When Arthur confessed to having been played the chump, DiPalma said, “You should never have trusted me.” That seemed sardonic; there was a brittle quality to his voice, edgy, likely brought on by a drug they were feeding him. “Zykoril, it’s a boutique mood elevator only licensed in a few backward countries like Albania. Gets you up faster and higher than top-shelf flake from the Alto Chapare.” Bolivia, Arthur guessed. Maybe he ought not to have been surprised that DiPalma had such familiarity with quality cocaine.
“How are your ribs?”
“Prime and tender.”
“More important, your head?”
“Fucked.”
Arthur was astonished — he’d never heard this good Catholic utter a vulgarity.
When the rain began to slow, he took a pre-dinner stroll through the old town, gaily decorated for the Orthodox Christmas. There was music in the air, sprightly music that weakened his resolve to nurse his sour mood. Buskers, a violin-accordion duo, a trio with lute, bagpipes, and banjo, a quartet of shivering women in miniskirts setting up amplifier and microphones. Arthur had seen the posters: this resort town was about to host a holiday weekend music festival.
He paused at a travel agency, at a window in which were posted flight schedules from Ohrid with connections to the Americas. He was aching to return to Canada. But he could hardly leave DiPalma behind, in his condition, and it seemed unrealistic to flee the Balkans before alerting authorities in Ottawa — the RCMP, not CSIS, Ray had urged — to the evidence they’d obtained of Abzal’s kidnapping.
Arthur walked down to the strand, gazed out at the boats at anchor, a few yachts among smaller pleasure craft and fishing boats. Distantly, a few sailboats were bending to the wind. A dinghy was idly motoring into the little harbour, with two fishermen in black Greek caps slouched unhappily over their empty catch baskets.
He perched on a low stone wall, pulled out his pipe, watched a bus disgorge festival-goers. Others were pulling in by car. From a nearby cafe, soulful Balkan folk music. From another, folk-jazz fusion. A television van marked “TV A-1, Skopje” prowled toward the buskers, who hurried to meet it, attracted like birds to a feeder.
Arthur knocked the duff from his pipe, watched the two luckless fishers tie up their dinghy and stroll off in their rainslicks, heads bowed. He knew their pain, had often shared their sense of failure. He wondered if coho were running in Blunder Bay. That’s where he ought to be today, on the Blunderer, trolling, doing what he did best.
He made his way up the street to watch the TV A-1 cameras bearing down on the four young women in miniskirts, two of them on flute, one with a two-sided drum, their leader belting out a wailing melody. After a few moments, he felt his foot tapping. Other onlookers were laughing, whooping, clapping in cadence with the beat. It was hard to maintain his comfort blanket of despair.
From behind him, close to his ear: “Nice voice. Nice legs also.” He had a ludicrous delusional moment: Ray DiPalma, fully and mysteriously recovered, had just materialized from the ether. The face, beneath a black Greek fisher’s cap, bore no such resemblance, but was oddly familiar. As was that of his companion, who had also pulled in on that dinghy.
“Like road sign say, sorry for delay. But mission accomplish.” Djon Bajramovic wiped his thick glasses, set them on his face, grinning. His prize moustache was gone. A five-day stubble of beard. “Please now you meet famous revolutionary comrade.”
Abzal Erzhan’s hug took Arthur’s breath away.
30
“Your town has a great future, Mayor.” Charley Thiessen gathered it hadn’t had a great past: your basic Main Street, not even a mall. But now it had a shiny new ethanol plant, thanks to the federal green initiative program. “Yessir, boom times ahead.”
“Ay-yep,” said the mayor, a man of few words, almost none.
“There’s gold in them thar hills, eh, pardner? Liquid gold.” The snow-covered cornfields, he meant.
“Ay-yep.”
Charley had just cut the ribbon, the exclamation point to the day’s festivities, which included a tour of the plant and a peppy speech while freezing his ass on a makeshift outdoors stage. But they ate it up, the good humble folk of this Ontario town whose name he kept forgetting.
Later in the day, he was off down to Middlesex County to help the local M.P. open a federal office building. Tomorrow, a stopover in Ottawa for a cabinet briefing, then back to his own riding, where last week he’d whomped the local lacklustre Liberal in an all-candidates debate. He’d got the crowd roaring with a string of lawyer jokes — people love a guy who can make fun of his own profession.
Also coming home for the weekend was his eighteen-year-old Greenpeacer, who was threatening not to vote for him. He expected a lecture about biofuels, about crops being diverted to fuel overpowered cars, all of which was somehow connected to starving people in Africa and food riots and God knows what.
It was impossible to argue with Joy; she didn’t see reason. Global warming had brought the earth to the tipping point, she said — but look at the evidence, it was the coldest winter in years. No ice caps were melting here, snow was blowing relentlessly, almost a blizzard.
Despite the weather, despite the defecting daughter, he was in much better fettle than a couple of weeks ago, after the calamity with that doper from the Left Coast. As of this seventh day of a new year, there hadn’t been a hint of fallout.
Politically too, things weren’t looking too bad, thanks to Operation Snow Job and the demolition of the enemy’s propaganda machine. All they had left was a clown posting videos on YouTube. Tomorrow’s cabinet briefing was about something called Operation Wolverine, hush-hush, another go at rescuing the Calgary Five, and if that worked Canada might yet stay true to Conservative blue.
“Looks like we’re in for a little weather, Mayor.”
“Ay-yep.”
His driver was urging him to get into the Lincoln van. He’d kept the engine running, thank God.
“Ready, Dog? Turn up them burners. I’m gonna loosen this here rope.”
Dog was standing in the gondola like a zombie, the envelope of the balloon suspended limply above him from a high tree branch. He’d suited up in hockey gear, a helmet, a chest protector, leg pads, a ratty old Canadiens sweater reaching to his knees.
“Give it a burst,” Stoney yelled.
No reaction. This was supposed to be dress rehearsal for next week’s official launch, but it looked like Dog had stage fright, possibly induced by the presence of the trespassing media in the form of Nelson Forbish, perched on his ATV.
He’d been totally on Stoney’s case, stalking him like some hippo from the wilds of Africa. It had been a mistake whetting Forbish’s appetite about that recorder, a mistake compounded when he’d blurted out it had to do with Arthur Beauchamp.
He stomped over to confront the trespasser. “Official ceremonies are next week. This here preliminary event is closed to the public. We are in camera.”
“After talking to Ernst, I see that I treated your high honours too light, and I’ve come here to apologize. I have a proposition. The Bleat is willing to put out a spread on you being West Coast entrepreneur of the year.”
That put a different complexion on things. “Front page?”
“‘Local Businessman Acclaimed in Ottawa.’ Pictures and everything.”
“I really ought to talk to Arthur.”
“He hasn’t been home for the holidays, and no one’s seen him for a month almost. He could be dead for all we know. If there’s something on that recorder you’re worried about, I suggest we take it over to his best friend and spiritual adviser and play it for him.” He pulled out a nicad battery.
Stoney called, “Take a break, Dog.”