by Lou Allin
Hélène sniffed back tears. “Ed drove off down the road in case he could catch up. And him blind as a bat at night, the old fool. When I get that boy, I feel like paddling him from here to Mattawa, and you know I’d cut off my hand before striking a child.”
Belle did some calculations. “It’s forty klicks to town, another five to his house, but if he left before midnight, he’d be there now. Maybe we should get off the phone.”
“We shouldn’t have forced the issue. Three adults ganging up on a boy. But that vandalism caught me by surprise. No thought of the consequences. What on earth could have—”
Belle explained what Micro had said about bullying and how he’d known immediately that what he had done was wrong. “You’ve carried out your part, providing a place to ease him over the shock. But he belongs with Dave. Maybe after riding around in the dark, cold and scared and hungry as the sun comes up, he’ll realize that he has to go home. Maybe he’ll even show up at school.” With that last desperate suggestion, Belle rolled back into the folds of the water bed, sweat moistening her face as she sipped a glass of water. What choices did a twelve-year-old have? Then she realized that many street kids were scarcely older than that. Micro had nerve, wading into a maelstrom of icy water, the same kind of impulsive action which had triggered his flight.
Hélène related that Dave had called the police, and since the disappearance involved a child, all stops were out. Patrolmen were combing the downtown area, cruisers taking the suburban streets, and the Ontario Provincial Police would handle the roads out of town. If he wasn’t found soon, an Amber Alert would be issued, though the province had few of the hi-tech flashing message signs which lined transcontinental U.S. highways, and certainly none in the North.
“Don’t panic, Hélène. You’ll be there in case he calls in. I gave him my cell number, so that’s another possibility.” She paused. How far would he travel on a bike? “I don’t suppose he could have taken a bus. Gone out of town to relatives. He showed me his bank card. Maybe he got money at an ATM.”
“Dave thought of that. Micro has an uncle in Cleveland, and he’s going to call him. But no small boy could cross the border alone. That bus idea makes sense, though. The police should contact stations here and in Toronto just in case. I’ve taken the midnight special a few times going down for Christmas shopping. I’ve seen younger teenagers on board for rock concerts. And you know our boy. He can talk a good line.”
Their last hours together had been clouded with that chimney fire, Belle thought after she’d hung up, sharing Hélène’s guilt. Micro must have felt abandoned by the only people he’d loved. For an hour she lay stewing, willing her tap-dancing heart to calm, counting sheep, bears, martens and mutual funds, writing multiplication tables on a mental blackboard and erasing them. As the rubied fingers of dawn raked the sky like a commandment, she went downstairs in a gritty stupor to hit the coffee maker. Action, fruitful or not, was better than stasis. And she had a plan. If she couldn’t help find Micro, she could at least keep working with Len’s investigation into Bea’s death.
She dressed, hauling a wizened lipstick, eyeliner and powder out of a bottom drawer in the bathroom, and took Freya to town. Miriam’s pink Jetta was in the lot when she arrived at seven thirty.
“Freya’s here again? And what’s with that outfit? It’s ten years too young for you. Are you auditioning for a play?”
“Very funny. I know that. Just some work with Len.” To parry another evil look, she told her what had happened last night.
Her cohort spilled her coffee on the desk. “My God. Where could he be? Riding a bike from your place? Have they checked the hospitals? Maybe he was hit in the dark and is lying unconscious in a ditch.” She grabbed a roll of paper towels and began mopping up.
“Don’t make it worse. I’m a wreck with hell between me and the end.” Those words from the grim poem “How Annandale Went Out” finally made sense. Belle poured her fifth coffee of the morning and sank into her chair, looking again at her watch, unable to concentrate. Were her hands starting to shake?
Miriam tried to sugar-fix things by fetching a dozen doughnuts from Tim’s, smaller now, 1960s style, an effort to standardize the size and punish generous franchisees. “Not forty-year-old prices, though,” she observed later, munching an oozing cruller. Then she noticed Belle’s blank look, her frozen posture.
“Come on now. It’s early. He hasn’t even been gone one night officially.”
The day marched slowly, a few calls, the errant moocher after a free appraisal. After promising updates, Belle collected the dog and left at five, heading down Regent Street to McDonald’s. “I feel like getting super-sized, if it’s still legal. Big Macs all around. Extra pickle for you.”
At the drive-through she ordered, then ate her combo first, serving Freya hers on the asphalt to spare the van’s pristine upholstery. The Old Mill in Massey was about forty-five minutes west. The bar had a rough reputation. The dog meant security. She’d leave the windows open in case she made a hasty exit . . . pursued by a bear . . . of a man. Len had said that Sean Broughton was six-four and liked to give his hammy fists a workout after a few primers of alcohol.
She travelled busy Route 17, the so-called Trans-Canada highway, more two-lane than not in neglected Northern Ontario, passing the massive INCO complex in Copper Cliff, then the small railtowns of Nairn Centre and McKerrow, coughing at the Espanola turnoff, where the reeks from the pulp mill wafted over the highway like a nuclear cloud. Hearing a wap-wapping, she watched a Ministry helicopter buzz overhead, a large object in a bag dangling from a cable. She saluted Bullwinkle’s cousin. The Sudbury Star had carried an article on the relocation of problem elk. Once flourishing in the area, then decimated, a few years ago a select herd had been trucked from Alberta to establish a habitat in a joint project run by Nickel City College and Shield University. Trouble was, they wandered, finding farmers’ fields tastier pasture than striped maple browse. A few lottery-losing females had been fitted with vaginal transmitters so that when they gave birth, radio location would be sent. As any woman would understand, reproduction had been lower than expected. Belle squirmed in her seat at the concept.
In the small village of Massey, the Old Mill sat at the bilingual confluence of the Spanish River and the River aux Sables and had once been a thriving granary. Booze had supplanted bread, and now its thick grey stone walls with a rippling riparian overlook hosted a modern watering place. Several Harleys were parked in front, along with pickups in all pedigrees.
Two men admired a truck the size of Vancouver Island. “3500 and a dually? What the hell you haulin’, Marvin?”
The bearded older man replied with a grin, “My wife’s fat ass. Got us a thirty-five-foot fifth wheel, and we’re heading to the Florida Panhandle soon as the hurricanes leave. Broke my snow shovels over my knee and left the suckers in the trash can.”
Rolling down the windows for ventilation, Belle aimed a trigger finger at Freya. “No barking. Guard the van.” Squinting into the lighted visor mirror, a first, she applied a hasty coat of powder and blush, then liner, nearly poking herself in the eye with the mascara and wondering where her upper lip had gone. Using creative guesswork, she drew herself a kisser. Safer than collagen injections. Then as an afterthought as she got out, she bent down at a puddle and rubbed mud on the license plate. PI mode or what?
Her Levi red-tag jeans, distressed leather jacket over a pale blue turtleneck, and Frye boots would raise few eyebrows. As she entered the front door, malty fumes, the snicking of balls, and the neon advertisements set the atmosphere.
At the semi-circular bar, a glossy surface of varathaned pennies dating back to George V, she ordered a Blue Light. A lonely fifty-inch projection television in the corner was broadcasting the American League playoffs, Boston vs. New York. No interest from the loyal Canucks, mourning over their underfunded Jays and former Expos. The colonial-style tables and chairs seated fifty, but tonight only a dozen people were here, including three m
en engaged in a serious game of darts in the corner and two young women playing pool. The walls had a moth-eaten moose head and an ancient bearskin punctuated by wrestling posters. As she sipped, she scanned the room for a very tall man. A few grandfatherly types were seated at one table, arm wrestling over a pile of loonies.
She smiled at the woman on the next stool, who was chain-smoking. Ontario nicotine laws hadn’t reached the outback. Dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, she could have been a healthy fifty or a hard-luck thirty. Her braided black hair had beaded ties and a stunning matching necklace with bear claws caught Belle’s eye. “Beautiful,” she said, gesturing with her glass.
“My grandmother made it.” The woman took a sip of rosé wine and shrugged. “Told her she could get big bucks for her craft work in Toronto, but she sells it at the Fall Fair here for peanuts.”
Belle introduced herself, shaking a long, slim hand. “Hannah Moon,” the woman said. “Don’t take this wrong, but you don’t look like you belong here. I know all the regulars, especially on welfare Wednesday.”
“I’m looking for Sean Broughton.”
Hannah’s laugh rippled with undisguised mirth, the lines etching her chestnut complexion like fine toolwork. “Aren’t all the ladies? Never tried him myself because I’m partial to smooth-faced men, and I don’t like liars.” She glanced at the Budweiser clock. “Nice to meet you. Gotta get back to the laundromat before the drier fries my undies.” She snapped her fingers as an ancient golden Lab emerged from under a table. “Come on, Molson.”
Belle waited, husbanding her glass like a canteen in the Sahara. Out of guilt, she bought a bag of beernuts and arranged them in a tic-tac-toe pattern. As she reached for the last, the door opened, and a man ducked on entering. He wore a fleece-lined bomber jacket and dirty wheat jeans. Flicking the coat on to a deer-horn rack, he clumped to the jukebox in engineer boots that looked as if they could kick in a skull and make change on the backswing. His cream shirt with ivory pocket snaps had a bolo tie. He deposited quarters, punched numbers, and the Dixie Chicks’ “Long Time Gone” sent their message across the scarred plank floor two thousand miles from the Pecos.
“Hey, Sean,” the bartender said, an innocuous weasel eligible for medicare, whose job it was to hear and see no evil.
“Jack and a chaser,” Sean replied. He wore his thick red hair slicked back with gel. The semi-goatee with a thin moustache gave him a devilish look, matched by exposed, pointed ears. He tossed Belle an appraising nod, and she picked up his invitation like a ripe plum as they exchanged names.
Her identity du jour was Dee White, an appliance-department manager at Sears. Everyone knew about stoves and fridges. “I was in the Sault all day for a regional conference. Got sleepy driving back to Sudbury and thought I’d take a break. Great song,” she added as Faith Hill began “This Kiss”. “We need more country stations. 790 has a range of about five miles on a clear day.”
“You got that right, darlin’.”
She chuckled, lowering her eyes to bolster her mystique. “I’ve been writing a country song for years. It’s not that hard. They use only a couple hundred words. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That kind of thing.”
“ ‘Keep it simple, smartass’ is my motto. KISS.” His lips puckered. He dumped the shot glass into the beer and chugged it, foam gathering on his thin mouth, covering a half-inch scar at the corner. “But go on. You never wrote no song,” he said with a slight Aussie accent, waving his hand at her boast.
In a halting alto, letting embarrassment pose as ingenuousness, Belle began the most recent verse to “Mama’s Table”:
When the crowd would keep on growin’,
Folks would sit upon the floor,
And they’d laugh and talk together
As they came on back for more.
They might have had no money,
Fancy car and diamond ring,
But at my mama’s table
They were richer than a king.
She was debating making the words “might of” for verisimilitude, but Sean clapped his Whopper-sized hands and ordered another beer for her. “You got guts, girl. And that’s a winner. God, I miss my mama’s cooking, too. Spare ribs falling off the goddamned bone. Fried chicken make the Colonel’s look like garbage.” Then he cocked his head as if an idea had occurred to him. “Say now, out in Calgary I know a couple of promoters from the Stampede. Give me your number.”
Flattered but wary, Belle scrawled the weather number on a paper serviette, changing the last digit. Time to probe for answers. “So what’s your business, Sean?”
“I’m an or-gan-i-zation man. Unions.” He’d been born in Australia but had come to Canada at ten when his father got a job in Winnipeg. His work history at meat-packing places out west had ended with the mad cow scare, and he’d only been in town for a year. Gesturing with a truncated index finger, he added, “I was this close at the biggest bakery in Sudbury. Only one more vote.”
Belle nodded in sympathy. “So the owner wouldn’t budge. I hear you. Bosses are all the same, want to balance the books on the backs of the workers.” Clichés were handy.
He pounded the bar, rattling the glasses and signalling for another drink, this time a triple. “She’s budging now. Bitch is dead. Somebody whacked her. God, was she ugly. Like a constipated monkey’s ass.”
Belle hunched over her beer, a sour taste in her mouth. Hearing him disparage a great lady set her blood at a rising simmer, not to mention the trite Mafia slang. “Bumble Bea Bakery? I read about that. Third woman murdered in a month. Gives me the creeps. I’m thinking of buying a gun. My cousin in Toronto has a magna. I mean a magnum.” She blinked at her pistol-packing character, accumulating traits by the minute.
He took a self-important breath, expanding his strong chest like a puffer fish. “Cops talked to me first off. Should of seen their faces when I told them I was in the can for a slight altercation over a poker game at the National. Ten days was worth it to clock that sucker after he pulled an ace from his shoe. Anyhow, I told them to check out the husband. For sure he had something on the side.”
“Another business?” Belle felt a twinge of interest. Was Dave involved in a shady operation? Embezzlement? Misdirection of funds? Surely not. He worked for many different organizations, and word would have gotten around.
His Mephistophelian brows contracted at her naïveté. “I didn’t mean an order of fries. A chick. You watch, they’ll turn something up.” The triple vaporized as quickly as it had been born, spawning another. Belle took one sip of her beer. In the overheated room, Sean was beginning to sweat, releasing the smell of a cloying, cheap aftershave. Musk was not on her menu. Sweet fern instead.
He invited her back to the trailer where he was staying with a buddy off deer hunting on Manitoulin, but Belle refused, firmer each time, parrying his wandering hands. Finally, she excused herself for the old washroom trick. From down a dark corridor with a twenty-watt dangling bulb, she slipped out the back door and headed for the van.
At home, a message on her machine from Hélène said that the police had set everything into motion. The downtown core had been swept thoroughly and Micro’s picture distributed across town on over a thousand flyers. Even a group of street people had organized a rotating posse to watch the all-night restaurants and convenience stores. It was obvious that one long day hadn’t convinced the boy to go home. The weather was still mild. 10°C. Another night, with temperatures reaching to freezing, might bring him in . . . if it didn’t kill him.
Hélène had noticed that a sleeping bag was missing from his closet. “This is looking worse and worse. It’s as if he knew he’d be staying somewhere else.”
“I agree. But at least it will keep him warm. Did he take a tent, too?”
“We only had the old family-size one. Canvas weighs about thirty pounds.” She paused so long that Belle thought they had been disconnected. “There has to be a patron saint for lost children. Mafalda has memorized Butler’s Lives of the Saints. I
’m going to call her.”
Belle spent longer than usual with her scotch, making a futile effort to concentrate on Buchan’s Prester John, a 1920s novel about an African uprising and a new black messiah. When she put it down and closed her eyes, sleep evaded her. Once alcohol therapy passed a certain point, it kept her awake. Unable to concentrate, she turned left, then right, pulled up the covers, pushed them back, and finally got up to refill her water glass. Where was he? Cold? Hungry? In danger? Though no one had yet raised the spectre, she was wondering if he was in the hands of someone else who wouldn’t call the authorities for all the wrong reasons. And now this implication about Dave. Unwilling to tell Hélène, she didn’t believe it for a minute, coming from a jackass like Broughton. He’d fling mud in any direction to advance his cause. After all, he’d said nothing specific. Rolling her eyes at the green numbers, she got up for a third pee, passing the ceramic bear on her nightstand. Was it watching over Micro, trying to tell her something, or both?
FIFTEEN
After photocopying records at the Land Registry office, Belle walked over to Bank Alley to find Len. As she rounded a corner, she saw him talking to that same street person with a cowboy hat. At his side sat a trampish mutt, gazing up at his master with adoration. In a shabby parka and patched jeans, the young man with an unshaven face stuffed something in his pocket and headed off down the block towards the Salvation Army.