Fit to Die (9 page)

Gunboat looked at his fists, like boulders, which had failed him the one time he had needed them.

“Pilgrim sent you for champagne, and you found out what he was celebrating. The dive you didn't take,” Miss Doyle said. “Then you knew he'd done what no one could do in the ring. He made you a bum.”

“It was just one punch,” Gunboat said. But it was like a cannon going off, a perfect right uppercut driving the base of Pilgrim's jaw into his brain. If he'd had that punch with Dempsey, they'd be listening to him on the radio now.

“You found Reggie and came clean, but before he could get rid of the body, those lovebirds stumbled over it. Reggie was running out of time, so he used the shotgun to disguise the weapon only one man around here had.”

They both looked down at his big clenched fist, and she reached out and took it in her two hands.

“I didn't like it,” Gunboat said. If it weren't for the boss, he'd still be fighting for hooch in some two-bit joint. Or dead.

“But Reggie insisted,” she said. “He's one of a kind, isn't he? Carrying on, a ray of sunshine, knowing everyone thinks he's a murdering skunk while he's the truest of pals. It's the kind of
thing that makes me think I ought to marry him.”

“Marriage is a fine institution,” said Gunboat, although he wasn't too sure.

Neither, it seemed, was she. “Can you picture me living in an institution? And come to think of it, I'd get myself banned from this fine institution if Reggie knew what I've been spinning to you. So why don't we keep mum? I don't want to gamble with my supply of martinis, and say, how's that one coming along?”

Gunboat was reaching for the honest-to-God Beefeater, not the bathtub rotgut they used for the saps, when Stevie Pounder bounded up. “The champ is some man! Helps Firpo to his feet after the big knockout. What a class act!”

Speaking of class acts, Gunboat thought, and looked at the marker face down on the bar. “You just made two hundred shekels, Miss Doyle.”

“I knew the champ would come through. Anyone who knocks out Gunboat Merkley is the world's toughest hombre. But forget the bet.” She picked up the marker and began tearing it into strips. “I've lost my taste for grudge matches. In fact, I've gone off gambling altogether.”

Too bad, Gunboat thought. He was sure his money would be safe if he bet on her really liking the boss.

THERESE GREENWOOD
lives and writes in Kingston, Ontario. She was a finalist for the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis 1999 Award for best short story and winner of the Bloody Words 2000 short story contest.

I have to keep up this facade.

I have to run each day.

I have to look real womanly.

It's like I'm in a play.

I have to wear an itchy wig.

I have to wear spandex.

I have to wave at all the men

Leaning from their decks.

I have to shave my hairy legs.

I have to wax my face.

I wish that I had taken off,

Instead, I took her place.

I have to run five miles a day

And make the neighbours see

This sweaty, gritty, jogging jock's

A she and not a he.

I have to keep up this facade

Because I took her life.

And no one will suspect me while

I'm running for my wife.

JOY HEWITT MANN

MARY JANE MAFFINI

She's going to kill me. It's just a matter of time until she gets it right. All I can do is putter about my garden and check over my shoulders for the next sneak attack.

Don't think I'm imagining it. The woman is capable of anything.

Consider her flawless organization of “Citizens Against Community Homes”. Didn't that just keep those pesky halfway types out of the neighbourhood? People still speak in hushed voices about her crusade against dogs in the park. Her campaign to wipe out street parking was as organized as any militia, though perhaps a bit more bloodthirsty. So, you see, I don't have a hope in hell. Now is that a fair outcome for someone with a bypass for every artery and seventy-eight years of peaceful living?

Once, I was a painter. Now I use flowers to colour my life. As far as I can pinpoint, more than ten years have passed since I retired to the privacy of my garden, alone but not lonely. A garden can have that effect. I have grown scrawny where once I was lean, bedraggled instead of fashionably bohemian. I have decided I prefer myself this way, like my flowers, just a bit out of control.

The days pass quite nicely when your mind is busy with where to plant the bachelors' buttons and how to keep the
phlox from creeping into the lilies.

I would be happy if only she weren't closing in daily. This morning, while admiring the gentle pink of peonies in the early sun, I hear her triple-glazed patio door open and then the smart, sharp clicks of stilettos on the cedar deck that shadows my small garden. My heart rate soars in a symphony of agitation. I shrink back behind my French lilacs and hope not to be seen. Why can't I make anyone understand what she is doing?

“Miss Ainslie,” she bellows, rather like Wellington lining up the brigade at Waterloo, “you will have to do something about that dog.”

Now what? How can my dog be a problem? In the five weeks since I brought Silent Sam home from the Humane Society, he's been nothing but a huge, heaving bundle of gratitude. Loving and loveable. Shambling and confused. I have always placed a high value on randomness, a low value on boundaries. So Silent Sam suits me. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe doesn't.

“I don't have a problem.” I infuse my voice with false confidence, but I am glad to be out of reach of her two-inch fuschia nails.

“Well, I do. That dog is driving people crazy. If you have no consideration, and I am already fully aware of that, then you will find the city ordinances are firmly on my side.”

I fail to see how Silent Sam can bother anyone.

“The city ordinances can be firmly up your backside as far as I care,” I say, but the sound is muffled by the lilacs.

•  •  •

My doctor pats my hand. “You've had a bad couple of months. The key thing is not to get upset and to stick with your regimen: strength, flexibility, cardio.”

“Got it,” I say.

He does not believe my next-door neighbour is a serious health hazard. I have explained she is deadlier than a random clot, more insidious than a ticking embolism, more determined than a clump of blue cancer. I should know, I've held them all at bay, but only Mrs. Sybil Sharpe causes me to gasp awake every night at three, heart twisting with fear.

“She sent Social Services around. Remember? She said I wasn't fit to live alone.”

“And are you still living alone?”

“So far.”

“My money's on you in this contest. I figure you're far more tenacious than any difficult neighbour. And speaking of tenacious, let's talk about your resistance exercises. How many repetitions?”

“Twenty of each with the five-pound weights.” I take a sideways peek at him to see if he's falling for it. Those weights would probably be a piece of cake compared to the clean-and-jerk with the bags of sheep manure I needed for my spring maintenance. It seems a fair substitute to me, but I keep the details to myself.

“Excellent. What about the flexibility regime?”

“Fifteen minutes of stretching, twice a day.” It seems prudent not to mention this takes the form of reaching to prune, deadhead and transplant. Bend, reach, bend.

“Great. And cardio?”

“Got myself a pooch from the Humane Society. Brisk walks twice a day.” This is not the highest form of truth, since I fail to mention Silent Sam is down to three legs and blind as a mole. Getting him to the nearest fire hydrant feels more like resistance work than cardio.

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Wouldn't surprise me to
see you in the 10K race one of these days.”

Once again, I've failed to convince him of the danger presented by Mrs. Sybil Sharpe. That's the problem when your doctor remembers you as his childhood art teacher. He'll go through life thinking you are inclined to colour things to suit your own purposes.

“My money's always on you, Miss Ainslie. Always.” He is smiling. I am not, since I have lost another round.
Mrs. Sybil Sharpe: 1, Miss Callista Ainslie: Zip.

He calls out as I near the clinic door, “You'll live to a hundred.”

Not likely. And I won't even rate an inquest, I'm sure. Pretty straightforward for the coroner. Seventy-eight-year-old woman, recovering from quadruple bypass and with a whopping melanoma in remission, pitches into the day lilies following a stroke. A kindly neighbour's attempts to get help are unfortunately too late. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe's broad face would blanket the City section of the paper bemoaning the slow response time of paramedics in our community. I can see it all now.

•  •  •

The animal control officer takes me by surprise. I am concentrating on finding just the right spot to relocate the rosemary, now that Mrs. Sybil Sharpe's shadowy deck has stolen the sun from the west side of the garden.

“Sorry to disturb,” he says, “but we've had a complaint about your dog here.”

“This dog? Are you sure?”

“I think so, Ma'am.”

“What kind of complaint?”

“Excessive barking.”

I laugh merrily. “You must be mistaken.”

He wrinkles his brow. “Are you Miss Callista Ainslie?”

“Yes.”

“And would this be your dog?”

“That's right. Meet Silent Sam.”

Silent Sam takes a shine to the animal control officer right away, and it's hard to hear ourselves with the thumping of that tail. I fill in my side of the story, being careful to insinuate that Mrs. Sybil Sharpe is as crazy as a polecat and twice as mean. Besides the innuendo, I have a key fact on my side.

The animal control officer is impressed. “A barkless dog? Can't say I've ever heard of one.”

“Feel free to check my story with the Humane Society. According to his rap sheet, Sam had debarking surgery some years ago.”

He bends over to scratch Silent Sam behind the ears. “Nice old fella. With a tail like that, who needs to bark?”

I relax a bit. “Better than any alarm system.”

The animal control officer looks around. “Nice neighbourhood.”

“Used to be,” I say.

“You have a wonderful garden.”

A close call, but I am not foolish enough to believe this minor victory will divert Mrs. Sybil Sharpe for long.

•  •  •

There was a time when I could have turned to my neighbours for support. But the old ones are in Florida or mildewing in some hole of a nursing home. The few remaining are caving in to the relentless ring of the developers. The new ones have a
tendency to scuttle through their front doors the second they see me. Their expressions suggest Mrs. Sybil Sharpe has put out the word I'm some elderly female version of the Antichrist, accessorized with the Baskerville hound.

I have tried in vain to pinpoint the moment when everything changed. All I know is the neighbourhood is going fast. Post-war bungalows and fifties-style duplexes have been flattened by spreading brick homes, gangling town houses and something called lofts. Where children played jump rope and street hockey, now huge, lumpish vehicles cut off the view. Instead of laughter across fences, now I hear the swish of leather cases and the beeping of small phones.

Gentrification, they call it. Real estate agents ogle our remaining properties with dollar signs in their eyes.

I can take that. It's only Mrs. Sybil Sharpe who pushes things beyond endurance. She has the light of battle in her eye tonight as she rages on about the spread of weeds, as she calls them, from my garden. It was naughty of me to plant mint so close to the boundary of our property, but I have derived a certain amount of pleasure watching it sneak onto her manicured Kentucky blue. I enjoy the resulting puce mottling on her neck when she spots the latest clump.

•  •  •

The woman from the developer sports a pair of python boots. How fitting. She feigns sympathy for the plight of the elderly abandoned in the increasingly dangerous and hostile urban jungle. That would be me. Her hooded eyes give her away. Doesn't fool me. I know whose prey I am.

She would like to help, she says. To take me away from this. Set me up with enough cash to fund a retirement residence. She
has brochures conveniently on hand. No worries. Round the clock attention. Nurses. Communal dining. Bingo. Naturally, a suitable family could be found for Silent Sam. I am fascinated by the way her tongue flicks in and out as she spins her tale. She makes coy references to the amount I could be offered for my small war-torn property. I am expected to feel lucky.

“What led you to me?” I ask, all innocence.

“It's a booming market. We keep our eyes open.”

“There's an excellent property next door,” I point to the pristine expanse of Mrs. Sybil Sharpe's house. “A fine view of the river from the upper stories. I would think your buyer would find that of interest.”

The heavy lids close and open again. What does that mean? Could the so-called developer be none other than my enemy next door?

“I'm more interested in yours.”

“What company did you say this was again?”

“It's a numbered company. I am not at liberty to say.”

“Really?”

“It's not significant. Guess what they choose to offer,” she hisses.

“An apple?”

•  •  •

Certainly the randomness of my garden outrages Mrs. Sybil Sharpe. But logic tells me it is the house that causes her eyes to bulge out so dramatically. She's not one to appreciate the sexy curl of the roof tiles, the holes in the screens that beckon to adventurous bats and the lovely weathered grey shingles under the peeled paint. I will not be able to afford to paint properly for two years. There may not be any shingles left by then. They
seem to have more health problems than I do.