Painless (21 page)

Chapter 46

Keeping on the move, they traveled to an upscale men’s clothing store in Zone-3. From his brief time in Montreal, Billy had observed that the style was black, black, and more black. So he purchased a pair of black jeans and black turtleneck. He also bought a black leather jacket, black boots, and black knit cap in case they went outside later. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

He also noticed that everyone in Montreal had a cigarette plastered to their lips. Or a Cuban cigar since Canada didn’t have the same trade restrictions with Cuba as the US. So keeping with the
when in Rome
theory, he stopped at a specialty store and bought a pack of cigarettes. Carolyn settled for a box of candy cigarettes. He needed her at her best, and hoped the sugar might put some pep in her step.

He stashed his old clothes in a men’s bathroom in Zone-1, the ground floor. It was now time to eat. They hadn’t eaten since the post-hunting feast from the night before, which seemed like years ago.

They found a food court in the first zone and chose a glorified hot dog stand called Franx Supreme. It was a perfect match—they specialized in making hot dogs and Carolyn specialized in eating them. The hot dogs came with a side of poutines, which were Canada’s contribution to the quadruple bypass. A heavenly-evil combination of potatoes, cheese, and gravy that was deliciously delicious.

For some reason Billy’s paranoia subsided. Maybe it was the feeling of safety in numbers that the crowded food court provided. But he knew the feeling couldn’t be trusted.

Carolyn dug in to her hot dog like she hadn’t eaten in a day.

“You doing better?” Billy asked.

“I like shopping and eating, I won’t deny it.”

“I think in Montreal they might call it le shopping,” he said with a smile.

He took another glance at Carolyn, now slurping down her lemonade, with ketchup and mustard spread across her cheeks. And suddenly a feeling came over him like a sharp chill on a winter day. It was the overwhelming feeling of responsibility that comes with the knowledge that a young child’s life is at your mercy. It was clear his lone mission in this life was to keep Carolyn safe, even if it meant sacrificing his own life. And his paranoia returned with gusto.

“I like le shopping, but I’m still a little sad,” she replied.

“Maybe we should have a pity party for you then.”

A dab of excitement arose from her grimace. “A pity party sounds like fun!”

Billy’s eyes roamed each person in the food court. Any of them, from children to grandparents could have been a plant. It was overwhelming. Like a nervous habit, he reached into the pocket of his new black jeans. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes and lit up. Everybody else in the food court seemed to be doing it—
when in Rome.

Carolyn’s face scrunched. “That’s icky.”

He puffed. “I only smoke when I drink, get divorced, or I’m running for my life,” he rationalized with a forced chuckle.

Carolyn’s face turned from disgust to inquisitive. “You got divorced?”

 “I think in Montreal they would call it le divorce,” he tried to deflect, but there was no way to charm his way out of this one.

“My friend Carly’s parents got divorced,” she said, then had an epiphany. “And so did my friend Tori, and my friend Sam, and my friend Nicole, and my…well…a lot of my friends parents got divorced.” She was counting them on her fingers, but quickly ran out of digits.

“Do you know what divorce is?”

“When the daddy and the mommy yell at each other a lot and then move into different houses and tell my friends it’s not their fault.” Then she seemed to remember something. “They also get lots of gifts.”

“Something like that.”

“My mom and dad aren’t getting divorced, are they?”

“Of course not, they love you too much.”

“Carly’s parents didn’t love her?”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m sure Carly’s parents love her very much.”

Carolyn wasn’t listening, she was deep in thought. Billy didn’t interrupt her. It sounded strange to say about a four-year-old, but she was a deep thinker, and it was one of the things he enjoyed most about her. He was rarely around women who were. His mother surely wasn’t. He had many names for Kelly, deep thinker wasn’t one of them. The high school groupies before her weren’t, and neither were the bimbos like Kaylee who followed. Just because you go to college doesn’t make you a deep thinker.

Carolyn gathered her thoughts, before pushing on like a mini Mike Wallace, “So you got le divorced?”

“Actually I got kicked-in-the-balls divorced.”

Carolyn flashed a perturbed look at his stall tactics.

“I guess in Montreal they would answer your question by saying we-we,” he continued to filibuster, bad French accent included.

“I don’t haff to go we-we, silly, I just wanna know if you got divorced.”

Unable to divert a four-year-old working on two hours of sleep, he reluctantly came clean. “Yes, Carolyn, I did.”

The wheels were still turning. “Why?”

“My wife wanted to paint the chicken with somebody else, I guess.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Grownups do weird things sometimes.”

“Grownups are silly,” she said, before a look of concern overtook her face. “Were you sad?”

“For a long time I was, but then I found a new person to paint the chicken with and my pain started to go away.”

“Who?”

“You.”

She smiled. “We’re never getting divorced, Billy.”

“Stick together, remember?”

She held her nose. “If you get rid of those icky cigarettes we will.”

Billy tossed them onto the tray of ketchup-stained garbage. “Deal.”

They clinked Styrofoam cups and Carolyn offered him a candy cigarette. They were again a united front, but a united front facing a big problem—where to even start looking for Bronson Rose? Billy flipped through his travel guide searching for magical answers.

“Where would miracles occur in Montreal?” he mumbled out loud. They had to get to him before Operation Anesthesia got them.

Then he saw it.

 He grabbed Carolyn’s hand and headed out of the food court. He knew where Bronson Rose was looking for his miracle.

Chapter 47

Built on the northwestern slope of Mount Royal, the octagonal dome of St. Joseph’s Oratory dominated the Montreal skyline. According to Billy’s guide, the dome that rests on top of the basilica was the second largest in the world after St. Peter’s in Rome.

With Carolyn by his side, Billy boarded a metro at McGill Station. The route swung to the south, before looping around to the western part of the city, where they got off at the Côte-des-Neiges stop. That left them only a short walking distance from St. Joseph’s.

The church was built in the early 20th century by the famed healer, Brother Andre Bessette. While working as the doorkeeper at Notre Dame College in Montreal, Bessette gained national prominence after an epidemic broke out at a nearby college, and he was credited with saving all souls. From that point on, he was hailed as a miracle worker and inundated with letters requesting his healing powers. At his death in 1937, he still received over eighty thousand letters a year. But what interested Billy most was that Bessette built this oratory as a tribute to St. Joseph, on whom he bestowed all credit for his
miracles
.

Bronson went to Montreal seeking a
miracle
.

The main church was massive, featuring striking stained glass windows and a grand altar. Mass wasn’t in session, but worshippers mingled throughout the colossal church.

Billy eyed each worshipper as he and Carolyn strolled up the center aisle toward the altar. Billy was on the lookout for a man who had some resemblance to Calvin, guessing that the brothers looked similar, but nobody met the description. But without a picture he couldn’t be sure. He felt like Robert Langdon, the hero from the
Da Vinci Code
, hunting through ancient churches for the Holy Grail. But Langdon was at least armed with a lifetime of knowledge on the subject. All Billy had was a ten-dollar travel guide and an exhausted four-year-old.

 Billy continued his when in Rome strategy. He knelt before the altar and performed the sign of the cross. Carolyn followed his lead, thinking it was some sort of game. Billy noticed life-size wooden statues of the twelve apostles behind the altar. He hoped the wise men could help point him in the right direction.

After saying a few “I know we haven’t talked in a while, but I need all the help I can get right now” prayers, Billy took Carolyn’s hand and moved down a stairwell that led to a smaller crypt church. A larger-than-life, white marble statue of St. Joseph stole his eye, but nobody resembling Calvin Rose’s brother. Dejectedly, Billy moved on.

Behind the crypt was a room illuminated by hundreds of candles lit in honor of St. Joseph. The walls were lined with crutches donated by those convinced that they were cured by Brother Andre. In the shadow of candlelight, Billy spotted what he came for.

The man’s skin tone was lighter, but his facial features were strikingly similar. He wore a long sleeved black shirt, making it impossible to spot any type of rose tattoo he might have. He wore a necklace, but it hung under his shirt, making it indeterminable if it contained the rose insignia. They would have been easy identification markers, which is likely why he covered them. Operation Anesthesia trained their recruits to slip unnoticed into any situation. Now it was working against them.

The man’s eyes were in constant motion, as if he were scouting escape hatches. Billy knew he couldn’t afford to spook him. So he grabbed Carolyn’s hand, calmly walked her to the row of candles, and helped her light one. He was surprised that the fire didn’t make her squeamish after last night. Billy kept one eye on Carolyn, the other on the man he thought was Bronson Rose.

The man knelt down in front of the rows of candles. He performed a sign of the cross and began to pray, closing his paranoid eyes. Billy took a candle into his hand and knelt beside him. He needed to confirm his hunch, so he gradually moved the candle until the flame was burning at the man’s earlobe. He held it there for at least ten seconds. Billy had heard of people who enter such an altered state during prayer that they are oblivious to anything around them. But he knew it wasn’t the case here. The man didn’t even flinch—he couldn’t feel pain or temperature. They had found Bronson Rose!

Maybe miracles do happen in Montreal.

Bronson came out of his prayer like a sprinter out of the blocks, his temporary peaceful state had returned to frenzy. He bolted out of the room, exiting a back door of the church. Billy and Carolyn followed, keeping a safe distance. Bronson passed a splendid garden with life-size representations of the fourteen traditional Stations of the Cross. He then walked around to the front of the main church, and like many of the others who made the pilgrimage, Bronson began climbing the three hundred steps up the church from street level. On his knees!

Carolyn’s eyes widened. “That looks like fun!”

For Bronson and Carolyn, who felt no pain, the climb was a breeze. For Billy, who had numerous aches and pains he referred to as “old football injuries,” he found it…painful.

Upon reaching the top, Bronson re-entered the church. Carolyn wanted to “do it again,” but Billy sold her on a new adventure. In this one, she had to be as quiet as she could as they quietly followed Bronson into the area inside the church where Bessette’s tomb was on display. But just as fast as Bronson entered, he left, exiting through a side entrance to the church. Billy wondered if the roundabout route was designed to make sure he wasn’t being followed. This time Bronson descended the stairs by foot and headed up the blacktopped paths of Mount Royal.

Billy and Carolyn cautiously trailed Bronson to the top of the peak, which was only about seven hundred feet above sea level, but gave the illusion that they were standing atop Everest, looking down on the skyline of Montreal.

Billy examined Bronson from a distance, noticing that his hands shook continuously. His eyes danced from side to side. Whatever miracle he sought, he surely hadn’t found it yet. He was not at peace.

Billy had his own problems. He was not in what he would call “game shape” and his lungs burned as he followed Bronson through the steep paths of the mountain. Carolyn was able to maintain Billy’s tempered pace, her backpack bouncing lightly on her back. But he could tell her batteries needed to be recharged. On top of that, nightfall was beginning to descend upon Montreal, increasing their degree of difficulty.

When Bronson reached the bottom, he picked up a bus at Côte-des-Neiges. Billy’s heart sank—they had to catch the bus. He started running, but suddenly recognized that Carolyn no longer was by his side. He looked back to find her standing like a statue—she had nothing left. His eyes moved back to the bus and then returned to Carolyn. He ran back to her and hoisted her over his shoulder. He ran at the bus like a torpedo, shouting, “Wait!”

The bus did wait, but the desperate plea gave away any anonymity. Suddenly all eyes were on them, including Bronson’s. Billy pulled down his knit cap, Carolyn following suit with her beret. Not knowing how to work the transfer made them stand out even more. A French accent shouted from the back of the bus, “Stupid American!”

Billy escorted Carolyn to the back of the bus, fighting off any urge to make eye contact with Bronson as they passed by him. From the back of the bus, Billy could observe Bronson undetected. Unless he had eyes in the back of his head, and Billy wasn’t ruling anything out at this point.

Bronson’s body language was of a trapped rat. His leg tapped like an electric hammer and his dilated pupils were a festival of nervous energy. When the bus reached the Sherbrooke Avenue stop, Bronson made his move. He waited until just before the bus started to move and then bolted off. A tactic that would expose anybody following him. Like amateur hour, Billy and Carolyn got up and followed. Bronson looked back and locked eyes. Busted. The minute Bronson hit pavement he was in full sprint.

Billy hoisted Carolyn and pursued. His lungs wheezed in the cold night air, but he could still call on some of the skills that once made him a top-flight athlete, and was able to close some ground. “Wait—we just want to talk to you!” he yelled in desperation.

Bronson never looked back, running fearlessly with sprinter speed, eventually descending a stairwell into an underground metro station at Guy-Concordia. Billy picked up the pace, but was losing ground.

Billy gripped Carolyn tightly as he barreled down the stairs. He searched frantically with his eyes, in peril of losing their last hope. But then he spotted Bronson straight ahead, as did most of the people at the Guy-Concordia stop. He was the only person sprinting like Carl Lewis. Billy saw that he was making a dash for a waiting subway car.

Billy ran as fast as he could, pushing though the bustling crowds. Having Carolyn draped over his shoulder was slowing him down, but he refused to let it stop him. They just beat the closing doors of the subway and stood out of breath in the back of the car. He eyed Bronson—lengthwise down the car—who fiercely returned the gaze. It was like a showdown in the Wild West. Nobody moved—they were trapped.

When they arrived at the Pie-IX station, Bronson pushed his way through the crowd and out of the car, and was on the move again. Billy chugged after him, Carolyn bouncing on his shoulder as he galloped up the stairwell and exited the subway station. His shoulder ached—it was the one operated on in college—but compared to the steps of the church, it was a piece of cake.

The chase continued. They passed a concrete eyesore called Olympic Stadium that was built for the 1976 Olympics. Bronson ran like he was seeking his own version of a gold medal. But Billy noticed a change in his body language. It was as if he was no longer running from them, but instead, was running toward something as he veered left onto Hochelaga.

About a mile north on Hochelaga, Bronson disappeared into a dark, one-story building.

Moments later, Billy and Carolyn arrived, huffing and puffing. Billy read the sign, and couldn’t help but to laugh. He set Carolyn down and said, “I think you’re home, princess.”

The place was called Les Princesses.