Running on Empty (18 page)

Ethan was almost sick with relief to find no one at the house when he got there at six. Raye was usually home by now, and he took her absence as a blessing. She would know something was wrong the moment she saw him and she’d be all over him. He needed the time alone to plan what he was going to say to his old man. Already he could feel his guts churn as he thought about it.

Of course, it didn’t help that he’d had almost nothing to eat all day. He still didn’t feel hungry, but he needed something on his stomach before he faced his father. He went to the kitchen and began opening cupboard doors, knowing what he’d find. Other guys’ parents bought snacks that weren’t soy-based and drinks that didn’t make your lips curl back when you got a mouthful of sour. What would it be like when Jillian finally moved in for good? Ethan abandoned the cupboards and tried the fridge, settling on a container of cottage cheese. It reminded him of albino brain matter, but he thought he could force some down if he didn’t look at it.

He took the container and a spoon into the family room and slumped onto the sofa. He wished he could call Allie, longed to hear her voice, longed to talk to her about the mess he’d gotten himself into, but he couldn’t yet deal with what Pete had told him that morning:
I kissed her, Ethan
. Pete had said again and again that Allie had done nothing wrong—
She started apologizing for maybe giving me the wrong impression. But she hadn’t. I told her
so, told her it was just me. All me
—but he couldn’t think of Allie without picturing her face next to Pete’s, her lips touching his.

Besides, she hadn’t called him in almost two days. What was up with that? Guilt?

Ethan reached for the remote and clicked the flat screen on, eager for other images to replace the ones in his head. Spooning cottage cheese into his mouth, he surfed absently, and he was three channels past it when his brain finally registered their Brilliant Cream living room. He channelled back down and found himself looking at Connie Althorpe, a monitor behind her showing his old man sitting on their white sofa: “—had an opportunity to interview prominent Halifax lawyer Jack Palmer last night in his Cathedral Estates home. Mr. Palmer, who recently threw his hat into the political arena, responded at length to questions about his work and his plans for the future. That interview will air in its entirety this evening on
Maritime Movers and Shakers
.”

The camera drew back to show Althorpe sitting beside another news commentator, this one male. “Can you give us a preview of what we’re going to see, Connie?” he said.

Althorpe nodded. “As you’d expect from the city’s most successful defence attorney, Mr. Palmer was extremely articulate. He was also refreshingly forthcoming. Up to a point.”

“Didn’t he hold up under cross-examination?” the commentator joked.

Althorpe smiled primly. “One of my questions, as you’ll see, evoked a rather heated refusal to elaborate.” Althorpe turned, and the camera zoomed in on the monitor. The producer had obviously intended to save the bulk of the exchange for a later viewing since the clip was brief, but it was clear that Ethan’s father was upset, his face red as he said crisply, “I have absolutely no comment other than to say I’m appalled that you would ask such a question in my own home.”

The image froze and the camera returned to Althorpe and
the male commentator beside her. “Connie,” he said, “can you tell us what question upset Palmer?”

Ethan sat up straight, pressing the volume-up control on the remote.

“I asked him how it felt to defend a man charged with driving while intoxicated when the mother of his own children was killed by a drunk driver.”

His hands trembling, Ethan reached inside the wastebasket in his old man’s study and pulled out the newspaper. It was today’s, delivered long before anyone in Cathedral Estates was awake. His father would have seen it before he went to work, probably intended to clip yet another article about himself to add to his glory wall.

But he hadn’t. Ethan reached for the torn newsprint he’d seen earlier and dropped the scraps of paper onto the desk. Sifting through them, he could see that all the scraps were remnants of a single page, and it took him little time to piece them together. The article, headlined “Would-Be Politician Faces Personal Dilemma,” summed up what Ethan had already heard, except that it included two photos. One showed the now-familiar YouTube image of the MLA’s damaged car, the other a crumpled 1996 Mustang Cobra SVT, its Mystic finish imperceptible in the grainy black and white photo.

“You son of a bitch,” breathed Ethan.

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Ethan turned toward the voice. His father stood in the study doorway, his Fisher, McBurney, and Hicks briefcase in his hand. “That’s sensationalism, not journalism,” said Jack. “It was unfair of that Althorpe woman to bring it up.”

Ethan glared at him. “Unfair or inconvenient? But it doesn’t
really matter, does it? You’ve got a media consultant to fix problems like that, right?”

“Don’t use that tone with me, Ethan.”

“‘Don’t use that tone’? You’re really going to play
that
card?”

“Ethan—”

“How
could
you?”

“How could I what?” The question was natural enough, but Ethan could tell from the hesitation in his father’s voice that he already knew the answer.

“Agree to defend a man like that when it was a drunk driver who killed her.”

“It’s not that simple, Ethan.”

“Isn’t it? I thought a person is invariably defined by his ability to meet his obligations,” said Ethan, his face warped in a sneer. “Seems to me a person might feel at least a
little
obligated not to shit on his dead wife.”

Jack set his briefcase on the floor beside him, stood looking at it for a moment before raising his eyes again. “Everything is always black or white with you, Ethan. So cut and dried. When you’re older you’ll understand that a person has to make compromises to ensure the best for his family.”

“The best for his family,” repeated Ethan. “Don’t you mean the best for
you?
I expect your party will be pretty grateful if you can make that DUI charge disappear. And it wouldn’t hurt your new political career to be able to call on a few favours from day one, would it.” Ethan heard paper crinkling and he looked down to see he was making fists, the newsprint twisting between his fingers.

“This is important to me—” his father began, but Ethan cut him off.

“Really? Something is actually important to you?” He realized he was shouting now, but it felt good. Great, in fact. “Do you have any idea what’s important to
me?
” He snorted venomously. “Or what
was
important to me?”

“If this is about that car again—”

“Do you know how long I’ve been thinking about it, planning for it?”

“Ethan—”

“Since the day we buried her. Did you know that?”

The surprise was evident in his father’s eyes.

“Remember that big tree that blew down in our backyard in Herring Cove the week after Mom died? The one with the swing? I was sitting on it after we got home from the funeral. Someone sent me outside because Raye was napping and they didn’t want me to wake her up.” Ethan was surprised at how fast he was talking, how fast the memories were coming back to him. “So I was sitting there on that swing trying to remember the last thing I heard Mom say. Raye and I were with you that weekend and she called you on the phone. She was going to bring you the divorce papers, even though the weather was supposed to turn bad. She called those papers your ‘early Christmas present.’” His voice cracked again, but he pressed on. “All this time, I thought it was the snow that caused the accident. I must’ve heard about the drunk driver at some point, but all I remembered was the Christmas present. And the snow.”

He sobbed suddenly, hating himself for doing it, and he looked down at the desk and the newsprint crumpled in his hands. “After the funeral? While I was sitting on the swing? These two guys came out to the backyard for a smoke. People you worked with. They didn’t see me. The swing was on the other side of the tree. I heard them talking about the car. How it was a shame, right? Car like that? Cobra SVT? They even knew about the Mystic finish.” He looked up again. “I’d just lost my mom and it was a goddamn shame about the car.”

“Look, Ethan—”

“At that moment, I knew I’d have a car like that one day.” He
paused, wiping savagely at tears, then continued, “I begged her to get it. Did you know that?”

His father shook his head.

“On the way home the day we found it, she talked about how nothing ever stays the same. But that afternoon sitting on the swing listening to those guys talking about the Cobra, I thought—” He coughed, cleared his throat noisily. “I thought maybe if I could make just one thing the same—” He stopped. He had no more words, none that would make a difference, anyway. He stood up, unfolded his fists, pulled one of the scraps free and held it up. It was a fragment of the photo with the Mustang. “
That’s
what was important to
me
.”

A horrible silence echoed in the study until Jack broke it. “You never told me anything about this, Ethan,” he said softly.

“Like you ever asked.”

“That’s not fair—”

Ethan laughed harshly. “You’re real big on the whole fairness thing, aren’t you? People probably think that’s why you became a lawyer, right?”

“It
is
why I became a lawyer.”

“Yeah, right. Champion of law and order, defender of the poor and underprivileged. Bullshit! How underprivileged would you say your current client is?”

“His wealth doesn’t deny him the right to a fair trial, Ethan. And he’s not my only client. I’ve defended lots of people who were in dire straits. People in situations like my own mother—”

“For Christ’s sake!” shouted Ethan. “If I hear one more story about that goddamn woman, I’m gonna—”

“Don’t you
dare
talk about her that way!” his father roared.

“Right!” Ethan roared in return. “I shouldn’t disrespect a woman I never even
knew
, but it’s okay for you to defend a man like the one who
killed
the woman who carried me inside her, gave birth to me, and raised me while you were keeping
white-collar criminals out of jail!” As angry as he was, he liked the way his voice sounded now. Stronger, more in control than he’d felt in weeks. Months.

“Your mother was no saint.”

“I hope not,” Ethan retorted. “There’s one too many in this family already.”

His father shook his head. “If you could see yourself, hear what you sound like—”

“That’s what it always comes down to, isn’t it,” Ethan barked. “What
other
people see and hear and think.”

A third voice spoke from the hallway. “Well, the neighbours are certainly getting an earful right now.”

Ethan and his father turned to see Raye with Winnipeg Joe’s bass guitar in her arms. “I could hear you two before I even got in the house.”

“Yeah, well, too bad,” snarled Ethan. “I certainly wouldn’t want to shatter anyone’s impression of Jack Perfect here.” He strode to the door, pushing past both of them. In the process, his foot connected with his father’s briefcase and sent it crashing into the wall.

Raye turned astonished eyes toward her brother, who was now heading down the hallway to the front door. He could hear her asking their father what was going on, but the reply was lost as Ethan banged open the hall closet door, yanked his jacket off its hanger, then slammed the door shut.

“What’s wrong?” Raye asked, coming down the hall toward him.

“Wrong?” He gripped the handle of the front door, swung it open roughly. “How could anything possibly be wrong in
this
house?” He stepped outside, poking his hands into each of the jacket’s pockets, finally pulling out a card. He looked at it, smiled grimly, and strode down the driveway.

“What’re you going to do?” called Raye from the doorway.

“Do?” he shouted back over his shoulder, then realized he’d been repeating her last words. Interesting, he thought, since their old man was the one who always got the last word. Well, by God, not tonight. If anyone was going to have the last word this evening, it was Ethan Palmer. “I’ll tell you one thing I’m
not
gonna do,” he shouted. “I’m not gonna worry about
appearances!
” Reaching the sidewalk, he took out his cell and began pressing buttons as he stormed down Seminary Lane.

“Surprised to hear from you again so soon,” Hornsby said on the phone. Except Ethan didn’t believe him, sensed somehow that the guy wasn’t the least bit surprised. “I thought you didn’t like my plan.”

“I’m in, okay?” Ethan muttered, walking past Big Ben Cleveland’s plantation-style monstrosity in the fading December light. The self-appointed leader of their non-existent Neighbourhood Watch, the asshole who couldn’t wait to report Ethan’s wrongdoings to his father, was standing on his front lawn holding a long-handled weed-digging tool. He jabbed it into the ground and twisted, his huge gut bouncing with the thrust, looking like the picture of compliance with the city’s ban on lawn poisons. But Ethan knew it was all show. Earlier that day, he’d seen their neighbour’s GMC Denali pulling into his garage, the back loaded down with something heavy. Even through the vehicle’s heavily tinted windows, Ethan recognized huge bags of Weed & Feed, which he guessed Big Ben would spread late at night when no one could see. Watching him now while listening to Hornsby spell out specifics made what Ethan was about to do seem a lot easier. Everybody took shortcuts to get what they wanted.

Hornsby finished outlining the details, asked if Ethan had any questions, and then hung up. When he reached Monastery, Ethan looked at his watch and saw he had a few hours before he’d be joining him downtown, and he mulled over his options
as he walked. He was still mulling them over when his feet decided for him.

Ethan paused beneath the wrought-iron structure that arched over the entrance to St. Anthony’s Cemetery, trying to remember the last time he’d been there. The only good thing about living in Cathedral Estates was its proximity to St. Anthony’s, where his mother was buried, much closer than their last home had been. Although he didn’t come often, he liked knowing he could visit any time. When he’d last been here, in July, songbirds had trilled from several of the trees that dotted the cemetery, flowers were bursting around the graves, and he’d seen a gardener on a lawn tractor pulling a cart filled with soil and what looked to be a birch sapling ready for planting. For a place filled with dead people, St. Anthony’s had seemed to be teeming with life.

Now, though, the trees were bare of leaves, and the few flowers Ethan could see dotting nearby gravesites were made of plastic. In the glow of the lights that lined the perimeter, he was the only person in sight. He tugged his jacket around him as a sharp breeze whistled through the wrought iron, and he stepped through the entrance.

Ethan followed the gravel path that wound along the western side of the cemetery until he came to his mother’s headstone. A street light on the other side of the wrought-iron fence lit the inscription on the polished granite:
Olivia Leanne Cameron-Palmer
. And, below, the words that tore at him as much now as when he’d seen them the first time:
Beloved Mother
. Each time he came here, he expected—hoped—that his memories of her would strengthen, as if nearness to her physical remains would somehow bring into focus what he’d lost, but it never happened.

He stepped forward, tracing his fingers along the intricate
lettering, then noticed a large white spatter on the stone’s curved top—birdshit. Seagull, most likely, judging from the size of it. He swore and dug in his pockets for something he could use to clean it. Nothing. He swore again.

To the right was the headstone that had made him and Raye laugh the last time they’d come here together. Twice as wide as their mother’s, it marked a double plot that still had only one occupant:
Grace Althea Elliott, God’s Newest Angel
. Married to Norm Elliott, their Cathedral Estates neighbour across the street, she had died last year from ovarian cancer while the Palmers’ house was being built. Nothing funny there, of course. What had made Ethan and his sister roar—for ten minutes straight—was the inscription beside Grace’s:
Norman Robert Elliott, Loved By One And All
. Norm had obviously saved money by getting both his and Grace’s epitaphs carved at the same time. Seeing the headstone now, Ethan smiled again, but not because of those ridiculous words. In a stone vase beneath Grace’s name were what appeared to be roses, remarkably red in that December setting, the flowers made of bright cloth. He grabbed a handful and rubbed and rubbed the moulded fabric across the mess on his mother’s headstone, but it only smeared the white stain.

He let the ruined flowers fall from his hand, ground them beneath his heel, then jumped on them again and again, his curses puncturing the cold December air. He didn’t realize he was crying until, exhausted, he finally stopped, the roses obliterated beneath his feet.

His cell rang. Sitting on the cold ground, his legs drawn up against his chest, Ethan lifted his head from his knees, pulled the phone from his pocket, and saw it was Jillian Ro-bitch-cheau this time.

The phone had rung all evening, some of the calls from Pete, but Ethan had just hit Ignore. Pete was the last person he wanted to talk to right now.

No, that wasn’t completely true. The last person would be his old man, who’d begun calling from their house phone and then switched to his cell an hour ago. Ethan had let those calls ring. It wasn’t like the sound was going to bother anybody in St. Anthony’s, and he liked picturing his father’s growing frustration each time he got Ethan’s voice mail.

But now the Barbie doll was calling. Christ! Looking once more at the granite headstone
—Beloved Mother
—he tapped Ignore and got to his feet. It was already close to ten o’clock. Time to get moving.

Afterwards, Ethan thought he should have taken the bus, but with a couple of hours to kill he walked all the way from St. Anthony’s to the downtown address Hornsby had given him. Even wearing his cross-trainers, his feet were sore by the time he got there, but he’d appreciated having the time by himself so he could think, get everything straight in his head. Or, as his mother used to say, “Connect the dots,” something he’d suddenly remembered as he sat on the ground beside what remained of her, trying to explain to her what he was going to do. And why.

There’d been a lot of dots, but he’d connected all of them. He knew now why Link Hornsby had been outside that convenience store the night Ethan discovered Boots’s ticket was a winner. What was that line they still used sometimes on cop shows?
The perp was casing the joint
. Like Hornsby had cased lots of other joints in the city during the past few months. Convenience stores and gas stations, mostly, which might have seemed like small potatoes when there were banks and credit unions waiting to be robbed. But as Hornsby had explained, banks and credit unions had far tighter security than convenience stores and gas
stations, and the risks were far greater. Of course, convenience stores and gas stations
were
small potatoes much of the time. No self-respecting career thief would consider a few hundred—or even a couple thousand—dollars worth the risk—but they could offer bonanzas, too. During those weeks when the 6/49 or Lotto Max million-dollar prizes soared into the double digits, businesses with lottery terminals had sudden boosts in sales. Countless customers who came in to play their own numbers almost always got an Insta Pik—or five—and then bought their cigarettes and shit while they were at it. And the smaller the operation, the less likely that there was manpower available for making multiple bank deposits throughout the day, which meant lots of cash lingering on site. So during weeks when jackpots were huge, those convenience stores and gas stations could offer some pretty substantial returns with—how did his father’s investment adviser put it?—”a modicum of risk.”

Hornsby had told him some of this, of course, though not all of it. Ethan had to connect the rest of the dots, but he was pretty confident in his conclusions. He’d remembered seeing in the news how police had identified the perp’s M.O., and it was the same as the set-up Hornsby had told him about tonight’s job: lots of cash in the safe awaiting deposit, only one person working, surveillance system installed by Atlantic Alarms, and on and on. A robbery just waiting to happen.

When Hornsby had suggested it that afternoon in his Echo, Ethan thought he was joking at first, then wondered why he’d risk telling someone else his plan. But it wasn’t hard to connect those dots when you thought about it. Wasn’t Ethan already a criminal? Hadn’t he been breaking the law for weeks, gambling online, buying an illegal driver’s licence he’d paid for with some of his lottery winnings? And hadn’t he told Hornsby he’d stolen money from his own sister and fraudulently activated and used his father’s credit card? Ethan wasn’t exactly in a position to rat
out Link Hornsby. Besides, the legal system would go easier on Ethan—a minor and first-time offender from a good family—than on Hornsby if he got caught. And Ethan was motivated, desperate for cash. Even with a sixty-forty split, he would have enough money from tonight’s anticipated take to pay off what he owed everyone
and
buy Filthy’s car.

Sitting in Hornsby’s rusted Toyota Echo earlier that day, Ethan had wanted nothing more than to take him up on his offer to get back the money he’d lost and clear the slate once and for all. But nothing he heard could sway him to take part in a robbery.

That was this afternoon. Before he’d learned what kind of man his father really was, someone who would sell his soul for a sound bite, all in the name of appearances. After that revelation, Ethan didn’t give a damn
how
he solved his problem as long as it went away. And weren’t store owners insured for things like this? Ethan looked ahead at the sign hanging over the deserted sidewalk and grinned at the words glowing in neon green—
Anwar’s Convenience, 24 hours, We have everything you need—
and felt a zither of excitement run through him.