Messenger of Death (23 page)

Leila’s smile
pierced his body from heart to groin. She had a power over him,
which he was not able to resist.

“I love you, I
love you,” she said, and then sat on his knees, kissing him on the
lips. Choking in his rough and passionate embrace, she pleaded,
“Oh, let me get back to the stove. You’ll squash my bones with your
beastly arms. Ah-ha, that’s hard . . . but I know how to handle
it.”

She jumped from
his knees, turned the stove off, and came back to treat him to what
he liked. A few minutes later, sitting beside him, she put her head
on his shoulder and caressed his face with her soft, warm
hands.

“We talked
about going to Las Vegas,” she reminded him. “I’ve seen an ad in
the newspaper. Prices are very low right now.”

“Good idea,”
Claude said with his eyes closed. “Could you book the trip?”

“Yup, I could.
I’ve already called a travel agency. They have a few packages left
for this-coming Thursday.”

“Good. Let’s
go.”

On Thursday, a
few hours prior to departure, Claude was sitting on the small
balcony of the apartment, smoking a cigarette and drinking beer. He
was daydreaming about Las Vegas, a place he had heard so much about
from his fellow inmates. They had told him about high rollers
placing terrific bets as bystanders watched them in awe and envy;
about broads, beautiful and affordable; fabulous restaurants,
shows, and blazing signs below illuminated giant buildings. Now, it
was his turn to go. Today he would be there.

Leila appeared
at the balcony door.

“I just saw one
of your guys on a news clip. He’s going to speak after the TV
commercial,” she said excitedly, as if announcing a great new show.
Claude stood up and went inside.

“Who is it?” he
asked, settling on the sofa near the television set.

“The redhead
with the pony tail, remember the cottage party? I forgot his
name.”

“Stash. I
wonder why . . .”

The commercial
ended with the joyful cry of a cute kid, face smeared with greasy
junk food.

A female
broadcaster, experienced and confident, appeared on the screen.

“We have very
unusual guests with us today,” she said, looking intently at an
invisible object in front of her. “A police expert on biker gangs,
Bertrand Tremblay, will comment in support of the latest police
actions against a huge biker gathering in the Eastern Townships.
His opponent is a representative of the Devil’s Knights motorcycle
club, Stash Roark. My first question is to the police
representative.”

The face of
Bertrand Tremblay appeared on the right side of the screen in a
small frame.

“Bertrand,
there have been numerous protests from lawyers representing the
Devil’s Knights about police harassment of bikers, particularly
during your infamous checkpoints on the roads. They claim that the
police have gone so far as to search them without warrants,
confiscate their property, and take some into custody. They claim
that you break the constitutional right for freedom of meetings and
associations by doing so. What is your comment?”

The frame with
Bertrand’s face leapt forward and took the full screen. Without
blinking, and hardly moving his lips, Bertrand spoke firmly, as
appropriate for a tough and confident police officer.

“These
checkpoints provide us with valuable information on the identity of
gang members,” Bertrand responded. “We have, in the past, found
bikers carrying illegal firearms, drugs, and fake documents. Formal
charges have been placed against some of them. In a nutshell, these
checkpoints prove to be very efficient in investigating and
fighting biker gangs.”

The face of the
female broadcaster replaced the image of the police expert.

“And, what is
your comment on that, Stash?” she asked the biker. Now, Stash’s
face took over the screen. Traces of pouches still showing under
his eyes, he didn’t look as awful as he had in the park during
their last meeting. His stare was firm, and he spoke with no less
confidence than the policeman had. Claude took a huge swig from the
beer bottle to refresh his drying mouth.

“This is
typical talk from a law enforcement agency that is attempting to
present its illegal actions under the guise of unfounded
allegations. Without legitimate proof, they call us gangsters, our
associations and clubs become gangs. Their illegal searches during
the road checks are now called ‘efficient ways of fighting gangs.’
If you take their comments at face value, you’d think that the only
troublemakers in our society are motorcycle clubs and their
members.

“Don’t fall
into the trap of thinking that our society is made up of saints and
devils. The majority are in between. By resorting to illegal
procedures, you discover a lot of people breeching the law one way
or another, no matter what group or association they belong to.
Government agencies have no right, however, to label them using
inappropriate terminology or to harass them because of their
association. Single out any group, be it homosexuals, feminists,
Green Peace or anti-abortion activists, you name it, and you’ll
find that many of them use illegal drugs, possess firearms, hide
their income from the government, and many other things.

“Why don’t you
target them?

“Or maybe it
will be their turn after the police have finished with us? Go that
way, and you’ll find out that our country does not have enough
jails to keep them all, not enough courts, and not enough judges to
deal with all the cases. With motorcycle clubs, police harassment
is an easy task. On Harley Davidson and in biker vests, we become a
visible minority, easy to target, easy to persecute because of bad
publicity around us. But bad publicity, created by unscrupulous
journalists, should not be a solid foundation for persecution and
harassment. Our constitution, and only our constitution, must be
the governing law for all, including law enforcement agencies.”

Leila
diminished the sound.

“Not bad, eh?”
she asked.

“Yes. Now I
understand why Marcel puts up with him.”

He glanced at
his expensive wristwatch. “Time to go, Leila. Shut off the
box.”

A few hours
later they exited the Las Vegas airport and walked into the dry,
pleasant heat of the desert. They rented a car and drove into the
dense traffic of the Las Vegas Strip. The street swarmed with
people, as if a demonstration or riot was going on, only most of
them smiled. Huge hotels towered as giants, welcoming newcomers to
the city of fun and sin.

Two days in Las
Vegas passed as in a fairy tale. In the hottest hours, they swam in
the cool water of a huge swimming pool. In the evenings, they
played roulette, blackjack, craps, or walked the street past
hundreds of thousands of lights, which covered some buildings from
the bottom to the very top. Claude found surprises at every step:
the simulation of a volcanic eruption at the Mirage, a symphony of
dancing fountains at Bellagio, jumping and blinking lights of the
most illuminated city in the world.

Looking at the
happy crowd, Claude thought about his years in prison and how much
he had missed in his life, virtually for nothing. Now, the time had
come to make up for his lost years. The only disturbing factor was
the nightmares, in which he was again in jail, fighting for his
life or killing someone. Leila had woken him a few times, when his
shouts and convulsions got too disturbing.

On the last
night before their departure, Leila lost more than $1,000 at the
roulette table.

“I’m sorry,”
she said, sipping her drink in the open bar, in the midst of the
Mirage casino. “I’ll make up for the loss, Claude. I wanna make
money, too, as you do.”

“Again, the
same old shit. You don’t have enough money?” Claude growled.

“It’s not that.
My life is just so boring sometimes. I like doing things. Do you
think I left my well-to-do parents for nothing? Why can’t you give
me something to do for yah?”

“You can’t help
me with what I’m doing, I’ve told you more than once,” Claude
objected.

“What’s so
special in what you’re doing? I’m not a coward. We can do deals
together. Except, perhaps, killing. You don’t kill, do you?”

He threw a
sharp glance at her, but she had already turned around to look at
the roulette table nearby. She didn’t wait for his answer,
obviously certain that he was not a killer.

“Look, Claude.”
She touched his hand but continued looking in the direction of her
interest. Claude followed her stare and raised his eyebrows. He
recognized one of the gamblers in an instant by his red ponytail.
Stash was pushing tall towers of ten-dollar chips into the gaming
area of the roulette table. A young, pretty woman, excited by his
large bet, was commenting on his move with short applause.

“Very
interesting,” Claude murmured. “Let’s get closer. That’s a high
roller’s table.” A quick look around showed him that several
thousand dollars, easily, waited for the drop of a small ball to
decide their destiny.

“Let him know
that we’re here,” Leila suggested.

“Not now. Let
him finish the game. With such bets, he’ll soon be out. I’d rather
stay behind and watch it.”

Claude tilted
his head back and let the remaining beer in his glass drip down his
throat. He stood up, scanning the vast casino for other Devil’s
Knights or any suspicious activity. He saw only serious faces at
the slot machines, staring dumbly at the rotating numbers and
pictures that flashed hypnotically in front of their eyes. Claude
and Leila left the bar area and moved to within three feet of
Stash.

Suddenly, the
roulette dealer threw a small white ball into the groove above the
rotating wheel so it could begin its fast spin in the opposite
direction. As the speed of the ball was diminishing, Claude
observed the bets and the gamblers. On the other side of the
roulette table sat a Chinese fellow, approximately his own age,
frantically placing hundred-dollar chips in a rush to cover his
lucky numbers before the ball fell into a slot. A Chinese woman
sitting beside him was looking at her own tall towers that sat in
the “dozens” area. As in a dream, Claude was taking in the steady
murmur of casino sounds swallowing him: excited conversations and
arguments, the silvery clinking of coins falling rapidly from slot
machines, a scream at a card table across the room, a sudden roar
at the craps table. At last, the small ball dropped into the
rotating wheel. In a deft and rapid sweep, the dealer removed
almost all the chips from the table. The woman standing beside
Stash clapped her palms and laughed happily; Stash had won. The two
Chinese players did not blink at their losses but began pushing
another bunch of chips forward to satisfy Lady Luck.

Claude regarded
the Chinese high rollers with jealousy and hatred. He wanted to be
in their shoes, sitting with piles of chips, arrogantly ignorant of
the admiring and envying eyes of bystanders. It would be nice to
kill that bitch, he thought, looking at the rainbow of sparkles
jumping off the huge diamonds on her fingers and in her ears. She
must have felt his look because she raised her eyes to meet
his.

Claude smiled
inwardly as he saw fear flickering in the woman’s eyes. She cast
her glance down at the green table and then looked up again. Claude
gave her his best sadistic smile. He held his stare as she took a
paper napkin out of her bag and wiped large drops of sweat off her
forehead and neck. No trace of arrogance or indifference remained
on her face. Her fingers trembling, she did not dare to look at him
again.

Stash placed
his new bets. This time, however, Lady Luck knocked him down for
good. He happened to notice, though, the strange look and behavior
of a Chinese woman across from him and quickly looked back.

“Claude!” he
exclaimed. Sudden surprise and anxiety were replaced with a
contented smile. “Glad to see you. When did you get here?” His face
was now even worse than it had been in the park. Undoubtedly in the
sniffer’s paradise, he was trying to focus his eyes on Claude’s
face.

“Today is our
last day here, actually,” Claude said. “We saw you on TV before we
left home. That was one nice speech, Stash.”

“Let’s go for a
drink,” Stash suggested. “I wanna tell you something. Let the girls
talk to each other. This is Merlin, by the way.” He began walking
toward the café that was set up in the middle of the tropical
forest inside the s huge lobby of the Mirage. After passing a small
bridge over the stream that ran through the dense tangle of exotic
plants, he chose a table and invited Claude to sit beside him.
Their women had no choice but to sit on the other side of the
table. From there, they couldn’t hear anything because of the loud
music being played by a live band.

“Listen,
Claude, I’m broke,” he said. His right eyelid was twisting in a
nervous tic. “Could you lend me a grand? I’ll give it back to you
as soon as I return.”

“We have to go
upstairs. I have money in my suitcase.”

“Thanks.” With
a wry smile, Stash added, “My broad is very expensive. You have a
good one, your ol’ lady, that is. Expensive as well?”

Claude
nodded.

“Don’t you
worry about money,” Stash said. “There’s a lot of work to do.
Listen, I have something special for you. There’s a deadbeat in
Ontario that owes me forty grand. No, not to me. To the Vandals,
you know their club, don’t you? I got word that he keeps money at
home. He feels safe in his territory. You have to take care of
him.”

“What if
there’s no money?” Claude asked.

“Finish him.
The Vandals will pay for the deal. You’ll get ten grand for it one
way or the other.”

Claude had a
feeling that something wasn’t right. But in his capacity as a
contract killer, he wasn’t in a position to ask too many questions
besides those directly related to a job.