Julian

by William Bell

  “I hope God heard that,” was all she said.

  After all the light had faded from the sky I lay down next to Ninon, her back against my chest, her head under my chin, and covered us as well as I could with the blanket. Her slender body was warm and moved rhythmically as she breathed. Her hair smelled of sunlight. I held her that way for a long time. In the sky above the water heat lightning flickered behind the massed clouds like fireflies in the dark.

  PART THREE

  MARIKA

  … and then, ’stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I’d go down the river … and camp in one place for good, and not have such a rough time.…

  —Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

  FIFTEEN

  I WAS LATE FOR WORK Monday morning, skulking through the door under Mrs. Altan’s steely eyes and Gulun’s black scowl. He grumbled a promise to dock my pay. I didn’t care; I was riding high after my day with Ninon even though there had been a small glitch when we parted at the ferry dock earlier that morning. The sky had cleared overnight and the morning breeze was cool and clean. I asked if we could meet in the afternoon and she gave me one of her slippery replies.

  “I don’t want to smother you,” I reassured her. “I had a good time yesterday.”

  “Me too,” she replied, her eyes shifting to the side.

  “So. Meet you at the park? Maybe?”

  “Okay. But not today.”

  “Can I give you my address?” I asked her.

  “Um, not right now. But I’ll see you soon.”

  I figured Ninon was reluctant to be pinned down because she didn’t want me to know she was living—at least most of the time—at the mission. I forced myself to be patient, not to push her. If I put pressure on, she might disappear for good.

  But it was frustrating. There was no method to contact her. I had a phone now but was only allowed to use it for Chang business. Besides, if I called the mission she’d know I was aware that she stayed there.

  I was stacking canned vegetables on the shelves near the street door when Gulun’s stony words interrupted my thoughts. “You gonna daydream or you gonna work?” he shouted from the cash register.

  “I am working. What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you not be late!” he yelled, louder.

  I stood up and walked to the counter, where he was jamming lottery tickets into the pockets of a display.

  “How about not screaming across the store at me, okay? I said I was sorry for being late. I’ll stay a couple of extra hours today.”

  “Words don’t mean nothing,” he snapped.

  I turned back to work, holding in my anger, slashing open a carton with my box cutter. I whacked the cans onto the shelf, label to the front. Neat rows. When I had emptied the last carton I hauled it and the other empties to the back room.

  Wearing a dark cardigan, Mrs. Altan was sitting at a small table she sometimes used as a desk, jotting numbers into a ledger with a stub of pencil. When I tossed the cartons to the floor she looked up from her accounts.

  “Don’t be angry at him,” she said.

  Her face, on most days creased by anxiety, seemed softened, even sad. I didn’t reply to her.

  “You remind him of our son,” she said.

  Does he yell at him, too? I wondered.

  “I didn’t know you had a son.”

  The Altan family was a closed book to me. They could have had a dozen relatives stashed in the upstairs apartment for all I was aware, although even one extra person would have stretched the place to its limits. The apartment was the same size as the store.

  “When we leave Turkey,” Mrs. Altan replied, “our son stay behind with my sister’s family until we can get a start here. Gulun don’t want to leave him but I say it will be alright. We come first, save our money. But when the time come and we send for him it’s too late. The rules all different. His papers expired and now he might have to go in army. He’s big young man, strong, your size, also your age. Eighteen.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t eighteen but Julian’s birth certificate said I was.

  “And he is our only child,” she added. She sighed, straightened her back. “You are good boy, Julian. We know.”

  I went back to work, sweeping out the store and, for good measure, the sidewalk in front. When I stepped back inside Gulun was ringing up a sale. The customer brushed past me as Gulun recited his customary “Thanks. Come again.”

  I stood in front of the counter. When Gulun turned my way I said, “I apologize for being late. And I’m sorry about your son.”

  Gulun’s face went blank. He swallowed. Then his chin began to quiver.

  “God willing, you will meet him someday,” he said quietly. “Here.”

  And just as quickly he composed himself. “I forget to tell you,” he said, businesslike again. “Mr. Curtis ask me to say go and see him today if you can.”

  Curtis was on the phone when I got to his office. He uttered a long sentence sprinkled with legal terms I didn’t understand, then dropped the handset into its cradle.

  “Thanks for dropping by. Good weekend?”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re looking hale and healthy.”

  I couldn’t think of anything other than “You too.”

  He put his smile on. “Interested in a little job?”

  It didn’t take him long to scare up a client with a missing kid, I thought.

  “Depends.”

  “Always the cautious one,” he commented after a forced laugh.

  I figured I’d cut him off before he started the sales pitch. “I’ve thought it over. I can’t help you find runaways.”

  “Run … No, no! This is something else. But what we talked about before—your youth—will still be a key advantage here, too. That’s why I thought you’d be the ideal person.”

  That took me by surprise. “Oh,” I managed.

  “Let me fill you in, see what you think. What do you say?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, here it is. Do you know what a peace bond is?”

  “Somebody can’t go near somebody else, and if he does, the cops pick him up.”

  Curtis was nodding.

  “If they’re not too busy,” I added.

  This time his chuckle was genuine. “Exactly! Which brings me to the job. A peace bond is imposed by a judge if the court thinks an individual is a threat to another individual. In this case the parents of a young woman are concerned their daughter’s ex-boyfriend may hurt her. They persuaded her to swear out the bond. Apparently he has a history of abusing her—verbally and, at least once according to the father, physically. Hence the bond, and the parents’ concern. Clear so far?”

  “Crystal.”

  “Now, here’s where it gets a little complicated. The young lady is over eighteen. This means that, legally, this is all none of her parents’ business, so to speak. Therefore we need to remember: it’s mom and dad who came to me for help and retained me, not the woman. I got the impression from them that she wouldn’t be too grateful for their role in this.”

  “Retained you. That means hired you, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the daughter’s attitude? How will she react if she finds out her parents are interfering?”

  “She mustn’t find out.”

  “But isn’t she the one to choose the best way to handle the problem? It’s her life. It’s—he was—her boyfriend.”

  “All true, Julian. All true.”

  “So …”

  “The parents think she’s being naive. Given enough time, they believe, he’ll hurt her, or worse. God knows there’re lots of examples in the news every week. Are you aware that most murdered women are killed by men they know? And many or most of those men had once had a relationship with the woman they attacked?”

  “No, I wasn’t,” I admitted. “Listen, if this is so serious why bring me in? I don’t know anything about all this stuff. I can’t be a bodyguard.”

  Curtis held u
p his hands, palms outward, as if to ward me off. “Whoa, Julian. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. You’d do one thing and one thing only: track the guy and if he gets close to her—”

  “Take pictures.”

  “Exactly. Don’t interfere. Don’t intervene. Don’t let either of them know you’re on the scene. And if this guy tries to hurt her, call 911 like any citizen would. Just make sure you remain undercover.”

  “What good would photos be?”

  “They’d be ammunition I can use on behalf of the parents to get the cops to bring the guy in. See, a peace bond is a legal document. If the guy breaches the conditions, that’s a crime, and anyone can report a crime. If someone reports on the parents’ behalf, that adds weight and the police will have to move quickly. We hope.”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  “So you’ll help?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Excellent.”

  Curtis made to stand.

  “But I have a condition.”

  He sat back down, spread his hands. “Okay, shoot.”

  “I want a smartphone I can keep, not a loaner. Registered in your name, paid for by you. Second, I need you to set up a dedicated e-mail address that can’t be traced to me. I’ll send any photos I get to there, then erase them from the phone.”

  Curtis thought for a moment. “That’s all?”

  I nodded.

  “Done. I’ll courier the phone and background information on the young man and woman to you tomorrow.”

  In the subway en route to Grange Park I thought about the job I’d accepted—following a stranger and documenting him if I found him near his ex-girlfriend. Technically, I supposed, he’d be violating the bond even if he got close enough to call out to her. He didn’t have to do anything. I wasn’t blind to the fact that not long ago I tailed Ninon after she made it clear she didn’t want me to know where she was going or where she lived. No, I hadn’t threatened or abused her. I cared about her, but still. It was a betrayal of trust. My gut burned with shame. I almost left the train to go home, but I kept my seat, captured by thoughts of Ninon and the scent of sunlight on her skin.

  “I’m getting a cellphone soon,” I told Ninon, omitting the fact that I already had one.

  We were sitting on a bench in Grange Park, eating ice cream cones—chocolate for me, butterscotch for her—and trying to stay ahead of the effects of the heat, our fingers gooey, the little napkins that came with the cones a soggy mess.

  “Oh,” she replied, devoting her attention to the ice cream running across her knuckles.

  “Yeah. I’ll give you the number and you can call me. If you want to, that is.”

  “Okay.”

  She tossed her sodden napkin into the bin beside the bench and began to suck on her fingers. “There’s a Monet exhibit at the gallery soon.”

  “Who?”

  “He was an Impressionist.”

  A dim light glowed briefly in my brain. “Oh, like Van Gogh.”

  “Vincent was a Post-Impressionist, but close enough. Anyway, want to come?”

  “Definitely.”

  Ninon slung on her bag. “Good. It opens next Sunday. Now, I gotta go. Thanks for the cone.”

  “This time,” I joked, “maybe you should buy a ticket.”

  She gave me a lopsided smile. “It’s free on Sunday.”

  SIXTEEN

  WHEN I WENT TO BED that night my room was hot and close. Rainfall woke me, a steady whisper at my open window, a hushed gurgle in the eavestroughs. I lay on my back, wondering what had disturbed my sleep. Then I focused on it: the hiss of tires on the wet road outside. The vehicle slowed and turned into the driveway below. The engine died. Doors opened and closed with the minimum of noise.

  Quickly I crept out of bed, pulled on my shorts, tiptoed to the door of my apartment. I let myself out and stole down the stairs and sat on the third step from the bottom. Anyone who came in through the door to the garage wouldn’t see me. But I’d hear them.

  A moment later, a key in the lock. Whispering, in Chinese. Two men and a woman. The doors to the single rooms opened and closed softly. Likewise the entry back into the garage. A moment later, out in the driveway, the car started up, reversed, drove away. It was all over in minutes. I waited awhile, then stole down the hallway and stood still. A line of light under each door, a few thumps, a toilet flushing. Then nothing.

  No further ahead, I padded upstairs and went back to bed.

  In the morning I got up an hour earlier than usual and took the hoe from the toolshed in the yard. The ground under the windows of the downstairs rooms didn’t really need reworking, but the new guests wouldn’t know that. The morning sun sparkled on the wet grass; the air smelled of blossoms and rain. I hummed and whistled, hoping to attract attention, to see a curtain move, a face in a window. After almost an hour of completely unnecessary work and bad music I was rewarded.

  A disembodied hand appeared, gripping the edge of a curtain, which unhurriedly moved aside. In the gap, most of a face, enough to show a long braid of black hair, a broad forehead and a bandage covering a swollen nose. Then face and hand disappeared as the curtain fell back into place.

  Satisfied that I’d see no more, I put the hoe away and headed off to the QuickMart.

  Around mid-morning a bicycle courier pushed through the door of the store, put a fat lumpy envelope on the counter and asked for a signature. It was from Curtis. I carried it to the back room and laid it on the table without opening it, enjoying the frustrated curiosity Gulun was trying mightily not to show.

  I got home at the usual time, took a quick sneak along the downstairs hall on the off chance I’d see or hear something. A waste of time. In my kitchen I made a sandwich, poured myself a glass of orange juice, then sat down and slit the package open with my box cutter. A smartphone tumbled out—scratched and obviously used—along with a charger and fresh SIM card. There was also a file folder. Curtis had put together a dossier including notes and photos of both Marika and the ex, Jason Plath.

  After inserting the card, I plugged in the charger and left the phone on the kitchen counter. I opened the folder, put aside the pics and began to read. Marika Rubashov, age nineteen, university student in the faculty of pharmacology, presently enrolled in summer courses to speed up her journey toward a degree. Broke up with Jason just after Christmas. Plath was at a community college in the city: computer repair, which the course catalogue described as computer “engineering.”

  The peace bond had been issued a little more than a month ago, around five months after the breakup that Plath would not accept. He had defied the order twice but Marika Rubashov hadn’t informed the police. Why not? I wondered as I munched the last of my sandwich.

  In his notes Curtis reminded me that he had been retained by Rubashov’s parents, not Marika herself, and Marika didn’t know that. Obviously, Curtis added, as if I couldn’t have figured it out for myself, Plath didn’t either.

  In her photos, Marika was dark-haired, average height and build, not pretty but not plain. Her closed-in facial expressions suggested shyness, or maybe a lack of confidence. Plath was blondish, rail thin, tall. His long face wasn’t exactly sunny. In all three of the pics he looked as if he thought the photographer was putting one over on him.

  I bundled up the photos and papers, stuffed them back in the envelope and went for a run. While I loped along the hot streets south of my neighbourhood I worked out a plan for my new task and came up with an idea. I stepped inside a little café and used the public phone to call Curtis. When he answered I told him I needed a copy of Marika’s course schedule at the university.

  “You’re supposed to watch him, not her,” he objected.

  “The easiest way to catch him harassing Marika is to watch her.”

  There was a pause. “Good point. I’ll get you the schedule.”

  When I ran I’d normally fall into a rhythm and lose track of time, floating along with my thoughts, and today was no different. But my thoughts w
ere prickly. Working out my method of observing Jason’s behaviour led me to wonder what kind of jerk pesters a girl who has already broken up with him. Okay, breaking up hurts; everybody knows that. You might try to put things back together but eventually you have to face facts. Hanging around someone who doesn’t want you there is pathetic.

  Was it me rather than Jason I was thinking about? Was I the fool?

  Before I knew it I was close to home. I slowed, jogging loosely to cool down. My tank top, drenched with perspiration, clung to my torso, and sweat trickled from the tips of my hair onto my ears. The unshaded stretches of the road surface shimmered with heat, and sunlight splintered on the windows of parked cars.

  I turned onto my street about a block north of the house. In the distance, a couple of guys bounced a basketball back and forth, making their way up the centre of the road. Nearer the house they broke off and cut between the cars standing along the curb. One of them bungled his pass and the ball, on the rise from the bounce, thumped the grille of a small hatchback. There was a man in the driver’s seat of the car, a newspaper spread across the steering wheel. The ball players laughed and carried on up a driveway.

  Something about the scene wasn’t right.

  Instinctively I jogged past my house, eyes front, and turned onto the first side street I came to. I circled around and came at the house from the back, slipping up the driveway and entering the garage, then the door into the downstairs hall.

  There were two things wrong with the street scene, now that I’d had time to think. The man hadn’t reacted when the basketball struck his car. He hadn’t even looked up. Second, the car windows were up and the engine wasn’t running—therefore, neither was the air conditioner. Who sits in a closed car on a hot day reading the paper?

  In my apartment I avoided the front window. I took a shower, dressed, slipped along the living room wall and peered around the window frame. The man was still there. He was clean-cut, Asian, mid-thirties, wearing a light blue golfing shirt. He had a clear view of the house from his vantage point—which didn’t mean, I told myself, that he was staking out this particular place. But what if he was? I carried a chair from the kitchen to the window, then got a pencil and my notebook from my desk. I jotted down his license plate number, and the exact time and date. Should I call Chang? Would he think I was silly? Imagining things? I settled in to watch.