Caught by Lisa Moore Page A

custard machine but kept on talking over the noise with her head turned to the side. The machine shuddered and growled. A thick column of ice cream spewed out and the woman lifted the handle and the machine clanked and she turned with the cone. She gave it to the boy through the window and took his change.
    He was a good-looking young fellow, she said. Dark hair, and the eyes on him, blue like the shirt. The shirt brought out the colour. I would say handsome, definitely. He looked like that picture in the paper you got there. Few freckles.
    What would you say was his height, Patterson asked.
    He was tall. He rested his elbow on this window ledge here giving his order, and he had to hunch over, crick his neck to the side. He had a sense of humour.
    What did he say funny?
    Oh, I don’t remember exactly, she said. And she smoothed her hair with both hands.
    He gave me a compliment about this funny old paper hat I have on.
    He was bent over talking to you at this window, Patterson said.
    He took his order over to the table, they sat in the shade, a young lady was with him, like I said, drove a maroon Buick, and after a time he came back up and got his sundae, which he asked for two spoons.
    How long ago?
    You just missed him.
    Did you happen to see which way they were going? Patterson asked.
    They were at that picnic table, next thing they were gone. I’d say — what, Eleanor? Twenty minutes? Half hour? It looked like they might be heading up toward Quebec.
    Thank you for your help, ma’am.
    That’s all I can tell you, Officer.
    Patterson thanked her again and used the pay phone in the convenience store to call in the Buick. Then they sent out the three ghost cars and Patterson went back to his hotel to wait.
    The late show that night was How to Marry a Millionaire . Patterson laughed when Marilyn Monroe took off her glasses at her vanity table and walked right into the wall and bounced back and without delay tried again for the door.
    He had a shower and came out into the bedroom with a white towel wrapped around his waist. He ran his fingers over the muscles in his arms and chest. He’d lost another pound.
    The phone startled him when it rang. Sergeant Farrell, with the New Brunswick detachment, said they’d located Slaney. One of the ghost cars had picked him up hitchhiking and offered him a ride to Montreal.
    Patterson hung up and settled into bed and switched off the light. In the dark, he spoke a single word out loud to the room. Gotcha.
    Montreal
    Slaney arrived in Montreal and wanted to be in the noise of a pub, warm and amber-lit, full of glass glint and after-work racket.
    He wanted a phone. He wanted to eat something soaked in old, coagulated gravy, something they had added to all week. He’d tried a couple of places already but he was having a hard time finding something with enough substance that you might try to call it soup.
    He ducked down a slippery set of concrete steps smelling of drainpipe and pigeon shit into a place with a gold and black sign swinging over the door that said YE OLDE CELTIC PUB .
    The waitresses were in denim miniskirts and tie-dyed T-shirts, starbursts of fuchsia and lemon and turquoise. Trays of beer balanced on one hand, level with their chins.
    Slaney picked up the padded leather menu. He tapped the corner of the menu on the bar, gave his order, and made his way to the back where there was a pay phone.
    Carved in the wooden brace over the phone with a ballpoint pen was the promise of a good time if Slaney, or anyone else, were to call Charmaine. He dropped some coins and dialled the number that had been in his mother’s suitcase. He listened to it ring. A guy named Dick answered.
    Hearn’s expecting your call, Dick said. He told Slaney about the sailboat and said it was just a matter of Slaney flying to Mexico to meet up with the captain.
    They’re thinking six days to Colombia from Mexico if the winds are good, Dick said.
    Hearn told you all this? Slaney said.
    I wasn’t