by J. S. Cook
“Where’d he go?” Tex was suddenly at my elbow. “Did you see him?”
“Naw, he took off.” This was getting me nowhere. I didn’t care what Picco thought, or what he figured I should do. It was time for the charade to stop. Octavian—or somebody in Octavian’s employ—wanted me dead. Well, first he’d have to find me. I was going to make sure he did.
THE BAR was little better than a rat’s nest: a rickety pile of rotting wood tacked onto the back of a fish-and-chips place that fronted on Water Street, complete with the usual set of growling scoundrels, prostitutes, and greasy-haired corner boys down on their luck. I’d put the word around that I was looking for a man named Octavian, and then I waited for the underground network to do the rest. A lucky tip from the bartender at the Bosun’s Whistle had brought me here, to Necker’s Bar on George Street.
I took a corner table, ordered a drink, and sat back to wait. It was a little after nine when I arrived, but I knew I could be waiting awhile. The jukebox was playing a selection of the latest tunes and some I wasn’t familiar with, mostly local stuff. I could never understand the local love for accordion music; to me it sounded like somebody jumping on a bag of cats, but they went crazy for it here. The air was blue with tobacco smoke, which was a blessing, because the place smelled like the back end of a horse. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like one of the toilets might have backed up.
After a while, a girl singer came on, flanked by a short, fat guy with a guitar and a tall, skinny guy with the ubiquitous squeezebox. Someone pulled the plug on the jukebox, and it died with a yelp just as the girl launched into “Sliding Down Signal Hill” with gusto. She sang with a wonderful Irish brogue, playing it up for the audience, who mostly ignored her with the exception of one old guy, seated near the raised dais that served as a stage: now and then he’d lean forward and thump his hand on the boards, throwing his head back and bellowing something unintelligible to me but which the rest of the crowd greeted with enthusiastic applause. An hour later, the girl went off and a small man in a greasy tweed cap and worn corduroys mounted the stage, carrying a wooden chair and a pair of kitchen spoons, which he played by banging them on his knees and elbows and, by way of a farewell, on his buttocks. He was followed by a young woman in a diaphanous pink dress, high heels, and opera-length gloves. By now the smoke was so thick, I could barely see the stage, but I had a pretty good idea what was going on, and it made me laugh. The military brass and the local clergy alike were tripping over themselves to keep the good American boys away from this sort of thing, an imprecation that greatly benefited the strip clubs and burlesque houses of St. John’s.
She started peeling off her gloves one finger at a time and flipping her hair around like she was the star attraction in a burlesque revue. By the time she got to the stockings, the locals were whooping it up, and one old fisherman climbed onto the stage and tried to embrace her, but a couple of muscle boys picked him up by the elbows and hustled him outside. The girl, for her part, kept dancing like nothing happened, her unbound breasts bouncing gently under her see-through dress.
Touch me like this… oh, don’t be shy. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?
Years ago, Frankie Missalo and some of the boys had all chipped in to buy me a girl for my seventeenth birthday. They’d even paid to put me up in a hotel room and everything: the kind of run-down, fleabag place you can find in just about any city in the world, with broken windows and dead cockroaches on the bathroom floor. I was green as grass and eager, and the girl was pretty and still young enough that her profession didn’t really show. She was kind to me, and she knew exactly what to do, but I got so carried away, I came in my shorts before she’d finished undressing. It’s all right. It happens to a lot of guys. Don’t feel bad. Here, put your hand on me. I was clumsy and embarrassed, glad when it was over and I could put my clothes back on. I never told anyone, but I got through it by pretending: I closed my eyes and imagined she was a handsome, dark-haired man who loved me, who wanted me, and whenever Frankie or one of the other guys asked, I made sure to brag about how hard I’d banged her. I guess that should have tipped me off that maybe something was up with me, that maybe I wasn’t like the rest of the guys.
The thick fog of cigarette smoke was making my eyes water and the girl hadn’t even taken off her dress. I turned toward the door, thinking maybe I’d step out for a moment, and there he was, standing in the doorway. I bolted out of my chair and started after him and, just like before, he did the same disappearing act—only this time I watched where he went and was able to follow him down the narrow laneway stairs to Water Street. He paused on the sidewalk for a second, then headed west with me on his heels. I chased him toward the dockyard, but he made a quick right off Water Street, kicking open a cellar door. I thought I recognized it, some kind of warehouse for wines and spirits. I’d bought port from them before, and if I remembered correctly, this door was the only way in or out.
The warehouse was windowless, pitch black under a low ceiling. I cautiously felt my way forward. “Come on out, Octavian! I’m not leaving, so you’d better show yourself.”
That got a response: the sharp retort of a pistol and a bullet whizzed past my face, grazing my cheek. “I like that you are so suggestible, Stoyles. I could lead you anywhere and you’d follow, wouldn’t you?”
Trying to see him in that place was like looking for a priest in a whorehouse. “I’m not interested in chitchat. I know you hired Rocky Power to kill me, and you made sure to take care of him, too, so he couldn’t talk. It’s all over. You might as well come out now and give yourself up.”
“Or what?” A match flared in the blackness, illuminating a face as pale as a mask. Dark eyes glinted at me, but the expression remained neutral. “You’ll kill me?”
“Something like that.” There was water dripping somewhere behind us, and in the confinement of the warehouse, it sounded eerily like footsteps.
“You can’t kill me, Jack.” The figure’s head tilted to the side. “I’m already dead.” He raised the gun and there it was, right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do. I just stood there, staring dumbly into the barrel of an ugly little snub-nosed gun. His finger squeezed the trigger and everything slowed to a crawl. So this is how it’s gonna be.
The hammer clicked on an empty chamber, and brother, that was enough for me. I lunged for him and slammed his forearm across my upraised knee as hard as I could. Octavian yowled as something inside the limb snapped, and he collapsed on the floor, yelling.
“Git up, you sumbitch.” Someone reached past me, hauling Octavian by the collar and standing him on his feet. “You okay, Jack?”
I’d recognize that voice anywhere. “Jesus Christ.”
“Not even close, boy.”
I shivered, and then I was laughing, as giddy as a schoolgirl. “Rick? What the hell are you… how’d you know…?”
“That little cop of yours dropped a word in my ear. He don’t miss a trick. Said you were fixing to do something stupid, and maybe I’d best keep an eye on you.”
We marched Octavian out into the light and stood him up against the wall. He looked sick, his arm swollen to three times its normal size. His head lolled back against the bricks, and I saw something I hadn’t noticed until then: a thin seam under his chin. “What the hell…?” Octavian struggled but Rick kept hold of him while I got my fingers under it and pulled. It came off in one piece and I saw it for what it was: a lifelike rubber mask. Not the cheap kind that kids wear at Halloween—this was a custom job, made by somebody who really knew his trade. The man wearing it was the dead cabbie’s supposed brother, but I knew better. “Octavian. You’re his brother. You’re the man in the picture.”
Picco was waiting for us at Constabulary headquarters when we arrived, and he lost no time taking Octavian the younger into custody. Rick waited in the anteroom while I gave Picco my statement. When I finished speaking, he looked up at me. “I didn’t believe you when you said Octavian was after you. I fig
ured you were a bit sick in the head, after the accident and all that.” His brows knit, and he shook his head. “I’m an idiot.”
“No. You had no evidence. You couldn’t very well proceed on just my say-so.” I laid my hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good cop, Picco. You listened to your instincts. If Rick Callan hadn’t been following me….” Something occurred to me. “Hey, how’d you know Rick Callan and I…?”
Picco smirked. He stood up and yanked down on the hem of his uniform tunic. “Because I’m a good cop.”
I left Nicholas Octavian in Picco’s able hands and went out into the night. Callan was waiting by the main door, smoking a cigarette. “All taken care of?”
“You could say that.” It occurred to me, what I had to say, and I drew a deep breath, nerving myself like someone getting ready to dive into cold water. “Listen, Rick, there’s something I have to say.”
He was smiling. “Yeah, I guess maybe there is.” There was something bleak there in his eyes, and I knew he’d already figured it out. “Just my luck, huh. Who is he?”
“He’s….” Sam’s face swam before my inner vision: gentle, dignified, and handsome. “It’s over. He’s someone I knew in Egypt.” It felt like something that had happened years and years ago, long before I’d ever come to Newfoundland or opened the Heartache.
“Egypt, huh.” Callan nodded. “Yeah, that’s a long ways away, for sure.”
“Come on back to the Heartache with me. I’ll fix you a drink.”
Callan dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, shook his head. “No, thank you, Jack. I do thank you but no, I think it is best if I just go on home now.” He couldn’t or wouldn’t look at me.
“Rick.” I felt lower than dirt. “Let me—just one drink, huh?”
“I said no.” He spoke quietly but with an authority I didn’t dare question. “Now, you mind when I’m talking to you, all right?” He yanked down his uniform jacket. “Colder’n a witch’s tit out here. I’d best be going.”
He turned and walked away and that was that. I knew there was no point in arguing with him. He knew, even if I didn’t, that as long as I clung to the memory of what I’d had with Sam Halim, there could be no possibility of anything between us but friendship. I simply wasn’t available to him.
It was late when I got back to the Heartache; Tex had already closed up and gone home. He’d left the light burning over the back door for me, and Anita had put by a plate of sandwiches in the icebox, but I wasn’t hungry, so I went upstairs, stripped off my clothes, and got into bed. The wind rose, howling out of the northeast hard enough to shake the building, and I wondered if the old structure would hold. Of course it would, I mused; it had been here for a long time and would remain a long time after I was gone. It was like the Great Wall of China or those giant heads on Easter Island or the pyramids at Giza….
It seemed I was lying or half-sitting against some kind of natural stone pillar that shielded me. Someone else was there, and it was as though we had been there together for a long time—hours, perhaps. My companion was a warm weight against my shoulder, his body—I somehow knew instinctively that he was male—lying close beside my own, so that we touched at several different places. You must not think of that other. The voice—his voice—might have come from outside me or from inside my own head. Be here in this moment only. That is all. Simply rest. I struggled to open my eyes but it was like my body wouldn’t obey me, and then his hand was on my face, drawing me to him, and we kissed: eager, open-mouthed, sensual and slow.
I woke suddenly with the conviction that someone was in my bedroom. I sat up slowly, feeling under the pillow for my gun. “Who’s there?” The wind howled around the eaves and the radiator near the window ticked. For several long moments, I listened while my heart thumped so hard it was almost painful. “Hello?”
I lay awake until dawn with the gun in my hand.
Chapter 14
FOR A long time, things were quiet around town and around the Heartache. Chris got out of hospital and came back to work, along with a few new scars. Tex stayed on in the kitchen, but Anita found herself in the family way and had to get married, which left me with one waitress. I put a want ad in the local papers, but it was hard finding decent staff, and the idea of training another girl to do what Anita could do with her eyes shut was a ready-made headache.
Toward the end of November, it started to get cold and the rains were unrelenting—until they changed into snow. By the second week of December, we had enough snow underfoot that it was starting to look like Christmas, and I was busy getting the Heartache ready for the holidays. Chris and Tex moved the piano out of its usual corner and put up a tree, which we decorated with the usual tinselly frou-frou, and I strung a few lights around the windows. It was bitterly cold, which was good news for me as it drove people indoors; I added some cakes and muffins to the menu and ordered in as much strong English tea as the ration board would let me.
“Hey, Jack, would you take a look at this?” Tex handed the Daily News to me across the bar. I’d been attempting to fix a leaky tap that dripped incessantly, but so far all I’d done was make the problem worse.
“What is it, Tex? I’m kinda busy.” I was trying to keep tension on the pipe wrench I had fastened around a leaking copper washer; if I could just twist the little sucker into place….
“Isn’t that your friend? The sergeant?”
I leaned over to peer at the photograph on the front page. There was Rick Callan, standing on the steps of the Knights of Columbus hostel on Harvey Road. He was flanked on either side by smiling government officials, one of which was shaking his hand. SERGEANT NAMED HOSTEL CHARGE OFFICER, the headline read. “Looks like he’s gotten himself a promotion, or at least a change of orders.”
“Well, good for him.” Tex tapped the photo. “You seeing him tonight?”
I grimaced. “No.” I twisted the wrench, felt the washer give a little. “No, that was over ages ago.”
Tex watched me working on the faucet. “Still hung up on Sam, huh?”
I glanced up at him. “Something like that.”
“Think you’ll ever see him again?”
I shook my head. “No.” The wrench slipped off the washer and clattered on the floor. “Fuck.”
“I got it.” Tex handed it to me. “Have you tried writing to him?”
“Who?” I cranked the wrench closed over the washer and started the whole process over again. “Sam? He wouldn’t want to hear from me.”
“How do you know?”
I glared at him. “Is this going to be Twenty Questions? Because there are some dirty glasses in the kitchen—”
Tex threw up his hands in mock surrender. “All right, okay. I won’t mention it again.”
“I’d appreciate that.” I leaned on the wrench, easing it forward, and felt the corroded washer give way. Tex had left the newspaper on the bar, and I found myself drawn to the photograph of Callan on the hostel steps. Something about it bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. The hostel was the sort of place you see wherever American servicemen are stationed: a combination dormitory and social club with a reading room, a restaurant, toilets and showers, a recreation room with various games, an auditorium for dances and variety shows, and a dormitory upstairs. From what I’d heard, the food was okay, and the entertainment was generally good, and if you were too tanked to stagger home, you could always crawl upstairs and sleep it off.
A shadow fell across the bar, and I found myself looking at a small man, perhaps five feet in height, with protuberant blue eyes set flat in his face and a wide, almost piscine mouth. His brows were thin and arched and so fine they appeared to have been drawn on his forehead. There was something wrong with his features—no, with the face generally—that I couldn’t immediately identify. “Can I help you?”
“This is the Heartache Cafe?” His voice was low, cultured, with what sounded like an eastern European accent—Bulgaria, maybe, or Rumania.
“Yeah. What c
an I get you?”
“I would like a cold glass of lemonade. Please serve me at that table over there.” He pointed to a table in the far corner of the room, partially hidden behind a huge potted fern.
“Cold weather for lemonade, don’t you think?” I didn’t usually keep any in the fridge, not this time of year, but if he wanted it, I’d make it for him. “Don’t you want a cup of coffee instead?”
His strange, flat eyes focused on me, and I had the impression of gazing down a tunnel. “I never consume hot beverages.”
“Your funeral,” I muttered. I went into the kitchen and told Tex to make a pitcher. The little guy with the fishy face was looking through the copy of the Telegram I kept for customers: licking his thumb and finger before catching hold of the page, then turning it slowly and deliberately, like a child might. It was a disconcerting spectacle. I laid the lemonade down and turned to go.
“Mr. Stoyles, is it not?”
“Yeah?”
“I am….” He paused, reached to sip the lemonade delicately. “How to put it? A stranger to your town. I wonder if you could direct me to… ah, Parade Street?” He folded his hands on top of the table and gazed at me, and I realized, with a start, that he had no eyelashes.
“Parade Street? You want the top end or the bottom end?”
This seemed to amuse him, although I had no idea why. “The bottom end, if you please.”
I thought about it for a minute. “Let me see… best way is to turn left out of the door. Keep going till you see Bowring Brothers up ahead, on your right. Before you get there, you wanna turn left onto George Street, then on up Bates Hill. Turn right at the top of Bates—that’ll be Queen’s Road. You’re gonna walk up there till you see a long, steep hill with a cathedral at the top—that’s the Basilica. Go up to the top, turn left and you’re on Harvey. Keep walking till you see the Knights of Columbus hostel. Parade’s just around the corner.” If I kept this up, I might as well get a job as a tour guide.
