The Killing Circle

mouths of subway entrances sees these front-page faces and, through them, sees themselves. Not stony-faced mobsters or gangland hoods (the kinds who had it coming), but the faces of those whose primary goal was the avoidance of trouble. That’s the security most of us count on: we belong to the majority who never go looking for it. Yet all of us know at the same time that this is an increasingly hollow assurance. Fear is always there, looking for a way to the surface.

No matter how we might keep to ourselves, sometimes the Sandman finds us anyway.

The Quotidian Award, affectionately known as the Dickie, is the nation’s second-richest literary prize. The honour was established by Richard “Dickie” Barnham, a Presbyterian minister who, in his retirement, became an enthusiastic memoirist, recounting the mild eccentricities of his quaint Ontario parsonage. He was also, in the year before his death, the purchaser of a $12-million-winning lottery ticket. The Dickie is today awarded to the work of fiction that “est reflects the domestic heritage of Canadian family life”, which has led to a series of hushed, defiantly uneventful winners. A rainy-day parade of stolid farmers and fishermen’s widows.

It also happens to be one of the gala events of the season. A ticket to the Dickie marks one’s membership in the nation’s elite, a Who’s Who of country club philanthropists, TV talking heads, corporate barons. The National Star’s publisher has never missed it. It’s in part why, each year, a photo of the winner and a hyperventilating description of the menu and ladies’ gowns appear on the front page.

It’s the sort of assignment I’m no longer considered for. Even when I was the literary columnist, the paper preferred to send one of the party girls from the Style section who could recognize not only the celebrities in attendance, but the designers who did their outfits. This year, however, the reporter they had in mind called in sick four hours before the event. The Managing Editor was out of town at one of her executive retreats, so the task of choosing a last-minute alternative came down to the News Editor who asked if I could do it for him. I accepted.

The press pass allows me to take a guest. The wise course would be to go alone, write the story they’re looking for, and be in bed by midnight. Instead, I call Len.

“You could slip someone your manuscript,” I tell him.

“You think?”

“Every editor in town is going to be there.”

“Maybe just a couple short stories,” he decides after a moment. “Something that could fit under my jacket.”

By the time I rent a tux and spin by in a cab to pick up Len (who has also been fitted in black tie, though for someone a foot shorter and thirty pounds lighter than he) we arrive at the Royal York just in time to catch the last half of the cocktail hour.

“Look!” Len whispers on our way into the Imperial Room. “There’s Grant Duguay!”

I follow Len’s pointing finger and find the emcee of tonight’s proceedings. The same waxy catalogue model with a used car salesman grin who acts as host of Canadian MegaStar!

“That’s him alright.”

“And there! That’s Rosalind Canon!”

“Who?”

Len looks at me to make sure I’m being serious.

“At the Brain Pudding launch. The one who got half a million for her first novel.”

I get Len to point Rosalind out to me. And there she is, the mousy girl who is now shaking hands with every culturecrat and society wife who make their way to her. Even from across the room I can lip-read the same earnest Thank you in reply to the congratulations, over and over. It makes me want to say the same thing to someone. A passing waiter will have to do.

“Thank you,” I say, plucking a pair of martinis, one for each hand, from his tray.

We settle at the press table before the other hacks arrive. It allows me to stick one of the two bottles of wine on the table between my feet, just in case the steward is unavailable at a crisis point later on. Then the MegaStar! guy is up at the lectern saying something about how reading made him what he is today, which seems reasonably true, given that managing a teleprompter would be tricky for an illiterate. Following this, as the dinner begins to be served, each of the nominated authors take the stage to talk about the genesis of their work. The bottle between my feet is empty before the caribou tartare is cleared.

It’s absurd and I know it. It’s shallow and unfounded and generally reflects poorly on my character. Because I haven’t published a book. Haven’t written a book. I don’t have anything in mind to one day turn into a book. But in the spirit of full and honest disclosure, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking as I sit in the Imperial Room in my itchy tux watching the night’s honourees bow into the waves of applause.

Why not me?

Luck. Pulled strings. Marketability. Maybe they have this on their side. Though there is always something else, too. A compelling order to things, a story’s beginning, middle and end. Me? All I have is all most of us have. The messy garble of a life-in-progress.

To turn my mind from such thoughts, I lean over and share with Len the killer’s secret poem. It leaves him goggle-eyed. Encouraged, I go on to outline my interpretation of the poem’s meanings, including the unlikely hint at the author’s identity.

“You think there’s a connection?” he asks, wiping the sweat from his lip.

“I think it’s a coincidence.”

“Hold on, hold on.” Len fusses with the cutlery set out in front of him as though it represents the thoughts in his head. “If you’re right, then it means whoever’s been doing those things is either in our writing circle, or has read Angela’s story.”

“No, it doesn’t. Anyone can call themselves the Sandman. And he doesn’t call himself anything in the poem. It’s just a theory.”

“And my theory is it’s William.”

“Slow down. It’s not—”

“Hello! A kid who disembowels cats and horses for fun? He’s basically telling us what he’s capable of.”

“It’s a story, Len.”

“Some stories are true.”

“If writing fiction about serial killers makes you a murder suspect, there’d be a hundred freaks within ten blocks of here the police would want to talk to.”

“Still. Still,” Len says, chewing his lip. “I wonder what Angela would think if she —”

“You can’t tell anyone.”

Len is crestfallen. A real horror story dropped in his lap, and he’s not allowed to run with it.

“I mean it, Len. I only told you because—”

Why did I tell Len? The martinis helped. And I suppose I wanted him to be impressed. I’m a journalist at a real newspaper. I know things. But more than this, I think I wanted to entertain the big geek.

“Because I believe you can be trusted,” I say finally, finishing the sentence Len has been waiting for. And he looks away, visibly touched by the compliment.

After dessert, Mr MegaStar! announces the winner. And once I’ve jotted the name down, I’m out of there.

“I’m off, Len. Got to write this thing up licketysplit.”

Len eyes my untouched maple syrup cheesecake “You going to eat that?”

“All yours.”

I squeeze his shoulder as I get up from the table. And although Len smiles in acknowledgment of the gesture, the fact is if I hadn’t grabbed him I would have fallen face first into a passing tray of beaver-shaped shortbreads.