by Warren Court
“I got a cop killed?”
“Is that what he said?” O’Rourke said.
“Did I?”
“It’s in the past,” O’Rourke said.
“Tell me what I did.”
“You tried to help someone. They stabbed you in the back and your partner got it in the neck.”
Armour turned away, put his hands on the wheel and squeezed.
“Look, I gotta go. You won’t find anything at Water Street, but get in and get out quick, okay?”
O’Rourke paused and then extended his hand to Armour.
“See ya, friend,” O’Rourke said.
“Yeah. See ya, friend,” Armour said.
Chapter 17
Armour got down to the CNE at eight. He fought his way against the throng of people departing through the Princes’ Gates. It was already dark out and there were the sounds of things being loaded on to trucks.
He could tell from way off that the tent in which Gim had appeared was gone, along with the caravan that had been parked next to it.
“The Indians? They’re gone,” the manager of the CNE said when Armour finally tracked him down. “After that ruckus they caused, I threw those black devils out of here.”
“Where did they go?”
“They packed up their trailer. No way any hotel’s going to take them. Even the darkies don’t want them hanging around. There’s a gypsy caravan park at the edge of town on the way to Oakville. They might have gone there.”
Armour asked a gasoline attendant on the outskirts of town where the caravan park was. It was close to eleven by the time he found it. This worried him; he had wanted to get to the theatre to check on Melanie. Her second show would be wrapping up soon.
The campground was called Rest Acres. Armour asked the woman in the front office where the Indians were.
“There ain’t no Indians here,” she said. “We don’t let them in.”
“The two people from overseas,” Armour explained. “From India. A boy and his father.”
“Oh, those Indians. Thought you meant our Indians. Yeah, I didn’t want to let them in. Might upset the other guests,” she said. Armour knew she meant white guests. “But they had plenty of money. Just a night, then they said they’d be on their way.”
“So, where are they?”
“Put them way in the back. Last campsite on the left-hand trail.”
“You’re too kind,” Armour said.
The headlights from his Model T were weak and barely illuminated the narrow path. He almost ran into the purple and green trailer, the one he’d seen next to the tent at the midway.
A lantern came on inside as Armour pulled up. He was tempted to blow his horn and get them to come outside, but that would be a bad way to start this. The door of the caravan opened. He heard the distinct rack of a shotgun being primed. Armour put his hands up.
“Who goes there?” a man said, with no trace of an Indian accent.
“A friend,” Armour said.
The man came out of the caravan, and as he got close, Armour recognized him as the man who had introduced the young Muthu.
“You’re Gim’s father?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“I need to speak to your son.”
“He’s asleep.”
“I’ll pay.”
“So. You think we’re beggars?”
“I heard you got removed from the Exhibition.”
“And with no pay. That’s three days wasted.”
“I’m sorry. I think I caused it. What were you owed?”
“Eighty dollars.”
“I don’t have that on me. How’s twenty?”
“It’s a start.”
“Hey, shut up! We’re trying to sleep over here,” someone yelled from the nearest campsite.
“You’d better come in before you get us kicked out of here too,” the man said, and showed Armour into his trailer. He put the shotgun by the door and Armour relaxed.
“Gim,” the man said. “Gim, wake up.”
The rear end of the trailer had a curtain across it. Armour spied Gim’s green turban sitting on a chair. The curtain was pulled aside and Gim popped out, dressed in ruby-red bedclothes.
“Gim,” Armour said.
“The name is Muthu,” the boy said. “Only my friends call me Gim.” He looked to be fifteen. His eyes sparkled in the light of the lantern.
“Gim, come on,” Armour said. “We know each other. We are friends… I think.”
“I saw you today,” Gim said. “In the tent.”
Armour was sure he knew this boy, but like Melanie, he had no idea where from. Why he knew some people and not others like Tomkins or O’Rourke, two men he had served with, baffled him.
“What did you want to speak to my son about?” the father said.
“I felt something when I saw your son on stage. When he said my last name.”
“That happens. My son is a gifted young man—”
“Yes, I know,” Armour said. “Sorry. Please go on.”
“Everyone in my family has some ability to see things that are not there, things that are to be. My son has it in abundance.”
“Why put him in a sideshow?”
“We have to make a living.”
Armour remembered what Tomkins had said about his investigator’s licence: “Everyone has the right to make a living.”
“So, your son does what—reads palms?”
“No, not that. My son can go into a trance. He has visions.” Something Armour could relate to.
“Father, I am tired,” the boy said. “I want to go to sleep.”
“This man is willing to pay, and he owes us.”
“Really, Father?” Gim yawned, but it looked faked.
“He will be quick. We do have a long drive tomorrow, sir,” Gim’s father said, turning back to Armour.
“Where are you going?”
“Montreal. There is a fair there we have signed on with. We weren’t supposed to be there until the end of the week, but with our abrupt departure from the Exhibition, there is nothing keeping us here.”
“Glad I caught you, then.”
“Yes. And that brings us to the matter of...”
“Right. The twenty.” Armour peeled off the money from his wad; that left him with only five dollars. He’d have to top up from Roscoe’s down payment. Of course, if he couldn’t locate Foley, then that money, minus his expenses, would have to be returned. Olive had mentioned petty cash, but he doubted much was in that. There would be bank accounts for his investigative firm, but would that be embezzling? What a mess.
“How do we proceed?” Armour asked.
The father dimmed the lantern until it was just a tiny flicker, and his son seemed to fade from view. Gim let his head fall back and then roll to the side, down to his chest and to the other side.
Armour rolled his eyes. What had he just handed twenty dollars over for? Practically a fortune; he could have dined out on that for weeks. He remembered that he had a suit waiting for him at Stollery’s he had to pay for.
Gim started to hum. It came from deep in his gut and up through his throat. It was low in tone at first, and then it reached a crescendo and he parted his lips to let the sound out. He opened his eyes wide, so wide it astonished Armour, then the lids closed back to halfway, shielding those brilliant eyes from the dim light of the lantern. Armour had become unaware of what the father was doing; it was like he wasn’t there. In fact, Armour felt the sides and roof of the caravan disappear as well, and he could smell the wood smoke from nearby campsites. There were stars above him and trees surrounding him, but his Model T was gone and the other campsites were obscured by heavy woods. Then the trees seemed to shrink back into the ground. If it hadn’t been so fascinating, Armour would have let out a scream. All that was left was a brilliant night sky.
“Mr. Black,” the boy said.
“Yes. I’m here.”
Gim extended his hand and Armour took it.
“Wh
at is it you seek?”
“Well, two things, actually,” Armour said.
The humming increased as Gim became annoyed then it settled back down.
“I wish to know where Kevin Foley is. He was the assistant to Colin Holt, the harbour commissioner.”
“I can see him. He is far away. Ten days’ walk.”
“Ten days’ walk,” Armour said, trying to calculate that in terms of driving. “Which direction?”
“The man you seek is where the day begins,” Gim said.
East, Armour thought. Day begins in the east, ends in the west. “Is he alive?”
“Yes,” Gim said. “But there is a cloud over him. His time is short; his candle is burning down.”
“He will die soon?”
Gim said nothing.
“How does he die? Who’s going to kill him?”
“There is much about this man that angers people. He has betrayed friends. Made enemies everywhere. That is all I see on him.”
“What about his boss, Colin Holt?”
“He is harder to find,” Gim said. “I can see him. Crying out, then laughing, then crying out again, but in pain this time. Much pain. There is a girl. She is very pretty, but damaged. There’s a man too. He means to do this man harm.”
“So, he is dead? Where is he? Is he at the bottom of the lake?”
“He lies under the protective eye of the son. The eye of the son.” The humming increased and then decreased, and Gim’s head sank back down to his chest.
As quick as Armour could blink, the stars were gone and he was back in the caravan. He was aware of the father’s laboured breathing next to him and then all went silent. Finally, Gim raised his head.
“Can I go back to bed now, Father?”
“It usually tires him out,” the man said to Armour. “We could only do two or three shows a day at the Exhibition.” He turned to the boy. “Yes, Gim, you can.”
Gim crawled back to the front of the trailer and drew the curtains shut behind him.
“Did you hear everything he said?” Armour asked the father.
“My son never speaks when he is in a trance.”
“But he did speak.”
“All of Gim’s customers say the same thing. I cannot explain it. Take what he told you and go now, please. He isn’t the only one who is tired.”
Chapter 18
At this late hour Yonge Street was almost deserted. He had the vent windows on his T open. Fresh air rolled in. It was not tainted with smoke. There were no sirens, no shouts for help as he approached the theatre. Everything looked as it should when he passed by. He thought of going into his office and putting the gun back in the desk. He wondered now why he even had it on him. Had he planned on getting a psychic reading off Gim at gunpoint if the young seer had refused him?
The check-in boy at the YMCA was not impressed with Armour’s late entry. Armour had had to ring the doorbell to summon him, and the boy had had to unlock the gate to let him in, which seemed to exacerbate the situation. The boy had insisted Armour breathe on him to prove he hadn’t been drinking. They had a strict policy about admitting drunks.
Armour’s stomach growled as he finally laid himself down on the worn and sagging bed in his tiny room. He’d have to suffer an empty stomach until morning; nothing had been open at this late hour. He knew where he would be at breakfast time – Cabbagetown.
Chapter 19
Armour woke up early. The curtains on his tiny window barely made a dent in the strong rays coming through. The sagging bed was so depressed that it caused a whole new set of pains in his body.
It was only seven. A perfect time to pop over to Water Street in Cabbagetown, find out what he could about Foley and get out of there before the fellas from the speakeasy were alerted. He hoped they would be sleeping one off and not up at this hour.
He’d picked up a razor and some cream from a store next to the Y, and as he shaved, he thought about his experience with Gim, the Magnificent Muthu. The whole thing seemed like a dream, and just like his meeting with Mrs. Holt, any recognition he’d felt when he saw the boy in person was fading from his memory like a déjà vu. What was going on with him? Perhaps he should seek medical help. But what would doctors do? Probably have him committed.
He’d checked a map in his glove box and found Water Street. It was in the south side of Cabbagetown, a safe fifteen blocks from the drugstore, the speak and the building where Mrs. Holt’s maid lived.
Most of the large Victorian mansions seemed to be boarding houses. Different-coloured curtains in the windows, beat-up-looking cars in the driveways. He parked and started going door to door. He didn’t knock on any of them, just took a gander at the mailboxes near the front doors of each of the buildings until he found a mailbox labelled K. Foley, Apt 4.
The front door was unlocked. The lock was gone; there was just a black hole where there had been one. The hall was littered with newspaper. The stairs creaked as he climbed up looking for number four; the carpet runners were in tatters.
The door to number four was open. A woman was scrubbing the floor. The single bed was stripped, the closet empty.
“Interested in the room?” a man behind him said.
“Yes, I am,” Armour said.
The man had on a moth-eaten cardigan on despite the warm weather, and his pants were faded at the knees. He smelled of tobacco.
“All enquiries have to take place down at the office,” the man said.
“I’m interested in the man who had it before him. Foley.”
“You know him?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
“You come to pay his bills?”
“Heavens, no.”
“Then get out.”
“No, wait a second. I’m just trying to find him. He owes me money too. Maybe if I find him, he can pay both of us back.”
“Fat chance of that. I got all his stuff locked up. Thirty days. If he doesn’t come back to pay what he owes, I get to sell it. Won’t get two bits for it, but it’ll all be gone. You tell him that when you find him. Tell him I see him in this part of town again I’m going to brain him good.”
“When was he here last?”
“Two weeks ago. Just up and split. Two months past due. I tried to keep an eye on him in case he pulled a runner. They do that, skip out in the night. He got past me somehow. Must be getting too old for this.”
Armour thought about his own mysterious domicile. The month-end was coming up. Would his landlord be putting his stuff in storage? For some reason he was certain he rented and did not own. Didn’t matter; if he missed a mortgage payment, the bank would take action faster than any landlord.
“Anyway, he got past me. Took off.”
“In a car?”
“Yup. Brown Dodge. Left a huge oil stain on the driveway, too.”
“Old cars do that,” Armour muttered.
“I gotta get this room ready to show. Young lady and her children are coming by here later today.”
“A mother and two kids are going to live in here?”
“Yeah. What’s it to you? They gotta live somewhere.”
Armour bid the man goodbye and left.
He stopped at the mailboxes. They were all locked, with just slots at the top for letters. A truck pulled up in front of the lodging. It was marked “ACME Locksmith.” Of course, Armour thought. They’re coming to change the lock on Foley’s mailbox.
Armour had to act quickly. He pulled a small leather case from his pocket. He had studied it back in his office and for some reason had taken it along with the revolver. It became crystal clear what its purpose was now. The case held two metal picks, like something a dentist would use. He inserted them quickly into the lock, going on instinct alone. A bit of jimmying and the lock turned.
“Eureka,” he said to himself.
He had the mailbox opened and the few letters the box contained tucked in his jacket before the locksmith mounted the steps. Armour tipped his hat at the man and made
a beeline for his Ford.
He dropped the letters on his desk. The first one was a plain envelope, with just Foley’s name written in ink on it. Inside was a copy of a phone bill for the boarding house. The same hand that had written his name had circled several long-distance charges and written next to it “Please pay immediately.” Armour clued in to what it was: Foley was using the house phone in the entranceway to make long-distance calls. The bill had gone to the landlord, naturally, and the tobacco-smelling man was seeking remittance from him. Another reason for the landlord to be furious with his former tenant.
The second letter was from someone named Carol. She’d included a snap of herself in full flapper regalia, legs bare to the thigh, garter belts, a funny-looking hat with a feather plume coming out of it. Bare arms and several strings of pearls around her neck. A real good-time girl, it looked like. She was striking an alluring pose. Armour started to read the letter and blushed. There was no return address on it. Damn. The letter was a clue that Foley had a lover somewhere.
He switched his attention back to the phone bill. STrathcona8895 showed up three times, adding a charge of two dollars and fifteen cents on to the regular monthly bill. He could call this number; that would be easy. But something told him to not tip his hand just yet.
He heard Olive say, “Can I help you?”
A woman replied, “I’d like to see Mr. Black.” He recognized the voice and was up and out of his chair in a flash.
“Melanie. Nice of you to drop by,” he said, leaning casually against the doorjamb to his office. “Please come in. Olive, hold my calls, will you?”
Olive gave him a funny look as Melanie went past, flipping a fox stole over her shoulder. He gave her a look back and closed the door.
“So, this is a real live private investigator’s office?”
“Can I get you something?”
“No,” she said, and sat on the edge of his desk.
“What’s that?” She pointed at Foley’s ill-gotten correspondence.