The Delicate Storm Read Free Page B

maybe?”
    “Chances aren’t great on that score,” Cardinal said. “But it depends what you have to tell us. I can’t make any promises.”
    “But you’d put in a good word for me? Tell them I did my duty as a citizen? I helped the police?”
    “If you give us some valuable information, I will tell the prosecutor that you have been helpful.”
    “And apologetic too, eh? Tell him I’m sorry about the bank. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
    “I’ll tell him. What have you got, Robert?”
    “I mean, I feel bad, you know—especially since you’re always telling me to stay out of trouble—and I appreciate that. I don’t want you to think I don’t listen. I do listen. I just forget. You know, an idea gets in my head and it kinda worlds around in there like a clothes dryer.”
    “Robert?”
    “What?”
    “Just tell us what you’ve got.”
    “Okay. Day before I pretended to rob the bank?”
    “You took money,” Delorme said. “That isn’t pretending.”
    “Okay, okay. Day before. I’m down in Toronto visiting my girlfriend.”
    Cardinal made a mental note—when he had a lot of time—to hear more about this girlfriend. She would have to be either a lunatic or a saint.
    “I’m down in T.O. to see my girlfriend, and I decides to go out one night to a bar. You know, just a night out on my own. So I goes over to Spadina—you know the Penny Wheel?”
    “All too well.” Before Algonquin Bay, Cardinal had spent ten years on the Toronto force. Every Toronto cop knew the Penny Wheel. It was a dank basement on Spadina, the kind of red-vinyl dive that only a criminal could love. The remarkable thing was that, unlike practically every other square foot of Toronto, this particular dive had managed to remain utterly unchanged.
    “So, I’m over at the Penny Wheel, when who comes in but Thierry Ferand. You know Thierry—he’s like a trapper and shit.”
    “I know Thierry.” Ferand was indeed one of the local fur trappers. Twice a year he came in out of the woods to sell his wares at the fur auction. Every time he did, he was arrested for drunk and disorderly, and often some variation of assault. There were rumours he occasionally did some work for the local version of the Mafia, but nothing had ever been proved. He was a small guy, but mean with it, and sneaky. When he was upset, his filthy little hand would sprout brass knuckles.
    “Well, me and Thierry go way back.”
    “To Kingston Pen if I recall correctly.”
    “Wow! How’d you know that? You guys’re amazing. Anyways, I see Thierry sitting in a corner by himself, so I go over and we start shooting the breeze. And Thierry is really drunk, eh? I mean really drunk. And he starts telling me things.” Wudky stepped right up to the bars of his cell and peered both ways along the corridor. Then, in a tone implying information of national import, he said, “Big things.”
    “Such as?”
    “Oh, nothing. Just a little murder. Would you be interested in that?” Whatever else Robert Henry Hewitt may have been, he was easily the world’s worst actor. Cardinal had difficulty keeping a straight face. He was afraid even to glance at Delorme in case they both broke up.
    “Why, yes, Robert. We would be interested in murder.”
    “And you’ll tell the Crown guy I helped you out?”
    “That’s it, I’m leaving.” Cardinal started for the door.
    “Wait! Wait! Okay, okay! I’ll tell you. You’re such a hard-ass. I’ve met guys in stir that’re more calmer.” As if to clear Cardinal’s impatience from his brain, Wudky inserted a finger into his own ear and reamed it out. “So, what I was saying: Thierry is really drunk and he starts telling me this stuff he knew about that like really scared him, you know? He finishes like his tenth beer or so, and he’s leaning all over the table and he tells me what happened to a friend of his. Guy named Paul Bressard. He’s another trapper, eh? Turns out Paul Bressard got himself murdered. Some guy from