Quid Pro Quo (12 page)

“B.C. sd mt. No 1 hrt. K Died. C.R. wnt to B.C. B.C. sd jail. No kds.”

“Bob Chisling said the Hall was empty. Said no one would get hurt. Consuela did what Bob asked her. Then Karl died.” That was the Carlos Consuela and Byron were talking about in the park—and Chisling said, If you tell, you'll go to jail for murdering him and never see your children again.

I knew it sounded a little far-fetched, but maybe that's why Chisling was getting away with it. He couldn't risk burning the building down himself. He also couldn't risk asking around until he found someone he could pay to do it for him. (What if they blabbed?)

But what was the downside of forcing Consuela to do it? He didn't have to pay her. She was too scared to talk. And if she was like most mothers, she'd do whatever she had to do to see her kids again.

It was perfect—in a sick sort of way.

I decided to ask Consuela if I was right.

chapter
thirty-four
Ward of court

A minor child under the care of a guardian

T
here were only two Chislings in the Halifax phone book One who lived on Artz Street, just around the corner from us (I was willing to bet that wasn't Big Bob), and one on Bloomingdale Terrace.

La-di-dah.

That sounded just like the kind of place he'd live.

I thought for a second about heading over on my skateboard and knocking on the door, but I couldn't do that. Bob knew my face, and I didn't think he'd be too happy to see it again.

I decided to call Consuela on the phone instead. I know that sounds kind of stupid because she didn't speak much English, and I didn't speak Spanish, but I thought of a way around it—I hoped.

I knew a few Spanish words from Bonanza Burrito commercials (and Speedy Gonzales cartoons, of course. Who says watching TV is a waste of time?). She knew Byron and Andy's names. And she had to know where Citadel Hill is. (It's this big giant fort right in the middle of town. Everybody knows where Citadel Hill is.)

So this is what I was going to say (and I was going to say it really, really slowly): “Byron… Andy… Manana… Citadel Hill… Que hora es? Uno.”

I knew “manana” meant “tomorrow,” and I really, really hoped that “Que hora es?” meant “What time is it?” and not “How hot do you like your Bonanza Burrito?” “Uno” had to mean “one.” What else could it mean?

If everything went right, I'd be meeting her the next day at the Citadel at one o'clock. I figured that would give me enough time to find a good Spanish-English dictionary.

I called the phone number and put on this really cheesy accent. “A-lo. I woulda lika to speaka to Consuela Rodriguez.”

A woman who sounded Spanish answered the phone. “I'm sorry but Consuela ees no long-air hhhere.”

I sort of knew she'd say that even before she said it.

“Canna youa tell me wherea she issa?”

“Consuela went hhhhome to May-hi-co three days ago.”

“Doa you know when she'lla be back?”

“Her leetle girl ees bery seek. Señor Cheesling said Consuela will not come back.”

I bet he did.

“I am the new hhhhousekeepair. May I hhhhelp you please?”

Not unless you have commando training.

“Noa thank you.”

I hung up the phone. It hit me that everyone who suspected that Chisling was behind the Masons' Hall fire had conveniently disappeared.

Everyone, that is, except me.

This was getting scarier all the time.

I suddenly felt like bawling, just bawling my eyes out. It had been almost three days since I saw Andy, and it was getting harder and harder to believe I'd ever see her again. Part of me just wanted to call the police.

And I should have.

I know that now.

But I just couldn't.

I was scared for Andy, but I was even scareder for myself. What if my current theory was wrong and Andy was up to something criminal? She left me a message. She could have told me to call the cops. She could have at least hinted. She didn't. Maybe she didn't want anyone finding her.

But what if my theory was right and Chisling had kidnapped her? I knew the answer to that. She was probably dead already. Why would he keep her around?

My mother was a criminal, or my mother was dead. Either way, I'd be put in foster care. I knew a kid that happened to. He had two nice foster mothers and four rotten ones in three years. I couldn't stand that. I'm only a year younger than Andy was when she started living on the streets. If worst came to worst, I could do it too.

I only sort of believed that. I picked up Andy's keys lying on the table and looked at them. They were the last connection I had with her. I imagined her opening the door with them. I imagined her scratching her head with them. I imagined them in that old green coat of hers, going shopping with her, going to court with her, heading off to the movies with her… I was clearly losing it. I was jealous of a set of keys.

I threw them back on the table, and that's when I noticed it. Andy had this ugly pink key chain that you could put a picture in.

The picture she chose, of course, was my grade five school photo, the goofy one that caught me right at the height of my Beaver Boy days (honest to God, my teeth were so big I looked like I was chewing on a piano keyboard). Anyway, when I threw down the keys, I noticed that the picture wasn't there.

Then I looked again. The hair on my arms sprang up like toothbrush bristles.

The picture was there. It was just flipped over. Andy had written something on the back.

I'M OK. BIRCHY H. LOVE U. LOVE U. LOVE U.

chapter
thirty-five
“Vi et armis”
(Latin)

With force and arms

I
spent the night getting ready. I tried to think what I needed.

A knife?

A crowbar?

A cat-o'-nine-tails?

Oh, geech. I'd clearly played too many violent video games during my formative years. Like, who did I think I was? A hit man? I wouldn't even make a decent hit boy. I was just some scrawny kid who had to find his mother.

Or what was left of her.

I wasn't going to bother with any of that stuff. I just took the walkie-talkies that came with my old spy kit. I made sure the batteries were okay and then stuffed them in my jacket. I took the $58.72 from the Player's Tobacco tin and put it in my pocket with the last of the Oreos. (I'm a regular commando, eh? Packing a snack for recess. You'd think I'd be embarrassed to admit it.)

As soon as it was open, I stopped at Toulany's for a couple of bottles of pop and then headed off to the Commons. It was Saturday. I knew Kendall would be there early, before the bowl got too crowded. He wasn't a knife or a crowbar, but he could help. Better still, he would help. He was that kind of guy.

I knew I shouldn't have asked him, but I had to. I couldn't do it on my own.

I was too scared. I wanted someone to come with me. I told myself if anything went wrong, if we had to do something we shouldn't, he was still under eighteen and would be tried in Youth Court. Maybe the judge would be easy on him. That made me feel not quite so bad for asking.

He'd just stepped on his board and was getting ready to roll into the bowl when I saw him. I yelled, “Hey, Kendall!” I guess I screamed a little louder than I meant to because he gave me this crazy look and then did something I never thought I'd see Kendall Rankin do.

He fell.

Like “Smash!” right on this big concrete curb.

I gave him a bottle of pop to put on his swollen eye and some more-or-less clean Kleenex to stop the blood where the tooth came out. Then I told him all about Andy and Byron and Consuela and Big Bob Chisling. It took me a long time to explain everything, and Kendall kept looking up at me like, “So where's the punch line?” After a while—around the time I got to the part about the Haliburton Building—I could tell he'd stopped expecting me to break into a Daffy Duck impression. He realized I was telling the truth.

When I finished, he just said, “How are we going to get there?” I didn't even have to ask.

He let this kid he barely knew borrow his skateboard for the day, and we went to find a cab.

Kendall probably should have changed his T-shirt or at least wiped the blood off because none of the taxi drivers lined up in front of the mall would take us. I even showed them the money. Counted it out for them. Held it up to the light so they could see it was genuine. No one would go for it.

I could sort of understand. A kid who looks about eleven and a six-foot thug impersonator with a black eye and a lip swelled up like an Italian sausage probably aren't your ideal passengers—but still! It wasn't fair. I had the money. Geez. What else did they want?

I was getting frantic. I tried to talk some sense into this one driver, but he just kept yammering right over me, “I don't care. I ain't gonna take ya. I ain't gonna take ya. I ain't gonna take ya …”

That's when I heard someone say, “I'll take you, Cyril. Where would you like to go?”

I turned around and saw Atula coming out of the mall. Could I have picked a worse time to run into her?

I was going to lie and say we were going to the movies or something, but Big Mouth Taxi Driver went, “You'll be sorry, lady. They want to go all the jeezly way out to Birchy Head!”

“And so I shall take them!” Atula said, all uppity. She made it very clear that she didn't approve of him not driving us just because of our age and appearance. I was half ready for her to announce that she would forthwith sue him for discrimination under Section Something Something Something of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The good thing was Atula made those cabdrivers look like jerks. The bad thing was we were going to spend forty-five minutes in a car with her. She was bound to figure out we were up to something. I made up some story about us going hiking out there, and I knew right away she was suspicious. (You can always tell by the eyebrows.)

When I introduced Kendall, she was even more suspicious (she had both the eyebrows and lips both going). She'd obviously heard Andy talk about him, and I admit the bashed-up face and bloody T-shirt weren't showing him at his best. But Atula managed to smile anyway and keep up a pretty steady stream of conversation all the way out to St. Margaret's Bay.

She asked a lot of questions about Andy, and I tried to be as vague as I could. “Gee, I haven't seen much of her the last little while.” “Oh, you know Andy, always up to no good, ha ha!” and of course the old “She's been tied up a lot lately.” I almost laughed. I like sick puns and that was about as sick as they get. I mean, how else could Bob hang onto a wolverine like Andy for four days if she wasn't tied up?

Or worse. (Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.)

I guess Atula thought I was uncomfortable talking about Andy (I mean, Atula did just fire her) because she eventually changed the subject. She told me all about her clients. At another time I would have been really interested in hearing what everybody was up to. Right then, though, my mind was on other stuff. I just went, “un-huh … un-huh” and “oh, yeah?” until I saw a road sign that said “Birchy Head Yacht Club.” I went, “Stop here,” a little more suddenly than I should have, I guess, because Atula slammed on the brakes, and we fishtailed around the road for a while.

Atula said, “What?! What?! You want to get out here?!? … In the middle of nowhere?!” I finally managed to convince her that the hiking trail started just on the other side of the yacht club and—I thought I was really brilliant when I came up with this— that Kendall's father was meeting us there. In fact, I said he was going to drive us home, so everything was going to be absolutely A-OK, and she could get back to her shopping, ha ha!

Atula did this duck thing with her lips, and I knew she wasn't very happy about leaving us out there, but I gave her a kiss and thanked her and bolted out of the car before she could do anything about it. She “but…but…butted” for a while, then finally just gave up and left. Kendall and I stood on the side of the road, waving at her like two little old grannies until she disappeared around the bend.

Kendall looked at me and said, “Now what?”

Good question.

chapter
thirty-six
Trespass II

W
e ducked past a “No Trespassing” sign and started to sneak down this winding dirt road to the yacht club. We were in the middle of what looked like a major forest, at least to me, though that's not saying much. I'm an underprivileged city kid. The most trees I'd ever seen in one place were at the YMCA's Christmas tree lot.

It was so quiet, you wouldn't believe it — just this crunching sound from us walking on the leaves. I've heard that's what people like about being out in the country: the peace and tranquility (and of course being able to savor a delicious cup of Homestyle instant cappucino). But to tell you the truth, all that nature was creeping me out. I was starting to feel doomed. If Bob Chisling didn't get us, I figured the bears would. And from the look of this place, it would be years before anyone would come by and find the leftovers.

What a way to go.

The only thing that made me feel better was the thought of Mary MacIsaac crying when she heard I'd disappeared. Then I realized that she'd probably be crying harder for Kendall, and I started feeling even worse than I did before.

We went around a bend in the road and suddenly the yacht club was right there. You'd swear it actually jumped out at us from the way we both dove into the woods. Some spies, eh? But that was okay. It was good for a laugh, especially when I horked out the big hunk of moss I inhaled when I face-planted.

Kendall had to stop the bleeding from his mouth again, so I started looking around.

I pushed some branches aside and scanned the property. The yacht club was this big old white building with green trim and a wooden verandah that went all the way around the outside. There was also a boathouse right on the water, a boarded-up canteen and a couple of garages at the back of the gravel parking lot. Andy could have been in any one of those buildings. In fact, I half wondered if this wasn't Bob Chisling's Own Private Prison Camp, jam-packed full of people who caught him doing something he shouldn't.