The Chairman's Toys

by Graham Reed

  “Jake Constable. We almost met last night.”

  “I know who you are.” The roar of an arriving delivery truck drowned out her next comment. I turned and gave the driver an appreciative wave while waiting for judgment to be rendered. Intercom silence and the truck’s diesel fumes had just about convinced me to abandon my mission when Wendy’s voice chirped out of the tinny speaker. “Come on up.”

  She met me at the door, looking as confused and worried as I felt. Wendy led me through the kitchen, grabbing a couple beers from the fridge on the way. Barb was in there preparing a moss-coloured smoothie. She hit the button on the blender just as I said hello.

  “Barb doesn’t appear to like me much,” I observed when we reached the relative quiet of the dining room.

  Wendy nodded as she sat down and waved me toward a chair. “Is that a problem?”

  “It seems hasty. Most people wait to get to know me first.”

  “She knows all about you,” Wendy replied distractedly before giving me a sharp look. “Are you more worried about what Barb thinks of you or what’s happened to Dante and Richard? I assume you’re here because you got my e-mail this morning?”

  I nodded. “Impressive sleuthing.”

  “More like dumb luck. I was Googling Chip Thompson this morning to see if I could find any old gossip about his relationship with Dante, or photos of them together. The article about Chip being in London just happened to be the most recent news item on him.” She glared at her laptop on the table in front of her, its browser still open to The Guardian website. “So why the hell did Dante leave Richard a message saying he was on the guy’s boat?”

  “Good question. One we should definitely ask Dante once we find them.”

  “Assuming we do.”

  “Well, I’ve started looking. After I got your e-mail, I drove around to the marinas.” I sat sat back and crossed my arms, letting one hand hover around my chin. In my mind’s eye, it held a black-clay pipe. I puffed thoughtfully and waited, but not for long.

  Wendy leaned forward eagerly. “Did you find anything?”

  I took one more puff before answering. “The Buffmobile. Parked at a marina down in Richmond.”

  “That’s great!” Wendy jumped to her feet and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll go get Barb.”

  I almost choked on the smoke from my imaginary pipe. “Barb? Why?”

  “She’s works for the Coast Guard. She can help us find the boat.”

  This wasn’t good news, but at least this explained how she already knew all about me—I had an unfortunate history with the Coast Guard. Barb had probably seen my mugshot up on the “Most Unwanted” board back when I was bringing boatloads of weed over from Hornby Island.

  Barb clicked open her pen with natural authority. “So what’s the name of the vessel that Richard and Dante went out on?”

  I shrugged.

  She peered at me over her old-lady reading glasses. “You didn’t get the name?”

  “I tried, but the woman at the marina wouldn’t give me any info.”

  “Nothing at all?” Wendy’s tone was incredulous. “When they left? Where they went?”

  I shook my head “But at least now we know where the boat will come back to.”

  Barb snorted. “If it comes back.”

  Wendy groaned and slumped back in her chair.

  Barb stood up from the table and put a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, Wen. You know I’ll do everything I can to help find Dante and Richard, but we can’t search every yacht out there. Let me know if Sherlock over there comes up with any real clues.”

  After Barb left the room, I looked over at Wendy sympathetically. “Boy, she can be a real downer.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I left Wendy’s place early and went straight back to my place. Worried about Richard and Dante, and bereft of my TV and the contents of my mason jar, I spent a quiet evening at home with Tom Waits on the turntable and Don Julio in my glass. Two master emcees for the dark and distorted carnival that is the human condition.

  That night, my sleep was tormented by a nightmare in which The Norwegian kicked down my door wearing a white leather sailor suit. He saluted politely and then press ganged me into joining the Coast Guard with him. We sailed around English Bay on a bathtub ferry captained by Barb in search of Dante and Richard. I finally spotted them in the distance, laughing and dancing on the deck of an immense yacht called the Near Future. I waved and shouted but my voice was drowned out by a dull thumping sound. The Norwegian was firing a pistol into the ocean. I pleaded with him to stop, or at least use a silencer, but he ignored me. The sea drained away through the bullet holes in the ocean floor, leaving us stranded in the tiny boat. The Norwegian gave a satisfied nod and announced that we would build the condos there.

  The dull thumping sound continued after The Norwegian stopped shooting, pulling me out of the nightmare and back into my bedroom. I pulled the covers over my head and waited for the knocking to stop. Its dull, metronomic quality suggested a bleak fatalism afflicting the mind that controlled the knuckles. I could relate.

  As Fate would have it, the knuckles eventually gave up. The next thing I heard perked me up quite a bit: Nina’s voice calling out my name in her slightly manic, morning-person way.

  It was barely eight a.m. Even if she was still just looking for a shoulder to cry on, Nina knew me well enough to realize that dropping by this early in the morning would guarantee I was still in bed. My mood improved rapidly as I considered the implications. Or at least the possibilities.

  My first inclination was to wait for her right where I was, since things might lead back here quickly enough anyway. But I couldn’t figure out a way to lounge in bed without feeling like a cliché. Lying on my side propped up on one elbow? Too “come hither.” On my back with hands behind my head? Too “Bangkok massage parlour.” Pretend to be asleep? Too “hokey porn flick.” All mood killers.

  Nina called my name again, now sounding slightly impatient. I made a snap decision to go with the natural approach. I jumped up and headed for the living room in what I had worn to bed—nothing. She had seen it all before and there was no need for any contrived preamble with us. The sex had always been great, even after Nina started losing interest in the rest of the marriage.

  I put on an innocent, slightly sleepy smile as I walked down the hallway. It seemed a minor and forgivable affectation. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m just getting up, if you know what I…”

  “Hello, Jake,” she murmured. The look of surprise, followed by amusement, flashed across her attractive features almost too quickly to register before she locked them down into an expression of total composure.

  “I don’t believe you’ve met my uncle, Li Wei.” Nina gestured to the gnome standing next her. His unfathomable age was contradicted, if not refuted, by a lustrous dome of jet black hair and ramrod posture, possibly assisted by the load-bearing suit he was wearing overtop a white dress shirt fabricated entirely from starch and buttoned tight enough to constrict my breathing. The lone splash of colour provided by his crimson tie flashed “Red Alert” more than “Life of the Party.”

  Standing beside him was a younger gentleman, smiling politely and wearing an identical black suit. A lover of fish, as I recalled from the first time he let himself into my apartment. His partner, the Eames fan, was not in evidence.

  “Why don’t I make some coffee while you get dressed?” Nina suggested smoothly.

  Her prompt thawed my brainfreeze sufficiently for me to activate the motor skills required for a wordless retreat into my bedroom.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I threw on a pair of boardshorts and a t-shirt with a tuxedo design on it since I didn’t own anything along the lines of the funereal garb favoured by my guests. Even Nina had donned a similar outfit, though the black of her suit had a lustrous sheen and was tailored with a slightly m
ore feminine cut.

  More ominous than the uncharacteristically formal attire was her choice of shoes. I had reflexively registered them, in spite of the socially adverse circumstances. Cheap, heavy clompers with fat black laces that looked like they had come from a factory, or possibly even a factory worker, in Stalinist Russia. The only thing that stopped me from climbing out the bedroom window was the smell of fresh brewed coffee now wafting through the apartment.

  It wasn’t until I reached the kitchen that I remembered that Nina was a tea drinker. She had successfully employed one of my kitchen appliances to reduce coffee beans to heterogeneous rubble and divert water through it, but that’s where the similarity to real coffee ended.

  I gulped it down regardless. In lieu of a thank you, I remained polite when I inquired how they got in. Nina confessed she had kept a key, which, under almost any other circumstances, would have made me happy.

  We returned to the living room. Rather than sitting down, Nina assumed her previous position standing beside her uncle. As near as I could tell, neither of the men had moved an inch during our absence. Since it remained unoccupied for once, I dropped into my Eames chair. This wasn’t my show but I still felt entitled to the best seat in the house. I settled in and waited for someone to say something.

  Li Wei stood mute and immobile, despite the obvious deference shown to him by Nina and the younger man, who cleared his throat a couple times but otherwise remained silent. Nina frowned at her shoes distractedly.

  I sighed and closed my eyes, struggling in vain to remain patient. My enthusiasm for Nina’s visit had been obliterated by the company she was keeping, not to mention my resulting humiliation. And most important of all, Richard and Dante were still missing. I still didn’t know how I was going to find them, but one thing was for sure; sitting there listening to Nina and her uncle breathing in stereo wasn’t doing it.

  I was just about to tell them as much when Nina finally started talking. It might have just been that she was speaking Mandarin but her tone sounded odd to me. I detected none of her usual self-confidence. When I opened my eyes, I found Li Wei’s aimed in my direction. He gave a sharp nod when Nina finished speaking.

  “My uncle would like to hire you.”

  “This is why you barged in on me? To arrange a house-sitting gig? I thought you told him what happened at Mickey Wu’s.”

  “I did. That’s what this is about. My uncle had a background check done on Mickey Wu and found out that he’s a criminal.”

  I stifled a laugh, wondering whether naming tacky underwear after the leader of the Cultural Revolution qualified as a crime. “What did he do?”

  Li Wei growled a few words to Nina, who nodded deferentially. “He is guilty of economic corruption,” she said.

  I spread my hands invitingly. “Which means what, exactly?”

  “Mr. Wu is known to have transferred undeclared income out of China,” said the fish lover. Li Wei looked annoyed but remained silent.

  “So he’s…what, a tax cheat?” I punctuated the question with a yawn.

  Though his polite smile remained in place, the man’s tone chilled noticeably. “It is a very serious problem in China, Mr. Constable. A number of citizens have fled our country with substantial wealth accumulated through improper means. Our Ministry of Public Security is working to locate and repatriate them so that they may make appropriate reparations for their crimes.”

  This more lengthy speech earned the fish lover a sharp rebuke from Li Wei, but I nodded and smiled. “Operation Fox Hunt, right? So you guys are secret agents. Very cool.” The only part that didn’t make sense was why Nina wasn’t more relaxed, now that it was manifestly evident that her uncle was the hunter rather than the prey in whatever government investigation was under way.

  I noticed that the fish lover also looked slightly uncomfortable, though I wasn’t sure if this was because of my comment or the fact that Nina’s uncle was plainly furious with him. Li Wei’s expression hadn’t actually changed a great deal but all sorts of muscles were twitching in his face, which was now approaching the colour of his tie.

  Nina was looking at me with an expression of mild surprise, possibly because she had never known me to discuss, or be aware of, current events. This distraction might have been why she missed the kinetic warning signs rippling across her uncle’s visage.

  “Agent Wang is from the Ministry of Public Security,” she explained with a nod toward the fish lover. “My uncle is the Deputy Director of the Department of Infrastructure Development in the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. He came all the way from Beijing to join the investigation. His department is also involved in the corruption initiative.”

  “Anti-corruption initiative,” Li Wei hissed at her in perfect English.

  “Yes, of course,” Nina replied as she joined the red-faced club. “It is very important for my uncle to bring these fugitives to justice,” she added, her voice now little more than a whisper.

  “Sounds like a job for the cops. Are you going to have Mickey Wu arrested?”

  “Regrettably, China and Canada do not currently have an extradition treaty,” Agent Wang said, seemingly speaking to the neon tetras.

  “Meaning?” I asked, also speaking to the aquarium. I noticed that the fish had swarmed against the glass, as if monitoring our exchange intently, either in a futile attempt to make sense of the affairs of mankind, or with the slightly more realistic hope that Agent Wang would feed them.

  “We are not able to compel the local authorities to arrest Mr. Wu or operate in any... official capacity.”

  “Sounds inconvenient. But I really don’t see how I can help.” I looked at Nina. “You did make it clear to them that I’m just a house-sitter now?”

  She nodded, started to say something but stopped. Nina’s uncle barked something at her in Mandarin. “Which means you have the alarm and keycodes for Mickey Wu’s house,” she said at last.

  “Yeah, so?” I didn’t like where this was going.

  “All my uncle asks is that you get the agents inside and they’ll do the rest. They just need to have a look around, check his files, that kind of thing.” As she spoke, Nina waved her hands around like she was talking about doing some light dusting.

  “All your uncle asks?” I looked at Li Wei, figuring I might as well try to get it straight from the horse’s ass. “You’re talking about breaking and entering. I don’t know about China but in Canada that would be a criminal act. Committed by me.”

  The response came from Nina, rather than Li Wei. But she mumbled it so quickly that I had to ask her to repeat it.

  The second time around, it was only slightly more audible. “I said is that a problem? You already did it once for your party.”

  “That doesn’t mean I want to do it for your uncle’s party. And, anyway, that was hardly the same thing. I was authorized to be in his house that time. I just shouldn’t have brought so many friends along. More importantly, I’ve learned from my mistakes. There’s no way I’m going back there. Especially now that Mickey Wu is home.”

  “He isn’t,” said Agent Wang

  I looked over at him. “Isn’t what?”

  “Isn’t home. My partner, Agent Chung, is watching Mickey Wu’s residence as we speak. He left more than twenty-four hours ago and hasn’t returned since. So there is no risk involved if we do this immediately.”

  “For you, maybe. But I’m already on seriously thin ice with Mickey Wu. We have a bit of an unfortunate history.” I resisted the temptation to provide a detailed description of the party, though I did wonder what he would make of the albino on the scooter. Or the dead guy in the bathroom, for that matter. If he really had been the nephew of Mickey Wu’s business associate, it occurred to me that the dead guy might have been another rich expat on their list. If so, the Ministry of Public Security sure wouldn’t be getting any reparations from him now. I ho
ped Agent Wang didn’t work on commission.

  Agent Wang cranked up the dial on his smile. “Mr. Constable, you would be doing the government of China a great service if you assist us in bringing this criminal to justice. You have my personal assurance that your participation in our operation would be held in total confidence.”

  I appreciated covert ops as much as the next guy but they didn’t seem like a strong foundation for a working relationship based on transparency and trust. Plus, I really didn’t like Nina’s uncle. “I applaud China’s attempts to crack down on its tax cheats, but I’ve got my own criminals to bring to justice at the moment.”

  Bemusement turned out to be a surprisingly alluring look on Nina. “What are you talking about, Jake?”

  I decided to tell her, reasoning that it might be the fastest way to get her to convince Uncle Wei and his henchmen to leave me alone. “Richard and Dante are missing.”

  Nina had the decency to look genuinely shocked. “What do you mean they’re missing?”

  “Gone. Disappeared. Under suspicious circumstances. I really don’t have time to get into it right now, so if you’ll excuse me…” I got up from the chair but no one else moved.

  After glancing back and forth between me and her uncle, Nina looked like a deer caught in barbed wire. “I’m truly sorry to hear that, Jake. But right now, I need you to help my uncle. There’s really no alternative.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Li Wei was smiling like a man who just won a tug-of-war without even breaking a sweat. I ignored him and focused on Nina, unable to believe what she had just said. Or even fully understand it. “What do you mean there’s no alternative?”

  “I mean, if you don’t help us, I will have to call the cops and tell them what you told me about having a party at Mickey Wu’s house. And everything that happened at it.”

  “Why the hell would you do that?” I demanded.