An Ordinary Decent Criminal (5 page)

“Ted, right? Not to break up old home week but what’cha doing here?”

He blew smoke towards the ceiling. “In Winnipeg? Working, favours for friends, little games of this and that.”

“No. What are you doing here—here? With me.”

The cigarette glowed as he inhaled. “Checking up on you and delivering a message from an acquaintance named Robillard. He runs some action in town and one of the boys you capped last night was a cousin or some such shit.”

In the dark the words floated and I could taste them.

“The message is . . . ?”

He lit another cigarette from the stub of the first and drew deeply. “The boys in your house weren’t heavy. Not with guns, anyway. They were break-and-enter artists feeding their veins. It is generally accepted by the bad guys around these parts that those boys were too dumb to use guns. If they ever got a hold of iron, they’d sell it. So Mr. Robillard figures you set them up and knocked them down.”

He took another hit off the cigarette and the smoke swirled around my face as he exhaled. “Now, Mr. Robillard doesn’t really care, family ties just aren’t that strong. But the whole thing shows a certain disrespect. So he figures that you and your family . . .”

My face felt very cold. His hand was still on mine and the handcuff gave me maybe six inches of motion and I decided not to let him finish.

“. . . ew . . .”

It takes about ten pounds of pressure to break a joint, about fifteen to break a bone. I twisted my wrist and grabbed his thumb and three fingers and broke them. That much pain was disabling, paralyzing, and he squeaked but I didn’t let go.

“. . . ew . . .”

The coal of the cigarette gave me something to aim for as his free hand groped towards my face. The nurse had left a thin cotton sheet over me and I kicked it loose and brought my shin up hard to mash the cigarette into his face. While I was doing that, I twisted his broken fingers and ground the torn-open nerves against each other. His hand closed on my face weakly and I brought my left leg past my right one and kicked his face again, this time connecting with my toes.

My left big toe broke on his forehead so I kicked him twice more with my right foot and twisted his hand down until I felt his fingers break some more.

“. . . ew . . .”

He was leaning down towards me to get away from the kicks but moving really slowly. His breath was stale and full of cigarette smoke and sandwich meat. I locked my legs around his throat and chest and twisted his body down onto the bed.

“. . . ew . . . ew . . . ew . . .”

His left hand stopped grabbing my face and flopped over to the other side of me, where I grabbed it with my left, also handcuffed, hand. Merrily I started to break those fingers too.

Stiles spasmed with the pain and tried to raise his head and I tightened my legs and turned out his lights. An LA cop could do it in twenty seconds with a billy club but it took me twice that long. Even after he stopped struggling, I held my legs in place around his neck, but I did relax them a little finally and waited.

After a while he shuddered and took a deep breath and I could feel his muscles tense.

“Ted. Listen to me. I can choke you out. I can break your neck. I can crush your fingers. Can you understand me?”

It took a few moments.

“. . . ew . . . I understand.”

“Good. You packing?”

“. . . a knife.”

“Where is it?” He took another breath. “Right-hand front pocket.”

“ ’Kay. I’m gonna tell you what happens next. In a bit the nurse will come in and I’ll turn you over to the cops. I won’t press charges but the cops will. Feeding a mickey to a cop is assault. You cool with that?”

“Do I got a choice?”

I took a deep breath. “Yeah. If you don’t wanna do the time, I can break your neck.”

He thought about it before answering. “Cops.”

“Now tell me about Robillard.”

He thought about it. “Or?”

“I break your fingers some more.”

“Yeah, you would. Okay, Robillard runs ten or twenty guys. Grows and sells hydro-weed, fences some, smuggles crank from out west, guns from the south, heroin from the east. He’s connected to the Angels in Quebec, Christian Identity freaks in Idaho, some Native gangs.”

“So he sent you to take me out.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.”

“What did he pay?”

“Nothing. A favour for a favour.”

“Even though I’m probably going down on murder?”

Stiles groaned. “You are? Shit, I didn’t know . . .”

Amateur night. I thought about breaking his neck anyway but the urge passed.

“So far, Ted, I’m regretting keeping you above the ground. Make yourself useful. Tell me more.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking. He’s a big guy, like three hundred and fifty pounds and maybe five foot ten. Brown and gray hair worn long. His wife is smarter than him, she used to be a whore, a tough chick named Sandra. Had some of that when she was working and a sweet little snatch she’s got.”

My toe was throbbing. I must have really broken it well and thoroughly. “Why’s he so pissed?”

“Like I said; you killed his cousin. It’s some kind of personal insult . . .”

His voice had been getting weaker and it finally trailed off and shock took him away. I lay in the dark with my legs wrapped around the idiot’s neck. Finally the nurse came in and the shit hit the fan.

The nurse came in at a grotesquely early hour, saw the drugged cop (who had vomited into her lap during the night), the unconscious felon lying across the bed, and me. Then she fled out the door like rabid dogs were after her and a few minutes later the room filled with cops, security guards, doctors, nurses, and candystripers. Or is it strippers?

“Raise your hands. Now. Don’t think about it, just do it.”

The cop had good crowd control and his Glock clone pistol pointed at the bridge of my nose. I rattled my handcuffs and he looked sheepish.

“Oh.”

Gradually the room cleared and finally I was wheeled out into an examination room, after they’d pulled Stiles off my legs. Later, the original nurse came in, followed by a nasty-looking cop who wore a ballistic vest over his shirt and stood at the foot of the bed. The nurse came over and patted my forearm.

“So how are we feeling?”

She was a bright-faced and cheerful woman with hair the color of
a deer mouse’s fur and mild hazel eyes set far too close together. She leaned over me to adjust the pillow and I was exquisitely aware of the gentle heft of her breast on my forearm. Her breath smelled of strong spearmint, chewing gum or maybe schnapps, I couldn’t tell which.

“I’m sore.”

“Of course. Of course.”

“And exhausted.”

“Of course.” She said it absently and stood with her back to me, staring at the cop, who had crossed massive arms across an equally massive chest, and I wondered how long he had been doing steroids. The door to the hallway was open and the noise of the hospital staff changing to the day shift was steady and soothing. No matter what happened to me, the hospital was saying, what the hospital does will go on. The sick will pass or perhaps not but sickness itself remains and never changes.

In the hallway a slope-shouldered black man walked by, wearing a dark blue quilted jacket. Over one arm was slung a tiny backpack extolling the virtue of Queen Amidala. I wondered who Queen Amidala was.

Thompson walked in and ignored the nurse and the cop. “Good morning.”

I smiled but otherwise didn’t move. My legs and hands ached from hard use and my whole body was parched. I was stupid and weak with exhaustion and charmed by the big, bright lie of addiction that kept popping into my head. The ego buzz of amphetamines, the promise that the meth-enhanced user can take care of anything. That word, “enhanced,” danced through my head and that was its very own lie, in and of itself promising more and more and more.

That lie grew even bigger and showed me the memories of the prismatic flicker of my mind on crystal meth and the tidal surge that came via PCP. I wanted/needed/desired the drugs, any drugs, and so I stopped smiling and closed my eyes. Up, down, sideways, anywhere just as long as I was altered and changed and no longer fucking here.

Thompson cleared his throat and spoke. “How’s it going?”

He looked seriously out of place, standing there in his overcoat.

“Fine.”

He waited and I realized he wasn’t going to talk. Instead, he toyed with his briefcase.

“Nice case.”

He yawned and I could suddenly smell his breath from two yards away. It muted the smells of the cop and the peppermint nurse. The nurse left but nothing else happened and finally Thompson got pissed and addressed the cop directly. “You can leave.”

The cop’s mouth turned down at the edges. “I am assigned . . .”

“Talk to your sergeant. Talk to your lieutenant. Talk to your chief or the Crown, because I am this man’s attorney of record and I need to interview him.”

The cop was unimpressed and stubborn. “I have a job to do.”

Thompson tried a new tack. “I will lay charges.”

The cop sneered. “For what?”

“I’ll come up with something. Civil. Criminal. Procedural. Try me.”

The cop tightened his mouth and started to leave.

“Oh. Take one handcuff off. I might need a signature.”

He took the cuffs off my right hand only and put them away. “I’ll be right outside. The door will be open. Am I understood, Mr. Haaviko?”

I ignored him. When he left, Thompson rubbed his forehead. “Okay, let’s start fresh. Mr. Haaviko . . .” He sat down in a chair near where the cop had been standing and pulled out a pad of canary yellow paper.

“It’s Sam now, Mr. Thompson, Sam Parker.”

“Legally?”

“Court-ordered and everything. Legal as legal can be.”

“Okay. So, how are you today? Able to talk?”

“I’m in rough shape. I’ve been trapped and beaten. But able to talk.”

“You’ve had some time to think since yesterday, I hope. Do you want to change your mind? Do you really want to take this to trial?”

Translation, did I want to deal? I thought about it, the Crown might go for three manslaughters. Maybe four years for each. No way I’d get out in a sixth of the time with my record, so I’d be looking at a third, minimum. That meant four to six and closer to six years, maybe nine, depending on how the judge phrased himself during the sentencing. Probably the full stretch, twelve years, maybe more.

“Mr. Parker?”

Claire wouldn’t wait, she’d divorce me and vanish, she’d wasted enough time while I played my games. Fred would be grown up before I was out, a real person and everything. Renfield would be dead, so would the mouse. No house, no home, no nothing.

“No. No deals.” I’d have nothing to go back to. “Definitely not. I’ll take my chances.”

Thompson coughed and recited in a monotone, “You’re risking a quarter century up to life, and closer to life.”

Yeah, the worst-case scenario. He stared until he was sure that I shook my head. Then he beamed.

“Fine. Just perfect. As I understand it, three armed men broke into your house, a fight ensued, and you killed them, that right?”

I made some kind of noise in my throat.

“Right, and last night another man broke into your hospital room, I assume he broke in, right?”

Another noise.

“A man armed with a knife, pills, bad intentions. He drugs the cop and tries to off you. But you fight him off, disarm him, knock him unconscious, and hold him until the next morning.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“There’s no way we’re going to be able to convince a jury or a judge that an unarmed man killed three armed men and didn’t get a scratch. Then we’ve gotta convince them you disarmed and held an armed man when you were handcuffed to a hospital bed.”

I deadpanned. “You’re looking at Superman. The Elvis of crime. Best thief in western Canada once upon a time.” I thought about it and then modified. “Well, second best. Third, if you count a guy who lives here but works Mexico and the southwestern US.”

He was unimpressed and made a couple of quick notes on his pad. “Let’s consider the three dead men, that’s the worst situation. As I see it, they’ve got you on toast. Confession, past history, witnesses, an airtight case. You’re gone.”

He sounded happy.

“Of course, those kind of cases encourage prosecutors to make mistakes. They don’t know where the defense will come from. Airtight cases can be a bitch.”

“There’s also no such thing. What’s the strongest thing they’ve got?”

“The confession.”

I shook my head very slowly. “I don’t think so. There’s no way I made a confession. I was a professional bad guy for all my adult life and those habits stay, no matter what else happens. Pros do not give confessions. Shit, no one gives confessions these days, not without a lawyer. Mark my words, within your lifetime the judges will toss any confession unless it’s done with a lawyer for the defense on hand or a camera in the room.”