Memory Lane

by Laurence Gough

  “Yeah, I know who that is.”

  “You do?” said Willows, startled.

  “The dead cop, right? His picture was in the paper. Front page, the Province.”

  Parker said, “That’s it? You saw his picture in the paper?”

  “Well, I never met the fella, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Ahab was indignant. His blue eyes blazed. He lifted up his wooden leg and thumped the floor vigorously enough to make the bottles of beer dance a jig.

  Willows told himself he wasn’t thirsty, but merely suggestible. He slid a copy of Ray Waddington’s artwork onto the counter. “How about him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Take your time,” said Willows. “We’re in no hurry.”

  “Yes, I can see that for myself, and I only wish I were in the same boat.” Ahab went back to shifting bottles from the box to the cooler.

  Parker propped her card against the bar’s portside light. The light stained the card green, turned the raised gold lettering shiny black. She said, “If you should think of anything…”

  “I’ll drop everything, including a dime.”

  Willows eased off the stool. He deepened his voice to a harsh rasp and said, “Avast, me hearty!”

  “Same to you,” said Ahab. He flipped the cardboard box belly-up, slashed at it with his knife until it collapsed of its own weight upon the bar.

  *

  An hour later, they had crossed two more restaurants off their list. Parker had taken a turn behind the wheel. She was pulling into the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant on Broadway, in the heavy shadow of the elevated SkyTrain monorail, when the Motorola crackled, and the dispatcher told them Inspector Bradley wanted them to proceed, with all due haste but circumspectly, to Brillo’s, a restaurant in Yaletown.

  Willows had never before heard a dispatcher use that particular phrase, ‘all due haste but circumspectly’. It sounded weird. Maybe it was a direct quote. Bradley’s speech could get pretty flowery, in season. He verified the address and signed off.

  Brillo’s was relentlessly modern, hard-edged and glittery. The tables were six-inch-thick slabs of clear acrylic on a twisted framework of sandblasted steel. Buried in the acrylic were the corpses of small, fluffy animals — mostly white lab rats, but there was a sprinkling of gerbils and guinea pigs. A family of field mice, Mom and Dad and the kids, close to a dozen of them, caused Parker to break stride.

  She passed another table, another block of ice-clear acrylic; a school of voracious rainbow trout pursued a hatch of pale-green winged insects.

  Was any of it real? It certainly looked real.

  The restaurant was empty. She’d noted the hours of business as she entered; the place was open for lunch from eleven-thirty to two o’clock, and then open again from six p.m. until two o’clock in the morning. She and Willows reached the bar, walked up three steps to a second level. The restaurant was much larger than it had appeared; tucked away around a corner from the bar were another twenty or more tables. Bobby Dundas, Inspector Bradley, Orwell and a balding, bullet-headed man in shirtsleeves were sitting at a table against the far wall, near a double swing door that flew open and expelled a waiter, allowing Parker a brief view of the kitchen.

  Bradley swivelled in his chair, acknowledged Willows with a nod of his head, smiled at Parker. Bobby pulled an empty chair towards the table, patted the seat and gave Parker a wink. Parker got her own chair, gave Orwell a look and then sat down between him and Bradley. A glossy print of Donald E. Mooney’s morgue photo lay on the table, slightly overlapping a copy of Ray Waddington’s suspect sketch. A heavy glass ashtray held a smoking cigar. Bradley’s thin mouth held another. Willows leaned casually against the wall, his hands in his overcoat pockets.

  Bradley said, “What took you so long?”

  “He was driving,” said Parker.

  The bullet-headed man was the restaurant’s owner, Lonnie Papas.

  Bradley said, “Mr. Papas recognized Ray’s sketch, Claire.”

  Parker glanced admiringly at Mr. Papas.

  Bobby said, “We still don’t know who the guy is. He was seen hanging around the restaurant, loitering.”

  Mr. Papas retrieved his cigar from the ashtray, stuck it in his mouth at a jaunty angle. Parker recognized the design on the cigar’s band. It was one of Homer’s.

  The inspector’s index finger poked the sketched suspect in the eye. “Whoever the guy is, he was willing to pay serious money to have Mr. Papas’ new employee, a short-sheet ex-con named Ross Larson, punched out. We don’t know a whole lot about Ross yet. He assaulted a guy in a bar, caught five, finished his bit the day before Mooney was killed.”

  Mr. Papas said, “The busboy, Jerry, he told me everything about the fight.”

  “Mooney have anything to do with putting him away?” said Willows.

  Bradley said, “We’re checking. Not that we know of.” He pointed the hot end of his cigar at Lonnie Papas. “Mr. Papas is a solid citizen, a good-hearted man. He hired Larson sight unseen, on the advice of Larson’s parole officer.”

  “My good friend George Hoffman!” volunteered Mr. Papas. Pleased with himself, he beamed at Parker. Cigar smoke seeped from the double-wide gaps between his teeth. His dark eyes watered.

  “Mr. Papas and Mr. Hoffman have an agreement,” said Bradley. “Mr. Papas is constantly looking for opportunities to repay this great country for allowing him and his family to become full-fledged citizens.”

  “How nice,” said Parker.

  Willows’ smile was faint. Orwell studied his fingernails. Bobby Dundas rearranged his features merely by passing a slow hand across his face.

  Parker said, “Mr. Papas, did Ross Larson give you a home address when he started working for you?”

  “Yes, of course!” Papas rotated his hands energetically. Cigar ash tumbled to his lap and he impatiently brushed it onto the floor. “But I threw it away, all the information, when he quit!”

  “After the fight with Ted and Robert?” said Orwell. “A couple of car jockeys, worked nights.”

  “Yes, of course!” said Mr. Papas.

  “Anybody talk to these guys?” said Willows.

  “Mr. Papas fired them,” said Bobby. “They were part-timers, working for tips.”

  “I give you their phone number, but…” said Mr. Papas. He shrugged theatrically.

  “Disconnected,” said Bradley.

  “We got a witness, though,” said Bobby, “a guy does still work here…”

  “Jerry!” said Mr. Papas.

  “Yeah, Jerry, that’s him. The busboy.” Bobby leaned back in his chair. He gave Parker a crooked smile. “Ever stand around, waiting for a bus? What we’re doing here right now, all of us, we’re waiting for a busboy.”

  Orwell slapped his thigh. He cackled unconvincingly, like a half-bright rooster confused by an eclipse.

  “When’s Jerry due,” said Willows to Bradley.

  Bradley checked his watch. “Twelve minutes, and Mr. Papas tells me that he’s never late.”

  Parker stood up. Bradley gave her an inquiring glance, but said nothing when she offered no explanation. She helped herself to a menu from a stack on the bar, flipped it open. The evening’s specials had been paper-clipped to the main menu. Harried Hare with Various Vicious Veggies. Yummy. Lambasted Lamb Accompanied by Persecuted Peas and Pummelled Potatoes. Delicious. Who could possibly resist the lure of Savagely Slammed Salmon with Ruthlessly Rumpled Rice and Cruelly Crushed Carrots? The appetizers and desserts had been treated similarly. What kind of people ate here? Parker wondered. Young people, obviously. Young people with money, and a taste for the tasteless.

  She wandered aimlessly about the tables, the low chatter of her fellow detectives in the background. The theme had been repeated a number of times, but with different species of fish, some of them wildly exotic. Frozen in the depths of a window table, eleven gerbils and a miniature football faced off against eleven smal
l brown animals Parker believed to be moles…

  The busboy, Jerry, pulled in right on schedule. He was about thirty years old, of average size and weight. He wore heavy black work boots, faded jeans and a clean white sleeveless T-shirt. His thick black hair was about an eighth of an inch long. His coarse black eyebrows had been pruned into segments. He wore three tiny diamond studs in his left ear. His eyes were the colour of rust.

  Bradley pointed at a chair, told him to sit. He asked him for his full name, age, and address. Orwell wrote it all down.

  Bobby Dundas said, “Ever do any time, Jerry?”

  “A long way back, when I was a juvie.”

  “What’d we wrongly accuse you of?”

  “Uh, aggravated assault. Extortion.” Jerry smiled. “I did my time, got myself rehabilitated.”

  “How long you been working here?”

  Jerry twisted an earlobe as he thought about it.

  “Almost one year!” said Mr. Papas.

  Jerry lit a cigarette, offered the pack. No takers. He said, “Yeah, that’s right, about a year. It’s March, right, and I remember I started around the middle of June. So we’re talkin’ eight or nine months, somewhere in there.”

  “George Hoffman get you the job?”

  Jerry hesitated, shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. What d’you guys want, anyway?”

  “To solve a murder,” said Bradley. Murder. How he loved that word.

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Jerry leapt to his feet, but Orwell was quick to push him back into his chair. Orwell stood beside him, his sledge-hammer fist resting lightly on the ex-con’s shoulder. The busboy said, “Swear to God, I never killed nobody!”

  Bradley showed him Mooney’s morgue photo. “Not even him?” Willows said, “Talk, Jerry. Tell us what you know.”

  Jerry said, “I’m riding the bus, on my way to work. That guy right there, the drawing, he gets on, sits beside me even though there’s lots of empty seats. Says he’ll pay five if I lay a pounding on the new dishwasher. I got no idea what he’s talking about. He grabs my arm, tight enough so I know he’s got me. Drops a bundle of twenties in my lap, tells me it’s two down and the balance when I get off shift. Promises he’ll lay a pounding on me, I don’t do what I’m told.”

  Bradley said, “So what did you do?”

  “Told him I didn’t want any part of something like that, but that I know a guy who might be interested.”

  “Who?” said Bradley.

  “Orville.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Works in the kitchen,” said Mr. Papas.

  “He cooks?”

  “No, nothing like that. Collects dirty pots, takes them to the dishwasher. Also, some prep work. No meat, vegetables only. Wherever he’s needed, that’s where he goes.”

  To Jerry, Bradley said, “So, Orville beat up the dishwasher?”

  “No, not Orville. He took the deuce and sold the job to Ted and Robert, the car jockeys, guys out front do the valet work.”

  Bradley said, “You’re telling us, Jerry, that this guy gave the two hundred to Orville, and he paid Ted and Robert to punch out the dishwasher.”

  “Right. What Orville kept in his own pocket, I wouldn’t know. All I can tell you, I never profited a single dime.”

  Bradley rattled Ray Waddington’s sketch, gave it a good shake. “And there is no doubt in your mind that this definitely isn’t the dishwasher, Ross Larson.”

  Jerry lit another cigarette. Half a ton of confused cops. A thousand pounds. More than four hundred and fifty kilograms. It was quite a sight. He said, “Yeah, you got it.” He ejected a ring of smoke. “Finally.”

  Chapter 25

  He knew the city fairly well, but Kelly was driving, and it was his car and he’d paid for the gas. So Ross kept his mouth shut for a long time, until finally Kelly made a wrong right, turned into an alley, cut his lights and reversed the Datsun into a battered dumpster. The big metal container boomed hollowly as the Datsun’s rear bumper made contact. Ross’s head snapped back. He said, “What’s going on?”

  Kelly laughed through his teeth. The sound he made was so abrasive and lacking in humour it would’ve made a deaf man tremble. His chest pushed up against the Datsun’s steering wheel as he reached under the collapsed, threadbare seat. Metal glinted dully.

  Kelly hefted the pistol in his hand. “Know how to handle a gun?”

  “Store it unloaded, under lock and key.”

  This time, Kelly’s laughter had a little less of an edge to it. He pushed a small button that projected high up on the handle of the gun. The magazine slid out, fell into his lap. Gleam of brass.

  Kelly said, “You got ten shots. That’s the law, ten-round magazines. So you can pull the trigger and the gun’ll go bang how many times?…” An elbow thumped Ross in the ribcage.

  “Ten?”

  “Right, ten. So, you got to start shooting, make ’em count.” He handed Ross the gun, butt-first.

  Ross had never held a pistol before. He had no idea what to do with it, other than point it away from him and keep his finger off the trigger. “Is there a safety?”

  “No safety.”

  There had to be something else…

  Ross said, “What am I going to need a gun for?”

  Kelly gave him a look. “To shoot people, what d’you think? Or you might need it to take care of a guard dog. But people, mostly.” Kelly’s grin was extra-sly. “If any shooting needs to be done, the odds are pretty good it’s people that you’ll be shooting at. In the meanwhile, you better stick that weapon under your jacket, where it don’t show.”

  Ross sucked in his stomach and thrust the pistol down the front of his pants, adjusted the gun so, if he accidentally shot himself, it would be in the leg rather than the genitals. Far better to bleed to death than suffer an unscheduled castration. He zipped his jacket.

  Kelly told him to get out of the car, not to lock the door. He flashed his own weapon, an ugly, snub-barrelled revolver. Ross climbed out of the car. His door and Kelly’s slammed shut one right after the other. Ross followed Kelly towards the mouth of the alley.

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a grocery store right around the corner. Next to the store there’s a place sells computers, but it’s closed. Next to the computers there’s a Chinese restaurant. Your choice, Ross. What’s it gonna be — the grocery store or the restaurant?”

  “How about none of the above.”

  Kelly tilted his head, gave him a snaky, sideways look. “How you expect to amount to anything, you got no pride or enthusiasm in your work?”

  At the mouth of the alley, Kelly turned left and walked casually along the sidewalk. Traffic sped by. Ross held his hand to his face, shielding his eyes from the glare of lights, wind-borne grit. They reached the corner and made another left. Stepped wooden shelves in front of the grocery store provided a display area for dozens of large white plastic buckets filled with bunches of purple and red and white tulips, roses in red and white and yellow, hothouse daffodils, long-stemmed mauve flowers Ross couldn’t identify. He noticed there were more kinds of flowers than colours.

  “What the hell you looking at?” said Kelly.

  Ross trotted after him, catching up. Side by side, they walked briskly past the computer store. The store was all lit up, the windows protected by a grid of white-enamelled steel. Not too long ago, one of the many differences between jail and the world was that jails had bars. Now they were everywhere. Driving Shannon’s Saab, he’d noticed shop after shop that had protected itself against break-and-enter or smash-and-grab. Soon the whole city would look like a prison, cells all over the damn place.

  Kelly had his face pressed up against the Chinese restaurant’s window. Ross waited. The place was crowded. Lots of families, kids with chopsticks. At the rear, mottled orange-and-white fish drifted in a brightly illuminated glass tank. After a few moments Kelly backed away, leaving a smeared nose print on the glass.

  “Too many people in there,” he said. “Proba
bly not much cash in the till anyway. Chinese like to use plastic.”

  Ross said, “As opposed to honest white folks like you and me?”

  All business, Kelly said, “Follow me.”

  Ross followed him back down the narrow sidewalk in front of the stores, past Computer Village and into the grocery store. As they entered, Kelly cannily dragged his left foot, knocking loose a wooden wedge that had held the door open. “Oops!” he said, as the door swung shut behind them. The cash register was on the right. An elderly Chinese man stood behind the counter. A born lightweight, he wore plaid pants and a white dress shirt. His eyes were dark, soft and moist. Ross got the impression nothing much would surprise him.

  Kelly bellied up to the counter. He unzipped his jacket almost all the way down. “Gimme a pack of cigarettes.”

  “Sure, what kind you want?”

  Kelly said, “What brand you smoke, Ross?”

  “Player’s Light”

  Kelly gave Ross a long, steady look and then pulled a crumpled ten-dollar bill out of his jeans pocket. He tossed the bill on the counter, picked up the pack of cigarettes and tossed it over his shoulder to Ross. “Enjoy yourself to death, partner.”

  The sale was rung up, and the cash register clanged open.

  Kelly drew his revolver. He held the gun close to his body, told the man to empty the cash register, put the money on the counter. In silence, the man did as he was told. But he was a pretty cagey fella. He had the wit to start with the drawer holding the smallest-denomination bills, and he was taking his own sweet time, wasn’t he?

  Kelly whacked the cash register with the barrel of his gun. “Get crackin’, dimwit!” Grinning, he turned to Ross. “He had any brains, he’d want us out of here quick as possible!” He snatched the wad of cash out of the grocer’s hand, reached past him and yanked the cash drawer out of the register. A couple of twenties lay on the tray. Kelly scooped them up, stuffed the money in his pocket. Then he pointed his gun at the man and fired three measured shots, hitting him high on the chest with the first two, catching him in the shoulder with the third, as he dropped. Ross was stunned. He stood there, barely able to hold himself erect. Kelly leaned over the counter. He poked Ross in the ribs with the revolver’s smoking muzzle. “Your turn.”