by Sam Wiebe
“Just like her big brother,” Sonia said.
“Only I tend to catch them from friends.”
She looked at the steering wheel. “I’m not sure I apologized. I’m grateful, anyway. What do we do with the footage?”
“Your choice,” I said. “Someone well versed in etiquette might forward it to Chambers’s bosses quietly, demand his resignation.”
“And what would a pissed-off, marginalized bitch like myself do?”
“Spread it like herpes.”
She thought about it. I looked at the water.
“It has to be that way,” she said. “If we let the department handle it, they’ll do their best to minimize the damage. It has to be public.”
“Better that way,” I said.
“Chris won’t face jail, though.”
“And never will.”
“It doesn’t seem like enough, does it?”
“It’s enough for me,” I said. “But it’s not about me.”
Sonia’s tired expression broke into a rueful grin. Hope sometimes hits us that way.
Twelve
Sunday night I watched Blatchford and his former foe, Leather Daddy, take on a pair of Japanese wrestlers whose synchronized kicks and takedowns possessed a balletic grace that elevated the bloodbath to tragic theater. For a solid twenty minutes the Apollo Bomb Syndicate demonstrated an economy of motion and raw athleticism that should have shamed their opponents, who stumbled around the South Surrey Veterans Hall in a coke-and-Soma haze. If it wasn’t for the last-minute interference of a dwarf dressed in a leather vest and cap and wielding a kendo stick, Blatchford’s team would have completely lacked an offense, and probably would have lost.
I caught up with him later at Charlie Don’t Surf, a restaurant near the beach with a Margaritaville atmosphere. Blatchford was drinking at a corner table with the little person and his girlfriend. I caught the tail end of a story about Sweet Daddy Siki and Harley Race.
Blatchford downed his drink and made the introductions. “Johnny Camino, best little man since Sky Low Low, and this is Beverly. Dave here is a private eye.”
“That’d be a great gimmick,” Johnny Camino said. “Could get myself a trench coat.”
“You’re welcome to it,” I said.
Blatchford excused us, out for a smoke. He stopped by the bar and allowed me to buy him another double Crown and soda, no ice, which he threw back before leading me outside. We stood at the very edge of the patio and watched a train slink past the beach on its way to Seattle, its klaxon resounding against the soft hiss of the surf.
Blatchford pointed toward the bar. “That guy’s been doing this thirty years. No pension. None of that pay-per-view money. One-night stands in podunk towns like this, one or two hundred a year, sometimes more. Know what he’s most proud of?”
I shook my head.
“All that time, he never hurt another wrestler. That’s the benchmark for him. And he fought tough guys, too, dwarfs as well as regulars. Even a bear, one time.”
“How many have you hurt?” I asked. “In the ring.”
“Me?” Blatchford thought about it. “Three for sure that I know of. Fractured skull from a chair shot, another a broken rib from being side-suplexed onto the guardrail. Those were accidents. Third guy I broke his leg.”
“Intentionally?”
“Called me a faggot.” Blatchford smiled. “It was the way he said it. Looked enough like an accident, but I knew where I was dropping him.”
With the train gone we could see the ocean, black waves rolling against the breakwater at the end of the pier. Blatchford dropped off the patio and started walking.
When we were halfway down the pier, alone with the rain, he said, “This Dana Essex is a smart girl. I read an article of hers, published in one of those journals they don’t carry at normal libraries. The kind of words she uses—you ever hear the word palimpsestic?”
“A page hidden beneath a page or something.”
He whistled. “Somebody owns a dictionary. Anyway, her titles alone have more words in them than a Tom Clancy book. She’s big on ogicals and izations, our gal.”
“That all you have after two weeks?”
“Easy there,” he said. “I can’t make hide or hair out of her writing, but I know anyone writing like that is afraid. Like if she doesn’t work in enough Cadillac-type words, her peers won’t think she belongs.”
“You don’t think that’s just how smart people write?”
“I’m smart. I don’t write like that.”
He chained his cigarette, tossed the butt so it arced and disappeared among the crevices of the rock beach.
“Anyway, that’s who she is—eager to be a part of the club, and also better than the club. Her first years at Carleton she won half the awards, spoke at research conferences and volunteered to taxi around university bigwigs at those same conferences. Fucking go-getter. And then by year six”—he exhaled a lumpy smoke ring—“no more awards, no presentations. Total shutdown.”
We’d reached the end. Looking down I could see the barnacle-crusted beams that supported the pier, emerging out of the water. We leaned on the rail.
“Anyone remember her from school?” I asked.
“Guy who was in the program with her said Dana was an exemplary student, then just stopped everything. He didn’t see much of her after that. I asked could it have been her shacking up with someone? He said he didn’t know, but he was glad for it. Whatever it was kept her out of the running for the big awards. She didn’t even apply.”
“Is that what you think happened?” I asked. “She fell for someone?”
“I don’t get the sense she’s ever fallen for anyone. I had a long chat with her ex-husband over a few beers. He said she was always like that—kinda distant.”
“Any family trouble?”
Blatchford shook his head. “Mom and dad sound nice as can be. They don’t talk much with Dana, other than an everything’s-fine type e-mail now and then.”
“Any luck on the phone numbers?”
“All burners,” he said. “Disconnected now.”
“So next you fly out there. When you do—”
“Are you gonna tell me to be careful?” Blatchford grinned. “Don’t pretend you give a shit, Dave. Like you said, I’m expendable.”
He’d said it. I was about to correct him, but after using Kay and Tranh, I wondered if I might be getting a bit too comfortable relying on others. If there’d been another way—
But there wasn’t. I needed the help, I’d asked for it, and now I had to wait.
Thirteen
The video went online Monday morning. Links were sent to the department’s public relations liaison and the Deputy Chief Constable, all major news outlets, the mayor’s office, the Minister of Public Safety. The video was titled VANCOUVER COP ASSAULTS ASIAN MAN UNPROVOKED.
I’d shaved it down to twenty seconds of brutality, corrected for low light and filtered for optimum sound. The footage cycled through camera angles, staying with Chambers’s face. He’d used steel knucks on Larry Tranh, pocketing them after, but he’d pulled his punches. His expression had remained stolid and businesslike throughout. That lack of rage leant Chambers’s performance the casual menace of a bully. It was a star-making turn.
Shauna Kensington insisted on watching the video before her office orchestrated the leak. With her child in the other room, we screened the fight. She nodded enthusiastically during the blows.
“This,” she said, “opens up a range of possibilities. They’ll have to investigate this.”
“I hope so.”
“How did you—” She broke off. “No, don’t tell me. Is the other guy all right? Would he be able to stand up in court?”
“I’m hoping he won’t have to,” I said.
“You’re looking for a public outcry. A call for this guy’s head. You know it might not happen. People are pretty cynical.”
“We’ll risk it,” I said.
That evening Kay dr
opped by my flat with a box of my possessions. Marie had taken over my office space on Hastings, awarding herself the title of senior administrator. That was unfair to her—she knew the daily workings of Wakeland & Chen better than anyone. As I surveyed the box, it was clear that I hadn’t left behind much worth claiming, beyond some case files and a bottle of good gin.
Kay hugged me at the sight of the check. I disentangled myself to fetch glasses and ice.
“That’s next semester paid for,” she said. “Give me more cases like this.”
“I don’t think Tranh’s face could stand another.”
She folded the check and then decided she’d rather keep it smoothed. “Still, I’m glad he stood up for justice.”
“He stood up for the five grand,” I said.
“I just meant that the video will get that cop off the street, and I’m glad somebody got the truth out there.”
“Chambers is finished,” I agreed. “He deserves to be. But that tape is as much bullshit as whatever he comes up with to protest his innocence. Only we got there first.”
“So why’d you do it then, if it’s so wrong?”
“Sonia asked for my help.”
When she left I took up her untouched mug and finished her gin. I tried to think through what Chambers’s reprisal would be, once he figured it out. He could come after me with the last of his authority, or on the sly, maybe with help from Anthony Qiu. Would Qiu support him when he wasn’t a police officer? He’d have to, I decided. Or else kill him. But that was more bloodshed than Qiu would care for. He’d suggest caution. Patience. Would Chambers listen?
It was hard to say. After studying Chris Chambers for weeks, I didn’t feel I knew him. Affable with colleagues, ingratiating to his superiors, a dispassionate brute to those weaker than him. Chambers was three people, none of whom I’d ever seen angry.
Chambers would try to cling to his job. It wasn’t above a police force to close ranks around one of its own. How many favors would he burn through to get back at me?
The thought struck me that I knew an expert on the subject of revenge.
Fourteen
“Is this a bad time, Dave?” Dana Essex’s tone was mocking.
She’d phoned as I was pouring out the last of the gin, almost as if I’d willed her to.
“I was just thinking about you,” I said. “Want to run something by you.”
“Please do.”
I explained in rough terms the nature of Chambers and his actions, what I’d done to provoke him. She laughed at the novelty of the setup and excused herself to view the clip.
“It’s quite a work,” she said after. “Almost too well shot to be amateur. Very nice mise-en-scene. This will certainly provoke his ire.”
“Given his nature, how’ll he respond?”
“This is a violent man, so: violently.”
“No waiting around months like you?”
“My target disappeared,” she said. “Are you planning on disappearing?”
“No more than I already have.”
“Then I suspect he’ll come for you,” she said, “if he’s able to deduce your involvement.”
“With Qiu’s support?”
“Or in defiance of him. If Chambers has connections within the department he’ll go to them in turn. Once he finds they’re unable to prolong his career, he’ll see your antagonism as even more personally directed. Cut off from them, he’ll focus on you.”
“On me directly? Or will he come after someone close to me?”
“Not unless he’s completely without honor.”
“You did.”
“Threatened, Dave. Do you honestly believe I’d be a party to that?”
“They say the first one’s the hardest.”
“Murder? I imagine one develops a stomach for it, if not a taste.”
“You’re responsible for Tabitha Sorenson’s death.”
“I told you, I was—”
“Right, the instrument or the facilitator or whatever. Keep repeating it.”
“We weren’t talking about me,” Essex said coolly. “Your friend will come after you. I imagine he’ll act betrayed, as if you should have settled this more directly. He might want to fight you first.”
“Before killing me.”
“Yes. To reassert himself. If he’s wary of more cameras he might try to lure you somewhere less conspicuous. If he can do that he’ll vent his anger and then dispose of you.”
“I’ve never seen him angry.”
“Of course you have,” she said. “It’s there below the surface. The look of concentration on his face during the video—a mask. Those are targeted blows he’s throwing. You can see there’s a wellspring of fury for him to draw on, and it’s a supreme effort to restrain himself and only incapacitate his victim.”
Recalling Chambers in the video, I could see her point. “That’s good insight,” I said. “If you weren’t so damaged and untrustworthy I’d suggest you come work with me.”
Essex laughed, warming now. “Actually,” she said, “he reminds me of you. I imagine that’s how you fight—anger condensed and bottled, ready to explode. Hurt and confusion, frustrations sexual and otherwise. Is that what happened to you as a police officer?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“Where does it come from? Do you even know?”
“I boxed as a kid. My foster father used to take me down to the Astoria gym. Once he died, I stopped going.”
“And this anger, it simply built up?”
I stared at the white expanse of wall across from my couch. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I think that’s a lie,” Essex said. “From what I’ve seen, boxing shapes and disciplines violence, it doesn’t create it.”
“No.”
“So even as a child—”
“It’s always been there,” I said.
I was moving to hang up when I paused. Thought, no. It was time to confide. And I knew who I had to confide in.
I said, “You’re much smarter than I am, Dana. You understand me better than I do. Better than anyone, maybe.”
“Does that upset you? Frighten you?”
“A little,” I said. “But I know why you keep calling me.”
“To convince you to come with me,” she said. “Between the money we have and our skill sets, we could make quite a nice life. It’s not like there’s anything keeping you in Vancouver.”
“What you really want,” I said, “is for me to convince you to come back.”
“You’re being facetious.”
“Maybe.” I waited. She didn’t hang up.
“By my reckoning,” I said, “you’re about halfway to the point of realizing everything’s out of control. That there’s no real running away. Tabitha found that out. Whether it’s Costa Rica or East Van, it’s only a matter of time. The money didn’t help her disappear—and she had the skills to use it. She also had someone she loved, and when he got his dream job she moved back here to support him, no matter the risk.”
I paused, could hear her breathing.
“You on the other hand are saddled with a sociopath. You’ve just about figured out you don’t have control. You’re trapped. And when you realize that, you’ll be calling me to bail you out. Because who else do you really have, Dana?”
She disconnected, which felt like some kind of victory. I put down the phone and took up the tumbler, thinking of Tabitha, her company, and the brave decision she’d made out of love. Mi Mundo, her company had been called. I dropped the Rega’s needle into the grooves of a Patsy Cline record. Mi Mundo solo. Mi Mundo solitario.
And where was her world now?
Fifteen
The next day I watched a well-coiffed news anchor question Shauna’s colleague. Anchor and lawyer sat facing each other, the background a hi-def image of English Bay at sunset. The lawyer explained that the victim in the video had fled due to the anguish of the incident, and the fear of further brutality.
“The indi
viduals who documented the incident are similarly afraid of the damage Constable Chambers could wreak,” the lawyer said. “Anonymity is paramount to their well-being at the present. I can tell you, though, we should all want the same thing, which is for incidents like this to be met with an appropriate response from those in power.”
“And what would that response be?” the anchor asked.
The lawyer smiled. “At this stage criminal liability has yet to be determined. Our clients aren’t looking for financial remuneration, though.”
“No?”
“Their concern is for the safety of other Vancouverites. Certainly the officer in question needs to be removed from any position in which he can inflict further suffering.”
“Firing him.”
“We fervently hope the police will take the appropriate measures.”
A pretaped interview showed a police spokesperson flanked by flags. She said the department was working to ascertain if the tape was genuine, and wouldn’t comment until that first step had been taken, other than to say a few bad apples shouldn’t taint the legacy of an institution.
The next day the news anchor spoke with a witness to an altercation between Chambers and a young woman.
He’d allegedly struck her, taken her purse, and removed a sum of money. The day after followed allegations about the death of Miles Irigary. And then, Sunday night, the anchor announced that the officer had been suspended pending a full inquiry, to be handled by an outside agency, most likely the Delta detachment of the RCMP.
The week had felt like watching a chess match from the perspective of the first pawn to move across the center of the board.
While I waited for Chambers, I set to work on my mother’s house. I had leftover drywall from repairing the second-floor office, and I used it to patch up her basement, the room I’d slept in, off and on, from age six till adulthood. Property taxes had reached the point where she couldn’t afford to stay unless the upstairs and basement were converted into suites. Every other house on Laurel Street had been sold, subdivided, rented out. More people shared the same space now, and yet it was emptier, less of a neighborhood.
