Snow Job

by William Deverell

  Nothing new today from him, but his videotaped sequence from the day before was replayed: a statue of Mad Igor being toppled in a newly occupied town. Otherwise, there were unconfirmed reports that Igor and his family were seeking refuge in Turkmenistan, ruled by an almost equally despotic regime.

  Here came Bully, frolicsome as an April lamb, briefly stopping to needle a former Conservative revenue minister, then taking a few moments to commiserate with Irwin Godswill, a few tables down, whose sour expression intimated he hadn’t got out of Anglo-Atlantic before its stock plummeted.

  Bully settled beside him. “Before you rush off to your bucolic sanctuary, I hope we can chat about a few opportunities. Quilter and his crowd are still desperate to retain you. Then there’s that DeCameron matter, with all those mouth-watering hot tub orgies.”

  “Neither tempt this simple farmer.”

  “Nonsense.” A waiter hurried over with Bully’s morning oatmeal. He took a spoon to it, blew on it. “Now, as to Erzhan, precedent restrains McRory’s team from offering more than eight million dollars, but they’ll pay the bulk of your Albanian helpmates’ fees and a fair per diem for representing Erzhan at the royal commission — five thousand a day, and they’ll throw in junior counsel.”

  “For reasons of my personal health and sanity, Margaret and I have agreed I shan’t return to the nation’s capital. She will find an Ottawa bed-sitter and I will keep the home fires burning.”

  “I can see you are overwrought, Arthur. Hard to blame you — it’s been a tense and difficult time. Your dubious friend DiPalma, murdered, was he? Never mind, tell me no secrets. Yes, a few days sopping up the rustic pleasures of your island home, then you’ll be ready to take on the world again. Bullingham, Beauchamp. Reverberates with power and prestige, does it not?”

  He went back to his oatmeal. Arthur couldn’t finish his egg, stared balefully at the TV screen — a news flash: Turkmenistan had just rejected a request for safe haven from Bhashyistan’s ruling family.

  Once aboard the Queen of Prince George, Arthur turned his mind to the problem of getting from the ferry dock to home. He’d called ahead to Blunder Bay, drawing Savannah from a strategy session of the Inter-island Roadside Bicycle Path Coalition. To his dismay, Arthur learned she and Zack had yet to retrieve the Fargo from Stoney, despite cajolery and threats. Their guests could offer no help — they’d come on mountain bikes.

  Arthur was unsurprised when his next call, to Garibaldi Taxi Service and Hot Air Holidays, went unanswered.

  His quest for a local whose vehicle might accommodate his luggage won quick success, even gushing insistence from Mookie Schloss, who insisted her Land Rover had gobs of room. She’d be awed to drop him off.

  Not forthcoming, however, was a renewed invitation to her cozy cottage on Sunrise Cove — but soon an unsavoury reason for that joined them from the outer deck: the poetaster Cudworth Brown, who’d just finished a smoke. He snuggled beside Mookie, snaked a proprietary arm about her waist.

  “Watch out for loverboy here,” Cud said, “he’s left a trail of broken hearts.”

  Mookie slapped Cud lightly. “He’s an absolute gentleman — not like you.”

  “Man, I feel a sad poem coming on. Broken hearts, it still smarts when Cupid’s darts miss their marks and only prick the private parts.”

  “You are so not normal,” Mookie said.

  Afterwards, on the car deck, Cud winced as he tried to heft Arthur’s bags. “What have you got in there, gold bricks?” His back was acting up, so Arthur manhandled them into the Rover.

  With Mookie at the wheel, Cud beside her, the absolute gentleman in the back, they rolled from the landing ramp into the welcoming arms of Garibaldi Island, a moment that never failed to gladden Arthur. By the time they conquered Ferryboat Knoll, he’d begun to laugh at himself, freed from the insupportable burden of his false role as loverboy, so wrongly earned, so quickly doused.

  As they began the steep descent on Centre Road, past Breadloaf Hill, Arthur saw that Santa and his reindeer were still raring to take off from the Shewfelts’ asphalt roof. Historically, they tended to remain aloft until Groundhog Day. The lawn ornaments, three-foot versions of Santa’s elves that more resembled Snow White’s dwarfs, would often hang around until replaced by Easter bunnies and duckies.

  On the neighbouring acreage: a blighted landscape of rusting cars and trucks. If he wasn’t mistaken, that was Stoney by his garage, with a camera crew — he could see their van, a Global TV logo. And parked nearby, silently seeking rescue from its abductor: Arthur’s extraordinarily rendered Fargo.

  “Mookie, please stop behind that big arbutus and let me out. I see my truck.”

  As they drove off, he toted his bags to a grassy lay-by, then slipped from behind tree cover and up a mossy path behind Stoney’s garage. The hot-air balloon, deflated but suspended by ropes from tree limbs, afforded a blind. After further advance, he could hear Stoney crowing behind the TV van.

  “I figured early on this was a phony set-up, so I decided to play him along.”

  A woman interviewer: “Charley Thiessen, you mean?”

  “It didn’t click who he was right away. I figured him for some lowly underling.”

  “And at what point did you realize it was a set-up?”

  “Well, between me and you, I got real suspicious when he wouldn’t take a toke.”

  Arthur finally found his way to his truck, ducking behind the cab. The tires were up, the hood warm, and the keys on the dash. Not far away, Stoney was struggling with his recall of the mystery man, Burton. “Dude with a goatee is all I remember. I’d just crawled out of the sack, so everything was kind of out of focus, eh.”

  “Okay, Bob, can we get a picture of you in front of your cool truck?”

  As they approached, Arthur bent so low he could see Stoney’s untied sneakers by the wheel wells.

  “Yeah, this here’s my sweetheart, my honeybun. Forty years in service, still street legal.”

  “That’s a great shot. Kiss it again.”

  Camera lights blazed. As they sauntered off, Stoney pitched them about Hot Air Holidays’ balloon launch. “Test run to Ponsonby Island, winds permitting, otherwise we go wherever they take us. Gala event, a spectacle you don’t want to miss. It’s BYOB. you can score your party juice at the General Store.”

  Arthur slipped in behind the wheel. As the engine came quickly to life, Stoney turned, startled, but the Fargo was already pulling around the garage, down the driveway, out the open gate. A quick stop to retrieve his luggage and he was on his way.

  A perfectly executed freedom ride. Ray DiPalma would have been proud.

  At home, he was greeted with muddy-pawed exuberance by Homer and a weary nuzzle from old Barney’s muzzle. The two mousers, Underfoot and Shiftless, tangled themselves in his legs by way of hello, then wandered off, already bored with him.

  The Fargo locked in the garage, its keys secreted in the back of the pantry, Arthur accepted Zack Flett’s tight, sinewy grip and Savannah’s enveloping arms, and exchanged greetings with the roadside bike-path boosters sprawled about the parlour. Then he changed into his grubs and let Homer take him on a tour of the farm.

  Fences were sturdy, the barn in excellent repair, solar panels added to the roof of Margaret’s neighbouring house — Zack and Savannah were almost ready to move into it, minimizing the threat of awkward sleepwalking incursions.

  He spent the rest of that day in the fields and the garden, in the greenhouse and the goat corral, and felt the turmoil of recent weeks slip away. Yes, he must come up with some impregnable plan to avoid that royal commission hearing. Could he persuade Abzal and Bully he was too close to critical events? Yes, an excellent solution — he’d explain he was a potential witness. One can’t be both counsel and witness.

  Pleased with this solution, he settled into his club chair and turned on the set for the six o’clock news, while his housemates sparred in the kitchen over who ought to dispose of a dead shrew, Underfoot’s gift.
Nullus est instar domus. There is no place like home.

  Arthur enjoyed several minutes of Jill Svetlikoff and her sister and niece rejoining their families in a clamorous welcome at the Regina airport that had the news anchor wiping his eyes. This was interrupted by a bulletin.

  “The Bhashyistan government has fallen,” the announcer said. “Russian media has advised that President Ivanovich, his family, and advisers are surrounded in the presidential palace, seeking to negotiate terms of surrender.”

  The Mishin Statement

  A Blog by Vlad Mishin — Version: English

  Dateline: Saturday, January 8. From the Steps of the Number Two Imperial Palace of the Former Ultimate Leader for Life.

  Good evening, readers and fans. And thank you for making the Mishin Statement the most popular blog of the new year. My front-page Izvestia dispatches have been picked up around the world by now [click for list], but as usual it is time for reflections from one who has had the fortune to be at the centre of the whirlwind — though a whirlwind that, as Catherine the Great complained to her husband, “petered out.”

  That’s bad, isn’t it. Forgive me.

  Anyway, it turned out that the dreaded elite guard were cowards to a man, and when their colonel told Igor Muckhali Ivanovich they weren’t willing to die for him, that’s when the negotiations began. The Mishin Statement is now able to confirm that Mad Igor and his retinue will face trial, but because they spared bloodshed by surrendering, the provisional government has agreed not to put them against the wall. (You read it here first. There was a lively debate over that one among the provisional leadership.)

  Ex-President for Life Ivanovich remains with his family and advisers in the main palace [click to enlarge] which will be their prison until the BDRF decides where to put them.

  Meanwhile, there is dancing in the streets, and hugging and kissing, and the Stolichnaya is flowing. (Expect a high birth rate in nine months!) Never have I seen such joy since the election of President Putin in my own country. Check out the podcast below where you will see Vlad Mishin flailing helplessly, being carried on the shoulders of revelling students.

  Behind me, as I write, is the number two imperial palace [click here], in which the provisional government is quartered for the time being. I have just returned from there after a few interesting words with Abzal Erzhan, who has been named chair of the provisional council. He told me he is determined to create a democracy in a land that has never known one. Many, including your faithful correspondent, hope that is not a naive goal.

  “Not everyone agrees,” my friend confided, “but I favour the British system, a house of the common people.”

  Yours truly is neither a politician nor a great student of history, merely a recorder of events, but I humbly pressed our own Russian model on him, recalling Lenin’s line: “It is true that liberty is precious — so precious that it must be rationed.” Jesting right along with me, Abzal quoted the even more famous line from Churchill: “Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others.”

  I question whether that will hold true in the cauldron of the future.

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  Read more Izvestia Blogs here→→→

  36

  On Saturday, Arthur bundled up against a rare coastal snowfall to head off to the General Store, a welcome return to his hiking regime. The coffee lounge was sparsely populated, with just a couple of carpenters on break from roofing the new bar.

  Abraham Makepeace was in the grocery aisles, helping the cantankerous island centenarian, Winnie Gillicuddy. “If I want your advice about fat-free yogurt, I’ll ask for it. Don’t treat me like I’m helpless.”

  The frazzled postmaster joined Arthur at the mail counter and offered the most cursory of greetings: “Welcome back to the rock.” He tossed a thick bundle onto the counter. “Bunch of magazines waiting for you. Political flyers. Catalogue from a publisher, your picture’s in it. Invitation to the Starkers Cove shindig this afternoon, family fun in the afternoon, followed by a dance featuring a rock and roll band called Skunkweed.”

  Arthur would take a pass on that, saving his strength for the next day’s balloon launch.

  “A couple of interesting postcards. This one’s from Capri — that’s in Italy. You can read it yourself.”

  “Why, thank you, Abraham.”

  In carefully printed letters: Greetings, Comrade Arthur. Albania not so safe right now for Djon Bajramovic, so having holiday until heat dies. Sorry about sidekick Ray. Maybe Mafia rubout hit. Talk to you when coming soon Canada, looking forward. Solidarity!

  “This here other one is addressed to Margaret, postmarked Albania. Guess things weren’t going too good when you sent it. I got depressed just reading it.”

  Arthur sat down with a coffee, glanced at the publisher’s catalogue, the spring list, Arthur’s eagle beak in inglorious profile on the cover of A Thirst for Justice. He hid it under the pile. The political bumf included an exhortation from the Progressive Reform Party, Gerard Lafayette standing proudly by a maple leaf flag. The right-wing renegade was suddenly polling well; he’d reaped a harvest of Tory malcontents. Margaret had sounded a little flattened on the phone the night before — with the election ten days away, the Greens had hit an electoral ceiling, were scrambling for leftovers with the other small parties. Progressive Reform was coming up the middle of the pack.

  Makepeace came by with the portable phone. “Normally, as you know, this establishment frowns on personal calls, but this here is from a foreign dignitary.”

  “Who?”

  “President pro-tem, he calls himself, of Bhashyistan. Don’t tie it up all day.”

  Arthur was slow to recover from the shock of hearing, from halfway around the world, the liquid-clear voice of Abzal Erzhan apologizing, of all things, for this intrusion. “Forgive me, Arthur, but someone at your house said you could be reached here.”

  “Good lord, is that you? Truly?”

  “Weary but more at peace than when we shared our last adventure. I apologize for deserting you in the night, but you can appreciate the reasons.”

  Arthur recovered sufficiently to ask after his family.

  “I just got off the line with Vana. She’s well, the kids are in excellent health and spirits. I expect they’ll join me here after their school year. Hopefully, things will have settled down by then.”

  He’d reunited with his siblings, who were also well — “all things considered.” His bitterness at the tyrant who had tortured them and murdered his parents seemed somewhat mollified by his easy, triumphant victory. “There has been enough blood, Arthur. Better that Ivanovich and his bootlicks spend the rest of their lives in solitary contemplating the hatred the nation feels for them. Oh, incidentally, our technologically savvy friend Mukhamet has denounced his père — thinking to save his skin — so he may be a useful tool.”

  Arthur could hardly believe he was hearing these unguarded, confident words from a man who’d seemed congenitally moody and taciturn. It struck him that he’d not got his true measure during their few days together.

  “There’ll be elections, of course?”

  “When we’re ready.” That was too ambivalent. Arthur was reluctant to ask about the ominous influence of the Russians. He feared that this educator, however well intentioned, despite his impressive show of leadership, might prove unschooled in the politics of power.

  Abzal asked after Brian Pomeroy, and Arthur was able to tell him the lawyer-turned-goldseeker had been reported alive and reasonably well.

  “It will be too much to ask you, but maybe Brian Pomeroy — We’ll need help organizing a justice system.”

  “An invitation to serve as adviser to the Bhashyistan minister of justice might tempt him to emerge from hiding.”

  “And Djon Bajramovic, have you heard from him?”

  “He’s on holiday in southern Italy.”

  “Well earned. I’m sorry I never had a chance to meet Mr. DiPalma before his sad end.”
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  Makepeace was wagging an impatient finger. There would be time enough to tell Abzal of the eight million dollars negotiated on his behalf. “Tied up as you are with affairs of state, you obviously have little reason to come back.”

  “Oh, no, I’m looking forward to watching you in action at the commission hearing. Very important to see justice done.”

  Arthur stifled a groan.

  Parking was tight when he arrived late at the Hot Air Holidays proving grounds, so he left the Fargo by the gate, deep-pocketing the keys. It was a cold, crisp day, the sun unable to muster the energy to melt the leavings of yesterday’s snow clouds. These had deposited a white film on roofs and untrampled foliage, making Stoney’s car lot less homely. The ribbons, banners, and helium balloons — a clever touch — along with the swollen, red-striped airship, gave the feel of an inelegant amusement park.

  Stoney’s cronies were all present, along with the bulk of the Centre Road neighbourhood — though not the next-door Shewfelts, who were constantly at daggers drawn with Stoney, dragging him to court under the Unsightly Premises Bylaw. No sign of Constable Pound, who’d likely found the ballooning regulations too complex to be enforceable.

  When Baldy Johansson offered a swig from his hip flask, Arthur looked at him severely.

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot, you’re AA.”

  “So are you.”

  “Had to take a break from them meetings, I get too emotional. Besides, it’s the year’s biggest social weekend. How late did you stay at that Starkers Cove ring-dang-do?”

  “I wasn’t there.”

  “I’d of sworn you was in the hot tub with us. Man, they had half a steer on the spit. Kegs of beer, enough to fill a bathtub, wine galore, not from kits either, the real stuff. Live music, Skunkweed from Port Alberni, played all night until their lead singer passed out. Everything kinda died out around four.”

  Arthur thanked him for this update, and carried on to join the folks massing by the balloon. It was tethered to a stripped-down chassis, the propane burners on low burn in the gondola, an oversized basket. Stoney was in there, doing last-minute checks, Dog standing beside him, looking decidedly ill at ease in his hockey regalia.