The Missing Boatman Part 27

The hotel also had an ample bar and both decided that a couple of beers before calling it a night would be a good idea. Take the edge off. The place was dark, full of polished wood and tables, and practically deserted apart from them and the bartender. The bartender was from Quebec, and Danny surprised Crew by speaking French to him. He was a young man, clean shaven, and his eyes brightened for a brief moment before answering, "Oui, oui," to Danny's orders. They made themselves comfortable at a table well away from the bar and settled in for the first round. Crew heard of the brew they made up here, but he had never really tried any of it. After two bottles of Moosehead, he was thinking of importing it.

"Good beer."

"Not bad," Danny shrugged. Crew thought the man was a mountain about to fall over.

"Where'd you learn to speak French?" Crew asked.

"School," Danny answered, eyes downcast.

"Really? Learned Spanish in mine. Had the option to do j.a.panese, too."

"Spanish is a cool sounding language."

"So is French."

"Aw," Danny drew out, "it's okay. Not too much opportunity to speak it though. Sometimes we'd shoot over to New Brunswick there and speak a few words to the locals, but that's it. Nothing big."

They talked for another hour during which Crew drank another two beers and the room took on a fishbowl quality. He also noticed his words were becoming slurred in some places. No wonder Buffalo and Detroit teens were making runs across the border to get at this s.h.i.+t. To wait until you were twenty one was a crime.

"Good beer," he commented.

Danny nodded. "You keep saying that. How you doing over there?"

"Pretty good," Crew said, leaning back in his chair and making it creak. He drum- patted his belly. "How about you?"

"There's a snap on, alright," Danny admitted. "Must be all of the driving getting to me. Haven't done that before. Sometimes, after the bar closed early, Gary-I mean Mr. Tigh-Boom and I would slam back a few Mooseheads. Many a good soldier would perish on those nights."

Crew listened to the music playing in the background. "They're good, aren't they," he stated, referring to the two men.

Danny met his eyes. "They are... my best friends."

Crew held up his bottle, and Danny met it with his own. The bottle necks clicked together. "

"To finding the prey," Crew toasted grimly.

Danny nodded. They drank, and for a moment, Crew believed the big man was weeping. Crew looked away, suddenly interested in the nearby tables, and downed his beer. He then signalled the barkeep for two more.

"Two more for the toad--I mean road?" Crew asked.

"Yeah," Danny said rubbing at the side of his nose. "You watch 'Star Wars?'"

Crew's brow arched with interest. "'Star Wars?' Yeah, I've seen it. The old ones, right?"

"Yeah, episode four."

"Then yeah, I've seen it."

"What cha think of the music?"

"The music?"

"Yeah."

The bar guy came over with their beers and placed them on the table. Crew paid the man before answering. "Good, I guess."

"Boom would say that's music to have s.e.x to. That and 'Superman.'"

A smile spread across Crew's face. "That so? Yeah, I guess it would be."

"Next time you hear it, you'll be thinking of it. Guaranteed. I've tried it, actually, and the man has a point."

"Superman, too?"

"Nah, not superman," Danny scoffed. "That'd be too much. I can see my lady's eyes rolling over now if I tried some s.h.i.+t like that. 'Star Wars' is acceptable."

Crew swallowed a mouthful of beer and chuckled. "What about the music from the cantina part, then? That good for s.e.x, too?"

"Foreplay," Danny answered, and they both smiled. "Got you thinkin' now, eh?"

"Yeah, you do," Crew chuckled. "I liked all them movies though. Except episode six. 'Return of the Jedi.'"

"What was wrong with that?"

Crew leaned forward. "Okay. You got this planet right, and the new Death Star's force field generator down there, and the Emperor's got a legion of his finest stormtroopers down there guarding it. a.s.s kickers to the last, and they get f.u.c.king pummelled by a bunch of spear-chucking teddy bears. How the h.e.l.l does that happen?"

"Merchandizing," Danny sympathized. "Boom and I argued over the same point."

"What point?"

"How the stormtroopers could get stomped by a bunch of teddy bears."

"So he agreed?"

"Nope. The other way. He figures-and this is his opinion only-that we only saw glimpses of a ma.s.s attack. Thousands of the little Ewok b.a.s.t.a.r.ds swarming over the stormtroopers. The white boys just didn't have a chance."

Crew considered the idea. "He's got a point there. But you don't see it well enough in the movie."

Danny pointed a finger at the man. "My counter exactly. You don't see it well enough in the movie. You could do it now with all of the CGI stuff going on. I mean, look at 'Lord of the Rings'. Great stuff."

"Not exactly the kind of debates I expect from a couple of bouncers at a strip club," Crew stated thoughtfully, squinting at the other man.

"s.h.i.+t, we talk about everything there. Politics to sports. World Events. h.e.l.l, I even have my own web site up."

"Really?"

"Selling sports' paraphernalia. Ca.s.sius' Clay's first set of boxing gloves. Stuff like that."

"What?" Crew did not bother covering up the amazement in his voice.

"h.e.l.l, yes," Danny nodded. "Can't work at the Beacon forever. I got boxes of old baseball cards and hockey cards. Plan to retire on the money I make off the s.h.i.+t. Plan to just travel around to conventions, selling my merchandise, and picking up whatever I can for the best price I can get. Even selling some of it on E-bay."

This was impressing Crew no end. "Sounds good to me." He took another shot of beer. This Moosehead brew got better by the bottle.

Danny watched him. The beer was making him talkative. "Oh, yeah, I could retire in a year, I figure. I got enough stock to keep me going."

"Stock?" Crew almost laughed.

Danny nodded slowly in earnest, a very sly expression on his face.

"So why are you working at a strip joint?" Crew wanted to know.

Danny smiled. "I enjoy my job. You should see some of the ladies working at our place. Mr. Tigh brings in some pretty talent." He sighed heavily.

Crew could only grin back. "I bet he does. Bet he does."

"So what about you, then?" Danny turned over. "What retirement plans do you have?"

The beer bottle suddenly fascinated the h.e.l.l out of Crew, and he turned it round and round watching the beer inside slosh about. "That's something I can't talk about."

Danny chuckled. "Should've waited for beer number six."

"Maybe you should've," Crew agreed, but what he left unsaid was, no matter how drunk he got, he always remembered what he did the night before. And he would certainly remember giving away any personal retirement plans. His retirement meant disappearing. Up and into the wind like a baby's fart. And he would not dare consider letting his own mother know what his plans were, let alone the bouncer and part-time sports' stuff collector across the table from him. As much as he was beginning to like this Danny character, Crew did not want to tell the man anything he would later regret.

Things he regretted had a way of dying.

They both had a sixth beer, and by that point, Crew knew he would be a hurting unit in the morning. In truth, he suspected he was going to hurt after the fourth beer. Number six was there in hopes of making the pain go away.

They talked on into the night. Though quiet when sober, Danny could talk on and on when he was buzzed. And his anecdotes about drunken patrons at the Beacon were amusing to say the least if not hilarious at times. The stories went on until midnight when they both decided to call it a night.

"You driving tomorrow?" Danny said as they went back to the room.

"h.e.l.l no, you're driving! And not too fast, either."

"Beer's good, eh?"

"Way too good. s.h.i.+t." Crew staggered a bit in the soft lit corridor. "You don't snore, do you?"

"No." Danny shook his head. "Not me. Not that you're going to hear anything."

"Got that right."

"Boom could snore. That boy has a buzz saw in his throat. Nasty deboning s.h.i.+t like someone having their spine ripped out."

Crew grimaced. A memory popped into his head of another place and time where a chainsaw was involved. And the victim that died by it.

They got to the room without accident. Danny unlocked the door and closed it when they were both inside. They fumbled about as drunken men do before falling into their beds. Crew undressed down to a pair of dark satin boxers, and collapsed on his bed face down. In the darkness of the room, his muscular back looked intimidating. He muttered something which caught Danny's attention as he was heading for the can.

"Yeah, man," Danny answered. "I'll get you some water." He believed that Moosehead number six was just landing on the wasted surface of Crew's brain. All his systems were shutting down in stupor. Danny looked at the man for a moment, then hauled off a beige blanket from his bed. He covered Crew up with the blanket and moved the garbage can from the bathroom to his bed, right below his head. Just in case. Crew mumbled something again as Danny set the can down.

"Yeah, sure," Danny said.

Another slur of words as if the man's tongue was in a snowy river full of slow moving ice.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Danny a.s.sured the man. He didn't have the slightest idea what Crew was talking about. He was a quiet character, but opened up when the beer started to flow. He reminded Danny of himself. He also reminded him of a Halifax cop by the name of Rod Crouse. On a blue moon, Rod would appear at the Beacon and chat with both Danny and Boomer. An affable enough person, Boomer had characterized the man in a second.

"Nice enough guy, but watch what you say around him. He's off duty when he comes here. Give him a reason to come here when he's on duty, and we'd see a different man. He has a job to do and if you become part of that job, the bad part of that job, he'd take you down without thinking. Maybe he'll feel like s.h.i.+t afterwards, but he'd still take you down cuz that's what he does. So just watch what you say around him. He don't want to hear about it, anyway. And don't let no one know he's a cop. He's just a regular guy here enjoying a T-show."

Danny got into his bed. He folded his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. Somewhere outside, phantom engines went by every now and again. His eyes got used to the dark, and he eventually closed them. Boomer's words were still in his mind, and his friend's smile was behind Danny's closed eyelids, keeping him awake. Just like the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, too, Danny thought as a tide of weariness pulled him under.

At 4:05 in the chill of the morning, a black Toyota two-door pickup pulled into the parking lot of the hotel where Danny and Crew were sleeping. Brake lights flared red illuminating the exhaust like the breath of a dragon. The truck did a slow slanting ninety degree turn and parked itself next to Danny's Celica. The engine rumbled, sighed and went to sleep. With the motor dead, the interior quickly chilled. The cold did not bother Fear. He sat in the darkness of the truck and stared out at the street lights blazing like yellow stars against the night. He would wait until morning, until the pair of men emerged from the hotel and got aboard their car. He would then commandeer the vehicle, and the three of them would spite time and travel to British Columbia, which reminded Fear that he would have to make a phone call.

He turned to his driver. The p.u.s.s.y-beard had become a frosty, lifeless white as had the man's hair. The man's eyes darted in his pa.s.senger's direction as if he were about to be given the beating of the century. He pressed himself up against the driver's door, huffs of breath bursting from his nostrils, picking up speed. A snot bubble exploded in one nostril, but the man was beyond caring.

"You have a cell phone?" Fear asked the terrified driver he had hijacked back at the Black Bear.

There was a frantic nod.

"Give it to me."

The driver almost tore his coat pocket off in his frenzied attempt to get it; his hand was shaking so hard the nerves were thrumming. He dropped the device into Fear's hand as respectfully as he could manage, given the state he was in, and jerked it back as if he had come into contact with something unholy.

Fear ignored the man. He flipped the phone open and dialled a nine digit number. It went through, and while Fear waited, he regarded the cell phone's picture of a golden Labrador Retriever.

Fear hated dogs.

"h.e.l.lo?" Time answered. "Who is this?"

"It's me."

A pause. "What do you want?"

"I need to get to B.C."

"Now?"

"Soon. In the morning."

"Have you seen something?"

"Two things. Two men. I'm waiting for them. When they get here, we'll go."

Another pause on the line.

"Lucy is in B.C." Time said.

"b.i.t.c.h."

"Well, she didn't say that of you."