Is that an illusion? Was he seeing things? It looks exactly like Keith, the guy he spent a month tearing up weeds with in June (and part of July) in the backyard of Mister Sissons property in West Meadowlark. But how could this be? It was 700 miles away and more than a month ago. The motorcycle was a Honda 75 and the guy was wearing a helmet but it was clearly Keith when he turned toward Dale and drove over to stop on the road beside him.
"Dale! What are you doing here? Where are you staying?"
"Nowhere. I was down at Peachland. I left this morning and I am going to camp beside the lake."
"That's not possible. The cops will roust you for sure. You can stay with me. I am at my brother's house for the summer. He will let you crash for a couple nights."
This was a spot of unexpected good luck, which took a moment to process. He didn't hesitate to accept, almost without any thought whatsoever.
Overall, 1969 had been unkind so far. Suddenly this wasn't the case. He was experiencing a change of fortune, which began mere days ago, while he was riding his ten speed from Kelowna to Peachland. He found a wallet on the side of the highway. A $20 bill was sticking out of the bill fold. He felt overdue for a run of good luck, so allowed it to begin. There was another $6 tucked neatly in the wallet.
For the first time this summer, he could stop and smell the roses. And the breeze, and the rich Okanagan air with orchards under irrigation and radiant sunshine with never a cloud in the sky.
They climbed to the attic, "I thought your big plan for the rest of summer was to ride your bike to Jasper with your friends."
"So I shipped my bike to Vernon and rode to Peachland to meet Tim Collins. His mom and dad said I could stay at their rented cabin for a few days," which Dale reduced to three days because they made him feel as welcome as bubonic plague. There was a load of bad blood going on. The trip was a wash.
Yes, he was a mere 14, but he had the bike and the gear so he felt liberated, with 26 extra dollars, he felt rich when he rode away from the Peachland beach front cabin this morning.
"And Mister and Missus Collins just let ya go?"
Dale laughed. "What?" He was taken aback. "Of course. What are they going to do?"
"Well, Dale," said Keith, "my fuckin brother and sister in law do not want to let you go. They're for calling the cops to get you home."
"What? I am set. I know exactly what I am doing. Here. Look at this," and Dale handed the baby blue colored wallet to Keith upstairs in the attic room with a couple of cots.
"This is what you found? Geez. Seems kind of heavy."
"You think so? I kept the $26. I want to turn the wallet in to the RCMP."
"Yah you should. And put the money back. This poor Indian lady from Washington probably needs it more than you."
He looked at the straw-haired yokel, same age as him, 14, probably riding the motorcycle illegally, who was a hard worker a few weeks ago in Sissons' demon weed patch, "I know. I feel guilty. But I'm keeping it. Don't tell your brother. You got a driver's license?"
"Fuck you. It's too heavy," Keith kept assessing the wallet, putting it down on his cot, then returning to it, weighing it, something neither of the Collins boys had done a few days ago. When Dale arrived at the Collins' little cabin beside Okanagan Lake bearing this fresh reward for his travails, the boys said keep the money, toss the wallet, and kept it hush hush with their parents.
Dale kept the money, and hid the wallet deep inside his saddlebag. He was living on instinct at 14 years of age when he decided upon an early departure from the Collins tribe. It was the end of his friendship with Tim, and it was a jagged end to a few disturbing events.
In every way you can imagine, Dale felt robbed by Tim Collins, and by extension, the entire Collins family, until now. In a desperately real way, Dale felt betrayed by Tim Collins. Last spring, Dale let Tim in on a secret, he had a key to his Dad's pearl white '65 VW Beetle, a four year old car in pristine condition. One weekend he invited Tim to go joyriding while the folks were away. Tim smashed the VW engine-first into the back bumper on a welders truck parked on 149 street.
Dale was savvy to Tim's cavalier commitment to the debt from popping the clutch. Tim owed $200 of the $400 repair bill. Dale shouldered his half, then some, for being the instigating car thief. All this had been worked out judiciously by the lawyer, Codliverchuk, on the day of the incident. Or so Dale had been led to believe. This trip from Edmonton to Peachland was about the cash. They didn't speak a word of it in the confines of the lake-side cabin. Dale left, twenty-six whole dollars richer, thanks to the Collins, in some backhanded fashion no one could fathom.
Dale sat on his cot pondering the difference between Keith and Tim. Tim advised keeping the $26. So had Tim's older brother, the one who used to drive a Valiant 3 speed on the floor, a long gear lever looked comical but proved functional, as Dale recollected from the one or two occasions he rode in the car, back before hell proper had descended. (It seemed so long ago. It was 5 months.) What would those two goofs say about the $440?
Harvey Codliverchuk, L.L.B., Q.C., had been satisfied with the direction things were taking, after all, it was his planning to perfection, it was the consummation of multiple agenda points in a large play for total control, plus, it was the severe destruction of a dirty little fucker who deserved to be snuffed before he starts on a path to further deviation.
Personal empire building would not be interrupted, colored or flavored in any way by this tangential interlocutor, a thorn in his side from the instant he encountered him, someone who represents foul play, contributory negligence personified. If he could go back in history and prevent the birth of Hitler, go back in history and prevent the birth of Genghis Khan who inflicted so much terror upon Harvey's Ukrainian ancestors, or go back in history and prevent the birth of Dale MacAdam, he would choose the latter. According to Dale MacAdam's mother, and his sister, the kid was the devil, and both of those cunts were evil enough to know. Even so, Harvey was stunned when the mother said, "Yes," to the proposal to put a life insurance policy on her kid.
It began because Harvey does not resist the temptation of young, fresh, delinquent school girls, the promiscuous ones are extraordinary in two ways. Irresistible to his rock hard libido stick, and incredibly fecund sources of huge bonus income, legitimately derived from the most illegitimate of resources. Baby making.
He doesn't brag about it. He lives on the trading of humans.
Harvey encounters these opportunities in a steady stream. He is in the perfect position to dip into it at his convenience, on demand sexual intercourse with a non stop flow of young, willing or compliant pussy. He is a warden, court appointed guardian, of the court of family justice, and he specializes in rounding up runaways. Here in the middle of the sexual revolution on a waves of a baby boom, he was in the business of containing errant pussy, by law, and leading it to the Pineview Home for Unwed Mothers, and business was fucking booming, because there's no such thing as containing errant pussy.
One of those fetching ones he encountered in a previous spring had been an extended probation leading to recurring sexual frenzy for the past year of her incarceration. Until she shoved her stupid, self-centered and self-indulgent little brother into the picture. And this little prick figured he was some kind of gift to humanity. He also believed himself entitled to free legal advice from Harvey. This was Dale's most objectionable trait. Attempting to out criminal the chief criminal, wickedly obnoxious fucking kid.
The kid was what this frantic long distance phone call was about from brother Boss Bob who was supposed to keep it simple but always made it complicated, and a bit of a mess, which is to say, unpleasant and unexpected surprises. Boss Bob gave a hearsay account because Boss Bob didn't do the job himself, he hired another guy on the job, and this guy came back pretty shook up over his encounter with the 14 year old kid. Imagine. Turns out the kid is dangerous-as-fuck, and guess what? Boss Bob is somebody who knows danger, after a full stint in World War Two, in the Canadian Navy, and in the thick of it.
"My guy got the fright of his fucking life, Harvey. My guy got the fright of his fucking life, And he is totally pissed at me about the lack of warning. Totally pissed about the lack of warning."
Harvey's target had competed for a couple of city championships in hockey, his dad bragged about the kid's scoring prowess. "I told you he is competitive." Harvey knew hockey players who did the scoring didn't do the fighting, so this was unexpected news about a surprise attack.
From the report of the guy's surveillance, he started off saying it had been a boring fucking morning, last he heard the kid was riding his bike from Kelowna to Vernon. "He rode his bike like you said he would."
The operative picked the kid up on the outskirts of the town of Vernon. The kid told the operative he was going to Salmon Arm. "It was evening, and a warm August night. The kid said he wouldn't get in the truck unless my guy was going non stop to Salmon Arm. My guy reassured him this was the plan. And away they went."
And this is when it gets interesting. Apparently the operative intends to have a little fun with the kid before he finishes the job. "So he drives him north toward the town of Salmon Arm, and this is Wednesday evening, so the highway is deserted. About twenty miles up this lonely stretch of highway, the operative pulls over to the left and parks the camper beside the highway. He decides it's the place to do it. But the kid doesn't go along initially. He gets out of the pickup and crosses the highway to stick out his thumb. He was disgusted but didn't express any disappointment. "My guy thinks the kid got away. An hour passes. No cars go by along the highway, and it's approaching midnight." The operative hears a knock on his camper door.
Boss Bob says the kid comes in, they have coffee, kid asks about his tattoos, "Navy," he told him.
The kid said they look familiar because his dad has the same tattoos on his forearm.
"My guy puts him on the bunk above the cab, lays down beside him, has his dick up stiff as a board, and, Snap."
"it's the noise an eight-inch razor-sharp stiletto made flashing toward my guy's hard-on, so my guy jumped down and threw the kid's gear out the door and backed away while the smirky shit went to the exit. He said he managed to give the little fucker a shove out the door. But it wasn't a toy knife. He said the kid laughed after landing on his feet in the dark like a fucking black cat and asked him if he wanted more. It scared him. "Same tattoos, buddy, excapt my old man ain't a queer, aasshole. And neither am I!"
Uh shit. This is unexpected. It was also a real costly. Life insurance policies don't pay for living expenses, and don't come cheap either, and the trollop mother won't be picking up the tab for $10,000. She said, it's not her fault if it doesn't work out.
People are pieces of shit, it's so easy to spin them for a payday. It takes training. The idiot in the camper will get his lesson. A shot in the back of the head from Boss Bob. And the dangerous person disguised as a kid appears to have made a career for himself of surviving Harvey Codliverchuk.
Dale had found it awkward to explain things to Harvey Codliverchuk. Dale was intuitive enough to realize quickly he made a mistake consulting this guy.
Why had Dale cut a key and stolen the VW? That was the lawyer's main concern. In fact, Mr. Codliverchuk, 'Harvey' was quite torn up about the boys leaving the scene and taking the car from the accident, because Dale and Brian Collins pushed the smashed '65 Pearl White VW Beetle through a corridor of neighborhood back alleys to park it in the MacAdam garage, where they met the lawyer.
Well it was simple. The cast iron metal back bumper of the gigantic welder's truck which Brian here smashed didn't happen to have a scratch. Dale had brushed off a few flecks of paint. They pushed the car into the immediate convenience of a downhill alley and up the lane for a block, across one street, into another alley, a basic police report of activities. For some fucking reason, Codliverchuk wasn't having any of it. He seemed unwilling to accept that Brian Collins was being made responsible for smashing the car while Dale was in Tooke's Grocery.
"I'm not worried about the police. There was no damage to the other vehicle. I want Brian here to pay for half the damage. He wasn't a passenger. He smashed the car.
"Yes. It was lawless, but I am not a delinquent."
Dale opted to inform Harvey that when his Dad catches him red-handed, it will be a week of the silent treatment, then a resumption of normal life, because Dale isn't guilty. Dale would soon be handed the keys, grudgingly, "Straight to the store," Sure, "No fuck around stopping to cut keys, for this car, or that house, or the other car."
Dale explained to the lawyer, who showed up at his sister's insistence because the parents were out of town, that he had his learner's permit, "Had it the day after my birthday last November." He got the key cut one afternoon where he works part-time at a hardware store. It seemed convenient to have one.
"It was criminal."
Dale agreed to listen to the lawyer because he wanted a legal position on the damages, and he continued to defend it by stating he logged at least 5,000 miles behind the wheel of various types of cars and trucks since the age of 10.
Dale told Harvey the only thing preventing him from driving without supervision was his jealous older sister, and his cranky mother. He said his old man trusted him with the wheel of a car and the handle of a loaded gun. "I've been gutting fish since I was a toddler."
Harvey seemed entirely unable and unwilling to listen. Dale was equally sure other 14 year old kids were unable to relate. He felt squeezed between childhood and adulthood.
* * *
One night the previous winter Codlivershuk was hovering in the rink shack waiting for his kid to finish a hockey practice. Young MacAdam was loitering in the other room with young Bill Maher and Jack Dawson , perhaps the homeliest kid Codlivershuk ever saw. "How do you break a Ukrainian's forefinger," said MacAdam,
The dressing room of wooden benches was otherwise empty. "Punch him in the nose! How do you keep the flies off the bride at a Ukrainian wedding? Leave a pile of shit in the corner."
Codliverchuk stepped around the corner and the laughter stopped.
"I'll stop telling those jokes," said MacAdam.
The three youth sitting in the Tacks hockey skates on their feet, waving their sticks, sat still, and quiet.
Codliverchuk left the building into the 20 below Fahrenheit of the Edmonton winter. He stuck his head back into the boy's dressing room. "Why don't you fucking cunts go scrape the ice before they close the building and kick you back to delinquent hall?"
Two of these pricks were not his cup of tea. The third was a target. The reports from his mother were unbelievable, Harvey painted a bullseye on the kid's forehead. He was gonna die. Keep telling those racist jokes, kid.
As time went on, Codliverchuk kept an obsessive eye out for Dale MacAdam. He was convinced he had to do something about him. Harvey was sure there was an opportunity, and Harvey continued under the spurious reasons a contentious woman can provide, lies gross enough to excuse the making of easy money.
Codliverchuk now had a confederate, a student, and was impressed by his student for one reason more than any other. The student had Churchillian determination, which is to say, he was determined to divert money and death at the expense of others, in this particular regard impressive indeed. He would have a body count by age 25, and be worth millions, and never lifted a finger.
Harvey found a man with a license to kill. What makes this man perfect is he is small enough to go where no one else can fit, where no one else belongs.
This young man was Charlie Manson in a silk suit with a top of law class pedigree, which he would soon be finishing in Codliverchuks office, an articling law student. He was local, a fraternity man from the same house and law school as Codliverchuk.
The man had been scouted due to his high marks. Codliverchuk could see in his eyes there is structure in this man's brain, and it says, "Kill." He doesn't belong in polite society. He must elevate to oversee society, and rule it with an iron fist, and a deadly aim on specific targets. He must be an assassin.
The young chap shared a few physical characteristics with Codliverchuk. He had small feet like Harvey. He was self-conscious about this. He was of modest stature, yet he managed to stand out in a crowd. But he could disappear; equally useful attributes.
This relationship could be lifelong, because to be perfectly honest, Harvey Codliverchuk was in love. He even mixes and matches well. Best of all, he's smart enough to impress the Jews. Harvey needs to put a hook in him for the Jews. The King of the Jews, not the fake one, the actual, nothing could not be more important to Harvey, to the world. Mostly to Harvey.
The best hooks are vaginas. Conveniently he knew one vagina in particular would come in handy.
