
Killer Moves

Warren Court
Killer Moves

(1st edition)

Copyright © 2019 Warren Court

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form (except for brief passages for the purposes of review) without the express written consent of the author

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

For Tina and Katherine
ONE

I see the old man's rusting Jaguar XJ6 in its reserved spot and I quicken my pace across Henderson Moving and Storage's parking lot. Jack Henderson, the old man, is in early for a Monday. Our weekly sales meeting is at nine. I'm not late – it's one minute to nine – but if Henderson is already here it means the meeting is starting early. I am probably already late. And my numbers aren't so hot. They've never been hot; lukewarm at best for a couple of months this past spring, even though I thought I was finally getting the hang of this job.

I price out moves. I come into your home, count up all your stuff, tell you how much it's going to cost and then book the truck. Sometimes you say "yes," but most times you say "no thanks" or "we'll get back to you."

During the spring I had a couple of back-to-back big moves that just fell into my lap. I remember those times – high-fives in the morning with the other guys. Laughs around the office. Rick, my manager, the old man's youngest son and heir apparent, was even warming up to me, as much as is possible with him. He's known as Rick the Prick.

Then the summer hit. The busiest time in the moving business and my sales dry up to a trickle. Busiest day of the year, June 30th, I book only a six-hour move. Normally we have to turn business away we're so full. The guys on that move were happy; they got off work early ahead of the long weekend.

I'm almost at the door into the office and I step in a pothole and get a soaker. Nice. That'll help me when I have to go do an estimate at the home of some millionaire's lakeshore mansion later on today. My wet sock, soiled with dirt and motor oil, on their white Persian rugs will help throw that sale right in the shitter. Laura, our customer service manager, will probably get a call about it. Sending a bum like that out to see them – why, they never...

I rush past Laura's desk with just a nod. She's on the phone and gives me a grimace, knows I'm in trouble. She's British, with sexy long black hair. Dark-rimmed glasses. Normally I would stop and flirt with her, but not today. I pause at the door of the conference room, straighten my tie, take a deep breath, open the door and dive in.

"It should help us with cross-border orders. I checked with PMJ. They got it rolled out last year."

That's Darryl Henderson doing the talking, Jack's oldest son. Friendly. Natural salesman. But there's something missing there. Not leadership material. Darryl gives me an eye and a wink as he's speaking. I'm no Louis Vuitton or Ralph Lauren myself, but Darryl dresses like a circus clown. Pea soup–coloured jacket and purple pants. A garish tie. I'm surprised he doesn't have a flower on his lapel that shoots water. He has a seventies-style bushy moustache and his hair is slicked back. Darryl must have his mother's genes; his hair is thick, shiny, and brown. Like his momma's bush, one of the other sales guys cracked the other day. Sent us into hysterics. His father is in a mid-comb-over gesture that involves him bringing his big meaty farmer's hand up over his bald head and moving twenty remaining strands of silver white hair to the other side of his dome. Go bald, Jack; revel in it. Bald is in.

Everyone is in their seat. Mine is at the other end of the table, pressed into the corner. There's no slipping in late here. I don't offer an apology. I'm not late; it is nine exactly. The old man would focus on me if I apologized. He might drill down and find out why I was late.

"Don't you take this job seriously?" I can hear him now. He's never been late for work in his life, etcetera, etcetera. I could come back with "I'm not late. It's nine on the dot." But that would only fuel the attack on me. Might even mean the old man would get to my numbers first and lambaste me in front of everyone. So far, he's held off on doing that. I'm still technically on their one-year probation plan. But I've seen him do it many times to the other seasoned vets of the Henderson sales team in my short time here.

I slink past and plop into my chair. Leave my raincoat on and put my briefcase down by my side. My giant businessman briefcase. Gift from the Leombrunis, friends of the family, last Christmas just before I started with Henderson. It was shiny and black with clean beige cloth on the inside and it smelled of leather. The locks shone like jewels, and it seemed enormous when I put my day planner and calculator in it. I added an assortment of nice pens I'd picked up over the years and some crappy throwaway ones. I set the combination to 007 – very cool.

But now, like my career at Henderson Moving and Storage, the shine is off the locks. The leather smell is gone, replaced by the stink of the mouldy cheese sandwich I left in it for a week when I was on vacation. The day planner is filled and a little thick from when I got it wet one day. The pages expanded; now it looks lived in. Not professional at all.

Darryl continues his discussion on the new moving software our national carrier recommended Henderson install. The old man finally caved and took a crowbar to his bank account and splurged on the software package. They put it on one lousy computer, and they put that computer on my desk up on the second floor. I have to teach these old farts how to use it, their reasoning being that I'm the youngest member, not even thirty, and in possession of some measure of computer skills.

I picked up on the software quickly; it's dead easy to use. You plug in the pickup location and destination, add a bunch of moving codes, and it calculates the cost of the move and tariffs and a bunch of other stuff. You hit print and you get a hard copy to take to the client to sign.

I look at Mr. Henderson. He glances only briefly at me, the latecomer, the disturber of his mojo, but that quick stare is enough to freeze my bones and make me swallow hard. Everyone else is relaxed, sitting back doodling on pads. I sit forward in my chair, feigning interest, hoping Darryl talks the entire meeting away and keeps his dad off my back.

On the other side of Jack is Rick, the younger son, as I said, the heir apparent to the throne of the Henderson Moving and Storage empire. He is staring lasers at me, and when I give in finally and let them bore into me for a few seconds he slowly nods and turns his gaze back to his older brother. Rick's suit hangs off him like a wrinkled cape. He's lost thirty-two pounds, he'll tell you, even if you're not interested.

"Got to get to the gym. That's important. More important than anything else." Yeah, fuck off already, fatso used-to-be. At least Rick can put together a good colour combination. He has blonde hair but it's starting to thin. I imagine his old man had that 'do as well. You're going to lose yours, Ricky, my boy. Just look to your right and see your future.

Darryl finishes off with the virtues of the new software. Jack Henderson just grunts. He barely listened and doesn't understand. Nothing you can tell old man Henderson about moving. His life story, which is the story of the company, is printed on a series of huge plaques in the lobby. Touched up black and white photos of the first moving truck. Then the small fleet, followed by ones of the new office building and finally the crane lifting the Henderson Moving van onto the roof, where it sits to this day. I secretly hope for it to come crashing through both floors one day and kill all of us in this meeting. At least it's gotta take out Rick. Darryl can live.

We're now at ten after nine.

"Okay," Rick says. "Let's go through the numbers." Some sales meeting. It's just a public vetting of how everyone is doing. Rick starts to his left with Kevin Bartemew, longest-serving salesman with the company, in his twenty-fifth year. He's funny; I get along great with him. He took me out on a few calls when I got into that slump.

Rick reads out Kevin's tally for September, this being the first of October. Kevin has good numbers. Repeat customers. Referrals. That's what it's all about in this business, Rick says. He says that and follows it with that tired adage, "You don't sell a guy one car. You sell him five cars over ten years." or something like that.

"Thing is, people don't move like they buy cars," I once said to him when we were driving to a meeting with a corporate client. A meeting I set up and finessed, and a meeting he blew sky-high with his arrogance. I followed up my statement with, "My parents have been in their house, same house, for thirty years. Still got probably ten years to go on it." I could see Rick's knuckles go white. To hell with it; I was hung over and reeking of booze and at that point I didn't give a damn.

"Have a mint," was all he said, so I took it and shut up.

After Kevin's report comes John Palomine. "Hey, Johnny, you're a pal o' mine. You know that?" I always say.

"Hey, Gustav, go fuck yo' mudder," is the usual retort. He always calls me Gustav for some reason; it's our little way of saying we like each other.

Great guy, John. Good salesman. Lots of referrals coming in, like a river. Italian guy, old school. Always joking, "There's no mafia. What are you, crazy?"

Come on, Johnny. Tell us about all the guys you whacked before you decided to go straight. How many bodies you get Henderson Moving and Storage to dispose of, hey? They're probably still in storage, rotting away.

"As long as the guys who put 'em there pay their bill, who cares?" John would say, and we'd laugh.

John's numbers are good. He's been at it ten years. His son comes by sometimes; he's freaking gorgeous. Should be a model or actor. He drives a truck. Every time he comes by, Laura and the rest of the girls just happen to have business on the sales floor and they come up. Laura won't flirt with me for a week after John's son drops by. I'm not ugly. Just a kid, though.

When I think about taking Laura down, I can hear my father saying, "Don't piss in your own bath water." But what if I'm on the way out of the bath? With my numbers and my probation coming to an end, I'm sure to get my walking papers. I could at least get a mercy shag out of Laura the day I get let go.

This fantasy keeps me going and prevents me from just up and quitting, which is what old Ricky Boy would like. Would Laura still want to bang me if I just quit? Maybe if I told the Crown Prince off in front of everyone. Can't do that, though; they're tightwads and if I quit, I won't get my severance.

Rick makes his way through all of the salesmen's numbers and finally gets to me. I sink a little lower in my chair. Rick looks at the numbers and says nothing. The old man is twirling his pen. Darryl has a smirk on his face that I can't read. The other salesmen are checking their watches or looking in their day planners or staring out the windows.

Rick looks up and reads off my numbers. "Six." Six moves last month. Not a complete washout. Managed to get at least one a week.

"These need to be improved," Rick says. I swallow again and nod. "You started with us, when?"

"Last November," I say, and it gets caught in my throat. I cough and repeat, "Last November, Rick." Rick nods. Message received. I have one month left, but even if I pull in numbers like Kevin's – he did twenty in September, including nine internationals – they're still going to get rid of me.

"I'm spending a lot of time on the phone, though, getting those corporate leads," I tell him. "We have a meeting this week with AIC Mutual Funds. Remember we moved the VP of HR for them this summer? I called her and she's going to meet with us." "Us" just hangs there. God, why can't I go to these corporate sits on my own?

"'Cause they don't trust you," John would say, meaning Darryl and Rick. "You might blow it. If these corporate things ever pan out, they're just going to take them over anyway."

They hired me because of my corporate sales background. A background I greatly embellished on my resume, sweetened with a killer job interview with Darryl last fall. I knocked his socks off with my tales of the advertising world and business building and customer relationships. I was as calm as a cucumber in that meeting. Just the one interview. If Rick had interviewed me, I doubt I would have been able to crack that icy veneer.

They hired me to call up companies; I did have a knack for cold-calling and persistence, and getting myself in the door. What they didn't say was that I would also be bringing along Ricky Boy for the ride, to ensure that whatever leads I garnered would get the full Henderson story and Ricky's amazing sales capability.

I had done that plus gone out on all the sits at people's homes. I was an estimator. Price out their moves across town or across the country, even a few overseas.

Rick moves off me, throws it back over to Jack Henderson, who has some other stuff that doesn't interest me. He finishes the meeting off with a quote from Dale Carnegie, his personal hero; _People like people who help them like themselves_. He glares at me again briefly as he picks up his papers and leaves. We've all learned not to make a move until after he's gone.

After he leaves, we all stand up, except Rick.

"Stan, I want to talk to you a minute."

"Sure, Rick." I sit back down. John makes a funny face behind Rick as he moves towards the door and I try and keep it together. The door clicks shut.

"Your numbers are not good," he says. Rick never swears, never gets angry. He looks at the paper again.

"I know, Rick. It's been a tough month but I have a lot of stuff coming up. That meeting with AIC this week."

"I'm taking that myself."

"Rick, I set that up. I _nurtured_ that relationship. Called her once a week for a month until she finally agreed to see me. I mean, she was still pretty mad at what happened with her move. It's a miracle she even picked up the phone."

"What happened with her move?"

"I booked her to move a bunch of stuff up to her cottage on Skeleton Lake. Not a huge job, but when I saw her business card I knew it was a solid lead. Not to push it but nurture it, like you're always saying." Rick uses the phrase "nurture a relationship" at least twice a week. And that's just within my hearing range.

"Yeah? So?" Rick says. "We moved her."

"She wanted a truck all on her own. An eight-tonner. She paid extra for it, no problem. And then Mike goes and puts two other loads on it." Mike is our dispatcher, a crusty seasoned mover who stuck it out with the Henderson's to move into a desk job.

"Did you not explain that we would build a wall between her goods and the other customers'?"

"She didn't care. She was furious. Remember your brother had to call her smooth it out? I agree, one truck mostly empty going all the way up to Skeleton Lake is a waste, but if the customer is willing to pay extra, pay for a full truck. . . Man, that pissed me off, Rick."

"You shouldn't get angry. And __ we're in business here to make money."

I continue on. "Took two months of calling. I even sent her a Pick Me Up Bouquet as a thank you for the move. AIC moves a lot of people around this country, all paid for by them. Big executives and traders being moved down to New York and even London, she told me."

"I don't think you can handle that meeting. Besides, you have sales numbers you have to work on. That's my final decision."

I stand up quick and get some satisfaction from the shocked look on Rick's face. Like his old man, he wants to be the first to leave. He leaves you sitting there, not the other way around. I pick up my briefcase and make towards the door. He spins his chair, still incredulous, his expression turning to anger.

I pause at the door. "Look, Rick, you're right. I have some appointments to get to, wanna get my numbers up. But I want to go to that meeting. It's only fair. If I have to go to Darryl—"

Rick laughs. "Go to him. Who do you think told me to keep you out of it?"

"She's going to ask you where I am. You're going to start off this relationship by lying, telling her I have the flu or something?"

I don't wait for his answer. **  
**
****

TWO

Laura raises her eyebrows at me and gives me a half smile. I pause. I take a step towards her, telling myself I'm going to talk to her for just a minute, morning pleasantries, then think better of it and retreat to the second floor.

I greet Ida, our sales coordinator and receptionist, with her dangling jewels and false teeth. Lipstick stains on her coffee mug. Her office – she has one – is directly across from my cubicle.

I plunk my briefcase down on the desk and resist the urge to hurl it through the window. The only bright note is that my sock has dried.

My day planner shows two appointments today, one this morning at eleven and one at two. And there are three new cards on my table, filled out by the women Henderson hires to call people who have their house for sale. The addresses in the real estate news have been cross referenced using reverse lookup phone directories. The women get paid for each appointment they book.

I look at the cards. Two seem all right; the postal codes tell me they're in Burlington. The other one looks like Hamilton, the less affluent and blue-collar former steel town across the bay from Burlington. That could be all right, or it could not be. Hamilton is also a university town and still has a large section of well-to-do, traditional middle-class homes, but there are bad areas. Depressed areas that can't afford us.

I tap the keyboard on my desk and the computer monitor comes alive. Instead of that moving software program Darryl had been going on about in the meeting, I open a browser and go to Google Maps to find this Hamilton address. The other two can wait until I'm in my car.

The prospect is a total zero, a complete bust. I can tell that just by looking up the address on google maps. I find it on the internet and then I zoom out from the street and, two streets over, I see the large pink square of the Stelco steel mill. I scroll north on the map and quickly see Barton Street.

"For the love of Christ," I mutter. They booked me to go see someone who lives in probably one of the most depressed and depressing areas of the country. And with Henderson being the most expensive mover in Canada at a hundred and forty-two bucks an hour. We are twenty dollars more expensive than our closest competitor, and probably eighty dollars an hour more than Acme Movers. In other words, the sit in Hamilton will be a complete waste of time and gas. There is no way anyone living across the street from a steel mill is going to pay a hundred and forty-two bucks an hour for us to come in and move their two beds, a TV and stand, a chipped black-and-chrome coffee table and a bunch of hastily overpacked liquor store boxes of crap. Unbelievable.

I could drop it. The appointment is for six this evening – like I would want to be down there in the dark at six. My car would probably get stolen. I'd probably get shivved. I call the number. It rings, and finally there's a loud "Yeah?"

"Hi, Mr. Zaborsky. I'm Stan Rogers from Henderson Moving. How are you this morning, sir?"

There's a TV on so loud in the background I can barely hear myself speak. _Not at work, are we, Mr. Zaborsky? Maybe you're on night shift, security guard work, maintaining the massive, defunct steel plant that you can see and smell two streets over_?

"Yeah, you called me last night," Zaborsky says.

"Yes, sir. I'm a moving consultant for Henderson Moving and I'm booked to come out and see you this evening. Just wanted to give you a call and confirm."

"Yeah, I'll be around."

Right. No bar-hopping for you tonight, Mr. Zaborsky. It being a Monday, you're probably all cleaned out from the scratch-and-win tickets and four-dollar pints at the Genessee Tavern.

"Might I ask where it is you're moving to, sir? Just so I can get a feel for the job."

"I gotta get out of here," Zaborsky says. "We're being evicted so we gotta go move in with my sister-in-law."

"You have my sympathy, Mr. Zaborsky."

"What's that?"

"Okay, thanks, Mr. Zaborsky. So we have to do the move right away, this coming weekend?"

"Yeah, I told the lady on the phone last night. Next weekend, I have to be out. I'd do it myself but I don't have my truck anymore and I got hurt, you know. My arm."

Right – the Hamilton dream: complete medical disability payments for as long as you can milk them. Four-dollar pints until kingdom come.

"Where does your sister-in-law live?" I ask.

"Dunnsvillle."

About forty-five minutes away. I do some quick calculation. That's putting this move at four hundred dollars minimum. The truck starts the meter the moment it leaves our garage and keeps it going until it comes back. The estimated return time is included in the bill at the client's destination after unpacking. It's usually a point of dispute after a move. Four hundred dollars to Mr. Zaborsky, down on his luck. No way he has that cash.

"What size dwelling is it, sir? Apartment? Two-bedroom?"

"It's a house, two stories and a garage. Got a ton of crap. My wife keeps everything."

"Great. Don't want to upset the little lady, do we?"

"What's that?"

"Mr. Zaborsky, can I be brutally honest with you, sir?" Uncharted territory for me.

"Huh?"

"Sir, this move to Dunnsville is going to cost you probably eight hundred dollars."

"What?"

"Did the woman not explain our rates to you last night?"

"She said it was a hundred and forty-two dollars for the move."

Jesus Christ, I could strangle those women. They do this all the time. Instead of saying "hourly rate," they allude that it's a flat rate but without really confirming that. If a prospective client questions them on it, they'll confirm that it _is_ an hourly rate, but they don't go out of their way to make that clear.

"No, sir, that's a hundred and forty-two an hour. Plus tax." I don't bother explaining additional insurance coverage. I figure the hammer drop on the price of the move, inflated by me to a reasonable amount, will suffice. It does.

"Eight hundred? If I had eight hundred, I could pay the rent and stay here. What would I need my sister-in-law for?"

"Sir, there are cheaper movers," I whisper. Ida's door is open. I don't trust her, with her false-teeth mouth and dangling jewels. I can hear her rattling them as she types. The jewels that is, not the teeth. That would freak me out.

"Sir, there are plenty of cheaper movers out there. Ones that might be able to meet your budget. I'll tell you what I'll do: I don't want any hard feelings, so why don't I find you someone a bit cheaper and set something up for you?"

"Okay, pal, whatever. I gotta get going out anyway. You call me back later. Leave a message with my wife."

_Heading out to the Genessee for the eleven a.m. pouring time?_ I want to say but don't. I'm just happy to have dropped the move.

I end the call with Zaborsky and look up at Ida. She's leaning close to her screen and squinting. I tear Zaborsky's card up and chuck it in the waste bin.

I check my watch; it's ten-fifteen. I collect my clipboard and make sure there's plenty of estimate sheets on it, enough to do twenty moves. All part of the psychology, Ricky told me: make it look like you're so successful you don't need their business.

I use a plain wooden clipboard. Rick has criticized that choice in the past. He used to chide me about it regularly, but now he has more serious things to get on my case about, like my flailing closure rate.

Rick uses a vinyl-bound clipboard with a flip-over cover. I stick with my wooden one; I don't go in for that flashy stuff. Besides, the flip-over cover is always a pain. You flip them over and fold them back under the clipboard and eventually they start to tear and come away and you have to get a new clipboard. They're $6.99 at Staples. The plain wooden ones, the no-nonsense ones, are $1.99. And knowing that my choice in clipboards bugs Rick makes me keep using it.

I jump into my Pontiac Sunfire. My 11 am is over on Fintona Ave. I know the area well so no need to look it up in my map book. I pull my phone out and call the prospect. A woman answers and I confirm the meeting. It's 10:20 now. My car is a mess; I really should get it washed. There's a car wash right across the street. I could run it through the wash and still make it to Fintona ten minutes early, punctuality being my strong suit.

I drive across the street and pull around to the pay machine for the wash. The booth where Ricardo the attendant worked for twenty years is still there, but Ricardo is gone. They automated everything and got rid of him. Now there's just a machine. I put my credit card in and chose basic; I don't need the under-blast. There are already brown ripplings of rust on my ten-year-old Sunfire. The under-blast might do some serious damage.

I get pulled in between the rails and the inside of my car fills with the sweet scent of the soaps. As the Sunfire is pulled along, I review my other meetings. They're all in Burlington and Oakville, four of them spaced out throughout the day. I will not be heading back to the office today, and tomorrow is Tuesday; Rick will be at the Mississauga office.

Something chirps in the car wash and my car judders to one side and hops the rail. The car rises and falls as the car pullers pass under me. Have I been leaning on the wheel and turned it? Even a gentle turn would be enough to throw you off the rails.

I pray the machinery will recapture my car, but it just keeps rising and falling every five seconds. Headlights flash in my back window. The next customer is paying for a wash. _Don't do it_ , I think. _You'll hit me._ Then I realize that might work, might push me back onto the tracks. But it might tear my rear bumper off.

I wave my hand frantically and yell. "Hey don't move forward." I can barely see the occupant – it may be a man – of the car behind me, and the water is still pouring down on my car. I'm getting the wash of the century; everything is triggered by motion sensors, and I'm not moving.

I put my four-way flashers on; it must be obvious that I'm not going forward. I see the car behind me pull forward after paying and then stop abruptly. The guy beeps his horn. What am I supposed to do about it, pal? It's pouring buckets and I'm stuck. I'm not getting out to push.

I beep the horn again and again. I put the car in drive and ease on the gas a bit; my car just rocks back and forth and there's a grinding sound.

I lay on the horn in one continuous blast, followed by several short beeps. There's a guy in the office where they sell shammies and waxes that are covered with a layer of dust. I never buy anything, just see him through the glass smoking a cigar. He comes around the exit of the car wash and goes over to a box and fiddles with it, and the water and the swinging washcloth strips that were jiggling back and forth stop. I lower my window.

"What the fuck you do?" he says.

"I don't know. I didn't touch the wheel."

"Supposed to not touch the wheel."

"I didn't touch it."

He looks down at my front tire.

"Put it in reverse and back up."

I do as he says. The front end rises a couple of inches and the Sunfire plunks back down into the slot.

"Neutral!" he says, and lumbers back to the control box. A bit more fiddling and the water and the jiggling strips start up again. I quickly raise my window and feel one of the pullers come under the car and lift it up and plunk it down. I wait. Two more raises and plunks and finally one catches.

When I emerge from the car wash, the clock on my dash ticks over to 11:05. I gun it, rolling stops through every stop sign to Fintona. I see number 89. There's a fire hydrant on the lawn in front of it so I park a bit down. I never park in a prospect's driveway. My car leaks oil.

Number 89 has a nice manicured lawn with a security alarm sign on it and stickers on the door and window. I ring the doorbell and it opens quickly. She's attractive, short and slim with short blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. Her hand is delicate and cool to the touch. I'd peg her in her mid-forties.

"Mrs. Lent, I'm so sorry I'm late. I got stuck in a car wash." Honesty is the best policy.

"That's okay. Glad you saw the fire hydrant." She extends a hand. It is soft and cool and delicate. I like that.

"Yeah, I'm not sure where you're moving to, but I'll bet it has a fire hydrant in front of it."

"Yeah, it's a pain. Come in."

I take my shoes off at the door.

"You don't have to bother with that. I'm moving and the house is sold," she says and laughs, but I continue on. I always remove my shoes. I'm not an American. A friend of mine has an American wife and she walks around indoors with her shoes on. It's a weird trait they have down there.

She leads me into the living room off the hallway. Large, deep leather couch and matching chairs. A flat-screen TV on the wall and a dark wood coffee table. There are muted paintings of flower arrangements and a couple of china cabinets and curios but not much else in the way of character. The living room leads onto a spacious dining room with an elegant table and chair set and more china cabinets. I struggle to find something to comment on, but end up relying on my standard lines. Everything I say on these sits sounds so robotic and disingenuous to me.

"You have a lovely home here."

"Thank you. I love it, but it's time to move on."

"Where exactly are you moving to?"

"Brantford. Midi has transferred me, and it's too far a commute."

"You work in Toronto?"

"Just this side of it. A quick thirty-minute commute if I time it right, but I've been driving out to Brantford every day for the past month since the transfer and that's about an hour's drive."

"Brantford is nice. Wayne Gretzky's hometown."

She smiles.

I sit forward on the couch. She's in one of the chairs. I get the other particulars – closing dates, moving dates. Then I start my tiresome, worn-out explanation about Henderson and how we would do things. I try to put as much sincerity into it as I can. Asking her questions, trying to figure out her needs. She needs to be moved; it's as simple as that. She wants a moving company to come in, believe it or not, pack her stuff up into a truck and drive it to the next house and unpack it. I'm not like a car salesman, who has all the different options and payment plans to discuss. We pick shit up and move it. Sometimes we put it in a warehouse for a while.

I mention our No Bounce guarantee to Mrs. Lent – I assume it's Mrs. No ring on her finger, but these days that's not indicative of anything. I look around for photos and see only two. They show Mrs. Lent and another woman, shorter and squatter. Lesbian, I think? Who cares – gay, straight, bi or confused, I'll sign you up and book a truck if you'll just let me.

"What's the No Bounce guarantee?" she asks.

"Means the day of the move, we can't call you up and cancel it because we've got a bigger job lined up."

"Do companies do that?"

"Sadly, yes." I say. But we've never done business like that." I pick up my clipboard. "Why don't you show me around and I'll put together an estimate for you?"

"Where do you want to start?"

"Let's start upstairs, work our way down and we'll end back here. Then I can go over how we'll do this move for you." _Always speak in the positive, like this move is a done deal._ I can hear Ricky Boy in my head.

She leads me up the carpeted stairway. The walls are papered in pale blue, with matching carpet in every room except the bathroom. I don't bother with the bathroom; people's toiletries take a single number two box and towels a couple of number fours. The bedrooms – that's where the action is. There are four of them. Big place for a lady on her own. One of them is an office. I shine in a home office, being all young and techy. I talk about the care we'll take with the electronics and tell her that if she wants, we can pack that stuff up for her. She's noncommittal.

The master bedroom is like the rest of the house, devoid of character. Absent are any hints about this woman and her situation. On a large, antique dresser are several photos, but they're all black and white shots of people long gone. The bed is huge, at least a king size. Do they make them bigger? My estimating chart stops at king. The carpet is plush in here and I'm conscious now of my dry but soiled sock. I glance down. There's a tinge of brown around the toes.

I stand in the middle of the room and tick off the boxes on my form. Mrs. Lent comes up beside me and presses her body into mine to see what I'm writing. I show her. I can feel the warmth of her body. She's shorter than me. I can see her curly blonde hair in my peripheral vision. I try to concentrate on my estimate.

She is attractive. I'd put her in her late thirties, early forties. Intelligent but coy. She has nice firm breasts, and as she led me up the stairs I stared at her tight little arse, which is squeezed into a pair of acid-wash jeans, swishing back and forth. I go over to the closet.

"Do you mind?" I ask before opening it. That's my own little touch.

"No, go ahead."

Her clothes occupy almost the entire hanger bar, and there are shoeboxes piled at the bottom. There's a bit of space left on the bar, and at the end of it is one collared shirt. I assume it's a man's. It's blue with gold insignia on the single breast pocket.

I quickly mark down two wardrobe boxes and close the closet. Mrs. Lent is still in the middle of the room, waiting patiently. Had I imagined her come-on?

The next two bedrooms are smaller, nicely appointed but unused. Again, she comes up and stands close to me. I can feel her breathing on my neck. My mind whirls. Does she want it? Do we go back into the main bedroom and go at it on that huge bed? Or here in this nicely appointed, underused room?

Would I get fired for banging one of the clients? How would they know? It's not unheard of. The other salesmen and the movers have all got stories. This is my first encounter. Is it an encounter? If I make a play and have misread it, I'll get canned. Laura will know about it and it'll blow any chance I have with her.

With the bedrooms and home office done we head downstairs. I'm picking up the pace, impatient to get this over with. Down we go to the basement. I always do the main floor last. Basement is finished and super clean, sparse, with only a couch and two chairs. A dartboard that looks like it's been there a long time. Maybe since she moved in? I reckon the house was built in the eighties. It has that garage-forward style. What I wouldn't give to live here; much better than my one-bedroom apartment in Hamilton. Much better. Maybe I can move in with her in the new house after I become her lover?

She keeps her distance down in the basement, barely moves away from the foot of the stairs.

Back on the main floor, head the kitchen. I'm finishing up my spiel; same old routine. The words come out of my mouth automatically. I'm opening the drawers and marking down how many boxes the dishes and glasses will need. All that will translate into an estimated time – the trips the movers will make to and from the truck and then the drive to the new house, where the process is reversed. Normally a house this size would require a twelve-thousand-pound truck, one of our big ones, but the house is sparsely furnished, and with only one occupant I'm thinking we can get away with an eight-thousand-pounder. Still, with the trip out to Brantford and back it's a really good move. I should be bringing in two of these a week; then I wouldn't have any problems with Rick and my future would be set.

"We'll pack all this up for you if you want," I tell Mrs. Lent. "At least let us pack the china. You don't want anything happening to that or the glassware," I say. "My mother has those exact same Royal Daltons."

I take a quick peek out back; there's nothing to speak of, not even patio furniture. She tells me the garage has a lawnmower, a snowblower and the usual rakes and shovels. I open the adjoining door and look around. There is a shiny brand-new Volkswagen Beetle. Next to it is a sleek blue BMW five-series. Two cars, one woman?

"Are you on your own here, Mrs. Lent?" I say. If she was going to shock me by getting close, I was going to do a little shocking of my own. Maybe I should even blow this deal; god knows I've done that before. Second nature. I'm so good at it I don't even know I'm doing it while I'm doing it.

"Yes, most of the time."

_What the hell does that mean?_ "You drive both those cars?"

"The Bug is good on the highway. I just got it for the drive to Brantford."

"You're going to sell the Beemer?"

"Don't think so. I've had it a long time. I love it, but the gas mileage isn't as good as the Bug."

Great. She's frugal. Means when I wallop her with the cost of this move, I'm going to get the concerned look as she goes over the numbers, then the smile, and then be shown the door.

Back in the living room, I resume my seat on the couch. If I had used my head, I would have taken a chair at the dining room table. The lounge chairs in the living room wouldn't have worked; I need to show her my sales promotion material. Pictures of Jack and his boys. Darryl in a blue suit with thick black lines – he looks like a test pattern. Ricky Boy in a suit way too large for him, big folds in the arms and enormous shoulders. His dad is a big man; maybe it's a hand-me-down. I could see farmhand Henderson not wanting to throw away a suit. He's driving a fifteen-year-old rusted-out Jag.

I sit back on the couch. Sensing I have to go through something with her, Mrs. Lent sits right next to me. I mean _right_ next to me: her thigh is touching mine. The side of her knee is touching mine. Our shoulders are linked. We're both sitting forward on the couch and I finish up my calculations.

She smells great. I'm not one for perfumes so I have no clue what it is, but it's perfect. It blends in nicely with the washed-out pastel look of the room. I can imagine rolling around in the big bed for hours with this little hot-to-trot cougar. Is that what she is? I can't imagine her hanging out at bars trying to pick up younger men. She'd get eaten alive. Guys who are into that sort of thing would be lining up to take a shot at her. Am I one of those guys?

I finish my calculation and put the clipboard on the table and turn to her. Our faces are maybe a foot away. Do I have bad breath? I smile at her. She's smiling at me. Waiting. Seeing if I have the courage to go for it, make a move.

This is the part of the speech where I don't even ask for her business; I just tell her I am going to book her a truck for the date she wants. I put the onus on the customer to tell me no, not to do that. Most people do; some don't. The latter are the ones I want.

"So, Mrs. Lent, we can definitely—"

Her phone rings. It's a land line in the kitchen.

"Excuse me." She goes and gets it.

My feet go cold, like when I stepped in that puddle. I pick up my clipboard and move toward the front door.

"No thanks, but I'm not interested," I hear her say, and she comes back into the living room. Sees me at the door.

"Pesky telemarketer?" I say, and laugh. She gives me a puzzled look.

"Mrs. Lent, I just have to work this quotation up. I can drop it off here later today if that's all right?" What am I doing – inviting myself over for dinner?

She sees me to the door.

I think seriously about driving back to the office and rubbing one out in the bathroom. I'm so jazzed up I might attack Laura in the lunchroom.

Mrs. Lent distracts me all day. My remaining sales calls in the afternoons are complete bust-ups. I don't care if I sell them or not. I give them plenty of opportunity to say they're getting three quotes.

Around closing time, I look down at my clipboard and see the Lent estimate. The other three estimates I left with the prospects, retaining only the yellow copy. The Lent file is intact, with the white form on top. It just says G. Lent on the file folder; she never gave me her first name. I finish her estimate off in my car and head back over to Fintona Ave.

She's gone out; the Bug is in the driveway. It's getting darker earlier now and her house glows with warm light. With the estimate in hand, I head to her front door. I can hear her moving towards it. Butterflies flit around in my stomach. I put on my best smile. She opens the door. She's in a bathrobe. Her hair is wet.

"Mrs. Lent, I'm so sorry for bothering you—" I begin.

She moves in close to me and kisses me hard. I can smell the Pantene and the Ivory soap, and her skin is warm and wet. I push her back indoors with my lips and my body and kick the door closed behind me.
THREE

What's your first name?" I ask. "All I know is it starts with a G." I turn on my side and prop myself up on my elbow. We're lying in the messy sheets on Mrs. Lent's large bed.

"Gillian." She's on her back, staring at the ceiling.

"I guessed Gina."

Gillian Lent smiles and says, "No, I'm named after my mother."

"Do you remember mine?"

"Stan," she says and turns to me. Her eyes are beautiful, warm depths of brown. I dive down and kiss her cool lips. They're as cool as her hand was when we first met. Something stirs down below in me and I fancy another go-around. It's after seven now. We rushed that first time. There was some foreplay in the foyer, and then I was pulled upstairs. We could have done it on the couch. The drapes were sufficiently pulled. But I was thankful afterwards for the bed. It was comfortable.

"I assume you're going to go with Henderson for your move to Brantford?"

"I don't know. Maybe I should get three quotes?"

"This has never happened to me before," I say.

"Really? I seduce just about every man who comes to my door." She grins. It's a weird grin and I can't completely discount what she is saying.

"I should get going."

She grabs my arm. "No, please don't."

"I really do have to get going, Gillian. It's been great."

She drops back down on the bed and puts her face in the pillow. "You're leaving me." She pulls the pillow away. Her face is glistening wet and the pillow is damp. I've never seen tears come on like that so quick. It's freaky.

"Hey." I say. "I'll call you. I'm hoping we can do this again."

"Is that what I am to you? Just a good time?"

I start to get scared now. What have I done?

"I've got to get going. I've got a long day tomorrow and need some sleep."

"You can sleep here."

I'm standing now and start to get dressed. Quickly.

Gillian sits up and pulls the sheets around her. If she hadn't gotten so weird so soon, I would definitely have stayed for another go-round. I can see her pert nipples through the sheet. She looks at me with a blank stare; her face is still wet. I finish dressing and lean in for a kiss. She turns and presents her cheek and I give it a peck/ I can taste her tears.

"I'm going to call you, Gillian. I promise. And I'll book that move for you. I'll bring by some boxes when I get a chance." Damn. Why did I say that? I've just committed to dropping by her house again. _Get out_ , I scream at myself. _Walk out._ I carry my shoes downstairs and put them on and leave.
FOUR

Next day when I get into the office there is a bounce in my step. I'm grateful that Rick is in Mississauga. I spend the morning making calls on corporate moves, but I get nowhere. Either they're not interested in switching carriers or they don't move enough people to spend the time listening to me.

The sandwich truck's air horn sounds in the parking lot and I make my way out. I say hi to a couple of the warehouse guys. Darryl comes out the side door. He's wearing a tan sport coat, in October, and blue pants and suede shoes.

"Howdy," I say, and he smiles back. His demeanour is slowly changing when he talks to me; he has probably been discussing my future with the old man and Rick. If Rick was telling the truth, about it being Darryl's suggestion that I get bumped from the AIC Mutual Fund meeting, then I know he won't stick up for me.

I get up to the sandwich truck girl and order a roast beef on white and a Coke. This will be my lunch. It's cheaper than fast food. She smiles at me warmly and I thank her and wink back at her.

With my lunch in hand I hang back and chit-chat with Kevin and John, who are having a smoke. No way am I going to go into what happened last night with Mrs. Lent. That's locked away for a rainy day. We watch Darryl go up to the truck. I see the sandwich girl's demeanour change. They talk but I can't hear what is said. She slams a sandwich and a Coke down and Darryl walks away.

"Doofus," Kevin says, and Pal o' Mine laughs.

Poor Darryl. He knocked the sandwich truck girl up and has a kid with her. She thought she had the key to the Henderson Moving empire, but the old man shut that down quick. To rub it in Darryl's face, she shows up every day with her truck and blows her horn. At least he doesn't hide in his office; he goes out and confronts her.

"Does he get to see his kid?" I ask the guys.

"Nope. Once in a while, but nothing regular," Kevin says.

I secretly feel sorry for Darryl even though he's helping to swing the axe at my head. A powerless man. I know the feeling.

I head back up to my desk and scoop up the index cards off my desk. The times on them are not evenly spread out. The women who book these things don't coordinate our calendars; it's a long-standing beef.

I say hi to Ida. She gives me an over-the-top hello and goes back to typing. She's probably seen failures like me come and go. She coughs and puts her hand to her temple.

The light on my phone is blinking and I check my messages. Two returned calls from last week, one from a corporate gig I was trying to set up letting me know they aren't interested in changing suppliers, the other from a prospect who says they've gone with another mover.

I have a list of companies in Southern Ontario that I've been working relentlessly, calling their purchasers and HR departments, trying to get my foot in the door. Several of them have many check marks against them, indicating the number of times I've called. I made the chart up on my own and showed Rick one time when he was hovering over my cubicle. He said "Good, good," then put his hands on his belt and just stared down at me.

On the chart is a column I put there to indicate the last time I called them and when they suggested I call back if I made contact. If I don't make contact, I call them at least three times a week. I should sit down and start making some calls, but with Rick out of the office I'm just inclined to get out on the road.

I check my appointments; first one is at 10 am. I could leave now, get there early and do the presentation and get back here for lunch. I leave the Coke and sandwich on my desk and head out, clipboard in hand.

My sits this day go amazingly well. I score two moves without even really trying and one very real possibility. Since I've been at Henderson, I've never signed on more than one move a day. "It's a numbers game," Pal o' Mine told me about two months into my year probation. "You do enough sits you'll get your moves and make your quota. 'Course, you got to be doing sits until eight p.m. every single night, including Fridays."

On my last call I swing by Fintona Ave. I don't go down it; I just get to the corner of the cross street and look. There's no car in her driveway. It's still light out; I can't tell if she's there or not. I speed down the cross street back to the office. I'll have to call her at some point to confirm her move date is doable. But that's over the phone. Will that piss her off? Maybe I should just pop in and tell her with no upstairs action. I can still smell her on me and can still remember how she felt pressed up against me, under me.

When I get back, I hear Rick in his office, that surprises me. Usually on Tuesdays we never see him and the atmosphere in the office is noticeably more pleasant.

I hurry upstairs. More messages on my phone. One is from Mrs. Lent. She sounds urgent and seductive at the same time. Wants me to call her. I put the two sales orders I bagged on my desk. Dispatch office is closed now; I'll get down there first thing tomorrow and secure the trucks. I update my day planner, writing the details of the move beside each entry. This is how I track my own moves. At the end of the month I flip through the pages and count up the number of moves, the total estimated time and the dollar figure.

I see a shadow come over my desk and look up at Rick standing there, hands on his hips, glaring down at me.

"Hey, Rick. How's things in Mississauga?"

"Can you come down to my office, please? Something I want to talk to you about."

Damn, is this it? End of day and I'm getting walked out? Why'd they make me work all day if they were just going to get rid of me?

I follow the towering Rick Henderson downstairs. Instead of his office, we go into the meeting room. There's an open file folder on the table. This is it, definitely. Darryl isn't in the room; Rick has to swing the axe solo.

"Take a seat."

I sit in the middle of the table; he sits in his dad's spot.

"It's come to my attention that you're giving away business to other movers."

"How do you mean, Rick?"

"Did you tell a potential client yesterday that they'd be better off finding a cheaper mover? And that you'd help them find that?"

"Ida didn't get the full conversation, just one side of it," I say, and I surprise myself at my audacity, outing his little spy.

"Don't bring her into this. This is between us." Confirming I'm right about Ida.

"You want to see the lead card, Rick? The address is downtown – Barton Street, Hamilton. Down near Stelco. You ever been down there?"

"Don't get defensive. You admit you deliberately blew off a client."

"Damn right I did. It was an eviction, Rick. The guy didn't have a pot to piss in and the girls gave him the impression it was a flat rate, a hundred and forty-two dollars from Hamilton to Dunnsville. Unless the guy is moving a couple of boxes of feathers you know damn well that move isn't going to come in at anything less than four hundred. We'd charge the guy almost two hundred just to roll the truck to him and back."

"Still, if there's a chance to do business, we do not turn it down."

"Remember when you were training me, you told me that our time is money. That we were just as important as a brain surgeon or a lawyer." It was true; he did give me that spiel and I nodded in agreement and even chuckled, if I remember. He had been dead serious: Ricky Boy thought moving someone's four-poster bed and love seat across town was as important as saving a life or putting away a murderer. What an idiot.

"This part of the conversation is over," Rick said. He referred to the file. "The computer on your desk. What do you use it for?"

"Leads, getting contact info for corporate clients. And of course, the software that's on it, for pricing out cross-border moves. Everyone on the floor uses it."

"We've got a list here of websites you've visited in the last month." He slides it across to me.

"I also use it to look at the weather, Google Maps, you know? Okay, occasionally I check my Hotmail at lunch. I even told you that."

"Look at the list."

Most of the list are the websites I admitted to going to, but mixed within these legitimate websites are pornography sites.

"Rick, this isn't fair. Three other people use my computer. The password is on my filing cabinet. That's what you wanted. And look at these time stamps."

"The what?" Rick says.

"These sites are viewed late at night. I'm not here past six. Even if I have a late-night appointment I just go home afterwards."

"I want you to sign this. It's an acknowledgement that we spoke about this matter." He slides a piece of paper across to me. An HR notice to go in my file. More ammo to get rid of me with no compensation.

"This isn't fair, Rick," I say again. "Is everyone going to sign it? What about Tony the office manager? I've caught him playing solitaire on my computer."

"Just sign it, please."

I sign it and push it back to him.

"The meeting on Thursday with AIC," he says. "I called them and they're just expecting me, so don't plan your day around that meeting."

"Sure, fine, Rick." I consider it a favour; I don't have to spend an hour in the car with Ricky Boy. I want to take an iron bar and bash that giant blonde head in.

Rick leaves and I follow him out. Neither of us says good night. I collect my stuff and get out of there.

On the way home, a call comes over my Bluetooth. My car is old; it has no visual display on the dash showing incoming calls so I just push the button on my Bluetooth adapter on my dash.

"Stan Rogers speaking."

"You never called."

"Hi, Gillian. Did I say I would call today? Sorry, my dear. I've just been swamped with work. It's a busy time for moving."

"You said that was in the summer. That June was the busiest month."

"Yeah, it seems every month gets busier and busier. How are you?"

"Are you coming by tonight?"

"I didn't know I was expected."

"So you're not?"

"Not tonight, my dear."

"Stop calling me that. It's condescending."

"I'm sorry, Gillian. It's been a long day. How about I come by tomorrow?"

"I'll be home at five."

"Okay," I say, and I scream in my head _Why are you doing this?_

"See you tomorrow night. I'll fix us something to eat."

"Sounds good." She hangs up.

"Buddy, what are you doing?" I say to myself. "You got to get out of this. So what if she calls up Henderson and makes up some story that gets you fired? You're on your way out anyway. You can make do without the severance."
FIVE

Next day I beat all of the other salesmen into the office. Only people I don't beat in are Mike the dispatcher and the movers; they're busy getting the trucks ready. I say hello and try and start up a conversation with them, but they'd don't have the time for me. The writing is on the wall. The older guys and Mike know I'm not cutting it. I want to tell them about the two moves I got yesterday, how on fire I was, but what's the point? Instead I write the moves down in the book. They are sufficiently far in advance that there's no issue about booking a truck.

I swing by the girls in reception and hear Laura's voice. She's at the water cooler with Maria, one of her assistants. She sees me and smiles.

"Hello, stranger. You working hard?"

"Or hardly working," I say, our old joke. "Is the golden boy in yet?"

"You mean young Master Rick? No, I haven't seen him."

"Thank god."

She winks and the assistant leaves. She lowers her voice. "Not going well?"

"No. I think I'm on my way out. I need a farewell drink. What do you say?"

"Not tonight, sonny boy. I have a date."

"Okay, then." I turn to walk away and she grabs my arm. "Make it tomorrow, okay? After work, down the road at the pub. I can meet you there."

"Sounds good." I cheer up a bit as I ascend to my office.

Ida has her door closed and I stare at her for a good while until she looks at me and grins that false-teeth grin of hers. _I'm still here, baby._ My phone rings.

"Mr. Stan, this is Christopher Waltz, director of employee compensation and adjustment for Midi Computer Research Labs."

That name rings a bell. That's where Gillian works.

"Yes? How can I help you?"

"I need to book two moves with you. We have two executives moving down to California at the end of the month."

"You must know Gillian Lent," I say.

"I work for her. She's my VP."

"She is?"

"Yes, Gillian is vice president of human resources for Midi. She's handling all of these transfers."

"How many are we talking about?"

"You haven't been reading the papers. Almost the entire company. All of the executives for sure. We're moving south of the border and they're transferring over a hundred people. It's part of the merger." I almost fall out of my seat. "Miss Lent has informed me that you're our exclusive provider for the transfers."

I am silent.

"Do you think you can handle it? I do have the right person, correct?"

"Yes," I splutter. "We'll handle it. When I met with Gillian, she mentioned this. I'm sorry, it's just a little early in the morning."

"Understood. Can I email you the details on the two moves?"

"Yes, please do." I give him my email and hang up and pump my fist in the air. Ida looks at me funny. I've just landed the big one. Even Kevin, who's been schlepping corporate moves for twenty-five years, has never landed over a hundred moves in one day. Then I slump back down in my chair. When Rick gets wind of this, he is going to push me out. Or can he? I have Gillian on my side.

I only have one appointment card on my desk. It's out in Oakville and in the afternoon. Perfect. I can wait around here for this email to come in. Book these two moves. I go online and google Midi Computer Research Labs. They got bought up by a tech firm in the States. Silicon Valley. Where's that? Christ – California. Other side of the continent. Perfect. And executives. I have to imagine their homes are nice. Lots of stuff to pack up and move.

The email comes in ten minutes later. The two moves are complete executive transfers including full packing and unpacking services and vehicle relocations. Their cars are to be put on trains and shipped down to the new location. The estimate is twenty-five thousand pounds per move; it seems a local firm sent a guy in to do the estimate and they're basing it on that. I want to run down and shove these moves in Ricky's face.

I want to high-five everyone in Mike's dispatch office. I want to grab Laura, spin her around until she's dizzy. I want to pound on Ida's window so hard her teeth fall out. But most of all, I want to go and show my appreciation, as many times as I can muster, to Mrs. Lent.

I print the email with the details and immediately begin punching them into the computer. Each move comes up at over ten thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars in sales and all I had to do was let Mrs. Lent have her way with me. I hit the submit button. It puts the moves into the computer and holds them there until the paperwork is signed. There's still a lot of legwork to do. I'll have to head out to Brantford to meet the executives and see what type of moves we're looking at. Nurture the hell out of that relationship, make sure there are no hidden surprises. But I don't really care. These moves will be handled by the international carrier Henderson is affiliated with. All they do is have a driver pick up two of our guys for the loading. We send our own packing team in first to box everything up, and a moving company at the destination does the reverse.

My afternoon sit goes great. A retiree who is downsizing tells me he is getting three quotes.

"Go ahead," I say full of confidence. He looks at me funny.

I leave him with my estimate, and on the way to my car he opens his front door and says, "Go ahead and pencil in a truck for me on that date."

"Can't do that. I have to book a truck to get it reserved. Can't pencil anything in."

"Okay, go ahead and book it."

"What about the other quotes?"

"I'll go with you."

I thank him and drive away. Is this that Zig Ziglar stuff coming out of me now? All those hours listening to tapes in the car, watching videos at home. Selling with confidence. To hell with that, I say. Selling you like you don't give a crap – that's what works.

I swing by Mrs. Lent's house. It looks empty; she's working. She wouldn't be home until five, she said. I have two hours to kill so I go to the Burlington Mall. I contemplate buying some flowers for her. There's a liquor store too. Maybe a bottle of wine. I say yes to the wine and no to the flowers. I'm not marrying this woman. All she did was pass me on two great moves. With the promise of more if I play my cards right.

I hang out in a pub for another hour but I take it easy on the booze. _Just see where the night takes you._ At a quarter to five I head over. Her car is in the driveway. I park on the street and carry my clipboard up to her house. An older woman, about sixty with short grey hair, is walking a little dog with short white hair. I smile and nod but she ignores me. Other cars are pulling into driveways on the street. Nice little suburban paradise. Bedroom community.

Gillian answers the door. She's still in a business suit and looks a bit exasperated. She smiles and I move inside fast. I don't want to be embraced at the doorway. She hugs me and I smell sweat and perfume.

"You look fantastic," I say. "Nice power suit."

"Turn you on?" she says, and we kiss passionately.

"I didn't know what you were serving. Hope this is okay," I say, and hand her the bottle of wine still in its brown paper bag. She studies it, then carries it into the kitchen and puts it on the counter.

"I'm just starting dinner. Why don't you open that and pour us a glass?"

All very sophisticated, normal. I can really see the age difference with her dressed up in her black pencil skirt and nylons and white blouse. A string of pearls around her neck. I feel like a kid again with my "best friend's mother" fantasy, and it's exciting.

I open the wine and pour us each a healthy dose. We cheers and then I retire to the living room while she clanks around with the pots. Domestic bliss. I could get used to this.

And the dinner is good. Simple and quick to prepare. Just a chicken dish with a creamy white sauce and two greens and a salad and some rice. I'm gracious during dinner. We chat and laugh and learn a little bit more about each other. She's never been married. No kids.

"Me neither," I say, and she laughs, acknowledging the divide in our ages. Mrs. Lent, in the warm light of the candle, looks about five years younger than when I first saw her in the harsh white light of her foyer.

After dinner we both clean up until she shoos me back into the living room with another glass of wine. I'm drunk now; we polished off my bottle during dinner and opened a second. Wine always hit me hard and I did not eat that much today.

We get close on the couch until she finally puts her wine glass down on the coffee table and moves in for a kiss. This leads to more foreplay. She unbuttons my shirt. She wants to touch skin, she says.

"Tit for tat." I unbutton her blouse and touch her cool skin. It comes alive at the touch of my fingertips and I feel a flutter in the underside of her breast through the satiny smoothness of her white bra.

She reaches behind her and unpins her hair and shakes it. I go rock hard now and she moves her hand onto me and gives me a squeeze.

"Let's go upstairs," she whispers.

I want to jump her from behind on the stairs. She sways her rear end back and forth and she goes up. I'm right behind her. Can't keep my hands off her.

We get undressed and fall into the bed. Everything is going normally; we're kissing passionately. Her neck really shows her age now. I see wrinkles on it. I'm on top of her and we're doing it. Great.

Then she says, "Hit me."

I don't think I hear her right and I pull back from her and she says it again, but softly. She looks away and gets this funny look on her face.

"Hit me," she says again. I don't know what to do. But I want to do it. I have no animosity towards this woman, but if this is what she wants. . .

"Hit me," she says, louder now.

I spank her ass. Hard. It should hurt.

"Hit me, damn it." Her voice is shrill. That mischievous look is gone and she's commanding me.

"No. I can't." I pull out.

"Goddamn it. I said hit me, you little faggot."

I move to the side of the bed and sit up. She laughs. I get up and start to dress. Probably the fastest I've ever gotten my clothes on. Faster than the last time I got dressed in her bedroom.

"Seriously?" she says." You're going?"

I'm still drunk and I stumble a bit trying to get my pants on.

"You shouldn't drive. You're drunk. Get back in this bed."

"No. Not into it. Sorry." What should I be sorry for? I finish dressing and I leave.

I take a deep breath when I'm in my car. My heart is still pounding. I curse Mrs. Lent. There's a guy walking a dog; he turns and looks at me. I glare back at him. Despite the wine in me, I race home.

I check my messages when I get in. Gillian's called three times. How did she get my land line? Must have looked it up online or something. The phone rings again. It's her on call display. I don't answer. I get changed quickly and head down to my local pub for last call.
SIX

The next morning I'm at my desk, checking the one appointment card left for me. Not enough, I think. I want more to distract me. Rick comes up to the sales floor. I remember that he's got that corporate call today, the one I set up.

He pops his head in on Ida. I haven't spoken to or even looked at her since I arrived this morning. I even avoided Laura, bypassed her desk and slunk in through the warehouse up the back stairs. For some reason I don't want to see her. I feel she can read it on my face, what I've been getting up to with Mrs. Lent. We have our drink tonight after work. I think I might cancel.

Rick is standing at my cubicle, hands on his hips, jacket flared out, that weird ultra-domineering look on his face.

"So, how's it going?" He sees the printouts of the moves for the Midi executives and picks them up. Doesn't ask; he owns them. Owns everything in the building.

"These just come in?"

"Yup. Corporate contact of mine with Midi."

"How come you didn't tell me?"

"They just came in yesterday. There's more to come, too."

"How much more?"

"A lot. Whole company is moving to the States. It was bought up. They're moving most of their people. In this economy they go where the jobs are."

"Wow," he says, and for a second that bluster in his face is gone. The arrogance is begrudgingly replaced with respect. It comes back fast, though.

"I'm excited. This is great for us." I hate the way he says "us"; there's no "me" in it. These are my moves, pal, not yours. My contact. I nurtured this relationship right up to her bedroom. I should have belted Mrs. Lent until her jaw swelled up, if that's what she wanted.

"Keep it up. I'll let you know how this afternoon goes."

He leaves the papers on my desk and walks down to see Kevin, who's just arrived. I hear them talking in whispered tones. John comes over to my desk.

"What's up, Gustav?" I hand him the Midi moves. "Wow, two whales."

"Corporate contact."

"I usually say that stuff is a waste of time, but good job."

"Thanks, John. "

"Want to grab some lunch?"

"Can't. I got to get on the road."

"The busy world of the moving consultant."

"Thanks, Pal o' Mine."

"You look different, Gustav. Anything the matter?"

"No, John. Everything is fine."

I call up Christopher Waltz. I want to get the addresses of the two moves coming out of Brantford. Want to seal those up.

"Mr. Waltz, good morning. It's Stan from Henderson Moving."

"Good morning."

"I thought it prudent, Mr. Waltz, if I arrange a time to go out and see the houses of the two executives you're moving down to California. I have their phone numbers from the info you sent, but I just wanted to keep you in the loop. Also, I thought I might pop in to see you, seeing as we're going to be doing a lot of moves for you."

"Uh, yeah. About that. I think we're going to have to hold off on that for the time being." My gut drops through the floor. What have I done? She's wicked, that one. She giveth and she taketh away.

"Is there a problem?"

"This whole thing is so complex. Timelines are getting pushed around. Who's going first down to LA is up in the air. You know how it is."

"I'd still like to come out and meet you. Go over Henderson and how we work. Maybe get a sense of who will be moving after these two initial moves. I punched those first two into the computer last night."

"You haven't processed them, have you? I think you should just put those two on hold for the time being."

"I can't finish them until I get some signatures from you and the parties being moved. I just have an application that shows customs and all that's necessary for a cross-border move. It's easy for you, though; no hassle on your part. Why don't I drop by and explain it all to you?"

"Uh, yeah. Why don't you give me a call next week and we can set something up."

"Okay, thanks, Mr. Waltz. I will do that." I resist the urge to slam the phone down. Motherfucking vindictive bitch. Why? Because I wouldn't hit her in bed? I'd belt her right now. Or maybe Waltz is being truthful. "It's complex." Those two executives could be getting packaged out, not moved down south. It did sound kind of crazy from the start, moving all those people down to the States.

Go and see her, I tell myself. Smooth things over, try and swing this back into your court. In the meantime, leave those two moves on the computer. They'll show up on our sales chart and Jack Henderson is bound to ask about them at the next sales meeting. Yeah, just go and see her. Everything will be fine.

I go see my one call in the afternoon. I'm so distracted I don't even approach a place where I ask for the sale. The decision maker isn't home anyway; it's an idiot son who was left in charge to open the door for me and let me do my thing. Normally I would have made an arrangement to come back and go over my calculations with his parents, but I just buzz through the count-up, thank the kid for letting me in and leave him the estimate.

I wait two blocks down from Mrs. Lent's house. I've already driven by twice. I don't think she's home. I saw a quartet of black people dressed in their Sunday finery working the street, probably for a church or something. They went up to Lent's house and were back down on the sidewalk in thirty seconds. No one home.

At five thirty she pulls in and pops the trunk of her car. My engine is still running; it's getting colder out and I wanted the heater and radio on. I pull up slowly to one spot just before her house. She is ferrying in grocery bags. I get out and approach her. She stops and looks at me coldly for a second, then smiles.

"Can I give you a hand?"

"Last bag." She slams the trunk closed.

"Can we talk?"

"About what?"

The same woman with the same white-haired little dog is coming down the street. I quickly glance at her. Lent sees her too.

"Come inside."

I step into the foyer and wait while Lent goes to the kitchen to drop off the final bag.

"Are you pissed at me?" I say when she comes back.

She gives me a funny look.

"I guess I didn't do what you wanted me to. Are you taking it out on me? I mean, I called up that Christopher Waltz who works for you. He says the two moves he had for me are now on hold. And I thought—"

"You thought I wouldn't be that petty."

"Can I have a drink? It's been a long day."

"I only have wine."

"That's fine."

She sighs and moves to the sideboard in the dining room. Make things right with her, I say to myself. Whatever it takes.

"Won't you join me?" I say.

"My head is killing me. Wine is the last thing I need. I think you should have that and go."

"What if I don't want to go?" She looks at me, a little shocked. I pick up the wine. "No, I mean what if I want to stay make this right with you? I thought... you know."

She softens a bit and sits down on the couch. I sit next to her but a respectable foot away. She rubs her neck. I reach over and start to massage her. She lifts her hair.

"Hmmm. . . That feels nice."

I rub until my fingers tart to ache, then I break off and take a sip of wine.

"I think I might have a glass," she says.

I get up and fix her one. I turn around, glass in hand, and she's standing up, removing her blouse. She lets it fall to the floor. She stands there in her dazzling white bra. I stutter and smile and go over. I hand her the glass and move in for a kiss. She puts her hand on my chest to stop me and takes a drink. Then we kiss and it tastes like Cabernet Sauvignon. Like rotten grapes. Like the whole thing is rotten.

She takes another drink then puts the glass down and starts to unbutton my shirt. I put my hands around her waist and wait. Then she's rubbing my skin, and she leans in on to my chest.

"Are you going to be a good boy?" she asks.

"Hope so."

She pulls my shirt off, hard, almost ripping it. A button pops off. Nice – thanks. Ruin my damn shirt.

I let her strip it off me. Then she's working at my belt and I run the zipper down the rear of her skirt. We're undressed; the only thing between our uglies is a pair of her panties. I'm ready to go and she grabs a hold of me and squeezes. She pulls me along, back onto her couch.

Fine, let's do it here, I think. Easier for me to make my getaway after I patch this up. Still not sure if I'm going to hit her or not.

We begin the act. I'm on top. She starts to moan, just like last time. I'm not pulling up; instead, I bury my head in a pillow and shut my eyes tight. I don't want to see her. Don't want to give her a chance to speak.

"Hit me." I hear in my ear, soft and indistinct. Is she saying that?

"Hit me!"

Yup, she wants me to belt her. I slap her ass like last time. Really hard. As hard as I can. My hand is stinging. There must be a huge mark on her butt.

She pushes me up so I can see her.

"Do it," she says. I can't. I plead with my eyes. She digs her nails in and rolls me over. We almost fall off the couch. We right ourselves.

"What's the matter with you? Can't you do what I ask? I just want this." She slaps me hard as she rides me. It's no turn-on; it bloody well hurts.

"Like that." She slaps me again.

"Fucking bitch." I punch her right in the mouth. I hear something snap and she goes back.

"Goddamn," she says, holding her mouth. There's blood. It's on the carpet already. "You asshole." She comes at me crazy. Swinging her fists. We're nude and start to scratch and punch. She even tries to bite. All I can do is fend her off.

The wine glasses go flying. She gets her teeth into my shoulder and bites hard. I yell. My hands go to her throat. She's got an intensity in her eyes that scares the hell out of me. She's strong and uses her weight on me. Still scratching at me. I grab her by the throat and I choke her. And choke her. And choke her. Her eyes bulge out and finally she stops fighting. Her face is frozen in rage. I see spider lines of red in her eyes. I release her.

"Christ, no." I push her down onto the floor, then I'm overtop of her. "Mrs. Lent. Christ, Mrs. Lent, wake up." She's moving spasmodically but she can't breathe. I slap her hard. Just like she wanted. _Snap out of it._ "Gillian," I shout. I slap again. Her head rolls lifelessly to the side. The convulsions stop.

_No._ I push away from her and crawl on my hands and knees to the middle of the room. I put my head between my forearms. "Fuck!" I look up at the window, half expecting that old lady with the dog to be on the porch peeking in.

I look back at Mrs. Lent and sigh. Her head is thrown back and she's looking at me with horror. No, not horror. I can't tell what it is. I sit cross-legged and look at her. Then I get it. That look on her face. It's satisfaction. Whatever she wanted, she finally got it. Why did I have to be the guy to give it to her?

I hear a buzzing sound form across the room. It's my cell phone. I check it. It's Laura.
SEVEN

"You standing me up, Stanley?" she says in that beautiful, authoritative British voice. I can picture her leaning up against the bar, pint of bitters in front of her, hand on her hip.

"Hi, Laura. Sorry – was just about to call you. I think I'm coming down with something."

"That old one. How many times have I heard that?"

"Not a lot, I suspect. Really, I think I am getting sick. Don't want to pass it on to you. Can we postpone till tomorrow?"

"Fine. I was coming here anyway. It's nine-eleven night. Plenty of young firefighters and ambulance attendants to keep me company."

I laugh, then I fake cough.

"Oh, please," she says.

"I'll check in with you tomorrow. Have a good one."

I end the call. Can they trace where calls are made from? Wait – I didn't make it. She called me. My mind starts to race and I stare down at Mrs. Lent. I shake myself. "No," I say out loud. Not loud enough for anyone outside to hear, though

I get dressed. The one button she ripped off – where is it? I look around but to no avail. I check myself in a mirror in the hall. There are no scratches on my face, thank god. But my body is covered in them. My chest and the lower part of my neck. They're all hidden now by my clothes. None of them drew any blood. I remember that I didn't finish inside Mrs. Lent, but there still could be traces. I am not a stranger to the many forensic-based crime shows on television, and I have been known to crack a Harry Bosch novel once in a while.

Finally, I go back over to Mrs. Lent. I see that her once flush and pink-hued body is starting to grey. It's fascinating how quickly that happens. I see the blood on the carpet from her mouth where I hit her. There are wine stains and splatters from our glasses; they look like blood too. I look for the button again. _So what?_ I think. This shirt is history even if they do find it. My shirts are plain, store-bought ones from The Bay.

Prints. I take the wine glasses, both of them, to the kitchen and smash them in the sink. Then I take a tea towel and, with it wrapped around my hand, I extract a meat pulverizer from Mrs. Lent's utensil jar and smash the glass bits up to tiny fragments and leave them there. I put the wooden mallet back in the jar and rehang the tea towel.

The groceries are still on the counter. I trace back in my mind what I touched. Nothing I remember. Just Mrs. Lent and the couch, of course, and my wine glass. She opened the door, she closed the trunk. She carried all the bags. I look at the tea towel again. Can they extract prints from flesh? Should I wipe her down? No, I tell myself, don't be silly. And besides, you could no more touch Mrs. Lent now than you could slit your own wrists.

My mind is amazingly clear. I can see things in a different light. I've killed someone. In self-defence. She was attacking me. Had to stop her. Just wanted to knock her unconscious and then leave. I could call the cops from the street. I'm all scratched up; that should be proof.

I stand in her kitchen a while longer, then finally I shake myself. It's pitch black out now, a very dark night. I go to her front door and grab hold of the hem of my shirt and lock her door. On my way out, I hit the light switch in the living room with my elbow, plunging the rapidly cooling Mrs. Lent into darkness.

I leave by the back door, using my suit jacket to avoid leaving prints. I scan the street; there's no one about. A light rain is falling. I drive away slowly but not too slowly to avoid attracting attention. I maintain the speed limit on every road going home.
EIGHT

I'm up until four in the morning and have only a couple of fitful hours of sleep before I wake up from a nightmare about a prison cell. I take a hot shower and scrub my body clean until the dozens of scratches on me burn with irritation. I think of Mrs. Lent stiffening up over in Burlington. This is serious, I tell myself. I say it out loud and it reverberates off the mildewed tiles of the shower. "This is some serious trouble you're in, Stan."

I get dressed. I choose a white shirt, the only one I have. I put the one with the missing button on my bed. Don't have time to take care of it now, but I'll ditch it later. I would burn it, but I live in the city and that would draw attention. I'll probably just toss it in the garbage or maybe out the car window.

I pop into the office and pick up my cards. I have two; one for later in the day and one this evening. I don't look at the details, just the times. I think about the date I have with Laura. I have no desire for her now but I must keep up appearances, I tell myself. I figure Mrs. Lent won't be missed today, but people from work will start checking up on her Monday, possibly by Tuesday. Phone calls and whatnot.

I need to get out of the office and get moving. A long drive will give me time to think. My first appointment isn't until three. Plenty of time. I use my work computer to find Midi's address in Brantford and I write it down. It's off Wayne Gretzky Boulevard. That's nice.

Midi is a fairly large company with an impressive steel and dark glass building stretching across several acres of technology park. There's a thick iron gate around the entire property and a ditch with water in it. A moat? A security gate at the front is unmanned and there are plenty of parking spots for visitors near the doors.

I walk in beaming a smile, carrying my briefcase full of Henderson Moving and Storage promotional material. The lobby is impressive. Some weird-looking statue made of smooth red stone is in the lobby and there are other works of art on the wall. The whole space is ultra-sleek, with modern chrome and leather couches and tables.

The couches are occupied by several older, more professional-looking businessmen tapping on laptops and phones. An attractive young woman is seated at the front desk, and she looks up from a magazine as I approach. Beside her stands a security guard who regards me impassively. Another one is over by the elevators at a stand-up desk. There are cameras everywhere.

I have my business card ready and ask to speak with Mr. Christopher Waltz. She asks if I have an appointment.

"Sort of," I say. "I told him I'd made plans to drop by depending on my schedule, and he said that was fine."

She studies the card and dials in a number, talks briefly to the person who answers. She hangs up and turns back to me.

"Someone is coming down to collect you, Mr. Rogers. Please have a seat." She hands me my card back and I go over to the meeting area. The other businessmen ignore me, and I make a serious attempt to read a business magazine sitting on the coffee table, one that features a cover story on Midi. I wait fifteen minutes until, finally, a woman, older than the receptionist but equally as attractive, is there calling my name. I collect my stuff and follow her.

After a quick elevator ride to the third floor, she leads the way through a cube farm of pastel colours punctuated by garish posters extolling the virtues of hard work, flexibility and diversity. I soak in the corporate brainwashing and arrive at a cubicle surprisingly not much bigger than the one I have at Henderson. The woman does an "ahem," as its occupant, the man I presume is Christopher Waltz, is on the phone. He holds his finger up for a moment's pause. He says a few more "ah-hah's" and then winds it down. "Yeah, true, true. I think we should circle back on that. Ping me in about a week. Okay. Thanks." He hangs up and the woman melts away and I shake his hand.

"Christopher Waltz."

"Hi, Chris. Stan Rogers from Henderson."

"It's Christopher."

"Sorry. I was in the neighbourhood. I know we said we were meeting—"

"I thought I said give me a call next week. Rather busy at the moment."

"I understand, but I was in the area. Thought I'd drop by and go over Henderson with you and how we'll be handling this relocation of yours. Incidentally, I was reading up on it. It seems like a huge operation. Will you be moving down yourself?"

Waltz ignores me and grabs a note pad and pen. "Let's grab a room."

He leads me past a half-dozen small meeting rooms. Most are occupied. We wind up in a large conference room not unlike the one we have at Henderson.

He assumes the head of the table. I take up my usual nine o'clock position, click open my briefcase and start pulling my material out. I have brochures that show our guys packing stuff, loading stuff. There's a picture of Kevin with a clipboard talking to a beautiful waspish woman of about forty, not unlike the greying and stiffening Mrs. Lent back on Fintona Ave.

There's shots of Darryl and Rick and the old man with his huge head. Rick is in his oversized suits and Darryl is wearing an actual matching set of coat and pants that I've never seen him in.

"Like I said on the phone." Waltz tries to interrupt my presentation. He barely glances at the material. "These moves are on hold. We have some figuring out to do."

"I understand, but there's no harm in going through our services, how we can help your company accomplish this transition as smoothly as possible." Who is this talking, I wonder? The words coming out of my mouth are so full of confidence.

With my stuff laid out in front of him, Waltz leans back and sighs. I launch into my spiel. The words are coming out of my mouth smooth and strong and slow. I ask the right questions, trying to elicit his needs.

He says nothing at first, and then on the next page of the brochure there's a picture of Laura and the girls with Jack Henderson going over a spreadsheet. This catches his eye and he leans forward and looks at it. It's my favourite pic of her. She's wearing a loose-fitting blouse and leaning forward, her dark hair cascading down one shoulder as she points earnestly to something. Jack Henderson is looking at it intently. The heading on this page is Customs Clearing. I jump at this and start explaining how Henderson Moving can make everything seamless for everyone.

An inspiration comes over me. _Make it personal._ "Are you yourself being moved to California, Christopher?"

"That's the plan. It's all up in the air. One day they tell me I'm going, then the next..."

"I know that Gillian is getting ready for a move of her own – out here to Brantford, that is."

Waltz shrugs.

"I was at her house the other day, going over how Henderson will handle all of her belongings." Why did I just say that? I just placed myself at her house. I start to sweat. Suddenly my face becomes very hot. "She said she was sick of the commute," I continue gamely.

"That's interesting." Waltz says, and he starts to look beyond us at the glass wall that fronts onto the hallway. I am aware of people passing by and he watches them, but I focus on him. Then I notice the symbol above the breast pocket of his shirt. Where have I seen that? I'm still talking, sliding easily back into "move speak" – what corporate clients we have, how long they've been with us – flipping the final pages on my brochure.

I look again at that symbol. Where have I seen that thing? Then it hits me like a bucket of cold water. The shirt hanging up in Lent's closet. Same shirt, same size. Same symbol. Why would Waltz's shirt be in her closet? My god. They were having a fling. A wave of calm comes over me, like I'm sitting on the world's most dangerous secret.

I relax even more, slow my words down. "I've got those two moves booked. I need you to sign this paperwork to put them through and dedicate the trucks to them." I pull the two work orders out; I already have Christopher Waltz's name listed as the corporate signer. The one who's going to make the payments on behalf of Midi. He looks at me and wilts. I hold my pen towards him and he grabs the paper. Makes a pretense of reading it quickly, then signs.

"Now, for the other moves, I'll need to know the schedules, rough times. Just to pencil them into the computer. And the two we're moving: I'm going to call them to arrange to go out and see their houses."

Waltz opens his mouth to object but I cut him off. "I know they've been visited by other movers, but I want this to go as smoothly as possible. I won't intrude on them."

"Very well. Yes, call them. I'll send them an email giving them a heads-up."

"I'd appreciate that. Say, is Gillian in today? I'd like to pop in on her if I could."

"No, I haven't seen her."

"Okay, next time. Nice lady."

"Yes, she is."

I pack my materials up. I slide one of our brochures to Waltz and we shake hands. He walks me silently back to the lobby, where we shake hands again, and I'm out of there. I resist the urge to jump and click my heels in the parking lot.

I sit in my car in the Midi parking lot and think, _Waltz was banging Gillian._ He was wearing a wedding ring. Did he take it off before he banged her? How long had that been going on? Of course, he had to be seeing her. Why else would one of his shirts be in her closet? Maybe they were canoodling on the couch and some wine got spilled and she sent it out for dry cleaning. Or maybe it's his back up-shirt. He'd spend the night and they'd both travel in their own cars to the office and he'd at least not be wearing then same shirt as he was the day before.

I make my way back to the office, occasionally glancing down at my briefcase and the treasure I know it holds.

There's a car in the Henderson lot I don't recognize. Could be a client coming in to settle a bill or file an insurance claim or check out the storage facility. We offer heated long-term storage. Costs a pretty penny but it is really good.

The car looks odd to me. It's monotone and bare-bones Crown Victoria. A fleet vehicle with dog-dish hubcaps. I change my approach to the employees' entrance so I can get a better look at the car. There's a wire contraption on the package tray, some sort of antenna.

I swing by Laura's desk. She looks up. "We still on for tonight?" I ask. Gone are the thoughts of cancelling on her; I want her more now than ever.

"Sure thing, _dahlink_." She draws out her British accent nicely. My loins stir and I wink and head upstairs. Before going up, I can hear Jack Henderson in his office.

"Twelve thousand out of the Berkshire account; transfer it over to Mutual. Yeah, that's right."

I laugh a little. Big man playing at moving money around. Why couldn't he make those phone calls from home and just stay there? Maybe he doesn't want his wife to know how much money he has?

I drop my briefcase on my desk with a bang and take out the Midi contracts. Ida is typing away and humming. She listens to an easy-listening radio station while she works. Does she realize I've stopped saying hi to her? Let her spy on me now as I confirm and finalize twenty thousand dollars of corporate moves.

I log into my computer and try to open the moving application. I get an error message. Fine. I'll try later. They must be doing an upgrade on it. I'll check on my finances instead. I click on a browser and it's slow to load and another error message pops up. My computer is not online. The internet must be down for the whole place.

No problem. I can log these contracts the old way. I go over to our scanner and scan in the contracts and fax them in to the 800 number listed above the machine. At least the phone lines are not down. There's no one else on the floor, which is typical this time of day. Kevin and John are both out working their chits from the girls last night. I have an hour until my first sit.

I return from the scanner and Rick is at my cubicle waiting for me. He has a serious as hell look on his face. I have the hard-copy move confirmations in my hand.

"Yo, what's up, Rick? Good afternoon." I smile and wave the contracts. "Got two huge moves – twenty thousand cross-border. Just faxed them in. Tried my computer. Something's wrong, though. It's offline, but I'll upload them as soon as it's back."

"I need you to come downstairs. There's someone who wants to talk to you."
NINE

Panic hits me in the stomach and I have to steel myself to prevent from falling over onto my knees and puking. I have to fight every instinct not to turn and run out the back way. It's the cop, the one who owns the Crown Victoria. He wants to talk to me about Gillian. They've found her – but how? It hasn't even been twenty-four hours yet. I was just there last night. I got no indication that she had anyone she was close to, other than Christopher Waltz. If he had dropped by her place last night, would he have thought to peer in the window? I don't think so; he'd probably just think she wasn't home. And same for anybody else dropping by. Who would do that? A person doesn't answer the door so you walk up on the lawn and look in the bay window? I wouldn't. I'd think, "They're busy, maybe asleep. Maybe in the shower." "Maybe dead on the front living room carpet" is the last thing I would think.

"Okay, sure, Rick." I put the papers on the desk and follow him down. Each step down to the ground floor is filled with doom. I see the girls; they're standing up now, heads over their cubicles. Even Laura is watching. They're watching me march into the meeting room. The old man's door is open and his office is empty. He's in there now too. Waiting.

I step into the meeting room and Jack Henderson is sitting in his usual spot, looking down at the table. On the other side of the table is the cop. There's no pretending now that he might be an agent from the carrier come here to train me on some new sales technique for offshore moving services. The man is bulky, like a couple of Lego blocks stacked up with arms and a head attached. His hair is slicked back, shiny and black; his eyes are dispassionate like a grizzly's.

"I'm Detective Marco from Halton Regional Police." He flashes a badge real quick. I see just a glint of metal and then it's gone. He has some papers in front of him.

"Just want to talk to you a bit. It's Stan, right? Stan Rogers, like the singer?"

"Uh huh." I say. I force myself to relax just a little. My back is now completely covered in sweat and I can feel my white shirt sticking to it. Good thing I'm not wearing a blue shirt as usual. It would show right through. Then I think about my shirt back at home, the one with the missing button. How I haven't thrown it out yet. Great. Those papers he has are probably a search warrant. I'm done.

"Mr. Henderson, I'd appreciate it if you and your son would leave us for a while. This shouldn't take too long." Jack Henderson stands up to go. "But you never know," the cop says, and he turns and smiles at me.

Both Hendersons leave and the air seems to grow a little thinner. I am aware of my breathing; it sounds raspy, though I feel fine. The sweat has pooled at my lower back now and is waiting for me to move forward ever so slightly so it can run down to the crack of my ass.

"How long have you been with Henderson Moving?" Marco asks.

"Coming up on one year."

"And where did you work before that?"

"Small advertising agency in Hamilton." Marco raises his eyebrows in irritation. "The Plumber Stone agency.," I add quickly, and the eyebrows go back down.

"Did you have access to a computer there? To the internet, I mean."

"Yeah, sure. I was in business development."

"What's that?"

"My job was to go out and establish a rapport with potential clients of the firm and set up meetings for the boss to go in and pitch them. I used the internet to do research."

"I see. Where were you last night from six p.m. to nine p.m.?"

I swallow hard – is it noticeable? I realize that I have a human lie detector sitting across from me.

"I was out on a call until about five, then went and grabbed a bite to eat. Drove around for a bit and went home."

"So you weren't here in the office."

"No," I say. "I did my call. Let me think. I can't remember if I came back here or not." I'm guessing now at what he wants to hear.

"Less than twenty-four hours ago and you're not sure?"

"I wasn't with anybody." My mind was kind of wandering. "I'd have to think. I did that call and..." I hope that Marco goes on to something else, but he just sits there and stairs and me, twiddling his gold pen. A cop with a gold pen. Is he trying to hypnotize me? This is crazy. When's he going to ask me about Gillian? I am steeling myself for that. I don't know if I can bluff my way out of it. My only saving grace is Christopher Waltz. Maybe I can steer Marco in that direction.

"Were you here, or weren't you? This is a very serious matter."

"No, I was definitely not here."

"You like porn, Stan?"

The question floors me. "Porn?"

"Yeah. Don't bullshit me. You heard me. Porn. Pornography. You ever beat your meat to pictures of nude women? Maybe nude men?"

I'm disgusted now, not sure why. I've beaten off to porn plenty of times.

"Yes, I know what you meant. Yes, I have on occasion looked at pornography."

"What about kids? You like looking at pictures of little kids, Stan?"

"No." I say. Even I believe the sincerity in my voice; he must believe it. Put me on a lie detector right now. Just don't ask me if I've ever killed anyone. "Have I seen it? Yes," I say.

"Really? Tell me about it."

"You know, you're surfing around looking for something to pleasure yourself. And it pops up. It's almost unavoidable these days. It's very sad."

"What do you do when it pops up?"

"I close it immediately. I can't imagine what it must be like to be a parent and have that happen to your kid. Although I know sometimes the parents are involved."

"So back to last night. Were you here at your computer upstairs looking at child pornography?"

"No, I most certainly was not." That goddamn computer. I get angry. "I know what this is. Yes, I have a computer on my desk that has internet access. But I'm not the only one who uses it. Kevin uses it. John uses it."

I cringe when I drop these two names; they're both people I like. Especially Pal o' Mine, but I know it couldn't be him. For one thing, he's never back in the office after two. 'I like to plan my sits out so I'm home by five, Gustav,' he told me once. He gets the cards from the girls and the first thing he does is check their addresses in a book he has on his desk, and then he calls them up and rearranges them. He's good at it, real charming. He can get any housewife or college professor to say 'Yeah, sure' instead of 'Eleven o'clock this morning? Why don't you come by at four? That'll be fine.' I've heard him do it dozens of times.

For another thing, watching John work a computer is slow torture. When he enters in the few cross-country or cross-border moves he does get, it's like watching a slow, dim-witted, hesitant chicken pecking out the details. I have to help him every time. I'm happy to do it, mind you.

"There's Tom, the office manager," I tell him now. "I've seen him on it too. And he was using it for personal use." Tom's all right; he doesn't talk to me much. He knows I'm on my way out for lack of moves. "Even Rick has access, I think." I have no problem throwing Ricky Boy in with the lot. I'd throw Darryl too, but I know he has a computer of his own in his office.

"All right, calm down," Marco says. "You say you weren't here. We're going to check into that. You say you don't use the computer for personal use. We're going to look into that too. But someone here is using that computer upstairs to surf child porn, and the Hendersons are pissed. Do you have any idea what that kind of news in the paper or on the radio would do to a company?"

"I can imagine, Officer."

"Detective."

"Detective Marco, I swear to you I would never be that stupid. Rick came to me with a list of websites that someone had punched into that computer up there and I saw the porn sites on that list, but I didn't realize it was child porn. Like I said, I'm not stupid. I know all of that stuff is tracked."

"Okay, Stan. You can go, but I can't promise you we won't speak again. Understood?"

"I understand."

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"No."

Marco just goes back to his paperwork as I leave. Rick is in his office. I resist the urge to go in and start throwing things at that enormous noggin of his. The euphoria I had from logging twenty thousand moves has evaporated, replaced by the grim certainty that there's now another massive nail in my coffin, thanks to being dragged in for questioning by a cop on company property, and for something I didn't even do. If they only knew the thing I did do.

I look at my watch. I have enough time to make it to my 3 p.m. appointment, but just barely, and I'm low on gas. I trudge back to my office, grab my coat and my car keys and head out.

When I get to the gas station, I realize I don't even know where I'm going for this first sit. Marco has me all discombobulated. I pull the cards out of my jacket. Bugger it – the first one is for a listing on Fintona, Gillian Lent's street. It's farther down the street by at least a dozen houses, but what the hell? All I need right now is to show myself on that street. Let that old lady with the dog get another look at me. The busybodies in their houses can get another refreshed look at my car and me, so when the cops eventually do come knocking, canvassing them about whether they've seen anyone out of place lately, they can say, "Yeah, the douchebag with the clipboard. You should find him. He was at her house. He was here yesterday too, around suppertime."

I think about Marco rooting around in my computer at my desk. It's Henderson's computer, I tell myself. They just put it at my desk. It will be occupied by another salesman in a couple of weeks, no doubt. I laugh when I realize that if I had gotten laid off last month, I would be free and clear.

Marco asked me about my previous employer, that advertising agency. He's probably calling them up now. Asking them what I got up to. Asking them if they have computer logs from a year ago. Go ahead, take a look. I got nothing to hide.

I hustle my ass over to Fintona. The house is twenty houses down from Lent's. I can see her car in her driveway. The street is starting to fill up with people coming home early from work, getting a jump on the weekend. Kids are playing ball hockey in the street. They yell 'Car!' and pull back as I drive by, and I smile.

The woman selling the house is about the same age as Gillian Lent. I want to ask her if she knew Lent – what am I, self-destructive? Do I want to go to jail and get pounded in the ass for the next twenty-five years? I have no illusions now about the self-defence theory I thought I could use. The scratches are fading quickly and within days they'll be gone. I should have taken a selfie of them.

I zip through the woman's house, barely asking questions. Just jotting stuff down. I would probably have been this nonchalant anyway coming off a twenty-thousand-dollar move. I wouldn't care about his little fish. I remember the feeling of euphoria I had this morning from those two Midi moves. it was like a huge wave coming up under me and my surfboard. A wave so big you don't even have to start paddling; it just cups under you and you're up and riding high.

Then Marco the shark came by and took a bite out of my leg, and now I'm slowly bleeding to death while he circles.

I finish up the quickest walk-through I've ever done, give her a quick spiel and leave the sales material and the estimate. I tell her to call me after she gets her other quotes, not caring that she might call the office and complain. Just another nail in my coffin. A smaller nail than the accusation that I'm watching child porn at the work computer, but a nail nonetheless.

Back in my car, I'm about to pull away when my phone rings. It's Laura.

"Hey."

"Are we still on?"

"Yeah, for sure. The wine bar down the street?"

"No, got a better idea. There's a pub near me, my local. I have to go home anyway, drop my car off. It's called the Knight and Armour."

"I know it."

"See you there about five-ish?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

"Ta-ta, _dahlink_."

"Yes, darling, see you later," I say. How bold of me. I call up my evening appointment, on a Friday no less, and cancel it. I tell the person who answers the call I won't be out there until next week and will call them.

I beat Laura to the pub by an hour and I start drinking. Heavily. I order a Manhattan. The young girl behind the bar, used to pulling pints and shots, looks at me perplexed, so I tell her how I want it made. Two ounces of Maker's Mark, a half-ounce of sweet vermouth, half-ounce of dry vermouth. Angosta bitters and two maraschino cherries. My father drinks these. Tastes so

good I order another and another.
TEN

"Wow. You look like you've got quite the head start," Laura says from behind me when she shows up. She plops her purse down on a stool next to me.

"Yeah. Bad day."

"I bet. What did that policeman want with you?"

"Detective. You wouldn't believe it. And how did you know he was a cop?"

"Man-child Ricky told me. I asked who he was and he was so distracted he told me. Usually he would have just ignored me or given me one of those none-of-your-business looks he has."

"I know that look well."

"So what did the detective want?"

I think for a split second that maybe I shouldn't go into it. Then I think, "No, I want my story out there." Laura will help spread it around the office.

"Some bastard in the office is using my computer to get up to no good. Ricky Boy thinks it's me."

"Does the cop?"

"He was noncommittal. Asked me a bunch of questions. Now he's going to try and trap me in a lie."

"Will he succeed?"

"No, of course not. I didn't do what Rick thinks I did. I'm clean."

"Good to hear. I saw those moves from Midi go through. The two down to California. Quite a haul – full packing and unpacking, the lot."

"Midi is a computer software company out of Brantford. Some tech giant down in the States bought the lot of them and they're moving all the big brains down there."

"Brain drain they call it."

"Yeah. My brain feels drained right now."

"Not surprised. How many of those have you had?" She points at my drink.

"I don't know. Two or three."

"I'll have a double to catch up, then." She nods at the bartender who's hovering nearby.

I like the fact she's getting sloshed right alongside me. Booze, that great enabler of fornication, has always been my ally. Though, in all honesty, she's sending signals so strong I don't think it would have taken much. But this is better; not that pretentious wine-and-dinner bull-crap. Straight to hard liquor, thrown back with abandon. Then clothes torn off, uglies bumped and the deed is done.

We stay at the bar for hours. The after-work crowd comes and goes. Laura knows a few of the regulars and goes over to talk to a table or two on her way back from the washroom. I stay at my stool, staring down into my fourth Manhattan.

We order a few appetizers. Just enough to put a layer down for more booze. Having firmly established a base with the Manhattans, I switch to draft beer, much to Laura's disdain. She keeps at the hard stuff, replacing Manhattan's with double vodka and sodas with lime.

"I'm watching my figure," she says, slurring her words. I make a big show of looking her up and down.

"Looks just fine to me."

She laughs and puts her hand on my thigh and squeezes. "You're too kind."

We watch a repeat of a premier soccer league match. I could care less, but Laura's rooting for one of the teams and she hasn't seen how this one turned out. "Come on!" she screams at the top of her lungs for a near goal.

I get up to go to the bathroom and have to hold onto the bar rail to keep from falling over. Laura grabs my arm. No way should I be driving now. I have thrown my lot in, cast my die, slipped my anchor. I will be either spending the night at Laura's or in the backseat of my car.

When I get back from the loo, she says, "This is getting expensive. Why don't we have one more back at my place?"

"Sure."

"Blimey, you are sloshed. Are you going to be any good to me at all?" she says.

I know what she means but feign ignorance, and we ask for the bill. Thankfully, the bartender splits it in two and we both cash out. I've spent ninety-six dollars on booze and half the appetizers. We collect our coats and stumble out. It's two blocks to Laura's.

"I like living next to a pub," she says. "Makes me think of home. Pub on every corner back there. You have your local across the street and then three or more favourites in the area where you can pop in and know people. Miss that. People are so cold here. Unless you're with a group, you're on your own."

"You seem to know a lot of people." We both kind of fall into each other and she slips her hand through my arm and hugs me closer. We keep walking.

"Yes, but I've been going there a long time."

Her house is a quaint bungalow with a single-car garage. There's bric-a-brac from England on the walls. Plates with castles and manor houses and the royal carriage on them. A calendar with Big Ben and a bulldog on it hangs in the front entranceway.

I try to undo my shoes and start to fall against the wall but put my hand out in time. When I right myself get Laura hugs me and we kiss. We stand there for a while snogging, as they say. Then she pulls away and goes into the kitchen. I head for the living room and crash out on a La-Z-Boy. Then it hits me that, except for the absence of a second story on this house, the layout is exactly the same as Gillian Lent's. But where Gillian's is washed-out and neutral, giving no hint to personality, Laura's is full of hers. Pictures on an antique radio of her and family members. Too many to count from where I am. Pictures on the wall. The furniture is upholstered in warm colours, and the chairs have a lived-in look. The coffee table has nicks.

I hear a kettle hissing and she comes out with some cold pizza and a teapot and two cups. I comment on how nice everything is. How homey. She thanks me. On one wall is a quilt or blanket made of coarse hair; it's light grey around the edges with brown hair woven in to form the image of a tree.

"My sister sent that to me from New Zealand. It's Alpaca," she says.

She's sitting on the couch like Mrs. Lent used to do and is commenting on something else on the other side of the room when I move to her. She's on me in a flash. Not angry and lustful like Lent, just more than willing to get the inevitable and longed-for moving along.
ELEVEN

I wake up to the sound of water running. Laura is in her ensuite bathroom and I can see shadows move on the wall as she showers. I try to rise from the bed and a wave of pain rolls into my brain and pushes me back down. I remember the drinks in the bar and the tea she served me when we got to her place. At the time, it seemed to settle my stomach a little and clear my head and prepare me for the encounter to follow, but I'm still battling a wicked hangover.

And what an encounter it was. Better than my wildest dreams. I am not only hung over; I am exhausted, having slept very little. I should go jump in the shower with her. But before I can move, the shower stops and I can see parts of her as she dries herself off: a calf, a thigh, a buttock.

"You up?" she asks from the bathroom.

"Barely," I croak. "My head feels like a steam engine."

"Can't hold your liquor, huh, Stanley?" she says.

"Not as well I used to."

"We all get old." She comes out, towel tied around under her arms, her hair slick and black. She looks amazing. She poses, hand on her hip. "What do you think?"

"I think you're a ten and then some."

She pulls the towel off and poses again. "And now?"

We have our fourth and final go at it, rolling around on the mattress, which quickly becomes damp from her wet hair. After we finish and separate, the clock radio at her bedside comes on, just in time for the morning news.

A 45-year-old woman has been found dead in her home in Burlington. Foul play is suspected. Gillian Lent, of Fintona Avenue, has lived in the city for the past ten years. Police are saying there was no sign of forced entry and are looking to anyone who might lead them to the suspect or suspects in her death.

"Oh dear," Laura says. "Don't expect that kind of thing here in Burlington, do you?"

"It's generally a safe community."

"Probably a jealous husband or something." Then the news switches to sports and weather. I roll over and look at her.

"If I still smoked, I'll be having one now," she says.

"Don't start up again. I hate cigarettes."

"Me too, dahlink."

"Come on, we have to get to work."

"It's Saturday, Stan."

"Oh, thank god." I crash back onto the bed.

"Uh-uh," she says and pokes me. "I have to get going. I'm heading to Kingston this afternoon. You need to shove off, sailor."

After I'm finished dressing and ready to go, I say, "What about Monday?"

"What about it?"

"Work? Us? I'm not exactly the poster boy for success at Henderson Moving."

"I know."

"You do? What do you know?"

"I see the numbers every week. I don't care. The job is not for everyone, and I don't really want to get into anything heavy with someone I see every day."

"So we're going to get into something heavy, are we?"

She laughs. "I generally shag all the salesman who are about to be laid off. As a form of severance."

"You're awfully good at it."

"Maturity, my dahlink. Brings skill."

We kiss and I leave.

Instead of going home, I swing over to Fintona. I can't help myself. I park in front of the house I visited yesterday. I have no appointment with the owner and normally I would have just phoned him to check on the estimate and whether he wanted to go with us, but I would have waited until Monday to do that.

But nevertheless, here I am, on Fintona. Scene of the crime. There are three police cars in front of Gillian Lent's house. There's yellow tape around the property and a gathering of uniforms in the driveway. There's also an unmarked cop car there, one I'm familiar with. Detective Marco's.

Across the street are news vans from Hamilton and Toronto and a crowd of onlookers, neighbours. I see the old lady with the dog. She's talking to a reporter.

I get out of my car and, with clipboard in hand, walk up to the house I'm in front of. The owner emerges from the garage.

"Hell of a thing," I say to him. We shake hands.

"It is."

"I was in the area and just wanted to follow up on your move. I had no idea this is where that murder happened."

"They found her yesterday."

"Did you know her?"

"Not really. Just enough to wave to if we passed each other walking."

"How'd they find her?"

"I heard that a gas meter reader found her back gate locked and knocked on the door. Peered in the window and saw her."

Gas meter readers; shifty bunch, I think. "It's a tragedy. I bet the police will be canvassing the area."

"Yeah, they started last night at eleven p.m. They were here all day yesterday going door to door. Finally got around to talking to us."

I nod and feign interest, but I'm really looking at the woman with the dog. She's been summoned over to the cops and now she's talking to Detective Marco.

"I don't want to seem insensitive. Just wanted to stop in and check on your move."

"You better go ahead and register that truck for us."

"Yeah, will do. I'll give you a call Monday to confirm it," I say. We shake hands again and I leave. I do a three-point turn in his driveway and leave, heading away from the Lent house and Marco. I watch him in my mirror; he doesn't look in my direction. The woman is still talking to him. Giving him my description?

I call Midi from my car and go through the automated phone tree to Gillian Lent's line. Her recorded greeting sends a shiver down my spine. It's as if she is speaking directly to me.

_"Hi, this is Gillian Lent. I'm away from my desk at the moment. Kindly leave your name and number and a brief message and I'll get back to you. Thank you_." Oh, and I like to be hit while I'm in bed with a complete stranger.

"Hi, Gillian, it's Stan Rogers from Henderson Moving and Storage. It was nice meeting you yesterday. Two things: I have booked the truck for your move from Burlington to Brantford on the date you wanted. I'll give you a call a couple of days before just to check on everything, make sure you're ready to go. If you need any boxes or packing tape, let me know and I can run them out to you no problem.

"And I just wanted to follow up with you on the corporate moves that I've booked for your firm. The two relocations down to California. They're in the system and I have updated estimates that include vehicle shipping and customs clearing. We should get together and go over the timetable for these moves to ensure they go smoothly."

I give my number and say I will call her back and end the call. The cops must know who she worked for by now. Marco will be going out there at some point, I hope. Right now, they're busy poring over the house looking for clues. I just pray they go upstairs, check out her closet. Take notice of Waltz's shirt. Then when Marco is out in Brantford, he'll see Waltz with the same type of shirt, same distinctive logo on the breast pocket, and bam! A prime suspect will be created.

I spend the rest of the weekend in my apartment. I put some hydrocortisone cream on the scratches; I want them gone now. It might work; couple of days they'll be gone for good.

I resist the urge to call Laura. I'll let her be. She said she would be gone all weekend and I believe her.
TWELVE

I get in to work at 9:13. We have the Monday sales meeting every other week so it's okay if I'm a bit late. I drop my stuff off and head down to dispatch. Mike is not in his office. I see him in the rumpus room having a coffee and talking to two of the warehouse guys. The rumpus room is a lounge that the movers have set up with discarded furniture, stuff that people put into storage and then couldn't pay for. It's a crazy collection of mismatched leather couches and chairs and nicked coffee tables. There's a TV stand in the corner with a TV that's turned on only for an important baseball or hockey game and kept off anytime old man Henderson is in the building. It's on now and I see Gillian Lent's face on the screen.

Instead of going into the rumpus room, I head to the book in the hall. I realized that I never put Lent's move down in it. Thankfully, the day she wanted is free and clear, so I write in her name, address and estimate weight and destination. I don't know what I would have done if all of our trucks had been booked that day. Then I flip to the date for the other move I booked, the one for Lent's neighbour on Fintona. It's a local move, and the estimated weight is ten thousand pounds. I make a mental note to call him and confirm.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Mike coming over, coffee in hand. He's a nice guy, an old "moving hand," and tough like a taxi dispatcher. He doesn't take guff off anyone, especially a rookie salesman slowly circling the bowl. He glances down at the second move I've just recorded.

"Any surprises on this one, pal?" Mike says, and he sips his coffee.

"No," I say, thinking back to the surprise I got last night from Laura.

"No four-wheelers in the basement?"

I laugh. "No, Mike, no four-wheelers." On this one move I booked last spring, the owner of the home, for some reason he never fully explained, had a brand-new four-wheeler in the basement. A machine that probably weighed seven hundred pounds. The owner was insistent that he would take care of it, would get it up the stairs and outside for the movers when they showed up. I wrote it down on the estimate and had him initial it. I told him that if our guys had to get it out of the basement it would take hours and he would be charged for that. 'No problem, no problem,' he'd said. I booked the move and even wrote down on the dispatch book "Owner will move 4-wheeler."

Our guys show up. The four-wheeler is still in the basement. All three of them spent the entire morning getting it up the stairs. One of the guys got hurt when it slid back and caught his hand between the bike and the wall. He had to go on sick leave after he completed the move.

A quick eight-hour move had turned into a sixteen-hour ordeal. The owner called me and freaked out at the charge. I told him he'd agreed to get that thing up the stairs. He didn't remember the conversation. I said he'd initialled that detail on the estimate, of which he had a copy. He said he didn't have it and was I calling him a liar? I was very close to doing just that, but I apologized for the confusion and hung up.

Mike was plenty steamed after that move. He didn't care about all the extra money we'd made. He'd lost one of his key guys for a big move coming up that weekend and wanted to know how I could have been so stupid as to not inform him about the four-wheeler. There was no point in showing him the estimate, he told me. I should have told him personally. Kevin schooled me on that after I came up to the sales floor to escape Mike's tirade.

I flip through the book, which has all of the local moves in it. Long-distance moves are entered into the computer. I flip through to the date Lent wanted to move and I write her name, address and estimated weight down. It's a good move, or would have been had I not killed her. Ten hours to load and unload, three hours of travel. If I could have landed two or three of these a week, I wouldn't be under the gun now. I also book the other move from Fintona, Lent's neighbour.

"You book something?" It's Mike.

I swing around. I hadn't heard him sidle up to me. "Yeah, just a small local."

"That's about all we're getting from you these days."

The gloves are off now. He's letting me know that I'm doomed. He's a good guy but a straight shooter, and he's been here twenty-one years. Started off as a junior mover and moved his way up. He has seen them come and go.

Back up in my office I slump in my chair and just stare straight ahead at my blank computer monitor.

"Something else, huh?" Ida says. She's come out of her office to talk to me.

"Huh? What's that, Ida?" I respond, not even turning my head to look at her. _Go away, spy. Leave me alone._

"Your call from last week. She was the woman who was murdered."

I snap out of it. "How do you know that?"

"We log all the cards the girls get."

I forgot about that. Of course they record them. Rick wants to see how many leads each salesman is getting and how many they're closing. Those stats are talked about at our biweekly sales meetings. Rick calls it our closing ratio. Plus, they pay the girls for each lead they book. Girls – old hags, more like it. They come in in the evenings and sit at bunch of desks down at the far end of the sales floor. They call real estate listings and book the appointments. They're good at it, I suppose; I don't remember a day where I didn't have at least one of their leads on my desk. Sometimes they put out lousy ones, like that guy down on Barton Street who was being evicted, but most of the time they are good, solid leads that a real salesman should have no problem closing. Lent's appointment would have been recorded and scratched off the list so that they didn't keep bothering her, but I had no idea they kept a record of who's got what leads.

It's only a matter of time before Detective Marco comes to see me again, then, and this time it won't be for watching kiddie porn on my computer at work. He will want to know how my meeting with the dear, departed Mrs. Lent went. The only thing I can cling to is the faint hope that my subsequent return visits have not been logged, but now I have the Lent move in the book.

Instead of going to my desk, I leave through the rear entrance. I just want to get out of there. Laura is outside talking to two of the movers, and she looks at me and smiles. I wave back but don't go over. I don't want to share her attentions with those two guys. I wonder if she's ever seduced either of them. I hear them talk about her down in dispatch. She loves it, flirts with them constantly, but it's not the same when she does it with me. And now we've sealed the deal, done the deed. We're past all that.

I drive around aimlessly for about half an hour, then head over to the mall. The theatre has matinees and I choose one that seems mind-numbingly dull, a love story. The other film is a murder mystery. Definitely not what I need right now.

I buy two movie theatre hot dogs, a container of popcorn and a large Coke and head in. Except for an older couple sitting in the middle of the theatre I'm the only one there, and I sit up high in a dark corner.

I wolf down the dogs and munch on the popcorn until I start to feel a bit better. The caffeine in the Coke helps, but despite the rush I feel from it I drift off to sleep. Surprising, considering the circumstances I am in. Correction: the circumstances I put myself in.

I'm wakened by the security guard's flashlight poking me in the stomach. I leap up like a shot and scare the kid, and he backs off.

"Sorry... Sorry, man," I say to him. "I fell asleep."

"It happens. This movie is a real snoozer," he says.

I brush popcorn off me and collect my trash and head out. It's after two. Good; I want this particular day to be a distant memory. The quicker I can be done with it the better.

I sit in my car for a half hour waiting for the news to come over the radio. The story on Lent's death has no more updates; the police are appealing for any witnesses. Body won't be released for the funeral until next week. Relatives are flying in from BC.

Laura calls my cell.

"Where are you?"

"Why?"

"You missed an appointment. The woman called. She spoke to Darryl."

"Jesus. I'm heading right back." I never went to my desk to check my cards.

I floor it back to the office. I actually get the front wheels of my Pontiac Sunfire to chirp. The revs go up dangerously close to six thousand, the red line. _Yeah, go blow the engine on your car, jackass. You've blown the engine on your life, nearly – what's a four-thousand-dollar car?_

Everyone else's car is in the parking lot. What is going on? Middle of the day, we should all be out. Ricky Boy's Intrepid is there. Darryl's Lumina too. Only one missing is the old man's rusting Jag. Small compensation.

I hustle it in. Rick and Dennis, the rep from our national carrier, are standing in the hallway. Rick ignores me. I get it immediately. It's our monthly meeting with Dennis.

"Excuse me, gents," I say. Dennis is a great guy. Fit, handsome. Natural salesman. Making big money. He slaps me on the back.

"Get in there, boy," he says. His slap betrays no inkling that he knows I'm on my way out. I'm grateful for it.

I slide into the meeting room where the rest of the guys are, Kevin and John and Tom our office manager and dispatcher Mike, his dispassionate face registering nothing.

Dennis and Rick come in, and then Darryl, who slides in last and takes a seat in the corner.

Rick does a preamble. Still ignores me. Won't look at me. For some reason, this is more unsettling than if he had bored down on me with those little rat eyes of his.

Dennis is a natural presenter and salesman. For an hour he enraptures us with the wonderful advances and updates in the world of international moving. He has slides. The projector conks out and without skipping a beat, Dennis starts drawing on a whiteboard. Rick goes all red and yells for Laura to come in and swap out the projector. He has to show everyone how powerful he is. I look at Kevin and he rolls his eyes and grins.

Laura comes in and I don't make eye contact with her, not with the others around. She is in command of the electronics and eventually gets Dennis's presentation back up on the screen.

While we're sitting here, I'm thinking about the cards up on my desk, the appointment I just missed and whether or not I'm missing one while we're in this meeting. Normally if there is a conflict, I would have called the customer and rebooked. The women who book the sits don't give a goddamn if we have meetings scheduled or not when they make their appointments and fill their cards out; they just book the slot whenever the person selling the house is available. I cringe. Missing two sits in one day is bad. Might be bad enough for them to walk me right out the door.

The meeting goes over an hour both because of the electronics snafu and because of the time Dennis takes to answer every question, no matter how stupid or repetitive. I watch Ricky Boy puff his chest up and try and take on some sort of air of command, like he's the colonel and we're the lieutenants. What a pompous ass. Why couldn't I have killed him instead of the sex-crazed Mrs. Lent?

On the way out, I feel a tug at my sleeve and then an arm on my shoulder. It's Darryl.

"Talk to you a sec?"

"Sure, Darryl."

We head to his office. He doesn't offer a seat; it's just a quick chat.

"Here." He hands me my chit cards; I haven't had a chance to retrieve them.

"You were supposed to do this sit this morning. This lady is a friend of mine."

"I'm sorry, Darryl. I screwed up. I'll call her and make it right."

"No bother. I went over and did the estimate myself. It's booked for the end of the month."

He sees I'm uncomfortable.

"Relax. Rick doesn't know you messed up. I booked it under your name."

"Thanks, Darryl. I don't know what to say."

"Where were you?" Then he holds up his hands. "Forget it – I don't want to know. At least you're not drunk. You got another appointment there."

I look at the second card. It's for four o'clock. I have ten minutes to get to it.

I dash upstairs and grab my clipboard and briefcase. I thunder down the back stairs and out to my Sunfire and do my best to beat the all-time speed record across town to make this appointment.

I'm two minutes late. There's another salesman there; he's just leaving. One of the competitors. This happens every once in a while. Some homeowner thinks we're going to compete and give her a deal if we know she is getting other quotes. I don't care. I nod hello at the guy. He's a seasoned pro, the competitor's version of Kevin from a Toronto-based mover.

I do the sit-down, go over it all. I ask for the business and she says she has one more quote coming in. Colossal waste of my time.

"Fine," I say. "Let us know." I could care less. I've got my one move for the day, courtesy of Darryl. I think on how decent that was; he could have booked the move for himself. A cozy couple of hundred in his pocket. Could have spent it on his kid he had with the sandwich truck lady. I make a mental note not to join in the razzing of Darryl the next time Kevin and John start it up.

I call Laura.

"That lady was furious," she says.

"I know, I know. I completely screwed it up."

"Where were you?"

"Listen, what are you doing tonight?"

"Dyeing my hair. You could come for dinner. Then I could dye my hair."

"What time?"

"I'm home now. Come on over. I'll have a martini waiting for you."

"No. No booze. My head still hurts."

She sighs.

"Okay. One martini. Two olives."

"Greedy boy." She laughs and hangs up.

Only bright spot in my day. Well, this morning was good, but this is going to be better. For a couple of hours, I can push Lent and Marco and Waltz and Rick the Prick out of my mind.
THIRTEEN

**** "Stan stop it!" Laura yells and pushes me at me. I'm naked in her bed. My hands are around her neck but my dream and the six martinis and bottle of red wine have sapped all my strength, not to mention putting a damper on the good times with Laura in the sack.

The room is spinning. I come out of it a little more. For a second, I see Gillian's face next to me instead of Laura's and I scream and reach for her throat again. She slaps my hands away from her.

I scramble out of bed. Thank god there's a slip of light coming from under the bathroom door. I dash to it and toss up that awful mixture of alcohol. I roll on to my backside and cough and wipe spittle from my mouth with some toilet paper.

"Stan, you all right?" Laura calls from the bed.

I kick the door closed.

"Yeah. Fine. Sorry. It's the booze."

I dry heave again and then I know I'm done. At least I won't have a raging hangover this morning. Better to purge at the start of the day. I run some cold water and splash it on my face and dry off. I stare at myself in the mirror. I have bloodshot eyes from the retching. I turn the fan on in the bathroom. It reeks of booze and puke.

I go back into the bedroom and sit down on the edge of the bed, my back to Laura. She's up on one elbow and scratches my back.

"What were you dreaming?"

"Did I hurt you?"

"No. Were you trying to hug me?"

"I was dreaming of when I was six and my mom went on a business trip," I tell her. What a crock; the dream was horrific. Gillian Lent, all moulding and grey, was scratching at me and her fingernails were coming off, getting imbedded in my chest, and I was trying to fend her off but my arms had no strength. And she just kept cackling and laughing and screaming, 'Hit me, hit me!'

"Who is Gillian?" Laura says.

"Gillian? Huh? Oh. My mother."

"You call your mother by her first name?"

"Yeah, it was a little game of ours when I was young. I'd forgotten about that." I flop back down on the bed. "I guess I'm not used to martinis."

"Plus the red wine," she says. "You'd never make it over in England. Not even a week, I don't think."

"You drink like that regularly?"

"Back home? Every day after work, in the pub. Couple of Martys and then on to the Cab Sauv."

I gag and puff out my cheeks and put the back of my hand to my mouth.

"Sorry, love," she says. Her breath smells of morning and vermouth.

I get up to get showered and dressed. I'll be going to work in the same clothes I had on yesterday. I need to pull a Christopher Waltz and put a shirt in Laura's closet. Maybe some pants and small bits. A razor and shaving cream and toothbrush in her medicine cabinet. If I play this right, I could start putting down some roots here, just little ones that could easily be torn out by either party, but roots just the same.

I could start getting my dry cleaning sent here and move right in. Not a bad prospect. Certainly beats my apartment in Hamilton. God knows, with the way my life is going, I'm never going to be able to scratch together a down payment for a house. Maybe this is my ticket out of my twenties and on into a slightly delayed adult life.

Driving into the Henderson parking lot, I see Detective's Marco's car, and I almost pull right around and head back out. I can sense him looking at me through the meeting room windows. I have to swallow hard and dive right in. _You knew this was going to happen_. Maybe I should have gone to Marco first?

Despite showering at Laura's, I can smell myself. I'm going to pick my cards up and go back to my place if I can. Take a snooze and change if my appointments will let me.

Darryl's office door is open. I hear a conversation, one-sided. Phone call. I move down the hall and past the door and pause. Catch a glimpse of Marco on a cell phone. Darryl has let him use his office for cop business.

"Get the address in Brantford," Marco says. "I know a guy on the force. Should make a courtesy call before we head out there. Uh huh. Right."

I move further down the hallway, my mind racing, my mouth twitching into a smile I can barely control. Marco is headed to Brantford, to talk to Waltz, no doubt. See if he knows if Lent had any enemies or bad relationships. Maybe he'll see the insignia on Waltz's shirt and put it together?

But first I have to get past the inevitable. I know he's come to talk to me. At least there isn't a phalanx of cops waiting to take me in. I suspect Marco knows I will offer no resistance. Like a python about to eat a rabbit, he knows I'll just stay in the corner of my cage, shivering, waiting to be devoured.

I go into the main office where Laura is. I let her get here twenty minutes ahead of me to keep up appearances. She's on the phone and I walk over to her desk. She puts her hand over her receiver. Wrinkles her nose.

"You're kind of ripe."

I smell myself. "Really? I think I smell good," I whisper. "Maybe I should leave some clothes at your—"

She holds up a hand.

"Yes, I'm still here. Uh huh. Right. That was thirty-two thousand pounds to Dallas. Cleared customs yesterday."

I walk way over to the water cooler I never use. We have one of our own on the sales floor. I'm not bothering to go up to my desk; I know what's happening. I position myself. I can see the top of Ricky Boy's blonde head in his father's office and I can hear them talking.

Detective Marco comes into the main office putting his phone away. He sees me and smiles a big shit-eating grin. Cat that ate the canary.

"Hey, there's the guy I came to see."
FOURTEEN

"Morning, Detective." I extend my hand and see that he's reluctant to shake it, but he does. His grip is rock hard like I knew it would be. He pumps my hand once. A little victory for me. Rick hears the conversation and pops out. He ignores me completely.

"You can use my office, or the meeting room is empty," Rick says.

"Meeting room is fine. Don't want to disrupt your day," Marco says.

"We're here to help in any way we can."

Marco stands at the meeting room door and I have to slide by his squat, bulky frame to get in. I put my things down on a chair and take my jacket off, conscious that I look like I haven't been home in days.

Marco sits across me and checks a text first and then looks up at me. He removes a clear plastic bag from his jacket. It has a red band along the top where the seal is and is marked Evidence. Inside the bag is the estimate I left Gillian. I can read it from where I sit.

"Recognize this?"

"Sure do. Gillian Lent's place. I was going to talk to Rick about that. What a shame."

"You left this there. I noticed the date. Two days before she was murdered."

"Yeah, it's shocking. I had an appointment to go see her. She's moving – uh, she _was_ moving to Brantford. And then possibly the States. Her company got bought out and they're moving a whack of people down there. I just booked two moves from her company."

"Is that coincidence? Or did she help with that?"

"She most certainly did help with that. I book corporate moves. When I hear that someone works for a company, I try and find out if our corporate relocation services can be of value to them. I struck gold with Midi. I was looking forward to nurturing the relationship with Mrs. Lent—"

"Now that's all up in the air, the company merger will still go through?"

"Yes, I suppose. But I suspect there will be a shakeup. The relationship I had with Mrs. Lent..."

"Died with Mrs. Lent, is what you're saying?"

"I suppose I am saying that. Sounds callous, though."

"Did she say anything to you? Anything that stayed with you? Did she appear frightened? Were there any phone calls while you were there? Did anyone drop by?"

"No, nothing like that."

"How did she seem?"

This is great. He thinks I'm a witness, not a suspect. Maybe it's those two days' separation between my first contact and the murder. _Don't kid yourself, kiddo. Everyone in the city is a suspect until they find the killer. And Marco is sitting right across from him._

The scratches that Lent left on me have all but faded. Thankfully Laura hasn't seen them or commented on them. Just to be safe, though, I should cool things with her until they're gone. Right now, even though they look like faded red pen lines I drew on myself, they're burning hot under my three-day-old shirt. Then I remember I called out Gillian's name in her bed. Told her it was my mother's name – that's an easy lie for Marco to catch if he speaks with her.

"What did you do after your appointment with her?"

"The next day those two moves from her company came in. I called her but got her voice mail. I talked to a guy called Christopher Waltz. He works with Gillian. He said that she told him to send the moves my way and that there would potentially be more. I went out to see him."

"When?"

"Friday. Met with him at Midi's office in Brantford, where Gillian worked. I have to go back today and check out the two moves I booked. Look over the people's houses and make sure everything is kosher."

"So there's nothing you can tell me about the day you met with Mrs. Lent, nothing out of the ordinary?"

I'm tempted to mention Waltz's shirt. _Keep it cool Stan, don't blow it. Let Marco put that connection together._

"Nope."

"How long were you there?"

"I'd say forty-five minutes, no more than an hour. I left that sheet with her; that's the estimate for her move to Brantford. I came back here and booked it."

"There's a record of that? I would like to see that."

"Sure. Ask Rick to show you the book in Mike's office. It's a little old-fashioned, but the system works."

Marco nods that I can go. He watches me leave. I can feel his eyes on the back of my head. I head up to my office and grab two cards. Damn. They're both mornings. I'll have to bump them if I'm going to head to Brantford. If they're going to haul Waltz out in cuffs, I want to see it. This not knowing is driving me crazy.

Marco's car is still in the parking lot when I leave. I know exactly where I'm going. Even with GPS he won't beat me there. I get on the 403 to Brantford and call my morning moves with my cell in one hand, other hand on the wheel. I'm successful at getting them both bumped to later in the day.

Still, I don't want to get pulled over so I do ten over the speed limit the whole way. Across the street from Midi is a strip mall with a restaurant, a coffee shop and a dental practice. It's a large street; there's quite a bit of traffic. I can see dozens of cars in the Midi parking lot and occasionally people coming and going. Delivery trucks pull around to the rear; couriers park up front.

I park in the mall and wait. And wait. My stomach starts to groan. I go into the restaurant and get a burger and fries to go. There's a counter so I sit and continue waiting while my food is being prepared. It's lunchtime now; people are coming in.

In the mirror behind the counter I see Waltz and another man come in. He stands next to me and orders a meal to go, as does his colleague. I sit there with my back slightly to him and eat and listen to their small talk. When there's a lull in their conversation I spin around on my stool. He does a double take and looks at me, puzzled, trying to remember my name.

"Christopher," I say and extend my hand. "Stan Rogers, Henderson Moving. I came out to see you last week."

"Right, of course, Stan. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I bet you talk to a lot of people."

"You work out here? Thought you were based in Burlington."

"Seems like I'm out here more and more. A lot of businesses are setting up shop here." I look at his companion.

"Hey, Bill," says Waltz, taking the cue. "This is Stan Rogers. He's taking care of the first moves down to California."

Bill looks puzzled. "Burlington?" he says as we shake hands. "Isn't that where...?"

"Yes, Gillian was from Burlington," Stan says. "Did you hear about that?" he asks me, his voice hesitant.

"No. What, exactly?"

"Gillian Lent, woman I worked with. She was found dead on the weekend."

_Murdered,_ I almost interject. "Oh my god," I say, and put my hand to my mouth. "I just met her recently. She was so nice."

"Yes, she was very nice." I try and read Waltz's face. Is he heartbroken that his little shack-up has been killed? I can't tell. He's one cold fish. He and Ricky Boy would get along.

"Listen, I got to run. It was good meeting you," I say to Bill. "About the relocations, Christopher – we should talk about anything that's up and coming."

"Yeah, for sure. I'm filling in for Gillian until a replacement can be found, but yes, we might have something for you. Call me next week."

"I will. Thank you."

I head to my car and sit in it, finishing off my soft drink. I can see Christopher and Bill through the glass. They emerge from the dinner with brown paper bags and head to a brown Honda Civic. Waltz's car. I take note of the licence plate number. They don't see me. I track them as they cross the busy intersection and head back over to Midi. I don't blame them for not just walking over from their office; the weather is kind of crappy and looks like rain.

I'm about to leave when I see Detective Marco's car pull into Midi's parking lot. While my car idles, fat drops of rain come down and I see Marco walk, unhurried, into Midi.

Thank god he wasn't on lunch break and didn't pull into this diner. That might be too much of a coincidence for him, even though I did tell him I was heading out here. Still, the guy's a detective. He'd be able to detect that I was bullshitting. Maybe he has already. I turn on the Hamilton/Burlington radio channel, but it doesn't reach this far and the Brantford station carries no update on the Lent murder. They had their own murder last night and that's their top story.

While I'm waiting for Marco to come out with Waltz in cuffs, I call my two bookings that I've already put off once. I put them off for good, at least for today. I tell them I'm feeling well, don't want to get them sick. They're both for moves happening in the new year, so I've got plenty of time to get them sorted out. I push one out to the following week, and when I drop the price per hour on the second one they tell me they're going to get two other quotes first and will give me a call.

"That's just fine," I say. Man, if I was in the office making those calls and Ida heard me, I bet she'd set the carpet on fire running down to tell Rick.

Marco's in with Waltz for over an hour. I eat the remaining fries that escaped the cardboard container and are lying cold and limp in the bottom of the bag. I suck the pop dry and then wait for the ice to melt and drink that. Then, naturally, I have to take a piss.

I turn my car off to save gas and squirm in my seat while I contemplate filling that wax soft drink cup with my urine like some long-haul trucker. Finally, Marco emerges. Just him, no Waltz in tow. I see his jacket flare from the wind and his tie go behind his head and he pulls it down. As he drives to the exit on to Wayne Gretzky Boulevard, he is pointed right at me and I slouch down. I count to ten, then peer above the dash. He's gone.

I walk quickly, holding my groin, back into the diner.

"Hey, man, that's only for paying customers," the pimply-faced guy behind the counter says to me as I emerge from the john and head towards the door.

"I was in here a half hour ago I bought lunch."

"Half hour, huh?" He wasn't behind the counter then.

"Fine." I grab another Coke off him and go back and sit in the car.

At four in the afternoon, people start leaving Midi for the day. I see Waltz's bronze Civic pull up to the light and turn in the opposite direction Marco turned. I've got my car started and I put a good two hundred yards in between us, letting a blue RAV4 get in front of me. I still have my eyes on Waltz's car.

He leads me off the WGB and into suburban bliss. Nice two-story houses and manicured lawns and foreign cars in every other driveway. I close the distance now as I don't want a light or a stop sign or a crossing guard to make me lose my target. I don't think he knows he has a tail. He knows he didn't kill his lover Gillian; I doubt Marco played all his cards during their talk. When I saw Waltz in the diner, he had his raincoat buttoned up over a sport coat. I couldn't see if he was wearing one of his monogramed shirts.

Waltz pulls into the driveway of a Ward and June Cleaver–type house and I speed by. I go another hundred feet and pull over just in time to watch him get out of his Honda and enter the house. I move farther down the street, do a three-point turn and park on the opposite side of the road.

I know I can't confront him again, go knock on his door and say, "Hey, I was just in your neighbourhood and thought we could chat about your little tête-à-tête with Detective Marco." I'm not really sure what I'm doing here, actually; I just want to get a clearer picture of Waltz's life. And I get it.

Another car pulls in beside Waltz's Honda and a nice-looking woman with long dark hair gets out. She opens the rear door and takes a baby out of a car seat. Nice going, Christopher. Little bit on the side with your boss while your wife is at home with the baby?

I figure Waltz is in for the night. I start my car and am about to leave when I see him come out carrying a hockey bag. His wife is barely in five minutes and he's leaving? He's got something in his hand; it's a sandwich. He puts the hockey bag in the trunk of his car and goes back inside. Twenty minutes later he's back, this time dressed in street clothes with a spring jacket on and ball cap. He gets into his car and leaves the way he came in, back out to the WGB.
FIFTEEN

Waltz heads across Brantford, hockey town. I suspect he's got some early ice time with the boys. Couple of beers and chicken wings at the Kelsey's afterwards. Used to be in a league like that myself. Got tired of feeling like crap after it. Plus, I bruise easy and break even easier. Two broken wrists and a badly twisted ankle and I was done with adult hockey league. Some guys carry on into their forties. Not me. Guys on my team used to call me the Glass Man because I broke so easy.

We pull into a double rink on the other side of town. I take up position in the farthest corner of the parking lot and watch Waltz walk in with his bag. I give it thirty minutes, then I get out and follow him in. I know that ice time is usually doled out by the hour; plus, you need a half hour on either end to get changed.

I enter the arena and that smell hits me – sweat and mildew. I pull my coat close around me against the chill coming off the ice and two teenagers chuckle at me. The Zamboni comes off the ice dripping wet and smelling of exhaust and gasoline. The driver looks bored, a broken man.

There's one of those old-style coffee machines and I put in a loonie. Used to be a quarter when I was a kid, getting hot chocolate at Mountain Arena on a Saturday morning.

This arena is nice; some real money has been spent on it. Maybe by the Gretzky family themselves. I grab my cup of coffee and head into the first rink. Kids are playing. By the size of them I'd say they're in their mid-teens. Looks like a practice. I scan the crowd, the adults behind the bench, but I don't see Waltz. My coffee warms me and wakes me up. This has been one hell of a long day. Two nights without great REM sleep. Too much booze and too much Laura. I should call her. So much for cooling things off with her.

I head over to the second rink and immediately see Waltz. He's on the ice dressed in a referee's outfit. I climb up to the top of the stands under the rafters and watch. My coffee done, I crinkle the cup and drop it under my bench.

I watch Waltz ref his game. It's younger kids, probably twelve years old. Some of them are good. Waltz is good too, at least from what I can tell. He makes the tough calls. The game is competitive. Several parents below me shout at him.

"What the hell, Ref? You blind?"

"Come on, Ref! You suck."

Some kids near me get in on it, releasing a tirade of abuse against Waltz, until one of the same parents turns to them. "Knock it off, guys."

This brings back memories for me, good and bad.

Finally, after an hour, the game is done. The teams line up and shake hands and depart the ice. Waltz speaks to some adult players coming on next and then leaves.

I climb down out of the stands and go back into the hallway outside the dressing rooms. Another coffee seems in order.

I'm at the machine getting one when Waltz comes out of the dressing room marked Referees. He's still in his ref uniform but his skates are off. He goes into the convener's office right next to the machine but doesn't see me. I move over to the candy bar machine, put in another loonie and pull down a Snickers. I eat it and drink my coffee, pretending to read the notices on the bulletin board across from the convener's office. I hear Waltz behind me pausing in the doorway, talking about a game scheduled next week and whether he can do it or not. I turn around and wait for him. I smile when he sees me. He is dumbfounded.

"What again?" I say. "This is getting creepy."

He comes over to me. "Why are you here?"

"My son is playing next."

"What, the midget games?"

"Yeah. Well, not my son. Stepson. I'm dating his mother. She lives here in town. Didn't I mention that?"

"Whereabouts?"

"Over on Kinsella."

"That's on my way home."

"Hey, small world, isn't it? You ref here? Dumb question – of course you do."

He says nothing, just stares at me funny, trying to figure out what I'm up to. Whether or not he should call bullshit on me watching some kid play hockey.

"It was good seeing you again," I say, and give him a smile.

He nods queerly and walks back into the change room. I sip my coffee and then drop it, half full, into a bin on the way out of the arena. Those two Cokes and a second coffee will make me light-headed from the caffeine. I eat the candy bar, though.

I wait in the darkness near his car, shielded by a plumber's van. A half hour later, as I predicted, he comes out, bag over his shoulder. I realize now that his hockey bag isn't full; he's probably just got a change of clothes in it, his skates and a towel or two. It's not big and bulky with the usual hockey equipment.

He sees me when he's twenty feet from his car and stops. Now he's angry. Puzzled and angry.

"What?" he says. "You don't live here in Brantford. I didn't see you in the stands for your stepson's game."

"What did Detective Marco want to talk to you about?"

Waltz has already clicked his car open, did that before he saw me. He approaches slowly. The bag slips off his shoulder but he doesn't drop it.

He looks surprised by the question. "That's none of your business. How did you know?" Then he starts to work it out. "That's why you were across the street."

"He came to see me too. Just want to know if he asked you about me."

"I don't have to tell you anything."

"We're in this together."

"What are you talking about? Yes, he wanted to know about you. Asked me some questions. I told him you knew her. My god, were you involved?"

"No, of course not. But this Marco guy, he's like a shark. He has it in his head that I was. I don't want you giving him any ideas."

Waltz cocks his head and looks at me funny, squinting.

"He asked me about you," I say.

"About what?" He pops the trunk and it rises automatically. He moves around the far side of his car, keeping it between me and him. He's done with this conversation and me.

"He wanted to know why your shirt was in Mrs. Lent's closet."

That works. The blood drains out of his face. You always read about that happening and you wonder what it would look like. It isn't as dramatic as that guy in the Indiana Jones movie whose face melts off at the end of the film, but it's close. I see the change in him – murderous rage. But wait: I'm the murderer.

He comes around the car towards me, his fists balled at his side. "What are you talking about?"

"Let's not dick around. You were screwing Lent. I saw your shirt, your monogramed shirt, in her closet when I did my walk-through."

Waltz swings at me and hits me good. I'm not used to being hit. It's not hard but my knees give out and I go down.

"You listen to me, you little shit. You mention one word of this to anyone and you're dead. Understand me, you little turd? I'm going to tell Marco you're following me all over town. That you're spying on me."

I lunge upwards and catch him at his waist, lift him back and slam him against the car. We go down hard on the pavement. He smacks his head but he's not out. I see his eyes water. I start to flail away. He protects his face and then grabs me by the hair and pulls me down so my punches are ineffective. We roll around. He is trying to get on top. I can't let that happen.

I kick out wildly and try and get away from him. He hangs on. I get up to my feet. He's getting up too. We're at the back of the car. There's a club sitting there in the trunk, the kind you use to lock a steering wheel. I grab it and bring it down on Waltz's head. Again and again, until he goes down. I continue to smack him until I feel a warm dab of blood land on my cheek.
SIXTEEN

I'm spent. I fall back almost to the ground but I stagger back up. I'm sobbing, sucking in deep breaths so I don't pass out. I'm still holding the club. It's red now, and dripping with Waltz's blood.

"You asshole," I say, spitting the words out one at a time in between breaths. "Why'd you do that? Look at you. Huh, tough guy? Happy now?"

I drop the club in the trunk and straighten up and look around. We're a good way away from the light of the front doors, and with the angle his car is parked at I don't think anyone can see us. I have to act quickly, though. I grab Waltz under the arms and lift. He's heavy. Dense weight, lot of muscle. He would have done the same thing to me if he could, I figure.

I lift him half into the trunk then pick his legs up and shove him in. His eyes are closed, thank god, and there's blood down half of his face. I drop the bloody car lock club on top of him. His body is jammed in there at a weird angle, but I know he won't mind anymore. I reach in his pocket and pull out his fob and then I close the trunk.

I search the ground around Waltz's car as best I can but it's so dark out. I pat myself down, check my belongings. I have my wallet and my phone and my own car keys; they didn't fall out in the scuffle. I get in Waltz's Honda and leave.

I pull over in the parking lot of a small strip mall to think things out. My car is back at the arena. I weigh the odds of leaving it there all night. I don't think it will get tagged or towed, but I will have to go back and get it at some point. how? What am I going to do with Waltz and this car? I decide I need to ditch them both.

If Waltz is reported missing, the police might start looking at him for the Lent murder. If Marco goes to Waltz's house, snoops around in his closet, he might see the shirt with the emblem on it. That clue and Waltz's disappearance should put Marco on to him as the killer. Then maybe if Waltz's body is never found, they might think Waltz committed suicide, or at the very least is on the run.

I pop the trunk of his car and get out. His eyes have opened slightly now and I see the black circles staring at me through half-closed lids. I root around in his coat and come up with his wallet. I close the trunk and get back in the car and start going through the wallet. There's a picture of him and his wife. Him and his wife and baby. I feel sorry for them; they've lost a husband. A father.

I turn on the car radio to get some music going. He would have done the same to me, I tell myself again. To protect all he had. Sure, he would have. If he had gotten on top of me, he would have killed me. Because I knew his secret. I take some comfort in that. It was him or me. And it's still me. Now I have to deal with his body and this car.

The half-hour drive back to Burlington allows me to clear my head. Again I keep to the speed limit, make all the signals. I just pray that Waltz has an up-to-date sticker on his licence plate. I park Waltz's car on the street parallel with Laura's and walk over. I doubt she's even taken notice of what kind of car I drive.

When she lets me in, we embrace. She hugs me hard.

"This is a nice surprise," she says. She looks me up and down. "What the hell? Same shirt?"

"Yup. God, I have to get some clothes."

"You can strip those off. I'll put them in the wash. Those pants washable?"

"Yes, they are."

"You can use my bathrobe."

That strip-down session lasts a little longer than needed. Afterwards, I'm lying in bed, and Laura takes my clothes and puts them in the wash.

"What's this on your pants?" she asks from the hall where her machines are.

I shoot up from the bed, instantly alert.

"What?"

She comes back into the room with my dark blue pants. She's holding them by the knees and I can see a dark stain.

"Crap, it's motor oil," I say. "My car leaks. I was putting in some oil and dropped the filler cap. It went under the car and I must have knelt down in some of the spilled oil."

"It'll be hard to get it out."

"Here. Let me," I say, and buck-naked, get out of bed and reach for my pants.

"No bother. This is – what is that thing Darryl is always calling a special handling?"

"Value-added service," I say.

"Right. The washing is value-added service. We're here to please." And she leans seductively against the doorjamb.

"No, seriously, I'll handle it."

"No bother." With pants in hand, still in her nightie, she heads down the hall to her machines. I don't follow; I sit clutching the sheet around me, paralyzed. She comes back.

"I put some stain remover on it. I'll put the white load in next. Your shirt is ready to get up and walk around by itself."

I lie back in bed, my mind racing. Are there stains on the shirt too? They won't look like oil stains on a white shirt; they'll look like blood. I pretend to doze. Laura says she can't sleep and reads with a night light on. A murder mystery; she has a stack of them next to the bed. Great.

The washer buzzer goes off and she grabs my shirt and stuffs it in a laundry bin full of other white articles. I raise my head as she leaves and, again, the few minutes it takes her to switch the laundry and put the white load in seems like an eternity.

I roll back over, away from her, as she comes back into the room. She yawns, turns out the night light and gets back in bed. She puts her hand on my shoulder to see if I'm awake, a signal she wants more loving. I stay rock still, my back turned to her. Eventually she removes her hand and soon afterwards, I hear light snoring coming from her.
SEVENTEEN

In the morning, Laura brings in the newspaper. She's wearing her bathrobe. I'm in my pants and shirt; she had gotten up after the white load had run last night and hung my shirt up. It's wash-and-wear and looks good. My pants are free of blood stains, too. But maybe there is residual blood in her washing machine or dryer. I should burn her house down, remove the evidence. Get a grip, I tell myself. She hands me half the paper to read while we eat eggs and toast.

There's an article on the front page about Lent, with a nice picture of her; she's looking right at me. I almost drop the glass of orange juice I'm holding. I try to keep it together as I read the accompanying article.

Police have no suspects. Officers are still interviewing witnesses and are appealing to the public to come forward with any information.

"Oh, is there an update on the murder in that section?" Laura asks. She takes the paper from me without asking while nibbling on a piece of toast with marmalade.

"No suspects," I say.

She munches and reads. I watch her closely; my hand subconsciously moves to my knee where the blood stain had been hours earlier. A brutal thought flashes through my mind for a second: if she suspects me, what will I do? Can I do to her what I've done to Lent, to Waltz? I remember that he's mouldering out in the trunk of his car just a block away. It was stupid coming here; I should have dealt with him last night. And my car – it's still up at the arena. No doubt Mrs. Waltz has called the cops, told them his last known whereabouts was the arena. They'll write down all the plates of cars still left there. It won't mean anything to them at the time, but they'll eventually hook Waltz's disappearance up with Gillian's death, and my name will resurface. Bam – I'll be in jail in time for Christmas turkey.

"I can't stay."

"What?"

"I have to go." I wolf down my toast. I am actually really hungry.

"Okay."

"Yeah, I have to get to Niagara for nine." I look at the clock on the wall; it's just after eight. I kiss her. "It's a corporate sit. I'm doing it on my own. Rick doesn't know about it..."

"Don't worry. Last thing I would do is tell him."

"I know. I need to change my suit. My jacket is wrinkled."

"All right, then. It's wham, bam time, is it?"

"No, don't be crazy. I can come back tomorrow night if you'd like."

"No, I have plans with the girls from work. It's Susan's last week with us. We were going to do something tonight but she was busy. So we pushed it to Thursday."

"Sounds like fun. I'm really sorry."

"Your shirt is still damp."

"No worries. I can make it home and change and get down there for nine. Might be a half hour late. I'll blame it on traffic."

"Going the opposite direction from Toronto?"

I shrug.

I walk to the top of the street where Waltz's car is parked. It's still there, unmolested. I see no cops around. Maybe they're hiding in the bushes. My heart pounds as I approach it. I look around and blip the door and slide in quick. I fiddle with the key in the ignition. There's barking. A police dog? No, a fit young woman with a Shih Tzu is at the rear of the car. The dog is barking but the woman is texting. The dog smells Waltz. I get the car started and peel out of there.

I park Waltz's car two blocks away from my building and race up to my apartment. I strip out of my work clothes and change quickly into a pair of track pants and a t-shirt. A baseball cap and dark sunglasses complete my look. I grab my mountain bike and a spring jacket on the way out the door.

I carry the bike downstairs, trying to make as little noise as possible. My apartment is in an old converted house and there are five units. My bike barely fits into the back seat of Waltz's car and a couple of spokes get bent when I jam it in. The front wheel is jammed up between the two front seats and it's difficult to put the car into drive but I manage. It's not like I could put it in the trunk.

The rain-slick streets of Hamilton give way to Highway Six south. I head towards the Mount Hope airport. The change in elevation blankets the highway in dense fog and I slow down and creep along, barely able to see twenty feet in front of me. A car barrels by at the eighty-kilometre speed limit. _Idiot_. I'm doing fifty and I don't feel safe. Last thing I want to do is run it off the road or smash into someone.

I turn off for the airport. A big cargo plane comes in over a farmer's field toward the runway. Past the airport I go until I come to a random side road. The gravel pings off the underside of the car and I cringe at the damage being done to the paint, but then I realize this isn't my car.

I crest the top of a hill; ghostly patches of fog lie in the fields below me. It's spooky. I take another random turn onto an even narrower and rougher country road. Am I deliberately trying to get myself lost? Finally, I pull over and shut the car off and wait. Then I get out and listen. The only sound is of leaves rustling in the trees as the wine picks up. I wait ten minutes by the side of Waltz's car, acting casual. If someone comes along, I'm going to tell them I'm lost. Which isn't entirely a lie.

Finally, I pop the trunk and there's Waltz, still looking up at me through half slits. The sight of his dead body, stuffed in at that uncomfortable angle, his skin going grey and drying out, scares me. Will I be able to get him out? Is he stiff? I don't think I can handle that.

_Hey, buddy, awfully sorry about all this._ I pull at him; he's still pliable. I know nothing of rigor mortis and this is the only lesson I want in it. I pull at him some more and out he comes. There's a strong smell of urine and feces coming from the trunk. I tug him halfway out of the car and see the seat of his pants is soiled. I dump him on the ground quickly and close the trunk. Not too hard; just enough for the lock to catch.

I drag Waltz down the culvert running alongside the road and up onto the bank on the other side. My socks are cold and wet now. It doesn't bother me. Ditch everything, I tell myself, even the shoes I'm wearing. I'm getting smart about this. What a _real_ killer I am.

There's a stand of trees on the other side of the ditch. It's not very thick; I can see a farmer's field beyond it and in the distance the dark shape of a barn and a farmhouse, I presume. It'll have to do. I'm not about to put Waltz back into that trunk and drive around until I find the perfect spot.

Should I have brought a shovel? Sure. But what guy in an apartment in the city owns a shovel? I could have bought one. Yeah, then they'd have a nice video recording of me buying one. The soil is full of roots anyway. I would have to spend hours out here.

There's a slight depression in the ground in the centre of the stand of trees; that'll have to do. I can't see why that farmer would ever come over this way, or anyone else for that matter. The road is rough; I doubt anyone has used it for years. Few people probably even know it is here. No one will find him. If they finally do, he'll just be a pile of bones by then.

Now to the gruesome task. I start to strip off Waltz's clothes. It's not an easy thing, but I don't take care with the garments. They get ripped, and I tear them off until he's naked. His stark white body contrasts frighteningly with the dark soil. I set his clothes aside and start to scoop dead leaves on him. I pile them up until they're a foot high and stand back to admire my handiwork. No one will see him from the road. I know that eventually animals will get at him, but I just want time. Time to think this through, time for the cops to focus on Waltz and forget about me. Time for witnesses to forget my comings and goings.

I gather up his clothes and put them back in the car. I drive for another hour, along more side roads, until I see a concrete sewer pipe sticking up by the side of the road. The air is heavy with the smell of sewage. The tube rises up about three feet out of the ground. On top of it is a rusty manhole cover. I try and pry it off, but it's not budging. A quick root around in the trunk of Waltz's car produces a lug wrench with a crowbar attachment on one end. A bit of grunting and pushing and up comes the manhole cover. The smell is nauseating and I almost puke, but in ten seconds I have Waltz's clothes down there, in with the slop. I toss the bloody anti-theft device in too, and the manhole cover goes back on.
EIGHTEEN

Of course, now I am well and truly lost. It takes me forty minutes to get back to the main road by the airport. I could have used the GPS on my phone but I am fearful that would leave some kind of trace. I'm not entirely sure it isn't tracking me anyway.

I should be at work by now; it's almost noon. Hopefully I don't have any appointment cards on my desk for this morning. I'm surprised the office hasn't called. Maybe they don't care, want me to continue to screw up so they can get rid of me easier. I should call them but I don't want my cell phone making a call anywhere near where I dropped Waltz off.

I have one more stop to make. The place I'm looking for is miles away from where I laid Waltz down, up near the town of Milton. _Fastest-growing city in Ontario_. Any time I do a sales call up there I say that, and the homeowner smiles and nods, and together both of us collectively think _Who gives a crap_?

When I get up to Milton, I skirt around the edges of the town, far from the main street. I don't want Waltz's car showing up on any closed-circuit TV footage. Eventually I'm back out in the country; it's nice out here. I know exactly where I'm headed.

When I pull over to the side of the road, I hear the sound of the rushing water. The river is through the trees and down a hill. This is where I parked for lunch three months ago; it was a nice reflective moment. I had gone my third straight week without a sale and was contemplating what I was going to do with my life. The water and the surrounding woods were comforting. I made up my mind to keep trying, to go to that last appointment and really put all that sales training stuff I had learned into practice. I remember driving away from the idyllic setting with my mind made up to make a sale, a big one. Of course I didn't get it. The lady who showed me around was on her cell phone the entire time and barely said a word to me when I left the estimate on the coffee table.

And now here I am again. I take my bike out of the back seat and lean it against a tree. One final check of the car and I point it towards the river, put it in neutral and push it from behind. It's heavy and takes all of my strength, but when the front wheels hit the downward slope it starts to pick up speed, and I watch as it goes crashing down through the brush into the fast-moving water.

After a quick check to make sure it's gone into the water, with only the rear bumper exposed, I hop on my bike and start pedalling.

I've never ridden so far. The cold October air tightens my lungs. I head back to the main street of Milton, close to the GO Bus station. I pull in behind a plaza full of auto body and muffler shops and leave my bike leaning up against a brick wall. I can get another one. I look at myself; I'm covered in burrs and my clothes are streaked with mud. I look like I just hauled a dead body into the woods. I pick off the burrs and leaf bits and wipe the now dried mud off as best I can. With ball cap tightly pulled down and sunglasses on despite it being an overcast day, I walk the three blocks to the GO station.

On the twenty-minute bus ride from Milton to Brantford, using a round-trip ticket I paid for in cash, I realize how stupid I am. I should have parked Waltz's car a couple of blocks from the arena and gone and moved my car somewhere else, then dealt with the dead guy's automobile. Now I have to go back to the scene. I imagine an army of cops swarming over that car park with Marco in charge.

Halfway between Milton and Brantford I call Ida at Henderson. It's noon now so I get her voicemail; she's at lunch.

I tell her I'm not coming in, that I'm sick. That she should take any cards on my desk and give them to Kevin and John to do, or rearrange them for tomorrow. I'll be back in by then, I'm sure.

In the Brantford GO station I check out a large map of the city. The arena is about a mile away. Okay, that's not so bad. I'm not going to take a cab, though. I can walk that far. The fewer people I see and speak to, the better.

After about ten minutes I see the stadium in the distance; there are no cop cars visible. It's empty this time of day. There are only a half-dozen cars in the parking lot. My Sunfire is still in the corner. I get closer and closer. There's no sign of a ticket or any kind of notice on the windshield. If the cops are hiding, they must be pretty far away as it's so barren out here.

I have my key out and in seconds I'm in the car, have it started and am roaring out of the parking lot. I start to breathe again only when I'm a couple of blocks from the arena. A cop car passes me going the other way, but I'm ignored.

By the time I make it back to my place, I'm exhausted. I collapse on the couch but only for ten minutes or so. I'm still in my escapade clothes, so I rouse myself and strip them off and put them in a garbage bag. In go the pants and white shirt I was wearing when I had my tussle with Waltz. In too go the clothes I had on when I was having my last dalliance with Gillian Lent. My wardrobe is severely depleted now. I walk the bag down to the hospital, where there is a charity clothing donation bin.

My body is stiffening up now from dragging Waltz out of his car and then all that bike riding. I think about him, out there in that grove of trees. Small animals already checking him out. Maybe some bigger ones too, like a coyote. They're around. You can hear them yipping in the woods sometimes.
NINTEEN

Thursday morning and a drill comes pounding through my head into my brain to wake me up. It's my phone. If this is a telemarketer calling at this hour, I am going to let him or her have it.

"Yeah?"

"Is that anyway to answer the phone, Mr. Rogers?"

I know the voice, and it sends a shiver down my spine. All the tough guy rage I was just feeling evaporates, replaced by fear and dread. I sit up and put my bare feet on the cold hardwood floor.

"Detective Marco. How did you get this number?"

"Um, it's in the book, son. Did I wake you up?"

"I've been up for a while."

"Really? You don't sound it."

"It's a sleepy morning. Ran out of coffee."

"Where were you last night?"

"I was out." I look at my answering machine. It's blinking red and reading four messages.

"I called your work yesterday and your employer tells me you called in sick. But you went out?"

"Sorry. I was busy. I was out. Too bad you didn't have my cellphone number."

"I've got it."

"What's this about, Detective?"

"I would like to see you today."

"Here?"

"No, Halton Police Headquarters. Just want to talk to you some more about Mrs. Lent. What you might have seen. We have some witnesses and I want to see if your story can add anything to what they are saying."

"I see." He's giving me a command, not a request. I can tell by his voice. If I refuse, I wonder if he's going to send a squad car out for me. With a warrant.

"Okay, can you give me a couple of hours?"

"Why don't we make it ninety minutes, okay? We have coffee and muffins here."

"Right, ninety. See you."

Marco doesn't say goodbye, just hangs up. I run to the toilet and throw up and collapse on the bathroom floor, where I rest my cheek on the cold tiles. I lie there for a long while, trying to remember a happier time.

I call Ida. Yes, I'm coming in, I tell her, but later on in the morning. I have a personal appointment. I have to get into a walk-in clinic to see what I have.

"No worries," she says. "There are no cards on your desk."

"Really?" I say, but I don't go into it.

I shower and change into work clothes and head over to Burlington. I know where the police station is.

After I show my ID to the desk sergeant, he buzzes Detective Marco, who comes out to collect me. He's dressed in a sport coat and shirt and tie but dark blue jeans. Must be casual day.

He stands off from me, does not offer to shake my hand, but thanks me for coming down. I follow him into the bowels of the police station. Officers engaged in conversation stop and watch me pass. Girls on the phone look up as I cruise by a small farm of cubicles.

Marco and I go into a small room; an interrogation room, I guess. I expected the walls to be covered with graffiti and the place to smell, but it is carpeted and the walls are a disarming shade of pastel yellow. I've read somewhere that this is supposed to reduce tension. It doesn't. It scares the hell out of me. There's a table coming out from the wall and chairs on either side. I see a camera up high on the wall, pointed down at us. A little red light indicates it's on.

Marco has a file all ready on the table and he takes the chair in the corner. I sit down and he pulls his chair in close, almost uncomfortably so. This is a tactic, I realize. He's trying to get in my space and make me uncomfortable. I shouldn't have showered. Let him be uncomfortable, see how he likes it.

"Thanks again for coming in, Stan."

First-name basis, are we? I smile inwardly. "No problem. Happy to help."

He flips open the file and skims down it, then looks back up at me and pauses. Waiting for me to say something. I raise my eyebrows and give him a "get on with it" look. I feel like a tennis player waiting for my opponent to hit me with his hardest drive.

"Late night last night?" he says and smiles, and I can see his eye is on the brink of winking.

"Yeah, kind of. I was feeling lousy but got better in the afternoon. I went down to the pub for a few."

"Which one?"

"Cat 'n' Fiddle."

"In Hamilton on Augusta. Yeah, I know that place. Great meat pies there."

"Yes, there are."

"I just want to go over what you saw the day you visited Gillian Lent."

"Right." I do an impression of some deep thinking. "She let me in. We chatted in the front room, and then I spent some time going over her house. You know, taking down the details for her move."

"What time was that again?"

"Mid-day. I think before lunch. I believe it was my first call of the day. I had two that day. I get the cards left on my desk—"

"Did you go back?"

"No. She wanted to use us, so I said I'd book the move that day. There's a book in the dispatcher's office you have to—"

"Yes, I know."

The interrupting is starting to annoy me; maybe that's the point. _Just cool it, Stan. Play the game. Don't let him get to you and you'll walk out of here a free man._

"You're positive you did not make a return visit to Gillian Lent's house that day?"

"No, I had no reason to. I would have gone back the day of the move, maybe even just before, to see how she was getting on, but once it's booked..."

"What about the next day or the day after? The day she was murdered?"

"No, I did not go back. No need."

"Were you in that neighbourhood at all?"

"I may have been. I'd have to go back and check my day planner."

"That planner is at your home or office?"

"It's in my briefcase, at my desk. Why? Did someone say they saw me there?"

"Anything unusual happen while you were there, at her house?"

"Unusual in what way?"

"Did she make a pass at you? Did you make a pass at her? Please be honest."

"Of course I'm going to be honest. No, she did not make a pass, nor did I." _Nor did I_. Man, that sounds funny coming out of my mouth.

"See anything out of the ordinary?"

"Yes – come to think of it, there was one thing. I remember when we were upstairs, in her bedroom. . . The closet. There were all these women's clothes, as you would expect. But then there was this one solitary man's shirt. I remember noticing it. I was almost on the verge of asking about it."

"The shirt."

"Yes, this shirt in her closet. Blue shirt. It had a monogram right here." I show on my own shirt where it was. "I never mentioned it, but it did strike me as odd."

"What did?"

"That she would have a gentleman caller, a boyfriend. She didn't seem that sort. I got no impression she was married."

"You didn't ask?"

"No. Again, none of my business, and you see enough people's personal belongings you can tell almost instantly what their status is. Divorced, widow, single, lesbian, all that. You can tell."

"Bit of a detective, aren't you?"

"It's part of the job, being able to read people. Being able to nurture a relationship, as my boss says. Say, whatever happened to that matter you were at the office about? The computer on my desk?"

"It's ongoing."

"I'm surprised that you're assigned to the Lent murder; I thought homicide cops were specialized. Only did murders."

"We don't get a lot of murders. No need for a homicide squad. I float around. I'm that good."

I laugh.

"Your day planner – can you bring it to me? It'll go a long way to establishing an alibi."

"Why would I need an alibi. Am I a suspect?"

"Until we catch the person or persons responsible, everyone is a suspect."

"Have you spoken with Mr. Waltz at Midi? He worked with her."

"Why do you ask?"

"Like I said, I am a good judge of people. I mentioned Gillian Lent's name to him when I met with him, and there was something there. I'm just saying..."

"Thanks for coming in today. And please bring that day planner in."

"Right, I will. How's tomorrow?"

"That's fine. If I'm not here, they'll photocopy it."

"Not a problem."

Marco walks me out, holds the door for me. Again, I feel him watching me as I go to my car. I turn to get in and he's not standing there behind the front window of the police station staring at me at all. I was just imagining it.
TWENTY

I should get over to Henderson and check in for the day, but instead I drive around Burlington for a while. I pick up copies of the _Toronto Star_ and the _Hamilton Spectator_ and go down to the lake, my favourite spot. Normally I go straight to the sports pages or the entertainment or living sections, but instead I flip through the local news and pore over each story. There's nothing to do with either the Lent murder or the Waltz disappearance. Neither the _Star_ nor the _Spec_ have any updates on Lent, and there's no mention at all of Waltz's disappearance. I can take some comfort in the fact that neither his body nor his car have been found.

I make note of the _Spec_ 's crime reporter's name, then I drive around some more and head in the direction of Mississauga and then back again, watching all the time for police surveillance. I have to expect this now; Marco is on to me. The purpose of that meeting today was to rattle me. To set me up in a lie of my own making and trap me. I try to think back to what I wrote in my day planner. I know I must have put the Lent meeting in it at some point. Maybe while I was going through that car wash.

I make my way back to Burlington, confident I'm not being tailed, and stop at a gas station. There's a phone booth there; the glass has been graffitied with a bar of soap and some spray paint. Where the phone book used to be is just the hard black plastic covers hanging from the chain, the contents having being ripped out long ago.

I plug in a loonie and ask the operator for the _Spectator_ 's main phone number. It's just a local call from Burlington to Hamilton.

She connects me, and a recording comes on the line with options. I listen through all of them; city desk is what I want. I dial in the extension; my fingers are trembling.

City beat exchange rings two times and then a gruff voice says "Leave your name and number and what you're calling about at the beep."

I put the edge of my jacket over the transceiver and whisper into it. "Christopher Waltz was having an affair with Gillian Lent. They work for the same company in Brantford. Now he has gone missing. The two are connected."

Ten seconds, that's all that takes. I hang the phone up quickly and step back out of the booth like it's offended me somehow.

The office is quiet when I enter. I try and slide silently past all the girls, but I hear Laura call my name. She motions me to go out to the smoking area. Thankfully, it's free of people.

"Who is this Detective Marco?" Laura says, and my heart sinks.

"He's investigating that murder that happened. The one I did an estimate for. He was in the office just a couple of days ago. Why?"

"He called me. Wants me to come in tomorrow to talk to him."

"About what?"

"About you, for Christ's sake."

"Does he know about us?"

"I don't know what he knows. I have to go at lunch to speak with him."

"Good thing he won't be dropping by again."

"He was going to, but I asked if I could go to him on my lunch hour. You know how the girls are here. This gets back to Rick or Darryl or Jack. . ."

"It won't look bad on you. Just on me. He's trying to verify my alibi."

"Your alibi?"

"That murder on Fintona. Everyone is a suspect. Not you, of course. I went to see her two days before she was murdered. It can't be me they're after, but they have to cross me off the list."

"I don't like this, Stan."

"Can I come over later? I'll explain it to you."

"We've got that thing tonight for Susan, remember?"

"I do. I didn't do anything wrong."

"I should hope not."

"I'll talk to you tomorrow, then. Just tell him what he wants to know. Everything will be fine, promise."

Goddamn it. That motherfucker has now screwed my relationship with Laura. What if he asks her about that stupid child pornography thing, which I had nothing to do with? That'll kill it for sure. Murder suspect and kiddie porn freak. Yeah, real marriage material.

I have a good mind to call him now. His cell is on the card he gave me. I pull it out of my wallet. _Yeah, let him have it_. But maybe that's what he wants – I threaten him and he has cause to pull me in. I get put back in that interrogation room until I crack or until he comes back with proof like fingerprints or DNA.

I shove the card back in my wallet and go to my desk. 
TWENTY ONE

I truly feel thankful that it is a Friday. I have two sits in the afternoon. I'm in no mood to do either of them; might call them and push them out. Henderson wants to get rid of me? Fine. Do it and let me move on with my life.

I flip through my day planner. Lent's appointment is there but there are no follow-up notes. Nothing to indicate whether to book the move or go back and log it. I almost always make follow-up notes; I make them in the car. I denote sales as well as follow-up calls I should make to try and get the sale. For Lent there is nothing. Because I was so freaked out by her coming on to me, I forgot to do that. Then I went back later and dropped off the estimate – something I told Marco I didn't do. Marco is going to see this, notice the difference. I open my briefcase, take out a pen and write on a scrap page. Damn. The ink is black, not blue. It won't match the entry I made in my day planner.

I pick up a copy of the _Spec_ and flip through it in my car. There's no mention of Lent's murder but there is an article on Waltz. My heart starts to quicken as I read it. It's very scant: _Search continuing for a missing Brantford man. Last seen leaving the Brantford Civic Arena._ That's it? No link to the Lent case?

I look at the time; it's almost noon. I drift over to the police station, just real casual-like. I park across the street in a Bed Bath & Beyond parking lot and, like clockwork, I see Laura pull in. She's in there for over an hour. When she finally comes out, she's clutching her coat around her like she just got molested. She gets in her car and heads back to the office. I follow.

At a light I pull up next to her and honk. She looks at me, dazed, then recognition clicks in and she smiles weakly and lowers her window.

"I'm heading back to work," she says.

"How did it go with Marco?"

"I'm not supposed to say. At least I don't think I am."

"Pull over."

"I'm late already."

"Just pull over, up there."

We pull into a gas station. I knock on her passenger window to let me in. She does so reluctantly. This is bad; I can tell.

"So how did it go?" I say again.

"It was long."

"What did Marco ask you?"

"A lot of questions about you and your association with Gillian Lent, the woman who got murdered." She emphasizes the word _Gillian_.

I feel my cheeks go hot.

"Your mother's name is not Gillian, is it?"

"No. Did you tell them about that?"

"About waking up with your hands around my throat and you screaming "Gillian"? No, I did not. If I had, I suspect you would be in handcuffs."

I nod, grateful for her candour. "It was just a dream. I guess I was upset about Lent and didn't know it. She was a nice lady. Want to meet for drinks tonight?"

"No chance, boyo. My man has come to visit."

"Your man, huh?"

"My uncle from out of town. You know?"

"No, I don't."

"My fucking period, you dolt. I just got it. I feel like crap."

"I see."

"I don't have too many of them left; I'll be going through my change soon. I want to savour every one of them, as sick as that is."

"You're not that old."

"Thank you very much."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"I know." She touches my face. "Give me a couple of days and then you can come over. Gotta run." She makes a shooing motion with her hand. I lean in and plant one on her cheek and then bolt.

To my surprise, I book both of my appointments. I linger at the second one, discussing the Leafs with the old guy. He even pours me a beer, and I get the impression he would have kept pouring, but I told him I had to drive back to the office.

I head back to Henderson to put these moves in the book. It's late, already dark out. Rick's car is in the owner's spot; a little presumptuous of him. I see one of the movers outside, bringing the door down on the warehouse unit. I run towards him.

"Yo, hold on. Don't lock me out." He's just about to slam it closed but stops.

"Thanks, dude."

"No problem," he says.

I duck under it and he slams the metal door behind me. I hear the latch lock. I can leave by the front door. I just can't get in it that way.

I enter the darkened building. The lights have been turned down in the hallway. Rick's office light is on but the door is open. He might be in the crapper. I can slink upstairs, drop my briefcase off and hide out before he even knows I'm here. I see the dispatcher's book in Mike's office, but he's already left for the night and his office is locked. Damn. Okay, I'll just drop my briefcase off and get out of here.

I make my way upstairs. About halfway up I see a light coming from the sales floor. I know the girls who book the moves for us aren't in tonight; they never work Fridays. Instead, they come in Saturday morning and book our Monday appointments. Rick must be up here, snooping around.

I soften my footsteps and slowly creep onto the second floor. Sure enough, there's light coming from my computer monitor. I slow my breathing down. It's still whistling through my nostrils so I breathe through my mouth. My steps are heel to toe, very soft on the carpeted floor. I approach my cubicle and I can see a bit of Rick's blonde hair. He's at my desk, typing away.

Then I see the screen. My god, that sick bastard. I see a picture of a semi-naked young girl. I mean _young_ , like maybe twelve years old. I hear the scrape of the mouse on my desk and another shot of the girl pops up on my screen. The girl is totally nude now. I move a step closer, careful not to let my reflection show up on the screen. I take my phone out and punch in my passcode. I flip it to video, move one step closer and start filming.

It's definitely Rick sitting there in the darkness. He's the only one with a big head of blonde hair like this. I take a video of him scrolling through pics. Then he adjusts himself and I hear him fiddling with his pants. Then he starts to breathe heavily and I hear those unmistakable sounds. Rick's having a great old time at my desk. I'm disgusted but conflicted: should I bust him now? I have the proof. Catch him with his pants down, pun intended.

No. I start to back away. The sounds of Rick pleasuring himself start to fade as I reach the rear doors to the sales floor. The irony is not lost on me, Rick has always insisted that both the front and back doors to the second floor remain open. If the rear door had been closed, he would have heard me coming through it.

I get to the stairwell and descend as softly as I came up. When I'm down on the ground floor I review the movie, keeping the sound down. It occurs to me that I've just made a video of someone watching kiddie porn and getting off on it. Is that in itself a criminal offence? Minus the horrific imagery that is on my computer screen, the video is amazing. I can even see the reflection of Rick's face in the monitor.

_Gotcha, prick_!
TWENTY TWO

I review the tape a couple of times over the weekend, but other than that I keep a low online profile. I call Laura and she's still a no-go zone – her choice, not mine. She also sounds like she has a cold, unlike my fake illness of the past week.

I continue to read every newspaper I can. The Hamilton library has copies of the _Brantford Examiner_ but they're old. The last one they have is from the day I made Waltz disappear. I am desperate to go online but I do not want to leave any trail anywhere. If I used a computer at the library, I'd still have to reserve it with my library card.
TWENTY THREE

I'm at work by eight fifteen, bright and early. I beat Kevin, John and Darryl in, but not Rick. Though the door to his office is closed I can hear him talking on the phone. The old man hasn't shown up yet. I can't wait for the sales meeting and I can't wait to see the old man's face when he and Ricky read my numbers. Twenty-two thousand dollars in booked sales, plus those two moves I booked on Friday. They're little fish, of course, less than eight thousand pounds each, but it puts my sales for this month at six booked moves. It would have been three local moves booked if Gillian Lent hadn't attacked me. That reminds me – I should go down to dispatch and make sure her move has a line through it.

I go up to my office. No leads on my desk. I go and check out Kevin's and John's desks; they each have two leads. I go over to say something about this to Ida, but she isn't in. The plastic cover is over her keyboard, another one over her monitor. I slam my briefcase down on my desk for no one to hear.

Laura is on the phone and I just wave at her before I go into the meeting room. Everyone is here now. The old man is in his office, already shuffling money around. I hear a snippet of his latest trade.

"Forty thousand – no, make that forty-two thousand to Merck. No, make it forty-one. Christ's sake, I don't know."

I smile. Oh, what a bugger to be moving such loads of money around. Poor old guy.

Rick and Darryl are already in the meeting room. Darryl nods at me; Rick just glares. Kevin and John come in behind me so there's no time for Ricky Boy to bore into me. Not that I wouldn't put it past him to do so in front of others. He might get his rocks off on that. Anyway, I intend to test him.

Jack Henderson comes in last. It's now nine fifteen.

The usual big business is talked about up front. Further training from the corporate carrier on the new software is to be scheduled. The Mississauga office is doing well; they're looking to hire new people if we know of anybody. Then we get to the numbers.

Kevin, as senior man, is up first. He's had a good week, his usual. How does he do it, day after day, saying the same things over and over?

Then they go through John's numbers. They're respectable, and he entertains us with an amusing story from one of his sits. He's earned that right, and the Henderson family oblige him.

I think about the situation with the leads – two on his desk and none on mine. I'm not pissed with him; he probably doesn't even know it's going on. Just thinks the girls are doing an exceptionally good job this past week getting him more cards than usual.

Then they get to me. I grin, look right at Rick, then at the old man. Even Darryl gets my eye. Darryl just fake smiles and looks down at a piece of paper.

"Two moves," Rick says. "Total, two thousand dollars."

"What about the two corporate moves?" I say. "I booked those."

"We don't count those in this meeting."

"Bullshit," I say, and the old man snaps his head around to glare at me.

"Watch your mouth." Haven't seen him move that fast, ever.

"But it is." I continue. "I booked two huge moves last week. Corporate ones, the ones you want me to get, and you don't count those on my list? Twenty thousand dollars, full service. Packing and unpacking all the way down to California."

"They're not established yet," Ricky Boy chimes in, grinning.

"When Kevin books a corporate move it goes on the list. It's reported in this meeting."

"He has established customers. You got a walk-in that has asked you two give two quotes and pencil in a truck. There's no contract with them."

"I'm nurturing the relationship," I say. "And their guy in Brantford, he signed off on them. What's his name – Waltz, I think."

"You got two local moves and one is cancelled. That woman that was murdered," Rick says, and he eyes me suspiciously. I feel he is waiting for me to respond to that. Maybe Marco has gotten to him too.

"I don't know anything about that. I brought in two moves Friday, put them down in the book first thing this morning. I would have put them down Friday night but Mike's office was locked."

"You were here Friday night?" Rick asks.

"Yeah, I came by. To book those moves, but like I said, I couldn't." I don't want to play my hand yet; don't want to let Jack Henderson know his golden boy likes little girls.

"And besides, maybe I would get more moves if you stopped taking my leads and dumping them on the other guys' desks." He narrows his eyes at me. "Yeah, this morning – no leads on my desk, two on Kevin's and two on John's. I went and saw them. It's not fair. Sorry, guys," I say to them. "I don't mean to drag you into this."

"Look," Rick says his voice rising.

His father puts his hand on his arm to silence him. "We're not going to get into this in this meeting. Maybe we'd better talk in my office afterwards," Jack says.

I say nothing, and they move on to final business. I ignore it. I'm fuming and I feel my face turning red. I look over at John and he just shrugs.

I look at Rick and a grin comes over my face. I don't take my eyes from him. He glares at me, tries to give it back. But there's something there. He knows I was in the building. He probably saw me drive away; he had to have. Unless he was so absorbed in what he was doing he didn't bother to look out the window. Finally, he looks away and won't look at me again for the whole meeting.

We're about to leave and Darryl speaks up. "We have something else to take care of."

Rick says nothing.

The old man looks puzzled, and then it dawns on him. "Oh, right. How we could forget?" he says. He goes to the door and motions for someone to come in. Laura comes in carrying a cake. No candles or anything. It's still in a cake box and on top of it is a yellow Henderson Moving van. How cute. _Congratulations Kevin on twenty-five years_ is written below it in blue icing.

All of us start to clap for Kevin and he blushes. I join in for show. Then the old man quietens us down. We're all standing at this point. My outburst is forgotten, but it has still salted the mood.

Rick makes a quick speech; it's forced and focuses more on Henderson Moving's growth over the last twenty-five years than the part Kevin has played in that. Then a gift bag is brought out. The girls from the office have crowded in, and Mike the dispatcher and Tony the office manager come in. They're oblivious to the rage that was flying around in this room just ten minutes ago.

Kevin opens the gift bag and pulls out a plaque engraved with his name and years of service and a chrome moving truck. I let myself get pushed into the corner so that the other people, the ones who will be here in November and beyond, can get in on it. He's their guy, not mine.

Then Kevin opens the gift box and pulls out a pin. A lapel pin. Not a watch or anything. I watch his face and for a split second I see a flash of disappointment, a smirk, then he smiles and looks at it in his hand and says "Thanks." The inevitable "Speech, speech, speech!" rings out, and Kevin blusters through a heartfelt but short round of accolades. He focuses it on the people he's worked with. It's more about the girls in the office and Mike and John. Rick and Jack are not mentioned. He singles Darryl out. Darryl, friend to every man.

As he's talking, I can't stop staring at Rick, and he finally looks at me quickly and then away. The cake is dished out but, typical of the tight-fisted Henderson boys, no drinks are provided so most people take their cake back to their desks. That's probably what Rick and the old man wanted anyway: _Eat your cake and get back to work!_

We file out of the room. I hide myself in the flood of girls and movers leaving the room and leave the Hendersons behind.

I get back up to my desk just in time to see John slinking out the back way, two appointment cards in his hand. Ida is still not in. I remember now that it was odd she wasn't at the party. She and Kevin go way back; she has a Henderson twenty-five-year plaque on the wall in her office.

Kevin returns to his desk. I hear the plaque slam down on his desk and I go over.

"Ida not in today? She sick again?"

"Twenty-five years," he says. He sits down and puts his hands behind his head, revealing sweat stains on an overused striped shirt.

"Huh?"

"Twenty-five fucking years I've spent here. For this?" He pushes at the plaque. "And this piece of junk?" He pulls the pin off the lapel of his coat and throws it at the wall of his cubicle. It bounces off onto his desk. I can tell by the sound it makes that it's cheap plastic. I pick it up. It's a little symbol of a moving truck with "25" emblazoned over it.

"They want you to wear this when you go out, to help sell their company and put more money in their damn pockets," I say.

"You got that right." He takes the plaque and throws it into a drawer and slams it closed.

"I guess I won't have that problem."

"What's that?"

"Being around here twenty-five years." The thought of it makes me shiver.

"Afraid not, kid. The notice has already gone into the newspapers: 'Position vacant.' You might not even make it until the end of the month. And that's bullshit about those two cross-border moves. Those are killer – we usually eat that up with a spoon in our meetings. Two fully packed corporate moves to the States come in like that? You really nurtured the crap out of that woman. Oh, sorry. She was the one who died. I forgot."

"Dude, I didn't know her. I just signed her up for a move to Brantford." I look at Kevin's pin again. "I guess the Hendersons don't care that Christmas is coming, huh?"

"Stan, that's two months away. Might as well be two years. And no, they don't care. If your number was up on December twenty-fourth they'd fire you Christmas Eve just to keep you from coming out to the Christmas party and getting pissed with us. That's the only time the Hendersons open up their wallets. Correction – Darryl pays for it all."

"They've stopped giving me appointment cards."

"Yeah, I saw that. You want one?" He shoves his pile across the desk to me. "Hell, take both."

"No, I don't want to get you in trouble. They mark down who these go to."

"You think I care? Here, take 'em. I'll say I wasn't feeling well and am completely in the dark that you are on your way out."

I take the cards and drop the plastic pin back on his desk.

"Thanks, bud."

"Don't mention it."
TWENTY FOUR

I put the cards in my briefcase and head out. Instead of going out the back way, I swing down into the central office to see Laura.

"Someone just called for you," she says.

I swallow hard. "Really? Who?"

"Here." She tears a sticky note off with the details on it. "She asked for you by name. Wants you to call her and come over ASAP."

"Why me?"

"She said you were referred to her by a satisfied customer."

I take the card. I now have a busy day: three appointments.

"You all right?" she asks.

"Yeah, just tired."

"Dinner tonight? A proper meal?"

"Oh, go on, then." My saviour.

"Italian place down on Main Street. I can meet you there. Five thirty?"

"Fine."

"Don't sound so enthused."

"The bullshit is starting to rise around here."

"Don't I know it. See you."

I explain to my first appointment, one of the ones Kevin gave me, that Kevin had an emergency personal matter. I make a note to tell him that later in case she talks to him. She sounded disappointed when she hears he's not going to come by. Maybe she and Kevin have had past dealings of the Gillian Lent kind?

When I arrive, she reluctantly lets me in. Gorgeous place right on Lakeshore Boulevard in a small hamlet known as Bronte, between Burlington and Oakville.

"Lovely home." I wander around on automatic pilot, marking things off. It's just not in me anymore. I keep thinking about that ad in the paper. My job. Why bother with this, then? Let Ricky Boy take the Midi moves and push me out. I think even Detective Marco is done with me. Hallelujah.

I vow to whip out to Brantford today to pick up the paper, listen to the local radio show and do something about it. Next call isn't until four, so plenty of time.

Half an hour later and with no signed move, I'm on my way to Brantford. I watch my rear-view mirror more than I watch the road in front of me.

I pick up a copy of the _Examiner_ at a Brantford grocery store. No notice about Waltz and his connection to Lent. What the hell is going on? I turn on the local radio station and wait half an hour for the news to come on. It hits me like a ton of bricks: Waltz's car has been found. The report is short and blunt.

The car belonging to a missing Brantford man, Christopher Waltz, has been located in a river near Milton. No sign of Waltz's body. Police aren't saying if they suspect foul play. They are holding a press conference at noon at police headquarters.

That's in ten minutes. Where's the Brantford police department? I pull out my phone and open Google Maps, and then I remember I don't want to leave any trace. I can justify doing a Google Maps search, of course – it's part of my job – but I won't be able to explain pulling up the coordinates of the police headquarters. Instead, I take my book of maps out and flip through the few pages that cover off downtown Brantford. It's not that large a city.

I skim through the pages until I spot one that has the police department headquarters located on it. It's not a large force; they probably only have the one building. I know how to get there. I pull out of the grocery store and burn rubber.

The headquarters building is chaos. There are TV trucks from Hamilton, Brantford and Toronto setting up, as well as a couple from the national news network, the CBC.

It's a madhouse in the headquarters building. Hundreds of people are swirling around, coming in and out of a briefing room that's about twice the size of Henderson's conference room. I pull a hat out of my trunk, slap it on my head, and mix in with the crowd going in. It's packed in there; I feel like Jack Ruby that Friday night in Dallas at Oswald's press conference. I keep to the back, making sure my hat is pulled down low. I must look foolish in a suit with a ball cap and overcoat on. So what?

Several police officers take a small raised dais. One of them takes charge and steps to a podium with microphones. He looks important. He starts off the press conference by introducing himself and the members on the dais. The reporters write their names down. The man speaking is the deputy chief of police for Brantford; behind him are two detectives.

He starts explaining how they found a vehicle that they have confirmed belongs to the missing man, Christopher Waltz, but that Waltz's body has not been found. They have no reason to suspect foul play at this time. The car is being examined by forensics. He gives the location in Milton. One of the men on the platform is from the Milton police, and he and his department are thanked by the deputy chief.

Then the questions start, a whole flurry of them at once. These things are rarely televised in their entirety; the cameramen just want to get a sound bite and move on. The process takes a long time. The tiny room, packed to overflowing, starts to get hot really quickly.

I recognize the man in front of me. He is the crime reporter from the _Hamilton Spectator_ , the one I called and left a message for a couple of days ago. The one who so far has not followed up on the lead I gave him.

There is a break in the questions and I lean up to the reporter. "What about his connection to Lent?" I ask him.

"What?" the man says. He turns and gives me a funny look, then turns back to the front of the room.

"Waltz worked for Midi," I tell him. "The Lent woman in Burlington, the one they found strangled, was his boss."

The reporter furrows his brow, then puts up his hand and waits patiently. Reporters who are shouting questions out are being ignored, and eventually the deputy chief points at my new friend.

"Chief, what about the connection between Christopher Waltz and the Lent woman who was found murdered in Burlington? They worked together."

The chief looks puzzled. "We are not sure if those two are connected, but we have been working with the Halton Regional Police on that matter."

"They found his shirt in her closet. They were having an affair," I whisper. The reporter keeps going; he has the floor.

"Isn't it true that articles of clothing belonging to Christopher Waltz were found in the deceased's home? Isn't that indicative of some sort of relationship outside of the workplace?"

The chief becomes visibly irritated. "I cannot comment on that investigation in Burlington. This press conference is to update you on the developments in the Waltz case. And may I remind you that Mr. Waltz is a member of this community, one who has a wife and young child at home, anxious for his safe return. Thank you. That concludes this press conference."

I slip through the crowd towards the exit as the reporters now press on, openly shouting questions about the connection between Waltz and Lent. I feel elated as I walk out towards my car. The fear I felt about walking into the police station has evaporated.

I crank rock music on the drive back to Burlington and sing along. I have plenty of time until my appointment at four, the second one that Kevin gave me. Then I remember the chit that Laura handed me just before I left the office. I'm stopped at a light, and I retrieve it and call the number.

"Hi, this is Stan Rogers, Henderson Moving."

"Oh yes, Stan," says a woman's voice. "I asked them to have you call me. I need you to come by right away."

"I am a little busy today, Miss..."

"Olendorf. Jennifer Olendorf."

"Miss Olendorf, I have an appointment at four and I was going to be done for the day. Perhaps tomorrow?"

"I don't want to wait. I know how busy you guys are, but I want to book my truck. You moved my friend Denise last year. She says you're the company to go with."

A booked move, a solid. Those are the best. "Okay, Miss Olendorf. What is your address?"

She gives it to me and I explain I'm just coming back into Burlington; I can be there in twenty minutes. At the next red light, I phone the second card that Kevin gave me and bump it to Wednesday. It sounds like a three-quoter anyway.

I arrive at Jennifer Olendorf's house. It's modest, nothing spectacular. There's a BMW seven-series parked in the driveway. There's no moving sign on the lawn; that's odd. Maybe it got sold a while ago, the sign taken down, and now she realizes she can't get her uncles and nephews to help her move her stuff anymore.

A young woman answers the door. She is very confident and rather attractive, with blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. I sit down with her and start to go through my pitch. I'm done with Henderson, done with this job; I hate every word that comes out of my mouth. If she just wants to go ahead and book us, why bother with this crap? "Because it's important," Rick said one time when I asked him that very question.

But the woman is nice and the house is nicely kept, outfitted with a mixture of antiques and modern stuff. I close my brochures and we start our walk-through. There's a newspaper on the kitchen table spread out to an article on the Lent murder, with a photo of Gillian front and centre. I glance at it. Everywhere I go in the kitchen, Gillian Lent's eyes follow me. I can't stop looking at it.

Jennifer Olendorf follows my gaze, goes over to the table and taps the photo. "Hell of a thing, isn't it?" she says. "I knew her. She was getting a mover, too. You didn't happen to go see her too, did you?"

I cough. "Actually, yes, I did," I say. I lace my voice with a tone that would suggest I don't want to talk about it. Mover–client privilege or something like that.

"Really? How long before they found her?"

"Just a couple of days. It was a sad affair." I finish checking things off in the kitchen in a flurry and head into another room. Olendorf follows me.

"I bet the police wanted to talk to you," she says. I ignore her.

"Did they?" she asks again.

"Did they what?"

"Question you?"

"It's kind of a private matter."

"Oh, come on. You can tell me. Did they take you down to question you? I know someone who was murdered – my girlfriend back in high school. The police had me down there for hours. Good cop, bad cop – they really do that?"

"I don't know. It was just one guy. He was neither good nor bad."

"What did you tell them?"

"That I met with the woman, booked her move and that was it." I leave the room and feel her following me. She comes in close behind me.

"You're too good-looking to be a moving consultant. You ever thought of doing any acting?"

I can smell her perfume, but somehow it doesn't suit her. Something is wrong with this. I go upstairs and she is right there behind me the whole way up. I become self-conscious of her being so close to my ass as we climb the stairs.

We go into one of the bedrooms and it's decked out with scarves hanging from the four-poster bed. The room has mood lighting, and I see the cover of a porn mag sticking out from under one pillow.

"Oops, pardon me," she says, and moves to the pillow and pushed the mag under. Maybe it's my imagination that it was porno; I only saw the top of the woman's head. But why would she be embarrassed if it was _Vogue_? Do women peruse porno?

She sits on the bed and looks up at me with eyes all aglow, big, warm brown eyes, but there's something behind them I don't like. What is going on here? She clearly wants it. My god, I think, I have another Gillian Lent on my hands here. Did she talk to Gillian just before she died and hear about the young mover from Henderson Moving she banged? Would this woman get off on banging the last one to bang her friend? This is sick. My dick is like a limp windsock at an airport.

She falls back on the bed and looks up at me.

_Sorry, no sale_. I leave the room and rush through the next two, then hurry downstairs.

She comes down with a simpering look on her face and we take a seat at the kitchen table. The one with the Lent article on it. I ignore it. She picks it up and starts reading again as I calculate the cost of the move. Just eyeball it, I tell myself. I put down twelve hours at one hundred and forty-two an hour and calculate it in my head. I know what twelve hours is without doing the math.

I spin the estimate around to her and start to go through it. She pulls the paper down from her face and glances at it.

"Not sure," she says. "I'll have to get back to you. Do you have a business card?" So much for this being a locked-in move. I put one of my cards on the table. She studies it. "This your cell number?"

"Yes," I say reluctantly. Christ, she is going to call me. I can feel it. She stands in the doorway as I head to my car. I hear, "Mr. Rogers."

I spin around. Detective Marco is standing there.
TWENTY FIVE

I see Marco has backup. Another detective, younger, almost my age, is with him but hanging back.

"It's a lovely day in the neighbourhood, isn't it?" he says, and his partner laughs.

"We'd like you to come down to police headquarters. We have some more questions."

"Couldn't we do it at another time?" I say.

"Nope. Has to be now. Please." He motions to his car.

"What about my car?"

"Wally here will drive yours to the station, if that's okay with you."

I flip Wally my keys, then I realize I've just given my car over to the police. Damn stupid thing to do.

I expect to get in the rear seat, like a criminal, but Marco opens the front passenger door for me and I slide in. The car smells of vinyl and coffee. It is clean, spotless. There's a police radio mounted to the dash but nothing else; no shotgun in a rack, no computer terminal like the ones I've seen in other cop cars. I feel like I'm riding with Kojak.

Marco drives us over to Halton Police Headquarters. I easily restrain myself from speaking first. My mind isn't racing. Surprisingly, an immense calm has come over me.

About halfway to our destination Marco speaks. "Did you get the move?" he asks.

"No," I say. "Don't know. Maybe."

"Nice lady?"

"Uh huh." I won't look at him, but out of my peripheral vision I see Marco grinning.

We arrive and Marco leads me in. I pause at the door as he opens it for me and in its reflection, I see Wally pulling into the lot in my car. He puts it in the visitor area but doesn't get out. I have no choice but to follow Marco in. Sure, I can make a big stink now, demand that Wally get out of my car, insist that I did not give consent for him to search it, but maybe I did by flipping him the keys. Who knows? Something a lawyer might be successful at arguing in court.

But I say no, pick your battles. I'm confident there is nothing in my car. A warrant would be needed to collect any hair or blood samples that might be there. Then I shake my head. Don't fool yourself, I think. I may have brought part of Waltz or Lent into my car inadvertently. It could be lying there, waiting for the white-suited forensic hounds to pick it up.

Anyway, I follow Marco through the lift-up wooden barrier to go behind the front desk. The duty sergeant, same one as before, stops what he's doing and looks over a pair of reading glasses at me as I pass.

Marco puts me in the same interrogation room I was in before. I have no illusions now; this is what the room is used for. Breaking down of alibis and motives and a suspect's will to resist. I've watched the video of Russell Williams, the Air Force colonel who killed two women. How innocently he went into the room with the seasoned detective, and how the detective started grilling away, slowly grinding down the man's alibi and getting to the heart of the matter. The mistakes Williams made, including wearing the same boots he wore when he committed his crimes to the friendly chat with the detective. And how, when confronted with the evidence, the matching bootprints from the scene of the crime, he just slumped forward and studied them, and picked them up and put them down, picked them up and put them down, and how finally he confessed and, in effect, ended his own life as he knew it and put himself away for life and a half.

Won't be me, I think. I'll lawyer up – is that the expression that suspects use? Everything I was wearing is in a bin somewhere, or maybe already picked over by the Salvation Army. A fear flashes through my mind: what if they were already on to me and seized the bin? Surely something of Waltz is on those clothes, even though I soaked them good. I should have driven them out to the country and burned them.

Marco closes the door hard, with finality, and I take the same seat I was in before. He has more files already in there and he sits across from me. I try and look relaxed but not disrespectful; I'm holding my ammo back. Keeping my powder dry.

"You said before that you went to Lent's house only the one time. That you booked the move shortly thereafter."

"Yes."

"What time was that again?"

"I can't remember exactly, but I'd say before five. Mike usually closes up after that."

"Mike the dispatcher?"

"Correct."

"He claims you entered the Lent move in his book the next day. I spoke with him. He has a keen memory of such things."

"Really?" I say, and look perplexed. "I'm sure I booked it that day. It was an easy move. She wanted to go with Henderson. Said she knew of our firm and just wanted it locked away. I went straight back to the office."

"So you're calling Mike a liar?"

"No, he's just mistaken."

"Your itinerary – do you have it?"

"It's in my car." I get up to go get it. Marco raises his hand.

"I'll have Wally retrieve it."

"Don't you need a warrant for that?" I say and laugh, but it's high-pitched and nervous. I'm losing control of my nerves this soon? He's only asked me a half-dozen questions.

"He's just bringing in your briefcase. He won't open it. Is there something you don't want us to see? If so, then yes, we'll wait here while we get a warrant."

"No, I was just kidding."

"Let's not kid around about this, okay, Mr. Rogers? It's a serious matter. I'll be honest with you; I think you know more about the Lent killing than you're letting on."

"I thought you were investigating Christopher Waltz, the guy she worked with."

"We're looking at all suspects."

"And I'm one?"

Marco nods slowly. He flips over the file folder. "Do you own a bicycle?"

"No."

"Your neighbours say they saw you leaving your apartment last week with your bicycle over your shoulder, in the morning."

"Nope. Wasn't me."

"They're mistaken, just like Mike is mistaken?"

"I guess so. I called in sick that day. Where would I be going on a bike?"

Marco shrugs. There's a knock at the door.

"Come," Marco says, and in walks Miss Olendorf. She's changed her clothes. She's now wearing a purple top and jeans, and she has a gun on her hip and a badge clipped next to it. She smiles at me and makes a clicking sound with her mouth and hands Marco something. It's my day planner.

"Thanks, Stacey," he says, and looks at me. I keep my cool, but inside my blood is boiling. I knew there was something up about that sit. They were trying to entrap me, get me to let something slip, provoke me into a sexual anger – what? Stacey leaves.

"This your day planner?" I nod. "Mind if I flip through it?"

"Not at all."

Marco doesn't say anything. He opens it and flips it to the dates around the Lent visit. He studies it and then looks at other entries and back again at me.

"You didn't record here that you made the move," he says. Damn, I knew he'd see that, but I'm glad I didn't add anything.

"No, I guess I was rushing to get back to the office to book it before Mike closed up. I do that sometimes."

He flips back through it, page after page. I realize he can, at a glance, see all the moves I booked and the ones I didn't get. The latter being in the majority. He could, at some point, cross-reference this with Mike's book, see how many times I booked a move but didn't put follow-up notes in my day planner. I was pretty diligent about that. But is that proof I murdered her? It might be the first chink in my armour. Mike's keen memory is going to be a problem too.

"Can I use the bathroom, please?"

"We're talking here."

"I really have to go."

"It's down the hall on the right. Don't be too long."

I get up and leave the room. I'm not under arrest. What are they going to do – let me piss myself? I can't make a run for it.

I don't t have to piss, but I find the washroom and go to the urinal anyway. There's a uniform cop in there also pissing, and he gives me a once-over, realizes I'm not a cop and ignores me. When he leaves, I zip up and head into one of the stalls. I have my phone on me. If I had been arrested, I wouldn't have this. I might still be charged, though, and then I'll lose it. Better to play this card now.

I send Rick the video of himself scrolling through kid porn. Then I email it to myself, a Yahoo account I barely use, the one I input whenever I want to avoid spam going to my main email. Then I delete the video from my phone. I know it is still probably on my phone and there's traces of it elsewhere, but at least at a quick glance it is not there.

"Mr. Rogers, are you okay?" It's Marco.

"Yes, Detective. Just finishing up." I see his shadow coming under the stall door.

"Can we continue, please. Mr. Rogers?" he says in a sarcastic tone.

Finally, my phone buzzes. Ricky Boy has viewed the video.

"What is this?" he texts.

"It's a video of you scrolling through child porn at my computer," I write back bluntly. I have no time to fool around. There's a knock on the stall door.

"Come on, pal. Let's go," Marco says.

"One more second."

"What do you want?" Rick replies.

"I'll let you know." I delete the texts and flush the toilet. As I open the door, Marco steps back, an annoyed and suspicious look on his face. I go and wash my hands, and he drops the bomb.

"Mr. Rogers, I'm placing you under arrest."

"What?" I say as I dry my hands.

"Just wanted to wait until you washed up. Come on, they're dry. Let's go."

"What's the charge?"

"Yeah, like you don't know. The murder of Gillian Lent."
TWENTY SIX

My processing takes an hour. I'm fingerprinted, read the Canadian version of my Miranda rights. After I'm searched and stripped of my clothing and everything is inventoried, I'm given an orange jumpsuit. I ask what is going to happen.

"You'll stay here for the night. We have more questions we want to ask you. In the morning, you'll be transferred to Milton," Marco says.

"I want a lawyer," I say.

"No problem. We'll provide you with the number of a free attorney and the use of a phone. Do you want to do that now?"

"Yes."

"You don't want to answer any more of my questions?" We're in a large room with desks and I'm handcuffed to his desk. There are other detectives around, going about their work, not paying me the slightest attention. Stacey is on the far side of the room chatting with a couple of uniformed cops.

"No, I don't want to answer any more questions. I want to phone that lawyer."

Marco uncuffs me and a constable is summoned. He leads me over to the phone and stands back, his arms crossed against his chest. I phone Rick.

"Hello," he says, unsure of who's calling. I can hear apprehension in his voice. I'm glad he answered.

"You got the video?" I say in hushed tones.

"Stan?"

"Yes, it's me." There's a long pause. "Did you get the video? I trust you did. You're able to see your own reflection in it and what you were watching?"

"You're fired, dude."

"No, dude, I'm not. I'm in jail, and if I tell them about that video, you're going to be in jail right alongside me."

"Fat chance," he says.

"Okay, smart guy, call my bluff. Try explaining that video to your dad. To your wife."

"Hold on," he says. "What do you want?"

"I want you to hire me an attorney and get me the hell out of here."

"Where are you?"

"I'm arrested, I told you. I'm in Halton Police Headquarters. I'm staying the night here and then they're going to transfer me to the prison up in Milton. I want to be out on bail before that happens."

"What are you arrested for?"

"Never mind. Just get a lawyer here quick. And he'd better be a good one. Take a crowbar and crack open your old man's bank account and get me the best money will buy."

I can hear Rick breathing, holding back on letting me have it for insulting his dad. But he knows I have him by the balls.

"And then what?" he says, defeated.

"You mean and then what about that video? We'll talk, but only if I'm out of here." I hang up.

They put me in a cell by myself. In the cell across from me is a drunk guy rolling around on the cement floor. I sit on the metal bench and run through my situation. I've been arrested for murder and I'm not even thirty yet. What does that matter? Will they take that into account? All I've had up until now is parking tickets, and one time I got pinched for open liquor when I was a teenager.

I kick myself. I should have phoned the police immediately, said she attacked me. When the scratches were fresh and so was she. I wonder if she's been buried yet. I wonder if she still has that look of surprise and satisfaction on her face, or if the mortician erased it.

I have no watch, and there's no clock I can see. There's just a constant banging of metal doors and the occasional shout. The drunk wakes up and crawls over to the toilet and vomits into it.

Finally, after a series of metallic bangs, a cop comes and opens the door to my cell and motions me out. He escorts me, with one hand firmly under my elbow, out into the hallway. There's a man in a suit there. He looks at me angrily and then smiles and comes over.

"Mr. Rogers, I'm Herbowitz, your lawyer. You're being released."

"On bail?"

"No, the charges are being dropped. Your clothes are in here you can get changed." He hands me a plastic bag and I am ushered into a changeroom. The lawyer steps out and I quickly change and collect my things.

Herbowitz is waiting for me when I emerge. Marco is there, too, talking with Stacey, the one who tried to entrap me, and they both try and stare me down as I'm led to the front desk. There's paperwork to be signed. I acknowledge that I got everything back and that I was not abused in any way. I gratefully sign the forms. Sure, I wasn't abused. Shook up a bit, but I've come out the victor. I have no idea why or how, but I assume my lawyer – no, Rick's lawyer – is going to explain it to me.

My car is out front but not in the visitors' section. Herbowitz and I stop on the steps.

"What happened?" I say.

"No evidence, and a hell of a lot of evidence that the other guy, Waltz, did it. The guy who is missing. They didn't even go to the press with your arrest. We agreed that the matter would be dropped and we would not mention it to anyone."

I turn and see Marco and Stacey watching me from the reception area. Marco has his hands on his hips. I nod at him and turn back to my lawyer.

"They found the shirt in Waltz's house, same type as the one in Lent's closet?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. They wouldn't go into their case for me, but when they told me what they had, which is just a bit of circumstantial from the people you work with, I got them to kick you loose. My guess is they were trying to frighten you into confessing. They thought that putting you in that cell might soften you up."

"It might have."

"This Marco guy isn't exactly the brightest spark in the box. His father was chief of police; they promoted him to homicide out of respect to him. You should see his clearance record. It's amazing they don't fire him now that his dad has retired."

That makes me chuckle. I had the good fortune to run into Halton Police's version of myself, a real underperformer.

"Okay," he says. "You're free and clear."

"And the bill?"

"Paid for by Henderson Moving. Rick Henderson called me personally. You must be a valued employee?"

"I must be." We shake and I head to my car.

It's ten o'clock and I'm hungry. They gave me a box meal to eat, a roast beef sandwich and an apple, but I barely touched it. Unfortunately, this is Burlington; almost everything will be closed down by now. However, I know someplace where I might be able to get something to satisfy me.

There's a light on in Laura's living room. When she opens the door, I can tell instantly that she's not happy to see me.

"Can I come in?"

"I guess."

I check my phone one more time. There's a note from Rick but that can wait. No texts from Laura. There's a glass of wine on the coffee table. The TV was muted when she came to the door. I see the cast of _EastEnders_ mouthing silently at each other. She resumes her seat on the couch, folds her legs up under her. I sit in a chair.

"What were you arrested for?"

I'm floored.

"Rick called me, needed me to approve the funds to hire the lawyer to bail you out."

"Why'd he tell you?"

"Because I wasn't going to go into the office otherwise. Had to be a good reason. He said you were arrested. What for?"

"They think – correction, they _thought_ I had something to do with that dead woman."

"Did you?"

"How could you ask something—"

"Gillian!" Laura screams, and her expression instantly changes to anger.

"So I screamed it out in bed, in _your_ bed, and that makes me a murderer?"

"Mike is telling everyone how you screwed up the log in the book, that you booked that move the day after she was murdered."

"He's mistaken."

"Is he? Iron Mike – he remembers every move we ever booked. I swear to god, go ask him who we moved on Labour Day two years ago and he'll tell you."

"I should go."

Laura makes no move to stop me. "I'll see you around."

She doesn't show me out. I pause on her stoop and hear the deadbolt being thrown.
TWENTY SEVEN

The door to Rick's office is open and I rap my knuckles on it before entering.

"Bad time, Rick?" He's looking at some papers and my appearance shocks him.

"Sit down."

"I just want to thank you for arranging that lawyer. He did a great job. They released me, not even on bail. They dropped the charges. Seems they now believe that the other guy, the one who is missing, is the prime suspect. Maybe they'll find him."

Rick just sits there and looks at me. "What now?" he finally says.

"Now? Um, I guess I go back to my job booking moves for Henderson Moving. I have some corporate prospects. It might be a little too harsh to pursue Midi, but eventually I'll contact them and speak to the new VP of human resources, although I think we should suspect that that business is going to dry up."

Rick nods and sits back in his chair. He flicks his pen around and moves his chair back and forth. "No, I mean what now?" He points at himself.

"First off, I think you should pull that ad from the paper, unless of course you were going to hire a fourth moving consultant. On second thought, I think you might want to keep that ad, seeing as I'm going to be promoted."

"Hah. Promoted to what?"

"Corporate sales moving consultant."

"You don't have the background. You haven't built up the business."

"No, but I can inherit it."

"What?"

"Yeah – from Kevin. He's done. Wants out. He told me so. Says all he wants now is to retire and go on and do something else. I figure a nice severance package from Henderson would go down nicely. Not six figures but at least mid-fives. What do you think?"

Rick says nothing, then nods.

"Great. And Laura. Get rid of her."

"What for?"

"Just do it. Transfer her to Mississauga."

"She won't stand for that. We'll lose her."

"Exactly." I stand to leave. "Nice doing business with you, Ricky, my boy. Oh, yeah, and Ida – get rid of her too. I don't want to see that spying cunt around ever again. Package her out."

"She died."

"What?"

"Yesterday. Brain tumour."

"That's too bad." I actually believe the words coming out of my mouth. "Thanks, Rick. Say hi to your dad for me."

I skip up the stairs. Kevin and John are preparing their briefcases for another day on the job. Kevin's last. We exchange pleasantries and we discuss Ida a bit. "It's so sad. Poor old gal." All that sort of stuff.

My phone rings just as I sit down at my desk.

"Good morning, Stan Rogers speaking..."

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**Hope you enjoy this novel, please let me know what you thought of it by leaving a review. If you want to drop me a line my email is**warrencourtbooks@gmail.com ****

Cheers,

Warren

About the Author

**Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Warren Court currently lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter. When not writing he spends his time cultivating cold hardy palm trees and working on old cars. He is the author of the John Temple** **Vigilante Justice series, the Armour Black Psychic Detective series and the Vincent Last Thriller series.**

Also By Warren Court

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**Hog Town**<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07996DXJT>

**Out of Time **<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07195HLR5/>

**Dead Girl Found**<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GT8RN6H>
