by Shilo Jones
I release Ryan’s chin. “You’re an asshole, Mark. And a loser. At least Clint’s not a loser—”
“You’re going with Mark’s guy,” Jasminder tells him, smart, because she knows Ryan will rat us to Clint if we turn him loose.
I ask Jasminder: “Who is he? Mr. Mardi Gras in the bathtub?”
“Scott Charles Booth’s financial advisor.”
“Booth? Owns the North Vancouver property Peele wants? Important upstanding guy. In the bathtub.”
“Yes.”
“Course. So Peele and my brother gave the kid to Mr. Mardi Gras. Sweeten the deal. Grease the wheels.”
“Gave him. Yes.”
“A perk.”
Ryan’s quiet, listening.
“You never know until you’re inside,” Jasminder says, heading for the door. “I never thought he was that smart.” Bitter now, regretful. “Everyone said I was the smart one in the family. But it wasn’t true. Only Amar really saw me.”
Fuck it. Maybe she’s crying. I dunno. I can’t see her face. Maybe she doesn’t have it in her after all.
“Get the video,” Ryan says, barely a whisper, but both Jasminder and me freeze. Maybe the first thing the kid’s said that we really hear.
“What?”
Ryan looks at me like I’m an idiot. “They always video. Wasn’t only…him? Was another guy too. Real old.”
“Might be Booth,” Jasminder says, and there it is, the ambition in her voice, what she really wants, what she lied to herself about not wanting, and good for her, must be nice, knowing where you stand. Jasminder helps me, Vincent Peele’s going to be done and gone real soon. That means Jasminder’s in if she gets Bo Xi the property. Deal’s still on. Slight misstep. Nothing we can’t handle. Kid chained to the bed. Kid all bit up. Slight indiscretion. Advisor bludgeoned with a toilet lid. Slight gaffe, old fella. Let’s stay on point, huge upside—
Jasminder Bansal
The three of us in Mark’s Ford. Soaked work clothes in a tangled pile at my feet. The camera from the penthouse tucked in my handbag. Blood stink in my nose. A bright future ahead of me, opportunity, success? Vincent Peele out, me in?
I ask Mark for a cigarette. He hands me one without looking over. Ryan waits a few seconds, hands me a lighter. Ryan’s sitting in the middle seat, looking straight ahead. Mark’s on the phone with Peele, feeding him bullshit about having me and Ryan and the stolen laptop and offering to trade everything straight across if Peele lets him out free and clear. Peele’s voice carries in the cab, tinny, muffled. I tune him out. Mark’s wearing filthy too-baggy Dickies pants and a faded plaid shirt under a black hoodie that smells of sweat, smoke, and gasoline. He looks like hell: scabbed, twitchy, chain-smoking, popping pills, voice fast and then slow, loud and soft, erratic, unpredictable, and he better keep his side of the deal, see it through for Ryan’s sake.
Mark hangs up. Says he needs me to take Ryan…to this guy named Caltrop. Says otherwise it’s all set with Peele, asks if I’m good.
“Why were you working for Peele?”
Mark pulls the truck into an alley. Parks. Kills the headlights. “Me? Fuck. Sorta happened. You?”
Ryan’s listening when I say, “Money. I wish it was something more.”
“More?”
“You know? Bigger? More meaningful?”
Mark eases out of the truck, winces. “Maybe money’s all there is.”
“I guess we’ll see if you mean that.”
Mark flips his hood over his head. Ryan doesn’t look at him.
After Mark’s gone I get in the driver’s seat. Phone Sim. He doesn’t sound happy to hear from me.
Mark Ward
Phone Daree while I walk. Takes her a while to answer. Says hi are you feeling better and I say yeah I’m feeling not bad, you? We go on like that for a few minutes. I light a smoke. Daree puts Sarah on. My baby daughter burbles and burps and giggles and I seize up, inhale cigarette smoke the wrong way and end up choking, saying I didn’t mean it over and over and I’m sorry I’m not better for you guys and Daree’s saying no no and this is it, this is why I shouldn’t have called, it always happens like this, fucking drama, and then Daree she kind of I dunno bucks up, takes a steadying breath and sounds more calm, like reassuring me and she says it’ll be okay it’ll be okay we’ll make it work and I’m like make it fucking work? because she has no clue about my brother and Vincent Peele and Jasminder and Ryan or any of this, only a week since I landed in this shithole, all happened so fast, speed, shock, terror, and I know Daree’s hurting and yet here she is trying to raise me up and then it hits me: what I need is there with her and Sarah and it’s not gonna happen.
Daree says hey check your phone, I sent you something. I open the text and at first I’m like what the fuck because my phone’s wet and I can’t make sense of the image. Shelter under an awning, wipe my phone, see a picture of a concrete wall painted cheery-teal and I realize I’m looking at a wall inside Daree’s apartment in Bangkok, thousands of kilometres away, and she’s strung white Christmas lights across the wall, turned them on so they’re glowing pretty and bright, strung the lights up so they spell a name, Mark Patrick Ward, my name all lit up and glowing, she did this, she did this for me, and she says, “Do you like it it’s your name in lights we’re here,” and I’m like fucking holy fuck, I could go to them, drive to the airport, this doesn’t have to be it, look at that life with them it’s not happiness now but it could be if we work at it, the three of us, family, and my name’s lit up and glowing like I’m something special even though I’m not and hold me brother and Daree’s saying it’s okay it’s okay and it’s not okay, she doesn’t know and no one does because I never let anyone in.
* * *
An hour gives me time to take care of some loose ends. I get ripping high on medical weed grown by bikers and sold by liars, go to an internet cafe on Robson. Filled with teenagers playing video games. Everyone plugged in. Is it true dudes starve themselves to death playing video games? Cuz, fuck sakes? I get online, transfer my money to an account Daree has access to. Not as much as I’d hoped. Thought I’d have more time to work, save, plan for a lifelike future. But there’s six grand, and if she’s smart and moves out of Bangkok she’ll be able to buy her own place or maybe a street cart selling pad thai to tourons, who knows. Maybe she won’t take the money. She’s odd like that. Doesn’t like shit handed to her. Maybe it’ll sit in cyberspace, suspended, undying.
Next thing I do is pop a couple Oxys, smoke another blunt, wander to 7-Eleven. Loving the whooshing pneumatic door and cool AC air hitting my face. That same-everywhere 7-Eleven smell reminds me of being a kid. I think about asking the guy behind the counter how they get that smell so perfectly the same in every store. But he’d probably think I was having a laugh. Get his hackles up. So I skip it, hang out in the magazine aisle, killing time checking out fashion and sports mags, travel, art, music, admiring all the fun things I could’ve been and done if I were someone else. People filter in and out. The door chimes, love that sound. The counter guy rotates blistered corn dogs, sips a neon-green Slurpee. I decide I’ve got a big night ahead of me, should eat something, fuel up. Use a set of tiny plastic tongs to drop penny candy into a plastic bag, grab some 7-Eleven nachos with lukewarm meat sauce and cheesy slop. Last supper, seems about right, not complaining.
I eat my nachos huddled under the 7-Eleven awning, feeling not much, watching the rain and traffic. Think about phoning Dave Ward, the old man, realize I don’t know his number or if he’s healthy enough to speak on the phone. Think about phoning Daree, saying sorry. And that’s as far as it goes.
* * *
Meet Vincent Peele and his posse in the library courtyard, should be an abandoned building, a gravel pit in the Mojave Desert, but here we are. Peele’s wearing hiking boots, bib-style snowboard pants, a tight-fitting black Merino wool base layer. I tell him he looks baller, ask where he got the snowboard pants. No answer. Clint’s pacing beside his boss, pasty and tweaked. Wearing black
kicks, expensive for sure, and a white dress shirt not tucked in. I ask him what happened to the fancy suit. Another no answer, just an exhaled cloud of smoke. Wipe the rain out of my eyes, spit, try to clear the nacho film from my mouth, ask why everyone looks so sour.
Also a dude I’ve never met. Beast of a motherfuck. Must be six four, two-fifty. White guy, shaved head, all flex and scowl. For sure ex-military. I decide I’m feeling frisky, what’s the point if you’re not having fun, but the truth is there’s this panic building in my gut that comes spewing out of my mouth. So I’m speaking in quick bursts when I ask who’s the new guy, Peele? Here for study group? Cuz he don’t seem so bookish.
“Duke,” Peele says, patting the guy’s arm like he’s showing off a prize stallion.
“Dick?”
Clint takes a step toward me.
“Duke.”
“Oh, Duck? Weird name, Peele. Duck? The new guy has a weird name.”
Clint says hey Marky relax, chill out bro.
“West Coast?”
“That’s it,” Peele says. “Chillaxed. Duke’s gonna pat you down. Play along.”
So Duke does. I say holy hell you’re a big bastard, aren’t you? Kill your momma coming out? Or born out your daddy’s poop hole? Like a Boschian demon? Duke says nothing. I’m guessing a lot goes over his head. He’s wearing Kevlar body armour. Flak jacket. Fine. I don’t have Kevlar body armour. I have a soaked hoodie.
Clint leads us to Peele’s blacked-out Lexus suv.
“Sweet ride,” I tell Peele. “Those are sick rims, Peele. Chrome wires? Pick those out yourself? Or a personal shopper do it?”
Duke squeezes in the driver’s seat. Peele walks around front to get in. Clint takes the opportunity to whisper in my ear: “You fucked up brother but it’s not a done deal, hear me? You come through, Twll and that bitch…it’s not a done deal.”
I don’t answer because I’m afraid of losing my shit and blabbing about what I set up, so I decide to distract myself by hassling the big guy. Slide in behind Duke. Lick my pinky finger, stick it in his ear. Duke roars, reaches around, tries to punch me but the angle’s all wrong and he ends up flapping his arm uselessly, which pisses him off even more. I’m laughing, saying I dunno about this Duck guy, Peele. Seems like a loose cannon. Do I hear him quacking? And does anyone want some Hot Lips?
Duke’s breathing hard through his nose, killing me over and over in the rear-view. I don’t know if Clint believes what he told me, but if he does he’s an idiot. Duke’s already been paid half up front. Settled into the right frame of mind. I scent it on him, the night work.
I’m guessing Clint’s on the way out, too, for bringing me in, compromising the whole operation. So that’s the edifying story of the Ward Brothers.
We all do up our seatbelts, seems real funny. I swallow way too many pills as we pull from the curb. Peele twists in his seat, asks where we’re going, it better not be far, he’s missing an evening half-pipe sesh on Mount Seymour.
“Super kick-ass, Vincent. Hey, uh…does it stink like death in here?” Clint gives me a shove. “Or is it my 7-Eleven nacho breath?”
“Speaking of death, what about what you did, Mark?” Peele says. “To Mr. Booth’s advisor Mr. Knowles?”
“Knowles, eh? You mean Mr. Mardi Gras rapist? With the sharpened fingernails and painted face? You might be right. Maybe I’m still smelling him.”
“Tell me something?”
“No,” I say, glaring at Clint, trying not to let Peele’s pitch-man voice inside my head—
Peele folds his arms over the seat. “Why don’t you want what everyone wants? A nice house? A nice car like mine? Life’s much more comfortable when you want what everyone else does. You slip into the world and disappear. Now look at you. A deviant. Not part of productive society, so of course you want to sabotage it.”
“Oh, I’m thinking about turning it around? Buying a condo? Jasminder had some of those positive-thinking mantras taped to her wall. One of them hit home. I leave a small dent in the universe with my work. I mean, what more can you ask for? How’s life? Ah, not bad, I’m leaving a small dent! After tonight I think I’ll buy a Cuisinart blender. Lemon-pepper kale smoothies are super inspiring. I’m basically tired of chewing.”
“Mark, shut it,” Clint says.
“See?” Peele says. “That’s the thankless attitude I don’t understand. Fuck’s wrong with smoothies?”
“I like smoothies,” Duke says. “Chocolate protein powder—”
“Duke, that’s wicked awesome. What about you, Clint?”
“Smoothies? They a’right.”
“See, Mark? You’re a malcontent. The world could be a shining utopia and you’d still be miserable. Chemical imbalance in your brain. The rest is window dressing.” Peele checks his phone. Shows us a picture of a naked chick riding a mountain bike in Whistler. “See her? Living the dream. I feel sorry for you. In this great town. In an amazing time. In this great country. In an amazing—”
“Great country? Canada? Canada is a blood lie of theft and murder.”
“Uh, fuck…whatever, asshole!” Duke sputters.
“Yeah, Mark. Canada! So much better than! It floors me how ungrateful you are. Less than a hundred years ago, only royalty and the super-rich could travel. Now anyone can travel whenever they want. And that’s only the easiest example. Life’s better than ever.”
“Not for most. You’d know that if you went somewhere besides Vegas and Cancun.”
“I’ve been to Maui, too.” Peele laughs.
“It works for you. At the expense of everyone else.”
“C’est la vie. We’re finished kowtowing to wretched human beings like you. I mean, we’re all completely different, and I affirm that diversity, but I’m also free not to have to deal with it. You went to war, I didn’t. You like…cigarettes? And I like cardio fitness! As if the two of us could possibly share any human commonality. As if there’s even such a thing! Universalism, metanarratives, no. Super oppressive. We’re all individual and unique and free! All with our own opinions and values and stories that we can like nod blankly at but never truly feel or understand because you’re inside you and I’m inside me. I need community, get online, find whatever forum feels the most like me in that moment. Mountain bike bros! Melon trellis aficionados! Living life like a mini-nation out to defend and enrich itself. The nation of me! Home team! And way over there, the loser nation of you. Don’t cross into my territory! How exciting is that? Totally freaking exciting! As if I want to believe in something bigger than myself. I’m the biggest thing there is, because I’m me! So I embrace hyper-progressive fragmentation. That’s next-level liberty. Nations implode because they’re top-down and twentieth century, the rich and resourceful form phyle based on lifestyle preference. Super dynamic! And even better, I get to surround myself with people who think exactly like I do. No more Bridgers upsetting me with their obnoxious trucks. It’s like a Facebook feed, but forever. You don’t believe, you leave. Simple as that.”
“Peele? Did you go to private school?”
“Of course. Why?”
I tune the lawyer out, tell Duke to drive to Tinseltown, the underground parking lot beneath the movie theatres. Duke looks at Peele and asks where’s that? Peele gives Duke specific directions in his slowest speaking-to-an-idiot voice. I pick a wad of chewed Hot Lip from my molar, decide I’m feeling all right. The rain’s let up. The condominiums are still standing. What could be better?
Duke manoeuvres us through Eastside junkies and whatnot, turns toward the theatre. It’s gonna happen down there. In the underground parking lot. Not a bad place. Ryan’s safe. I do this, the kid’s as safe as anyone.
Vincent glances at me and there it is, the hatred, the kill lust, man this prick is good at living underground, way better than me. I’m all on the surface, heart on my sleeve, never was good at pretending to be something I’m not, but this Vincent Peele guy, what did he say? The Ward Brothers cage match? Yeah. So when the time comes he’s go
nna order Clint to do it—
“Like a boss,” I whisper.
Duke steers the SUV down a ramp. Stops at a gate, rolls down the window and gets a half-hour parking ticket. I tell him we won’t need a half-hour. Duke keeps it together, manages to ignore me. The gate rattles up. Duke eases us underground, keeps an eye on the metal tube suspended from the ceiling that marks maximum vehicle height. Pretty cool head, this Duke. Professional security detail after his military stint. Personal chauffeur-slash-bodyguard. Good money in protecting rich people. So he’s the wildcard. I watch Duke’s eyes in the rear-view. Quick with concentration. Brow furrowed. His gut’s telling him an underground parking lot is a bad idea, but it’s his first job with Peele and he doesn’t want to seem like a coward.
So he’s keeping quiet. For now.
Peele gnaws on his thumb. Saturday night movies are about to start. People walk by, couples holding hands, teenagers in tight clusters peering at their phones, looking expectant. For what I can’t imagine. Some kind of message, a revelation, I dunno. Maybe what movie to see?
“Where?” Peele asks, fingers tapping the dash.
“Stall one hundred eighty-two.”
“The place’s packed,” Duke growls. “No way a specific parking spot’s gonna be open. Mr. Peele? I am requesting you transfer control of the operation to me.”
“Transfer control!” I yell, making Peele flinch. “Transfer—”
Clint smacks me in the ribs, knocks the wind out. I pick my nose, make to wipe it on him. He swats me away, folds his arms, sulks.
“Control is all yours, Duke. Mark? Shut up! Do what you promised. Where’s the kid?” Peele’s voice rises an octave. “I need the kid. And the bitch! Where’s Jasminder?”