LITMIR.BIZ

      Dedication

      For Red Cruz, a great companion

      And for Felice Picano, Andrew Holleran, and Edmund White, great pathfinders

      Epigraph

      “Why lock the barn door after the horses have bolted?”

      — English idiom

      Prologue

      Toronto — 2011 Immigrants

      Her breath came out in white slashes. February was a hateful month, inhuman and frozen over. She was late and not for the first time. It wasn’t her fault, but that wouldn’t matter to him. She willed her feet to hurry, watching warily for ice. No good falling and breaking her neck on top of everything else. His words came back to her in the crisp, precise tones of someone who had learned English as a second language: I need punctual help, Irma. I don’t appreciate dawdlers, even if you’re just cleaning my toilet. I expect you to be on time. Please don’t let it happen again.

      Please. He’d said please at least.

      What he hadn’t said was what would happen if she showed up late again, though she had a sinking feeling she was about to find out. He was a wicked man. There were no warm feelings, no acts of kindness stirring in his depths. A snowman planted in one of the yards reminded her of his tiny eyes and bleak, humourless gaze. Yuri Malevski.

      “Bloody Macedonians — hard as rock!” she swore under her breath.

      She would beg, if it came to that. She would remind him she was honest. Nothing had gone missing by her hand in the two years she’d worked for him. Everyone knew stories about the help who stole and pillaged, taking what wasn’t rightly theirs. She would never steal so long as she had food to eat and a roof over her head. She was poor, not desperate.

      It was the same from house to house. She scrubbed toilets, mopped floors, and wiped the children’s bums, all without question. She walked pets and toted empty liquor bottles quietly out the back door so the neighbours wouldn’t see. There was no end to the services she provided. The women were the worst. They expected perfection: floors you could eat off, countertops you could see your reflection in, toilets you could drink from. She wondered that some of them didn’t ask her to screw their husbands to save them the bother.

      They all took advantage. No papers, Irma? Tsk-tsk. Here’s what we will pay you, then. What choice did she have? They might be surprised to know she’d grown up with finery. As a girl, she had ball gowns and jewellery and cut flowers in the house. Back home she’d had manners and once — once! — she’d been beautiful. Then time caught up with her. She wasn’t young anymore. Even her hands were pitiful to look at now.

      Everywhere she went, they wanted something from her. This one especially, with his parties and the boys coming and going at all hours in all states of dress and inebriation and god knows what else. The tales she could tell, if she had the chance. He was almost like a woman himself! Fancy clothes and expensive haircuts and all the trappings. He once told her how much he’d paid to have his hair done. She was shocked! It was more than he gave her for an afternoon’s wages.

      No wonder everyone took from him. Boys he met god knows where, eating his food and drinking his alcohol. Because he let them! He just laughed. And then there was that dreadful one she’d run into early one morning, neither man nor woman. She could hardly countenance that.

      “Filth. Depravity.”

      She spat the words like stones then looked around to see if anyone had seen her talking to herself. No one had noticed.

      Yes, the stories she could tell. There were drugs in that house and worse. Oh, far worse! She couldn’t choose her employers, but she could pray for their salvation. It was her duty. God’s little test. She had the pamphlets in her purse. She would leave another one on the counter today. Maybe one day he would read it.

      She turned the corner onto Beatty Avenue, counting the steps to the grey monolith. The house loomed. Stone, built in the last century, with three separate chimneys. Necessary, no doubt, back in the day when people heated everything with coal and the rich had servants to stoke their fires. She shivered, grateful at least that she lived in the present age. It was hard being poor today, never mind in centuries past.

      She let herself in the iron gates and pulled them closed, trudging along the path like a dwarf approaching a giant’s castle. Yesterday’s snow lay undisturbed. No one had shovelled or swept the drive. If Yuri Bloody Malevski was so proud of his yard, he might pay one of those boys to clear the way. Or get them to do it for free for all the parties he threw.

      She gripped the railing with a gloved hand and hauled herself up. The door was double-locked from inside. Strange, because that only happened when her boss went out of town. He’d texted her a new entry code the previous day, but he hadn’t said anything about being away. He was a stickler for security, having been burgled twice. She knew that because he made a point of telling her. His home was full of valuables: artwork, rare books, carpets, antique table settings. The sort of things you found in the best residences in Europe. All the doors and windows were alarmed. He made sure she knew that, too.

      She stepped back and looked up at the house. Dark and unwelcoming, that was how she always saw it. The windows were uniformly large, but darkness showed behind them all, even in daytime. A devil’s house. It made her shiver. There was nothing for it but to go all the way around back.

      She stepped off the porch, the snow already over the tops of her boots. Drifts like white waves curled and froze mid-air. The storm had blanketed the yard. No footsteps showed here, either. She pulled open the rickety screen door, checking her phone for the new code. He was always changing it then changing it back again. At least this time he remembered to tell her. Once he forgot to let her know. She’d showed up and couldn’t get in until he returned in his big blue Mercedes. Fine for him to make mistakes!

      She punched in the numbers. A red light turned to green. The latch clicked and she pulled hard. The door crackled from the cold. Then she was inside, a beep registering her entry. She had twenty seconds to re-enter the code and shut off the alarm or she’d have security swarming over the premises. Or so he said. Maybe one day she’d let it go off and see what happened. What could they do? She re-entered the numbers and the beeping stopped.

      Safe.

      Inside, all was silent. She hoped she wouldn’t find naked bodies lying on the sofas and spare beds. It wouldn’t be the first time. Sin and abomination. Sodom and Gomorrah. God’s wrath on the sinful.

      A quick glance told her the place was tidy. Maybe the boy, Santiago, was back. He was one of the few who bothered to lift a hand around the place. An illegal like her, he once said she reminded him of his mother. Sometimes he slipped her an extra twenty for her hard work. Malevski had taunted the poor boy by dangling citizenship in front of him, getting his hopes up. Men marrying men, imagine that! It was a crazy country she’d come to. But then they’d argued and he’d been out of favour for the past few weeks.

      If not Santiago, then maybe it was that other boy who lived under the stairs. The one with the pale makeup, his face like a vampire’s. There was something not quite right about him. She didn’t like to be alone in the house when he was up there in that little room. She’d read his diary once, just a few lines: Dear Darkness, I want to die. Terrible!

      She set her purse on a table in the hall then took off her gloves and coat, laying them over the big blue chair. It was cold. That was Malevski saving money on the heating bills again, no doubt. She flicked the thermostat and heard the furnace starting up.

      Still no sign of her boss. If he was going to fire her for being late, surely he’d have been there to meet her when she arrived. Or maybe he intended

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