The Man Game (37 page)

Dunbar decided to follow the recommendation, though he knew where it would take him. The po-lice's tone of voice said it all. A cat house. But he
did
need rest, and this Peggy woman might know of a vacant room, if not one to spare herself. He was a married man in a difficult situation with no alternative.

It was an eventful night. Besides the po-lice apprehension of the Indian who earlier in the day had put an axe in a Whiteman's shoulder right there in the middle of Hornby Street, there was a man game.

Across the logs from the Hudson's Bay store's construction site, hidden from plain sight, Molly whispered to her men: Don't think a them as people. In the circus, tightrope walkers and acrobats, have you seen them? There is the rope and there is the net. Tonight you have a safety net. The net is there for the acrobats to use, learn with. The people will be your net tonight, and you can use them. Kumtuks? Don't be afraid to take the risks, she said. The people will catch you if you fall. Do you understand? Pisk?

Pisk was exercising his top half, shoulders and arms especially, doing windmills and rolls in repetitions of ten. You bet, he said.

Litz paid attention, sitting on a mouldy log, worrying his ankle in his opposite hand. She was so beautiful. He said: Do you mean I can fall at the crowd?

Pisk laughed at him and scratched his belly, but Molly said: That's what I mean exactly. I mean trust the safety a the crowd. Take risks. Trust the crowd to catch you, yes. They are not an audience, they are a soft fall. You are warriors now. Impress them, scare them.

Wish you could be there to cheer us on, said Litz, remembering Clough's words to him only a few weeks ago as they'd watched her dance the year out.

This isn't rehearsal, she said. I can't be there. There's simply too many men. We have work to do before a lady can be present for the man game. Then she clasped the slabs of their hands in her own, as best she could, to say: We've made something no one has ever seen before. You know why people come to see you play? Because they want to be you, but they can't. No one can. You're the first.

She waved goodbye, and was quickly out of sight. They listened to her footsteps recede and then regained their composure. Part of her mystery was the sad milky features of her face. Each of her eyes was the lens of a microscope searching for the fundamentals, which resided deep within her.

When Litz saw from high up in his hidden vantage point that a huge crowd had formed, what most unnerved him were those associates of Furry & Daggett. There were a lot of them in attendance. They'd chosen this place for good reasons. The Hudson's Bay construction site was a significant piece of neutral, remote, and familiar ground. It had never been logged by either Litz and Pisk or Furry & Daggett. Nevertheless, he espied at least a few of the men from F&D's crew in the crowd tonight, and that was what he reported to Pisk on the ground. He said: What a you want to do?

Pisk thought about the question as Litz slowly climbed down from the heights. Unfortunately, since Molly had left them alone for their final preparations, he couldn't ask her. He attempted to crack his knuckles, and then tried his neck. His shoulders and ribcage wouldn't crack. Nothing cracked until he got to an esoteric divot in his lower back where a miraculously huge pop released countless tensions, beginning
in his hips, thighs, the cartilage in his knees, and then hotly ascending into his whole chest, throat, and skulldome.

Litz swung and dropped to the ground, dusted himself as he got up. What a you think we should do?

We do what Molly told us. We use the crowd. We impress them. There's none like us in the motherfucking world.

Litz was motivated by her cursing tongue, shivering in the forest without a stitch on, and about to do a backflip into a crowd of enemies, because he was in love with her.

If the po-lice hadn't pre-emptively subdued him senseless, the Indian knew in his heart he'd have the strength to bend wide the bars separating his little jail cell from his neighbour's. He would climb through and strangle to death Miguel Calderón, the Mexican who sold him the whisky that blinded him to the fact that a Whitemans had been raping his wife every morning for six weeks while he lay in his own pee in an alley, scared, humiliated, angry, and most of all, a fool. But he was exhausted, beat up. He could see the Mexican with only one eye, but that was more than enough.

Miguel Calderón put his head in his hands and scratched his hair.

The po-lice came over and stood in front of the cells and squeaked his ear. Look, boys, I don't know. But maybe you
do
know. This is tough shit. We have a way a handling matters such as, you know, murder. He rubbed his moustache, said: Miguel, we try to help make your life easier, let you port the bar around … but serving drinks to Indians … the law don't stretch much … that's more illegal than portability.

I know, I know. Ah, if only—

When a man commits a crime, said the po-lice, he got two choices. He turned his attention to the Indian's cell: When a man commits a
murder
, he already made his choice. His choice is death. Around here, when you commit murder
we put you to death by hanging. Do you kumtuks, buddy?

The Indian nodded, said: I—

Okay then, said the po-lice. That matter will be taken care a tomorrow. In the morning you meet the judge and once we get our gallows built, we hang you … We'll put you to death by hanging. He thumbed his belt. Now, when a man commits a crime …

Miguel Calderón raised his eyes.

A crime such as selling whisky to a Siwash. Then a man has three choices. He can either serve his sentence in this cell here. Thirty days. Or, he pays the fine.

How much? said Calderón.

Twenty dollars.

Wa, might as well be hundred dollars, ah, if only—sir, the mugger got me today. I no money. The mugger.

He eludes us, buddy. That mugger's a fast one, a real fast snake. I sympathize, I do. In 'at case, you got the third choice. You take him up the plank. And you hang him. Do that and it completes your sentence. Means you get out today and we see you again when the gallows is done. We been so busy with everything we haven't time to … anyway. The po-lice crossed his arms over his chest. What a you choose, buddy?

If only I know, Miguel Calderón said, holding his face in his hands. If someone tell me … I never …

Sir, said the Indian in one last vain attempt to save his life. Whitemans rape my wife, thirty-seven days.

I know, buddy, said the po-lice to the Indian. You said that before. I never doubted you. He gripped the bars of the Indian's cell. But when you killed the bastard in broad daylight with all them peoples staring at you, that is when you made
your
decision. What are we left to do? I sympathize with you. I do. But you wrote this yourself.

NINE

Develop the dragon spirit; establish a dragon culture.

–
THE BLACK DRAGON

The Erwagens weren't the only couple in Vancouver society hosting an unwanted guest. The week before Toronto brought Dunbar to town he'd brought the snakehead from San Francisco. His business here was unknown to Toronto, and frankly, he didn't want to know. The snakehead settled quickly into Chinatown and set all its residents' nerves on edge. The hustle of money quickened. The fan tans worked their boys hard on the streets, speeding the lotteries and doubling the sales of opium. The laundries and tofu shops all became engrossed in criminality. The snakehead, jewelled as he was by bullets, weapons, gold teeth, and greasy hair, walked the boardwalks at night with his head held high and his moustache antennae sensing fear wherever he went. The Chinamen were almost all indebted to this man who'd financed their transportation from the backwaters of China to this coast, where they were required to work off their debts at half the wage of a Whiteman. They took the jobs the Whitemen preferred not to, clearing stumps and slash off construction sites and working in perilous stone quarries, in the baddest bowels of the least safe coal mines, and in the Hastings Mill next to the sharpest blades. Clearing land earned them thirty cents to the dollar, hardly enough to live on, to say nothing of what they owed. The po-lice were aware that the San Francisco snakehead was in town, and, intimidated by his many connections to both the underworld and capitalist society, kept away from Chinatown while he visited. He tunnelled through town, searching for
debtors who eluded him. His perceived immunity allowed him to act without discretion. He pistolwhipped drunks and addicts and stole their belongings.

RH Alexander was obliged to invite the Chinaman to his house for tea. As manager of the mill, Alexander couldn't resist the financial rewards of a coolie labour force. In hiring coolies, he saw a mutually beneficial plan, even if it sometimes required that he make alliances with gentlemen whose social standing wasn't equal to his own. If a snakehead believed he was a nobleman and saw no difference between his riches and Alexander's, so be it; it was not necessary for Alexander to prove the snakehead wrong. He also wanted to be given a personal tour of the big new construction site his indentured servants had been hired to clear for the big Hudson's Bay department store on the old Granville logging road.

Almost a week went by before the snakehead heard anything from Alexander, and during that whole time the city was in a state of panic, or so it seemed to RH. No one looked him in the eye for six days. The streets, usually busy but not brisk, were in a frenzy of activity. Men screamed and cracked their whips, sending ox carts loaded with goods back and forth down Water Street in the mud. The billiards rooms were empty. The bars were scarcely populated, and those who did drink were of sullen mien, worried gents with the forlorn look of the damned. The Asiatics kept to Chinatown's streets and sprinted from door to door, never stopping to talk to one another save for the occasional cry of strange and speedy polysyllabics. Business at the Calabi & Yau Bakeshoppe ground to a halt: no one wanted to alert the snakehead to the sublimely sweet pastries, fearing that some ill might befall them. No one wanted to draw attention to the sacred oven. For six days Alexander avoided his duty to the snakehead. Then on Saturday his supply of opium ran out. Now he needed to make a call to Chinatown. There was no way around that. He knew it would lead to an encounter with the San Francisco snakehead, so he cleared some time on Sunday and, along with the request for a tin, promised the Chinaman a visit to his very home.

That morning RH awoke and gazed out the bedroom window with fear. It felt as if everything was compressed into this single morning, and that the reflection of the mountains on the inlet told his life story all at once. What a terror to lose sight of alternatives. It was a beautiful morning.

Darling, he said. Over the misty-lipped water of Coal Harbour a single duck flew just above the crests of the shore, rumpling the fog. Across the water, the dark green limbs of the cedars grew as thick as wolf hair up the pack of mountains that blocked the city from Alaska frost and kept their mirrors warm. The greenish-black smog hanging loose from the brick smokestacks at Hastings Mill. The whole scene filled him with dread.