Maid of the Mist (8 page)

The receptionist – her name was Connie; it said so on her badge – smiled up at him. 'Inspector Corrigan,' she said, 'good morning.'

He nodded and said: 'So, how's the convention going?'

'Just fine, thank you.'

'You have a programme, something like that? List of guests?'

'Sure thing. There any problem, sir?'

Corrigan smiled. 'No trouble. Except with weeds.' He winked.

She handed him a programme.

'Most of them staying here?' She nodded. 'Usual, high-spirited crowd?'

'Yeah, I guess. Most of them are just so
sweet.'

Corrigan passed the programme to Stirling, who began to flick through it. There wasn't a lot of detail. Layouts of the hotel and the casino next door. A list of the seminars and their locations. Titles like: 'Floral Marketing in the Digital Age', 'Preserving as Fresh: Cryogenics in the Greenhouse', 'The Future's Bright, the Future's Tulip: from the Bulb Fields of Holland'.

'There can't be that much to say about fucking flowers,' Stirling observed.

They walked next door to the casino, then took the elevator to the top floor where all the high rollers hung out.

'Thing is,' Stirling said, 'if there are drug dealers, they're not going to walk around with syringes hanging out of their pockets. They're going to look like businessmen. Like him.'

There was a clean-cut guy in a grey suit reading a convention programme. He was middle-aged, he had wire glasses. He had a little yellow convention badge. Corrigan looked at Stirling, Stirling shrugged, they walked across. They identified themselves.

He blinked up at them, his face pink, his smile cagey. 'Yes, officers, what can I do for you?'

'You have any identification, sir?' Stirling said.

'Certainly.' He produced a leather wallet. He offered his driving licence. 'I done anything wrong?'

'No, sir,' said Corrigan, 'just routine.'

'Walter J. Golden,' Stirling said.

'That's me,' said Walter.

'Texas,' said Stirling.

'Lone Star state,' said Walter.

'So,' said Stirling, 'I gotta lotta weeds at the bottom of my garden. What you recommend?'

Walter looked at him, confused for a moment. 'Well,' he said.

'Don't you know?' Stirling asked.

'Well, I'd be thinking you need to talk to a gardener.'

'You mean you really don't know? What kind of a horticulturalist doesn't know how to . . .'

'The kind lives in a five-million-dollar penthouse apartment in Dallas.' He was a bit red about the gills now. 'The kind imports five million tulips from Amsterdam every month and distributes them throughout the country, but who doesn't have any goddamn weeds in his garden because he doesn't have any goddamn garden.
Honestly.'
Walter zipped the licence out of Stirling's hand. 'Now if I can be of any further assistance, don't hesitate to ask.' He turned, pressing the licence back into his wallet, and in a few moments had disappeared back into the throng.

'Well?' said Corrigan.

'Well?' said Stirling.

'Have
you got weeds at the bottom of your garden?'

Stirling shook his head. 'I haven't got a garden either. Walter and I have so much in common.'

'What do you think?' Corrigan asked.

Stirling shrugged. 'Tulips from Amsterdam. Amsterdam being the drugs capital of Europe, of course. Laxest laws on the continent. You know they can smoke dope in public? They have dope cafes. You can order it off a menu. And hookers who sit in windows showing their . . .'

'I take your point,' Corrigan said.

Stirling returned to the station; Corrigan went looking for Barry Lightfoot. He had to tour the building three times before he spotted him. Lightfoot saw Corrigan about the same time and ducked down behind a machine. He peeked around the corner only when he was sure Corrigan had missed him, but he hadn't, he was standing staring at him peeking around the corner. 'Do you ever sleep, Barry?' Corrigan asked.

Barry shook his head. 'What you want now, man?'

'I'm trying to track Tarriha down. I owe him some money.'

'You're
chasing
Tarriha to give him money? Man, you got your life back to front.'

'You know where to find him?'

Lightfoot's eyes flitted up to the security cameras. Then he pointed along the rows of gaming machines. Just for show. 'Reservation, across the border,' Lightfoot said. Corrigan gave him a
look.
'OK, and he rents a room on Bridge Street too. But most of the time you can find him in Whiskey Nick's. On Drummond.'

'What's he do there?'

'Drinks,' said Lightfoot.

'Figures.' Corrigan smiled. 'I thought he might have another job.'

'No,' said Lightfoot, 'menial employment, drinks too much. He's pretty much your stereotypical Indian.'

'Cheers,' Corrigan said, 'I owe you one.' He turned to leave, then stopped and said: 'Incidentally, you haven't come across any international drug dealers on your travels, have you?'

'What?' said Lightfoot.

Corrigan shook his head. 'Nothing,' he said.

Madeline Hume was just trying the door of Tarriha's room in a collapsing boarding house on Bridge Street when Corrigan appeared at the end of the corridor. She looked round suddenly and said: 'Oh.'

'It's probably locked,' Corrigan said. 'Most people do these days.'

'I wasn't. . .' Madeline began. 'In case he didn't hear me.'

'Uhuh,' said Corrigan.

She was wearing black ski pants and a sky-blue denim jacket over a white t-shirt. Her hair was damp and there was a love bite on her neck. She stood back from the door and looked at Corrigan expectantly.

'What?' said Corrigan.

'Aren't you going to kick it in?'

'Uhm. Why?'

'That's what you do.'

'Oh. Right.' He lined up in front of it. Raised his foot. Then he dropped it again and held a finger up. 'Oh. No. I just remembered. It's not what we do. That's what they do across the border.'

Her lip curled up. 'What are you, a
Mountie?'

'Nope,' said Corrigan, trying the door himself, 'failed the exam. Besides, red isn't my colour.'

She tutted and withdrew a card from her purse. She slipped it under the door. 'There,' she said.

Corrigan smiled. 'I'm going to Whiskey Nick's, if you care to join me.' She looked puzzled. 'It's a bar.'

She smiled hesitantly. 'You're inviting me out for a drink?'

'No,' Corrigan replied, 'I'm inviting you across to meet Tarriha. He drinks in Whiskey Nick's.'

'Oh.' She smiled hesitantly. 'What's brought on this new spirit of co-operation?'

'Pity.' said Corrigan and turned for the stairs. She couldn't see the smile on his face. He couldn't see the steam coming out of her ears, but he could picture it.

They drove to Whiskey Nick's in silence. Apart from Madeline drumming her fingers on the dash. Apart from Madeline humming along to some country and western on the radio. Apart from the rain beating against the windscreen. He'd been to Whiskey Nick's before, a few times, by himself. It was just a local bar, maybe a little less sophisticated than most, and most were pretty unsophisticated. He couldn't remember much about it, except that there was no one called Nick involved in the business.

Eventually Madeline said: 'You were talking about your wife, weren't you?'

'What?' said Corrigan.

'Back at the women's refuge. You were talking about your wife.'

'Jesus. You mull things over, don't you?'

She shrugged. 'Her jaw was broken. By a fat guy. But you haven't arrested him, because he's still out there. She's gone back to him, hasn't she?'

'Here's Whiskey Nick's,' said Corrigan, pulling the car into the side of the road.

'It makes me
so
angry,' Madeline said. 'No wonder you're distracted.'

'I seem distracted?'

'I bet you'd shoot him if you could get hold of him.'

'I already did.'

She waited for him to smile, so he did. 'You must still love her.'

'Now there's a case of putting two and two together and getting six.'

'And he broke her jaw. God. What an animal. Can I do something? It's station policy, look after the staff, look after our informants.'

'I'm not an informant.'

'Can I send her something? How about some flowers?'

'How about some toffees?'

Her jaw dropped a little. It had come over a little more sarcastic than he had meant. If there was one thing they didn't understand on this side of the ocean it was sarcasm. In Belfast everything was sarcastic. Even when it wasn't. He looked at her and smiled. 'Comedy is easy,' he said, 'toffee is hard. Can we just drop it?'

She looked at him for a moment, then gave a little nod. 'Sorry,' she said.

He nodded, then opened the car door. 'Look on the bright side,' he said, climbing out, 'I haven't even mentioned the love bite.'

They made a dash through the rain, Madeline holding her bag up to protect her hair, Corrigan with his hands shoved into his pockets. It was early afternoon. They pushed through the door, laughing the way people do when they emerge from a downpour into a bar, shaking themselves and making whooshing noises like they'd achieved something.

There were seven guys, all of them at least in their sixties, sitting on stools near the door. They were swapping football stories and laughing. There was a barman, big stomach, white shirt, balding, serving up the drinks and laughing along, but his laugh sounded forced. There were about a dozen tables, none of them occupied. At first Corrigan thought that was it, but then Madeline nudged him and nodded up to the far end of the bar. He saw only a large TV, up in the corner, showing cartoons, but then he realized there was someone sitting both beneath and behind it, almost hidden in the shadows, a position that suggested an enjoyment of the privacy the distraction of the cartoon violence above allowed. They walked a little further up the bar until they were sure it was him. He was nursing a bottle of Budweiser and staring into the distance, at the whisky bottles stacked out of his reach on the other side of the bar.

Corrigan ordered three beers, then they took seats on either side of him. Corrigan put one of the bottles down before the old Indian. Tarriha's head nodded slowly and he looked wearily at Corrigan, then around at Madeline.

'What I'm thinking,' Corrigan said quietly, 'based on what little I know about you, is that you're a greedy, grasping old Indian, only interested in where the next dollar is coming from. So what I need to know is why you would disappear when there was six hundred dollars coming your way.'

His lips barely moved. 'Have I disappeared? I don't think so.'

Madeline put a hand on his arm. 'Madeline Hume, Channel 4 in Buffalo. Can you tell me what happened to, uh, this Lelewala? Do you know where she is? Why she went over?'

Tarriha looked to Corrigan. 'Tell your friend to get her hand off my fucking arm.'

'Get your hand off his fucking arm.'

Madeline moved her hand. 'I'm sorry, I. . .'

'Just tell me what she said,' Corrigan said. 'Then I'll give you the cash.'

'I don't want the cash. I want nothing to do with it. I want to be left alone.'

This time Corrigan put a hand on his arm. 'We had a deal. If you don't want to be paid for it, fair enough. But we still had a deal. Tell me about Lelewala. Tell me her real name . . .'

'It
is
her real name.'

'OK. Tell me where she lives. What she does. Why she . . .'

Tarriha pulled his hand away. When he spoke his voice was cold, old, and something about the way his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed sent a shiver up Corrigan's back. 'She doesn't
live
anywhere, she doesn't
do
anything. Don't you understand? She
is
Lelewala. She's come back.'

It really wasn't any darker in Whiskey Nick's, but suddenly it seemed to be. The air drew in around them, the sports chatter failed, the mad colours reflected off the Bugs Bunny cartoon faded to grey; there was only Madeline and Corrigan and Tarriha. His voice was no longer that of the money-grabbing old cynic Corrigan had first been annoyed by, it was deeper, wiser, age-soaked but not dulled by the march of time. His eyes were focused not on the bar, nor on his small audience, but on the past. His fingers traced invisible outlines on the stained wood of the bar, as if he was dipping his fingers into a pond of memories.

'She has come back,' he said slowly, 'because there is a great evil abroad.'

'Evil as in . . .' Madeline began.

'I don't know. She doesn't know. She is scared. Scared of you, scared of me . . . scared of everything.'

Madeline leaned forward, catching Corrigan's eye, then looked at Tarriha. 'You don't mean she's
literally
come back. She hasn't just stepped out of the dark ages.'

'The
dark ages?'
Tarriha growled. 'What do you know about dark ages?
These
are the dark ages.'

Madeline shook her head. 'I'm sorry, but it doesn't seem that dark in Buffalo.'

'You do not know the legend of Lelewala?' he said.

Madeline shrugged: 'Native American Princess goes over Falls. I don't know
why.'

'I will tell you the story.' Madeline started to speak, but Tarriha raised a finger to shush her. 'Sometimes,' he said, 'it is good to listen.'

Sometimes,
Madeline's look said,
it is good to meet deadlines.
But she shut up. Corrigan took a drink. Tarriha lifted his own bottle and drank. He didn't swallow. Just poured it straight into his stomach. Then he set the bottle down and closed his eyes.

'Many years before you stole our land,' he began, 'Lelewala lived with her family on the banks of the Great Niagara. Her father was Chief Eagle Eye and her mother Najaka. You . . .' and he turned suddenly and prodded Corrigan, 'have seen her and you know that she is beautiful.' He removed his finger and closed his eyes again. 'She was young, full of fun and energy, and she wanted above all things to be married to her true love Sahonwadi . . .'

Sahonwadi. Sahon . . .

'A father never likes to lose his daughter, but Chief Eagle Eye knew that Sahonwadi was not only the bravest warrior of the tribe but also the brightest. And that he would look after Lelewala, and also be guided by her. So he gave his blessing to the marriage. Sahonwadi busied himself making their bridal canoe. Lelewala could not wait for the day that she would become his wife, and dreamed of bearing his children.