Lou had panicked this afternoon on hearing someone coming up the staircase, shuffling about, finally clanging back down, at which point he found the balls to look out to see Pierette Litvak returning to a waiting car. To top off this dramatic interlude, Svetlana had popped by just then to grab a suitcase. It looked like she was about to do a Houdini.
Sorry, Ms. Blake, I wish I could have been of more help in exposing that bad, bad boy. Have a good trip, Svetlana. Live large in Mexico or Greece or wherever you’re going. Robert O’Brien is hitting the road too.
Once again, he added up his resources. Celeste had cleaned out the joint account, but the severance pay, thirty-two K, was in his chequing account, untouched, accessible online. A similar amount due again in six months, if his boss didn’t welsh. He’d paid his internet fees six months in advance, was still below his Amex limit, and he had half a grand in his wallet, enough for essentials, including the bus to Rouyn-Noranda.
He’d already loaded up a suitcase and a pack. After dark, he’d creep down the back fire escape.
He dumped the last of his Cheerios into a bowl and ate them dry.
§
Two days later, Sunday, Lou was in a stuffy, forty-buck hotel room in the gut end of Rouyn-Noranda. This hardrock mining town was looking a little scruffy, maybe copper prices were down, but it was living up to its reputation for weekend barroom brawls. The rumpus last night in the tavern below had been punctuated with shouted obscenities — “Viande à chien! Maudite marde!” — and when it spilled onto the street, the cops broke it up, hauling off the instigators.
None of which was conducive to sleep, despite his exhausting journey here: all day Saturday on a bus that stopped at every jerkwater filling station on the long, lonely highway north, finally pulling in at midnight. Now it was after ten as he dragged himself off a lumpy mattress, the street outside his window looking empty, dead, hungover. A bright, harsh sun.
Hunger was gnawing at him — he’d hardly eaten yesterday — and he felt grimy. He braved the shower, whose lukewarm water smelled of leached minerals, probably cancer-causing. A shampoo, a shave, a swipe of Mennen, a clean shirt and jeans. The tweed cap that Celeste had bought for him because it was so cute, back in the days when she loved him.
He powered up his phone, checked it for missed texts and calls. Nothing recent, just a couple of saved ones, urgent pleas from Margaret Blake and Pierette Litvak. Lou felt bad about not going through with the deal, but they’d get over it, life goes on. Lou’s life, in particular. Hard to swim in cement shoes.
He thought of calling Celeste, wondering if she might accidentally pick up this time. Hi, honey, I’m here in Rouyn-Noranda. It was twenty minutes by foot to her folks’ big lakeside split-level, where he and Celeste had taken family holidays. Where she was surely hiding out with the kids.
Better to catch her off guard. Maybe find Lisa and Logan romping on the front lawn, playing with their grandparents’ puppy, Gruffy. They would run into his arms, a joyous, huggy reunion. Celeste, witnessing this adorable scene, would melt, and run tearfully into his arms.
§
But his fantasy of finding the kids in the front yard was not fulfilled. He’d convinced himself that Celeste’s Ford Caravan would be there, but there was no sign of it. He found a path to the lakeshore, hoping to find Lisa and Logan there, maybe skipping stones, but his reconnaissance revealed only one life form: Gruffy, no longer a playful puppy but a brute, who raced toward him, barking loudly, summoning his equally bad-tempered owner, Simon, out onto his back deck.
By which time Lou was standing hip-deep in the water, fending off Gruffy, splashing him, calling, “Good dog, good dog.” Then “bon chien,” in case he wasn’t as bilingual as his owners.
Simon called Gruffy off and put him on a leash while Lou limped red-faced and soaked onto the stony beach. Janine appeared too, holding a dishcloth, looking puzzled. A petite and pleasant woman married to a bear.
“She ain’t here,” Simon called. “You want me to write that in blood on my forehead? She ain’t coming back, you twerp. Get a life. Go back to your safe house.”
“Simon! Manners!” Janine threatened to slap him with the dishcloth. “Oh, Lou, you poor creature. You come in and we’ll get you dried off and into a change of clothes.”
Lou slogged forlornly up to the deck, fishing out his wet wallet, shaking drops from his iPhone. He didn’t try to make friends with Gruffy, who was stiff-tailed, looking confused: why hadn’t his master given orders to kill?
“I’ll bet you haven’t eaten,” said Janine.
“Not much,” Lou said woefully.
Simon groaned. “Yeah, stalking is hard work, I guess. Fires up the appetite.”
Lou mumbled, “Can’t stalk a missing family, Simon.” He kicked off his shoes. A towel appeared. “She just blithely kidnapped those kids. My kids.” Flaring a little. “I could get a court order. She’s with her sister, isn’t she?” Lucille, in Calgary, she’d married a consulting engineer, geophysics or something.
“Just give her some time, Lou,” Janine said. “I’m sure everything will be all right. We’ll throw those in the dryer.” She passed him a robe, turned away as he stripped.
Simon wouldn’t let up. “We’re going to entertain a guy who’s got an X on his forehead? Wasn’t it your brother-in-law got bumped off by the mob? A scumbag lawyer — you got an upstanding family. The Mafia better not know you’re here, Lou.”
“Robert. Robert O’Brien. I even have a passport.”
On his way to the bathroom he overheard Simon in French, saying, “Now you know why I never gave my blessing. She was too far ahead of him in the brain department.”
“Now, dear, be nice.”
§
By early afternoon, Lou was on the town’s western outskirts, bound for Ontario and beyond. The next bus west wasn’t till the evening. He had his thumb out.
He figured if he could make it to Sudbury, he could catch the train. Though that would cost him the best part of what he had left in his wallet. He’d have to scrimp until he found a Laurentian branch so he could access his severance pay.
Three more cars and a pickup passed. None slowed.
Calgary, that’s where Celeste had to be hiding out. He’d read it from Janine’s face, Simon’s silence. A well-to-do neighbourhood called Upper Mount Royal, unless her sister’s family had moved.
Two more vehicles. One driver at least waved apologetically.
For the sixth time in the last six days, he went online on his phone — undamaged by the waters of Lac Osisko — seeking comfort from the thirty-two K in his chequing account.
He frowned. Something was phenomenally wrong. The balance was zero. He logged out, logged back in. Still zero! Surely an error, a banking error, a computer error. Panicking, he scrolled through recent transactions. One stood out: yesterday, a $32,000 electronic transfer to one Charles Bandolino, a name unknown to Lou, from the Laurentian Bank, Montreal, Lou’s branch. His password had been hacked. They couldn’t rub him out so they’d robbed him blind.
He lay down on a patch of grass and wept.
HORNY IN SEATTLE
The American Trial Lawyers’ Association had offered Arthur Beauchamp, as its wind-up dinner speaker, three nights in Seattle’s grand old Olympic hotel, and on this Thursday mid-June evening he was feeling fairly full of himself, having earned a standing ovation for his treasury of courtroom anecdotes. He’d spent the next hour signing copies of A Thirst for Justice.
And now he was lounging deep in his suite’s jet bath, massaging a kink in his neck, his legs splayed, bubbles rising between them, tickling his balls.
He was enduring one of his infrequent visits from Pan. The stirring in his groin had been induced by an enticing appellate counsel from Austin and her invitation to see her to her room. He’d got that far, then panicked, retreating with a mumbled excuse about catching an early flight.
Helping body and soul to relax was the lack of unsettling news from Ottawa. Two and a half weeks had passed since Margaret’s breathless, gossipy faux pas, and there’d been not a whisper from Christie Montieth. Seventeen days was a long time in the world of media. Crisis over. Probably.
Parliament was well into summer recess, but Margaret wouldn’t be coming home until the end of the month. She was campaigning in the East, shoring up support, raising funds for an expected fall election. He ached to have her by him, close, touching.
Arthur felt guilty about saddling his two Woofers with managing the farm for most of a week. But he’d needed a holiday from laid-back Garibaldi with its Transformers and flaky Californians and twitchy cops and his faithless mechanic, Robert Stonewell.
He never ought to have left the Fargo with him. That was three weeks ago. Stoney had spent those weeks busily dragging his feet over a simple muffler job while answering multiple handyman demands from Starkers Cove. While Arthur went about by foot or tractor. Stoney had promised the truck would be waiting for him at the ferry landing tomorrow. Fat chance.
So, Arthur felt relieved to get away to civilization in this culture-conscious metropolis by the sail-speckled waters of Puget Sound. He had taken in a chamber concert, a competent production of All’s Well, and had visited museums and galleries.
He was ashamed that he’d entertained a brief fantasy of a rollick with the slightly tiddly appellate counsel from Austin. That simply wasn’t like Arthur. He had an allergy to adultery.
He suspected, shamefully, that performance anxiety had also been behind his panicked withdrawal. During his rare spells of horniness, he was rarely guaranteed a stiff erection.
Yet now, in the soapy froth of his Jacuzzi, here was his cock proudly standing at attention. What a waste.
§
Arthur met Francisco Sierra at the hotel’s front entrance, where they shook hands — hugging might be the Latin way but it was not Sierra’s way. Raised by upper-class Costa Ricans, he was reserved in manner and impeccably dressed in suit and tie whatever the occasion. Short and portly and balding, he easily melded into an urban crowd.
Until he retired, Frank Sierra had maintained an office in Vancouver, but they hadn’t connected for a few years. Nor had they been able to spend much time together at the conference, so they caught up on each other’s recent doings while strolling to a restaurant a few blocks away, a faux-1950s diner festooned with photos of old Seattle.
In a booth, over coffees, Arthur gave him a detailed rundown of the Farquist saga, concluding with an account of Margaret’s futile attempt to track down Sabatino. “He has utterly disappeared. With or without what may be the only extant copy of the video.”
Their omelettes arrived. Sierra studied a 1920s photo of the Pike Place market for several moments, before returning Arthur’s imploring gaze. “You are telling me this for a reason, my friend. It is not to titillate me, though I must say the matter is singularly bizarre. But the answer, with heartfelt regrets, is no. I am too occupied growing roses in the garden of a cozy bungalow near Beacon Hill Park, where I regularly walk my beagle, Bolivar.” The hint of a Spanish accent added a charming timbre to his perfect diction.
“Frank, it’s a private eye’s wet dream.”
Sierra seemed shocked. He had the prudishness of English gentry.
Arthur pressed on. “A missing video and a missing reporter, possibly dead. Scandalous behaviour in the highest councils of our land. A dominatrix bribed to be silent.”
“I am especially enjoying the sunny blooms of my miniature polyanthas, which seem born to our West Coast climate. Let us eat. I am famished.” He tucked into his omelette.
“And I can throw in a damsel in distress. My wife.”
Sierra had been a guest at Blunder Bay and knew Margaret well. “But it appears she is not distressed. She remains unscathed, gracias a Dios.”
Arthur nibbled his meal, depressed that this astute investigator was not seeing this case as the crowning event of his career.
“How grows your garden, Arthur?”
“Much neglected.”
“Perhaps because you are too often drawn away from it. Each year since your purported retirement — when was that? a decade ago? — you have defended some dastardly villain. You do not know how to retire. I do.”
“Matters got in the way, Frank. But you’ll be fascinated to know that I was re-invigorated every time I walked into a courtroom. There was a feeling of being fully alive again. At our age, with our wisdom and experience, our skills are at their apogee. What a shame not to use them.”
“I recommend the Puhl Agency. Sam Puhl. Top notch. They’re in Ottawa, and know their territory.”
“All disbursements would be covered. Airfare, hotels, a car. A reasonable daily fee. My office has a slush fund for such adventures.” Scandal leading to the fall of the Conservatives would be much appreciated by Tragger, Inglis, a Liberal firm. Old Bullingham, the skinty senior partner, might have a word to say about this one, though.
Sierra dabbed his lips with his napkin. “A little weak on the mushrooms, that omelette.”
Arthur pulled out his wallet.
“No, I must insist.” Sierra’s wallet was out too, a credit card already plucked from it.
“It was I who invited you for breakfast.”
Sierra signalled the waiter with his card. “Come, come, Arthur. This is negligible recompense for the enjoyment of your company. I’m sorry to have disappointed you, but . . . alas.”
Arthur let him pick up the bill. “I understand. A rose is a rose is a rose.”
“Exactly.”
§
There were pigs rooting in his garden and emus eating his beans and lettuce, and he could only watch: helpless, sluggish, voiceless, tangled in sheets and blankets. The neighbours watched too: ghosts, immobile, expressionless, waiting for their orders. Overcome with loneliness, Arthur reached out to Margaret, but she too was without substance, another ghost, lost to him.
Prompted by the need to pee, Arthur awakened to sunshine streaming through his bedroom window. His visit to Starkers Cove had stayed with him, so the dream seemed self-explanatory. Except for the part about Margaret — he missed her, that’s all it was saying. He wanted her. Physically. He was still, uncharacteristically, in heat.
It was Saturday, and he had just returned from Seattle. He’d been shocked, on walking off the ferry, to find his Fargo waiting for him. The keys were in an ashtray along with a roach clip and some loose pot. A peek under the chassis revealed a new muffler. He could only assume Stoney had had a crisis of conscience.
He disentangled himself from the sheets and looked out to make sure there were no pigs or emus in his garden. The only encroachers were thistles and creeping buttercups, and horsetails in the strawberries. No sign of Niko and Yoki, who had promised to help weed that garden. There, parked out front, was his Fargo. He was not imagining it. He had actually driven it here yesterday.
He checked his bedside clock. Nearly ten! A rare long sleep. He had a misty recall of being invited to a major event tomorrow, Sunday, June 23. A function he wasn’t looking forward to, that he’d intended to shun. Yes, an open house at Starkers Cove. A chance to meet and commune with the great Baba Sri Rameesh. Music. Fun, frolic, free food and refreshments. Their famous gupa.
Arthur would be tending his garden all Sunday. Enjoying real peace. Not the artificial kind that the dreaded happiness drug delivers. He wondered if gupa was the key to Silverson’s control over innocent minds. Reverend Al, though, had claimed to have tried it without effect — it was all in the mind. Al preferred to believe that Silverson, wit
h his certificate in “humanistic hypnotherapy,” was utilizing some form of post-hypnotic suggestion on his adherents.
Arthur took a luxurious sit-down pee — this was happiness — and was pulling up his pyjama bottoms when he heard an engine, tires crunching on gravel. From the window, he saw the Transformers’ Econoline van rolling down the driveway to the Woofer house. Niko and Yoki came out the front door, carrying buckets of what looked like cleaning supplies.
This smacked of a kidnapping, the girls enticed in some unearthly way into a state of mindlessness. Still in pyjamas, Arthur found his slippers, scrambled downstairs, and raced outside to see the two Woofers being ushered into the van by Morg Baumgarten and a starry-eyed woman acolyte armed with one of the Transformers’ ubiquitous video cameras.
Waving, hollering, he clambered over a snake fence to the Woofers’ yard, losing a slipper in his haste.
He gasped: “What . . . what’s all this, where are you going?”
“Help cleaning dining hall,” Yoki said with a bright smile, pointing to the buckets. “Open house tomorrow. Meet the Baba. Everyone come. You come. No problem.”
“We very happy give help,” said Niko. “Also serve refresherments . . . drinks at open house.”
Arthur suspected his very happy helpful Woofers had already been into the gupa. He’d been gone four days, and already Silverson had sucked them into his maw.
Morg, with his distant stare: “It’s a long way for them to walk, Mr. Beauchamp.”
“Just a second here,” Arthur said. “How many times have you girls been to Starkers Cove?”
“Three,” Yoki said. “Always do chores first.”
“We every time hitchhike,” said Niko. “Very easy. Everyone happy.”
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