Defender

by Graham McNamee

  He catches sight of me now.

  “Hey, Tiny. How’s my girl?”

  “Hungry. But not for squirrels, or biscuits.”

  “Then let’s fire up the Inferno.” He gestures to his huge barbecue. “Big enough to grill a bull, from hooves to horns. Then we can shoot some hoops. You owe me a rematch.”

  He’s got a basket set up over the garage.

  “Don’t know if my knee’s up to it.”

  “No pain, no gain.”

  I don’t want to play Jake because he takes it way too seriously. He’s always got to win. No playing for fun. Fun’s for fools, he told me. Last time we played twenty-one, and he was banging and fouling me like it was streetball down in the hood. So I did what I’m built to do—blocked, rebounded and dominated. And beat him. He tried to hide it, but I could tell he was pissed. Still smiling, only more like the dogs when they flash their teeth. He wanted to go again, but I said it was getting late. Jake said, Next time, Tiny.

  Heading for the house now, he calls back to me, “I’m getting some extra Raptors tickets for their game against the Knicks. If you drop by my office you can pick them up.”

  “Sounds great.”

  I could never afford to see a game, but Jake scores free tickets through his business, so I can take Stick and see how the pros play.

  When Jake comes back out he’s carrying a platter heaped with thick steaks.

  He ignites the Inferno. “So fresh they were breathing yesterday.”

  “Meat doesn’t breathe.” Squirrel watches as his uncle brushes sauce on the steaks.

  “Well, you’re breathing, squirrel meat.” Jake reaches out with the brush and dabs the back of Squirrel’s hand. “Don’t get too close to the fire or you’ll be lunch.”

  Squirrel giggles like crazy, licking the sauce off.

  Jake works the grill while Vicki and Gran watch Squirrel show off one of his tricks, walking on his hands with Mom holding his legs steady.

  Later, we sit down to lunch on the patio, chatting and laughing.

  Like a normal family, with nothing to hide.

  “SHE’S NOWHERE,” STICK says as we grab a seat on one of the stone benches in front of city hall.

  They’re getting ready for the big New Year’s Eve bash in the Square tonight, with a stage set up for the countdown concert.

  Stick had an uncontrollable craving, so we took the subway over here, to the food trucks that line the street. Today’s craving was for a big pile of poutine, a French-Canadian delicacy: a mountain of fries covered in cheese curds and drowned in hot gravy so everything melts together into a gooey, disgustingly delicious mess.

  “I checked back through years of missing-persons reports,” Stick says. “No sign of her. Nothing close to our sketch. And I looked at the RCMP’s missing site. Lots of lost girls, but none fitting our description.”

  Stick stuffs his face and his eyes roll back in ecstasy. I’m having a jumbo chili dog from Spicy Stan’s, which advertizes a hundred hot sauces with a heat meter chart on the side of the truck. The temperature rating I go for is “fire-breather.” That’s high, but nowhere near “suicidal scorcher.” Still, my dog is making me sweat and tearing my eyes up.

  “I guess that means she was never reported,” I say. “Maybe an illegal alien? Or could be a prostitute. They disappear and nobody goes looking for them.”

  They’re disposable. Like a body stuffed in a trash chute.

  I look out over the wide reflecting pool that the city has turned into an open-air skating rink for the winter. I took my first ice steps here when I was little and Dad showed me how to skate. With me slipping and squealing as he held my mittened hands, I shuffled and slid, struggling to stay vertical. Whenever I started to fall, Dad would lift me up and keep me from crashing to the ice.

  “But I had some luck with the brand,” Stick says.

  “You find out what it means?”

  “Yeah. That design, with the skull and the flower, it’s called a memento mori.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s Latin for ‘a reminder of death.’ Like, don’t forget you’re going to die one day—that kind of thing. There’s all kinds of these memento designs that show up in old paintings and manuscripts and stuff. Some people get it tattooed as a kind of personal motto, like you better live it up today ’cause you’re dying tomorrow.”

  “So it’s not a gang thing, or some death cult?” I ask.

  “No. But it can mean different things to whoever gets it. From a positive ‘seize the day’ message to something gloomier, like ‘I’m a dead man walking.’ ”

  “Or dead girl. And how about those letters, MIVEM? I searched everywhere and came up blank.”

  “Me too. Must be really obscure. I posted it, with the flowering skull, on some online bulletin boards, asking for help.”

  “What, you’re crowd-sourcing our investigation? Tell me you didn’t post the photo you took of the finger.”

  “I’m not that dumb. I sent out a tracing of the design, and the lettering. I figure somebody somewhere will know what it means. Just waiting to hear.”

  There’s something about that design that feels strangely familiar, like I’ve seen it before. But when I reach for that faint memory, it vanishes. Maybe it was long ago, or I barely noticed it at the time.

  Stick stirs his cheesy fries. “How about you, Ty? Come up with anything?”

  “I’ve been digging through old newspaper archives from the Toronto Sun and the Star for stories about the neighborhood, back around the time that the body got dumped. It used to be a real shooting gallery. Highest crime rate in the city.”

  “That’s why they call it the ‘Big Red Dot.’ ”

  Our neighborhood got that name when the city made a map showing where crime was concentrated, with little dots indicating the worst areas. There was a huge cluster right on top of us—we were the big red dot.

  I nod. “Before they cleaned up the block and cracked down on the crackheads, and the gangs moved out to the burbs.”

  “So, you find any more murders? Dead girls?”

  I gulp some lemonade to cool my tongue, but I’m still breathing fire. “No. There was a lot about Slimy, though. Savard had a hand in every dirty deal, but nobody could prove it.”

  I get queasy just thinking about him. He has been Dad’s boss forever, though I can’t see my father ever covering up for him. But I can see Mad Dog working with Slimy, who let the gangs and dealers set up shop on the block, and taking his cut. My grandfather was probably paid off to look the other way.

  Years after the gangs were exiled and Dad became super, we used to get break-ins down in the basement of the Zoo. There were still people who thought that when the dealers cleared out, they left some of their stash behind, so they’d sneak in at night to search.

  I reach over and steal one of Stick’s fries. We take in the winter sun, enjoying the mild weather with the crowds.

  “Doesn’t seem real,” he says. “If I hadn’t seen her with my own eyes I’d never believe it. There’s no way your dad had anything to do with that. I mean, you saw how he buried her, wrapped in that blanket like he was trying to take care of her. There’s got to be some way to explain it.”

  “If I can’t find it, I’ll lose everything we ever had. Every good moment and memory. It’ll make it all a lie.” I shake my head. “I can’t have been that wrong about him my whole life.”

  “So where do we look now?” Stick asks. “I’m at a dead end.”

  I think about the sketch we made, bringing the girl back to life.

  She must have had a family, must have had someone who cared somewhere, right? Or maybe not. But even if nobody reported her lost, even if she wasn’t missed, somebody’s got to remember her.

  And maybe I know who.

  CELIA’S HAD HER eyes on the street for ninety-one years.

  I know her favorite spots, where she likes to spy on the world going by. When she’s not watching from her window at the Zoo, Celia li
kes to sit at the Starbucks on the corner in the morning, nibbling at a muffin one crumb at a time like the old bird she is. Then she creaks on her cane down to the library two blocks away, where she reads newspapers and chats with everybody. On a sunny afternoon like today, during this weirdly warm winterruption, I’ll find her nearby, in Moss Park.

  And that’s where I spot her, perched on a bench under a huge old oak, watching the local wildlife— a couple of teenagers lying on the grass, guy on top of girl, lips locked.

  Celia sees me coming.

  “Hey there, supergirl.”

  “Hey, Celia. Soaking up the sun?”

  “While it lasts. Warming these bones.” She smiles, flashing her brilliant false teeth. “You’re looking tired, girl. Not sleeping?”

  Celia doesn’t miss a thing. “Rough nights. Rough days.”

  “Sit with me. I can’t talk with you so tall. Give me a crick in my neck.”

  I join her on the bench.

  “Taking in the view?” I look over at the lovers.

  “Mating season is every season when you’re young. It’s a force of nature. But those two won’t last.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “She was with another guy just last week. They were arguing, she was crying. Then they made up, and broke up again, in the span of an hour. This boy is new, but she’ll relapse to the old one. They had real chemistry. This boy’s trying too hard.”

  I notice Celia’s feet swinging as she chats; they don’t even touch the ground, she’s so short.

  “You can tell all that from here?” I ask.

  “Seen it a thousand, thousand times. Different faces, same story. So many seasons, loves come and gone. I know, because I’ve had my share. Don’t look so stunned. I wasn’t always old. Been married twice, and buried both husbands—not that I had a hand in their passing. The first was my true crazy-deep love, the second was bad to the bone.”

  Celia peers at me with her dark antique eyes, magnified by her thick glasses. I can see stories in them, waiting to be told, and I wouldn’t mind hearing. But I’m here for another reason.

  We look up at the sudden riot of shouts and screams from the playground across the park. This is where the herd of Zoo kids comes to run wild. Even from this distance I spot the flash of coppery-red hair that must be Squirrel. You can pick him out of a crowd by it, like a new penny in the sun. He owns the jungle gym here, daring his buddies from the block to match his acrobatics while Mom watches.

  I turn our talk in that direction.

  “Have any kids, Celia?”

  “Never been blessed.”

  None of her own, but she’s like a great-grandmother to all the building’s kids.

  “Maybe you can help me with something?”

  “What’s that, honey?”

  “Well, I was looking through a box of old family stuff and I found a picture of a girl with my grandfather. I was wondering if you might recognize her from around the neighborhood, back about twenty-five years ago. Can I show you the photo?”

  “Sure thing.”

  On my phone I pull up the virtual sketch Stick and I built.

  “Here she is. I cropped my grandfather out of the picture.”

  I hand my cell over, and Celia squints at the screen through her thick lenses.

  It’s a masterpiece. Stick added light and a gleam to the girl’s eyes, creating the illusion of reality. And he worked his magic to give her a smile that shows off that chipped front tooth.

  Celia studies the image, and I hold my breath, hoping. She starts to shake her head but then brings the screen in close.

  “Maybe. I have a dusty memory of a girl like this hanging around the building. It’s been so many years. But I seem to recall a girl who used to cover her mouth when she smiled to hide a broken tooth. She didn’t live in the Zoo. I’m sure of that.” Celia looks a little longer. “I think she might have lived down our block, in the Weeds.”

  That place was demolished over a decade ago. They called it the Weeds because it was like a drug-dealer department store. Different floors for different scores, they used to say. It was famous for its weed. When they tore the place down, the workers had to wear full hazmat gear, with gas masks, because of the chemical contamination created by the drug labs.

  “So, what are you thinking?” Celia asks. “That your grandfather had a girl on the side? A young thing like this?”

  “Don’t know. Never knew him. But you did. What do you think?”

  “He always had eyes for the girls, and he was a real looker, in a devilish way. There was talk he was running around on your gran, but I never heard with who. And I don’t like spreading rumors.” I hide my smile. “Truth is, I always found your grandfather cold and creepy, but I can see some foolish girl falling for his charms. Your gran fell for him, and she was no dummy. Some saw him as a catch.” She hands me back the phone. “What are you doing? You looking for this girl?”

  With those big eyes of hers she sees there’s more than what I’m saying.

  “Guess I just have questions,” I say.

  She nods, understanding, being a curious soul herself.

  “But, supergirl, take it from someone who’s seen everything twice over and seen too much—sometimes it’s better to be left with questions. Because you might not like the answers.”

  TALK TO ME. Show me the way.

  I stare at the finger in the bottle, begging it to point me in the right direction.

  It’s getting late and I’m sitting in my room, in front of my computer, at a digital dead end.

  MIVEM. The brand scorched into the girl’s skin. What does it mean? A word? Name? Secret code? I’ve put it through every online language translator, dictionaries and encyclopedias, even phone directories, to see if it’s some kind of last name.

  But it’s nowhere.

  I tried it as an anagram to see if it might be a letter-jumble code, but it spells nothing no matter how I look at it.

  MIVEM. For days it’s been running through my brain, a riddle without an answer. Stuck in my head when I fall asleep and waiting for me when I wake up. Driving me crazy.

  I’m about ready to give up. I try it in the search engine one more time, thinking of how to refine my search. But I type it wrong.

  And find something. IVEM gets some hits.

  No way. What’s this?

  It’s an acronym, for a phrase in Latin. In vita et mors, which means “in life and death.” I click deeper and—

  Yes! There it is. MIVEM, an older variation of the phrase.

  Meum in vita et mors. MINE IN LIFE AND DEATH.

  It’s supposed to be some kind of vow, or a pledge. Centuries ago people used to get it inscribed inside wedding rings. A message of love and possession, meaning “You belong to me.”

  I hold the finger up to the screen. Together with that flowering skull—the memento mori, reminder of death—it makes for some kind of dark promise.

  I feel a rush at my discovery, and a chill.

  So—who did you belong to in death?

  My phone buzzes, startling me.

  I lost track of time, and I remember I’ve got my own promise to keep. A midnight rendezvous with Stick.

  IT’S NEW YEAR’S Eve, and I meet Stick on the roof for our own private party. There’s a huge fireworks display over Lake Ontario to ring in the new year, and from the roof of the Zoo we can see the top part of it lighting up the sky. It’s not much of a view, but it’s all ours.

  Like last year, we’ve got our little love-nest camping tent set up for after, so we can celebrate. It might sound wrong with everything that’s gone down these past few days, but I need the escape, to be with Stick and feel something that doesn’t hurt.

  Right now, we huddle up close on lawn chairs, surrounded by a galaxy of city lights. Stick brought pizza, and I came with chips and the boxes of chocolates some tenants give Dad at Christmas. As we feast, I fill Stick in on cracking the code, showing him on my phone what I found.

  “Mine
in life and death,” he says. “That’s one vicious valentine.”

  “Burned into her. Saying I own you. Like livestock.”

  The night is clear. It’s cold but not freezing. Still, I’ve got the collar of my coat up against the wind. And Stick brought a thermos of hot chocolate.

  “So, if Celia’s right and she was a Weeds girl”—he scrolls down the page on my cell—“what’s she doing with Latin on her? Seems kind of strange and obscure. Who branded her?”

  I’ve been wondering at the weirdness of it too, and something comes to me now. “You know, I remember my grandfather went to St. Mary’s, a couple of blocks over. It’s a Catholic school. They probably teach the kids some Latin.”

  “How about your dad? He go there too?”

  “No. Dad went to the same public schools as you and me. But when I was looking into Slimy, I saw that he’s involved in church charities. Maybe he’s trying to buy his way into heaven. He goes way back to the old Cabbagetown slum, when I think most of the schools were Catholic. He always wears that little gold cross around his neck. I’m surprised it doesn’t burst into flames when it touches him.”

  “So both Slimy and Mad Dog might’ve known a little Latin. Mine in life and death. Sounds like a threat, not love.”

  Reaching in my pocket, I pull out the pill bottle. In the glow from my cell you can just make out the flowering skull on the finger.

  “You carry that around with you? That is the creepiest thing ever. You think we can make a wish on it?” Stick says, with a shaky laugh.

  “It’s not like a lucky rabbit’s foot. The only luck this is going to bring us is bad.”

  But I guess I have been wishing on it. Asking it to show us the way, and letting it lead us deeper into the dark.

  A loud boom makes us both jump. The sky flashes with a starburst of light in the distance. Show’s starting up. I put my arm around Stick and we lean in close. Fireworks explode above the towers of the city with a rolling thunder, dazzling and deafening.

  Downtown echoes with thousands of voices counting down to—

  “Happy New Year!”