The burger was barely noteworthy, but Dan wolfed it down anyway. Fries were always in season. When the bill arrived, Dan pulled out his wallet. The blue-and-white-striped card fell onto the table. He picked it up and thumbed the edge before tucking it back inside.
“Yeah, thanks,” the boy said coolly, when Dan tipped him for his meagre efforts.
His look was sullen, as though he hated to be beholden for something as inconsequential as money.
Afterwards, Dan stood on the sidewalk outside. Apart from meeting Hank, there’d been little mem-orable about his afternoon in the ghetto. It simply reinforced his belief that he didn’t belong there. He was a misfit among misfits. But the neighbourhood wasn’t the problem, he realized. Now he saw it simply for what it was: an underprivileged bit of turf that attracted a particular type of person. Why did the LGBT community need to stand out? Wasn’t that what his therapist had accused him of: trying too hard to show the world that he belonged? Maybe the boy who served him his burger felt the same: Take me or leave me, he seemed to say. I can’t be bothered to waste my time trying to impress you.
Dan remembered walking down these same streets for the first time as an eighteen-year-old. The city had seemed immense to him, having just come from small-town northern Ontario after leaving behind a brutal upbringing where love was expressed with fists and curses by his alcoholic father. Back then he’d felt it was all he could do to survive, but somehow his future had been forming quietly in the background, taking shape while he walked the streets and grew more and more comfortable with the cityscape.
Images passed through his mind, a parade without end. Now, more than twenty years on, the buildings no longer seemed so high, the city less crowded than in his memory. He’d scaled its heights, bringing it down to human proportions. Of course, raising a son had contributed to that. There was nothing like being responsible for another human being to make reality assert itself.
He saw them up ahead, a trio of twisted sisters. They were a splash of local colour, a stage designer’s trompe l’oeil, like exhibitions in the Church and Wellesley display for curious tourists. “If you look to your right, ladies and gentlemen, you’ll see some of the favoured clichés of the LGBT community …”
The first was male, at least in appearance: red hair, freckled shoulders, and muscular physique, though the walk and talk said otherwise. Why go to the trouble of pumping yourself up if the voice and personality didn’t match? Security, of course. You could beat up a wimp, but you’d think twice before tackling someone with a construction worker’s build. The second was also male, nothing much to write home about, though the third had Dan perplexed. Shoulder-length hair and wide hips, but with a broad back and a boy’s voice that cackled and whinnied and carried on. The message was as loud as it was clear: You may think we’re freaks, but don’t mess with us. We won’t be silent. The latter leaned over to the first and kissed him on the mouth.
“Longer and wetter, sweetheart!” came the cackling command.
Even when Dan passed them by, casting a sidelong glance to see if there were breasts — hardly any to speak of — he still couldn’t be sure. Then it dawned on him: the spiky hair and bushy eyebrows. This was Jan the transsexual. Normally, he looked for signs of aberration: an unusual scar or an overly obvious tattoo — something to tell him the thrust behind the personality, where a person came from and how they’d been formed. Clues that gave hints about the likeliest approach to finding someone should they disappear. But this was an overload of signs and signals in every sense of the word.
Before Dan could make a move, Jan held up an arm and let out a whistle, stopping a passing cab. The unlikely trio climbed in, the cab whisking off even before the doors were shut properly.
Dan watched it pass down the street and out of view.
Ten
Outskirts
There was nothing particularly frightening about the Jane-Finch Corridor when seen from the perspective of someone driving past at fifty kilometres per hour with little or no intention of stopping. It was the stopping that got you in trouble. Conceived of as an “instant suburb” in the 1960s, Jane-Finch was the product of an altruistic We’re-All-Equal mentality bent on creating a socially diversified community, while giving little credence to the infrastructure necessary to making such a vision work. The concept of “equal but different” did not apply solely to unjust marriage laws, Dan knew, and it might cynically be said to have found a better fit here, fostering a population with one of the most culturally diverse criminal gangs and low-income, single-parent families, as well as the highest hospitalization rates for trauma in the entire city. Not your average success story. But still, it was home to some.
That Santiago Suárez had considered marrying someone from the corridor said a lot about his desperation to acquire citizenship. Ostensibly, he was a man trapped between three hostile worlds: first, that of the Canadian legal system, where he would be viewed as a murder suspect as well as an unwelcome refugee claimant; second, of his past, where he was an escapee from a dictatorial country whose citizens were not allowed to travel; and third, as a homosexual in a macho Latino culture that derided the mariposa.
Dan knew Canada’s record for deporting refugees back to regimes where their safety and their lives were at risk. Currently, Haiti, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Congo were on that list of no-go zones, though every year dozens were returned to those very countries. While Eastern Europeans might claim financial deprivation as a legitimate reason for not wanting to be sent home, others like Santiago faced imprisonment, physical danger, and possibly death if they were extradited. Dan knew to tread lightly as he approached Santiago’s girlfriend’s door.
Judging by the building’s exterior, she wasn’t living a life of luxury. If Santiago had been well kept by Yuri, he hadn’t upgraded by turning to Jane-Finch. Dan glanced up at the brown high-rise with its paint-flecked balconies. Bullet holes pocked a NO PARKING sign to his left. While it might have been the dream of many immigrants to live in a building towering high above the world, some of them had probably hoped to share it with better neighbours.
The door opened on a very plain young woman who stared at him through stringy bangs with sullen regard.
“Are you Rita St. Angelo?”
“Why?”
“I’m looking for Santiago Suárez.”
“He’s not here.”
She started to shut the door, but Dan held his hand against it. She didn’t put up much resistance. “Bored” was how he read it. His appearance on her doorstep might at least offer a distraction.
“I’m not with the police,” he hastened to add. “I’m a private investigator. Do you mind if I just ask a few questions about him?”
“You can’t come in,” she said, though Dan wondered how much resistance she would give on that, too, if he pressed her.
“I promise I won’t take up much of your time.”
“I have to go to work.”
Her hair was a snarly mess and she was dressed in a housecoat and slippers. A TV blared in the background. Dan doubted work was her priority. She had “fag hag” written all over her, but in a language he couldn’t read. Her skin was oily and she could have done with a manicure. He doubted she would be much of a sexual draw for someone like Santiago, even if he were straight. She practically had “free citizenship” stamped on her forehead.
“Do you love him?” he asked.
Her eyes flickered. He’d caught her attention.
“Yes. And he loves me.”
“Then maybe I can help you.”
Her hand stopped pressuring the door. She waited for him to continue.
“I know you told the police he vanished. Do you know where he’s gone?”
She shook her head, eyes misting over. Dan believed her.
“If he loves you, he should be here. Why isn’t he here with you?”
“He’s afraid they’ll take him away. He didn’t do anything wrong, but they’ll try to blame him. The police
, I mean.”
And the immigration authorities, Dan thought, mentally adding to the count.
“For the murder?”
“Someone killed his boss. But it wasn’t him.” She seemed resigned to talking to him now. “He was here the entire week that guy was killed. He never went out. I told the police that, too.”
Standing by her man, Dan thought. “Even while you were at work?”
“I wasn’t working that week.”
“So he never left the building?”
“Just to get milk and cigarettes at the corner store.”
“Did Santiago tell you that he and his boss lived together?”
She flicked a fluff ball from her arm.
“He said he was just a friend who needed help to pay the rent, so Santiago moved in with him for a while. But that man was crazy and jealous as they come. He was delusional!”
Watches too many talk shows, Dan concluded, thinking of all the misguided people conned into putting their personal problems on daytime television, believing it would help.
“What happened? Can you tell me?” he prompted, feeling like a talk-show host coaxing his guests into revealing the details of their lurid lives.
“He threatened Santiago. Said he would make sure he couldn’t come back here. He even phoned me on my own phone!” Her expression said she was impressed by this revelation and expected Dan to be too. Her eyes narrowed. “He said if I knew what was good for me, I’d leave him alone.”
“How do you know it was his boss?”
“I know the type,” she said, her eyes flashing with a woman-in-love defiance. “But Santiago said never mind, when we got married we would move to a nice house somewhere.”
Paid for with what? Dan wondered.
“Where did you meet him?”
Her smile flickered back to life. “In a Cuban bar. The Little Havana. Afterwards, we went salsa dancing at El Convento Rico. He was the handsomest man there. He always is.”
Dan knew El Convento Rico, a Latin bar where straight closet cases could grind up against the gay men and drag queens on the edge of the dance floor without causing a riot.
“How long have you known him?”
“Four months.”
Dan calculated back: that was around the time Santiago and Yuri were supposed to have had their big break-up.
“Isn’t that a little quick for a marriage?”
“Not when two people are in love like we are.”
“Did you ever think that maybe he wanted to marry you for citizenship?”
Her face turned pouty. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“You’d be surprised what people do,” Dan said.
She was undeterred. “I approached him, if you want to know. I offered to marry him to help him stay here. He never asked me for anything.”
A nice-looking Latino illegal flirts up a storm in a bar and gets offered marriage and citizenship. Not bad for an evening out, Dan thought.
“Is that what you told the police?”
“It’s the truth.”
Dan pulled a card from his wallet and handed it to her with a fifty-dollar bill.
“Give this card to Santiago when you see him.” He thought of editing when to if, but stopped himself. “The fifty is for you. I’m not with Immigration. I just want to ask him about payments he made so the police would leave his boss’s bar alone. If he can help me pin that on anyone in particular, it might help with his case.”
The door stayed open after he turned away. He could practically feel her eyes on him as he headed down the stairs. Someone had threatened her to keep away from Santiago. Dan doubted that was Yuri Malevski’s style. In any case, Santiago would not likely be coming around here for a while, unless he ran out of money and got desperate. Dan hoped he’d put enough doubts into Rita that she would call if the Cuban returned.
Eleven
My Life So Far
Heading south from the corridor, Dan made his way down to Parkdale and pulled up outside the Lockie residence. The place looked as unwelcoming as it had on first sight. He traced the roof with his eyes, reconstructing the sloping wall in Malevski’s bedroom and following it along the eaves. Several antennae and a satellite dish sat cock-eyed above. Power lines joined in like snaking trellises, the gridlocked residue of the previous century’s technological onslaught. One of those wires connected with the security system. How had it failed so spectacularly, letting a killer trespass with the intention of silencing its sole inhabitant? Yuri had changed the code a week before his death. Had he felt threatened? Was it to keep Santiago out or someone else? In any case, it hadn’t worked. Someone who knew the code had got inside, unless there was another way in that bypassed the alarm system altogether. If so, it wouldn’t be known by just anyone, only an intimate who was aware of hidden entrances.
Dan let himself into the yard and approached the house with a view to breaking in. There were three ground-floor entrances. The master bedroom had a small balcony, but surely that too would have been wired by the alarm system. If not, it was still a long way up and an unlikely bet for anyone trying to get inside unnoticed. Dan scoured the ground beneath. The garden looked undisturbed, the shrubs showing no sign of broken branches or damaged stems, so unlikely in that regard as well.
He followed the perimeter, making a thorough circuit of the whole house. Each of the doors — front, back, and side — was clearly linked to the security system. Any attempt to breach the locks or bypass the code would set off an alarm, bringing whatever response was set up to stop an intruder. He kept his eyes peeled for an alternate route: a basement window or coal-delivery chute from days past. There was nothing.
His attention kept coming back to the greenhouse. Once inside, you could get to any or all of the floors, the only problem being that you would still have to break a window, which again would be connected to the security system. Regardless, there were no broken panes. Could someone have removed the glass and entered the house, then replaced the window once he or she were back outside? It seemed a trifle elaborate, but no doubt it could be done with a little effort, in which case there would be signs it had been replaced. Dan ran his finger along the paint-sealed frames. Everything was intact and the silicone caulking undisturbed. Where did that leave things?
He glanced back up. Something about the roofline seemed out of place. A small porthole showed near Yuri’s bedroom, a little lower down. Dan tried to reconstruct the hallway in his mind, but couldn’t recall seeing it from inside.
Dan stepped back and turned around, nearly walking right into the figure standing behind him.
“Whoa!” he cried, jumping aside. “What the —?”
For a second, it didn’t register. Then he recognized the snub-nosed neighbour he’d seen watching him over the fence on his first visit. The man stood there, unmoving, dressed in a plaid jacket and dark jeans. He was creepy and ominous.
“You’re back,” the man said.
“Yes, I’m back. Why are you sneaking up on me?” Dan demanded.
“I thought you could be someone trying to break in,” the man said. “Who are you again?”
“Property maintenance,” Dan told him. “I’ve been hired by the estate.”
“You looked like you were trying to break in.”
Not an inaccurate description of what he’d been doing, Dan thought, except he wouldn’t have been so obvious about it if he were.
“Well, I’m not trying to break in. I’m trying to see if anyone has tampered with the security system.”
The man nodded. “Uh-huh. So you got the code and everything?”
“Yes, I have the code.” Dan looked him up and down. He was just as grubby and rumpled-looking as the first time he’d seen him. If he met this man on the street, he might have thought him homeless. “So you keep your eye on the place. Ever see anyone coming and going?”
The man grinned. “Not since the murder. Until then, all the time. Oh, yeah.”
“Well, Mr. —?”
“
They call me the P-Man. Short for Pig, if you wanna know.”
He gave a hyena-like snort.
“Well, P-Man. I’m glad to know someone is keeping an eye out.” Dan pulled out a notepad and wrote his name and number on it. “If you see anybody hanging around trying to get in, please give me a call.”
The P-Man looked over the note. “All right, Dan.”
Dan left him standing there and went to the front door. He tapped in the code, watched the light turn green, and then went up to the third floor. It struck him instantly that Yuri’s bedroom door was closed, though Dan had left it open. Had someone been inside since his last visit? It was an old house, so it could have been a tilt that slowly closed it on its own. Dan had lived in enough wonky places to know that was a possibility. He opened it and flicked on the light. Nothing seemed to have changed. He took a photo to check against his previous shots.
A bevelled lead window threw coloured light rays at the end of the hallway, but that wasn’t what Dan had noticed from outside. Red roses dominated the pattern, intertwined here and there by green stems replete with thorns. Even in artistic expression, the impulse to preserve life’s menacing aspects remained. If it had been a landscape with a cloudy horizon, no doubt one of them would be a thunderhead, grey and heavy with the threat of rain. Was it human nature to imagine perfection and leave the worm in the bud?
The walls were finished with raised wainscoting, all very old and pricey to reproduce. The lacquer had cracked and wrinkled, yellowing with age. Anyone wanting to gut this house would walk away with a fortune in reusable material in top shape. The salvage business would always be booming so long as the past was in vogue.
Dan’s eyes followed the panelling along the corridor and stopped where he presumed the missing window would be. Right there. It was easy to spot once you knew what you were looking for. A single panel of wood that appeared less worn than its fellows. His knock resounded on the framework. He pressed and felt a slight give right before it sprang open.
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