Bone Dance (33 page)

Rafael picked it up, held it up to the light and muttered something in another language. He slipped the ring into his pocket.

Sharif sneered. “This is not the commodity we seek. However, it is proof Maude is the correct person. Come with us.”

Zen found herself clamped between two silk suits, nearly suspended by strong fingers around her upper arms. A moment later she was pushed into the back seat of the Crown Victoria with Rafael, while Sharif drove. They knew exactly where she lived. She considered her options. “Do as she was told” seemed to be the best one.

Inside her living room, Sharif nodded to Rafael, who let go
of her arm. “Very well. Where is this Maude's bedroom?”

Zen pointed at the door to the left of the bathroom. Rafael disappeared down the hall. Zen heard the sounds of drawers yanked open, shoes tossed against a wall. It sounded like Buck a Bag day at the store.

Rafael stepped into the hall and glared at her. His hair was springing out of its gel prison in wiry tufts. He crossed the hall and entered her room. She heard the same sounds again. Rafael reappeared in five minutes, shaking his head and muttered something to Sharif.

“We will reconsider our options,” Sharif said. “We'll be back.”

They left the house, and the Crown Victoria steamed out of its berth.

Zen surveyed the disaster formerly known as tidy bedrooms. Aunt Maude's had been hit hardest, with nothing left hanging in her closet. If Rafael had taken anything, it would be difficult to itemize the loss. He appeared to have come out empty-handed. What would he have been hoping to find? Aunt Maude's credit cards? She sat down on the edge of the mattress, stripped clean in the search. The aunts had gone to New York for some theatre and fun. Aunt Maude had been up to her usual tricks, which Helen routinely ignored, but this time they came home early with their tails between their legs and a diamond ring on Aunt Maude's finger. Now a couple of guys from New York had tossed her home. How had they tracked Maude down? How many ladies on bus tours of the theatre district wander the bars in Seventies sequins?

Zen took her own turn at tossing Aunt Maude's room. The sequined dress was missing. Rafael had nothing lumpy up his sleeve when he left.

Helen.

Zen hurried back to the store. A Crown Victoria with New York plates was parked in the loading zone. Inside, Sasha stood by the window, looking like she was hoping a transporter would beam her up.

“Honest, I couldn't stop them,” she said, clinging to a set of matching china dogs. “I told them I was the only one who could open the bags. They didn't listen.”

“Who, Sasha?”

“Those two fancy men. And Helen.”

“Is there anyone else here?”

“Someone called Maude. And Rayette.”

“Where?”

“Rayette's trying on a dress. Maude is with Helen and the men in the back room. They were sure mad. Shook Helen until her false teeth fell out.”

“Why Helen?”

“She was the one who brought in the bag of clothes. They said Maude had something that belonged to them, and Helen had put it in the bag of clothes.”

Zen sprinted to the back room and was rained on by snow boots and mittens. Sharif and Rafael were ripping bags apart, scattering the contents indiscriminately. Rafael flung a pile of white at her that could only be Mrs. Witherspoon's flannel nightie collection. Helen and Aunt Maude clung to each other in the corner.

Zen hauled them out of the way. She lined them up next to the cash register. “Aunt Maude, you'd better confess. Helen says the guy died.”

“It was natural causes.” Aunt Maude thrust her hands on her hips. “Then SHE, who is supposed to be my best friend, takes my ring and my dress. My designer dress, that I bought in the seventies, and it still fits like a glove.”

“Like a sausage, I keep telling you,” Helen said.

“You took my dress and jammed it in a green garbage bag and left it here. My designer dress. I might never speak to you again, Helen Fray.”

“It wouldn't be too soon, Maude Crombie. I've had about enough of that stupid dress.”

Zen held a hand between them. “Time out. So those men are looking for your dress? That doesn't make sense. I can believe they tracked you down because of the dress, everyone would remember seeing you in it. Ask a few bus drivers, and pretty soon your address pops up. But why do they want the dress? What are you hiding?”

“Nothing. Honest. I don't know why they want the dress.”

The dressing room door opened. Rayette stepped out encased in a red, white and blue sequined dress. “How much is this? I love it. Fits me like a second skin.”

Aunt Maude sucked in her breath. “That's not for sale. That's mine. Zen, you get my dress back from her or I quit.”

“I found it in Housedresses.” Rayette said. “Fair game.”

Zen stepped between Rayette and Aunt Maude before any ripping happened. “Aunt Maude, you tell me what's going on or I sell this dress to Rayette for two dollars.”

Aunt Maude made a strangled sound. “Okay, okay, you win. I got up to pee at three-thirty and found the guy dead beside me. I panicked. Those goons had driven us to the hotel. I knew they'd be back in the morning. I wanted to keep the diamond, so I had to get out of there and get a cab back to our hotel. I didn't have much cash in my elephant purse so I went through his pockets. He had a lot of money. I took it. That's it. End of story.”

Zen stared at her. “Rayette, that dress looks nice on you,” she said over her shoulder. “You'd be planning to wear it to Bingo?”

“Okay, okay,” Maude said, flapping her arms. “He had some stones in one pocket. I took them, too.”

“Stones?”

“Pebbly things. Milky white but transparent. Dirty on some edges.”

“And you thought they were—?”

“Uncut diamonds. I've heard stories about New York.”

Zen glanced back at the storeroom. Clothing billowed out the door. She left Helen and Aunt Maude staring each other down and dragged Sasha over to the window. “Listen, in the bag where you found that dress Rayette is wearing, did you find a beaded elephant purse?”

Sasha nodded.

“Where did you put it?”

Sasha pointed to the hangers in the wedding dress section.

Zen flipped through the hangers until she found the green and yellow beaded elephant. She opened it. It was empty, save for a pebble in one corner. “Was there anything in it?”

“Yeah, some gravel. I'm not so dumb. Make somebody feel special.”

Sharif and Rafael emerged from the storeroom. Sharif looked sweaty and uncomfortable. Rafael's hair was spritzed up like candy floss.

Sharif posed like a wrestler in front of Aunt Maude and Helen. “We have been unsuccessful in our search.”

Rafael nudged him and pointed at Rayette. Sharif's eyes bugged out.

“I see you were not lying. We have been too late.”

“I'll say you're too late, buddy,” Rayette said. “I bought this fair and square for two dollars. Finders keepers.”

“I think you might be looking for this.” Zen held up the elephant purse.

Rafael snatched it from her hand. He looked inside, pulled out the sole stone, and showed it to Sharif.

“Where are the rest?” Sharif shook the bag in Aunt Maude's face.

“I dumped them,” Sasha said. “Nobody goes to a wedding with a bag of dirt.”

“Tell the nice man where you dumped them,” Zen said.

“In the fish tank, with the other gravel.”

Helen whipped her head around to the window display so fast Zen heard it crack.

“And where is the fish tank now, Sasha?” Zen asked.

“Constable Fray bought it. He said it would be calming and restful in the police station, when he had to take people in for questioning.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill. She handed it to Zen.

Zen turned to Sharif. “I believe your work here is done. We won't detain you any longer.”

Sharif straightened his jacket and marched out. Rafael followed, tall and strong and carrying the elephant purse.

The door jingled shut. Outside the window, the two men conferenced at the fender of the Crown Victoria, with much pointing at the police station.

The only sound in the store was the tumbling of snowsuits down a slippery slope of slashed green bags.

“Helen, I'm gonna kill you.”

“Maude, I'm never going anywhere with you again.”

“Oh yes, you are. You're going to the police station with me. You're going to talk your nephew into giving me back my diamonds.”

The two women pushed each other out the door.

Zen grabbed the phone to give Jeremy the heads-up while they crossed the street.

Sasha turned to Rayette. “I don't think that's a lucky Bingo dress. I found the one Mrs. Witherspoon wore the night she won a thousand dollars. Come on, I'll show you.”

When Zen got off the phone, the sequined dress was hanging in the overcoats section and Rayette primped in front of the mirror in a purple sateen square dance dress with a rhinestone yoke.

Zen smiled. “Sasha, I guess I need a new employee. It's time you learned how to handle the cash register. We're going to put little pictures on it so it will be easier to use. Rayette is going to give you two dollars for that dress. Rayette, you're going to be patient, because Sasha is new and it takes her a little while to catch on. But she's really good at making customers feel special.”

Vicki Cameron
's short stories have appeared in the Ladies' Killing Circle anthologies
, Storyteller
magazine, and several German anthologies. Her young adult novel
, That Kind of Money,
was nominated for Edgar and Arthur Ellis awards. After a successful shopping trip to Frenchy's, a popular used clothing chain in Nova Scotia, Vicki felt the desire to capture the bins in a story
.

Dr. David Browne turned slowly in place, scanning the devastated street. The occasional moan of pain or frantic mother's call could still be heard, but in the main a stunned silence had descended upon the scene. The seriously wounded had been transported to hospital, and the one dead man had been removed by the police. The remainder huddled in the lee of shops, cradling injured limbs and bloodied heads.

Three constables moved among them, taking witness statements and stilling the last tremors of the deadly rage. City workmen had already begun to clear away the bricks, tattered banners and shards of glass that littered the streets, and shopkeepers were venturing back to assess the damage.

“Haven't seen a riot like this in Ottawa since the 1860s,” came a voice at David's elbow. He turned to find one of the constables, breathless and sweaty beneath a patina of dust. “Used to happen all the time when I were a boy, between the Frenchmen and the Irish, or the raftsmen and the Bytowners. But we was all hoping since the government came, folks would settle down a bit.”

As an Anglo-Irishman growing up in working-class Montreal, David had seen worse, but the thought was no comfort. The Fenians used to sneak across the Vermont border
every year to foment trouble at Orange Parades, and his older brother Liam, a staunch defender of the Empire, had come home twice nursing broken limbs but crowing about the number of traitorous Papist skulls he had cracked. David had hoped to find the old feuds less entrenched in Canada's fledgling capital city, but the carnage outside Upper Town's newest Catholic church was disheartening.

“It appears to have been the work of a few inflamed youths, however,” he ventured with more assurance than he felt. “I haven't encountered many of the leadership from either side.”

“Perhaps not,” replied the constable. “But it's them leaders stir the lads up, and now a man's been killed, which makes it a very serious matter indeed. I don't suppose any of the lads volunteered any information while you were tending them, did they, Doctor? I've interviewed more than a dozen witnesses with na'ar a useful bit of information between them. They've all turned deaf and blind.”

David shook his head. “Who was the dead boy?”

“No one's admitting, and he were beat so bad about the face it's hard to tell. All I found were this truncheon lying nearby.” The constable removed a piece of wood from the accumulated debris in his cart. “I'm worried the lads know very well who he is and who did him in, but they've got their own form of justice planned. Know what I mean?”

David knew precisely what he meant, but as he turned the wood over in his hands, his answer died on his lips. It was part of a shaft, carved, oiled and sanded smooth. Although it was splintered and sticky with blood and dirt, he had no trouble recognizing it. With that recognition came a great despair.

Jimmy.

After he had treated the wounded, David urged his horse down Sparks Street towards the crowded tenements of Lebreton Flats, where Jimmy lived. All the while he feared what he would discover. Prayed that he was wrong. It seemed impossible that such a lyrical, lovingly fashioned piece of wood could have found purpose in the carnage of a common street brawl.