A Cougar's Kiss, page 16
Maggie wiped her tears, straightened her dress and headed toward the steps leading to the steel doors. She pointed the gun in front of her and charged up the steps.
“Don’t...” said The Gent before running up after her.
He hadn’t dropped his gun either.
The pop-pop boom of shotguns, service revolvers and other assorted law enforcement artillery cracked the cool air. A sea of blue uniforms cascaded down the steps. I just held onto Alice.
“Somebody call an ambu...,” I said. But Alice put a bloody finger to my lips.
“I’m-I’m-I’m sorry,” she said. “The money, the boys, all of it. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
I was numb. I couldn’t feel anything but bad. Bad. Bad for Alice, bad for Maggie, bad for the boys, even bad for me. Just plain bad.
“Do you forgive me, Frankie?” her eyes looked at me pleadingly. I didn’t know what to say. She leaned up and softly kissed me on the lips—a cougar’s kiss.
And I forgave her.
EPILOGUE
I was sitting by the pool, reloading my camera while watching a couple of the girls on break from an early morning photo shoot as they splashed around playfully. They squealed in delight, tugging at each other’s bathing suit top for my benefit. You know there are times in a young man’s life when he re-evaluates his disbelief in God. Now was one of those times...and I thanked him.
“Join us, Frankie,” one of the girls called out. She didn’t need to ask me twice. I jumped in the pool like a cannonball with my clothes on.
Imagine, two weeks before I was back east in Rochester getting shot at and re-writing history with a darker outcome than I had it figured initially.
The cougar who ushered me into adulthood had seduced both my friends and ultimately killed them, before her greed consumed her and she paid the price. I remembered what Lucky Louis had said: it was all on account of money and a cougar’s kiss. I had tasted some of those kisses and they made me crazy, but I never stole any money, I never killed anyone.
The money was never found. There were suspicions, assumptions, conjecture, and hunches that lead nowhere. You couldn’t believe anything out of Alice’s or Maggie’s mouth and The Gent’s crew, minus The Gent, was clueless without their leader and didn’t seem to have any code of conduct except intimidation and violence towards each other. Louis Sullivan, Sr. died in the hospital.
And there was the issue of Mickey and his whereabouts. I was a little concerned that he never showed. He would usually pop up unexpected with some crazy, elaborate tale, but he had crossed a mobster this time; a mobster who was dead, and who could have done Mickey in before meeting his own fate. I just hoped for the best, that’s all I could do. Mickey was a cat that had certainly used up some of his lives, but always seemed to land on his feet. He would get in touch with me, I told myself, if he was still on this side of the grass.
I had to put it all behind me and was doing a good job of it with the girls in the pool when Marisol came out with a package. She averted her eyes from the half-naked hi-jinx.
“This, it come for you just now,” she said. “The man, he bring it.” I swam over to the ladder and climbed out of the pool. Marisol looked at me in my wet clothes disapprovingly.
“What?” I said indignantly. “I was hot.”
She gave me a hmmph and handed me the parcel.
It was a puffy, padded envelope with a bunch of little stamps on it from Costa Rica. I tore it open. I pulled out a note and unfolded it. It read:
Frankie,
Hope this finds you swell and chin deep in females. Sorry I bailed out on you, but The Gent’s guys were closing in on me and I had to act fast. I’m gonna hole up here for a spell. You’ve got to see the girls down here, Frankie. You need to come down, my treat. See enclosed.
Your pal,
MM
There was another, slightly smaller thick envelope inside. I pulled it out and tore off the end.
“Mickey, you Sonofabitch,” I said with a laugh. It was a packet of one hundred dollar bills—fifty of them—five grand in total. Marisol was trying not to be curious. Finally when she couldn’t take it any longer she asked.
“What is it?” she asked. “It is good news?”
I grabbed her and gave her a big kiss on the lips.
“Marisol,” I said. “Get my bags. I’m taking a trip.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A big thank you goes to Charles Benoit, for his friendship and guidance. Jen Fish gets a sloppy kiss for her tireless research. High-fives all around with Jason Smith for yet another cool, drool-worthy cover—did you get a load of those legs? And a big “atta boy” and backslap for Eric Campbell at Down & Out; it’s a tripadastic thrill working with you, Daddy-o. Thanks for taking a chance on me.
Back to TOC
ALSO BY frank de blase
A Pine Box for a Pin-Up
Busted Valentines and Other Dark Delights
Back to TOC
Frank De Blase likes the twist in the plot and the twist of the knife. He takes delight in chaos, entropy, and the wrong turns his characters make. His stories are pure pulp noir told in a language that is alliterated, obliterated, and visceral. He’s madly in love with the femme fatale.
De Blase has written as a music critic every week in Rochester City Newspaper for the past seventeen years. He contributes frequently to Crimespree Magazine and has written a monthly column for Skin & Ink Magazine. His pin-up photography has been published in Leg Show, Leg World, Temptress, Ultra, and V Magazines. DeBlase also performs in the beat poet, jazz noir group BUSTED VALENTINES.
A Cougar’s Kiss is De Blase’s second book in the Frankie Valentine series and his third book for Down & Out Books. He lives in Rochester, New York, with his wife, Deborah and two cats, Rocco and Dixie.
http://www.frankdeblase.com/
Back to TOC
Other Titles from Down & Out Books
See www.DownAndOutBooks.com for complete list
By Anonymous-9
Hard Bite (TP only)
Bite Harder (TP only)
By J.L. Abramo
Catching Water in a Net
Clutching at Straws
Counting to Infinity
Gravesend
Chasing Charlie Chan
Circling the Runway
Brooklyn Justice
By Trey R. Barker
2,000 Miles to Open Road
Road Gig: A Novella
Exit Blood
Death is Not Forever
No Harder Prison
By Richard Barre
The Innocents
Bearing Secrets
Christmas Stories
The Ghosts of Morning
Blackheart Highway
Burning Moon
Echo Bay
Lost
By Eric Beetner (editor)
Unloaded
By Eric Beetner and JB Kohl
Over Their Heads
By Eric Beetner and Frank Scalise
The Backlist
The Shortlist
By G. J. Brown
Falling
By Rob Brunet
Stinking Rich
By Milton T. Burton
Texas Noir
By Dana Cameron (editor)
Murder at the Beach: Bouchercon Anthology 2014
By Eric Campbell (editor)
Down, Out and Dead
By Stacey Cochran
Eddie & Sunny (TP only)
By Mark Coggins
No Hard Feelings
By Angel Luis Colon
No Happy Endings (*)
By Jen Conley
Cannibals and Other Stories
By Tom Crowley
Viper’s Tail
Murder in the Slaughterhouse
By Frank De Blase
Pine Box for a Pin-Up
Busted Valentines and Other Dark Delights
A Cougar’s Kiss
By Les Edgerton
The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping
By A.C. Frieden
Tranquility Denied
The Serpent’s Game
The Pyongyang Option (*)
By Jack Getze
Big Numbers
Big Money
Big Mojo
Big Shoes
By Keith Gilman
Bad Habits
By Richard Godwin
Wrong Crowd
Buffalo and Sour Mash (*)
By William Hastings (editor)
Stray Dogs: Writing from the Other America
By Jeffery Hess
Beachhead
By Matt Hilton
No Going Back
Rules of Honor
The Lawless Kind
The Devil’s Anvil
By Naomi Hirahara, Kate Thornton & Jeri Westerson (editors)
Ladies’ Night
By Terry Holland
An Ice Cold Paradise
Chicago Shiver
By Darrel James, Linda O. Johsonton & Tammy Kaehler (editors)
Last Exit to Murder
By David Housewright & Renée Valois
The Devil and the Diva
By David Housewright
Finders Keepers
Full House
By Jon Jordan
Interrogations
By Jon & Ruth Jordan (editors)
Murder and Mayhem in Muskego
Cooking with Crimespree
By Jerry Kennealy
Screen Test
By S. W. Lauden
Crosswise
By Andrew McAleer & Paul D. Marks (editors)
Coast to Coast
Coast to Coast 2
By Terrence McCauley
The Devil Dogs of Belleau Wood
The Bank Heist (Editor) (*)
By Bill Moody
Czechmate: The Spy Who Played Jazz
The Man in Red Square
Solo Hand
The Death of a Tenor Man
The Sound of the Trumpet
Bird Lives!
Mood Swings (TP only)
By Gary Phillips
The Perpetrators
Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes (editor)
Treacherous: Griffters, Ruffians and Killers
3 the Hard Way
By Gary Phillips, Tony Chavira, Manoel Magalhaes
Beat L.A. (Graphic Novel)
By Tom Pitts
Hustle
By Robert J. Randisi
Upon My Soul
Souls of the Dead
Envy the Dead (*)
By Rob Riley
Thin Blue Line
By Linda Sands
3 Women Walk Into a Bar (TP only)
By Ryan Sayles
The Subtle Art of Brutality
Warpath
Swansongs Always Begin as Love Songs (*)
By John Shepphird
The Shill
Kill the Shill
Beware the Shill (*)
By Anthony Neil Smith
Worm (TP only)
All the Young Warriors TP only)
Once a Warrior (TP only)
Holy Death (TP only)
By Liam Sweeny
Welcome Back, Jack
By Art Taylor (editor)
Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015
By Ian Thurman
Grand Trunk and Shearer
By James Ray Tuck (editor)
Mama Said (*)
By Lono Waiwaiole
Wiley’s Lament
Wiley’s Shuffle
Wiley’s Refrain
Dark Paradise
Leon’s Legacy (*)
By George Williams
Inferno and Other Stories
By Frank Zafiro and Lawrence Kelter
The Last Collar (*)
(*) Coming soon
Back to TOC
Here’s a sample from Ian Truman’s Grand Trunk and Shearer.
Chapter 1
“Hey, yo,” the voice said on the phone. It was Phil calling me at five o’clock in the morning. “Cillian’s in the canal.”
What the fuck was going on? I didn’t know. “You mean he’s swimming in the canal?” I replied, wondering if my brother was acting fourteen again. I sat on the edge of my bed, ran a hand through my hair, scratched my beard. I hadn’t slept all that much and Phil had better have a good reason for calling me.
“No, I don’t mean swimming. I mean, he’s dead in the canal.”
I didn’t believe that my brother was floating in the canal, partly because no one had dumped a body in the canal in the last ten, maybe fifteen years. You just didn’t see that anymore. Another part of me didn’t believe Phil because he had once called me in the middle of the night saying he had fucked Lady Gaga.
“It’s no shit,” he had told me. You could almost smell the whiskey over the phone. Agreed, Phil did work a shift here and there for the big touring shows coming through the city, so it was not entirely impossible. But, the thing was, Lady Gaga made terrible music but she was way too hot for a guy like Phil. Plus, she was on tour in Scandinavia that day. We actually checked online.
It turned out he had fucked a five-three hipster chick, good for him, but that didn’t make it Lady Gaga. You had to check the details with Phil.
“What the hell are you saying? What are you talking about he’s dead? He’s probably at Annie’s house, or Isabel or whoever he’s been fucking these days.”
“I’m telling you, the police are here and everything. They got boats and shit in the water. There’s a crowd now, D’Arcy. They pushed us back, but I saw him, man. I saw him before they pushed around the corner. Cillian got stuck in the pillars under the bridge by Des Seigneurs Street.”
“The police are there?”
“Trying to fish him out as we speak.”
“You home from the graveyard shift?”
“Yeah.”
“Drank much?”
“Fuck you! Get over here ASAP.”
“This better not be a joke, Phil, because if it is I will break your teeth with a hammer.”
“Why would I joke on something like this?”
I didn’t have anything to reply to that. Phil was a fucking idiot, but he was also a decent fucking idiot. What the hell was this all about, I was still too groggy to know.
“Alright, give me five minutes.”
“You gonna tell your ma?” he asked.
“Not until I see it for myself. Where are you now?”
“Saint-Patrick and Shearer,” he replied. That was four blocks away from my house.
“I’m on my way,” I said as I got up. “You better not be shitting me,” I added.
“It ain’t.”
“Alright.”
I didn’t know what to think. I would have been surprised if anybody had been found in the canal. You heard your uncles talk about shit like that. It didn’t happen anymore. Regardless, the prospect of my brother being dead, however improbable it might be, was something worth getting up for, even at five in the morning.
So I put on my camo shorts, then the same black T-shirt I had taken off a few hours earlier. It still reeked of beer and cigarettes.
“Shit,” I said, but I was too lazy to pick up a clean one from my drawer. I put on my poor boy hat and walked out the bedroom.
The kitchen was a mess with dirty dishes, pots and pans filling up the sink well beyond its capacity. The curtains were drawn, I forgot to take out the trash again and the August heat had been working the leftovers.
I pulled out the bag from the can, opened the back door and threw the garbage in the corner of my balcony. Garbage day wasn’t for another two days. I opened the kitchen window, put on my shoes and walked out.
The plastic chairs were full of rainwater from last night. The ashtray next to it was full of mud that was made out of ash and rain and beer. My mother had left one of her books on a small table next to her chair and the pages had swollen. I couldn’t help but think she’d be sad about that, tried to open it so the pages would dry. And then I stopped myself. Hey, Cillian’s in the canal, let me dry up the pages to this book here. Why would Ma care about the book if the news turned out to be true?
I felt like I should hurry up but the time of the day warranted a quick stop on Centre Street for coffee and something to eat before I could handle any bad news.
I walked across our small yard, up my dark alley, up front to the wooden gate. It was old and all crooked. You had to push it hard in order to get the lock off of it. I struggled with it, more than usual. An old chip of red paint came off it and tumbled to the ground next to the dozen that were already there.
It’s got me thinking, like it did every time, that Dad had said he’d fix this shit before he left over a decade ago. For some reason, I could have mustered the will power to get it done that morning. I saw myself walking into a hardware store, get some thinner and some paint, or a whole new set of planks. Why not get everything done before Ma would get up? That would have been fucking nice. But then I sighed and pushed the door open.
I exited on Shearer and walked north to Centre Street. I didn’t know if I actually expected anything to be open at this hour. Even Tim Horton’s wasn’t 24/7 but luckily for me, the local café had just opened minutes before I got there.
“Bonjour. Hi,” the waitress said as she was still preparing her day.
“Hi.”
“What can I get you?”
“Got anything to go in a minute,” I asked.
She looked back at her kitchen. “Not really. Nothing’s ready yet.”
“Don’t...” said The Gent before running up after her.
He hadn’t dropped his gun either.
The pop-pop boom of shotguns, service revolvers and other assorted law enforcement artillery cracked the cool air. A sea of blue uniforms cascaded down the steps. I just held onto Alice.
“Somebody call an ambu...,” I said. But Alice put a bloody finger to my lips.
“I’m-I’m-I’m sorry,” she said. “The money, the boys, all of it. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
I was numb. I couldn’t feel anything but bad. Bad. Bad for Alice, bad for Maggie, bad for the boys, even bad for me. Just plain bad.
“Do you forgive me, Frankie?” her eyes looked at me pleadingly. I didn’t know what to say. She leaned up and softly kissed me on the lips—a cougar’s kiss.
And I forgave her.
EPILOGUE
I was sitting by the pool, reloading my camera while watching a couple of the girls on break from an early morning photo shoot as they splashed around playfully. They squealed in delight, tugging at each other’s bathing suit top for my benefit. You know there are times in a young man’s life when he re-evaluates his disbelief in God. Now was one of those times...and I thanked him.
“Join us, Frankie,” one of the girls called out. She didn’t need to ask me twice. I jumped in the pool like a cannonball with my clothes on.
Imagine, two weeks before I was back east in Rochester getting shot at and re-writing history with a darker outcome than I had it figured initially.
The cougar who ushered me into adulthood had seduced both my friends and ultimately killed them, before her greed consumed her and she paid the price. I remembered what Lucky Louis had said: it was all on account of money and a cougar’s kiss. I had tasted some of those kisses and they made me crazy, but I never stole any money, I never killed anyone.
The money was never found. There were suspicions, assumptions, conjecture, and hunches that lead nowhere. You couldn’t believe anything out of Alice’s or Maggie’s mouth and The Gent’s crew, minus The Gent, was clueless without their leader and didn’t seem to have any code of conduct except intimidation and violence towards each other. Louis Sullivan, Sr. died in the hospital.
And there was the issue of Mickey and his whereabouts. I was a little concerned that he never showed. He would usually pop up unexpected with some crazy, elaborate tale, but he had crossed a mobster this time; a mobster who was dead, and who could have done Mickey in before meeting his own fate. I just hoped for the best, that’s all I could do. Mickey was a cat that had certainly used up some of his lives, but always seemed to land on his feet. He would get in touch with me, I told myself, if he was still on this side of the grass.
I had to put it all behind me and was doing a good job of it with the girls in the pool when Marisol came out with a package. She averted her eyes from the half-naked hi-jinx.
“This, it come for you just now,” she said. “The man, he bring it.” I swam over to the ladder and climbed out of the pool. Marisol looked at me in my wet clothes disapprovingly.
“What?” I said indignantly. “I was hot.”
She gave me a hmmph and handed me the parcel.
It was a puffy, padded envelope with a bunch of little stamps on it from Costa Rica. I tore it open. I pulled out a note and unfolded it. It read:
Frankie,
Hope this finds you swell and chin deep in females. Sorry I bailed out on you, but The Gent’s guys were closing in on me and I had to act fast. I’m gonna hole up here for a spell. You’ve got to see the girls down here, Frankie. You need to come down, my treat. See enclosed.
Your pal,
MM
There was another, slightly smaller thick envelope inside. I pulled it out and tore off the end.
“Mickey, you Sonofabitch,” I said with a laugh. It was a packet of one hundred dollar bills—fifty of them—five grand in total. Marisol was trying not to be curious. Finally when she couldn’t take it any longer she asked.
“What is it?” she asked. “It is good news?”
I grabbed her and gave her a big kiss on the lips.
“Marisol,” I said. “Get my bags. I’m taking a trip.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A big thank you goes to Charles Benoit, for his friendship and guidance. Jen Fish gets a sloppy kiss for her tireless research. High-fives all around with Jason Smith for yet another cool, drool-worthy cover—did you get a load of those legs? And a big “atta boy” and backslap for Eric Campbell at Down & Out; it’s a tripadastic thrill working with you, Daddy-o. Thanks for taking a chance on me.
Back to TOC
ALSO BY frank de blase
A Pine Box for a Pin-Up
Busted Valentines and Other Dark Delights
Back to TOC
Frank De Blase likes the twist in the plot and the twist of the knife. He takes delight in chaos, entropy, and the wrong turns his characters make. His stories are pure pulp noir told in a language that is alliterated, obliterated, and visceral. He’s madly in love with the femme fatale.
De Blase has written as a music critic every week in Rochester City Newspaper for the past seventeen years. He contributes frequently to Crimespree Magazine and has written a monthly column for Skin & Ink Magazine. His pin-up photography has been published in Leg Show, Leg World, Temptress, Ultra, and V Magazines. DeBlase also performs in the beat poet, jazz noir group BUSTED VALENTINES.
A Cougar’s Kiss is De Blase’s second book in the Frankie Valentine series and his third book for Down & Out Books. He lives in Rochester, New York, with his wife, Deborah and two cats, Rocco and Dixie.
http://www.frankdeblase.com/
Back to TOC
Other Titles from Down & Out Books
See www.DownAndOutBooks.com for complete list
By Anonymous-9
Hard Bite (TP only)
Bite Harder (TP only)
By J.L. Abramo
Catching Water in a Net
Clutching at Straws
Counting to Infinity
Gravesend
Chasing Charlie Chan
Circling the Runway
Brooklyn Justice
By Trey R. Barker
2,000 Miles to Open Road
Road Gig: A Novella
Exit Blood
Death is Not Forever
No Harder Prison
By Richard Barre
The Innocents
Bearing Secrets
Christmas Stories
The Ghosts of Morning
Blackheart Highway
Burning Moon
Echo Bay
Lost
By Eric Beetner (editor)
Unloaded
By Eric Beetner and JB Kohl
Over Their Heads
By Eric Beetner and Frank Scalise
The Backlist
The Shortlist
By G. J. Brown
Falling
By Rob Brunet
Stinking Rich
By Milton T. Burton
Texas Noir
By Dana Cameron (editor)
Murder at the Beach: Bouchercon Anthology 2014
By Eric Campbell (editor)
Down, Out and Dead
By Stacey Cochran
Eddie & Sunny (TP only)
By Mark Coggins
No Hard Feelings
By Angel Luis Colon
No Happy Endings (*)
By Jen Conley
Cannibals and Other Stories
By Tom Crowley
Viper’s Tail
Murder in the Slaughterhouse
By Frank De Blase
Pine Box for a Pin-Up
Busted Valentines and Other Dark Delights
A Cougar’s Kiss
By Les Edgerton
The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping
By A.C. Frieden
Tranquility Denied
The Serpent’s Game
The Pyongyang Option (*)
By Jack Getze
Big Numbers
Big Money
Big Mojo
Big Shoes
By Keith Gilman
Bad Habits
By Richard Godwin
Wrong Crowd
Buffalo and Sour Mash (*)
By William Hastings (editor)
Stray Dogs: Writing from the Other America
By Jeffery Hess
Beachhead
By Matt Hilton
No Going Back
Rules of Honor
The Lawless Kind
The Devil’s Anvil
By Naomi Hirahara, Kate Thornton & Jeri Westerson (editors)
Ladies’ Night
By Terry Holland
An Ice Cold Paradise
Chicago Shiver
By Darrel James, Linda O. Johsonton & Tammy Kaehler (editors)
Last Exit to Murder
By David Housewright & Renée Valois
The Devil and the Diva
By David Housewright
Finders Keepers
Full House
By Jon Jordan
Interrogations
By Jon & Ruth Jordan (editors)
Murder and Mayhem in Muskego
Cooking with Crimespree
By Jerry Kennealy
Screen Test
By S. W. Lauden
Crosswise
By Andrew McAleer & Paul D. Marks (editors)
Coast to Coast
Coast to Coast 2
By Terrence McCauley
The Devil Dogs of Belleau Wood
The Bank Heist (Editor) (*)
By Bill Moody
Czechmate: The Spy Who Played Jazz
The Man in Red Square
Solo Hand
The Death of a Tenor Man
The Sound of the Trumpet
Bird Lives!
Mood Swings (TP only)
By Gary Phillips
The Perpetrators
Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes (editor)
Treacherous: Griffters, Ruffians and Killers
3 the Hard Way
By Gary Phillips, Tony Chavira, Manoel Magalhaes
Beat L.A. (Graphic Novel)
By Tom Pitts
Hustle
By Robert J. Randisi
Upon My Soul
Souls of the Dead
Envy the Dead (*)
By Rob Riley
Thin Blue Line
By Linda Sands
3 Women Walk Into a Bar (TP only)
By Ryan Sayles
The Subtle Art of Brutality
Warpath
Swansongs Always Begin as Love Songs (*)
By John Shepphird
The Shill
Kill the Shill
Beware the Shill (*)
By Anthony Neil Smith
Worm (TP only)
All the Young Warriors TP only)
Once a Warrior (TP only)
Holy Death (TP only)
By Liam Sweeny
Welcome Back, Jack
By Art Taylor (editor)
Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015
By Ian Thurman
Grand Trunk and Shearer
By James Ray Tuck (editor)
Mama Said (*)
By Lono Waiwaiole
Wiley’s Lament
Wiley’s Shuffle
Wiley’s Refrain
Dark Paradise
Leon’s Legacy (*)
By George Williams
Inferno and Other Stories
By Frank Zafiro and Lawrence Kelter
The Last Collar (*)
(*) Coming soon
Back to TOC
Here’s a sample from Ian Truman’s Grand Trunk and Shearer.
Chapter 1
“Hey, yo,” the voice said on the phone. It was Phil calling me at five o’clock in the morning. “Cillian’s in the canal.”
What the fuck was going on? I didn’t know. “You mean he’s swimming in the canal?” I replied, wondering if my brother was acting fourteen again. I sat on the edge of my bed, ran a hand through my hair, scratched my beard. I hadn’t slept all that much and Phil had better have a good reason for calling me.
“No, I don’t mean swimming. I mean, he’s dead in the canal.”
I didn’t believe that my brother was floating in the canal, partly because no one had dumped a body in the canal in the last ten, maybe fifteen years. You just didn’t see that anymore. Another part of me didn’t believe Phil because he had once called me in the middle of the night saying he had fucked Lady Gaga.
“It’s no shit,” he had told me. You could almost smell the whiskey over the phone. Agreed, Phil did work a shift here and there for the big touring shows coming through the city, so it was not entirely impossible. But, the thing was, Lady Gaga made terrible music but she was way too hot for a guy like Phil. Plus, she was on tour in Scandinavia that day. We actually checked online.
It turned out he had fucked a five-three hipster chick, good for him, but that didn’t make it Lady Gaga. You had to check the details with Phil.
“What the hell are you saying? What are you talking about he’s dead? He’s probably at Annie’s house, or Isabel or whoever he’s been fucking these days.”
“I’m telling you, the police are here and everything. They got boats and shit in the water. There’s a crowd now, D’Arcy. They pushed us back, but I saw him, man. I saw him before they pushed around the corner. Cillian got stuck in the pillars under the bridge by Des Seigneurs Street.”
“The police are there?”
“Trying to fish him out as we speak.”
“You home from the graveyard shift?”
“Yeah.”
“Drank much?”
“Fuck you! Get over here ASAP.”
“This better not be a joke, Phil, because if it is I will break your teeth with a hammer.”
“Why would I joke on something like this?”
I didn’t have anything to reply to that. Phil was a fucking idiot, but he was also a decent fucking idiot. What the hell was this all about, I was still too groggy to know.
“Alright, give me five minutes.”
“You gonna tell your ma?” he asked.
“Not until I see it for myself. Where are you now?”
“Saint-Patrick and Shearer,” he replied. That was four blocks away from my house.
“I’m on my way,” I said as I got up. “You better not be shitting me,” I added.
“It ain’t.”
“Alright.”
I didn’t know what to think. I would have been surprised if anybody had been found in the canal. You heard your uncles talk about shit like that. It didn’t happen anymore. Regardless, the prospect of my brother being dead, however improbable it might be, was something worth getting up for, even at five in the morning.
So I put on my camo shorts, then the same black T-shirt I had taken off a few hours earlier. It still reeked of beer and cigarettes.
“Shit,” I said, but I was too lazy to pick up a clean one from my drawer. I put on my poor boy hat and walked out the bedroom.
The kitchen was a mess with dirty dishes, pots and pans filling up the sink well beyond its capacity. The curtains were drawn, I forgot to take out the trash again and the August heat had been working the leftovers.
I pulled out the bag from the can, opened the back door and threw the garbage in the corner of my balcony. Garbage day wasn’t for another two days. I opened the kitchen window, put on my shoes and walked out.
The plastic chairs were full of rainwater from last night. The ashtray next to it was full of mud that was made out of ash and rain and beer. My mother had left one of her books on a small table next to her chair and the pages had swollen. I couldn’t help but think she’d be sad about that, tried to open it so the pages would dry. And then I stopped myself. Hey, Cillian’s in the canal, let me dry up the pages to this book here. Why would Ma care about the book if the news turned out to be true?
I felt like I should hurry up but the time of the day warranted a quick stop on Centre Street for coffee and something to eat before I could handle any bad news.
I walked across our small yard, up my dark alley, up front to the wooden gate. It was old and all crooked. You had to push it hard in order to get the lock off of it. I struggled with it, more than usual. An old chip of red paint came off it and tumbled to the ground next to the dozen that were already there.
It’s got me thinking, like it did every time, that Dad had said he’d fix this shit before he left over a decade ago. For some reason, I could have mustered the will power to get it done that morning. I saw myself walking into a hardware store, get some thinner and some paint, or a whole new set of planks. Why not get everything done before Ma would get up? That would have been fucking nice. But then I sighed and pushed the door open.
I exited on Shearer and walked north to Centre Street. I didn’t know if I actually expected anything to be open at this hour. Even Tim Horton’s wasn’t 24/7 but luckily for me, the local café had just opened minutes before I got there.
“Bonjour. Hi,” the waitress said as she was still preparing her day.
“Hi.”
“What can I get you?”
“Got anything to go in a minute,” I asked.
She looked back at her kitchen. “Not really. Nothing’s ready yet.”
