Funny money, p.18
Funny Money, page 18
part #12 of Willows and Parker Mystery Series
Hector fished his switchblade out of his back pocket, hit the button and felt the sweet jolt in his hand as the blade locked in place. He passed the knife to Carlos, who used it to cut the rest of the way through the shrink-wrapped bundle of money. He tossed the knife down beside him on the van’s carpeted floor.
Carlos started counting the loose bills.
“What’re you doin’?”
“What’s it look like?” There were supposed to be one hundred bills to a packet, but Hector counted only forty-four. Add the two bills he’d scooped off the restaurant table, the six that Hector had in his wallet. That made … fifty-two. Which meant, lemme see now … that forty-eight of Jake’s bogus American twenties were missing.
Sweating, he counted the money again, twice, and then counted it a third time.
“Hector, there’s forty-eight bills missing. Nine hundred and sixty bucks. Where is it?”
“Fucked if I know.” Hector frowned. “You sure you counted it right?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Fear had bullied away Carlos’ rage. Not long after he and Hector had started working as couriers for Jake, Carlos had pumped Marty about the wild tales he’d heard, that Jake fed people who’d annoyed or disappointed him to his Dobermans. Marty had been embarrassed by the question. He’d hemmed and hawed, and Carlos had thought it wise to back off, tell Marty to forget it, he was just curious, that’s all. Marty said it was okay, that it was probably a good idea for him to understand the situation. He told Carlos the rumours were absolutely true. If a guy pissed Jake off bad enough, Jake’d drag him down into the basement of his Point Grey house, duct-tape the guy’s mouth shut and handcuff him to a cement post.
Marty said Jake used a meat cleaver to hack bite-sized chunks off the offending thug. That he fed him, piece by piece, to the dogs.
Carlos asked Marty if it was true that Jake kept cutting and feeding until there was nothing left but bones. Nah, said Marty, that was bullshit. As soon as the guy went under, Jake shot him, had him wrapped in a tarp and disposed of.
Carlos, hanging on Marty’s every word, had been simultaneously terrified and thrilled. What a horrible way to go, how scary, and clever!
But now his perspective was somewhat altered, because he was the poor sap who was at risk of watching himself being chewed to death, vanishing chunk after bloody chunk into the hungry jaws of Jake’s brutal pets.
Carlos ran the ball of his thumb lightly along the switchblade’s finely honed edge. A thin-as-a-hair line of blood welled up. Say what you will about Hector’s slovenly lifestyle, he took real good care of his tools. He touched the point of the blade to his thumb and was rewarded with a dot of blood. Now he had an exclamation mark on his thumb, drawn in blood. When he was a schoolyard bully he’d drawn unhappy faces on his thumb with a Bic pen. Those days were dead and buried. He wrapped his left arm around Hector’s throat and pressed the knife’s needle-sharp point against his chest. Hector squirmed and wriggled, but to no avail.
Carlos said, “I stick this into your stupid heart, you’ll be dead inside a minute, hardly bleed at all.” He gave him a little poke. “We work pretty good together, but I’m gonna feed you to Jake if you don’t tell me what’s up with them missing twenties.”
“Listen, why don’t we find a bank, buy some nice crisp U.S. twenties, shrink-wrap a new bundle and forget about it?”
Hector was smart, but not smart enough. Carlos said, “The Russians don’t trust nobody. They’ll check every bill. Sooner or later word’ll get back to Jake that some of the money was real, and he’ll come after us with blood in his eye.”
Hector sighed. He said, “Chantal’s got it.”
“Who’re you talking about?”
“The hooker. You told me to pay her, and then you went off to make that phone call. I was broke. What was I supposed to do, write her a cheque?”
“Those bills have one thing in common, Hector, and that’s the serial number. Nobody trusts a hooker. She tries to pass any of that money, it’s gonna get looked at real close. And she will try to pass the money, ’cause otherwise why would she work so hard to earn it?” Carlos snapped the blade shut and slipped Hector’s knife into his pocket. “Nine outta ten hookers are junkies. Where do junkies get their dope, Hector?”
“From dealers.”
“And who do most of the dealers in this city work for?”
“Uh …”
“Right, Jake. Word gets back to him there’s funny money in the loop, it won’t take him long to find out how it got there.” He snapped his fingers. “What’d you say her name was?”
“Chantal.”
“The cops nail her, who d’you think she’s gonna give up?”
“Me ’n’ you?”
Carlos frisked himself, found his cigarettes and lit up.
Hector was no fool. He’d worked all this out long before Carlos had even realized the money was missing.
Carlos said, “Okay, you’re broke. That don’t explain why you didn’t throw her out on her ass. I mean, what’s she gonna do, call the cops?”
Hector pecked at the crusted blood that rimmed his nostril. “You want the truth? Okay, here it is. I gave her the money because I liked her.”
“Gimme a break.”
“She was real nice, Carlos. Not hard, like all the other hookers I met. After you left, I asked her how long she’d been a working girl, and she told me she just got started, was ashamed of what she did. She said she wanted to be a vet, learn how to save wounded or sick animals. But her boyfriend was outta work, they had no money to live on.”
“You moron!” Carlos’ narrow, embittered face turned the colour of an industrial-zoned sunset. “We gotta find her, get the money back.”
“Okay,” said Hector passively. But it wasn’t like her number would be in the book, even if they knew her last name. Or first. Most hookers he’d met had been born with names like Mary or Judy or whatever, but, being romantic types at heart, had unofficially changed their names to Tiffany or Venus or, say, Chantal. Funny how hookers and daytime soap-opera actors favoured the same names. Hector said, “So what’re we gonna do now?”
“Where’d we pick her up?”
“On Richards, by that club …”
Carlos nodded, remembering. Richards was the best street in the city for picking up a certain class of whore. It was kind of depressing though, down at the south end where the boys hung out. Looking so sad and fucked-up and totally lacking in self-respect. Lazy perverts. Why didn’t they get into armed robbery, or some other area of relatively honest work? Jeez, even purse-snatching would be a step in the right direction.
Carlos said, “We picked her up on Richards, that’s where we’ll find her.”
“Good thinking,” said Hector.
Carlos slid him a sidelong glance. As he put the van in gear and pulled away from the curb, he imagined Hector cuffed to a blood-splattered concrete post in Jake’s soundproofed basement. He and Marty and a few other guys, a mix of Russians and Cubans, standing around smoking expensive cigars while they watched Jake wield his machete magic. The dogs barking, jowls dripping pink drool. Bone chips flying as Jake cut too deep.
The look in Hector’s eyes.
Carlos could hardly wait.
Chapter 34
Principal Timmins let Willows and Parker use his office to interview Julie Myers, Nicholas’ ex-girlfriend. Julie confirmed that Nick often came to school with unexplained bruises or contusions, but that he always insisted he’d been injured riding his motorcycle, or in fights with other kids. Julie had never been to Nick’s home or met his parents, and he had made it clear he didn’t want to talk about them. She hadn’t heard from Nick since he’d quit school, and had never heard him mention Chantal’s name.
During the drive home, Parker and Willows discussed the case at length, and then, inevitably, the conversation settled on Tripper. Parker said, “What are we going to do with her?”
“I don’t know. Turn her in to the SPCA, I guess.”
“We must know somebody who’d take her.” Parker gave Tripper a pat. The dog leaned forward, and rested her bony head on Parker’s shoulder.
“How about Bradley?” said Willows.
“We can ask him, but it’s only been a few months since his own dog died, so I doubt if he’d say yes.”
Willows nodded. Ten years ago, Bradley had adopted a dog-squad dropout. The animal had never been sick, then suddenly lost its appetite. Bradley’s vet examined the dog and diagnosed inoperable stomach cancer. Bradley had been devastated. He didn’t come to work on the day he had to put the dog down.
It was the first time he’d booked off sick in living memory. Parker was right. Bradley wouldn’t be ready to take on another animal. Willows said, “What about Dan Oikawa?”
“Good choice. Why didn’t I think of him? He owns a house in North Vancouver, doesn’t he?”
“Condo,” said Willows, “but I remember him saying that pets are allowed, and that his wife wanted to get a dog.”
“Then maybe they already have one.”
“Maybe.” Willows made a head check, moved into the passing lane, and accelerated past a dump truck trailing a cloud of white dust. He said, “No, wait a minute. Dan’s got an allergy. His wife did get a dog. She brought home a Weimaraner and it almost killed him. Watery eyes, sneezing, headaches …”
“A small price to pay,” said Parker.
“Bobby Dundas?” suggested Willows.
“That creep? I wouldn’t trust him with an ant farm.”
“What about Orwell?”
Parker mulled it over. “I don’t know. Maybe. Eddy’s a decent guy, but he’s so messed up over his marriage that he can barely take care of himself.”
“A dog might be good for him.”
“Maybe, but Tripper deserves a better fate than Orwell can provide.”
“Ted Moffett?”
“In vice? No thanks, Jack.”
A synapse in Willows’ brain reached up and tugged a dusty cord. A light bulb snapped on, providing light enough for him to see his collar and leash, and the winding road down which Parker was inevitably leading him.
He said, “Forget it!”
“Excuse me?”
“Tripper wouldn’t even get through the door. They’d tear her apart and spit out the pieces.”
“Who?”
“The cats.”
Parker smiled sweetly. “They’d get along just fine. The truth is, you don’t want a dog.”
“That’s right,” said Willows. “I don’t want a dog. Not even a wonderful dog like Tripper.”
Willows mentioned a few more names. Parker vetoed everyone he could think of. They were either too young, or too old, or too busy, or too lethargic, or already had one too many pets.
Parker said, “Tell you what, I’ll take full responsibility for Tripper. I’ll pay for her shots, and I’ll feed and water her, and take her for a walk almost every single day, rain or shine. If we go on a trip and can’t take her with us, I’ll find a good kennel, and pay for her keep.”
“And comb her, and pinch her fleas?”
“Tripper isn’t the kind of dog who gets fleas, Jack. But if she picks up a flea, I’ll deal with it.”
“What about the cats?”
“They’ll adjust.”
“But what if they don’t?”
“Then we’ll find another home for her. But we’ve got to give her a chance. We can’t just abandon her.”
Willows sighed heavily. Parker had deployed every argument he’d himself used on his parents when he was in the fifth grade and a mutt had followed him home from school. His impassioned pleas had fallen on deaf ears. That night, the unfed and mostly unloved mutt was tied to the front-porch railing, to be picked up by the pound in the morning. Willows, shivering in his pyjamas, had sneaked it a peanut butter sandwich and bowl of warm milk. At dawn, the grateful animal had savagely attacked the milkman. An angry-faced man from the pound came with a long pole with a metal hoop on the end. He smelled of tobacco and sweat, and he had the snarling dog locked away in the back of his truck in less time than it took Willows to burst into tears and run to his room and hide in the closet. A few days later his mother told him the dog had found a home on a distant farm, where it would be allowed to run free and have a wonderful time. Until then, it had never even occurred to him that his parents were capable of deception, much less outright lying. The incident with the dog stripped them both of all their heroic qualities, and in the end all of them were the better for it. But it was another twenty years before Willows was mature enough to realize that.
He glanced across the seat at Parker. Her jaw was set, and she refused to look at him. Tripper was in the back seat but she had come between them, solid as a wall. He decided to concentrate on his driving. They were only a few miles outside the city, and the flow of traffic had taken on a dangerous urgency.
*
Bradley had left three pink message slips on Parker’s desk. He wanted to see her and Willows immediately. There had been a time when Bradley would have left the messages with Willows, but he’d learned that Parker would respond to them promptly, whereas Willows claimed the pink slips magically disappeared before he ever saw them.
Parker looped Tripper’s leash around a leg of her desk. She dug into her purse and came up with a rawhide chew toy. She tossed the toy to Tripper and told her to be a good dog. Tripper’s mouth was full, but she managed a low growl. Willows wondered if the janitorial crew would complain about the drool stains in the carpet. Not his problem. He followed Parker down the length of the squad room, and reached past her to open Bradley’s door as she knocked on the pebbled glass.
Bradley looked up from his desk, motioned them in and told Willows to shut the door.
“You drove out to the valley?”
“Just got back,” said Parker. “We talked to Nick’s parents, and his high-school principal, James Timmins, and also Nick’s ex-girlfriend.”
Bradley read the expression on Parker’s face. “But you got nowhere.”
“That’s true, but we eliminated a few dead ends.”
Willows said, “The kid’s parents are boozers. His stepfather used him for a punching bag. But I don’t think he’s got the energy to kill him.”
Bradley looked to Willows for confirmation. “What about the missing hooker, Chantal?”
“Still missing. We’re working on it. The Granville Street canvass come up with anything?”
“We picked up a few leads. Nothing definitive. Spears and Dan Oikawa are working the other strolls, chatting to the girls and boys. Maybe they’ll get lucky.”
Bradley shifted in his chair, trying to make himself slightly less uncomfortable. Tonight, he was going to try very hard not to fall asleep on the couch in the middle of the “Late Show.”
“What about the night clerk, think it’s worth spending more time on him?”
“Pinky? I doubt it.” Parker glanced at Willows. He wasn’t pounding his fist into the wall, so he probably agreed.
Bradley said, “Any other leads?”
“Not really.”
“Whose idea was it to turn the dog into a TV star?”
Willows jerked his thumb at Parker.
“Nice work,” said Bradley. “I saw the tape, and so did about a zillion other people. Unfortunately, about 10 per cent of them called in with leads. We’ve got three apparently rational couples claiming Chantal is their missing daughter. She’s been gone five years, three years, and ten years. One kidnapping, two runaways.”
Parker said, “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“It was, or I wouldn’t have approved it.” Bradley’s chair creaked as he leaned forward and moved his carved cedar humidor half an inch to the left. The humidor had been a parting gift from his wife, who had left him without warning and divorced him without mercy. She’d told him she needed to discover her meaningful inner self, and had flown to California to join a cult. The life must have suited her, because she’d never come back. Now his goddam dog had died, and he was alone except for his son, whose last postcard had come from a tiny village in Mozambique that Bradley had been unable to find on any map.
Parker said, “Uh, about the dog …”
“What dog?”
“The girl’s dog, Nicholas Partridge’s dog.”
Bradley waited.
Parker said, “She’s a terrific animal, and we don’t want to take her to the pound. But we don’t know what else to do with her, and we were wondering …”
“The pound doesn’t put animals down any more,” said Bradley. He smiled. “So you don’t have to worry about that.”
“I know, but we were wondering …”
Bradley’s door rattled. Pink blurs materialized into fists that pounded on the pebbled glass and then vanished and came back again.
Bradley said, “Get the door, Jack.”
Willows opened the door. Eddy Orwell thrust his sports jacket in Willows’ face. The jacket was a single-breasted model in such a rancid shade of mustard that it wouldn’t have looked out of place on a real-estate agent or a golf course. Sharp teeth had cut the jacket to shreds. Orwell said, “Look what your dog did to my jacket!” Willows looked Orwell over, head to toe. Smiling, he turned to Parker and said, “Tripper ought to be a surgeon. She ripped Eddy’s jacket to ribbons and never laid a tooth on him.”
“I wasn’t wearing it at the time!” hissed Orwell. “It was hanging over the back of my chair, and your dog ruined it!”
Bradley pointed at the door. “Everybody out — and that means you.”
In the squad room, Orwell violently threw the remains of his jacket to the floor. “Somebody’s paying for this!”
Parker nodded. “That’s fine with me, Eddy.”
“I mean you! She’s your dog, isn’t she!”
Parker smiled. “Not yet she isn’t.”
Not yet, thought Willows, but soon.
Chapter 35
Chantal slept for hours. When she woke she felt hungry and tired. The apartment was cold and dark. She couldn’t find a thermostat, which meant the people living upstairs controlled the heat. She went over to the avocado-coloured stove and opened the oven door and turned the heat up to four hundred degrees, then turned on all four electric burners. In the bathroom, she splashed warm water on her face and dried herself with Tim’s threadbare towel. A round shaving mirror hung from the shower nozzle. She took the mirror down and studied her reflection. There were bags under her eyes and her skin was pale. She thought, This is what I’ll look like when I’m older.
