Last of the Independents (12 page)

“I thought you were in the basement playing those computer games,” Aunt June said to Kaylee. “Your cousin been keeping you safe?” To me she said, “She hasn't been a nuisance, has she?”

“Furthest thing from it,” I said, lifting Saran Wrap off the turkey platter.

Kaylee smiled, a tinge of pride in her pale face.

After dinner, with the grandmothers asleep in front of the tube and the two of us hunched over the dining room table, Kaylee said, “That was fucking badass.”

“It was fucking badass, wasn't it?”

“Don't worry, I won't tell anyone.”

I uncorked another bottle, the last of the case, and she pushed her mug forward expectantly. Here I was presented with the moral dilemma of the cool adult: do I cut her off for her own good, losing her trust, or do I continue to supply a seventeen year-old with liquor, staying cool and turning a blind eye to the consequences? I thought of myself at seventeen, thought,
hell with it
, and filled her glass to the brim. If that was her first drink, she was overdue.

“So is that kind of stuff usual?” she asked.

“No.”

“What mainly do you do? Spy on people?”

“Sometimes.”

“Like catch cheating wives?”

“That racket hinged upon obscure divorce laws from mid-last century,” I said. “Nowadays anyone can get a divorce for any reason. But occasionally you do get someone with an issue of trust.”

“Do you own a gun?”

“Two. Handgun and a shotgun. And they're locked up at the office, case your next question was, ‘Can I hold them?'”

“Ever kill anyone?” Smiling drunkenly, ashamed a little at the childishness of the question.

“Several,” I said. “Once a year at least, just to keep in practice. You?”

“Not yet,” she said, “but I'm a quick learner. What kind of equipment do you use?”

“Eighty percent of it can be done with a computer.”

“And the other twenty-five, I mean, twenty percent?”

“Legwork, mostly.”

“Tell me about some of your cases.”

I told her in general terms about the Szabos.

“Sucks,” she said. “There's no, like, leads or anything?”

“There's a car thief who might know something.”

“You haven't talked to him?”

“Not yet.”

“You haven't tried?”

I drained my mug, topped it up, pushed the bottle towards her. All the wine glasses were in the dishwasher, so we used Aunt June's Christmas gift from two years ago, a matching pair of coffee mugs with embossed horse heads on the front and horse-themed literary quotations on the back. Kaylee's read, “His neighing is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.” Mine said, “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”

I told her, “If I talk to him, he'll know he's being watched. I figured I'd eschew direct confrontation till I can get a bead on him.”

I watched Kaylee struggle with the bottle. I reached over and steadied her pouring hand.

“Why not go to the cops? I mean the pigs,” she said, recalling Amelia Yeats's term and giggling.

“Same reason,” I said. “If the pigs are involved — the cops — he'll give us nothing. And if there's even the slightest chance the Szabo kid is alive, I don't want the kidnapper suddenly concerned about leaving evidence.”

“You think he's dead?”

“Almost certain.”

“Szabo,” she said, turning the name over. “I remember seeing him on a flyer. If he's alive, where do you think he is?”

“Obviously if I knew that —”

“No,” Kaylee said, “what I mean is, like, what kind of place would he be? Someone's home?”

Anywhere from a home to a hole in the ground
, I thought, then realized with disgust that I'd said it out loud.

Her black-rimmed eyes teared up. I passed her one of my grandmother's neatly-triangled linen napkins.

“You can't leave him like that,” she said.

“No.”

“You have to find him.”

“I wish it were that easy, cos,” I said.

“Yeah.” She stared at the inscription on the back of the mug. “‘His countenance enforces homage.' The fuck does that even mean?”

I
let her have the bed and watched with amusement as the dog, gorged on giblets and table scraps, curled up next to her. I sat in the old armchair with headphones on listening to Koko Taylor until I couldn't take it and picked up the phone.

I was exuberant from helping Yeats, chastened by my talk with Kaylee, and more than a little drunk, but mostly I was overconfident. I'd helped a damsel and I'd seen the body of an old enemy. For a brief moment I felt like I was more than a poor bastard whose best-case scenario was not adding too much to the misfortunes of others. It was time to Do Something.

At the office I had a small file on Atero, but I kept the original sheet that Mira had given me in my wallet. I pulled it out and smoothed it, then looked up Theo Atero's phone number. I asked for Zak.

“Who's calling?”

“Mike,” I said.

“One moment.” Clump-clump-clump down the stairs, a brief back-and-forth between the brothers.

Then: “This is Zak, man. What up?”

“My name's Drayton. Your contact info was in a cellphone I found on the bus this morning.”

“Don't know no one that takes the bus. Turn it in to Lost and Found, man.”

“To be honest with you, Mr. Atero, the phone was in a jacket pocket on the seat next to me. In the other pocket was a paper bag containing a rather large sum.”

“Really.”

“Yes. You can understand my reluctance in turning this over to Lost and Found.”

“Totally,” Atero said. “What'd you say your name was?”

“Michael Drayton. Let me give you my office address. Could you come around tomorrow afternoon and pick it up?”

He could.

Ko Business

K
nowing
Atero didn't rise until late afternoon didn't make me less anxious to get to the office early. By seven I'd quieted my stomach with a pot of tea, deposited an Anusol where the dog needed it, and warned my grandmother I might be late. I was at the office by 7:30. The lights were already on.

Inside, Katherine was at her desk, head lowered so her forehead almost touched the textbook. She looked up groggily at me.

“Biology,” she said.

I set the kettle to boil and lifted off the wall panel behind the door. Behind it was a wireless hard drive that backed up both computers, a fireproof document box, and a smaller wooden box that held my Glock 31. I brought out the pistol and set about cleaning and loading it. After handling Chet Yates's Elvis revolver, the automatic felt like a toy.

“I started at five this morning and I think I'm dumber now,” Katherine said. “Bio stinks. The midterm is straight memorization, a hundred terms. Prokaryotic and eukaryotic. Kingdom Phylum Class Something Family Genus Species. I can never remember what the ‘on' stands for in ‘kids play catch on the farmer's green shed.' Organism? That can't be right.”

“Can't help you there,” I said. “Straight B-minuses in everything that wasn't English or Crim.”

Her monologue of academic despair continued as I fed .357 shells into the gun's clip. Eventually she got around to asking what I was doing.

“Getting ready for my meeting with Zak Atero,” I said.

“Here? When?”

“We agreed on this afternoon. By Zak's sleep schedule that probably means four, but he could show earlier.”

“This is a person who might have kidnapped a child.”

“We don't know anything for sure. Hence the meet.”

I tucked the box away, replaced the panel. I sat at the table with the Szabo file in front of me and the Loeb file like a hillock to my right. I placed the gun in the file cabinet by my side.

“You're not worried that he knows where to find you?” Katherine asked me.

“Anyone with an internet connection knows where to find me.”

She sighed. “You could have told me beforehand.”

“I did. You've got hours before you should be out of here.”

“That's what you want me to do, is it?”

She rolled her fancy chair over to the table so we were eye to eye.

“Can I be frank? I feel like you're putting me in a box.”

I pushed the monitor and keyboard aside. “We're going to have
this
conversation, are we?”

“Every time you do something like this I either have to agree with you or become this shrewish feminine stereotype who poo-poos anything the boys want to do and ruins their fun. And I don't want to be in that position.”

“You're taking a Gender Studies course, aren't you?”

“Don't shut it down like that. It's helping me articulate what I've been dealing with since I started working with you.” She squared her shoulders. “At times you can be like the guy who makes sexist jokes in the workplace, and when someone calls him on it, says, ‘Why can't you women have a sense of humour?'”

“I defy you to name something misogynist I've done or said to you, ever.”

“It's not about you, Mike, don't get defensive. It's about our relationship.” Quickly adding, “At work. This is the second time you've put me in a position where I either have to put myself in harm's way, or else have you think I'm a ball buster. And don't say it's because you care so much about the Szabo kid. I know your intentions are good. This is about the way you do things, not what you're trying to do.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to act like my main objection hadn't just been kicked out from under me. “You know I respect your opinion — least I hope you know that. Why else would I want you to stay on? Far as putting you at risk, you're not supposed to work today. Last thing I want is to get you in any kind of jackpot.”

“Thank you.”

“I'll admit that this confrontation with Atero could be a mistake. I took a shot with the pawn shop and I'm taking one here because I don't see any options. And I hope you appreciate that.”

“I do,” Katherine said.

“And I can't promise you that however this resolves itself, I won't head right into another pile of shit. It's how I work. It's not a perilous job but it does have its risks.”

She was nodding, ready to reply, but I was fired up now.

“And I'll tell you something else,” I said. “I like that part of my work. Yesterday I disarmed a lunatic, put my cousin at risk, almost got myself shot.”

“On Thanksgiving?”

I nodded. “Best holiday I've had in a while. I'm not an adrenaline junkie, but I won't deny that part of me wants to push things. I like putting people under pressure and seeing what happens. And I like being put under pressure. You learn things that way. My grandfather was like that, and I can see my cousin's going to be, if she isn't already. So maybe it's genetic.”

“And I'm not like that, is what you're saying.” Katherine withdrew her hands from the table. “You don't even know me, what I've been through.”

“It's not about you,” I said, quoting her. “It's how you react. Me, I jump into the fray.”

“Or start the fray.”

“Right,” I said. “And you're more staid. More prudent. But we seem to work well together.”

“Occasionally.”

“So how do we make this work? Do you want out?”

“No,” she said. “I don't want out.”

“Do you want to stay?”

“I don't know.”

“You should decide that soon.”

S
o often after a blow-up, the easiest way to go on with things is to act as if it never occurred. Katherine studied and I sent out emails to the various groups and agencies that make up my Monday morning mailing list. Weekly emails aggravate some people, but most are sympathetic to a missing-child inquiry. I worked through the list for Django James Szabo and then ran the same list for Cynthia Loeb.

I had a message from Pastor Flaherty saying he'd set up an interview for Mr. Szabo with the local news. He asked if I wanted to be present. I wrote him back saying that if Mr. Szabo requested it, I'd be there, but otherwise no. I hate being on television — I look greasy and eager, and since I don't censor myself with any consistency, I tend to say the least helpful thing.

At ten past ten, three people came through the door, none of them Zak Atero. Two looked to be in their sixties and all three were Chinese. We shook hands. When they seated themselves, the elderly couple sat across from me, while their grandson or nephew interpreted. The elderly man wore a blue short-sleeved dress shirt, red and black tie, dark blue pants with a sharp crease, and a digital watch with orange buttons. His wife wore black slacks and a green padded jacket, and sunglasses she never took off. Their grandson or nephew wore hip hop brands, cutting edge, but out of deference to his elders, his jersey was tucked in and his baseball cap was spun brim forward. His name was Frank, and the family name was Ko.

Their story was a straightforward custody-related trace job. The Kos' youngest son had married a white woman and they'd had a child, named Michael of all things. The son had flown to Taiwan on a business trip a year and a half ago. He'd been killed when his taxi was broadsided by a bus. In the aftermath, his wife Rita managed to piss away her share of her husband's life insurance, from what I understood not an insignificant sum.

As Frank told it, Rita had made unreasonable financial demands on the Kos, which had been turned down. A month ago, in retaliation, she took her son out of school, cleaned out her condo, and skipped town, leaving no note and no contact information.

It sounded to me like a leverage move rather than a genuine attempt to sever ties. Rita seemed to be hoping that the family would be more supportive if she denied them access to Michael for a time. My suspicion was that she'd moved out to the suburbs, or possibly the Island, and was living under her maiden name, Riley. Sure enough, when I found them a week later, they were subletting a basement suite in an area of Fort Langley called Walnut Grove. Rita was working part-time in a strip mall electronics store, shtupping the evenings-and-weekends manager while little Michael languished in daycare.

When Frank and the Kos had signed the contract and left, I said to Katherine, “You plan on moving to Montreal when you graduate?”

“Haven't thought about it,” she said. “I guess I'd go if a job was there. Why?”

“You're learning French.”

“You might not be aware, Mike, but Canada is a bilingual nation.”

“French won't help you much if you stick around Vancouver. Why not learn Mandarin?”

“Why don't you learn Mandarin?”

“I'm sitting here thinking that myself,” I said. “Might increase my client base, give me an edge. Learning French is like learning Latin, least if you live in B.C. Aside from reading the back of a Cheerios box, it's of little practical use.”

“I'll inform the millions of Francophones you feel that way.”

“You do that.”

A while later she said, “You don't know any French?”

“‘
Est-ce que je peux aller aux toilettes
?' is about the sum of it.”

K
atherine left at one to catch a bus to the college. I pretended it was a work day like any other and sat at my table fielding emails. After a point preparation becomes counterproductive. The readiness is not all.

Atero appeared on the stair camera at four. I was on the phone with Cliff Szabo finalizing plans for the interview. The journalist had talked his station into filming a news segment on Django James, replete with a rundown of the case, interviews with the principles, and probably a lot of shots of Django's father walking the streets alone, turning his grief-stricken visage off-camera and sighing wistfully. Horseshit, yes, but that's what it takes to get on the box.

I made Atero wait on the landing until I'd concluded with Szabo, then ushered him in. He took in the room with brief sweeps of his head, nodding hyper-actively. Tweaked, possibly. I sat down and motioned for him to do the same.

Up close Zachary Atero exhibited several signs of drug use, most obvious being the grey pallor to his skin. He clasped his hands, rubbed them, turned his wristwatch and fiddled with his cellphone, all before we even began to speak.

“So, yeah,” he said, rubbing at his temple.

I tipped my chair back. “So.”

“You got something for me, is what you said.”

“Did I?”

“Some sort of paper bag, I think it was.” He sniffed, ran his hand under his nose reflexively, caught himself, and wiped his hand on his sequin-covered hoodie.

“Is that why you're here?”

Perplexed and grinning, Atero said, “You called me.”

“But why are we here?”

“Why are you —”

“Why am I sitting behind this table, across from you? Why would I want to do that on a Tuesday afternoon?”

Grinning still, all a misunderstanding. “How exactly would I know, dude, when you're the one that set this up?”

“Guess, Zak. Guess why I'm talking to you. What I want from you.”

Eyes narrowing, cagey. “You're a cop?”

“I'm a botanist,” I said. “Answer the question. What could I want from you?”

Snorting, sniffing, standing up. Pushing back from the table, glancing towards the door. His movements circular, hesitant.

“Not sure 'zactly what you want me to say.”

“Django James Szabo.”

One eyebrow raised. “What's that?”

I pushed Django's Missing flyer across the table. Atero took a step forward, looked down, then back at me. Dead-eyed, trying his best to keep me from reading his reaction.

Child abductor
, I thought.

“I don't fucking know anything about a missing kid,” he said.

“Who would you suggest I ask?”

“Man, how would I know? I look like I should have a kid around me?”

“No,” I said.

“So why ask me?”

“I figured you might know.”

“Well I don't.” He moved towards the door, then spun back, angry. “And I shouldn't be made to answer questions like a common criminal and be treated like that. It's against my rights.”

Now I stood up and came around the table and looked down into his hatchet face. “Why, 'cause you're a bag boy for some dipshit bookie?”

Grinning and pulling back, he said, “You don't have a clue who I represent, do you?”

“Ask me if it keeps me up nights.”

“Lloyd Crittenden. Know who he works for?” A broad smile, about to play his trump card. “Tony Chow.”

The name resonated. “He's incarcerated.”

“Doesn't mean he doesn't know what goes on,” Atero said. “Or that he won't stick up for his boy.”

“And you're his boy?”

“Like this,” he said, folding his middle finger over the index.

The grin lost its voltage as I stared at him, a standard police issue eye-fucking, driving his grand rebellion back down to a petulant defiance.

“This Crittenden,” I said, “he's your boss?” Making it sound demeaning.

“We work together,” Atero said.

“You work for him?”

“Yeah.”

“Take me to him.”

Eyebrows shooting up. “Pardon?”

“Let's go see him,” I said.

“I can't just do that.”

Reaching to the table without breaking eye contact, I picked up one of my cards and handed it to him. “Give this to Crittenden,” I said.

“Michael Drayton Hastings Street Investigations Last of the Independents,” he read without inflection or pause.

Atero turned the card in his hand, probably weighing the pros and cons of tearing it up and throwing the scraps at my feet. Eventually he nodded. “I'll tell him.” He left, pausing at the top of the stairs for one last scowl before the descent.