Funny Money, page 9
part #12 of Willows and Parker Mystery Series
“Butterbean!” The man in the breached ski jacket was pointing excitedly at Dutton.
Parker turned and stared at him.
“It’s Butterbean!” shouted the man, rushing towards Dutton. “Butterbean, the heavyweight, the boxer! That’s him right over there, that’s Butterbean!” The man raised his fists and jabbed harmlessly at the woman in the nightgown. “I seen him on TV, he’s a ball of suet, and a terror!” He swung again, meaninglessly. The woman stepped inside his looping punch and hit him in the ribs and belly with a flurry of hard shots. He fell to his knees and was dealt a chopping blow to the ear. Parker stuck out her foot, saving the man’s face from the concrete. The female pugilist sized her up. She raised her fists. “You lookin’ for a piece of me, sister?”
The crowd stirred. A worm of blood trickled down the defeated fighter’s upper lip and trickled into his yawning mouth. Parker held tight to Tripper’s collar as the dog growled, and showed her teeth. Laughing, the woman turned away and disappeared into the crowd.
Dutton nudged Parker with his elbow. “I got the whole damn thing, first punch to last. Interested?”
“I don’t think so, Mel.”
“I’ll make a few extra prints, send ’em over and you can take a look.”
Dutton glanced up as Pinky Koblansky shouted at him from the Lux’s dimly lit doorway. Pinky’s hair was in disarray and his eyes were wild. When he’d learned that Dutton was planning to publish a series of lavishly produced books based on his morbid crime-scene photos, Pinky had shamelessly begged Dutton to immortalize him for, as he put it, “all time.” Dutton made his way back into the hotel, hustled Pinky over to the corpse, shot a half-roll of film, and sent the night clerk on his way.
Dutton turned towards the stairs. He was thirty pounds overweight. Okay, forty. Worse, he’d started smoking again, effortlessly getting up to his previous speed of two packs of unfiltered Camels a day. He felt so bad about the smoking that he’d started drinking heavily, and, of course, when he smoked he drank. It was why God had given him two hands. Because there was a province-wide ban on smoking in bars and other enclosed public spaces, he did a lot of drinking at home. It was cheaper than going out, and he didn’t have to worry about getting behind the wheel afterwards. So he drank even more. It was a closed loop and a Möbius strip, and it was hell.
Dutton lit a cigarette and started slowly up the stairs. By the third step, his heart was pounding like a sledgehammer, and he was wheezing like a trout in a frying pan.
Man, oh man, was he ever out of shape. Maybe he should think about switching to filtertips …
Chapter 17
She’d sprinted to the end of the hall, unlocked the window and pushed it open and stepped outside, onto the rusty iron bars of the fire-escape landing. The window had opened easily and that had surprised her, so she lost her balance and almost fell.
She wondered if fear had given her the strength of ten women, and then she looked down, into the dimly lit alley, and her knees and heart turned to jelly. It had stopped raining, for now. The night air was cold and damp and smelled of the ocean.
She looked down again. Narrow iron steps zigzagged into the gloom. She turned and looked behind her. The hotel corridor was warm and familiar and inviting. She thought about the terrible sound Nick had made when he’d hit the floor. A meaty, irreparable thud, like nothing she’d ever heard before but instantly recognized, a terminal impact that shouted of broken bones and sudden death.
Poor Nick. Her eyes flooded with tears. The streetlights and distant lights of the office towers blurred and staggered. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Nick was dead and she’d killed him. Hadn’t she? That weasel Pinky had probably already called the cops. They’d find drugs in the room, maybe enough to convict her of possession with intent to traffic. Was that worth worrying about? She clutched the railings with both hands, and took that first crucial step towards freedom. The metal was shivery cold and vibrated alarmingly with every painstakingly slow and tentative step she took.
Heights had never bothered her, until now. A part of her knew it was the vivid, jangling memory of Nick’s swift and easy fall that robbed her of her courage and strength, but it was one thing to analyse the situation and quite another to have to deal with it. She slammed her foot down, freshened her grip on the railings, and took another step. The wail of an approaching siren drifted on unseen currents, ebbed and flowed and suddenly gained enormous strength, climbing to a deafening, accusatory shriek.
Chantal leaned far out over the railing. Her stomach muscles clenched involuntarily. Sparkling blue and red lights were reflected off dozens of plate-glass windows, and it was as if every police car in the world was after her in hot pursuit.
She scurried down the shuddering fire escape, moving faster than she could think. Ten feet above the alley the ladder came to an abrupt end. Chantal knew that this was to stop thieves from gaining entrance to the hotel and that there had to be a mechanism to allow a ladder to descend all the way to the alley, but the light was so poor that she couldn’t see the ladder, much less how to release it.
A patrol car turned in to the alley, headlights tossing a handful of shadows, making them tumble like dice. The sirens were all around her, deafening in their intensity. The patrol car’s brakes chirped. The vehicle stopped almost directly below her. The backup lights flashed white and then the man behind the wheel shifted into gear and the car surged forward, rocketed down the alley and vanished around the corner at the end of the block.
Chantal sat down, her legs dangling. She grasped a rod of rust-pitted steel, twisted her body and lowered herself cautiously, all her weight in her arms. The ladder chose that moment to rattle down, the crash of steel echoing off the brick walls of the buildings. She lost her grip and tumbled sideways, instinctively protecting her head with her arms as she hit the asphalt, and rolled.
A handful of distraught pigeons launched themselves heavily into the night sky, wheeled uncertainly above her and returned to their roosts. She stood up, shaky but unhurt. The rain was coming down again. More sirens and lights. She stared up at the dimly lit fifth-floor window, almost hoping a cop would stick his head out and yell at her not to move.
No such luck. She walked down the alley to the street and turned right, towards the railway tracks and the harbour. She had no plan beyond taking the next step. At the corner she waited as a patrol car howled past, tires slithering on wet pavement. The cop in the shotgun seat winked at her, and was gone. The light turned red. She waited patiently for it to turn green again. There was a crowd in front of the hotel, cops shouting at them to keep their distance. Good advice, and Chantal intended to take it. The light turned green. She hurried across the street, but not too quickly.
Nick’s friends weren’t her friends — not any longer. She had to stay away from them. She needed a hidey-hole, somewhere safe to pass the night. In an alley off Water Street she found what she was looking for, a warehouse doorway with a wide, overhanging roof that offered shelter from the elements. On the far side of the alley, acres of freight yards were protected by a high chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Powerful lights glittered high up on one of the monstrous cranes used to unload the ships that converged on the city from all over the world. Beyond the freight yard was the harbour, and then the mountains. It was a good place to spend the night: noisy, but out of the weather.
An overhead light protected by a wire cage illuminated a stack of wooden packing crates and a dumpster full of flattened cardboard boxes. Chantal glanced warily around. The loading dock was a prime location but it was unoccupied. In ten minutes of hard work, she made, herself a snug little nest of crates and cardboard. She stepped back, and critically surveyed her work. She’d done a good job. Her tiny home couldn’t be seen from the alley.
Secure in her hideaway, she emptied the pockets of her jeans and jacket and took inventory of her possessions. She searched frantically through her pockets, but somewhere between the hotel and the loading dock she’d lost the American money she’d held back from Nick. Was it in her leopardskin jacket? What difference did it make now? There was just enough light to count the money she found in Nick’s leather jacket — eight dollars and ten cents. She still had the straight razor he’d made her carry when she was working. Curled up in the tight space she’d made, she was cold, but getting warmer. She listened to the sounds of the nearby trains shunting back and forth. The cops would roust her if they found her, but she was more likely to be caught by a private security guard. Some brainless chunk of testosterone riding a mountain bike. The guards were everywhere, in their black pants and yellow rain slickers. They were mean-hearted sons of bitches, some of them, armed with pepper spray and nightsticks.
Chantal opened the razor and put it down where she could get it fast, if she needed to. The security guards were bad enough, but all they’d do is slap her around a little, and force her to move on. What worried her was the possibility of being found by some wandering punk who thought he saw a chance to get laid. She wasn’t about to risk a venereal disease, or AIDS. Some asshole tried to get into her pants, she’d slice him wide open, no hesitation.
Freight cars banged together, the immense, hollow, metallic sound of them thundering and rattling across the yards, startling her and suddenly making her afraid. She curled up in a tight ball, adjusted her clothing for maximum protection from the weather, and rested her head on her arm. She was physically and emotionally exhausted, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep because she couldn’t stop thinking about Nick.
An hour slowly passed, and during that time the cold and damp penetrated her bed of cardboard and crept stealthily into her body. She lay there, shivering. She had no watch, and could only guess at the time. The police wouldn’t stop looking for her until they found her. But they didn’t really know who they were looking for, did they? All they had was a name.
Reassured by this thought, she’d almost drifted off when she heard a low muttering, accompanied by a shrill squeak. The sound drew nearer and nearer, and then a bulky shape materialized out of the darkness, pushing a grossly overloaded shopping cart down the alley. Chantal twisted her body for a better view. She was cold, and her joints were stiff. She flexed her muscles, and fumbled for the razor. The squeaking slowed, then stopped.
A tremulous voice said, “Anybody in there?”
“Fuck off, I’ve got a knife!”
The squeaking started up again, and then the mumbling, louder now, and with undertones of bitterness and aggression. The cart, a mountainous junkyard on wheels, slowly disappeared from view.
Chantal waited until she couldn’t hear the wheels any more, and then she waited a little while longer, until her heartbeat had steadied, and she was breathing normally. She wanted to climb out of her tiny little room and look down the alley to make sure the homeless person was gone. But at the same time, she didn’t want to risk exposing herself. Her hands trembled uncontrollably. Was she frightened or was she cold? Both. Most of the vagrants she’d met were harmless, interested only in their own cramped lives. If they shouted or threatened someone it was because they felt threatened themselves. Basically, they were more disoriented than dangerous. If you left them alone, they’d leave you alone. Chantal lay down, and closed her eyes.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself in her mother’s warm and cozy kitchen. They were preparing a meal together; her mother mashed potatoes while Chantal prepared a salad. She heard a burst of canned laughter from the television and knew her father was in the living room, stretched out on the sofa in his red-and-white striped terrycloth bathrobe, nursing a bottle of beer while he watched the big Magnavox TV that they’d had forever.
Her mother told her to add a tomato to the salad, and she made the mistake of saying she hated tomatoes. Why couldn’t they for just once in their lives have a salad without a stupid tomato in it? Her father must have heard her, because he called out to her the way he did, stretching out her name until he ran out of breath.
“Channnnnnnntaaaaal, is that you, honey?”
He thumped the sofa, the familiar sound of his big fist slamming into the padded material rising above another round of canned levity.
Chantal looked pleadingly at her mother, but all she did was mash the potatoes a little harder.
“Channnnnnnntaaaaal, ba-by, I know you’re in there, hiding behind your mommy’s skirts. Come and say hello to your sweet papa, ba-by!”
Chantal got a knife from the rack and then hurried over to the fridge and crouched down and hunted through the crisper until she found the plastic bag containing the tomatoes. She chose the largest, slid the crisper shut and then closed the fridge door. When she turned around, he was standing right there in front of her, towering over her.
“You gonna tell me you didn’t hear me calling you, ba-by?” His hot, beery breath enveloped her like a sour fog.
“I heard you.”
“Heard me but ignored me, is that what you’re sayin’?” His smile was no smile at all. They’d had this same discussion so many millions of times before that they both knew exactly where it was going, and that there was no way Chantal could wriggle or squirm her way out of it, no matter how ingenious she was or how hard she tried.
Her father said, “You sashay into my house, you can’t bother to poke your head in the door and say hello?”
“I thought you might be resting.”
He gripped her shoulders, and moved close up against her, so they were touching all along their bodies. He squeezed her flesh, roughly massaging her. “I’m always glad to see you, ba-by, you know that.” He squeezed a little harder, and she flinched. “Don’t you, ba-by?”
Chantal craned her head so she could see past him to her mother.
“Never mind her, she’s busy mashin’ potatoes. Now you c’mon into the living room with me, and watch a little TV.”
“I can’t. I have to make the salad.”
“You mother’ll do that. She’d be glad to do it, so I get a chance to talk to my sweetie.”
He took the tomato from her and squeezed it until it burst. Juice and seeds and chunks of red pulp dripped from his fingers. He opened his fist and flung the ruined tomato at the floor. His eyes were dark. His mouth twisted into a mocking smile. Turning to Chantal’s mother, he said, “Clean that up for me, will you, honey?”
The potato masher banged noisily against the pot.
“Honey?”
Chantal’s mother nodded, but didn’t look up.
Her father said, “How long until dinner?”
Her mother shrugged with her shoulders and then with her entire body.
“Half an hour sound about right?”
Her answer was a mute, terrible shudder.
“Good,” said her father firmly. He reached out his dripping fingers and took Chantal by the hand. The living-room curtains were drawn, and the room was lit only by the TV’s flickering light. The door to the kitchen swung shut behind them. He stretched out on the sofa and told Chantal to turn the TV up a notch, then come and sit down on the floor beside him.
The creak of the sofa’s springs rolled into the squeak of an errant wheel on an overloaded shopping cart. Chantal snatched up her knife. The squeaking grew louder, and slower. She jumped to her feet. Light sparked off chromed metal. Something out there in the murky darkness shuffled sideways, shuffled back.
Chantal raised her arm, let whoever was out there see her razor. “Get away from me, go away, or I’ll cut you!”
The wheel squeaked. The space between the loading dock and the grocery cart was filled with a tumult of muttered words. How many people were out there, one or a dozen? She shaded her eyes against the light. A bottle shattered on the concrete. She ran to the far end of the loading dock and jumped. She landed hard, the impact jolting her from her heels to the base of her skull. She ran, stiff-legged and clumsy, her head throbbing, towards a distant streetlight. A bottle burst at her feet, spraying chunks of glass and droplets of warm liquid.
Chantal ran until she was winded and hurting, and then slowed to a rapid, crippled walk. She had no idea where she was going, but she sure as hell wasn’t going home, because anywhere was better than that, even jail. She walked for hours, parallel to the waterfront and then into the city. From time to time she rested in a doorway for a few moments, her head darting from side to side as she glanced anxiously around.
As dawn silently broke she found herself back on Granville Street. Sometime during the night the rain had stopped, but the street was still wet. Distorted neon gleamed and rippled on black pavement. Halfway down the block a storefront mannequin raised and lowered her arm in empty greeting. A few scraps of paper hurried down a side street. Overhead, a cold wind hummed in the orderly tangle of wires.
Chantal walked south on Granville to the largest of the three bridges that spanned False Creek. It took her twenty minutes to reach the apex of the bridge and in that time she saw almost no traffic. She hooked her arms over the grey-painted steel railing. It was a long way down to the water. Much farther than Nick had fallen. Chantal spat. Her spittle was carried away by the capricious wind, veering sideways and then swirling around as if in a whirlpool, falling, falling, falling.
Chantal imagined herself tumbling through the air, dropping towards the cold black water and then being magically lifted up, flung through the air like a leaf, spiralling dizzily around, rising up above the bridge and the city, through the clouds and into blue sky, and sunlight …
Off to the east, the morning sun was gaining in strength and the clouds along the horizon were beginning to break up. The sun warmed her face. In the space of just a few minutes, the ruffled water far below her turned from impenetrable black to a velvety blue.
She hooked a leg over the railing, braced her hand against a steel post, and hoisted herself up. She swung her other leg over the railing and looked out over the water at the orderly rows of boats moored in their slips. Her boots kicked against the vertical steel rails. If she leaned forward, she’d be gone.
