The Fourth Betrayal

by Bruce Burrows

  “Yeah, he graced us with his presence for thirty-five minutes, all lawyered up with the first Dyck of Dyck, Dyck, Dyck and Dungwall. Admits he knew Trimmer, occasionally employed him for security work, but that was all. He had a bit of difficulty talking because, apparently, he was attacked at his house last night by a deranged man.”

  “That’s awful,” I said. “Is no one safe?”

  “Evidently, no one with colonial furniture.”

  I said, “I think you need to talk to the Chairman, Paul Salinger. But you’re probably not going to get much if you don’t have some way of pressuring him. Don’t forget, we’ve got him on tape number ten hinting about using Chinese muscle to eliminate opposition. Isn’t that what just happened with Phil Trimmer?”

  “It’s suggestive but not conclusive. But we’re getting our forensic accounting guys to try to follow the money trail, which may give us something useful. However, that takes time.”

  “Any more info on Mr. Chen?”

  “Ernhardt admitted he knew him. Chinese national. Businessman. Ernhardt claims he has consular sponsorship.”

  “This is depressing,” I said. “All these vermin seem to be protected. I’d like to talk to them away from their lawyers and consular liaisons and deputy assistants. I’ll bet I could get some answers out of them.”

  “I thought all you West-Coast guys were touchy-feely liberals. You’re talking like Dirty Harry.”

  My voice hardened a little. “I just want to help these people explore their feelings. Feelings of pain.”

  “Our way works better in the long run.”

  “Stala, what if we don’t have a long run?”

  “I know how you feel, but you’ve signed up to play nice. And just so you know, I’ll be sending someone by your hideout tonight for a bed check. You better be there.”

  “Tell them to bring their own pajamas.” But I wasn’t quick enough. Stala had already hung up. Damn! Wasted a good line.

  I decided to do something useful, so I found the memory stick that had Dougie’s story on it and inserted it into the laptop. I’d read to the end of the first installment in what was evidently a protracted series. I picked up where I’d left off.

  The first part had laid out the history of corruption in Ottawa, listing some of the biggest scandals. The next installments laid out the web of finances that tied together the propaganda machine run by Cliff Ernhardt, the wealthy donors with a political agenda, and the politicians and bureaucrats who would implement that agenda. It was sort of what most Canadians had always suspected, but Dougie had confirmed those suspicions in ten-foot-high scarlet letters.

  The last two installments laid out “Betrayal Three,” the acquisition of Canadian oil by Chinese interests and the transport of that oil through a pipeline to the West Coast. This was the part of the story that was still playing out, and Dougie laid out the plans to co-opt the politicians and bureaucrats who would have to approve the project.

  I knew that this part of the story presented a real danger to the Committee. Old scandals were old scandals. Some mid-level bureaucrat might take the rap. But this was a deal in progress and there were billions of dollars at stake. The last few paragraphs of the story talked about the environmental review of the pipeline to the West Coast and raised questions about the willingness of various bureaucrats to be honest about the environmental risks.

  Ernhardt and the Committee knew almost nothing about the story, but they had vague fears. Ernhardt thought Dougie and Gerry Steadman were two different people, and that Gerry was leaking info to Dougie. That’s why they’d gone to so much trouble to get the tapes back. And now that the pesky reporter had somehow disappeared, one way or another, they thought they were in the clear. I realized the story was more than just a story, a tale to edify and entertain Canadians. It was a potential weapon, a weapon of mass instruction that could destroy the Committee and everything it was trying to accomplish. I just had to decide how to use it.

  Thinking burns a lot of calories, so I set about organizing a stir-fry for supper. The meats defeated the vegetables in a romp, and my appetite got a game misconduct. Then I phoned home and was surprised when the phone was answered by Wall to Wall McKee. “Wally,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Oh, hi, Ollie. It’s going good from the standpoint of a lack of bad guys. But there have been difficulties in terms of the redecorating project.”

  “Oh yeah? What?”

  “Ollie, your dear wife—and you know I do love her dearly—is insisting on area rugs in the rec room.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nomenclature, Ollie, nomenclature. Because all rugs cover area, there can be no separate class of rugs designated as area rugs. You see my point?”

  “Okay, Wally, let me speak to her.”

  Oshie came on, laughing, and I wanted to be there with her. “Ollie, you have the most interesting friends. I’m learning so much about rugs and carpets and all kinds of things.”

  “It’s going well?”

  “Oh yes. I just like to tease Wally. But they’re all a lot of fun. The kids love them. One-Eyed Wayne walked them to school today and Half a Day Ray picked them up. Their friends are all jealous.”

  “That’s great. I didn’t want this to disrupt their lives.” A decision suddenly announced itself to my brain. I would fly home the next day. Rationale? Stala had said we needed to wait for toxicology to come up with the cause of death, we had to wait for interviews with all the members of the Committee, and we had to wait for the results of the forensic audit. If I had to do all that waiting, I preferred to do it at home with my wife and kids. When I told Oshie that, she was overjoyed.

  “Tell me what time your flight gets in. We’ll pick you up.”

  I hung up feeling happier than I had in days.

  Sixteen

  I PHONED STALA IN THE morning to tell him I was going home, and he was okay with that. “You’ve given us some valuable leads, Ollie. But from here on in it’s going to take patience and a lot of old-fashioned police work.”

  “Well, keep me posted. And if you’ve got any questions, give me a call.”

  I took a cab to the airport, leaving Dougie’s dirt bike in the kitchen of my hideaway. You never knew when a hideaway and a dirt bike might come in handy again. The flight was interminable. I fidgeted and stared out the window at nothing but cloud and fidgeted some more and ate seven bags of what the stewardess claimed were salted peanuts. Finally I felt the nose of the plane tilt slightly down and we began our descent into my real life.

  I only had carry-on luggage, so I made it fairly quickly into the domestic arrivals area. Almost immediately I spotted Ren and Daiki running toward me, with Oshie not too far behind. And roughly triangulated around them, at a distance sufficient so as not to seem attached but close enough to pose a threat to anyone in the triangle, I saw three rough-looking men who were casually observing the scene around us.

  Ren and Daiki were soon on top of me, and I dropped my bags and scooped them up. And then Oshie was there, and we kissed as best we could. The three rough-looking men were drawing slowly closer, and finally I put the boys down and accosted the closest thug, the widest one with the most scar tissue on his face. “Wall to Wall, how are you, man?”

  He grabbed my hand and tried to squeeze me into submission. “Ollie, welcome home. We’ve enjoyed hanging out with your family.”

  Half a Day Ray took the toothpick out of his mouth with his left hand and high-fived me with his right. Never one for words, he gave me a nod and a wink and ruffled Daiki’s hair.

  One-Eyed Wayne, his scrawny frame bulked up by the black leather jacket he always wore, gave me a wise look and a half salute. “Ollie, how was the fishing in Ottawa?”

  I laughed. “It was different, Wayne. You’re never sure who is playing whom.”

  Wall to Wall gave me a pat on the back. “We’ll say goodbye now, Ollie. But we’ll see you in the morning. We’ve still got to finish that carpet.”

 
They wandered off and the boys picked up my two bags and Oshie led me to the car. When we walked into the kitchen of my house, I immediately collapsed into a chair and just sort of absorbed everything. Ren and Daiki were both talking at once and I listened to them while looking around the kitchen and holding Oshie’s hand. We let the kids stay up a half hour later than usual, and by the time they went to bed I felt part of it all again.

  Oshie took a bottle of Riesling out of the fridge, and while she sipped and I drank, I filled her in on most of the details of what had transpired in Ottawa. She insisted on asking awkward questions. “So how did you persuade Phil Trimmer to give you the tapes?”

  I squirmed a bit. “You may not realize this, sweetie, but I have a forceful personality.”

  She squeezed my hand. “How forceful?”

  “Well, I was a little rough with him.”

  She let go of my hand. “Was he the only one you were rough with?”

  I took a deep breath and told her as much of the truth as I dared. “Right after they threatened you and the kids, I went over to Cliff Ernhardt’s house and punched him in the mouth. And broke some of his furniture.”

  “What kind of furniture?”

  “I think it was colonial.”

  She took my hand again. “Ollie, I don’t like to even think of you beating people up, but I admire you for standing up for all that’s good and decent in home furnishings. Let’s go to bed.”

  That night Oshie made love to the new in me and I made love to the old in her, and then we made love to the ongoing us. Afterward she lay with her head on my chest and I watched out the window as clouds opened and closed like stage curtains, revealing and then concealing an almost full moon. I fell asleep.

  In the morning we had the usual school-day breakfast, pleasantly hectic, with lots of chatter and plans for later. After the boys had finished their cereal and gathered up all their school paraphernalia, I walked them to school and told them I’d pick them up afterward. As much as I didn’t like to admit it, nothing had been resolved, and the threat to Oshie and the kids had not been withdrawn. I went back to the house for a final cup of coffee and was glad to see Wall to Wall’s van in the driveway.

  When I walked into the kitchen, the Barely Brothers were seated around the table and Oshie was arguing with Wally. “Why do you say ‘carpeting’ to refer to carpets? You don’t say you’re sitting on a chairing. It’s just a chair.”

  Wall to Wall was not deterred. “This house has flooring, roofing, and siding. And I’m installing carpeting. I won’t charge extra for the ‘ing.’”

  I said, “If I can interrupt this scintillating discussion for just a moment, I’m going down to check on the boat. I’ll pick the kids up after school.” I spent most of the day puttering on the boat. Then I picked up the kids and, when I got home, asked if Staff Sergeant Stala had called. He hadn’t, and he didn’t for a whole week.

  When he did call, he had some interesting information. “We finally got the toxicology report on Phil Trimmer. His heart stopped because he had been injected with aconite. Know what that is?” He didn’t even wait for a reply. “It’s a plant-based poison used by some of the hill tribes in China. They use it on poison arrows.”

  “Another Chinese connection,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, here’s another one. Our financial guys have discovered that Crude Operations is 49 percent Chinese owned. Also, it has two Chinese nationals on its board of directors.”

  “These directors. Where do they live?” I asked.

  “Calgary.”

  “Do they have household staff? Butlers, chauffeurs, anything like that?”

  “I can see where you’re going with this,” Stala said. “We’ll check it out.”

  I pressed on. “Have you talked to the Chairman, Paul Salinger?”

  “He politely told us to fuck off. Not in those words, of course. When I pressed him on his comments about using Chinese muscle, he just laughed and said we’d misunderstood his words.”

  “I doubt that.” I snorted. “All those guys, especially him and Ernhardt, can make the English language sit up, beg, and then blow bubbles through the orifice of your choice. And they can also make it say something without really saying it.” I paused to calm down a bit. “I’m positive that whoever killed Trimmer was linked to Tap Dickens, in which case there could be connections to one of those Chinese directors in Calgary. I think that’s where we should focus our efforts.”

  “I’m looking through my contacts to see who I know with the Calgary police. At the very least they’ll be able to get us a list of the household employees. It’ll take a couple of days. I’ll be in touch.”

  After Stala hung up I continued to think over this new information. Tap Dickens was tightly linked to the Chinese. Ernhardt met with a Mr. Chen on the night of Trimmer’s murder. Ernhardt claimed Chen had consular backing. True or false? The guy who could probably answer that was Paul Salinger. Should I approach him? And if I did, should I get approval from Stala?

  I pondered this over the next few days while I continued to get my boat ready for the shrimp season and, coordinating with the Barely Brothers, continued to keep a watch on my family. One afternoon Louise, Danny’s RCMP-officer wife, came by to take Oshie and the kids shopping, so I took the opportunity to take the Barely Brothers out for lunch. We went to the Steveston Hotel. When we were settled at a table, pints in our hands and fish and chips on the way (life can be so bountiful), I said to the guys, “Look, I just want you to know I really appreciate what you’re doing. I hope this situation is over soon, because we’re running out of rooms for you to carpet.”

  Half a Day Ray responded, “Don’t worry about it, Ollie. We owe you a few favors. And once the carpets are done you can take advantage of my new business, Good Enough Repairs. Our motto: If it ain’t broke, give us a call.”

  “Jeez, Ray, that doesn’t really inspire a lot of confidence.”

  “Ollie, we don’t want to be overwhelmed with work. We’ve got lives, you know.”

  “Good point,” I acknowledged.

  One-Eyed Wayne leaned forward and confided, “He wanted to get me to paint the sign on the van, but I couldn’t because I’ve got dylsexia.”

  It took me a moment to clue in. “You mean dyslexia.”

  Wayne looked hurt. “Ollie, if I could say it, I wouldn’t have it.” The others all nodded their heads.

  From there the conversation grew increasingly surreal, as it usually did when we spent time together. Wall to Wall launched into a story about the time he’d taken a Club Med vacation. “Cheap cocaine was flowing like, well, cheap cocaine. I came home with cracked sinuses and a serious addiction to talcum powder. To this day, I can’t change my sister’s kid’s diapers without violating my probation agreement.”

  When the waitress had retreated after bringing the fourth round, One-Eyed Wayne said, “Tell Ollie about that holiday we took in the ambulance.”

  Wall to Wall chuckled. “Yeah, that was a good one. The last year the Grey Cup was in Toronto, we decided to drive back there in an old ambulance.”

  I interrupted. “Why an ambulance?”

  “We got a really good deal on it.” He paused in thought. “A really good deal. Plus, it’s always nice to drive something with flashing lights and a siren. It’s a feature, you know? So anyway, the trip is fun, we’re making good time, and then, on the highway just outside—where the hell was it?”

  One-Eyed Wayne and Half a Day Ray intoned in unison, “Eyebrow, Saskatchewan.”

  Wall to Wall nodded. “Eyebrow, Saskatchewan. There’s this long hill going down into town, and at the top of the hill there’d been an accident. A cop pulls us over and tells us there’s two victims and we’ve got to take them to the hospital. I says sure. Turns out the two victims are drivers of the opposing vehicles and their only injuries seem to be severe lacerations to their decency, resulting in aggravated subdural assholeness. They’re ragging on each other about whose fault it was, bitching to the police offi
cers about allowing too many accidents, and when they see us they start ragging on us. Like, ‘where’s your uniforms’ and ‘you don’t look like paramedics’ and like that.”

  “They were such assholes,” Half a Day Ray chipped in, “they could have made a living at it, crapping for celebrities who’re too busy adopting children and stuff.”

  “So anyway,” Wall to Wall continued, “I says we’re off duty but if you want you can come with us or wait for an hour. So they get in the back of the ambulance with Ray and Wayne, and we’re off.”

  One-Eyed Wayne took up the story. “The first step in reducing their whataya call it, their terminal assholeness, was to get their clothes off. Naked assholes are very rare. Now, you might think that would be difficult, but Ray had put on a stethoscope, and when a guy wearing a stethoscope says, ‘I want to examine you, take off your shirt,’ you do it. And then taking off your pants seems logical. Then we made the guys lie on the stretchers, and I took the blood-pressure thingie and wrapped it around one guy’s head and started pumping it up while Ray applied the stethoscope to the other guy’s forehead. His eyes got all round, and he’s like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ So I says, ‘We’re alternative paramedical practitioners and we believe that monitoring the mind is the key to true healing. You do want to heal, don’t you?’”

  Giggling, Half a Day Ray took up the story. “So both of them are saying they’re not really hurt and they’ll be fine and they don’t really need treatment and I’m staring at them and I say, ‘Denial is a disease. We all need treatment.’ Meanwhile Wayne has found a box of long pins, and he starts laying them out on the stretcher beside the chubby asshole. He’s real panicky now, and he says, ‘What are those for?’ I say, ‘We believe in preventive acupuncture. Twenty or thirty needles will change your life.’ So he screams, ‘I don’t want to change my life.’ At this point Wally stops the ambulance, comes around the back and says if the clients don’t want to be treated, our code of ethics says we’ve gotta leave ’em alone. So we go back to the cab with Wally, making sure we’ve got their clothes in a garbage bag, and we’re off again.”