Memory Lane

by Laurence Gough

  Willows said, “They’re hunting for the money. They thought Mooney had it, and now they’re headed for the Crown residence.”

  Parker nodded. The waterfront home on Point Grey Road. The house with the garage made of green-tinted glass where Billy, spurned by Nancy and chased down by Tyler, had come to grief in the backyard pool.

  3682 Point Grey Road.

  Willows killed the Ford’s flashers and siren as they sped across the viaduct towards the city’s glistening downtown core. He had no idea where the brown van had gone, no desire to suffer the pleasure of Bobby’s company. The viaduct was elevated and highly visible. Bobby, realizing he’d lost the Datsun, might decide to circle back in the hope of picking him up. The far end of the viaduct was coming up fast. Willows eased off the gas. GM Place, the new home of the Canucks and Grizzlies, was on his left, the building’s yellow tiles reminding him as always of a gigantic urinal. He activated the flashers and sirens again, bulled his way through a red light and hit the gas. The Ford fishtailed the length of the block. He slammed on the brakes. The car made a shuddering nosedive left hand turn onto Cambie, the Goodyear a cappella quartet screaming at full volume, streaks of rubber smearing the pavement as they shot past Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

  Willows made a right on Pacific. He drove west at high speed over the Burrard Street Bridge, kept to the right as they headed into the home stretch, a straight run down Point Grey Road.

  He remembered the layout of the grounds and somewhat quirky design of that big house as clearly as if he’d been there only yesterday. And now he was only three or four minutes away, rushing backwards in time.

  The light at the T-intersection of Point Grey Road and Arbutus Street was green, a cluster of pedestrians at the curb; Willows slowed, glanced left. There was a grocery store halfway up the block; it was the best place in town to buy fresh flowers.

  He tried to remember the last time he’d given Parker flowers…

  Chapter 27

  Kelly made a right on Burrard, a left on Second. They drove past the steamy windows of an upper-floor health club. Not far off, the green maple leaf of a Canadian Tire sign shone brightly. Kelly came to a full stop at a stop sign, signalled and made a right turn. They drove circumspectly past a red brick secondary school enclosed by a rusty wire-mesh fence. The light at Cornwall was green. Kelly made a left, swung past a Chinese restaurant and then a pizza joint, flashes of neon.

  They were almost there. It was a straight run, just a few minutes’ scenic drive, to the clifftop waterfront house at 3682 Point Grey Road. A silver Jaguar flashed its lights behind them, and squawked pitifully. Kelly was cruising along at the speed limit, and what could be worse? The Jag nosed into a gap in the traffic, shot past at speed and gained at least two car lengths on them, before its progress was blocked by another vehicle.

  “Life in the fast lane,” said Kelly.

  Ross lit a cigarette, his third of the ride. He inhaled, sucked that sweet and wonderfully potent mix of chemicals deep into the twin pits of his lungs, held his breath for a slow count, and then let go.

  They drove past a park that featured lots of mowed lawn but only a few trees: Beyond the stretch of grass Ross caught a glimpse of the city’s biggest outdoor swimming pool. A curving cement wall and walkway separated the pool from the harbour. He saw that the tide was out. Wet sand glistened darkly. They cruised past a few apartment blocks and then a cluster of older houses, a mini park with another view of the harbour. The road curved sharply to the right, past large, modern houses that offered few windows to the street but would be all glass on the side that faced the water. Kelly tapped the brakes, shifted down into second gear. The speed limit, posted on white signs attached high up on metal lampposts, was a staggeringly slow thirty kilometres — or eighteen miles — per hour.

  He said, “Must be nice.”

  “What’s that?” said Ross.

  “Owning a house worth a couple of million bucks, having the kind of clout, you want a special speed limit on your block, all you got to do is pick up your phone with the direct line to City Hall, tell the mayor what you want.”

  Ross said, “Yeah, must be nice.”

  Traffic was piling up behind them. Horns blared. Kelly glanced down at the speedometer. The needle held steady at a shade under thirty k.p.h. He braked at a crosswalk for a woman wearing a yellow rain-slicker plastered with reflective tape. The woman was flanked by a brace of standard-bred poodles that had been dyed black and white, like Dalmatians. She gave Kelly a terse nod as she passed by the Datsun’s front bumper.

  Kelly said, “You’re a very sick person, but you’re welcome.” He waited until she’d reached the far curb, then hit the gas. “School zones, that’s twenty kilometres. But everywhere else in the city, it’s fifty. Fifty and people do sixty, minimum, more likely its closer to seventy. Eighty and faster on the main streets and bridges. But look at this. Thirty kilometres an hour. You didn’t smoke, weren’t caught in the clutches of that filthy habit, you could probably get out and jog alongside, not lose any ground.”

  “I bet I could do it anyway,” said Ross.

  “Yeah, really?” Kelly seemed to think about it. “You’re telling me, if I pulled over, let you out, went back to driving at thirty clicks, that you could keep up with me?”

  “If you started off slow, didn’t accelerate too fast.”

  Kelly dropped a hand from the wheel to his lap. “How’d I know you wouldn’t take off in the wrong direction? Make like a banana, and split.”

  “Why would I do something like that?”

  “Because you’re just slightly dumber than you look.” Kelly reached out and grabbed Ross’s thigh, squeezed hard.

  “Christ!” Ross jerked free, banged his knee against the lightly padded underside of the dashboard.

  “That hurt? Sorry.”

  The road had straightened. There was oncoming traffic but it was a block or more away. The lead car in their parade pulled sharply out and roared past, horn blaring. Another horn passed them, and then another. A blank white face shouted a curse.

  Kelly’s teeth glinted in the light from the dashboard. “Some people sure are brave, they get themselves tucked into a big steel box.” He made a left turn, drove past a half-block-wide strip of grass and parked in black shadow cast by a towering evergreen, killed the engine and lights. He tossed the ignition key in the ashtray, told Ross to grab the plastic Zellers bag containing his fish knife and Maglite and duct-tape and other odds and ends. Ross noted that the guns weren’t in there — the bag wasn’t heavy enough. Kelly told him to get out of the car and not to lock the door.

  Kelly unlocked the Datsun’s trunk, reached inside. He shrugged into a puffy, dark blue nylon jacket that was almost the same colour as his pants. The jacket had a big silver badge appended to the breast, epaulettes with silver stars. His shiny-brimmed hat sported another outsized badge. He put on the hat and slammed the trunk shut, straightened his spine.

  They walked the half-block to Point Grey Road. It was close enough to full dark for a gimme. As they crossed the puddly street, there was a faint buzzing sound. The neon address crackled hesitantly into life, a softly glowing worm of pink, slightly out of focus in the rain.

  The cast-iron gate was unlocked. Kelly didn’t seem surprised.

  He pushed it open and they passed through. He swung the gate shut behind them, took Ross’s arm in a gentle-but-firm grip and led him down a broad pathway of interlocking brick.

  Ross noticed that there was room enough in the garage for two cars, but it held only one — an older-model Camry.

  The house squatted there, oyster-grey plank siding, no windows that he could see. Indirect lighting illuminated several large clay pots containing small trees that stood on either side of the front door, which appeared to be made of a solid sheet of a reddish-gold metal. Bronze. Or maybe copper.

  There was no doorbell or knocker.

  Back there in the library, hunched over the microfiche machine, Ross had peered at harsh
black-and-white newspaper photographs of this same yard. He rocked back and forth a degree or two off vertical as he vividly remembered the swimming pool, Billy’s corpse floating face down in the placid water. Cold water slid down his throat, seeped into his lungs. He felt the weight of it, a black fluttering at the corners of his eyes, his body growing cold…

  He shuddered. The image fragmented and dissolved. He said, “How’re we supposed to get in?”

  Kelly gave him a pixie grin. “Don’t worry about it. Everything’s been taken care of.” He turned the knob and pushed. The door swung slowly open. He reached under his jacket and drew his pistols, tossed the semiauto to Ross, who caught it with both hands.

  The house was lit up like a film set, every light blazing. The entrance hall was huge; six-metre ceiling, pale oak floor, gold wallpaper. Kelly motioned Ross forward. He walked down a thickly carpeted hall to the kitchen.

  The refrigerator hummed softly. A wall clock marked off the seconds. On the granite counter stood most of a bottle of Dewar’s, a white plastic ice-cube tray, an open pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, and a heavy crystal ashtray with a lit cigarette balanced on the rim.

  Ross helped himself to the cigarette. It was stronger than it looked. He coughed, and thumped his chest.

  At the far end of the kitchen there was a wall of glass, sliding glass doors that opened on a low wooden deck, steps down to the backyard. His heels clicked on Mexican tiles as he walked over to the door, slid it open. He stepped outside. The air smelled of salt. The lights of a dozen freighters moored in the harbour glowed a rancid orange. Miles away on the far side of the water, West Vancouver sparkled dully in the mist. Off to his right, the city’s west end was all lit up, boxy towers of light climbing ponderously towards the yellow underbelly of the sky.

  The drowned body was long gone, naturally. But why was he surprised that the pool had been bulldozed, filled in, buried? The patio of interlocking bricks might have been an outsized headstone.

  A gas barbecue huddled beneath a bulky black shroud.

  Beyond the barbecue there was a kind of half-assed garden, spindly dead plants, pots of crumbling red clay, a straggly rosebush and a handful of larger plants Ross couldn’t have identified if his life depended on it. At the far end of the yard, a wall of clear glass or Plexiglas panels reflected the lights from the house. The waist-high panels allowed all but the terminally stupid to enjoy the view with little risk of plummeting fifty feet to the beach.

  Kelly lifted a black-gloved finger, crooked it and summoned Ross back inside. Ross slid the door shut. Guns in hand, they toured the ground floor. Other than the entrance hall and kitchen, there was a den, family room, a guest bedroom with en suite bathroom, two free-standing bathrooms and a cramped-but-functional laundry room.

  Ross detoured back into the kitchen. He snuck a second Lucky and lit it from the stump of the first.

  They made not the slightest sound as they climbed the carpeted stairs to the second level. Kelly told Ross to lead the way. He followed along behind, never quite close enough for a kick in the teeth.

  At the front of the house there was an exercise room, a very large room filled with weights, various complicated machines, a stationary bicycle with only a few miles on the odometer. There was a big Sony television, a Toshiba VCR, plenty of mirrors. Kelly found the remote, turned on the television. ‘Cheers’. The volume was turned high, but Kelly didn’t seem at all concerned about the noise. Ross wondered what the hell was going on. Did Kelly know, somehow, that there wasn’t anybody home?

  Kelly switched on a treadmill, fine-tuned it until it was running at top speed. But still going nowhere, Ross couldn’t help notice.

  Next to the exercise room there was a sauna, and adjoining the sauna a bathroom with three identical pink marble sinks and a big jetted tub made out of something that looked like marble, but wasn’t. Kelly hit the tub’s rim with the barrel of his revolver. It gave off a hollow, unconvincing ring. Some kind of plastic.

  Next to the bathroom was the sewing room. A machine sat on a polished mahogany table. There was an ironing board with a steam iron on it, lots of open shelves containing everything from scraps to entire bolts of cloth.

  The last door on that floor led to a storage room containing a variety of sports equipment. Golf clubs, fishing rods and tackle, hockey pads and sticks, a rack of baseball bats. No firearms or edged weapons, though.

  On the water side the house was stepped, to accommodate the sundeck on each level. The second floor was smaller than the ground floor and the third floor was the smallest of them all. As they climbed the thickly carpeted steps Ross guessed there’d be the master bedroom, a smaller bedroom, one or two bathrooms, and that’d be it.

  The first door led to a bathroom. Kelly used the muzzle of his gun to push aside another. This door led to a cramped bedroom containing two single beds, a matching bureau. A glass vase of dusty, time-wilted paper flowers stood on the bureau. A magazine lay on the nearest bed. Cleavage. Big hair. Ross checked it out. Cosmo.

  The only door remaining was the last untouched door in the house. Kelly said, “Your turn.” He stepped aside, and waved Ross forward with his gun hand.

  Ross put his hand on the knob. He turned and pushed.

  The door swung open on the master bedroom.

  The far wall was all glass, with a view of the harbour. Ross’s eye was drawn to the king-size bed, a monster with an ornate metal frame, silver tubing with chunks of gold hanging off it. The bed was angled to the wall of glass. Shannon lay beneath the sheets, curled up in a defensive posture. A bruise the size of a fist ripened beneath her eye. She looked as if she were having a truly miserable time.

  Kelly brought up his revolver. He sighted in on George Hoffman. “Don’t make any false moves, George.” He glanced at Shannon. “Or is it already too late?”

  Shannon gave him the finger. Ross was the recipient of a bitter look.

  Kelly said, “Learn anything?”

  Shannon said, “Nothing I wanted to know.”

  Hoffman, speaking to Ross, said, “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Never mind him,” said Kelly. Two quick strides took him to Hoffman’s side. He pointed and pulled. A gout of flame spewed from the revolver’s barrel. The blast was so loud it hurt. The concussion made the glass wall shimmer. Shannon screamed, clapped her hands to her ears and curled into a shapely ball.

  Hoffman’s afro had taken a direct hit.

  The air reeked of scorched hair. Hoffman’s lashes fluttered. His fingers twitched at the sheet that covered him.

  The revolver’s cylinder rotated through sixty degrees as Kelly pulled back the hammer. He said, “What’d you do it for?”

  “She seduced me!”

  “No, not that, stupid.”

  Hoffman had backed up against the metal headboard. The tight-curled hairs on his chest looked like peppercorns. He kept glancing nervously towards Ross, as if hoping for a signal, guidance.

  Kelly said, “Have you got any idea what this is all about, George?”

  “No, sir. I certainly don’t.”

  “Don’t lie to me, George.”

  Ross lit a cigarette, one of his own, a Player’s Light. He glanced around, looking for an ashtray. Behind him and to his left, a partly open door led to an en suite bathroom. He started towards the door.

  “Hold it right there!” yelled Kelly.

  Ross pinched the match and dropped it in his shirt pocket.

  Kelly sat down on the edge of the bed. He crossed a leg and rested the weight of the revolver on his thigh. “George?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Call me Kelly.”

  Hoffman nodded. His chest glistened with sweat. He lay still, contemplating the ceiling.

  Kelly said, “You and Donald were pals, right?”

  “Not really.”

  “Donald who?” said Ross.

  “Are you calling him a liar?” said Kelly.

  “Who?” said Ross.

  “Donald E. M
ooney,” said Kelly. He brought up the pistol, blew another hole through Hoffman’s afro. Shannon curled into a slightly smaller ball. The sheet clung to her hip. Ross told himself it was no time to stare. Kelly said, “You calling Don a liar, George?”

  “He seemed like a nice enough guy to me.”

  Kelly drew back the revolver’s hammer. “Okay, are you calling me a liar?”

  The parole officer’s chest heaved. Sweat bubbled on his face. “No way! Me and Don bowled a couple of times a month, that’s all. An inter-league thing. The teams’d have a beer afterwards, shoot the shit, conversation going back and forth. But there was nothing special between us. We sure as hell weren’t friends!”

  “Your hair stinks, George.”

  Hoffman gave Kelly a hard, back-to-the-wall look. “So would yours, if somebody shot it.”

  Kelly mulled it over for a moment or two. Finally he nodded. “Good point. Now make another one. Why would Don lie to me? Why would he tell me you and him were the very best of pals?”

  “To save his ass? Or maybe because you were killing him too slowly, and he was desperate to get it over with.”

  Kelly’s shoulders slumped. He said, “You disappoint me, George. I was hoping you’d come up with just about any reason but that one.”

  Hoffman rose up from the sheets, arms extended, like a bad actor rising from the dead. If Kelly’s intention had been to fire another warning shot through Hoffman’s afro, he should have aimed two inches higher. Hoffman grimaced as the bullet smacked into him, nipping a half-circle out of his right eyebrow. His cheeks ballooned. His sad eyes bulged. A handful of blood spattered the wall behind him. Chunks of bullet and chips of bone clanged off the metal bedframe. Hoffman fell soundlessly back, collapsed against the ruined, shot-up pillow. A few small feathers spiralled up into the smoky air.

  Shannon raced for the bathroom, slammed the door. She’d run right past Ross, but he had no idea if she was stark naked or wearing a tuxedo and patent-leather shoes. Well, if she was wearing shoes she was right this minute throwing up all over them. He pressed the small button halfway up the grip of his pistol. The magazine fell to the carpet. Empty. What do you know. Imagine that.