Toronto Noir Page 17

  That was the kicker: the big finale. Then it was handshakes and nervous laughter all around, and a lot of, “Ad absurdum, eh? I like it, I like it.”

  Roller girl leans forward, her breasts perform a tandem sunrise over her low-cut dress. They suggest a shape not unlike two small champagne glasses—the kind designed after the bosoms of Marie Antoinette. Aristocra-tits.

  I don’t mind small breasts. My rack is small too, and they’ve served me well with the ladies, although I usually wind up with larger-breasted girls.

  Roller girl looks over. Probably felt me staring.

  No. Her eyes are glassed over, seeing through me. She curls her tiny nose up and wrinkles her chin, as if suppressing a sneeze. Her nostrils grow wider, as though she’s stopped breathing. Then she gives a tiny snort and pulls her lips back, revealing a pair of sharp incisors. She doesn’t want to cry, but two droplets spill over. Oh, she sees me now. Her black pupils swell into focus. She sees me and glares, spinning around to face the bay of phones.

  Must be a telephone breakup. Crap boyfriend. He’s probably cheating on her too, or at least she suspects it. Although maybe not. Girls being cheated on usually go for the jugular, play the hysterical card. They don’t even try not to cry.

  She hangs up the phone and half turns her head. Funny, I don’t remember hearing her say boo into the phone. It’s like she just took it, whatever it was.

  The lady and the businessman stand up. Two trains boarding, mine included. Roller girl’s sitting down, legs tucked underneath her, crying a little more obviously now. Platform 3B, ten minutes to departure. Oh what the hell, I guess I have time.

  “You okay?” I say to the top of her head.

  “Please,” she says, pushing her hair back, looking up. Her makeup is smudged from here to last night. “What?” Her words are heavily accented.

  “Do you need help?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Should I leave you alone?”

  She squints her face up. Her eyes are light brown, babypoo brown.

  “Do you have a problem?” I say slowly, idiotically. “Do … you … need … help?” I make a futile gesture with my hands.

  She looks down, wipes her nose childishly, and then starts, as though she has an idea. Craning her neck to see behind me, she leans out, taking in the concourse from left to right. I check the time. Seven minutes to go. The train on track 3B is westbound to Oakville …

  “If you’re okay, I have to go catch the train now, it’s just, you seemed upset …”

  “I go train,” she says quickly. “You go?”

  “Mississauga,” I say. “Clarkson. You?”

  She nods her head. “Yes!” she says, smiling with a mouthful of tiny white teeth, all crooked, but sweetly arranged. “Take me?”

  “Train is going now,” I say. “You live in Mississauga, going there?”

  “Yes, train. Sauga.”

  “I go now,” I say, adopting her caveman speak. “You want come?”

  She swings her knees around, tight skirt clinging to her thighs, and stands up awkwardly. Flash of black panties, porcelain skin. The rollerblades come off the floor with a clatter.

  We hurry across the room to the escalator. I step aside to let roller girl go up first. She keeps glancing back, as though she’s trying to catch me at something. Maybe she’s realized I’m gay. Some women are like that, as though you’ll automatically find them irresistible. She must think I’m watching her ass the whole way up. As it happens, she wouldn’t be half wrong.

  We get to the platform, the hulking green double-decker in view. She hesitates.

  “You’re sure you want the GO train?” I ask. “Not subway? Underground? Metro?”

  She shakes her head emphatically.

  “Clark-son,” she replies, smiling a little.

  “This is the one,” I say, stepping past her into the train. The doors have started beeping. She scoots in behind me. I lead the way upstairs and locate two window seats on the halflevel. We interrupt the pair sitting on the aisle. I don’t get train-sick, so I let roller girl have the forward-facing side. She pulls her skirt down as far as it will go and sits, offloading her purse and rollerblades between our feet.

  The train starts up, slow and clunking. I lean my head on the window frame and close my eyes. I’m about to settle into my commuter-nap, when I hear roller girl gasp. She pushes her body back into her seat, away from the glass. I look out onto the platform, but there’s just some guy there, overweight and wearing a too-small suit buttoned over his paunch. He’s out of breath, brown comb-over flapping in the breeze like a question mark above his head. He gives the train a hard stare, heads back downstairs. I look over at roller girl, but her eyes are closed now, lips thin, as though she’s holding her breath.

  How old is she? I wonder. With a body like that, could she be a day over eighteen?

  We roll out of Union Station, past the CN Tower, heading west along the highway. I never would have moved to the burbs, but when my parents gave me their condo by the tracks, it seemed stupid to look that gift horse in the mouth. My folks had planned on retiring there, so it’s fully loaded: two bedrooms, two bathrooms, huge closets, and walking distance to everything. It’s so convenient that when they decided to retire to B.C., to be closer to the grandkids (knowing full well they weren’t getting any munchkins out of me), I couldn’t think of how I could say no.

  Roller girl’s head lolls forward, her legs slightly splayed. I take off my jacket and lay it across her lap. I don’t know why I’m protecting the modesty of a girl who chooses to wear a dress like that, but I feel a whole lot better after she’s covered up. She doesn’t stir, and I don’t think she’s faking. Her hands are half-open, limp. Hands don’t lie.

  I wake up around Port Credit. Roller girl smiles. She’s pulled my jacket up to her chin and curled her arms behind it. My mouth is dry. I fish an old bottle of Evian out of my briefcase, peel my tongue off the back of my teeth, and take a swig, swishing the lukewarm water around like mouthwash.

  “Next stop,” I say. I rotate my finger once forward to make sure she understands.

  “What name?” roller girl says, furrowing her eyebrows. “What. Is. Your. Name,” she says with the emphatic diction of an ESL class.

  “Chris,” I say, trying to look pleased. I’m still asleep. “Yours?”

  “Magda.”

  “Nice to meet you, Magda,” I say, speaking slowly. I reach out to shake her hand. She smiles.

  “Yes,” she says. Her hand is small, but not soft. She must work, I think, although how she can do anything with those nails is beyond me. Maybe they’re acrylic. “Nice you,” she says, to the rhythm of a gentle shake. “Nice. To. Meet. You.”

  We let go and look to the window. After a minute, I stand up and Magda hands me my jacket. She scoops her blades and bag off the floor and shimmies down the stairs behind me. Magda holds onto the passenger pole, swaying. I wonder who her friends are—maybe cousins? I imagine a gaggle of leggy blondes on the platform, waiting for Magda. Meet friend, Chris? I should be so lucky. No, it’ll be a short walk back to the condo, followed by a half-hearted root around the freezer. I wonder if there’s still some lemon sole in there. Fishtastic, I think.

  The train pulls into the station.

  “This is it!” I smile at Magda, pointing ridiculously.

  We wait for the doors to open and step out. Magda keeps pace with me along the platform. Too bad, I was sort of hoping to lose her in the crowd. I walk to the edge of the Kiss-n-Ride, then turn to say goodbye. Cars wait expectantly like so many famished pigeons, edging forward to collect their passengers before moving away.

  “Goodbye, Magda. Nice meeting you. You wait here, yes?

  For your friends?”

  “No friends,” she says.

  “Don’t worry, your friends will come.”

  “No friends,” she says again. “You friend. I go with you.”

  “Whoa, Magda, what are you talking about?”

  �
��Go with you, Clark-son.” She’s not smiling anymore, she’s holding onto my arm. “Chris, friend.”

  “You can’t just come with me.”

  “Please!” she says, eyes wide, tugging at my arm. A couple walk past and pause, looking on.

  “Aw shit, Magda, no. You can’t come with me. No,” I say, untangling my arm. “Sorry. No.”

  She edges her lower lip forward, eyes even wider.

  “Sorry, Magda. Goodbye.” I turn around. Don’t look back, Chris, keep walking. But I hear the clattering of her rollerblades as she follows along behind me.

  “No friends, Chris,” she says. “No house.”

  I turn around. “Why did you take the train, then?”

  “Go with you!”

  I turn and keep walking, but I only manage two steps before looking back. She’s got her hand on her head, face crinkled up in panic. I feel like such a prick.

  “Fine!” I shout to her. “Okay? Fine. My house.”

  “Yes,” she says, “Please, yes. Thank you!”

  “But anything funny and I call the police, all right? You know, police?” Yeah, call the police and say what, exactly?

  Magda nods, wipes her face, and pushes her hair behind her ears. We set off. As we exit the parking lot and turn onto the sidewalk, a red minivan leads the pack. It inches by, then speeds up and turns a corner.

  Magda keeps her mouth shut, probably sensing that I’m pissed off. I’d already done my bit. Now she’s on her way to my house? We turn down the nondescript drive that leads to my condo. I enter the punch code, unlock the lobby door, and hold it open while Magda wriggles past. She waits for me at the elevator. We don’t meet anyone in the corridor. I’m glad. With an average age of seventy-five-plus, Magda’s outfit could set off a string of heart attacks on my floor.

  I leave her standing in my living room and go to the bathroom, locking myself in. Just calm down, I think, this isn’t a crisis. All you have to do is feed her, put her to bed, and then find some charity hole on the Internet you can deliver her to in the morning. She’s just a kid. It’s one night. Whoever she’s running away from, she probably just needs to think things over before going back. I take a few deep breaths; watch my face in the mirror. My skin looks tough, wrinkled. How the hell did I get to be thirty-eight?

  I’ve calmed down and am up to my elbows in the freezer, trying to decide between salmon steaks or lemon sole, when the switchboard buzzer rings. I pick up the line. I can hear the shower going—Magda must be getting clean.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m wondering if you could help me?”

  “That depends.”

  “Look, my car won’t start, and wouldntchaknowit, my cell phone’s dead too. I need to borrow someone’s phone to call my wife and the CAA. I’ve rung a whole bunch of buzzers. Would you mind coming down to help me out? Bring your cell phone, if you’ve got one, and we can make this quick.”

  “Has anyone else picked up yet? I’m sort of in the middle of cooking and—”

  “Thanks, I’d really appreciate it. You won’t believe the kind of day I’m having.”

  Click.

  Well thanks a lot, buddy; you wouldn’t believe the sonofabitchofaday I’m having too.

  I wash my hands, grab my cell, and call the elevator. I don’t bother to tell Magda—she’s still in the shower, and at this point I don’t want to see any more of her than I have to. The elevator picks up two college students from the second floor, and Carl and Jenny are already in the lobby downstairs. Geez, this guy really did push all the buzzers.

  I see Mrs. Fitzgerald from 3G outside, babbling beside a red minivan. She waves and I go to join her, but my hand freezes on the door release. It’s the comb-over man from the train platform, coming around the minivan. He points at me and smiles, saying something to old lady Fitzgerald that I can’t hear. The sweet thing laughs with one hand over her mouth, looks back at me, and then continues muttering away.

  Comb-over waves at me to come outside. I raise my hand to decline, and back away. I tell Carl and Jenny that I’ve left something cooking on the stove. This is too weird. I take the stairs to the second floor. I can see the red van from the stairwell window. Comb-over has climbed into the driver’s seat. He tries the ignition and, when the van starts up, raises his hands in a dumbfounded expression. Fitzgerald laughs. Comb-over shakes his head for a minute, then waves goodbye. He gives the building a final once-over, and drives away.

  I’m pretty shaken up. Could this guy have followed us all the way from Union? He would have had to go to every station and watch the passengers unload. And why the brokendown car—if he were looking for Magda, couldn’t he just ring all the buzzers and ask if she were home?

  Not if Magda didn’t want to be found.

  When I get back upstairs, Magda’s changed into one of my old T-shirts: a smiley face with a bullet hole through the forehead. She must have rooted through the bathroom chest of drawers. She smiles and slides onto one of the stools by the breakfast bar. She’s beautiful without makeup, a real Barbie doll. Damn. I clear my throat and leave the room, fish my old bathrobe out of the closet, and hand it over. If I’m going to figure this out, I need to be able to concentrate. She puts the robe on and I start getting down to the business of cooking dinner. I always think best when my hands are busy.

  Okay, so if this comb-over guy showing up here is just a random coincidence, then there’s nothing to worry about, right? But if he followed us from Union and saw Magda come in here with me, and if, let’s say, he’s used this prank to find out my name, he’ll be back. Either way, I’ve got to figure out what’s going on, and fast.

  Sorting this out would be easy enough if Magda could actually talk to me, but with her English … ?

  “Magda, are you in trouble?”

  “Thank you, Chris,” she says, indicating the bathrobe.

  “Where are you from?”

  She shakes her head. She doesn’t understand.

  “Polish? Hungarian? … Romanian? Russian?” Nothing.

  I go into the bedroom, find my laptop, and bring it to the kitchen. I connect to the wireless and search for free online Polish translation.

  “Magda, Polski?”

  She laughs, nods her head. “Yes, Polski.”

  Oh god, lucky break.

  I start typing. There was a man here looking for you. I click on Translate and show her the screen. Her smile dies on her face.

  “Type,” I say to her. “Type in Polski.”

  I gesture at the keyboard. She two-finger types and pushes it back at me. I click Translate.

  —He (it) is a bad man.

  I take a deep breath.

  —Why is he a bad man? I write.

  —He (it) produce I make bad thing with people.

  —Why did you get on the train?

  —It ran away from bad person.

  —Should we phone the police?

  —If I call police, he (it) will kill me. He (it) will kill my family. He (it) say that owe money. I must pay. If sufficient amount pay him (it) money; he (it) will leave me sole. I make bad thing with people to produce sufficient money.

  —How much money does he want?

  She shrugs her shoulders. She’s hugging her knees up on the stool, rocking back and forth.

  —What should we do? I type.

  She shakes her head. “Don’t know,” she says out loud. She types something and clicks the mouse.

  —Hide away?

  Oh crap.

  I get up and turn off the rice burner and pull the fish out of the oven. It looks and smells like fish, so it’ll do. I empty a bag of pre-washed mixed greens into a bowl with some cherry tomatoes and pour out a half-finished bottle of white wine into two glasses. Liquid courage. We might even be able to manage a little dinner conversation.

  By the time I sit down at the table, Magda has typed another message for me.

  —I understand you like girls.

  I look up at her. She
runs a finger along her lips. Then types again.

  —I like girls too.

  I smile awkwardly and give her a thumbs-up sign. Then I hand her a fork and a plate of fish. I’m not going anywhere with those thoughts right now.

  After dinner, we settle on the sofa with bowls of ice cream and I switch on the TV. I bring the laptop in there too, in case there’s something we want to say to each other. I give Magda the remote. She settles on one of those stations that play nonstop makeover shows. It seems not much is lost in the translation—she cackles right on cue with the purchase of an ugly shirt and tie.

  It’s after midnight and Magda is doing the last of the dishes when the phone rings.

  “This won’t take very long,” says the voice on the line, “if you listen carefully.”

  “Hello?” I say. “Who is this?”

  “I know Magda is there, and I don’t want this conversation to be even a second longer than need be.” Comb-over?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, buying time.

  “Cut the crap. There are these things called phone books, and once some old bitty gives you a name and you have an address, it’s easy-peasy to look a number up. I know you’re in there, and I know Magda is in there too.”

  Easy-peasy. I want to laugh. His scratchy voice sounds exactly like a pimp, or at least a bad dramatization of a pimp. Magda looks over anxiously.

  “What do you want?” I say.

  “I want my employee back, or I want you to pay for her time.”

  “I didn’t ask her to come here.”

  “That’s of little concern to me. Right now, whether you choose to accept it or not, you are in possession of my property, and you are not paying for its use. So, if you would like to keep her there, you either hand over her rate in cash, or you hand Magda over, understand?”

  “And what if I don’t? What if I call the cops instead?”

  “Well, then you have made some pretty powerful enemies; enemies who know where you live. And don’t think you’ll be doing Magda any favors either, calling the police. We’ll just recruit her twelve-year-old little sister back in Poland. I can’t wait to ripen that tender ass. Plus, once Maggie’s deported back to Poland, we’ll just pick her up and put her right back into harness.”