by Kathy Reichs
“Oh hell, Harry. I don’t want to stand out here freezing my butt.” I didn’t want to mention Ryan’s offer.
“Don’t you know anyone who works here?”
“I’m not a regular.”
We joined the queue and stood in silence, shifting our feet to keep warm. The movement reminded me of the nuns at Lac Memphrémagog, which made me think of the unfinished Nicolet report. And the ledgers on my bedside table. And the report on the dead babies. And the classes I had to teach in Charlotte next week. And a paper I planned to present at the Physical Anthropology meeting. I felt my face grow numb from the cold. How did I let Harry talk me into these things?
There is little patron exodus from pubs at 10 P.M. After fifteen minutes we’d advanced about two feet.
“I feel like one of those flash-frozen deserts,” said Harry. “Are you sure you don’t know someone inside?”
“Ryan did say I could use his name if there was a wait.” My egalitarian principles were being sorely tested by encroaching hypothermia.
“Big sister, what are you thinking?” Harry had no qualms about exploiting any available advantage.
She shot up the sidewalk and disappeared into the head of the line. Moments later I saw her at a side door, flanked by a particularly large representative of the Irish National Football Club. They were both gesturing to me. Avoiding eye contact with those remaining in line, I scurried down the steps and slipped inside.
I followed Harry and her guardian through the labyrinth of rooms that make up Hurley’s Irish Pub. Every chair, ledge, table, bar stool, and square inch of floor was filled with green-clad patrons. Signs and mirrors advertised Bass, Guinness, and Kilkenny Cream Ale. The place smelled of beer, and the smoke was thick enough to rest your elbows on.
We wormed our way along stone walls, between tables, leather armchairs, and kegs, and eventually around an oak and brass bar. The sound level exceeded that permitted on airport runways.
As we rounded the main bar I could see Ryan seated on a tall wooden stool outside a back room. He had his back to a brick wall, one heel hooked on the stool’s bottom rung. The other leg stretched across the seats of two empty stools to his right. His head was framed by a square opening in the brick bordered with carved green wood.
Through the opening I could see a trio playing fiddle, flute, and mandolin. Tables ringed the room’s perimeter, and five dancers cavorted in an impossibly small space in the middle. Three women did passable jigs, but the young men just hopped from foot to foot, sloshing beer on anything within a five-foot radius. No one seemed to care.
Harry hugged the footballer, and he melted back into the crowd. I wondered how Ryan had managed to keep two stools free. And why. I couldn’t decide whether his confidence annoyed or pleased me.
“Well, bless my heart,” said Ryan when he spotted us. “Glad you could make it, podnas. Sit down and rest a spell.” He had to yell to be heard.
Ryan hooked his free foot around one of the empty stools, pulled it out, and patted the cushion. Without hesitation Harry slipped off her jacket, draped it across the seat, and settled herself.
“On one condition,” I yelled back.
He raised his eyebrows and focused the blues on me.
“Lose the wrangler routine.”
“That’s about as kind as gravel in peanut butter.” Ryan spoke so loud the veins stood out in his neck.
“I mean it, Ryan.” I’d never be able to keep up this volume.
“O.K. O.K. Sit down.”
I moved toward the end stool.
“And I’ll buy you a soda pop, ma’am.”
Harry hooted.
I felt my mouth open, then Ryan was up and unzipping my jacket. He laid it on the stool and I sat.
Ryan flagged a waitress, ordered Guinness for himself and a Diet Coke for me. Again, I felt pique. Was I that predictable?
He looked at Harry.
“I’ll have the same.”
“Diet Coke?”
“No. The other.”
The waitress disappeared.
“What about the purification?” I bellowed in Harry’s ear.
“What?”
“The purification?”
“One beer won’t poison me, Tempe. I’m not a zealot.”
Since conversation required screaming, I focused on the band. I grew up with Irish music, and the old songs always summon childhood memories. My grandmother’s house. Old ladies, brogue, canasta. The rollaway bed. Danny Kaye on the black-and-white TV. Falling asleep to John Gary L.P.’s. I suspected these musicians were a bit loud for Gran’s taste. Too much amplification.
The lead singer began a ballad about a wild rover. I knew the song and braced myself. At the chorus hands slammed in a five-strike staccato. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! The waitress arrived at the last pounding.
Harry and Ryan chatted, their words lost to the din. I sipped my drink and looked around. High on the wall I could see a row of carved wooden shields, totems of the old-line families. Or were they clans? I looked for one named Brennan, but it was too dark and smoky to read most of them. Crone? No.
The group began a tune Gran would have liked. It was about a young woman who wore her hair tied up with a black velvet band.
I studied a series of photographs in oblong oval frames, close-up portraits of men and women in their Sunday best. When had they been taken—1890? 1910? These faces looked as grim as those in Birks Hall. Maybe the high collars were uncomfortable.
Two schoolhouse clocks gave the time in Dublin and Montreal. Ten-thirty. I checked my watch. Yip.
Several songs later Harry got my attention by waving both arms. She looked like a referee signaling an incomplete pass. Ryan was holding up his empty mug.
I shook my head. He spoke to Harry, then raised two fingers above his head.
Here we go, I thought.
As the band began a reel, I noticed Ryan pointing in the direction from which we’d entered. Harry slid off her stool and disappeared into the mass of bodies. The price of tight jeans. I didn’t want to think about how long her wait would be. Just another gender inequality.
Ryan lifted Harry’s jacket, slid onto her stool, and placed the jacket where he’d been sitting. He leaned close and shouted in my ear.
“Are you sure you two have the same mother?”
“And father.” Ryan smelled of something like rum and talcum powder.
“How long has she lived in Texas?”
“Since Moses led the Exodus.”
“Moses Malone?”
“Nineteen years.” I swirled and stared at the ice in my Coke. Ryan had every right to talk to Harry. Conversation was impossible anyway, so why was I pissed off?
“Who is this Anna Goyette?”
“What?”
“Who is Anna Goyette?”
The band stopped in midsentence, and the name boomed out in the relative quiet.
“Jesus, Ryan, why don’t you take out an ad?”
“We’re a little jumpy tonight. Too much caffeine?” He grinned.
I glared at him.
“It’s not good at your age.”
“It’s not good at any age. How do you know about Anna Goyette?”
The waitress brought the drinks and showed Ryan as many teeth as my sister at her friendliest. He paid and winked at her. Spare me.
“You’re not exactly poetry to be with,” he said after placing one of the beers on the ledge above Harry’s jacket.
“I’ll work on it. How do you know about Anna Goyette?”
“I ran into Claudel on this biker thing, and we talked about it.”
“Why in the world would you do that?”
“He asked me.”
I could never figure out Claudel. He blows me off, then discusses my phone call with Ryan.
“So who is she?”
“Anna is a McGill student. Her aunt asked me to locate her. It’s not the Hoffa case.”
“Claudel says she’s a very interesting young lady.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Harry chose that moment to rejoin us.
“Whoa, little buckaroos. If you have to pee you’d better plan ahead.”
She took in the altered seating arrangement and slid onto the stool to Ryan’s left. As if on cue the band began singing about whiskey in a jug. Harry swayed and clapped along until a geezer in a checkered cap and green suspenders jigged over and took her by the hand. She jumped up and followed him to the back room, where two young men were once again doing egret imitations. Harry’s partner had a substantial belly and a soft, round face. I hoped she wouldn’t kill the guy.
I looked at my watch. Eleven-forty. My eyes burned from smoke and my throat was scratchy from shouting.
And I was enjoying myself.
And I wanted a drink.
Seriously.
“Look, I’ve got a headache. As soon as Ginger Rogers gets off the dance floor I’m going to cut out.”
“Suit yourself, bucko. You’ve done very well for your first session.”
“Jesus, Ryan. I’ve been here before.”
“For the storyteller?”
“No!” I had thought about that. I love Irish folklore.
I watched Harry hop and twist, her long blond hair flying. Everyone watched her. After a while I shouted in Ryan’s ear.
“Does Claudel know where Anna is?”
He shook his head.
I gave up. The potential for conversation was zero.
Harry and the geezer danced on. His face was red and covered with sweat, and his clip-on tie hung at an odd angle. When Harry’s jig brought her round to face me I pantomimed a finger across the throat. Cut. Wrap.
She waved gaily.
I jabbed my thumb toward the exit, but she’d already rotated out of eye contact.
Oh, God.
Ryan watched me, an amused smile on his face.
I gave him a look that could freeze El Niño, and he slouched back and held both hands in a palms-out gesture.
The next time Harry circled toward me I gestured again, but she was staring at something over my shoulder, an odd look on her face.
At twelve-fifteen my prayers were answered as the band took a break. Harry returned, flushed but beaming. Her partner looked like he needed a resuscitator.
“Whew! I feel rode hard and put away wet.”
She ran a finger around her collar, hopped onto her stool, and chugged the beer Ryan had ordered. When the geezer made a move to settle next to her, she patted him on his cap.
“Thanks, big guy. I’ll see y’all later.”
He tipped his head and gave her a puppy look.
“Bye-bye.”
Harry wriggled her fingers, and the geezer shrugged and blended back into the crowd.
Harry leaned across Ryan. “Tempe, who’s that over there?” She tipped her head toward the bar behind us.
I started to turn.
“Don’t look now!”
“What?”
“The tall skinny dude with the glasses.”
I rolled my eyes, which didn’t help my headache. Harry would use this routine in junior high when I wanted to leave and she wanted to stay.
“I know. He’s cute and he’s really interested in me. Only he’s shy. Been there, done that, Harry.”
The band started another reel. I stood and put on my jacket.
“Bedtime.”
“No. Really. This guy was scoping you the whole time I was dancing. I could see him through the window.”
I looked in the direction she’d indicated. No one fit her description.
“Where?”
She scanned the faces around the bar, then looked over her shoulder in the other direction.
“Really, Tempe.” She shrugged. “I can’t spot him now.”
“He’s probably one of my students. They’re always amazed to see me out without a walker.”
“Yeah, I guess. The guy looked pretty young for you.”
“Thanks.”
Ryan watched like Gramps observing the young ’uns.
“Are you ready?” I buttoned my jacket and pulled on my mittens.
Harry looked at her Rolex, then said exactly what I expected.
“It’s just past midnight. Couldn’t we—”
“I’m heading out, Harry. The condo’s only four blocks from here and you’ve got a key. You can stay if you want. ”
For a moment she looked undecided, then she turned to Ryan.
“Are you going to be here awhile?”
“No problema, kiddo.”
She gave me the same puppy look the geezer had used.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Of course not.” Like hell.
I explained the keys and she gave me a hug.
“Let me walk you back,” said Ryan, reaching for his jacket. My protector.
“No, thanks. I’m a big girl.”
“Then let me call a taxi for you.”
“Ryan, I am allowed to travel unaccompanied.”
“Suit yourself.” He settled back, shaking his head.
* * *
The cold air felt good after the heat and smoke of the pub. For about a millisecond. The temperature had dropped and the wind had picked up, plunging the chill factor to a billion degrees below zero.
Within steps my eyes were tearing and I could feel ice forming around the edges of my nostrils. I drew my muffler across my mouth and nose, and tied it in a big knot at the back of my head. I looked like a geek, but at least my orifices wouldn’t freeze over.
I stuffed my hands deep into my pockets, lowered my head, and trudged on. Warmer, but barely able to see, I angled across Crescent and up to Ste-Catherine. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
I’d just crossed MacKay when I felt my scarf tighten, and my feet go out from under me. At first I thought I’d slipped on ice but then I realized I was being pulled backward. I had passed the old York Theater and I was being dragged toward the side of the building. Hands spun me and shoved me face first against the wall. My own were still trapped in my pockets. As my face struck the brick I slid downward. When my knees hit the ground, I was shoved facedown into the snow. A heavy blow struck my back, as though a large person had dropped knees first onto my thoracic spine. Pain shot down my back and my breath exploded outward through my muffler. I was pinned to the ground in a prone position. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t breathe! I felt panic and air hunger. Blood pounded in my ears.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on turning my mouth to the side. I pulled a shallow breath. Then another. And another. The burning subsided and I began to exchange air.
I felt pain in my jaw and face. My head was locked at an awkward angle, my right eye pressed against the frozen snow. I felt a bulkiness below me and knew it was my purse. It had helped knock the wind out of me.
Give him the purse!
I wriggled to free myself, but my jacket and scarf still bound me like a straitjacket. I felt his body move. He seemed to stretch out on top of me. Then his breathing in my ear. Though muffled by the scarf, it sounded heavy and rapid, desperate, animal-like in its intensity.
Don’t lose consciousness. Unconscious means dead in this weather. Move! Do something!
Under my heavy clothing I was covered in sweat. I inched my hand around inside my pocket, searching. My fingers felt slick inside the wool mitten.
There!
I gripped my keys. The instant he let up I’d be ready. Helpless, I waited for an opening.
“Leave it alone,” a voice hissed in my ear.
He’d spotted the movement!
I froze.
“You don’t know what you’re doing. Back off!”
Back off what? Who did he think I was?
“Leave it alone,” he repeated, his voice trembling with emotion.
I couldn’t speak, and he didn’t seem to expect an answer. Was it a madman and not a mugger?
We lay there for what seemed eternity. Cars who
oshed past. I’d lost all feeling in my face, and my neck vertebrae felt as if they would crack. I breathed with my mouth open, saliva freezing on my muffler.
Stay calm. Think!
My mind raced through possibilities. Was he drunk? Stoned? Undecided? Was he savoring some sick fantasy that would trigger him to action? My heart pounded so loud I feared it would be the catalyst.
Then I heard footsteps. He must have heard them, too, for he tightened his grip on my scarf and placed a gloved hand over my face.
Scream! Do something!
I couldn’t see him and it made me crazy.
“Get off me you goddamn dirtbag!” I yelled through my muffler.
But my voice came from a million miles away, smothered by the thick layer of wool.
I held the keys in a death grip, my hand slippery inside the mitten and tensed to drive them into his eye if I got an opening. Suddenly, I felt the scarf tighten and his body shift. He rose to his knees again, concentrating all of his weight in the center of my back. His weight and my purse compressed my lungs, making me gasp for air.
Using the scarf he lifted my head, then drove it down with his hand. My ear slammed into ice and gravel, and a cloud of sparks burst behind my eyes. He lifted and slammed down again and the sparks began to coalesce. I could feel blood on my face and taste it in my mouth. I thought I felt something snap in my neck. My heart thundered inside my rib cage.
Get off me you demented piece of shit!
I felt light-headed. My tortured brain foresaw the autopsy report. My autopsy. Nothing under her nails. No defense wounds.
Don’t pass out!
I squirmed and tried to scream, but again my voice was barely audible.
Suddenly, the pounding stopped and my attacker leaned close again. He spoke, but I caught only garbled sounds through the ringing in my ears.
Then I felt his hands press against my back and his weight lifted. Boots crunched on gravel, and he was gone.
Dazed, I pulled my hands free, pushed myself to all fours, and rolled to a seated position. A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I raised my knees and lowered my head between them. My nose was running and either blood or saliva was oozing from my mouth. My hands trembled as I wiped my face with the end of my muffler, and I knew I was a hair away from tears.
Wind rattled the broken windows in the abandoned theater. What was the name? Yale? York? It seemed terribly important. I knew it before, so why couldn’t I remember it now? I felt disoriented, and began shivering uncontrollably, from cold, from fear, and perhaps from relief.
