We walked and talked on the beach and then took a boat ride. We went to what had become our favorite spot on the larger island. He tied up the boat near the entrance of the bay. We hiked up the hill past a stand of Garry oaks to a beautiful meadow that overlooks the water. We call it our secret meadow. No one bothers us there. We are far away and alone.
Eddie reassured me that everything would be all right, that Madame Zee had been chosen by the spirits to lead, but that she has to learn how to deal with people better. We could help her by complying with her demands.
Eddie told me he doesn’t really love her. She is just his business partner. He said when she gets used to her role in this life it would be easier for us all. That is what the great white spirit told him.
Then he drew me close and with a tear in his eye told me his heart belongs to me—only me. We made love, long, passionate love, and I forgave him everything. Afterwards, we lay under the stars in our own little heaven.
But that was last night. This morning in the light of day I wonder. I wonder about a lot of things.
I packed my bag.
28
. . .music is the most profound, magical form of communication there is. Lesley Garrett
Cold, cluttered and dark, Clarence’s office suited him. Sadly, he couldn’t afford to pay for good lighting, or heat in the back rooms. On the walls, stained from years of cigarette smoke were yellowed photos, in dollar-store frames, of important people who’d passed through the Black Cat. Some of them were musicians, others patrons. In almost every picture Clarence, with his flowing, shoulder-length hair, stood in the middle with a cigarette. It was so much his room that Maggy felt the air sucked out of her lungs when she entered. Normally, she avoided going in there, but today she had no choice.
Clarence sat behind an old oak desk in a worn black leather chair, his expression locked in a scowl. His blue eyes watery and edged in red. He tilted his head to focus on her, while his thin lips held a firm line giving nothing of his emotions away.
Maggy sat opposite him in a spindly wooden chair that creaked when she sat down and wobbled under her weight. She vowed to go on a diet when her life settled down. Getting right to the point, she told him about her mother’s cancer, and explained that her only hope was a new medicine that cost a lot of money. Maggy waited for his response.
He took off his reading glasses and put them down on his desk.
“Anything you can give me,” she pleaded, hating having to beg. But what choice did she have? “Anything would help.”
“Yeah, baby, I got that.” All women were “baby” to him, a relic from a bygone era. He leaned back. His face relaxed. “I got that.” But his road-weary face showed no sign of compassion.
Silence filled the room.
“Is there— “ she began.
“Listen,” he interrupted, “I was going to call you in to talk things.”
She sat up, straining to catch his words as soon as they came out.
“I got bad news.” He swallowed, like a man trying to push down something he didn’t’ want to say.
“Bad news?”
“Like I told you before, the club’s not doing so well.” He pulled out a half-smoked cigarette, put it in his mouth, and lit a match by striking it on his boot.
“If there’s anything I can do. Anything?”
He shook out the flame on the match. “I like your voice and you’re doing real good for a beginner, but I’ve got two more experienced singers to take care of.”
“You mean?”
“Yeah, I was going to let you go.”
The words hit her like a punch in the face. “I’m fired?” She’d never considered that. She’d been getting good reviews. The audience liked her. “I . . . I don’t understand.”
“Like I said, the club’s not doing well.” He sucked hard on his cigarette.
Her gut tightened into a hard fist. What the hell! “I need this job,” she said, standing. She reached out to him and said more softly, “I need this job.”
“I know,” he said. He held her glare for a long minute and then shrugged. “The club has to survive so, like I said, I planned to cut you.” He tapped his tobacco stained fingers on his desk.
Past tense? “But?”
His lips turned downward. “I have a third partner, like I told you, and he doesn’t want you cut.” He tossed his eyes to the wall for a moment. “He likes your voice. Said losing you would be a deal-breaker. In fact, he threatened to sell his share to a developer if I did.”
Maggy released her breath and sat down. “So I’m not cut.”
“No, but if the club closes it won’t matter. We’ll all go down.” He folded his arms across his chest, leaned back and lifted his feet onto his desk with a clunk. “You need to sing your heart out, baby, and keep the people coming in.”
“I can do that,” she said. She felt her pulse slowing to normal. Why the drama? Why did he put her through that? He didn’t have to. What was the point? She winced. “Who’s the guy?” she asked. “The other owner.”
“Like I said before, he wants to remain anonymous.” Clarence blew smoke into the air in billowing clouds of toxic gray.
“About my hours.”
Pulling his feet back to the ground with a shuffle, he grumbled. Sitting forward he drummed his fingers on the table again. “No promises, baby, no promises. But I’ll do what I can. I’m truly sorry about your mother.” He looked at his watch.
“Thanks.” I think.
“What can you tell me about Logan’s plan for his share of the bar?”
“We haven’t talked about it, yet.”
“Too busy, eh? Well, I guess that’s okay. You let me know when you know.”
She nodded. “And Joe?”
“Leave Joe to me. He’s my family. You got enough to worry about.”
“Is he okay?”
“As okay as you can be when you’re on the slippery slope out of this world.” He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he gets the best of care.”
Maggy nodded.
She couldn’t leave. Too much had been said, and worse had not been said.
“What?” he grumbled. His eyes squinting as if he was trying to look inside her mind.
“What really happened between you and Jimmy the night of his murder?”
“Ha . . .” Clarence started laughing, and the more he laughed the deeper it became until it broke into his rough smoker’s cough.
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
“I know. I know. Sometimes all a man can do is laugh.” He did a manly swipe at the tear that ran down his right cheek. “The cop, that Peterson guy, has been on my ass since the murder. I’ve gone over every detail again and again. And I already told you about our fight.” He leaned forward, all laughter had gone from his face. “So what more do you want to know?”
“I’m in the middle of it. Peterson’s been hounding me too. I don’t know why the murders are happening. I can’t get away from it. So I . . . “
“Want to make sense of it,” he answered.
“Yeah.”
“Well,” he said, breathing out slowly. “This is how it went down. You know Albert, my poker buddy who comes in most nights and sits at the front table, wears a suit and drinks single malt scotch.”
She nodded.
“He’s an accountant. About three months ago I asked him to look over my books and he flipped out. Said I had to find some capital quick and suggested I sell shares of the business. To make a long story short, Jimmy bought one third of the club two months ago. It helped, but then the bills started piling up again, so I sold another third to another partner. A local guy who’s really into music.”
“The anonymous partner who likes my voice.”
“Yeah. So I thought my troubles were over, and then this realty guy in a blue tie comes in and makes me an offer. I jump all over the asshole, but he tells me that Jimmy is selling his share and it would be wise for me to do the
same.” He stopped, fixing his eyes on the far wall for a moment as if he could see the whole scene on a giant TV screen. “He threatened me. Said he’d make sure the inspectors found stuff that would get the Black Cat closed down. ‘Rats, bugs, whatever it takes,’ he said, and then he laughed.”
Clarence’s face turned redder as he spoke and sweat formed on his brow. The acrid smell of his sweat tinged the room. “I’m sorry,” she said.
He nodded. “So when Jimmy came in that night I wanted to rip him apart. I mean it. If I was a younger man I probably would have tried. But I’m not a young man. And violence wasn’t going to fix anything, so I tried to reason with him.”
“People said you were yelling.”
“Yeah, well you know me. I tend to yell, and I was plenty upset. Had a right to be. He’d told me he wanted to be part of the blues business and then when he gets a piece of it he turns around and makes plans to sell it off and bring the place down. It’s not right. That’s not right on so many levels.
“I agree.”
“The asshole lied to me. And his lie would have put a lot of us out of a job, and left a hole in the west coast music scene. Not right, I tell you. Not right. So yeah, I yelled loud and long.”
“What did he say?”
Clarence paled. “I didn’t give him much of a chance. He mumbled something about, ‘That’s business, old man.’ It only made me madder.”
“So then what happened?”
“I took a swing at him. I couldn’t help it. I was so fucking angry, I went wild. And that’s why there’s some of my DNA’s his body.”
“And?”
“He swung back. I landed on the floor and he slammed the door behind him when he left. I was no match for him. I just couldn’t help trying.” His face turned crimson.
“And then?”
“Nothin. I went back into the bar. I listened to your set and started cleaning up for the night and then I heard the sirens.” The redness in his face started to ebb and he shook himself. “I’m no killer, Maggy. I punched him. That’s all. I swear on my mama’s grave, that’s all. Just like I told you before.”
The phone rang. He looked at the call number display and let it ring. His sad eyes fixed once again on that spot on the wall.
When it stopped ringing she asked, “What did you see when you went out into the alley?”
Clarence drummed his fingers. She couldn’t catch the tune. He shrugged. “I saw the ambulance arriving, followed by cop cars. And . . . “
“And?”
“I didn’t tell Peterson. He’d get too excited if I told him.”
She tried to stare him into speeding up.
“I saw Edgar Whitley. Of course I didn’t know his name then, but I do now. I saw his picture on the news. He was there, skulking in the shadows.”
“Edgar,” said Maggy.
“Yeah. He disappeared real quick when the cops got out of their cars.”
“So you saw Edgar. Did he see you?”
“He looked right at me.”
“Anyone else?”
“Nah. At least not that I remember. It was really dark that night. There could have been someone else in the alley, but I didn’t see them.”
“But . . .” she hesitated. Should she say it? She had to say it. “But the murderer could have seen you.”
“Yup.” Clarence’s face twitched. Obviously the possibility worried him.
The room fell silent again.
“What a mess,” she said.
“Got that right.” He tried his knowing grin, the one he used to establish authority, but it didn’t work. Instead, his mouth hung open in a weary attempt. “So tell me what you think of Logan Daniels. Will he sell us out?”
“I’ll talk to him.”
There was banging on the door. Clarence sighed. “Come in.”
The door opened and Peterson strode into the room. “Don’t you answer your phone?”
The old barman shrugged. “Not when it’s the police.” He gave the inspector a wily side grin. “It’s never good news.”
29
From Rita’s Diary:
Decourcy Island
He’s gone. Brother XII and Madame Zee have vanished. Some say they went to England to gather more funds. But others think they took the money and fled. What am I to think?
Rumors of heinous horrors created by Madame Zee circulate. Everyone is leaving our community and taking things. Everyone is panicked.
I hold on to the memory of my last night with Eddie in the secret meadow. He had a clear vision of life, and our future. Now he’s gone. I’ll never forget how it felt to be in his arms.
I’ll wait for as long as I can for him to return. And if I see that Madame Zee ever again in my life, I’ll skin her alive and feed her ugly hair to the seagulls for them to make nests and defecate in.
My packed bag sits by the door.
30
I see music as fluid architecture. Joni Mitchell
When Maggy returned to her float home there was a note on her window from Hunter. “Dock meeting at Smokey’s. Important.” Below the words he’d sketched a landscape with mountains in the background and her float home in the foreground. Smoke billowed from the chimney. It looked peaceful and idyllic. Not at all like her life right now, but it made her smiled.
Using extra shampoo on her hair she tried to make sense of what was happening, as if bubbles could solve murders. She emerged from the shower smelling like vanilla beans but as confused as ever. She had a long list of things she wanted to know, like the name of the mysterious third partner who’d saved her job. She owed him one.
But one thought bugged her like an out-of-tune note: if the murderer had seen Clarence, he was in danger. But what could she do? The image of Jimmy lying in his blood wouldn’t leave her mind.
Options? She could phone Peterson again, but didn’t want another Martian anatomy lesson. Shit. She had to act. Do something. So she wrapped her hair in a towel and sent Peterson a text: “Clarence is in danger.”
A text came in from Hunter reminding her about the meeting.
With her mind swirling with worries she threw on her favorite jeans. She swore they fit better the last time she wore them.Men told her they liked her the way she was, but she didn’t. Her BMI was way the hell beyond healthy, and after leaving Adriano six months ago she had stopped looking in full-length mirrors. Grabbing her bag she headed for the island. Six o’clock. Hopefully the meeting wouldn’t take too long. She needed some alone time to figure things out. Being fried at the edges like an undercooked burger hiding food poisoning, sucked.
Packed with dock people, Smokey’s place felt more like a sardine can than a cozy diner. The edgy tone of people’s voices and the tightness of their facial muscles gave the room an angry feel. She sat at the back near the door. The purpose of the meeting had been to calm people down and get them working together, but it looked like it was having the opposite effect. They were getting riled up and hostile.
The threat of arson hit the easy-going boat people hard and she could taste their growing fear. Tonight it truly kindled, like a forest fire on the verge of burning out of control.
“I say we double the number of patrols and carry guns,” hollered Wayne, the seventy-year old Vietnam vet, known for his weapon collection, which he kept well hidden beneath the planks of his deck. She had always avoided him. A small, stocky man with a mean look imprinted on his face, he believed dangerous bastards lurked around every corner. Something had happened to him in the war and he’d been on government compensation ever since. No one asked the details. No one wanted to know. His anger said enough.
“More video surveillance. That’s what we need,” Smokey added from the sidelines, with her hands in the pockets of her new Canucks sweatshirt. It already had a coffee stain on it.
Hunter standing beside a chart paper stand made notes in alternating colored pens. It looked so out of character for him, like a warrior taking dictation. But the intensity of his determination was pa
lpable. His jaw was set and his eyes had turned that steely blue that meant only one thing: he’d get even.
The group continued to brainstorm what they could do to catch the saboteur. Ideas flew. Hunter nodded to her when she moved forward into a chair near the front. She wanted to be able to see more of what was going down. Others turned to see who he was looking at. Great, now everyone watched her. Boy they were spooked.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Maggy offered the crowd. “Do we know anything new?”
Bad question. A roar of replies came in her direction. None of them good. Hunter summed it up. “No Maggy. We don’t know who’s behind the incidents and now we have a murder to consider.”
My murder. Maggy frowned. Her neighbours had adopted it. It made sense in a way. After all he did die on the docks. But it didn’t make her feel any better. Could the dock problem be linked to the Black Cat murder?
“What are the police saying?” Maggy asked through the chatter
“Fuck all,” answered Smokey from the side in her raw nicotine addled voice. “All they do is ask us questions. If they know anything, they sure as hell aren’t sharen it. Fuckin constipated assholes, the lot of them.”
Maggy nodded. Go Smokey. She looked around for Elena. There must have been thirty people there, but she wasn’t one of them. Guess she didn’t want to be blamed this time.
“Okay,” said Hunter. “We’ll double the patrols starting now. I’ve made a sign-up sheet. We’ll keep a copy on the outside of Smokey’s door and you can add your name to it.”
A thin, young, bald man she’d never met stood up. “My name’s Trevor. I moved in last month. I’ll put the schedule on-line. I’ve started a website for us cuz we need one. Granville Island People at www.GIP.ca. Go to the site and click on the page “Rat.”
Everyone laughed at the name. It was a good one.
“I’ve put up what we know so far. I’ll add the roster,” the young man said.
Black Cat Blues Page 13