by Sam Wiebe
Glass counters ran nearly the length and width of the store. Under the glass were cameras and iPods and Xboxes and paintball gear and jewellery. A shelf of DVDs stood in the middle, a CD tower in the corner. Shelves bolted to the wall held TVs and computer monitors, the odd turntable or snare drum. The cement floor around the shelves was reserved for power tools and speaker wedges. Behind the case was a door, open just a crack, leading to what looked like storage. In the corner above the cash register was a camera, trained on the exit.
“My name is Michael Drayton. I’m a private investigator. I’m sure you remember Cliff Szabo and his son.”
Recognition in his eyes. He said nothing.
“I’m also sure you told the events of that afternoon to countless people — the police and the media, and maybe other investigators. But I’d like you to tell it again, if you don’t mind. What can I call you, sir?”
He seemed reluctant to answer, but at last he said, “Ramsey.”
“Mr. Ramsey, okay. And do you own the store, Mr. Ramsey?”
No response. He stared at me, unblinking, a statue of diffidence.
“Were you working here on Friday the 6th of March? If so, were you in the store when Mr. Szabo and his son were here?”
He shook his head.
“But you do know who Mr. Szabo is?”
He nodded.
“You do business with him every so often?”
Nod.
“How would you characterize Mr. Szabo?”
No response.
“What’s he like? Good guy?”
Ramsey cleared his throat. “Good guy, yes.”
“And his son Django?”
“A good guy, yes.”
“How often did Mr. Szabo come in?”
Pause. “Three times.”
“Including March 6th?”
“Four times.”
“You saw him on the 6th?”
“Yes.”
“Did he usually buy or sell?”
“Both.”
“What did he bring in to sell on March 6th?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t remember?”
“I wasn’t there.”
“On March 6th.”
“Yes.”
“Who was tending the store?”
“Tending?”
“Who was sitting where you are right now?”
He blinked. “My daughter.”
“She dealt with Mr. Szabo on that day?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
Hesitation. “Lisa.”
“When will Lisa be in?”
“Not today.”
“Tomorrow? Thursday?”
“Thursday.”
“I’ll be back Thursday then.” I closed up my notebook, the page empty. While we’d been talking a dreadlocked white kid in cutoffs and sandals had entered the store and started perusing the racks of dusty Nintendo games. I thanked Mr. Ramsey for his time. He didn’t respond.
Tuesday, 2:50 p.m.
Place: Brahmin Stamps Coins and Collectables, 3rd Street.
Speaker: Germit Gil, owner and proprietor
“Yes, I’ve done much business with Mr. Szabo. I believe he is a good man. I like his son very much. At least once a month I’d see him. Sometimes he brought his son. I liked them very much. They seemed happy. He sold me some silver coins that day. I still have them. A very good man. I’m very sorry for him.”
Wednesday, 10:45 a.m.
Place: Coin Land, International Village Mall
Speaker: Bill Koch, store manager
“Cliffy, yeah, he did stop by that day. Sucks for him, huh? He’d bring the kid but usually send him to the food court with a dollar. A single dollar, like four quarters. What can you buy with that, a packet of ranch dressing? He never seemed cross with the kid, but he’s not an affectionate guy. But then I knew a guy in the service, nicest, most brave guy I ever met. They found two hookers buried under his house. Goes to fucking show you, doesn’t it?”
Wednesday, 12:10 p.m.
Place: Diaz Bicycles and Sporting Equipment, West Broadway
Speaker: Arturo Diaz, co-owner
“You know how I know Django ran away? ’Cause whenever they came into my place Cliff would tell him not to go anywhere, not to touch anything, and Django would usually do both. We’d look around and he’d be gone. Then we’d find him downstairs trying to pedal one of the ten-speeds. Just the kind of kid he was. No, Cliff never hit Django that I saw, but maybe he should’ve. My dad tuned me up a few times. That’s how we learn.”
Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.
Place: Mumbai Sweets, Cambie Street and 49th
Speaker: Ashraf Dillon
“Don’t remember, sorry. Lots of people bring their kids to eat. Rice or naan?”
Wednesday, 3:45 p.m.
Place: Emily Carr Elementary School, King Edward and Laurel
Speaker: Henrietta Chang-Clemenceau, seventh grade teacher
“It was so horrible, so sad. It’s why I changed schools. No, I never noticed any physical abuse, bruises and such. Believe me, if I had I would have spoke up then and there. But I’m pretty attuned to moods and attitudes, and Django was troubled. He’d rarely write in his Classroom Journal, and when he did it was about looking forward to the next Friday when his dad would take him out of school. I had words with his father about that.
“I guess that seems counter-intuitive, that you would look forward to spending more time with someone who treats you poorly — and believe me, I did witness Mr. Szabo treat Django like that several times, snapping at him to get his coat, expressing frustration when he didn’t move fast enough. Have you heard of the Stockholm Syndrome? You may think it’s bull, but I’ve seen it.
“Between us? What’s so horrible, Mr. Drayton, is that I can’t shake from my head the idea, the feeling, that Mr. Szabo killed his poor son.”
Thursday I hung back until half past eleven. I’d made about fifty pages’ progress in the Veblen, decidedly less on either of my cases. I’d met with the Kroons and we decided to give the Corpse Fucker two more months of weekends: if he hadn’t reappeared by Hallowe’en, we’d leave the cameras up but forego the nightly watch. That meant resigning ourselves to another attack. No one was happy with that. Everyone agreed to it.
When I walked into Imperial Pawn I saw Mr. Ramsey seated on the stool showing unpolished jewellery to a lanky East Asian woman of about forty. They were the only two people in the room.
“Afternoon,” I said. “Is your daughter in?”
Ramsey looked at me as if he’d never set eyes on me before, and wasn’t all that impressed now that he had. He turned his attention back to the woman, helped her with the clasp on a bracelet.
I leaned over the counter close enough so the two of them were within arm’s reach. “Did some tragic illness befall her? A seventy-two-hour virus, maybe?”
“I like this one,” the woman said. Ramsey nodded.
Looking between them I said, “I don’t understand why you’re not more cooperative, considering you and your daughter are two of the last people to see that child before he went missing.”
The woman looked up, looked at me, looked at Ramsey. “What child?” she asked.
I took a flyer from my coat pocket and unfolded it. Two Django James Szabos stared at her, the petulant expression from the school photo and a lower-quality image blown up from a birthday photo taken by his aunt.
“He disappeared just out front, parked in a car on that side street.” I pointed through the wall. “Mr. Ramsey hasn’t been much help. I’m not really sure why.” I turned to Ramsey and gave him an expression of innocent puzzlement. “Do you not want the child to be found, Mr. Ramsey?”
“I don’t want to get mixed up,” he said in explanation to his customer, who had withdrawn from the counter, leaving the bracelet.
“You put your own convenience over a missing child?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Not what he said on Tuesday,” I told the woman.
She said something to Ramsey that I didn’t catch, but couldn’t have been too different from “I want nothing to do with you, asshole.”
After he had buzzed her out, Ramsey turned to me, dull fury written on his face.
“She looked like a good customer,” I said. “That would’ve been, what, a four-hundred-dollar sale?”
“Get out of my store.”
“Where’s your daughter?”
“She doesn’t know anything. Go.”
“We both know you were there,” I said. “You think Szabo didn’t tell me? Or that the cops wouldn’t back him up, I ask them?” I picked up the bracelet and let it fall. “The fact you tried to game me tells me something.”
No answer, just a sullen, unblinking stare. I pounded my fist on the table, causing the jewellery to rattle and Ramsey to wobble on his stool. He was squat and solid-looking, but age and a sedentary lifestyle were working against him. Once he regained his balance he was quick to sweep the jewellery back into its display box.
“See, I don’t think you’d hurt a child. You have one of your own, which generally means you have some degree of empathy. But why run interference for someone like that? Kind of parent does that to another parent?”
“I know nothing,” he reiterated. I could tell by his expression the words sounded false even to his ears. I could also tell that he’d cling to them as long as he could.
“How ’bout you talk to me and let’s decide that together. Doesn’t have to involve the law or anyone else. Or you could talk directly to Mr. Szabo.”
The door to the back room opened. If Ramsey had wavered at all during our conversation, at the sight of his daughter his will was re-forged. Lisa was about my age, pear-shaped, with a face buried under bronzer and red lipstick.
“You get the hell out of here,” she said to me. “He’s not talking to you. Ever. Understand?”
“He said you were the one who dealt with Szabo.”
“You’re a police officer?”
“Private detective working for —”
“I don’t care,” she said. “Get out or I call the real police.”
I nodded and walked to the door to wait for her to buzz me out. Propping the door open, I turned back to hurl some scathing putdown at them. I started to point out that between the two of them they had one pair of eyebrows, but it was too much of a mouthful. I drove home alternating between coming up with better insults and telling myself I was the bigger man for holding my tongue. The perfect ending for a day/week/month full of mistakes, false starts, and what-could-have-beens.
Thursday, 7:30 p.m.
Place: Szabo residence, a small house with a wide paint-stripped back porch.
Speaker: Agatha Szabo, aunt of Django James.
“I can tell something about you, Mr. Drayton. I can tell you were a lonely child. So you know what it’s like. I was like that. So is Django. Cliff? No, he was always too angry to be lonely.
“Django is quiet. He sees everything — that he gets from his father. It’s hard for him to fit in.
“I know what his teachers think — that he was unhappy at home, or that Cliff was a bad father. It’s not true. He’s strict about business, yes, but he loves his son. And Django loves him. When Django was younger, Cliff would read to him every night.
“Since he’s been gone, Cliff has become short-tempered. He’s angry at himself. His business has been slow, and he makes mistakes he never would have before. He was distraught when Marisa died, but it was easy for him to know what emotion to feel. He’s lost now.
“The policeman, Fisk, seemed to think Django might have taken off in the car. I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t leave his father and I. He was very well-behaved.
“What do I think happened? I haven’t said it, even to myself. It’s too horrible to say. But I think it all the time. My beautiful nephew.
“I dream about him often.”
VI
The Ethereal Conduit of Madame Thibodeau
“He’s been sleeping for the last two hours,” I heard my grandmother say as she led someone down into the basement. I imagined them in single file, proceeding cautiously down the stairs, the only light my grandmother’s torch. And me, lurking in that basement like some cut-rate Cthulhu, waiting for the seals on my sarcophagus to be broken.
The expedition reached the lower depths of the household. I emerged from my room stumbling and rubbing my eyes. I saw Katherine and Ben, noted their reactions, and debated whether they’d think less of me if I turned around and retreated back into my room.
“Did you forgot Monday’s a work day?” Katherine asked.
“I didn’t forget.” I took the mail from my grandmother. “Just felt like taking a personal day.”
“Usually you phone in and tell the office.”
I tore up the flyers and subscription renewal warnings. “Usually Mondays the office is empty.”
“Would you like some lunch?” my grandmother asked me.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Well, would you mind putting on some pants?”
I stepped into a pair of jeans, turned on the light and ushered them inside. My grandmother retreated to the sanctity of the upstairs. I sat on the bed, motioned Katherine into the threadbare love seat. Ben stood against the wall. Usually he needed to be at the centre of any discussion. Today he held back.
“So what’s going on?” I said, groping behind the headboard to find my moccasins.
“You tell us,” Katherine said. “Mr. Szabo dropped off some money. About sixty bucks in change. I put it with the rest.”
“Good,” I said. “Any other developments?”
“Like what?”
“No messages?”
“None,” she said. “Oh, except for that skinny record producer chick. What was her name?”
“Amelia Yeats,” I said. “What did she say?”
“Just that she really enjoyed meeting a famous detective and wanted to have dinner with you tonight. I told her you were busy.”
“Really?”
“And afterward you might want to come back to her place and share a nice bubble bath. Come on, Mike.”
I collapsed back onto the bed. “So sorry for having a dick.”
Ben had begun inspecting the room. “You have a Sega,” he said.
“If you listen closely you can hear his fanboy-itis wearing off,” Katherine said to me.
“No, it’s a nice room,” Ben said. “It’s fine. It’s just —”
“Not very glamorous, is it?”
“Well,” he said, “you live with your grandmother.”
“She lives with me,” I said. “And it beats living above a djembe store.”
“Smells kind of funny,” Ben said.
“It does smell awful,” Katherine agreed.
“It’s the dog,” I told them. That prompted an explanation and medical history. By the time I’d finished, the dog had clambered down the stairs and buried her face in Katherine’s crotch. She pushed the dog away firmly and crossed her legs.
“What’s her name?” Ben asked.
“When she was a baby we called her Babe — real creative, I know. Years later we decided she needed a real name, so I named her Odetta, after the blues singer. Only she doesn’t look like an Odetta and she doesn’t answer to Odetta, so I went back to calling her Babe. But she’s not a baby anymore and that doesn’t fit, and because it’s been so long, she doesn’t come to that name either. So I just call her ‘dog’, or the dog if I have to differentiate her from other dogs.”
The dog in question walked to her corner and with a laboured wheeze collapsed on her mat.
“Poor girl,” Ben said, stooping over to rub two knuckles against the dog’s skull.
“Anyway,” I said, “there anything else going on?”
“I just drove here because he asked me to,” Katherine said, pointing at Ben. “If it was up to me I’d’ve let you sleep.”
“Of course not,” she said, in what she probably thought was a convincing tone.
I turned my attention to Ben. “Out with it.”
“Not a big deal, really. It’s just my mother wants to hire someone else.”
“I see,” I said, leaning back against the head-board. I hoped at least it wasn’t McEachern. “She’s entitled to do that, of course. Tell her I understand.”
“No, she doesn’t want to replace you.” Ben held up a card, pink with blue script. “It’s just that someone told her about this and now she can’t get it out of her head. I was actually hoping you could talk her out of it.”
I looked at the card. MADAME THIBODEAU, ETHEREAL CONSULTATIONS followed by an address near the foothills of Burnaby Mountain.
“She’s serious?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Who told your mom about her?”
“No idea.” His expression turned strangely credulous. “It’s all bullshit, right?”
“What do you think?”
I got up and walked to the washroom and splashed cold water on my face.
“I know your mother,” I said. “The more we try to talk her out of this the more she’ll want it. So let her book the session.”
“She already did. Sundown tonight.”
I sat back down on the bed and started buttoning my shirt. “If it’s one session and your mom is willing to waste the dough, there’s no real harm. But some of these people are lampreys. They’ll string her along, week after week, with nothing to show for it.”
“And that’s our job,” Katherine said. Immediately she added, “I’m kidding, of course.”
“We’ll go and see,” I said, ignoring her. “And if Madame Thibodeau starts with that ‘To find your daughter you must purify your bank account’ shit, we’ll call her on it.” Looking at Katherine I added, “After all, we can’t have her honing in on our turf.”
Before the illness, when I took the dog to Douglas Park, she’d take off across the field, ruining ball games, harassing little children and stalking the wildlife. Now when I loosed her collar and tossed her ratty tennis ball, she loped after it as if the activity held no pleasure for her, like it was a huge favor to me. The next time she ignored the ball and squatted behind the home team dugout. I watched a crumbling deuce fall from between her legs.