Burn Page 2

  Daltrey looked at him and smiled, saying, “Don’t worry, I’m good. You’ve already eaten. But thanks.”

  Once she had the infrared system needed to bypass the security system to Mazzi Hegan's apartment complex Dan had promised her, and if it worked, there was little chance she’d ever have to see him and his food-stained mouth again—unless the system broke.

  She looked into her rearview mirror and then to Dan and asked, “You got it?”

  Dan reached into his pocket and pulled out an open circuit board attached by a switch to a nine-volt battery and said, “It’s a bit thrown together, but it should work fine. Hit the switch, and it’ll send out frequencies to open any of the doors and work the elevators in most of the new apartment blocks in town.”

  Daltrey smiled, it was just what she was after—and the sole reason she’d agreed to the oyster date in the first place after dancing all night with that crazy girl and then this guy after he joined in and then listening to him bang on for an hour in the kitchen as she and her friend cooled off. Daltrey remembered standing there, feeling the panties inside her jeans wet from the sweat rolling down her back, listening to him rattling off bullshit about how his mother was a dancer and how he had in-depth knowledge of modern day infrared security systems and could build custom electronic keys that could easily beat any new security system in the city.

  She looked at him as she drove and grabbed his knee. “Thanks,” she said.

  There was something about this guy, she thought. Young, a good physique, kind of good-looking—but at the same time an absolute moron. Holding up the key with her right hand, she stared at the makeshift contraption and said disbelievingly, “This really works?”

  Dan nodded. “Go ahead and try it. Try it anywhere!”

  Picking an apartment building at the side of the road with no concierge, she pulled up, got out, and tried the door. Locked. She hit the button to Dan’s device, waited a few seconds, pushed the door, and it opened. My god, the guy’s a genius, she thought as she closed the door and walked back to the car.

  As she got behind the wheel, he asked, “So who lives in this apartment you need access to?”

  Daltrey looked to the road and pulled away. “Lived, I think.”

  Dan looked at her, confused. “Someone moved out?”

  Daltrey shook her head, then stopped and thought about it. “Yeah, kind of. Being dead’ll do that. Well, maybe dead.”

  Dan stared out the window, then turned to look at Daltrey as the sun hit her from the side, lighting up her straightened brown hair that was normally wavy. She was still hot even if she was dressed like a guy. He asked her, “He or she?”

  Without looking, Daltrey answered, “We found a guy burned to death on a rowboat this morning.”

  “Where?”

  “Out on False Creek.” Daltrey looked at him and frowned. “That’s why I’m taking a sneak look at his stuff while he’s still warm.”

  Dan smiled. He’d eaten a shitload of croissants that morning some guy in tight trousers had brought over for his mum, and he’d burned the third round cramming them into the toaster, so he had a rough idea of what the guy must have looked like. He asked, “You found him?”

  “No, we got a call early this morning.”

  “I thought you police types had procedures?”

  Daltrey looked at him and raised her eyebrows. She pulled her car up alongside Mazzi Hegan’s apartment block and looked Dan straight in the eye.

  “You going to tell on me, Dan?”

  They walked to the apartment complex door as Daltrey pulled out her new makeshift electronic device. She hit the button, and seconds later the door was unlocked.

  Walking inside, they stared at the marble columns as they entered the elevator. Dan took the device from Daltrey’s hand and hit the button again, bypassing the security system, and then handed it back to her.

  Daltrey watched as the doors closed and the elevator began to rise, leaving the ornate marble columns behind. She held up the small device, looking closely at the cheap wiring circuit.

  “You’re a genius!” she exclaimed.

  Dan smiled. He liked this, hanging out with a cop who dressed like a guy but let her hair down on the weekends.

  Her eyes were transfixed on the flashing brilliant red numbers as the elevator counted its way up to the twentieth floor. “Do you think I could keep this?”

  “It depends on whether or not you let me take a look inside.”

  The elevator stopped, and they walked along the corridor to Mazzi Hegan’s front door. Pulling a set of keys from her pocket, Daltrey lifted them up and tried one after the other in the lock. The fifth one worked, and she stepped inside.

  “Was your last boyfriend a locksmith?” Dan asked.

  As it happened, he was. Sandy was his name, and he was a master locksmith. He lived just outside town, and she’d met him at a bar one night when she’d been horny and out looking for an old friend. Their relationship had fizzled out a couple of days after she became bored with him and his constantly hard penis and had her hands on a set of master keys that could open almost any door.

  Now she had it all, Daltrey thought as she put the keys back into her pocket and felt them resting heavily against her new electronic door-opening device.

  They walked into the living room and looked out the window to the view of the city with the water below.

  “I like it!” Dan said as he wandered around the place and looked inside the fridge. “Nice pad!”

  Daltrey walked away from him as she began to carefully open drawers. Without looking back, she said, “Goes with the Ferrari in the garage.”

  She continued to look gently through things as Dan turned and called back, “Really? What type?”

  She didn’t know and didn’t care. She’d only looked at it briefly after the manager had politely asked her if she’d like to see if Hegan’s car was there in an attempt to get her out of the place. Without looking up, she answered, “A red one.”

  Dan stopped and stared at the place, letting out a long breath. He couldn’t believe it. He’d never seen a home like this. It was a million miles away from his mother’s basement. He walked around, fiddling with everything he could, then stopped at a picture off Mazzi Hegan and lifted it up.

  “So this is the dead guy?”

  Daltrey looked over and said. “You shouldn’t touch stuff.”

  Dan put down the picture and wiped it with his sleeve and asked, “Do you think he set himself on fire by accident?”

  Daltrey looked at him. He brought up a good point—she still didn’t know what had happened. In fact, she didn’t have a clue. “That’s why I’m here,” she answered.

  Dan couldn’t give a shit either way. He walked back to look out of the window.

  “If it was an accident, I’d say he’d have jumped into the water,” Daltrey said.

  “Maybe he couldn’t swim,” Dan snapped back without hesitation. He turned around to see Daltrey opening another drawer and looking inside. From afar, he could see nothing of value—old tickets, scissors, a screwdriver. He walked over, and with a huge dumb grin on his face, he said, “You know, it’s a shame for an apartment like this to go to waste.”

  Daltrey closed the drawer she was looking through and opened the next. In it, a roll of tape, some gum, a spare set of keys. “What are you talking about now?” she asked.

  Dan stood next to her now, looking down, his crotch now almost ten inches from her face. “Well, you know, we could put it to some use.”

  Daltrey closed the drawer and stood, looking Dan straight in the eye. “In what way?”

  Dan smiled and shrugged, saying, “You know, hang out.”

  “You mean, like you hang out of me?” Daltrey said as she shook her head and walked away toward the kitchen. So in his mind, it’s okay to stuff his face with fish and then think he can get it on, she thought. But she had what she wanted now. Suffering through the oysters the last time they’d been out, with him puking and all,
was enough. Luckily, she hadn’t had to sleep with the moron with his fishy breath to clinch the deal. Without looking back, she said aloud, “I didn’t invite you along for us to party, Dan, if that’s what you were thinking. I’ve got work to do.”

  Dan shrugged again and walked over to a cabinet where he looked at a few loose pictures of Mazzi Hegan on a yacht with another guy and a tall girl who looked like a model. He lifted the picture closer to get a better look at the girl’s ass, then called across to Daltrey.

  “You should see if there’s a blue yacht moored in the creek. If there is, I bet it’s without its dinghy.”

  Daltrey looked at him. “Why do you say that?”

  Dan walked away into the apartment’s master bedroom and called out, “Because there’s a picture of him on one on the dressers.”

  Daltrey stood and walked to the dresser and picked up the photo. As stupid as he seemed, Dan wasn’t all that stupid. She turned toward the master bedroom and said, “Keep your hands off of things in there.”

  Dan stared at the king-size bed with its large pillows and purple silk sheets. He looked at the ceiling covered in crazy artwork of strange black-shaded lines and shapes. Walking away, he stepped into the en suite, its huge shower no doubt built for two. Reaching in, he turned on the power jets and watched, mesmerized, as the shower’s pump-action jets blasted out steaming hot water from all angles.

  Opening the door to the walk-in wardrobe, Dan stared at the silk suits, shirts, and ties, crocodile skin shoes, and silk socks—all lined up and perfectly labeled. He picked up a suit jacket and tried it on, looking at himself in the mirror. He saw himself again in another mirror and then, turning, caught a glimpse of himself again at another angle. It was fantastic. He looked styling. Everywhere he looked, he could see himself—back, front, side, low angle, high angle. He hadn’t seen anything like it since he’d watched Bruce Lee slashed with a multi-bladed knife at the end of Enter the Dragon, and after he’d broken the basement window when his shoe flew off.

  And then he saw it. A small drawer made of dark mahogany, varnished like glass. It had a plaque embossed with gold letters that spelled out the word - SPECIAL.

  ******

  It was nearly six o’clock when Daltrey found the yacht from the photo settled in among nearly a hundred other boats just below the bridge, all moored alongside Granville Island at the mouth to the creek. Sixty feet long, sleek, finished in a light blue trim, and designed to cut through water as easily as a tailor’s scissors slipped through expensive linen.

  The fact that Dan had stripped and put on Mazzi Hegan’s clothes, then tried it with her sexually as he had, still irked her. It was either that or the fact that she was hungry. Probably both, Daltrey thought as she climbed on board the sleek yacht with the missing dinghy. She reached the boat’s door and gave it a shove. It was solid, and the lock, like the small door, was pitted from the elements.

  Pulling out her set of master keys, she opened the lock and began to climb down the small ladder. The boat, which had been unused for a while, smelled more musty than damp. She walked slowly through the center of the vessel. According to the newspaper left on the countertop, no one had been around for at least a month, and from the notes on the calendar on the wall, it appeared they wouldn’t be back for another two. Looking up, she opened a couple of cupboards and peeked inside. They were full of coffee and cookies, maps and booze.

  She walked slowly through to the cabin at the rear. Opening the door, she saw a small bed, its pillows just peeking out from the brown woolen blankets all neatly lined up and shipshape, readied no doubt for the next voyage. Walking out again, she stopped and pulled out a map of the San Juan Islands from an upended pocket shelf. She sat down at the small kitchen table and opened it. Daltrey stared at the map and a crumpled tidal chart that had been tucked inside. She knew the area well. She ran her slender fingers through her hair.

  A year back, a guy with really hairy legs had whisked her off in a forty-foot schooner around the very same islands for a long weekend. It had been fun—fun in the sense of freedom. The freedom of the sea, the wind in her hair, the surf blowing up, bubbling white froth along the wooden deck. The tiny harbors and secluded coves…it was a time of magic if you were with the right crowd or the right someone. But the right someone wasn’t him, and as the days went on, and the clock began to tick slower as one hour felt like two, then three, the guy with the chunky and hairy legs had wanted sex. And the magic had begun to drift away.

  Daltrey sat back and looked around and thought about how at first she’d wanted him, but when he was naked in his socks trying to stick his dick in her, she hadn’t. And how she’d lied and told him she was sore down there, and had paid for a float plane to come pick her up and take her home.

  Standing up, she looked around. The yacht was lovely—really lovely in fact—but as lovely as it was, it wasn’t Mazzi Hegan lovely. It didn’t have that flair she’d seen at his apartment. His yacht would be fancier, carry more of the swirl and swagger that came with a guy who’d go out and buy a pair of fancy thousand-dollar shoes. And with this sudden awareness that she was in the wrong place and that she was trespassing, the sinking feeling welled within. Daltrey headed for the galley’s small door that led to the deck, with every step feeling the discomfort deep within that comes to someone who knows right from wrong saying to herself out loud, “Last time, Daltrey—last time.” But deep down she knew what she was asking of herself was impossible.

  Chapter Four

  Dan stood in the steaming hot shower, its razor-sharp jets striking his shoulders. He squirted another dollop of aloe vera herbal shampoo on his head and rubbed it into his hair. He’d read somewhere that its prolonged use promoted hair growth, and since Mazzi Hegan wouldn’t be worrying about his hair anymore, he felt it was a shame to let it go to waste. He rinsed the shampoo and turned off the water, grabbed the softest towel he’d ever felt in his life off a nearby towel bar, and stepped out onto the luxurious bathroom floor, feeling the warmth of the underfloor heating radiate into his toes.

  Things were looking good, and they were about to get better. Sure, his relationship with Daltrey was over before it had begun, but fuck it. If she was freaked out just because he had been lying on the bed in a pair of Mazzi Hegan's silver underpants he’d found in the “special” drawer, that was her problem. She needed to be sexier anyway, walking about like a guy the way she did at work when she could so easily let her hair down and be sexy.

  Looking at his skinny, naked frame in the mirror, he reached out and grabbed a white bathrobe with the initials MH embroidered on the collar.

  “Tonight, Danny boy, you’re going to get yourself some prime uptown pussy.”

  Dressed like a million dollars in Mazzi’s clothes, Dan picked up Hegan’s keys to the Ferrari. He pulled the car out of the parking garage and steamed it down Cambie Street toward town. It was a dream come true. How many years had he dreamt of pulling up at Mickey D’s in a red Ferrari, and now, there in the distance, the Golden Arches were calling.

  He dropped a gear, overtook a loser in a Ford, and pulled up sharp at the light. Across the road, a bus stop full of people were waiting. Dan stared at them, the small group there watching him as he gave the engine a thunderous roar. You getting the bus, yeah? he thought. The loser cruiser. Well, that’s right, I’m not—because I’ve got a fucking Ferrari!

  The light changed, and Dan quickly slapped the car into first and ripped away, passing a guy his age in a Hyundai. “Yeah, fuck you as well,” he said out loud.

  Seconds later, he swept across the road and past the Golden Arches into the McDonald’s parking lot, pulling the Ferrari up longways right outside the huge plate-glass window on the side. He stepped out and stared at himself in the reflection. He looked good—a white shirt under one of Mazzi Hegan's cream silk suits, Gator shoes, a Rolex, and the Ferrari behind him. The suit was a bit big for him, but what the hell, that’s how they wore them these days.

  He slammed the car doo
r, hit the button—beep beep boop—and walked through the door, stopping at the counter right in front of the girl he’d had his eye on for weeks. The name tag clipped just above her right breast read Melissa.

  “Hi, Melissa.”

  Melissa stared at him for a moment, then at the car, and with a smile, she said, “How can I help you?”

  Dan just stood, savoring the moment and the girl with the blond hair, standing right there in front of him in her nice striped uniform. He slowly pulled out one of Mazzi Hegan’s crocodile skin wallets and checked the huge wad of one hundred dollar bills he’d found in the man’s underwear drawer. He was going big tonight.

  “I’d like three Big Macs and fries, please.”

  “Drink?”

  Dan nodded and smiled.

  “To go?”

  Dan laughed and said, “I don’t like to eat in the Ferrari.”

  Melissa looked back at him, this guy in the suit that didn’t fit, showing off his money. Then she said, “Why, is it your dad’s car?”

  Dan laughed again. How ridiculous. “No, I’m in electronics, design, and development actually.”

  Pretending to be interested for a moment, Melissa nodded approvingly then walked away, grabbed his food, and came back. She said, “I’m surprised you came here. We don’t get many Ferraris in our parking lot.”

  Dan looked at her, her eyes big and blue, and said, “Really? If you want, when you’re finished, I’ll take you for a spin.”

  ******

  Daltrey threw down her keys, unclipped her gun, and flopped down on the sofa. It had been a long day, and the early call hadn’t helped. Mazzi Hegan’s burned body in the boat was playing on her mind. She’d tried to be a hero and beat the system, have the mystery wrapped up one way or the other before anyone was reported missing or the people from dental records and DNA analysis got in touch.

  She leaned back in the long chair and closed her eyes, knowing a glass of wine would go down well right now, but the half-open bottle of chardonnay in the fridge was too far away. Letting out a deep breath, she relaxed and thought it all through. They’d awakened her at four in the morning with a phone call. She’d been there at four twenty along with a squad car who’d taken the initial call, which had come in at three ten when the fire on the boat had been first reported. The fire crew were there first, joined quickly by another ambulance crew that had been helping with a separate incident a few blocks away.