The Midnight Boat to Palermo and Other Stories

by Rosemary Aubert

  Instead, with the greatest gravity, he said, “That’s for my people to find out. And we will not fail her by neglecting to do so.”

  A few of the students filed by and studied the body. Most, however, headed for the door. I was the last to leave, the instructor at my heels as we twisted along the corridors that led back to the reception area. Everybody was gone by the time I got there.

  I turned to thank the instructor, to apologize for my rudeness. But before I could speak, there was a commotion at the receptionist’s desk. I heard a distraught woman yell, “Where is she? Tell me where she is!”

  I turned. And what I saw nearly made me faint.

  It was the woman on the slab returned to life, tall, slender, pretty. Her fair skin was just beginning to show wrinkles. Her blond hair just beginning to turn to gray.

  I thought it was some sort of sick joke. Some effort to scare or confuse me.

  But when I looked at the instructor’s face, I saw an expression of such pity that I realized this was no joke.

  And besides, he had completely forgotten I was there. He was stepping toward the woman. He reached out his hand and gently touched her shoulder, like it was something he’d done a thousand times before. Cop. Coroner. Bearer of bad tidings.

  I stepped aside. But I still didn’t know what was happening.

  Then, as if he remembered I was still around, he turned. All he said was “Occam’s razor.”

  I was out in the street, narrowly missing getting hit by the westbound Wellesley bus before I finally figured it out.

  ON THE JOB

  Brianna stood in the shadows of the doorway and watched the digital clock and thermometer visible on the side of the bank up the street. It was 2:20 a.m. It was eight degrees Celsius. Freaking freezing. Sometimes she wished she could move to Florida. Eight degrees in the middle of June!

  She pulled her leather jacket a little tighter around her. The zipper was broken, so she couldn’t close it. She was wearing a leather skirt tonight. Its hem was about even with the bottom of her panties, so it wasn’t much help against the cold either. She wasn’t wearing any panty hose under her stiletto heels, so the tattoo on her thigh was visible. It was a picture of a fist holding a sword.

  She shifted from foot to foot. She’d been really unlucky tonight. It was Tuesday—not the best night for action under any circumstances, though earlier there had been a lot of people on the streets coming from the movies. Bargain night or something. Having the streets full of bargain hunters hadn’t helped her much. Anybody who was too cheap to pay full price for a freaking movie wasn’t going to pay what she cost.

  It was the cold that was slowing up business. She thanked God that she didn’t have a pimp. A girl could get the shit beat out of her on a slow night like tonight.

  She glanced at the clock again. 2:24. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw cruiser 5710 go by. Buck and Sol. She remembered nights when those two would let her and some of the other girls get in the cruiser when it was really cold—just sit there for a while. Buck was being a whole lot more careful now, and Brianna didn’t blame him.

  She heard a car coming down one of the side streets, so she stepped out of the shadows and moved toward the curb. The car went squealing around the corner. Clearly not a customer.

  When she saw the van approach, however, something told her she was going to be doing a little work. It was a nice car, fairly new, well-kept. She breathed a sigh of relief. It was amazing what you could tell about a person just from the way they kept their car. Lots of times a guy with a dirty car was a real slob—a really smelly customer. Whereas a guy who washed his car once in a while probably washed his dick.

  She moved a little closer to the street. The driver of the van slowed when he caught sight of her. He turned the corner of the side street and parked halfway down the block. Nonchalantly, Brianna turned and made her way toward the parked van.

  He wasn’t bad looking. In his twenties. Not too big. He was wearing what looked like a fairly clean tee-shirt. Brianna could see all this when he opened the passenger door, but she saw it not from the overhead light, which he’d switched off, but from the light from a streetlight a little down the way.

  He could see her, too, and apparently, he didn’t mind what he saw. He motioned for her to come closer.

  Standing on the curb, she leaned across the seat, letting her jacket fall open to reveal all that she wore under it—a black bra. She had a tattoo on her breast, too, but he wasn’t going to see that just yet.

  She knew the first rule, which was: don’t get in the car before you negotiate the price.

  “Half and half?” the guy said.

  “Two fifty,” Brianna replied.

  “Two-fifty? Are you crazy?” the guy answered. “I can get it for one seventy-five down the street—”

  “So go down the street—” Brianna shot at him. It was all an act, really, and it tired her out. There was no real bargaining on the Track, though she saw plenty of guys going from one hooker to another as though they wanted to get a good price. What they wanted was the opportunity to talk to girls. It was pathetic, but without pathetic Johns, where would she be?

  “No—wait—” the guy said. He reached in his jeans pocket and took out his wallet. He pulled out a pile of twenties and lay them on the dashboard, anchoring them with a book. It scared Brianna a little when she noticed the book was the Bible, but she couldn’t afford to be fussy. She was freezing and she hadn’t turned one trick yet that night.

  She hopped up onto the seat of the van.

  “Down by the beach?” the man asked.

  “Yeah, if you’ll drive me back here—”

  “Sure,” the man replied, and they took off, headed east across town.

  Within minutes they were in the Beaches—one of the most beautiful parts of town. The streets were lined with lovely old houses and led down to the lake where there was a wide grassy area, then a boardwalk, then the beach itself.

  Even on a weekday, in summer the beach was jammed, and on weekends, the area was a zoo, but now it was practically deserted, except for a car parked here or there. Brianna knew what was going on in at least some of those cars, and it really made her laugh. If some of these middle-management types got a clue about what was going on right outside the door of their fine houses, they’d freak.

  Her John pulled up at the end of one street, facing the lake. The minute he stopped, Brianna headed for the back of the van. Even on a slow night, her good work habits prevailed. The second rule of the business was the same as for any business: time is money; don’t waste it.

  The John had his clothes off in no time. Sometimes they asked her to undress them, which she charged for if she could get away with it. Mostly old guys liked shit like that. This one was all business. Down on his back in no time.

  When she reached to take off her jacket, though, he stopped her.

  “Leave it on—” he commanded. “It makes you look like a boy….”

  Brianna smiled. She knew what this one wanted. She started to talk to him, keeping her voice low, making the most of its masculine gruffness.

  “You’d like a boy to lick you?” she breathed.

  “No—” the guy answered. But he was starting to breathe in the rhythm that to Brianna was dollars and cents.

  As she spoke, she stroked him. She was glad he was young. The young ones got it up so fast. “You’d like a girl to lick you?”

  “Of course,” he sighed.

  “Or a boy?”

  He didn’t answer. She made her voice sound as masculine as she could. He was breathing really heavy now, and she knew it just wasn’t going to take long.

  “Let’s pretend a nice, pretty boy has your dick in his mouth, okay?” she growled, and she began to slide down his lean body, making sure the leather of her jacket touched his skin every inch of the way from his throat to his member that actually jumped up toward her mouth when she reached it.

  Third rule of the business: no business without candy. S
he never trusted the Johns to provide. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a safe, ripped open the package and slid it on the guy. He was an experienced trick. He didn’t express any surprise at this. He seemed incapable of expressing anything, breathing as hard as he still was.

  She let the leather rub against his balls as she sucked him. He was starting to whisper a name. She closed her ears. She didn’t want to know anything personal about any John. All she wanted to know was how close he was to coming because if he came too soon, half of that pile of twenties might go right back into his wallet.

  “Take it off,” she heard him sigh. “Please take it off—”

  She knelt up, removed her jacket and her bra. It was dark in the back of the van, but there was enough light for him to make out a dark spot on her small breast.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she answered. “Just a little tattoo.”

  “It’s ugly. Why do people get tattoos?”

  “You want to talk or you want to screw?” she said. She wasn’t in this for the chit-chat.

  “Make me want to screw,” he said, and she was sorry about the damn tattoo because now she’d have to start all over again.

  Not that it took long. He was hot. He was hungry. He was up in no time. She grabbed hold of him and stuck it in. He went off like a firecracker. Happy Victoria Day!

  Before he even stopped heaving, she had her clothes back on.

  “So, you going to drive me back to the Track?” she asked, as they both climbed up to the front of the van.

  “Yeah, sure, honey,” he said. His voice was different now. She’d noticed that lots of times. Before they came, men always sounded a little sucky: breathless and begging. The stupid assholes.

  After they came, they always sounded bored and in a hurry. Which was fine, because that was how she felt, too.

  He looked at his wrist. “Shit,” he said, “my watch fell off. Go back there and get it for me while I start the car, will you, honey?”

  Not wanting to waste any more time, she complied. She felt around on the old blanket, but she couldn’t find the damn thing.

  “It’s not back there,” she said, as the John turned onto Queen Street, a couple of blocks from the lake.

  “Look, honey,” he said, appearing not to care about the watch. “I’ve been thinking. It’s kind of far for me to go back downtown right now. I’ll let you out here and you can take the street car back, okay?”

  “You son of a bitch…”

  “Don’t argue with me honey or you’ll get your face smashed, understand?”

  He pulled up hard against the curb, reached across her and threw open the door. He grabbed the pile of bills and shoved them in her hand. “Get out—”

  She did. She knew better than to argue. Fourth rule of the business: never take anyone up on an offer to smash your face.

  She gave the asshole the finger as he squealed away, leaving her standing on a corner that wasn’t even a damn streetcar stop. She walked a block, looking in the windows of the pretty stores on Queen trying to see a clock. When she finally caught sight of one, she saw that it was 3:05.

  It was even colder down here by the lake than it had been further up town, and she hoped she didn’t have to wait forever for a street car.

  She didn’t. Within minutes, she saw one go by her in the wrong direction, which meant it would soon loop around and come back toward downtown. She reached into her pocket for a token and found one. She hopped onto the car when it came. It was deserted—only her and the driver. She went to the very back of the car. Some drivers liked to talk. They were very nice men. She really didn’t know what to say to men like that, so she got right out of their way.

  She felt a little sleepy. She didn’t want to give into it, though. Late as it was and even though it was Tuesday, there was at least a slight possibility that she could turn one more trick.

  Thinking about it, she reached into her jacket pocket for the twenties, thinking to put them into her skirt pocket, which was a little safer.

  At first she just stared at the bills, unable to understand what had happened. Then she remembered the bastard’s lost watch. That would explain it. That would explain why she was holding one twenty and a fistful of fives.

  She wanted to cry, but that was something she had trained herself never to do. Instead, she thought about what she would do to the guy if she ever saw him on the Track again. She’d make sure nobody would touch the stupid bastard.

  Sure, Brianna, sure you will. Most girls had pimps. Most girls would have to deal with the guy even if Brianna told them what he’d done to her. Most girls would rather risk being ripped off by a bad trick that being hit hard by a bad pimp for refusing a date.

  She sat back and stared out at the city as the street car made its slow way west. She remembered a nursery rhyme she’d loved when she was a kid, when her grandmother used to read things to her before she went to sleep. The words still rang in her ears sometimes. She wasn’t sure she remembered them exactly right after all these years, but they went something like, “Turn, Dick Whittington, turn again, Whittington. The streets of London are paved with gold.”

  She thought about that. About the streets being paved with gold. What a laugh! What a fucking laugh…

  WATER LIKE A STONE

  There are some people to whom it’s almost impossible to say no, and my wife, Queenie is one of them.

  It was the Sunday before Christmas. Outside the window of our apartment, snow fell softly into the fading afternoon light. Already the trees in the river valley were burdened with white, and the Don was frozen solid.

  “Not much in the newspaper today,” I said.

  Queenie nodded, “Guess not.”

  She took a sip of sherry. Well, not real sherry. Neither of us drinks anymore. What passes for sherry in our home is a distilled juice of yellow apple and white grape, steeped with clove, cinnamon and essence of fig—our wassail.

  “Except it looks like somebody got murdered down the street….”

  Though the sight of Queenie reading by the light of our fireplace was one of the chief delights of my winter evenings, I didn’t look up.

  “Yep,” she said, “it looks real bad.”

  I turned a page of the book review section of the Sunday Daily World. There was a lengthy piece on Christmas reading. Glossy coffee-table items. A few biographies of prominent Canadian figures. I didn’t see any judges among them.

  “Blood all over the place.” Queenie shook her head, whether in sorrow or disgust, I couldn’t tell, glancing up at her for only an instant.

  “Some people have everything,” she said, “and then they throw it all away.”

  I knew by the tone of Queenie’s voice that she was about to ask me to do something. Something I’d clearly told her I was not about to do again—ever. I gave the book review section a little shake, so that the paper would rustle and she’d get my point, which was: I’m reading and I’m not interested in solving any more murder mysteries.

  Putting her section of the paper aside, Queenie stood up. For a moment, she gazed through the window where the fat flakes danced in the white air. She moved to the stereo and put on a disc. The sweet sound of a choir filled the room, singing an old favorite of ours, In the Bleak Mid-winter.

  The words of Christina Rossetti distracted me from the book reviews and I put the paper down.

  In the bleak mid-winter

  Frosty wind made moan.

  Earth stood hard as iron,

  Water like a stone…

  Queenie picked up her section of the paper but didn’t resume her seat by the fire. Instead she came and sat beside me. I reached out to touch her hand. Truth was, I’d do anything for her. Even if I’d sworn not to.

  “So,” I said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, “who’s this poor unfortunate who threw everything away?”

  Knowing my wife as well as I do, I could just tell by the motion of her hand as she slipped it from my fingers and
held up the newspaper that she was excited at my interest.

  “It’s like this,” she said. “Just a bit south of here, at the foot of the Scarborough Bluffs on the edge of the lake, there’s a place where a lot of houseboats moor for the winter…”

  I nodded. “Yes, I know the place.”

  “Most of the owners of those boats are really rich,” Queenie said, “but not everybody. Some people don’t have anything except the boats. Those are the ones that live down there all year long, no matter how cold it gets. I guess they put all their money into getting one—you know, sort of a pearl-of-great-price thing. Sell all you have…”

  “Yes…” Despite the fact that I was now retired from the bench, I still had the judge’s impatience at a witness who dragged out evidence by extrapolating on what it all meant philosophically. “So…”

  Queenie smiled. “So, Your Honor, I guess you want to hear more after all.”

  “Keep it brief and to the point.”

  She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Sure.”

  I put down the newspaper and gave her my full attention.

  “Last night the cops got a 911 call from a distraught guy. He said he came home from Christmas shopping at Eglinton Square just a few blocks from here.”

  “What time of day?”

  Without consulting the paper, Queenie supplied the details. “He said he left the mall at about 4 p.m. He drove south on Pharmacy to Kingston Road, then over to Brimley and down that road that winds to the lakeshore where the boats are…”

  “They mentioned his exact route in the paper?” I asked. “Doesn’t that seem unusual?”

  “No,” Queenie answered, “because he told the police he was trying to figure out the exact time he got to the houseboat.”

  “Yesterday was the last Saturday before Christmas—probably the busiest shopping day of the year,” I observed.

  “Busiest except for the Feast of Stephen,” Queenie said, “Boxing Day, the 26th, when all the sales are.”

  “Yes. Anyway, that trip would usually take, what, about fifteen minutes? So if he left at 4 p.m., would it still be daylight when he got to the boat?”