Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (72 page)

Dan parked a block away. He slipped into the yard during a lull in traffic. No use getting reported as suspicious by some overzealous commuter. One Crime Busters tip on a cellphone and he’d have the police on his back in minutes.

Someone had done him a favour by forcing the front door. A remedial padlock had met a similar fate. Surprisingly, the home’s glass was intact. In Dan’s youth, windows would have been the first things to go. Sudbury boys were amazingly adept at destruction. A grade school friend, Rex, had taught him first how to aim and throw and then how to break windows. The two went hand in hand. Windows on empty houses were for breaking — that was the rule. Construction sites were for getting into and undoing all the hard work the builders had done by day. A freshly plastered wall just invited a can of pop to be spilled over it, causing the surface to bubble and slide off. Mayhem and madness. Looking back, Dan thought with shame of his own renovation project, hoping Toronto kids had better things to do with their time.

His nostrils caught the tang of urine. Every abandoned building smelled of it. Inside, things were in a desperate state. What the owners hadn’t stripped before leaving had been attacked with vigour by trespassers once the home closed. The day room looked like a club for the insane and disreputable. The walls had been tagged and sprayed by a number of hands in a Gallery of the Anonymous. Mauves and golds predominated. Faded Doric columns floated to the ceiling,
while acanthus leaves littered the bases. A legion of naked gladiators tussled in erotic frenzy, dragging the local population of nymphs and cherubs into the X-rated arena. A dominatrix sporting black knickers and a see-through brassiere towered on foot-high stilettos. Madness gleamed in her eyes; lightning bolts blazed from her nipples. An erotic nightmare giving you the come on. It was as though Ilsa the SS officer had swallowed the Roman coliseum and vomited all over the walls.

Paint struggled to free itself from the walls in every room. A bathtub had been ripped from its moorings and set sail in the middle of a hallway. The place was a proto-punk funhouse, an Iggy Pop nightmare. Dan followed the long dark corridor to a door at the far end. Inside, a half-drained swimming pool was filled with detritus, its plastic covering peeled back and pushed under. Chairs and side tables lay drowning in the swampy water. Here, the smell of urine was supplanted by a kingdom of mould.

Emerging from the room, Dan heard voices coming down the stairs. He froze, wondering if he was about to encounter Gaetan Bélanger. He tucked into a darkened alcove. Two youngish looking men were descending:

1st man: “I got fifteen bucks last night just from begging on the corner.”

2nd man: “Really?”

1st man: “Yeah, man. I got to the LCBO by nine thirty, drank till eleven thirty, and passed out by twelve.”

2nd man: “Good night?”

1st man: “Oh, yeah!”

They moved out of sight. Dan heard them leaving by the front door. He kept his ears primed for additional voices. There was no other sound apart from his footsteps as he went from room to room. On the second floor, the rows of doorways beckoned him into the abandoned quarters of former-residents. All open except for one. Whoever was using the place as a hotel probably lived here.

Dan felt absurd knocking on a door in an empty building. He was tempted to claim he was a police officer but doubted whether anyone inside would care. He called out. Nothing stirred within.

Well, then. That made things easier. Locks were simple to pick — a tension wrench and a paperclip were all it took for the most common variety. No need for messy break-ins. This one was about as basic as
it got. Obviously, the staff didn’t want granny barricading herself in the room with her powders and pills. Dan inserted the wrench and twisted. He jabbed the paperclip, feeling the up-thrust till the tumblers fell in place. He was inside in less than a minute.

It was surprisingly clean. A mattress lay on the floor, empty pop cans scattered around it. Someone had swept a pile of litter into a corner. A single window looked onto a wooden fence and the wrecking yard on the other side. Not the most inspiring view to comfort you in your final days, but not a total disaster either. Anyone hiding out here would be safe from prying eyes.

A blue blazer hung in the closet. Little Boy Blue’s room then.

In the bathroom Dan found sample-sized containers of soap and shampoo, alongside a canister of shaving cream and a pack of disposable razors. A can of Nair sat on the edge of a tub beside an empty packet of hair dye and a used towel. A canister of hairspray lay overturned in a corner. Whoever lived here was obsessed with hair products. Change your hair colour, change your life. Little Boy Blue seemed to be a practitioner of disguises.

Apart from the empty pop cans and a few candy bar wrappers, there was no sign of food. A bottle of contact lens cleaner sat perched on a pile of sci-fi paperbacks. Dan picked up the top one. It was in French.

He snapped a few photos with his cell phone and left, locking the door behind him. As he crept down the stairs, he saw the camera Velvet Blue had rigged at the entryway. If he hadn’t been looking, he might never have noticed it.

Outside, he placed a small flat stone up against the base of the door to tell him if anyone entered between now and when he returned. He looked at the sky. A storm hovered on the horizon like some sort of omen.

Twenty-Two

No One Can Be Nowhere

“It’s important to Donny,” Trevor told him. “You already stood him up once. He’s getting frantic. He kept saying how much he needs you now.”

Dan sat across the table from Trevor. He’d just come in, beating the storm by minutes. His gut was telling him the other thing needed his attention more than Donny and his cockamamie scheme to bring a wayward boy back to the fold.

Trevor continued. “He requested a pow-wow tonight. He wants us to help him brainstorm how we can help Lester.”

Dan envisioned a SWAT team in vests, armed with Kalishnikovs and battering down the door of a dreary Oshawa bungalow, wide-eyed neighbours on the lawn wondering why the television cameras were there as Donny led the others in a vain attempt at liberating a boy who, as far as Dan was concerned, had gone willingly into captivity.

Trevor’s expression softened. “Then again, you look pretty tired. I can make excuses for you, if you prefer.”

Dan shook his head. “No, it’s all right. You don’t need to play secretary for me.”

“Hey! You are my life’s purpose at this moment.”

Dan smiled. “Lord and master?”

“Just about.”

Dan’s gaze drifted off. What had that witch of a mother said to make Lester come home? No doubt she’d put on the charm the same way she’d put on her mohair sweaters and bubblegum pink nails before crooking a cruel finger at the son who’d escaped her evil claws once, only to be seduced into returning. Dan wondered how much distance lay between a boy like Lester and someone like Gaetan Bélanger. Probably not much.

Trevor was watching him. “Where are you, Dan?”

Dan shook his head. “Just thinking.”

“Really? What a surprise. About anything in particular?”

Dan nodded. “I’d like to meet this kid.”

“What kid?”

Dan pulled the photograph of Bélanger from his breast pocket and laid it on the table.

“You’re not serious?” Trevor stared at him. “He’s already killed three people. Were you thinking he might consent to a quiet little interview with you?”

Dan shrugged. “I think we’d have things in common. He comes from the same kind of background as me.”

Outside the wind blew wildly. Rain slashed at the windows. The storm was coming on full tilt.

“I might remind you it’s a background you’ve spent a lot of time distancing yourself from,” Trevor said.

Dan shrugged. “I have a messy past. I don’t deny it. In the end it made me stronger, less afraid. But this kid’s only sixteen. I’m more than twice his age and I can see these things now. I need to talk to him and let him know it gets better. That it
can
get better.”

“Not with three murders on his conscience. He’s likely to be desperate.”

“I know this kid, Trevor. He thinks no one understands what he went through. And maybe it’s true, but it doesn’t matter. Not really.”

“You think it would help him to try to relate to you?”

Dan studied the picture on the table. The wary eyes and dark circles beneath them that spoke of inner torture, things that haunted him, real or otherwise.

“Who are you, my friend? Just another lost boy? Where are you right now?”

Trevor put a hand on Dan’s arm, pulling him back to the real world. “If he’s living in abandoned warehouses and hiding from the police, you can’t even begin to imagine the state of mind he must be in.”

“Yes, I can. I slept in parks. I sold my body to survive.”

“But no one was hunting you down for murder.” Trevor studied Dan’s face. “You’re worrying me.”

Dan came around the table and hugged him so tightly that Trevor had to make him stop.

“I won’t endanger myself,” Dan said. “Not so long as I’ve got you and Ked in my life.”

Trevor rubbed his arm. “Okay. So what do we do now?”

Dan looked up. “We bring things from the darkness into the light.”

Trevor gave him a blank look. “I was referring specifically to Donny’s invitation.”

“Oh, that. I guess we better get over there.”

It was time for the posse party. Donny had invited Domingo as well. They all bumped into one another in the lobby. Domingo’s hair was slicked to her skull like a Hollywood-styled mercenary-for-hire, as though she’d come groomed for the part.

To Dan, it seemed as if the lobby in Donny’s building was perpetually filled with twenty-somethings in search of the next party. Their ringing hilarity was at odds with the small, silent cabal gathered to help form a plan to spring Lester from his prison-home.

The concierge nodded to the twenty-somethings while casting gloomy glances at Dan, Trevor, and Domingo, as though they’d come to storm the walls of the Bastille. Donny came down to meet them, hugging them solemnly one by one.

“Hi, and thank you very much for coming,” he intoned like some novice diplomat addressing a committee convened to discuss nuclear disarmament between hostile nations.

He looked worn and haggard. Dan wondered if he’d been sleeping erratically the past few weeks while thinking of ways to rescue Lester. No one spoke as they rode up in the elevator, while the fidgety twenty-somethings checked their cellphones for nonexistent messages.

“I’ve spent a long time thinking about things,” Donny began as they exited into his hallway.

They waited till he closed his condo door and put the lock on the chain, cloistering them like a party of counter-revolutionaries planning an assassination. Gavrilo Princip and his cronies hunting the Archduke Ferdinand.

“My first thought was to offer them money for Lester, but I realized that was not a very practical solution. Not to mention that I don’t have much to offer.”

Dan shook his head. “That would be tantamount to buying a child. Besides being impractical, it’s illegal. I won’t support anything against the law.”

Donny made a face. “Well, that leaves out just about every plan I’ve come up with.”

“Then we’ll have to come up with something different,” Domingo said.

Donny ushered them into the sitting room. In place of his usual impeccable hosting, he had put out bowls of nuts and finger snacks with a tall bottle of Grey Goose beside several shot glasses and a bucket of ice. Dispensing with the frivolities was how he put it.

“Help yourselves,” he told them.

It was a solemn gathering. Donny stood with his back to the fireplace. His condo was built for maximum light exposure, leaving everyone perfectly lit as they stared at one another.

“When did you last hear from Lester?” Dan asked, thinking someone had better direct this meeting.

“A couple days ago. He called in the evening. I spoke to him briefly before he had to get off the phone. He says they monitor him night and day. It’s making him crazy. They keep him locked in his room and won’t let him leave the house without one of them by his side.”

From its position in the hall, Donny’s newest art acquisition, with its swirling twilight colours, seemed an apt rendering of his internal state. Dan wondered if he paced back and forth in front of it when he was alone.

“Not surprising,” Dan said. “He was a runaway for more than a year. They also have a good idea what sort of things he got involved in to make money while he was on the street. It’s in his best interest not to go back to that.”

“He won’t,” Donny said vehemently. “I’ve talked to him about that. It’s in the past. We need to let it rest.”

“It may be in Lester’s past,” Dan reminded him. “But it’s no doubt very much in his parents’ minds at present. They know he was involved with prostitution when he disappeared for a year. I’d be wary of his movements, too.”

Donny started to speak, but Dan held him off.

“I know what you’re going to say. Lester needs to get away from them regardless. I agree, so long as he
wants
to get away from them.”

“He does. I asked him.”

“Okay. So what options do we have? Kidnapping is out. I won’t support anything illegal, as I’ve said.”

Domingo used the tongs to fish an ice cube from the bucket. She splashed a little vodka into the glass after it. “What about luring him to a shopping mall or public space?” she suggested, swirling her drink. “He could just sneak away while their attention is distracted.”

“You mean some kind of vigilante rescue operation?” Dan asked. “No way. That’s still kidnapping. He’s underage.”

“For another three weeks,” Donny said, a look of resolve clinging to his features.

Dan put a hand on his forearm. “Another three weeks is not forever.”

“I won’t forgive myself if anything happens to him in the meantime.”

Dan shook his head. “Nothing’s going to happen to him that hasn’t already happened. The parents may try to brainwash him into thinking he’s straight, but they are not going to kill him.” Dan looked around the table. “The facts are simple: on his sixteenth birthday, he can voluntarily leave home and go where he wants. If they try to hold him, they can be charged with forcible confinement.”