Torque Read online

  Torque

  Glenn Muller

  Smashwords Edition 1.0

  Copyright 2013 Glenn Muller

  EPUB ISBN 978-0-9918641-1-9

  MOBI ISBN 978-09918641-2-6

  Print ISBN 978-0-9918641-0-2

  Print version available from online retailers

  Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

  This book is licenced for your personal enjoyment only. Except for brief passages embodied in reviews or other non-commercial uses, this ebook may not be reproduced in any form without the prior written consent of the author. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase them a copy. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, then please visit your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  WHAT THE READERS HAVE SAID

  "The story is packed with punch, a thrilling and riveting read." --Alison J. Butler, author of The Hanging of Margaret Dickson

  "Torque has the tension of a demolition derby - you can't wait for the characters to collide." --Dean Lombardo, author of Vespa and Space Games

  "The dialogue is spot on and the descriptive imagery amazing." --Patricia Laster

  "The story comes to life. It doesn't feel like I'm reading, anymore - it feels like I'm in each scene." --T. Donna Robison

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Title

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  01 02 03 04 05

  06 07 08 09 10

  11 12 13 14 15

  16 17 18 19 20

  21 22 23 24 25

  26 27 28 .29 30

  31 32 33 34 35

  36 37 38 39 40

  41 42 43 44 45

  46 47 48 49 50

  51 52 53 54 55

  .

  DEDICATION

  == == == == ==

  TO GAIL

  My wife and first-reader

  TORQUE

  by

  GLENN MULLER

  CHAPTER 1

  Saturday, October 3rd 1999. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

  Hoodies. Jeans. Running shoes. One had a backpack. The other nudged his buddy and made a subtle head gesture. Backpack nodded. They followed the fat man down the alley until he motioned them beside a dumpster where their business would be screened from the street. The two boys kept their distance, interested but wary despite their height advantage.

  “So what you got, dude?”

  “Something different.” From his pocket the man produced a small clear plastic sleeve. It contained a flat, oddly shaped, piece of vinyl with black and white stripes on one side. Backpack took it and looked it over. The other side appeared to have an adhesive backing. He passed it to his friend.

  “This gives a buzz like cocaine and a glow like ecstasy, but you don’t snort or swallow it,” their host said. “You wear it. Like a nicotine patch.”

  “Tried it yourself?”

  “I created it.” Bit of a grin then back to the pitch. “The beauty is you can control the dose. Get too high, just pull it off. Can’t do that with a pill.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty bucks each. Three for fifty.”

  “Seems kind of steep.”

  Fat man pointed at the patch. “That can last all weekend. Take it off, put it back on. Share it.”

  The boys exchanged a glance. Party tonight.

  “Okay. Give us three.”

  Backpack went to his pocket. His friend moved away from the dumpster.

  The man pulled two more from his jacket and held them out. He looked at the boy’s hand. There was a napkin but no money, and the friend had disappeared. He caught on a second too late. Backpack grabbed the patches and drove his shoulder into the fat man’s gut. They slammed into the wall. Backpack rebounded and started running. His friend was at the end of the alley.

  “Come on. Let’s go!”

  The man recovered, pushed off the wall and gave chase. Like a rhino his short legs made for good acceleration and his bulk could maintain the momentum. With their head start and youthful athleticism the boys jogged along Main Street casting rearward glances. The trot kicked into a sprint when the fat man charged from the alley and began to close the gap.

  Dodging pedestrians, the youths ran to the end of the block then darted across the intersection against the light. Blocked by traffic, the man had to pull up at the crosswalk. One hand on the lightpost for support he sucked air by the lungful. Ahead he saw the boys slow down then leave the sidewalk to enter a shopping mall halfway down the block.

  The light changed and he stepped off the curb, still breathing heavily, then at the concourse he pulled back a door and went inside. The stores were busy with commerce. Grey hoodies seemed to be everywhere. Backpacks, too.

  Fuckin’ kids.

  He really didn’t care about the patches, or the fifty bucks, it was the principle of the thing. Hell, he hadn’t been rousted by high school punks since, well, high school.

  His legs began to feel weak and he went further into the mall to find somewhere to sit. A food court was off to the left, the aroma of fried onions as tantalizing as ever. Perhaps he should eat. Get his blood sugar up.

  He grabbed a tray and stepped up to a counter but his eyes refused to focus on the menu board. Didn’t matter. He ordered, took his meal, and looked for a vacant seat. The place was so damned noisy he was getting a headache. And not even one empty chair.

  A sharp pain stabbed behind his ear. It made him stumble and spill his drink onto a table. The occupants scrambled but their protests sounded like gibberish.

  A second stab, this one excruciating. He gasped. The room spun and he staggered backwards. There were more protests, more gibberish, and then a lancing strike as if a shiv had penetrated his skull. It began to core out his brain. The sensation was blinding. Paralyzing.

  He wanted to vomit and reached out for support. The tray slipped from his hand, and his arms, heavy as lead, were slow to respond. Both knees buckled and hit the floor with a thud. He retched and for those few seconds the world returned to normal. He saw his hands on the floor before him, his fingers spattered with puke. A hand touched his back, there was a voice of concern, then a flash of intense pain and fireworks exploded behind his eyes.

  Brilliant crackling colours.

  They faded into blackness and somebody yelled.

  The sound vanished as if down a pit.

  The pit became a void and his pain slid away like a fading thought.

  Then all was silent, and all was dark.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Where is she, Rose?” Collier's pace had him six steps past the alcove before the nurse could poke her head out to respond.

  “Consultation Room One, Doctor,” she called after a rapidly receding frame in a creased brown suit. His left hand gripped a file folder and a large manila envelope. His right hand, briefly raised in acknowledgment, pushed open a large, swinging door.

  Hamilton Chedoke was not Dennis Collier's regular patch but he knew it well enough to navigate corridors now empty of the evening visitations. A few hours earlier the resident coroner had come down with the weekend flu. Collier might have claimed the same had his personal work ethic allowed it.

  He and his wife were in the midst of dinner party preparations when the page came. ‘Sorry, Hon. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ For that he’d got the look.

  Yvonne knew that organ donor cases were time sensitive. She’d even campaigned for the cause. But her a
ttitude tonight was that she had a life and the corpse didn’t, and if her husband missed one more recital dinner it would be his name on the next toe tag.

  For once, he was almost glad to see a lawyer. Two professionals could accelerate matters considerably. The briefcase matched the pantsuit and the business card identified her as Ms. Brittany Reis, B.Sc., and LL.B. Her hand was slender, the contact brief, and she got straight to the point.

  “I am here to inform you, Dr. Collier, that the parents of the deceased are vetoing all tissue donations.”

  Some days it just didn’t pay to answer your pager.

  Collier put the envelope and folder on the desk then said, “We respect the rights of the family, Ms. Reis, but if I could explain to them how many lives—”

  “The next of kin have made their decision, Doctor. My duty is to see they won’t be badgered by a bunch of Canadian white coats who want to pick through their son’s bits 'n pieces.” Her eyes actually emphasized that point with a flashing glance at his crotch.

  Collier sidled behind the desk, and sat down.

  “And the family is where, exactly?”

  “South Africa. They want the body shipped to Randburg for burial. And they want it intact.”

  Less your pound of flesh, no doubt, intoned Collier’s inner voice. She had taken the chair opposite to his and opened her briefcase on the seat next to it. He looked over his glasses at her profile. She had a wide mouth, a narrow though slightly crooked nose, and steel-grey eyes. Fake lashes. Her glossy black hair, gathered into a tight bun, accentuated the slenderness of the neck. Long on looks and short on charm. Mannequin-esque.

  In silent payback he cast her as a lingerie store prop wearing something with garters. It was the best thought he’d had all day. Regaining focus he elected to probe a little.

  “How well did you know Mr. Aird?”

  “We had a professional relationship.”

  Collier pretended to check his documentation. “The admitting form states he was pronounced dead on arrival at three-sixteen this afternoon. I’m surprised you were able to contact the family so quickly. I believe you said they were somewhere in Africa, so with the time difference it would have been, what, about midnight there?”

  “Randburg is not the heart of the Congo, Doctor. It’s a suburb of Johannesburg, population three million, most of whom enjoy mod-cons like condominiums, cable television, and what are those things called? Oh yes, telephones.”

  She crossed her legs. The action seemed to wind an internal spring that cocked her forward.

  “Just so I can tell the Aird family that you people did more than go through Roger’s pockets,” she tapped the envelope on the desk with a manicured nail, “perhaps you could indulge us with an actual cause of death.”

  Above her wrist, just where a mannequin’s hand joined the arm, she had a thin silver bracelet. Gold would not be her style. It had too much warmth. Collier returned her stare with a steadfast look of his own. Enduring tropisms from grieving relations was part of the job, but this confrontational stance from another professional was somewhat mystifying.

  “Mr. Aird was in the food court of the Jackson Square Mall when he collapsed. He died without regaining consciousness and the preliminary autopsy suggests that the cause of death was a massive cerebral haemorrhage—the brain's version of a heart attack. Indications point to an aneurysm; a bulge in the wall of a vessel that delivers blood to the brain. In Mr. Aird’s case, a bulge had ruptured causing the fatal stroke.”

  “And the cause of the aneurysm would be?” She had started taking notes.

  The coroner put down his own pen and eased back in the chair. “Although aneurysms can be an inherited trait, occurrences are often increased by factors such as diet, or lifestyle.”

  Collier paused. Something he’d just said had effected a change in the lawyer’s demeanour.

  “When you say lifestyle, are you suggesting anything in particular?”

  Well-aware that lawsuits could spring from the least expected sources, Collier mustered back to his paperwork.

  “Apart from obvious signs of obesity such as high body fat, and poor muscle tone,” he scanned the forms, “blood tests isolated a variety of chemicals. Some known to be prescribed, but there were traces of other substances we have yet to label.”

  He looked up, half-expecting an ‘objection’ from the counsel. None came so he pressed on. “Toxicology will pigeonhole everything, eventually, but it could save time and hospital funds if we could narrow things down a bit.”

  Her hard grey eyes locked onto his but she shook her head slowly. “Sorry, I can’t help you there.”

  Collier made a display of recording her answer then said, “The deceased does not appear to have been married. Do you know if he had a steady partner?”

  “Not one that he told me about.”

  “Well, at least that fits.”

  “With what. His lifestyle, again?”

  “No. With syphilis.”

  Collier had never seen a mannequin’s face flush. Until now. To her credit she didn’t allow the change in temperature to crack the stony expression.

  “Should you be telling me this, Doctor?”

  “Well, Ms. Reis, if you should happen to come across any of Mr. Aird’s recent sexual partners, while attending to his affairs, you might discreetly advise they visit their local practitioner.”

  This got the slightest of nods. The blush had mostly faded though her cheeks retained a tinge of rouge. Collier decided to press the advantage.

  “Might I inquire as to the extent of your professional relationship with the deceased?”

  “Roger—Mr. Aird—had engaged me to survey the legal aspects of some patents he was hoping to file. He was a research scientist for a pharmaceutical firm. Perhaps he could have ingested something there.”

  “Are you suggesting that the company he worked for encouraged self-experimentation?”

  Back to her original shade, Reis was once again expressionless. “I highly doubt it. Besides, a corporation like Simedyne would have made him sign the usual waivers.” Her eyes sparkled. “However, there’s a little of Jekyll and Hyde in all of us. Isn’t that so, Doctor.”

  Collier gave a flat smile. It was a trait of the medical profession he’d seen more of than he cared to admit. He slid the contents of the manila envelope across the desk.

  “Here are Mr. Aird’s personal effects.” He placed a checklist beside the envelope. “One set of keys, a pair of glasses, a watch, a ring, a medic alert bracelet, a wallet, and a pocket calculator. Please sign on the line.”

  Reis gave each item a cursory glance, checked it against the list, and then with a slim silver pen slashed a bleeding blue signature across the bottom of the page.

  “It’s also a common practice, Ms. Reis, to allow the hospital to launder the deceased’s clothes and give them to a charity. The family usually provides another outfit for memorial services.”

  Her gesture was dismissive.

  “Whatever. Burlington’s Harrowport & Dynes will collect Mr. Aird—and they’d better be collecting all of him.”

  Collier managed to snare a couple more scratches on necessary forms before the dead man’s flotsam was scooped back into the envelope and dropped into the black case. A snap of catches was followed by a curt “Thank you. Goodbye.”

  Her exit set off a rapid staccato of heel clacks that ricocheted down the hall. Collier picked up her card and flexed it for a moment between his fingers. Then, forcefully, as if crushing a scarab he stapled it to the case folder. Signed organ donor card or not, her particular brand of shit he could do without.

  Speaking of which, he picked up the phone. His wife’s voice was neutral. Not the non-committal type of neutral. The mine-laden type of neutral. His diplomatic skills had come up short in dealing with the lawyer but unless he watched his step, that would just be a skirmish compared to what he could face on the homefront.

  Hopefully there’d be some champagne left, otherwise it was going
to be a long and chilly night.

  == == ==

  The sliding glass doors barely had time to hiss open. Reis strode through, tossed her head back, and inhaled the cool night air.

  “Unbelievable! That bastard!” She spat the words at a dark sky that looked like it might spit back. Aird was such a jerk-off, how dare he die just when everything was coming together. And, being the prick that he was, he’d said nothing about syphilis! A while back, she’d suspected Aird as the cause of a throat infection but, knock on wood, there had been no lasting indication of a sexually transmitted disease.

  Parked near the door, in a spot reserved for Doctor somebody or other, the BMW chirped when she pressed the remote to unlock it. She slid behind the wheel and pulled the door closed, and then emptied the envelope's contents onto the passenger seat.

  Aird’s brown cowhide wallet was in need of re-stitching and so full of paper it wouldn't stay folded. From the billfold section, her long fingers extracted an untidy wad of paper. Parking vouchers, ticket stubs for Hamilton Bulldogs hockey games, and several credit purchase receipts. It appeared that the fat man had favoured his Diner's Club card.

  Tossing those into the briefcase she concentrated on the wrinkled batch of currency. The notes totaled two hundred and forty-five dollars.