by Ted Staunton
“Absolutely.” Sumo pockets his phone and rumbles forward. “We’ll talk about it as soon as these folks leave. It’s time. ’Preciate your dropping by,” he says to us.
AmberLea and Toby stand up. Toby nudges her. “We brought you something,” he says.
AmberLea starts. “Right! I almost forgot. It’s really funny that you were watching that”—she nods at the flat screen, where Gloria Lorraine is still reaching into her purse—“because I brought you these. It was Toby’s idea, really.” She reaches into her own bag. Instantly, the security guy is at her elbow. AT waves him back.
AmberLea unfolds a pair of white gloves from a small plastic bag and hands them to AT. “She wore these in that movie,” AmberLea says. “I think she takes them out of her purse in this scene.”
“Gimme the remote,” AT says. Sumo hands it to him. He presses a button. Gloria Lorraine springs to life and, sure enough, pulls a pair of white gloves from her bag. For a second it looks as if she’s about to put them on. Then she slaps Edward G. Robinson across the face with them.
“Right on!” AT does his helium cackle again. “And these are the gloves. How cool is that! Thanks, man.” And with that, he pulls one on. It fits. “Look at that. Gloria Lorraine’s glove that hit Edward G. Robinson. Man oh man. Know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna wear these for my New Year’s Eve show. You coming? You’ve gotta be there. Sumo, put them on the list. All access, after-party. Gotta be.” Sumo nods. AT gives AmberLea a hug. “Careful of the suit,” he warns. “Send me the pictures, okay?” he says to AmberLea, then waves at me. “And send me that movie.” He turns to speak to Toby, who’s lagged behind. Sumo is practically shoving AmberLea and me to the door. He calls to a helper, “All access for these folks. Get their names.” To me, he murmurs, “You really know Pianvia?”
“Yeah, I—”
“Big stuff?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.” This will be true next month.
“Huh. Could be trending. Send me the movie. And call me when you do. Make sure I get it. Schedule’s tight. Decisions. High priority.” He shoves a card in my hand. “Call me.” Toby catches up. Sumo shuts the door behind us.
FOURTEEN
“Whew.” AmberLea sags as we ride the private elevator down from about the three hundredth floor. “We just met a teeny-tiny megastar.”
I shrug and watch the floor lights blink down. I want to say, “teeny-tiny bobblehead,” but I don’t.
Toby says, “Now that I’ve met him, I feel kind of sorry for him. He was poor as dirt when he was little, never got to go anywhere, and now he’s trapped up there with his entourage and never sees anything.”
“I suppose.” AmberLea giggles a little. “Good call on the gloves. It looks like we have a plan for New Year’s, guys. Partying backstage with Aiden Tween.”
“Game on,” says Toby, giving her a secret little smile.
“Have fun,” I mutter. “I might be a little busy trying to save Bun.”
“Aw, Spence.” AmberLea reaches for my arm as the elevator slows.
“That’s another thing,” Toby points out unhelpfully as the doors open. “He knew about Pianvia. That’s more than we did yesterday. He even wants to help them.”
“I don’t think the SPCA needs any help,” I say. We step into the lobby.
AmberLea tucks her chin in. “Why did you mention Pianvia up there, Spencer? I thought this was secret.”
“It was on some papers on the table. They’re trying to find ways to make AT cool for an older audience. Anyway, let’s go. It’s one thirty already.”
“I thought he was awesome when I was thirteen,” AmberLea says, catching up. I know she’s not talking about Bunny. Before I can say anything, a flash of purple and gold catches my eye, along with a streak of blond hair and a patch of tan coat, disappearing behind a mirrored pillar across the lobby. I dodge a bellhop pushing a roller rack full of luggage, hurdle a dog-carrier cage and skid around the pillar, screeching to a stop a nanosecond before I slam into a slender woman with a blond ponytail, wearing a purple-and-gold scarf over her tan coat. She’s got her earbuds in, calmly dialing up some tunes on her cell phone. Beyoncé, I’m guessing. No, maybe Dixie Chicks. Anyway, she’s got grade-two teacher written all over her. She looks up as I manage a “Whoa, sorry.”
“No worries.” She smiles. It’s a clear, calm grade-two-teacher voice. She heads out the revolving door, leaving me thinking that life was simpler in grade two. I bet she’d have a Band-Aid for me in her messenger bag if I needed it.
FIFTEEN
We’re way ahead of the rush hour, and holiday traffic is light anyway, so it isn’t long before AmberLea has the Cayenne headed up Highway 400. She’s called her mom, Tina, and told her that the three of us are going to a megamall north of the city and will meet her at the hotel for dinner at seven thirty. With two hours to get to the cottage, an hour to search the place and two hours to drive back, we should just make it.
The mention of dinner reminds us that we’re hungry though. We stop for food and gas at a highway place south of Barrie. “Hey,” AmberLea says, “isn’t this where—?”
“Yup,” I say. We stopped here last summer on our road trip with Gloria Lorraine. Today, a lot of the cars have ski racks and gear on top. The Cayenne fits right in. “This is where you saved our lives the first time.”
“Whaat?” Toby asks from the backseat. I’d made sure to call shotgun.
“A trick with a dog, a cop and a GPS,” I say. “Ever see Red Means Go? Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie?”
“No.” Good, I think.
“From 2008,” Amberlea chimes in. “With Jeff Bridges too. I’ll tell you about it later.” That means when Spencer’s not around. Bad, I think.
We get to the cottage just after four and ease down the lane. I see an SUV at the neighbors’ place. Their cottage lights are already glowing. I figure we have about half an hour of daylight left to make searching easier. Whether there’s anything to find is another question.
We trudge in over yesterday’s footprints. I find the key behind the thermometer on the wall and we tromp into the kitchen, snow on our feet. I throw the breaker, and the lights lift the dimness. Underneath the cold you can smell the cottage, waiting to come to life. I’m not sure what else is about to come to life, except I know it won’t be good.
I lead them into the main room. “Wow,” AmberLea says, “this is so cool. It is a lot like Gloria’s cottage.” Her tone darkens. “Which Aiden Tween says…oh, never mind. Let’s get at this. What are we after? Where do we start?”
I describe the sheet of music. “There’re music books in the piano bench, and we should check in here, where the spy stuff was.” I go to the wall, clear some of the wood we left and tug the compartment open.
“I’ll start there,” says Toby. “Fresh eyes. AmberLea, the piano bench. Spencer knows the place, so he roves.”
I’m starting to hate it when Toby makes good suggestions. I nod anyway.
Where do you start? How do you hide something in plain sight? What haven’t I seen? Everything here is the way it was when my mom was little. The Muskoka Dairy calendar (WE MOO FOR YOU) on the back of the kitchen door is from 1965, for crying out loud. I look behind it: nothing. I look in kitchen cupboards, behind photos and pinned-up little-kid artwork and painting reproductions. I look under the pad on the ironing board. I look under mattresses, behind mirrors, on the bottoms of chairs and tables and drawers, up in the porch rafters. I look behind pennants from places like Old Fort Henry and Upper Canada Village. By now it’s black outside the windows. I don’t want to find anything here, but I don’t want Bunny to die. I keep on looking.
All that’s left is Grandpa’s bedroom. His fishing hat is still hanging from the mirror frame, lurking with the ghost of his aftershave. DJ slept here when we came up; he’s left sweat socks behind. I move as if I shouldn’t be in here, as if Grandpa might step in from the porch and catch me. What wou
ld he have done if he did? I feel like a spy just wondering if he was. Across the room, something flickers. I spin to see myself in the window glass. I take a deep breath. This is Grandpa we’re talking about here: Road Runner cartoons, big hugs, LEGO on your birthday, swimming off the dock.
The closet and dresser are empty. Deb and my aunts cleared everything out and gave most of it to the Goodwill. I wonder if I could persuade the SPCA that maybe the music got thrown out then, because nobody knew what it was.
I check under the drawers and mattress and in the bedside table. Nothing. The headboard of the bed has a bookshelf built in, lined with tattered old cottage paperbacks. There are a couple of James Bonds and a lot of other spy stuff: Eye of the Needle, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Ipcress File, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Funeral In Berlin…Grandpa had a little theme running here. The spy stories are propped upright by a bigger, thicker book lying on its side. The Anatomy of Melancholy. I’m feeling pretty melancholy myself. I bump it off the shelf, reaching in behind to see if the music’s there. The book falls to the bed and out tumbles a Colt .45 automatic, the kind I’ve seen in a million World War II movies. A space for it has been hollowed out in the pages. I gasp, then scoop up the gun and shove it in my pocket. I slam the book back onto the shelf, back out of the room and kill the light.
SIXTEEN
Back in the main room, AmberLea is still flipping through piano music. Toby’s poking around inside the piano. He looks up. “Nothing. No secret compartment behind the secret compartment either. I looked in the gramophone too.” There’s a wind-up gramophone beside me. I lean on it to hide my trembling. The gun clunks against it. I flinch. I don’t know why I don’t want them to know about the gun, but I don’t. Somehow it makes things worse. As if he can read my mind, Toby says, “And there was no Walther PPK.”
“What?” I scuttle to the compartment to peek in, hoping the Colt .45 doesn’t make my sweater sag too much. Toby’s right: no PPK, which means I’m not the only McLean grandson on the loose with an automatic weapon. Good luck at those airports, guys. Right now, I’ve got more pressing issues.
Toby says gently, “Couldn’t help noticing those, uh, weird golf balls though. There’s one short of an even dozen.”
I swallow hard. I can’t look at anyone. I figure we’re all thinking about how Zoltan Blum was killed. Now for sure I don’t want them to know about the gun I just found. “Yeah,” I say at last. “I think they’re Cuban. My grandpa ran an import/export business. You should have seen the wooden Frisbees from Australia.”
There’s an awkward silence. AmberLea breaks it by tossing another music book aside. “Zilch. Didn’t your grandpa like any music but Broadway shows?”
“Well, Christmas carols. And old dance-band stuff he played on the gramophone here.” I move back to the gramophone to show a rack of ancient 78 rpm records. It’s such a relief to talk about something else that I can’t stop. “His rule was no electronics. We’d wind up the gramophone at drinks before dinner, or he’d play piano for singalongs. Jer brought his guitar sometimes, but Grandpa wasn’t into that so much.” I close the gramophone cabinet. “Once, Deb—my mom—snuck a portable radio in when she was a kid, and Grandpa found it and said the only place she could listen to it was in the outhouse. ‘Elvis belongs in the outhouse,’ he’d say. All rock was Elvis to Grandpa. Me and my cousins used to sneak iPods up, and if he caught us he’d say the same thing to us.” I stop. I’m drifting into thoughts I don’t want. I didn’t always like coming to the cottage. It was a place for the physical guys like Bunny and DJ and Adam. I was always afraid I’d get thrown in the lake, or get a lap full of water at dinner. That’s another story too.
“You still use an outhouse?” AmberLea interrupts my thoughts. Her chin has done its disappearing act.
“No, no. Just for backup. The bathroom’s down the hall.”
AmberLea jumps up.
“Except the water’s not on,” I say.
She stops. “Well, what did you guys do? It’s kinda urgent, you know?”
I get it. “We brought water with us and poured it down the toilet.”
“Great. Where’s the water?”
“We didn’t bring any today.”
“So what are my options? Quickly.”
“Um, well, I guess go in the snow or use the outhouse. DJ used the outhouse. He said it was like being back on Kilimanjaro.”
“Super.” AmberLea sighs. “Where is it?”
“Out back.” She hustles to the kitchen door. I flick on the outside light. The biffy stands by some leafless bushes, a half moon cut in the top part of the door. You can still see DJ’s size 13 footprints leading to and from it.
“Oh man, Spencer.” AmberLea sighs again. “You’re gonna owe me big-time.” She grabs the flashlight from Toby.
“There probably won’t be spiders this time of year,” he says.
“And it won’t smell bad,” I add.
“Double super.” AmberLea gives us a fake smile and a bit of sign language involving one finger. She opens the door. “Well, at least come outside so you’ll hear me if I scream. And there’d better be T.P. in there.”
Toby and I follow her outside. Strangely, it feels slightly warmer out there than it does in the cottage. AmberLea mashes her way through the snow and wrestles the door open. The flashlight plays on the inside of the biffy.
“What’s all over the walls?” asks Toby.
“Old cartoons and covers from the New Yorker,” I say. “I think I have them memorized. My grandpa had a subscription.” The door bangs shut behind AmberLea. “And a picture Deb—my mom did when she was little, like five or six.”
“Your grandpa hung it in the biffy?”
“That’s what it was for. It’s of flowers. My mom said it would make the place smell better.”
“You have an interesting family,” says Toby.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
A moment later the door bangs open and AmberLea high-steps back through the snow. “There’s a kid’s drawing on the door in there,” she says. “Of flowers.”
“Yeah, I was just telling Toby that my mom did that.”
“Ever notice it’s on music manuscript paper? Maybe we should look on the other side.”
Deb’s crayon drawing of a vase of flowers is stuck to the outhouse door with rusting thumbtacks. It takes some work to pry them out. It’s a regular-sized sheet of paper, but almost as heavy as cardboard and yellowed with age and outhouse life in general. Deb may have skipped two grades in primary school, but I bet she failed Art. She couldn’t even color inside her own lines. I’ve been looking at this all my life, every time we played hide-and-seek at the cottage or needed a last-minute pee before hitting the highway, and it’s only now, with the flashlight trained on it, that I notice the sets of five lines stretching across the paper.
I flip the page over. On the other side, music, complicated-looking music, has been written into the lines. The green ink has faded, but the penmanship is sure and sharp. Below the music, what I guess are lyrics have been printed in more of that Russian-style writing. In the corner is a bold lightning bolt of a Z.
“Bingo,” breathes AmberLea.
SEVENTEEN
“So,” Tina says when we’re all sitting down, “Aiden Tween. Tell me everything.”
We’re at a table for four at Yueh Tung, a Chinese restaurant I know on Elizabeth Street, just behind city hall. Tina is AmberLea’s mom. I haven’t seen her since September. She still has the same tan.
Yueh Tung is pretty big. The place is busy. The waiter brings tea. AmberLea pours. Toby talks. I’m so tired and mixed-up I can barely listen. I haven’t processed anything since we found the music on the outhouse wall. It was all I could do to think of this place when Tina suggested Chinese; Yueh Tung is an O’Toole standard.
I’m waiting to hear The Good, the Bad. I’ve messaged the number Dusan gave me and sent a photo of the lightning-bolt Z. The anthem is nestled underneath my shirt in t
he Muskoka Dairy calendar. My phone is in one pocket of my curling sweater, along with Grandpa’s silly disguise kit. The Colt automatic is in the other. AmberLea and Toby don’t know I have those things. I don’t know why I have them, and now I feel stupid, as if I’m wearing a CONCEALED WEAPON sign. I wonder if I can share a room with Bunny if I end up in Creekside. I wonder which cousin is packing the PPK. Maybe he’ll join us.
Now I order barbecued pork and bean curd, like always. The others are talking about Aiden Tween. Toby has turned into quite the motormouth. You can tell by the way Tina listens and laughs that she thinks Toby is just the right rich, preppy type for AmberLea. This does not make me feel better, but it’s the least of my worries right now. I sip some tea as AmberLea gets into the conversation. “But you know what he’s going to do? He’s going to tear down all the cottages he bought, including Grandma’s—except for her chimney, which he’s going to build into the screening room in his, whatever, private theme-park palace with a giant waterslide and a launchpad for his hot-air balloon. He wants to buy a pirate ship to sail around the lake in. How gross is that? He’ll wreck everything that’s nice up there.”
Tina shrugs. “Things change, sweetie. No point in getting sentimental over a place you only went to once and that Grandma never used. We didn’t even know it existed until last summer.” She sips some tea. “And Aiden Tween is paying you hundreds of thousands of dollars to do what he wants with it. Be thankful Grandma left you the place. It’s not a little nest egg, it’s a big one. More than she did for me.”
