The Fourth Betrayal

by Bruce Burrows

  Dougie drove carefully on the rain-slicked pavement, no more than twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. I replaced Doug and the Slugs with Let It Bleed and by the time Mick was informing us that sometimes we could get what we need, we had reached the Zeballos turnoff. Dougie turned right and we had another twenty-five miles to go, which took us three times as long as the first twenty-five. After a challenging but scenic drive we pulled into the former gold-mining town. It sure as hell didn’t look like it had ever seen much gold. Maybe a few bicuspid fillings, but observation of the denizens of the local coffee shop suggested not.

  There were four muddy pickup trucks parked outside the Zeballos Hotel. Three of them had large but friendly dogs woofing at each other from their respective boxes. Inside the coffee shop were four of the above-mentioned denizens and the missing dog. The four humans wore ragged Stanfields with cut-off sleeves and clutched cups of steaming coffee. They woofed at each other companionably. Joe’s machine. Broke. New cut block. Yarding downhill. Hoe chucker. Can’t keep up. Rigging slinger. Asshole. The dog at their feet regarded them with tolerant affection.

  The waitress poured us coffee, gave us menus and looked at us expectantly. We had, I figured, about thirty seconds to order before she’d start tapping her foot. Under pressure, we made our decision decisively: two baron of beef sandwiches with fries, to be washed down with the best house lager. We lounged back in our chairs and sipped beer contemplatively until the waitress brought our food. I watched in disgust as Dougie poured vinegar over his sandwich as well as the chips. “You abuse your taste buds like Jimi Hendrix abused his entire body.”

  “Jimi’s body abused him. I’m sure it wasn’t his idea to aspirate vomit. Healthy vinegar use clears the mind, cleanses the body and improves physical response.”

  “Have you considered using it as a colonic? I understand it opens the third chakra, which Western medicine refers to as the sphincter.” I was never entirely sure how serious Dougie was about being serious, and he was never entirely sure how serious I was about not being serious.

  After lunch we wandered down to the government wharf. We surveyed an impressive gaggle of boats: trollers and gillnetters, small tugs, crew boats, herring punts, and a few small open skiffs half sunk with rainwater. The fleet was remarkable for its variety of form and similarity of decrepitude. There were no hulls sleek and shiny, no polished wood or chrome, nothing that would do over eight knots, nothing that might challenge the segregation of this nautical ghetto.

  Dougie interrupted my ruminations. “This place is too busy.”

  “There’s no one here.”

  “But someone could appear at any moment to bail out their boat or check the lines or something. We don’t want to be leaving or returning from a criminal enterprise and risk being seen.”

  “Maybe we should launch from Little Espinosa. It’s about as isolated as you can get. Let’s take a look.”

  We left town via the dilapidated wooden bridge that ran north toward Little Espinosa Inlet and Fair Harbour. Six miles and fifteen minutes later we were at the bridge that crossed over the inlet and saved the logging trucks from having to traverse all the way around the head.

  We stopped and got out of the truck. The tide was flooding, and water boiled through the constricted passage under the bridge. There was neither sight nor sound of other humans. During active logging you could expect a bit of traffic during the day. A school bus ran from Zeballos to Fair Harbour and back. But at night this road would be as deserted as a pregnant mistress.

  On the south side of the bridge a boat ramp led down to the water. We walked down to the shore and looked out the inlet. It ran due west for a couple of miles, then turned south for about the same distance before it joined Espinosa Inlet proper. From that junction it was about four miles to the mouth of Esperanza Inlet and then maybe thirteen miles around the corner to Mary Basin. That would be our route to and from the treasure trove. It was all sheltered water except for the stretch that ran around the headland between Esperanza and Nuchatlitz Inlets. We would need to pick a weather window, but we didn’t need a lot of time. A half hour tops to traverse the headland, two or three hours to strip the fleet of its riches, then head back into sheltered waters and run for the launch point at Little Espinosa. The worst-case scenario would be to rob all the boats and then have the weather come up and trap us in Mary Basin. It would be painfully embarrassing, more likely just painful, to be trapped in a small bay with our multitudinous and unforgiving victims. Fishermen are known less for turning the other cheek than for exposing it.

  I bent down to pick up a good rock and skipped it toward Japan. Dougie started a similar motion but aborted it with a grimace of pain. After breathing deeply for half a minute, he spoke. “This is a perfect place to launch a Zodiac. Get here after dark, say nine o’clock, head out and be back by 4:00 AM and safe somewhere before daylight. Use the bypass road so we don’t even have to get close to Zeballos.”

  I smiled. At the day, at the scenery, at the fact I’d gotten at least nine skips, and at this glimpse of the old Dougie. He didn’t have exactly the same sparkly-eyed boyish enthusiasm. He was more restrained, but, I knew, none the less determined. We were big boys now, playing for big stakes. But at least we were playing.

  Four

  AFTER GIVING HELGA THE BAD news about Dougie, I returned to Vancouver and began to deal with the banal details of death. I phoned Dougie’s landlord and arranged for his few possessions—computer, TV, assorted furniture, and a dirt bike he’d kept in the apartment’s storage compound—to be put into storage. His clothes could go to the Goodwill. His Jeep had been towed to a compound, and I paid the storage fee for three months. I knew Dougie had a will and I was the executor because he’d gone through that process just after I’d made my will and made him the executor. This was shortly after I got married and became a responsible person.

  But before we could deal with the will, we had to go through the emotionally and bureaucratically confusing process of having Dougie declared legally dead. Emotionally confusing because all I really wanted was for Dougie to be alive, but I was going through a process that would make him dead. Bureaucratically confusing because it was, ipso facto, a bureaucratic process.

  When I’d phoned Dougie’s boss at the Ottawa Times to tell him what had happened, he’d foreseen the hassle I was about to go through and given me the name of a good lawyer. Stacy Smith and Sons were now gathering affidavits—from the OPP, the search and rescue people, Aunt Helga, me, Dougie’s editor. When the lawyers had all the information, they would go before a judge and make an application for a declaration of death.

  But that would take awhile, for which I was glad. Because I wasn’t looking forward to going to Aunt Helga, who I presumed was the beneficiary, and explaining to her how Dougie had managed to accumulate all the money he had left her. Therefore I was more than a little puzzled when I finally got to see Dougie’s bank records. He had a balance of some eighty-seven thousand dollars. The rest had disappeared in four very large withdrawals spaced over the previous year. What the fuck was that all about? Had he bought some luxurious retirement home somewhere? Or several? Or had he made some huge donations to a worthy charity to assuage his middle-class Canadian guilt? That was more likely. But I was severely ill with curiosity to know where the money had gone.

  The missing money plus all the other details of death were affecting me badly. I didn’t notice it but Oshie did. She suggested a holiday. “Summer vacation’s coming up,” she said. “Let’s take the kids on a car trip.”

  I could swear I stood a little straighter as the burden of Dougie’s death was at least temporarily displaced. I had a sudden thought. “I’ve been thinking that I’d like to get Dougie’s Jeep. Why don’t we fly to Ottawa, do the tourist thing and then drive home in the Jeep?”

  Oshie’s smile showed her approval. The kids were ecstatic, especially Daiki, who had just covered Canadian government at school. “Ottawa. Cool! Can we go to Question Period?”<
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  Ren chimed in, “Yeah, I’ve got lots of questions.”

  Don’t we all, I thought.

  The kids enjoyed the plane ride almost as much as a ride at the PNE. I remembered my first plane ride, and some of my other firsts. When, I wondered, did I stop having brand-new experiences? And then I realized I hadn’t. This was the first time I’d taken my kids on a plane ride. Second-hand firsts were as good as, maybe better than, first-hand firsts.

  We did indeed go to Parliament Hill and take in Question Period. It was a typically rancorous and raucous debate, and Ren observed that the Honourable Members “weren’t using their inside voices.” Oshie assured him that it was sort of like a play. “Who’s the hero?” he asked.

  “No one knows,” she said. “There may be no heroes, but there’re lots of villains to make up for it.”

  He considered that briefly before asking where the washroom was.

  We spent a whole day at the National Gallery, which featured an exhibition of Norval Morrisseau. The kids loved it. He should have done a children’s book. Then we did a gallery tour that presented a history of flora and fauna in Canadian art.

  The next four days were a blur: Aboriginal culture at Turtle Island, a ride on a historical steam train, rock climbing, laser tag, water parks, a reptile zoo, and thrills and chills at the IMAX theater.

  Staid old Ottawa even produced some scandalous excitement while we were there. They had a murder, possibly the first one since D’Arcy McGee was shot. And this one had political ramifications as well. The dead man was Gerry Steadman, a rich guy with vague connections to the Alberta oil patch. He had been a huge donor to the Canadian Alliance and now the Conservative Party. After buying himself insider status, there had been a rumored falling-out, and then his bullet-holed body was found in a suite at the Château Laurier. Several high-level Conservative operators were now “helping police with their inquiries.” Juicy stuff, but it seemed as foreign as a Hollywood scandal to us.

  Finally, all citied out, we collected Dougie’s Jeep and began to follow the sun toward home. The first time we stopped for gas, I noticed the Jeep had duel gas tanks. When I went to fill the back tank I discovered a rounded piece of wood rammed into the filler pipe. A flash of memory. A surge of supposition. Wow, do you suppose? But I couldn’t check my hunch with the kids around. It would have to wait until we were home.

  Driving from Ontario to BC is a lot like eating one of my aunt’s chocolate-chip cookies. There’s the occasional good bit, but way too much filling. And most of the unnecessary filling occurs between Winnipeg and Jasper. However, we saw lots of giant stuff, hockey sticks and Vikings and dinosaurs, and the kids were suitably impressed. And they were awed by the drive through the Rockies. Then we were following the mighty Fraser River as it crashed impatiently through the Fraser Canyon. Then we were home, carrying sleeping kids from the Jeep to their bedroom.

  I hugged Oshie as she straightened up from tucking Daiki into bed. “That was a good idea,” I whispered. She kissed me and led me by the hand toward our bedroom.

  The next morning Oshie took the kids over to visit her parents. I wasted no time in crawling under the Jeep. Sure enough, the rear gas tank sported a large patch of duct tape. I removed it, revealing an eight-inch-square hole. I reached in and after some feeling around was able to remove a cardboard box that held a number of microcassette tapes like business guys used to use for dictation.

  I made absolutely sure there was nothing else in the gas tank, then jumped in the Jeep and drove to the Steveston mall. There was a large generic electronic-appliance store, and when I showed the clerk one of the tapes, he supplied me with the appropriate player. Some atavistic urge for caution made me pay with cash, and I drove down to my boat to do the listening.

  On board the Ryu II, my apprehension vanished. I took a beer out of the fridge, plugged in the cassette player, inserted the tape marked number one and sat down at the galley table to listen. It was not unexpected to hear Dougie’s voice, but it somehow startled me anyway, and not just because his voice sounded strange, sort of like he was acting a part.

  Dougie: Jesus, Cliff. You played those guys like a cheap violin.

  Cliff: It’s what we do, sir. We have to be good. We’re selling warm shit, and the opposition is selling truth and beauty. We don’t want to be condemned to perpetual fourth-party status so we learn to make false statements, misquote, dissemble, misrepresent, fudge, fabricate, fib, and prevaricate. Our guys are mendacious, disingenuous, and dishonest. They are adept at demolishing straw men, conjuring up phony enemies, constructing invalid syllogisms, and deflecting cogent criticism. Joseph Goebbels is our God and the big lie is our sword and shield. And the truth? It can’t set you free if it’s buried in bullshit. [There was an expansive chortle and a long inhale and exhale. I could picture Cliff puffing on a large expensive cigar.]

  Dougie: It’s a form of creative genius.

  Cliff: Why, thank you, sir. Not many people understand as well as you do.

  I had to stop the tape before I vomited. It was almost like watching an old girlfriend in a pornographic movie. Dougie was obviously conning the guy, but still.

  I couldn’t listen to any more right now. I suddenly longed to see Oshie and the kids. As I drove home I wondered who the hell Cliff was, exactly what story Dougie was working on that would have led him into Cliff’s company, and why Cliff felt comfortable talking as openly as he had to Dougie.

  Back home, I was just in time to heat up some soup for lunch while Oshie did the grilled cheese sandwiches. As we sat down to eat Oshie gave me a quick kiss and said, “Somebody phoned for you, Ollie. A reporter at Dougie’s newspaper. He wants you to phone him. I wrote everything on the board.”

  After lunch I perused the whiteboard I’d screwed to the wall by the phone. The marker dangled by a string. Messages are important to a self-employed fisherman, and as toddlers Ren and Daiki had occasionally sabotaged the answering machine. In Oshie’s almost calligraphic script was written “Phil Davis” and an Ottawa number that was different than the one I’d used previously for the Ottawa Times, but I figured it was probably the guy’s cell. It was after five Ottawa time, but I figured reporters are never off duty. I pressed the appropriate buttons on the phone.

  A brisk voice answered. “Hello. Phil Davis here.”

  “Hi. It’s Ollie Swanson in Steveston.”

  “Hey, thanks for calling. I worked with Dougie, and I was really sorry to hear about his accident.”

  I puzzled over how to respond to that, and finally I said, “Thanks. I’ll pass that on to his aunt, and if there’s a service of any kind, I’ll let you know.”

  There was an awkward pause. “Actually, there’s something you could help me with. Dougie and I were working together on a story and now, with him gone, everything’s sort of up in the air. When you were going through his belongings, did you see any notes or materials of any sort?”

  I said cautiously, “What sort of story were you working on?”

  “Political corruption. The usual sort of thing. But on a really big scale. High-level people.”

  I tried to buy some time. “I’m going through some of his stuff now. If I find anything, I’ll call you.”

  He was persistent, as I suppose good reporters are. “Dougie told me he recorded a lot of conversations. Secretly. Have you found any tapes?”

  I found it difficult to tell a direct lie, and besides, why should I? This was a colleague of Dougie’s, and Dougie would want the story to get out. “Yeah, I found some in his Jeep, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to them yet.”

  “Terrific. Can you mail them to me?”

  “Not until I’ve listened to them.”

  He pushed a bit. “Actually, they’re the property of the newspaper.”

  I dug in. “Actually, that’s not known at present. As executor of the estate, I have a legal responsibility to dispose of his property according to Dougie’s wishes.”

  The reporter became more conciliato
ry. “You’re probably right. But if they’re what I think they are, I know Dougie would want me to have them so the story can get out. I’ll tell you what: I’ll fly out there and we’ll listen to them together. See you soon.” He hung up.

  Shit! I wanted to listen to the tapes privately, mainly because they were my last link with Dougie. And this asshole, as I’d unconsciously categorized Mr. Davis, could be here as early as this evening.

  Oshie was looking at me anxiously, and I realized she could read my inner turmoil like a large-print book. “What did you find in the Jeep, Ollie?”

  Mentally, I scurried around like a mink in a trap, until I realized with a surprising sense of relief that I would have to explain . . . everything. “Daiki, why don’t you take Ren to the park? And if you can find six different kinds of berries, we’ll have some chocolate ice cream.” Their eyes lit up, at the idea of the challenge, I hoped, but probably at least partly at the thought of the ice cream, and they were gone within minutes.

  Oshie regarded me patiently as I took a bottle of Pinot Noir out of the fridge, opened it, took our two favorite handmade wine goblets out of the cupboard and sat down across from her at the table. “Honey, I wasn’t always the wise, sensible man that you married. Years before I met you, Dougie and I did something that seemed like a good idea at the time, but was actually, I guess, sort of stupid, but also, at that time of my life, kind of exciting.”

  Half an hour later the wine was finished and so were all of Oshie’s questions. She grasped my hand across the table. “I didn’t marry a wise, sensible man. I fell in love with an impetuous romantic who would do just the sort of thing you’ve described. And all these years, I’ve felt just the faintest hint that there was something about you I didn’t know. I understand why you didn’t tell me, but I’m glad I finally know.” She gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

  I leaned across the table and kissed her. When I’d expressed my feelings satisfactorily, I sat down. “I don’t know what the hell to do with this Phil Davis,” I said. “He’s a reporter and I’m not, but I’m hesitant to give him those tapes.”