The Guardians

'Yeah?'

'Let's just say I've done a little shopping.'

[16]

Randy and I decide to meet for an early dinner at the Old London. He's already there when I lurch in. Sitting at the same circular table we'd occupied only two nights ago, a stretch of time that feels as distant now as the memory of summer camp.

'A cocktail, sir?' the maitre d’ asks as I take my seat.

'What're you having?' I ask Randy.

'Soda water. Got to keep the mind clear.'

'Right. Orange juice, please. And coffee.'

'And a couple of rare prime ribs.'

The maitre d’ slips away, leaving the two of us facing each other across the ridiculous space of the table (I would have sat next to Randy, but that would have been even weirder).

'I know that keeping us here one more night was my idea,' I admit after my drinks are delivered. 'But maybe you could help me with something.'

'Hit me.'

'What the hel are we planning to do?'

Randy looks at me with dead seriousness. 'We have to do something to put this place behind us.'

'You think that's possible?'

'Who knows? We have to try. I think that's the key. If we do our best, maybe we won't have to think about Grimshaw every other second until we drop dead.'

'Okay,' I say, and sip my coffee. 'So we try. Try what?'

'To face it. No more tiptoeing around.'

'Ben watched for half his life and it didn't do any good.'

'But Ben stayed outside.'

The maitre d’ arrives with our meals, the bloody slices of beef set before us steaming and thick as novels.

'Are you saying we have to go in and stay there?' I ask.

'Not us. But we'l have eyes and ears on the inside al the same.'

'How?'

'Baby monitors! Go on, say it. It's briliant.'

'It's briliant. If we had a baby to monitor.'

Randy sighs, savouring the rare moment of appearing smarter than someone else. 'They've come a long way, let me tel you. Now they come with video cameras and motion detectors. You can pay me your half when you have a chance.'

'And how exactly do these help us?'

'We do what Ben did—watch the house,' Randy says, beaming now. 'But tonight, we'l watch it from the inside.''

'On the monitor.'

'It's got a range of five hundred feet. And we'l be in Ben's room. But hidden. No faces in the window, in case someone looks.'

'And where's the sensor?'

'Where would you least want to sit around al night in that place?'

'The celar.'

'Agreed.'

'Agreed on what? Sorry, man, but I'm sure as hel not going down there to plant that thing.'

'Already done. By me. Today. During daylight hours.'

I watch Randy slice off a dripping chunk of meat and drive it into his mouth, his appetite the first giveaway that what we're going to do together this evening isn't a real stakeout, it's therapy. What's important, what gives the voodoo a chance of working, isn't the recitation of the right words or spraying of holy water, but that we believe the process might actualy work. And so we are reinforcing our courage as we once did in the Guardians' dressing room before a game. Pretend warriors.

I can see as he chews and swalows and grins over the white linen that Randy doesn't realy expect any confrontation to take place tonight. He's only acting as though it might for my sake.

'You're a good man, Randy.'

'I'm glad you can see that. I just wish you had long hair and smeled a little better and looked great in a bikini.'

'When was the last time you saw me in a bikini?'