So there was that. And Bayle still had to cover the Warriors for the Eagle on a day-to-day basis now that the team was back home until either Davidson got better or Wilson found a permanent replacement. As a favour, Wilson promised to advertise for the position for a full week before he brought anybody in for an interview, but after that he’d have to start talking to people with the intention of actually hiring someone.
And every evening between six and eight p.m. Gloria and Bayle would sit on uncomfortable wooden chairs on opposite sides of Davidson’s starched white hospital bed. Davidson usually sleeping — when he wasn’t, groggy and sulky and generally uncommunicative, as if betrayed into sickness by his two healthy friends — it was here, the day after the ambulance delivered Davidson to his temporary new home, that Gloria carefully laid out to Bayle her plan for getting Davidson his job back.
“And your friend, the guy who’s going to impersonate the cop —”
“Dwayne,” Gloria said.
“Right, Dwayne. He’s just going to scare Duceeder enough for us to get what we want?”
“Soon as Duceeder calls off the boycott things go right back to like they was before. For everybody.”
“By why real cocaine? Why not baking soda? Davidson won’t know the difference.”
“Because the only reason Dwayne’s doing this is because he hates drugs like only an ex-junkie who’s lost everything because of them and learned to tell about it can. He’ll know the difference. I told him Davidson was a low-end dealer who’s burned a couple friends of mine and we’re trying to get back at him.”
“But what am I supposed to do with a quarter ounce of coke after everything’s back to normal?”
“Don’t worry about that. If this friend of yours don’t want to buy it back — and I never knew one that didn’t if he came out ahead in the end even just a little bit — I can get rid of it myself.”
“And nobody gets hurt, right?”
“Of course nobody gets hurt,” she said. “Nobody gets hurt and Harry gets to go back to his hockey beat and out of this damn hospital.”
Bayle felt less than convinced. A thousand dollars worth of cocaine. A break and entry. A false police arrest. It all seemed a little much, even for Harry’s sake.
Through an opening in the white curtain set up around the sleeping Davidson’s bed Bayle noticed the silver-haired man who shared with Davidson the small, starkly white room. About Davidson’s age, maybe a few years older, one of the old man’s eyes was open wide and unblinking at the ceiling, the other staying shut, hard and tight. He seemed neither awake nor asleep. His bony fingers were knotted in gnarled curls at his sides and his slightly opened mouth turned up at one corner just enough to promise imminent speech that never came. Bayle looked back at Gloria across Davidson’s motionless body. A clear tube ran from one of the old man’s nostrils to a large machine set up beside the bed for what purpose Bayle had absolutely no idea.
Looking up at Gloria, “Every time we’d make the trip to Maple Leaf Gardens my dad would leave the game kind of depressed,” Bayle said, “even if the Leafs won. He never said anything, but you could just tell. I never really understood why and I never asked. My old man and me, we just didn’t talk about things like that, that just wasn’t the way we operated. But just before he died, when he was in and out of it all the time, he told me that the Bunker, the place where the Leafs owner Harold Ballad and his buddy King Clancy used to sit every home game, never looked as good in person as it did on television.”
Gloria didn’t say anything; didn’t do or say anything that said to stop talking, though, either.
“But those old rinks,” Bayle said, “like the Forum in Montreal, like the Gardens ... sure they were falling apart and the seats were too small and you couldn’t see the ice half as good as you can in the new arenas, but they were the best. Like shrines, you know? Like fucking churches. And if you never had a chance to see Guy Lafleur, The Flower, racing down the right wing in one of them with that long blond mane of his flying in the breeze behind him, winding up for a slapshot pegged right for the upper left-hand corner, well, you just haven’t lived. I’m sorry, but you just haven’t.” Bayle paused. “And the old man? My dad? He should have remembered that kind of thing after he had his operation, that summer he was supposed to get better. That’s the kind of thing I should have got him to remember. I didn’t, I know that. But I should have.”
Gloria nodded, waited for more, but that was it. Sat there looking at Bayle looking at the elderly man in the other bed.
“I’ll call my friend about the coke tonight,” Bayle said.
34
BAYLE SAT cross-legged on his bed at The Range, the palm-sized peppermint tin of cocaine in front of him unopened since point of noon-day purchase — “No charge for the lid,” Ron had said, handing it over under the table a few hours earlier at Fatty’s, “one of my aunt’s discards.”
He stayed like this for several minutes, just staring down at the thing, before finally picking the container up and placing it on one knee, running through for what felt like the first and thousandth time his plans for tomorrow night’s combined break, entry, and drug planting.
Bayle knew that Duceeder’s wife and son accompanied him to every home game, so he’d picked tomorrow night, during the first period of the Wichita game, for when he’d make his move. Making his task easier, he remembered noticing that Duceeder’s place was one of the few houses on the G.M.’s block without a CDH security sign planted out front. He’d get in the house as inconspicuously as possible, stash the coke, and leave without notice. When he got to the rink by about the end of the first intermission his story would be that he’d slept through his alarm clock.
He’d also taken the precaution of purchasing from the 7-Eleven near The Range a pair of brown garden gloves so as to avoid leaving any prints at the scene, and had laid out for tomorrow night all the black clothes he owned to provide for optimum night-time cover. He had it all planned out and there really wasn’t anything left to think about. But Bayle thought about it again and again anyway, wished today was tomorrow, wished that the whole thing was over and done with. Three sharp knuckle raps to his locked-and-chained door put an end to any more thinking or wishing.
Bayle pounced on the container of drugs, heart gorging up into his throat in the process. Head whipping from side to side, he combed the room for a place to hide the tin, three more measured knocks at the door coming and going. “Who is it?” he chirped as cheerily as possible, hoping to buy a few more seconds.
“Charles Warren. I say, Peter, are you all right in there?”
“Chuck,” Bayle said to himself. “It’s only Chuck.” He crammed the tin underneath the pillows on the bed and unlocked the door and undid the chain.
“Chuck,” Bayle said. “It’s just you.” Warren wasn’t high, but he looked like hell anyway; in particular, melting face tired and with a runny nose he continually wiped at with an ever-present hankie.
“Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, but, yes, it is me.”
Bayle stood in the doorway looking visibly relieved; smiled, said nothing.
Eventually, “Is it all right if I ...?” Warren said, wiping his nose, motioning toward the empty room behind Bayle.
“Oh, sure, come on in,” Bayle said, letting Warren through. “Sit over there in the chair. I’ll sit on the bed. You’re the first guest I’ve ever had in here so you get to sit in the chair. I’ll just sit on the bed.”
“All right, then,” Warren said, watching Bayle closely. “I’ll sit in the chair.”
Bayle moved from door to bed in a hurried, artificial stride of stiff casualness, leaning back against the bunched pillows when he got there. He sent another long, exaggerated grin Warren’s way.
Warren attempted to smile back but the effort was too much. He leaned forward on his chair. “How are things, Peter? How have you been?”
“Fine, fine,” Bayle said; then, “Why? Does it seem like something’s wrong to y
ou? Not that I’d have any idea why you would. Think something’s wrong, I mean. Because everything’s just fine. Just hunky dory, in fact. Did you know I’m covering the Warriors for the Eagle now?”
“I believe I did hear something of the sort, yes.”
Bayle nodded and leaned back into the pillows. Warren cleared his throat and got to the point.
“I say, Peter, I was talking to young Ron this afternoon, and —”
“Listen, Chuck, you can say that it’s none of my business and I’d understand completely, but you really should try to go easy on that morphine stuff, you know? I mean, I’ve tied a few on in my time, but I can’t even remember most of that night at your place.”
Warren jumped at the opening. “No, no, you’re quite right to take an interest if you think a friend is in need of an encouraging word, Peter, you’re quite right. In fact, the reason I dropped by here today was to offer you the same sort of advice in much the same spirit.”
“Me?” Bayle sat up from the pillows.
“Come, now, Peter. A quarter ounce of cocaine? Really. I understand that you’re going through a bit of a rough stretch right now, what with the breakup with your girlfriend and your failed academic career — not to mention your unresolved feelings toward your sister. And God knows there’s no crime in a fellow finding a little comfort from life’s little difficulties from time to time. Goodness, look at me and my own —”
“That little prick,” Bayle said, looking away from Warren and shaking his head, imploding anger at his looselipped dealer overwhelming his surprise at Warren’s mention of Patty.
“Now, now, Peter, blaming Ron isn’t going to solve anything. What we like to say in counselling is that people like Ron are only symptoms, not the problem.”
Bayle frowned. “Look, Chuck, I appreciate your coming over here, I really do, but I don’t have a drug problem.”
“Denial.”
“What?”
“It’s perfectly natural, Peter, it really is. It’s what we in group like to call one of the essential steps toward recovery.”
“Chuck, look, I told you: I don’t have a drug problem.”
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now, Peter, but anyone who purchases a thousand dollars worth of cocaine most definitely has a drug problem.”
“For the last time, I don’t have —”
“I bet you haven’t even left this room since you scored, have you?” Warren leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms tight across his chest. “Where is it, Peter? How much of your hard-earned money have you stuffed up your nose already?”
“I’m not high!”
“Yes you are!”
“Oh, for the love of —”
“My God, Peter, just take a look at yourself: agitated, nerves ground to the bone, and nearly as paranoid as these militia types we’ve got hurling their bombs around town now. I’m afraid it’s as plain as the nose on your face, old man.”
Almost at the point of yanking out the container of cocaine from underneath the pillows to prove he hadn’t even touched the drugs, it suddenly struck Bayle that, thanks to Ron’s big mouth, now that Warren knew he had the coke, letting him think that he was actually using was the only way he could possibly justify having it. He took a deep breath and ran both hands through his hair, attempting to look his most junkie-repentant-sincere.
“Okay,” Bayle said. “Okay. Let’s say I did have a problem and did want to get clean. What would be the first step? I mean, if I did have a problem.” Bayle tapped what he hoped was a passable version of a cokehead’s frantic tune on his thigh.
Warren stood up and put his hand on Bayle’s shoulder. “The first step is always the most difficult, Peter. And by admitting to yourself that you’ve got a problem, you’ve already taken it.” Warren didn’t dab his nose as usual but blew it this time good and loud. He stuck the handkerchief in the inside pocket of his black suit jacket like he never intended to use it again.
Plans for Bayle to attend his first group counselling session tomorrow afternoon at seven p.m. sharp and the extraction of a promise to try and only do enough cocaine to get him through the night and the next day were made and given. Warren shook Bayle’s hand firmly and reassured him for the third excited time that, with the right kind of professional help, anything was possible. Bayle tried to continue looking strung-out but cautiously optimistic. Warren looked like a man who loved his job and wasn’t a problem drinker with a predilection for mainlining morphine.
The Reverend already at the elevator, Bayle suddenly remembered something. “Hey, Chuck?” he said, peering around his opened door. Warren turned to face him.
“Don’t worry, Peter. We’re going to lick this thing. Together. You’ll see.” Warren raised a clenched fist.
Bayle lifted a limp fist of his own. “I don’t doubt it,” he said, “I don’t doubt it.” The elevator dinged its arrival at Bayle’s floor. “I was just wondering though,” Bayle continued. “What did you mean by my unresolved feelings toward my sister?”
“Come again?” The elevator doors opened up.
“You said something earlier about my unresolved feelings toward my sister. Where did that come from?”
“Oh, that. You don’t remember?”
Bayle didn’t like the sound of where this was going.
Warren looked both ways down the hall, lowered his voice to a pointed whisper.
“The night you spent at my place enjoying Ron’s ... little delivery,” he said, looking up and down the hallway again. “Your sister. She was all you could talk about.”
The news struck Bayle the way headlines, no matter how big the letters, never do. “But that’s not ....”
Warren gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up and stepped out of sight into the elevator, remarking before the doors closed that he also did bereavement counselling and that that might be something they’d want to explore later on after first getting Bayle’s more immediate problem under control.
Still half inside his room, half hanging out, “But that’s not true,” Bayle said.
Nobody heard him, though. Nobody.
35
HE KNEW it would take nearly an hour to walk to Duceeder’s place, but Bayle didn’t want to run the risk of anyone like a bus driver being able to place him in the area. He spent most of the trip resisting the desire to look over his shoulder every time a car horn or errant human voice announced itself and logically demonstrating to himself that a crime can only be said to be a crime if there is a crime scene, and that there can only be a crime scene when a person gets caught and charged with committing a crime. And since Bayle had no intention of getting caught it stood to reason that he really wasn’t going to be doing anything criminal, just righting a wrong that, if the world ran on reason and not pettiness and mean-spiritedness, never would have required his righting it in the first place. So there.
Looking up to notice he’d just passed Davidson’s street, Spruce, Bayle doubled back and detoured down its sidewalk. Nearly seven-thirty now and feeling fairly comfortable under the cover of an almost-darkness, he stood in front of the old man’s unoccupied apartment.
Tonight was the first time since Davidson had been hospitalized that Bayle hadn’t gone by to visit. Not that he did much when he was there anyway except steal guilty glances at just-showered Gloria fresh from practicing her routine at the rink (all-over workout-taut and whatever springtime scent it was she wore whenever returning from the arena kicking the death out of the hospital smell of rubbing alcohol and slow decay that upon signing in at the front desk always made Bayle temporarily loath to take the elevator up to Davidson’s fifth-floor room). But once he got there and saw the grateful little half-smile Gloria always gave him when he came in the room and heard the grunt of recognition half-asleep Davidson always made when hearing Bayle’s voice saying hello to Gloria, dread of disease and dying disappeared and nowhere else he’d rather be than in room #563, Hays County General Hospital, passing the hours between six and eight p.m. w
ith his two friends.
And friends, Bayle thought, still standing there in front of Davidson’s house, real friends, they’d do anything for each other. Anything. Because that’s what friends do.
Bayle took one last look at the house and strided back down the sidewalk. He was only about ten minutes away from Duceeder’s place and figured he could be there and done with what he had to do in fifteen, twenty-five minutes tops. Duceeder. That bastard.
36
MR. BAYLE. I’m afraid you don’t look at all well. I fear this horribly inclement weather is getting the best of you. Stay the course, young man. According to the weather forecast on WUUS a change for the better is on its way. A cool front down from Canada, apparently. And how about that? Relief for all of us, and all the way from where you call home.”
Samson said his smiling-as-usual-as-he-said-it bit before turning his attention over to a question tug-on-his-sleeve posed by one of the two others on either side of him in press box row, the thick sideburns like furry porkchops and identical pot-bellies stuffed into tight-fitting white suits to go along with longhorn bolo-ties and enormous white cowboy hats leaving little doubt that the two men were from Texas, or at least willing to play the part in the made-for-T.V. movie. Duceeder also sat in the press box, but at the other end, his eyes never leaving the ice surface. It appeared as if he hadn’t been invited to Samson’s hoedown.
Bayle sat himself and his laptop down and looked where he was supposed to look at the rink below without actually seeing the quick two-on-one break right off the face-off converted into a Warrior goal by Robinson assisted on by Trembley at the 15:31 mark. Never heard the public address system announcement of the goal, either.
White as a sheet (or a ghost; or, alternatively, looking like he had just seen a ghost); sick as a dog; weak as a kitten; feeling like death warmed over: cliches, sometimes, exactly what the doctor ordered, the patient too sick with — fill in the blank with whatever ails — to come up with a witty way to say just how one hurts (and how). Dull language for a dull pain. In Bayle’s case: fear, and all its still-echoing after-effects.
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