Last of the Independents (8 page)

I said, “All we have to agree on is that this could help. Could. No guarantee. But I don't see any alternatives.”

Whatever energy was in the room dimmed and the meeting was over.

“Someone want to take the rest of these doughnuts home?” Katherine asked as she swept up the coffee cups into the trash basket.

“I'm sure you do,” Amelia Yeats said.

Katherine bit her tongue and looked away.

To me Yeats said, “Can I speak to you alone for a minute?”

Outside on the pavement she handed me the bug, which, with battery, was about the size of my thumb. “Twelve bucks seventy cents in parts, including battery.”

I dug out my wallet as Cliff passed us, heading towards where he'd parked his car. We nodded at each other. I offered Amelia Yeats the money but she pushed my hand away.

“Anything for Cliff,” she said. “Especially if he comes through with that two-inch tape.” She lit a cigarette, offered me one, du Maurier Lights. “My friend's band's playing the Commodore next week. They're not bad for a tribute band, although the new rhythm section hasn't gelled yet. You're welcome to come.”

“I'd like that,” I said, trying to think of the last concert I'd been to.

“I can put her on the guest list too.”

“Katherine? We're not together.”

“Good,” she said.

B
oth feet weren't in the office before Katherine said, “She is such a bitch.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“And her ‘fuck the police' rant? I'd've clocked her there and then.”

“Katherine's experiencing what the French call
l'espirit de l'escalier
,” Ben said without looking up from his book. “Stairway wit. She's thinking of all the great comebacks she should've said ten minutes ago.”

“I should've shoved her down that stairway,” Katherine said.

“I had a talk with her about that,” I said. “I straightened things out. It won't happen again.”

“Good,” she said.

The Hastings Street Irregulars, Part II

I
t
rained Wednesday night. In the morning there was a rainbow over Cordova Street, its apex above the train yard along the waterfront. I didn't know what that could portend.

Katherine's boyfriend and his parents shared a condo on Wall Street. I parked behind their Odyssey and followed the walkway around until I saw their slice of ground-floor terrace. I leaned over the guardrail and tapped on the sliding glass door. The boyfriend looked up from his yogurt and reached over to unlatch the door and pull it open. I climbed over the rail and wiped my feet on the concrete before stepping inside.

I don't like Katherine's boyfriend, Scott Shipley. I'm not quite sure why. I get the feeling he doesn't like me, or doesn't approve of Katherine working with me. Tall and pasty with an over-pronounced Adam's apple, red stringy hair that comes over his brow at an obtuse angle, like Gyro Gearloose from
Duck Tales
. That morning he was wearing blue briefs and a two-tone long-sleeve shirt.

“How's your day going?” I asked.

“All right I guess.”

“Katherine about?”

“Changing.”

I sat down at the table and watched him spoon up yogurt.

“You're taking the van again?” he asked. “Do me a couple favors? First, could you please fill it up with gas if you drive it for any length of time? Second, in the future, when my mom says specifically to bring it back for noon, could have it back
for noon
, not two fifteen?”

“Reasonable requests,” I said.

He nodded and resumed eating and scanning the newspaper.

I asked him, “How's that Flesh Light working out for you?”

I don't see how yogurt could catch in someone's throat, but Scott covered his mouth and coughed, his spoon clattering back into the bowl. I heard Katherine bounding down the stairs and I stood up.

“Sex toys are nothing to be embarrassed about,” I said. “Personally I'm content with the hand, but some people like to explore the frontiers. And shouldn't we be glad to live in a pluralistic society that welcomes those differences?”

By the end of the coughing fit Scott's face had turned pink. Katherine strode into the kitchen, school bag over one shoulder. She pulled out a chair from the table and sat down to pull on her hiking boots. After a minute of pure silence she looked up and said, “What?”

“Nothing,” Scott said.

“We're good,” I said.

She insisted on walking out the front door instead of going over the back rail. Out of earshot of the apartment she said, “I don't know why you two can't get along.”

“Jealousy,” I said. “He's not the first to be driven to it. I have that affect on people. It's something I've learned to live with.”

“You could be more considerate.”

“True. But I bet you don't chide him the way you do me.”

“We argue all the time,” she said.

“Ah.”

“Not what I meant.”

At the curb I opened the trunk of the Camry and began shifting gear into the van. I folded down the Odyssey's back bench and took out one of the seats in the middle row.

“It occurs to me,” I said, carrying the seat over to the trunk of the Camry, “that we have the opposite of a professional relationship, where you think being an employee gives you the right to criticize the boss.”

“Is it criticism to ask you to observe the bare minimum of etiquette?”

“I paid to borrow the van,” I said. “If I'm a couple minutes late and I forgot to top up the tank —”

“So a ‘please' and ‘thanks' are out of the question, Mike?”

She settled into the driver's seat, me sitting shotgun with an eye to the gear in the back. She made a left to get us onto Hastings.

I said, “Please convey to the Shipleys my immense gratitude for the usage of their conveyance.”

“More like it,” Katherine said.

We picked up Ben. Then we swung by my grandmother's house. I ran inside and came out cradling my dog. I connected her leash, handing it to Ben before letting her down onto the floor of the van.

“You can't bring that thing with us,” Katherine said.

“She's good luck.” I caught Ben breaking off a piece of muffin. “Do not feed her that.”

Katherine had reconnoitered Imperial Pawn Tuesday after the meeting. She'd measured the distance from the entrance to the back room (eight strides to the counter, two more to the back wall, five at most to navigate around the counter and the floor junk). She'd seen into the back room. It was dark but she was sure she'd seen a box full of blue VHS cases. So that was what we encased the bug in. Amelia Yeats had taken an old head-cleaning tape, scooped out the guts, and mounted the bug inside. I'd visited four Salvation Army stores before finding an identical blue plastic VHS case. The cashier had registered shock when I forked over two quarters for
Don Cherry's Rock'Em Sock'Em Hockey Volume Four
, only to dump the cassette and the cardboard insert in the trash and walk out with the case.

The jump-off point — it had taken all of a day for
Mission: Impossible
lingo to invade the office — was two blocks up the street in the parking lot behind a Ricky's. Cliff Szabo and Amelia Yeats were waiting for us. They hunkered down on the floor of the van while I outlined the order: Yeats first, then Katherine, then Szabo and I. I would drag Szabo out, Katherine would linger, Yeats would leave after us as soon as seemed reasonable.

“What about me?” Ben said.

“Stay in the van and don't feed that muffin to my dog. If someone comes by, move the van.”

“I'll set the mic up now,” Yeats said, “but someone will have to make sure it's working till I get back.”

“Show Ben,” I said to her, then to everyone: “So we all understand what we're doing?”

Szabo nodded, Yeats and then Ben.

Katherine said, “I can't.”

Turning around in the driver's seat she said, “I know what you're trying to do, and I'm not saying it's wrong, Mike. It might even be noble. But I can't be a part of this. If there's even a chance we could get in shit, from the cops or whoever, that's too much of a risk.” She looked at Szabo. “I'm sorry.”

“Understandable,” he said.

“How would you feel about staying in the van, making sure the mic's picking up properly?”

“I can do that.”

“Good.” I said to Yeats, “Show her what she needs to do.”

I turned to Ben, a streak of melted baker's chocolate on the corner of his mouth.

“That means you're up.”

A
melia Yeats had been in the store five minutes when we unleashed Ben. Szabo, nervous and looking for a distraction, opted to walk the dog around the block. Katherine and I shared the pair of Koss headphones Yeats had supplied. We watched the waveforms on the laptop screen. The bug was picking up the ambience from the pawn shop perfectly. Ben opened the door and climbed out of the van's back seat.

The overcast sky had been growing progressively darker as noon approached. The threat of rain hung in the air, keeping pedestrians to a minimum. The thrift store's parking lot across the street would have been ideal, but it was too empty, our van too conspicuous. From where we'd parked, we had a good diagonal view of the storefront.

Over the headphones I heard the
dunh-donh
of the electronic door chime as Ben stepped inside:

“Afternoon, sir,” Ben said. “I'm here today to buy something.”

I didn't look over but I knew Katherine was rolling her eyes.

Ben: “What I'm actually looking for is a camera.”

Ramsey: “Okay.”

Ben: “I don't know anything about cameras.”

Ramsey: “Okay. Well —”

Ben: “— Other than, y'know, you point and click. At least I think that's the order.”

Ramsey: “Right.”

The sound of tapping on glass.

Ben: “That one looks nice.”

Ramsey: “Yes.”

Ben: “Can I see it?”

The sound of a key chain being rifled through, a lock being slid back, the case drawer sliding open, and presumably a camera being plunked down on the counter top.

Ben: “Looks pretty good. How many, um, megapixels?”

Ramsey: “It says right here.”

Ben: “Right. So is eight good? I mean, is it enough?”

Ramsey: “Depends for what.”

Ben: “Nature photography. I take a lot of footage of squirrels and the like. The odd chipmunk. I like squirrels better than chipmunks, even though chipmunks have the better PR. Alvin, Simon, Chip, Dale. Like raccoons. Ever see a raccoon that wasn't eating garbage or murdering cats?”

Ramsey: “I don't know.”

Ben: “And yet they're beloved. Chipmunks are the same. You have a preference, chipmunks or squirrels?”

Ramsey: “No.”

(“Thinks he's seventies DeNiro,” I said to Katherine.)

Ben: “Weird how some animals get the cartoon stamp of approval and others don't.”

Ramsey: “This is a nice camera.”

Ben: “Does it shoot video?”

Ramsey: “No, but this one—”

Ben: “— Let's see it. No, don't put that one away, I might get both. And do you have any accessories?”

Lisa: “Can I help you with something?”

Amelia Yeats: “No, just looking, thanks.”

Ramsey: “Tripods in the corner.”

Lisa: “Well if you need anything let me know.”

Ben: “What about flashes?”

Yeats: “I will, thanks.”

Ramsey: “Flash is built in.”

Ben: “On both?”

Ramsey: “Not on the video. But you can adjust —”

I took off the headphones as Mr. Szabo came around the front of the van. We lifted the dog inside.

“Ready?” he said.

I handed Katherine the leash and gave her a hesitant thumbs up. She returned it. I nodded to Szabo.

“I'll be thirty seconds behind you.”

I put the cans over my ears. I'd counted twelve Mississippis when I heard
dunh-donh
and Mr. Szabo say in a frozen razor of a voice, “I know you know who took him.”

And everything that had been fun and unreal about the plan fell apart. I bolted for the door.

On the tape both Ramsey and his daughter start to speak in low, placating voices, before Szabo screams, “Lying mother
fuckers,
tell me where he is.” And louder, “Tell me where my son is.” And even louder: “
Where is he?
”

On the tape this is followed by a hard click and the tinkle of glass, and the door chimes ringing yet again. Through the door I saw Szabo clock Ramsey on the jaw as he came around the counter. Ramsey fell back, one of the cameras still in his hand. The hand with the camera smashed into the display counter.

Szabo swung again but by that time I was through the door, behind him, and I snapped him back from Ramsey and pulled him across the room, catching the closing door with my foot as Lisa charged at him. I maneuvered Szabo out as Lisa swiped my ear and chin, drawing blood.

Leading Szabo up the block I said, “What the shit was that?”

“Lying motherfuckers,” he said. I spun him around to face me, saw the tears.

“He's going to phone the cops and we're going to jail,” I said, which was an exaggeration of my concerns. What really went through my mind was:
I'm out of business.

After we turned the corner and were out of sight I slowed our pace. “Did you see if she planted the tape?”

Szabo shook his head.

We climbed into the van. Katherine was sitting on the floor, headphones on.

“What happened?” she said, speaking louder than necessary. Wearing headphones for long periods of time has that effect.

I shook my head and leaned over to take the phones.

“You should get out of here, Hough, maybe take a bus or a cab.”

“I'll stay,” Katherine said.

I heard Ben's voice saying, “No, seriously, that dude was out of it. You want me to testify or anything just say the word. My uncle's a barrister, we could sue. Do you know that guy?”

“No,” said Lisa. “Some crazy.”

Amelia Yeats had joined us in the van. She unplugged the phones so we could listen on the laptop's speakers.

“Anyway I'll let you get cleaned up,” Ben said. I heard them buzz Ben out.

The silence in the van mimicked the silence in the shop.

Ben opened the side door, decided it was too crowded and sat up front. The dog had worked between the two front seats and had her snout shoved into the muffin's waxed envelope.

I was conscious of the breathing of every organism in the van: Katherine's, steady on my left; Yeats's excited and quickened as she leaned over me from the right; Szabo's frenetic and uneven; Ben, already bored and impatient; me, all of these things; and beneath us, the leaky bellows of the dog.

I picture them in a back room with a “Closed” sign on the front door. Ramsey's hand has been bandaged, his body language betraying the shock of unexpected combat and trauma. Lisa paces in front of him, clicking her broken nails on the door frame. Their breathing is audible on the tape.

“What does he know?” Lisa said.

“What could he know?” Ramsey said. “Not everything.”

“No, he couldn't know everything.”

There was a sound of running water and crumpled paper.

Ramsey: “Or else —”

Lisa: “Or else he'd call the police.”

Ramsey: “So.”

Lisa: “So what does he know?”

Ramsey: “He knows about Zak.”

Lisa: “Not for sure he doesn't.”

Ramsey: “He has to know something.”

Lisa: “Say he does. What do we do?”

Ramsey: “Do? He's a sad old man.”