by Robin Spano
Norris said, “I’m going to run the Snow down to Seattle. I don’t feel like I owe Chopper that — and I certainly don’t owe Richie that, like he keeps trying to tell me I do — but I know I screwed this up. If I leave them with their shit sorted, I’ll feel okay about things.”
“Leave them?” Wade peered at his friend.
“I’m taking my family out of here. Permanently. Will you be okay?”
Wade didn’t know why the thought of Norris leaving Whistler made him feel orphaned. “Of course,” Wade said. “I’ll be fine.”
FIFTY-SIX
CLARE
Amanda sat across from Clare, staring her down like they were strangers on opposite teams. Across the playing field of the orange shag carpet, the blond wood coffee table sat between them like a referee. It wasn’t even three hours since their previous meeting, but apparently all had been decided.
“You’re officially being sent home.” Amanda closed her sentence with a brief nod.
“Cool. I’ll go pack.” Clare matched her even tone, tried to replicated the nod.
“Cool?” Amanda’s eyebrows lifted. “Does your job mean so little to you?”
“My job means everything to me. But I’ll take this up with Bert, or someone reasonable, once I’m back in New York.”
“What makes you think that your job in New York will be waiting for you?”
“Because Bert will hear my side before he makes a rash decision. And by hear, I mean he’ll listen to it and process it like an intelligent human, not a robot who needs a rule book to get out of bed each morning.”
“I don’t . . .”
“And when he hears my reasoning,” Clare said, “he might agree or disagree — he might be damn mad, who knows? — but he’ll be more interested in why I dropped LSD than in the fact that it went against the bylaws of the job.”
“This isn’t about . . .” Amanda’s jaw was moving wildly, like her words were stuck in there, trying to escape.
“What is it about, Amanda? What did I do that’s so unforgivable?”
Amanda shook her head. “You could be so good at this job — so good — if you just opened your mind and saw that the rules are here to help you.”
“Oh wow, that’s funny. You telling me to open my mind. Are you saying you wish I hadn’t found Sacha’s documentary?”
“Of course not.” Amanda folded her hands gently in her lap. “I’m saying I’m not equipped to handle you.”
Clare wanted to tell Amanda that she was a human, not a horse. Instead she said, “I think we work together well. We closed the poker case together, and we’ve made great progress here.” Clare couldn’t believe she’d just pleaded a case for working with Amanda.
“It’s not you, Clare. It’s me.”
Clare did her best not to laugh at the line that made her feel like she was in a teenage sitcom.
“You’re right,” Amanda said. “I need rules, I need order. That’s why I’m an excellent administrator, an okay handler, and I could never be an operative like you — you dive into a world where it’s all so muddy, and you have to make it clear.”
Clare wrinkled her mouth.
“So no hard feelings?” Amanda said.
“You’re still dropping me?”
“Look, maybe one day, when you’ve matured and I’ve mellowed, we’ll find some common ground on a case. But right now . . . we’ll just be at cross-purposes. Conflicts like this will arise again and again.”
“But . . . this is going to mess up my career big time. Paul Worthington is watching the case. I know in a way it’s my fault if I’m leaving, but can’t you just give me one more chance?”
“Right. I said you’re officially being sent home. In fact — and unofficially — you’re staying.”
“What?” A tracer went by, as if to remind Clare that everything was fucked.
“The recording you took from the bar impressed my colleagues. They’ve decided that — gross negligence aside — you’re still an asset to the case because of all the inroads you’ve made.” Amanda’s jaw clenched and unclenched as she spoke, like she couldn’t decide if she was still angry. “We’re not sure why Inspector Norris has suddenly changed his verdict from suicide to murder, but the timing works perfectly for us to make a strategic shift.”
Clare leaned forward in her comfortable plaid armchair. “What’s the shift?”
“We’ve told Norris that the FBI is pleased with his changing the investigation to murder and no longer feels the need for their agent to be here — which Norris will believe, because I’ll be back in Ottawa instead of here in a handler capacity.”Amanda brushed a strand of her straight blond hair behind her ear. It was fuller now; she must have washed it in the three hours since Clare had seen her. “Clare . . . I . . .”
“What?”
“I’ve liked a lot about working with you. I wish this could have gone differently.”
“I liked you, too, sometimes.” Clare stood up, trying not to let Amanda see how shaken she was by what was really only a professional parting of ways. “I should get back to work.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
RICHIE
Chopper exhaled slowly and passed Richie the last of the joint. Richie hadn’t been smoking lately — too damn paranoid — but he felt chill in Chopper’s cabin. He liked the way nighttime folded itself around the place, like some blanket he could reach out and hold onto while sucking his thumb.
He’d been dumb to confront Norris. No matter how Richie played it back for himself in his head, he couldn’t get a version where his carnival act wasn’t a mistake. Still, Norris had agreed to make the run — so technically Richie had achieved a good result.
“You’re sure Norris said yes.” Chopper leaned into his coffee table, more intense than usual.
“Yeah,” Richie said. “But the thing is . . . I kind of had to threaten him.”
Chopper looked half-amused and half-alarmed. “With what?”
“I played a clip from Sacha’s documentary. Scared him into thinking he better be on our side until the end.”
“Must have freaked him right out.”
“I also told him I have some conversations recorded — him and us in the cabin last night, to be specific.”
Chopper shook his head. “I don’t like blackmail, Rich. Yeah, we’re up to our waists in this shit, we have to scramble for any shovel we can find. But Stu Norris is my friend.”
“Here.” Richie reached in his jeans pocket and pulled out the memory stick. “I’ve downloaded Sacha’s videos onto my computer. You should do the same — and password-protect it, in case one of our places gets raided. Then store the stick somewhere good.”
Chopper waved the small black and red memory stick in the air. “Anything here that could put us away? You and me, I mean.”
“Yup.”
“So why do we want this info around? My vote is to stomp the shit out of the memory stick and bury its remains deep on Cougar Mountain.”
“I think Norris could turn on us,” Richie said. “We need ammo if that happens.”
“I’ve known him over twenty years, man. He won’t fuck us over.” Chopper stubbed out the joint in a clay ashtray that was shaped like a bear claw. “He’s being weird because he’s paranoid. Thinks his bosses know his every move. He should have never got bent — his mind is too weak for this shit.”
“I should email the audio recordings to you, too. In case something happens to my phone. Norris tried to confiscate it today. Like I was going to hand it over because he told me to.” Richie fished in his jacket pocket for his phone. “Fuck.”
“Already gone?”
Richie walked over to his parka hanging by Chopper’s front door. He unzipped every pocket and came up dry. “Little fucker must have picked my pocket. I knew he was slippery, but I never thought he was a street thief.”
>
“You did kind of threaten his career.”
Richie felt in his jeans pockets again. “Damn. I should have watched that chihuahua like a hawk.”
“Not to mix animal metaphors.”
“A hawk could kill a chihuahua.” Richie spread his arms and came down for the kill on one of Chopper’s couch cushions, which he held up and started shaking fast so it looked like Norris. “Gimme your phone; I’m gonna make that fucker pay.”
Chopper grabbed his phone off the coffee table and clutched it tightly. “What are you going to say?”
“I’m gonna tell him I already emailed you a recording.”
“Fuck off. Then he’ll steal my phone, too. You want to antagonize Norris, or you want him eating out of your hand?”
Chopper leaned back on his couch and basked like a cat in the moonlight. His phone beeped. He looked at it and smiled broadly.
“Booty call?” Richie tried to grin, but his heart was beating overtime. What else was on his phone? At least it had an unlock password. But Norris had a cop shop at his disposal. He probably knew how to crack a stupid four-digit code.
“I’m starting to dig this chick.” Chopper’s smile spread wider.
“Not Lucy again. You’ve known her four days.”
“Maybe that’s why I still like her. I’m gonna hit the trail, go pick her up in town.”
Richie looked out the window at the black night. He felt a sudden urge to get back to the village where the action was. This isolation could eat your brain, if you let it. “I’ll ride down with you.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
WADE
“Georgia, I have to level with you.” Wade had played out various scenarios and this had won out.
“Now? I’m leaving for work in less than five minutes.” Georgia froze where she had finished putting in one earring. The other gold hoop lay on the kitchen counter next to her purse and car keys. “Wait, is this about your affair?”
“I wish it was as simple as an affair.”
Wade noticed Georgia eying the clock on the microwave. Five to seven. She reached out for her half-finished coffee and took a slow swallow.
He reached for the pot and refilled the cup for her.
“If I don’t take Richie’s deal — if I have to close Avalanche — I’m worried that I’ll end up in jail.”
“Jail?” Georgia’s eyes bugged. She patted her smooth wavy hair, as if feeling for flyaways that weren’t there. “What have you done?”
“I feel like an idiot.” Lie with the truth, Sacha had once said. “Chopper asked me for a favor a year ago. He’s been my buddy forever. I felt like I couldn’t say no.”
“Oh god.” Georgia pulled out a stool from the counter. “Tell me you haven’t been laundering money for Chopper’s drug deals.”
Wade hung his head. He was also kind of shocked. “How did you guess?”
“It’s only the most obvious crime for a bar owner with drug dealer friends. I’m surprised the cops haven’t figured it out, if it took me three seconds.”
“The cops — well, Norris — he’s involved, too.”
“Does his wife know?”
“No, and please don’t tell her. He didn’t want to get involved, it’s just that Chopper’s so persuasive . . . Look, I know I should have let Avalanche go long ago, before your parents invested, when it was clear it would never be profitable.”
“But . . .”
“But I guess I was clinging to the stupid dream of turning it into a music haven, reviving Avalanche Nights and getting other local musicians playing there.”
“You never took one step in that direction.”
“I let the stress get to me.” Wade wondered if she’d recognize these as the lines she’d been spouting to him, the little criticisms she’d worked into her sentences every day for the past few years. “I made some colossally bad decisions. And I’ve been drinking too much.”
“You can say that again.” But she did seem relieved to hear him say the words.
Wade smiled thinly. “Here’s the thing: Revenue Canada is suspicious now. They’ve just told me they’re going to audit.”
“And they’ll find this?”
“Richie’s been on the books as a manager. If he buys in as a partner, that legitimizes his role.”
“And Chopper? And Norris?”
“Chopper’s getting paid, too. He’ll have to come in and do a few shifts to prove he works there. No big deal. Norris has been off the books — cash only.”
“I don’t like this.”
“I don’t either. I’ve been careful with the accounting software — justifying everything as well as I could.”
“So why is Revenue Canada suspicious?”
“I don’t know.” Wade was starting to worry himself, until he remembered the audit was a lie. “Maybe the same reason you were.”
“I don’t like this, Wade. It makes things worse, not better. I’d rather close the bar than let Richie in as a partner, especially if he’s been complicit in all this . . . activity.”
“If we close now, it looks really suspicious. Avalanche turns a profit, gets told it’s being audited, then suddenly closes? Auditors are pencil-pushing rule junkies. Their biggest thrill in life is busting someone who’s been breaking the rules. Their eagle eyes would be on me in five seconds.”
“I guess I see what you mean.” Georgia gave Wade a lopsided smile. It was actually pretty cute. “If I sign with Richie, will you go to rehab?”
“Rehab? For what?”
“For your drinking.”
Wade sighed. Georgia had never understood the bar owner’s lifestyle. “I can stop anytime. With Richie working nights, I won’t drink half as much.”
“That’s my offer,” said Georgia. “My signature for AA. I’m frankly petrified to be in business with a criminal, but if it will get you back to me in one sober piece — and keep you out of jail — it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Fine,” Wade said. He could go to a few meetings and stop. “Deal.”
FIFTY-NINE
CLARE
Clare knocked on the door of the room where Amanda told her Bert would be staying. Seemed like a nice hotel — not too ritzy, a clean alpine look, smack in the heart of Whistler Village. Clare would love to be staying so close to the lifts, not to have to drag her snowboard on a fifteen-minute walk each morning.
But instead of Bert opening the door, Noah answered.
Clare did her best to control the violence inside her. She wasn’t ready to see Noah. She hadn’t decided how she felt about him killing that girl, and she certainly wasn’t ready to address it. Plus — and she hated this part of herself — she was jealous. She wanted the case to herself. Noah was a better cop than her, in all the traditional ways. If they solved this together, Bert would think it was more to his credit than Clare’s.
“Seriously?” Clare heard herself say. She was on autopilot; she didn’t bother wishing she was being nicer. “Bert brought you with him? Are you his new little acolyte?”
“Come in, it’s great to see you.” Noah shut the door behind Clare.
“Where’s Bert?”
“No hug?” Noah reached for Clare, pulled her close against his body.
Clare returned the hug limply. “Where’s Bert?” she said into his shoulder.
“New York.”
“No.” Clare’s body slackened even more against Noah’s. “You cannot be my handler. There’s, like, no chance I’ll answer to you.”
“We’re still equals, don’t worry.” Noah pulled away, his eyes moist and present.
“Is Bert okay?” Clare realized this should have been her first question.
“He’s fantastic. He thought it made more sense for your contact here to be a studly young guy than a middle-aged man. So we can hang out in public if we have
to. Or you could spend the night here.” Noah’s voice was flat, like he now knew Clare wasn’t going to jump at that chance.
“I already have a studly guy here I spend nights with,” Clare said, to confirm it for him.
“Is there a business connection, or are you with this guy for pure pleasure?”
“Did you bring your ex-girlfriend, or did her chick flicks not fit in your suitcase?”
Noah sighed. “For someone who gets along so well with subjects on assignments, you can be a real prickly bitch to your friends in real life.”
“Is that why you liked Tiffany better?”
Noah walked toward his kitchenette — because of course he was staying somewhere great while Clare was stuck with a slob psycho roommate. “Would you like a beer? A Coke? I can make tea or coffee.”
“Coke.”
Noah took two red cans from the fridge. “Why would you say I liked Tiffany better?”
“Because my Tiffany costume included makeup and designer jeans.”
“If I liked you better then, it’s because you were nicer to me, not because of what you were wearing.”
Clare took a long glug of soda. The sugary bubbles felt great against her throat. “You know how horrible it is to be with someone who always talks about your relationship like it could end any day?”
Noah sat on the brown fabric sofa. “As horrible as being in love with a woman who gets pleasure from sleeping around in her land of make-believe.”
“You’re not in love with me.” Clare pulled out a dinette chair and sat, too.
Noah met her eye hard. All Clare wanted was for him to contradict her. Instead he said, “We’re here to work. You can tell people I’m your ex-boyfriend who’s followed you to town to torture you.”
“They couldn’t come up with a cover story?”
“They did. I’m Lucy’s ex. From Toronto.”
“Oh, good one. You think you can pretend to come from somewhere so backwater? If you’re talking to anyone, Toronto does have the Internet now. Running water, too.”