she believes despite overwhelming odds in the promise of meagre satisfaction from this life. She is attractive despite a world-weary weight to her eyes and her face, though McKelvey can tell she was likely a knockout in her youth, black hair tied back. There are two old men seated at individual tables near the window, each of them quietly sipping coffee and reading newspapers, likely enjoying the time away from their wives. The swivel stools that run along the counter are empty.
“Well, that must be Mr. McKelvey,” Levesque says as he turns upon hearing the jingle of bells tied to the door.
McKelvey nods and holds out his hand as he approaches the real-estate-agent-cum-small-town-entrepreneur.
“What’ll you have, Charlie? Do you mind if I call you Charlie?”
“It’s my name,” McKelvey says. And he smiles at the woman now as he squints to read the nametag pinned to her ugly beige uniform blouse: Peggy.
“Anything you want,” Levesque says with a sweep of his hand across the vista of stale doughnuts, a half-empty fountain well of lemonade, and two pots of coffee. Levesque smiles, pleased with himself at this generous offering. McKelvey sees instantly that this man is a salesman, has likely sold a little of everything in his life — toilet brushes and cars with bad radiators — and he would get on your nerves if you spent too much time with him.
“I’ll take a small coffee, black,” McKelvey says. He no longer cares about the regimen imposed in the aftermath of his gastrointestinal hemorrhage, which was partly, though only partly, responsible for his early exit from the force. No more plain Balkan-style yogourt, no more celery snagged in his teeth for him, no sir, not since Dr. Shannon delivered The News. So, fuck it. Black coffee, please. And suddenly his entire body thrums with desire for a cigarette, even though it’s been a miraculous three months since he gave up on trying to ration himself or otherwise control the uncontrollable, which is to say he quit cold turkey.
“No cherry stick?” Levesque asks, and pokes McKelvey in the belly. It’s a move that instantly provokes a reptilian response within McKelvey — he clenches his teeth and swallows the urge to snap the man’s finger. Don’t touch me, he could say. Not ever. “I gotta tell you, they’re goddamned dynamite,” Levesque continues. “I eat, what, two or three a week?”
He says this to Peggy, who has already poured McKelvey’s coffee.
“A day, more like it,” Peggy says.
Levesque laughs, and it sounds like gravel pouring through a tin culvert, forced and over-loud. At the tail end of the laugh there is a wheeze in the man’s lungs, this constricted exhalation. McKelvey imagines the man chain-smoking two packs a day. Sitting behind a cheap metal desk in some trailer on a used car lot, watching the door, willing it to open, asking everyone about the weather, how about that rain, how about that goddamned heat. McKelvey is already finding it hard to like this man.
“Thanks, Peggy,” McKelvey says, and nods. “I’m Charlie.”
“You’re welcome, ‘I’m Charlie,’” she says, and then turns to busy herself with straightening things on the counter behind her.
Seated at a table, Levesque proceeds to pour half a pound of sugar into his own coffee, stirring and stirring. McKelvey is reminded of someone mixing cement. He takes a pull on his coffee and is relieved to discover it is not as bad as the bowel-blitzing sludge the old-timers are swilling down at the Station. It’s a wonder they’re still alive, though he supposes what hasn’t killed them has in fact made them stronger.
Levesque noisily slurps a taste of his coffee and, satisfied with his chemistry, he sits back and clasps his hands. McKelvey notices a Mason’s ring. Levesque says, “So then, friend, what brings you to the whirling metropolis of Ste. Bernadette?”
Levesque is a squat man, shaped like a block, and he is unable to accept the fact of his balding. The long strands of brown-grey hair that remain have been swirled in a loop in the centre of his head, likely held there by a combination of sheer determination and hairspray. McKelvey notices everything — clothes, posture, eyes, gestures — the smallest indicators that for years were his stock and trade as a cop on the beat in Toronto, in fraud investigations, and finally on the Hold-Up Squad. He sees Levesque now, sitting across from him with a wide grin, his sports coat too tight and the bad comb-over, and he is reminded of a case he once worked when he was on the Fraud Squad. A pyramid scheme of sorts, worth about a million all told, and it turned out the mastermind behind the whole operation was an unemployed shoe salesman — and Levesque reminds him of everything about the perp.
“It’s been a long time since I was back home,” McKelvey says. He glances over at the counter and he catches Peggy’s eye. He gives a small smile.
“You were born and raised here? I didn’t know that. Well, welcome home, Charlie. I bet the place has changed a lot.”
“You could say that.”
“Sure as hell has changed in the four years since I moved here. Came through town on my way out east from Kenora. I was running a business up there, had the rights to a process whereby you remove this substance from pulp, you know, from the mills, this substance with a name I can’t even pronounce — placto-u-nameen something — about fourteen consonants in it and sixteen chemistry elements. Anyway, it’s used in the production of industrial-grade adhesives. We never got off the ground because of the goddamned banks and the assbackward government in this country, but …”
McKelvey watches the man and notices the exact spot where he loses himself, his words simply evaporate before him. Rather than jump in to pull Levesque from the strange tangent, he sips his coffee and waits. He has nowhere to be, no plans.
“Anyhoo,” Levesque says, drawing back. “Stopped for a few days in Ste. Bernadette and bingo, four years later I own half the town.”
“Duncan at the hotel was mentioning something about that. You want to open a casino resort?”
Levesque laughs again, and again it is too loud in the small coffee shop. Like someone trying too hard at a party to laugh at all of the host’s jokes.
“Oh, I’ve got plans, you could say that. Yes, sir, I’ve got plans. But we’ll have time for all of that, my friend. Right now let’s talk about how I can help you. You’re looking for a short-term rental, is that right? Something maybe semi-furnished?”
McKelvey sits back and exhales a long breath. What he is looking for he can’t quite say. Short-term, long-term, a parade, a trip to the moon, a little peace and quiet. His eyes move to the front window, the view of Main Street. A few cars roll slowly by. No pedestrian traffic. He misses Front Street with its shops and restaurants, the grocery store open twenty-four hours, the swirl and smells of the St. Lawrence Market with its hanging meats and strange slippery seafood. He misses Garrity’s Pub just below his condo, the way his whole mood would change when he crossed the threshold. He is suddenly overwhelmed with the sense that he has been foolish, both for coming all the way up here with no real purpose, but also for trusting this used car salesman to look after his primary need at this point in time, which happens to be shelter.
“Duncan mentioned my old house might be available,” McKelvey says.
“Where did you live?”
“20 King Street.”
Levesque’s eyes brighten, and McKelvey can practically see the dollar signs turning like lemons and crowns rolling on a slot machine.
“It’s
