by Sam Wiebe
CHIEF RED STICK, MASTER OF THE ATOMIC DROPKICK
AND HIS BEAUTIFUL VALET SPIRIT WIND
TERROR SCORPION KOBAYASHI
“THE RABID BADGER” BRIAN TOUSSAINT
TAG CHAMPIONS THE APOLLO BOMB SYNDICATE
AND MUCH MORE!
The person I’d come to the fairgrounds to see was part of the much more.
Cloverdale is a sleepy agricultural town an hour from Vancouver. The main drag is quaint, bordering on rococo: no surprise that it doubled as Smallville in one of the Superman TV shows. The fairgrounds host swap meets, farmers’ markets, the odd classic car show. And professional wrestling.
The local promotion drew a solid crowd, though only maybe an eighth of the Alice McKay Building’s capacity. Five rows of folding chairs around a worn-looking ring, with extendable bleachers coming out of two walls. Cotton candy and nachos and other assorted poisons in the far corner. Programs and merch by the door.
I took a seat high up against the wall. The opening wrestlers were rough and uncoordinated, the Irish whips and piledrivers lacking the grace of professionals. They did five-minute spots and received polite applause. Three matches in, the costumes became gaudier, the technique more polished. These jobbers knew how to stir up a crowd. The heels cheated and shook their fists at an old lady in the front row. The babyfaces slapped the canvas and reached to the sky, imploring the heavens for strength.
In match six an obese man in a leather daddy vest heaved himself onto the canvas to the tune of Slayer’s “Here Comes the Pain.” He strutted and posed. Audience favorite, maybe a local boy. He leaned back in a corner, waiting for his opponent.
Queens of the Stone Age blared over the PA system, “Feel Good Hit of the Summer.” Tim Blatchford bounded through the dressing room curtain wearing a gold and black singlet, both hands raised to welcome the jeers of the crowd. He ran laps around the ring, then rolled under the bottom rope and shoved the ref to the mat in his eagerness to get at the man-mountain.
For seven minutes the leather daddy tossed Blatchford around the ring to the delight of the crowd. He squashed him in the corner and choked him using the ropes. Blatchford tried to muscle out, but the big man’s grip kept him on his knees.
His break came when the leather daddy launched him into the ropes for a lariat. Blatchford ducked the ham-hock, bounced off the ropes. The other man turned just as Blatchford catapulted himself into the man’s arms, tipping them both over the top rope, dumping them onto the floor.
On the outside Blatchford was an animal. He used whatever came to hand, or what the crowd passed him—a cane, a trash can lid, someone’s souvenir belt. The leather daddy fought back and busted him open with a folding chair. Blatchford fell and covered his face. When he popped back up his head was slathered with crimson, but by then the ref had called a double count out. They fought all the way back to the dressing room, which took some nifty footwork.
At the intermission I went outside. Blatchford was standing by my Cadillac, posing for a photo with two smirking teenagers. He wore a butterfly bandage on his forehead. His own smile was almost painfully sincere and intense. When the kids left he joined me in my car.
“How you doing, Dave?” Blatchford appraised my new beard and longer hair. “Some disguise. Going for a Bruiser Brody thing, uh?”
“That was impressive,” I said.
“Yeah. The kid can move, for that size.”
“You cut yourself every night?”
He nodded. “You do it right, it barely leaves a mark. Do it wrong like tonight—” he shrugged. “Fuck it. ’S’only a forehead. And you know what they say about getting color—about bleeding—‘red equals green.’”
I wondered how much green he was actually clearing. I said, “Other than these shows, you’ve got time?”
“Nothing but. Same as you from what I hear. How’re you enjoying retirement?”
“I stepped down. Jeff and I thought it’d be best for the business, putting some distance between me and it right now.”
“But it was his idea, uh?”
“I can’t blame him,” I said. “I managed to fuck things up on my own.”
Blatchford took a vial of pills out of his pocket. He popped three in his mouth, dry-swallowed, and offered the vial to me.
“Soma,” I said. “Aren’t those to sleep?”
“Shit, I need these just to drive home. My heart’s still jacked from the match.”
“Not for much longer.”
“Nice you care,” he said, and tucked the pills away. “’Splain to me how you put distance between yourself and a company that’s part named after you?”
“Disney did fine without Walt.”
“That’s the kind of world it is,” he agreed. “Nobody taking responsibility. But if you got all this time on your hands, what d’you need with me?”
His tone was chiding, but there was less scorn than the last time we’d seen each other. Maybe it was the high of performance, or perhaps Jeff had provoked his ire. In any case, buried in Blatchford’s mockery was some small note of concern.
“I need you to find two people for me,” I said. “A woman named Dana Essex, and another person, a man, I think, whose name I don’t know.”
“You can’t do it yourself?”
There was no better time to tell him. I explained what had happened, what the consequences would be if they learned I was looking for them. Blatchford listened, taking swigs from his flask.
“They sound like they don’t fuck around,” he said. “You got no idea on this second person? Nothing at all?”
“Someone good with a knife,” I said.
He nodded, as if accepting the fact. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the bestest detective in the world, Tim.”
“Since when did you figure that out?”
“Jeff is married and expecting. Kay’s family. I wouldn’t go to Bob Aries for any reason. You’re competent and you’re off the radar.”
“Not to mention expendable,” he said.
“I need your help, is what it comes down to.”
He allowed himself a moment to enjoy my supplication. “I should tell you to go fuck yourself, Dave,” he said. “’Cept you seem plenty fucked already. What’s this job pay?”
I handed him a bank envelope stuffed with twenties. “Plus your daily and expenses.”
“I’m not much of a record keeper,” he said. “Make it the same as what you or Jeff would charge—plus a dollar.”
I didn’t argue.
Blatchford put the envelope on the dash. “You got a place to start with this woman?”
“Two,” I said. “She works—worked—at a college in Surrey. She did her graduate work at Carleton.”
“Hell,” he said, “you’re sending me to Ontario?”
“Somewhere her life intersected with this killer. You don’t meet many of them in libraries. Look back till you find someone incongruent—someone who doesn’t fit.”
“Thinks I don’t know what incongruent means,” Blatchford muttered. “What else?”
I handed him a slip with six sets of numbers. “The top one was Essex’s Vancouver landline. Next one is the number on a parcel the killer sent me. I dialed that, she hit me back on the third number. And then the others, she’s used those, too.”
Blatchford flicked the paper with his fingers. “This crazy broad calls you?”
“Every week,” I said.
Two
It was nine days before I heard again from Dana Essex. That morning I’d gone to the office on Pender to patch the drywall and repair things as best I could. The landlord had seized my damage deposit—for a building that would be rubble in six months’ time—but had let me handle the repairs myself.
I was grateful for the distraction. Every so often the news belched up a rumor or accusation about Tabitha Sorenson. I kept silent, distanced myself from Wakeland & Chen business, unburdening Jeff and appeasing any skeptical clients. Sonia hadn’t called, and I’d had no furth
er dealings with Chambers or Qiu. Without work to keep me busy, there was nothing to push down thoughts of Tabitha, the horror of her last moments. In a way, even Essex’s call was some relief.
She phoned from an area code in southwestern Washington. Her gloating rang hollow, betrayed a lack of purpose. I’d said so.
“I admit I’m at a bit of a loss,” Essex said. “I’m on the precipice of freedom, waiting for certain things to happen.”
“I guess having all that money must help. How much did you end up with?”
“Would you believe I don’t know the exact sum? Several hundred thousand, at least. Perhaps more.”
“Not much for someone’s life.”
“For my life.”
“You could come back, turn yourself in.”
“Be serious, Dave.”
Her tone was dreamlike. I could imagine her spread across a motel bed, contemplating the ceiling, midday traffic passing outside her room.
“I’ve been thinking about what happened with Tabitha,” she said. “Analyzing my reaction. Taking stock of things like remorse, misgivings. It was more brutal than I’d expected—but then how does one ‘expect’ a murder? There really is no reference for it. It’s all very fascinating.”
“Murder is common,” I said. “It’s ordinary. It’s cheap.”
“Not to me,” she said. “I think I’ll conduct a study of the post-murder mindset. Perhaps write a book.”
“Like Edward Bunker. Or Jean Genet.”
“Former prisoners, you mean. Do you honestly think, Dave, everyone in prison deserves to be? The United States jails more of its citizens than China. The prison-industrial complex is positively booming. It’s big business. In Canada, too. Prison makes the North American underclass economically viable. So why should we pretend it’s punitive, when in fact prisons are simply an instrument of finance?”
“Say that’s true,” I said. “How does it justify you murdering a twenty-four-year-old girl in her home?” Essex didn’t answer right away. “It does explain why you got along with Tabitha. She could buy into that thinking, too, couldn’t she, that society’s wrongs absolve our own.”
“We didn’t get along as well as you think.” A note of aggravation had crept into her voice. “Tabitha was headstrong. And very intelligent. But constantly feeling she had to prove so. You’ve met tiresome people like that—janitors who insist on regaling you with the etymology of obscure words they no doubt learned for exactly that purpose. Or cab drivers who think a display of trivia makes them an intellectual. So desperate to be taken seriously. That was Tabitha.”
“So why partner with her?”
“Because what she did understand was finance,” Essex said. “With her position, she could manipulate the accounts how she saw fit. I thought inflating events budgets was the extent of what could be done. I didn’t realize how much money could be accrued by lending it to the right people.”
“You said it wasn’t about money.”
“I did, and it isn’t.”
“Then—love?”
“Honestly, Dave. Do you think you’d have bedded me if my heart’s balm flowed toward her?”
“I like to think my charms are universal.”
She laughed. “You needed the idea of love as motivation to take the job. I worked hard to give that to you. It would have been an easier sell if the target had been male, but I improvised. By my looks alone, I wouldn’t be miscast as a woman suffering from repression. So that was who I gave you.”
“Listen to how proud you are of your acting ability.”
“The effort more than the ability,” Essex said. “It worked well, you must admit. Remember the distinction you made, that first day, between being robbed and being cheated?”
“You’re right,” I said. “You won. You were brilliant.”
“Thank you.”
“Except now you’re discovering what it’s like to live on the lam. Only you don’t have the love to carry you that Tabitha found. You’re alone, Dana, with a dwindling sum of money, and a name that’ll be useless to travel under, soon as it comes out you’re involved. You don’t have what it takes to be her.”
Essex said quietly, emotionally, “She expected me to do nothing when she took that money—our money. We’d worked out that plan together. She didn’t realize who she’d used and betrayed.”
“Maybe neither do you.”
“You’ll never be in a position to do to me what was done to Tabitha,” she said. “You’d be dead before you finished contemplating it. Even if you’re not intimidated by me, you know I’m not alone. And you most certainly are. I know all about you, Dave. You don’t have a solid move remaining.”
“You might be right about that,” I said. “But if I’m such a dud, why phone me?”
“I don’t honestly know,” Essex said.
“I do.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“I’m not going to tell you today,” I said.
“A bluff.”
“Maybe.”
“Tell me.”
“Not now.”
“Tell me.”
“Good night, Dana.”
After I hung up I returned to patching the dents in the drywall. I wondered if I should bother sanding them smooth. How much effort was a condemned thing worth?
Three
Essex continued her weekly calls like clockwork. Her tone became more exultant. She explained how Tabitha’s death was merely a settling of accounts, “the delayed yet inevitable response to her betrayal.” Our conversations ended with her saying I’d never hear from her again, that this was it. Yet her tone would soften and she’d linger over the parting.
In the meantime I sanded and painted the walls and did a satisfactory job on the rest, so that the superintendent, a Lebanese man named Amir, said I could pass on fixing the woodwork.
“Is all be gone soon anyway,” he said one afternoon when he came by to collect the rent. We stood out in front of the building, watching the cage of scaffolding go up on a property across the street.
“Condos, too?” I asked him.
“Rentals. Three fifty square foot.”
“Good size. Who doesn’t like to take a piss and cook eggs without leaving your bed?”
He laughed and asked if I wanted to join him in his office for a drink. We sat in his first-floor box with its odd domestic carpeting and hodgepodge of furniture. A desk and file cabinet, sofa. I’d been transacting business with Amir for six years, off and on, and I’d never been inside.
Amir had quite the collection of single malts. “My brother, he works for the Liquor Control,” he explained. He poured us each a dram of Arran Twelve into a paper cone.
The company he worked for had buildings up and down Vancouver Island. He’d be taking over the business there, moving his family.
“Think you’ll miss the city?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “My kids’ll change schools. They lose their friends, it will be hard. But I miss change. I move a lot before I come here. When I meet my wife, we find a house and we stay. Thirteen years,” he said sadly.
“The tower they’re replacing us with,” I said. “Any word on the low-income housing?”
“Thirteen units.”
I scowled. “Not even ten percent.” Meanwhile the rents of the surrounding buildings would skyrocket, pushing out however many hundreds of people.
“Is their building,” Amir said.
“Is my neighborhood.”
“You’ll go back up the street?” he asked.
I held out my free hand, who’s to say, and sipped scotch with the other. “I’m not sure Jeff wants me back. I wouldn’t, I was him. My side of the business tends to operate at a loss.”
“Is like a marriage, uh?”
“With worse arguments,” I said. “And better sex.”
As we were talking someone rapped on the office door. Through the slats of the blinds I saw a short and malformed silhouette. Amir opened the door to reveal a
man in a dirty cream-colored dress shirt and slacks. He had an eyepatch, a cane, and sundry bruises decorating the exposed flesh of his arms, face, and throat. I recognized him as Miles, the man Chris Chambers had assaulted out back of the Crossroads Inn.
“I’m looking for David Wake-something,” Miles said.
Four
“You people are assholes, you know that?” Miles leaned on the doorframe and pointed his cane up toward my office. “Make a crippled man try those stairs. Ever hear of wheelchair accessibility?”
Amir insisted we use his office and left. Miles hooked the arm of a chair with his cane and dragged it to where he could flop down on it.
“This chick told me when I got out of the hospital I should find you.”
“She wouldn’t be a police officer?” I asked.
He nodded. “Cryptic bitch. All she said was you’d want to hear my story.”
“I could use one where the good guys win.”
Miles looked at the bottle of scotch on the desk expectantly. I waited. He cleared his throat.
“Anyway, she said there’d be sixty bucks in it for me, that you weren’t a cop, and that my story might help you fuck No-Frisk Chris in some way. And let me tell you,” he added, “I didn’t come here just for the sixty.”
I produced the bills but didn’t pass them to him. “Story first.”
Miles had wanted to host a club night in one of the waterfront dives. Dance music, cheap beer, Ecstasy, and untaxed cigarettes. He’d worked out a deal with the owners, but needed a few thousand for the pills, audio equipment, and supplies. With two prior convictions and a busted credit record, he’d turned to Anthony Qiu for the loan.
“I got beat on the pills,” he said. “Fucking baby aspirin. Was Qiu’s connect, anyway. Asshole Malaysians pulled a gun when I complained. I told Qiu’s guy, Wong, and he goes, ‘Hmm, they’re usually reliable.’ That bastard doesn’t do nothing, so suddenly I owe five grand and rising interest to a gangster who prob’ly set up the whole scam, the prick.”
Miles tried to scrape together the cash. With the club night dead, he had a grocery clerk’s income and whatever he could make pulling petty thefts. Plus a propensity for cocaine.