Seaweed in the Soup (29 page)

Twinner shook his head in wonderment. “But I guess I shoved her too far. She lost patience with me. So what does Piggy do? She gets Larry Cooley to burn her own fucking building down. Christ, the cunt sure pulled the fucking rug out from under me. The building was insured, she won't be out of pocket one lousy cent. But I am out a bundle. My lovely tax shelter is a heap of rubble, Nanaimo's is finished. If I want another club, I've got to build one up from scratch again. It'll cost me a pisspot full of cash and I hate to lose my hard-earned money.”

“Ain't that right, Cliffy?” Twinner asked his former lieutenant. “Larry Cooley burned me out. Tossed a Molotov cocktail, didn't he?”

“Burn oo ow,” Eddie uttered, in a series of strangled gasps. “Burn oo ou . . . Lemme dow . . . Jesus . . . ”

“I'm not letting you down, Cliffy, because you've been a very bad boy. I'm teaching you a lesson you ain't never gonna forget as long as you live. Which won't be much longer either, probably.”

Twinner said to me, “Remember what I was telling you earlier, Seaweed? How good help is hard to find nowadays? Nobody's got a real work ethic anymore. Most of my gang can't even follow simple instructions. Cliffy is a prime example. Take last night for instance. We've got a radar setup on this island. Every time a boat comes in and lands on my beach, we know about it. When your boat came in last night, I told Cliffy to take the Zodiac out, chase you the hell off my property. Instead, Cliffy sinks your boat, beats you to a pulp with a set of brass knucks, and then he tries to drown you. Fortunately, the guys who were in the Zodiac with Cliffy talked him out of it. Otherwise you'd be dead by now. You'd be as dead as Larry Cooley.

“Cliffy's a sick fucker, sick in the head,” Twinner continued with growing anger. “We know that Cooley set fire to Nanaimo's because Cooley was careless. One of my waiters actually saw him do it. Well, I can't tolerate that kind of crap. In my line of work, if the word gets out that people can fuck you over and get away with it, you are done, toast, kaput, out-of-goddamn-business! So I sent Cliffy around to give Cooley a few bruises. I told Cliffy to rough Cooley up a little, beat some sense into him. It worked, Cooley sang like a bird. Cooley told Cliffy that burning down my club was Piggy Mainwaring's idea. Only it's like I said, Cliffy's a sick fucker, he's got this thing about hurting people now. He gets a kick out of it. Instead of giving Cooley stern words and a few slaps, Cliffy kills him. Ain't that right, Cliffy?”

Eddie groaned.

Twinner Scudd stood up and loosened the rope behind Eddie Cliff's back until his heels were flat on the floor.

“Tell Seaweed here how you done it,” Twinner said. “Go on, tell him, Eddie. Give Seaweed the whole nine yards.”

Eddie shook his head.

His anger growing, Twinner grabbed a heavy ceremonial paddle that was leaning against a wall and whacked Eddie's knees with it until Eddie's bones made cracking noises.

I told Twinner to stop, that anything Eddie said under these conditions would be useless as evidence.

“Screw that. For now, all I want is for Cliffy to give you the straight dope. Go on, Cliffy, tell him.”

Eddie stared at the ground. Twinner went out, came back with a bucket of water and dumped it over Eddie's head.

“We grabbed Cooley downtown,” Eddie muttered indistinctly. “Me and Ross. Cooley lived by himself in a house on Rudlin Street. We staked the place out till he showed up one night. We let him go in the house, waited a minute. Then we knocked on his door. We grabbed Cooley when he answered the door, shoved him back inside. Then we put the boots to him. Me and Ross.”

“You and Ross killed him?” I asked.

“Not right away,” Cliffy answered. “ We shoved Cooley around a little for burning down Nanaimo's is all. We didn't go there to kill him. We just asked him why the fuck he went and did it. Revenge, Cooley told us. Punishment for not paying your rent, Twinner.”

Twinner smiled thinly. “Then what?”

“Cooley got lippy. Called me a cunt and an asshole. I guess I lost my temper, but Jesus, Twinner, gimme a break. My shoulders are fucking killing me, I can't even think straight.”

Twinner loosened the ropes so that Eddie Cliffs could sit on the floor.

“Go on, Cliffy,” Twinner said. “We're listening. Give us the whole story, or I'll give that rope another yank.”

“Me and Ross left Cooley's house. Later on, I got to thinking about what Cooley had said. Calling me an asshole and that. It got preying on my mind till I got crazy and went back to teach the asshole a lesson. I shoved Cooley's head down the toilet bowl. I didn't mean to kill him.”

“You drowned him?”

“I guess so.”

Twinner laughed. “You guess so, Cliffy?”

“I didn't mean it, Twinner. Cooley just died on me. When I dragged him out of the toilet, he was gone, he'd breathed in water.”

“Then what?”

“I thought I'd try and make it look like an accident. I took him out of the house and dumped him in a creek.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Sumatch Creek. I dumped Cooley's body off a bridge and watched him float away. There was a lot of rain coming down from the mountains, and I figured he would just drift into Juan de Fuca Strait.”

“Did I tell you to kill him?”

“No, boss, you told me to rough Cooley up.”

Twinner turned to me. “Do you think Eddie's telling the truth?”

I nodded. I had absolutely no doubt that Eddie had told us the truth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

We were aboard Twinner Scudd's yacht, en route to Victoria down the Homathko Channel. Ruth Claypole was stretched out beside me on a cushioned seat-locker. Her tiny hands and feet contrasted markedly with the rest of her. Enormously fat, she looked in her black elasticized bathing suit like a Willendorf Venus.

Twenty yards to starboard, immense granite walls raced past. I saw a patch of colour, reached for the binoculars lying on a table beside my deck chair, and focussed on a painted man with yellow bars radiating from his head. Before he went out of range, I spotted another painted man standing with his arms akimbo, his skinny stick-legs showing below a triangular skirt.

Awakening from her nap, Ruth yawned and stretched.

“Looks funny, doesn't he?” I said, pointing out the pictograph and speaking as best I could with a poulticed face and a mouth that felt as if it were stuffed with cotton batting.

“If you think them paintings is funny, you should look in a mirror.”

“Beauty is only poultice-deep,” I bragged. “When this dressing comes off, you'll see what I really look like.”

“I already know what you look like without a poultice.”

From my chair on the afterdeck, I could see the
Polar Girl
's pilothouse and the back of Twinner Scudd's head.

Ruth got off the seat-locker and knelt beside me. “Listen,” she said, putting a hand on my knee and speaking in a low voice. “Twinner was wrong about you. He thinks you came up here because you were after that woman. What's her name?”

“P.G. Mainwaring.”

“They call her Piggy. But it's me that you were really looking for, right?”

“Right. I came up because of you. I want you to tell me what happened at Ronnie Chew's house.”

“I know you do, but that's not all I know, Silas. I know for instance that Maria Alfred is having a hard time in Wilkie Road. It don't matter, though, because I just want to get it over and done with. Move on with my shitty little life.”

“Your life doesn't have to be shitty . . . ”

“What do you know about my life?” she responded heatedly. “What's out there for me? Spend my life cutting Twinner's grass up in Desolation Sound? Or a nine-to-five minimum-wager in Victoria and a nightly commute to a crappy room in a mouldy house? Turning tricks?”

“Easy, Ruth. There are other options.”

“Not for girls like me,” she said, staring at me with sun-crinkled eyes. “Come to think of it, maybe I'd be better off spending my life in a nice minimum-security prison. I'd get steady meals, free clothing somebody else to make all the decisions for me. And besides, how do I know if you'll give me a decent break?”

“You'll get every possible break, you have my word.”

“What do you want from me then?”

“Start by explaining exactly what happened on the night that you and Maria met Ronnie Chew.”

“Me and Maria just ran into him by chance, we'd never seen him before,” Ruth said, her voice still a little angry. “We were in Twinner Scudd's club in Esquimalt. Nanaimo's. Ronnie was sitting there all by himself, looking lonely. He came over and introduced himself. We hit it off right away. We was having fun when all hell broke loose, guys were fighting, glasses was flying. Maria and me were sharing Ronnie's table by then, having a few drinks. It seemed like he had dough. He didn't argue when it came to paying our tab. When the trouble started, the three of us got the hell out of there and we ended up in Ronnie's house.”

“And?”

“Don't rush me, Silas,” she declared impatiently, “I'm trying to remember . . . ”

I waited, wondering if I'd get the truth or a string of rationalizations.

She said, “It was a beautiful house, we figured Ronnie owned it, but it turned out he was just a gardener.”

“Yes, he was. Just a gardener.”

“I don't get it. Ronnie was loaded; I know he was. He had all these expensive toys: The fancy Beemer, a ton of cocaine, jewellery. He gave me and Maria jewellery, told us we could help ourselves if we'd fool around with him a little, let him take pictures of us naked. That's what we did. Fooled around in his bedroom. He likes fat girls, I guess. Ronnie was doing coke as well. After a while, he ran out of steam and conked on us. Me and Maria decided it was time to go. We couldn't start Ronnie's car, and so we tried to call a cab, but we couldn't find no phone and ended up walking along Collins Lane. Then this old fart stops us on the road. He asks us what we think we're doing. We tell him it's none of his fucking business, which it wasn't. Then we heard a goddamn police siren and two cops showed up. Me and Maria panicked. I don't know why, we should have stopped where we was, because we hadn't done nothing wrong, right? But we panicked and we ran into the woods and tried to hide. Then me and Maria got separated. You know the rest.”

“When we get back to Victoria, police will meet the boat. They'll take you into custody for a short while, and there'll be questions. But you needn't worry. They won't hold you long, you'll be back on the street in no time. It's imperative you tell the police exactly what you've told me. No creative additions or subtractions.”

“Okay, I've heard that lecture before.”

“You said earlier that you knew what I look like without a poultice on my face.”

“That's because this isn't the first time we've met.”

“So you do remember me?”

“Sure I do.”

“You and Maria were walking on Pandora Street. I noticed you particularly because you were both wearing funny T-shirts.”

“Me and Maria was watching ravens. You came over and told us you were a cop.”

“Correct. A couple of days later you were on Echo Bay with Ronnie Chew. And there's something else. Hidden in the trees above Ronnie's house there's a sandstone boulder with something peculiar about it.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. A boulder? You mean a big chunk of rock?”

“The boulder has a skeleton man petroglyph on it, and a wolf.”

“Who cares? If you've seen one petroglyph you've seen 'em all. In my opinion.”

≈  ≈  ≈

A promise made is a debt unpaid, but things didn't work out as I had expected they would. It was after midnight when the
Polar Girl
rounded Victoria's Laurel Point and manoeuvred into its usual berth near the Johnson Street Bridge. I was expecting to see Bernie Tapp. Instead, Nice Manners and half of Victoria's Serious Crimes squad were waiting on the dock to greet us. With Twinner Scudd at my side, I posted myself at the head of the yacht's slanting gangway. Manners came aboard all piss and vinegar. The poultice on my face amused him. He gave me the brush-off when I tried to explain matters. Manners wasn't interested in what I might have to say. Obsessed with his personal vendetta, Manners slapped me with a writ that commanded me to stay within Victoria's city limits for the next ten days, and ordered me off the yacht.

I stood on the dock while the entire Quanterelle contingent was arrested, handcuffed and brought ashore. Twinner Scudd gave me a glance hot enough to make my cheeks burn when he and the others were whisked off to VPD headquarters in an armoured van.

Manners ordered Harry Biedel to stay behind and guard the yacht.

Looking down at me from the
Polar Girl
's pilothouse, Biedel said, “How was Desolation Sound?”

“All right, but things have gone to hell since. I was expecting Bernie Tapp to meet me, not Manners.”

“Bernie's in Vancouver with Superintendent Mallory. They're attending a tea, crumpets and gang-related crime conference at the Park Plaza Hotel. It was a last-minute panic deal, I gather.”

Biedel wished me goodnight and told me to go home. It was good advice, and I ought to have followed it, but I didn't.

It was a cold night in Victoria. The air smelled like rain, clouds dragged themselves like a veil across the stars. I pulled my collar up and tramped off the dock. A draggle of piss-bums were passing a bottle around in a grassy wasteland beside the E & N Railroad terminus. I needed a drink too, and I might have joined them, except they were probably drinking salt-poisoned Chinese cooking brandy or Scope mouthwash. Swans Pub, a hundred yards away, drew me like a magnet. The streets were empty of pedestrians, although vehicle traffic was heavy along Store Street and down Pandora Street.