Читать книгу The Man Who Killed - Fraser Nixon - Страница 9
ОглавлениеPEALS FROM EVERY spire around downtown roused me. What had Mark Twain said about this city? Couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a church window. Morning bells are ringing. Sonnez les matines. Are you sleeping, Brother Jack, or mouldering in a shallow grave? Knowing him, Jack had slipped out from under and was in the arms of a tender dollymop. French church bells sounded different: ding dang donc. The two hanging and ringing in Notre-Dame down at Place d’Armes were named after Victoria and Albert. Dong.
Outside was grey again, threatening rain. I put myself to rights and whistled downstairs, tossing my key to a new pimp at the desk. Hung-over wet-haired American businessmen booked out after weekend benders. Bought the ’paper off a boy outside and determined to eat at Windsor Station Grill, checking the scheduled departures just in case. The station was near my old digs. Beyond pulling up a pew there wasn’t much doing of a Sunday morning.
My landlady would herself be kneeling with the Paddies at St. Patrick’s right about now. I could chance ducking back into the rooming house for my remaining effects. I decided to risk it and so hiked over to Stanley and a file of nondescript row houses. I climbed the steps of the third from the end and tried the latch. It gave. I slipped in. The stand-up clock in the foyer ticked but its hands never moved, a distillation of the state of affairs at Miss Milligan’s. As there was no one stirring I took the stairs two at a time to my room. Someone had been in it, the bitch rummaging after I’d failed to show two nights running. I filled my Gladstone with books and linen, grabbed my overcoat and gloves, and was back outside in no time flat.
I took my bag to the station and ate ham and eggs at the grill. The morning Gazette had nothing on Friday night’s fracas in the woods. This only confirmed my fears. To distract myself I thumbed through the classified notices looking for a cheap room that didn’t require references. Seeking quiet Christian gentleman, call UPtown 283, one week includes board and bedding. Sighing, I lit a cigaret. If there existed any toil more tedious than searching out lodgings I didn’t know it. How many times had I moved in the last year, ahead of the duns? Verily, it was a science unto itself, choosing the choice moment to slip cable. And so here I was back to the round of ’phone booths, wasted nickels, shoe leather burned, lies told to suspicious landlords. Still, it might be worse. At least I wasn’t looking for work.
The best prospect of rooms to let was in lower Westmount, or perhaps I could go native on the east side amongst the Frogs. There I’d stick out, a square-headed peg amongst the peasantry. No, I wanted to remain near the train stations and the river. It was far too easy to get trapped on this island in the St. Lawrence.
The concourse at Windsor was crowded and noisy. I noticed no police presence save a sole bobby pacing along with his hands behind his back, nodding pleasantly at unattended women. On the board I considered prospective destinations, all uninviting: Ottawa, Kingston, Niagara Falls. I should head over to Bonaventure Station to locomotive south. Winter was coming. The Florida land boom had busted and I could tend the greens of a golf course rotting away into mangrove swamps and live off alligator meat, oranges, and malaria. Sail away to Havana and die. Too much to ask for on a mere hundred dollars. No, ninety-seven now. How much would be enough? Have to see.
I walked over to the waiting room. Inside, tramps warmed their feet at the stove, smoking sweeps from the floor. It was overhot and brutally close, so I turned around and checked my bag for the price of a dime. Exiting the station I nodded at the bronze Lord Mount Stephen, a statue everyone mistook for King George. It was the beard. This was George Stephen, father of the railroad west. He’d started his rise at a haberdasher’s back in Edinburgh, picking a pin up off the floor and tucking it behind his lapel for use later, impressing the bosses with his perfect thrift. From there to the Bank of Montreal and the CPR and now he was dead, his mansion converted into a private club for those who couldn’t cut the mustard with the reviewing board of the Mount Royal or St. James. You couldn’t turn around in this town without tripping over a striving clerk from the Old Country made nabob and knight in the New. The earthly paradise was a reading room where one could snooze over three-day-old copies of the Times in an overstuffed chair.
As if to illustrate my point St. George’s across the street disgorged its parishioners. Out came barons who’d traded the kirk for a well-carved Anglican pew. I saw Sir Rupert Irons, Holt, a few Molsons, and that fat bastard Huntley McQueen shaking hands with the reverend. Today’s sermon had no doubt been on how the rich could enter heaven by forging a needle out of Ontario steel large enough for a dromedary camel to stroll on through. These were the men to do it, our captains of industry, plutocrats in the Commonwealth’s service. Inside the church a plaque commemorated an Irishman killed in Quetta, India, due to a mishap playing polo, fondly remembered by his regiment here in Montreal. There was Empire for you, binding soldiers, financiers, priests, politicians, aristocrats, and its discontents. Myself.
An itch played in the palm of my hand. Money coming my way. I scratched a lucifer on the rough stone of the station to light a smoke. Ninety-seven dollars and change. Now what to do? Might ride a trolley across the island and back. Instead I remembered what I’d read in the ’paper yesterday and hied uptown to mooch in the little park beside the new Forum.
WHEN THE HOUR came ’round I dropped fifty cents for a seat in the stands at Atwater Park to see the ball game with Ruth and his ringers playing for both sides of two local all-star teams, a sort of Vaudeville turn. Assembling to watch, we were a good-sized crowd, it being the last time to enjoy outdoor sport before the weather turned completely. Before us was Ruth at home plate, warming up by blasting baseballs out of the park, one after another. Scampering children beyond the right field fence fought over each ball like dogs for a crust.
I was wedged in between on my left a thin man like Jack Sprat with a wife who ate no lean and on the right a file of French factory workers. Light rain fell, then quit. The band came out and we stood for the anthems: “God Save the King,” the American number, and our other tune. Through a loudhailer a lady soprano sang: “In days of yore, from Britain’s shore, Wolfe, the dauntless hero came, and planted firm Britannia’s flag, on Canada’s fair domain. Here may it wave, our boast, our pride, and joined in love together, the thistle, shamrock, rose entwined, the Maple Leaf forever.”
Half the crowd was mum, thinking on Montcalm and the fleur-de-lis or perhaps plumb not knowing the words and merely humming along, holding their hats. I piped up for the hard part: “Our Fair Dominion now extends from Cape Rock to Nootka Sound. May peace forever be our lot and plenteous store abound. And may those ties of love be ours which discord cannot sever, and flourish green o’er freedom’s home the Maple Leaf forever.”
Applause. All hats back on. The audience sat for the ceremonial toss of the horsehide by the mayor. With that the game began and a cold wind blew down from the north. The first pitch. Urban Shocker from the Yankees was tossing for Beaurivage and Ruth played for Guybourg. Two strikeouts and a fly ball to deep left and the sides changed before we’d even settled in our seats.
Ruth came on the field and took his position at first base. He doffed his cap and the crowd cheered. First a strikeout, then an easy infield fly, and third a sharp rap to shortstop that was winged back to first. Ruth almost bobbled it but managed the out and we went into the next inning straightaway. Ruth led off, fouled twice, and then hit one deep into centre that was snagged by the fielder at the track. The next batter made it onto first but then got caught in a double play.
I rose and went for a Frankfurter covered in mustard and onions, followed by a Coca-Cola. I wiped my mouth and drained the green glass bottle. As I stood and watched the next inning a short Jew in a raccoonskin coat sidled over. Unbidden he offered me a small cigar. He waggled his eyebrows and smiled.
“Did you see the Babe hitting them out of the park?” he asked.
“Sure did.”
“Too bad he couldn’t do that in the series.”
“I thought he had three homers in one game,” I said.
“One game. Then he loses the whole damn thing trying to steal second. The Cards nailed New York to the cross, you’ll forgive the expression.”
I laughed and looked at him, blowing smoke.
“Well, someone’s always the scapegoat.”
He hiccoughed. I asked him his line of work.
“Brassieres. A very uplifting profession.”
I laughed again and he winked back. The Beaurivagers had a rally at the bottom of the second and were up three runs by the end of the inning. Ruth moved to shortstop and barehanded a fast zinger to beat a steal at second to end the run. He struck out his next at-bat and someone shouted: “Va chier, Babe!”
There was a tremor of nervous laughter. The Jew pulled out a flask and offered me a slug. I croaked it down and asked its pedigree.
“A special mixture.”
Playing an American I asked him if I could get it in the States. He told me that I could, in the Middle West. Some countrymen of his ran it down from Regina.
“Where’s that?” I pretended.
“Saskatchewan.”
“Man alive. How’d they do it?”
“It’s classed as a patent medicine, for doctors to carry a bottle in their black bags. If you’re interested maybe I can facilitate an introduction.”
“Swell. Can they get into Vermont or New York?”
“That I don’t know.”
“I know some folks’d be happy for help, if you know what I mean.”
“Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll give you my card. You can come by to talk.”
“I’m not here too long.”
The strange import of that phrase suddenly struck me.
“Well, neither are they. Come by and talk and I’ll call Solly. You can speak to him.”
“Solly?”
“He’s the smartest of the brothers.”
“Brothers?”
“Three of them.”
“Oke.”
I took the card. This was a mere coincidence in a crowd. There was no hint of a provocation. It was that phenomenon where you’d never heard an arcane phrase before, then upon learning it you overhear it in conversation at the next table in a café. Bootleggers. Maybe I looked the part. The weight of the gun now at the small of my back, changing my carriage, lending me an air. If I met some other exporters it could throw a little light on Jack and the organization he was involved with.
Over the years I’d taken it as a given with Jack. He’d vanish, cook up a scheme, materialize with money, a ’car, a girl, the latest joke, a yarn. It was in stark opposition to myself, his hustle and drive. I’d brood, my mouth shut. He was outgoing, gregarious, a good time. Well, it wasn’t too late. The circumstances demanded an effort on my part. I was mixed up in trouble and I cursed myself for not pumping Jack when I’d had the chance at the Derby or in Griffintown before we rode off into the woods. Now I might never find out what had led me to this stand.
There rose mingled cries and loud cheering and I saw a player running hell-bent for leather, sliding safe home to a roar and a tiger. Guybourg had scored two runs. I shook the Jew’s hand, pocketed his card, and resumed my seat.
Next time Guybourg came up Shocker tried to lay down his teammate. Ruth fanned on the first pitch, fouled the next, and with a crack banged the next ball over the left field fence into a tree, startling a flock of pigeons. For a heavy man he skipped nimbly around the bases, to the crowd’s delight. This was what they’d paid for.
Back in the dugout Ruth was handed a beer and emptied it in a swallow. He started signing programs and photographs, laughing and chatting with children, drinking some more. The game stayed tied through the end of the sixth.
The Guybourg pitcher blew out his arm the next inning so Ruth stepped in and retired the side. Later, a nasty foul tip clipped the ump and knocked him out; for sport Ruth put on the official’s pads and called the game while his own team batted. It didn’t help Guybourg one whit. At the change during the stretch there spread a ripple of merriment through the crowd at some jape Ruth was up to. He couldn’t get out of the umpire’s pads and was struggling on the ground, cracking wise to the nearby fans.
“What’s he saying?” asked Jack Sprat next to me.
His wife sat nibbling Turkish delight.
“He ask Houdini to help him escape,” said a dark ferret on my other side.
The eighth was a washout for both sides. Calcium spotlights were lit against the creeping dark and a sharp wind scraped across the diamond. The mobile vulgus contracted at this grim taste of winter, steam and smoke rising from the pinched crowd as it tensed against the chill. At last came the ninth, the score still knotted.
Ruth got up. The Beaurivage pitcher was an amateur from town with his family loudly rooting for him to fan the big-leaguer. It didn’t work out. The local boy threw three pitches wide and then Ruth fouled twice for the full count. The next ball floated over the plate and Ruth pounded it out of the park. The diamond exploded and the Babe grinned like a happy hound as he rounded the bases for home where his team waited to clap and pound him on the back. The recovered umpire went over and talked to both sides’ managers and then they beckoned the announcer, who joined their consultation for a minute, then went to the loudspeaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we wish to inform you that the game has been called at the top of the ninth by agreement, the Guybourg All-Stars winning four runs to three thanks to a solo run by Babe Ruth.”
A general huzzah.
“Mr. Ruth has, through the pre-game demonstration and this contest, now hit thirty-six balls out of the park and exhausted both clubs’ supply. We wish to thank you for your attendance today and please join us in three cheers for our visitors to Montreal!”
The crowd did better than that, breaking into “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and then for good measure “God Save the King” again. Ruth and his compatriots doffed their caps and a friendly mob swarmed the field. He signed a dozen autographs and was finally helped out of the throng and into a taxi that had been let onto the field to take him back to his hotel. I ran into the Jew again in the crush leaving the park.
“Another Exodus,” I said.
He clapped my shoulder, red-faced and daffy with hooch.
“The old Babe’ll be swinging his bat on Bullion Street tonight,” he yowled, making an obscene gesture.
The gate separated us and I was let back out on the mercy of the city. I started to feel like going on a tear of my own. The noise, movement, and temporary camaraderie had jazzed me. I could walk to Laura’s house and say goodbye. Get it over with. The way things stood my last friend in the world was gone, dead. Laura had probably been affianced off to a moneyed heir. Perhaps I could bury myself in some small Ontario town, play with a crystal set in the evenings trying to pick up signals from Texas. Crunch through blue snow at night to romance a cross-eyed librarian, become a clerk at a hardware store and sing in the Methodist choir, march in the Orangemen’s parade every July. I could do any number of things, but paramount I would find a saloon open on a Sunday on St. Catherine Street. After that I just might end up in a whorehouse on Bullion like Mr. Babe Ruth.
IN THE TAVERN my Frankfurter indigested so I ordered a Vichy water. A dwarf sang in Italian to a fat man beside him. The record was turned and the machine let out jazz, Roxy and His Gang, hometown boys like the Guybourg All-Stars. I started to think about Jack, and Laura.
He’d introduced me to her back in ’24. Jack was being political on campus and she was bucking patrimony, seemingly. Laura Dunphy, the devoted only daughter of Sir Lionel Dunphy, Q.C., Privy Council, past president of the Liberal Party, a real tyee. Jack had played Pied Piper and led a group of us to a Bolshevist meeting soon after Lenin’s death. An incomprehensible Glaswegian gave a report on factory conditions in the Ukraine and glorious future prospects for same. In attendance were myself, Jack, Laura, her inevitable plain friend Margery, Smiler, that prick Jerome Martel, and some clinging dishrag girls. Jack and Laura, a pair of redheads, strange portent. After the lecture a firebrand gave a stemwinder of revolutionary oration, and at its end we were all communists, marching out onto the street dead earnest, singing “The Internationale.” In a café the collective solved the world’s problems over egg creams and french fries. As we broke up for the night Laura put her arm through mine, announcing that I would be the one to escort her home. The look on Jack’s face was difficult to read, that secret amusement. Jerome Martel’s feelings were plain as day, and I gloated as I carried Laura off. I was done, easy as that. She had me by the time I walked her up the steps of her father’s mansion on the hill, still humming “The Internationale,” what the dwarf was trilling to the fat man at the end of the bar right now.
I gave them a mock salute with my seltzer and said: “Viva d’Annunzio.” It shut the little man up. He turned to his comrade and they looked daggers at me. I could just as easily have toasted Mussolini. That would’ve been splendid, fighting a midget. A long way from sparring with Jack when we were young. He’d fought in the army, taking an inter-regimental belt at Valcartier before being shipped to Europe. We’d even picked it up again as recently as last year before once more drifting apart. Jack an irregular comet. Where’d he been since then? Where was he now? Sizing myself up in the mirror, dark and different, my reflection hydrocephalic and clouded in the glass, I had to ask: Where was I?
From the bar I bought a pack of Consuls and wanted whiskey but the law allowed only beer and wine unless you knew where to look. At least this province was better than the rest of the country, dry for most of a decade. I’d hunt up a government licence tomorrow for something stronger. The record stopped playing, the beer arrived flat, and I began to fill with regret. My mind turned to bygone failures, weakness, a misspent past, the decay of my medical studies, Laura lost forever, Jack maybe dead. The Pater, polishing his barometer and returning to his desk to read Scripture. The dwarf and his partner left. A new record played an Irish lament, “Turn Ye to Me,” sung by John McCormack. Tired-looking whores sat at a table for a warm up, on a break from working the Sabbath. Near nine I made my sortie, dumping silver and ashes on the bartop.
Outside, it was raining. I turned my collar up against the elements. Old newspapers clogged the gutters. Crowded trolleys glowed by, windows steamed with human exhalation. Neon reflected off the empty wet pavement. My boots filled with icewater, my bare head soaked. I’ll catch pneumonia and die, came the thought. A right on Metcalfe to the Dominion, which was closed. Damnation. All lights out, the dark window advertising a plate supper of pork knuckles for a quarter-dollar. I pounded on the door. A black figure came towards me. Through the pane I heard: “Closed.”
He was the same barman I’d tipped the night before. In this world it proved impossible to have anything done without laying out the rhino. I held up a dollar bill. “A question.”
The door unbolted and the barman looked up and down the street, then hustled me in. He was bald and stank of rum.
“Is there a message for Sam, from Pete?” I asked.
He nodded, went behind the bar, and handed over an envelope. It was the kind used for bank deposits. I tossed him the buck.
“Way out back?”
He pointed a wavering finger to the kitchen where I pushed my way through piles of dirty plates and empty bottles and opened a gummy door onto an alley filled with rubbish. Outside once more, I tore open the envelope to read: “Loew’s, last show tonight,” written in Jack’s hand.
Walking in the direction of the theatre I felt elation. He was alive. He’d made it out somehow and was back to his old tricks. There was a chance this could play out. By the time I reached the cinema I was wet through. The marquee advertised The Trap with Lon Chaney, and I blanched. What was I walking into? There was no one at the entrance so I quietly slid into an empty lobby filled with the smell of burnt popcorn. It was eerie. No ticket-tearer or usher. From the atrium I could hear a piano playing. I climbed the stairs to the balcony for a better viewpoint. I’d seen the picture when it first came out. Not nearly as good as The Unholy Three.
Through thick smoke the projector cast its light. A piano player laboured over suspense. There was quite a bit left to go, another reel or two. Two miners competed over rival claims, the scenario a pastiche out of Jack London or Robert Service. My mind wandered until a woman gasped as Chaney fought a wolf. The finale treated us to a tender moment with a baby and it all ended happily and for the best. With a flourish the house lights raised. Women fingered on gloves and the murmuring audience unclotted. There: down and to the left, two men in hats seated together, smoking. I gave a low Scout whistle. Jack turned around and pointed a finger at me, a cocked gun. With him this second, younger fellow. They came up through the thinning crowd and we met in the aisle.
“This way,” said Jack.
We took a short stairwell leading to the projection booth and Jack opened the door to what turned out to be a janitor’s cubby stuffed with torn publicity sheets, creased photographs of movie stars, ripped bunting.
“Do you have a handkerchief?” Jack asked once we’d fought our way in.
I shook my head.
“Then take mine. I’ll employ another principle.”
“What’s that?” asked the other man. He was a pretty blond, shorter than me.
“The memorable distracting detail,” Jack said.
The stranger began tying a cloth over his nose and mouth.
“What’s the gag?” I asked.
“Money,” Jack said. “You want some? Bob here does.”
The third man nodded.
“Bob, Mick. Mick, Bob.”
I looked from Jack to this Bob and back again, reeling my Irish in, that hot surge of fury. Without a by-your-leave or a word of explanation, as though my sentiments or any possible objections were not even in consideration. But it was too late. I couldn’t lose face. I was worse than any Chinaman. Jack handed me the disguise, and I put it on.
“What’d I tell you?” Jack said to Bob. “Mick’s our man.”
“I still say it’s a two-man job,” brayed Bob.
“Three’s safer. It’s my caper. Equal shares.”
Bob gave me a dirty look. I was cutting into his portion. Already I didn’t like him much.
“There’s the watchman, the manager, and a girl,” Jack said. “Three’s best.”
“Third murderer,” I said.
“No rough stuff if we can help it. You still have your cannon?”
I opened my coat.
“How much do you reckon?” I asked.
“There’s a whole week’s receipts on a Sunday. Maybe more. We’ll see. You ready? I’m Pete, you’re Sam and Ed. Got the rope?”
Bob took a big coil out from his coat and looped it over his shoulder. Jack checked his wristwatch.
“Half-past ten.”
He opened the door to near-blackness softened only by the red of an exit sign. I went cold with fear. This had the taste of desperation to it, that familiar flavour of fear. My hair steamed as we made our way down a steep flight. Ahead of us was an illumination, a door ajar. Jack eased it open, revealing a man in sleeve garters and a bowtie dipping a pen nib into a bottle of ink. Before him sat a ledger. Jack clucked his tongue and the man looked up.
“What’s this?”
Jack raised a finger to his lips.
“Who are you, sir? This theatre’s closed.”
Bob and I entered the office, guns in hands.
“Good Lord. What is the meaning of this?”
The man snatched off his pince-nez and began to stand. He had pluck, I’d give him that.
“Do not test our resolve, sir. We are here to relieve you of your pecuniaries.”
Jack parodied the manager’s Southern drawl creditably.
“But sir, you cannot. I must insist you disengage!”
“I will ask you to be so kind as to hold your tongue. We desire the contents of the safe,” Jack said. “Samuel, Edward, locate the watchman and the lady. Take care that the doors have been locked and search for any telephones, like so.” Jack picked up the Bakelite machine on the manager’s desk and ripped the cord from the wall, then dumped the disabled works on the floor. At this, the manager stood a moment, then sat again suddenly, pale, confused. Bob left the office and I followed.
“I’ll check the lobby,” I said. “Try the back exit for the guard.”
Bob slipped off, saying nothing. I headed down a passageway, my stomach sinking away, bowels frozen. The hall opened on the shadowy lobby, where an older woman in a cardigan fussed behind the candy counter. I walked to the doors and checked that they were locked from within. Turning my way, the woman went saucer-eyed. I caught my own reflection in a dark mirror, a menacing masked figure with a gun. I’d do whatever I said, for fear of worse.
“Come with me, madam,” said I.
Some of Jack’s mock gallantry had worn off on me. At present Bob was an unknown factor but seemed a cold, bloodthirsty, greedy little bastard. What we were engaged in was a felony. Should something go wrong, it would be the rope for us. Trust Jack, I reminded myself. Why? Because you always have, you fool.
“Where’s the ’phone?” I growled.
Nothing. She was frozen. Get her out of here. I grabbed at her elbow and steered her backstage towards the office. My captive moved jerkily, like an automaton. We ran into Bob, lashing a uniformed geezer’s hands to a ladder. He stuffed a wadded playbill into the watchman’s mouth. Quid ipsos custodes custodiet indeed. Pre-medical grounding in the Classics is a requisite. Some Latin, less Greek, like the Bard. Remembered peppering my Juvenal with accents, playing the Eton swot for the Pater. He watched, bearded and severe as Jehovah, never sparing the rod as I tripped over the dative case. Jack slung the bat with ease, another of his gifts, beaming at our schoolmaster, never an apple polisher but genuinely likeable. People took a shine to Jack, I never knew why. The manager had probably already opened a bottle of sourmash, the two damning reconstruction and toasting the immortal memory of Robert E. Lee. I poked the woman into the room and Bob followed. The woman cried: “John!”
“Mary?”
Bob sniggered. I almost agreed. Who were these people?
“May I assume that you two enjoy the sanctity of the marital bond?” asked Jack.
The manager choked.
“Now see here, you ruffian,” he said.
“For heaven’s sake, John,” wailed Mary.
“Yes, John. For your own sake and that of this good lady, be kind enough to open the safe. We desire no harm to befall the missus,” said Jack.
John goggled. John Adams, I saw painted on the frosted glass of the office door.
“Sir, I beseech you, as a fellow Southerner, please...”
“John!” Mary shrieked.
Adams deflated. He swivelled his chair towards a Chinese screen, which he pulled aside to reveal a squat iron cube, then spun the dial and opened the safe. Jack sat on the edge of the desk, all taut attention and eager amusement, humming “Dixie.” The manager took out a bound pile of notes, a sack of silver, and a fat bag stuffed with loose bills. He passed the lot to Jack.
“Thank you kindly,” said Jack.
Bob pushed the woman down into a chair. I went to check our hogtied nightwatchman and from him smelled sharp sweat and urine. His eyes were shut tight. Disgusted, I returned to the office, where Jack was emptying a valise. He placed the money within and gave the case a heft. Bob’s eyes glinted and he looked over to me. Ice-cold and hard. Mary Adams was pale with fright. From his pocket Bob took out a blade and the woman whimpered. He cut fabric from the hem of her dress and her eyes went to mine, terrified. Bob balled the muslin and roughly shoved it into her mouth. He took sticking plaster from the desk and put it over her lips, then grabbed the last of his rope and with Jack’s help bound her and her husband’s wrists and ankles to their chairs. My heartbeat steadied. Jack straightened his cravat.
“We thank you for your very kind indulgence in this matter. Now don’t you go being over-hasty in attempting to extricate yourselves, as we have compatriots observing each and every egress. Do take care now, y’hear?”
With that we hustled out the back door to the alley.
“Where now?” I asked.
“Bob’s.”
We hotfooted it to Sherbrooke, avoiding streetlamps, walking in a staggered file along the pavement, with Jack ahead, Bob watching him and his cargo, and myself covering our rear. Bob’s place was on Prince Arthur, in the student ghetto. It appeared my life had become a series of traverses from room to saloon to shitty room. What pattern was I tracing on the face of the city? We took the stairs to a standard two-bit garret with stains on the ceiling and spilled paint on the floorboards. Interestingly, large canvasses were stacked face first against the walls. Bob left, returned with a bowl of cracked ice, and pulled a bottle of whiskey from a boot by the bed. Jack checked his ’watch.
“Nice work, boyos.”
I lit a cigaret, my hands spiting their training, shaking with a minor tremor. Tension. The puncture points along my arm gave a phantom throb. My teeth tasted chalky. I wanted something, morphine, opium, oblivion. Bob portioned out the gargle. Nausea rose within me to be chased down by antiseptic liquor.
Between Jack and Bob there ran a current of excitement, their grins lupine. Lon Chaney in The Trap. Jack poured the contents of the bag onto a ratty Chesterfield. Bob nearly ravened at the sight of the cash but restrained himself with an effort. Jack lit a cigaret. I tapped my ashes into a half oyster shell. What was I playing at? It’d happened too bloody fast for real fear to grip me overmuch. Fatalism. Jack regarded me. I spat a shred of tobacco onto the floorboards while Bob counted the money. The coins rang as they struck each other: nickels, dimes, quarters, dollars. Copper, silver, gold.
I fixed Jack with a look and we regarded each other, unblinking. I broke first. “What was that distracting detail you mentioned?” I asked.
“The accent. Our friend John’ll remember nothing about me except that I’m a Confederate, you wait and see. One of your countrymen, Bob.”
“What’s that?” Bob asked.
I placed his nasal bray. New England somewhere.
“A Johnny Reb,” said Jack. “The war of Southern secession.”
“Fuck that,” said Bob. “I’m Irish.”
“Oh really? From the Free State are you now?” mocked Jack.
“What in the hell are you talking about?” asked Bob.
“You don’t sound Irish,” I said.
“Boston Irish,” Bob countered.
“Bob’s kinsman ran for governor of Massachusetts,” said Jack. “Why’d he lose again?”
“Never mind.”
“Mick here’s a Peep o’ Day Boy,” said Jack.
Bob finished counting and glared. Jack winked at me.
“What’ve you got?” he asked Bob.
“Twenty-eight hundred and thirty-five in bills. Maybe seventy more in change. Some Double Eagles. What’re these?”
Bob held out a handful of gold discs.
“New Zealand dollars,” Jack said. “Coin o’ the realm. So, that’s almost a thousand apiece. Not too shabby for an hour’s work.”
Bob spluttered: “Jesus, Jack, you said...”
“I said it was an easy score,” Jack cut in. “You hear any sirens? Filth knocking at your door? You Yankee bastards are never happy.”
“I’m no Yankee,” went Bob.
“Right, you’re some sort of shamrock-blooded Paddy Free Stater and a second cousin to Michael Collins. Up here in the Dominion you’re a Yankee, son, both you and that gentleman we tied up, so pipe down and cut the pot.”
Jack turned to me now, full flower. Amongst other questions, I wondered how much he’d taken on board. Drunk and garrulous it was best to let him wax eloquent.
“Did you know that John Wilkes Booth was here in this very town at the St. Lawrence Hall before he shot Lincoln? The bugger bragged all over town he was going to do it. Hell, Montreal was rotten with Confederates and spies and after the war Jefferson Goddamned Davis lived here and wrote his memoirs. There’s something wrong with this city; it breeds treason. Benedict Arnold, Booth, Benjamin Franklin.”
“Franklin was no traitor,” interrupted Bob.
“Franklin was a bought and paid for agent of George III,” said Jack.
Sullenly, Bob finished dividing the paper money. We each took our respective shares and I counted mine out: nine hundred and forty-five dollars in mixed bills. Not bad was right. It was more money than I’d ever held in my hands at one time.
“Give me the coins,” Jack said.
“What’re you going to do with them?” asked my avarice.
“Bury them under a sour apple tree. Can’t trust that bag with either of you Micks. You’d probably off and tithe it.”
“I take no orders from Rome,” I said.
Jack just laughed, as Bob and I eyed one another across a widening divide.
Bob resembled a nasty schoolboy, with traces of breeding shining through an assumed coarseness. It was something I’d seen before, rich boys talking common. Arrogant and vindictive, and no new friend of mine. Still, there was more to the gladrag, that much was clear. Bob put an elastic around his money. I figured I’d unstitch my coat tomorrow and hide mine in the lining.
“You paint?” I asked Bob.
“Some.”
“Bob’s a Fenian and a Fauvist,” Jack teased.
Bob ignored Jack’s baiting. Jack hadn’t touched his money yet, and I still had questions to put to him. What’d happened in the woods? How’d he gotten away and what had prompted this risky heist? I was close to asking when he rose and gathered his cash and the valise.
“I’d stay away from the Bank of England were I you,” said Jack. “Try not to spend it ostentatiously. That son of a bitch Adams’ll claim double what we stole to the cops and tell the ’papers the same tale of woe for his insurance. The world was ever thus. Now, I know a grand place to unwind, a favourite of the chief of police, but not of a Sunday. Come along, it’s on me.”
Bob locked up and we met down on the street.
“You certain this is a good idea? Shouldn’t we split up?” I said. “They’ll be looking for three men together.”
“Not where we’re going.”
JACK HAILED A TAXICAB at the corner.
“Mountain,” he said as we got in.
We drove onto Sherbrooke, passed the campus, and headed for the Golden Mile, making another right up Mountain. The district was beginning to fray at its edges as the city encroached upon it; all the rich families were abandoning the ancient preserve of wealth for Westmount and beyond. Good riddance. Jack barked a command and we stopped in front of a mansion that had seen its fortunes fade but was still in better than decent trim, almost respectable and discreet, with only the slightest piratical cast.
“Hell of a cathouse,” I said.
“The best in town.”
We mounted the flagged stone steps to a portal engraved with a coat of arms. In response to a soft bell chime a pretty housemaid opened the door. Our merry crew was received in a narthex of mirrors and ersatz gold. With this decor, there was no mistaking the nature of the house. Within moments a dreadnought of a madam steamed down the curving staircase to meet us. She bore an uncanny resemblance to Marie Dressler. Jack bowed and kissed a rose-gloved hand. Powdered and pink, the matron keeled and tittered: “You cheeky thing. It’s been far too long since you were here. I’d almost given up on you. And how delightful, you’ve brought some gentlemen along. How very lovely.”
The madam had a pleasing, musical laugh, wet red lips, shark’s eyes. Her perfume began to provoke a sneeze.
“What would you wish for tonight?” she asked.
“Elope with me,” Jack said.
She batted him away with a furled fan. Bob stood and postured to my right. The bouquet of the madam’s toilet water was now creeping deeper into my olfactory apparatus. Hold it in. Hold it. I fumbled for a cigaret as our group was swept into a sitting room done up in the fin-de-siècle manner, with electric globes made to resemble gas lamps and a player piano. Bob headed to a long divan against the wall and lounged, his manner supercilious. I bit at a thumbnail. It’d been a tiring day by any measure. Thick nude odalisques writhed in heavy gilt-framed paintings hanging over the mantelpiece. Jack conducted a whispered business with the madam in the corridor, and I sneezed into the handkerchief he’d given me during the movie-house hold-up. I sat in my overcoat and with my palms rubbed at my unshaven face, feeling consumptive, rheumatic, hollow. As I lit my cigaret Jack entered the room with four trollops in tow. A maid brought a tray of canapés, followed by several buckets of ice and wine on a cart surmounted by an enormous bottle of Champagne. Nine hundred and eighty-five dollars was a good year’s pay for some.
“Ladies,” gestured Jack.
The four girls positioned themselves around the salon in studied artless arrangements.
“We are,” Jack said, “representatives of a young men’s Christian temperance society and have come here tonight to gauge the pernicious effects of this devilishly bubbly stuff on winsome young maidens. Would you care to aid us?”
The girls gave a united cheer of agreement. Each was done up in a manner anachronistic with the room’s fittings. They sported kohled eyes and wore black stockings rolled down to the knee, slim-cut short dresses, high-heeled shoes, and long-looped paste pearl strands around lithe white necks. Jack began building a pyramid of crystal goblets, then uncorked the massive Jeroboam and with two hands poured its contents over the construction. Beside me the young blonde screwed a cigaret into her ebony holder. She was blue-eyed, her face made up into a pout, a tempting indifferent moue. It was rare I frequented whores, loath to catch syphilis. This time was different, somehow, Jack paying the piper and calling the tune, conducting a farce that might banish Laura from my thoughts. Always she’d played prude with me, during my failed courtship, but I’d suspected her nonetheless: she’d protested too much. Since last October, a good year ago, nearly anything might’ve happened. Who was she with at that dance Jack had mentioned? Where was she right now? I shook my head and looked over to my paid sympathizer. She looked back and blew smoke into my face.
Bob rose and revealed a talent besides painting and armed robbery, laying down jazz on the piano, singing out in a nice tenor: “I’ve got some good news honey, an invitation to the Darktown Ball. It’s a very swell affair, all the highbrows will be there. I’ll wear my high silk hat and my frock tailcoat, you wear your Paris gown and your new silk shawl. Ain’t no doubt about it babe, we’ll be the best dressed in the hall.”
Wine went ’round. A pair of the girls got up and turned a two-step together. The one next to me emptied her glass in a swallow. I leaned over to fetch some more, charging her goblet and then my own, following her lead by pouring it down my neck. Jack took down a pornographic engraving from the wall and placed it on his whore’s lap, the better to sniff cocaine from. My blonde went and joined them. Bob switched the player to a printed roll and the instrument churned out ridiculous hurdy-gurdy blather. Bob danced with the pair of trollops on the rug. My girl came back licking her lips.
“How much do you charge for a kiss?” I asked.
She eyed me, took a puff, and exhaled more smoke.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
A pause while she thought about it.
“Celeste,” she lied at last.
“Heavenly,” I said.
I lit a Consul. Jack handed over the picture frame and I took some of the drug. The divine Celeste regarded me dully. The print on my knees showed a scene from the Satyricon, or the Bible.
In my mind molecules began to break apart like Champagne bubbles. What was his name, the fellow who’d split the atom? A Cambridge man, from New Zealand. He’d taught at McGill for some time. Rutherford. All we needed was a calliope and a dancing bear to complete this circus with the pig-faced woman from county Cork to round it out. Science baffled! Zoologists stumped! A wonder to behold!
“Hey,” I shouted at Jack over the growing din. “The Midget King of Montreal has a son and heir. He’s showing himself and the bairn at His Majesty’s palace on Rachel, a nickel a gander. A toast!”
I raised my glass. Jack guffawed.
“I’ve seen him,” said Jack’s blonde.
“That so?”
The devil was on horseback in my bloodstream now. I drank more wine.
“The most darling little man,” said Jack’s blonde. “He’s a count or a baron, I think. And his wife’s from Europe.”
“The Midget Queen?” asked Jack.
“I believe so.”
Here Celeste turned and gave me a strangely sweet smile, one nearly genuine.
“Have you ever seen a ghost?” I asked her.
“A ghost?”
“Yeah. Been busy tonight?”
“I’ll say,” she said. “We had that fat baseballer in here.”
“Who, Babe Ruth?”
“Yeah, him. They almost had to call the cops on him he was so drunk. What a pig.”
“You ever been to Coney Island?”
“Where’s that?” she asked.
“Forget it. Where’re you from?”
“Not here, that’s for sure.”
“What was your name again?”
She sought it for a second, twirling her costume pearls.
“I told you. Celeste.”
“Right.”
“What’s yours?” she asked, brightening.
“Michael,” I said.
“And where’re you from?”
“Far west indeed.”
“You don’t say,” she said.
“I’m starving,” I said.
“So eat something,” she shrugged.
There was Brummagem trash on the plates, limp cheese on toasted crusts. Instead of food I chose drink. Jack started talking to his whore about a friend of his.
“He lost a hand at Wipers. The left. We met in the hospital after I was gassed. Bugger carved himself a new one from a piece of mahogany we scrounged from a church. Four fingers and a thumb, just like Captain Danjou.”
“Who?” asked the whore.
“Légion étrangère. Anyway, we went to a party in Belgravia somewhere after we got out and he held it over a lamp until it caught fire, and lit the candles on a birthday cake with it. That was a great night. He was a hell of a guy, for a Hasty Pee.”
Jack’s whore laughed.
“Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment,” Jack said.
“What happened to him?” asked Jack’s whore.
“He died. Survived the Western Front to die of ’flu home in Berlin, Ontario.”
There was one of those silences, Jack looking elsewhere. The brothel’s electric current throbbed and made the light filaments flicker. We were in a stroboscope, spinning around.
“Did you ever see that Charley Chase where his best man tricks him into thinking his fiancée has a wooden leg?” asked Jack’s whore.
Bob was with the two other girls and they lifted the Jeroboam and poured the lees into his yap.
“Your friend looks too young to have fought,” said Celeste.
“He lied his way in.”
“What about you?”
“I was on a troopship when they announced the Armistice, then I got ’flu myself. Almost croaked in hospital.”
I drank more wine. Celeste was beginning to get on my nerves. Things were becoming crookeder, my resentments hatching in the amniotic cocktail of Champagne and cocaine. Too much happening. From another room sounded louder music, perhaps a bunch of aldermen whooping it up. This whorehouse felt in-between, like a limbo. Criminals, prostitutes, burghers, divines, here until our indulgence was paid for. Soon our bottles would be bottom-up in their buckets of melted ice. Dead soldiers. I wondered what’d happened to Jack’s sharkspine stick. Bleaching bones in the sun. My own body one day hewn apart on the dissecting table, organs weighed and bottled in formaldehyde, the flesh sliced and boiled away. My scalp worn on an Iroquois war belt, finger bones strung on tendons to sound as they rattled together in a north wind outside the tepee, my knuckles used as dice by gambling savages. Bob and his whores were at the piano singing “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More.” Jack was talking to his blonde about Freud.
