After the Horses

by Jeffrey Round

  “Suicide heaven,” Dan mused.

  “You got it.”

  “Was it a murder?”

  “No. The first time it was faked. The real death at the end is an accident.”

  “Hmm. I’m not sure this fits the scenario. The one I’m looking for has a suicide from a bridge and a murder inside a house.”

  “Yuri Malevski’s?”

  “I can’t keep anything from you.” Dan paused. “What connects the two deaths in the film?”

  “Love and regret.”

  “Well, the theme works. Anything to do with immigration?”

  “Not at all. A man kills his wife, then hires Kim Novak to replace her and fake her suicide. Since she’s supposed to be dead, she has to disappear. All’s good till bumbling Jimmy Stewart comes onto the scene. He finds Novak, only she says she’s someone else. Trouble ensues. She returns to the scene of the fake suicide and climbs the bell tower just as she realizes she’s in love with Jimmy. Alas, this time she falls to her death for real.”

  “And the moral of this quaint tale?”

  “If you’re afraid of heights, stay off the roof.”

  “An apt precept.”

  “Who got you onto this kick?”

  “A transie named Jan.”

  “Ah, yes. A stalwart figure in the ghetto. Jan was once part of Yuri’s in-crowd till rumours spread that she had one of his delivery boys busted for drug peddling. Seems he’d been her boyfriend, but he jilted Jan for a newer, prettier face on the block.”

  “Is that fact or just ghetto lore?”

  “The latter, probably. Why? What have you heard?”

  “From Jan comes the tale that Yuri thought Jan was coming on to Santiago, who as we know was prone to deploying his charms on others.”

  “Huh. So what do I know? They’re a sordid bunch.” Donny paused. “Are you all right? You’re sounding a little jittery and obsessive.”

  “I’m okay. It’s been weird. I almost had sex with a nineteen-year-old the other day.”

  “Almost?”

  “He was stoned. I turned him down. He came on to me, I feel I should add.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “For turning him down or for being propositioned by someone half my age?”

  “Either. Both. Many wouldn’t have let that deter them.”

  “It just felt weird. It was Ziggy, by the way.”

  “Deploying his charms, as you said. Yes, he likes older men. He tried it on with me, too. I had zero interest, though I have no qualms about shagging a younger man. You have to remember it’s not the same for us queers. Two men are on common ground, even if their experience levels are unequal. We’re a different tribe from the straight world. It’s like native justice. They want their own set of values recognized. Why shouldn’t we?”

  “Well, maybe. But I read his diary and saw in black and white that he’s depressed and confused. I wouldn’t want to add to that.”

  “Because you care about these things, Danny. It’s what makes you the difficult-wonderful person you are. You do the work of saints and angels every day and don’t think twice about it.”

  “I’m hardly a saint. My life is far too messy.”

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. Saints are made, not born. Mother Theresa came from a wealthy family and had to cast it off. Same with Gautama Buddha. Mandela was jailed for conspiracy to commit acts of violence against the state. He went to prison, got squeezed like carbon into a diamond before he became a saint. It doesn’t just happen. Sainthood is thrust on you.”

  “Okay. In the meantime, I’ve got a killer to track down and a movie to watch.” Dan paused. “You know, I miss all these cultural conversations with you trying to convince me that black-and-white films are inherently superior to colour —”

  “They are.”

  “— or that some quirky, obscure jazz musician was the unheralded genius of his age.”

  “Lennie Tristano. I’ll pencil you in for some art therapy.”

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate it, but I don’t want to take away from your time with Prabin.”

  “We’re not joined at the hip. At least not yet.”

  No cigarettes had joined the conversation, Dan noted after hanging up.

  Dan called the hospital to ask about Domingo. He was connected with the front desk. The voice hesitated. Dan recognized the Irish nurse’s accent immediately.

  “This is her half-bother,” he said. “I talked to you yesterday.”

  She sounded relieved for a moment. “Oh, yes. I remember you.” The pause told him. “I’m sorry. Your sister died early this morning.”

  For a moment, he couldn’t speak. The blood drained from his face; his feet felt unsteady. He wondered if her train had come at last, and, if so, was she glad or disappointed with its long-awaited arrival. Dan had an urge to put the phone down and walk out of the house and never come back.

  “Are you all right?” the nurse asked.

  “Uh, yes. I’m … I’m all right,” he said.

  “I’m sorry to tell you over the phone, but as you’re a relative we’re allowed to do that.”

  “Yes, thank you. Very kind.”

  Dan stood and paced. He didn’t want Ked to see him in this state. He put on his jacket, grabbed his keys, and left. The car seemed to steer itself of its own accord, down to the lakeshore near Cherry Beach. Something inside him wanted space, broad vistas. Here the sky arched bleakly overhead. The snow had melted, but ice lingered along the shore like the vestiges of a vanished world. He sat and stared across the water till numbness replaced the shock.

  What had he told Ked? That you could understand life’s problems intellectually, but you could never fully prepare yourself emotionally. A good lesson. It had been a long time since he’d shed tears, but he felt a great emptiness knowing this ball of joyous energy and goodwill had gone out of the world. Maybe the only consolation for Domingo’s death was in not knowing her son had predeceased her after losing the battle for his mental well-being.

  Dan thought of his own genetic heritage, the legacy of two alcoholics. Both had died early, his mother when he was just four. Nothing could have brought her back, but there were times when he wondered whether his life would have been any better had she lived. She’d been more of a good-time girl than a silent abuser like his father; her wrongdoing lay in the neglect of her son. But between the two of them, what chance did he have? Dark side or light, the odds were against him. Dan, too, loved alcohol, but he loved his son more. So it might be true after all that love could save you, as long as one outweighed the other.

  The loss Dan felt as a boy had eventually been supplanted by rage, overwhelming him with paroxysms of feeling. He’d had his moments of smashing things in anger, staving in the side of a filing cabinet at work and once, in a private moment of drunken grief and rage after being dumped by a partner, he’d grabbed a ball-peen hammer as it flashed through his mind to hit himself senseless, though he’d checked the urge. Rage was a glaring red eye in the darkness, a fury coming at you from out of nowhere. It exploded when you least expected it, and got bigger and more menacing when you tried to repress it. The last thing Dan ever wanted was for his son to have to live with it, but in his drinking years it had been there until Ked told him to stop. Stop drinking, Dad. And he had. So far, he had.

  He’d looked into the darkness and lived to tell the tale. The rage had largely dissipated on discovering the circumstances of his mother’s early death, a dismal tale of drunkenness and betrayal, but now and then it returned with a vengeance, startling even him and making him drift off in the middle of conversations, averting his gaze to avoid eye contact with people he despised, where once he would have stared them down. From waking sweating from traumatic nightmares through to anxious nights where sleep never came, all he knew was that his subconscious was at war with itself. Despair had been a keynote for many years; now it was an undercurrent running through everything he did, a battle he’d been fighting for years.
r />   What had Donny said? That he was a saint. Not true, Dan thought. Rather, he was a shepherd keeping track of wayward sheep. To him, his life seemed unremarkable, or nearly so. He’d spent the first half as a lost boy, the second half finding others who got lost, as if it were a given that loss should be at the core of his existence. But if he got lost, who would come looking for him? Ked, of course. Donny, too. Yes, and Kendra. So, three people. That wasn’t bad. Some people had no one.

  After a while, he turned the car around and headed for the ghetto. He’d spent many afternoons there knocking back a few in the days when he used to drink. Domingo had joined him from time to time. She never encouraged his excesses, though. In fact, he recalled how she once told him in a gently reproving tone that he needed to put fatherhood above his indulgences. She was right, of course, though at the time he thought she was overreacting.

  Getting drunk wasn’t his intention. He simply wanted to forget, if only for an hour. He also didn’t want to risk seeing Hank, so he went to Crews & Tangos, twin bars housed in a gaudy old mansion on Church Street. The place had a reputation for being a lesbian hangout. All the better, he thought, as he was less likely to have to fend off hopeful men thinking he might be the answer to their problems, if only for an afternoon.

  He ordered a Scotch, barely registering the bartender’s queries as to whether he wanted it neat or on the rocks. A glass of yellow liquor — the drinker’s fool’s gold — was set in front of him and the bartender left him to his ponderings. Not everyone came in to socialize.

  He turned his attention to the alcohol. It reminded him of all the long days and nights of one-too-many. The first went down without leaving a mark. The second barely registered. He was standing on the edge of no man’s land. Carelessness took over for an instant and he ordered a third, feeling its long, slow burn as he swallowed.

  It occurred to him that he should hand over his keys now rather than take a chance later. He’d just pulled them from his pocket when the bartender leaned down to him and nodded to the far corner of the room.

  “A friend over there says he’d like to join you.”

  Dan looked over and saw Sergeant Trposki watching him. He nodded.

  The cop came and sat next to him, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt. He looked different from when Dan had seen him at police headquarters. He wasn’t sure why, but it was more than that he’d been in uniform then and was in mufti now.

  “Bad day?” Trposki ventured, with a nod to the empty glass.

  “You could say that.”

  “I used to think maybe there wasn’t any other kind.” Trposki said. “By the way, I didn’t follow you here. I was just finishing up with a date when I saw you come in.”

  That was the difference, Dan thought. He looked sheepish, as though he’d rather not be seen in a bar.

  The bartender came by.

  “Soda water, please,” Trposki said.

  “Not a drinker?” Dan asked.

  “I’ve had my regulation drink for the day.” The cop nodded ironically. “I’m a drinker when I choose. I prefer straight rye, doesn’t matter how old it is. But lately I’ve learned to hold back. Too many mornings after the blackout the night before.”

  “You had a problem?”

  “Still do. I just control it better. I knew it was a bad idea having a blind date in a bar, but it didn’t work out for more reasons than that.”

  Dan sighed and pushed his glass aside. He called to the bartender. “Make that two soda waters.”

  Trposki extended a hand. “I’m Nick, by the way. Please don’t call me Officer Trposki in public.”

  “Nick it is. And I’m still Dan.”

  They shook.

  “There were days I used to drink until I thought my blood must be almost pure alcohol,” Nick told him. “Did you ever get like that?”

  Dan nodded. “Pretty much for years. Can’t say I’m proud of it.”

  “What made you stop?”

  “My son. I knew I had to be a better dad.”

  Nick’s face clouded over. “Mine made me start. My boy died when he was five. Leukemia.”

  “I’m really sorry to hear,” Dan said. “That has to be about as rough as it gets.”

  “It was. And I needed to forget. One day about ten years into it, I had a realization that not only had I lost my son, but I was also in the process of throwing my own life away, as if that could somehow bring him back.”

  The bartender set two glasses on the counter. Icy cool, with lime wedges and straws.

  Nick lifted his glass and drank. “When I saw you in action in Quebec,” he said, “I thought, ‘There’s one tough son of a bitch.’ But you’re not all tough guy, are you? You’ve got some soft spots. Your son, for one, and probably you bleed for your clients as well, trying to deliver the goods to stop their pain.”

  Dan nodded. “I still feel things. How about you? Are you a cop for the love of the job? Making the world a better place and that sort of thing?”

  Trposki gave him an assessing look. “I am, in fact. Bet you didn’t think cops were like that anymore.”

  “I’ve known a few.”

  “That’s how I got to know Lydia Johnston. I liked her rep, so I asked to work with her. When she told me about the anti-corruption detail, I said I knew a bar owner who was being hit up regularly.”

  Dan’s gaze focused on Nick. “You knew Yuri?”

  “From way back. Another lifetime. We went to school together in Macedonia.”

  “No kidding!”

  “No shit. When my folks moved to Canada, we lost touch. Then a few years ago I heard he was owner of the Saddle. We had a good laugh to know we both turned out gay and in Toronto. Me a cop and him a bar owner. When he told me about the payouts, I told Lydia and she got the ball rolling.” He stared off for a moment. “I was real burned when he got killed, let me tell you.”

  “I hope you figure out who killed him,” Dan said simply.

  “I will.”

  Conversation faltered. The sad, doomed voice of Amy Winehouse, a fellow addict, took over the airwaves. The bartender looked over with no real expectations. They weren’t big spenders, but they were his only customers.

  “You single?” Nick asked after a moment. “I only ask because you likely wouldn’t be drinking alone if you were. That’s probably another weak spot.”

  “Guilty as charged. I just don’t want to drink at home where Ked could find me.”

  “Ked?”

  “My son, Kedrick. It’s Old English. His mother’s Syrian. Don’t ask. It all manages to work out somehow. Unlike the rest of my life. The romance, especially.”

  Nick smiled. “Heavy drinking and relationships usually don’t mix. Or if they do, you’re doubly in trouble for having someone to encourage you. I only had one keeper among all my boyfriends. Best man I ever met, but alcohol got the better of me.”

  “Stay friends?”

  “Nah, it was beyond repair.” Nick shrugged. “My fault. No self-deprecation there. I destroyed it. Thought I was the tough guy. Couldn’t bear to see myself through his eyes, so I tried to prove I was right. He couldn’t stand me afterwards.”

  “That’s rough.” Dan looked at his face. “How’s your jaw, by the way.”

  Nick laughed, reached up and worked his lower jawbone back and forth. “A bit tender. It was a good workout, though. You?”

  “Still a bit sore. That flip caught me by surprise. You’re good.”

  “I keep in practice. Works on boyfriends, too.” He winked. “Okay, time for me to scram.”

  Nick stood and handed Dan a business card. “Any late-night urges you want to resist badly enough, call me. I’m usually up howling at the moon.”

  Dan’s lips curved into a smile, his first that day.

  Twenty-Seven

  Breaking Glass

  Dan was surprised when he heard Adele’s message informing him of the arrangements for Domingo’s funeral. He’d expected to have to scour the newspapers for information.
She couldn’t have disliked him that much or else she’d softened with age. He’d called to offer his condolences and inform her of Lonnie’s fate, arranging for the delivery of his ashes and suggesting a double service. She was stoic about it. Like Domingo, she’d accepted the probability years before, but the logistics of combining funerals must have given her pause, compounding her misery.

  By the morning of the funeral, Dan still hadn’t heard from Ziggy since his text in Le Drague. There’d been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Maybe it was time to have another chat with the Goth-loving kid in light of what he now knew. A nagging feeling told Dan he should be wary of meeting him in private, but he’d deal with it when the time came.

  He checked his watch: it was a little before 10:00 a.m. The funeral was at two. If he got dressed first, he could swing by Parkdale, have a chat with him and get back downtown in time for the service. He sent a text: Hey! In your neighbourhood. Coming over now.

  There was someone on the stoop when he pulled up outside the Lockie House. For a second, Dan thought it was Ziggy, but this guy was heavier and dressed in the nondescript brown jacket of delivery drivers. Two potted plants sat at his feet.

  He turned when Dan approached. Attractive. Nice build, dark hair. This was one of Yuri’s special deliveries of rare flowers, no doubt.

  “Are those for Yuri Malevski?” Dan asked.

  The man watched him curiously. “Yes.”

  “I don’t know if anyone’s home.”

  “Okay, thanks.” He stooped and picked up the plants. Orchids.

  “If you want, you can leave them with me” Dan suggested. “I’ll make sure they get inside.”

  The man shrugged. “I’ll come back.”

  It’s okay, Dan thought. I wouldn’t trust me either, buddy.

  “I don’t know when you’ll be able to deliver them,” Dan said.

  “No worries,” the man said, turning and walking down the drive. “They’re too expensive to leave.”

  Dan scratched his head. That was what the delivery man had told Ked on bringing Hank’s gift to the house. He tapped in the numbers, but the light stayed red. Someone had changed the code. His knocks resounded inwardly, but there was no reply. Maybe Ziggy was inside. He stepped back and looked at the house with a twinge of foreboding. His mind flashed on a passage in Ziggy’s diary: I’d rather be dead. It was disconcerting, especially combined with the boy’s bravado in declaring he would simply lock the doors and “unplug” himself.