Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle

by Michael Januska

  She gripped the handrail up the steps and entered the handsome new building. Constables were coming and going, one of them wrestling with someone in handcuffs. Time to sober up. In the morning he’d wake up trying to remember how he got there.

  What am I going to say? she asked herself. What? She was standing in the lobby right now, looking around for a flicker of inspiration.

  “Is there something I can help you with?”

  It was the duty sergeant.

  “I’d like to speak with Detective Campbell.”

  “He’s not at his desk at the moment. Is this an urgent matter?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Is there something I can help you with then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m looking for someone.”

  “Someone’s lost? Is this a missing person?”

  “Um, not exactly,” said Vera Maude.

  “All right, who is it you’re looking for?”

  She paused, looked around the lobby, heard the switchboard going off, telephones ringing in the distance. She turned back to the duty sergeant.

  “I’m looking for Jack McCloskey.”

  He leaned across the desk, thinking he may have heard incorrectly, and asked, “Who?”

  “Jack — Jack McCloskey.”

  “Do you know Jack McCloskey?” The sergeant was squinting at her now, giving her a bit of a once-over.

  I’m in it now, she thought.

  “Well, not personally,” she said. “He cost me a few bucks on last Friday’s ice race down at the Devonshire track. He was getting pulled by Moscow Donna, or maybe it’s vice versa … anyway I been looking for this sulky bumper McCloskey because I think it was fixed and he owes so I want to know where he is so I can get my money back.”

  The desk sergeant took a whiff. “You been drinking?”

  “Only hot choc-a-lit.”

  “You know what, miss? I believe you.”

  “So you can’t help me?”

  He shook his head. “Nope, talk to the racing commissioner.”

  “I will do that.”

  Vera Maude did an about-face and marched back out of police headquarters, trying to maintain the appearance of a dainty lunatic. She walked back over to the Avenue and caught the first northbound streetcar to come along.

  What next?

  That’s what she kept asking herself all the way to the transfer at London Street. She stayed on.

  The British-American.

  She disembarked in front of the bank at the corner of the Drive. When she stepped onto the sidewalk, she paused and took a long look at the old hotel. She had never set foot inside it in all her years in Windsor. Parts of her hometown were still undiscovered to her. There were very few people in the street. She crossed the Drive. The wind was whipping this way and that through the intersection. As she approached the entrance, the building enlarged and Detroit’s illuminated skyline dropped behind it.

  Her first thought was, This place has clearly seen better days. But its history echoed still, even through the lobby. It wasn’t grand; there was no marble, and no chandeliers. There was a simple hardwood desk, a well-trod and occasionally stained carpet floor, and staff that looked like they were around to lay the cornerstone. The desk was to the left, running parallel to Ferry Hill, and the swinging doors into the bar had been straight ahead. She passed through them and found a table at one of the big windows that overlooked the Drive.

  She removed her hat and set it on the chair across from her. She wasn’t sure how to order, and just when she was prepared to approach the bar, a woman appeared.

  “Good evening. What can I get you?”

  “Just a tea, please.”

  The woman looked over her shoulder at some men at a nearby table who had some interest in these goings-on. They turned away.

  “Right,” the woman said.

  She wasn’t but a minute with the basic tea things.

  “I’m sorry, I should have asked you how you took it.”

  Vera Maude looked around. More eyes.

  “Milk is fine,” she said.

  “Very good. And I’ll leave a bit more hot water for you here as well.”

  “Thank you.”

  Two cups would be nice, but all the same, Vera Maude thought it best to hold with the one cup. She didn’t feel the desire to venture deeper into the British-American in order to find the lavatory. For one thing, she felt it might require a password.

  It wasn’t her imagination; everyone was looking at her sideways.

  What’s she doing here?

  She stirred the milk into her tea and then set the spoon on the saucer and watched the brew become still again. She looked around. People were starting to clear out, leaving only a few bleary-eyed patrons and herself. There was a gentleman reading the Detroit News with his eyes closed, another with his face down on the little table he so elegantly inhabited. And then it got quiet as stars. The bartender disappeared into the kitchen and the swinging doors that led into the lobby stopped swinging and became still as well. Still as a snowflake careening toward the pavement.

  Vera Maude gripped the edges of the wide cup between her fingers and brought it to her lips. Not too hot. It felt good inside her. She set the cup down again and looked around. There were fewer people and no staff about. She returned to her cup. The tea seemed to tremble in it. She thought she could hear the cup against the saucer. She felt it before she saw it. Vera Maude turned her head and instinctively fell to the floor.

  They came charging through the main entrance. The treaty was broken. This was Morrison, burning down the British-American, figuratively speaking. He went storming up the stairs as if he had a specific target in mind. Officers from both the provincial police and the RCMP followed. The British-American’s free ride was over. Either a patron had broken the B-A’s unwritten rules or this was law enforcement tightening its grip, claiming some significant territory, the last bit of territory. Yes, it had to be all Morrison.

  In the chaos, Jack McCloskey strolled into the lobby to pick up any messages at the desk. He looked around and could hear the stampede up the stairs. He met the faces behind the desk that said Get out of here. He turned around; the entrance and the street corner were closing. The night manager tilted his head toward the bar. As far as raids go, this looked like a sloppy execution, all last minute. This was careless, this was personal, and it was going to get ugly.

  McCloskey went into the bar, froze inside the door, and scanned the room. He spotted a girl cowering under one of the tables near the window. She looked like she had no business being here. A guest maybe? Someone who had missed the last ferry to Detroit? He ran over to her.

  “Hey,” he said, “let’s get you out of here.”

  She looked up and, recognizing McCloskey, said, “Hey, yourself.”

  He took a closer look.

  “I know you,” he said.

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “So I find you under a table in a bar?”

  “I don’t get around much,” said Vera Maude. “Do you know a back door out of this place?”

  “C’mon.”

  McCloskey pulled up Vera Maude — “Wait, my hat!” — and then led her toward the kitchen. He spotted Grace on the floor behind the bar — “Hi, Jack” — and a few others taking cover in the kitchen — “Cancel my lunch reservation tomorrow.”

  “Jack — my arm,” said Vera Maude.

  “Relax, you got two of them.”

  He practically dragged her out the back door. They were now in the lane behind the hotel and he was still dragging her to Brock Street, overlooking the Canadian National Railway station and offices. The snow was blowing off the river and into their faces.

  “Okay, slow down, just slow down a minute.”

  “This seems a little familiar.”

  “Okay, stop. You said in the bar, ‘I know you,’ didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s my name?”

  If he had hesitated a s
econd longer, she would have slapped him.

  “Vera Maude, your name’s Vera Maude.”

  “And you know me from where?”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “You’re working on that? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Hey — it means I’m working on it. It’s a little hard to explain, and I have to get you out of here.”

  McCloskey spotted a cab pulling up Brock out of the train station and he ran in front of it.

  “You’re going to take her to wherever she wants you to take her.” He handed the driver some bills and Vera Maude climbed in.

  “Where can I find you?” she said out the window.

  “I’m between places right now.”

  “You’re only making things harder on yourself, Jack.”

  “That’s kind of my thing. Anyways, now I know where to find you.”

  “How was the movie?”

  Fred was peeling off his coat.

  “Terrible,” he said. He unravelled his muffler from around his neck and hung it along with his hat on the rack that ran along the stretch of wall to the left of the door, dividing the entrance from the front room. He peeked around the corner and said, “That’s the last time I listen to one of John’s film reviews.”

  “John next door?”

  “The same.”

  Vera Maude was lying on the chesterfield with a book on her lap. “What was Mrs. Cattanach’s verdict?”

  “I’ll tell you, Maudie, I’m going to pay for this one. I’m going to bed.”

  “You don't want me to make you a tea?”

  “No, thanks. I’m exhausted. The walk from the streetcar to Mrs. Cattanach’s, and then the walk from her place to here did me in.”

  He was about to say good night but instead asked how was Vera Maude’s evening.

  “Not very exciting,” she said.

  “Ah well, it’s not New York, I guess.”

  Vera Maude smiled. “It’s just fine.”

  “You staying up for a bit then?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “And are you working tomorrow?”

  “I am. Another staffer sick with a cold.”

  “Best they stay away from you and the rest of them. Well then, I’ll say good night.”

  “Good night, Uncle Fred.”

  Vera Maude opened her book and then closed it once Fred was upstairs. Who was she kidding? She was exhausted too.

  So, Jack McCloskey …

  This was his thinking chair. He faced the corner window that looked down over the intersection. He could see the skyline clearly from here.

  This guy owned a restaurant over in Detroit. Strictly above-board, except for the liquor he got from McCloskey, or whoever happened to be representing him at the time, and which was only served to a particular clientele. It came about last fall, when McCloskey was still not quite on his feet yet. The restaurateur was adding a room to his establishment, a grand old house way up Woodward, just past the Majestic. He was ordering some furnishings, he had some money, and he ordered exotic pieces from New York and Montreal, but then he got smart and cut out the middleman and started ordering from abroad, direct from Paris and London. It gave him something to brag about. All said, he did have an eye and a certain penchant. He was being pitched some new lines by a London broker when he got carried away with a set of club chairs. Anyway, he over-bought and didn’t know what to do with them. Two left over and bills still to pay to a few suppliers. He offered McCloskey the chairs to cover that particular balance. McCloskey had an eye too, though no one had any idea from whence it came. He took the chairs. Shorty happened to be with him and they carried them back — wrapped in canvas — home on the ferry. It was some kind of a picture. Right now both were in McCloskey’s apartment, but one would end up in the new office space on Riverside Drive.

  He had gotten into the habit of recounting small tales, experiences like that. It had become a sort of exercise, flexing that memory muscle.

  So, Vera Maude whatever-your-name-is.

  The chair wasn’t working; he wasn’t thinking. Right now his brain was doing all those other things it generally did when he wasn’t really thinking.

  I know you, don’t I?

  He gripped the chair leather and looked higher in the sky, to where the streetlights no longer caught the falling snow, and the flakes disappeared, flying upward as it seemed, into the darkness, like some sort of optical illusion. He then closed his eyes and tried once more to stoke his memory before finally drifting off to sleep.

  — Chapter 34 —

  GRIMOIRE

  Friday morning

  So great is the extent, power, and efficacy of the celestial bodies that not only natural things, but also artificial, when they are rightly exposed to those above, do presently suffer by that most potent agent, and obtain a wonderful life.

  The magicians affirm that not only by the mixture and application of natural things but also in images, seals, rings, glasses, and some other instruments, being opportunely framed under a certain constellation, some celestial illustrations may be taken, and some wonderful thing may be received; for the beams of the celestial bodies being animated, living, sensual, and bringing along with them admirable gifts, and a most violent power, do, even in a moment, and at the first touch, imprint wonderful powers in the images, though their matter be less capable.

  Yet they bestow more powerful virtues on the images if they be framed not of any, but of a certain matter, namely, whose natural, but also specifical virtue is agreeable with the work, and the figure of the image is like to the celestial; for such an image, both in regard to the matter naturally congruous to the operation and celestial influence, and also for its figure being like to the heavenly one, is best prepared to receive the operations and powers of the celestial bodies and figures, and instantly receives the heavenly gift into itself; though it constantly worketh on another thing, and other things yield obedience to it.

  Campbell was skimming through one of the books he had special-ordered, a reprint of Barrett’s The Magus, when he came across this passage in the chapter describing “How Artificial Things (As Images, Seals, and Such Like) May Obtain Some Virtue From the Celestial Bodies.” Leaving it open to the page, he pushed the dusty tome aside and started flipping through the other books in his growing stack. These words for some reason brought to mind an illustration he had seen, or thought he had seen, earlier in the week which meant nothing to him at the time. He hoped he wasn’t just imagining it. His thoughts and dreams were lately becoming strange assemblages of everything he was absorbing from these books and his conversations with Madame Zahra, and they were indecipherable, most likely because they represented nothing more than fatigue. However, to someone like Zahra, these would be considered visions and would beg interpretation. To Campbell, fragments of wet tea leaves in the bottom of a cup would always be just that, and he could tell nothing about a person by the palm of their hand, except maybe that they should consider changing lotions.

  And then there it was, in the last book in the pile: a sixteenth-century engraving depicting a ceremony or ritual of some sort being carried out by a high priest or mystic. Campbell wasn’t entirely sure; his German was a little rostig. However, among the many symbols and objects arranged with an obvious significance along its border was a key — one that all too closely resembled the tumbler-tickler sitting here next to his coffee mug. With new eyes, Campbell then backed through his little library and started marking every relevant passage. His mind soon drifted to Richard Davies and what he had learned about him and his group’s activities, and then it came together: This was not a key designed to open a door, a locker, or anything of the kind — nothing worldly at least. It was a talisman, but for what purpose or end he had no idea, and it would be impossible to figure out. That group would have assigned the object its own meaning, its own purpose, that no one outside of their circle would be capable of understanding, let alone put to work.

  Make of it wh
at you will.

  Campbell rose from the table and looked out the window and across the river. Small dots of white light here and there, sometimes a short string of amber beads along the shore. He folded his arms behind his head, arched his back until it cracked, and then wobbled back toward the kitchen. He felt the pot of the Flavodrip. It was still warm. He poured the last dregs into his mug, unfastened the drip container from the contraption, dumped the spent grounds into the sink, and gave it a rinse.

  Returning to the table, he slid the key off the edge and held it right up under the shade of the floor lamp. Sure, he was examining the object for the umpteenth time, but he was seeing it differently now. The loops at the end; the colour of the glass in each loop; the odd number of teeth and the queer shape to them; and probably the key’s length and the type of metal from which it was forged — all of it would have meant something to them.

  Yes, Zahra, he thought, she might have some knowledge of these things, these talismans.

  He could go up to her place with the key and a couple of his books and they could put their heads together. He looked at his watch. Definitely too early to be phoning her. No matter; he needed to shower, shave, and ought to check in at the department. He would do all of that first and call her from his desk.

  Campbell went over to his unmade bed, lay down, and fell dead asleep. He was awakened about an hour or so later by the phone. The ringing sent shockwaves through his system. He reached over and unhooked the earpiece. It took him a moment to get his mouth going.

  “Campbell … all right … what time is it?”

  There was also a clock at his bedside table but his eyes weren’t working yet either. It was the switchboard at police headquarters. Still holding the phone, he sat up, swivelled his feet onto the floor and blinked at the big rectangle of grey early morning light that filled his window.

  “So he hasn’t left yet? … Yeah … No, wait — give him this number and tell him to call me here directly right away. … Yeah … I’ll be in shortly.”