The Maestro

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  The shop needed a major clean-up, so Burl found himself on his own pushing a broom. He imagined his mother fifteen years younger working in a motel on the Trans-Canada. The fantasy failed when he tried to imagine her actually talking to the Maestro. Maybe they would just have taken a lot of Valium together.

  Palmateer came by around five as the sun was setting. “She wants you up to the house,” he said.

  Bea was in a study off her living-room. She was staring at her desk in a satisfied way. She picked up what was sitting there and brought it over to him for his inspection.

  “Take a gander at this,” she said.

  It was a photograph of Gow when he was a teenager. It was in colour, snipped from some magazine. His hair flopped over his forehead; his eyes were fiercely concentrating on something.

  Burl knew he could look that way. He had seen his eyes staring back at himself in a mirror with that unwavering look. He studied the picture hard.

  Then he handed it back to her. Maybe there was a bit of a smile on his face. A bit of longing that wanted to burrow right into those features. Bea seemed pleased with his reaction.

  “Here’s what I’m suggesting.” Burl sat where she pointed, a low chair by the window. “I’ll advance you the money to get down to Toronto.” She said this as if Burl had driven a hard bargain but she had finally caved in.

  “What?” he said. “Why?”

  “Do you want Ghost Lake or not?”

  “Yes … I mean … well, yes.”

  “Well, that’s good,” said Bea. “Because this is going to take some backbone, kid.” She sat at her swivel chair, crossed her knees and leaned back. “I’d fly you down if I weren’t so busy. But, in a way, it’s best you go yourself.”

  “But I wouldn’t know what to do.”

  “I did a little digging,” she said. “Gow usually paid for his shipments in cash. But the last charter, he used his credit card. You following me so far?”

  Burl managed a half-hearted nod.

  “So anyway, I phone up the credit-card folks and I spin them a little fib, say I’ve got a problem. I tell them I just finished making a big haul of supplies when I find out my client has died. So what am I supposed to do? They try to tell me it’ll all be dealt with and I tell them I’m sure it will but I ain’t planning on waiting ‘til Christmas to see if it’s under my tree, you know what I mean?

  “Well, the long and short of it is, they got me the address of Gow’s attorney.” Seeing no acknowledgement of a shared victory on Burl’s face, Bea continued. “That means the estate: the folks you’re going to have to introduce yourself to if you want what’s yours.”

  Burl looked hard at Bea. He had wrestled with his conscience all day, but now he found his mind drifting to other matters. She was going to forward him the money for the trip. As if it was a present. He wasn’t sure what a bus to Toronto cost, but the fact was, she owed him three weeks pay minus the advances. She’d kept him on a string all along.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Bea twiddled with a pencil on her desk. “I’m not going to bore you with my life story, kid, but I didn’t have it easy. I know a little something about getting what you have coming to you.” There was a sad look in the corners of her eyes. She blinked it away. “That’s a kind of round-about answer. Will it do for now?”

  For a moment Burl felt something like affection for her. He nodded.

  “Good,” she said. She turned to her desk. There was a neat stack of papers there. “Toronto’s a breeze. For a big city it’s easy to find your way around. Here’s a map. I’ve already marked off where the bus depot is and the street where the lawyer’s office is.”

  She got up and stood behind Burl, leaning over his shoulder and pointing each place out. “Walking distance,” she added. “And here’s the YMCA. It doesn’t cost much to stay there. Mind you, this kind of thing isn’t going to come together in any big hurry.”

  “I might have to stay there?”

  She laughed. “A couple of days. If they’ll see you. Then you can high-tail it back here.”

  A couple of days. That didn’t sound so bad. Ghost Lake was worth that. “And then it would be mine? I mean, if they believe I’m who I say I am?”

  Bea whooped. “Burl, my boy. It doesn’t work like that. Like I said, nobody’s gonna hand this thing to you on a platter. You come back here. I’ll support your claim. Then there’ll be letters back and forth. Then they’ll summon you back down there. More letters, more visits. Some kind of investigation. It could be years before they sort something like this out.”

  Burl felt the weight of it all crushing in on him.

  “Here’s your schedule out of Sudbury. There’s a 6:30 bus that’ll get you into Toronto by noon.”

  “I can’t do it,” said Burl. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me but there’s no way.”

  Bea sighed. She took her seat again, leaned on one elbow staring at him. Her gaze was relentless.

  “You’re frightened, right?”

  He nodded readily.

  “Well, that’s good. You walk in there cocky, they’ll throw you out on your ear.”

  “But I couldn’t walk in there at all. I don’t know anything about … about him. About my mother and Nog, I mean.”

  “Nog?”

  “It’s what his friends called him,” he said.

  Bea seemed impressed. “You’re wearing one of his shirts. You know a nickname I ain’t run across in all my reading. That’s the kind of thing that’ll begin to convince them. You don’t have to know much. But they will want to know something about how Gow and your mother got together. He didn’t say anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And your mom?”

  Burl shook his head.

  “Burl. You don’t want to talk about this thing. Fine. In a crazy kind of way, the less you say the better. You’re a missing kid no one is claiming. You’re a nobody. The estate will try to prove you’re somebody other than Gow’s son. If they can’t prove that, well, then they’ll have to look at what’s called the circumstantial evidence. You were living with him. He let you stay in the cabin, sent you supplies—that kind of thing. You see how it works?”

  All Burl could think of was that he was a nobody right now. Unclaimed. He must have looked miserable, because Bea’s voice softened.

  “You think I’d expect you to do this all by yourself?” Her voice was amiable. “I’m gonna be here for you, kid. I’ve helped you so far, haven’t I? I’ve got all the records of his phone calls, the invoices for the flights, the supplies he sent up to you. Comes close to a thousand bucks. That’s a lot of dough to spend on a nobody.”

  He looked at her and she held his gaze steadily. She could fly through anything. She was fearless.

  “You have to put in an appearance first. That’s all. You just say Gow said you should contact them if anything happened to him. I’ve got a feelin’ they don’t even know about Ghost Lake. Since you’re not asking for anything else—not demanding a share of his millions—these folks may just hand you the place.”

  It wasn’t what she had said before. But she called them folks and that sounded a lot easier to handle than people. Burl tried to imagine talking to folks.

  “I want to help you get up there,” she said. “That’s why I gave you the job here. I know you’re just itching to get back. But first things first. You let them know you’re around. Then back you come, and out to Ghost Lake. I’ll fly you out. Palmateer’s got an old stove that just needs the door welded back on. We can get you set up just jim dandy. The longer you’re there, the more convincing your argument is. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. But we’ve got to start this business with the estate first. You know what I mean?

  She might as well have cast a spell over Burl. A woodstove. A flight back to Ghost Lake.

  “Opportunity, kid,” she said. “Maybe you’re not used to what it looks like. So let me introduce you. Burl, this is Opportunity. Opportunity, this is Burl.
”

  Burl smiled a little. Then a lot.

  “That’s what I want to see. What are you waiting for!”

  20

  The Nobody

  BURL LAY IN HIS BED, HEAVY WITH INDECISION. He tried to figure out what he feared most: Bea and their shared lie, or the unknown forces in Toronto that controlled what was left of Gow in this world.

  He rolled over. His sheet had balled up; his cheek lay against the worn and musty fabric of the couch. It had a waiting-room smell.

  Cal and Doloris had not reported him missing. What was it now—just over two months. Cal wouldn’t have told Doloris about the incident at the secret place, about Tanya. When Burl didn’t return for dinner, his mother might have shouted from the door for him—”Burl. Burl?”—as if he were a dog wandered too far off on a good sniff. By the time she came back to the table, Cal would have probably eaten his supper and Burl’s, too.

  Who else was there to know if he was gone? Who had noticed when his sister Laura died? He had been eight. Laura had been eleven. She had been run over, a drunk driver. He couldn’t remember anyone at the funeral. Granny Robichaud wasn’t even there.

  Bea was right. He was a Nobody descended from a long line of Nobodies. It ran in the family. A Nobody couldn’t go missing. It was impossible.

  The Maestro had called him a wild child. Not a love child.

  The couch bristled rough against Burl’s face. He rolled over on his back, cupped his hands under his head. His scalp felt like it was crawling with fleas, but when he scratched, he realized that the vermin were inside his skull.

  How hard would it be to play this game?

  “You won’t have to make things up,” she’d said, as if she knew it was all a lie, anyway.

  “Listen,” she’d said. “They don’t believe you? You hang your head—you’re good at that—and leave. Nothing lost, right? But—and this is important—if they ask about the cabin, you just throw it back in their face. ‘What cabin?’ You say to them. Give ‘em some of their own medicine. You see? You’ve got something they want. But if they want it, they’ve got to consider the whole package.”

  She was too quick for him. First she had told him they would find out about Ghost Lake and take it from him. Now she was saying they would need him to find out about it.

  What could he do? He could run away, but where? Besides, he wanted the money he had coming to him from Bea.

  “There’s something real sad about a person who dies leaving no one behind,” Bea had said. “People like the idea of immortality. That’s you, Burl. You see what I’m saying?”

  Immortality. That’s what Gow had wanted. That’s what the oratorio was all about. Something to leave behind.

  “They don’t buy it, we leave,” Bea reiterated. “No calling in our lawyers to do battle—nothing scuzzy. No going to the press, although the estate might be afraid of that. We just see how willing they are to see Justice done, you know what I mean?”

  Bea Clifford had obviously given the whole thing a lot of thought.

  “It isn’t as if you’re asking for the world,” she’d said. “Hell, tell them they can have the piano if they want it. Just so you can have Ghost Lake. Once they figure you’re not a golddigger, maybe they’ll let you have it. Get you to sign something saying you won’t come back for more or go blabbing your story to the newspapers.”

  Millions? Was that what Bea wanted? And what was this about going to the newspapers? It was as if her plan was a huge house, and he’d only been shown the mud room.

  “Okay, okay. Stop aiming those headlights at me. You wanna know what’s in this for Bea Clifford?” She’d relaxed a bit, smiled nicely. “Well, I’ll tell you.

  “You wanna live up there, right? Fine. But you know as well as I do that you’ll still need money. That’s where I come in. That lake’s gotta be one of the most picture-postcard perfect spots I ever saw. Throw in a pyramid—well, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime vacation paradise.

  “So here’s Auntie Bea’s plan: if I can put a hunting or fishing party in that cabin of yours, maybe a family in the summer—that’s a fine sandy beach you have there—for three weeks every season, a dozen or so weeks a year, you can make enough money to keep yourself in macaroni for the rest of the time. People pay me to outfit them, fly them in. You get the rent. We both win.”

  He believed her. Oddly, he felt a little better knowing what she was really after. He didn’t mind giving up the cabin now and then. If only it was his.

  And that’s where it had ended. Except that it didn’t end. Bea’s words hatched and buzzed in his skull until he wished he could crack it open and let them out.

  A truck rolled by on the Intervalle Road.

  Weesbach. That was the bowhunter’s name. Gord Weesbach. Burl wasn’t sure his dad hung around with Gord much any more, but he had the feeling Gord worked at the mill. Suddenly Burl could see it all too clearly: Gord tapping his father on the shoulder. “Seen that kid of yours lately, Cal?”

  It wasn’t as if Cal wanted him back. Burl didn’t have any illusions about that. But you could never tell what Cal might do. He’d start thinking about how Burl had got one over on him—something like that—and it would drive him crazy. Soon enough he’d be around, causing trouble, wanting something.

  Gord Weesbach was up north somewhere right now. Sitting in a tree waiting for bear. But only for the week. What choice did Burl have? He had to get out of Intervalle but he didn’t have any cash. Bea had seen to that. She’d been generous enough, but as far as she was concerned, Burl wasn’t leaving Intervalle unless it was on a bus to Toronto.

  He squeezed his eyes tight until they popped and fizzed with red fireworks. He could get up right now and leave. He could step out that door and be on the highway in half an hour. He wasn’t a prisoner. He could hitch a ride to somewhere. Anywhere.

  And that’s when it came to him. A little bit of mercy. The beginning of a plan all his own. He was too tired to give it any real consideration, but the thought of it released him from some of the knots he was tied up in. Allowed him to rescue a little consolation from what was left of the night.

  Tomorrow was soon enough. Then the Nobody would work out the details of his own plan.

  21

  Koschei the Deathless

  NATALIE AGNEW RAPPED ON THE WARPED AND weathered door. It took her a minute to think where to knock, half afraid of putting her fist clear through it. There were no signs of anyone at home. No half-starved hunting dog on a chain barking its head off—that’s what she had expected to see when she first laid eyes on the Crow residence. There was no smoke coming out of the chimney pipe.

  “Hello,” she said. “Mrs. Crow?”

  She stepped down from the stoop and walked through the frost-licked grass that grew knee-high around the shack. It had been trodden down in only one mean path from the oil-dead patch of red sand that must serve as a car park.

  Natalie listened to hear if a car was coming. Nothing but the screech of blue jays. She peered through a window, squinting, blocking the light out with her hands so that her eyes might sift the shadows inside for signs of life. Nothing.

  She had phoned the high school in Vaillancourt, but Burl Crow had not registered for school there. She’d phoned the Catholic school in Ste. Chrodegang with the same result.

  In the school records she’d found that Burl’s parents had no phone service. So that was that, for a while. But then a Saturday came along and David had another appointment up at the reservation. So she had tagged along. Not for the weather this time. It was horrible, the ground cold and hard, the trees bleak. Winter in the wings.

  Through the window she saw the remains of breakfast on the table: two bowls, a carton of milk, Corn Flakes, a thick brown mug, an empty Coke can. But from the look of the house, these things might have been sitting there for weeks.

  She heard a car backfire up the road. She just barely made it back to the path before a huge old boat of a car squealed into the property, almost side-swiping her
Tercel.

  The man who climbed out from behind the wheel leered at her as he hitched up his belt under a formidable gut.

  “Are you lost?” he said, leaning against the trunk of his car. His eyes were all over her. She folded her arms across her chest.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and was instantly angry at herself for capitulating to this big lout of a man. She wasn’t sorry at all. “I’m looking for Burl Crow.”

  The man jabbed his key into the trunk lock and turned it, never taking his eyes off her.

  “He ain’t here,” he said. His thumb pushed the button to release the catch. The trunk opened with a screeching sound.

  “Is this where he lives?” she asked.

  The man reached into the trunk and pulled out a shotgun. Natalie gasped.

  “He ain’t here no more,” he said. “Who are you, anyway?”

  Natalie took a few steps up the path towards him. There was no other way of getting to her car and, although she knew the gun was just for show, she wanted to be in the Tercel heading out the driveway in case he changed his mind. He cracked the gun open to see if it was loaded. He was toying with her. He had a rude smile on his face, now that he cradled a firearm. As she neared him he stepped forward so that she would have to go around him, detouring into the overgrown grass.

  It annoyed her to think that this inflated, vulgar hulk might be Burl’s father. “Burl was a gifted student of mine.”

  “Gifted!” the man snorted. “That’s a good one.”

  “We’d lost touch.”

  He raised his eyebrows and leered again. “Foolish boy,” he said. “You can bet I wouldn’t lose touch.”

  Natalie stopped in front of him. He laid the gun across his shoulder and leaned a little out towards her, just in case she wanted to give him a kiss. He was very much closer to getting a slap across the face, but Natalie resisted the urge. He was dangerous. She could see that. And she could see, suddenly, a lot more. Things that had puzzled her about Burl suddenly had something like an explanation. Despite the man’s menacing attitude, her rage grew.