Broken Man on a Halifax Pier Read online

  I tried to psych myself up for the impending father and son talk, but I knew it was not going to go well. I had detected a stubbornness in Brody, a willfulness, a naive certainty that whatever selfish and destructive actions he took in life, he’d wiggle free and go about his life just like before. No one had ever put the proverbial fear of God in him. There simply was no God or replacement for God in his life. I had brought a boy into the world who thought of drug dealing as a noble profession. Now I had to teach my boy a life lesson that would stick. And I was not the slightest bit prepared to do it effectively.

  At first Brody did not come to the door of my old apartment when I knocked. I could hear music inside, some kind of loud rap music, the sort of gangsta rap that always made me squirm and yearn for the days when lyrics meant something and there was such a thing as melody. I knocked louder. Still no answer. I tried the door handle and it was not locked.

  Brody was nowhere in sight. The place was a mess. He’d thrown my mattress on the floor for some reason and there were books scattered around. I could tell Brody was not exactly the model house guest. It was a small apartment so it wasn’t long before I discovered him. He was lying naked in the tub taking a bath. He nearly jumped out of his skin when I walked in.

  “Holy fuck, man! What are you doing here?”

  “C’mon, Brody. Put some clothes on. We need to talk.”

  “Perv,” he countered, standing up and reaching for my old bathrobe hanging from a nail on the wall.

  I walked into the living room, turned off the music, and waited for him to come out of the bathroom.

  “Nice tattoos,” I said, referring to the death mask I’d seen on his chest.

  “You should see the one on my ass.”

  “No, thank you. Please, I just had lunch.”

  “Why are you here? I thought you were staying back in Stewart Harbour.”

  “Had some visiting to do here in town.”

  “Guess you want your apartment back. I hate to tell you, but this place is a dump. And the people who live here are creepy.”

  “I always thought the neighbours were nice.”

  “Some don’t have teeth. Some of them like to shout at two a.m., and the kids are like little weasels running up and down the stairs.”

  “But they’re truly nice when you get to know them.”

  “No thanks.”

  “So how do you like it here in the big city?”

  Brody did that signature snort laugh of his. “The truth is, Halifax has been good to me. But I might as well get going. I got a little business deal to finish up and I’m gonna head back later this afternoon.”

  “What kind of business deal?” I asked.

  “The kind you don’t want to know about.”

  “Brody, you gotta quit what you’ve been doing.”

  “And do what?”

  “You saw what happened to Scooter.”

  “That wasn’t my fault. Besides, if he didn’t get the stuff from me, he’d get it somewhere else.”

  “You don’t care that you gave him something that nearly killed him?”

  What Brody said next really threw me. He gave me a half-smile. “Not really.”

  This from the damn kid who was my son. I knew then that Ramona was right. Someone had to stop him.

  “What if Scooter’s father decides he wants revenge for what you sold to his son?”

  Brody gave me another half-grunt of a laugh and walked over to my dresser drawer. He lifted out a small gun, a Ruger, not much bigger than the size of his hand. He held it up. “Like I said, Halifax has been kind to me.” The kid was full of surprises.

  “What can I say to get you to stop dealing?”

  “You can’t say nothing,” he said flatly, pointing the gun at a lamp. “Instead, you can kiss my hairy tattooed ass.” And then he playfully pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. I heard the click of the Ruger. Thankfully there was no bullet. He saw the look of shock on my face.

  “Don’t worry, man. I couldn’t kill you. You’re my father, remember? That would be, um, what’s the word for it?”

  “Patricide,” I said.

  “Oh, really. I thought it was revenge.”

  “I’m gonna leave now. Get rid of the gun, Brody. Before someone gets hurt. Go home and be good to your mother if you can and come up with a plan for your life.”

  Brody just stood there, looking at me. “Nice lecture, Pop. Hey, I’ll be nice and clean the place up before I go. Maybe leave you a little present. And I do appreciate the sentiment and all, but don’t worry about me. I got this far, didn’t I, without your help or anybody else’s.”

  He flipped me the key to my apartment. “I’ll lock up on my way out later. Thanks.”

  21

  I called Ramona from the car. She answered in a hushed tone. “I need to drive out of town this afternoon. Can you come with me?”

  “No. I told you I have appointments.”

  “Can’t you break them?”

  “No. What’s so important?”

  I told her about my encounter with Brody. I didn’t mention the gun, but I told her I knew I hadn’t succeeded at persuading him to quit dealing.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m gonna make him stop.”

  “How?”

  I tapped the phone’s off button. I was hoping she’d think we were cut off. It rang again almost instantly. I didn’t answer it. The how part was still troubling me. I had thought maybe Ramona would come with me and together we would sort out Plan B. But she had her appointments and I had to do something. Anything. I was pretty sure Brian Deacon would be on the lookout for Brody as soon as he was back in Stewart Harbour.

  I opened my wallet and found the business card that Tom, the Mountie from Musquodoboit, had given me. I called him and he answered on the third ring.

  “Tom, it’s Charles Howard.”

  The name didn’t seem to register.

  “Uh, huh,” he said and then paused.

  “The deer thing, remember?”

  “Of course. What’s up?”

  “Are you on duty this afternoon?”

  “Yup. In my cruiser on the road until seven tonight. Why?”

  “Can I meet you in, say, an hour?”

  “Sure. But I’d like to know what this is about.”

  “I need your help,” was all I said.

  He didn’t say anything at first. Then he said, “Okay. Meet me by the old train in town here. In an hour.”

  I shut the phone off and tossed it in the back seat. I nervously drove through the city traffic, jammed up because of construction, and crossed the MacKay Bridge, heading east yet again. I hit red for every light on my way through Dartmouth. I got gas at the Esso station in Cole Harbour and drove on.

  Tom was waiting for me in the parking lot by the train museum. That old train looked sadder and rustier than the time I drove by before. I got out of the Lexus and tried to open the passenger door of the patrol car, but it was locked. Tom was looking at me warily as he rolled the window down. “You gotta sit in the back if you want to talk. Rules.”

  I sat in the back, behind the bars separating us. The doors locked when they shut. It was like I was being arrested.

  “What’s this about?” he asked.

  So I told him about Brody. “He’ll be coming through here sometime soon. I want you to arrest him.”

  “What did you say he was dealing?”

  “I’m not sure what he has now. But he’s been selling OxyContin and I think it’s been cut with fentanyl.” I explained about Scooter’s overdose. I explained that Brody felt invincible. I didn’t tell him about the gun. I was hoping that my Mountie friend would be as gun shy around Brody as he was around an injured animal. And then I added, “And by the way, Brody is my son.”

  I think it took a while for it to sink in. Tom sat there tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “We had a call yesterday. I didn’t take it but I heard the story. Woman from down your way called
and told us the same thing. She wanted us to arrest her son. But she said he wasn’t around. She was asked if she had any evidence about him dealing and such, but she said she didn’t. We told her to call back when he returned, but she never called back. We wrote it off as a crank call. Mother pissed off at her little boy.”

  “Do you remember what her name was?”

  “I think she was a Myatt. A lot of Myatts down that way.”

  “That’s Brody. She raised him. But I wasn’t around. He didn’t take my name.”

  “Look, I can’t just go stopping cars on impulse or anything. I need to get someone to authorize it.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. This is me calling in a favour. Look, he’ll be coming by here sometime this afternoon. I’ll sit here in my car and watch. Call you when I see him. You stop him and if he’s clean, this never happened. If he’s not, I’ll be there to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean like run off or something.”

  Tom pondered all this. “Okay. Look. I have some paperwork to do back at the office, so I’m right around the corner. You see him, you call me. Same number. I’ll catch up with you and I’ll stop him and see what he’s up to. And that’s it. Game over.”

  “Thank you,” I said. And I heard the lock click. I opened the door and got out.

  If you’d driven by that afternoon you might have seen a nervous-looking guy parked in front of a rusty train engine that had seen much better days. He was looking at every pickup truck that passed by and praying that everything was going to turn out all right.

  It was late afternoon when I saw Brody’s truck rolling toward me on the highway. I was parked behind the train so he’d be unlikely to spot me. I waited for him to pass by to make sure it was him. As he slowed near the intersection for traffic, I could see that one of his tail lights wasn’t working. That helped.

  Tom took my call on the first ring. I told him Brody was headed east from Musquodoboit on 7 and that one of his tail lights was out. I gave him the licence plate number I had written down.

  “Okay,” he said, not sounding at all like this was something he wanted to do. I started up the car and took off in slow pursuit of my son. I was pretty sure he was headed straight home to Stewart Harbour, but I wanted to be sure we didn’t lose him. Like in the movies, I stayed behind two cars and it was easy enough to keep a bead on him. All the while, I was thinking about that damn gun he’d bought in Halifax. Gone were the days when you had to go over the border into Maine to get your mitts on a handgun.

  The cellphone was ringing and I could see it was Ramona. I didn’t answer.

  About ten minutes into it, I saw the Mountie car pass vehicles and come up behind me. When he passed me, he looked over and nodded. I could still see the doubt in his face. But not more than a minute later, he had his lights flashing and had pulled Brody over. I guess I could have just kept on going, kept my nose out of it, and if he was busted, no one would be the wiser that I was involved.

  But I was involved. I got Tom into this and, while I didn’t have any real plan of action, I knew I needed to be on hand. So I pulled up behind the police car and watched as Tom walked up to the truck window. There would be the classic tail light story for starters.

  I watched as Brody protested. I got out and walked toward them as Tom was asking him to get out of the truck. Brody saw me and was furious.

  “What the hell?” he shouted. “What the fucking hell?”

  Brody was out of the truck now, but cursing and elbowing the Mountie. Suddenly, he took a swipe at Tom, but Tom ducked out of the way. Nonetheless, I could tell that Tom wasn’t used to this sort of thing. I was beginning to think I had gotten him in over his head. Tom was having a hell of a hard time as he tugged Brody toward the police cruiser and tried to get his hands behind him.

  I scooted past them and leaned into the truck cab. The gun was there in the glove compartment. I stuffed it into my pants pocket. I looked around for the drugs. Not in the cab. I could hear Brody shouting, “I didn’t do anything,” sounding like a little kid. My kid who I’d never been around to help raise.

  I looked under the seat. Nothing. Shit.

  Tom had Brody handcuffed now and was pushing his head down as he shoved him into the back of the car where I had once sat. Kid in a cage now. Seething. Hating me.

  Tom gave me a look. A what-have-you-gotten-me-into look. I shrugged. There was a tool box in the back of the truck. It was locked, but there was a hammer back there too. I smashed the lock and opened it. A package of something. Brown paper wrapping. I tore part of it off. It looked like flour. But I knew what it was. I figured I was breaking at least ten rules of legal protocol, but I convinced myself I had to do this to get the job done.

  Tom tried to look calm as he walked toward me, Brody now safely locked in the back-seat cage. I showed Tom what I’d found. He shook his head and took it. Brody was looking at me now, screaming something unintelligible. He’d never, ever forgive me. So much for father and son reunion. I stood there by the side of the road as Tom got behind the wheel and drove Brody away, the kid still screaming at me through the window.

  And there I was again, standing alone by the side of Highway 7 in the middle of nowhere. Alone. But this time with a gun in my pocket. I rolled up the window of the truck and left the keys on the seat. The Mounties would have it towed. I needed to get back to Halifax.

  22

  I hit rush-hour traffic on the way into Halifax. I called Ramona and told her I was on my way.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you when I get there. Let’s go somewhere for a beer.”

  “Meet me at the Split Crow,” she said. “Happy hour.”

  Not exactly what I had in mind. But I wanted to see her. Badly. I wanted her to hear my confession and confirm I did the right thing. The only thing.

  I left the gun under the car seat. Glove compartment seemed too obvious. Where do criminals usually hide their weapons? What does it say in the handbook? Me and guns. Seems we kept running into each other. Before I got out, I pulled the Ruger out from under the seat and checked it. Damn. It was loaded. And the safety hadn’t even been on. Somebody could have been killed. I clicked the safety and stashed it back under the seat, not sure if I should tell Ramona about it. Tom hadn’t seen it. One less thing Brody could be charged for.

  It was crowded in the Split Crow. Mostly college-age kids. I’d been one of them once. Saturday afternoon. Tables full of twelveounce glasses of beer, sunlight glinting in through the glass, rowdy crowds singing to a pop song on the sound system.

  “Sorry I put so many miles on your car,” I said by means of salutation.

  “Now you gonna tell me where you went?”

  “I went back down the Shore,” I said, “to have my son arrested.” And I told her about the stakeout, about Tom, about the arrest, and about Brody watching me through that window from the back seat of a cop car with a look that said he hated me more than anyone he’d ever hated in his life.

  “But you did the right thing.”

  “Did I?” I had real doubts. What if he had pulled out that damn gun?

  “If you couldn’t convince him, you did the only thing you could do.”

  “It’s gonna get messy.” Messy wasn’t the half of it.

  I pulled the phone that Ramona had given to me out of my pocket. I dialed the number.

  Beth Ann answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Beth Ann, it’s Charles.”

  “Charles?”

  “Brody’s been arrested,” I blurted out. “I had him arrested.”

  A tableful of enthusiastic young men and women suddenly shouted out and cheered. A TV was on, a hockey game and somebody scored. Life went on. As the roar subsided, I waited to take whatever Beth Ann was going to throw at me. The line was silent at first.

  “Beth Ann?”

  More silence.

  And then she spoke ha
ltingly. “Thank you. I used to dread such a thing would happen, but now that it has, I’m relieved.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “I do. You did what had to be done. You are a good man.” It was just like Beth Ann to forgive everyone, including me. What happens next? I wanted to ask. But didn’t. I didn’t want to think about whatever happens next.

  “Joe won’t see it that way, though, I’m sorry to say.”

  “I didn’t think he’d take this lightly.”

  “I’ll talk to him. Get him to understand. He didn’t like Brody dealing either. He and Brody had a couple of fights over it. Nasty fights. On the wharf. Men laughed at them when they got going at it. Wasn’t anything to laugh at. Both of them have a mean streak.”

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked her.

  “Get up tomorrow,” Beth Ann said, “and go fishing. Thanks again.”

  And she hung up.

  I handed the phone back to Ramona. She took my hand, squeezed it, and gave me a sympathetic look. A waiter appeared then — skinny kid with rimless glasses and something that looked like bolts in his ears.

  “A pitcher of IPA please,” Ramona said, “and two glasses.”

  He nodded.

  The beer came. It was cold. It was good. Somebody scored again in the hockey game. Sports fans cheered.

  “Tell me about your day,” I said.

  “Not now. It’s not important. Thanks for visiting my mom.”

  “Tough thing to see your mother slowly lose her memory.”

  “The only good thing about it is that you forget the bad as well as the good.”

  “Glass is half full, you mean.”

  “Something like that.”

  “I got an idea,” she said after that, taking another sip of beer from her glass. “What if you and I go get some supplies, go back to my apartment, turn off the phones, close the drapes, and just have nothing to do with the world until, um, Thursday.”

  I had a hard time remembering what day of the week it was. Monday. “Just you and me? Tuesday. Wednesday. All day.”