Crying for the moon, p.17
Crying for the Moon, page 17
“Get the fuck away from me, Maureen, and stay the fuck away from me. Do you hear me?”
Maureen was terrified, but she wasn’t finished yet. If she could get the DAFT boys to turn on each other, then Jack would surely go down, and the cops would probably never even bother to test Bo for chlordane or any other poison, and she’d be safe, and so would the rest of DAFT. And if the rest of DAFT was safe, Carleen would be safe. She could just sit back then and laugh like Mouse Daley used to do up at Power’s Court at the dances. Mouse would start a racket, hit some buddy from Mundy Pond, and then act like it had been the other buddy from The Brow who’d done it, and then the Mundy Pond buddy would turn on The Brow buddy, and then everyone would join in, and the racket would rise. Mouse would sit back and watch them knock the shit out of each other, and he’d just laugh.
“I just wanted you to know that if, God forbid, the cops ever did come after you, remember it’s not my fault, ’cause the boys, the rest of the boys, they don’t want the cops in sniffing around DAFT, and they might just throw you—and maybe even Deucey—like a bone to the—”
“Shut up, Maureen.” Jack moved closer and said in a quiet voice, “You know, some people, some people are the type, Maureen, that they deserve a beating. It’s just too bad that Bo’s still not here to give you one.”
God, no one had ever actually said that out loud to her before, but that was exactly what Maureen always thought: she was the type that deserved a beating. Hearing it out loud like that made it even more true. She guessed that’s what everyone thought. Her heart was up in her throat and she couldn’t quite catch her breath. Then Jack was gone, getting into his sporty little blue car.
Maureen walked back to George’s, feeling as low as she’d ever felt, as low as she felt when she realized that they had taken her baby. Was this what life was going to be? Just bad and shitty and low, every new day worse than the last, every day further proof that the Sarge had been right all along and that Maureen was “no good for nothing”? She’d been knocked up, beat up, fucked up, and all that was left was to be locked up. And that was coming, Maureen knew it. She walked back to George’s and, though it wasn’t that far, it seemed to take forever.
Despite how she was feeling, she kept her head up and looked straight in front of her. She knew from experience that if you looked down and trudged, just the physical fact of your head hanging down made you even more low-minded than you already were. But she felt like there were weights on her chin, pulling it into her chest, and her feet were like lead. She thought how useless the whole thing was and how very useless she was, and how she couldn’t even get one thing right. She just stumbled from one giant life-destroying mistake into the next, and down and down and down it went.
“YOU DID WHAT!” GEORGE EXPLODED.
“Well, I told Jack that I—”
“It was a rhetorical question, Maureen.”
“Oh.”
“I just can’t believe you would be naive enough to bait criminals.”
“They’re not criminals!”
“They are in every way criminal. They engage in organized crime.”
“Oh, come on, George, you’re the one who told me to rat the boys out to the cops, and it’s only the boys! They’re more like—what do you call it—counterculture hippies than criminals.”
“Yes, just countercultural hippies who happen to run a criminal organization importing illegal drugs.”
“It’s marijuana, George. I mean, it shouldn’t even be illegal.”
“And cocaine. And possibly killing people.”
“Yea, but that’s what people think about me,” she said.
“That you import illegal drugs?”
“No—that I possibly kill people . . . And if we are going to be rigorously honest about it, I did, in fact, try to kill people—well, one person anyway.”
She told him about the small cargo boat the boys had bought.
“Whew,” George said, “they’re taking it up a notch. They’re moving it into the big time.”
“What do you mean?” Maureen said.
“Well, a small cargo boat . . . They’ll sail it into Colombia, fill it up with drugs, come back, land in some small, isolated place, off-load in the dead of night and move the drugs out of here and into the North American market. International drug smuggling, it’s called.”
“You don’t know that for a fact.”
“But it makes sense, Maureen. They’re not going to go back to selling dime bags at the Thompson Student Centre. They’re gonna get bigger. And the bigger they get, the more they have to lose, the more dangerous they become. Boy, Bo . . . he got you in with a nasty crowd.”
There was a long pause, and then George said, in the quietest voice possible, “Why didn’t you just leave him, Maureen?”
“George, why are you asking me that question now?”
He didn’t answer.
So many, many times, Maureen had asked herself the same question. The reason wasn’t financial, because money-wise, she could take care of herself, and they’d had no youngsters, so why hadn’t she just walked out the door? Well, for one thing, of course, she thought she deserved it. And then, because she was so beaten down, so crumbled into pieces, so beaten into bits that she didn’t know how to gather up all the crumbs of herself to do anything. Plus, she’d been afraid. Bo had never directly threatened her that if she left him, he’d kill her. In fact, there was a small part of Maureen that felt Bo would be relieved and glad if she just one day up and disappeared completely. But the bigger part of her knew he was just never going to let her go of her own accord. He was never going to let her act as if she had the power to make decisions for herself.
“I was afraid,” she told George. “I was just afraid. And now I’m afraid again, afraid of having to go to the cops tomorrow.”
“But now,” George said, “after what you did, you have even more reason to be afraid. Because no matter what you say to the cops, if the cops, by happenstance, start nosing around DAFT, Jack and the rest of them will think it’s your fault, because you threatened them.”
“I was trying to get them to turn on each other.”
George looked puzzled.
Maureen explained the whole Mouse Daley scheme. When she had finished, George asked, in that irritating, detached, scholarly way he sometimes had, “And Mouse’s reason for this behaviour?”
“I don’t know. He just did it for laughs, I guess.”
“Are you having a laugh, Maureen?”
“I did it, George, because I thought Fox and them might turn in Jack just to stop the cops from . . . you know . . .”
“Breaking up their criminal organization? That is really—”
“Dumb?”
“Well, it wasn’t smart, was it Moe?”
“Gee, nobody except Carleen ever called me Moe before. And why are you suddenly talking like a normal human being?” She looked down at the beanbag chair and saw the book George was reading: The Reid Technique: A Police Training Manual of Interrogation Tactics.
“Maureen, please,” he begged, “just try to keep your mind on one thing for two minutes. You’re like some kind of flibberty-gibbet.”
“Flibberty-gibbet? Is that what they say in Lethbridge?”
“Coaldale, actually. Eleven miles south of Lethbridge.”
“Sorry, but you know what’s driving me nuts, George? It’s the way your mind just plods along its boring, boring way. Always on the same subject until you’ve worn the fuck right out of that subject and then it’s on to another subject with the intent to stay on that till it’s worn down, beat out and destroyed.”
“Maureen, why are you attacking me right now?”
“Why? I was just defending myself. You were, you know, saying I was . . .”
“A flibberty-gibbet. I know, it was unconscionable of me.”
“It wasn’t just that, George. It was the way you . . . oh . . . I’m . . .” Maureen paused. She didn’t want to start down the “I’m sorry” road, because when you said you were sorry, fellas always used that against you the next time there was an argument.
“George, please, I need you to help me get ready for tomorrow with the cops. What’ll I do? What’ll I say about Bo and Jack and Deucey and all that?”
“Don’t say a word. Avoid all topics. Because once they get you to start talking about any topic whatsoever, it’s easier for them to get you to start talking about other topics.”
“I know, I’m a blabbermouth. I’m an idiot—”
“No, Moe, you’re just the same as everybody else. It’s just human nature. Everybody’s the same. So don’t answer any of their questions—none of them.”
“Well, I mean—”
“No. Don’t even answer ‘How are you?’ ‘Did you have breakfast?’ ‘How do you feel?’”
“Why?”
“Because the cops are trying to establish a baseline. They’re trying to see how you normally respond when you’re answering questions that are no big deal. They’ll be watching your facial expressions, your body language, when you answer those innocent questions, and it’ll give the cops an idea how you look and behave when you are answering a question truthfully.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” Maureen said, thinking, Wow, the new straight-talking George, he’s kind of, if not exactly dead attractive, kind of . . .
George gave her a baleful look. “Then, when they start asking about Bo and what happened, they’ll have some idea if you are telling the truth.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“No, it isn’t bullshit. It’s based on solid evidence, and sometimes, according to what I’ve been reading, they even try something called the ‘neuro-linguistic interviewing technique.’”
“Oh Jesus, I don’t even know what any of that means, so I guess I’m fucked.”
“Not necessarily. As long as you don’t answer anything, you’ll be fine. Because if they ask you something you have to remember, like what you had for dinner last night, they’ll watch where your eyes go as you try to remember. Then they might turn around and ask you something that you have to think through, like two times five equals—”
“Jesus, George, they’re not going to ask me that.”
“Yes, they might, because if you have to think through something, your eyes will probably go to the right, and if you’re just remembering something that actually happened, your eyes naturally go to the left—everybody’s eyes do. So, depending on where your eyes go when they ask about Tuesday night, they’ll have an indication of whether you’re really remembering what actually happened or whether you’re just making up your answer in order to hide the truth. You’ve got to remember to invoke your right to keep silent.”
“But that’ll just make them think that I’m guilty.”
“Let ’em think what they want. If you start talking, they’ll know.”
“That I’m guilty?”
“That you’re hiding something.”
The phone rang. George bawled out, “Maureen, it’s Joyce.”
“Joyce?” She took the receiver. “Hi. Hi, Joyce. What time is it?” Why was Joyce calling her this late?
“I don’t know what time it is, Maureen. I need you to meet me.”
“What?”
“I need you to meet me.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
“Jesus, Joyce, it’s almost twelve o’clock.”
“Meet me down to Mrs. Duff’s.”
“Where?”
“It’s the bar on the other side of the War Memorial from the Black Swan.”
“But—”
“Meet me there in half an hour. It’s important. Don’t be late.”
“But Joyce—”
Joyce had already hung up.
Maureen turned to George. “I’ve got to go.”
“Where?”
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“Out, out.”
“Maureen, I’m not just letting you go out without knowing where you are going. You are at risk. You have knowingly placed yourself at risk.”
“George, I don’t have time to talk right now. I gotta meet someone in half an hour, but just for your information, I have been at risk since that first night Bo threw me down over the stairs. So really, how much more ‘at risk’ am I right now?”
“You’ve threatened criminals. Your life could possibly be in danger.”
“My life has been in danger now for . . . Jesus, I don’t know how long, so really, nothing is any different.”
George stood in front of the door.
“I’m not letting you leave.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
OVER HERE, MAUREEN.” JOYCE WAS SITTING IN THE dingiest, darkest corner of a dark and dingy bar. “Do you want a beer or something?”
“No. Not right now.”
Sometimes Maureen could go days without having a beer or even thinking about having a beer, but once she started, there was no guarantee when she was going to stop. She knew she would be in much better shape to go down to the cop shop in the morning if she wasn’t suffering from a vicious hangover. Joyce looked at her watch, looked at Maureen and didn’t say anything. What the fuck? Maureen’s mind thought. But Maureen’s voice said, “Well, Joyce, what do you want?”
“Nothing,” Joyce said.
“Nothing? You got me down here at—what is it now—midnight?”
“Ten to,” Joyce said.
“Okay. Ten to midnight. For nothing?”
“I got something to tell you, Maureen, but I can’t tell you yet.”
“Jesus in the breadbox, Joyce, what?”
Joyce looked quizzically at Maureen.
“You know, Mom says it all the time, ‘Jesus in the breadbox, eatin’ all the cheese, didn’t leave none for the poor Chinese,’” Maureen said.
“That’s fox.”
“What?”
“That’s fox.”
“Fox Albert?” said Maureen.
“No. You know, it’s fox in the breadbox, eating all the cheese.”
“I don’t think the Chinese even eat cheese, do they? Anyway, look, Joyce, I got things I got to be at.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like getting ready to talk to the cops tomorrow, for one thing.”
Joyce’s eyes opened really, really wide but she didn’t say a word.
“Okay, fuck it, Joyce. I’m going.” Maureen got up.
Joyce leaned across the table and grabbed Maureen’s arm with that surprisingly strong grip of hers. “Please, Maureen, just wait; it’s only another five minutes or so.”
Maureen sat down. Joyce looked at her watch again. It was a big watch with big numbers on it, just like a man’s watch.
“Nice watch,” Maureen said. For a fella, her mind said in that irritatingly relentless way it had.
“Yea, it’s Dad’s. He gave it to Carleen for a good luck charm when she went up to Expo. The boys had them send it back with some of her other stuff from the jail. Dad won’t wear it anymore, can’t stand the sight of it now, he says.”
Maureen remembered the watch now, sitting huge on Carleen’s pencil-thin wrist. She remembered feeling jealous that Carleen had a father who even had a watch, let alone would give it to her as a good luck charm when she was going away.
But Carleen’s mother is an awful old bag and a drunk on top of that, Maureen’s mind interjected.
But Carleen had her dad, Maureen argued with her mind, and he loved her even though he was always at work ’cause they lived in on the back of town on one of those expensive tree streets, those Father Knows Best kind of streets, where the Leave It to Beaver crowd lived. Maureen could feel herself getting angry at the thought of all that snooty crowd going around with their noses stuck up in the air, that crowd who thought they were so much better than her—
Joyce interrupted Maureen’s rising resentment: “Okay, now it’s time. We got to go across the street to the DAFT office.”
“No way, José. I’m not going over there, Joyce.”
“I’ve got something I want to show you, Maureen, but it’s over there. So you’ve got to come.”
“What something?”
“Something to do with Bo and all that, something important.”
Joyce looked at her watch again, then grabbed Maureen by the arm.
“Come on, we don’t have much time.”
She ran Maureen across an almost empty Duckworth Street and opened the door to the DAFT shop with a key.
“Why do you have a key, Joyce?”
“I just borrowed it.”
“Borrowed it from who?”
“Oh, shut up, Maureen. Come on.” Joyce locked the door behind them.
“I really, really don’t want to be here, Joyce, and I’m not going up over those stairs until you tell me what this is all about.”
Joyce, already halfway up over the stairs, came back down.
“All right. Upstairs in Deucey’s office, there is proof of what happened to Bo.” She grabbed Maureen again and practically hauled her up over the stairs. It was dark up there except for a dim light leaking out from under Jack’s door. Joyce opened it and pushed Maureen through, almost into the arms of Jack Dunne.
“Oh, what a pleasant surprise. Look, it’s our new little AA first-timer. Well, we meet again,” Jack said, holding on to Maureen.
Maureen turned to Joyce. “But Joyce, you said—”
“I’m sorry, Maureen. But Carleen . . . she could be down there . . . I—”
“Get the fuck out, Joyce,” Jack said. “And lock the door after you.”
Maureen’s mind couldn’t quite grasp what was going on, but her feet seemed to understand, because they started moving backwards, fast. But Jack had her, and as he was bolting the door, he said, “Now, Maureen, what in the fuck are we going to do with you?” He pulled her deeper into the room and sat her down in a chair, hard.
Maureen was speechless. She couldn’t believe that Joyce would . . . Well, she couldn’t believe any of it; it all seemed like a story. She could see herself in the room, in the chair, listening to Jack, and she could feel her legs shake with terror, but at the same time, a big part of her could not believe that this was actually happening to her. Stuff like this didn’t go on in St. John’s. Your best friend’s big sister didn’t trick you and leave you in a room in danger of . . .
