Escalate

by Sigmund Brouwer

  “Bentley…” I said.

  “Nope. You don’t have the right to speak about this to me. I’m not interested in making friends with some other dwarf I’ve never met, no matter how good your intentions were.”

  Blood began to flow through my veins again. He didn’t know the real reason. The connection between Elias and Bentley was so obvious that Bentley couldn’t see it.

  “Okay,” I said to Bentley as softly as possible. “Just let me know when you’ll be ready to accept my apology.”

  “How about we just let this go instead?” Bentley answered. “Just go ahead and let the Lang family know where Elias is and that he’s okay. I can understand you wanting to help them with that. As for the fact that he also has Laron syndrome and you were hiding that from me…mad as I am, it’s not like we’re going to break up or anything. I’m stuck with you, just like you’re stuck with me. That’s the way it is with brothers.”

  If only, I thought. If only.

  TWELVE

  “Oh, now I see where all the confusion happened,” said the lady at the front desk of the Mountain View Lodge. “His name isn’t Victor. Her name is Victoria.”

  To me, there had not been a lot of confusion. I’d only been standing there for about thirty seconds as the lady scanned the volunteer sign-in sheet. Thirty seconds of admiring how solidly she’d sculpted the bright-red strands of her hair into something that withstood the breeze coming from a fan behind her desk. That same fan had provided me with a whiff of the hairspray responsible for that sculpture.

  “Victoria?” I repeated.

  “Victoria,” she said. “I don’t make mistakes about this sort of thing.”

  Implying, of course, that I did, and also that I was the source of the confusion in her normally ordered life. Anybody who had so thoroughly defeated gravity with that hairdo was a force, so I meekly accepted the scolding.

  I wasn’t sure what was happening. Had Victor put on a dress and a wig? Only way to find out was to go looking.

  “I must have misheard the message from the foundation,” I said. I shifted and felt the pain in my stomach wall from the bruise that was starting to yellow around the edges. “My apologies. If you could tell me where to find Victoria, I’d appreciate that.”

  Happily, she must have misinterpreted my wince.

  “Well,” she said, “the Wyatt Foundation does a great deal for these seniors, so let’s not give it any more worry.”

  The Wyatt Foundation had so much money it employed two full-time staff to screen all the applications for charitable funding. A cynic might also note that the tax benefits were equally substantial. All I knew was that the Wyatt name made it easy to get things done, including placing volunteers for community service. As for the pre-probation judgment that Victor Lang had received by registered mail, that was sheer fiction, courtesy of Bentley’s superior hacking skills. Victor had promised to do community service, but I wanted him to be scared of stepping out of line again.

  “Victoria will be down the hall and to the right,” Hairspray told me. “Exactly where requested. The Wyatt Courtyard Atrium. You’ll notice the thank-you plaque is prominently displayed.”

  I let the breeze of the fan push me in the direction indicated.

  When I rounded the corner, I saw the silhouette of a girl maybe a year or two younger than I standing near a number of huge windows. The sunshine directly in my eyes made it difficult to see details.

  I did, however, notice four elderly men alongside the windows. One held a bottle of glass cleaner, and one held paper towels. The other two leaned on walkers.

  Bottle Guy was misting the window, and Paper Towel Guy was mopping up the mist behind him. They were intent on their jobs and didn’t notice my approach.

  “Missed a spot,” the man in the walker on the right cackled. “Right where Herb sneezed. How blind are you?”

  “Rumors must be true,” Bottle Guy said without a beat. “You did pee your bed this morning, didn’t you?”

  The other walker guy cackled too. “At least he remembers where it is.”

  Old-geezer jokes. Not even funny old-geezer jokes. Socially acceptable to make if you’re one of the aged, but I was willing to bet the cackling would stop if I jumped in and made one myself.

  “Herb,” the girl said, “you just ignore those teasers. I think you’re doing a wonderful job.”

  Bottle Guy beamed, showing a huge tray of false teeth.

  Ah, now I understood. Victor had not even bothered to show up. He had somehow got Jennie, his older sister, aka Victoria, to take his place.

  “Victoria?” I said. “A word?”

  You used phrases like “a word” when you were young and trying to project unearned authority. Add to that a navy-blue suit tailored for you on Savile Row in London. The silk tie that complemented it was worth the price of a dinner for four at a high-end restaurant.

  Suit-and-tie was good when representing the Wyatt Foundation, and I would get double use out of it at my meeting the next day.

  Jennie Lang looked my way, assessing me with a quick up-and-down flick of her eyes.

  “Of course,” she said, giving me a flirty smile. “A word.”

  She turned to her four admirers. “Gentlemen, looks like the fun and games are over for me. But keep going. I love, love, love how well you’ve cleaned those windows.”

  “Me next,” Walker Guy One said. He tottered as he reached out for the spray bottle.

  “Just don’t sneeze,” Walker Guy Two said. “Who wants to wipe that stuff off the glass?”

  Jennie took a couple of steps my way. I could see why the men had lined up to take over her job.

  She flaunted her classic hourglass shape with skin-tight jeans and a stretchy sleeveless shirt.

  “So,” she said to me, “did you lose a bet?”

  I frowned.

  “Seriously. A suit and tie? What are you, Junior Wall Street?”

  “Wyatt Foundation supervisor,” I said. “First thing I need to know is your real name and why you are here instead of Victor Lang. As I understand it, his pre-probation statement requires a minimum five hours a week of community service.”

  “About that,” she said. “Let’s find someplace private to talk. We need to get that appealed. And I bet you’d love to help me, wouldn’t you?”

  THIRTEEN

  “So this Wyatt Foundation,” Jennie said. “What’s the deal?”

  We’d moved to a corner of the large atrium. Less sunshine. Less squinting.

  “Deal?”

  “It seems like Super Geek found money at the foundation to pay for spray-paint damages. I sure didn’t apply for the funding. Neither did my brother. Super Geek took over.”

  “Super Geek?” I said, pretending I had no clue about my alter ego. Sure, I was a bit of a grouch about being part of a team known as Retribution, but I had to admit there was something fun about playing different roles in different situations. Or maybe we all did, one way or another, and this was just an elevated version.

  “How else would you describe some nerdy-looking dude who takes out three football players?” she asked in return. “My brother said it happened so quickly it was hard to follow the action. It sounded like the geeky guy gave a quick flex of muscles, and then three of them were out. And he was smaller than any of them.”

  “I’m unaware of any of this,” I said. “I just work for the foundation. My paperwork indicates that someone made an application for funds to be applied against a vandalism incident. One condition of successful funding was that the person responsible for the vandalism serve time in community service. I’m going by memory, because the file isn’t in front of me, but I believe it was a Victor Lung. You do not appear to be Victor Lung.”

  “Lang,” she said. “Victor Lang. My question is, how do you manage to walk? I mean, the way you talk, it’s like you have some kind of pole inserted up your—”

  “You do not appear to be Victor Lang,” I said. “This is a serious abrogation of the fund
ing conditions.”

  “Abrogation? You lost me there.”

  “Dereliction,” I said. Wow, it was fun talking like a suit. Private-school education has its advantages, I suppose.

  “Still lost. Dereliction?”

  “Promises were made that haven’t been kept.”

  “That I can understand. So how about from here on in, you stick to real words, Junior Wall Street.”

  “I will do my best to comply,” I said.

  She leaned forward, put a hand on each side of my face and, before I could pull away, planted a deep kiss on my lips.

  My flustered reaction as I pushed away was not acting in any sense. The DNA results flashed before my eyes.

  She leaned back and studied me with satisfaction. “Just checking to see if you’re human. Seems you are.”

  I stood. I walked a tight circle. I returned.

  “You are not Victor Lang,” I said. “I need to know why you are here instead of Victor.”

  “I’m Jennie. Victor is my little brother,” she said, still smirking. “And you might want to wipe away some of my lipstick before you go to your next appointment.”

  “Your brother,” I said, “needs to be accountable for his vandalism. That was a crucial part of the foundation’s decision to pay for the damages.”

  “My dad left my mom because she had an affair,” Jennie said. “Ever since then, our family—me, my mom and my brothers—has been a bit messed up. Victor needs protecting, and I’m happy to help him.”

  “You said brothers. What about the other one?”

  “Good riddance to him,” she said. “I’m not going into details.”

  I tamped down the emotions her answer caused me to feel.

  “Victor,” I answered, staying focused, “needs to understand that actions have consequences.”

  “Easy for you to say, JWS,” she said.

  JWS? Right. Junior Wall Street.

  “I’m not about to start explaining myself or my family to you,” she continued. “I’m going to head back to the windows and supervise the task I was given as part of this community-service thing.”

  “I notice you aren’t doing the work.”

  “Yeah, but it’s probably the highlight of those old guys’ week, if not their month. I’m doing them a favor.”

  “Victor needs to be here doing this work as agreed.”

  “Well, he won’t be,” said Jennie. “If you don’t like it, sue me.”

  With that, she marched back toward Herb and his three friends.

  The grins on their faces at her arrival told me that yes, it probably was the highlight of their week.

  Being kissed full on the lips by my sister, however, had not been any kind of highlight for me.

  FOURTEEN

  A scam is only as good as the believability of the lie that goes with the scam and the greediness of the person on the other end. Those aren’t my words, by the way. They’re Jo’s. With forgeries, the same rules apply.

  Jo’s skills with paint and brush meant she could replicate the Mona Lisa so perfectly that even side by side with the original it would be impossible to tell them apart. Selling the painting, however, would have to start with a lie. For example: The one in the museum in France is a fake because it was successfully switched out years ago. The officials in the museum know this but have to keep it a secret or the French government’s reputation would be destroyed. The real one was recently stolen from the Mafia crime boss who arranged for the switch, and here it is. I’m desperate for money but can’t ask a lot for it, because it’s too dangerous for me to be connected to this theft. I’m selling it to you for a fraction of what the painting is worth, and you’re going to need to keep it a secret from the world. But you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you have the real thing, painted by da Vinci himself.

  Would you buy that story?

  Probably not. Unless you were the type of person who just had to have more than everyone else and were always on the lookout for the next great thing for impressing others.

  I was sitting across a lunch table from a corporate secretary named Amanda Hill. My job today was to convince her that the slip of greenish-blue paper folded inside the jacket pocket of my suit was an authentic money order for $25,000. It was not. Artwork courtesy of a certain talented forger I know.

  I had been successful so far. My suit and tie added five or six years and made me look like a young and hungry corporate recruiter.

  When the timing was right, I pulled the money order out of my jacket, unfolded it and slid it across the table.

  Amanda glanced at the numbers, then stared at the numbers, then lifted her eyes to mine.

  “That’s a big signing bonus,” she said.

  “It is indeed. However, at this point I have to confess that pretty much our entire lunch conversation until now has been a lie,” I said. “I’m not here to recruit you for another corporation.”

  Best way to sell a lie, Jo maintained, was to admit to a smaller lie. There was a good reason I was nervous around her.

  I watched Amanda’s face closely and saw the flicker of understanding that I was waiting for.

  A few days earlier, Bentley had phished Amanda Hill via email and learned a couple of crucial things. The first was her log-in password for Facebook, and the second was that Amanda, like most people, was lazy about passwords. She used the same one for nearly everything she did, including online banking. Bentley was quickly able to determine that she had deposited $12,500 into her account about two weeks earlier and then another $12,500 two days after that.

  Deanna Steele had provided us with her father’s calendar, and we’d crosschecked the date of the second deposit. It was the day after Martin Steele had been at an off-site corporate event at a resort. The resort pool matched the one in the photos.

  I was here to check out a theory we had about that day.

  “I can’t tell you who sent me here,” I continued, “because I don’t know who it is. I just know that I’m supposed to ask you if you would be willing to do it again. If the answer is yes, this money order is yours.”

  We figured that if Amanda Hill had been paid to set up Deanna Steele’s father, it was unlikely she knew the identity of the blackmailer. She’d probably received half up front and half after completing her job.

  “I don’t know if that will be possible,” Amanda answered.

  I reached across the table and slid the fake money order back toward me.

  “It’s not that I won’t try,” she said quickly, eyes on the money order. “What I meant was, Martin was really mad at me when I kissed him at the pool. He won’t be as easy to trick next time around.”

  Spy gadgets are easy to purchase and so effective. On the table were the journal and pen I’d used to make pretend notes as we discussed her possible job offer over lunch. The pen was recording our entire conversation. Deanna was going to be very happy to hear what Amanda had just said.

  “If you can explain what you mean,” I said, “I can take that back to the people who sent me.”

  She reached across the table and, with perfectly manicured fingers, slid the money order back in her direction.

  “What I mean is,” she said, “if your people were smart enough to figure out how to set Martin up the first time, all they need to do is come back with a good plan the second time. It was easy enough to lean over and kiss him when he wasn’t expecting it. But now his guard is up. I’ll do whatever they want, but they need to know that I almost lost my job.”

  She lifted the slip of paper, folded it and tucked it into her purse.

  “So tell your people that I’ll take this,” she said. “And another one for double. That should cover me when I actually lose my job for trying to make him look like more than my boss.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll tell them that.”

  I didn’t know what was going to be more satisfying: telling Deanna that her father had not been having an affair with his secretary, or seeing the expressi
on on Amanda’s face when she tried to deposit that fake money order.

  FIFTEEN

  I call it my street apartment. It’s in the East Hastings area. If you live in Vancouver, you know that “East Hastings” is a catchall phrase for drug addicts, discarded needles and the broken shells of homeless people pushing shopping carts loaded with all their possessions.

  For all its flaws, this concentrated area of poverty has the vibrancy that comes with desperation for life. In the weeks after my father was arrested, I found a way to survive there by playing street chess. Sure, being rich has some benefits, but there’s nothing like trying to survive from day to day—or even hour to hour—to heighten all your senses.

  I like returning to that life so I kept the lease for the apartment even after moving back to the Batcave to be close to Bentley. The interior has walls of cracked paint, carpet with stains whose origins are best left unexplored and light fixtures dotted with dead insects. With a pullout couch and a bathroom the size of a phone booth, it’s perfect.

  To me, this grungy studio apartment on the Downtown Eastside represents freedom.

  But I’m careful. Every time I leave, I prop a matchstick against the bottom of the door so I will know if anyone has broken in.

  This was evening two after my meeting with Amanda Hill. Enough time for the bait to have been taken. I made my way to the apartment. As I prepared to unlock the door, I checked for the matchstick.

  It was no longer propped in place.

  Along with a small burst of adrenaline, I felt sadness. The peace and solitude I cherished in my little sanctuary was gone already.

  I pushed the door open and resisted the temptation to look around. There were no obvious signs of a break-in. This was not your typical East Hastings crash- and-grab. Anyone with the motivation and the technology skills to trace me to this apartment was someone who would likely leave behind a spy camera. I had to assume that I would be under surveillance from the moment I stepped inside.