“You think Frank’s going to get himself killed?”
“Has to happen eventually.”
“Yeah, he’s somebody that’s never changed.”
“You going to miss him?”
She laughed and said, he isn’t gone yet. Then she said, yeah, I will. She said, “When he got the job here he said he’d bring me along but I had to do rehab one more time. He kept the job for me. He waited.”
“He likes having you around; he can feel like a hero.”
She looked at him and said, “You know a lot about people.”
“I know a lot about people like Frank. I wrote a few songs about people like that.”
“How come you never wrote a song about me?”
He said, “Every love song I ever wrote was for you, Angie,” and right away wished he hadn’t. Maybe it was okay, she looked surprised but not pissed off. He said, but you know, “The name was taken.”
She kissed him.
He hugged her, pulled her close, and kissed her back.
When she finally pulled away a little, he looked her in the eyes and then she said, “I’m going to go home now,” and he said okay and let go of her a little, and she pulled out of his embrace and walked into the parking lot. She stopped at a new Toyota and looked back at him. He hadn’t moved a muscle, and she waved before she got in and drove away.
And he was thinking, what the fuck just happened?
He stood there for a while thinking this could really be something, some kind of turning point, some big change. This could be a choice right here, there was something going on with Angie for sure, and he’d have to make some decision, make some choices — he couldn’t just act like nothing happened. Made him think of that line, Geddy screaming it out. Shit, Rush, those guys still getting along, still having fun. Shit, playing high schools from St. Catharines to Oshawa, the High and Rush in the ’70s.
That line, something about if you choose not to decide you’ve still made a choice.
Ritchie laughed, thinking only fucking Neil Peart could make a rock’n’roll lyric out of that and only Gary Lee Weinrib could sing shit like that and get twenty thousand people singing along.
But that was it right there: do nothing and you know what happens, you go back to your old life and this door closes forever. Do something, take a chance, drop your guard, open up and . . .
Shit.
Okay, Ritchie shook his head and was thinking, that’s enough of that, when he saw two guys in the parking lot, standing close together at the back of a car, trunk open, and then they shoved each other and one guy stepped back and there was a flash and a pop and the other guy fell over.
Then a couple more pops and the guy still standing turned and walked away.
Ritchie started after him, took about two steps, saw him get into a car and drive away.
The parking lot was silent, not a fucking sound. It was like when they hit the break in “Hello, Tonight,” the music stopped and Cliff standing there onstage waiting for the whole place to be completely quiet before coming in, the only thing Ritchie ever felt was Dale twitching like a speed freak behind the drums, not making a sound almost killing him.
And then a woman screamed — when they were onstage and now in the parking lot. This woman came out of an RV walking towards the guy who’d been shot. She screamed and a man came out of the RV on the phone, and a couple minutes later the casino security guys were there and a crowd was starting and Ritchie figured he should go over, tell them what he saw.
Shit, not going to get any sleep tonight.
At least it would give him something to do instead of thinking about him and Angie, what might happen there.
• • •
Gayle didn’t mind it on her stomach. She piled up the pillows and moved her ass up and down in time with Danny. They’d been doing it together so long they got into a rhythm right away, him holding onto her hips and driving hard, but now that was the problem, Danny finishing too soon and flopping onto his side of the bed.
Gayle said, “I’m not really done here,” and he said, “That’s why God gave you fingers, honey.”
Right. She rolled over and pulled all the pillows back up, tried to get comfortable, rolled over to her other side, and then turned over onto her back, looking at the ceiling.
Danny snoring already.
That was the thing that first attracted her to him. Not that he finished too soon — hell, when he was twenty-five he could get behind her like that and drive her home five or six times before he was done. No, what Gayle liked was that Danny wasn’t some insecure, needy, whiny boy-man like the jerks at the club she danced for years ago, down there going at her like she was an ice cream and then needing to be told over and over how great they were at it. All that talking about what she wanted and her needs and she just wanted to say, maybe you could shut up and fuck me.
And that’s what Danny did.
Now, thinking of the first time she saw him, Gayle onstage at Hanrahan’s in Hamilton, a few blocks from where she was born. She wasn’t a newbie — she’d been stripping for a few years by then, doing the northern Ontario circuit, not a feature dancer, but she was good.
Danny and the boys coming into the club, Nugs and O.J. and Spaz, and it was like Gayle was the kid. These guys, these men, they were so confident, they didn’t gawk at the dancers, they didn’t try and act all cool, they were guys and they treated the women like coworkers, ’cause they were. These guys sure weren’t intimidated by good-looking naked women, and they never acted like they wanted to save you, take you away from all this. They liked all this and she liked it, too, she was always at home in peeler bars, got along with the chicks and never got pulled into their high school dramas.
Danny and the boys never had that much drama: they always took care of business and business was good. So good Danny never seemed to worry about it anymore.
And all Gayle did these days was worry about it. This deal with the casino was pretty much hers all the way — she was the one up at Huron Woods with the guy hitting on her, telling her he ran the place, and she said, oh yeah? Turned out Frank didn’t really run the place, he just wanted to, and Gayle said she might be able to help him out.
Another source to launder the money they were making in T.O., take over the loan sharking and the dope business and the girls, move in ten, twelve a night, maybe not all at the casino hotel but there was the Adderly just down the highway — hell, they might even buy the place. Gayle might buy it — she was running all the legit businesses, all the fronts. Everything in her name.
Then she was thinking, shit, maybe I should be more worried about hiding the money, shielding the money like the accountant said, like Danny did when he gave it to me.
Danny said, “What’s the matter?”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“You’re making so much noise.”
She said, “Sorry, can’t sleep.”
Then Danny said, “I’m thinking about getting my bike out,” and Gayle said, oh yeah?
“Yeah.” He was awake then, rolling onto his back, eyes wide open. “I haven’t been on the bike in years.”
“You went on that ride through Quebec last year, when Nugs took over president.” As she was saying it she was thinking how Nugs took over the only way you could, taking out the other president, Richard from Montreal.
“That wasn’t a ride, that was a fucking show. Hangaround rode to Montreal; I picked up the bike there. I’m talking about a real ride, you and me, maybe we go to California.”
She was glad it was dark in the room, so he wouldn’t see the look on her face. She said, “California?” thinking, shit, Danny, after all these years we finally hit the big time, finally get it together, we’re talking big, big money here, and you want to ride off into the sunset?
“Down to Mexico. Shit, we could go right through to Costa
Rica, Panama, maybe all the way to Colombia. We’ve got friends in Colombia.”
“Business associates,” she said, thinking, shit, business, remember that? What we do?
“Or we could take the east coast, go through Maine, take that Appalachian Trail. That’d be a great ride.”
She didn’t say anything then, just rolled her eyes in the dark and thought, okay, well, I’m not coming this far for nothing, not to ride off on the back of a motorcycle like I’m twenty-one. It was cool then, sure, but she’d grown. That’s what she was thinking — she’d grown and maybe Danny hadn’t. He just wasn’t that interested in the new business and now he was talking about taking off for months, shit, years.
No, he could go if he wanted to, or if he was going to be an asshole about it, presidents weren’t the only ones retired by force.
She wasn’t getting this close and then just walking away. Shit, it was pretty much her business now, anyway, and she was thinking maybe she’d just say that to Danny, just say, go if you want.
He was snoring again already.
• • •
Oscar Stinson pulled into the Huron Woods parking lot and saw the casino security car’s headlights aimed at the open trunk of a Lexus sedan, saw Burroughs already there and out of his SUV talking to the young security guard, and he knew he was right calling the OPP before he even left the station.
Getting out of his car, Oscar could see the dead guy on the ground and Burroughs turning towards him, starting in right away with “Ambulance is on the way,” and Oscar said, why? “You think they can revive him?”
Burroughs said he was just following procedure, but Oscar knew what he was doing was trying to get the body out of the parking lot as fast as he could so it wouldn’t be a distraction for the gamblers, take them away from the slots for five minutes.
Oscar said, “Sandra’s on her way, too,” just to see the look on Burroughs’ face, and it was worth it, the asshole scowling for a second and then trying to look like he didn’t care, saying, “Maybe she won’t catch the call,” and Oscar said, “I didn’t call dispatch; I called her.”
“Well, so what? This is nothing — couple of guys got into a fight and one of them got shot.”
“Sure,” Oscar said, “happens every day.”
Burroughs said the guy was probably from Toronto, “Probably both of them,” and Oscar, taking a closer look at the dead guy, said, “Isn’t that Dale Smith, runs the shylock business here?” and Burroughs said, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Oscar smiled to himself and then saw the unmarked Ontario Provincial Police car pulling into the lot, driving right up to where they were standing, and Sandra Bolduc getting out.
She said, “Hey, Oscar,” and then looked at Burroughs and said, “You didn’t touch anything, did you?” and Oscar could see Burroughs wanted to tell her to fuck off, but even more he wanted this to just go away. He wanted her to just go away.
Since they’d opened the casino and Burroughs had come up from Toronto, running away from that drug scandal as fast as he could, he’d been trying to bribe the local cops — Oscar, the Huron Woods Reserve Police’s only constable, and his boss, Chief Grayson — but they never took the bait and the OPP transferred anyone who looked like they might a thousand miles north.
Now Detective Inspector Sandra Bolduc was in charge: it was her crime scene and the techs would be here soon and it would be run properly, taking as long as it needed to and getting into the casino as far as she wanted it to go, and Burroughs couldn’t do a thing about it. Oscar was thinking, good, but he was also thinking there was probably a lot more going on here, a lot connected to this and it could be bad for everyone.
Then Oscar saw a skinny guy with long hair standing between a couple cars, and he stepped over to him, motioning him further off and saying, “Did you see anything?”
The guy said, no, just the end, “Guy shot him once while he was standing and then a couple more times when he went down.”
“Did you see what he looked like?”
The guy said no, said he was standing way over by the trees, by the path down to the lake, and Oscar said, “What were you doing over there?” and the guy said, “Just taking a walk.”
Oscar got the feeling there was something else going on the guy didn’t want to talk about, but he didn’t press it — he could come back to that later. He said, “You didn’t notice anything about the shooter?” and the guy said, in the dark? “I couldn’t tell if he was black or white,” and Oscar said, he could have been an Indian, and the guy said, yeah could’ve been, “Around here he could’ve been Chinese.”
“What about his hair, did you see that?”
The guy thought about it and said no. He looked around and said maybe he was wearing a hat, “A toque, maybe, a black one. Little knit cap, you know, like the Edge wears sometimes.”
Oscar said, the guitar player in U2?, and the guy said, yeah, “Has to put up with Bono,” and Oscar smiled and said, well, that’s something, anyway. Then he said, “What kind of car did he get into?” and the guy shrugged and said, “Civic, Corolla, Impala — I don’t know.”
“Was he driving?”
The guy said, no, “He got into the passenger side. Now that you mention it, the car might’ve driven up as he was shooting the guy.”
Oscar said, “You look familiar,” and the guy said, “This is my first time here. I’m in the band,” and Oscar said, “The High?”
The guy said, yeah, “I’m Ritchie Stone,” and Oscar said, “The High, ‘Red Light Street,’ yeah. I got some cousins have a band. You ever see that show Rez Tunez?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it — TV show with the Native acts.”
“Yeah, Gitchigoomee. Those’re my cousins.”
“Shit, I was with Dutch Mason for a while — we played some gigs with those guys, couple of blues festivals, couple times at the Mariposa.”
“Oh yeah, Dutch, the Prime Minister of the Blues.”
The guy, Ritchie, said, yeah, “That’s him.”
Oscar said, okay, thanks, and then, “Can I get some contact info on you for follow-up?” and Ritchie said, “I didn’t really see anything,” and Oscar said, “You never know what might be important later.”
The guy said, okay, yeah, “I can see that. Well, I’ll be here at the hotel for a couple more days. We play here Friday, then I’ll be back home for a couple of weeks,” and Oscar said, where’s home? The guy looked around, glancing back at the hotel, and said, “Toronto,” and Oscar got the feeling something was going on here, too. He took down the guy’s phone number and email and address and thanked him again, and the guy said, yeah sure, and walked back to the hotel.
The tech guys still weren’t there, probably coming in from Orillia or Barrie, could take another half hour, and Oscar saw Burroughs and the security guard who worked for him not talking to Sandra as she leaned against her car talking on her phone.
Oscar walked over, away from Burroughs and the security guard, and when Sandra finished her call she stepped up and said, “Witness?”
“Guy in the band. Was over there, saw the shooting but he was too far away.”
“Way over there by himself?”
“What he said.”
“You believe him?”
“I believe he was way over there and didn’t get a good look at the shooter, doesn’t know if he was black or white or Asian, couldn’t tell what kind of car he got into, didn’t see the driver at all, but I’d like to know why he just happened to be way over there when it went down.”
Sandra said, “And why he stuck around to tell us he didn’t see anything,” and Oscar said, “You think he’s giving us misinformation?”
“I don’t know.” Then she said, “Is he in Cheap Trick?” and Oscar said, no, “The High,” and Sandra said, “Oh yeah, ‘Red Light Street.’ Okay, well, we’ll get
back to him.”
The tech van drove into the parking lot and Sandra said, “Here we go,” and Oscar liked the way she always said “we,” as if it didn’t matter he was the only constable on the reserve police and she was a detective on the provincial force.
And he liked the way it pissed off Burroughs.
SEVEN
Gayle walked from her condo building the two blocks to Holt Renfrew on Bloor and looked around by herself for a few minutes, not surprised no one offered her any help even though she knew they were staring at her. Jeans, t-shirt, Jays cap — she could be a movie star in town: she could be Sandra Bullock or Renée Zellweger or Angelina Jolie.
But she didn’t have an entourage, she didn’t phone ahead, she just walked into the store and started looking around. After a few minutes she found some jeans she liked, but of course every pair on the rack was too small, so she had to find a clerk.
A pinch-faced girl asked if she could help, and Gayle said, “Have you got these in my size?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why don’t you find out.”
Gayle watched the pinch-faced girl pinch it up even more and say she’d ask her manager, walking across the store like she was getting away from a bad smell. Gayle actually liked it, liked watching Pinchface when the manager said something to her and her eyes bugged out and she knew she’d have to come back and start sucking up. Still wasn’t getting old.
Pinchface came back and said, “We would be happy to order them for you and deliver them when they arrive?”
Gayle knew from now on everything Pinchface said would be a question, hoping Gayle would like it, whatever it was. It was like Pretty Woman, when they found out Richard Gere was footing the bill, except it was even better for Gayle, it was her own money. Seven hundred bucks for a pair of jeans and she wouldn’t even notice it.
She said, “I don’t think so. What about these boots?”
Pinchface said, “Of course,” trying to smile now and rushing off.
Yeah, Gayle liked it.
She finished up at Holt Renfrew, ordered the boots, of course they didn’t have her size, walked back to her condo, got the Audi Q7 from the parking garage and drove through downtown.
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