When it was Cold: Stories by Howard Shrier

By Howard Shrier

Howard Shrier's debut novel, Buffalo Jump, rocked the world of Canadian crime fiction in 2008. Hailed by critics across the country, it earned Shrier the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for best first novel. The sequel, High Chicago, won the Arthur for best novel, making Shrier the only author to win these awards in consecutive years. The third Jonah Geller novel, Boston Cream, received starred reviews in both Library Journal and Publisher's Weekly, and the fourth, Miss Montreal, was a finalist for yet another Arthur.

 

Shrier's first book of stories, When it was Cold, shows why critics have long praised his characters, dialogue, settings and humour. His range has never been more apparent, with stories ranging from present day Toronto to Montreal in 1951, from Ukraine to Buffalo. Includes "Done With Him," winner of the Toronto Star's Short Story Contest in 2021; "Milk Teeth," singled out by reviewers of the 2017 anthology Montreal Noir; and "Gringo Negro," a new Dante Ryan story.

 

If you know Shrier's work, you'll enjoy every story in this stunning collection. If you haven't discovered his writing, this is the place to start.

 

"Shrier's crisp prose, sharp characterizations and razor-like dialogue make him a pleasure to read." – Bestselling author Linwood Barclay

 

"Howard Shrier deserves an honoured place on any shelf of Canadian fiction. He has updated the hard-boiled genre with tremendous wit, wide-ranging plots, and a keen eye for just the right details of setting… this collection should bring his stories to an even wider audience." – Award-winning author Giles Blunt, creator of the John Cardinal series

 

"There's a reason why he consistently wins the Arthur Ellis Award. He tells a really good story." – Starred review, Library Journal

• Language: English
• Publisher: Howard Shrier
• Release date: Dec 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781777941215

Book preview

Done with Him

First Prize Winner

Toronto Star Short Story Contest, 2021

The late-night host was wrapping up his monologue when Ondine picked up the remote and muted the sound.

What? Ray said. I heard something. The front door, I think.

He slept only in a t-shirt. His jeans were on the back of a chair on his side of the bed. He stepped into them and zipped up, then stood still, listening. He heard three knocks on the glass pane of the front door. Not knuckles; something metal, like a key or ring. It bothered him that she’d heard it first.

You expecting someone? Ondine asked.

At this hour? Course not.

Check who it is before you open it.

Sure. You need anything from downstairs? More juice?

God, no. My stomach’s already sour.

You still have to take your pill.

I have water.

Ray walked downstairs, wishing he still kept a gun. The day before Ondine moved in, he had driven them all to his bayside cabin northeast of Collingwood.

He heard three more raps as he got to the door. A tall silhouette loomed in the glass pane. He pressed his eye to it and cursed quietly.

He opened the door and watched the man standing there flick a cigarette butt into his bushes. What are you doing here, Rich? You know what time it is?

Party time, I hope. Rich opened his arms and grabbed Ray and held him. Ray could smell tobacco on his coat and weed in his beard.

Ray pulled away, grabbed his coat off a hook and stepped barefoot into his winter boots. He moved forward so Rich had to back up and pulled the door closed behind them. When’d you get out?

This morning.

You should have called.

Why? Where else would I go?

You’ve been somewhere since this morning.

I can’t stay there.

Or here.

What? Rich took a backpack off his shoulders and set it down with a grunt, displaying its weight. His breath puffed out and obscured him. Come on, man, I’m just out. One night. You got room.

I’m sorry, kid. I really am.

Like that helps. Where’m I supposed to go?

The Red Roost motel is ten minutes back the way you came.

I don’t have money. You know what a prison workshop pays.

Not lately.

Trust me, once they deduct phone charges and fines, it’s nothing. Come on, Ray. Don’t turn me away my first night out.

Who told you to show up so late?

It’s not even midnight. What happened to you, man? I stayed up later than this when I was ten.

Ondine had happened but he wasn’t telling Rich about her. He’d see the weakness and scratch it till it bled.

Ray reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. He counted out enough for a room and more and held it out.

Rich waited a few seconds before snatching it. Can you drive me at least?

How’d you get here?

A friend dropped me. Come on, you said it’s ten minutes.

Each way.

That’s—

I can’t leave the house. I’ll call you a car.

Rich sighed to make clear he was put out. His warm breath fogged up in the cold. When can we talk?

About what?

He grinned and lit a cigarette. A payday.

Jesus, Rich, you just got out. You dying to go back?

It’s not that kind of thing. No civilians involved.

Civilians. Rich wasn’t cut out for the life like Ray was. It wasn’t his fault; he hadn’t grown up in it. He’d picked up the vocabulary, some swagger, but inhabited neither. He craved thrills in a life that required quiet nerve. If you needed someone to gallop onto thin ice or kickstart an avalanche, call Rich.

Ray had to know what Rich was planning because every stone Rich threw would ripple the water around him and Ondine. Break the unbreakable peace he had promised. I’ll come by the Roost in the morning. They serve breakfast till ten.

Don’t come much before that. If I have to stay in a motel, I’m gonna make a night of it.

Ray said goodnight and closed the door, walking away fast so his silhouette would recede. He wondered what he’d tell Ondine when he got upstairs. Starting with why he’d never mentioned a brother.

***

At nine-thirty the next morning, Ray pulled into the Red Roost parking lot and backed into a spot. He stayed in his truck a few minutes watching any cars that entered. He probably didn’t need to. He’d withdrawn from his old life when the depth of Ondine’s illness had become clear. He didn’t burn bridges or make scenes. He just quietly told Kevin Maslek about his situation and hoped the reputation and respect he’d earned would protect her. Everyone else would follow Kevin’s lead.

It had worked until now.

At nine-forty-five, he walked through the lobby into the back room where the buffet was set up. He told the waitress there’d be two for breakfast, one bill, and took a mug of coffee to a table by a window that looked out on a frozen field, where a few wisps of grass showed among the drifts.

He had lucked out last night. When he got upstairs, Ondine was half-asleep, remote in hand, the muted TV flickering. He sat her up so she could take her pill, then stroked her hair as she fell asleep. When he took his hand away, loose strands floated down to the bed, thin as the grass out there.

He heard Rich coming before he saw him. He walked in a loud, knock-kneed shuffle that left his heels shaved down from the outside in. Every pair of shoes he’d ever owned had the same wedge heels, as if he’d been born in prison and learned to walk like a convict.

His eyes were red and he hadn’t showered. When he sat down, the smell of alcohol came with him.

The coffee decent?

Better than Warkworth.

When the waitress came, Ray ordered eggs over easy, knowing they’d be fresh. Rich went for the full buffet, piled his plate with everything hot and drenched all but the eggs in syrup. Ray had to remind himself Rich was nearly thirty.

Alright, Ray said. What’s on your mind? I’m gonna say no but tell me.

You won’t even hear me out? His left leg was pumping against the floor, rattling the table.

Ray gently put his hand on Rich’s thigh until it stopped. There’s nothing to hear, he said. I’m not in that life anymore.

I heard that in Warkworth. I didn’t believe it. Not about you.

Believe it, Rich.

Why?

There’s other business I need to take care of now.

What other business do you even know?

Just other things I have to do now. Consider me a civilian.

Well, get back in it for one minute. Rich leaned in, smelling of a morning toke, and whispered the worst words Ray could imagine, worse than Ondine’s diagnosis: I had a cellmate at Warkworth who worked for Kevin Maslek.

Jesus Christ, Richard.

You know Kevin’s roadhouse on County Road Six? The guy told me Kevin holds a poker game at the back once a month with ten, twelve guys. Five-thousand buy-in with plenty of rebuys. And tomorrow night is the night. There’s gonna be at least a hundred and fifty grand in that room. No big security. Two, three guys could take it. If it was you and me, that’s seventy-five each.

You and me.

Yup.

Are you insane?

His leg was going again, making Ray’s coffee slop against the side of his mug. Just ambitious. Like you. Or like you used to be.

Have you ever in your life put a gun on a man?

I gotta start somewhere.

You don’t start with Kevin Maslek. Do you even know the roadhouse?

I’ve been there.

That’s not the same as knowing it.

So come with me today. We’ll have a drink there, look the place over.

Ray shook his head slowly. I told you I’m a civilian.

But why?

A promise I made.

To who?

Doesn’t matter. I made it.

What about me? What about that promise?

I never promised you a thing.

You promised Dad. I know you did. You told him you’d watch out for me when he was gone.

You think I don’t? That poor guy you ran down, driving drunk—who paid for your lawyer? You should have done eight years. He got you twenty-eight months. Any idea what that cost?

Which is why I want to cut you in, Ray. Seventy-five would more than pay you back.

And it’s why I’m saying no. To keep my promise to Dad.

Fine. I don’t need you. An old man in bed at eleven. I just thought I owed you. Someone else will be happy to take a share. I know two guys who’d say yes in a second. Pay them twenty-five thousand each and keep a hundred.

Ray felt like his lungs were filling with seawater. When he proposed to Ondine, already knowing her condition— Ondine, whose name meant ‘little wave’ in French—he’d promised a clean break with his past, no more guns, gigs or known associates. Now here came Rich lobbing rocks into the pond. No little waves for him.

He’ll kill you, Rich, he said. He’ll kill your boys. You’re not dealing weed to high school kids here. You won’t get five steps in the door. And after that? Kevin will kill me if he thinks I was in on it. If you somehow get away, he’ll torture me to find out where you are.

We’ll wear ski-masks.

Someone will recognize your voice. Or the way you walk, with your heels angling in—yeah, look at them, Rich.

What happened to your nerve? You say I’m not cut out for this. How did you survive?

By not blundering into things ass first. Look, Ray said. I’m not working but I have a little money saved. You leave Maslek alone, I’ll give you five thousand bucks. Enough for you to get back on your feet. Somewhere else, maybe.

You want to buy me off for five grand? I’m gonna have twenty times that.

Ray put his hand on Rich’s leg even though it had stopped. Pumping. Take the five, he said. Please. Take a vacation. Go somewhere warm.

Rich pushed Ray’s hand off his leg. "Don’t you think I want to? I do. Just not with five grand. I need to start over. I know I wasn’t raised like you. My mother sent me to those stupid boarding schools to make connections. ‘For your future,’ she said. I just wanted to be like you and Dad."

But you’re not.

I’m still blood.

He remembered Rich at about three years old, spending the day at Ray Senior’s, staying in the pool until he was shivering. He remembered a sweet happy face with wet curls.

What if I made it ten thousand?

Just pay for breakfast. And spot me another night here.

***

Late in the afternoon, her post-chemo nausea hit. He heard her in the ensuite, spitting and panting between bouts of retching. He made ginger tea and drew a bath to ease the ache the vomiting caused in her back, now that she was so thin. He threw her damp nightgown in the laundry and wiped the rim of the toilet.

She slept through dinner; he ate a sandwich on the bed beside her. At nine, he called the motel and asked for Rich’s room. He had to try one last time to talk him down.

Sorry, the clerk said. He checked out this morning.

Gone with the cash Ray had given him. In the wind, planning his takedown of Kevin’s game.

He sat there watching basketball with the TV muted, all frantic movement, no sound.

***

The next morning he drove to Barrie to pick up prescriptions Ondine needed. Driving southwest on Highway 26, he saw flashing lights at the entrance to Sunset Ridge park. There were three OPP cruisers on the roadside, a forensic services van and yellow crime-scene tape strung around an area behind two Porta Potties.

He slowed enough to irritate an officer on the shoulder, who waved at him to move on. He resumed his speed, spinning the radio dial to all-news. After traffic and weather, the first item covered was an OPP crime scene on 26 believed to have multiple homicide victims.

It was on the way from the roadhouse that hosted Kevin’s game to his gated home on Kempenfelt Bay. It had to be Rich and his back-ups. Three murders was more than Barrie had most years.

If it was, he couldn’t let Rich be buried as an indigent. He’d have to arrange an internment and headstone. What would he tell Ondine now? How would he explain his half-brother? He was already in prison when I met you, he could say. I was trying to leave that part of my life behind. Would she understand? She was close with her parents and three siblings, especially now, talked to them every week. Her sister in Toronto called every day.

When Ondine found out Rich had been murdered, she’d start thinking about guns, gigs, known associates. The life Ray had supposedly left for her. It would gnaw at her to think he was back in it. He had to tell her the truth; only the truth worked between them.

So… he would tell her how Rich was fathered outside Ray Senior’s marriage, the only one Ray Senior acknowledged. How he was twenty years younger than Ray and raised in a different way by a different mother. Not a bad kid, just impulsive and young for his years, getting into scrapes that Ray Senior had to get him out of. Temperamentally unsuited for the life he wanted but too wild for nine to five. Too willing to create situations he couldn’t control, unleash consequences he couldn’t predict.

He’d tell her that Rich came to him with a job he turned down, that Rich went ahead and stormed the game with two unlucky recruits.

‘I warned him,’ he’d say. ‘I told him it would end like this. He wouldn’t listen.’

He could sell it because every word was true. This life, the one he had chosen, was the only one that mattered. Ondine might survive the cancer and its awful cure, might not. Maybe he’d be back working in a year. But for as long as she lived there’d be no lies.

Still, nothing said he had to tell her everything. Omissions weren’t lies in his book.

When he got home, he brewed fresh tea and sorted Ondine’s meds. While he waited for the kettle to boil, he deleted any record of the phone call he’d made to Kevin last night, as he lay next to his wife, listening to every ragged shiver of her breath.

Red Dot

Nadine Roy left her bedroom window open that night. She rented the top floor of a house on Bain, close to Withrow Park. Her landlord, Oliver, lived on the main floor and controlled the thermostat. If it was comfortable for him, it was warm and still upstairs. If it was cool enough for her to sleep comfortably, he froze. And since Oliver owned the building, and she was merely paying most of his mortgage, he got his way.

Midnight. Twelve-thirty. One. One-ten. She’d turn the light on and read for awhile—usually a New Yorker she brought home from the office—but once she got drowsy and turned off the light, the very walls seemed to radiate heat. Her pillow was too hot. Her skin felt sticky. She had a fan on a table, pointing at her bed, but the air it blew was faint and no cooler. She had to get a window unit, even if Oliver made her pay the extra hydro costs.

She heard glass break around one-fifteen. She sat up and held her breath, listening for creaks in the floorboards, any sign that someone was in the house and coming up her stairs. Oliver and his partner Gary were cycling in Niagara-on-the-Lake, touring the wineries. Then a man’s voice yelled out something guttural and she knew no one was in her house. It definitely came from outside.

Russ Andrews was going off again.

Andrews, his wife and daughter—a thin girl who looked about twelve—had moved into the house across the street around Christmas. A house owned by the city of Toronto and rented out to lower-income families. A Nicaraguan family with three teenagers had lived there until November, never a problem. A few weeks after they left, the Andrews arrived. Nadine had taken little notice of them at first. It was a cold winter, windows had been shut tight, and the family seemed ordinary enough.

The problems started in April, when people began spending more time outside, greeting their neighbours as they cleaned their lawns of mouldy leaves and swept their porches and stairs. They all started hearing the yelling, the swearing, the shrieks of rage and cries of what might be pain.

The police were called for the first time in May. The neighbour in the house next to Andrews told Nadine she had called them, and they were there for half an hour, but nothing came of it as far as anyone knew.

The second time came a few weeks later. The yelling and cursing were so loud, so full of rage, that Nadine had called the police herself, only to be told a car had already been dispatched to the scene. They took Andrews with them that night but he was back a few days later. He was not a big man. Nadine was five-eight and she didn’t think he was any taller. But he walked around bowlegged, like he just got off his horse, with his chest and chin stuck out. Daring someone to start something.

Now Nadine heard a scream and knew it wasn’t the wife. She went to the window and saw the daughter out in the middle of the street crying. Head bent back, face tilted up, arms out at her side like she was holding something invisible. Nadine grabbed the phone and called 9-1-1 while she took her jeans off the back of a chair where she’d folded them.

She held the phone between her shoulder and ear as she got her pants on. She told the dispatcher what was happening. Please send an ambulance too. I don’t know where the mother is.

She took the phone with her as she slipped on deck shoes and went downstairs to the foyer. Through the glass panes in the front door she saw the next-door neighbour who had called the police the last time, Diane, rushing into the street to comfort the girl.

Nadine then heard a shriek and saw the mother stumble out onto the porch. She was in a white T-shirt and underwear. Blood was running out of her nose, two streaks of it visible on either side of her mouth, and more on her shirt. She got to the top stair but Andrews came out behind her and grabbed her thick dark hair in his fist. Her head snapped back and she fell onto her backside.

The dispatcher was still on the line. Nadine begged her to hurry. She opened the door to see if any men were coming out. She ran the different possibilities though her mind, who might step up until the police got there.

Not Diane’s husband, Jeff, who was diabetic and walked with a cane.

Not the skinny TV producer in the house on Andrews’ other side. He never stopped bragging about working on a Canadian show called Black Ice, about an ex-hockey star turned private eye, which made Nadine laugh in all the wrong places the one time she watched it. Its chiseled star would have picked Russ Andrews up with one hand and knocked him out with the other.

No one on the street was going to help. She wished she had the size to settle the little prick on her own. She started across the street, phone still in her right hand, not knowing what she would do. Andrews was trying to pull his wife to her feet by her hair, his other fist cocked to throw a punch.

Hey, she yelled. Andrews.

Andrews looked at her, his eyes red as a wolf’s, or how she imagined a wolf would look.

Leave her alone, Nadine said. The cops’ll be here any minute.

Andrews looked both ways and saw no cars coming, no flashing lights. He turned back to his wife and socked her hard on the side of the head. She groaned and tried to cover up.

Hey, asshole, I’m talking to you.

He ignored her, kept trying to pull his wife back to her feet with one hand while banging at her guard with the other She grabbed for his wrists, trying to stay down, and he got another shot in.

Fuck it. Nadine cocked her arm to throw the phone at him. Someone whistled sharply behind her and Andrews looked over there and held his punching hand where it was. A red dot had just appeared on his bare chest. She looked behind her and saw a man she had seen once or twice the past month. He was about forty, six feet or taller, in a T-shirt and jeans. He stood with bare feet shoulder width apart,

both hands wrapped around a big, shiny handgun. The red dot was coming from the bottom of the barrel.

You, the man said. Step away from her. Now! She hadn’t seen which house he’d come out of. There was one that had sold two months ago, a few houses up on Nadine’s side. Did he live there or was he just visiting someone?

I said, step away.

You gonna shoot me? Andrews said. Go ahead. He faced the man with the gun, stretching out his right arm and exposing his bony white chest. The red dot wavered slightly when he moved, then held steady again.

You want to die now? the man said. Do I have that right?

I don’t care. Long as she goes first. He turned back to the woman and thudded his fist against the side of her head. She curled into a ball on the floor of the porch, trying to protect her head, and he drew his bare foot back to kick her.

Look now! the man barked. Tell me what you see.

Andrews looked down at his chest. The laser had moved down, the red dot now centred on his crotch.

Where is it now, Andrews?

Andrews stared down at the dot.

I won’t shoot to kill, the man said. Not if it’s what you want. But I will shoot your dick off. I can do it from here. I train every week.

A fucking cop.

Of course I’m a fucking cop. And you touch her again, you’ll spend the entire ambulance ride wondering if you’ll ever get it up again, and the answer is no. Not ever. Now let go of her hair and step away.

Andrews looked down at his crotch and back at the man with the gun.

The man shrugged and said, Alright. He tightened up stance, moved his finger from the side of the gun where it had been resting, and put it on the trigger. He cupped his left hand with his right and closed his right eye. Say goodbye to it.

Nadine held her breath, waiting for the shot.

Okay! Andrews said. He let go of the woman’s hair and stepped away. Okay! Don’t shoot.

Hands on your head!

Andrews obeyed. The red dot stayed on his crotch. Nadine moved quickly up the stairs and got the bleeding woman to her feet and down the stairs to the lawn. She eased the woman down onto the grass with her back against the trunk of a chestnut tree. Her nose was so swollen she could only breathe through her mouth. Her lower lip was cut and there was a lump on her cheekbone under her left eye. Nadine wished the man would do it, shoot Andrews’ shit clean off.

Flashing lights came from both ends of the street. The tall man let his gun fall to the pavement—Nadine flinched, afraid it would go off—and kicked it under a parked car. Two police cars pulled up with their noses to the curb. Four officers spilled out. One went to check on the wife. The other three went straight up the stairs to get Andrews. Once they got their hands on him, he started to fight back. Tried to kick one cop in the balls and got him on the thigh. Another wrenched Andrews’ fists up behind his back and he went down. They carried him roughly down the stairs, wrenching his ankles sideways when he tried to kick them.

Help, he screamed. Someone! Help me.

Nadine looked at him, stunned at his gall, acting like he was the victim. Who did he think was going to help him? He fought all the way to the car. At one point his bare chest was scraping the concrete sidewalk while he howled. Nadine wished they’d drag him harder, give him a three-foot rash. Andrews tried to kick out the windows of the car once he was in the backseat, until a cop got in with him and did something Nadine couldn’t see that finally quieted him.

An ambulance pulled up behind the cop cars and the attendants got out and rushed to the lawn to help the wife. One of the cops went over to the girl, squatted down so he was at her eye level, and spoke softly as she wept and shook. Everything seemed finally in hand.

Nadine walked over to the man who had stopped Andrews and said, Thank you. That was amazing, what you did.

You did better, he said. You were going to ding him with your phone.

It’s all I had.

Would you have hit him?

She smiled. I play a little softball. I think I would have nailed him from there. I’m Nadine Roy, by the way.

She bet his name was something simple and down-to-earth. One syllable, like Ben or Sam.

Marshall Post, he said. But most people call me Marsh.

Do you need a statement from me? I mean, you saw what happened, but for the record…

For the record, Nadine, I’m not a cop.

What? She looked closer at him and saw his eyes were a warm light brown or dark hazel—hard to tell in the light of street lamps.

God, no.

But you have this giant gun and laser.

He grinned at her, then beckoned her to the curb, out of sight of the police. He knelt and retrieved the gun he had kicked under the car and handed it to her, butt first.

It weighed nothing. It was plastic. A toy gun, with a laser pointer taped to the barrel.

My son’s, Marsh said. He’s ten and into cop shows like you wouldn’t believe. Copies everything they do.

Down to the laser.

That’s a cat toy. His mom has cats and he used to drive them crazy with it. Then the cop phase started and he taped it to his gun. The cats are almost back to normal.

That’s all you had.

I’m lucky Andrews was drunk enough to believe me. If not, if he came at me, at least he’d be off his wife. And I figured I could take him if I had to.

It took three cops to get him in the car.

I see that now.

I don’t think I’m going to get to sleep any time soon, Nadine said. You want a coffee? A beer?

You have whisky?

One, she said. But I’m not sure what kind. I’m more of a vodka drinker.

I have both at my place, he said.

You bought number eighteen?

She took his arm and steered him towards his house. So what do you do?

I’m a writer. You?

I’m a lawyer. Family law if you ever need advice.

Fortunately, my divorce was amicable and we share custody, so I’m good.

What do you write? she asked. Books? Journalism?

TV.

No kidding, she said. Then asked, A cop show? and quickly wished she hadn’t. What if he worked on Black Ice? What could she say about a show that bad that wouldn’t sound backhanded?

I started out doing cop shows, he said. "Moved to L.A. and worked on the only Law & Order franchise that didn’t last. Came back here and now I work on Spike.

You’re kidding, she said. It’s the only Canadian drama I can sit through.

Spike was a new period drama about the building of the western railway through the Rockies. It had some of the flavour of Deadwood, Godless and other cable shows she’d liked but it didn’t try to emulate them; it was carving out its own place, in its own voice.

You seen many episodes?

I recorded them all and I’m about halfway through. You’ll have to tell me which ones you wrote.

When they got to Marsh’s door, he said, "I’m going to