Fall Down Easy

by Laurence Gough

  Greg nodded solemnly.

  Samantha said, “Plus my mother died in a boating accident when I was eleven years old, and there was a lot of insurance money.” She gave him a brief, oddly twisted smile. “I was an only child. Daddy never remarried. He said he didn’t see the point.”

  Greg said, “I’m sorry … ”

  “Me too.” She looked out the window at the park for a long moment and then said, “Are you married, Detective Erickstad?”

  “Call me Tod … ”

  “Are you married, Tod?”

  He shook his head.

  “Divorced? Separated?”

  “My wife was killed by a drunk driver,” Greg said. “It was a lovely spring evening, and she felt like going for a walk. She was on her way to the corner store to buy a quart of milk.”

  She gave him a helpless look, and said, “How awful for you, I had no idea … ”

  Greg shrugged. “It was just one of those things. We weren’t getting along all that well, to tell the whole truth and nothing but.”

  Samantha made a soft mewing sound, of sympathy and perhaps even comradeship.

  Greg hesitated. He said, “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this … ”

  “No, please.”

  “The fact is, she was on her way to the liquor store when it happened, had gone out for a quart of vodka, not milk. And she wasn’t on foot. She was in her Mustang, ran a red light. The poor bastard she hit was sober as a judge. She died instantly but he’s still strapped into a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down.”

  “My God … ”

  Greg said, “It’s not that I’m ashamed of her. I’ve come to terms with the kind of person she turned out to be. It’s just that I got tired of people being sorry for me for the wrong reasons. Know what I mean?”

  Samantha nodded. Her eyes were moist.

  Greg shifted his weight on the sofa. “This is kind of an odd question, but my weapon’s digging into my ribs — do you mind if I remove it?”

  “No, please, go right ahead.”

  Greg slipped his hand under his jacket and came up with the stainless, laid it down on the coffee table so the barrel wasn’t quite pointing at her.

  She stared at the gun.

  Greg said, “Look, this is kind of awkward for me, asking you questions about your father … ”

  “It’s okay, go ahead.”

  “Well, have you noticed any change in his behaviour recently?”

  Samantha hesitated and then said, “How do you mean?”

  Greg shrugged, waited. He’d been on the other side of the Q&A sheet, knew how intimidating silence could be, how the pressure built and built until that silence had to be broken, no matter what the risk.

  She said, “He’s been a bit short-tempered lately. But then … ”

  And let it sit there, the unspoken confession that her daddy was a nasty sonofabitch at the best of times.

  Greg said, “Has he received any unusual phone calls recently? Especially late at night?”

  Her eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  “Foreign accents?” said Greg, smiling, openly having a little fun with her, showing off.

  She leaned forward. Her cup rattled against the saucer. “Is my father involved in something he shouldn’t be, Tod?”

  The question took Greg by surprise. He was aware of the rising and falling of the silk as she breathed, the way the fragile material absorbed and deflected light. Those dark green eyes of hers were so calm, almost icily detached. As if she were ready, or even eager, to hear the worst.

  How would a real cop handle a toughie like this? Greg scooped up his 357 stainless, thoughtfully rotated the cylinder.

  Click, click, click.

  Her perfume swirled through his brain. Lust raked him head to toe. Then the room snapped back into focus and he was aware of her sitting next to him, only inches away, pouring him a refill, silk rustling and her fine blonde hair clean and pure as sunlight, suede sliding off a golden thigh. She returned Greg’s cup to him. Their fingers briefly touched. Electricity wriggled through him like an eel.

  She said, “The man with the accent, do you know what he wanted?”

  Greg cleared his throat. “Beats me. A point shaved off the mortgage, maybe. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the robbery. I mean, I wouldn’t make any assumptions.” He risked a quick look into the green depths of those depthless eyes. There was a delicate scattering of tiny freckles across that cute little nose of hers, too, dammit. He said, “The man with the accent, how often did he call?”

  “I don’t know. Usually, I don’t answer the phone if it rings late at night.”

  “Why not?”

  “Daddy prefers it that way?”

  “Don’t you have boyfriends?”

  Samantha’s cheeks were pink as cherry blossoms. Had she blushed? Greg couldn’t believe his eyes.

  He said, “Do you have a job, or … what?”

  “I’m a student.”

  Greg nodded. Was she gay? But there’d been a spark, as he’d come up the walk and they’d first locked eyes.

  Samantha said, “Daddy always gets a late-night call on the first day of the month. Usually between midnight and one o’clock in the morning. He’ll answer on the first ring and he hardly says a word except hello and goodbye.”

  Greg said, “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

  “Sometimes the calls will last half an hour or even longer, and all he’ll do is listen, and take notes.”

  “What kind of notes?”

  “Numbers.”

  “Numbers?”

  “Rows and rows of numbers.”

  Greg had a sudden image of Martin Ross squirming around on the floor of the bank, his silvery hair a mess, his face bright shiny red and all puckered up like the south end of a baboon.

  Samantha moved a little away from him. “What are you thinking about, Tod? Why do I get the feeling that you know a lot more than you’re telling me?”

  There were flecks of gold caught somewhere in the depths of green. Her eyelashes and eyebrows were thick and black. She couldn’t be more than, what, twenty-one or two? Now she was staring at something that wasn’t there for Greg to see, her slim, pale fingers twisting and pulling at the hem of her skirt.

  After a moment Greg said, “Just between you and me, your daddy’s future doesn’t look too bright right now. This thing that happened at the bank, the midnight phone calls … ”

  She turned to face him more squarely. Her knee pressed up against his, and then she shifted and moved away. “What should I do?”

  “Talk to him, I guess. See if you can convince him to do the right thing.”

  She smiled.

  Greg said, “If he decides to co-operate, I’ll do what I can to minimize the damage … ”

  “But if he’s involved in fraud or something, he’ll have to go to jail, won’t he?”

  Whatever she’d paid for her perfume, it was worth at least twice as much. And he was right, there’d been a spark and she’d felt it too, there was something going on in those lively, gold-flecked eyes — she was close enough to kiss and knew it. Her mouth waited for him. Or was he imagining things?

  Greg shifted on the cushions and now their knees were touching again, ever so lightly. A flock of lightning bugs swirled and danced across his body. He was sweating heavily, shorting out at every pore.

  He abruptly grabbed the stainless, stood up, brushed a few cookie crumbs into the palm of his hand and dumped them into his empty coffee cup.

  Samantha’s eyes snapped back into focus. She looked a little disoriented, surprised. She said, “You have to leave?”

  Greg ducked his head. “Gotta get back to the office.”

  She gave him a very direct look. Straight on and holding nothing back. “Will I be hearing from you again?”

  Greg said, “It’s possible.”

  “Do you have a card … ”

  Greg flipped open Garcia Lorca Mendez’s badge
case, took a quick peek and snapped it shut. “Sorry, I must’ve run out … ”

  She brushed away a strand of hair.

  Greg said, “I’m hardly ever in the office anyway … ”

  Now she was looking at him in a way that he’d seen many times before. A bubbling stew of pain, sadness and betrayal, stir in a pinch of anger. He recognized the look tor what it was, and decided to take a chance, trust his judgement.

  He said, “It’s against department policy, I really shouldn’t do this, but how about if I give you my home number, would that help?”

  “Fuck department policy.” They were both a little shocked. She gave him a crooked smile.

  Greg didn’t have a notebook on him, or even a pen. She disappeared into another part of the house and he heard drawers opening and closing and then she was back, a brightness in her eyes, offering him a scented writing pad decorated with lambs jumping over a split rail fence, and a heavy gold fountain pen. Greg had taught himself to write in generous, gently looping letters, rather than the cramped and impoverished style that came naturally to him. He wrote his number on the pad in green ink, added “Tod” at the bottom.

  He screwed the cap back on the solid gold pen and returned the pad, at the same time slipping the pen into his shirt pocket. An automatic gesture. He couldn’t say if he’d done it on purpose, or not. She folded the sheet of notepaper over and over again until it was small enough to hide in the palm of her hand.

  As if it was a sudden afterthought, Greg said, “Oh yeah, one more thing?”

  She waited, looking up at him, ready for anything.

  Greg said, “Several departments are involved in this thing — fraud, robbery, homicide. Right now, there’s a certain amount of internal squabbling going on. I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes … ”

  “You’d rather I didn’t mention that you dropped by, is that it?”

  Greg rubbed his jaw. “Well, for the time being, at least. Yeah, that’d be appreciated.”

  “What about Daddy?”

  Greg said, “That’s up to you, I guess.”

  She touched his arm. “Daddy’s always got all kinds of secrets, and I never have any.” She gave his arm a quick, conspiratorial squeeze, let go.

  Greg said, “Oops!” and gave her back the pen.

  She saw him to the door, didn’t shut it until he was at the gate. In the car, as he was reaching behind him for the seat-belt, he glanced across the street and caught a glimpse of her standing at the window, well back from the glass, in her father’s house of red brick and black iron, that looked so much like a jail.

  Ten

  Willows worked until a few minutes past midnight, drove home under the light of a full moon. The mail had been pushed through the door slot with such enthusiasm that it was spread out all over the hall. There was nothing of interest except an unexpected letter from his daughter, Annie. He tore open the envelope. There was a drawing of the view from her bedroom window and three crumpled pages scrawled in her childish hand. Willows draped his coat over the newel post. The house was cold.

  He turned up the thermostat and went into the kitchen and poured himself a good three pages’ worth of Cutty on the rocks, took his drink and letter into the dining room and settled down at the table to read all about Annie’s new teacher, classmates, the weather in Toronto, and how terribly much she missed him.

  He finished the letter, read it through a second time, refolded it, slipped it back in the envelope. It had been a long day. He hadn’t eaten since lunch, but his appetite had come and gone. He made himself another drink, went into the den and turned on the television. The latest news on the deterioration of the ozone layer was not good. He turned the sound down until it was barely audible, stretched out on the couch, and soon drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  When the telephone in the kitchen woke him, the first thing he did was check the time — realizing as he did so that there was light enough to see by.

  It was eleven minutes past seven. Willows stood up, stretched his arms wide. His knees ached. The phone was still ringing. He hurried into the kitchen, snatched up the receiver.

  “Jack?”

  It was Parker. She sounded as if she’d been up for hours. Willows mumbled his reply.

  Parker said, “The Sedgewick, can you find it?”

  “Depends.”

  “Suite eighteen seventy-four,” said Parker. “It’s on the top floor, costs five hundred a night.”

  Willows, waking up fast, said, “I’m touched, but how can you afford something that expensive?”

  “I can’t,” said Parker, “not unless they rent it by the hour. But Garcia Lorca Mendez could, and I bet he paid with cash. That’s probably why he kept a machete under the bed, to protect himself from thieves.”

  Willows had to think about it, but not for long. The guy in the bank — he’d looked like a Garcia Lorca Mendez from head to toe.

  Parker said, “You still there, Jack?”

  “Give me half an hour. “

  Parker’s voice was a low, husky whisper. “I’ll leave the door off the latch, sweetie.” Laughing, she hung up.

  Willows shaved under the shower, towel-dried his hair and dressed in dark grey slacks, a black cableknit V-neck sweater, button-down white shirt, black leather jacket and sturdy black shoes.

  His 38 Special and speedloader were on top of the Sony. He shoved the revolver and spare rounds into his jacket pocket. Now, if only he could remember where he’d left his keys … As Willows stepped on to his front porch, a fat grey squirrel bounced lightly across the lawn. As he walked towards his car, the squirrel swiftly dug a hole in the lawn and buried an acorn. Willows unlocked the Celebrity, climbed in and started the engine.

  The car’s windshield was smeared with dew. He turned on the wipers and heater. The glass began to clear. He switched on the police radio, adjusted the volume.

  When he put the car in gear, the squirrel spun around to face him, gave him a look that was partly inquisitive, but mostly suspicious and defiant. Willows had seen that look before. He pulled away from the curb and drove down the quiet street. The road was concrete, the huge slabs bound together with wavy black lines of tar. The early morning sun tilted at him through the gaps between the neatly tended houses. The maple trees, always the first to turn, were already shedding their leaves. Soon the gutters would be clogged with leaves and the autumn rain would overflow the sidewalks, flood basements … Willows turned off the wipers. At the end of the block he braked for a Vancouver Sun carrier dragging a bright orange two-wheeled cart across the street. The city’s three dailies were all morning papers now, each of them full of yesterday’s news. The kid glanced at him, waved hello.

  Willows cruised down Tenth Avenue, made a left and drove five blocks and made a right on to Fourth Avenue. Traffic thickened and slowed with each block as he headed towards the downtown core. Even the bus stops were more crowded, despite the notoriously inadequate service.

  The city’s downtown core is serviced by four main bridges and a number of smaller viaducts. Willows had a choice of two bridges: Burrard or Granville. The latter offered a more direct route but the Motorola was telling him there was a radar trap at the apex of the bridge, and the shiny mix of speeding Volvos, BMWs, Saabs and Jaguars had already clogged two of the three northbound lanes at the far end of the bridge.

  Willows was the last car into the green at Burrard and Fourth. Three cars behind him slipped through the yellow; another ran the red.

  On the Granville Street Bridge, traffic was zipping along at twice the speed limit. Willows used his siren and light to force his way into the flow. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that driving in the city was like playing a video game — an unrelenting flow of unexpected and dangerous encounters. The object of the game was simple — to pass as many cars as possible while at the same time preventing anyone from passing you. Since the game was pointless, only fools liked to play. Even so, there was never a shortage of participants.

&
nbsp; Willows took the Seymour Street exit, made a right and then a quick left. Now he was on Pacific Boulevard, a twisty section of road that, during the Labor Day weekend at the end of August, was part of the Vancouver Indy race car circuit. During the other three hundred and sixty-two days of the year, the road fed into acres of parking lots surrounding the domed stadium and Expo ’86 site — the joyrides and exhibits long gone now, the grounds a drab and barren wasteland surrounded by a high chainlink fence topped with barbed wire.

  But at least the grotesquely ugly McDonald’s barge had finally vanished, sent kicking and screaming out to sea by an irate city council.

  The stadium, with its sixty-odd thousand empty seats, was directly in front of Willows now, Coal Harbour and the last of Granville Island to his right, three-and four-story red-brick warehouses to his left. He moved into the curb lane, took the Cambie Street exit and cruised past a couple of empty parking lots and made a right on Beatty.

  The hotel was built of red brick with green-painted ornamental metal trim, and had clearly been designed to fit in with the renovated strata-titled and condo-ised, earthquake-proofed warehouses that surrounded it.

  Close, but no cigar.

  The scale was too vast, the bricks a little too red, all the edges just a little too sharp.

  Willows pulled the beige Celebrity off the street, parked under a domed roof of polished aluminium and naked lightbulbs. A two-handed man dressed like Captain Hook asked him if he could park his car. Willows flipped the sun visor so the man could read the POLICE VEHICLE plate. He unzipped his leather jacket, put his hands in his pockets, and strode into the hotel.

  The grey-uniformed clerks at the front desk clocked him before he was halfway to the elevators. The taller one reached for a phone. Who was up there, Jimmy Cagney?

  Willows had his pick of three elevators. He chose the nearest, stepped inside and thumbed eighteen. The doors slid shut. His weight flowed towards his ankles. A few seconds later, the doors opened on a wide hallway decorated in tasteful grey and blue pastels and trimmed with the product of several acres of rain forest.