Bloody Relations (14 page)

•  •  •

COBB FOUND CONSTABLE ROSSITER AT HIS
customary post, a nameless dive on Yonge Street near Lot. Rossiter had the northeast patrol and the distinction of policing the worst den of thieves and miscreants in the city. Where Irishtown was an unintentional slum inhabited mainly by fatherless families, the unemployed, and sundry others left stranded and friendless by mainstream society, it was blackguards and outright felons who populated the shacks and hovels grouped around the Tinker's Dam along a straggling lane that ran off the corner of Lot and Jarvis. Cobb never went there alone at night, though he had often been compelled to join Rossiter (and once, a sheriff's deputized posse) in search of men wanted for serious crimes. If they didn't turn up their quarry on the initial sweep, there was no hope of getting anything truthful or helpful from the rest of the population.

Rossiter was not happy about having his backgammon interrupted but agreed to come when informed that this case was so
important that Chief Sturges himself had offered to cover Cobb's southeast patrol until it was solved. It was pitch-black by the time they turned onto the lane that led to the Tinker's Dam. Rossiter had brought along a lantern, but Cobb refused to let him light it.

“We'll nip along in the moonlight,” Cobb said. “Our only chance of catchin' the bugger is to surprise him in the back room where there's usually heavy bettin' on the dice.”

“If they ain't off in the fields watchin' a cockfight,” Rossiter said.

They made their way cautiously along the lane, hands on truncheons just in case they were mistaken for ordinary citizens who had wandered in unawares. But no one accosted them. Several dogs barked ferociously from nearby outposts but chose discretion over valour. Up ahead a barn-like blotch of shadow against the moonlight, low from the east, signalled their proximity to the Tinker's Dam. At the same time the burst of laughter and umbrage from its open doors and paneless windows struck the constables like the wall of a tidal wave.

“Well, they sure as hell won't hear us comin',” Rossiter said.

“You go 'round back,” Cobb directed. “There's a door that opens up from the root cellar. Stand there with yer club at half-mast and rap the bugger on the noggin when he comes out. I'm goin' in a-hollerin' his name, and he'll make like a ferret in a burrow.”

“Jesus, Cobb, be careful. They got knives in there, and pistols too.”

Cobb waved him to his post, then strode into the mêlée with his truncheon cocked. No one noticed. The light tossed up by the candles was uncertain and more camouflaging than revealing. The noise level among the tipplers—crowded half a dozen to a table-cum-tree stump or sandwiched along the raw plank that served as a bar and separated the throng from the barrels of whiskey behind
it—was so deafening that Cobb could not detect his own bellowed threat: “Police! We're here to arrest Michael Badger! Give him up now!”

Cobb prodded his way through the stench and smoke, but there was so much incidental elbowing going on that no one particularly noticed a jab from a constable's truncheon. “Michael Badger! You're under arrest!”

“What kinda whiskey did ya say?” the bartender shouted next to his ear.

Exasperated, Cobb pushed towards the door to the gambling den. Suddenly a large and very ugly man lurched in front of him. “Where the fuck do ya think yer goin'?”

“In there, to arrest Michael Badger.” Cobb raised his stick and pointed it at a spot below the man's chin.

“Michael Badger ain't in there, so bugger off!”

“I think I'll just see fer myself.”

“I'd advise against it, Consta—”

No further syllable emerged because Cobb's truncheon had poked its snout well into the bruiser's voice box and sent him gagging against the bar. Cobb pushed open the door and stepped brazenly into the gambling den. “Where's Michael Badger?” he boomed.

A dozen men, crouched in a circle around a pair of dice and wads of wagered dollars, looked up, their eyes removed from the tumbling and fickle bones for the first time in an hour. They froze in place there, as if the mental effort and emotional anguish demanded by the game had left them disoriented and momentarily petrified. Finally, one of them, whom Cobb recognized as Burly Bettman, stood up and declared, “That son-of-a-bitch deadbeat ain't here, and if he was, I'd rip off his legs and bash his brains out with 'em.”

Bettman either owned the Tinker's Dam or had it by squatter's rights.

“Badger owes ya money, I take it,” Cobb said.

“More'n thirty bucks. The stupid bugger don't know when to quit.”

“When did you see him last?”

“He was in here Saird'y night. Tried ta sucker me inta double or nothin'. I told him ta pay up by last night or I'd double the debt and then take it outta his hide slice by slice.”

“Okay, you fellas c'n go back to losin' yer shirts,” Cobb said. “But I'd check them funny dice if I was you.”

Cobb went looking for Rossiter. He found him beside the cellar door, standing over a prone figure lying motionless in the grass.

“What the hell—”

“You said to conk the bugger,” Rossiter protested.

“Yeah, and I told ya Badger was six feet tall with a bushel of orange hair. This guy's five feet and bald. I hope ya haven't killed him.”

“But he come bustin' up outta that doorway like he'd seen a ghost.”

A sudden groan suggested that the victim was still alive. Cobb bent down and turned him face up. “Christ! It's Nestor Peck, one of my snitches.”

“So it is,” Rossiter said, more surprised than concerned.

“He must've heard my voice in the barroom and skedaddled. The last person he'd want to be seen with in this territory is a constable.”

“We just gonna leave him here?” Rossiter said, stifling a yawn.

“Yeah. You hit him in the one spot he can't be hurt. But I gotta see him and my other snitches first thing in the mornin' to put the word out about Badger. If he's been holin' up in one of these
shacks around here, he's long gone by now. His name's mud in these parts, and pretty soon he's gonna have the whole town snappin' at his arse.”

Nestor groaned again and tried to open his eyes.

“We better get a move on,” Cobb said.

Rossiter agreed.

•  •  •

COBB STAGGERED INTO HIS PARLOUR, FLOPPED
into an easy chair, and let his boots drop off. “Missus Cobb!” he shouted.

Dora came in from the kitchen, an apron tied around her nightdress. Her parabolic curves consumed the doorway. “Shoutin' may get you respect in the dives you free-kwent, but it don't travel far in this place.”

“I was just askin' if you was home, luv.”

“Askers don't beller.”

“Glad ya got home just the same.”

“Darn glad to be home. I've had one helluva day.”

“Don't tell me about it, please.”

“I wasn't plannin' to.”

“The kids got me supper. They're gettin' better at it—”

“Is that a complaint, Mister Cobb?”

Just then Delia called from the kitchen.

“What the heck's she doin' up?” Cobb said, happy to redirect the conversation.

“School's out and it's summer, ya old fart. They ain't little kids no more.”

“Ya mean ta say Fabian's still outside?”

“Yer deed-duction is ah-cute tonight, constable.”

“He's playing hide-and-go-seek with the boys,” Delia said from the kitchen doorway, her tone part reproof and part envy.

As if on cue, the front door was flung open and ten-year-old Fabian stumbled into the room, flushed and excited.

“What's happened?” Dora said.

“We saw a bogeyman!” Fabian said, his pale eyes delightedly wide and eager to calculate their effect of his words on the elders.

“Don't be daft,” Cobb said.

“But we did, Dad. Butch and me were hiding in the bushes up near King Street when this monster pops up out of nowhere and roars at us.”

“Just some tramp,” Cobb said, glancing at Dora but not ready yet to risk a wink.

“You probably scared him more'n he scared you,” Dora said.

“This wasn't any normal mortal,” said Fabian, who had begun reading his grandfather's
Shakespeare
and dazzling his classmates with unsolicited bursts of pentameter. “He was as big and ugly as Caliban!”

“Now, Fabian—”

“And there was a fiery halo 'round his head!”

Cobb went suddenly still. “When you say big, you mean tall, eh?”

“Tallest man I ever saw, honest.”

“Jesus!” Cobb cried. “It's him!”

“Mister Cobb, watch yer—”

But Cobb was already scrambling for the door. “Which way did he go?” he said to Fabian, who was on his heels.

“Butch and me let out a yell and the creature turned and run off.”

“But where?” Cobb gasped, tripping on the steps and teetering forward onto the stone walk.

“Straight up King Street. We could see his halo bobbing away.”

“Heading up King towards the river?”

“And running like he had the devil up his backside!”

Cobb was about to reprimand his son for using such an unsavoury image but instead found himself yelling, “Jesus Christ and Christendom!”

Fabian began to laugh. He couldn't help it: his father was hopping about in his stocking feet and pulling thistles out of their soles.

Back in the parlour—fuming and mortified—Cobb informed Dora that the bogeyman was undoubtedly a fugitive he'd been tracking and, alas, was now heading for the Kingston Road and townships east. He began pulling his boots on over his swollen and prickled feet.

“You're not goin' out again?” Dora said. “You'll drop dead of exertion!”

“I've gotta find Sarge and wake him up. We're gonna need the troops to catch this bugger tonight.”

“What's goin' on?” Dora asked, alarmed. “We gonna have another rebellion?”

Cobb stood up on his tender appendages. “We might be—
Ow
!”

“You gonna shoot him, Dad?” Delia asked, wondrously scandalized.

“I'd like to, luv.”

Moments later, Constable Horatio Cobb was hurrying gingerly through the dark streets of his city, looking once more to his duty.

W
hen Marc arrived home from Government House, he found Beth tucked up in bed, reading. Her father, a Congregational minister from Pennsylvania, had bequeathed her an impressive library of books, most of which she had read more than once. She looked up, smiled, then giggled.

“Do I look that bad?” Marc said, sitting down beside her.

“Not you,” she replied, leaning over to be kissed. “Mr. Pickwick.”

“Ah, you've started in on Uncle Frederick's collection, then?”

“Mr. Dickens is a lot more amusing than Blackstone's
Commentaries
or Phillips'
Evidence
.”

“Uncle Frederick sent those for my edification, not entertainment.”

“This Dickens fella doesn't have a lot of respect for barristers.”

“Who does?”

She waited till he had undressed and slipped in beside her before she asked, “Well, are you going tell me about it?”

“Yes, but in the morning when my mind wakes up.”

He reached over and placed a warm hand on her belly.

She shook her head gently, but her smile seemed to say “soon.”

•  •  •

MARC SLIPPED OUT OF BED AND
into his study before seven the next morning. He wanted to write down what he had learned at Government House while it was still fresh. Outside his window, bobolinks and meadowlarks warbled the fields and gardens awake. About eight o'clock Charlene tapped on the door and brought in tea and toast. A little later he heard the two women preparing breakfast in the kitchen, chatting amiably as they did so. How far such easy domesticity seemed from the sordid and sad scene at Madame Renée's: a girl's blood spilled wantonly and death sudden and undeserved.

When Charlene tapped next, Marc assumed it was the call to breakfast proper. He was surprised when she announced that Constable Cobb had arrived. They had planned to meet at the police station at nine-thirty. He hurried out to the parlour, where Cobb stood fiddling with his truncheon and looking everywhere but at the women of the house.

Without ceremony he announced, “I got some news, Major.”

Cobb then sketched out for Marc the events up at the Tinker's Dam and the almost certain sighting of the red-headed giant thereafter. Chief Constable Sturges had trotted up to Government House, roused Sir George Arthur from a warm bed, and persuaded him to dispatch a mounted troop to the Kingston Road in search of Badger.

Marc seemed more interested in the Tinker's Dam than in the imminent capture of their key witness. “That was very good work up there last night,” he said. “You know, of course, what it means?”