Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle

by Michael Januska

  She felt terrible. She knew that her father was always torn between having her close to him and wanting her to be free to live out her dreams. As soon as she was able to scrape together the money to pay the balance on her share of the rent in the Village apartment she was sharing with two other girls, she bought a train ticket home. Her employer told her quite plainly that he couldn’t guarantee her position would be waiting for her when she got back.

  But this didn’t quite feel like home anymore. Had the city changed, or had she? They’d never really gotten along, her and Windsor, and were barely on speaking terms when she left. Was New York really her home, her real future? The position at the bookstore might not be there when she got back, but the Village and the rest of New York certainly would be.

  Time will tell. But then it might be too late.

  “Too late for what?”

  She was mumbling in her half-sleep. Still tired, now drowsy from the warmth of the streetcar, she tried to rouse herself. The doors flipped open and the blast of cold air was refreshing. Church Street. Several passengers waddled off, some off to pay their spiritual bills at St. Andrews’s, some to place want ads at the Star, and some just to beat the crush at the Avenue.

  Vera Maude had written Copeland’s bookstore a couple weeks ago, explaining her situation and her desire for a position. She’d outlined her experience at a Greenwich Village bookshop but neglected to mention her tenure at the Carnegie Library here in Windsor, an experience she was certain the chief librarian was just as anxious to forget as Vera Maude was.

  Pelissier Street. The Capitol Theatre. What was playing? The Griffith picture, One Exciting Night. She thought she had read something about it. She had great memories of watching shorts and newsreels, or catching the occasional vaudeville there. She had been a regular at most of the cinemas in town and kept a weekly schedule from the Star in her purse at all times.

  The Avenue. Everyone spilled out onto the street as quickly as people bundled in layers of wool could over ice and snow.

  Vera Maude walked behind the streetcar and crossed London. It was freezing cold, but she was enjoying the fresh air. Too often for her, that close, warm air, combined with the motion of the streetcar, was a recipe for nausea. And vomiting at a job interview always left a bad impression, or so she had heard. The sidewalk around the Imperial Bank was cleared, and one of the Andros brothers was out in his shirtsleeves trying to clear the space in front of their confectionery. Icing on the sidewalk. Downtown hadn’t changed all that much. There was still plenty of hustle and bustle. She continued north toward Chatham Street and the Victoria Building.

  She was early for her interview, so she thought she should take time to acquaint herself with Copeland’s selection. She surveyed the front window first. There was a display of what appeared to be recently published books and what she assumed were bestsellers, a few of which she was familiar with.

  People read differently on different sides of the border.

  Chesterton’s The Man Who Knew Too Much; Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga, collected; Aldous Huxley’s Mortal Coils; Walpole’s The Cathedral; Wells’s A Short History of the World; Rebecca West’s The Judge; Woolf’s Jacob’s Room; Yeats’s The Trembling of the Veil, as well as The Player Queen; and old favourites to get one through the long, dark winter — mostly Dickens. Sprinkled among the books were paper hearts and St. Valentine’s Day cards.

  A curious display.

  Vera Maude stomped the snow and slush off her boots and stepped inside. Almost everyone in the store turned around to look at her. She smiled, unbuttoned her coat, and then wiped the fog from her cheaters with her muffler. She removed her tam and stuffed it in her bag. The shop was just how she remembered it: tables near the door held stacks of recently published or newly-acquired second-hand books; rows of chest-high bookcases in the centre containing popular fiction titles; a perimeter of books in non-fiction categories that went almost from floor to ceiling; and tables at the back set up for special orders, appraisals, gift-wrapping, and mail order. Speaking of Dickens, the shop still had all the energy and chaos of a Phiz illustration. She took the opportunity to duck behind one of the freestanding bookcases to give her hair a quick tease. She was never a hat person.

  Coming back around, she spied Mr. Copeland, bespectacled and stroking his short, pointed white beard, perusing the contents of a large box of books belonging to a man who appeared convinced he had just raided King Tut’s tomb.

  “I’ll give you three dollars for the lot,” Vera Maude overheard Copeland say. “And that’s being generous.”

  “But —”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s all they’re worth. And as you can see, I’m overstocked at the moment.”

  The man took it. He looked like he might be in a bad way. What could he have thought they were worth? wondered Vera Maude.

  “May I help you, miss?”

  “Oh — yes, my name’s Maguire, Vera Maude Maguire … I sent you a letter about a position … you wrote me back.” She presented the letter.

  Copeland took the letter, examined it, his hand resting on his chest, nodded. “Ah, yes. Please step this way, Miss Maguire.”

  He led her between the tables to his desk in one of the inner recesses of the store, a desk covered with yet more books and even more paper. He condensed a few of the piles and cleared a space.

  “If I remember correctly, your letter said you had some experience.”

  “Yes, I worked several months at Mr. Shay’s shop in Greenwich Village.”

  “I’m not familiar with this Mr. Shay.”

  “Oh, he is a very popular bookseller. He —”

  “What are you reading right now, Miss Maguire?”

  “Right now?”

  She couldn’t possibly tell him she was reading Black Mask magazine. It was the December issue, the one containing, “The Road Home,” the story by Peter Collinson. What was the right answer? Her eyes fell on a title shelved behind Copeland.

  “On a Chinese Screen.”

  Copeland’s face lit up. “Ah,” he said, “the Maugham stories. How are you enjoying them?”

  “I think they’re delightful.”

  The old man started stroking his beard again, appraising Vera Maude. He resumed with the tough questions.

  “Ours is a little shop. You’ve been to the big city, as they say. Why wouldn’t you rather seek a position in Detroit? I mean, you might find things here a little dull, after all.”

  Vera Maude was feeling that Copeland had already made his decision before she set foot through the door. She went for broke, feeling badly about dragging her family into this.

  “Truth is, Mr. Copeland, my father passed away recently, and I’ve come home to be close to my siblings and my uncle, assist them with certain matters, you know.”

  “Oh, I see.” Copeland cleared his throat and shuffled some of his stray papers. He looked at his shoes and scratched his ear. “And what were you looking for in terms of hours? I’m afraid I don’t have all that much to offer right now.”

  “I’ll take anything you have available, Mr. Copeland.”

  “You say it would only be temporary. Do you know how long you plan on remaining in Windsor?”

  A fair enough question. “I’m really not sure. At least until the summer.”

  Copeland was thinking he really couldn’t afford Vera Maude and she seemed like she might be overqualified. And then there was her garb and mannerisms. He had concerns about that as well, and everything that went along with it: a certain attitude, and the politics.

  Vera Maude pressed on. “I’m not looking for entertainment, Mr. Copeland. I’m looking for work, as a bookseller, and —”

  “You’ll be selling cards and stationery too,” he said.

  “I’m perfectly all right with that,” she said without hesitation.

  She was determined to wear Copeland down. He was actually coming around to the idea of her experience in New York being an asset.

  “I can start you this
afternoon. Gladys is down with a terrible cold. It’s this weather, you know. Winter can have its busy periods. People stuck indoors without much to do.” He was thinking out loud now.

  Vera Maude nodded. There was a brief pause. Both held their breath.

  “All right, I’ll give you Saturdays and three days a week,” he said.

  “That’s great.” She grabbed the old man’s hand this time and almost pulled his arm out of its socket. “Thanks, Mr. Copeland.”

  Once Copeland got his hand back he made some brief comments about the position. Soon Vera Maude was bundling herself back up again and making her way through the labyrinth of tables — meant to encourage browsing — and heading toward the door. Along the way she noticed the “Book Reviews” page from the Border Cities Star pinned to a board on one of the store’s pillars. She had some homework to do.

  She walked back up to London Street and crossed the Avenue to the other corner, where she caught the westbound streetcar and rode it all the way to McEwan. It wasn’t nearly as crowded this time. It was almost an enjoyable ride. She was certainly in better spirits.

  When she arrived back at her uncle’s place, she found him sawing away, the newspaper tented over his face. She gently closed the door.

  “What’s the news, Uncle Fred?”

  He sat up and the newspaper slid onto the floor. “Well, hello there. I didn’t expect you back so soon. So, how did it go?”

  Vera Maude smiled her crooked, dimpled smile. “I got myself a position at Copeland’s — part-time.”

  “Good for you, girl!”

  “It took some fast talking.”

  “You’re the fastest talker I know. When do you start?”

  “This afternoon, after lunch, just for a bit of training before my real shifts start. Is that all right with you?”

  “’Course it is,” he said with a nod.

  “You’ll be okay?”

  “Mrs. Cattanach will be in shortly to take care of the laundry and make my supper. She’s a good woman, you know.”

  “That’s the third time you’ve said that. I’m betting she’s not hard on the eyes either.”

  Her uncle winked at her. Vera Maude went into the kitchen to fix her and her uncle some tea. When she returned with the clinking tray, Fred started reading aloud a piece from the Star.

  “‘Tomb Yields $15,000,000 in Stones, Gold — Treasure of Pharaoh Tutankhamun Proves Real Marvel.’ Ain’t that something?”

  “I guess so. I don’t know; sometimes I think maybe they shouldn’t be poking around the burial sites like that.”

  “Why not? It’s history. And these are beautiful objects.”

  “It’s not just going to end up in some guy’s house?”

  “I don’t believe so. Well, I certainly hope not. Sounds like an adventure, though, doesn’t it?”

  “That it does,” said Vera Maude. “Any other news?”

  “Oh — that runaway train of yours made the front page,” he said, pointing at the headline.

  “I told you I wasn’t kidding,” said Vera Maude. “Did they say what it was all about? Was it a malfunction?”

  “Bootleggers.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Vera Maude, looking over her uncle’s shoulder now.

  “You said the train made a stop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was it” — Fred was reading aloud again — “‘somewhere this side of Maidstone’?” He looked up from his paper. “And you say you didn’t see anything?”

  “No. But it felt like we did hit something, and I thought I saw some debris fly past my window, as if we struck an automobile or something. Like I told you, the snow was blowing all around us pretty hard. Does it say anything else?”

  “No other details as of yet. Some kind of investigation is apparently underway. But no one’s saying anything right now. If you did hit a vehicle stuck on the tracks, it probably was just some kind of malfunction.”

  Fred folded the paper and set it on the coffee table, and Vera Maude picked it up. Her eyes immediately fell on an article about a mysterious death on Maiden Lane.

  “And what about this?”

  “Now that’s crazy. Some foreigner threw himself out a third-storey window.”

  “Crazy? That’s terrible.” Vera Maude had forgotten what a colourful place the Border Cities could be. Her mind went back to the bootlegger she had met the day she left town. McCloskey was his name, Jack McCloskey. She wondered what he was up to right now.

  — Chapter 9 —

  IN THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY

  After a good night’s sleep, coffee, and a Danish at White City Lunch, Campbell was ready to return to Maiden Lane, but this time without Laforet, any constabulary, or either of the Yarmoloviches. He telephoned Madame Zahra from the diner to let her know that he was on his way, to make sure she that was up and around. He had got the impression that she did most of her business in the off-hours.

  Campbell folded one lapel under the other, pulled his collar up around his neck, and stepped out onto Pitt Street. With few exceptions, he always preferred walking to taking his car. To him, the automobile was beginning to seem like some elaborate scheme, something he was being forced to grow to love, told he could not do without. He would have to keep his opinions to himself, though, in case Messrs. Ford or Dodge happened to overhear him.

  Wanting to absorb any bit of sun that might actually manage to poke through the clouds, he crossed the Avenue and started up the west side. Campbell put his galoshes to work. They were one size too big. Smith’s had been out of his size and he couldn’t be bothered to shop around, so in really deep snow he had to clench his toes to avoid stepping out of them. He had done that once, in a particularly slushy period in early winter, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He really detested winter. As far as he was concerned, anyone who professed to loving winter was either out of their mind or was an athlete of some sort, pretending to be training for Chamonix.

  Campbell noticed how the latest blast of snow was clinging to the rough-hewn masonry on the north side of the post office like icing. The east side was spared. Approaching Chatham Street, he had to navigate around the piles of snow spilling down and passing through the bars of the cast-iron fence that edged the little park behind the customs house. He stepped around the miniature avalanches and examined the scene. It appeared the park was being used as a local snow dump.

  I guess they have to put it somewhere.

  The cannon that was the centrepiece of the park, a relic of the Crimean War, was almost buried.

  Or is it sinking?

  Snow creates that illusion sometimes. Campbell looked down and noticed small footprints running up one of the larger slopes and how they went all the way over the fence and led straight to the cannon. Here was an opportunity to sit astride it. No doubt there was a snowball fight, an imaginary re-enactment of some glorious battle. Campbell remembered a friend, they couldn’t have been more than twelve at the time, who had developed a technique for making the perfect snowballs. When the perfect snow fell, he would make several and line them up along a cleared section of his porch rail. He would then go in the house and come back with a pot of cold water and a slotted serving spoon from the kitchen. This friend — Campbell watched him do this — would dip each snowball into the water, raise it, and then dip it again, raise it, and then dip it again, and finally set it back onto the porch rail. He would repeat this exercise for the rest of his munitions. In freezing-cold temperatures, the water would glaze the snowball, making it a near-deadly weapon. He once, with a throw worthy of Herman Pillette, knocked the hat, glasses, and nearly an eye from the head of boy who just happened to be in range. Campbell had turned to his friend in horror and saw him smiling with glee.

  War is hell.

  Campbell’s feet were getting cold from standing around, so he got moving again and hustled across Chatham Street. The snow that was patted down alongside the Victoria Building was brittle and crunched under his feet, making it sound as i
f he were walking over a carpet of saltines. He was tempted to stop at the windows at Copeland’s bookstore but kept up his pace as safely as he could in an effort to warm his feet. It was working. He was still waiting for that little bit of sun to come poking through the heavy cloud cover. He knew it was getting higher in the sky, though one could hardly tell.

  He slowed up now, the cold air feeling sharp in his lungs. Walking past Woolworth's, Campbell could hear metal scraping on cement. He smiled. Someone had finally struck pavement. Indeed, there was an unfortunate soul out with a coal shovel tending to the sidewalk that wrapped around the Imperial Bank.

  Avoiding any potential liabilities.

  Crossing London Street, Campbell was reminded of his walk last night. No, he thought, not what I had been expecting, not at all. He almost laughed at himself.

  None of that comes expected.

  When he had finally arrived back at his apartment last night, he kicked off his galoshes and staggered to the bathroom, where he peeled off his outerwear — he could have stood up his overcoat on the floor since it was by then frozen solid — and hung everything from the shower curtain rod to thaw and dry (it never dried). He then sat in the chair that faced the window, which faced the river, put his feet up on the radiator and lit a cigar, thereby warming both ends of his body and hoping the warmth might travel like a fuse to his core. As a Windsor police detective, he had already seen a lot, but he was recalling now how sitting there last night he had one of those Did that really just happen? moments.

  Maybe my mind was numb too.

  Campbell kept walking. No, there was no place else to put the snow. It was already piled in the gutters, the margins of the Avenue, the street corners, and anywhere else that did not translate into some major inconvenience. Minor inconveniences were allowed. He heard a motor struggling up ahead, near the Labelle Building. And not just a motor struggling, but wheels spinning as well. A horrible sound. He approached and found what appeared to be a Gray-Dort that the driver had attempted to park in the snow pushed onto the street. Unusual for this model, thought Campbell. He held up his hands as he walked around to the driver’s side. The driver saw him and shouted over the engine, “I’m stuck.”