Finders Keepers (30 page)

He gave the chair a brisk shove. Steve swung out into space, craning to see Raybould raise the torch, its hard light reflected in his eyes. The chair reached the end of its trajectory in a slither of chains, hung there an instant, then swooped down.

Steve screamed against the gag in his mouth.

* * *

The man with the gun fidgeted constantly, glancing behind them every few seconds as if expecting to see Raybould in hot pursuit. Kate hadn’t really got a good look at him yet, afraid to make eye contact and risk antagonizing him. She felt like she was sitting next to an unstable explosive, hair-trigger tension coming off the man in waves of  body odor and nervous heat. She could see the gun at the edge of her vision, the only part of him not in motion, still aimed at her side. They’d been on the road about twenty minutes now, twenty minutes of strained silence, Kate trying to puzzle out who he was and why he was involved. Her arms ached from clutching the steering wheel.

The man laughed suddenly, startling Kate, an adrenaline junkie’s whoop of a laugh. “That son of a bitch is gonna be so pissed,” he said, and Kate took a quick look at him, seeing the wild excitement in his eyes. “That’s a contract killer you’ve been messing with, Kate—it is Kate, isn’t it?” Kate nodded. “I’m doing you a favor here, Kate. And hey, you can forget about your boyfriend. He’s already dead.”

Despite what he was saying, something in his tone, something almost conspiratorial, gave Kate permission to look at him. He returned her gaze in a frank, non-threatening way, wanting her to know he meant what he was saying, that he believed it.

“You’d’ve been dead too if you went back there,” he said now. “Tell you what, though. You stick to the rule book on this and once we’re in the air, I’ll make a call. Sic the S.W.A.T. boys on his ass. Fuckhead put this hole in my leg. Probably aiming for my balls.”

Kate said, “In the air?”

Hicks smiled. “Ever been to Fiji? That’s where we’re going. Halfway around the world. Who knows, you might even like it.”

“I can’t go to Fiji,” Kate said, crossing an overpass now, traffic flashing past beneath them on the 401. “This is crazy. Look, he’s got my friend back there and he’s going to kill him if I don’t come back with the money. I can’t go anywhere with you. He’ll kill Steve and then he’ll go after my father and there’s no way I can allow that to happen.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Kate. There’s no way you can stop it from happening. Didn’t I just tell you who you’re dealing with?”

Kate veered right off the overpass onto the cloverleaf feeder lane, driving too fast, the rear deck breaking loose on the snow-packed surface.

“Hey,” Hicks said, bracing his free hand against the dash. “Take it easy.”

Kate glanced at him and thought,
No seatbelt
.

“Okay,” she said, taking a shot in the dark. “What about this. You’re a cop, right?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re a cop and you hate that sick freak back there. I have no idea why, but I know I’m right. So—”

“So how about you just drive, okay?”

“Please,” Kate said, “hear me out.” She merged into traffic on the busy four-lane, heading east toward the city. “I’ll give you the money, all of it, you have my word. I don’t even want it anymore. But please, call your friends on the force right now. We can pull off at the next exit and find a phone. Send them back there with some kind of attack force, something, and get my friend out of there…” Tears stung her eyes.

Hicks said, “Look at me, Kate,” his tone hard now, like Raybould’s a half hour earlier. She looked and Hicks showed her the gun. “You see this? I’m not your friend. I’m not your partner. You’ve got something I want and if you don’t fuck with me, the only favor I’m gonna do for you is I’m not gonna shoot you. Now zip it, okay? You’re giving me a headache.”

All right, you bastard
, Kate thought.
All right.

She maneuvered the Cherokee into the left-hand lane, traffic moving fast in spite of the sloppy road conditions. She tucked them in behind a big Dodge Ram and rode its tail.

Hicks said, “Where’s the ticket?”

“In my bag,” Kate said, scenes from a hundred B-movies flashing in her mind. “In the back seat.” The right lane was clear now, only a big orange snow plow a few hundred yards ahead, half in the lane, half on the shoulder, its huge blade sending up a curl of wet crud.

Hicks turned in his seat, reaching for Kate’s bag—“I want to get a look at—” and Kate veered hard-right around the Ram, gunning it, throwing Hicks off balance. Hicks shouted at her, threatening, trying to get the gun trained on her again, but Kate didn’t hear him, heard only the roar of the engine, the thrum of her own determined fury.

She aimed the Cherokee at the back of the plow and slammed the gas pedal to the mat, at the last second closing her eyes—

And felt the steering wheel wrenched from her grasp, cranked to the left with brutal force. She opened her eyes and saw the snow plow tilt away from her in a flash of orange metal, the Cherokee’s front bumper grazing one huge tire. Hicks’ arm was braced across her body, working the wheel.

“Crazy bitch,” he shouted, swerving to the right now to avoid the braking Ram. The Cherokee canted sharply with the move, the driver’s-side wheels leaving the ground, and by instinct Kate’s hands went back to the wheel. “I’ve got it,” she said and Hicks let go, Kate correcting for the skid, the wheels slamming to the pavement as Hicks flopped back into his seat.

Then they were clear, riding the right-hand lane in front of the snow plow, the driver’s airhorn a solid bellow behind them. The guy in the Ram gave them the finger as he blew past.

“The fuck you tryna do?” Hicks said. “Put me through the windshield?” He jammed the gun into her side. “Fuckin’ mental case. You’d’ve killed us both.” He put his seatbelt on one-handed, the hand shaking badly. “Slow the fuck down.”

Kate eased up on the accelerator. Christ, what a stunt. What had she been thinking? Movies. She’d been thinking about scenes from movies. How many times had she seen it? The good guy under the gun, sending the bad guy through the windshield by slamming the car into a tree or a handy wall, then driving away in a wreck that somehow still ran. But this was no movie. He was right, she would have killed them both. And she was no use to anyone dead.

“Fuck me,” Hicks said, breathing hard. “If you’re gonna be a bitch about this, I can play it just as rough as Raybould.”

“No,” Kate said, “I’m just scared,” and realized she wasn’t. Not anymore. “I didn’t realize how fast I was going.”

“Just stick to the posted limit,” Hicks said. Kate looked at him and noticed that the blood stain on his trousers had gotten bigger. He was rubbing the leg now, wincing. “Look,” he said. “I’m not a prick. Cooperate and I’ll make sure you don’t go home empty-handed. When we get to Fiji, I’ll look after you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Kate said. “Okay.”

She looked straight ahead and drove.

* * *

They pulled up to the curb in front of the Lottery Corporation at five after nine. The morning traffic on Bloor was still heavy and within seconds a Toronto Transit bus chuffed up behind them and the driver leaned on the horn. Hicks rolled down his window and waved the guy around. No dice. The guy just sat there, glaring.

“Fuck him,” Hicks said to Kate. “Put on your flashers and park it right here.”

The bus driver got out and came along the sidewalk toward Hicks’ window. Watching his approach in the sideview mirror, Hicks holstered his gun and got out his badge. Kate thought,
I knew it
. Before the driver could say boo Hicks showed him the badge and told him to go the fuck around. The bus driver made a show of examining Hicks’ ID, bent right in close to squint at it, then said they’d have to move ahead a few feet so he could go around. No problem, Hicks said.

“Sorry, Officer Hicks,” the bus driver said, “I had no way of knowing,” and went back to his bus.

Without being told Kate drove ahead a few feet, turned on the emergency flashers and switched off the ignition. Hicks watched the bus roll past, then turned his attention back to Kate. He left his gun holstered.

He said, “This is the easy part, Kate, so please, don’t be stupid. From here on in, you fuck with me and I will shoot you. I don’t care who’s watching. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” Kate said. “Officer Hicks.”

“You gonna crack wise with me now?”

“That’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s my name. Happy?”

“Yeah, I’m happy.”

“Good. Now when I tell you, you’re going to get out of the car—carefully, don’t for Christ-sake get run over—then walk around the hood to the sidewalk. I’ll follow you in from there. You smile, tell them how embarrassed you are, all that fuss and the ticket turns up in your father’s coat pocket. If they want to know who I am, I’m your police escort. You tell them it’s been a rough couple days, can we please get this done without the usual horse and pony show. If they need publicity shots, whatever, you’ll be happy to come back in a week or so and do it then. Clear enough?”

Kate nodded. Hicks unlatched his door, holding it partway open against the wind, and said, “Okay, let’s do it.”

Kate grabbed her bag and opened the door, a gust of wind almost breaking her grip on the handle. She got out, closed the door without locking it and went around the hood to the sidewalk. Hicks was waiting for her, favoring his leg. He nodded toward the entrance, fifteen feet away across bare cement.

Holding her bag in front of her, Kate put her head down against the wind and walked, Hicks falling in behind her. Five feet from the entrance she reached into her bag and tore a sheet off her note pad; at two feet she let the sheet fly over her shoulder into the wind.

“Oh, shit,” she said, spinning to face Hicks. “The ticket.”

Hicks leaped after it with a curse, almost snapping it out of midair; it danced through his fingers—“Mother
fucker
”—then rose on an updraft, spiraling back toward the street. Hicks pivoted on his bad leg and almost fell. Stumbling toward the curb, he crashed into three executive types with leather attaché cases and navy wool coats, then dropped to his knees to chase it under the Cherokee.

Kate bolted, heading east on Bloor, running full out. Behind her Hicks peeled the piece of paper off the Cherokee’s front wheel, looked at it and cursed again. One of the execs confronted him as he stood and Hicks punched him in the face. The guy pinwheeled into his buddies, the three of them tumbling to the sidewalk in a heap of expensive blue wool.

Hicks went after Kate, shouting her name into the wind.

Kate tore blindly around the first corner she came to, running headlong into a Salvation Army Santa soliciting change with a brass bell and a plastic globe on a red metal stand. Santa tumbled over backwards, letting out a huge grunt as Kate landed on his enormous belly, the real thing.

“Hey,” Santa said, trying to grab her arm as she scrambled off him. “Slow down.”

Kate got to her feet and picked up the metal stand. Hicks hobbled around the corner and Kate swung the thing with everything she had. The plastic globe, already more than half full of change and crumpled bills, caught Hicks on the chin. The globe exploded, change flying everywhere, and Hicks went ass over tea kettle, striking the pavement with the back of his head.

Lights out.

Kate dropped the metal stand and bent to reach inside Hicks’ coat. The ruffled Santa grabbed her by the collar and Kate rose, turning on him with Hicks’ gun in her hand.

“Fuck off,” she said.

Santa put up his chubby hands and did just that.

Kate ran back to the Cherokee with the gun in her hand, startled pedestrians giving her a wide berth. She got into the truck, started it up and peeled out at speed.

* * *

Normally Raybould didn’t mind hurting people, especially when there was something to be gained by doing so. Sometimes he did it just for the sport, when the mood was on him and he had the requisite privacy. But this kid, he was a cop, and though Raybould had strayed about as far as a man could beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior for a cop, there was still a part of him that acknowledged the honor involved in being a member of the profession. Hurting him in front of his girl, he’d had a reason for that. Hurting him now, without giving him a fair shot at defending himself, well, today he just couldn’t see the sport in it. Today he was a millionaire—
multi
—and he felt too damn good about that to be ugly. He’d spooked the kid with the torch after the girl left, just to let him know he could do it. There was a second there, as the little fucker swung toward him looking all fierce and wild in the eyes, when it seemed like a hell of a good idea: barbecue the chump like a spring lamb just for looking at him the wrong way, not to mention the trouble he’d already caused. But the feeling passed. Lucky day for these two. When the time came he’d make it quick and painless. Leave them for Archie to work his magic on. Poof, no more Kate and Steve.

Raybould got out of the chair he’d been sitting in, the same one Kate had sat in during his demonstration of the uses of pain. He’d been thinking about the freedom this money would bring, imagining some of the things he would do with it. The kid had been hanging there so quietly, Raybould had almost forgotten about him. But he was struggling now, making the chains rattle. Raybould walked over and removed the gag.

“Something on your mind, kid?”

“Cold,” Steve said, teeth chattering. “Can I get dressed now?”

“You want to get dressed.” He stood behind the chair and gave it a playful shove, pushing it again as it swung back, a dad amusing his kid on a swing. He said, “I don’t think so. Men don’t like to fight when they’re nude, isn’t that strange? Somebody breaks into the house, starts plugging a guy’s wife while he’s in the tub, ten to one he pulls on his drawers before he goes out to help her. Personally I don’t give a shit, I’ll fight a fucker with a ribbon on my dick.”

Steve said, “How about me?”

“How about you what?” Raybould said. Pushing the chair.

“Before, remember you said when she’s gone, maybe we could mix it up, you and me?”