Punishment (41 page)

He was surprisingly calm. “You know what I’m talking about, Tony? ’Cept that in the joint you guys got a bit more flexibility. The con fucking knows the way the system works in there,
man. Fuck with the bull and you might get a horn up the arse. Right? But out here, man? It’s all about them and their rights.”

He was chewing quietly now. “And then, every so often, some young cop, right out of depot, crease on the pants and a shine on the shoes, is walking up to the door of one of these citizens to serve some kind of document with a please and thank you sir or madam, or check out some firearm complaint, or cross dog … and halfway between the car and the shack … Blam. Afterwards there’s a big national uproar, hand wringing, politicians and red serge and sad faces lined up for miles for the world’s prettiest funeral.
Big
speeches,
plans
to make it better, until a few weeks later, when it’s back to the routine. Guys like us, and women, too, God love them, drivin’ around the back roads with an eye peeled for one of these dudes out doing his thing. Like Strickland.”

I decided to interrupt. “I actually knew Dwayne …”

“Just let me finish, Tony. So here’s what was going through my head as I started the file on Mr. Dwayne Strickland, late of the Shore Road in the hamlet of St. Ninian. I’m looking at the facts. Here’s a guy lived on the wrong side all his life. Went to the Millhaven finishing school, and you know all about that. Got a fuckin attitude on him that would impress a Taliban recruiter. Sets up shop down there out of sight in your neck of the woods. Builds a customer base among the teenage population. Some young kid kicks the bucket under suspicious circumstances in his livin’ room. Buddy gets away with it. And get this, Tony. This guy is so cocky he’s been playing silly-bugger with the local bikers’ chapter. Taking their dope and selling it and not paying them. And don’t you be fooled by
their aw-shucks, green-as-grass good ol’ local boys hospitality bullshit. These guys are connected all the way into Laval. And he’s already told one of their reps to go fuck himself
a couple of times
when they came by to collect their share.

“You know what, Tony? Here’s a young healthy guy but say you’re an insurance salesman. You gonna write up a policy for Dwayne Strickland? You say so and I’ll say you’re crazier than he is. Now what was it you were going to tell me?”

“There’s a bit more to the story about how he died …”

“Oh, I fuckin bet there is,” he said. “According to you guys he goes after one of you with a baseball bat and a fire starts and in spite of you trying to save his sorry ass, he dies in it. I hate to sound hard, man, but there’s something kinda Shakespearean there. I’m trying to imagine what would have happened if you two guys were enforcers for the motorcycle club, eh. He’d been begging for the fire. So what were you going to say, Tony?”

There was a bald eagle on a tree branch high above the pond and a distant contrail inching across the sky. I could feel an internal collapse, but also a sense of release. It was a moment, I realize as I look back on everything, when fate separates the weak from the strong. I was succumbing to weakness. I knew it even as it happened. But I was also asking myself the question: Where does being strong get you when the game is rigged?

“I was just going to ask about the status of the file,” I said.

“Oh, the file is staying open, that’s for sure. No pressure to close that one.”

“Well, you know where I am when you want to add my two cents worth to the paperwork.”

“I know that and I appreciate it, Tony.”

He started the engine, rolled down the car window and spit out his gum. The eagle lifted off the branch and lazily wobbled off in the general direction of the disintegrating jet path in the sky.

Driving down the lane, the little house looked grim, abandoned. I again had to force my way through the door, finally admitting to myself that I was going to have to soon spend some fresh money on the place, starting with this sticky doorframe. Maybe a whole new kitchen. Or just get rid of everything, pick up and start all over again.

The phone was ringing.

“Hey, it’s Neil.” He sounded groggy. “Have you heard anything from Hannah?”

“Hannah? Your wife?”

“How many fuckin Hannahs do you know? Yes, my wife.”

I tried to mask alarm with fake confusion. “Why would she be in touch with me?”

“She went home to the States for a visit and was supposed to be gone for a week. That was ten days ago. All I’ve heard from her is some garbled message on the answering machine. I’m not suggesting anything. I just know she has your number because I gave it to her in case anything ever happened to me.”

“Sorry, Neil. I can’t help you. You sound like you have the flu.”

“No. I’m good. What about yourself. You holding up all right?”

“I’m managing,” I said.

“Well, just keep on managing. This’ll all be ancient history in no time flat. We should get together sometime soon, talk about where we go from here, man.”

“What do you mean, go from here?”

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the last week or so. You’d be surprised, the number of phone calls I’ve had. Word gets around. This isn’t the time or the place to talk about it. But let’s just say we got a whole lot of fans up and down the countryside. I think we’ve cranked up some expectations.” He seemed to be waiting for a response.

“Let me know if you hear from Hannah, Neil. Good night.”

I
sat in the gathering darkness and retrieved the yellow paper from my jacket pocket. I spread it on the table, read it, then struck a match and watched it burn until the flame was threatening my thumb and forefinger. At which moment I dropped the remains of it into a saucer.

Later that evening I made two telephone calls, left two messages: The first to Anna, letting her know that I had pretty well decided to take up her offer regarding the dog, Jack Daniels. If it was still on the table I could make arrangements to pick him up in maybe a week when I’d be in the Kingston area on other business. The second call was to Sophie. Wondering if she’d be around and available for lunch or a drink anytime early in the week. I was planning on driving up that way on the weekend
and had some business in Ottawa; hoping maybe we could catch up.

Then I turned on the television and watched the president of the United States posing on an aircraft carrier somewhere, dressed in warrior gear, huge banner hanging in the background, Mission Accomplished. And I wondered if anybody ever told him how much he looked like Alfred E. Neuman.

Friday was sunny and warm. I sat on the doorstep sipping my coffee, reconsidering conclusions carefully defined the night before. When all was said and done, my predicament was simple. Neil just made use of what he saw in me, what he knew about me based on his own shrewd understanding of human nature. He just wound me up and turned me loose and I performed exactly as he thought I would.

Well, Tony Whoever, we can’t let that happen again. I took a last look around and went indoors.

I stripped the bed, folded and stored the bedclothes. Vacuumed upstairs and down. Then I packed, maybe for a week, maybe for a month, maybe forever. I sat. It was eleven o’clock. I remembered the newspapers—and that I’d have to cancel them. The phone rang. I decided not to answer. Neil again. But when it rang through to the answering machine it was Caddy. I picked up.

“I wasn’t sure if you were still around,” she said. She sounded weary.

“Actually I’m going to go away for a few days. I meant to let you know.”

“That’s a good plan, to get away from here for a while. Put things behind you. Not a great time for Florida though.”

“Nah. Not Florida. Not in May. I have to do a few things in Ontario.”

“Ontario. Oh well.”

“Are you all right, Caddy?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “Just haven’t been sleeping much. When are you planning on leaving?”

“Later today,” I said. “I prefer to do my driving at night.”

“Hmmm. Maybe you’ll drop by for a minute before you go,” she said. “I’d like to have a brief chat about something.”

“Sure,” I said.

I tried calling Sophie once more. Had to leave another message: “Hey Sophie, not sure if you’re around at all. Me again. I’ll probably be in Ottawa sometime Sunday. I’ll try calling again when I’m there. Maybe lunch on Monday. You don’t have to worry. Just catching up. No agenda. Okay?”

Caddy was sitting in a lawn chair on her deck, eyes closed, face turned up toward the harsh sunlight. She sat up when she heard my footsteps and smiled at me. “Let me get another chair. Will you have something to drink?”

“No,” I said. “I’m okay.”

We sat side by side, close enough to touch. She closed her eyes again.

After a long silence: “I think it’s going to be an early spring.”

“I hope so.”

“I went to see the police in town,” I said after a while.

“Mmmmhmmm.”

“You heard?”

“No, I didn’t. What did they have to say?”

“They weren’t interested in anything I had to tell them.”

“I’m not surprised. Neil is in pretty thick with the local police officers.”

“I gathered as much. When you said we were all in it together I thought you just meant Neil and me and you. I didn’t realize you meant most of the village, the police and, just for good measure, the biker gang.”

She smiled. “This surprises you?”

“I guess not. I guess it surprises me, and it shouldn’t, that Neil is so … fanatical.”

There was another long silence and then she sat up, and began to work at her wedding ring until, finally, she had it off. She held it up to the light as if to estimate its value.

“There’s something I should have told you a long time ago, Tony,” she said. “It doesn’t really make a lot of difference now, but then again it could help you understand a few things.”

I waited and after a while I was certain that she’d changed her mind. Then she said softly, almost inaudibly, “Neil is Maymie’s grandfather, Tony.”

“Neil is …” I began.

“… Rosalie’s father,” she finished. The pale, pale eyes were blinking rapidly.

I don’t know how much time went by after that. I just sat thinking about her disclosure, surprised mostly by just how
obvious it should have been to me all along, how unsurprising it really was now that it was out in the open. But isn’t truth like that? Unsurprising when we hear it. Of course it was Neil, the warrior about to face a likely death in a far-off land. It made perfect sense.
Neil just has a way of getting things out of people
.

“That would explain why … Strickland.”

“No,” she said sadly. “I’m afraid not. Neil doesn’t know. About Maymie. When I was pregnant with Rosalie I never told him. I never told anybody.”

She raised a cautionary hand. “Don’t say anything, Tony, or I’ll cry. And I swear I’ll never, ever forgive you if you make me cry in front of you. So. Just.” She waved the hand again.

And after a long silence: “But there’s something else. About Neil. I’m afraid I have another confession … to do with Strickland … and your …”

Her eyes were now brimming, voice gone.

“No Caddy,” I said. “There’s no need …”

“I’m just a stupid old woman.”

“No, my darling Caddy. You are not.”

She was nodding and I had no idea what she was agreeing to.

Gazing at some distant place, she finally asked, “Do you think you’ll ever come back, Tony?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

We stood then, facing one another. “I’m glad you told me about Rosalie,” I said. “It always mattered. It still matters.”

“Yes,” she said. “It always mattered.”

She held out both hands and I clasped them. “If you do come back, will you promise that you’ll come and see me?”

“Yes,” I said. “Goodbye, Caddy.”

——

There’s a bit of a haze around the rest.

I drove to the store. I know I noticed a vehicle in front, but no particulars. Mary was alone inside. I kept it brief, cancelled the newspapers indefinitely, asked her to keep an eye on my place. I told her I needed a holiday. “I’m not surprised,” she said. Then, as an afterthought: “Did you notice those two outside when you came in?”

“No.”

“Two guys in a big rented SUV, say they’re from Boston, asking for Neil.”

“Really?”

“One of them was paying for a pack of cigarettes and when he reached for his wallet I saw a gun under his coat. He saw me looking and that was when he told me—he’s a cop, or says he is. I have my doubts. He has one of those mechanical arms. I can’t picture a cop with one of those.”

I went to a window and looked out. There was a black Lincoln Navigator parked there, windows tinted.

“They asked for Neil?”

“Said they were in the same squad or something. Worked together, were old friends. A couple of what-are-you-supposed-to-call-them nowadays? African-Americans. Anyway, I played stupid. I don’t like to give out personal information about anybody around here. Including you.”

“I appreciate that.”

“You have a safe trip, Tony.”

——

The SUV driver’s window was down when I left the store and as I walked by a voice asked, “Is that your truck?”

I said it was.

The driver had a shaved head and for all his menacing appearance what seemed to be a kind expression. “I guess you’d need something like that, living out in the country.”

“It helps,” I said. “You planning a move to the country?”

He shrugged. “Could be,” he said, and smiled. His eyes were as gentle as his voice.

The passenger then shouted across, “Maybe you can help. We’re trying to find an old friend. Name of Neil MacDonald.”

I approached the Lincoln, bent and looked inside. “Well,” I said. “It’s a very common name around here. You could probably find a Neil MacDonald in every second house. You’d have to be more specific.”

“Big fella. Ex-cop,” he said. “From Boston. We all worked together in Roxbury. We heard so much about this place from Neil, golf and beaches, music and hospitality, that we decided—hey, let’s scout it out, maybe bring the families down here for a summer vacation later on. Anyway, wanted to touch base with ol’ Neil. Checked the phone book but, like you said … MacDonalds, wow.” He laughed.