'You could hire one, with that kind of money,' Bill the cop said.
Maynard rubbed at his chin. 'So we'd be taking on the Mafia, the Triads . . .
and
the police?'
'Yup.'
'And you're suggesting we . . . y'know, use
guns
and all?'
'Yes, Maynard, I certainly am.'
'Against the Mafia
and
the police?'
Stirling rubbed at his brow and looked at Morton for support. Morton gave a little shrug. Madeline was staring at the floor.
'I never said it was going to be easy,' Stirling said. He opened his hands to them. 'I won't hold it against any of you if you don't want to help out. I'll leave that to your conscience. But I want you to consider two things. One, what would you do if your wife or sister or son or daughter got murdered, and you couldn't do anything about it because they had enough money to buy off the cops? And two, we're all just ordinary guys living up here, and life is pretty easy. Sure we could just sit here and let all these gangsters waltz about town like they owned it, but wouldn't you just love to stand up to them and say, "Not in my town, mister." To take them on, beat them at their own game? Didn't you see
High Noon
? Didn't you feel sorry for Will Kane, getting no support from the townsfolk?'
'Mark,' the guy from the House of Frankenstein said, 'I kinda identified with the townsfolk.'
'I'm keen to help out . . .' the pharmacist said, 'but, the Mafia? Don't they take, y'know, contracts out on people . . . ?'
'You gonna put the whole town in a witness-protection programme?' a guy at the back shouted. 'Give us all new identities? We like it
here.'
'We're not exactly the fuckin' A Team.'
'I ain't fired a gun since I was sixteen. And I shot myself in the foot then.'
'I missed my fuckin' foot, that's how bad a shot I was, tried to escape the draft.'
'There was no fuckin' draft in Canada, Bob.'
'That's how fuckin' stupid I was.'
There was laughter all round. And then it died out and they looked at Stirling and Morton and shifted, embarrassed, in their seats.
Stirling tried one last time. 'I know you all have families. I know that this will be traumatic. But when you're seventy . . .'
'I
am
seventy . . .'
'Yes, Paddy, I know . . .'
'Still spell my own name . . .'
'Yes, Paddy, but say when you're eighty, and you
can't
spell your own name, when your grandkids ask you what you did when the people of Niagara rose up against the bad guys, what're you going to tell them?'
'Probably won't recognize them. Haw, haw, haw.'
Stirling massaged his forehead again. 'I've told you everything I know, and I'm asking for your help. It's up to you now. All I can ask is that if you feel you can't do it, well no hard feelings, but promise me you won't tell anyone what you've heard here today. Not even your wives.
Especially
your wives.'
They giggled at that.
'If you're gonna help, raise your hand.'
Bill, one of the cops, raised his hand. Then the seventy-year-old. Then Maynard.
That was it.
'OK,' Stirling said, 'thanks for coming. And remember, not a peep.'
Disappointment was etched on his face. Morton felt bad for him. He'd presumed. He'd expected. He'd been let down. The crowd stood awkwardly, then began to move out of the store room. Stirling's jaw remained firm and his smile fixed, and he shook a lot of hands as they filed out, avoiding his eyes, mumbling excuses as they passed.
As their footsteps faded, Morton nodded at each of the remaining volunteers. All three of them. Add in Corrigan, Stirling, Madeline and himself. He took a deep breath, then clapped his hands together and forced a smile. 'OK,' he said, 'looks like it's all down to the Magnificent Seven.'
Corrigan woke with a start in the middle of the night. There was a hand on his brow and a soothing voice, with a hint of the East. 'There now, it's OK. It's
OK.'
It took him several moments to calm down. It had been a dream, a nightmare, the creature, like a dragon, rising out of the water to devour him.
He blinked about him. There were two beds. There was a bedside light throwing a weak light about the room. The curtains were open and a brighter light came in off the moon. He was soaked in sweat. He did not feel
right,
and it wasn't just the arm.
She
was there, patting him down with a towel. He was wearing nothing but his underpants. He stopped her hand, pressed it against the towel against his chest and said: 'I'm OK.'
She smiled, unsure of him.
'Have I been . . . ?'
'A few hours. You're very hot. You should go to a hospital.'
'I'm OK. Where's Pongo?'
She shrugged. 'I think he left. They're not interested in him. They're interested in me.'
He still had hold of her hand. He looked into her eyes and said: 'And who are you?'
She looked away. 'I am whoever they want me to be.'
'They?'
'Whoever pays the money.'
'I don't understand.'
'I am prostitute. I suck cocks.' She took her hand away, but did not leave his side. She had the sad face of a beautiful woman forced to make her living giving blow-jobs to fat single guys and thin married men in seedy motels up and down Niagara's main strip.
'As a matter of interest,' Corrigan said, 'how much do you charge?'
'What? For blow-job? Seventy bucks.'
'Isn't that . . . expensive?'
'You pay for quality.'
'Seventy bucks, huh?'
She looked at him, and he was suddenly all flustered and avoiding her eyes. She smiled but he didn't see it. 'You know,' she said, 'I think you are a nice man.'
He smiled sadly at her. 'Do you remember me?' he asked. 'From before?'
She nodded slowly, and for a moment he thought she might be thinking about her Indian village, but she said, 'The women's refuge.'
'What do you remember?'
'How I got there?' She shrugged. 'I suppose Popov hit me and. . .'
'What is he . . . your pimp?'
'No . . . yes. He is my husband. And my pimp.'
'Oh.' Corrigan pulled the quilt up around him. He shivered.
'But I think maybe I will get a divorce. Throwing your wife into the Niagara and making her suck cocks for a living is not what I had planned when I came to live here.'
'What did you want to be?'
'I wanted to be an actress. I still do.'
'I'm sure you will be, one day.'
'Thank you. I hope to act with the great David Hasselhoff.
Knight Rider
and
Bay Watch Nights.
In California,' she said, 'such dreams come true.'
He nodded thoughtfully for some moments. An actress. Of course.
'What about Pongo?' he asked.
'What about him?'
'You're having an affair with him.'
'No, I'm having sex with him.'
'Isn't it the same thing?'
'No. He pays me money, I have sex with him.'
'That's all there is to it?'
'What more could there be? You've seen him.'
'I thought . . .' Corrigan sighed. His head was starting to throb now, just to keep his arm company. He closed his eyes. 'What did you think,' he said quietly, 'of what Tarriha said, about the False Faces?'
Lelewala shrugged. He
still
thought of her as Lelewala. Gretchin didn't sound right. It didn't even sound Georgian. It sounded
Sound of Music.
'When you were screaming and shouting in the women's refuge, it wasn't Iroquois you were screaming and shouting. It was Georgian or Russian or whatever your mother tongue is, wasn't it?'
She shrugged again.
'And yet, and yet you spoke about Sahonwadi. You looked at me and you spoke about Sahonwadi. How was that?'
'I don't know.'
'There was a book about Lelewala in your apartment.'
'You were in my apartment?'
'I'm a police officer. Of course I was in your apartment. As you were in mine. My wife's.'
She looked away. 'Yes. I know.'
'You didn't kill her, did you?'
'No.'
'So who did?'
She shrugged.
'You were there. You must have seen who . . .'
'I don't know!' She reared up suddenly and for a moment she was possessed of that same fiery spirit he had first encountered in the women's refuge. 'I remember the bodies! I was very afraid! I do not know . . . !'
And then just as suddenly she began to cry, and the tears extinguished the fire.
For some reason it is awkward standing and crying. It is a thing that should only be done sitting down. She slowly lowered herself back down on to the bed, her shoulders shaking and tears rolling down her pale cheeks. Corrigan pushed himself up off the pillow and put his hands on her shoulders. 'Now there's no need. . .' he began, but stopped as she moulded herself into him. She shivered. He shivered. He kissed the top of her head.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It was . . . my wife.'
'I know. I'm sorry.' She sniffled. 'But I did not kill her . . .'
'I know,' Corrigan said, though he didn't.
'I do not know . . . I do not know what is happening to me . . . I black . . . I black out. I go away. I wake up in places I do not remember.' She rocked against him. Then again she tried to pull away. 'I do not take drugs! If that is what you are thinking!'
He kept hold of her, calmed her down with soft words, although he knew she had a conviction for drugs. It didn't mean anything. He smoked dope occasionally and it didn't make him a murderer.
Or did it?
When she had relaxed again he asked softly: 'How long has this been happening?'
'Since I went in the river. That is why he scares me, the old Indian with his talk of spirits and False Faces. There is
something.
Something that takes me over. I don't want it to happen, but it does. All I want to do is go to California and act with David Hasselhoff.'
He began to rock her. Although he felt miserable, he had slept. As far as he knew she had sat up with him. Before very long she began to doze against him. He rocked on. Thinking about Aimie on a swing and Nicola on a slab.
When he was sure she was asleep, he carefully set her back on the bed and pulled the quilt up over her. He switched the bedside light off and looked down at her for several moments in the soft moonlight. She was sleeping peacefully. She was beautiful. Bonkers, clearly, but beautiful.
He needed to find a phone. He was convinced that he had blood poisoning. Not from the bullet, but from the mush Doc had pressed into his arm. He tried the door. It was locked. He tutted, although he was quite pleased that there was a door at all. He'd expected a wigwam or something vaguely
tribal
but it was a small, pleasant apartment. The window, although unshuttered, was bolted closed and locked. He pressed his face to the glass and looked out. For a moment he couldn't really make anything out, then slowly shapes began to form up in the darkness. The room was on the ground floor of a block of apartments built around a paper-strewn courtyard. There was a point of red light some distance away and for several minutes it confused him, moving about like a firefly, and then it crossed a lit window across the courtyard and he saw the outline of a man with a rifle in his hands and a cigarette in his mouth.
A guard on patrol. Corrigan waited until his circuit of the courtyard brought him past his window, then tapped the glass. After a moment's hesitation the cigarette tip moved towards him, and a face peered into the room.
It was Barry Lightfoot. When he saw that it was Corrigan he stepped back from the window and shrugged apologetically.
'Barry,' Corrigan said, cupping his hands against the glass, 'what the fuck is going on?'
'Plenty,' said Lightfoot.
'I didn't think you were into all this Indian shit.'
'I'm not. And it's not shit.'
'That doesn't make sense.'
'What does?' He looked suspiciously around him. 'I gotta go.'
'Wait. Barry. Listen. I need to get to a hospital.'
A hint of a smile appeared on the Indian's face. 'Yeah. I know. We're gonna have to get ourselves a real, qualified doctor. Doc kills more than he cures. I expect you have blood poisoning.'
'So you'll call me a . . .'
'Can't do that, Frank. Sorry. I'm sure Tarriha will call one for you in the morning if you're still with us.'
He turned away. 'Barry!'
He stopped, hesitated, then turned. 'What?'
'Tell me what's going on. My wife's dead.' He paused, then for emphasis added, 'Dead.'
'I know. I'm sorry.' And he was sorry. Big sad eyes. 'But it's nothing to do with us. We're just protecting Lelewala.'
'Protecting her from what?'
'Anything that comes along.' He walked off.
They went back to the Long House for breakfast. Ham and eggs.
There was something about the new day, bright and crisp, that imbued Corrigan with a new sense of hope, and it wasn't just because he hadn't died during the night. When he'd tried the door of the room that morning, it wasn't locked. There was no sign of Barry Lightfoot or any other guard; Indians who passed the open door as he peered out, women with children off to school, smiled and said hello.
Lelewala was still asleep. He went into the bathroom and closed the door. He carefully peeled the bandage away from his arm and examined the bullet wound. It had scabbed over during the night, but it was dry and looked clean. There was a razor sitting in a cup, so he used it. He took a shower. He wasn't thinking about anything but the heat of the water and how to tackle the world's greatest criminal conspiracy when the plastic shower curtain moved back and a naked Lelewala slipped in beside him.
He said, 'Oh,' and got an erection.
She put her arms round him and kissed him. Softly.
'Oh,' he said again. 'What was that for?'
'That was for nothing,' she said, then lowered herself to his groin. 'But this is for seventy dollars.'
He just said: 'Gosh.'
It was not a word that had previously figured in his vocabulary, but it was certainly the most appropriate. It took him several seconds to recover, seconds during which she
started.
When he stopped her, and he did, it took all the will in the world, plus some borrowed from cold and distant planets elsewhere in the galaxy.