The Man Who Killed. Fraser Nixon
time I returned to its dirty streets the city was really starting to enjoy itself. Past the railway terminal on Dorchester smoke rose from the wide cut in the earth where trains marshalled below the street, readying themselves to scream north through the tunnel under the mountain. Stopping at an Imperial Tobacconist I bought Juicy Fruit and chewed it, crackling bubbles between my molars. At right was the largest building in the Empire, more massive than St. Paul’s or Canterbury Cathedral, the wedding-cake Sun Insurance behemoth. It anchored Dominion Square and had next to it the small tavern where Jack said he’d leave word if anything went wrong. How little he’d known.
I pushed my way into the crowded saloon and stepped up to the bar. Men were jawing politics or sport. Next to me a chap with a tin of Puck at his elbow gobbed tobacco into a spittoon at his feet between freshening gulps of beer, a disgusting choreography. I added chewing gum to the bucket of brown slime, bought a quart of Export, and retired, my back to a wall where I could watch the door. From scarlet faces came shouted scraps of talk.
“Redmen’ll top the Argos one-legged this year...”
“Bennett can’t make more of a mess of Ottawa than that straw man Meighen...”
“Went to her sister’s and won’t come to the door when I call...”
“Fired six good men for jack shit...”
The whole panoply of masculine weltschmerz. My problems were deeper and deadlier. I leaned back, drank, and scanned the room, waiting, watching. Next to me an old cove wearing a ratty beard and with a dead wet hand-rolled in his yap mauled a ’paper. So as not to be too noticeably alone I offered him a Buckingham.
“Thanks, sonny.”
He was thumbing the sports pages so I chose that as a topic.
“Looks like the Canucks are trying to buy a championship this year,” I said.
The cove turned to me and I continued: “Too bad about Vezina dying. Least they’ve got Howie Morenz, for starters.”
He put down his ’paper.
“I don’t care who wins as long as it ain’t them blasted
Ma-roons,” said the old goat.
“I hear you. Had money on the Cougars to win last year. Now look where they are. Sold them all off to Detroit.”
“Is that so? So you’re not from around here?”
“No. Western League. Good teams there. Seattle Mets. The old Millionaires were my club.”
“I was a St. Pats man myself,” the old man said.
Already I regretted my decision to palaver. Relief suddenly arrived in the form of a familiar figure coming through the door. My heart leapt for an absurd instant, but it wasn’t Jack. Brown, the little Customs man. He was living up to his name with a brown hat, brown suit and brown bowtie, carrying a furled umbrella and wearing a sticking plaster on his cheek where Jack had laid him open. This was not a chance entrance.
Brown went up to the barman and asked him a question. The ’tender shook his head. I was with child to know what was asked. Brown took out a small change purse, picked inside it for a coin, and paid for a bock. He looked around and for an uncomfortable moment I thought he recognized me. Couldn’t be, as I’d been behind him when he had his little colloquy with Jack in the alley. I shammed some more with the bore.
“You’re not from here if the Pats are your team,” I said.
“No sir, I’m up from Toronto to visit my daughter Dorothy. She’s a typewriter at the O’Sullivan school.”
Brown finished his beer and left. I excused myself from the fascinating repartee and made a beeline to the bar. I put down a half-dollar.
“That fellow ask after anyone?” I asked the barkeep.
He took the coin and answered: “Yeah. A Godfrey.”
“Godfrey?”
“Yeah.”
“Any message for Sam from Pete?”
“Nope. None I know.”
Snookered. Jack hadn’t been here. I hurried out after Brown to see where he went. He was crossing the square in the direction of the Windsor Hotel. Jack must be using the Dominion as his letter drop. Shades of Junius and the coffee shops in the days of George III. Brown hadn’t received a message and neither had I. The little man quick-stepped it to Cypress and I followed, stalking in darkness. At first it looked as though he was headed for the Metropolitan newsstand but he turned into the doorway of a forbidding building. With entree to that particular address I learned the Scotsman’s vice. Not drink, as his purchase at the saloon had made clear. The building he’d gone into was a gambler’s hell, specializing in barbotte and chemin de fer. He’d be throwing the dice all night. As it was a private club I abandoned my pursuit. Unlike Jack I detested games of chance. My tastes were other. Nonetheless, I now knew how Jack and the bootleggers owned Brown. They’d probably bought up his debts. Did Brown know anything about the debacle in the woods? Had he been the one who tipped off the enemy? I had questions, but I didn’t half like the idea of being noticed skulking about. Besides, I was wrung out with the day’s events. I resolved to wait it out and try the Dominion again tomorrow.
Back in my hotel’s lobby the bored porter sat reading Oscar Wilde. I went up to my room and listened in the hallway before carefully opening the door, diagnosing myself with tachycardia, tenth occurrence of the day. The room was empty and very gradually my heartbeat slowed to normal again. I put the revolver under my pillow after checking the sturdy lock on the door, propping a chair once more under the knob. Nervous exhaustion kept me twitching in the bed for a spell. A flooding taste of caramel filled my mouth while my floating mind went through the procedure of preparing a shot of morphine, the precise and sinister ritual. Presently I faded away to the sounds of bawdy shouting and the snatches of drunken song, wood breaking, mirrors smashing, and the city tearing itself apart.
PEALS FROM EVERY spire around downtown roused me. What had Mark Twain said about this city? Couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a church window. Morning bells are ringing. Sonnez les matines. Are you sleeping, Brother Jack, or mouldering in a shallow grave? Knowing him, Jack had slipped out from under and was in the arms of a tender dollymop. French church bells sounded different: ding dang donc. The two hanging and ringing in Notre-Dame down at Place d’Armes were named after Victoria and Albert. Dong.
Outside was grey again, threatening rain. I put myself to rights and whistled downstairs, tossing my key to a new pimp at the desk. Hung-over wet-haired American businessmen booked out after weekend benders. Bought the ’paper off a boy outside and determined to eat at Windsor Station Grill, checking the scheduled departures just in case. The station was near my old digs. Beyond pulling up a pew there wasn’t much doing of a Sunday morning.
My landlady would herself be kneeling with the Paddies at St. Patrick’s right about now. I could chance ducking back into the rooming house for my remaining effects. I decided to risk it and so hiked over to Stanley and a file of nondescript row houses. I climbed the steps of the third from the end and tried the latch. It gave. I slipped in. The stand-up clock in the foyer ticked but its hands never moved, a distillation of the state of affairs at Miss Milligan’s. As there was no one stirring I took the stairs two at a time to my room. Someone had been in it, the bitch rummaging after I’d failed to show two nights running. I filled my Gladstone with books and linen, grabbed my overcoat and gloves, and was back outside in no time flat.
I took my bag to the station and ate ham and eggs at the grill. The morning Gazette had nothing on Friday night’s fracas in the woods. This only confirmed my fears. To distract myself I thumbed through the classified notices looking for a cheap room that didn’t require references. Seeking quiet Christian gentleman, call UPtown 283, one week includes board and bedding. Sighing, I lit a cigaret. If there existed any toil