In the several seconds it takes for me to notice the scraping noise, I find myself once again mesmerized by my new pug, Beatrice. She’s trying to squeeze her little sausage body out from beneath the coffee table while I am considering that perhaps three meals a day is excessive for a puppy. What can I say? I just want to make the little princess happy. She stops wriggling again and tilts her head in the direction of the kitchen, growling. This is when I hear it; metal grinding against wood, as though someone is whittling away the frame of my kitchen window. Damn the old buildings in this city.
In an attempt to pinpoint the noise I quietly slide open the bay window in the living room and stick my head out, craning to see what I assume is a burglar, who is no doubt stooping on the fire escape. Burglars in my area are not uncommon.
I live in a studio apartment above what I consider to be a quarter-star Chinese restaurant, in an area of the East side that lends itself well to sorry Desperadoes and nine-to-five outcasts, not unlike myself. The only difference between them and me is my safety deposit box – no I’m not telling you what bank or number, you wish – and mind-blowing entertainment system.
This apartment is a necessary disguise for a past pockmarked by uncomfortable details: not paying taxes in a decade, for example. Or maintaining a self-induced, meager bank account and keeping the rest of my money... never mind. The point here is that I’ve been living as I please, behind the blinds, while the government assumes I am one of those lurkers, on the sidewalk below. I suppose, in a sense, I am.
I can’t see anything when I peer out of my window although the noise grows louder in the night air.
“Hello?!” I call out and the scraping sound stops. I can just imagine some dumb punk trying to whittle down the wood frame of the kitchen window, with some space-age apparatus pressed against the glass.
Funny how logical assumed conclusions can be when one is in the grips of a paranoid fear.
“I know you’re out there!” I yell, feeling like an idiot in the silence that follows. “I’ll call the cops!” I say this for effect, obviously the last thing I’m going to do is call the cops. I’m assuming, however, that the burglar doesn’t know this. When the noise starts up again I stride into the kitchen, Bea yipping at my heels. I check my watch. Five minutes left before I start my night shift as a dealer. Oh, get over it, I’m not a junkie dealer, I’m strictly pot, sometimes mushrooms. I used to deal the harder shit, back when I did it too – those days are over. I’m ‘early retirement’ and fine with that. I make plenty enough. Living as I please is a hell of a lot better than living as someone else pleases, if you ask me.
I still smoke pot on occasion but getting high and selling drugs makes me too paranoid - especially now that I have Bea, staring at me all the time with those big, sad dog-eyes. I feel like an irresponsible asshole when I start smoking and it kills the mood. Anyway, I’ve managed to whittle my clientele down to a select few of perennial dope smokers and ex-hippies, or those humans who feel okay about imbibing in what the natural world has managed to create for us to harmlessly trip out on.
In the kitchen, I press my ear carefully against the bumpy, recondite glass of the fire escape door. The knock on my front door, across the hall makes me scream and Bea starts barking like a skipping CD.
“Shhh! Bea! Quiet!” I say, with a stern look, as I cross the room to the front door. I’d forgotten all about Chloe. The Dog Sitter.
Chloe lives on Commercial Drive and smells like dried fruit. She answered my Craig's list ad and has turned out to be reliable, mercifully self-involved and loves Bea even though I find it odd as to why. She had no reason to love my dog. I figure it must be a woman thing.
“Hi, Tony,” Chloe sings, as she skips into the apartment, crying out for Beatrice in a high-pitched, sing-song baby-voice that is normally reserved for children’s entertainers, or belligerent seniors who won’t eat their supper paste. Her boyfriend, Clive, shuffled into the apartment behind her, looking like a dirty dishrag. He waves a wet noodle of a hand in my direction.
“Hey Clo, hey Clive,” I say quickly in an effort to indicate I am in a hurry and not interested in listening to them chat about eating locally and new, non-dairy cheese choices or whatever hayseed bender they’re on this week. “I better get going; I’ve already had about 12 calls.”
Clive is already loading Halo and Chloe is squeezing the life out of Bea and making baby noises. At the door I check for keys and scan my Blackberry for messages before stuffing it in my jacket pocket and fitting the earpiece in my ear like a secret agent.
I mention to them the suspicious noise on the fire escape, hoping only to pass it off as a random incident.
Chloe looks up from the couch with surprise, where she’s been in the process of holding Bea up in front of her and cooing. “What kind of noise?”
“I’m sure whoever it is has gone,” I say. I’m not sure at all. I know I’m sure as hell not going to blow a night of work that will provide me with just enough allowance money to upgrade some of my computer software.
“Whoever? You mean, like robbers?” says Chloe, petting Bea. The dog’s tongue dangles against her chin like a mud flap, her large eyes watering and unblinking. A special princess.
“Probably not. Everything will be fine,” I tell them, waving my hand by way of dismissal of the subject. The phone rings like an auspicious bell just as I am reaching for the door handle.
“Gotta go,” I shout after them. “Call me if there’s trouble!”
The door shuts behind me and muffles their response. I answer the phone as I take the stairs down to the car park, two at a time.
“Hello?”
“Lo. It’s Ziegfeld.”
“Hey, Zig. You want to meet up?”
“Hmm.”
“I’ll be over in a bit.”
“How long’s a bit?”
“An hour, maybe. You know,” I say, mildly annoyed. The phone goes dead as a response.
Ziegfeld's one of my more impatient clients. He's easier going in person, but his phone etiquette is a bit rusty.
In the garage, below the restaurant, I unlock my scooter and after three quick phone calls jiggle the clients around like a Tetris game into a comprehensive list of West, East, North and Downtown. Finally, when I speed off for the West End, towards Zig’s, I try to relax against the rush of cold air. The night is a dreary one, but the rain isn’t quite ripe enough to fall and hangs like a soppy rag from a clothesline in the sky.
Before he met an actor by the name of Larry and moved to Vancouver, Ziegfeld was a line-dancer in Vegas. He’s a junkie with a thousand stories, which is why I’ve kept him on my client list. He’s one of those types who lives in the past, believing that his stories are only a few days old; he houses his world with memories of days gone by, like someone who is chronically ill. In a way I suppose he is.
Larry is always away on location. I’ve secretly dubbed him Larry On Location. I’ve never even met the guy and if it weren’t for the photos Ziegfeld keeps in his wallet and shows off like a proud father, I doubt I’d believe he existed. The pictures are mostly the same; snapped on different social occasions – faces pressed together, Ziegfeld smiling like a giddy schoolgirl, Larry pouting or giving the camera a salacious gaze.
His door is open, as per our agreement and I find Ziegfeld on the couch melting rock in a spoon. Wax spills from a green candle onto the scuffed coffee table, like disjointed spider legs.
“Did you lock the door? Cool, yeah. The money’s there, man. Yeah. Thanks. How’s it going. What’s new?”
Ziegfeld is a roller coaster of nerves on most days.“I got a new pug,” I tell him, excited to talk about Bea.
“What’s that, bud?”
“A pug.”
“A fucking what? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“A dog. This dog I got it’s a –"
“Oh, a fucking dog. Jesus. I thought you were tryin’ to tell me you have some kinda fucking disease. Hey, you mind putting some of that in the bong when you’re done?” Ziegfeld’s head bobs like a buoy in a rainstorm as he wheezes out a chuckle. “Thanks, man. Yeah. My hands are kind of full, thanks.”
“Caught a burglar on the fire escape tonight,” I say, reaching for his pipe. I’m not sure why I exaggerate. Sympathetic voyeurism, maybe.
“No shit, man! You push him over?”
“What? No, just yelled. Seemed to do the trick.”
“Did I ever tell you ‘bout the time in Vegas when we were taken hostage on stage?”
I nearly drop the bong. “Uh, no, can’t say I have.” I pass Ziegfeld the freshly packed bong; a large, but unassuming piece of paraphernalia, distorted and rickety; distinctly homemade.
“Thanks man. We were in the middle of a Hello, Dolly! Number and these three kids in masks come running into the room waving guns. Carrying bags of money, purses, just a bunch of shit, right?’ The security guards are chasing them,everyone’s screaming blue murder.”
“Bloody,” I say.
He nods and waves a limp arm in my direction. “Yeah, yeah. That too! It got bloody, that’s for sure. The security guards have their guns on the kids you know? Meanwhile Shane – the fucking Queen – says to us, ‘Should we keep dancing?’ and half of the others are crying and pissing themselves, I’m serious.”
I turn down the proffered bong. If there’s one thing I’m not willing to risk, it’s driving my scooter while high. I did it once, on mushrooms, by accident. I’m amazed I’m alive. I might not believe in Karma, but I don’t much feel like giving the proverbial finger to the Gods either. “So what happened?” I ask. My phone vibrates in my coat and I’m forced to cut him off as I set up another appointment, eventually pulling the earpiece out once more. “Sorry, go ahead.”
“No worries. Right. So, yeah man they shot Ricky. Poor kid. It was sort of an accident I think, when I replay the events, ‘cause the guy with the gun I guess was a bit shaky what with all the screamin.” He stopped talking, staring at a point above my head. I wait for more, since he doesn't seem to be finished.
“Paralyzed the poor son of a bitch for life,” he says finally, following the statement with a heavy sigh.
“Ricky?”
Ziegfeld nods, looking grim. His lined face is more ashen than its normal wheat-colored pallor.
I feel awkward. What am I supposed to say to that?! “Well, good story buddy – gotta go!”
I pack up my pound and stuff it back into my bag, while Ziegfeld reaches for his cigarettes. He giggles as he lights one; smoke puffs out like exhaust between his lips.
“Don’t really remember how many shots were fired in total.Guessin’ it was ‘bout seven. Two of the bandits were shot down; the third was wrestled into submission by a Mexican Security guard. He was a cutie...”
“That’s a crazy story, Zig,” I say, genuinely impressed.
Ziegfeld giggles again and rolls up the sleeve of his t-shirt, leaning through the space between us. He reveals an ugly, shining scar the circumference of a quarter.
“Is that a bullet wound?” I ask, incredulous of the evidence to this bizarre tale. Ziegfeld smirks and falls back against the couch again, staring at the far-away spot on the wall behind my chair. My phone rings and I answer it. “Yeah?”
“They’re breaking in again!” Chloe shouts through the receiver. “There are two of them! Clive tried to open the window but we don’t know how! He wants to call the cops!”
“Don’t,” I say, with all the emphasis I can muster. “I’m on my way, okay? Don’t call the cops until I get there. Chloe? Okay?”
She agrees with a hesitance that tells me I’ve got to move. I fill Ziegfeld in on the progression and he wishes me luck over another bong hit. I lock the door of his apartment on my way out.
As soon as I enter my apartment Chloe rushes at me. “We just heard them say they were going to need something bigger!”
Before I can respond, Clive appears in the hallway, my cordless in his hand. “I should have known,” he says as he shoots his girlfriend a private glance. In a lower voice he adds, “I knew it was a bad idea to take this job, Clo.”
“Hold on, hold on,” I say, waving them off as I head for the kitchen. “Let’s not lose our cool here, yet.”
I approach the fire escape door and don’t need to listen closely as I did earlier; an incessant banging, as though the burglar is fed up and attempting to smash the window, which now replaces the original scraping sound. This new level of racket puts me immediately on edge.
“I’m calling the cops,” I yell, Ziegfeld’s story parading by my mind like a list of tragic possibilities. Calling the cops is definitely a last resort but between a cop and a junkie I’ll bank my money on the cop. At least there’s a chance of reasoning with an officer of the law. You can’t reason with the drug-addled.
Suddenly, the noise stops.
“They stop for a bit but then they start up again,” Chloe whispers behind my shoulder.
When I turn I find her clutching Bea in her arms, my little princess panting drool onto Chloe’s Aztec-inspired sweater. Sure enough, moments later the banging resumes. Perhaps because I’m overtired and worried but before I know what I’m doing I’m dialing 9-1-1, making shooing motions at Chloe and Clive. “You guys can go if you want,” I say. When they continue to stare at me I realize I have yet to pay them. At this point, though, I’m grateful for the company.
On the phone, the dispatcher greets me with a perky, confident tone. She asks for the problem and I tell her. She seems oddly hesitant for an emergency phone line. She asks for background information.
“Oh, for,” I close my eyes and speak to her with the patience one reserves for reprimanding small children. “I just heard scratching and now whoever it is seems to be banging against the door. He’s relentless. I need a cop dispatched to the area so he can be caught.”
“I understand that, sir,” says the dispatcher. “But if you heard the noise begin as you say, at five o’clock, why have you waited until six-thirty to call us?”
I’m dumbfounded, not expecting Sherlock Holmes to pre-screen my call. At a loss for an answer to appease the dispatcher, I panic and hang up quickly.
“Why did you hang up?!” cries Chloe. Bea barks as though she too is off-put by my behavior. I rub my eyes with my free hand, not liking the look of where this is going.
After a moment of silence between the three of us I put the phone down and turn to Clive. Finally reaching a credible solution in my mind I tell him, “I’m going up on the roof. Try and get him from above.”
Clive clears his throat and offers to lend me a hand. At the door we fumble and decide it would be better to bring weapons along with us, just in case. The three of us run around my kitchen, brandishing various random instruments of defense. I grab a frying pan and Clive takes the butcher knife. Chloe is running around behind us wielding my electric can opener.
At the door of the apartment we leave the girl behind and head for the stairwell. The sound of Clive’s footsteps shadow mine as we take the stairs two at a time. The stairwell smells like piss and paint thinner. Through the heavy metal door we exit out onto the roof. Rain stings my face and the wind forces me to lean into it as I pull the hood of my sweater down as far as I am able. It’s almost impossible to see in the blackness but there is a light, emanating from a distance several meters away. I tug on Clive’s sleeve, not noticing that he’s now ahead of me and he turns, nodding. We head towards the beacon while I attempt to sort out this mystery noise.
It isn’t until we approach the light that I realize it is a lamp. Next to it are two men in dark overalls, tool boxes open on the gravel roof, reinforcing the beams of the fire escape. They turn and stare at us in surprise.
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