It was the penultimate week of the NFL football pool and Charlie Firth was ahead by ten points. Nothing could stop the smug bastard from winning again now. Nothing short of murder.

Such was the uncharitable thought that crossed the mind of Calvin Bly as he sat with the usual crowd in the local bar watching the Monday night game, St Louis at Tampa Bay. Outside, in the east end of Toronto, the wind was howling, piling up snow in the side streets and swirling it in surreal patterns across the main roads, but inside it was warm, and the occasional single malt between pints of Guinness helped make it even warmer.

There were six of them at the table, the usual crowd, all in the pool. Calvin was second, having come up with a complicated system of mathematical checks and balances that had earned him solid eights and nines all season, plus the occasional eleven. Behind him by six points was Marge, the only girl in the group. Well, woman really, he supposed, seeing as she was in her fifties. The other three, Chris, Jeff and Brad, weren’t even in the running.

‘How’s your mother, Calvin?’ Charlie’s loud voice boomed across the table. Calvin looked away from his conversation with Marge and saw the sneer on Charlie’s face, the baiting grin, the arrogant, disdaining eyes.

‘She’s fine, thank you,’ he said.

Charlie looked at his watch. ‘Only it’s getting late. I’m surprised she lets you stay out this long.’

He laughed and some of the others joined in, but more because it was the thing to do than because they had any heart for it. Truth be told, nobody really found Charlie’s sense of humour funny. Vicious, yes. Cutting and hurtful, yes. But funny, no way.

Perhaps it wasn’t worth murdering someone for two thousand dollars, Calvin thought, but it might be worth it just to clear the world of the loud-mouthed fucker. People would probably thank him for it. Three years in a row Charlie Firth had won that NFL pool, and he hadn’t let a soul forget it. Twice Calvin had come in second, and Charlie wasn’t about to let him forget that either. The teasing would go on well into the baseball season.

Yes, if he got rid of Charlie, he would be doing the world a favour.

The Buccs threw a touchdown pass to take the lead in the dying seconds of the game, and Calvin shook himself free of his dark thoughts. Of course he wouldn’t murder Charlie. He’d never harmed a soul in his life, didn’t have the guts for it. It was nothing but a pleasant, harmless fantasy.

Got that one, thought Calvin when the game was over, and Charlie had picked the Rams. He was still nine points ahead of the field, though, pretty much impossible to catch, and Marge was still six behind as they went into the final week. It had been a weekend of upsets – the Seahawks beat the Raiders, the Chiefs beat the Broncos and the Lions beat the Jets – but Calvin had come away with nine points.

‘Say hi to your mom from me,’ Charlie called out as Calvin bundled up and headed out to clear the snow off his car. He didn’t bother answering.

Calvin hadn’t been home five minutes, was watching the news quietly on TV, when the banging started. Mother had a walking stick which she didn’t use to walk with as she rarely bothered to walk, but to bang on the floor of her bedroom to summon her son, calling out his name. With a sigh, Calvin hauled himself out of the La-Z-Boy and climbed up the stairs.

He hated Mother’s sick room, the unpleasant smells – she never opened the window and didn’t bathe very often – the way she lay there looking frail, hands like talons clutching the sheet tight around her neck as if he were going to rape her or something, when the very idea of her nakedness disgusted him.

‘Yes, Mother?’

‘You were out late.’

‘It was a long game.’

‘Anything could have happened to me. I could have had a seizure. What would I have done, then?’

‘Mother, you’re not going to have a seizure. The doctor told you yesterday your health’s just fine.’

‘Doctor, schmoctor. What does that quack know?’ Her tone became wheedling, flirtatious. ‘Calvin, baby, I can’t sleep. I’m having one of my bad nights. Make Mommy some hot milk and bring my pills, Little Calvin. Pull-leeeease.’

Calvin went back downstairs and poured some milk into a saucepan, enough for two, as he decided he might as well treat himself to some hot chocolate if he was heating up milk anyway. While he listened to the hiss of the gas flame and watched the milk’s surface change as it heated, he thought again how pleasant it would be if he had the guts to do something about Charlie Firth.

The man was insufferable. For a start, he was well off and always made a point of letting you know how much his possessions cost, from the Porsche to his leather Italian loafers. Women, of course, just wouldn’t leave him alone. He had a big house on Kingswood, prime Beach property – all to himself, as he had never married, probably because no woman in her right mind could stand his company for more than a night – and as well as winning the NFL pool, he had been his company’s real-estate agent of the year more than once. A success. And Calvin, what had he got? Nothing. Unemployment benefits. A savings account that was thinning out as quickly as his hair, a pot belly that seemed to be getting bigger, a hypochondriac mother who would probably live to torment him for ever, a small, gloomy, draughty row house on the wrong side of Victoria Park. Nothing. Sweet fuck all.

Bubbles started to surface on the milk. Time to turn down the heat. Mother hated it when he burnt the milk. Before he had even got the mugs out of the cupboard he heard the banging on the ceiling again. As if the silly old cow thought banging with that stick of hers would make milk boil any faster. He burned himself as he slopped the hot milk into the cup, forgot about his hot chocolate and hurried upstairs.

In the light of the next day, killing Charlie didn’t seem like such a good idea. Given Calvin’s luck, he was bound to get caught for a start. And, technically, Charlie would still be the winner. If you didn’t phone your picks in on time, the administrator assigned you the underdogs, and even with the DAWGS, as they were called, Charlie would still beat the field. He would be too dead to collect his winnings, of course, and Calvin supposed they would go to whoever came second.

The way the pool worked was every Wednesday before five o’clock you phoned in your picks, based on that day’s point spread, to the administrator, who ran the whole thing from his desk at one of the major newspapers downtown. You always got his answering machine with its curt message: ‘I’m away from my desk right now. Please leave your message after the beep.’ There were over a hundred people in the pool, at a hundred bucks each for the season, and in addition to the grand prize of $2000, there were also smaller weekly prizes. Calvin had actually covered this year’s entry fee on one weekly win. Usually by Friday evening a photocopy of everyone’s picks, along with the weekly and accumulated scores, was faxed to Jeff, who made copies and distributed them in the bar.

Calvin liked to see which teams everyone else had chosen – especially Charlie – but this week he would miss it. On Thursday he had to accompany Mother down to Fort Myers, where they would spend Christmas with their only living relatives, his Aunt Vicky and Uncle Frank, who had retired there seven years ago and were generous enough to help out with the airfare.

The Florida trip used to be the highlight of Calvin’s year. Not because he liked the place. Three or four days was about all he could stand. It was too hot and too full of old people, or people who didn’t speak English, as if Toronto wasn’t bad enough that way. No, what Florida used to mean to him was freedom, glorious freedom! Mother used to stay down there for at least six weeks, and as soon as she was ‘settled’ Calvin was allowed to go home alone. God only knew how Vicky and Frank put up with the old bat, Calvin thought, but they did. Now she was too worried about getting sick and not being able to afford US medical bills, so they were both returning on the following Wednesday.