Free Going Fast by Elaine McCluskey

nodded.
    â€œI’m probably going to get the tear-away pants,” Louie added.
    â€œYou don’t have those yet?” Merle sounded surprised.
    â€œNo, but I will.”
    â€œGood, son, good.”
    The owner wore his kinky hair straight back, smothered with gel. Under the jacket was a crushed-velour jersey that looked like the hide of an elephant. Merle had been eating like an elephant since he was written up in the
Strait Standard
as the county’s biggest newborn forty years ago. He had been eleven pounds, twelve ounces, born during an extended visit from Cape Breton to the mainland.
    â€œDid I ever tell you about Billy Campbell from down home?” Merle asked as he stealthily slid a hand across his desk. Maintaining eye contract, he reeled in a yellow flyer. L ADIES ILLIMINATE THE STRESS AND FRUSTRATIONS OF LIFE WITH A RELAXING FOOT PEDICURE BY B RENT . D ONE IN THE C OMFURT OF YOUR OWN H OME . “Well, Billy used to hang around the Legion day and night. He never drew a sober breath.”
    Merle tucked the incriminating flyer in a drawer.
    â€œThey didn’t mind him there during the week to play a little darts or tarbish, but they didn’t want him at the top-drawer functions, the weddings and such. So, do you know what they did?”
    Louie shrugged.
    â€œThey put a sign up: N O R UBBER B OOTS ON W EEKENDS , and that kept Billy out.”
    As Merle laughed a shifty laugh that bared his undersized teeth, Scott felt disgusted. He hated Merle, he decided at thatmoment, in the same way that he hated the soft and imperious Smithers.
    â€œSo you’re a boxer?” Merle turned to Scott as though he had sensors, the acute antennae of the grotesque, finely tuned to slights. “I’ve seen lots of good fighters down in Cape Breton, all as hard and rugged as Lingan coal.”
    â€œActually,” Scott muttered, “I’m a reporter.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter, my son, it doesn’t matter. I had a doctor work for me once, a neurosurgeon.” He paused in the lie, twisting a sapphire ring to unleash his oral powers. “He just liked to get out a bit. He was in demand all right, as popular as Amphora pipe tobacco.”
    Louie cut in, blinking. “No, it’s not him. It’s him.” He pointed at Turmoil, who was nervously rubbing the leg of his knit pants patterned in a subtle check. Behind Turmoil was a poster of step-dancers in curly bobs and plaid, airborne.
    Merle stared and then smiled lamely. “Ah, yes, I’m afraid I can’t use him.”
    â€œYou said you needed someone,” Louie protested.
    â€œYes, my son. But I can’t use
him
.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI’m going to be honest with you, Louie. I’ve always been an honest man. Mention the MacLeans any place, any time, and people say, ‘Damn honest buggers all of them. As honest as a Sally Ann matron with a Christmas kettle.’ ”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œI’ll tell you.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œHe’d scare the women. He’s too big.”
    â€œHe looks great.” Louie’s voice rose an outraged octave. “This man was in the Olympics.” Turmoil nodded confirmation.
    â€œI don’t care if he was in the Ice Capades, my son, he’s too big.” Merle caught his breath. “And he’s too bloody . . .”
    â€œWhat did you say?” demanded Louie.
    Scott dropped his head.
    â€œI said, Try coming back. Maybe if he gets smaller.”

10
    Katherine Redgrave nodded at a forty-ish woman with dreary hair and the pinched face of a disillusioned nun, an aging ascetic who shopped for day-old bread and walked her blind little terrier in rainstorms.
    The woman stopped to collect herself as she entered Katherine’s office at the end of the newsroom. Her faded paisley blouse was buttoned to the collar, drooping on birdlike shoulders, and then tucked into a wool skirt with front pockets. Oddly