Seaweed on the Street (7 page)

I thanked him and hung up.

Over breakfast I composed a personals ad. When I was satisfied with the wording, I phoned it in to Victoria's
Times Colonist
newspaper, which has good distribution on Vancouver Island.

≈ ≈ ≈

Joe McNaught runs the Good Shepherd Mission in Victoria's Chinatown. His declared mandate is to succour the hungry and bring muscular Christianity to the street people of Victoria. Noble ideals, but I have misgivings about McNaught and he knows it. When I went around to the mission, McNaught didn't want to be found. The place was jammed with people wanting free breakfasts, so it was easy to hide from me. I gave up looking and spoke to a kitchen volunteer instead. He was a short, skinny, middle-aged Kwakiutl man. His jacket fitted him like a Doberman's kennel fits a chihuahua. Six inches of bare ankle showed between the bottom of his jeans and the top of his Nikes. His laces were undone. He had a face like Boris Karloff with jet lag.

“Jimmy Scow?” he said thoughtfully, not looking at me. “Yeah, we know him. When he was in prison he followed the Jesus Road. When he came out he prayed with us for a while. Till something happened.”

“What?”

“I don't know.” He lifted a cigarette from an inside pocket but didn't light it. “There's things we don't do in the Lord's house,” he said, and shuffled outside. The volunteer lit his cigarette, filled his lungs with smoke and let it dribble out through his nostrils as he leaned against a wall in the sunshine. I noticed that his nails were bitten down to the quick. His small black eyes were like black knobs sunk in his face. He said, “You're a cop, you got your ways of looking at things. I tell you this though. Jimmy Scow got a very raw deal.”

“It wasn't my case. But the way I remember it, Scow got legal aid.”

“Sure he did,” the volunteer returned savagely. “Scow's brief was just out of law school. A pipsqueak pretending to be a big noise. Jailing Jimmy Scow was like giving a raccoon five years for being furry. He'd been a White guy, he'd never done day one in jail. Not day one. Jail turned Jimmy sour. Now he's worshipping Dokibatl and doing Wolf ritual.”

I looked at my watch. It was getting on toward noon. I said, “If you happen to run into Jimmy, will you tell him that Silas Seaweed says to lay off what he's been doing at Foul Bay Road. It's dangerous.”

“I'll tell him, brother. But all Jimmy wants to talk about now is Wolf God, so I doubt he'll listen.”

A boy went by in an unmuffled '29 Chevy kit car; the noise hurt my ears. I thanked the volunteer for his help and went on my way.

≈ ≈ ≈

I was thinking about Wolf ritual when I chanced upon Chantal. She was patrolling her corner, doing an exaggerated loose-hipped walk and pouting her lips toward passing cars. When she saw me coming she forgot about business and ran my way, tripping along in the knock-kneed, short-stepped style of women wearing high heels. Beaming, she threw her arms around my waist and said, “Guess what? Sally just left town!” Chantal cocked her head to one side, to gauge my reaction.

“So she left. Is that good?”

“For Sally, yes. One minute she's here, the next minute she's outta here. We had coffee together at Lou's. After coffee she went home, packed her bags, kissed me goodbye and took off.”

Chantal was wearing a high-necked blouse. I put my finger inside her collar and gently eased it open. There was an angry red bruise where Jiggs Murphy had manhandled her the night before.

I said, “Did Sally say where she was going?”

“I didn't ask. If somebody wants to find her, it's better I don't know.”

“Wherever Sally ends up, I hope it's not back on the street. You should quit too, instead of wearing yourself out for bloodsucking pimps.”

Chantal gave me another long look. “I can't figure you out. You act hard-ass, but you're a big softie at heart,” she said, adding, “A girl pounding the pavement, no way she can make it on her own. No way, José.”

She stood there, grinning at me. That's why she was a great hooker: she was capable, resourceful, happy in spite of everything. Why wasn't she selling real estate, managing a dress shop? “Get off the street, Chantal,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze. “You're smart, you could be a winner at anything you wanted.”

“You kidding? I quit school in Grade 8, been hawking my ass since I was 15. Besides, I like hooking, the hours suit me. Can you see me behind a counter, or sweating in a laundry?” She shook her head. “Sally was different. She was scared every time she got into a car with a john. Somebody beat her up six months ago.”

“I know. That bastard she was working for.”

“Oh, sure,” said Chantal. “Cal beat her up all the time, but that was just business. She got clobbered by a bad date too.” Chantal's expression clouded for a moment before she brightened. “Anyway, she's gone, who knows where? Maybe she went back to the Kootenays to be with her mom. Sally had this picket-fence dream. I hope it comes true.”

“You got a dream, Chantal?”

“Sure, Silas. I keep dreaming you'll come cruising by sometime in your Chevy, give me the high sign. We'll have a few drinks at Laurel Point. Hold hands and watch the moon come up over the Inner Harbour. Then you'll take me upstairs and I'll give you my in-house special. I'll even buy the drinks.”

She grinned at me. I grinned back.

Chantal said, “You'd be getting 500 bucks' worth, Silas.”

I pretended to be mystified.

“You don't fool me,” she said. “Lou gave Sally and me money this morning, and I know who it came from.”

She walked off, smiling, holding her head up, a gutsy broad.

I let myself into my office and switched on the answering machine. There was a message from my sister. Canadian Blood Services wanted more of my blood. A message from somebody named Eunice asking me to call, but leaving no number. I didn't know anybody named Eunice. Then there was a brief insulting monologue from somebody who spoke street and called me a chicken-fat motherfucker.

I phoned Mallory, Victoria's police chief, and asked him about travel expenses for a possible trip to Seattle. Mallory was unusually cooperative. He agreed to the expenses and only raised his voice a little bit when he nixed my request for an unmarked car. Mallory told me that the police budget didn't run to cars for lowly neighbourhood cops. I was supposed to walk, get to know people, and if I pushed my luck he'd shut down my whole operation.

Next I telephoned my sister. Sis gave me her number one lecture: how stupid I was not to settle down with a good woman. Why couldn't I be smart like her and her industrious husband, Dick?

Dick was a fisherman who moonlighted as a house painter when he wasn't trolling for salmon off the west coast. Every year Dick and Linda spent two weeks at Qualicum Beach in their state-of-the-art camper, relaxing in the shade with gin and tonics. And later in the year, another two weeks in Las Vegas playing the dollar slots and watching Wayne Newton and Celine Dion. In a steadily rising voice Sis told me that she and Dick had a quarter of a million dollars in their savings plan already and weren't even 40 years old yet.

I could just imagine her at the other end of the line, chest heaving, eyes flashing, as she said, “And what do you have to say about that?”

“Nothing,” I said in my humble-pie voice.

“That's what I figured,” she said. “No wonder I get mad at you!” She slammed the phone down.

Maybe she was right. What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I settle down with one woman? Why couldn't I enjoy lining up outside the Bellagio in the Nevada desert with Sis and Dick, waiting to see Wayne Newton? Maybe I should see a shrink or something, investigate the reasons why I had absolutely no desire to sit in a trailer park for two weeks in the shade of my very own awning, shooting the breeze with ramblers from Oklahoma. If I had a million bucks in savings plans, what the hell would I do with it — buy a camper? Shit. Maybe when I was old.

I went home.

≈ ≈ ≈

Home is a two-room cabin on the beach. I built it with my own hands. Chief Alphonse selected its location. There is a monument nearby commemorating the spot where our ancestors greeted Manuel Quimper — the first European to set foot on local shores.

Quimper arrived in a great white ship, stayed for a couple of days, then sailed away, leaving the Coast Salish people in undisturbed possession for another century or so. Quimper is supposed to have buried a bottle on the beach somewhere. It allegedly contains documents claiming the whole country for the Spanish Crown. Sir James Douglas arrived next. He claimed everything for the British Crown. Now that we've found out what Canadian real estate is worth, we Natives are claiming it all back.

Everything that a Coast Salish chief does has symbolic overtones, so the location of my house has a deeply significant meaning, if only I could figure it out. I was the first Indian in these parts to work for the White justice system. Maybe the chief chose this site as a compliment, maybe not. In any case, I like it here. There's no hot water unless I light my wood stove. My outhouse is a classic one-holer half-hidden beneath a big cedar tree. But the house is wired for electricity. One wall is covered with bookshelves, racks for my blues records, and an outmoded stereo system. From my sleeping room I can see the Warrior longhouse. It sits in a grove of fir trees, with a moss-covered roof and black-and-white killer-whale paintings covering its walls. From my front room I can see the Olympic Mountains, 30 miles away.

I showered, then pulled on jeans, sneakers and a red-checkered logger's shirt. For my intended overnighter in Seattle I packed a canvas shoulder bag with razor, toothbrush, a change of underwear and a Gore-Tex shell in case it rained. It's always raining in Seattle.

I thought about making an omelette. In my dinky refrigerator I found some mouldy cheddar, half an onion that had been in there long enough to delaminate, three eggs and an open can of sardines that smelled a bit funny. Come to think of it, the whole refrigerator smelled bad. I should put deodorant in there. What did people use, baking soda? On the bottom shelf, a full carton of milk had turned solid. I closed the fridge door. Then, with a sigh, I opened it again, grabbed the milk, dumped it into the sink and rinsed it down the drain. I was thinking about Sis, that's what it was — sometimes her lectures scrambled my brains.

The next ferry to Seattle left Victoria in 45 minutes. I could still catch it if I hustled.

≈ ≈ ≈

Two hours later I was devouring a ferry hamburger. Whidbey Island drifted by. Mount Baker's snow-covered peak gradually emerged from the heat haze blanketing Puget Sound. A fellow passenger pointed to a pod of killer whales. A dozen of the big mammals, led by an orca with a dorsal fin as big as a windsurfer sail, plowed alongside the ship for 10 minutes before veering off toward Port Townsend.

Matters great and small nibbled at the edges of my mind. What kind of double-entry moral bookkeeping had led a B.C. Crown prosecutor to railroad Jimmy Scow into jail? The evidence tying Scow to Harry Cuncliffe's murder consisted of 1) Charles Service testifying that he had seen an Aboriginal man driving a florist's van away from Ribblesdale and 2) shaky testimony from a snitch who told a cock-and-bull yarn about Scow's alleged jailhouse confession. The testimony of a career crook and known liar that Scow had vigorously denied. But the Crown prosecutor did a Johnnie Cochran number on a jury that bought the whole package, and Scow drew five bullets.

I'd been ordered to find Marcia Hunt, but at that point in my investigation, I was more interested in settling the Cuncliffe murder. One of the many puzzling aspects about it was that the thieves had stolen half a dozen so-so paintings — landscapes, a still life and a nice watercolour of a fishing smack leaving an English harbour. But they had ignored a very valuable Emily Carr oil painting. Why? The likeliest explanation was that the crooks didn't know good art when they saw it. None of the stolen items had been recovered. The murderers had either dumped them in a panic after the killing or had … What?

Another small anomaly: Why had Effie the maid chosen to quit working at the Hunt mansion at this particular time? I dislike coincidences. Somehow, a grand equation was being worked out. With the right formula, Harry Cuncliffe's murder, Marcia Hunt's disappearance and Effie's departure would integrate into a perfect whole.

In Seattle I would try to get a lead on Marcia Hunt. I had one clue — the postcard mailed to Dr. Cuncliffe. The card showed a picture of a dance band, the RayBeams Orchestra. Marcia had been a pianist; maybe she was playing in a bar somewhere?

≈ ≈ ≈

for 10,000 years my ancestors have been crossing and recrossing Juan de Fuca Strait without passports. A U.S. immigration inspector took one look at me and waved me through the barriers. In the old days we came to wage war against the Natives of Puget Sound — enslaving their women and killing their men. Now we come to watch the Mariners.

I took a cab from the Seattle ferry terminal to a public library near Pioneer Square. The reference librarian was a thin woman close to retirement age named Miss Brighton. Miss (please don't call me Ms!) Brighton had grey hair twisted into a coil and pinned on top of her head with tortoiseshell pins. She had grey eyes, grey skin and blue granny glasses perched on the tip of her nose. One stiff Seattle wind and she'd be swept away. She looked harried and despondent, but when I told her that I was looking for a missing girl, she cheered up and we searched the city directories together.

I was looking for information on the GoodTimes Club — the place the RayBeams played in 1980. We found no listing for the club in any recent directory, but Miss Brighton went into the stacks and we checked out some old ones. The GoodTimes Club was listed in the 1982 and 1983 directories — it was a basement bar on Water Street. But we drew a blank on the RayBeams Orchestra. Nothing. There had never been a listing anywhere. I wasn't surprised. The RayBeams had probably been a pickup band — a group of musicians who got together for a season, played a few gigs, then drifted apart.