Poison Shy (12 page)

She dropped the cat out of her arms and stormed into the kitchen. Opened a drawer and pulled out a steak knife. Pointed it at me. “You better get the fuck out of here.”

“Gloria, please! I don't know what I said, but I swear I wasn't sent here.”

The cats under the table had been roused awake. They curled around her legs, moaning and mewing as she moved toward me. “You expect me to believe that?”

I stumbled over an empty vase as I backed away. “I didn't know Darcy was your son until just now, I swear. Please put the knife away. I don't even
like
Darcy.”

There was a flash of something in her eyes, and I thought she was about to lunge at me. Instead she dropped to her knees with a thud, almost squishing one of her cats in half, and started to cry.

There was nothing I could do but stand there and watch her break down.

“I'm sorry,” she bawled. “I'm so, so sorry.”

“I'm going to go,” I said, but I didn't move.

“He ruined my life. My own little boy . . . ruined my life.” She looked at me with desperation. “He's sick, Brandon. He needs help. Probably I do too.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said. “I'm going now, okay?”

I opened the door. She continued to speak as I speed-walked down the hall.

“He was more than just my son,” she yelled. I couldn't make out the rest.

I left Gloria's building through the back door and hopped some fences until I was clear of the Lantern District.

My head throbbed with metronomic consistency. Was I insane, or had Gloria hinted at an incestuous relationship with Darcy? It made me think about Sarah and Abraham, Hera and Zeus, Donny and Marie. I'd gone digging for information and what I got was something out of a tabloid.

As I wandered home, I entertained the thought of suicide for the first time in my twenty-nine years. I'd lost my girlfriend, my job, and a section of my scalp, all in the last twelve hours. My mother was in the hospital. Darcy was my illegitimate brother, and a sexual deviant to boot. I needed a friend, but more importantly, I needed a drink. No, scratch that. I needed to get boiled as an owl. Chad was probably listening to fuck-me techno and sucking on Farah's toes, but with the night I'd had I was more than willing to disturb him.

I called him as soon as I got home. “Let's get soused,” I said when he picked up.

“I don't know, man. Farah and I were gonna stay in and do a movie night.”

“Come on, Chad. I'm desperate. I got put on leave at work. I could get fired. My mom's in the hospital. Melanie wants to break up. Did I mention I got put on leave?”

“Jesus. What happened with Melanie?”

“I don't even know, man. Just get your ass over here and let's get sloppy. If you want to hit a strip joint, we can hit a strip joint, I don't care. I'm begging you here, buddy. Please.”

Half an hour later he showed up at my place — with Farah, of course.

“Dude,” he said, looking more apelike than ever. “What happened to your dome?”

“Got in a fight,” I said.

“What? With who?”

“A security guard at the hospital. They wanted to put my mother in the psych ward, and I said no fuckin' way.”

Chad's jaw dropped. “You're shitting me.”

Farah laughed and shook her head.

On the way to the bar — The Bloody Paw, where else? — I told them all about Darcy's failed attempt at rape, my unfortunate trip to the hospital, and the fucked-up visit to Gloria's cat sanctuary.

Chad soaked in these tidbits with the enthusiasm of a teenage scandalmonger. “You could have your own reality show, dude. I'm serious.”

As we turned onto Dormant Street, I bumped hard into a fat man who seemed to be in a rush. I twisted my ankle as I stumbled, and he dropped the cardboard box he was carrying. Rolls of duct tape and a bundle of rope fell to the side of the road.

“Watch where you're going, tubby,” Chad said.

The man opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak I said, “Bill?”

“Oh shit. Brandon. I didn't realize it was you.” His face went red, and he bent over to pick up his things.

I told Chad and Farah I'd meet them at the bar, and went to help Bill. He was sweating like a beaver in Saudi Arabia.

“What's with the supplies?” I said.

“Nothing. Just fixing some things around the apartment, that's all.”

“Well, let me know if you need any help.”

“Sure thing. By the way, I heard about your leave of absence. I'm sorry, Brandon. I can't say I didn't warn you, though. Dick's had his eye on you for weeks.” He looked me in the face for the first time. “Hey, what happened to —”

“Had a little accident. It's fine.”

He stood up with his box of things and I tossed in the last roll of tape.

“I'm kind of in a rush here, otherwise I'd buy you a beer or something. But give me a call, Brandon, okay? Hang in there.”

“You got it, Bill.”

I watched him waddle down the street, the waist of his workpants slipping farther down his ass with every step.

I checked myself out in a few store windows as I limped the rest of the way to the bar. I looked like an escaped mental patient. I didn't care. My appearance mirrored my state of mind, and there was something invigorating about that. Something primal and threatening. I was in the mood to be threatening.

There was the usual cluster of smokers standing outside The Bloody Paw. The music was louder than usual. I could hear it from the end of the block. Chad and Farah emerged from the crowd, spotted me, and jogged to meet me.

“Why don't we go somewhere else? I'm sick of this place,” said Chad, the master of subtlety and persuasion. Farah stood beside him with her shoulders hunched, nodding rapidly.

“Why? What's the matter?”

“Come on.” He spun me around. “Half-price pints at, umm . . .”

I pulled away. “Don't touch me. I want a fucking beer, and I want to drink it at that shithole right there. You can come or not, I really don't care at this point.”

I made for the crowd. They didn't follow me. Joan Jett's “I Hate Myself for Loving You” blasted through the speakers and out onto the streets. Everyone outside the bar seemed to be looking inside, and everyone inside seemed to be cheering. I nudged my way to the window, but it was fogged up. All I could see was a blurry mass of bodies. On my way to the door, someone's lit cigarette burned my arm, and a fat guy stepped on my foot — the foot with the twisted ankle.

Someone said, “Watch it, gimp!”

I went inside. There was a banner hanging above the bar:

Save the Bears Fundraiser Night

The tables had been rearranged to make room for a stage, and what I saw on that stage was like a hallucination. Viktor Lozowsky sat on a throne-like chair dressed in a fuzzy bear or gorilla costume with the head off. On stage in front of him, Melanie wound herself around a stripper pole, completely topless in a black G-string, while another girl held a collection bucket out to the audience. Melanie danced over to Viktor and began writhing on his fuzzy lap like a professional. He groped her ass with his paws and the crowd poured money into the bucket.

No boyfriend, no bra, no shame.

I turned around, calm as a criminal, and went home to get my baseball bat.

A quick story about good old Red Hot:

When I was twelve, my dad and I went to a father–son picnic with a few of his electrician buddies and their sons. We played a game of baseball in the afternoon, then cooked hamburgers and hot dogs on an old charcoal barbecue in the sun. As usual, dad torpedoed himself with drink. After dusk had settled in, a curious raccoon started hanging around our camp, sniffing around for crumbs and meat scraps.

For some reason, my father had it in for the little creature, calling it a good-for-nothing trash bandit, a scum scavenger, a fluffball of disease. Some of the other fathers tried to calm him down, but it only made things worse. He started throwing rocks and hot coals at it. When the raccoon snuck up behind me and stole a hot dog right from my paper plate, my dad picked up Red Hot, chased the animal into the woods, and bludgeoned its brains to slop.

Someone called the police and had my father arrested for cruelty to animals, but to no purpose. Dad said the four nights he spent in jail for the 'coon incident were four of the most restful nights of his life — and the food wasn't bad either.

My point is this: Red Hot was a killer. I took it out of my closet and gripped it tightly in my right hand. It seemed to vibrate of its own accord. It was a killer, all right.

I had no idea what I was going to do, but I left my apartment with the bat in my hand and dragged my twisted ankle back to The Bloody Paw.

Melanie was no longer on stage. The new act was some acoustic folk-punk band performing Billy Bragg covers with their shirts off and letters painted on their chests that should have spelled
B-E-A-R-S
had they been standing in the right order. It seemed bare chests were the theme of the night. Come to think of it, it's only
now
that I see what they were up to with the bear/bare thing. If I'd known at the time, maybe I wouldn't have smashed up the place.

Before I did that, though, I wandered through the crowd in search of Melanie, gripping Red Hot so tightly in my hand that it became an extension of my arm. Nobody seemed to notice me. I looked like the last man standing at the end of a horror film — the one whose vengeful thirst for blood has finally matched the killer's.

One of the idiots in the crowd said to me, “I'm loving the statement, man. Powerful.”

I found Melanie in the storage room with a belt tied around her arm, a needle and burnt spoon on the floor at her side. Her head was resting on a stack of flattened cardboard boxes. She was still topless, but she'd put jeans on. Her skin was glossy, almost slimy with sweat. Cradled in her arms were the pink pumps she'd worn on our first date. She rolled her head and looked at me with zero recognition on her face.

“Heavy,” she said. “Heavy like a balloon.”

The desire to smash things left me. I wanted to lay her over my shoulder and carry her back to my place, nurse her back to health. I was about to do just that when a voice behind me said, “Mind telling me what you're doing in my bar with a baseball bat?”

I turned. Standing in front of me was Viktor. He was still in the mascot suit.

I stepped toward him. “Mind telling me what the fuck my girlfriend is doing shooting heroin in the back room of this dump?”

“I'm sorry, did you say ‘girlfriend'?” He laughed. “Get the fuck out of my bar.”

“I'm taking her with me.”

He put his hand on my shoulder to stop me. I was about to spin around and slug him when Melanie mumbled, “Viktor, where are you? I want you . . .”

He looked at me smugly and shrugged. “Hey. The lady has spoken.”

I gritted my teeth and nodded. Kept nodding as I backed away from him. Continued to nod as I walked back into the bar. Nodded at the people in the crowd with their drinks in their hands and their parents' money in their pockets. Nodded at the band, at the bartender, at the bouncer by the door. Nodded at the dead grizzly on the wall as I wound up and shattered the half-drunk pint glasses on the table in the corner.

The music stopped. Everyone looked at me.

I took a swing at the banner and ripped it in half. I smashed table lamps and dinner plates, beer taps and bottles of wine. I would've smashed all the pictures off the wall if the bouncer hadn't chased me out of there. He couldn't run for shit. I lost him at the first turn off Dormant Street, even with my twisted ankle.

When I heard the sirens I knew they'd called the cops. I took a series of shortcuts through alleyways to my mother's place, and slept on her couch with Red Hot nestled in my arms.

Morning light came through the blinds and smacked my aching eyelids, daring me to open them and face what I'd done. I half-expected my mother to be home from the hospital, frying up some bacon and eggs for her dear son, the most recent initiate into the funhouse of the disturbed. The thought was almost comforting.

Red Hot had rolled off me in the night. It lay on the carpet looking small, bashful, and ashamed, like a limp dick. The orgy of violence was over.

I peeled the bandages off my head and turned on the shower. Bits of glass fell out of my hair. The water was like acid on my skin. The thought of getting the hell out of town crossed my mind, but where was I going to go? The streets of Toronto? The ice caps of Baffin Island?

No. I had no choice but to go home, stick out my chin, and eat my demons alive.

When I saw Detective Darvish on the bench outside the laundromat, it was too late to make a run for it. He sat with his legs crossed and a tiny cup of espresso in his gigantic hand. His suit was old, his tie was pink; his loafers were about to fall apart. He looked at me with his bulbous eyes and offered a big smile.

“Mr. Galloway.” He stood up. “Welcome home.”

“Do you mind if I get changed first? I've been wearing these clothes for two days.”

He wrinkled his brow. “First?”

“I'm not resisting arrest. I trashed the bar and I'll accept responsibility for it. But if I'm going to be put in a cell I want to at least be comfortable.”

“Why would you be put in a cell?”

“I told you. For trashing The Bloody Paw. Disturbing the peace or whatever.”

“I wasn't aware of any bar being trashed. But thanks for letting me know.”

“Huh?”

He moved toward me. I could smell his cologne and his rank coffee breath. “I came here to investigate another matter, Mr. Galloway. We'll have to discuss the bar another time. Can I see your apartment?”

“What do you mean, another matter?”

“Let's go upstairs.”

I fumbled with my keys and led him up the staircase. He walked right behind me. Stepped on my heel at one point. I opened the door at the top.

“I still don't —”

He brushed past me and went inside. “Is this it? There's no bedroom?”

“Nope. I sleep on a pull-out. Just a bathroom here and a closet over there. Sorry about the mess in the kitchen.”

He looked around. Opened the closet and looked upwards, downwards. Picked up my vial of antibiotics and read the label. Went into the bathroom and looked behind the shower curtain.

“There's no storage room in this building that you'd have access to?”

“This is all I got. Do you mind telling me what this is about?”

“A girl has been reported missing. Your friend Melanie Blaxley.”

“What?” I felt around for somewhere to sit.

“I received the call about . . .” He checked his watch. “About fourteen hours ago. It's not officially a missing persons case yet, but I thought I'd get a jump on things.”

“What do you mean, she's missing?”

“I mean just that, sir.”

“Who reported it?”

“Your other pal. Darcy Sands.”

I felt a huge sense of relief. “With all due respect, Detective,” I said, laughing, “I think you're being messed with. Melanie and Darcy are a couple of con artists.”

“That's possible,” he said. “But I'm prone to gut feelings.”

“You thought I was hiding her here?”

“I've got to rule out everything.”

“I'm telling you, Detective. Melanie's not missing. It's probably some sick prank. I'll give you her cell phone number if you want.”

“That would be helpful, thank you.”

I wrote it down and gave it to him. On his way out the door he turned to me and said, “I think I'll head over to that bar you mentioned earlier. Maybe they know something. Goodbye.”

I tried Melanie's cell as soon as Darvish was gone. It rang twice, then a voice told me the customer was not available. I tried her apartment and Darcy picked up.

“Where the fuck is she?” he said, as soon as he heard my voice.

“Stop trying to land me in jail, all right? The joke's over, and it's not all that funny.”

“I'm serious, Brandon. You honestly don't know where she is?”

It was the first time I'd actually heard fear in his voice. It was also, I believe, the first time he'd used my name instead of calling me
buddy
or
Bug Man
. Did he know we shared a father? I swallowed and it stung my throat.

“You there?” he said.

“I don't understand why you're worried. You know Melanie better than I do. She's probably naked and out cold in some dude's bed right now. You know I saw her shooting up last night? She's probably with Viktor. She was all over him at the bar.”

“You're kidding me.”

I couldn't help but laugh at how unlike himself he seemed. “What's wrong, man? This is Melanie we're talking about, isn't it? Come on.”

“You don't understand. We were supposed to take off for the Dominican this morning. Our plane tickets were waiting for us at the airport in Toronto. Our flight left at six a.m. I knew she was going out last night, but she promised she'd be home by three. When she didn't show, I went looking for her. The Bloody Paw looked like it had been firebombed. I snuck in through the back door and looked around, but the place was empty. I went to her work, called all of her friends. I even called her parents, man. Nobody knows where she is. Some people saw her at the bar but said she disappeared around midnight. I figured she was with you, even though she promised she was done with your ass. I went to your apartment but she wasn't there, and neither were you.”

“Wait. You broke into my place
again
?”

“What would you have done?”

He had me there. I didn't know
what
I would have done. What did I know about what I was capable of anymore?

“I didn't even think of Viktor,” Darcy went on. “I'm an idiot. She probably
is
with that necromancer. I better call that cop back.”

“What cop?”

“That Paki who arrested us the other night. When I called the station to report Melanie missing, he's the one who showed up at my door fifteen minutes later. He probably thought it was a scam. Anyway, I gotta go.” He hung up.

It seemed I had two options: wait around for Darvish to come back and arrest me for trashing the bar, or get out there, find Melanie, and figure out what the fuck was going on. What did I have to lose but everything? Which, in my case, wasn't much at all.

The teenager behind the counter at Darryl's Doughnuts said Melanie had taken the week off to go on vacation, she couldn't remember where. I didn't have a key to Melanie's apartment, and there was no way I could show my face at The Bloody Paw. I tried to find Viktor Lozowsky in the phone book but he wasn't listed. Was I out of options already?

I went to a pay phone and tried Melanie's cell again. This time it didn't even ring. All I got was a fast busy signal. Maybe she didn't want to be found.

I hung up and dialled the number for The Bloody Paw without a plan of any sort. It rang fourteen times — I counted — before someone picked up. Whoever it was didn't say anything. There was dead air between us for a good ten seconds. Who was I not talking to? Who was I to them?

Finally, a voice said, slowly, “Is something wrong?”

I flexed my throat muscles and said, “I was just wondering what time you'll be opening tonight.”

“Who is this?” was the reply. “Where are you calling from?”

I fumbled with the receiver and hung up. I was pretty sure I'd just spoken to Viktor, but it was hard to tell. What did he mean, “Is something wrong?” Had Darvish been to see him? If so, I was probably being hunted. I had to be on the move. No doubt there were a couple of tough cops waiting to arrest me if I went back home. I considered going to my mother's place, but that seemed risky too. I almost dialled Chad, then checked myself. Darvish could've gotten to him through Farah.

There was no doubt about it — I was totally alone. So I did what all loners do in desperate circumstances: I sought out another loner.

Bill lived in a square building on a street that was more like an alleyway, just off Dormant Street, where the string of campus bars ended and the row of fabric shops and greasy breakfast diners began. I'd dropped him off a few times after work, when it was my turn to have the truck, but he'd never invited me in. Bill wasn't the inviting type.

There was a skinny bald guy with a red goatee leaning against the side of the building. He had a handkerchief tied around his neck and his shirt was unbuttoned.

“BBBJ?” he mumbled, as I walked past.

I pretended I didn't hear him and went inside. The tenants' names and apartment numbers were scribbled on a sheet that was tacked to a chewed-up corkboard on the wall. There were no buzzers. Anyone could just walk in off the street, find your number, and break down your door.

I looked at the sheet of tenants.
Bill Barber — 210
. I thought,
Beer-guzzling Bill Barber, the Bug guy, with the Big gut, Bad gas, and Boring life
. His name suited him just fine.

I didn't trust the elevator so I took the stairs. 210 was at the end of the hall. As I approached the door, I heard some music coming from inside that sounded like Britney Spears. Maybe the apartment numbers on the sheet were wrong. I knocked anyway.

Nobody came, so I knocked a little louder. “Hey Bill, you there? It's Brandon.”

The music shut off. There was some shuffling around, the screech of duct tape, and then a door slammed. Whoever was in there was panting so loudly I could hear their breath from my side of the door. It was a familiar wheeze. Bill opened the door.

He tried to smile, but he couldn't hide his surprise. His face was purple as an eggplant, and there was an expensive-looking camera hanging around his neck.

“Brandon, what are you doing here?”

“You okay, Bill? You look a little flushed.”

“I'm fine. What's the matter?”

“Can I come in? I'm in a bit of a jam.”

He moved to block more of the doorway. “Now's not a good time.”

I laughed. “Why? You too busy dancing to Britney Spears or something? Taking pictures of yourself? Don't worry Bill, I won't tell anyone.”

“Seriously, Brandon. You can't come in.”

“Come on, Bill. Why not? I need you to do me this favour.”

He turned his head, looked back into his apartment, then turned to face me again. “I've got a girl in here, okay? A hooker. You get me?”

Embarrassed, I looked down at the collection of boots and shoes inside Bill's door. “Sorry, Bill. I didn't realize. Sorry.”

“Take it easy, Brandon,” he said, and shut the door.

I walked out of the building, ignoring the gigolo outside for a second time, and hurried straight for home. Hopefully Darvish was there waiting for me, so I could tell him I'd seen Melanie's pink pumps inside Bill's apartment.