Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal (21 page)

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Authors: Michael van Rooy

BOOK: Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal
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T
he cops came two hours later, but I refused to press charges, which pissed them off. Six of them stood around for awhile and tried to figure out what to charge me with. They wanted to search the house and we told them to show us a search warrant because you never, ever let cops into your home unless they’re holding a gun on you. That made them even angrier. Finally they left, telling us over and over again to call if he came back, to be careful, that it was really our fault all this happened because we let him into our home in the first place.
When they were gone Claire put ice on this and that and we cleaned up the toys in the yard. The Tonka truck had taken a beating, though, and had to be pitched, and a few other things were broken, but in total the damage wasn’t that bad. When the doors and windows were all locked and nailed shut with scraps of lumber and alarmed with glassware gimmicked precariously at the entryways to give us warning, we went to bed. Fred was tucked in between us, a dresser was in front of the door, Claire had the bayonet and I had the crowbar.
She looked at me. “He’s gone now?” It wasn’t a question.
“Yep.”
“Do you think he was ever really trying to go straight?”
I shook my head. “Maybe a little. Probably not. And it doesn’t matter shit.”
I locked the house down and we went to sleep and I cancelled babysitting for the immediate future. After a few days I got Claire to lock down the house and divided my time between Marie’s operation and home, but I couldn’t find Smiley anywhere.
I didn’t tell Marie about Smiley. I didn’t want to worry her. Maybe I was just being selfish or maybe I was using her as a lure for Smiley. I just told her to be extra careful. After a day I got both Claire and her to hole up with the doors locked while I expanded my search to every dive in the city. But I could find not the least trace of Smiley and I started to hope he’d run off.
And then the shit started again.
 
The scene was played over and over on the television, both locally and nationally, eventually even making it onto the cheesier hardcore news channels in the States. Finally I saw it. Three days after Smiley had left I was in the kitchen, doing laundry in the sink, watching Smiley’s TV picking up bad reception.
The film came from a grainy camera in the basement garage of the Health Sciences Centre. It showed an elevator door opening and a couple coming out. A medium-sized brown-or blond-haired woman was limping a bit and pushing her boyfriend in front of her in a wheelchair. He had a cast on his pelvis and a cell phone in his hand.
His phone call was recorded by fluke, a conversation with
his mother about when he’d be home. “On my way now, Ma, no I’m fine …” The conversation was picked up and recorded by a strange little man in Winnipeg’s West End who played with scanners and listened to all sorts of things. When the news came out he realized what he had and gave a copy of his recording to the police and a second one to the CBC.
As the two figures approached, the door to the parkade itself opened automatically. A medium-sized man in black with a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, trench coat and gloves came into view. About ten feet away he raised his arm. There was something silver and white in his right hand, and the woman reached for something in her purse, but she was too slow.
“No, no, no!”
The curiously dead popping of small-calibre gunfire filled the cell phone. The narrator counted down: six shots into the couple; four into the woman who was pushed back away from the wheelchair and two into the man who slouched forward, bowing to the impacts.
“Charlie? Charlie? What was that?”
The figure, his back still to the camera, held the gun up, barrel to the ceiling, and fiddled with the extractor until the cylinder opened to the left. Then he shook out the brass and you could hear it on the cell phone, a cheerful tinkling sound over the panting breaths of the man and woman. The figure reloaded the cylinder one chamber at a time as he walked forward. When he was right in front of the wheelchair, he brought the gun forward again and squeezed two shots into the forehead of the man. Then he stepped to the side and put two more into the face of the woman.
The shooter never showed his face and the pictures of the couple coming out of the hospital were so grainy as to make them unrecognizable. But the voice … that I recognized. On
the recorded cell phone call you could hear his voice, calm and disinterested: “And that’s two for flinching.”
I watched it to the end and then left running to find Claire, leaving behind a sink full of half-washed clothes.
C
laire listened without interrupting.
“Smiley hunted down Sam and her boyfriend as they were coming out of the hospital.”
“Dead?”
“Dead.”
“Oh.” Claire swayed and for a moment I thought she’d fall. “I thought he might make it. Even after everything.”
“I hoped too.”
She picked up Fred and we both went to his room and started to pack, first for him and then for her. When that was done I handed her the bayonet and helped her tape it to her arm for a quick draw. Then I called for a cab and we finished packing. The last thing I did was pull on my thief’s coat and, on top of that, a grey-lined windbreaker.
“What happens now?”
I wondered about what to do with the dog. Claire saw me and offered, “I’ll take him with us. What do we do now?”
“We get you safe. Then I find Smiley and deal him out.”
“Okay.”
“He’s after Marie’s route and that’s what I’m being paid to protect. And I’m a threat to him so he’ll have to take me out. And he’s my responsibility.”
She said sweetly, “I never should have given you that book.”
I just stood there and chewed my lip and repeated, “He’s my responsibility.”
Claire snorted, “Fuck that. You just want to deal with him yourself.”
I couldn’t argue.
We were heading out the front door with the dog on a leash and Fred in his stroller and got into the cab. I was ready for it to be Smiley but it wasn’t; instead it was a fat South American who drove carefully and precisely downtown. While we were travelling I kept an eye on our trail but saw nothing. Her comment finally sank in.
“What book?”
“
Of Mice and Men
.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The moral of the story.”
I was genuinely confused as we exited the cab and went inside an office building. I’d wandered most of the downtown and knew that it was possible to move across whole blocks without ever crossing a street. We kept our heads down and scuttled from a hotel to an office building and then via walkway into the Convention Centre. There Claire withdrew $500 from the bank machine and handed me the card and two of the casino cheques worth $2342.25. I could cash those at a payroll company if I needed the money. Other than that I had about sixty dollars saved from babysitting and a Swiss Army knife in my pocket, so I was ready.
Finally I asked Claire, “What moral? Don’t make friends with big, slow people who like rabbits?”
“Oh shut up. Hmmm. Bus, train, or plane?”
“Bus, it has flexibility. We can lie about the ID on a bus. We can buy you tickets to Regina and then reroute you to wherever you want to go at the last minute. Call your folks.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
We bought peanuts, bottled water, and chocolate from a Morden’s chocolate shop that advertised the best chocolate in four provinces and eighteen states. Then Claire went to the nearest phone and started to dump quarters. While she was distracted I repeated the question about the moral of the stupid book while watching for anything suspicious. Finally she answered me.
“Oh, that moral? The moral is that you have to shoot your own dog. You can’t farm it out, it’s unethical.”
“Oh. Really? Is that true?”
“Probably. It’s a moral, maybe not the only one … Hi, Dad!” Her voice suddenly became much more chipper. “No, I’m still in Winnipeg … no, I’m still with Monty … no, everyone’s fine … no, he’s not in prison again … no, everything’s still fine … it’s all fine, Dad. We were thinking maybe Fred and I could come visit you in Banff. Spend some time around your grandson.”
There was a long pause and then she went on. “No. Monty can’t make it. He can’t exactly take the time off work right now. He’s kind of busy. It’ll just be me and Fred and a dog and a mouse …”
Strange watching your wife turn into someone else’s daughter. A minute later she hung up and we went out the main doors of the Convention Centre and into a fresh cab.
Ten minutes later we had navigated the confused series of one-way streets to the nearest pet shop, where we bought a carrier for the stupid dog and another for the stupider mouse (whom I had been carrying in a half-empty margarine container with air holes punched in the top).
Ten minutes after that we reached the bus station. While Claire went in to buy tickets she was in a room with about thirty people, including three cops. I took a chance and went to a sporting goods store on Portage Avenue. There I bought a pair of cheap leather gloves, two big canisters of pepper spray (advertised as dog repellent), four highway flares (a most excellent and underused hand-to-hand weapon), a cheap backpack, a whetstone, and a Cold Steel Spike knife. The clerk was distracted, so I pocketed a pair of Simmons mini-binoculars from one display and a cased set of three steel-tipped tungsten Nodor darts from another. After I paid she looked me carefully in the eye.
“Is that everything?”
In clerk that meant she’d seen me steal the darts and the binoculars. I looked her in the eye and answered, “No.”
I reached over to her side of the counter and picked up a twine cutter she’d been using, a viciously hooked razor about an inch long worn on a ring and used to open packages quickly.
“That’s not for sale.”
I handed her a twenty. She pocketed it and stared at me while I made the cutter vanish into my pocket. It would make a fine last-ditch weapon and I needed every edge and gimmick I could beg, borrow or steal. I looked the woman over and waited for her to make a decision. Was she willing to accuse me of stealing? She was a lot smaller than me. I was feeling kind of mean. And it wasn’t her money.
Finally she rang up the bill minus the darts and binoculars and let me go without comment.
 
At the bus station I gave Claire one of the cans of pepper spray and two of the highway flares to put into her purse. She gave me half of the peanuts and water and I put that into the backpack. Then I kissed her.
“And if I see Smiley?”
I took a deep breath.
“Use the pepper spray to make sure you have his attention, then set fire to him with the flare. While he’s burning use the bayonet and stab him in the belly, chest, and groin. Twist the blade as you withdraw it to speed bleeding. Bury the body at the crossroads and hammer a stake through his heart. As you leave, salt the earth.”
Claire didn’t smile. “Right.”
“When you get to Banff, is there a computer you can use, one with Internet access?”
“Why?”
I thought quickly. “I’ll e-mail you every day, but if there’s anything important I’ll phone you.”
“Okay. I can think of one or two I could use.”
“Computers that can’t be traced back to you?”
She seemed insulted. “Of course.”
“Okay. I’ll open an e-mail account with the address—what would you remember?”
“How about … inthebeginning?”
“That works but it’s probably in use by some Christian group somewhere. What if I preface it with a prime number, if the first is in use, then the next one?”
“Like 1-2-3-5-7 …”
I asked, “Two is a prime number?”
“You bet.”
“Really?” I was positive she was pulling my leg.
“Really.”
“You’re so smart.”
Claire nodded. “That’s why you married me.”
I corrected her, “No, that’s one of six reasons I married you.”
“Six?”
“Uh-huh.”
Her brow was furrowed. “Which six?”
The bus was already there so I kissed her and helped her to a seat in the middle and on the right side with Fred between her and the window. From there she had the greatest number of options if Smiley found her and got on.
“Hey, wait a minute, what six? You never told me.”
I kissed her again. “I’ll tell you later.”
And then Claire, Fred, Renfield, and Thor were off on their way to Banff.
Which left me to shoot my own dog.
I
n the bus station bathroom I locked myself into a stall and dressed for work.
The Spike knife was a fighting knife reduced to its essentials, with a ten-centimetre blade and a handle wrapped in cord for a good grip. It was very light, less than 200 grams, and came with a plastic sheath that held the thick, narrow blade. It had a beaded metal lanyard that allowed me to hang it under my shirt where it rested with the handle pointed down.
Like all of Cold Steel’s products, it was well made and presharpened; despite that I spit on the whetstone and sharpened it some more. Then I tucked it away and put away the rest of my purchases, pepper spray in this pocket, flares here and there and the twine cutter around my neck on a bit of string in case of emergency. Last I tucked the darts in my right-hand jacket pocket where I could easily reach them. Although they look silly they are actually a very effective concealed weapon and could be quite dangerous if aimed properly. And the darts would work until I found a gun.
Thinking that made me pause. I was actually thinking that I would be getting a gun. Not
if
I had a gun, but
when
I had a gun. The violence was escalating fast. Which sobered me, so I headed to the Millennium Library to think some more.
Smiley knew I went there sometimes, but if he showed up I’d be ready for him.
Or at least that’s what I hoped.
 
At the library I dug out some books, found a desk on the big glassed-in side, and sat there blankly. An ex-con in a library is both perfectly ridiculous and perfectly reasonable.
It’s like an anti-drug president fighting for freedom although he has problems with cocaine and suppresses freedom (because it is so precious it must be doled out in small amounts).
It’s like a prime minister fighting for Canadian jobs by having his shipping company registered in Panama and staffed by Philippine sailors. Or like another who leads the country but who once described it as a European welfare state.
Maybe an ex-con in a library made sense.
And in terms of defensive position it was pretty good. From where I was I could head up the stairs or down or across onto the second floor. From there I could kick my way through a couple of shitty security doors onto the hamster trail walkways that linked the city. And I had lots of lines of sight to see Smiley coming.
Until then I could think and consider and wait, with myself as bait. Had Doc Holliday in the books maybe been made into Smiley in the real world?
Did that make sense?
Around me students studied, old men played chess, young boys tried to con the Internet into showing porn, tired mothers shepherded rude children, and small groups of visitors
swarmed mindlessly. It was a good place to feel safe and to think.
Cops are concerned with many things, truth amongst them, in theory. They worry about how things are done, why they are done, who they are done too, where they are done, and when they are done. I am a thief, though (okay, an ex-thief), and am more concerned with specifics.
Because the devil is always in the details.
Smiley had always told me that Doc Holliday was his hero so I considered that gunfighter. His apex was at the OK Corral, that made his reputation, but that wasn’t the end of it for him, his life went on after and had gone on before. At the OK Corral he brought a shotgun to a gunfight when everyone else brought pistols.
This meant he was a realist, a pragmatist, and more than that, an absolutist.
He carried either a sawed-down 10-gauge WW Greener or Meteor shotgun, carried a bowie knife, carried a Colt Single action .45 revolver, carried a Colt .41 with a short barrel, carried a Colt Thunderer and carried a short-barrelled unknown Colt in .44. And he died at about ten o’clock in the morning of November 8 in 1887 as Doctor John Henry Holliday at the Hotel Glenwood in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Cause of death was listed as military tuberculosis, which made me wonder if there was such a thing as civilian tuberculosis.
One hundred and thirteen years later history recorded what guns he carried and when. Unanswered was the question of why he carried them. Was he perhaps caught in a cycle of the truth that he carried guns because people tried to shoot him and people tried to shoot him because he shot people, and he shot people because he had guns?
Doc gambled with cards and dice, shot people for vengeance
and convenience and to save his own life. He was a dentist no one wanted to frequent because he had tuberculosis and kept coughing in their faces. He was a drinker of bourbon and laudanum (that marvellous mixture of opium distilled into brandy). He wore a grey jacket and whistled and he had a gold stickpin in his possession on his deathbed, which had in it a diamond inherited from his father. And he sold the diamond to pay for his deathbed stay.
In later life his friend Wyatt Earp wrote the following: “I found him a loyal friend and good company. He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean blond fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew.”
Was that Smiley? Was that how he saw himself, and if so, was he my friend?
The fact he had betrayed me meant nothing—the little criminal voice in my head told me that. Betrayals happened, they just happened, like rain. It was nothing in the grand scheme of things; it was just something to deal with and move past.
And if Doc Holliday was Smiley’s hero and he was basing himself on that ideal, then what would he do next? And did I really want to know?
When the library closed I headed home cautiously, getting off the bus many blocks away and moving through backyards and down alleys. Upon arrival, I found a letter in the mailbox, hand-delivered. In the envelope was a single sheet of paper that read, “I would never have hurt you or your family.”
Without thinking I dropped the paper and ran, around the corner of the house and away.

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