Wizard checked his rear-view mirror as he turned off onto a gravel road. He held his breath and let it out when he saw that the Acura was the only car on the road.
“Where the fuck are you taking me?” The Suit asked.
His German shepherd stuck its nose out of the back seat and licked his ear. He yanked the choke chain around the dog's neck, jerking it back.
“Just a small detail to talk about with Rolly. Will only take a couple of minutes. I'll get you to the motel on time.”
The Suit didn't respond. Wizard's business could not be discussed in phone calls. He took a gold cigar case out of his Armani suit and opened it.
A ring-necked pheasant flew up from the side of the road as the car swept by. The German shepherd lunged at the side window. Flashing fangs exploded with saliva as the beast turned its attention to the rear window.
Maggie hung on to her plastic pail of blackberries as she followed Ben Junior around to the front of the abandoned farmhouse. Her skinny, freckled arms hung from her T-shirt and bore scratches from the sharp thorns of the nearby blackberry bushes. Ben Junior's mouth and cheeks bore deep purple traces from the juicy berries he'd already eaten.
The front door of the house, leading into the kitchen, had been kicked open. By the way the big splinters
of wood hung from the lock, Maggie figured it had to have been done by a grown-up. Most of the windows were broken, and the kitchen cupboards were only a shell. The grey linoleum was buckled and cracked. It made her think of a giant web.
“Next time, I'm gonna bring my stuff and draw a picture of a big spider on this floor.”
“Why?” replied Ben Junior. “I'm sure there's real ones in here.”
A pigeon burst from the top of a cupboard and flapped across the kitchen.
Ben Junior instinctively grabbed Maggie's arm but let go as the pigeon escaped through a broken windowpane.
“Scared you, Doodle?” said Ben Junior.
“It scared you too! And if you don't stop calling me Doodle, I'll tell Mom you stole money from her purse.”
“It was only a quarter,” he said.
“You still stole.”
“I just borrowed it. I'm going to put it back.”
“Doesn't matter. You never asked, so that means you stole. I should tell Uncle Jack.”
Ben Junior paused, then changed the topic. “Come on, let's play grown-ups!”
They entered a room off the kitchen that had once been the main bedroom. Part of a broken mirror hung from the back of the door. Maggie placed her bucket on the floor. She found a rag to rub a circle of grime off the mirror and pretended to put on lipstick.
She did not see the freckle-faced kid with pigtails in the reflection. Instead, it was a pretty lady.
Like the cover girls who advertise makeup. Except I'm not going to be a cover girl. I'll be an artist. A really famous artistâ¦
Ben Junior nudged in front of her. “I have to shave,” he said, sounding gruff.
“Well then hurry. You have to drive over and pick up the baby⦔
A car's arrival interrupted their game. They knew the old farmhouse was off limits. Maggie looked at Ben Junior and put her finger to her lips. Outside, a big dog barked.
Maggie peeked through the crack in the bedroom door. She saw two men walk into the kitchen. One carried a blue sports bag. He had a grey goatee on his chin. He also had a tattoo that looked like a couple of words over a picture on his arm.
The other man was dressed in a suit. He was slim, clean-shaven, and had dark, wavy hair neatly trimmed at the top of his collar.
Wizard tossed the sports bag on the kitchen counter, where it landed with a thud.
“I don't have all fucking day. Where is he?” asked The Suit.
Maggie heard another car arrive.
“He's here now,” said Wizard, peering out the window.
Maggie looked at her brother. His sparkling blue eyes stared back. He had a devilish grin on his face and tried to push her aside to peek out the door. She grabbed him by the shoulder. He caught the fear in her face and became more sober, stepping back from the door.
Maggie saw the other man walk into the kitchen. He wore a black leather vest and a black T-shirt that partially covered a round and hairy belly. A hunting knife hung from a scabbard on his belt. The end of the handle had a skull on it with ruby red eyes. His balding head and hairless, pie-shaped face and chubby chin reminded Maggie of a plate she had in her dollhouse. The plate had a man-in-the-moon face on it.
“Any trouble finding the place?” Rolly asked.
“Your directions were good,” said Wizard.
“So what do ya think?” asked Rolly. “Good place to rent for a grow op.”
“Later. What about today's business? Ya get it all?”
“Fifty keys of quick, dead on. Got the French bitch laid down at the Black Water for tonight. She'll be back on the train tomorrow. That the bread?”
“It ain't my fuckin' lunch.”
Maggie saw Rolly unzip the blue bag. She could see the crack at the top of his flat bum. He took out a couple of bundles of money, then crammed them back inside. He reached inside his vest pocket and took out a small plastic baggie of brownish powder. He held it out toward Wizard and said, “I brought it if you want to see it.”
The Suit yelled “You fucking idiot!” while slapping Rolly's hand. The baggie flew out of his hand and spilled on the counter. “I told you never to bring that crap around me!”
“Relax,” said Wizard. “It's only a sample.”
“Not this! What about the fifty kilos?”
“You think I'd be drivin' around with that!” said Rolly indignantly. “It's already stashed.”
Wizard picked up the baggie. Sunshine illuminated his arm and Maggie saw the tattoo. The words
Dirty Dog
were emblazoned over the head of a dog.
These are bad men,
thought Maggie.
Uncle Jack will know what to do with them!
She took out her sketchpad and heard Wizard say, “Make sure the French bitch is on the train tomorrow. Don't want any complaints from back east.”
Maggie wrote the word
Dirty
and heard the whine of a dog. She peeked through the crack of the door and saw a German shepherd pad into the kitchen. It sniffed the floor, slowly moving toward her. Its claws made a light clicking sound on the linoleum, zigzagging closer.
Maggie gently closed the door. It creaked slightly.
The men quit talking.
Did they hear me? What if they find us? I bet they'd be mad!
She looked at the broken windowpane in the bedroom and then at her brother. No way to escape.
Wizard reached into the sports bag, wrapping his hand around the shortened stock of a sawed-off shotgun.
“A hell of a
hot
day, isn't it?” Maggie heard Rolly say. She could hear the dog panting.
“Yeah, you can really feel
the heat
,” replied Wizard.
Maggie breathed a sigh of relief.
Good. Everything is okay.
The dog whined.
The mirror in front of Maggie's face exploded into a multitude of broken shards that penetrated her face and neck like porcupine quills. The first blast caught her hand and the side of her ribcage, spinning her around and dumping her on the floor like a rag doll.
The deafening roar of three more blasts followed, but all missed their mark. Smoke and dust ebbed through the rays of sunshine. The sulfuric smell of gunpowder filled the air.
Ben Junior, unscathed, stood staring at his sister. He could see her eyes. Open, but without expression. She wasn't moving. Ben Junior closed his eyes and hunched over.
“Fuck! It's just kids!” said Wizard.
“Good thing. I thought it was the cops,” Rolly replied. “Let's get the hell out of here.”
“Not so fast, you morons!” said The Suit.
“Nobody has seen us,” said Wizard. “We'll just fuck off and â”
“You might take chances; I don't!”
Wizard shrugged his shoulders indifferently, then passed the shotgun to Rolly.
Rolly rested the muzzle of the shotgun on the bump at the top of the spine near the back of Ben Junior's head. The little boy shook and squatted in a fetal position, squeezing his eyes tighter. His jeans turned a darker blue.
Rolly hesitated as the wet stain appeared around the little boy's feet. He lowered the shotgun and looked at Wizard.
“Do it!” The Suit yelled.
“It's time you earned your tattoo,” said Wizard.
Maggie's body convulsed and thumped on the floor as she released a gurgling sound from her lungs. She was still alive.
Jack Taggart's apartment was on the eighteenth floor and it provided him with a good, if slightly distant, view of the heart of Vancouver. He gripped the railing on his balcony and stared blankly at the street below. Mozart's
The Marriage of Figaro
played through the open door of his balcony. He thought the music would ease his depression. It didn't.
He had joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police when he was a fresh-faced kid of twenty-three. Fourteen years had passed, and he had long since lost the innocence of his youth. Six years of working undercover on the Drug Section had been followed by a transfer to the Intelligence Section, where he had spent the last five years working undercover on organized crime.
He was a survivor and was good at what he did. His work had not gone unnoticed by a superior officer. Taggart wasn't only good at his job â he was too good. Too good to be playing by the book.
Jack exercised to stay fit, but his dark wavy hair was starting to recede, and plucking the occasional grey hair was becoming a daily ritual. Vanity was not something that he admired about himself, but neither was living alone.
He decided to strike at the root of his depression and strode back inside and reached for his stereo.
The Marriage of Figaro
faded as he dialled his boss.
“Louie, it's Jack.”
“How did it go last night?”
“Another shipment arrived in a Winnebago at two-thirty this morning. I watched and met my informant after he helped unload. He confirmed that it's coming from the same guy in El Paso.”
“That's good. Put it in the report for Interpol.”
“Forget Interpol! I'm going to El Paso myself.”
“No. You're not,” said Louie firmly. “Wigmore won't approve it. Child porn is low on the list these days.”
“But my source says they're linked to snuff films, for God's sake! That's murder.”
“I know.”
“Does Wigmore know that the El Paso connection distributes to most of Canada?”
“We've been over this. I told him.”
“Damn it, Louie! The guy in El Paso has a family and is a leader in his church! I could turn him in about ten seconds. We'd get his distribution list for Canada, not to mention his connection, who is either producing it or knows who is.”
“As Wigmore pointed out, the victims aren't Canadian. Pass it over to Interpol.”
“The victims aren't, but the goddamned perverts are! We're talking about children being raped and murdered! Who cares what their nationality is?”
“I hear you, but Wigmore wants this handled through channels.”
“That could take forever, plus I promised my source I wouldn't burn him. This needs to be handled right. The hell with Wigmore. I've decided to take leave and pay for it myself.”
“Forget it, Jack! You go flying off to Texas and he'll have your ass for working in a foreign country without authorization. He's been looking sideways at you ever since Levasseur's body turned up last month. I'm sure he figures you were behind it.”
“Levasseur was murdered in Montreal. I haven't been there in years.”
“I know. You also look better without a beard.” Louie paused a moment, and when Jack didn't reply, he said, “Wigmore's not in right now. Let's meet for coffee tomorrow and talk about it. Maybe I can convince him to cut loose with the funding.”
“Appreciate it. Speaking of funding, when am I getting a new partner? It's been three months since Paul was transferred.”
“You know Staffing as well as I do. Your guess is as good as mine.”
Jack hung up the phone and stared at the cardboard cutouts of fish dangling in his waterless aquarium. A breeze from his balcony made the fish start to spin. Some were sharks with silver teeth. The rest of the fish were bright, colourful, and looked real.
Great kids. Lucky to have been born in Canada.
The telephone rang and he picked it up.
It was his sister. She said someone killed both her babies. Her voice was hollow and detached. Ben had gone to lookâ¦.
Jack accelerated along the dusty road. Last Sunday he had been with Liz and Ben. They had gone on a picnic with the kids. He had played hide-and-seek with Maggie and Ben Junior. Later, they had roasted hot dogs over an open fire. Ben Junior had dripped mustard down his shirt.
Jack's car bounced along the gravel driveway leading to the house. He had made the usual one-hour drive to the farm in less than forty minutes. Dust billowed behind, then overtook him as stepped out of the car. A police car, with lights flashing, sat empty outside the house.
Jack sprinted inside.
A uniformed officer appeared in the hall.
“I'm on the job too. This is my sister's house,” said Jack, reaching for his badge.
“She told me you were coming. They just left. We've got a car taking them both to the hospital. She's really out of it. I think she broke her nose.”
“What happened?”
“She found her kids in an old abandoned farmhouse down the road. She fainted and smacked her face.”
“Are you sure the kids areâ¦?”
“I'm sorry. Both dead. That's all I know. Homicide should be arriving any minute.”
A police car blocked the driveway leading to the abandoned farmhouse. He saw a uniformed officer talking with two paramedics leaning against an ambulance. Any hope he had was gone.