by Moss, John
“Simon told me,” she said in a resolute voice. Clearly she had simply been gathering her thoughts.
“Told you what?” Harry asked.
“I had been thinking about little Lucy. Our linguist Nguyen Wang tracked down someone in Greenwich Village who understands the Ket language.”
“Ket!” Lena exclaimed. “Very unusual, yes. From the Yenisei River basin of Central Siberia.”
“Amazing,” said Harry.
“Yes,” said Lena. “There are not many left.”
“No,” said Harry. “Amazing that you know about them.”
“I know things, Harry. That is what makes me interesting. It also makes me dangerous. Especially for Dimitri Sakarov. So, Joan, how do you know Sakarov?”
“He is a donor at the children’s centre where I do volunteer work.”
“You volunteer. No one pays you to work.”
“I am also a social worker. I am paid well.”
“And how did you disarm him?”
“I shot him with his own gun.”
“Yes, but how did you do that?”
“He tried to feel me up.”
“I do not understand ‘feel up.’”
“He groped her,” said Harry. “He had us in custody. He was pleased with himself. Self-pleasure made him randy.”
“Yes it did,” said Joan. “He is a disgusting man. A terrible, terrible man. When he grabbed me, I struggled. His thing fell out.”
“His ‘thing?’” Lena seemed amused.
“His pistol. It fell. He is a very fat man. When he bent down to pick it up, I pushed him over. He tumbled, crash. He was spitting mad. He got onto his feet and came after me. I warned him. He kept coming.”
“So you shot him.”
“Yes, I did. I hope he won’t die.”
“No,” said Lena. “He won’t die. That would be too simple and he is a very complicated man in a very complex world. He will die soon, however. I will kill him. But he will not die now.”
“You will kill him?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I can live with that,” said Joan, blushing, apparently shocked at her wicked disclosure of approval. “What about the police? Will I be arrested?”
“No, he will not tell them.”
“Why not?”
“It is complicated.”
“Will you tell them?”
“No, I won’t say a thing. Now, who is this Simon Wales to you?”
“He is an old friend.”
This took Harry by surprise. Simon had intimated he had only encountered Joan in the course of his research. “You and Simon, really?”
“Just a minute,” she said. “I’ll lose my place. I’m telling you about Lucy. When we found the linguist in New York, she got Lucy to tell her on the phone about how she ended up here in your apartment.”
“Stop, stop, stop,” Lena muttered. “Explain to me about Lucy.”
“The little girl with blue eyes, she was left here.”
“As a warning,” Harry explained.
“And it turned out Mr. Sakarov did it,” Joan continued. “When Simon came to see me this morning, my goodness, was that only this morning, he told me Mr. Sakarov is a nasty, twisted, degenerate pervert. What Simon says seemed so improbable, I needed to confront Mr. Sakarov myself.”
“To do what?” asked Lena, disarmed by Joan’s courageous naïveté.
“To make him confess.”
“And then you would give him absolution?”
“No,” said Joan, her abrupt response suggesting that she hadn’t thought through her next step. She was obviously distressed by the possibility of accepting money for the Centre from such a degenerate source.
“Okay,” said Harry, pouring them each another glass of wine. “Joan, you and Simon? How do you know Simon Wales?”
“He came to the Centre as a volunteer when he was in his mid-teens. Really, he came as a kid who needed help but wouldn’t admit it; he wouldn’t tell us anything about himself. He was frighteningly brilliant. We registered him in the system, but we couldn’t force him to talk about himself. He studied art on his own and he was incredibly good with computers. We arranged for him to go to school and picked up his costs. I suppose Mr. Sakarov picked up his costs. But we could not track down his origins. He was a boy without a story.”
“But that is his story,” Harry observed.
“Yes,” she said. “He wears invisibility like one of his linen suits. Things changed, though, after he met you, Harry. He discovered his parents were dead. They were from Oakville and they died in Vienna.”
Harry sat back abruptly on his chair and stared at Lena. She was gazing out over the water and seemed not to have heard.
“You knew about this,” he demanded, reaching out and placing his hand on her forearm to command her attention. “Lena?”
“I do not know Simon Wales.”
“But his story, you knew it.”
“That depends. Tell us more about what he told you, Joan.” Lena Strauss was a homicide detective; she knew when to ask questions and when to listen.
“He totally opened up,” Joan replied. “He wouldn’t tell me his parents’ names, but he said they were lawyers. He had plucked the name Wales from a map. He liked the name Simon; it means ‘the listener.’ His parents had called him Peter. He told me they had adopted him when he was a toddler. A private adoption. They bought him. When he was old enough, he became a day student at Ridley College. He said he was originally from Romania on the Black Sea. He said they paid a lot for him because he was very smart and could talk before he was a year old. In his teens he mastered the internet. He discovered his birth mother’s identity. He told me she was a virgin who had been raped by a Russian sex tourist, kept in confinement during her pregnancy, and turned out on the streets after she stopped nursing him. When Simon confronted his adoptive Canadian parents about his background, they disowned him and turned him out. They went back to their contact in Vienna for a replacement. That’s where they died. I believe he discovered you while doing research on himself, Harry.”
You didn’t find him, Harry. He found you. You just provided the opportunity with your Salander advertisement.
“I assume their contact person was Dimitri Sakarov,” Harry observed. “Or at least Sakarov made the arrangements. They jumped from his balcony in the Kressler Hotel with a young boy from Albania.”
He was reviewing the facts in his mind but speaking out loud. Joan realized she had ventured into something the other two understood more than she did. She stopped talking. There was an awkward silence.
Harry got up and made three Nespressos. Strong. He served them without offering milk or sugar. Then he turned to Madalena Strauss.
“You met with Doris and Melvin Findlay the morning they died. What happened?”
“We talked.” She grimaced from her bruises as she shifted in her chair to peer directly into his eyes. “I told them their new little boy was not an orphan. His father was a Russian pimp who murdered the mother and sold the boy and his infant sister for drug money. They were disgusted, Harry. They were sickened to find their child had come from such a sordid background. They had been promised an abandoned love-child from a good family.”
“And you threatened to expose them. Don’t you see, Lena? That’s the impact of going public.”
“I made no threats. I simply told them what I knew. They met with Sakarov in his room at the Kressler later the same day. Either by threat or force, he compelled them to jump.”
“Compelled?” Harry said. “You pushed them to the limit. They were desperate.”
“Sakarov pushed them.”
“Their lives were destroyed. They took the boy with them.”
“Parents kill children when their own lives seem hopeless; you’d be surprised how often it happens.”
“They weren’t his parents.”
“But they were desperate.”
“And you knew all along they jumped from Sakarov’s balcony, not t
he roof.”
“I stayed out of it, Harry It was not time to go public. Whatever happened, it was still Sakarov’s show.”
“And my being there and watching them fall, that was a nasty coincidence?”
“You were not there by accident. You happened to be looking out your window at just the right time.”
“The wrong time.”
“Of course.”
“And by then you had a submerged corpse on hand, ready to cut free as a floater.”
Joan DeBrusk emitted an involuntary gagging sound but said nothing.
“Details, Harry. It does not matter.”
“I have said this before, Madalena. You are a very scary person.”
“I shall take that as a compliment.”
“That’s not how it was intended.”
A loud crashing noise shattered the air. All three took sharp intakes of breath. Another crash, and another, then swearing, then Simon Wales lurched into the room. He was dishevelled, his dark linen suit rumpled, his hair strangely askew. He was clutching his abdomen. There was a trickle of blood oozing between his fingers.
“Sorry about the door.” Simon’s pale complexion was ashen grey. He shuffled to keep his balance as Harry rushed to support him. “Should get it fixed.” He tried to focus on Harry’s guests. “Joan,” he nodded. “Ms. Strauss. Striking resemblance.” He glanced at the Klimts. “Elisabeth Bök.”
Harry eased Simon onto the sofa and gently revealed Simon’s wound.
Joan scurried into the bathroom. She returned with a damp washcloth and a white hand towel which she folded into a rectangle. She directed Harry to remove Simon’s jacket and to undo the necktie that Simon had used to bind a wadded handkerchief against the lacerations in his gut. She cleaned around the wound, which seemed flensed on the surface like dead meat, and pressed the towel into him. Slowly the white towel revealed veins of red, then gradually turned scarlet as the blood from deep inside his abdomen soaked through.
“Thank you,” Simon muttered with a grimace that passed for a smile. “It was a bad day.”
“It’s not over,” said Harry, shifting Joan’s drenched towel aside with a clean one. “Call 911.”
Joan wiped her hands on a dish cloth and reached for the phone.
Lena had not moved from the table. She observed keenly but displayed no emotion.
“No,” Simon commanded with a quavering voice.
“Make the call,” said Harry.
“My decision, Harry,” Simon declared.
“Simon.” Harry felt a tremendous surge of affection for his wounded protégé.
“S’okay,” said Simon.
“What happened?” Harry took hold of Simon’s hand. “Was it Sakarov?”
Simon suddenly shifted on the sofa and pushed Harry back so he could see into his eyes. His voice came from deep inside as he struggled against the pain.
“My bag,” he said. “Please.”
Harry nodded to Joan and she went out into the hall and retrieved Simon’s shoulder bag by the open doorway. The door was lying flat on the floor.
“New computer,” said Simon. The words were distinct but uttering them drained him. He slumped back.
Joan opened his bag and pulled out a Mac Air in pristine condition.
Simon reached for it and Joan slid into place beside him to hold a fresh towel against his gut. Harry helped him open the computer and boot up, then positioned Simon’s fingers on the keyboard. Harry realized this would be easier for him than speaking.
Simon settled against Joan as she watched the new towel grow heavy with a fresh flow of blood. Harry steadied the Mac. Simon closed his eyes, but his eyelids flickered as he seemed to be searching inside his skull and he began to type. His fingers raced across the keys with lives of their own, delivering their letter-perfect message.
Harry, I went to the King Willie to find you. I was worried. For Joan too. I was afraid she’d confront Sakarov by herself. S. was alone, shot, sprawled on the sofa. He asked for a drink and I got him a tumbler of water. He grabbed my arm, pulled me off balance, smashed the water glass on the table, plunged the jagged end into my gut, twisted deep, and smirked before he passed out from the effort. I left and took a taxi here. The driver noticed blood and took off before I could pay.
Joan started reciting the 23rd Psalm, falling back on her bush Catholic reserves.
“For God’s sake, Joan. Not now.” Simon’s eyes flashed open. Despite the urgency, his voice seemed to come from a long way off.
Joan fell silent.
Lena finally got up and walked over. She squatted beside the sofa and lifted the blood-drenched towel away, then pressed it back against Simon’s body.
“It is very bad inside,” she said, smiling sweetly at Simon to confirm what he already knew.
Simon’s eyes closed again and his blind fingers groped for the keyboard, then he began to type, this time with slow deliberation.
Joan, I liked being Simon Wales. You’ll miss me, Harry. I like that. Cremation, please scatter me free. Thank you for everything. It has been interesting.
Simon squeezed Harry’s hand and drew in a slow deep breath. His eyes opened and he gazed into Harry’s eyes and tried to smile. The pain seemed to have left his face and a beatific calm settled over his boyish features. His eyes fluttered as he glanced in the direction of the Klimts, then he closed them deliberately.
He lay ghastly still for a minute, then shuddered briefly, and Harry could feel through his hand the life going out of Simon Wales as he quietly died.
17 FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
Three days after Simon's death, Harry gathered a small group of their mutual friends for a dinner at Via Veneto on Yonge Street. Joan DeBrusk and Madalena Strauss flanked Harry on one side of the table, facing a wall mirror set between fake Corinthian columns, in front of which sat Miranda Quinn, David Morgan, and two volunteers from the Zylberman Children’s Centre. Harry had pre-ordered a heaping platter of linguini carbonara for seven p.m., along with a trough of Caesar salad and four bottles of Brunello.
Harry arrived first with Joan and Lena. The two women had become unlikely friends in the last few days. While Lena stayed with Harry (he slept on the sofa), she spent most of her time with Joan. Harry had been occupied with making arrangements for Simon’s cremation and the dispersal of his ashes from a spit of land near the Eastern Gap, with only the three of them in attendance. He would have looked after Simon’s personal effects, but no one knew where he lived.
Morgan and Miranda arrived together. Morgan did a wry double take when he recognized Lena.
“Harry hadn’t told me you’re alive again,” he declared.
Miranda paled when she saw Lena and then smiled.
“You look quite good,” she said.
“For a dead woman, yes. Thank you.”
“I attended your funeral.”
“Again, thank you.”
“At great effort and expense.”
“But Vienna is lovely in the summer, don’t you agree?”
“Lovely. Especially the Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs.”
“Your German is not so good. The Secession Building, yes. I wonder, I hope, Miranda, I’d prefer to remain dead, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sure you have your reasons. I had expected to meet someone called Elizabeth Book. That’s how the investigating officers looking into Simon’s death identified you. An innocent bystander, a friend of Miss DeBrusk’s.”
“It is a family name.”
“Good,” said Miranda. “We’ll leave it at that.”
The volunteers from the Children’s Centre were no more confused by the incomprehensible conversation going over their heads than by any other aspect of Simon’s passing. They were there because they had liked him and wanted to share the sadness.
Morgan and Joan greeted each other with warm cordiality. Their cursory kiss on both cheeks seemed nothing more than an amiable display of affection between friends with a full generation bet
ween them. Miranda nodded in Joan’s direction without smiling. It occurred to Harry that those other rumours, dating back to when Miranda and Morgan were partners, might actually be true.
There was minimal small talk as they ate. No one mentioned Simon until after the table was cleared, when the proprietor with his pencil-thin moustache and bushy eyebrows produced a bottle of grappa, before warm zabaglione and steaming hot coffee were served.
Harry toasted Simon. He felt uncomfortable. Simon would not have wanted to be toasted. It was not his style and Simon had style. That’s how he had re-invented himself, a young man with style. Peter who called himself Simon would have preferred an earnest discussion about anything other than himself. He had consciously designed his life to be solitary and the world seemed awesomely undiminished by his absence. No one wanted to talk about him. Only Harry and Joan mourned him. None had stories to share. He was on their minds. And perhaps that, thought Harry, was enough.
The two volunteers left before the zabaglione was served. Morgan left before the espresso. Harry regarded himself in the mirror, seated between two women with copper red hair. Miranda, in front of the mirror, smiled as if she knew what he was thinking and pushed a loop of her own hair away from her face. Auburn, not copper, highlighted with grey. His own had been blonde and turned prematurely white after the accident, curiously showing a scattering of silver that falsely suggested it had once been dark, even black.
You’re developing a hair fetish, Harry.
Ah, he thought, I’m glad you’re here. It wouldn’t be a wake without you.
The three women and Harry sipped their coffees in silence. For Miranda this was a brief and solemn interlude, for Joan a way of sharing her sorrow. If Harry had intended their dinner to be a celebration, Simon’s carefully maintained isolation made it difficult. For Madalena, her grief was not for a young man with whom she had only a fleeting acquaintance but for all the damaged children his brief sad life represented.
Simon’s death had been deemed first-degree murder, but no charges were laid. Although Dimitri Sakarov’s name came up, it seemed he had been staying in Muskoka at the time as the guest of a distinguished citizen by the name of Fearman. The antique akstafa in his condo was missing, according to Morgan, who also informed Harry there was no slip cover on Sakarov’s sofa.