Northern Exposure

by Michael Kilian

  “I’m sorry.”

  “God.” She sat up.

  “I’m sorry, Alixe. Perhaps you should go back to Washington.”

  “‘Perhaps.’ Do you ever say ‘maybe’?”

  “I shouldn’t have dragged you into this. I’m sorry.”

  Alixe turned sideways and looked down at him, her eyes almost furious. “Look, if you want to behave like a John Cheever character, fine, but you didn’t drag me into this. I slept with you because I’d been wanting to do it for years. I came with you because I wanted to do it. I’m staying with you because I want to and because Felicity Stuart fascinates me. I want to find out what happened to her. If she’s in a terrible jam of some kind, I want to help her. I’m along for the ride until the end of the ride. I’m committed to this crazy thing as much as you are. But it’s my very own decision! There is nothing you must apologize for.”

  She stood up. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Where are we meeting Stan Joyce?” she said.

  “In the bar downstairs. I made dinner reservations at Le Pavilion.”

  “No. I don’t want to eat there.”

  “Very well. I know another place. La Cachette. It’s quiet. Six-course dinners. Prix fixe.”

  “No! I want to go to a place called ‘Joe’s,’ or ‘Sam’s,’ or ‘Good Eats.’ Let’s just go and stop somewhere. A McDonald’s. Anyplace! Just no reservations. No maitre d’.”

  “All right. Whatever you wish.”

  “Oh, shut up!”

  They didn’t speak another word to each other until they were in the elevator. She kissed him once on the way down, deliberately choosing a moment just as the doors were opening to take more passengers aboard. She seemed bent on doing anything and everything to discomfit him, to make him lose control. She was much closer to accomplishing that than she might have realized.

  Joyce was at a table off to the side of the elegant bar, from the looks of it, on his second or third beer. Molson. Joyce liked Canada.

  “Any better luck?” Showers asked, as he pulled a chair out for Alixe.

  “No,” said Joyce. “I got stiffed the same way you did. I laid some bread on him but got no never mind. What an ugly old dude. I predict that man will perish from an exploding water heater within the year. In the obituary, they’ll note he served in the RCAF as a latrine orderly in World War Two.”

  “He’s just a janitor,” Showers said. “There ought to be some way to get to him.”

  “My man, I truly tried everything.”

  “We’ll think upon it over dinner. We’re eating at McDonald’s tonight, Mr. Joyce. In the meantime, may I get you something better to drink?”

  “Just another Molson.”

  “Another Molson then,” Showers said to the cocktail waitress. “A Scotch and water for the young lady. And a Scotch and no water for me. A triple.”

  Alixe decided she would wait until he ordered a second drink before losing her temper, but she wasn’t given the chance. Shortly after their drinks were brought to them, a man left his place at the bar and joined them, standing, but setting his glass on their table.

  “Americans, eh? Welcome to Canada.”

  Joyce eyed the man warily; Showers, with irritation; Alixe, with curiosity and a tentative smile. He looked a man long used to the outdoors, with rough, ruddy skin and large shoulders. His clothes weren’t ill fitting, but ill suited. A suit and tie didn’t belong on him, notwithstanding that it was a double-knit ensemble doubtless purchased from some rural West Canada small-town store. He would have looked more natural in lumberman’s or rancher’s clothes. Showers declined to invite him to sit down.

  “You are Americans, right? Up from Seattle?”

  “Americans,” said Showers, with a chilly smile. “From Cincinnati.”

  “Cincinnati. The great state of Ohio, eh? Well, welcome.”

  “Do you welcome all the thousands of Americans who come to Vancouver?” said Alixe. “Or just those who come into this bar?”

  “I’m just a friendly guy, eh? How long are you folks going to be with us? There’s a lot to see in Vancouver: Gastown, Chinatown, Stanley Park, Robsonstrasse. If you have time, you ought to take the Royal Hudson steam train up to Squamish. Will you have time?”

  He pulled at the table’s empty chair to sit down, but Showers had hooked his foot around it.

  The cocktail waitress arrived with their drinks. As she set them down, she glanced at the Canadian.

  “Can I get you something?” she asked.

  “A Plainsman rye on the rocks, eh?” he said. “And let me buy you folks another round.”

  Showers drained his triple scotch in two quick gulps.

  “Very kind of you, sir,” he said, “but we have to hurry on. Dinner reservations, you know. Can’t be late.” He stood up. “Have a nice trip back to the Yukon, or wherever you come from. If you’re ever in Cincinnati, do look us up.”

  The Canadian said nothing more; just watched them leave.

  “I’ll drive,” Showers said, when they reached the car Joyce had rented.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To McDonald’s. Really. I recommend the Big Mac.”

  They drove as they ate, back to the sleazy Davie Street section in the West End. Showers went past the building, pulling up to the curb further down the block. He killed the lights. A young woman in a very short skirt and an older man came up the walk in the rain. Showers sat eating his French fries until they had passed.

  “Do you see a light on?” he asked.

  Joyce nodded.

  “Upper two floors and the basement,” he said.

  “We’ll have to be quiet. Alixe, this time you go to the door.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Right behind you.”

  Joyce took out his pistol. Alixe had brought it into Canada for him in her suitcase, hiding it in a box of sanitary napkins they had bought for that purpose.

  “Don’t use that,” Showers said. “We don’t need that.”

  “Yet,” said Joyce.

  The same man came to the door, the janitor, a churlish geezer with a surprisingly neat haircut and clean but baggy work clothes. He was no less rude to Alixe than he had been to Joyce and Showers, but her good looks had their effect, and the door wasn’t slammed in her face. He paid a price. Joyce stepped from the side and kicked the door violently, sending the old man reeling and the door slamming into the hallway wall. Showers seized the man by the arms and shoved him up against the wall, as Alixe closed the door behind them.

  “We want to look at Porique’s apartment,” Showers said.

  “You can’t. Someone else is living there. I rented it two days ago.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. East somewhere. He left in a hurry.”

  “Was there a woman with him?”

  “There was a woman here. I don’t know if she went with him.”

  “He gave you no forwarding address?”

  “No.”

  “He left nothing behind?”

  “No.”

  The man’s frightened eyes betrayed him.

  “Mr. Joyce, maybe I would like to see that pistol now.”

  Joyce put it to the old man’s head.

  “Did he leave anything behind?”

  “Yes. Some books and papers. I … I sold the books.”

  “And the rest of it?”

  “It’s in a cardboard box. I put it out with the trash. Just a little while ago.”

  They sat in the old man’s basement apartment, Showers and Alixe sifting through the papers while Joyce kept the man’s attention with the gun. They had allowed him a can of beer and his cigarettes. He drank and smoked nervously, his eyes moving from one to the other of them, and back again.

  Porique’s papers amounted mostly to political tracts, and a wad of newspaper clippings concerning the progress of Prime Minister York’s constitutional amendment initiative. There was a photograph of Felicity, wrinkled and bent as though from having bee
n carried too long in a wallet or pocket, and a small notebook. The entries were all in French. The last one, written with a black ballpoint pen and underlined, was an address in Montreal. Beneath it was written “sanctuaire.”

  “Voilà,” said Showers.

  They drove hurriedly away, heading south toward the Fraser River and Marine Drive. Showers turned off the windshield wipers when he realized the rain had stopped.

  “What now?” asked Joyce.

  “We go to Montreal.”

  “Just because of the address in the notebook.”

  “Once again, it’s all we have.”

  “It seems obvious enough to me,” Alixe said. She was sitting up front between the two of them. Showers glanced at her in the light from the headlamps of an approaching car. There was excitement in her eyes. “‘Sanctuaire,’” she said. “Sanctuary.”

  “Porique writes to himself,” Showers said. “He always has.”

  “Why did he leave the notebook behind?” Joyce asked. “It’s got all sorts of dangerous shit in there.”

  “I don’t know. Such things happen. I don’t know why most of the things that have happened have happened. But I want to take advantage of this one.”

  “Do you think she’s with him?” said Alixe.

  “It’s a good guess. I can only hope it’s true.”

  “Hope with all your heart.”

  “I hope. Mr. Joyce, I’d like you to leave for Montreal tonight. We’ll take your room at O’Doul’s. You fetch our belongings from the Four Seasons and drop them off at O’Doul’s on the way to the airport.”

  “Fetch, my man?”

  “Don’t be so damn supersensitive. I don’t think it’s wise for us to go near that hotel again tonight. I want you in Montreal as soon as possible. Check out that address. Reconnoiter. Do whatever it is you private detectives do.”

  “Point man.”

  “Leave a message for us at the Montreal Airport,” Showers said.

  “Under the name Potter,” Alixe said. “It’s my mother’s maiden name.”

  “What message?” Joyce asked.

  “If it’s safe, say you’re Mr. Stansfield and you’ll be late. If you think there’s a serious problem, say you’re Mr. Stansfield and you can’t make it.”

  “What will you do then?”

  Showers turned the car onto Marine Drive and headed west, toward the sound. “I don’t know,” he said. “If it’s safe, we’ll go to a hotel.” He paused. “The Ritz-Carlton.”

  He failed to see Alixe’s frown.

  “Hey, man. Why are you going this way? O’Doul’s is way back the other way.”

  “I want to make sure we haven’t picked up any friends.”

  “Don’t you think you’re overdoing this a little? We’re in Canada.”

  “Mr. Joyce, at this point, I’m just going on my instincts.”

  They proved correct. As they reached the parkland adjacent to the University of British Columbia campus, a dark panel truck pulled close, then gained speed and began to pass, moving slowly alongside. There were the headlights of a car or two far behind them; no traffic immediately ahead.

  The man in the passenger seat of the panel truck rolled down his window. There was a metallic glinting on the dark object he held up in his hand.

  “Shotgun!” yelled Joyce.

  Showers slammed on the brakes; the truck hurtled on ahead. He dared not slide the car around into the flow of traffic. There was no means of access to the southbound lanes opposite. There was no escape.

  The panel truck slowed as well. Showers pulled their car in behind it. There were rear doors. In a moment, they could come flying open and a shotgun blast would follow, shattering their windshield, killing one of them, perhaps killing all of them. In his mind, Showers saw Alixe’s face a red maw like the poor woman’s in the California morgue. He clenched the steering wheel with perspiring hands. He was utterly, helplessly afraid, for he had no alternatives. He could not stop or turn their car. To try to pass the van would only get them killed all the quicker. He could only ride behind it these few eternal seconds, hoping that the traffic to the rear would catch up, hoping for some opportunity of escape, hoping the van’s rear doors would not open.

  Escape. It was pointless to think of escape. He had no idea what he was fleeing from, or whom. Or why.

  The handle of the van door was turning.

  “Joyce! Your pistol!”

  “Got it man!”

  As the door swung open, Showers swerved the car into the left-hand lane. An instant after came the boom and flash of fire and smoke, but the shot missed. Joyce fired once and a hole appeared in the swinging door. The van now swerved to the left, sliding directly in front of them, but Showers spun the wheel the other way, to the right, and Joyce fired again as the van and the crouching figure in the rear passed in front of them. He missed the man but threw off his aim. The next shotgun blast went high, raking the roof of their car. Showers accelerated, pulling alongside the van but keeping back slightly from the open window. The man would have to crawl back to his seat. A few more seconds of safety. Of life. Alixe was gripping his shoulder, staring ahead.

  Headlights grew in the rearview mirror. A car was approaching, very fast. The van began to speed up, and so did Showers. The other car came still faster, nearing them, reaching them, then gliding up to the rear of the van, almost touching the bumper, the three vehicles in locked formation, roaring out of the curve at English Bay at more than sixty miles an hour.

  In his side mirror, Showers saw an arm and something thrown. It went through the van’s swinging open door and he heard it land inside with a heavy metallic thunk.

  A white phosphorus grenade with a three-second fuse is not a popular weapon with its victims. The bits of burning phosphorus stick to hair, skin, and clothing. In an open space, it is nearly impossible to evade its flaming stinging furies. In an enclosed space, it shows no mercy whatsoever.

  Instinct drove Showers to stand on the accelerator the instant he heard the grenade explode. They barreled by the van on the right, just as its front wheels began to wobble uncontrollably, passing by in time to see its occupants engulfed in flame and smoke and their own screams. As they drove on, the van turned and crashed behind them, and kept burning. They watched it as it receded into a tiny pinprick of light and then vanished in the black distance. The other car did not follow them.

  Thatcher sat in the Florida room of the Virginia safe house with Madeleine, drinking beer and wishing he was home with his wife. There was an Orioles game on television that night, and Thatcher could think of nothing better with which to rest his tired mind. It was nearly 9:00 P.M., and Mendelsohn had not yet arrived.

  “What do I do, Maddy?” he said. “I’m an intelligence officer, not a bureaucrat. This calls for a goddamn bureaucrat.”

  Gary Lesser had indeed been at the restaurant. He had talked freely, if discreetly, and readily answered their question. Yes, he had made a contact with Bolshinin, in response to a verified telephone request from the White House, from a high-ranking staff person on the National Security Council.

  “Don’t you have friends at the NSC?” she asked, uncrossing her legs as she reached for her drink. Thatcher chased away several dozen tempting thoughts. If they were in some far-off embassy station, he might have found the courage to try to make a play, if she’d let him. But he was not fool enough to attempt such a dangerous game around Langley. He could only wonder about Hugh Laidlaw. Hugh Laidlaw had had a six-year affair with Karin Nielsen who, until her murder, had been the best-looking agent in the agency. In his quiet, bookish, Brooks Brothers way, Hugh Laidlaw played every dangerous game there was.

  “I have friends there. But no one I can trust.”

  “And in the White House?”

  “No one. Not any more.”

  “Then you’ll have to go to the deputy, Mr. Thatcher.”

  “I know, and that means involving the director, the National Security Advisor, the whole garbonza. Probably the pres
ident, too.”

  “Not necessarily. Doesn’t the deputy have friends in the White House?”

  “Well, yes. He and the vice-president were at Dartmouth together. On the wrestling team.”

  “Well, then, Mr. Thatcher. There you are.”

  “Yeah. There I am.”

  The front door opened and closed. The dark figure of Mendelsohn flitted through the front hall and vanished. When he returned, he had a glass of sherry in his hand.

  “What happened to the dreadful Muzak?” he asked, folding his long, thin body into a sitting position at the other end of the couch from Madeleine.

  “It was giving me a headache, along with everything else,” Thatcher said.

  “At long last.”

  “You’re late.”

  “‘Ah, nothing is too late, till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.’ I stopped at the office, William, and there I discovered a problem. The ever-vigilant Federal Bureau of Investigation has entered the Lila Merridew murder case.”

  “Shit.”

  “And one of their moles in the agency has informed them of the Bolshinin-Trench-Showers connection to the Lila Merridew murder.”

  “The goddamn Feebies can’t keep their big flat feet out of anything.”

  “Ah, but I have produced an answer to the problem: Jesus Manuel Chavez.”

  “Who in hell is Jesus Manuel Chavez?”

  “It’s not clear who he was before he met an untimely demise at the hands of persons unknown in a Miami alley last night, but some Cuban friends of mine—colleagues of an unofficial sort, don’t you know—conveniently procured the gentleman’s mortal remains.” Mendelsohn paused for a sip of his sherry. “And he has become Jesus Manuel Chavez. Said remains were removed to Key West, where they were discovered late this afternoon, along with some interesting evidence linking Señor Chavez with both the unfortunate Mr. Bolshinin and one of the drug-smuggling enterprises down there known to be subsidiaries of Fidel Castro, Incorporated.”

  “Have the Feebies bitten?”

  “With great appetite. There is now a Chavez-Bolshinin-Trench-Showers connection, leading backwards, and the Feebies, as you call them, are pursuing it like hounds in heat. They find drug rings and Castro agents much more appealing than the State Department, and who can blame them?”