Revenge of the Lobster

by Hilary MacLeod

  Parker was unaware of the transaction that had just taken place at the cookhouse. He had poured himself a Scotch at five o’clock precisely and kept on drinking until he passed out just like Jared, the effect of the much more expensive liquor no different than the rotgut. Behind him, Jasmine imitated his soft snoring, so it sounded like there were two men passed out in the room.

  In his gourmet kitchen, Guillaume looked like a bizarre fairy godmother, changing the mice into footmen in Cinderella, as he waved his lobster stunner like a wand, striking and killing lobsters. In his unbalanced mind he was performing a parody of the Disney movie, as he zapped lobster after lobster in the three-foot stainless steel sink.

  Bippity bobbity boo!

  Lined up in the freezer were lobster claws, stuffed, not with soft white flesh, but with cocaine. Claw, after claw, after claw, Guillaume’s insurance against boredom and desire.

  He was shrouded in steam, bubbling up from water boiling in big copper pots, olive oil spitting on the stove, flour flying as he put together perfect flaky pastry to surround the soft, sweet lobster meat. Not all the white powder flying around the cookhouse was flour.

  Certainly not the stuff encrusted around Guillaume’s nose.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jared thought Guillaume would never leave. He dozed on and off in the cab of his Hummer. When the cookhouse lights went out, he watched Guillaume labour across the sand and up to the house. He saw more lights go off. He waited several minutes. The rain had stopped and there was light on the eastern horizon. It was nearly dawn.

  He let himself into the cookhouse. He didn’t notice the mess Guillaume had left behind—pots and pans scattered on the counters, a pile of utensils in the sink, the dishwasher door yawning open, dishes stuffed into it every which way. His own kitchen was worse—the floor a litter of empty beer and Coke cans, bottles of rum, China Garden cartons and Pizzarama boxes. Jared’s floor mop of a dog, Newt, used to lick it clean. Not anymore. Newt had moved out the last time Jared went to jail. He was fed now, in a dish, at just about every house in the village.

  Jared began opening cupboards, not bothering to close them, taking out jars and bottles and leaving them on the counter. There were all kinds of weird-looking spices and powders. Cumin. What the hell is cumin? Somethin’ like Viagra? He tasted it and scrunched up his face. He read the other labels: Ginger, Allspice, Nutmeg—you could sometimes get high on that, they said—but no cocaine. Where is the goddamn cocaine? He looked in the stainless steel fridge. Weird-lookin’ stuff in there, too, but no coke. He opened the walk-in freezer. It was lined with shelves, stacked with labelled cartons of the food Guillaume had prepared in the last few hours. Homard St. Jacques, his signature dish, Homard au vin de Dents de Lion—and some new drug-inspired dishes: Crustacean Croutons, in the shape of tiny lobster claws, and Lobster à l’Anglaise, which was lobster trifle. Jared was a plain meat and potatoes guy. When he did eat lobster, it was straight claws and tail—dipped in butter.

  There were a dozen claws—cooked, red, and frozen, lining one shelf. That was more his speed. Plain and simple. He’d have one of those. He pulled one out and stuck it in the microwave. The microwave ended its cycle to the strains of “The William Tell Overture,” an extravagant feature that was lost on Jared. He pulled out the claw and juggled it from hand to hand. Damn near burned my fingers. He was about to crack it open, when he felt a wave of nausea. He wasn’t eating that, not on an empty stomach. Not without a coffee. No way. He opened the door and threw it out. A crow came by and scooped it up, just slightly ahead of a gull. Some more birds moved in, and there was a great squawking and flapping in the sky when they realized that they were too late.

  Jared got in his Hummer and took off.

  He’d come back later. Tomorrow. He knew there was cocaine in there somewhere. He drove home in a fog, ran over a fox, and nearly drove into the ditch when he turned into his own driveway.

  Gus was out putting stale homemade bread on the back stoop to feed the crow she called Charlie. She claimed that when she spoke to him, he spoke back. She said she understood his every caw—although she didn’t know why it was called cawing, when the sound the crow made was more like “aw.” Her neighbour Estelle believed Gus understood the bird, but didn’t know how she could tell a “yes” from a “no.”

  “Oh, I can tell,” Gus had nodded sagely. “I can tell by the tilt of his head and the look in his eye.” Abel insisted it must be a different eye all the time—that it couldn’t be the same crow year after year. The original must be long dead, he told her. Gus didn’t like to think about that. Who was to say how long a crow might live, especially one brought up on her wholesome homemade bread?

  Charlie paid no attention to the bread this morning. He was dipping up and down with something in his beak. Ben and Annabelle’s dog, Toby, was there too—also making a fuss, running in circles, worrying the crow. Toby kept jumping up to try to grab whatever the crow was clutching.

  Spying Gus, the big black bird increased his cawing and swooped low. Toby managed to grab the treasure in his teeth. There was a bit of a tussle and finally Charlie let go, flying up high with a great screech. Toby ran over to Gus and dropped the trophy at her feet. It was a cooked lobster claw. Must be from the supper at the Hall. Has a raccoon upended one of them bins? She’d have to check—or have Abel do it. He’d got up earlier than she had this morning and was nowhere to be found—the only sign of him his empty coffee cup in the sink.

  Gus hated to touch the claw. She picked it up gingerly with her thumb and forefinger and, with her arm stretched out in front of her so she wouldn’t smell it, she took it to the compost bin and dropped it in. Toby and Charlie both went wild. The dog, barking and running around the bin as if chasing his own tail. The crow, squawking and swooping down at the bin. Gus tried to stop them, but couldn’t. Best leave them to it. They’ll settle down.

  They didn’t.

  They just kept cawing and barking—all day long, and even the next.

  Hy woke to a clean and bright morning, a day innocent of last night’s dirty weather, a clean bolt of sunshine streaming into her bedroom window. Her first thought was of Cam. She got up and stumbled down the short hall to the guest bedroom and peeked in. Cam was scrunched into the bed as if she’d become a part of it. Hy crept downstairs, made coffee, and sat down at the computer to email Eldon. She felt the energy drain from her as soon as she opened the screen. At least there were no more ugly messages—of any kind. Eldon can wait. She googled Hawthorne Parker instead and became happily entangled in the tentacles of the octopus. It was nearly noon when Hy abandoned the octopus to return to the problem of Eldon.

  Cam came downstairs. Hy saved what she’d started.

  So far she had: Hi Eldon, I should explain…

  She got up to make Cam some fresh coffee and the phone rang. It was Ian. He was so unable to contain his curiosity about Cam, he didn’t even say hello.

  “Is she there?”

  “Yup.”

  “Would you two like to go look for The Crustacean?”

  Parker woke up on the couch, squinting in the bright sunshine. His head was aching, his mouth dry, the thirty-year-old bottle of Scotch on the table, half gone. He dragged himself upstairs where Guillaume was snoring in the king-size bed. Guillaume looked innocent in sleep, more like the boy from Buctouche that Parker had fallen in love with—with his dark good looks, a stocky but trim physique, flashing smile, seductively shifty eyes. A boy from Buctouche, determined to make his way in the world—in a big way. He had been perfecting his Parisian-accented English and a certain sense of style. Parker had found it amusing and Guillaume utterly charming. A firecracker with a wicked smile.

  Parker moved quietly across the room, thinking to wake Guillaume gently and try to have a quiet talk, but when he saw the white crust around Guillaume’s nose, he stopped, blood hot in his veins. Cocaine. Where had he gotten it? Jared.
Must be. I’ll soon put a stop to that. He turned away with contempt. Guillaume was no longer a charming boy and there was more wickedness in him than a seductive smile could conceal.

  “We should blow that bitch out of the water.” Tom McFee was chewing tobacco. He spat a dirty orange wad of it onto the wharf.

  Ben put up his hands, gesturing for restraint. He wished Annabelle were there. She brought calm to volatile situations like this one. The local fishermen were sitting outside Ben’s shed on the wharf at Big Bay, the lobster catch landed and sold.

  “Look, she hasn’t done anything to any of you. I’m the one that’s taken the heat.”

  He didn’t like the way Scott Bergeron looked—mean as a bad dog, with the one eye always half-closed, his unruly pale ginger hair full of dandruff. Tom McFee was surly and sneering. Handsome as the devil himself, was how Gus described him. Dark hair, straight white teeth, a dimpled chin and sleepy, seductive eyes hiding a nasty streak.

  “Still ’n’ all…” Tom lacked imagination. He just repeated: “We should blow the bitch outta the water.” His pal nodded his head up and down in agreement.

  “Give over.” Ben frowned. “You’re on the sauce.”

  Scott and Tom always started drinking the minute they got off the water and sold their lobster. They’d weave home in their trucks and fall unconscious every afternoon. Then they’d go on the water again at night, still drunk, and haul up the other men’s catch. Ben wasn’t worried about what the other fishermen might do, but he was worried about these two. He’d wanted to get this settled before he headed for Charlottetown that night, but he could see he was getting nowhere.

  “Look, let’s just let it lie another day or two. She may clear out of here. If she doesn’t, I promise you, I’ll do something about it. She won’t be allowed to hurt our season. Now, any of you seen a boat around here called The Crustacean?”

  The men looked at one another, a few shrugged, one or two said, “Nope,” and the meeting adjourned. Not very satisfactory, thought Ben as he left the wharf, but his spirits lifted as he thought about the night ahead—a restaurant meal with the family, Rowan’s concert, bathing in the fey beauty and ethereal voice that he and Annabelle had somehow created, and then a king-size bed in the Prince Charles Hotel, just him and Annabelle. He was eager to get to town, but the ferry schedule gave him time to stop at Hy’s to warn her that things might be getting ugly, just in case she had any more ideas about helping out that Legionnaire the way she had the night of the supper. Hy’s truck was in the yard, but there was no answer when he knocked on the door. He tried the door handle. Locked. Odd that.

  If Ben hadn’t been off in a dream world, fantasizing about Annabelle in a big hotel bed, he would have noticed Ian’s hybrid speeding along the road, heading for Big Bay with Hy in the passenger seat and Cam huddled down in the back. The three agreed that The Crustacean had to be somewhere close by if those two men had come to shore to vandalize Cam’s jeep. They also all agreed that the pair had done it—and everything else—to discredit Cam and the Legion, and to get her out of The Shores.

  The jeep looked the same as it had when they’d left it the evening before. Cam grabbed a few more things out of it—including a pair of silk pyjamas and some sweats.

  For both of her, thought Hy, with an inner smile.

  “You going to report it to police, have it towed by the CAA?” asked Ian, ever practical.

  Cam shook her head. “Leave it be for now.”

  Ian couldn’t believe Cam’s casual approach. It was a good vehicle—apart from the damage.

  They left the jeep and continued on down the road, past the turnoff to Big Bay Harbour. A mile or so on, The Island Way ended and turned back on itself. Just before that, there was a lane that ran up the long sheltering arm on the west side of the bay. It was impossible to take it all the way out to the end of the point—the land became sand dunes that got progressively bigger and then began to recede, until they trailed off into just a trace of shore jutting into the sea.

  They got out of the car and began hiking through dunes so tall, it felt like tramping across the Sahara desert. Though the day was cool, they were sweating by the time they came around the last of the three largest dunes. There was The Crustacean, moored where it could not be seen—except from their perfect viewpoint.

  “That’s it,” said Cam, Ian and Hy simultaneously. It was a small triumph. What they would do with the information, none of them knew. They might stop those two bullies before they did more damage.

  They didn’t know that it was already too late for that.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “I am in ze jail—and it ees your fault.” It was mid-afternoon when Guillaume finally got up. He had convinced himself that Parker was to blame for the entire episode—his journey to town with Jared, the night spent snivelling up against the haystack, the hours in jail—all Parker’s fault. It was partly paranoia, and partly rationalization. If Parker hadn’t brought him here…if this wasn’t such a godforsaken place…if…if…if…and on and on it went, the blame becoming greater in his mind the more he thought about it.

  “My fault?” Parker’s eyes and mouth opened wide at the accusation. “My fault?” he repeated, unable to believe it.

  “Always, your fault—from when you left me for her.”

  Lord, he was dragging that up again.

  “I’ve paid for it ever since.”

  He looked Guillaume straight in the eyes. The glassy gleam in them should have been a beacon of warning to Parker, but he had become adept at avoiding such signs—signs that should have alerted him that Guillaume was spinning out of control and headed on a collision course that would not involve cars.

  “Is Sheldon Coffin behind this?”

  Cam was surprised by Ian’s mention of the name. She had no quick response. They were walking back to the car, in single file, along the path through the dunes. She was ahead of him and he couldn’t see her face. He persisted:

  “Trying to protect his evil empire?”

  “From me? I can hardly believe it.”

  “You do know him?”

  “I know of him.” She spoke with certainty, a ring of truth in the way she said it. He wished he could see her expression, her eyes.

  “Do you know Matt and Jeff?”

  “Mutt. No. No, I don’t. I know only that they work for him.”

  “But those two have targeted you. If that boat belongs to him—”

  She turned sharply, contempt in her eyes. “It doesn’t belong to him.”

  “Well, it’s in his control—like everything else.”

  “Everything else?”

  “He’s running the whole show for Parker. You must know that. That must be why you’re here. To try to get to Parker.”

  Cam said nothing. She just kept walking. Hy, behind Ian, knew he wouldn’t get Cam to open up about Parker. She’d had no luck herself—and she knew why. That photo. This wasn’t business, it was personal. It wasn’t about lobsters, the industry or the cause. It was about whatever had happened between Camilla and Parker.

  They walked the rest of the way in silence, Hy anxiously wondering when—and if —she could ask Cam about the photograph. She wasn’t willing to admit she’d been a snoop.

  “So you write the blogs,” Ian said, when they reached the car.

  “I’m the Lobster Lover,” said Cam.

  “Why can’t I link to it? Why isn’t it generally available?”

  “Guerrilla tactics,” said Cam.

  “But the whole point of a blog is to get it out there.”

  “Not this blog. I don’t want to preach to the converted. I wouldn’t get that many hits on the site other than animal rights people. This way, I make unexpected attacks on known contacts—like Hy. Pop! It shows up. Out of the blue. Out of left field.”

  “Why send it to me?”

 
; “You’ve been getting it?” Cam climbed into the back seat. She looked surprised. “You?”

  “Once.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Oh, c’mon. The claw?” Ian started up the car. “You sent it to me.”

  “Oh, I wrote it, but I never sent it to you.”

  “You must have.”

  “There are more things in the etherworld, Ian, than you have dreamed of in your philosophy,” Hy recited, looking smug. Ian frowned at her.

  “From Shakespeare’s blog,” she added, in a final thrust.

  “It must have a mind of its own,” said Cam. “I kind of like that. Anyway, you’ve got to admit the tactic works. Zap—out of nowhere—and suddenly you’re thinking lobster rights in a way you never considered before. It gets into your head.”

  It had. It had been chewing away at Hy’s fragile appetite for meat. It was vexing Ian’s technical mind.

  “So how do you do it—when you do it on purpose?”

  “That would be telling.”

  “C’mon. Give me a hint.”

  “There are ways in—through the electronic labyrinth. I know a few of them.”

  Ian looked back at her with admiration. Hy felt a small twinge. Jealousy?

  Guillaume was in the cookhouse with half a dozen lobsters lined up, dead, in the long, shallow steel sink. They were still that greenish-blue colour—not cooked yet. He’d killed them with the lobster stunner. It had heated up and become red hot, burning his hand. Now it lay like an oversized curling iron, cooling off. He didn’t feel like cooking. He picked up a one-edged razor blade and began separating a small mound of white powder on the counter, his hands trembling. He grasped the blade so hard that he cut himself. He sucked on his bleeding finger, the rest of his body radiating with pain. He was losing control—of himself; of Parker. He threaded thin white powdery lines across the black granite counter.

  The first line disappeared. He pulled it up his nose, inhaling deeply, feeling that sharp chemical taste at the back of his throat. Then the rush began. His blood sang. He exhaled—all his senses awakened. Normal. He felt normal. He clenched his teeth, began grinding them. More. I need more.