by Sam Wiebe
“What do you think?” she said.
“You don’t want to stop?”
“No.”
I nodded. “Okay then.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t know.” She seemed lucid, engaged.
“You should’ve known there was a downside to all this,” she said, indicating her body with a self-effacing wave of the hand.
Seconds passed as I tried to formulate a response.
“My dog has cancer,” I said, trying to think of something of equivalent importance to share with her, to let her know I accepted and appreciated what she’d shared with me, even if I didn’t know how to deal with it yet. “I’m going to have to kill her pretty soon. I mean have her killed, obviously, but it amounts to the same thing. My grandmother thinks I should’ve done it a month ago.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Why don’t you have dinner with us?” I asked her. “My grandmother would like to meet you. Assuming you won’t steal her cutlery.”
I left the bags on the stairs and went back up to the landing to embrace her. I felt her body beneath the shirt, ran my hand over the trackline of her vertebrae. Her mouth tasted like blood.
My phone chirped. I freed an arm to check the number. CALLER ID WITHHELD.
“Cock-blocked by Nokia,” Yeats said.
“This’ll be good news.”
I watched her lock the landing door and walk back to the control room before I took the call.
“Drayton speaking.”
“Michael.”
Crittenden.
“Afternoon; I’m at your office. The Atero brothers are with me. And your friends. I feel we should talk.”
I told him I’d be right over, but I made a stop at the house to grab my grandfather’s shotgun. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. A shotgun is a great persuasive tool, and great when the opponent is unarmed or unaware, but in a prolonged fight, the Glock would be more appropriate. The Glock, however, was back at the office.
Theo Atero’s Mustang and a Lincoln that probably belonged to Crittenden were parked on the corner of Beckett, in flagrant disregard of the law to keep two meters’ distance from a fire hydrant. Atero’s car was empty. I pulled up across from the Lincoln so that the driver’s side windows lined up. I saw Crittenden behind the wheel. Theo Atero sat next to him, tapping the butt of a stogie out the passenger’s window. Zak sat in back. I put my foot on the brake and let them see the barrel of the Winchester.
“Afternoon,” I said.
Crittenden nodded. Theo Atero scowled at the gun.
“Nothing’s going to be solved by that,” Crittenden said, nodding towards the shotgun.
“Where are the others?”
“Your friends barricaded themselves in the office. The girl was quite the pragmatist — she wouldn’t let me in even when I explained we were friends of yours. The other one, the heavyset man, had some unpleasant language for us.”
“What were they doing there in the first place?”
“It’s your office, Michael.”
“Tell these two —” I indicated the Ateros “— to exit slowly, hands touching their ears, walk to their car, and drive back to your restaurant.”
“Just who the fuck do you think you are?” Theo Atero said to me. “Break into my house, order my brother around?”
“We’ll talk back at the restaurant,” Crittenden said.
“Tell them to toss their guns before they exit. Put them on the dash where I can see them, two fingers on the butt.”
“None of us came strapped,” Crittenden said, enjoying the slang of the last word. “We came to talk, believe it or not, to come to some sort of amiable resolution.”
“Not going to happen,” I said. “It’s in the hands of the cops and the press. If I knew how to convert that tape to digital, it’d be on YouTube by now.”
“Listen to this mutt,” Theo Atero said.
“You and your brother out of the car.”
Out they came and walked back to their car. After lingering there for a moment, they drove off.
“Still want to talk?” I said, calling the office line with my free hand, getting a busy signal.
“I think that’s best,” he said.
I parked and together we went inside, the shotgun tucked into its leather carrying case. At the top of the stairs I rapped on the glass. Katherine sat in my spot, the Glock on the table in front of her. Ben stood by her desk, setting the phone back on its cradle.
I gave Katherine the thumbs-up sign through the door and she unlocked it, stepped aside to let us enter, avoiding the polite gaze of Lloyd Crittenden.
“You’re both okay?” I asked.
“Fine,” she said. “Where are those other two?”
“Gone. Why didn’t you phone me?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Ben asked.
I held up my cell, showing him the lack of received-call messages on the screen. “What number were you trying?”
“Jesus,” Katherine said. “You were trying the house line, weren’t you?”
“Mondays my grandmother goes to the casino,” I said. “The house line goes straight to message.”
Katherine rolled her eyes at him. Ben shrugged. “You told me to try Mike’s number, that’s what’s on the screen. Was I ’sposed to know that wasn’t the right number?”
“You know the area code of his cell starts with seven-seven-eight, and the home line’s six-oh-four. That didn’t clue you in?”
Embarrassed at the infighting, I said to Crittenden, “It’s nice to know we can all think on our feet during a crisis.” To the others I said, “This is Lloyd Crittenden. He and I need to talk. You two should leave — though why you’re here at all eludes me.”
“Studying,” Katherine said.
“Bored,” Ben said.
“What subject do you study?” Crittenden asked her.
“Don’t answer,” I said, tossing Katherine the keys.
“Are you sure you’re okay with him?”
“It’ll work out.”
“Nice meeting you both,” Crittenden said on their way out. “Good luck with your studies.”
Looking back at him briefly Katherine said, “If you hurt him —” She turned and followed Ben out, leaving the threat unfinished.
I put the shotgun behind me and pocketed the pistol. “Is this what it’s got to be like,” I asked, “guns and unfriendly visits?”
“You disobeyed me,” he said.
“You didn’t leave me a choice. And I halfway think you did it just to see what I’d do, as a form of amusement.”
“I wouldn’t take those kinds of liberties, least of all with work. Although it’s been a while since someone fired a shot across my bow so blatantly.”
“In any case it’s done now,” I said. “There’s no profit in hindering the search for this kid, and whatever happens between us won’t stop the police from following up.”
“A stalemate,” he said. He didn’t seem angry, but his good humour had faded and with it the sense that he was toying with me. He remained a cutthroat despite his diction.
“If I told you the number and variety of responsibilities I have, you’d think I was an emperor. This was such a minor incident that I tried to remain impartial and let it sort itself out, realizing that whatever happens to the Ateros is of no consequence to me. Truth be told, Theo wanted to deal with you before your session with his brother. I felt there was no point in bloodshed.”
“Do you know what the definition of a weak boss is, Mr. Crittenden?”
He leaned forward in his chair. “Are you calling me that?”
“I don’t know you well enough to judge,” I said, “but I know what it’s like working for one. A weak boss doesn’t want to get involved because he doesn’t want to piss anyone off. He justifies his weakness as fairness. A shitty boss hurts everybody, but a weak boss hurts only the good and reasonable people. Two employees have a beef, ’stead of weighing in, he splits it d
own the middle, ‘Well, you both have compelling arguments,’ and so forth. That only encourages them to be less reasonable in the future. One guy says ‘You owe me ten dollars, here’s a receipt as proof,’ and the other guy says ‘Fuck your receipt, you owe me a million.’ If a weak boss arbitrates, it’s, ‘Boys, let’s not fight, you both have compelling arguments. Let’s split this down the middle. You pay him five dollars, he pays you half a million. Nice talking to you fellows, I’ll be in the coffee room if anybody needs me.’”
Crittenden had settled his claw-like hands on his knees. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to insult me or sympathize. Do you think I should have hurt you?”
“You should’ve helped me,” I said. “Instead, you threatened me. With most people that would have been enough. But I’m not going away.”
Crittenden sneezed into a black handkerchief and held the moist rag in his lap. Gesturing at the room he said, “It amazes me you’d risk this to talk to Zachary Atero.”
“That’s just how it turned out this time.”
A droplet of blood fell out of Crittenden’s left nostril onto the back of his hand. He dabbed at his nose with the handkerchief. “I get the occasional nose-bleed,” he said. “Stress-related, I expect.”
I pointed to the narrow door in the corner by Katherine’s desk. “Washroom’s in there if you want to clean up.”
“Appreciated but not necessary,” he said. “As to our business, I’ll take the advice of my security consultant and wash my hands of the entire matter.”
“Thank you.”
“You shouldn’t.” Crittenden snorted back a trickle of blood. “I have some say over Zachary, but Theo keeps his own counsel. What he chooses to do is up to him. All I can promise is I won’t involve myself. As far as I’m concerned, the matter is between you and the Atero family. I wish you luck.”
He stood up, folding the handkerchief and tucking it into his jacket pocket.
“Cliff Szabo isn’t a close friend?” he asked at the door.
“I don’t even like him all that much.”
“You don’t seem to be involved for the media exposure, and I doubt he pays you more than a pittance.”
“Less.”
“Altruism?”
“I’m sure Freud could trace it back to my mother.” I walked him to the door, pointing to my upper lip to signal him to wipe his. He shook out the handkerchief and held it to his face. He held out his other hand for me to shake, withdrawing it when he noticed the rivulet of blood run down the knuckles to the palm. I shook his hand anyway.
As he made his way down I said, “I had to guess, I’d say it’s because I can’t countenance what happened to Django Szabo.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning. “You can’t what?”
“Countenance,” I said. “It means ‘Give approval to.’ It also means about ten other things. I had to look it up in Oxford’s.”
Crittenden grinned. Condescension, admiration, pity.
“Look up the word ‘Thanatos,’” he said. “That might come nearer the mark. We’re an infernal mystery to ourselves, aren’t we? Goodbye, Michael.”
XVII
The Cat House
The tapes took three days to circulate. When mine arrived, I stashed it unopened in the bottom of the filing cabinet. I was alone in the office, waiting for Fisk’s call. Outside, low charcoal-coloured clouds sped across a blank sky, threatening to burst into rain or hail.
The day before, I’d driven by the house on Fraser and spotted the graffiti-defaced, stand-alone garage. The street was clogged with cyclists and pedestrians. I walked up to the garage doors and peered through the sliver of light between them. A car was there. No child. Whatever else could wait for the police to cut the padlock.
That morning I’d run down a bogus lead on the Loeb case, forwarded the school’s refusal of payment to my attorney, and dealt with the issue of the Ko family’s relocated grandson. I asked the nephew over the phone to ask the grandparents if they wanted me to talk to the daughter-in-law. After a brief consultation he said no, they’d prefer to handle it themselves. I was prepping the invoice when Gavin Fisk phoned me on the office line.
“We need to talk, Encyclopedia Brown.”
“You used that one already,” I said. “You’re running out of sleuths, Gavin.”
“You made this tape?”
“Tape?”
“The one that came in the mail today while I’m having my McMuffin, that shows a guy named Zak Atero talking about jacking the Szabos’ car.”
“Great news,” I said.
“Oh fuck off, Drayton. This has your pawprints all over it.”
“Now that you mention it,” I said, “something like that showed up in the mail today, no return address. Is that what yours looked like? I wonder who else might’ve got one?”
“Yeah I wonder. You do know this would never stand up in any court of law, don’t you? You’re not that deluded to think Atero’s going to jail on account of this?”
“You think my primary concern is seeing him in jail?”
“Who knows what your concerns are,” Fisk said. “Couple years ago I fucked your girlfriend and now it’s any chance you can to make me look bad.”
“The main concern is finding the kid. Making you look bad would be an ancillary benefit.”
“So how long do I have till this tape finds its way onto the web?”
“My best guess? I’d say you probably have two to four days to talk to this Atero, ‘discover’ the car, and convince Mr. Szabo you’re doing everything you can.”
“And I’m sure you’ll be real helpful in that regard, right, Mike? That cheap bastard already hates my guts. Imagine what nightmare scenario the two of you come up with.”
I tipped my chair back to the wall, hanging a foot over a corner of the table.
“Far as I’m concerned, Gavin, you find the kid, I’ll say you’ve been walking point this entire investigation.”
Fisk voiced his appreciation by saying nothing for almost a minute. When he came back he said, “I’m on my way to the address Atero mentions. I guess it wouldn’t botch things too bad if you came along.”
“I’ll meet you there,” I said.
“You think there’s a chance this kid’s alive?”
“No,” I said. The terribleness of not knowing.
“Me neither.”
“Though if he made it into this Dominique’s hands alive, and she’s got no cause to harm him, then it stands to reason he’d be in that same condition.”
“Possible.”
“Maybe they fell in love.”
“The kid and the hooker?”
“Puberty changes everything.”
“How would you know?” Fisk said before hanging up.
Fisk was waiting in a patrol car across the street from the house. He climbed out of the passenger’s side as I pulled in ahead of him. From the driver’s side came Mira Das in her uniform and rain gear, her hat under her arm and a notepad and pen in her other hand. When I opened my door it brushed a thick pile of wet leaves away from the curb.
The street was residential and the condition of the houses varied from well-maintained to decrepit. Some houses had been subdivided into three, even four suites, with little attention paid to uniformity or symmetry. A bungalow-style dwelling had a second story of cheaper materials grafted on top, and other additions made to that. Dominique’s was such a house, with two front doors facing the street and another along the side, each with a brass letter above the knocker. A, B, C.
We took our chances with the sagging paint-flaked porch. Knocking on the two front-facing doors yielded no answer. Mira rang the bell on the side door and we heard signs of life from the other side of the nearby window, through which I could see a tub of cat litter on the kitchen counter, along with an ice cream pail full of kibble, an overflowing ashtray, and two bottles of hundred-proof rum.
Fisk peered in and noticed the same things. “This’ll be a fun conversation.”
“We should probably try to get a search warrant,” Mira said.
I handed her my trenchcoat and heaved my bulk onto the sill. “Just don’t tell the cops.”
I dropped down into a dining nook full of broken and mended furniture. Four litter boxes dotted the floor, all overflowing. I crunched cat shit, cat food, and cereal underfoot.
Every surface had a thick film of dust. A sour smell hung in the kitchen, distinct from the stench of the litter boxes. A cat made a padded landing off another windowsill and scurried by me, a bolt of orange and brown.
The kitchen cupboards were all open. Amidst stray cans and a bag of rice that had been clawed open and overturned was the corpse of a shorthaired grey.
I stamped to the door and opened it. As Fisk and Das filed in I said, “I feared the worst so I climbed through the window. Then I invited you both in.”
“You’re going to tell me how to write a report now?” Fisk said.
Mira tried two light switches. “Hydro’s been turned off,” she said. “The place has been empty for at least a few months.”
“Possibly since the disappearance of Django Szabo,” Fisk said. He waded across the kitchen and opened a closet. “Think this is the result when some rich asshole dies and leaves everything to their cat?”
“Least when they left they had the good sense to leave a window open,” I said, poking through an overturned garbage bag. A few pieces of junkmail addressed to MIRABELLA SWAIN OR CURRENT OCCUPANT. A slit brown government envelope addressed to BARBARA DELLA COSTA.
“No note on the fridge,” Fisk said. He opened it, peered inside and slammed it shut. “Didn’t bother cleaning out the milk products, either.”
“So they didn’t pack,” Mira said, “which means either they weren’t planning to be gone long or they weren’t planning on coming back.”