The Extinction Club (39 page)

« Only thing I heard was
pow-WHOP, pow-WHOP
, » said one of them.

« What’d it weigh out at? »

« I heard two-forty, dressed out, so live weight must have been close to three C’s. Déry said it could be the biggest ever bagged in this province, a sixteen-pointer too. »

Seven men, seven guts. The one with the largest, peering over tinted glasses, turned to eyeball me. Beer froth made gold foam on his black moustache. « Help you? » he asked in a tone that made it clear it was the last thing he intended to do.

I moved on, toward two pool tables at the back, where Québécois country music was blaring from torn black speakers as big as children’s coffins. The room, whose blue lights made it look like it was underseas, contained a collection of mounted fish, including muskie and northern pike with lures dangling from their mouths.

A larger, adjoining room, which might have once been a small ballroom, contained dart boards, video poker machines, a tabletop Ms. PacMan, big-screen TVs and a variety of dead animals. Two giggling senior delinquents, well lit up, were tossing darts at a stuffed moose.

“Hey, what the
hell
are you guys doing?” I said, to my surprise. To my greater surprise, the pair apologized as they reeled out of the room, rubbery-legged, arms linked.

I examined the perforated moosehead and then a row of decoy ducks on a shelf next to it. The expression “a sitting duck,” I reflected, comes from the unsporting act of shooting
a duck sitting on the water. No skill is required to hit a sitting duck, and no hunter would admit to shooting one. Which made me wonder why so many of these decoys had bullet holes in them.

I looked around. The room contained taxidermal ornaments by the hundreds, many of them quite old. Stuffed rabbits and baby foxes stuffed into the mouths of stuffed wolves. A baby moose sporting a ranger hat and a Ministère des Ressources Naturelles badge. A deer head with a cigarette stuck in its mouth. A moth-eaten cougar named Kitty, sprawled flat like a rug. And birds. They were everywhere, perched on ledges, tables, sills and shelves, or suspended from the ceiling by guy wires. I was thinking that if all the eagles, falcons, hawks, harriers, ospreys, cormorants, kingfishers, owls and woodpeckers suddenly sprang back to life, they could team up for some interesting revenge.

I moved on, toward a roped-off room at the very back, its door padlocked and covered in green baize. A small sign said
PRIVATE MEMBERS ONLY
. There’s always an inner circle, I thought, always a velvet rope, even in hell-holes like this. By the door was a man dressed like an astronaut. Not a real man, but a mannequin, and not in an astronaut’s suit but a bear-proof suit made of layers of steel, titanium, chain-mail and rubber. On the floor, under his foot, a piece of red paper caught my eye, which protruded about an inch.

« They got some heavy-duty stuff in there, » said a voice behind my back. A familiar voice. « Triple-X ultrahorror. »

I turned. Looked up. It was the ropy young doper from the real estate office. Wearing a billed hunting cap of eye-hurting orange and the battle dress uniform of the U.S.S.R. In a lower leg pocket was a bulge about the size of an eight-ball of coke.

“’S up?” I said, trying to be young. Or black. He offered his fist to me. I looked at it. « You selling this place? » I asked.

He laughed hard, although I hadn’t said anything funny. « That’s just a sideline, eh. It’s not my real job. » He looked at his fist, put it back down.

« What’s your real job? » Selling dope?

« Memorabilist. You know, like vintage hunting and fishing stuff? »

I paused to think about this. « You mean like elephant-tusk ivory billiard balls from the nineteenth century? Or Amazon necklaces made of jaguar teeth? That kind of stuff? »

« Well … yeah. Got any? »

« No. »

He reached into his breast pocket. « Want a hit of X? »

« No thanks. »

« It’s tripindicular. »

« I believe you. »

He unsnapped a leg pocket. « How about some Z? »

A new one on me. « What’s that? »

« Zieline. It’s killer shit. »

« It’s a horse tranquilizer. »

« It is? »

« Yes. »

« Shall we boot some up? »

« No. »

« Want me to show you around? »

I nodded toward the roped-off room. « What’s in there? What’s triple-X ultrahorror? »

« Members-only stuff. » He put his finger to his lips.

I nodded. I’m not sure I wanted to know anyway.

« Want me to show you around? » he repeated.

Sure you’re old enough to be in here? « Okay. »

« This place is famous, eh? People have been shot in here. Cut to ribbons. Knocked unconscious. Girls have been dragged in right off the street, forced to get up on stage and peel. Plus it’s the last place in Quebec you can smoke in. »

I asked the obvious.

« ’Cause the cops don’t enforce the laws, that’s why. The last guy who tried got a pool cue rammed into his mouth. You know, like a cigar? What kind of stuff you into … Mr. Nightingale, right? Can I call you Neil? »

« If you really want to. Though my name’s Nile. »

Another laugh, overloud and overlong, like sit-com laughter. The kind you get after smoking your way through a large bag of hay. « Come, » he said when recovered. « The best stuff’s upstairs. »

As he walked toward a staircase, I ducked under the rope and pulled out the sheet of red paper protruding from the bearman’s foot. Crumpled it into my back pocket.

We climbed a wooden staircase to the second floor. Oxblood double doors swung open and I stared into the mist and gloom, waiting for my eyes to adjust, slowly taking in the décor. The ceiling was low, as if to serve the stunted, requiring all but children or the bank manager to stoop, and the pall of smoke beneath it could not have been thicker if someone had thrown tear gas into the room. I’m hardly an expert in interior design, but I’m pretty sure the combination of smoke, blackness and red lava lamps would go down really well in Hades.

Patrons here had two entertainment options: watch animal-kill or bestiality videos in curtained stalls, not unlike masturbatory chambers at fertility clinics; or sit before a stage and watch human females take off their clothes. Chalked on a clip-lit blackboard, as in a restaurant, were the day’s specials:

•  
  Les Braconniers au ciel (Poachers in Paradise)
  
•  
  Phallus in Timberland
  
•  Diane Chasseresse (Diana the Huntress)
  
•  Eva Gobère, Winner of the 2001 Miss Nude Penitentiary Contest
  

The stage, now empty, was ringed with faint red bulbs, five watts apiece, and a dozen stupefied trackers, skinners and lodge boys sat in front of it, waiting for Diane and Eva. Some of them turned and gaped at me, as if an alien had landed on their soil.

We found an empty table, the agent and I, next to three mountain men whose aggregate hair could have stuffed a sofa. “You shittin’ me?” said one of them in English, looking in my direction. His T-shirt pictured a buck with crosshairs strategically placed for a heart-lung shot. “What were you shootin’?”

“Got me a .300 Savage.”

“And you bagged
twenty
?”

“By sound alone.”

From the fog a figure gradually emerged, a waitress wearing makeup as thick as drywall and a T-shirt as small as an infant’s. Her pierced face flashed more silver than the hooked fish downstairs.

The agent, pointlessly talkative, began a monologue that neither I nor the waitress, if her eyes were any indication, could follow. Something to do with drowning and the number three. « When people drown, eh, they come up to the surface exactly three times before they die. And count to three on their fingers as they’re drowning … And a drowned body that sinks and is not recovered will surface after nine days, eh? In other words, three times three … »

« What can I get you? » asked the waitress, impervious to this sort of stuff.

« What you got? »

The waitress stood with the edge of her tray against her hip, staring at the floor. « I’m trying to make that question work in my head. You want me to list, right now, every goddamn drink we got in the house? »

« Boréale Noire, » the agent replied. « A pitcher, two glasses. So here’s my advice, free of charge. »

The waitress paused, thinking she was about to get some free advice.

« I’m talking to my client. » He shooed her away, backhanding the air.

« You do that again, » she said, « I’ll pour the beer down your pants. »

« She’s a real chunk of change, that one, » said the agent, behind a cupped hand as the waitress walked away. « You see her ring finger? »

I shook my head.

« It’s longer than her pointer. »

« Which means … »

He groaned, as if explaining something to his kid brother. « Which means she’s highly sexed, » he replied. « A nympho. »

I nodded, for brevity’s sake.

« She’s like a goddamn porcupine, eh? Porcupines have sex every day of their lives. You knew that, right? »

« No, I didn’t. »

« Here’s something else you may not know. The orgasm of a female ladybug lasts … you ready? Nine hours. »

I expressed surprise.

« Nine. You know who told me that? »

I shrugged.

« The
waitress
. You see what I’m saying? »

I nodded.

« So here’s my advice, Nile. What I suggest you do with the unit you just purchased is this. Take out the clawfooted bathtub, take out the marble basin, take out the two fireplace mantels. Then burn the place for the insurance. »

I was turning these words over when he banged his forehead with the heel of his hand, like a bad actor. « I forgot something downstairs! » Another long and loud laugh. « My girlfriend! »

As he trundled back down the stairs, I looked around. Girlfriend? Who would bring a girlfriend here? There wasn’t a woman in the entire place, at least not among the patrons. Not a single one … Hang on, there was one. The last person I expected to see. Sitting alone by the stage, looking fearlessly attractive, was … the veterinarian. She seemed in a world of her own, seriously involved with her drink and nothing else.

“The one I’m sellin’?” said one of the lumberjacks at the next table over. He took a hit off a joint camouflaged to look like a stubby cigarette. “A jacked-up eighty-eight Dodge 4 x 4.” He coughed, hawked, cleared his throat. “With thirty-eight-inch rubber.”

This might be the right man, I thought, to ask about a one-eyed bear truck.

“Where’s my brew?” slurred one of his friends, struggling to roll a Drum cigarette on his lap. “What’s holding up the delay?”

“You know how many wives I’ve porked?” said someone else I couldn’t see.

“Please assure that gentleman,” said the cigarette roller, pointing at me. “Of my sobriety.” This set the table aroar.

After much wavering I decided to go the men’s room,
which would take me by the veterinarian’s table. As I passed it, she turned her head and looked at me with her large doe eyes—or rather through me, as if I were one of the moose heads on the wall.

When I heard close footsteps it became obvious that she was looking not at me, but rather beyond me, at a large black suit with wraparound shades and red bandanna over his head, also headed her way. While pushing in the washroom door I heard a voice. In English. “How’s your … animal?”

I stopped, turned. Was this question for me? She seemed to be looking at me, straight in the eye. I stepped back and let the door reclose. “I’m sorry? Were you …”

“Your pet. Everything all right?”

“Yes, fine … better.”

“I can’t hear you.”

I approached her table and she pointed to a chair. A chair very close to hers. “It’s a kind offer, but I’m already spoken for,” I didn’t say. With counterfeit calm I pulled back the chair, my heart banging in its cage. The sunglassed man, after seeing me sit down, made an about-turn.

“Canine?” she asked.

“Feline.”

“What happened to her … or him?”

“Her. Young female. Some … depraved soul sliced her up, threw her in a swamp.”

“Are you serious? Do you know who?”

“I’m trying to find out.”

She glanced quickly, from side to side, then over her shoulder. “Did you report it? Why didn’t you bring her to the clinic?”

“I … was afraid she’d die if I moved her. I ended up stitching the wounds myself.”

She looked at my face, my clothes. “Are you a doctor?”

“No.”

She lifted her glass, which had a metal frame and handle. It had been sitting on a red serviette, whose shade and texture looked familiar. “Do you always look away when talking to people?”

I had been talking to her with my head in profile. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to talk sensibly if I looked into her eyes. Helen of Troy couldn’t have been more striking. So striking I felt like giving her a congratulatory shake of the hand. I turned, looked into her eyes: deep, liquid, knowing. They had done something to me at the clinic, under fluorescent lighting, but in this roseate near-darkness I couldn’t see them as clearly, especially without my glasses. “So are you … from the area?”

“Montreal. Or just east. St-Hyacinthe.”

What was a
veterinarian
doing at a strip joint? Moonlighting? Was she on next? No, probably something to do with the animal snuff films.

She ran one hand through her bountiful hair. “My daughter was hanging out with the wrong crowd, as they say, so I took a job up here. Hoping she’d finish high school.”

“High school? You must have had her young. When you were … what, ten?”

Her smile was slow-growing. “A bit older than that. But thank you.”

“Eighteen?”

She looked at me warily. “Bingo. You should work at a carnival.”

Which would make her around thirty-six. An age that Balzac thought was a woman’s zenith. Cleopatra’s age when Marc Antony gave up the Roman Empire to be with her.

The T-shirted waitress interrupted us, giving me a nasty what-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-doing-changing-tables look. « Your asshole friend back there, in case you’re looking for him, is curled up under the table. » She shook her head, earrings jingling, before banging down two glasses and a
pichet
of frothy stout.