Читать книгу Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle - Michael Januska - Страница 28

LIKE A MOTH TO THE FLAME

She wanted to kill him when she saw him. Instead she fell into his arms. Once she pulled herself together she told him plainly and simply what happened at the hospital.

“And where is he now?”

“Sandwich — in county jail.”

“Not downtown?”

“Locke has friends at county. He said he’d catch up with Henry at home after he finished his interrogation.”

McCloskey knew what that meant. Locke always had his own way of doing things.

“So who is this guy?” asked Clara.

On his way to Clara’s McCloskey had stopped by the garage to check in with Orval. One of Orval’s regulars, one of the more reliable big mouths, had told him that Gabrese was dead, found hanging from the bars in his cell this morning. So much for getting a first-hand account of events at Ojibway.

“He’s somebody’s housekeeper.”

“Do you think whoever killed your father and Billy were behind it?”

“I’m not sure.”

McCloskey was holding his cards close; he really didn’t want Clara getting tangled in this.

“Jack, if I arrived any later that man might have killed Henry too.”

McCloskey wasn’t in the mood to listen to any mental hand-wringing. “It’s pointless to talk like that.”

“I know but —”

“But what?”

“Henry’s all I got left.”

McCloskey was thrown back to a summer afternoon several years ago. He had wandered by the Fields’ house looking for Billy and found Clara alone on the veranda, crying. She said Billy went with some friends to enlist.

The war in Europe had been raging for almost two years at that point and this latest wave of volunteers knew exactly what they were getting themselves into. McCloskey jumped over the side of the veranda and hit the ground running. He caught up with Billy just as he was leaving the enlistment centre. His brother was wearing that stupid grin that made him look ripe for a beating. He asked Billy if their pa knew. Billy said no, not yet. Jack creased him with right to his gut and then walked into the office and signed himself up.

Some said he didn’t want to get outdone by his younger brother. Others spoke of a promise Jack had made to his father. Frank McCloskey took ill once when the boys were very young and made Jack promise to look after Billy. Jack never forgot that and so there was nothing for him to do but follow Billy all the way to the Western Front. And now Billy was gone, having survived the Great War only to get killed in a gang fight over some bootleg liquor.

“Henry’ll be okay.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said. “You want a drink?”

“Yeah.”

She went to the kitchen. He heard the icebox open and then a glass shatter on the floor. He found Clara standing with her eyes closed, gripping the edge of the counter. When he approached her she moved away. It was embarrassing for her to be like this. She felt like she had used up the last of her strength and courage at the hospital.

“It slipped out of my hand.”

She dropped a few shards of ice into tumblers and poured some rye. The ice popped. She handed one of the tumblers to McCloskey.

“Cheers.”

The rye went down nice. It warmed you when you needed warming and cooled you when you needed cooling. It also listened to you when you had something to say and talked to you when no one else would. It was the drink and the drinking companion all rolled in one. Possibly the only thing you couldn’t do with a bottle of rye was make love to it.

“Tell me,” he said, “did you see much of Billy after I left town?”

She was already walking to the window.

“No,” she said without turning. “They contacted me when he was admitted to hospital. The doctors said he’d probably pull through. After that I just followed his progress in the papers.”

McCloskey swirled the ice around in his tumbler. “Did you ever believe what you read about me?”

“What? That you had shot him?” Clara let McCloskey hang for a moment. “No. It never sounded right. I know the both of you too well. Unless —”

“Unless it was an accident — which it wasn’t. I didn’t even have my finger on the trigger. I was just trying to give Billy a scare.”

She turned to McCloskey. “Then who did it?”

McCloskey was still trying to piece together what happened in the alleyway behind the Crawford.

“The only other weapons I remember seeing were in the hands of the cops. But there was so much going on, and it happened so fast.”

McCloskey finished his glass and Clara refilled it.

“Henry still thinks it was you that shot him.”

“I’ve never said anything that would make people want to think otherwise. You’d be surprised what it does to your reputation when people believe you’re capable of gunning down your own brother. In my line of work, it can really open doors for you. Does Henry ever talk shop with you?”

“Not really. Why?”

“Just wondering. Hey — you want to go to the track?”

“What?”

“Kenilworth. You wanna go?”

“Is this another Irish tradition I didn’t know about — placing a bet on your dead brother’s favourite horse?”

“You can wear black if you want.”

Clara gave him a look. “Is this business or pleasure?”

She knew that, as always, Jack was up to something.

“A little of both.”

“Why do I have to go?”

McCloskey paused. “I’d like to keep an eye on you right now.”

It hadn’t occurred to Clara that she might be in some kind of danger.

She wanted to laugh, but she didn’t dare. “But why would I be —”

“We don’t know how far they’re willing to take this, Clara.”

She rubbed her temple with her free hand. She was exhausted, confused. She sat down.

“Have you eaten?”

“No,” she said, “not really.”

“I’ll make you something.”

McCloskey went into the kitchen and started rummaging through the cupboards. He really had no idea what he was doing. “And I should probably stay here tonight,” he said.

“Okay.”

Neighbours would talk but she didn’t care. She’d stopped caring the third or fourth time she brought a man home. How could she expect them to understand? She kept Billy’s name on the register at the front of the building and still referred to herself as Mrs. William McCloskey. Had she hopes of her and Billy getting back together again? Maybe. Or perhaps like McCloskey she just enjoyed living outside of society’s boundaries, an exile in her hometown.

McCloskey leaned through the kitchen doorway holding a tin of corned beef. “Got a can opener?”

Clara sighed and got up. “Look,” she said as she took the can from McCloskey. “It’s got this little key on it, see? The little key is what you use to open the can.”

The kitchen was tiny. McCloskey stood close to Clara, almost on top of her as she twisted the key slowly around the edge of the can. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. She stopped moving, sensing the inevitable, waiting for the wolf to pounce. McCloskey grabbed her shoulders, spun her around, and forced his mouth on hers. She dropped the can on his foot and he bit her lip. He kicked the can and broken glass out of the way and lifted Clara onto the counter. She hit her head on the cupboard.

“You still like to play rough, don’t you, Jack?”

He slid Clara’s skirt up her thighs, exposing the bare flesh above her stockings. He tucked the fabric under her hips and started working his hands up inside her blouse. Clara was already massaging him through his pants.

“You gonna use that? Or are you just trying to give me a scare?”

“Shut up.”

He closed her mouth with his. Clara stretched her arms out along the cupboards and McCloskey hungrily kissed her neck. When he got close to her ear he pinned her wrists against the cupboard doors and asked her who she was waiting for last night.

“C’mon, you can tell me. I need to know what I’m up against here.” McCloskey pulled her legs further apart. They were both feeling the rye.

“Actually, I was waiting for one of the boys from the department,” she grinned. “That’s how I watch Henry’s back for him.”

McCloskey leaned into her and held his mouth against hers until she almost lost her breath and had to pull away.

“What is it about me and you, huh, Jack?”

“I don’t know. I guess we both just bring out the worst in each other.”

They were lying on her bed with the little electric fan whirring next to them on the floor. They decided to take a quick siesta before heading out to the track.

Clara fell right asleep but McCloskey couldn’t stop turning things over in his mind. She had asked him whether he was settling in Border Cities. He didn’t have an answer. What could he tell her? That there was nothing for him here, nothing but bad memories? That the city felt like a prison to him now and all he could think about was going to look for Sophie? Depending on how things played out this afternoon with the Lieutenant, he might just leave town right away and try and pick up her trail.

He reached down and grabbed the bottle of rye, lifting it to his lips. Clara rolled off him and onto her back. He gazed at her and wondered about the love she shared with her husband, his brother, or the love that any two people shared for that matter. He was convinced that love, if there even was such thing, was in the moment. How can anyone in their right mind promise love? There were no promises, not anymore at least.

He took another swig from the bottle then climbed on top of Clara. Half asleep, she resisted at first but then instinctively grabbed the headboard. The bed shook and there was a clatter. McCloskey leaned over and saw a pair of handcuffs dangling from the frame. He remembered what Clara had said about watching Henry’s back for him.

Sweat was glistening on her chest and she was breathing heavily. Sensing he was about to finish, she wrapped her legs around his waist, squeezed him closer, and bit his neck. McCloskey groaned and drove himself so deep inside her, she had to curl her body sideways to keep from being crushed against the headboard.

He rolled off her and collapsed. They lay there panting, too drunk and too spent to say anything. Relationships like this never end good, McCloskey thought.