TWO
IT TOOK ME MORE than a month to put Cutter’s story together, working at his desk, his files and journals close at hand. To understand the background better, I ransacked a few history books and printed off articles from the Net. More than once, as I found and fitted together bits of the puzzle, I told myself that I must look exactly like Cutter, obsessed by my quest. Reena and Abe Krantz held back their curiosity and tried not to badger me with questions.
Soon the Christmas season was blasting away, with carols on the radio day and night, warbling about peace on earth and pre-Christmas blowout sales. Reena had put up a sickly little plastic evergreen tree in the window of the café and hung a sign above the coffee bar saying HAPPY WHATEVER YOU CELEBRATE AT THIS TIME OF YEAR. She pretended to be a grinch or a scrooge, muttering about the Christmas hype as she worked and smoked in the kitchen, but she set out extra muffins and cookies for the street people and let them hang around in the café’s warmth longer than usual.
After the new year had rolled around, I left my bedroom one night and found Reena doing a crossword puzzle at the kitchen table. I sat down and, over a cup of tea, filled her in on Cutter’s story. She listened intently, and when I was finished she said, “I wish I had known him better.”
“Me, too,” I replied.
January plodded along. The third week barrelled in on a blizzard that left the city paralyzed for three days. Abe had predicted it, telling me confidently, “It will last three days, not two, like they’re saying on the radio.” Once the snowplows had made a few swipes at the streets, I carried on as normal. At the beginning of December I had fitted the tank with new heavy-duty tires, so the snow didn’t affect the Lee Mercer Courier Service. It melted off pretty fast, anyway.
Abe was a different kind of listener. Where Reena sat in silence, he interrupted a lot and questioned me on details, as if I was being interviewed. “Boy, you sure know your stuff,” he said more than once before I finished.
“I learned a lot,” I said.
“Is your mind resting a little easier now?”
“I don’t know. I have to think some more.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Thinking is good.”
“The only name on the black wall I couldn’t chase down was ‘Kurtz.’”
“What did it say again?”
“‘Mistah Kurtz, he in Kijevo.’”
“Well, we both know about Kijevo. Mistah like M-I-S-T-A-H?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm. I think that’s in a poem. ‘We are the hollow men/We are …’—No, wait. Originally, Kurtz is from a book.”
Abe puffed a few times, head back in his chair, then took a sip of scotch. “Got it. Kurtz is a character in a novel. Long story short, he’s a trader in central Africa and he learns that he’s capable of extreme, almost total, evil and the knowledge drives him mad.”
“That fits,” I said. “‘Kurtz is in Kijevo.’ What happened there was certainly evil. What’s the book’s title?”
“Heart of Darkness.”
I nodded. “That fits, too. How come you know all this? I thought you were an accountant.”
“Yes, but a literary accountant,” Abe laughed.
“Not exactly normal,” I commented. “Er, I mean ordinary.”
“True. And, before you ask, no offense taken.”
“Come to think of it, nobody I know is ordinary—you, me, Cutter. Reena isn’t exactly typical, either.”
“Maybe nobody is,” Abe said.
After a while I said, “There was a time when I would have called a guy like Cutter a coward and a weakling.”
Abe nodded and took a pull from his drink, but didn’t say anything.
“Not any more,” I said.
I pumped hard against a damp, chilly wind on my way home from an evening movie on Bloor Street, my front and rear safety lights blipping, tires shushing on the damp pavement. It was about 11:30, not a moon or a star in the sky. The traffic was light on 18th Street. I powered up the bridge over the Queen Elizabeth Way, and spun the pedals fast going down the other side, timing my approach to the traffic lights so I’d get a green, sailing through the intersection, coasting as far as I could before using my legs again. I made the lights at Horner, and at Birmingham, too.
When I swooped into the alley behind the café it was nearly midnight. I unlocked the back gate, pushed the tank ahead of me into the courtyard, and re-locked the gate, wishing that, just once, I could look at a lock and not think of Cutter.
I let myself in through the door as quietly as I could. Reena would likely be asleep by now. I hung my coat on the peg, slid off my wet boots, felt my way through the dark kitchen without turning on the lights, and crept up the stairs. From Reena’s room I heard a thump, like a dresser drawer being closed, and when I saw the oblong of yellow light on the floor of the upstairs hall I knew she was still up. If her door was closed at night, it meant she was in bed. If not, she was watching TV or reading. On my way past her door, I popped my head in to say goodnight.
And saw, in profile, a tall, heavy man bent over an open dresser drawer, rummaging around inside.
I froze. My eyes darted around the room, seeking Reena. I caught sight of a slippered foot protruding from the far side of her bed. A fuzzy pink slipper.
The man jerked upright. He was unshaven, wearing a jacket with a dirty fleece collar and heavy work boots. He lunged for me, but caught his boot on the edge of the rug by Reena’s easy chair, and fell. His head cracked the table by the chair, tossing the reading lamp the floor. He grunted as the air exploded from his lungs and lay there, dazed. I dropped to one knee and punched him on the temple as hard as I could. He groaned. I socked him again and he went limp.
I straddled him, yanked his arms behind him, and dragged the reading lamp toward me. I tore the electric cord loose and tied him tightly by the wrists, my knuckles already aching from the punches.
Reena lay sprawled on her stomach, her hair dishevelled, one arm caught under her body. I took her by the shoulders as gently as I could. She flinched, cried out, and tried to crawl away.
“Reena, it’s Lee!” I said. “It’s okay. He’s gone.”
Which wasn’t true, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say to calm her. She let me help her sit up.
“Can you stand?”
“Where’s Del?”
“Don’t worry about him. Come on, try to get to your feet.”
I helped her up off the floor and sat her on the bed, pulling her bathrobe closed and knotting the belt. Her head hung down, hair falling forward to cover her face.
“Reena, are you all right? Look at me.”
She raised her head. One eye was already purpling. A few strands of hair stuck to the blood that oozed from one nostril. Her lower lip had been split, and a crimson trickle leaked over her chin, dripping onto her chest. She breathed deeply through her mouth.
“Don’t let him hit me any more,” she gasped.
“Don’t worry,” I snarled.
In a black rage I stepped over to the man and grabbed him by his elbows, yanking them together and lifting. He had come around by then and as I hauled him out of the room he howled in pain. In the hall I dropped him, screamed, “Shut up!” and kicked him in the ribs. He let out another yelp. I latched onto him again and half lifted, half dragged him along the floor to the top of the unlit staircase, cursing, “You son of a bitch!” again and again.
“No, no, don’t!” he moaned, twisting his head to look up at me, his eyes wide with terror. He was conscious enough to know what he was in for.
I let go of his arms, hooked one hand under the neck of his jacket, the other in his belt, and gathered my strength to throw him down the stairs. “Please! Don’t!” he wailed. “Please!”
“Lee! Lee!” Reena cried from her room.
In that split second, my mind was jammed with sound—the man’s begging, Reena’s screaming, the rage roaring in my ears. I held the man over the dark well of the staircase, my legs braced against his weight, about to dump him, watch him tumble and bounce down the steps, breaking his bones and twisting his neck.
“Lee! What are you doing?”
I lowered him to the floor and stepped back, breathing hard, my pulse hammering in my temples. I swallowed, heard Reena shout again. Then I turned on the staircase light.