Blink & Caution (13 page)

The car is locked, and she fumbles with the key, drops it, picks it up again, swearing to herself. She ducks low and glances over the hood, up toward Wayne-Ray’s place. Nothing.

She tries the key again, yanks the door open, and jumps in. The car starts right up. She revs too high in her excitement. Then she engages the clutch and pulls out onto the street. She cruises by the boardinghouse unseen, turns south on Sunnyside, left again at the first street she comes to, and then heads south on Roncesvalles. The car smells of L’Homme and marijuana. That gives her an idea.

Roncesvalles ends at Queen, where she turns east. She calms herself down, concentrates on her driving; last thing she needs is a cop pulling the beater over when it smells like this. It’s busy on Queen, the end of the rush hour, the start of the nightlife. She knows she promised Wayne-Ray she’d go straight to the mystery address, but she’s following her instincts right now. Whatever magic might have led Merlin to Wayne-Ray’s, she’s pretty sure the man can’t fly. So if he’s going to pursue her, he’s going to have to do it on foot. Might even have to rely on public transportation like ordinary mortals.

It’s closing on seven when she reaches Parliament and turns south. She pulls a U-ey south of Front and heads back, pulling over right in front of the Fifty-first Division headquarters of the Toronto Police Service. With her eye trained on the entranceway, she unzips her Little Mermaid backpack and pulls out the Baggie of weed. She chucks the bag into the backseat, gets out, locks the car, and takes off north in a big hurry. There are no other cars parked in front of the police headquarters. It’s a no-parking zone.

T
here is something going down at the squat. There is light around the boarding covering the downstairs windows. Maybe there’s a fire. Maybe it’s just Thursday night — party time. You stand on the cracked concrete path and wait, your arms folded around you, shivering in the cold. Voices are yelling; things are flying. This is the second time in two days that you’ve stood outside a place where violent things are going on. It’s like a curse. Like you carried this with you from your mother’s house, and everywhere you go there will be rooms full of anger and mystery.

You stand there, shivering, because it is the middle of October, despite the warm days, and it might snow. It’s so effing cold, and this piece-of-shit Gap whatever-it-is you stole from a Jarvis boy’s locker wasn’t really meant to keep out the elements. You had all day, Blink; you could have picked up a jacket somewhere, spent some of that filthy lucre. But you were afraid to spend anything, in case it cost a lot to get to Kingston. How would you know? But why couldn’t you see as far into the future as the night?

Something big crashes to the floor, making you step back off the sidewalk right onto the street. Might be Sonya. She’s sweet, mostly, but a lunatic when she goes off her meds. Or it could be Wish-List, in which case a knife is a real possibility. You are tired. Desperately tired. You just want to sleep but not in that hellhole.

You hear a siren. There are always police sirens, because the Fifty-first Division is only three blocks away, so it doesn’t mean anything, except it’s what they call the straw that breaks the camel’s back. You are out of there, Blink, my fine humped creature. Lope down Cherry Street and good-bye. Good-bye to the few scraps of clothing and the piece of foam and the orange Salvation Army blanket. Good-bye to it all. You are back on the street. Then tomorrow you are going to Kingston, wherever that is.

A car pulls a U-ey on Parliament. You jump back, raise your fist, and swear at the driver. She doesn’t even notice.

You head along Front Street, past the St. Lawrence Market all closed up for the night, past the little restaurants and bars sucking people in and spilling people out like they’re breathing and their air is people. You stop in front of the dimly lit window of a photography gallery. The place is closed, but there are rich people in there, too. Tiny and framed: the children of rich people, in spotless shirts, hair mussed up on this boy here, but like they paid a hundred dollars to make it look like that. Twin girls dressed up like little ladies from some other time. A handsome Asian boy with a cricket bat resting on his shoulder. But all you really see is yourself in the dark glass; you in your breakfast clothes, which you have worn now for three days in a row and which are on the verge of disintegration. You don’t want Alyson seeing you like this. You’ll shop tomorrow, you tell yourself, if you can afford to after you buy your bus ticket.

You’re really going through with this, Blink?

You bought that story?

Like there won’t be cops waiting there the minute you step off the bus?

You pass by the Hummingbird Centre just as a show gets out.
Swan Lake.
Folks with little girls in tow — big-eyed from being out so late. They’re all dressed in finery, black suits and glittering dresses under warm coats, climbing into Mercedes and Cadillacs. A little princess glares at you and leans into her father’s leg.

You drift down the damp steps into the subway at Union Station and find a bathroom. You look at yourself in the cracked mirror. You push your filthy hair out of eyes steeped too long and dark, bitter. Alyson is not going to like you. Alyson is going to take one look at your collar and suddenly realize she has a ballet to go to or something.

Anyway, that story of hers . . . What were you thinking?

It’s after eleven, but you phone her from the GO station. Might as well get it over with.

“Did I wake you?”

“Yes . . . well, not really. What is it?”

Her voice is soft and full of sleep. Her bed is probably like something from a movie. White. Everything white. With a soft light and a Persian cat. You imagine her in white silk pajamas. Well, too bad.

“I’m not coming.”

She clears her throat, and you imagine her sitting up now.

“What do you mean?”

“What I said. I can’t . . . I mean, I can’t get away.”

There is a pause, and you think,
Just hang the fuck up.
But you don’t.

“I think you’d better,” she says.

There is no sleepiness in her voice now.

“Well, that’s your opinion —”

“No, listen,” she says urgently but quietly. “It’s for your own good.”

Captain Panic wakes right up when she says that. “For your own good” is a phrase you’ve heard before, way too often. Usually what comes next has a buckle on it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They are looking for you is what I mean.”

“They who?”

“Who do you think?”

“Nobody is looking for me. And now I’m just gonna hang —”

“Brent,” she says.

And you freeze.

“Brent, do not hang up,” she says.

The Captain smacks his open palms against the bulkhead. Once, twice, three times. You can’t speak. From where you’re standing, you can see a drunk in the shadows pissing against a wall. He’s waggling his dick around as if he’s writing something.

“What’d you call me?”

“Brent. Brent Conboy.”

You look down the echoing corridor of the station past the drunken graffiti artist. There’s a wind whistling down the tunnel. An underground wind. No one is watching you in the urine-colored light. No one you can see, that is. They could be anywhere.

“How’d you . . . ? There’s no way . . .”

“Listen,” she says. “You kind of blew it, okay? Left fingerprints all over the hotel room.”

“Fingerprints? I’ve never been arrested. Nobody’s got no prints.”

“They do, Brent.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Okay, Blink, if that’s what you want. But they are looking for you.”

“No way.”

“Yes way! Listen. Your mom got you fingerprinted when you were in grade school.”

The Captain is going crazy. He’s charging headlong up the ladder to the bridge. He’s heading for the wheelhouse, and he is going to turn this boat around!

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t remember? At school?” She’s making it sound as if she were there when it happened, and it’s freaking you out.

“Operation Child Find, or something like that,” she says. “The cops take the fingerprints of kids in case they ever go missing or whatever. My parents did the same thing with me.”

You try to think. Did your mother ever care that much, Blink? How could you forget?

“Anyway, the cops have your prints, and they know who you are. They know what you look like.”

The drunk turns as if he can feel your eyes on him. He’s still pissing.

“No way.”

“Blink, they have been to your mother’s place. I’m not making this up. They’ve got a picture of you.”

“I don’t live there anymore.”

“They’ve got a picture from last Christmas.”

The drunk is smiling at you now, broken-toothed, tucking himself back in, wiping his fingers on his belly.

“How do you know all this? Is there some cop there beside you, feeding you all this crap?” You shake your head. How could these hands clinging to this phone have the same prints as a child?

“Blink?” she says gently. “There are no cops here. I’m in bed, for God’s sake. But the police in Toronto are keeping us informed through my father’s lawyer there. I didn’t tell you before, because you were coming here, anyway, and I didn’t want to . . . Well, I didn’t want to freak you out.”

You laugh. “Right. Nice try!” You laugh again. It’s a crazy laugh. The drunk joins in, like you’re sharing a joke. Like you’re best friends.

“The truth is,” she says, “you’re probably safer here than there.”

“Oh, yeah. Good one.”

“Seriously. No one here is in on this. You’re the only lead they’ve got, according to Dad’s lawyer, and, as far as they know, you’re in Toronto.”

“Until you tell them.”

“I can’t tell them!”
If it’s possible to scream and whisper at the same time, Alyson just did it. You feel a jolt all the way down the telephone line. “I cannot tell anyone I’m in communication with you,” she says, more calmly and carefully, as if English is not your first language. Then there is a sob. “I thought I explained it to you. I guess you didn’t understand.”

Your new drunken buddy starts weaving his way toward you.

“I promise you it’s not a trap,” she says. “Is that what you’re afraid of ?” Her voice gets quiet, secretive. “Jesus, don’t you get it? There’s no way in the world I can tell the cops what I told you. If what you were saying
is
true and if my father
is
at the lodge, then telling anyone would get him in huge trouble. Think about it. Just, please —
please
— think about it. Think about my situation. Will you do that?”

The drunk has stopped as if he’s forgotten something. Like maybe he pissed out his brain back there at the wall. You squint — try to read what he wrote there. It glistens but says nothing.

Think about it,
she said. That’s where you went wrong, isn’t it? Starting to think about any of this. That’s not what a thief does. A thief doesn’t put money back into a wallet. He takes it all. A thief doesn’t scroll through someone’s smartphone. He takes it to the nearest pawnshop. A thief doesn’t call a victim’s daughter. But there was a reason for this, Blink. You wanted more — you’re not even sure what. Just more. And that is exactly what’s on offer if you’re smart enough to stay in the game.

Meanwhile, the drunk resumes his journey, staggering toward you, closer and closer.

“Blink, I really, really need your help.”

“Shit,” you say.

“This is our secret,” she says.

You take the receiver and bang it down hard on the ledge under the phone. “Shit!”

“Ow!” she says.

“Sorry.”

“Are you coming?”

“Okay.”

You hang up and step out into the cold wetness of the tunnel. The drunk smiles again, stops, scratches his head as if maybe he knows you but can’t remember from where. You curl your fists in case he’s got any ideas about getting to know you better. Then he melts.

C
aution: Contents Corrosive.

She can see in her mind’s eye the little warning on the Clorox bottle with a picture of a skeletal hand. She feels the acid inside her churning. If parking Merlin’s car in front of the police station is a victory, why does it hurt so much?