Hollow Dolls, The (18 page)

“He’s just a friend,” said Winnie.

“A friend?”

“You fought with Alejandra. She could have killed you.”

“Winnie!”

Melanie held her still and close. Pressed her lips against
Winnie’s forehead.

“I think I love you, but you said we can’t love.”

“We can’t lose each other. That’s the main thing,” said Winnie.
“Ever.”

 “Maybe I fought her because she’s taking you for those
experiments. You and your mom. Do you
want
to go do that?”

Winnie didn’t respond. She looked around the parkade nervously.

 “Winnie...what is it?”

“I always feel like she’s watching.”

Melanie kissed her and tasted salty tears.

“They’re crocodile tears,” said Winnie.

“I know how, you don’t. They’re real for us.”

Melanie wiped a croc tear off Winnie’s cheek.

“Right.”

Winnie started giggling her way into some other place.

She wiped her eyes and cleared her throat.  

“Ok, déjà vu over,” she said. “Let’s go get drunk.”

A warm midnight air drifted across the railway tracks on the
waterfront. The wet pavement on Main Street buzzed with strip club
neon. Gordie, the maintenance and door man at The No.5 had mounted the
club’s sign into the grey stucco beside the orange awning, leaving it with a
tentative tilt.

A tube of pink buzzing neon made its way around a fifties style naked
figure of a seductive woman and out to the words,

Girls Girls Girls

No commas, no periods.

Vic and Lynx entered the club and took a booth by the east wall.
Lynx had skipped his meet with Marty and Frank so now he was looking over his
shoulder. There wasn’t a chance in hell he could have met with them. He didn’t
have Vic’s nerves of steel. Lynx could escape to his mother’s place on Vancouver
Island. It was looking like his best option. The waitress brought them two
pints of draft.

“Hey Christine. Making some coin tonight?”

“Uh huh. Keep with the tradition babe.”

Vic could feel the ecstasy surging in his legs. He slipped a
C-note  into her black apron pocket for Scott, the manager, and dropped another
one on her tray. Christine pursed her lips, blew him a kiss and walked
off. 
Business as usual. 
The boys took long quaffs on their
pints. Vic was buzzing, calm and quiet, scanning the place. Lynx was starting
to liven up a bit. He forgot about the detectives for the moment.

They both went silent. It was like a negotiation. Vic liked
that Lynx was getting confident. He looked around the bar, excited. He felt a
thrill, relished it right in front of Lynx. He looked so innocent.

“What a stupid bitch,” Vic said out loud. He missed her D cup tits
and fat raisin nipples.

“What?“ Lynx was confused again.

“Nothing, just relax.” 

Vic went back to the night of the murder. His blood was rushing so
madly after he’d cut Lydia that he had to go to Kim Li’s fuck room and crank. After
that he walked the streets breathing the delicious air. He loved how he felt
after a kill.

“Let’s go for a toke,” said Vic.

They sat in their usual spot in the stand of trees at the east
edge of Portside Park. Across from them was smooth dark water.

“Liquid latex on a Domme’s ass,” said Vic, watching the water.

 It rolled and heaved. Vic passed the joint back to Lynx and
stretched his arms behind him. They lay hidden in their stand of trees. The
straight razor was stored in a little zippered compartment inside his jacket
collar at the back. It had a scrimshaw wolf-theme bone handle with design
etched along the blade itself.

Ten years ago, they might have been here together, plotting to
steal cartons of cigarettes. He found the wolf with his index finger and
stroked it softly feeling the nuances of the etching. He took a long deep
breath. It felt like ether flowing through his nostrils.

The inlet raised her giant hips.

Vic turned on his side.

Lynx’s eyes were closed. His chin was back with his black
Irish neck exposed.

Vic had practiced this move alone in his room like a gunslinger.

“I love you man,” whispered Vic.

“Hmm...” Lynx croaked out the heroin sound.

An ecstatic sonnet to his girlfriend in a spoon.

Vic thumbed out the blade. He pulled it across Lynx’s neck,
pressing down hard as he swiped. Then one more time.Across the open skin the
blade dug in deeper. Down to the bone. Shiny gushes of blood spilled along Lynx’s
brown skin to the grass.

Down at the water Vic washed the blood off his arms, then tied his
dress shirt to a rock and plunked it into Burrard Inlet. Soon he was back up
Main Street with a black t-shirt and jeans like he was fresh out for a night on
the town.

He laughed out loud. Trembling excitement jiggled in him
everywhere.

He broke into a run all the way to Kim Li’s. His legs felt like
rubber. Now he was bursting at the seams.

He didn’t need to remember the people he’d killed by keeping
souvenirs. It was like they were sucked into a black hole. Nothing ever came
back from a black hole.

Kim Li’s room was in The Regent. They called these dives SRO, short
for single room occupancy. Most were old hotels. There were two in this block
alone, right across from the Police Station and just two blocks from The No.5. Most
residents in places like this were addicts. Rent got paid directly from
government welfare to the local slumlords.

Kim Li was out.

Vic sat at his station, a wooden table painted over so many times
the chipped spots exposed colored paint layers like a top map of addiction and
death. First white, then brown then red then yellow. Vic made a speedball for
the boy, then one for him.

He figured the kid was about fourteen.

“You’re in pretty good shape,” said Vic.

“I want to do it,” said the boy.

“Nah nah,” said Vic.

Vic slipped the needle into the kid’s vein and flagged some blood
back into the mix. Plunge. The boy fell back on the bed.

“So long Lynx,” thought Vic as he did his. “It was a slice.”

He sunk deep into the mattress with the boy’s tongue dancing on
the end of his cock. The kid came right then and Vic swallowed. It tasted like
blood and Fruit Loops.

Down on ground level at the back entrance, Vic popped his head out
the door. The main thing was that nobody saw him coming from that particular
door.

“Don’t ever talk to me on the street unless I talk to you first,”
said Vic. He pushed the kid out the door and he ran off like an alley cat.

At the No. 5, Kim Li took Vic to a private room. Nobody was the
wiser. People would suspect if they were seen together. He wondered what the
old fart Ben Li would do if he caught his niece ripping from his stash. That made
him even harder against her china white leg.

~*~

Marty rapped his knuckles on room three sixty-eight. He was
sweating from the hike up the three flights from the lobby of The Lucky Lodge.
Felt his heart complaining. Frank stood to his side.

The door opened to reveal Walter Willow. Behind him was a colorful
room of impeccable order. Frank held up his badge.

“Hello, we’re with the Vancouver Police. I’m Frank Barnes and this
is my partner, Marty Reuben. Are you Walter Willow?”

“That’s me, in the flesh.”

“Mr. Willow, we’d like to ask you a few questions. May we come in?”

Walter stepped aside politely and waved the detectives in.

“I was just making tea, have a seat.”

“Yes for me, no for him,” said Frank, nodding at Marty.

They sat on the couch.

“And grab your ID while you’re at it.”

Walter walked over to the counter. There sat a kettle and teapot
with a flowered cozy. The detectives looked at each other perplexed. They
looked around the room for some clue pointing to Walter’s involvement with
either Vic Denton, a junkie dealer murder suspect or Lydia. They’d found Walter
Willow’s blood at the murder scene. It seemed impossible this gnome could be
involved. It looked like the blood bank break in was the key, but experience
told them to work the evidence to protocols. You just never knew. He could be
working with Denton.

“Mr. Willow, do you have a partner or a spouse?”

“Oh, not me,” said Walter. He grinned and pointed across the room
at a covered bird cage. “Peter is my company.”

“Pretty Peter,” the budgie chimed in automatically.

Walter set the tea down and reached into his pant pocket for his
wallet. “Here you go.”

“Fine, thanks Mr. Willow. Uh, your driver’s licence has expired
sir. You’ll have to get that renewed.”

Walter liked being off the grid.

“Oh, I don’t drive Mr. Barnes, unless you count my wagons.”

“Wagons?”

“I collect bottles and such, you know. I’m a bag man,” grinning
like Chris Kringle.

“Check out this beauty I found this morning.” Walter was about to
get up in his excitement.

“Wait Mr. Willow...” Marty interrupted. “This is a murder
investigation, and you need to cooperate so please sit down.”

“Oh yes, I see. What can I do for you?”

“Mr. Willow. Do you know this woman?” asked Frank, producing
a murder scene photo of Lydia Westerley.

Marty chimed in, “Take a close look sir.”

“Hmm... I’d have to say no. I see a lot of people around the
streets and I’m not senile you know. Really, she doesn’t look familiar at all.”

Walter knew Lydia as ‘one of his girls’.

He wasn’t hiding it that well and the detectives sensed it.

“You go out much at night Mr. Willow? Maybe take in a few lap
dances with the girls down at The No.5 Orange nightclub?”

“Lap dancing, hmm... dancing on your lap, how the heck does that
go? We never tried that in our day, I guess I never had the pleasure...”

“Mr. Willow. The No.5 Orange, down at Main Street and Powell. You’re
saying you never frequent that establishment?”

 “No sir, I know where it is, I know these streets, I spend
most of my days walking them and collecting valuables that others have tossed
aside. Why, you wouldn’t believe—”

Marty broke in, “Can you tell us your whereabouts on May 12
^th
?”

“May 12
^th
, twelfth, twelfth... “Walter looked up to the
right, then up to the left...

“Well...Mr. Willow,” Marty pressed him.

“I’m sorry boys. You know I have a routine. It’s pretty much what I
do every day. On May 12
^th
I was here collecting on the streets and
home for dinner around five o’clock. I can’t go much longer than that. These
old legs won’t take it.”

The detectives knew it wasn’t exactly an alibi, yet it was good
enough. This guy was either a stone cold psycho killer or he was completely
uninvolved.

“Do you have family Mr. Willow, in Vancouver or elsewhere?”

“I’m afraid I have no family Mr. Reuben. I’m alone now. A
bachelor!” He said it with great verve.

“I’m happy for you Mr. Willow,” said Frank. He couldn’t help smiling
a bit. Walter had that effect on everyone.

At this point the detectives knew they could fill Walter in on the
facts. Often in a case like this where a suspect is cleared by simple questioning
and observation, letting them in on some of the details might bring in another
clue—and they were desperate. Frank and Marty looked at each other.

“You see Mr. Willow,” began Marty, the reason we’re here is
because we found your blood at the murder scene, in Miss Westerley’s room. Now,
do you have any idea how your blood might have gotten there?”

“My blood you say?  That seems impossible,” said Walter. “Listen
gents. I’m going to level with you. I did see Lydia, I thought I oughtn’t get
involved—dammit—enough is enough! I think that man is guilty.”

“What do you mean Mr. Willow?” asked Frank.

“Well, how to begin. You see, I’m a bit of a detective myself. I
mean, I keep an eye on the girls down here and if someone needs help or seems
to be getting into trouble, I do what I can,” said Walter.

“Ok, Mr. Willow,” said Marty, “So did you give Lydia
help of some kind?”

“Well, that’s the thing, I couldn’t really, I was just concerned
at the time. I saw that she was keeping time with that Vic Denton character.“

“You saw Vic Denton with Lydia Westerley?”

“Yes I did. In fact, I’ve always seen him as a trouble maker
around this neighborhood. You know—a dark man. A wolf gone bad.”

“Yes, go on.”

“So when I saw him with Lydia, I kept an eye out. You see, I
followed them to her room on that night, May twelfth. It was a Saturday night,
I remember it clearly. I wanted to intervene, my senses told me something was
amiss.”

“You saw Vic Denton enter Lydia Westerley’s room on the evening of
May 12
^th
?” asked Frank.

“Yes sir, it was around nine in the evening. Shortly after, I
heard a scream and well, I didn’t have any way to prove my suspicions. It was
only a feeling I had,” said Walter.

“Why didn’t you come forward with this information earlier?” asked
Marty.

“Well, I wasn’t sure.”

“Never mind Mr. Willow, that’s not important now. What is
important is we need you to come down to the station for a line-up. Would you
be willing to do that?”

“Of course I would. Just tell me when.”

“We’ll call you,” said Marty, “Here’s my card if you need to
contact us. In the meantime stay away from Vic Denton.”

“Will do,” said Walter as the three men rose together.

“Anything I can do to help.”