Ghosted (23 page)

One week after his ill-fated meeting with Dr. Francis, Mason returned to her office. He didn’t say anything, just bowed his head and handed her “The Book of Confession.”

    
45. I prefer candlelight to lamps.

46. There are angels here among us.

Afterwards, he sat in the Cave, three lines of coke and a twenty-sixer on the bar in front of him. The DJ was playing a remix of a Nina Simone song. Mason looked in the mirror—imagining someone behind it watching him. He studied himself that way—trying to see what the man in the safe room saw: a self-conscious loner, a drunk, a sucker, a guy staring at himself in a crowded booze can. He changed his focus and, still looking in the large, bulletproof mirror, searched the room around him, all these faces in the flashing dark and light.

Chaz came down the bar and stood in front of him.

“What?”

“You’ve only got yourself to blame.”

“Thanks, Chaz. I’m doing fine.”

“You kidding me? You’re over the cliff with the buffalo.”

“Nope.” Mason did a line. “Things are good, actually. I’ve got purpose now.”

“You got what?”

“Meaning, a reason to live … you know, purpose.”

“Well, you look like bat shit. What’s it called …?”

“Guano?”

“Yeah, you’re all guano-looking. How much did you lose last night?”

“Some.”

“And the night before?”

Mason poured himself another glass. “Also some. What’s your point?”

“What’s your purpose?” Chaz waved towards the card table. “Putting vampires through college?”

“Nah, it’s something good.”

His heart was palpitating a bit. He took a long drink and did another line. Chaz turned to leave but Mason stopped him. “Can you find an address from a phone number?”

“Possibly.”

Mason took a napkin, wrote down the number, and slid it across the bar. “Oh,” he said, pulling it back. “There’s also an address I want a number for.” He wrote
68 Sudden Street
.

“Why don’t you just visit the one and phone the other?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Anything to do with Willy?”

“Not directly.”

“Well, it should,” said Chaz.

Mason looked at him. “You seen her?”

Chaz didn’t answer. There was a ruckus at the poker table. He put the napkin in his pocket and headed down the bar. Mason did a line, lit a smoke and stared at the mirror again.

Combo cross-side.

Boom
.

Seth was
on
today. He was in the zone. His voice had a bit of cut to it. Even the questions were sharper.

“How long since you’ve seen your family?”

“About five years.”

Six in the end
.

“What are you hiding from?”

“Myself, I guess,” said Mason. He’d meant it to sound trite, to undercut the question. But his voice had gone too high. Seth let the silence stretch, then took another shot.

Mason hadn’t yet decided what to do with the information he’d got from Chaz, but questions like that last one made him want to beat Seth—still save him of course, but bring him down a notch at the same time.

Seth rattled the corner.

Mason took aim.

Fourteen in the side
.

“Do you live with anyone?”

“Nope.”

Mason stepped back from the table. He looked at Seth, who was chalking his cue. “We’re playing for the truth,” he said.

Seth looked up at him.

“You live in a halfway house,” said Mason. “With sixteen other ex-cons.”

They stood there for a moment. “Why don’t you shoot?”

“It’s not your turn for a question, Seth.” He lined up a combo. The nine skidded and missed the pocket.

Seth stepped up to the table. No assessment, he just leaned in—and
boom
, he hammered down the four ball.

“How long you been a drug addict?”

No time to answer.
Boom
.

“And a drunk?”

Boom
. “And a lousy gambler?”

Boom
. “And a fucking pussy?”

Seth stood up, pushed back the brim of his hat and they looked at each other. Mason didn’t like what he saw.

He’s still worth saving.

Is he, though?

“About five years,” said Mason.

Boom. Eight ball in the end
.

Seth grinned. “Who’s the Man in the Black Helmet?” he said. Then he turned to put his cue away.

Mason just stared at the back of his head.

“By the way,” said Seth. “I don’t have your money.” He pulled something out of his jacket pocket, turning back around. “I brought you this instead.” He tossed it onto the table, the balls scattering sadly. A brown notebook. On the cover, in raised hokey font, it read
Notebook
.

Mason walked over and picked it up. Seth was already out the door.

They are in the paddock, drunk, hair still wet from the lake—saddling up beneath a silver moon. The big house is dark: Aunt Jo and three more generations sleeping off the wine. Mason holds the reins for Sarah. She gets up on Warren and he pulls the cinch tight. Warren starts to prance.

Mason swings onto Zevon’s back and the long gate falls open. They ride through it, a line of trees on one side, the fence then the steep hill down to the land on the other. He angles towards the high road, digs in his heels and they’re off, hooves thundering over the earth. When he turns back he sees Sarah’s hair, like wings, shimmering in the moonlight.

The doorbell was ringing. Mason put the notebook down and looked at it.

What the fuck?

This was not the man he’d met. He thought about this as he walked to the intercom.

It was Chaz. “I got something for you.”

“Why don’t you come up?”

“I’ve got to open the Cave,” he said. Mason pulled on a shirt and headed down the stairs.

Chaz held out a piece of paper and Mason took it.
Jonathan Follow. 10 Apple Road. Utopia, Ontario
.

“Is this a joke?”

“Nope,” said Chaz. “It’s a real town. Real road, too. Go ahead and Google it.”

“Thank you,” said Mason.

Chaz nodded. “I’ve got to open up.”

Mason closed the notebook. It was weird all right, but he didn’t have time for this shit, kept thinking of Sissy Follow.

Saving people is a matter of minutes
.

He picked up the piece of paper and the Google map he’d printed.

You know what you have to do
.

He knew what he had to do.

It was four in the morning when he left the city limits. He crossed onto Route 7, a two-lane back road, heading northeast at thirty miles an hour. There was no one else on the highway.

When you opened her up like this, the Dogmobile got loud—three small wheels with a Smurf-like engine. He switched on the radio. At first he thought it was between stations, but then he heard it: the low spooky opening of “State Trooper.” It made him shiver. They hardly ever played this on the radio. He turned it up and lit a smoke. The sky was full of stars.

On the last of Springsteen’s mournful howls, begging and defiant at the same time, Mason slowed down to twenty and poured some coke onto the stainless steel counter. It was going to be a long night. He cut with one hand and steered with the other. He did a line and looked out from beneath the poppyseed brim. For a moment he had the same feeling as when he’d been in the QT room, staring out at the darkened Cave. He was right here and, at the same time, light years away—floating and trapped where no one would ever know, all-seeing and never seen, his visor a one-way mirror. But then the feeling was gone. It was hard to stay anxious driving a Dogmobile, the stars all shining bright.

He lit a smoke and pressed down on the gas, easing back up to thirty. At these speeds he’d be lucky to get there by daybreak. On the map it looked tricky—a ways off the highway, with an old train
track running through. Apple Road was probably gravel, or even just dirt. At least he wouldn’t be conspicuous, bouncing along in a motorized, fibreglass, big-city hat.

But how did Seth know about the Man in the Black Helmet?

He turned up the radio.

It was the first grey of morning. The Dogmobile crept through the outskirts of Barrie, past its belching, slumbering form.

The light turned silver, shimmering from the horizon, and the sides of the highway began to take shape. Mason drove west on the county road, the sun rising behind him, the first hint of warmth like animal breath on his neck.

He’d been doing lines to stay awake, and now the dawn made him feel twitchy and aching. He wanted a drink.

Will Utopia have a bar?

What time would it open?

“Rain Dance” by the Guess Who came on the radio. Another anomaly. It felt like he was coming onto something—what with the coke and the sunrise and the songs they never played. He stepped on the gas and the Dogmobile stopped.

Not all at once, mind you. First it stuttered, shook, skidded and banged. After
that
it stopped. There was a hissing sound that made Mason want to run for the hills. He turned off the engine, wiped the coke off the stainless steel counter, then stumbled out of the hissing hat, onto the highway.

He walked up the side of the road for a minute or so, then turned and looked back. Left to right: spooky tree in the middle of a barren field, mess of chicken wire and vines, dilapidated barn, gravel, ditch, giant fedora on wheels, the faded centre line of the
county road, ditch, log fence, another barn, then fields into infinity. He waited until the Dogmobile stopped making that unsettling sound, then walked back towards it.

No point in looking at the engine. He wasn’t even sure where it was. “Probably a gasket,” he said. “Or a hose. Or maybe …” He noticed he was talking out loud and stopped. After trying the ignition a half-dozen times, he took out his cellphone.

No reception
.

He did a line, then set to work. He stuffed two bottles of water, a package of chicken dogs, three bags of chips, sunglasses and Seth’s notebook into a plastic bag. He put the clutch in neutral, dropped the bag on the side of the road, then began to push the Dogmobile off the highway.

This was awkward. The chrome made it heavier than it should have been, the fibreglass made it lighter, and tippy. And the odd number of wheels didn’t help with the balance. Control was a delusion.

When the Dogmobile hit the gravel it slowed down a bit—but didn’t stop. It was a singular sound—a giant chrome and fibreglass fedora tumbling into a ditch. Three hundred ravens alighted from the surrounding fields. They dispersed in the air like awakened souls.

Mason stood at the side of the road, waiting for a car to come. He drank some water. Then, to kill time, he pulled out the notebook.