Chapter 22

Glen Frederick went straight to the provincial courthouse after being released from custody.
Brinsmead Jones, the lawyer, was there already, working on Nicole’s remand.
Her bail hearing was delayed until the end of the day, somehow getting stuck behind a robbery trial on the court docket.
Normally, regardless of docket, the judge would organize the day’s cases so the quick appearances, remands, election-and-pleas, were dispensed with first, before the more lengthy matters. In this case, it was clear the clerks and the judge were in some sort of collusion to make Frederick’s wife wait in lockup for as long as possible.
Dee Lee was waiting across the street as Frederick pushed his way through the heavy oak doors of the courthouse at about 10:30.
Dee was standing in front of a small parkette filled with bums and pigeons, both too stupid or fat to fly south for the winter.
Frederick was wearing the same white RCMP Auxillary T-Shirt he wore in the interview room, and grey jogging pants with no underwear and no socks or shoes. He was walking barefoot on the snow-packed asphalt.
Dee wore sunglasses, works pants, a red Mackinaw and a green Cavendish ballcap.
Dee handed him an order of hot homemade fries served in a cut-off brown paper bag from a chip wagon parked in the street. They smelled like vinegar and ketchup.
“Thanks brother,” Glenny said.
“No problem, Glenny. Where’s Niggole?” Dee said.
Glenny winced. “I told you never to call her that!”
Then he decided a verbal reprimand was not enough. He set his fries down on a park bench and punched Dee hard on the shoulder with his enormous right fist.
“-Hey!” Dee faltered under the powerful hit and reflexively grabbed his colostomy bag to prevent it detaching from his stomach. He almost dropped his French fries and raised his other arm up in a defensive posture. “Woah! I’m eating here, man. Take it easy!”
“Don’t call her that!” Frederick growled. “It ain’t funny.”
“What?” Dee said in mock innocence.
“I don’t wanna hear that shit.”
Dee stood up, wearing a large grin and giggling. “Okay. Geez. Where’s Nicole?”
Glenny kissed his teeth. “They’re trying to rattle me. They’re using her as blackmail. They charged her with unsafe storage of a firearm and they arrested us naked, basically while I had my dick in.”
Dee sniffed in suppressed laughter. “Aww-haha. You’re bad. I knew that big dick of yours would get you in trouble. They knew what they were doing too. -Where are your shoes, man?” He pointed at Glenny’s big feet curling on the cold ground.
“No shoes. Nothing but a T-shirt. I said, ‘hey? Don’t I get a blanket?’ They didn’t even give me a blanket. And check this out-” Glenny pulled down the collar of his T-shirt and displayed the dark red vampire-bite burns of the Taser shocks he’d received.
“They Tasered me twice and then gave me an old-fashioned beating anyway.”
“They can’t be charging you then, man. If they were charging you, it would all be by the book. They’re just messing with you.”
“They gave me a nice licking. Three cops.”
“Yeah, you’re definitely in the clear, man. That’s good. That’s actually good news.”
“I thought for sure they were going to stick me with resisting arrest, cause I kicked the window out of a cop car.”
The two men sat down on the bench and ate their fries in silence for a moment, savouring the salty food while it was still hot.
“Jeez, its cold,” Frederick said. “You should see this cop though. My Gawd.” He rapped his knuckles excitedly on the park bench. “She was tempting. She’s H Division. She walked in. Our eyes clicked, just like that.”
He pointed at his eyes and then at Dee’s eyes. “Oh man. I know I am going to bed her someday.”
“What’s her name? Is she a nicor?”
The smile dropped from Glenny’s face. “Watch it. She’s Arabic or Lebanese or something. Greek maybe. Her name’s Biz Digby.”
Dee took out his cellphone and programmed the name Biz Digby into his address book. “What kind of a name is ‘Biz Digby’? I’ll check around, see if anyone knows her.”
“She’s cold-hearted, man. She arrested my wife just so the kids would get taken by Children’s Services. And she says they have Nicole’s cell phone traced to Ellershouse at the time of the Purcell thing.”
Dee looked surprised at that. “What cell phone?”
“Her cell phone. Nicole’s actual cell phone.”
Dee turned his face away and stuffed the last ketchup-soaked mouthful of fries over his beard on the end of a white plastic fork.
“How did her cell phone get there? What are you a moron?”
“It wasn’t me, Dee. Think about it for a minute. Who else was with me that night?”
“Oh shit….” Dee groaned. “Derek, that Jesusing idiot.”
“Derek.”
“I forgot about him.”
“Yeah. I wish I could. And if I ever get clear of this, I’m gonna frigging kill him. I’m serious. I want a Shitty done on him. A bad one. Something to make him wake the fuck up. I want that chick with AIDS to bang him or something, except he’s probably too stupid to care.”
“Why would he take Nicole’s cell phone?” Dee said. “Didn’t you tell him ‘no phones?’”
“Of course I did. I don’t ever allow him to carry a cell phone, Dee, ever. He’s not allowed any phone, any phone, any time, precisely for this reason. He must have stole Nicole’s phone or something. What do I know? He’s an idiot. He probably steals it all the time, and she’s too stupid to notice.”
“Cripes sake,” Dee chuckled. “He’s so stupid that kid, he’s almost crafty.”
“I got to think of Nicole now. If I plead guilty to all the guns, they might still go after her for obstruction. They want me to cop to attempted murder for burning out that dumb scalliwag.”
“Attempted murder? No way. You don’t plead to nothing. No guns, no nothing. All the guns belonged to your wife for all I care. End of story.”
Glen Frederick set the bag of fries down on his lap. “That’s my wife your talking about, not some mush. I can’t just leave her there to rot.”
Dee stood up and stretched his thick back. “Well, I need you out of jail right now. I need your help to get my cocksucking coke back. So, do whatever the fuck you gotta do. I don’t care how you do it. Tell them they’re Derek’s guns.”
“Ah-Ah. I would, but they wouldn’t believe me. They don’t want a young offender.”
“Anyway, let’s get out of here,” Dee stood up and adjusted himself under his pants. “We got work to do. Brinsmead’s got your little woman and the kids in good hands. Okay? C’mon, we’ll get the newspaper. I put a story in there about the firebombing.”
Glen Frederick stood up, haltingly on his freezing feet. “You did what?”
“Yeah. Jack did a story about the firebombing. I worked it so that it names Darroll Missions as the legs. That way the cops will have to look at him for it too. Maybe they’ll put you on the back burner for awhile.”
“Huh,” Frederick thought about it. “But what if they go looking for Darroll, and they find him first?”
“I want them to,” Dee said. “If they catch him while he’s in Nova Scotia, they’ll put him straight into Burnside. Once I get him there, the boys’ll henpeck him to death until he squeals. This way, the Pork will flush out my coke for me, like a pigeon in the bush.” Dee raised his thick arms up and made like he was holding a shotgun up to his sights.
“Flap-flap-flap. Buck-a-boom!”