THE MIDNIGHT BOAT TO PALERMO
and other stories
Rosemary Aubert
ISBN: 978-1-77242-044-9
Copyright Rosemary Aubert 2016
Smashwords Edition
Carrick Publishing
Cover Art by Douglas Purdon
Cover Design by Sara Carrick
This e-book is intended for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be sold or given away to other people. If you’re reading this e-book and did not purchase it, please return to Smashwords and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction and all references to people, places, institutions, organizations and events are fictional and are not intended to be taken as factual in any way.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Waiting for My Brother
Getting Rid of Cottage Pests
The Thief
Shaving with Occam’s Razor
On the Job
Water Like a Stone
Gifts
Old Maids
The Bench Rests
The Biker and the Butter
Safe Water
The Toy
Merry Christmas, Dear Orphans
Taking Off
The Canadian Caper
The Prime Suspect
The Midnight Boat to Palermo
About the Author
Critical acclaim for Ellis Portal and the Ellis Portal mystery series:
The New York Times
“…in Ms. Aubert’s sensitive treatment, a character with great dignity and unusual moral depth.”
Washington Post
“Rosemary Aubert has a touch of the poet.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Heartfelt and often piercing in its portrayal of life on the edge.”
New Brunswick Reader
“An absorbing read that stays with you long after you put it down.”
The Globe and Mail
“Aubert has done a fine job…taking on some of the social issues that bedevil a big city…”
Publication Credits
The following stories have been previously published:
“Getting Rid of Cottage Pests”: Cottage Country Killers, eds.: Vicki Cameron and Linda Wiken, Burnstown, ON, General Store Publishing House, 1997.
“The Thief”: Second place winner, Bloody Pete Awards, 2006 Bloody Words Conference. Published in conference program booklet.
Also published in Big Pond Rumours ezine, summer 2016
“Shaving with Occam’s Razor”: Bloody York, ed: David Skene-Melvin, Simon & Pierre, 1996.
“Water Like a Stone”: Blood on the Holly, ed: Caro Soles, Baskerville Books, 2007.
“Gifts”: Over the Edge, eds: Peter Sellers and Robert J. Sawyer, Pottersfield Press, 2000.
“The Bench Rests”: 13 O’Clock, ed: Donna Carrick, Carrick Publishing, 2015.
“The Canadian Caper”: Thirteen, eds: M.H. Callway, Donna Carrick, Joan O’Callaghan, Carrick Publishing, 2013.
“The Prime Suspect”: World Enough and Crime, eds: Donna & Alex Carrick, Carrick Publishing and Excerpt Flight Deck, 2014.
“The Midnight Boat to Palermo”: Cold Blood V, ed: Peter Sellers, Mosaic, 1994. Reprinted Les Prix Arthur-Ellis-1, ed: Peter Sellers, Editions Alive Inc., 2003.
This book is dedicated to my beloved husband, Douglas Purdon.
WAITING FOR MY BROTHER
Every day for the past four I’d had to wake up to the same yelling and screaming. Out on the street, the cops were harassing me again and I had to lie low. Keeping off the street meant no work. No work meant no rent. No rent meant the landlady blasting away outside my door. First her voice. Then her fists.
I could hear banging even when I was dead asleep, but I couldn’t risk yelling back. There was always an outside chance it could be the police.
Whoever it was got lost when they got no answer. I turned over and snuggled deeper into the sheets. I couldn’t remember how many months it’d been since I wrapped them around an old mattress from the hallway. My brother had taught me how to look for things to use and how to take them—even something big like a mattress—before anybody knew they were missing.
I’d just settled nicely back into a dream when I heard another sound. About an inch from my nose, a cockroach was working over a crumb on the floor. I found a book and squished the cockroach. I wiped the book by dragging it across the sheet. Then I went back to sleep.
In a little while, I woke up again. I kept getting pains in my stomach. Sleeping instead of eating was something else my brother had taught me, but it had its limits. I was starving; I had no cash. I got up, threw on a t-shirt and jeans and headed down to the shelter.
The walls were peeling. The floors were stained and cracked. But the thing I hated worst there was the smell. Of dirty people with filthy clothes smoking raggedy roll-your-owns and drinking coffee burned down to the tarry bottom of the pot. The smell of glue, cough medicine, bleach and all the other cheap things losers get high on.
I wasn’t crazy about the losers themselves, either. For starters, they were all old—nothing but a bunch of ancient ragbags waiting for a handout. And pushy. “Too late, sweets,” some geezer said as he reached in front of me for the last squashed cinnamon roll on a dented foil tray. It was so hot in there all the time. But the old guy wore a thick hunter’s sweater with deer on it. There were big holes under each arm, probably because the sweater was about three sizes too small.
I managed to grab a hard bun and a cup of lukewarm coffee. I was almost finished when I glanced up and saw my least favorite fruitcake coming right at me.
I didn’t know what had set her off, but from the first day she ever saw me, she never let me alone. Like she was my guardian angel—or devil. She’d been following me around for almost as long as the Prince had been gone. I stood up to get away, but I wasn’t fast enough. She stared at me like with the evil eye. I sat back down.
There was something different about her today. Her eyes were clear—almost like a normal person. When she opened her mouth and started to talk, I was shocked. I never heard her talk before.
She reached out and touched my leg. I could feel the bony fingers right through my jeans. Like I said, it was a hot morning, but the hair on my arms was standing up.
She said, “The Prince is coming down.”
“What? What did you say?”
“What’s said is said….” She clamped her jaw and turned to my coffee, picking it up in shaky, old-lady jerks. I felt like smacking her hand and making her spill it all over herself, but I had to calm down.
“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry I shoot my mouth off at you all the time. I just feel a little funny when somebody follows me, you know?”
She kept slurping the coffee. “Come on, just tell me what you know about the Prince. Please—”
I waited while she lifted the cup again, gulped, then took a really long time putting it back down on the table. I couldn’t take it anymore. “Come on, you old hag, what do you know about the Prince?” I grabbed her shoulder and gave it a good shake.
She looked up, confused, afraid. It was like she’d never seen me before in her life. Then her eyes glazed over.
Nothing. All the lights out. Nobody home.
“You old witch!” I yelled, raising my fist. “You stupid old useless hag—”
Before two seconds passed there were five old geezers on me pounding away at my back and my arms and even giving me a couple of weak kicks on my shins and calves.
It made me laugh more than it hurt, but I figured my welcome must be about w
orn out.
All day I thought about what the old bag lady had said. “The Prince is coming down.” Could it be true? Did he get off?
Maybe he escaped. Maybe this news meant the Prince was in it worse than ever, but I couldn’t help smiling. I missed him. I needed him. He was a major pain, of course. So who wasn’t? At least when the Prince was around, I had somebody to talk to.
Four days shot and the super bugging me every day. Maybe if the Prince was really back, he could help me out with the rent. But until then, I had to work, cops or no cops.
The action was slow on the Track. It took all afternoon and half the bloody night to get the money for two weeks’ rent. And I was only able to do it because I’d rested for four days.
When I finally got enough, I stuffed the money in an envelope I found blowing around on the sidewalk. Then I went home, washed my face, changed out of my working clothes and knocked on the landlady’s door.
It wasn’t until I’d handed the witch the envelope that it occurred to me I hadn’t left any out for myself. And I was starving again. I’d had nothing but cigarettes and Coke since breakfast. I decided to go back out and see if I could score some food.
I’d about had my fill of drop-in centers after the mess at breakfast. I tried to think of somebody who owed me, but there wasn’t anybody left. If I’d had drugs to trade, I could have gotten something to eat in a second. But I was right out of them, too. I could steal off an outdoor stand or shoplift. But with the cops after me already, I didn’t want to try that just then.
I was considering checking out some restaurant garbage cans when I got lucky.
I was walking along Yonge Street near the Eaton Centre, not really paying attention to the action, when I saw a familiar shape bump and slide and scrape across the sidewalk—Hipbone the smashed-up paper seller going for coffee!
I followed him with my eyes as he moved past a crowd of people gathered on the corner listening to a religious guy preach his lungs out.
As soon as Hipbone got to a point where the crowd of people was between him and me, I moved. I took my time easing up to the big metal newspaper box that opened at the top to form a stand. Like other paper sellers on Yonge, Hipbone had built himself quite a little fortress. In front of the stand he had a milk crate with a shaggy old pillow on it for a seat and a couple other crates piled up so that when he sat down, he was protected on three sides—like a grungy old executive in an office.
A dumb executive. In the open part of the stand on top of the piles of newspapers was a metal scoop. Amazing as it was, he trusted people to put coins in there when he wasn’t minding the stall. Even more amazing—most people did it. And nobody touched the coins.
Until now.
As the crowd moved closer to the preacher promising them eternal burning in the fires of hell, I emptied the scoop into my pocket—just before Hipbone reappeared with a big Styrofoam cup dribbling coffee down the front of his already-stained pants.
Making as if I’d just arrived on the scene, I sidled up and wormed my way toward the front of the crowd. It was as good a way to fool Hipbone as any.
But when he started screaming as loud as his scratchy old voice could manage, “Hypocrites! Listening to a sermon about Jesus! Robbers!” I felt guilty. In fact, I almost felt like crying. Don’t take from your own, unless you can’t help it. That was one of the Prince’s rules. Like honor among thieves or something.
Some people started yelling at Hipbone to shut up…. Then others started to yell at them to shut up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a police cruiser. I pushed my way back toward the street.
But Hipbone saw me. He called, “Brianna—hey… Wait! Listen to this….”
He kept calling and I kept pushing until I got too far away to hear him or for him to catch me. I slowed down, trying to look cool, so nobody could see I was really running away.
I ducked across the street into a shopping mall and didn’t come out until I was a block away from the mess. It wasn’t until my heart stopped pounding that I realized what Hipbone was yelling to me. He wasn’t telling me to stop. He didn’t realize I was the sleaze who took his money. He was telling me something. Suddenly I realized what he’d been saying. “Brianna, the Prince is back….”
I needed to think. I had plenty of coins and I felt like my stomach was totally empty. So I slipped into a nearby pizza place and grabbed a large Coke and two slices of all-dressed. As I ate, I watched the street. A couple cruisers went by, headed in the direction of Hipbone’s corner. I hadn’t meant to cause so much trouble.
After a while, though, I stopped looking beyond the window and started looking at it. I could see my reflection in the slimy glass. I knew everybody thought I was ugly, though once in a while some stupid John would squeeze out that I was beautiful. Perverts.
But my looks didn’t stop people hassling me. Four years of fighting off pimps by day and weirdos by night. I had to smile. I figured with the Prince back, everybody else on the street, pimps included, would leave me alone.
Thinking about that, I touched my scar. I could see it in the reflection—a white line from the corner of my eye to the tip of my chin. I still remembered the night it happened, the sound of the blade cutting my skin, and the Prince crying afterward and telling me how sorry he was that he hurt me. Then he said as long as I was working for him at least I knew I wouldn’t get hurt from a pimp who was a stranger. We both had to laugh at that.
Out on the street things were back to normal. Whatever had happened with Hipbone was over—and I still had a lot of coin. I walked past the flashing lights of camera stores and computer discounts. The light was so bright you could see the bums sleeping in the doorways, curled up like big, dirty babies.
The roar of the games arcade hit me the minute I yanked open the door—the shouts of people playing combined with silly, jittery electronic tunes, fake gunshots, bombs, machine-gun fire, the noise of computer helicopters and motorcycles, race cars. Spaceships. Stupid and cool.
All of a sudden, I felt like dancing in between the wall-to-wall people—mostly young guys in jeans or leather—all with their eyes on the machines and their backs to each other, everybody alive, in motion, jumping and yelling.
I followed a long row of flashing red and blue bulbs until I got to my favorite—the WarriorWomen pinball. It was painted with a beautiful woman dressed only in flowers, holding a strong bow with a wicked arrow.
I slipped in a couple of twonies and pressed a button for the ball to come up. Then I yanked back the plunger. I let my fingers feel it up for a second or two, holding back hard against the spring. I let it go a little, then pulled back on it as hard as I could and let it fly, the cool metal sliding against my thumb.
Right away, I jammed my fingers against the flipper buttons, waiting for the ball to whizz through the bright orange, purple, yellow, blue, red flowers all over the board. The ball was a warrior in the jungle—and every time I gave it a good smack with the flippers, it went flying up the board to ding and rattle and ping like a song.
I lost track of the twonies, and I lost track of the time. I was so far gone that when I looked up and saw I wasn’t alone at the machine, I jumped.
Handy Randy was okay, even if he was a skinny, pink-and-white haired little punk from boystown who wrote poems for a hobby. He thought he looked like an adult, of course, but I figured him for fourteen at the most.
“Hey, there, Rand—” I said, taking my eyes from the game only for a second. “How’s it going, lady?”
“I got a message,” Randy said mysteriously.
“Yeah, really?” I watched a lazy ball hit a couple of bells before meandering down toward the flippers. “Like what?”
“It’s about the Prince.”
“What?” I had to look right at him. While my ball took a nice little shooteroo right down the tube.
“The Prince—”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah, maybe I did—” Randy said with a self-satisfied smile.
“Okay, okay. I saw the Prince and he wants to see you—”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know—”
“Oh come on, Randy, please—” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the bouncers approaching. The rule is play or get out. “What’s the message? Spit it out—”
“The Prince says tomorrow. Fraser. At two.”
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. You got to figure it out—”
“Come on, Randy, this isn’t a game….”
“Look, Bri, that’s all I know, okay?”
“You swear?”
“Yeah. Just figure it out. I can’t hang around. I got a customer waiting.”
He took off. It was no use trying to follow him through the video zoo. I went back to the machine.
But I couldn’t concentrate. I checked out the clock beside the huge sci-fi painting somebody had done on the wall long enough ago for it to be half dust and half paint. It was five minutes to midnight. Tomorrow at two could be as close as two hours and five minutes from now.
I knew what Fraser was. In the beginning, after I ran away just by taking transit out of the stupid suburbs, the Prince was teaching me things. We spent a couple of weeks on Fraser Street—and we would have squatted there forever if the cops hadn’t chased us because some arty type from one of the studios complained.
The Midnight Boat to Palermo and Other Stories Page 1