Cut You Down

by Sam Wiebe

  “Why I remember that woman,” Brar said, “is because she canceled her booking to Costa Rica, then make it again.”

  She showed me the itineraries and a photocopy of a check. Two passengers on a June flight to San Jose, Tabitha Eleanor Sorenson and Sabar S. Gill. Same flight, adjacent seat numbers. The first booking paid for by credit card, then canceled, the second booking by corporate check. The company’s name was Mi Mundo and it had a Kingsway address.

  I tapped Gill’s name. “He come in with her?”

  Bhavya Brar said, “First time, he give his details over the phone. Second time we copy paste.”

  I asked her for a copy of the check. As we headed to the parking lot, Kay said, “‘My World.’ That’s what Mi Mundo translates as.”

  “You’ll have to follow up on this,” I said. “I’ve got to meet someone later.”

  “Fine,” Kay said. “But if you have to go look for them in Costa Rica, you’re not leaving me behind.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Mi Mundo was a paper company, incorporated by Tabitha Sorenson in March before she disappeared. It held no assets and the corporate headquarters was a post office box in a Shoppers Drug Mart. No company taxes had ever been filed.

  At eight o’clock I walked home to my flat on East Broadway. I cooked a veggie patty and served it over rice with a can of green beans, smothering the mess in sriracha. After choking that down, I poured a tumbler of Bulleit bourbon and spun a Muddy Waters record. Drinking TNT and smoking dynamite. When it was time for the shift change, I phoned Sonia and told her I needed to see her.

  She still had her key and she let herself in. I took her coat and offered her a drink.

  “Food first, if you have any.”

  “I’ve got cereal, corn bran and generic Rice Krispies,” I said. “The milk’s still got a day or two on it.”

  “What a gourmet,” she said, choosing the corn bran. As she ate I told her about Chambers.

  “He’s moonlighting as muscle for Anthony Qiu,” I said. “I watched him bust up the hand of a guy named Miles. Definitely a beef over money.”

  Sonia nodded, continuing to eat.

  “Not quite the reaction I expected,” I said.

  She set down her bowl. “I looked up Anthony Qiu when you mentioned him. He’s the son-in-law of Vincent Leung. Leung has all sorts of gang connections, especially heroin and guns. But Qiu seems limited to loan-sharking. His place is a front to wash Leung’s money.”

  “I had a run-in with Qiu a while back,” I said. “He could’ve made things much more difficult than he did. Got the sense he was playing it safe.”

  I took Sonia’s bowl to the sink and brought back the bourbon and another glass. I stared at the bottle.

  “I should be mad you’re lying to me,” I said. “I wish you didn’t feel you had to.”

  She stared at me. I mimicked the demure expression on her face: “‘Lying?’ she intoned, with wide-eyed innocence. ‘Moi?’”

  Sonia didn’t smile.

  I changed tack. “How can I do what you want, Sonia, how can I help you, when you’re holding back on me?”

  “I told you you didn’t have to,” she said.

  “So it’s either trust you implicitly and question none of this, or forsake you completely?”

  “You know how the job is,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of channels open to me.”

  I said, “What do you want me to do about Chambers? Let’s start there.”

  “What are the options?”

  “Ignore him.”

  “No.”

  “Turn him in.”

  “No.”

  “Talk it through with him.”

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “That doesn’t leave much.”

  “Can you stay on him for another week?” she asked. “I know it’s asking a lot. I need the time to work something out.”

  “Another week,” I assented. “With two provisions. You run Sabar Gill through CPIC. He’s on a flight itinerary with my missing girl.”

  “I’ll try. And second?”

  I poured. “Some time in the future, we sit down over a bottle not unlike this one, and we tell each other everything.”

  “I’d like that.”

  We finished our drinks and she left. Her kiss before she wended her way through the patio to the street was one part whiskey, one part something else.

  Twenty-Eight

  Small shops and an antiquated youth center surrounded Newton Exchange, a transit hub in the middle of industrial Surrey. People crowded under the bus stop awnings, waiting, ignoring the beggars and dealers who circulated between clusters. I stared through the windshield of the van at the empty parking lot, listening to the wiper blades and the skitter of rain on the roof.

  Nine thirty turned to nine forty-five. A teenager in a black bandanna and thick survival jacket approached the van, knocked, told me he had what I was looking for.

  “What you need?” Small inside his jacket, eyes wide and tentative.

  I shook my head, I was fine. He wished me a nice night and walked back to the turnaround.

  I’d debated with Jeff about taking a gun. He hadn’t advocated for it, but he’d been puzzled at my reasoning. Introducing a firearm wouldn’t improve my safety, I told him. So far they hadn’t threatened me. That was no guarantee, but Dalton Hayes had seemed somewhat reasonable.

  Beneath Jeff’s question, though, was the deeper one, the one I’d never been able to answer. Why go at all?

  Tabitha Sorenson was unknown to me, and all I owed Dana Essex was her money’s worth. A nice little show of effort followed by a shrug of the shoulders. Sorry, ma’am, gave it my best. Make the check out to Wakeland & Chen, and don’t forget the ampersand. If anything comes up I’ll let you know.

  As I waited I tried out my usual responses, knowing they were all insufficient.

  The possibility that doing this made a difference.

  [in what?]

  The satisfaction of work done to the utmost of one’s ability.

  [to what end?]

  I’d never articulated an answer that had passed my own bullshit detector. Maybe there were no answers. Just momentum and curiosity, a lack of sense and a need to know.

  A white Denali swung into the bus loop and jumped the curb. It stopped a few feet from me. The back door opened. The interior light showed Cody Hayes sitting sideways across the back bench, holding something pink and plastic in his hand.

  I stepped out of the van and walked toward the truck before he could order me to. I leaned my head inside.

  “Where’s the other guy?” Cody asked.

  “Not here,” I said, wondering the same thing. Dalton Hayes had the authority and the temperament to reason with; the look Cody gave me meant he hadn’t forgotten our last encounter.

  He slid his feet off the bench, making room. “Got something you need to see.”

  I waited for him to elaborate. Cody jabbed whatever he was holding into the carpet and idly pulled it out. I realized it was the handle of a machete. He was stabbing the floor out of restless boredom.

  “You coming?” he finally said. “I’m ’sposed to take you there. If you want. If not, go fuck yourself.”

  “Where?”

  Again no elaboration.

  “I’ll follow you,” I said.

  Cody stabbed the blade to the hilt into the cushion next to him. “Into the fucking car,” he said.

  Bus passengers ignored us. It continued to rain. I thought about it and then climbed inside, closing the door behind me.

  Twenty-Nine

  Zero Avenue.

  We took the highway that led to the border, through farmland and swaths of undeveloped properties. Cow shit and ocean scented the air. The driver turned off onto an unlit strip of asphalt. More farms, a gas station. We passed Matsqui prison.

  Nearly half an hour later we made a turn onto gravel. The driver cut the headlights.

  I’d asked Cody where we were going, who was at the
other end of the trip. He didn’t speak. He kept his hand gripped over the pink plastic handle of the machete, favoring me with his best scowl.

  The driver was South Asian, his head shaved and a thick beard covering his jowls. He glanced at his rearview constantly as if worried. Our eyes met. His showed something like pity.

  My phone buzzed with an incoming text. Cody took it from me before I could answer.

  “No phones,” he said.

  The truck stopped and the driver exited. Through the windshield I saw him unlock a thick chain that was barring the road. It landed on the gravel, making a sound like spilling coins. He rejoined us in the truck.

  We passed an unlit house as we headed into the heart of an untended field. Down a steep hill, over a black and corrugated landscape. The rain had stopped.

  I’d assumed Dalton Hayes would be waiting for us, that he’d asked to see me. As the truck braked I saw nothing around but farmland. Cody told me to get out.

  “And go where?” I said. “Where’s your brother?”

  I wasn’t prepared for the kick. It caught me in the ribcage, doubled me over and jolted me into the door. I fell forward. A wet hand pulled me from the truck, dropping me onto the spongy soil.

  Boots came down and I was told to stand up. Before my vision could clear, a fist caught me, the glint off steel the last thing I saw. I stumbled and collapsed into the mud.

  “My brother asked you nicely, tell us where she is.” Cody’s boot struck my thigh, stamping down, grinding me into the dirt. “You fucking tell us. Understand? Do you?”

  I needed five minutes to clear my head. Ten seconds, even. Cody made sure I didn’t have either. I was dropped and spun, prodded, hit where I couldn’t defend myself.

  Mud and water and pain were constants. I thought I heard the crunch of tires. My eyes focused on a distant light, cut off, my vision spoiled.

  It was an open field, the ground furrowed with long pools of rainwater. Cody was herding me away from the truck. I couldn’t tell where the driver was.

  The flat disk of steel knuckles struck my collar bone. I turned over, staring face down into the water.

  “Stay there,” said Cody.

  I tried to disobey but my body didn’t give me a choice.

  The sound of spilling liquid. The water near me took on a noxious benzene smell. I breathed and coughed. Heard the scrup scrup of a lighter being struck.

  The puddle near my face exploded.

  Cody was laughing as I spun away from the flames. “We can do this all night,” he said. “Get the answers outta you.”

  “What answers?” I managed.

  “Like you don’t know.”

  Something struck my hip with more force than the other blows combined. I screamed, thrashed.

  As I crawled backward I saw him clutching a baseball bat, strolling toward me, the trenches behind him burning.

  He darted right, swinging the bat playfully, forcing me toward the fire. “Having some fun now,” he said.

  A gunshot stopped us both.

  The driver marched forward, hands held up like he was about to fall on his face. Behind him, Jeff Chen, holding a small black pistol to the driver’s ear.

  He told the driver to lie down. After the driver complied, Jeff calmly stepped over the burning trench, holding the bunched-up tails of his overcoat with his free hand. He motioned for Cody Hayes to toss down the bat.

  “Tailed you from the bus loop,” he said to me. “You okay?”

  I could stand, though I wasn’t sure what damage I’d sustained. Everything hurt, which I took as a good sign.

  “Where’d you get the gun?” I asked him.

  “Bought it,” Jeff said. “Think I’d bring a kid into the world and not be able to protect him?”

  In answer, I hunched over and threw up.

  Thirty

  Jeff asked Cody why they’d brought me here.

  “Dalton said to. Said he talked to his friend and he wanted you scared off.”

  “The friend did, you mean.” Jeff gestured to the bat, the steel knuckle dusters and the dying flames. “Your idea of scaring off?”

  “Dalton’s friend said this guy doesn’t scare easy.”

  “No,” Jeff said, looking at me. “He really doesn’t.”

  At gunpoint Cody’s manner became deferential. He explained how Tabitha had come to him with the deal. Seven hundred thousand clean and untraceable dollars, loaned out for six months. Her return was twenty-two percent.

  She’d told them if it worked out they’d be able to do it again, maybe perpetually. Lending them cash, then laundering their returns. This would be a trial.

  “What did you use the money for?” I asked. My breath had returned and I’d wiped off my chin as best I could.

  “Buy product,” Cody said. “The fuck you think?”

  When he saw we weren’t impressed, he added, “Chemicals. Fucking government makes them tough to get, got to pay our ephedrine guy in advance. Once we off-loaded, the money went back to Tab.”

  “But you don’t know where she went.”

  “That’s why Dalton wanted you to find her. No one knows where she is.”

  “Who owns this place?” I asked.

  “Dalton’s friend. Lets us use it sometimes. Guy’s a biker.”

  “His name.”

  “Terry Rhodes,” Cody said. Even at gunpoint, he half-smiled at the reaction the name brought from us.

  “Tabitha was never out here?” I asked. “Never had dealings with Rhodes?”

  “Fuck no. She only dealt with me and Dalton. We were hoping—” he caught himself.

  “Hoping what?” Jeff asked.

  “That this would be our deal,” Cody said.

  I said to Jeff, “He means Tabitha’s operation would be strictly League of Nations. They weren’t going to kick up to the bikers.”

  “We weren’t,” Cody said. “Have to now.”

  It had been too good to be true: a financial operation all their own. Maybe Tabitha had sold a long-term plan to the Hayes brothers, knowing she could only perform the scheme once. The possibility of repeating it would ensure her safety through the first transaction.

  The driver was still facedown in the mud. The gasoline fire had long gone out. I could close my hand without too much pain.

  “I’m parked close to the gate,” Jeff said. “Followed you out here and cut my lights. You ready to leave?”

  “Almost,” I said.

  I stripped off my jacket, now ruined by mud. Walked over to Cody.

  “Is this going to end here?” I asked him. “Stay between us?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yes. I promise.”

  “And we never see each other again. Your word.”

  He nodded vigorously. “Swear to god. Swear on my moms.”

  “Good. Then Jeff won’t have to shoot you. You feel like it, by all means, defend yourself.”

  I hit him below the cheek and dropped him. Cody looked up with a child’s what-was-that-for innocence. Behind me Jeff said something, but I was concentrating on getting hold of Cody’s shirt front and hitting him again, splitting open his mouth.

  Cody scooted backwards, away from me, across the mud. I lunged forward and struck his left eye socket. I sat on his chest and hammered at his face. Slowly. Considering each blow. Swatting away his hands when they tried to ward them off.

  “Enough,” Jeff said.

  But it wasn’t. I hit him again. I hit him until I was sure I’d broken his jaw. Until I was panting and a fresh round of nausea was poised to erupt out of me. Until Cody Hayes had been reduced to a whimpering, quivering thing.

  He was sobbing. Snot mixed with black blood. I stood up and wiped my knuckles.

  “I’m good now,” I said.

  Thirty-One

  The shower stall of a one-bedroom flat in East Van isn’t the ideal convalescent space. I made do. A long scalding shower, several ice packs, a double slug of cask-strength bourbon and a fitful night’s sleep.

  At t
en the next morning I was back at Hastings, doused with ancient liniment from my bathroom cabinet and nursing a pot of Earl Grey. I needed to talk with Sabar Gill.

  The flight purchase connected him to Tabitha Sorenson. A boyfriend, maybe, or co-conspirator. Maybe the cause of her disappearance.

  There were plenty of Gills in the Pacific Northwest. I narrowed by age and location. None in Surrey but one likely candidate in Vancouver.

  The Vancouver Gill was twenty-six and held a masters degree in Library Science. He worked in the Special Collections department of the Vancouver Public Library’s central branch. His picture on the VPL website showed a handsome man with short-cut hair and beard and pensive eyes.

  I phoned the library. The cheerful male voice in Special Collections told me Gill wouldn’t be in till one. I asked for his phone number, but the voice wasn’t comfortable with sharing that information.

  I was flipping through the audit report when Jeff entered the boardroom. He made a show of locking the door and unfurling the blinds so that we were secluded. He said, “We should talk about last night.”

  “If you want.”

  “I don’t remember much of what got said on the ride home. But the way you hit that guy—” He looked at me as if inspecting glass merchandise for hairline cracks and chipped edges. He spread his hands. “And here you are, drinking tea.”

  “Coffee after breakfast fucks with my bladder.”

  “Worse than a baseball bat?”

  I pushed back from the table and rummaged in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. “If you want me to say thanks again.”

  “Not about thanks, Dave.” My partner spoke with a hint of exasperation. “You hit him when you didn’t have to.”

  The knuckles on my right hand had swollen to red burial mounds. I used my left to fetch the parcel out of the back of the drawer.

  “We’re gone tomorrow on our honeymoon,” Jeff said. “Which means you’re in charge. I’d like to think things’ll be okay while I’m gone. Like very much to think that.”