Like many working-class establishments, the Lumberman’s Club is a place you can’t imagine ever having been new. It might have surfaced intact from some prehistoric cave, steeped in every liquid a human body can produce, cured by eons of spilt alcohol and tobacco smoke, every surface weathered by boots, elbows, cigarette burns and workmen’s hands, the air itself redolent with generations of evaporated sweat and damp wool. The result is not entirely unpleasant, like the smell of a barn, a blacksmith shop or a motor garage.
McCurdy occupies a stool at the bar overlooking a half-filled room the size of a small restaurant, its tables scarred with overlapping ring marks, covered with poker chips, cards, glasses and ashtrays, and surrounded by silent men in tweed caps, wrinkled lounge suits and logger’s boots. Each player regularly glances from side to side as though someone might be pulling a fast one, then checks his hand to be sure his cards haven’t somehow been switched for others, then keeps them face down on the table or tight against his vest.
Each man wears his hat, and many their coats as well; when making a fast exit, it’s a shame to leave one’s belongings behind.
All of which is seen through a haze so thick you’d think a beekeeper was smoking a hive.
McCurdy sits at the bar across from the bartender, Truman MacBeth, an ex-miner with a blackened nose, submarine skin and a jaw that could chew open a can of beans, who wears a battered brown Derby and a dishtowel over his shoulder that could pass for a mechanic’s rag.
“My usual, Truman, and one for yourself. Everything jake?”
“’cept for the frigging bulls in plain clothes. Cy Steele sold a bottle of rum to two young fellers who turned out to be the fecking Dry Squad. Beat the shite out of him, then threw him in the clink.”
“The gumshoes are hard to recognize now. I’m told they’re recruited in Alberta and moved around the province.”
“Like the fecking secret police in Russia. Cy is doing three months in the caboose. Mind, Dotson will keep him on at full pay. No such luck with this joint. With me behind the bar we go by the letter of the law. Nobody gets past the door without a signed membership. Nothing but lumbermen here, no sir, not while the city is crawling with informers.”
“Maybe this is the epidemic of rats City Hall is on about.”
“Like the rats, yes. Down by the harbour I seen wharf rats the size of raccoons.”
“Max Trotter did a piece on it. Staged a photo of the mayor walking his cat around English Bay. Trotter is lodged so far up Taylor’s arsehole—”
“And when there’s trouble, Mayor Taylor loves the camera.” Truman sets down a glass containing a finger more than the usual serving.
“Any new rumours about the Cunning case, Truman? Not that there’s a shortage.”
“It’s said that Cunning was bumped off by Stalker. That he has goons to do his dirty work.”
“The Dry Squad at it again is what I heard.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. When you can’t trust the government or the police, it makes a man suspicious generally.”
“You’re right. Like someone is following you all the time. I get that feeling often; it came over me just today, as a matter of fact.”
Two whiskys later, McCurdy eases down the steps in front of the Lumberman’s Club, crosses the sidewalk and pauses to steady himself against a light pole. More than once he has relied on poles to get him home safely, holding until balance is restored then flinging himself forward with enough momentum to grab onto the next before pitching face-first onto the sidewalk. Tonight is not one of those nights, however—he’s had just enough lubrication to get him into a writing mood.
He checks the clock above the Cal-Van neon across the street—a quarter past ten, early yet. Might be good to take a walk and think his way through a piece on the resurgence of bootlegging—not despite the plebiscite but because of it, thanks to legal rotgut that costs an arm and a leg. Leaning on the lamp-post, he takes out his notebook.
A shrill ping! next to his head nearly splits his eardrum, followed by a crack! from some distance away, and he is on all fours, by instinct.
Though this has never happened before, he knows what it is. He remains frozen, hands splayed over the cobbles, heart racing, unable to move, like a rabbit in the presence of a predator.
He often wondered how he would react in such a situation. Now he knows.
Suddenly stone cold sober, he manages to stand up and examines the lamp-post: a bright stripe has been scored into the metal at eye level, as though someone scraped it with a rat-tail file.
Shaking, he holds onto the lamp-post, contemplates running for his life, then thinks better of it and scrambles back up the steps to the shelter of the Lumberman’s Club.
Behind the bar, Truman is pouring a round of shots someone lost on a bet.
“Welcome back, Ed. Jesus, you look pale. Not going to ralph, are you?”
“A double please, Truman. I’m afraid someone just shot at me—”
“I’ll get the mop.”