The Weight of Stones (15 page)

Duguay said, “Tell me about it.”

“No, no, this is a new problem, my friend. Courtesy of the cop friend we've been paying for two years now.”

“Balani,” Duguay said. He shifted his weight and leaned with his back against the opposite wall. “I haven't talked to the pig in six months, maybe more.”

“He's on the biker task force now,” Bouchard said.

“That's good for us then,” Duguay said.

“You brought him in, eh?”

“I brought him in, yeah, and then he saddled up with Leroux. Two cokeheads.”

Bouchard found his own cigarettes and lit one. He smiled a little. “He's got balls, I'll give him that. Gave me a heads-up from down the line. Says there's a cop dogging a case. He's got it in his head that you killed his son. The cop's son...”

Duguay saw it before him now, the links set out. Leroux. Balani. Probably some of the others, the junior jacks waiting to be patched. Bouchard was staring down the business end of an internal cleansing here. Everything was sideways. Bouchard reached to his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded square of white note paper. He unfolded it and read, “McKelvey. Do you know this guy?”

“Never heard of him.”

Bouchard stared. “Maybe it was Leroux?” he said.

Duguay said, “He was cutting some of his own deals, Jean. I told you that six months before he fucked me over. I should've kept a better handle on him.”

“You're right, you should have,” Bouchard said, then stood and reached out to slide the piece of notepaper into the pocket of Duguay's jacket. “Anyway, this is your mess now. This cop McKelvey thinks he has a problem with
you,
he's got a problem with
us.
And I'm not going to spend thirty years in the joint because of any more fucking rats like Leroux. Understand me?”

Duguay dropped his butt, squashing it with a twist of his boot. “I'm not some kid looking to get patched here, Jean. I lost time sitting in there waiting for someone to sew Leroux's mouth shut. I'll take the hit for letting Leroux and Balani jump in bed together, but that's where my responsibility ends. Half these guys you sent me from the South Shore are crackheads, a bunch of amateurs who draw heat every time they open their goddamned mouths, bragging in the bars. I can't get set up with a bunch of losers. Not in this city. Everything's different here. The Hells own this place…”

He stared into Bouchard's black eyes, both men unblinking. Bouchard twisted at the waist and tamped out his unfinished cigarette in the overflowing ashtray on the desk. His fingers rooted through the mess of butts, something amusing him.

“Your friend likes the weed, eh?” he said over his shoulder.

Duguay didn't say anything. Bouchard turned back, resuming his serious pose. “The Hells don't know whether to think we're a fucking joke or a bunch of loose cannons. We need to clean up our own backyard before we can take them on. Leroux is dead now, and that's a start. But we got some things to look after before we can make any big moves around here. I talked to Cortez the other day. He's on standby.”

Duguay shook his head. The last thing he needed was the hitman from the southern States bringing his Special Forces bullshit to their backyard. It would be a bloodbath. He said, “We don't need a big show here. Let me take care of things my way.”

Bouchard stood and surveyed the room one final time, taking in the pin-ups and the tool calendars. “We'll do things your way for a little while. In the meantime, Luc will stay in charge. Just stay out of the business until all of this is taken care of. Run your agency and whatever you've got going at the Dove, but keep your face out of the fucking newspaper. The heat's everywhere.”

Bouchard held out his hand. The two men clasped their arms and settled upon their mutual honour, respect. Bouchard took a step for the door. He paused and turned, something still on his mind. He said, “Tell Danny boy I'm serious about the offer. We can always use more family.”

“I'll let him know,” Duguay said.

Bouchard disappeared around the corner and down the hallway. Duguay heard him stop at the garage bay, say a few words, then slip outside into the morning. Duguay waited a minute or two then followed the same path. At the garage he found Danny rubbing a piece of sandpaper in slow, circular motions across the front quarter panel, an artist at his methodical work. Danny could take a month to do what other body artists did in a week, but nobody came close to matching his level of perfection. It always amazed Duguay how his friend could do this sort of work while continually dipping into his pocket to puff on a joint. If it were him, he wouldn't get past the first joint before he'd want to order in a pizza and sit back and just think.

“Hey sweet cheeks, you new in here?” Duguay said, repeating the infamous line uttered by a hulking seventeen-year-old— whom they would later discover was aptly named Meat— upon their arrival at the juvenile detention centre.

Danny turned, a tight smile on his face, and he straightened. “Yeah,” he said, continuing on with the dialogue, “and I'm looking for a girlfriend about your size.”

Duguay laughed, and the memory of that episode came back as clearly as a scene recalled from a favorite movie. How the slab of a teen named “Meat” had broken Duguay's nose with one hard jab and one of Danny's hands, but how in the end the two of them, working together, both of them covered in tears and blood, had managed to beat the gargantuan bully down to the ground, their feet working in unison. How after that day nobody bothered to get in their face, and every step of the way they earned their reputation as “solid”.

“Remember the look on Meat's face when he hit you, and you didn't go down, you just stood there with blood gushing from your nose? Like he couldn't believe it,” Danny said, “big kid like that probably used to watching kids piss their pants and run away. Man, you looked like Paul Newman in
Cool
Hand Luke.”

“That's how we got Meat to work with us, on our side,” Duguay said. “Respect.”

Danny looked up to Duguay, always had, ever since that first day when Duguay had stood there and taken a punch that rightfully belonged to Danny. But now, looking at Duguay with the dim light painting dark shadows across his face, Danny wondered if something had shifted within the man. He saw the same stance, the same attitude, but something told him there was a diminishing will.

“Let's get some breakfast,” Duguay said. “I'll buy you steak and eggs at that all night joint up the road. That big-titted waitress still work there?”

“Last time I checked,” Danny said.

The all-night diner was a low-budget place nestled among the industrial complexes. Laminate tables, cheap plastic seats. It served breakfast all day or full meals for the working men, broiled pork chops and potatoes, flavourless spaghetti and dry shepherd's pie. They took a table along the window and ordered fried eggs and hash browns. The waitress told them it would be better to order the breakfast special and get some bacon thrown in. Duguay gave her a smile, and she smiled back.

“What a guy,” Danny said. He shook his head. “Still charming the ladies wherever he goes. I wish I had a quarter of the luck you have with women, man.”

“What are you talking about, Dan? Look at you, you're a good-looking guy, you got your own shop. You do good work, you make a decent buck. No reason a guy like you shouldn't have a nice woman. You see the way some of the dancers flirt with you.”

The two friends looked at each other. There was only truth between them, and for this reason Duguay said, “Maybe you smoke too much, Danny. Nobody can say you don't do good work, but…”

Danny looked down at the black coffee in front of him, looked into the mug so that he could see his face, distorted so that he looked somehow much younger than he was, his child's face. Then he raised his head and looked at Duguay. He smiled a sort of sad smile and said, “You know, I've been addicted to almost everything you can be addicted to. I've wrestled with everything at one time or another. Fuck. When I think of the shit I've put into my body, the places I've been. You're stronger than me, you always were. I've been trying to find a way to live with myself since I was a kid, you know, to live in my own skin. It's not right, some of the stuff we've seen, the way we grew up. That's why I moved here in the first place, to get away from the ghosts on all the street corners back on the island. Just trying to find a life that works. I've had enough trouble in my life. I don't want trouble any more.”

“I know you've seen hard times,” Duguay said. “I was there when you were on the needle, remember. Anyway, fuck, I'm not your mother.”

Danny took a mouthful of coffee, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “Speaking of mothers— you ever hear from the old lady, or are you still an orphan?”

Duguay stirred some sugar into his coffee, and he looked out the window, his face reflected in the grimy glass. He thought his face looked old and worn. The way he felt.

“Still an orphan,” he said, “just like you, brother.”

Fourteen

M
cKelvey thought goddamned rain or sleet would be ideal to mark the occasion, but the first day of his official retirement dawned sunny and clear, a fresh morning of early spring. Birds made song in the trees of the neighbourhood backyards. There was a sense of regeneration. He took his time getting ready in the morning, making sure he looked just right. He stood at the mirror and examined himself. He smiled and he said, “This is it.”

He got in his truck and drove across town. He took the same route, stopped at the same lights.
It was the last time he
had to do this trip.
The last time. Tina Aoki tried to conceal her surprise, but she couldn't make it work. She sat there wearing her best poker face while McKelvey and the over-congenial representative from Human Resources poured over the details of his retirement package. There were issues to be dealt with, items considered: sick days and accrued vacation, months of service stacked against the date of his birth, various solar calculations and determinations that interested McKelvey not at all.

And then it was done, his life as a lawman.

He wore a new suit purchased solely for the occasion, something he'd bought while shopping with Tim Fielding, letting the younger man guide him towards modern cuts, away from the big box stores and their warehouse styles. They went together to these high-end men's shops, places McKelvey had never heard of, and he let out a noise when he turned over the price tag on a simple white cotton dress shirt at a Banana Republic.

“Who'd pay a hundred bucks for a shirt? One shirt,” McKelvey said. “I used to buy a whole suit for a hundred bucks. Jesus murphy. Are these people out of their minds?”

Tim stepped over to his friend, turtling with embarrassment. “It's not 1985 any more,” he laughed. “Men can't get away with wearing K-Mart dress shirts and blazers from Sears. Women expect more from us. They've got entire magazines and TV channels dedicated to this, Charlie, to men's fashion. You wouldn't believe the number of looks a guy like you would get if you changed your wardrobe. Upgraded a little. You know, send a message to the world that this is one middle-aged dude who takes good care of himself.”

“Middle-aged, sure,” McKelvey said, smiling and nodding. “If I live to be a hundred and six.”

McKelvey walked into Aoki's office like an emperor, dressed in a black Italian suit with a rich cream shirt and a black and gold tie, his face shaved and his hair washed and tousled, looking slimmer and healthier than Aoki could recall.

“Wow, nice tie,” she said upon his arrival.

“Oh, this old thing?” he said with a wink, taking a seat. The tie had cost him fifty-five dollars. It was Italian silk. It was mind-boggling.

“What's next for you?” she said.

He saw himself standing in a darkened room, the .25 pistol
in his palm, all the days of his life narrowing to one single
purpose, one point of light...

“I'll take some time off,” he shrugged, “then maybe find something part-time.”

She nodded, but she didn't look convinced. “Listen, this is the part of my job that I hate the most,” she said. “Everybody wants to organize a retirement dinner, and I'm supposed to find out your view on the whole thing.”

McKelvey thought,
but I wouldn't have anybody to bring.
And it was one of those seminal life moments that you imagined a hundred times in your career, your colleagues roasting you, digging up old stories from the graveyard, your superiors boasting about your indispensable talents, your long-suffering wife at your side, the golden years shimmering on the horizon.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but you know it's not really my style,” he said.

“We'll get everyone together and go for a beer then, keep it casual,” she said.

He stood, wiped his hands on his pants, and leaned in to shake her hand.

“Screw that,” she said, “I want a real hug.”