At seventeen, however, Dan had been desperate to escape his claustrophobic, dysfunctional background and his abusive, barely communicative father. He’d left the old man to drink himself to death, a task Stuart Sharp had accomplished quickly and efficiently once he got down to the business at hand, one of the few successes in his otherwise un-noteworthy life. Dan’s mother’s early death due to pneumonia was something he preferred not to dwell on, if he could avoid it.
In fact, when he considered his beginnings, Dan felt he’d been lucky overall. Life had its surprising twists and turns, but somehow his had turned out all right, where other people’s hadn’t. He was never more aware of this than when sitting down with clients to discuss the loved ones who’d disappeared — some after fights, some after disappointments, while others simply vanished without leaving a clue as to where they’d gone. Or why. He’d become expert at ferreting out the signs, following them like a trail of breadcrumbs to learn how and why people reinvented themselves. Assuming they were lucky enough to be given a choice and a second chance, that is. He became adept at sniffing the air, picking up the scent of one life and following it to where it morphed into another, the mismatched remnants of a shattered vessel pieced together into something that resembled a whole again. Those were the relatively lucky ones, Dan knew. Then there were the thousands who approached some kind of vanishing point and were never heard from again, donning a cloak of invisibility. Who knew, but some of them could be standing on a nearby street corner right now, having joined the ranks of the Girls of the Night.
Dan’s stomach growled: it was payback time for staying up late. He swung south and headed down to the lake, following the concrete trail beneath the Gardiner Expressway, past the film studios and dockyard canals. A burger and fries combo from Wendy’s was uppermost on his mind. He stopped at the Leslie Street outlet, the one with the friendly Jamaican woman who was there every night, no matter what time he turned up. He imagined she had kids to support, debts to pay off. Otherwise, why would she be there grinning like a madwoman at 3:18 in the morning?
He handed over his change and silently wished her a better future, whatever it might be, while wondering if Darryl Hillary liked Wendy’s combos. Dan gratefully accepted the pungent-smelling bag of carbs and grease and a large Frosty before driving on. With one hand plunged into the paper to draw out a fistful of stringy fries, he passed the turn-off that would have led home. Instead, seemingly of its own accord, the car turned left on Queen Street, heading back over the Don Valley until it reached a cul-de-sac with a thicket of townhouses springing up like mushrooms. He stopped in front of a tall grey unit in a row of five. This place would soon have his name on it. His and Trevor’s, if things turned out. Kedrick’s, too, but that would be temporary now that Ked was nearing the end of high school and starting to think about university. And so the page turned, Dan mused.
His new neighbourhood was Corktown, a roughly triangular area bounded on the south and east by the Don River where it fed into Lake Ontario. To the north, Regent Park’s housing projects were jammed together with the privileged gentrification of Cabbagetown, while poor, unfashionable Moss Park and its homeless shelters lay to the west. With Dan’s rag-tag background, he could rightly claim to belong to all of these groups, and none.
Some declared that Corktown got its name from the wave of Irish immigrants arriving in the early-nineteenth century, though Dan preferred the local legend that it was due to the many breweries and a cork manufacturer that once employed a good number of the area’s residents. In any case, it was a decidedly old world slice of Toronto’s past containing the city’s first Catholic parish. Somewhere beneath a current-day schoolyard, an unmarked graveyard held the remains of those parishioners, fleeing poverty and famine in the old world only to find death in the new one. Poor Protestants who couldn’t afford the pew fees at nearby St. James Anglican Cathedral eventually erected their own place of worship, Little Trinity, the city’s oldest surviving church. A Tudor Gothic structure built “for all people,” it was set smack on King Street, the new arrivals seemingly unable to shake off the aristocratic shadows of the Dominion even here.
This would be Dan’s second house in the city. Fifteen years earlier, he had bought his current home at the foot of Leslieville during a slump in the market. It had cost considerably less than expected, but he’d taken his good fortune in stride and made the best of it. Now, with the anticipated addition — meaning Trevor — his domestic arrangements needed expanding. He’d bid on the current property and paid dearly for it, gratefully accepting Trevor’s offer to remake the interior and oversee the project’s completion. It promised to be quietly spectacular when done. Dan was counting on that. It had to be right; this was probably the last place he’d buy before his retirement, if that day ever arrived.
He rolled down his window and gazed up at the structure. So far, things had gone according to schedule.
The roof had been replaced and the interior gutted. Last week, the builders had installed new window casements on the upper floor. They gleamed in the dark. Once painted, however, they would blend in nicely. Trevor had worked hard to reassure the anxious community reps that no drastic changes would be made to the building’s exterior. He promised to maintain the historic façade, matching it with those on either side. Dan liked being the townhouse in the middle, though he hoped for nicer neighbours than the current ones in newly trendified Leslieville, where the money had been flocking of late.
Grabbing his bag of fries and half-eaten hamburger, he stepped out of the car. He approached the house as though it were a nervous horse, touching the brick with his fingertips and feeling the city’s restless pulse beneath his hands. Home. In his mind, he envisioned living here with Trevor and Ked, meeting the neighbours, learning the ins-and-outs of the community: which market had the best vegetables and fruits, which butcher to go to for the freshest cuts of meat, who the neighbourhood characters were.
Domesticity was growing on him daily. He couldn’t wait to move in officially with Trevor. It would dispel the unease he felt waiting for their relationship to settle. At present, Trevor travelled back and forth from Toronto to the west coast, where he carried out occasional renovation projects. When the new house was finished, he’d move here for good. A new neighbourhood meant a new beginning, a new corner turned in life. It felt right.
Dan’s mind went to the dark cloud on his horizon. Coaxing Trevor from his rustic British Columbia villa had been a protracted exercise. A self-proclaimed sociophobe, he’d lived in semi-retirement for the past half-dozen years on Mayne Island, a lesser-known cousin of Salt Springs in the Southern Gulf chains. One of the things Dan had enticed him with was the prospect of running the renovation project. Trevor had accepted, but on a no-promises, no-payment basis. If he stayed, the payment would be to live with Dan. He was unsure if he could fulfil that promise, however. Architectural design had been his occupation at one time, but he’d largely left it behind when he retreated to Mayne Island after the death of his lover. While living the life of a hermit had helped him regain his equilibrium, he wasn’t sure that returning to urban life was on the agenda for him.
Dan monitored the progress anxiously. From the start, Trevor found Toronto challenging. Too much concrete. Too many buildings swaying overhead and blotting out the sky. Too many people. It was very different from his west coast Pleasantville existence, with its sweeping vistas of snow-capped mountains on one side and the endless ocean on the other. Dan had promised him Toronto wouldn’t be all that different, but who was he fooling?
Meeting Trevor had transformed Dan’s life. He now woke with a sense of excitement and purpose, a fervour he hadn’t felt in years. Even Ked noticed it. “This guy does something for you, Dad. I hope he stays.”
“So do I, Ked.”
And so love came calling. Warm, funny, comfortable, just short of bearing tea and crumpets. A shimmering of light on the edge of the horizon. After all these years, it was looking like the real thing and stand
ing in the shadow of the possible. Dan wasn’t reluctant to accept the feelings, just slow to trust whether he could manage to love and be loved without losing his sense of self.
Purchasing the new home had taken a leap of faith. After leaving his former employer to work on his own, his reserves had dwindled. The housing market was sluggish; otherwise he’d simply have sold his current house and moved. Instinct told him to wait. While the country’s neighbour to the south was mired in an economic recession, Canada had held its own for the most part, but he couldn’t afford to sell just yet.
For the past decade, Dan had wanted to leave the city nearly every day. Toronto rubbed him raw in every possible way, but suddenly, ironically, just as he met someone who lived elsewhere he found he wanted to stay. For one thing, Ked needed him here. Ked’s mother also lived in the city. Though she and Dan had never been a couple in the domestic sense — he joked that Ked was the result of his one slip into heterosexuality — their relationship was strong and central to Ked’s life and well-being. In addition, Dan’s best friend, Donny, lived here too. Until Dan met Trevor, that friendship had been the single most important relationship in his life, apart from Kedrick.
All this went through his mind as he sat on the stoop and finished his burger combo. He tucked the wrappers inside one another and stood, looking up. This was his future. Somehow, he’d intertwined the house’s progress with the success of his new relationship. It was irrational, but the joy he felt on seeing the change was palpable.
If one went smoothly, then it followed that the other would too.
A ragged light showed in the east as he parked his car. The streetlamps appeared as pools of blue against the thinning darkness overhead. He entered a silent house. Ralph wagged a tentative greeting from his bed in the kitchen, as if unsure whether to welcome Dan’s late return. Surely there were rules about such things, even for humans?
Dan emptied his pockets, tossing keys and wallet onto the kitchen table, before running a glass of water. He took the glass into the living room and looked around. It was a welcoming home, one with signs of good taste, even in the dark. The floorboards were worn and the rugs faded, but the overall design said “solid.” It wasn’t exceptional as houses went, but it was a home and a well-loved one. Now he was about to leave it behind. Until this moment he hadn’t thought how that would feel. Funny, he’d wanted to move for years, and now that he was about to do so he felt a sense of regret. It wouldn’t stop him, though.
Light showed against the floor outside the bedroom. He pushed open the door and peered in. Trevor was sitting up reading by a bedside lamp. His features looked almost translucent, the skin pale with fatigue. His hair was matted from being pressed against the pillow. Dan guessed he’d simply given up fighting to get to sleep.
“Hi there.”
Trevor put his book aside. “Welcome back.”
Dan glanced over at the clock: 4:33 a.m. “Wow, it’s late,” he said, as though it had just occurred to him.
“Or very early, depending on your point of view,” Trevor replied with a tired smile.
“I’ve just been to the new house,” Dan said apologetically.
“How is it? Still there?”
“Pretty much. Looks good.”
Trevor waited.
“I didn’t want to call and chance waking you.”
“I was up. I was a little worried.”
“Sorry. It was inconsiderate.” Dan held out his Frosty, melted down to a gelatinous sludge at the bottom.
Trevor accepted the cup. “A very bad habit, but thanks.”
He sipped and returned it. Dan emptied it in a single gulp before dropping it into the garbage. He nestled in beside Trevor without taking off his clothes, as though another call might send him running
off again.
Trevor ran a finger over his forearm. “Anything to report?”
Dan hesitated. He didn’t want Trevor worrying he was risking his health or his life. Having already lost one partner, a second who purposely took risks might prove too difficult to bear.
Dan tried to make light of it. “I broke Rule Number One of surviving in a horror film: Don’t go into a room with the lights off.”
He gave a brief account of his find, without mentioning the state he’d found the body in. It might or might not make the newspapers over the next few days, but there was no need to force-feed Trevor the gruesome details.
“Is there more?”
Dan nodded slightly. “Whoever it was took a swing at me with a pipe, but he missed.”
Trevor stiffened.
“I wasn’t hurt,” Dan quickly added.
“This time.” Panic showed in Trevor’s eyes, the fear of harm coming to someone he loved. The unspoken What if?
“This time, yes. Next time I’ll be more careful.”
Trevor shook his head. “You sound like a kid who just missed being hit by a car on his bike. How do you know you’ll be more careful next time?”
Dan wanted to say that next time he wouldn’t go tramping around the ruins of a burnt-out building without using his flashlight, or even that he wouldn’t go at night, but it was just as likely that he would eventually find himself in some sort of danger. He couldn’t avoid it forever.
“I know because I’ve got you and Ked to think about. I wouldn’t want to lose you.”
He reached for Trevor’s hand and pressed it against his lips. Trevor gave him a slight smile: The Bogey Man Averted. For now, at least.
There was an intertwining of limbs as they sought each other. Before anything could be decided, fatigue took over and desire backed down. After a few minutes of cuddling and stroking, Trevor fell asleep. His grip loosened on Dan’s biceps, the fingers straying across his chest.
Dan listened to Trevor’s breathing. His mind was still in the grip of images gleaned earlier in the evening,
pulling him back to the discovery at the slaughterhouse. None of it made sense without knowing why his client had been targeted. Assuming the dead man was Darryl Hillary, of course. He fell asleep with those thoughts in his head and Trevor snoring softly beside him. The alarm woke him three hours later.
Three
The Rue Morgue
Still wearing his dressing gown, Dan stepped onto the back patio, coffee in one hand and newspaper in the other. The sun was bright; the air hung heavy with humidity. It already felt more like 35 Celsius than the mere 29 degrees the forecasters were predicting. Another hot one.
The paper carried an update about a sporadic series of garage fires in the city. They’d carried on through the summer. Just when you thought they were over, another popped up. Always garages, always in the middle of the night, but so far no injuries. Someone wanted to give the residents a good scare. Or maybe they simply wanted to add to the city’s growing pains, tossing panic alongside transit confusion and the cacophony of languages as different cultures were set side by side. Let the city go up in flames, Dan thought. There were more pressing issues afoot.
He sipped from his mug and mulled over the events of the previous evening. The images presented themselves in chilling precision, from leaving his house to finally driving away from the slaughterhouse nearly two hours later, along with everything else that happened
in between.
A knock interrupted his reveries. He opened the door to find an eager young courier beaming at him like there was no tomorrow and he loved his job delivering packages to strangers more than anything else on earth. At least there’s one happy person in the world this morning, Dan thought. He signed the electronic pad and looked at the envelope. It was the file he’d ordered on Darryl Hillary.
He pulled open the tetra-pack and glanced quickly over the contents. It was a thin file. Was that all a man’s life added up to when all was said and done? He set it on the hallway shelf to peruse later, if he still needed to — which he was beginning to doubt — and went back out to the porch.
He was holding off, but the call had to be made. The hardest part of
his job was letting a client know of the death of a loved one. Dan’s task was to locate people who had gone missing, not guarantee them safe passage home, especially if they were already dead before he came looking. He also knew the possibility of death must have occurred to most, if not all of the clients who hired him. There had to be long, dark nights when the knock never came at the door, when the phone failed to ring or the letter didn’t fall into the post box. There had to be empty hours sitting and wondering: What if…? At some point you would have to sit back and ask yourself: Was my missing mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife or child still out there? It had to occur to them.
There were plenty of times when Dan wondered how much of what his clients told him was the truth. All of it? Half? Or just the bare minimum they felt he needed to track someone down? What wasn’t he being told by the obese, balding man covered in tattoos
asking him to find his wife? What was the story behind the anorexic-looking mother wanting him to
locate her teenage daughter? Often the tales were notably devoid of personal details. Darryl Hillary’s severed ear, for instance. What did it signify? Had Hillary overheard something that cost him his life? Could the missing ear be a warning to future snitches to think twice before opening their mouths? What had he known? On the other hand, it might be the trademark of a gang slaying, a mutilation branding this as the work of a particular group anxious to leave their mark in more ways than one. Then again, the guy was hardly gang member material. His sister had said he was a pothead, but he was also a poet. That didn’t spell anger and violence, unless his poetry turned in the realm of gangster rappers.
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