The Vanishing Track

by Stephen Legault

  “He doesn’t usually . . .” said Sean.

  “Must not trust us.”

  Sean smiled and went to the desk and found a heavy letter opener. “This should do the trick.” He jammed the letter opener between the doors of the mahogany cabinet. The wood around the lock splintered, popping open.

  “Fucking A,” said Ben. He grabbed a bottle of cognac.

  “That’s a good one. I heard my dad bragging that it was worth two hundred and fifty bucks.”

  “Better be good,” said Ben, popping the cork out and taking a hard pull.

  Sean took a bottle of port and did the same.

  “Come on,” said Ben, “let’s get out of here before that maid of yours comes along and ruins everything.”

  They grabbed their coats and headed out into the night. The streets of Kerrisdale were quiet. They walked the sidewalks, drinking the expensive liqueur, laughing and talking loudly.

  “Let’s steal a car,” said Ben.

  “Do you know how?”

  “Sure. It’s really fucking easy. You won’t believe it.”

  “Show me,” said Sean, taking a hit from the bottle of port.

  “First, you got to find one that you like. Nothing too expensive or it might have an alarm, but no beaters either.”

  They walked for a block and Sean said, “That one.”

  “Yeah, that’s perfect.” It was a newer model Ford Mustang parked on the street in front of a house. Ben took out something that looked like a long shoehorn; it was a slim jim.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Stole it from a tow truck.”

  Sean beamed. “That’s excellent.”

  In a minute Ben had the Mustang open and they climbed inside.

  “Now,” said Ben, handing Sean his bottle of cognac, “we’ll just see what we can do here.” He reached under the steering column and wrenched a sheet of plastic a few times, snapping it. He threw it into the back seat. “The key is to not electrocute yourself while you’re doing this.” He proceeded to give play-by-play instructions to Sean on how to hotwire a car.

  They got the Mustang started and in a few minutes were racing down toward Granville Street.

  “Now we need some fucking girls,” yelled Ben over the blare of the stereo.

  Sean guzzled from his bottle and beamed.

  HE DID FOUR months in Juvie. Ben did eighteen months. Sean sold him out but not before facing his father. The man sat behind the mahogany desk in his study and regarded him as he might an unfavorable stain on the floor. “I’m not even going to ask what you were thinking,” his father finally said. Sean regarded him blankly. “You weren’t. You couldn’t have been.”

  Sean looked around the room. His eyes fell on the wooden display holding the nickel-plated come-along.

  “You know, I did some crazy things when I was young,” his father said. “Drank. Fooled around with girls. But stealing a car? Breaking into my liquor cabinet? Picking up a hooker! Sean, you didn’t seem to care if you got caught . . .”

  Sean studied the shape of the come-along. In that moment, Sean imagined what it might be like to hold that in his hand and club something with it. A dog, or a cat.

  “Sean, listen to me when I am talking to you!” His father was suddenly caught in a rage. He smashed his hand on his desk, knocking a crystal tumbler to the floor. Sean continued to stare indifferently at the come-along.

  “Your friend Ben is going to go to jail for a good, long time, do you understand me?” he roared. “A long time. Your only hope is to cop a plea and tell the prosecutor it was all Ben’s idea.” He took a breath and stood up and walked toward Sean. “Don’t you care what happens to you?”

  Sean pried his eyes from the come-along and looked at his father quizzically. “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you been listening? You’re going to jail, Sean. Jail. Maybe for as much as a year. Don’t you care about what this will do to your mother? To me?”

  “To your career, you mean,” Sean sneered.

  His father hit him. It was open handed, but Charles Livingstone was a big man, and Sean was small, and he flew from the chair and landed on the ground like a sack of laundry.

  “I’ve spent my whole career trying to earn money to provide for you and your mother. As far as I’m concerned, you can rot in that jail. Don’t come looking to me for any help, you little pissant. Now get out of my sight. But if you leave this house before you are sentenced tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have every cop and private dick in this town hunting your ass.”

  Sean got up, feeling the sting on his cheek and the side of his head. His left ear was ringing. But he didn’t look at his father. Instead, he let his gaze drift coolly past his father’s heaving shoulders to the come-along. He now had a plan. It might take some time, but he had a plan.

  ON TUESDAY JULIET managed to get free from work shortly after five. It had been the kind of day she dreaded, and which was blessedly rare. She had spent most of it at the Centre. By the time five o’clock came around, she was exhausted. Then she remembered Sean. She drew a breath as she stuffed her things in the orange backpack. A commitment is a commitment. She left the Carnegie Centre through the side door to the alley and made her way through the rain to the front of the building. Already there were fifty or more people crowded there. She went to the steps where she had asked Sean to meet her. He wasn’t there. She almost felt relieved.

  Then she remembered the flicker of optimism in him—what Juliet always hoped to see. It took her more than an hour to find him. When she did, he acted as if nothing had happened. “Oh, hey!” he said.

  “Sean, you were going to meet me an hour ago at the Carnegie Centre,” she said, hunching down beside him where he was panhandling. His dirty ball cap on the sidewalk held a few coins.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry, Juliet. I’m so sorry. I completely forgot.” His face was blank.

  “It’s okay. Come on, let’s get going. It’s a bit of a walk, and I’ve had a really long day.”

  “Okay, yeah, let’s get going. Do you want to get a cab? I’ll pay.”

  “No, that’s okay, Sean.”

  “I’ve got a little money.” He smiled.

  “The walk is good for me.”

  In the half hour it took to walk home, Sean didn’t stop talking for more than a few minutes.

  “My plan is to get my PhD in biochemistry. I want to be part of the team that finds a cure for cancer. I just know I’ve got what it takes to do it,” he said, his hands moving before him in exaggerated enthusiasm. “Once I get that done, I’m going to dedicate myself to serving people on the street. You know, working with them to end hunger and poverty and homelessness. I think that would be a good way to use my gifts.”

  Juliet walked along beside him, her fatigue somehow alleviated as Sean talked about all the good he hoped to do for the world. She wanted to believe in his energetic youthfulness. By the time they got home, Juliet felt refreshed.

  “Wow, what a great place!” said Sean.

  “It is nice,” Juliet admitted.

  “You’re so lucky to have found something like this that you can afford. This city sucks when it comes to affordable housing.”

  “It’s great. I have a roommate, though . . .”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Look, I think we need a good story.”

  “I totally agree,” said Sean, looking upwards. “Leave this to me,” he said. “You got any siblings?”

  “Yeah, a younger sister and an older brother.”

  “Tell me about your sister,” he said.

  AFTER A LONG, hot shower Sean prepared dinner. “My mother was a great cook,” he explained, slicing scallions into a frying pan, then mushrooms. “I always watched her when she was in the kitchen.”

  Juliet had just finished her shower and her hair was still damp. She had on fresh clothes. The kitchen was warm and inviting. Sean moved around it easily. She had given him a pair of jeans and a Simon Fraser University sweatshirt after he had cl
eaned up.

  Sean added shrimp to the sizzling concoction on the stove. “I even did a stint as a sous-chef in a restaurant once. I don’t have any papers, but I was so good they just hired me on the spot and put me on the line. I didn’t get along with the head chef though. I quit after a week. Working in a restaurant kitchen is really not my thing.”

  Juliet sat at the table and watched Sean move around the kitchen, steaming rice and preparing a salad. She made a note to call a local catering company that specialized in employing the hard-to-hire and ask if they had any work for Sean. Juliet knew she was taking a risk, bringing Sean in like this. She had taken the risk before and it had always paid off. The one time she had given in to caution had led to a friend’s fatal overdose. Working on the streets, Juliet knew she couldn’t save everyone; but she could save some, and that had led her to risk opening up her home from time to time.

  “I was once asked to work in a kitchen at a convention center here in town,” said Sean. “Somebody had heard about my stint at the restaurant and called me up and asked me to come and work during a big international convention, but I had to say no. Too stressful. Who needs it?”

  “Why haven’t you pursued a career in cooking?” she asked after a bit of salad.

  Sean looked up at her from his meal. “Most chefs are complete jerks,” he said, putting a fork full of shrimp and mushrooms in his mouth. “They just yell at you all day. I don’t need that. I think what I’d really like is to open my own restaurant some day, you know, that way I get to control what’s going on. I get to be the boss.”

  “You sound like you’ve got big plans. Science. Social services. Cooking. A restaurant. Wow, you’ve got big dreams. Maybe this is the break you’ve been looking for.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he said.

  After dinner Juliet showed him around the rest of the house. “This place is so cool,” said Sean, admiring the old woodwork, high ceilings, and stained glass in the living room.

  “This will be your bed,” said Juliet, pointing to a futon couch. “I hope it’s going to be okay.”

  “It will be great,” said Sean with a wide, appreciative smile.

  They ducked their heads under a low door and descended a set of open stairs into the basement. Juliet pulled a cord and a bare bulb illuminated the large open room. She showed him where the laundry was.

  “There’s a back door to the basement that we always keep locked,” she said, showing him the deadbolted door.

  He looked out the dusty window and over the small, hedge-enclosed yard. Near the back door he saw an opening in the lawn ringed with stout concrete walls. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the set of stairs that descended into the darkened alcove.

  “That’s the bomb shelter,” said Juliet, smiling.

  “No kidding!” said Sean. “Can we check it out?”

  “I’ve never been in. The man who owns the place said it’s empty and put a padlock on it to keep people out. He tells me there’s still electricity down there, but nothing else. It’s a relic from World War Two when the first owner of this place was worried about the Japanese bombing Vancouver. I think he was a little crazy,” Juliet explained.

  “Oh, I don’t know. It sounds pretty sane to me. My grandfather served in the war,” said Sean, still looking out the window at the descending stairs. “He was in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp for almost five years. They tortured him,” he said casually.

  AT BREAKFAST ON Wednesday morning Juliet introduced Sean to her roommate, Becky. “He’s a friend of the family, I suppose,” she said as Sean shook hands firmly.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said with a smile. “Juliet is so nice to let me stay here for a few days while I get back on my feet. My parents just died and I’m still in shock, I suppose you might say.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Becky, looking from Sean to Juliet.

  Juliet nodded solemnly. “Well, I’ve got to go. Things at work are just crazy these days.”

  “More so than usual?” asked Becky.

  “You might say that,” said Juliet.

  “Be careful,” Becky said. “I worry about you.”

  “Thanks, B. Don’t worry. I know how to look out for myself.”

  “What time are you coming home?” asked Sean. “I’ll have dinner ready.”

  THAT AFTERNOON SEAN found a hardware store. The bolt cutters and new padlock were a simple snatch.

  FOURTEEN

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK THE odds are that they get takeout from the same place twice?” It was Wednesday night and Cole stood outside the Anglican church and peered up the block toward the Golden Dragon. Through the rain the streetlights cast a dim glow, and the street below was like the oily back of a slow-moving snake. Cole had his cell phone pressed to his ear.

  “I’d say pretty good,” Denman replied. He sat slumped in a car he had borrowed from the Vancouver Car Share Co-op for the night, a green Toyota Prius.

  “I still think one of us should have hid by the back door,” said Cole over the drone of the rain. “No way of missing them then.”

  “True, but if we hide there we run the risk of getting caught trying to follow them out of the alley. This way we’ve got the bases covered. If they are on foot, easy for you to follow. If they are driving, I can trail them.”

  “Okay. Well, let’s wait and see what happens.” Cole paced back and forth in front of the church. “Thanks for being here, Denny.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to have all the fun.”

  “While you’re having fun in the nice hybrid, I’m freezing my ass off in the rain.”

  “Well, the fact that you brought a car back to the Co-op a week late and missing its spare tire might have something to do with why I’m sitting in the Prius right now and you’re freezing in the rain.”

  “The spare tire was there. It was the original that was missing. It was a logging road.”

  “It was a hiking trail.”

  “It looked like a logging road. Anyway, thanks for being here.”

  “Cole, I got you into this.”

  “We’re all in this together now, Denny.”

  Cole closed his phone and held it in his hand. He pulled the collar of his coat up. It was a cool night and the rain was soaking right through his worn Gore-Tex shell. It was hard to believe the rain would ever end.

  Cole wore a black watch cap on his head over his messy curls for warmth and fingerless gloves on his hands to allow operation of his cell phone. He leaned against the wall and waited. He sent Denman a few short text messages to practice. Kids seemed to be able to do this in their sleep, but it took him some getting used to the rhythm of the numeric alphabet.

  After an hour, his cell phone buzzed. He flipped it open to read the message. “Showtime.” Cole looked up and saw a new Chevrolet Impala parked in front of the restaurant. Two men got out. He watched until the men disappeared into the alley next to the Golden Dragon, then crossed the street, his feet splashing through the running water. They had agreed if there was time he would join Denman in the car.

  He reached the Prius just as the two men slipped out of the alley and returned to their Impala, each carrying a takeout bag. A third man joined them, getting into the driver’s seat. Their car did a U-turn in the street and came within twenty feet of the Prius.

  “You ever followed anybody before?” asked Cole, dripping wet. He yanked on his seatbelt.

  “Nope.”

  “You know what you’re doing?”

  “Nope, you?”

  Cole shook his head. Denman started the engine and pulled out into traffic, a few cars back from the Impala. The car turned right on Gore Street, where the Dunsmuir viaduct began, and Denman followed. He was now right behind them. His head lights illuminated the back of the occupants’ heads.

  “Not so close,” said Cole.

  “Trying,” said Denman, easing off.

  “Try to make it look like you’re just out for a drive.”

  “How do I do that?”

&nbs
p; “I don’t know,” said Cole. “Drive casual.”

  The Impala drove north and then turned right. The traffic thickened and Denman managed to keep a car or two between them. Cole was pretty sure that the two pickup men were the same guys he had seen the previous night, but he had to admit that when you’ve seen one two-hundred-pound cop, you’ve seen them all.

  “Where are these guys going?” asked Denman.

  “Turning again,” pointed Cole.

  “I think they’re on to us,” said Denman.

  “No way. We’re just one of hundreds of cars out here.”

  “Making all the same turns.”

  The Impala stopped at the lights. The Prius was two cars back. Cole and Denman watched silently as their quarry idled. When the light turned green the Impala drove ahead and then, without signaling, stopped at the corner of Abbott Street in front of Tinseltown, a sprawling shopping center that featured a massive cinema complex. The two back doors opened and the pickup men got out.

  “Great, now what?” muttered Cole, unhooking his seatbelt.

  “Cole . . .”

  Cole already had the door open. The Prius rolled to its silent stop. Cole was out before Denman could finish saying, “I’ll park.” Denman watched as he splashed across the street after the two men.

  The two men crossed the sidewalk, deserted in the driving rain, and went into the Tinseltown mall. Cole dashed after them, holding his sore ribs. The mall was quiet on a Tuesday night. Cole watched as they mounted an escalator to the second level, the cavernous space making them easy to see, and Cole easy to spot following them. He drew a deep breath as they stepped off the escalator. He ran a few steps and reached the top of the moving stairs as they walked through the concourse toward the food court.

  “Forgot the chopsticks, boys?” Cole muttered. His cell phone buzzed and he flipped it open while he walked.

  “Where r u?” was the message. He awkwardly keyed in “Fdcrt,” then looked up to see the two men moving past the court toward the row of shops beyond.