boys started pouring liquor into them. Montroy and Corbishdale looked at each other. The whisky wasn’t displacing the milk.
“I’ve seen enough. Stay here and cover the front while I go around back and try and find another way in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Montroy found a rear entrance in the alleyway, but it was locked. He pulled out his Colt, took a deep breath and kicked the door open.
“Hands up, boys — where I can see ’em.”
The milkman dove for cover. One of the Pole’s boys drew his pistol and Montroy fired, hitting him in the shoulder. The other fellow grabbed some air. Montroy cocked his revolver and aimed it at the Pole. The Pole laughed, pulled what appeared to be a butcher knife out of a sheath hanging from his belt, and started inching towards Montroy.
With his lanky black hair, white flesh, and big round eyes there was something dark and weirdly medieval about this man. Montroy took a step back. That was a mistake. Now the Pole knew he had him.
There was a noise at the front door. The Pole didn’t turn around at first. He just kept grinning, and as he moved into the light he threw a dense, cold shadow that seemed to bleed into every corner of the room.
“Sergeant Montroy?”
It was Corbishdale. He was standing there with his pistol drawn. The Pole turned and was a breath away from throwing the knife at Corbishdale when Montroy put a bullet in his back. The Pole froze for a moment, then his legs twisted under him and he dropped to the floor.
“Goddamn,” said Montroy and ran over to the Pole. “Call an ambulance.”
“Sir … I heard a shot … I …”
“That’s all right, son. Just get us that ambulance.”
Montroy looked up at the table and saw the milk bottles. He grabbed one. They were empty but painted to look full. When you held one in your hand it was pretty obvious, but on your porch at 5:30 in the morning no one could possibly tell the difference.
The Pole and his injured partner were loaded into the ambulance. Montroy rode with them and took the opportunity to ask the accomplice a few questions. When Montroy didn’t like the answers, he poked the man in the shoulder with his nightstick. Every so often he would glance over at the Pole lying unconscious on the stretcher. He had this creepy grin on his face, like he was listening to everything they were saying.
Ugly bohunk.
— Chapter 10 —
OJIBWAY
McCloskey watched the sun drop behind the horizon like a penny in a slot, gently triggering the astromechanics of nightfall. By the time he reached Essex County everything was black around his headlight beams.
At Maidstone he switched over to Talbot Road. When he reached the Huron Line he hung a left and continued west to Ojibway. Cottages and small farms began to appear, and then finally the river. He turned up Front Road.
He saw a bonfire in the distance and recognized some landmarks in the firelight: a row of poplars, an old oak tree — his father’s old truck.
“Shit.”
Anxiety gripped his body as his mind accelerated with the car. He turned sharply, nearly missing the bridge that spanned the ditch and then skidded to a stop near the house. Just as he was about to step down onto the running board an explosion threw him back into his seat. The windows and part of the roof were blown out of the cabin, showering the yard with burning debris.
McCloskey pulled himself up. Through the cloud of smoke he could make out his nearest neighbour, Lesperance, running towards him with a bucket. Taking his cue from the old man, McCloskey raced to the well and started pumping water into the bucket that hung from the spout. Lesperance arrived, breathless, just in time to exchange his empty one for McCloskey’s overflowing one.
The old man shuffled over to the cabin and tossed the water through a broken window. Steam, smoke, and sparks billowed out in a thick, noxious mixture. He shouted over the roar of the flames, “Let it burn, Jack.”
“No,” he replied, “might be kegs under the floor.”
Or money, McCloskey was thinking. He ran to the cabin and doused a section of shingles curling in the flames. The walls shuddered and the roof collapsed. He jumped back and turned away as a geyser of sparks shot up into the night sky. It got dark quickly after that, quiet too. McCloskey ran inside the house to fetch a lantern.
The place was a wreck. Chairs were overturned and cabinet drawers were spilled out onto the floor. He found the lantern and then gave a holler up the stairs.
“Pa? Billy?”
Nothing. He switched a light that hung outside the kitchen door and stepped back into the yard. His eyes fell on a set of drag marks in the loose dirt and gravel. They appeared to run in the direction of the cabin. He turned to Lesperance.
“Did you see anyone here tonight?”
The old man shook his head. “I just got home.”
McCloskey started fiddling with the lantern. Lesperance approached him tentatively.
“You back for good, Jack?”
McCloskey looked at the old man sideways. He was a cagey fellow and McCloskey was never sure how far he could trust him.
“You know, Jack … it might be dangerous here for you.”
McCloskey got the lantern going and went over to the cabin. He could see parts of a whisky still poking through the glowing rubble, as well as various tools, jars, and jugs.
“Hold this.”
He handed Lesperance the lantern then ran over to the garden and grabbed a shovel. He pulled down what was left of the cabin walls then stepped carefully into the smouldering ruin. He couldn’t remember exactly where the trap door was. He used the shovel to leverage larger pieces of the cabin off the floor then kicked the rubble aside.
He saw something. Boots, two pair pointing up at different angles.
“Shine it over here.”
McCloskey moved faster, trying to gently lift the brittle framework and then … overalls, burned flesh, a lifeless hand, and a face still expressing what must have been the body’s last agonizing moments. McCloskey went numb and the shovel dropped from his hands.
He became acutely aware of the darkness surrounding him, penetrating everything. It was in his father’s and brother’s dead eyes, the inky blackness of the river, and the farmland that stretched beyond the fading glow of the lantern. His knees felt weak. He was teetering at the edge of an abyss buried deep inside him, the same one he had fallen into after the war.
And then something snapped and he was like a machine kicked into overdrive.
“Did you call anyone before you left the house?”
“No, Jack, no one.”
McCloskey
