by Shilo Jones
Heather waits until her husband leaves, tells me to sit down. Orders two more Scotches. Watches me drink mine more quickly than I mean to. Asks if I’d like anything else. Puzzled, mind reeling, conflating images of a crazy guy on the street and a garlic powder assault, I tell her no, thank you. She smiles and asks how’s the digging going?
“The…what?”
An impatient huff. “Digging? The dirt? C’mon, Jasminder. What do you have for me? On that sewer rat Vincent Peele? And the big bad Bo Xi?”
An ally, a confidant, someone on my side? “The phone call? Was you?”
Ms. Reed presses a fingernail to her lower lip.
Mark Ward
Flee Georgia Street before the pigs roll in, find what’s left of my mind hiding in an alley dumpster, manage to track down my condo, stuff two Oxys in a Twinkie Ryan left in the fridge and wolf the thing down, collapse on the living room floor with my mouth slimed in petroleum whipped cream.
Phone wakes me up a few hours later. Ryan. Sounds wheezy. Says he’s sorry dude but he fucked up. Stretch, try and lift my head off the floor, fail, ask where he is. Says he doesn’t know. Sounds like he’s been crying, which is fuck. I ask: Someone’s house or condo? A hotel? Says he thinks it’s a hotel. Then a thump as the kid’s head hits something and I’m shouting at him. No answer. Tug my pants on, try to get in my shoes, scream at Ryan to stay with me, answer me, crushing my phone while sweat drips down my brow. The stupid fucker. A part of me’s worried sick and another part, small but still there, is thinking fuck sakes, I hardly know the kid, why’d he get me wrapped in his bullshit.
Very quick, but so quiet I can barely hear, Ryan says the Astoria. I ask him what room and the phone goes dead. Run downstairs to the truck, tear ass. The Astoria Hotel’s not far. Blow through a few reds, crank the truck over the curb in front of a four-storey building with a brick facade and a neon sign out front, letters lit up white, framed by a burnt-orange border and hovering stars. The liquor store at street level is open but like a lot of shitty hotels in this neighbourhood the lobby doors are locked. Hit the buzzer. Nothing. Pound on the door, scream for the clerk to open up. My yelling scares the shit out of a dude sleeping under a tarp in the doorway. He jumps up, tries to run, falls in a tangle of tarp and soaked blankets. I’m kicking on the goddamned door, thick reinforced steel, trying to smash it down when a voice from inside says hey what the hell you think you’re doing? I scream a friend’s in your dive fucking dying and the voice, a man’s, rough, guttural, says he’s calling the cops and asks me what room and I yell open the goddamned door, I don’t know what room.
A silence so long I start screaming again and someone in the hotel opens an upstairs window and shrieks at me to shut up, tosses a coffee mug onto the street, nearly hits the homeless guy, who’s staggering across the sidewalk with the ripped tarp half-wrapped around him, muttering insane-sounding shit about insects, and then it’s like someone flipped the fucking madhouse switch because in two seconds assholes are screaming at me from windows all around. More shit gets thrown onto Hastings. The dude in the tarp takes a run at me for no reason other than I guess he feels galvanized by the madhouse screaming, fuck knows? I dodge him easy while a shadowy shape hovers behind the hotel door. I yell for the asshole clerk to open up, and he does, a couple inches, leaves the security chain attached.
The clerk’s big, his hair stringy out the sides of his head. He asks what my friend looks like and I have to resist the urge to shriek in his face because all I can think about is Ryan up there with his heart popping.
“He’s young. This short. Wavy dark hair. Maybe had a backpack or a busted toolbox—”
The clerk asks if my friend had a guy with him.
“He didn’t say. Yeah, a dude, fucking cares?”
The door swings open. The clerk rubs sleep from his eyes. Push past him, make for the stairs and he says you need a room key and I turn around, yell then get me the fucking key and the guy, fuck this guy, he lopes real mellow to a wooden alcove built into the wall, moving like a slug. Takes his time rummaging through a cardboard box while I pace and curse, hands me a single key with a twist-tie threaded through it and the room number written on a bottle cap, says he called the cops and should he call the ambulance and I tell him hell yeah, fuck you think, he’s only a kid.
I’m about to run upstairs when I glance out the window, see someone in a T-shirt and boxers crawling into the passenger seat of my truck, realize it’s Ryan. The bastard must’ve snuck down the fire escape. Throw the key at the useless clerk, run outside, and as we pull from the curb the cops arrive behind us and Ryan, eyes closed, head hanging, says fuck dude I left my toolbox in there.
Jasminder Bansal
Later that afternoon I meet Heather Reed in front of the main elevators at 666 Burrard Street: Park Place Tower. Is there unseemliness in the air, or only strange vibes left over from Mr. Reed’s garlic powder assault? I wave to the minister from across the foyer, thread through pink granite pillars trimmed in copper. Ms. Reed’s on her phone, orbited by two assistants. She’s sipping from a stainless-steel travel mug in between blasting instructions to whoever’s on the other end of the line. The elevator dings closed. Ms. Reed snatches my elbow and holds tight, like I’m a prize she’s afraid of losing. The elevator’s packed, makes me feel claustrophobic. The unmistakable juniper scent of gin fills the elevator, wafting on Ms. Reed’s breath.
“…you tell that wannabe Robertson if he wants his bike lanes…election year…I was green before it was hip…got him by the short and curlies…”
Half the people in the elevator lean closer, the other half pull away.
“No, I said the goddamned…livable city! Uh, sustainable…excuse me…” Ms. Reed covers her phone, shakes my shoulder in too-friendly greeting. The diamond pendant’s gone. Her dress is wrinkled. She doesn’t seem to notice half her hair has slipped from her bun, is hanging in a lopsided nest behind her shoulder. “Jasminder? Thanks for coming, but here’s the thing: I’m late for a meeting somewhere in this hellhole. For a design project. You tag along, we’ll talk?” Before I can answer she returns to her phone. The elevator doors slide open. The crowd jostles out and one of Ms. Reed’s assistants—a distraught-looking waif with tortoise-shell glasses and a floral-print blouse—shouts for someone to please hold the door while she lunges for the button. Too late. The doors glide closed.
“Oh no,” the assistant whimpers.
Ms. Reed whirls on her. “Christ, Syrah! Do not tell me that was our floor…no, Minister. Not talking to you. Syrah! Duh! Anyway, Clyde? Straight-across deal, no haggling. Bike lanes in exchange for…holy shit I’m so sick of hearing about the UBC line! Aren’t we the Green City? I’m pretty sure we say we are. So let’s put a subway out there alr—oh. Yes I’ve been to your home on Alma. Gorgeous thousand-year-old koi. Underground vibrations from the UBC line would disrupt sensitive fishy brains…and oh the premier’s cousin has a house on…and is that right…okay…I mean what the fuck are they thinking, underground transit to the university? Three hundred million a kilometre. That can buy a lot of condoms and kombucha!” Ms. Reed snaps her fingers at Syrah, who holds up a tablet for her boss to read from. “Clyde! Telling an elf like Robertson what he wants to hear is the easy part. Infrastructure, waste, tragic. That’s right. Repeat after me. Sustainable, mindful, green. See? Talking points. Zero commitment. I lead, you follow…Jasminder, I so cannot wait to crush that yappy ankle-biter Vincent Peele.”
The elevator doors open, revealing an empty corridor.
“Syrah! Is this finally our floor? If we miss it again I’ll force-feed you a suckling pig…no no of course not you, Minister, I did not call you a fucking sexist pi—yes, I understand. You’re very sensitive to name-calling after the…alleged incident?” Ms. Reed points at the phone, sticks her finger down her throat, gags. Syrah and another assistant, a guy about my age wearing pressed khakis and a navy Big Brothers Charity Run T-shirt, snicker at Ms. Reed’s antics. Ms. Reed taps the elevator wall, a
sks if it’s freaking freezing in here.
“Slightly under-heated,” I say, clutching the stolen Marigold documents to my chest. “Ms. Reed? Heather? If you have a momen—”
She’s back on the phone. “Clyde? Speaking of pigs, my husband believes his is…never mind. You still call him Blitzo? He’s out of prison, thanks. Yes, I’m still into nettle switches, but no, we shouldn’t plan a get-together at your Hornby Island sweat lodge. I’m miffed at you, remember? North Vancouver was my deal from the start. And now, Clyde, here you are, trying to take credit? Do not poach me. You’re only Community, Sport, and Cultural Development. I’m the entire environment! Can’t have any of what you are without an environment.” Ms. Reed’s voice rises to a shout. “So what if you and Scott Charles Booth are frat buddies? You care; I don’t. Did you rub Tiger Balm into his jockstrap? Did he pretend not to like it? Syrah! Is this is our floor? Yes? Yes! Out out out! Everyone outta-tha-way!”
Pile into the corridor, fish-tank-coloured walls, rose carpet in blotchy herringbone. Smells of burned coffee, Calvin Klein cologne, microwaved miso soup. The hallway’s deserted and dead quiet. I shiver, wonder at the haunted-horror vibe pervading the office tower. Syrah doesn’t quite make it out of the elevator in time, gets knocked sideways by the swooping doors. Ms. Reed cackles, shoots her assistant an I’m-astonished-you’re-smart-enough-to-breathe look. I white-knuckle the stolen files while Ms. Reed tugs me down the hall.
Syrah races in front, punches at her tablet.
“Ha, those two!” Ms. Reed says to me.
“Most of the files—”
“Clyde, be quiet a second.” Ms. Reed hands her phone to the assistant trailing behind her, yells at Syrah to hurry up and find wherever they’re going. “Jasminder? My husband and Vincent Peele? Peas in a pod. Dicks and death.”
I hold up a file for her to see. “This looks like a bank state—”
“Both of them nattering about the big stupid system! Carl wants it torn down because it’s a capitalist-imperialist front. Peele wants it torn down because it limps his liberty-laissez-faire Shopify boner. Both trying to out-shout each other and guess why?”
Ms. Reed hits her drink, pauses while Syrah reads a door number out loud, whispers oh god no, furiously punches at her tablet, scurries down the hall. Ms. Reed slaps the assistant in the Big Brothers T-shirt on the butt, tells him to hustle. “Anyway, Jasminder, the bastards want it all torn down because we’re finally here. Centuries of old boys sitting around patting hairy backs saying ooh congrats for us we created democracy free speech the market all that Enlightenment fairness and equality. Crock of shit! Because now we’ve fought our way in…and look how pissed off and pouty they get! Boohoo, gentlemen. We’re here to stay! Jasminder, you have some nerve, digging into Vincent Peele and Marigold. Excellent initiative.”
“Thanks. It seems like the right thing to do.”
Ms. Reed frowns. “There’s also that, if you prefer.”
Chasing after Syrah, trying to listen to Ms. Reed while mentally rehearsing my spiel.
“Mason!” Ms. Reed barks. “Hand me my phone!”
“Ms. Reed I really need you to look at—”
“—no, no, Clyde! What do you mean, Peele intends to sue my husband because of the Hawksworth fracas? It wasn’t an actual assault. Only spilled garlic powder. More like an April Fool’s prank. You know how boys are. You’re one of them! Peele’s a faker. A transparent attempt to undermine our bid. He cries every time I…just a sec.”
Syrah stops in front of another office door. Knocks. No answer.
Ms. Reed hurls the door open. Arctic air blasts into the hall.
Syrah bites her lip, stifles a sob.
“Syrah? Wrong room again! And there’s no one here? Does that seem strange? Is this building condemned? Where the hell is everybody? Clyde, Jasminder…hold on. Holy hail Mary mother of…long night, eh, Syrah? Think I can’t tell? I’ve seen solar eclipses smaller than your pupils, girlfriend. Give Mason the tablet; he might figure out how to turn it on. Where’s Mason? My adoring supplicant? Clyde, relax. I’ll be there soon to take charge, if I ever make it out of this living nightmare of an office building. Lost in purgatory!”
Mason pipes up: “Are you a repentant soul?”
Ms. Reed freezes. “What?”
“Because if not it can’t be purgatory; it’s just normal hell. I’m guessing eighth or ninth cir—”
“You a closet thumper? Makes sense.” Shaking her travel mug: “Regardless, things are gonna get a lot less fun when the go-juice runs out. Clyde, trust me, Booth will come through. I’m with my secret weapon right now.” Ms. Reed pinches my arm. “Jasminder! Hurry up, documents…whaddayagot for a sister?”
Syrah and Mason glare at me with a mix of relief, exhaustion, and envy. “This is sensitive material? Maybe it’s best if we speak in private.”
Ms. Reed slams the door closed. “No such thing. Twenty-first-century politics, lesson number one: there are no secrets. Blast it out there, let the masses wallow and fling. Make shit up if you gotta. Controversy, name recognition, branding. Only weaklings snivel and deny. Mason! Write an outrageous sexually inappropriate story about me right now. Then post it. I’m feeling media thin.”
Mason nibbles on a pencil. “That you once seduced—”
“Seduced? Are you shitting me? I never seduce. I tackle and take! You are suuuch a thumpster. Fill in the blanks on: me, cigar boat, ball gag, Bieber. Got it?”
Mason taps the update into his phone. “Sure do!”
Ms. Reed inspects her arms. “Ahhh…there it is. Shares! Retweets! Pokes! Love it! Seriously addicted. Social media’s like a Zelda potion, regenerating me in real time. Carl doesn’t know what he’s missing. Now. Jasminder? Brrr! You want a job? I’m about to fire an assistant. First one to get me to this meeting wins.”
I am energized by challenges in my business.
Mason sneers in my direction, snatches the tablet from Syrah. She leans against the wall, wavers. Ms. Reed puts her phone to her ear and marches down the hall. “Clyde! Jesus H! So what if Vincent says I lied about Booth already signing? I’m saying I did or did not lie and neither and both. Mason! C’mere…this meeting we’re on the way to, about what?”
Mason positions himself a step or two behind his boss. “Park-Pods?”
“Park…what in a manger’s fuck? Hey Jasminder! You have exactly ten seconds—”
I snap to attention. “I found a provable link between Bo Xi and Vincent. I know where they met, but what I need is someone with the…resources…to access financials on several numbered companies.”
Ms. Reed stops so fast I nearly stumble into her. “You need my resources? Are you pitching me?”
I try and hand her the documents. She doesn’t touch them. “No. Of course not? But I thought since it was you who clued me in to—”
“The fact that we share a passion for marble cake!” Ms. Reed yells, covering her phone and sticking it in my face. “You’re kinda lousy at this high-level corporate sabotage racket. Smarten up. Who knows who Clyde’s working for?”
Synchronized who-is-this-moron headshakes from Syrah and Mason. I swear I see a gaunt, tortured soul frozen into the floor beneath my feet, but I take another look and it’s only my mind misreading patterns in the herringbone carpet.
Ms. Reed keeps her phone covered. “You’re a shot in the dark, Jasminder. Background research into Peele’s team, found out about you getting hired, murdered brother, truncated journalism diploma. I figured why not? But that’s not to say I’m willing to risk implicating myself. Or risk anything at all, for that matter.”
Another dead lead. “I see.”
“Here we are!” Mason yells, waving at a door identical to every other. “See, Ms. Reed, I found it before Syrah!”
“Did he just shake his rump?” Syrah whispers.
Ms. Reed wags her finger in Syrah’s face. “Rump-shaking is permitted if and when I say.”
A lecherous voice from Ms. Reed’s phone: “Oh
you girls want to see rump—”
Ms. Reed shudders, tosses the phone at Syrah, tells her to hang up, asks Mason to remind her what a ParkPod is before she signs off on it.
“The ParkPod’s like a—”
“Time’s up! Elevator pitch! Think I have all day? Lazing around, stained sweatpants, boogers, reading fucking novels?”
Mason joke-punches his boss on the shoulder, says no, even funnier, writing them. Then he flings the door open, gasps.
Ms. Reed shoves him against the wall, huffs in. The room is furnished but deserted. “For lease? Mason! What the Henry Frick? Another wrong door? Give me twenty!”
Mason drops into push-up position. Ms. Reed sinks a heel into the small of his back. Syrah sneaks around, kicks Mason’s hands out from under him, giggles when he flattens, snatches the tablet, tells Ms. Reed the ParkPod is like an outdoor La-Z-Boy recliner enclosed in vines and greenery, the proposal is to build them throughout the city, private rejuvenation spaces, like those sleeping pods in Asian airports but more Vancouvery.
Ms. Reed looks at the ceiling. “That’s what I’m wandering around a freezing hellhole to talk about buying? An outhouse with weeds?”
Mason sits up, says no, not Oppenheimer Park, way more upscale, brushed aluminum like the bus stops.
Ms. Reed snatches the documents from my hands. Skim-reads the first one, says nope, nice try, hands it to Mason, he shakes his head, says big fail, hands it to Syrah, she smirks, says I’m way out of my depth, hands it back to me. Second and third files get similar treatment. Ms. Reed mumbles a name after glancing at the fourth. Mason stuffs it in a slim briefcase. Ms. Reed goes through every file, says hell yeah Jasminder the long shot comes through you might have something. Talk to my team, see where this goes, I’ll be in touch.
Mark Ward
Vincent Peele calls, sics me on the Reed father. I tell him I’m on it and hang up. A while later Ryan and me have the talk. In Clint’s condominium, playing Call of Duty, not facing each other. It’s dark out. Wind whips rain against the windows. Ryan looks like a limb that got pulled from the ocean. Pasty, shrunken, pale. Hasn’t eaten a thing since the Astoria. Ask him how much he uses and he says not much. Ask him what and he says meth mostly. Things that make him go bang. I ask him if he’s ever been high on the job and he says, “Want a piss test?”