the big-screen TV, which was tuned in to curling. The sound was muffled, so he couldn’t hear the play-by-play or catch the rules, but the object of the game was simple enough: get the thing to land in the bull’s eye.
He was on his second double, still fixed on the curlers, when Scottie Rourke slung into the chair beside him, a mug in his hand of that pale gold draft that everyone up here seemed to favour.
Rourke said, “Hey!”
“Evening,” Dion said, not pleasantly. He hadn’t expected company and didn’t want it except in the most hands-off way. But company had found him, and he hadn’t sunk low enough to get rude and tell Rourke where to go.
“Firstly,” Rourke said, “I gotta tell you, I don’t hold it against you personally, pulling in Frankie like you did. It’s that SOB Leith out fishing. Gotta find his bad guy at any cost, right? Guilt or innocence? What’s that? Nothing. It’s the bottom line that matters.” He waved his beer glass about, and he’d had a few already, by the looks of it. “You ran out of worthwhile leads, is that it? Just wanted to harass the locals, show you’re earning your keep?”
“Maybe,” Dion said. Flatly, to show he wasn’t playing.
Rourke snorted. “And in the end you had to let him go, no charges laid, right? Well, am I right?”
“If you say so.”
“Know what I think? I think you pulled him in just to stir things up. You were desperate. Maybe he’d crack under pressure, or maybe he’d confess just to get you off his back, hey? And who cares if he’s innocent. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. Well, am I right? Am I?”
“Don’t ask me.” Dion spoke with the huskiness of rising anger. “Could I just sit down and have a drink for once in my life?”
Rourke flipped his hands in startled surrender. “Okay, okay. Don’t shoot, Officer.”
“It’s okay. Just don’t grill me.”
They sat quietly for a minute. Then Rourke wanted to know if Dion wanted to play some pool. Dion didn’t, thinking sooner or later the man would get bored and leave. Instead, Rourke sipped his beer and looked settled. After a bit more silence he said, “How’s the ticker?”
“Dead.” Dion showed him his new multitasking miracle of technology. “Fifty bucks. Works like a charm. Should have done it in the first place, like you said.”
Rourke frowned as he leaned forward, booze gusting out on his breath. “Gosh, no. I’m sorry. I really am. That thing means a lot to you.”
“It’s not your fault. Can’t put the fucking thing on life support, can we? I threw it in the river.”
Rourke was thrown back in his chair again, he was so shocked. “What? Why? You shouldn’t have done that, man. That’s kind of an antique. Maybe somebody else could have fixed it. And even if they couldn’t, you could have got a few bucks for it, for its historical value or whatever.” He sighed and dug in his pocket, bringing out his wallet, drawing out bills. “Here’s your money back. No, I insist. I’ve been accused of a few things in my life, but I’m an honourable man.”
“Keep your money,” Dion said. “I don’t care.”
“No, hey —”
“I said forget it.”
“Then I’ll buy you a goddamn drink, how’s that?”
“Fine.”
Rourke bought a round and raised a toast. Then he sulked. Then he said, “Totally wrong place to throw something you love, the river.”
“Seemed kind of poetic to me.”
Rourke shook his head with conviction. “People say the river’s beautiful, and it is, like a woman. But it’s also a mean, dark bitch. Just try to step into it, even in midsummer. It’ll freeze your nuts off then rip you to pieces. No, you want a good send-off, go upward. There’s so much paradise around here to inter your loved ones, if you know where to look. You want somewhere open to the skies. The Gates of Heaven, that’s where my ashes are going when my time comes.”
On Dion’s good days, he caught glimpses of paradise here in the north, but mostly he found it cold, badly lit, and monotonous. His own ashes, he had hoped, would sail out from the balcony of his North Vancouver high rise and join the city smog, and maybe a few molecules of him would drift farther out and be taken away by the ocean. But that wasn’t going to happen. Even unemployed, he didn’t have the heart to return to the Lower Mainland. He’d stay in the north, get some shitty job, end up in a no-name urn, buried in a grotty little graveyard in Smithers. “Gates of Heaven,” he said. “What’s that?”
“It’s self-explanatory is what it is,” Rourke said shortly, and Dion didn’t care to pursue it. To take the small talk in a less tedious direction, he asked how come Evangeline hadn’t come out barhopping with him.
Rourke swiped the air dismissively. “Evie’s not the catch you seem to think, bro. She’s a Calgarian whore, and I’ve told her to pack her bags, get the next bus back to Cowtown.”
“That’s a bad idea. Whatever kind of catch she is, she’s probably your last.”
Rourke was pleased, maybe because he too wanted off the topic of failure and death. Or maybe because fielding insults was more up his alley. “Fuck you too.”
“So you picked her up in Calgary?”
“God, no. She was hitching through to Rupert to visit an aunt, so she says, and I gave her a lift, and she asked if I could spare a few bucks while I was at it, and I said ‘Not for nothing, my dear.’ So she came along to my trailer, and lo and behold, has been here ever since. But like I say, she’s leaving. The thrill is gone. Brains of a chickadee, but she eats like a horse. And you’d think she’d pick up a broom once in a while and give the place a dust. No, I can’t afford to sustain a duchess on my wages. Anyway, cheers. Here’s to girls.”
They clinked glasses.
“She’s free then?” Dion said, half joking. “Single, available? Up for grabs?”
“All of the above. But if you hook up with her, take my advice and lock up your valuables.”
It was getting late. Dion had come to the bar by taxi, and Rourke, who said he was temporarily without a proper vehicle for reasons he’d rather not get into, had come on his bicycle, a regular old one-speed of metallic blue. The two men stood outside the front doors around midnight, parting ways. The rain had let up by now, and for once the night was not so bitterly cold. Rourke said he could feel spring in the air. Dion said he couldn’t. Rourke pushed off through the puddles on his two wheels, spraying mud and slush in his wake, and Dion started toward town on foot. He had enough cash for a cab ride back but felt he could use the walk.
Half an hour later he didn’t feel like he could use the walk anymore, and had his phone out to call for the town’s sole cabbie, but realized he didn’t know the number. His was a regular cellphone, not a 3G with a brain that could pull information out of thin air, so he was stuck.
He continued walking until headlights coming from behind fanned a glare over the road ahead. A dog started to bark somewhere in the darkness,
