"ANGEL'S TONGUE PART 2: VENGEANCE STRUT" CONTINUED
Eastcott and Drexler enter the control centre where Angelico glows, surrounded by his men.
"We want to talk to you about something," Eastcott says.
"Yes, what is it, East? Hello, Drexler."
"Our payment for this job."
"Yes of course. It's all been agreed upon."
"We have yet to be paid," Eastcott says. "When will the money be deposited into our bank
accounts? The funds are still unpaid."
"How do you know?" Angelico asks.
"I checked my account, no cash transfer yet," Eastcott answers.
"So did I," concurs Drexler. "No money."
"You accessed your account. In here? In Latremouille?"
"Of course."
"It will all be taken care of," Angelico assures them. "You'll get the money."
"When?"
"Soon, very soon. Right now your paycheque is not foremost on our agenda. We have more
important, bigger moves to make."
"It may not be foremost on your agenda, Ted," Drexler says with a raised tone, "but what the fuck
do you think we're doing this for? We did not enter into a partnership with you or Hammerstein.
You purchased our assistance in overthrowing and seizing control of this prison. Have we not
succeeded in taking control of it?"
Angelico lifts his arms and looks around the room. "This prison? This prison! This prison is
nothing, it's the tip of the iceberg, our first step. An infants baby step. We are going to seize the
government of this country. Do you not hear what I am telling you? Does that not mean anything
to you? The country of Canada will be ours to rule!"
Eastcott cuts into the dialogue. "Angelico, don't try to confuse us with fancy talk you learned from
your business degrees. You haven't answered the question he asked. Have we not succeeded in
seizing this facility?"
Calmly Angelico answers, "Yes, Eastcott, we have all made this happen, we all have. And I thank
you from the deepest reaches of my heart. As do the Hammerstein lieutenants."
"Do you think you could have done it without us, without the guards on the inside?" Drexler puts to
Angelico.
Angelico looks at Shockler, Dobbs, Maybenburg and Jabs. They all silently exchange glances.
Then Angelico looks to Eastcott with an expression that reads, Who the hell is this insolent ingrate?
"Maybe," Angelico answers after a long pause. "Maybe not. What are you getting at Drexler? I
told you you'll get the cash."
Eastcott, in a lowered voice repeats the demand. "We want the money now. The job is done.
Come on, fair is fair."
"The job is not done, I told you, this is the dawn of our new empire. We have much building to do."
"Angel," Drexler says, "the deal was $800,000 each to assist your crew in seizing this castle. That
was the deal. You didn't say anything about fighting the government. That's your war, not ours.
You told us it was just a fuckin' prison escape."
"Drexler, are you missing a chip in your genetic makeup? Are you? You know which one you
lack? The 'ambition' chip. Where's your vision, man?"
"My vision was looking at my bank account balance this morning and my vision did not like what it
saw."
"Oh you want your money this instant, do you? You want me to snap my fingers and make it
appear. Poof! There's your money! Like that?" Angelico mocks. "Arrangements must be made
with our accountants, our money people. Be patient."
Angelico takes a step towards Eastcott. "East, you've been most reliable, a solid associate, don't
spoil it."
Drexler delivers Angelico an ultimatum. "We get our money or we're quitting this gang, Ted," he
says.
"Quitting! Ha!" laughs Angelico. "You think you can just walk out that fuckin' door? You think
I'm going to let you walk out that door? Not on your life! And even if you did, you'll be shot on
sight. Arrested for a shopping list of crimes at the very least. We are at war, my friend. And you
are on my side now. The only place for you is right here."
"Yes! We're wanted criminals!" Drexler cries out. "And the end result of that is if your war on this
government fails, we're screwed. I need my insurance policy, I need that $800,000 in my account."
Angelico extends a feeler into Drexler's mind. He grimaces. "You told your wife about this
operation, Drexler?" Angelico shakes his head. "Bad. Very bad. That's a security breach."
Angelico walks over to Eastcott and puts an arm around his shoulder. Intimately he says, "What
can you do with $800,000 in here, East? Nothing. You can't spend it. Wait till we're out of here,
which will be any day now. You know as well as I do we've got fuelled electrochoppers on the roof
with pilots chomping at the bit to fly us anywhere we want, right to heaven's fuckin' gates if we
choose. We all have to wait, I have to wait too. For Christ sakes, $800,000 is chickenfeed, in thirty
days this country will be ours. Brody'll be gone and I'll be sitting behind his desk on Sussex. You'll
be able to have anything you want. Anything. What is it you most want?"
"Eight hundred thousand."
"The interest clock on your eighty cents has just started ticking. Let's pick a reasonable annual rate.
How does fifty per cent sound to you. A fifty per cent interest rate paid every week until we spring
ourselves out of here. Are you happy now? All you have to do is keep cool. You're making good
money on your money just to stay cool. Now, tell your friend."
Eastcott looks into Angelico's eyes with contemplative understanding. He turns to Drexler and says,
"We'll wait for our money, like the boss says."
"What?" Drexler screeches. "Donna's got to have that money. I took this job for her. We don't
need no interest on it. We need it now."
"So you did talk," Eastcott says to Drexler with a tenor of sadness in his voice. They were all under
strict orders to maintain absolute silence about the operation. "Angelico's right, we've no choice but
to work with Hammerstein. There's no alternative."
"That's it! Get me the fuck out of here! This is fuckin' bullshit, Angel! Complete fuckin' bullshit!"
Drexler says and leaves the room.
With a glance from Angelico, Shockler stalks out of the room behind Drexler, who must now be
watched closely.
"Good boy, East," Angelico says with a smile. "Did I ever tell you the reason they sent me to prison
here?"
"No. It's not something we talked about. They say you killed an associate?" Eastcott replies
cautiously.
"The accountant I liquidated, it was business. And not the first time a liability has been eliminated in
my career. They're all special, all unique. Let me tell you about my first, my cherry. Hammerstein
bought an estate that was once an active farm in northern Ontario consisting of twenty acres of land.
We bought the land with the intention of applying to have the farm land designation changed so the
area could be subdivided and developed. Amazing location, right next to a river, small town nearby.
I had plans, it was my deal, I sold the board on it, they said, 'Sounds good, do it.' To make a long
story short, the deal didn't get fully realized, the government didn't approve our application for
rezoning. Still made a profit when it was flipped. Anyway, there was an unused warehouse on that
land I passed every time I went to check up on the property. I didn't live there, it was purely an
investment property. This was just when I got involved with Hammerstein and I was located in
Toronto. On one of my visits to the area I notice there's a man occupying the warehouse, a
vagrant, a bum. He'd broken in and he was using it as a machine shop, an automotive repair shop.
Just this one man, no one else. There were a bunch of car wrecks surrounding the barn, none of
the vehicles were insured for road use and they didn't look roadworthy. I stopped my electrocar
and approached this man and introduced myself as a representative of the owner. He said his name
was Kenton. Kenton looked like he was about fifty. This dog was frazzled, fried, a junkie. Skinny
as a rake, didn't look like he ate, unkempt hair and a weeks worth of stubble. Fuckin' Charlie
Manson. Crazy Manson eyes. A wreck like the cars on the land. I told him he was trespassing on
private property. He said he wasn't trespassing, it was his land, he pays rent, and it was me who
was trespassing. 'Who do you pay rent to?' I asked him. 'The only one who matters, the man
upstairs,' he says. There you go, that indicates what I was dealing with. I should have asked him if
the man upstairs paid the property tax. Anyhow, I informed Kenton he had no authority to be on
the land and he must pack up his tools and leave. He'd turned the area into a car junkyard, so I said
I'd give him two weeks to get all the derelict vehicles off the land. Right then Kenton turns nasty,
like a dog, a junkyard dog. He snarls at me, telling me to get away from his workshop immediately.
Then he grabs at the crotch of his pants and pulls his balls up and tells me I could suck them. I
asked Kenton if he was aware that he was basically telling me to get off my own land. He didn't
want to hear it and made it clear pretty fast that if I didn't get off the land right away I would be
muscled off. He was having some kind of anxiety attack and not in control of himself and I sensed
he would end up assaulting me if I didn't back off. He was almost on top of me and I saw an
imminent street fight about to break out if I didn't leave. I wasn't dressed for a scrap so I began
walking off the cement driveway, and there's Kenton, shadowing me like a basketball player. He
tells me I'm not walking fast enough so I increase my pace, say nothing, and leave the scene.
"A week later I returned to inspect the property and there's Kenton, standing in the sliding metal
doorway of the warehouse beside an old beat-up rusted car hulk from about 2010 with the hood
open, like he owned the place. I turned my electrocar onto the cement driveway leading into the
warehouse's main sliding entrance and stopped, put on the emergency hand brake and put it into
park. I honked the horn a couple of times and yelled out the open window, 'You're trespassing on
private property! Get off the fuckin' property immediately!'
"Just then Kenton appeared around the corner from the side door on the south side of the
warehouse with a tire iron clenched in his fist. He swiftly walked straight for my car and sat himself
on the hood of the car above the left tire and smashed the windshield with the tire iron. Then he
sat there and glared at me through the broken windshield like a madman. 'Get off my car right
now!' I yelled at him. 'Get off my car!' He refused to move and just sat there. 'I'm not going
anywhere,' he says to me. I rolled up the driver side window and released the hand brake and
backed out of the driveway, fully expecting Kenton to hop off the hood of the electrocar - the logical
thing to do when a vehicle starts moving, right? Instead Kenton grabbed hold of the ridge of the
hood at the windshield and held on for the ride. I drove about fifty metres or so up the dirt road,
turned around at the highway and proceeded back in the direction of the warehouse trying to shake
the guy from the electrocar. While driving back to the warehouse, with Kenton steadfastly gripping
the hood, I removed my phone from the glove box, held it up to the windshield in his face, rolled
down my window a crack and said, 'Get off my car! I am going to call corrector enforcement! Get
off my car! I'm going to call the correctors!' At that moment Kenton hopped off the hood of my
electrocar and landed on his feet. I watched him walk the twenty metres down the road back to the
warehouse in my rear view mirror.
"From my car I called Corrector Order Enforcement and told them I had an unsavoury vagrant
squatting on my land acting crazy. 'You're not going to like what I have to say,' the corrector said
to me. 'What you've described is not a corrector matter. According to precedent set in the Superior
Courts, that man on land you say is owned by your corporation has a legal right to be there. We
can't remove him and neither can you. He's got more right to be there than the owner does. Don't
go near him or you'll hear from us.'
"There was a Bolshevik revolution? When did the government put down the mandate to Corrector
Enforcement that ownership and land title is meaningless and property can be seized from owners
by anyone with the balls and stupidity to try it?
"Then I contacted the removal squad at Hammerstein, told them we had some Molly work to do,
gave them the location, said to 'em, we've got an animal occupying one of our properties and it'll
have to be moved out and the warehouse sealed. I told them to give the guy two weeks to wise up.
They said they'd be happy to take care of it.
"But the next week when I came back - no Kenton. Gone. All the wrecks cleared out and the
warehouse sealed up and contained; no way in, no way out. I decided I'd leave it sealed for six
months and if there were no break-ins I'd unseal it and fortify it with new locks.
"So six months rolls by and the distractions at that time in my career were too numerous to mention.
I never did get around to ever checking up on the warehouse and then the property was sold. A
few months after the property was sold I got a call from a Corrector Enforcement goon. The smurf
tells me a man's dead body was discovered on the property by the new owner. Inside the
warehouse. He died of malnourishment, starved to death. Looked to them like he'd been inside the
warehouse for a year. I immediately assumed Kenton had been inside when it had been contained
by our guys. The corrector didn't know it was us who boarded up the shack and I didn't tell him.
So I ask the removal squad if they'd inspected the warehouse for any people inside before sealing it
up and they said, 'Of course, we checked to see if Kenton was inside.'"
Angelico says nothing else.
Eastcott realizes Angelico is telling him his crew boxed the vagrant in deliberately, while he was
alive, knowing he was alive, refusing to let him out thus making the warehouse his tomb. Eastcott
knows he has received a savage warning from Angelico.
"Take from my experiences what you will. I hope there's some wisdom there for you to glean.
That's why I tell you what I do, for you to see that the decisions I make are not reached without
reason; not irrational and precipitous. The direction I steer this ship is based on what I've learned in
my past." Angelico's cold gaze does a freezer burn into Eastcott. "I'd rather not discuss it any
further."
Sensing Angelico's patience with him reaching its limit, Eastcott nervously says, "Yes, Mr. Angelico.
About Drexler's outburst..."
"Your friend Mr. Drexler-"
"No, he's not my friend," Eastcott says, jumping tactlessly onto Angelico's sentence. "We worked
together. That's all. We had beers a few times. I barely know the guy. I didn't expect him to be
so unreasonable."
"Mr. Drexler will be dealt with. Fairly. And so will you. Go away, Eastcott."
Eastcott turns and leaves the control room to walk down the cement corridor. How stupid that was
to confront Angelico, Eastcott chides himself, feeling confused and a little delirious. What will he do
to Drexler? Lock him up with the others in confinement? Or kill him. Must play it cool from now
on, I've got to prove once again I'm a player firmly loyal to Angelico's Hammerstein team. If it isn't
too late. Drexler must be told, Eastcott decides, only one way to make things right, he must be told
to cool it, to stop making waves. He'll sit him down and talk to him, pound some sense into him.
Drexler doesn't know how dangerous Angelico can be. But Eastcott knows, he's listened to the
tales, he knows Angelico is not to be harassed. A call to Drexler's communicator is answered by a
recording saying he is unavailable. Drexler's not in his cell. Eastcott hurries to the range but he's
not there either, not hanging out, eating and playing poker with the others. Where in God's name
did he get to?
The 'fuck it' point is reached when the limit has been hit. When there is nothing left to declare
except 'Fuck It.' And, Neil Jaggard realized, he had finally reach his 'fuck it' limit when Connie told
him she was devoting her life and soul to Ted Angelico. He knew that was it.
After her unsuccessful attempt to meet Angelico in person at the prison they had left Edmonton
taking the missiletrain east. It was in icy Winnipeg Neil realized Connie was too far gone, no longer
his (if she ever was his), not the woman he thought he knew, no longer the woman he had fallen in
love with. She was waiting for her saviour and that saviour wasn't him. Hadn't he felt from the
beginning that the requited love of Connie Black was a dream too precious to be true? He had. Oh,
how it had hurt, the realization that his love had changed hands to a phantom within her mind,
maybe only within her imagination. But, he had to admit, she did seem to be talking to someone
and that someone seemed to speak to her in return. A sad, "Call me" were the last words he heard
from her lips. Then she popped a bunch of RV-17 pills into those full, sensuously fleshy
heart-shaped lips and furiously drove off down the Manitoba highway.
Neil decided to travel by missiletrain back to BC, if for no other reason than to get away from
Connie. The train's route no longer extended all the way into the Vancouver region. Access there is
now restricted, a no-go zone for civilians. As well, all roads and bridges into the city of Vancouver
had been severed in the attack. Military only. Nothing remains of the city's downtown, the core
now a smouldering, toxic crater. However, the surrounding regions were left relatively unscathed,
untouched by the pinpoint destruction of the thermonuclear weaponry used to tear out the region's
corrupt heart. Not that there'd be any reason for Neil to go to near the city, his abandoned
apartment is in Port Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver.
At the Winnipeg missiletrain terminal Neil is surprised by the shear number of people in the bustling
station. He learns that almost none of these passengers are travelling west, the street being one-way,
out of the westernmost provinces. After purchasing his ticket he hands his pass to an attendant and
steps into the designated passenger car and sees it's empty. He takes a window seat towards the
back of the car. While he waits for the train to depart five others get on board and find seats, all
occupying far-away sections with plenty of personal space and room away from the other
passengers. One minute before the shuttle's 8:30 a.m. departure a uniformed government agent
steps on and looks everyone over, especially eyeing Neil, and takes a seat directly behind him.
There's an announcement on the P.A. warning passengers not to go anywhere near the core of what
used to be downtown Vancouver, if they do they will be arrested or possibly shot. Then the
missiletrain rolls off.
About fifteen minutes into the twenty minute trip Neil feels a tap on his left shoulder, just as he
expected. I knew it, he thinks. He begins to turn his head. "No, no, don't turn around," the agent
says softly. The agent whispers quietly in his ear, "We know what you did."
Neil doesn't reply. Finally he says, "What I did?" However, he knows exactly what the agent is
referencing.
"We know you killed a Hammerstein associate in Vancouver."
Neil shudders with terror, fearing he's to be arrested and detained by the agent. His body tenses, his
scalp tingles. Why am I returning to BC? he chides himself. Why am I on this train. Stupid, stupid
move.
"I don't know anything about that," Neil replies coldly.
"C'mon," the agent disdains. "You've got a mindtap on you. In some government control room
somewhere there's an agent looking at a screen right now that tells him you're lying to me."
Where is this going? Neil wonders. This guy's a government agent not a corrector. Only correctors
arrest people.
"Good work," the agent says to him.
"What?"
"I said, 'Good work.' There'll be a credit to your bank account of ten thousand in the next few
days. Might already be there. Thanks."
Just then the missiletrain arrives at its first stop in BC at Chilliwack. The agent gets off there and
disappears. Neil exits the train at the Port Coquitlam station where his one-room no-dishwasher
apartment is. He walks down the deserted streets and goes to his Pipeline Road apartment. He
notes his name's not on the lobby directory anymore. But his building-access card still lets him in
the front door and into his apartment. His empty apartment. All his stuff gone.
My electrocar. Taking the elevator down to the garage he sees a few remaining vehicles. His car
isn't there. Now what am I going to do, he worries. The only possessions I have are the clothes I'm
wearing, my camera-phone and my wallet. And possibly ten thousand in the bank. Ten K. Not
bad, he decides. But these damn anxiety knots in my stomach keep getting more and more painful
every minute. Why did I even bother coming back here? What a waste. Well, shit, I had to see if
any of my possessions remained, he reasons to himself. So now what? A drink, that's what I need.
A drink. Feeling uneasy standing alone in the parking garage, Neil quickly leaves to find a bar.
"We want to talk to you about something," Eastcott says.
"Yes, what is it, East? Hello, Drexler."
"Our payment for this job."
"Yes of course. It's all been agreed upon."
"We have yet to be paid," Eastcott says. "When will the money be deposited into our bank
accounts? The funds are still unpaid."
"How do you know?" Angelico asks.
"I checked my account, no cash transfer yet," Eastcott answers.
"So did I," concurs Drexler. "No money."
"You accessed your account. In here? In Latremouille?"
"Of course."
"It will all be taken care of," Angelico assures them. "You'll get the money."
"When?"
"Soon, very soon. Right now your paycheque is not foremost on our agenda. We have more
important, bigger moves to make."
"It may not be foremost on your agenda, Ted," Drexler says with a raised tone, "but what the fuck
do you think we're doing this for? We did not enter into a partnership with you or Hammerstein.
You purchased our assistance in overthrowing and seizing control of this prison. Have we not
succeeded in taking control of it?"
Angelico lifts his arms and looks around the room. "This prison? This prison! This prison is
nothing, it's the tip of the iceberg, our first step. An infants baby step. We are going to seize the
government of this country. Do you not hear what I am telling you? Does that not mean anything
to you? The country of Canada will be ours to rule!"
Eastcott cuts into the dialogue. "Angelico, don't try to confuse us with fancy talk you learned from
your business degrees. You haven't answered the question he asked. Have we not succeeded in
seizing this facility?"
Calmly Angelico answers, "Yes, Eastcott, we have all made this happen, we all have. And I thank
you from the deepest reaches of my heart. As do the Hammerstein lieutenants."
"Do you think you could have done it without us, without the guards on the inside?" Drexler puts to
Angelico.
Angelico looks at Shockler, Dobbs, Maybenburg and Jabs. They all silently exchange glances.
Then Angelico looks to Eastcott with an expression that reads, Who the hell is this insolent ingrate?
"Maybe," Angelico answers after a long pause. "Maybe not. What are you getting at Drexler? I
told you you'll get the cash."
Eastcott, in a lowered voice repeats the demand. "We want the money now. The job is done.
Come on, fair is fair."
"The job is not done, I told you, this is the dawn of our new empire. We have much building to do."
"Angel," Drexler says, "the deal was $800,000 each to assist your crew in seizing this castle. That
was the deal. You didn't say anything about fighting the government. That's your war, not ours.
You told us it was just a fuckin' prison escape."
"Drexler, are you missing a chip in your genetic makeup? Are you? You know which one you
lack? The 'ambition' chip. Where's your vision, man?"
"My vision was looking at my bank account balance this morning and my vision did not like what it
saw."
"Oh you want your money this instant, do you? You want me to snap my fingers and make it
appear. Poof! There's your money! Like that?" Angelico mocks. "Arrangements must be made
with our accountants, our money people. Be patient."
Angelico takes a step towards Eastcott. "East, you've been most reliable, a solid associate, don't
spoil it."
Drexler delivers Angelico an ultimatum. "We get our money or we're quitting this gang, Ted," he
says.
"Quitting! Ha!" laughs Angelico. "You think you can just walk out that fuckin' door? You think
I'm going to let you walk out that door? Not on your life! And even if you did, you'll be shot on
sight. Arrested for a shopping list of crimes at the very least. We are at war, my friend. And you
are on my side now. The only place for you is right here."
"Yes! We're wanted criminals!" Drexler cries out. "And the end result of that is if your war on this
government fails, we're screwed. I need my insurance policy, I need that $800,000 in my account."
Angelico extends a feeler into Drexler's mind. He grimaces. "You told your wife about this
operation, Drexler?" Angelico shakes his head. "Bad. Very bad. That's a security breach."
Angelico walks over to Eastcott and puts an arm around his shoulder. Intimately he says, "What
can you do with $800,000 in here, East? Nothing. You can't spend it. Wait till we're out of here,
which will be any day now. You know as well as I do we've got fuelled electrochoppers on the roof
with pilots chomping at the bit to fly us anywhere we want, right to heaven's fuckin' gates if we
choose. We all have to wait, I have to wait too. For Christ sakes, $800,000 is chickenfeed, in thirty
days this country will be ours. Brody'll be gone and I'll be sitting behind his desk on Sussex. You'll
be able to have anything you want. Anything. What is it you most want?"
"Eight hundred thousand."
"The interest clock on your eighty cents has just started ticking. Let's pick a reasonable annual rate.
How does fifty per cent sound to you. A fifty per cent interest rate paid every week until we spring
ourselves out of here. Are you happy now? All you have to do is keep cool. You're making good
money on your money just to stay cool. Now, tell your friend."
Eastcott looks into Angelico's eyes with contemplative understanding. He turns to Drexler and says,
"We'll wait for our money, like the boss says."
"What?" Drexler screeches. "Donna's got to have that money. I took this job for her. We don't
need no interest on it. We need it now."
"So you did talk," Eastcott says to Drexler with a tenor of sadness in his voice. They were all under
strict orders to maintain absolute silence about the operation. "Angelico's right, we've no choice but
to work with Hammerstein. There's no alternative."
"That's it! Get me the fuck out of here! This is fuckin' bullshit, Angel! Complete fuckin' bullshit!"
Drexler says and leaves the room.
With a glance from Angelico, Shockler stalks out of the room behind Drexler, who must now be
watched closely.
"Good boy, East," Angelico says with a smile. "Did I ever tell you the reason they sent me to prison
here?"
"No. It's not something we talked about. They say you killed an associate?" Eastcott replies
cautiously.
"The accountant I liquidated, it was business. And not the first time a liability has been eliminated in
my career. They're all special, all unique. Let me tell you about my first, my cherry. Hammerstein
bought an estate that was once an active farm in northern Ontario consisting of twenty acres of land.
We bought the land with the intention of applying to have the farm land designation changed so the
area could be subdivided and developed. Amazing location, right next to a river, small town nearby.
I had plans, it was my deal, I sold the board on it, they said, 'Sounds good, do it.' To make a long
story short, the deal didn't get fully realized, the government didn't approve our application for
rezoning. Still made a profit when it was flipped. Anyway, there was an unused warehouse on that
land I passed every time I went to check up on the property. I didn't live there, it was purely an
investment property. This was just when I got involved with Hammerstein and I was located in
Toronto. On one of my visits to the area I notice there's a man occupying the warehouse, a
vagrant, a bum. He'd broken in and he was using it as a machine shop, an automotive repair shop.
Just this one man, no one else. There were a bunch of car wrecks surrounding the barn, none of
the vehicles were insured for road use and they didn't look roadworthy. I stopped my electrocar
and approached this man and introduced myself as a representative of the owner. He said his name
was Kenton. Kenton looked like he was about fifty. This dog was frazzled, fried, a junkie. Skinny
as a rake, didn't look like he ate, unkempt hair and a weeks worth of stubble. Fuckin' Charlie
Manson. Crazy Manson eyes. A wreck like the cars on the land. I told him he was trespassing on
private property. He said he wasn't trespassing, it was his land, he pays rent, and it was me who
was trespassing. 'Who do you pay rent to?' I asked him. 'The only one who matters, the man
upstairs,' he says. There you go, that indicates what I was dealing with. I should have asked him if
the man upstairs paid the property tax. Anyhow, I informed Kenton he had no authority to be on
the land and he must pack up his tools and leave. He'd turned the area into a car junkyard, so I said
I'd give him two weeks to get all the derelict vehicles off the land. Right then Kenton turns nasty,
like a dog, a junkyard dog. He snarls at me, telling me to get away from his workshop immediately.
Then he grabs at the crotch of his pants and pulls his balls up and tells me I could suck them. I
asked Kenton if he was aware that he was basically telling me to get off my own land. He didn't
want to hear it and made it clear pretty fast that if I didn't get off the land right away I would be
muscled off. He was having some kind of anxiety attack and not in control of himself and I sensed
he would end up assaulting me if I didn't back off. He was almost on top of me and I saw an
imminent street fight about to break out if I didn't leave. I wasn't dressed for a scrap so I began
walking off the cement driveway, and there's Kenton, shadowing me like a basketball player. He
tells me I'm not walking fast enough so I increase my pace, say nothing, and leave the scene.
"A week later I returned to inspect the property and there's Kenton, standing in the sliding metal
doorway of the warehouse beside an old beat-up rusted car hulk from about 2010 with the hood
open, like he owned the place. I turned my electrocar onto the cement driveway leading into the
warehouse's main sliding entrance and stopped, put on the emergency hand brake and put it into
park. I honked the horn a couple of times and yelled out the open window, 'You're trespassing on
private property! Get off the fuckin' property immediately!'
"Just then Kenton appeared around the corner from the side door on the south side of the
warehouse with a tire iron clenched in his fist. He swiftly walked straight for my car and sat himself
on the hood of the car above the left tire and smashed the windshield with the tire iron. Then he
sat there and glared at me through the broken windshield like a madman. 'Get off my car right
now!' I yelled at him. 'Get off my car!' He refused to move and just sat there. 'I'm not going
anywhere,' he says to me. I rolled up the driver side window and released the hand brake and
backed out of the driveway, fully expecting Kenton to hop off the hood of the electrocar - the logical
thing to do when a vehicle starts moving, right? Instead Kenton grabbed hold of the ridge of the
hood at the windshield and held on for the ride. I drove about fifty metres or so up the dirt road,
turned around at the highway and proceeded back in the direction of the warehouse trying to shake
the guy from the electrocar. While driving back to the warehouse, with Kenton steadfastly gripping
the hood, I removed my phone from the glove box, held it up to the windshield in his face, rolled
down my window a crack and said, 'Get off my car! I am going to call corrector enforcement! Get
off my car! I'm going to call the correctors!' At that moment Kenton hopped off the hood of my
electrocar and landed on his feet. I watched him walk the twenty metres down the road back to the
warehouse in my rear view mirror.
"From my car I called Corrector Order Enforcement and told them I had an unsavoury vagrant
squatting on my land acting crazy. 'You're not going to like what I have to say,' the corrector said
to me. 'What you've described is not a corrector matter. According to precedent set in the Superior
Courts, that man on land you say is owned by your corporation has a legal right to be there. We
can't remove him and neither can you. He's got more right to be there than the owner does. Don't
go near him or you'll hear from us.'
"There was a Bolshevik revolution? When did the government put down the mandate to Corrector
Enforcement that ownership and land title is meaningless and property can be seized from owners
by anyone with the balls and stupidity to try it?
"Then I contacted the removal squad at Hammerstein, told them we had some Molly work to do,
gave them the location, said to 'em, we've got an animal occupying one of our properties and it'll
have to be moved out and the warehouse sealed. I told them to give the guy two weeks to wise up.
They said they'd be happy to take care of it.
"But the next week when I came back - no Kenton. Gone. All the wrecks cleared out and the
warehouse sealed up and contained; no way in, no way out. I decided I'd leave it sealed for six
months and if there were no break-ins I'd unseal it and fortify it with new locks.
"So six months rolls by and the distractions at that time in my career were too numerous to mention.
I never did get around to ever checking up on the warehouse and then the property was sold. A
few months after the property was sold I got a call from a Corrector Enforcement goon. The smurf
tells me a man's dead body was discovered on the property by the new owner. Inside the
warehouse. He died of malnourishment, starved to death. Looked to them like he'd been inside the
warehouse for a year. I immediately assumed Kenton had been inside when it had been contained
by our guys. The corrector didn't know it was us who boarded up the shack and I didn't tell him.
So I ask the removal squad if they'd inspected the warehouse for any people inside before sealing it
up and they said, 'Of course, we checked to see if Kenton was inside.'"
Angelico says nothing else.
Eastcott realizes Angelico is telling him his crew boxed the vagrant in deliberately, while he was
alive, knowing he was alive, refusing to let him out thus making the warehouse his tomb. Eastcott
knows he has received a savage warning from Angelico.
"Take from my experiences what you will. I hope there's some wisdom there for you to glean.
That's why I tell you what I do, for you to see that the decisions I make are not reached without
reason; not irrational and precipitous. The direction I steer this ship is based on what I've learned in
my past." Angelico's cold gaze does a freezer burn into Eastcott. "I'd rather not discuss it any
further."
Sensing Angelico's patience with him reaching its limit, Eastcott nervously says, "Yes, Mr. Angelico.
About Drexler's outburst..."
"Your friend Mr. Drexler-"
"No, he's not my friend," Eastcott says, jumping tactlessly onto Angelico's sentence. "We worked
together. That's all. We had beers a few times. I barely know the guy. I didn't expect him to be
so unreasonable."
"Mr. Drexler will be dealt with. Fairly. And so will you. Go away, Eastcott."
Eastcott turns and leaves the control room to walk down the cement corridor. How stupid that was
to confront Angelico, Eastcott chides himself, feeling confused and a little delirious. What will he do
to Drexler? Lock him up with the others in confinement? Or kill him. Must play it cool from now
on, I've got to prove once again I'm a player firmly loyal to Angelico's Hammerstein team. If it isn't
too late. Drexler must be told, Eastcott decides, only one way to make things right, he must be told
to cool it, to stop making waves. He'll sit him down and talk to him, pound some sense into him.
Drexler doesn't know how dangerous Angelico can be. But Eastcott knows, he's listened to the
tales, he knows Angelico is not to be harassed. A call to Drexler's communicator is answered by a
recording saying he is unavailable. Drexler's not in his cell. Eastcott hurries to the range but he's
not there either, not hanging out, eating and playing poker with the others. Where in God's name
did he get to?
The 'fuck it' point is reached when the limit has been hit. When there is nothing left to declare
except 'Fuck It.' And, Neil Jaggard realized, he had finally reach his 'fuck it' limit when Connie told
him she was devoting her life and soul to Ted Angelico. He knew that was it.
After her unsuccessful attempt to meet Angelico in person at the prison they had left Edmonton
taking the missiletrain east. It was in icy Winnipeg Neil realized Connie was too far gone, no longer
his (if she ever was his), not the woman he thought he knew, no longer the woman he had fallen in
love with. She was waiting for her saviour and that saviour wasn't him. Hadn't he felt from the
beginning that the requited love of Connie Black was a dream too precious to be true? He had. Oh,
how it had hurt, the realization that his love had changed hands to a phantom within her mind,
maybe only within her imagination. But, he had to admit, she did seem to be talking to someone
and that someone seemed to speak to her in return. A sad, "Call me" were the last words he heard
from her lips. Then she popped a bunch of RV-17 pills into those full, sensuously fleshy
heart-shaped lips and furiously drove off down the Manitoba highway.
Neil decided to travel by missiletrain back to BC, if for no other reason than to get away from
Connie. The train's route no longer extended all the way into the Vancouver region. Access there is
now restricted, a no-go zone for civilians. As well, all roads and bridges into the city of Vancouver
had been severed in the attack. Military only. Nothing remains of the city's downtown, the core
now a smouldering, toxic crater. However, the surrounding regions were left relatively unscathed,
untouched by the pinpoint destruction of the thermonuclear weaponry used to tear out the region's
corrupt heart. Not that there'd be any reason for Neil to go to near the city, his abandoned
apartment is in Port Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver.
At the Winnipeg missiletrain terminal Neil is surprised by the shear number of people in the bustling
station. He learns that almost none of these passengers are travelling west, the street being one-way,
out of the westernmost provinces. After purchasing his ticket he hands his pass to an attendant and
steps into the designated passenger car and sees it's empty. He takes a window seat towards the
back of the car. While he waits for the train to depart five others get on board and find seats, all
occupying far-away sections with plenty of personal space and room away from the other
passengers. One minute before the shuttle's 8:30 a.m. departure a uniformed government agent
steps on and looks everyone over, especially eyeing Neil, and takes a seat directly behind him.
There's an announcement on the P.A. warning passengers not to go anywhere near the core of what
used to be downtown Vancouver, if they do they will be arrested or possibly shot. Then the
missiletrain rolls off.
About fifteen minutes into the twenty minute trip Neil feels a tap on his left shoulder, just as he
expected. I knew it, he thinks. He begins to turn his head. "No, no, don't turn around," the agent
says softly. The agent whispers quietly in his ear, "We know what you did."
Neil doesn't reply. Finally he says, "What I did?" However, he knows exactly what the agent is
referencing.
"We know you killed a Hammerstein associate in Vancouver."
Neil shudders with terror, fearing he's to be arrested and detained by the agent. His body tenses, his
scalp tingles. Why am I returning to BC? he chides himself. Why am I on this train. Stupid, stupid
move.
"I don't know anything about that," Neil replies coldly.
"C'mon," the agent disdains. "You've got a mindtap on you. In some government control room
somewhere there's an agent looking at a screen right now that tells him you're lying to me."
Where is this going? Neil wonders. This guy's a government agent not a corrector. Only correctors
arrest people.
"Good work," the agent says to him.
"What?"
"I said, 'Good work.' There'll be a credit to your bank account of ten thousand in the next few
days. Might already be there. Thanks."
Just then the missiletrain arrives at its first stop in BC at Chilliwack. The agent gets off there and
disappears. Neil exits the train at the Port Coquitlam station where his one-room no-dishwasher
apartment is. He walks down the deserted streets and goes to his Pipeline Road apartment. He
notes his name's not on the lobby directory anymore. But his building-access card still lets him in
the front door and into his apartment. His empty apartment. All his stuff gone.
My electrocar. Taking the elevator down to the garage he sees a few remaining vehicles. His car
isn't there. Now what am I going to do, he worries. The only possessions I have are the clothes I'm
wearing, my camera-phone and my wallet. And possibly ten thousand in the bank. Ten K. Not
bad, he decides. But these damn anxiety knots in my stomach keep getting more and more painful
every minute. Why did I even bother coming back here? What a waste. Well, shit, I had to see if
any of my possessions remained, he reasons to himself. So now what? A drink, that's what I need.
A drink. Feeling uneasy standing alone in the parking garage, Neil quickly leaves to find a bar.
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