The Delicate Storm (27 page)

26

I
T WAS NO LATER THAN SIX-THIRTY
when Cardinal left the station that night, but it was dark as midnight. Out in the parking lot he could hear the traffic honking on the bypass. Normally, Algonquin Bay drivers are silent drivers, but the ice was causing delays everywhere and that northern patience was apparently beginning to wear thin. He got into his car, but before he could put his key in the ignition, a voice from behind him said, “Looks like more rain, doesn’t it.”

“Kiki. How nice to see you.” Cardinal was amazed at how quickly his heart could double its speed. This would be it, then. No more warnings.

“Yeah. Thought I’d stop by.”

“You know, just because it’s a car doesn’t mean I can’t have you up for breaking and entering.”

“It was open. I just climbed in and fell asleep.”

“It was locked. And anyway, it’s the same as a house. Just because a house is unlocked doesn’t mean you can stop in and have a nap.”

Kiki yawned. His leather jacket creaked as he stretched. “Let’s go for a drive. I’m tired of sitting in a parking lot.”

“Kiki, have you noticed the weather? The entire planet is covered with ice. It’s not a good day for a drive. If you’re going to shoot me, you’ll have to shoot me here in the police station parking lot.”

“Not a problem. I have a silencer.”

“You must be very proud.” Cardinal was easing his right hand under his coat. It wasn’t going to be easy getting at the Beretta: it was strapped in his underarm holster on his left side.

“No. It’s just a fact. Doesn’t call for being proud or unproud. I’m just pointing out that it could be done. Pretty embarrassing for you to be killed outside the cop shop.”

“Well, it wouldn’t bother me, of course. I’d be dead.”

“True.”

The holster seemed farther away than ever. Cardinal debated whether he should just make a grab for his Beretta and be done with it. The other options were simply getting out of the car, although catching a bullet in the spine before he got the door open didn’t appeal to him one bit. Or he could flip around and grab for whatever weapon Kiki was pointing at him through the seat. At least that way he’d be a moving target.

“Do you know a person named Robert Henry Hewitt?”

Wudky. Cardinal would not have put Wudky together with Kiki B. and Rick Bouchard’s gang in a thousand years. “Yes, I know Robert,” he said. “I didn’t realize you two were friends.”

“We’re not. He’s in the same wing as Ricky. Was.”

“What do you mean, ‘was’? Has something happened to Robert?”

“See, that’s why you’re not a very good cop, Cardinal. You’re a terrible judge of character.”

“I’ve been surprised before, it’s true.”

“Can’t keep nothing secret in stir, that’s the problem. Somehow your little twerp pal hears that Bouchard is putting a contract out on you. And this upsets him deeply. He goes to Bouchard and tries to talk him out of it. I wish I’d seen that.”

Cardinal wished he’d seen it too.

“First he tells him he’s wrong about you. John Cardinal would never steal nothing—this is the gospel according to Hewitt. Another bad judge of character, obviously.”

“Yeah, Wudky’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer.”

“What’d you call him?”

“Long story.”

“Naturally, Rick begged to differ on the honest-cop part. To the tune of two hundred thousand bucks, as we know. Second point your friend made: John Cardinal is not your typical cop. He busts me, Hewitt says, and then tries to talk the Crown out of sending me away. Is that true, by the way?”

“It is, actually. I know it sounds funny.”

“You never did anything like that for me.”

“Yes, but you’re not a nice person, Kiki.”

“This Hewitt is your idea of a nice person?”

“He didn’t have your advantages. Anyway, I can imagine how all this moved Bouchard. He’s such a soft touch.”

“Right. He tells your friend to go away before he decides to skin him alive. Your friend says he has just one more argument to make on your behalf. ‘Oh?’ says Rick. ‘I can’t wait to hear it.’ And the kid says his third argument is that if Bouchard doesn’t call off this contract by tomorrow, he’s going to kill him.”

“Mm. I can see how that would have Bouchard trembling.”

“He beat the shit out of Hewitt. Put him in the infirmary for a week. Do you have any idea how sick you have to be to get into the infirmary in Kingston? You have to be like a quarter to dead. But when he gets out, all beat to hell, he goes back to work in the kitchen and—bam! goes after Bouchard with a meat cleaver. I hear it was pretty spectacular. I can’t help feeling bad for Rick, though, dying that way.”

“You’re telling me that Robert Henry Hewitt killed Rick Bouchard? That’s got to be a joke. Robert is completely harmless.”

“Call Kingston. They’ll tell you how harmless he is.”

“Wudky kills Bouchard and you’re here to make it right, is that it?”

“What do you mean? Like revenge?”

“Well, duh, Kiki.”

“Hell, no. I don’t give a shit. I didn’t even like Bouchard. Couldn’t stand him, if you want to know the truth.”

“So why’d you stay with him all those years?”

“He was a good employer. Are you in love with your boss?”

“Good point.”

“Oh, I get it!” Kiki slammed the back of the front seat. It was like being rear-ended. “You thought I was back here to kill you!”

Cardinal turned around in the front seat. Kiki was looking at him with genuine wonder and delight, a kid at the circus. He had fewer teeth than a goalie.

“You thought I was coming back to make good on what you owed Rick. That’s great! No, I’m not here for any of that. I just come to tell you what happened. To let you know it’s all over. There’s no one to put a contract out on you now, Cardinal. And no one to pay me even if I did manage to get Bouchard’s money out of you.”

“Well, of course, you could keep it yourself. Assuming you got any out of me. Which you wouldn’t.”

“No, no. It wasn’t my money in the first place. This was all Rick’s grief. Rick’s gone, grief’s gone. You’re a free man, Cardinal. That’s all I came to tell you.”

“You came all the way up here from Toronto to tell me this?”

Kiki took his woollen cap off and scratched at the pale fuzz on his head. Then he put the cap back on, reaching past Cardinal to adjust the rear-view, checking himself out in it.

“To tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking about moving up here.”

“Please don’t,” Cardinal said. “We’d see too much of each other.”

“Well, I’m tired of the rat race, you know?”

Cardinal hadn’t thought of criminals being in the rat race, but he could see where they might find Toronto as stressful as anyone. More so.

“What are you going to do—take up canoeing? Fishing?”

“Naw. Anything with a boat? No good. But I like it up here. It’s clean. It smells nice. That means a lot. Of course, this ice-storm shit is giving me second thoughts. But I wanted to ask you—would you know of any jobs up here?”

There wasn’t a trace of irony in Kiki’s broad, flat face.

“Were you thinking of loansharking or extortion?”

“Come on, Cardinal. I’m serious. I’m talking legitimate employment, you know? I’ve got a heavy-equipment operator’s licence.”

“Let me put my mind to it, Kiki. I’ll ask around.”

“Really? That’d be great. Maybe your friend wasn’t all wrong about you.”

“You never told me what happened to Robert. Did he get killed in the altercation or what?”

“You kidding? Everyone was too fucking scared.”

“Still. I imagine Rick’s pals will take him apart as soon as they get the chance.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it. Rick wasn’t exactly warm, you know? Loyalties to him did not run deep. And your friend just took down the toughest bastard in Kingston. So in fact I’d say he’s going to be sitting pretty. Once he gets out of solitary, of course.”

“Right.” Cardinal put the key in the ignition and started up. “Can I drop you anywhere?”

“Nah, that’s okay, I got a rental right here.” Kiki opened the back door. “I’m staying at the Birches Motel. Gimme a call if you hear of any openings, okay?”

“Minute I hear of anything suitable, I’ll be on that phone, Kiki.”

“Take care driving, now. Road’s slippery as a bitch.”

The threat was gone. There would be no more danger coming Cardinal’s way from Rick Bouchard and company. And yet he could not quite muster up a feeling of wholesale relief. As he drove home, he thought of Wudky, who, owing to his loyalty to Cardinal, would probably get another twenty years tacked on to his sentence. Others had paid for the mistake he had made so many years ago, as he had not—and probably now never would.

When Cardinal got home, Catherine was at the wood stove in the living room, stirring a huge pot of stew. The power was off, and the flames behind the stove window lit the room with a deep orange flicker. Sally and the two girls were on the couch, peeling potatoes. Old Mrs. Potipher was asleep in Catherine’s chair, her mouth hanging open. Beside her on the floor, Totsy, her miniature grey poodle, eyed Cardinal with instant dislike and started to tremble from head to tail. Two kitchen chairs had been brought out to accommodate the capacious behinds of Mr. and Mrs. Walcott, neighbours from across the road. They were sitting erect like a pair of matched dolls, each with a paperback balanced on the belly and eyeglasses secured by a length of cord.

“Power’s off all over this side of town,” Mr. Walcott said to Cardinal when he came in.

“I know. Highway’s pitch-dark. Judging by the rain, it isn’t going to get better any time soon.”

“We stuck it out for as long as we could,” Mrs. Walcott added, then turned to her husband. “I told you last year we should get a wood stove. But no, you had other ideas.”

“What I said was, they’re too expensive. You can’t take a vacation in the Dominican Republic and buy a wood stove in the same year.”

“That isn’t what you said. You said, ‘Let’s think about it. We should wait for the sales.’ Then of course you never got around to it.”

“Go ahead. Make me out to be the jerk. That’s fine. If it makes you feel better.”

Cardinal unbuttoned his coat but then thought better of it. The living room was hot, but the rest of the house was the same temperature as outdoors. “Shouldn’t we keep that open for now?” He pointed toward the front of the room where Catherine had strung up a curtain on a clothesline, separating the former porch area from the rest of the living room. “It’ll cut the heat off in front.”

“Go take a look,” Catherine said.

Cardinal picked his way past the outstretched legs of Mr. and Mrs. Walcott, ignored an exaggerated growl from Totsy and stepped beyond the curtain.

“Satisfied?” His father looked up at him from the depths of Cardinal’s La-Z-Boy chair, which was draped with a bright red sleeping bag. “You got your way now. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

Cardinal smiled. “I’m just glad to see you, Dad. I didn’t want you freezing up there all alone. This curtain’s blocking a lot of your heat, though. Maybe I should open it for a while.”

“Don’t touch it. Frankly, I don’t see why I can’t be allowed to die in my own home.”

“Dad, it’s not forever. Just stay till the ice storm is over.”

“See how you like it when you get old. I don’t even think of myself as old. I go past Leisure Home in summer and see the little old ladies sitting outside and I think, look at the little old ladies. Doesn’t occur to me that I’m the same age as them. To me I’m the same age I always was, only I have this stupid heart problem that’s not letting me do what I want.”

“Have you got everything you need? Can I bring you anything?”

“What else could I need? I got my book, sleeping bag, catheter …”

“What?”

“That was a joke, John.”

“Why don’t we put you in Kelly’s room.”

“Let someone else have it. I’m better off here. I can breathe better sitting up. Funny how history repeats itself.”

Cardinal gave him a quizzical look.

“My dad. Had the exact same problem. Didn’t have the drugs for it back then. But I remember how he used to sleep in the living room, sitting up. Now I know why.”

“All right. But let me know if you want Kelly’s room.”

Cardinal was about to leave, but his father raised a hand to stop him. “This Dr. Cates thing, John. It’s terrible. She was just starting out. You’re going to get the guy who killed her, I hope.”

“Well, we’re working on it.”

“She was a smart cookie, I think. Good doctor, too.”

“What are you talking about, Dad? You were mad as hell at Dr. Cates.”

“I know, I know. So sometimes I’m not too bright.”