by Sam Wiebe
I sipped the whiskey. It burned pleasantly. I waited for Chambers to come around to it.
“You must miss him,” Chambers said at length.
“Sure.”
“He raised you.”
“Him and my mother, foster mother, yeah.”
“Nice you found Sonia,” he said, “the two of you both not having much family and all.”
I nodded, thinking of the way Chambers had mangled Miles’s hand. My expression remained neutral.
“I was like that myself,” Chambers said. “Father not around, mom working and splitting her time ’tween me and her other family. Rough world.”
“And it doesn’t get easier,” I said.
“Surely does not.” Chambers tipped another shot into my glass, refilled his own. “Cheers. So tell me about work. I hear you and your partner have just about cornered the market. How’d you manage that?”
“Jeff’s a lot smarter than me,” I said. “I just try and keep my head down.”
“Smart.” A touch of sarcasm to the word. “Let me get to why I’m here, Dave. I’m not that far off from my twenty. On account of past mistakes I don’t see myself rising much higher. It’s not worth it to wait till I’m sixty-five. Not if I can do something else. I was hoping you could give me a glimpse into the life, so to speak. Tell me about a few of the things you’re working on.”
“Current cases?”
“I won’t blab. Fact I might be able to help. I’ve got a few more years logged on the job than Sonia or your buddy Ryan Martz.”
“Glad to share,” I said.
I took him through some of what Wakeland & Chen was working on, leaving out names. Industrial insurance cases, a few pieces of litigation. I explained our corporate security contracts in minute detail, surprising myself at my own level of understanding.
Chambers ate it up. Moses wasn’t a more attentive listener.
“So it’s a mixture of things,” he said. “Just like on the job. I like that. Nothing else on your plate?”
I shrugged. “Jeff keeps talking about expanding into repossessions, but I’m not sure I have the desire to take some poor bastard’s—”
“What about alimony cases?” Chambers said, as if just thinking about it. “I heard something about a tough one you had. Something about a gangster. Asian last name. You and him had some sort of showdown?”
I played it as if I’d almost forgotten the incident. “Right,” I said. “Qiu. He had a deadbeat dad on his payroll. He told me to leave the guy alone.”
“And you didn’t?” Chambers grinned.
“I got the money,” I said.
“Someone threatened me,” Chambers said, “I’d want to even the score.”
“I’m in no hurry.”
He nodded, tilting his head confidingly. “You must at least have thought about it. What was his name again? Chow?”
“Qiu,” I said. “I think it’s about as even as it’ll get.”
“I’m just saying if it was me.” All humor draining out of his voice, his eyes narrowing, putting aside his mug. “I’m saying if there was some way I could help you get retribution, you let me know.”
“Truth is,” I said, “and this humble abode doesn’t bear it out, but I’m making money hand over fist with corporate clients. I might roll past Qiu and put the scare into him, just so he doesn’t think I’ve let my guard down. But I don’t have the time or inclination to start anything. Retribution’s expensive. Up for one last drink?”
Chambers smiled.
“Let’s kill it,” he said.
Thirty-Six
I didn’t tip my hand to Chambers. I wanted him to report back to Qiu on our conversation, tell him I was all empty threats and money talk. I needed time to figure out how to play them. To learn what Sonia wanted and what I could live with.
But first I owed Dana Essex a meeting. I called her and told her I’d found Tabitha Sorenson and she was alive.
“She’s okay? You saw her? You have an address?”
The hope in her voice, the giddiness—I told her I’d give her a complete report and debriefing in person.
“I live in the West End,” she said, surprising me. I’d thought she’d lived closer to the school, and been a stranger to Vancouver. “There’s a Ukrainian place on Denman Street. Could we meet there in half an hour?”
I took a cab and found her already at a table, spinning an empty wine glass by the stem. The smell of the rich food was tempting, creamy borschts and steaming cabbage rolls. But Essex wasn’t eating and I wasn’t staying longer than I had to.
I’d printed a few hi-res frames of the video. Essex shuffled through them, a grin breaking out on her face. “It’s her,” she said. “Tabitha. And she’s living in this city?”
“That’s right.”
Essex was wearing a dark pants suit and smelled of lavender soap. For jewelry, a plain gold watch. She poured wine from a small decanter and went through the pictures again, more slowly, pausing to study each one.
“Maybe she doesn’t look like much to you,” Essex said softly. “Some people contain worlds within them. Isn’t this strange.” She wasn’t smiling. Her joy came across as nervous anticipation.
“She’s living with someone,” I said. “A man named Sabar Gill. From what I observed, they’re a couple.”
Essex nodded. She kept her eyes on the photos. “You have evidence of that?” she said.
“I could play you the video, show you their body language.”
“Not just good friends? Close friends?”
“Kissing. Cuddling. Sharing a bedroom.”
“You have video of them together—physically together? Sexually?”
“I’m not a pornographer.”
“No. Of course not.” Essex bit her lip and leaned back in her chair. She played with her hands, as if suddenly unsure what to do with them.
“Tell me what happened to her,” she said.
I told her. “Tabitha was brought into a student government that was falling apart. The officials were crooked and petty and disorganized, in charge of millions of dollars, with the only restraints what they themselves decided. In comes Tabitha with economic smarts and a political cynicism she learned from her poli-sci prof. She found a way to lend out money illegally, then replace it and pocket the interest. She ran a very smart scam under cover of very stupid scams. The auditors caught a whiff of it, but no more than that.”
“Where did she go?”
“I think her original idea was to flee the country,” I said. “She stayed here, though. Her partner was offered a job he couldn’t turn down.” I gestured to the report. “In any case, there they are.”
Dana Essex spread the photos on the table. “How does Tabitha live like this?” she said. “Homebound, out of touch with friends and family. She was so active.”
“I have two ideas on that,” I said. “Either she’s very careful—”
“Or?”
“Very scared.”
“Of what?”
“I had to guess, I’d say the Hayes brothers. She led them to believe this would be the first of many loans. They’re not happy about the deception.”
“I’d like to read the full report,” Essex said.
While she read I stared out the window at the rush hour traffic on Denman. A procession of neon-attired bicyclists, silver coupes, and midsize sedans. The occasional lurch of the Downtown Express as it crouched to pick up passengers. People, and more of them all the time. You’d think making connections would become easier.
I noticed Essex wasn’t reading anymore. She was gripping the page tightly, but her eyes were focused elsewhere, on other things.
“I think I need a drink,” she said. “Will you have one? On me, of course.”
“How about a bit of a walk first?” I said. “The rain’s let up. We can catch a drink at the Sylvia on our way back.”
We paid up and left. Walking against traffic, we crossed Davie and turned onto the gray sand of English Bay. Luxury ap
artments and upscale franchise restaurants had encroached on the waterfront. The West End breathed money on display. The cloud cover and the late hour kept all but the most dedicated walkers off the Seawall. We strolled in the direction of Third Beach.
“Are you going to talk to Tabitha?” I asked.
“I don’t think so, no. Not if she’s happy.”
“It cost you a lot to find her. Maybe she should know that.”
Essex gave an abrupt, derisive laugh. “Tabitha would probably find it funny. Or think it was the gesture of a stalker.”
“Or a friend.”
“It wasn’t friendship,” Essex said, drawing her coat around her. Rounding the corners of the Seawall, you could be met with heavy wind and foam spray, or an eerie, preternatural calm.
“The fact is,” she continued, “we weren’t friends, we were colleagues. I wanted to find her to assuage my own feelings that I’ve wasted my life, and that I’m destined to be solitary. It had very little to do with her and everything to do with what she represented.”
“Love,” I said.
“Or something less noble.” She paused at a bench and looked out past the beach at the rusted hulls of the cargo ships anchored in the bay. A face full of wind was a convenient excuse to wipe her eyes.
“When I was in grad school, I’d pass certain professors in the halls and know that, as learned as they were, they’d never lived. Some were bureaucrats, some socially inadequate. Some simply lived through the books they studied, and I liked those the best. Many were waiting for a proletarian revolution that wouldn’t happen in their lifetime. Those people were ghosts. I told myself I’d disguise myself as one of them, but I’d never become like them. I would live. And now, however many years later, here I am—I’ve deceived myself into a spectral existence no different from theirs. Only I knew better, and chose it anyway.”
I didn’t know what to say. On the beach, a woman and a white-stockinged lab treaded the edge of the surf.
“Have you ever read Ishiguro?”
I shook my head. “Any good?”
“Brilliant,” Essex said. “You’d like When We Were Orphans. It’s about a private detective. The more success he has, the more he realizes his entire life is supported by the crimes he’s trying to solve.”
“Listen,” I said. “Whether you talk to Tabitha or not isn’t up to me. But for her sake, it might be a good idea to put someone on her house. Just in case.”
“Security?” She thought about it and nodded. “As a precaution. I owe her that much.”
The wind relented. Turning back, we soon reached the Sylvia Hotel.
“I’m not up for a drink just yet,” Essex said. “Would tomorrow night be all right? I realize consoling a client is an imposition but”—her face scrunched up, then blanked—“I don’t know anyone else I could commiserate with.”
“Consoling and commiserating is part of the job,” I said. “What’ll you do in the meantime?”
“Find a way to live with myself,” she said.
Thirty-Seven
In the afternoon I listened to an irate Don Utrillo, president of Solis Solutions, gripe about the hygiene of one of the guards we’d sent his company for a corporate fundraiser. “His ass was practically hanging out, like a goddamned plumber.”
I assured Utrillo I’d speak to the kid about proper grooming. His name was Greg, and I made him drive down to the office to tell him in person he needed a shave and a good pair of suspenders.
“Appearance is important,” I told him. Me, wearing two days’ stubble and a perforated Hanson Brothers T-shirt.
“But you—” he began.
“—are a genius, and for a genius rules are meant to be transgressed. That’s how society develops new ideas and inventions. The liberties that Jeff or I take must be seen against a backdrop of competence. That means suit and tie and proper-fitting clothing.”
Greg scratched the fuzz on his chin and nodded. Looking at him closer, I recognized him as one of the guards who’d turfed me from Mitch Sorenson’s office. Evidently Greg recognized me, too.
“Sir,” he said, “I’d like to apologize—”
“Don’t. That was your job. I’d be pissed if you did anything else.”
“Thanks, sir.”
“Now let’s talk about what you’re doing next.”
I assigned him the van and told him to station himself on Quebec Street, watching the home of Sabar Gill and Tabitha Sorenson. Report anything strange to me.
“Keep out of sight, but close enough to help if something happens.”
“Are you expecting it to, sir?”
“It’s a precaution,” I said. “A client’s peace of mind. But that doesn’t mean you don’t take it seriously.”
“Understood, sir, and thanks.”
When I was done with him I took a video call with Jeff. His vacation attire was a straw fedora and an unbuttoned sunset-pattered shirt. His cabana opened onto the beach.
“Any problems?” he asked.
“Nope. Everything’s running fine. Admit it, you think you’re irreplaceable.”
“One of us thinks he is,” Jeff said. “How’s that missing student case coming?”
“Turned out she stashed herself a few dollars and was hiding out with her librarian lover over in Mount Pleasant.”
“As one does. You ought to come out to Maui. It’s hot. No rain. People are friendly. Kind of the opposite of Vancouver.”
“What’s the fun of that?”
Jeff shook his head. “I’ll phone next week, before we leave.”
“You’ll be calling tomorrow,” I said. “You miss me too much.”
“That must be it,” he said.
At nine I locked up the main office and called it a night. Walking down Hastings, I saw a beige Navigator creep past me, abruptly shifting lanes toward my side of the street. The SUV stopped at the light.
I changed direction, heading west toward Burrard. As I turned a corner, I saw the Navigator swing around, stop, its passenger door opening.
Up Burrard and into a throng of people on Homer. Past low-rise apartments, opulent hotels, drab shopfronts and diners like weeds between the gray monoliths. I darted across the street, moving purposefully. In my peripheral I saw a man in a dark suit follow.
I headed south toward False Creek, staying amid other pedestrians. The man followed. I’d assumed it would be Chambers, but the man was shorter and broader, his tail work too conspicuous. I needed a better look at him.
Near the water I took out my cell phone and snapped it open truculently, as if objecting to a call. “What?” I said, turning to face the street. “You’re serious? This can’t wait?”
The man in the dark suit halted and stared into a storefront window. He was contemplating the glass with a window-shopper’s scrutiny, but the building was for sale, and the glass looked in on a few discarded tubs of drywall plaster.
“I hear you,” I said into the phone. “Twenty minutes. Phone you from the office. Just have the wife ready to talk.”
I headed back the way I’d come, fast, and staring at the street, with my eyes focused nowhere. Certainly not on Nagy as I passed him. No mistaking the off-kilter nose and the slightly porcine eyes. He waited until I was twenty paces ahead of him before he fell in step.
Nagy would have a pistol. He looked the type to carry more than one. His tail work was pitiful, but I had no doubt he’d shoot me if the order came down from Qiu. Or maybe if the chance arose.
I caught a taxi on Robson, told the driver to take me down Water and then right on Clark. I got out two blocks from my apartment. I didn’t see Nagy or the Navigator again that night.
Thirty-Eight
An energetic morning rain drowned the patio outside my apartment, giving my view of the trees beyond the fence a gauzy texture. I phoned Sonia and didn’t get through. I wondered if she was blocking my calls or all calls or if something had happened.
I dressed and wrapped my coat around me. Walked to Cambie Street a
nd over the bridge, through Coopers’ Park, to the high-rise where Sonia lived. I saw scattered boats on the turbulent water, a few drenched hobos milling about the park. Shivering under the awning, I hit the buzzer.
Her voice on the intercom, guarded and interrogatory. “Who is it?”
“Delivery.”
“Please leave it by the door.”
“It’s me.”
“Why would you—”
“You’re not answering my calls,” I said. “Can I come up?”
“Rather you didn’t.”
“It’s goddamn cold out here,” I said. “At least make me a cup of tea.”
Up in her apartment I took off my coat and wrung out my shirt. A large stainless steel espresso machine dominated her tiny kitchen. Sonia tamped and frothed and put together two cappuccinos.
She was wearing her gym pants and a threadbare off-the-shoulder sweater. Her cop gear was laid out on her living room table—sidearm, handcuffs, stun gun, baton. A white Kevlar vest was draped over one arm of the couch.
We drank standing on opposite sides of her kitchen. I waited for her to speak.
After a while she said, “I should’ve told you not to come.”
“You could tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry I got you involved.”
“So we’re done then?”
“There’s nothing you can do,” she said.
I wiped my mouth. “Almond milk doesn’t froth for shit, does it?”
She didn’t respond.
“Are you in danger?”
Sonia sighed. Put down her cup. Her hands went to her hips.
“You love to help people,” she said. “Especially women. Nothing makes you happier. But did it occur to you, Dave, not everyone wants your help?”
“You asked me—”
“Yes. And now I’m asking you to stop.”
“It occur to you, Sonia, I want to help because I can see you’re in trouble?”