“So you’re saying Lane’s a little light in the loafers but he’s a good cop,” Stockwell said.
“No.” Harper backed away. “I’m saying I was an asshole then and you’re an asshole now.”
“Arthur? You awake?” Lane said. He looked through his reflection in the coffee shop window. A bicycle courier tore down the center of the street. A middle-aged man in a grey business suit carried a laptop and dialed a cell phone. A man in a green ski jacket and jeans followed in sock feet. He carried his boots over his shoulder. A shoebox sized Leatherette case was in his right hand. Lane thought about the street people. They were mostly men in their 30’s and 40’s. He remembered his mother bringing him downtown on the bus when he was a kid. He couldn’t remember it being like this.
“It’s five to nine. I’m never awake before a cup of coffee,”
Arthur said.
“The Chief talked to me this morning,” Lane said.
“The Chief? You said, the Chief?”
“Yes, and I have a new partner,” Lane said.
“A what?”
“A partner. The Chief said it was time for me to stop working alone. She said I had a better record of arrests than anyone else in the department and didn’t want to lose all that expertise. She asked how I did it.”
“And you told her?” Arthur said.
“She asked. Nobody else ever did.” Lane began to realize how much of a risk he’d taken.
“I can’t believe it.”
“I always said, if anyone ever asks, I’ll tell. She asked, I told.”
“What did she say?” Arthur said.
“Fascinating.”
“Don’t play games. What did she say?”
“Fascinating. That’s all she said. Fascinating.” Lane recalled the smile on her face.
“You’re kidding me,” Arthur said.
“Not at all. She’s got a sense of humour. That brings us to the best part.”
“It gets better?”
Lane wished he could see Arthur’s face. “Guess who’s coming to dinner?”
“Get to the point if you want me to make supper again!”
Lane said, “Apparently, he specifically asked to be teamed up with me.” There was 30 seconds of stunned silence after Lane told Arthur the name of his new partner.
Ernie rolled over. Sleep had opened the door to another nightmare. The knife’s blade appeared under his eyes. His nose filled with the stink of onions on Uncle Bob’s breath.
“Get the phone!” Nanny said.
The phone rang again. Ernie rolled and planted his feet on the carpet. He stood. The phone rang.
“Ernie!”
“Why can’t you get it yourself?” He took four stumbling steps before mind and body began to work together.
“Get the damned phone!”
Ernie picked up the phone and leaned right to look into his grandmother’s room. She sat at the chair in front of the window overlooking the street. Cigarette smoke coiled its lazy tongue along the ceiling. A pair of field glasses were propped up, balanced near her left hand.
“HELLO?” The voice on the phone was a nail through the ear drum.
Ernie held the phone at arm’s length.
“HELLO?!”
Ernie felt knots developing in his neck muscles. No, it’s not a nightmare, I’m awake, he thought.
“LISA! IT’S ME, LISA! WHO’S THERE?”
“Who is it?” Nanny said.
“WHO’S THERE?” Lisa said.
Ernie turned the receiver upside down and spoke into the mouthpiece, “Me.”
“WHERE’S MY FATHER?”
“Oh, her,” Nanny said.
Ernie put his hand over the phone, leaned and said, “How’d you know?”
“Even a deaf person complains when she’s around. A screamer from the get go.” Nanny stubbed a filter tip into a mountain of butts.
“ANSWER ME!”
Ernie brought the upside down phone closer, “Don’t know where he is.”
“LIAR! WHERE THE HELL IS HE?”
Ernie closed his eyes and visualized his 20 year old cousin, Lisa. She had ordered him around like a slave for as long as he could remember.
He pressed the receiver against his thigh and said to Nanny, “You wanna talk to her?”
“What for? She doesn’t listen to anyone but herself.”
Nanny sipped coffee.
Ernie held the receiver half a meter from his face.
“WHERE… THE… HELL… IS… MY… FATHER!?”
“If you hang up, she’ll only call back,” Nanny said.
“ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION.”
Ernie put the phone to his lips. “You tell me.”
“ERNIE! YOU LET ME TALK TO MY GRANDMOTHER RIGHT NOW!”
Ernie stood in the doorway. Nanny turned to face him and shook her head.
“She won’t come to the phone.” He realized his mistake too late.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WON’T?”
Ernie sagged cross-legged to the carpet. First the nightmare about Uncle Bob and now the living nightmare of Bob’s daughter. “I’ll talk if you stop yelling.”
“I’M NOT YELLING!”
“Nobody knows where he is.”
“SOMEBODY HAS TO KNOW.”
“The police are looking for him. I don’t know where he is. They found his car at the airport. That’s all I know.”
“BULL SHIT!”
“The bastard put a knife to my face, I ended up in the hospital and I don’t care where he is!”
“LIAR!”
Ernie slapped the receiver onto its cradle while realizing Lisa was right about one thing. He wanted to know where Bob was and if he was coming back with another knife.
The phone rang ten times.
“Ignore it. Go and take a shower,” Nanny said.
Ernie locked the bathroom door. He showered till the water turned cold. He shut it off and listened. Nothing. Relief and a thick towel warmed him as he wiped himself dry. He slipped into black t-shirt and jeans.
“She stopped callin’,” Nanny said.
Ernie waited.
The phone rang.
He hesitated.
It rang again.
He picked it up and held it away from his ear.
“Hello?”
“Dad?”
“Hi. Ern, I’m on my way home. Write down my flight number. Air Canada 597 out of Toronto. I get in at 1815.
They changed the time.”
“Got it.” Ernie wrote it all down on a scrap of paper.
“How’s Nonno?”
“Okay. Took me golfing.” Ernie thought about what his grandfather had said about running out of time.
“Still taking the doll everywhere he goes?” Miguel asked.
“Yep, but he did get her a dress.”
“Good. You okay?”
“Yep.” Ernie lied. Dad didn’t deal with other people’s problems, he thought. Maybe that’s why he took a job half way around the world.
“Good, see you tomorrow.” Miguel hung up.
“Who was that?” Nanny said.
“My Dad.” Ernie prepared himself for the inevitable sarcastic comment.
“Good, you need your father around.”
Ernie cocked his head to the right and looked carefully at his grandmother.
Nanny didn’t turn. Ernie saw his reflection next to hers in the window.
She said, “What you staring at?”
“You okay?”
“Don’t you worry, Ernie, everything is gonna be fine.” Nanny waved her hand once as if to dismiss him.
Lane decided to arrive through the back entrance of Queen’s Park Cemetery. Evergreens lined up like dark green angels on either side of the narrow, paved roadway. Their scent seeped inside the car.