The Vanishing Track (16 page)

“I THINK WE NEED TO
huddle the troops,” said Cole, feeling the rain again after the adrenaline had subsided.

“Agreed.”

“Let's call Nancy and Juliet in the morning and start putting our heads together.”

“You said they called it the Lucky Strike Supper Club?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty strange, I'll grant you. But suspicious?”

“Come on, Denman. Who picks up eats from the back door of a crime-owned restaurant in the Downtown Eastside at eleven o'clock on a rainy night?”

“Okay, it's strange. I'll call Juliet and you call Nancy. Eleven tomorrow morning at Macy's?”

“I've got a nine o'clock, which Mary will kill me if I miss, so yeah, eleven is good.”

Cole couldn't sleep, though. When he arrived home, he stood in the shower until the stench of fish and oil was washed from him. He'd gone to bed but lay awake staring at the ceiling. Finally, at two o'clock, he got up and poured three fingers of Irish whiskey into a glass with a little ice, just for show, and sat down to read. Instead of reading, though, his thoughts roamed freely over the night landscape, returning again and again to the conversation between the two muscle-heads in the alley.

Who were those guys? They seemed out of place in an alley in the Downtown Eastside. What was the Lucky Strike Supper Club? And who was this Andrews who liked his fried wontons?

His mind drifted from the events of that night to his thoughts from the moments just before the men appeared in the darkness. It was there that he found a more oppressive darkness, or rather, where the darkness found him. Cole lurched toward sleep preoccupied by the source of his diurnal nightmares.

Cole's phone rang, and instinctively he raised his fists in front of him, half rising from the armchair he was slumped in. A bolt of pain shot through him, his ribs aching from the awkward sleep and reflexive jarring. “Good God . . .” he mumbled, sitting back down and holding his arms across his ribs. He reached across the clutter on the table and fumbled for the phone. The portable receiver slipped from his hands and hit the floor and he bent too quickly to retrieve it and another spasm of pain pierced his chest. “Fuck,” he finally spat, grabbing the phone from the floor and hitting the receive button.

“Blackwater,” he barked.

“Cole, it's Mary.”

“Oh, Mary. Hi, sorry. What time is it?”

“It's 8:00
AM
.”

“Right, God—the Nexus call.”

“The cab will be outside your door at eight-thirty, Cole.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Thank you, Mary.”

“Don't mention it, Cole. Let's get your game on, okay?”

At ten to nine Mary greeted him at the door. “The Nexus file is on your desk,” she said by way of greeting.

“Thank you, Mary. Where would I be without you?”

“In bed.” She smiled.

“Don't I know it!”

“And out your best client,” she added.

“Right,” he said, entering his cave of an office to review the Nexus Energy file.

As he expected, during the telephone meeting he was invited to sit on the company's behalf on a new, pioneering energy and climate change association. Cole had felt a rush of pride. It had been almost five years since he decided to fly solo as a strategy consultant, and the invitation was a sign of his success. But his euphoria was short-lived. Late in the meeting, he learned that the association would be led by Brian Marriott. Brilliant, charming, and politically connected, Marriott had been the Ottawa lobbyist for the Petroleum Resources Group when Cole was the conservation director for the Canadian Conservation Association. In public they had been outwardly tolerant, but everybody in Ottawa knew the two men despised each other. Cole heard through the grapevine that Marriott had had a change of heart in the last couple of years. Marriott had read
The Weathermakers
—a revolutionary look at the ecology and politics of climate change—while on vacation sometime back, and left the
PRG
when they refused to yield on the issue of global warming. Somehow Cole couldn't fathom Marriott leading a climate change association, especially one that Cole was now involved in.

Cole sighed. “Anybody but Brian Marriott,” he said aloud after he put the phone down.

“What's that, Cole?” said Mary, her face appearing at the door.

“Brian Marriott.”

“That name sounds familiar.”

“I think I may have just screwed myself, Mary.”

“And to think it's only eleven in the morning,” she said in a chipper voice.

“Can you find out everything that Brian Marriott has been up to since I left Ottawa, Mary?”

“Sure.”

“And look under the rocks.”

“That good, eh?”

He arrived in the Downtown Eastside ten minutes late. Nancy, Denman, and a beautiful, plainly dressed woman sat together in the window of Macy's. He rushed in and offered his apologies.

“Up most of the night,” he said by way of explanation.

Denman stood and said, “Cole Blackwater, Juliet Rose.” The two shook hands.

“Finally, the infamous Cole Blackwater darkens my doorway,” Juliet said with a smile.

“Finally,” he responded, “I get to meet the saving grace of the Downtown Eastside. Does anybody else need a coffee?” He looked around, saw no takers, and went to the counter. He ordered a coffee and bought a sugary doughnut and sat back down.

“Let's get right to this,” said Denman, and proceeded to fill the women in on the evening before.

“You did what?” Nancy exclaimed after hearing the story.

“Cole has this theory,” said Denman. “He thinks that City Hall is somehow mixed up with organized crime on the Eastside and is knocking off homeless people to eliminate opposition to condo development.”

Nancy shook her head. “You know, Cole, when I told you that I thought that maybe the missing people were connected with Fu, I didn't expect you and your sidekick to go kicking in doors looking for them.”

“Actually,” said Denman, “Cole was my sidekick . . .”

Juliet jumped in. “I think you're overlooking something important. None of these four people were involved in street-level crime. And none of them were operatives for Hoi Fu.”

“How can you be sure?” asked Cole.

“I work with these people every day,” she said. “I know them as well as anybody could. I know who the dealers are, the runners, the muscle. You have to believe me, these were four ordinary people.”

“Ordinary?” asked Cole.

“As ordinary as you can be living on the street. Sure, they have their troubles. A week on the street and you would too. Mental illness and addictions. Peaches hooked for a while. Veronica was known to re-sell some smack. But they weren't mixed up with Fu. No way.”

“Juliet knows what she's talking about, Cole,” said Denman.

“No argument from me. I'm just trying to figure this all out,” agreed Cole.

“You said they called it a Supper Club. Sounds like something that happens on a regular basis.” Nancy pointed out.

“Sounds like,” said Cole. “But at least one of the guys who were picking up food was a first-timer.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Nancy.

“Just the way they were talking. It was like he'd never been out of the West End, you know what I mean?”

“Describe them again, would you?” asked Denman.

“Big dudes. Even with long raincoats on, I could tell. The one guy, the one farthest from me, was cruiser weight. Like one-eighty. The other guy was easily heavyweight. Two hundred easy. And not fat. Fit. Big dudes . . .”

“Don't mind Cole,” said Nancy to Juliet. “He can't help but size everybody up as a potential opponent.”

“Few too many shots to the head,” said Denman, making a face. Juliet laughed.

“Ha ha,” said Cole. “My point is these guys were big. And I could see they had short hair. Their hoods didn't cover their foreheads, and their hairlines were like brush cuts. And mustaches.”

“They were cops,” said Juliet.

“Come on, how do you know that?” asked Cole.

“Who the hell else wears a mustache and a crew cut?” asked Nancy.

“Fair point,” said Cole.

“And that means the Andrews they mentioned, the one who likes his wontons fried, is John Andrews,” said Denman.

“Division 2 Commander,” said Nancy.

Cole sat back in his chair and fiddled with his empty coffee cup. “Okay, so if these guys were delivering food to a meeting hosted by Andrews and dealing with the Lucky Strike, what does that mean?”

“Maybe nothing,” said Nancy.

“Or maybe it's a nightly strategy session to address the standoff,” said Denman. “That would figure.”

“Sure,” added Juliet. “You know that the City and the cops are stewing over this occupation. It's a total mess.”

“Ironic that the cops are getting takeout when they've stopped food from getting to the protesters,” said Nancy, making a note.

“You can't write about this,” said Cole.

“Really? You're not willing to go on the record?” she mocked. “‘Overheard in Dark Alley, Fried Wonton Conspiracy Theory . . .'” Her hand inscribed the headline in the air in front of her.

“No, really.”

“She knows, Cole,” said Denman.

“I'm just making sure,” said Cole.

“I learned my lesson, asshole,” said Nancy.

Cole shook his head and looked down.

“People, please, not in front of the kids,” Denman said, looking around.

“So what we have is the possibility of the cops and the City feasting while the protesters starve. Is that it?” asked Juliet.

“No, we've got
way
more,” said Cole. “We've got these meatballs picking up chow from the back door of a restaurant owned by a crime boss.”

“That doesn't necessarily mean anything,” said Nancy.

“It doesn't mean nothing, either,” spat Cole. “Look. I don't know why I'm the only one who sees this.” He raised his voice. “We've got cops picking up grub from the back door of a place that is a front for organized crime in the city, delivering it to a meeting where the divisional commander is talking about the Lucky Strike. We think it's got to do with the occupation, and that the City is involved, but we don't know that for sure. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we've got four of Juliet's flock gone missing, all in the last month. All this while the city gears up for a huge development push into the last real estate available for condo development in the city's core.” He pounded his flat hand on the table, making the coffee mugs bounce. The other three stared at him.

“Cole, I swear to God, if you yell at me one more time I'm going to punch you,” said Nancy.

Cole took a deep breath. “I'm sorry.” He put his face in his hand a moment, then rubbed his eyes. “I'm sorry. I didn't get any sleep last night. I couldn't shut down.”

“You need to deal with your shit,” said Nancy. “We're your friends. We're here to help. But you need to do it without taking it out on us, okay?”

“Right,” said Cole. “Got it.”

“Juliet, what do we know about where these people were when they disappeared?” asked Nancy, her voice calm again.

“Well, the first man I noticed missing, a fellow named Bobbie, sold umbrellas in the West End but slept down here most nights. He had rooms in various places around the Downtown Eastside, including the Lucky Strike, from time to time. The second person, Peaches, was a regular at the women's shelter and at some of the
SRO
s. She hung outside Macy's here most days. The third fellow, Jerry, was a real roamer, but I knew him from Oppenheimer Park.

“Veronica, well, she followed her nose.” Juliet smiled. “She could smell a score from a mile away and a B and E opportunity even farther. She was a piece of work. Liked to wait for places to close and then move in and clean house.”

Cole took his hand from his face and looked up. His face was white, but not from pressing his fingers against it. “What did you say?”

“I said she was a piece of work.”

“No, after . . .”

“That she would wait for an
SRO
to close and then move in and swipe people's stuff.”

Cole interrupted. “Denny, you still have that map of
SRO
s?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Let's go.
Now
.”

He wouldn't let them walk. “I need to see something now, before it fades.”

They hailed a cab on Pender and rode the five-dollar fare to Denman's office.

Three men outside the office of Priority Legal sat panhandling. Denman was about to stop, but Cole barked, “No Mother Teresa stuff right now! Come on.”

Juliet looked at Denman and he straightened up. “I'll be back in a minute, fellas,” he said, and followed Cole. He keyed in his security code and the four walked inside.

As soon as Denman entered, someone poked their head out from an office and said, “Marcia Lane has been calling for you.”

“Okay, I'll call her back in a minute. If she calls again—”

“You're in a meeting,” growled Cole as he continued down the hall.

“I'm in a meeting,” smiled Denman. “Tell her I'll ring within the hour.”

“Could be about the missing people,” said Juliet.

“Likely is,” said Denman. “She's not inviting me to the Policeman's Ball.”

“I'll take you,” said Nancy. “Apparently, I get tickets to cover it.”

“That would be fun,” said Denman.

Cole stopped in front of the boardroom. “Map?” he said.

“Right,” said Denman, and went into his tiny office to retrieve a map tube. In the boardroom, he took out a laminated map of the Downtown Eastside and spread it across the table. The map was actually a series of aerial photos of the city, showing each building, park, street, and vacant lot in some detail. Street names were printed over the photos, and single-room occupancy hotels were shaded in three tones.