Blindshot Read online

  As for Jack, he spent his year on a quest for power of a different, more primal, sort. Most early mornings and late afternoons, and even during his lunch breaks, Jack spent in the school’s workout room, usually accompanied by Zeph. There, they worked furiously to master bodybuilding techniques, but whereas most students aimed to balloon out their form to comic-book superhero standards, Jack focused purely on building strength. Already a big kid for his age, he was unconcerned with how he looked, and completely obsessed with physical capability.

  Mr. Duval, the physical education director of West Kirkland Academy and past Canadian karate champion, took an interest in Jack and often gave him tips, not so much on training techniques, but more on how to control the application of his increasing strength. An intelligent, observant man, who truly cared for the youth he influenced every day, Mr. Duval often took extra time with students to discuss their particular issues or provide advice. Maybe because of his own tough childhood, he could see the sadness in Jack, perhaps a predisposition for trouble, and he paid extra attention to the boy.

  Jack didn’t really want to talk. He just wanted to get stronger. Most days, after his early morning workouts, just before class, he would rush into Mr. Duval’s office beside the gymnasium and sit himself down with a right elbow planted firmly on the desk, palm up. Mr. Duval understood this as invitation for their morning’s arm-wrestling contest, to which he responded without a word, sitting down to face the eager boy. He couldn’t remember now how this routine had started, only that Jack seemed to expect a serious effort on his part whenever he turned up.

  “Are we still doing this?” Mr. Duval would sometimes ask, usually getting silence in response. “Alright then,” he’d say.

  So, Mr. Duval would pull up his sleeve, revealing a massive arm and a big hand which clasped Jack’s. He had dark brown, shiny skin, a square jaw, broad shoulders and a thick neck, as well as piercing brown eyes, the biggest, most bulging eyes Jack had ever seen. Mr. Duval’s physical attributes and sincere demeanour inspired Jack, and when they sat across from each other, the challenge was real. Though at least twenty-five years his junior, Jack prepared himself by planting his feet squarely on the floor and mustering all he had in him for a win.

  Over the last school year, Jack had never had a win, though he had been steadily making it more challenging for Mr. Duval. Other students were taking note of Jack’s capabilities. Ryan Stavans, who was in the same grade, decided to approach Jack for help in his personal projects. Ryan was the school’s primo wheeler-dealer, always scamming the latest recreational drugs or tickets to the hottest shows. If you wanted something, Ryan was the guy. He had first noticed Jack a few weeks earlier, when Jack got in trouble for fighting during lunch hour with Bruno Hills, a foul-mouthed brute who gave everyone trouble, kids and teachers.

  Ryan came to find Jack one morning in the gym. “I’ll give you a cut of what I sell,” he said, “if you come with me to scalp tickets at the Bell Centre.”

  “What for? Why are you coming to me with this?” asked Jack.

  “Well, I’m not the only guy moving tickets. I’m just a kid. Some of these guys on the street come in groups of two or three and scope out every corner. I buy tickets for a show, then, come time to sell them, I get booted off the corner by these old dickheads. So, I lose money. If you and maybe your buddy Zeph came with me, it wouldn’t be so easy for them. What do you say? It’ll be worth it. There’s a show tonight.”

  “Get your usual goons, Ralph and Brett,” said Jack.

  “They can’t. They have football practice.”

  “Whatever. Look, I don’t give a shit about selling your tickets, okay,” said Jack, lining himself up on a bench press. “Buzz off, alright.”

  “You’re an asshole, Carignan. Have it your way,” said Ryan, bitterly, before moving on.

  “I intend to,” muttered Jack, as Ryan moved on.

  Jack tightened his fists on the cold metal bar and pulled the tremendous weight off the bench hooks. He brought it down slowly to his chest, then pushed hard through ten reps. Blood rushed to his face. His anger and adolescent angst funnelled through his muscles, chest and arms, like lightning bolts. He did three more reps before the weight suddenly felt a thousand times too heavy. He pushed and pushed, raising the bar three-quarters of the way up, but it wasn’t going to be enough. His left arm gave out, bending at the elbow and bringing the weight down fast. A split second of fright.

  Mr. Duval’s solid, meaty hands jabbed in and caught the steel bar inches from Jack’s face. Jack squirmed, catching his breath, sweat drops snaking from his brow. Mr. Duval pulled the bar up to the bench-press hooks with a metal-on-metal ‘clang!’ He then sat down on the next bench-press, a concerned look on his chiselled face.

  “What’s driving you, boy? What makes you tick?”

  Jack was silent, still catching his breath.

  “Whatever it is,” Duval continued, “watch what you do with all that strength, especially who you share it with, because you’re making yourself very strong! But you have limits, you might be surprised to know.” The whites of his eyes were as bright as full moons. “Understand me? Lots of people in life will help you get in trouble, but nobody sticks around when it’s time to get out of trouble. That’s the hard part, the true heavy lifting! You’ll be on your own for that. Mark my words, boy! You have no friends out there!” he proclaimed. “But you know that, don’t you?” said Mr. Duval in his thick, rumbling baritone. He then smiled and observed Jack.

  “Something tells me,” he said, “that you’re up to something. I don’t know if it’s now or later, or what it is, bad or good, but you’re determined about something. I can see it in your eyes. I see a lot of kids in my job here, lots of kids. Something’s up with you. I just want you to know that I know. Okay? My door’s open, whatever it is. You got me?” He stared deeply at Jack, his powerful forearm rising up. He pointed at the boy with a thick index finger, then shook his hand slowly, as if accusing him and letting the silent gesture hang.

  Jack nodded, cracked only a faint smile.

  Mr. Duval went back to his duties, wondering if this kid was indeed up to good or no good. He had a feeling Jack could go either way.

  Noah sat in math class realizing that his teacher, Mrs. Carlyle, had no idea who he was. Moments earlier she had handed out exam results, his being a perfect one hundred percent, and she had needed to look at his paper and the class roster to remind herself of his name. Though the fall semester had just begun, this was the second year he was in her class, and he had consistently had remarkable scores.

  She seemed to have an easier time remembering names of the worst students in her class, disciplining them over and over again. Noah had a theory that he himself might have to misbehave to get Mrs. Carlyle to recognize him, or at the very least to jog her memory. To test his theory, and deal in some measure with his boredom, Noah whispered the suggestion amongst the class that willing students should switch names, and whenever possible point out their false names to Mrs. Carlyle for full effect. It was a silly prank but it helped Noah pass the time.

  The class emptied quickly at the end of the hour, with most kids giggling over their modified identities. Noah had become Marcus, inspired by his favourite film Gladiator, without Mrs. Carlyle suspecting anything. He walked to his locker, down one level, and switched books for his ethics and humanities class. There was a skirmish, down the hall, between Ryan Stavans and Joseph Schneider. Two bigger kids, Ralph Papadakos and Brett Pontisso from senior level, flanked Ryan, who pushed little Joe Schneider in front of his open locker. Brett knocked Joe’s books out of his hands, and his homework papers flew under the feet of other kids passing by. No one dared to intervene, and no teachers were around.

  “Come on, Schneider, you owe me, you freaking Jew!” said Ryan. “Tickets are tickets! Pay up!”

  “I gave you the tickets back, Ryan! I don’t want them, they’re nosebleeds
! That wasn’t our deal! Leave me alone!”

  Noah was concerned for Joe, who was a friend, so he walked over to lend support. What he witnessed was unnerving, as Ryan continued to badger him.

  “Nosebleeds, my ass! You bought the goddam tickets, Schneider!”

  He shoved Joe hard into his locker again. Joe reeled back in pain from connecting with a metal edge. Ryan moved as if to do it again. Noah stepped in to block, but the bigger boy was faster and immoveable, throwing Noah down hard. Noah crawled away, holding his head that had hit the floor. He felt the bruise under his hair as he leaned against the opposite wall.

  Ryan reached into Schneider’s locker, pulled out his jacket and felt for his wallet, yanking out all its bills. He took it all without counting, dropping the wallet and jacket to the floor. Then he and his two accomplices walked off, leaving Noah and Joe on the ground.

  “Don’t worry, Joe, we’ll get them back.”

  “Right, how are we going to do that?” Joe said. “Oh, my arm hurts.”

  Noah didn’t answer him. He was on his cell phone, calling his brother.

  It was just after the first period that afternoon when Jack came to find Zeph at his geography class. Zeph was only too happy to join his buddy.

  “What’s this about, bud?”

  “You’ll see. First, we need to find you some rope,” said Jack, pulling Zeph along toward the gymnasium storage rooms where stacks of ropes of varying types were kept.

  Zeph had an unusual skill with ropes and knots. He had picked this up at sailing camp and enjoyed it more than sailing or canoeing. He could sit for hours with a rope, practising different knot configurations, and he knew all their different applications. Jack had asked him to teach him some of these special knots and techniques, which he did now and again, but Jack was nowhere near as good as Zeph. And Zeph had never thought he would have an opportunity to put this skill to the test.

  “This is a school, right?” Jack said. “A place of learning?”

  “Yeah,” Zeph said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, Zephmeister, we’re going to teach someone a lesson.”

  Ryan Stavans was changing after gym class. Dozens of other boys were coming and going, talking away in the changing room. Ryan removed his sweaty training clothes, found a school towel from the school, set it on a hook and went to shower. Two minutes later, he returned to the changing bench, but his clothes were gone, replaced by what looked like a rolled T-shirt, which he picked up. To his dismay, it was a one-piece jumpsuit, yellow, with green leaves drawn on the shoulders and upper torso.

  “Fuck!” he cried. “Who took my goddam clothes? Who’s the fucking rat who took my clothes?”

  Other boys heard him clearly but wanted nothing to do with whatever trouble might come from this. More than a few of them laughed surreptitiously at Ryan’s predicament. As the changing room emptied, Ryan gave the space a full and meticulous sweep, finding nothing and cursing loudly.

  Jack was in the hallway outside the changing room. When Ryan appeared in his ill-fitting yellow jumpsuit, with laced-up, fire-red Nikes, Jack stepped out and slugged him in the stomach, just hard enough to surprise him and draw out his anger. Ryan bent forward with the hit, more out of surprise than pain. He recovered quickly and came at Jack, who bolted.

  Jack led Ryan to the end of a hallway, through a side door to a stair that led to the school’s vast, dimly lit, and little-used basement.

  Ryan, who had lost sight of Jack, wandered in at a light jog, looking around for his prey. When the lights went off, Ryan was in the dark, and he never saw the rope that tightened at his feet.

  “Aaaagh!” yelled Ryan, fear and surprise shooting through him as he fell in the dark. He landed on something neither hard nor soft. The lights came on. Dozens of white faces looked blankly at him. The lights went off again. Full dark. He reached out instinctively to protect himself, and his hands felt human forms—arms, hands, heads—all around him. The lights came on again enough for him to see the human forms encircling him. Mannequins from the drama department.

  Another rope tugged at him, wrapped around his torso. He couldn’t move.

  Zeph stepped out from around the piles of mannequins, holding the other end of the ropes that held Ryan, steadier than a seasoned cowboy might hold a steer. Jack approached, followed by Noah, then little Joe Schneider.

  “I should’ve known,” said Ryan. “Are you crazy?”

  Jack, Zeph, and Noah stood quietly, trying not to laugh. Jack nodded, signalling Joe. Ryan squirmed with more than a little anxiety. Joe approached, holding Ryan’s missing clothes. He dumped them at Ryan’s feet. Ryan was pleased to see the pile but, still held back by Zeph, couldn’t yet reach them.

  “This is mine,” said Joe, waving money before Ryan. He rifled through Ryan’s wallet and left some money in it. “The rest is yours.”

  “Fine, we’re even! Let me go!”

  Jack walked slowly up to Ryan, sticking his face up close to his. “You ever touch Joe or my brother again, you’ll know what even really feels like. Got it?”

  Ryan was too scared of Jack to mouth anything. Then, suddenly, the basement went dark again.

  “Hey?” Ryan yelled, but to no one. The other boys had left the basement. “Hey, untie me!” he shouted before realizing he wasn’t tied at all and was free to move. The ropes fell loosely to the floor. He stood there, a bit freaked out at all the mannequins posing creepily around him. With some relief, he began to put on his own clothes.

  Meanwhile, in a corridor of the school, Jack, Zeph and Noah huddled at a low windowsill on which Noah had set up a laptop.

  “Okay, ready?” said Noah. The others smiled.

  Noah keyed in a code and pressed the Enter key. A video began to play of Ryan, in the yellow one-piece suite, running from the changing room and down a corridor.

  “Who shot the clip?” asked Zeph.

  “Brian from math class,” said Noah.

  “Hey, I just realized what you gave him to wear!” said Joe. “It’s the Mr. Turnip costume from last year’s school nutrition show!” The boys laughed, watching the video repeatedly of an enraged Mr. Turnip running down the corridor.

  Kevin Mulroy was drunk. Only Catherine knew it, so far as she could tell.

  Senior partner with the firm, Kevin was the son of George Mulroy, co-founder and current President of Mulroy Arsenault & Associates. Kevin was about her age, Catherine guessed, but how could he so adeptly hide the considerable amount of alcohol he had consumed since sitting down for dinner, not to mention the drinks he’d had at the networking cocktail they had attended that afternoon?

  Mulroy Arsenault was playing host to two of its key consulting firms in the Larivée Technology Park project. One was Eisner Kane Incorporated, represented by Phil Eisner, Ellis Kane, and Tira Oudanna. The other was BEX Civil Engineering, represented by its founders, Sam Webber and Helena Evangelidis, a married couple. They were eight at the restaurant table and conversation was animated. The food was abundant and the wine flowed, most of it consumed by Kevin. Catherine was more irritated than worried by his lack of discipline. Getting drunk was not the end of the world, though there were better times for that than at a business dinner. She also knew what an ass he could be if he let himself.

  Phil Eisner was the senior authority at Eisner Kane, with a stately presence. Ellis Kane was the workhorse, with an aura of urgency, as if he would much prefer to return to work. His phone kept vibrating until Phil gave him a disapproving look. He then shut it and looked sad at having done so. Tira Oudanna, the youngest person at the table, struck Catherine as the business strategist in the group, thinking ahead of everyone around her. As for Sam Webber and Helena Evangelidis, they were low key and quietly confident, having built a fortune and solid reputations in their field. Catherine knew first-hand, from past projects, how methodical they were in all they touched.
r />   As Catherine kept one eye on Kevin, she noted that George Mulroy and Phil Eisner were looking rather serious, leaning toward one another, talking quietly.

  This could be good or bad, thought Catherine. She watched them a long moment, then caught herself before her curiosity became too obvious.

  Tira, who had an ear-pleasing South-African accent, drew attention to one of several wine bottles on the table. “This wine is very good,” she said. “We have been learning about wine, my husband and I, about the characteristics of a good wine. This one is very fragrant. Smells very sweet.”

  “It’s our label,” said George Mulroy. “My cousin Raymond and I have a small vineyard outside Stockmere.”

  “Really, that’s wonderful,” said Tira, “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s a small operation, more for the joy of it,” said George.

  “And a few tax reasons,” added Kevin, smiling too much. Catherine gave him a look. He looked away.

  “Well, it’s truly wonderful,” said Tira, taking a sip from her glass.

  At the end of the table, Phil Eisner lifted his glass, which was still full, and moved it away, signifying to no one in particular he was done with it.

  “We should talk about the Larivée project!” Kevin suggested, a little too loudly.

  “We’re doing well on that,” said George Mulroy, in a deep, calm tone. “Thanks to this force of nature right there,” he added, gesturing in Catherine’s direction. “Mulroy Arsenault fully recognizes that this year would not have been the success it was without Catherine leading our engineering department. I know the personal sacrifice and time she’s put in! Just outstanding, Catherine, outstanding!” said George, encouraging everyone at the table to raise a glass. Phil Eisner searched for his glass, but a waiter had taken it already. The lawyer watched his clients toast Catherine’s great work. Kevin raised his glass and chugged the whole thing back.