by Jim Stark
"Well,” said St. Aubin, “we've got a couple of video recordings to show you, General Brampton. One came into our possession yesterday, made by a fellow named Roy Taggart, an RCMP officer who committed suicide. The other we made ourselves about an hour ago. It involves a Colonel Roger Findlay ... a colleague of yours, I believe."
"And you can forget about diplomatic immunity, George,” said the ambassador sarcastically, “because if anybody asks, I don't even know where you are, you ... you fucking fascist maniac!"
EASTER MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2014
Chapter 23
BACK TO NORMAL
Victor drew back the Big Bertha driver, coiled his body, drove his legs and hips to the left, turned his torso, let his arms drag behind like a couple of ropes, kept his eyes on the ball, and allowed physics to do the rest—the “conservation of angular momentum,” he recalled from his university days. His fists were almost over the ball, and yet the club head was still close to his right ear. The release at the bottom was as perfect as he had ever achieved, confirming once again his reputation as a superb “striker of the ball."
The sound of impact never failed to thrill him, especially when he launched one into upper orbit at the Masters. Unfortunately, he sliced. The little white Top Flite ball did the “big banana,” careened off to the right and smashed right through the glass of a small basement window belonging to some rich guy whose three-story mansion was just off the twelfth fairway at Augusta. The crowd was hushed and horrified. Still, Victor had a three-stroke lead in this, the final round, so the green jacket was not necessarily lost.
Moments later, he found himself on his knees, staring into the unfinished basement at bags of petrified cement, dusty gray slabs of plywood, a broken ride-on lawn mower and boxes of unread books—junk of every description. This wasn't your typical upper-class basement, but no matter. The tournament was on, and the game was all.
He vaguely remembered that there was a well-established rule about what one does after hitting a ball out of bounds, but he also seemed to remember that some arrogant PGA executive had unilaterally suspended that rule, for reasons that baffled even the experts. “Play it where it lies,” he had decreed. Victor grabbed a towel from his caddy, wrapped it around his right fist, punched in a few remaining triangles of glass, and eased himself through the small window frame, head first.
The caddy was shouting at him—something about him being all mixed up—but sometimes a man just knows what he has to do on a profound psychic level that defies rational explanation. Victor's hands reached a cluttered workbench. He found an old paint cloth, which he used to whisk the shards of glass onto the floor—all while he was half in and half out of the window. Then he tumbled in, awkwardly, onto the workbench, bruising his hip slightly in the process.
His caddy was being no help at all, but she finally followed him in, pulling his bag of clubs behind her. They started heaving things around, looking for the ball. An NBC video camera lens appeared at the window—and the cameraman was laughing. Victor picked up a rusty adjustable wrench and threw it full force at the opening. No more lens now, just legs, in the distance, knees, shins, and fancy shoes, shuffling off towards the twelfth green as life on the links went on without him.
"Here it is!” shouted the caddy.
And there it was, nestled beside a short length of two-by-four. Victor carefully moved the board, but the ball jiggled, noticeably, on the concrete floor.
"That's a stroke,” said his caddy.
"Are you gonna tell?” he asked testily.
"No,” she said. “You are."
She was right. He was an honest man, and this was, after all, the great game of honor. He dropped his chin in his gloved left hand and calculated the angle. Hitting a ball off a concrete floor is hard enough, but with only that little window to aim at ... “Christ,” he said, “I'll bet this takes me twenty freaking tries. Gimme the sand wedge."
"You left it on the last green,” his caddy said, accusingly.
"And you didn't pick it up?” wailed Victor in disbelief.
"You said to hurry,” she whined.
"Come on up,” said a mellifluous voice from the window frame. Victor spun around and looked up. A slinky, middle-aged woman in a black dress was hunkered down, and her finger was beckoning to him. “Come,” she intoned wistfully, “we'll nip over to the mall in my brand new Corvette and get you another sand wedge, sugar."
"Why didn't you just go back to the last green and get my old one?” asked Victor as he crawled out of the window.
"Oh, it'll be long gone by now,” said the woman. “People will steal anything these days, sweetheart. Now hurry, before it's too late."
Suddenly, he found himself standing in a parking lot outside the shopping center, his new sand wedge in hand, wondering what had become of the willowy woman who had promised to wait while he ran into the sports shop to make the purchase. He hailed a cab and was dropped off in front of the house where his ball was, and there was the Corvette, parked in the driveway. The mystery woman was inside the house, standing at the bay window, dressed in a flimsy kimono with a blue towel wrapped around her head ... posing, it seemed. “I simply had to wash my hair, darling,” she shouted through the glass, pointing at her turban.
Victor caught the meaning of her words, but his exasperation would have to wait. His mind flew back to the problems he still faced. The sun was lower in the sky, and time seemed to have whipped up its pace of passage without the courtesy of a consultation or a warning. He ran around to the back of the house, the side facing the twelfth fairway, and scrambled down through the small window frame. His caddy was sitting on the floor cross-legged, weeping bitterly.
"I don't think that will help matters,” he scolded.
"Go fuck yourself,” she said, still sobbing. It was a crude rejoinder, but it was, after all, the exact rebuttal that Canada's former prime minister Brian Mulroney had used to one-up a critic ... a critic who had the audacity to call him crude.
There's no arguing with women once they get to the “go fuck yourself” stage, thought Victor, so he went about his business. He took a wide stance, addressed the ball, and executed a fine, controlled swing. The ball lifted, banged loudly against the ceiling strut and bounced several times on the hard floor. Eventually, it rolled to the back wall and settled ... in a position where no swing was possible.
"Three,” said the caddy through her tears.
"That's only two strokes,” said Victor.
"Your drive—plus the penalty stroke—plus that shot,” said the caddy curtly. “Count, for Christ's sake."
"Damned game of honor,” mumbled Victor. “I have to move it out from the wall to get a swing."
"That'll be four,” said the caddy. “Plus, you can't move the ball forward—only backward."
"I can't move it backward because of the fucking wall,” shouted Victor. That shut her up, but she was correct, and he knew it. This was an impossible situation. The window had become even darker, and he was sure the tournament must be almost over.
A voice from directly above—a male voice—was heard arguing furiously with the woman who had once been his would-be savior, and his caddy had gone back to sobbing and swearing. Victor moved the ball to the center of the floor and flailed at it. The ball hit the concrete wall opposite, only a few inches below the window, and bounced back, almost hitting him. When it began to settle, he trapped it under his foot before it could roll further.
"That's six,” said his caddy. “And you can't stop a moving ball with your feet. You know that."
He backed away and swung again. This time the ball ricocheted off the wall and continued to bounce around the room as if it had a permanent source of energy. Victor and his caddy were ducking and dodging the hard little projectile, fearing for their lives. The caddy dove under the wooden stairs, wailing about the certainty of death if this kept on. The man upstairs shouted through the floorboards that he was calling the police.
Victor's fear gave way to fury, an
d as the ball flew wildly about the room, he started lashing at it in the air with his new wedge—to no avail. The ball hit him once on the arm, and after several other impacts on the floor, the walls, and the ceiling, it caromed off the side of his head, leaving it throbbing. And all this time the ball mysteriously kept its speed—even seemed to increase its velocity ... and the danger.
"I give up,” he screamed as he sat bolt upright. “Shit,” he said, rubbing his eyes. It was dark outside, and his head hurt—and his arm—and he was perspiring profusely. He threw off the bedspread, turned his pillow over and flopped back down onto it. “Dreams are a pain in the ass sometimes."
* * *
At 8:00 a.m., Victor felt good to wake up in his own bed in his old rented farmhouse. He had no clear memory of the sleep disturbance he'd experienced during the night, only a fuzzy notion of having awakened, covered with sweat ... something about golf.
After he had done his ablutions, he went downstairs to have a bit of breakfast. The fridge was full of fresh bread, cheese curds, milk—all sorts of goodies, as he had hoped. He put the coffee on, slapped together a peanut butter and jam sandwich, and munched on it as he walked down the driveway to the yellow plastic box-on-a-stick to retrieve the morning paper. “I'll read it later,” he said aloud. He was very pleased to see that in addition to filling his fridge, Patriot had returned his old Cutlass, as he had asked. He noticed they had also “repossessed” the jeep he had borrowed. “Pricks,” he muttered through the peanut butter.
On the front seat of the Cutlass was a large package with his name on it. He brought it in with him, and after he poured himself a coffee, he opened it up. Inside, he found his old plaster cast, and the original LieDeck—the one it had taken him so many years to perfect. Mr. Whiteside had been thoughtful enough to include one of the newer LieDecks and a couple of thousand dollars in cash. There was also an electronic transmitting and receiving device—a plastic earpiece with a built-in mini-microphone, the whole unit resembling a hearing aid. There was a short note from Patriot explaining that he had to wear it in order to communicate with their agents. And there was another note, this one from Randall.
Dear Victor:
I trust all is well. We miss you. Julia wants Rip Van Winkle to visit, and so do the rest of us. Patriot is covering your ass. Call any time.
I am initiating some 1-800-line radio ads for the LieDeck today—direct sales. Circumstances forced this move. At least there's no point in anyone attacking you again if the device is already out on the market. Call if you want further explanation.
The lodge will be rebuilt in a few days—I've put several dozen workers on the project. It's yours whenever you say. So far we've managed to keep your name out of the news—not sure how long that will last, of course. The PM wants to have lunch with you—when you're in the mood. Take care. Your new office is waiting, when you're ready.
Your friend,
Randa
P.S. I put new batteries into your old LieDeck.
"When I'm ready?” asked Victor. “Or when I must?"
The cast was a bit the worse for wear, especially where the papers and the mini-cassette had been removed, but he managed to replace the original LieDeck as it had been before. With a little struggle, he got his fingers back through the holes and taped the cast onto his arm. The cut was on the underside of the cast, so people wouldn't likely notice it, and he was able to cover most of it with the sleeve of his bowling jacket in any event.
"Two plus two equals five,” he said. The pin tapped his forearm. “Good,” he said aloud. “I'm back in business. I'm glad this sucker was at head office during the fire. I don't mind losing all those new clothes, but I would have been sorry to lose the cast and the first LieDeck that ever existed. I wonder how Annette's doing? The TV said she's making a remarkable recovery. I'll call Steve later and find out. Well, time to go. Have I got everything ... license, keys, attitude?"
He walked out the front door of his farmhouse and waved lightly at the Patriot agents who were protecting him. He couldn't see them, but of course that was part of the plan. He was sure they could see him, and that was what mattered. He got into his Cutlass and began driving towards Ottawa, thinking of what it would be like to go back to work.
It had been an interesting experience to watch the TV late news last night—part of his planned diet during his first evening “back home.” Apparently the Sûreté wasn't making much progress in getting to the bottom of the crime at the lodge. The cameras had been allowed to film the devastation on Sunday. Victor had been referred to on TV only as “an unidentified male guest at the lodge.” After seeing the news report, he was very surprised that the explosion itself hadn't killed Annette. The fact that the lodge was made of logs was credited with preventing the blast from shredding everything within fifty yards.
Whoever did that, he said to himself, I'm going to make them pay ... unless they kill me before I get the chance.
* * *
The road from Manotick to Ottawa was one he'd traveled ... “let's see,” he said aloud ... “twelve years, three hundred workdays a year, so ... three thousand, six hundred times ... seventy-two hundred times if you count the return trips.” The stores were the same as always, the traffic was no better or worse than he remembered, and people were going about their lives as if nothing had changed. Victor knew otherwise. “Everything has changed,” he said. “You just don't know it yet, but you will ... soon."
It didn't bother him to have Patriot eavesdropping on these snippets of his private thought. As he parked in the Blue Line lot on the southern tip of the capital, he found himself talking out loud about his inevitable return to the lodge at Wilson Lake, and wondering how Winnie Jopps might be doing. Those beautiful green eyes, he thought. He went inside the cabbie shop, prepared for the usual wait.
He finished reading the front section of the Ottawa Citizen and the funnies before the dispatcher rapped his knuckles on the bulletproof plastic window and waved him in. It was 10:00 a.m., and business always slipped a notch around that time. He entered the cluttered cubbyhole and leaned his elbow on the protruding stainless steel tray beneath the half-moon slot used by drivers to settle accounts at the end of shift. There was only room for one chair, and it was occupied, completely occupied, by a bulging Asian named Ramura Kamazi, Victor's old boss.
"Ram,” as he insisted on being called, flashed the dispatcher in the other booth to take over all incoming calls and contemptuously signaled Victor to close the door. He was just finishing a private phone call, and Victor knew better than to interrupt.
"I said we'll talk later,” Ram spit as he whumped the receiver into its gummy basket. “Still got that cast on your arm, I see,” he said, with only a cursory glance in Victor's direction. “I suppose you want your job back."
"Yeah,” said Victor defensively. “You got a problem with that?"
"You dress lousy,” said Ram as he reviewed the day's take so far.
"It's a God damned bowling jacket,” protested Victor. “Where the fuck does it say I can't drive a fuckin’ taxi in a fuckin’ bowling jacket?” He was glad that he'd thought to grab the treasured garment on his way down to the bomb shelter, although he didn't have the idea of saving it ... just staying warm.
"You don't even bowl,” said Ram as he pretended to study the figures.
"So?” said Victor. “This fine garment was a gift from a really good friend of mine, George Cluff."
Ram was going to snap back that Victor didn't have any friends, but he let that zinger go. “You got a lot of nerve,” he said as he plopped his charts on the desk. “You cash out last Wednesday, I don't see you for five days, then you just show up here. No ‘I'm sorry Ram,’ no explanation, just ‘Please, Ram, can I have my job back?’ And I'm supposed to drop everything on my plate and do a fuckin’ jig because there's nobody else in Ottawa with a driver's license that needs a job, is that it?"
Victor found this extremely annoying. He was briefly tempted to buy the company and fire t
he bastard, but the point of this entire exercise was to get back to normal, or on to normal, and stay there, at least for a while.
"C'mon Ram,” he said. “I know you. You haven't touched the books in a month. I'll bet you never even took me off payroll, so I never even lost my job, technically, so you wouldn't even have any extra paperwork to do. You just have to say yes and we'll go on like before. C'mon ... say yes."
"I took you off the books last Thursday, at noon,” said Ram as he went back to his number crunching.
"No you didn't,” laughed the wayward cabbie. “I bet you five hundred bucks you didn't."
"You never had five hundred bucks of your own God damn money in your pocket in your whole God damn life,” snarled Ram, without looking up.
Victor pulled out his money clip, counted off five hundreds from a wad that looked to be a dozen bills or more, and splatted them on the desk beside the dispatch radio. Quite suddenly, he had Ramura Kamazi's full and undivided attention.
"Okay, yes,” said Ram as he picked up the bills, counted them, and stuffed them into his shirt pocket before the other dispatcher got too nosy. “But one condition."
"What condition?” demanded Victor.
"You tell me why you just fucked off without a word, and I'll give you your job back."
"I came into some money,” said Victor. “You saw me, I got lots of money. For a while there, I didn't handle it very well, that's all. Now I got things under control."
"What? You won it in the 649 lottery?” asked Ram.
"No,” said Victor indignantly. “I was working on an invention. For twelve years I've been working on it, and I sold it to this big company. Now how's about assigning me a cab?"
"What invention? What company?” scoffed Ram through pinched eyes.
"None of your goddam business,” huffed Victor.
"Right,” smirked the dispatcher. “If you had four numbers, you won...” he checked the inside front page of the Citizen. “You won seventy-four dollars. Nope, not enough. If you had five numbers plus the bonus number then you won ... eighty-one grand and change. Nope, I'd never see your ugly face again, poor me. So you must have had just five numbers, so you won ... two thousand, eight hundred and forty-four bucks! Not too shabby! Okay, so get the fuck out of here. Take number sixteen. It's at the back of the lot."
