Читать книгу No Good Brother - Tyler Keevil - Страница 15

In Jake’s truck we headed east on Powell, then merged with McGill and got onto the Second Narrows Bridge, which connects Vancouver to the North Shore, where we grew up. Beneath us Burrard Inlet shimmered and rippled, a dark swathe of water burnished by city lights, and up ahead the mountains stood out blackly against the night sky. On the far side of the bridge we kept going along the Upper Levels and the Cut – this long stretch of highway hacked into the hillside. Drizzling rain smeared the windscreen and one of Jake’s wipers was busted, so the blade flopped around all crazily, like a snake having conniptions.

Along the way, Jake forgot to act grave and compassionate about the loss of my job. My presence had cheered him up some and as he drove he whistled through his gap tooth – some little ditty that was irritating as all hell.

‘It’s good to have you along, bro.’ He leaned over, punched me in the shoulder. ‘Good old Poncho. The handsome old buck, with a busted hand.’

He was smiling reminiscently.

‘What are you grinning at?’

‘Just thinking. Having you involved always made my schemes seem more legitimate, somehow. You were the respectable one. If you were part of it then Sandy and Ma figured it had to be okay.’

‘Even when you were up to no good.’

‘I was always up to no good.’

‘What are we getting into, man?’

‘You remember the Delaney brothers? Mark and Patrick?’

‘From back in the day? Sure.’

They had grown up on the North Shore and gone to a rival high school, around the same time as us. I’d come across them a few times. Back then they’d had a reputation as badasses but there were a lot of posers around who dealt a bit of weed and pretended to be gangsters and most of the time it didn’t amount to anything.

Jake said, ‘They’ve been busy since then.’

‘I heard something about that.’

‘They’re making a name for themselves.’

He told me that two years ago they’d formed this new gang that was causing quite a stir. Most of the gangs in the Lower Mainland were one ethnicity or another, but theirs – the World Legion, they called it – had done away with that, and they were muscling in (that was the term Jake used) on the turf of the older gangs: the Triads and the Hells Angels.

I said, ‘Equality among criminals, eh?’

‘They’re the ones who helped me out inside.’

‘Because you’re North Shore?’

‘An old friend vouched for me, and Mark Delaney remembered me.’

‘So that’s why you owe them.’

‘Now you’re getting it, Poncho.’

We’d followed the highway past the Lynn Valley turn-off and took the exit at Upper Lonsdale. We swung north, going up the hill towards the mountains, past the Queen’s Cross pub and the squat apartment buildings near there. The area beyond was leafy, suburban, and pleasant-looking.

‘This is where we’re meeting them?’ I asked.

‘They use their house as a base,’ Jake said. ‘Their mom’s house, actually.’

He laughed, and snapped his fingers, as if that was the punchline to a joke.

Of all the outrageous parts of this story – and I admit there are many – the one I find hardest to get a handle on is the existence of the Delaney brothers. For the same reason, they were a source of fascination during the trials: people wanted to know how two guys from a white-collar background (their father was an accountant, their mother a legal secretary) could get it in their heads that they wanted to be gangsters, and then go about it in a way that forced the actual and established gangsters to take them seriously, at least for a little while.

But a lot has been written about that, from all kinds of angles, by people who have far more direct knowledge than me. All I can do, really, is relate our own experiences in dealing with the Delaneys, which – it goes without saying – did not end very well at all. Looking back, most of those troubles were set up in that first meeting, played out on a small scale.

The Delaney family lived on a cul-de-sac in a new real estate development, with tree-lined boulevards and big sprawling lawns. Their house was built in the style of all the others: two storeys, faux-brick façade, cream siding, double-garage. There was nothing to set it apart except, I suppose, for the vehicle parked on one side of the driveway: a black Cadillac Escalade, as blatant as a tank, with tinted windows and jacked-up suspension.

Afterwards, Jake told me there had been brawls, showdowns, police raids, and a drive-by at the place: the hazards of their gangland aspirations spilling over into suburbia.

At the porch we rang the bell, and while we waited I asked Jake what he wanted me to do, how he wanted me to act in there. He said it would be best if I kept quiet and let him talk it over with them, which of course was fine by me.

The door opened and an elderly woman peeked out at us. She had her hair done up in an old-fashioned perm, and was wearing an apron around her waist. The entranceway smelled of baking and perfume. The woman, who I assumed to be Mrs Delaney, welcomed us in and said it was very nice to see us. I felt as if I was back in high school, having come to a friend’s house to hang out. But Jake, he just took it all in stride. He commented on the smell of her cooking and she patted her perm and said that the cake wasn’t ready yet, but when it was she would send some up.

‘Mark’s in the office,’ she said, pointing to a stairwell on the right.

It ran straight up to a small landing and door. I could hear odd sounds – clanking and grunting – in the room beyond. Jake knocked and after a second somebody shouted for us to come on in and so Jake pushed open the door. Directly opposite, facing us as we entered, a guy sat at one of those personal gyms (the elaborate kind with complex pulley systems) doing reps on the fly press. That explained the clanking. The peculiar thing – or the more peculiar thing – was his outfit: he was wearing jeans and a sport coat, rather than anything resembling gym gear. The rest of the office looked relatively normal: desk, chairs, filing cabinet, card table.

The guy grimaced at us and said, ‘Just got to finish this set.’

And Jake said, ‘Sure thing, Mark.’

We waited and watched, respectfully. As we did, the door shut behind us. I looked back, startled. Some other guy had been back there the whole time: I hadn’t even seen him. He had sunken, angular cheeks pitted with acne scars. He didn’t smile or greet us in any way. He just stared, clinically, and my overall impression of him was not a congenial one.

Mark finished with the fly press, hopped up, and patted his belly.

‘Trying to get rid of this goddamn jiggle-ball,’ he said.

‘Ladies like a man with a little padding,’ Jake said.

Mark laughed. ‘Fucking Jake Harding. Come here, man.’

He met Jake halfway and gripped Jake’s hand and they did a shake and punch. Mark started talking right away about how glad he was to see Jake, and have him on board.

‘How are things at the stables?’ he asked Jake.

‘I’m getting on all right.’

‘See, Novak?’ Mark said, looking beyond us at the other guy. ‘I told you Jake would make it work. Novak here thinks you’re gonna screw this job up. He thinks it’s a bad idea.’

Novak just smiled, or seemed to. His teeth were not nice to look at: yellowish and square and standing out from the gums. Skeleton teeth.

‘Nobody’s gonna screw anything up,’ Jake said.

He sounded very confident, very convincing. At the time, even I believed him.

‘That’s my boy. Send those fuckers a message. Pull some Coppola-type shit on them.’ Mark snapped his fingers. ‘Hey Novak – why don’t you see if that cake is ready?’

‘Cake,’ Novak said, as if considering it. ‘Yes, I will get the cake.’

He slipped out the door, eel-like, and shut it silently behind him.

‘Don’t mind Novak,’ Mark said. ‘He’s a crazy Slav. But useful.’

He led Jake and I over to the card table. It had four chairs around it and on top, in the middle, was a crokinole board. The board was carved from mahogany and so were the discs. I’d never seen a board like that. Mark noticed me studying it and rapped on the edge.

‘We just got into this. Crokinole. My bro’s obsessed with it.’

‘We used to play as kids.’

‘Oh yeah?’ He sort of perched sideways on the edge of the table, in a way that didn’t look particularly cool or comfortable, and eyed me up and down. ‘Jesus, Jake. You didn’t tell me you were bringing the Angels in on this deal. What chapter are you with, buddy?’

I told him I wasn’t with any chapter. I wasn’t with the Angels. I sort of got that he was making fun of me but I still didn’t understand it. Then Mark laughed. His laugh was really something: a high-pitched, squeaky giggle, like a teenager before his voice breaks.

‘Shit – I’m just messing with you. I meant the outfit.’

I was wearing my watchcap and goose-down jacket and work boots.

‘He’s on the boats,’ Jake said, clapping my back. ‘Fishing and shit.’

‘At the docks? We got some guys down there.’

Mark rattled off a list of names, but I didn’t recognize any of them, since I didn’t actually work at the docks he had in mind. This seemed to disappoint him momentarily, and he looked at me anew, as if I might not be a fisherman at all but a guy posing as one.

‘So this is your brother?’ he asked Jake.

Jake introduced me, and Mark held out his hand to shake mine. As we did, he noticed my fingers and turned my hand up so he could get a better look. He bent over it as if he were going to kiss it.

‘Jesus Christ. You get bit by a shark or what?’

‘No – I got bit by your mom.’

I do that, sometimes, when I’m nervous. I say something completely inappropriate and out of line. Mark let my hand drop. For a second it seemed as if it could go either way, but Mark laughed again – that squeak of a laugh – and said something about me having balls, to make a crack like that. Then he stopped laughing, and gave his earlobe a gentle pinch.

‘Just don’t say anything like that around my brother, okay?’

‘Where is your brother?’ Jake asked.

‘He’ll be here. We got a few minutes to kill.’

He took a seat and we did the same. While we waited he wanted to see our crokinole skills. We divided up the rocks and took turns shooting twenties. Mark wasn’t that good but he was very enthusiastic. We did that for ten or fifteen minutes, until headlights flooded the office. A vehicle had turned into the drive: another SUV, a big Durango. As it pulled into the garage beneath us the thump-thump of heavy bass beats made the whole room vibrate. Then the music cut out, and a few moments later Patrick Delaney made his entrance.

‘What’s the fucking dilly, yo?’ he said.

Pat had Mark’s features but he was heftier, all muscled up, with a crew cut and the kind of wide-shouldered, swaggering walk tough guys develop. It should have been comical but there was undeniably something intimidating about him. Jake and I both stood up, since the situation seemed to call for it. Pat ignored us. He had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and he went right to the desk and dropped it. It landed heavily.

Mark said, ‘You got them.’

‘Check it,’ Pat said, and unzipped the bag.

There were black vests inside. They were puffy and heavy and when Pat pulled one out I realized it was a bullet-proof vest like cops wear. Mark held it up to his chest, checking the size, then undid the Velcro and strapped it on, over his sport coat.

‘Yeah, motherfucker,’ he said, and thumped his chest.

‘You’re invincible.’

They played around with the vests a while longer, and I got the sense that this was largely, or partly, for our benefit: they were showing off their toys. Then Pat deigned to notice us. Or notice Jake. He came over to the crokinole table and stood in front of him.

‘We ready to roll on this, Jake?’ he asked.

‘We’re rolling like dough,’ Jake said.

Mark patted Jake’s back. ‘Jake’s got full run of the place.’

The four of us sat down and Pat didn’t mess around with preamble. He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a white envelope and placed that on the table, beside the crokinole board.

‘There might be a key in that envelope. If there is, it might fit a vehicle that will be parked in a particular location tomorrow night.’

‘What kind of vehicle?’ Jake asked.

‘I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s in that envelope – get me? But whatever it is, it’ll be what you need. Once it’s there, ready to be picked up, you’ll get a call on this.’

He slid a cellphone across the board. It spun and came to a stop near us: a black clamshell Nokia. Jake took the phone and envelope and tucked them in his jacket pocket.

‘You drive it over,’ Pat said, ‘and when you get there, and everything’s a go, you give us a call just to let us know. We’ll make sure the next phase is in place.’

At that point, I assumed it was money. Or dope. That was what I’d been expecting all along: some kind of drug run or delivery with us acting as mules or couriers or whatnot.

Pat asked, ‘You sure you can gain access?’

‘I got clearance.’

‘If you screw any of it up, you’re fucked, and we don’t know you. You take the fall. That’s how it works. Can you handle that?’

‘We can handle it.’

Pat looked at me. I’d been frowning, trying to follow it all, but when he looked at me I smiled instead. I smiled in what must have been a weird and extremely unconvincing way.

He said, ‘Your brother doesn’t seem so sure.’

I said, ‘It all sounds pretty vague.’

‘That’s called being smart. That’s called deniability.’

‘Deniability,’ his brother repeated, and giggled. He was still wearing his vest.

‘We can handle it,’ Jake said.

‘Good. Maria said you’d get it done. She said you were reliable.’

‘Maria?’ I asked.

I couldn’t help it. It just popped out. They all looked at me, expectantly.

‘Like Maria O’Connell?’

‘That’s her,’ Mark said. ‘That a problem, Relic?’

‘I just didn’t know she was involved.’

Pat jerked a thumb at me, and asked Jake, ‘He gonna be all right?’

‘He’s fine.’

Mark was giggling again. He started telling a confusing anecdote, the overall point of which seemed to be that Maria had set fire to his brother’s Hummer, after an argument.

‘She was always a firebrand,’ Jake said.

‘She’s turning into a goddamn liability,’ Pat said to him. ‘You’re gonna see her and her brat down there. Do me a favour and make sure she’s not too strung out, will you?’

‘I’ll look after her.’

There was an edge to how Jake said it. Pat didn’t miss that. He jerked his chin.

‘You two used to have a thing, didn’t you?’

‘Years ago.’

‘You’re lucky the bitch dropped you.’

The door opened and that guy, Novak, came back in. He’d brought the cake and four plates. He laid the cake in the centre of the board and from his pocket slid out a slim blade, a stiletto, which he used to slice four pieces, getting the sizes exactly the same. With the flat of the knife he lifted each piece onto a plate, then went to take up his position by the door again.

‘Our mom makes the best fucking cake,’ Mark said. ‘Try this shit.’

Pat took his piece and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. I ate mine more slowly, pretending to really appreciate it. I have to admit: it was good cake – lemon and poppy seed.

‘Golden,’ Jake said.

Pat grunted. Then his phone buzzed, and he checked the screen.

‘I got shit on,’ he said. ‘We good here?’

‘What about our money?’ Jake asked.

‘You’ll get your money on delivery.’

‘And then Jake’s square with you, right?’ I said.

Pat held out his hand, palm up, as if to say, ‘Who the fuck is this guy?’ and they all laughed. When the laughter settled, Pat reached over and thumbed a crumb off his plate.

‘Sure,’ he said, popping it in his mouth, ‘and then Jake’s square with us.’