Almost Criminal: A Crime In Cascadia Mystery Part 20

I explained how the keypad worked. Ivan made me give it a try, but we both knew it was pointless. The code would have been changed.

Was the sign a prop that meant he wanted to be left alone, or had Randle cleared out? The house was dark and the curtains were closed. The lake breeze swirled shreds of newspaper against the gate. Had he left the valley completely, or skipped to another property that I knew nothing about? Had he known that Bullard was going to make a move, and sacrificed me to give him time to pack up and disappear?

Trucks lined the street in front of Sadie's strip club, forming a wall of wheeled metal. Bullard's pickup was among them.

"Drive on in." Ivan ordered.

I did as I was told, pa.s.sing a shaved-head guy with tattoos up his neck and over his skull. The security detail, apparently. I parked near the front door.

There were more guards at the door, and another two inside the strip club. The tables were set with menus, the shelves were stocked, and huge posters above the stage displayed recent or current talent. The room felt warm and humid, and anxious sweat trickled down my arm as Ivan marched me to Bullard, his fist clamped above my elbow. Bullard, short and broad-shouldered, sat at a long, newspaper-covered table along the back wall, absorbed in conversation with a long-haired guy in a jean jacket. Over by the bar, Keech, Bullard's chief of security, leaned with the half-asleep look of a panther at rest.

I was walked straight to Bullard's table. There was no explanation of why we were there.

"I need a beer," Bullard called. He straightened the pile of paper and dismissed the long-haired guy with a nod.

"You thirsty? Get the kid a beer."

One of the bikers slipped behind the bar and lifted a bottle in my direction, his mouth shaping the word Molson?

I nodded, quick to accept any positive gesture. Bullard waved me closer and I took the seat, still warm from its previous occupant. I could feel Ivan behind me. Bullard waited patiently for Ivan to deliver the beers and a bowl of walnuts.

He looked me up and down and said, "Time I was your age, I was halfway to my patch. Seasoned." In other words, everything I wasn't.

I felt the need to respond, but had no idea what to say, so I nodded. It felt inadequate and like a suck-up gesture at the same time.

Bullard's callused hand wrapped around the beer like it was a mini-bar sample. He picked up a metal nutcracker and split the sh.e.l.ls off, nut after nut, piling them in a neat pyramid, then palmed the stack and tossed them in his mouth. If the idea was for me to imagine how one of my fingers would fare in the nutcracker, it worked.

Bullard paused, his mouth full of nuts, and looked at me. "What's the matter? You afraid?"

"Guys with machine guns round me up, bring me here."

It seemed obvious. Did I have to say, yes, I'm more s.h.i.+t-scared than I've been in my life? Back at the warehouse, I'd hoped the Uzi-packing goons weren't going to machine-gun me in earshot of a construction crew, but here I had no such protection, and the idea of my index finger in his nutcracker was nothing compared to where my imagination was roaming.

He pursed his lips and rolled his shoulders. "We're under attack. From every side, above, and below." His eyes were small, closely s.p.a.ced, and accusing. "I'm told you been a good soldier. " His gaze flicked to Ivan and back. "You follow orders. I like that. You could say, I got no problem with you - my problem is with the man you work for. Would you say that?"

I nodded again, and gave a little uh-huh.

"Unfortunately, he's not here, and you are." He let a long sigh through his nose and resumed cracking walnuts. "Let me explain. We are a club." He waved the nutcracker toward the others in the room. "One of many. Each of the clubs operates through agreements, mutual respect, mutual trust."

He leaned closer to me. "And now our club, its territory, and its rights are under attack. From within -" he meant Randle, I was certain "- and from without." That would be Sammy Jay.

I was drenched with sweat and my ears burned pink. I knew I looked as guilty as I felt.

"I blame these times, and this open market. There's a rumour of legalization and suddenly everyone wants in. They circle around, smelling money like a shark smells blood, as if -" his tone changed "- this is not my territory." His fist slammed the table, snapping the nutcracker at the hinge.

"Your man Kennedy. I have been generous, I gave him unlimited privileges, his own methods, his own processing-" Now the broken nutcracker pointed at me "- deliveries, channels. This is his thanks. Collusion and disrespect."

He paused, palms facing the ceiling. "I want a simple discussion, and all I get is you. Are those the actions of a man with nothing to hide?"

I took a tentative sip of my beer, to do something with my hands.

"What can you do for me? Tell me where he is? Call him, bring him here."

I shook my head and told him how Randle kept phone numbers and nearly everything secret. I spoke too quickly and the words tripped over each other, but he knew what I meant. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"There is no other way. I need him here."

Behind me I could feel an expectation building. Maybe I'd watched too many movies where the guy who won't talk gets shot in the leg or the arms and then he breaks down and talks anyway. Maybe I'm just a worthless chickens.h.i.+t. But I was as frightened as I'd ever been, up to that moment at least, and I knew that whatever they did, I'd talk, so I might as well get it over with. And I blamed Randle for handing me over to these terrifying guys, and, for making the deal with Sammy Jay and the Americans and taking away the protection that I'd had in the first place.

Maybe those are excuses to justify it to myself, but I opened up. I told them about Randle's side operations, his grows and processing plants and selling to Cafe 420 and the other places in the city, and his online seeds, and that Maddie had two sets of books, only one of which was shown to Bullard.

"Very entertaining. Not one thing I didn't know already."

I slumped in the chair, mouth dry from talking.

Ivan spoke over me. "We are wasting time. Kennedy would never tell this kid anything."

"He has two sets of books?" Bullard shook his head as if he was talking to a moron. "You think what, I do his taxes? I don't care about books. This is about being -" he paused, considering his next word "- equitable. Equitable with your partners. Trust is the basis of all business. Without trust ..." He trailed off.

I told him about the American bikers and the handshake deal with Sammy Jay. He rubbed a hand over his buzzcut and seemed to come to a decision. He lifted his gaze to someone behind me and gave a tick of a nod. Strong hands pinned me in my chair. I didn't try to struggle.

"He runs." I blurted. "Every day."

"What, he doesn't walk?"

"For exercise. It's a thing he does. He runs the boardwalk to the provincial park and the Sadler trail. It's, like, three or four miles each way. He'll be running tonight at sunset. He told me." Maddie's licence number suddenly popped into my head and I gave it up, thinking, they can fake a driver's license, maybe they have connections in the licence bureau and can find her address, in case that's where he was hiding. Anything I knew, I spilled.

Bullard sent his men out on the hunt, leaving only Keech and me in the strip bar. Keech led me to the walk-in beer cooler behind the bar and locked me in.

That was it for the next hour or two. It wasn't too cold in there, but it was uncomfortable, perched on a stack of beer cases with almost no legroom. After a while I could see blue under my fingernails. I listened while Bullard made angry phone calls and gave orders - through the sealed door I heard the tone of voice but couldn't make out any words, and didn't try. From time to time, footsteps clumped in and out.

I s.h.i.+vered and let despair flood in. If I'd left one day earlier. If I hadn't done that last delivery. One minute I was independent, sleeping with a girl by the lake, making plans for the future. Then the world stopped.

I'd always known I was a coward. They hadn't laid a hand on me but I'd told them everything, and I knew it wasn't enough. The only reason they were keeping me was they hadn't found Randle. Once they had him, I was useless. But if Randle had truly escaped - if they couldn't find him - they'd take it out on me. It would be worse, much worse.

I must have dozed off, with the cold and the lulling hum of the compressor, when there was sudden activity outside, heavy footsteps and voices. Everyone left in a rush and a door slammed, leaving the bar outside the beer cooler empty. A moment of silence became a minute, then two, and I stood up - this was an opportunity for something, but what?

I had a phone. I reached down the front of my pants and pulled it out, warm from body heat. If someone looked through the gla.s.s door they'd see me, so I turned and bent low, and fumbled with chilled fingers. As the screen lit I felt footsteps again and flipped it closed as the f.u.c.king startup music tweedled and I jammed it tight in my armpit to mute the sound.

I heard Bullard outside, his mumble distinct through the heavy door, and someone else with him. As they settled into a discussion, I took my last chance to save my life, even though it meant giving up my future, my money, and everything else. I dialled 911.

Chapter 22.

So much for rapid police response.

I'd had less than a minute before I felt a shadow approaching the gla.s.s door, but that had been enough for me to shoot out a rapid-fire whisper that I was being held captive by bikers with weapons and probably drugs, and to give the emergency operator the address, which was probably already in the police database, before I dropped the phone and kicked it behind some cases of beer. It was Ivan who let me out. He was a bit subdued. First he handed me a towel to warm me up, and then, as he led me out to the bar, asked if I was hungry. I followed, light-headed and anxious, wondering when the SWAT team was going to crash the place. It was as if I were floating slightly above the scene, watching my wobbly-kneed exit from one jail cell to another. Ivan reached behind the bar and slipped me a handful of chip and pretzel bags while we both awaited the boss.

"Looking a little ragged," Bullard said to me in a patronizing tone that I a.s.sumed was intended to be rea.s.suring. "Time to hit the road." He'd cleaned up. He wore cuffed grey pants and a soft leather jacket. He seemed to think it was an executive look, but the jacket would have split if he lifted both arms at once. With his size, and his little recessed eyes with their f.u.c.k-you-right-back gaze, the effect was more like an ex-con televangelist.

He wrapped an arm around me in a proprietary gesture and walked me outside. The sun was already low in the sky, and I was stunned by the unreality of being there, with Bullard acting like my protector while his posse - I had no idea how many, or who, followed behind, just in case. In case what? Did they think Sammy Jay was waiting somewhere? There were no cops in sight, unless they were lurking on rooftops with snipers ready, like on the hostage shows.

Bullard's fatherly arm felt heavy and possessive, and when he pushed me into the cab, I took my place without question or thought of escape. The cozy pretence ended after he took his seat. While I scanned the street, dazed, hoping to spot a full-sized American sedan with the distinctive radio-antenna blisters of a police cruiser, he hit the door locks and pulled out a package of Juicy Fruit gum, peeling silver foil from one, then two, then three sticks and folding them deep inside his mouth. With a quiet grunt, he leaned one forearm into my gut, pus.h.i.+ng the wind out of me, while the other hand grabbed one of my wrists, then the other. I didn't struggle. I felt no emotion as he looped a plastic strap around my wrists and zipped it tight. "Hey," I said, in a barely audible voice, "I'm on your side."

Bullard replied, "That's good, so shut the f.u.c.k up and act like it."

Within minutes we were on the highway. He was restless, steering and chewing with a manic intensity and talking non-stop. How educated are you, he asked, meaning in the business, not school. Green for white, you know what that is? Of course I did, but the shock was pa.s.sing and I was starting to feel angry again. I turned my gaze to the road, watching the outskirts of Wallace fall off to raggedly shadowed farmland.

"I was twelve when I started hanging with the guys," Bullard nattered on, in that high, almost feminine voice. "Time I was your age, I was a prospect already, riding with the club." He was still acting like he was my dad and we were on our way to a team practice or a game or something, chatting and driving. The plastic strap bit into my wrists. Houses were farther and farther apart now.

I was thinking it wasn't so bad, the pain, then it spiked from the bridge of my nose up through my eyes, and every thought was washed away by the hurt. I shook my head to snap out of it and hopefully clear some of the wood chips off my face, but it was a mistake - dazzling lights burst behind my eyelids and I blacked out again.

A second or a minute later, I was awake and basically all right except my nose was blocked - with dirt or gummed-up blood or cartilage, I couldn't tell - and I couldn't lift a hand to find out, because my wrists were still strapped together. I spat warm blood and gasped a couple of mouth-breaths, and arched my back to lift my face from the dried muck.

I was belly-down in a hard-packed dozer track. The hillside in front of me was something out of a Greenpeace poster, a brutalized landscape of upended stumps and splintered limbs. Higher up, postcard-perfect mountaintops glowed pink in the last light, craggy grey slopes and snowy crests, while at ground level, smoke trickled from the slash, and the soil under me was uncomfortably warm.

After clearing a section, loggers torch what's left behind to clean up the worthless residue and fertilize the soil. The clearing Bullard had chosen was freshly burned, perhaps because any tracks or footprints would be obscured as the ash s.h.i.+fted and settled.

I knew where we were, within a mile or two. If I wasn't face-down in rocks and sawdust I'd see Mount Baker to the south. Between Baker and us there was nothing but a whole lot of forest, and whether the cedars were Canadian or American, you'd need a GPS to be sure.

Thoughts of escape gave me energy. If I can make it to the trees, I'll be gone and he'll never find me. They helped fight the defeat that threatened to overwhelm me.

It had taken more than an hour to drive here, from Wallace to the mountains, then up a choppy logging road to a cutblock where a cedar forest used to be. When Bullard pulled into the clearing, he reached over me to pop the pa.s.senger door, which would have seemed like a polite gesture if it weren't for the zip-cuff. Then he put a hand against my shoulder and shoved me out of the truck sideways and down into the branches and slash. With my wrists strapped together I couldn't balance, and smacked face-first into the exposed root of an upended stump. I was pretty sure my nose was broken. I could hear Beth's voice in my mind: Just be glad it's not your eye.

Bullard bent down, took my wrists in one hand and lifted, standing me upright like a cardboard cutout, and nudged me into the amber glow of his truck's running lights, as if keeping me in view would make me less likely to run.

I had no feeling from the wrists down, and halfway up my forearms was all pins and needles. I twisted from his grip and rolled my shoulders to get some circulation back, and he laughed, a nasal snort at the futility of my little gesture of independence.

We weren't alone. A truck had followed us from Sadie's, and across the cutblock I could hear another engine idling, and caught the glint from reflectors from one, maybe two vehicles half-hidden around the perimeter. I craned my neck for a better view, hoping to see a logging road or trail, any possible opening in the bush.

Bullard must have sensed my thoughts. "Take a look?" he said calmly, grabbing me by the elbows and lifting. "View's better up here."

He wasn't much taller than me, but packed at least a hundred pounds more muscle. I felt my arms separating from their sockets and couldn't help crying out.

"No? Fine by me," Bullard said, and let go.

It was only a few inches fall, but as I scrabbled for something to land on, one foot caught the edge of a waffled dozer track and folded over on the ankle. I landed heavily on my side, back into the churn of warm splinters and mud. I tried to push up on an elbow, but my strapped arm was numb and useless and I rolled backward into a spray of cedar roots. Something thick and gummy slid into my throat and I tried not to break into tears.

Behind me, a quiet crunch of boots on slash and Ivan's accented voice. "What happened, the kid walked into a door?"

"It's an educational outing," Bullard said. "A learning experience." He stepped right over me and planted a foot on a twisted stub of branch while he leaned back to examine the sky. I squirmed into a squat and then pushed myself upright.

"He's seen enough." Ivan said. "Stuff him in the trunk."

For whatever protection it might afford, I edged closer to Bullard's truck, thinking I could duck behind it. I knew all the back roads, and if I made it into the bush I could lose these guys and hide in a gulley until morning. I'd head south until I hit the clearing that marks the U.S. border and follow it out of the mountains. Or I'd go east, find the Columbia highway, and thumb a ride.

"I hear music." Bullard said, and I heard it too, over the sound of idling diesels, the hammering thud of a helicopter. Is that what we were here for? Not Randle?

"Light up?" Ivan asked, then leaned into his truck to flick on a bar of floodlights mounted over the cab, filling the clearing with light. Then he did the same to Bullard's and four trucks across the cutblock followed. Doors clunked open and people came forward, faces uptilted in the blue-white glare. I recognized two of them from Randle's operations. They had the weathered look of loggers. The fat biker who'd closed the gate on me back at River Road was there, and Keech, pulling on work gloves. No Skip.

I was tugged at by a rough pair of hands, and there was a metallic snick, and my hands swung limp and loose. Bullard flicked his knife closed, his jaw working frantically as the copter came in under the clouds, and tilted back to hover overhead.

Blood flowed in sharp stabs back into my forearms, wrists, and palms. I flexed my fingers to work some life into them. Finally I could reach up to my nose. As I worked to straighten the cartilage, I saw a trickle of blood seeping down one wrist, where Bullard had cut the zip-cuff and a patch of skin along with it.

He leaned in close, yelling over the pounding blades. "Emergency s.h.i.+pment. Got a sudden glut of product from all those operations your friend thought I didn't know about."

Bullard clambered over the slash and into the floodlit circle. This was my chance, while everyone's eyes were on the sky. I leaned back on the truck and began to slide, inconspicuously, out of the headlights' glow.

It was an ambulance copter, or had been at one time, with stretcher-baskets attached to each side under wide sliding doors. Bullard waved to the pilot and knelt as it descended, one forearm hiding his face from the duststorm as it squatted heavily in the clearing. As the blades spun down, I stretched, like my neck was stiff, and tried to scan the woods for an opening. Ivan's eyes caught mine through the vortex and flicked to the bush, as if saying, Do it, make a run, give me an excuse. They say that killing someone is the fast track to earning your patch.

The pilot slid the doors open and waited. He was bald, tanned, and expressionless, a business-like guy in a blue nylon jacket. The trucks pulled in close and the drivers worked as a team. First they unloaded a stack of plastic crates from the helicopter, the white: c.o.ke or junk or whatever he was trading the weed for. Then they made a line, handing bale upon bale of green from truck to helicopter. They were nonchalant like it was another day on the job, nothing special or remarkable, which it probably was.

I couldn't help myself, I counted each bale of compressed weed as it filled the copter from floor to ceiling, with extra bales lashed to the stretchers and tied to a wooden pallet slung underneath. The dollar value of the load was breathtaking, and gave me an idea of the money that Randle had been pulling in.

The helicopter loaded, the trucks left in a grind of diesel engines that faded as they rolled downhill. None of the drivers had even glanced my way.

That left Bullard and Ivan, and the stone-faced pilot under a moonless sky. The helicopter made ticking noises and I s.h.i.+vered in the sudden chill. Think positive thoughts, I told myself. If he'd wanted to dump my body on a logging road, I'd have been dead before those drivers saw me. They know me, half of them. They're witnesses.

Bullard gestured at Ivan and then to his truck.

Ivan strode, high-legged through the branches and chips, to the back door of his truck and swung it open. He sang out, "It's show time," and struck a pose like a parking valet. Nothing happened. After a moment, he ducked his head inside, said something I couldn't catch, then reached both arms in and pulled.

I felt suddenly light-headed. There was a body on the back seat, wearing familiar high-end Nikes. Ivan tugged, and there was a shudder - Randle was alive, at least - and I had to steady myself on Bullard's truck as his running pants were revealed, reflective stripes glinting in the headlights. One of Randle's feet stretched and pointed, seeking ground, but the truck was too high and Ivan gave one final heave, ejecting Randle from the back seat. He shot out and down, striking his tailbone against the lip of the door as he flopped clumsily to the dirt. He was hooded, blind, unable to protect himself, and his arms were strapped with the same kind of zip-cuff Bullard had used on me.

Even from my distance, I could hear his shallow, laboured breathing as he fumbled around awkwardly, his bound hands finally finding a k.n.o.bby tire to grab on to and pull himself upright. His head drooped under the hood. The cloth was darker around his mouth and nose, from breathing, or spit maybe, but more likely from blood. A sticky-looking trickle ran down his neck from somewhere underneath.

Bullard gave me a smugly raised eyebrow, clearly expecting a reaction. What was there to say? Maybe Randle had lied to me and used me, but he'd also seen something in me, back at the coffee shop, and taken me out of there, trained me, paid me more than I'd imagined possible, and trusted me with his secrets. Nothing he'd ever done to me equalled my betrayal. I felt shame and guilt - but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that, somewhere in me, I felt a bubble of hope, because it was him under the hood and not me.

Bullard pinched a loose corner of the hood and tugged it up and off Randle's face, and Randle's head lolled and his eyes blinked crazily. He looked old and grey and beaten, and the cloth flopped over his forehead made him look like a monk, or one of the seven dwarfs. Then he s.h.i.+vered and came alive, and jerked his head in every direction, taking in the unforgiving wasteland and the waiting helicopter and me. Our eyes locked for a moment, but he didn't nod or acknowledge me in any way.

"No words of welcome?" Bullard said to me.

I gave a weak shrug. My chest was so tight I couldn't breathe.

Randle's voice was surprisingly loud. "Norman."

Bullard's first name, I remembered. It sounded like a mother's scold, except there was something muddled in his voice.

"This is not good business." Bithneth, it sounded like. It was his mouth. His lips slid over shredded gums where teeth used to be.

With a grunt, Bullard lifted Randle, spun him by the armpits, and push-walked him toward the helicopter.