The Locker Key

 

        

~1~

It’s a beautiful spring day in Toronto. Early summer, cloudless sky, no breeze, not too hot, not too cool. Jake Morrison is riding his bike along Dundas Street, heading for the downtown core. He’s wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He’s about five foot ten and a little overweight. But he’s in good shape because the bike has always been his preferred mode of transportation in a city like Toronto, where the city planners were clueless when it came to traffic management. 

Jake is handsome or maybe slightly less, depending on the kind of hair day he was having. His hair is long and sort of wavy. His eyes are dark brown, almost black, but spend most of their time behind either shades or reading glasses. 

Jake is singing a Steely Dan song, that got stuck in his head from the night before, just loudly enough for him to hear himself in his slightly out-of-tune voice. He’s got a whistle on a leather thong around his neck and is not wearing a helmet. 

His riding is a little on the reckless side from the driver’s point of view, but not from Jake’s. He’s been doing this ride a long time and he’s got it covered. Some people honk at him and he waves back. A couple of others honk at him and he shoots them the bird. 

Eventually, he runs the gauntlet and makes it across the Don Valley and into the downtown core. He heads down River Street and across King all the way to Simcoe Street, and onto a quiet cul de sac. He stops in front of a nondescript building. A couple of bike couriers sit on the steps of the building having a smoke and chatting. Jake locks his bike to the railing at the side of the steps and enters the building, stopping to have a brief word with the couriers. They share a laugh. Jake likes couriers. He used to be one back in the day and knows what their lives are like.

He climbs the steps to the second floor of the building, which is a radio station called MOJO Radio: Talk Radio For Guys. Jake nods to the receptionist and walks down the hall to one of the broadcast studios. He waits until the light above the door goes off and enters the studio. There are a couple of guys sitting behind the microphones, packing stuff up and chatting with each other. They are Jerry and Jeff, the PM sports show guys.

“The Jakester. How you doin’ Jake?” Jerry said

“Jerry. Jeff. How about those Raptors?”

“Jury’s still out on that.” Jeff said.

Jake pulls a small MacBook from his backpack along with a thin sheaf of hard copy. He steps into the control room, high-fives the technician and hands him the copy. He then comes back in and takes a seat next to Jerry, opens his computer and messes around with it a bit.

“So how are things in Jakeland?” Jerry said. “I hear they’re talking to you about a half-hour weekend cable show.”

“Yeah, building the Couch Potato empire one brick at a time. My agent is takin’ the idea to them this week.” 

“That’s cool, Jake, good on you.” 

The producer’s voice comes through a speaker: “Back in five, four, three…

“Well, that’s about it for us, sports dweebs.” Jeff says into the microphone. “Tune in tomorrow, when our guest will be the man himself, Freddie Van Vleet of the playoff bound Toronto Raptors. It’s gonna be one hell of a show, guys.  So we’ll see you then. This is The Gerry and Jeff PMS Show signing off. In the meantime, stay tuned for Jake Morrison and the soon-to-be world-famous Couch Potato Chronicles.”

The Couch Potato Chronicles theme music comes up and a pre-recorded announcer voice. “And now, coming to you live from the MOJO studios right here in the center of the universe, it’s the Couch Potato Chronicles with your host and chief spud, Jake Morrison.”

“Hey, everybody.” Jake said. “Well, it’s Tuesday May 7th, if you care about things like that. I‘m Jake Morrison. We’ll take some calls and read some emails later in the hour, but right now, I want to talk about something that’s pissing me off severely.

“I was killing time last night waiting for the Spurs/Mavericks game to come on and fumbling around with my recordings, when I noticed that I had recorded an episode of something on Showcase called Trailer Park Boys. I recalled seeing the previews for this show and making a mental note to watch it as part of my Canadian-made TV studies course. I’m glad I did and I’ll tell you why. This show brought out a level of disgust in me that I have never actually reached before, and as we all know it can be a pretty disgusting world out there, especially to a cynical spud like myself. Trailer Park Boys is one of those cruel jokes that TV plays on us every now and then…” Jake rambles on with his show kickoff monologue, guaranteed to piss off a lot of people and make for some interesting phone conversations and threatening emails later in the show. 

And so it goes twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays.

The next morning, Jake lies sleeping on the right-hand side of a queen-size bed. There is a lot of activity going on in the room. Stacy, Jake’s live-in girlfriend, is fully dressed and packing her suitcase. Jake rolls over and watches her. Stacy is a good-looking lady with long auburn hair and an hourglass shape that Jake has always found alluring.

“Oh oh….not again, Stace.”

“Jake, I don’t want to talk about this.” Stacy says. “I’ve said it all a couple of times. It’s my family and unlike some people I know who haven’t got two minutes to spare for theirs, it’s something I’ve got to do.”

“That’s a low blow. I’m not trying to stop you, Stacy. But this has happened before and it’s been nothing but a tempest in a teapot.”

“It’s not a tempest in a goddamn teapot Jake. It’s my mother and her heart.”  

 Jake gets up. He’s wearing pyjama bottoms. He walks over to the window and peeks out at the street below. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I take back everything I just said. Go. Be with your mother. Get her better.”

Jake saunters out of the room and heads downstairs. Stacy keeps packing. 

A little while later, Jake helps Stacy load her bag into her car. “Look.” Stacy says, “I didn’t mean to be so harsh with you upstairs. I’m just...I don’t want to go either. But I have to Jake…it’s my family.” 

Jake gathers Stacy up in his arms. “It’s alright babe. I’ll keep a candle in the window.”

Stacy pulls back from Jake’s embrace. Tears are streaming down her face. She sniffs and tries to pull herself together. She kisses him gently on the lips. As she gets into the car, Jake walks over to his front stoop, sits down and watches Stacy pull down the driveway and up the street.

Jake heads back into the house and pours himself a cup of coffee. He then walks into the back porch next to the kitchen, which has been converted into a comfortable office. At one end sits a large Mac computer, a desk and floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books, DVDs, papers and memorabilia. At the side, along the window is a small sofa and coffee table across from an impressive entertainment centre. His MacBook sits on the coffee table in front of the couch. A small pile of DVDs sit on one side of the MacBook. On the other side is a big binder. On it is a logo and the words “Jake Morrison’s Couch Potato Chronicles”

Jake sits down at the desk and flicks on the big computer. As he waits for it to warm up, he punches up his messages on his cell phone.

Jake. It’s Charlie. I’m heading out down to the network tomorrow morning. I need the proposal with me. Finish up the revisions and meet me for lunch at Rugantino’s at 1:00. Let me know if you can’t make it. Otherwise, I’ll see you there.

Charlie was Charlie Morton, Jake's recently acquired agent and manager.

He hits the second message.

Jake. It’s Trisha, calling for you know who, who wants the copy for this week’s Chronicles. Press time is coming up quickly. I’ll check my email every ten minutes. Bye bye.

Jake sets the phone down and leans back and sighs. “No rest for the wicked.” he mutters to himself, and then grabs his mouse and starts to get busy.

The next two days are spent doing the usual stuff. A lot of writing, a lot of viewing. A meeting with his agent, etc. Jake’s biggest challenge is staying true to his mission that he would only deal in extremes. The shows he reviews are only really bad or really good. He figures that any asshole could spot mediocre or ordinary.

~ 2 ~

On Friday morning, Jake gets downtown early and is sitting at a table by the window in the Cafe Mocha coffee shop around the corner from the studio. His MacBook is open on the table in front of him and he’s reviewing his monologue. Beside the computer sits a large paper cup of coffee and a half-eaten donut. 

Jake is dressed in a pair of jeans and an untucked white shirt. He’s staring at the computer with a blank look on his face. He then makes a few changes to polish up the script and takes a deep breath.  He puts the computer to sleep and folds it closed. He leans back in his chair for a moment and stretches, looking out at the street. 

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a man across the street. The man is walking quickly, looking behind him. The man crosses the street coming right toward the coffee shop. He looks vaguely familiar to Jake somehow. As Jake studies the man, he notices that he is distracted, and nearly gets plowed by a taxi that slams on its brakes and honks. The man quickly enters Cafe Mocha. He orders a coffee. 

Jake stares at him for a moment and then turns his gaze back to the street. Just another asshole in the city, he thinks. In the distance on the far side of the street, he sees two other men, both burly and serious looking, walking quickly along the street.

The first man Jake saw, who was waiting for his coffee, and staring out the window at the same two men. He  looks over at Jake. He’s wearing a grey suit that’s kind of wrinkly and sweating profusely. He’s about the same age as Jake. The man gets his coffee, then walks over to Jake’s table.

“You’re Jake Morrison.”

“Yeah…who wants to know?” 

The man sits down. “You don’t remember me do you, Jake?”

Jake scratches his head. Then rubs his chin. “You know, I do, but it’s pretty fuzzy.” Jake says, trying to humour the fellow.

“It was a long time ago, Jake. U of T. Philosophy. Professor Higgins.”

“Jesus Christ. It’s, ummm. Marlowe…Tommy Marlowe?”

“Terry…”

“Terry, right, Man, it’s been a few years, Terry. How the hell have you been? You dropped out after first year, as I recall.”

“Yeah. Missed my calling with Liberal arts. Switched to systems engineering and then won a postgraduate scholarship at MIT. I was doing research there until about five years ago when I went into the private sector.

“Bill Gates finally get his hooks into you?”

“Something like that. And what about you? You’re quite the local celebrity, I hear.”

“Naaa. I’m just too lazy to get a real job, so I write a TV and video review column and do a radio show.”

“Didn’t I read that you’re syndicated in something like a hundred and fifty papers.”

“Don’t believe everything you read. It’s a hundred and twelve. And it pays the bills.”

Jake glances out the window and notices the two burly men. They are backtracking up the street checking out one store at a time. He looks back at Marlow and sees he is studying them closely.

“Friends of yours, Terry?”

“Who?”

“The two thugs across the street.  The ones you haven’t been able to take your eyes off.”

“Oh them. Well, Jake, it’s a bit complex. Tell me something. Do you come to this place a lot?”

“Yeah, I guess. I like working here. The hustle and bustle is mentally stimulating.”

“Are you gonna be here, say tomorrow about this time?”

“I don’t know…Terry, are you in some kind of trouble?”

Marlowe doesn’t reply, but reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small key. He leans forward. “Jake, I need you to do me a favour.” He slides the key across the table. “I need you to hold onto this key for me. I’ll meet you here tomorrow at this time and pick it up…I promise.” 

Jake and Marlowe look out at the street and see the two guys as they cross over to the same side of the street as the coffee shop. Jake stares at Marlowe who is visibly trembling at this point.

“I guess it would be best if I didn’t ask you like...what the hell is going on?” 

“Yeah, that would be best. Look Jake, I gotta go. Can I count on you? For old time’s sake.”

Jake grabs the key and drops it into his breast pocket. “Sure, Terry, no problem.” 

Marlowe puts the lid back on his coffee cup and gets up. 

“Tomorrow, same time. I’ll buy you lunch or something. Okay Jake. I gotta go. Thanks, man.”

 Marlowe is out of his seat before Jake has a chance to reply. He’s back at the counter. The counterperson points him in the direction of the back door and he is gone.

A few minutes later, Jake comes out of the coffee shop as the two men walk by him and go inside. He unlocks his bike and takes off down the street.

~ 3 ~

The next morning Jake rides by the coffee shop. He doesn’t see Marlowe anywhere inside. He does, however, notice a nondescript sedan parked in an alleyway directly across from the coffee shop. There are two men sitting in it. 

Jake parks his bike down the street and walks up to a bookstore across from the alley. Here, he can see both the coffee shop and the car. He picks up a magazine and leans against the rack staring out the window, waiting. Jake waits a few more minutes. Then he sees Marlow skulking up the street and into the coffee shop. He takes a seat at the counter and waits, looking at his watch. The men in the car do not budge. One of the windows on the car rolls down and Jake can see it’s one of the two thugs from the day before.

“Jesus Christ.” Jake says to himself. Then he reaches into his bag and pulls out a notepad. He scribbles a note on a page, then rips it out and folds it up.  A few minutes later, Jake enters the coffee shop, unseen by Marlowe, and walks over to the counter. He pulls out a ten-dollar bill and the note. “Could you give this note to that gentleman sitting at the end of the counter. Thanks.” 

Jake leaves as the counterperson walks up to deliver the note to Marlowe. Marlowe opens the note and lays it on the table in front of him. It reads.

“You are being watched. Blue sedan across the street. Leave by the back entrance and lose them. Meet me at City Hall at noon. By the pool.”

Marlowe sneaks a glance at the blue sedan. He slowly tears up the note and drops it into his coffee cup. A few moments later he leaves by the rear entrance.

At noon, Jake is up on the second level of City Hall, overlooking the pool and the wide expanse of cement filled with tourists and lunch-hour people. He looks at his watch. Below him he sees Marlowe walking up the steps from the parking garage below. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the two thugs appear. They grab Marlowe and drag him back down the stairs. 

Jake, runs down the ramp and down the stairs where the two thugs dragged Marlowe.

The thugs, with Marlowe in tow, enter the garage. Suddenly Marlowe makes a break. As he runs, Marlowe pulls a gun out of his jacket. He turns and fires. The bullets ricochet off the walls. The thugs go down but come up firing. Marlowe takes several bullets to the body. He lies in a heap, by the front door of his car. 

The thugs run to Marlowe and quickly search his body. One of them takes his car keys and opens the car and starts to search it. Sirens begin to sound, but the thugs are unperturbed and keep searching methodically. Jake watches from the doorway, unseen. Angry at not having found what they are looking for the thugs lay a foot beating on Marlowe’s body then casually move to a different exit. Jake heads back up the stairs.

Later that evening, Jake sits at his desk with a glass of Southern Comfort in one hand. He takes a sip. He picks up the locker key and looks at it closely. “So, it’s just you and me, Mr. Key. I guess you’re something pretty special.” 

Jake takes another sip of his Southern Comfort. He flips on the TV one of the local talking heads is standing by the City Hall pool.

Another murder for Metro. And a very strange one at that. Two unidentified men grabbed another man at City Hall. They then dragged the man into the parking garage where a gunfight occurred and the victim died from multiple gunshot wounds. His car was then broken into and ransacked, the killers obviously looking for something. Police are searching for two white men in their thirties. The victim’s identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Jake flips off the TV. He stares out the window of his porch into the black night, pondering his fate. He’d seen enough bad TV to know that getting involved with a murder case would only eat up a year of his life, and besides, it certainly wouldn’t bring Terry Marlowe back from the dead.

~ 4 ~

The next day, Jake, wearing a pass around his neck, enters the Metro section of the Toronto Sun on King Street. He walks over to a desk where a small wiry guy named Tony Corelli sits pounding on a keyboard. He has a headset on. He’s obviously engrossed in a conversation and writing down its content. Jake sits down beside his desk. Corelli looks over and winks. He holds up a finger. 

“So he’s willing to say that in court. Madone! Guess I owe you a big one, Shenkman….Yeah, I got it. Tomorrow morning. Right.”

Tony pushes a button on his phone to disconnect the call. He hammers on the keys some more. He punches in another number on the phone. 

“It’s Tony...comin’ at you. Show it to the old man will you and tell him I want my fuckin Pulitzer delivered by a very tall Italian supermodel named Sophia.”

Tony pulls off the headset and ships his article off to the copy editor.

“Jake Morrison. As I live and breathe.” Tony said.

“Tony...sounds like you got yourself a hot one.” 

“Wife beating baseball player. Those fuckin’ Spics don’t know how to treat a woman. They’re all big hard on and ‘ain’t I the cat’s ass’. So what’s up with you? Hand delivering your column?”

“No, actually I might have something for you. But I need a little info.”

Tony pushes away from the desk and gets to his feet. 

Tony, in a voice loud enough for the people in the immediate area to hear. “Buy me a coffee in the cafeteria. We can get away from all these nosy parasites who spend their lives picking up Corelli’s crumbs.”

Groans are heard all around as the two men leave the newsroom.

A few minutes later, Jake and Tony Corelli are sitting at a table in the Sun’s cafeteria, away from everyone else. Corelli is puffing on a vape cylinder “So this Marlowe just plops down in front of you and lays all this shit on you?” Tony asks.

“Yeah...go figure.”

“And then the next day, he gets popped at City Hall?”

“Yeah…” Jake said with a sigh.

“Whoa. You are sittin’ on something, Jake. I’d call it a nest of vipers.”

“Don’t sugar coat it Tony, tell me what you really think.”

Tony chuckles and picks up the locker key and fingers it. “This is just your average locker key. Some subway station. The bus terminal. Train station. Airport. Could be anywhere.”

“I’m a little out of my depth here. I’m just a fuckin’ TV reviewer.” Jake says.

Tony slides the key back across the table to Jake. “I’ll run a search on this dude Marlowe and see what I can dig up on him. In the meantime, you should get on that mountain bike of yours and start combing the city. It shouldn’t be that hard to locate. Start downtown. Dundas Bus Station or Union Station would be your best bets.”

“Thanks Tony.” 

“Sure, no sweat. Look, I’m gonna break the Marlowe thing. But I’ll keep your name out of it. I don’t need you for this. But I really want to know what’s in the locker, Jake. You still have the same email address?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll send you the info on Marlowe if there’s any to be had.”

“No problem.”

“And Jake, for Chrissake be careful. This is bad-ass shit no matter how you slice it.”

Tony and Jake get up and they shake hands. Jake sits back down. He turns and stares out the window wondering what the hell is going on. In a few minutes, he is on his bike and riding around downtown. He enters the downtown subway stations, the bus, and finally the train station. In each of these places, he is careful not to be too obvious. He simply walks on by, glancing casually at the numbers on the lockers and looking around to see if anybody is watching them.

At Union Station, Jake finally spies a locker with the same number and no key in it. He quickly walks on by. He ducks into a magazine store and watches the locker for a while.  There’s nothing unusual going on there. Jake pulls his wallet out of his shoulder bag and walks toward the lockers. At the locker next to the locker for which he has the key, he opens the door, slips his bag in, drops in a quarter, closes the locker back up and walks away. He goes to a coffee shop and sits at the counter watching his lockers.

Half an hour later, the rush hour begins and the crowds start to fill the place. Convinced that nobody is watching. Jake goes to the lockers. He opens his and takes out his shoulder bag. Then he quickly opens the other one. There is only a small computer case in it. He takes the case. He notices that it is heavy. He walks away as nonchalantly as he can. 

At Jake’s house that evening, the computer case sits on his desk. Jake sits at the desk chair staring at it. He takes a long slug of the beer in his hand. He lays the case down on its side and unzips the top. Inside is a PC Notebook computer. A very sleek, modern one.  No brand name that he can see. There are also several mini-discs with handwritten labels in plastic sleeves. There is also another plastic case with what appears to be a large computer chip inside. The chip is bright orange.  On the top right-hand corner of the chip case is a small Post-It note with 6-G Beta (02) 06/13/22 written on it. Jake puts this stuff aside and starts exploring the other pouches.  In one he finds the AC adapter for the computer and a thin trackpad. In another, he finds several documents from an offshore bank in the Cayman Islands. One is a statement from a bank in the Grand Caymans. It shows a balance of $5,342,600.00.  Scribbled in the top corner of the statement is a 15-digit authorization number. There is also an envelope filled with what looks to be thousand-dollar US bills. Jake is quickly putting all this together. “Holy shit.” he mumbles to himself.

Jake plugs in the computer and fires it up. He is taken aback at how quickly it comes to life. There is a fan which is cooling it, and it sounds quite loud. A number of files instantly appear on the desktop.  He clicks on the one entitled Project Turbo Presentation. He clicks on it. Suddenly a viewer comes up and Marlowe appears sitting in an office of some sort. Behind him is a large window of smoked glass.

“Gentlemen. Thank you for attending this presentation. As you know we have been experimenting, for a few years now with super-conductive copper system chip designs. The conservative estimates for the power increases which would result from the perfection of this technology have been in the 15 to 20  gigahertz range. Gentlemen, I’m here to tell you that as we speak we are running a newly minted G-1 chip in mainframe testing which can achieve processing speeds in excess of sixty-four gigahertz. This is more than 30 times faster than the fastest conventional systems available to date. Needless to say, since we are an independent design company, and not currently contracted to any one chip manufacturer, we’re willing to license this technology to any computer company willing to meet our simple terms of business.”

As Marlowe continues to talk the demands are displayed over his shoulder.

“Our demands are simple. 1. Thirty-three percent of all profits in perpetuity. 2. A five percent ongoing research and development allotment, and 3. A signing bonus of $1.2 billion dollars US. Gentlemen, please consider this offer very carefully. The future of the computer industry is riding on it, perhaps even the future of the world. If you are interested please send an email to the address below indicating such. We’ll take it from there.”

An hour later, Jake is sitting with Tony Corelli in his east-side apartment. They have just watched the video.

“Who the hell is this dude?” Corelli said. “He’s not any kind of bad guy.” 

“I don’t know. But he sounds pretty confident here.”

Corelli picks up his phone and punches in a number and waits a few seconds. “Judy Blue Eyes, it’s Tony. Listen… Copper computer chips...Who are some of the movers and shakers in that area...yeah this would be private people. Not like an Intel or anything. Yeah. He scribbles down a name. ‘Eggheads Unlimited’ How about Terry Marlowe?…hot damn. No that’s good…thanks Judy....yeah, that would be nice. I’ll call you next week.” Corelli puts down the phone. 

“This thing got Internet?” Corelli said pointing at the laptop.

“Yeah. I think so.” Jake says as he clicks the Internet Connect icon on the desktop.  The Google search engine comes up.  Jake pulls down a list of bookmarks and sees Eggheads Unlimited. He clicks on it. He is instantly transported there. “Nice house in upstate New York. Seed funding from all kinds of corporations: Apple. IBM. Compaq. Sun Microsystems. Wait a minute...Here we go. There he is. Terrance Marlowe. Director of Systems Research and Development. That’s the dude, Tony.” Jake says, as he opens a few more links on the site. “Looks like he’s a one-man show with a lot of remote sub-contractors.”

Corelli takes a deep breath. “Let’s take a look at this logically. You’ve got a computer chip and the building instructions. You’ve got a laptop prototype. You’ve got a bank statement for five million and change in a Cayman Islands bank account, which you also have the password for. Probably all his seed money, which he hadn’t spent yet because he hasn’t taken his chip into production.  And you’ve got nobody to give it to cause the guy who owns all this stuff is dead.”

“That’s about it.” 

“And you, being the good little boy scout you are will search high and low to find somebody to give it back to.”

“I’d like nothing better.”

“And it means nothing to you that the guy who owns all this stuff, got offed by pair of dudes so crazy they killed him at City Hall in the middle of the day. Before you answer, I want you to think about it. And think realistically now, about just how long you will survive from the minute these people find out who you are.”

“But they don’t know who I am. And they don’t know that I’ve got this stuff.”

“You really have been watching too much TV, Jake. They’ll find you. These kinds of people can find anything.”  

Corelli walks over to his wet bar and gets another beer for both of them. “They’ll probably be looking at security tapes at the train station and see you making off with the case. I think it would be a mistake to assume that these people can’t put two and two together and come up with your ass on a platter.”

“So that's what they were looking for on Marlowe's body. The locker key.”

“I'd say so. Always assume the bad guys know everything.”

Jake is visibly shaken by the stark logic that Corelli is laying out.

“So if you were in this pickle, what would you do, Tony?”

“I’d split. Right now. And I’d seek some professional help. I know a guy who can help you. He’s not cheap. But then you’ve got five million in the bank.”

“That money doesn’t belong to me.”

“Jake. Read my lips. That money and that gear belong to whoever has it in their possession. What doesn’t belong to you is your life. Not until this is over and you have safely unloaded that chip.”

Jake is no dummy. He knows that Corelli is right. He walks over to the window and looks out at the city. 

Corelli thumbs through his business card box until he finds what he’s looking for. He walks over to the window and hands Jake a card. “The guy’s name is Mick Tyler. He’ll keep you alive. He’ll help you plan a strategy and be your go-between. Go call him right now at a pay phone on the street. Do nothing until you talk to him. Nothing. You’ve got to disappear for a while, Jake. You’ve got to get clean away. And Stacy too.” 

“She’s gone to Chatham to be with her mom for a while.”

“Get hold of her and let her know she should stay there till she hears from you. Now get out of here.”

Jake turns to leave, then turns back The two men embrace warmly.

~ 5 ~

The two thugs who killed Terry Marlow are actually brothers, Calvin and Eldon Dupree, imported from Louisiana. They tracked Terry Marlowe from New York to Toronto, and they were tasked with getting the hardware Marlowe had with him and getting rid of him with no witnesses. But Marlow didn’t have the hardware, and unbeknownst to them at the time, they did have a witness to Terry Marlowe’s murder in the person of Jake Morrison.

On this morning, they are doing some follow-up at the coffee shop where they last saw Marlowe and then tracked him to city hall. 

They are out the back where a young guy named Toby Roberts was taking a smoke break. 

“Yeah, I remember the dude. Came in got a latte and sat over in the corner like he was waiting for something. Then this other dude comes in and gives me ten bucks to pass the first dude a note. I didn’t look at the note, but he did, then he tore it up into small pieces and put it in his coffee. Then he split by the back door. Never saw him after that.”

“What about the guy who gave you the note?” said Eldon, who is the older Dupree and did most of the talking because his younger brother, Calvin, was pretty much a moron.

“Yeah, he comes in regularly. I remember because I recognized him. He’s got a column in the Sunday Sun...It’s called The Couch Potato…ummm Couch Potato Chronicles. Yeah.” 

“Have you ever talked to him? Does he live around here?” Eldon asked.

“I talked to him about his column once. He really liked this show with Nathan Lane that got cancelled and so did I. It never got any deeper than that. I can’t remember his name. Just the Couch Potato thing.” 

“Well thanks for the information, Tony. Let me give you a little something for your trouble.”

Suddenly Calvin steps forward and hits Toby square in the gut and doubles him over. He then pulls out a silenced Sig Sauer 9mm pistol and quickly puts two slugs behind Toby’s ear. Toby flops to the cement. The Duprees walk away quickly and quietly down the alley.

~ 6 ~

Jake heads home and packs a nylon bag with some clothes, his laptop and his travel kit. He locks the house up tight and heads to the Tim Horton’s on Leslie Street. At the Tim Horton’s Jake stands in the foyer, with a coffee in one hand and the payphone phone in the other. “Mr. Tyler. I was referred to you by Tony C. Yes, all right. 416 690-0330. Right.” 

Jake hangs up the phone and sips his coffee. A moment later the phone rings. Jake picks it up. “Hello...yes, all right...Yes, at the Lakeshore. All right. I’ll do that. Yes sir. twenty minutes.”

Jake hangs up the phone again and walks to his car. He leaves the parking lot and drives across the street to the lot of a large 24-hour Loblaws supermarket. He parks on the far side of the lot next to two diesel trailers. Carrying the computer case and his own bag, he walks back to the Tim Horton's where he orders another coffee and takes a seat facing away from the window.

Mick Tyler, a tallish burly man in his early forties, enters the coffee shop. He orders a coffee and a Bavarian creme donut. On his way out he detours slightly to Jake’s table. “Wait five minutes then start walking up Leslie Street. I’ll pick you up.” 

Mick leaves the shop and walks down to the rear of the lot where his Jeep is parked. Jake waits the appropriate amount of time then he leaves. Mick watches from his Jeep. There is no extraordinary activity that he can see. Mick drives the Jeep up the block, past Jake and makes a U-turn. He stops beside Jake. Jake gets in and tosses his gear in the backseat.

“Mick Tyler.”

“Jake Morrison.” 

The two men shake hands and Mick says. “Welcome to the underground, Jake.” Mick and Jake drive off.

~ 7 ~

In the Markham Ontario corporate headquarters of Aurora Digital, a man sits at a large desk, his feet up on the surface. His name is Yale Barnett. He is wearing a very expensive shirt and tie. suit pants with suspenders, and a pair of cordovan-coloured loafers. A real preppie nerd. 

He is looking across his office at a couch where his security chief and partner, Titus Riley, is staring at the screen of a laptop on the coffee table in front of him. Riley is dressed casually in slacks and a blue cotton jacket over a white cotton collarless shirt. He looks to be in his early fifties. His hair is military short. His eyes are sharp and dark and his face is thin but tanned with the beginnings of crow’s feet around his eyes. On the screen is Eldon Dupree one of the two thugs who are working for him. 

“Who in the name of Christ told you to terminate the subject in that manner? I’m sure it wasn’t me. Are you working for someone else who may have given you that order? If you are I’d like to know, ‘cause you’re in a serious conflict of interest situation here.”

“We know who probably has the package. His name is Jake Morrison.” Eldon said.

“And how, pray tell, do you know this? Did the ex Mr. Marlowe tell you or are you just some kind of fuckin’ mind reader?”

“Look, Mr. Riley, you paid us to find the package and eliminate the threat. You didn’t specify an order for doing that?” Eldon said, a little bit pissed at Riley’s condescending tone.

“Your sarcasm is not lost on me. When do you expect to locate the package?”

“I’d conservatively estimate within forty-eight hours.” Elvin says.

“Do I hear an echo...I believe I do, ‘cause that’s what you told me forty-eight hours ago.”

“This is not an exact science Mr. Riley. You should know that.”

“Sir, you insult science, by the mere use of that sentence. Send me every bit of intel you have. Right now!”

“Forty-eight hours, Mr. Riley”

“Riley clicks off the computer. He gets to his feet and slams the laptop closed.”

“Assholes! ASSHOLES ARE FUCKING EVERYWHERE!” He walks over to the window and stares out into the black night. 

“Is this happening or what, Titus?” Barnett asked. “Right now it sounds like a big nothing burger and that you’ve hired a couple of psychos to do the cooking.”

“Yeah, well like the man said, it’s an inexact science.”

“Send some guys after him. Why lease the technology when you can take it? Now look where we’re at. Marlowe’s dead and we don’t even know for sure who’s got the fucking chip.” 

“Well, we’ll just have to find out, now won’t we?” 

“Riley, you have absolutely no idea what controlling this technology can mean to this company or any company that has it.”

Riley gets to his feet. He moves over to the bar and pours himself a glass of scotch.

“That’s right, Yale. I don’t.” 

“It’s worth billions. Hundreds of billions. It makes every fucking computer on the planet obsolete…instantly.”

“I never was very big on computers. But I do understand roads and your development path, I’m sure, will be a long and winding one.”

Barnett returns to his desk. He opens up his laptop and starts typing something. Riley walks over to the window.

“Who was the guy they said had the package?” Barnett says.

“Somebody named Jake Morrison. But they don’t know for sure. He was just seen talking to Marlowe.” 

“Jake Morrison. Barnett said. “That name sounds familiar.” Barnett picks up a newspaper on his desk and opens it up. He finds what he is looking for then folds the paper and hands it to Riley.” 

“Oh yeah. The Couch Potato Chronicles. Do you ever read this? It’s not bad.” Barnett said.

Riley reads a bit of the column then tosses the newspaper on the desk. Barnett picks it up again. “So who is this guy?”

“Who knows? Maybe somebody Marlowe grew up with. It’s all speculative at this point.” 

Barnett punches a few keystrokes. 

“Looks like this Jake Morrison guy has a website.”

“Send him an email.”

“Send him an email? What the hell for?” Barnett said.

“Look, the guy’s a fuckin’ TV critic—what does he know about this stuff? We might be able to scoop it from him while he’s tryin' to get his bearings. Offer him five million. Tell him you’ll honour Marlowe’s demands. Get to be his pal.”

 “You forget one thing, Titus. Somebody is dead.”

“So. Play dumb. That’ll never be traced back to you. That’s why I hired the fucking Duprees.”

“You really think something like that will work?”

 “Use your imagination, Yale. The lad is probably scared shitless. He’s just a regular guy who stepped in it. He’s not even worth killing.”

“I don’t know,” Barnett said. “What if he isn’t some kind of bumpkin, and he decides to sell the product off to somebody else.”

“He won’t. Because he’s not capable of operating on that level. Jesus Christ, you’re paranoid.” Riley walks back to the bar. “All we can do is locate this kid and see what he has. It may just be a dead end.”

“Let’s hope not, Titus, for the sake of both our futures.”

“I’ll take it from here, Yale. You just go home and count your fuckin’ billions.” Riley said.

“I don’t know about this making personal contact thing.” 

Riley turns toward Barnett, getting seriously into his face.

“So just do it, Yale. Just do it and don’t think about it. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Riley turns and leaves the room. Barnett flops down into his plush executive chair and stares out at the cityscape ten miles to the south.

~ 8 ~

Riley sits in his car in the parking lot of Aurora Digital. He activates his phone, sitting in a dash mount and punches a number on his speed dial. He then picks up the phone.

“Thomas, I’ve got a job for you…yeah...I’m on my way into the city. No...no... I need you to work from home...set up a relay and a scrambler and call me with the new number at around noon tomorrow. Then write this down... yeah, I’ll wait….Okay, Jake Morrison...The Couch Potato Chronicles…Toronto…umm Terry Marlowe. Eggheads Unlimited. Oswego New York. Yeah…by noon.  I need to get a good night’s sleep. No...money is no object. I just want as much information as you can give me…Yeah. It’s about the hardware Marlowe was going to sell us.”

Riley disconnects and drives on into the twilight.

Thomas MacDonnell, a man of about thirty-five, stands in his kitchen. He is wearing an expensive silk robe. He is brewing himself a cup of tea. When the tea is ready he takes it down to the lower level of his house into what can best be described as a high-tech war room, filled with computers, monitors and telephony and laid out in an elegant semi-circular shape, adjacent to a large set of sliding glass doors which open onto a beautifully lit yard with a pool.

MacDonnell carefully sets his tea down by the keyboard by one of the large computers. He plays with the keys for a moment then extracts a piece of paper from the pocket of his robe and starts transferring the information, which displays on an oversized LCD screen. When he finishes typing, he presses enter and sits back, taking up his teacup and sipping.

That same evening, Mick Tyler and Jake head out to Scarborough for dinner at a Chinese restaurant called the Red Dragon.

A few hours later, Mick Tyler’s Jeep pulls into his driveway. It’s a quiet street in an area known as Leaside. The houses are all two-story but not huge, and the grounds are all very well-kept. He and Jake get out and enter the house through the back door.

“Coffee?” Mick said, pulling a tin out of the cupboard.

“No thanks.” Jake replied. “This late at night, it jangles my nerves.”

“Right. Well, maybe we should just turn in. Make a fresh start in the morning.”

“I wouldn’t say no to that.”

“The guest room is the second door on your left at the top of the stairs. The bathroom is at the end of the hall. Look in the drawer on the right side of the vanity. There’s a new toothbrush, soap if you want to take a shower whatever.”

“Thanks. I brought most of my own gear.”

“I need you to leave me the computer, Jake...I want to check it out for bugs.” 

Jake sets Marlowe’s computer bag on the counter, opens it and slides out the laptop. He reaches into a compartment and pulls out the AC adapter and the trackpad. The rest of what was in the case, Jake has tucked away at the bottom of his haversack.

“Here you go.”

“You get a good night’s sleep.  And I don’t want you to worry about anything.”

“Funnily enough, the only thing I’m really worried about is getting my column out on time.”

“I’ve got a shielded iMac in my study with high-speed internet access and a dump site set up.  You can write it on the iMac and upload it to wherever it has to go by Messenger. Then you can call your editor and have him download it. That way if anybody’s got an email tracker on you, it won’t get traced back.”

“Wow...you’ve got it all covered.” 

“Name of the game, Jake.”

“I’ll do it first thing in the morning.” Jake says as grabs his haversack in the foyer and heads upstairs. Mick gathers up the computer and trackpad and heads to his study, down the hall. 

The next morning Riley is driving into the city.  He flips around on the radio stations until he finds the kind of music that he wants to hear. Vintage rock. He starts tapping along to an old Cars’ song, when his cell phone beeps. He shuts the radio off and taps on his phone. He picks it up. He flips on the speaker. It’s Thomas MacDonnell.

“Yeah...Thomas...talk to me, man.” 

“I’ve put together an info package and emailed it to you, so we wouldn’t have to talk too much on the phone. There’s not much there.”

“Is there anything I need to know that’s not in your summary?”

“Just that this Morrison guy is a civilian. All you have to do is find him, ask him real nice for what you want and he’ll give it to you. Probably.”

“You’re sure about that, are you?”

“Reasonably sure. Hell, he may not even know what he has.”

“I somehow doubt that. But if I have to trade...what do you think would constitute a good offer?”

“Well, there is someone. They live together. She recently used her Visa card at some place in Chatham Ontario. That’s about 150 miles from Toronto.” 

“Name?” 

“In the report.”

“OK.” 

“You know Barnett called me this morning. Wanted to know what you were up to.” MacDonnell says.

“That fucking weasel. What’d you tell him?” 

“I told him to stuff it up his ass, if there was any room.”

“If he wasn’t such a goddamn celebrity, I'da had capped him a long time ago.”

“Yeah, right. And with all your vast computer knowledge, you would have just carried on in stately fashion.”

“Propellerheads are a dime a dozen.”

“Some are worth a little more than that.”

“No offence.”

“None taken.”

“I’ll stay in touch. Hang around the house for a few days, in case I need some more info.”

“Roger that.”

Riley disconnects and smiles to himself.

~ 9 ~

At Mick’s house the next morning, Mick is putting on coffee as Jake enters the kitchen. Jake sees the laptop on the counter. He walks over and looks at the screen. The website for Aurora Computers is displayed. There is a picture of both Barnett and Riley. 

“Who are these dudes?”

“One of them is your worst nightmare.” 

“Which one?” 

Mick points to Riley. “The nasty-looking SOB. His name is Titus Riley.” 

“And what’s so nasty about him?”

“Let’s just say we have a bit of history between us.”

“Oh yeah? What…like he taught you everything you know about what you do or something?”

“Not quite everything. Titus is not the kind of person who can deal with anyone having any advantage over him.”

“Am I supposed to say ‘Oh shit, we’re screwed’ or something?”

“No, you’re supposed to tell me how you like your coffee and let me worry about Riley.”

“I can do that.”

“But it is gonna change things a little.”

“In what way?”

“I’m probably gonna have to kill Riley.” 

Jake stops dead in his tracks. It finally sinks in how serious this situation actually is. “For real?”

“Yeah. I don’t like the idea. But you gotta play the hand that’s dealt you.” 

“What the hell does that mean?” Jake asked, with a little angry edge to his voice.

“It means that if Titus Riley is coming after you, there’s really only one way to prevent your death.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

 

At Jake’s house the next morning, Riley parks around the corner and then walks up the driveway when he’s sure no one is looking. He picks the lock and enters through the back door. He’s wearing thin rubber gloves. He walks around and checks things out. He sees a picture of Jake and Stacy sitting on a shelf. He uses his phone to take a picture of it. He walks over to Jake’s desk. He turns on the computer and continues to walk around while it boots up. He opens the fridge and pulls out a small bottle of spring water. He walks back to the computer table and sits down. He opens up Jake’s hard drive files and rummages through them. He finds nothing of interest. He looks at the blinking answering machine. He presses play and listens to the messages.

Hi Jake, this is Tricia with your Wednesday morning reminder. Twenty-four hours to deadline. Wakey. Wakey.

Hi Jake, it’s me. Mom’s feeling a lot better. I should be able to get back home by Saturday. Love you.

Riley moves around on Jake’s hard drive until he finds Jake's personal phone directory. He opens it up and prints out a hard copy. Riley closes the computer and leaves with the bottle of water. He walks back down the driveway and up the street to where his car is parked. He gets in his car and drives off. more or less unnoticed.

As he passes an alleyway, Mick Tyler’s Jeep pulls out and begins to follow. He left Jake at his house so he could write his column.

Mick follows Riley at a discreet distance. Riley drives casually through the city streets. After a few moments, Riley becomes aware of the Jeep following him. He begins a series of evasive maneuvers in his car but the Jeep stays with him. He steps up the pace of his evasiveness, but the Jeep still stays with him. 

Finally, he takes a deep breath and decides on another tactic. He turns onto Queens Street then pulls over and parks his car along Queen Street. He enters a Starbucks and orders a latte. He takes it to a table by the window and sits down. He sips his coffee slowly.  After a moment, Mick takes the seat across from him, a latte in his hand as well.

“I had a feeling you were somehow involved in this, Mick.” Riley says.

“I was kind of hopin’ you wouldn’t be, Titus.”

“I just bet you were. But there it is.”

“Yep. There it is.”

“I’m assuming you’ve got some kind of deal you’d like to propose.” 

“Deal? No, not really. Not just yet.”

“Well then when?”

“When I can have some assurances.”

“Assurances? What kind of assurances would we be talking about then?”

“Nothing major. I mean, my client wants nothing more than to be rid of this thing.”

“You know what this thing is?”

“Come on, Titus.”

“Well then, what kind of assurances can I give you?”

“Well, the way I figure it, there’s a certain amount of inconvenience my client has suffered. Along with a certain amount of expense he’s been forced to incur.” 

“Namely you.”

“Namely me for sure.”

“And you would both like to be compensated for this in some way?”

“Not in some way. But in two very specific ways.”

“What specifically would those be?”

“Well, there’s money.” 

“And…?”

“Then there is both our asses, which are currently in one piece.”

“And you’d like them to remain that way, I assume?”

“That would be nice.”

“And just what degree of assurance would you require from me?”

“A videotaped deposition.”

Riley almost spits his coffee all over the window. He starts to laugh so heartily it makes him cough. He collects himself and looks over at Mick. He starts to laugh again.

“You always did have balls of steel.”

“I’d classify this as more a ‘will to live’ gesture, out of respect for your abilities.”

Riley stares out the window for a moment. He then turns to Mick. 

“Meet me here in twenty-four hours. I’ll give you my answer then.” 

Riley gets up and walks out the door. Mick quickly slips out the back. He knows Riley has no intention of capitulating. Mick discreetly follows Riley’s car to the Harbour Castle Hilton. The valet parks the car for Riley. Mick pulls away and drives back to his house. 

Jake is sitting at the kitchen counter working on his laptop. Mick pokes his head into the kitchen.

“Did you send in your column?” Mick asked.

“Yeah. Half an hour ago.”

“OK, get your stuff together. We gotta split. Right now!” 

Jake is on his feet quickly. He runs upstairs and grabs his bag. He slips the MacBook into his shoulder bag. “Ready when you are, sir.” and he throws in a mock salute.

“Very funny. Go out the back door. Toss your bag in the back of my Jeep then walk down past the garage to the alleyway. Turn left and go down about three houses. You’ll see another garage that’s open. Make yourself invisible and wait for me. Do not come out until you see me. Now go!”

Jake heads out the back door. Mick moves quickly through the house filling up a small haversack with stuff. He moves quickly and efficiently. He’s done this before. He grabs Marlowe’s computer bag and leaves the house by the back door. 

Mick’s Jeep pulls out of the driveway and heads up the street. Literally, seconds later, a black van turns onto his street. Mick turns into the alley, just a few seconds before they see him. The black van pulls up in front of Mick’s place. The Duprees jump out and converge on it like a pair of locusts. Mick’s car comes to a stop in front of the garage where Jake is hiding. He rolls down the window. “Jake.” he shouts.

“Is that you Mick?”

“Let’s go, man.”

Jake walks out of the garage and climbs into the passenger seat of the Jeep, which pulls away quickly.

~ 10 ~

At a shopping mall close by, Mick pulls into the underground garage. He finds a place off in the corner and parks the Jeep. He jumps out and quickly changes the license plates. Jake hops out as well. 

“Well, the first thing we have to do is stash the package.”

“You got any suggestions?”

“Yeah. I’ve got quite a few. But that decision is gonna have to be yours.”

“Plausible deniability?”

“I’d call it leverage. If you’re the only one who knows where it is, then you’re not expendable.”

“So you’re saying you’d rat me out, if they sweated you.”

“In a New York minute.”

“Well, that’s just fucking great.” 

Mick gets to his feet and dusts himself off. “No, Jake, that’s how the game is played down here. I wouldn’t want to, but…”

Mick tosses Jake the keys. He reaches into the back of the car and pulls out a baseball cap. He tosses that to Jake too. 

“Go find someplace to stash that stuff. Then pick me up back here in two hours.” 

Jake gets in the car. “What if I just keep going? Never come never come back. I could get away.”

“Jake, just listen to me. You’re in way over your head. There’s no way on God’s earth that you’re gonna dumbass your way out of this pickle. You gotta walk out frontwards. Go back to your life. Otherwise, they’ll just take it all from you and never think twice about it.”

“Okay, I’m sold. I’ll be back here in two hours.” Jake pulls away.

Jake drives along Eastern Avenue and pulls into the parking lot of a computer store. He takes the computer case from the backseat and walks to the store. The store is quiet, it’s mid-afternoon. There’s a young man, about twenty-two, sitting at the counter formatting a new hard drive in an older Mac computer. His name is Andy. He greets Jake warmly. 

“Jake, how’s it going?”

“Could be worse, Andy. How’s things in computer retail?”

“New iPad coming out next week. Weighs in at a mere 1.2 pounds. Just right for a Couch Spud around town.”

“No kidding?” 

“So what’s happening with you?”

“Not much…actually, I have to go out of town and Stacy’s at her mom’s. I need a small favor from you, Andy.

“Sure…whatever you need.”

I need to leave my laptop with you for a few days. Been a lot of break-ins in my neighborhood lately.”

“Done. I’ll stash it in my office.”

Jake hands Andy the case. 

“You want me to do a tune-up on it?”

“No. No. It’s fine. But I will bring the desktop in. Could use some more RAM. I’ll do that as soon as I get back.”

“Cool.” Andy walks back to his office, unlocks a credenza and slides the case in. “Okay, Jake. Nobody’ll come near it, I promise.”

“I love my MacBook, Andy.”

“I know you do Jake. But you really should learn to love a new one.”

“We’ll discuss it as soon as I get back. I promise…and thanks again, Andy. You’re a good friend.”

Jake and Andy shake hands and do a bro hug. Jake leaves the store.

About an hour outside of Toronto, Mick Tyler’s Jeep pulls off the highway onto a two-lane road. It turns into the parking lot of a restaurant called the Longhorn Steakhouse. Jake and Mick enter the restaurant.  As they are waiting for their orders, and sipping Cokes, Mick looks Jake square in the eye. 

“This thing you’ve got, you need to know that these people who are on our trail, they’re not fuckin’ around. They are stone killers, all of them. They’re getting paid a lot of money to get this shit, and they don’t care how much of a scorched earth deal it turns out to be.”

“So you’re gonna have to kill a few people, is that what you’re saying.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Because it ain’t over till the last dog dies, Jake. And I know you’re a civilian and this is so far out of your wheelhouse that you can’t even imagine it, but there it is. I have to kill them all. And I don’t even know how many of them there might be. Hopefully, it’s just Titus Riley and a couple of goons. But then there's the employer. The guy who can take this invention and make himself the richest person in the world with it. So I would imagine that we might even have to take him out too. Goons are one thing, but takin’ out a rich guy, that’s gonna draw some heat.”

“I have to tell you, Mick. I feel like I’m in a goddamn movie.”

“It’s pretty surreal, that’s for sure. And it’s been a while since I’ve been in a scenario like this myself. But a job is a job. My job is makin’ sure you stay in one piece so I can get paid. Your job is doing exactly what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it. You got that?”

“Oh yeah. I’ve got it.”

A few hours later, it’s nearly dark. Jake and Mick leave the restaurant. They stop at a payphone. Jake drops in a coin and gets the operator. Mick stands about ten feet from the booth, watching the highway. 

“Hello, Stacy. It’s me…yeah. How you doin’?…How’s your mom? Oh good…No…I didn’t get that message. Yeah…well, I’m in a bit of a situation. It’s a very long story.  I haven’t been home, Stace. Listen, okay, listen very carefully. Do not come back to the city just yet. Not until you hear from me, alright? Please, Stacy, I love you but please do not come back to the city. No, I can’t explain…I’d love to explain but I just can’t right now. Oh shit!…Stacy…Stacy!!!. 

Jake hangs up the phone with a clatter and leaves the booth. “Well, there goes that relationship.”

Mick pats him on the shoulder. They start walking towards the Jeep. “Don’t worry about it.” Mick said. “If she’s as smart as you say she is, she’ll stay wherever she is and that’s all that matters for now. You’ll square it with her, Jake.” 

“That’s easy for you to say. I don’t see any trace of a woman in your life at the moment.”

“Yeah, well they come and they go. Mostly they go.” 

Mick takes one last look around at the restaurant parking lot then they get in the car and take off up the two-lane highway. 

In a downtown sports bar, Tony Corelli sits at the bar, watching the end of a Blue Jays game. When the game ends, he pays his tab and leaves the bar. 

Outside, Tony sticks his key in the door of his car, when a limo pulls in beside it. The Duprees get out and quickly subdue him. They drag him into the back seat of the limo and lock him in.

Titus Riley is sitting in the back seat with a glass of scotch in his hand. Corelli unruffles himself after they drop him in the facing seat. He is more angry than afraid.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“That hardly matters, Mr. Corelli. I’m just a guy who needs some information.”

“You didn’t answer my question?’

“In case you hadn’t put it together, Mr. Corelli, you’re here to answer questions, not ask them.”

“Sorry, just my reporter’s instinct. Now who the fuck are you, and why are you committing a serious felony by abducting me?”

Riley grabs him gently by the tie and pulls him forward. Corelli senses the guy is a pro and starts to sweat.

“I need to know where Jake Morrison has gotten to.” Riley says. “You see, he has something that belongs to me and, well, I need to get it back.”

Riley lets go of the tie and Corelli flops back into the seat. “And what makes you think I know anything about that?”

“Because, Mr. Corelli, I am a professional. Now do you want to tell me all you know, or would you rather I take you down to the pier, slit your throat and feed you into that chemical soup you call a lake?”

“I can do that, man. No problem.”

 Riley lets him go. He leans back in his seat. “Alrighty then.” 

“You mind if I have a drink?” Corelli says.

“Help yourself.”

Corelli pours a glass of scotch and spoons in a couple of ice cubes. He takes a sip and then a deep breath.

“Jake came to me a couple days ago with a locker key and a story about some guy he went to school with giving him this locker key. I told him to go find out what locker the key opened. I guess he did because he called me early last night and said he found it and that it was something very important.”

“He wasn’t specific about what it was?”

“Hell no.” Corelli was lying his ass off now because he figured if he could convince them he didn't know anything they might just let him go. “In fact, I asked him what it was and he flat-out refused to tell me. Said the knowledge was dangerous.”

“How ironic. What happened next?”

“He asked me if I knew anybody who could get him underground till he figured out what to do with whatever he has. I gave him the name of a guy I knew.”

“Mick Tyler.”

“But you already knew that.”

“We’ve already been to Tyler’s house.” Riley says. “They’re not there.”  

“Mick is merely an acquaintance. The sum total of my experience with him was a few quick lunches downtown to pump him for some background information on one of the feature pieces I was working on.” 

Riley cocks his head a little and stares at Corelli.

“Really, man. That’s all I know about the dude. Let’s face it, a guy like that is not exactly gonna be forthcoming about anything. Hell, I don’t even know for sure if Jake got in touch with him.”

Riley leans back in his seat and stares at Corelli for a moment. Corelli is squirming in his seat, scared shitless. Riley looks at his watch, then back at Corelli. Just then the Duprees get back into the car.

“Alright, Mr. Corelli. Thank you. I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and the threats.”

“You mean I can go? Just like that?”

“I’m assuming you know enough about how this game is played to keep your lip buttoned. Are we clear on that?”

“Oh we’re clear on that, Mr …”

Riley shakes a finger at Corelli as he quickly exits the car.

“Well, that was a total waste of time.” Riley said to Eldon Dupree who was sitting behind the wheel. The limo backs out of the parking lot and turns up the street. 

As the limo pulls away,  Corelli gets into his car and watches them leave. He then takes out a cell phone and dials a number. 

“Hi Mick, it’s me, Tony. You guys alright?…Yeah… A close encounter with your bad guys…Three of them. Naturally scary…Naw, he doesn’t have a clue where you are…How’s Jake holdin’ up?…Good…Yeah sure…just don’t forget who gets the exclusive.”

Corelli hangs up the phone. He chuckles to himself and starts his car. Suddenly the car explodes sending a fireball about twenty-five feet into the air. 

The limo is parked down the street, in sight of the lot. The rear window slides down. Riley takes a look and then slides the window back up again as Eldon drops the car into gear and it drives away.

~ 11 ~

The next morning Jake walks out onto the deck of a log house high on a hill overlooking a beautiful valley. He looks out over the valley below. Off in the distance, he sees the blue water of Georgian Bay. His hands clench the railing making his knuckles white. He is barely able to contain his rage. Mick walks out onto the deck. Jake turns to him. There is a tear streaming down his face.

“So it was this Riley asshole, right? What the hell kind of people are you, blowing people up like that?”

“If I hadn’t gotten you out of town when I did, that could very well have been your ass gettin’ blown to kingdom come. And secondly, Corelli was a friend of mine too, a damn good friend and an interesting human being. I’m gonna miss him. And I’m gonna make that son-of-a-bitch Riley pay for this.” 

“You’re fuckin’ right we are.” 

“We? No, Jake, there’s no ‘we’ in this. This is between him and me. You’re already in well over your head as it is. You gotta lay low and hold on to the merchandise. That’s how you’re gonna screw Riley.”

“What’s the story with you guys, anyway?”

Mick looks out at the beautiful greenery spread out before him. “It was long ago and far away, Jake. It was another life. Another set of circumstances. Let’s just say we never really saw eye to eye on a certain matter and leave it at that.”

“Why didn’t you kill him … when you saw him yesterday?”

“‘Cause I’m not a killer, Jake. I sat him down to see if I could reason with him.”

“But you have killed people…in your life?’

“Yeah. People have been killed by me. A few. It’s not something I’m proud of. And mostly it was kill or be killed.”

“And it’s not now?”

“My job here is savin’ your ass. Yesterday, despite what I told you at dinner, I thought I could do that diplomatically. It was a long shot, but worth a try. But after last night, I can see his strategy now.” 

An hour later, Mick is sitting on the hood of the Jeep. Beside him is an aluminum briefcase, containing a phone signal scrambler. He activates the scrambler and dials a long-distance number.

“Hello. Mr Titus Riley please. Thank you.” 

“Riley, fresh from the shower in a fluffy white robe, picks up the phone.” 

“Titus Riley.”

“Mick Tyler.”

“Well now, that didn’t take very long.”

“You made your point. No further initiatives on your part will be required.”

“I see…so what do you propose?”

“I can get you your goods. On the same two conditions.” 

“Getting a little absent-minded in my old age. Run them by me again.”

“As I said before, my client gets his five million and a video deposition that we can use for life insurance.”

“And I should agree to this because…?”

“Because my client is no threat to you. He’s never seen you. He has no information to give the authorities. And the only other individual who knows anything about this has been neutralized. Eliminating my client would be a pointless killing.”

“You’re forgetting one very important thing, Mick.”

“And what would that be?

“You, Mick. You’re up to your eyeballs in this.”

“That’ll be between me and you. Although if I were being logical about this, I’d have to say that I’m no threat to you either, as I can’t prove a damn thing.”

“That doesn’t neutralize your threat.”

 “It does if I tell you I’m livin’ a different life here, Titus. I’m into peaceful pursuits nowadays and I have no wish to step back into that other life. I only got involved to this extent as a favour.”

“For a good friend?”

“For an old acquaintance and someone who could actually pay me back someday.”

The two men are silent on the phone for a long while. 

“What specifically do you have in mind?” Riley asked.

“I need your word that you accept the terms before I suggest anything.”

“What makes you think I’ll keep my word, Mick?”

“Let’s just call it honour among thieves.”

Riley laughs out loud. “Yeah, I like that. OK, I agree to your terms, Mick. Now what do you have in mind?”

~ 12 ~

The Beaches parking lot at the bottom of Leslie Street is almost deserted. It’s well after midnight. Yale Barnett sits behind the wheel of his Jaguar fidgeting as he looks at his watch. After a moment a black Lincoln Navigator pulls up. Barnett’s cell phone rings. The driver of the Lincoln is a black man named LaMarr Wycliffe, but Barnett does not know that, because Wycliffe does not roll his window down. 

Barnett answers the phone. 

“Mr. Barnett?”

“Yes…what do I call you?”

“Malcolm X. I don’t give a shit. Do you have my fifty large?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good.” Wycliffe says. Get out and slip it through the back window of my car along with the pictures.”

Wycliffe opens the tinted window on the passenger side,

Barnett opens his door, gets out and places the money, in a brown envelope onto the rear seat of the car. He is careful not to look around. He then gets back in his car and picks up the phone again. 

“Do you want to count it?”

“No, Mr. Barnett. I think I can trust you.”

“I have also included pictures of all three men. So one hundred for Riley and fifty thousand each of the other two.”

“Right.”

“ What are we supposed to do now?”

“Oh…well I don’t know, man. What do you usually do after you hire an assassin to snuff your business partner? Steak dinner. Thousand dollar whore?”

“Neither of the above. And I’ll be honest with you, Mr. X. None of this was my doing. This man is going to kill me. Or steal something from me that would kill my business. Either way, I’m fucked if I don’t get rid of him first.”

“Well consider yourself unfucked. Though I would appreciate any intelligence you can provide me on Mr. Riley’s movements.”

“I can text you any information I get, which probably won’t be much because he is bogarting information access at the moment.”

“Alright, then. That’s about it for me.” 

“You’d better be the real thing, Mr. X.” 

“Mr. Barnett. I am as flat-out fucking real as it gets. You can count on that. You just get my other hundred grand ready. I’ll be back for it in a few days.”

Wycliffe drops the Lincoln into gear and disappears into the night, leaving Barnett sweating in his Jaguar.

Very late that night, Mick and Jake stand on the roof, of an old warehouse looking down at a wide expanse of asphalt and a long empty pier. Mick hands Jake a headset with a mike and a pair of Bosch & Lomb binoculars. “You can see everything from here.” he says. “The Jeep is going to be there, ass to the water. About fifty yards up the pier. Riley might park his car to block me in. I’ll take him when he gets out of his car.”

“You’ll take him? What does that mean?”

“It means I will put a thirty ought six slug in his shoulder.”

“Why not just kill him? Oh my God, will you listen to me.” 

“‘Cause he’s sure to have it arranged that we get hunted to the ends of the earth…it’s what I’d do.”

“So you’re gonna shoot him in the shoulder to what…just piss him off?”

Mick nods and chuckles. 

“Don’t you think that’s kind of dangerous?”Jake asked

“No…it’s gonna piss him off. And his profile indicates that he’s much more prone to making mistakes when he’s pissed off. Fuck, Jake, he’s comin’ after us either way. Killing in self-defence is easier on the conscience.”

“That’s way too complex for me.”

“Right. What I need you to do is just watch the perimeter and let me know if you see any vehicles or human traffic after he goes down.”

“That sounds simple enough.”

“It is, Jake. But it’s also a job of work, so stay diligent.” 

~ 13 ~

In Riley’s suite at the Harbour Castle Hilton, Riley sits at his table sipping coffee with the Duprees.

“I dunno, Mr. Riley, it sounds like a setup and a pretty flimsy excuse for one at that.” Eldon said.

“I know. But that’s why it’s probably not.”

“Sounds like he’s trying to get you alone. You think that reporter we waxed last night was a close friend?” 

“Could be. But if I’ve learned anything about this game, it’s that there’s a time to do what you’re told and a time to be…innovative.”

“So what time is this?”

“It’s time to get this over and done with. He won’t kill me.” 

“How do you know that?”

“Because I trained him. And because, aside from all other considerations, I’m the Devil he knows. Or at least, thinks he knows.”

“Is all this philosophical crap your way of sayin’ that you’re going alone?”

Riley sips his coffee. “Not necessarily.”

At the Pier, Jake is staring through the binoculars. He sees two cars. One is the same car he saw that was driven by the guys who killed Marlowe. That car holds back and the second car, a black van, moves slowly down the pier.

“There’s two cars, Mick. A blue sedan and a black van. But one of them is hanging back. The other one’s heading to your Jeep.”

“That figures.”

“Here he comes, Mick.”

The van passes below Jake’s perch. It pulls up to the Jeep and parks at a right angle to it. Nothing happens for a moment. 

“What’s he waiting for?” Jake said 

“Dunno, maybe for me to get out of the Jeep.”

A few seconds later, the driver’s side door of the van pops open. Slowly, Riley emerges. He looks over the hood of the van at the Jeep. He pulls a cell phone out of his pocket and speaks into it. As he does so he turns around and looks toward the buildings.

 Suddenly a shot rings out. Riley is hit. The force of the blow throws him back onto the car. He bounces off and falls to the ground. He’s shouting into his cell phone. 

“OK, the other guys are coming.” Jake said. “Get your ass out right away.”

“Roger that.” 

The blue sedan pulls up beside the fallen and fuming mad Riley. The Duprees jump out. They help Riley to his feet. One of the goons peels off Riley’s jacket to reveal a Kevlar vest.  Riley is still barking orders. At the rear of one of the buildings the high-pitched whine of a small motorcycle is heard. On Riley’s instructions, Calvin jumps into the sedan and takes off after the motorcycle. Eldon helps Riley into van and it takes off, back the way it came. 

“Is it just the one car comin’ after me?” Mick said.

“Yeah, Riley and the other guys are headed off in the other direction. Looks like he got hit in the shoulder.” 

“Good. Get your ass down there and get the Jeep. Meet me at the rendezvous in an hour.”

“OK. By the way, Mick. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest.” 

“You’re kidding. That cagey son-of-a bitch.”

“But it looks like you still did some damage. He went down pretty hard.”

Jake watches as Mick heads into an open field, forcing the sedan into a long detour.

Fifteen minutes later Jake turns onto his street in the Jeep. He drives to the end of the street, turns around and comes back, checking out every driveway along the way. He parks around the corner and casually walks up to the driveway. He stares at the house for a moment, then moves on. Turning up the driveway two doors away, he cuts across the backyards to his own. He climbs the stairs of the back porch. He takes out his key, opens the back door and goes inside. 

In the house, Jake sits down at his computer and checks his Couch Potato email. He comes across the email from Yale Barnett. “Holy shit. What’s this?” he mutters to himself. He  uploads the message to a memory key and shuts off the computer. He then heads upstairs. A few minutes later, Jake is tossing a suitcase in the back of the Jeep. 

Half an hour later Jake, parks the Jeep at a Canadian Tire store on Eglinton Avenue, just a few blocks from Tyler’s house.  As he is waiting, Mick jumps in the passenger side.

“You’re late.” Mick said.

“Yeah, I am. I went by my house to get some clothes.”

“You what?”

“Don’t worry, man. There was nobody there. And nobody watching.”

“Jesus Christ! Like that’s something you would know.”

“Look, I’m not an asshole. I just needed some of my clothes. I took a very complex path to get here and I’m sure I wasn’t followed.”

“So what else did you do on your lunch hour?” 

“I checked my email and guess what?”

“I don’t like guessing games, Jake, so just fucking tell me.”

“An email from Mr. Yale Barnett owner, founder and CEO of Aurora Systems.”

“You don’t say? Well, I wonder what’s on his little mind?”

“We can check it out. It’s on my website.”

~ 14 ~

At the Harbour Castle Riley is lying in bed with his chest taped. He is propped up but just barely awake from the painkillers that Eldon has been feeding him. The Duprees are sitting at a table playing cards. Riley starts to come around.

“What’s the damage?”

“Well, the doc said the shot was through and through, just nicked the edge of the vest. No major damage internally, but you got a couple of cracked ribs and you’ve got some kinda ligament tear in your upper back where you hit the door on your way down. He says it’s gonna hurt to breathe for a while.”

“Shit.”

Eldon picks up a bottle of pills and hands them to Riley. “He did prescribe some dandy painkillers. I’ve had these, they’re great.”

“How long have I been sleeping?”

“Six hours give or take.”

“Any word from Mick Tyler?”

“Word? What’s he got to say to you? He tried to kill you, man.” 

“If he’d wanted me dead, I’d be pushin’ up daisies. No, this was retribution. Also a bit of a ploy.”

“To what, piss you off?”

“Yeah…that’s exactly right. But as you can see gentlemen, I am anything but pissed off.” 

“No,” Eldon said. “You’re loaded on painkillers and full of brotherly love. Should we be going after this asshole or what?”

“You can’t go after him.” 

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not good enough. You’ll just get killed. Guaranteed.” Riley says.

“Right.” Eldon says.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“We’re pretty good.”

“He’s better. Tell you what. Just go. Give it a shot.”

“I will.” Calvin says.

“Good. Go. Get the hell out of here.” Riley says, “Bring me his head on a goddamn platter. And bring me that fuckin' chip.”

Calvin is all puffed up with bravado. He grabs his jacket and storms out the door.

“He will get killed.” Riley said, matter of factly. “He’s an idiot. Order us some dinner, Eldon. I’m suddenly quite hungry.”

~ 15 ~

At Mick Tyler’s cabin the next morning, Mick sits at the computer, in the process of reading Barnett’s email message. Jake sits beside him, watching.

Mick reads the message.

Mr. Morrison, I know that you are in possession of a package which is quite valuable to someone like myself. I also assume that by now you have probably gone underground as you fear what my (former) partner, Mr. Riley, will do to you once he has the package and no longer needs you. I would be afraid myself. Mr. Riley is not…a nice fellow. In fact, I am afraid of him too. However, unlike yourself, I am able to do something about Mr. Riley and have already set the wheels in motion, legally of course, to have him … dismissed.

I would like to arrange a meeting/exchange. I am prepared to offer you ten million. Please contact me by return email if you find this idea appealing.

Sincerely Yale Barnett

Aurora Systems

Jake turns to Mick who is deep in thought. He is smiling. “Whoa. What do you make of that?”

“Dismissed.” Mick says. “The man is careful with his language to be sure. I wonder if he will have us dismissed once he has what he wants.”

“I don't know, this guy is awfully high profile. I really doubt he’s any kind of killer. He was one of the lead developers of the Pentium process for Intel, then split with his royalties and started Aurora. He’s the ultimate nerd.”

“And that, my friend, is the difference between you and me. You keep forgetting that there are many billions of dollars involved here.” 

Jake turns to look at Mick, who just smiles and tilts his head.

 “Write the man a love letter, Jake.” Mick says. “We’ll find out just how straight a shooter he really is.”

~ 16 ~

LaMarr Wycliffe sits at the counter in the coffee shop of the Harbour Castle Hotel. He is casually observing everything that happens. As he watches, he sees Calvin Dupree get off the elevator and leave the hotel. He spreads some pictures out on the counter and matches Calvin to his picture. He slides off the stool and follows Calvin out the door. 

 Calvin drives by Mick Tyler’s house and parks his car further down the block. Wycliffe turns the corner and parks his car. He follows on foot. He watches Calvin move up Mick’s driveway.  He walks up to the near side of the house.

Inside the house, Calvin sits at the computer in Mick’s study. He is combing through the desktop files and is quite wrapped up in his work. Suddenly, behind him, he hears the cocking of a gun.

“No quick moves, white boy. Or I’ll put a world class hole in the back of your head.” 

Calvin slowly turns in his chair. He sees Wycliffe with a silenced 9mm Browning Hi-Power pointed at his head. Wycliffe backs away.

“Who the fuck are you?” Calvin asked.

“I’m somebody who doesn’t want to kill you unless he has to. But don’t think of me as soft in any way. I’ll shoot you where you won’t bleed to death but wish you had.”

“What do you want?”

“First, your gun. Pull it out with two fingers and toss it over here.” 

Calvin complies.

“Now pull up your shirt and let’s see whatcha got under there.”

Calvin complies. There’s nothing there. “One gun, that’s it.” he said.

“Alright. Now I need some information about your boss.” 

“What kind of information?”

“Well, like who’s with him in the hotel?”

“And why should I tell you?”

Wycliffe gets to his feet “Because, you dumb cracker, I will waste your white ass if you don’t. Now, who is keepin’ him company?”

“You don’t scare me, nigger.” 

“WHAT!!! Did you just call me nigger? Not even nigger holdin’ a gun to your greasy white head? What is the matter with you, boy?”

“I don’t like niggers, especially niggers with attitude.” Calvin says with as much bravado as an idiot like him can muster.

With that, Wycliffe moves in, spins the chair around and cracks Calvin in the back of the head with the butt of his gun. Calvin crumples to the floor.

Half an hour later Calvin comes to to find that he is literally hog-tied on the floor with thick plastic zip ties.

He groans and Wycliffe, who is sitting at the computer, spins in his chair. His gun is nowhere to be seen.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favourite cracker boy back from dreamland.” 

Wycliffe gets up and walks over to Calvin. He hunkers down. He points to his boots. “See these boots, cracker? I bought these boots in Mexico when I was down there last year, killing a fat spic embezzler. I got him to cough up the location of all his embezzled dollars with a very simple technique involving these boots.”

 He walks around and kicks Calvin square in the kidneys. Calvin lets out a loud groan. “

‘Course, I had to turn his kidneys into fuckin’ mincemeat before he gave it up.”

Wycliffe kicks Calvin again in the same place, only harder this time. “It is my sincere hope that you will be smarter, as you have the added incentive that I really don’t want to kill you. I want to kill your boss. And I will, but with your help, things will go that much smoother and faster and of course, your cracker ass will be spared.”

He walks around the groaning Calvin. “What do you say, cracker? Tell me what I need to know, or look forward to a life of dialysis, if you get that far.”

“How do I know you won’t kill me anyway?”

“Come on man. I’m a contract killer. I got one contract. Titus Riley. Not your sorry ass or anybody else’s. And I really don’t like killin’ people I ain’t gettin’ paid to kill. Now, what’s it gonna be, dude?”

Wycliffe walks around back of Calvin and administers one more swift kick. 

“Alright…ALRIGHT!”

At the hotel, Riley is asleep. Eldon sits watching television. The cell phone in his pocket rings. Eldon answers it quickly, without waking Riley. He gets up and walks into the living room. 

“Yeah…Calvin. How’d it go? You’re kidding…that’s great. Yeah, he’s down for the count…Okay, yeah, yeah, should be a piece of cake. I’ll leave him a note or something. Yeah, forty-five minutes or so. Good.” 

Back at Mick Tyler’s house, Wycliffe takes the phone away from Calvin’s ear. “Thank you. That was very good. You’re quite an actor.”

Wycliffe draws his gun and backs away from Eldon.

“Hey, I thought we had a deal?”

Wycliffe heaves an exaggerated sigh “Yeah, well that’s the trouble with us niggers…we are just so un-fucking-trustworthy.”

Wycliffe puts two bullets into Eldon’s head, casually holsters his gun, bends over and extracts the hotel room card from Eldon’s jacket pocket, then leaves.

~ 17 ~

Mick Tyler and Jake are driving into the city. They have missed most of the rush hour and are sailing along pretty cleanly down the Don Valley Parkway. The day is cloudy, looking like some rain is on the way. 

“Mick, I’m having a little problem.” Jake says.

“What is it?”

“Why are we doing this?”

“Doing this, as in driving downtown?”

“No, as in going to see Riley.”

“Oh, okay. Here’s the logic. If the illustrious Mr. Barnett has put out a contract on Riley, who is actually his partner, would he consider putting one out on you who means jack shit to him? If the answer to that question is yes, which it probably is, then we need to keep an eye on Riley so that I can get some idea of who the contractor is and be in an excellent position to well, save your ass yet again. Get it now?”

“Ummm. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially when you actually explain it.” 

“Good. But there’s no need for sarcasm.”

Wycliffe enters the Harbour Castle and moves to the magazine stand. He scopes the place out for a moment, then heads to the elevators. On the fifteenth floor, he gets off and walks down the hall to the stairwell.

Outside the hotel, Jake and Mick have just parked the car in a public lot next to the hotel. They start walking to the hotel. 

In the hotel, Wycliffe walks quietly down the fourteenth-floor hall. It’s deserted. Using the pass card he he enters the suite. Riley is still out cold. Wycliffe enters the bedroom. He picks up a pillow and walks to the bed. He taps Riley on the side of the head with the gun barrel. Riley opens his eyes and stares up at Wycliffe in the half-light. 

“Do not move.  Not one fuckin’ inch.”

“What is this?”

“Titus Riley?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Don’t fuck with me, man. Are you Titus Riley?”

“Aye”

“Good. This is a gift from your partner, Mr. Yale Barnett.”  

“What gift?” 

“Why the gift of an everlasting afterlife.” 

“Wait a minute. Wait. Look, what are you getting paid to off me? Couple hundred thousand, right?”

“Yeah…something like that?”

 “Well, what if I told you I’d pay you ten million dollars to let me live.”

“Keep talking, cracker.”

“The thing we’re after here. It’s worth billions.”

Wycliffe thinks about that for a few seconds. “But this thing…you don’t actually have it yet?”

“But we will. It’s just a matter of time.” 

“But you don’t have it right now?”

“Not exactly.”

“What the fuck is it with you white people?” 

“No, we don’t have it. We don’t. But we are acquiring it.”

 “So this ten million dollars you’re promising me…it’s just in the wind right now…is that right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, cracker. That’s, well, unacceptable.” With that, Wycliffe pushes the pillow down on Riley’s face and fires three shots Riley convulses a bit and then is still. Wycliffe backs away and turns to leave, but stops to look around the suite. He sees Riley’s laptop and opens it up. He scrolls around a bit and then taps out something on his phone.

Downstairs Mick and Jake enter the hotel. Mick instructs Jake to sit at the bar and stay put. Mick goes to the front desk.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

“Hi. Do you have a guest in this hotel by the name of the Riley, Titus Riley?”

The clerk taps a few keys on his computer. “Yes sir… Mr. Riley is in room 1406. Would you like me to call him?” 

“No that’s fine. We’re meeting in the restaurant in a while. And I had forgotten the name of the hotel. Third time is a charm.”

“Well, have a good day.”

“Thanks.”

Mick walks over to the back of the bar. “I’ve got his room number. I’m gonna go up and check his floor. You be on the lookout for anybody down here who appears to be lookin’ around too much. Make mental notes on their appearance. But whatever the fuck you do, don’t follow them.”

“Gotcha. What if I need to contact you?”

“Just stay put and keep your eyes open.”

Mick takes the elevator to the fifteenth floor and walks down a flight of stairs. He stands in the doorway, looking down the hall at Riley’s suite. He then sees Wycliffe exit the suite. Wycliffe carefully looks around and heads straight toward the stairwell door.

Mick backs away and climbs the stairs half a flight. He draws his pistol. Below him, Wycliffe enters the stairwell. He carefully wipes the room pass card and tosses it onto the floor He heads down the stairs. Mick moves down the stairs and picks up the pass card. He follows Wycliffe quietly down the stairs.

Wycliffe emerges from a side exit and walks directly to his car, which is parked in the employees’ lot. A few seconds later, Mick comes out. He heads to a row behind Wycliffe’s car. He watches Wycliffe climb into his car. He pulls out a small notepad and pen and writes down the plate number. Wycliffe pulls away and Mick heads back to the hotel.

A few minutes later, Mick enters Riley’s suite. He walks into the bedroom. He sees the pillow over Riley’s head. He takes a deep breath and walks toward the body. He stares at it for a moment. He wipes off the pass key and sets it on the table beside the bed. He packs up Riley’s laptop computer and charger and leaves the room.

In the bar, Jake is sitting with a glass of club soda. There’s a baseball game on the screen in front of him. Mick enters and sits down beside him. 

 “Are you done?” 

“Well Riley is, and it wasn’t me who did it.”

“Thought he had a couple of guys with him.” 

“No guys. But there was a black fellow coming out of the room when I got up there. I got his plate number.” 

“A new guy.”

“Yep.” 

“What the fuck.”

“He was probably the guy Barnett told you about in his email. He’s a contractor. Let’s just hope he’s also being paid to kill the other guys too.”

“So we’re almost out of the woods here.” Jake says.

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, we just sell the package to Barnett and life goes on, right?”

“Maybe.”

“So what do we do?”

“We’ll deal with Barnett.” Mick said. “But there’s a couple of loose ends. I figure at least one of them must be dead, because if I was the contractor, that’s how I’d get to Riley.”

“And the other one?”

“Probably on a wild goose chase somewhere.” 

Jake looks into the lobby over Mick's shoulder. He sees Eldon enter quickly through the hotel’s revolving door.

“Or maybe, he’s right behind you, Mick.”

Mick turns around. “Well, I’ll be damned.” 

Mick slides off his bar stool and walks over to a courtesy phone. He dials 911. “Hello. I’m calling from the Harbour Castle Hotel downtown. I just heard some gunshots on the fourteenth floor. Could you please send someone over. It sounds like there’s a war going on.” He quickly hangs up the phone and walks back to Jake at the bar. He orders a scotch and takes a seat at the bar beside Jake. 

“What’s goin’ on?” 

“I just called the cops.”

A few minutes later four uniformed police officers and two others in riot gear enter the hotel. One of them talks to the desk clerk. They then take the elevator up. Several minutes later they come back down the elevator with Eldon Dupree, looking much the worse for wear, in cuffs. The police leave the building and a whole crew of new people, including detectives, paramedics and ambulance people enter. 

“Time to vamoose, pal.” Mick said 

“Where to?”

“Back to my house.”

“What about the contractor?”

“I’m not sure he knows about me. But I know about him, so the advantage is ours for the moment.”

Jake and Mick Tyler leave the hotel and walk down to the lot where they left the Jeep.

An hour later, they enter Mick Tyler’s house, carrying a bag of Chinese food. Jake goes to the kitchen. Mick does a quick walk through the house. Jake hears Mick exclaim, “Oh Fuck!!!” and moves quickly to the study. The trussed-up body of Calvin Dupree lies on the floor. There is a small pool of blood around his head, and a few flies flying around it.

“Son of a bitch. I hate dead bodies in my house. They’re a pain in the ass to get rid of.”

Jake is staring wide-eyed. “So the contractor’s been here?”

“That doesn’t mean he knows where he was. He probably picked this guy up at the hotel and tailed him. That’s what I’da done.”

“You keep saying that, like there’s some sort of formula for this stuff.”

“Well, there is. It’s called logic, Jake. I’ll explain it to you over dinner.” Mick turns and heads back to the kitchen.

“But what about him?” Jake asked.

“First of all, he’s not going anywhere. Secondly, when it comes to blood I’d much rather scrape it up dry than mop it up wet. Same fucked up floor either way.”

Mick goes out to the kitchen and comes back with a roll of paper towels. He then gets a fan from the hall closet and turns it on, pointing it at Eldon’s blood spill.

They sit down in the kitchen where Mick turns on a small countertop TV. They watch a late-breaking news story about a murder in the Harbour Castle Hotel. They see Eldon, being taken out of a police cruiser at 52 Division. Meanwhile, Mick, between forkfuls of Kung Pow chicken, is fooling around with Riley’s computer. He finds what he is looking for, jots it down on a notepad and closes up the computer.

Later that night, and under Mick’s expert supervision, they carefully wrap up Calvin Dupree’s body and stash it in the back of Mick’s Jeep. Mick then locks the jeep in the garage. The two men sit down on the back porch. They’re both pretty beat. Jake is fiddling with his cell phone.

“How do you live like this, Mick? Dead body in the trunk. Dead body at the hotel. Contract killer out there somewhere who may or may not know about you. That’s gotta be pretty stressful. I know it is for me.”

“You get used to it, like everything else. When you start off your working life as a mercenary, in all the finest hellholes on the planet, the stuff we’ve been through is pretty lightweight.”

“You were a mercenary?”

“Yeah. I served under Titus Riley. He was always a greedy son of a bitch. Look, I think we have to head back north.”

“What about our meeting with Barnett?”

“Yeah. I got his home address from Riley’s computer. We can pay him a surprise visit, and ditch the body along the way.”

Mick gets to his feet. He is suddenly bone weary. “Comin’ in?”

“I’m gonna call Stacy. Is that okay?”

“I believe anybody who could have been bugging you is either dead or incarcerated. Knock yourself out.”

Mick goes into the house. Jake dials a long-distance number.

“Stacy? Hi it’s me. Yeah, I think everything’s fine now. Just one more thing to take care of and we’re outta the woods…Yeah, tomorrow. It’s a long story babe. Pure Wizard of Oz. I have to tell you, I’ve never been so scared in my life…No…no…it’s alright, really…there was somebody to take care of me…a good man.”

Behind Jake, Mick stands in the doorway.

~ 18 ~

Early that afternoon, Mick and Jake head up the Don Valley Parkway, to Aurora Road, where they go east. At the second intersection, they go north and eventually come to a narrow dirt road. They cruise down into a valley and then up the hill on the far side. They come to a thick clump of woods. Mick backs the Jeep up to the woods. 

Mick and Jake get out of the Jeep. Mick is carrying a pair of binoculars. He jumps on top of the Jeep and looks around in all directions for a moment. He jumps back down and throws the binoculars into the back seat. He tosses Jake a pair of surgical gloves and puts a pair on himself. He pops the rear door and he and Jake lift Calvin’s remains out of the car. They drag him to a small clearing in the thicket. They return to the Jeep and come back with shovels and dragging a large bag of industrial lye. They dig a shallow grave in the small clearing and dump the body in. With his knife, Mick slits the bag open. The fumes nearly knock him out. He then spreads the white substance evenly over the body and they fill in the hole. They gather up their tools and head back to the car, before they get in they both wash their hands and faces with bottled water.

“I can't believe you had industrial lye in your garage.” Jake said.

“Yeah, well, this is not my first rodeo, Jake.”

They then backtrack until they are back in the north end of the city. They head across Highway 7 to a town called Markham. They stop in front of Barnett’s property, which is a large estate with a long drive in. Mick scopes it out with his binoculars.

“Hard to say if he’s got any security here. But we should probably assume there is.”

“Look. I’ve got an idea.” Jake said. “Why don’t I just go up and knock on the door? I mean, he’s not gonna kill me…I’ve got his chip. You can check out the place while we’re talking.”

Mick thinks about it for a few seconds. “You know, that’s so crazy it just might work.”

Inside Barnett’s mansion, Barnett is sitting in his kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal. On a monitor on his counter, he watches Jake walk up to the front of the house and knock on the door. He takes a small calibre pistol from a drawer and tucks it into the back of his pants. He then walks to the front door and opens it.

“Mr. Barnett, I’m Jake Morrison. I believe you’ve been looking for me.”

“I’d like to say I’ve been expecting you would contact me, but this is a pleasant surprise. Come in, Jake. We have a lot to talk about, you and I do.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather stay outside.”

“Suit yourself.”

Barnett steps out and closes the door behind him. They start to walk across the lawn toward the back of the mansion.

“Well, it seems like you have made it through the minefield, Jake.”

“Yes, well, I’ve had some very able help.”

“I’d like to meet him. I’m in need of some security myself.”

“I don’t think that will be doable.”

“So where is the package, Jake?”

“Somewhere you’ll never find it until I want you to.”

“So how do I get you to want to tell me?”

“Two things. First. There’s the deal. Same one you agreed to with Terry Marlowe, before your goons killed him

“Okay, and what’s the second thing?”

“I want a video tape deposition.”

“What kind of deposition?”

“Call it a confession. This would include your complicity in the deaths of Terry Marlowe and Tony Corelli and your hiring a contract killer named LaMarr Wycliffe to kill Titus Riley and a couple of goons working for him.”

“How the hell do you know all that?”

“I told you, I have some very capable help.”

Barnett says nothing for about ten seconds. “And what will you do with this confession?”  

“Nothing. Nothing at all. As long as my guy and me and well, anybody we care about, stay alive and well.” 

“Ahh…you think I’m going to take the chip and then have you killed. That’s ludicrous.”

“Not really. I mean, you’ve already had your current business partner killed. Why should I be any exception?”

Barnett is lost in thought. 

Jake stops walking. “That’s the offer. Those are the terms. It’s not negotiable. Send me an email when you’re ready to accept it.”

Jake starts to walk away. Barnett pulls out the pistol. 

“Not so fast Mr Morrison. “I think we should go in the house and talk about this some more.” 

“Just then there is a shot. It hits Barnett in the shoulder.  Jake takes off for the back of the house out of range. A second shot hits Barnett square in the centre of the chest and blow him back into his pool, dead.

Jake pulls out his phone which was connected to Mick’s.

“Who the hell was that?” 

“I don’t know, but from the looks of things he was shooting from the woods. Stay right where you are, you’re out of his sight.”

Mick cArefully creeps deeper into the woods and slowly makes his way in the direction of the shots that killed Barnett.

“I’m gonna disconnect now. I’ll call you when I’ve taken care of this.” Mick says.

Jake edges along the rear of the house and opens the back door. He enters the house. and walks to the front door where he can see the woods clearly. 

Mick moves through the woods and comes up to a clearing. He spies a man standing behind the crook of a tree. He’s just about to load his rifle into a shoulder pouch. Mick has clear shot at the man and the man has not noticed him. He draws a bead on the man. He squeezes the trigger of the gun and discharges a round. He hits the man broadside just below the armpit. The man turns to look at Mick but Mick does not recognize him. 

The man raises his rifle and aims at Mick. 

Mick fires again and hits the man square in the chest. He is blown back against the tree he was using to rest his gun on as the rifle falls to the ground,  

Mick dials Jake on his phone. “You can come out now.”

About thirty seconds later Jake is standing beside him. The man is still standing, his body leaning against the tree.

“He’s not the hitman.” Jake says. “The hitman’s a different colour. Besides the hitman, there’s nobody left.”

“Jake with a prize this big, there’s always somebody left.”

They move toward the shooter’s body. Mick hunkers down and rummages around in the man’s pockets. He pulls out a wallet and opens it. He pulls out a small stack of business cards.

“Thomas MacDonnell. Digital Investigations Inc.” Mick says.

“What does your logic tell you about him?” Jake asks

“Well, he knew what was going on, and obviously, who was left, so I’d guess he was some sort of silent partner of Riley’s, who thought  ‘Everybody else is out of the picture, so why don't I just claim the prize myself.’ This guy would probably know exactly what to do with it.”

“This is getting’ sicker by the minute.”

“Yeah it is. But I think we’ve worn out our welcome here.”

 The two men walk off back toward the Jeep.

~ 19 ~

The Loblaws lot is a little busier now. Mick pulls up behind Jake’s car. Jake gets out of the passenger side and grabs his bag from the back. Mick gets out of the driver’s side and stretches a bit. 

“Give me a few days or so to sort out the finances.” 

“No rush.”

“Listen Mick…I really don’t know how to thank you for all you’ve done for me.” 

“Truth to tell, we both did a lot for each other. But a million even will do just fine, Jake.”

“You’re still up for helping me if I should want to unload somewhere.”

“All you gotta do is call.”

The two men shake hands and embrace, warmly. They are blood brothers now. Jake piles into his car. Mick takes off in his Jeep. Across the parking lot LaMarr Wycliffe sits in his Lincoln, sipping a coffee.

Jake drives to the computer store. He shakes hands with Andy. Andy then retrieves the case from his office. They talk for a while and Andy shows Jake a new Ipad.

Half an hour later, Jake pulls into the driveway behind Stacy’s car. He walks up the driveway. He leaves Marlowe’s computer case under the front seat of his car.  He enters the house through the back door.

Jake drops his bags at the back door and goes into the kitchen. He sees Stacy sitting at the table. There is a frightened look on her face. Across the table from her, sipping a cup of tea and holding his Browning is LaMarr Wycliffe. Open in front of him is a large binder in which Jake stores all his columns.

“Funny,” Wycliffe said. “But I thought somebody who writes a column called The Couch Potato Chronicles, would be some fat-ass motherfucker.”

“Jake. What’s going on?” Stacy asked, clearly frightened.

“I believe this gentleman has come to collect something that his former employer wanted.”

Wycliffe gets to his feet, holding the gun casually at his side. “What do you mean former employer? I ain’t been terminated that I know of.” 

“No. But your employer has. Don’t you watch the news? Good luck collecting on that job.”

“Terminated by you?” 

“No, but by some other greedy bastard just like you.”

“Where’s the package, potato boy?”

“Somewhere safe. I’ll take you there on one condition.”

Wycliffe holds up the gun and then sweeps it around to point at Stacy. She yelps involuntarily.

“It’s all right, Stacy. He won’t kill you. Because he knows if he does, he’ll never see that goddamn package. Isn’t that right, LaMarr?”

Wycliffe lowers the gun. “Yeah, that’s correct. So why don’t we all just head out and get it?”

“Fine with me. Just the one condition.”

“What?”

“You just come with me now. Forget about Stacy. She has no clue what’s going on here.”

“I don’t know man. You coulda tole her all kinds of stuff.”

“Well then, you’re gonna have to shoot us both and walk away empty-handed.”

Wycliffe paces around the room for a few seconds. He stops and takes a deep breath.

“All right. But no fuckin’ around, white boy.”

“Jake.” Stacy pleads. “What the hell is going on?”

“I’m just going to give LaMarr here the thing he came for. Just sit tight. I’ll be back in few minutes and this will all be over.”

“OK spud boy.” Wycliffe said. “Let’s go. But just remember, I can always back and do her any time.”

Jake and Wycliffe come down the back porch stairs. Jake heads down the driveway. Wycliffe is right behind him. “I don’t suppose you’d consider another condition.” Jake said.

“Where the hell are we going?”

“To my neighbour’s house. I stashed the package in his garage.” Jake said.

  Suddenly, Jake hears a strange thunk. He turns around to see the business end of a rather large knife, protruding from the centre of Wycliffe’s chest. Wycliffe is frozen on his feet with a wide-eyed look of surprise on his face. 

 Slowly, Wycliffe’s legs slip out from under him and he goes down, revealing Mick Tyler standing behind him, grinning. 

Mick takes a deep breath. “Let’s just hope this is the last loose end. I’m gettin’ really fuckin’ tired of all this.”

~ 20 ~

Three days later, Jake parks his car on Dundas Street just west of Bay. He takes the computer case from the back of his car and enters the bus terminal. He stashes the case in a locker and returns to his car.

On his way back home he stops at Mick Tyler’s house. He takes the locker key and seals it in an envelope with a note in it. He sticks through Mick’s mail slot, then gets back into his car and drives off.

 Mick…

I heard on the news that the police are charging Eldon Dupree with the murders of both Terry Marlowe and the coffee shop kid. Apparently, there were three other witnesses. So I guess that was the last piece of the puzzle taken care of.

I have stashed the computer and the chip in a locker at the Dundas Street bus terminal. I will wire you your money from Marlowe's Cayman Islands account. Just email me a destination.

 I had a long talk with Stacy and we decided that we don’t want anything to do with this thing.

I’m sure someone like yourself will be able to figure out a way to get very rich with this technology.

 Thanks for all your help, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope we never meet again.

Jake

FIN