The Carpenter (15 page)

Stan went to the door of the Prowler and knocked on it. Waited, knocked again. He went to the Airstream and knocked on the door. There was a window set in the door but a curtain was drawn behind the glass. He knocked again. After some minutes had passed and nothing happened, he tried the Airstream door and found it locked fast. He went back to the Prowler and found it locked as well.

Across from the campers there was a man-door in the side of the storage shed. Stan crossed the driveway. The man-door, at least, was unlocked. He went in. There wasn’t much to see in
the wan and dusty light. An empty interior. Hard-packed dirt for the floor. Two walls had been framed out of the back corner of the shed to make a large locker, crooked with age. The locker was perhaps eight feet by eight feet. There was a hasp for a padlock fixed to the locker door-frame but no lock was in place. Stan opened the door. The dark inner hollow could be illuminated by a forty-watt bulb overhead—you just had to turn the bulb in its socket. The yellow light it threw brought out the cobwebs and made eerie shadows, but the locker was empty. He darkened the bulb again.

Outside, Stan went down the slope to the back of the store. He felt certain he had some memories of this place when it was operational, summertime, kids with ice cream cones. The rear windows of the store were boarded over and
No Trespassing
was spray-painted on the plywood. The back door was locked. He did a circle of the building. The spruce on the headland had not been thinned in some time and grew close to the walls. Out front, Stan came to the pad where the gas pump had been. The wide panorama of Indian Lake lay beyond. The water licked against the short concrete pier below the pad. One front window of the store was unboarded. He cupped his hands around his face and looked through the glass into the darkness, saw the shape of a counter, a table with chairs stacked on it.

Stan crossed back through the property and walked the driveway through the trees to the township road. By the time he reached his truck he’d worked up a thin sweat. Sitting behind the steering wheel he tried to decide how he felt. Absurdity hovered close but there was more to it—what Eleanor had said her sister had told her about a place by the lake, and how that fell into place with the property he’d just wandered about. The vague signs of life around the mobiles and the storage shed. In his mind, he’d made a picture of the man, Colin Gilmore, who’d come and gone from Judy’s life. And he thought how he was mocked by this, his own undertaking, when the pieces didn’t even hint at a
whole. Edna occurred to him again, what she would say about this. But behind Edna came an image of Judy Lacroix dead in the back of a car and, years ago, her uncle Darien turning at the bottom of the hangman’s rope.

Perhaps he couldn’t put it all into words—for Dick, for Frank, for the ghost of his wife—but he was gripped by it all the same. He was not going to stop now.

I
’ll be goddamned.

Speedy had said that a few times, each time shaking his head. He was driving them south out of town along the highway for a short stretch. His car was a Mercury Monarch, a wreck on four wheels. The springs were pushing through the upholstery. Between I’ll-be-goddamneds, Speedy talked at a rapid rate about the woman he lived with, who he said was half wagon-burner and was therefore prone to going on drinking benders where she’d find herself in another town altogether. Lee smoked and listened. He had a low throb in his back and his shoulders from work that day. They were finished at the lakeside cottage and had spent the day cleaning up the job site.

—But I’ll be goddamned, Lee. When was the last time we drove anywheres like this?

Before long, Speedy brought them to a truck stop off the highway. Down the other end of the lot was a concrete roadhouse that a neon sign advertised as T
HE
N
ORTH
S
TAR.
The parking lot was perhaps half full.

—This is a good old place, said Speedy.

Lee took in the sight of the roadhouse through the windshield. He was quickly agitated. He said: Speedy. I can’t be around here. I don’t drink at all. I’ve been sober going on four years. When you came by you just said there was a place you wanted me to take a look at.

—A place to look at?

—That’s what you said. I figured you meant a job site or a house that needed to get fixed up. I didn’t think you meant nothing like this.

Speedy looked incredulous in the dashboard lights.

—Well, shit, Lee, I didn’t know about the soberness. Listen. Let’s just pop in for a minute then. Usually they got a band going. Plus, I got some buddies out here.

—I don’t know.

—Lee, you crazy old bugger. Come on, ten minutes. Have a 7UP, see some music. You probably need to just get loose.

Speedy was already getting out of his car. Lee opened his mouth to summon Speedy back but he ended up saying nothing. He got out of the car and they went across the parking lot. There was a doorman who knew Speedy by name and he showed them into the roadhouse. The inside of the place was bigger than it had looked. A row of booths lined the far wall and tables were arranged around a riser. They’d stood jack-o’-lanterns around the stage and hung some dejected rubber bats from the ceiling. A lone man with an electric guitar and an amplifier was doing a decent cover of “Sundown.” There were townies and truckers, and someone Lee recognized from the lumberyard. Speedy stopped briefly at the bar. There was a girl pouring some drinks and a man whom Speedy called Mike. Speedy ordered a draft of Molson and Lee ordered a Coke and then they sat down in a booth and watched the musician.

—Speedy, said Lee.

Before Speedy could reply, the girl came from the bar with their drinks on a tray. She had blond hair and a sexy sway.

—Always good to see Speedy, said the girl.

—Arlene, this is my pal, Lee.

She smiled, offered her hand for Lee to shake. When she left them, they watched her go until she was behind the bar again.

Speedy leaned over to Lee: What would I give to put the cock to her.

—Speedy, do you know what my parole officer would do if he knew I was here?

—Well, you don’t see him nowhere, do you?

—No, but.

The Coca-Cola had come in a sleeve-glass with scoured sides. Speedy picked up a salt shaker from the other side of the booth and tapped salt into his draft.

—And the music’s not half bad, said Speedy.

—No. Christ. It’s not that.

—We won’t stay real long. If I finish this beer and I haven’t seen my friends, we’ll get going, what do you say? There’s a topless place other side of Animosh.

—Who are these friends of yours?

—Just some ordinary old boys.

They sat back, watched the musician for a few minutes. When they were eighteen or nineteen, Lee and Speedy and Terry Lachlan had broken into the office of a man who owned and operated a quarry southeast of town. The quarry-man was a European immigrant named Szabo, and it was rumoured that he was a Nazi war criminal on the run, but even that was a pretty thin pretense for robbing him. Rather, if Lee remembered correctly, they’d heard from Szabo’s son, who was not on good terms with his father, that the quarry-man kept a substantial amount of cash in a safe in his office. So Speedy, Lee and Terry Lachlan had gone at night, kicked the door open, found the safe, wheeled it out on a furniture dolly, loaded it into a borrowed pickup truck, and driven away. The whole affair had taken fifteen or twenty minutes, which Lee later figured was way too slow, had anyone been observing them and called the cops.

As it was, the break-in went unreported, whether because Szabo was actually a Nazi war criminal fleeing justice, or, more likely, because the cash kept in the safe was income he hadn’t claimed the taxes on. Either way, after Lee and Speedy and Terry had finally pried the safe open, they found themselves each three
hundred dollars richer. Lee didn’t think he’d done anything more serious before breaking into the quarry-man’s office. The stolen cars and counterfeit cigarettes all started after that.

Now he needed to find or do something to take his mind off both the past, and where he was in the present. He thought maybe conversation would work. He turned his glass on the tabletop and said: Anyhow, what’ve you been doing? You got a trade?

Speedy touched the burn on the side of his face: No. I’m on disability.

—For what?

—For awhile I had a bit in a welding shop. This one time I was cutting up a steel I-beam with a burning bar. You ever see one of them cocksuckers, a burning bar? They’ll burn through anything, Lee. Steel, concrete, any fucking thing just like that. Some of the slag got blown back on my face. But here’s the beauty, Lee. The foreman and the manager got their asses chewed because I wasn’t wearing a mask when I got burned. The court settled pretty sweet for me.

—Jesus. You could of got blinded.

—Sure, but I didn’t. Anyway it’s no trouble no more. I got some various business interests. I never liked having to answer to a buck or a foreman.

When the conversation lapsed, Lee was aware of how unsettled he’d become. He could feel a pulse in his eyes. Speedy was about halfway through his draft. The musician wrapped up a song and told the room thanks.

Then a big man was standing beside their table. His head was bald but he had a thick beard and he was wearing glasses that were an odd contrast to the rest of his appearance. The big man leaned his fists on the tabletop.

—How’s she going, Maurice? said Speedy.

Speedy and the big man shook hands.

—This is my pal, Lee, said Speedy.

—So this is Lee, said Maurice.

They shook hands.

—You say it like you know me, said Lee.

—Speedy told me a little about you. All good things. You’re among friends. Come on, let’s go to the back. You want a beer, Lee?

—I’m okay.

Maurice led them to a passageway on the far side of the riser, past a door marked
Ladies
, a door marked
Men
, and finally to a knobless door at the back marked
Offi e
. He pushed the door open and led the way into a small room. Against one wall stood metal shelves bellied under the weight of potato sacks and tins of cooking oil and boxes of empty liquor bottles. Beer kegs were stacked in a corner and there were two windows set high in the wall. There was no desk but there was a Formica table and a mismatched collection of chairs. At the table a man was tapping a pen on a crossword puzzle torn from a newspaper. He didn’t have any particular look about him, but somehow he seemed at odds with the townies and the blue-collar hang-abouts out in the main room. Before him in a tumbler was a mixed drink, and when he saw them coming he smiled brightly.

—Well. How are you, Speedy?

Speedy said hello and introduced the man at the table as Colin Gilmore. He stood up to shake hands with Lee.

—All is well, Lee, said Gilmore. Any friend of Speedy’s is a friend of mine. Speedy, what do you say you visit with Arlene, get your glass filled back up.

Maurice let Speedy out and then he closed the door and leaned against the wall. Lee again felt the pulse in his eyes. He sat. Gilmore offered up a pack of Camel cigarettes. Lee withdrew one and Gilmore lit it for him.

—I know Roland Poirier, said Gilmore. You’d remember Rollie, wouldn’t you?

—Yeah, I knew Rollie, said Lee. But that’s a few … that’s more than a few years ago.

—Rollie’s been having a hard time lately. He got in some trouble out in New Brunswick.

—I heard something like that, said Lee. Gambling or cards or something.

—Yes, cards, gambling. All the vices. But he put in a pretty good word for you. I said, Roland, when you were a guest of the Queen, did you know a fellow named Lee King? He did, he said. He said you helped him out when he had some trouble with a couple of boys inside. Also over a card game, I understand.

—That’s twelve goddamn years ago.

—Never mind how he can’t gamble for shit, Roland’s a good judge of character. He said you were a reliable kind of guy. Serious. That’s what I like in a friend.

—In a friend, said Lee.

—Speedy says you’re looking for work.

—Well, Speedy told you wrong. I got a job.

Something passed between Gilmore and Maurice, wherever Maurice was. Behind Lee.

—Sure you do, said Gilmore. That isn’t to say you might not be enterprising.

Lee wanted to turn around and look behind his chair. To see wherever that big man was. He remained looking straight-on, but not without effort.

—Look, buck. Me and Speedy. I haven’t seen him in seventeen years.

Gilmore was exuding sympathy, a joke shared between them. He said: Speedy’s a busybody, pal, you know? Right now he’s almost at his full potential. I say almost because Speedy has a set of skills that make up for everything else he got shortchanged. It’s not quite the same with you, Lee. You’re your own set of skills. From what Roland Poirier told me and, to be honest, from what I can see from meeting you.

—I don’t know what you’re talking about.

—I can make it clearer, said Gilmore.

—Here’s the thing, buck. I got a job, I got a place, I got a girl on the go. Opportunity and all the rest of it, I don’t have any interest.

Gilmore grinned a salesman’s grin. He sipped from his mixed drink.

—I think I’ll get out of your way now, said Lee.

He got out of the chair. Maurice hadn’t moved. He was still leaning against the door. He had his glasses off and he was rubbing one of the lenses with a Kleenex.

—Hope we’ll see you again, said Gilmore.

—Sure, said Lee.

Maurice put his glasses back on and opened the door. He said: Take care.

—Yeah, said Lee. So long.

In the passageway, Lee pitched the butt of the Camel cigarette to the floor. Speedy was at the bar talking to the bartender, that girl Arlene they’d been served by earlier. Lee saw Speedy turning to look at him as he went by but he crossed the floor and went into the vestibule. The doorman was telling a couple of kids that they couldn’t come in. There was a bank of pay telephones. Lee picked up a receiver and pushed a dime into the slot and dialed Helen’s number. It rang a dozen times before he put the receiver back in the cradle.