FOUR

DECEMBER 1980 TO MAY 1981

On the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, there was a light snowfall. In the shallows of the lake the reeds were clenched by thin black ice. Stan went about his ablutions and put on his suit. When he entered the kitchen, he heard scratching on the back door. He opened it and Cassius came in. The dog’s fur was crisp and cold. He padded over to the woodstove.

Stan put on his overcoat and galoshes and went out carrying the good leather shoes he would wear for the evening church service. The trees creaked overhead. Snow shrouded Edna’s garden. There was nothing to say where she’d leaned over and died one morning. At times, it seemed she was something he could only grope for in the dark. Stan got into his truck.

At seven-thirty, Pete was parked in his car looking at the United Church. Snow wheeled down out of the sky. Pete sat until the last of the Christmas Eve churchgoers went through the door and then he waited a few minutes longer.

He would have to be back at the Texaco for nine o’clock. Caroline had given him two hours’ leave. She’d asked why and he told her he was going to church, and she gave him a doubtful look but did not say anything further.

He’d made one stop before church, perhaps as a gesture of appeal. He did not know. He’d parked out front of the variety store. The light was on through the blinds in Lee’s window. Pete got out of the car and went through the alley to the parking lot.

There was a big Dodge van parked close to the Dumpster. One of the side-view mirrors was wrapped with duct tape and part of the windshield was cracked. The hood of the van was open. A man was bent over the engine, working by flashlight.

Pete was about to go up to the apartment when he heard his name spoken. He turned and saw that it was Lee working on the van. Lee was shrouded inside his coat and he was holding a spark plug and a dirty rag. He was backlit by the flashlight, which was resting on top of the heater. Cigarette smoke lifted around him.

—When did you get a set of wheels? said Pete.

—I’m hanging onto it for a buddy of mine. What are you doing here?

—If you can believe it, I’m going to church.

—What are you doing that for?

—Emily is going to play piano for the service. I don’t care. I want to hear her. If I have a chance to see her, I’ll tell her I’m leaving town after New Year’s.

—The time’s come, has it.

—It has, said Pete.

Lee just nodded and said: What are you doing here?

—I was passing by … Look. I gave it a lot of thought. A lot of things are fucked up and … Well, they’re just fucked up. I’m sorry about what I said, about why would you come back here and all that. I’m not the big man, Lee. I’m not anything at all. Anyway, I thought I’d see maybe if you weren’t doing anything if you might want to come along when I go see Emily. Maybe you can keep me from making an ass of myself.

Lee drew on his cigarette. He turned the spark plug in his fingers and worked it with the rag.

—Go away, Peter. I don’t want to go to church.

—Lee—

—Listen, don’t come around here no more. You don’t have to be sorry for what you said because you were right. I am no good, and it was stupid of me to come back here. If I can get my shit together, I’m not going to stay much longer, either. For now, the best thing is if we just stay out of each other’s way. I don’t want anything to do with you. With any of you. Do you hear me?

Pete stood for a moment. He felt cold right to his bones. Then, without thinking of anything he could say he turned to go. Lee had already bent back over the van’s engine.

The encounter was still stinging him as he went into the church. The entryway was vacant. Through the doors into the sanctuary, he could hear “Good King Wenceslas” being played on the organ.

He went through the doors and found himself at the back, behind all the rows of pews. The place was crowded. In the pews closest to the front, he could see the shoulders of suits and evening dresses, of coiffed hair, of perms, the well-to-do families. In the middle pews were the elderly, mostly blue-haired women, sitting upright and dignified. And in the pews at the back were the meagre and the odd. Some were families. Some were single mothers. There were children with cold sores and bad haircuts. There was a weird little drunk Pete had often glimpsed collecting empty bottles to take back for the deposit.

He moved up a few rows and sat in an empty spot beside a lone man in a ski jacket who was gazing at the floor. At the front of the sanctuary, Pete could see the organ pit and the organist, and next to the organ on a riser was a baby grand shining brightly.

It did not take long to spot her family. They were near the front. He could see the back of her parents’ heads and Stan Maitland’s thick white hair. And closest to the aisle, Emily herself, her dark hair, long and straight. The shoulders of her cardigan.

The service commenced with a choral procession. The choirs wore red and white gowns and came down the aisles. Their voices rose: Through the cloven skies they come with peaceful wings unfurled …

The choirs passed by at his elbow, adult child adult child. A fat man in his gown went past and behind him was Louise Casey. Pete could hear her soft soprano. She saw him seeing her, then she passed by. He watched her go. He saw Emily’s face turn to smile at her sister, but she did not turn enough to see Pete at the back.

The minister came behind the choirs. He sang in a warbling baritone, not quite in tune. The choirs moved into their lofts and the minister took the pulpit. He spread his arms and said: Welcome all, on this holiest of nights. This was the night when the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks were visited by an angel who said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news …

The minister led them through some readings and prayers, calling on the Lord to remember the sick and the poor. Christmas is so joyous, he said, for so many. And so hard for so many others. The congregation sang some of the old carols: “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and “The First Noel.”

Pete stood and held a battered red hymnal at his waist. He sang perhaps every fifth word, hummed through the rest. Instead of a sermon, there was a re-enactment of the nativity. Children in the costumes of barnyard animals, in brown housecoats with shepherd’s crooks, in wire-frame angel’s wings. A young couple also in brown housecoats, with dun-coloured scarves over their heads, came down the aisle. They carried a sleeping baby. When they approached the altar, a child playing the part of the innkeeper turned them to the side. The child boldly waved his finger. The young couple went among the animal costumes and crouched down awkwardly. Joseph’s forehead was shining beneath the scarf. They were visited by the shepherds, pantomiming their wonder. They were visited by three children in purple bathrobes and plastic crowns, the Magi, bearing gift-wrapped boxes to lay before the baby. The baby woke and started to bawl. His mother smiled nervously.

—Behold the King of Kings, said the minister.

The couple took their crying baby out of the sanctuary and the costumed children went to rejoin their families in the pews. Pete thought about Galilee Tabernacle, what would be going on there. They had a Christmas Eve service as well, and usually also re-enacted the nativity. Pete himself had been in the re-enactment a few times when he was younger. One Christmas, when he was ten or eleven, he’d played the Angel of the Lord, speaking to the shepherds. He was vaguely amused by the memory. This time last year, he’d been sitting with his mother and grandmother and his little brothers while Barry led the worship. What had he been thinking about? Maybe he’d been stealing glances at Sheila Adams, as he was stealing glances at Emily now. Without question, he’d known himself to be just as much an outsider there as he did here.

Next in the United Church service was a candlelight communion. The lights in the sanctuary were dimmed, and then Emily was going up to the front. She took a seat on the bench of the baby grand. She started to play slowly, “O Holy Night.” She moved slightly as she worked the keys, her shoulders and her head sliding forward and back, her feet moving on the pedals. The notes were bold and strong. As the music built there was movement up at the front. Church ushers moved into the aisles, passing out white candles. Following the ushers came the minister. He was carrying a lit candle and was using it to pass the flame along to the candles of the congregants closest to the aisle, who in turn would pass the flame to their neighbours. Small points of light fanned out through the choir loft and through the sanctuary. Behind the minister came two more ushers carrying the collection plate. All the while the piano melody climbed. The lead usher came to Pete and offered a slender unlit candle.

—Peace be with you, said the usher.

Instead of taking the candle, Pete stood up and looked once more to the front. Then he turned from the usher and went back down the aisle to the doors.

He was about to go down to the street when someone said his name.

Stan Maitland was sitting on a deacon’s bench against the entryway wall. Pete hadn’t noticed the old man leaving the sanctuary.

—Mr. Maitland.

—You’re not going to stay to the end of the service?

—Well, I could ask you the same thing.

Stan sat back against the wall and smiled. He said: We’re both a couple of truants. I slipped out five minutes ago.

—It was warm in there, said Pete. A lot of people.

—I started out Catholic, said Stan. I was an altar boy. If I think hard I believe I can still say the rosary in Latin and French both. But my wife, before she was my wife, when I first took a shine to her, this was her church. She taught Sunday School and she played piano for the choir. Thirty years she played. They named a room after her …

—Emily talked about her a few times. Said she learned to play from her grandmother.

—Yes, that’s true. Her grandma knew she had it right from the beginning.

—You missed hearing her tonight.

—It was too hot in there for an old bastard like me. If you want to know, Pete, a good many Christmases I used to work. A lot of Christmas Eves. I always thought it was a funny night to work, a funny kind of night for people to get up to this or that.

Pete put his hand on the newel post at the top of the banister. He wanted the relief of the cold outside.

—Well, Mr. Maitland—

—One time on Christmas Eve we got a call to a car accident. This would of been 1960 or so. So I drove out there with Dick Shannon. This young fellow, he’d robbed a liquor store in another town. He’d made it all the way up here before he wrapped his car around a telephone pole.

—Was he okay?

—He shouldn’t of been, but he was. He was thrown out of the car and into the snow and that had to be what saved him. He was pretty drunk when we got out there. He was sitting on the snowbank on the other side of the road. Just sitting there, having himself a Christmas Eve snort of Scotch. Watching.

—Watching what?

—Well, it was snowing that night, same as it is tonight. And this boy had a trunk full of stolen liquor. When he crashed the car, the liquor caught on fire, and then the upholstery in the car caught on fire, and then just about the whole car itself. When me and Dick got out there, strange as it might seem to you, I thought that was one of the prettiest things I ever saw. All that fire in the middle of the dark and the snowfall.

Pete looked down at his boots.

—I should get back to work.

—Careful driving.

—See you around, Mr. Maitland.

Lee was sitting at the bar in the Corner Pocket. He was on his third beer. A cigarette was perched on an ashtray before him.

Events were moving quickly. He’d spent much of the past two days in the storeroom at the roadhouse, where he’d been brought in on certain aspects of the plan. Gilmore had not been specific, but he’d let on he’d done other bank-jobs before, in the Maritimes, mostly in Quebec. He’d come to believe that daytime stickups ran too much risk. An overnight job was how to go. Patience was his watchword. Lee had the sense that Gilmore had been laying low for a time. He also sensed that Gilmore wasn’t even the man’s real name, but what did that matter. Work was work.

Gilmore was the overall planner. Maurice was to take care of the internal alarm system, and provide heavy lifting when it was needed. What heavy lifting consisted of was not explained to Lee, but they’d told him again they did not foresee any trouble. Maurice was spending all of the twenty-fourth doing surveillance on the intended location. Speedy was to put his welding skills to the vault. They would go through the wall. Speedy was proud of this. He’d said with an oxygen lance he could cut through anything and, perhaps unconsciously, he’d touched the scar on his face.

And Lee. The eyes and ears. The six. The man for the odd jobs.

Much of the security of the plan rested on monitoring a police scanner and on watching the street. They were to be three hours from start to finish. The police could be there in four minutes. If anything was coming, they were all to drop what they were doing and go their separate ways.

—Quickly but not running, Gilmore had said, you get it? If it’s the street, you just go back down the alley and go home. If you’re in the van, you just get out and leave it where it’s at. Same thing. Split. We all go in different directions.

—And?

—And what? Wait. Keep quiet. Give it a few weeks. What nobody’s doing, Lee, is any time. Nobody’s going up.

Gilmore said there was ten thousand dollars in it for Lee, maybe twelve, maybe more. They would hit the deposit boxes, but there would also be cash in the vault that stores had deposited, last minute, before Christmas. He reminded Lee that it was the season of giving.

But the take would have to be moved first so it could be laundered before they divided it up. And here was the last piece. They weren’t going to drive the take anywhere. At seven-thirty on Christmas morning, a friend of Gilmore’s would land his Cessna Skywagon just outside, right down there on the ice. From there they would fly, all of them, with the take, to the lake country east of Maniwaki. And then by car to Montreal, where Gilmore knew some people. In Montreal they would get the take laundered, see what was happening on the news, and then split up. After that, Lee could take the first-class coach on the passenger train. Gilmore wanted to know if Lee had ever done that, taken first-class anywhere?

Lee drank his beer and asked the barman for another. He had still not been told what bank it was going to be.

Earlier that day, Lee had surprised himself by sleeping in, dreamlessly, waking late in the morning. An hour after he’d finished his breakfast there was a knock on his door. His visitor was the same young man he’d met before, the man whose wheelchair-bound mother had given them the canvas duffle bag.

The man had a Datsun crew-cab in the parking lot. They got in and drove wordlessly to a garage in the industrial park on Douglas Avenue. Behind the garage was a fleet of various cars and trucks, mostly derelict. There was no one in the yard, but the back of the garage was open and Lee thought he spied some movement within.

The man parked the Datsun out front and he and Lee walked around to the back, where the cars and trucks were.

—This is your place? said Lee.

—A friend of mine owns it.

—So you have something for me? said Lee.

—It’s over here.

The man led Lee past a stripped car and a damaged pickup truck to a ‘74 Dodge B100 van. There was a crack in the windshield and one of the side-view mirrors was mended with duct tape. The van had been painted in a kind of matte grey that Lee associated with warships. Or institutions. The man opened the side door. One bench seat. A lot of space in the back.

—Just like Gilmore wanted, said the man.

Lee nodded. He lit a smoke and offered his pack. The man, watching him, took one and lit it. Then he opened the passenger door. The transmission was an automatic floor shifter. The upholstery was old blue vinyl.

—See the radio?

Set in the dash was the faceplate of an AM/FM radio.

—It’s the scanner, said the man. We have the bands for the cops. I was sitting in here listening to the cocksuckers all morning.

The man showed Lee how the scanner was wired to its own battery, hidden at the back of the glovebox, so that it could be used while the engine was off. The rest of the van was in as good shape as it needed to be, but Lee thought he might have a look under the hood anyway, later, when there was nothing much else to do but wait. The man gave him the key.

Driving back to his apartment, Lee tried to determine how he felt, but he had no answer. The one thing he could be sure of was that there was nothing and no one he could invest his certainty in. He could only go forward, alone.

Lee ordered another beer. It was nine-thirty at night. He and the barman made idle conversation. For some reason Lee was thinking about how there’d always been cockroaches in his cell in the pen. He’d never been able to get rid of them.

Not much later Speedy came in through the back door.

—Hey, friend, pour me a drink. It’s Christmas. I want to get right frigged up. I’m only kidding. I just came looking for Lee.

Lee paid for the beers he’d had. He had less than twenty dollars left to his name. He followed Speedy outside. Even at this relatively early hour the street was quiet. They walked to the variety store parking lot.

—There she is, said Speedy, looking at the van.

—The brakes are touchy but it speeds up better than I thought. I never drove automatic before.

—I’ll drive. I know where we’re going.

—Not to the North Star?

—No. We’re done there.

They drove east on one of the side roads past the shopping mall. Speedy fiddled with the radio until Lee told him it had been replaced with the scanner.

—How long? said Lee.

—Fifteen minutes till we get there. Not long.

—No, how long did you know?

—How long did I know what?

—Speedy, do you have any fucking sense? How long did you know what Gilmore was planning?

—Oh. Well. Gilmore talked to me about it in August or thereabouts. He knew about me from around. When he heard I used to be a welder, he came to talk to me about the opportunity.

—August. How come it took so long?

—They needed the time to be just right. They were going to do it earlier, maybe September. But then this one night, after Labour Day, I was out there—the place we’re going now, Arlene’s uncle’s old place—and some crazy little broad shows up and starts yelling at Gilmore. It was almost funny, Lee. She was mad as hell because I guess she’d found out about Arlene. Gilmore manages to talk this crazy broad down a bit, and he gets into her car with her, and off they go. Then I didn’t see the boys for a week or two.

—Who was the girl?

—She was just some broad from town. Kind of had problems, I guess, but you wouldn’t know that if you just saw her. She wasn’t deformed or nothing. She worked at …

Lee saw Speedy was staring hard at the steering wheel.

—Where did she work, Speedy?

—Well, she was a cleaning gal at the bank. After hours. Gilmore would visit her at night sometimes.

—And what, she’s not around no more?

—No. She was real upset about Arlene and Gilmore. She killed herself. Problems, Lee. Nice girl, but. Anyway, Gilmore and Maurice cooled it for a bit after that. They almost quit the whole idea. But then they started talking about it again. Maurice wanted to do it just three of us but Gilmore thought we needed one more. Around then was when I ran into you at the lumberyard. Funny how those things work out.

Lee watched the road through the dark before their headlights. During his first meeting with Lee, hadn’t Wade Larkin mentioned something about a girl who’d killed herself? It had been a meaningless question then, but thinking about it now made Lee feel unsettled and strange. The thin snowfall glittered where the headlight caught it.

The grounds of the marina looked deserted when they arrived. Speedy had told Lee a little of the history, how the property belonged to Arlene’s uncle who’d been in a care home for many years. Arlene used to visit when she was a kid but hadn’t been here since. She’d known Gilmore in Montreal and they’d come out here in the spring, was all Speedy knew. He didn’t have any idea how Maurice and Gilmore had come together.

In the dark, it was difficult to make out the lay of the property, but after they’d turned off the side road, they followed a long driveway hemmed in by pine trees. Then the headlights shone against a wood-frame storage shed on one side of the driveway and two camping trailers on the other, an Airstream and a Prowler. Speedy stopped the van in a small patch where the snow had been cleared. They got out. The land dipped sharply and a footpath led through the snow. Forty yards farther on, they came to a building perched on a headland over the lake. The windows were boarded over but faint edges of light came through from inside.

The door in the back of the building opened. Gilmore stood there in silhouette. He was wearing a dark jacket and treaded boots. He said: Come in out of the cold, pals.

He led them through a storeroom to what had at one time been a general store and a small restaurant at the front of the building. There were four or five tables with chairs overturned on them. On one of the tables was a rusty metal tool box. There were wooden grocery shelves all stripped bare. There was a range and a round-top Kelvinator propane fridge. At the front of the restaurant, a pay telephone was mounted on the wall.

Two overhead lights were on. If nothing else, the place still had hydro. A space heater in one corner was pumping out warmth.

—You got the van? said Gilmore.

—I got the van.

—And the scanner?

—It works. I’ll show you.

The telephone rang. It was an alien sound, startling. Gilmore looked at his watch. He looked at Lee.

—Take the call, Lee.

The phone rang a second time. Lee went and picked up the receiver. One of the front windows was unboarded. He could see himself in the dark glass.

—Hello?

A pause, then: Lee. It’s Maurice. Is Gilmore there?

—He’s right behind me.

A long hiss of static, and then Maurice said: Well, tell him there’s nothing different.

—He says there’s nothing different.

—Nobody’s been there since they closed at four, said Maurice.

—Nobody’s been there since four.

—Tell him to call again at midnight, said Gilmore.

Lee told him and Maurice said he would. After the call ended, Lee went back over to the table.

Gilmore said how Maurice had set himself up in a room on the fourth floor of the Shamrock Hotel. He’d been able to watch the bank and the alley behind it all day. Based on these details, Lee had a feeling that the bank they were going to was the National Trust—but so far, no one had said it outright.

—So what’s next? said Lee.

—We load up.

Up in the storage shed, Gilmore showed them to a locker framed into the corner. He unlocked the padlock and opened the door. He turned the overhead light bulb to light up the enclosure and what it contained.

There was a canvas duffle bag packed with tools: crowbars, sledgehammers, a power drill with a concrete bit. A second duffle bag was packed with a welding mask and leather coveralls. There was a milk crate containing four Truetone walkie-talkies. The biggest part of their inventory was a homemade burning-bar rig. It consisted of a dolly with an oxygen cylinder strapped to it. Attached to the oxygen cylinder was a hose and a regulator and beside the dolly were five lances bundled together. They were made out of old salvaged iron pipes, each about four feet long, with one end threaded to fit the oxygen hose. The lances could be lit with a portable Victor torch set, the kind you might carry around in the back of a truck.

Lee looked at what was before him. These were tools and he was conscious of the surety in them, of their seriousness. Things were happening now as though they were always meant to happen this way.

They loaded the tools and the bags into the back of the van. The lances were very heavy. When they were finished they pulled a canvas drop cloth over the load.

Speedy went back into the shed as if he’d forgotten something. Gilmore was examining the scanner. Lee lit a cigarette and came around the front of the van and leaned beside the door.

—I suppose maybe you’ve seen the inside of this bank.

—You think we’d be moving on it otherwise?

Lee couldn’t help but prod Gilmore a little further, he didn’t know exactly why. He said: Did the cleaning girl show you in?

Gilmore drew slowly back from the scanner. He said: The cleaning girl.

—The one who killed herself.

—What happened to just watching, pal? Just being our eyes and ears?

Lee lifted his shoulders: I’m going into the shed. I don’t have much love for the cold. When do we get going?

—Twelve-thirty, Lee. Rest up. You have all your questions answered?

—I just want to be sure what I’m dealing with. That’s all.

When he went back inside the shed, he saw Speedy squatting in the middle of the dirt floor, oddly simian. He was doing something with his hands. Lee came up on him.

—Fucking Christ, said Lee. What is that for?

Speedy was pushing bullets into a magazine. A Browning 9mm automatic was balanced on his boot.

—Just for security is all, said Speedy.

Speedy was talking quickly. He fumbled a bullet on the top of the magazine and it bounced on the frozen dirt below. He retrieved it and pushed it at the top of the magazine but it wouldn’t load. He looked contritely upwards at Lee.

—I think she’s full.

The Texaco had not had a customer in close to two hours. In the store the radio was playing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Duane was into a car magazine. Pete was looking at the newspaper. Caroline came out from the office with a mickey of rum and a carton of eggnog. She put them on the counter and she mixed three drinks in paper cups.

Outside they heard Jake Brakes, and through the snowfall they saw the lights on the back of a bobtail rig that was slowing down at the edge of the apron. But the rig didn’t pull up to the pumps. They heard its air brakes squeak and then heard it gear up again. The lights moved off towards the highway.

—Gentlemen, said Caroline. How about a Christmas cheer?

—Fuckin’ A, said Duane.

She swatted his hand. They each took a cup and raised it.

Then the door opened and a small figure came in, bundled in a hooded coat. The snow on her shoulders was already melting. She pulled the hood down and smiled.

—Hey, Pete.

Pete was slow to reply: Emily … It’s almost midnight.

—I hitched a ride with a trucker.

Pete and Duane and Caroline all looked at each other.

—How come everybody thinks I was born yesterday? said Emily. Jeez. What I would like, if you don’t mind, is something to drink. I’ll pay for it.

—No you won’t, said Caroline. Come on, have a cheers.

Caroline poured another drink and Emily came and sat with them. She put her coat onto the stool beside her. She was still wearing the cardigan he’d seen her wearing at the church. Her snow boots came up to her knees.

—Merry Christmas.

They raised their glasses. Emily reached over and took Pete’s hand. Her fingers were cold but he could feel the blood pulsing back into them.

They stayed only for the time it took to drink the eggnog and then Caroline told them to leave.

—Go on, she said. Duane and me’ll close up.

—You sure? said Pete. Duane?

—Fuck you, Pete. Merry Christmas.

Pete warmed up his car first and then he drove them back into town. Emily closed her eyes as soon as she sat down, and she took his hand when it was not working the gearshift. Only when he’d stopped in front of her house did she come around.

—Park in that driveway, said Emily. The Jacksons’ house, they’re on vacation.

—Park?

—We’re not staying in the car, Pete.

He drove to a house a few down from hers. Several inches of snow had accumulated.

—Aren’t your folks home?

—Of course they are. It’s Christmas Eve. But it’s the one night a year my dad relaxes. He had three rye and Cokes after church and he was sound asleep by nine-thirty. My mom went to bed at ten. And anyways, she’s on my side. She sees what my dad doesn’t. Come on.

They entered her house quietly. The living room was dark except for the lights on the Christmas tree. They went down into Emily’s bedroom. The reading lamp was on. She had him sit down on the corner of the bed and she went out and closed the door behind her. He looked at a portrait of her grandmother she had on her desk. When she came back into the room, she was carrying two mugs of hot chocolate. She gave him one and she kissed him and she sat down in a rocking chair.

—I saw you play piano at your church tonight, said Pete. I wanted to stay and talk to you but I left before it was over.

—I know. Grandpa and my sister both said you were there. I had to see you, Peter. I had to talk to you. I’m sorry for how it all happened. But I can’t stop thinking about you.

Pete put the mug down between his knees. It was difficult to look her in the eye. He said, quietly: Do you know about me?

—I know now. My dad knows. He told my mother. He thinks he has to shelter me from these things. True things. But like I said, my mother understands.

Shame flowed through him. He closed his eyes, said: She told you …

—Yes. She said it’s why your mom moved to North Bay to have you, why you lived there for a few years. But, look … none of that is what makes you who you are now. It’s just where you came from. You’re a good person.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. He said: Did you hear what happened at Nancy’s house?

—Ha, yes I did, said Emily. Nancy and I aren’t speaking much these days, but Samantha was there. She couldn’t wait to tell me about it, how you came in by yourself, walked straight into the back room, and beat the hell out of all of them.

—It didn’t exactly happen like that. I’m surprised I made it out of there in one piece.

—I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. I hope you won’t think I’m terrible if I say Roger Amos might have finally got what he deserved.

—I guess so, said Pete. It was stupid. I wasn’t thinking straight. It was the same day … I found out about myself.

—You really never knew, did you.

—No.

She put her hot chocolate on the corner of the desk. She leaned forward and took his face in her hands. She kissed him again. Her mouth was soft and warm. She withdrew and sat back in the rocking chair.

—What went wrong with us? said Pete. Was it finding out about me?

—I don’t care about that, Pete. Look. For a long time I’ve felt like I was done with school and everybody here in town. It’s too small here. People are too small, you know? I fast-tracked this semester and I’m going to go to university in the fall. A year early. We looked at the university while we were in the city. We saw the music college and met the dean. It’s amazing there, Pete. It’s everything I want. That’s what the problem was. It reminded me I didn’t want to care about anybody. I wanted to be able to get up and leave. I thought if I got away from you it would make it easier. But I was wrong. I’ve been thinking about you the whole time.

—It’s strange that you say that. One time you asked me what my plan was. Do you remember?

—Yes. You wouldn’t tell me.

—Tonight I came to your church to do just that, to tell you. But I didn’t know how, so I left. Anyway, since I quit school I’ve been planning to go out west. As far as I can. Right out to the ocean, I guess. Because I know what it’s like to feel like it’s too small here. I’ve known that for a long time. I told them at work that I was going to leave after New Year’s. But, now, with you … I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anything.

—I don’t know either. But … let’s think about that later. It doesn’t matter for now. It’s just good to be with you again.

They were quiet for a little while. Then Emily asked him, gently, how, exactly, he’d found out about his past. She quickly added that he didn’t need to talk about it if he didn’t want to, but he realized that he did. He said: Well, I kind of dragged it out of my uncle last Friday. He was drunk. He probably wouldn’t have told me otherwise, and I think now that I put a lot on him when I got him to tell me. I’ve only seen him one time since, and it was earlier tonight. He told me to stay away. He’s drinking again, and he’s out of work, and he told me the truth about my life. So I know he’s on the outs with my mom and Saint Barry. I know how they are.

—Didn’t you tell me it was Barry who got him set up here? Got him a job and everything?

—That’s true, said Pete. But I think Barry sees angles in things like that. There’s an old drunk I see downtown sometimes. I think I saw him at your church tonight. He goes around with a shopping cart and picks up empty bottles to take back for the deposit. I think Barry is kind of like that. His old bottles are the Lees of the world.

—Barry seems to be doing more than most people, who barely ever give a shit in the first place. I love my dad, I do, but if he had his way, people like your uncle would never ever get out of jail.

—Well, I don’t know what I think about that, either. This is what makes it hard about Lee. I want to be on his side again, and I wish I could tell you that I am … But I don’t know. I just don’t know.

She leaned forward and said: You should give him another chance. And more importantly, you should give yourself a chance, Pete. No matter what, there are lots of people who love you.

—I’ll be alright, said Pete. Things can’t get much more fucked up than they are now. Maybe they’re already looking up.

They finished their hot chocolates. She stood up and took his mug and put it on the desk, and then she sat down on his lap and kissed him deeply. They broke apart. Pete touched her hair.

—I guess your dad would kill me if he knew I was here.

Emily grinned: You and me both, buddy.

—Well, maybe I should go.

—Do you want to?

—No, said Pete. Not at all.

—Good.

She kissed him again. She settled her hips against his. He hadn’t thought it possible to be rid of the shame and uneasiness, but as she moved on top of him, he started to forget everything. Even if it was just for now. He was trembling all over.

She got up and went over and stood beside her bed, looking him in the eye. She unbuttoned her blouse, and then she reached up under her skirt and drew down her nylons and panties and stepped out of them. She lay down across the bed and reached out to him.

They were back in town shortly after one o’clock in the morning. It had to be the National Trust they were hitting. Lee was sure of that. They drove past Woolworths and past the cheerless frontage of the Shamrock, where the tavern was still open. Speedy turned the van at the bottom of the street and then doubled back up a laneway behind the buildings. The parking lot behind the bank was closed in on one side by a line of poplars and on the other side by a loading dock. A windowless steel man-door was set in the back wall of the bank. Speedy parked the van against the poplar trees. Gilmore switched on the scanner. They waited, listening.

There was little talk on the scanner. Some cop reported he was returning to the detachment. The dispatcher acknowledged. The words were dense with static.

They’d been there about fifteen minutes when they saw Maurice coming up the laneway. Gilmore looked at his watch. Maurice crossed over to the van. He opened the passenger door. Gilmore nodded to him.

—What a shitbag dump that hotel is, said Maurice. I didn’t see nothing down here all night.

—Good. Let’s go.

They distributed the walkie-talkies and tested them. Speedy was sent down the alley where he could watch the street. They waited. Then Speedy’s voice rasped out of the walkie-talkies.

—Come in, boys. I’m watching the street.

Gilmore told him to check in again every fifteen minutes.

Maurice got into the driver’s seat and backed the van across the parking lot right against the wall of the bank. They turned the ignition off and listened to the scanner for five minutes. Then Gilmore got out. Maurice told Lee to get up behind the steering wheel. Gilmore had the side door open and was digging around in the tool bag. He came out with a can of Styrofoam on a spray gun. Maurice got out and boosted Gilmore up onto the roof of the van. His footsteps thumped above. Lee stuck his head out the window and angled the mended side-view mirror upward so that he could watch.

The bank’s exterior alarm box was fixed to the wall five feet above the back door. Gilmore, standing on top of the van, fed the spray gun’s nozzle through the grill of the box. He emptied the can. This was something he’d done before, Lee could see. When he was finished there was foam bulging out of the grill. The foam would hold the clapper fast so it couldn’t strike the bell if the exterior alarm was tripped. Maurice, meanwhile, had drawn a crowbar out of the tool bag. He helped Gilmore come down and he told Lee to drive five feet forward.

Lee moved the van and put it into park. He turned it off and listened. The door at the back of the bank was directly behind the van and out of sight to him. Gilmore had come up to the passenger window. He stretched his legs as if preparing for a sport. He opened the door.

—How about a smoke, pal?

Lee gave him one. Five minutes later, Maurice came back, holding the crowbar in one hand.

—It’s open.

Gilmore nodded.

—Let’s go, Lee, said Maurice.

Lee got out of the van. The door at the back of the bank was open. It was dead black through the space. Up above he could see ridges of spray Styrofoam swollen out of the alarm box. He found that he was intensely aware of everything, of every sound, of the fabric of his clothes. Lee and Maurice hauled the burning-bar rig out and carried it into the bank. They lifted out the lances and moved them inside. Before they took out the tool bag, Maurice reached into it and dug for something. Gilmore came and leaned on the side of the van. He might have been passing the time of day.

—This is where it gets long. Maurice will work on the interior alarms now. Wait a few minutes and drive up to the corner. All you have to do is watch and listen.

Speedy checked in on the walkie-talkie and told them the street was still quiet.

Then Maurice had the tool bag over one shoulder and was moving away from the van. His big frame was moving with his breathing. He licked at one side of his mouth.

—We’re going in now. Every fifteen minutes on the walkie. Don’t fall asleep.

Lee saw that Maurice also had hold of a shotgun. The barrel had been cut down to just above the pump. Maurice saw Lee looking at it.

—Listen, Lee. Don’t get the idea that me or Gilmore haven’t worked this through. We got everything planned out. That includes you.

They studied each other.

—I’m here to work, said Lee. Make some money. That’s all.

Maurice wordlessly followed Gilmore into the bank.

Lee closed the back doors of the van and got into the driver’s seat. He moved the van back to the poplar trees. He parked it and turned the ignition off. He checked that the scanner was on. He checked the walkie-talkie. He looked at his hands on the steering wheel. The cold was settling into the vehicle. Lee looked out the window again. They’d left nothing in the parking lot and the falling snow had already begun to soften their tracks. The back door was closed. There was nothing to see but the buildings and the blanched night sky. He had a cigarette.

Some time passed and they did a check on the walkie-talkie. Speedy said he could use a cup of coffee. Maurice came back on, with a slight hiss of interference, and told Speedy to shut the fuck up.

A short while later there was some talk on the scanner. From what Lee could tell, a cop was following a drunk driver. Lee listened with some interest and he told the others over the walkie-talkie. It was good to have something to pay attention to. Before long, he interpreted that the drunk had been pulled over and arrested and a tow truck had been summoned. He checked in again on the walkie-talkie. And then he went back to waiting.

The driver’s door opened and Lee sat up. He blinked, unsure of his whereabouts. Cold air swirled into the van. Maurice had the door open. The shotgun was pressed to the side of his leg where it wouldn’t be noticed from a distance. He spoke in a hoarse whisper.

—Go spell off Speedy.

—What?

—I said go spell off Speedy. In the alley. I’m done with the alarm. Speedy’s got to start cutting now.

—The plan was I was up here, said Lee.

—Yeah, well, so far you’re the one getting the easiest ride. Besides, looks like you can’t keep awake anyways.

After a moment Lee climbed down from the seat. Up close he could see the way Maurice’s head was moving side to side. Maurice was gripping the shotgun tightly.

—Radio check when you’re in place. Keep your eyes open.

—Whatever you say, buck.

Lee made his way down the alley beside the bank. The snowfall had eased and the new-fallen snow lay clean, faintly glittering. Close to the street there was a doorway recessed into the building on the other side of the alley. It was here that Lee found Speedy. Speedy’s hands were buried in his pockets. His walkie-talkie was set on top of a garbage can he was sharing the space with.

—You’re to start the cutting now, said Lee.

Speedy shuddered.

—Lee. Okay. I just about froze solid down here.

Speedy pulled his hands out of his pockets. He had his pistol in one hand. Lee kept an eye on it.

—How long will the cutting take?

—Hard to say. Might be two feet right through. A hundred years? I’m only kidding. But you might be here awhile.

—You better get going, said Lee.

—I’ll see you soon.

—Don’t forget your radio.

Speedy took his walkie-talkie and went back up the alley. Lee checked in on his own walkie-talkie. He said he was in place and watching the street.

The lights had been turned off in the tavern up at the Shamrock. Lee looked down the street in the other direction. About two hundred yards away the street ended underneath a pulsing stoplight. He was a ten- or fifteen-minute walk from his apartment.

He hunkered back into the doorway and put his walkie-talkie down on the garbage can.

There was no wind, but it wasn’t long before a chill began settling into Lee’s extremities. His toque was pulled low and his collar was turned up. He moved on his feet. He kicked at the wall. It occurred to him that he could just turn out of the doorway and leave. That simple. But leave to what? To what purpose?

He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke go out before him. It dissolved in the still air.

At four in the morning, a patrol car moved past the alley. Lee lurked in the dark, watching the car stop outside the Shamrock. He was aware of everything again, of the close proximity of the concrete walls on either side of him. He lifted the walkie-talkie from the garbage can and spoke into it.

—I got a bull out here.

Maurice’s voice came back: What do you see?

—One car. Stopped up at the hotel.

Gilmore’s voice: Wait. Just watch them for a minute.

Lee had been fatigued before this. Now he was awake and aware of how cold he was. He turned down the volume on the walkie-talkie so it was just audible.

—There’s nothing on the scanner, said Maurice. What is it, just one car?

—Yes.

—One, two cops, we can take care of if they come around back here.

Lee was going to say something. He pressed the send button on the walkie-talkie. But he said nothing. He moved the fingers of his other hand to get the blood flowing.

—Lee?

—Wait.

The patrol car moved again. Nobody had gotten out of it. The car climbed the rise. Lee watched it till it was out of sight. He counted to five and then to ten.

—They’re gone now. They were just looking at the hotel.

—Keep watching, said Maurice. I want to know if anybody’s coming back this way.

Lee wanted a cigarette, but his fingers in the gloves were too clumsy with cold. He put the walkie-talkie down. He pulled his gloves off and put his hands down the front of his pants. He pressed his fingers between his thighs. His fingers throbbed when at last the blood moved back into them.

Maurice called him on the walkie-talkie five minutes later to ask if the cops had come back, and Lee told him they had not. Ten minutes after that he put the walkie-talkie down on the garbage can. He ventured out to the front of the alley again.

Then he went out onto the sidewalk. He looked in either direction. Down street of him, the stoplight blinked like some endless portent. Without giving it much thought, he wandered out into the middle of the street and stood where the patrol car had left its tire tracks. He thought the end of the world might look something like this. Undramatic. Just emptied out. And he, the last man.

He went back into the alley, thinking his solitary thoughts.

The walkie-talkie was speaking, urgently but hushed because he’d lowered the volume. Lee picked it up and said he was listening.

Maurice: Lee, where the fuck have you been?

—I didn’t hear you.

—Get back here. We’re packing up.

He came into the parking lot, stiff with the cold. He could see Maurice loading the tool bag into the van. Speedy was in the driver’s seat.

—Go in, said Maurice. You’ll see the way. Quick. Sixty seconds.

Lee put the walkie-talkie into his pocket and went through the back door into the bank.

It was black through the door. There was a powerful stink of burnt things. He saw a flashlight flick twice, quickly, up ahead, offering just enough light to reveal the dimensions of a hallway. It was Gilmore. Coming close to him, Lee could sense the man laden with something. A duffle bag, perhaps, thick with contents.

—Take the flashlight. Go up around the corner and don’t turn the light on till you’re there. You’ll see where to go. There’s three more bags. Make it quick.

He took the flashlight from Gilmore and felt his way around a corner. He turned the flashlight on. He was in an office. To his left was the wall where the door to the vault was set. The door was untouched. They’d cut the hole beside it. He could see where they’d pulled the carpeting back so the molten concrete slag from the cutting would pool only on the subfloor. The hole itself was roughly three feet square. Everything around and above it was burnt, up to the ceiling tiles. Smoke was still dense in the room. If the interior alarm hadn’t been successfully cut, Lee wondered who would have arrived first, the cops or the fire department.

The leather welding apron had been laid over the bottom of the cut. As Lee folded himself through, he could still feel heat baking off the concrete. The wall of the vault was eighteen inches thick. Where the rebar had been cut, the metal still had a cherry glow, and he was careful not to touch it. He prodded his foot down onto the rubble inside the vault. The air was almost un-breathable with smoke.

He stood up and shone the flashlight around the vault. There was smoke damage all over the ceiling. Dividing the vault in half was a barred gate but they’d hammered that open. He saw a metal table and floor-to-ceiling safe deposit boxes. Most of the boxes had been smashed open and pillaged. He saw old family photographs strewn about the floor, documents, deeds, promissory notes, insurance policies. He saw a broken urn, someone’s ashes spilled out of it. The three remaining duffle bags were in the middle of the floor, stuffed full.

—Lee, goddammit. You got to move quicker.

Behind him Maurice was crouched on the other side of the hole.

Lee grabbed the first bag. Whatever it was packed with was dense and irregular and heavy. He pushed it through the hole. Maurice pulled it out of the way. Lee pushed the second bag to him. He went back for the last bag and then he looked over his shoulder. Maurice had his shotgun butt-down on the floor with the barrel canted forward through the hole.

—How about you get that gun out of the hole, said Lee.

—What? How about you hurry the fuck up.

—Maybe I don’t like how you have that thing pointed.

—This isn’t a goddamn game.

—I know.

But Maurice moved the shotgun out of the hole.

Lee hauled the third duffle over and pushed it through. He followed it as quickly as he could. All was dark except where the two flashlights lanced about like phantoms.

Maurice spoke close to Lee’s ear: This is not a goddamn fucking game, Lee.

Lee hoisted a bag up over each shoulder. He could feel Maurice watching him. He switched off the flashlight and went back the way he’d come. The door was a faint outline up ahead and he was conscious of how much of his back was exposed to the man behind him. But he got outside without incident. Nothing had changed in the parking lot.

Maurice came out. He had the shotgun in his right hand and the last duffle bag in his left. The back door of the bank closed evenly in its frame, so that its breach would not be readily apparent. They crossed the parking lot towards the van. The engine started. In the haze of the brake lights he saw Gilmore hop out to open the back of the van. He and Maurice dropped the bags into the space behind the seat. The tool bag and the burning-bar rig were already packed under the drop cloth. They closed the doors. Maurice went ahead of Gilmore and got in the back seat. The van started to move forward.

That was it. All it had ever been.

Lee stood dumbly, watching them leave.

Then the van stopped. The back door opened, Maurice’s face hung halfway out: Get in, Lee, get in the fucking front. What are you waiting for?

Lee jogged up and opened the passenger door and got in. He hadn’t even closed the door before they were moving again. Lee looked up once and in the rear-view mirror he could see Gilmore and Maurice in the back. Maurice with the shotgun on his lap.

—What did you think? said Speedy. We were leaving you back there?

—Speedy, said Maurice. Shut the fuck up till we get back.

Lee said nothing. He took a cigarette out of his pack and lit it. He had three cigarettes remaining.

Pete woke up and saw by Emily’s alarm clock that it was five o’clock in the morning. He pulled himself away from her warm body. When he’d finished dressing, she stirred and took his hand. She put it to her breast and he felt the nipple harden.

—Pete? Can I see you maybe this afternoon or tomorrow?

—I’d like that.

—Me too.

He made his way back up through the house and slipped out noiselessly. The sky had cleared and the stars were profuse. The branches creaked on the maples above and the snow underfoot hadn’t been disturbed. He stole down the street to his car and let it heat up as he brushed off his windshield. He got into the driver’s seat. He could still smell Emily on his fingers. He drew in the scent deeply.

He took the long way through downtown. The heater pumped out heat and the radio was on. It was well before dawn yet. He felt better. He passed the dark front of the National Trust and passed the Shamrock Hotel. He laughed a little. The few days he’d spent in the hotel seemed a long time ago.

He drove up Harris Avenue. He was coming to the intersection where the Union Street bridge crossed over the river and carried on to the highway bypass. The light turned red. He slowed down and stopped. He yawned. The radio told him to have a happy holiday and Pete drummed on the steering wheel.

Then he saw the van pass in front of his car, the van with the mended side-view mirror and the crack on the windshield. The van had the right-of-way at the intersection and it turned onto the bridge up ahead. Pete watched a cigarette butt come sparking out from the passenger-side window, over the guardrail, and down onto the frozen river.

They passed a handful of other vehicles on their way back to Indian Lake. Headlights appeared, bore down on them, and passed. When they arrived at the property, the lights were on in the Airstream. Speedy brought the van to a stop next to the shed. Arlene’s hatchback was parked a few feet ahead.

They opened the van and got out. The door of the Airstream was open now and in the warm light they could see Arlene in silhouette, holding a robe around herself. She raised a hand.

—Do you think I’m glad to see you or what?

—Get your ass back in the bedroom, said Gilmore. I got something to give you.

—Oh, big talk.

Gilmore feigned a charge at the Airstream and Arlene scampered back inside, pulling the door shut behind her. Gilmore came back to the van.

—How about a cigarette, Lee.

In the dark, any man was just a shape bearing faint edges of ambient light. It was a moment before Lee said anything. His voice was pitched low: One of mine?

—Well, who else is the chain-smoker here? Tell you what, I’ll buy you a deck or two in Montreal.

Lee offered his pack and Gilmore took one of the last three.

—I could go with one, said Speedy.

Lee gave Speedy his second-last and then took the last for himself. The cigarettes were lit and the smoke smelled good in the cold air.

There was work to do yet. Lee smoked half of his cigarette and then butted it on the side of the van. He put the remaining half back in his pack. He could not put any trust in words so he submitted to what he was told to do. They moved the tool bag and the burning-bar rig back into the locker in the corner of the shed. The five duffle bags they’d hauled out of the vault were moved through the doorway of the Airstream into a small galley. Arlene was leaning on the wall. Her robe was silk with Chinese dragons patterned on it, frayed about the hem. She smiled as she watched them carry in the take. Lee had no idea what it amounted to.

They went out and stood by the van. The airplane was to arrive before eight o’clock. Gilmore had spoken to his friend the day before and all was well, but if the plane did not arrive by nine, they would go north in the van. In the meantime that meant waiting.

Gilmore disappeared into the Airstream.

—You two can wait here, said Maurice. The van or the shed. There’s no reason to go wandering around the property nowhere.

Speedy laughed: I don’t know where the fuck we’d go.

Lee took out the remnants of his last cigarette and lit it.

—Lee? said Maurice. Lee exhaled smoke.

—Lee, did you go deaf or something?

—I heard you, said Lee.

He opened the passenger door of the van and sat down. He looked at what was revealed by the starlight, looked at Maurice and Speedy moving into the shed. His last cigarette did not last long. He rolled down the window and pitched out the butt. If he closed his eyes he could see the van moving away in front of him.

He wondered if in times to come he might question whether things could have followed another direction. A short while later he shut his eyes.

The old dream: the concrete dark of the basement, the sight and sound of the coal furnace. The cripple with the spadeshovel. Only this time the cripple had a newer old face. Joe Holmes. The blood poured out of his side where he’d been stabbed with the screwdriver. He had the caretaker’s limp. You see how clear it is, don’t you? Don’t you see how clear it is?

Lee was cold and stiff. The passenger door was open. The sun had not risen but the sky had lightened. Speedy was shaking him awake. He was stepping foot to foot, agitated, prodding the air with his 9mm.

Lee shot his hand forward and grabbed Speedy’s wrist: What the fuck is wrong with you?

—Lee.

—Is the airplane here?

—Lee.

He let go of Speedy’s wrist and pushed the man away. He said: Quit waving that fucking gun in my face.

—They got somebody here.

—They got what?

—Somebody here. Oh, man.

—A cop?

—Not a cop. They got a kid.

—A kid, said Lee.

He hopped down from the van.

—Just come and see, said Speedy. Oh, man. Arlene doesn’t know nothing about it. She’s still in the camper and Gilmore says—

Lee pushed past him. The equation was falling just short of a complete picture.

—Where is this kid?

—In the locker. Maurice was looking around, like keeping an eye open, and he finds this kid over by the trees …

They went into the shed, Lee leading. He crossed to the locker and pulled the door open. Gilmore was there. Maurice was a little deeper in, crouched down.

In the back corner of the locker they had him laid out on the floor, bound with duct tape around the ankles and wrists. Maurice reached out with the shotgun to prod the kid’s ribs. The kid had a strip of duct tape over his mouth. His nose had been badly broken and was leaning sideways and both eyes were blackened and the top of his forehead had been split open, wide enough to show a pink slip of bone beneath. His face was curtained with blood.

When Maurice prodded him he shuddered. Maurice stood up. He said: Yeah, still ticking.

—What is this? said Lee.

Gilmore and Maurice turned back to look at him and Speedy. The expression on Gilmore’s face was hard to interpret. Maybe vague distaste.

How could this be? How could he be here?

—What does it look like? said Maurice. While you thought you’d get yourself some goddamn sleep I went to watch our backs. And look what I found. Look what the fuck I found.

Lee worked moisture into his mouth: He doesn’t look like nobody I know. Who is he?

—He’s Peter, said Gilmore.

—Peter.

Gilmore pointed at the name embroidered on Pete’s jacket.

—He didn’t have a wallet on him, said Speedy.

—Peter, said Lee.

He saw Pete’s eyes rolling in their purpled swells. The blood vessels of one cornea had all burst.

—Did he tell you anything? said Speedy.

—No, said Maurice. He doesn’t have anything to say at all. Maybe you should get your torch going.

The eyes rolled.

—He’s nobody I know, said Lee, and they looked at him.

He stepped backwards out of the locker. The other men resumed talking. Lee went across the floor to the tool bag and opened it and dug through it and came out with an eight-pound sledgehammer. He carried it mid-shaft in one hand and he went back into the locker. He shouldered his way between Speedy and Gilmore. He heard his name spoken. He pushed past Maurice and he stood above the kid.

—Lee, said Maurice.

Lee laid the sledgehammer over his shoulder and he leaned down. He tore the strip of tape off the boy’s mouth. He heard him suck in breath. Two of his teeth were missing.

From beside him Lee could see Maurice taking a step backwards. He had the shotgun at his hip and was not quite pointing it and he was looking to Gilmore.

—You’re nobody I know, said Lee.

He straightened up. He put both hands on the shaft of the sledgehammer. The cords in his arms drew tight. Through his gloves he could feel the wood grain in the hickory.

—You’re nobody at all.

Lee brought the sledgehammer down. It moved with all the motion his arms could put to it, with its own weight carrying it. The steel head crashed into the frozen dirt six inches from Pete’s skull. Fragments of earth cascaded into his face. He had his eyes and mouth squeezed shut. When Lee lifted the hammer, a grey dent was left where it had struck.

He turned around.

Speedy’s hands were pressed against the sides of his head. Maurice was pointing the shotgun at Lee but he’d not yet pumped the action. He was looking from Lee to Gilmore and back to Lee. Gilmore himself was unreadable.

Lee went out of the locker. He threw the sledgehammer away from him. It hit the ground and bounced and came to rest. He could hear Gilmore speaking to Maurice:

—… your kind of shit to deal with. You figure out what this little sack of shit thinks he saw. And then you figure out what you want to do with him. The plane will be here in an hour. And nobody says a word, a fucking word, to Arlene.

Gilmore came out of the locker and crossed through the shed. He slowed as he passed Lee and the two of them looked at each other and neither said anything, and then Gilmore went back outside into the gathering daylight.

The locker door was partially ajar but all Lee could see through the opening was Speedy’s back.

The business card he’d taken from his wallet was yellowed with age. It showed a cartoon man in coveralls holding an oversized wrench, and behind the man was a woodstove with two white eyes and a smiling row of teeth. Gunter’s Maintenance & Restoration—All Makes. There was a phone number and a concession address in Novar. He turned the card over and read a different phone number handwritten on the back. He was in the store, holding the cold receiver of the pay telephone to his mouth.

The man on the other end of the line had not spoken for a long moment.

—Do you understand? said Lee. If I call the bulls and they come with all their lights and sirens and all that shit, then these boys will kill him. If you don’t understand the rest of it then you have to understand that.

—I understand.

—Then …

—Yes. It’s a ways from me. I’ll need twenty minutes.

Lee closed his eyes.

—I’ll see you.

He hung up. He breathed slowly. He walked a lap around the interior of the restaurant. He opened the rusty tool box he’d seen the night before. The box contained wiring tools: a cable ripper, a selection of marrettes, screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers.

On one of the stripped grocery shelves he found an old pack of cigarettes. There was one cigarette in the pack. It was stale and dry and the smoke moved briskly through it when he lit it. He looked back at the telephone.

There was what might have been an office through a door past the round-top fridge. The smell of mouse shit was sharp. One window in the office was unboarded, and Lee looked out on the white stillness of the property. The rising sun was slanting crosswise through the spruce. He could not see the shed or the campers from here. He opened his wallet again and looked at what little remained. One thing was his parole officer’s card. He balled the card up and threw it in the corner. Wade Larkin hadn’t ever been much use in the first place.

Lee drew on his cigarette.

He came back out of the empty office and went towards the tool box on the table. That was when he heard boots behind him. Maurice was standing in the opening between the rear storeroom and the restaurant. The shotgun was laid over his shoulder.

—What are you doing, Lee?

—I came down here to warm up.

—To warm up. What are you doing with that tool box?

Lee went past him into the rear storeroom. Over his shoulder, he said: The heater in the van is broken.

He took two steps and then he started to run for the back door. Maurice swung the shotgun by the barrel and the butt hit Lee in the back of the head. He pitched hard onto the concrete floor. The tool box crashed open in front of him and the wiring tools and marrettes scattered out.

—What in the fuck, Lee? I told you not to come down here. And why are you running?

Lee’s vision wavered. There was an immense throb pulsing out from where he’d been struck. The cigarette, pressed between his cheek and the floor, was searing his skin. He rolled his head off it. He got himself up onto his hands and knees and put his fingers down over a flathead screwdriver that had spilled from the tool box. Maurice stood beside him. He put the shotgun to Lee’s ear.

Maurice started to say something but Lee snapped the screwdriver into Maurice’s thigh and brought it back out. He surged up off the floor and into Maurice and both men scrambled backwards into the restaurant, coupled absurdly, grunting, seeking out soft parts with knees and thumbs. Maurice still had hold of the shotgun in one hand but he hadn’t pumped it yet and his free hand was occupied with trying to crush Lee’s windpipe or drive his fingers into Lee’s eyes. Lee thrashed his head about. He pulled at any part he could get hold of. Maurice’s weight was enormous. He guided them by sheer size, both bodies colliding into tables and shelves.

Then Maurice backed Lee into the range and pressed his whole weight into him. He drove his knee up into Lee’s thigh and wrapped his hand around Lee’s throat and squeezed. But now they were fixed in one place. Lee rammed the screwdriver into Maurice’s neck, as many times as he could, as quickly as he could. Maurice’s fingers released Lee’s windpipe, and the big man moved backwards and found the refrigerator and sat down on the floor against it. He had his hand around his own neck now and he looked surprised. Doubtful. He was still holding the shotgun in his other hand.

Blood came out of Maurice’s mouth and between his fingers. It was all over his shirt. Lee staggered upright from the range, gagging air back into his lungs. His hand was slippery with blood.

Maurice said a nonsense sound.

Lee dropped the screwdriver and dug under the counter until he found a threadbare tea towel. He wiped the blood from his hand. He fingered the swelling on the back of his head. Then he went over to Maurice and pulled the barrel of the shotgun. Maurice held on. Lee planted his boot on Maurice’s arm and pushed, still holding the barrel, until the shotgun came free.

Maurice said the nonsense sound again. It might have been the word you. There was more blood than Lee could have believed possible. It was on the refrigerator and it was pooling on the floor.

Lee pumped the shotgun halfway, checking the gate to see the cartridge in the chamber, and then he finished the pump and thumbed on the safety. He knelt down a few feet in front of Maurice and leaned on the shotgun and continued to get his breath back. Lee watched until Maurice had stopped moving and all the sight had gone from his eyes. The blood still trickled out of him.

Lee got up. His head felt like a cracked bell and his left eye was blurred where Maurice had pressed it. His windpipe was burning. He went through the storeroom and looked out through the open door, across the rise of snow-covered property, to the shed and the van and the campers. Nothing moved.

He went out. There were tracks in the snow. His tracks coming, Maurice’s tracks coming. Lee climbed the rise and turned the shotgun out in front of him. The treeline beyond the shed was a dark sketch between earth and sky.

He came first to the prow of the Airstream where the windows were shuttered. He could see the man-door into the shed, open and dark. He moved up on the stoop of the Airstream and tried the door. It was unlocked. He slipped inside. The galley was warm and smelled like cigarettes.

A passageway ran from the galley to the forequarters of the trailer. Just as he was about to step forward he saw Arlene come out of where he reckoned the bedroom was. She was wearing her robe and was combing her hair out of her eyes. Lee pointed the shotgun at her but she did not notice him. She went into the bathroom midway down the passageway and folded the door closed behind her.

Gilmore’s voice spoke from the bedroom.

—In the fridge, said Gilmore.

—I will, said Arlene.

Lee went down the passageway to the bedroom. There was a double bed with the sheets pulled up from the corners. The duffle bags packed with the take were heaped one on top of the other beside the bed. Gilmore was sitting on the edge of the mattress, paused in the act of either pulling on or removing his jeans, glancing curiously at what was now filling the doorway.

—Lee, said Gilmore.

Lee shot him in the chest and Gilmore dropped down onto the mattress. His arms were outflung and his jeans were still around his knees. Stuffing from one pillow swirled to the bedspread and smoke hung in the air and there was a shrill ringing in Lee’s ears. He pumped the shotgun.

He turned and went back down the passageway. Arlene was screaming in the bathroom. Lee opened the front door and went outside. The man-door into the shed remained unchanged and he kept it in plain sight.

He was on the bottom of the stoop when something slammed into the side of his abdomen and turned him halfway around. He became aware of a popping noise that broke through the ring in his ears. Once Helen had made popcorn on the hot plate and this sound was not dissimilar. He looked up.

There was Speedy at the back of the van, not coming out of the shed at all, and he was holding up the 9mm in both hands.

Lee fired the shotgun from his hip. The pellets punched into the side of the van. He pumped and fired again. Snow and dirt spewed up from the ground. Speedy had already turned and was fleeing. Lee walked towards the van, pumped the shotgun, fired again. Speedy was thirty yards away, running flat-out, head bent forward, not looking back. Lee pumped the shotgun and pulled the trigger and nothing happened. He had to lean against the van when he reached it. What was this thing bound around him? He looked down and saw a hole in his jacket, dark and small and singular, somewhat like a cigarette burn. He thought of the day he’d bought the jacket, the money that had gone out of his wallet. He looked up again and Speedy was out of sight.

Lee’s breath plumed out. He took a step away from the van and he faltered. The man-door into the shed was on the other side of the van. He inclined his ear but could hear nothing through the ringing. No airplane, no woman screaming. Nothing of the boy.

Stan was two miles from the marina when he saw the man by the side of the road, waving his arms above his head. He slowed down and the man jogged forward. He slipped once on a patch of ice but kept his footing. He was a small man, moving quickly, and there was a scar on the side of his face. Stan glanced over his shoulder at the Marlin .410 he’d brought from home. It was laid behind the seat. The man came around the passenger side and Stan leaned across the seat and opened the door.

—What’s the trouble?

—Just listen, said the man.

He was pointing an automatic pistol. Stan could smell the metal of it, the gun oil. The man climbed into the truck. Up close Stan could see fine scratches on the man’s face and hands, as if he’d been running through the bush. His jeans were wet to the knees.

—Listen.

—I just stopped to see if you needed help.

The man wagged the pistol at him. His lips were pulled back over his teeth. He told Stan to shut up while he thought.

Stan looked in the rear-view mirror. The road behind him was vacant.

—Okay, said the man. We’ll go back.

The man turned forward on the seat. There would be no other chance. Stan hit him with a hard right cross into the chin, felt the man’s jaw move sideways against the impact. Speedy dropped his pistol in the footwell and toppled sideways out of the truck.

Stan started to move over on the seat and the truck lurched forward and he realized it was still in gear. He pulled the shift to park and slid across the seat and picked up the 9mm. The safety was engaged at the back of the slide.

He got out of the truck. There was a spot of blood where Speedy had landed on his head on the road. He’d gotten up and was now shuffling away in an aimless, drunken fashion. Stan pointed the pistol at him.

—You son of a bitch. Stop walking.

Speedy stopped, turned around: You want to talk about this, man?

—Shut your goddamn mouth. Are you alone?

But then the unmarked cruiser came into view on the road behind them. It slowed to a stop and Dick Shannon got out. He’d unholstered his revolver.

—Stanley. What are you doing with that gun?

—This son of a bitch waved me down and then stuck this at me.

—Has this got to do with why you called me?

—I don’t know yet, said Stan. There’s a real jam of some kind. Leland King …

Dick came forward. He patted Speedy down. He told him he was arresting him for pointing a firearm, did he understand? Speedy said nothing. Dick handcuffed him and found Speedy’s wallet in his hip pocket. He looked through it.

—Simmons, said Dick. Willis John. What’s your story, Willis John Simmons?

—I have nothing to say to you.

Dick pushed Speedy down into the back of the unmarked car and closed the door behind him. Stan turned the 9mm and removed the magazine and ejected the chambered bullet.

—What’s this about Leland King? said Dick.

Stan bent down and retrieved the ejected bullet. He offered the pistol and bullet to Dick.

—Lee King called me half an hour ago. He said he was in some kind of jam.

—What kind of a jam are we talking about?

—He said they robbed a bank.

—Jesus.

—They found a kid out there. Tailing after them maybe, I don’t know. Lee didn’t have much time to talk. He said he figured if the police came with the sirens going, the kid was going to get killed.

—And why was Leland King calling you to talk about this?

—Christ, Dick, that doesn’t matter just now. I know the place he called from. It’s Alec Reynolds’s place.

—Stan, this is some kind of a goddamn mess. I’ll get some cars scrambled—

—The nearest tactical team is two goddamn hours away. I’m going.

—I don’t want you to do that, Stanley.

—I think I know what kid Lee was talking about.

—You jackass, look how old we are. I have a crown of pork waiting for me when I get home. I’m telling you to wait right here.

Stan was already moving back to his truck. He heard Dick shout his name. Dick was standing alongside the cruiser with one hand lifted in a gesture of entreaty.

—Follow me, said Stan.

He drove his truck quickly down the road. He parked it in the clearing where he’d parked it before. The deadfall was cloaked under the snow. Past the culvert and a hundred yards farther down the road he could see the entrance to the laneway. He got out of the truck and took the .410 out from behind the seat. By that time Dick had pulled up behind him and was getting out of the unmarked car.

—Stanley, Christ. There’s cars coming from every detachment from here to North Bay. The tactical team there is standing up. We can sit tight.

—I know where to go, Dick.

Stan could see Speedy in the back seat of the car. Stan looked at Dick. Dick lifted his hands and held them palm out.

Then Dick got one of the detachment’s 12-gauge shotguns out of the trunk. He loaded it. Stan could see that his fingers were fumbling slightly. Dick left Speedy in the back seat, and then he and Stan went into the bush, backtracking the way Stan had gone before, taking deep steps through the snow. It was slow going. Up ahead was the shallow fold of the creek. Beyond that was the rocky slope. He watched the high feature for movement in the breaks between the trees. Dick thrashed through the snow behind him. He’d unholstered his pistol again.

They came to the creek. Stan slipped going down the bank and put one leg up to the knee into the freezing water. Dick hauled him back out by the shoulders.

—Look, said Dick, pointing.

Fifteen feet downstream there were fresh tracks coming crosswise down the slope above the creek. Right at the bank the snow was cloven away to the mud beneath, as if someone else had stumbled and fallen. The tracks resumed on the other side, heading to the road.

—He was in a hurry.

They stepped over the creek where it narrowed between two rocks. It was hard work climbing the slope past the creek, and they would be long in reacting if anyone appeared above. At the crest they leaned on tree trunks, sucking wind. Fifty yards across open ground stood the back wall of the shed. Nothing was moving.

They looked at each other and then set out across the field, moving abreast through the snow. The feeling had gone out of Stan’s foot where he’d put it in the water. They stopped to study the tracks through the snow that Speedy had left as he fled. They watched the shed and the campers. They could see an import hatchback parked a little farther down the laneway. They came around the shed to the laneway and saw the van. There was an array of tracks in the snow. There were ejected 9mm casings, maybe six or seven of them, and three spent shotgun cartridges. They saw the buckshot holes in the side of the van.

—Airplane, said Dick.

—What?

Down past the store they could see the flat white surface of the bay. There was a small airplane, maybe a Cessna, sitting on the ice just below the drop-off, almost obscured from view by the spruce.

—None of this can be any good, said Dick.

Drops of blood lay in the snow, pink and oddly delicate, tracing a path around the van to the man-door in the shed.

Before there was opportunity to track the blood, they heard the Airstream door open up. A bearded man came out on the step. He had a detachable aviator’s headset around his neck and he was bent under the weight of a duffle bag. The man was holding Arlene by the wrist. She was lurking in the doorway just behind him, wearing a slip and a jacket and snow boots. Her face was vacuous and makeup was smeared down her cheeks.

—Oh, said the bearded man. Fuck.

Dick pointed the 12-gauge and told the man to drop the duffle bag and to come down off the stoop with his hands plainly visible. The girl too.

—How many other people are in that trailer? said Dick.

The pilot looked at Arlene. She just stared at the ground.

—There’s nobody, said the pilot. There’s just us. Can we talk about this?

—You’re goddamn right we can, said Dick. I’m very interested to know what you have to say.

Stan covered with his .410. Dick had a couple of plastic cable-ties tucked in his hat. He used these to bind Arlene’s wrists and the wrists of the pilot, who stiffened angrily. He told them how there was some crazy asshole with a shotgun sitting in the shed.

—What are you boys going to do about that, is what I want to know? said the pilot.

—Stanley, said Dick.

But Stan was already moving to the man-door, seating the .410 into his shoulder and laying his finger along the side of the trigger-guard. He passed through the door frame and blinked to get the brightness out of his eyes. He saw the blood spotted across the floor. Something was hunched against the locker in the corner.

He crossed half the distance and the thing moved and it was Leland King, sitting with his legs forked out in front of him. He had a sawed-off shotgun across his lap. As Stan came forward, Lee made some effort to move the shotgun. He appeared to be incapable of fully lifting it. He just braced the stock against the wall beside him and hefted the barrel up on one knee. He held it for a moment and then he lowered it and let it slide out of his hands altogether.

Stan moved up and shoved the shotgun away with his boot. He heard Dick call after him from outside and he turned his head and shouted that he was alright. Up above, the trusses were creaking quietly. Lee had not bled through the hole in his jacket but he’d bled down his jeans onto the hard-packed dirt around him. He was pale as candle wax.

—Lee, said Stan.

Lee’s eyes were fixed not on the old man but at a point in the middle distance. He spoke in a dry and cracked voice: One time I guessed I knew something.

—Tell me where the boy is.

—I guessed I knew something. But I wasn’t right at all.

—Where is he, Lee?

—I was wrong about it the whole time. Everything. Maybe you think you can understand that. But you can’t.

Lee lifted his hand and grasped the edge of the locker door. He was able to pull it open a few inches and then he dropped his hand back onto the ground.

Stan reached the .410 forward and hooked the foresight on the door and pulled it open. The door was heavier than it looked. He thought the boy was dead until he saw the eyes blinking on either side of the broken nose. The boy’s mouth moved.

—You can’t understand it, said Lee.

—I can understand it. All of it, pretty clear.

The man on the ground shook his head: No. There’s nothing clear.

—He’s alive, Lee.

Where he goes, I won’t see him.

But already the old man was turning away, calling to his friend outside. What remained for Lee was that which lingers through the smallest, loneliest hours. Rising, stirring, stepping out of the dark, calling his name.

It had always been there.

The new year came and there was a great deal of talk in town and there was talk through the months that followed and the talk was inflated and inaccurate and everybody claimed ownership of some stake in it, somebody they’d known. A vast number of persons claimed to have witnessed the robbery itself. Or at least to have heard it. Or at least to have known somebody who had witnessed it or had heard it. In the retellings, there were thousands of gallons of blood spilled out at the defunct marina on Indian Lake. There was a battle among the perpetrators and a war with the police that lasted half a day. Spring came and the snows receded and the leaves budded pale on the trees and the birds returned and the days grew long. The scope of what people talked about began to swell beyond the limits of the town, which itself had begun to fade back into the ordinary once again.

On the face of the headstone was her name, Edna Eunice Maitland, and the years she’d lived, and an engraved epitaph:

That bells should joyful ring to tell

A soul had gone to heaven,

Would seem to me the proper way

A good news should be given.

Beside the epitaph, there was a simple depiction of a stand of birch trees and a path winding among the trees and out of sight. Patterns of light and shadow shifted on the stone from the tree above, which was not birch but white ash, newly flowered. She was three years interred in the earth and beside her was the plot the old man had arranged for himself in times to come. In the fall, Mary had dug a small flower bed in front of the headstone and planted hyacinth bulbs in the soil and they’d bloomed well.

Now that the good weather had arrived, he could come to visit more often. There was much to tell her and only standing there could he say it. Not that words were necessary. Mary’s health, Frank’s health, the news from the last letter he’d received—two weeks ago—from her sister in Toronto. Emily would be there come September and she said how she would go to visit her great-aunt every few weeks. That was worth telling. Very much. And how today when he left the cemetery he was going to pick Louise up from school and go out to the stand on the west side of Indian Lake to see what birds they could name. In the cab of the truck he’d brought along the 10x42 field glasses. He did not think when they got there that he’d even cast a glance at Alec Reynolds’s property to the north.

There was more. He looked away from the words on the stone, the image of the birch trees and the winding path.

There was the house. Sold not three weeks after he’d had it listed. A young couple from the city with two kids, looking for a summer cottage. They’d spoken of the view and of the flower garden in the dooryard, despite the weeds that had grown in it. And they asked him if they could buy the piano in the front room. He told them no. The piano was not for sale. But they could have it free for the asking.

He’d found a place in town. A small townhouse on the end of a row. It backed onto a long grove of trees on the edge of the golf course. He could take the dog walking. He could leave the house on Echo Point for what it was, timber and stone and nothing more. He thought he could.

He also thought about the affairs over the last several months, but he did not dwell on them as much as he had expected he would. Frank had congratulated and thanked him in a civic ceremony, but had almost nothing to say about it in private. They had, however, gone fishing a few times—just the two of them, and at Frank’s invitation—after trout season opened in April. Dick Shannon, who’d also been part of the civic commendation, had put in his retirement paperwork a week later.

The incident itself—the robbery at the National Trust and the bloodshed that had followed—wasn’t something that could be put to rest simply by awarding civic commendations, or by telling and retelling it in newspapers and on the national news. The incident defied categorization. Sometimes what came back to Stan was sitting at the roadhouse with the man who’d called himself Colin Gilmore, Gilmore leaning back against the bar, saying, You think up some more questions if you want, before he got up and disappeared. The truth was, Stan hadn’t known what to ask the man then, or what to say to him. He didn’t know any better now.

And Leland King, who’d survived, had nothing to say. Nothing by way of explanation, nothing in his own defence. Maybe Lee thought the world had finished listening to him a long time ago. He was probably right.

Lastly, there was the question of Judy Lacroix, whether she had or hadn’t taken her own life. Nobody would ever know, and nobody could ever make it right. But it didn’t trouble Stan as much as it had in the fall, even though he still thought about her. And he still thought, every day, about her uncle Darien, turning at the bottom of the hangman’s rope. He knew that Darien Lacroix would be his to think about, no matter what, for as long as he had thoughts in his head.

But he’d done what he could, and that had to stand for something, in his own heart if nowhere else. He’d even had supper on two occasions with Eleanor Lacroix and Tommy Spencer. Eleanor was pregnant.

The breeze stirred and moved the hyacinth blossoms and turned the water that had run from his eyes down the seams of his face cold. He lifted a hand and rubbed back the tears and he told Edna so long for this week.

He walked back down the gravelled footpath to where his truck was parked in the lane and as he came close to it, Cassius sat up in the bed and looked at him. He opened the door and got in and turned on the truck. He was about to put it into gear but he didn’t. He got out again. He went around to the tailgate and lowered it and told the dog to get down. The dog hopped down and stretched and then looked at him.

Stan closed the tailgate and walked up to the passenger door and opened it.

—Get in.

The dog looked at him.

—Get in, you stubborn bastard.

The dog whined once and then sat back.

—Look. I can’t lift you any more.

It took some coaxing and patting the seat before Cassius stood back up and reared and jumped and scrabbled his way into the cab. He got up onto the seat and turned around and looked at Stan for further guidance, unaccustomed as he was to the front of the truck, but Stan only closed the door and came around and got back in the driver side and closed his own door. Then he put the truck into gear and carried on with his afternoon.

To look at the sky above the cemetery, you might think it had never been any different.