The Man Game (65 page)

I never characterized him quite that way before, but, yes.

The orphanage nuns taught me at least one good thing, she said. A man who got no soul, you do what he says or it's trouble, and you get him out your door soon as you can.

Yes, he said, thinking of how quickly he'd rooted Dunbar out of his own house not so long ago. Sammy's gaze fell downward to the Persian rug on the floor of Peggy's room, covered in dirt and hair.

And anyways, if we're being on the level, wasn't your wife preoccupied that night with a game? said Peggy. She had regained her full voice, that low-swinging criminal burr he was frightened of and beginning to enjoy. She almost laughed, but her smoking habit turned the laugh into a cough. Don't you know your own wife? Would the Molly you know—.

As I said before, it was you I suspected …

Peggy found her way back to the table edge in front of him as she spoke. No, that's what you're telling yourself maybe, but that's not why you're here. I'm no murderer, Mr. Erwagen. Your brother chose her k
no
wing.well. I told him myself who she was. He went in to her
roo
m k
no
wing. I'm not peddling in violence here. That's not my business. I don't let my girls be flogged or birched and I don't murder customers. There's none a that here. You want to meet her, I can tell.

May I?

She's far too delicate. The
most
delicate.

Why did you let my brother?

Came in here all hunched over from the cold and tears in his hollow eyes. He told me he'd left his wife in Wyoming and had got no relations from her in so many years anyways. It was a pitiable story.

I insist I be allowed to meet her.

Nothing doing.

I insist. There's ten dollars in my pocket.

Damn you men. You're all the same. Your wife, she pays me nothing for the honour. I respected you, Mr. Erwagen, until you offered me the money.

She took the ten-dollar bill from his pants, went to unlock the door that connected her suite to the one beside it, and got set to roll Sammy into the blight.

Through the doorway, he saw into the room where The Whore Without A Face lived. At the far end of the room he saw a stained-glass window, and through it light bled across all the surfaces. She lay in her bed, facing the window, just beginning to realize that it was not only Peggy who was entering. She began to turn, the black hood locked to her neck by its leather collar, a cigarette pressed to the fabric at her mouth. She paused, took the cigarette in her fingers, and a bud of smoke appeared to leak from her hood into the atmosphere, where he saw every carbon mote in the light streams. As The Whore With No Face began to speak so did Peggy, and Sammy interrupted them both.

Peggy, would you mind leaving us for a moment? I have words I'd like to speak to her in private.

Yes, I must—

I'll call for you, thanks, said Sammy, and watched to make sure she shut the door properly before he returned his attention to the girl on the bed.

Dun-bar, she whispered. Her arms covered her bare chest as if to show modesty in the presence of a lover.

She said his brother's name once more and he answered this time: Yes, he was my brother.

Why you—, she said. Her voice was gentle as tissue paper. You did. You
promise
you return to me.

He
did, said Sammy. She did not understand yet that he and Dunbar were different people.

Yes, she exclaimed, nearly in tears. First love I ever see again.

But, no, it wasn't
me
, said Sammy. It was my brother. Why did you …

She flinched. He expected her to. As she twisted her legs to one side on the bed and sat in that position, the sun shone through the side of her hood. The fabric was veil enough to see at best a shadow of her features underneath. What he saw conformed with no shape he knew for profile or portrait;
rather, he saw another mask, this one carved from solid wood, exaggerated to barbaric proportions, with a screaming mouth, flared nostrils, and ridged cheeks. She caught sight of her shadow on the bed, the silhouette and the cloth, and she moved; the view was gone as quickly as it had come.

He understood his brother. The repellent features were concealed and, after a fashion, morbidly desirable, censured as they were by the glossy, almost perspirant finish of her black hood.

Why you no move? she said.

I almost died.

Wa, she said, upset at once and on her feet, now in front of him.

This was his opportunity. He was alone with her. There might not ever be another moment like this in his life when suicide was within reach. Why he didn't choose suicide, as his brother had, was what shocked him.

FIFTEEN

Attention, Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be.

–
SGT. JIM BAKER'S RECORDED MESSAGE TO THE TALIBAN
, 2007

On Sunday, as expected, twenty-four Chinese arrived from Victoria to clear the Brighouse Estate. News travelled fast. Toronto held a poster made fresh on Saturday that exclaimed in bold sho' card typeface:

KEEP VANCOUVER WHITE; A Public Metting [sic] of the Citizens of Vancouver will be Held In CITY HALL On Sunday Afternoon, FEB. 20 at 2 O'Clock; To Appreciate Freedom We Must Prohibit Slave Labour; Turn Back The Repulsive Chinamans; We'll Hold By Right & Maintain By Might; Till The Foe Is Backward Driven; We Welcome As Brothers All Whitemen Still; But The Shifty Yellow Race; Whose Word Is Vain; Who Oppress The Weak; Must Find Another Place.

It also detailed the list of speakers and finished tritely with: God Save The King.

A skimpy illustration of a buck-toothed face with slitted eyes accompanied the text.

The po-lice were on patrol.

Pantcuffs cuffed up, hats tugged on tight, milkcurds stuck in their moustaches, the crowd waited in anticipation
on the steps and on the street outside City Hall where they joined the men waving placards and added their own curses to the hated
Chinee
.

Toronto overheard Terry Berry say to a navvy: You going to the man game after this?

Yeah, said his friend.

The return a Litz and Pisk, said Terry Berry, whistling and nudging his pal Vicars in the belly. Won't miss this for nothing.

And I hear Furry and Daggett're playing, too, said the navvy.

Waited a long time for this, eh.
Big
night. Return a Litz and Pisk. Wa.

Wouldn't miss it myself neither. After hearing them jaw on aboot how good they are …

Who're you going to bet on? said Terry Berry.

Well, listen. I've seen Litz and Pisk, and I know what I'm getting there. And remember it all began when Pisk took Daggett down in the street, eh?

I was there, I saw it, lied Terry Berry.

Yeah, and, even if Daggett and Furry
are
good players, well, I just don't bet on a speculation. Too risky.

Me and a couple other guys been practising a bit ourselves, piped in Vicars.

That right? Where?

Over by the oilery. Nothing too complicated. Just some moves and the basic idea.

Toronto squeezed his way through the crowd to find a free seat on the benches inside. By one o'clock there was already a strong smell of old boots and wet socks. City Hall was two hundred men heavy already, and nothing had yet been said. They were mutton-chopped and of sturdy mien, wearing stiff collars up against their chins, their fists in their laps. Shirtsleeves were generally frayed at the cuffs. Hats were brown or grey manhandled rabbitskin. Toronto wasn't here for the same reason as everyone else. He was here because Molly had asked him to be. You are my eyes on the city, she'd told him before they all left the house that afternoon. She and
Sammy went to Hastings Mill, and Toronto was asked to go to City Hall. She kissed him on the cheek.

Don't do anything, she'd said. Don't talk to anyone. Just watch. Watch for me.

It was still tingly there where she'd kissed him. So he kept his eyes open to everything.

I can help you with that dike, said a man leaning on his elbows, but I can't do it for less than seventy-five cents an hour, eh.

His partner shook his head. Let's work out a deal that's best for both of us, because I cannot afford that.

I thought we're here because we respect each other.

I do, said the employer, grinding his jaw.

They set to talking prices.

Seated beside the colonial flags there was some longbearded old man with soot in his ears and no front teeth who said a lot of foul things and got laughs for it. There was the longshoreman with a pair of green heels on his wrist and a set of green legs going all the way up to his elbow, a big green bosom on his bicep and a flowing head of green hair over his shoulder.

Toronto remained silent among the men.

On either side of him on his pew were teams of loggers whose rowdiness and surly mien Toronto avoided. On his left, the subject was mink. On his right, it was chickamin. These were men who harpooned whale and shimmied two hundred feet into the air and ate nothing but stale biscuit for weeks without complaining more than every fucking minute about it. Moustaches outnumbered beards. Clean faces were not invited. Even Toronto had a sparse moustache these days. The idea of being seated for a couple hours no longer disturbed him as it had before the visit to the longhouse.

First off the cowboy came on stage and quieted them down, greeted them, and said: Some a you might know me, my name's RD Pitt and I'm a member a the Knights a Labour.

He removed his hat and let it dangle behind his neck on its chin strap. He placed his hands on the podium and every nail was trimmed and every finger intact.

We're here today speaking on the Yellow Peril facing us. You already know this is serious business, otherwise you wouldn't be here, eh? As you all know twenty-four Chinese arrived from Victoria today for clearing the Brighouse Estate. Yes, I agree, this is a terrible situation for the noble white labourer. So let me start with a little aboot the Knights a Labour if you don't already know. We're founded in 1869 by a guy, Uriah Stephens. Him and five others left the Garment Cutters' Association a Philadelphia to start the Knights a Labour. Back in those days it was open to all good Christian working people, except for bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers, doctors, and liquor manufacturers. Knights a Labour was a secret organization to begin, but since Terence Powderly has took over, it's open to your public at large. A lot a the old traditions are still with us in the Knights a Labour, and to learn the meanings behind ah, our insignia, our secrets a life, and secret handshake, you got to join up, eh. But the fraternity of Christian labourers has got to be together united, you understand, and the Knights a Labour support that position across the board. We invite both sexes to the fraternity. Aye, it's true. Wait and listen, because the female labourers are as much in the industrialists' plan for society. It's true that our capitalist bosses intend for our very wives to work alongside us. And we must be organized before they turn women into slaves no better treated than Orientals. You see? Look at us. We got all this forest, fish, and we're all starving. Why's that you think? Because the chickamin all goes back to Toronto. And we're left with what? How you say it in your Chinook?
Cultus: nothing
. I been running around Canada for work. I come here, figure there's got to be a strong labour force and a lot a work going around. What do I find? I see men in shacks in the jungle living off mulligan, eh? You think this'd be the case if it weren't for the Chinaman? A panner can't live off gold dust. Lumberjack can't live off wood chips neither. And this
railroad? I suspect it carries us more heathen than Christians. This rotten country and this rotten province and this rotten city is all the fault a the Chinaman, thank you very much.

A few rowdies clapped for this, and one of them shouted: No more Chinamen. Pitt touched his belt buckle, hoisted his pants, continued: After the speeches if you're interested in joining our cause to unionize the workers a Vancouver, come talk to me. You sick a asking for the ten-hour workday and not getting it? You interested in some kind a job security? You started to get sick a seeing the little Chinaman across the street from you get a job in the morning before you, well, I'm also heading up another organization I'm sure you'll all want to join. It's called the Anti-Asiatic League. Talk to me aboot that and I'll sign you up. All right, thank you for your applause. Listen, our first speaker for the night is GM Sproat, you all surely know him. He's a prominent figure aboot Gastown, has been for a lot longer than them Chinamen down on Coal Harbour, that's for damn sure. And if you know him you know his opinions carry weight around here, as I'm sure you're aboot to hear for yourself.