The Extinction Club (10 page)

“And you the energy of a sloth.”

“Once again, Mr. Volpe, thanks for reminding me.”

“One of the seven deadly sins, that.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Did you ever forgive him?”

“For …?”

“For what he did to you in Paris.”

“Yes, of course.”

Awkward silence as we both listened to his AM radio: “Trouble in Paradise” by the Crests. “Did you get your shots before you left?”

“For …?”

“I don’t know, whatever they have up there. Mad cow? Hoof and mouth? Swine flu?”

“They don’t breed animals up here. They’re cannibals.”

“Always the wiseass. Listen, whatever you do, don’t speed, don’t drink, don’t get stopped by the cops. You get stopped, you’re in a shitpot of trouble. There’s an all-points out.”

“Which means …”

“Which means that if you’re stopped for a DUI or traffic violation and the uniform radios in the information, the bulletin sends up a flag.”

“Does this … extend to Quebec?”

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

“I believe so.”

“Does a wooden horse have a hickory dick? Yes, nimrod, it extends to Quebec.”

“I won’t get stopped.” I’ve been getting stopped all my life, I thought as the words left my lips.

“You’ve been getting stopped all your life.”

“So I’ve heard. Listen, has the story, you know, made any of the papers?”

“Yeah, it’s made all the papers. Headlines in
The New York Times:
‘Stamp Collector on the Lam.’ Of course it hasn’t made the goddamn papers.” I could see him frowning, like one of my high-school principals. “I’ll see what I can do, Nile, for the sake of your father. But I’ll be straight with you—you could end up sleeping on a stainless-steel shelf attached to a wall.”

   VI   

A
fter several misfires starting up the van, I sat silently behind the wheel, thinking of questions I should have asked my lawyer:
How much does my ex want? What portion of my father’s estate would help her maintain the chemical life to which she’s grown accustomed?
And fielding questions from my father’s ghost:
Have you learned anything from this, Nile? It’s never a loss if you’ve learned something. Have you?
Yes, father, I have. After living with a beautiful woman, I learned the irrelevance of beauty.

The ignition finally caught and I was halfway down the lane when I saw her. The white cat with the red collar. By the side of the road, calm as can be, as if waiting for her limo. I hit the brakes, opened the door and she leapt in like a dog, up onto my lap. And then onto the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, like a dowager being driven to the opera.

But we weren’t heading for the opera, unfortunately; we were heading for a kind of hall of mirrors, a gallery of characters of increasing bentness who took me back in time, to my institutional days. Unless they were all ghosts, the coinage of my brain.

The RE/MAX in Ste-Madeleine, the agency that handled my cabin rental, was open but empty. I could hear myself
nervously whistling, which is not something I do often or well. «
Il y a quelqu’un?
» I inquired.

A toilet flushed, a door latch clicked, and a gaunt woman with thick grey hair and a cigarette butt emerged from a door marked Femmes. I stated my business and she pointed with her cigarette. «
Jusqu’au bout, à gauche
. »

I followed her instructions, pausing at the threshold of a surprisingly dim office. The agent’s face looked ghoulish in the glow of his computer screen, his tongue protruding as he frowned in concentration. I cleared my throat to pull his attention away from what turned out not to be real estate files or the Internet but a video game.

« You’re interested in
that
property? » the agent asked in French, his eyes still trained on his screen. He had yellowish hair like unravelled shredded wheat that hung over his forehead and eyes, and his face was pocked with acne. He looked less like a realtor than a bag boy at the supermarket. « That mudhole? » Like a child protecting a test paper from a cheating neighbour, he put his left arm around a manila folder beside his laptop. He looked coked to the gills. And I should know. « There’s talk, eh? »

« Talk? »

« Of rituals and shit. Weird shit. Bad things that happened way back when. You’d be better off with a condo. Or even one of them flooded trailers from New Orleans. »

With his right hand he punched in numbers on a cell, turning his head away and speaking in a low voice. He folded up his phone and began tapping his index finger between the bottom and top rows of his teeth. It was not a sound I needed to hear.

« Okay, let’s go, » he said after slipping his folder in a desk drawer and standing. He seemed to rise indefinitely; like the snowplower, he was tall, very tall, practically a furlong.
Something in the water up here? « To the bank. We can jeep it or walk it. » He inserted earphones into his ears before I could express a preference, and fiddled with his iPod.

« Jeep? I thought we’d take your skateboard. »

He pulled out his right bud. « Come again? »

« We’ll take my van. »

The Banque Laurentienne, the agent explained as we drove four and a half blocks, owned the church. « The bank impounded it and shit, eh? »

« Foreclosed. »

« What I said. »

I looked in my rear-view, trying to locate the cat. Put my hand under the seat and felt fur.

« Never been in one of these before, » said the agent, looking up, down, around. « Pretty beat up, eh? »

I nodded. Like its owner, falling apart and hard to start. « It runs. »

« A shag wagon from the eighties, am I right? »

« You are. So the foreclosure— »

« You wouldn’t want to a move up a notch, would you? Or two. I can sell you a Ford Bronco, full-size, mint, ten thousand klicks, ten thousand bucks. »

« No thanks. »

He looked at me through the overhanging hairs of the brow, as do some breeds of dog. « But … I mean, if you can afford the church, why are you drivin’ this shitheap? »

A good question, that. Which might need Freud to answer it. Sentimental reasons was the short answer. I went out on my first date in a van like this. But I’d driven wrecks my entire life, maybe because I felt sorry for them, maybe to confuse and confound my father. « So the foreclosure was one of those subprime loans? »

« Nah. The guy who bought it ended up in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines. »

I turned, gave my passenger a quizzical look.

« Penitentiary, » he explained.

We passed by an Esso sign, which I hadn’t seen in the States for thirty years. And two Catholic churches, both boarded up. « Lots of boarded-up churches in this province, » I remarked as we drove into the bank parking lot.

« You been to Montreal? It’s worse there, eh? »

A chance to display my knowledge of Quebec, a morsel gained from the Internet. « Mark Twain said Montreal was the first city he’d been to where you couldn’t throw a brick without hitting a church window. »

The agent paused, scratched his head. « You couldn’t take a dump without hitting a church window? »

Something lost in translation. Before I could clarify, the agent was shouting a greeting to someone outside the bank: a panhandling punkette sitting on the pavement with a geriatric dog shivering in a blanket at her feet. As we approached I saw that she wasn’t a panhandler; she was a native Indian vendor whose wares were spread out on one side of the entrance. On the other side was a male, her companion presumably, asleep in a coffin of cardboard.

“The Quebec government is illegitimate,” she said softly to me in English as I examined the items for sale. “As long as there are whites living on Native lands.”

“Which lands would those be?” I asked.

« Don’t bother with— » the agent began.

“The whole province,” she replied. “I studied law. I’m going to enter the system and ruin it from the inside. Plant a time bomb under Western capitalism.”

As I examined a turquoise necklace that I thought Céleste
might like, turning it over in my hands, the agent whispered into my ear, « I wouldn’t go north of a hundred large on that property. In fact, if I was you I wouldn’t go there at all. It ain’t worth the back taxes. »

Unusual advice from a real estate agent. I gave the woman what she asked for, along with a twenty-dollar tip.

A look of disbelief, of befuddlement, warped the agent’s features. « What the hell did you just— »

« Why isn’t it worth the back taxes? »

« Did you
tip
her, for God’s sake? Are you from the bozo farm? »

« It’s freezing out here, » I said by way of explanation. « So why wouldn’t you buy the church? »

The agent, still shaking his head, opened the bank door and walked in. I followed. We paused under the fluorescence of the vestibule, next to two cash machines. One of them had a smashed-in screen with an
Hors Service
banner draped over it. Beside the other, taped to the wall, was a missing-girl flyer I’d seen before.

« Because it’s an Anglican church,” the agent explained in a low voice, “and it’s gonna get torched one of these days. Or its bone zone is gonna get bulldozed. »

The question was hanging there, so I asked it.

« Why? » repeated the agent. « ’Cause people blame it for the lack of investment up here, at least in Ste-Davnet. Nobody wants to sink money into a town that’s haunted. With squarehead ghosts. »

« Squarehead? »

« Anglo. »

« Right. »

After the agent spoke briefly to the receptionist, we sat down on a bench and waited. For some reason, drops of
perspiration began to trickle down the side of his face.

« But why are there swastikas on the crosses? » I asked. « Are there Jews buried with the Protestants? »

« I don’t know, I don’t think so. But … it kinda makes sense. They both speak English, eh? »

Is there a toxic chemical up here, I wondered, making people taller but shrinking their brains?

« Plus—you’re not going to believe this—they used to hold same-sex marriages there, eh? »

I looked suitably aghast.

« Plus they bury animals there, eh? » He snorted horsily. « They bury their goddamn pets! »

« Yeah, I saw some of the inscriptions— »

« And Indians too. Plus the Bogs is bad country, eh? Stinkin’ black mud—with evil vapours, so they say. Something real bad is going to happen in the Bogs. A pond like that with no bottom. Marsh like a sinkhole. Hunters lose their dogs in there. A team of horses went down, way back when, dragging the driver with them. »

So that’s why they dumped Céleste there
. “What would a team of horses be doing in a cemetery? »

« The dead rich Anglos used to be carried in by horse-drawn carriages. After dark. With mourners carrying torches. »

« And hunters lose their dogs? What would hunters be doing in a cemetery? »

« Chasing lions. »

« I’m sorry? »

« Mountain lions. Cougars. »

« Eastern cougars? But … aren’t they extinct? »

« There’s been sightings, eh? Maybe one a year for the past fifty years. Plus there’s this … local legend or myth or whatever you want to call it. Total crock, but some people
claim there’s a kind of monster in that swamp. A
diable des marais
. Cross between a Jersey devil and a mountain lion. »