Hair-Trigger Read Free

name’s on this? Let’s see . . . ‘Jack Lofton’.”
    â€œThat’s a friend of mine. I borrowed his card.”
    â€œUh huh.”
    They put the name through the computer. The booking officer at the desk said, “Take off your shirt.”
    Lofton unbuttoned it, knowing what was coming.
    â€œCome here, look at the screen. ‘Born May 12 , 1961 —thirty-eight years old. Grim Reaper tattoo on left shoulder, barbed wire on right biceps, lightning bolts inside of forearms.’” He turned to Lofton with a hint of a smile. “How many people in Toronto do you think have a fucking Grim Reaper on their left shoulder?”
    â€œWell, nobody, I would hope.”
    â€œYou better pray your picture doesn’t come up.”
    â€œOh, fuck,” Lofton said, “you got me.”
    â€œWell, well. And look at these outstanding warrants: ‘Possession of a Prohibited Weapon’, ‘Failing to Appear’.”
    â€œYou can add ‘Theft Under’ and ‘Obstructing Justice’,” the other cop said.
    After he was charged and booked, he was ushered into the overnight holding area: a hallway lined with cells, each of which was monitored by a camera. Prisoners’ shoes had to be left outside. It was almost two o’clock. Lying down on the metal cot, he pulled the blanket over himself and looked at the sink, the steel toilet, the ceiling.

3
    R owe decided to find some music. He got back on the subway and rode north to College, then caught a westbound streetcar to Spadina and disembarked by the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry. White bulbs rolled across the sign outside the Silver Dollar bar in the Waverley Hotel on the other side of the street.
    He passed the pink and green neon palms of the El Mocambo as he drifted into the outskirts of Chinatown. Paved islands with shelters paralleled the streetcar tracks. The broad road was a long-time artery of the garment trade and home to various Asian restaurants and many disparate, shabby-looking businesses. There were window displays with dusty fedoras, wingtip shoes, X-rated videos. He paused by a striped pole to browse the designs inside the fly-specked glass of an apparent tattoo parlor/barber shop. Across the street and through the blocks around Baldwin, Kensington Market’s shops and gamy stalls were closed until morning.
    Blues chords could be heard over scattered applause as Rowe approached Grossman’s Tavern. He opened the door and walked through the front area between some wooden tables and the bar, where an old hippie was nursing a draught and a Chinese woman was loading a tray with bottles. Two people were playing pool.
    The adjoining room on the right was dimly lit and crowded. Rowe scanned the customers as he pulled out a rickety chair and sat down. There were primitive paintings of the building, and countless faded black and white photographs of regulars from decades past on the walls. The band was in the middle of a Sonny Boy Williamson cover.
    Half an hour later he finished another drink and left while the musicians were on break. As Rowe stepped off the curb near the side of the building, he happened to notice a woman looking back his way while she walked up Cecil. It was just a passing glance, a wary gesture on a dark street, but he decided to follow her along the opposite sidewalk. When she emerged from the shadows into the light, he could see her long black hair and what appeared to be a pale trench coat. She looked back at him again.
    The only sounds were their footsteps and the leaves rustling in the breeze. A white cat slunk beneath a car. Although Rowe kept a casual pace with his hands in his pockets, not wanting to alarm her, he was gradually overtaking her. Perhaps she was slowing down. He wondered if he should say something. Even in his unfettered state of mind he could see the unlikelihood of managing a conversation with her in such lonely and potentially dangerous