Last of the Independents (21 page)

“Katherine,” I said.

She turned. She was wearing a leather bustier, fishnets on her arms, a streak of red in her hair. Thick makeup, black and crimson over white, a pincushion's worth of piercings. Her companion I eventually recognized as Scott, wearing combat boots and goggles and a KMFDM hoodie drawn tight around his head.

“Jesus, you're drunk,” she said.

“Happy Hallowe'en. Is this a costume or are you a goth?”

Underneath the corpse paint I saw her blush. “We're on our way to a club.”

“We've got nothing better to do,” I said, indicating Ben and myself. “Does this club serve booze?”

“It's kind of a private party,” she said.

“Whatever. So you dress like this when you're not at work or school?”

Katherine looked embarrassed but didn't deny it.

“You know it wouldn't bother me, you showing up for work like that. The dress code is lax at Hastings Street Investigations. I mean it.”

“Okay.” Doubtful. “See you tomorrow. Happy Hallowe'en.”

Scott nodded to us in turn. “Later.”

“Enjoy your vampire romance,” Ben said. “Have a glass of watered-down, de-wormwooded absinthe for me.”

“Fuck you,” Scott called back to him, his voice cracking.

“Kindergoths are so easy to wind up,” Ben said as we made our way back toward Doolin's.

“My cousin went through that,” I said. “Least they're not Nickelback fans.”

“There's that,” Ben admitted.

T
hrough sheer luck I maneuvered my car from the parkade on Granville to the parking spot behind my office. Ben and I split a cab from there. I had the cabbie drop me on Oak, figuring the walk would either sober me up or tire me out. It accomplished both.

The jack-o-lantern on my grandmother's porch had collapsed in on itself, extinguishing the candle. The air around the porch smelled of burnt pumpkin. I was happy to see the new porch light snap on as I approached. The old girl had figured it out.

Inside I poured myself a glass of water, then another, and another. I took my shoes off and moved into the living room. Something rustled on the couch and I dropped my empty glass on the rug.
Atero,
I thought,
here to return the favor
.

Amelia Yeats sat up on the couch and threw off the Hudson's Bay point blanket that my grandmother liked to offer guests. She was wearing one of my shirts. It looked better on her. She put her thumb and index finger into her mouth and pulled something out which she placed in a pink case on the lampstand.

“I wear a retainer,” she said, somewhat embarrassed. “Feel like watching television?”

“Should we maybe talk?”

“It can wait for the morning.”

I sat down next to her. She clicked through a few late-night movie stations, eventually settling on
Defending Your Life
. As we watched she leaned on my shoulder, moving down to rest her head on my lap. And then I was struggling out of my underwear as she took my cock in her mouth. When release came I pinned her beneath me on the couch and kissed down her torso till my tongue settled on the thatch of coarse hair and licked into the slit beneath it. Later, when the credits rolled and the movie started up again, so did we, finding a sweet rhythm beneath the rough wool of the blanket, sliding the cushions off the couch and finishing on the floor, with the only sound in the house our breath and blood.

I
t was jealousy, I told her. She said that Max and the others were friends and not even really that. Not sexual jealousy, I said. What other kind is there?

I told her I'd read a book once on the psychology of police officers. One of the reasons they tended to bend the law was a feeling of responsibility for things they couldn't possibly be responsible for. Justice weighs heavily on some people. They feel the entire city depends on them. They're aware of how flawed the system is and they can't change it, so they try to work around it.

She said, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I don't want to be responsible anymore,” I said. “I want to not care. People who don't give a shit about justice or about other people live happier lives. I've always felt that way. I see it on their faces.”

“You think I'm like that?”

I told her I didn't know.

“Maybe that's true,” she said. “I care about art. More than anything.”

“It makes you happy?”

“Sometimes,” she said. “What made you quit being a police officer?”

“I don't think I ever did.”

“But why'd you resign?”

“I'll tell you in the morning.”

“It's morning now,” she said.

The Flight of the Wild Atero

I
woke to the chirping of the house phone. I sat up. Yeats wasn't next to me. I was alone.

The clock read 11:37 a.m. The phone's ringing became a high-pitched jackhammer ripping up pavement in my frontal lobe.

I groped the floor, found my pants, found the phone and flipped it open.

Gavin Fisk's voice. “You forget you me and Cliff had an appointment?”

“Personal situation,” I said, sitting up. My head throbbed and my stomach felt as if one of H.R. Giger's abominations had crawled inside to devour its young. “Start without me, I'll be there in ten minutes.”

“Believe me I'd like to start without you. I'd like to be done by now. Only Szabo says he wants to talk to you before he'll talk to me. That better not be the sound of you getting out of bed, Mike.”

“Ten minutes,” I said.

I
t took me twenty-two minutes to wash and call for a cab and make the trip to the station. Fisk and Szabo stood by the door of the station in the light rain holding takeaway coffee cups.

Fisk banged a finger on his watch. I held up a finger in return.

“Minute with my client first,” I said, leading Cliff to the crosswalk.

“We were waiting,” he said.

“Yeah, I'm sorry.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose.

“You look hungover.”

“I am a bit.”

“This is how you look for my son?”

“I'm sorry I was late,” I reiterated. “I do have other cases, not to mention a life. And anyway, there's not much I can do till the police are finished. I know that's not pretty to hear, but it's a fact.”

He shook his head, more hurt than angry. He spotted the cast on my arm. His temper cooled long enough for me to tell him about the Ateros, the tape, and the vacant apartment.

“These girls might have Django?” he said, his anger and mistrust directed away from me.

“Seems like.”

“Why does Theo Atero want to hurt you if his brother doesn't have my son?”

“Family honour, I guess, which is stupid when you consider the family.”

Szabo deposited his coffee cup in the first bin we passed. “He lends money, Theo. A shylock. He has connections.”

“I'll watch out,” I said.

We ran out of awning and turned back towards Fisk. Szabo popped an antacid tablet. “Constable Fisk is going to the Island?” he said.

“On Monday, yes.”

“You'll go with him?”

“Tell him you think I should,” I said. “I'm sure he'll appreciate it.”

“My sister is sick,” he said. “She needs me. Otherwise I'd go. But I trust you.”

“It's important to me you do,” I said, thinking it was better he wasn't coming with us. “And I am sorry I was late.”

Fisk was on his phone. As we crossed the street he looked up, saw us, and said so I could hear, “He just came back. Want me to tell him?” He waited for instructions, then held out the cell for me. “Mira,” he said. “Your car — I'll let her tell it.”

“Mike,” she said. Beside me Szabo and Fisk were conferring. “Mike, listen. Did you park at your office last night?”

“Yeah. Spent the night out, decided to park it there so I wouldn't do anything stupid like drive under the influence. Why, I get a ticket? I didn't leave it unlocked, did I?”

“Your car's been vandalized, Mike.”

“How bad?”

“It looks like it was stripped for parts and then set on fire. Mark Eager is the constable in charge. He'll want to ask you about the Ateros.”

“I'll make time for him.” I'd never heard of Eager, but then I was out of the loop. Life seemed determined to push me ever further from my former job.

I had no doubt this was the work of the Ateros: trust the sons of a mechanic to strip parts from a car before torching it. I'd half-closed the deal with Chet Yates for the van. Now that would have to be fast-tracked, the van Air Cared and insured. Then there was the process of filling out an insurance form for the value of the Camry. Luckily my cameras and gear were in the office waiting for someone to catalogue and store the footage from the mortuary. I was out an overnight bag full of clothing and half a box of granola bars. Acceptable losses.

I passed the phone back to Fisk, whose expression had soured since beginning his talk with Szabo. He said, nodding at Szabo but looking at me, “You put your client up to asking that?”

“About me coming with you to the Island?” I shook my head. “His idea entirely.”

Fisk poured his cold coffee into the gutter. “Not only do I get to deal with some local RCMP clown, but I get to hang with a half-assed private eye too. Lucky fucking me.”

“You have an ability to bring people together, Gavin. Embrace it.”

T
he major casualty of the fire was the Camry's leather interior. The contents of the trunk were undisturbed, save for the permeating smell of gasoline. The hood had been forced up with a crowbar and left propped open. The catalytic converter, the distributor pad, and a few other easy-to-carry parts were gone. Eager had canvassed the neighbourhood. No one had seen anything. I answered his questions but didn't elaborate on the Atero brothers.

Once the car had been towed and Eager placated, I hiked up to my office, made tea and flipped through the mail. From the small balcony I couldn't see around the corner of the building where the car had burned. I could, however, see the front window of Grayson's Diner. If a person wanted to watch both the car and office, the front window of that greasy spoon offered the best vantage.

The sun was positioned such that I couldn't see through the window of Grayson's on account of the glare. The Ateros could have been inside, could still be there. I locked up the office and crossed the street to find out.

A few sallow-faced patrons sat on mismatched chairs, eating and looking over the racing forms. I reckoned most of them were dealing with hangovers at least as severe as mine. Grayson stood with his back to the register, wearing a grimy smock over a brown polo shirt with loose threads hanging from the sleeves. He fed carrots into a food processor which coughed the shredded remains into a bowl already filled with cabbage.

“The private eye from across the way,” he said, catching sight of me. “Used to come here when you first moved in. Not so much after that.”

“I brown bag it most days,” I said. The menu was written out on a whiteboard hung over the prep counter. “Have anything that will cure a hangover?”

Grayson brought a tub of mayonnaise from beneath the counter and began stripping the plastic seal around the lid. “If I did I'd own franchises,” he said, slopping two spoonfuls of mayo into the bowl and tossing the contents, the sailor girl on his bicep contorting as he worked the spoon through the mixture.

I waited until he was done to put in my order. “Grilled cheese and a Coke. Seen two guys in here, both white, brown hair and eyes, one about twenty-eight, lanky and fidgety, the other late thirties, stockier, balding?”

“Were they both maybe wearing T-shirts and jeans?” Grayson asked. He opened a package of brown bread and buttered two slices with a spatula. “Because that would describe three-quarters of my clientele.”

“They probably would've been in late last night, around the time of the fire.”

“Is that what this is about?” Mild curiosity on his face as he peeled a slice of American cheese, stuck it between the bread and dropped the sandwich onto the grill. “Was the younger one kind of pale? Druggy sort of look to him, like all he wants to do is score, and it's the bald guy keeping him from it?”

“Those are them.”

Grayson scraped at a spot on the grill. He took a paper plate from the stack and added a scoop of fresh slaw and a quarter of a dill pickle.

“Younger one had a milkshake. Bald guy ordered a bacon cheddar. Threw a fit when I told him we don't serve fries past midnight. I told him the deep fryers are off at 11:30, says so on the board.” Indeed it did.

“So they were in after twelve?”

“Squeezed in at 1:20,” he said. “Left at 1:40, ten minutes past closed.” I handed him a five dollar bill. He began to make change. I shook my head.

“Don't know what it is about me,” he said, “but I've started to lose my nerve. Probably on account of having my balls beat off last year by a couple of crackheads.”

I ate my sandwich standing by the counter. Undercooked but not half bad. I stood the ketchup bottle on its head for a solid minute and couldn't get anything out.

“Maybe you sensed they were going to make a move,” I said.

“Maybe,” Grayson said. “Hallowe'en does tend to bring the fruitcakes out of the woodwork. Closing time, people try all kinds of scams they'd never have the nerve for mid-day. Still, when I think back on them sitting there, me making a racket putting up chairs, hoping they'll take the hint, I can't help think to myself, why didn't you just tell them, ‘Hey assholes, we close at half past one?'”

I had some of the slaw to be polite but left the pickle.

“You probably did yourself a favor,” I said. “Those aren't two guys I'd start a fight with, I could help it.” According to Katherine and McEachern, I thought, I'd done just that.

“Was that your car?” Grayson asked me. I nodded. “You think those two torched it?”

I tossed the plate. “More than possible.”

I saw Ben walk up from the bus stop and enter my door. I crossed the street and found him at the top of the staircase catching his breath. I unlocked the door and let him inside. As usual he took the client's chair and let his eyes settle on the Loeb file. Every time he did so it seemed to take him longer to find his way back to the present business.

“I heard about the fire,” he said eventually.

“From the cops?”

“Yeah but don't worry, I alibi'd for you.”

I poured us each a cup of tea. “You told Eager the truth,” I said.

“I told him I was with you all night.”

“Great thinking,” I said. “I told him I was with you till I went home. Which is what happened. Which is what I expected you to tell them.”

“But then they'd suspect you, since for part of the evening you were alone.”

“I wasn't alone.”

“Oh.” A grin breaking out on his face. “You patched things up with Yeats?”

“Who was gone when I got up this afternoon.” I sat in my chair but didn't tip it back. I wasn't yet sure the grilled cheese would keep down, and I wanted as direct a course to the washroom as possible should my stomach reject it.

“Are you going to phone her?”

“I was thinking I would.” I spun the phone around so the receiver was within Ben's reach. “First, though, you're going to phone Eager and straighten out your story.”

While he did that I checked the messages on the office line. Nothing from Yeats. One from a number I didn't know. No text or voicemail, just a phone call and the sound of hanging up. Time: 12:38 a.m.

I dialed the mystery number. On the first ring someone picked up. “Landmark Logistix?”

The warehouse where Theo Atero worked. I asked for him.

“Theo's out for the day. I could take a message or I could pass you along to the assistant floor manager.”

“Message,” I said. “Tell him I have proof he and his brother torched my car. Tell him not only will the police be given copies of the proof to aid their investigation, but I'll also be sending copies to the Better Business Bureau, Workplace Safety, Customs and Border Patrol. Not to mention all major news outlets in the Lower Mainland. Tell him starting tomorrow his place of business will be under more scrutiny than the Zapruder film. That's all.”

“Are you saying Theo was involved in some sort of crime?”

“Search his brother Zak's name in the news and you'll see what sort of person Theo is.”

I hung up. Ben was emptying sugar packets into his tea. “You don't have proof,” he said.

“Nope.”

“And you probably just cost him his job. Even if he was squeaky clean I wouldn't keep him on after that.”

“It won't make a dent in his income, losing that job, but it's taxable. He'll have to find another way to declare the money he makes. It's a nuisance, anyway.”

“Is that what you want to do to the guy?” Ben asked. “Be a nuisance?”

“I'm not going to burn one of his cars in retaliation.”

“I don't see why not,” Ben said.

A
t three a tired and disheveled Katherine, still in her goth attire, appeared on the stairwell monitor. “I left my clothes here,” she explained. “I was going to change before going home.”

“Your parents don't know you're a — ” Ben searched for the right phrase, “— Bride of Lugosi?”

“They know,” she said. “It makes things easier if they don't have to see it. How's any of that your problem?”

“It's not,” Ben said, “but it's a silly subculture. And the music is awful. I can see Scott going for it because he's a dolt, but you, I thought, were smarter than that.”

“Guess not,” Katherine said. “My first choice was to lie around in my underwear all day playing Xbox and not getting laid, but I just wasn't up to the high standards you set for yourself. And as for music you're one to talk, Mr. Last-Concert-I-Went-To-Was-A-Symphony-Orchestra-Playing-Music-From-
Zelda.
”

I told them both to shut up. Theo and Zak Atero and Zak's Asian partner had appeared on the monitor.

“Hide in the washroom,” I told Ben and Katherine. Neither of them moved. I wasn't sure if that was loyalty or they disliked the idea of being trapped together in a confined space. I nodded to Ben to open the door for the Ateros. He did, and came back to stand next to me behind the table.

“I should throw you off the balcony for what you said to my boss,” Theo said. “You know I'm suspended without pay?”