The Filthy Few: A Steve Nastos Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

then suddenly fell slack. “God, already?” His eyes opened, one then the other. Blue, deep, the most beautiful thing about him aside from his tenderness, she decided. It was definitely alien the way he made every effort to please her and hold on to her as if she was the most valuable thing in his life, even while he slept.
    Walker sat up and rubbed his eyes while Falconer turned on the lamp by clicking the switch the wrong way then having to reverse it. The light was dim and unsatisfying. Walker turned on the bathroom light, going in and closing the door behind him. She stood up and dressed, feeling a cold nervous sweat on her underarms that she wiped away with a soiled T-shirt from the hamper. Jeans, a dollar-store bra, shoes from Goodwill and the shirt she wore out of prison. Walker swung the door open, having transformed himself into his usual jittery, amped-up self. He had run the tap and slicked his hair back. There were still beads of water clinging to his shaved chest distorting the tattoos and lines of his ribs.
    He took her by surprise with a tight hug, lifting her up in the air. “This is it, baby. After tonight we’re going to get the hell out of this place.”
    She found it hard to believe his optimism, but the enthusiasm was infectious. She laughed as she pushed him away and threw a shirt at him.
    â€œI’ll believe it when I see it.”
    He ratcheted tight his bootlaces, tying them off, and pulled on a shirt that hung loose. He tightened his belt an extra notch to hold them over his protruding hipbones, and checked himself out in the mirror. He looked cancer thin as he twisted from side to side. He said that he had once been fat but she didn’t believe him.
    She felt sad, seeing how he had been starving himself to save the money faster so they could get out of there. She tried not to cry at the sight of him, saying, “Come on, let’s go.”

    Falconer drove while Walker counted the money. Desperation was a feeling that some might understand as a temporary way of life but for Walker and Falconer every hour of the past three months of their lives was ruled by it. Deciding whether to eat or to save money, fighting the itch for alcohol or drugs to stave off hopelessness of life on the margins, the fear of being robbed increasing as their savings grew. Living in a filthy, bedbug-infested apartment with drug addicts and foreign gangsters.
    It occurred to her, as she drove through the dark city streets, that she had never doubted Walker’s loyalty to her. His car was a black Ford Focus hatchback that he said was good on gas. It was stolen, the plates found at the side of the Gardiner Expressway with a sticker that expired six years ago. It was one of the few times she had driven in Canada; the last time was when she was arrested with guns and drugs.
    It would be a lie to suggest that Rob relaxed once he determined that the seventeen thousand dollars was all accounted for. They had been eating garbage bags of recovered bagels and pastries stolen from the garbage bins from downtown donut shops, canned goods stolen from dollar stores, all while the comparative fortune slowly accumulated from petty drug deals, welfare fraud and Falconer’s prostitution.
    Walker heaved the black duffle bag from his lap onto the back seat and exhaled. The engine sputtered and the interior lights grew dim, then something caught in the engine and the car came back to life.
    â€œAlternator,” he said. “That’s what that grinding sound is.”
    â€œWill this get us —?”
    â€œWe’re gonna make it, Ann, I promise.”
    She drove to the designated place, Trinity Bellwoods Park on Queen Street, which was just a block down the street from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. The south gate was open and the parking lot near empty except for a lone black Honda Accord. The car was gently rocking, the interior green light barely visible behind steamed-up