by Marc Strange
“How’s the old man?” he asks. “Really.”
“He’s good. He’s stuck in there for a while, but he’s in charge. If Theo shows up, lock the door. He doesn’t run things, and neither does his little brother.” I finish the cookies and start on the apple. “How’d he take it? When she fired him?”
“Dan? He laughed. He said, ‘Why should today be any different?’ Personally, I think Danny boy is coming apart at the seams.”
“I need one of those day-minders,” I say. “I still have to drop off some cash to Randall Poy.”
“Why bother? Danny boy’s not your problem anymore.”
“I said I would. I like to follow through.”
Gritch shakes his head. “Rachel’s right. You’ve got the ‘give a shit’ area covered.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got a few other things to check on, so I might as well add it to my list.”
“You hitting the streets again?”
“Leo would like me to get the hotel off the hook if I can.”
“How are you supposed to do that?”
“In a perfect world I’d prove that Arnie didn’t murder Buzz, and that would demolish the wrongful death suit our friend Alvin Neagle has filed on behalf of Molly MacKay.”
“Neat trick, slugger.”
“Wouldn’t it be?”
“Axelrode’s your best bet,” Gritch says.
“He definitely figures in there somewhere. But he’s roaming awful free for a murder suspect, don’t you think? Driving around, waving a gun, disturbing Buzz’s wake. You’d think he’d have been picked up by now.”
“He’s hard to miss.”
“He isn’t acting like a fugitive. More like a loose cannon.”
The skywalk across Carrall Street was constructed five years ago, shortly after Theo Alexander bought the parking garage and made a deal with his father. It’s a convenient setup for a hotel constructed long before parking was a major consideration. The street below is moving like a river of traffic and airborne city litter. Rachel is coming towards me, heading back to the hotel.
“He found his car,” she says.
We pause for a moment above the street, looking down on the traffic.
“That’s good,” I say.
“You going out again?”
“I need to check a few things for Leo. I’ve got the cell phone with me if anything comes up.”
“You take care of your business, Joe. I’ve got your back.”
“I’m glad you could sign on.”
“Hell. This is a vacation. Malcolm wants to install a Jacuzzi. By himself. That should be good for two months of plumbing horrors.”
“You’ve got the job for as long as you want it,” I say.
“I know. Let’s see how it works out. I don’t want to get up Gritch’s nose.”
“You won’t. Gritch is eyes and ears. He’s the only person in the world who understands this building, knows where everything is, who everyone is, what scams we can safely overlook, and which ones we come down on. Gritch won’t meddle with your system. He may grump from time to time, because he doesn’t like change, but he’ll be your best source for inside information on the staff and the guests.” “You sound like you’re getting ready to quit.” “No. I’m just happy to have someone who knows how to run the regiment while I’m out chasing shadows.” “You’ll catch up to them, Joe.”
chapter thirty-three
“There’s a monumental Chinese wedding feast going on in the backroom of the Noodle Palace. I can’t see Randall Poy anywhere through the beaded curtain, and it’s obvious I wouldn’t be welcome to look for him in the crowd of more than a hundred celebrants. I make a mental note to return later and attend to that irritating detail. Then I make a mental note not to forget the first mental note. And as I get back into the car, I remember a separate mental note that got misfiled somewhere. Time to check in with Sergeant Norman Weed.
“It slipped my mind,” I tell Weed when I land in his office.
“A murder suspect points a gun at you and it slips your mind?”
“There were other developments grabbing my attention. Leo woke up.”
“He did? That’s terrific. Is he all right?”
“He’ll be getting an artificial hip.”
“I could use one of those, and an artificial prostate. So tell me about Axelrode.”
“He caused a scene at Buznardo’s ash scattering. Tried to get to Molly. I don’t know what about. Connie’s camerawoman recorded some of it.”
“It’s Connie now, is it?”
“After that he pulled a gun on me and told me to get out of his face.”
“Were you in his face?”
“I asked him about Arnie.”
“And?”
“He said Arnie McKellar messed with the wrong people the same way I was. Then he dented my fender and drove off.”
“Drove off in what?”
“Me and cars. Let’s see. A blue one, big, domestic, Chevy I think, licence W-F-something, four-four-something.”
“That’ll be useful. What about the gun?”
“Automatic. Not too big.”
“I’ve got to get this information out there,” he says. “It might have been more useful three hours ago.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He tosses a canvas duffle bag onto his desk. “That’s all Buznardo’s stuff.”
“I get to look?”
“Go for it. She didn’t want it.”
“His sister?”
“She rooted through it. She was looking for something but didn’t say what, and I didn’t ask. Whatever it was she didn’t find it.”
Weed leaves the office to spread the word of Axe’s licence plate and personal armament while I sit beside his desk to rummage in Buzz’s duffle bag. Not much. A few books, jeans, underwear, T-shirts. Buzz travelled light. There’s a leather pouch containing a few guitar picks and tightly rolled strings, a pitch pipe, and a Hohner Marine Band mouth harp in the key of A.
“Not much stuff for a half-billionaire,” I say when Weed comes back in.
“Yeah, I know.”
“No wallet?”
“Oh, yeah, she took that. It had the car insurance, registration.”
“Registration for?”
“Prescott’s Mercedes. Neagle said Buzz liked to drive the Mercedes.”
“He kept a journal. There’s a bunch of notebooks.”
“Looks like he was scribbling in them all the time,” Weed says. “Mostly ramblings. My guys couldn’t find anything useful.”
I leaf through the first of the notebooks, the most current one, half of it blank pages. There’s a recipe for black bean soup, a drawing of a salmon’s jawbone. Weed settles into his chair and looks across his desk at me.
“You’ve been getting up people’s noses,” Weed says.
“I’ve had complaints from some very influential assholes.”
“And I’ve been so polite. Did you know the solstice last winter was on December 22 at 3:45 a.m.?”
“They want me to rein you in. They’re threatening restraining orders.”
“And I wore my good suit and everything. Did you know you can use coffee as an enema?”
“Is that in there?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Cease and desist, they say,” Weed tells me. “Makes me think they have things to hide.”
“I’m sure they do. There’s lots of money involved — a lot more than a suitcase full.”
“I told them I’d talk to you.”
“And?”
“And I’m talking to you.”
“You want me to back off?”
“Shit, no. Shake the tree all you want. Who knows
what will fall out. This isn’t an official position, you understand. Officially, I’m advising you to keep your nose out of other people’s business. Unofficially, hey, it’s a free country, you haven’t hurt anyone, you’re just making a nuisance of yourself.”
“So
me pages are cut out of this notebook. Did you notice?”
“I noticed.”
“Who’s this guy C? He used to visit them in Harrison.”
“I don’t know. That’s all it says — C?”
“Yeah.” I read aloud from one of the journals. “C showed up on Thursday. It’s becoming a regular thing once a month. They play a game of chess and shoot the shit and have a couple of drinks. It’s good for P. They mostly talk about old times, and I’m not part of that. Thursday night C asked me to drive him home instead of calling a cab like he usually does. He asked me how P was doing, health-wise, and I said he was doing better and better all the time. C was happy about that. He admires P.”
“Not a clue,” Weed says.
I flip through the journals for a few minutes while Weed goes out to the squad room in response to a wave from one of his detectives, the guy with the Elvis hair, who’s on the phone. The journals are a mixed bag — song lyrics, recipes, quotes from enlightened luminaries like Black Elk, Kurt Vonnegut, Groucho Marx. Buzz had a roving mind.
Weed comes back into his office. “They just found Alvin Neagle. He washed up by the mouth of the Capilano. A couple of fishermen snagged him.”
“How was he killed?”
“Don’t know yet. They’re still checking the crime scene.”
chapter thirty-four
I can see the mouth of the Capilano River as I drive for the second time in the same day across the Lions Gate Bridge. Far below I spot the distinctive orange and yellow vests of cops and Mounties, patrol boats and crime scene tape. The river is shallow where it meets the salt water, and cops are wading upstream and down, hunting for anything useful. I find a parking space in the Park Royal lot and walk the rest of the way. I can’t get within a hundred yards of ground zero. There are gawkers and reporters in equal number, all of them straining to see the backs of one another’s heads. Weed’s arrival, however, is treated with due respect, and a path is made that closes behind him like the Red Sea. None of my many waves to Weed, nor to his partner with the Elvis hair, can buy me a ticket to the main attraction. “You waving at me or at her, Grundy?” Larry Gormé squeezes his way through the crowd to get to me.
“Waving at who?”
“Your girlfriend, wee Connie Gagliardi. She’s got a front-row seat.”
“I can’t see her.”
“She’s out there. She’s got a better friend at the cop shop than you have.”
“What have you heard, Larry?”
“It’s all idle rumour and speculation. All I know for sure is that it’s our boy Neagle and that he’s deader than either of us.”
“What are they doing out there?”
“Having a good time. They hauled him out of the water, so now they have to search the water for a while, I guess, see if he dropped any spare change.”
I start angling myself down the bend of the crowd, trying to carve my way closer to the front of the pack. I’m as polite as I can be, and my progress is steady. Being large helps, as well.
“I’m sticking with you,” Larry says. “It’s like trailing an icebreaker.”
I finally spot Connie and her protective videographer, Dee, pushing their way back through the crowd, more or less in our direction. When she spots me, I’m rewarded with a spontaneous grin. She points in the general direction of the ad hoc parking area and the white Channel 20 van.
“I guess this means you won’t be pushing it all the way to the front,” Larry says.
“You’re closer than you were before,” I say.
Retreating is somewhat easier than advancing, and it doesn’t take me long to make it to the Channel 20 van. Cops and interested spectators are still arriving.
“You leaving?” I ask.
“We don’t ever have to date,” Connie says. “We can just keep meeting at these life-and-death events.”
“I’m not that crazy about life-and-death events.”
“Too bad. It’s what I feed on. You and I are totally incompatible.”
“So it would seem.”
“I’ve got nothing,” Dee says from inside the van. “Looks like shit.” She appears on the far side of the van, her ever-present Sony on her shoulder, and acknowledges my presence with a polite nod, not hostile, not especially warm. “I’m going to see if I can get up that tower with a long lens and pan down off the bridge. Might get an angle worth ten seconds of air.”
“Don’t break a leg,” Connie says.
“I’ll need you for the stand-up in ten minutes,” Dee says. “Back by that nice tree.”
“I’ll be there,” Connie says. She turns to me. “I hear your boss woke up.”
“He did.”
“I’m glad.”
“I guess you couldn’t see much over there,” I say.
“I talked to one of the fishermen who snagged the body. He said he was using light tackle. Seemed proud of himself for landing Neagle without losing his lure. The cops took his lure, anyway. We got a nice shot of the body bag.”
“They’re stacking up.”
“Epic proportions.”
“Your ticket to the big time?” I say.
“If I’m out front when it breaks.”
In the distance an ambulance bulls its way through the onlookers, heading for the highway. Alvin Neagle is on his way to the morgue. The cops have started to congregate in small knots, exchanging information. Weed is somewhere in the crowd. I can see an Elvis hairdo. Connie looks around and locates Dee, climbing one-handed down from a light standard. Strong and smooth and already looking for her next shot.
“I’ve got to go,” Connie says.
“Any chance of us getting together later? Without cops and corpses?”
“You’ve got my cell.” She winks and hurries off to do
her stand-up report. Within ten steps I’ve lost sight of her curly head in the crowd.
There doesn’t seem to be much point in hanging around. I’m not sure why I came, except that I have no clear plan for unravelling this mare’s nest. I’m just following my nose in some faint hope of arriving somewhere. An enterprising catering truck is dispensing weak coffee and overpriced sandwiches near the mall parking lot. Larry Gormé has his back turned while he sweetens his coffee from a small flask. He swirls the java around gently and looks up to see me heading in his direction.
“Shitty morning,” he says. “Damp cold goes right through me.”
“Yeah, I can feel it, too. Larry, you’re the guy with all the files. You ever hear of somebody with the initial C who used to visit Prescott and Jake Buznardo when they stayed in Harrison?”
“C, huh?”
“He must have lived close by. He used to take a cab back and forth. They played chess.”
“Oh, sure, Park’s old chess buddy, Warren Carleton. He and Prescott were partners when they started out. They made their first million together.”
“Know where he lives?”
“Out there somewhere near Harrison Lake. What do you want with him?” He sips his coffee and inhales through his nose, revived and grateful, if only for the moment, that he’s still alive. “Tell it to me on the way.”
“You feel like a day trip?”
“You’ll never find it on your own. It’s all cornfields and hazelnut groves out there.”
“I’ve got the hotel car.”
“Great!” Larry says. “I hitched a ride.”
In no time at all I get us onto a highway that would, should we care to see it to the end, carry us all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. We won’t be going that far. Harrison Hot
Springs is a little over a hundred klicks east of Vancouver, and it takes a bit more than an hour to get there at the rate traffic rolls on the Trans-Canada when there aren’t any messes. We move along at a good clip.
Larry sips his Irish coffee and stares out the window at the passing blur. “Poor old legal beagle,” he says at last. “Came within an eyelash of grabbing a brass ring the size of a hula hoop, and pow, moment of victory, it all tur
ns to shit.”
“It interests me,” I say, “how Hubble and Gowins have managed to keep their skirts clean in all this.”
“You don’t think those boys do their own dirty work, do you?”
“Maybe not, but who is doing their dirty work? Arnie? Neagle? Jeff Axelrode? Kind of low-rent mercenaries for such a high-stakes game, don’t you think?”
“They ain’t the cream of the crop.”
“I’m trying to see it from their end. They seem to be winning the war without doing much. Buzz was their big threat. Now he’s out of the way. A hotel security guy with no connection to either establishment is pinned with the robbery, and with Buzz’s murder, and he conveniently ‘shoots himself before he has to answer any questions. The next big threat, Molly MacKay’s possible claim on the estate, suffers a major setback when her lawyer — who may have been working both sides of the street — shows up face down in the Capilano River. These guys can’t seem to lose.”
“’Twas ever thus,” Larry says, finishing his coffee to the last drop and then carefully folding the cardboard cup in on itself. “The rich are different. They have insulation.”
We drive in silence for ten minutes past motels and service centres, private airports and theme parks.
“Tell me again why we’re going to see this guy?” Larry says.
“Don’t think I told you the first time. I don’t know. He’s just another name that popped up, an initial, really, and right now I’m grabbing at straws.”
“Seems to me you should be looking for Jeff Axelrode.”
“I think Weed has that part covered. He’s got a few hundred people on the job. I wouldn’t know what to do with Axelrode if I found him.”
“When they do find him, we’ll be out of town.”
“You invited yourself.”
“Call it an old news hound’s hunch, Grundy. You seem to be all over this thing. Where you go, things happen.”
“More like, where I go, things have already happened.”
“Close enough,” he says. “There’s a coffee place in Harrison. I need a pit stop.”
“You and me both.”
chapter thirty-five
“There are huge sand sculptures and castles around the lagoon on Harrison Lake.
