Salvage (20 page)

SCARNUM HAD DRESSED
up for the occasion, but he still stuck out in the elegant offices of Freeman Criminal Defence Associates.

Freeman welcomed him into his office and invited him to appreciate the view of the Halifax waterfront, which Scarnum did, standing at the window and studying the grey, choppy waters for so long that Freeman eventually touched his arm and gestured to the chair across the desk from him.

“Jeez, b'y, that's some fucking view,” said Scarnum as he sat down.

Freeman laughed. “I never get tired of it,” he said. He shuffled some papers on his desk and slid a cheque for ninety-two thousand dollars across to Scarnum.

“This is the salvage cheque, at last,” he said. “When SeaWater went into bankruptcy protection, the lawyers tried to treat your claim like the other secured creditors, which would have meant that you got paid out at fifty cents on the dollar, but the boat was worth more than claim, and in the end they realized they really couldn't get out of paying you in full.”

Scarnum nodded.

“And this is the bill for my services, and for the services of Mr. Mayor,” he said and slid two bills across the table.

“I've deducted the payment for the legal services from the amount of the salvage claim, as you can see,” he said. “Mr. Mayor, as you see, is entitled to 15 percent of the salvage payment, as per your contract with him. We have billed you at an hourly rate for the little bit of work we did to secure the payment.”

He slid a contract across. “And this, if you could sign here, stipulates that you are satisfied that you have received all you are due.”

Scarnum signed.

“Great,” he said. “Thanks. I think I might have spent a lot more time in jail if it weren't for you.”

Freeman smiled and put his hands on the arms of his leather chair, as if he were about to stand up. “Glad to help,” he said. “Terrific! OK.”

“Um, one thing,” said Scarnum. “I might like to cash this cheque, keep the money in cash for a while, then invest it in some kind of an investment, uh, vehicle.”

Freeman raised an eyebrow. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked.

“Uh, I think it would be nice to have the cash around for a while,” said Scarnum. “You know, enjoy it a little bit. Anyway, I wonder if you could point me to someone who would be prepared, when I'm ready, to invest the money. Someone who is able to handle that much cash. I understand there might be a fee, of course, a commission.”

Freeman lowered the eyebrow. “First, let me advise you against this course of action,” he said. “It's not safe to keep cash around, and if it comes to light, it could raise unwarranted questions about your entirely legitimate business activities.”

Scarnum shrugged and chuckled. “I'm a little crazy sometimes.”

Freeman smiled. “If I can't counsel you against this, let me give you the name of an acquaintance of mine who might be able to help you. George Pangiatapolis. Investment advisor. His office is on Blowers Street. His brother, Leo, owns all those Donair King franchises around the city.”

He looked at Scarnum. “They deal in a lot of cash.”

Scarnum smiled. “That sounds like just the guy I want,” he said.

“I'll call George for you,” Freeman said, picking up the phone. “Tell him you're on the way over. Blowers Street. Upstairs, next to the newsstand.”

Scarnum stood up to leave.

“Eighty cents,” said Freeman. “Eighty cents to the dollar. Unless the bills are soaked in blood or something, don't let him give you less than eighty cents on the dollar.”

Scarnum smiled and stood to go.

“Actually,” said Freeman. “If they're soaked in blood, just wash them before you take them to Georgie.”

W
hen he got back to Chester, he popped into the house and asked Charlie to come down for a drink after dinner.

When Charlie strolled down at seven, Scarnum was sitting inside the cabin with an unopened bottle of Laphroaig thirty-year-old and two heavy crystal glasses.

He opened the bottle and poured them each three fingers of whisky. “To the memory of Jimmy Zinck,” he said.

“To the memory of Jimmy Zinck,” said Charlie.

When they put down the glasses, Charlie had a funny expression on his face. He took another sip. “That tastes familiar,” he said.

“Ayuh,” said Scarnum. “It would.” He raised his glass again. “To the memory of Bobby Falkenham.”

A light went on in Charlie's eyes as he raised his glass. “To the memory of Bobby Falkenham,” he said.

They sat silent for a few minutes after they drank. Scarnum's eyes watered.

“So, Charlie,” he said. “I've got a proposition for you.” He slid the salvage cheque across the table.

“I want to buy part of the yard from you,” he said. “From the piling where I tie up my bowline to the seawall. This triangular piece here, the piece with the boat shed on it.” He had sketched it out on a piece of graph paper.

“But, Phillip, you don't need to buy it from me,” he said. “You use the boat shed as much as I do, anyways.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Scarnum. “And I'm not paying you enough for it. Might as well buy it, if you and Annabelle will sell it to me. I might fix it up, get rid of some of your goddamned scrap wood collection. Might put a bathroom in it, a little loft. Was thinking it would be nice to have a great big picture window at the end, looking over the bay. Might want to sleep up there in February, nights when it's too goddamned cold on the boat.”

“I think the price is fair,” he said. “Might be a little low. I dunno. Waterfront in Chester being what it is, you could get a lot more if you sold the whole damn thing, let them put condos up here. But I don't see you doing that. I could make regular payments if you thought this cheque wasn't quite enough.”

“No,” said Charlie. “Jeez, no. I think that price is prob'ly too high. I just want to make sure that it's the right thing for you.”

Scarnum looked at him. “Might be nice for you and Annabelle to go away for a break,” he said. “I bet she'd like that. She's always wanted to go to France.”

He laughed then. “I like the idea of you wandering around France.”

Charlie sang a fragment of an old song then — “
Inky dinky
parlez-vous
!
” — and danced a little cancan in the boat, and Scarnum laughed until the tears streamed down his face.

They finished their glasses and Scarnum refilled them and they drank those, too, and Charlie went up and brought Annabelle down and they signed a rough contract there, on the piece of graph paper that Scarnum had used to sketch the yard, and Annabelle took a little bit of the whisky, with a lot of water, and she and Scarnum spoke French to each other for a while, and she told Scarnum how her mother had been to Paris when she was a girl and how she herself had always wanted to go, so badly that she didn't even want to explain to Charlie because she knew they couldn't afford it, and she was very happy that now she could finally plan a trip, which she would probably enjoy more than the trip itself, knowing what snobs the real French were, and Charlie looked on in smiling incomprehension, and they drank the whole fucking bottle of whisky.

THE BABY WAS JIMMY ZINCK'S
boy. There could be no doubt of that. He had the same meaty face, the same long nose, and he was a screamer.

He was big, too, and healthy. Ten pounds, eight ounces.

“I woulda liked if he was a little smaller, tell you the truth,” Angela said to Scarnum, holding the boy in her arms and nuzzling him. “God knows what you did to my coochie, huh? Huh? Whatchyou do to your momma's coochie?”

When she first came back to Chester, after Scarnum gave her the all-clear, they had spent the odd night together, making love on Scarnum's V-berth and in his salon, and — one warm night, anchored in the bay — on the deck, but they could both tell that although the affection they felt for one another was real, it was not strong enough for them to live together as man and woman.

Angela called them “fuck buddies,” but as her pregnancy moved along they became just buddies, and Scarnum suspected they would remain just buddies now that little Jimmy Junior was outside of his mother, although he also suspected he would try to change her mind about that when he was drinking.

Scarnum cradled the boy for a while, and asked Angela about her plans for raising him, and promised to be little Jimmy's Uncle Phil, said he was looking forward to it, which was true.

Then he took out the envelope from Pangiatapolis Securities Limited, and took out the form and filled in Jimmy Zinck's name as the beneficiary, and his birth date, and showed it to her, and explained that she would get a cheque every month until the kid turned eighteen, at which point half of the money that was left would go to him. He'd get the rest at twenty-five.

Angela cried and hugged him for a long time, pulled him into the hospital bed with her. When she stopped crying, he whispered in her ear, “It's the money from the coke, all of it. It's what Jimmy died for. You ever tell anyone where it came from, they might kill me.”

On his way home, he picked up a bottle of Laphroaig and drank some of it by himself, feeding the wood stove in the boat shed and looking out through his new picture window at the black water of the bay.

 

SCARNUM WAS AT THE
salon table on the
Orion
, taking little sips from a glass of Laphroaig and fussing with the plans for renovations to the boat shed, when Annabelle banged on the boat and called out to him.

“C'est Karen au phone
,” she said. “
Elle est en France. Elle dit que j'devrions la visiter quand j'y allons!
”

“Wouldn't that be nice?” he said.

To Karen, when he picked up the phone, he said, “Merry Christmas. It's already Christmas there, isn't it?”

“That's right,” she said. “It's been Christmas here for half an hour. This phone call is my Christmas gift to myself.”

“Aren't you just as sweet as pie, me duckie,” he said in a thick South Shore accent, and they laughed.

“So, where are you?”

“I'm in Collioure,” she said. “In the south of France.”

“The place Matisse liked,” said Scarnum. “That must be very beautiful.”

“Oh, it is,” she said. “It's a bit chilly this time of year, but life here is very very pleasant. Art. Wine. Cuisine. Scenery. It's got a soft, civilized quality that I am finding very, uh, relaxing after Chester.”

“Are you painting?”

“Yes, I am, a bit, but it hasn't really opened up to me yet,” she said. “I think I have to learn to see this place first. Walking a lot. There's lovely seaside walks, with half-wild goats and the Mediterranean lapping against chalk cliffs.”

She laughed. “It's tough to take. So, how are you?”

“Good,” said Scarnum. “Things have kind of, uh, settled down around here. Finally got the salvage cheque from the
Kelly Lynn
, and I bought the end of Charlie's boatyard, from the boat shed down. Put in a big picture window so I can look right out over the water.”

“Good for you!” she said.

“Angela had her baby this week,” he said. “Jimmy Zinck Junior. Looks just like his dad. Ten pounds, eight ounces. Mother and baby both well. I'm gonna be little Jimmy's Uncle Phil.”

“Oh my God,” said Karen. “I should send a present.”

“Send a painting of the Riviera,” said Scarnum.

“I will,” she said. “My first good one.”

“That would be grand,” said Scarnum. “It would look right nice next to Angela's picture of dogs playing poker.”

They laughed.

“Uh, Phil,” said Karen. “I got something to tell you.”

Scarnum swallowed and walked over and looked out the window. “Shoot,” he said.

“I'm going to have a baby, too.”

Then she rushed the rest before he could speak. “I'm due in April. The father is Sebastian. He has a gallery here, where he sells terrible landscape paintings, some of which he paints himself, to the tourists. He's Catalan, bald, with a little potbelly. Likes to go spearfishing in the bay. Drinks too much wine, sings opera all the time, goes in and out of key.”

She stopped and Scarnum gave a little strangled whoop of pleasure.

“Holy Jesus!” he said. “Well, that is fantastic. You're going to be a great mother. You deserve it, Karen. You deserve to be happy.”

“So do you, Phillip,” she said, and he could hear her crying softly down the line, all the way from France.

“You know what, Buttercup?” he said. “I think I am.”

I'D LIKE TO THANK
Ewen Wallace, who helped me bring my Tanzer 7.5 through the Sambro Ledges on a cold day in the spring of 2003, Dan Leger and Andrew Murphy, who helped me write about sailing through the passage, and David Trenbirth and various Halifax Murphys and Sadlers who taught me to sail. Dave Gray, of Sambro Head, was kind enough to tell me some things about fishing.

Derek Delamere, Elaine Tough, Dave O'Neil, and Teri Donovan were kind to me when I was writing in Chester.

Chris Bucci and Anne McDermid, of Anne McDermid Agency, and Laura Boyle, Allison Hirst, Kirk Howard, and Kathryn Lane, of Dundurn Press, helped make this manuscript into a book.

Many friends read
Salvage
and gave me helpful advice: Anne Bernays, Richard Greene, Mark Hamilton, Vero Laffargue, Rena Langley, Kelly Maher, Barry Moores, the late Jane Purves and Leslie Stojsic.

Nicolas Cheradame and Ralph Surrette helped me with the French. Andrew Grant and Camille Labchuk helped me understand legal procedures. 

C
amille helped me in many other ways, with the book and lots of other things, brightening my days.