Chapter 4

 

I was home by daylight and started getting ready for the trip. I packed one suit and a couple of pairs of lightweight pants plus a cotton windbreaker to cover my gun. Unless you're a cowboy or a cop you can't go around in public with your gun hanging out.

I debated whether to take it at all. My real assignment was to stop young Ridley from making a fool of himself in Italy. That might need nothing more than a quick grasp of his collar if he started leaning towards trouble. But on the other hand, his father was one of the richest of Canada's nouveau riche. If somebody put a snatch on the kid I could need some heat. I might as well go the distance and take the gun. That brought me to the second problem, how to get aboard Alitalia's squeaky-clean jumbo jet with 27 ounces of sudden death on my person.

I solved that one the way Ridley had solved his problem the day before, with clout. The head of security at Pearson International Airport in Toronto is an ex-RCMP anti-terrorist officer. I'd met him on a conference when I was in the army. A quick call to his office and he promised to smooth things out with Alitalia; they'd have a person on hand to get us past the metal detector without making all the bells ring. Without advertising the fact, the airlines are glad to have a trained armed man on board major flights. It's cheap insurance. As a bonus they would clear me for our Florence connection as well. Good news.

I called the answering service to let them know I would be away for six weeks, then I was ready. I lugged my bags down to the second floor landing and tapped on Janet's door. She opened it and stood there in her track suit with Mozart and the smell of good coffee pouring out the doorway all around her.

"Hi, John, going away?" She's a honey, tall and elegant with Irish red hair and eyes as green as the Mountains of Mourne. She has a friendly directness that maybe overpowers the guys who should be chasing her. Somebody should. I wished, as I always do when we meet, that she didn't live so damned close.

"Yeah. I've lucked into a good one, six weeks in Italy babysitting a rich kid."

"Half your luck," she said. She'd picked that up from an Aussie boyfriend who looked like a fixture until he made the mistake of slapping her. She decked him with a cast iron skillet and that was the end of that romance. She stood back. "I was just making some coffee, have you got time for a cup?"

"I'd love one. Thanks." I dumped the bags and followed her inside. Her place is one room bigger than mine and homey, the way only a woman can make it. Maybe one of these days I should get myself one of those things.

Janet stepped into the kitchen and came out with a tray with cups. "Black, right?"

"Right." I took the coffee and sat, enjoying her company. Hell, this could get habit-forming. She curled herself on the couch and sipped.

"What was the ruckus last night? It sounded like you were having the boys over for volleyball."

"I had a caller. A large gentleman wearing a baseball bat."

She frowned. "Is that hat or bat?"

"Bat," I said, and she mouthed an Oh.

"You're sure in an exciting line of work." She grinned. "I judge by the look of you that it was him hitting the floor, not you."

"Yes. No problem. But I'm going to be away for a while. I wondered if you could keep an eye on my place for me, please. I don't have any plants to water but if you could pick up my mail from downstairs, and if you see anybody hanging around or see the door open at all, leave a message on my answering service. Tell them it's top of the list. Would you do that for me, please?"

She laughed. "Try and stop me."

Well, that was my intelligence network in place for the trip. I'd already set the usual signals for myself, aligning the doormat with the door and tucking a shred of paper into the crack. I should be safe enough. But it was good to have Janet on my side.

"How's the big world of radio?"

"Boring as ever," she said cheerfully. "All the budget goes into TV. People have forgotten how to think, how to listen. Even our decision makers. We can't get the money we need to put on drama, can't even give a guy like you a tape recorder to pick up some sounds of Italy. Nothing but talk, talk, talk."

"Talk is cheap," I reminded her and she snorted.

I finished my coffee and had my idea. "I'm on a dummy run with this kid, tonight. We're in a suite at the Windsor Arms, checking whether we can coexist at close quarters. I wondered if you would like to have dinner with us? If you know any snotty-tempered eighteen-year-old girls, maybe you could dig one up for him."

"You realize this is Friday night. You're asking me to take a raincheck on talking to my plants," she said.

"I have the manners of a warthog, but my heart's in the right place."

"Yes," she said. "About eight inches south of your navel." We both laughed and she told me she would call her script assistant. "She's a student at Ryerson, with us for the summer. You'll like her. She impresses easily."

"I don't get no respect," I said. "Listen, thanks for the coffee. You want me to pick you up or shall we say eight o'clock in the Courtyard?"

"I'll see you there. I'll probably have to drive out beyond the black stump to pick up Lindie."

I stood up, shaking my head. "Beyond the black stump. You realize that bloody kangaroo chaser set your vocabulary back about fifty years?"

"I know." She uncurled from the chair, stretching like a cat. "But the bastard was good value when he was sober."

"Ah love," I said and kissed her on the nose.

I put my bags in the trunk and drove to Bloor Street. It's Toronto's Fifth Avenue. At least, one short stretch of it is. Either side of that, east and west it turns into ethnic alley, Italian to the west, Greek to the east, out where it's called Danforth. Mid-town you have to pay about eight dollars a minute for parking but I checked into the hotel and let them worry about the car while I walked over to the bank to talk to Mr. Hawkins.

He had a pleasant surprise for me, in the shape of ten thousand U.S. dollars in traveler's checks. All in my name. I did all the signing and thanked him and he looked me straight in the eye, a trick he could do just fine as long as we were both sitting down.

"This is a lot of money, Mr. Locke."

"About thirteen thousand Canadian at today's exchange rate," I agreed.

He humphed and took his glasses off and peered at them as if wondering what he looked like when he was wearing them.

"Yes, well what I mean is, Mrs. Ridley is an old and respected customer of ours." He let the statement hang there like a mild threat.

"And she's a new but highly respected client of mine, Mr. Hawkins, so never fear. I'll take care of her cash."

He put his glasses back on, nervously. "Yes. Well, you understand," he huffed.

"Of course." I smiled a ten-thousand-dollar-plus-exchange smile and stretched out my hand to him. "I appreciate your concern for her, she's a most remarkable woman."

I walked back to the hotel and checked the room. It was a suite on the top floor with a view to the west, down on some of the treetops that make Toronto such a pretty town. I sat for a few minutes, asking myself again why Ridley would ever have advertised for a person to take care of his kid in Italy. Maybe he'd been hoping for some pretty little comparative art co-ed who would show him the sights by day and screw him into an understanding of his position as a rich kid by night.

Finally I decided against questioning divine providence. I went next door to the Danish place where they serve the best curried herring in Canada and bring the frozen schnapps to your table in an ice-wrapped bottle. Bliss.

Maybe it was the aquavit, or maybe I was starting to get over the fear of looking gift horses in the mouth, but after lunch I decided to check behind the Ridley facade. I went back to my room and called a friend of mine, Martin Cahill, a sergeant in the Mounties, the RCMP.

We exchanged the usual banter and then I told him, "I'm just off to Italy, bodyguarding a rich kid."

"Talk about coincidence," he said. "I was thinking of having supper at the Pizza Hut."

"Yeah, well, I don't like the vibes I'm getting from the kid's father. Name of Herbert Ridley. He's the head honcho for Ridley Enterprises and something called Goliath Holdings in Calgary."

"Doesn't ring any bells," Cahill said. I could imagine him standing there, rubbing his big Irish jaw, frowning. "So, you think he's a rounder, what?"

"No, but he's playing some game or other. I mean, people go on trips to Italy all the time without hiring bodyguards. I want to know if he's super rich, or if he's got problems he hasn't mentioned. I mean, if the kid is in danger, I'd like to know ahead of time."

"Yeah. See what you mean." The line hummed while he thought then he said, "I'll have a word with our financial guys, they know who's doing what to whom. Jimmy Mahood, he's been in Calgary the last five years, if there's any hanky-panky, he'll know."

"'Preciate that, Martie. It's worth a bottle of Bushmills."

"Great idea. Think of it yourself didya?" We laughed and he said, "Call me in a couple of days. I'm working the day shift, off on Tuesday, Wednesday next week."

"I'll call you from Florence."

"Name-dropper," he said and hung up.

At four p.m. sharp I drove to the Ridley place and pulled under the portico. The big front door opened first bounce of the bell. I was expected. I gave the houseboy my card and said, "I'm here to collect Mr. Herbert Ridley Junior."

"Yessir," he said, sizing me up. "You're expected, come in please."

"Thanks." I stepped inside as he waited for me. "What's your name, please."

"Kim Lee," he said, surprised. I nodded and ushered him on.

He led me down the long parquet hall to the kind of sitting room they showed in Brideshead Revisited. Ridley senior was there, with a synthetic-looking ash-blonde in her thirties and the kid, who was pretending to read People magazine and had his back to me.

Ridley stood up, warily, it seemed to me. He waved at me vaguely and said, "Dear, this is Mr. Locke. Mr. Locke, my wife."

I gave her a big smile and a polite nod and told her I was delighted to meet her. From the interested look in her eye, she might have been delighted to meet me under different circumstances. She sounded Southern, Georgia possibly, but well schooled in some Yankee college. She gave me a sweet magnolia smile and said, "Are you going to take real good care of our son?"

The best that money could buy, I thought, but I kept it down to, "Yes ma'am."

She turned up the kilowatts on her smile, then turned them off as she addressed the back of the head in the armchair. "Herbie, say hello to Mr. Locke."

He put down the magazine and turned around, as enthusiastically as he might have done for a dentist. "This is bullshit," he said in a drab little voice.

His stepmother did a Scarlett O'Hara thing with her hands and said, "Where do they learn this language?"

Ridley junior stood up. He was about five-ten, one-eighty, with the beginning of his father's softness in face and body. Only it still looked like puppy fat on him. Six weeks of basic training and he could be whipcord. He had off-blond hair, negligently long, and a bored expression. He was wearing blue jeans and loafers that could have handled a shine and a T-shirt with a Canadian flag made from a marijuana leaf instead of a maple.

I was being tested, by him and the others. I took it one step at a time. No sense sticking out my hand and being snubbed. Instead I smiled and said, "Hello."

He ignored me, but my face was intact. He was trying to stay even. His stepmother bustled over and kissed him on the cheek and his father put a buddy-buddy arm around him. "Have a great trip," his father said.

"Sure," Herbie said. He pointed at me. "My bags are at the bottom of the stairs. Put them in the car."

Test time. Both parents were watching, Ridley senior with just a hint of a smirk on his face. I was bought and paid for. Now I would have to show the proper servitude.

"With pleasure," I said and turned towards the door and called, "Kim Lee!" in a parade ground voice.

He was there in five seconds. "Yessir?"

"Mr. Kim. Would you be kind enough to take Master Herbert's bags out to my car, please?" I asked, smiling into his soul.

He was shaken by the request coming from a visitor but he didn't flinch. "Yessir," he said and vanished.

I turned and stuck out my hand to Ridley senior. "Well, goodbye sir. I'll have your son back, safe, sound and well informed in six weeks' time."

He accepted my hand, carefully. "Thank you," he said quietly.

I turned to the stepmother who was looking at me like I was a portion of pecan pie. "Your servant, ma'am," I said. A little Southern courtesy works wonders.

"A real pleasure, Mr. Locke," she cooed. "Ah'm looking forward to seeing you again." She squeezed my hand and I smiled again and turned to Herbie.

"Here we go," I said, and waited for him to buckle and move.

He went, slouching to break a sergeant-major's heart. I beamed at the parents one last time and followed him. I hadn't gone ten steps before I could hear the urgent clipping of the stepmother's heels on the parquet behind me, then the scuff of the father's desert boots.

They both stood on the doorstep and waved as we drove out, me waving politely, Herbie slumped in the seat as if he'd been filleted.

I drove without speaking and at last he broke down and opened up on me. "This isn't gonna work," he said.

"I've heard that song before," I told him cheerfully. The job was getting more interesting. It would be worthwhile if I could turn him into a human being before we returned. That way I would have earned his grandmother's money.

A Lamborghini came south on Bayview, cutting me off. I stayed in my lane, checking the mirror as I drove. Herbie straightened up a little. "Why'd you let him do that?" he sneered. "This shitbox too slow to keep up with him?"

"Cars impress you, do they?"

That startled him. I'd questioned his credentials. "They impress anybody with any brains," he said.

"Would you remember that car if you saw it again?" I asked and he snorted.

"Of course I would."

"And this one? Would you remember this?"

He laughed out loud. "Nobody notices a crapcan like this."

"Exactly," I said and smiled as the Lamborghini was waved down ahead by a cop on radar surveillance just north of Sunnybrook hospital.

"What's that s'posed to mean?" Herbie asked, but he wasn't sneering.

"In my business you can't afford to be conspicuous," I told him.

"And what business you in?" he asked. Obviously his English grades at Jarvis were not going to be high.

"I'm a bodyguard," I said. "I look after people too rich or busy to look after themselves. Which is why you will carry your own bags on this trip. That way I'll have a hand free if somebody gets pissed off with your arrogance and wants to punch you up the throat."

He thought about that in silence for a while then asked, "How far do you reckon to go to look after me?"

"As far as it takes," I said.

He leaned back, thinking. I sneaked a quick look at him. He had the absorbed air of a little boy contemplating a battle between a cobra and a mongoose. "Like I mean, if somebody threw a grenade at me, you'd jump on top if it, right?"

"That's my usual practice," I said. There was a short pause while he worked that one out, then he laughed.

"Smart guy, huh?"

"The smartest."

I parked underground at the hotel and we went up to the room, Herbie carrying the heavier of his two bags without complaining. I guessed he wasn't going to waste time on a scene when there was no audience around to appreciate it.

The bell captain saw us once we reached the lobby and we let a boy take the bags. He took my key and unlocked the door with a flourish. Herbie walked in and looked around contemptuously. "What a dump," he said.

The bellboy flashed an anxious eye at me. Poor reaction meant poor tip. I gave him a couple of bucks and he heartened. "If there's anything you need, sir, just ring."

He left with a little bow and Herbie mirrored his bow and imitated his voice. "If there's anything you need, sir." He threw his arms out despairingly and slumped on the couch.

I ignored him. What I needed was a six-mile run but it didn't seem smart to leave him so soon. He would take a cab back home and I'd be apologizing. No, I could run in Italy. Here, I was a jailer. I looked at him. His eyes were straying to the TV. Within moments he would be watching reruns of I Love Lucy. But it gave me an idea.

"We've got three hours to kill to dinner. You fancy a movie?"

He raised his shoulders an inch, but it wasn't a refusal.

"Okay. Let's go."

He rolled off the couch and pulled himself as close to vertical as he ever got. The soldier in me resented his stance. It was meant to be an insult, and on this ex-officer, it worked.

"You're not that tall," I said and his head whipped around in surprise.

"Howja mean?"

"Only tall men need to slouch. Guys like John Kenneth Galbraith."

He didn't know the name but that didn't matter. I'd gotten through.

"So who needs to go around like they've got a broomstick up their ass?"

Now he had my attention. "Where'd you hear that expression?"

He shrugged again, slouching an inch lower, proving his point.

"It doesn't matter. It just means you've been exposed to some old sweat and I don't think your father's ever been in the service."

"Him," he said and the contempt filled the room.

I locked the door and we went down and out to Bloor Street. We lucked into the right time for Jewel of the Nile and I bought the tickets and we were two hours closer to dinner.

When we got back to the room he fell on the couch again and said, "Order me a sandwich, I'm starving."

"We've got a date for dinner downstairs," I said. "A friend of mine is bringing a girl who works for her."

He turned face down into the cushion and swore. "I'm not gonna sit in some dumb restaurant."

"You're going to be doing a lot of it in Italy. I thought this would be good practice, and the food downstairs is excellent."

He lay there without moving. I left him and opened one of his suitcases. He had a good pair of light gray slacks and a Lacoste shirt. I took them out and draped them over the back of a chair.

"Take a quick shower and get changed," I told him.

He ignored me for perhaps half a minute, then turned his face up and said, "You serious?"

"Absolutely."

"I'm not showering and changing for a couple of stupid broads."

"You've got thirty seconds," I said.

He sneered. "Then what?"

"Then you're under the shower, only if I run it, it will be cold."

"What makes you think you could put me under the shower?" He was still sneering but he was interested now.

"If I had to, I could put Muhammad Ali under the shower," I said cheerfully. "Of course, I might have to kill him first, but you'd be no problem."

He sat and I glanced at my watch. "Fifteen seconds."

"I was gonna shower anyway," he said and went into the bathroom.

"Would you like a drink?" I called after him, "I was going to order a beer."

He stuck his head back around the door. "I'll have a screwdriver," he said, and pulled his head back in.

I rang room service and ordered a couple of Heineken and an orange juice. It arrived as Herbie finished showering. I signed for the drinks and took the juice and his clean clothes into the bathroom.

"Here, and put these on," I said.

He reached for his T-shirt. "I'm more comfortable in this," he said.

I took the T-shirt off him and tore it in half.

He said "Heh! What the fuck gives? You just tore up my shirt."

"It offends me," I said, "and when I get mad, I act. When you're a little older you'll realize that you don't mock anybody's flag," I told him. "Smoke all the grass you want, but don't mock Canada."

He laughed, an ugly putdown sound. "What're you, some kind of patriotic freak?"

"I'll buy you a nice Mickey Mouse T-shirt tomorrow, it's more your speed," I said. "Meantime, put these on. And here's your orange juice."

"I ordered a screwdriver," he said.

"You requested one," I corrected him. "But you're too young."

"I've been drinking for ages," he roared.

"Yeah, and look where it's got you." I shoved him lightly out of the room and got under the shower.

I was quick, in case he decided to get cute and make a run for it. He hadn't. Instead he had opened one of the beers and was watching TV.

He waved the beer at me, in case I'd missed the fact. "This stuff is godawful. How can you drink it?"

I took the bottle off him, leaving him his half glass. "Did you ever think, the reason you drink vodka is that you're too young to appreciate drinking, you want the effect without the taste?"

He didn't have an answer for that so he went on watching TV while I slipped into my suit and put on a tie. "Pretty fancy," he said. "You planning to get into this broad's pants?"

I sighed. "Choke down the last of that beer and let's go downstairs," I said. "And one more thing. While we're in company you will act like a gentleman or I will take you outside and kick your ass good, you got that?"

He sniggered. "Getting to you, am I?"

I laughed along with him. "Not really, it's just that you're the first prisoner I've ever had that I've been told not to kill if he got ornery."