by Shilo Jones
Why are the famous people I can name all rich? And why are the famous people I can name who aren’t rich nearly all killers? Murder is the poor man’s monologue. Why must we offer blood for voice?
When will I understand how the atmosphere works?
Flick my smoke in the water, stuff my hands in my hoodie. The Pacific doesn’t offer answers. It means shit to me. So I keep walking.
Pause at the overpass where Georgia Street enters Stanley Park, lean against a gnarled cedar, smell it, try to think of something uplifting about nature, its healing power, the grandness of the Canadian landscape, the redemptive sublime, something normal and well rehearsed. Vancouverites zip by on rollerblades, skateboards. People enjoying a break from the rain, smiling. I tear off a strip of cedar bark, think it’d be cool to know how to weave it into a basket. Put the bark between my teeth and taste it, fibrous, chewy, slightly sour, maybe I should’ve been a homesteader? Land up in New Denver, Sechelt, Comox, a vegetable garden, chicken wire, maybe some sheep if they make sense. I think about shearing wool. I think about falling in love with a sweaty, unshaven Québécoise princess with matted dreadlocks and an STD to tiptoe around, the two of us embarking on a conscious life journey, our children barefoot in the dirt, feral, unvaccinated. Building a cabin, piecing it together over a decade as the money comes in, living with no running water, pink insulation bulging against a plastic vapour barrier, a pot-bellied woodstove glowing toasty hot with burning hardwood, warning the kids about getting burned, life’s difficult lessons.
I think about these things the way a city dweller thinks of them, the way a Westerner travelling in Nepal walks by a stone hut, sees children staring vacantly at a field and suddenly life seems impossibly beatific. The atmosphere is so thin, eventually it will slip away. Coal Harbour condominiums surround me, steel and white concrete, sculptural, delicate fins rising from the earth’s spine. I think about the thousands of empty condos in this city, the few I filled with vagrants, the comic hopelessness of that gesture. I try and summon hatred for the condominiums but they are too beautiful, resource-efficient, high-density, designed for a future evolutionary leap. We have not caught up to them. Capital is post-gender, post-race, post-culture. It is the most liberating force ever conceived. I have fired a C14. I will fire it again. We used to laugh at my mother because she was afraid of squirrels. I don’t understand what the internet is, how it works and came to be. Living in a new condominium seems a terrible affront, a sacrilege. Without the atmosphere all life will be torn into space. We’ll be buried in the heavens. Our bodies will never rot. We’ll never be alone. Our condominiums should be hermetically sealed until we are absolved of skin. We, who remain plagued by dreams of dirt.
* * *
Not even locked. Open the door and there she is, a crazy bitch sitting at her kitchen table in a dumpy South Van apartment, cool as a cucumber, like she’s waiting for me. Close the door quiet. She doesn’t move. Back turned so I can’t see her face. Slide the security chain across the door. Still doesn’t move. SAP’S tucked in my belt and the KA-BAR’S hidden in a sheath so I’m all good. Small bit of night work.
Apartment’s a tiny cage. Nowhere to go.
But I can’t see the target’s hands. Which is fuck.
“You didn’t run?” Watching her while I scan the room. Faded fruit-basket wallpaper. A carpet rust-stained from someone else’s furniture. Dead houseplants in cracked pots. A bed in the living room with sheets tacked around it. Can barely see the floor for all the mess; clothes and blankets and papers scattered everywhere and I get a not-cool feeling of familiarity, of sharing something with—“I need to see your hands.”
Jasminder Bansal folds her hands beside what I’m guessing is Peele’s stolen laptop. Not shaking, pleading, running. Not afraid? Batshit insane? Not good—
“My mother’s in the bedroom. Asleep. She doesn’t sleep enough. Please leave her be.”
She should sound more afraid. Trap. Move to the bedroom door, listen. Crack the door open, see the shape of an old woman covered in blankets on a foam mattress on the floor, stacked boxes piled around her like the family’s in the middle of moving, a disassembled bed leaning against the wall, framed photos piled in a corner, the old lady so still she could be dead and truth is the place is starting to fuck me up a tad, like: sadness? Like: loneliness? Which is some bullshit I’m not interested in dealing with in the middle of a straightforward job. And Jasminder’s tone, how she’s talking to me, calm, unafraid, that’s lousy too, maybe a superiority thing? Fine. Works for me.
Way better than nattering too much.
Walk into the living room. “Nothing to do with your mother. You fucked up. Went to the cops. Peele wants to talk. We’re gonna walk outside, get in my truck. You explain why you acted so stupid. Use words like that. I acted stupid. Panicked. Peele’s a dickbag but he can’t risk exposure. Gets his laptop, nothing’s going to—”
“He’s a better liar than you. He’s going to kill me.”
And, that’s a fucking fact. Clint gave me the address. Sent his dog on the hunt. No way I thought she’d actually be here. Giving up, I guess. Seen it in Afghanistan. Terrorizing show of force. OPFOR wets pants, throws down weapons. Smart move. Best possible outcome, least loss of life—
I’m behind her. Walking slow, the SAP in my right hand. Clint said make sure no one sees you with her. Only one reason to say that. A couple steps away now. The city’s outside. People doing their thing. My head feels like a screwdriver’s stabbed into my ear. I do this work and then I wait, like Caltrop said, for Bo Xi. The man they call Tectonic. Me and that sick motherfucker settling into the swamp. Getting comfy in the muck and madness. Jasminder doesn’t rate. Sad but true.
Raising the SAP—
Eyes focused on the back of her head. Softness. Straight black hair. Pretty shoulders and neck, not too skinny. Clint and Peele, they’re gonna do lousy things. The soft spot where spine sneaks under skull. Important to hit with a precise amount of force. Learned anything in life it’s that. Still breathing regular. Still in control, but the pain behind my eyes, battery acid taste, hold me brother, only get one shot, piled against the door burning we feel them in our wicking outerwear, piled against the door burning we feel them in our ski holiday hot tubs—
“I was going to call Sim,” Jasminder says. “He could be here right now, waiting. But I couldn’t. I guess I don’t want it badly enough.”
I glance over her head. She’s watching me in the reflection in the window. Watching me creep on her. Not freaking out. So…fuck sakes. Her face is calm. She’s been crying. Smeared mascara. But now her face is calm. Resolved.
“You’re Clint’s younger brother,” Jasminder says, meeting my eyes in the reflection. “Mark Ward.”
Feel stuck to the floor. Events gather momentum. Take on a will of their own. But the opposite is also true. Sometimes things rip apart. The natural state of the universe is disorder. Meaning’s a fucking fluke. And the SAP’S not smashing down. Summon my will. Remind myself I’m the bad guy. Make myself make sense.
“I’m Clint Ward’s brother.” Repeating Jasminder’s words without knowing why. But it feels right, like a confession.
“You can’t stop now,” she says, looking at the SAP. “This is what you do.”
Closes her eyes. Death wish. That’s what this is. Suicide by me. Wants me to do it. Get her out of this mess. Maybe I’ll do it for her, save her from what comes next. So easy now. Power. Will. Logic. Structure. Sense. Send a command from my mind to the muscles in my shoulder, downward motion, it’ll all be over soon—
“Not here,” I mumble, weak, blue-black light flashing in my eyes, vision narrowing, not sure why but wanting so bad to sit down, plead, say I GIVE, PLEASE, I GIVE, lay my head on the table—
Jasminder Bansal
“Where?” I feel him behind me. Hear him wheezing, his teeth smacking together, and a dry choking sound when he swallows. “Take me where?”
“Peele has somewhere.”
&n
bsp; “To do what?”
“Trust me, fuck, you don’t want—”
“Don’t be a pussy, Mark. Isn’t that what your brother would say? Man up. I have a right to know.” I open my eyes. Look into the reflection. The apartment fades until only Mark is in focus. A leather club trembles in his hand. He’s sweating, glancing over his shoulder. Terrified. “I saw you yesterday. On Georgia Street.”
Mark blinks. “This isn’t what I am. Weakness doesn’t interest me.”
“You’re wrong about who’s weak. Peele should’ve sent your brother. I see you.”
Mark Ward
What’s she mean, she sees me, she sees me, what’s she see, fucking with me, what am I, what does she see—
“Put the stupid thing down, Mark. No one’s watching.”
A semi-truck roars up Knight Street. Shakes the floor beneath my feet.
“How you sleep with that racket?”
Jasminder says nothing, but I see how tired she is, worn out and worked over and I guess she’s been through it, not some uppity bitch like Clint said, just a girl who’s been through it—no, is going through it, right now, with me. And the thing is I like her, not as in I want to dick her but you know…maybe as a living person? A human being? A person maybe not too much like me but maybe not too much different?
And she’s right. The SAP looks stupid. Doing nothing except being limp, useless, silly, hanging in my hand. And then it’s not.
It’s tucked in my belt.
Jasminder Bansal
He brushes his sweat-slick hair out of his eyes and tries to laugh, nervous and awkward, like he’s not sure where he is or what he’s doing, but the laughter becomes an awful grinding cough and he scratches his forearm, grimaces, closes his eyes and presses his index finger to his temple and the muscles in his torso and neck tense and bulge and it looks like he’s trying to push his finger through his skull, like he’s trying to physically push an idea or image or memory out of his head. A few seconds tick by and he starts trembling from the exertion of stabbing his finger into his temple and then he spits, stuffs his hands in his hoodie, looks at me like he has no idea who I am. I’m about to call Sim when Mark’s phone rings and when he answers it everything about him changes and he sounds like a father or brother fighting to be calm and reassuring when he says slow down slow down tell me where he has you—
Mark Ward
Rich men die easy. Tile nice and warm on the soles of my feet. Travertine, slate, some shit. Dude sprung for the radiant heating upgrade. Bathroom like a fancy spa where you pay ’em to rub dirt in your face, say relax, om. All-around sweet crib. Coal Harbour fuckpad only a couple blocks from Clint’s. Bathroom feels like inside a rocket ship, teeth humming, liftoff. I drop the toilet lid, cause of death, and the crash makes me want a cigarette.
Left side of my face numb as hell. Leaning against the vanity, swallowing, trying to clear the nasty taste in my mouth, trying to stay standing. A dusty taste, like Kandahar road grit. In my eyes. Still feel it even now. Gets in everything. Clogs up kit. Wears out machinery. Grinds everything down.
Looking at the creep in the bathtub, scenting him, this big beautiful bathroom, all light and polish, not thinking about Ryan out there, or Jasminder, or my brother, ossuary, a big secret, something like that, waiting for a hard-earned insight to carry me through.
Legs hanging out of the claw-foot tub. Half in half out. Looks ridonculous. Who is this guy? Naked legs splayed funny. Chubby toes smeared red. And that weird black and red face paint he has on, those weird four-inch curving black-painted fingernails filed sharp. Wearing Mardi Gras beads, a plastic lei, and nothing else but those sharpened fingernails. What is this guy? Might still matter. Maybe not to me, but to Ryan and Jasminder.
The handcuff key is on the vanity.
That’s what I need. Why I’m here.
Not only for that sick fuck.
Move so I can see into the bedroom. Ryan’s slumped against the headboard of a posh circular bed, shivering, naked. Faint tank-top tan lines from last summer around his shoulders and neck. Left arm cranked above his head. Wrist chained to a chrome bar. A bundle of nasty-looking bites along his ribs, on the soft skin beneath his arm, across his pecs and beating heart. Pale blue veins. Soaked silk sheets knotted around his waist and for a while I stand quietly in the threshold, blinking, smelling blood and worse, trying to put it together, not so eager to say anything, break the silence—
“He wasn’t going to eat me,” Ryan says, like he’s angry at me but I dunno.
Run a hand over my bastard leg, feel the rippled partially healed-over flesh, think about digging out an Oxy, realize I need to stay on point, Ryan stammering, saying that awful shit over and over—he wasn’t going to eat me—despite all available evidence, the little shit, chanting it, snot-streaked, and me trying to block out the sound of him, not hear it, last thing I need, but he’s getting louder, hitting his stride, rocking on the bed, tugging against the handcuffs, he wasn’t going to eat me, in Kandahar there are starving dogs that prey on street kids, in Vancouver there are well-fed men who do the same, pretty travertine tile, rocket ship, a dead man dripping down a bathroom drain—
“My brother,” I say, loud into Ryan’s screaming.
“Clint didn’t mean it.” Ryan pulls the sheet over his chest, wraps it under his chin. “He didn’t know…”
Which is bullshit, and we all know it. Clint exactly knew. Ryan’s sticking up for my brother even after…I think about saying it, decide not to. What good arguing? Check my watch. Eleven minutes inside the condominium. Way too long.
Jasminder’s standing beside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Maybe she’s looking at Vancouver? The sparkling nightscape. Dreams, poetry, nature, all that. Maybe her eyes are closed. I can’t tell. She didn’t try and stop me. I wonder what that means, what’s changed for her, don’t know her well enough to say. She followed me up here even though I told her to stay put in the Ford and she saw Ryan and she didn’t try and stop me so that means—
“You know that sick fuck through Vincent Peele,” I say to Jasminder, and it isn’t a question. “You recognized him. A business partner.”
Says nothing for a long while, then, “I’m wasting my life looking through windows.” Presses her fingertips to the glass and the gesture reminds me she’s pretty, might have a good heart, maybe she gets to live, maybe Ryan does too, and that’s best case—
I’m still stuck between rooms. Living and dead and I’m in between. Waffling. Wobbling. Thirteen minutes in now, which sucks. First-responder territory. Cops and so on. Someone heard the screams and called it in, cavalry’s coming real quick for the guy in the penthouse. I look at Jasminder’s back, her shoulders and neck, smooth and soft, and the thought crosses my mind. To hurl them both off the balcony? Jasminder first, because she’d fight, then Ryan because he wouldn’t. Them dead would sort a lot out. Get me right with my brother and Vincent Peele. Maybe get me back to my family if I went that route. But instead I hurry across the room, uncuff the kid, ask him what I should’ve done instead.
Ryan shudders. “You let him. Like me. Look at this place. He’s got money…so you let him…”
“I guess so. Look at this place.”
Truth is my mind’s already on other things. Escape. Jasminder. My brother. The next target. But I’m tired. Pain shoots up my leg. Another pain, deeper and wider, spreads through my neck and forehead while ugly not-there blood-cell objects float around the room.
Ryan, more together now, wraps the high-thread-count sheets around his body so only his face is visible, says it wasn’t only Clint who set it up.
“Who else?” Jasminder asks, beating me to it.
“Mark? Who the fuck is she?”
“My brother and who else knew that sicko in the bathroom?” I ask. “It’s all right to tell.”
I wait for Ryan to say it, but I have a pretty good idea.
“Like you said to her. Vincent. Vincent knew…the guy in the bathroom.”
Ryan g
ives me a look like we’re all dead, and it’s all my fault, and he might be right on both counts.
“Vincent Peele,” Jasminder says, like it’s coming together for her. “Clint Ward. That makes sense. Those two.”
“Who’s she?” Ryan asks me, all wide-eyed and panicked. “Mark? Why’s she here?”
“You’re going to kill them, Mark,” Jasminder says, and I feel her looking at me and the blood-cell spheres floating through the room turn black, get pulled toward Jasminder, and for some reason what she says makes me taste burning motor oil and blackened blood and I dig in my hoodie pocket for a gummy or sour candy to get rid of the taste but I’m all out.
“Mark?” Ryan asks again, finally looking straight at me. “You hear that? What she said? About Clint? Your brother. She can’t talk like that, dude, what she’s saying—”
“Get him up,” Jasminder says, and now they’re both staring at me like they want something, like I have answers.
“I like Clint’s truck,” Ryan mumbles. “Can see over traffic.”
Sim Grewal’s the ace in the hole. So it might work? Maybe all three of us live? Or at least the two of them? If Jasminder will help—
“This could be good for you,” I tell Jasminder. “Vincent Peele outta the picture. Bright future. You can have everything, you play it right. You’re inside, set up for the North Van property—”
“I’m inside,” she says, thinking on something, maybe scheming, maybe realizing she’s more like her dead gangster brother than she thought—
“Oh yeah,” I say, watching blood stream across the bathroom tile, soak into a cream-coloured rug. “We’re all the way up this motherfucker.”
Ryan starts up an awful keening wail, reminds me of kids screaming behind a factory door so I tell him to stop, shut the fuck up, but the keening gets worse, high-pitched, irritating as hell, so I grab his chin, pinch the soft spot beneath his jaw until he goes quiet. “I have an out for you, Ryan. Someone who can keep you safe.”