This one-person sniper team was so very good because he had a special optical talent. Most snipers look through a gun's telescopic lens with their strong eye, while they close their weak eye and keep it closed. This makes them blind to events that are outside the target in the scope. This sniper could wink his weak eye so that he could not only see what was in the scope, but he could see what was around him as well. His nickname, again for obvious reasons, was Winker.
So it was that Doctor Sandman and his three henchpersons – Winker, Blinker, and Nod – were meeting in his treatment room. I remind my readers that I am only the narrator of this series; I do not make up the names of the people who appear in these pages.
# # # # # # # #
"What happened?" the doctor asked Winker.
"The tall dude didn't show up for work at the usual time and the drunk guy was detoxing on the bench in front of the shop when he should have been inside."
"Detoxing?"
"Yeah. Mumbling to an empty bench, waving his hands, lunging at invisible teepees or whatever he sees in his visions when he's hungover."
"What do we know about them?"
"Aboriginals from somewhere," Winker said. "Not Toronto."
"Can we find out through our contract with the former chocolate shopkeeper?"
"That contract is probably burned up." Blinker this time. "The shopkeeper is long gone."
"The names of the tall dude and the drunk?"
"Who knows," said Nod. "They're gone now. Nowhere to be found. Why are you worried?"
"Because we don't know for sure that they're gone. The drunk guy found Basher's apartment and nobody has done that before. The drunk also talked to Basher. Nobody has done that before and Basher liked that conversation. The drunk showed Basher some things, like not eating ice cream all at once, and Basher liked that. All of this means that if he's still in Toronto, he might cause trouble. Do you guys have any ideas?"
Winker winked, Blinker blinked, and Nod nodded. The doctor sighed.
"Winker, find out where they live in Toronto. Blinker, find out where they came from. Nod, find out what they like to do when they aren't selling chocolates. From now on we use High Security communications only."
In response, Winker winked, Blinker blinked, and Nod nodded. The doctor sighed again and opened the back door to his clinic.
# # # # # # # #
Saturday afternoon, Nod texted the Doctor who was at home relaxing with his wife. "They play basketball at the U of T. A tall aboriginal girl hangs out with them."
Five minutes later, Doctor Sandman texted Nod. "Put Winker on the job. Tell him to kill the girl as well."
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Chapter 26
Granny was settling in to have a relaxing ten minutes in her favorite chair, a mug of hot chocolate steaming beside her. She took a couple of deep breaths to relax. A quick touch of the chocolate against her top lip to check the temperature. Perfect.
A tap-tap on the outside door prompted her to stop the mug in flight before it reached the critical tipping point. A face appeared in the crack of the door. Reese. She had seen that expression on a pale face before. Twice before actually and both times she had spewed hot chocolate into the air. This time, she'd make sure that there wouldn't be a repeat performance.
Granny put the hot chocolate onto the table beside her. She couldn't spew it if she wasn't drinking it. "Come on in, Reese. I have some hot chocolate on the stove. Help yourself."
"Uh. That's OK, Granny."
"Cookies?"
"Uh. No thanks."
"Give me your best shot. I'm ready."
"Huh?"
"What's up, Reese?"
"What makes you think something is up?"
"Just a feeling."
"Granny, is it OK for a teacher to put his hand on a boy's willie?"
Granny took the mug from the table, took a healthy slurp, and cradled the hot mug in both hands in some satisfaction. "Why don't you start at the beginning?" she said.
# # # # # # # #
Reese told his granny how his math teacher had put his hand on Reese's willie one time early in the year and had asked him if he was playing with it instead of doing his schoolwork. Reese said No and the teacher left. But every time the teacher wandered all the way to the back of the room, Reese would push his chair close to his desk so that he couldn't touch him again. "He's a teacher, but I didn't think it was right."
"It's not right, Reese. Did you tell anybody about this?"
"No. I saw him touching a few other boys in the class that way and they didn't seem to mind. I thought it was something that you learn to do in school. But I didn't want to learn that, so I made sure he couldn't touch me again."
"He touches other boys too?"
"Yes. He has some favorites. They hang around with him before and after class. He tells them dirty jokes."
"Why are you telling me about this now? Has it become worse?"
"There's a boy in the grade 7 class who was always pushing his hand away, but the teacher kept coming back. Yesterday he whispered something in his ear and the boy didn't push his hand away."
"Your mom and dad put you into grade 6, right?"
Reese nodded.
"How do you know about this grade 7 boy? Did he tell you?"
"No. I saw the teacher doing it on the visual record."
"What visual record?"
"The visual record from the drones I put into the math teacher's classroom."
"Why don't you start at the beginning with the drones?"
# # # # # # # #
Granny heard how Reese had thought this teacher was a bad man. So he had asked William if he could borrow some drones. William sent him some by overnight express and told him how to use them. William had asked Reese what he was going to use them for and Reese had said that he wanted to catch a very bad man. But it was an undercover operation. William said, "OK, but return them to me after you're finished with your game."
"You recorded what was happening in the teacher's classroom?"
"I put the drones at the sides of the classroom so that I could see if he put his hand under boys' desks."
"And you caught him?"
"Lots of times. I put video clips of all the times he touched boys on this bot. I think he's going to hurt that grade 7."
"I think so too, Reese. You were right to tell me about this. Very smart detective work, I must say. May I tell your parents about this?"
"Sure. Can I have some of the hot chocolate now?"
# # # # # # # #
The pot had been warmed up, some fresh cookies had appeared out of Granny's secret stash, and the two of them were now back in the living room. Reese had five cookies on a plate in front of him and he was nibbling the chocolate chips out of each one first.
Reese nibbled chocolate chip cookies like a squirrel nibbled a peanut. Cookie in his hands, both hands up right next to his lips. Nibble, nibble, nibble; teeth searching for the good pieces; nibble, nibble, nibble. After the chocolate chips were gone, there'd be cookie debris all over the plate. Reese would pick up the bigger pieces with a licked forefinger. After those nibblets were gone, he'd look at Granny, and when she nodded, Reese would lick the rest of the plate clean. Granny had seen this show many times before. That's why he was wearing a big apron that covered his entire lap and parts of the sofa as well.
Granny was taking a deep pull on her steaming mug when Reese asked, "Is it OK for a principal to tell a teacher that she has to have sex with him?" Volcano Granny had an encore performance.
# # # # # # # #
After the environmental team had cleaned up the area next to Granny's chair, Reese began to explain.
"I was returning some library bots after school and I was passing by the school's office when Ms. Paulson came out of the principal's office. His office has a door into the main office and also a door that opens onto the hallway. She didn't see me but I saw her and she was crying. Ms. Paulson is one of the nicest
teachers in the school. So I was sad to see her crying and I followed her down the hallway and she went into her classroom and she left the door open a bit and I could see her put her head down on her desk and I was worried a bit because her breathing got all bad so I knocked on the door like we're supposed to but she didn't hear me so I walked in anyway and went up to her desk and asked her if she was all right. She looked up and her cheeks were all shiny and they had big tears rolling down them and she said that she was but she had to be lying because she was so upset. I knew that the school was almost empty by this time but the principal had to still be here so I asked her if she wanted me to ask the principal to come down and help her and she said "God, no."
"Ms. Paulson doesn't swear very often so I figured it had to be something that the principal had said to her in his office that made her cry. I asked if I could help her and she sort of smiled and said No, Reese, which surprised me because I didn't think that she knew my name. Nobody can help me, she said which made me sad because I thought that she might have a serious illness. But then I thought that it had to be something to do with the principal and I knew that he was a very bad man, so I figured that something happened in that office."
"Did you put a drone into his office, Reese?"
"No."
"OK, that's good."
"Winnie did."
"Ack."
"I wanted to catch him but the parental controls on my sling won't let me time-travel yet but Winnie knows how and so after I told her what had happened and how Ms. Paulson had been all alone in the principal's office and how he's a bad man she time-travelled back a month and put the drone in. Then she watched the video record and saw what happened. She said it happened three times but she won't tell me what it is that happened and she said that I can't look at the bot or Ms. Paulson would be very unhappy so I didn't. I said I was going to tell you about the two bad men in the school so Winnie gave me the bot to give to you. I'm pretty sure that he forced her to have sex with him."
"May I see the bot?"
# # # # # # # #
"Winnie was right that Ms. Paulson wouldn't want you to see this, Reese. You did a good job handling this and telling me will help her. Is there anything else bad happening in that school?"
Reese had to think about that. "The kids in the woods taking their clothes off, I suppose."
# # # # # # # #
That led to Reese explaining that nobody in his class would talk to him and why that had happened. He'd spend lunch hours working on his art project. When he was doing that, he saw some kids going into the deep part of the woods every noon hour. They were playing cards, but somebody had to take off some clothes after each hand. They kept taking off clothes until somebody wasn't wearing anything at all or until the bell went.
"One time the girl who sits in front of me in class was pulled into the woods by two girls in our class and they were pressuring her to pull up her shirt and flash some boys and she didn't want to but they were being very mean and nasty so I walked into the group and told Annika that the vice principal wanted to see her right away and so she came back to the school with me. I went invisible after she was safe."
"Annika?"
"Yah. She's one of the nice ones."
"How do you know that? And how did you know those two teachers were bad?"
"I can see their colours now. Just like you and mom and Yollie. Everything about Annika is very white. Like Ms. Paulson. Everything around the principal and the math teacher is black."
Yolanda, Reese is a reader. Multigenerational. Entirely different reading mechanism. We need to talk. Bring Hank. Some horror stories are coming out of Reese's school.
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Chapter 27
By the end of October, the Wilizy's investigation into Toronto's insurance racket had progressed nicely. Dreamer had connected Basher's mother to Doctor Sandman. They had had a hot affair for a short time – Dreamer thought it would be considered an affair because Dr. Sandman was married. He would pick her up after her show in the Peek-a-Boo, I See All of You Lounge, and take her to the Fairmont Royal York in one of the city's horse-drawn carriages. The Royal York was one of Toronto's oldest and best hotels.
Dreamer watched them go up to the doctor's room in the elevator enough times to learn the routine. Sparkle wore her dancing clothes underneath a fur coat that reached to her ankles. Those ankles were encased in sparkling high heels that were part of her act. She also had sparkling earrings. Those were not part of the stage act. They were gifts from Doctor Sandman and had real diamonds in them. After her show, Dr. Sandman would come back to her changing room with the coat. She'd twirl on her toes a little so that he could see her, he'd nod, and off they'd go.
After stepping down modestly from the carriage, Sparkle would walk elegantly into the most prestigious hotel in Toronto in her fur coat with only three tiny pieces of cloth underneath. Dr. Sandman wore a tuxedo with a snow-white shirt and a black bow tie. He made no effort to hide his relationship with Sparkle, introducing her as his niece if anybody recognized him and many did.
Later that evening, Dreamer would watch as room service brought up a cart with trays of food and bottles of liquor. She was able to take pictures of the room bills with her pinky ring – all expenses were charged to Dr. Sandman's account. In the morning, Dr. Sandman would leave the hotel in a business suit and carrying a large suit bag that held the coat. Sparkle left an hour later dressed in casual clothes and carrying a small sparkling wallet that presumably held her working clothes.
Dreamer caught Sparkle's act in the club. The boys had ruled themselves out of doing any surveillance of Sparkle, so somebody had to verify that she was indeed an exotic dancer. Dreamer watched her show for five minutes and left. Dreamer thought that what Sparkle was doing in her act was stomach-churning gross, but in the crowd that watched her midnight show, she'd have been the only spectator with that opinion. Dreamer asked Lucas afterwards if he actually enjoyed watching exotic dancers' performances. "What performances?" he asked and Dreamer regained some trust in the male gender. Dreamer didn't try to put a drone into the Sandman/Sparkle hotel room. She didn't believe that it was right for her to be watching another woman having sex. Her own modesty obviously was at play here.
The affair had a sudden ending with Sparkle leaving the room one morning trying to hide her tears. Dreamer watched Dr. Sandman cancel the long-term reservation for the room that day. He had no difficulty masking the pain that he must have felt from the collapse of their affair. Perhaps that was because he got to keep the coat. Dreamer tracked Sparkle to where she lived and, over many time-travel visits, she watched her fall into depression. Unable to work at the club due to her pregnancy, she stayed alone in a tiny flat, growing bigger month by month. Each month, she'd receive an allowance. Dreamer assumed that this was Dr. Sandman's parting gift. It was enough to live on, but no more.
Arnold was a very big baby. After a difficult birth, Sparkle tried to regain her dancing form but gave up because she had nobody to take care of the baby. Her club was no longer interested in her and Sparkle had few skills other than dancing. She lived off her allowance for a number of years, but Arnold was difficult to care for. He grew quickly and even though she relied on second hand stores for his clothing, the costs of raising him kept growing and her allowance didn't. She pawned the diamond earrings and that paid her bills for a full year. But Arnold was beginning to show the signs of the learning challenges he would face. He was three years old before he began speaking, for example.
When the money from the earrings ran out, Sparkle became desperate and turned to the only way that she could earn money. That worked a couple of times, but she soon found that establishing a thirty minute meaningful relationship with a client was difficult to achieve when Arnold decided to come watch what mommy was doing.
Despairing of ever being able to care for her son's needs as he kept growing, Sparkle took Arnold to Dr. Sandman's clinic. Dr. Sandman saw her as she was coming
in the clinic, took her aside, and spoke with her before she could register with the receptionist. Sparkle left soon afterwards, apparently satisfied. Dreamer was unable to put a drone into the drug closet where the doctor and Sparkle had talked as it was kept locked in case of a break-in.
A few days later, Sparkle was walking towards the Fairmont Royal York in her most presentable clothes when a runaway horse and carriage trampled her and she died on the way to the hospital. Dreamer was sure that Dr. Sandman had arranged it. Having seen how Sparkle struggled to care for her son after his birth, her sympathies were now squarely behind Sparkle. However Dreamer was unable to prove that Dr. Sandman had been responsible for what he must have thought would be a fitting way for her to die. Especially fitting in his mind perhaps, because in preparing her body for burial in a pauper's grave, the mortician had found her wearing three tiny pieces of sparkly cloth under her clothes. A day after his mother's death, Arnold found himself in foster care at the age of 5. A few years later, Winker started giving him lessons on how to be a bully.
From the death certificate, Dreamer learned that Sparkle's real name was Helen Masters. She tried to confirm her uncle-niece relationship with Sandman but had no success searching through Toronto's Internet news sites and blogs. She told Lucas that the teacher must have told Basher that his mother was Dr. Sandman's niece because that's how Dr. Sandman introduced her in the hotel. She found no evidence to support that allegation.
# # # # # # # #
Using TiTr, Lucas and Theo found the woman who had bombed their shop. Following her around led them to her two associates. Their TiTr surveillance of the three henchpersons revealed that they had committed many crimes, but they couldn't find any direct links from those crimes to Dr. Sandman. Their surveillance also led them to the meeting in Dr. Sandman's clinic where he told them to get information on Lucas and Theo. It was at that meeting that they learned the names of Sandman's three visitors.
Nary, Nary, Quite Contrary Page 15
