Noble paces Grand Parade, from City Hall to St. Paul’s Church and back, half a dozen times, mustering the courage to approach the police station. He needs to be sure Will Brooks is okay, that he received his message about the Esmeralda. Down the stairs, along Barrington and a quick left at Duke street. The smell from a bakery follows him in through the police station door, nipping at his hangover. Will Brooks, it turns out, is in the prison infirmary. Noble’s head feels cottony, his teeth sore. Visitors are not allowed.
“Friend of yours, is he? Relation?” The sergeant has the jowls of an ox and long baggy cheeks that hang down to meet them.
“Barely know the man.” Noble begins backing up, but the stone door sill blocks his heels.
“Fighting with him last night, were you? Is that where you got that face from?” The sergeant stands and Noble turns, stumbles back into the bright morning light. Now he’s responsible for a man’s injuries. A suspected concussion. Doesn’t mean he has one, does it? And how many are a few stitches? One or two? Three perhaps? Brooks hadn’t hit his head so hard. Drunks could bounce down whole flights of stairs and wake up with nothing more than a thick head. Noble hadn’t seen any blood. Not that he’d been able to see much of anything in that dark alleyway. Enough to scribble Butler’s message on the paper bag from the bookstore, which he’d then shoved, book and all he later realized, into Brooks’s jacket. When the police searched him, Brooks would have been guilty of nothing more than carrying a racy novel about his person. The message would mean nothing to them. Noble had made a worse gaffe yesterday at the shipyard office. There could be a rum-running gang on their way to Moose. Or worse, already in the village hunting for Spoon and the stolen booze.
The doors to Kenomee Village School open and children trickle out. They ran in his day, Noble thinks. Elbowing their way to the front, galloping across the playground and taking the wall (in his memory) like a herd of gazelle. He waits until every last student has left the building. No sign of Jem.
He hurries down the hallway. Through the spaces between the wavy lollipop trees and strips of blue sky Miss Bird has mounted on the door’s glass panes, Noble stares into his old classroom. He knocks.
Miss Bird, hair feathered with grey, crow’s feet about her eyes — isn’t she Mrs. Someone-or-other now? — beckons at him to enter. “Noble Matheson. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Jem Baker. He’s one of your students, yes?”
“He is.”
“I need to see him.”
“It may have escaped your notice, Mr. Matheson, but all the students have left for the day.”
“He was here, then?”
“Never turned up for school this morning. Something he seems to be making a habit of.”
“Is he ill?” He’s too late. Noble feels himself growing cold. His hands are trembling.
“That would be a question for his father, don’t you think?”
Miss Bird has no idea where the boy is either. He turns on his heel, is running back down the corridor.
“Are you a friend of the family?” she calls at his retreating back. “Could you ask one of them to come and speak with me?” he hears as he pushes open the front doors.
Are you a friend of the family? The words jostle inside his head as he pushes the accelerator to the floor. The truck rattles over the potholed road towards the weir. Noble’s head bangs repeatedly on the roof. Some friend. Some family. Wheels inches from the lip of the tide pool, he yanks on the handbrake, wrenches open his door and charges into the water.
“You bastard,” he hollers. Water churning, fish jumping. Gulls lift off in a screech, batting the air with their wings. Even Bess turns her sage head to watch him. “You piece-of-shit bastard.” He’s crying, snot and tears sliding down his face.
Butler straightens, dip net in one hand. “Matheson! You back already?”
The water drags at Noble’s pant legs, pulling him down. Face in the pool, hands and knees in the mud. The long cool bodies of fish nudge against him. His hat floats towards the V of the weir. “You bastard,” he pants. “I’m gonna kill you.”
“Whoa there, Nobbie boy. Keep your shirt on.”
Coughing and sputtering, salt water up his nose, Noble struggles to stand. “Don’t mess with me, shithead. Just tell me where he is.”
“No idea.” Arms spread wide. “He’s just vanished into thin air.”
A guttural cry issues from Noble’s soul as he lunges towards Butler, grabbing him at the hips and taking him down. He grapples for Butler’s neck, squeezing hard, then, hand on his face pushes his head under the murky orange water. Butler is at first too surprised to resist. In seconds Noble has straddled his chest. The sinews and tendons in his neck shift beneath Noble’s fingers as Butler struggles against his assailant. Noble strives to pin Butler’s arms with his knees but he isn’t fast enough, and his right shoulder lets him down. Butler is able to simultaneously wrench Noble’s hands from his neck and curl himself to sitting position, roaring like a wounded bear. Noble, flung backwards, takes his second dunk into the water. A flounder trapped in the mud struggles with astonishing strength beneath him, its powerful rhythms thumping against his back. A toad-fish nuzzles his ear. Noble sits and spits up salt water, wipes it from his eyes. His cheek is throbbing like the devil again. And warm. He palpates the area gently. Is he bleeding?
“What the hell is the matter with you, Matheson?” Butler rolls onto his knees, trying to catch his breath. “Upset you couldn’t find Brooks?”
“Oh, I found him all right.” Noble spits again. “But not before I managed to tip off some big fat gangster about the whereabouts of the Esmeralda and her cargo.”
“You did what?”
“A description would have helped. Skinny little fuck trying to drink himself to death. Don’t talk to the fat fuck. He’s not your man. Well, it’s too late now. They’re probably already prowling around the village, and Spoon’s gotten hold of Jem and done God knows what with him, and it’s all your fault, you stupid greedy bastard.”
“Spoon hasn’t got Jem.”
“How the hell would you know who he’s got? What he’s done? You’re down here with the fucking fish.”
“I told you, he’s vanished.”
“Spoon? Spoon’s gone?”
“Yup.”
“Just tucked his Luger in the back of his lousy pants and hitched a ride to the train station? Where’s he gone to?”
“Just gone. Don’t worry. He won’t be back.”
“Like hell.”
“I’d stake my life on it.”
Noble scowls. “Your kids’ lives?”
“Theirs too.”
Noble stares over at Moose Island. He’s spent two miserable nights on the place, more than most of the villagers around these parts can boast, more than enough for anyone’s lifetime. Butler might be spinning one of his stories again, but Noble has no plans to row over there and check. Spoon could be anywhere. There was something of Long John Silver in the fellow. Like Silver he’d probably escaped into the wilds and would show up in some sun-soaked, palm-treed port on the other side of the globe. Or had Butler . . . Noble turns back to face his childhood friend but can read nothing in his weathered features, his loose-shouldered stance, the casual way he shakes the water from his hat and places it back on his head.
The instant Noble gets to his feet he wants to sit down again. The water is warmer than the air. “So then where the hell is Jem?”
“How’m I supposed to know? In school.”
“His teacher hasn’t seen him all day.”
“Then go ask his mother. You’re old friends, aren’t you?”
“You shit. You were supposed to be looking out for him. You promised me.”
“I was looking out for all of us. Jem is just fine.”
“How can he be fine? You don’t even know where he is.”
“He is a kid. He’ll show up eventually. He’s probably bunking off with Simon and his buddies.”
“He’s six.”
“He’s a kid.” Butler balances on one leg to pull off a rubber boot, tip out the water and push it back on. He repeats the procedure with his other foot, then starts dancing around the bed of the tide pool feeling with his feet.
“There’s a big one in here somewhere.” Noble gestures to where he was lying. “I felt it.”
“I’m looking for the dip net you made me drop.”
“Well, I’ve lost my shoes. Anyway, I thought you never used one.”
Butler turns his back, moves down the pool. “So what did Brooks have to say for himself?”
“Nothing. The man was soused. Who is he, anyway?”
“He was in my unit. We demobbed together. Spent some days touring the blind pigs in Halifax. I’m surprised he isn’t dead.”
“He’s pretty close.” Suspected concussion. Four stitches tops.
“Can’t believe he’s still around, poor sod.”
“I don’t know if he got the message. About Esmeralda and the Moose. Can’t say he’d be able to do much about it if he did.” Noble flaps his arms to keep warm.
“Don’t worry about it.” Butler bends to retrieve the dip net.
“What are you gonna do now? What if these other people show up? What if Spoon comes back?”
Butler shrugs. “That’s my problem. Like I said, don’t worry. You won’t see Spoon again.” He pulls the net through the water, scoops a large cod.
“Don’t worry! You threatened my kid to get me to go to Halifax and find this guy and pass on your dumb message, and now you tell me not to worry? What the hell?”
Butler dumps the fish in Bess’s cart. “I was saving your life.”
“Putting it in danger more like. Not to mention the kid.”
“You honestly think I’d let any harm come to him?” Noble can feel the heat of Butler’s glare. “Then you don’t know me very well.”
“So why even let a monster like Spoon know of his exis-tence?”
“I didn’t. But I was counting on you thinking I had. And you did. That’s the beauty of being so predictable.”
“What?” Noble’s head is churning. “How the hell —?”
“Close your mouth, Matheson. I did it to save your miserable hide. You wouldn’t have left unless there was something at stake.”
“So you used kid bait. My kid.”
“You’re not listening to me. He was never in danger. And anyway Spoon was on Moose and I had the boat.”
“The tide goes out twice a day. He had a gun. He could walk —”
“You can’t walk off Moose until the next high tides, you know that. Believe me, Jem was never in danger. And I had to get you out of the way.”
“Why?”
“So’s I could attend to a little business undisturbed.”
“What business?”
Butler glances at the weir’s brush wall and back at Noble. “Fish business.”
“Fishy business, you mean. You were stealing the booze.”
“Tying up some loose ends.” A blank smile.
“So where is it now?”
“The booze? What you saw is, well, let’s say it’s been carefully distributed.”
“And the rest?”
Butler gestures towards Five Islands. “It’s still out there.”
“The high tides’ll get it. You should have anchored it to the back of Moose. There’s a new moon coming up.”
“What makes you think I didn’t?”
Noble grins despite himself.
“Tell me, how d’you know about Jem?”
“Wake up, Matheson. The whole village knows about Jem. Like they all knew about you and Mary. Not that anyone has to do more than take a good look at the kid. He looks like you.”
“He looks like Lawson.”
They stand leaning against Bess’s cart. Noble can feel his body temperature plummeting, his wet clothes like cement. He wants to be home tucked up in bed, but there’s something he has to take care of first.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, Matheson.”
Noble shrugs. “You’re right. I shouldn’t.”
“See you down here in the morning? Around five?” There’s a wind fetching up, dark clouds rolling in.
“I reckon you owe me a new pair of shoes.”
“Fair enough. Drop by the house later, I’ll give you the money.” Butler holds out his hand. “No hard feelings, then, Matheson?”
“No hard feelings.” Noble smiles, grasps Butler’s right hand with his, and delivers a solid left hook under his friend’s cheekbone.