The Guardians

by Andrew Pyper

  But I am wrong in this too.

  I am already scrabbling out from under the branches when the boy leans to the side to reveal his face over Tracey Flanagan's shoulder. Enflamed, gloating. He is more interested in me than whatever mark he means to leave on Tracey.

  Hey there, old man. It's been a while.

  The boy's lips don't move, but I can hear him nonetheless.

  You want a piece of this? Come inside.

  It's his voice that prompts me to move. To get up and run away. But I'm not sixteen, as I thought I was. This isn't the past but the present, and I am a man with a degenerative disease, fighting to get to my feet. Three times I try, and each time I am stricken with a seizure that brings me down. All I manage to do is roll closer to the window, so that Tracey and the boy loom over me.

  Look at you, the boy says as I claw at the house's brick, his voice free of sympathy, of any feeling at all. You're falling apart, brother. Ever think of just cashing out? Keep little Ben company?

  My hand manages to grip a dead vine that has webbed itself up the wall. It allows me to get to my knees. Then, with a lunge, to my feet. Instead of waiting to see if I can maintain my balance, I try to run to the street, but the motion only crumples me onto the ground once more. Eyes fixed on the boy's.

  Poor Trev. I'm not sure you could manage this if I pulled your fly down for you and pointed you in the right direction.

  The boy laughs. Then he thrusts against Tracey a final time before holding himself inside her, his knuckles gripped white to her hips, his shoulders shuddering with the spite of his release.

  I was right about breakfast.

  By the time I make it downstairs, Mrs. McAuliffe is in the kitchen, bathrobed and slippered, eggy bread in the pan and a bowl of fruit on the table. At the sound of me entering (my fingernails dig into the doorframe for balance), the old woman lights up.

  "Sleep well?" she asks, returning her attention to the stove to flip the slices.

  "It's a good mattress."

  "Posturepedic. Ben had a bad back."

  "I didn't know."

  "It was all the sitting."

  "That'll do it."

  "I'm glad to see it's given somebody a good night's rest."

  As I stagger to the kitchen table I wonder how I could possibly be mistaken for someone who's had a good night's rest. And then it comes to me that this is only Betty McAuliffe's wish: that I be comfortable and enjoy her cooking, that I use the things her son will never use again, that I stay a little longer. She sees me as well rested and affliction-free because her life with Ben had trained her in the art of seeing the sunny side, of pushing on as though their lives were as sane as their neighbours'. We have this in common, Betty and I. We've both had to work at our normal acts.

  I'm bending my chin close to the bowl to deliver a wavering spoon of mango to my mouth when there's a knock at the door. As Betty goes to answer, I'm sure it's the police. They've finally come for me. The charges may be related to the present or the past. They've come, and I am ready to go.

  But it's not the police. It's Randy, now taking the seat across from mine and accepting Mrs. McAuliffe's offer of a coffee and shortbread.

  "You look terrible," he says once Betty has excused herself to get dressed.

  "Should have called before dropping by. I would have made a point of putting my face on."

  "Don't bother. I can see your inner beauty."

  "Do lines like that actually work on your dates?"

  "Acting has taught me this much, Trev: it's not the line—it's how you sell it."

  Randy crunches into his shortbread. Crumbs cascading down onto the doily Mrs. McAuliffe had placed before him.

  "What are you doing here?" I ask.

  "I'm your escort."

  "To the police station? I think I know where it is, thanks."

  "I'd like to stop somewhere else along the way. You've got to see something."

  "What?"

  "A website. There's an internet cafe on Downie Street. They've got terminals and little privacy walls between them so you—"

  "What website?"

  "You know, one of those places where boyfriends submit photos of their girlfriends."

  "Jesus Christ, Randy. You're hauling me downtown so I can be your porn pal?"

  "First of all, it's not really porn," Randy qualifies, popping the rest of the shortbread into his mouth. "And second, it's Tracey Flanagan."

  If my memory's right, Insomnia Internet used to be Klaupper's Deli, the latter selling Polish sausages and German chocolates to the Grimshaw immigrants who couldn't shake their taste for home. Now there are racks of hyperviolent games where the meat counter used to be, and rows of computers where I recall walking the aisles with my mother, searching for the imported butterscotch candies Klaupper's sometimes carried. When Randy and I enter, I imagine there is still a trace of fried schnitzel and Toblerone—and unexpectedly, my mother's Sunday- only spritz of Chanel No. 5—in the air. But then, on the next sniff, it is replaced by the fungoid aroma of teenage boys.

  "Back here," Randy directs me, waving me to a terminal he's already secured in the rear corner.

  I'm worried at first we'll be observed by the kids who machete and Uzi their way through the carnage on their screens. But as I pass, not one of them turns to look at the shaky old guy who makes his way to the back. And though some of them are apparently engaged in some communal game involving others in the room, they don't acknowledge their fellow players in any way, aside from an occasional cry of "Backup! Need backup!" and " Why won't you die?"

  "Have a seat," Randy says, pulling over a wheeled chair from the next cubicle. I watch as he takes his wallet out and, from within it, a slip of paper with a web address written on it.

  "Who told you about this, anyway?" I ask.

  "I went by the Molly Bloom for a nightcap on the way back to the hotel last night. Had one with Vince Sproule. Who tells me about this."

  "This?"

  "Mygirl.com. Where Tracey has her own page."

  "How does Vince know about it?"

  "The boyfriend, Gary Pullinger, let the cat out of the bag. Told one of his buddies that he uploaded some snaps, and then the friend told some other friends and .. . well, it's a small town."

  "Are the police aware of this?"

  "It's part of why they're still grilling Gary so hard. They're trying to see if these pictures are part of a motive somehow."

  "Motive for what?"

  Randy types in the address and clicks Enter. Only then does he turn to look at me. "She's missing Trev. Odds are she's not coming back. And you always start with the boyfriend. Or the dad."

  "They think Todd has something to do with this?"

  "I don't think he's at the top of the list. The Pullinger kid holds that spot. But you never know. Do you?"

  I'm searching for an answer to this when suddenly Tracey is there on the screen.

  There are no toys, props, costumes. No leather or rubber or lace. Just a young woman without any clothes on. Standing in front of a cluttered bookcase or sitting on the edge of an unmade bed in a basement bedroom, a towel on the floor around her feet darkly wet from a recent shower. Her hair clinging to her shoulders, framing her breasts. Water dripping off the ends and leaving a map of streaks over her belly, fading sideroads all converging on the dark curls between her legs.

  She is smiling in most of the shots. The same expression of welcome she offered us when we first wandered into Jake's Pool 'n' Sports. In a couple of pictures she attempts a pouty look of wanton invitation, but it is play-acting that fails to convince either the photographer or her, judging from the laughter that follows.

  In all of the photos, even the silliest ones, she is beautiful. Beautiful in her nakedness, but equally for the fun she is having, the goofing around that has as much to do with pretending at being a seductress as with the provocation of real desire. She is a young woman showing herself not to the camera's vacant lens but to the man behind it.

 
"Close it," I say.

  "God. You've got to admit. She's something, isn't she?"

  "Randy—"

  "You wouldn't guess, under that dumb referee outfit they make them—"

  "Turn it off."

  Randy looks over his shoulder at me. "What's your problem? We're not peeping through her keyhole or anything. The whole world can find this if they want."

  "I'm not talking to the whole world."

  He presses his lips together in a combined expression of puzzlement and pain, as though he'd let his hand linger over an open flame but was unable to figure out how to pull it away.

  "She's a kid," I say.

  "Okay."

  "She's our friend's kid."

  "Okay"

  Randy closes his eyes. Blindly, he slides the mouse over the pad. Clicks it—and Tracey disappears.

  "Doesn't it rattle you at all?" I ask, leaning in close enough to whisper. "The way the whole Heather and Tracey things overlap?"

  "Sure. I'd say it rattles me a fair bit."

  "It's like someone is copycatting or something."

  "That might be taking it a little far."

  "Maybe. But on the same day we roll into town?" I shake my head. Part Parkinson's, part avoidance of this line of thought. "We'll be gone soon."

  "I'll stay as long as you have to."

  "I'm fine, really."

  "Oh yeah. You're just dandy."

  "Nothing a decent night's sleep won't fix."

  "And you're going to get that in Ben's bed?"

  "Don't worry about me."

  "What, me worry?" Randy smiles, looking very much like Alfred E. Neuman. "All the same, I think I'll stick around so we can head out on the same train. How's that?"

  "We Guardians stick together."

  "Goddamn right." He pinches my cheek. Hard. "You are goddamn right there, brother."

  From Insomnia, we make our way to the Grimshaw Community Services building, otherwise known as the cop shop. We present ourselves to the receptionist as patrons of Jake's Pool 'n' Sports a couple of nights ago, here to answer questions.

  "Regarding Tracey Flanagan," Randy says when the woman doesn't seem to register either us or what we've just said.

  "I know what it's regarding," she replies. "Have a seat."

  When two officers finally emerge, it's a Laurel and Hardy pair, a slim fellow with jug ears and a short waddler heaving a basketball around inside his shirt. The big one introduces himself to Randy and takes him down the hall to an interview room, leaving the tall one standing over me, nodding as though something in my appearance has just settled a wager and he'd won.

  "Trevor," he says. And then, when this fails to remove the puzzled expression from my face, he taps the name tag pinned to his shirt. "It's Barry Tate."

  "Barry. I think I remember."

  "I was a year behind you. We even had a couple of classes together."

  "Hairy Barry," I say, and then he's all there. The only kid in school with a handlebar moustache that, unbelievably, actually suited him. "You played hockey too, right?"

  "I took your number the season after . . . after you stopped playing."

  "Did it bring you luck?"

  "Eighteen goals."

  "Not bad."

  "Some goon broke my wrist in a game against Kitchener the next year, and that was it for me."

  "Now you're one of Grimshaw's finest."

  "Pension, dental, paid holidays. And you get to drive a car with lights on the roof."

  Barry starts down the same hallway, but I have a little trouble lifting myself out of my chair. It brings him back to grip my elbow and heave me up. "You okay?"

  "Just a little stiff in the mornings."

  He gives me a look that says he's not buying that for a second, but hey, a man's body is his own business. I'm expecting him to make a joke instead, something to brush away the awkwardness, but he just stands there with his hand on my arm.

  "I'm sorry about Ben," he says.

  "Me too."

  "I used to see him up there in that window of his. Thought about calling on him, but never did."

  "I'm not sure he would have come to the door."

  "Even so. I feel lousy about it."

  Barry guides me down to an interview room next to the one I can hear Randy giving his statement in (". . . delivery guy. Just a boyfriend giving his girl a kiss. Didn't see much more to it than that . . ."). Next door, we take our places on opposite sides of a metal table, Barry slapping a notepad onto its scratched surface.

  "Okay, then," he sighs. "Tell me about your night at Jake's."

  It takes only a minute. Me and Randy having drinks after Ben's funeral. Todd Flanagan and Vince Sproule there watching the game. And Tracey bringing us pitchers and whiskeys. Other than the pizza-delivery guy, who dropped by to say hello to the girl, nothing to report. And judging by the way Barry Tate flips the notepad closed when I'm finished, he didn't expect there would be.

  "That's great, Trevor. We appreciate you stopping by."

  He rises, extends a hand to be shaken, but I don't move.

  "So unless you have any questions of your own . . ." Barry says, now pulling his hand away and using it to open the door.

  "It's not really a question so much as a suggestion."

  "Oh?"

  "Maybe you guys should check out the Thurman house."

  He looks like he might laugh, as if he's not sure if I'm being serious. "Why would we want to do that?"

  "It's just a thought."

  "Have you seen or heard something that makes you have such a thought?"

  "Not really. I just thought I spotted some movement in one of the windows last night."

  "You happened to be walking by?"

  "I'm staying with Ben's mother for a couple of days. I'm the executor of his estate. She's a little lonely, so I'm staying in his room."

  "Which has a view of the Thurmans'."

  "That's right."

  "Where you saw . . . ?"

  "A flash. Something passing behind the glass."

  "Male? Female?"

  "I don't know if it was even a person."

  "Well, I have to tell you, that's not going to be enough for a search warrant."

  "You think you need one of those? Even if you got one, who would you serve it on? The place has been empty more or less since you and I were shooting spitballs in Mrs. Grover's French class."

  Barry Tate crosses his arms over his chest. Considers me. Perhaps wondering whether the years have left old Trev as bonkers as Ben McAuliffe was.

  "Hell of a business," he says finally. "What they pulled out of that place back when we were kids."

  This is a surprise. It shouldn't be, but it is. Even though all of Grimshaw remembers the bad news of the winter of 1984, it feels as though it's private knowledge, something shared by me, Randy and Carl alone.

  "No doubt about it."

  "You think that's got something to do with you wanting us to take a look in there?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "The mind, the way it works sometimes. It can get rolling along certain tracks and not want to stop," Barry says, touching his now neatly trimmed moustache as though it was helping him find words. "What happened to Ben, and now you're staying in his house and everything. Could be that you're just a little spooked."

  "I'm spooked silly, to tell you the truth. For me, this whole town is crawling with ghosts. I'm forty years old, for Chrissakes."

  "I hear that."

  Barry coughs, though between men, it is a sound to be understood as a kind of muted laugh.

  "Okay. I'll try to clear some time in the afternoon," Barry says, pulls the door open a foot more.

  "Thank you."

  I get to my feet. It takes longer than I'd like.

  "My dad had the Parkinson's too," Barry says.

  "No kidding?"

  "Sorry to mention it. It's just—"

  "It's getting hard not to notice, I know. How's your dad doing?"

  "He die
d four years ago."

  I nod. We both do. Then I make my way down the hall to where Randy waits for me by the exit.

  Once we're outside he says, "That was Hairy Barry Tate, wasn't it?"

  "Certainly was."

  "What were you two talking about in there?"

  "Hockey. He played for the Guardians too. A Kitchener guy broke his wrist."

  Randy shakes his fist skyward, raging at heaven in his not bad Charlton Heston voice. "Damn those Kitchener guys. Damn them to hell"

  Randy walks me back to Ben's, offers to hang around as I "alphabetize his Archie and Jugheads or whatever you're doing up there." I tell him there's little point in both of us being bored senseless.

  "Any plans for tonight?" he asks. "Sounds like you're pretty close to wrapping up. Could be our last evening in town to check out the culinary offerings."

  "I'm grabbing something with Sarah, actually."

  Randy bugs his eyes out. "Are we talking date?"

  "She mentioned we might go to the Guardians game."

  "That's as close to 'Come up and see my etchings' as you get around here."

  "She's just being nice."

  "I could go for some of that kind of nice."

  Up in Ben's room, I tape up some of the boxes I've been tossing stuff into, marking them "Books + Mags" and "Hockey" and "Misc." I'm not sure if there's much point to even this basic sorting—what is Betty going to do with it once I'm gone, other than let it rot in the basement or drop it off at the Salvation Army to be piled into their Pay What You Can bin?—but it gives me the idea that I'm helping, bringing some kind of expertise to the job. A job I'm nearly done now. The closet empty, the clothes bagged, the room emptied of knick-knacks and clutter. Randy was right: there's no reason we can't be on the train out of here tomorrow.

  I pick Ben's diary off the bed. I've already decided this will be the only keepsake I will take with me. Not because I feel any special warmth from the thing—the Ben who authored it wasn't the Ben I knew—but because it can't be left behind.

  I sit in his chair by the window and I've just opened it up when a Grimshaw Police cruiser rounds Church Street and eases to a stop. My first instinct is to hide. I slide off Ben's chair to kneel on the floor, nose pressed to the sill so that I'm able to peer down at the street.