No Good Brother. Tyler Keevil

      They had grown up on the North Shore and gone to a rival high school, around the same time as us. I’d come across them a few times. Back then they’d had a reputation as badasses but there were a lot of posers around who dealt a bit of weed and pretended to be gangsters and most of the time it didn’t amount to anything.

      Jake said, ‘They’ve been busy since then.’

      ‘I heard something about that.’

      ‘They’re making a name for themselves.’

      He told me that two years ago they’d formed this new gang that was causing quite a stir. Most of the gangs in the Lower Mainland were one ethnicity or another, but theirs – the World Legion, they called it – had done away with that, and they were muscling in (that was the term Jake used) on the turf of the older gangs: the Triads and the Hells Angels.

      I said, ‘Equality among criminals, eh?’

      ‘They’re the ones who helped me out inside.’

      ‘Because you’re North Shore?’

      ‘An old friend vouched for me, and Mark Delaney remembered me.’

      ‘So that’s why you owe them.’

      ‘Now you’re getting it, Poncho.’

      We’d followed the highway past the Lynn Valley turn-off and took the exit at Upper Lonsdale. We swung north, going up the hill towards the mountains, past the Queen’s Cross pub and the squat apartment buildings near there. The area beyond was leafy, suburban, and pleasant-looking.

      ‘This is where we’re meeting them?’ I asked.

      ‘They use their house as a base,’ Jake said. ‘Their mom’s house, actually.’

      He laughed, and snapped his fingers, as if that was the punchline to a joke.

      Of all the outrageous parts of this story – and I admit there are many – the one I find hardest to get a handle on is the existence of the Delaney brothers. For the same reason, they were a source of fascination during the trials: people wanted to know how two guys from a white-collar background (their father was an accountant, their mother a legal secretary) could get it in their heads that they wanted to be gangsters, and then go about it in a way that forced the actual and established gangsters to take them seriously, at least for a little while.

      But a lot has been written about that, from all kinds of angles, by people who have far more direct knowledge than me. All I can do, really, is relate our own experiences in dealing with the Delaneys, which – it goes without saying – did not end very well at all. Looking back, most of those troubles were set up in that first meeting, played out on a small scale.

      The Delaney family lived on a cul-de-sac in a new real estate development, with tree-lined boulevards and big sprawling lawns. Their house was built in the style of all the others: two storeys, faux-brick façade, cream siding, double-garage. There was nothing to set it apart except, I suppose, for the vehicle parked on one side of the driveway: a black Cadillac Escalade, as blatant as a tank, with tinted windows and jacked-up suspension.

      Afterwards, Jake told me there had been brawls, showdowns, police raids, and a drive-by at the place: the hazards of their gangland aspirations spilling over into suburbia.

      At the porch we rang the bell, and while we waited I asked Jake what he wanted me to do, how he wanted me to act in there. He said it would be best if I kept quiet and let him talk it over with them, which of course was fine by me.

      The door opened and an elderly woman peeked out at us. She had her hair done up in an old-fashioned perm, and was wearing an apron around her waist. The entranceway smelled of baking and perfume. The woman, who I assumed to be Mrs Delaney, welcomed us in and said it was very nice to see us. I felt as if I was back in high school, having come to a friend’s house to hang out. But Jake, he just took it all in stride. He commented on the smell of her cooking and she patted her perm and said that the cake wasn’t ready yet, but when it was she would send some up.

      ‘Mark’s in the office,’ she said, pointing to a stairwell on the right.

      It ran straight up to a small landing and door. I could hear odd sounds – clanking and grunting – in the room beyond. Jake knocked and after a second somebody shouted for us to come on in and so Jake pushed open the door. Directly opposite, facing us as we entered, a guy sat at one of those personal gyms (the elaborate kind with complex pulley systems) doing reps on the fly press. That explained the clanking. The peculiar thing – or the more peculiar thing – was his outfit: he was wearing jeans and a sport coat, rather than anything resembling gym gear. The rest of the office looked relatively normal: desk, chairs, filing cabinet, card table.

      The guy grimaced at us and said, ‘Just got to finish this set.’

      And Jake said, ‘Sure thing, Mark.’

      We waited and watched, respectfully. As we did, the door shut behind us. I looked back, startled. Some other guy had been back there the whole time: I hadn’t even seen him. He had sunken, angular cheeks pitted with acne scars. He didn’t smile or greet us in any way. He just stared, clinically, and my overall impression of him was not a congenial one.

      Mark finished with the fly press, hopped up, and patted his belly.

      ‘Trying to get rid of this goddamn jiggle-ball,’ he said.

      ‘Ladies like a man with a little padding,’ Jake said.

      Mark laughed. ‘Fucking Jake Harding. Come here, man.’

      He met Jake halfway and gripped Jake’s hand and they did a shake and punch. Mark started talking right away about how glad he was to see Jake, and have him on board.

      ‘How are things at the stables?’ he asked Jake.

      ‘I’m getting on all right.’

      ‘See, Novak?’ Mark said, looking beyond us at the other guy. ‘I told you Jake would make it work. Novak here thinks you’re gonna screw this job up. He thinks it’s a bad idea.’

      Novak just smiled, or seemed to. His teeth were not nice to look at: yellowish and square and standing out from the gums. Skeleton teeth.

      ‘Nobody’s gonna screw anything up,’ Jake said.

      He sounded very confident, very convincing. At the time, even I believed him.

      ‘That’s my boy. Send those fuckers a message. Pull some Coppola-type shit on them.’ Mark snapped his fingers. ‘Hey Novak – why don’t you see if that cake is ready?’

      ‘Cake,’ Novak said, as if considering it. ‘Yes, I will get the cake.’

      He slipped out the door, eel-like, and shut it silently behind him.

      ‘Don’t mind Novak,’ Mark said. ‘He’s a crazy Slav. But useful.’

      He led Jake and I over to the card table. It had four chairs around it and on top, in the middle, was a crokinole board. The board was carved from mahogany and so were the discs. I’d never seen a board like that. Mark noticed me studying it and rapped on the edge.

      ‘We just got into this. Crokinole. My bro’s obsessed with it.’

      ‘We used to play as kids.’

      ‘Oh yeah?’ He sort of perched sideways on the edge of the table, in a way that didn’t look particularly cool or comfortable, and eyed me up and down. ‘Jesus, Jake. You didn’t tell me you were bringing the Angels in on this deal. What chapter are you with, buddy?’

      I told him I wasn’t with any chapter. I wasn’t with the Angels. I sort of got that he was making fun of me but I still didn’t understand it. Then Mark laughed. His laugh was really something: a high-pitched, squeaky giggle, like a teenager before his voice breaks.

      ‘Shit – I’m just messing with you. I meant the outfit.’

      I was wearing my watchcap and goose-down