Kieran pulled up a cushion and sat down across from Johnnie. The Rastaman turned over the record as it ended and Black Uhuru came roaring from the speakers again.
“You got trouble wid the po-lice, hey, mon? What you want wid I?”
“Two things. Have you seen Tom around? Thomas Hengwr?”
Johnnie shook his head. “He is very hot, that mon. Po-lice want him bad. You, too. There is trouble, you know, mon? I and I don’t want no trouble. What is this other t’ing you want wid I, mon?”
“I need a place to stay. A safe place.”
“That will cost, mon.” Johnnie rubbed his fingers together. “Cost plenty, you know? You very hot, mon.”
“I haven’t got any money. I . . .” Kieran sighed. “Okay. Thanks anyway, Johnnie.”
“Wait up, mon,” Johnnie said as Kieran stood up.
The Rastaman dug into his pocket and came up with a wad of money. He peeled off three twenties and handed them over.
“I and I will help you, but. . . .” He shrugged, indicating the ganja. “I tell you this. I and I hear you are in town, hear you are in bad trouble, you know? I feel bad, mon. Too-bad.” He grinned. “But t’ings are bad wid I, too mon. Po-lice watch I too much, you know? I and I give you this money. Other t’ing is too much risk, mon. You understand I?”
Kieran nodded.
“Thanks,” he said, pocketing the money. “I’ll get this back to you as soon as I can. I . . . Stay cool, mon ami.”
“I be cool, mon. Always cool. You keep the money, mon. Jah know that we are friends. What is money, then? Is only Babylon. Poor or rich, I and I be happy. Give I the smoke and the reggae, you know, mon? Let the baldheads keep Babylon.”
Does that make me a Rasta as well? Kieran wondered. He too had left the cities, the “Babylon,” for the simpler life down east. He took Johnnie’s hand and squeezed it tightly.
The Rastaman smiled and took another hit from his spliff.
“You remember your friend To-by, mon?” he asked.
“Sure. What about him?”
“He too is in town, you know? He plays the music.”
Johnnie mimed playing a fiddle.
“Where’s he playing?”
“In the club Faces, mon. Is down Bank, you know? Maybe he can help you where I and I cannot, hey?”
“It’s a thought.”
Kieran hadn’t seen Toby for a long time. Not since the days of The Humors, with Eamon and Tim and John Sanders.
“You have a lively time, mon.”
Kieran smiled.
“Salut,” he said as he stepped into the hall.
The music from Johnnie Too-bad’s stereo followed him down the stairs.
Kieran Foy, Sara repeated to herself for about the hundredth time after she finished talking to Linda. It was five-thirty and she was locking up the store. Well, now she had a name to go with the face, but it didn’t help any. She wasn’t really sure what knowing his name should do. Perhaps she should go to Faces tonight and try to find something out about him from Toby. She didn’t know Toby all that well. Enough to say hello to and that was about it. Still, he’d have no reason not to talk to her, would he?
She decided to have dinner at Patty’s Place, the small Irish restaurant across the street from Faces. That way she’d be able to see Toby as soon as he showed up at the club. She’d rather talk to him before he started his first set.
She set off south on Bank. It wasn’t a long walk. Just past Lansdowne Park and across the bridge. At the corner of Fifth and Bank she paused, stopped by the usual question of whether or not she’d actually locked up the store when she left. Looking back, she never noticed the plainclothes RCMP officer who slipped into the doorway of the Herb and Spice Shop, waiting there for her to turn around and cross the street before he set off after her once more.
RCMP Constable Paul Thompson was determined not to blow this assignment. He was still pissed at how Foy had got by him last night. They should’ve had a man on the back door. . . . He shrugged. Well, that was then and this was now. He kept to an easy pace, letting his subject gain a fair-sized lead on him. She wasn’t going to get away on him.
6:30, Wednesday evening.
Tucker was in his office, just starting on his dinner. He pulled the plastic lid off his coffee and unwrapped a ham and cheese sandwich. He had had time for one bite when Hogue came into his office.
“Am I disturbing you, Inspector?”
Always, Tucker thought. He motioned Hogue to take a seat and took another bite.
“It’s about your report,” Hogue said. “How accurate are the conversation transcripts?”
Tucker frowned. “What do you want to know for?”
“There’s no need to be so antagonistic, Inspector. We’re supposed to be on the same team.”
Like hell we are. Tucker attempted a smile.
“What’s your question, Hogue?”
“When you were taking Miss Kendell’s statement she mentioned something about a dream. A bad one. ‘Something made me remember it just now,’ you have her down as saying. Can you recall what it was that keyed her in? Something you said?”
“What’s the difference?”
Hogue sighed. “The difference is, we’re looking for people with special powers. You obviously thought her remark about her dream was important enough to enter into your report. I think it’s important too. Remember Foy with his ‘feeling’?”
“It’s hardly the same thing, Hogue. I make out those reports in such detail to give myself something to think about. If I wanted real accuracy, I’d have them make out statements and sign them, see?”
Hogue tapped the report against his knee.
“I want that girl in here,” he said.
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’? I’ve got this feeling about her—”
“You got a feeling, Hogue? Then run your fucking tests on yourself. You’ve got enough controls to fill up ten file drawers. You don’t need another.”
“I don’t want her as a control. I want her because she might be—”
“Look, Hogue. She’s not one of your spooks, okay? I’ve talked to her. And to Tams. Now they might be hiding something, I’ll grant you that, but what it is is my business. Not yours. Stick to your lab. You’ve already screwed up this operation enough as it is.”
“I’ve already spoken to the Superintendent,” Hogue said. “He agrees with me. Apparently—”
“Oh, yeah?”
Tucker slammed his sandwich down and punched Madison’s number on his phone, wishing the pushbuttons were Hogue’s face.
“Wally?” he said when he got through. “Who do you want handling this Project? Me or that bright-eyed lab bunny that’s parked his ass in my office?”
“What do you mean, John? He has a pretty good idea there. The Minister’s making nervous noises and this woman looks like the perfect thing to allay him with. Something hard, you know? To explain our budget.”
“Screw the Minister. And his budget. We’ve been running this operation Hogue’s way. That’s why we’re in the position we’re in now. We pick up that woman now and you’ll blow what I’ve been working on.”
Madison sighed on the other end of the line and Tucker knew what he was doing. He was weighing the problem he had with the Minister right now, against the previous problems that Tucker had pulled him out of. Tucker wasn’t worried about which’d come out on top. He knew Madison too well.
“Okay, John,” Madison said. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”
“I need till the end of the week.”
“I can’t wait that long. Williams wants results—last week.”
“I need till the end of the week.”
“What am I supposed to tell Williams?”
“The end of the week, Wally.”
Madison sighed again. “Okay, John. You’ve got it. But don’t let me down.”
“I won’t.” Tucker hung up and regarded Hogue. “Get out of my office, asshole.”
Hogue’s face went red. “I’ve had just about as much of your abuse as I can take, Inspector.”
“So go fill out a grievance. Just leave me alone.”
Hogue looked as if he was going to say something else, but under Tucker’s glare he only stalked out of the Inspector’s office. Tucker shook his head.
It probably hadn’t been such a good idea to verbalize his feelings about Hogue, but it certainly made him feel better. Besides, it wasn’t like it was coming as a surprise to the jerk. But enough fun and games. Now he had to get some results. Picking up his sandwich, he headed for the radio room to see if either of his men had called in. Under his arm was a thick set of files containing all that the RCMP had on James Stewart Tamson (aka Jamie Tams), his father, his grandfather, and Tamson House.
There was a lot of money happening in the Tamson circle of influence. Kendell Communications. Tamson’s own money. And that house. From a skim through the files, it appeared that the place was a clearing house for all the weirdos that came through Ottawa. Investigations had proven there was nothing sinister happening there, but that didn’t sit right with Tucker. Maybe the previous investigators had been looking for the wrong kind of things. To Tucker’s way of thinking, Tamson House seemed the perfect place for someone like Hengwr or Foy to hide out. Indefinitely, if need be. But before he cracked down on that place, he wanted a little more information on Tamson himself. And his niece Sara Kendell.
There was nothing for him in the radio room. Laying the files on the desk in a corner of the room, he settled down to give them another serious study.
Chapter Six
The first thing Kieran did after leaving Johnnie Too-bad’s apartment was get himself something to eat. He left Sandy Hill, crossing the Rideau Canal by way of the Laurier Avenue Bridge, and made his way down to Elgin Street. He ended up at Pepper’s, a small restaurant near the corner of Frank Street that did a booming business with the hip crowd that had made Elgin Street their own during the past year or so. Sitting near the window, he reviewed what he had to go on so far.
It wasn’t, he admitted, a whole lot. Tom was gone and the horsemen wanted him. Wanted both of them. Why? The face of the Mountie he’d questioned last night popped into his mind. He’d said something about paranormal research, that the horsemen had set up a special branch to investigate those mysteries that science couldn’t explain. Kieran shook his head. Lord lifting Jesus! The Way might have some outward psychokinetic trappings, but it went far beyond that. You might as well pick up a couple of Zen monks or a Norindian shaman and give them a good going over while you were at it.
Kieran could just imagine the old man in the horsemen’s labs.
“The Way is real, but it has no form. It is attainable by any who dare to follow it, but the journey is long and the rewards cannot be weighed by your present values. First you must attain an inner stillness—attain it and maintain it. Without conscious effort. That is the heart of the Way: inner silence. The old language has a word to describe it: taw. It means the silence that is like music. Strength through harmony. Once you have attained it, nothing is impossible.”
What would the Mounties have to say about that? It was what the old man had told him . . . at least ten years ago now. Tom had described the journey as similar to the twenty-one years it took one of the old harpers to become a true bard. Seven years learning. Seven years practice. Seven years playing. Kieran still had another eleven years to go himself by that reckoning. And then? When it was done?
“Why you begin again,” Tom had told him. “There is never an end. But with each step you take on the journey, your heart will become more pure, your taw will grow more still. And the silent music inside you will become more profound. Understand this, Kier. The Way is the world, and you travel it to attain harmony with and within the greater all. Nothing more.
“But harmony—that is not such a little thing in itself, now is it? Peace. A balance. They are only words. Only when you begin to achieve that harmony will you understand. And then—why then the words won’t matter anymore.”
When Kieran had begun to understand, he found himself no more able than the old man to put his feelings into words. The Way was beyond words. And this the horsemen wanted to put in their lab and study? Nom de tout! Why not try to harness moonlight while they were at it?
But Kieran knew the reasons behind this research. They saw power in it. If they even believed, they saw only the power. They would never understand that that power could not and should not be possessed without a commensurate inner strength. Oh, there were aspects that could be utilized without that deeper understanding, but in the end they led only to destruction. Self-destruction. But misguided or not, the Mounties were a hindrance to his search, and a danger. Kieran was only interested in finding Tom. He didn’t need the man on his tail, making what was turning into a difficult task more difficult.
As he finished his meal, he came to a decision. He had little to go on, true enough. But he did have something. Johnnie Too-bad had given him the lead: Toby Finnegan. Though none of the old band had fully understood the relationship between Kieran and Tom (how did one explain a sorcerous tutorship in twentieth-century terms?), they’d all come to know the old man pretty well. If Toby was gigging again, he might have heard something.
It wasn’t much, but it was worth a shot. Kieran paid his bill with one of Johnnie Too-bad’s twenties, pocketed the change, and stepped out onto Elgin. The area between his shoulder blades prickled in anticipation. He expected to be stopped at any moment. Sighing, he set off down Elgin, heading for Ottawa South.
Sara pushed the empty fish and chips basket across the table. She had a window seat in Patty’s Place that commanded a good view of the front entrance to Faces. So far she hadn’t seen Toby go in, but it was still early. Just going on to a quarter of seven.
What was she going to accomplish? she asked herself for the umpteenth time. Nothing. Everything. The more she thought of it, the more foolish she felt. She toyed with her ring, following the ridge of its ribbonwork with the pad of her thumb. What would Inspector Tucker think if he knew where the ring had come from?
She sighed. Nothing. Everything. Those two words seemed to sum up her whole feeling on the situation. They were diametrically opposed, but their very contradiction bound them together in her mind. She thought of Sally’s tai chi, which in turn made her think of the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang. Which was what tai chi meant, she realized, dredging the information up from her memory. She’d read a book on it once. The two ch’i. Heaven and Earth. The mountain and the valley.
She sighed. Her mind was wandering. Either her one draft had affected her more than it had any right to, or that sense of clarity that she’d woken up with this morning was wearing off. Or . . . growing stronger.
She was, she realized, feeling a little high. It had nothing to do with the lift she got from drugs or alcohol. It wasn’t a big rushy thing—no colors or special effects. Just a subtle heightening of her awareness.
This is silly, she told herself. She was just getting carried away. Except . . . she did feel different. And ever since that moment when she’d found the ring and the other stuff, unusual things had been happening to her. From the feeling that she was going to fall into the painting to her dream last night and today’s decidedly bizarre events. RCMP manhunts and . . . the dream. . . .
If she closed her eyes she could still see the bones tumbling, the weird faces of the strange beasts/men who were using them to do . . . what? Bear and stag and . . .
She shivered. And something else. Something that had lunged at her with gaping jaws. Dreams and fancies, she told herself, that’s all. That was what she got for playing detective and trying to tie a myriad unassociated events and objects together. Except—
At that moment the front door of the restaurant opened and a sensation like an electric shock went through her. Scratch all chance for this to be other than coincidence, she said to herself, for there in the doorw
ay, dressed in a dark blue pea jacket with a blue touque to match, was the younger man from the Inspector’s pictures. Kieran Foy.
His gaze met hers, then dropped to her ring hand, his eyes widening. A look touched his eyes, like that of a beast at bay. She thought he was going to twist back through the door and escape, so she jumped to her feet and pushed through the tables towards him.
“Please!” she called. “I have to talk to you.”
Now his eyes narrowed. He was looking past her, over her shoulder. But she had almost reached him and didn’t notice.
“Your name’s Kieran Foy, isn’t it?”
She tried to ignore the amused smiles of the restaurant’s other patrons, but then she was looking into Kieran’s face and cold fear replaced her excitement at finding him. His eyes were starting to glow.
It was as he was crossing Lansdowne Bridge that Kieran realized he was no longer alone. Dusk had fallen and the city was lit from within now. Porchlights, streetlamps, the yellow lights that spilled from windows and between half-drawn curtains, the bright glare of headlights from passing cars and buses. The sky above Ottawa was paled with an electrically charged aura that could be seen from miles away. Inside the city, it lightened shadows, added to the general glitter of store window displays, neon lighting, traffic lights.
In the country, where night’s darkness was more complete, night vision was deeper, more focused. The city tended to diffuse that, just as noise pollution muffled the ear’s natural sensitivity. Kieran, who had become naturalized to the ways of the country and lonely stretches of uninhabited coastlines of the Maritimes, felt like he was walking with blinkers and earplugs when he was in a city.
Now as the feeling of being shadowed came to him, he paused on the bridge and looked down at the water in the Rideau Canal. It had been lowered in anticipation of winter when it became the world’s longest ice rink. With the cessation of his own movement, the constant agitation of the city came over him in a rush. He took a couple of deep breaths, quieted the patter of his heart and drew on the stillness inside.