The Vanishing Track

by Stephen Legault

  “Tell me about Councilor Chow’s proposed bylaw to put a freeze on SRO conversions.”

  “Ben Chow is a good councilor. He’s a good member of his community. And a good party member. Ben’s doing what he thinks is best for his constituency. I’ve got to look out for the whole city.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that I think there are better ways of addressing the housing shortage than putting restrictions on what private developers can or cannot do with their properties.”

  “So you’re not going to support it?”

  “It hasn’t come before council yet.”

  “It’s on the agenda for Wednesday. How will you advise your party to vote?”

  He laughed. “You haven’t been around Vancouver politics very long, have you, Ms. Webber? I might be the mayor, and the official head of the party, but councilors here tend to vote with their conscience. Maybe that’s unheard of in Alberta, or Ottawa, but here in Vancouver, each councilor keeps his or her own, well, counsel.”

  Nancy let the quip slide. He had answered the question without realizing it.

  “So what is your plan? You said that there was a better way. What is it?”

  “There’s a lot we can do. The City is making its biggest investment in shelter beds in more than thirty years. We continue to support InSite, the safe injection site, despite the hostility of the feds and the Americans. We’re developing a housing strategy in conjunction with the private sector, non-governmental groups, and other levels of government. I’m set to make an announcement in the next few days, maybe a week, on the issue of homelessness. I think you and your colleagues in the press will find it a very bold, even daring, strategy.”

  Nancy made some notes. “Can you tell me more about it?”

  “I’ll be doing a press conference shortly, right, Beatrice?”

  “That’s right,” she confirmed from the side of the room. “We’ll have an advisory soon about the date.”

  “What else can you tell me?” asked Webber.

  “This council, and my office, take the issue of homelessness very seriously. It’s one of the most pressing problems we face today, not just here in Vancouver but across Canada.”

  “Will you be allocating additional funds?”

  “I want to remind you that housing is a provincial matter, and that the province slashed funding for social housing over the last ten years by more than fifty per cent. I don’t want to sound like I’m passing the buck, but that’s a fact.”

  “Your Worship, I’ve heard reports that several homeless people in the Downtown Eastside have gone missing over the last month. Can you comment on that?”

  He looked at Beatrice France, his face suddenly gray. “This is the first I’ve heard of this. Beatrice, do you know anything?”

  “No, Mr. Mayor.”

  He turned back to Nancy and said, “My office will look into it and get back to you.”

  “The disappearances have been documented by people working with the homeless. Three so far. All street people well known to social service providers. Do you think that they are in any way related to one another?”

  Beatrice France stood. “We really should wrap this up, Mr. Mayor. You have a meeting with administration.” She tapped her watch. Nancy glanced at hers and saw that her twenty minutes had turned to twelve when she brought up the subject of missing people.

  “Right you are, Beatrice,” confirmed West, standing. “Tight timelines around here, you understand.”

  Nancy looked at Beatrice. “So can I expect you to get back to me on that?”

  “As soon as we look into it, we’ll call.”

  Nancy shook the mayor’s hand, then Beatrice’s. She gave her a business card and was escorted to the door. “Thanks for the opportunity,” Nancy turned to leave.

  “Any time,” smiled Beatrice, but Nancy knew that wouldn’t be the case.

  THERE WAS A message waiting for her at the office.

  “Hi, it’s Beatrice France calling from the mayor’s office. I’ve asked District 2 Commander John Andrews’ office to contact you. They said that they haven’t had any complaints outside of the ordinary registered about missing persons, but if you have information that might be useful to them, they’d be happy to talk. Thanks again for your interest in the story on homelessness. The mayor was happy to talk with you today.”

  That was that.

  Nancy poked her head into Frank Pesh’s office. She couldn’t see him.

  “Frank?”

  “Follow the sound of my voice,” he said from behind stacks of paper.

  “Can you tell me a bit more about Don West?”

  “What do you want to know?” He moved into sight.

  “Who’s got their hooks into him?”

  “Sit down, my child. That is a fascinating story.”

  “CAN WE HAVE lunch?” Nancy was on the phone with Cole Blackwater. Against her better judgment she had called him around eleven thirty, after spending an hour with her editor being illuminated about the troubling rise to power of Don West.

  “Noon at the Water Street. It’s a nice place, Cole. Try to act like a mature adult, okay?”

  “Do you want me to call Denman?”

  “After.”

  Cole arrived a few minutes before Nancy, got a table by the window, and ordered coffee. When she arrived, Cole said, “I’m sorry about the other day. I don’t know what got into me.”

  “Cole, I think you need to get some help.”

  Cole looked down and bit his lip. “Denman had me out with him on Sunday. We did tai chi and aikido. Ate miso soup. Meditated. Drank some rancid root tea. Sarah came too. I think she did better than me at the aikido thing. She’ll be kicking my ass pretty soon, I think.”

  “That’s great, Cole, but I think seeing a professional would help.”

  “Help with what? So I’m having a tough go right now. I’ve been down before. I’ll come around.”

  “Are you sleeping?”

  “Yeah,” he lied. “Just fine.”

  “You don’t look it. Have you seen yourself in the mirror lately?”

  “Every morning. Beautiful,” he said, pushing his mouth into a smile.

  She smiled back.

  “But really, I feel fine. A little frustrated that I can’t fight right now. These ribs are taking their time healing.”

  “I don’t think what you need is more time in the ring, Cole.”

  “Everybody knows what I need these days.”

  “Denman and I are just trying to help.”

  “Look,” he said. “Did you call me to lecture me about the bags under my eyes and eating my spinach and seeing a shrink because of bad dreams, or was there something else?”

  Nancy sat back in her chair. “There was something else,” she said. “But one more thing before we change the subject.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Cole, I moved to Vancouver for two reasons, and one of them wasn’t the weather,” she looked out at the pouring rain.

  “A good reporting job?” offered Cole.

  “That was one.”

  “And me?”

  “See, you’re not as stupid as you look.”

  Cole smiled. Their food came and each of them took a bite.

  “I’ve been here for three months now. I have no idea what is going on in your head. I have no idea why I’m even bothering to talk with you about this.”

  Cole took another bite. “My charm and good looks?”

  “Neither,” she said, forking a spear of asparagus. “I’m telling you, Cole, you had better smarten up. Deal with your shit, and make peace with your ghosts.”

  Cole regarded her coolly over the plates of food. Her hair was pulled back and clasped in what looked to Cole like an oversized paperclip so that it stood up and flopped over. She wore a tight black shirt that plunged low in the front, revealing enough of the smooth curve of her breasts to raise Cole’s heartbeat. Her face was tanned. That would fade with the West Coast winter, but
her stunning beauty wouldn’t.

  “I need a little time,” Cole managed.

  “Take it. I want to help. Just let me in.”

  Cole took another bite. “So what was the other thing?”

  “I interviewed the mayor this morning. His Worship has some good sound bites to explain the riot and his position on homelessness. Sounded like he was reading from cue cards handed to him by his press secretary.”

  “Not the brightest bulb, His Worship,” said Cole.

  “So here’s the thing. I talked with Pesh after the interview. I got the distinct feeling that Monsieur Le Mayor was feeling beholden during our talk.”

  “To who?”

  “Whom. To whom.”

  “Whatever. To whom, then?”

  “Not sure. Business interests, certainly. But when I brought up the disappearances, his aide ended the meeting—practically slammed the door in my face. By the time I got back to my office, she’d already called and blown me off, saying that Andrews from Division 2 of the VPD would be handling it.”

  “Denman is over there right now.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Well, the mayor’s office said that the VPD hadn’t received a complaint yet.”

  “They have now.”

  “Okay, well, I guess I’ll follow up with Andrews this afternoon.”

  “You want to talk with Marcia Lane,” said Cole, “the team leader for the Missing Persons Task Force. The VPD set it up after the Pickton thing. Lots of flak from people over not taking missing person reports seriously enough in the Downtown Eastside. Good luck, because Andrews is a Nazi about the media.”

  “I’m a big girl. Do you think that Don West could be into something illegal? Pesh told me of rumors that organized crime had financed his first run for office five years ago. It was the nasty sort of stuff that an angry opposition pulls out in the dying days of a failing campaign. There was a photo of West with a man named Hoi Fu, a Korean Canadian, who at the time was responsible for much of the distribution of heroin in the Eastside. Fu also runs a bunch of legitimate businesses. It was one of those stupid ‘shake hands with the Hells Angels’ type of photos, his campaign managers said. They claimed ignorance. Thought Fu was just a nice business man running a laundromat and a noodle shop. Does any of this sound at all familiar to you?”

  Cole shook his head. “I wasn’t here yet. During that election campaign I was still in Ottawa.”

  “Pesh tells me that in the last two years Don West has been a spectacularly mediocre mayor and has kept his nose out of trouble.”

  “That’s a great reputation to have as a civic leader.”

  Nancy laughed. “Just what I’d want my political epitaph to say. My point is that West, as head of the Police Board, has caused very little trouble for the narcotics business in this city. I don’t know if that is any indication of guilt, but it’s not saying much for his leadership.”

  “Heroin ain’t what it used to be. Crack and meth are the thing. I don’t know who is controlling that.”

  “Denman would know, wouldn’t he?”

  “Probably. So what’s all this got to do with three missing homeless people?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. There may be more to these three people than meets the eye.”

  “You think one of these people was actually a dealer? From what Denman told me, one of these guys sold umbrellas. You think that was his cover?” Cole was smiling despite himself.

  “Don’t be cute.”

  “I can’t help it sometimes.”

  “Try,” said Nancy, but she was smiling too. It was good to see Cole’s sense of humor surface. “Maybe they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and this guy Fu took them out. Maybe they were low-level street operatives in his organization, or used to be, and he was cleaning up loose ends.”

  “And you think that Don West knows something about this?”

  “I think West is a mouthpiece. His cue card answers were way too pat to be heartfelt. The question is, who is he a mouthpiece for?”

  “Might be time to find out,” said Cole. He knew that in more ways than one, his work was just beginning.

  TEN

  BY TUESDAY MORNING SEAN LIVINGSTONE was as cold and wet as he’d ever been. For the last two nights he slept in an alley adjacent to the now closed, but still occupied, Lucky Strike Hotel. He had found a somewhat sheltered place, under the lip of a doorway that lead to the loading ramp of an import-export business. The previous evening, the wind had changed direction and the deluge had begun. His single wool blanket, scavenged after making arrangements with Umbrella Man, was so wet he could wring water from it, and it stank like an old dog. His clothes stuck to his clammy skin. He felt itchy, and his eyes were watering and he was dizzy with hunger.

  He rose long before the sun and began to make his way toward the Carnegie Centre, which didn’t open its doors until seven. He dragged his feet and looked down at the glistening pavement and dirty pools of water. He searched doggedly for distractions. He found one about two blocks from the Carnegie. Two men huddled beneath an overhang just inside an alley off Hastings Street. Like him, they were cold and wet and weary. Driven by an impulse, Sean strolled toward them.

  “You fellas awake?” he asked, stepping into the alley.

  One of the men looked up at him, bleary-eyed.

  “I’m from the Community Advocacy group. My name is Sean.”

  “You ain’t from no community group. You’re as goddamned wet as we are.”

  “I’ve been out all night making sure folks are okay.”

  “Bull shit. Fuck off,” the man muttered.

  Sean grinned and took his dripping pack off his back. The spontaneity of what he was doing thrilled him. “I’ve got some food here for you.”

  “You’ve got jack shit,” said the man, looking at him from under the soaking brim of a greasy ball cap.

  “Let’s try to be polite,” said Sean, reaching into his pack.

  That’s when Ball Cap Man hit him. It wasn’t a hard blow, but it caught Sean completely by surprise, and sent him sprawling onto his back in a puddle of water-soaked garbage.

  Ball Cap Man nudged his friend, who woke up and blinked hard. Sean tried to get to his feet, his hands still entangled in his pack. Ball Cap Man stepped forward and kicked at Sean’s face. Sean managed to pull the come-along from his bag in time to deflect most of Ball Cap Man’s blow. The second man stood, his blanket falling as he too kicked at Sean, connecting with his ribs. Sean grimaced and swung the come-along low. Ball Cap Man howled in pain as the tool connected with his ankle and he went down.

  “You motherfucker,” he yelled, falling backward. “You broke my fucking ankle.”

  Sean swung the come-along again and narrowly missed the second man, who grabbed a garbage can from the doorway and threw it at Sean, hitting him in the torso and face.

  As Sean pushed the trash can off, he saw both men disappear around the corner of the alley and out onto the street. He lay in the alley a moment, breathing hard, his back in the filthy puddle, his face turned to the sky, rain pelting down on him.

  WHEN THE DOORS of the Carnegie Centre opened at seven, a hundred people waited to get inside out of the rain. They queued up for coffee and slices of bread with peanut butter for breakfast. They sat around the main hall and in the corridors talking quietly and drying out. The building smelled like a barn full of animals, thought Sean, but realized that he was very much a part of that stench now.

  Sean got coffee and something to eat and found a quiet place near the reading room where he could think about the morning’s events. He had to admit that taking on two men at a time had proven too much for him. But the thrill of simply deciding spontaneously to approach the men had been worth the beating he’d gotten. He felt his face and realized that there was still blood on his nose, and that his cheek was tender. There would be an opportunity to settle that score in time.

  At half past eight
he saw Juliet Rose come into the Centre, and he made his way toward her.

  “Sean, my God, what happened to you?”

  “I got mugged. Bastards beat me up. Took my money.”

  “Come with me,” she said. He followed her toward the back where she had an office. It was quieter there, away from the hurly-burly of the main room. “Step in, Sean. Have a seat, and take off your jacket.”

  “I’m awfully wet,” he said dolefully.

  “We need to fix that cut on your face.” Sean dropped his jacket on the floor. Juliet pulled on a pair of gloves, found some supplies in the cabinet, and laid them out on top of her desk.

  “Let’s get this cleaned up,” she said, swabbing at the cut with an antiseptic pad. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I was sleeping in an alley a few blocks away.” Sean closed his eyes as she dabbed at the wound. He winced. “I woke up and these two guys were going through my pockets. When they saw I was awake, one of the guys hit me with a rock.”

  “Sean, I’m going to put a couple of stitches in, is that okay? I’m afraid that living rough means a better than average chance of infection in open wounds.”

  “Okay,” he said weakly.

  “I’ll do my best not to hurt you,” she said, preparing the suture materials. He closed his eyes while she stitched up the cut. He winced again, and felt a hot tear run down his face.

  “All done. This will help the cut heal faster, and if you’re lucky, there won’t be a scar.”

  “Thanks,” he said, touching the sutures with his fingertips.

  “They will dissolve in a week. If they don’t, come back and I’ll pull them out.”

  “You said that you might be able to help me find a place to live. Can you still help me?”

  “Yes,” she said, packing away the medical supplies. “I can have a look around the city for shelter space.” She smiled. “The thing is, there is a long waiting list for community-supported housing. For every room that comes open, there are ten people in line for it. And unfortunately for you, you don’t fit the target demographic.”