19
AFTER THE DEBACLE at the mill and the resulting interrogation, I’m ready for some distraction and jump at Carl’s suggestion of a poker game. Beer, music and a group of socially maladjusted forest rangers and firefighters. Perfect. Carl pulls his heavy, wooden kitchen table away from the wall and by eight o’clock there are a half dozen of us dealing, drinking and telling the usual stories about fires, deranged tower people and helicopter crashes.
“You hear about the guy who tried to steal the 206?”
Jason Kermicki is telling this one. The local initial attack crew leader, he’s a big guy and the youngest at the table. He came highly recommended, meaning he brought beer. But an hour into the card game, he’s won more than his share and siphoned off most of the beer he came with. His decibel level has been increasing steadily, drowning out Jim Morrison on a portable cd player someone brought
“Yeah, I guess this firefighter was pissed right up one night and figures he’s seen the pilot take off and land enough times, figures he can do just as good.”
“I heard this one,” says Carl. “It’s bullshit.”
“No, it really happened —” Kermicki talks with an earnestness you only see in salesmen and the severely intoxicated, his face showing a nice, rose-coloured glow. “So he got the helicopter fired up and a few feet off the ground before he hit the old deadman’s arc and flipped her over.”
“I remember that,” says Gary Hanlon. “He never got it off the ground.”
Hanlon has been quiet and everyone is waiting for him to loosen up so they don’t look too much drunker than the boss. Everyone except Kermicki, who cracks his last beer. “Told you it happened.”
“You were like five years old then,” says Carl.
“I’ve heard the story.”
“Drink slower and play faster,” says Carl. “You’ve got to work tomorrow.”
The game continues. I drink more than I win, but I’m content. When I was a ranger, I went to a lot of games like this — it takes me back to a better time. I sip my beer, watch the faces, listen to stories I’ve mostly heard. Kermicki begins to lose his concentration and winnings. Carl pulls ahead.
“Hey, we’re outa beer,” says Malcolm, the warehouseman.
“Should be another case downstairs,” says Carl.
I fold. “I’ll get it.”
Carl studies his cards. “It’s on the shelf.”
Downstairs, I go to a shelf at the far side of the basement. The shelf is built of heavy planking, chainsaw carpentry, and extends from the hot water tank to the end of Carl’s workbench. Boxes and paint cans fill the shelf. I can’t see any beer so I begin to shift the boxes around. Nails, scraps of leather, junk. I think I see what might be a beer case on the top shelf, have to climb onto a lower shelf to see. I move a bag of steel wool out of the way. No beer, just the case, filled with more junk. I’m about to jump down when something catches my attention. At first it looks like the end of a piece of wood but then looks familiar. I pull it out. It’s an Emperador cigar box; The Largest Marketed Cigar in the World.
I step down from the shelf, ponder the box, slide it open. It’s empty.
Has to be a coincidence. When I look around the basement my eye falls on Carl’s reloading press, and a shelf on the wall above, lined with cans of gunpowder. Smokeless powder. Black powder. Just another coincidence? I turn back to the shelf, slap the cigar box idly against the palm of my hand. Hendrix drifts through the floorboards, singing about castles in the sand. Carl has a muzzle-loader which takes black powder and I shake my head, remember what Rachet told me. Maybe I am getting paranoid. I should put the box back. Behind me, the stairs creak.
“That was a hell of a cigar,” says Carl. “Took me a week to smoke it.”
I look at the box, feel like a thief.
“You find the beer?” he asks.
“No.”
Carl looks around. “I thought it was on the shelf. Or maybe I put it in the root cellar.” He opens a narrow door, pulls a string hanging from a bulb. Carl is the only guy I know who has a root cellar. We had one on the farm when I was growing up. But we also had a wringer washer and you could buy half a dozen bags of potato chips for a dollar. The beer is next to a hundred pound sack of potatoes. “Here we are.”
I’m still holding the cigar box. “Carl, where’d you get this?”
“Christmas present,” he says. “Guy I met in Mexico sent it up.”
A reasonable explanation. Carl hands me the beer. “What’s the matter, Porter?”
I shake my head, set the box on the workbench. “Nothing. Let’s play cards.”
Upstairs, we receive a round of applause. Out west, a hero is the guy who finds the last case of beer. Runner-up is the guy who passes out first. I’m feeling just good enough that if I don’t watch myself I’m in danger of capturing both titles. Ross McPherson, an old cowboy with a sweat-stained hat and kerchief around his neck, deals us back in. It’s only nickel and dime stuff but an hour later I’ve lost 20 bucks which to me is still a lot of money. The phone rings for a long time before someone answers — they probably figure the antique wall phone is just a gag. It’s for me, which is just as well because the boys are tired of playing for pocket change and the paper is coming out. I grab the phone, lean against a big old grandfather clock; Carl’s only stationary timepiece.
“Hello?”
“Hey Porter, it’s Bill. You sound kinda faint —”
I look at the antique wall phone. “I’m in a different time zone.”
“What’s that noise. Are you staying in a bar?”
“We’re playing poker. You should come on down.”
A short chuckle. “Sure, I’ll crank up the plane. Be right there.”
I’m overcome by a sudden nostalgia and want Bill to join us. We had some good poker games over the last two years. But it’s a three-hour drive and by then the beer will be gone, someone will have won all the money and will have to run for his life. It’ll be funny, watching someone run with 20 pounds of change.
“You still there Porter?”
“What?” My mind is wandering. Look out for a little grey squishy thing.
“I got the results back on that metal. Had to send it to a place in the States.”
“Oh yeah? Who won a medal?”
A sigh. “The metal, Porter. You remember, the piece you gave me?”
It takes a moment to realize what Bill is talking about. “Oh right. Let me guess, it was seismic dynamite with traces of barium phosphate or sulphate or something like that.”
There’s a pause. Bill must be wondering how I know.
“No, Porter. It was c4.”
“What?”
“c4, Porter. They found traces of rdx and microcratering.”
“Use English, Bill.”
“Microcraters are tiny little craters in the metal formed by extreme heat and force. You only get that with high explosives, not with dynamite. rdx stands for Research Development Explosive. It’s a military term. You can’t get this stuff at the corner store. You either steal it from the military, or you buy it on the black market.”
There’s a burst of laughter from the card table. I watch McPherson slap Kermicki on the back, pull a pile of bills home to papa. I’m sobering fast, trying to make sense of what Bill is saying — two different types of explosive, one more powerful than the other.
Bill’s voice cuts in like a loud speaker. “You still there buddy?”
“I’m here.”
“They said the sample had to come from pretty close to the centre of the blast.”
There’s more noise from the card table as Kermicki argues with McPherson, trying to get his money back. Kermicki’s having a hard time getting the words out; he sounds like an old record at half speed. McPherson is grinning.
“So what are we talking about here Bill? What sort of expertise do you need to use this stuff?”
“Any halfwit can wire up a bomb. The ones that are no good at it don’t last long — there’s a fairly quick process of natural selection at work here — but who ever did this had access to c4.So why use this kind of shit when there are a hundred other more accessible explosives? You could just toss in a few sticks of dynamite. Or even easier, mix up something in your garage; a little nitrogen fertilizer and diesel.”
“You think this was a professional job?”
“Think about it for a minute —” Bill has music on in the background; Holly Cole singing about a one-trick pony. That pony is having more luck than me lately. “Those machines were down for what? A half-hour? The guy got in during a pretty small window and managed to hit multiple targets. That takes timing Porter, and surveillance. This wasn’t spur of the moment and it wasn’t some kid with a pipe bomb. I’d say you’re dealing with a career-minded individual here.”
Six feet away, the alcoholic ante has just gone up — Malcolm has a bottle of vodka, Silent Sam — it’s about the only thing silent around here. Hanlon rummages in the fridge for mix, trapping me in the corner with the fridge door. He sounds like a hungry bear going through a camper’s icebox. My experience with Carl’s fridge leads me to believe he will emerge disappointed. “You have any sort of database of people that might be able to do this Bill? Anything you could look up?”
There’s a reluctant sigh on the other end of the line. I can picture Bill running his hand through his hair. “I can run a profile through cpic but it would be pretty general, so I don’t think that would help much. And it’s not like I have an open conduit there either. I’m not an active member anymore.”
Hanlon has resorted to squeezing the juice out of an orange. It’s not a pretty sight.
“What about military records?”
“That’s a whole other universe, Porter. They’re not exactly thrilled to lay open their database to outsiders, even law enforcement. I know a guy that might be able to help if I ask real nice. But I don’t want to bother him unless we know what we’re looking for.”
I close the fridge door before anything gets out. “Any suggestions?”
“None that you’d like. What was it you said earlier about seismic dynamite?”
“That’s what the Lorax has been using. Up until now.”
There’s a pause. Holly Cole has moved onto “Romantically Helpless” — my personal theme song. Carl is motioning me over to rejoin the festivities. He’s got two shot glasses in his hands with a red liquid that looks suspiciously like vodka and food colouring. I hold up my hand — give me five minutes. “You know, Porter,” Bill says, “that’s a little unusual, changing his mo like that. Which could mean several things. We could be talking copycat. Or he’s upgraded, accessed some new product. Or maybe it’s just some nut from down south, practising. The operations in the U.S. have been hit enough they’re becoming cautious. Hunting here might be a little easier.”
“You’d think people here would be cautious enough after the other Lorax attacks.”
“Yeah, you’d think.” Bill sounds tired now. “But who knows. All those attacks, then nothing for years. They probably thought he’d gone away.”
“We should be so lucky.”
There’s a pause filled with static.
“Would it do any good to tell you to back away from this?” Bill asks.
“I doubt it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. But thanks. I owe you one.”
“More than one, Porter. So be careful. I intend to collect.”
I stop drinking after I hang up the phone, turn down Carl’s experimental shooters, wait for my head to clear. The game continues on its predictable trajectory. Kermicki charges straight into the vodka, gets louder and drunker. Ross McPherson, the only real gambler, wins all the money. By general consent, we stop playing at about midnight. Carl stands, begins to collect the dead soldiers, tosses them at a recycle box. Good thing they’re cans, not bottles.
“Good time,” says Hanlon. “Let’s do it again next week.”
“Count me in,” says McPherson, pocketing our money.
“Aw shit,” says Kermicki. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Go outside before you puke,” says Carl.
There are a few grunted goodbyes and then it’s just Carl and me, straightening up. We clean off the table, push it back against the wall. There’s a beer spill on the floor where Kermicki sat, like a bloodstain at a murder scene. Carl goes for a mop, moving in slow motion, using the walls for support. He changes his mind, sits on a chair in the middle of the kitchen. His eyes are puffy — he’s exhausted but like most drunks refuses to give in. “We should go to the bar,” he mumbles, staring at the floor. “The night is young.”
Younger than us. I’m not 18 anymore. “We have to work tomorrow.”
“Screw that,” says Carl. “— just a waste of time.”
I find the mop, clean up the spill. Carl lifts his feet out of the way like we’re playing Simon Says but has a hard time keeping them up. He kicks at the mop. “Come on Porter. What are you doing, cleaning at this time of night? Let’s go party, like the
old days. You remember the way we used to party.”
“I remember,” I say. “That was too much work.”
Carl snuffles at some memory. “Who was on the phone?” he asks sleepily.
“Bill Star,” I tell him. “You remember Bill —”
But Carl is snoring, slumped forward on the chair, his legs splayed out. I leave him like that, put away the mop. Outside, Kermicki is puking in a hedge, his wide back lit by the porch light, making sounds like a sump pump in reverse. Thank God I’m not eighteen anymore.
There’s no moon tonight; streetlights are the only sign of life. I need to go for a walk, think and clear my head. But I’m tired. I’ll just go a few blocks, let the tension and noise of the evening disperse. Before I know it, I’m across town, staring down the highway. The last streetlight looks like the end of the world; I go past there I’m liable to fall off. I linger, not ready to return to Carl’s little house and the hard, empty bed in his spare room. It’s comfortably cool out here and I feel a bit better, decide to keep walking, pretend I don’t know where I’m going.
A narrow side street along the river leads to the rv park. Away from the streetlights it’s so dark I sense rather than see the road, use a gap in the trees to navigate. Gravel crunches underfoot and I smell damp rock and vegetation along the river. Motorhomes are faint white rectangles like relics from some lost civilization. I walk faster, looking forward to seeing her more than I want to admit. But when I find her stall the Bug is gone, her motorhome locked up tight. Disappointed, I sit in a plastic lawn chair, listen to night sounds, let the last of the drink clear my head.
I wonder where she is, hoping she’ll come back.
I wonder if she misses me.
I walk back into town, watch stars bob past pointed tree tops. Research Development Explosive. Seismic gel. Two different types of explosive, one more powerful than the other. Why start bombing again after a three-year break? Is the c4 an escalation of the Lorax’s technique? Or, as Bill suggested, was it a copycat who killed Ronald Hess? A professional?
Who would have the most to gain? Is gain even a consideration?
I’m in a dim alley behind a Chinese restaurant. Streetlights cast long craggy shadows. Maybe the bomber is a follower of the Lorax who’s frustrated the bombings stopped. Maybe it’s more than that and Hess’s death wasn’t accidental — the Lorax nothing more than a convenient scapegoat. It would be easy to dump a body in an idle machine, toss in some high explosive, spraypaint a calling card on a nearby tree. Easy, but when the police begin to look more closely, the killer gets nervous, decides he needs a Lorax, picks Petrovich, a single guy with a criminal record, known to have used dynamite. That would explain the second, incriminating resumé. But it wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny — Rachet already knows it’s not Petrovich. So why go through the effort, only to yank the resumé?
Maybe the killer had second thoughts, knew it wouldn’t work.
I’m behind some building, a furniture store judging by the size of the empty boxes stacked by the door. Modern folk art waltzes across the back wall. Maybe I’m getting old but the scribbles don’t make sense. We used to write useful credos like “Clapton is God” and “Cream Rules.” This stuff is just cryptic. But then again, so is my theory. Why bother with such a weak frame when up until now they haven’t been able to catch the real Lorax?
From a distance come the sounds of an argument, voices rising and dropping. I’m staring at the scribbles on the wall, wondering why someone bothered painting graffiti no one can read, when it comes to me.
It’s not the message that’s important, it’s the fact that it’s there.