The Liquor Vicar

by Vince R. Ditrich

  She wasn’t answering her phone, and Vicar said he couldn’t reach her by text, whatever that meant — more goddamn gadgets. No one had seen her today. And with that wacky witch wandering around, spoiling for a fight … Poutine took the opportunity to go as fast as possible; the Chevelle delivered both cheap wine and high horsepower. The speedometer read 80 mph by the second curve. He’d be there very shortly. Goddamn that bolivious Farley.

  Poutine relaxed a little when he saw Jacquie’s car in the driveway and the house lights on. He rumbled to a stop behind her car and jumped out. Bounding up the three concrete steps, he rapped firmly on the screen door three times. Nothing. He did it again. She might be in the can or dryin’ her hair or somethin’ …

  He craned his neck over to the living room window and peeked in. He could see an overturned kitchen chair and a pile of broken dishes strewn about. Yelping in alarm, he attempted to enter. The door was locked. Without hesitation, he put his shoulder into it with everything he had and blasted through, ending up headfirst on the loveseat against the far wall.

  “Jacquie? Jacquie!” he croaked out as he tried to right himself on the soft couch.

  She was nowhere to be found.

  ---

  The driver’s heart was beating out a tattoo. Red-faced, he turned to his wife.

  “I’m going to report those guys!” he barked. He grabbed the phone, dialed 911, and described the reckless antics of the marauding blue microbus that had nearly taken them out.

  His wife pursed her lips, smoothed out her tartan outfit, complete with tam, sash, and kilt, and shuddered as she realized how close they’d come to never meeting their first grandchild — hopefully a boy.

  ---

  Poutine had immediately called Vicar from Jacquie’s landline, which was upended on the floor. He described the scene: there had been a struggle, and Jacquie was gone. Her purse and keys were still in the house.

  Vicar revved the Peugeot up to max, making it sound like an angry coffee grinder, and called 911 on the fly. He hoped Con-Con was on duty. He glanced at Farley in the passenger seat, peering straight ahead, hypnotized with anger.

  “Move over, move, move!” Vicar shouted at the farm truck in front of them, puttering along in the early dusk. He blew his unimpressive European horn and passed on a double solid line, then tore up the curving hill in the fading light like a lunatic.

  Two minutes ago, Vicar had hoped he might just be awfulizing. Now he knew for certain that there was terrible trouble afoot. He just hoped they could find Jacquie.

  Thirty-One / The Bunker

  Dispatch found Con-Con at home, making a nice birthday dinner for Nancy.

  “I just got the strangest series of calls,” the dispatcher said. “I think you need to know about this one, Con-Con. It’s the Vicar and that strange stalker. They think she’s kidnapped his lady friend.”

  “What?” Con-Con yelped, fumbling a wooden spoon. Nancy looked over with concern.

  “Tony Vicar called it in and he asked if you were on duty.”

  “Good lord.”

  “They were up at the young lady’s house. It’s up on Royal Mountain, near the old mill. Cutter Road.”

  “I know it. On my way.”

  Con-Con turned to Nancy. “Emergency. Gotta go. Love you!”

  She slipped into her Blundstones and flew out the door.

  ---

  Vicar arrived at Jacquie’s house to find Ross Poutine standing in front of it.

  “No one inside.” Poutine was in a state.

  Vicar went in and surveyed the situation while Farley hovered outdoors, plainly upset.

  Jacquie had certainly put up a fight. The kitchen was a battleground of overturned furniture and smashed dishes. He looked at the remnants of an antique commemorative plate for the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. It was split right down the middle. Vicar shuddered at the metaphor.

  ---

  Con-Con ground to a halt and leaped out of her car, leaving her keys in the ignition and the door ajar. Vicar, Poutine, and Farley met her in front of the house.

  “What’s happened?”

  “It looks as if someone took her forcibly. And I think we know who.”

  Con-Con entered the house and looked around the kitchen carefully. She was concerned, but very focused. “But to what end?” she asked finally.

  Vicar shook his head. “I honestly don’t know what Serena wants. I think she’s fixated on me, or at least on all the stupid hoo-ha in the papers, maybe. I think she’s totally out of her tree.”

  Who says “hoo-ha” anymore? Con-Con thought. And yet she found all the so-called hoo-ha awfully intriguing. The kidnapping, however, personally offended her. Jacquie was her friend, and Vicar had been her old babysitter way back. “Well, stalking is one thing, but kidnapping is entirely another level.” Darkly, she hoped it was only a kidnapping.

  Two police cruisers arrived, and she took the lead, explaining everything that the four of them knew. The Mounties were already well briefed on Serena and her hard-to-believe gang, having had a long laugh over the break-in and the home-destroying cat fight. Serena had been the talk of the detachment for some time.

  The Mounties split up and began canvassing neighbours, asking if they had seen or heard a thing.

  The old retiree on the corner said he hadn’t heard anything.

  “Nothing at all, sir? No strange people, no unfamiliar cars …”

  “Uhh, now that you mention it, I did see a blue Volkswagen van fly out of here like a bat out of hell a while ago.”

  Bingo.

  The big corporal radioed in a report about the blue VW van and was answered moments later by dispatch.

  “I just got a telephone report from someone on the highway saying a blue microbus nearly killed them when it cut them off turning up Harvey Road.”

  Con-Con and the two cops looked at one another.

  “Harvey Road … the Diefenbunker?”

  “Got to be. Let’s go!”

  ---

  By the time the hostage negotiation team rolled up in their convoy of vehicles, Vicar was barely concealing his desperation. It had been well over an hour since they’d found Serena and her crew, holed up and screaming bloody murder. The two first responding Mounties had cordoned off the area and made contact. But since then, absolutely nothing had happened. They’d simply listened to Serena’s alarming and disconnected fantasy and kept her talking. They hosed down her fire with reasonable responses, if possible. It wasn’t easy, because she was all over the map. And the more random her comments, the more tense Vicar became. What he wanted was for them to go in, guns blazing.

  Con-Con was on point. She had a reassuring manner, but when the hostage negotiation team arrived, she reluctantly handed off her microphone to them. She sensed that a change might really throw Serena, but they were the experts.

  It turned out she was right. In response to the new voice, Serena began shrieking, which scared the shit out of Vicar.

  ---

  Farley melted off into the dark, skirting around all the police vehicles and far past the loose cordon of observers.

  Down on all fours, he crawled through salal and other underbrush a long way, until he found an opening that gave him a view of the interior of the tipple. He caught a glimpse now and then of Serena and her minions lit by flickering candlelight. Some of them were posted at little peepholes, striding around nervously and keeping their eyes peeled for encroaching cops.

  Farley’s view was limited, but he could clearly see the guy posted closest to him, at the opening. Not too tall or strong looking, the minion wandered around in circles, warily checking out the interior of the joint as much as he was looking outward. The police were all gathered to the front and unlikely to approach from this back-corner direction, which was protected by a cliff wall and heavy forest.

  Farley waited and watched for about twenty minutes. He could hear Serena yelling through the slats and bricks to the negotiator, who used a scratchy bullho
rn. Just as Farley was losing his small reserve of patience, someone came over and muttered to the lookout. Then, unexpectedly, the lookout minion put his leg through the uneven opening and gently probed for solid footing. He crept out, presumably to get a better view of the heat from the far side.

  Farley tensed and silently unzipped his rucksack a few inches. The minion, in a crouch, crept from tree to tree. The tall second-growth firs were large enough to shield him from direct view in the cloaking dusk. He got so close that Farley stopped breathing and stood perfectly still. The minion was now only eight or ten feet away, crouched low ahead of Farley and looking in the other direction, toward the RCMP vehicles.

  Farley hesitated. He was frightened, but angry. Then he thought about Jacquie, probably tied up in there and possibly in terrible danger. This was the moment when he could put right all his screw-ups.

  He clenched his teeth, took two deep breaths, and lunged toward the unlucky lookout. Not too hard, he warned himself. That bong had cost him a hundred bucks. The wide base of the massive glass carafe made contact with the minion’s cheek and dropped him to the ground with a muted thump and the crackle of crispy, waxen arbutus leaves.

  ---

  Jeet had realized by now that Serena hadn’t thought through her plan at all. The only weapon they had — besides the paring knife that had come blister-packed with the cheese they’d bought at the grocery store — was their wits. And when he looked around, it hit him that wits were in very short supply. He couldn’t locate Marco and Dooley; they’d probably come to the same conclusion and snuck off, or maybe surrendered.

  Jeet was beginning to see that there could be no triumphant endgame to this scenario. Serena would either give up and make this whole thing into yet another foolhardy adventure to add to her psychotic CV, leaving the rest of them holding the bag, or she would have to go through with killing Jacquie, her competition. Jeet failed to understand how Serena expected to be able to ride off into the sunset with the Vicar after taking that kind of dire action. And what was the all-powerful attraction, anyway? Vicar’s band sucked, and he was old. What did the guy have that Jeet didn’t? It seemed that Serena was just a fame whore after all. How pathetic of her, and how stupid of him. Jeet gritted his teeth and realized that he had been nothing but a dupe, a dupe who was surely about to go to jail for a long time.

  He peeked out a knothole and saw a TV production truck and cameras and a gathering crowd, many of them wearing underwear over their pants. He looked down at the silly pair of skivvies he was wearing himself.

  ---

  Frankie Hall could feel it now. She was slipping — her mind was letting go. Her will was leaving her. Her life force was quietly attenuating. Everything she’d wanted to do in these last days was now complete: signed, sealed, delivered. It had been a good run. A century was a long time for anyone.

  A nurse drifted in to check on Frankie. She’d started refusing water yesterday, and her numbers continued to slip downward. She half opened her eyes.

  “It won’t be long now, dear,” she murmured.

  The nurse held her hand for a minute and then went quickly to the nursing station to find the contact number.

  Thirty-Two / Downfall

  Someone was coming to check on the lookout’s progress. Farley saw the minion silhouetted against the candlelight, approaching cautiously, so he hid just to the side of the rough opening. The uneven bricks and wood provided some cover.

  “Marco? Marco!” came a hoarse whisper.

  Farley took a moment to decide what to do and then raised the huge bong over his head like an executioner’s axe. From behind his cover, he grunted, and the minion cantilevered outward to locate the source of the sound in the deepening night. As soon as Farley saw the white of his skin against the forest’s darkness, he brought the bong down in a vicious swoop, right onto the man’s nose. Another one bit the dust. The minion fell limply over the lip of the wall, emanating a low moan, but not much more.

  Farley vaulted over his body, bong in hand, and gingerly pressed his back up against the disintegrating wall that shielded him from view of the main chamber, where the shrinking gang was gathered.

  ---

  Vicar was on tenterhooks back at the police cordon, feeding the hostage rescue team all the information he had. He was terrified that at any moment, Serena might snap and hurt Jacquie. His heart was pounding, but he stood very still, as if trying to convince a frightened dog not to attack, even though he was a hundred feet away from Serena, hidden behind a police van and cloaked by dusk. He looked around for Farley but couldn’t find him. Jaysus, he’s probably off in the bush smoking a bomber.

  His phone rang. It was the hospital.

  ---

  Poutine stood on the sidelines, leaning on his Chevelle, watching everything go down, and felt completely useless. There were a half-dozen cops — one guy with a shotgun, one with a sniper’s rifle — blinding floodlights, and yellow perimeter tape. He wasn’t sure what good the tape was going to do, but there it was. He followed its winding track around the Diefenbunker and spotted someone rustling around in the bush far beyond the rear of the structure. Everyone else’s attention was directed on the other side. Poutine tensed … until he saw checkered Dacron slacks and instantly realized it was Farley. What kind of goofy stunt was he up to now?

  Poutine surveyed the lay of the land and began making a wide, sly circle around the perimeter of the site. I gotta git that bolivious twit outta there before he gets hisself shot.

  ---

  Vicar clicked the phone off and bent over the hood of a police cruiser, resting his elbows and forearms on its warm surface. Noticing his body language, Con-Con approached, still in her civilian clothes.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “That was the hospital. Frankie Hall isn’t doing very well. They want me to come in,” Vicar said hollowly.

  “Lord, things really pile on some days, don’t they?”

  “Mmm …” He closed his eyes and tried to control his surging anxiety.

  One crisis at a time, he thought. Let’s just get Jacquie back safe and sound, and then I’ll get up there as soon as I can.

  He looked around for Farley again. Still unable to locate him, he felt a twinge of anger that Farley could vanish at this crucial moment when he could have been providing support, however ham-handed. But then, Vicar dismissed his sour grapes, knowing full well there were far more important issues at hand.

  He planted his feet in a little pool of semi-darkness, a private cove in a busy area, and began to mentally project outwards. He imagined he was connecting with Jacquie, with Frankie. Then he revolved around, within his mind’s eye, to Serena. Use your brain, Serena. Don’t lash out. Just think it through and bring Jacquie to me. Just go easy and slowly walk out here. Give up peacefully. He repeated this message several times.

  Then he heard a voice. Imaginary, of course. A stress reaction. But it sounded like Frankie’s cheerful croak. “All will come out right, my boy. All will come out right.”

  Vicar squinted and shook his head. Man, the pressure is starting to make me a bit loopy.

  ---

  With the caution of a mouse, Farley peeked around the corner and saw Jacquie tied to a chair, her mouth covered in silver gaff tape. Goddamn! He almost yelped but stopped himself. He counted three people besides Jacquie. Two remaining dudes circled Jacquie ominously and hovered around Serena, who was turned out in a catsuit and a beaten-up pair of tighty-whities. Her hair was a different style and colour from what he remembered. That was one freaky chick.

  Thirty-Three / Life Swap

  Vicar was steaming. “Look, she says she’ll swap Jacquie for me. It’s me that she wants. You heard her. She said it fifty times. She wants me to be her husband or lover or some damn thing.” He wanted to move this dreadful situation along more quickly. “If she wants me, that means she won’t hurt me, right?”

  But the RCMP hostage rescue team was firmly against a swap, hoping instead to wear the gang
down from lack of sleep, food, and water. Con-Con did what she could to make Vicar understand the tactics, the methodology.

  “The hell with all this fiddling around!” he said. “I am going in, with or without you.”

  “No, you aren’t, Mr. Vicar.”

  “Well … then you’d better shoot me right now, ’cause here I go!”

  Vicar charged through the undergrowth only an arm’s length ahead of one pursuing police officer, yelling, “I’m coming, Serena! Let her go and you can have me.”

  Convinced that there were firearms inside the hideout, the police fell back to safe cover, swearing furiously. Con-Con didn’t even try to run after him. She knew the terrible risk, but she knew love, too. Blind courage can be damned romantic, she thought.

  ---

  Inside the Diefenbunker, Serena’s eyes flashed. She had won. She had won.

  “This is far as I come until I know Jacquie is safe,” Vicar called loudly from the entrance.

  Jacquie felt the cheese knife at her neck — its pressure increased, her skin tightened. Her carotid was one tiny slice from being cut, and her epidermis was beginning to bleed slightly. Fear surged inside her.

  Serena clearly wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. Hurt Jacquie, have Vicar for her own, and make an improvised getaway.

  “Serena?” Vicar’s voice was clear and confident. “I am not coming in there until you give me something. Let Jacquie go.”

  Time seemed to freeze, motionless. But finally, faced with this choice, Serena folded. “Fuck!” she exploded.

  She started to cut the gaff tape with the cheese knife. It took at least five agonizing minutes to get most of it off. There was a further delay caused by her insistence on switching to yet another wig, in order to make the best impression on her Vicar.