She shuts up, her dark, shadowed eyes still fixed on Maguire. A sneaky smile.
Chapter 11: Rivie
1
Friday, September 21
It’s like a Tom Thompson painting but with the colours right in your face, coming at you in three dimensions, maybe four if you count the mind-bending effect of the karmic flower tops we’re smoking. Bursts of crimson and fluorescent yellow from sugar maples and tamaracks, the redolent, oxygen-rich breezes from the piny forest, sunlight dappling the rushing stream and its swirling ponds.
I’m squatting beside our little dome tent, wholly gaged after a wee toke, my brain racing like a hamster on a wheel, buzzing with colour and confusion and errant thoughts and memories. It’s an indica-based strain called Dance of Shiva — Chase scored it trekking in the Himalayas, just a couple of grams but a pinch trips you right out. Beats the piss out of the bud you get at your local pot shop.
I think it’s late afternoonish, though time seems irrelevant. I don’t know what day it is. I can’t even count the days I’ve been here, at least a week since Doc sent me into exile. I’m Enemy Number One, the Mata Hari of Operation Beekeeper, the cops are turning Toronto upside out and inside down. We heard on the radio they’re flashing around photos of Lucy and me.
We’re somewhere, only God and Chase know exactly, in the vastness of Algonquin Park, a two-day paddle from the last civilized outpost, where Chase parked his pickup and launched his canoe. Our kit includes tent, sleeping bags — two joined into one — a chess board, a deck of cards, several books, and a dwindling supply of condoms.
We kill time over Chase’s portable chess set — he usually wins — and a few novels I brought, and Chase’s thick history of Northwest explorers, complete with fold-out maps. He’s totally into that kind of stuff, a wannabe Pierre Radisson or David Thompson. We sustain ourselves on granola and a wilderness survival diet of edible plants (Chase knows them all), roots, berries, fresh-caught trout, and something that seems close to love.
A flash of raspberry red, fluttering above, diving into the forest.
“What’s that?”
“Pine grosbeak.” Chase is lying on his back on a bed of pine needles, resting after his twice-daily yoga routine. “Male. Common resident. Winters over.”
I’m not sure I should be falling in love with Chase D’Amato. The pluses are he’s handsome and physical and sexy and smart and resourceful and totally in tune with his universe. But it’s his universe, the wilderness, the beyond. I’m a metro mouse, I’m not at my best here — it’s kind of spooky. I need bustle, I need people, action, conflict. I need to join a demonstration once in a while.
And I don’t like being dependent on a man, on anyone, to tell the truth.
It feels sort of like Stockholm syndrome. Though to get the full effect, I guess I have to go to Stockholm. Rivke Levitsky’s bolthole.
I’m not her anymore, by the way. Nor Becky. I’m Marigold Bright. Such a cheerful name, bound to charm the immigration officers. Marigold Bright has a passport, a birth certificate, a Mastercard, a wallet full of jack in dollars, euros, and krona, and an open one-way ticket to Stockholm on Finnair. All tucked away in a trekkers’ backpack, with my clothes, toiletries, blond wig, and black-framed, clear-lens specs — to match my passport photo — and a Lonely Planet guide to Sweden.
Chase doesn’t want me to split. He thinks the idea of Europe is all kinds of stupid, that I can learn to tough it out in the Canadian woods. He has other lairs we can retreat to, farther north, isolated cabins, cottages owned by summer people, friends who’ll let us crash for the winter months.
I’m torn. Doc warned that if “things blow up” — meaning if he and the others get busted — I’ve got to grab the first flight out of Pearson. Friends of Earth Survival Rebellion will meet me in Stockholm. I’ll get working papers. I’ll blend in, get Swedenized.
If things do blow up, how am I to know? There’s zero phone reception here, and anyway my battery is almost dead. Our sole communication with the outside is a windup radio that gets a couple of signals, the CBC, a Pembroke station.
We tune in to the news at night, when there’s better reception. We learn that Archie Gooch is still comatose. I am praying, in my way, for the poor schmendrick, sending vibes: Wake up! Wake up! It was only a nightmare, Archie, none of it really happened.
We also learn that more documents are being leaked, so the guys are still operating from the back of Ivor’s. I miss them real bad. I miss the camaraderie, the love, the cool, wise comfort of Doc Knutsen. I miss Amy and Ivor and Okie Joe, crazy Ray and quirky, lovely, sloppy Lucy. I’m freaking at the thought I may never see them again.
A couple more winged visitors, white and grey, clicking and chuckling in the tree above, unafraid. A whiskey jack, Chase calls them, a grey jay. Different from the blue jays I’ve seen. (And speaking of which, they’re nowhere in the pennant chase. Go Jays next year!)
Poor Howie. The CBC says he got dumped by Chemican. A reporter learned his apartment was taken apart. How he must hate me. A sacrifice to the greater good, I get that, but it doesn’t ease the guilt. One day I may write him a letter, explain how he inadvertently helped save the planet.
Chase rises, picks up his fishing line, wades barefooted into the stream, casting for protein. Trout every day. Brook trout, lake trout, roasted over coals, with edible nuts and mushrooms that Chase insists are safe. He keeps a small fire going, which is sort of illegal out here, but it’s mostly hot coals, fairly smokeless, near the water.
I think a lot of my mom and dad, how they must be worrying. I miss Mom’s weekend calls. The cops must have traced them to their little socialist commune — it’s only two hundred klicks due west of here, a burg called Golden Valley — and they’ve probably been grilled hard. But they’re cool, my mains, especially Dad, a former director of the Civil Liberties Association. He’ll have given them an earful.
I am spooked by the eerie call of a loon on a distant lake. Across the stream, a big fuzzy form moving between the poplar trees. I yell to Chase: “Bear!”
He calls back: “That look like a bear?”
It’s a moose. Spooked by our shouts, it retreats back into the bush. But there are bears, black bears, we saw a couple while canoeing. And there are wolves too. I don’t tell Chase about my bad dreams, generated by their nightly distant howling. Chase has a Bowie knife he keeps in a sheath, he doesn’t believe in guns. Because I’m such a scaredy-cat he’s rigged up ropes for easier access up a nearby climbing tree, a thick-waisted pine. But don’t bears climb trees?
Evening is approaching with its autumn bite. The weed is wearing off. I throw some kindling on the fire and ready the bed of coals for the two sleek trout Chase is proudly holding by the gills.
* * *
The stars dazzle in a cloudless, moonless night. I am awed by their countless numbers, feel dwarfed into insignificance by the unknowable, infinite universe. The distant, strident calls of a wolf pack. Nearer, an owl hoots. I shiver with cold and anxiety as I clamber from my clothes, don pyjamas, crawl into the sleeping bag, awaiting the warmth of Chase’s body, wanting him close, inside me.
He is working the radio, a tiny flashlight in his teeth — it’s time for the hourly news. A bombing in Marseilles, a school shooting in Texas, another crazy, racist tweet from Trump, and . . . news that causes me to shriek: the arrest last night of six persons charged with conspiracy and B and E’ing a Sarnia chemical plant!
“Oh, my God!”
“Be cool.”
A blur of words on the radio. Former professor arrested with two others at St. Clair antique store. Three more picked up at their homes. All remanded for two days. Crown opposing bail. Voice clip from OPP Inspector Maguire. Culmination of ten days of intensive investigation. Computers seized. Stolen documents found. Search continuing for remaining suspects. Suspects! Plural. Means they’re looking for Chase too.
Rivke Levitsky, ali
as Marigold Bright, must now dematerialize. Like, biggety bang.
2
We are out of the wilderness, and by late evening have settled into a crowded campground just off Highway 60. Though it’s dark I don’t want to be seen — my smug mug is all over the media — so I’m in a sleeping bag in the bed of Chase’s old Chev pickup. That’s where we’ll crash until dawn. Meanwhile, Chase is off hunting for an outlet to power up our phones.
I’m spazzed. We paddled like demons on fire half last night and all day long under a searing Indian summer sun, me sitting forward, trying to match my coureur de bois’s fierce strokes, my arms aching, muscles screaming. Bears, moose, and beavers hurriedly made way. At sunset we beached onto the south shore of Opeongo Lake, tied up the canoe, fast-tracked to the camp’s parking lot and Chase’s truck.
The Northwest explorer finally returns, shaking his head. “The park office has power, but they won’t let me in. There’s a working pay phone outside, though.”
The nearby tents have grown dark, the last Bunsen light doused. A soft squeal and grunt: a sharing of carnal knowledge. But there’s no one wandering about. I pull my Jays cap down to shadow my eyes as Chase helps me from the truck. “Hold the fort,” I say, and ache my way up the trail to the park office, where a yard light glows.
It’s after ten. I’m hoping Selwyn Loo is a late-nighter. But he isn’t and answers the operator groggily. “Yes, I’ll accept,” he says.
“It’s me,” I say. “I’m in—”
“Don’t say. I have a safe line, but for the record we have solicitor-client privilege. We’ll keep this short. You’ve heard?”
“Yes.”
“You’re well?”
“Bagged. Scared. Well enough.”
“Okay. Sunday night at Pearson. Is that doable?”
“Doable . . .” My brain is in slow gear. “Okay, but . . .”
“No buts. You’re ticketed. Finnair 5998, departs at ten p.m. You’ll be met on arrival. Then we’ll connect.”
Awareness hits hard — there’s no turning back. “Tell them I love them.”
“Bless up. Be good. Be happy. And be careful.”
3
Sunday, September 23
A soft kiss as Chase lets me out at Terminal 3. He has been my valiant knight. I will miss him, but we would never have made it past the soulmate level. We are wed to others — he to the starry skies of the great outdoors, Ms. Bright to brighter lights. Yet I tell him, as our lips part, that I love him, and to stay safe.
“And I love you. Bon voyage.”
I feel a vast void as I enter the terminal, collar up, cap down, bowed by my heavy pack, faux-blond bangs hanging over the spectacled eyes of my sunburned face. I’m praying that I look like the average young grad student off on a well-earned trekker’s holiday to Scandinavia.
It’s eight thirty, well past peak hour, but there are still too many people about for comfort. The ticketing machine whirrs, pauses, finally recognizes Marigold Bright and her reservation, spits out a boarding pass.
I don’t fly much, on principle, but when I do, getting through security always brings butterflies. But I’m toting no gels, liquids, guns, or revolutionary handbooks. I’ve stuck my ticket and passport in my Lonely Planet, which I pretend to read, for effect, as we inch along. But the line is short, and soon I lower my pack and bag into a plastic basket.
At which point I feel the unwanted nearness of the dude behind me, bending by my ass as he pulls a laptop from his roller bag.
“First trip to Sweden?” he goes as he straightens beside me, looking at my guidebook. Swarthy, red-faced fellow, all eyeballs, an obvious cheeser the way he goofs at me.
“Thought I’d try it out.”
“Fourth time for me. Doing a little buying. I’m in farm equipment. You’ll like Stockholm. Forget the stodgy reputation. Lots of action if you know where to go.”
“Yeah, that’s what my boyfriend says. He’s meeting me there.”
That has the desired effect. “Enjoy,” he says, and shuts up.
My goods pass inspection. I get a green light from the X-ray. Smooth. I’m in.
I make it swiftly to the Finnair boarding lounge, where I take a back seat and hide behind an abandoned Toronto Star. I flip through the pages with dread, grimace as I come upon the account of the bust, informing the masses that “the search continues for alleged co-conspirator Rivke Levitsky, alias Becky McLean.” A grainy photo of Lucy and me backstage at the Bee-In. They might have found a better likeness had Doc not warned us to ditch all personal pix. He’s depicted too, being ushered from a police van in handcuffs. My guru in tousled hair, sombre, brave.
The flight is called. I wait for my group to be called, then sidle forward. The airline attendant glances at the passport photo, at me, at my boarding pass, sends me cheerily on my way. I am shaking with relief as I head down the overhead tunnel, phone out, thumbing a text to Selwyn Loo: “Colour me gone.”
But why is that smarmy farm equipment buyer standing there at the aircraft’s door? Smiling at me. Blocking my way. Showing a badge.
“I regret to tell you, Ms. Levitsky, that you are under arrest.”
* * *
Somehow, I have no tears. I’m not shaking. I’m beyond numb, anaesthetized by my despair. I have short-term memory loss, can’t bring back my hour-long journey from the departure lounge to this police station. The last thing I remember was walking out, wedged in between a woman from the Peel Regional Police and Constable . . . Jensen? No, Jayson, him saying, “Just smile, we don’t want to disturb the passengers,” and then his smarmy, “Would you like me to call your boyfriend in Stockholm to tell him you’ll be late?”
Actually, there is something else I remember: I quickly corrected my text-in-progress to Selwyn Loo. “Colour me BUSTED!” And hitting Send before Jayson confiscated the phone.
Then what? An airport security room, Jayson radioing his HQ. I can’t remember when they cuffed me, or took them off. It’s like a dream patchily remembered: leaving the airport by a back door, a squad car waiting, a quick, silent drive to Peel Regional Police Headquarters.
Now I’m in a glassed-in room, square and bare and oppressive, two chairs on each side of a long table on which the contents of my rucksack are spread. I’m sitting up straight, trying to look defiant, unbowed. I haven’t shed a tear. I will not.
Two detectives are seated across from me: an old, overweight bull with a shaggy moustache, frowning at me over the rim of a takeout Starbucks. An OPP Inspector, Maguire. He showed me my arrest warrant: fraud, conspiracy, B and E, knowingly using a forged passport, false pretences, the list goes on. He then gave me a warning about my right to remain silent, which I am stubbornly invoking.
His companion is Sergeant Gaylene Roberts, thirtyish, genial, respectful. The good cop to Maguire’s bad.
“Sorry we had to wait for the last minute to pull you in,” she says. “We hoped to catch you with some of your confederates. No such luck. What should we call you? Rivie, as in your emails?”
“I have a right to see a lawyer, I believe.”
“She talks,” Maguire says. “It’s a quarter after eleven, Rivie. Some folks might not think so, but lawyers are human, they need their sleep.”
“I’d like to phone my lawyer, please.” Selwyn Loo. He sleeps by his phone. Be ultra cool.
Sergeant Roberts: “You’ll have loads of time before you’re arraigned tomorrow to confer with counsel. Meantime, you can help yourself by answering a few simple questions. The courts can be very lenient to those who cooperate.”
“I’ll cooperate with my counsel, thank you.”
Maguire: “Well, young lady, we better tell you we have a complete book on you. Had a good look around the loft you share with Lucy Wales. Cleaned the mess up while we were at it. Fed the cats even.”
“Very kind of you.”
“Ma
ybe you were too stoned to remember to wipe your computer. Your Finnair open-date confirmation was in your trash folder. It just took a couple of calls to learn you reserved for tonight’s flight.”
I almost choke. I am my own worst enemy. “I’m not saying anything until I see my lawyer.”
“By the way,” he says, “Howie passes on his regards. You did a real nice job on him except you left your footprints in his discharge. Gives the concept of pecker tracks a new meaning.”
Great undercover work, Levitsky. Like, fubar. “When can I see my lawyer?”
“Soon as we mug and print you at the OPP office,” Maguire says. “That’s where we’re headed, so don’t expect some damn lawyer is gonna appear out of the blue tonight.”
“Can I have my phone?”
He bangs the table. “Goddamn, let’s get serious here. There’s a guy could turn into a vegetable for what you and your pals pulled off . . .”
A knock on the door. Jayson pokes his head in. “Need to confer, sir.”
The three of them huddle by the door, speak low. Maguire swears. Looks at Roberts. Looks at me. “Son of a . . . How did he find us?”
“Phoned the desk sergeant here. Said he knows you, sir.”
“Well, he can’t come in. Unless he’s a real dumb lawyer he knows the rules.”
The door swings open, and a tall, beak-nosed septuagenarian coolly invites himself in. “Well, what do we have here?” Big, sonorous voice, big smile. Dark suit, white shirt, loosened tie.
“I’ll be damned,” says Maguire. “Arthur Beauchamp.” The air seems to go out of him, but he manages a weary smile, offers his hand, introduces Gaylene Roberts, who looks ruffled, and waves Jayson from the room.
“You’re looking well, Jake,” Arthur says. “Thirty years ago, wasn’t it? The Ciccini double homicide. We had drinks after.”
“Yeah, I remember unloading on you about your so-called profession. No hard feelings, I hope. I’ve been following your career. Read somewhere you retired.”
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