Famous Last Meals (8 page)

“Almost didn't recognize you without your trench coat on,” she said, extending her hand but not rising. They shook hands and he sat.

The interview seemed so long ago now. He had given up hoping to hear from her. She had cut her hair short and replaced the dark jacket and skirt with jeans and a light blue blouse under which he could see the scoop neck and one shoulder strap of a yellow athletic bra. An amber necklace and matching pendant earrings matched the room's décor, which was bright, monochromatic, the colourful equivalent of a page full of exclamation marks. A carnival array, with joyful rhythmic music in the air and singing in a language that lifted his heart even as he tried to connect Hannah Pachter of BSC with the woman he was looking at now.

“Hello,” he said. “It's good to see you again.”

A man in a soiled apron appeared from behind the cash register counter and came out to take their order. Hannah asked him what he recommended and he suggested a dish of grilled chicken, mango and yams with a side of salad greens and the restaurant's special dressing. She said it sounded yummy and ordered two plates of it.

“You'll love it,” she said after the waiter, who looked also to be cook, dishwasher and proprietor, disappeared.

“How do you know? Have you been here before?”

“Do you trust me, Adam?”

“Why? Shouldn't I?”

“You must have questions you want to ask me.”

“I sure do. Do they skin the chicken breasts, for one thing?”

“You have every reason to be hostile.”

“Who's being hostile?”

“Okay, defensive, confused, disoriented.”

“And he's on the ropes, ladies and gentlemen. Dazed, defenceless, confused. Does he even know what's happening to him? The referee begins the mandatory eight count as he rubs rosin off the contender's gloves.”

“Let me put it simply. At the moment you are a wanted man.”

Adam laughed and felt his face grow red at the sound. The waiter peeked out of the kitchen door and closed it when he saw that no one was hurt.

“The press wants to talk to you about the information you've been giving Mr. Bliss.”

“But I haven't! He knows more about Don Feeney than
I do.”

“Doesn't matter. The story's out there now.”

He shrugged, blinked, looked out the window. He just wanted to go home.

“What do you want from me?”

“The better question is what do you want from you? Three months ago you came to me looking for a job. Not just a job, a career.”

“I found something else.”

“You're a volunteer working on the election campaign of the
PM
's man. You're a dispensable functionary. Do you really think there's going to be a job for you there when this is all over?”

“It's already all over. They want me gone so they can do damage control. Why exactly—what's your connection to this? I thought you listened in on phone conversations
and stuff.”

Before she could answer, the waiter brought water glasses, finger bowls and a basket of flat bread and a salsa dip. Adam felt as if he had not eaten in days. He took two pita triangles and ate them quickly without adorning them.

“Here's what I can tell you: very soon Don Feeney will resign his candidacy. Someone will be found to replace him, someone blessed by both the Government and the Opposition. Are you wondering who that will be?”

“Not really.”

“Of course you are. Think. Who could possibly step in to replace Don and please the Party, LB and Mrs. Fallingbrooke at the same time?”

“Humpty Dumpty.”

“Your cooperation in this is imperative, Mr. Lerner,” she said, her tone now disciplinary.

“I don't know. I don't care. Conrad Black. Wayne Gretzky. Shania Twain. Me.”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes you.”

“You're out of your flipping gourd, lady.”

The waiter brought their entrees, giving Hannah an excuse not to respond. She directed her attention to the underside of her chicken, which she lifted with her knife and fork as if she were performing the dissection of a fetal pig in a high-school biology lab. Adam waited, not touching his utensils. If she didn't look up in three seconds, he told himself, he was going to leave.

She sniffed and said, “Grape nuts, I think,” and cut a morsel of meat. She looked at it on her fork. “I'm allergic to pine nuts. Not grape nuts, though.”

The three seconds passed and still she hadn't looked up. He stood. “I'm out of here,” he said. “How much...?” He took out his wallet, removed a ten-dollar bill and tucked it under the lip of his plate.

“What if I were to tell you...?” She raised her eyes to his. She seemed almost amused, but also earnest, a new expression for her normally inscrutable face.

“What?”

“I've got this. Keep your money.”

“Tell me what?”

“Nothing. Don't worry about it. Have a pleasant flight.”

“I'm not up to this. Really.”

“Of course you're not. I understand.”

“My father got me this job. He said it would be the perfect introduction, a foot in the door.”

“An honourable route. You're not the first to have forgone a salary to gain valuable experience.”

“Tell me what?” Adam picked up the money and sat. She had him and he knew it. Being held by her like this, the way she might a hand of cards, made him feel secure. It wasn't a difficult thing, this being told. It bypassed so much that was complicated. He might just as well have said, “Yes, I'm yours. Take me. Tell me what to do.”

“We have intelligence that Mr. Bliss—Kundule, rather—is a member of a terrorist cell planning an attack on public buildings somewhere in the Northeast.”

“So arrest him.”

“He's more valuable to us out of captivity. We need to keep him close.”

“How close?”

“Ideally? We'd love to see him installed in an office in the Centre Block. In a substantial way it would give him a false sense of security.”

“If he gets elected that will happen, won't it?”

“True. But as an
MP
he might go dormant on us, might feel it too dangerous to try anything given the scrutiny he'd be under. We think he realizes this and that's the reason why he trumped up the story about you leaking Don's secrets to him. He wants to lose.”

“Why doesn't he just step down, not run?”

“We're not sure about that. Could be pride. Could be loyalty to the old lady, who has a zealous belief in his ability to win. She doesn't know anything about his background. For her he's a cause, the socialist underdog, the new immigrant, the man of colour poised to rise and assume his position in the assembly of the powerful. She's quite drunk on the idea, in fact. We figure he doesn't want to let her down.”

“I still don't understand...”

“If you run you'll win. Don't ask how. It will be a given. Challenge me on it afterward and I will disavow any knowledge of ever having met you. You've seen
Mission Impossible
.”

This was surreal. He, a Member of Parliament?

“You'd be given everything you needed. A staff, of course, and—”

“LB would be part of it.”

“Now you're catching on. Excellent, Adam, excellent.”

Without apparently taking more than the smallest bites, she had consumed almost everything on her plate, while his meal remained largely untouched.

“I'll need some time to think about it.”

“Of course. Take whatever time you need.”

“I don't think I can go back to the hotel.”

“No, you're right, you can't.” She took a phone out of her purse. The device was a little larger than a makeup compact. “I'll get you a room at the casino hotel.” She called someone she knew by name, made the reservation and put the phone away. “Your belongings will be transferred. Don't worry, no one will know where you are unless you want them to.”

“How are you going to convince Don not to run? I mean, I thought this was his dream from when he was a little boy.”

She looked at him, lowered her eyes, raised them, glanced out the window and turned her head back. “I really need a smoke. I don't suppose...”

“No. Sorry.”

“Don Feeney is a Party stalwart. He has always done the right thing. He will do the right thing this time.”

As Hannah Pachter had promised, Adam's clothes and luggage were transferred from the Lord Nelson ahead of his checking into the casino. He had a sauna and a swim in an attempt to relax, watched television, walked the length of the boardwalk and back, ate an early supper, which he charged to the room, and thought about what Hannah Pachter had said to him. Maybe she had been joking and he had missed catching her dry sense of humour. Perhaps he had been hallucinating. No, that couldn't be it, for then he would be hallucinating even now, and the sirloin he was chewing was as real as the chair he sat on. Did she even work where she said she did? Maybe she was part of an even more shadowy operation that functioned outside of the government. She had known who he was before interviewing him, had either known he was going to be working at the
PMO
or had arranged it herself. But how was that possible? That would mean that his father had been involved, and Adam could not picture Mr. Lerner being involved in anything shadier than a Sunday snooze in the backyard hammock. It must be that she had been watching Adam at every step. The suicide in the
BSC
parking lot—did she have something to do with that? Thinking about it was knotting his stomach. Some spy he made.

He went up to his room and was lying on the bed when the phone rang. It was his father. He had tried to get Adam at the Lord Nelson and they had transferred the call.

“They ran out of rooms, Dad. Some mix-up. How are things there?”

“We're
OK
. Your mother had one of her feelings and she wouldn't let go of it until I called you. Some crazy idea you're not well. Are you all right, boy? Do you need money? Clean underwear?”

Adam laughed, secretly thanking him for giving him this small outlet for his tension. He told him that he was having the time of his life. The campaign was chugging along like a freight train. Unstoppable. No worries.

They talked about the weather, the
PGA
tour, international news. By the time they said goodbye, his father seemed reassured that Adam was all right.

The air conditioner blew a cold wind, preventing sleep. A knock came at the door. When he opened it a beautiful girl in a shimmering golden evening gown was standing there. She said her name was Tracy, she worked for the hotel's hospitality staff, and she was inviting him downstairs to the tables. She smiled as she held up a package of betting chips encased in molded plastic. She looked so much like a Bond girl that he thought he was dreaming.

“I should get dressed,” he said, figuring that if it were a dream he might not require clothes, and when she said that, yes, it might be a good idea to put on pants, he blushed.

“That is,” she added, “if you want to go downstairs. We could always stay in.”

“This is for real?”

“Yes, why wouldn't it be?”

“How old are you?”

“Old enough.”

“I don't suppose you know who sent you.”

“My boss. He's usually the one who tells me what to do.”

‘So, what next?' hung unspoken in the stale, chemical air coming in from the hallway. He got dressed, put the door key in his pocket and walked with unreal Tracy to the elevator.

“Just so you know,” she said as they descended, “I don't...you know.”

“Ah. Right.”

He played some blackjack after watching a few hands, lost a third of the chips Tracy had given him, and moved to the roulette table. He asked her where she was from and what she liked most about working at the casino, which had a desperate, muggy, soiled atmosphere, so unlike the image portrayed in the movies. The players looked punchy, slumped, sleep deprived. Not a tuxedo in the room.

Tracy said she was from Stellarton, that all of her friends had stayed there or gone away to school, but that she hadn't liked high school all that much and couldn't wait to get away. Halifax was like a dream. She loved the port city. There was so much to do. The people weren't quite as nice as the folks back home, but they were generous, mostly, with tips and advice and the like, and she got to meet people from all over the world. She asked him what kind of business he was in.

“Busking.”

“Really? What's your routine?”

“I get myself into sticky situations and try to get out
of them.”

“Oh. Cool. I once saw a guy put his whole body through a tennis racket.”

“That must have been a strain.”

She looked at him blankly. She was so beautiful, with impossibly clear skin and plump lips and monumental cheekbones, that he felt the strong desire to spirit her away from this den of fractured dreams, to bring her with him when he made his own escape.

“What do you like to drink?”

“Vodka Martini,” he said, never having tasted one. “Shaken, not stirred.”

“Coming right up!”

How much did she miss? She was like a supple container he imagined would expand to accommodate whatever was put into it. An old woman at a video lottery terminal put her forehead to the console and began to sob. A security guard led her out of the room.

“How would you like to work for me?” he said after winning a modest bet on red.

“You mean as part of your act?”

“In a way. I'm going to be a Member of Parliament and I need a staff.”

“Would I have to move? I really like it here.”

“Yes, you'd have to move to Ottawa,” he said, labouring slightly over the name of the city. Another cocktail appeared, its olive eyeing him suspiciously.