by Sam Wiebe
“It was warranted. I don’t know what can be done for Chelsea at this point. What I can do. But maybe you could help me with a couple sets of initials.”
I handed her two photocopied pages with G.O. and C.P. highlighted in buttercup yellow. She read through them and this started fresh tears.
“Do you recognize those initials?” I asked. “Can you tell me who they are?”
“Sorry, I need a minute.” She smeared her tears into her cheeks, closed her eyes and counted down from twenty, inhaling and exhaling a long breath for each number.
At one she opened her eyes and smiled, the kind of smile that shows the world the smiler is braced for anything, or at least attempting to be.
“Ready,” she said. “Sorry. C.P. the C.P. George O. Yes, I recognize them. Chelsea gave out nicknames and then shortened them to initials. George was a man she’d meet in Oppenheimer Park. An older man, fifties, I guess. I saw him once. Chelsea told me he was rich, a businessman or something.”
“George his real name?”
“You’d have to ask Chelsea.” Her lips quivered.
Before she could lose focus I charged ahead. “What about C.P.?”
“I don’t know the initials, but those were his initials. She called him ‘C.P. the C.P.’ because he was a Crown prosecutor. She was always joking about how if she got into a really bad scrape, she’d get C.P. to help her.”
“Ever see him?”
“No, but Chelsea told me what he looked like. She said he was handsome but he had a—curve to his equipment.”
“Huh.”
“It wasn’t that Chelsea hid things from me,” she said, hastily. “We didn’t talk shop much. There were other things to talk about. We laughed a lot.”
“Can you think of someone who wanted to hurt her, someone she might have angered?”
“No, no one. Her sister was mean to her, but that was mostly for Kevin’s sake. She didn’t feel Chelsea was a good influence at that point. Once the drugs had—changed her.”
She bit her bottom lip.
“This sounds kind of pat, but the only person who seemed to want to hurt Chelsea was Chelsea. Not that she was suicidal—I would have known—but the decisions she made and didn’t make. She was very gung-ho to reunite with her birth mother, but she was scared. After a while she stopped talking about it. She said, ‘If my mother loved me she’d’ve gotten in touch already.’ She acted sometimes like, I don’t know, like things were already over for her.”
“If you think of anything else.” I gave her my card. “Or if you need anything.”
“Thank you. I hope you find her.” She squeezed my hand, her own as dainty as Irish linen. “I think you will.”
“Hope so.” I stood up, buttoned my jacket.
“Do you have a good track record of finding people?”
“Pretty good.”
“Have you ever seen The Big Sleep? I adore that film. Lauren Bacall.” She said the name reverently.
“Dorothy Malone,” I said.
She smiled and nodded, waved and walked down the steps, across the courtyard, back to her post in the coffee shop, her posture perfect, honest, unbent.
21
HOTELS USED TO EMPLOY their own in-house detectives, at least the more reputable hotels did. Most still have security teams, but for problem clients and strange occurrences, they outsource.
Good news for business, bad news for nostalgia. I liked the idea of being an old man in a rumpled suit, dozing in the lobby with my hat pulled low. Instead I was treated to a phone call at three in the morning, my second to last night before Operation: Tedium in Winnipeg kicked off.
The call was from the night manager at the Chateau Vancouver, asking could I come down right away. I asked him if his definition of right away included a shower and a caffeinated beverage. He told me he’d brew a fresh pot and have it waiting.
I’d been up late looking up rich businessmen in the Lower Mainland with the first name George. Even narrowed down with a possible last name starting with O, there’d been too many. I’d done better with C.P. In the last twenty years there’d been two Vancouver-based Crown counsellors with similar initials—G. Calvin Palfreyman and Eladio “Chucho” Perez.
Perez had his own practice now. He’d been part of a landmark case on tainted evidence admissibility, and he gave the odd lecture at UBC. He was in his early sixties now.
Palfreyman was forty-nine, still working as a prosecutor but poised to strike out for himself. He had worked on the case against Terry Rhodes and the Exiles’ Vancouver Chapter, the same case that had yielded the surveillance photos of Rhodes and Chelsea Loam courtesy of defence counsellor Tim Kwan. That raised questions in and of itself. I wondered cynically if they weren’t all involved—Rhodes, Kwan, Palfreyman. Perez, too. Everyone and everything. It didn’t seem logical, but then, how had the rot sunk in this deep?
Earlier that evening I’d shown up at Woodward’s for Alex Knowlson’s talk, only to find it pushed back a day due to “circumstances beyond his or our control.” The administrator had given me her best these-things-happen face, and said “It’s Alex Knowlson” as if he were a force whose will was beyond the comprehension of mortals.
I phoned Knowlson’s gallery and told his receptionist I wanted an audience with him tomorrow after the talk. If not, I’d make it known to the proper parties—I was thinking the police, she was probably thinking the media—that Alex Knowlson had refused to cooperate with the investigation of a missing sex trade worker in the neighbourhood he claimed to represent. She told me he’d need at least an hour for glad-handing. Could he meet me back at his gallery later tomorrow night, after eleven?
I was scheduled to fly out early the next morning. But I said fine.
Twenty minutes after the phone chirped and Orson started his spiel about Dunsinane, I was in the Chateau’s foyer, wearing my T-shirt inside out and the same pants as yesterday. Dress professional, Jeff always said. But after 10 p.m., Jeff’s cell went straight to message.
What the night man told me was this: an hour before, there had been a loud crash from the seventh floor. Twenty minutes later the guest in seven fifteen fled, carrying the suitcase he’d checked in with but not bothering to check out. Which was not a problem in this age of credit cards and internet check-ins. What was a problem was the noise coming from his room, a thumping and thrashing that had frightened the night maid. The hotel staff demanded police intervention. The manager was hoping that wasn’t necessary.
And why was he hoping that? I wondered as I took the elevator up, a steaming cup of hazelnut roast in my hand.
Because Mr. Seven Fifteen is a good client.
Because this has happened before.
I’d brought my tool box with me, which included box cutters, bolt cutters, tape, cleaning agents, first aid supplies, a litre of distilled water and my father’s Mag-Lite. I felt foggy and distracted, as people do at three thirty on a Tuesday morning. I was anticipating blood.
I made my way through the opulent maze of hallway to seven fifteen. I knocked and heard the thrashing of restrained limbs, not trying to free themselves but trying to make noise. I swiped the key card the night man had given me and opened the door.
It opened about four inches. With the door partway open, muffled voices could be heard. I reached around to move whatever was obstructing the door. My hand brushed cold metal.
It was a tripod, its back leg jammed under the door. By swinging the door toward me with my arm still stuck through, I could move the tripod forward into the room, allowing me to do the same.
Inside, Shay was lashed to the bed facedown. Arms secured behind her back, one leg tied to each bottom bedpost. Mr. Seven Fifteen had used zap straps. One of them circled her throat and another connected the neck strap to a light fixture on the wall behind the headboard. The plastic had dug into her ankles, leaving thin bracelets of blood. The smell of sex hung in the air.
On the floor, hog-tied and flopped on his back, was a blond youth with the lo
ngest, thinnest penis I’d ever seen. Both of them were gagged.
I closed the door and took a slow swig of coffee.
The tripod had no camera mounted on it. As I opened the tool box I looked around for other traces of Mr. Seven Fifteen. The chair and wastebasket had been moved away from the desk, out of the camera’s line of sight. I looked in the wastebasket and found several wads of toilet paper and a mangled condom.
Once I freed Shay’s wrists she struggled and tried to remove the neck strap. I took off the gag. Our eyes met and she relaxed, breathed. I slit the neck strap and told her to hold still as I cut the leg restraints.
When she was free her limbs spasmed, restoring circulation and exulting in their freedom. She bounced off the bed and ran stiff-legged to the washroom. I heard the tap running.
I gestured for the kid to roll over so I could cut him loose. He stared at me uncomprehending. I grabbed his shoulder and turned him three quarters face down. His cock made a plop as it flopped on the floor. I cut him free and eased off the gag.
“Dude, thanks,” he said. He smelled like marijuana and baby oil.
“You okay waiting for the shower? I can phone the night man, see if there’s a free room.”
“I can wait,” he said.
So we waited. I drank my coffee. He made no move to cover himself up. Steam began to leak into the room.
“So is this a regular thing?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“It was just s’posed to be a video shoot, man. Joe just lost it.”
“Joe is Mr. Seven Fifteen?”
“What? Yeah.” He grinned. He had the ruined teeth of a heavy freebaser.
“Any last name?”
“Just Joe.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Marius.”
I introduced myself. I said, “So this guy Joe, he picks you up, offers you some cash to perform while he watches and directs.”
“Yeah. I’ve worked with Joe lots. This was our first time with Shay.”
I realized there were no clothes in the room, men’s or women’s. I searched through the drawers, under the bed. While I did this I asked Marius what had gone wrong this time.
“Shay went wrong. That chick would not stop talking price. ‘I didn’t realize you were gonna film it—that’s extra.’ ‘Tied up—extra.’ ” His Shay impersonation was pretty accurate. “Joe reached a point, he’s like, ‘For what I’m paying you I could get two Koreans.’ But Shay kept at it and Joe finally gave in. Then I was like, ‘Why should I get less than her?’ I mean, I’m sort of the star. So Joe gives in, promises us each two grand. Once we finish we’re like, ‘Okay, time to cut us loose now.’ Instead Joe ties us up even more. Then he took our shit and bailed.”
I tilted my head toward the washroom door.
“While you were restrained, did he try to—”
“No, he didn’t even like her that much. Said she had small tits and looked too old.”
He avoided meeting my gaze. “Did he try something on you?”
Marius nodded. “A handjob. But with the restraints and everything, plus that dude was crazy old. He put it in his mouth and—can we not talk about this?”
“Sure. Do you want to press charges?”
“Like with the police? Why?”
Eventually Shay came out of the shower, in towels. Marius bolted in to replace her. She sat on the bed and pulled her knees up to her chest. I called the night man, told him what I needed. He asked if I was serious. I told him bring two of everything, just like Noah, down to the belts and hats.
“And how was your night?” I said.
Shay didn’t laugh. I reminded myself that not everyone brushed over their pain with humour.
“Why’d it have to be you?” she said.
“I’m just glad you’re okay.”
She’d staunched her bloody ankle with toilet paper. I lifted my first aid kit out of my tool box and bent down to put on proper bandages. She snatched the kit out of my hand, spilled the contents on the bed and smeared a heavy dollop of ointment over the raw skin. So much ointment that the first bandage wouldn’t adhere. She threw up her hands and dropped it. I used a towelette to wipe away the excess ointment, peeled a larger bandage and applied it. Before I let go of her foot I patted the arch.
“Good as new,” I said.
She snorted. She’d seemed near tears and then almost willed herself into anger, hands bunching and unbunching the bedsheets. I pulled out a garbage bag and did a last sweep of the room.
“Nice tool box,” Shay said. “You got a spare change of clothes in there?”
“Not needed,” I said.
“So we’re gonna waltz out naked? Or did you call the fucking police?”
“Nope,” I said.
It was the night man himself who knocked on the door, bringing the uniforms and more coffee. He bowed formally to Shay, and did a double take when Marius came out of the washroom, using a hand towel to dry off his pits.
“Let me state unequivocally,” the manager said, “the two of you are barred from these premises.”
I took off my coat and wrapped it around my wrists, the way the police do when they want to spare someone the indignity of appearing in handcuffs. The night man doled out the uniform items parsimoniously to Shay and Marius.
“So I’m Joe Seven Fifteen,” I explained. “I’m drunk and I smashed up my hotel room. Your security people are escorting me out. It’s only because I’m a good customer you don’t call the cops.” I latched up the tool box and pushed it toward Marius. “You take this when we leave. Does anyone want coffee before we go?”
Both of them looked too young, too thin and too short to be security guards. In Shay’s case the long arms of the shirt had to be safety pinned into sleeves, and the hat fell cutely down over her brow. But at first glance we’d fit with our story: a drunk escorted out by two rookie rent-a-cops.
“Those uniforms cost,” the night man reminded me.
“Believe me, I’ll be collecting from Joe after I drop these two off.”
He put a card into my pants pocket, just one more in the night’s sequence of uncomfortable, intimate moments. “Here’s his particulars. Joseph Partridge. He lives with his wife in the West End.”
“Of course he does,” I said.
The four of us rode the elevator down to the lobby. The staff was preparing the continental breakfast. A few early birds lounged over coffee or scoped brochures. EXPERIENCE CAPILANO SUSPENSION BRIDGE and the like.
Shay and Marius each took an arm and I did my best impersonation of an irate lush. I sobered up as I reached the Cadillac, and we piled in. I drove them east, home.
Marius directed me to a cheap hotel in Strathcona. I dropped him, told him if I recovered his belongings I’d leave them at the front desk.
He shook his head. “Don’t bother, the desk man’d just steal it anyway.”
Shay was sitting in the back seat staring at the floor mat. As I pulled away I said, “All right, Miss Daisy, your turn.”
“You’re going to that asshole’s house?”
“Soon’s I drop you off.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“That would make a bad situation worse. The easiest way—”
“That fucker restrained me,” she said. “I hate that. I fucking hate it.” She sobbed and then was quiet for a minute. Then she lashed out. Her fists beat impotently on the leather headrest, on the window, the seatback. She tugged on the door handle. I coasted to a stop. But she didn’t want to get out. The handle yielded and broke off in her hand and she flung it at me. It scraped my elbow, leaving a small faint seam that pearled blood.
We were kitty corner to her building.
“Go sleep,” I said. “Get some breakfast. Another shower maybe.”
“Joe’s,” she said.
I shrugged.
“Joe’s.”
Joseph Partridge lived near Kits Beach. His house was nothing special. Two storeys, vinyl siding, some sor
t of polycarbonate roofing tiles. At this address it would sell in the mid seven figures.
Two cars in the driveway, a Grand Cherokee and a BMW coupe. Lights were on behind the curtained bay window.
I parked one house down, pulled a roll of toilet paper from the tool box, wound some around my hand.
“I have a way I like to handle these situations,” I said.
“Long as he pays.”
“All right.” I handed her the toilet paper. “How much phlegm can you muster?”
I put two wads of TP coated with lung butter inside a freezer bag. I told Shay to wait in the car. I went up the driveway, trying to recall the names of flowers in the Partridges’ garden. Azaleas, chrysanthemums, pink roses. I rang the doorbell.
A woman in a blue terrycloth robe came to the door. She looked pleasant and tired. She asked in a whisper how she could help me.
“Ma’am, my name is David Wakeland. I’m an independent arbitrator hired by the North American Association of Hoteliers. Could I please speak to a Mr. Joseph Partridge?”
“He just got home a few hours ago,” she whispered. “I can’t disturb him.”
“I think you should, ma’am. Sorry to bother you so early but I’m operating on Ontario time. If we don’t get this resolved it becomes a full-fledged dispute and then it gets needlessly ugly. I don’t think he meant to defraud the Great Northern hotel chain. Ask me off the record, seems like a case of crossed wires. That’s where I’d prefer to leave it. But I can only do that if I speak to him in the next”—I checked my phone—“forty-eight minutes or so.”
She of coursed and closed the door. I waited, looked at the garden. Were those nasturtiums? The door opened again and Joe Partridge stood there, belting on his pants.
He was about six feet, muscular under a plain white T-shirt. A soup strainer of a mustache and a pair of oddly angled ears were his only distinguishing features. Other than the moose slippers on his feet.
“Something about a hotel?” he said.
“Yes sir.” I repeated my spiel and reiterated that it was all a misunderstanding. Mrs. Partridge carried an empty coffee tray into the kitchen. I told Joe Partridge I’d left my clipboard in my car and would he follow me out? He said sure. His wife reminded him to shut the door or else Balthasar would get out.