Looking for Henry Turner

by W. L. Liberman

  The city cleaner held a pole with a long, sharp nail at the end of it. When the teens started to cuss him out, he brandished the pole and told them to clear off or he'd use it. One of the teenagers dared him. The garbage picker's hand darted out in a flash and suddenly, the boy grabbed the fleshy part of his thigh yowling in pain. When I looked at the nail on the end of the pole, a fleck of blood glinted in the light. The teens grabbed their pal and dragged him off hurling insults.

  “You're crazy man–you should be arrested–go get locked up…”

  The garbage picker ignored them and had words with the young mother who still clutched her little girl. The girl had calmed and the mother thanked him, saying those boys terrorized the park just about every day and no one stood up to them. The man nodded and smiled, then went about his business picking garbage from the ground. I felt the bulky shape in my pocket. I got up and waited for a minute while the garbage picker moved off a ways then went over to him.

  “I found something,” I said.

  The man kept sticking papers in the ground and flicked them into the satchel. He didn't look up. “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I think it belongs to you.”

  “What makes you think that, mister?”

  I reached into my pocket and removed the copy of The Invisible Man and held it out to him. “Here, take a look.”

  The garbage picker looked at it sideways but kept moving. “Don't think so.”

  “Take a closer look, Henry. Your name is written on the inside cover. It's definitely yours, all right.”

  Henry Turner froze. He swiveled to his left away from me and was about to run for it when he banged into a wall of human flesh that turned out to be Arthur Birdwell.

  “Howdy Henry,” Birdie said.

  “We're not here to hurt you, Henry.”

  “Where's Ricky? He left me a note.”

  “We're here to help,” I said. “Can we talk for a minute? I've got a few questions to ask you. Your mother hired us to look for you.”

  Henry sagged. “Guess I knew this day would come,” he said quietly. We escorted him to the bench. He kept his head down the whole time. Trying to stay invisible.

  “Hiding in plain sight, Henry. That was smart. Clever.”

  “Uh-huh. Who'd you say you were again?”

  “I didn't, but my name is Mo Gold and this is my partner, Arthur Birdwell. Call him, Birdie.”

  “My momma's okay?”

  “Fine, Henry, she's just fine. She can't wait to see you.”

  Henry looked up with fear in his eyes. “No sir. I can't do that. It's too dangerous.”

  “Why Henry? Why is it dangerous?”

  Henry looked away again like a little kid distracted by a bright colour. “She got the things I left for her, I know she did.”

  “That's right. She always believed in you, Henry. She never stopped believing, not after all these years.”

  “She'll understand one day. One day…” and he stopped. “Why you talking to me, man? What have I done to you?”

  I glanced at Birdie who rolled his eyes just a tad. “You haven't done anything, Henry. We're fine. We're here to help you and your mother but you have to talk to us.”

  “Uh-huh.” But he didn't sound convinced.

  “You remember Alison, don't you? Alison Foster? Her name is Lawson now.”

  Henry started to laugh. “You think I've lost my marbles, haven't you? You think that old Henry's been away so long, he can't function in society any more. Don't you? Isn't that what you thinking, Mr. Gold?”

  “I think what you've done is very, very smart. Amazing really.”

  “Why did you ask me about Miss Foster?”

  “She was murdered, Henry. Last night. Stabbed through the heart.”

  Henry's face went slack. “They know who did it?”

  “Her husband's been arrested but I don't think he's guilty. He's in a helluva mess though.”

  “If it wasn't her husband, then who was it?”

  I shrugged and shifted my position on the bench. “I don't know, Henry. I was hoping you could help me find out. I was hoping you could fill in a lot of the blanks we've been looking at.”

  “Meaning?” His tone was almost accusatory.

  “What happened on that night eight years ago? What happened that you had to run away and hide yourself? That's the key to everything, Henry. And if we don't know what happened that night, then we can't help you, your mother, your cousin, Adele…”

  “Adele? What's she got to do with anything?”

  “Well, she's become very close to your mother and everyone wants to find you…”

  “Me and Adele weren't that close. She was always trying to make herself look good, make me look bad, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. I think so but that doesn't mean she isn't worried about you. I get the impression you were tight.”

  “Uh-huh. That's right. Just the three of us, against the world. After my daddy died.”

  “What happened back then, Henry?”

  Henry shook his head. Jaw clenched.

  “C'mon man,” Birdie boomed. “Get it off your chest. You'll feel better for it.”

  Henry stared at Birdie then swallowed hard. He took a big gulp of air. “You a preacher?”

  “Sometimes,” Birdie replied.

  “I finished with all of that. What good did it do? Didn't help me none.”

  “Your mother goes to church every Sunday, Henry,” I said.

  “Yeah. I know that,” he replied in a sullen tone. “She think God's gonna help her out and look what's happened. Slaving for that family all those years and what has she got? Nothin, that's what.”

  “She's still got you, Henry and that's all she cares about.” Birdie laid his big paw on Henry's shoulder. “Now, come on, man. If you don't do this for yourself, then do it for her. Talk to us for Miz Turner. For her precious sake.”

  Henry stared at Birdie for a long moment, then he laughed. “Man, you good. I think you are a preacher.”

  “Henry?” I prompted.

  He sighed. “Yeah. Well. I was driving for Miss Alison. She and her friends were getting into all kinds of trouble. All kinds…”

  “You would drive them to Blackstones?”

  “That's right. I don't know how she found out about that place but she did and they were going two, three nights a week. Her folks were away a lot. They didn't know what she was up to.”

  “But you did?”

  “Kind of. I knew they weren't going to church, if that's what you mean but I didn't know exactly what went on there.”

  “When you say they went two, three times a week, was it all four of them, the boys and the girls?”

  “Nu-unh, just the girls. Those boys only went a couple of times that I know of.”

  “And the other girl was Gayle Sorenson?”

  “Yeah. That's right. Gayle.”

  “You never went into the club?”

  Henry hesitated. He licked his lips, folded his hands in his lap and stared at the ground. “Only the once,” he said. “Only that one time and I wished I hadn't. I wished I'd never set foot in that place.”

  Birdie reached out and took his arm gently. “Man, you gotta tell us what happened that night.”

  Henry nodded, tight-lipped. “My life changed forever that night was what happened,” he said. He drifted back eight years.

  “I'd been concerned for a while. Things were getting crazy with those two. They'd go in that place and when they came out, man, I knew they was trippin' on something. And whatever it was, it wasn't good. Some Chinese guy would bring them out the back. That's where I picked them up. I wanted to tell Mr. Foster about it but Miss Alison made me promise not to say anything. She told me she'd tell him it was all my doing. That she'd tell Mr. Foster I forced her to go and then the police would be called and I'd be arrested for all kinds of things. She'd just gone crazy. Whatever they were doing in there must have made her insane. They'd come out and be all drowsy, barely a
ble to walk and the two of them would just giggle their heads off in the back seat but it was spooky what they sounded like–it certainly wasn't natural.”

  “Go on.”

  “That night…they….uh…”

  “They got pulled over by a traffic cop, isn't that right?” I prompted.

  “Yeah, that's right. I got down to the station a little after midnight. I had to wait. The kids were still being talked to by the police. When they come out, Miss Alison laid into me, really tore a strip off my hide, like it was all my fault they got picked up and held by the cops. She was screaming and yelling but then, I could see she was in a real bad way.”

  “What do you mean? A bad way?”

  “Doubled over and moaning with pain. That's what it looked like.”

  I was confused. “Miss Foster was in pain?”

  Henry shook his head. “No. The other one.”

  “Gayle Sorenson?”

  “Yeah, that's right. She could barely walk. Miss Alison, she was in a bad way too but not like the other one. Miss Alison was jumpy and scratching at herself. I figured it was the dope doing its work, you know?”

  “Go on.”

  “We got outside and the boys split. Miss Alison held the other girl up who was moaning and crying. I brought the car around. Miss Alison say to take them back there…”

  “To Blackstones?”

  “Yeah, that's right. Back there. We had a disagreement about it. I was worried about the other girl. She looked like she needed a doctor real bad but Miss Alison screamed at me. I never heard a body spew such filth, it just poured out of her. Finally, I said, fine, I had enough. Her call. So I drove down to the club. As I drove, the other girl had her head in Miss Alison's lap. She tried to soothe her, keep her calm and it worked for a while then she'd get a kind of spasm and start screaming again. It was hard to listen to and I felt real sorry for her.”

  “Finish it off, man,” Birdie said. “Go on.”

  “So we get there and I stopped the car outside the front door. Miss Alison gives me a look like, ain't I gonna help them out of the car but I stayed put. I wasn't gonna do anything else. Fed up with it but the other girl was in such a bad way that I couldn't stop myself. I opened the back door and between the two of us, we kinda half-carried the poor girl to the entrance of that place. But that was as far as I went, you know? We was met by this Chinese guy, the same one who was always there, had a kind of cocky attitude. He stopped me and said he'd take it from here and I said, fine, I'll just go wait in the car. And that's what I did. I put the radio on low and sat there. Must have been an hour or two later. I'd fallen asleep. No sign of the girls. I got worried. I had a bad feeling about this. I had a bad feeling about everything that night. I just didn't know what–I didn't know how–I had no idea…you know?”

  “Take your time, Henry,” I said.

  Henry nodded and swiped at his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “The place was closed so it was real late, maybe between three and four in the morning. I checked the door and it was open. I went in. Climbed up some stairs and tip-toed down a hall to an office in the back. I cracked the door and that's when I saw it…saw it…”

  He'd gone into a trance, staring into space. “What'd you see, Henry? Were the girls there?”

  “Uh-huh,” he replied.

  “Did you see anybody else?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “There was another Chinese guy. This guy was short and kind of skinny with his hair parted in the middle. He spoke funny, like those folks in England. But he was no gentleman, that's for sure.”

  “What were the girls doing?”

  “Just sitting there. Miss Alison, she just stare out into space at something. The other one was crying softly, whimpering like a little…like a little…a…”

  “Baby, man?” Birdie asked.

  Henry darted a fearful look at him. “Yeah. That's right.” Tears welled up in his eyes and his mouth went tight. “I couldn't take my eyes off it…I just couldn't…”

  “Off what, Henry?” I asked.

  “The child, man. Her child. It was just lying there on a blanket–right on the desk. Its skin all blue. Dead. Poor child never had a chance. When I came into the room, the Chinese guy, the other one, was untying something from around its little neck. Whatever happened, that child didn't die naturally, that was for sure.”

  Birdie reared back on the bench. “The child was murdered? Is that what you're saying?”

  “Yeah. God didn't save a child that night…”

  “Jesus,” I breathed. All kinds of thoughts spun around in my head.

  Henry sighed and rubbed his palms up and down his face like he was trying to scrub the memory of it away.

  “The Chinese man, the smaller one–he wrote something on a piece of paper and he handed it to me. I read it and my heart fell through the floor. My blood ran cold. The paper had my momma's address on it. The Chinese man say that I should take the girls home and say nothing about what happened and that as long as I keep quiet everything be okay and nobody get hurt but in case I didn't–he pointed to the piece of paper–he didn't say anything after that. He didn't have to. I got the message loud and clear. So I did what he say.

  I got the girls into the car and drove Miss Gayle first and then Miss Alison home. I parked the car in the garage and I walk away. I couldn't stay on, after that. Didn't know where to go or what to do. Just felt I had to disappear, make myself invisible somehow but in a way that I could watch, that I could see what was going on. I called Ricky. Woke him up. Explained what happened and together, we came up with this idea of me going underground–like in the book–and eight years later, here we are. Look but don't touch–that's my life–maybe forever…”

  I sighed. Henry looked very alone and I caught a glimpse of what it must have been like for him since he disappeared. A life but not a life. A life of watching everyone else live theirs but not having one of your own. I thought about Gayle and her ordeal. I remember when I was a beat cop, I took a call concerning an abandoned baby. We found the mother—a 14 year-old girl who'd delivered in the school washroom. Her mother didn't know. Her friends didn't know. Kept her condition hidden wearing loose clothing and making excuses to get out of gym class. Said she'd been putting on weight eating too many sweets and cakes. What she went through on her own. I couldn't fathom what Gayle had gone through. It didn't bear thinking about.

  “What now?” Henry asked. “I tell you what happened and then what? What's gonna change things.”

  I looked at him. “We are.”

  Henry gave a snort, then a harsh laugh. “That's it? You all we got?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Henry sighed and stood up. “Where you going, man?” Birdie asked him.

  “Where you think, big man? I'm going back to my life, the only one I know.”

  “Things are going to change,” I said.

  “You can't win. This man have the city in his pocket, you understand? He do what he want and nobody stop him. Not the police. Not the Mayor. Not anybody. I can't risk having anything happen to my momma. She hire you to find me? Now you found me. I'll see you around.”

  We watched him walk away from the playground. He picked up his satchel and stick and moved off, head down, still staying invisible.

  45

  Birdie and I parked in front of the police precinct. We had about 18 hours until John's deadline. We watched the front entrance. While we waited, he demolished three fried egg sandwiches and half a dozen doughnuts. I ate a tuna salad on rye and sipped coffee.

  “There he goes now,” I said.

  Birdie nodded, swallowed the last of the doughnuts, flicked crumbs off his lap, and slipped out the door. He glided across the street after the lean figure of Roy Mason, Callaway's taciturn sidekick, as he strode down the sidewalk, hands shoved in his pockets, a fag jutting from his thin lips, favouring his left leg. I waited for a minute, locked up the Chevy and headed inside.

  I found Callaway in his disheveled office. He looked up from a stac
k of folders with a miserable expression on his face as I walked in and closed the door.

  “Need your help,” I said.

  “Just my luck,” he said. “I was hoping some helpless citizen was going to walk in here and ask for my assistance. And then you show up.”

  “You're probably not going to like it,” I said.

  “Tell me something I don't know,” Callaway replied and motioned to the chair opposite. I shoved some more files out of the way and sat down.

  “Looks like you can use a distraction, in any case.”

  Callaway sighed. “Already I know I'm not going to like what you're gonna say. So say it fast before I change my mind.”

  I grinned. “Maybe, you'll like some parts of it.”

  “Give,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  So I told him everything I knew or rather, just about everything. There were a few things I wasn't sure of. I told him about Henry Turner and what happened to him and where he'd been hiding out for eight years. I told him about Alison Lawson nee Foster and what she and Gayle and those boys did all those years ago. I told him about the night Henry disappeared and why he disappeared. Then I told him about Eli and I even mentioned Jake to him. He seemed very interested in that. He got more interested when I told him he could nail John Fat Gai once and for all. Then I told him what I wanted to do and why I needed his help. He sat there listening intently and didn't say anything until I finished.

  “That's some story,” he said. “My granny used to read me fairy tales when I was a kid before she put me to bed at night.”

  “Yeah. Well. This is more like a nightmare.”

  “No kidding.” He cleared his throat. “Er, your plan…”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “There's a few holes in it.”

  I nodded. “Yeah I know. That's why I need your help.”

  “I don't think I have the manpower for an operation like you're suggesting.”

  “I figured. That's why you need to call Tobin and get him to help you out.”

  Callaway's face creased. It made him look like a sick bulldog. “Tobin? Are you suggesting I bring the feds into this?”

  “That's exactly what I'm suggesting.”