“Arnold?”
“Yep.” Schwarzenegger, his hero. Stoney tossed him a Heinie, twisted the cap off a miniature V.O. rye. “Kick off them boots and relax. They got a pool here, you remember to bring your bathing suit?”
“Bathing suit?”
“Wear your gonches, no one’s gonna mind. Hey, man, we got a shitload of time, so let’s finish unpacking and then go see if we can sell some of this dope.”
The Honker was ten years retired, but he’d worked Ottawa and still had good contacts. Like the older couple Stoney invited to the room that afternoon, quality buyers, purveyors to the top class of civil servants.
He popped some bud into a hookah his customers brought along as a Christmas gift, got a good burn going. “This is radically mellow, a hybrid of Garibaldi Gold and my own specialty, Purple Passion. Normally it sells around five centuries a pound, but for the favoured few, afictionados of the finest, I got a special on at three-fifty, comes with a guarantee you’ll be walking home in a winter wonderland. Goes good with some early Led Zep. Dog, get the lady a glass of champagne.”
“Blithe,” the guy said after his sample toke. “Truly blithe.”
A big sale resulted, a merry Christmas for all, these old pros would be quadrupling their money. Stoney was wishing he’d brought more than thirty pounds.
Another guest who called up from the lobby was the hip flight attendant. Stoney almost forgot he’d invited her. She did a taster, bought two lids, one for her boyfriend, a pilot.
By midnight, his luggage was twenty pounds lighter and his entire suite smelled like a cannabis fart, but he was in hog heaven, a good day even by the standards of an outstanding achiever.
Dog was lying on the bed, stoned beyond normal human capacity, watching a TV movie, a tearjerker, you could hear him snuffle. “Come on, Dog, the night is young. Let’s hit the bars. This town’s full of needy, lonely women.”
It was time to party.
23
Charley Thiessen paced about his office, waiting for Crumwell — he was unsettled, he hadn’t been sleeping well. Big speech next day in Windsor to kick off the area candidates, but he hadn’t read it yet, couldn’t get past the first page. Then Sarnia, London, Kitchener. Charley, as one of the all-stars, had to blanket Ontario.
Headquarters had issued a directive: no media blitzes, no blatant in-your-face door-to-door stuff until after the holidays — the voters would be resentful. So the Tories had settled for a series of kick-off rallies, then Thiessen would spend Christmas week shaking paws on the main streets of Grey County and recording TV and radio spots in a Toronto studio.
This morning he had other business, vital in its own way, a duty that had to be discharged so he could get his campaign in gear. Operation Beauchamp, the bringing down of the put-down artist, his descent into ignominy.
Thiessen had pulled into Ottawa late the night before, after learning that Robert Stonewell had checked in at the Chateau. Easy-going, joke-telling Charley must be at his beguiling best. Brunch at ten-thirty, in forty-five minutes, over caviar and eggs Benedict in Stonewell’s suite, away from the gaze of the public and the omnivorous press.
Reception buzzed to say Crumwell had finally shown up, hopefully with his promised backgrounder on this character. “Send him in.”
“You’re aware, sir, that Privy Council is meeting in the cabinet room at noon.”
“Yeah, yeah, I have it on the calendar. Don’t put anyone through for the next half-hour.” There’d be no notes taken, no record of this tete-a-tete with the spymaster.
Crumwell slipped like a ghost into the room, looking unhealthy, pallid. The Bhashyistan business had got to him big time, the continuing cyber attacks: some big hotels had been hit, a grocery chain. Everybody was exasperated at Canada’s show of impotence. Which is why the Privy Council would be meeting, to chew over another scheme the PMO had come up with, something called Operation Blow Job — that couldn’t be it. Snow Job.
“Sorry I’m late. Still on the mend, and I’ve been a bit fagged with work.”
“No problem. Let’s get right to it.”
“We’re still a little skimpy on this Stonewell fellow. The case agent on this file — he’s using the name Burton — wasn’t able to spend more than ten minutes on the phone with him. Busy chap, on the go, but he bit hard, apparently took an overnight flight — so that suggests he may be eager to cooperate.”
“Age?”
“Somewhere in his thirties.”
“Educational background?”
“That, uh, remains a bit of a blank.”
“Physical description.”
“That too is a bit hazy. One assumes he’s fit. Most workaholics are.”
Thiessen was getting annoyed. “Bad habits?”
“None we’re aware of. He doesn’t mind doing a little flutter at the poker table, according to our man on Garibaldi.”
“Soft spots. Where do I probe?”
“On that, we do have something helpful. A firm indication he’s gay. Can’t say it didn’t come as a shocker, but he checked into the hotel with a male partner.”
Always expect the unexpected, Thiessen’s mom had drilled that into him. “That helps. Maybe I should come on to him.” When Crumwell scrunched up his face in horror, he added, “Joke.”
Crumwell washed down a couple of painkillers, grimaced. “I had best explain why we don’t have a more complete book on the chap. It is, of course, a bit dodgy, non-priority, and, uh …”
“Hey, you’ve gone beyond the bounds of duty, I’m not complaining.”
“Our best profiling source, Agent DiPalma, seems to have gone off-line. Can’t fault him. Deep cover on the eco-terrorism file. Doing a majestic job. In case your deputy hasn’t briefed you, DiPalma has uncovered a scheme to take out a tar sands facility in Fort McMurray. We’ve been quite distracted with that, pouring all our energy and manpower into Alberta. The plan is to catch them with their knickers down.”
“You pull that off and maybe we don’t get buried next month. We’re fighting it out for scraps with the Marijuana Party. Let’s get back to Stonewell — has anyone seen him since he got here?”
“We are undermanned, Minister.”
“Charley. Okay, I get your point. Your case agent — what does he call himself?”
“Burton. That’s all you need to know, Charley. We do have to, uh, cover our tracks on this thing.”
“What else did Burton say about our top achiever?”
“That he has a few rough edges — not unusual for some of these backwoods entrepreneurs. He has a well-trained staff, and they’re inordinately busy. This may help: he’s not one of your greenies. Has quite a bone to pick with the environmental laws.”
That was the sort of thing Thiessen wanted to hear. Stonewell couldn’t be very palsy-walsy with Blake or her mate.
“Is anyone else but you, me, and Burton privy to this, um, exercise?” Thiessen almost said “caper.”
“There’s no courier service to Garibaldi, so a local Mountie delivered the envelope to Stonewell — but he doesn’t have any idea what’s in it. Burton is very discreet, and he’ll be meeting you at the hotel to smooth your way. You’ll recognize him by his blond hair and trim beard and moustache.”
All phony, Thiessen assumed. The cost of this was going through CSIS, so he hoped there’d be no fallout from that. Fortunately, their books weren’t inhibited by the Freedom of Information Act. “Get on the blower, tell Burton I’m on the way.”
Thiessen was delayed in the lobby by some hand-shaking of staff and guests — unavoidable but it was the political life, the price of recognition. He was finally pulled away by a crisply dressed blond fellow with a neat goatee, who whispered, “I’m Burton, your, er, political aide for the morning, sir.”