The Carpenter (29 page)

—Don’t whatever you do swallow it, said Duane. Let it do its work for you. Anyway, man, your face.

There were fresh bruises on Pete’s face from the night before. His ear was a little swollen. Nobody had said anything yet.

—I fell down the stairs.

—Look, if you got trouble with anybody, don’t be too proud, right? Let me know.

Pete spat again. All the colours and sounds were too vivid.

—Thanks.

—Don’t be too proud, Pete.

Over the next two days, he made himself somewhat comfortable at the Shamrock. Down in the tavern the food was not bad. He ordered a steak. He ordered a beer as well but the barman just laughed and poured him a ginger ale. Pete sat eating his steak. The only Christmas decoration in the tavern was a plastic Santa Claus in the corner. There were six or seven other people at the bar or at tables, keeping to themselves, smoking. There was an older woman who reminded him of a thinner version of Lee’s lady friend, with the red-painted lips and big hair, and Pete wondered what it would be like to take her up to his room and do things with her.

In the late evening he watched the television until he fell asleep. It was the only thing that could really dull his thoughts.

On Monday morning Pete stood in the shower before he went to work. Parts of his head and face still hurt. His work clothes
were piled on the vanity. They’d need to be laundered soon. Somebody came into the bathroom and used the urinal and went back out. Pete didn’t give that much thought until he’d dried off and dressed and was heading downstairs to pay the clerk for another night. He discovered his wallet wasn’t in his pocket. He went back up and checked the room, checked the few possessions he had with him. His wallet wasn’t up there either.

He found that fury and helplessness were almost indistinguishable. All the more so for the desk clerk’s impassivity.

—Did you get a look at the guy through the shower curtain? So should I call the cops to just turn the whole place upside down? I feel for you, kid, but what do you want me to do?

—God fucking dammit, said Pete. All the cash I had was in my wallet.

At least he still had his car key. He sat in his car in the small lot next to the hotel. He felt like crying.

At lunch, Caroline sat at her desk. Pete stood across from her. Caroline nodded slowly. She said: Well, I can’t say I’m real surprised. But can we talk about it again after New Year’s? Fix a date then?

—Yeah, said Pete. We can do that.

—You work hard, Pete. It’ll be a shame.

She made motions to signify that their business was concluded, but he stayed.

—Was there something else, Pete?

—I just wondered if I could use the phone for a second.

—Yeah, of course you can.

She left him to it. He called home and was mildly surprised that it was Barry who answered.

—Peter?

—Hi, Barry.

—Peter, it’s good to hear your voice. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I thought about Colossians, and how it says if anyone
has a quarrel against anyone else, as Christ forgave so should we. I’ve been thinking about that.

—Oh yeah?

—There’s an open door here for you, Brother Pete. You know that. Your mother—

—Barry, I know. Look. I’ll be home tonight.

H
e’d been out on one of his town walkabouts. He’d stopped at the Brewers’ Retail and picked up a case of beer and he’d bought smokes as well and had come up the stairs with the beer under his arm. He put his key into the lock only to find his door already open.

Gilmore was sitting on the corner of the pullout, watching the television. He looked up, smiled.

—Lee. Don’t block up the doorway, pal.

Lee heard his toilet flushing. Maurice came out of the bathroom. Lee took measured steps into the kitchenette. He set the beer on the counter.

—How did you get in here?

—You left your door unlocked, said Maurice. You don’t remember?

Lee closed the door.

—Did the landlord see you?

—That old slant? said Maurice. He didn’t see nothing. And yeah, I could drink a beer.

Lee took a beer out of the box and gave it to Maurice. Maurice took it and prised up the ring-tab with his finger. The sound of the can opening was clear even over the TV. Maurice drank and Lee watched his throat move.

Lee tried to be casual. He went over and took hold of the swivel chair at the window. He moved it forward as if he might sit across from Gilmore—but he didn’t sit, not yet.

—I get the feeling you didn’t just come to say hello.

—The time’s come, Lee, said Gilmore.

—What time?

—We talked about opportunities.

—I told you.

—Sure you did. But it’s in your voice, Lee. In the way you say it. I can hear it as plain as anything. Look around. You think you fit?

—Are you making rent this month? said Maurice.

—What business is it of yours?

Gilmore leaned forward, elbows on his knees: We’re your friends, Lee. We’re the people who know what a solid guy you are.

Lee squeezed his hands together. He breathed: So what is it? What are you talking about?

Gilmore leaned back. He smiled at Maurice, Maurice who was looking at Lee. And Gilmore told him what the business was. Not the specifics, but enough.

He did not say which bank it was exactly. Not how they’d studied it, but how long they had studied it, which was several months. Watching, waiting. It would be done overnight. No requirement, he said, for ugliness. No requirement to stick hardware in anybody’s face. No requirement to rush the job. He spoke of all the cash being turned around this time of year, laid up in deposits from stores. When? Christmas Eve. The day after is a holiday. Won’t anybody have an idea about it till we’ve been and gone. Forty-eight hours will have passed.

—Jesus, said Lee. I have no idea about any of this. I was never a bank man.

—And you don’t need to be. All you’ve got to be is the six. All you’ve got to do is keep your eyes open and keep your cool. What you’re good at. We’ll do the heavy lifting.

The take would be more and more than enough. There’d be no requirement for ugliness. And you will eat the labour of your hands.

—Why? said Lee. Why now?

—Because the time has come. I’ve been sitting on my ass in this town since March and now the time has come. One night of work. That’s all.

—And what, you just came around thinking I’d agree?

—You already agreed, Lee. You’ve been in agreement for a long time. All the time you spend walking the streets. Doing nothing for anybody. What that is, is you throwing your lot in. You know it.

Lee sat down at last. His hands formed patterns on the tops of his thighs. He thought about the air in the room and how it moved and was recycled man to man. He watched Maurice cross the floor and stand by the window, lift the dirty blinds, glance down at the street. The fading daylight was ashen.

—One night of work, said Gilmore.

Lee looked at them, one to the next. He looked at them for a long time. Then it was in the motion of his head, however slight. All things came to that.

Gilmore leaned forward again.

—Say it.

—Say what.

—Say the words, pal.

—You want me to say it?

—Call me old-fashioned but there’s a certain thing about a verbal contract.

He flexed his hands. He could feel his pulse right down to the balls of his feet.

—Fuck it, said Lee. Everything. Yes.

—Good to hear, pal.

Gilmore offered a handshake. Maurice gave Lee a phone number on a scrap of paper.

—Call us tomorrow.

Lee nodded. He put the scrap of paper into his billfold, next to the business card with Stan Maitland’s number on it. That encounter seemed to have happened to a different man altogether.

—It’s good, said Gilmore. How you’ve thrown your lot in. Soon you’ll find yourself a man of means. Give that some thought.

—The rest will happen fast, said Maurice.

His visitors did not remain for much longer. It was better that they did not linger. It would introduce doubt and they must have known it. As surely as they’d known what his response would be.

He went to the hospital, up to the Amiens Wing. He was making his way down the corridor, conscious of his steps, conscious that things were happening, when the older of the two little boys ran down the hallway ahead, coming from the direction of the washrooms. The boy did not see Lee. The boy ran through the door of Irene’s room.

Lee came to the door. It was open six inches or so. He looked through the narrow space. Donna and Barry and the two boys. Irene wearing a respirator. He watched them and he remained unseen. After a moment he turned and left.

Back at his apartment, he looked at the model kits he’d bought for the boys. The purchase was pre-emptive on his part, the invitation having never come, but he hadn’t wanted to be caught empty-handed.

Not that it mattered now. He thought about stuffing the two bombers into the garbage can, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He left them where they sat, and he got himself a drink and sat down to watch television.

But then he saw something that he had overlooked. The mark on the wall, some weeks old, from when he’d launched the beer can against it. He wetted a rag and scoured the mark. The scuff came out but an indentation remained.

He was tired, heavy in the bones. He’d walked to the hospital and back. This made him weary, but it wasn’t the only thing.

Because Gilmore was right. All other considerations aside, Lee was tired because he was greatly relieved. Relieved to let go of
these motions he’d been forcing himself through. Relieved to see that thing—that thing he couldn’t name—stepping out of the dark once again, taking shape, letting him know he hadn’t been forgotten.

It was clear now. Everything was clear.

O
n 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.

A
t 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.

L
ee 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?