Last of the Independents

by Sam Wiebe

  “Dear God,” Ben said. He made the sign of the cross over me as I mimed being dead.

  The tinted windows of the Blue Papaya had been trimmed with paper pumpkins. A gauze cobweb hung over the door. The inside was lit partly by blue neon, and the chairs and tablecloths were black. Sarah McLachlan emoted from the speakers flanking the bar. I nodded to the hostess, a bottle blonde of advancing years, and followed her through the swinging doors into the muggy kitchen.

  Off to the right, down a narrow hallway made narrower by two freezers, was an office, little more than a doorless cubbyhole. A cigarette-burned desk held an old beige and grey computer and an even older dot matrix printer, which spewed out faded type in intermittent screeches. There was room for two chairs. One of these was taken up by a stout dark-haired woman with an inscrutable face and eyes that sized you up and dismissed you without registering the slightest emotion. If I’d stuck out my hand and said “My name’s Mike, what’s yours?” her response would have been at most a shrug of indifference. Probably not even that.

  “Crittenden,” I said.

  “Not here.”

  “Where would he be, then? He asked to see me.”

  She glowered. Behind me a server ran past with a steaming platter of noodles and seafood. The kitchen smelled of bean soup. Clouds of flour and starch drifted through the beams of harsh light from the neon overheads. The floor was tacky.

  We held each others’ gaze until I sneezed and she shot back in her chair, in a way that might have been warranted if I’d unholstered a gun. Her chair hit the back wall, dislodging papers from the wobbly shelf behind her head.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Haven’t felt like myself since that last trip out to my brother’s swine and chicken farm. Think I might’ve picked up some type of flu.” I coughed, bringing my hand to my mouth seconds too late, then wiping my mouth and using that hand to prop myself in the doorway. “Any chance you could find Crittenden for me?”

  She sprang out of the chair and squeezed past me. I watched her weave through the crowded kitchen and head up a tight spiral staircase in the corner behind the deep fryers. As she ascended, she was wiping imaginary germs off the sleeves of her fur-lined leather overcoat.

  Eventually she came down trailed by a thin caucasian with silver-blond hair. He wore a herringbone sweater, navy slacks, thin gold chains around his neck tucked inside the collar of the dress shirt he wore beneath the sweater. He had rough hands and a creased face. His silver and bronze beard was a week’s growth past being well-groomed, which may have been the fashion he was shooting for. His grey eyes regarded me benevolently. Behind the manners was an indifference that gave me the sense that Lloyd Crittenden had killed people, deliberately and up close.

  “You’re early,” he said. “Would you like to talk up in my office, or would you prefer a booth in the restaurant? Have you eaten yet?” He turned towards an Asian man who was dumping a box of frozen squid into a deep fryer basket. Crittenden said something in Chinese to the man. Then he touched my sleeve and motioned me back to the dining room.

  He sat in the corner booth facing the street and I took up the chair across from him. With easy cheerfulness he said, “How do you feel about a nice single malt?”

  “I’m more of a bourbon man,” I said. “But it’s like Faulkner said: between Scotch and nothing I’ll take Scotch.”

  He grinned. “I think we can accommodate you.” He pointed past my head to a bottle on the shelf behind the bar. The barman nodded. Turning back to me, Crittenden said, “Faulkner fan, are you?”

  “Not particularly, but I went to college.”

  “One of my great regrets,” he said. “When your father’s a commercial fisherman and his father’s a commercial fisherman, you don’t put as much value in education as you should. I did have an aptitude for history. I could have been good at it, I think.”

  “You’re fluent in Cantonese,” I said. “That’s a feat. Just the other day I was thinking I should learn Mandarin.”

  “It’s the business language of the future,” Crittenden said. “My family’s from Macau, so both dialects are second nature. One of the benefits of colonialism.”

  “At least for the colonizers.”

  The barman abandoned his post long enough to bring over a decanter of amber whiskey and a carafe of water. Crittenden himself built the drinks.

  “Basil-Haden,” he said. “The Reserve. What should we drink to?”

  “The confusion of our enemies,” I said.

  He held his glass up to mine. “That could be a tall order, Michael.”

  “Long list of enemies?”

  “No,” he said, “only that there might be some overlap between one’s enemies and another’s employees or friends.”

  I took a sip of bourbon. Christ, it was good. Lloyd Crittenden knew how to mix a drink.

  “I don’t think it has to go that way,” I said. “We’re both here to make a buck. There’s no reason everyone can’t come out ahead.”

  Crittenden nodded as if seriously considering this. “At whose expense are we profiting?”

  “My client’s. Atero knows something about a missing kid. My client’s a well-off family member who wants to see the kid returned.”

  I dug in my pocket, aware that this garnered the attention of the two men in the booth to my left. I came out with Madame Thibodeau’s card and flipped it onto the table.

  “I work with this quack psychic,” I said. “She snags grieving relatives, puts them on the installment plan. I supply details that she can pull out of thin air. Some of these marks she strings along for months, even years.”

  Crittenden nodded. “It sounds lucrative,” he said. “How does Zachary Atero fit in?”

  I explained what I knew about Django Szabo’s disappearance and Atero’s connection. I said, “This rich relative’s starting to think my partner’s a fraud. She went to the metaphysical well one time too often, and now he’s saying there’s no more dough without results.”

  “There will be others.”

  “He’s also saying the reward for the kid is a cool seventy five.”

  “Thousand.”

  “Maybe that’s chicken feed to you,” I said, “but say I get him up to a hundred fifty? Or higher?”

  Crittenden finished his drink. “How exactly would you accomplish that?”

  “Simple,” I said. “Atero turns the kid over to me. I mail one of the kids’ garments to the rich uncle, maybe douse it with a little red dye first. We make the uncle think the kid’s in dire peril, then arrange it so it looks like I saved the kid at the last minute. Once I get the money, we split it between us and go our separate ways.”

  “You, me, your partner, and Zachary.”

  “Long as I get mine, I’m happy leaving my partner out. How you divide your and Atero’s shares is none of my business.”

  Crittenden nodded. “It sounds lucrative,” he repeated. “Unfortunately, Michael, I’ll have to pass. Another drink?”

  “If you’re having one. Why exactly do you have to pass?”

  “Because,” he said, “I don’t believe a word of what you’ve said. I don’t believe Clifford Szabo could be called a ‘rich relative’ by even the most generous definition of the term. I don’t believe you’d seriously entertain any kind of partnership with this psychic, and if you had, you wouldn’t locate your office in such a ramshackle building, with such little attention paid to looking legitimate. And,” he said, setting the refreshed drink in front of me, “pardon me for offering a judgment of your character based on the short time we’ve been conversing, but you’re not capable of that kind of deception. I didn’t go to college, but I’m a great reader of faces. I can tell from yours that you’re neither a killer nor a scoundrel.”

  I drank my bourbon, trying to mimic the calm Crittenden exuded.

  “Not that you’d be a pushover if it came to a quarrel,” he added. “I don’t doubt that you’d be formidable. But you don’t enjoy hurting others.”

  “And yo
u do?” I asked.

  “Not especially,” he said. “Like you, I want to make a living with as little interference as possible. But I have come into contact with that species of cruelty. Do you know Gregor Hess?”

  I nodded.

  “Gregor is a lifelong friend of my wife’s uncle, ever since Anthony owned his first nightclub. Back when he was on the circuit, Gregor would come there after every fight to celebrate. When his pro career ended, Anthony made sure he was never out of work, and that Gregor’s kids always had new clothes for school.”

  “Good to have friends like that when you’re serving time.”

  “My point is,” Crittenden said, “I’ve seen Gregor extract a man’s eyeball from his skull with no more compunction than either of us would have taking an egg from a carton. Actions like that have a tendency to write themselves onto a person’s face. You can look at Gregor and know instantly what he’s capable of. Your face lacks that.”

  “Say it does,” I said. “Say all I’m interested in is the safe return of the kid. Putting aside the bullshit, what would it take to get him back?”

  “Frost on hell, I’m afraid.”

  I finished my drink.

  “Zak Atero bragged about knowing you,” I said. “It’s been my experience that juiced-in people don’t have to brag.”

  “An astute observation.”

  “Atero doesn’t act like a sadist or a pederast. From talking with him I get the idea the kid’s still alive.”

  “Could very well be,” Crittenden said.

  Could very well be.

  “So what’s the motivation for keeping him from his father?” I asked. “How do you benefit at all?” I threw my hands up and leaned back in the chair. “That’s what baffles me.”

  “Your mistake,” he said, “is in thinking I’m involved in any way.” He gestured around the room. “As you said, what would it profit me? The whole business turns my stomach, as I’m sure it does yours.”

  “So?”

  “I have no interest in becoming part of this. I don’t know what Zachary Atero does in his off hours. I don’t want to know. Between us, he’s not the most intelligent young man, and he’s fighting his battles with substance abuse. It’s not my place to interject myself in his affairs.”

  “I can respect that,” I said. “But I need to find out what Atero knows. So what we have to do is come up with a way for me to do my job without imposing on yours.”

  Crittenden shook his head. “I appreciate the overture, but I can’t allow you to harass Zachary again.”

  “He can’t be worth that much to you,” I said. “Or the aggravation I’d cause.”

  “He’s not. You described him aptly, someone on the fringes who likes to brag. But his brother Theo is a friend, among other things. Theo isn’t a man who needs to brag.” He rapped his knuckles on the table. “That is how things lie, and it’s unlikely to change.”

  “You know I can’t leave off him,” I said.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to.”

  “Or?”

  He stood up, still smiling that avuncular smile. “Let’s not demean ourselves by trading insults. Nice meeting you, Michael.”

  Crittenden shook my hand and passed through the kitchen doors. A large man with a shaved head held the front door for me. After knocking back the rest of my drink, I walked out into an afternoon downpour.

  Nothing about Crittenden made sense. I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something empty about his threat. Doubtless he had the muscle. He’d mentioned Hess and Chow, both tough men. But they were both in jail. How much juice did Crittenden really have? Was he under pressure from someone else?

  It bothered me that I’d already assumed I’d defy him.

  I stood outside and let the rain wash down the collar of my coat, dispersing the bourbon fog. As I enjoyed the regional pastime — getting wet — a black cargo van pulled up. It was tricked out with a grille, a winch, and a rack of lights. ARIES SECURITY was emblazoned on the door. Out stepped Roy McEachern, sandy-haired and square-jawed, an umbrella billowing out from his hand as he moved toward me.

  “Cats and dogs, ain’t it?” he said.

  XIV

  Ramrod, Wreckage, and Ruin

  The inside of McEachern’s van smelled of warm beef and garlic butter. He swept a pile of papers from the passenger’s seat and placed his foil-wrapped lunch on the dash. I climbed in. As we reached the Granville Street Bridge I watched a group of joggers in matching red spandex pull up, huddle and start back the way they came, beaten by the downpour.

  “How’s your grandmother?” McEachern asked me.

  “Doing good. She had a nice Thanksgiving.”

  “And how’re things at the office?”

  “It’s still there,” I said.

  “Can’t ask for more than that, now, can you?” He followed Granville to Broadway, taking a circuitous route to my grandmother’s house. As we crawled up Laurel he veered left and circled Douglas Park, empty save for two kids in rain slickers and galoshes playing kickball in the empty concrete pool.

  “Remember losing your trunks there one summer?” McEachern laughed. “Your granddad and me are sitting on the porch drinking Crown, and you come walking up that street stark naked.”

  “First of all I didn’t lose them. Jenny Qiu told me her beret fell to the bottom of the pool. When I dove down to find it, she slid them off and hid them.”

  That patronizing smile. “Easy, Mike, not trying to make light of you.”

  “Exactly what you’re doing.”

  He sighed, oh the young and their delusions. “Believe it or not, I had other reasons for coming to see you.”

  “Which I’m sure you’ll get around to when you’re ready.”

  Wind rattled the laurel bushes along the avenue. A sheet of water ran down McEachern’s windshield. The wipers beat a stately 3/4 tempo on the glass.

  “You met with Lloyd,” he said as he passed Laurel and circled the park again.

  “Lloyd. Yeah, I met with Lloyd. Is Lloyd a friend of yours?”

  “I know him through his boss,” McEachern said.

  “Anthony Chow.”

  “I’m not hitting the links with him, but we do business, yeah.”

  “Knowing his business landed Chow in prison.”

  “That doesn’t taint the legitimate work I do,” McEachern said. “And it’s not like it wouldn’t get done regardless. There’s a host of ex-cops eager to take my place.”

  “So if you don’t feel guilty, then what are you doing here?”

  “Keeping a promise,” he said. “Or trying to, if you’ll listen. You look at this with some sense of perspective, you’ll find out I’m not the enemy, Mike.”

  “No,” I said. “Just a guy who works for a guy who’s keeping a father from his son.”

  McEachern’s expression: sadness and disapproval and maybe a little pride. “So what did he say?”

  “Crittenden? That if I pressed Atero he’d press back.”

  “He means it,” McEachern said.

  “You think?”

  He pulled to the curb, leaving the engine running and the wiper blades pounding out their waltz. The lights in the Douglas Park Community Centre were burning. I wondered if they still ran karate classes there like the one I’d taken as a kid.

  “Your granddad and I had run-ins with people who worked for Anthony Chow,” McEachern said, “including Gregor Hess. Only man I ever saw your granddad size up like he knew he couldn’t take him.”

  “And here you are years later,” I said. “My grandfather’s dead, Hess and Chow are in jail, and you’re working for Chow’s son-in-law. You ascribe that to cosmic irony or your own ability to raise the spirits of the people you work for?”

  “I work for myself,” McEachern corrected. “And I won’t hear anymore shit from you. I do business with Chow companies — security, background checks. Why not? If I shunned every dollar that came from a somewhat shady deal, I’d be in the streets.”

 
Twisting his body to look at me.

  “Goddamnit, Mike, this superior attitude of yours. I offered to take you on, and not just ’cause you’re Jacob’s grandkid, either. Because I know you got the aptitude for it. You throw that in my face. Fine. I think, Okay, couple years of being on his own might do him some good. Might help him ditch some of the fanciful notions he’s picked up. I got another eight years of this, tops. I know I could sell the business to Schuster or Sidhu, but I still hold out hope for you, Mike.”

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “Right.” He heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes the way Katherine sometimes does. “On account of your granddad is the only reason I don’t put you out of business, and believe me, I could.”

  “Could you?” I opened the door. “Thanks for the annual lecture, Roy. Same time next year.”

  “Hold up,” he said, touching the collar of my coat. I shrugged his hand away. “Listen to me,” he implored.

  I shut the door, folded my hands on my lap. Looked over at him expectantly, cocked my head sarcastically.

  “I hit a similar snag with the Szabo case,” he said. “Wasn’t just financial, why I broke it off with him. I took a look at the paperwork behind Imperial Pawn, their business license, lease agreements. If you know how to read a paper trail, you can find things out you can’t otherwise.”

  I nodded, cursing myself for not thinking of that. I made a mental note to write a real note for the office wall: JUST BECAUSE IT’S NOT ONLINE DOESN’T MEAN IT’S NOT OUT THERE.

  McEachern said, “Turns out Lloyd’s wife, Chow’s daughter-in-law, sits on the board of a venture finance company which leant Mr. Ramsey a five-figure sum to renovate the store.”

  “So once you saw Susan Chow’s name, you torpedoed the investigation?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t torpedo shit. I worked it until I was out of options and Szabo was a month remiss. What I didn’t do, Mike, is intentionally pick a fight with Lloyd Crittenden.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with your friend Lloyd,” I said. “But I’d like fifteen minutes in a locked room with Zak Atero and a phone book.”