Short for Chameleon

by Vicki Grant

  It was starting to make sense. “So Albertina was saying to Schmidt, ‘I couldn’t get you on the investment scam but I’ve got something else on you. I’ll get you for that’?”

  Raylene put her glasses back on. “Sounds like it. Unfortunately, Schmidt’s henchmonkey has the file, so we might never know. I just wanted to scare him into thinking we did. I figured that’s what Albertina would have done.”

  “The file?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Like there’s only one? If we’re lucky, that’s what he’ll think too. But there were others in the black cabinet, you know.”

  “There were?”

  Now her whole face lit up, not just that little green stripe.

  We had to take the bus to Albertina’s and it took forever but I didn’t care. We got a seat at the back and I put my arm around her and she put her hand on my leg and we played makeshift Trivial Pursuit until we noticed the gas station and realized we’d missed our stop. We had to run about ten blocks until Raylene said her boots were giving her blisters, so I piggybacked her the rest of the way.

  We snuck back into the apartment. The place was still a mess but somebody had left a vacuum cleaner there and a couple of boxes of garbage bags too. They’d be cleaning the place out soon by the looks of it.

  We got to work.

  There was one file in the black cabinet about Eldon’s death and another about Albertina fighting for custody of her son, but most were about Eldon Jr.’s life after she’d lost him. She’d saved newspaper clippings about his high school band, his university scholarship, his wedding, the birth of Janie, her first-place prize in the Kiwanis Music Festival, her graduation, the opening of the Time of Our Lives Adult Daycare Centre. Pretty sad reading, but nothing to do with Schmidt.

  It was getting dark. We closed the black cabinet. I figured it was time to just admit defeat.

  Then the phone rang.

  CHAPTER 40

  Albertina had the ringer turned up to the Help! Fire! decibel range, but with all the junk everywhere, we still had to scramble to find the phone.

  Just as we did, someone’s voice came on.

  Raylene went, “Where’s that coming from?”

  I put my finger to my lips. I’d explain later. Old people all had answering machines like that.

  It was an old man’s voice. “Tina?” He sounded like he didn’t realize he was talking to a machine. “It’s me. Don. Where the heck are you, girl? I’ve been calling all week. I found some pretty nice dirt on Schmidt. I think you’ll be pleased. Gimme a call. You got my number. Well, nice talking to you!”

  Raylene and I both stood there frozen for a couple of seconds, then I looked at her, she looked at me, and we nodded. I hit redial.

  Don answered. I told him my name. He said, “Are you one of them telemarketer people?”

  I said, “No. I’m a friend of Albertina’s.” Resort to the truth, I thought. “I’ve got some sad news.”

  You think old people are so fragile they’ll collapse if you tell them something bad, but they’re not like that. I guess by the time you hit eighty, you’re kind of used to friends dying.

  Don was a bit shaken up but he pulled himself together. “Sorry to hear that. I always liked Tina. Salt of the earth, that one, them getups of hers notwithstanding. Too bad she had to go so soon. Think she’d like to hear this.”

  “Could you tell us instead?” He hesitated, until I gave him the whole story. I told him we’d just broken into Albertina’s apartment again and didn’t have much time.

  “Well, I won’t keep you, then,” he said. “There’s a fellow goes by the name of PJ. Skittish as all get-out but he’s the one with the info. He works at the Pet Warehouse. Said he’ll be there tonight with the photos. Tell him Donnie Weagle sent you—but listen. He’s scared. Doesn’t want to be dragged into this, so you make darn sure no one knows what you’re up to. Promise?”

  We did.

  “And then give Schmidt hell for me, would ya—and for all the other suckers he ruined too.”

  “That’s our plan,” I said, then signed off.

  We’d only just made it to the elevator when the super came down the hall and headed into Albertina’s apartment.

  CHAPTER 41

  Dad was gluing on a mangy beard when we got home. He barely looked up.

  “Got a gig tonight?” I said.

  “Retirement party. Joan Beaton’s.”

  I nodded. I told Raylene to make herself comfortable while I checked the kitchen for something to eat, but she didn’t move. She was looking at Dad, then blinking, then looking again.

  “Will?” she said. “That’s you?”

  “It is indeed, my dear.” I have to hand it to him, he totally nailed the British accent.

  “I didn’t even recognize you.” She gave his grey hair a tug. “You are mad good at that.”

  “Have to be.” He patted it back in place. “Can’t have Joan’s colleagues knowing she hired herself a boyfriend.”

  He strapped a little foam belly on under his shirt and corduroy jacket, then we helped him choose a tie stained enough to say “absent-minded professor” and he was gone.

  I zapped some frozen burritos for Raylene and me. When I brought them into the living room, she was wearing a short brown wig, an old T-shirt, and a kid’s hockey jacket.

  “Do I look like a twelve-year-old boy?”

  “You look like a fifteen-year-old girl pretending to be a twelve-year-old boy.”

  “Well, fix me then.”

  “Why?”

  “So we won’t be followed. That black car. You know. Could be out there right this second.”

  “I think you just want to play dress-up.”

  She laughed. “Yeah. And there’s that too.”

  I found some grubby prepubescent boy clothes and sent her into my room to change. I’d finished my burrito by the time she came back.

  “Better?”

  “Can you see all right without the glasses?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Take them off, then. And the nose ring too.”

  She did. “So?”

  “Still not very convincing.”

  “How come?”

  She was too pretty.

  “Don’t know.”

  I found her a baseball cap. She had her mouth full of burrito when I clamped it on her head, and some salsa spurted out and got all over her lips and down the front of her T-shirt. She went to wipe it off.

  “No. Leave it,” I said. “That’s what you were missing. You’re good to go.”

  “What about you?”

  She tried to talk me into going as a girl, but no way. Raylene didn’t need to know how easy I could pass. I went as a schleppy older brother instead because it only required a plaid shirt, some ratty shoulder-length hair, and a knit cap.

  Turned out it was a good thing she made us go in disguise. She was right about the black car. Just as we left the apartment building, it drove by again. (It didn’t even slow down. I was mad good at this imposter stuff too.)

  Pet Warehouse was a big-box store at the end of the bus route. The lady at the counter told us PJ was working in “rodents” and sent us to the back.

  A big guy with a thick neck and veiny arms smiled and said, “Help you find something?”

  I said, “We’re looking for PJ.”

  “That’s me.”

  “Donnie Weagle sent us.”

  PJ kind of twitched but scrambled back pretty quick into employee mode. “How ’bout I show you the chinchillas?” he said, all cheery again. He led us to a cage in the corner.

  “Aren’t these guys the cutest little things you ever saw?” He took one out for each of us, then went, “I wasn’t expecting kids,” out the side of his mouth.

  Raylene nuzzled her chinchilla. “Yeah. Something came up. Don says you got some dirt on—”

  “Don’t say his name.” PJ’s eyes darted around to see if anyone was listening, then whispered, “I got nothing to do with this
. Understand? He can’t know about me.”

  “He won’t. Promise.” The chinchilla was sniffing around as if my wig were a potential romantic partner. “So. What can you tell us?”

  PJ made himself look busy by fiddling with the water thingy in the cage. “I used to work for him. Security. Did some stuff I’m not proud of, but the money was too good to quit. Then one day he asked me to be his muscle at a private dinner. Him and some of his fancy friends. It was in one of his restaurants after it was closed for the night.” PJ’s voice got louder all of a sudden. “Careful not to squeeze too tight, guys. They can bite.”

  He waved at another employee walking by with a cart full of chew toys. When she was out of earshot, he said, “Anyway . . . I get my break, pop into the kitchen for a bite, and what do I see? Birds. Pretty little yellow birds about the size of my thumb, necks broken, lying on the counter all ready to go into the oven. Couldn’t believe my eyes so I ask the cook. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he says, ‘songbirds.’ He was cooking up ortolans! Almost extinct birds! And for what? Appetizers!” He took a big breath in through his nose and the veins in his neck pulsed. “But that’s not all. Guess what else was on the menu?”

  I’m a burger-and-pizza-type guy. I had no idea.

  PJ had to struggle to keep his voice down.

  “Shark-fin soup . . . deep-fried tiger testicles . . . and sea turtle, I don’t know, stew or something. I just about threw up. Seriously. You know me . . .” We didn’t. “I’m an animal lover. I didn’t know what to do. The other security guy called me into the dining room to do a shift, and I had to stand there and watch those pigs stuff themselves on endangered animals. I quit a little while later.”

  “Don said you have pictures.” I wanted to hurry this along, and not just because my chinchilla was currently peeing on me (which, if he was hoping to date my wig, was not helping matters).

  “Yup. Got some with my phone when I figured everyone was too drunk to notice. Date-stamped March 15, 11:45 p.m., and tagged Lorenzo’s Seattle. I wrote the names of the other guys on the back of the photos and what they ate too.”

  Raylene sounded almost gleeful. “Can we see them?”

  A man and a preschooler raced by on their way to the snake cage. PJ smiled at them, then went, “These little guys have had enough by the looks of it.” As he took our chinchillas from us, he left an envelope in my hand and whispered, “Put it in your pocket. Quick.”

  “Anyone else know about the pictures?” Raylene asked.

  He shook his head. “Hope not. Printed them out at the Walmart. I never send things electronically. Don’t want to leave a trail. I know what that man is capable of. Which is why I don’t want you hanging around here any longer.” He jerked his head towards the front door, all tough guy, and for a second I could sort of picture him working for Schmidt. “You better go. But check out the angora rabbits first. They just had babies.”

  We were too wound up to visit the bunnies. We had to force ourselves to wait until we got on the bus to look at the photos. Luckily, it was almost empty and we were right at the back, but we were still nervous. PJ was clearly terrified, and he was a big guy.

  There were four pictures of a bunch of middle-aged men around a table. They had their jackets off and their sleeves rolled up and their plates piled high with food. In one of them, Schmidt had his glass up in the air like he was giving a toast.

  I was really excited until Raylene pointed out the obvious. “The only thing this proves is that the guy knows how to eat.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, look.” She pushed the photos towards me. “How do you know that’s sea-turtle stew and not Rice-A-Roni or something?”

  I flipped through all the pictures. She had a point. It’s not as if we’d caught Schmidt biting the head off a live emu. This just looked like a particularly pathetic version of Boys’ Night Out.

  Raylene sighed and got up.

  “I need to ask the bus driver something. In the meantime, have another look. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s a clue here I’m missing.”

  I poured over every photo but I didn’t see anything. I checked the back. We had the menu, the names of the guys—Len Pineiro, Mike Doherty, Dave Leibowitz—but no actual proof, especially since PJ didn’t want to get involved. I shook my head and put the pictures back in the envelope. I looked up. That’s when I realized Raylene had slipped off the bus without me noticing.

  CHAPTER 42

  Someone was ringing the doorbell.

  I went, “Dad! Would you get it?”

  No answer. I looked at my phone. 8:07 a.m. He’d still be at the gym. I put my pillow over my head and prayed that whoever was at the door would be attacked by wild dogs.

  The doorbell kept ringing. If Suraj had lost the key to his apartment again, I was going to kill him. He couldn’t just crash here whenever he wanted.

  Unless, of course, he had food.

  I realized he could very well have food, and I was hungry. I got up, stumbled down the hall, and opened the door.

  And there was Raylene, smiling away.

  I didn’t smile back. I think I’d finally reached the point where I’d rather see Suraj with food than Raylene without.

  “I wish you’d quit doing that,” I said.

  “I had to.” She pushed past me. “You weren’t answering.”

  “I don’t mean ringing the doorbell and you know it. I mean ditching me.”

  “Sorry. Bad habit.”

  “Not funny.”

  “But true. And do you know what I wish?”

  I sighed. This was going to be a joke.

  “I wish you’d put some pants on.”

  She pointed at my boxers, then covered her mouth like she was shocked or something. I ran into my room to change.

  I looked through the stuff on my floor for something to wear while Raylene screamed at me from the living room.

  “I figured it out.”

  “What?”

  “How we’re going to get Schmidt.”

  “Oh, yeah?” My jeans weren’t exactly clean but they were close enough. I pulled them on. “How?”

  “We’re going to do what Albertina would do.”

  I plunked down on my bed. I didn’t like the sound of this.

  “We’re going to fake it.”

  It only took her a couple of hours to convince me. I tried to talk her into taking our so-called evidence to the police, but Raylene was right. What would they be able to do? Nothing. And Albertina deserved better than that.

  We came up with our strategy, then stood outside the apartment building until the black car with the tinted windows showed up. We figured, sooner or later, it would.

  “Our ride’s here,” Raylene said. She darted into the street and blocked its way before it could take off again. I ran out after her and opened the door.

  “Take us to your leader.” We said it together in a really bad alien voice. We’d planned that too. We thought it would be funny.

  The guy apparently didn’t think so, but he took us there anyway.

  CHAPTER 43

  “Terribly sorry about your grandmother.” Wade Schmidt squeezed his carcass out from behind his massive desk and shook our hands. “I understand from the police she’d had a bad heart for some time.”

  “Cut the crap,” Raylene said. Schmidt and I were both shocked. I don’t know about him, but I’d been expecting more of an intro. “You couldn’t be happier she’s gone.”

  Schmidt managed to keep the pity smile on his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why in heaven’s name would I want her gone?”

  “Bulwark Investments? That ring a bell?”

  He pretended to think about it for a few seconds, then shook his head.

  “Really? Hmm. Funny,” Raylene said. “You owned it for eight years. That’s how you made your fortune. Remember? Scamming innocent people out of their life savings?”

  Schmidt would have made an excellent addition to our Almost Family roster. He bar
ely blinked.

  “You must have me confused with someone else. I’m a simple restaurateur.”

  “You’re a simple liar, Mr. Schmidt.”

  “Schmidt?”

  “Drop the Lorenzo business. We know all about you.”

  I was getting nervous. Clearly, no one had warned Raylene not to tease the psychopaths. Schmidt glared at her for a second, then settled back into his chair with a sneer.

  “That was decades ago, and I was cleared of all wrongdoing.”

  “Not quite. Getting off on a loophole doesn’t make you an innocent man.”

  “To you, maybe”—as in snivelling little piece of nothing that you are—“but in the eyes of the law, I’m a respectable businessman.”

  “Businessman. Yes. Respectable? I’m not so sure. But it doesn’t matter. That’s not why we’re here.”

  “Oh, yeah? Then why are you?” He checked his watch. “But keep it short. I’m a busy man.”

  This was where I came in. “Do you happen to recall what you had for dinner March fifteenth?”

  “March fifteenth?” He laughed. “I don’t remember what I had for dinner last night.”

  “Well, let me refresh your memory. You and three of your friends were at your Seattle restaurant where you dined on roast ortolan, shark-fin soup, tiger testicles—which makes me kind of squeamish even thinking about, let alone actually chewing on—and sea turt—”

  “This is a bunch of nonsense.” Schmidt’s forehead was dotted with sweat.

  “Shall I escort them out, boss?” His security guy grabbed us. Schmidt clearly liked them big.

  Raylene jerked her arm away. “Get your hands off me. We were going anyway. We’re busy too. We’ve got incriminating photos to send to the media.”

  “And the police,” I said, in case it wasn’t clear.

  Schmidt just stared at us for a couple seconds, then he chuckled. “You don’t have photos. You’re playing me.”

  Raylene shrugged as if she didn’t care what he thought.