Grinder (8 page)

“One last thing. Tell me about his number two.”

Paolo sighed. “It's a kid named Denis. Denis is Dom's cousin on his father's side. All I know is Dom vouches for him. I don't micromanage everyone's operations. As long as the money comes in, I don't give a shit who's on staff. Dom vouches for him, and that is enough because if something gets fucked it's Dom who will be responsible.”

“He at the store a lot?”

Paolo began to get annoyed. “Yeah, a lot. His father owns it. He's always there. He makes sure his old man never has to get involved with Dom's business.”

“How old —”

“No more questions
figlio
, not a one. You get out to these men and you start finding things out. Don't call me again unless you have good news for me. I'm not playing twenty questions while you waste my time. Got it? If I have to I'll give you some incentive to work harder, but I don't think the bartender would like that.”

“I just don't want to be in the dark again. You did that to me before.”

Paolo's voice became low and he spoke slowly enunciating each word carefully so that there was no way I would misconstrue the threat. “I am almost sorry I brought you into this at all. When I am totally sorry, I will make sure that you feel worse.”

I hung up the phone without saying goodbye. I didn't worry about Paolo's threats. He never threatened me before; he never had to. With Paolo, you always had one bite at the apple before he forced it down your throat. The constant threats meant Paolo was in a bad situation. I had to make sure I knew everything I could, so I didn't go down with Paolo like some kind of kamikaze.

I parked the car back in the restaurant parking lot and looked around at the other stores in the plaza while waiting for Paolo to show. I saw the Mandarin looming huge from the concrete taking up five storefronts. Beside it was a shoe store, then a chain discount-clothing store, a religious paraphernalia shop, and a menswear chain. Mark's Work Wearhouse sold clothing for construction workers and professionals alike. I got out of the car and walked straight through the crowded lot full of hungry buffet seekers to the automatic doors of Mark's Work Wear-house. I breezed through the entrance past the registers to the menswear section.

I found several different types of pants hanging on display racks. I passed the denim and lighter-colour pants until I stopped in front of a dark brown pair of cotton pants. The material was durable and advertised as wrinkle-resistant. I flipped through the rack and pulled my size to hold them up in the light so I could examine the pants front and back.

“They got secret pockets too,” a woman's voice said. An older woman with short blond hair and an athletic build approached me from behind a rack of clothes. “Sewn into the leg are concealed pockets. You can carry all kinds of things in the pants and no one would ever know. My husband carries his BlackBerry and one of them multi-tools; you know the kind, with the pliers and all those gadgets. People are always so surprised when he gets them out because you honestly can't tell where he gets them from.”

“Perfect,” I said. “I need a T-shirt to go with the pants and something heavier to wear if it gets cold.”

“No problem,” the saleswoman said. She walked two aisles over and pulled out a black T-shirt with a little pocket on the front. “You look like a large.”

While I felt the shirt's cotton material, the woman found a black lightweight jacket made of a water resistant material. “You can wear this zipped or unzipped depending on how cold it gets.”

“They're both great,” I said. “All I need is boots.”

She looked down at my old boots, stained by fish and boat grease. “You sure do. Those need to go wherever it is boots go to die. You want something similar?”

I stared at my boots, realizing that I hadn't noticed how gross they were. I looked up and nodded.

“I know how it is when you love a pair of shoes, believe me. I still have shoes I wore in high school. Can you believe that? High school. They're too small now. Funny how shoes get smaller. But I could never part with them — sentimental reasons, you know. I'll find you a nice pair of boots so you won't feel too great a loss. Follow me.”

Not more than a minute later, I had a dark pair of steel-toed boots that looked a lot like the boots on my feet must have once. I took all my things to the register and paid cash for everything. As I shovelled the change into my pocket, I asked where the nearest drugstore was. The teenage cashier told me that there was one of the chain drugstores on the other side of the plaza.

I stowed my new clothes in the trunk of the car and walked around the plaza past a video store and used-record shop to the Shoppers Drug Mart. The store was located in an adjacent plaza that had spawned off the one I was in like a tumour. The plaza had a retail chain drugstore, supermarket, and pet store, as well as an unemployment office, and a gym. No one who used the unemployment office could afford the goods offered by the big-box stores in the plaza. The prices were only deals to the middle class. Everyone else had to trudge farther into the city to find deals on items that the bigger chain stores had already rejected.

The Shoppers Drug Mart had the same smell in every store. The perfumes and colognes mingled with the antiseptic smell of the pharmacy to create a scent that could be found nowhere in nature. The chain store had almost anything anyone could ever want. Eventually, I thought, every store could be a Shoppers Drug Mart.

I immediately found the men's aisle and picked up a razor and an electric hair clipper. As I searched for the rest of the toiletries I would need, I found the stationery aisle. At the end of the row beside the different notepads was a digital recorder. It had a back-to-school sale sticker on it, and I figured it was something university students would use to record their professors. The item was in a locked display case, and it took me five minutes to flag down an employee to get it out. Ten minutes after that, I was back at the car loading more bags into the trunk.

I wasn't hungry so soon after eating with Paolo, but I would be in a few hours. I decided to stock up on some food to eat later. I had already exposed myself several times buying clothes and toiletries in busy stores. I hated being in the open around so many people, but it was something that had to be done. I knew that I would be unrecognizable to most of the people I encountered once I shed my clothes and beard, but I still wasn't happy. It was a long shot that someone would recognize me at this plaza after almost two years away, but I was having no luck with long shots. I had already gotten my face in every major publication in the country, which was something I thought impossible until it happened. I had interacted with enough new faces already, so I decided to make my way back to the Mediterranean restaurant. I found Yousif waiting just inside the doors — alone.

“Hello again, sir. Are you hungry again? Well, you came just in time. Very soon we will be busy.”

“I need some takeout. Something that will keep for a few hours. Can you get something together?”

“What would you like, sir?”

“You decide what's best. You're the restauranteur.”

After a twitch that was part pride and part surprise, Yousif was off to the kitchen. He was so excited that he didn't say another word. Two sales in one day must have been a record.

I walked around the empty restaurant looking at each of the immaculate tables in the dining room. I mentally went over what I had bought. I had clothes, stuff to clean myself up with, and a gun. I ran my hands over my hair and was thankful I bought the clippers. My hands moved down my neck to my lower back, and I stretched, feeling the muscles loosen slightly. My hands felt the hard sheath of my fishing knife. I smiled to myself and added the knife to my checklist.

The knife and the gun would get me by, but eventually I would run through the six remaining shots in the revolver. I needed a tool to make conversations easier, something less loud and bloody. It was hard to get someone to talk after you shot them, and a knife was only as good as your resolve to use it, and once you cut someone they weren't quiet — even the hard ones screamed. I wanted a sap, but finding a sap would force me to mingle with more people. The kind of people who lived in the core of the city. Those type of people would be more in my element, and they had memories like elephants. There would be a good chance I would be recognized even with the fisherman's disguise I wore. The food came and interrupted my train of thought.

“I gave you a wonderful selection of tapas and —”

“I trust you, Yousif; it smells great. Thank you for taking the time to make this up for me. I know you are busy getting ready for the dinner rush. What do I owe you?”

Yousif beamed with pride and looked around his empty restaurant, mentally going over all the chores to complete before no one showed up. “No charge, sir.”

“How much, Yousif?”

“You have been good to me today. I only ask that you return with a guest for a full meal, and that the guest not be the man you brought earlier.”

I laughed and said goodbye to Yousif, promising to return for a proper dinner. I was amazed at how easy it was to make a friend. I realized it happened because I put myself out there. I made myself noticeable — something I spent a lifetime trying to avoid. I swore inwardly at myself and wondered if I had lost a step. I wondered if I would survive the next few days so out of practice. My frustration was interrupted by a small dog, which found its way under my foot. The dog yelped, then growled.

“Watch where you're going,” an old woman said. Her hair was puffed with extra aerosol hairspray, making it almost transparent. Her scalp showed through the hair like a glossy, veined egg. The dog made me think of different canines I had come in contact with over the years. One mean dog in particular split his time guarding a bookie and gnawing on a heavy rubber bone. I remembered the bone in particular because as a teenager I picked it up to play a game of tug with the dog. The animal stared at me, shocked, before latching on to my sleeve. I screamed and dropped the bone, trying to escape a game of tug I then wanted no part of. The bookie screamed too, and told the dog to let me go, but nothing happened. I watched helplessly as the dog's eyes met mine for a split second before disappearing in a blur. The shake of its powerful head almost pulled my arm out of the socket. The dog paused and growled, preparing for another shake. As the attack started, another movement caught my eye. The heavy chew toy hit the dog behind the ear, as he closed his eyes and wrenched at my arm. The blow was so fast nothing in the room had time to prepare a reaction. The dog fell sideways as though it were suddenly struck by lightning, and my arm came free.

“Keep your dog under control, or I'm gonna think you have no discipline. I don't work with people who got no discipline.” My uncle's voice registered no shock at what had just happened. The only giveaway that he was agitated at all was the veins bulging from his forehead.

“Sure, sure, Rick. The dog just wanted to play. Got carried away is all. We can still do business. You're okay, eh, kid,” the bookie said as he came around the desk and put a leash on the unconscious dog. “Come on, ya worthless fleabag, get out back.” The limp dog was dragged by the leash out the back door.

While the bookie was out of sight, my uncle leaned into me. “The dog was just trying to keep what was his. Remember that. If an inbred mutt will go that far for a piece of rubber, imagine what someone will do to you for money. There's always dogs looking to take a bite.”

I nodded my head and rubbed my shoulder, but I never looked up. I stared at the chew toy still on the floor, glossy with drool.

I took the food with me on a stroll around the sidewalk of the plaza. Within minutes, I was in front of the giant pet store. The store advertised huge deals to customers with one of the pet store cards, and other monumental deals to those without. I walked inside and ambled around the empty aisles past the fish tanks and birdseed until I came to the dog accessories aisle. I didn't think dog accessories warranted a whole aisle, but I was wrong. There were dozens of bones among the hundreds of toys made by just as many manufacturers.

I walked the aisle twice before stopping at a heavy rubber bone meant for big dogs like pit bulls and mastiffs. I bent the heavy bone in its cardboard packaging, noting its give. The bone would work perfect. Swinging it back would bend the rubber slightly, forcing it to snap forward, adding momentum, when it was swung in the other direction. It was a good, hard sap.

I paid for the bone and took it and the food to the car. I edged out into traffic and drove Upper James once again. It took three minutes for me to find an airport motel. It was a place in between cheap and expensive, offering rides to the nearby Hamilton International Airport and convenient entertainment at the next-door Hooters and Italian restaurant.

I paid for a room with cash, leaving a small deposit I was prepared to never see again. I brought all of my bags into the room and spread the contents on the bed. I opened the food and ate a piece of oily grilled bread while I decided what to do first.

By the time I finished the bread, I was stripped and ready to plug the clippers in. I stood over the sink in the cramped bathroom with the clippers set to the second-lowest setting. Each pass over my head sent hair into the sink in greasy clumps. The dead hair smelled of the boats and fish. The odour was deep in the hair and would never have washed out; it was as much a part of the hair as the colour.

It took ten minutes to cut my hair. Once I was sure I had gotten every spot, I set the clippers down a notch and began trimming my beard. The dark coarse hairs fell like dandelion spores into the sink. I trimmed everything down and began shaving the shortened facial hair into a presentable beard. It wouldn't stand out in the city anymore, but it would obscure a face some people might remember. With my appearance acceptable, I got in the shower.

I unwrapped the motel soap and used half the bar to get the last summer's worth of work on the boat off of me. Each swirl down the drain brought a bit more of me back. I was less the fisherman and more the invisible man with each passing minute under the water.

I quickly towelled off and, without dressing, ate the rest of Yousif's food on the bed. Beads of water dampened the comforter, but I didn't pay the dampness any mind. After my dinner, I threw everything on the bed onto the floor — except the revolver. I propped my head up on the pillows and used my left hand to control the television remote. I watched television in the dark, catching up on reruns and flicking by newer shows I had never heard of. I fell asleep alone in the dark, one hand on the remote, the other reflexively curled around the revolver.

I woke the next afternoon and put on the new clothes. The pants and shirts had fold lines in them, but I was sure they would fade away. I didn't feel bad about the twelve hours' sleep I had; the past few days wound me tight, and the next few would not be any easier.

I retrieved the belt from my old pants and put it on, making sure the knife was concealed behind my back under my shirt. I tried to put the gun into my waistband, but it was too noticeable under the knife, and too bulky under the front of my T-shirt. I had almost given up on carrying the gun on me at all when I remembered the hidden pockets in the pants. The gun fit tight into a concealed thigh pocket. It wasn't good for a quick draw, but it was much better than leaving the gun in the car.

I picked up the toiletries, clippers, old clothes, and garbage and put them all into a pillowcase. I figured the pillowcase was more than a fair trade for my deposit. I had to take everything with me. The takeout containers would lead to Yousif and then to a description of me and Paolo.

I left the room key on the dresser and made it to my car without being noticed. I drove into the next parking lot I saw and emptied the pillowcase into three separate dumpsters. I had to individually force each item under the padlocked chains holding the lids closed. Once everything was gone, I got back in the car and drove towards the mountain access. Upper James led down the mountain, becoming James Street when it left the rocky incline. The road was just as worn and craggy as I remembered and it bounced me around inside the car. I caught sight of my reflection and noticed the change in my appearance. My face was more different, and more the same, than it had been in a long while. A fact that made me smile.

I found the cleaning-supply store that Dom Bombedieri ran his crew out of and spent the next few minutes circling the neighbourhood. There were kids outside hanging out even though it was 1:30 p.m. on a school day. None of the kids was doing anything wrong; they just hung around or played keep-away with basketballs. None of the kids eyed me twice as I circled, so I wrote them off as lookouts. I pulled to the curb two storefronts away from the cleaning-supply store and opened the glovebox. I pulled out the cell phone, mini recorder, and dog bone, then shifted in my seat to load the phone and recorder into a pants pocket concealed near my calf. After that, I reached into the back seat and picked up the jacket.

I got out of the car and put the coat on, leaving it unzipped. The bone fit into a pocket on the side of the jacket, leaving five or six inches hanging out. I didn't care because it didn't appear threatening or stand out. If asked why I was in the neighbourhood, I could say I was looking for a lost dog. The bone would as good as prove what I said to anyone. Everything in place, I locked the car and walked past the store.

The sign just read cleaning supply, and the window displayed several steam cleaners and large floor waxers. There was only one man inside; he was seated behind the counter watching a small TV. I continued down the street before circling the block to get back to the store.

The door had no chime, so Uncle Guy didn't look up from the television until I was a few feet away. I had already figured out he was alone in the showroom and spotted the only exit, a closed door ten feet away from Guy behind the counter, when my presence was acknowledged. He snorted loudly and swallowed whatever he moved in his throat before he stood. He was a fat man with huge features. His large nose and heavy cheeks were peppered with blackheads. They were so large I thought I could work them out with needle-nose pliers. He wore a golf shirt with maroon pants that were hiked up high on his waist, making his torso look short and wide. The golf shirt must have once been washed with the pants because it was dyed an uneven light pink. Guy wore it without an undershirt, and the tight top showed every roll, nipple, and imperfection. He looked at me through dirty greasy glasses and spoke. His breath was stale from smoking.

“I'm losing a fucking bundle on AC Milan here.”

I didn't respond so he continued — beginning with another snort. “What can I get for you?”

I looked around the store, making a big production of it so Guy's eyes followed my gaze. “What have you got that takes out blood?”

Guy snapped his eyes back to mine and looked at me, suddenly unsure. “What do you need to take blood out of?”

“Dom told me you're the man to see about cleaning a place right. If you know what I mean.” My voice didn't come out weak or wobbly like a liar's; it came out smooth — a conspirator's voice with just the right amount of malice.

Guy leaned back in close — smiling now. “What the fuck did you get into, hunh? What's the blood on? Wood? Carpet? Concrete?”

I looked down at the dingy brown-carpeted floor. “Carpet,” I said. “Old worn-in carpet.”

“If the carpet's old, you'll have to do the whole floor or else someone will know the one spot was cleaned. How long has the stain been on the floor?”

“Not long,” I said. “Not long at all.”

Guy paused for a wet snort. “I got a couple a steam cleaners that will take anything out as long as it's fresh. The size you need depends on the size of the stain. How much blood is there?”

“There's gonna be a lot of blood, Guy,” I said as the side of my mouth started to move. The grin formed on my face and it did to Guy what it used to do to me when I saw it on my uncle's face. He was unsettled, unsure of what to make of it. It occupied him while my right hand pulled out the rubber bone.

“Gonna? What the fuck you mean gonna? How much blood is there, stunad?”

I didn't answer. I was too busy swinging the bone up from my hip. I swung it like an overhead tennis serve. The bone arced back as I made a split-second pause in midair, and then shot forward with my arm's change in direction. The hard rubber pounded into the fat face, popping the swollen nose like a water balloon. Blood went all over the thin pink shirt and counter. Guy put two bloated hands up to his face. The fingers, thick like rolls of toonies, tried to hold back the sudden gush of blood.

I took a handful of the greasy, thinning hair on the top of his head and pounded the hands with the bone. I beat them away from his face and began swinging at his short, fat, tyrannosaurus arms. Guy's limbs began to writhe over his head, simultaneously trying to protect his head and avoid the blows. I had to climb over the counter to keep a hold on him. I kept swinging, moving up the flailing arms back to his head. His arms soon became too beaten to cover up his head, and there was nothing to protect the dog toy from cleaving skin away from the browbone. The strikes beat him down to the floor behind the counter.

Guy bled into the carpet and began to sob. The sound was like a child crying in the night. They were heavy sobs accompanied by heavy snorts. The sobbing meant I did my job right. He was hurt, bad but not out, or worse, dead. I didn't waste time checking on him; he was a man who had covered up countless beatings and worse. Why did he deserve better than he gave to his customers?

“Help! He's having a heart attack! Someone call an ambulance!” I didn't know if Guy's son Denis was in the store or not, but if he was I had to get him out and keep him off balance. Paolo said Denis never left his dad alone, and I had to rely on Paolo's intel. Sure enough, the door behind the counter opened and a man emerged from the back room. The man was a younger replica of Guy. He was not as fat, not as greasy, but equally ugly.

“What happened?” he yelled as he approached.

I put panic in my voice. “He grabbed his chest and collapsed!”

Denis reached his father. “His face! What happened to his . . .” Staring at his battered father, Denis never saw the bone coming; it hit him in the temple and shut him down.

I patted Denis down and freed a gun from a holster at his back. I also pulled out his wallet and cell phone. I stuffed the wallet and phone into my already full pockets and tucked the gun into the front of my pants.

I left father and son on the floor together while I locked the front door. I pulled the blinds down over the windows, dimming the room. I freed Denis's gun from my waistband and thumbed back the hammer as I moved behind the counter and checked Guy and Denis. Guy still sobbed and gurgled on the floor. His beaten arms tried to rise off the floor to his face but repeatedly failed. Denis was still out, his temple darkening from the impact of the sap.

I moved through the doorway into the next room; it was lit by too many fluorescent lights, and the aggressive glare hurt my eyes. The room had huge crates and boxes along the wall connected to the storefront. The crates and boxes were labelled with different brand names that I'd heard of before. The boxes looked heavy and likely dampened all sound coming in and out of the room. Denis probably had no idea anyone was out front with his father until he heard me yell. The rest of the room didn't belong at all. There was a flat-screen TV with surround sound set up around two huge leather couches. Behind the couches sat a large desk with a computer terminal. The TV was tuned to the same soccer game as the TV behind the counter. A darkened bathroom was through a doorway beside the desk. A quick check showed me that the bathroom got none of the expensive upgrades that the other room got. It was white, or it once had been. There was piss on the floor, and the seat was up. I backed out of the empty bathroom, careful not to touch anything.

All in all the back room was small, but it looked like what it was — a comfy clubhouse for thugs. I turned off the television and walked back out front into the dimmed sales area. Both father and son were still down on the floor together. I walked past them to the first vacuum I saw — a huge industrial model. I pulled the power cord out of a large retractable spool on the back. The cord came out and retracted with a loud snap when I let it go. I tucked Denis's gun back in my pants, freed my knife, and unwound the cord until there was none left. I cut the power cord into three-foot sections and threw them over my shoulder. When I finished I had six sections in all.

I righted Guy's chair and yanked Denis up to his feet. He surprised me, surging up with the momentum of my pull. He rammed me hard into the counter and tried to drive me over it. I lowered my body and forced him back. I didn't bother pushing his shoulders. I put two hands on his face and shoved — making sure to dig my thumbs into his eyes. His head lurched away, but his arms kept pushing against my body. I drove forward harder with my thumbs and felt his arms start to slacken. His hands stopped trying to shove me over the counter and began to pull at my thumbs. His rage and anger about what I did to his father made his bulky body impossible to hold. He shook his head free from my grip, moving it back and forth like a dog shaking a rat. With my hands loose, he stepped back, maximizing the four feet of space between us.

His eyes looked red and livid, and his wild right hook proved what they were telling me. Denis was fighting for his life, but his sloppy style and heavy breathing let me know he had lost his head and was just running on rage. I wasn't like him. My chest rose and fell evenly; the surprise of his playing possum had long worn off. I stepped into his wild hook, making the fist no real threat at all. The hook turned into a grab once it couldn't hurt me with bone-on-bone blunt force. Denis pulled my body closer, forcing me into a headlock. He was surprisingly strong for someone who looked so out of shape. My neck compressed under his damp armpit. The pressure wasn't immediately threatening because my right hand guarded my throat, but the choke would eventually slow me down. My fist punched repeatedly back and forth like a piston, battering Denis's ribs, but the folds of flesh and his loss of sanity made everything I did ineffective. He cranked harder on my neck and rested more of his weight on my frame. He was screaming in my ear as he tried to wrestle me down like a steer.

The pressure, combined with the hot, smelly air under Denis's arm, began to make it hard to breathe. I gave up punching and grabbed a fistful of his right pant leg. Holding his leg in place, I moved my right hand away from protecting my neck. The pressure surged higher without my arm pushing against the choke, and my vision began to dim around the edges as the air was forced out of my throat. With the last seconds of consciousness I had left, I pulled Denis's gun from my waistband. In one motion, I cocked the hammer back and put the barrel of the small revolver against his shin bone, right between knee and ankle. I pulled the trigger and felt the smelly vise release my neck. Denis was still screaming, but the pitch was higher now that he was on the floor with his shin bone splintered.