Authors: Laurence Gough
The wig got in his way as he tried to insert the second piece of wax. Furiously he brushed aside the coarse artificial hair, jammed the earplug in place. Now his watch showed that he had somehow fallen almost three minutes behind schedule. Rattled, he tried to force the gloves back on the wrong hands. He was sweating heavily. The wig made his scalp itch. He didn’t know what he’d do if he missed her. He couldn’t imagine waiting another week to try again.
Finally, without realizing quite how he had done it, he managed to get the gloves turned around and right side up. Under the white party dress he could feel his heart thumping rapidly. He was hyperventilating, his breathing was fast and shallow and he felt on the edge of panic, ready to fall apart. There was something else he had to do, but he couldn’t think what it was. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, forced himself to calm down, to concentrate. After a long moment, he sighed deeply and then put on a pair of untinted Bausch & Lomb shooting glasses. Ready now, he picked up the Winchester and went back to the gap in the hoarding.
He was almost four full minutes behind schedule, but because of the traffic and the rain, so was the no. 3 bus.
The Redfield scope had been specifically designed for use under conditions of low light. Alice Palm’s head, bisected by the cross hairs, was so crisp and clear that the sniper could see the detailing in the tiny gold cross dangling from her left ear. He flicked off the safety catch and pressed his cheek firmly against the walnut stock. At 2,150 feet per second, the muzzle velocity of the .460 Magnum is relatively slow for a modern weapon. But the bus was decelerating for the traffic light, and in any case the lead required at such short range was negligible.
The sniper sighted on the tip of Alice’s nose, elevated the barrel a fraction of an inch, and gently squeezed the trigger. The rubber recoil pad slammed into his shoulder. The barrel jumped. Tendrils of dust drifted down from the ceiling. And despite the considerable protection offered by the earplugs, the thunderclap of the shot in that confined space was loud enough to make him wince with pain.
At the exact moment that the sniper fired, the traffic light turned from red to green. The bus driver, anticipating the change and anxious to get back on schedule, put his foot down on the gas pedal just in time to save Alice’s life. The bullet punched a hole in the window no more than a quarter of an inch behind her head and on a level with her temple, instantly enveloping her in a fine cloud of safety glass. Glass sparkled on her shoulders, in her hair, across the pages of her book and on the empty seat beside her, on the floor. Startled and bewildered, she turned and peered out the window, into the soggy blackness of the night.
Half-blinded by the muzzle flash, the sniper worked the Winchester’s bolt and pumped another round into the chamber.
Alice had just managed to work out what the hole in the window might mean when the second bullet smashed through the glass and struck her in the collarbone. The force of impact broke her neck, killing her instantly and tumbling her sideways off the seat and into the dirty wet aisle. She lay face down on the rubber mat, her body twisted awkwardly, the paperback still clutched tightly in her hand. Except for the bright red blood spouting energetically from a shredded aorta, she lay absolutely still.
The bus driver heard the thump of the body hitting the floor. He glanced in his rearview mirror, saw Alice and jumped on the brakes. The bus skidded to a halt in the middle of the intersection. The driver was halfway out of his seat when the vehicle lurched forward, throwing him against the windscreen. From the rear of the bus there was the sound of metal collapsing, and then the blare of a horn.
One of the passengers screamed.
In the murky gloom of the garage, the sniper tilted his rifle towards the ceiling, ejected the spent cartridge and caught it neatly in mid-air. Stooping, he hunted quickly through the rubble on the floor until he found the first cartridge. He stood both casings on end in the middle of the space he had cleared on the counter. Then he put the rifle and spare magazine back into the leather case and walked through the garage to the Honda idling quietly in the alley.
On the bus, the driver and passengers clustered silently around Alice’s body. The driver crouched beside her, took her bloody wrist gingerly in his hand, and searched for a pulse. He continued to shift his thumb across her limp and slippery flesh until, belatedly, he realized that no one could possibly survive such a terrible wound, that the woman had to be dead. Perplexed and embarrassed, he glanced up at the ring of pale blank faces surrounding him. Then he gently removed the paperback from Alice’s hand, marked the page, and shoved the book into her coat pocket.
THE POLICE CAFETERIA at 312 Main Street is bisected by a horseshoe-shaped self-service counter where prepared sandwiches, fresh fruit, and a limited choice of hot meals can be bought by hungry cops and support staff more concerned with their budgets than their taste buds. The usual offerings at the cafeteria include fried chicken, steak and kidney pie, and an almost supernaturally tasteless tuna casserole.
At ten minutes past nine on the night that Alice Palm was murdered, the cafeteria was empty except for a few uniformed patrolmen, a pair of junior clerks from the typing pool, and a homicide detective named David Ulysses Atkinson. Atkinson was making his way towards the cash register, carrying a plastic tray containing a large glass of milk and a limp slice of apple pie. His eye was on the girl behind the cash register, a skinny redhead named Lynda. She’d been working the night shift all week long, and Atkinson had spent a lot of time thinking about her, trying to work out the best way of hitting on her.
Atkinson was five foot eight inches tall, and very good at estimating heights. He guessed that Lynda was easily five-eleven, and maybe even a six-footer. Nothing turned him on like tall women. In heels, she’d be a knockout. As he approached the cash register he took a flat gold money clip out of his pants pocket, flipping his jacket well back to give her a peek at his weapon. Tonight he was packing his chrome-plated Colt .357 Magnum. The gun had an eight-inch barrel and fancy carved rosewood grips that he’d ordered by mail from a speciality shop in Los Angeles. The Colt was a very good-looking piece of machinery, flashy and lethal. In Atkinson’s experience, the ladies rarely failed to be intrigued.
He waved the money clip over the tray and said, “What’s the tab, honey?”
The pie was a dollar forty-five, the milk sixty cents. Ordinarily, the numbers wouldn’t have given Lynda any trouble. But the way that Atkinson was looking at her made it a little hard to concentrate. Not that she particularly objected. She had to admit that the cop smiling up at her was kind of cute, even if he was a bit on the short side. He had a nice bone structure. Bedroom eyes. His curly black hair was thick and glossy, and beneath the pale blue fitted shirt his stomach looked hard and flat. Also, like many smallish men, he was an immaculate if somewhat conservative dresser. Clothes had always been a major item with Lynda; men who wore jeans didn’t do a thing for her. She rang up the pie and milk on the cash register. Two dollars and five cents, as always!
Atkinson offered her a twenty-dollar bill. She made change and he added the bills to his clip without bothering to count them. Then he said, “What time you finish your shift?” just like that, no preliminaries, catching her by surprise.
“Why?” she said, off-balance.
“You like Italian food?”
“Maybe.”
Atkinson gave her a big smile. His teeth were square and white. “You get off at eleven, am I right?”
Lynda nodded.
“Why don’t I pick you up, we can go over to Il Giardino. Drink some wine, beat up a plate of veal.” Atkinson sipped at his glass of milk. “You ever been there. To Il Giardino, I mean?”
Lynda shook her head, smiling demurely, and then glanced past Atkinson, over his shoulder.
Atkinson turned, wondering what had deflected her interest. He saw George Franklin lumbering towards him, weaving his way through the tables, bumping into chairs, apologizing to people without bothering to look at them. Atkinson’s shoulders sagged. He muttered something Lynda pretended not to hear.
Franklin and Atkinson had been partners for a little over two years. Atkinson was still making adjustments. Although he liked tall women, he didn’t care for big men at all. Franklin was six-two in his Argyle socks, never less than forty pounds overweight. As if this wasn’t aggravation enough, Franklin was a lousy dresser. His suits were always a muddy brown colour, his shirts an uncertain white, his tie either too wide or too loud. To top it all off, there was always a cigarette dangling from the corner of Franklin’s mouth, and he squinted perpetually, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was looking at.
“Dave,” he said enthusiastically, still twenty feet away but closing fast. “Where the hell have you been the past half-hour? I’ve been looking all over for you!” When he spoke, the cigarette in his mouth jumped up and down in perfect sync with his words, as if it was the lever that was responsible for the opening and closing of his mouth. Ash tumbled from the cigarette, exploded on the rounded apex of his belly. He didn’t seem to notice. He dropped a meaty, nicotine-stained hand on Atkinson’s shoulder.
“Hey,” said Atkinson. “Go mug somebody else.” He pushed Franklin’s hand away. “What’s the matter, George, can’t you see I’m in the middle of a conference?”
Franklin nodded hello to Lynda, being polite. To Atkinson he said, “There’s a dead woman in a bus over on West Broadway.”
“And she died of a broken heart, so naturally Fm your primary suspect.”
“Actually,” said Franklin, “she was shot with a large calibre rifle, and we got no suspects whatsoever.”
Atkinson took a key ring out of his pocket. He separated one key from the rest, and dropped it on the counter.
“Key to your heart?” said Lynda.
“My apartment,” said Atkinson. “Three-ten, twenty-one fifty Creelman. If I’m not back by the time you get off, you go on over there and make yourself comfy.”
“I’ll think about it, okay.”
“Fine,” said Atkinson. He smiled. “And when you’ve finished thinking about it, you get your cute little ass in gear.” Before she could think of anything to say, Atkinson spun on his heel and started to make his way through the scattered tables towards the exit. Franklin picked up the abandoned glass of milk and drained it. No time, unfortunately, for the pie. A waste, but Atkinson probably hadn’t intended to eat it anyway. He was too busy watching his weight to eat anything but celery sticks. No doubt the pie hadn’t been anything but a ruse, something for Atkinson to hide behind while he snuck up on the redhead. Franklin picked up a plastic fork and made a quick stab. Chewing, he hurried to catch up with his partner.
“Kind of skinny, isn’t she?”
“Maybe she’s got a way of making up for it,” said Atkinson. “Tell me about the babe on the bus.”
Franklin filled Atkinson in as the two detectives trotted up the stairs to the main floor, turned and headed down the wide hallway towards the Main Street exit of the building. As they approached the double glass doors, a homicide detective named Jack Willows pushed his way inside, his shoulders still hunched against the rain. He ignored Atkinson but nodded to Franklin.
“How’s it going, George?”
“No complaints,” said Franklin. “You seen Norm, lately?”
“He’s holding his own.”
“Say hello for me, will you. Tell him I’ll be around as soon as I can make it.”
“Tell him yourself, George,” said Willows equably. Norm Burroughs was Willows’ partner. For the past three months he’d been buried in the cancer ward of the Royal Columbian Hospital. During that time Willows had been the bearer of too many broken promises. If Franklin had anything to say to Burroughs, he could do it all by himself.
“Come on, George,” said Atkinson. “We’re on a case, let’s get moving.” He grinned mirthlessly at Willows. “There’s a young lady waiting for us on a bus.”
“I heard about her,” said Willows. “She sounds like just your type.”
*
The bus was still parked in the middle of the intersection. Within five minutes of the shooting it had been surrounded by squad cars, ghost cars, ambulances and fire department inhalators, even a big hook-and-ladder. All the noise and lights had quickly attracted a crowd. Now the civilian traffic was hopelessly snarled and the mass of pedestrians had swelled to the point of overflowing the sidewalk and spreading into the street. Franklin leaned on the horn as a zombie in a cream-coloured track-suit stumbled off the curb and into the path of their unmarked dark green Chevrolet.
“Teach him a lesson,” said Atkinson. “Knock him flat.”
“I’d love to, but I couldn’t handle the paperwork.”
In the glare of their headlights a cop wearing a black rainslicker marked with an abstract pattern of silver reflecting tape laid a string of flares along the flank of the bus. Off to the left, a corporal with the crossed pistols of a marksman on his sleeve struggled with a spool of yellow ‘crime scene’ plastic tape.
Atkinson pointed through the windscreen. “Over there, George.”
Franklin nodded, turning the wheel.
The bus driver and passengers were standing in a tight cluster on the lee side of the bus, away from the traffic. The driver was compulsively explaining to a uniformed transit supervisor why he had stopped his vehicle in the intersection instead of following company regulations and pulling over to the curb. The supervisor listened with every appearance of sympathy, even though he was hearing the story for the third time nonstop, as if the driver’s tongue had turned into a Mobius strip. The driver was in shock. The supervisor, arriving on the scene, had found him crouched over a puddle of rainwater, frantically rubbing Alice Palm’s blood from the cuff of his shirt.
As Franklin braked the Chevrolet, the rear door of the bus opened, splashing light across the asphalt, and a pair of ambulance attendants carried the body of Alice Palm out on a folding stretcher.
“For Christ’s sake,” said Atkinson, “who told those two clowns they could move the body?”
“Beats me,” said Franklin. He turned off the engine, reached across Atkinson to open the glove compartment, pulled out a thick wool toque. Atkinson glared at the toque with disgust, as if it had been made from the fur of an endangered species, pushed out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him. Franklin pulled the toque well down over his ears and turned up the collar of his coat. It was raining like a bitch. He got out of the car and trotted slowly and reluctantly after Atkinson, who was on a collision course with the stretcher.
The man at the rear of the stretcher heard Atkinson’s heels on the pavement. He took a quick look at Atkinson’s face, stopped, and unzipped the bodybag without being told.
Atkinson peered down at Alice Palm’s calm and lifeless face. Franklin came wheezing and puffing up behind him. Still looking down at the corpse, Atkinson said, “There’s something funny going on here, George.”
“What’s that?” said Franklin.
“I don’t know her.” Atkinson smiled at the two ambulance attendants. They chuckled appreciatively. Atkinson punched the taller of the two lightly in the chest. “Who authorized you to move the body, asshole?”
“The bus guy, the one in the grey uniform, with the walkie.”
“The supervisor?”
“Yeah, him.”
“Something to look forward to,” said Atkinson. “You’ll probably be hearing from us.”
Atkinson started towards the bus, Franklin tagging along behind. Atkinson waved at the passengers. “Look at them, standing there in the rain like a bunch of sheep.”
“We can’t put them back in the bus, they’d walk all over the evidence.”
“What evidence is that, George?”
“Why don’t we send them downtown. They can get some coffee, dry out a little, stay happy.”
“Not a bad idea.” Atkinson veered towards a motorcycle cop perched on his Harley. The cop was keeping himself busy listening to his radio. There had been a knifing in a Gastown bar. The dispatcher sounded as if his mouth was full of tinfoil. As Atkinson drew nearer, the cop turned to look at him. Water poured from the folds and creases in his raincape. He leaned forward to turn down the volume on the radio.
“I can see you got a lot on your hands,” said Atkinson, “but there’s something I want you to do for me. You see that bunch of people over there by the bus?”
“Yeah, I see them.”
“Get their names, and then take them downtown. Wait for us until we get there. Think you can handle that?”
“What about my bike?”
Atkinson ignored him. “They’re all material witnesses in a murder investigation, so don’t lose anybody, understand?”
The cop nodded. Water dripped from the visor of his crash helmet, splashed into his lap. He watched the two detectives push through the slanting rain and then climb into the brightly illuminated bus. After a moment he dismounted stiffly from the Harley. A sudden gust of wind shook the overhead wires, and a handful of fat raindrops splattered across the broad saddle of the bike. The cop sighed, and trudged dispiritedly towards the passengers. Maybe he could borrow a squad car. Probably not.
*
Franklin followed Atkinson down the narrow aisle of the bus. The driver had left the heater on full blast. Despite the draft coming in through the shattered window, the vehicle was pleasantly warm. Franklin unbuttoned his raincoat, shook the water from his toque. He listened to the rain drumming on the metal roof, the muted squeaking of Atkinson’s shoes on the rubber mat.
The outline of the body had been sketched on the floor in yellow chalk. Rainwater and blood had blurred the carefully drawn lines, but the effect, paradoxically, had been to somehow thrust the after-image of death into a sharper focus.
A little bit of yellow chalk. Hardly the shadow of a corpse. Certainly nothing Atkinson hadn’t experienced a dozen times or more. And yet he was, for some reason he couldn’t quite pin down, vaguely unnerved. He looked away, and saw Alice Palm’s purse and umbrella lying on the seat among the fragments of glass from the window.