T
he next day over an early breakfast Smiley looked at me wearing black pants and T-shirt and then over at Claire.
“Why’s he all whored up?”
“He has to go work at the local archery shop today. He helps out there and Frank, the owner, has an appointment, so Monty gets to play at being a responsible-type businessman.”
“Oh. Should I go with …?”
She interrupted him. “No, you are staying here with me while we watch over assorted monsters masquerading as children. We can talk some more over what you’re going to need. Sound good?”
Fred was in his high chair and he took the opportunity to fling a handful of generic, round, oat-based cereal at me. Mostly he missed and the rest the dog ate, and when I threw some back at him, Claire took the opportunity to steal a piece of toast off my plate.
“Hey!”
“Serves you right.” She said it through a mouthful of crumbs
and I ignored her and turned back to Smiley, who was drinking coffee. There were big bags under both eyes. Going straight apparently didn’t agree with him. Going from despotism to anarchy was a hard step for anyone. Plus (and this is a secret) many crooks
like
prison, I don’t know why, nor do I want too.
“I’ve been thinking; what about a pawnshop? What about running one of those? I could do that.” He stretched.
“Really?”
“Sure. I’ve been a fence and it’s pretty much the same thing. And I could set up with stock pretty fast by visiting a few swap shops and flea markets. All I have to do is put some cash together.”
Claire looked interested. “Maybe.”
“Maybe nothing.”
She made a face. “Maybe. It’s heavily regulated, maybe not what you want to do. The cops visit all the time. Not a low-stress thing at all. I still think carpark attendant is the way to go, or maybe towel boy in a men’s bathhouse. They make lots of tips.”
Smiley stared at her bemusedly and Claire finished feeding Fred and then released him onto the floor. When I had finished my coffee I stood up and went to work.
Frank Wyzik was waiting for me, impatiently, just inside his shop, which was called The Buttes.
“Where the hell were you?”
Frank was maybe five feet nothing, 100 pounds soaking wet, with white hair he’d recently cut short and beautiful brown eyes set in skin tanned into a kind of leather. Like always, he was wearing clothes that didn’t match, this time a short-sleeved T-shirt advertising an opera called
Nosferatu
along with black rubber boots and plaid pants.
“I was rushing here,
Mein Führer.
”
“Good, respect is good.”
He rubbed his hands together. I put my windbreaker behind the counter and stood there in front of him.
“Do you know what to do?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“Good. I like that. No bad habits to unlearn. Cash box is under the till. Lane rental is $2 an hour. Bows for rent are the ones on the upper rack, they cost $3 per hour, and arrow rental is $1 per hour per arrow.”
I turned on the lights using the master switches under the counter and tapped the keys on the register.
“Don’t bother. It’s broken, it’s always been broken, and it always will be broken. Use the cash box, and if anyone buys anything make sure you charge the taxes, which are 14 percent.”
“It’s 12 percent.”
“You sure?”
“Yep. Seven percent provincial, 5 percent federal. Twelve percent.”
“Shit. Okay, 12 percent then. And write down the sales in the book under the counter.”
“
Jawohl
.”
He was nervous, fingering the racks of camouflage clothes, accessories, and bags that filled the store. Drumming his fingers on the Plexiglas countertops, staring down the two lanes at the back of the room that ended in walls made up of pressboard held together with clamps. As he wandered he talked. “The doctor shouldn’t take me long. Not long at all.”
“Everything will be fine.”
“Sure. Sure! Hey, do you want to go hunting wild boar with me?”
“Frank? I’m an ex-con. How can I go hunting?”
“The boars don’t care. You live in Manitoba, so you’re a resident. That’s fine. Also, no licence needed to shoot boar.”
He kept moving and ticking things off on his fingers, making a godawful squeaking noise with his boots. “No training for archers is required. You’re already better than most of the morons I’ve shot with. You do need a Hunter Safety course, one day, $35, and at the end you answer a multiple choice test. Then off we go.”
Frank rubbed his hands together. “It’ll be great. We can take as many grey squirrels, rabbits, and wild boar we want …”
His words were finally sinking in. “Wild boar?”
“Yessir.”
“You mean, big pigs, covered in fur? Big pigs with big tusks and sharp hooves?”
“Oh yeah, that’s the beastie we’ll be trying for, there’s no limit on those. Bout eighty or ninety escaped a few years ago from wild game farms and have adapted real well. And it’s not fur on them: they have hair.”
“Is there a difference?”
“No, not really …”
“We’re talking about wild boars? We’re talking about shooting wild boars with little-bitty arrows?”
“Yeah, some ecologists thought they’d die off real fast during the first winter but they’re smart. Mean, too. And big. They’re survivors, big time. They’ve become the alpha predators in some places.”
I counted the money in the cash box twice, did it again; finally I reached the same number twice in a row.
“I just want to make sure I have this idea straight: you want to hunt wild boar?”
He ignored me. “Now I’ve seen the spoor where they’ve killed black bears and a friend of mine, well, not really a friend, said that he’s heard of them killing wolves, but I think he’s full of shit. Pardon the French.”
“Wild boar? Frank, tell me you’re kidding?”
“Nope. Latin name
sus scrofa
, they can reach 400 kilograms. One in Georgia, one of the tusks was forty-five centimetres long! Another one from Alabama topped out at over 500 kilograms, three metres from snout to tail! But they don’t end up that big here. And I know a great place south of the city where there are a couple of sounders, packs of pigs, plus everything else. It’s a deserted little chunk of abandoned farmstead owned by someone who died years ago. One of the neighbours is a friend of mine and he tells me the pigs come out and tear up his gardens every now and then. He’d love it if some were dealt with. It’ll be great!”
He had me speechless and he continued to gush, “Yeah. Imagine it. Imagine the food! Lapereau aux champignons, lapereau de garenne a la braconniere, civet de lievre a l’ardennaise, noisettes de chevreuil aux avocats, selle de marcassin a la bordelaise …”
“Gesundheit.”
He waved his arms triumphantly and intoned, “… and squirrel mesquite jambalaya!”
“You made that last one up.”
“Nope. It’ll be great! Trust me.”
“You’re a very strange man, Frank.”
He was distracted and repeated, “Yeah, it’ll be great.”
He wasn’t paying attention which allowed me to slide the next question across his plate. “Why only grey squirrels, why not red?”
“Oh. Red? They’re fur bearing, you need a trapper’s licence
for those.” He scratched his nose and looked at his finger in surprise and changed the subject. “In Russia a long time ago they used to hunt sables for the fur, but it was so valuable they couldn’t use traps; ‘soft gold’ they called it.”
“What did they do if they couldn’t use traps?”
“They shot them in the nose with crossbows.”
Before I could figure out whether he was bullshitting or not, he saw the time and dashed out. Carefully I picked up the phone and called Claire, who answered abruptly, “Joe’s Pool Hall, rack your balls and shoot ’em.”
“Is my wife there?”
“Sure. What do you need?”
“Assurance. Frank wants me to go hunting with him.”
“No problems.”
“It’ll cost $35.”
“Doable.”
There was silence on the line as I racked my brain.
“You don’t understand—we’ll be hunting squirrels …”
“Great.” She sounded distracted.
“And rabbits …”
“Those are delicious if cooked right, I have some good recipes. What’s the problem? Rachel, let go of that man’s nose! Sorry about that.”
The conversation was going nowhere, so I pulled my last card. “And wild boar.”
“Wild boar?”
She started to laugh and finally put the phone down to tell Smiley. When she’d stopped laughing I asked if she was all right. “Yes. We are talking about wild boar here? Those are big pigs with tusks and hair?”
“Exactly. It’s either hair or fur, I don’t know which. Claire, I don’t want to do this.”
“Coward. Frank’s a friend, Monty. You really don’t have very many friends, I’m not really sure you have any, you’re still new in town, and your reputation is not the best. If he wants you to go hunt squirrels and rabbits and wild boar, you should go.”
A headache started to pound behind my eyes. “I’m hanging up now.”
She was laughing again, breathlessly. “You do that.”
I
t turned out to be a slow morning, business-wise, that is. I dusted everything behind the counter, wiped down, the Plexiglas and started to clean the front window. While I was doing that a young man in his early twenties came in. He was wearing black jeans and T-shirt, and cowboy boots, and his hair was ash blond and cut down to about a millimetre in length. When he came over to the counter I could see that his eyes were dark brown, almost black, under the longest lashes I’d ever seen, and he carried a plastic bow case in one hand. He stared at me blankly.
“Hi.” His voice was very remote.
“Hi.”
He waited and then asked, “Can I shoot?”
“Yep. Costs two dollars an hour, plus more if you need to rent a bow or arrows.”
His hand dipped into a pocket and put a twenty on the counter between us. “I brought my own.”
He took the lane farthest away from me, opened the case,
and pulled out the bow. Frank supplied a wooden stand and the man put his bow on it while he fumbled around in the case for more equipment. I tried not to watch but I had to; there were little boxes and clip-ons and grips and a weight set and other shit I couldn’t identify. Some ended up attached to the bow string; more went onto the bow itself; some he Velcroed onto his hands and wrists. And it just kept going on. By the time his bow was ready it didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before. But when he started to shoot he missed the blue and the yellow and the red of the target over and over again. Sometimes he hit the white, but not often.
About an hour and two sales later Frank came back behind the counter with me and whispered, “How’s he doing?”
“Not well.”
“He’s been coming in for years now.”
“What’s he put on his bow?”
Frank shrugged. “Limb tamer to reduce vibrations and improve accuracy, a glide slide to smooth the string action, arrow trapper rest for a steady release off the handle, stabilizer to control the bow during the release, sharpshooter release for a cleaner string release, and …, well, that sneaky bastard, now he’s hooked up a laser site.”
He kept shooting and I found I was still whispering. “But he can’t hit anything.”
Frank shrugged. “I know. As a matter of fact, now that I think of it, he’s the one who sold me the bow I sold you. He traded it for something or other four years ago.”
I glanced over at my bow. Frank let me keep it in the shop because that was the only place I used it. It sat on a shelf beside a tool bench full of vises and such that Frank used for repairs. When I looked back at Frank, he was rifling the cash box. “What did you sell?”
“A used quiver and a new tree stand rest. It’s been slow. How are you doing?”
“Fine. The doctor says I’m okay, if you can trust your doctor. What do I owe you?”
“Three hours. Call it twenty bucks. Let me shoot, though, and pay me the difference.”
“Sure … hey, you cleaned!” He made it sound like an accusation.
“Yep.” I gathered up my bow and the three arrows I had in the holder attached to the handle and went quietly to the second lane. Leaving the bow at the top, I walked down to the target wall and taped three 3x5-inch cards I’d stolen from Claire’s real estate briefcase to the wall. I made sure the cards were at least two feet apart and then walked back to the bow and adjusted my feet.
Left foot first, just in front of the line on the floor, right foot at shoulder width and a little forward on a line drawn from the left foot through my hips. Left arm holding the bow, right arm putting the nock onto the string and resting the shaft on the holder. Draw back. Release and repeat.
When all three arrows were gone, I walked down and gathered them. I’d spaced the targets to avoid spoiling arrows—frequently my eye would be drawn to the arrow at the target when I released. That generally meant the next arrow would hit it, which looked cool if you were Robin Hood, but I didn’t think he had to pay eight dollars per arrow.
Compared to the guy in the next lane, the sound of my arrow leaving the string was deafening. But at least I was hitting the target, over and over. Gradually my mind emptied of fear and worry and the arrows flew and I retrieved them and shot again, and again, and again. When I was done, two hours had passed and I went to Frank to collect my pay.
“How’d you do?”
“Fine. You owe me sixteen dollars.”
He paid and then said, “What about the hunting?”
“Sure.”
He became enthusiastic. “That’s great; I’ll arrange the training and the ticket for next week. Is there any day that doesn’t work for you?”
“Sunday. Can I phone Claire?”
“Sure, sure.”
I called her and told her I’d be back later and not to wait dinner. She growled at me for awhile; then I turned back to Frank, who was looking concerned. “Problems?”
“None. See ya on Wednesday?”
That was the next day deliveries were scheduled for the shop, when I’d come down and help Frank out for a few bucks under the table. He agreed that was fine and I left. Behind me the guy with the expensive bow kept shooting and missing.
I went to Marie’s and started to quarter the neighbourhood looking for anything out of place, but there was nothing. Finally I made it home long past dark, where I found Smiley drunk and Claire asleep upstairs. Smiley was sitting at the dining room table with his hands curled palm up on the table in front of him. To his right side was a bottle of toxic Golden Wedding rye whiskey sitting beside a water glass. “Hi.”
I sat down across from him and noticed the bottle was down by two-thirds. “Hello. Having fun?”
“Loads.” After a moment he went on, “It’s been a shit-filled day.” His hands trembled and he sipped at the glass and went on. “I went out there to talk to some people, to see what kind of thieves you have in Winnipeg. I found skinners and rats and con men of all sizes. Not a solid con anywhere to be seen.”
His eyes were focused somewhere far away. “You ever think how unfair it is?”
“What, specifically, are we talking about?”
He drank most of the glass neat and turned it around in his fingers before finishing it.
“Cops and robbers.”
I was gentle. “You’re not doing that anymore, remember?”
“Yeah. But I was. So were you. We were both in the life and did you ever wonder why? I mean it’s not like it was ever a fair fight.”
“What’s that? Never had me a fair fight. Neither have you.”
He stared at me, almost blind drunk, and I started listing stuff. “Cops have computers and cell phone scanners. They have laser-sighted semi-automatic pistols loaded with explosive bullets it would be illegal to use in war, but legal to use on us. They’ve got spare guns on their ankles and the back of their belts and underarms and everywhere else.”
Smiley filled his glass and drained it.
“They have shotguns loaded with slugs and buckshot. Submachine guns and assault rifles kicking out 1000 rounds, 1000 fucking rounds a minute. Which is like sixteen a second. They’re trained on rifles that’ll dump a round into your brain stem at 200 metres, 400 metres, 600 metres, each and every time.”
He interrupted me. “Well, yes, all that’s true …”
I kept talking. “They’ve developed sonic devices to pick up your voice a block away. Tear gas and pepper spray to blind and disable. Tape and video recorders. They wear Kevlar body armour with steel and ceramic inserts and they carry flashlights that double as clubs. Motorcycles and dirt bikes,
horses and boats and even goddamned bicycles! Steel pushbar bumpers on their cars so they can ram on the highways.”
The whiskey level kept dropping; it was fascinating watching him get drunk, and I started to want to drink. And that want was bad, it was really most extremely bad, so I just kept talking.
“Helicopters and planes, scuba gear, anti-bomb suits, armoured cars, tanks. Robots. Chase cars with nitro injectors so they can go fast, fast, fast. Plastic clubs and collapsible clubs, electric guns and prods. Plastic zipper handcuffs they can hide in the lining of their hat and steel ones they can use like brass knuckles, spring-loaded saps, and lead-lined gloves. Flashbang grenades, smoke grenades, concussion grenades, tear gas grenades.”
The rye was almost gone and it took a conscious effort not to move my hands. They wanted to reach for it even if I didn’t, and I kept talking instead. “The cops carry shields you’d need cannon to penetrate. Grappling hooks, grenade launchers, oxyacetylene torches. Dogs that’ll rip you from balls to throat in a half second, dogs they even wrap in armour from snout to tail, dogs smarter than most cops.”
He finished the dregs of the rye and I could relax. I kept talking, trying to relax him. Smiley nodded like he was listening and I kept talking about the future and the past and people we knew and people we’d never met and people who’d never existed. I kept talking about good music and cold beer, women and roller coasters, steaks and fried potatoes, ice cream and good coffee. He kept nodding and eventually he fell asleep and I picked him up and put him to bed.
I wasn’t sure if I had reached him but I had tried.