The City Man. Howard Akler

      Published with the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. We also acknowledge the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit Program and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.

      LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

      Akler, Howard, 1969-

       The city man / Howard Akler.

      ISBN 1-55245-158-5

      I. Title.

      PS8601.K44C58 2005 C813’.6 C2005-905083-7

      for Susan Kernohan

      Part One

      March 1934

      Each minute this morning hangs perilously, like long cigarette ash. She flicks her wrist. Grey flakes fall onto the grey marble floor. All around her is the click-click of shoes and dollied steamer trunks that rumble in the rotunda of the Great Hall. Her eyes are steady. Watching intently the line of suckers at the ticket window and the bills that emerge one by one from their pockets. The first is a fiver, the next two are singles. She smiles. Sees clearly now the corner of a ten-dollar bill and leans forward, budging the moment when they will begin to head her way. She takes another drag. Tendrils of smoke curl around her hand.

      Here they come.

      He takes the 9:20 train from Gravenhurst. Loosens his tie, leans his forehead against the window. Reflection all the way. He sees his own eyes, the familiar expression that locomotes down rural routes, passing across farmhouses into pale flat land. Studies this face, the crow’s feet and jawline that jump with each jolt of the tracks, that align themselves with the speed of the train so his mug is oddly still within the restless geography. This is how he heads home. Takes a deep breath and the blur on the other side of the window continues to accelerate. Silos blink past. Town after nameless town disintegrates behind him. Eli slouches in his red leather seat and watches each one vanish.

      The train pulls into Union Station. One last jolt and he lurches out of his seat. Looks around. Passengers yawn and retrieve their hats from overhead. Jam the aisle. A welter of hips along the length of the car. Behind an angora beret, Eli takes small steps. Maunder and pause, maunder and pause. They advance tediously and then disembark, with traincases and a sigh, onto the platform. Move single file through a set of doors.

      An arrant crowd on the arrivals concourse. Hustling redcaps go blue in the face, lugging huge bags in their thin arms. Around them, dozens of people offer tips and gesticulations. This way this way this way. Elbowing a path from the ramp loggia to the taxi stand. This way this way. Eli, a tight grip on his satchel, negotiates the hollering. Finds brief open spaces and makes his move, zigzagging here and there. He keeps on his toes, almost midway, when his route is cut off by a murmuring couple. He stops, steps back suddenly and bumps into an old woman. Pinched face and a scent of rosewater.

      Well I never, she says.

      Eli shrugs. Picks up again the circuitous pace and feels a slight dispersal in the crowd. Just stragglers now in wider spaces. Waiting and waiting, all the expectant eyes focus on the arrivals gate. For the hundredth time this hour, a cigarette is crushed under a shoe.

      One level up. Light from clerestory windows cuts a series of pale lines through the crowd. A gaggle of hats and torsos gone lucent. Mona Kantor keeps watch. In all the comings and goings she can see shades of possibility. A sucker who fumbles with a street map, another dickering with smash. Her eyes all over these men, her sense of the grift roving under footfalls and around a farewell hug before hitting her mark. Six-footer in a tilted homburg, reading the frieze of destinations on the north wall of the station. Port-Arthur, North-Bay, Sarnia. His lips on the move. Mona looks to the opposite wall. Chesler, in the arranged spot, offers only hat and hands around an open newspaper. His eye rises over the corner in silent accord. He folds the paper, buries it in his armpit and steps away from the wall.

      Through the bodies they move, scissoring the floor of the station. Two thieves in step with the mark, appearing casual despite the practiced footwork. A shuffling celerity. Passengers from all directions slowly clog the ramp of the departures concourse. Chesler slides in behind the tall man, a signal to Mona. She positions herself in front of the pair, just off to the left. The pace becomes languid now, each movement huddled around another. Mona removes her hat and wipes her brow. The felt hat dangles in her hand, a good grip on the brim. Her elbow in a hard angle almost touches the wrist beside her.

      Chesler keeps one eye on the loose collar of the mark. The jacket is an ill fit, with a noticeable sag down the back. He coughs a gentle back-of-the-throat cough.

      Mona drops her elbow, her hat shading Chesler’s fingertips as they scurry along the left-hand pockets of the mark, coat and pants, fingertips so sentient they are in fleet accord with all the geometries of scratch. There is a roll of bills in the side pants pocket and a wallet in the back pants pocket. Chesler is set to cop.

      Eyes forward, Mona manoeuvres the mark into a vulnerable position using her back and elbows and buttocks. Plants her prat with gestures incidental but calculated, small moves so ordinary they are overlooked. Her hip brushes the side of the mark’s hand and Chesler gets his duke down, fast, hidden behind Mona’s hat. With only the first two fingers, he takes pleat after pleat from the lining of the pocket, money rising into his hand with amazing speed. He reefs an easy kick, a small wad of money in his palm. Once more he coughs. Mona shortens her stride. Each step is smaller and smaller, so small the trio is both fluid and inert. The mark is dull to rhythm and he moves into her. A slight swivel of the hips for misdirection. The surest way to get a man’s mind off his money is to focus on the space between the pockets. Just for one priapic moment, a sucker’s epoch. Chesler unbuttons the back pocket with a flip of the first joint of the index finger and the ball of the thumb. He pinches the poke and slips out beyond the jibing bodies. The touch has come off without a flaw, a thing of beauty in twelve seconds, in a whiz.

      Leaving Union Station, the taxicab struggles in the noontime traffic. Pedestrians, autos and streetcars all take turns with the lurch and idle.

      Slumped in the back seat, Eli pats his breast pocket. Through the fabric of his jacket, he can feel the edge of the folded page, the slim heft of his release papers. He closes his eyes and mouths two words that are lost to a sudden honking horn. Eli opens his eyes, looks out the window. All the automobiles, the main street that disgorges more and more hustle. Three women, laughing, dodge the imbroglio and then the cab follows suit. Makes a quick right and, for the rest of the way, moves quietly through a mesh of side streets.

      Garron’s Smoke Shop, on College west of Bathurst. In the big store window, ads for Sweet Caporals are pasted around a selection of pipes and the florid face of Garron’s missus, who waves. Eli waves back. He enters off the side and up one floor. Walks down a hallway of crumbling plaster, taking the same unhurried steps he has always taken, to the last door on the right.

      Inside. He drops his satchel on the floor and makes a small circle of the apartment. One step after the other, Eli rounds the room with slowly increasing wont. He tilts his head, blinks before an old armchair. Seconds pile into minutes while he eyes a tear in the upholstery. He leans close to a nightstand, lamp with a fake pewter base. Four minutes pass by the time he continues to the kitchen, where look turns to touch. His left forefinger feels the dust-covered countertop and then runs a pale line clear across to the icebox. Up a wall. Stops on a calendar, two months out of date. Two months. Not much by the looks of it. Nothing more than a couple