The Vanishing Track

by Stephen Legault

  Denman looked around him as the boardroom emptied.

  “It’s going to be a long day, Denny. Come on.” She motioned with her head toward the door. “Hard to say no to a girl with an orange backpack.”

  IT WASN’T A Starbucks kind of neighborhood; wrong demographic. They sat in a small, brightly lit Chinese café and drank drip coffee from porcelain cups.

  “This is our worst nightmare come true,” she said.

  “By tomorrow there are going to be hundreds of people on the street, frightened and desperate. Between now and then Beatta’s people at the Community Advocacy Society should be able to find temporary housing for maybe fifty of them. Sixty if we’re lucky. But you’re right, it’s a nightmare.”

  “I’m going to have to do a new round of night inventories next week,” Juliet pointed out.

  “No rest for the wicked.”

  “Yeah, but it’s necessary with all the changes that are occurring. I need to keep track—”

  “Of your flock?” grinned Denman.

  “I was going to say, of my charges.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Up at midnight for breakfast, then walk, wake, and talk till 8:00 AM.”

  “One night’s not going to do it.”

  “You’re probably right. Want to come along for a night?”

  “Is that your idea of a date?”

  It was Juliet’s turn to smile. “I’m an old-fashioned girl.”

  “We’ll see. If I get any sleep between now and then, I’d love to.”

  “Invitation is always open.”

  They sipped their coffee, a calm pool around them in the storm of the day.

  “I’m going to call Cole,” said Denman.

  “Good,” said Juliet. “You know, I still haven’t met the famous Cole Blackwater.”

  “I can’t believe that!”

  “It’s true. But his reputation precedes him.”

  Denman smiled. “Cole is a professional pain in the ass, which if you’re the mayor, or a developer, means trouble. A smart guy to have at the table when you’re trying to figure out how to stop things. I think if you asked Cole, that’s what he’d say. ‘I stop things,’” Denman said in his best Cole Blackwater, southern Alberta drawl. Juliet laughed. Denman smiled at her.

  She stopped. “What are you smiling at?”

  “It’s just that I love it when you laugh.”

  Her smile faded. “Let’s just see if anybody is laughing tomorrow morning.”

  SIX

  COLE STEPPED FROM THE SKYTRAIN at Stadium and made his way down Beatty Street toward the old Vancouver Sun building. He plodded toward Pender, his thoughts dark and distracted. His cell phone rang as he reached the steps of the Dominion Building, which housed the humble headquarters of Blackwater Strategies.

  “Blackwater.”

  “It’s Denman, Cole. How you doing this AM?”

  “Hey, Denny. I’m good. How about you? I heard you on the radio this morning. Another one bites the dust.”

  “Yeah, it’s a biggy.”

  “It’s funny, you and I were just there the other day. Bad timing,” said Cole. He sat down on the steps.

  “Listen, Cole, I could use your help right now,” said Denman.

  “What do you need?”

  “I’ve got a perfect storm on the horizon. I’ve got Captain Condo choosing today to close the sale on the Lucky Strike, a march this afternoon to highlight police brutality in the city, and the End Poverty Now Coalition ready to start burning tires in the street. All the elements of a disaster.”

  “I can’t stop a riot, Denny.”

  “No, but you can spin it and help us figure out how to salvage the opinion of the mainstream voter in this city, after they see pictures of kids throwing rocks at riot police on their televisions later today.”

  “Okay, I’ll check in with Mary and walk over to your office. Be about an hour.”

  “Cole, there’s one more thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I don’t want to sound alarmist. Juliet Rose, you know the street nurse? She came to me the other day with a story that I think has a lot of credibility.”

  “What is it, Denny?”

  “People are disappearing, Cole.”

  MARY PATTERSON HAD been in the office for two hours when Cole arrived at ten.

  “Good morning, Mr. Sleepyhead,”

  “Morning, Mary.”

  “You look like you were awake most of the night again.”

  “Up at four this morning.”

  Mary regarded him with a concerned smile. “You should see somebody about that. Take some pills. Get some sleep.”

  “I don’t have any problem falling asleep.” He took the carafe of coffee from its warmer and poured himself a cup, adding cream from a carton on the tidy table across from Mary’s desk. “It’s once I’m asleep that I have trouble. I wake up between three and five and can’t fall back asleep.”

  “Can’t stop thinking about work?”

  “Something like that. Can you check out a group called the End Poverty Now Coalition for me, Mary?”

  “Sure, Cole. Is this a new client file?”

  “No. It’s part of the pro bono work I’m doing for Denman. Somebody has a riot planned for later on today. The Coalition people are the likely ringleaders. Denman wants my help salvaging his campaign to stop the closures of SROs. It looks like the Lucky Strike is on the chopping block for today.”

  “Not so lucky.” Mary turned to type something on her keyboard.

  Cole went into his cluttered office and sat down in his chair, then got up again, pulling from his pockets his cell phone and keys, SkyTrain tickets, change, a crumpled wad of five-, ten-, and twenty-dollar bills, a stick of lip balm, two tiny hooks for hanging cups in a cupboard, a mini measuring tape, and a startling amount of lint. He dumped it all on his desk, adding to the pile of papers, books, magazines, and newspapers.

  He needed to call Nancy. Her phone rang four times, and as he was preparing to leave a message, he heard the familiar voice.

  “Nancy Webber.”

  “Hi, Nancy. It’s Cole.”

  “To what do I owe this rare pleasure, Mr. Blackwater?”

  “You’re being polite this morning.”

  “It’s only Tuesday. But Friday you’ll just be ‘Asshole’ like everybody else.”

  “Story of my life.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “I’m on my way to City Hall. They closed the Lucky Strike this morning. There’s going to be a riot. I thought I’d get the mayor on record before all hell breaks loose.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Can you come and talk with Denman Scott afterward?”

  “Sure. You know, since meeting him in Port Lostcoast in July, he and I have never actually sat down and talked about his work. Now that I’m on the City Hall file for the Sun, I should really talk with the mayor’s public enemy number one,” said Nancy.

  “Is that really what the mayor’s office calls him?”

  “Not in so many words, but he is persona non grata around the City offices. I’ve got a memo one of the staffers leaked to me saying that nobody from the City is allowed to talk with anybody from Priority Legal unless one of the City’s lawyers are present.”

  “Come over to the Lamplighter at noon.”

  “Another high society lunch with the venerable Cole Blackwater?”

  “Man of the people.”

  “See you then, Cole.”

  He hung up without saying goodbye, his mind distracted. He dialed Denman on his cell.

  “Denman here.”

  “Meet me at the Lamplighter at noon, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’re going to sit down with Nancy.”

  “She’s been writing good stuff.”

  “She’s on her way to City Hall right now. We’ll get a good story out of it.”

  “See you at noon.”

  NANCY WEBBER CAU
GHT a cab in front of City Hall. She had been shut out. That didn’t happen very often. In fact, in the year and a half since she had won a National Newspaper Award, it had never happened. Now she wondered why. She had shown up at the mayor’s office after calling his press liaisons that morning, requesting an interview, and being assured that she would get ten minutes with His Worship. But when she arrived, she was intercepted by a woman named Trish Perry, the deputy planning commissioner for the city.

  “Ms. Webber?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Trish Perry. Mayor West has been called away on an urgent matter. His office asked me to talk with you.”

  They shook hands. Nancy said, “You understand, Ms. Perry, that these things aren’t interchangeable. If I had wanted to talk to a civil servant, I would have called one. I want to speak with the mayor.”

  “I understand. I was made the new spokesperson on housing this morning. Come, let’s walk to my office. Or would you rather grab a coffee across the street?”

  Nancy stood a moment considering her options. “Let’s go to your office,” she said. They walked through the corridors of City Hall and arrived at the planning department’s section on the second floor.

  When they were seated at a round table in Trish Perry’s cramped office, Nancy opened her notebook. “What is the City’s plan to address the needs of the two hundred and fifty people who will be homeless as a result of closing the Lucky Strike?” asked Nancy.

  “It’s actually more like three hundred people,” responded Perry. “Though it’s single-room occupancy, some of the rooms have couples living in them. We’re working with the Downtown Eastside Community Advocacy Society right now to find housing for those people.”

  “Where?”

  “Various shelters around the city, and in some SROs that aren’t at capacity.”

  “How many of those three hundred people will have roofs over their heads tomorrow night?”

  “We’re aiming for one hundred per cent.”

  “Realistically?”

  “We expect to get close.”

  Nancy thought of something Cole always said when he heard that refrain: “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” She didn’t think it appropriate to repeat.

  “And those you don’t find space for?”

  “I don’t think anybody believes we can find a bed for every single person who is displaced by this closure. No doubt some folks are going to end up on the street. Understand that the City is doing everything it can to attend to their needs. The Lucky Strike Hotel is a mess. It hasn’t had a renovation in twenty-five years. The inspector found over fifty violations of code. Wiring that’s been eaten by rats. Half the doors in the place don’t close. There are only a handful of fire exit signs. Hallways don’t have lighting.”

  “Advocates say they have been asking the City to order the SROs to clean up their act for a decade, and the City has been purposefully dragging its feet.”

  “I don’t know about that. We’ve known that the SROs need work. Some of them are a hundred years old. And none of them make much of a profit for their owners; otherwise they wouldn’t be selling them, right? There is only so much the City can do.”

  “You can enforce fire codes.”

  “Sure we can. We walk in the door, make our inspection, give the owner fifteen days notice to fix up the place, and then they turn around and sell it.”

  “You can fix it up yourselves. You have that authority. Bill the owner for your work.”

  Perry smiled. “In some situations we do. We spent two months fixing up the Liberty Hotel just last spring. Forty-five rooms. Some sixty people living there, including a Chinese man who was one hundred years old. A centenarian. Can you believe that? He’d been in that room for a decade. Hadn’t left. Meals on Wheels brought him three squares a day. Did his laundry in the sink, watched The Price Is Right. Crazy. We spent two hundred and fifty thousand dollars getting the place up to code. The owner sold the week after we’d finished. Sold it for $1.2 mil. Now lives in the Bahamas. We’re suing for our costs. The new owner plans to knock it down and build a hundred-unit condominium. Units will sell for half a mil to start.”

  Nancy was making notes.

  “My point is, Ms. Webber, that this is a complex problem. The City can only do so much. We can’t force owners to provide social housing if they want to sell condos.”

  “But you can, can’t you? You can enact bylaws? You can create housing regulations? There are dozens already on the books . . .”

  “The mayor has been exploring these options with council.”

  “According to your critics, the mayor has been stalling. ‘Dragging his feet,’ I think is the quote I got the other day.”

  “Council is divided on the issue.”

  “Down party lines. The mayor’s party has the balance of power. They could push regulations through that addressed this issue.”

  “Like I said, it’s a complex issue, Ms. Webber. The mayor is building support on council, and with other stakeholders, in an effort to address this issue. In the next couple of weeks you should see some dramatic movement.”

  Nancy flipped a page in her notebook. “What about Councilor Chow’s motion to put a moratorium on SRO conversions from low-income housing to condominiums?”

  “That doesn’t sit well with many council members.”

  “Why not?”

  “The mayor favors more of a free-market approach to the situation.”

  “Chow is a member of the mayor’s own party.”

  “Like I said, they are exploring all of the options.”

  “Any comment on today’s planned demonstration?” Nancy changed the subject.

  Perry blinked at her. “What’s to comment on?”

  “The rally is to protest what many feel is a police force that is abusive toward homeless people, prostitutes, and street people in general.”

  “That’s really a matter for the chief constable or for the divisional commanders.”

  “John Andrews.”

  “Or one of the other commanders.”

  “The trouble is concentrated in the same area as where the SROs are shutting down.”

  “You’d have to take that up with Commander Andrews.”

  “Well, the mayor is head of the police commission, which is why I had hoped to talk with him today.”

  Perry shrugged. “You have me instead. Mayor West got tied up in something.”

  “You don’t find it strange that there are more than double the number of complaints against the police in Division 2 for excessive force as there are in any other part of the city?”

  “I think you’d find that the number of crimes committed in the Eastside is also more than double.”

  “Are you saying that the Eastside is experiencing a crime wave?”

  “I’m only saying that the Downtown Eastside is a complex area to police, just as it is a complex area in which to solve the problems of homelessness, addiction, and health care. My area of expertise is planning, not policing.”

  Nancy sat back in her chair. “Will the mayor be commenting after today’s rally?”

  “I expect so,” said Trish, visibly lightening. “He’ll be there.”

  NANCY WATCHED THE industrial section of Main Street whir past.

  “Would you take me across Pender and down Carrall Street, please?” she asked. “And drive by the Lucky Strike?” The cabbie nodded. Nancy checked her watch. She had time to kill. When the cab made the turn onto Pender, she said, “Just drop me in front.” She handed the cabbie the fare and took the receipt.

  Nancy was a block from the Lucky Strike, but even from that distance, she could hear the crowd. The morning was cool and gray and the air seemed to be charged with anticipation. She walked along the side of the road, stepping over piles of wind-blown garbage to reach the cracked sidewalk in front of the stalwart building. Though the homelessness rally was scheduled for one o’clock at nearby Pigeon Park, Nancy got the distinct impression that
there had been a change of plans.

  At least a hundred people were gathered in front of the hotel. Heaps of personal belongings littered the sidewalk and spilled onto the street. She saw lamps missing their bulbs, urine-stained mattresses, dressers missing drawers, dozens of duct-taped and dilapidated chairs, boxes of clothing held together with twine, and piles of shoes and clothing of every description. As Nancy drew closer she began to pick out individual faces in the crowd: an elderly Chinese man sitting on the curb holding a fish bowl in which a small carp swam lazily in circles; an enormous black woman standing next to the building, staring up at its brick façade and screaming at the top of her lungs while those around her gave her a wide birth; a man cooking his lunch on a small stove like the ones backpackers use.

  Angry and confused voices could be heard among the sobbing and wailing.

  There were already two TV crews on site. Bright halogen lights from one camera shone on the wrinkled and worn face of a man still dressed in his stained pyjamas. As Nancy walked by, she caught the interviewer’s question.

  “How does it feel to have lost your home?”

  She slowed to hear the man’s reply. “It don’t feel too damn good. How do you think it feels?”

  Nancy walked up the front steps of the building. Posted on the door were bright yellow signs—the eviction notice. As she was reading it, the double wooden front doors swung open, nearly catching her in the chin.

  A woman cradling a box of clothing in her arms stopped and said, “Oh goodness, so sorry. Didn’t clip you, did I?”

  Nancy managed a smile and replied, “Nope. Everything’s intact.”

  She was about the step inside when the woman said, “Shouldn’t go in there.”

  “Just taking a look around,” said Nancy. The woman sized her up. “My name is Nancy Webber. I’m with the Sun.”

  The expression on the woman’s face changed completely. She shifted the box into one arm and held out her hand. “Beatta Nowak, Downtown Eastside Community Advocacy Society. We’ve talked on the phone once or twice.”

  Nancy shook the extended palm. “Nice to meet you face to face.”

  “Let me deliver this box, and I’ll give you a quick tour.” Nowak stepped to the curb and put the box down next to the growing mountain of personal belongings.