Lake on the Mountain. Jeffrey Round

He stared through the blackness at the receiver. “If you’re going to wake me up, you could at least identify yourself so I’ll know who to be pissed off at tomorrow.”

      He smacked the phone down. Anyone in trouble would have left a message. Kendra certainly, and Ked was asleep in the next room, so it couldn’t have been anything to do with either of them. But you’d have to be desperate to phone at that hour. His heart was still doing a jazz number.

      His thoughts returned to Bill. He might’ve been arrested with drugs in his pocket at some after-hours club. Once he’d been stopped while driving on the verge of being impaired, but it turned out he’d operated on the cop’s mother and got off with a warning. Bill was lucky that way. What if he’d been in an accident? Dan tried not to think about it. In another minute he’d have himself convinced Bill was somewhere out there, hurt or in trouble, and that Dan had failed to be there for him.

      He rolled onto his back and stared at the darkness. Anonymous calls pissed him off. He might lie awake for hours wondering who it was. Part of him liked to think Bill would call to say he wanted to come over, screw the late hour. Even with Ked at home, Dan would’ve agreed. But that never happened. Bill didn’t sleep at other peoples’ houses.

      He tried to drop back to sleep, but with no luck. Sometimes he dreamed of Bill and woke up arguing aloud. They were usually on a train in a foreign city — London, New York, once Miami — headed somewhere that mattered to Dan, but never to Bill. Dan would try to impress on Bill the importance of the trip, but without success. The dreams always ended in confusion, with missed connections, lost tickets, and dashed hopes for arriving wherever they were heading.

      Dan’s therapist encouraged him to explore how he felt. It didn’t take a shrink to tell him all the signs of a heavily flawed relationship were apparent in waking life, never mind in la-la-land when he was asleep. Even intelligent people let themselves be deluded by their emotions.

      Bill seemed incapable of affection, elusive and ambivalent about his feelings. Commitment-phobe didn’t cover it. He’d make dates and cancel at the last minute. He had excuses — work commitments, family obligations, social networking. Despite the fact they’d been dating a year, they never seemed to get closer. When pressed, Dan found it hard to point to anything meaningful between them. In all that time, he’d met only a handful of Bill’s closest friends and not one family member.

      “We’re not close,” Bill had said of his four brothers and two sisters.

      In this case, “not close” meant sporadic telephone conversations with his siblings, and infrequent family gatherings of unstated intent. Dan was never invited. At least not by Bill. Even Christmas seemed a duty, though not one Bill felt required a spouse. When Dan pressed him, Bill would shrug and say it wasn’t important, shutting down the conversation.

      To Dan, the ideal relationship was an easy-going fusion of personalities that allowed both partners to remain healthily independent while knowing each could depend on the other. A state in which late night phone calls were a cause for joy, not alarm, and trust was a matter of course rather than fantasy. Bill was a constant challenge to that goal.

      And then there was the small matter of Kedrick. Dan’s dates were impressed to learn he was a father, but he sensed their wariness, as though it meant he was already taken. They seemed to doubt he could divide his loyalty between his son and a partner. Maybe they were right — part of him would always be devoted to Kedrick, no matter who came into his life. But Bill didn’t demand Dan’s loyalty so much as his physical availability. In that, at least, he was easy to please.

      It was Donny who’d dubbed Bill the “heartless heart doctor.” “It’s ironic,” he said, “but that man has no feelings for anyone but himself.”

      They’d been sitting in Timothy’s Coffee on Church Street, adrift in a minor sea of T-shirts and denim. Donny had just come from work. He was dressed impeccably in a white button-down shirt, Gucci tie, and black Oxfords — Will Smith behind the perfume counter at Holt Renfrew.

      He thrummed a finger in Dan’s face. “That man is a self-centred egotist. He expects you to come running when he’s free and complains if you won’t. On the other hand, he doesn’t return your calls for days and whines if you mention it. Where’s the equality?”

      “He’s a busy man.” Dan turned to watch the traffic outside the window. “He’s dedicated to his work. It’s not unusual for him to spend fifteen or sixteen hours at the hospital, even when he’s only scheduled for twelve.”

      Donny hung on noisily and tiresomely like a dog with a chewy toy. “He could still call to let you know. It’s not as if you’re chopped liver. You’re a heavy hitter in your department, too.”

      “He saves lives. He can’t just tell people to come back later.”

      “Excuse me?” Donny said in that haughty, offended-minority tone he used to give himself the edge in an argument. “And what exactly is it you do?”

      Dan’s eyes flickered over to the line-up at the counter, where curious faces had turned to take in their conversation. His voice lowered. “I find people who don’t want to be found and I return them to places they don’t want to be returned to, for reasons that are usually none of my business.”

      “Fuck you!” Donny said. “Fuck you, you self-loathing faggot!”

      He jostled the table and sent coffee spilling from the cups and sluicing over the tabletop. Next to them, an older man with sunken cheeks leaned in sympathetically and offered a stack of napkins.

      “Thanks,” Donny said, dabbing ineffectually at the mess. He turned back to Dan. “All I’m saying is, you save lives too. Why is your job less important than his?”

      “Stop it,” Dan said. He didn’t bother to pretend to be offended. “I never said my job is less important — it’s just more flexible.”

      Dan hated arguing. Donny always managed to sound right, even when he wasn’t, and he had the energy to back it up. But in this case he had a point. Dan may have been a pro at what he did, but somehow he felt like a fraud.

      The telephone’s anxious ring jarred him, putting Donny and his stained napkins on pause. The ID strip showed a private number now, but there was still no name. It seemed to be his night for anonymous calls. Dan grabbed it before the caller could change his mind again.

      “Dan Sharp.”

      A whispery silence greeted him.

      “This is Dan Sharp. Who is this?”

      “It’s Steve — Steve Jenkins.” The voice carried a flatness that made it all but unrecognisable.

      Dan’s mind bounced around trying to find something familiar in the tone and in light of the unusual circumstances. His former next-door neighbour shouldn’t be calling at four in the morning.

      Dan’s voice softened. “Steve. Did you call half an hour ago from a payphone?”

      “Yes. I’m — I’m sorry about the time.”

      “Are you okay?”

      “I’m not sure. Could I … could I talk to you?”

      Dan threw off the sheets and sat up, his training kicking in like a decathlete approaching the stadium. “Of course. Where are you?”

      “I’m in an apartment near Donlands and Danforth.”

      Dan squinted at the caller ID and read off the number. “Is this the number you’re calling from, Steve?”

      “I think so. I’d really like to get out of here, though.” His words sounded in a slurred monotone.

      “Are you on any medications, Steve?”

      “Um, no — yeah. I took a tranquillizer, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.”

      “How many?”

      “Pardon?”

      “How