LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

I should know about? What are you doing with these scumbags?” He shot her an appraising look. “Who are you supposed to be? Madonna, Dolly or Joan Baez?”

      She yanked off the wig and tossed it onto the passenger seat. “Ouch, that hurts, your comments, I mean. You might not be over the hill, but you’re closing in on the top.” Why not take the offensive? “I wanted information. What’s the harm? He hinted at some lodge owner as his source. How many could there be, and what have you been doing about it?”

      “I told you we were onto Brooks,” Steve said evenly. “Other informers have been naming him.”

      “Like Nick. The guy you just ran off,” Belle tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “He’s hardly going to trust me now, Lancelot.”

      “Is that gratitude! Next time do your own wrestling. Anyway, this is my last warning. Brooks is in our sights. Problem is to catch him in the act or find his goods before he flushes it. He’s careful. It’s a matter of time and timing.” He shielded his eyes as the wind chased a whirl of snow down the street and the siren of an ambulance split the air. “How about a hamburger? I missed dinner by chasing a drunk half-way to Cartier, and I’m due for a break.”

      “Maybe a soda water. I’m so overdosed on salt that I’m going to go all prickly like a blowfish.”

      As they ate at a nearby truck stop, Steve told her about his new daughter. Belle wondered if the old saw would work, that he and Janet might conceive their own now that the stress was removed. “Anyway, we brought Heather home from Thunder Bay last week.”

      “What’s she like? Do you have any pictures?”

      “Give me time. She’s a real doll. Three years old. Half Cree and half Italian. Almost as weird a combination as yours truly.” He examined his double cheeseburger, adding ketchup. “There is a problem. She may have suffered some fetal alcohol damage.” His worried eyes revealed more than his voice. “Nothing you can put your finger on now. She’s too young for the tests, but the doctor says she could be . . . what do they call it? Not retarded.” He shovelled his fingers through his thick black hair.

      “Developmentally delayed?”

      “Bunch of crap. All I know is that it’s been pretty rough.” He explained that Janet had taken a leave to spend time with Heather. By the time Steve got home from work, he was an intruder. The child wouldn’t let him dress her, feed her, bathe her, even touch her.

      “If I go near, she bawls up a storm. What’s wrong, Belle? I’ve always gotten along with kids.” In his work with Big Brothers, Steve took groups to Toronto for Jays games and coached a baseball team. Many of his lads had completed college or university; two had even joined the force.

      Belle listened to his quiet, frustrated voice, which demanded reasons to rationalize feelings. “Hear what I’m saying, Steve. You’re a big man, a monster to her. Your voice is strange and deep. What might have scared her before she came to you, you don’t want to know. Right now Janet is bonding to her, and it’s leaving you out. But it sounds normal so far.”

      “So what can I do? Stay home all day and inhale helium?” He smiled weakly.

      Belle touched his large hand, so helpless against a tiny one. “Of course not. But be patient. This is only the beginning, and it must be scary for her. My advice is to leave her alone, but show affection to Janet. Heather will see that another woman trusts you. It’s just like this pup a friend of mine had . . .” While parents told kid stories, Belle turned to dogs. “Nothing is more tyrannical than a dog or a child,” she said. “They’re always testing limits, so establish the hierarchy immediately and stick to it. Then when they see you as benevolent head of the pack, they’ll do anything for you.”

      “Isn’t it too late for that? I told you she’s terrified.”

      “This time you have to do an end run, if you’ll pardon my mixed metaphors. Janet’s top dog. Show her affection. Once Heather sees that she trusts and accepts you, you’re in.”

      “Sure, Belle, but you forgot one thing,” Steve added. “Dogs can’t talk. And if they don’t work out, you can take them to the pound.”

      She finished her club soda, stifled a burp and reached over to shine his badge with her serviette. “Never lost one yet.”

      FIFTEEN

      The strengthening sun pierced the horizon like a jewel, dazzling Belle’s sleepy eyes with its renewing warmth. She spun the handle to open her window and inhaled the pure, liquid ether of the morning. Fearful groans, a basso profundo tympanic plumb from measureless fathoms, echoed across the lake’s impenetrable depths. The ice had risen. Freshets draining the back country were undermining its integrity, wrenching the earth free from the winter’s icy grip. Travel on the lake would still be safe for a wary week or so, but after that, the rotting ice mass would blacken into honeycombs and marry with the water, signalling time to watch for the blessed signs of spring.

      As she was outside grabbing at some birch logs under the tarp, Belle heard the phone ring five times and then defer to the answering machine. How civilized to be freed from its imperative jingle, to enjoy a hot meal in leisure instead of being interrupted by a ten-minute long “two-minute” consumer questionnaire. The tape played a familiar voice speaking slowly and precisely, unintimidated by the technology. “Hello, Belle, it’s Franz. At a lake near my camp I found something interesting. It’s a clear indication that you were right about the drug drops. We can go out there this morning if you are free. I’ll be at my office for the next two hours. It’s now . . . eight o’clock.”

      Belle called back immediately. “Have you had breakfast?” he asked. “Why don’t we meet at Connie’s?” It was a thriving truck stop on the Kingsway, a main artery through town.

      Franz’s Jimmy pulled into Connie’s crowded lot at the same time as Belle’s van. As he held the restaurant door for her, the pleasant scent of a subtle European cologne, perhaps 4711, drifted past. With the smooth pink look of a shave on his cheeks, he placed a shearling coat on an extra chair and sat immaculate in pressed chinos and Pendleton wool shirt. Belle stroked the coat with envious sounds. “Yes, I bought it on a trip to the States last year,” he explained as they ordered the mucker’s special. Three eggs, five sausages, a pancake, homefries, toast and coffee.

      A pair of ladies in fox and raccoon coats, dressed for a shopping spree, looked over in amusement. “Haven’t they ever seen a woman eat?” Belle sliced into the tender sausages and took a bite with a grateful, dreamy look. “Going to heaven to meet my mother and worth the price.” She crossed herself and thumped at her heart, placing a hand behind her ear. “Is that the sound of sludge forming? Well, what’s the news?”

      Franz poured coffee from the urn left on the table in American pancake house style. “First, madame, hear the wonderful results of the rally. I have over 5,000 signatures on the petition, an excellent response from the area. But strong lobbyists on the other side will generate publicity, too; merchants, hotel, motel and restaurant operators who want the tourists.”

      “I saw a full page ad placed by local businessmen in the Sudbury Star last night. What shameless propaganda. And of course Brooks is a star member. What did they call themselves? Parks for Progress?” She scowled and attacked her pancakes. “They’ll turn Wapiti into the Canadian National Exhibition fifty-two weeks a year. Condos are coming, did I tell you? A sleazy developer I know is oozing around after the zoning right now.”

      Franz clenched a fist and abandoned his continental reserve for a quick pound on the table. “But that’s why this evidence is so important. If we can discredit just one of them, turn the direction of public opinion, we might keep our lake for a few more years.”

      “Well, don’t leave me in suspenders, as Uncle Harold used to say. What on earth did you find?”

      Franz said that he had been hearing more small planes at his camp near Cott Lake, where he had been preparing lectures and marking papers. The next morning, he searched the area and found the debris.

Скачать книгу