“When you photograph stars in relation to the buildings, you can feel their motion. You can sense an intention almost. You remember that time we saw the northern lights?”
“You mean in Newfoundland? Yes, of course.”
They had seen the northern lights many times in Algonquin Bay, but never the way they had seen them in Bonavista Bay. Half the sky shimmering with curtains of light—emerald, chartreuse, vermilion. Suddenly, Cardinal had understood the meaning of the word awe.
“Well, it’s like that. The midnight sky isn’t a place at all. It’s an unearthly book. We can’t read it yet, not really. But you can sense it’s readable.”
A long time ago, Cardinal and his wife had worked out a code. It was during one of Catherine’s best periods. She’d had a couple of years of solid ground, and she was firmly in her sane character, which was many things—smart, funny, generous—but, above all, sweet-natured. She was one of the world’s naturally agreeable people.
Cardinal had taken advantage of the opportunity to make a deal with her.
“Cath,” he had said, “I hope you won’t be upset by the request I’m going to make, but I think it’s important.”
“Then I won’t be upset by it,” she said. She had been peering at contact sheets through a loupe. She looked up at him across the table, a little nearsighted from the change in distance.
“I’d like us to work out a phrase. A code. A sentence. I don’t know. Something. Something I can say to you when it seems clear to me you’re on the edge of an episode. I don’t mean when you’re just excited. Or when it’s iffy. I mean when I’m pretty sure you’re going to lose it but you don’t seem aware of it.”
Catherine’s eyes clouded and her face sagged a little. Cardinal could read every shade of pain in his wife’s features, just as he could read every shade of joy. Nothing hurt him more than to bring her pain. He thought she was going to get angry at him. Here he was spoiling a happy evening.
“I think that’s a perfectly reasonable suggestion.” Catherine tilted her head back to her contact sheets.
“You’re not angry?”
“No. It hurts a little. But it’s okay.” Her hair cascaded over her face. Her voice was slightly muffled. “What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Something normal sounding, but that we both agree on what it means.”
And so they had worked it out. Shifting the phone in his grip, Cardinal used it now. “Honey, I think we’re looking at some heavy weather, here.”
Heavy weather. That was the phrase. A couple of times it had worked. Just as often, it didn’t.
“No, we are not looking at heavy weather, John. Everything is perfectly fine.”
“I’m telling you what I see. Not what you feel.”
“This is not heavy weather, John. Jesus. How can you say that to me? Damn it, John. Every time I go away or do anything the least bit independent.”
“Please take it easy, hon. Can’t you just lie down and relax for a while and take an honest—”
She slammed the phone down.
Cardinal took a shower and got into bed. The true crime book lay unopened on his night table. He couldn’t be sure what to do about Catherine just now. If he showed up in Toronto, it would undermine her completely in front of her students. If he did nothing, she could rapidly get worse. Please let her stay sane. Please let her make it home all right.
22
“I’M OUTTA HERE, DAVE. Really, man, I’m into poetry, not violence. Yes, I like dope. Yes, I like free dope even better. But killing people—hey, I’m against it. Totally and unequivocally against it.”
Letterman’s face broke into the famous gap-toothed grin. Just the guy next door, it said. I would never ask you anything dangerous.
“Come on, Kevin. If you really wanted to go, you could be out of there any time. Why are you still hanging around these two psychos?”
“I need time to think, Dave. These guys are not just gonna let me walk away. I know too much. I have to come up with a way to move on without upsetting them. Easy for you to sit there and ask questions—you haven’t been through what I’ve been through. You didn’t see your friend—okay, Toof wasn’t a friend exactly. Your associate—you didn’t see your associate shot in the head and then beaten to death with a baseball bat. Believe me, you’d need a hit, too, if you’d seen what I saw. Thanks for having me on the show, Dave, but there’s things I’ve got to do, here, so adios, amigo.”
Kevin suddenly wasn’t sure if he’d been imagining the chat with Letterman in silence, or if he’d been speaking aloud. He was standing outside, in the bushes behind Leon’s cabin, and the flies were eating him alive. He told himself to keep it together. You can’t be talking to yourself when you’re pulling a raid on Leon’s personal sales stash. Leon is no longer just a business associate; Leon is a fucking evil entity, man. And so is Red Bear.
So why am I doing this? Why take this insane risk? Well, he knew the answer to that: Because I’m a stone junkie, and I need to get high. Need with a capital N, thank you. As in, I’ll die if I don’t shoot up right now.
The cabin was dark; Kevin took a few steps closer. Leon was over in Red Bear’s cabin. Crazy bastards were spending more and more time together. Kevin’s plan was to liberate a pinch of Leon’s stash and transport it as efficiently as possible to his own pleasure receptors. It was the only way he was going to get through this moment, which was surely the darkest of his life. He wouldn’t touch the motherlode.
The motherlode, their main dope supply, was locked up in a tiny, windowless shed made out of cement blocks further along toward the beach. Leon was in charge of security, and he kept the keys with him at all times.
Kevin stood still, listening. No sound from the cabin. Mind you, there was no sound from Red Bear’s cabin either, so who knows what they were up to. He remembered the blood streaming down Toof’s back, and the grotesque way he had staggered, his body no longer getting coherent messages from his brain.
“Move,” Leon had said when he was finished with Toof. “I’m driving.”
He tossed the baseball bat into the trunk of the Trans Am and got behind the wheel. Kevin got in on the passenger side. The seat was still warm from Toof’s body heat.
Leon took it slow getting away from the construction site. The Trans Am was low-slung; no point taking out the oil pan in some backhoe rut. But excitement made his eyes shine and his cheeks glow, as if he had just won an important race.
“Man, did you see that fucker stagger around? Talk about not knowing when to give up. Two bullets I put in his head, man. Two bullets. And he’s still up walking around. Did you see that?”
“Uh, yeah. I saw that.”
“Hey, I didn’t get any blood on the car, did I? You see any on the dash?”
“Dash looks fine.”
“What about the seat? Lean forward a second.”
Kevin leaned forward.
“Naw, I think we’re good. No muss, no fuss. Fucking gun wasn’t much use, way it turned out. Clocked him a good one with the bat, though. Knocked that one into the bleachers, man. Knocked that one out of the park.”
As Toof had staggered near the car, the blood had poured from his bullet wounds in red strings, like hair.
“Fucker had it coming, man. He knew the score. You don’t talk to anyone about our business. No one. I was clear on that point, Kevin. What about you? Have you been talking to anyone? Telling people we ripped off the Viking fucking Riders?”
“Uh, no. I haven’t been talking to anyone.”
“Exactly, man. Me neither. That’s the problem with Toof. There’s no talking to that guy. He’s too fucking dumb. Toofus-Doofus.”