Oasis of Night

by J. S. Cook

  “All right.” I slid in and shut the door; the car pulled smoothly away from the curb. “You know my name. How about returning the favor?”

  He reached a hand across. “Jonah Octavian.” He must have seen my expression. “Yes, I agree. As far as names go, it invites incredulity, but it is my name.” He turned the car north and headed uptown, away from the waterfront, toward the dark green hills that press against the horizon.

  I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he drove. He was older than me, maybe fifty, with black hair graying at the temples and a neat moustache. There were laugh lines fanning out from the corners of his eyes, and his thin, rather cruel mouth was bracketed by wrinkles. Apart from the moustache, he was clean-shaven, but he wore no cologne or aftershave lotion. His clothes were—as far as I could tell—expensive. He seemed in no hurry to talk, so I left him alone. I figured he’d tell me whatever it was as soon as he was ready.

  “Your bartender, Mr. Stoyles.” He was ready sooner than I thought.

  “Yeah. What about him?”

  “He’s been with you how long?”

  “Few months. Why?”

  “What do you know of his background?”

  “Enough.”

  Octavian smirked. “But not everything.”

  I was beginning to lose patience with this guy. “Look, Octavian, you got something to say to me, you better say it.”

  “I have it on good authority that Mr. DuBois—your bartender—was recently handed a check in the amount of… well, let’s say it was a sizable amount. This check was written by a young lady of his acquaintance. Perhaps you know her? A Miss Julie Fayre. I’ve no doubt you’ve heard of her family. They’re in charge of the new Army base that’s being built out here.”

  That’s where he was taking me; I saw it as soon as we crested the hill. It wasn’t much to look at right now, just mounds of displaced earth and heaps of metal and concrete. Eventually, however, it would form an important link in a very strategic chain.

  “Just what are you getting at, Octavian?”

  He stopped the car and threw it into park, turned to face me. “Did you ever stop to wonder who might have killed that engineer? This is a very peaceful place. You’ve been here long enough to see that. These lovely people, these very friendly neighbors of yours, they go about their own business and never harm a fly.” He reached into the glove box and took out a manila envelope, which he tossed into my lap. “Ken Cartwright was the civil engineer hired by the United States Army to oversee this project. The contract that he signed stipulated that, in the event of debilitating injury or accidental death, Mr. Cartwright would be automatically replaced as project overseer.”

  I was starting to see what he was getting at, and it bothered me. “Go on.”

  “Since Fayre Construction Limited is the contractor in this case, Mr. Cartwright’s duties would automatically default to them.”

  I tore open the manila envelope and took a quick scan of the contents. The pieces suddenly fell into place. “I see. So what’s your interest in all this? Why should you care about some murdered engineer?”

  “I run a construction company, Octavian and Weiss—you may have heard of us. When your country declared war on Japan—and subsequently decided to set up military bases here—I decided that I would bid on the various construction contracts that were offered.” His black eyes were deep and cold as obsidian. “Time and again, I was outbid. I thought it an unusual situation, and so I did a little investigating of my own. Do you know who the winning bidder was, Mr. Stoyles, in every single case?”

  “I think I can guess.” I wondered where Julie might fit in all of this.

  “Fayre Construction.”

  “So you’re saying that Fayre Construction had Cartwright killed? But why?”

  “A civil engineer’s duties and responsibilities are many, Mr. Stoyles. Paramount among these is determining the safety of a site and the structural integrity of any buildings that go on it.”

  It felt like somebody was pouring cold water down my back. “Yeah?”

  “Naturally, safety costs money—money that must be factored in with other costs. Most engineers—most professionals—know better than to cut corners. Others do it in the hopes that nothing will go wrong. Most of the time, Mr. Stoyles, nothing does, and the unscrupulous contractor need not fear either exposure or reprisals.”

  “You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

  “Indeed. I learned my profession in Athens, Mr. Stoyles, and I have been here for many years. Many of the beautiful modern buildings you see around this… fledgling city… were built by me.” He reached into his coat and took out a gold cigarette case, offered me one, and lit one for himself. “Ken Cartwright submitted a report to the United States Army, stipulating certain site conditions. The report never reached its destination. Instead, a doctored version of it was submitted and construction went ahead. Once Ken Cartwright discovered what had happened….” He shrugged.

  “So who doctored the report? And what happened to the original?”

  “I have told you all I know.” Octavian reached across me and opened the door. “Good-bye, Mr. Stoyles, and if ever I can be of some use to you, do let me know.”

  I STOOD for a while after Octavian had gone, watching the steady progress of men and machines, and then I turned south and headed back to my cafe. I wanted to discount everything Octavian had said, but couldn’t. After all, how well did I really know Chris? How well did I really know anybody? If what Octavian had said was true, then maybe Julie Fayre was in on it, and maybe she had convinced Chris it was worth his while to come over to her side. Yeah, I could see Julie Fayre making it worth his while, but it wasn’t something I wanted to think about. Thinking about Julie Fayre just made me mad, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and by the time I made it back to my Heartache, I was fit to be tied.

  We were in between the lunch crowd and the afternoon rush, so the place was pretty empty. A couple of vagrants lounging on the front steps asked me for spare change when I went by, but I ignored them and barged inside.

  Chris was wiping down the bar and looked up when he saw me. “Hi there, Jack. Anything I can get for you?”

  I opened my office door and threw my coat at the hook. The things I was thinking were making me crazy. I had to sit down, get some perspective. “Chris!”

  He appeared in the doorway. “Yeah, Jack?”

  “Come in and close the door.”

  “There’s nobody—”

  “I said come in and close the goddamn door!” My fists were clenched so hard my knuckles were white.

  “I do something wrong, Jack?” He was visibly shaken. “If it’s about that broken tap, I swear, you can take it out of my paycheck, I didn’t think—”

  “How well do you know Julie Fayre?”

  “Julie?”

  “I know you’ve been seeing a lot of her since that day she came into the cafe.” I struck a match and lit a cigarette. “Show me the check she gave you.”

  “What check? Jack, are you feeling all right? I dunno what you’re talking about.”

  I stood up so fast my chair fell over backward. “Did your little girlfriend give you a check to keep your mouth shut?”

  “My… what? Check?” His dark brows furrowed. “You drunk?”

  I hit him so hard he staggered back against the wall and nearly fell. “Don’t you ever say that, you hear me? You will never see me drunk. Never.”

  I made for the door, but Chris was quicker and barred my way. He caught me by the upper arms and held on to me. “Jack, what the hell is wrong with you, huh?”

  “Let go of me.”

  “Not until you tell me.” His long fingers locked around my arms. We were standing ridiculously close, so close I could make out the tiny spray of freckles across his nose and the lush curve of his lower lip. The heat of his body pressed against me like a living thing.

  “Julie.”

  “What about Julie?”

&n
bsp; He released me, and I dragged out the manila envelope and shoved it at him. “Tell me you didn’t know about this.”

  He dumped the contents into his hand and gazed at it for a moment, his face expressionless. “She said she worked in an office.”

  “Show me the check, or have you cashed it already?”

  “Jack, I don’t know anything about any check.”

  “Ever hear of a guy named Octavian?”

  “No.” He thought for a moment. “Wait… he’s some kinda contractor, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, Chris. He’s some kind of contractor.” I went back and sat at my desk, my head in my hands. I didn’t know who to believe, Octavian—who had no reason to lie to me, or at least not any reason I could think of—or Chris.

  “Jack.” Chris’s voice was at my ear. I opened my eyes. He was crouched beside my desk. “Julie’s nice and all that, but I don’t want a dame to come between us.” His hand rubbed small circles on my back, heat burning through the thin cotton of my shirt. “I’d hate it if that happened. You and me, we got a good thing going here.”

  “You don’t know nothin’ about me.” I shook my head.

  Chris’s hand moved to my forearm, gripping gently. “I know as much as I need to.”

  The tip of his tongue slid out, moistening his lips, and it was all I could do not to grab his head and press my mouth against his. I wanted him so bad it was a physical ache, pounding down my bones and leaving me weak and shaken.

  “You better get back behind the bar.” I sounded like I’d just run a marathon. “It might get busy.”

  “Sure, Jack.”

  As soon as he left, I closed my office door. The bottle was where I’d left it, in the desk drawer. I took it out and handled it awhile, turning it, feeling the slosh of liquid, pressing my thumbs against the uncracked seal. I knew what that first sip would feel like: the acrid burn of poison, settling into heat. Then another sip and then another, and what the hell, I’d get a glass and fill it to the brim.

  I put the bottle back, shut the drawer, and locked it.

  I waited until Chris had left for the night and then I went to the till. I lifted up the cash drawer and ran my hand underneath. There was nothing but dust. I put the drawer back and straightened a stack of twenties, and as I did, my fingers caught the texture of a different kind of paper. I pulled it out and looked at it.

  It was a check made out to Chris DuBois for twenty thousand dollars.

  SERGEANT BILLY Ricketts was about as much cop as anybody could stand, and that included me. I’d had some dealings with him since coming to town—nothing very serious—and he always made it very clear that the recent influx of what he called “Murrycans” had brought nothing but trouble. Ricketts was a cop from the old school, and he liked to beat the hell out of suspects first and ask questions later. If something didn’t square with the way he thought it should be, he’d hammer on it until it fit. He wasn’t very subtle, but he could be remarkably effective, and despite his prejudices, he’d always been very fair to me. When vandals had broken out both front windows of my cafe, Ricketts’s men had combed the streets for days until they found them. He was a good cop—just not a very polite one.

  When I showed up at the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary headquarters the next morning, Ricketts was anything but pleased.

  “Stoyles, I haven’t got time this morning for you and your bloody foolishness, so whatever it is, leave it with the desk and I’ll get back to ye.” The phone on his desk rang, and Ricketts picked it up, hollered into it, and put it down again. “Bloody arseholes.” He realized I was still there. “What?”

  I laid the check on his desk. “If you can slow down long enough to take a look at this, I’d like your opinion on it.”

  “Would ye?” Ricketts reached across and picked up the check. He peered at it, smelled it, rubbed it between his fingers, held it up to the light, crumpled it, and smoothed it out again. “Mm.”

  “My bartender claims no knowledge of it, nor does he have any idea why Fayre Construction wrote him a check for such an ungodly amount. He has never worked for them. His only connection is his… a woman he’s seeing.”

  Ricketts looked at me. “The Fayre girl?”

  “The same.”

  “Mm. Used to know her mother. Judy Blanchard, she was. Knew her in school. Stuck-up as they come. Figured her shit didn’t—” The phone rang; Ricketts picked it up and shouted something unintelligible into it. “So Fayre Construction wrote your bartender a check for nothing. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Yeah. Add that to what Octavian told me—”

  “Octavian?” He spat it out like it tasted bad. “You been listening to that fool? Sure, he’s as stun as my arse and then some.”

  “Not about this, he isn’t.” I showed him the contents of the envelope Octavian had given me and laid the whole thing out for him. To Ricketts’s credit he listened carefully, his beady blue eyes searching my face while his thick, blunt fingers scratched at his desk blotter or fiddled with his pens and pencils, his lapels, the unbuttoned flaps on the pockets of his uniform—anything else within reach.

  “I’ll put a man on it.” He picked up the phone and spoke; the door to his office opened almost instantly, and a thin young man with pale gray eyes and hungry features stood there like he’d been starched into his clothes.

  “You called me, Sergeant?”

  “Constable Picco, you remember Mr. Stoyles. You’ve been into his cafe a few times, haven’t you? Mr. Stoyles is a Yank.”

  Picco’s lean face fell. “Oh. Mr. Stoyles.” He said my name like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “Mr. Stoyles would like our help. Take a good look at him, Constable Picco. From now on, you are working for Mr. Stoyles.”

  Picco’s expression was something less than ecstatic. “Your orders, Sergeant?”

  “I’ll have Doreen bring you the file in half an hour.”

  Picco nodded. “Very good.” He inclined his head as much as the uniform’s stiff collar would allow—or maybe that was only my wishful thinking. “Good day, Mr. Stoyles.” He went out and shut the door behind him.

  “He must be a real hit at parties.”

  “Don’t be foolish. He don’t go to parties. He’s in with that Mission crowd—one of them Pentecostals.” Ricketts shoved his handwritten notes into a file folder. “Is there anything else, Mr. Stoyles, or can I let ye get back to pouring coffee?”

  “I’ll get back to pouring coffee. Will Picco… will he get in touch with me, or should I call you, or…?” I imagined Picco stomping into the Heartache Cafe and declaiming the results of his investigation to anybody within earshot.

  “I’ll call you. You needn’t worry about that.” The phone at his elbow rang, and I was effectively dismissed.

  I got back to the Heartache Cafe right before the lunchtime rush. Chris was already busy taking orders, so I grabbed an apron to help him out. I was serving a tray of Cokes with limes and iced tea to a table full of school teachers when the front door of the Cafe came open with such force that the bell was nearly torn off the frame. A small man wearing a too-big overcoat staggered in, holding his arms out in front of him like he was trying to push something away. I recognized him as one of the vagrants who usually sat outside my cafe, begging passersby for change and sometimes venturing inside to buy a glass of beer. He saw me and started forward, but he never made it. He fell flat on his face, the handle of a knife protruding from the space between his shoulder blades.

  Chapter 4

  CONSTABLE PICCO had closed my cafe down, pending an investigation; some men in clean white coats had come with an ambulance and taken the dead vagrant away. Picco’s men made a thorough sweep of my place while he detained my customers for questioning, but it was useless. Nobody knew anything, but that didn’t seem to deter Picco. He kept Chris and me in my office for over an hour after the last of the customers had left.

  “Did you know this man, Mr. Stoyles?” Picco stood as erectly as ever
, his gray eyes taking in everything. “Had you seen him before today?”

  “I already told you, he’s usually out there, in front of the Cafe. Sometimes, if the weather’s cold, I’ll bring him out a hot cup of coffee.”

  Picco did something with his eyebrows. “I see. Have you ever given him money?”

  “Sometimes. What’s wrong with that?”

  He gave me an unfathomable look before turning back to his notebook. “Are there any knives missing from your kitchen, Mr. Stoyles?”

  This was beginning to get on my nerves. “I told you already, no.”

  “And where is your cook?”

  “It’s his day off. Chris handles the cooking when he’s not here.”

  Picco looked Chris up and down with an air of patent disapproval. “You are an American also, Mr. DuBois?” He pronounced it “DuBoys.”

  “Actually, it’s DuBois. I’m from New Orleans.”

  “New Orleans, Louisiana. Also in the United States.” Picco jotted something in his notebook and flipped the cover closed. He glanced around the Cafe with an expression of profound distaste. “Hopefully my investigation will not take too long. In the meantime, this… place… will remain closed.”

  I started forward. “Are you sure that’s necessary?”

  “Very, Mr. Stoyles. It is vital that everything remain exactly as it is.”

  “Why, you—” I felt the blood throbbing in my temples and made for him, but Chris caught me around the waist and hauled me back. “You’ve got no reason to close me down, Picco! Just you wait till I get Ricketts on the phone!”

  Picco raised one eyebrow. “Sergeant Ricketts is attending a police conference in Nova Scotia and will not be back until next week. I am overseeing matters until his return.”

  “I just bet you are.”

  Chris held on to me until Picco left, and then he went and locked the door behind the departing constable. “That guy really loves his job, doesn’t he?”