“And who is he when he’s at home?”
“A friend of the family,” Victoria said. “More Patrick’s friend than mine, although I’ve known him a little longer.”
“The old guy—Hammond?—he was Patrick’s boss,” Kit said as Victoria raised her glass and drank. She responded with a nod. Kit said, “This Joe Shoe, he works for Hammond too, right? Worked, anyway.”
“Yes,” Victoria said. “I feel bad that I was the cause of him getting fired.”
“He didn’t seem too worried about it,” Kit said. “What did Hammond mean when he said he took you off the street? By the way,” she added, “feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”
Victoria smiled briefly. “He was exaggerating a little, but I guess I was something of a street person when I first met him. He saw me hanging around outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. Evidently I reminded him of someone he used to know. That’s when I met Shoe, too. He was still Bill’s chauffeur then.” She thought about it for a second, then decided that Kit had a right to know, and said, “Bill and I were lovers for a short time. A very short time, a long time ago. Before I met Patrick.”
“Yeah,” Kit said gruffly. “I got that.” She took cigarettes and a disposable lighter out of her purse. “Do you mind?”
“No, go ahead.”
Kit stood by the stove, smoking her cigarette, with the range vent fan on high and the patio door open a crack. “And the guy with the ears?” she asked. “Who was he?”
“His name is Del Tilley.”
“He’s wired a bit tight.”
“He is a little intense, isn’t he? I think women make him nervous. A year or so ago, when I went to the office to meet Patrick for lunch, I collided with him in the hall. I’d have fallen if he hadn’t caught me, but his hand touched my breast. Actually, he copped a pretty good feel. I thought he was going to faint when I smiled at him and told him not to worry about it. He’s Bill’s head of security.”
“You’re kidding?” Kit said, eyes wide with surprise. “I’d’ve said security was more Joe Shoe’s line of work.”
Victoria said, “Well, you wouldn’t be too far wrong. Twenty years ago, when he was Bill’s chauffeur, he saved Bill’s life when a man attacked him with a crowbar outside the office.”
Kit arched her eyebrows, which were the same shade of dark iron grey as her short-cropped hair.
“The man broke Shoe’s arm and fractured his cheekbone, but he was still able to throw the guy over the hood of Bill’s car. He was crushed to death under the wheels of a truck.”
“Ouch.” Kit shuddered. “Remind me never to get him pissed at me.”
Victoria shook her head. “In the years I’ve known him,” she said, “I’ve pissed him off plenty of times. He hasn’t thrown me under the wheels of a truck yet.”
The skies opened up soon after Shoe left Victoria’s house, the rain all but overwhelming the Mercedes’ single centre-mounted wiper. Traffic on the approach to the Lions Gate Bridge was light, but at times it was like driving underwater. Headlights were almost useless. Only the very brave or the very stupid drove at more than twenty or thirty kilometres per hour. Then, about halfway across the bridge, the traffic slowed to a complete halt. Shoe put the car in gear and, as the rain drummed on the roof and the reek of ozone filled the car’s interior, he tried to wrap his mind around the fact that his best friend was dead. He couldn’t. It just didn’t fit.
He thought back to his last conversation with Patrick. On Friday evening, after Patrick had broken the news about his resignation, he’d asked, “What are your plans for the future?”
“Vague,” Shoe had replied.
Patrick sipped his drink. “You’ll be what, fifty on your next birthday? When you were twenty-five, what did you think you’d be doing when you were fifty?”
“Selling used cars.”
“Really?”
“No, of course not.”
“When I was twenty-five,” Patrick said, “I thought that by the time I was forty I’d be rich.”
“You’ve done pretty well for yourself,” Shoe said.
“Maybe,” Patrick said. “For a kid from the Point.” The Point, Shoe knew, was Pointe St. Charles, the Irish working-class district of Montreal, where Patrick had grown up and where his family still lived. “But I’m not rich,” Patrick said. “Bill is rich. When I was twenty-five, that’s how rich I thought I’d be by the time I was forty. You remember my cousin Sean, don’t you? Sean Rémillard?”
Shoe nodded. He did, vaguely. He’d met him at Patrick’s wedding, eight years ago.
“When Sean was twenty-five—he’s a month younger me—he was going to be a member of parliament with a portfolio of some kind by the time he was forty, and prime minister by the time he was fifty.”
“How’s he doing?” Shoe asked.
“He’s after the nomination as the Liberal candidate in a federal by-election in Richmond. Or is it Burnaby-Douglas? Whatever, it’s pretty much a one-horse race, according to Sean. Maybe it is, too. He’s got the backing of Allan Privett.”
Patrick spoke the name as though he thought Shoe should recognize it. He didn’t and he said as much.
“No?” Patrick seemed surprised. “He’s one of the most powerful men in the party. Certainly the most powerful man in the B.C. wing. He’s an old family friend of sorts, had a big house across the lake from my uncle Albert’s cottage in Saint-Adophe-d’Howard, north of Montreal, where Sean and I—and our cousin Mary—used to spend our summers. He left Quebec shortly after the separatists came to power in ’76 to take over his wife’s family’s insurance business in Victoria. He lives in Lions Bay now. So does Sean.”
Patrick fell silent then, and his boyish face took on a faraway expression, eyes focused on some distant point, some distant time. Shoe waited patiently, sipping his club soda, almost certain that Patrick was thinking about his cousin Mary. He had told Shoe about her. Mary was his mother’s eldest brother Albert’s only child. She had drowned in a sailing accident when Patrick was seventeen. She’d been nineteen. This past summer, when Patrick had been moving his uncle Albert, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, into a nursing home, he’d come across all of Mary’s things, neatly packed away in boxes in the basement of Albert’s house in Montreal. It had brought back a lot of painful memories, he’d said.
After a few seconds of silence, Patrick refocused and said, “Sean’s married to Allan Privett’s daughter Charlotte.” He smiled ruefully. “I had a major hard-on for her when I was seventeen, but she had this huge crush on Sean. She was only fifteen, though, and he thought she was a pest. Besides, Sean and Mary, well, let’s just say that they were somewhat closer than first cousins are supposed to be, if you get my meaning.” His voice trailed off and the faraway look returned momentarily. Then he said, “So, who knows? Unless—well, with Allan Privett’s backing, maybe Sean will be prime minister by the time he’s fifty. He asked me to work for him, you know.”
“Patrick,” Shoe had said, with mock horror. “Please don’t tell me you quit your job to go into politics.”
“Good lord, no,” Patrick had said, placing his hand over his heart, feigning pain. “I’m hurt you would even entertain such a thought.”
“Sorry,” Shoe had said. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ve