“I haven’t seen her or spoken to her since lunchtime yesterday, when she told me she was going to see you.”
“So where the hell is she?” he asked, more to himself than to me.
“Maybe she needed some time to herself to work some things out,” I answered anyway.
“Eh? What sort of things?” Then he laughed. “You think she’s gone off somewhere to try to decide between us, is that it?” I started to say that, no, that wasn’t what I thought at all, but he wasn’t listening. In fact, he seemed to find the whole idea genuinely amusing. “You’re seriously overestimating your charms, my friend. Why the hell do you think she wanted to meet with me? We used to have a pretty good thing going, Reeny and me, till I screwed it up. You’re a good guy, I guess, a nice guy, but being a nice guy will get you about as far with a woman like Reeny as it did with Carla Bergman. Reeny needs someone like me, and believe me, you aren’t anything like me. You don’t have what it takes to keep a woman like Reeny, let alone keep up with her.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But don’t you think you might also be overestimating your own charms?”
He laughed again, a humourless bark. “Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not. I know Reeny better than you do, though, and one thing I know for certain is that nice guys don’t finish last with Reeny: they don’t finish at all.”
“Maybe you don’t know Reeny as well as you think you do,” I said.
“Yah? Sure that’s not just wishful thinking on your part? Never mind. All right. Fine. Maybe I don’t know her as well as I used to. Maybe she’s changed since I left. And while I’ll give you that maybe she might have a hard time deciding between a couple of schmucks like you and me, she sure as hell wouldn’t have any trouble deciding between either of us and her career. She might blow you or me off, but not her job. No,” he added. “Something else is going on.”
Now he had me worried. “Such as?”
He took a step toward the kitchen. “You got anything to eat? I’m starving.”
“Such as?” I said again.
“Anything. And how ’bout a drink?”
I was out of patience. “Either give me a straight answer or get the hell out of my house.”
He sighed, as if I were testing his patience, not the other way around. “My guess is that Reeny has played us both for suckers. There, is that straight enough for you?”
“I think you’d better go,” I said.
“I’ll go soon enough,” he said.
“No,” I said. “Now.”
“Look, I’m sorry if I pricked your pretty romantic balloon. I really am. But Reeny’s not the only reason I came to see you.” It wasn’t hard to guess what the other reason was. “Has anyone else been around asking about Tobias Zim?” he asked.
“Besides the police, you mean?”
“You told them his name, I suppose, and where you’d got it.”
“There was no reason not to tell them either. Having dead bodies around they can’t identify makes them testy. They’d like to talk to you, by the way.”
He waved that aside. “Anyone else besides the police?”
“A woman named Monica Hollander.” He looked at me. “But she wasn’t asking about Tobias Zim. She told me that the dead man on my roof was her father, whose name, she said, was Jacob Hollander.”
“What did she look like?”
“Pretty. Shoulder-length brown hair, slim on top, a bit hefty in the hips, butterfly tattoo on her right ankle.”
“Oh, hell,” he said, suddenly in motion again, pacing, swinging his arms, looking as though he wanted to hit something. “Shit.”
“Settle down, will you? Have a drink. Relax.”
“Don’t tell me to fucking relax,” he barked. He took three quick steps toward the bay window — about all the size of the room allowed — and three quick steps back.
“Do you know her?”
“Yeah,” he said absently, lapsing into thought, but still pacing my small living room like a caged beast. “I know her.”
“Is she John Doe’s daughter?” I asked.
He jerked to a stop. “Eh? Yeah, maybe. Sure. Why not?” Then he shook his head savagely from side to side. “No, probably not. Who knows?” He stood in front of me. “What did she want?”
“She told me she hadn’t seen her father in fifteen years, then he called her and wanted to see her, but when she went to meet him at his motel in Richmond, he wasn’t there. She showed me a photograph, a recent print made from an old negative, supposedly of herself as a teenager with a woman she said was her mother and a man who could have been John Doe.”
“Was it authentic?”
“It looked all right,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean a thing nowadays. If I’d been able to examine it under magnification, I might have been able to detect signs of digital manipulation. Then again, maybe not. She took off pretty quick, though, when the police called to speak to Reeny about — ”
He cut me off. “Was that all?”
“Not quite,” I said. He waited. “She told me that John Doe — ” I’d decided, for simplicity’s sake, to stick to the police alias. “ — was supposed to have had a package with him when he died. She thought I — ”
“Aw, fuck!” Hastings shouted, slamming his fist down on the sideboard, rattling glasses and bottles. Yanking the cork out of The Glenlivet bottle, he splashed some into a glass and tossed it back. He made a face. “Christ, how can you drink this swill?”
“One man’s swill,” I said. “There’s some vodka in the cabinet.”
He poured more whisky into his glass. “This’ll do,” he said, drinking half and grimacing again. “Penance for being so fucking stupid.”
“Try self-flagellation,” I suggested. “It’s easier on my Scotch supply.” He gave me a wry look. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on?” I said.
“Not particularly.” He drank more of my Scotch.
“Tell me anyway.”
“Why? You’ll just go running off at the mouth to the cops.”
“If that’s what it takes to get me out of the middle of whatever the hell it is you’ve dragged me into.”
“You don’t have anything to worry about,” he said contemptuously.
“Tell that to whoever broke into my house and searched it.”
He froze, glass halfway to his mouth. “Someone searched your house? When?”
“Yesterday, while I was at work.”
“Did they find what they were looking for?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “If there was anything to find. I doubt there was. The police searched the place pretty carefully looking for John Doe’s wallet or ID.” Nor had I found anything that didn’t belong when I’d tidied up after the break-in. I’d even looked in some places the intruders had evidently missed — an old trunk under the bed in my room, as well as the bilge and the safe in the floor of the pantry.
“The police could have missed it,” Hastings said.
“I doubt it. What were they looking for?” But he wasn’t listening again. He was circling the room, peering into corners, behind the stereo cabinet, the TV, under the cushions on the sofa.
“Cut it out,” I said. “Whatever you’re looking for, it’s not here.”
“How do I know you didn’t find it yourself?” he said.
“You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“Yeah, right,” he said sourly. “For all I know you’ve made a deal with Nicky — ” He hesitated, shrugged, then continued: “She can be very persuasive, if you get my drift. I wouldn’t turn my back on her, though, if I were you.”
“I haven’t made a deal with anybody for anything,” I said. “I don’t even know what it is, for crissake.” Suddenly, though, I thought I might just know. “Goddamnit, this isn’t about drugs, is it? Is that the business you’re in with Zim or Hollander or whatever his name is?”
“What? No. It’s not drugs.” He resumed pacing, distracted.
“So what does th
is mysterious package contain?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, continued to pace, muttering unintelligibly, and possibly incoherently, to himself. The only words I understood were “conniving bitch.” I didn’t know if he was referring to Monica Hollander or Reeny. I thought about calling the police, wondered if he’d let me.
“What kind of deal did Nicky offer you?” he said suddenly. Before I could ask him who Nicky was, he said, “Whatever it was, I’ll make you a better one. I’ll let you have Reeny. How’s that? You give me what I want and I’ll give you want you want. You couldn’t ask for a better deal than that.”
“Problem is,” I said, trying hard to contain my anger, “I don’t have what you want. And Reeny isn’t yours to give away.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Hastings said. “I know it’s hard, but try. Whatever deal you made with Nicky, believe me, she’ll screw you good, and not just in the way you think. I know from personal experience. Be smart, give me what I want, and I’ll step aside and give you a clear shot with Reeny. What do you say?”
“If you’re not out of here in ten seconds,” I said, “I’m going to call the police.”
“You’re really starting to piss me off.”
“Good. I feel better already.”
“For crissake, McCall.”
“Get out,” I said. “Now.”
“You’ll regret this,” he said, heading toward the door.
“I doubt it,” I said, following him.
He opened the door. “Last chance to change your mind.”
“Out,” I said.
I tried to close the door on him, but he held it open. He stared at me for a second or two, then said, “I get it now. You didn’t make a deal with Nicky because you thought you had a better one. You found them, didn’t you? You and Reeny. But now Reeny’s done a runner and you don’t have anything to make a deal with. Reeny took them. That’s it, isn’t it?” He began to laugh. “You poor sap,” he said.
He was still laughing when I put my hand on his chest, pushed him out the door, and closed it in his face.
chapter fifteen
I went into the living room and poured a generous shot of The Glenlivet, desperately gulping half of it back, hoping it would calm me down. It hit my stomach like acid, but it had the desired effect otherwise. In the kitchen, I diluted the remainder with a dribble of water from the tap, then slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. I felt as though I had been run over by one of Ocean Cement’s giant ready-mix trucks. Had Reeny found whatever John Doe had hidden before he died? I wondered miserably. Was she, as Hastings had said, playing us both for suckers? Obviously, I didn’t want to think so, but…
I sipped the whisky. What did this mysterious package contain? I had to take Hastings’ word that it wasn’t drugs. I was disposed to believe him, though; whatever the package contained, it had to be small enough to hide in my house, under the noses of fifty people, and hide so well neither I nor the police had been able to find it — although the intruders might well have — and valuable enough to make all the trouble worthwhile.
But had John Doe in fact hidden anything? Until recently, I’d been inclined to doubt it, but I was no longer so sure. Both Hastings and Monica Hollander seemed certain he had. On the other hand, perhaps I was just trapped in their version of a Steve Jobs “reality distortion field,” the strength of their conviction convincing me. However, in spite of what they believed, it didn’t necessarily mean that John Doe had had the package with him prior to dying on my roof deck. He could have stashed it somewhere else before crashing the party, or placed it in a safe deposit box, or simply mailed it to himself and it was now resting safe and secure in a Canada Post office somewhere. No, I told myself, there was absolutely no reason to believe that whatever Hastings and Monica Hollander thought John Doe had had with him was, in fact, in my house at all. In which case, Reeny couldn’t have found it and, therefore, wasn’t playing either me or Hastings for suckers. Especially me.
Feeling better, I drank the rest of the whisky and put the glass in the sink. It was not quite ten. I was tired, but I was also wired, and still tense with worry about Reeny. I tried her cell and got her voice mail again. I hung up without leaving a message. I wondered if I should call the police and report her missing. Matthias might take it seriously, under the circumstances. It felt like an over-reaction, though, and when things felt like overreactions, they usually were.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I put on my jacket and went for a walk to clear my head. On impulse, I checked the lock-up at the boat works. The Porsche wasn’t there. Continuing my circuit, I dropped by Bridges. It was Friday night and the pub was jammed and noisy. Thinking it might help me sleep, I got a beer and went outside to the terrace overlooking the marina. There was a party on one of the tour boats. Women in cocktail dresses and men in suits, some in tuxes. Mostly young, mostly three or four sheets to the wind, but mostly behaving themselves.
Smoking was permitted only outside, but fewer and fewer people smoked, so it wasn’t unpleasant. And there was a nice breeze wafting from Fisherman’s Wharf in the False Creek Harbour Authority marina. I ran into some acquaintances, Skip and Connie Osterman, local business people. Skip and Connie were former salmon fishers who now ran a charter deep sea fishing operation. They had been at my party. They invited me to join them. I wasn’t in the mood for company, but it would have been impolite to refuse.
“What’s new, Tom?” Skip Osterman asked, blowing cigarette smoke out of the side of his mouth, away from his wife.
“Not much,” I said, trying to be sociable.
“People still dyin’ to be invited to your parties?”
I saluted him with my beer.
“Heard your place was broke into,” Connie said, her face leathery from wind and sun, but handsome nonetheless. “That right?”
“Unfortunately,” I said.
“Been a bunch of burglaries in marinas round here,” Skip said. “Cops figure it’s a gang o’ kids.”
“My brother can get you a good deal on a security system,” Connie said. “If you’re interested.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Oh, shit,” Skip said suddenly, looking toward a rack of bicycles. “Phew,” he said, relaxing. “For a minute I thought the guy in the bike helmet was Barry Chisholm. Speaking of assholes,” he added, “he try to get you to sign his petition?”
“You, too?” I said.
“Yeah. I told him to shove it, though. Sideways. I think the only one signed it was the Duck Lady.”
The Duck Lady was a half-mad but completely harmless old woman who more or less permanently occupied a bench on The Mound, the little green space at the eastern tip of the island, near the hotel, where she fed the ducks and geese and squirrels from a huge paper sack of popcorn she brought with her from wherever she went every evening and returned every morning.
“I guess she’s forgiven him for trying to get her evicted from her bench last year,” I said.
“Hey, that’s right,” Skip said. “A public nuisance, he called her. Humph. What’s that make him? God’s fucking messenger boy?” Connie Osterman’s face tightened. “Uh, sorry, hon,” Skip said. Connie had recently become a Believer, although not Barry Chisholm’s kind. She didn’t object to rough language — she was a fisher-person, after all — but she didn’t tolerate profanity.
“Tom,” she said. “Who was the blond woman we saw you with the other day? She looked familiar.”
“Her name’s Reeny Lindsey,” I said. “She’s staying in my spare room for a while. She’s an actor. Maybe that’s why she looked familiar.”
“An actress,” Skip said, “I’m impressed. What’s she in?”
“Actually, she’s in Star Crossed, the science fiction series Barry Chisholm is trying to stop from shooting here.”
“Never seen it,” Connie said.
“Even if you had,” I said, “you probably wouldn’t have recognized her. You might have seen he
r in some episodes of The X-Files, though.”
Connie shook her head. “Never seen any o’ them, either.”
“She’s done a lot of commercials,” I said.
Connie bobbed her head.
“I seen all The X-Files,” her husband said, “but I don’t remember her. She wouldn’t be an easy one to forget, either. Second best lookin’ woman on Granville Island,” he added with a grin.
“Oh?” Connie said. “And who’s the first?”
“Well, it’s a toss up between Jenny at The Keg and — ” He grunted as his wife’s elbow made contact with his ribcage. “And you, o’ course,” he croaked. To me: “Didn’t I see her driving your Porsche?”
“I sold it to her,” I said, remembering as I said it that Skip had once made me an offer for it. “She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” I added.
“I bet,” Skip said. His wife gave him a look, which he ignored. “Who was the guy with her?”
“Guy?” I said, sitting up straight. “What guy?”
“Some guy,” he said. “Didn’t get a real good look at him.”
“What’d he look like?” I asked.
“Like I said, I didn’t get a good look. He had dark hair, I think. Uh, good-lookin’, I guess you’d say,” he added. “Another actor, maybe?”
“When was this?” I asked. “And where?”
“Coupla days ago,” he said. “Near where you live. Didn’t look like he was havin’ a good time, though. If it’d been me, I think I might’ve been enjoyin’ myself more.” He grinned at his wife. “That’s a great car.”
It was almost twelve when I got home, head buzzing from one glass of beer too many but stone cold sober. Who was the man Skip had seen with Reeny? I’d asked myself over and over on the way back to Sea Village. When Skip had first mentioned it, I thought it might have been Chris Hastings, but the description didn’t fit. It fit Willson Quayle, though. Had he come skulking around to beg Reeny to put in a good word for him with the studio or the sponsor? Or me? On the other hand, perhaps she’d simply been giving a lift to a friend, or someone from the studio. To hell with it, I tried to tell myself. I didn’t own her. Besides, hadn’t I recently decided that it would either work or it wouldn’t, that there was nothing to be gained by obsessing about it? Yes, I had, but I guess I hadn’t been listening.
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