Seaweed on the Street (3 page)

The pimps were not the only people I had been watching. Charles Service was sitting at the bar. Service had wavy white hair, worn a bit long for a conservative lawyer. A heavy tan made him look younger than his 65 years. He had on a dark-blue suit, a creamy white shirt and was wearing a St. Michael's school tie.

Service was a lawyer with a special practice — his only client was Calvert Hunt. He glanced at me a couple of times, then came over to my table. We shook hands.

I expected him to refer to the encounter at Calvert Hunt's house. Instead he just smiled and said, “Nice to see you, Silas. It's been a while.”

“Nearly five years,” I said and invited him to sit with me.

“I'd enjoy that, but I can't. Another time perhaps. I'm expecting somebody.”

“I was out at Ribblesdale tonight,” I said.

Service wasn't paying attention to me. He stared over my shoulder and replied with absent courtesy, “Were you indeed?”

I followed Service's glance. A dark-haired woman was watching us from the doorway.

Service said hurriedly, “I've got to go, Silas. See you around.”

He joined the woman in the doorway, took her arm and steered her outside. I paid my bill and went to the washroom. When I came out, I glanced back into the Bengal Room. Charles Service was sitting at Alex Cal's table. Service was in earnest conversation with the pimp, but his eyes were all over the blonde. There was no sign of the dark-haired woman.

I was surprised. What business could Charles Service possibly have with the pimp and cocaine king of Victoria?

≈ ≈ ≈

Later that night I was in my sweat lodge, on a high bank above Esquimalt Harbour. Spume coated the shore like the icing on a cake. In the surrounding woods, gently swaying trees were filling the air with creaks and groans and sighs.

I was creating more steam by ladling water onto hot stones when Chief Alphonse walked out of the sea. The old chief was naked except for an eagle feather stuck into his long grey braids. He walked slowly up the beach, ducked inside the sweat lodge and sat on a wooden slab beside me.

I watched the colour of his skin change from purple to red, and then it was my turn to cool off. I stepped outside onto hard-packed sand and hurried down the beach and into the waves. Fifty yards away a huge drift-log was rolling about in back eddies. More loose logs bobbed in the waves. Keeping my eyes peeled for bone-breakers almost took my mind off the north-coast water shrinking my testicles, squeezing my sphincter and giving me an ice-cream headache that started between my eyes and spread through my body like an army of ice worms. Chief Alphonse had stayed in the sea for 20 minutes; ordinary decency compelled me to stay in for at least 10.

My sweat lodge isn't elaborate. It's a dirt igloo. Its skeleton is composed of arched willow wands, poked into the ground at each end and tied together where they intersect. I cover the willows with tarpaulin, shovel dirt on top, and that's it. I heat my rocks in a firepit and when they're hot enough I carry them inside on a shovel.

After a short session in Esquimalt Harbour, that primitive sweat lodge seemed like heaven to me. I carried another big hot rock inside, ladled water over it and got comfortable again.

Chief Alphonse isn't a wordy man. We don't have the kind of relationship that depends on words. We listened to the wind and kept quiet. Then we saw a raven hopping around near the water's edge.

Chief Alphonse said, “
Te spokalwets
.”

The way he spoke told me that no reply was called for.

Te spokalwets
. In Coast Salish, the words mean corpse or ghost. The old chiefs are all crazy when it comes to ravens and every time they see one, or hear one, somebody's expected to die.

It's a good thing there aren't more ravens around Victoria.

CHAPTER TWO

The following day, a surprise awaited me at my office. The door was unlocked and a stranger in a VPD constable's uniform was stooped over my desk, writing something in a spiral-bound notepad.

“I'll be right with you,” she said without looking up.

After writing a few more words, she turned and raised her eyes. The name tag pinned above her breast pocket told me that her name was Halvorsen. I'd never seen her before. Her welcoming smile faded.

As a neighbourhood cop, I try to look like a man of the people, and my people are punks, drunks and misfits. With my stubble-beard, shoulder-length black hair, plaid mackinaw jacket, caulk boots and Levis, I blend in nicely with the bums on my beat.

Constable Halvorsen said, “What do you want?” As an afterthought she added, “Sir.”

I said, “For a start, you can pass me my electric razor from that desk drawer.”

She let out a little wordless grunt of realization. “Sorry,” she said as colour invaded her cheeks. “They didn't tell me that you were
big
. I was expecting a … ”

“A little drunk in moccasins?”

“Yes. I mean no … that is … ” She tried to edit the sentence into politeness and then, giving up, stared outside as if the answer might be found beyond the windows. But by the time she remembered to hand me the razor, her composure had returned. She said, “I hope you don't mind me coming in here. I absolutely had to take a pee. Somebody lent me the key.”

“Every cop in Victoria's got a key to this place. It's like Grand Central Station in here at times.” I extended my hand and said, “Silas Seaweed.”

“Denise Halvorsen. I'm new.”

Denise was a good-looking woman of about 25 with short blonde hair. She wore no makeup, but while she was moving around I couldn't help noticing her neat little waist and the shapely legs that showed above her highly polished boots.

She said, “Your phone's been ringing off the hook, but I didn't think it right to answer it.”

“I don't know what's right either, half the time. This office is a very dubious exercise in social engineering.”

“Yes, that's what I've been told,” Halvorsen said.

As she was going out I said, “Come back any time.”

≈ ≈ ≈

In the café next door, Lou was frying eggs and bacon. Two com-missionaires in blue uniforms lurked in a corner, resting up before another onslaught on Victoria's dangerous parking violators. Three pipefitters slumped in a booth, unshaven, red-eyed and drinking coffee. They had been partying all night and soon it would be time to clock in at the dockyard.

Lou is a small angry man with a Mexican-bandit moustache. I think he's bald, but I've never seen him without a hat. Lou saw me come in and banged his fist on the counter, saying, “What we gonna do about Iraq?”

I helped myself to coffee. “Bush and Rummy are taking care of it. Everything's under complete control.”

“Buncha nonsense,” said Lou, flipping eggs on his grill. “What'll it be?”

“Bacon and eggs with everything.”

Lou stroked his bushy moustache. “This Iraq deal. It reminds me of the time when I was in the mountains with Tito.”

“General Tito made a big impression on you, then?”

“He was a great man!” Lou said, puffing out his chest and staring at me with his nostrils flaring.

“Tito was a street fighter who got lucky,” I teased.

Lou turned back to the grill and spoke over his shoulder as he cracked eggs. “Tito was a tactical genius.”

I said, “
Rommel
was a tactical genius. Tito was a brigand.”

Lou grinned. “You can't fool me, pal. You're just tryin'a get me going. But listen. Tito was something. Guy about my height, looked like my brother. He'd a' known what to do with them Iraqis.”

I said, “Oh, yeah? What would he do?”

“He'd ship some of you Salishes and a bunch of Quebec Mohawks out there,” said Lou, doubling over with mirth. “Let you bastards fight it out.”

Lou turned and shouted, “Come and get it, you guys!”

The yawning pipefitters collected their breakfasts.

I tried to think about Jimmy Scow, until a young Native street kid — wearing a cheap dress intended to reveal as much tit and crotch as possible without getting arrested — weaved her way out of an alley and leaned against a wall across the street. Spaced out on crack cocaine or crystal meth, another little money-maker for somebody like Alex Cal, I figured she had a life expectancy of about two years. It was enough to put me off my food. No wonder I hate pimps and pushers.

I went back to my office and checked my answering machine. Iris Naylor had telephoned several times without leaving any definite message. When I returned her call she said, “It's about last night and that Scow business. Do you think you could possibly come over here again? Mr. Hunt is anxious to talk to you.”

I was anxious to talk to Hunt as well.

≈ ≈ ≈

Along Foul Bay Road, roomy old houses stood behind high granite walls and cedar hedges. Oak trees swayed their lofty crowns in a light summer breeze. Fallen leaves, picked up in my car's wake, did a brief dance before resettling. I drove past Runnymede Avenue and turned in to a long driveway bordered by banks of flowering shrubs. An elderly Chinese gardener was steering a self-powered mower around ornamental cherry trees and willows and flower beds. The driveway curved up to Calvert Hunt's mansion. Seen in broad daylight, Ribblesdale looked the same as it had five years previously — when Jimmy Scow went down for Harry Cunliffe's murder.

I parked my Chevy alongside a red Mercedes 280 coupe. Instead of going up to the front door I wandered around for a bit. Ribblesdale stood in at least six acres of prime Victoria real estate. There was a tennis court and a blue-tiled swimming pool where a woman was swimming laps, stroking powerfully and making expert turns. I was in the heart of Victoria, but from the grounds of the Hunt estate no other house was visible. Heavy blue smoke drifted up where garden waste smouldered in an incinerator. The estate's original carriage house — a two-storey mini-ature of the main house — had been converted into a three-car garage.

I walked back around to the front of the house and across the terrace to the front door. I rang the bell. After a longish wait a young Coast Salish woman wearing an old-fashioned black maid's uniform with a white pinafore over it opened the door and stared at me. With my long black hair and brown skin, I wasn't the usual front-door visitor.

I announced that Mr. Hunt was expecting me. After some hesitation she let me in. The maid looked sullen and her face was flushed, but I didn't think I was responsible. Without a word she showed me in to the reception room where I had spoken to Jimmy Scow. The maid withdrew.

There were fresh dahlias on a refectory table. Morning sunlight, shining through the room's stained-glass windows, picked out the deep red and blue colours in a Persian rug.

The returning maid opened the door and stood aside to admit Charles Service. He turned to watch her go and shook his head. “Damn nuisance,” he said, lifting his arms and letting them fall to his sides in disgust. “She just quit on me. A single day's notice. I'll have a devil of a time replacing her. Good help is hard to find. Housemaids get jobs in motels now. Half the work, twice the money.”

I doubted that Service's duties as Hunt's lawyer included supervising domestics and wondered why he seemed so upset about it.

“Well,” said Service, apparently forgetting the maid and rubbing his hands with a satisfied air. “I suppose you're wondering what this is all about, eh?”

Before I could reply, footsteps sounded and the door opened. A stoop-shouldered, slightly built man with grey hair flattened down on his bony skull came in carrying a black bag. It was Dr. Cunliffe, the father of the murdered man.

Seeing me, the doctor smiled in recognition and extended his hand. “Morning, Seaweed. Charles told me that you were coming today.” He inclined his head toward the upper regions of the house. “I've just been giving Mr. Hunt his weekly checkup.”

Service said to me, “Dr. Cunliffe knows why you're here.”

The doctor nodded amiably and said, “I plan to sit by the swimming pool and drink coffee. Join me there later if you like.” He went out.

Service said, “Funny, us running into each other last night. I hardly see you for five years, then I run into you twice in 12 hours.” He stopped speaking and looked grave for a moment before going on: “The Bengal Room. Do you eat there often?”

I laughed and said, “On a sergeant's pay? Are you kidding?”

Service smiled. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “That business with Scow last night. To coin a phrase, it put a bee in the old man's bonnet.”

I remembered seeing Calvert Hunt fast asleep in an invalid chair and had to work hard to suppress a smile.

Service said, “It's all nonsense, of course, but Mr. Hunt wants to stir things up. I'm opposed to it, of course. We should let sleeping dogs lie.”

I'd heard enough clichés so I looked him in the eye and said, “Why me? If this job is what I think it might be, you need a squad of detectives.”

“You're right, we need detectives. However, you were a detective once.” He stopped speaking before adding, “Mr. Hunt thinks you have special qualifications.”

“Whatever
they
are. From Mr. Hunt's point of view it'll work out cheaper than hiring a private shamus, which is what you did last time.”

Service's mouth tightened. Before he said anything, I said, “Not that I mind. This will make a nice change from patrolling back alleys.”

Service grunted. “It's nothing to do with Jimmy Scow. It's a missing person inquiry. Mr. Hunt wants you to look for somebody who went missing over 20 years ago.”

He stared at me bleakly and slumped into a leather chair. Still staring at me, he put his palms together and touched his chin with his fingers.

I sat opposite, wondering if I would hear any surprises. As a cop, I know plenty of dangerous secrets. Some involved the Hunt family.