Hair-Trigger Read online

  HAIR-TRIGGER

  ALSO BY TREVOR CLARK

  Born to Lose

  Dragging the River

  Love on the Killing Floor

  Escape and Other Stories

  HAIR-TRIGGER

  a novel by

  TREVOR CLARK

  Copyright © 2014 by Trevor Clark

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced

  in any manner whatsoever without the prior ­written permission of the publisher,

  except in the case of brief quotations ­embodied in reviews.

  Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and

  incidents are either the product of the author’s ­imagination or are used

  ­fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead

  is entirely coincidental.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Clark, Trevor, 1955–, author

  Hair-trigger / Trevor Clark.

  ISBN 978-1-926942-69-8 (epub)

  ISBN 978-1-926942-71-1 (mobi)

  I. Title.

  PS8555.L373H35 2014 C813’.54 C2013–906593–8

  Printed and bound in Canada on 100% recycled paper.

  eBook development: WildElement.ca

  Now Or Never Publishing

  #1101, 1003 Pacific Street

  Vancouver, British Columbia

  Canada V6E 4P2

  nonpublishing.com

  Fighting Words.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council

  for the Arts for our publishing program.

  To Julia, mon joli chat, claws and all,

  and to Patrick, RIP—inspiration for one of the sparkling characters in these pages, before coke put him under the ground.

  “He saw a man who appeared to be on the verge of death stagger into a movie theatre that was showing a picture called Blonde Beauty. He saw a ragged woman with an enormous goiter pick a love story magazine out of the garbage can and seem very excited by her find.”

  ~Nathaniel West,

  Miss Lonelyhearts

  “Louis had never been in combat either. No, but he’d seen two men shot—one running from a work gang at Huntsville, another climbing the fence at Starke—and had seen a man stabbed to death, a man set on fire, a man right after he’d been strangled with a coat hanger, and believed these counted for something.”

  ~Elmore Leonard,

  Rum Punch

  “‘Sickness is not only in body, but in that part used to be call: soul. Poor your friend he spend his money on earth in such continuous tragedies.’”

  ~Malcolm Lowry,

  Under The Volcano

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  1

  He couldn’t draw on the roach anymore, so Rowe finished his drink and decided he was ready for the bars. His telephone rang while he was in the washroom, but he was too high to risk a complicated conversation while trying to get out the door. After the third ring, however, it was apparent that the machine wasn’t on. Flushing the toilet, he zipped up on his way to the living room and answered it.

  “Is Derek Rowe there?”

  “Yeah . . . speaking.”

  “This is Detective Myers, Fifty-Two Division. Do you know a John Malone?”

  This brought him down somewhat. “No.”

  “You don’t? You don’t know a John Malone?”

  Rowe tried to concentrate. Why did that name sound familiar? It occurred to him that it probably had something to do with Lofton, an alias or something he’d once said he’d used. Earlier, when he’d dropped in at work, Lofton had mumbled something about planning to shoplift a bottle of vodka on his way home. “Oh . . . wait,” Rowe said slowly. “I think I know who you mean. It’s just that I know him as Jack, not John, and I don’t know his last name. Why?”

  “Well, let’s make sure we’re talking about the same individual. Is he a heavy-built guy with a bit of a beard and ­tattoos?”

  Lofton had given them his number, so presumably he wanted Rowe to ID him. Now he was supposed to negotiate fact from fiction, half-wasted. “Yeah, he’s got a barbed wire thing around his biceps.”

  “And zigzagging like lightning bolts on the insides of his arms?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “What’s his first name?”

  “Well, you know, Jack. John. I used to work with him and never really knew his last name, but Malone sounds like it. It’s the same guy. I can vouch for him.” Rowe listened to himself talk from a distance. He seemed to be enunciating clearly. “As far as I know, he doesn’t have a record.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Just that it’s around Harbord and Bathurst.”

  “Do you have his phone number?”

  “No . . . I think it’s in the book.”

  The detective used a different tone—confidential, on the level: “Okay—now what’s his real name?”

  Rowe was having difficulty with the conversation, which was fucking up his mood. “As far as I know, that is his real name, like I think I was saying. I’ve known him for years. He’s all right, I can vouch for him, but he’s been drinking a lot because his divorce just came through and he’s been taking it hard. So . . . if there’s anything I can do to help him out, let me know.”

  After he managed to get off the phone, he realized that he didn’t know what Lofton had been arrested for exactly. This cop Myers probably wouldn’t have told him anyway since he didn’t seem to believe him, and they liked to be the ones asking the questions.

  It looked like there was time for another drink before heading out.

  Rowe decided to take the subway to avoid a second DUI, and left his rusting Firebird among the more affluent cars on St. Clair. While he waited for the light to change, a Union Jack flapped lazily over the door of a home across the street. In the neighbouring park there were sculptures by two long-dead female artists, whose nearby house, visible from his kitchen window, was now closed and marked by an historic plaque.

  He crossed the intersection and walked west toward Yonge, noticing a pair of raccoons on the north side ambling along the floodlit lawn of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. While Rowe paused on the bridge to light a cigarette, he wondered at the glow circling the moon. A few stars twinkled. Between the treetops in the ravine below, two white lights on a smokestack down near the lake shore blinked, while to the left, where the valley cut southeast, cars back on Mount Pleasant appeared to be driving through the forest.

  At the bank, Rowe stood in a foyer between the heavy glass doors and worked the machine. A view on the monitor from the security camera mounted near the ceiling behind him revealed a dazzling line of scalp where he used to part his hair, which was now greying and cropped short. He turned his head, checking his profile, and straightened up as he flexed his shoulders to emphasize the musculature of a still-lean physique.

  Lately it felt as if there was nowhere to go but down. After a string of no-account jobs and a record for assault, cocaine possession and drunk driving, he’d risked
what little he had by robbing two banks. Rowe had also begun to ponder the fact that at forty-four he had never married or been in much danger of it, though he suspected that there was a child somewhere. Women of any quality were getting harder to come by. The last female he could take any real pride in was a twenty-three-year-old he’d met at a dance in Chinatown in the spring, who’d marvelled that he was as old as Uncle. If he was ever to be with anyone that young again he’d more than likely be paying for it.

  The small bookstore he managed didn’t provide a pension plan, drug or medical benefits, and twenty-seven grand a year left little to save towards retirement. That meant that he was going to end up living in a box beneath an underpass. Coming to terms with this some months earlier, he’d gone beyond skimming from the till to buying a prop beard, wrap-around shades and a Blue Jays cap, and robbing a Scotiabank and CIBC with nothing more than a note. The second teller gave him a dye grenade which exploded in his stolen car.

  Glancing at the monitor again, he punched a few more buttons and collected his debit card, cash and receipt.

  After a drink at the Hard Rock Café, Rowe found himself at Yonge and Dundas leaning against the Currencies International window under a row of florescent tubing. He watched people walking by. Handbills were plastered to a dirty metal garbage bin by the streetcar stop. There was a pawnshop, a cheque-cashing operation, and an arcade nearby whose pinball sign was missing letters. To the east by the steps down into the subway some blacks were talking outside Mr. Jerk Caribbean take-out; a panhandler with a ripped cardboard box was sitting in front of the World’s Biggest Jean Store across the street. Almost everyone walking past looked slightly off. While alcohol served to beautify the world, Rowe found that marijuana tended to zero in on every conceivable ugliness with an accompanying sense of detachment.

  “Got a cigarette?” A woman with straggly blondish hair was suddenly standing in front of him. Rowe reached into his pocket. When he struck a match for her, he checked out her weathered face in the stark lighting: her complexion was pockmarked and her blue eyes devoid of flirtation, hostility, a spark of anything, really. She was wearing a denim jacket over a pink sweatshirt, cotton-type slacks, sneakers, no socks. He figured her for thirty-eight, thirty-nine, and thought she was going to ask for spare change as she exhaled, squinting at him. “I’ll give you a fuck for forty bucks, or a blowjob for twenty.”

  “No. No thanks, I’m all right.”

  “Twenty then.”

  “Can’t afford it.”

  “How much do you have?”

  He found he was enjoying the exchange, but knew she was going to have to be discouraged. “Ten bucks.”

  “All right. Ten bucks for a blowjob.”

  “No,” he bluffed, “ten bucks for a fuck.”

  The woman looked at him through narrowed eyes, and took a drag. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Rowe wasn’t sure what to say. They were at a downtown intersection. He followed her a few doors east, wondering where she was going, when she turned to him at the entrance of an alley. “I need the money now.”

  Opening his wallet, he was surprised to see that he really did only have ten dollars. Fuck. Looked like he was wasted enough to have deposited his pay cheque and then forgotten to take out any money. “Listen, I’ve been drinking quite a bit tonight, so to be honest we’re probably not going to have sex. I’ll give you five bucks right now, and if anything happens I’ll give you the other five.”

  “No, man—”

  “Listen for a second. I’ll smoke some dope with you, we’ll have a nice little chat, you’ll get five dollars for nothing, and that’ll probably be it. On the off chance anything happens, you’ll get another five. You can’t lose,” he said, holding out the bill.

  She hesitated, and then took it.

  The lane ran north behind some buildings along Yonge Street. In the dim light a large rat scurried across the stained pavement, which was littered with trash. About forty feet from the street she led him into a doorway that reeked of urine by some overflowing garbage cans, and tossed away her cigarette. Rowe looked around as he took a joint from his wallet and unwrapped the aluminum foil, kneeling gingerly on the stoop for a perspective level with her crotch. He couldn’t foresee needing the condom in his wallet. “Where are you from?” he asked, lighting up.

  “Pembroke Street.”

  Holding his breath, Rowe passed it to her, trying to overlook their lack of privacy. Anyone could walk by. As he exhaled, he said, “Listen, why don’t you pull down your pants?”

  She handed the joint back. Hooking her thumbs in the elasticized waist with her back against the metal door, she drew them down with her panties and stood with her legs slightly parted. Taking another toke, he looked at her flat stomach and studied her pussy in the light brown hair, touching her with his left hand and opening her labia. Awkwardly, he pulled down his jeans.

  Ten seconds later she said, “Car,” and yanked up her slacks.

  Rowe, still kneeling, was partially erect as headlights lit up the side of the doorway. A police cruiser pulled up behind him. Ah, a new fucking low. He flicked his joint into the corner and looked over his shoulder, unsure if his bare ass was covered by the thin coat.

  The cop at the wheel studied him. “Are you proposing?”

  He didn’t know whether or not to laugh. “Yeah, she’s quite the catch.”

  “He just came in here to take a pee,” she said.

  That seemed impressive. “Yeah, I had to take a pee.”

  The policeman looked from one to the other, frowning. “Well, time to move on.”

  Rowe tried to pull up his pants discreetly as he got to his feet. Zipping himself up as he stepped past the car, he said, “Thanks.”

  At Dundas, he noticed that the alley had an actual street sign: O’Keefe Lane. He looked back at the cruiser, still parked behind them in the relative darkness near the rear of Harvey’s restaurant, and put his hands in his pockets as he turned to the woman. “So, is that it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right,” he said. “Well, see you.”

  She started walking east. He looked around for a bank machine as he went back to the corner.

  2

  The holding cell had a bench, cement floor, steel door, no window. The detective came on tough. “Okay,” he said, “that’s not your real name. What’s your real name? What’s your address?”

  Jack Lofton looked up at him. “John Malone, like I told the police who arrested me. Thirty-three Rosedale, apartment fifteen-fifteen.”

  The moustache and military haircut didn’t buy it, but he went away.

  Lofton had been grabbed by a security guard outside Canadian Tire for shoplifting a hunting knife. He hadn’t hit him on the assumption that the police were on their way and he’d be fighting an assault charge too, which was a mistake since he’d ended up having to make conversation with the guard for over two hours in the basement of the store while they waited for the law to show. When he went to the washroom he slipped his only piece of ID, a plastic library card, inside the torn lining of his black leather jacket.

  While they drove along Dundas Street W., one of the two arresting officers told him, “Look, I know you’re lying to me. Don’t make me have to bring in the detectives and start an investigation.”

  Once inside the station they went through his pockets and confiscated his cigarettes, checked his jacket and even his bandanna. Although there were no cards or licenses in his wallet, they found a paper with phone numbers on it and might have made some calls. The cop who seemed to be working in tandem with the detective came back into the cell and said, “Okay, you’ve got two choices. There’s no way we’re going to put you in jail with all these spikes on your shoulders. Now, we can cut the epaulets off, or you and I can sit here with screwdrivers and take them off.”

  “I guess I like the second choice.”


  “I thought you would.”

  As they worked, Lofton had asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  “I don’t give a fuck.”

  “Um, you wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette, would you?”

  The big walleyed cop gave him one, then went outside and found a pair of pliers when one of the steel studs wouldn’t unscrew.

  Now the detective was back. “What’s your address again?”

  “Thirty-three Rosedale. Apartment fifteen-fifteen.”

  “You’re lying. We just called that building. The floors only go up to twelve, so there’s no way you live in fifteen-fifteen. If you don’t tell us the truth you’re going to be charged with obstructing justice on top of whatever outstanding warrants you probably have. You’re getting into deeper shit every minute.”

  After he left, Lofton looked at his watch. It was going on ten-thirty. Aside from an armed robbery charge that was thrown out in California, he’d managed to sidestep legal trouble throughout most of his life. This recent string of fuck-ups was a bad joke.

  Though he’d been trying to appear affable or at least convey an impression of good faith, he knew his pale eyes had an unfriendly cast, even in repose. Not to mention the scrapes on his face from an altercation he barely remembered after waking up drunk behind a dumpster two nights earlier.

  Just past eleven-thirty, they let Lofton use the phone on the wall outside the cell. Detectives in the large room were sitting at desks questioning suspects and typing reports. He called Derek Rowe, and not knowing if he was being taped, left a message simply saying that he’d been arrested and needed him to stand up for him in court at the Old City Hall the next morning at nine. He gave him the room number and added, “You have to do this for me, man. It’s very, very important.”

  They had met a decade earlier at a singles bar near Yonge and Eglinton where he’d been working security and Rowe was a regular who thrived in that meat market scene. There had been years of drinking together since, and the guy had money.