The Vanishing Track

by Stephen Legault

  “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 SROs. 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 SROs?”

  “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.

  “What do the colors mean?” asked Nancy, her finger touching one.

  “Green means intact. Yellow, on the block. Red, gone.”

  “Seems straightforward,” she said.

  “Tell us again what you said at Macy’s,” said Cole, looking at Juliet.

  She repeated her knowledge of the four people who were missing. Cole took a dry-erase marker from the whiteboard and traced what they knew of the travels of each of the four, one at a time. Slowly the shapes covered much of the map, illustrating a “home range” for each man or woman. For some, the range left the map, and for others, like Veronica, it was very small.

  “What do we know of the last known whereabouts of each of these people?” asked Cole, staring at the map.

  “Nothing,” said Juliet. “They’re missing. No bodies.”

  “Not yet,” breathed Nancy.

  “Let’s hope not ever,” said Denman, but he knew it was a long shot.

  “What about the last place you saw them?” asked Cole.

  “The first man, I saw him on my last night count at Keefer and Taylor.”

  Cole made an X at the intersection.

  “Peaches. At Macy’s. I bought her lunch.”

  Cole made another X.

  “The third man, at Carnegie.”

  An X on the old library.

  “And Veronica, at the Lucky Strike, on eviction day.”

  A final X.

  Cole grabbed some masking tape and hung the map on the large whiteboard, then stood back. They all stared at it. The four home ranges created ovals and oblongs that converged and overlapped at a central location. The X ’s formed a triangle, the bottom a straight line between the intersection of Keefer and Taylor and the Carnegie Centre at Main. The X where Veronica had been seen pillaging the recently evictees’ possessions at the Lucky Strike marked the center of the bottom of the triangle, and Macy’s Coffee Shop the tip.

  They studied at the map and the overlapping circles around the landmark hotel.

  “We need to know more about the relationship between these people and the Lucky Strike Hotel,” said Cole.

  “There’s an easy way to find out at least one thing,” said Juliet.

  They looked at her.

  “How?” asked Cole and Nancy in unison.

  “Welfare,” responded Juliet.

  “What does Welfare have to do with this?” asked Cole.

  Juliet picked up the phone at the end of the conference table, while Denman said, “Maybe a lot. If any of these people were staying at the Lucky Strike Hotel recently, or even in the past, there’s a good chance that Welfare was footing the bill. In a lot of cases, when someone who is collecting welfare stays at an SRO like the Lucky Strike, they sign over their check to the place housing them. Welfare deposits it directly to the hotel. It usually covers most of the rent.”

  “Most? Are you saying that some of these shitholes actually charge more than what Welfare pays?” spat Cole.

  Denman smiled. “Most do. Standard rent is four hundred and twenty-five dollars per month. Welfare pays three hundred and fifty dollars. Some of these places aren’t half bad, Cole. It really depends on the owners.”

  Cole shook his head.

  “The city inspectors are pretty good. They check these places out about once a year. But there’s only so much they can do. At least in the SROs the desk clerk has to check on people once a day. It’s the law. On the street, people can just slip through the cracks. Except for the street nurses and people from the various social service agencies, there’s nobody looking in on them.”

  Juliet hung up the phone. They turned toward her. “I called Kerry at Welfare. She does her rounds making sure that the people the SROs say they are housing are actually there. I’ve tagged along a few times, looking into people’s health. Anyway, I gave Kerry the list and she’s going to run it against her records. She’ll call back in a few minutes.”

  “It might not tell us everything,” said Denman.

  “Why’s that?” asked Nancy.

  “Some of these people have never been on welfare. Some have been kicked off because they don’t want to go on the system. For some it’s paranoia about being kept track of; others don’t want anybody’s help. There are a lot of rugged individualists on the streets of this city. For others, they get the boot. They don’t show up for the programs intended to help them find work, or maybe they try to cheat the system. One way or another, not everybody at the bottom of the barrel is collecting.”

  The conversation continued in this vein for another five minutes. Then one of Priority Legal’s staff leaned into the room and sai
d, “Juliet, there’s a call for you on three.”

  Juliet picked up the receiver. Cole, Denman, and Nancy watched her speaking. Cole stood up and paced with his hands behind his back.

  Juliet was on the phone for a couple of minutes, making notes. She nodded her head a few times, then said, “Thanks again, Kerry. I owe you one.” When she hung up the phone, she looked at her friends. “At one time or another, Welfare paid for a room at the Lucky Strike for all four of our people.”

  “Okay,” said Cole, his arms folded across his chest. “Anybody still think that the Lucky Strike Supper Club is about the occupation?”

  “HAS COLE SUFFERED any recent trauma?” asked Juliet when she and Denman were alone. The meeting had gone on another twenty minutes, with Cole refusing to listen to any other theory other than his own. Then Nancy, shaking her head, left for the Vancouver Sun building, and Cole followed shortly after.

  Denman laughed. “Cole himself is a walking trauma.”

  “I’m serious, Denny.”

  “Me too. The man is a wrecking ball picking up speed. But recently, though? Four and a half years ago, Cole saw his father kill himself. The old man blew his own head off with a shotgun right in front of Cole.”

  “Oh my God.” Juliet raised her hand to her mouth. Tears immediately welled in her eyes.

  “His father was pretty rough on Cole. You know how Cole boxes, or used to, right? Well, I guess the old man used Cole as a punching bag through much of his adolescence and into his teens. By the time Cole was seventeen, he’d had enough and split. But the damage was done. He didn’t see the old man for, like, sixteen years? Then when his life exploded in Ottawa . . .”

  “What do you mean, exploded?”

  “Holy shit, down the rabbit hole . . . Okay, this is really top secret. Cole was married, had a kid, Sarah, but was having an affair with Nancy.”

  “Webber? Nancy Webber?” Juliet jerked a thumb in the direction of the boardroom as if the reporter was still there.

  “Yeah.”

  “Rabbit hole is right.”

  “Anyway, Cole and Nancy get to talking one night, and Cole, being at that time a little too focused on Cole Blackwater, tells Nancy the big lie. Something about National Defence and tanks and endangered species, or something like that—” Juliet made a face “—and Nancy ran the story.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It got past the Globe and Mail ’s fact checkers and everything. It was enough to get Nancy fired. Cole also got his ass fired from his top job at the Canadian Conservation Alliance, and he decided to follow Jennifer Polson, his ex, and Sarah across Canada to Vancouver. Stops at the family ranch on the way. I guess Cole learned that his father had gotten rough once or twice with his mom after he had left the home place, and Cole flew into a rage. As I understand it, Cole was going to beat his father, maybe to death, but didn’t get the chance. He walked into the barn to confront the old man, and blam. He sees his father blow his own head off.” He stopped for a moment. “What I don’t get is, why now?” he mused.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why is he losing his marbles now? That was four and a half years ago. I mean, maybe there is a time delay on this stuff, but that seems a little long.”

  Juliet looked down at the floor. “Remember when you went up to Port Lostcoast last spring . . .”

  “Well, summer, actually. We went up to spend a couple of days on Cole’s boat before he signed it over.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “Sarah, Nancy, and me.”

  “Nancy was there?”

  “She was also there with Cole in the spring during the whole Archie Ravenwing episode.”

  “I think Cole is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I think something happened in Port Lostcoast that triggered the release of that stress, and right now we’re watching as your friend Cole Blackwater slowly implodes.”

  After more discussion, Denman and Juliet agreed that they would have to intervene somehow in Cole’s downward spiral.

  “Denny, it’s serious. I know you believe me. People who have suffered PTSD can do crazy things. You need to get him in to a counselor for treatment.”

  “Cole isn’t exactly the ‘sit around and get in touch with his feelings’ type.”

  “Seeing as how we’re all now working on this missing person thing together, we better do something to keep Cole from going postal on us.”

  Denman took a deep breath and exhaled. “He’s going back out tonight.”

  “You better go with him.”

  “I thought we were doing a night count?”

  “Not tonight. This is more important. And the weather sucks for counting folks. Nobody wants to be bugged in the pouring rain. Plus,” she said, “I have a guest.”

  “Who? I’m insanely jealous.”

  “Really? I didn’t know you cared . . .”

  “Then you’re as blind as Cole,” Denman said, faking a pout.

  She smiled and touched his hand. “No need to be jealous,” she said. “Just an old friend who stopped by from out of town. Be gone in a few days.”

  “Better be.” Denman smiled and put his hand on Juliet’s. “Or I’ll have to come by and throw the bum out myself.”

  She smiled back. “Denny, I don’t want to sound dramatic, but Cole needs your help. You need to watch him. He saw his father kill himself. Something happened in Port Lostcoast; whatever it is was some sort of trigger. It wouldn’t be out of the question for Cole to consider taking his own life.”

  THIRTEEN

  IT WAS LUCKY THAT SEAN had met Ben. For the better part of a year, they were like two peas in a pod.

  “What are you doing?” Sean asked, finding Ben hunched over something near the edge of the school property.

  “None of your fucking business. Piss off,” said Ben, not turning to see whom he was talking to.

  “Someone is coming, that’s all.”

  “I said . . .” He looked up and saw a woman making her way across the field. “Fuck. Okay, come here.”

  Sean stepped forward. He trusted Ben. There was something in Ben’s eyes—pale dark pools—that reflected his own and made him recognize a kindred spirit at once.

  “Take this,” said Ben, handing him a sharp stick that had something sticky on the end. “Dig here, quick.”

  Sean took the stick and began to dig in the dirt near the fence. Ben jammed something furry under the wire mesh.

  The school’s vice principal stood beside them. “What are you boys doing?” she asked.

  “Hey,” said Ben. “Well, I was walking home for lunch and I noticed this squirrel caught under the fence. Me and my friend here decided to try and save him, but I think it’s too late.”

  “Oh my,” said the vice principal, bending to see. “You’ve got yourselves quite a mess there, boys. Lots of germs on those things. Better visit the washroom before heading back to class.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Ben. Sean nodded. “We’ll just make sure he’s in a place where he won’t attract other animals, ma’am.”

  “Leave it alone,” said the vice principal, her face a little twisted. “I’ll call a caretaker. You two head inside. Class is about to start.” She turned and walked away.

  Ben looked at Sean. Sean regarded him with awe.

  “Want to see how to pull the legs off one of these fuckers while it’s still alive?” Ben asked.

  BEN AND SEAN were inseparable that summer.

  “It’s nice that you’ve found a friend,” his mother said at dinner one night late in August. She had been home from the hospital for almost two months and was feeling better. It was one of the longest stretches that Sean had seen her in recent memory. “What’s his name?”

  “Ben Doer,” said Sean, poking at his roast potatoes.

  “He lives in this area?” asked his mother.

  “Yeah, in Kits.”

  “What sort of things do you do together?” asked his mother, her face bright, but her eyes a little clo
uded.

  “I don’t know. Hang out. Play video games. That sort of thing.”

  “Staying out of trouble, I hope,” said his father. He was reading a law journal while forking baked salmon into his mouth.

  Sean looked at his food. “Hey, Mom, can Ben stay over on the weekend?”

  “I don’t see why not, Sean.”

  “We’ve got that party at Ted’s place,” said Sean’s father. “Senator Simmons is in town and wants to talk urban renewal. Ted’s putting on a thing.”

  “Well, that’s fine. Adelaide will be here.”

  His father grunted without looking up.

  “Great, thanks, Mom,” said Sean, jumping up and kissing his mother on the forehead. She smiled.

  When Sean had left the room she seemed to slump in her chair. “Darling, would you mind drawing the curtains a little? I’m feeling a little sensitive right now.”

  BY THE WEEKEND, the upswing in her mood had entirely subsided, and Martha Livingstone slipped into depression once again. Adelaide attended to her in her bedroom. Charles dressed in his own room, stopping in on his way out of the house.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” he asked Adelaide, straightening the tie on his tuxedo.

  “I’ll be fine. How much trouble can a couple of boys be?”

  “I was thinking about Mrs. Livingstone, actually,” he said, studying himself in the mirror.

  “Oh, this is no trouble,” she said, taking a tray of food from the bedside.

  “Good, then.” He left the room.

  “THIS IS BORING,” said Ben. They were sitting in Sean’s room playing a video game.

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Sean. “Come on.”

  Ben followed Sean into the hall. Sean stopped in front of his father’s study. He found the key under the rug by the door and let them both in. He stepped to the cabinet where his father kept the port and sherry and tried to open it, but his father had locked it.