Cipher

by John Jantunen

  “He clasped his hands together and lent his head towards heaven. It was like the load had been lifted.

  “‘God be praised,’ he whispered, then, as giddy as a schoolboy at Christmas, he put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze and led me to the glass wall overlooking the field. He stared down at the gridiron and from the way his eyes sparkled I knew that he was imagining the roar of the crowd.

  “‘You know I’ve seen every game you’ve played since you were in the ninth grade,’ he told me. ‘You and me are going to make some history.’

  “Standing there beside him, wrapped in the promise of my futurebright, I finally saw the pattern emerge: the truth I was looking for. I knew it was Terrence who’d killed his granddaughter, that was what Desmond had meant when he’d said he’d done something evil and that he deserved what was coming, and that it was Lester Mann who’d taken him that night at the ranch. I saw Terrence tied to a chair, maybe he was even in the stadium, somewhere in the basement, tucked into a corner behind the boiler. His face was bloodied, his limbs twisted, broken, chunks of him were missing, and he was burnt up, just like what they did to that guy at the wrecking yard.

  “I could hardly breathe at the thought of Terrence screaming and begging for death. It was like Lester Mann had reached inside of me and had my heart in his hand and was squeezing the life out of it. If I’d had the gun I would have killed him right there but it was back in my bike, you know, at the station, a world away.

  “‘I-I ought to get going,’ I said and shrugged out from under his arm.

  “Lester startled from his daze and looked over at me like he’d never heard something so outrageous.

  “‘Big news to tell my parents,’ I told him. It was the only thing I could think to say.

  “‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘I understand.’

  “But I could see that he didn’t. There was doubt there in the fade to his smile. He covered for it by holding out his hand. I took it and he gripped me harder than I’d have thought a man his age could have. His smile had flattened and his eyes had narrowed but I could still see that sparkle, deep down in the dark of them.

  “‘History,’ he said.”

  thirty-two

  I was still at the window when the limousine returned Curtis to his motorcycle. The cleaner had left a light on in the hall behind me (a squat woman with a delirious frizz of hair, a Filipino or maybe a Korean with a bad perm, who’d scolded me for almost giving her a heart attack when she turned it on, standing there like some kind of mannequin, she’d said, “It not right mister, no, you should keep the light on, people get the wrong idea,” so she left the light on even though she was the only one who ever went to the third floor after seven o’clock at night). Backlit, I was visible to Curtis as he opened the compartment under his seat and drew out the gun. If he’d looked my way (which he didn’t, fearful perhaps that I would still be there), he would have seen me for what I was: not a ghost at all but a man too tired for his age. He checked the chamber, making sure the round was still there, then stuck the gun in the back of his pants. I watched him mount The Ripper, kick it to life and saw the bike take the corner fast enough to make it seem straight.

  I had a good idea where he was going and what plans he’d laid for the gun. I thought of Greta Hering burning to death in her bathtub. I told myself that maybe it would set things right and tried not to think about what Curtis didn’t know, couldn’t have known unless someone had come right out and told him: that he was wrong about who’d taken Terrence, and also that it wasn’t so easy to kill a person like Lester Mann. If I hadn’t laid my own plans for Curtis and his bullet — his rage and my hope converging into a single intent, the two of us never closer than at that moment — I could have told him these things, and a few more besides.

  I could have told him about Derek Smalls, the boy I let out of the dumpster so many years ago. After I turned him loose he’d stopped stealing from Ruby Yee, he was smart enough for that, but he was still a long way from finding the straight and narrow. He popped up in the system now and again and I made it a point that I was always there to make sure he didn’t find too much grief on this side of it. Now, I’ve read plenty of pulp novels with cops who befriend underage street punks. Usually they’re doing it because of something that’s gone bad deep inside themselves and they’re hoping for a spot of redemption that doesn’t require them to change their corrupted ways. They grab hold of the chunk of goodness they see in some kid a few bad moves away from their own life, thinking that if they set him on the path towards the light it’ll make their own misdeeds sit a little less heavy in their hearts. This all makes for a good story with complex and interesting characters, and maybe it even happens in real life, but it wasn’t why I sprung Derek every time he got brought in for nicking a chocolate bar, or throwing a brick through the window of the store where he’d been caught, or selling joints to his fellow ninth graders.

  I could tell he was a nasty piece of work from the moment I set eyes on him. I knew he was in for a rough ride and eventually it’d kill him, or at least cut him and then he’d have no choice but to strike back, with a knife or a gun, and after that he wouldn’t have to worry about what he was going to do with the rest of his life. I let him go, knowing that one day he’d pay me back, with interest.

  And sure enough, becoming the man I knew he would, I was always the first name on his lips when he found himself in too deep. And so far the arrangement had worked out well enough for both us that even when he wasn’t in trouble but knew something he thought might be useful, he’d call me. And if I needed to know something, I’d call him too and we’d meet, always at the same time and place, both of his choosing: six-thirty in the morning on the path that ran along the banks of Wascana Lake, out in the open for anyone to see (a concern that when I’d mentioned it he’d dismissed, saying that the people I was worried about weren’t up at six in the morning and they didn’t take romantic strolls along the Wascana).

  Unable to sleep the night before, I’d called Derek Smalls and we’d arranged to meet. We walked past ducks and geese, and old men driven out of bed by the way their bones ached, and young people jogging in expensive leisure suits, in pairs or alone, none of whom posed more of a threat than if one of them had bumped into us and spilled the take-out coffees I’d brought. We must have looked like father and son to these sunrise revellers: the only explanation why two men such as ourselves would be walking together this early in the morning. Him in jeans and a black leather jacket, his hair long and tied back out of his face, a hollow in his left cheek made with a ball-peen hammer by someone he mistook for a friend and tattooed spiders crawling up the sides of his neck. Me in a navy jacket and a tie, the respectable one with the burden of having such a son, looking tired and serious.

  I asked him what he knew about Trisha Mann’s kidnapping. He sipped at his coffee and pretended he didn’t hear me, as he always did when I asked him a question straight out.

  Then: “You bring ’em?”

  I fished the paper bag from my pocket and passed it over. He looked inside, inhaled deeply, then took out one of the three black bean balls from Ruby Yee’s and devoured it in two bites.

  “You know, I’ve looked in every store in the damn city for these things. I don’t know why you won’t tell me where you get ’em.”

  I could have told him they were at the one store he’d never check but I thought this might give him a clue so instead I said, “Irony, the driving force behind the modern novel.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m paraphrasing.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Something somebody hasn’t said yet but which fits.”

  There was nothing he could say to that so he ate the remaining balls then crumpled the bag and did a jumper that landed it dead centre in the middle of a waste basket twenty feet away. Finishing his coffee, he punted the cup. It caug
ht the edge of the bank and rolled into the water. We walked for a few more strides then I asked him about Trisha Mann again.

  “That was a fucking mistake.”

  “What?”

  “Taking the girl for ransom.”

  He was stating the obvious but I let it go. It’s how he always started, trying to shake off the residual haze of whatever it was he was doing when I’d called.

  “You know who did it?”

  “That what you wanted to see me about? ’Cause I don’t know shit. Just what I read in the papers, like everyone else.”

  I told him about Walter Hering and Lawrence Madding and Terrence Bell but left out the bits about Curtis Mays. He lit a hand-rolled too scrawny to be a cigarette and blew an acrid-smelling mouthful at the jogger huffing past. Sweat plastered the middle-aged man’s salt-and-peppered hair to his forehead, and the music on the iPod strapped to his arm sounded like a chainsaw. He waved at the smoke but one look at Derek told him all he needed to know about keeping his mouth shut.

  “Crazy motherfucker.”

  “Who?”

  “Walter.”

  “You know him?”

  “Everyone knows Scorch. ’Fact, I ran into him right before that hit-and-run put him in the hospital. I was at a friend’s house. Scorch’d just got out of prison. He showed up wanting to celebrate. He was looking for a girl, you know, a good time.”

  “Did he find it?”

  “Fucked if I know. I was just passing through. Using the bathroom, drink of water, that kind of thing.”

  “I understand.”

  “The next day I heard he’d been hit, couldn’t have been more than two hours after I saw him.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “About who hit him? Heard it was an accident.”

  “And if it wasn’t?”

  “Then it must have been the Indians.”

  “You believe that?”

  “They’re on the warpath, that’s what the paper says.”

  “What’d they have against Walter?”

  Derek shrugged and flicked the roach into the Wascana.

  “You’d have to ask them.”

  “Walter say anything to you?”

  “No. I don’t talk to crazy motherfuckers. Present company excluded.”

  “What about your friend?”

  “Who?”

  “The one you shared with Walter. You didn’t say his name.”

  “Man’s got to have his secrets.”

  I let him savour that one. I could see his mood was improving and that it could only work in my favour.

  “Let’s call him Reggie,” I offered.

  “Reg is better.”

  “Fine.”

  “Ran into him the next day. Reg, I mean, good old Reg. He was the one who told me what happened to Scorch.”

  “He say anything else?”

  “Said Scorch’d told him he had an idea that could make someone a lot of money. Said it was his gift to uh, Reg, for services rendered, you know.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “He asked Reg if he’d heard about Trisha Mann. Who hadn’t, right? ’Course he had. ‘What’s it to you?’ Reg says. Man could make a lot of money if they knew where they were. The kidnappers, he meant.”

  “They were murderers by then.”

  “Whatever. ‘How?’ I asked Reg. Ain’t no reward, that’s what the paper said. Lester Mann refused to have a price put on his granddaughter, which is exactly what Reg said to Scorch. ’Course, I’m paraphrasing here, you understand.”

  “I appreciate it. Man could make a lot of money …”

  “Yeah. It’s one of those lines, makes you stop and listen, even if it’s coming from a crazy motherfucker like Walter Hering.”

  “All you had to know was where the murderers were.”

  “Right. That was his idea. You kidnap the kidnappers. Ransom them to Lester Mann. He gets what he wants, you split the proceeds. Everyone’s happy.”

  “Did he know where they were?”

  “That’s what he told Reg.”

  “Sounds airtight.”

  “Like a sieve.”

  “I take it Reg didn’t bite.”

  “Shit, nobody’d be crazy enough to chew on a plan like that.”

  “What if I told you someone did?”

  “I’d call you a damn liar or a fool, unless …”

  “Unless?”

  “The Dragons. You know them?”

  “Sure.”

  First name Killer. A bunch of white kids from the south end. Strictly small time. They had a connection in B.C., a grower. They used the weed to buy coke. Watched too much kung fu. Wore dark sunglasses so people couldn’t see their eyes were round.

  “And they’d be crazy enough to listen to Walter?”

  “No, but the girl would have been.”

  “The girl?”

  “Ling-Ling. I think her real name’s Amanda. Says her brother’s a Triad, back home. That’s why they had to leave China. Says he’s coming for her someday, you know, a typical bullshit line. The Dragons do whatever she says.”

  “And Walter’d know them?”

  “Regina ain’t that big.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, I got a court date coming up.”

  “Save me a seat, front row centre.”

  “It ain’t a goddamn concert.”

  “It is if you sing.”

  thirty-three

  We continued in this vein for a few more minutes, saying nothing more of importance nor of interest, then parted ways at the statue of a giant bird, an eagle I think, though the artist who carved it called it a thunderbird. Before leaving Derek, frantically searching his pockets for the lighter he’d had two minutes ago but that had since disappeared, I didn’t tell him that I knew all about Amanda Ling. A man’s got to have his secrets, he was right about that.

  I’d met her uncle at Ruby Yee’s about six months before Trisha Mann went missing. He was at the counter one morning when I went to pick up my allotment, waving his arms and screaming in Chinese, frothing at the mouth, giving every indication that he didn’t care that he was making me late for work. He was a small man, thin so that his grey pinstriped suit hung on him like it would on a wire coat hanger, and had a flap of hair weighed down with oil that resembled a dead fish flopping over his brow with every gesticulation. Ruby sat on her stool, adding the odd tsk or the shake of her head to tell him that she was listening, not once throwing me a glance, even when I set my brown paper bag on the counter and put a twenty beside it. Finally, the man ran out of steam, his spit peppering the digital display on the cash register and dribbling down his chin, breathing heavy like a racehorse spooked by a mouse, and she turned to me.

  “You a cop. What you say?”

  I couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked me straight in the eye and I took my time answering, savouring every blink and flutter that she gave me.

  “I guess, if I spoke Cantonese, I’d have to say you’re fucked.”

  Ruby’s brow furrowed, and for a moment I thought I’d overstepped my bounds, using the word I did and her looking so delicate. But then she tilted her head back and let out one loud, ‘Ha!,’ which was as close to a laugh as I’d ever heard from her.

  “You a funny man.”

  She said something in Cantonese to the other, whose name I would shortly learn was Mr. Ling. From the stark expression of disdain I got from him, I know she must have given him a literal translation. He barked at me then pushed roughly past on his way to slamming the door.

  “Mr. Ling very serious.”

  “I see.”

  “Brother die in China. Killed dead. Bang bang. You know?”

  “Bang bang, I know.”

  “Sister-in-law come with family. Two daughters.
He pay. He always paying. Ah, he rich, he can afford. He mad at his niece. She bad girl. Bad bad. No work, but always money. Lot of money. But no pay for food, no pay for house. Only clothes and music and car. He go on and on.”

  “I heard.”

  “‘Why she always have so much money?’ he ask me. I Ruby Yee, I say, what do I know?”

  “Right.”

  “She call Mr. Ling a bad name. Very bad, so Mr. Ling hit her. Not so hard, I think. Mr. Ling not a strong man. Arms like chop sticks … Still, she run away. Now she won’t come home. Mother worried. She not … with Mr. Ling. He very angry. You find?”

  “Huh?”

  “Her name, Amanda. Friends call her Ling-Ling. So?”

  “You want me to bring her home.”

  “No. You not listen. You are bad listener.”

  She muttered something then pounded her fist on the display of scratch-and-win lottery tickets.

  “You listen.”

  “I listen.”

  “No time for jokes, Mr. Funny Man.”

  I gave her my best professional frown and she continued.

  “Mr. Ling very mean. He hit Amanda, hit sister, hit mother. He not strong but sometime he use belt, sometime he use stick. Her mother, friend. Very good friend. Best friend maybe, you understand?”

  “Yes. And after everything this Mr. Ling’s done for her she won’t press charges.”

  “Charges. No.”

  “Got it.”

  And I really thought I had. I saw it all coming together, like Curtis caught between two elevator rides.

  “So you want me to find Amanda and get her to press charges against Mr. Ling?”

  More curses in Cantonese but this time instead of hitting the lottery display she pinched the loose flap of skin on top of my hand. My first instinct was to jerk it away but it was the only time she’d ever touched me on purpose, and sting or not, it was a little bit of heaven.

  “Pay attention! Amanda hate cops. Say nothing to cop. Mr. Ling only one she hate more than cops. She so angry, she kill Mr. Ling. Amanda in jail, my friend back to China, bad for everyone.”