Going Fast (31 page)

“Well, forget it; you're not going anywhere.”

“There is a problem, really. It's my cat.”

“Is it dead?”

“No, but he's fighting off an attack in my living room. The neighbours called and reported the noise. If he's injured, I can't afford vet bills. I leave the window open so Kerouac can have freedom, so he can come and go through the balcony. Another cat must have followed him in.”

“No wonder none of these kids can get ahead,” Smithers muttered to Scott, who had been in the newsroom more than usual that week.

Smithers let Fisher leave with a warning — “I am timing you” — and then stood up to stretch his legs. Walking by News, Smithers felt a palpable chill, the same one that had
been lingering since that flap over the Cheese Club. The orders came in every month, and, according to Smithers, you would swear it was the NHL draft, with people racing around, counting cheese blocks, stashing them until quitting time like they'd never seen cheese before. Well, somehow, one of Squeaky's baby Gouda rounds went missing from the fridge. She launched an investigation and demanded that the thief step forward. She and her henchman formed a posse to track down the missing round and found it, half-eaten, covered with carpet lint, under Warshick's desk. Warshick swore he hadn't touched it — “I have my own cooler” — that it was a set-up by Smithers. Not knowing who to blame, the Cheese Club members were mad at both of them.

Scott believed that Smithers was locked in an eternal battle with Warshick, two halves of the same slovenly self. Smithers had adopted a series of shallow conceits to distance himself from his indolent nemesis. “I only wear cotton shirts,” he said, sneering at Warshick's polyester jersey. “I listen to jazz. When I'm drinking beer, I prefer imported.” Scott believed that fear stalked Smithers, fear that the genetic vortex would get him, that it would suck him under like leaves in the gutter, joining Warshick in his joyful sloth.

“Jesus Christ.” Scott heard Smithers curse. In the hockey reporter's mailbox was a note from MacKenzie assigning him a Where Are They Now? on bicycle messenger boys.

“It's that moron, Fisher. He did this, by bringing his bicycle to work,” Smithers fumed. “He caused this; he planted the idea in the Seagull's head.”

Unaware of Smithers's outburst, Garth was at that moment watching a government photographer, a wimp who had worked for the paper fifteen years ago, drop off an envelope of prints. One time, Garth recalled, the publisher had sent the shooter to Newfoundland with Frank Mobley. It was just after Frank had been caught selling cab chits for booze, but he was
still hot as molten steel. Frank always drove on road trips, that damn cowboy hat on his head and Captain Morgan at his side. It was just after they had opened the Trans-Canada, and you could see parts of Newfoundland you'd never imagined: outports, glacier-stripped fjords, mud flats. It was spectacular, Frank later told colleagues, like visiting parts of Europe.

Things were fine until just outside Gander, the photographer later explained when trying to analyze the trip. Gander — now that was a real town, Garth believed. Built around an airport, a refuelling stop for transatlantic traffic. Back in the 1950s, when they called Gander the Crossroads of the World, it had all of the big airlines.

They'd been listening to Frank's beloved country music on the car stereo. But then, according to the photographer, Frank gave Hank a rest and put on a tape of Joey Smallwood addressing a meeting. Frank, who'd been taping Smallwood speeches since they hit The Rock, claimed that Smallwood was a genius. His eyes narrowed, and he took a swig from his bottle. “After that, Frank lost it,” the shooter reported. Apparently he was overcome by the verbal gymnastics, the oratorical grace of the tiny premier. Frank had insisted it was like hearing Patsy Cline sing or seeing the Sistine Chapel.

Joey was in full flight when Frank and the shooter reached the flashing highway light. They hadn't seen a car in hours, and now, in the middle of nowhere, with not a house for miles, was a yellow Pinto, idling. The car, unaccustomed to highways, which were new to Newfoundland, shifted gears and darted like a mouse leaving its hole. “Hey, Frank,” the shooter yelled, but Mobley didn't hear him. His eyes were closed and there were tears of awe filling the corners. The Captain shattered when they hit the Pinto, spinning it round and round like a top. When they pulled out the driver from the wreckage, he said his name was Jerry Canary, and he was from Buchans. “Bye, aye t'ot aye was dead.”

“Oh, Garth.” Carla entered the office, holding two memos from Boomer. “Your wife called three times. She says it's the pigeons.”

MEMO TO STAFF:

(Please post on bulletin board)

The auditing firm of Boise Blackburn will be
in the office on Friday. Be prepared to provide
any documentation they may request and to
cross-reference receipts with stories and dates.
Long-distance charges and freelance accounts
will be examined. Department heads may be
required to provide contact lists and numbers.

Garth reread the memo and smiled, believing that auditors were like the tooth fairy, creatures you heard about but never really believed in.

MEMO

(Please post on bulletin board)

Harry Mathers, a twenty-year employee of News,
has decided to take early retirement. Buzz Bailey
has retired from Sports.

Ownie was sitting on his front step with Louie, monitoring events across the street. A city truck pulled up to the duck pond, earlier visited by a police cruiser. Someone (according to the radio) had killed one of the geese. Ownie assumed this was the reason for the activity. Two workers in coveralls circled the pond with measuring tapes.

“Did you know that the paper had a story on the goose?” Louie asked.

“Nah,” Ownie admitted. “I didn't see it.”

Ownie hadn't read the
Standard
yet because Hildred was having their hardwood floors refinished, putting some rooms temporarily off limits. Parked outside the house, Ownie was contemplating the murdered goose, O'Riley's dead cat, and karma.

“I'll go get it,” Louie volunteered. “Besides, I've got some new tapes I can lend you.” With that, Louie trotted to his parked Jeep and returned with a morning copy of the
Standard
in one hand and
Ring
:
The Leonard-Hearns Saga
and
Best of the 80s
in the other.

“Here it is.” Louie opened the
Standard
to the Dartmouth page. “The headline says, ‘V
ICIOUS
S
LAYING
S
HOCKS
D
ART-MOUTH
C
OMMUNITY
.'
”

Ownie snorted. “The only thing shocking is that someone didn't kill one of the bastards sooner.”

“The newspaper is quoting some alderman, who says it is a tragedy.”

“Tragedy! Lemme see.” Ownie grabbed the
Standard
and read out loud: “‘Alderman Gary Schofield said seniors in his ward are shaken by the brutal killing. If teenage punks would murder an innocent goose, can seniors be next?' So now he's comparing seniors with those bastard Rottweiler geese.”

Louie shook his head in disbelief.

According to the newspaper, Schofield said that a businessman was planning a funeral for the goose with a blue satin coffin, an honour guard, and a preacher.

“‘This goose was a favourite of the seniors,' declared Schofield. ‘They named him Gramps.' There he goes with the seniors again,” scoffed Ownie, “making it sound like they are all idiots.”

“I saw Schofield on TV, and he was crying,” said Louie. “He said he wouldn't rest until police found the killers. He said there'd been a tip, pointing to the low rental.”

“They always nail the lo-ros,” Ownie said, “don't they?”

Louie left, and Ownie went inside, only to hear a knock minutes later on his door. It was O'Riley, the former cop, looking puffy in a creased sweatsuit. He looks pale, Ownie thought, even for a man who spends his days inside with four TVs playing, one in each room, all tuned to a different channel.

“I guess you heard about the geese,” O'Riley panted.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I was talking to the boys down at the station, and they've cracked the case. You'll
love
this one.”

“Lay it on me.”

“An old lady from the seniors' home said she saw the whole thing,” O'Riley explained, excited to be back on the inside of a crime investigation. “She said she would've spoken up earlier, but she was embarrassed because her husband was nailed once for obscene phone calls.”

“Who'd she finger?” Ownie looked into O'Riley's eyes,
which seemed to gel, to momentarily lose the liquidity of retirement. “A Chinese restaurant?”

“Nope.” He looks half-alive for a change, Ownie thought, even in slippers, illogically clutching a remote.

“Another goose.” O'Riley savoured the irony.

“A
goose
?”

“Two, actually. Agnes says she saw them holding down Gramps and pecking his head till they'd killed him. The boys talked to a biologist, who said this can happen during nesting.”

“I guess that's it for the funeral,” Ownie scoffed. “I always knew they were vicious.”

“Tell me about it, after what they did to my cat.” O'Riley raised his brows for emphasis. “My grandson, Simon, can't come into the house any more without crying, ‘Where's Taffy, Nanny? Where'd she go?' I think this Gramps or whatever the hell his real name is had something to do with Taffy.”

“Don't you know it.”

“I should have taken care of him. I still have my service revolver.”

“Nah, it's way better this way, and you stay out of it.”

A half-hour later, when all of the activity at the pond had abated, Turmoil knocked on Ownie's door. “Ah need to fill up mah water bottle,” he announced, stepping inside.

“Why didn't you do it before?” asked Ownie, as they walked down the hall to the kitchen, which was Hildred's domain. Ownie was nervous any time someone entered her work space, which was overflowing with pans and nozzles, half-built cakes and finished products. Today, he noted, there was one particularly large cake under construction, a white
Love Boat
that glistened like ice. The three-storey cake, built for a cruise line, was, in Ownie's estimation, her most ambitious project yet.

Ownie believed that Hildred had a gift, like the British artist he'd seen on PBS, who painted landscapes the size of postage stamps, using strokes as thin as eyelashes. “Some
people have special hands,” he had told Johnny, who didn't know a lot about life, let alone art. “Musicians, brain surgeons, Gretzky, some fighters too, like Orlando Zulueta, who could slice you up quicker than a Ginsu knife.” When fighters got hit by the Cuban lightweight, Ownie recalled, they swore that he had razor blades in his gloves, and some insisted that the refs check them. Ownie read somewhere that the Hatchet Man had been stabbed to death outside a San Francisco bar where he had been working. Two Hells Angels were charged.

“Ah got somethin to talk about,” Turmoil mumbled after filling the bottle.

Hildred had laid out her palette, Ownie noticed, which was dominated by cool blues and darker shading. She had made a marzipan propeller, life rafts, and miniature yellow deck chairs. Tennis courts were coming next, she had told him, along with hot tubs.

“Ahm planning . . .”

Why is he talking in such a low voice, Ownie wondered, when most of the time he sounds like he's broadcasting without a microphone? “Don't plan too much till we get this next fight out of the way,” he chortled, the dead goose popping into his head. He couldn't help thinking about the old saw “What goes around comes around.” Yes, even for geese. And didn't that Alderman Schofield look the fool, he decided, talking about seniors and funerals when those bloody geese had killed their own?

“Ahm planning to leeeave.”

“Huh?” Ownie heard a car honk outside.

“Ahm.”

Yeah, that's what he was saying. The words hit Ownie like a shot to the neck, and his hearing faded as Turmoil babbled on about Florida, a promoter, and a title attempt next year. Ownie couldn't hear the rest because there was a party line inside his head: Hildred saying she was sorry, Butch telling
him he was a sucker, Douglas demanding to know if he couldn't have seen it coming, Johnny promising that they could still get that fight with Hansel Sparks. Holy Mary, Mother of God! After all the time he had spent making something out of this crazy, good-for-nothing bastard, teaching him everything he knew!

“This is what ah worked foh.”

“Yeah, all by yourself.” Ownie was embarrassed after feeling smug about Gramps with this coming down on his own head. “You lousy —”

“I juss —”

“I heard enough. Just shut up.”

That's what he got, Ownie decided, for dreaming, for imagining money and fame, for allowing himself to think that they came without a price. It had never been like this with him and Tommy because they were a team, and the punches hurt him as much as they hurt Tommy. That night in South Africa, Tommy fought with every nerve and fibre in his body, plowing in like a born-again freak driven by will and conviction, facing a sea of non-believers. Ownie patched him up, but it didn't help. Blood stood between Tommy and his reward, not heart. Ownie cried when the ref held up the champ's arm, when Tommy lowered his swollen head and said, “I'm sorry. We'll get another chance.”

“God wudden want you to be judgin peeple. Good Christians nebba judge.”

“Bullshit!” Ownie's voice returned, drowning out the ones in his head. “The most Christian man I ever met lived next to us on the Island and never said a bad word about nobody. ‘Live and let live,' was his schtick. ‘Gossip is the devil's language.' Turns out he was a bank robber wanted down in Maine, a regular Jesse James, hiding out for ten years. So whenever I hear somebody talking that way, I wonder how many banks he robbed.”