Grand Menteur Page 8

  “Okay, I might know something about the hit parade.”

  “Oh?” the Green said in delighted surprise. “There’s actually something to know?”

  “Your ledger book, it has this week’s tabulations?”

  “So?”

  “I’ll show you how it works.”

  The Green folded back the book in half so that the Roundman could only see the one page facing him. The bleeding Pudding Pop currently passing for the Roundman took one of the Green’s pens and began superscripting the latest tabulation with arrows and numbers, decoding its arcana of humble words.

  The Roundman went on to explain how the chart positions from the current and previous weeks formed a date. For example, a placement of five this week represented the month of the year, and the placement in last week’s list referred to the day, say the twenty-third. To complicate things further, the hit list was also designed to tip off readers in the know when a song was in motion. Only songs preceded by an uncharted song (-) the previous week were in play. The itchy bang “Mousse to Neznez,” a song about cocaine consumption, was then in motion at position 14; most likely a shipment of drugs had arrived. And so forth in greater complication.

  “Who’s running this? This is off the books if it’s the first I’m hearing of it.”

  “Who do you think? Who’s in charge of all your contraband? Or I should say was before Pourri took over.”

  “Let’s get back to the Sous minutes. Quickly, quickly! Tell me what you know so we can stop the bombarbinating gibberish in my skull.”

  “Did you release any wax the week of those minutes? I’m assuming minutes were taken, if not released outright.”

  “Don’t look at meee,” I remarked. “I was there, but Cherelle’s the one that did all the note-takinguh.”

  Darlo and the Green rushed to confer with Cherelle, I assumed over how this nobody could call them on their bluff as if a recording of the Sous minutes of 1965 were the real McCoy.

  The Roundman and I were left alone at the end of the bar closest to the kitchen.

  “Has the Green given you the money?” the Roundman asked slyly.

  I made no reply.

  “Hey, sourpuss. I’m talking to you. Has the Green given you the money or hasn’t he?”

  “What money would that beeee?” I giggled through the asking, surprised at the sound of my own voice.

  “Pfft. Typical. The Green’s not to be trusted. You’re coming with me.”

  “Who are youuu again? Do I know youuu?”

  “Listen to me, they’ve given you something. To soften you up for my thrashing. Don’t you know an initiation when you see one? You’re not thinking straight. Your father sent me.”

  “Whassafahzer?”

  “Stop messing about, we don’t have much time. You haven’t given them the codex, have you?”

  “I’ll sell youuu the codexex. Add to youuur quooolection. $500, cheeeap.”

  “You’re right, that is cheap for what you stand to make from the information inside. Listen to me, your father gave you a right good bashing before the Blue Boar meeting. Malbar revealed the location of the mantelet in the hit parade – that’s what you saw Serge throw into the fire. Serge said you would trust me if I told you this.”

  I started to claw at my face and make mushy sounds out of my cheeks. Nausea crept up from the pit of my stomach where it was hiding. The room was starting to spin.

  “Seeeeerrrrrrrzzzzzuuuuh,” I squalled.

  “It’s ego-dissolution, but it’s temporary. It’s going to wear off in a few hours. Just remind yourself that. Listen to the sound of my voice. Your father doesn’t want you working here or anywhere near here. I’m going to make a run for it. If you can meet me at Dundurn Castle in ninety minutes, I’ll be waiting for you in an orange Corvair Rampside. It’s a truck, running board on the driver’s side. I can’t wait very long, and Serge will consider our debt paid as long as I make a go of saving you. In case you forget, I’ve written it down for you.”

  The Roundman stiffened and collected his walking stick. He weighed it in his palm, then decided to grip it with both hands for better manoeuvrability. I realized then that there was nothing wrong with his legs after all. He placed the stick on top of the bar, holding it by its handle. I saw the hair rise from the nape of his neck. Exhaling, the Roundman’s legs tensed, and then exploded forward like an uncoiled spring. He put his weight against the bar, and using the angle of his leaning body for leverage, proceeded to collect all the assorted glassware, earthenware, shakers, condiments, and cutlery in the momentum of his strides. Broken crockery splashed everywhere and made a terrible din which reverberated across the room. As he dragged these items towards the entrance, the Roundman occasionally gave a flick of his wrist so that alternately, some of his passengers were left behind him, and other pieces were flung in the direction of everyone at the bar. A shot glass struck Darlo clear between the eyes while he was dolloping heaps of Crisco into his mouth from the tin. Cherelle had time to cover her face just in time for a mug to hit her. The Green ducked and had horseradish and chimichurri pour over his new hat in thick, gelatinous drips.

  “I thought you searched him, you half-wit!” the Green protested. “Love a duck, he’s firing those steel-jackets like he means it!”

  Cherelle slumped down beside her uncle and rubbed her temples, making no answer. I heard the kitchen door beside me and saw it gently move open an inch or two, before falling back silently. The Roundman campaigned for the Green’s notebook and jacket at the edge of the bar with his fingers. He nearly missed them, but emerged triumphantly at the main entrance. With one foot already halfway through the door, he paused, then stepped back inside. “He’s going to lob something at Darlo for that slap,” I thought to myself. Darlo poked his head up and was clouted with a salt shaker-cum-torpedo in the neck. The Roundman then pulled a lever somewhere from his walking stick, exposing a naked blade at the verticillate base where the four legs converged. He pulled another tab and the legs fell away. Bérenger next. It would have to be. Pulling the javelin well behind his waist, the Roundman leaned into his throw and lobbed it underhandedly at a forty-five degree angle into the air, where it tore through the Bérenger painting and landed somewhere by the rail, taking a bottle of gin with it. The painting depicted the politician with his arms akimbo in a posture of conquest; it now more accurately looked as if Bérenger was repeatedly picking his nose, the gash beginning at his left elbow and moving across his torso to rest at the tip of his nostril. The sound of “. . . and you throw a punch like a moose squibs a fart!” echoed off along with the sounds of the Roundman’s dynamic exit.

  Then, a few real shots broke out and I saw little puffs of smoke come out from behind the bar. Someone was shooting a Manurhin revolver wildly into the air and mostly straight into the apartment above, though a bullet went so far as to puncture the jukebox, putting an end to our Mick Rowley danger music.

  “I’ve been bloody poisoned! Lordy my stomach feels like mince and tatties!” the Green moaned histrionically.

  Marjorie came blaring out of the kitchen like her hair was on fire, and let loose with a double-barrelled shotgun at the entrance door. The recoil sent her flying back through the kitchen. By this point I too had adopted the nuclear position below a table along with the other patrons. All the sounds were louder and more vivid than they should have been and gave a pulsing, paranoid dimension to my thoughts. Waves of fear pressed down from the tip of my head, which gave me the sense of being flattened inside a box.

  When the madness was all over, and people started picking themselves up from the floor, I could tell that it was a good thing that we were tasked by Marjorie so soon afterwards with work, for it unjangled the rattling in my fingers and gave me a sense of calm. Cherelle and I had the place looking somewhat presentable only an hour later. The glass had been broomed to one corner of the Kadadac, making a beautiful pyramid of fractured colour. The bar had been wiped down perfunctorily, the patrons told to leave. The Gr
een, however, was the only one left in a state. I had never seen him so out of sorts, fretting over the consequences.

  “I should have stayed with Serge, I should have stayed with Serge . . .” he kept repeating.

  Marjorie dismissed Cherelle and me early. Cherelle was uncomfortable walking with me, but what choice did she really have? No one had bothered to tell her where she’d be staying while she worked the Kadadac, and I guess it fell to me to fill in the blanks of the arrangement with Marjorie. I was probably leading us around in circles, but my poisoner still followed as my shadow. I was still in such a way that I couldn’t be bothered to send her packing even if I wanted to and even as she kept demanding where I was taking her.

  The more I dwelled on it, the more it seemed everything had transpired as if I were influencing the bones of reality; that was the impression I was left with. Was this what it felt like to be my father? For everything I wanted to happen did happen. Even my conversation with Cherelle took this strange, theopneust quality. I felt like I could predict her responses before she made them. Perhaps in this way we were closer than I had initially thought. So I cut her some slack. No one ever did. I had to remember that, unlike Christian, and to a far lesser degree, Annaleigh, there were no judgments with Cherelle, even if her actions betokened a coarser understanding of friendship. This counted for something in my books.

  The effects of whatever I had ingested were wearing off, and I could feel the cloudiness of my thoughts resume a shame-imperilled lucidity. The world had lost its jarring newness. All that was left was the slinking of time, locking and unlocking before us.

  We were turning on to Barton from MacNab Street North, a few blocks east of Dundurn Castle, when we saw an orange Corvair turned halfway onto the curb in a starfish sprawl of clawed-in dirt and skid marks. I followed the truck’s tracks with my eyes around one of the street corners, which came from the direction of the Kadadac. The driver’s door was open, and someone’s head was between their legs, while a woman on the running board pulled his hair back for him. There was the awful sound of retching going on. The birds were even keeping their distance. My curiosity drew me headlong into the scene, where I could almost imagine the Hinterland Who’s Who music playing in between my ears.

  Myself: Is that you in there, Round Round Roundman?

  Marjorie: Why didn’t you come alone?

  Myself: What are you doing here!?

  Marjorie: I’m here because you can’t follow instructions!

  Cherelle: What’s wrong with him?

  Marjorie: He’s got it as bad as the Green does. What did you serve?

  Myself: Nothing. Just what Green asked.

  Marjorie: Did I ask you to pour a half bottle of port in with pricked wine?

  Cherelle: I don’t have to be here.

  Marjorie: Stop being such a wallflower, Cherelle. You’re obviously not wanted, but we can’t very well send you away until we can make sure you can keep your yap closed.

  Roundman: Ugh . . . You came. Good. Get blurgh . . . Get in.

  Myself: Wasn’t born yesterday.

  Marjorie: You’ve got two of us now telling you he’s on the level. Get in the truck. Give her the letter.

  Myself: Letter?

  TI AIGRE DOUX. GREEN WENT TO HIGHEST BIDDER. TOUGH ON ME. NO REASON FOR THE SAME TO YOU. FUCK HIM. MICHEL SPEAKS TRUE. MARJORIE CAN BE TRUSTED. BOTH FROM THE CROSSCUSS GANG. JUST DETAILS . . . YOU WILL SEE CHAPEL BELLS SOON. NOTHING ELSE EXPECTED, BEYOND ATTENDANCE. FOR PERMANENCE’S SAKE, LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE. GET OUT WHILE GETTING GOOD. DERWISH WANTS YOU FOR NEW VIDEUR OR MENACEUR. WON’T BE PRETTY. BAD PROSPECTS. ASK POURRI. THE WORLD IS A HANGING PLACE. SAUVER COT CAPAV.

  —AN ELEPHANT WITHOUT HIS ANT

  Myself: That’s it?

  Marjorie: C’est tout.

  Myself: When’s he coming to get me?

  Marjorie: . . .

  Roundman: What about her?

  Marjorie: Cherelle, mind me carefully. You can either come back with me, or we’re going to leave you strung up against that tree with your wits the only thing standing between you freezing yourself to sleep.

  Cherelle: I’ll keep quiet.

  Marjorie: Lord knows you’ve done enough tonight. How much did you give her?

  Cherelle: Just a handful . . .

  Marjorie: Cherelle, go stand by that tree over there.

  Roundman: You better get back, Marjie-bird. Here, I have what the Menteur wanted.

  Myself: How are you going to get that back to the Green without him noticing?

  Marjorie: If he’s noticed that it’s gone, I’ll put the ledger in the pile of glass you swept up earlier. If not, then it’s not up for discussion.

  Roundman: Thanks for not blowing my head off.

  Marjorie: You don’t need my help for that.

  Myself: What did you skim from the book?

  Roundman: Your father doesn’t get updates because he’s abroad. That’s one. Our game of cricket will remind Tweedledeetwit and Tweedledumtwat that just ’cause the cat’s away, doesn’t mean the mice can play. That’s two. Don’t look so proud, Cherelle. If you know something, believe me, it’s by the grace of Serge that you do. Go further back!

  Marjorie: Call me if something comes up.

  Roundman: You only need to keep the Derwish’s girl quiet until we make it out of town. If the Derwish gives you trouble after, which he’s liable to do once she sings, you can tell him to forget the deal with his pamphlets and his student exchanges. That should smooth out your ride for the time being.

  The Corvair kicked up a mean spray of dust and debris out over the distance where Cherelle and Marjorie receded into vanishing points. I leaned my head out the window and made sure to scream loud enough so that Cherelle could hear me: “This means we’re even now!” I could just make out Marjorie walloping Cherelle across the face with her pinochle-seasoned hands. We headed west for a short spell, then curved northeast sharply with the girdling of the lake by the motorway. The Roundman turned down the radio and handed me a jar of pickled palmistes.

  “That’s all I could scrape by for dinner. I’m sorry. I’m not risking that with where my stomach is sitting at the moment. Far cry from my youth, but that’s life.”

  “How did you meet Serge? I never seen you before.”

  “Beau Bassin. Was holed up in there at one of them clinics a while back now, for polio.”

  “Where are you taking me, Roundman? Where is my father?”

  “We’ve got a date with God, like the letter said. You’ll take my name. When we’re done there, I’ll give you the value of the money Green was skimming from your pay. We’ll set you up with your own flat, which you’ll have to sort out for yourself on your own later, and then you will do what your father said to do in the first place: You’ll find work, and you’ll make your way and you’ll make it stick. Like the rest of us.”

  “I’m not seeing the silver lining.”

  “Not that anyone ever does.”

  I wanted next to ask the Roundman why he had stripped his clothes in the bar. Of the many things that did not make immediate sense to me in the past few hours, this stood out as being the most ill-advised. Then I started to ask myself whether I had hallucinated the entire thing, if such a thing was even possible given what I had eaten. Without any kind of verbal prompting though, Michel started in by saying, “Do you know the legend of Pillywick? He’s a Piltdown Man sort of figure. He would show up at your door wearing a trench coat, stride through, and peel the outer skin away to reveal his naked body before bludgeoning you to death. The Sous have nightmares about his Crosscuss shadow-companion, Hunspach: a killer who will arrive to your doorstep naked, step through, do your head in, and leave with your clothes on his back. If you ever saw a naked man or the sartorial twin of someone you knew walking down the boulevard, you’d do well to keep clear of him. The Green will catch on, when he goes through today’s events in his head over and over again. That’s what he does; all an accountant is ever good for. Add to the mix that
he’s superstitious as a Pamplemousses washwoman, and you have established some distance between him and the Derwish. Green gets to be too bold when he’s aligned with his brother-in-law for too long. Are you listening? Try to learn something for a change that isn’t in one of your damn books. You can only buy the Green’s loyalty for so long. The same is true for everyone. Keep that in mind the next time you stick something foreign in your mouth you don’t know where it come from. Don’t get mixed up with the Derwishes. If you do, know when to take them into your confidence, and when to show them the back side of your hand. Your dad, on the other hand, has done right by us, maintaining good relations. He’s the only one of you lot we are happy to deal with. Again, not like Derwish, who wants a finger in every pie. I would reckon if there was anyone you’d want to dismantle the whole operation, it’d be his head on a platter you’d be wanting.”

  How was this for expositional service? Clearly the Crosscussers liked their movies as much as the Sous did. They all sounded like George Raft half the time talking. The truck chugged along the motorway, pushing along at a steady clip. The Roundman kept quiet and his hands to himself for the rest of the ride. I held some contrary opinions in my mind – the care and attention my father took in procuring Malbar’s possessions and arranging his mock-burial at our home, the distance he put between us while also showing me, through Michel, a guiding hand of paternal responsibility at one foul stroke if at a far remove.

  Was this the spilling-over point of our relationship, when with disgust I saw how much tenderness he showed Malbar and how little he had in reserve for me? He gave me away to Michel without the slightest touch of humanity. In like fashion, Michel gave me away to myself, where I could trace my trajectories as a spent and traded object. I paid for Serge’s guilt, I cleared away Michel’s debt, I was the equity on the Derwish’s new Grand Videur, and the creditor of some kind of bizarre collateral from dead Malbar. All in a day’s work or not, I was picking up some spectacularly loathsome baggage and needed a way to jettison it into the unconscious.