Seaweed in the Soup (31 page)

“Christ, shouldn't you still be in bed? You look like hell,” Bernie said, as I dragged my hide back to the cabin.

Bernie had brought me a pair of size twelve Magnum Stealths.

“Eighty bucks a pair when you buy these in volume. Guaranteed waterproof, heatproof, dust-proof. Issued to U.S. troops during Desert Storm,” Bernie told me. “Good kick-ass flatfoot gear, any colour you like as long as it's black. Try 'em out and tell me if you like 'em.”

I tried them on and did a wobbly walkabout. The boots seemed okay.

“Why the taxi?” Bernie asked.

“I need a change of pace. Thought I'd treat myself to a cup of coffee at Lou's.”

“Okay, let's go.”

When we got to Lou's, Bernie asked for a rain check.

Umbrellas had blossomed like mushrooms on Victoria's streets. I sheltered in Lou's doorway till Bernie drove away. A bedraggled hooker went by like a zombie; greying blonde hair shielded her face. Instead of going inside Lou's, I went next door to my office. I tried my key in the door, and to my surprise, it still fitted. My bottle of Teachers was still intact in the bottom drawer. I poured an inch into a Tim Hortons mug, and took a sip.
I'm going to miss all this
, I thought. And what about PC? Could I take her home, or did she belong to the VPD now?

As a cop, I'd been out there, dragging helpless victims of life's stormy weather out of back alleys and into homeless shelters. Taking care of PC. Big deal. My epitaph, written on wind and water: he made bad choices.

PC followed her meowing wails through the cat flap, assumed the approved sphinx-like pose, and gave me what is known in the trade as a basilisk stare. Fortunately, I can read PC's mind.

“Hasn't Cynthia been looking after you properly?” I asked the little black cat, taking a can of Thrifty's grade-A tuna from a filing cabinet.

“Of course I've been looking after her,” Cynthia said, appearing in the doorway. “The way you mollycoddle that thankless creature! She'll put on too much weight. Is that what you want?”

“I want to know where you came from,” I said. “Would you like a cup of scotch, Cynthia?”

“No, I'm on duty. I just came in for a pee. You shouldn't be drinking either, a man in your condition.”

Cynthia leaned against the mantelpiece, scowling unsympathetically as I sipped my scotch. After scarfing the last molecule of tuna, PC went behind the filing cabinets to groom her shiny fur.

“You'll be interested to know that that mysterious ghost thingy was just a simple plumbing problem,” Cynthia said, taking her uniform cap off and tossing her blonde tresses.

I drank another mouthful.

“I just want you to know, Silas. The whole department thinks you've had a bum rap. Somebody whose name will never cross my lips told me all the ins and outs of it.”

“That could be Nice Manners?”

Cynthia rapped the mantelpiece. “All I'm saying is, I was told they found cocaine in here, and that's why you got busted. I've been wracking my brains, wondering who might have done it. I know that you didn't do it. Did you?”

I looked her in the eye.

“That's good enough for me, Silas. Maybe I'm responsible.”

“How could you be responsible?”

“Well, you gave me a key to this place months ago, remember?”

I nodded.

“And you know, Silas, people are always in and out. Cops use this place like a comfort station; some of 'em want to use your phone. I usually let them. Did I do wrong?”

“I don't know.”

“You were framed. Everybody thinks so and everybody is saying so, although not all of them publicly.”

“Pretend you're a police person. If I didn't stash that cocaine, who did?”

“That's what I have been wondering. I can't think of anybody, except Nice Manners. He'd be happy to see you fall, but even Manners probably wouldn't frame you.”

“Sure?”

“I'm reasonably sure, not 100 per cent sure though.”

“Did you ever let P.G. Mainwaring into this room?”

“Who?” Cynthia replied blankly.

“P.G. Mainwaring. She's the woman who owns this building.”

Astonishment is easy to fake, but Cynthia's seemed genuine. “You could have fooled me. I thought it was owned by some corporation over in Vancouver.”

“Piggy Mainwaring. Tall, beautiful, keeps a private office on the second floor.”

“A private office directly above our washroom?”

I nodded.

“Wonders never cease, I realize who you're talking about now,” Cynthia said. “I've seen her once. Every time she flushes her toilet it affects ours, or it used to, till Nobby Sumner fixed things properly.

“Cynthia, you haven't seen me today.”

“Seen who?”

Grinning conspiratorially, she put a cap on her lovely head, put a kiss on my unlovely cheek, and went out. I washed the Tim Hortons mug, put it away, closed the office and crept upstairs with my lock-picking outfit. It was dark under the stairs outside Piggy's door. I knocked. Nobody answered. I knocked again. Same result. The lock was a hundred years old. It took me ten minutes to crack my way inside.

Things had changed since my last visit. Blankets, bedsheets and pillows, piled neatly on the couch, told me that Piggy had been sleeping in there. There was an electric kettle on the desk, along with canned food, milk powder and a loaf of fresh bread in a brown paper bag. A leather briefcase stood on the floor. I picked it up and placed it on the desk. Inside the briefcase was a Mac laptop and numerous manila folders containing papers pertaining to her routine business activities. The Mac was password protected. I put the briefcase back the way I'd found it and searched the desk drawers. What was I looking for? Whatever it was, I didn't find it.

I went downstairs, pulled my collar up against the rain and headed west along Pandora.

I was standing on the Johnson Street Bridge, cursing my infirmities while looking down at Twinner Scudd's yacht, still tied up at the marina, when a drowned rat said, “Hello, Silas.”

Until then, I had believed that the expression “my heart sank” was just words.

Now I know better, because when I looked at the speaker, my heart hit the soles of my Magnum Stealths. She was Chantal Dupree, and I'd been half in love with her once. Now the sight of her was enough to make me weep. I'd lost track of Chantal for years. She'd been working East Vancouver and now she was back. Trying to turn tricks in the rain at midday wearing a crotch-high miniskirt with a tear in the hem. Ridiculously high heels that made it impossible for her to straighten her knees, an artificial-leather bomber jacket. Her blonde hair was greasy and matted. She'd been smoking crack instead of eating. Few people seeing her then would have guessed how beautiful Chantal had been once. I've lost count of the times I tried to steer her off the streets. She was about 30, looked 60, and had 90 year-old eyes. I wanted to turn her over to Joe McNaught's Christians at the Good Samaritan Mission, but Chantal said she'd rather have lunch with me and go to hell instead.

I took her arm and marched her straight into Lou's.

Lou looked at her twice before he remembered who she was. Troubled, not smiling, Lou addressed Chantal by name, led us to a dark corner table and seated Chantal with her back to the room. I didn't need to be told that Lou didn't want Chantal using his cafe and that he was ashamed of himself because of it. Lou had no gripes to air that day, no wisecracks. We ordered Lou's Tuesday special. It was Irish stew.

Chantal's relationship with Lou's Cafe predated Victoria's restaurant smoking ban. She ate a couple of spoonfuls of stew before giving up and trying to light a cigarette. Instead of telling her what she couldn't do, I reached across the table and took Chantal's skinny hand. Her pallid skin felt dry and feathery beneath my fingers. I had nothing much to say to her. Just for the hell of it, I said, “Do you see anything of Candace these days?”

“Hardly ever. The last I heard she was in Reno with Lightning Bradley.”

“Candace is back, I ran into her recently. Why Lightning?”

“Lightning is one of her regulars.”

“Next time you see Candace, have her give me a call. She probably knows how to reach me.”

≈  ≈  ≈

I spent hours on the telephone trying to trace Candace. She was listed in the book as Mullins, Hilda, with an address on Cridge. Eventually I called Potter's Taxi, gave them my phone number and asked them to have driver 1623 give me a call.

The phone rang immediately. I said, “This is the Indian asshole who gave you twenty bucks for showing up at my house the other day. Now I want you to take me over to Cridge. Do you have a problem with that?”

After a long pause, he said, “I'll be right over.”

The driver was a turbaned Sikh named Ravi. He drove me to an Edwardian house that had been do-it-yourselfed into a crummy three-unit renter. I told Ravi to wait.

Candace had the basement suite. Her front door was four steps below street level. I pushed the buzzer. Nobody answered. I looked through the keyhole. The suite was quiet, dark, seemingly unoccupied. Ravi was listening to his car radio and pretending not to watch what I was doing. I paid Ravi five bucks more than the meter price, told him I'd be in touch and watched him drive away. We parted friends. Maybe.

Getting into Candace's was a pushover—I slid an old credit card between the edge of her door and the jamb, slid it down to the bolt, heard a satisfying click, and shoved the door open.

Apart from a small red glow, about a foot above the floor, it was dark inside. I found a light switch and turned it on. It was hot indoors. That red glow originated from artificial coals glowing in a gas fireplace. The room had oyster-coloured walls and frilly swagged curtains. Plastic flowers bloomed in plastic pots. Two white leather loveseats faced each other across the room's pink carpet. The tiny white kitchen looked as if it had never been used. The twin odours of old sex and cheap perfume became more pronounced as I entered the room where Candace practised her trade. It contained a king-sized bed with a red headboard and a red dressing table. The floor appeared to have been carpeted by a layer of fluffy white cats. Up on the ceiling, a big mirror gave Candace's johns a reverse image of what they were getting for their money.

I found a black suitcase chockablock with hump-flick CDs, black-leather corsets and masks, chromium and leather restraint devices, handcuffs and gags, but I didn't find address books or anything else that would help me to discover where Lightning Bradley might have gone to ground. I went out of Candace's thinking of elephant graveyards—Candace's was a place where love went to die.

Cars parked beneath Cridge Street's leaf-denuded chestnut trees stretched downhill toward Haultain Street. I started to walk. Three houses down, a tall fine-boned guy with a thatch of wavy red hair was working on a purple Pontiac clunker. As I went past, he said, “Is Candace a friend of yours?”

“She's my kid sister,” I lied. “What have you got in that crate?”

“A '68 Firebird Q-jet 3245 pounder.”

“In your dreams,” I laughed. “It looks like a Chevy Stovebolt about fifteen years since its last rebore.”

“So Candace is your sister, eh?” he said, a grin splitting his dirty face as he wiped his hands on a piece of cotton towelling. “You sure don't look alike.”

“Same mother, different father. The next time you see Candace, tell her to give Freddie a call,” I said casually. “Take it easy, pal.”

I could feel his eyes boring holes in my back as I went downhill to Haultain and turned right. When I got to Quadra Street, I sat on a bench inside the first bus shelter. I was still resting to get my breath back when my cellphone rang.

A voice said, “Is this Freddie?”

“Hi, Candace. I've been looking for you.”

“I know you have,” Candace replied tartly. “That kid down the street told me you've been poking around inside my house. Lucky he didn't tell the police first, instead of me. How did you get in?”

“Your door wasn't locked,” I lied fluently. “I must see you, it's urgent. Can we meet?”

“Are you kidding me? My door wasn't locked?”

“It was closed, not locked.”

“I don't like the sound of this,” Candace said. “Better come over right away.”

I called Ravi, and he drove me over there again.

≈  ≈  ≈

Candace had stopped pretending to be mad at me. Now she was draped across one of her loveseats smoking a Turkish cigarette, wearing an opaque pink negligee and a come-on smile. A gold crucifix dangled from the thin gold chain adorning her slim white throat.

“You've been hard to find,” I said.

“That's me. Hard to find, but easy to meet. I've just got back from Vegas. They've got these great deals at the Bellagio now. Airfare and three nights for eight hundred bucks,” Candace said, winking a catty green eye. “I charge clients three grand for a package deal. They're lining up in droves, especially them old guys who like to play the slots.”

“Don't be filthy. You know what I want.”

“I probably do, but there's such a thing as client confidentiality.”

“Right. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, including your money. But I'm over a barrel until I find Lightning, and I think that you might know where he is.”

“He comes and then he goes,” she said, with another knowing wink.

I pointed to the golden figure of Christ, writhing in agony between Candace's augmented breasts. “Be serious, your God is listening.”

“We meet in hotels now, I never know in advance which one. Lightning gives me a call, tells me where he's going to be, what time he wants me to be there.”

“You don't meet him here?”

“We used to. Things have changed since he landed himself in this bit of trouble.”