coming.â
BEEP
âMs. MacPhee? Violet Parnell here. Would you be kind enough to come to my apartment, on the double? Itâs a matter of some urgency.â
BEEP
âItâs Alvin. Holy shit, get over to Violetâs place. Fast.â
I shouted into Mrs. Parnellâs voice mail. âMrs. P.? Is something wrong? Alvin? Are you there? Whatâs happening? Iâll get there as soon as I can.â
After I left the message at Mrs. Parnellâs, I tried her cellphone. Nada. I tried Alvinâs. Ditto. The apartment superdidnât pick up. His voice mailbox was full. I tried calling a cab. The dispatcher snickered. Fifty minutes to an hour wait. Holiday weekend.
Bad scenarios played in my head. Mrs. Parnell was coming up to her eightieth birthday and had been using a walker for a couple of years for balance. Sheâs had a few shocks to her system and at least one trip to the ICU since she got to know me. Even though I knew she had the smarts to dial 911, I figured Iâd better hustle. Itâs a fifty-minute hike from downtown to our apartment building near the Champlain Bridge. Thatâs at the best of times, which this wasnât.
I hustled up toward Wellington, keeping an eye out for a cab. No joy. I figured it would be faster to walk. Of course, that was before I discovered my regular walking route home, the path along the Ottawa River, had been disrupted by some emergency behind the Parliament Buildings. Mounties redirected foot traffic on the path, and I had to push though a flock of confused tourists. The detour cost me an extra fifteen minutes.
I was in a lather by the time I reached our building. Mrs. Parnellâs apartment is the second unit down from mine. I shot out of the elevator on the sixteenth floor and headed straight to her open door. I took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from my forehead, strode into her living room and swore.
Mrs. Parnell was positioned in front of her oversized black leather club chair, holding a tumbler of Harveyâs Bristol Cream in her left hand and with her right, tracing a pattern in the air. As far as I could make out, she was in the middle of a dramatic re-enactment involving a crippled Allied reconnaissance plane and a nest of German snipers somewherein the mountains of Northern Italy in late 1944. The smoke from her smouldering Benson & Hedges was part of the story. Lester and Pierre, Mrs. Parnellâs evil little lovebirds, shrieked in the background. Her custom-made titanium walker lay idle on the far side of the room.
Alvin Ferguson perched on the matching leather sofa, leaning forward, listening. His entire bony body was caught up in the drama, eyes wide behind his catâs-eye glasses. His beaky nose tracked the spiral of the imaginary plane, his ponytail flipped as he followed the arc of the snipersâ bullets. The sun glinting off his nine visible earrings added to the magic of the moment.
âAgainst all the odds,â Mrs. Parnell said, âwith only his pistol, the major fought his way through and single-handedly wiped out the entire nest of snipers. Of course, there was no dealing with him afterwards. Still, he reminds me a bit of you in a pinch, dear boy.â
âLord thundering Jesus, Violet, thatâs one wicked story,â Alvin said.
Mrs. Parnell nodded modestly.
I cleared my throat.
âMs. MacPhee! We thought youâd never get here.â
I narrowed my eyes. âWhatâs the emergency?â
âEmergency?â
âYes. You both know goddam well you left me a message.â
âI donât believe we actually said it was an emergency,â Mrs. Parnell said after a long sip of Harveyâs.
âYou used the word urgency.â
âUrgency, yes, but we had no desire to alarm you.â
âNo? Mind telling me why you didnât answer your phone?â
Mrs. Parnell turned to Alvin. âDid you hear the telephone, dear boy?â
Alvin shook his head.
I