Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal (23 page)

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Authors: Michael van Rooy

BOOK: Your Friendly Neighborhood Criminal
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F
inally I lowered myself down, closed the window, and drew the blinds. Only then did I pull the pistol from its holster and take the safety off. The noise was horribly loud but nothing went
boom
. Then I exhaled and, inch by inch, I went over the cold, cold room, starting at the window, then the futon, the closet, the door, the dresser, the bookcase. Then I opened the door and did every inch of the hallway and the bathroom and the tub, the sink, the toilet, and the linen closet. And then I looked over Fred’s room, the crib, his closet, his dresser, the change table. Ad infinitum, and what did I find?
Under my pillow on the futon was an oldie but goodie that took me a few minutes to identify. Back from the USSR, folks, an old Soviet Russian F-1 fragmentation grenade, originally produced way back in the days when the Nazis were knocking on Stalin’s gates.
I stared at the damn thing and sweated despite the cold, and for a moment I distracted myself by wondering why it was so cold. Then I had to think about the grenade again. There
are two kinds of grenades, defensive and offensive. Offensive grenades are to be used by your glorious troops as they charge forward against their inhuman enemies, so they contain relatively little explosive, and produce relatively little shrapnel. Then there are defensive grenades, which are designed to be used against your inhuman enemies as they charge the defences occupied by your glorious troops. They have a big charge of explosive and produce a lot of shrapnel.
The F-1 was a defensive grenade that dumps sharp bits of metal at high rates of speed out to twenty or thirty meters. The pin had been pulled and was held in place by the weight of the grenade on the spoon. Lie on the pillow and the grenade moves, the spoon flies off, and three to four seconds later those little bits of shrapnel go flying off in all directions. I wondered where Smiley had gotten the grenade and then I taped the spoon into immobility with duct tape and moved on. Only now I was moving even more slowly if that was possible.
Why was it so cold? I almost turned the thermostat up but then I stopped and decided to check out the whole house, and that was a good thing. Here and there were hidden big Remington .44 magnum hollow points and twelve-gauge double-ought buckshot rounds set up with spring triggers to make real toe poppers. Not enough to kill if you stepped on them, just enough to blow your foot into hamburger. And they were set in door jambs and under overturned shoes and under carefully loosened floorboards.
And there were two more of the Soviet grenades, one balanced over a doorway and one tucked behind a book on its shelf. So the next time I needed to read
Joy of Cooking
, like to find out how to boil water,
boom
. There were also a couple of surgical rubber bands stretched back here and there and
ending in blades taken from carpet-cutting utility knives, all hung at eye level.
And every light bulb in the whole house had been drilled and tapped and filled with black powder and copper BB’s or gasoline and laundry soap. Turn on the light and
bang
, instant napalm or instant shrapnel.
In the umbrella holder by the front door Smiley had gotten cute, and it took me twenty minutes just to figure out what I was looking at. Finally I identified them and used some tape to make them harmless: a pair of cyanide dispensers, used in the States to kill coyotes and wolves. Push down on here and powdered cyanide would come shooting out over there,
poof
, a cloud of dust. And if it worked on wolves it would work on a person.
The pièce de résistance was in the basement, and I almost missed it. I was exhausted by the time I reached the basement but I couldn’t stop.
If you ignored the trip wire at the top of the stairs and the gasoline-filled liquor bottles packed around the water heater, the basement was clear. The water heater was an old trick, when the boob(y) comes home, he turns on the hot water (which he will do at some point), which lowers the amount of water in the tank, which makes the tank fill, and the heater turn on. And when the heater turns on the flames touch the wicks you’ve set up and
boom
.
I was feeling insulted that Smiley had tried that on me when I knelt down and noticed the furnace itself, sitting there, untouched. Why untouched? It would be the only thing in the house that hadn’t been gimmicked.
With trembling hands I took the cover off the furnace and looked down into the pan that was not part of any furnace ever built.
“Shit.”
He had rigged the furnace to kill everything in my house. Everything, Fred and Claire and me. It would have killed Renfield and Thor and every insect and spider that dwelled in the dark corners of the basement and every mouse in the wainscoting. And then it would kill anyone who came to check on the bodies. And those who were not killed would suffer from permanent and irreversible brain and neurological damage.
I thought very hard and realized that all the rest of the traps were designed to distract from the main one. And I felt a little bit of awe about Smiley’s work ethic.
“Shit.”
Hate is sometimes a mild word.
It made me wonder about Marie, about whether Smiley was stalking her right now, setting her up.
I
loaded the backpack with the stuff Smiley had left for me, the grenades and the razors, the cartridges and the other implements of destruction, and when it was full I found a suitcase and filled that too. In the basement I picked up the Bionic Ear and a few useful tools and packed them away as well and left, this time by the front door.
I had the backpack and shoulder bag slung and the suitcase in my left hand. In my right hand was one of Smiley’s hand grenades with the tape removed and only my fingers holding the spoon down. So if he showed up and shot me I would drop the bomb and
boom
. Or if he showed up and tried to talk to me I could lob it at him and
boom
. And then I could pull the gun and shoot the shit out of whatever was left. Three blocks from home I stopped at a phone booth and called for a cab. When it arrived I climbed in and re-taped the bomb in my pocket without taking it out. We headed downtown to Osborne Village, where I would wait until dark to climb under the bridge and dump the various bad things in the Assiniboine River.
When the time came I threw everything else away except for the three hand grenades. Smiley had taken the pins with him, so I used steel finishing nails as replacements, bending them into place for security. Then I re-taped the grenades with more duct tape and those went into the shoulder bag. I found a bench in that gloriously bohemian part of town and sat there to think some more. So far I wasn’t doing too well on that front, but maybe I’d be lucky.
Where was Smiley and what was he doing right now? And what were his future plans?
My brain was turning up nothing so I went back to basics. Advice drilled into me over an entire career as a criminal: first you wait and watch. And if that doesn’t work, make a plan and follow it. And if that doesn’t work, do something, anything. Because another rule is that it’s better to do something than nothing. The coordinator of a prison-run anger management course had put it thusly: when in danger, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. It had been ten years since I’d taken the course and I wondered if he knew to what use his advice was being put.
So it was back to basics and thinking about what Smiley had done that I knew about. He had shot Tracey and Louis and Samantha and her boyfriend.
Again, why?
With criminals one rule of understanding their behaviour is to follow the money. Always follow the money. Where was the profit here? My brain hummed along and said no idea.
A friendly woman with short hair and glasses wearing a chef’s uniform (including the hat) walked by on Wellington Crescent in front of me and when she saw me she stopped and asked, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Beautiful night, isn’t it?”
She looked around and smiled broadly, “Stunning!”
And she walked on and I felt better; a pretty, happy girl is a kind of medicine. However, I was still thinking about Smiley shooting Sam. I needed more information, which meant I needed to find someone who knew something.
My brain thought about all that and agreed with me.
This led me to … the hockey player whom Sam had used as muscle. I should really talk to him, sooner rather then later. So, with a plan, although one I had no idea how to implement, I wandered off to find someplace to sleep. After a brief internal debate I decided that it was unlikely that the lady who thought the night was stunning would let me stay over at her place, which meant a hotel and a cheap one.
 
The nearest hotel was cheap and loud and wonderful. It even advertised an amateur wet T-shirt night with cash prizes. And the front desk clerk didn’t blink when I paid in cash and asked for a room in the quiet half of the hotel, away from the bar. When I’d rigged the window with the rope for a quick escape down from the fourth floor to the back alley, I stashed the knife and grenades and pepper spray in useful places. The gun I kept in my belt, ready to use, not the safest place but the only place I had without wearing the damn holster.
With everything set up I realized I was starving so I ordered from a Papa George’s restaurant down the street. The desk clerk had recommended them for Italian-slash-Greek food and he’d also mentioned a Japanese restaurant called Wasabi if I wanted sushi. Actually I wanted both, so I ordered a Greek salad, large meat pizza and a dozen cans of diet Coke from Papa George’s and thirty-six pieces of California roll and another dozen cans of ginger ale from Wasabi, because I have a strong and deep and abiding lust for avocado and crab—even fake crab.
It took forty minutes until the delivery guys came and when they did I paid them (and tipped them well—crooks, even ex-crooks, are good tippers; why, I do not know) with my right hand under a towel and the gun therein. But no Smiley. I dragged over the bureau to cover the door and rigged a Bible and some light bulbs to fall on the floor if anyone tried to force the door itself. Then I took off my underwear and socks and rinsed them in the bathroom sink before hanging them on the shower curtain to dry.
I drank the ginger ale with my food and turned on the television and watched a few minutes each of a series of very strange shows. Some of them were supposed to be real, but weren’t, and others were supposed to be staged, but didn’t seem to have hired real actors. And the whole television universe seemed to be full of hyper-sexed, hyper-beautiful, plastic people with beautiful cars and beautiful houses and no apparent means of support whatsoever. As I watched I felt my mind melt, so finally I panicked and started to flip the channel until I could find a nature documentary. Then I watched David Attenborough narrate
The Blue Planet
about penguins and leopard seals and relaxed as much as I was able. A little later I turned off the lights, including the TV, and rigged some blankets and stuff to look like a body in the bed. A cheap gimmick, but it should attract fire if Smiley decided to become a sniper. Then I crashed on the floor and slept.
The next morning I drank diet Coke (all the caffeine as regular Coke and the chemical sweetener didn’t block the uptake of the drug like sugar did) and ate the rest of the sushi liberally dosed with soya sauce and Japanese horseradish. Leaving the bathroom door open I showered and brushed my teeth with a packet of salt from Papa George’s.
With that done I reached the point of greatest danger and
cleaned the gun, emptying the magazine of its copper shells while wearing a pair of gloves. I kept one of the Soviet grenades right by my hip, ready to throw. Then I reloaded the gun, put a shell into the chamber, put the pin back into the grenade and turned the TV back on, this time hunting for local news reports, since I had another two hours before I had to check out.
I was not surprised to find out that the shooting of Sam and boyfriend still topped the news. While I was considering what to do next, the solution to the earlier problem, how to find the hockey player, came to me. I packed up the remainder of the food and the weaponry, put the room back together, and then checked out, buying a brand new baseball hat in the hotel gift shop as a disguise on the way out.
T
here was an Internet cafe down on Corydon, within walking distance, so I kept to residential streets and watched for Smiley or anyone else I recognized. I had the two bags and I kept my right hand loose at my side ready to pull the gun.
I was ready for Smiley to pop out and start shooting. I was also ready for a car to drive over across the sidewalk and slam through me. Frankly, I was ready for just about anything I could imagine and a few other things as well.
When I found the right address I walked up to the second floor and rented access to the Internet for the princely sum of one dollar for ten minutes. I figured I was fairly safe; whenever Smiley had heard of me using the Net, it had been at a library, which might make him focus his attentions there. When I checked my new e-mail address I found a note from sexy&beatch147@ that read “Here. Missing you.”
Made me feel good to know someone gave a rat’s ass whether I was dead or alive. “Hi Hon.” I typed slowly with
two fingers. “Give me a sign that means something so I know you are you.”
Then I went to work on another database and twenty minutes later I had the address and phone number of Smiley’s Vancouver lawyer. I copied that down along with the numbers of Winnipeg’s Crime Stoppers and the number of Mildred Pennyworth, one of Winnipeg’s dumbest television reporters. Who, by the way, had truly fantastic breasts, which had nothing to do with why the cops liked to talk with her. And it was definitely not the reason thousands of Winnipeggers liked to watch her bobbling along every night at 6:00 and 11:00.
Back on Corydon I pulled on a pair of gloves and found a telephone booth far from any bank, convenience store, or indeed any place that might have a camera that might be surveilling me, if that was a word. Then phone call number one went to the local Crime Stoppers, known amongst cons throughout the country as one-eight-hundred-squeal. When a man answered I pretended I was James T. Kirk and made. Every. Word. Its. Own. Sentence. In the best
Star Trek
tradition.
“Hi! Can I report a crime here?”
The voice came back immediately, smooth, professional, a little suspicious and absolutely untrustworthy.
“If you have a crime to report you should call the 911 emergency line.”
“Can I do that and then phone you guys and ask for a reward?”
The voice was silenced while he ran his mind over what I’d said. Crime Stoppers was supposed to involve the public in fighting crime, and towards that end they had a policy of anonymity. You called, gave your information, they gave you a number, and when a conviction was obtained then you received your payment. The money came from donations to the
charity; however, the size of the reward was at the discretion of the board governing the organization. But if they were informed before a crime was reported to the police, what could they do? What would they do? Would telling them something like that make them accessories after the fact? I suddenly realized that I didn’t know the answers; perhaps I was committing a crime right now by calling them before the crime was reported to the police.
The guy on the phone said, “Ahhhh?”
I may have backed myself into some kind of corner, so instead I said, “Never mind.” And hung up. “Crap.”
Picking up my bags I went downtown looking for another phone. When I found a good one I phoned Mildred Pennyworth’s station and asked to talk to her assistant. After a brief wait I was connected with a young woman who talked very fast indeed.
“Yes? Yes? Yes?”
“Hi! I want to give a tip about a double murder to Mildred.”
“What? We’re not the police, you know? We’re not that crime dog, you know?”
“You mean Scruff McGruff and that’s a US thing—the whole Let’s Take a Bite Out of Crime. Did I mention that what I wanted to tell you is an exclusive?”
“What? What? What?”
“The police don’t know about it yet. No one does.”
Her voice dropped to a low intimate buzz, “Did you do it?”
I dropped my voice too. “No. Anyhow, in the following apartment you will find the bodies of …”
I gave her the details and hung up, walking around the corner and changing to a new baseball hat before going to find a
new phone booth. On the way I bought some more hats and a very cheap blue windbreaker two sizes too large so I could wear it over my own jacket. When I finally did find a pay phone with no cameras around I was way downtown near the Red River, which made me nervous because the river cut off my retreat and limited my options. A worst-case scenario was that I called Smiley’s lawyer, who had a direct line to the cops, who proceeded to surround the area I was calling from with many, many cops. And then I’d end up arrested with a gun and three hand grenades in my backpack, which all would translate into me going away into a small place for a long, long time. I thought it through, took the chance, made my call, and talked to a professional voice.
“Chang and McQuaid. How may we help you?”
“My name is Smiley, shit, Hershel. I need to talk to my lawyer. It’s an emergency.”
I tried to make my voice hoarse and coarsen it. It didn’t have to sound like Smiley; it just had to not sound like me.
“Your lawyer?”
“McQuaid.”
There was a brief pause and then a man’s voice came on, “Smiley! Nicetohearfromyou.” He ran the words together fast and then said slowly, “Where’s my money?”
“Coming. I need you to give me the address you gave me last time.”
“Can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
There were the sounds of a computer keyboard being lightly manipulated and then, “Because she’s dead. Shot a lot. Would you like to talk to me about something?”
Translation from lawyerese was, would I like to turn myself in so the plea-bargaining could start?
“I had nothing to do with that …”
“Uh-huh.” Flat, unbelieving.
“… but I need her address. I lost my copy.”
“No. Not that I ever gave you that in the past. And not that I’m admitting I ever had it in the first place.” Smart lawyer was he, playing the game for whatever listening and recording device might be attached. I figured he would have Samantha’s address; Smiley had mentioned that his lawyer was bent when he’d first shown up on my doorstep. Most bad guys don’t automatically know other bad guys. We have to have lines of communication and bent lawyers are great lines of communication because they can hide behind client confidentiality.
And I was betting that maybe the lawyer had been the person to connect Sam with Smiley. Which meant he would probably know where Sam had lived before her untimely death.
“I need the address. Now. And of course you never gave it to me before.”
That should please him if anyone was recording it.
“No can do.”
Stubborn prick and I was getting tired. “In North Korea today they have a simple method of interrogation. First they ask you a question. Then they use crazy glue to hold YOUR…” I said it loud “… hand flat on a wooden cutting board and then use a ball-peen hammer to crush the first joint on YOUR …” loud again “… little finger, the one nearest the nail. Then they wait five minutes, timed by a clock on the table in front of you, and then they use the same hammer to crush the first joint on YOUR ring finger. And so on. Then they move on to the next joint further down and do it again.”
“Are you …”
I cut him off, “There are fifteen joints on each hand …”
“… THREATENING me!”
He roared into the phone and I went on, “… and no one’s made it past four joints on the first hand that I’ve heard of. They all cooperate before the thumb is reached.”
“You piece-of-shit …”
“Wanna see how long you last? You wanna break the record? Now should I stop and visit a hardware store before I come to your home? Or should I stop at a bank?”
“I see. You’re threatening me.”
“Yes. So tell me what I want to know, before this moves to a place neither of us wants to go.”
McQuaid thought about it for a long time. And then he gave me the address and slammed the phone down as though he was punishing me. I hung the phone up and listened to the echoes and wondered if the lawyer would phone the cops right away and then decided no. He could always plead he’d been frightened of me and that coloured his decision. Frankly, he struck me as the kind of guy who’d take the safe way every time.

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