Montreal Noir Page 16

  “I’ve been wondering how you were getting along,” he began.

  “Fine,” she said. “Thanks for asking.”

  “I meant with the farm,” he elaborated. “How close are you to putting it on the market?”

  Joanna straightened. “You thought I might list it with you?”

  “No,” he said. “Find somebody local. I need to know when you’re going to sell.”

  “Why do you need to know that?”

  He gave her an incredulous look. “We’re married, Joanna. The place is half mine. I could use the equity for a project I’m starting.”

  Joanna looked at the cutting edge of the hoe. “You think you own half of my father’s farm?”

  “The law thinks I do,” he replied. “We were together fourteen years.”

  “And now we’re not.”

  “Now doesn’t matter,” he said. He waited a moment. “You’d better talk to your lawyer.”

  She went back to work as he got into the BMW and drove off.

  After a few minutes, she sat down on the grass in the shade of the barn. She felt like she’d imagined him there, that it hadn’t really happened. In the garden, the beans were partially planted, the rest still in the envelope by the watering can. She realized she’d been planting the garden without even considering if she’d still be there when things were ready to harvest. She was planting the garden because it was time to do it.

  She got up and started for the house. It was past noon, and she thought she would eat something. Movement caught the corner of her eye as she rounded the old machine shed. A skinny brown coyote was crossing the field to the west of the house, the field planted in red clover just six inches high. The animal was mangy, its tail nearly bereft of fur.

  It seemed to Joanna that she sensed the shot an instant before she heard it. It rang out like a thunderclap during a sudden summer storm. The coyote lurched sideways as the bullet hit it, then took two steps forward and collapsed.

  Joanna glanced toward the side road and spotted Ben Dubois’s truck before she saw him. He came out of the trees, his gun in the crook of his arm, walking toward the dead coyote. He noticed Joanna in the yard as he approached. He gave her a quick look of dismissal. Even in the distance, she could see him smiling, knowing she’d been watching.

  She had left the double doors to the storm cellar open when she’d retrieved the gardening tools earlier. She walked past the house to the edge of the property, waiting for Dubois to pick up the coyote before calling to him. He had the animal’s rear legs in one hand, preparing to drag it away, when he heard her voice. He hesitated, then started over, leaving it behind. When he was near enough, she gestured toward the storm cellar.

  “You like to kill things. How are you with rats?”

  Dubois looked wary as he approached, but now he smiled into the darkness of the cellar. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your way of thinking.”

  “I just want it dead.”

  “Rat’s no different than a coyote.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Joanna said. “Give me the gun. I’ll kill it myself.”

  Dubois did so, liking the idea. When she had the rifle in her hands, she swung the stock as hard as she could, crashing it across his temple.

  * * *

  Later in the day she heard him yelling, and then calling out, promising vengeance before seeking conciliation, and finally pleading with her. She kept the radio on to drown him out. He was still making noise when she went to bed, alternating back and forth between dark threats and offers to bargain, before finally stopping. Joanna went to sleep; she assumed Dubois did too.

  When she went into town late that afternoon, she heard that Ben Dubois had been reported missing. The police had found his truck on English River Road, two kilometers from the farm. There were no leads, although the prominent theory was that Dubois had suffered a heart attack while hunting, and was lying in the woods somewhere. When Joanna got home, she buried Dubois’s rifle in the heavy loam of the barnyard before going down into the basement to give him a bowl of water. He howled as he heard her come near, first calling her a fucking whore, then sobbing, begging for forgiveness. He told her he was starving and beseeched her to give him something—anything—to eat. She slid the water beneath the door and left.

  * * *

  A few hours later, she stewed some meat and gave it to him, along with a piece of bread. She could hear him eating from behind the door. The next morning, she went out to the smokehouse where she had hung the dead coyote. She hacked the back leg from the carcass and took it inside, where she cut the meat into pieces and made more stew. She figured there was enough there to last Ben Dubois a couple of weeks.

  After that, she didn’t know.

  The Crap Magnet

  by Peter Kirby

  L’île Sainte-Thérèse

  My buddy Mike brought me over to L’île Sainte-Thérèse in his boat. It was two in the morning. Pitch black. The only light came from the stars. I needed a place to hide out for a while, and Sainte-Thérèse was the perfect spot. Only a ten-minute boat ride from Montreal, but it’s another world, a tiny island that no one controls, except the squatters who have been living there since the fifties. The police and the authorities gave up on the place years ago. Mike said the cottage was empty and I could stay there as long as I wanted.

  That bastard cop, Luc Vanier, was pissed at me. He had me marked for a double murder, but couldn’t prove anything. So instead of letting it go and moving on, he put out word that I was cooperating, that I was going to make a deal with the prosecutor in exchange for a free pass and a spot in witness protection. In my line of work, that’s a death sentence.

  That’s why I needed to drop out of sight. I needed to figure things out.

  The first night, I took a quick look around outside but it was darker than a blacked-out basement. I locked the doors and put chairs against them. I slept in a sleeping bag under the dining room table but I didn’t sleep well.

  In the morning, I took a good look around. The cottage was surrounded by trees that had been cleared back, like a bunker in a green parking lot. In two hours, I counted about twenty different ways people could approach the cottage through the trees. If you’re sneaking through the woods trying to find someone, you won’t be hacking a new path, and I wasn’t expecting Indiana Jones. If anyone was going to show up, it would be guys as freaked out by the forest as I was. I found a spot on the deck where I could see the approaches funnel into the clearing, a spot where it was still a short run into the woods if anyone showed up.

  Mike’s father must’ve been some kind of handyman; he had a nice collection of tools in the shed. There was a wrench the length of a baseball bat, with most of its weight at the business end. There were a couple hammers, a mallet that could crush a skull, and an axe. I dropped them onto the forest floor, covering them with leaves and making sure I remembered where I hid them. I also hid two old baseball bats in the undergrowth beside some trees. I found a serious chef’s knife in the kitchen that I wrapped in a dishrag and stuffed into my pants. I had to cut a small hole in the pocket to get it to sit properly.

  I kept the sleeping bag under the kitchen table. Every night after I finished eating in the last light, I would turn on the television in the living room and sit in the kitchen. Sitting in the dark isn’t much fun, but it’s safe, and when you’re looking out into the night from a dark room, you see everything. Guys who creep into houses at night always go for light, like moths. Most of the time they’re right; the target will be sitting in his La-Z-Boy, nursing a beer, watching Jay Leno, not a clue what’s going on until it’s too late.

  It took me awhile to settle into the cottage. In the city, you develop a filter. You ignore all the normal stuff, noticing only what’s odd—like the guy trying too hard to appear drunk, or the fool who looks you in the eye but turns away a second too late. On the island, all the activity made me twitchy at first. Nothing stayed still. Shit was happening all over the place. Fat brown birds root
ed around trees, making more noise than rats in a dumpster. Squirrels with stripes up their backs sprinted through the grass like they were trying to escape something awful.

  Eventually I figured out the patterns, relaxed, and focused on the stuff that stood out.

  Like the golden-brown flash that sliced through the trees. By the time the dog came bounding into the clearing, I was thirty feet into the woods. A red ball on a short rope went flying over his head, and he chased after it. It was a Labrador, I think. The dog grabbed the rope as the ball hit the ground, turned in a big circle, and headed back to the brunette behind him. Her hair was loose and curly, and she wore jeans and a white T-shirt. She had a farmer’s tan. She grabbed the rope and threw the ball in a slow arc toward the house. The dog took off after it. I scanned the woods behind her. She was alone.

  I was ten feet behind her before she noticed me. She wheeled around to face me, terrified. I tried for a disarming smile and said, “Hi.”

  “You made me jump,” she said, backing away. “I didn’t know there was anyone here. It’s been empty for weeks.”

  “I’m staying here for a few days, maybe longer.” Before I could reach out for a handshake, the dog was sniffing my crotch. “I’m John Webster.”

  The fear in her eyes was obvious, but the dog was friendly enough. I grabbed his head and looked him in the eyes. His tail waved back and forth. I peered up at her, keeping my eyes on her face, avoiding the body scan. She was attractive, but worn-looking.

  “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” she said, turning to the dog, “Come on, Hoagy.”

  “Carmichael?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Hoagy. Hoagy Carmichael, the singer. That’s the dog’s name?”

  “How did you guess?” She almost cracked a smile. “My dad used to sing ‘Stardust’ all the time. That’s why I picked the name. Reminded me of my dad, I guess.”

  Hoagy was bouncing around, and she was warming up to me.

  “Want a drink?” I offered. “All I’ve got is iced tea and coffee, but iced tea is good in this heat.”

  She looked past me into the woods. “Sure, iced tea sounds good. I’m Maude,” she said, reaching out to shake my hand. As she did, I noticed fingertip bruising on the inside of her arm.

  We sat on the deck. She wasn’t relaxed, constantly twisting a cheap ring on her finger that looked like a purple flower. She had other bruises, fading but still obvious. She kept glancing back over her shoulder at the woods. I could have told her I would see anyone before they arrived, but I didn’t.

  “So you live on Sainte-Thérèse?” I asked.

  “Yeah, about half a mile through the woods.” She pointed in the direction she’d come from.

  I’d seen the house. It was a crap magnet, a worn-out looking shack surrounded by junk, like an old all-terrain vehicle on cinder blocks, rusting parts on the ground like it had spilled its guts, a refrigerator lying on its side, empty beer cases, rusted appliances. It was the kind of place that brought down the neighborhood. But there wasn’t any neighborhood, so who cared?

  “So we’re neighbors, Maude,” I said.

  We made small talk. Then I saw movement. Hoagy was on his feet running toward it. I dropped off the deck, moved to the woods at a right angle to the dog’s path, and made a wide circle through the trees. I came up behind a stocky guy in green pants and a camouflage T-shirt, carrying a shotgun in his right hand. Hoagy made crotch contact with him, and turned to run back to Maude.

  Camo-boy stepped into the clearing and yelled, “Maude?” It wasn’t a Hey, darling, where you been? More of a What the fuck are you doing here?

  I moved quietly toward him. Here’s a rule: never surprise a guy who’s carrying a gun, unless you’re close enough to jump him. He probably felt my breath on his neck before he heard me.

  “Afternoon,” I said. I was getting good at this friendly neighbor speak.

  He spun around and backed away from me. Another rule: if it’s a choice between invading someone’s personal space and giving him room to lift and aim, go for invasion. I had maybe forty pounds on him. I reached out and grabbed the gun. He wasn’t happy.

  “These things make me nervous,” I said, grinning. “So I have a rule: no guns on the property.”

  He didn’t argue when I cracked the gun open and lobbed the two cartridges in his general direction.

  “John’s the name. Want to join us for iced tea?”

  It took him a few seconds to process everything. Eventually he said, “Sure.”

  We walked back to the cottage.

  “My name’s Ace. Me and Maude live back over there,” he said, pointing over his shoulder.

  Ace was trying to be nice.

  I left him with Maude on the deck and went for another glass. When I got back, they were silent. Hoagy was sleeping in the shade.

  Right away, Ace started to explain himself. He carried the gun because you never knew who you might run into. Maude had been gone awhile, and he had gotten worried. Then he started into the questions, too many questions. He was trying to figure out where to slot me in his limited universe. I was thinking how to pull his wires to leave him safe. Maude was watching both of us with a who-gives-a-shit expression.

  At some point Ace felt comfortable enough to stake his claim: “Me and Maude, we’ve been together for a long time. We love this place. That right, Maude?”

  “Sure, I suppose. It can be nice here sometimes,” she replied.

  Ace waited for Maude to say more, but she looked away. He rolled his eyes. “Women. They’re never satisfied, know what I mean?”

  “I’ve known some pretty satisfied women in my time.” I looked him in the eye, let him understand. Then I let him off the hook: “But I’ve never been able to satisfy one myself.”

  When they were leaving, Ace acted like he had made a new friend, full of the we-should-do bullshit of fishing and drinking beer.

  * * *

  Doing nothing on Sainte-Thérèse wasn’t easy. I was thinking too much. I couldn’t help it, but I started going over every hit I had done in the last fifteen years. In my business, forgetting is what keeps you going; you just do the job and move on. Yet with nothing to do but sit around, I started reliving the old jobs, and there had been a lot. I even did a priest once, for paying too much attention to an altar boy. I gave him a knife through the ribs, right after he gave me absolution.

  Don’t get me wrong—I wasn’t feeling guilty. They all deserved it. It was more like, How did I end up doing this? The only reason I could come up with was that some moron had paid me. It wasn’t personal. I hadn’t felt anything personal in years.

  * * *

  Maude came back three days later, early in the morning. I was having a coffee on the deck and saw Hoagy coming through the trees. I disappeared into the woods. She didn’t notice the coffee cup as she crossed the deck and went into the cottage like she owned the place. I was back in my chair when she came out.

  “A regular Houdini,” she said, her eyes hidden behind big movie-star sunglasses. She had washed up. Her hair was clean, and it looked like she had ironed her T-shirt. When I brought her a coffee, I smelled flowers in her hair. She cradled the mug in her hands, tucking her feet under her chair. She hardly protested when I lifted the sunglasses off her face. Her right eye was ringed with dark bruises.

  “You got him mad by taking his gun off him.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “It’s the way it is.”

  “You could leave. Walk away.”

  “Walk away?” She stared at me like I was an idiot. “He’d come after me. He’d kill me. I’ve learned to put up with things, to be satisfied with whatever little escapes I can get.”

  She looked me in the eye. I was today’s little escape.

  I grabbed her hand and led her into the cottage, straight into the back bedroom. She let go of my hand, peeled off her T-shirt, and unclasped the front hooks on her bra. I stood and watched. She stripped off her boots, socks, jeans, an
d panties. Then she came up and kissed me. She braced herself against me, wrapping both legs around my waist. I held her ass to support her. She took her time, testing me. Then she put her feet back on the ground and started undressing me. There were no questions, no hesitations, and I’m not the kind of guy who argues with women.

  The sex was quick and rough. I let her scratch, claw, and grab handfuls of me, squeeze like she was causing pain. She was hitting me, solid punches, one after the other into my ribs while she played with my tongue in her mouth. She was slick with sweat, and my hands glided into her body’s slippery crevasses as she pushed herself into me. We stared at each other in the final moments.

  We lay naked on the bed, covered in sweat. I could feel her heart beating against my chest. Finally she stirred.

  “Shit,” she said.

  “That bad?”

  She aimed another blow at my ribs, softer this time.

  Not even five minutes later, she stirred again. “I gotta get going, before Ace wakes up.”

  “You know, you don’t have to take his shit, Maude. It’s a free country. You can walk away anytime you feel like it.”

  “Simple as that, Mr. Webster? And what planet do you come from? I want to get away from this shithole more than anything else, but I also want to stay alive. I’m stuck here with a maniac who owns nothing but me. He won’t ever let me go.” She was pulling on her jeans.

  “If you want, I can get you off the island. Get you to Montreal.”

  “I left once, two years ago.” She put on her bra and stood up. “I got a job waiting tables. Not much, but it was all I needed. God knows how he found me, but he showed up when I finished my shift. He pulled me into his pickup. Literally picked me up and put me in the truck. We drove back here, and he beat me hard for three weeks. Who came to my rescue? Nobody. Not my fucking family, not the social services, not the police. I gave up. It’s easier to be nice than to be beaten.”