more unexpectedly, Dan stayed.
Dan woke to a still house. He was sprawled in the living room chair next to the fireplace, his feet extended, an empty tumbler on the floor beside him. He dragged his tongue across his teeth and felt the resinous coating. He stumbled to the kitchen for a drink of water. It was five thirty. Ralph lay in the corner on his bed, a paw tucked over his eyes.
Ked’s shoes were on the front mat. Obviously he’d returned at some point and gone off to bed without waking him. On the way back to the living room Dan saw the red flash.
“Hey, lover boy! Guess I missed you.” There were party noises in the background. “We’ll figure out the driving thing, don’t worry. I’ll call you at work tomorrow.”
The time on the message was 4:43. It was Donny who’d suggested that Bill’s almost inhuman ability to go without sleep was pharmaceutically related. Dan had never seen any trace of it other than the drugs Bill preferred to beer at parties, but it would be easy for a doctor to disguise such things.
The message ended. Dan stood and waited, as if expecting more. Ralph raised his head and whimpered a question. Dan played the tape a second time then pressed erase. He waited while the machine made its satisfied clicking noises as it ate up the recording before continuing up to bed.
Nine
Death by Haunting
They were surrounded by mist. The monochromatic outline of trees and barns drifted by like ghosts on either side of the road. Rain had dogged them all the way from Toronto, only now giving way to something finer, a damp chill that got right inside their clothing. Passing cars fanned plumy sprays across the windshield, making the wipers do double time.
“How much farther?” Bill said, staring out at the passing landscape.
“Not much.”
They were in Bill’s car. Dan drove, despite a hangover. He’d barely made it through the morning at work. When Bill arrived to pick him up, he tossed his canvas bag into the trunk alongside Bill’s leather ones, climbed into the driver’s seat, and headed for the Don Valley Parkway. An hour out of Toronto, they left the 401 to join the stretch of coastal highway running south through Hillier and Bloomfield and on to Picton. The mist thinned momentarily as a forlorn strip of trees appeared on their right, water in front and behind it like a film backdrop, one-dimensional, floating in the middle of a never-ending lake.
“This is boring,” Bill declared. “Where are we?”
“We’re in Prince Edward County on the Loyalist Parkway,” Dan said. “It’s a considerable bit of Canadian history.”
“Do people actually live out here?”
Dan glanced over. “Not everyone wants to live in Forest Hill.”
Bill was looking worn. He had the beginnings of a bald patch, shadows beneath his eyes, and a paunch he self-consciously sucked in. Still, he had an undeniable charm, like a jock dad gone to seed. Despite his impatience and shifting moods, there was a boyish eagerness about him that held Dan. Even Bill’s casual cruelties — like when he ignored Dan’s calls for days — only sank the hook in deeper.
Other than an ecstasy habit and a fondness for dancing in dimly lit after-hours clubs, there was nothing noticeably gay about Bill. Dan suspected he was making up for a missed adolescence. He seemed overly fond of the kind of clubs where you climbed into darkened rooms via fire escapes or sat on rooftops while thrash music blared and incomprehensible films were projected on the walls of neighbouring buildings. Once, he brought them to a party that got shut down by axe-wielding police as guests escaped down back alleys or onto neighbouring balconies. Another had featured a live sex show. Dan watched as a black substance was poured over the participants, becoming more and more of an adherent as the bodies, both male and female, grappled and copulated in various permutations on a makeshift stage. Still, it was nothing as artful as a good porn flick, Dan thought as he went off to get a beer.
Bill twiddled with the FM dial as the mist closed over the shoreline again. Sounds faded in and out, white noise, the burps and farts of radio emissions. A ragged voice shot through for a second then disappeared in a snarl of static.
“Hey — that’s Shaggy!” Bill exclaimed. “I love Shaggy.” His hands twisted frantically. “Gone,” he announced mournfully, as though Shaggy had vanished forever.
“We’ll find you another one,” Dan said. “You want Shaggy, we’ll get you Shaggy.”
“I love all kinds of music,” Bill said in a proprietary way.
Bill was proprietary about many things. His taste in clothes always seemed an advertisement for the latest trends, coming straight out of one catalogue or another — J.Crew, Harley-Davidson, Hugo Boss. He always had the newest CDs and DVDs. Style filled his cupboards — he could well afford it. It was Donny who’d pointed out Bill’s pretensions as they left his rooftop patio one evening after a catered meal and some pricey wine shared by a gathering of Bill’s overly loud, fawning friends.
“Ghetto fags,” Donny sniffed. “I’ve never seen them north of Bloor before.”
He was working out an irritation. There’d be no stopping him till he was done.
“Nice place, though,” Dan said.
“That man thinks he invented ‘cool,’” Donny said. “Did you catch the reference to ‘Coal Train’?”
Dan shook his head.
Donny rocked with barely suppressed laughter. “When Roger asked what music was playing, Bill said it was ‘Coal Train’ by the Africa Brass.” Donny looked at him. “Ring any bells?”
“Not really.” Dan shook his head. “Wait! Not John Coltrane? Surely not!”
Donny rolled his eyes and laughed. “Yes! It was Coltrane’s Africa Brass Sessions. He hadn’t a clue what it was. The pretentious twat!”
“Hey! That’s not fair — Bill’s a brilliant surgeon. He can’t know everything.”
Donny made a face. “Oh, right! Excuse me whilst I slag your current amour, since you don’t have the good sense to do it yourself.”
At the time, Dan hadn’t expected Bill to last beyond the summer, but here they were a year later driving Bill’s car along the Loyalist Parkway. Picton swept past, a colonial town in miniature. Ten minutes later the highway came to an end, turning abruptly down to the Bay of Quinte. Apart from the brewery and a former gristmill that housed the current Ministry of Natural Resources, there was little to see.
“What’s this place?” Bill grumbled.
“This is the Glenora ferry crossing. John A. Macdonald used to live here.”
“Who?”
“Our first prime minister? Sir John A. Macdonald?”
“Oh, him.” Bill grunted.
“You know, sometimes you worry me,” Dan said.
“I’m distracted,” Bill snarled. “I didn’t sleep much.”
Dan reached over and squeezed his knee. “I was kidding. Don’t worry.”
“I work hard, you know,” Bill said petulantly. “Thom better have champagne waiting for us when we get there.”
They joined the line of vehicles waiting to be transported across the tenuous link connecting the two counties. Bill craned his head to make out the far shore. It was draped in fog. “This place is eerie.”
“But beautiful,” Dan said. “I like the feeling of isolation….”
“I don’t. It creeps me out. I don’t like to be this far from the city.”
Dan cocked an eyebrow at him. “Aren’t you the one who always wants to go camping?”
Bill