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  April hiked up her skirt and wriggled out of her pantyhose and black silk panties. She knelt beside Lewis, and kissed him fleetingly on the mouth. Then she stuffed her panties into his mouth, and tied them in place with the pantyhose.

  What did he do with the van’s key? She found it in the door-lock, climbed behind the wheel, slammed shut the door and locked it, shoved the key in the ignition and started the engine.

  She had him! She’d done it!

  April hadn’t been this excited in her whole life.

  At the exit, April discovered that Lewis hadn’t left his parking ticket on the dashboard or tucked it away behind the sun visor. What an idiot. She smiled at the attendant, and told him she’d been in the lot for half an hour at the most.

  He told her if she didn’t have a ticket she’d have to pay the maximum daily rate.

  April told him to hold on a minute. She shoved the gearshift into park, unbuckled her seatbelt and scrambled into the back of the van and patted Lewis down until she found his billfold.

  He had seven different credit cards in seven different names, but only one driver’s licence, in the name of Lewis John Tucker. He was so incredibly handsome that even his driver’s licence snapshot looked pretty good, or at least presentable. He was carrying six five-dollar bills for a total of thirty dollars in cash. He’d folded the parking ticket in half and snugged it in next to the currency.

  April handed the attendant ten dollars from Lewis’s billfold, and received six dollars in change. At the very last moment, just as she was about to haul ass out of there, she remembered to ask for a receipt.

  Her husband, Wayne, a freelance drug dealer who was bent on controlling wholesale heroin distribution in the entire city, was big on receipts. He was always looking for ways, large, small, and miniscule, to cut down on his income tax. Four bucks. He’d be so pleased with her. Maybe cut her a little extra slack with regard to her new acquisition.

  Behind her, a horn blared.

  April fastened her seatbelt. She stuck her arm out the window and gave the horn-blaring dork the finger.

  Driving out of the parking lot, she was shaking so hard she could hardly hold onto the steering wheel. The van’s offside panel grazed a concrete wall. Sheet metal crumpled. The headlight burst.

  April said, ‘Oops! Sorry, Lewis!’

  Lewis. What a nice name. So masculine, and strong. She repeated it like a mantra, all the way home.

  Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis Lewis

  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

  Chapter 4

  VPD Homicide Detective Claire Parker, aka Bank of Montreal loan application #98-112574-A, was nervous. She was sitting in the loans officer’s cramped office, waiting for Willows to show up. Willows was, inexplicably, late.

  The loans officer, a woman named Mary Sanderson, bore an uncanny, oddly unsettling resemblance to Mary Tyler Moore. She’d left the office ten minutes ago, without explanation, and hadn’t yet returned.

  Parker was nervous. The only time she’d ever applied for a bank loan was when she’d traded in her ageing Volkswagen on a new Mazda. She’d been saving for a year, and had only needed to borrow five thousand dollars. Now she was about to try to convince a perfect stranger that she was a suitable candidate for a one-half share of a two-hundred-and-forty-six-thousand-dollar mortgage.

  Two hundred and forty-six grand. Just short of a quarter of a million dollars. It wasn’t an unimaginable amount. Six months ago, she’d watched a middle-echelon drug dealer named Leo Pope unzip a suitcase containing a million dollars in cash, a split-second before he was shot dead at point-blank range.

  But of course the financial dealings of the drug world were peanuts compared to professional sports. Jack was a basketball fan. They went to several Grizzlies games every year, sat in fifty-dollar seats, drank a six-dollar-and-fifty-cent beer, cheered for players tall and graceful as giraffes, who made millions of dollars a year and had great smiles, hut couldn’t seem to shoot three baskets in a row…

  Parker checked her watch against the big clock over the row of tellers’ cages. The hank clock was running three minutes fast. Worse, Willows was running twenty minutes late, and counting. She crossed and uncrossed her long legs.

  Her cellphone warbled. She got the phone out of her purse and flipped it open. Jack apologized for being late. He explained that he’d run into an ex-con named Bryan Galt, and that shortly afterwards, Galt had run into a plate-glass window. Willows was down at 312 Main, climbing a mountain of paperwork. Sorry, but she was going to have to reschedule their meeting.

  ‘Until when?’ said Parker.

  ‘Any time after four. Or tomorrow morning. No, wait a minute, we’re supposed to meet your landlord some time this afternoon, aren’t we? And I’ve got an eleven o’clock meeting tomorrow with that crown prosecutor, owns the racehorse… ‘

  ‘Gelbardt,’ said Parker. Shirley Gelbardt. A three-time loser, on the hunt for victim number four. Parker had heard a rumour that she liked to tear a blank piece of paper from her notebook, hand it to her new boyfriend, and tell him it was a list of things she wouldn’t do on a first date. Gelbardt openly lusted after Willows, and had made a point of letting Parker know about it.

  Through the open door, Parker saw the loans officer approach a teller, say something that made the teller smile. It was amazing, how much the woman looked like Mary Tyler Moore. Parker said, ‘She doesn’t seem terribly overworked. I’ll talk to her, see what I can do. Take care, Jack.’

  ‘Love you,’ said Willows.

  ‘Me too,’ said Parker as Mary came in through the open door. She disconnected, and launched into her tale of woe.

  The loans officer consulted her daybook. She was booked solid right through to five o’clock.

  ‘Five is just fine with me,’ said Parker.

  ‘We close at five. How about early tomorrow morning, say about ten?’

  Ten didn’t seem very early to Parker. But it was an hour earlier than eleven, and if they hurried things along…

  Standing, Parker apologized again for Jack’s inability to be in the right place at the right time. Offering her hand, she said, ‘Ten o’clock tomorrow morning would be just perfect, thank you.’

  Willows had inherited his house from his parents. When Sheila filed for divorce, she’d demanded, as was her legal right, half the value of the house, in cash.

  Willows’ lawyer, Peter Singer, had convinced Sheila that Willows’ cop’s salary was not large enough for him to arrange financing on a house worth upwards of six hundred thousand dollars. Did she really want to force the sale of the house? Singer had tactfully pointed out to Sheila that her son, Sean, was still recovering from the long-term trauma of a gunshot wound. Her daughter, Annie, was still in high school. Moving would be extremely disruptive for both children.

  Singer suggested to Sheila that Willows might be able to arrange an interim loan for as much as twenty thousand dollars, to help her get through the next year or so. He realized it wasn’t a great deal of money, but, given that she was now living with her fiancé in a small coastal village in Mexico, her costs must be fairly low.

  The main thing, Singer persuasively argued, was the welfare of the children. They had been made aware that their mother was legally able to force the sale of their home. They had also been told of Willows’ offer.

  Sheila’s lawyer had been called to the bar not much more than a year earlier, but had already gained himself a reputation for sharp teeth and a large dorsal fin. He was young and preternaturally aggressive, without a compromising gene in his body. His name was William Cole, and Singer would have bet a silver dollar against a stale donut that nobody, including his mother, ever dared call him Bill. Sheila agreed that the children’s emotional stability was an important factor. She and Cole huddled.
Cole demanded thirty thousand dollars.

  Singer flatly refused. He told the young lawyer that, from what he knew about rural Mexico, Sheila could live like a queen on twenty grand a year, unless she had a drug habit, in which case she’d be dead in six months anyway. Cole was told that, if his client didn’t accept the offer by the close of business that same day, the sum on the table would be reduced by five thousand dollars.

  Cole excused himself and had a brief-but-intense conversation with his client. Willows’ offer was truculently accepted. Willows had already negotiated the loan with his bank. Peter Singer had couriered a certified cheque to William Cole first thing the next morning.

  Sheila had picked up her cheque - less Cole’s hefty fee - within the hour. She flew to Seattle that afternoon, for an overnight stay. Early the next morning, she caught a direct flight to Mexico City.

  Six months later she telephoned Willows and told him, desperately, that she was flat broke.

  She needed a thousand dollars in the next twenty-four hours, to cover two months’ back rent and the tab she’d piled up at the local supermercado. If she didn’t pay the money, she would be evicted from her home, and probably thrown in jail.

  Willows said he’d do what he could. He talked the situation over with Parker, and wired Sheila five hundred dollars in U.S. currency.

  Three weeks later, Sheila had called again.

  This time, Willows sent her two hundred and fifty dollars in U.S. currency.

  Sheila had phoned him eight days later, just after midnight. She was broke again. In the background, Willows heard loud music, shouting. He reluctantly promised he’d do what he could. He offered to call in the morning. Was there was a phone number where she could be reached?

  Sheila told him she needed the money right away, now, and hung up on him.

  First thing the next morning, Willows drove five blocks to his neighbourhood travel agent, and used his Visa card to buy an open, non-refundable one-way airline ticket, Alvarado to Vancouver via Mexico City and Seattle, with a brief stopover in Los Angeles. He sent it off.

  The ticket was never used. He didn’t hear from his ex-wife again until another five months had passed, even though he continued to write regularly, with news of the children.

  When he finally did hear from Sheila, it was via Peter Singer, the unhappy recipient of a brusque telephone call from William Cole.

  The year that Willows had bought his children was up in thirty days. Sheila did not expect to have to wait for her long-overdue windfall. She was prepared to force the sale of the house.

  Willows had already made preliminary overtures to his bank, and discovered that, given his outstanding debt load, he had absolutely no hope of qualifying for close to three-hundred-thousand-dollar mortgage.

  Parker did a little investigating of her own. Why not, since she was a trained detective? She learned that, if she and Willows combined their incomes, the mortgage application would be approved.

  She told Willows about her brainstorm on a Monday evening. Jack had been watching football in the den. Towards the end of the game, Parker settled in at the far end of the couch with a book. Willows had bet fellow homicide detective Eddy Orwell twenty dollars that the Green Bay Packers would beat the New England Patriots by at least ten points. It was an away game for the Packers. New England was on a three-game winning streak, and the bookies had the home team winning by a field goal. So Willows was giving up thirteen points.

  It was a close game, but the Packers dominated the final quarter and won going away, thanks to a pair of timely interceptions, by three touchdowns. Willows couldn’t have been happier. It wasn’t the twenty dollars, though he’d spend it. What rankled him was that, as he and Eddy had shaken hands, Orwell, cackling evilly, had called it a sucker bet. So what really cranked Willows up was the idea of rubbing Orwell’s face in his miscalculation.

  As the game ended, Parker got up from the couch and went over to the tiny bar and poured Willows a small Cutty on the rocks, and then a glass of white wine for herself.

  Willows eyed her with jovial suspicion as he accepted the drink.

  They clinked glasses.

  ‘Go Packers!’ said Parker.

  Willows smiled, and used the remote to kill the television. Mission accomplished. Packers gone.

  Parker sipped her wine. Choosing her words with caution, she told Willows she’d done a little basic math, and worked out that if they joined forces, they’d be eligible for the fat mortgage Willows needed to arrange if he hoped to avoid a forced sale of the house.

  Willows leaned back against the sofa. He swallowed half his Scotch and stared contemplatively at the ceiling.

  Parker waited about half a minute, until she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer.

  ‘What d’you think, Jack?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. You’ve caught me by surprise. It’s quite an idea. It’s also a hell of a big commitment.’

  Now Parker didn’t know what to think. What kind of commitment was he talking about, financial or emotional?

  *

  Coming out of the bank, into a light drizzle, Parker briefly considered enjoying a solitary lunch before returning to 312 Main. She was hungry, but decided to go straight in. She was going to have to talk to Inspector Homer Bradley, con him into giving her another hour off for tomorrow morning’s appointment.

  She hoped Willows would be able to make it.

  Chapter 5

  Lewis was out like a cheap lightbulb one moment, wide awake and terrified the next.

  He glanced wildly around. The room was dark. He was flat on his back, lying in what sure felt like a large bed.

  Nothing but a dream.

  His head ached. The contents of his bladder weighed heavily on him. He tried to get up to go to the bathroom and discovered he couldn’t move.

  Not more than an inch.

  Lewis was no fan of involuntary bondage. Shouting, he demanded that he be set free, or else.

  Fairly quickly, he shifted ground from stage one, murderous threats and vile imprecations, to stage two, reckless pleading and then full-bore whining. All for naught. When he had regained his wind he screamed, stage three, for the cops to come and save him.

  But you know what they say about cops.

  Lewis, moving right along to stage four, prayed fervently to whatever gods might take pity on him.

  A familiar sound came faintly to him. Frank Sinatra, singing ‘My Way.’

  Lewis cried so hard he nearly drowned.

  In the kitchen, April hummed along with Sinatra as she diced and sliced, putting together an enormous beef stew.

  Wayne was a voracious meat-eater. A ravenous carnivore. His was a world of Big Macs, Christmas turkeys, juicy racks of lamb, frying pans crammed with sizzling pork sausages and slabs of bacon, massive T-bones running with blood…

  April thought about the hundred and sixty pounds of raw meat laid out on the king-size Sealy in her bedroom. It had been quite a struggle, hauling him into the house. She’d dragged him out of the van, bounced his head off the garage’s cement floor a couple of times, poked and prodded him, and finally left him lying there, breathing erratically, while she drove over to that tool-rental place on Dunbar, to rent a dolly. Even then, getting him from the garage to the bedroom hadn’t exactly been a picnic.

  When they were unconscious, men were so limp.

  April finished dicing the last of the carrots and, knife in hand, went into the living room and cranked up the stereo until she could no longer hear poor Lewis’s anguished screams for help.

  Half an hour later, the big stew she’d made was simmering on a back burner, in an enormous stainless-steel pot.

  April shucked her apron, wriggled out of her jeans and sweater and Calvin Klein panties as she headed for the bathroom. She showered, shaved her legs, put on a little makeup and a dab of perfume, and then slipped into a devastatingly simple black cocktail dress with spaghetti straps and a traffic-jam neckline. Standing in front of the mirro
r, she opened wide and stuck out her tongue.

  The stud diamond Wayne had given her shone brightly.

  In the living room, the CD changer clattered. Sinatra was shuffled offstage in favour of Holly Cole.

  April stole a slim pink candle in a heavy brass candlestick from the dining-room table, lit it, and followed its romantic glow into the bedroom.

  Lewis’s eyes glittered almost as brightly as her diamond. April went straight over to the bed. She thumped the candle down on the night table, and then reached over and squeezed the tips of his fingers in a kind of half-assed handshake, and introduced herself.

  ‘Hi, I’m April.’

  Lewis struggled to break free of the stainless-steel handcuffs that now lightly encircled his wrists and ankles and securely fastened him to the four-poster bed.

  April leaned over him and kissed him chastely on his forehead. She drew back, startled. ‘Yuck, you’re all clammy!’

  ‘Did I do something to you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Where am I? Why am I locked up like this?’ Lewis was trying his hardest to sound reasonable but perplexed, but above all reasonable. The situation was too much for him. It was too scary, too weird. He had been zapped and then kidnapped, stripped naked and cuffed to this huge bed, in this unnaturally dark room. His eyes were puffy from crying. Who was this totally crazy woman? What kind of evil did she have in mind for him? ‘What are you going to do with me!’ His grief-clogged voice climbed the scale, shrieking into the ozone. April’s hair fluttered, and was still.

  She said, ‘Would a nice cold glass of white wine help calm you down?’

  Lewis said, ‘Okay, I stole a watch. An expensive watch. Is that such a terrible crime? I can’t get a job. What am I supposed to do, starve to death?’