A gap in the passing lane opened up just as the light turned amber. Alex pulled around the mail truck and booted it through the intersection. A block later he was back in position behind the taxi.
He was thanking his lucky stars when a police siren wailed. Alex looked in the rear-view mirror. A cop car was right behind him. The roof light bar was flashing, and the driver was gesturing for him to pull over.
“Fuuuuuuck!” Alex screamed at the top of his lungs. He pulled over to the side of the road, pounding the steering wheel in frustration as the taxi drove out of sight.
A sharp rap on the window summoned his attention. Alex rolled the window down.
“What’s the rush, son?” the policeman asked.
Alex wondered what he would do if Alex told him. Probably put him in the loony bin and throw away the key.
“Driver’s licence and registration, please.”
The cop didn’t show Alex any mercy. He dinged him for running the light and for illegally passing the mail truck. Four demerit points and $276 in fines. He’d be lucky to have the Vespa by the time school ended, but that paled beside the bitterness of knowing that the Snowman had slipped through his fingers.
Alex drove back to the agency cursing his bad luck. He was in a foul mood when he walked through the door.
“What took you so long?” Roman asked. He was standing by the filing cabinet with Tomas. “You’ve been gone for over an hour.”
It took Alex a moment to remember his excuse. “Uh … the store on Oak Street didn’t have the straps for my pads so I … uh … I had to go out to Burnaby,” he said. Tomas gave him a curious look.
“You know better than to leave without asking,” Roman said. “Especially since we’re so busy.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s an understatement.”
Alex sat down at his desk. When he glanced up a few moments later, Tomas was still looking at him.
“It’s got to be him,” Stefan said. Alex and Lara nodded in agreement. They were sitting in Alex’s room, comparing the photos Alex took of the fat man sitting in Tomas’s car to an online photo of the Snowman.
Even though they couldn’t make a positive identification—all they could tell was that the face of the man in Tomas’s car was roughly the same shape as the Snowman’s— when you put that together with the passport, the plastic surgeon’s website on Tomas’s computer, and the slivovitz for an honoured guest, it all added up.
“We have to find him before he gets his passport,” Alex said. “If he’s had the operation, he’ll leave the country as soon as soon he gets it. And then we’ll never find him.”
“I don’t think he’s had the operation,” Lara said. “If I was Koralic I’d want to change the shape of my face and it would take months to recover from that. His face would still be bandaged.”
“Is there any way we can find out who the plastic surgeon is?” Stefan asked.
“It’s got to be somebody local,” Alex said. He flipped open his computer. “How many can there be?”
“More than you think,” Lara said.
She was right. According to Google there were fifty-six plastic surgeons in the Lower Mainland.
“Tomas must have been in contact with him in order to make all the arrangements,” Alex said.
“Or her,” said Lara.
“Or her. We need to get on Tomas’s computer,” Alex said.
“And just how do you plan on doing that?” Stefan asked.
TWENTY-TWO
“Ihave to leave at four today,” Lara said to Roman when he strolled into the travel agency the next day. “I’ve got a practice.”
“I have to leave at four, too,” Alex said.
“That’s the kind of communication I was talking about yesterday,” Roman joked.
Alex and Lara were both lying. Her practice didn’t start until six, and he didn’t have one. The lies were part of a plan that would, fingers crossed, allow Alex to get on Tomas’s computer at the end of the day. Meanwhile, Stefan had followed Tomas from his house to the travel agency and was now waiting at the café across the street so he could follow Tomas if he left the office. They had all the bases covered. Or so they hoped.
Tomas was on the phone most of the morning. Alex kept one eye on his work and the other on the door to Tomas’s office, waiting for an opportunity to retrieve the pen recorder.
He was mindlessly staring at his computer just before noon when Tomas emerged and headed for Roman’s office. Just as Alex got to his feet, Greta came through the front door.
“Hey guys,” she said to Alex and Lara, and then sat down at her desk. Shit. There was no way he could get into Tomas’s office without her seeing.
“You gotta distract Greta so I can get into Tomas’s office,” he whispered to Lara. Lara nodded. She went over to Greta and started talking to her, gradually moving to the far side of her desk to draw Greta’s attention away from Tomas’s door. She’s smart as well as beautiful, Alex thought as he stood up. But before he could take a step, Tomas came out of Roman’s office and went into his own.
Shit, Alex said to himself again. The next few hours passed slowly without Tomas leaving his office. At a little after one o’clock, a man with black hair brushed straight back and a bushy moustache walked into the travel agency. Tomas must have been expecting him because he came out of his office and motioned for the man to come inside.
“That’s the guy from the restaurant,” Alex whispered to Lara. “I bet he’s brought the passport.” He looked at Lara meaningfully. There was no need to elaborate. Tomas wasn’t going to hold on to the passport for long. He would give it to the Snowman the first chance he got. And then it would be game over.
Things were heating up. And the clock was counting down.
At a quarter to four, Roman walked down the hallway to the washroom. Tomas was in his office. Greta had already left so the coast was clear. “I’m going to do it now,” he said to Lara. He texted Stefan. We’re on.
K, Stefan texted back.
Alex hurried to the rear of the office and went through the door that led to the stairs down to the basement.
Now, he texted Stefan.
He opened the door a crack. A moment later Stefan came through the front door. He was wearing the same clothes as Alex, blue jeans and a white shirt, and sat down at Alex’s desk. When Roman came out of the washroom, Stefan picked up the phone and pretended he was on a call so Roman wouldn’t ask him to do anything. He put it down again when Roman returned to his office. He picked it up again a couple of minutes later when Tomas came out to speak to Lara. Alex couldn’t help smiling as he watched Stefan nodding his head vigorously at something the imaginary caller was saying.
At four o’clock Lara and Stefan left the travel agency. Stefan was going to his practice. Lara would wait at the café and follow Tomas when he left the office. When Stefan’s practice ended, he’d take over from Lara so she could go to hers. The timing had worked out perfectly.
Alex went down the stairs and into the storage room. He sat down on the floor, his back against the wall. He wondered how long he’d have to wait before Roman and Tomas left so he could get on Tomas’s computer.
He played Angry Birds for a while until he saw that his phone battery was getting low. He couldn’t take a chance on it dying. For the next hour or so he stared at the walls, wishing he’d remembered to bring something to read. At five thirty, Stefan texted him to say that he’d taken over from Lara so she could go to her practice. About an hour later, he sent another text to tell him that Roman had left, and a half hour after that, a third text informed him that Tomas was finally gone as well.
Alex stood up. His legs were stiff. He climbed the stairs, stepped into Tomas’s office, and tapped on the keyboard to wake up the computer. He took the list of fifty-six plastic surgeons out of his pocket and put it on the desk. The first name on the list was Ray Allen. Alex entered Allen in the computer search field. He was mentioned in seven emai
ls.
Alex couldn’t believe his luck. He clicked on the first email. It was to Tomas’s dentist, Jack Allen. In the next one, [email protected] was one of the recipients of a group email Tomas had received from a store in Park Royal. By the third email, from Ed Allen, Lina’s math tutor, Alex realized he was in for a long night. He was still working on Ray Allen when Stefan sent a text telling him that Tomas had gone straight home.
At nine fifteen he was on number twenty-seven, not quite halfway through the list, and feeling totally burned out. He took a break and called Stefan. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“He’s watching TV with Maria and Lina,” Stefan said. “Looks like I’m going to be here for a while.”
“You and me both, brother.”
They were wrong. Fifteen minutes and four names later, Stefan called to say that Tomas was on the move.
“All right,” Alex said excitedly.
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Stefan said. “He could just be going shopping.”
Or he could be giving the passport to the Snowman, Alex thought. “Be careful.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”
Ten minutes after that Stefan called back with the worst possible news. “I lost him,” he said despondently.
“What happened?”
“I got pulled over at a police road check on King Edward. Bummer.”
Bummer wasn’t the word he’d have used, Alex thought. When your car won’t start, that’s a bummer. When you forget to do your homework, that’s a bummer. When one of your father’s murderers is about to disappear forever, that’s not a bummer, that’s a freaking disaster, but now wasn’t the time to explain the nuances of the English language to his brother.
“I’ll let you know when he’s back home,” Stefan said. He was going back to Tomas’s house. There was nothing they could do except stick with the game plan and pray that Tomas was just going shopping.
Alex clicked on the next email. It was from Rob Pascht, the plumber, not Jack Pascht, the plastic surgeon.
He had moved on to the next name, Bob Pettit, when he heard the front door of the agency open and shut. He turned off the desk light, shut down Tomas’s computer, and quickly hid behind the couch.
The overhead lights in the office came on. Guess Tomas didn’t go shopping, Alex said to himself. His heart was pounding. He tried to calm himself with the thought that there was no reason for Tomas to look behind the couch— until he realized he’d left the list of plastic surgeons on Tomas’s desk. His heart leapt into his mouth.
He heard Tomas’s footsteps walk toward the desk. I’m screwed. Worse than screwed, he thought, when he imagined what Tomas and his “heroes” would do when they got hold of him. An image of Lara crying at his funeral flashed through his head.
Tomas’s cellphone rang. “Hello … I’m here. I’ll be right out.”
Alex heard Tomas’s footsteps recede as he walked toward the front door. He hurried to the desk, retrieved the list, and vaulted back into his hiding place.
“Take a seat,” Tomas said to his visitor when they entered the office.
“Nice office,” a man said, as he sat down on the couch Alex was hiding behind. The springs groaned.
For a moment Alex thought it was the Snowman, come to pick up his passport. Then he realized it couldn’t be him. If it was the Snowman, he and Tomas would be speaking in Berovian.
“Here’s the rest of the money,” Tomas said. “Fifteen thousand. In hundreds.”
“Here’s the passport,” the man said. Alex was confused. He thought Tomas already had the passport. Then he realized the man with the bushy moustache mustn’t have given the passport to Tomas when he came to the agency in the afternoon.
“It looks perfect,” Tomas said a few moments later. Alex heard a desk drawer open and close. Alex wondered if Tomas had put the passport in the drawer. If he did, Alex would be able to find out the Snowman’s new identity. Provided he didn’t get discovered. Because if he did … Alex preferred not to think what would happen then.
“Your friend’s brother won’t have any trouble getting into the country with this,” the man on the couch said. Getting into the country? The Snowman’s already here. And what was this about his friend’s brother? Alex’s confusion returned. But only momentarily. Tomas wouldn’t want anybody to know who the passport was for, or what it was for. The invention of a friend’s brother was his cover story.
“That’s going to make a lot of people happy,” Tomas said. “His entire family is here.” A good cover story.
“Why couldn’t he come here legally?”
“He has a criminal record,” Tomas said. A great cover story … You got to hand it to him, Alex said to himself with grudging admiration. He’s thought of everything.
“How about a drink?” Tomas asked. “I have some excellent slivovitz.”
“I won’t say no.”
A few seconds later Alex heard the clink of glasses.
“Dos prosta,” Tomas said.
“Cheers. This is nice,” the man said. He leaned back and put his arms over the back of the couch. Alex could see the rear of his head. There were rolls of fat on the back of his neck. His head was shaven. It wasn’t the man Tomas met at the restaurant but Alex had a sneaking suspicion he knew who it was. And if he was right about that, then he was wrong about everything else.
“It’s from Berovia.”
“I’ve never been there. I hear it’s beautiful.”
“It is. You should take one of our tours,” Tomas said.
“I might just do that. Okay, I gotta boogie.”
Alex watched as a hat appeared on top of the bald head. One of those old-time hats, the kind you’d see in a black-and-white movie. The couch groaned again as the man stood up. The man groaned too, with the effort.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” the man said.
The lights in the office went out. Alex stayed behind the couch until he heard the front door close. He waited a few more minutes to make sure Tomas wasn’t returning. Then he went to Tomas’s desk and opened the drawer. A Canadian passport stared up at him. He took it out, flipped it open, and contemplated the photograph of a young man with fierce black eyes and a bushy moustache. His name was Goran Berdich and he looked remarkably like the man Tomas met in the restaurant. In fact, he looked like he could be his brother.
Hey doofus, the Voice said as Alex left the travel agency, you’re just a kid. You’re not going to catch the Stork and Snowman. Get it?
Got it.
TWENTY-THREE
Aweek later things had more or less returned to normal. When it came to the hunt for the Stork and the Snowman, Alex was back to where he’d been before he, Lara, and Stefan went off on their wild goose chase: haunted by his father’s gruesome death, angry that his murderers had apparently vanished into thin air, and despairing that they would ever be brought to justice.
But Alex’s mind was on happier thoughts as he came upstairs after breakfast. The Cougars had continued their stellar play, with three more wins since the victory over West Van ten days earlier, including a 5–1 shellacking of the fourth-place Abbotsford Miners the previous afternoon. The game was much closer than the score indicated but Alex had been as sharp as he’d ever been, turning aside the Abbotsford shooters time and time again. He’d been in the zone, where it felt as if everybody else was playing in slow motion and the puck looked as big as a beach ball.
He put in a couple of hours’ work on his English essay and then knocked on the door to Stefan’s room. His brother was lying on his bed, a forlorn look on his face. He had played his worst game of the season the night before, letting in three goals he should have stopped in a 6–2 loss to Hollyburn. Alex had gone to the game and couldn’t believe how poorly his brother had played.
“We have to get going,” Alex said. Lara had made it to the title fight at the provincial muay Thai tournament and he and Stefan were going to the match.
“Okay,” Stefa
n said without moving.
“It’s only one game, dude,” Alex said, trying to cheer up his brother. “Even the Wall has a bad game once in a while,” he added, using Stefan’s nickname for Lou Roberts. He called Lou “the Wall” because lu meant “wall” in Berovian.
“That’s not the problem,” Stefan said. “This is.” He got up and went to his desk and handed Alex a couple of sheets of paper that were stapled together. It was his chemistry test from the week before. Forty-four percent was marked in red at the top.
“Holy shit,” Alex said. He remembered Stefan saying the day before the test that he had everything under control.
“Yeah. At least I’m improving,” Stefan said with a weak smile. “I got 42 percent on the first test.”
“You said you got 78.”
“I lied … I didn’t want Mom and Dad to worry about me.”
“Did you lie about your other courses, too?”
“No. I’m doing fine in them. It’s just chemistry. I don’t know what to do. If I don’t pass …” He gave Alex a despairing look. He didn’t have to finish the sentence. They both knew what that would mean. Stefan wanted a scholarship to a U.S. college as much as Alex did, but if he didn’t pass chemistry, he would have to go to summer school and by then all the scholarships would have been handed out. “I went to the teacher for help but he made me even more confused.”
“Garnett’s useless. I can help you.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I’m doing well in chemistry.”
“I don’t have much time. The final exam’s in a month,” Stefan said.
“We can start tonight after your game.”
“Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.” Alex knew his brother’s gratitude was sincere, but he could tell from the weak smile that he was by no means convinced his problems were over.
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