— But I’ll be goddamned, Lee. When was the last time we drove anywheres like this?
Before long, Speedy brought them to a truck stop off the highway. Down the other end of the lot was a concrete roadhouse that a neon sign advertised as THE NORTH STAR. The parking lot was perhaps half full.
— This is a good old place, said Speedy.
Lee took in the sight of the roadhouse through the windshield. He was quickly agitated. He said: Speedy. I can’t be around here. I don’t drink at all. I’ve been sober going on four years. When you came by you just said there was a place you wanted me to take a look at.
— A place to look at?
— That’s what you said. I figured you meant a job site or a house that needed to get fixed up. I didn’t think you meant nothing like this.
Speedy looked incredulous in the dashboard lights.
— Well, shit, Lee, I didn’t know about the soberness. Listen. Let’s just pop in for a minute then. Usually they got a band going. Plus, I got some buddies out here.
— I don’t know.
— Lee, you crazy old bugger. Come on, ten minutes. Have a 7UP, see some music. You probably need to just get loose.
Speedy was already getting out of his car. Lee opened his mouth to summon Speedy back but he ended up saying nothing. He got out of the car and they went across the parking lot. There was a doorman who knew Speedy by name and he showed them into the roadhouse. The inside of the place was bigger than it had looked. A row of booths lined the far wall and tables were arranged around a riser. They’d stood jack-o’-lanterns around the stage and hung some dejected rubber bats from the ceiling. A lone man with an electric guitar and an amplifier was doing a decent cover of “Sundown.” There were townies and truckers, and someone Lee recognized from the lumberyard. Speedy stopped briefly at the bar. There was a girl pouring some drinks and a man whom Speedy called Mike. Speedy ordered a draft of Molson and Lee ordered a Coke and then they sat down in a booth and watched the musician.
— Speedy, said Lee.
Before Speedy could reply, the girl came from the bar with their drinks on a tray. She had blond hair and a sexy sway.
— Always good to see Speedy, said the girl.
— Arlene, this is my pal, Lee.
She smiled, offered her hand for Lee to shake. When she left them, they watched her go until she was behind the bar again.
Speedy leaned over to Lee: What would I give to put the cock to her.
— Speedy, do you know what my parole officer would do if he knew I was here?
— Well, you don’t see him nowhere, do you?
— No, but.
The Coca-Cola had come in a sleeve-glass with scoured sides. Speedy picked up a salt shaker from the other side of the booth and tapped salt into his draft.
— And the music’s not half bad, said Speedy.
— No. Christ. It’s not that.
— We won’t stay real long. If I finish this beer and I haven’t seen my friends, we’ll get going, what do you say? There’s a topless place other side of Animosh.
— Who are these friends of yours?
— Just some ordinary old boys.
They sat back, watched the musician for a few minutes. When they were eighteen or nineteen, Lee and Speedy and Terry Lachlan had broken into the office of a man who owned and operated a quarry southeast of town. The quarry-man was a European immigrant named Szabo, and it was rumoured that he was a Nazi war criminal on the run, but even that was a pretty thin pretense for robbing him. Rather, if Lee remembered correctly, they’d heard from Szabo’s son, who was not on good terms with his father, that the quarry-man kept a substantial amount of cash in a safe in his office. So Speedy, Lee and Terry Lachlan had gone at night, kicked the door open, found the safe, wheeled it out on a furniture dolly, loaded it into a borrowed pickup truck, and driven away. The whole affair had taken fifteen or twenty minutes, which Lee later figured was way too slow, had anyone been observing them and called the cops.
As it was, the break-in went unreported, whether because Szabo was actually a Nazi war criminal fleeing justice, or, more likely, because the cash kept in the safe was income he hadn’t claimed the taxes on. Either way, after Lee and Speedy and Terry had finally pried the safe open, they found themselves each three hundred dollars richer. Lee didn’t think he’d done anything more serious before breaking into the quarry-man’s office. The stolen cars and counterfeit cigarettes all started after that.
Now he needed to find or do something to take his mind off both the past, and where he was in the present. He thought maybe conversation would work. He turned his glass on the tabletop and said: Anyhow, what’ve you been doing? You got a trade?
Speedy touched the burn on the side of his face: No. I’m on disability.
— For what?
— For awhile I had a bit in a welding shop. This one time I was cutting up a steel I-beam with a burning bar. You ever see one of them cocksuckers, a burning bar? They’ll burn through anything, Lee. Steel, concrete, any fucking thing just like that. Some of the slag got blown back on my face. But here’s the beauty, Lee. The foreman and the manager got their asses chewed because I wasn’t wearing a mask when I got burned. The court settled pretty sweet for me.
— Jesus. You could of got blinded.
— Sure, but I didn’t. Anyway it’s no trouble no more. I got some various business interests. I never liked having to answer to a buck or a foreman.
When the conversation lapsed, Lee was aware of how unsettled he’d become. He could feel a pulse in his eyes. Speedy was about halfway through his draft. The musician wrapped up a song and told the room thanks.
Then a big man was standing beside their table. His head was bald but he had a thick beard and he was wearing glasses that were an odd contrast to the rest of his appearance. The big man leaned his fists on the tabletop.
— How’s she going, Maurice? said Speedy.
Speedy and the big man shook hands.
— This is my pal, Lee, said Speedy.
— So this is Lee, said Maurice.
They shook hands.
— You say it like you know me, said Lee.
— Speedy told me a little about you. All good things. You’re among friends. Come on, let’s go to the back. You want a beer, Lee?
— I’m okay.
Maurice led them to a passageway on the far side of the riser, past a door marked Ladies, a door marked Men, and finally to a knobless door at the back marked Offi e. He pushed the door open and led the way into a small room. Against one wall stood metal shelves bellied under the weight of potato sacks and tins of cooking oil and boxes of empty liquor bottles. Beer kegs were stacked in a corner and there were two windows set high in the wall. There was no desk but there was a Formica table and a mismatched collection of chairs. At the table a man was tapping a pen on a crossword puzzle torn from a newspaper. He didn’t have any particular look about him, but somehow he seemed at odds with the townies and the blue-collar hang-abouts out in the main room. Before him in a tumbler was a mixed drink, and when he saw them coming he smiled brightly.
— Well. How are you, Speedy?
Speedy said hello and introduced the man at the table as Colin Gilmore. He stood up to shake hands with Lee.
— All is well, Lee, said Gilmore. Any friend of Speedy’s is a friend of mine. Speedy, what do you say you visit with Arlene, get your glass filled back up.
Maurice let Speedy out and then he closed the door and leaned against the wall. Lee again felt the pulse in his eyes. He sat. Gilmore offered up a pack of Camel cigarettes. Lee withdrew one and Gilmore lit it for him.
— I know Roland Poirier, said Gilmore. You’d remember Rollie, wouldn’t you?