THE BOX SITS on the passenger seat like a lead anchor, weighing your car down. You feel the Ford business coupe acting sluggish, crawling with the weight of the small Chinese puzzle box.
I decide this is something I need to do on foot, so I pull over to the side of the road near Lytton Park, pick up the box and my overcoat, and get out.
As you walk around the car, you can’t help but admire the look of the new hardware. This is the 1937, Ford 5-window coupe. Brand new, all steel body, painted black, like all the others. You put a foot up on the chrome and steel bumper. This automobile is aces. You re-tie your shoe and start walking past the park, towards Yonge Street.
It’s a hot summer day, but the breeze keeps the heat at bay while you wipe the sweat from your forehead with a handkerchief. It’s good to get the old leg moving again; it was getting stiff just sitting in the hot car. You can feel the old injury acting up, so a little exercise always helps. The limp subsided as you got warmed up. You don’t even notice it most of the time.
You tap the box against the railing of the park, as you meander down the busy side street. The Lytton Park lawn bowling league is getting in some green time, and it looks like they’re in good form today.
I walk down Yonge Street towards Eglington. As I approach Montgomery Street, I look for the local clubhouse, the Montgomery Police Station. Old division twelve. I know a few of the pals here, but most of the coppers don’t like me. Some of them think I was a Judas for branching out on my own. Honestly, I don’t care either way. I wasn’t made for that kind of structure, and I don’t like bucking to crumby authority figures in the police force.
You steer clear of the cop house, and you’re thinking about crossing the street when you hear a voice call out from the crowd.
“Hey there! Foxram! How are ya, chum?”
I look around.
It’s Constable William Wiarton. An old buddy of yours from the force. He waddles over to you, and you let him. You’re in no mood for running.
I say, “Good to see ya Willie. How are you today?”
“I’m keen! Say, Foxram, there’s word of a raid tonight on a clip joint.”
“Sounds right up your alley.” Willie was always interested in action, even if that included unlawfully breaking into private parties, bath houses, or Catholic Mens’ League meetings. “Try not to hurt anyone,” I say.
“Oh, Foxram, you’re such a pansy since you left the force.”
He shouldn’t say stuff like that. I say, “No, Willie, I’m just more careful about myself. There’s better things to do than pick on people for just doing what they’re doing. Remember Chinatown, last year?”
“Oh, you know that wasn’t my fault.”
“And whose fault was it?”
“It was those damn Chinamen. God damned hop-heads. They shouldn’t have been peddling out of that storefront.”
I forgot how racist everyone was back then. I shrug. “Whatever gets you to sleep at night, Willie. Look, I gotta head on down to Manor Road. Got a client.”
“Anyone I know?” he asks, his little eyes lighting up.
“Naw, just some old stage magician. Goes by the name of MacGuffin.”
“The Amazing MacGuffin? That’s swell! I saw him at the CNE maybe ten years ago. Heard he’s got a whole bunch of money from back in his show days.”
“Wouldn’t know about that. Just got to get something to him.”
“Yeah, what do you care about money, eh, Foxram? You got it made.”
“I do alright.”
“Yeah, and if you’re not, you can always go back to your ma.”
“Ah, nuts to you. Come see me when you’ve got something good to insult me with.”
“I’m just kidding, you know.”
“I know Willie. But I’m late. Got to get to the client.”
“That leg still gumming up the works, Foxram?”
Is Wiarton being friendly, or evil?
He looks friendly enough: his squinty eyes are a little nearsighted, but show no signs of malice.
I say, “The leg’s fine.”
“I just meant, your limp is back.”
“It just needs a good walk, is all. Besides, I’d wager my leg against your eyes any day, Willie.”
He laughs and polishes his spectacles with his kerchief, his chubby fingers massaging the glass furiously. “Ah, go on.”
You wave at him and head on.
Willie’s a good guy, but that’s in itself a bad sign. Too many bad coppers on the take, these days. It means they need at least a few more honest souls around town.
You hope you’re still considered one of them.
I sure do. Sometimes I wonder, you know?
You’re pretty close now, and you try to home in on the address you were given. It should be right around here, near Manor Road. All you can see is a mechanic’s garage and a car dealership.
What else is around?
On the one building, the sign says “Lafayette Service Station.” Underneath it, around the corner is Blythwood Motors and an ad for Castrol Oil. The other building has a large street-facing sign that says “That’s a Nugget Shine.”
Nestled in between the two shops is the remains of a burned-out house. No roof, windows, or door on the front, and just the stone structure. Older style bricks, like the kind you used to see downtown before all the red clay started getting used.
I look around, wondering if someone is having me on.
No one seems interested in you. Yonge Street traffic is normal for this time of day, and you don’t feel like anything is amiss. Except that the house you were delivering to is in ruins.
I look through the window frame. What’s the deal, I wonder.
The interior looks much like you’d expect for a house that’s in a partial state of collapse: the floor has holes in it, chunks of brick lay scattered about, and the roof beams have fallen to the ground.
I dare not go inside, since the place is a veritable deathtrap. Instead, I walk around the side of the house on the side of the garage.
A sullen mechanic looks up from his newspaper, briefly, and then returns to his reading when he notices you aren’t in a car.
Behind the ruins of a house is an overgrown yard with dense trees and knee-high grass and weeds. It’s pretty shady, and you can see what looks like a hobo path through the tangled vegetation. Probably leads to a hidey-hole somewhere between Yonge and Mount Pleasant.
That’s a good half-mile or so.
This pathway looks like it passes behind most of the houses on either side street. Maybe it leads to a gully or a culvert, something that handled the rainwater.
Okey-dokey, I’ll give it a go. My leg’s probably not that sore.
After about five minutes of weaving through the scrub, it looks like the path actually leads to a small cottage. Not well maintained, though. Looks more like an old hobo flop, somewhere you might go if you didn’t have a safe place to stay.
Let’s take a closer look.
The place was a small wooden bungalow, held together with what looks like bits of scrap pulled from the wreckage of the house on the street. Uneven gravel leads from the dirt path to the front door, and you can see cracks in one of the two windows. Blinds are drawn, and what light there is in the glen is kept from entering the building. It looks a little like the structure’s leaning to the left.
I bet five cents that the door won’t open properly. Huh. Is this the place?
It really doesn’t seem like the kind of place a rich, retired magician would live.
Yeah, but if Willie knew who he was, he was probably famous enough. The name doesn’t mean anything to me, does it?
No. Then again, you don’t have much interest in anything spiritual.
Is it ironic that a Trinity College drop-out has no interest in spiritual things? I don’t think so. There are far too many spiritual fads going around these days, and it pays not to get flimflammed by any of them. That means from the church as well as the two-bit mediums that read your palms and take your money.
I wonder if MacGuffin was the kind of fake spiritualist who robbed old ladies of their mad money. I wonder also if this is the correct address. Does the man live like a hermit?
Honestly, at this point, you’re wondering if he’s even real. You’ve never met him, never even heard of him until last week. It was that dame who brought you the job.
Miss Mary Sue Trope. Nice name.
She was a real dish, with fiery red hair done up in an unfortunate bun. She gave you the old sore heart routine, and you bought it easily. She was his lovely assistant, she said, and maybe you could help the frail old man out.
Sure, why not?
I knock on the door of the shack with a small degree of trepidation.
You get nothing in response. You knock a little harder, and the door creaks a little.
I try opening the door.
As you guessed, it’s stuck in its jamb.
I lean into it and give it a good strong bump with my shoulder.
The door cracks, and falls inward. You fall with it, and land on some dust and refuse in the main room. To say the room was shabby is to cast disparagement on ordinarily shabby things, such as policemen’s homes, farmers’ over-alls, and soup kitchen furniture. This place goes miles beyond shabby. It smells like death and decay.
I have an instant longing for the ruined house by the street.
The floor is packed earth, with old spotty rugs thrown about to give a semblance of a proper house. The walls are covered with old newspapers and frayed heavy curtains, as if picked straight from the trash in a middle-class neighborhood. There’s little light to speak of, as the greasy blinds that covered the cracked windows give only the barest twilight, and one star-shaped crack cast a shadow, giving the impression of a two-foot spider ominously waiting for its supper.
I want to go home. Part of me wonders if I’ll be able to outrun anything that starts chasing me.
In the center of the shadowy room sits an equally shabby, yet strangely ornate wing-back chair of soiled red velvet and dark wood. Beside it, on the floor, rests an old steamer trunk, covered with labels from a dozen countries around the world, a testimony to its providence. On the trunk—the ad hoc end-table—sits a dust-filled wine glass and a dry, empty claret bottle.
In the chair sits the Amazing MacGuffin, himself. Or at least what remains of the Amazing MacGuffin. He is a withered old corpse with a worn top-hat, a tight pointed beard, and an old tuxedo suit that looks several sizes too big for the old stiff. Instead of a bow tie, the corpse has a deep red paisley cravat tucked into his open collar. His feet are crossed, and it looked like someone stole his shoes.
So, this is Mr. MacGuffin. In the flesh, so to speak. I guess I’d better get the coppers in on the game before too long. I bet a nickel that they’ll try to nail me for this one, despite the advanced age of the corpse.
Then again, maybe I don’t need to be too hasty. Call in the coppers and the lead goes cold, right? I’ll never find out why his lovely assistant had me retrieve this old box. And I don’t even know what’s inside.
Not that it’s easy to open an antique Chinese puzzle box. Unless you break it open.
Best to just deliver it as planned, I think. I found the client sure enough, and I have his box for him. I’m not even sure I’ll get paid for this little errand, but then again, I’m not in this for the money.
I place the box down beside the wine glass on the steamer trunk, and go. I’ll keep a watchful eye on the little cottage and see who came by to pick it up. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and see the little assistant again. I could grill her on what she was doing, hiring me to do what? Retrieve a trinket for a dead man? Is she trying to chisel me in some way? Am I about to take the rap for something still to happen?
Well, it sure isn’t luck that strikes you on the head as you turn to leave the cottage. As near as you can tell, it’s something large and shadowy with a leaded sap, and its close associate, an explosion of a million little stars.
I looked across the table at Lacroix. He seemed pleased with himself after rolling the dice.
“Really? I didn’t even notice the individual with the sap?”
Lacroix smiled. “You didn’t state that you were keeping an eye out for anything. Your passive perception wasn’t high enough for you to notice the shadowy figure.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine,” I said. “What next? Am I dead?”
“We’ll leave it there. Come back to it next week.”
“But … ah, geez, Lacroix, this had better go somewhere.”
“You’ll just have to wait.”
“And another thing. What’s with the crappy names? ‘Wiarton Willy?’ ‘Mary Sue Trope?’ ‘MacGuffin?’”
“This from the guy named ‘Virtue.’”
I rubbed my eyes. “I withdraw the comment. Could we maybe play some Dungeons & Dragons next time? I feel like some combat would really move things along.”