Giles Blunt - Forty Words for Sorrow

The kid shoved past, the chair clattering with him up the stairs.

"You can't get out," the man said over his shoulder, but staring at Woody. The kid was already at the top of the stairs, bare-assed, banging his shoulder into the door, but Woody knew there wasn't a door on earth that broke like they did in the movies.

"Be cool," Woody said to the weasel guy. "No need for violence."

Weasel looked him up and down, no rush about it. "Maybe I like violence."

"Here's the deal: I leave your VCR and shit, and you let the kid go. I don't know what he did- probably you have every right to kick his ass- but you can't keep a kid tied up in a basement. It ain't right."

The kid was still slamming away at the door, still doing the banshee thing.

"Shut up," the man said toward the stairs. "Guy's fucking hysterical."

"Yeah, he's definitely upset. Look, man, I gotta go."

The weasel left the doorway and went to the bottom of the stairs. "Keith," he said sharply. "Get downstairs right now."

"No way, man! I'm out of here!"

The man went to the bottom step, held the gun a foot away from the boy's leg, and pulled the trigger.

The kid shrieked and fell down the stairs, clutching his thigh. He was rolling on the concrete floor, when the man kicked his chin like he was trying for a field goal and the kid went still.

"Jesus Christ, man." It was all Woody could manage and he repeated it a couple of times. "You didn't have to do that."

"Sit down in that chair."

"No, sir. Negative. Obviously you're pissed off, but let's be realistic here." There was no way in hell he was going to let himself be tied up. This was one sick weasel.

"Sit down in that chair or I'll shoot you, too."

"He woke Gram up"- this surreal offering from the top of the stairs, where the woman now stood gripping the rail. "All his damn screaming." She came down a couple of steps and stood over the kid. "I ought to pee all over your face."

"He broke into your house, Edie. He was stealing your VCR."

The woman looked at Woody. "It so happens that VCR means a lot to me. It has sentimental value."

"Okay. I hear you. I'm just in it for the cash, know what I mean?"

"Fuck, Eric. Let's kill him."

"Videos, hey, I love 'em, too, you know? Me and the wife'll rent a Clint Eastwood now and again- well, I like Clint. She likes the stuff about sisters and girlfriends and that. But, hey- a good movie, some popcorn, we love it!" Make a little conversation, get on their good side, works wonders with the cops sometimes.

"Shoot him, Eric," the woman said with feeling. "Shoot him in the belly."

"Listen, you guys- Edie, Eric. Obviously, I'm not welcome here, so I'll just go, okay? I'll just hit the road. Sorry for the inconvenience and shit. I apologize."

"That van outside, the blue one, is that yours?"

"The ChevyVan, yeah. And the fact is, Eric, I parked in a bad spot. Snow removal. She's gonna get towed if I don't move her."

The man didn't react to this at all. He was sighting down the barrel at Woody's belly.

"Eric?" The woman came down another couple of steps and watched them intently, her mouth open a little. There was something wrong with her face. "Why don't you break his nose?"

Woody was gauging the distance to the gun, still in the man's hand, still pointed at his stomach.

"It's something I'd like to see," the woman went on. "Hear the bone break and everything."

The kid stirred, and the man turned and kicked his head. It was now or never. Woody shoved him hard, straight-armed the woman, and he was up the stairs, hand on the doorknob. The door was swinging open when the bullet tore into his back, somewhere near the love handles. He toppled over backward, landed on top of the kid, and hit his head a hell of a bang on the concrete floor.

A guy he'd shared a cell with once had told Woody what it was like to be shot: like a hot iron pressing through your body, man, those little fuckers are hot. And Woody discovered now that this was true.

The man was standing over him, big as King Kong. That's how I must look to Dumptruck, Woody thought, and wondered how long before Martha started to worry.

The man's hands were around his neck. Strong thumbs closing his windpipe.

"Break his nose," the woman said again. "Why do you want to choke him, when you can break his nose?"

And carefully, using the butt of his pistol, the man did exactly that.

DELORME sat in the half-dark of her kitchen, finishing her third cup of Nescafй. Before her was a stack of files Dyson had sent over. She liked to work in her kitchen at anything except cooking. The remains of a frozen dinner lay forgotten on her plate.

The files were also mostly forgotten; Delorme was thinking about the three Fs. If she was going to do anything with the boat receipt she had seen in Cardinal's files, it would be through them. The three Fs stood for February, French Canadians, and Florida. As anyone who has been to that particular state in that particular month can testify, the Florida gulf in February becomes the Gulf of Quebec. Miami becomes Montreal-On-Sea. Suddenly, Cuban becomes a minority accent, and every other license plate proclaims Je me souviens. Come February, Florida's waiters and bellboys polish off their seasonal stable of Canadian jokes: What's the difference between a Canadian and a canoe? Answer: Canoes tip.

Forty-five minutes and half a dozen phone calls later, Delorme had talked to two French Canadian cops who were about to visit Florida on vacation. Neither of them, unfortunately, was going to be anywhere near the Calloway Marina. So Delorme made a few more calls and got the number of Dollard Langois, who had been in her class at Police College. They had even dated a couple of times, and Delorme was at this moment very grateful to her younger self that she had not slept with him. He had been an awkward, gangly young man, with big gentle hands and hound-dog eyes, and one night after a movie in Aylmer he had confessed that he was absolutely crazy in love with her. Delorme had been all set to sleep with him until he said that. Dollard Langois had been one attractive guy, but she had not been about to mess up her budding career with romance. She had often wondered since, on lonely nights, how he was doing, and what would have happened if- Well, Dollard Langois was a road not taken, put it that way.

They spent a few minutes catching up- speaking English, perhaps because that had been the language at Aylmer. Yes, she told him, she was pretty happy with her career as a cop. No, she was not married.

"That's too bad, Lise. It's so nice to be married. Doesn't surprise me, though- and I don't mean that in a negative way."

"Go ahead, Dollard. Tell me what a failure I am as a human being."

"No, no. I just meant you were hell-bent on a career is all. Single-minded. It's a good thing."

"I can't take any more. Tell me about you."

He was Sergeant Langois, now, assigned to a Quebec Provincial Police detachment twenty miles outside Montreal. Two kids, lovely wife- a nurse, not a cop- and every February they spent a week down in Florida at a place where they had a time-share arrangement. "Why'd you ask?" he wanted to know. "Awful late in the season to be looking for a share."

"It's for work. Something I need to trace."

A heavy sigh traveled down the line from Montreal. "Why am I not surprised?"

"I wouldn't ask unless it was really serious, Dollard."

"It's my vacation, Lise. I'm going to be with my family."

"I wouldn't ask unless it was serious. Do you remember me well enough to know that? We've got a child killer here, Dollard. I can't leave, even for a day."

They went back and forth for a bit. Then, as much to distract him as anything else, Delorme asked where exactly he was going to be staying. It turned out- unhappily for Sergeant Langois- that he would be staying in Hollywood Beach at a condo in the same block as the Calloway Marina. His fate was sealed, and Delorme hung up exceedingly pleased with herself.