Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery (3 page)

Three

Coffee and Donuts

Dan’s heart pounded beneath the sheet. The phone was halfway through the second ring. The caller ID strip glowed green:
bell payphone — 3:34 am
. It might be Bill calling to say he’d finished his shift, though he usually crawled off to his own place and didn’t bother to call — if he even thought of Dan when he left work. Then too, Bill had a cell phone.

Dan cleared his throat and picked up, but the answering machine got there first. A dial tone hung in the air. He stared through the blackness at the receiver. “If you’re going to wake me up, you could at least identify yourself so I’ll know who to be pissed off at tomorrow.”

He smacked the phone down. Anyone in trouble would have left a message. Kendra certainly, and Ked was asleep in the next room, so it couldn’t have been anything to do with either of them. But you’d have to be desperate to phone at that hour. His heart was still doing a jazz number.

His thoughts returned to Bill. He might’ve been arrested with drugs in his pocket at some after-hours club. Once he’d been stopped while driving on the verge of being impaired, but it turned out he’d operated on the cop’s mother and got off with a warning. Bill was lucky that way. What if he’d been in an accident? Dan tried not to think about it. In another minute he’d have himself convinced Bill was somewhere out there, hurt or in trouble, and that Dan had failed to be there for him.

He rolled onto his back and stared at the darkness. Anonymous calls pissed him off. He might lie awake for hours wondering who it was. Part of him liked to think Bill would call to say he wanted to come over, screw the late hour. Even with Ked at home, Dan would’ve agreed. But that never happened. Bill didn’t sleep at other peoples’ houses.

He tried to drop back to sleep, but with no luck. Sometimes he dreamed of Bill and woke up arguing aloud. They were usually on a train in a foreign city — London, New York, once Miami — headed somewhere that mattered to Dan, but never to Bill. Dan would try to impress on Bill the importance of the trip, but without success. The dreams always ended in confusion, with missed connections, lost tickets, and dashed hopes for arriving wherever they were heading.

Dan’s therapist encouraged him to explore how he felt. It didn’t take a shrink to tell him all the signs of a heavily flawed relationship were apparent in waking life, never mind in la-la-land when he was asleep. Even intelligent people let themselves be deluded by their emotions.

Bill seemed incapable of affection, elusive and ambivalent about his feelings. Commitment-phobe didn’t cover it. He’d make dates and cancel at the last minute. He had excuses — work commitments, family obligations, social networking. Despite the fact they’d been dating a year, they never seemed to get closer. When pressed, Dan found it hard to point to anything meaningful between them. In all that time, he’d met only a handful of Bill’s closest friends and not one family member.

“We’re not close,” Bill had said of his four brothers and two sisters.

In this case, “not close” meant sporadic telephone conversations with his siblings, and infrequent family gatherings of unstated intent. Dan was never invited. At least not by Bill. Even Christmas seemed a duty, though not one Bill felt required a spouse. When Dan pressed him, Bill would shrug and say it wasn’t important, shutting down the conversation.

To Dan, the ideal relationship was an easy-going fusion of personalities that allowed both partners to remain healthily independent while knowing each could depend on the other. A state in which late night phone calls were a cause for joy, not alarm, and trust was a matter of course rather than fantasy. Bill was a constant challenge to that goal.

And then there was the small matter of Kedrick. Dan’s dates were impressed to learn he was a father, but he sensed their wariness, as though it meant he was already taken. They seemed to doubt he could divide his loyalty between his son and a partner. Maybe they were right — part of him would always be devoted to Kedrick, no matter who came into his life. But Bill didn’t demand Dan’s loyalty so much as his physical availability. In that, at least, he was easy to please.

It was Donny who’d dubbed Bill the “heartless heart doctor.” “It’s ironic,” he said, “but that man has no feelings for anyone but himself.”

They’d been sitting in Timothy’s Coffee on Church Street, adrift in a minor sea of T-shirts and denim. Donny had just come from work. He was dressed impeccably in a white button-down shirt, Gucci tie, and black Oxfords — Will Smith behind the perfume counter at Holt Renfrew.

He thrummed a finger in Dan’s face. “That man is a self-centred egotist. He expects you to come running when he’s free and complains if you won’t. On the other hand, he doesn’t return your calls for days and whines if you mention it. Where’s the equality?”

“He’s a busy man.” Dan turned to watch the traffic outside the window. “He’s dedicated to his work. It’s not unusual for him to spend fifteen or sixteen hours at the hospital, even when he’s only scheduled for twelve.”

Donny hung on noisily and tiresomely like a dog with a chewy toy. “He could still call to let you know. It’s not as if you’re chopped liver. You’re a heavy hitter in your department, too.”

“He saves lives. He can’t just tell people to come back later.”

“Excuse me?” Donny said in that haughty, offended-minority tone he used to give himself the edge in an argument. “And what exactly is it you do?”

Dan’s eyes flickered over to the line-up at the counter, where curious faces had turned to take in their conversation. His voice lowered. “I find people who don’t want to be found and I return them to places they don’t want to be returned to, for reasons that are usually none of my business.”

“Fuck you!” Donny said. “Fuck you, you self-loathing faggot!”

He jostled the table and sent coffee spilling from the cups and sluicing over the tabletop. Next to them, an older man with sunken cheeks leaned in sympathetically and offered a stack of napkins.

“Thanks,” Donny said, dabbing ineffectually at the mess. He turned back to Dan. “All I’m saying is, you save lives too. Why is your job less important than his?”

“Stop it,” Dan said. He didn’t bother to pretend to be offended. “I never said my job is less important — it’s just more flexible.”

Dan hated arguing. Donny always managed to sound right, even when he wasn’t, and he had the energy to back it up. But in this case he had a point. Dan may have been a pro at what he did, but somehow he felt like a fraud.

The telephone’s anxious ring jarred him, putting Donny and his stained napkins on pause. The ID strip showed a private number now, but there was still no name. It seemed to be his night for anonymous calls. Dan grabbed it before the caller could change his mind again.

“Dan Sharp.”

A whispery silence greeted him.

“This is Dan Sharp. Who is this?”

“It’s Steve — Steve Jenkins.” The voice carried a flatness that made it all but unrecognisable.

Dan’s mind bounced around trying to find something familiar in the tone and in light of the unusual circumstances. His former next-door neighbour shouldn’t be calling at four in the morning.

Dan’s voice softened. “Steve. Did you call half an hour ago from a payphone?”

“Yes. I’m — I’m sorry about the time.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure. Could I … could I talk to you?”

Dan threw off the sheets and sat up, his training kicking in like a decathlete approaching the stadium. “Of course. Where are you?”

“I’m in an apartment near Donlands and Danforth.”

Dan squinted at the caller ID and read off the number. “Is this the number you’re calling from, Steve?”

“I think so. I’d really like to get out of here, though.” His words sounded in a slurred monotone.

“Are you on any medications, Steve?”

“Um, no — yeah. I took a tranquillizer, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.”

“How many?”

“Pardon?”

“How many did you take?”

A pause. “Just one. I’m pretty sure.”

“Okay, we can get you out of there. Can you walk? Are you all right — physically, I mean?”

“Yes. I’m okay.”

“Do you know the Coffee Time Donuts on the southwest corner of Jones and Danforth?”

“Yes. I’m a block away from there.”

“Can you manage to get there? I can be there in five minutes.”

“Okay — yeah. Thanks. I really appreciate it, Dan.”

Dan arrived with Ked in tow. The shop was garish at that hour. Table surfaces reflected the glare of nighttime windows. Fluorescent fixtures lit up over-sized posters for coffee and bagels, making the racked donuts glow with a blue tinge. Coloured sprinkles and powdered sugar vied with sticky glazes for counter appeal, finding none. A sleepy-looking employee roused himself and approached the register, his hair weirdly illuminated by the light.

“Good morning,” Dan said as cheerily as he could manage.

The boy mumbled a few words that vaguely resembled English. Whatever the intended meaning, the sentiment was clearly not welcoming. He wiped his hands on an apron that looked like it had done time in an abattoir. Dan ordered three donuts and a cardboard container of milk for Ked, who looked at him strangely.

Dan frowned. “What? It’s good for you.”

Ked rolled his eyes. He picked up the tray and went off to a table in a far corner, slouching into the seat.

Dan looked around. One table over, an old Asian man picked at the crumbs on his plate. Or someone’s plate. At the far end of the shop, a serious young woman in a beret conferred in quiet tones with a man in a thirties-style suit. Bonnie and Clyde in an idle moment. Dan and Ked were the only other customers. In the daytime, the place bustled with immigrants who didn’t share the North American disdain for cheap coffee and lacquered tables. At this hour it looked more like an Edward Hopper study for the lost, the lonely, and the rebellious.

Steve came through the door and stood blinking in the light. Whatever he’d undergone in the four months since leaving Glenda, it didn’t look good on him. A cup of tea might have served him in good stead. Dan could have gone for something with a bit more bite.

Ked waved at Steve and turned back to his Game Boy. Steve mumbled an elaboration of his apology for calling so late. Dan let him ramble on about the break-up with Glenda. Steve’s hands fidgeted as he related the events that had brought him to his current state. He seemed to be rehashing things to find their meaning or else to locate himself in time, as though he’d gotten lost a few months back.

A moment of silence passed. His tale seemed to have run its course. Steve’s hands relaxed as his eyes took on a vacant stare.

“I’m sorry for what you’re going through,” Dan said. “Is there something I can do to help?”

Steve blinked. “I just thought … I better talk to someone. You were the only one who came to mind. I mean, apart from those pathetic help lines you hear about.” He smiled weakly.

At least he hasn’t lost it completely,
Dan thought. They’d always been friendly, sharing day-to-day concerns across the adjoining fence, but Dan never assumed he and Steve were anything more than neighbours. Over the past year, Steve had brought news of his ongoing arguments with Glenda in what would eventually become a lasting break-up. At the time it felt like simple domestic griping, one man to another. To Steve it had obviously meant more.

“Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, I used to look over and see the light in your study. That’s why I remembered you stayed up late.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. I just wanted to talk to someone.”

Dan tried for a reassuring tone. “It’s all right. I’m glad you called. But I think there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? Talk can always wait till the morning. Something happened tonight, didn’t it?”

Steve’s face twisted in an odd half-smile. “What do you mean?”

Dan leaned closer. “I think you were afraid of yourself. Afraid you might do something. You reached some sort of breaking point tonight, didn’t you?”

Steve’s lip trembled. A tear splashed onto the table. “Does she want me to kill myself? Why won’t she even talk to me?”

Dan put a hand on Steve’s forearm. “It’s okay.”

“I did everything for her. Why wasn’t she happy?”

In the corner of his vision, Dan saw the old man wander over to another table and start on the crumbs there. He signalled to Ked to give the guy a donut.

Steve shuddered. “I know why,” he said at last. “Because she doesn’t need me any more. She used to need me. When we were in college together we were terrified of the future. We lived in this one-room dump. We used to cling to each other every night, saying how awful life was. We really needed each other then.”

“Then what happened?” Dan said.

“I don’t know. Life was getting better. Things were getting easier. Or I thought they were. I worked hard to give her everything she wanted. Then one day she asked me to leave. She said it wasn’t working for her. All this time I thought we were happy....” His voice broke on the final syllable. He reached for a napkin and swiped at his eyes. “I gave her the house. Did she tell you?”

“She asked you to leave and you told her she could have the house?”

Steve nodded.

“And she took it?” Dan asked, incredulous.

Steve nodded again.
Of course she damn well took it,
Dan thought.

“I just ...” Steve shuddered. “I just want her to be happy.”

She
is
happy,
Dan thought.
Now that you’re out of her life
. He envisioned Glenda raking leaves in her cocktail outfit, just one of a million reasons why he hated the city. Toronto had changed in the years he’d lived there. When had the horrible, selfish hordes moved in and taken over? He thought of the sour contempt with which his fellow citizens viewed the rest of the country, the smug satisfaction they exhibited over their meagre little domain. His neighbour on the other side was no better: a patronizing boor who treated his wife like a piece of real estate, interrupting her whenever she spoke, which was seldom, and raising his voice through the roof the moment he set foot in the door. In the warm weather you could hear him talking non-stop, morning to night. He spoke to Dan with half-disguised contempt, as though he were only being nice to the queer-next-door for form’s sake. On the other hand, guys like Steve were a little too nice. “Is there any chance you could —?”