The two officers took off, followed by the chauffeur carrying the troublesome package. I went to the window and opened the curtain to see a plain dark car idling in the street. Patrick and Lois came to stand beside me. In short order the limousine pulled out of the garage and headed down the crescent, the second car following.
“Well and well and well,” I said, letting the curtain fall closed, “that’s a tough act to follow. What do you have planned now, Lois? A magician, a folk singer, someone who blows up balloons and twists them into animals?”
A woman who obviously had her priorities in order, Lois crossed to her dressing table and began to repair her hair. “Why don’t you two gentlemen wait for me downstairs.”
Dismissed out of hand, we left the bedroom and walked to the stairs. On the landing I raised my arm, a signal to stop. “Patrick, what about all the stuff you uncovered about Manuel Alvarez, the supposed flight to Cuba, his being dumped in the U.S., the Miami Beach miniseries?”
“I probably found out what I was supposed to have found out, or what anyone investigating the man would have uncovered. He has been very carefully stage managed.”
“You were right; something big was going down. Only the bad guy turned out to be one of the good guys in disguise. And in our zeal we almost blew the whole operation.”
“Maybe we did, although nobody expected the blizzard: blocked streets, cars left in garages, the driver working overtime.”
“I suppose he was just leaving to conclude the deal when we waylaid him in the basement.”
“The only thing missing was a laugh track.”
I could not repress a smile. “Who could have anticipated that a grand single gentleman would take arms against a sea of troubles and engage a gung-ho private eye who would upset the apple cart? Block that metaphor.”
Patrick grinned. “I guess there’s a bit of egg on everyone’s face.”
“Which a scotch and water will help to dissolve. I must say, I’m very relieved you didn’t get shot.”
Patrick dropped his hand lightly onto my shoulder. Ordinarily I shrink from being touched, but this time around I didn’t mind in the least. The two of us went downstairs to the library.
By now most of the guests had gone home. Only one bartender remained on duty. He reached for the whisky bottle as I came through the door. Glancing into the hallway, I saw Jennifer with her coat on, apparently searching for someone.
“You’re on your way?”
“There you are, Uncle Geoffry. I was just looking for you. Richard’s going to take me home. He’s gone upstairs to collect his things. He says he can sleep on the lounge chair in the TV room at Gran’s, and leave for the bus after breakfast and a visit with her.”
“Good. Are you aware that Douglas spilled the beans to his mum?”
“Yes. I didn’t catch him in time. He believes in being honest. But that kind of honesty is a form of cowardice, lacking the courage to keep a confidence.”
“You’re no dummy, Jennifer. I am delighted things have worked out this way. Another plus is that you won’t have to deal with those monogrammed napkin rings. And when the right man comes along – which I hope he does at least half a dozen times – I’ll be glad to walk you down the aisle. Now, I’ll be in Toronto next month. Let’s have dinner out, sans Mildred.”
“I’d like that.” She reached for my hand. “Here comes Richard.”
“Do you suppose we should find Mrs. Fullerton?” he asked.
“I’d just as soon not,” replied Jennifer. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Thank you for the lovely engagement party?’ By the way.” She reached up and lifted the string of pearls from around her neck. “Would you please return these. Under the circumstances … And please don’t tell Mother I gave them back.”
“Scout’s honour.” I put the pearls into my jacket pocket. “How will you get to your grandmother’s? I know for a fact the chauffeur is off duty for the night.”
“We’ll walk,” she replied. “I wore boots and carried my shoes. And the storm has died down.”
I walked with my niece and nephew to the front door. Sure enough the wind had fallen and with it the blowing snow.
“If I were to ask my sixth grade glass to describe this night,” said Jennifer, “they would all write: ‘The snow lay on the ground like a blanket, glistening like diamonds.’ “
“Well, it does,” said her brother.
“Stick to music,” said his sister.
I stood in the warmth of the porch, the front door still open, watching them walk away. At the foot of the path they turned. Richard waved; Jennifer blew a kiss. I waved back. A perfect exit.
I was about to close the front door when a car drove up the crescent, blue, with white letters on the door. It braked to a stop and two uniformed officers jumped out and hurried up the walk.
“You called?”
“It wasn’t me – I, officer. There has been a misunderstanding. Would you please come inside?”
Carefully wiping their feet, the two officers stepped gingerly into the front hall.
“This may take a minute,” I said. “I don’t suppose being on duty you’d like a drink. But come and have something to eat, and some coffee, and I’ll explain what happened.”
I ushered them into the dining room and handed them each a plate. “Just help yourselves. I’ll go and get the man who actually made the call.” I crossed to the library. Patrick got me into this; let him mollify the officers he had summoned.
I gave him the signal to follow me, and we headed back to the dining room. Lois intercepted us at the foot of the staircase.
“Geoffry, there are two policemen at the buffet. Did you invite them in?”
“Yes, I did. They heard about the wedding and they want to be ushers. Truth time, Patrick, and make it good.”
While Patrick was telling the police officers a somewhat edited version of recent events, Lois excused herself to see the last guests out the door. This meant that ad hoc staff could be dismissed, while the resident staff cleared away the buffet. The two police officers ate voraciously, far more interested in the lobster than in asking questions. Such faint curiosity as they may have felt was soon quelled by suggesting a second helping. With obvious reluctance they pulled themselves away from the food, the coffee urn, the warmth, to head out into snowy streets.
That left Patrick, Lois, and me, “in calm of mind, all passion spent.”
“Richard took Jennifer back to my mother’s, where he will stay the night. She really didn’t feel up to a cheery goodnight.” I felt Lois deserved that much explanation.
“That’s a relief,” she said. “Neither do I. Charles has got Douglas calmed down. They’re watching a Sherlock Holmes movie on television.”
“I can’t think of a better thing to do after trashing a party, or what once was a party.”
Abandoned plates, orphaned glasses, crumpled napkins, and ashtrays filled with toothpicks bore evidence of a celebration whose raison d’être had vanished like the beef and shrimp.
“What do you say, Chadwick. Time to hitch up the dogs and sled home?”
“I guess you’re right, Fitzgerald. If we get into a postmortem over tonight’s events we’ll be here until Wednesday. I suppose we’ll have to tramp down the hill and hope to flag a cab.”
“I’ll drive you,” volunteered Lois. “I’ll get out the Buick.”
“That’s way beyond the call of hostess duty,” I remonstrated. “You’ve had to cope with more crises tonight than the Red Cross. At least spare yourself driving through that winter wonderland.”
Lois laughed spontaneously. “No arguments. I’m so far up I feel I’m never going to sleep again. A drive is just what I need. Give me three minutes to change.”
“He’s right,” added Patrick. “You probably don’t believe it, but we can find our own way home – provided you pin our mittens to our sleeves.”
But Lois was already going up the stairs. I confess I had been genuinely surprised by her offer of
a lift. During our recent tête-à-tête in her bedroom I had not pulled any punches. Nor had she, for that matter. But the fight was over and done with; she seemed to harbour no resentment. Neither did I, but I had delivered far more zingers than she. I must say I admire people who can slug it out, then carry on as before. Grudges take energy; they must be fed and watered like house plants. But the entire evening had been so bizarre that it was almost impossible to apply any conventional standard for judging it. I decided to play the rest by ear.
Our coats and boots had been brought into the front hall. Patrick and I dressed to go out. In the dining room the white- uniformed cook dealt with the leftover food, while the maid collected dead drinks. The party was officially over.
Lois came down the stairs wearing an oversized black wool turtleneck and black slacks. She filled them out generously but well. She pulled on her boots, slung on her mink, and led the way down to the basement and into the garage.
Patrick hopped into the back seat. Lois started the car, flicked a control to open the automatic door, and we pulled out onto the crescent. By now major streets were being cleared. Logic dictated we drop Patrick first at the corner of his still unploughed street, from where he had to wade half a block to his apartment.
“Thanks, Lois. Sorry about the false pretenses. But under the circumstances …”
“Please! Don’t apologize. I’ll be dining out on this evening for the rest of the year.”
“Goodnight likewise to you, Chadwick. I’ll be in touch.”
He shut the door. Walking through deep snow is one of life’s more undignified activities, even for the young and spry. But snow-covered countries don’t have tarantulas or killer bees or malarial mosquitoes. I guess the occasional blizzard is a fair tradeoff.
Lois drove me to my apartment building, whose front door faced a street that merited early ploughing.
“The party’s over,” I said.
“The candles flicker and dim.”
“I guess this is not au revoir; it is goodbye. I shall go upstairs and put my morning coat into mothballs.”
“Geoffry,” Lois began tentatively, “could we have lunch some day? My treat. If I am to deal intelligently with Douglas I’m sure to have some questions.”
“Sure. Why not? He’s going to need some dealing with. But he is your son, and you may as well get as much mileage out of him as you can. Accepting him for what he is seems like a good start. I thought he handled tonight as badly as was humanly possible. But he is still young; he can grow. Just don’t stand in his way.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Chadwick. Remember: I’m going to have my hands full being forty-five for the next twenty years.”
We both began to laugh.
“Do you suppose we will ever be friends?” she asked after a minute.
“I don’t know. It’s too soon to tell. At least hostilities appear to have ceased, and that’s always a step in the right direction. Thanks for the lift, Lois. You needn’t have, but I’m awfully glad you did.”
Almost as a reflex gesture, Lois leaned sideways, offering her cheek to be kissed. Then, abruptly, she jerked her head back and pulled the glove from her right hand. “Goodnight, Geoffry.”
I shook the hand she offered. “Goodnight, Lois.” Just about to get out of the car, I remembered something. “Jennifer asked me to return these,” I said, handing her the necklace.
Lois held her hand up, not out. “I really would like her to have them, if you can persuade her.”
“I’ll try,” I said as I swung myself out of the car. On the sidewalk I turned and waved. She gave a brief toot on the horn and pulled away.
In my apartment, still wide awake, I changed into a bathrobe. I poured myself a glass of club soda, sat in my Eames chair, and switched on the television set. Sherlock Holmes, complete with pipe and profile, was explaining something to a disbelieving Dr. Watson.
Perhaps I should have spoken to Charles before leaving, but I was all talked out. Also, saying goodnight to Charles would have meant speaking to Douglas, and I did not feel like being civil to that poison ivy leaguer. I would have been hard pressed not to bounce him off the walls. Small matter; the wedding file could now be stamped closed. I put my tumbler onto the floor beside my chair and fell instantly asleep.
16.
THERE ARE NO HAPPY ENDINGS, but sometimes events manage to steer themselves into channels that make us glad. The cocaine caper went off without a hitch. Melvin Abrams, a.k.a. Manuel Alvarez, a.k.a. Daniel Sanchez drove, as Mother would have said, like a bat out of hell, using the weight, power, and sheer presence of the limousine to break through drifts, bring snowploughs to a skidding halt, and send those adventurous souls on skis and snowmobiles dashing for cover. It was, as Officer Reynolds was later to admit in hushed, almost reverential tones, a triumph of the chauffeur’s art.
Sanchez parked outside the seedy row of triplexes, climbed the unshovelled outdoor circular staircase in slippery oxfords, pushed his way into the squalid flat, and handed over the much travelled parcel in exchange for a sports bag full of money. (At least it wasn’t in a briefcase.) Hot on his half-rubber, half-leather heels, the RCMP, led by Officer Reynolds, moved in to make arrests. Escape through the drifts was out of the question; besides, the element of surprise turned out to be complete. Nobody even fired a shot, and Lois’s limousine was returned without a scratch, a nick, or even a bullet hole through the windshield. Not a single incident in the entire operation could have been incorporated into a film for Pay-TV, so smoothly did the enterprise wrap itself up.
The chauffeur, whose name really was Daniel Sanchez, turned out to be an agent from Columbia working with the RCMP to intercept a huge shipment of cocaine so pure it made 24 carat gold seem positively adulterated. The cocaine in our package finally ended up flushed down a toilet, not laid out in neat rows on the lid, and the shipment itself went up in a sheet of highly euphoric flame.
Now that he had become a sort of local hero, almost better looking in photographs than in person, Daniel Sanchez doffed his chauffeur’s livery and hopped into Lois’s large white bed for a steamy reconciliation, or so I was able to gather from the hints she dropped over the pricey lunch she bought me the following Thursday. From undercover, Daniel Sanchez had gone under the covers, and Lois positively glowed. The subject of Douglas never even came up.
It has been observed that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, a saw I have always doubted, certainly for someone as uninterested in food as I. By the same token, the way to a woman’s heart may not necessarily lie through multiple orgasms, but they are a pretty good substitute until the real thing comes along. Now that Daniel Sanchez had turned from chauffeur into officer of the law – a less radical metamorphosis, granted, than from frog into prince – Lois realized she had grown quite attached to this taciturn man who was merely tall, dark, well built, drop-dead handsome, and a ten in the kip.
Unfortunately, now that his mission had been accomplished, there was nothing to keep him from returning to Columbia, of which country he was a citizen. However, our Señor Sanchez was reluctant to return to his home and native land, not surprising when one remembers that the leading cause of death for men under forty-five there is murder. Furthermore, his role in the drug bust had given him a certain profile, one that could make a return home hazardous to his health. As a result, he found that Canada, even buried in snow and a search for national identity, seemed a haven.
“Marry him, Lois,” I heard myself saying over an excellent Bordeaux. “You’re a Canadian citizen. By marrying you he could remain, without all the hassle of returning home and trying to immigrate, providing he isn’t shot before he is issued his papers.”
“I don’t know whether I could. He’s so much younger. I know perfectly well what people will think.”
“They won’t think, Lois; they’ll know – that you are being well and truly laid. And they’ll be green, but what do you care. You’ll probably be saving his life. And remember: screwing well is the best re
venge. Also, with a young, healthy husband, you will not spend the golden years as a widow.”
Lois fell silent, but I could tell she was thinking furiously.
“I understand the second time around you are not supposed to wear white,” I suggested, “at least according to Amelia Gates. You have a perfect house for a wedding. You’ve even broken in the temporary staff.”
Lois tapped a crimson nail against her front teeth. “Would you give me away?”
“Why not? I’m all revved up for a wedding, doesn’t much matter whose. Just so long as there is no video.”
“Heaven forbid. A camera always adds ten pounds. Oh my goodness, Geoffry. I’ll have to think this over carefully.”
“Just let me know the date,” I replied.
MILDRED TOOK THE NEWS of the broken engagement with less fuss than Jennifer had expected. I was not as surprised as my niece, having known my sister a lot longer. Mildred is a woman of intense but brief enthusiasms. Three months is generally the amount of time she will spend on any one project before moving on to the next. By now her excitement for the wedding had begun to wane, to be replaced by high indignation over the way refugees were being treated by our surly Immigration officials. She opened her house to a family from Sri Lanka. In fact, no sooner had Jennifer moved out to share an apartment with the friend who was to have been her maid of honour, a move I heartily approved, than her vacant bedroom was filled by an immigrant student, whom Mildred tried to wean onto wholesome Canadian food. I sometimes wondered whether, faced daily by Mildred’s fascist Christianity, those former boat people were not, on occasion, filled with nostalgia for the boat. But they were warm and well fed, and Mildred had her hands way too full to bother me. Why argue with success?
It took one five-day visit from Douglas to New York to convince my nephew that this particular love was transient rather than true. Gone were the obstacles so dear to the homosexual young, for whom love must be doomed from the start in order to be any fun. Having to den-mother Douglas through his coming-out period, while having to prepare for his Ph.D. orals, had led Richard to utter that deathless line, “Let’s just be friends.” After being granted his own Ph.D., Douglas went off to teach at an agricultural college in Ontario. Perhaps it was a dirty trick for Quebec to play on a sister province, but Douglas Fullerton moved out of my vision, my thoughts, my life.
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