to your house. And you have no idea where I could’ve gone to.”
“It won’t look good, Jack.”
“I have to get to Clara before anyone else does.”
He looked down and noticed his torn pants and burnt shoes.
“Wait here a minute.”
He ran into the house. Upstairs he found some of his old clothes in a heap. He picked up a brown suit, a shirt, and a pair of heavy shoes. There was some soap and water on a table in his father’s room. He quickly scrubbed the black off his face and hands, dressed, and ran back downstairs.
Lesperance had his head cocked towards the road. “A motor,” he said.
“Cops?”
“I can’t tell.”
McCloskey ran to his vehicle. “Don’t mention Clara,” he said and started the engine. “Understand me?”
“Who did this, Jack?”
McCloskey ignored the old man. He dropped the clutch, shifted into reverse, and did a half-circle around him. Lesperance ran up to McCloskey and grabbed his arm.
“They were expecting you, you know.”
The approaching car could be heard clearly now.
“Tell Clara what you got to tell her then get out of town.”
McCloskey yanked his arm away, shifted out of reverse, and headed up the path. When he turned onto Front Road he could see the headlights of the other vehicle in his mirror. He kept glancing up until he saw it turn onto the property.
He couldn’t get away from the image of their faces in the charred rubble. He twisted his hands around the steering wheel until it nearly snapped apart.
At the highway junction he continued north along the river road. Wanting to avoid the downtown he took the Huron Line to Tecumseh Road, the back door into the Border Cities.
Several cars were parked outside the Elliott Hotel and a couple of guys were keeping watch by the road. McCloskey turned his face as he drove past.
Thoughts began to ricochet inside his head. Who was behind this? If he had gotten to Ojibway sooner, could he have saved them? Was Sophie still safely on her way to Montreal? The bell of a locomotive engine got him focused again. He slowed down while crossing the tracks and then kept an eye on the side streets along Tecumseh.
There was a box of cigars on the seat next to him. He fumbled one out, bit off the end, and spat it onto the road. He found a match in the box as well, struck it on the dashboard, held the flame to the tip of the cigar, and took a few quick drags until it had a nice orange glow. The aroma filled the car. It helped calm his nerves.
Years ago on summer nights like this, he and his father would sit on the porch after Billy went to bed and just talk. Sometimes all Jack could see was the orange glow of his father’s cigar floating back and forth as he rocked in his chair. The conversation would start with Jack telling his father what trouble he had gotten into that day. Then his father would start with his own stories.
He wanted to avoid the Avenue so he turned left up McDougall instead, rumbling over the train tracks at Hanna and then gliding passed the rows of idle factories. He slowed at Giles Boulevard, where these factories gave way to little wooden bungalows. He was thinking he shouldn’t leave the car anywhere near Clara’s, so at Erie Street he pulled in behind City Garage. McCloskey hoped Orval wouldn’t sell it or use it for parts before he got back to him.
Erie was quiet; most of the dwellings above the shops were dark. McCloskey moved swiftly through the shadows. He darted across the Avenue and when he reached Pelissier Street he ducked in the doorway of the building opposite Clara’s apartment.
On hot, humid nights like this, one could almost hear people sighing in their beds. McCloskey took one last drag on his cigar, walked up to the front door, and found the name on the register. He pushed the buzzer — three times fast then once. The door clicked open.
He slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor and paused in the dim light of the hall before knocking. He heard the clunk of the deadbolt inside the lock and then the door slowly swung open. When she recognized who it was, she threw her weight behind the door. McCloskey stopped it with his foot.
“What do you want?” she hissed.
“It’s about Billy.” He inched closer to the door. “Can I come in?”
She couldn’t see around him into the hall.
“You alone?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Clara gave McCloskey another once over, relaxed her grip on the door, then stood back. He moved right past her and straight to the window in the front room, turned off a nearby table lamp, and peeked through the curtain.
“So, what’s this about Billy?”
She was standing in the middle of the room, wrapped in a silk robe embroidered with a Chinese design. Her arms were folded across her chest and McCloskey could tell she was trying not to lose her temper. He pulled his eyes away from the street below only long enough to tell her very matter-of-factly that Billy was dead.
Clara closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When she opened them again the tension was gone from her body. There were no tears; this was the news she had been anticipating for the last six years. A long, sad chapter in her life had finally come to an end.
When the reports from the war were particularly bad, she would lie in bed wondering if he was still alive. When he came home a shattered man and drank until he couldn’t drink anymore, she wondered how long it would take for him to kill himself with booze. When he left her and became a notorious bootlegger, she wondered where she’d find out about his death first: in the newspaper, from an overheard conversation in a streetcar, or from a cop. She thought she would have been more upset about it but she wasn’t. She had mourned the loss of her husband too many times now to be shocked by his actual death.
“What happened?”
McCloskey told her what he came home to in Ojibway, leaving out the gruesome details. Clara was saddened about her father-in-law. She always had a soft spot for him. He was such a larger-than-life character.
“Drink?”
McCloskey was still at the window. “Yeah.”
Clara came back from the kitchen with a couple of ryes, hers with ginger. She handed McCloskey his then dropped into a big, cushioned chair near the window.
McCloskey sat across from her on the chesterfield. He liked how her robe parted over one of her thighs and the small electric fan nearby was tousling her hair. He took a sip from his glass.
“Who were you expecting tonight?”
Clara pushed her eyebrows together.
“Not everyone knows the buzz,” he said, “and you wouldn’t open the door for just anybody, not dressed like that.”
Clara rolled her eyes. “It could
