Sing a Worried Song

by William Deverell

  He checks the daybook he’s been keeping to remind him of events and duties. “Reserve Trannie Vancouver and return.” Done. “Reserve Confed Club.” Must do. He’s a life member of the Confederation Club, his stuffy long-time lodgings in Vancouver.

  Tomorrow: “AA at St. Mary’s Hall, 7 p.m. Bring Dog.” Arthur is Dog’s sponsor, and is taking him to the meetings. Last week the shy fellow finally found the courage to speak, earning applause and laughter: “My name is Dogmar, and I just found out I’m an alcoholic.”

  Sunday. Brunch with Hubbell Meyerson. A distasteful date. Arthur intends to be blunt with the aging sexual freebooter. This friendship is over, pal, kaput.

  Arthur’s daybook also reminds him there’s a Halloween party at the hall on the thirty-first, next Wednesday. It’s a fundraiser for the Recycling Society. Arthur is on its board and so cannot avoid the loathsome occasion. Tickets at the door, cash bar, prizes for best costumes. The community website has details.

  A wave of weariness carries him upstairs to bed.

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25

  Arthur’s courtesans are trying to dress him in Japanese ceremonial garb, like an ancient samurai or shogun, but he resists and flees naked into the hall, among dancing ghosts and goblins. “Prize for best costume,” Scotty Phillips announces from the stage. “Arthur Beauchamp, please come forward!” A camera captures Arthur under a spotlight as he stands immobile, his hands shielding his private parts. Margaret walks in, fresh from Ottawa, and screams.

  The scream increases tremendously in volume, ear-splittingly so, and on achieving consciousness Arthur jumps up and presses pillows over his ears. It is dark, his bed clock says a quarter to five. An exterior spotlight reveals an eight-point buck bounding away. The siren is howling just outside his dormer window, under the overhang, and he would yank it from its wires were it not a foot too far to reach without risking a fall.

  “Do not come closer!” commands an amplified, threatening male voice. “You are trespassing! Stay away from the house!”

  He scurries downstairs in his pyjamas, stops at the control panel, his fingers hovering above the keypad. What is the password? Changed to something he should easily remember, but he can’t. He’s written it down, twice, on yellow stickies. But he can’t find either one. Frantically, his eardrums pounding, he checks around the monitor, on the desk, runs out to the coffee maker, where he often leaves notes for the morning. Nothing.

  The alarm continues its medley of noxious noise. Wheep-wheep. Screech. Brap-brap-brap. “Stay away from the house! Police are on the way!”

  Arthur fetches a kitchen knife, desperately tries to cut the cable that runs upstairs to the siren. When that fails, he grabs the kindling hatchet and ferociously chops the line, splintering a section of wainscoting. The emergency lights dim, but the tuba-like abomination under the second-floor overhang remains robust, fuelled by its battery. He risks deafness if he returns upstairs.

  The two Woofers, supposing it’s another false alarm, take an inordinate time to show up, but when they do, they are wearing headsets. They survey the situation and fetch four water pails, which they fill and haul upstairs.

  Hands to his ears, Arthur hustles outside, making for the root cellar, then pauses to watch the girls at the dormer methodically hurl the four pails of water at the siren. A simple technique they learned at their electronics college?

  “Do … not … come …” It dies a painful, gasping death.

  §

  Dawn light glimmers over the wooded hills as Arthur and the Woofers, warming themselves from Thermoses of coffee and tea, move about the grounds, settling the chickens and goats, two of which are still shaking with shell shock.

  Arthur hears a vehicle and knows who’s coming. He strolls to the driveway, and presently Ernst Pound alights from his cruiser. “I thought you said there wasn’t going to be a next time.”

  “We had to kill it in self-defence. Ridiculous contrivance. Hare-brained idea.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping anyway.” Pound has thrown a coat over his pyjamas. He looks like a dead man walking: wan, thin and hungry, hungover. He has yet to follow through on his vow to quit the Force, and has been going about his work, however mechanically, but folks have been worrying about suicide.

  Arthur pours him a coffee and explains about the deer and the stubborn siren and the resourceful Woofers and how he finally found the shut-down code on a sticky under a fridge magnet.

  “Maybe I haven’t been taking this serious enough.” Pound groans at the prospect of putting his head to work. “What’s up with this Snider character?”

  “Skyler.” Who, Arthur explains, is apparently doing a stellar job policing a patch of Northern Ontario wilderness. “I’m more and more inclined to feel he was just blowing steam with his threats …”

  Wheeep, wheep!

  Pound jumps. “Jesus frigging Christ!”

  The little tuba is indestructible. It has super powers, has risen from the dead. Its disembodied voice seems oddly speeded up, frantic: “Do not come closer! Police are on the way!”

  Arthur and Pound jump into the police van and tighten the windows. They watch the Japanese warriors go into action again, fetching a ladder and the garden hose. As they douse the monster, its screams and squawks wane, struggle back, whimper, and finally fade into silence.

  §

  “Given the originality of Codwaller’s symbolic approach to the prophesied transformation of Hecuba into a bitch, he will be forgiven for his lapses into unnecessary euphemism.” Arthur stabs a period at the end of that, pleased, and underlines a few examples of the author’s euphemistic overkill. It is almost noon, and he has finally been able to unwind, to wrestle this review into shape.

  He spent much of the morning with Pound, over servings of bacon and eggs, talking about Skyler. The constable wearily gave up making notes as Arthur read selections from Dr. Hawthorne’s report: the anti-social personality disorder, the recidivism, the unfinished business.

  Pound was fidgety, and before Arthur could get him out the door, he surrendered to his bad habit of using Arthur as his sounding board for his many woes. Failed marriage, failed career, failed life — these cares, he intimated, dwarfed Arthur’s.

  “I don’t know whether to quit the Force or just kill myself.”

  That had Arthur spending half an hour desperately trying to build him up. He looked more together on leaving, but Arthur called Reverend Al, asked him to put out an alert.

  He tries not to look at the damage done by his hatchet, the butchered wainscoting. A repair job for when he has the energy. Meanwhile he worries whether the siren had been alerting him. Warning him not to succumb to the notion that Skyler was merely blowing steam. “Do not come closer!” it roared in desperation, knowing the end was near.

  He returns to his review for an hour and finally completes a reasonable draft. He must now type it into his computer. Input — is that the word? Then output it on the printer and send it off.

  Enjoying a moment of accomplishment, he freshens his tea, thinks about taking a nap, but decides against risking another bad dream. Stark naked at the Halloween dance. Courtesans dressing him in hideous Japanese regalia. No symbolism there — Niko and Yoki have been creating costumes for the dance next week. He is to go as a mighty shogun, they as his concubines.

  He schemes over how to break that date. A stomach ache, a cold, a twisted ankle. The phone interrupts. He hopes it’s Dr. Hawthorne, on whose cell phone service Arthur has left a message.

  The voice is whispery, sinister. “I haven’t forgotten you. I’m going to get you if it’s the last thing I do.”

  The mimicry sounds eerily authentic. Arthur is not fooled but his blood runs cold.

  “I assume, Brian, that you’re so focussed on your horror script that you’ve lost your sense of humour.”

  “I’m making up for that with a powerful sense of irony
. In that I am suddenly far less concerned with the possibility of your ghastly death than my own. A killer is stalking me on Haida Gwaii. Okay, a prospective killer, a wannabe murderer of me.”

  “How sober are you right now, Brian?”

  “I am serious, mon vieux. This morning I got a call from a friend who runs a B & B in Masset. One of her guests was trying to locate me. A bodybuilder with tattoos on his tattoos, on a two-day leave from his freighter, which is taking on cargo in Rupert. Gave his address as Garibaldi Island, BC.”

  “Moose has never actually killed any of Tildy’s paramours, so I’m sure he won’t do much more than give you a sound beating. Where are you now?”

  “Peeking through the curtains of the apartment above my office. I’ve decided not to hide my shingle out front — everyone knows where I hold court, just past the tsunami warning sign in Port Clements. So I put a notice on the front door. ‘Aloha, gone on vacation.’ With the number of the Maui Four Seasons. I’m staying holed up here until he catches the midnight ferry to the mainland.”

  “Assuming you survive, are you still flying down for the East-End Bar function?”

  “Can’t afford it, but hell yes — not for that nutter McDougall, he’s so senile he doesn’t know it — but for Mandy Pearl, with whom I used to smoke dope and with whom you enjoyed, to quote the great Horace Widgeon, explosions of pure, rich, volcanic pleasure. Don’t deny it.”

  “I trust you will not be spreading false rumours.”

  “Dearie, dearie, of course your tawdry secret is safe with me. Anyway, the main reason I got you on the horn is Skyler has done a bunk.”

  He pauses as if for effect, while Arthur almost spills his tea.

  “He didn’t call in today. They’ve been trying to raise him on his satphone. No luck. They think maybe he’s had an accident, so they’re sending out searchers. By Ski-Doo, float plane, whatever. My theory is he just fast-tracked his ass out of there, and is on his way to these western shores to fulfil his destiny. In case Moose snuffs me, you’ll have to call Jenkinsop for more details … Jesus, the body Nazi is at the door. He’s banging on it, holding a tire iron. Goodbye, Arthur, I love you.” He ends the call.

  Arthur declines to buy into the script; it smells strongly of confabulation, a comic riff, and at best it is highly exaggerated. However, the truant thrill killer scenario seems chillingly real.

  After an hour’s effort, unable to reach Jenkinsop, Arthur gets his superior in the Parole Service, a cautious bureaucrat who reluctantly — Arthur is not on the official contact list — confirms Brian’s news, but won’t add to it or speculate. A search is on. It may be hampered, however, by a storm front moving into the Abitibi Conservation Area.

  Arthur is a two-finger typist, and those fingers are unsteady, so the document on the computer screen is marred by typos. These, he has learned, can be corrected by manoeuvring about with the arrow keys, then hitting one that says “delete.”

  His mind is not on this task, it’s doing time-and-motion calculations. Supposing Skyler decamped two nights ago, how would he travel, how would he make his way to the nearest airport? He’d hitchhike, maybe — that’s half a day. Another day of difficult flight connections, but conceivably he could have arrived in Vancouver in time to make this morning’s ferry. More likely tonight’s.

  Arthur decides to skip this evening’s AA meeting. To skip Garibaldi altogether. He doesn’t care to spend the night under the dubious protection of the waterlogged security system of the stars. He cancels his ferry reservation, books a flight on Sid-Air for four o’clock, then reserves a room at the Confederation Club. A safe house. Restricted to members, known faces.

  He looks out at a bucolic scene of golden-leaved autumn — nothing threatening out there but Yoki and Niko, approaching with their regalia. Another fitting. What madness caused him to agree to this? Well, he won’t be around on Halloween if Skyler is still on the loose that day.

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26

  Ensconced securely in the Confederation Club, Arthur again tries to make contact with Dr. Arnold Hawthorne at his cottage by storm-tossed Georgian Bay. The land line is still down, and his cell phone unresponsive.

  Arthur is in the dining salon, picking at his mixed salad, skimming the reviews in the Times Literary Supplement, half-listening to several old boys at the next table. Where was Skyler? Not a word from Brian since yesterday. Presuming Moose did not put him in an emergency room, he may be on his flight to Vancouver.

  “Don’t remember heat like this in late October.” One of the retired tycoons, all in their eighties. “Beginning to wonder if the doomsayers are right. The climate change crowd, their scientists.”

  “Nonsense, Belwuther, they’re all crying havoc just to get government funding. We’ve had severe weather ever since Noah’s ark.”

  Another ancient chimes in. “The earth goes through cycles. Warms up, cools down. Got to learn to live with it, roll with the punches.”

  “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.” Arthur quickly finds his phone, as other diners snicker.

  “Been trying your home number all fucking day,” Brian complains. “Finally traced your secret cell. Where in God’s once-green earth are you?”

  “My club, listening to the wisdom of its elders.”

  “I’d kind of thought my close friend and father figure would be desperately trying to reach me. I assumed you’d been made immobile by panic over my imminent demise.”

  “I assumed, of course, that you were crying wolf.”

  Arthur hears the sound of a match being lit, smoke being inhaled. “Okay, Moose didn’t bang on the door. Lacking healthy skepticism, he took the ‘Aloha, I’m on vacation’ notice at face value and returned to his rented Hyundai. I also made up the tire-iron part. I thought you might like some drama in your life. By the way, I’ve stopped jacking off in frustration over my screenplay — I’m having real sex with it, and it’s coming, baby. Inspiration has thickened and hardened my phallus until it feels like a pulsing rod of tempered steel.”

  It takes a moment for Arthur to source that line. For the Fun of It. “If you’ve exhausted all digressions, can we get on to Skyler?”

  Another pull on the cigarette. “Okay, he’s still AWOL. There’s the mother of all snowstorms raging up there, all aircraft grounded, an RCMP rescue team is trying to get in by snow tractor. But … I hope you’re sitting, Arthur. Are you sitting?”

  “Spit it out!”

  “They’re also looking for a couple, two middle-aged men, who disappeared in that same wilderness area. Gay guys, married. Canoeists, wilderness buffs. Hang on, I got another report coming in. No, don’t hang on, hang up, I’ll be right back.”

  It takes him a while to honour that promise, leaving Arthur to stew over the implications. Two gay canoeists. A homophobic psychopath. He summons the server to take away his unfinished salad and bring his tea.

  “Class A debentures.” One of the old boys. “Two-year renewable. Reliable. Proven holdings, oil sands.”

  “Timber and coal. That’s what made this province rich. Sticking with them.”

  Twinkle, twinkle. The refrain continues until Arthur finally finds his phone hiding under the Times Supplement. The server smiles indulgently; he’s used to dealing with the senile.

  Brian speaks rapidly. He’s in his car, rushing to make his flight. “The snow tractor got to Skyler’s cabin just an hour ago. The joint was clean as a synchronized swimmer’s cunt, but no Randy, no fire in the stove. Ski-Doo and dirt bike were in a lean-to, snowed in, untouched. Snow-covered canoe near the shore. A backpack, some survival gear, one pair of snowshoes — all missing. Also missing, the two canoeists.”

  “What about his rifle?”

  “That wasn’t mentioned in the cops’ last report.”

  “Do they know who they’re dealing with?”

  “Not sure, but I hear you, man. Here’s a psycho who ha
sn’t had sexual fulfilment since he carved up Chumpy the clown. Got to cut ass to catch that ferry. I’ll call with frequent updates.”

  Naturally, Arthur disbelieves that and spends much of the afternoon foraging for news, finally connecting with a reporter from the Northern Daily News who’s working on the story. The latest word is that police found Skyler’s Remington rifle stowed in his locker. His sole weapon is a hunting knife.

  Arthur then manages to reach Dr. Arnold Hawthorne by cell, a howling wind in background. The psychologist is amiable and open, delighted to talk to the notable lawyer profiled in A Thirst for Justice — indeed, he’d only recently reread chapter eighteen, “Death of a Stranger.”

  He remembers Skyler well, and expresses a few Good Lords over his vows of bloody revenge against Arthur, as passed on by “a person in the know.” Hawthorne is grateful to him for helping connect the dots; Skyler’s claim to unfinished business now has context.

  “I must advise you, Mr. Beauchamp, to take utmost care. Those obsessed with revenge tend to have long memories.”

  Arthur fills him in on the two canoeists.

  “That is of concern. I don’t have much of a fix on Skyler’s sexuality. It’s quite abnormal, obviously. Bisexual, maybe, but in denial, if he’s sexually inclined at all. And yet there are those strong homophobic undertones.”

  Before leaving for the East-End Bar toast and roast, Arthur calls Ottawa. Pierrette Litvak, Margaret’s perky aide-in-chief, says she’s in Committee, opposing “another draconian bill from the Attorney-General.”

  “Good for her. And how would this bill diminish our fundamen­tal liberties?”