Serious Crimes (A Willows and Parker Mystery) (9 page)

“You had a doll?”

“My sister had dolls. I’d borrow ’em.”

Parker smiled. “I just can’t picture a tough guy like you playing with dolls, Jack.”

Willows nodded his understanding. “Yeah, neither can I, sometimes. Childhood. Time steals it away, along with every other goddamn thing you ever thought you owned. I don’t know why it is, but after a while it all seems as if it happened to somebody else.”

“You’re thinking about Melinda Lee.”

“Acting the adult. Trying to protect her mother from something.”

“From us, maybe?”

“Maybe,” said Willows. “You get anything out of her while you were in the kitchen?”

“Only that the fridge’s automatic defroster wasn’t working.”

Willows waited for a break in the traffic and then turned right on Oak, towards the city.

“Most of my sister’s dolls were blondes or redheads, but my favourite had brown eyes and short black hair.”

“Just like me,” said Parker.

“No,” said Willows, grinning. “Just like my mother.”

Chapter 10

There was a pool hall on East Hastings that Billy liked to go to — it had a brass button on the door you had to push and if the guy inside didn’t object to the way you looked, he’d hit another button and a buzzer would sound and you could go inside. The first time Billy had gone there he’d spent a couple of hours hanging out on the sidewalk in front of the place, leaning on a parking meter and smoking. Watching the citizens go by. He’d been broke and had nothing better to do, figured he’d see what kind of people were turned away, before he took his chances.

Nobody was turned away. Nobody. Even a couple of beat cops got let in, and they didn’t even bother to push the button, just banged on the door with a nightstick.

But, Billy noticed, the cops were kept waiting long enough to give the paying customers time to flush their stash down the toilet, drop a blade on the floor where it could be anybody’s…

“You do it,” said Billy. It was cold, and he didn’t want to take his hands out of his pockets.

Garret tweaked the brass button with his thumb and index finger, like it was a nipple. Here he was doing Billy’s chores again.

“Quit fuckin’ around, will you?”

Garret got a grip on his temper, pushed the button. The buzzer rasped. Billy shoved the door open with the pointed, metal-capped toe of his cowboy boot, swaggered inside.

The pool hall was a favourite hangout of the Red Eagles, a Chinese youth gang. There were eight full-size tables in two rows down the length of the room. To the left of the door there was a wooden counter with a glass top, the cash register. Beyond the counter stood a rack for cues, a Coke machine and several video machines. The owner was a short, fat Chinese guy named Mike, who was maybe fifty years old and never looked at you but always seemed to know exactly where you were. Mike carried a sawed-off pool cue tucked in the back pocket of his baggy pants, and he was the only Chinese Billy had ever met who always needed a shave.

Mike ignored Garret, nodded to Billy. “How’s it hangin’, white boy?”

“Ask your girlfriend,” said Billy, grinning, as he sauntered past Mike, through the blue haze of smoke and soft murmur of conversation and brittle clatter of the balls, towards an empty table at the far end of the room.

“Eight ball,” said Garret. There were about a dozen Chinese kids and their girls playing pool or the video games, or just standing around looking tough. Garret was careful not to catch anybody’s eye.

Mike reached under the counter and came up with a plastic tray containing the balls. There was a rumour Mike also kept a double-barrelled twelve-gauge under the counter. Garret believed the rumour was based on fact. There was something about Mike, a kind of vacant look in his eye. As if he didn’t give a shit about anything and was just waiting for a chance to prove it.

“Table number two.”

There were three vacant tables in the pool hall. Number two was up front. Billy was chalking up a cue at the table closest to the toilets, way at the back.

“How about six?” Garret pointed at Billy. “He’s got a problem with his bladder, might have to make a run for it.”

“Special favour,” said Mike.

“Just don’t give us no special rate.”

Mike flicked a switch, and a double row of frosted neon tubing over the table snapped on, making the green felt come alive.

Garret wandered over to the rack of cues, gleaming lengths of polished maple. It cost ten dollars a month, but Billy kept his own personal cue on the premises, in the common rack but under lock and key. Garret didn’t have that much interest in the game; he’d rather spend the money on his Mustang. He chose a sixteen-ounce cue, rolled it across an empty table to make sure it was reasonably straight, then dug around in the pocket of his Levis until he found three quarters, which he dropped in the Coke machine.

“You shoulda took a bent one,” said Billy, pointing at Garret’s cue as he approached the table. “With your eye, it’d help you shoot straighter.”

“Fuck you,” said Garret.

Billy grabbed Garret’s Coke, drank deeply, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Rack ’em.”

Garret dumped the balls on the table, gathered them close together with his arms and then arranged them in a wooden triangle. He lifted the triangle carefully, to avoid disturbing the set of the balls, and dropped the rack under the table.

Billy flipped a dime. The coin flashed under the lights. “Call it.”

“Heads.”

The dime hit the green felt, bounced once and rolled into the middle of the table and fell over on its side.

Billy bent to peer at the coin. “Your lucky day, Garret.”

Garret picked up the off-white cue ball and walked down to the far end of the table, positioned the ball and crouched over his cue.

Billy finished chalking up. He drank some more of Garret’s Coke.

A video game went
bonk
boing
bonk
.

Garret’s shoulder dipped as he made his shot. The cue ball shot down the length of the table and hit the racked balls with a sound like a small bone breaking. The balls scattered across the table, bounced off the rubber. The six ball dropped into a corner pocket.

Billy lit a cigarette.

Garret tried a bank into the near side pocket, missed by an inch.

Billy blew smoke out of his nostrils and lined up his shot.

One of the Chinese kids sauntered over, a gang member who called himself Pony. He leaned against the table. Pony wore his hair short; it was about an inch long except for a long tail at the back which he kept gathered together with a red rubber band. Billy figured that was why they called him Pony, because of the ponytail. Billy blew twin streams of smoke out of his nostrils and nodded at him. The kid nodded back. Double cool. Smoke rolled across the table like a little fogbank. Billy made a difficult shot into the far corner pocket, and tried to look as if he did it every day of his life.

“Nice shot,” said Pony. “How you doin’, man?”

Billy shrugged. “Gettin’ by.”

“Got a car?”

“I got a car,” said Billy, “but I don’t got a sign on the roof that says taxi.”

Pony smiled. He had nice teeth. He said, “Maybe you wanna buy a radio.”

Billy sank the thirteen in the far side pocket. Ash from his cigarette fell on the table. He glanced up the room at Mike, but Mike was busy making change. Garret drained his Coke and crushed the can. Pony grinned at him. Billy wiped the ash into the felt with the palm of his hand, leaving a pale gray smear. He chalked his cue and lined up his next shot.

“It’s a Pioneer,” said Pony. “High-power. Forty watts. Hundred bucks, and for an extra twenty I can throw in a nice pair of Alpine speakers, still in the box.”

“I didn’t come here for a radio,” said Billy. “I already got one, unless somebody just stole it.”

“Then what
are
you doing here?”

“Playing pool,” said Billy, “or didn’t you notice?” But he and Pony were playing another little game, a kind of verbal tag. Billy was there to buy himself a piece. Pony was there to sell it to him. The question was, who was going to make the first move?

“Your shot,” said Garret.

Billy, feeling reckless and lucky, called a double bank into the side pocket and missed by six inches.

Pony wandered over to another table. He put his arm around a girl Billy figured was maybe fifteen years old and weighed eighty pounds — ninety if you counted her eye shadow and lipstick.

The video game went
bonk
bonk
bonk
.

Garret kissed the four ball off the eight into the end pocket and made a similar noise.

“You call that?” said Billy.

“Yeah, sure,” said Garret, grinning. “Four ball off the eight and into the end pocket.”

“Fuckin’ fluke.”

“You’d take it — why shouldn’t I?”

“Anybody ever tell you that you were a first class asshole, Garret?”

“Anybody ever tell you, Billy, that you
weren't
a first class asshole?”

Sniggering over his little joke, Garret lost his concentration and missed an easy shot. Billy truly believed that was the root of all Garret’s problems — that he had a sense of humour. He lit another cigarette, ran his fingers through his hair. Pony was staring at him from across the room, and so was his little chipmunk of a girlfriend, her cheeks puffy with bubble-gum. Or maybe it was a cud she was chewing on, and that explained the vague, faraway look in her big brown eyes. Billy said something to Garret, giving himself a chance to look away. He turned back to Pony and the dude was still staring at him. Billy had a moment of uneasiness, but there was no belligerence in Pony’s eyes. It was as if he was trying to see deep inside Billy, figure him out.

Garret sank the fourteen and twelve balls, then ran out of luck and missed, but accidentally left the cue ball tight up against the rail so Billy couldn’t get a decent shot.

Billy sank a ball anyhow, the seven. He dropped the five and the one. Garret was starting to look worried. Billy missed. Garret made that snickering sound again, his confidence instantly restored. What he didn’t know and would never in a million years figure out was that Billy was toying with him, leading him on.

Garret sank the ten cleanly. He went over to the counter, got Mike to make change and then bought himself another Coke. Billy waited until Garret popped the tab, then sank his last three balls and dropped the eight on a tricky three banks in the side shot, giving the ball just the right weight, so it rolled slowly up to the pocket and seemed to hang there for a tantalising second or two, before dropping with a thud.

Game over.

Garret, that clown, spewed a mouthful of Coke foam into the neon lights and made them sizzle. Mike glanced up from his paper. He frowned but didn’t say anything, because he wasn’t sure what had happened and didn’t care to risk making a fool of himself.

“Rack ’em,” said Billy.

They were halfway through their second game when Pony finally wandered back to the table. He moved in so close that Billy could count his eyelashes. “So, I hear you’re looking for a piece.”

“A piece of what, cherry pie?”

“No, a large calibre handgun. You know what it is, thing that you point and pull the trigger and it makes a real loud sound. Like, bang!”

“Then what?”

Pony shrugged. “The neighbour’s dog don’t bother you no more. Whatever.”

Garret was down at the far end of the table, studying the possibilities offered by the lie of the cue ball. He showed no interest in the conversation, which was fine with Billy.

“What’ve you got for me?”

“A Colt Python,” said Pony. “You like that name, Python? Powerful fucker, three fifty-seven Magnum. New out of the box, never been fired. Short barrel, about the size of your dick. Easy to conceal.”

“How much?”

“Three hundred and fifty-seven dollars,” said Pony, straight-faced.

Billy let his eyes go cold. The price they’d talked about on the phone was three hundred. The whimsical surcharge was Pony’s payback; what he needed to regain the face he’d lost by bringing the subject up in the first place. Billy said, “Want to shoot a game, double or nothing?”

Pony shook his head. “I’ve seen you play, Billy. It’s the one thing in the world you do better than me.”

“Three hundred and fifty-seven bucks. That’s real cute, Pony.”

“Includes a box of bullets and a big colour poster of Clint Eastwood, get you in the right mood.”

Billy gave a little jerk of his head. “Let’s have a look.”

“Linda’s got it.”

“Who?”

Pony jerked his thumb at the eighty-pounder wearing too much makeup and a fringed black leather jacket, faded blue jeans with little silver studs down the outer seams.

“Okay, fine. You want to introduce us?”

“Show me some money.”

Billy flashed his wad, stuck it back down inside his boot. “Don’t go away,” said Pony, and made his way back through the tables towards the girl.

“What?” said Garret from the far side of the table.

Billy ignored him. He watched Pony say a few words to Linda and then reach around behind her and slap her on her skinny little ass, make her jump.

“Ouch,” said Garret.

Billy lit a cigarette. The girl gave him a long, slow look, her dark eyes cutting through the haze of smoke, and then turned her back on him and disappeared into the women’s washroom. Billy looked at Pony, and Pony nodded. Billy glanced around the room. Nobody was paying any attention to them. He leaned his cue against the table. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t even think about moving any of those balls.”

Garret said, “Sure thing, Billy.” There was no law against playing eight ball. But they caught you carrying an unregistered handgun, that was entirely another set of circumstances. So if Billy wanted to act like a fucking cowboy and take all the risks, Garret was happy to oblige. No problem whatsoever.

“Anybody follows me into the can,” said Billy, “you jump in real quick.”