The judge takes a sip of his Scotch and turns off the TV. “Nothing about the horses,” he sighs, smiling.
Albertson is confused, yet intrigued. “I have questions about the horses.”
The judge walks to a corner and sits on a chair. “What kind of questions?”
Albertson turns to look for Mrs. Sen, but she is gone. The door is closed. Albertson is alone in the room with the judge. “I have a shoe in my freezer at home with horse shit on it.”
Louis’s eyebrows reach north.
“I heard them, but there’s nothing on the news, the Internet, the radio. Nothing. Not even the people on my street saw anything.” Albertson lowers his voice: “They act as if I shouldn’t bring it up. And I’ve only brought it up with a few of them.”
The judge stands and walks to an alcove in the wall and opens a door. “Would you like a Scotch?”
Albertson nods.
The judge pours the Scotch and hands it to him. “Have a seat,” he says, pulling a chair from the corner and placing it in the center of the room.
Albertson sits.
“Wait here,” says the judge, leaving the room.
Albertson sips his drink and closes his eyes. He sees the horses again, feels them rumble through his chest. When he opens his eyes, the judge is before him. This time, he’s with one of the men in the gray suits. “This is my colleague, Bertrand.”
Bertrand is older than Louis, with thinning white hair and brown marks splotching his temple. He holds out his hand to Albertson and shakes firmly. Bertrand leans into Albertson so close that he can smell the old man’s stale breath. Albertson tries to pull his hand away, but he can’t; the old man’s grip is surprisingly fierce.
“Tell me about this shoe,” Bertrand says.
Albertson feels as if he’s about to be sick. Bertrand has Albertson’s hand, but it feels like he has all of him. Albertson feels engulfed.
“Tell me about your shit-covered shoe.”
Albertson remains silent, diverting his eyes from the old man’s glare.
“Fine, tell me: do you ever eat sausage and then lie down, feeling like you’re about to choke or at least suffer from incredible heartburn?”
Albertson has no idea what this means, and doesn’t know why he’s here, in this room, in this house. Who are these people?
“Do you sometimes dream in one language, but when you try to recall the dream, you realize that you’ve forgotten said language?”
Albertson senses a kind of poison running through his veins. He feels the world tilting on its axis. Maybe even changing direction.
“Does the television always come on before you enter the room?” Bertrand twists his face as he asks this. He doesn’t seem like the type to watch TV.
Albertson searches out Louis, but only now does he realize that the judge has left again. “Are you going to kill me?” he whimpers.
Bertrand loosens his grip on Albertson’s hand. His face softens. His eyes become grandfatherly. “I just want to hear more about your shoe.”
Albertson sits up. He can feel the sweat covering his back in tiny dew-like droplets. “My shoe is covered in horse shit.”
Bertrand shakes his head emphatically. “No, it is not.”
“Just one shoe.”
Bertrand raises his hand. “Stop.”
“I put it in the freezer,” Albertson says. “Why would I be lying?”
And then Bertrand’s hand coils into a fist, and that fist connects with Albertson’s mouth with the intensity of a meteor hitting earth.
Albertson awakes in a dark room. The floor is damp with humidity. He touches his mouth and confirms he’s lost a tooth. He faintly hears someone, somewhere in the darkness. He stands quickly, and hits his head on the low ceiling.
“It’s a low ceiling,” a voice says.
Albertson doesn’t know if he should speak or not. He wonders if any of this is happening at all.
“You saw the horses too, I’m guessing.”
Albertson trusts no one. He’s just decided this.
“I saw the horses,” the voice says, “running through Mile End. Down Maguire. Then up de Gaspé. Crazy shit, huh?”
Albertson wants to speak and admit everything. He wants to trust someone.
“Though I guess the real Mile Enders don’t consider that part Mile End anymore. More like Mile End Adjacent.”
Albertson wants to say something.
“And then the old men, those crazy old men. Especially that Bert dude. He punched you too?”
Albertson wishes he had a match right now, so he could see this invisible person he doesn’t trust, the only other person who might believe his story. “Why are you here?” he finally asks.
The voice laughs. “I don’t trust anyone either,” he says. In the silence, one can hear two men trying to figure out the world. “I went down to the cop station on Laurier. I asked them about the horses. They took it down. I filled out a fucking form. And that night, I met Bert.”
“How did you meet him?”
“He knocked on my door,” the voice says. “Of course he had my address: I’d given it to the cops.”
“How long have you been here?” Albertson’s going to ask his way to a place of trust.
“I don’t know,” the voice replies. “It’s always dark. They bring food every two hours. Little bits: chocolate bars, bag of chips, croissants. Pretty good croissants, I have to admit. Not like grocery store stuff. They went to a real boulangerie and bought real croissants. But it’s always dark. That way you lose track of time.”
“How many snacks have you eaten?”
“That’s a good question.” Albertson hears the man rustle and imagines he’s sitting up or stretching out his legs. There’s no way to know, and Albertson now realizes he has no idea how large — or small — this low-ceilinged cell is.
“So you don’t know?”
“I’m counting.”
Albertson figures he’s been in here less than two hours, unless he was passed out a long time, which is possible.
“More than twenty-four.”
“Snacks?”
“More than twenty-four snacks,” the voice says. “So that means two days, at least.”
“And how long have I been here?”
“Maybe an hour. They threw you in with the last snack.”
“You’ve been here two days?”
“At least.”
“The horses were...”
“Two days ago.”
“Three.”
They both contemplate this. Could they be speaking of the same horses? If Louis is a judge, who is Bertrand? Who were the other men in gray? What does Mrs. Sen have to do with all of this?
“Do you know Mrs. Sen?” Albertson asks. He feels unsafe asking this.
“Never heard of her.”
“She owns a lingerie store downtown.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Albertson says, feeling his defenses fall and his trust growing, like some creeping vine.
“My name’s Phil,” the voice says.
Albertson doesn’t give his name.
“I don’t blame you,” Phil says. “This is all fucked up. It doesn’t feel real.”
Albertson wants to stretch out. He wants to believe that none of this is happening. “I have a shit-covered shoe in my freezer,” he says.
Suddenly the lights go on. Phil is standing in a gray suit, grinning. Through a trapdoor come Bertrand and Louis.
“What the fuck?” Albertson shouts, because he has no other words. He has no frame of reference. He has nothing, he realizes. Because he saw some wild horses running down the street, he is at the mercy of these seemingly powerful men. Because in a city like Montreal, even the implausible is not surprising.
And then Bertrand punches Albertson hard in the mouth.
Albertson wakes up in a motel room. He knows it’s a motel room, the aesthetic tells him so. He’s seen this kind of room in movies. He reaches for the phone on the bedside table, picks up the receiver, and doesn’t hear a dial tone. He stands and walks to the windows, pulling back the blinds, but the windows are covered with black tape. He goes to the washroom, and pisses a long fluorescent yellow. The window in the bathroom is covered in black tape too. He flushes the toilet. He notices that there is no shower curtain. He walks back to the bed and sits down. There is no TV. There is no radio.