Shadow Puppet

by Jeffrey Round

  Most had photos attached. Several of the men were extremely attractive. Some were chatty, outlining their hopes in print; others offered to send private photos, as though their physical attributes would make him take their requests more seriously. But personality was what mattered, Dan believed. An enthusiastic note ringing with exclamation marks did nothing to convince him he wanted to meet the sender, though a nicely worded greeting might.

  He found himself intrigued by one note in particular: I’m serious about dating, it said. Domingo and Adele tell me that you are a serious contender as well. Would you be interested in meeting for coffee to see where our compatibility lies?

  Dan contemplated the picture at the bottom: a professional-looking portrait of an attractive man with red hair, blue eyes, and a quixotic expression. The writer assured him he was genuinely looking for a commitment, not just a tumble in bed. He did not end by offering to send nude photographs on request. The note was indeed nicely worded. Top score on looks, too.

  I’m available for coffee any afternoon after three, Dan replied. He considered attaching a photograph of himself then thought better of it. If the letter writer was serious then he could take his chances on meeting an unknown quantity.

  The reply showed up a minute later. It’s 2:58 and I’m free now. I live in your neighbourhood. I can be at the Tango Palace for coffee in twenty minutes. It was signed, Terence Hardy.

  An eager beaver, Dan thought. Was that a good sign or an indication the sender lived for instant gratification? Then again, why kick eagerness in the teeth? If he, Dan, didn’t feel much enthusiasm these days, there was no need to denigrate it in others.

  He glanced in the mirror, noting the ridge running down his temple where he’d been thrown against a door jamb by his father when he was ten. Some men found his appearance a little too hard-core, while others seemed turned on by it. There was no accounting for taste. Luck of the draw then. Mr. Hardy would just have to take his chances on this “serious contender.”

  †

  Dan clocked him on entering: an alert-looking man wearing a turquoise shirt and sporting a pricey haircut, seated at a table just inside the door. He didn’t mind that Terence had gone all out to impress him, but with such short notice it was clear Dan hadn’t done the same. Casual was fine for neighbourhood coffee shops, as far as he was concerned. If he was being judged for his clothes then all bets were off.

  The Palace was in full swing, with boho trendies and film-industry workers out for a late-afternoon break. A life-size plaster angel hanging on the wall opposite the bar trumpeted the news of Dan’s arrival with the full force of her silent notes. Terence heard them, apparently, and turned to lock eyes with him. At first glance, he was stunning.

  The small talk was no more awkward than Dan would have expected. Thankfully, his potential suitor had a sense of humour and a penchant for chattiness, no doubt fuelled by the nervousness of a first encounter. If nothing else, it made it easier to stare at such an attractive man when he was trying so hard to be entertaining.

  Terence expressed no surprise when Dan declared his profession. “Is it interesting?” he asked, without the look of wide-eyed surprise some men gave Dan, as though he might have come straight from the morgue or digging up corpses in shallow graves.

  “Interesting, yes. But not always exciting. That’s the television version. Usually it entails a lot of fact checking. Sometimes I find the people I’m looking for and sometimes I don’t. The day-to-day reality is that it’s a job.”

  Dan had a similar reaction on learning Terence was an actor. “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear you say it’s not all it’s cracked up to be either.”

  “It’s not. The glamour wore off a long time ago. As you said of your profession, it’s a job.”

  Dan was glad when Terence didn’t launch into a recitation of recent roles he’d played or series he’d been in. To his mind, there was little as boring as listening to artists discuss their careers. Except maybe politicians extolling their own virtues.

  A pause ensued. Dan checked his watch and gave a polite smile. “We’ve managed to cover professions in the first five minutes. What else should we talk about?”

  “I haven’t got a clue.” Terence shrugged. “The whole dating thing is weird to me. I didn’t date in high school. I wasn’t into faking it with girls and none of the guys showed up on my gaydar. I suspect it might’ve been faulty.”

  “I felt much the same. I’m sure they were there, if we’d only known where to look.” Dan paused. “How about family? Are you close to yours?”

  Terence gave a shrug. “Not particularly. I have a sister in Australia and my parents are in the Maritimes. It’s far, but I make sure to visit them a little more often as they get older.”

  “I have a teenage son, Kedrick, who lives with me. We’re very close.”

  Terence looked wistful. “That’s so nice. So you were married before?”

  Dan shook his head. “No, never, though I’m close to Ked’s biological mother. I had a live-in partner until a couple of years ago. But my profession scared him off. He was always worried for me. He wanted more of the stay-at-home type.”

  “I get told that stay-at-home thing, too,” Terence confided. “To tell the truth, I’m a little surprised to find myself looking for a partner in my forties. I thought I’d be settled down by now — kids and cars and a dog in the suburbs kind of thing.”

  “It’s not easy finding the right person,” Dan agreed.

  “Or in my case, it’s easy to find him but not to hang on to him. I’ve met three Mr. Rights over the past few years. But here I am alone and single.”

  “Three? That sounds surprisingly high.”

  “Maybe I’m easier to please than I look.” Terence gave a winsome smile.

  “Fair enough. What happened?”

  “Fate happened. The first guy got a job doing IT work in Dubai and left a month after we met. Beautiful man. I was sorry to lose him. The second had a change of heart and went back to his wife and kids. Probably for the best. If you don’t know what you want by forty, chances are you never will.”

  “Amen to that.”

  “The third time, I began to think I was cursed. Then again, I should have known better than to date another closet case.”

  “Another one with a wife and kids on the side?”

  Terence shook his head. “No, this one was unattached. We’d been seeing each other off and on for a few months. Just casually. I suspected he wasn’t ready for anything serious, but I liked him. Then one day he disappeared. I never heard from him again.”

  “And you have no idea why?”

  “Not really. Though I know he was having trouble getting his visa extended, so maybe he got sent back home. But it was strange how he just disappeared. The last time we spoke we had talked about going away for the weekend. I booked a hotel and sent him a text. Then I waited, but he never got in touch. When I tried calling his cellphone the mailbox was full. A week later the number was disconnected.”

  “Did you go to his place to see if he was all right?”

  “Three times. There was never an answer. After that I gave up.”

  “So, he moved out?”

  “No, that’s the odd thing. I looked in the window, and his furniture was still there. Sounds like a case for a missing-persons investigator.”

  “Possibly. Do you know what he did for a living?”

  Terence gave him a quirky smile. “He called himself a puppet maker. His place was full of the darn things.”

  “Puppet maker? Could he have gone off to work on a film or an opera?”

  “He said he did a lot of children’s theatre back home, so I suppose it’s possible opportunity came calling. I mean, I get jobs out of the blue and have to move away for a while, but I always leave a forwarding address.”

  “What do you know about him? Any family in the city?”

  “No family here at all, as far as I know.”

  “What about friends? Anyone you cou
ld ask?”

  Terence gave him a wry look. “He pretty much kept to himself. That’s just what closeted men do, so there’s nothing to explain when you run into people on the streets.”

  “Where did you meet?”

  “At Zipperz on one of their retro disco nights. I got the feeling he didn’t go out much, but Zipperz is dark and you can hang out in the corners without being seen. I offered to buy him a beer. It took a while to get him to come out of his shell, but he warmed up after that. It shook me when he disappeared. I really thought it was going somewhere.”

  “Did you report it to the police?”

  Terence gave him a searching look. “Should I have?”

  “Maybe he never left town.”

  Terence’s mouth opened and closed. “You mean something might have happened to him?”

  “At least two other men have gone missing recently. You must have seen the posters up around the neighbourhood.”

  “Come to think of it, I have. Wow. That’s a scary thought.”

  “If he has no friends or family in the city, no one else will declare him missing. The police might never know. They’ll just assume he left town for some reason. If anything happened to him, it would be better if they knew about it.”

  Terence sat back and shook his head. “Just my luck, I go out on a date with a good-looking guy and it turns into a missing-persons investigation.”

  “And it’s just my luck that I end up saying scary-

  sounding things when I should be trying to be charming.”

  Terence laughed. “Oh, believe me — I’m charmed.”

  “Ditto.”

  A phone pinged with an incoming text. Terence checked his screen and gave Dan a rueful look. “I’m really sorry. I have to dash. That’s not a staged exit line. I just got a note from my agent about an audition. It’s in an hour.”

  “The life of an actor?”

  “Sometimes. And here I thought you’d be the first one to dash when you saw my red hair.” He held out a hand. “It’s been a pleasure, Dan. Shall we try this again sometime? Maybe something a little less rushed?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Good. I look forward to it.”

  FIVE

  Two Brothers

  IT WAS MONDAY BEFORE DAN spoke to Donny again. He was seated in his office in a warehouse overlooking the Don Valley, thumbing his way through a case file that was proving particularly resistant, when his friend’s name popped up on the call display.

  “How’s Prabin doing?” he asked without preamble.

  “He’s still pretty devastated about Randy. I told him he shouldn’t hold it against himself for not meeting up with him the day he died, but he can’t shake it.”

  “I know the feeling. I’ve beaten myself up for losing clients because I felt I wasn’t paying attention to clues at the right time. It happens to cops, too. You overlook one thing and someone ends up dead. It haunts you, even though you know deep down there was nothing you could have done to change things.”

  There was a pause. For once, Donny wasn’t smoking his way through the conversation like a forlorn sailor navigating by the pole star. “Domingo seems to think someone may be preying on gay men,” he said at last. “Did she tell you?”

  “Yes, she mentioned it the other day when we left your place.”

  “Have you seen the missing poster that was circulating for the past few months? The one for that hot leather dude?”

  Dan closed the file and pushed it to one side. “Yeah, a guy named Joe. No last name. I tried looking him up. There wasn’t much online about it.”

  “I seem to recall a similar poster being circulated in the summer.”

  “A dancer named Adam?”

  “That sounds right.”

  “I found him online, too. Nothing conclusive, though. The police don’t seem overly concerned.”

  Donny paused. “Prabin thinks there’s another one.”

  “When?”

  “Three days ago. He was contacted by the brothers of a guy named Nabil, to ask if he’d heard from him. He and Prabin work out together at the Y. Nabil hasn’t been home since Friday night.”

  “Could he have stayed over at a boyfriend’s house?”

  “It’s unlikely. Nabil’s very closeted. Prabin says he’s terrified of coming out to his family. He doesn’t let things slip. But I guess he wasn’t so successful at keeping his sexuality a secret.”

  “How so?”

  “When they called Prabin, the brothers asked him outright if he knew Nabil was gay. Prabin didn’t answer, but agreed to meet them. When he talked with them, he decided they weren’t trying to find out if Nabil is gay. Rather, they were asking because they think his best bet of being found is by looking in the gay community.”

  Dan thought this over. “When Prabin’s feeling a bit more stable, could you ask him to call me?”

  “I can do better than that. He recommended you to the brothers. They want to hire you. Are you free?”

  An hour later, Dan found himself seated in a brightly lit café beside Donny and Prabin. Across from them sat two earnest-looking Arab men. Amir, the older, appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He was well-groomed and on the thin side. His brother, Mustafa, looked a few years younger, possibly in his twenties. Mustafa did not seem to share Amir’s style-conscious dress sense, however. A chubby boy with a gloomy expression, he wore a shapeless white shirt and black trousers. Both brothers sported full beards.

  The downtown café was Donny’s choice, and the brothers were cautiously checking out their surroundings. Amir seemed the more comfortable of the two, seated with his arm draped over the back of his chair. Mustafa, on the other hand, sat perched on the edge of his seat as though waiting for permission to leave.

  “How long has your brother been missing?” Dan asked.

  “Since Friday. Three days,” Amir said.

  “That’s not unusually long.”

  “No, it’s not long. But Nabil would not normally stay away overnight without letting one of us know.”

  “Has he ever done that before?”

  Amir turned to his brother and they conversed briefly in Arabic.

  “Occasionally,” Amir said, turning back to Dan. “But only overnight. He usually returns home in the morning, saying he fell asleep at a party or some such thing.”

  “How did you know to contact Prabin when he disappeared?”

  “We found his number on Nabil’s computer,” Amir explained.

  “Wasn’t it password encrypted?” Dan asked.

  Amir glanced at Mustafa then back to Dan. “It was, but it was just his nickname: Nabs. We probably shouldn’t have done it, but we went in.”

  “Is that how you found out he was gay?”

  Dan saw Mustafa’s eyes dart away at the word gay. In a police lineup, whether guilty or innocent, he would have been the one to draw suspicion to himself.

  Amir nodded. “Pretty much that’s how we confirmed it, but Mustafa and I knew what he was a long time ago. We just didn’t discuss it with him.”

  “It can’t be an easy thing in your culture,” Dan said.

  “It’s not. But believe me when I say we love our brother more than we dislike what he is. We would never hurt him. We just want to know that he’s safe.”

  “That’s what most of my clients tell me. It’s not always true, however.”

  “I give you our word of honour we would do nothing to harm Nabil. We just ask that your search be as discreet as possible.”

  “I don’t know how discreet I can be if I’m looking for him in the gay neighbourhood,” Dan said. “But if your brother is gay, that’s the obvious place to begin.”

  Amir held Dan’s gaze. “Then you must do whatever is necessary. Inshallah.”

  “You must understand I won’t agree to look for someone and return them to a family who would discriminate or harm them. I’m not a bounty hunter. And from what you’re telling me, Nabil has done nothing wrong.”

  Amir held
up a hand. “We understand that. For our part, we can tell you that no harm will ever come to Nabil from us. We love our brother. We just want him safe.”

  Mustafa’s eyes met Dan’s. He nodded. “It is so.”

  “Okay then, let me tell you my terms.”

  After the brothers had gone, Dan turned to Donny and Prabin. “What do you think? Are these guys legit?”

  Prabin took a moment to answer. “I wasn’t sure about Mustafa, but I felt okay about Amir. If you mean would they harm Nabil if he was returned to them, my gut feeling is no, they wouldn’t.”

  “Donny?”

  His friend stirred now for the first time since arriving at the café. “Call me suspicious, but I didn’t like either of them. Those beards gave me the willies. How do you feel?”

  Dan shook his head. “I couldn’t get a read on them. They’re like chatty cop/silent cop. Amir is friendly on the surface, but who’s to say where his true feelings lie? Mustafa seemed as though he might have reservations about his brother’s sexuality, but he wasn’t going to come out with it. On the other hand, if I find Nabil and he says he doesn’t want to be in contact with his family I would have to respect that. I never force people together no matter who’s paying me to do it.” He gave Prabin a searching look. “What do you think the chances are that Nabil ran off to escape his brothers?”

  Prabin shook his head. “I have no idea. I know he didn’t want to come out to them for the obvious reasons. He seemed pretty frightened by the idea.”

  Dan took stock of this. “Is it possible he committed suicide?”

  “Not the Nabil I know, but then again people can snap under pressure so I guess anything’s possible.”

  “So, it’s possible, but not probable. That’s the distinction that matters in court, at least.”

  “If you want to put it that way, but the last time I saw him he seemed like his usual self. Then again, I only know Nabil as a gym buddy, so who knows what he’s hiding behind his easygoing facade?”