The past doesn’t let go easy.
Burback pulls the pin on a hand grenade that will shred Jackson’s meticulously ordered life, and blow the lid off his violent past.
One telegram to a dedicated cop. One ticket to a prairie town. One chance to get away clean.
The final act of The Hard Way Out begins with a single question: How far will a thief go to do the right thing?
Read The Hard Way Out: Part One and Part Two.
A knot of men in tired clothes panhandled for spare change from passersby outside the CN Telegram office. A city cop busted up their little congregation, waving his billy club like a wand. The ghost of their body odor and cheap whisky lingered as I reached the door and went inside.
The office was small with windows that climbed to the twelve-foot ceiling. A black marble counter topped with a brass cage separated the customers from the employees. A man in a suit was arguing with a clerk about price per word while a housewife at the next wicket was dictating a message, begging a relative for a money order. I hung back, wondering if the plan for Jackson that had formed in my head was the right one.
Jackson had to go. That much was certain. There were men in this town who could make him disappear. I could find them, pay them, then hang back and wait, but I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him out of town and far away from Mrs. Jackson. How do you get a stubborn boulder out of the road? You find a long enough lever.
“Next!”
I stepped up to an empty wicket, the marble cool under my hands despite the stifling heat. The clerk jotted the date and time on a blank form then slid it across the counter to me. The empty Message space stared up at me. My pen hovered, as if asking for permission. The clerk’s pen tapped on the counter, impatient.
I filled out the form then deliberated the wisdom of signing my real name. Signing it with my real name guaranteed a date with a cop, but sending it blank felt gutless. In the end, I opted for fiction and picked something obscure from Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda.
To: Insp. George Larkins, OPP, Lakehead District Detachment, Port Arthur, ON
From: V. Williams, Liberty, ON
Message:
URGENT. MACDOUGAL IN LIBERTY AS FOREMAN AT AG STEEL UNDER FALSE NAME. LEADS PAYROLL EXTORTION. LODGING BRADFORD ARMS APT 416. LET WILLIAM HANCOCK DIE IN GRAIN HOLD. LAKEHEAD GRAIN COVERED IT UP. INQUIRE RUSSELL O’GRADY, BATHURST ST, LOWER HEREFORD. ACT FAST.
Service: RUSH
I handed the form back, the clerk counted the words, and I paid him a buck twenty-five plus the sixty-cent premium for rush delivery. He handed me the carbon copy and I left.
Outside, the air smelled faintly of ozone and a cool breeze strolled along the sidewalk. I lit a cigarette, scanned the clouds crowding the horizon, and headed toward Dominion Central Station. The storm was rolling in.
Dominion Station was the city’s central hub for passenger rail travel. Through the heavy brass doors, the interior opened into a majestic cathedral space supported by towering stone pillars. Stained glass windows depicting Liberty’s working class, mining, and commercial history circled the walls and painted the floors in the soft hues of the rainbow. Crowds flowed back and forth like water eddying in tidal pools.
I stopped at the wicket for Canadian National Railway. A long line, but it moved at a steady pace. A gray-haired gentleman in white shirt sleeves and a crimson vest smiled at me through the cage.
“Afternoon, sir. Where to today?”
“Ticket to Winnipeg, please. One way.”
“First class, sir?”
“Baggage,” I said.
The clerk blinked, confused.
“Sir, we don’t — ”
I waved my hand and said, “It’s a gag. The ticket’s for a friend.”
The clerk smiled, bemused. “You must not like this friend very much, to put him in with the luggage. What time is he departing?”
I glanced at the schedule posted on the wall behind him, then at my watch. It was going on 3pm. I didn’t have much time. Jackson would be getting off shift at AG Steel at 5pm.
“Make it for 7pm,” I said.
“Ten dollars, please, sir.”
I paid the fare and took the ticket.
“I hope your friend has a pleasant journey,” the clerk said.
I hoped not. The beast in me wanted him to refuse.
It was getting on to quarter to four by the time I got back to my apartment building. The streetcar stopped and a handful of us got off and went our separate ways. Overhead, the sky had lowered the ceiling and turned from bone white to slate and asphalt gray. Little dust devils capered in the wind as broadsheets, crumpled cigarette packs, dead leaves tumbled and skittered down the street. A fat raindrop kissed my cheek. I hunched my shoulders and picked up the pace.
I mounted the steps, pushed through the doors just as the rain started, and took the stairs up to the fourth floor. As I approached my apartment, I noticed a shaft of light slice across the checkered tile floor from Jackson’s apartment. I crept up and held my breath, listening at the crack of the door.
I heard footsteps, faint mumblings, even a few bars of a soft voice humming a song, but none of Jackson’s harsh tones. Carefully, I pushed the door open another two inches and watched Mrs. Jackson emerge from the bedroom to pluck a few pictures off the fireplace mantle. As she lingered over the images, I swung the door inward and knocked.
“Oh!” she gasped and spun around. A flash of fear, quick as lightning. Then she saw me, and her shoulders eased.
“Mr. Burback,” she said, a little laughter brightening her voice. “You have a knack for appearing out of nowhere. How are you?”
I stepped inside the threshold and removed my hat. Mrs. Jackson hugged herself, back rigid, her shoulders tight. The bruises I had seen around her neck stood out against her pale skin like plums.
“I’m doing fine, Mrs. Jackson. How are you doing? I’m surprised to see you still here.”
Her smile caught me off guard. She was beautiful. For a moment, I forgot why I’d come.
“Just here to pack. Mrs. O’Donnell made a few calls to some friends of hers I can stay with. I was just…” She glanced at the picture frame in her hands. “…trying to decide what else I should take.”
She replaced the picture frame on the mantle. It was the photo I’d seen earlier in her wedding announcement.
“It’s sad how things slip away from you,” she said. “You think you’re happy, but then you wake up one day and…” She glanced around the apartment, spread her arms in a giving up gesture. “…and you’re here.”
She swiped quickly at her eyes and reset her smile.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked, crossing the living room to a bookcase next to the coat rack by the door. “Coffee? Water?”
“No thank you, ma’am.”
“Then why are you here?” she asked, then shook her head quickly. “I’m sorry. That came out rude and ungrateful.”
She searched my face, her wide blue eyes red-rimmed and wary, but hopeful.
“I had wanted to see your husband,” I said. “Your door was open and I thought he was home.”
Her face hardened slightly, lips compressed. She folded her arms across her chest, white knuckles on clenched fists. “Why do you want to see him?”
“Unfinished business,” I said. “He doesn’t know it yet, but the past is about to catch up to him.”
I glanced down at the packed suitcase waiting by the door. Her purse sat next to it. Poking out of the top was the corner of a book. On the floor next to her purse lay a photo. I stooped to pick it up.
“I think you dropped something,” I said.
Mrs. Jackson stood in the photo, smiling beside a man I recognized — but not Jackson. A light clicked on in my brain and I recognized Russell O’Grady’s best friend Billy Hancock.
In the photo Hancock and Mrs. Jackson were standing on a rocky shore, Lake Superior gleaming behind them in the summer sun. They squinted at the camera, Mrs. Jackson’s hair streaming in the wind, Hancock’s wry, mischievous grin frozen in time. They were holding hands, leaning into each other like lovers, frozen in a moment of genuine happiness. I handed it to her.
She cradled the photo in her hands like it was a holy relic. A gentle smile tinged with sadness warmed her face.
“Billy,” she whispered. She raised her eyes, shining with tears. “He was my beautiful man.”
In those simple words, I knew everything I needed to know about Jackson. It was the same story mankind told and retold down the ages. The ancient story. Hancock had something Jackson wanted, and when the grain decided it wanted Hancock, Jackson had been all to happy to let it take him.
She plucked the book from her purse. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Of course. It was a hard cover, the corners rounded from use, the pages darkened from constant rereading. She opened the book and tucked the photo back inside. She clutched it to her chest like a treasure and said, “I dare not leave that photo behind.”
I glanced at my watch.
“Your husband will be getting off work soon,” I said. “You should probably get going.”
“Yes,” she said and disappeared into the bedroom. She returned with a small suitcase, set it down by the coat tree, and pulled on her scarf, jacket, and beret. I walked her down to the lobby and stopped at the front desk to call a cab. We waited under the portico and watched the rain fall. In the distance, lightning arced across the sky, lighting the world in a blue-white glare for an instant. I stood next to her and watched in silence as puddles formed on the street.
“Will you stay in Liberty?” I asked, suddenly unsure what to say.
“Only for a few days,” she said, her lips tight, pale. “I’ll be heading back to Port Arthur to live with my sister for awhile. I miss her. After that…who knows?”
She watched the street, eyes darting to and fro, on the watch for Jackson’s return. The seconds dragged on. I tried not to look at her, not to ask what I was dying to know, but I guess she saw it on my face. She turned to me.
“Go ahead. Ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
“Don’t be obtuse, Mr. Burback. The question you’re too much of a gentleman to pose.”
Gentleman. If she only knew. Her words stung sharper than she probably meant them to. I tore my eyes from her face and pinned them to rain falling in sheets on the street, ashamed I’d made her feel she had to explain herself.
Still, I almost asked. Opened my mouth, but shut it again. Why did you stay? A woman had better odds winning the Irish Sweepstakes than getting a divorce. Hire a lawyer, gather evidence, find some member of parliament willing to introduce her petition. Even then, it could all come to nothing. Would I want my secret suffering to become part of the nation’s public record? I shook my head.
“It’s none of my business why you stayed with him, ma’am,” I said. “You had reasons. None of them were great, or in your control.” I lit a cigarette, blew the smoke toward the ceiling. “What do I know of the hard choices you were forced to make?”
A Green & Yellow cab rounded the corner and pulled to a stop at the curb. I grabbed an umbrella from the stand next to the door and escorted Mrs. Jackson out the door. Rain pelted the umbrella we huddled under. The cabbie took the suitcase from her and placed it in the trunk, slammed the lid, then opened the rear door.
“Do you always swoop in out of the wings to rescue people, Mr. Burback?”
I smiled.
“Have a safe journey, Mrs. Jackson,” I said.
She shook her head.
“I’m not Mrs. Jackson anymore,” she said. “I’m going back to Doyle.”
She removed her ring, and handed it to me. “You don’t strike me as a sentimental man, Mr. Burback, but keep this. I’ll never forget you. I hope you won’t forget about me.”
The bands were silver set with diamonds, not ostentatious, but pretty. I closed my fist around them.
She took my hand, squeezed it. “Goodbye, Mr. Burback,” she said. A pause, then she leaned in and kissed my cheek — soft, fleeting. Then she climbed into the cab.
The cab pulled away, rain pelting the roof, its lights haloed in the downpour. Through the rear window, I watched her silhouette, until the storm swallowed her whole.
Back in my apartment, I set to work on the grim task of preparing for Jackson’s arrival. I pulled my .38 from the nightstand, checked the cylinder — empty — and loaded up some cartridges. The weight was familiar, reassuring. I checked my watch. Almost time. I slipped into my suit jacket, checked my look in the mirror, and adjusted my black tie. Handsome devil.
I paused just outside the doorway to Jackson’s apartment and listened. I didn’t expect him to be home just yet, but one had to be sure. Nothing. The door was still unlocked and I let myself inside, locking the door behind me.
The lights were off and I left them that way. I moved through the living room and dining room pulling the blinds low, then crossed in front of the fireplace to the credenza where he kept his liquor. The hand-cut Orrefors decanter caught my eye. Quite the objet d’art for a steel-working foreman. I pulled the glass stopper, closed my eyes and inhaled through my nose. Glenlivet. Not my favourite, but it would do to steady the nerves jangling in my gut.
I poured a slug into a crystal rocks glass, sipped, and admired the tombstone radio on the end of the credenza. It was an expensive Philco in walnut with black laquer trim and butterfly grille. It was a statement piece, distinctly out of place in a working man’s home. Unless that working man had expensive taste — and a talent for extortion.
I twisted the Power knob and adjusted the volume. As the tubes warmed up, Ellington’s “Solitude” drifted out, warm and woody. I took the decanter and my drink to the dining room table, sat down across from the door, and waited.
About half an hour later, as “Harlem Noble” warbled through the Philco, I heard keys rattling in the lock. I sat up, unholstered the .38, and rested my arm on the table. The door swung inward, and Jackson entered.
“Tess?”
He closed the door, set his metal lunch box on the floor, and removed his jacket. He hung it on the coat tree by reflex, saw it was empty, and hesitated, stepping back.
“Theresa?”
He flipped on the room lights, turned, and came face to face with me.
“Hello, darling,” I said. “Did you miss me?”
“You.”
“Yes, me.”
His dark eyes sized me up. I could almost hear his thoughts. He had at least thirty pounds on me and he knew it. He lunged across the room. I raised the .38 and aimed it between his eyes.
“I’d think seriously about your next move if I were you,” I said.
Jackson jerked to a stop. His chest rose and fell, and a vein in his temple throbbed.
“Where’s my wife?”
“Not your wife. Not anymore.”
Jackson’s fists clenched at his side, his face dark with blood. “What did you do with her?”
“Nothing. What did you do with her? That’s the question. Make you feel like a big strong man to beat up a woman?”
“That lying bitch told you that?”
“I saw her this morning at Gillespie’s. I saw her neck.”
I mimed choking myself. Jackson shrugged.
“So what? You never had to keep a woman in line? Bitch deserved it. Can’t do a fucking thing right.”
I resisted pulling the .38’s trigger. Instead, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the train ticket and set it on the dining room table next to me. His eyes flicked over to it.
“This is a train ticket,” I said. “To Winnipeg.”
“You better get on it before I take your head off.”
“It’s for you, Jackson. Or would you prefer MacDougal.” The color drained from Jackson’s face. I leaned harder. “I know who you are, Jackson. Or who you were. I know about Lakehead Grain and Storage. I know about Billie Hancock and the accident.” I got to my feet. “I know you could have helped O’Grady save his life, but you let him die.”
“She tell you that, too? You’ll believe anything.”
“O’Grady told me.” More colour left his face.
“He told me about how management at Lakehead Grain ordered him to keep quiet about the accident. Did daddy clean up all your messes?”
I took the carbon copy of my telegram out of my pocket and dropped it on the table.
“What’s that?”
“A telegram I sent to Inspector Larkins of the Lakehead District Detachment this afternoon. Remember him? He certainly remembers you. He’s on his way right now with a list of questions for you as long as my arm.”
Blood crept up Jackson’s bull neck and into his cheeks. His breath was loud through flared nostrils.
“It’s all going to come out now, Jackson,” I said, “but you’ve got time to pack a bag and catch that train. He doesn’t have to know where you scurried off to. Winnipeg’s a good town for a man like you. You could change your name again. Start fresh.”
“I’m not a runner.”
I sneered. “Then how’d you end up here?”
That was the final straw. Jackson snarled and lunged like a linebacker, shoulder down, full tilt. The hit ripped the air out of my lungs as I crashed into the window frame, knocking a philodendron off its stand, shattering across the floor.
Searing pain flooded my ribs. One of them was cracked for sure. I grit my teeth and swung the .38 like a hammer, aiming for his skull. He dodged left and I clipped his shoulder instead. He barely flinched.
“Should’ve taken care of you yesterday,” he snarled. He cocked his arm and slammed his fist into my face. The world tilted sideways and lit up in white hot pain as my nose gave way and broke. Through stars and tears, I felt him rip the .38 out of my grip like he was taking a toy from a child. It clattered on the floor somewhere and he drew back for another punch. I shifted sideways, letting him break his fist against the wall.
Jackson cursed and reeled backward, but I grabbed his shirt with both hands, planted my feet and pulled him close as I drove my skull forward. His nose crunched like a stomped cigarette.
Blood gushed down Jackson’s lip as he staggered backward, shook his head like a bull. His hand disappeared into his pocket and came out clutching a set of brass knuckles, the menacing brass catching the light in a dull gleam.
My chest was heaving, every breath a stabbing pain. I had to end this quick. By the look in Jackson’s eyes, the way he curled his fist around the duster like he was savoring the weight, he was thinking the same thing. I stepped back half a pace, scanning for the gun, but it was lost.
He lunged forward and I cut the distance to keep him off balance. We collided and I tried to pivot, drive him to the floor, but he just had too much weight on me and his momentum carried me down again with him on top.
Pot shards crunched under my back. The knuckle dusters came down and I managed to turn away at almost the last second, the edge of them splitting my cheekbone open before it slammed into the floor. Jackson howled in pain, and in that opening, I jabbed him hard in the throat. He sputtered, choked and I slithered out from under, grabbed a fistful of dirt and raked it across his face.
My gun lay on the kitchen floor in front of the stove. I reached for it but Jackson caught me by the belt and dragged me backward. I twisted onto my back and mule kicked him square in the face then grabbed his skull in both hands and slammed his head into the stove top. Pots rattled on the burners.
Jackson’s remaining good hand clamped around my throat in an ironworker’s grip and he drove me helpless back against the counter. I sucked in a breath, but his grip cut me off and my ribs heaved against dead air. I tried to twist free, but Jackson’s grip was a steel trap. My lungs burned. My vision started to gray.
I was desperate now. My fingers scrabbled at his hand on my throat. No good. Darkness crept in at the edges of the world as my heart pounded in my ears. I was dying.
Instinct kicked in and my thumb found his eye socket and drove in hard. Jackson squealed like a stuck pig, wrenched his head back, but I hung on, my thumb digging for brains. His grip slipped and air roared back into my lungs. The world snapped into focus.
“Enough!” he bellowed and flung me across the kitchen.
Time slowed as he reached down for the .38 and took aim. Jackson’s good eye was wild with rage, his snarl stained pink with blood. His finger squeezed the trigger, and I watched the hammer draw as I scrambled across the floor. There was nowhere to hide, and Jackson blocked the only way out. The muzzle flashed and a round whizzed past my ear.
Then I heard a door crash open, heavy footsteps burst in, angry shouting.
“Police! Police!! Drop that weapon! Drop it!”
Jackson twisted on his knees and swung the .38 at the cops. Muzzle flashes lit up the room and he threw up his arms, jerked, and toppled like a felled tree. As the cops rushed forward, guns drawn, I raised my hands, palms out. No threat. I sagged against the cupboards and slid to the floor, shaking, breathless, and spent.
An hour later, I was slumped on Jackson’s chesterfield, pressing a bag of ice against my swollen face while a paramedic threaded a needle through the gash on my cheek. The burn of antiseptic mixed with the dull throb of pain, but I was too spent to care.
Police technicians moved silently through the wreckage, cameras flashing as they documented the destruction Jackson and I had wrought. The scent of cordite and copper still lingered in the air. Across the room, a pair of legs protruded from the kitchen archway, covered by a blanket — except for the toe of one black shoe.
The paramedic tugged another stitch through my cheek.
“Hold still,” he muttered. “This is delicate. Almost done.”
Across from me, OPP Inspector Jack Hale watched with calm blue eyes, his notebook balanced on his thigh, the pages curled from use.
“You’re a lucky man, Mr. Burback,” he said. “If your neighbour hadn’t heard the two of you remodeling the kitchen, Jackson might have ended your life.”
The medic snipped the last of the sutures and I glanced over at the doorway where a Liberty cop was interviewing Mrs. Ulrich, a small woman, dark hair gathered in a bun. She looked over at me, then tore her eyes away. The cop nodded as he took notes.
“I owe her a bottle of wine,” I said, knowing I never would. Mrs. Ulrich was a teetotaller.
“Just so you know, Inspector Larkins is on the train from Port Arthur,” he said. “He boarded the northbound line this morning and should arrive around supper time. He’ll want to interview you himself tomorrow.”
I blew out a sigh and gestured at his notes. “You already have plenty there. Can’t you just send him the report?”
Hale glanced down, flipping a page with his thumb. “I’ll pass it along, Mr. Burback, but Larkins was clear on the phone. He wanted Jackson — MacDougal — picked up alive. Sounds like he have figured as a person of interest in a few other jobs Larkins has been sniffing around.”
We both looked at the kitchen archway.
“Guess that didn’t work out,” I said.
Hale didn’t smile. “No. I guess it didn’t.”
He glanced down at his notes again, flipped back a few pages. Paused. I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head.
“Sir, do you know anyone by the name V. Williams.”
It was the name I had used on the telegram to Larkins. The carbon copy of it was folded in my pocket.
“No,” I said. “Who is he?”
“He’s the individual who sent the telegram to Insp. Larkins at Lakehead District Detachment.”
“I see. I guess that man deserves a medal. I hope you find him.”
Hale cocked his head like a hound.
“Why do you think it was a man?”
I shrugged. “Just an assumption.”
“Could have been a woman. Virginia? Veronica? Violet? Vivian?”
I waited. Was Hale going to list every female name that began with V that he knew of?
“Could have been Vincent,” I said.
“Or Valentine?”
A cold pit opened in my stomach, but I kept my face carefully neutral. Hale’s eyes remained irritatingly calm and cool. Either it was a wild coincidence that he picked that specific name, or Insp. Hale was a well-read man.
I nodded. “I suppose it might have been.”
“The man who sent that telegram — Valentine Williams.” Hale taps his notebook. “You don’t know him?”
I shook my head. “Never heard of him.”
Hale nodded, let the silence stretch just long enough to be uncomfortable, then flipped his notebook shut and set it on the table.
“Does he live on this floor?” Hale asked casually. “Does he live in this building at all?”
Burback exhaled, annoyed. “How should I know?”
“Larkins dictated the telegram when he asked me to scout ahead on this. Whoever Williams is, he got MacDougal’s address exactly right.” He looked up. Cool. Measured. “He’s nowhere to be seen…and yet here you are.”
I met his gaze, said nothing.
Hale leaned back. The ghost of a smile on his lips.
“Did you try to make this tip anonymously, Mr. Burback?” His voice was light, almost amused. “It’s all right. I understand. It happens all the time. People want to help, do the right thing, but they don’t want to get involved.”
Hale was good. I let a sheepish smile creep into my face.
“You caught me, Inspector. I sent the telegram. You’re right. I wanted to help that poor woman, but I didn’t want to get involved.”
Hale held up the train ticket. “You bought this?”
“Yes.”
“Before or after sending the telegram?”
“After.”
“The purpose being…?”
I shrugged. “Who wants a man like him sticking around. I didn’t want any trouble. I thought if he knew you guys were on the way, he’d jump out the escape hatch I opened for him.”
“For a man who didn’t want to get involved, you certainly wedged yourself deep in this drama.”
I spread my hands in a meek gesture of giving up.
“What can I say, Inspector,” I shrugged. “I’m just a regular guy. People make irrational choices.” Hale nodded.
“Is there anything else, Inspector? I’m tired. I want to go home.”
Hale closed his notebook and got to his feet, giving me room to leave the chesterfield.
“I understand completely,” he said. “It’s not every day that an innocent citizen has such a brush with serious trouble.”
I gathered my gauze and tape, stood up, and headed for the door.
“One last question, Mr. Burback. We’d like to talk to Mrs. Jackson? Is she still around to answer questions?”
Something nagged at me about the spin Hale put on the word questions.
“I haven’t seen her,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
I said nothing. Hale offered me his business card.
“No matter. We’ll find her.” He tilted his head a fraction of an inch and something changed in his eyes that unsettled me. “What’s your relationship to her?”
“That’s another question.”
“And I’d appreciate an answer. If you’re not too tired.”
“I barely knew the woman. We exchanged nods in the hallway. A few words at the mailboxes. She was nice.”
Hale’s eyebrows nudged upward. “Something else?”
“There was a look in her eyes.”
“What kind of look?”
“Of a dog that’s been beat too much.”
A subtle shift of recognition crept into Hale’s eyes, but the cop quickly regained control.
“And you rode to the rescue. Like Lancelot.”
The unspoken insinuation didn’t slip past me.
“Lancelot betrayed Arthur by having an affair with Gwenevere,” I said. “Mrs. Jackson and I weren’t in a relationship.”
Hale nodded, didn’t turn away. “We’ll come to our own determination when we find her,” he said. “It would go a long way for you if you cooperated with us.”
“I told you, I don’t know where she is.”
“So, you did.”
“Are we through here? I have nothing else to add to my statement, Inspector.”
“Very well, Mr. Burback. You’re free to go. On the off chance you do think of anything you want to clear up, you can reach me here.”
He held out a white business card. I hesitated but took it. The steel in Hale’s grey eyes made me nervous.
I glanced over Hale’s shoulder at the black shoe protruding from the death shroud that covered Jackson’s body, and Hale’s line of questioning became crystal clear and my blood froze in my veins. Hale saw the tell and inched closer.
“Something you want to tell me?” he asked.
Not without a lawyer. Hale was rearranging the pieces to tell the story of a love triangle gone wrong — or worse, murder for hire — with me at the apex.
“Good night, Inspector,” I said.
“Good night, Mr. Burback.”
He opened the door for me and I left Jackson’s apartment.
10
Back in my apartment, I put the radio on, entered my bedroom and slid the corkboard out from behind my dresser. I laid it across the dining room table and surveyed the photos Eddie Callahan had taken of Black Birch Jewelry and tried to ignore the creeping fear in the back of my mind that Hale was a wolf prowling around my door.
I reached down, wedged a fingernail under a thumbtack, and pried it up, dropping it on one side of the corkboard. I set the picture on the other side. I removed picture after picture as “Reminiscing in Tempo” crooned softly over the radio.
Hale had caught a scent, the wrong one, but it was in his nose and he was going to follow it until he dug up the real dirt on me. Best to lie low for a while. Don’t attract attention.
“And this is why we should mind our business, Walter.”
I swept up the thumbtacks and poured them into an empty jar and screwed on the lid. I stacked the photos and slid them into an envelop, rolled up the blueprints and slid the whole thing down a cardboard tube and folded in the edges. I set the tube by the door to remind myself to take it with me tomorrow and put it in storage. There couldn’t be anything suspicious in the apartment if Hale or Larkins stopped by unannounced.
In the living room, I opened a window and flopped into my thinking chair. The air hung still, motionless.
I fished for cigarettes in my pocket, but my hand came out with Theresa’s wedding ring. I held it up between two fingers and turned it in the light. Had Jackson paid a single dollar for it with his own money?
I reached for the phone and dialed the operator.
“O’Donnell Tailors, please,” I said into the receiver.
“One moment, please.”
The line clicked then rang. I let it ring, knowing O’Donnell often worked past closing. Someone picked up on the tenth ring.
“O’Donnell’s. We’re closed.”
“Mr. O’Donnell, it’s Walter Burback.”
“Eh? Burback? I don’t think I have anything for you.”
“You don’t. I want check on someone I sent to Mrs. O’Donnell. Is Gladys there?”
“Hang on.” He set down the receiver and bellowed his wife’s name. I waited. A moment later, someone picked up the receiver again.
“This is Gladys O’Donnell.”
“It’s Walter Burback. I sent Theresa Jackson around to pay you a visit.”
“Yes. She dropped by. Poor woman. I’m glad you mentioned my name to her. I sent her back home to pack a few things. She’s upstairs, staying with me for the night. Do you want to talk to her?”
I closed my eyes. “No, that’s not necessary, Mrs. O’Donnell. I just wanted to make sure she’s safe and arrangements were made for her.”
“It’s all taken care of, Mr. Burback. I’ll let her know you checked up on her.”
I hung up and leaned back in my armchair, hoping sleep might take me. Theresa was safe, but Jackson’s twisted, rage-filled face kept flashing behind my eyelids.
I shook a cigarette out of a crumpled pack, lit it, and scowled at it. Stale, but I took another drag, watching the smoke curl toward the ceiling. The bruises on my ribs throbbed, my cheek burned where the stitches pulled. The bastard had been dead for an hour, and I could still feel his hands around my throat.
Theresa had lived with that feeling every damned day.
I thought about that for a long time and finally fell asleep asking myself between the two of us, who was really stronger? Me, or her?
Copyright © Kevin M. Coleman. All rights reserved.
This work may not be used in the training of artificial intelligence models or large language models without explicit written permission from the author.
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