Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

Hardwick had not seen any of their horses in the Assiniboine camp. They would spend Sunday at Abe Farwell’s post.

From Chance’s quarter all is silence. I am beginning to wonder if I haven’t blown a golden opportunity, spilled the milk. The problem is I don’t know because I can’t get in touch with him. That is the frustrating thing, the uncertainty. Two nights ago I drove up to his house in the hills intending to beard the lion in his den, but when I got there I found the iron gate to his grounds was locked. Although I thought about it, I knew it would be too ridiculous to leave the car in the road and grapple my way over the gate to get into the property. Given my leg, probably it was impossible.

Yesterday I called his office again and asked to speak to him. After a brief interlude during which I could hear papers being shuffled on a desk, the receptionist said, “Your name is not on the list of people from whom Mr. Chance will accept calls.”

“You tell him Harry Vincent is on the line. He’ll take my call.”

“Mr. Chance is occupied. I’ll put you through to Mr. Fitzsimmons.”

“I have nothing to say to Mr. Fitzsimmons. I wish to speak to Mr. Chance.”

“That is impossible. Perhaps you would care to leave a message?”

“Here’s my message. Give him two names. Harry Vincent and Shorty McAdoo. If I were you, I’d see that he gets them.”

I sat down to wait for Chance to return my call. He didn’t; Fitz did. He was ready to skin me alive.

“What did Mr. Chance tell you? Keep it fucking confidential. And you, you asshole, you throw McAdoo’s name at a receptionist.”

“I thought it might catch his attention. Nothing else has lately.”

“Don’t go thinking. You ain’t paid to think. You’re paid to do what you’re fucking told. And another thing. When Dorothy tells you Mr. Chance is unavailable, understand what that means. It means you are to get the fuck off the telephone – Mr. Chance doesn’t have time for you.”

“Or maybe it means you gave Dorothy orders not to put my calls through. I heard mention of a list. What’s the list about, Fitz?”

Fitzsimmons ignored this. “And where do you get off telling Dorothy you don’t want to talk to me? That’s an insult. You’re an insulting little prick, Vincent. For one-fifty a week, you talk to me. You got that?” He paused. “I tried to tell him you was an insufficient man. Insufficient in every way. But he had one of his -” he searched melodramatically for the word “- one of his intuitions about you. But you don’t produce results, do you?”

“Who’s complaining? Mr. Chance? Or you?”

“Maybe both of us.”

“You make it sound as if the two of you are one and the same thing.”

“Near enough.”

“Then how about if I submit a letter of resignation? See if it makes Mr. Chance as happy as it would obviously make you.”

I could hear him breathing ominously into the mouthpiece of the phone. His delay in answering made me think it hadn’t been a bad tactic to call his bluff. Very quietly, each word weighted with emphasis, he said, “No, you ain’t going to quit.”

“Why’s that, Fitz?” I asked, feeling I had gained the upper hand.

“Because it’s inconvenient for you to quit. That’s why you ain’t going to do it.”

“Inconvenient for who? You?”

“Maybe inconvenient for your ma in that expensive nuthouse. She wouldn’t like it in one of them state-run hospitals. I know. I had a cousin worked in one. The stories he used to tell.”

How did he know about my mother? It frightened me. Then I got angry. “Don’t go putting my mother in your gob-shite Irish mouth, Fitz! Do you hear me?”

All he did was laugh his rasping, gravel-grinding laugh. Transmitted over telephone wires it was even more terrifyingly expressionless than delivered in person, in the flesh. “Or what?” he said. “What you going to do, Vincent? You’re all yap, like one of them little lap dogs. A little pussy-warmer pup, that’s what you are. Yap, yap, yap. Don’t make me sick. You ain’t going to quit on us because we ain’t going to let you. Besides, think about Ma Vincent. Think about your Jew girl friend.”

“Think what about Rachel?”

“Those Jewish dollies don’t like boys without a nickel to their name. You heard it here first.”

I spoke very carefully. “Don’t think that Mr. Chance isn’t going to hear about this.”

“You bet. I’m going to tell him.”

“Don’t leave anything out. I don’t intend to. Be sure to pass on your remarks about my mother and Miss Gold.”

“What’s this? Hurt feelings? He don’t give a fuck for your feelings.”

“Are you sure? Maybe I read him better than you do. We’ve talked. Maybe about things beyond your comprehension, Fitz. He seems a civilized man. Are you sure he doesn’t give a fuck for my feelings?”

“I’ll tell you what he gives a fuck about. In order of importance. Him. Me. Because I can be trusted to look out for his interests. When I am told to keep my mouth shut about a man named Shorty McAdoo, I keep it shut. When you are told to collect information about Indians and suchlike from that selfsame McAdoo, you don’t. Whose feelings is he going to worry about? You give him nothing. I wipe my ass with your nothing, Vincent.”

“There’s a reason I’ve got nothing yet. That’s what I want to explain to Mr. Chance.”

“Fuck the explaining. Do your job. I get paid to look after his interests. So do you. Same locomotive pulls us. So let’s get behind it. Let’s get going where the locomotive wants to go.”

“I’d be pleased to, Fitz. But I want to make sure I’m hooked behind the right locomotive. Because I haven’t seen it for some time. Too many bends in the track.”

“Ever hear of being too smart for your own good, Vincent?”

“There’s many a man who might imagine he’s the locomotive when he isn’t. Just like there’s many a man with his hand in his shirt who thinks he’s Napoleon. If you get my meaning?”

“Fucking right I do. Thank your lucky stars I’m not there in that room with you.”

“Well, you aren’t. And I don’t know which locomotive is pulling me. Do I?”

“There’s not a man on the studio lot who doesn’t know I speak for Mr. Chance.”

“That’s for the small-time pictures, Fitz. This is closer to Mr. Chance’s heart.”

“Just do your job,” said Fitz. “That’s all he wants from you.”

“He’s a lonely man. What about friendship?”

“Don’t press your luck, Vincent. He’s got friendship. You get him Indians.”

“I think the time has come for us to lay our cards on the table,” I say to McAdoo.

He is emptying the box of supplies I brought from town. A kerosene lamp is lit against the falling dusk and it sends tall shadows leaping up and down the walls as Shorty stoops and straightens unpacking his bacon, his beans, his coffee, his sugar, his crackers, the box of ammunition for Wylie’s revolver. When the cartridges hit the tabletop Wylie snatches them up and bolts to his bunk where he breaks the pistol open and starts excitedly loading it.

“It’s too dark to go shooting now, Wylie,” Shorty warns him.

Wylie’s dismayed face shoots up. “It ain’t too dark. It ain’t hardly too dark at all.”

“Leave off until tomorrow.”

“I disbelieve it’s too dark, Shorty. I’m pretty sure it ain’t.”

“It’s blacker than Toby’s arse out there,” says McAdoo. “I ain’t telling you again. Get it out of your head.”

Wylie gives a downcast tuck to his mouth but doesn’t argue, only commences mournfully emptying the pistol with the lovesick air of a young girl plucking petals from a flower. One by one he carefully stands the bullets in a line on the floor, looks at them, and then takes each bullet up in turn, mysteriously sniffing its blunt lead nose before returning it to its place in the ranks.