Two hungry thirteen-year-olds
watched Fraser pour spaghetti out into a colander in the sink and run cold
water to rinse off the starch. The old wolf and the young man followed the
Mountie’s every move as he dumped the pasta back into the dented oversized saucepan,
poured a jar of store-brand tomato sauce poured over it and returned the
mixture to the burner for a quick reheat.
Diefenbaker was served
first in deference to the wolf’s age, then Fraser served Willie by virtue of
his being a guest and then the last third of the pot Fraser dumped onto his own
plate. It was Willie that fell onto his meal like a ravenous wolf. Fraser
regarded him and became suspicious. Teen-age boys generally had hearty
appetites but Willie seemed eager for his dinner out of proportion to the
situation. Fraser knew that Willie had breakfasted well that morning and taken
a bulging brown bag to school. He knew this because today had been one of the
not infrequent days that Fraser himself was feeding the boy.
Willie had a mother, this much
Fraser knew, but her care and feeding of the boy seemed to be haphazard.
Without making a big deal of it, Fraser had been giving Willie breakfast when
he came to walk Diefenbaker in the morning and putting together a bag-lunch for
Willie to take with him afterwards.
Evening walks weren’t in
Willie’s job description but Fraser was as happy to have the boy hang around
the apartment rather than go out shoplifting at night. If the boy just happened
to be there at dinner-time courtesy required that he be invited to share the
evening meal with the Canadians. But since that first night, Willie never slept
over at Fraser’s apartment.
It didn’t make sense to
Fraser just why Willie should be quite so hungry at dinner-time. A direct
question would probably not result in the truth from Willie so Fraser tried
another approach.
“Your sandwich wasn’t too
soggy today, was it?” Fraser asked.
Willie looked up,
spaghetti strands still dangling from his mouth. He slurped up these stray bits
and then broke into a wide smile, seeing an opportunity to indulge in some
friendly dissing of his benefactor.
“Bananas often leak juice
when you slice them,” Fraser continued.
Willie tumbled right into
the trap. “Yeah, it was all mushy, Fraser. You really got to watch that.”
Fraser hadn’t touched his
own food yet. He opened his eyes a little wider and sat looking at his young
friend.
“And of course peanut
butter is also pretty moist,” he prompted.
“Man, that was the
soggiest sandwich I ever . . .” Willie noticed Fraser’s eyes were even wider
now and the Mountie was staring right at him. “What?” the boy demanded.
“I gave you a ham sandwich
and there was lettuce on the bread to prevent any moisture leakage. What
happened to your lunch, Willie?”
Thus caught out, the boy
ducked his head in embarrassment. “I gave it to somebody,” he said, looking
down at his plate.
Fraser was all too familiar
with children’s bullying. Having been a scrawny child and raised in a bookish
household he was often a target. This seemed unusual, given that it was usually
cash, not bag lunches that was extorted.
“Voluntarily?” he pressed.
“Say what?”
“Did you give your lunch
away of your own free will?”
“Sure. Ain’t nobody taking
nothing from me I don’t WANT to give!”
The belligerence signaled
a touched nerve. Fraser ignored the triple negative and pressed on, “Whom did
you give it to, Willie?”
Willie answered with a
mocking sing-song “Whoooom did you giiiiive it to, Willieeeeeee.”
The Mountie knew better
than to take the bait. He just opened his eyes even wider still, sending his
eyebrows soaring upwards in his forehead.
Willie let out an
exasperated breath and declared, “Just somebody – okay?”
“No,” said Fraser,
deadpan. He neatly twirled a few spaghetti strands around his fork, consumed
them, lay his fork down again and looked back at Willie seriously. “Not okay.
Who, Willie?”
Willie jumped up. “Hey I
don’t come here for the third degree. You’re not a cop, you know.”
“Not in this
jurisdiction,” Fraser agreed, “and no, you don’t come here for the third
degree. You come here for three meals a day. I don’t mind that but I have the
right to know what’s happening to the victuals *I* provide.”
“Don’t think so. You give
me stuff, it’s mine. I can do what I want with it. I don’t need you to feed me,
ass-hole. I can take care of myself.”
Diefenbaker looked up from
his food at the sound of Willie’s raised voice.
Fraser took the time to
twirl and eat another forkful. “You know I don’t like that kind of language in
my home, Willie.”
The boy backed off immediately.
“Sorry, Fraser.” Willie went on eating and for a few minutes neither of them
spoke. Willie was getting more and more embarrassed. Finally he burst out,
“It’s my mom, okay?”
“Your mother? You’re
giving your mother lunch?”
“Yeah, well she gets home
late and she’s tired and she forgets to make herself something. So I leave her
my bag and she just thinks I made it for her.”
“Working late, is she?”
Fraser inquired, blandly.
“Yeah. For a long time she
didn’t have a job but now she’s got one and they make her work lots of
over-time. She gets tired out. You know.”
Fraser seemed to let the
matter drop, from what Willie could tell. The Mountie only said, “Oh. Well,
there’s no sense in your skipping meals, Willie. We can make your mum an extra
sandwich.”
In his own mind, Fraser
resolved to look into this whole issue further when time permitted. “By the
way, I’ll be away tomorrow night. Do you want to come over and keep Diefenbaker
company while I’m away. I’ll leave some food in the icebox for the two of you.”
“Ice box?”
“Sorry. Refrigerator. Back
home we use to take ice from . . .”
“Never mind, Fraser. Sure,
I’ll come over. Mom’ll be out again anyway.”
“Working late?”
“Yeah.”
“At the library?”
“Yeah.”
**************************
Ray explained the plan to
Fraser but somehow the Mountie didn’t follow.
“Why are we looking for a
mule in an alley? I’d have thought a petting zoo would be the only place to
find such an animal in
Ray ran his hands over his
scalp, a habit left over from the time that he used to run his hands through
his hair when exasperated, “Not an animal mule, Fraser. A person mule.”
The explanation didn’t
help Fraser. He formed a mental picture of Bottom in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer
Night’s Dream” sprouting an ass’s ears and then inexplicably wandering the
backstreets of the
“No, Benny. A mule.”
“But you told me once that
a mole was in fact a person. And that generally a meeting with such a person
was in some out-of-the-way place, such as an alley.”
“Correct but tonight we’re
not going after a mole.”
“We’re not?”
“No, tonight it’s a mule.”
“Who is a person, but not
a mole.”
Ray groaned. “A mule is .
. .”
Fraser’s mind wandered
again at these words to the lyrics of the 1944 Academy Award Winning song
‘Swing on A Star’. A mule is an animal
with long funny ears. He kicks up at anything he hears. His back is brawny but
his brain is weak, he sang in his head. “He’s just plain stupid with a stubborn
streak.” he continued aloud.
“Yeah, I guess most of
them are like that,” Ray agreed.
“Most of whom are like
what, Ray?”
“Forget it! Forget it! Do
you want me to tell you what a mule is or not?”
Thus appealed to, Fraser
said meekly, “Yes, Ray.”
“A mule does deliveries.
He picks up drugs from some drug lord and delivers to them to the pushers. So
what we’re doing, we’re going to follow this mule. He’s going to take us to the
drug lord first then we’re going to follow him around to the pushers. My source
told me where he meets his boss-man. We’ll pick him up there and trail him.”
“Your source being a mole,
but we are not following HIM,” Fraser fought to understand. “We’ll follow the
mule and thereby round up quite a number of drug offenders ‘in one fell
swoop’,” he said, thinking of Macbeth.
Ray only shook his head. He’d
never be able to get the Mountie to stop quoting stuff but that wasn’t
important right now. What was important was that Fraser seemed to have a bit of
a clue as to what was going down.
**************************
It was one of those
stereotypical back alleys that can be found in any large city, the kind of
alley that almost seems to have been specifically designed for covert
activities, being too dark, narrow and secluded for any wholesome purpose.
The operation involved
several of
A dumpster provided
excellent cover and was just the right distance from the warehouse wall for Ray
and Fraser to hide behind comfortably. (Perhaps the same worldly-wise city
planners had arranged it that way? We’ll never know.) Ray crouching and Fraser
standing, both peered around the edge of the dumpster, their faces hidden in
the gloom.
A figure entered the alley
at the end farther from where the friends waited. At first they could make out
only the silhouette: short, no more than five foot two, and no apparent female
secondary characteristics. The mule moved closer and became more visible to the
watchers.
“That’s a child!” Fraser
whispered in alarm.
“Shh,” Ray shushed him.
Fraser was too moved to be
shushed. “But, Ray. He can’t be any older than Willie!”
It was clear Fraser wasn’t
going to let this drop so Ray whispered what he hoped would be sufficient
explanation to make the Mountie shut up. “Little kids make good mules. They’re
fast, they got lots of energy, they work cheap and they don’t have girlfriends
to distract their attention.”
Fraser absorbed this
information while watching the youngster as he came even closer. The boy was
white, his frame compact and muscular in contrast to Willie’s loose-limbed
lankiness. Nevertheless Fraser saw his young friend in his mind’s eye as the
boy made his way closer. He kept thinking that this could just as well have
been Willie and the thought frightened him. How easily all his care of his
young friend could come to naught. How could wholesome company and ham
sandwiches compete with the money Willie could earn by undertaking work like
this? Especially when his mother was always absent most nights.
Fraser jumped at a poke of
Ray’s elbow in his stomach. He looked down to see Ray gesturing with his gun
towards the other end of the alley. The Mountie looked where Ray was pointing
to see a taller, thinner figure also approaching. Ray put his finger to his
lips.
In silence, the two
friends witnessed the taller person hand over a paper bag to the smaller person
and apparently give him some instructions. Even Fraser’s sharp hearing couldn’t
make out what was said but it didn’t matter. They were going to tail the child
anyway.
As he watched, Fraser
continued to superimpose the shape of Willie over the boy in front of them.
What did it matter if they caught a few pushers more or less? They sprang up
like weeds all over the city anyway. It was more important to try to save this
child – the child that could be Willie.
After a few minutes, the
taller figure moved off. Ray activated his radio and whispered instructions. Then
the friends waited while the drug lord strolled out of the alley. The boy also
stood still, watching his employer leave.
“He’s waiting for that guy
to be far away before turning his back. Smart kid.”
“I hate to think of
somebody so young having to be so suspicious,” Fraser agonized, “He can’t be
any more than thirteen.”
Ray snorted, but quietly.
“He’s thirteen in street years, Benny. That’s like dog years – worth way more
than normal years. This kid is older than you’ll ever be.”
This was too much for
Fraser. The Mountie squeezed past his friend and walked a few steps away from
the dumpster towards the boy.
“Mary, Mother of God,
what’s he doing!” Ray whispered to himself.
“Excuse me, young man,”
the Mountie said, just loudly enough for the boy to hear.
The youngster only stared,
astonished at what appeared to be some guy dressed up like Dudley Do-right
(he’d seen the cartoons as well as the movie). The boy was as streetwise as Ray
had made him out to be. He shifted the paper bag to his left hand and slid his
right hand under his t-shirt and let it rest in the waistband of his jeans.
Fraser noticed this and also noticed the tell-tale bulge of a weapon under his
shirt.
The usually eloquent
Fraser wasn’t sure what to say. “You don’t have to do this,” he began.
“Back off, dude. Just walk
away, okay,” replied the boy.
He doesn’t want to hurt
me. That’s a good sign, Fraser decided. He can be saved from a life of crime,
or worse – a death by crime, if I just handle this rightly.
“Surrender yourself and
you’ll be protected.”
“Fuck you,” snarled the
boy.
Meanwhile Ray watched from
his hiding place trying to gage when would be the right time to jump out to
Benny’s rescue. Wouldn’t it be something if the Mountie actually talked the kid
into giving himself up? It had happened before.
Fraser took a step towards
the boy and reached out his hand. “Give me the weapon, son.”
“I ain’t your fucking
son,” pointed out the boy.
Fraser took another step
towards him, hand still outstretched. “If you testify against your
confederates, there’s a good chance you won’t have to do any time.”
The boy actually seemed to
be thinking it over. “I’d be dead meat,” he said.
“Once you’re in the system
you’ll be safe from any reprisals.” Fraser moved in some more. He was now close
enough to see the boy’s face and note his brow contracting in thought. He came
within a foot of the boy and sought to meet his eyes.
“Benny, for Christ’s sake,
back off,” Ray said to himself from his hiding place.
The boy’s gaze met the
Mountie’s and their eyes locked. Fraser’s hand was still out and he was within
easy touching distance of the boy. The boy brought his hand out from under his
t-shirt holding a small pistol.
“You’re too close, man.
Move away.” He jerked the gun slightly.
Fraser didn’t move.
“I said, get the fuck
away!”
Fraser judged that it was
the right time to make a jump for the boy and disarm him. But his judgment was
clouded. He didn’t realize he was attributing Willie’s good nature to this
unknown youngster.
The boy fired. Then he
ran.
Ray yelped into his radio
for a squad car to follow the young shooter and for an ambulance even while
running the few steps to where Fraser was sinking to the ground. Blood gushed
from the Mountie’s upper left leg and he winced in pain.
“What the hell were you
trying to do? Aw, never mind, I know what you were trying to do,” Ray said
while examining his friend’s thigh, looking for the bullet wound. “Here let me
put pressure on that.” Ray pressed his palm down hard against the Mountie’s
bleeding flesh and held it there. In an instant he was wearing as much of
Fraser’s blood as Fraser was himself. “Hold still, help’s on the way.”
“I’m not going anywhere,
Ray,” Fraser moaned.
The paramedics arrived.
They made a quick evaluation of the gunshot site and commended Ray for his treatment.
Fraser groaned and grunted as they lifted him onto a stretcher.
“Don’t worry, pal. You’ll
get some dope as soon as we get you to Emergency,” a paramedic assured him.
“Ray, take care of Willie
and Diefenbaker,” Fraser was in so much pain that he actually omitted to say
‘please’.
*****************************
“I spend way too much time
sitting with him in hospitals,” Ray groused good-naturedly from his chair beside
Fraser’s bed. The detective and Willie were munching doughnuts that Ray doled
out from the sac he had brought. The Mountie was still under the heavy
influence of pain-killers. The staff at this hospital was less tolerant of
wolves than had been the case the last time Fraser was shot, so Diefenbaker was
at Ray’s house for the duration.
“Can I have another one of
those cream ones, Ray?” Willie asked.
“No, you’ll spoil your
dinner. What time is it anyway?”
“Little past eight. Fraser
usually feeds me at six.”
“While your mom’s still
working late every night,” Ray said.
“At the library,” Fraser
supplied, groggily.
“Oh, the library,” Ray
repeated with enough irony in his voice for the boy to pick up on.
“Yeah, what’s it to you?”
Ray regretted his slip. He
had been thinking about Fraser and lost some of his caution. It was bad form to
upset the boy. “Sorry, I’m just not used to the idea of librarians having to
work late.”
“My grandparents ran a
library,” Fraser interjected dreamily. “Traveling library. Sometimes we
traveled all night.”
The boy and the detective
exchanged amused looks.
“What about supper?”
Willie said.
“Okay, let’s go down to
the cafeteria.” Ray was keeping his promise to Fraser by having the wolf at his
own house but he didn’t think it was a good idea to remove the boy from his
home. He had a mother, whom Ray had not met but about whom he had his doubts
given that the boy was being fed by Fraser lately. Ray met the boy in the
morning at Fraser’s apartment, gave him breakfast and brought two brown bags
with lunch for the boy and his mother. Ma Vecchio provided these and Willie
felt just a little guilty for preferring her provender to Fraser’s.
“All right, grandfather.
Call me if you need me to lift anything heavy.” With that generous offer,
Fraser drifted off to a drugged sleep.
While Fraser’s two friends
were in the hospital cafeteria munching burgers, a woman came into his room.
She wore a trim, grey pin-striped pants suit and a cherry-coloured scarf that
suited her black complexion perfectly. She stood for a moment looking down at
the sleeping patient. Good-looking for a white guy, she decided.
Then she went back into
the hall and checked the name plate outside the door. B. Fraser. That was the right name. But where
was Willie, she wondered. He’d left a note that he’d be at this hospital
visiting a “Fraser”. Here was the named person and the volunteer at the patient
information desk had told her there was only one patient named “Fraser” at
present, so she must be in the right place.
The woman headed over to
the nurse’s station. In response to her inquiries she learned that a boy had
indeed been visiting Mr. Fraser. He’d left the room in the company of another
man and, as far as the nurse knew, they’d be back soon and would stay until
visiting hours were over. At least that’s what they had done for the last two
nights since Mr. Fraser had been brought in.
Ms. Lambert had no desire
to awaken and talk to a man she didn’t know, so she waited on a chair by the
elevator.
*******************************
“Mom! You finished early!”
Willie cried out happily as he and Ray came out of the elevator. He threw
himself against her while she was still sitting.
She gave the boy a loving
squeeze then stood up to face the man with her son.
Ray extended a hand as
courtesy required but his manner was cold. “Mrs. Lambert, I presume.”
She took his hand and gave
it a small dip in greeting, “Ms. Lambert,” she corrected.
“This is Ray,” Willie told
her. “He’s Fraser’s best friend, after me.”
“That’s nice. But who is
this ‘Fraser’?”
Ray had formed his own
opinions about Willie’s mother, based on what he had been told by Fraser and by
the boy himself. He had a few suspicions about just what she might be doing
when she was supposed to be working late nights at a library. Obviously
something she didn’t want her son to know about. Now he saw that she didn’t
even know the man who was feeding both her son and herself. His opinion of her
plunged even lower. Without hiding his disgust he spat out, “You don’t know who
Fraser is? What kind of a mother are you, anyway?”
Willie and his mother
stiffened in shock. Ray took the woman’s arm and steered her into a common room
just opposite the elevators. Willie trailed after.
Ms. Lambert shook off his
arm. “You get your hands the hell off me! Who do you think you are?”
“Don’t you talk to my mom
that way, mother-fucker!”
Ray only went on to blast
the woman for her negligence: not bothering either to feed Willie, not caring
who actually did, leaving him at night while she went to God knows what sleazy
place and telling everybody she was at the library. Like anybody believed that.
She ought to be ashamed.
He continued in this vein for some time. Ms. Lambert endured the tirade and
somewhere about halfway through she sat down on a chair and held out her arms
to her son. Willie, still flummoxed by this outburst by the man who had been so
jovial until now, came to his mother and they hugged while Ray yelled. Other
visitors naturally gathered to take in the show.
At length, a nurse
appeared and asked Ray to please settle down. Ray shut up as requested but
stood breathing hard and glaring at the seated woman.
When at last she spoke, it
was to Willie, not to Ray. “William, you told me you were getting the groceries
and making those lunches and suppers yourself.”
The boy ducked in
embarrassment. “I wanted you to think I was taking care of things.”
The woman pressed her lips
together and nodded.
“And you told me you were
spending the evenings at Alonso’s. Why?”
The boy’s head, previously
ducked, now lowered way down in shame. “You’re always warning me about going
with men. I didn’t think you’d like it if I was spending time with Fraser. But
he’s not like that. He never touches me. He’s a decent guy.”
Ms. Lambert’s eyes filled
with tears. “You’d better introduce me to this Fraser of yours. I’ve got a lot
to thank him for.” Ignoring Ray completely, mother and son went arm in arm back
to the Mountie’s room.
**************************
The next night Willie came
to the hospital with his mother and the two of them sat all through the evening
visiting hours with Fraser and Ray. Ray remained polite and none of the three
mentioned their scene in the common room, so Fraser had no knowledge of what
had transpired among them.
While Ray had managed to
let go of his hostility to the woman and believed that she hadn’t been
neglecting Willie on purpose, he still had his own ideas about what “library”
she was working at. But since the late night hours had apparently stopped and
she was now free in the evenings, he let bad enough alone and told himself it
wasn’t his business.
Fraser was on a much less
potent painkiller now and actually able to converse. Ms. Lambert kept quiet
most of the evening and let the boys chatter. At a pause in the conversation,
however, she fished in her purse and drew out a small, narrow envelope. She
held it out to Fraser.
“I brought you these, Mr.
Fraser. I hope you’ll be out of the hospital in time to go. They’re tickets to
a lecture series. It’s about promoting literacy in the third world. If you’re
interested in that kind of thing,” she added.
Fraser was indeed
interested and reached for the tickets eagerly. “Thank you kindly, Ms. Lambert.
I’d love to go. But don’t you want to use these yourself?”
First she turned and
frowned accusingly at Ray, then changed her expression to a smile as she looked
back at the Mountie. “I wish I could, but Willie and I are going to be leaving
town.”
This was news to Willie.
“We are? When? Where?”
“In two weeks,” she told
her son. “To Nevada. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure.”
“A library in Nevada. Right,”
Ray muttered.
“Ray!” Fraser protested
this impertinence to a lady. For all that he himself had some doubts about the
lady’s occupation, he couldn’t condone being impolite about it.
“But I don’t want to leave
Dief and Fraser!” the boy protested.
“I know, sweetheart, but
we have to go where I can find a job,” she turned to include Fraser in the
explanation. “You have no idea how hard it is to find work in the library
sciences. The cities, the universities, they’re all cutting back. Hardly
anybody in my graduating class is working in our profession. I’m lucky to have
a job even if I did have to spend every night this month getting ready for the
move.”
“The move?” All the males
in the room echoed.
“I work at the Franklin-Hickson
Library. We used to get city funding but with the new budget we’ve been cut
off. The board’s had an offer from Carson City in Nevada to house the
collection. If I’m willing to make the move I can keep my job.” Ms. Lambert
looked down at Willie. “I know this is hard on you, but maybe your friends can
come see you sometime.”
“Yeah, I’m going to be
spending a lot of time in the south-west,” Ray said, sarcastically.
Fraser recognized the name
as a library that was quasi-private and quasi-public. The original collection
of books had been made by the Franklin and Hickson families but now the
collection was open to the public at a fee just slightly higher than that of a
public library.
“
“He can be a valet for
some goombah and bring him buttermilk all day long,” Ray murmured.
Ms. Lambert finally had
enough of this. “You don’t think I’m a librarian do you?”
Ray only smirked.
“You think because I’m a
single mother and I’m black I must be working at some kind of trash job.”
“Since when do librarians
work late nights?”
“Since we have to get
ready to move the whole kit and caboodle across the country. We’ve got to check
all the catalogues, update all the files, and supervise all the packing. When I
get home I can hardly see straight,” The woman replied with icy dignity. “You
should be the one that’s ashamed - thinking
in stereotypes like that. Here’s Mr. Fraser’s a Canadian and I don’t go around
saying he rides a dog sled.”
“Actually, he does ride a
dog sled, but I get your point. You’re right. And I’m sorry.”
“Ray just feels strongly
about protecting children, Ms. Lambert. It clouds his judgment.”
“No, Benny, you’re the one
who’s got this thing about kids. And got yourself shot for it, I might add.”
Ms. Lambert put her hand
on the Mountie’s arm. “If he’s going to get shot for something, that’s a pretty
nice thing to get shot for.”
End.
Post script:
The quasi private/quasi
public library really exists in