The Man Who Killed (19 page)

“Mick, the hose.”

I uncoiled a length from the wall and turned the handle, mixing water with purpling petrol and oil on the cement before reaching Charlie's face.

“Hey Charlie,
comment ça va?”

Charlie spluttered and gasped. Jack grabbed him and shoved the man up against the sedan, his elbows on the running board.

“Je voudrais Martin. Donne-lui à moi,”
Jack said.

“Jack,” coughed Charlie.

“Maintenant.
Now. Martin the driver.
Où est-il?”

Charlie spat.

“Mick, toss the office.”

In the office I gave Charlie's desk and files the onceover. There were piles of paper, a photograph of the ugly family, Paterfamilias Charlie with his thin dark moustache in the middle. A drawer held a few loose dollars, half a deck of Sweet Caporals, and a medallion of St. Benedict. I pocketed the lot.

“Mick! Done!”

Upon my return Charlie seemed freshly kicked about the head. Jack trained the hose over him.

“We have an address and a ride, right Charlie?”

The lawyer-cum-mechanic pointed to a set of keys on a hook. Jack tossed them to me. From outside I heard the snarl of dogs fighting. We left Charlie on the floor. At my last look at him I could swear he was smiling at Jack and me.

In the lot were three automobiles: a Locomobile, a Ford, and an Auburn. The keys fit the last, a right-hand drive. I pushed the self-starter and the motor rattled to life. The auto had a left-hand brake and gear-shifter and right pedal accelerator. I released the brake and gave the engine petrol, lurched forward, and stalled. Bloody hell. Jack slid into the back through a suicide door. I pushed the starter again and heard a roar. My foot pressed the pedal and I pumped at the gear-shifter as we lurched forward again, this time over a curb and onto the road. How much horsepower in this beauty? The interior was all blond wood and soft tawny leather, a far cry from the Tin Lizzies I'd learned on. Couldn't remember the last time I'd been behind the wheel. We swayed and bucked as I pulled into a lane, thieves and bandits both.

“Where to?” I asked.

Jack read from a wrinkled scrap of paper:

“Numéro 1302, coin de Mont-Royal et Chambord.”

I cranked left at Mont-Royal, one hand clenched around the steering apparatus, the other clumsily grinding from gear to gear in an attempt not to stall again. East past St. Denis the city turned French-Canadian. On a rattletrap iron staircase that twisted down to the street stood a big-breasted black-clad matron cursing out children fooling in the alleyways. On another stair an old crone beat at a rug. A rag-and-bone man pushed his cart past three whiskered old worthies headed into Chez Normand's Bienvenue aux Dames to sprinkle salt in quarts of flat Molson's. My eyes moved between jaywalkers, horses, competing motorcars, darting urchins, and two elegant women walking arm-in-arm into a boutique.

“Here we are,” Jack said.

Number 1302 had a kind of pus-yellow painted thistlehead turret at its top corner with the rest an artificial blue. It was an unsightly, unlucky combination of colours, a poisonous warning. The Auburn choked to a stop and I resisted the urge to sound the horn. I left the keys in the 'car and we got out, Jack squaring up at the entrance, his boxing posture.

“Second floor, looks like,” he said.

“Oke,” I said.

A steep flight of stairs pointed up. I thought about our chances. The only entrance or exit was this spinebreaker. We made it to the top and a door.

“One more time,” Jack said.

“Ready?” I went.

“Steady,” he said.

“Go!”

Jack shouldered the door and it splintered open on a weak lock. He burst through and tripped flat on his face, with me stepping nimbly over him onto the empty level, my gun at my side. It was hot, with a dark hallway facing a kitchen to the left. Jack stumbled up behind me. I walked into the room and from the opening to the right a rude shape crashed towards my head. Then a blackness absolute.

FROM THE BOTTOM of the sea I rose, my ears ringing and eyes red. Chin on my chest and blood on the white linen of my shirt, head heavy, and a thick taste of copper and salt. Thirsty, tied upright to a chair, my hands lashed behind my back to the rear legs. A crushing headache and something sticky on my face. Blood, more blood. I straightened up and next to me a shape like me, bound, eyes open, Jack with his own bloody mouth. His eyes motioned mine forward and I complied groggily. Two tough louts leaned with their backs to the wall. On a low table before us rested our guns, the display a taunt. Jack hacked up and spat out a suspension of reddish fluid onto the linoleum. We were in the wrecked kitchen of a flat, a dirty place with a Virgin on the wall. The toughs looked like farmhands tricked out in city clothes. One raised an apparatus to his face and there came an explosion of light. He'd taken our photograph. Jack cursed at them. They didn't speak.

Time slowed and the quality of light changed to a thin dimness. My hands ached and Jack seemed to slip in and out of consciousness. They'd given him a good drubbing. I closed my eyes and rested. Both trapezius muscles began to spasm. From a place came the laboured sound of heavy breathing. When I opened my eyes a fat man in a three-piece houndstooth-check suit sat behind the table. A little terrier bitch rested on his lap and one of the toughs handed him a bottle of Vichy water. The man wiped his neck with a silk handkerchief. He was curly-haired and covered in a fine stipple of freckles. My soul lusted for a drink of that water. He saw this and chuckled with a lazy wet mouth. Make no error, boyo, those eyes are hard and black as jet. The fat man turned and spoke to my companion.

“Monsieur
Jack,” he said.

“Enchanté, Sénateur,”
replied Jack.

That was a genuine surprise. Now we were moving up in the world. One of the toughs crossed his arms and I revised my opinion: they weren't farmhands but hockey players, though in Quebec the crushers were usually one and the same.

“You have been very foolish, I think,” said the Senator.

“You might say that,” said Jack.

“You disappoint me. This wildness. It is not good. Time for it, I think, to end.”

“Now that I'm of no use to you.”

“It is true. This business with Charles Trudeau and Pierre Martin is how do you say, irresponsible. These man are innocent.”

“So you say. I say they sold me out.”

“Impossible. For them I vouch. For you that is enough.”

“Or what?”

“I am not so cold. For what you have done in the past I am willing to turn the blind eye for this indiscretion. An opportunity of grace, I think.”

“Mercy buckets,” said Jack.

“You will stay away from Monsieur Trudeau and Monsieur Martin. I protect them.”

The Senator stroked his terrier. I couldn't help but think we were Bulldog Drummond before Fu Manchu the way he gloated. My life had become a story from
Black Mask
. The Senator motioned to his toughs and spoke a fast incomprehensible quacking French, the sort from up in Gaspé. It was pure Greek.

Jack turned his head to me, looked down, moved his right boot and looked back up. There was some weapon there, I surmised. Our Webleys remained on the table before us. The Senator said something to the farmhand who'd photographed us; the brute picked up the camera and left by a different door from the one Jack and I'd used to enter the apartment. The odds were better now. I flexed my bonds as the dog on the Senator's lap yapped then curled a hind leg over its head to lick at its vagina.

“Alors,
what is it we will do with you, I wonder,” the Senator mused.

“You could recommend us to Mackenzie King.”

“It is very droll, but, I think, unlikely.”

“I know what,” Jack said.

“What?”

“You could cut us in the line-up to fuck your wife.”

“Quoi?”

“She's been had by every hack in Ottawa.”

The Senator rose and his dog leapt. The remaining tough stiffened and balled his fists. My bonds seemed loose; they'd tied us badly, the peasants. My left hand slipped free. I waited.

“Connard,”
the Senator breathed.

“Yep, your missus is the biggest roundheel on the Hill. Takes it up the
trou
as well.”

“Infâme,”
whispered the Senator.

There was no way of knowing what'd been planned for us. I couldn't see a Liberal Senator having us killed, unless he learned we were Tories. A good beating was more the Grit style. Nevertheless, Jack's strategy of provoking the man didn't seem the soundest. Even if Jack had a knife in his boot we still had to cut ourselves free. The Senator's dog scrambled to a corner and seemed to start laughing. The Senator, breathing heavily, placed his hands on the table before us. I could see his swarthy skin darkening with fury.

“Perhaps I am making a mistake with you, Monsieur Jack. The police will perhaps be interested in you and your friend here. Some information anonymous, I think.”

“What good'll that do you?” asked Jack. “You were the Minister of Customs when this started. You think that because you're in the Red Chamber King'll protect you if I start to spill?”

The Senator motioned to his thug and the helpmeet came over and punched Jack hard in the stomach. Jack buckled and gagged. The goon blew his knuckles and turned to me. The Senator patted the thug's shoulder and brushed him away.

“This I find distasteful, as I do your treatment of Charles Trudeau. But you are fortunate today, I think. I am merciful. It is simple: you and your comrade will leave the city. You are allowed to live a little more,
hein?
You should, I think, be happy.”

It was possible. My left hand was free and I could simply reach out and pick up my revolver. They'd been damned careless and arrogant, mocking us in our powerlessness. It was the same mistake we'd made with crafty Charlie Trudeau. Jack gulped air and the Senator loomed above me. I didn't like his smell, rosewater and dog intermingled. My mouth was parched and my head still repercussed with the blow that'd knocked me out. The dog started pissing against a rotting wall, distracting the Senator and his tough.

“Rex!” the fat man barked.

Very cleanly I picked up the Webley with my left hand and pulled back the hammer with my thumb. The fat man froze. The tough backed up against the kitchen wall. Jack laughed, and slowly the Senator joined him in a baritone.

“You will not shoot me,” he said.

“You're right.”

I pointed the barrel at Rex. The terrier came to me, interested.

“Aimez-vous votre canaille?”
I asked.

“An Englishman would never harm an innocent creature,” the Senator said, his eyes widening.

“I'm Irish,” I said.

I pointed the barrel at the tough and fired. He dropped to the ground screaming:
“Calice! Calvaire!”

With eyes screwed shut he grasped at his upper thigh. Lucky bugger. I'd aimed below the belt buckle. The dog skittered away in fear.

“You're next after all,” I told the Senator. “Cut Jack free.”

The fat man's skin had paled beneath his freckling. His dog and tough both whimpered. Smoke and a cordite reek hung in the close air. If the police caught me and I wanted to pass a paraffin test I'd have to scrub my face and hands with eau de cologne or an abrasive soap. The Senator moved stiffly to the countertop and found a rusty knife.

“Attention,” I said.

Awkwardly I hopped the chair around to keep the Senator in my line of fire. With thick, stupid fingers he sawed at Jack's bonds. Partially free, Jack took the knife and finished the job. He stood, stretched, and gently prodded the Senator with his index finger.

“Get in the corner with your dog,” Jack said.

The Senator complied and scooped Rex up. The tough was shivering and putting pressure on his thigh where dark blood oozed out between his fingers.

“Hurry up,” I said. “We don't want a shooting match.”

Jack cut me loose. I stood and felt my body itch and tingle upon its release. Jack's face swelled and my head was logy and sore, ears ringing, copper in my mouth, bladder fit to burst. I leaned over the man I'd shot.

“You'll need a doctor,” I said.

His shivering redoubled. I'd used the revolver at last, a prophecy come true. The Senator tried to make himself small and cradled his bitch. Jack picked up his own shooting iron and turned to the door. We heard the hard pounding of feet up the back stairs. More trouble there. Jack went over, laughed, and snapped his fingers in the fat man's face.

“À la prochaine, monsieur.”

With that we scarpered. I started slipping down the stairs halfway down and rode the treads on my heels, turning backward at the door and bashing out onto the sidewalk. I landed on my coccyx but felt nothing save dizziness and exhilaration. Jack mounted the Auburn and pushed in the keys. A long black saloon 'car with chauffeur was parked opposite but the driver did nothing. He'd heard the shot and seen two bloodied men with guns come tumbling out of the building and decided his salary didn't include getting plugged. Wise bird.