Nolan shakes his head and clenches his eyes. McKelvey deduces the man is suffering the inexplicable ripple effects of a hard hit to the head. It can leave you in a fog for days or weeks, this sudden onset of vertigo.
“Travis told me this is a real problem in Saint B. He wouldn’t tell me who he got the dope from, but he said we have no idea how many kids are on this shit. I have to be honest here, Charlie. I don’t have any experience in this sort of thing.”
“I never worked Narcotics, but Hold-Up is the other end of the whole drug chain. Junkies rob gas stations and liquor stores to get the cash to buy their dope,” McKelvey says. “The first thing I’d do is go and press hard on the usual suspects, the guys dealing pot by the gram. Start at the centre and work your way back out. Shake enough trees, the monkey eventually falls out.”
“I should bring them down to the station maybe, rattle them a little?”
McKelvey shakes his head. “You want to go in easy at first, easy but hard. Do it in private so word doesn’t get out. You need to work against the disadvantage of small-town gossip, don’t let these assholes get the jump on you. Let them think you guys are a bunch of Keystone Kops.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Nolan says.
“Then you go at them where they live and work, right in the middle of their safest environment. In front of as many of their friends and buyers as possible. Maybe rough them up a little, who knows. Whatever you need to do.”
Nolan nods slowly, but his eyes are not convinced.
“I’ve only ever been a cop here,” Nolan says. “I doubt I can pull off the bad cop routine with these people. Maybe you should ride shotgun with me for a few days. I can talk to the Chief, see if we have budget left for consultation fees. Who knows, maybe even get you signed on as an auxiliary officer.”
McKelvey looks out the window at the winter day. He has yet to read the pamphlets in his dresser drawer. A Survivor’s Checklist. He has yet to contact his doctor to have the follow-up discussion on treatment options which were outlined in their last visit. It occurs to him that Caroline is right; he has run away from home. He has run away from his life, from The Diagnosis. He should be right now entering treatment in a Toronto hospital for the prostate cancer that killed his father.
“I’m retired,” McKelvey says.
“Your experience could really help. This is your home town, Charlie. The people of Saint B need you right now. Why else did you end up back here?”
McKelvey laughs. It is a genuine laugh, and it feels good from the inside out.
“Save the speech,” he says. “I don’t owe this goddamned place a thing.”
“Maybe it owes you.” Nolan smiles his boy’s smile.
“You’ve got a chief here, right? He’ll have a plan, kid.”
“Chief Gallagher wasn’t impressed that I drove down to the correctional centre to see this Lacey boy. It’s case closed as far as he’s concerned. He’s gearing up to run for mayor. He has this idea about using the closed sections of the mine as a landfill. Something about trucking Detroit’s shitty diapers up here.”
“Sounds like typical police brass. More politician than cop.”
“He’s a good man, but he’s in the wrong line of work. He was a sheriff for a long time in a small town somewhere in the U.S. Midwest. Said he was used to running for election every five years. Prides himself on the fact he never used his weapon. He’s all about the status quo.”
McKelvey stands now and holds out his hand. The meeting is adjourned.
“Thanks for the coffee, but I don’t think I can be of any help.”
“I’ll let you think about it.”
McKelvey shakes his head. The kid is stubborn. Standing there in his uniform, smiling through a concussion. For a moment McKelvey sees himself. Right there. Standing in this very kitchen. Having driven all night to come home to see his sick mother. She turns from the stove and she sees him. He has left the city straight from a midnight shift and he is still wearing his uniform. Her tired eyes light up. She smiles.
“My policeman,” she says.
Nine
Darkness is falling. The lights of Main Street burn with a phosphorous glow. This far north, the aurora borealis appear on the coldest nights, these dancing and twisting snakes of coloured vapour — smeared streaks of green and yellow and sometimes blue. Nolan often pulls the cruiser over to the side of the highway just to sit and watch the spectacle. It reminds him of being a boy, how his father would do the same thing in his pickup truck. And Nolan remembers how the cab was always warm, how it smelled of his father — Old Spice and stale sweat — and how perfect life was as they sat there on the side of the dark highway, the world silent and uncomplicated. His father was a miner, and yet Nolan had always sensed there was something untapped within the man, some unnamed sensibility. Life was good back then, simple and easy to understand.
“Front row centre for one of nature’s greatest shows,” his father would say.
“What causes them?” Nolan would invariably ask.
“It’s magic,” his father would say. And later, when he had started the truck and was pulling back onto the road, he’d always offer a variation on this existential observation. “Those dancing lights,” he’d say, “prove just how small we really are. A man remembers that, and he’s got his place figured out just right.”
Nolan is at the wheel of the cruiser, thinking about his father and remembering how the old man had talked about leaving Saint B, moving southwest to Elliot Lake, because his father had seen a brochure about the town. Once a mining centre in its own right, Elliot Lake had reinvented itself as a retirement mecca, offering cheap bungalows and peace and quiet, good hunting and fishing. His father only ever talked about it, and now it was too late. The big man was lying in a bed, withering away to bonelike fruit left on a shelf.
He is on Main now, headed west out of town. As he passes the police station, nestled between the one-room public library and the two-room town hall, he spots a strange vehicle. He slows to a crawl. The vehicle is a black SUV — a loaded Suburban — with Michigan plates. He glances in the rear-view, stops, then puts the vehicle in reverse and eases back to the station. He pulls into a spot beside the Chief’s Jimmy. The Chief always drives his own vehicle, and charges mileage to the town, something he says is a holdover from his sheriff days.
Nolan enters the station and the small squad room. Chief Gallagher is leaning back in his swivel chair, boots up on his desk, his guest seated across from him with his back to Nolan. Gallagher is ruddy-faced and his eyes are shining. Nolan spots the tumblers of amber booze. The Chief keeps a bottle of scotch locked in his bottom drawer for special occasions, which are rare in Saint B these days. He keeps his only weapon, a pearl-grip .38 revolver, locked in there, too, and Nolan catches a glimpse of the handle. Gallagher is not a heavy or frequent drinker, and the booze always rushes blood to his face. Nolan has witnessed the rapid transformation of the man’s demeanour after just a single drink. He smiles too much and his head lolls as though it is too heavy to hold up, his cheeks and nose flushing red.
“Constable Nolan,” Gallagher says, and swings his boots to the ground.
The visitor turns around. He is an olive-skinned man of about forty, and when he stands to greet Nolan, the constable sees that the man is dressed in designer blue jeans and a navy sports coat with pinstripes, no tie, an expensive black overcoat draped on the chair. Nolan holds out his hand and they shake.
“Tony Celluci,” he says.
“Ed Nolan.”
“Chief