Goody One Shoe (24 page)

BRUCE RAISED HIS GREEN
bottle
of Tsing-Tao. “To Billie, superhero of my heart, able to edit piles of literary
shit into bestsellers with a few strokes of her magic red pen.” He clinked his
bottle against hers. “Congratulations. Not that there was ever any doubt that
you’d make editor.”

“I had a lot of doubt.” She sipped her beer. “You should
have seen the look on Katherine’s face.”

“You mean the nice Katherine I met in the hospital?”

“Yeah, she was back to bitch on heels by Tuesday. Pulled me
in her office and demanded I tell no one about the thrift store thing. Now
she’s all pissed that she has to waste her time finding my replacement. And
more pissed that they want me upstairs a week from Monday. Got all in my face
about how backed-up the pool would be. I told her to take it up with the
editor-in-chief.”

“That’s my girl. Kickin’ ass and takin’ names.”

“I have to email my freelance clients tonight and bow out.
No way I have time for that now. And I won’t need the money.” Billie made a
crucifix with her chopsticks, dragged them across a dumpling and hacked it in
half. She picked up one piece and dipped it into soy sauce spiced with chillies
and cut with rice wine vinegar. Her favourite part of Chinese food — fried
balls of meat covered in greasy dough, dripping in hot salt.

She tapped her sticks against her bowl and chewed, her eyes
on the General Tso’s chicken, her mind on the stinking dock that Art Douglas
made his home. And probably his body dump. She’d begged off going to Bruce’s
twice this week to continue her surveillance. So far, all she got was a repeat
of the first time. Chain link fence. Padlock. Murderer disappearing in the
darkness.

She needed to get inside. Maybe it was time to call on her
Robin. Especially since he was beginning to think she was avoiding him.

She put her chopsticks down and took a deep breath. “So, I
have to tell you something.”

Bruce froze, his own sticks in his mouth, Cantonese noodles
dangling from his lips. He gave her a slight nod, slurped the food up, and
wiped his face with a napkin. “Am I going to hate this something? Because I
know that you’re pulling away. I’ve been afraid to bring it up.”

She reached across the tiny table and put her hand over his.
“I’m not pulling away from you. I’ve just been kind of … Well. Obsessed with
something.”

“Who is he?”

“Arthur Richard Douglas.”

Bruce tossed his napkin on his plate and pushed it away. “I
figured.” He lifted his chin and looked at the ceiling, his hands on his
thighs, both knees bouncing up and down. He rubbed his face with both palms.
“Look, I’ll get the bill and drop you at your apartment. But if this Arthur guy
ever does anything to hurt you, call me. I’ll take the bastard down.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m not dating him. I’m stalking
him.”

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up. “And this is better for me how?”

“Stop being silly.” She shook her head. “I’m not interested
in him like I am in you. I don’t want to sleep with him or anything.” A shiver
passed over her body. She glanced around the restaurant and leaned in. “I’m
going to kill him,” she whispered.

Bruce shut his eyes and gave his head a shake. “Sorry,
what?”

“He’s the man who murdered my parents. I’ve been following
him, studying him. I’m going to kill him.” She plucked a piece of deep-fried
chicken laden with red sauce from the dish and popped it in her mouth. “Not
sure I can pull it off by myself,” she said through the General Tso’s. She
swallowed and took a sip of tea out of a tiny cup. “It’s not like cracking nuts
in an alley. I need my sidekick.” She flicked a gnarly piece of putrid squid
from the noodles and pulled the plate closer. “You in?”

“So … You’re not breaking up with me?” Bruce snagged the
squid from the table and bit it in half.

“Why would I do that? I love you.”

His cheeks pinked. “I love you too. But killing?” He shot a
sideways look at a nearby table and hunched forward. “That’s kind of crazy.”

“Crazy good, right? Besides, we talk about doing it all the
time. And I might have already murdered as many as four people.” Almost five if
she’d aimed that knife just three inches higher in Bat Head’s gut.

“That’s different. The editing, that’s all fantasy. And if
you were in that fugue state, you couldn’t be held responsible. If you did
anything. Which I still can’t believe, despite evidence to the contrary.” He
plucked the napkin from his plate and pushed noodles around. “How do you know
this is the guy?”

“Tony told me.”

“So why not go to the cops and tell them? They’ll arrest
him, try him.”

“Because Tony is dying and wouldn’t be around for the trial.
And without him, there’s no evidence. What if they don’t convict? What if I go
through it all again and nothing happens and they just let him go free?” She
pitched her chopsticks on the table. “He doesn’t deserve to be free. To walk
this earth on his two good feet. To breathe.” She picked up a fork and stabbed
a dumpling. “He has to die.”

The waiter shuffled up beside Bruce, filled their teacups
and gestured at the food. “You finished?”

Billie nodded. “Wrap it to go, please.”

The waiter pulled a bill and two fortune cookies from his
apron and gathered the plates.

When he walked away, Billie turned to Bruce. “I’m doing it.
I need your help. But if you don’t want to, I understand. But I’m doing it. No
matter what.”

Bruce, his eyes unblinking, his jaw set, ripped the
cellophane off a cookie and snapped it in two. He popped one-half of the cookie
in his mouth and pulled two fortunes from the other.

“Ooh,” Billie said. “That’s good luck. Like double cupcake
liners, or a folded potato chip.”

“You are so weird.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

He read both the fortunes to himself and huffed. He handed
the slips of paper to Billie.

“You are a true and loyal friend.” She smiled and looked up
at him. “Well that’s the truth.” She dropped the tiny paper to the table and
looked at the other one. “One must dare to be himself, however frightening or
strange that self may prove to be.” She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, my. That’s
different.” She cocked her head and analyzed his face. “What part of yourself
are you holding back, young Padawan?”

He smirked. “I’ve told you about my past. But sometimes, and
I think you’ve seen it, that side of me wants out. The rough guy. The pushy
guy.” He sipped his tea. “The guy that wants to pound the shit out of anyone
who looks at you sideways or makes you feel like you aren’t perfect as you
are.” He tossed her the other cookie. “You go.”

She brought her fist down on the cookie and smashed it to
bits. The cellophane ripped open, spraying the table with crumb spatter.

A woman at the next table jumped and her baby started to
cry.

Billie fished the fortune from the cookie’s belly and stared
at the words. “Well, that seals it then. Time for some retribution.”

He took the paper from her fingers. “You are people’s hero,
you will always be.” He smiled. “Well, that’s true.” He sat back and put his
palms on his thighs. “Billie, I know you want this guy dead. I get it. But real
murder isn’t like editing the news.” He reached across the table and took her
hand. “You aren’t that person. You’re too good. There’s no way you did any of
the things you think you did. It’s just not in you. Maybe you need to see Doc
Kroft before your next scheduled appointment?”

Her eyelids fluttered. Should she tell him she’d skipped the
last two appointments? Tell him she couldn’t bring herself to take the meds?
Every time she picked up that bottle, her skin crawled and her mouth filled
with cotton. She thought he understood. Thought he was an ally in her fight for
justice. Maybe he wasn’t who she thought he was after all.

“Billie, promise me you won’t do anything crazy. Promise you
won’t go after this man. You could be the one who winds up dead.” He rubbed his
thumb across the back of her hand. “Promise?”

Her head nodded without her consent. She wouldn’t promise.
Couldn’t promise. Not out loud.

BILLIE PULLED ONTO THE
dirt
lot behind the abandoned building and parked in the shadows, out of sight of
the entrance to the dock. She snatched the small carry-on bag from the backseat
and pulled the latch to open the door. A thick fog of putridity rolled in from
the river and reached into her nostrils. She ignored it. But she couldn’t
ignore the surge of adrenaline quickening her heart and making her limbs come
alive.

Billie squeezed between the broken glass and rotting plywood
covering the window. She stood at the first-floor window facing the entry to
the docks and let the consistent routine of Arthur Douglas play in her mind.

Arrive around six. Unchain the fence, drive through, padlock
it back up again.

Except for that one night he didn’t show up until after
eight. It was almost dark.

Billie fished a pair of binoculars from the suitcase and
trained them on the dockyard. She scanned the length of the chain-link fence.
No holes. No breaks. She scanned left then swept right. And there it was. A section
that wasn’t blocked by crates or barrels or rusted-out shipping containers. Her
stomach gurgled. She pressed on a spasm until a bubble of gas exploded from her
mouth. She giggled.

“See you next Saturday, Art Douglas.”

BILLIE STOOD AT THE
window of
her twenty-fourth floor office and stared out at the city below.

Ants.

All those miniscule people really did look like ants
scurrying around in their little downtown tunnels. She scanned the office
towers around her, peered into windows to see if anyone else watched the insect
melee in the streets. Last week, she’d have been one of those little ants.
Technically, she still was. She just had a better vantage point.

She sat in her ergonomic leather chair and ran her
fingertips over the glass top of her desk, its surface area at least three
times that of the tiny workspace in her proofing pool cubby. The
editor-in-chief had already dropped by to welcome her and hand her a stack of
manuscripts. There were more in her email inbox.

The office smelled of good coffee and clean carpet. It
lacked the fetidness of peon-sweat and lost hope. There was no lingering odour
of Katherine’s perfume that was less subtle and more like a caveman whack to
the head. No yappy little dog, nor any of its shit to pick up.

Billie flipped through the first pages of each manuscript.
Errors the proofing pool missed jumped from the pages like bad grammar
jacks-in-the-box. Billie tamed each with a swipe of her red pen and made a
mental note to tell Katherine to do a better job managing her staff.

After sifting through seven candidates, she settled on an
action novel of intermediate length for her first official project as associate
editor. She couldn’t resist the title.

Kill. Or Die Trying.

She sipped at her creamy sweet coffee and snapped off half a
chocolate chip cookie from the cookie bouquet the third floor sent her. She’d
bet it was Jeffrey’s idea, his signature on the good luck card the biggest and
most flouncy, surrounded by little purple hearts. Katherine barely signed it at
all. Couldn’t even bring herself to break out the cursive. Just her first name,
printed in small block letters. In red ink.

Billie handed Tony a submarine sandwich, thick with meat and
cheese and calories and fat. His body jerked, and his legs quivered with
restless spasms. His cheeks were sunken, like those skeletal Somali children
who dominated the news shows her father always had on in the early nineties.

“I’m not too hungry.” He placed the sandwich on the sidewalk
beside him. His breath wheezed and rattled in his chest.

“You need a doctor.” She held the back of her hand to his
forehead like her grandmother used to do. “No fever. But you look like hell.”
More so than usual.

“I’m fine. Just a little off.”

Billie filled in his cheeks with her mental red pen and
tucked a crimson rose into the lapel of his imaginary suit jacket. “Just be
sure to eat. Keep your strength up.” She didn’t have a good reason for stopping
by. The anticipation of the coming events had made her jumpy and excited. Scared
to death but elated at the possibility of ridding the world of evil incarnate.
She’d toyed with the idea of sharing the murder plot with Tony. But what if he
tried to talk her out of it? How could he ever understand her driving desire to
see his former partner’s blood spilled? To see the life drain from his eyes?

“Can I bring you anything? I’ll grab you a coffee before I
go back to work. And some water.”

He patted her hand. “You’re too kind to me, Billie. I don’t
need nothing like that.” His eyes teared up. “But there is one thing.”

“Yes. Name it.”

He looked away, then turned his head until their eyes met.

A wave of concern and compassion overtook her. She reached
out and held his hand. “What is it, Tony?”

“I don’t deserve it. I’d understand if you said no. But I
was hopin’ — prayin’ — that before I die, maybe you’d forgive me for the
terrible things I done?”

Billie’s eyes filled with tears. “That’s a tall order.”

“I know. And I got no right to ask. Only if you want to. If
you truly feel it. Only if it’s real.”

She nodded and stared across the street, the dry skin of his
dirty hand rough against hers. The events of that night in nineteen
ninety-three rushed through her mind. She closed her eyes and looked for Tony,
looked past the gun and the fear and focused on the younger version of the man
seated beside her. The muzzle of that gun trained on her face, the sudden
movement of an arm knocking it down, the flash of light glinting off a gold
tooth in Tony’s open mouth, yelling words she didn’t hear. He had saved her
life. And for the past few months, she believed it was a life worth saving.

She squeezed his hand and released him, got to her feet and
looked at his crumpled form. “I do forgive you, Tony. You gave me a second
chance at life. And I appreciate that.”

He closed his eyes, rested his head against the brick and
nodded, silent tears streaming down his cheeks, a twisted grin on his lips.

Billie turned and walked away. Half the weight of two
decades of anguish, hatred, and guilt lifted from her like a helium balloon.

It was time to release the other half.