The Chairman's Toys

by Graham Reed

  My optimism lasted as far as the living room, where I found two well-dressed Chinese men waiting for me. I was pleased to see that both were still breathing and neither was Mickey Wu.

  “Neon tetras,” said the one standing by the aquarium. “Beautiful fish.” His face was teflon smooth, putting him somewhere between twenty-five and fifty years old, and the way he smiled made me suspect it was his go-to expression. Not exactly fake, but definitely pro forma. As if anything more emotive would only complicate things. His outfit was cut from the same cloth. Conservative black suit, white shirt, mid-fat tie in movie-usher red. The non-look completed by black socks and off-brand oxfords. Camouflage for a wedding, a funeral, or anything in between.

  “And this chair,” the other cooed. “It is perfection.” No smile to sweeten things here. Just a statement of fact. He wore a similar uniform, but this one came with a chip on the shoulder. His cheeks were sunken, the muscles atrophied long ago, but his jaw was strong and well used. I could almost hear the echoes of his teeth grinding from the night before. Unless it was the relentless sound of him chewing things over. Either way, when this man spit, the shrapnel caused collateral damage. His world was clearly a serious place, both the good and the bad. Fortunately, the Eames chair was seriously good. I noted with appreciation that he had removed his shoes before putting his feet up on the ottoman.

  “You guys want some coffee?” I asked as pleasantly as I was able before having had any myself.

  It was lucky they didn’t because my espresso maker only delivers three shots at a go. I headed into the kitchen and fired it up. When it began hissing at me from the stovetop I emptied the contents into my Columbo mug, which I noticed had a new crack in it from the previous day’s domestic disturbances. I carried it back to the living room feeling put out.

  “Please excuse our unannounced entrance,” said the fish lover. “Your door was ajar.” He looked around with concern. “Have you been robbed?”

  “Good question. Listen, I’m all out of Lucky Charms, so if you guys don’t want coffee I’m not sure what I can offer you.” I slurped mine noisily.

  “Information is all we require,” said the Eames fan. “What can you tell us about your employer, Mickey Wu?”

  Grudgingly, I dropped onto the couch. “Well, first of all, he’s no longer my employer.”

  “You have been fired?” The fish lover’s tone suggested concern, but his smile showed barely a ripple at the prospect of my ill fortune.

  “Let’s just say he made it clear that he no longer requires my services.”

  “And you are a drug dealer, is that correct?”

  The one in my Eames chair had asked the question so casually that I couldn’t quite believe my ears. “Run that one by me again?”

  This time he frowned, but more out of confusion than hostility or accusation.

  “He is asking whether you sell drugs,” the fish lover said mildly. “More specifically, we wish to know whether you have sold any illegal drugs to Mr. Wu.”

  I looked them both over again. The suits were cheap and the haircuts matched. The oxfords were scuffed and sensible. “Are you guys cops?”

  The fish lover smiled. “We are not police officers, I assure you. Nor are we interested in holding you accountable for your criminal activities. We are here investigating a broader issue pertaining to Mr. Wu.”

  Somehow I didn’t find his assurance all that reassuring. “If you’re not cops, then who the hell are you?”

  There was a brief, rapid exchange in Mandarin before the fish lover responded. “We are government representatives from the People’s Republic of China tasked with investigating Mr. Wu’s citizenship and immigration status.”

  “Can I see some ID?”

  The fish lover smiled. “Of course.”

  I took my time inspecting their identity cards, but not long enough to learn to read Mandarin. They looked real enough, but that didn’t mean much. I knew a guy who knocked off totally convincing IDs for fifty bucks a pop.

  “Okay, so you’re the People’s representatives. But why are you asking me questions?”

  “We are hoping that you might be of some assistance in establishing some context relating to Mr. Wu’s current situation here in Canada.”

  “Having something to do with me being a drug dealer? Which I’m not, by the way. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  The Eames fan looked so bummed out that I almost offered to roll him a joint. “We ask because if Mr. Wu is involved in any illegal activities here, his status here would be in jeopardy,” he explained. “In addition, it is of significant general concern to China any time one of its prominent expatriates is connected with criminal activities or persons.”

  “Sorry, can’t help you. I’m a house-sitter, not a dealer. Which means my job is to go into my clients’ houses when they’re not there. So I’ve had very minimal contact with Mr. Wu since we first met a few weeks ago.”

  “Do you happen to know whether he is a Canadian citizen?” the Eames fan asked.

  I shook my head. “No clue.”

  There was that frown again. His confusion dissipated after the fish lover said something to him in Mandarin, at which point he gave a curt nod.

  “As a house-sitter, you bring in the mail for your clients, is that correct?” he asked.

  “Sure, that’s part of the job.” My stomach grumbled in a way that adequately expressed my growing impatience.

  “Did you happen to notice any communications from your government’s immigration department? Or anything from family members? Personal correspondence from persons with the surname ‘Wu’? Business contacts, perhaps?”

  “Come on, guys, I can’t discuss that kind of thing with you.” I showed them a disappointed look of my own. “What kind of house-sitter would I be if I violated my clients’ privacy like that?”

  They had the decency, or maybe just the acting chops, to look chagrined. “We understand entirely,” said the fish lover. “You’ve been very kind to speak with us at all. May I ask just one more thing?”

  “If you make it quick.” I glanced at my hairy wrist. “I’m running late for breakfast with George.”

  With the elegant economy of a man who worked with his hands for a living, the Eames fan produced a grainy blow-up of the kind of mug shot featured on driver’s licenses and security passes the world over. “Have you ever seen this man before?” he asked, his expression neutral and his tone polite.

  I frowned thoughtfully at the picture, making a show of studying it for a moment before I shook my head. “Who is he?” I asked, hoping to find out something beyond what I already knew—he had left his mortal coil on Mickey Wu’s bathroom floor.

  “Just someone who might have had some contact with Mr. Wu.” The fish lover treated me to a parting smile, but cheek fatigue was starting to show. “Goodbye, Mr. Constable. Thank you very much for your time.”

  Chapter Twelve

  After giving my visitors a few minutes to vacate the premises, I headed out the back door of my building and down the alley toward the diner.

  On my way past the dumpster I noticed some idiot had dumped a bunch of rotting vegetables into it, even though there was a compost bin right next to it. Even more annoyingly, all that fetid spinach had made a real mess of my television. I hoped my burglar hadn’t quit his day job. And if he had, I wondered if it was available since I was probably going to have to start looking for a new one myself. And after that, a new TV.

  The diner was a cozy little spot with six booths done up in battle-scarred formica and blistered red vinyl. Five were empty. I took a seat at the counter and ordered breakfast from George, the octogenarian server. Eggs poached soft, wheat toast, grilled tomato, bacon. Coffee and ice water. Same as always.

  George wrote it all down. When he was finished, he frowned at his pad for a moment. After making a few corrections, he nodded
with satisfaction, tore off the sheet and stuck it on the order rack behind him. Same as always.

  I waited until the second round of coffee entered my bloodstream before contemplating the possible implications of the morning’s unexpected interrogation. The call to Mickey Wu from the dead guy’s phone fit with my visitors’ suspicion that the two men had been in contact. If it turned out that the dead guy was a friend of Mickey Wu’s rather than a guest of mine, I had a sinking feeling that it would mean more trouble for me. But why hadn’t Mickey recognized him? Had the bidet reconfigured the guy’s face that significantly? It had been a bit hard to tell with all the blood.

  Of more personal concern was the question of how the People’s Republic of China came by the notion that I was a drug dealer. I only knew one person who had any connection to the Chinese government, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Nina would drop the dime on me. She had already assured me that what had happened at Mickey Wu’s was a non-issue as far as her uncle was concerned, and back when we were together, Nina had been as keen as I was to keep my occupation a secret.

  Much to my annoyance, my phone started going off just as George arrived with my breakfast. Together, we listened to the muffled rendition of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” coming from my pants until the call went to voice-mail.

  “You bet your ass,” George whispered hoarsely as he shuffled off to get the coffeepot.

  While I was mopping up the last of the yolk with the last of the toast, my phone serenaded me a second time. Both callers left voice-mails.

  The first message was from Mickey Wu. I doubted it was good news but I couldn’t know for sure since he employed one of the annoying tactics of successful people and refused to invest the few courteous seconds required to leave an informative message. “Please call me immediately, Mr. Constable.”

  The second voice-mail was from Nina. She had Mickey Wu beat on brevity, if not politeness: “Call me.”

  When I disconnected from voice-mail, I saw that Richard had texted me while I was listening to the messages:

  Dante is missing! call me asap

  I dialed Richard’s number first. I hated calling people back when they didn’t say what they wanted to talk about.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Dante is missing!” Richard yodelled into my ear.

  “Yeah, I got your text. That’s why I called. So what happened? He went out for more Windex this morning and didn’t come back? Did you guys have a tiff or something?”

  “No, we didn’t have a tiff,” Richard replied acidly. “He didn’t show up for work today and he’s not answering his phone.”

  “I thought you spent the night at his place?”

  “No, I went back to my place last night to finish cleaning up. Maybe around 11 p.m.” Richard’s tone expressed disappointment in my telepathic abilities.

  “Okay, so what time did he drop off the radar?”

  “Well…I tried to call him around 10 a.m., after he didn’t show up for our job at Sunshine Holly’s penthouse.”

  This new information got my attention. “The actress? I didn’t know you guys did her place. Nice score.”

  “She prefers the term ‘visual performance artist’, but ‘cokehead skank’ would also fit the bill. You should see some of the messes we have to deal with. Especially after Samhain.”

  “Sam who?” I was struggling to keep up as I waved my empty coffee cup at George.

  “Samhain. It’s a pagan celebration of the dead. Sunshine decided she was a Wiccan after she played the Wicked Witch of the Web on that Internet serial last year.”

  “Missed that one. But have you considered the possibility that Dante actually arrived early and she has something to do with his disappearance?”

  “This isn’t a joke, Jake.” Richard’s voice was taut enough to adequately reinforce the message.

  “Okay, okay. Calm down. Maybe he just stayed home sick or something.”

  “He’s not at home.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m at his place right now.” Richard let out a shuddering breath. “And it’s been broken into.”

  I stopped fantasizing about Sunshine Holly and gave Richard my full attention. “You might’ve wanted to open with that.”

  “It’s worse than ours, Jake. His door has been forced open and I think there might have been a fight or something. It’s hard to be sure because the place is a total mess.” Richard paused to steady his voice. “I’m worried, Jake. I want to call the police.”

  They say not knowing what happened is the worst part about having someone you love disappear, so I decided to take a gamble. “You guys might have been right about The Norwegian being behind all this. He kicked my door in and was waiting for me when I got home last night.”

  “Oh, God, are you okay? We need to call the cops immediately.”

  I never had been much of a gambler. “Hold on, I’m not telling this to alarm you. The Norwegian didn’t hurt me or anything. He just wanted to know what I was doing these days.”

  “The guy breaks into your place just to find out how you’re doing, and you don’t think that’s going to alarm me?”

  “Not how I’m doing, what I’m doing. When he saw me at our party it made him suspicious that I might be getting back into the weed business. He spotted you guys there, too, so I’m saying…I don’t know…maybe he also broke into Dante’s place.”

  “But Dante was never in the business,” Richard protested.

  “True, but The Norwegian is the kind of guy who likes to intimidate first and think things through later. Maybe he was following me around and saw us go to Dante’s place last night.”

  “None of this is making me feel any better, Jake.” Richard’s words came out so rapidly that it took me a few seconds to parse them.

  “I don’t think bringing in the cops is going to accomplish that either. If we tell them about The Norwegian, we also have to tell them about the party at Mickey’s. Once we’re into that, it’s going get really tricky not to mention the cadaver in the bathroom. And I’m pretty sure that a dead body trumps a missing one in copworld.”

  Richard didn’t say anything right away, so I did. “You said you weren’t even sure there had been a struggle, right? So how about this—let’s give Dante a bit more time to resurface on his own. In the meantime, I’ll reach out to The Norwegian to see if I can figure out for sure whether he’s involved. If neither of those pan out, we’ll notify the cops.”

  “If Dante is still missing by the time I’m done working, I’m making the call.” Richard sighed. “I need to go back to Sunshine’s penthouse to finish sanitizing her gymnasium anyway. After that, I’m coming straight back here.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you at Dante’s right after work.”

  I wasn’t as worried about Dante’s safety as Richard was. They were not only one of those rare and admirable couples who don’t crowd each other, but also those rare and admirable humans who don’t take their work too seriously. My hope was that Dante was simply AWOL and would turn up on his own.

  Which didn’t explain the break-in, but it was going to have to get to the back of the line of unanswered questions and wait its turn. I had done a better job of convincing Richard than myself that The Norwegian had broken into Dante’s, but it was the most optimistic possibility I could think of. Even if he had gotten it into his head to kick down Dante’s door, I was reasonably confident that he wouldn’t go so far as to hurt him. When it came to making people disappear, The Norwegian was all business. And Dante had nothing to do with his.

  A promise is a promise, though. I had told Richard that I would see what I could find out. I called The Norwegian’s number. It went straight to voice-mail without giving me any time to get ready to leave a message, so I was forced to take a page out of Mickey Wu’s uninformative book. “It’s Jake. Call me back.”
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br />   Next, I called Nina back. Also straight to voice-mail. This time, I hung up without leaving a message. It was the only way I could beat her in the brevity department.

  Which left Mickey Wu.

  I pocketed my phone. I had time to kill and a growing list of questions about a growing list of crimes. Maybe I could answer a few of them by returning to the scene of the first one. Or maybe not. Either way, I still needed to pick up my car.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When I ventured outside to find a cab, I discovered a glorious autumn day—a rare and precious thing in Vancouver, where most years the season was cancelled on account of rain. The breeze was warm and the sky overhead a radiant blue, a combination guaranteed to elevate the lowest of moods. Even the homeless guy on the corner was whistling a cheerful tune as he aired out his fragrant collection of overcoats on a shopping cart.

  I set off on foot, hoping that some fresh air would clear my head and focus my thinking. Or take my mind off my problems altogether. Only when I rounded the corner of my building did I see that the peaks of the mountains north of the city were wearing thick clouds the hue and tensile strength of my grandmother’s favourite wig. I sniffed the air, estimating that I had two hours before they arrived to wash away the city’s sins. There was little time to waste.

  After weaving through the threadbare, have-not carnival along Main Street, I cut through Chinatown. The elegant, inscrutable facades brought Mickey Wu to mind. Business magnates had to be pretty unflappable in stressful situations, but did that include the discovery of corpses in their personal commodes? Aside from what Richard had told me, I realized I didn’t really know much more about Mickey Wu than I did about the dead guy. Including whether or not they had been buddies. I hoped that talking to him in person would give me a read on how the corpse cleanup went, and how personally Mickey had taken it.