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  “Well, the way they described it in the Eagle, it sounds like his own office might have gotten torched. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it when he gets back from the paper.”

  “Harry’s not getting back from nowhere. Harry’s been at home all day, sick. And I know what you’re thinking, but what Harry’s sick with isn’t from drinking.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Bayle said, doubtfully. “What ails Mr. Davidson, then?”

  Gloria ignored both the question and the insinuation in Bayle’s voice.

  Instead, “What sort of relationship you got with the players?” she said.

  “Not much,” Bayle answered. “I’ve spoken to a bunch of them a few times for my article. Nothing outside the arena. Why?”

  “Whatever it is that Duceeder’s done to get the players to brush Harry off like they’re doing is wrong. Harry isn’t the easiest man in the world to get along with, but those players don’t hate him like they’re seeming to. If you found out what it is that Duceeder’s done to put the fear into them then you could threaten to write it up in that article you’re putting together and things could get back to like they was before.”

  Bayle considered the honest impulse to do Davidson a good turn; in turn, found the inclination toward helpful Harry-intervention quickly countered with even greater force by Empiricus directive number two declaring loud and clear in Bayle’s wavering ear that not involving oneself in the conflicts of others is an essential step toward freedom from conflict within oneself. Victory, then, to the compulsion toward non-conflict. Bayle, mind your own business.

  “I’d like to help, Gloria, I really would, but it’s not that kind of an article,” he said.

  “Oh, what kind of article is it?” she spat out.

  “Look, I think it’s just as terrible as you do what’s been going on between Harry and the team, but it’s not that kind of journalism and I’m not that kind of journalist. In fact, I’m not any kind of journalist.”

  “No?”

  “Believe me, no. The only reason I’m even here is because a friend thought I needed a vacation. And the article I’m doing is not about anything more than how a Canadian sport gets played in middle-America and how a team like that goes about conducting itself down here.”

  “Seems like they’re conducting themselves pretty badly if you ask me. Isn’t that worth you writing about?”

  “It’s bad, all right, but I’m pretty sure that my editor wouldn’t find it within the scope of my article.”

  “Oh, well, your editor wouldn’t find it within your scope. Why didn’t you just so say in the first place.”

  The car turned silent but for the Bach. Unit upon unit of virtually indistinguishable track housing declared that they’d hit the perimeter of town, each new brown-roofed hive proudly proclaimed as a Selective Living and Deluxe Recreational 24-Hour Secured Community.

  “I don’t know how Harry’s doing financially,” Bayle said at last, “but maybe it wouldn’t even be the worst thing in the world right now for him to leave the Eagle for awhile. Getting away from Duceeder and the all the rest of those bastards might be just what he needs to get his drinking under control.”

  “What Harry needs is his job back. He gets his job back, he’ll be fine.”

  Abandoned tennis courts and rain-pocked swimming pools drifted by Bayle’s window. A large roadside billboard reading, Come Join the Crowd and Get In on the Fun at Windsor Estates, forced itself upon him and then was gone.

  “Do they know about the boycott at the Eagle yet?” Bayle asked.

  “If they don’t, they will soon enough. Man can’t do his job if the players don’t talk to him.”

  Bayle didn’t have an answer; wished he did — really, truly wished he did — but he didn’t.

  “Besides, the Warriors are leaving for their road trip tomorrow and I’m going home the day after,” he said. “Plus, I’ve already got pretty much all the information I need to get from the players and everybody else that I needed to talk to.”

  “You say you’re leaving Friday?” Gloria said.

  “That’s right.”

  In a small, hard voice, “Fuck,” she said. Gloria turned the car onto Bayle’s street with a violent whip of the steering wheel that shook Bayle in his seat nearly as much as did hearing the normally profanity-free Gloria so wholly profane. Gravity-pressed against his door, Bayle looked at Gloria’s face for an inkling of explanation.

  Recovered, the car back on course and making its way down Main, “Sorry,” Gloria said.

  “No problem,” Bayle replied, unrumpling himself from the interior of the Volkswagen.

  “It’s just that I’m leaving town with the team tomorrow,” Gloria said. “I was hoping you might check up on Harry. I don’t want to leave him all alone as sick as he is.”

  Gloria pulled the car in front of The Range, the wipers still working and the ignition still running. Each sat without speaking, watched the specks of rain on the windshield get erased and return, only to be erased then return again. The music, not lively as before, almost matched the day in its melancholy strokes of cello and violin. Bayle knew he was free to say his thanks and be on his way any time he liked.

  “How did you and Harry meet? Through the team?”

  Gloria gave Bayle a tired look across the front seat of the Volkswagen. “Some other time, okay?”

  “Come on, I’m interested,” he said.

  She looked at him a few seconds before speaking. “Thought you said you had an article you got to work on.”

  “The article can wait. I want to know. Really. Was it when you started skating as ....”

  “The Warrior?”

  “Right.”

  “Harry’s the one who helped get me the job skating for the team. We knew each other a good while before” — Gloria pointed to her costume — “this.”

  “How then? How did you know each other?” he said.

  Although Jane’s NOW classified had, for their first year and a half together, anyway, more or less delivered on its implicit promise of a hassle-free relationship, Bayle had, in time, grown interested in how other couples managed to find each other. He hadn’t yet but still hoped to come across someone who had embarked upon a shared life with another just as... logically as he had.

  The tape, with a loud click, ended before the music did. For a long moment Bayle and Gloria sat without speaking, watching the wipers squeaking away the rain. Finally Gloria turned her head Bayle’s way, the smiling upturn of one corner of her mouth seeming to say that she was either looking forward to or was almost anxious about seeing Bayle’s reaction to what she was about to tell him. Either way, Bayle decided he liked what he saw. Bayle liked the way Gloria smiled.

  “I car-jacked him,” she said.

  Bayle tried to comprehend the announcement. Toronto didn’t see too many car-jackings. “You mean you broke into his truck while he was in it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Okay,” Bayle said.

  Pause.

  “Do you mind me asking why?” he said.

  “I needed money and he looked like an easy target.”

  “Okay.”

  “And before you ask me why I needed the money, it was because I was a drug addict who needed money. For drugs.”

  “But I didn’t though,” Bayle said with emphasis. “I didn’t ask.”

  “No,” Gloria said, “but you would’ve.” Bayle didn’t answer.

  “And,” she continued, “how we got to how we are now is none of anybody’s business but me and Harry’s. Enough for you to know that we’ve been together now for just over four years and I been clean for three years, six months, and twelve days, and Harry hasn’t been car-jacked since.”

  Gloria silent now, the rain on the roof of the car seemed almost deafening. Bayle was surprised to see the Reverend Warren appear from behind The Range, his black trench coat unbuttoned and flapping open, his shirt and white clerical collar unshielded from the sheets of falling rain. A lo
ok of joyful indifference radiated from his face. Bayle and Gloria both watched him casually stroll down the front yard’s curling stone pathway leading to the street. He got inside his truck and patiently waited for the wipers to clear the windshield before pulling away.

  “I guess I could stop by for a few minutes after you leave town tomorrow and check in on him,” Bayle said. “If Harry’s actually sick.”

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”

  The rain kept coming and going, appearing then disappearing with each fresh pass of the window’s black rubber blade.

  “And I suppose there’s no reason why I couldn’t come by before my plane leaves on Friday. It’s a late flight. I should have time.”

  “That would be good. Thanks.”

  “But he’s not really that sick, is he?” Bayle asked.

  “He’s sick, believe me. Harry’s not the sort to be stuck inside if he doesn’t have to be.”

  “Well, I’ll come by tomorrow and stop by for as long as I can on Friday, but after that, he’s on his own. After that I’ve got to go. After that I’ve got to get back home.”

  “It’s two less days I have to worry about. I appreciate it.”

  Bayle opened his door a crack, readying himself for the dash from the Volkswagen to The Range. After his time in the dry car, the few drops of rain that managed to hit his face were colder than he had expected. Goose bumps shot up his arms.

  Staring through the downpour at his destination, the front door of his home away from home, “That’s the best I can do,” Bayle said.

  “About all anybody can,” Gloria answered.

  24

  NOT EXACTLY sure why he was doing what he was doing, and definitely not having the time to spare to be doing it, that’s not what Bayle was thinking. Instead, West Wing 347, where the hell ....

  The wall-to-wall carpeted hallways of the Executive Suites Living Apartments twisted and turned, would not yield to him the sought-after West Wing. Every few minutes, it seemed, he re-encountered vaguely familiar red EXIT signs and the same gleeful announcements for Wednesday Night Movie Night!, Pizza Thursdays!, and the Monday Night Football Watching Club! He checked and double-checked the room number he’d written down in his notepad and for the most part successfully resisted the usual sort of too-obvious Kafka comparisons that inevitably come to mind when one is likewise building bewildered.

  Bayle figured he’d start with Robinson and go from there. Being the team captain, he seemed more likely to be made directly privy to the particulars of Duceeder’s scare tactics than any of the other players. Bayle finally found the West Wing and took the stairs to Robinson’s room on the next floor.

  The halls of the building were like the downtown streets: clean, quiet, but singularly deserted. None of the usual signs of apartment living — personalized door fronts, arriving and departing residents, delivered newspapers wrapped in plastic covers lying on door steps — were evident. Bayle had the eerie sensation that the entire building had been evacuated for some ghastly health reason without his or the players’ knowledge (the players’ significant others and children, he later learned, gone for the day on a “Shop Til You Drop” bus excursion to the outlet mall). He could just see the headline in tomorrow’s Eagle: DEADLY CHEMICAL LEAK AT LOCAL APARTMENT COMPLEX-Twenty-Plus Canadians Go to Their Grisly Deaths. For an irrational instant he even felt the spectre of C.A.C.A.W. somehow hanging over the seemingly deserted building. He longed for a wailing preschooler or a den full of stereo-thumping teenagers to prick his paranoia. Following the line of indistinguishably unadorned doors to Robinson’s apartment, neither these nor any other noises announced themselves. He kept walking.

  Anticipating having to spend the heart of that afternoon shaking down whatever clues he could about the boycott and a good portion of the evening looking in on the alone and ailing Davidson, Bayle had worked as long and hard as he could the previous rainy night on his article, but with little progress. Every time he came to a spot in the story where a quote from the Warriors’ hierarchy would have been appropriate he became dispiritedly stuck, unable to muster the concentration necessary to complete the paragraph. Even the previously guileless lines of the players now seemed coloured by Davidson’s expulsion from the team locker room.

  Shutting down his computer a little after one, Bayle promised himself that tomorrow he would settle down to work and finish up the hockey article no matter what. He would revise the article on the plane and have a passable story for Jane when she picked him up at the airport in Toronto. Bayle the new. Coming right at you.

  Toward this very end, then, Bayle had finally telephoned Hunter in Waterloo to let him know that he’d be back in Toronto in a few days and that he was very much looking forward to speaking with him in person about the opening in the St. Jerome’s philosophy department. Bayle felt greatly relieved to have finally made the phone call and, at last, gotten his future into gear. He also felt greatly relieved to have only gotten Hunter’s answering machine.

  Bayle knocked on Robinson’s door but got no answer. The sounds of a loud television set and scrambled voices coming from another room several doors down gained his attention. He knocked a last fruitless time at 347 and then went to see if those at the end of the hall knew where he could find the Warrior captain. He rapped at the half-open door.

  “Leave it!”

  “Fuck you, I’m not watching fucking ’Family Ties.’”

  “Hey! Michael J. Fox. He’s Canadian.”

  “Turn it!”

  “Did Robinson leave? Is Robinson still around?”

  “What is this shit?”

  “The third Superman movie.”

  “Turn it!”

  “Hey, leave it, leave it, I remember this part, you get to see Lois Lane’s tits.”

  “Bullshit. Turn it!”

  “No shit, leave it, you get to see —”

  “Lois Lane, she’s Margot Something. She’s Canadian.”

  “I’m not watching the fucking news, I’ll tell you that fucking much, I will not watch the fucking —”

  “Hey! Anybody know where Robinson is? That reporter guy is looking for him.”

  “What reporter guy?”

  “Yeah, what reporter guy?”

  “The guy from back home.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just stop flipping it around for a second and leave it somewhere long enough so I can — Hey! Turn it back, I think that’s — No, no, the other way. No, one more. Yeah, I think that’s — No. Forget it. It’s all right. You can turn it. I thought it was something else, I thought it was ’Baywatch.’ It’s just a commercial.”

  “’Baywatch’. Pamela Anderson. Canadian.”

  “Can we please just watch something from the beginning? Please?”

  “Is Robinson here or not? That reporter wants to talk to him.”

  “Who?”

  “Robinson.”

  “No, fuckface, who’s looking for him?” “Him.”

  “Oh, him. Okay.”

  “Not MTV!”

  “Let’s just see what’s —”

  “Who wanted to know where Robinson is?”

  “Him.”

  “Who?”

  “Him. That guy.”

  “Oh. Robinson’s not here. Try Dippy’s room.”

  “Hey, put it back.”

  “Turn it.”

  “Hey, ’Gunsmoke.’ That’s Lome Greene. He’s Canadian.” “Who the fuck is Lome Greene?”

  25

  “IT DOESN’T make a lot of sense, I know,” Bayle said, “but it’s all I could get out of him.”

  Davidson nodded, didn’t say a word, didn’t shift his gaze from the small black-and-white television set sitting on the footstool in front of him. For the first time to Bayle’s eyes suitless, in an overstuffed armchair and outfitted in a white t-shirt and boxer shorts with black-stockinged feet resting on top of the stool in front of the T.V., Davidson, if not looking desperately ill, didn’t, at t
he same time, look well. His face, beached-whale grey, was tight to the bone, the few strands of thin black hair still left on his head uncombed, scattered, greasy. Steam from the mug resting on the arm of his chair surprisingly testified to its non-bourbon contents. Bayle thought he could smell lemon tea.

  Bayle stood in the middle of the livingroom running down his findings from that afternoon. He tried to recount to Davidson as faithfully as he could the conversation he’d finally managed to have with Robinson, but couldn’t keep from wondering at the black-and-white T.V. Bayle had never seen one before. Did they even still make such things? And if so, who buys them? The sound was turned nearly all the way down; a blizzard of static made it difficult to distinguish between Hogan’s Heroes and the Nazis.

  “It took me a while to get it out of him, but Robinson claims that it was the players on their own who decided not to talk to you. The only mention he made of Duceeder at all was a meeting he’d had with them a couple days before they decided to start the boycott. And that was just to discuss all the rumours about the Warriors’ moving and what would happen to the players’ contracts and benefits if the team really did decide to move.”

  “And what would happen to them?” It was the first full sentence Davidson had put together since letting Bayle in the front door. He still didn’t look away from the television.

  “From what Robinson said, they would all become null and void. Everyone would more or less become a free agent.”

  “Well, that pretty much explains it then, doesn’t it?”

  “Not to me it doesn’t. Even when I pressed him, Robinson couldn’t find one bad thing to say about you. The only reason he could come up with as to why they stopped talking was because the team just wanted to distance itself from you and your articles as much as possible to try and show their solidarity with team ownership. But it just doesn’t add up. Somehow Duceeder is behind this, I just know it. I don’t know how, but he is. I wish I had more time to get to the bottom of it all, but I’m leaving tomorrow. Gloria told you I have to leave tomorrow, right?”

  Davidson didn’t answer the question, didn’t seem to even consider it. “You’ve been talking to Gloria too much,” he said. “Her and her Goddamn conspiracy theories. Isn’t it plain enough that those boys are just sore at me for putting their jobs on the line? Bunton Groceries isn’t going to put a million dollars of renovations into that dump the Bunton Center. One way or another they’re going to have to either move or sell, the players and their families spilt all over the damn place in the process. Hell, I don’t even blame them for being mad at me. What right have I got to be jeopardizing their livelihood like that? Half of them will probably be out of hockey by this time next year, right back where they were before in their lousy home towns stuck selling used cars on commission.” Davidson shook his head and drank from his mug of tea, his raised, mug-holding arm momentarily improving the television reception. Drink drunk, tea returned to his side, a fresh storm of electric snow once again made it nearly impossible to tell the heroes from the villains.