Chapter 146

They finished their beers and headed slowly back downtown.
Rawle Powder tried to think of how he could best turn Kurtis Missions in to the police, and quickly. He couldn’t believe no one was doing anything. They even passed a police cruiser driving down Hastings Street. Nothing happened.
Kurtis’ picture was in the morning newspaper, for three murders and child rape, yet here he was walking down the street in downtown Vancouver, like everybody else.
“I’m hungry,” Kurtis said, turning around. “We gotta eat. I’ll put up with a lot, but I won’t starve.”
They ducked into a large, family pizza restaurant on the better end of Hastings, not far from the park.
They walked up a large, winding staircase to an open balcony section, with about eight tables.
As the food and drinks were being served, then eaten, then taken away, Kurtis unfolded his obnoxious personality, in full, like a giant tablecloth. He was extremely drunk now.
Everything he said was rude and spoken in a loud voice, carrying like cigar smoke far across the dining area.
He was angering and embarrassing the wait staff and ordinary eaters in earshot.
Kurtis ate pizza and started talking again about how he wasn't picky when it came to bedding women.
He started talking about the fat chick he met at the Osoyoos liquor store again.
“I told you, I’ll fuck anything you can squeeze through the door.”
He gestured over at the next table to an obese woman in a wheelchair, eating dinner with what looked to be her mother. “-Or wheel her in, if you have to,” Kurtis said, grinning devilishly and booming in a loud voice. “Wheel her on in, I don't give a fuck.”
Rawle felt his stomach drop down to his knees like a floppy bladder.
The obese woman in the wheelchair had her back to Kurtis, but she must have heard what he said. There was a sickening tension in the air, but neither the woman nor her mother said anything or appeared to react. They seemed to be pretending not to have heard.
It was excruciating.
Rawle felt acid bubbling up inside him. A murdering pedophile.
He had never felt hate so strongly, not even in childhood.
He knew he was sitting with an unhinged, evil man. A sick man. A man without any shame. The boy did not care.
But the worst of it was, no matter how much hate he felt, a small part of him still wanted to bust a gut laughing.
Rawle was not sure the waitress had heard the comment, but she had definitely had her fill of Kurtis. The food was only half done and there were still two plastic pitchers half-full of beer on the table when she brought the bill.
“Will that be everything?” She said, in a scorching voice.
“Yes. Thank you,” Rawle said.
It came to $89. Kurtis picked up the bill and examined it, carefully, then leaned across the table. His breath smelled like booze.
“You see that guy up there on the balcony? He’s one of us. We can walk out of here, casually this time, I’m sure of it. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my Jesus life. He’s going to pay the bill for us, dude. Don’t worry about it.”
Rawle looked up at the balcony. It was just some guy with long hair.
“Okay,” Rawle said. “But, we should duck into the bathroom by the staircase, then sneak out after a minute or two.”
“No!” Kurtis insisted. “We don’t need to do that. I told you. I’m walking the fuck out of here, like a normal man. I’m telling you, that guy has the bill covered. That’s why we’re here. Walk out with me. C’mon!” He got up calmly and nonchalantly began to walk down the large winding staircase in the middle of the restaurant. He reached the bottom, and continued out through the crowded main dining room. Nobody stopped him.
Rawle was up from the table, following, but at the last minute, he saw the waitress coming around a corner. He ducked into the washroom.
He knew he had to separate himself from Kurtis, at some point, or it was going to turn ugly. He felt in his bones. Kurtis was about to go down, hard, one way or another, very soon. Eventually someone would recognize him. He was beginning to think it was probably best if the police took him down.
After five minutes, Rawle left the bathroom. He saw that the coast was clear and started to walk down the winding staircase. As he rounded the curve in the middle, he saw the waitress right there, halfway up the stairs.
“Where are you going?” she said. She looked really, really pissed.
Rawle sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
“I assume this means my friend stuck me with the bill?” Rawle said. “That asshole.”
The waitress frowned at him. “You don’t have any money?”
“No, I got money,” Rawle said. “But now I have to use Debit, but your guys Debit is down, right?” There had been a big sign up in the waiting area of the restaurant saying the Debit system was not working.
“It’s not, right now,” she said.
“I’ll have to use the bank machine, then. There’s one across the street.”
She looked him up and down, still frowning.
“Seriously, it’s not my fault you guys don’t have Debit.”
“There’s a big sign at the front door.”
“I know, but my friend said he would pay, cash. Now he’s playing a trick on me. He took off. Here, you can hold onto my wallet, it’s got my ID and everything. You hold onto it, I’ll take my bank card across the street and I’ll be right back with the money.”
She relaxed a little and agreed to the plan, taking Rawle’s worn leather wallet and stuffing it into the red kangaroo pouch of her waitress belt.
Rawle left the restaurant, extremely pissed off.
Kurtis was waiting right outside the door, around the corner of the building: “What happened?” he said as Rawle came out.
Rawle walked by without speaking and ran across the street. He swipe dhi sbank card in the door of a nearby bank machine booth and ducked inside, letting the door lock shut behind him.
Kurtis crossed the road, after him and waited anxiously outside the booth. Rawle prayed he still had a hundred dollars left in his old college savings account. He typed in 100.00 and waited. The machine amazingly agreed to his request and rumbled out five crispy twenties. Flip-flip-flip. He snatched up the receipt. It said “Balance not available.”
“Thak you, God.”
He exited the bank machine booth and Kurtis demanded, again, to know “what happened in the restaurant?”
Rawle pushed past him. “I’m going back in there, to pay the bill. They made me leave my wallet and my driver’s license. I’m going to get them back.”
Kurtis looked shocked.
He grabbed Rawle by the arm hard and yanked him back until he was facing him. Kurtis was kind of smiling, but also looking deadly serious. His insane man strength was incredible. Rawle could feel it, like a magnetic force. Kurtis was like an orangutan. Thin, but almost supernaturally strong.
“Do not go back in there,” he said, in a slow voice. “Do not worry about it. A Gypsy was in there, in the restaurant. On our side. I seen him. He has our bill covered. It doesn’t make sense, actually, that they would hold your wallet and make you pay the bill, again. Why are you making up a lie? What’s your real reason for wanting to go back inside the restaurant? Is something going to happen out here? I don’t like being fucked with,” Kurtis said, deadly serious. “You don’t need to go back in there.”
“Yeah, I do,” Rawle said.
“No, you don’t. You didn’t leave your wallet in there, there’s no reason for you to go back in there.”
Rawle sighed, loudly at him. “I told you, for the last time. They are holding my wallet, and my ID until I go back and give them this money. I’m going back in there. Now let go.”
Kurtis didn’t let go.
Rawle briefly considered letting his wallet and ID go the way of his family and career. What would be the difference? It’s not like he needed a driver’s license anymore. But the truth was, he was just pissed off and feeling rebellious.
This shit with Kurtis had gone on long enough. He had to make a stand, on some principle, at some point. He had to stand up to Kurtis, over something, anything. It might as well be over reality itself.
“Listen to me, carefully, Kurtis,” Rawle said, using Kurtis’ real name and looking directly into his mud brown eyes. “You think whatever you want. I’m not a Gypsy or a cop. I told you, again and again, I’ve never even cocksucking seen a Gypsy as far as I know, in my entire life! Now, I’m going to go back and get my goddamn wallet, and I’m going back in there!” With that, he pulled his wrist hard out of Kurtis’s monkey-strong grip.
“You never said you never knew one, man. You said right in the park there, that I was getting close. That I was on the right track, now you lie to my face? You told me, if we went into the restaurant, we’d be taken care of. I told you, I can put up with a lot but that I won’t sit back and starve to death, man, no way. I don’t care how long this takes or how you test me, but I won’t go hungry.”
Rawle turned to him and was calm. “Now you’re changing things I said two hours ago. Jesus! You’re confused, Kurtis. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”
Kurtis had said a lot of weird things in the last few days, but nothing that was so glaringly false based on Rawle’s most recent recollections. He had never said what Kurtis was accusinghim of saying.
Rawle ran across the street, weaving in and out of traffic, and ducked back into the restaurant. He paid the bill and left the girl nearly an eleven dollar tip. It was all the money he had left in the world.
Back on the street, Kurtis was sitting crouched up against the wall, grinning horribly and rubbing his bald red skull. “I put up and put up and put up…” he said. “I know you met with them, up there. I know you met with them… I know who you are, otherwise you wouldn’t have called me that name. I don’t like being lied to… I’m actually getting’ pretty angry here, you know what I mean?”
“I don’t lie,” Rawle said.
“I-don’t-lie?” Kurtis mimicked, bobbing his head up and down, in frustration. “You’re pushin’ me, is what you’re doing. On purpose. You’re testing me and I don’t appreciate it anymore. Enough is enough. You better get straight with me, pretty soon, or I’m gonna lose it. I can’t be held responsible... I don’t wanna make you pay for their bullshit, because you helped me, you’re a nice guy, and I appreciate that. But I can only take so much. I’m gonna have to do something if you don’t get straight with me, just about right now. Or somebody’s going to get hurt.”
Rawle could see no wavering in Kurtis’ eyes. Someone was going to get hurt. Rawle believed that, more than he’d ever believed anything in his whole life.
“I don’t know what to tell you anymore. I know nothing about any of the stuff you’re talking about. Anything about what your talking about.,” Rawle said, lamely. It was difficult to breathe.
“I don’t think you know, man, I know you know. I don’t know why you keep trying to fuck with me? That’s not smart. One of us is going to end up in jail tonight, and the other in the hospital… That’s just my prediction.”
Kurtis looked up at Rawle as he said that. Rawle looked down at him, with a mixture of animal fear and also curiosity, at what he was really gonna do.
This was the man who beat Jack and Tee to death.
Will I die too?
“I wish you luck, man- I wish you luck,” Rawle said, stern voiced. He turned his back and tried to walk away as bravely as possible.
“-Can’t hack it, can you?” Kurtis yelled, behind him.
Rawle glanced over his shoulder, but Kurtis had not moved. He was still crouched, with his back against the dirty wall, making no move to follow.
Rawle kept walking, expecting any second to feel the bite of strong fists digging into his back and head.
But nothing happened. Before long, he turned the corner onto Granville Street, which was full of people and noise and cars, and it was like plunging into a river after being in the desert.
He immediately felt safe and free.