samantha was that she was a real sports fan, liked to lick the salt from the rim of her margarita glass and watch those big black boys get up to the plate, adjust the crotch, take a practice swing with the bat. Gary had been kidding her about it all night long, pretending the sexy things she said pissed him off. But the truth was that the way she talked, the tone of voice and words she used, really turned him on, got the blood churning and galloping through his veins.

  Gary smiled into his drink. They wouldn’t have let her use those words back at the Orange Julius counter, that’s for sure. He reached out and ran his fingers down the long curving length of her, through her silky blonde shoulder-length hair and across her breast and hip, the smoothness of her thigh. He had a plan. At about the fifth or maybe sixth inning he was going to pick her up and take her down the hall into the bedroom. By then she’d have knocked off, the way she was going, at least three margaritas. Be interesting to see if she could remember what he liked when she was stone drunk. They happened to miss the rest of the game, Frank would tape it. He’d done it before.

  The Blue Jays were playing the California Angels. Gary watched Jesse Barfield wait on a slider that was low and away, lean out over the plate and drive the ball high into the lights, over the fence and into the right field stands, thirty rows up. Two runs scored. It was top of the second, nobody out. The Jays were already leading three to zip, pounding those Angels into the dust.

  Gary ran his hand across Samantha’s hip, his mind on the route he’d jogged that morning, Frank trailing along behind in the Mercedes, a Mozart piano concerto pounding out of the speakers because Frank didn’t know how to work Gary’s new Compact Disc player and was afraid to mess with it because he might break something.

  Gary never had breakfast, but he thought about what he’d eaten for lunch and exactly how much time he’d spent playing squash with the pro that afternoon, and what he’d had for dinner that night. When he’d finished calculating, calories in and calories out, he gave Samantha a squeeze and told her to get her ass over to the bar, fetch him a nice cold bottle of Molson Lite.

  “Want one, Frank, while she’s up?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Samantha brought the bottles over to Gary and he screwed off the caps and threw them in the gas fireplace. He pointed at Frank and she crossed the room and handed him a beer.

  “Thanks, Gary,” said Frank.

  Gary said, “My pleasure, Frank.” He patted the couch. Samantha looked at him. Gary drank some beer. She sat down next to him and he put his arm around her and tilted her head up, kissed her. She finished off the first margarita of the night. There were a few grains of coarse salt on her upper lip. He stuck out his tongue and licked the salt off her and she said, “That’s gross!” pushed him away and made him laugh so hard he almost spilled his beer.

  He moved back, ran his hand over her. Watched the Jays score another run on a pair of singles and a sacrifice fly. He slipped his hand under her skirt. “Good game, Frank.”

  Frank didn’t say anything. He was staring fixedly at the screen, the untouched bottle of beer cradled in his lap. Gary had a feeling he was a million miles away. Frank was some fucking bodyguard. Gary wondered what he could be thinking, that was fascinating enough to take his mind off the game.

  Frank was thinking about Friday night. He was thinking about Oscar Peel, and Pat Nash.

  *

  Frank had made Nash drive the Pontiac all the way downtown and under the bridge, Oscar sitting up front next to Nash, in the passenger seat. He’d thought about sticking Oscar in the trunk, but that seemed like kind of a dumb idea; something Tony Curtis would do in a gangster movie, Marilyn Monroe wriggling and squealing in the background.

  Frank snuck a quick, contemptuous look at the dumb blonde from the Orange Julius stand. No doubt about it, Gary could really pick ’em. When it came to women, he was about as predictable as a fart in a beanery.

  The ride downtown hadn’t been too bad, except Nash was too nervous to think straight. Frank had to keep reminding him to speed up or slow down, not bother stopping when the light was green.

  Traffic stuff, nothing serious. Nothing to worry about, yet.

  Frank had killed before. He knew that a failure of imagination rarely failed to occur; that for most people death was never real until the event was actually about to happen. But at the last moment, and Frank didn’t have any idea why this happened, the victims always went one of only two ways. What they did was almost fall asleep on you, or go completely berserk.

  So when they turned off Beach and went down Granville towards the water, Frank got ready.

  The lights of the car shone on the roundabout. Nash slowed the car and Frank had to tell him to go left. The road was gravel. They hit a pothole, bucked and swayed. Frank almost squeezed the trigger right there, but a part of his brain told him that Nash wasn’t trying to get cute, it was just the Pontiac needed new shocks.

  The road turned right. On their left there was a chain-link fence, empty space, the outline of a few boats and a low, dark building. No lights except down on the water, where there was a narrow wharf and maybe a couple of dozen sailboats. Frank wondered if anybody lived on them. The water gleamed darkly. He leaned across the seat and pointed. “Over there, Pat.”

  Nash started into the turn and Oscar leaned over, grabbed the wheel, got his boot in and stomped on the gas pedal. The rear wheels spat gravel and the Pontiac shot towards the harbor.

  Frank grabbed at the steering wheel. Oscar tried to stick his fist in his eye. The goddamn car was still accelerating. Oscar had apparently decided that if he was going to die, everybody was going to die. Frank went for the ignition keys, intending to turn the engine off. Oscar bit him in the neck.

  Frank stopped
thinking and started reacting. He cocked the .45 and tried to shoot Oscar in the back of the head. The muzzle blast lit up the interior of the car. The sound of the shot was deafening.

  Oscar’s cheeks bulged. Pink foam sprayed out of his wide-flared nostrils. Frank’d missed at a range of maybe six inches. The windshield was frosted over. Oscar had a hand on the Colt, was trying to take it away from him. Frank jerked back, put a bullet through the roof. Oscar clawed wildly at his face. Frank batted away his hands and tried to line up another shot.

  The Pontiac slowed abruptly, the nose dropping. Pat Nash had stuck out his foot and hit the brakes. Bless you, thought Frank. A fraction of a second later the car smashed into a concrete pillar, one of the bridge pilings. Frank was lifted out of his seat. His head hit a side window. Glass shattered. He fell back on the seat. Somebody was screaming. The voice sounded vaguely familiar. The car veered sideways and stopped at an odd angle, nose up, the front end sticking out over the water, the left headlight lighting a pathway to heaven. Frank caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror, shut his mouth.

  The screaming stopped.

  There was blood all down the front of Oscar Peel’s face but he was alive, conscious, desperately trying to force his way out of the car but too panicked to think of opening the door first.

  “Do it,” said Frank. He handed Pat Nash the dinky little .25 calibre Star, thrusting it into his open hand and at the same time keeping the Colt on him. Nash gave Frank a look Frank had never seen before, rage and grief and a kind of empty hopelessness. He twisted in his seat and put the muzzle of the Star against Oscar’s ear.

  Oscar jerked his head sideways. His hands tore at the tape that sealed his mouth shut.

  *

  Pat Nash had an idea, just like that. He jammed the stubby barrel of the Star up against Oscar’s plump hip. Oscar punched him in the mouth. The gun went off. Oscar started bouncing up and down like he’d sat on the world’s biggest tack. Nash couldn’t say whether or not Oscar’d been hit. Oscar was banging his shoulder against the car door but it wouldn’t open.