An Ordinary Decent Criminal Read Online Free PDF

e.e. cummings said about Buffalo Bill: “Christ, he was a handsome man.” And I wondered if I was looking at my executioner.
    “C’mon. You must remember. Teddy Stiles, the one and only.”
    He took my hand gently in the dark and squeezed it.
    “We were in Drumheller on the same range. ’Bout four years back. Ted Stiles. In for arm-ed robbery.”
    He separated the first word into two parts and the fact he said “armed” told me a lot. Serious cons don’t say “armed robbery,” that’s for social workers. Serious cons assume the armed.
    “No. Sorry.”
    He sounded hurt. “You sure? I had a house with Benjamin Capito? Played blackjack with you a few times?”
    “Sorry. Been in lots of jails with lots of guys.”
    “Oh. Well.”
    He thought about it and changed the subject. “How bad off are you?”
    His tone was conversational, casual, and I matched it. “Two, maybe three days in here but I can walk or even run right now. Nothing permanent, bruised kidneys and general contusions, nothing broken.”
    He pushed my legs over and settled in next to me with his knees resting on the rail around the bed. When he was comfortable, he lit up a cigarette.
    “Good.”
    The lady cop let out a massive snore from outside the curtain.
    “What about the cop?” I asked
    “Ropena, Rophena, Ropellis, shit. I can’t remember.”
    He fished out his light again and turned it on to look at a brown vial half full of oblong white pills. “Aha. Rohypnol. Not just for rape anymore. She was dozing when I got here, you were all the way out. I just brought her some fresh coffee on my way by with a laundrycart. I gotta remember that, no one looks at someone pushing a cart of dirty sheets. She’ll be out for five or six hours, depending on weight, and she’s a big heifer. Or is it sow, considering all things? She won’t remember much, either, which is handy.”
    He shifted his weight and the bed creaked. “Got some left over from a badger game.”
    I wasn’t tracking too well. Badger games were cons done with a girl who plays the hooker, a guy who plays the irate boyfriend/brother/father/husband, and the john who doesn’t know he’s even playing anything at all. Easy money in a resort town or working a convention. Rohypnol would make sure the john didn’t remember anything but what the girl wanted to tell him. Actually, it was a nice touch.
    “Ted, right? Not to break up old home week but what’cha doing here?”
    He blew smoke towards the ceiling. “In Winnipeg? Working, favours for friends, little games of this and that.”
    “No. What are you doing here—here? With me.”
    The cigarette glowed as he inhaled. “Checking up on you and delivering a message from an acquaintance named Robillard. He runs some action in town and one of the boys you capped last night was a cousin or some such shit.”
    In the dark the words floated and I could taste them.
    “The message is . . . ?”
    He lit another cigarette from the stub of the first and drew deeply. “The boys in your house weren’t heavy. Not with guns, anyway. They were break-and-enter artists feeding their veins. It is generally accepted by the bad guys around these parts that those boys were too dumb to use guns. If they ever got a hold of iron, they’d sell it. So Mr. Robillard figures you set them up and knocked them down.”
    He took another hit off the cigarette and the smoke swirled around my face as he exhaled. “Now, Mr. Robillard doesn’t really care, family ties just aren’t that strong. But the whole thing shows a certain disrespect. So he figures that you and your family . . .”
    My face felt very cold. His hand was still on mine and the handcuff gave me maybe six inches of motion and I decided not to let him finish.
    “. . . ew . . .”
    It takes about ten pounds of pressure to break a joint, about fifteen to break a bone. I twisted my wrist and grabbed his thumb and three fingers and broke them. That much pain was disabling, paralyzing, and