Arctic Smoke

by Randy Nikkel Schroeder

  “Where you going, compadre?”

  Lor pulled open the door, lunged into the hallway. He stumbled down a narrow hallway to the stairs, smelling a century of food, smoke, sex. Two steps at a time.

  Alistair Grimes? Here? Lor wasn’t even standing still in the tide of memories. He was washing back into the Weird, and Lethbridge was wrong, all wrong, bones not bleached at all.

  He ducked into the arcade. It was mainly full of kids at ancient video games. But one lonely pinball pinged to nimble fingers, while the machine lit a vaguely familiar face—a tall Japanese woman, middle-aged, long braid. Game called Treasure Island. Dancing pirate skeleton, cutlass between its teeth.

  Lor backed into an unplugged game and ebbed to a squat.

  “Amigo.”

  Lor turned. Alistair, still carrying the chest, still wearing the pointy hat.

  “C’mon, amigo,” Alistair said. “Look at me.”

  Lor shook his head. His shoulders slackened.

  “You sent me the postcard, ’migo.”

  “Shit.”

  Alistair squatted next to him. “I know the cure for your disenchanted state.”

  He opened the wooden chest. Black paint and lacquer, deeply grained, carved with moons and stars.

  “Here.” Alistair removed a map tube, magnifying glass, and bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He unscrewed the tube and pulled out a frayed map, then unrolled it on the chest. Lor could see a mass of white, some pale blue on the paper.

  “North,” Alistair said, grinning. “Want a drink?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “We go north. Far north, into the Canadian Arctic, to the big ice.” He pointed at the map, tapped a finger up to the top. “Where we drive life into a corner and see what stuff it’s made of.” He twisted off the Jack Daniel’s cap. “Drink?”

  “North?”

  “Arctic.”

  Lor shivered, brain filled with sky and vast plains of snow. He folded his arms and rocked himself. “I hate the Arctic.”

  “You been?”

  “Never been because I hate it.”

  Alistair picked up the bottle. “The Arctic is the source, man: the noumenal, the land of dreams and visions.”

  Lor dizzied. “Why are you here?”

  “Why are you here?”

  Sometimes there are no good answers. What to do? He couldn’t return to Underwood, old girlfriends, that bit about the stolen car. But there was no way in hell he was going to the Arctic, all that ice, that light, that sky. With Alistair? No way.

  Alistair tapped the wooden chest. “My friend?”

  Lor tried to smile. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  Alistair grinned and shook his head.

  “I’ll hide,” Lor said.

  “I’ll find you.”

  “I’ll leave.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  Lor recoiled against the wall. “I’ll kill you.”

  Alistair laughed. “Somebody will.” He reached into the wooden chest, then whispered, “Look at this.”

  “So?”

  It was a small unvarnished box, a mouse’s coffin.

  “It’s his,” Alistair whispered. “He asked me to keep it safe.”

  “Who?”

  “Jolly Jesus, Padre, who d’you think?”

  Franklin.

  “See, dude,” Alistair continued, “one time, in Underwood where else, he convinced me to ’company him to this place called the Museum of Evil.” He grinned. “Yeah, kid you not on the name. So we went, reason being, he was so lonely for his family, who ran the place, like, in the fuckin’ sixteenth century or something.”

  Lor massaged a temple. More fairy tales.

  Alistair whispered through his grin. “So the place is hotter than Milton’s hell, and we find all this heavenly wiggin’ stuff, I’m talking real freak-o, like Wicca, pirates, and Freemasonry . . . you ever been to this place?”

  “No,” Lor lied.

  “And one of the items is this li’l box. Now, to be honest—I can admit to this in the full wisdom of adulthood—that box siren-songed us with some fuckin’ heavy-duty, magical, uh, magic. Me’n him had a little tussle over it—you listening?”

  “No.”

  “Actually, we fell over a few radiators, knocked a few tables. You’d think we would have spilled whatever was inside.” He tapped the box. “I’m getting to that. Anyway, he kept the box at the time, and I was a little, er, you know, jealous. I even offered him my hat in trade. Remember how he was always begging to try on my hat?”

  “No.” Lor dug into the temple. Alistair was actually getting worse with age.

  Alistair shifted in his squat. “Here’s the bewitching part, ’migo. Years later, in Lethbridge, he gives the box to me, asks me to keep it safe. And,” his knees cracked, “do you know what was inside this magical mini-casket?”

  “Shit.”

  “No, little dude.” Alistair opened the lid. “Not shit.”

  “Well?”

  “Look.”

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “’Xactly. Nothing.” Alistair closed the empty box. “There was nothing in it.” Leaned back, folded his arms, raised his eyebrows.

  Lor closed his eyes.

  “Empty, dude! The guy was bugshit over an empty box, do you see?—the space man, the noumenal, the presence inside the absence. It’s his last sign: we’re s’posed to go north and finish the expedition.”

  Lor looked up. “Maybe he just emptied it.”

  Alistair stared back, eyes smooth, brow unlined, as if a child had just suggested a mustard ice cream cone. “It’s empty, ’migo.” Said with compassion.

  Lor smacked the wall and stood. Alistair rose with him, voice soft. “You’re on the horns of a dilemma, friend. Tell you what: for now, practice with us, lend us your good ears, your rhythm—”

  “Practice what?”

  “This northern expedition. It’s a musical tour, see? I’m getting the band back together, to complete Franklin’s quest.”

  Lor slumped.

  “Rehearse with us until we depart,” Alistair continued, gently. “And I’ll leave you be, promise. Mid-November, we scatter to our respective journeys, and God help to ease your soul.”

  Lor was silent.

  “Compadre: surely you have the patience to put up with an old friend for a few weeks?”

  After a long pause, Lor said, “Is Oggleston back from rehab?”

  “Fuck no. Sans Og too.”

  Lor stared at his old companion.

  Alistair took a pen from his pocket, scrabbled digits on the peeling bottle-wrap, then handed Lor the bottle. “You call me when you change your mind. You got a phone?”

  “No. I—”

  “Hush!” The scarecrow shook his long legs and picked up his chest. “When you’re ready. Till then, punchinello.” He strode from the arcade, into the crystal evening.

  Lor looked at the number. Unfamiliar, of course.

  “A crow!” yelled an attendant with broom held high. A squawk in the rafters. Guns, roars, explosions.

  “Oh yeah!” the Japanese woman cried, as the pinball machine began to ring up numbers.

  Lor headed for the door.

  The skeleton lit behind him, like a Christmas tree on Halloween.

  † † †

  Lor lay on the hotel floor. The more he thought of the Museum of Evil, the more he was not going to call that bastard Alistair. But, by some Möbius logic, the more he resisted, the greater the urge. Finally he grabbed the Jack Daniel’s and reached for the old phone on the nightstand.

  Seven rings and Alistair answered. “Hey, gaucho. Man, didn’t take you long to mull over the deal, while I just heard the damnedest sermon about—”

  “Al. Who’s all going to be rehearsing?”

  “Haven’t finalized the details.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Not exactly, hombre, but I’m trying to convince Franklin’s kid brother, Fatty, ’cos he’s a wicked whit
e jazz percussionist, what I hear, and—”

  “Franklin’s brother?”

  “You heard me. The kid is just zonko, like, madcap.”

  A long pause.

  “What do you mean?” Lor said.

  “Well, the kid’s all that, and wigged out too, from the stories. ’Parently he carries around a guitar case, ’cept there’s no gee-tar inside. Some say it’s full of dead flies, some say a shitload of blue powder.”

  “Powder?”

  “The kid is spaghetti. Nuttier’n a box of Turtles.”

  “Powder?”

  “Powder, cowboy.”

  Lor listened to his breath pumping, felt a thin sheen of sweat slicking the space between his fingers and the phone. He thought of the powder, spilled on the museum floor back in Underwood.

  “Okay,” he said. He could not believe he was saying it.

  “Okay what?”

  “I’m in. Just for a few weeks. That’s the deal, right?”

  Alistair let loose a barbaric yawp.

  “Well awl right pirate,” he said. “You sure you never been to the Museum of Evil?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Map In the Ashes

  I should really be in church this morning, Seri thought, checking the address on the mysterious letter. She stood at the walk, staring at a gingerbread mansion layered with snow, frosted with ice. The main door was open. Inside, walls had been knocked out, space carved by rows of gloomy cubicles, a vacant desk to the right, a phone with a blinking light.

  Seri sighed. Already skipping church, already making compromises. She vowed to do better.

  “In here,” a voice from an office to the left. “Everyone is gone for the weekend. That you, Serendipity?” She entered the office. “Hello, Mr. Rooke.”

  “Theodore, please, as this is not so much the continuation of an old working partnership as the inauguration of a new one. Ted, actually. Ted will do nicely.”

  Seven years had done nothing to soften his looks—bluff cheekbones, black crew cut and white Van Dyke beard, the lovechild of Colonel Sanders and Morticia Addams. If Serendipity’s memory served, his behaviour was also typical in its oddity. He perched on an enormous glass-topped desk, legs hung over the side, fingers feeding pictures to a small ashtray fire.

  “A dry picture makes good kindling, Seri. Have a seat. Wait, let me move my briefcase . . . don’t touch it. There. How was your journey?”

  “Fine. Thanks. Gosh, interesting office.”

  “Yes, it’s not mine. You and I, we have no office to speak of in our natal program of law enforcement.” He smiled. “We don’t actually exist.”

  “We aren’t law enforcement.”

  “We are.” He chewed a mint.

  “CSIS is a civilian agency.”

  “We’re not CSIS, Seri.”

  “What are we?”

  He stared at her. He had a piercing stare.

  “Seri, I’m going to ask you to look into the glass on this desk, as if it were a wishing well or pond.” He fed more pictures to the flames.

  “Ted?”

  “Indulge me. Yes, that’s it, straight down, letting go and giving in to the illusion of depth.”

  The desktop was deep brown and wood-grained beneath the glass, overlaid with flickered reflections from the ashtray.

  “Seri, CSIS has a lot of rules: no police powers, an extensive warrant process for intrusive measures, an advisory role. Even SIP wears a straightjacket most of the time.”

  “Special Intelligence Projects?”

  “You’ve heard of them.”

  “I’ve heard rumours.”

  “Believe them. Each branch, regardless of coverture, operates within the same set of parameters. But rules, Seri. Sometimes rules make things a little dark.” He fanned the flames until they smoked out. “Rules are like mud at the bottom of a well.”

  He dumped the ashes onto the desk and spread them with his hand. Serendipity coughed.

  “One could draw a map in the ashes,” he continued. “Like this. Carefully tracing lines of probability across the mud. Like . . . so.”

  “Ted, what are you doing?”

  “Indulge me.” He raised one ashen finger. “Rather like a Buddhist sand painting, isn’t it? Puts one in mind of the ephemeral nature of existence.”

  “Ted?”

  “One could. But why engage in half-measures? Careful now, move back a bit.”

  He leaned down and blew the ashes off the desk with one breath. Several clung to her skirt.

  “There,” Rooke said. “Clarity right down to the bottom. A crystal ball.”

  “Clarity?” She shook her head. “The ashes are gone. There’s nothing left to clarify.”

  He blinked rapidly, looking bewildered, as if his entire edifice of certainty had just been blown away, itself made of ashes. Slowly he tightened his jaw, stood, and pointed a finger down at the desk.

  “Bang.” His voice pitched slightly higher, paced slightly quicker. “See? With clarity, law enforcement becomes a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. The Chinese have a word for it: wu wei, which, roughly translated, means the ability to act with clarity and economy, without wasted effort. Like the snow-laden tree that bends rather than breaks.”

  “That’s some nice symbolism, for sure. But a little spooky, don’t you think?”

  “Look: the fish swim, as they must. They are never themselves visible, but if you are very still, you can see their shadows on the bottom. You must simply wait patiently for those shadows.”

  She tugged her cheek. This was some twisted Zen. “I’m here for a new job.”

  “But.” He leaned forward, crunched the mint. “You’re also here to be renewed. As am I.”

  She shrugged. “What’s our mandate? What do we do?”

  Rooke stared at her. Slowly, deliberately, he put the ashy finger into his mouth and sucked.

  “What do we do.” He pulled out the finger and appraised its cleanliness. “These are wayward and desperate times, Seri, populated by so many lost souls, so many punks, most of them searching for something to believe in. But a punk can never be renewed.”

  “How would we know? We were never punks.”

  His left eye blinked. He quickly reached to steady it with his cleansed finger. “Too many among us are lost and hungry.” He slowly lowered the finger to trace against his lapel.

  “Punks, you mean?”

  “We’re all out to kill our past.”

  He leaned forward and peered into her eyes. “We’re all out to sprinkle a little angel dust across our memories.”

  Seri looked down at the floor. Ashes sparked the carpet.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Silver Circle

  A perfect winter evening. White snow, black sky, bright crescent moon. Except it was October, and Lor would have preferred autumn’s reds and yellows. He stood at the hotel window. At least that freak storm was over, the world restored to stillness, the sky restocked with stars. He put down the phone and sighed, then lay diagonally on the bed.

  A rap at the door startled him.

  He got up and stumbled to the light switch, flicked, opened the door. Some short Caucasian kid with orange dreads, seventeen, eighteen years old, holding a watermelon.

  “Yeah?” Lor said. The kid just walked in, humming. Lor immediately noticed the eyes. Small, round, glassy—like the scary porcelain doll in a grandmother’s attic.

  “You are?” Lor said.

  “You!” The kid’s voice was high.

  Lor suppressed a chuckle. “O-kay. What do you want?”

  The kid sat down and produced a plastic knife and spoon, then sawed around the melon and broke the whole thing open. “I’ve come to take you down to the Crystal Room. For the band meeting.”

  Lor watched the kid spoon the melon’s flesh. “I see. You belong to Alistair’s gang.”

  “My girlfriend knows him.” He slurped, choked, coughed seeds into his lap.

  “Who’s your girlfriend?”

  “
You!”

  “What’s the Crystal Room?”

  “A conference room down the basement floor.” The kid’s mouth was already stained to the chin. “First we have to drive over to DanDee’s and pick up some pop and crackers.”

  Lor stared at the juice trickling to the kid’s collar. “Okay. Why not.”

  “Let’s go,” the kid said. “You going to wind your watch or pee?”

  “Who’s eating the melon?”

  “You!”

  Man, that was one high voice.

  † † †

  “What did you say your name was?” Lor said, as they wobbled down icy roads in the kid’s four-by-four, chilled air pouring through the windows, warm air blasting from the dash. Lor recognized Cutbill Street, winding through the oldest neighborhood in Lethbridge.

  “Fatty Core,” the kid answered.

  “Franklin’s brother!” Lor clapped his hands on the dash. “That your real name?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Really?”

  “No.”

  Fatty skidded the Jeep to a halt at the corner of Ashmead Street and London Road, in front of a Chinese grocer. An unzipped crescent moon hung over the steep shingled roof. Inside Lor bought a pack of Lucky Strikes. Fatty got a Coke, crackers, roll of tape, and two popsicles. He pressed against an ancient freezer, chest puffed, till his nipples were hard enough to peck a keyboard. Then he wandered to the checkout and said, “Is it cold in here?”

  Lor chuckled.

  “What is your real name?” he said, minutes later, as they tottered back up Cutbill.

  “Fatty.”

  “Liar.”

  “Hey, I don’t make up the rules.” The kid yanked a bouquet of nosehairs from one nostril. Eyes watering, he turned on the radio, fiddled. The dial hit static, and some faint vocal music crackled beneath, Celtic perhaps, something about a tower and frozen skies.

  He stomped the brakes. The Jeep skimmed a patch of black ice and stalled. Fatty, heedless, twitched the dial back and forth, washing static from speakers.

  “Damn,” he said. “Damn. Did you hear that song? Did you hear it? Where did it go?”

  “Well . . . yeah, I heard something,” Lor said. “Sort of distant.”