Arthur and DiPalma exchanged looks. That was the same day, Ottawa time, that an IED demolished the Bhashie limousine.
“When come home from Prison 303, I learn more from BBC news. Abzal, he is, how you say, inconvenient person because of bombing in Ottawa City. But is also famous former assassin. All confusing to me. But he not do bombing, not possible.”
“Tell us about this warden,” said DiPalma, who was chain-smoking. He’d warmed to the brandy by now, was on another refill.
“Hard bargainer. Hundred thousand leks to commuting my sentence, not take less. Hasran Chocoli, good communist in past life, but repent, kept job.” Bejko studied Arthur’s tailored dark suit, as if appraising its value. “Chocoli and me, we have mutual respect. Maybe I make contact for you. For token introducer fee.”
“That would be very kind.”
“Five thousand dollar is usual fee. For you, three thousand.”
Arthur swallowed, but decided not to quibble, drew out his traveller’s cheques.
“Chocoli is not so cheap, I must warn. He prefer leks, but maybe also take euros, dollars. Not traveller’s cheques, too easy to trace.”
Though a taxi had been hired for the morning, for the journey to Korça and the date with warden Hasran Chocoli, Arthur couldn’t locate DiPalma. No one from the Gjirokaster Hotel had seen him leave. Everything was in order in his room, clothes hung, the washroom giving evidence he’d showered and shaved. His cellphone was still there.
After cancelling the taxi, Arthur scoured the neighbourhood in the hope, proven vain, that he might find him in a restaurant or bar or maybe a drugstore, seeking a remedy for his hangover.
I’m planning to meet Ledjina’s parents tomorrow. But where were they to be found? The manager at her restaurant was unfriendly, claiming not to know her address or phone number, let alone those of her parents. She wasn’t expected on duty until the dinner hour.
Arthur spent the afternoon seething — while either pacing or studying his phrasebook, trying to focus on the perplexing Albanian consonants. In a restless fury, he snapped the book shut and turned on his set to CNN. He was besieged by rolling shots of Christmas celebrations around the world. Bizarrely, depressingly, he was suddenly aware he was alone for Christmas in a strange land.
The newscast went to the day’s headline story, a startling event: a Canadian raid last night on Igorgrad. CF-18s had taken out Bhashyistan’s ground-to-air defences and blown up hangars holding several MiG interceptors. The Information Ministry had been razed flat. A missile had made shards of a yellow Hummer whose occupant was believed to be the infamous third son, the late Mukhamet Khan Ivanovich.
On screen now, trying not to smile, was a colonel from Canadian Forces Air Command, describing a “perfectly executed, surgical procedure with limited targets.” All aircraft and personnel had returned safely to the U.S. base in Kyrgyzstan.
Arthur felt no joy in anyone’s death, even Mukhamet’s, but the man had authored his own downfall, courting disaster with his taunts.
Here, in clips from a press conference in Ottawa, was Clara Gracey, confident and commanding, praising the military, proclaiming that Canada would not be mocked by a tinpot dictator, instructing the Ultimate Leader to release the hostages to avoid further strikes, castigating UN members for their empty phrases of support, and announcing that Canada would single-handedly do what international justice demanded.
A reporter asked if she feared fallout because the raid was on Christmas Eve. “Certainly not. We’re dealing with a country that denies Christians the right of free worship and perverts the true meaning of the great religion of Islam. The entire free world applauds what we have done.”
A political tour de force. The prime minister could yet raise her party from the grave. She had embarked on a clever campaign, not against the official opposition but against a country far, far away.
Meanwhile, with exemplary bravado, Bhashyistan national radio was telling a different story: patriotic defenders had beaten off yet another invasion by the Western warmongers. A lie so pitiful that even in Muslim Albania it was likely to provoke only laughter.
It was three o’clock. His anger at DiPalma was being succeeded by concern for him.
25
For Charley Thiessen, this didn’t seem a lot like Christmas. Yet everything was in place for it: the house festooned with decorations, the glowing angel reigning over a spruce dressed with sparkly icicles, carols pumping from the stereo, the rich greasy smell of a twenty-pound bird in the oven, Aunt Myrtle and Uncle Earl hunkered over the thousand-piece jigsaw that was a holiday tradition. Mom and wife in the kitchen, jabbering nonstop. The two boys trying out their new toboggan by the riverbank. The entire town of Flesherton prettily coated with five inches of newly fallen snow.
His mother had been constantly at him: “You going to sit there all day like a lump? What’s eating you, anyway, Snarly Charley? It’s a time of joy, for Christ’s sake.” His wife would chime in: “You with us or against us, Charley? Get off that stupid computer.”
He’d been all day on his laptop, hiding behind the massive, blinking tree, surfing the news outlets for headlines he didn’t want to see. Like, for instance: “Justice Minister’s Smear Backfires.” His head was aching and his insides were boiling from the stress accumulated over the last few days, ever since that gut-clenching horror show when he’d raced back to the Château to try to rescue the mini-recorder.
Scenes from that foiled mission kept replaying. Calling Stonewell’s suite from a house phone, leaving an inane message: “Guess you guys must’ve split, I’ll keep trying.” Then, taking no chances, racing up there. A moment of hope when he saw the “Do Not Disturb” — surely it meant they were sleeping it off. Rapping on the door, calling, “Yo, Robert, it’s me.” Shouting, hammering in vain as a housekeeper stared at him from down the hall. Returning to the elevator, feeling defeated.
Also bugging Charley was that his oldest, Joy, just turned eighteen, had come back from college for the holidays like the green avenger, carrying on about vanishing bears, whales, fish, forests, and coral reefs. She was doing a paper on greenhouse gas emissions. She’d forced him to watch a Suzuki documentary predicting scenarios he didn’t need to hear about, coastal flooding, drowning cities. He had his own problems.
Uncle Earl passed by to refuel before attacking the jigsaw again. “Get you another toddy, Charley boy?”
Thiessen smiled wanly, nodded — another toddy would not hurt.
“Why so glum? We blasted the bejesus out of those Bhashies, best Christmas present the country’s ever had.”
“I’ll bet it was your idea, Charley.” His mom, joining in, wiping her hands on her apron. “Don’t tell me. Cabinet secrecy. I may be just your dumb mother, but I know how things work.” Then going after him again: “Such a perfect Christmas Day. Get in the spirit, Mr. Prime Minister.”
Mr. Prime Minister. The concept was strange to him now, illusory. Maybe he’d been fooling himself thinking he was P.M. material, maybe DuWallup and the gnome had been having a private joke, encouraging the cabinet buffoon to think he was the party’s prince-in-waiting. Maybe they thought he could be used, the way George W. Bush was.
He scanned the Canadian Press site: no bulletins from Garibaldi Island, no interviews with smirking staff at the Château, or its pompous desk clerk, Fortesque. He’d sidled up to him calmly, explained he’d dropped a gold cufflink in Mr. Stonewell’s suite. The matter went all the way up to the hotel manager, who told Thiessen, with great aplomb, he was immeasurably pleased to help the honourable minister any way he could.
A surly security officer had accompanied Thiessen to the suite, breathing down his neck as he fumbled under the bugged table, pretending to look for the alleged cufflink. The mini-recorder hadn’t dropped to the floor, nor was it still stuck to the underside of the table.
Frantic, he crawled about on his elbows and knees, checking under every piece of furniture. Gone. It was gone. Not found by housekeeping obviously,
because the room hadn’t been done yet. The security guy watched with narrowed eyes, saying nothing, unwilling to restrain the country’s highest law officer from going through drawers, closet, wardrobe. Unable to suppress a grin as Thiessen got his prints all over the hookah pipe, then wiped them with his shirttail. He’d recoiled at the sight of a used, leaking condom beside the bed.
His quest failed, he’d fled the Château, entertaining images of Stonewell striding into the Ottawa Citizen newsroom, the political editor listening raptly to Thiessen’s taped voice. Boy, I’ll bet you must know some stories about the old shyster. Or worse, far, far worse: Normally I don’t toke up until after dinner.
Thiessen had spent that afternoon in near paralysis, weighing options: should he hang around the hotel waiting for Stonewell? Then what — confront him? Or should he call Crumwell? Have one of their goons take Stonewell down in a back alley? In the end, he couldn’t bear to see their incredulous faces, to hear their icy tones of contempt. In the end, he did nothing, because anything he tried would only make things worse.
So he simply prayed that these Gulf Island loadies would shrug the whole thing off, see it as a joke, garbage the device. He’d got along with Stonewell, hadn’t he? He and his pal had been well looked after, they weren’t the kind of guys to repay generosity by causing a stink. Surely if they felt otherwise, the story would have already broken. After all, three days had passed.
Maybe he’d skate through this. The national press could easily miss the story — the election had scattered them across the country, and they weren’t doing much but collecting snippets about how prominents were spending Christmas. Charley Thiessen, for instance, would be at home “sharing this blessed time with my loved ones.”
It was a blessed time, damn it. It was a good-news Christmas Day. Look at that job the flyboys had done in Igorgrad — they pitched a perfect game. Yes, sir, the Conservatives were back and the maple leaf flag was flapping proudly in the Thiessen front yard. Nothing to worry about.
His wife: “Charley, get off your lazy duff and sharpen the carving knife.”
An overpowering aroma from the kitchen informed him they’d taken the turkey out. His stomach looped like a cresting wave. He bolted for the bathroom.
Bulked up with pillows, in a red suit smelling of mothballs and a beard you could hide a small human being inside, Abraham Makepeace was holding Stoney at bay. “This here government post office does not open on Christmas Day.” To Stoney, this smacked of bureaucratic fanaticism. There it was in his box, the overnight Express Post envelope, just a reach away, but this Santa Claus masquerader was protecting it like it was his virgin daughter.
“Honest, I couldn’t make it in yesterday, I got caught in the Christmas rush.” Crush was more like it, at the Honker’s annual all-day, all-night, wall-to-wall Christmas Eve ape-fest. Stoney finally managed to fight his way out of there today at noon, with Hamish McCoy, both still half in the bag, and they drove straight here to enjoy the shopkeeper’s traditional Christmas ration of a few tots to thank his customers for letting him rip them off all year.
“Her Majesty does not work on the day of the Saviour’s birth, and nor does her servant Abraham Makepeace.”
This was wildly unreasonable. It wasn’t as if the General Store was closed. The porch was packed, all the regulars plus the several survivors of Honk’s drunkarama, as sleepless as Stoney, but just as game to make it through this festive day.
“It’s the time of giving, Abraham.”
“I am giving. Three kegs of aged rum. Organic, made locally with them sugar beets the Frannery boys are growing. Have another.”
“Have a heart. I better explain. It’s from my dear old granny in Ottawa, she promised to send me a locket with her picture in it. She ain’t got much longer. Please, Abraham, please let me see her smiling face one more time.” He wiped an eye. “Give me that for Christmas Day.”
Makepeace jiggled his pillowed false front and went, “Ho, ho, ho. That’s the best one I heard all year.”
“I’ll donate two days’ free work on the new tavern.”
“I’ll give you this here package if you promise not to.” He gave forth another ho-ho-ho and pulled out the fat, padded envelope.
Stoney scuttled off with it, pausing to lace his mug of rum with enough coffee to keep him ambulatory until the Reverend Al’s annual punchbowl party. He put two fingers to his lips, a signal for McCoy to join him outside to sneak a joint. The old Newf was just back from his triumphal three-month tour of Berlin.
“Oi still got no grasp on why them Ottawa fellas gave you the keys to the city, and you ain’t gonna persuade mesself you been recognized as a top business enervater. That’s a load of hugger-mugger.”
Stoney had told McCoy the whole story, the two nights as a guest of the government, how they were supposed to pick his brains about how to run the country. But that never happened. All that happened was some glad-hander calling himself Charley asked a lot of questions about Garibaldi, then took off after a couple of drinks, looking unstrung.
Stoney originally thought Charley was a lawyer, but the way Arthur Beauchamp’s name kept coming up, he reckoned he might be a copper. A bon vivant with the chicks, he’d said, which led Stoney to worry he had something on Arthur, a sex crime. It was hard to see Arthur going to such extremes when he had his pick of the island’s hotties.
He lit up, passed the bomber to McCoy. “Let’s have a look at this gizmo.” He began wrestling the tape off the package. “Man, if I hadn’t tripped over the duffle bag, I wouldn’t never have seen it, but I’m on my ass under the table, and there’s this ugly black cockroach, eh? Staring at me with a blinking green eye.”
He and Dog had had been too wiped to figure out how the device worked. So they’d couriered it to Hot Air Holidays, Rural Route 1, Hopeless Bay.
It was obviously some kind of bugging device, so he and Dog assumed Charley was a narc, this was a sting, they’d been ratted on. They didn’t go to the ballet that night, donated the hookah and the leftover ten pounds of dope to a grateful street person, cleaned up the room, and waited for Charley to lead in a SWAT team to take it apart. Yet that hadn’t happened, or Stoney wouldn’t be standing here on Christmas Day smoking a doob with Hamish McCoy.
He wished he wasn’t so hammered. Events had turned all boogly-woogly, he was maximally confused. He’d hoped the weed would lead him to some inspired answers, but that wasn’t happening.
He fiddled with the recorder. “See, I press rewind, then play, and nothing happens.”
“I’m gonna tell you again, b’y, you wanna deep-six that there item, it’s stolen government property. Them narcs are gonna be climbin’ all over your arse, oi’m surprised they ain’t already slapped the darbies on. You’re askin’ for heat, b’y. Meanwhile, oi’m freezing me nuts off.”
He flipped the roach and went in. Stoney stayed outside awhile, contemplating McCoy’s disagreeable scenario. No way was he going to let the paranoid little bugger get to him. On reflection, Charley couldn’t have been a cop. He wasn’t smart enough. Yeah, he was probably only a lawyer, making friendly talk, squeezing out a little gossip on a famous personage to pass on to his wife and mistress. After all, Stoney had been chosen as one of an elite group of small businessmen, he had paper to prove it, a government letterhead.
Buoyed by that more satisfying script, he sought out electronic expertise, honed in on the editor of the Island Bleat, who was at a long table, in front of a ton of nachos. Gomer Goulet was beside him, shit-faced, trying to get people to sing along with him. “Everbuddy. Good King Wensheslush.”
“Yo, Nelson,” Stoney said, drawing up a chair, shouting over Goulet, “you ain’t interviewed me yet on my national award as achiever of the year.”
“We only report the facts.” Forbish slapped Stoney’s hand as it hovered above the nachos. He was the island’s champion eater, he pulled 320 pounds, fastened his belt twelve inches above his belly.
“As you probably heard, I just got b
ack from Ottawa after being bestowed upon with this unique honour.” Stoney wasn’t going to tell him about the alternative concept, the hugger-muggery, but a little publicity never hurt business.
“We don’t print rumours unless they’re basically true.”
Stoney produced, with a forgiving smile for the scornful news-man, the letter nominating him as B.C. entrepreneur of the year. Forbish frowned over it, rejected it. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
The local news anchor was a crack hand with gadgetry, cameras, and computers, so Stoney moved the nacho bowl aside and placed the fat black cockroach in front of him. “You want more proof, it’s all in here, but this here thing ain’t user-friendly, it won’t turn on.”
Forbish held it to his eye, revolved it. “What we got here is some kind of digital recorder. I note the LED light won’t turn on, therefore the battery’s dead.”
Stoney remembered now the green light; the recorder had probably been on when he couriered it. By now McCoy was squatting beside them, and others were leaning over their shoulders.
“They sure are making them new cellphones small,” Ernie Priposki said. “Look, it’s got a suction cup so you can stick it on your forehead.”
Stoney snapped his fingers, remembering Constable Ernst Pound’s role as mailman. “Call Ernst right now, he was the deliverer of these glad tidings. Yes, boys, you’re looking at the achiever of the year for British Columbia, right here.”
“Buy an ad,” Forbish said.
Gomer Goulet boomed from the next table: “Oh, what fun we had today! Laughing all the way! Come on, everbuddy, you all know this one.”
“I got a spare nicad,” Forbish said, peering into the battery compartment. “Where’d you steal this doodad from?”
Stoney yanked it from under his paw. “Okay, Mr. Doubting Thomas, you can cancel my subscription to the Bleat. And this is sensitive material, it ain’t for public consumption. You ain’t getting your hands on it until I talk to my lawyer.”
Snow Job Page 25
