The Unlikeable Demon Hunter_Crave

by Deborah Wilde

  Rohan grabbed Drio in a headlock, muffling his mouth. I was totally getting that story out of him one day. Still holding Drio by the head, he dragged his friend out of the room, saying they’d be back in a bit because he was going to buy Drio a cash ticket to Palm Springs.

  “Make it one way!” I called out.

  Mahmud had texted my burner phone to confirm that other than the possible deaths themselves, there was nothing suspicious about the four Rasha who’d died in Askuchar. Nothing on their records had been redacted and no one was hiding anything about their lives or covering anything up. I thanked him and reminded him to stay in touch on this phone only.

  I prepared a few things for the drop later this afternoon. The sooner we nailed Candyman, the better.

  My Brotherhood-issued phone beeped madly. I’d never heard that particular sound before and was shocked to see that Orwell had sent me a text with no one else on the chain.

  There’d been another Sweet Tooth incident. I called Ro. “We’ve got a death.”

  “You want me to meet you? I’m way on the other side of town,” Rohan said.

  “I’ll handle it. Just keeping you in the loop.”

  “Thanks, Boss.”

  “Most Superior Goddess works, too.”

  “Goof,” he said, and hung up.

  About twenty minutes later, I pulled up to Rocco’s Pizzeria, a squat brick storefront off West Tenth Avenue that wasn’t too far from our mansion. Close to the University of British Columbia, it was a popular student hangout for its huge portions. I salivated just thinking about their pesto pancetta slices.

  Yes, pancetta, my not-so-secret love. I was a bad Jew. Jew-ish.

  I slung the laminated press pass identifying me as one of the reporters for The Vancouver Sun newspaper over the business casual blouse and linen pants that I’d changed into, and fished a spiral bound notebook and pen from my purse.

  Crime scene tape had been strung across the open door, allowing the scent of baking dough and spicy tomato sauce to drift out into the street. Cops milled about.

  The first officer I spoke to directed me to another cop who was willing to say that an alleged assault and death had occurred on the premises.

  A crying Indo-Canadian woman a few years older than me was inside the restaurant speaking with an officer, but there was no way to get to her. Other than her there were just a lot of gawkers out on the sidewalk speculating on what had happened.

  I headed into the alley behind the store. The dumpster hadn’t been emptied and the stench of rotting food in this heat made my stomach lurch. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait there for very long. The back door opened and I fished a new pack of cigarettes out of my purse, making a big show of unwrapping it.

  “Could I bum one of those?” An unshaven dude in a sauce-stained apron with a dusting of flour along his jaw nodded at the pack.

  Thanks to Yael’s many stories from her years of working in kitchens, it had been a fair assumption that someone in this place was a smoker.

  I held the pack out. “Help yourself.”

  He jammed a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, flicking open his lighter and lit up. He closed his eyes to better savor that first deep drag. “Need a light?” He sparked the flame for me.

  That was the only downside to my plan. Cigarettes were gross. I took the barest drag and then mostly held it.

  He gestured at my press pass. “I can’t talk about what happened.”

  “Sweet Tooth is a really shitty drug,” I said.

  He flicked his tongue over his lips before puffing away some more. “Got that out of the cops?”

  I shook my head. “My friend had a bad experience on it a few days ago. Surgery bad. She assaulted someone, too.” A long column of ash fell onto my open-toed sandals, startling me out of my daze. I ground the tip into the brick wall.

  “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Everyone affected has friends, family. If you could just tell me–”

  He crushed the butt under his shoe. “Sorry.”

  The door to the pizzeria closed behind him with a reverberating thud.

  “Was that just bullshit for the story?” The Indo-Canadian woman watched me from the mouth of the alley with red-rimmed, puffy eyes. “About your friend?”

  “No.” I walked over to her, glad to get away from the garbage. “One of my friends did Sweet Tooth and was fine. The other one?” I shook my head.

  She drew in a shaky breath that racked her slight frame.

  I handed her an unopened water bottle. I’d been taught all kinds of tricks for getting victims or their family and friends to open up. This particular purse held all my props. Yeah, it was kind of cold and manipulative, as was exploiting Naomi’s tragedy, but if this got me to Candyman and made sure that no one else got hurt, I’d be as manipulative as it took.

  “Was it your friend?” I said.

  “Cousin. Jake.” She twisted the cap off but didn’t drink.

  “I’m so sorry. What’s your name?”

  “Harjit.”

  “I’m Nava. Did you take any?” I checked her pupils but didn’t see any dilation.

  “No. It wasn’t my thing. Caffeine junkie, yeah.”

  “Can I buy you one? I mean, it is recess time. I generally need a hit about now.” She mustered up a weak smile, but I could sense her hesitation, so I bulldozed over it. “There’s a café about half a block from here. Blast Brew Bar. You know it?”

  “The hipster place?”

  “Yeah.” I started walking, maintaining eye contact and essentially forcing her to come with me. “They do that handmade, pour-over coffee thing, which yes, is so pretentious, but they’re close.”

  “They’re kind of overpriced.”

  I leaned in conspiratorially. “That’s because they factor in the price of the physio from their carpel tunnel. It’s my treat. Come on. Let me buy you a hot drink and get some sugar into your system. If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to.”

  Harjit nodded, hesitant, but still agreeing to come. The cops had cut her loose for the moment and she looked adrift. She hadn’t immediately gone home so I figured she wanted a chance to steady herself after the loss she’d suffered.

  Not letting up my stream of chatter, I led her over to Blast and got us settled in with coffee and biscotti. The Brew Bar was all distressed wood, copper accents, and caffeine condescension with a massive stainless steel espresso maker focal point. The barista rubbed it down like he was jerking it off.

  I worried my Starbucks-loving ass might be outed and I’d be run out of the place in a flurry of manbunned indignation, but I managed to place my order with enough ennui to make it seem like I belonged.

  True to my word, I powered through my bitter brew, letting Harjit have her space. She broke her biscotti into smaller and smaller pieces until the crumbs mounted on her plate. “I wasn’t even supposed to see Jake today. I’d only met up with him to get on his case for ditching his treatment.”

  “Substance abuse?” I licked my finger and pressed it to the three measly crumbs on my plate. I’d inhaled my biscotti and having gone this far, was committed to leaving no trace.

  She pushed her plate away. “No.”

  “Okay, so you met up and he had already taken the Sweet Tooth?” She nodded. “Was there a sudden shift in his behavior? Like zero to extreme and it was terrifying?”

  She glanced up at me, startled.

  “It’s what happened with my friend,” I said gently.

  “Jake had ordered his pizza, but he didn’t have any cash and I was so mad at him that I didn’t want to pay.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Rocco? The owner? He’s a big guy. He was behind the counter and when he told Jake to come back with money or leave, Jake casually grabbed this decorative vase on the counter and bashed Rocco with it.” Harjit lined up the creamer and sugar bowls. “Then Jake jumped the counter and started stuffing pizza slices in his mouth. He wasn’t even chewing them, just swallowing them down whole. I was freaking out calling
911.”

  “Was Rocco okay?”

  “Yeah. His head was bleeding, but he was conscious. He and the cook tackled Jake but he didn’t seem to care. He fought them for more pizza. He must have eaten two pies.” Her voice caught. “He had a heart attack.” Grief twisted her features, her eyes bleak as they met mine. “It was over so fast.”

  “What was he in treatment for?”

  She closed her eyes, the answer dragged out of her in a rushed breath. “Food addiction.”

  I drove Harjit home, making her promise that she would call the number for counseling that the police had given her. I also checked in on Christina, who was doing better because Naomi was doing better. I got it; Naomi was her Leo. Neither of them were up to visitors yet but she did want to see me at some point.

  I vowed to make more of an effort with friendships. Or have them at all.

  I texted Rohan an address and the words “Meet me?” He texted back his agreement and I gunned my car west.

  I parked my car at the lot on top of Queen Elizabeth Park, nicknamed Little Mountain by Vancouverites, and commandeered a wooden bench on the covered boardwalk that curved around the giant fountain. I stretched out my bare legs, letting the sunshine soak away the despondency of this mission.

  Kids shrieked with laughter as they dodged and splashed in the dozens of jets spouting water in varying heights.

  “Got Drio a ticket for tonight after the drop.” Rohan sat down beside me.

  I nodded, my attention on a little girl, maybe two or three, naked and dancing like a fiend through the plumes of water.

  “Was that you?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t that young when they redid the park and put this fountain in, so no nudity for me. No, wait, I lie. But that was much later and it was a dare.”

  “Leo?”

  “Good guess.” The little girl jumped up and down in the fountain, her laughter shaking her plump belly. I smiled. “Ari and I had many the water fight here.” I stood up, my hand extended. “Come on. I need to be in a happy place right now. I’ll tell you what I learned there.”

  The glass and steel dome of the Bloedel Conservatory rose up from behind the fountain like a perky nipple. We jogged down the short flight of stairs by the large Canadian flag waving in the breeze, and around to the front of the building, hit with the warm, moist air piping out of the dome.

  “Did you ever have a Snoopy Sno Cone Machine?” I said.

  “That thing used to frustrate the fuck out of me. It took half an hour of serious grinding to get a fraction of an inch of ice, but those snow cones looked so cool on TV.”

  “I know. All that effort for basically nothing and you’d be deaf at the end of it.” I nodded at the food truck selling artisan shaved ice parked by the front doors. “They’re charging a fortune. We should start a handmade shaved ice truck, but use those things to make them. Tap into the nostalgia factor.”

  “Sell the interminable wait as half the attraction,” Rohan said, holding the door for me.

  “World domination through ice. And making people smile on a regular basis. That would be a nice change.”

  The world transformed from a sunny Canadian day to a tropical bubble, the humid air fragrant with rich earth and tropical flowers.

  “Rough time with the incident?”

  I nodded and paid our admission and we stepped through the turnstile onto the path marked with one-way directional arrows.

  Rohan craned his neck up to the tree canopy brushing the condensation-streaked glass panels. “Whoa.”

  The flagstone path wove past leafy ferns jutting out of rock beds and Birds of Paradise plants splashing red at our feet, leading us to the small wooden post and rope bridge. Rushing water from a tiny falls splashed into a pool on our right, while on our left was another pond where fat koi swam lazily in ripples of sunlight, framed by spikes of bamboo.

  Blue and red parrots cuddled on a branch next to giant fronds of plantain banana plants that made me feel like I was in A Bug’s Life.

  “You have a destination?” Rohan said, sidestepping the tourists reading instructional notices about the ecosystem.

  “This way.”

  Tiny white hummingbirds swooped and darted by my head, cawing out to the plump orange fuzzball birds flapping past, cheeping. A brilliant blue and gold parrot carving away at a hunk of wood eyed us suspiciously.

  “Did you have a favorite place as a kid?” I asked.

  “My mom’s studio.” Rohan ducked to avoid a blur of brown feathers careening at him. “I fell asleep more times than I could count listening to her and her recording engineer bickering at the soundboard.”

  I led him to a carved wooden gazebo. We sank onto the bench waiting for a family taking selfies to pass by, soaking in the hum of generators, chatter, and twittering escalating in volume from the doves and finches darting overhead.

  Once we had some privacy, I told him about Jake. “The thing that triggers Sweet Tooth? I think it’s an addictive personality. Take Naomi, for example. In college she was into extreme sports. Now she’s a workaholic. When she had her episode she was acting a lot like she did when she was younger: dangerous stunts, not giving a damn about her own safety, going all full tilt. Jake’s compulsive behavior was around food. The drug sparked a serious loss of control in both of them in ways that were fundamental to issues they were already dealing with.”

  “Christina doesn’t have that type of personality?”

  “No. We’ve been lucky that it didn’t adversely affect more people.” Two tiny yellow birds with orange faces frolicked in a rock pool by our feet. “That looks fun,” I said.

  “Do you ever wish you were oblivious to all this?” he asked.

  “Allowed to frolic my way through life?”

  “Something like that.”

  I pulled him to his feet. “No. I did that, remember? Ultimately, I’d rather be the one slaying monsters than the one not knowing to look under the bed.”

  He smiled like my answer pleased him.

  Passing cacti and some plant dripping with fuzzy pink pods, we stopped at the final wooden perch before the exit. I made him say goodbye to Charlotte, the flame-colored parrot with the electric blue neck plumage, inhaled one last breath of the tropics, and headed outside to the hazy panorama of the city spread out before us, over the pine, fir, and cypress trees stretching out to the edge of the park.

  We peeked over the bridge at the top of a tall waterfall, ridged with paths leading down to the manicured gardens below. Neatly landscaped flower beds in a riot of colors were interspersed with a lazy stream and stepping stones. A bevy of brides jostled for the best photo op for their wedding party.

  Passing the fountain once more on our way back to our cars, I spread my arms wide, turning my face to the mist. Rohan swung me up in his arms.

  “Rohan Liam Mitra, don’t you dare.” I tightened my hold on him. “If I go down, you’re coming with me.”

  “That’s cute.” His lips brushed against my ears. “But I know your ticklish spots.”

  Bastard proved it, too. I shrieked, letting go of him to whack his hands away and stop the torture. He took grievous advantage and tossed me into the water. I landed on a jet that fired up–right up my ass.

  Rohan doubled over laughing, half-heartedly fighting me as I dragged him in. Parents smiled indulgently. One cow-licked little guy in a red aqua suit stared at Rohan with wide eyes as my darling boyfriend liberally splashed me with long sweeps of his leg. “Wanna help?” Rohan asked.

  The kid hesitated for a second then let me have it, jumping up and down in a frenzy. Water flew up my nose.

  “That’s it! Water fight!” I corralled a bunch of youngsters onto my team and the war was on. My clothes must have absorbed about seventeen pounds of fountain juice because when I finally sloshed my way out of there, water streamed off me like a river.

  I acked on the hair plastered to my mouth and Rohan snickered. “Shut up. You look like a drowned rat, too.” I popped my trunk, pull
ing out the thick beach blanket that Ari and I kept there along with our first aid supplies and an emergency road kit.

  Rohan shook himself, more dog than rat. “You got another one of those?”

  I closed the trunk and wrapped the blanket around me. “Nope.”

  He sat on the hood of his car, parked next to my Honda, and wrung out his shirt. “I can’t drive back like this. Shelby will get wet.”

  “Isn’t that your dream?” I waggled my eyebrows. “I’m sure you could find somewhere private to service her. Lube her up. Rotate her tires.”

  “Ha. Ha. Come on. Let me use that.”

  “No can do. So sorry.” I pulled the blanket tight around me. “You’re a creative boy. You’ll think of something.” I finger-waved, got in my car, and with a twist of the ignition, roared off.

  11

  The drop was scheduled to take place at 6:30PM in Crab Park, a stretch of green on the edge of Gastown. I stared out the window at the crowds milling on the sidewalks in Vancouver’s downtown east side. It was home to our most marginalized citizens, many of them homeless, drug addicted, or forced to turn to prostitution to survive. After passing one of the open “markets,” with the goods on offer set out on blankets on the grimy sidewalk or stuffed in trash bags and shopping carts, we hit the overpass leading to the waterfront park.

  Chinese stone lions carved in intricate detail flanked each side of the road like sentinels. Beyond it, the Burrard Inlet winked blue in the sunlight.

  Rohan parked my Honda, the more nondescript of our cars, in a small lot across from the park facing a stand of trees. To our left were the train tracks with an endless stretch of parked railcars, and behind that, gentrified condos in retrofitted brick buildings that still bore traces of their original use. Faded ads painted directly on the bricks proclaimed “janitorial supplies” or “wholesale grocers.”

  The most mouthwatering smell of BBQ hit us when we exited the car.

  We looped around to the water side of the park. Shipping containers in rusts and greens were stacked under the towering cranes at the port terminal directly east. There was the occasional distant siren and scrape of metal wheels and pulleys from the cranes.