The view was sensational, as it was situated high on a bluff looking down into the Lagoon; the sun rose to the left side of the window and set to the right. A thick forest of fir and cedar completely covered the side opposite his vantage point, revealing carved-out lots containing homes and garages. There were many now, but he guessed that when this place was first built it had been one of only a handful, and each home and family had had a private view of the sea and the heavens and the spectacular natural beauty of this barely known place. He was impressed; the house had been sited expertly. He stood for a moment and drank it in, even in the late winter drabness, as he leaned on the kind of fat oak post that Henry VIII might have once used for the Mary Rose.
To his left he saw a desiccated old upright piano. He lifted the fallboard and played a few notes — it was terribly in need of a tuning. On top of it were photographs from years gone by. Frankie, her hair dark and lofty, stood next to a man who was clearly her late husband. He towered over her as they posed against a giant colourful rhododendron. He was paunchy, wearing a loud shirt unbuttoned almost to the navel, like a seventies lounge singer.
There were several portraits in silver, oval granny frames, and one shot set in an ornate mounting that was both a frame and a vase. It contained a red carnation, quite fresh — it was probably changed frequently. The photograph framed within was of two soldiers standing on a city street, one in trousers, one kilted. The kilted one was Black Watch — Vicar could tell from his hackled Balmoral and the tartan. He had his arm over the shoulder of a soldier in a beret, with a cigarette and a pencil-thin moustache. A tall, skinny boy, he wore the cap badge of the PPCLI, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. That must have been Billy Hall Jr.
Jacquie gathered toiletries for Frankie and then went quietly into the bedroom. Vicar could hear drawers opening and closing. He ambled to the kitchen and washed the lone mug. When he heard Jacquie make a little exclamation of alarm, he leaned into the room. She held a bunched-up pair of huge ladies’ underpants that could have been used as a pup tent.
Looking pained, she said, “Someday I will have a pair just like these.”
Vicar smiled. “I look forward to that.”
For just a second, he thought he saw a blanket of warm colour throbbing around her.
Twenty-Eight / Of Moose and Men
Oxygen hissed quietly into Frankie Hall’s nose while a monitor on a stand beeped every few minutes, creating an overlay of discomfort. Vicar sat in a chair beside her bed and gazed out the window at the drab evening sky, which was attempting to rain for what must have been the fortieth straight night.
He had learned how to read the monitor display and had realized Frankie’s “blood sats” were low and getting lower. Her blood was simply not carrying enough oxygen. She was awake, but just barely, and her condition was worsening steadily.
Damned pneumonia, thought Vicar. What a crappy way to go. He’d had it himself as a young man and could still remember the wretched state he had fallen into, despite having been only twenty-two and otherwise in the fullest bloom of health. He recalled agony so intense that he’d required morphine. He gazed at Frankie with genuine sympathy.
With no motherly figure left in his life, Vicar had really taken a shine to Frankie, and being here with her now seemed the right thing to do. Plus, the quiet of the hospital gave him a place away from his troubles to gather his thoughts. And he had plenty of troubles.
He quickly reviewed his state of affairs. Jacquie was filed at the top of the Good column. She was revealing herself to be very special to him, although he wasn’t the type to come right out and say it to her. He was never going to utter that nauseating “you complete me” shit, no matter how many romcoms she dragged him to.
He did tidy up before she came over, didn’t he? Well, sometimes. Surely that gave her a hint, right? But he was feeling increasingly comfortable being around her, more attached to the thought of her presence. He’d be happy to have her around for a long time — that was a first.
But there was a threat looming: Serena. What in hell’s name did she want? Why had she set her cap for him? Not understanding was almost giving him hives. He couldn’t help trying to analyze the situation exhaustively, from every imaginable angle, in search of the missing information. It seemed that Serena was determined to have him for her own, or at least to wreck what he was building with Jacquie O. And what exactly did she plan to do if she got her wish? These questions would not leave his mind. He was aware but not fully appreciative of the legend coalescing around him. All his years playing in rock bands had taught him little about the true source of hype and hysteria. He also failed to fully appreciate the pathology of Serena’s deeply disturbed psyche. The only thing he was sure of was that, until Jacquie, he’d gone constantly unrewarded. He refused to examine things beyond that. Keep it simple, stupid.
He could hear the voice of the old Tony Vicar, pre-Jacquie, entertaining a reckless, self-destructive impulse to give Serena a go just for the sheer absurdist adventure and the tale he could tell about it later. Then he remembered the treacherous vibes she’d emanated, that sickly coloured, off-putting aura she’d exuded, those crazy-ass, deceitful eyes that had oozed a warning about a lifetime of misery to the fool who entered her web.
The new, changed Tony Vicar compared all of that to rock-solid Jacquie, who was beautiful and stable and uncomplicated. Her vibe was like curling up in your favourite chair. Warm, soft, and as familiar as your teeth are to your tongue. She was a Nelson Riddle arrangement, perfect from tip to tail, with a mind-blowing climax in the middle. She had certainly gotten under his skin. He knew that his bachelor days were over if he could pull it off. But he saw doubt in Jacquie’s eyes at times; he wasn’t sure she felt the same about him. This way could lie heartbreak.
Frankie began coughing again, an awful-sounding, rattling bark that made Vicar wince. The spasm lasted a full minute, and when it finally abated, Frankie’s head lolled to the side in near collapse. The low moan that emanated from her made Vicar jolt upward.
Leaning over her, he put one hand on her forehead, looked directly into her half-lidded eyes, and wordlessly summoned something from within. He couldn’t put a name to what he was doing, but he had done it before, just before Mom had slipped away, at the very end. The warmth of human contact, that was all. He just wanted to transmit vibes of comfort to this dear lady who was in so much wracking distress.
---
She stands at a treeline, peering at a misty clearing. It is lushly green and seems to be undulating, as if she is viewing it through viscous liquid. She surveys it all for a moment, waiting for something. It comes. Unexpected, yet it seems to make complete sense. Frankie sees a large, dark moose running across the clearing from left to right, a blanket over its back, rich red in colour. The moose is majestic and powerful, moving with smooth grace. The colour of the blanket makes the running moose pop against the green background. The whole thing, Frankie muses, is Impressionistic, like a Van Gogh painting.
From the mist coalesces a figure, ghostly and glowing with energy. She realizes after a moment that it is her dearly departed son, Billy. His face morphs constantly; for an instant, the face becomes that of her father, dead so many decades, in his sweaty old Stetson. Now it is her long-dead husband, Bill Sr. He smiles, and she weakly tries to summon him back, but she can’t muster the strength. Then her son reappears and reaches toward her. For an instant, she can smell him as a baby, the lovely fragrance of cut cedar and lanolin. She feels the warmth of his cheek on her lips. As he touches her face, he suddenly becomes Tony Vicar, hovering and surrounded by brilliant light. She doesn’t know what it means, but she is not afraid. She is at peace. She and Vicar are suffused in a brilliant glow, until she can’t see anything at all.
She falls into a comfortable sleep.
---
Tony Vicar finally took his hand from Frankie Hall’s forehead. He put on his jacket and quietly went home.
Twenty-Nine / Melting Resistan
ce
The locals referred to it as the Diefenbunker, but it was no such thing. There was a bunker somewhere on the Island, but this structure was not underground, was not made of reinforced concrete, and it was fifty years older than any Cold War bomb shelter. In fact, it was the wrecked remnant of an old coal mine tipple, circa the First World War, now reduced to a trove of red brick and deteriorating lumber that slowly rearranged itself from man-made structure into random heap. A long-disused rail spur, overgrown with vegetation, curved past it. Rotting beams still jutted out from its interior.
Inside this ruin sat Serena and her gang of four. They crowded around a rusting sheet of metal balanced on top of a couple of old crates. On top of the makeshift table sat burning candles inside tuna tins and a copy of E-Obsession featuring a picture of Tony Vicar and Jacquie O.
One of the group, Dooley, was fiddling around with a flashlight. “I found out where she lives,” he said.
Serena’s eyes lit up fiercely. “Where? Show me on this map.”
Jeet, her dutiful driver, looked around the dim interior of the demolished rectangle. This setting was awfully theatrical. Why not just rent a motel room close to a grocery store? Then he realized that he’d already asked that question, and his suggestion had been shot down in flames. Serena got him so muddled up sometimes.
This was where they’d keep Jacquie once they grabbed her. No one would see or hear anything. Jeet leaned over the crude map he’d gotten at the tourist information booth as Dooley poked a finger at what he thought was the location of Jacquie’s house.
“What does it look like?”
“Little white house, short driveway right up to the front door,” Dooley replied. “Not sure if there’s a back way in, but the yard is private. There’s a hedge around the whole thing. A couple of steps up to the front. Lots of windows, so we will have to be careful. There are a few other houses on that road, but they’re quite far away.”
With her thumb, Serena flicked the waistband of the powder-blue Stanfield Y-fronts she was wearing over her sweats.
“I wanna see it. Then we can decide on the final plan.” Serena had several possible scenarios. “Tape?” she asked. She’d already decided that Jacquie would be bound and gagged.
“Check,” one of them replied.
Jeet felt a little thrill and then hesitated, wondering why he was doing all this risky shit to help her bag some other guy.
As if she could feel his doubt, Serena turned toward him, flipping her long, curly locks — blond this time — and pouting her lips. She fidgeted with her unfashionable men’s underwear provocatively, sliding her hand in and out of the waistband, and Jeet’s doubt melted away like an ice cube in the desert sun.
---
Frankie Hall woke gently. She felt slightly better, and someone had taken her off oxygen during the night. As she looked out at the first light of morning, she remembered her dream. She knew what she had to do.
Thirty / Irreversible Actions
Jeet switched off the microbus engine and rolled the last fifty feet to a stop near Jacquie’s house.
There was a car in the driveway, and Serena felt confident Jacquie was home. She stood with her hand on the side of the vehicle, thinking and surveying the site.
“Andy, go through the bush and circle around to see if there’s a back door.”
Andy departed with a nod, and they waited. Five minutes later he was back.
“Small patio, sliding glass door. It’s cracked open. She’s inside. I saw her sitting at the table, eating.”
They had several rolls of silver gaff tape. Serena gave one to the rear team and one to the front.
“Jeet, you stay here and make sure no one is coming down the road. Maybe turn the van around and get the door facing us when we come out. We’ll enter from the rear, tape her up, and chuck her in.”
“That’s it?” Jeet asked, surprised the plan was that simple. He’d expected walkie-talkies and charts, maybe even toques and blackened faces.
“Yes, that’s it. She’s not expecting this. We’ll rush her and get the hell out as fast as we can.”
---
There was an awkward silence and then Farley finally spoke.
“She said she was Jacquie’s friend from high school.”
Vicar looked at him in disbelief. “And you bought that?”
Farley scrunched up his nose in discomfort. “Yeah. Sorry. I think I was high.”
When aren’t you? Vicar wondered angrily, but he knew it was Farley’s go-to response, his get-out-of-jail-free card. He was far too old for this to be cute. Smoking up had been a carefree lark back in high school … then Farley had seemed to lose track of all the intervening years. For all his charm, the dude could be a bit slow on the uptake.
They stood in the kitchen of Vicar’s wrecked home, the furniture still broken, the place still a mess, Serena’s violent handiwork still starkly evident. Vicar looked at his feet and tried not to pity Farley. It was cruel and not the right response, anyway. Farley was decidedly sweet and gentle and childlike … but thick as a brick after smoking weed. Instead, Vicar tried to explain the situation to his foggy-minded friend as if he were teaching a child.
“Farley, ummm, you know that was the woman who broke into the house, right?” He gestured to the destruction all around them, elegantly sweeping his arms like a dystopian Carol Merrill.
Farley had been hanging his head in shame, but now he looked upward. “Oh man … I wasn’t sure.” In fact, he did remember that all he’d wanted was to prolong his time near those fantastic breasts.
---
Serena’s gang — all wearing underpants over their clothes — poured through Jacquie’s door and fell upon her like a pack of dogs. She began shrieking bloody murder and kicking her legs wildly, connecting her heel with the solar plexus of one of them. He fell back on the sideboard, blasting everything onto the floor. But before Jacquie knew it, she was completely bound, unable to move, and her mouth was covered with acrid-tasting tape. They hefted her unceremoniously and dumped her into the idling van, which hastily departed the moment its door slid shut. The entire abduction took less than sixty seconds.
Jacquie’s violent protests were dealt with severely by Serena, who kicked and punched her when she tried to sit up. Jacquie quickly realized that staying still and mute was the smarter move. She was frightened, but her thoughts were still sharp. She determined to figure out exactly where they were going. She knew that if they headed into the bush, she was in great peril.
As they reached the four-way stop at the corner and made a fast right, a man looked out his kitchen window and saw an old microbus swaying wildly as it raced away. He squeezed a teabag against his spoon and mumbled quietly, “What’s your hurry, buddy?”
---
“Farley. We need to deal with this right now.” Vicar’s intuition told him that danger was afoot, and his heart was racing.
Meanwhile, Farley was sick at heart. The full picture was beginning to sink in. He felt a shot of adrenaline course through his body. He was frightened now, freaking out, and feeling an unfamiliar creep of anger.
Vicar may as well have been spitting out bullet points from a wanted poster. “You realize that this woman is highly dangerous. She’s a stalker that levelled up —”
Farley liked to believe that like Bob Marley, he was a man of peace. But to be used as a tool to hurt Jacquie … That is bush, mon. Not cool at all. He felt quite ill. The rising nausea was nearly unbearable. His vision darkened. He slung his heavy backpack — weighted down with various marijuana paraphernalia, including a two-foot-long glass bong — over his shoulder and fell into deep thought. In a manner of speaking, the guitar cable plug slid into the socket, and he felt it click. In a flash, Farley Rea went from affable mascot to good man betrayed.
---
The road seemed to go on forever. By now Jacquie had realized that in her current state of anxiety, she would not be able to estimate how long it was. From watching the tops of the trees
, she knew that she was headed inland, not toward the ocean. At one point they’d passed the industrial park; from her position on the floor she’d seen the top of the huge crane that was always parked there.
The brakes screeched, and someone swore loudly as another car’s horn blew long, hard, and outraged. The microbus swerved heavily to the left and then went onto a gravel road. Jacquie’s heart sank, but at least she knew where she wasn’t.
“That asshole almost hit us!” Serena screamed.
I cut him off, thought Jeet, too intimidated to correct her out loud.
Then, suddenly, Jacquie figured out their destination. The Diefenbunker. All the kids called it that, though most knew it was an old mine structure. She was deeply anxious now. She thought about her mom. She wondered how many years it would take them to find her body way out here.
---
In the hospital waiting room, the man felt around inside his tweed jacket pocket for the pen he knew he had put in there not an hour ago to ensure that Mrs. Hall could affix her signature. He had inherited Frankie Hall’s file from his father, who had been her lawyer since before he was born.
Once she’d finished, he scanned the document one last time. “All right, Mrs. Hall. I think that’s got it.”
Frankie coughed painfully. “It’s nice to finally have this out of the way.”
---
Vicar got on the phone with Poutine immediately. Speaking as fast as an auctioneer, he tried to explain.
Poutine didn’t completely understand, but he could hear the urgency in Vicar’s voice. He caught Farley’s name, and he knew it had to do with Jacquie. Jacquie was a filly worth protectin’. It was only thirty minutes to closing time, anyway, so he shut up shop early and revved his powerful Chevelle up the hill toward her house, which was only a few minutes away.
The Liquor Vicar Page 12