by Thomas King
“Yeah,” said Stick, with a smirk, “but you like my mom.”
Stick was a good-looking kid, tall and skinny, with a crooked smile that made him seem endearing. And he was smart. Which only went to prove that good looks and brains weren’t always a winning combination. To be blunt, Stick was a pain in the ass, had always been a pain in the ass. Thumps knew that young men Stick’s age could be self-absorbed, and he knew that most of them grew out of it. In Stick’s case, Thumps didn’t have time to wait.
“You know, if I can figure things out, the sheriff won’t have much trouble doing the same thing.”
“I didn’t kill Takashi or Floyd,” said Stick.
“Then why’d you move Takashi’s body?”
It was an old cop trick. Throw a hot question into the middle of the conversation and see what happened. What happened was that the smile on Stick’s face vanished. Good, thought Thumps. I’ve got his attention.
“I didn’t move Takashi’s body.”
“You used the maintenance tunnels and the garage to get him to the condos.”
Stick tried to tough it out. “Was this after I shot him?”
“No,” said Thumps, “this was after you painted the wall.” He was enjoying this exchange more than he could have imagined. “Or maybe you moved the body first and then painted the wall.”
“You’re crazy,” said Stick, but his voice had lost its cocky edge. “You can’t prove that.”
“Won’t have to,” said Thumps. “The sheriff will do it for me. And he won’t even have to try.”
Stick’s body tensed up. Thumps settled into the chair, blocking the only way out of the darkroom.
“I’m going to make it easy for you,” said Thumps. “The sheriff already knows that Takashi was killed in the computer complex. As soon as he finds Red Hawks painted on the wall, he’s going to have all he needs to get a search warrant for your mother’s house.” He paused so Stick could hear every word. “And as soon as he finds your runners, he’s going to come after you with everything he’s got.”
Stick frowned. “My runners?”
“The ones with the grey paint spots on them.”
Stick looked at his feet before he could stop himself.
“Not those,” said Thumps. “The ones you left at your mother’s house. When you painted over the wall, you got paint on your shoes. Duke will find them. He’ll test the paint. And it’ll match the paint on the wall. He sure as hell is going to find out that you went to see Floyd just before he was killed.”
Stick’s entire body was rigged for flight. His eyes were measuring the distance to the door, calculating his odds of getting past Thumps.
Thumps shook his head. “Forget it. Besides your mother, I’m the only friend you have.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to keep you from getting killed.” Thumps moved out of the way to give Stick a straight run at the door. “But if you want to be stupid, be my guest.”
Stick looked at Thumps, and he looked at the door. Then he leaned back against the sink.
“All right,” said Thumps. “Let’s start at the beginning.”
For the most part, he had guessed right. While the Red Hawks had opposed the resort as a whole, arguing that it pandered to rich whites, their main complaint was with the casino and the potential problems that recreational gambling seemed to drag along in its wake. Drugs, alcohol, violence. When public protest didn’t work, Stick came up with the idea of sabotaging the main computer.
“All the slots are controlled by the main computer,” said Stick. “You know what that means?”
The plan was to create a virus, a computer time bomb that would go off periodically, changing the odds on the machines and scrambling the security systems. It would be, the Red Hawks reckoned, a public-relations nightmare. Slot machines paying off on every pull. Slot machines not paying off when they were supposed to. Key cards not working. Smoke alarms blaring. Surveillance cameras going wonky. Guerrilla warfare. Civil disobedience.
The more Stick talked, the more Thumps could see that the young man fancied himself a latter-day Thoreau with a computer.
“Not a worm?”
“A worm? No, it was a virus.”
“You’re sure?”
“I know the difference,” said Stick. “But when I got there, I found Takashi.”
“Why not call the police? Why move the body?”
Stick looked at the ceiling. “Do the math. Someone kills Takashi. Someone paints ‘Red Hawks’ on the wall. Who do you think the sheriff is going to figure that someone is? If I move the body and paint the wall, I buy time to figure out what’s happening.”
“Why move him to that particular condo?”
“Did you really used to be a cop?”
“I’m tired and I’m hungry,” said Thumps. “Just answer the damn question.”
“So I could see the computer building. In case the guy who killed Takashi came back.”
“And then you went to see Floyd.”
“Floyd drove Takashi around. Maybe Takashi said something to him.”
“And?”
“Nothing,” said Stick. “Floyd told me to get lost.”
“So, you saw Floyd.”
“Yeah, I saw him. But he was kind of weird.”
“Weird?”
“He wouldn’t let me in his trailer.” Stick smiled his crooked smile. “Talked to me through the screen door. Like he had a woman in the bedroom or something.”
Thumps stood up and pushed the chair back under the easel. “Let me be the first to congratulate you on screwing up magnificently.”
“What the hell do you know?” Stick got to his feet defiantly.
“Well, let’s see,” said Thumps, and he held up one hand and spread his fingers. “One, I know about the cigarettes you took off Takashi.”
“What cigarettes?”
Thumps gestured at Stick’s shirt pocket. “Those ones.”
Stick’s reaction was predictable. He looked.
“Two, I know about the bag you left in the mountains.”
“How . . . ?”
“Three, I know about Takashi’s key card that you hid under the insole of your sneakers. That’s how you got access to the tunnels and the condo.” Thumps paused for everything to sink in. “How am I doing?”
“You found the key card?”
“I used to be a cop,” said Thumps. “What I don’t know is how you got into the computer complex in the first place.”
“That was the easy part.” Stick waited. “Want to guess?”
“Floyd?”
“Sure. There are two ways to get in.”
Thumps nodded. “Key card or you can punch in a code.”
“Right.”
“And Floyd saw Takashi punch in the code?”
“Beats pulling out a card every time.”
“But why would Floyd give you the code?”
“He didn’t,” said Stick. “I bought it off him.”
That made sense, Thumps thought. Floyd wasn’t in the business of giving anything away for free.
“So,” said Stick. “What are we going to do?”
Thumps leaned against the wall. “There is no ‘we.’”
Stick looked stunned. “You going to turn me in?”
“No, you’re going to turn yourself in.”
“The hell I am.”
Arguing with Stick was like arguing with a horseshoe. “Okay,” said Thumps, “suit yourself.”
It took Stick a moment to react. “You’re not going to turn me in?”
“Nope.”
“And you’re not going to tell the sheriff you saw me?”
“Nope.”
He didn’t make any move to get past Thumps. “Why not?”
“The sheriff will find you soon enough.”
“No, he won’t.”
“Sure he will. Maybe not today. Maybe not
next week. But he’ll find you.” Thumps looked at the empty plate. “And when he does, he’s not going to treat you to a ham sandwich and an ice cream bar.”
Stick shoved his hands in his pockets. “I could stay here for a while.”
Thumps turned to go back upstairs. Maybe he was wrong about Stick. Maybe the kid was just plain bone-stupid.
“What if I have some evidence?”
“Evidence?”
“Yeah,” said Stick. “Maybe I know why Takashi was killed.”
“Well, that would be peachy.” Thumps hoped Stick could hear the sarcasm.
“I mean, I don’t know exactly why he was killed. But I have an idea.”
Thumps didn’t like where this was heading. “And where is this evidence?”
“In my car.”
The alarm bells should have gone off as soon as Thumps found Stick in his darkroom. But for some reason, they hadn’t.
“Your car?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where did you leave your car?”
“In the alley.”
“Behind my house?”
“Yeah,” said Stick. “What’s the problem?”
“Shit! How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know. Couple of hours.”
As soon as Thumps got upstairs, he turned off all the lights, stepped to the front window, and looked out. There were several cars on the street. Thumps recognized them all.
“What the hell’s wrong?”
Thumps kept his voice low as he watched the street. “Did I mention that the sheriff is looking for you?”
“So.”
“So, he’s also looking for your car.” Thumps glanced at Stick’s face to see whether anyone was home.
“He’s not going to check every alley in town.”
“He doesn’t have to,” said Thumps. “He knows where I live.”
The backyard was tiny, with hardly enough room for grass, but the people who had owned the house before had had ambitions for the area. And a subscription to one or more of those do-it-yourself magazines. They had put in a flagstone patio that started off well enough, with all the stones levelled and interlocked, the joints packed tightly with sand. But as it ran away from the house and out to the plywood gazebo, the pattern began slowly to fall apart, until the stones had simply been dropped and left to rot. From the gazebo, which had inexplicably been stained a deep chocolate brown, the previous owners had begun excavation for what Thumps could only guess was supposed to be a pool. By the time they had dug down three feet, they had evidently run out of patience with the project and with each other.
Thumps had bought the house partly because it had been cheap, the product of a less-than-amicable divorce, and partly because it had a high-ceilinged basement where he could put a darkroom. When he first moved in, he thought about finishing the yard, but by the time he had unpacked the boxes and painted the rooms, the weeds had already taken over the patio and the pool—if that’s what the excavation was supposed to be—and had turned the hole into a seasonal pond complete with mosquitoes and toads. Most of the time, Thumps pretended that his lot ended at the back door, and on the rare occasions that he did venture into the backyard, he ventured out only to knock down the weeds, so his neighbours wouldn’t report him to the city.
Thumps kept the flashlight pointed low as he and Stick made their way through the yard.
“Watch your step.”
“You ever going to fix this place up?”
“I like it natural.”
Stick’s car was leaning against the side of the wood-slat fence that marked the end of the backyard. Thumps didn’t need the light to see that the fence, like the yard, was in need of attention. Maybe when Ora Mae ran out of rooms at the old land titles office, she’d come over and bring her brushes.
Thumps lifted the gate and swung it open. In the distance, a dog was complaining about something.
“Why didn’t you just park the car out front and call Hockney?”
“So, why are you helping me?”
“I’m not helping you.”
“You just want to have sex with my mom.”
Yes, Thumps said to himself, that would certainly be preferable to babysitting her son. “Just show me what you’ve got.”
Stick went around to the back of the car. “It’s in the trunk.”
Thumps looked down the alley. The dog had stopped barking, and the night was suddenly very quiet. The trunk opened with a long, agonizing creak.
“What the hell . . . ?”
Thumps moved to the trunk quickly. “What’s wrong?”
“Cool.” Stick pulled something dark and heavy out of the trunk and threw it over his shoulders. “What do you think?”
It was a jacket. A leather jacket.
“Pretty nice, eh?” Stick turned around so Thumps could see the Indian Motorcycle Company crest on the back of the jacket. And the two small bullet holes in the leather.
Thumps grabbed Stick’s arm. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“Hey, easy,” said Stick, pulling his arm back. “It was in my trunk.”
“Shit.” Thumps stepped from behind the car and swung the light into the yard.
“What’s wrong?”
Thumps saw the muzzle flash at the same moment he heard the first shot hit the car. The second shot hit Stick and spun him around.
“Get your hands up!”
Thumps was on the ground before the third shot shattered the side window. Stick was draped on the trunk. Thumps found his belt and dragged him in behind the wheels of the car, just as a fourth shot tore through the rear panel. Someone was running through the garden now, crashing through the weeds. Thumps glanced under the car just in time to see a set of legs fly across the flagstones and hit the edge of the pool.
“Sonofabitch!”
Whoever had tumbled into the pool had tumbled in hard. Thumps rolled Stick over and tore the jacket open. The boy’s shirt was soaked with blood, but it was too dark to see the wound. Wherever the bullet had hit him, it wasn’t good.
“Shit!”
Suddenly there were lights everywhere as police cars roared in from both ends of the alley. Thumps pulled Stick’s shirt up and began feeling for the wound.
“Drop your weapon and show us your hands.”
“I’ve got a man down.”
“Drop your weapon!”
“It’s a flashlight, you asshole!”
“Drop the weapon!”
Thumps held the flashlight out and let it roll off his fingers. Then he raised his hands above his head, making sure that every movement was slow and deliberate.
EIGHTEEN
Stick was still unconscious when the ambulance arrived. Thumps had found the wound and stopped the bleeding, but he wasn’t sure that was going to help. Stick had been pale and still, and the pulse that Thumps had been able to find was weak.
“Going to have to arrest you.” Sheriff Hockney watched as they loaded Stick into the ambulance.
“For what?”
“Harbouring a fugitive, for starters.”
“Stick wasn’t under arrest.”
“And resisting arrest.”
“We didn’t resist anything. We got shot at.”
The sheriff looked over at Thumps’ backyard. “Andy says he identified himself and that you shot at him.”
So the cowboy with the gun had been Andy. Thumps should have guessed as much.
“Would it hurt your feelings if I told you Andy is a liar?”
“He hurt his ankle real bad falling into that trap of yours.”
“It’s not a trap, it’s a sunken garden. And I’m sorry he didn’t break his neck.”
Hockney put his beefy hand on Thumps’ shoulder. “You know as well as me what happens when cops get shot at.”
“And just what the hell did we shoot at him with?”
Duke picked the flashlight up and looked at it. “Hard to tell what a man has in his hand in the dark.”
“Bullshit. No cop is going to mistake a flashlight for a gun.”
The sheriff nodded. “We could argue about this all night, and it would go down to Andy’s word against yours. How do you suppose that’s going to play?”
“The way it’s going to play is that you let a trigger-happy racist off his leash and he shot a kid.”
“That kid was wanted for two murders.”
Duke had evidently asked Bert the right questions. “I thought you wanted to question him about Takashi.”
“Not anymore,” said the sheriff. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to ask you some questions, and if I like the answers, I’m going to let you go. But if you try to screw with me, I’m going to handcuff you and drag your sorry ass to jail.”
“I don’t know any more than you do.”
“That’s not a good start. Why were you hiding the Merchant kid?”
“I wasn’t hiding anybody.”
“Found a sleeping bag in your darkroom. Plate with crumbs on it and a Popsicle stick.”
“It was a Häagen-Dazs bar, not a Popsicle. And he broke into my house and raided my refrigerator.”
“You want to press charges?”
“I found him when I got home.”
“But you didn’t call me.”
“I was trying to talk him into giving himself up.”
“Out here? By the car? In the dark?”
Thumps didn’t like this one-way flow of information. Did Hockney know about the wall at the computer complex yet? Did he know that Thumps had been at Floyd’s? Thumps was on thin ice, and he knew it. And he knew that the sheriff was waiting for him to break through.
“Stick said he had some evidence that might point to the killer.”
“And where would this evidence be?”
“He said it was in his trunk.”
“And was it convincing?”
“I don’t know. Andy shot him before he could show me what it was.”
“Good news,” said the sheriff. “I can show you.” Hockney opened the door of his squad car and took out the leather jacket. “You ever see this?”
Thumps shook his head. “No.”
“Me neither,” said the sheriff. “But I know a few things about this particular jacket. First, it’s expensive. This one goes for about five hundred dollars.” The sheriff turned the jacket over in his hands as though it were a fine fur. “Second, it doesn’t belong to Stanley Merchant.” Duke paused and watched Thumps’ face. “You know who it does belong to?”