Jonas winked at Madison. "You hear what he said? Rajinder said the words I taught him."

"I will make it a short story. I invested 80 per cent of my money in their oil and gas exploration company, so they could expand into promising new territory."

"Weren't you afraid it was a scam?" said David.

"I was young and naive. I did not understand a thing about the oil business. It just sounded right."

Abby shook her head and addressed her neighbours in a general way. "It's always about oil."

"So what happened?" said David.

"I bought thirty-three per cent of the company for one million dollars. The expansion proved more promising than they could have imagined. As we have seen, oil prices have risen considerably. And in February of this year, a large corporation from Texas battled with the Chinese government for the right price and bought us out."

Jonas laughed. "For how much, Raj?"

"Enough so that I will be a full-time patron of the arts for the rest of my life. Now, shall we move on to more important concerns?"

"Let's Fix It," said Madison.

"Yes."

"So how are we going to Fix It?"

"Exactly," said Rajinder.

Madison was confused. She turned to her parents and Jonas, and back to Rajinder. "Didn't you ask us here so you could reveal your plan?"

"I have no plan, Madison. I invited you here so we could divine and discuss a plan."

This last phrase from Rajinder was like the first kernel of popped corn in an empty pot. It reminded Madison of the effect in grade seven when a subst.i.tute teacher announced the cla.s.s would be watching a movie. David accused everyone of dragging him out for no reason. Jonas cackled sarcastically. Shirley asked Jonas for a piece of gum and Raymond stumbled to the bar, where he proceeded to drink Crown Royal rye whisky straight from the bottle.

Rajinder cleared his throat and turned to Madison again. "Perhaps I should have hired a public relations professional, to help manage expectations."

"No, you did a great job," said Madison. She spoke softly, under the noise. "It's obvious you put a lot of effort into this. I think we were all hoping for an easy answer, someone to save us."

"I do have some ideas, a general framework. Should I shout?"

"No, they'll calm down eventually. You know what liquor can do to people."

As Madison predicted, the residents of the Garneau Block did calm down. It happened suddenly, when Raymond threw the now-empty whisky bottle against the wooden wall. The bottle didn't break but the red wood chipped and the noise was sharp enough to silence the room.

"I got fired today," said Raymond, struggling not to slur. "You want to know why? Because I took my Death in Philosophy cla.s.s on a field trip to the Waterpark and slapped Dannika on the a.s.s."

"Who's Dannika?" said Shirley.

"Let me finish, sweetheart. I should also tell you that I sort of asked my ma.s.sage therapist for s.e.xual favours the other night, to no avail. Oh, and I should also tell you that I've driven past the prost.i.tutes on 95th Street not once or twice but thrice in the past few weeks. And since I'm up here, doing this, let me add that I've had lurid fantasies about you and about you, too." Raymond winked at Abby and Madison. "There, now I've said it. Let's fix that."

For some time, Raymond swayed at the bar. Through the ceiling speakers, Charles Aznavour sang "Il faut savoir." Instead of considering what her neighbour had just said, Madison attempted to translate the song with her high-school French. The lyrics seemed sad even though the music had an appealing bossa nova quality.

Discomfort filled the conference room like the scent of burned garbage. To ease it, Madison wanted to scream, laugh, or sing along with Charles Aznavour. Raymond b.u.mped into the table, bent down and kissed Shirley Wong's hair. He said, "I'm sorry, I love you," and started out of the room. Rajinder's a.s.sistant, the tall blonde woman, met him just outside the door.

"Right this way, Dr. Terletsky."

When the a.s.sistant returned, one song later, Abby escorted her dazed best friend out of the conference room. On his way after them, David grabbed the hummus and baba ghanouj bowls, and thanked Rajinder for a pleasant evening. Madison wondered what would happen next.

A tornado seemed about right.

39.

several instances of arrogance At the Chateau Lacombe, two blocks south of Manulife Place, David called a cab while Abby and Shirley sat on the piano bench outside the lounge. He didn't want to talk about Raymond any longer so he extended his conversation with the dispatcher.

"Can you make sure it's a non-smoking car?"

"All our cars are non-smoking."

"Offcially, maybe. But in reality, no. The drivers smoke all the time, and the cars make me feel woozy. I'm an ex-smoker myself."

"Well, if you see a driver smoking in his cab, call him in."

"I'm supposed to rat on the guy?" David turned and watched his wife and her best friend, and felt warm with marital satisfaction. For the rest of his life, whenever he felt tempted by wicked desires, he would remember this night. It had already been decided, on the short walk to the Chateau Lacombe, that Raymond would have to find somewhere else to sleep.

"Sir?"

"Yes."

The dispatcher had been speaking to David about the science of ratting on cab drivers. He had been ignoring her. "Contravening the bylaw carries a significant fine, and punitive action."

"How long will it take?"

"The fine and punitive action?"

"The cab. Our cab."

"Five to fifteen."

"Thanks."

David hung up the phone and approached a pot of Alberta wildflowers in the lobby. Not far away, he could hear both Shirley and Abby gently crying on the piano bench. It was clear he would be paying for the cab. A greasy cab, when they might have been in the private comfort of the Yukon. He sniffed the wildflowers, and without thinking too much about it, said, "Mmm."

The doorman, standing nearby in a suit, nodded and smiled. "They're fake."

"Oh, I know. I was just pretending they were real."

"Of course you were, sir."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing at all. I simply agreed with you."

David had heard enough from this generation of self-a.s.sured, ent.i.tled, artificially polite young men tonight. "You enjoy mocking your customers?"

"Not at all, sir." The doorman adjusted his white gloves. "Are you a guest of the hotel?"

David noted the doorman's nametag. "Your name's Ronald, is it?"

"Ronald. Yes sir."

"Well, Ronald, I have half a mind to speak to your manager about your arrogant behaviour."

"Sir, I don't mean to be arrogant."

"Arrogant people rarely know how arrogant they truly are."

"Yes sir. Thank you, sir."

At the piano bench, the women dried their eyes with the shred of silk Abby used to clean her gla.s.ses. David wandered over to them.

"Cab's on its way."

Abby thanked him.

Shirley touched a low E on the keyboard. "This is so odd. I don't know what to say. I've been feeling off lately, since the night of the shooting. It's as if my life has been leading to this."

"No, sweetheart, not to this." Abby put her arm around Shirley. "It's leading in a wonderful new direction. This is just a pothole."

"Yeah," said David. "And it's not like he cheated on you. He just..."

Abby looked up with the most fearsome glance in her a.r.s.enal of glances. "Go away and call another cab or something."

David turned around to see the doorman watching him. Since he didn't want the doorman to see him chastised by his wife, David walked to the window with a natural gait. No, said the gait, I'm walking to the window because I want to gaze up 101st Street. He pulled the cellular phone off his belt and called home for messages. There were no messages. So he pretended to talk to Preston Manning for a few minutes.

From the lobby of the Chateau Lacombe, David could see the thirty-eighth floor of Manulife Place. The lights were on. Maybe Madison and Jonas were still up there, finishing off the crab cakes.

Rajinder Chana, with his fancy posture and money and youth. And, behind all those manners, a good dollop of arrogance. That icy a.s.sistant of his. The presumptuous signs, the "lawyer friend," the naive meetings with the university, the catered mini c.o.c.ktail party that the host himself was too posh to partic.i.p.ate in. If Rajinder Chana weren't drunk with his own self-regard, he might have sought out an experienced advocate. Didn't he know who David was?

Experience had taught David the only way to fix anything in this world was to cultivate important relationships and trade favours artfully, nudgingly. Maybe a sit-down with a few simpatico cabinet ministers was in order, a coffee with the mayor, a couple of pointed letters to the editor. If only Rajinder had asked, instead of charging forward with a doomed meeting that would only lead to useless pet.i.tions.

The cab pulled up. David informed the women, and led them toward the doors. "Goodnight, sir," said the doorman.

David veered toward him and spoke slowly and quietly, like Rajinder. "Young man, I occupy a very important position."

"Congratulations, sir."

Between the two sets of doors, the heater made David feel sleepy. He took out his wallet, so he wouldn't have to reach for it when they pulled into the Garneau Block. It was best, in a cab, not to move around much. It stirred up invisible microbes, foreign dandruff.

The women got in the back seat together. David opened the front door and sat next to the driver. It was like diving into a soup of cigarette smoke. "I asked the dispatcher for a non-smoking car."

In front of David, on the glove box, was a cigarette with a red line through it. The driver flicked at the sticker.

"Yes, I see, but you've been smoking."

"No."

David told the driver where to take them, and noted his name. He would bring civility back to human relations, in his small way, by ratting the driver out.

On the High Level Bridge, looking west at the water, as the women whispered at one another in the back seat, David had a premonition. There were two spare bedrooms upstairs and the professor knew it. Dr. Raymond Terletsky would have nowhere else to go.

40.

the river is deep In 1960, Raymond Terletsky's grandmother had a brain aneurysm on the toilet and died. Lost with grief, her husband sold his ranch and purchased six plots of converted swamp where Ellerslie once met south Edmonton.

Raymond's grandfather found several houses built during the First World War that were about to be ripped down for a grocery store on the north side of the river, and placed one of these houses on each of his six plots. He planted spruce, aspen, plum, and apple trees, and got the right price on concrete. Once the neighbourhood was complete, Raymond's grandfather lived alone in the smallest bungalow and sold the remaining homes to his five children and their spouses for almost nothing.

This is where Raymond pa.s.sed into adulthood, among parents and sisters, his uncles and aunts, his cousinsand everyone's favourite, the dark-skinned patriarch. The old man played the violin, danced, built bicycles out of salvaged parts, and unconsciously slipped into Eastern European languages when he drank vodka.

Five years after they settled into their house in Edmonton, on Halloween night, Raymond's grandfather got drunk, spoke Polish, gave candy to kids, walked into the wooden shed behind his bungalow, and committed suicide with a rifle.

Raymond considered his grandfather's death as he walked home drunk on the east side of the High Level Bridge. The noise had been loud enough to bring five fathers running, and everyone who was still awake at 10:20 p.m. had stood in a storm of adult tears and screams and long, confused silences. Even though he never saw the scene in the little wooden shed, Raymond had created the memory. He knew what it looked like and smelled like, the secret power of the thing.

Halfway across the bridge Raymond stopped and looked over the rail into the dark water fifty metres below. There were swirls and eddies in the North Saskatchewan River; now and then a tree would float by. Raymond knew the river was cold and deep, and that the mysterious sturgeon swam along its bottom.

Three men tumbled from the bridge while building it in 1912 and 1913, but what had killed them? The fear of death while falling? The impact on the river surface? The rocks on the bottom? Ravenous sturgeon?

With a drunk man's precision, Raymond climbed to the outside of the black rail. His feet tingled and a layer of clammy sweat flashed over his body. Instead of looking down into the roaring soul of the city, Raymond stared at the old power plant and at the lights of million-dollar houses nestled around the valley. Regular people doing regular people things: reading books, watching movies, making love.

The confession on the thirty-eighth floor of Manulife Place hadn't been liberating. He hadn't felt unburdened afterwards. Halfway across the bridge Raymond understood he may have cut himself off from regular people things for the rest of his life.

"Hey, fella." There was a woman behind Raymond. He could hear her sniffing. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Go away. I'm thinking."

"You're not gonna jump, are you? That's illegal."

Raymond could not see the woman, but he didn't like the nasal quality in her voice. He worried he might catch her cold. "I'm not going to jump. I'm just thinking."

"What about?"