by Mark Lisac
“And they were all sent to the shredder years ago, because we don’t keep old paper files clogging up the office?”
“Yes, that’s what he was told, which happens to be the truth. I’m told he sounded eager, all hot to help a lawyer track down an important inheritance.”
Karamanlis looked amused.
“He must have a lot of time on his hands to want to be an amateur investigator.”
“He does. He hasn’t held a job in three years. He used to be in commercial food sales, but got bumped when his numbers kept slipping. He made a pest of himself around the office for a few weeks thinking he could get a job with us on account of his father. He had to be told not to smoke in the office. The girls complained that he still smelled like he carried a cloud of cigarette smoke around with him. I eventually had to tell him not to come back. He took it badly until I appealed to his sense of loyalty — the importance of not distracting the other staff from their work. The last card he played was experience. He said he had a vast store of background knowledge. I told him that would make the younger staff feel insecure and they deserved to think they were on an even playing field. He agreed he should take a hit for the team, and that made him feel better.”
“Now he’s still looking for a team to join and Asher’s is as good as any, even if it doesn’t pay.”
Karamanlis let it go there. He was not worried about Asher chasing after imaginary rabbits; the more the better. He told Ryan to keep his eyes and ears open, then switched him to a review of membership numbers and the outlook for the spring fundraising dinners.
With the routine out of the way, Karamanlis moved onto the subject of the People’s Finance and Credit Corporation. Ryan ran through a briefing.
“Hannington has to bring an O-C to cabinet next week nominating three new directors for PFAC. It’s gone through the department. The staff said John Forchuk was one of the three most highly qualified. I don’t like him there. He’s too headstrong and too stubborn. If the wrong thing catches his eye, he’ll end up making trouble. And half a billion dollars is bound to catch his eye.”
“Leave him off the list, then. The question is who to put on instead. The others are capable and better team players. I want someone on our team, not PFAC’s. How about Everett Selinger?”
“Selinger has some financial credibility. He’s also donated a lot and done a lot of work for us. Are you sure you want to appoint a former party finance chairman to PFAC? There’s bound to be criticism.”
“Let there be. How many people do we appoint to positions like that who haven’t had some connection with us? Do you think he’d do it?”
“Selinger? Sure. I know all about guys like him. When I was a student, I used to work summers at a private golf course, waiting on tables. I remember once serving a vice-president of a big drilling firm. He tore a strip off me for spilling a few drops of red wine on the tablecloth when I filled his glass. He made sure he was loud. Then he complained about the price and said it was a bad year. I never had respect for anyone with a big title after that. Selinger is happy with any kind of title. It’s synergy for him. Every government appointment he gets adds up to more insurance sales and more invitations to charity fundraisers. He likes to be liked.”
“As long as he likes to be liked by us.”
Karamanlis had kept his voice low. Now he lowered it further, although he was sure that sound did not carry across the expanse of thick carpet in his office and through the well-sealed oak door. He wanted to know more about Devereaux’s accident. Ryan told him it apparently was a true accident, more or less.
“I hope your friends aren’t accident-prone,” Karamanlis said.
“They’re a bit rough around the edges but they follow orders. The key is they’re not my friends. They’re just greedy. They perform services for money. And they know the work has to be done right.”
Karamanlis looked at Ryan’s curly rust-red hair and bland, pale blue eyes. Their round shape and watery colour seemed to promise sincerity. They also never looked like they were taking anything seriously. Karamanlis normally liked that quality because it went along with not being panicky in tight situations. Now he wanted to make himself understood. He said this was serious business. Mistakes were not allowed.
“There’s still a chance that Apson left something on paper and the paper is still floating around Barnsdale somewhere. If there is, we have to get it. But we can’t attract attention.”
“What about Asher?”
“He’s given up on the paper. Don’t worry about Harry. He’s moved on to finding a woman who doesn’t exist.”
21
CHRISTMAS DINNER HAD GONE WELL, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Finley was not completely used to domesticity and quiet home scenes yet, but he was getting there. Angela had invited two unattached teachers over for turkey. They were good company. One in particular had a lively look about her. The other was quieter but seemed to have reserves of strength.
Finley kept them in mind. He thought that was funny when he remembered his father’s reaction on hearing that Angela had definitely decided to get a degree in education and become a teacher. “The hours will be long but you won’t lack for suitors,” he said. He went on to talk about how teachers had been considered prime catches in the days when the Barnsdale region had few young women who could boast education, manners, and a steady job.
Finley hadn’t asked for phone numbers because he knew Angela could come up with them. He had always been able to count on her to look out for him. He couldn’t remember when he had started thinking he should do the same for her.
His first task if he wanted to go out with one of the teachers was to think of something to do in Barnsdale that did not risk his sitting next to a dance floor. He supposed if he were ever to think seriously about getting married he might have to take some basic lessons. If he could survive the army, he could survive a dance floor.
New Year’s Eve had been another story. His sister wanted to spend a quiet night at home and did. He went out to a bar on general principle but came home before one o’clock.
He was still mulling over what he had heard of her half of the telephone conversation a few days earlier. The lawyer had called to see if Angela wanted to go out with him on New Year’s Eve. She had said thanks but no thanks, she was too tired from the first half of the school year and the stress of the Turlock business. She just wanted to rest. That was all she told him.
He had apparently asked if she would think about going somewhere warm with him during the February break. She said she would think it over, that she would like to see him again but could not make plans right now. They had talked more. He had found a reason to go outside for awhile. When he’d returned, he’d said nothing but had given her an inquisitive look. She had shaken her head and stuck out her lips at him the way he remembered her doing since almost as far back as he could remember anything.
The next day she told him briefly that, among other things, she had asked Asher to start the process of changing her name back to Finley. Now the first days of the new year were anything but happy. He felt more responsibility for his sister than ever.
And he was not happy that Lenny and Kenny Carswell had been coming to town a little more often than usual. Not much, just enough to raise his awareness. He and they had kept a wary distance since the day he had pushed Lenny’s face into the dirt when they were all in their early teens. Lenny had delusions of having grown big muscles back then. Finley had dealt with him fairly easily, despite finding him tenacious. Kenny had jumped on his back and started biting his neck, though.
The brothers never fought alone. Finley had to give them that much. They were sneaky and mean but at least they were loyal to each other. He might
have taken some bad punches on the back of his head if he hadn’t whipped around fast, throwing Kenny to the ground. Dave Czerny had stepped in to keep Kenny down while Finley returned his attention to the older brother.
An uneasy truce had followed, and lasted the next few years. The Rat Brothers knew Finley was not to be trifled with. Finley was not afraid of them but knew they had earned their nickname; they were too persistent and too readily offended to ignore.
The Carswell boys did not scare him but he kept track of them. They had apparently expanded their circle of acquaintances over the years. Whatever business they did out in the acreage country drew occasional visits from burly, bearded men on loud motorcycles.
Finley knew the oil company executives and investment managers living on the better-groomed properties in the area were prone to joking about their down-market neighbours. They seemed to think the presence of the Carswells and their like added spice to the surroundings.
The country was both a restful and a more exciting place to live than the expensive areas next to the river and the private golf courses in the city. The exciting fringe of lying and theft touched up the atmosphere. It gave them stories to tell at work — as long as their paintings, electronics, and luxury SUVs and pickups were left alone.
They had no trouble on that score. The Carswells were too calculating to draw attention to themselves with petty theft from neighbours; they had graduated beyond that, expanded their horizons, acquired a veneer of sinister accomplishment. Once regarded as trash, they were earning respect as unconvicted criminals. They liked that. They had even come, more or less, to like the nickname they knew the people of the area had bestowed on them.
Finley didn’t care if they felt good or bad about themselves. He worried that they felt comfortable. Among the many things he had learned in the military was the importance of making the other guys feel uncomfortable — never let them settle into a position unless it’s a bad one, never let them know what’s going on.
He worried still more about the note Angela had received inquiring politely about whether she would be willing to negotiate a sale of whatever interesting information she might have inherited from her husband.
They both knew that this was only a first move. If a friendly discussion failed, other methods would come next.
Angela insisted she had nothing to sell. They both knew it would be difficult to persuade whoever sent the note. One option was simply to make something up. Giving up a phony secret for a modest price could bring the business to a close. So could giving up manufactured evidence of a real secret that Finley suspected his sister might know.
None of the options was appealing. Who knew what the buyer would find convincing? The paper had to look real. The secret it held had to look important.
He couldn’t be sure who was involved, either. The Carswells were an obvious choice of local agent for someone who wanted to stay at a distance. A biker gang could be handling the business instead. Or someone else who was good at hiding could be operating independently.
All Finley knew for sure was that time was running out.
He was happy that he worked in a shop where heavy steel implements were lying around within easy reach. He did not want to think about the Lee Enfield .303 he kept locked in his basement — laughably old and unfashionable for hunting these days, but still accurate at a distance and a token of respect for his great-uncle, who had carried one in the war. He was sure he would not need it. If he did need it, he would not have enough warning to get it out of its locker anyway. He might not even be at home when needed.
His sister was often alone. She was the person who was thought to have whatever someone badly wanted.
His best weapons were his instincts and his eyes.
He tried to put all these thoughts out of his head and concentrate on his work. He managed to do that most of the time the first two days he opened the shop after New Year’s Day.
On the third day, he woke up and took temporary relief from the cold seeping into the meagrely insulated house with a warm shower. He microwaved a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. He put on his down-filled jacket and the rest of his heaviest winter wear for the short trip to the shop — a walk so frigid now that he left his ski gloves in the closet and took instead the fleece mittens encased in larger mittens made of deerskin.
He stepped outside and pulled the front door closed, listening to the hollow sound it made when he banged it past the rim of frost growing on the door frame.
He turned and took a step, and noticed a white lump standing out on the white snow in the pre-dawn light in his front yard. He looked more closely and saw it was a dead jackrabbit. He saw that it appeared to have been reasonably well fed and that it bore no bloody wound or missing patches of fur. He saw that its head was twisted on its body and would have been hanging limp if the entire body had not frozen stiff.
22
FINLEY PUT THE FROZEN HARE INTO A GARBAGE CAN AND walked to his shop calculating degrees of risk.
He took comfort in realizing that now he knew one thing for certain. The cheap display aimed at intimidation came from the Carswells. The Rat Brothers had always been prone to showy gestures. They got their ideas of how frightening criminals act from movies. Finley pictured them watching movies in their house with cans of beer in the evenings as they warmed up for a few nocturnal hours of scuttling into the unprotected margins of people’s lives and houses.
They were consorting with a biker gang now. That should have given them different ideas about what genuinely scary characters were like. They did not have the size to compete. The two of them together might be a match for a typical biker. Probably not. Probably neither one would be able to handle a full-size motorcycle, for that matter.
He was more concerned about how they had learned to compensate and survive — with a nasty combination of tenacity, sneakiness, snarling touchiness, and a lack of sympathy or compassion for anyone not part of their immediate family, even their family sympathy extending only as far as their cousins. That, and the probability that they had guns on their property.
If they had selected Finley and his sister as targets for mere recreational meanness, Finley would have started planning a way to discourage them. He was sure, however, that there was some point to whatever the Carswells were doing. They wanted something from his sister. But he was not ready to ask her what that might be.
It probably had to do with Apson and possibly had to do with something Apson had given to her, or that she had found after his death. But she was still insisting there was nothing. He knew better than to press her; she had always needed to convince herself first when anyone wanted her to change her mind.
He processed these thoughts, then put them aside to spend the morning concentrating on work. Waiting was something he knew how to do when circumstances required it. He had learned how to wait for a shot hunting deer and elk. That skill had transferred well to the military.
He went home at lunch to see his sister. Before entering the house, he checked the mailbox. Beside the power bill he found a note. The note had probably been left at the same time as the rabbit. It was unsigned. It proposed a meeting to discuss a transaction — an appropriate sum of money for whatever paper John Apson had gathered from his furtive investigations and that Angela had in her possession. The negotiation and transfer was supposed to take place with Angela. Finley had no doubt the brothers knew better and would expect him either to be present or to take her place.
He made a mental note to leave a thin layer of snow on the walks around the house to ensure that anyone approaching would always leave a footprint. Then he went inside to talk to his sister.
She was tired but stubborn.
“There’s nothing to
give them,” she said.
He caught the ambiguity in her denial but left that alone and replied, “They don’t believe that. I don’t know how to change their mind, but it’s probably time to talk to them.”
That set her off. He did not tell her about the jackrabbit, which had been a ridiculous ploy but an indication that the potential for violence was going up. She was frightened enough. He argued that an offer to buy information was a sign that whoever was behind it wanted to settle things finally and peacefully.
She shook her head and said there was only one final settlement to anything. The buyer would be afraid of her because of what she presumably knew. The buyer would therefore also be afraid of him, no doubt presuming that she would share information with her brother. They would always be in danger. Leaving the impression that her husband had found something and that it had been put away somewhere was the only way to be safe.
“It’s the only way,” she said, her voice pleading.
Then they disagreed on whether to respond to the note. She wanted to ignore it. He wanted to arrange a meeting. She put her hands up to grab her hair, then brought them down formed into fists as she continued to argue. He didn’t see that the situation could be delayed. He said either one of them could be approached, perhaps attacked, at any time.
“Someone can’t just barge in here in the middle of town,” she said. “Something like that would need to be planned, and even then it would be hard to do. Something bad is far more likely to happen at a meeting. There’s too much chance of emotions going out of control, especially if it takes place out of public view, which it almost certainly will. Oh God, Gordon, why won’t you listen to me?”
It ended abruptly. She said she was tired and did not want to talk anymore. He finished his sandwich and went back to his shop.
In the late afternoon he decided to go ahead with a meeting. If he was in as much danger as she was, he reasoned, he had a right to meet that danger as he thought best.
