“Yes, that will be fine. Thank you.”
They said goodbye and hung up.
Victoria placed the telephone in the base station. “God, I need a drink,” she said to Kit. “Or six. Do you want anything?”
Kit said, “No, thanks.”
Victoria took an open bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and with a flick of her wrist twisted out the cork. She could feel Kit’s eyes on her as she reached a wineglass down from a rack over the kitchen island. Filling it, she returned to the table, leaving the bottle on the counter.
“I appreciate your being here with me, you know,” she said, looking into Kit’s blue-green eyes. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to cope earlier without you. But I’m fine now. You don’t have to stay if there’s someplace else you need to be.”
“No,” Kit said with a quick shake of her head. “I can stay as long as you like. Hugh can look after things at the studio tomorrow if necessary.” Kit reached out and touched Victoria’s hand. “I only wish there was more I could do.”
I bet you do, Victoria thought as she lifted her wine-glass as a pretext to breaking contact with Kit. She was immediately ashamed. On the tabletop, Kit’s long fingers intertwined and writhed like snakes. Victoria put her glass down and took Kit’s hand. It was small and warm and strong. She squeezed gently and Kit responded in kind.
“I’m sorry,” Victoria said.
“For what?” Kit asked in a hoarse whisper.
“For being not as good a friend to you as you are to me.”
“Let me decide how good a friend you are, all right?” Her right knee bounced up and down as her foot jiggled nervously.
Victoria released Kit’s hand. “Anyway,” she said, “thanks for staying with me.”
“Any time,” Kit said with a twitchy smile.
“Then, for god’s sake, have a cigarette before you jump out of your skin.”
“I’m all right,” Kit said. “But let me do something, okay? I bet you haven’t eaten.”
“I’m not really very hungry,” Victoria said, adding in response to Kit’s frown, “but I don’t suppose you’ll let that stop you, will you?” Kit grinned and shook her head. “Consuela left something in the fridge,” Victoria said. “It just needs to be heated in the microwave.”
“Lucky for you,” Kit said. Victoria smiled. Kit was a terrible cook. “I was going to order a pizza.” Kit opened the refrigerator.
“The blue casserole,” Victoria said. Kit took the covered casserole dish out of the refrigerator and peeked under the lid. “It’s some kind of lobster thing,” Victoria said. “Five or six minutes in the microwave should do it.” She had to show Kit how to set the microwave timer.
While the microwave hummed, Kit got out napkins, plates, and cutlery and set the table. Standing on a step stool, she took another wineglass down from the overhead rack. Victoria opened another bottle of wine. She almost dropped it as a sudden wave of anguish crashed over her, twisting in her chest like a knife. She slumped into a chair at the table and put her face in her hands.
“What’s wrong?” Kit asked. “Are you okay?” She looked stricken. “Oh, Christ,” she said, face crimson. “What a goddamned stupid question. Jesus, I’m sorry.”
Victoria raised her head. Her eyes burned. “It’s all right,” she said. She took a deep, unsteady breath, let it out through her nose. “For a second it felt like Patrick was still here and we were getting ready to have dinner together. Then it hit me that we would never get dinner ready together again.”
Kit moved a chair close to Victoria’s and sat down, putting her arm over Victoria’s shoulders. “That probably won’t be the last time that happens,” she said.
Victoria leaned into Kit’s embrace. “That’s reassuring,” she said grimly. The microwave beeped for attention. Kit started to get up. Victoria held her for a moment, kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Thanks,” she said, then let her go.
Victoria ate more than she thought she could, but between the two of them they didn’t make much of a dent in Consuela’s casserole. They did polish off the bottle of wine, however, although Victoria drank more of it than Kit did. Kit rarely drank more than a glass or two, and seldom finished the second.
“You’d get along with Joe Shoe,” Victoria told her. “He drinks even less than you.”
“Joe who?”
“Joe Shoe. The big guy who was here earlier.”
“What kind of name is Joe Shoe? He an Indian or something?”
“As a matter of fact,” Victoria said, “he is one-eighth Native Canadian or First Nations or whatever they’re calling themselves these days. On his mother’s side. His great-grandmother was a Blackfoot who married a Scottish railway surveyor and moved east. He’s also one-eighth Jewish, he told me, on his father’s side, but he doesn’t make a big deal out of either. His real name is Schumacher.”
“And who is he when he’s at home?”
“A friend of the family,” Victoria said. “More Patrick’s friend than mine, although I’ve known him a little longer.”
“The old guy—Hammond?—he was Patrick’s boss,” Kit said as Victoria raised her glass and drank. She responded with a nod. Kit said, “This Joe Shoe, he works for Hammond too, right? Worked, anyway.”
“Yes,” Victoria said. “I feel bad that I was the cause of him getting fired.”
“He didn’t seem too worried about it,” Kit said. “What did Hammond mean when he said he took you off the street? By the way,” she added, “feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”
Victoria smiled briefly. “He was exaggerating a little, but I guess I was something of a street person when I first met him. He saw me hanging around outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. Evidently I reminded him of someone he used to know. That’s when I met Shoe, too. He was still Bill’s chauffeur then.” She thought about it for a second, then decided that Kit had a right to know, and said, “Bill and I were lovers for a short time. A very short time, a long time ago. Before I met Patrick.”
“Yeah,” Kit said gruffly. “I got that.” She took cigarettes and a disposable lighter out of her purse. “Do you mind?”
“No, go ahead.”
Kit stood by the stove, smoking her cigarette, with the range vent fan on high and the patio door open a crack. “And the guy with the ears?” she asked. “Who was he?”
“His name is Del Tilley.”
“He’s wired a bit tight.”
“He is a little intense, isn’t he? I think women make him nervous. A year or so ago, when I went to the office to meet Patrick for lunch, I collided with him in the hall. I’d have fallen if he hadn’t caught me, but his hand touched my breast. Actually, he copped a pretty good feel. I thought he was going to faint when I smiled at him and told him not to worry about it. He’s Bill’s head of security.”
“You’re kidding?” Kit said, eyes wide with surprise. “I’d’ve said security was more Joe Shoe’s line of work.”
Victoria said, “Well, you wouldn’t be too far wrong. Twenty years ago, when he was Bill’s chauffeur, he saved Bill’s life when a man attacked him with a crowbar outside the office.”
Kit arched her eyebrows, which were the same shade of dark iron grey as her short-cropped hair.
“The man broke Shoe’s arm and fractured his cheekbone, but he was still able to throw the guy over the hood of Bill’s car. He was crushed to death under the wheels of a truck.”
“Ouch.” Kit shuddered. “Remind me never to get him pissed at me.”
Victoria shook her head. “In the years I’ve known him,” she said, “I’ve pissed him off plenty of times. He hasn’t thrown me under the wheels of a truck yet.”
The skies opened up soon after Shoe left Victoria’s house, the rain all but overwhelming the Mercedes’ single centre-mounted wiper. Traffic on the approach to the Lions Gate Bridge was light, but at times it was like driving underwater. Headlights were almost useless. Only the very brave or the very stupid drove at more than tw
enty or thirty kilometres per hour. Then, about halfway across the bridge, the traffic slowed to a complete halt. Shoe put the car in gear and, as the rain drummed on the roof and the reek of ozone filled the car’s interior, he tried to wrap his mind around the fact that his best friend was dead. He couldn’t. It just didn’t fit.
He thought back to his last conversation with Patrick. On Friday evening, after Patrick had broken the news about his resignation, he’d asked, “What are your plans for the future?”
“Vague,” Shoe had replied.
Patrick sipped his drink. “You’ll be what, fifty on your next birthday? When you were twenty-five, what did you think you’d be doing when you were fifty?”
“Selling used cars.”
“Really?”
“No, of course not.”
“When I was twenty-five,” Patrick said, “I thought that by the time I was forty I’d be rich.”
“You’ve done pretty well for yourself,” Shoe said.
“Maybe,” Patrick said. “For a kid from the Point.” The Point, Shoe knew, was Pointe St. Charles, the Irish working-class district of Montreal, where Patrick had grown up and where his family still lived. “But I’m not rich,” Patrick said. “Bill is rich. When I was twenty-five, that’s how rich I thought I’d be by the time I was forty. You remember my cousin Sean, don’t you? Sean Rémillard?”
Shoe nodded. He did, vaguely. He’d met him at Patrick’s wedding, eight years ago.
“When Sean was twenty-five—he’s a month younger me—he was going to be a member of parliament with a portfolio of some kind by the time he was forty, and prime minister by the time he was fifty.”
“How’s he doing?” Shoe asked.
“He’s after the nomination as the Liberal candidate in a federal by-election in Richmond. Or is it Burnaby-Douglas? Whatever, it’s pretty much a one-horse race, according to Sean. Maybe it is, too. He’s got the backing of Allan Privett.”
Patrick spoke the name as though he thought Shoe should recognize it. He didn’t and he said as much.
“No?” Patrick seemed surprised. “He’s one of the most powerful men in the party. Certainly the most powerful man in the B.C. wing. He’s an old family friend of sorts, had a big house across the lake from my uncle Albert’s cottage in Saint-Adophe-d’Howard, north of Montreal, where Sean and I—and our cousin Mary—used to spend our summers. He left Quebec shortly after the separatists came to power in ’76 to take over his wife’s family’s insurance business in Victoria. He lives in Lions Bay now. So does Sean.”
Patrick fell silent then, and his boyish face took on a faraway expression, eyes focused on some distant point, some distant time. Shoe waited patiently, sipping his club soda, almost certain that Patrick was thinking about his cousin Mary. He had told Shoe about her. Mary was his mother’s eldest brother Albert’s only child. She had drowned in a sailing accident when Patrick was seventeen. She’d been nineteen. This past summer, when Patrick had been moving his uncle Albert, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, into a nursing home, he’d come across all of Mary’s things, neatly packed away in boxes in the basement of Albert’s house in Montreal. It had brought back a lot of painful memories, he’d said.
After a few seconds of silence, Patrick refocused and said, “Sean’s married to Allan Privett’s daughter Charlotte.” He smiled ruefully. “I had a major hard-on for her when I was seventeen, but she had this huge crush on Sean. She was only fifteen, though, and he thought she was a pest. Besides, Sean and Mary, well, let’s just say that they were somewhat closer than first cousins are supposed to be, if you get my meaning.” His voice trailed off and the faraway look returned momentarily. Then he said, “So, who knows? Unless—well, with Allan Privett’s backing, maybe Sean will be prime minister by the time he’s fifty. He asked me to work for him, you know.”
“Patrick,” Shoe had said, with mock horror. “Please don’t tell me you quit your job to go into politics.”
“Good lord, no,” Patrick had said, placing his hand over his heart, feigning pain. “I’m hurt you would even entertain such a thought.”
“Sorry,” Shoe had said. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got a couple of irons in the fire,” Patrick had replied evasively, “which I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss right now.”
The traffic on the bridge started moving again. Shoe exited the bridge and descended into the wet green gloom of Stanley Park. Primordial rain forest loomed on either side as he turned off the wider Causeway onto Scenic Drive, a slower but more direct route to the Burrard Street Bridge across False Creek to Kitsilano. The rain stopped.
Patrick had suggested they get something to eat. “Victoria is out tonight,” he’d said. “With Kit Parsons.”
“Kit as in Christopher?” Shoe said, thinking of Kit Carson, the American frontiersman and “Indian fighter.”
“As in Katherine,” Patrick said. “Victoria met her when she took an interior design course. Kit was the instructor. Wait till you meet her. She’s only about five feet tall, but tough as nails. Very butch. I’m sure she’s a lesbian.”
They’d driven in Shoe’s car to the Kettle O’ Fish on Pacific, parking on Beach almost directly under the approach to the Burrard Street Bridge. After they’d ordered, barbecued tuna for Shoe, surf-and-turf and a half-bottle of California Chardonnay for Patrick, Patrick had asked, “How do you see yourself living after you retire?”
“Pretty much the way I’m living now,” Shoe replied. “I expect I’ll have more time to read and sail. I might not have anyone to sail with, though. You’re going to be too busy getting rich.”
Patrick smiled wryly.
“What’s with all these questions about my future?” Shoe asked.
“I guess what I’m trying to tell you,” Patrick said, “in a roundabout way, is not to expect things at Hammond Industries to remain quite what they’ve been for the last twenty-five years. Or the last ten, for that matter. Maybe it’s time for you to consider getting out too. While the getting is good, so to speak.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
“Is your leaving going to be the cause of things not staying the same?”
“No, but my leaving isn’t going help. I’m getting out before things start falling seriously apart. And, believe me, they are going to start falling seriously apart pretty damned soon. Bill’s getting old. He’s not going to be able to hold it together much longer.”
“No offence, Patrick,” Shoe said, “but am I detecting a hint of sour grapes here? I know you and Bill didn’t see eye to eye on whether the company should go public, but that’s hardly evidence he’s losing control.”
“Maybe not,” Patrick had replied. “But going public is the only way the company is going to survive into the twenty-first century. That’s not the only reason I resigned, though. It’s time for me to move on.”
And now it was time, it seemed, for Shoe to move on too, whether he liked it or not.
When Shoe got home, Jack was sitting on the back steps, in the light of the porch lamp, smoking a cigarette and twirling the putter from the incomplete set of clubs Shoe had inherited with the house. There was a plastic beer cup full of old golf balls on the step beside him. Jack stood as Shoe climbed the back steps.
“Cops were here looking for you,” he said. “Homicide dicks. Two of ’em.” Shoe opened the door and Jack handed him a card. “Said to call that number first thing in the morning. You kill someone?”
“Not recently,” Shoe said. “Do you remember Patrick O’Neill? He used to keep a thirty-eight-foot Hunter at the marina where I moored the Pete.” Shoe had helped Patrick buy the Hunter ten years ago when Patrick had first started working at Hammond Industries.
“Sure,” Jack said. “Skinny guy. Looks like an accountant. Nice lookin’ wife.”
“He was shot to death this afternoon.” He told Jack what little he knew about Patrick’s murder.
“Sorry to hear tha
t.”
“You coming in?” Shoe said.
“I’m goin’ t’ finish my smoke first.”
Upstairs, Shoe looked up Muriel Yee’s telephone number—she had recently moved into a new town-house in New Westminster and he hadn’t yet committed her telephone number to his or the phone’s memory—and dialled. She picked up on the second ring.
“Will Victoria be all right?” Muriel asked when Shoe had finished filling her in.
“I think so,” he said.
Muriel was silent for a moment, then said, “He wasn’t serious about firing you, was he?”
“Yes, I think this time he was.” Since Shoe had been working for him, Hammond had fired him at least half a dozen times. It had never stuck.
“I’m sorry,” Muriel said.
“I’m not,” Shoe replied. “I’ve been thinking about retiring anyway.”
“Retiring? What will you do?”
“I haven’t thought it that far through yet,” he said.
Del Tilley hummed tunelessly as he cat-footed through the quiet corridors, past the empty cubicles and darkened offices. The rubber-cushioned heels of his custom-made boots made no sound on the heavy-duty industrial carpeting. He was a happy man. He didn’t really believe in luck—you made your own opportunities—but things were working out better than he’d hoped. A spark of anger flared briefly at the memory of the disrespectful way in which Hammond had spoken to Victoria, but even that wasn’t enough to ruin his mood.
Out of sheer exuberance he gave a muted yell and performed a quick spin and kick, but he misjudged slightly and his boot heel clipped the edge of a workstation partition. The partition shuddered and something crashed to the floor on the other side. He went into the cubicle. It was just books and binders. He picked them up and dumped them haphazardly onto the desk. The cleaning staff would be blamed.
He resumed his tour, humming again.
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